91120.01
Before Still This Emptiness Persists
-=The Afterthought Café; USS Serendipity=-
Melancholy eyes stared into the distance that wasn’t before them. This café was really not a large place and tonight when she was here alone it seemed even more claustrophobic than usual. The customers were gone. Fleur was home with the children, also looking after Tam, likely grateful for the company as by now she must have been truly missing the man she loved. Wren could have felt rather bitter right now that she would soon get hers back but she accepted there could be little comfort in jealousy that misery couldn’t more swiftly provide.
Twice already she’d checked the illumination settings with the computer as nothing here seemed as bright as it normally did. Something was missing from the atmosphere in this ship. It was true that the customers could make that atmosphere and many of the most influential were off the ship right now. She could not expect the irreverence of Dabin Reece to light up the place. Even Ashton Ledbetter, who to his credit had a great synchronising effect almost to the point of beauty on the moods of all around, wasn’t here right now to be of comfort. However from the moment she’d opened the door it was Wren who set the mood for the day. This was not a day for good moods.
It was late anyway, or at least what counted for late here on the Sera, and normally she’d not have even bothered to be open right now. It truth, a truth she’d not share with herself, she’d only come here in order that she could be alone without feeling it was by her own hand. At the loneliest of times one of the hardest things anyone can do is to forgive themselves for choosing isolation.
At least here she could pretend to be working. She could fake a reason or justification for why she bothered to be alive in those small hours when she had no one else to act for. Slowly she made circles with the cloth in her hand along the counter, barely pressing down hard enough to clean it but deep down knowing it didn’t need cleaning anyway.
By the gods she felt disgusted at how much of a failure she’d become. She knew it was her fault he wasn’t here. If she’d only been a little stronger then she would have woken up and made him rest before he was ever forced to go against everything he stood for just to protect her from the Domox’ assault. It was to her utterly ridiculous but then even in being alone now she had failed.
It was the single greatest curse of Betazed that even now she felt like she was surrounded by people as a ghost floating along the decks of the Sera, unable to be seen by the countless many on this ship but observing them all as they went casually about their day to day lives. Their words were a distorted blur just as they were all too far away for her to overhear their thoughts as any more than whispers carried on the silent still breezes of these halls. It only stood to remind her how she was on the outside looking into their realm where she’d once been.
There was a couple nearby so deeply in love; their affections like soft laughter emanating from a corner on jokes no one else would understand. That laughter could warm the heart of one fondly remembering young love, or seem to mock another for whom it was lost.
Some were sleeping. Few were dreaming. One had just woken startled with fear from a nightmare. Soon he’d discover this was reality and that his fears had all slipped away. She did truly envy that man.
What exactly had him so frightened was a mystery she cared not to solve as the images in the minds around her were just vague background noise as impossible to understand as it was to avoid. Most Betazoids had trained themselves to silence the background noise when it was time to rest. Wren however had no such relief, instead having always tried to gain from it just that little more understanding.
Sometimes she just wished them all to be gone; it was so hard to keep up the front for all of them of the more acceptable levels of pain. It was Rada’s fault in his way that she couldn’t escape them now. His mind had always so fascinated her but especially at the start he’d kept it locked away. He believed it to be like a broken portrait better hidden so as not to attract the mockery of those more talented artisans, whereas she’d immediately seen it as a powerfully vulnerable masterpiece that simply needed to be guarded to ensure it’d always be there.
In the earliest days that guard was so rarely down when he knew a telepath was around, but the second he felt he was out of her range the defences could drop and so she would listen in. Then one day he was gone, she’d pushed him away, and she would use those skills to listen hopelessly for another its kin. It was an utterly futile search.
With sad frustration she sighed, wondering what he was thinking right now. She’d already accepted it couldn’t be of her. She was after all just that strange waitress that he barely knew.
“Danger?” Liis’ voice rose slightly accusingly as she spoke, hiding the fear she truly held about the meaning behind Rada’s currently distracted state, knowing everyone here had noticed it and that he’d get more attention by her ignoring it than if she could make him focus now. “Are you listening to me?”
“Yes, Captain.” Rada lied immediately, having at least been trying to that end. Even before he’d finished speaking though his eyes had begun to drift back towards the sky.
He wasn’t even realising he was doing it. It was like the habit of glancing down in search of the time from a watch you’d never owned. He would perhaps have gone on doing it unknowingly for hours if not for the silence in the group gathered around which made him realise he hadn’t been watching to see all eyes turn expectantly over to him.
They were all huddled around a diagram TC Blane had drawn in the dirt before he’d left, setting out the positions they should each take and the areas they all should protect. A straight line represented a path their opponents would be forced to take if they wished to get here into what would at least at first be considered to officially be Serendipity territory. A wavy line indicated the most likely route when they had options of how to travel. Various rocks had been dotted around their small map indicating where they should and where their opponents’ troops were most likely to be.
“Commander Reece and Lieutenant Grace will be moving along here. Commander Blane and the Lieutenant Tubman have already left to take this point.” Rada answered, indicating on the diagram where people were going to be to prove he’d been paying attention when really he was just as he spoke figuring out the map.
“And you?”
“I am to confine myself to this area here.” Rada said, quietly hoping he was correctly remembering the stone that was supposed to be him even though he was struggling to focus enough to care. “We keep distance between us whenever possible. A shot fired at two people together is likely to hit one of them.”
Liis nodded her approval that even if he hadn’t been listening he at least had the awareness to bluff his way along.
“Good. Then if everyone knows where they’re supposed to be...” she said, pausing to scan the faces of the people around to confirm this was actually the truth. “Then there’s no point in us waiting around here all day.” She waved her hand in a gesture to push them away. “Everyone move out.”
With her order the circle quickly began to disperse, except of course for Liis who took the time to rub the plans out with her foot and her husband who wasn’t about to leave her side. Rada was one of the last to remain as once again his thoughts turned to the sky. He didn’t know what he was thinking of in that moment, just that the thought was there.
It was only the briefest of pauses before he turned away prepared to pick up his weapon and travel to his territory, but evidently it was a pause one instant too long. Keiran and Liis exchanged a glance that seemed to silently debate which one of them it should be. Evidently, the Irishman was the final decision.
“Lad, are ya sure yer alright?” Keiran asked quietly approaching Rada, not one to draw attention to another man’s suffering when he didn’t want it even if that suffering was clear to everyone but the man himself.
Even in the momentary pause Rada’s mind had had a chance to get far enough from their reality that he seemed startled to be brought back into this place.
“Yes, sir.” He answered immediately with a little surprise before quickly trying to make if not keep the mood light. “I know it might seem strange for a man who just got out of a coma but I think the lack of sleep last night really knocked me about.”
Keiran’s eyes flashed knowingly and Rada quickly regretted that he’d given his insomnia away.
“Somethin’ on yer mind?”
Rada allowed himself just a moment to ask himself that same question before he shook his head that there wasn’t.
“No, sir. If there was something there I certainly can’t remember.”
Keiran simply nodded that he accepted this as the truth though Rada had no idea how true it was.
“Right then,” Keiran said, mustering all the encouragement he could find as he silently looked Rada over again to make sure he really was alright “of ya go.”
“Aye, sir.” Rada acknowledged quietly his mind already drifting back to the sky as he moved off to join in the game.
Wondering for so long about Rada’s thoughts Wren felt like she’d asked a question the emptiness around had outright refused to answer. Once more she took her comfort and consolation in what had become a now common pursuit; she planned for how she’d get his thoughts and the rest of him back.
As always this started with their first meeting as she wondered how she’d recreate the experience. Arranging for a group of sporting hooligans to threaten to injure him was not something she could easily do and even if it had been she realised it’d likely not earn her much of his affection.
She smiled to herself at how memorable and how perfect it’d been in its very weird way. It’d been the most incredible catalyst which would rapidly bring about their love. It wasn’t just that day, it was every one after which brought them together and made him open up to her as he’d done with no one else.
Then her smile evaporated as she realised how perfect it’d been.
It’d been too perfect; too perfect to recreate.
It’d been too perfect to ever capture again.
Her heart began pounding faster as she realised she could likely never make him fall in love with her again.
He was frightened of her reading his mind.
She could barely speak to him for fear of what would happen if she chose the wrong word.
The cloth dropped from her hand as she realised she couldn’t and decided she wouldn’t wait anymore.
Quickly, she shut off the lights and locked the door behind her as she headed with rapid steps to the nearest turbolift she could find. She ordered it to take her to her quarters and as soon as she arrived she headed in search of what she would need for what could barely even be referred to as a plan.
She took a sheet of paper from the drawer near her bed and slapped it down on the table before her. With shaking hands she rapidly started to write, not even thinking about the words she was putting down. All she could think was that when he arrived back on the ship the first thing he’d do would be to see her confessions of love.
He was strong, she decided, and just as he’d promised she’d always be able to she would have to rely on his strength when she didn’t have her own. He would have to find a way to be okay with his memory intact when she couldn’t be okay without it.
Once her message was finished she folded it in half, shoved it in an envelope and sealed it away. Mere seconds later she was standing outside of his door.
She looked left, she looked right, uncertain of why she felt shame at the idea that she could be caught. The coast was clear so she quickly bent down and pushed the envelope through under the door. She watched her hand moving independently like it was someone else’s and the instant the envelope was gone she felt physically sick.
In a panic she tried to push her finger under, to reach it and pull it back out, but it was already too far gone. She fell back against the wall with her heart almost pounding out of her chest. Gods, what the hell had she just done?
Lt. Commander Rada Dengar
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012