by Rada Dengar and Lair Kellyn
91109.1707
Soundtrack: Beautiful World by Colin Hay
Immediately following Still This Emptiness Persists
-=/\=-
91109.1707
Soundtrack: Beautiful World by Colin Hay
Immediately following Still This Emptiness Persists
-=/\=-
“I…I feel so guilty.”
With those words Kellyn began to consider something she’d hoped would be completely impossible. *Please, no.* She thought with horror that Rada’s memory of what he had been forced to do to the Domox may have been coming back.
“Do you remember…something?” She asked, being able to find no better way of saying it without giving too much away.
Rada’s ears seemed to prick up with her question and he looked at her, almost studying her, with curiosity that she should mention it.
“Remember?” He asked softly. “What would I remember?"
A powerful yet far from complete relief washed over Kellyn from seeing this response. It seemed his memories hadn’t come back but there was still a very serious problem.
“I don’t know exactly.” She lied, desperately hating to do it but just as fervently praying she’d be believed. “It’s just back there; you looked like you were reliving a memory.”
Rada accepted this, albeit skeptically.
“It wasn’t a memory.” He explained, still working on slowing his breathing. “It was just I had this horrible feeling when I fired on Jamie.”
“A feeling of guilt?”
Rada nodded that she was correct, not yet wishing to elaborate further.
“About what? No one was hurt, and I’m telling you Rada, it wasn’t even your shot that hit him…”
“I know.” Rada answered quietly.
“It’s only a game.” She reminded him, hoping it’d provide a comfort, but from the frustrated change in his tone it was clear that it didn’t.
“I know.”
“I don’t think Jamie even minded being shot.”
Rada’s face seemed to light up with anger.
“I know!” He said, throwing his hands up in frustration and speaking very quickly. “I know that logically I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. I know it’s just an innocent game and that I was just doing what I was supposed to. Yet I just couldn’t seem to stop the guilt and then there was this wave of fear and I just wanted to run. It shouldn't have happened.”
He stopped himself, realising that with all of the completely senseless emotions assaulting him the anger he was feeling was likely just part of it. The rage in his eyes dimmed slightly.
“I’m sorry.” He said quietly.
“You don’t ever have to. Just don't be sorry for. You--you know, it's just that I." She was for the first time he could ever recall actually stammering.
She kept trying.
"It’s not. Not with me, I mean.” She fought for every word, unsure any direction she could take the conversation in would be a wise one. “You don’t need to-” finally, she stopped.
The last thing that she wanted to do to a man struggling so hard against his emotions was to put too fine a point on the fact that he’d been so incapable of keeping them from her sight. She knew that if roles were reversed, Rada would pay the same courtesy and show the same concern and discretion in addressing any such painful display of her own emotions. She could offer him no less now.
She walked several steps away, as far away from him as she could go while still remaining within the confines of their cover.
She regarded her ‘weapon’ for a long moment, and then she sighed with disgust and tossed it away. Rada startled at the sound, and she looked back at him apologetically.
“Rada, I want to help you if I can. But I don’t know what help is for you right now. I don’t want to make you feel any worse.” Her expression changed from one of frustration to one of fear.
That surprised him as fear, even in the face of seemingly certain death, was not something he recalled often having seen on her face. Thinking about it, he realized he’d likely only seen it twice before: while Arie was missing, and when Salvek was in danger of being lost to the ravages of...
Of…
Rada’s thoughts skipped the track they’d been on. Suddenly, he couldn’t remember exactly what it was that Salvek had suffered that had made Kellyn so worried about him. He knew it involved a trip to Vulcan somehow.
He remembered her leaving their research for the Project in his care in case she couldn’t return. Yet, he couldn’t precisely recall the circumstances surrounding the time and events, and that made him even angrier now.
Something was wrong, he realized. If he didn’t remember something that he was so absolutely certain that he’d known for a fact before, what else had he lost to this ‘coma’ he’d suffered?
Kellyn’s pulse rushed in her ears, and she thought about how sick Rada had been, how lost in the madness that his actions against the Domox had produced in him.
Her mind flashed back to what Wren had told her of Rada’s true mental state at the time, when locked doors and security officers stood between Kellyn and her best attempts to get to her friend.
No matter how she’d tried to tell herself that he was okay now, that everything would be okay now, Kellyn couldn’t help but hear every single one of the heartbroken Betazoid’s words. Kellyn had only been able to stand by and listen helplessly as Wren Elton spoke so sadly about the mental state of the man she loved, saying:
"He’s not coping. He’s slowly slipping away and I don’t know why. As long as I’ve known him there have been these…”
Wren had fought for the words as tears started to flood her eyes.
“These barriers in place in his mind. They’re breaking down. He’s breaking down. There’s a…like a black hole within him which is still growing ever larger and it’s ripping him apart inside. Yet he can’t really feel it. His every mental defense has broken down and still I can not hear his thoughts. There’s…there’s nothing there to hear.”
Rada had been so completely lost. Kellyn asked herself again how could she speak another word now and risk what little she knew was left of her friend disappearing again if she should utter one wrong syllable? If she should breathe the faintest hint of one wrong emotion? She couldn’t risk it.
She ran her hand back through the strands of her perspiration soaked hair, tugging it at the back and tying it into a knot at the nape of her neck before she returned her eyes to his.
She threw her hands up into the air in frustration. “I don’t know how to help you and I hate it.” She confessed softly. “What can I do to help you, Rada?”
*What can I do or say that isn’t just going to make things a hell of a lot worse for everyone?* Kellyn asked herself sadly. She just didn’t know anymore if there was anything she could.
Her mind returned now to that dark day on Lethus IV when she’d almost lost her life, and Rada had done all he could to keep her talking, to distract her. He’d helped her that day, and she only wished that she could know that talking would help more than it would hurt now. But she couldn’t know that, in fact she had the distinct and sinking feeling that with every word she spoke she pushed him closer to the ledge of a cliff he may not be able to keep from falling, or jumping, off.
He’d taken up staring silently off into the distance. His eyes were fixed, his jaw set, and she had never seen him quite this way before. The rage in him burned slowly just below the surface, and she was growing increasingly fearful that if it wasn’t somehow smothered that it would smolder beneath until it consumed him, one piece of his soul at a time.
“Rada,” she entreated him, leaning her back up against a tree and sighing as she glanced up and into the leaves overhead. “Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“What it is that you’re afraid of.”
There was at first a silence and Kellyn considered maybe he wasn’t going to respond. It was only when she allowed her eyes to fall down to Rada that she realised how very wrong that was. The look on his face told her that something in Rada briefly her broken upon hearing her words before he snapped it back into place and struggled viciously to hold it together, almost shaking from the effort.
With his composure regained he reached his hand into his pocket and angrily pulled from it something which he proceeded to stare down at in contempt.
“This.” Was all he said, his eyes never turning from the small device held tight within his fingers.
“Your medication?” Kellyn asked, recognising the container.
Rada nodded that she was correct, turning the hypospray over in his hand and internally contemplating what force he’d need to destroy it. He was unsure he could do it but that wasn’t what eventually made him return it to his pocket. It was his uncertainty that he even wanted to.
Finally he looked up at her but his eyes fell back down just as quickly.
“What if it’s stopped working?” He softly whispered.
Now Kellyn was truly frightened as she knew perhaps better than anyone else, save only for Wren, just what Rada had gone through in the worst times before he’d first started taking this medication. He’d been a man entirely alien to who he was now, a man of anger feeling the pull of violence drawing him near.
“By the Prophets, no.” She said under her breath as for the first time she considered that maybe the damage done to him wasn’t as simple as an event he’d remember. He’d spoken of a strength in his darker self; a strength he may have needed to tap into when he was in his private war with the Domox.
Worse still, he’d spoken of the desire he’d once held to give into the madness to hold onto the power that came with the ability to take a life. Now he’d accidentally killed so many, that desire may have been reawakened even if he couldn’t remember how.
“Is that what this feels like?”
Rada resumed his staring into the distance, silently contemplating her question.
“No.” He finally decided. “No that’s the complete opposite of what this feels like. It’s as if it’s finally started working.”
“You mean you felt it wasn’t working before?”
“No, I’d always thought it was.” He said, shaking his head. “I never felt any of the urges that had been there before.”
“Then what’s changed?”
“Just everything that was supposed to.” He answered. “When I was sick I felt strong so now I feel weak. I felt no guilt and so now it overcomes me. I felt my anger could be useful and now it feels utterly futile. Then of course there are the memories.”
Kellyn used no words to ask but she had to know what he’d meant by that. It seemed he’d heard the question anyway.
“The funny thing about memories is that they’re so very empty, aren’t they? You can remember where people were standing and snippets of conversation but that’s about all. There will always be so much more that you forget. The present your friend gave you for a particular birthday, the way you were dressed on your graduation, how exactly that familiar old perfume used to smell. When I was sick horrible memories would be generated in an instant to fit the motivation of the madness and they’d be so clear because they were new. Now, even in things I remember there are a lot of small details I seem to have forgotten.”
“Like what?” Kellyn asked, even knowing just how dangerous it was to go in this direction.
“I don’t know.” Rada said shrugging his shoulders, it was not so much a lie to her as it was something denied to himself. “It’s sort of like my mind’s a corrupted database. It will only register six files but has recorded that there are seven. Perhaps it’ll just take a little time for all the files to be sorted out and for it to accept that all it can see is all its got. I need to accept that this is all I have.”
Sadness swept over Kellyn with his words as she knew he’d had so much more than he could see. He just couldn’t remember.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter.” He continued, regardless of how clearly he felt it did. “It would seem that I’m cured. They cured me.”
Now this was something that Kellyn hadn’t expected. He could so easily have meant many of the people involved in choosing his medication, but from the way his eyes fell to her as if expecting a question she had a feeling he didn’t.
“They?” She asked carefully. “Do you mean the people at Starfleet Medical?”
Rada almost scoffed with amusement at the prospect.
“People don’t just fall into comas and medications don’t magically get more powerful over time.” He replied, realising now how tired he was and resting back against the walls of their enclosure. “Something has happened. I don’t know who and I don’t know what but someone did something to me. Maybe it was these Domox you encountered. They must have done something to my brain because they’ve finally ironed out all of the wrinkles that were holding it in the mess it was.” He repeated it again. “They cured me.”
For a moment they both remained silent before Kellyn finally had to ask a question, knowing Rada would have given almost anything to have felt truly safe from this madness once upon a time. “Then why are you so angry?”
“Because I finally understand.” He said bitterly before his rage was replaced by sadness as he recalled an old song he’d once heard on Earth, though he couldn’t recall when. Then to her surprise he began to do something he’d so rarely done in the time she’d known him; he actually began to sing.
After a moment he sighed, seeing no point in continuing the song and bringing his hand to his head to rub his temples.
“Before the coma I felt like I had something better. Only, looking back now I realise there was nothing different except me. I still have the same job. I still have the same friends. Nothing has changed and yet, though not always, in recent times it all felt like so much more. It was like for all the insecurity and worry there has recently been this voice which convinced me I can still make a difference in this galaxy. Now I know I’m nothing special.”
“Rada, listen to me.” Kellyn swiftly replied, attempting to protest his statement but he didn’t even let her start let alone finish.
“Let me guess, you’re going to tell me I am? That I do matter somehow?” He asked and she nodded. “Don’t bother, I won’t believe you. I can see clearly now and it’s clear that I’m not. I once heard a philosopher say that exceptionality is nothing but the sum of small insanities. He was half right. Exceptionality is an illusion it takes a lot of small insanities to believe in.”
Now he was beginning to get angry again as he considered the life he’d been stuck with. “How can these be my only options? Returning to this life that feels like it means nothing now or one of insanity. Where is the justice in that?”
Kellyn stayed still, frozen. She wondered what she could possibly say that could begin to convince him when the one thing she wished she could tell him that might, she dare not.
She dare not tell him that he'd saved countless lives including her own, including those of the people- of the woman- he loved most. That he very well may have saved the life of every telepath in the Alpha Quadrant as well as many others who would have died in the battles to try to save them.
The one thing that she believed might be able to set him free was also the one thing that she was certain would damn him. The truth was in this case the sharpest double-edged blade of all.
Instead of risking injury to him by means of that sword, she grabbed a hold of herself emotionally and changed course entirely.
She laughed a short, bitter laugh.
"Come on. Philosophers say a lot of stupid bullshit. Like, 'what doesn't kill us makes us stronger'. Or another of my personal favorites, 'this too shall pass'. What kind of nonsensical garbage is that? I swear, I want to throttle people who say that to me. In fact, do you know the only philosophical statement I've ever heard that I could really see any sense in?"
Rada shook his head that he didn't.
"That Terran guy, Socrates. Professor Vetrall at the Academy drummed his stuff into our heads. Socrates said, ‘I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing’."
Rada stood still, unresponsive.
"Don't you understand what I'm trying to say, Rada?" Kellyn reached out and clamped a hand down onto his shoulder, shaking him gently once in hopes he'd look up at her. "What I'm trying to say is that nobody expects you to have all the answers, to understand all that's happened to you. Certainly not now, maybe not ever. You've been through so much. So..." she paused, looking away. "So much more than any one person should ever have to."
Finally, she'd regained her composure enough to face him again. She raised her eyes up to meet his as best she could. "For now, you just have to be kind to yourself, and trust those of us who know you best when we say to you that you are nothing if not exceptional."
-=/\=-
Lt. Commander Rada Dengar
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Commander Lair Kellyn
Engineering Research and Development
The Alchemy Project
-=/\=-
Lt. Commander Rada Dengar
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Commander Lair Kellyn
Engineering Research and Development
The Alchemy Project
-=/\=-