100215.02
Soundtrack: Never Tear Us Apart by INXS
Concurrent with Strong Medicine
-=/\=-
-=Holodeck Two, USS Serendipity=-
The decision had, in the end, been easier to come to than to explain to Tam.
They couldn't stay here any longer, and she knew that.
She knew that it was going to be too difficult for him to continue to see Rada around the ship all the time knowing that Rada had no idea how much the boy cared for him.
It was painful for Tam to see Rada smile and acknowledge Lair Arie with such familiarity when he barely remembered Tam's name, even now after being told it every time they'd crossed paths since the procedure.
It was as if his mind was incapable of holding onto it; and every time he forgot it again Tam's wounded expression created another crack in Wren's already shattering heart.
Still, Tam had had a remarkably strong reaction to the idea of leaving the Serendipity. Even with all they'd lost, he pleaded with her not to take away his friends too. His school, the home he had taken so quickly to where he was so easily and genuinely accepted for who he was. He was not a curiosity here as he was on Earth; he was simply Tam.
He'd told her he wouldn't go.
When she told him that he had no choice, that they had no choice, he had turned away, his face unreadable as he forced his logic to override his pain, even if only for the moment that it took for her to see that he would never forgive her if she went through with this and made him go with her.
Everything was packed, all travel plans set.
She had promised him a chance to say goodbye, and he had told her that was something that he wanted to do alone, if it must be done.
Her single binding link to this place had been just another mistake. She’d forced a letter under Rada’s door confessing everything for him to read when he returned. Then when she’d heard of the Alchemy’s return she’d rushed to stand there by that door in wait and with vain hopes that she’d stop him before he’d see it.
She’d been prepared to wait there for hours but barely lasted for seconds before she left again.
As she’d felt the changing of her breath and the beating of her heart in anticipation of his arrival she’d felt scared and told herself that if each of these happening in his presence wasn’t enough to break his resequencing down then no poorly worded letter ever could.
By now she was sure she was right and that was the final cut in the tether that was her hope. He must have seen it by this hour, but nothing had changed. He hadn’t rushed into her arms and that said it all. She didn’t know exactly what he was thinking as she surely never would again. However she figured he must have simply thought it like she was nothing but a joke. That hurt indescribably much.
So with time to kill, nowhere to go and wanting to speak to no one who might try to make her change her mind, Wren had thankfully been able to get a small allotment of time in the holodeck. It was no small feat for a member of civilian crew aboard a ship like this; but people were too busy at the moment it seemed to be able to engage in such diversion. So she retreated here to say goodbye in her way to something, or perhaps to try to justify to herself again exactly why she had to do what she was about to do.
The holodeck was, all things considered, a peaceful place for a Betazoid mind.
An empty room was like a transparent window overlooking a vacant desert that drew the eye to a single person approaching in the distance. A holodeck however was sort of like an image painted over the glass. Even knowing it wasn’t real didn’t change the fact that you could still stare hard enough that you forgot to look beyond it and so could feel truly alone no matter who was outside.
Wren most certainly felt alone.
Looking over the brilliant recreation of the San Francisco cityscape now, her emotions conflicted; changing at a dizzying rate that even she had a hard time keeping up with.
Instead of trying she just stared off numbly into a distance that seemed much farther away than it actually was, due to the magic of forced perspective.
All of the buildings looked just as they had then.
The boats.
The lights.
Everything was just as it had been, with the simple yet painfully easy to forget difference that nothing here was real. The real world had likely moved on in this time. The sky was probably darker and she felt deep down in her heart the birds had lost the enthusiasm to their call. Yet even that supposed reality wouldn’t seem real to her now.
Nothing in life outside of herself seemed to her to be real anymore.
She was still real; that much she knew for certain because no one who was not excruciatingly alive could be made to suffer so greatly.
It hurt so much to be the only authentic person left in a world where so many could glide around her and manage to feel unharmed by the pain that radiated from inside of her.It was like they were nothing but colourful illusions; incapable of feeling and sometimes this felt just impossible to stand and she just needed a reminder that something else, that their love, had been real.
This was one of those times and there was one other thing here she knew was real. She knew, because she had brought it with her.
She suddenly felt the need to seek it out and began digging into the pocket in the skirt of her dress. She felt the ridges in its surface; the conflicting smooth and sharp textures of edges and angles. She felt its inherent coolness against her skin, so different from the uncharacteristic heat and moisture of her open palm. Finally, she withdrew it from the fabric which contained it and held it tightly for a long moment before she could actually bring herself to look upon it.
As she clutched the seashell in her hand until those sharper edges threatened to cut into her flesh, her eyes fought to focus upon its colors, barely visible between tightening fingers.
She forced her hand to open.
She tilted the small keepsake to and fro, every slight change in the artificial light all around her making the shades of its iridescent surface change and dance. Each hue evoked a strong memory in her, or an emotion, though in the best and worst of times she struggled to tell which was which.
Blue, the color of the dress she'd been wearing that night.
Red, the color of the burning sky as it melted into purples and pinks.
Yellow, the fading last light of the sun.
A bright clear white, the color of the rising moon and the stars that shone alongside it.
A shimmering, fading and strengthening white, the color of the light in the tower.
Orange, the color of the Golden Gate Bridge as he’d stared in quiet amazement from below.
Standing here, even in a man-made recreation of the place she remembered so fondly before and which caused her such agony now, try as she might she couldn't help but begin to reconstruct how one most memorable evening spent here had happened.
Dinner had been lovely. Though she remembered little of the meal she’d have called it something akin to perfection.
She had managed to keep him talking, quite a feat considering how nervous he was.
He was usually more adept than anyone she'd come across in her time at keeping those mental barriers up and his mind shielded from her curious, playfully probing nature.
While she would've been lying if she tried to say she'd never done it with anyone else before, with Rada it was true that she never tried to look deeper into his head in an invasive way. It wasn't that she was trying ever to gain advantage over him by doing it, where as before she knew him, she might have tried to do that with any other man she'd ever known.
With Rada, she did it purely because he was unlike any man she'd ever known. She’d known that very early on.
His mind was so full of thoughts that no one else she'd ever known had ever had: thoughts that she found made it impossible not to want to know what else was going on in there. Like a child unable to resist shaking a brightly wrapped package they'd been given at the beginning of their birthday party; anxious for clues as to what the gift was within though they knew full well that they were going to have to wait to find out until after everyone had eaten their cake.
Wren hated waiting.
It wasn’t that she lived life in a rush, forgetting to enjoy the things she could. She had always however been an impetuous, impatient person; it was simply her nature. Life needed to keep moving and swiftly, or she would force it along if need be. Things had to speed by at a good clip because boredom was something she simply refused to stand.
Of course this impatience and failure to understand the general necessity of looking in life before you leapt had gotten her into a lot of trouble in her day. Each time she’d swear she’d actually learned from her mistakes. Soon she’d find that she hadn’t. She seemed only capable of figuring that whatever had gone wrong simply couldn't repeat itself, and so every mistake was something new and exciting in and of itself; it was never in any way considered a failure.
Now, though, looking back there were mistakes that did feel very much like failure. They had actually cost her years of time she could've had with Rada; two ill-considered decisions made one after another that tormented her now.
When she'd first fallen in love with him so soon after they’d met, and things had settled in between them into something of an expected daily routine, she began to worry that she was losing herself. Though she was happier than she'd ever been in her life. Though he showed her care and consideration beyond anything anyone else in her life ever had.
That fear drove her to what she called the stupidest decision of her life though he did have a name which she’d simply prefer never to hear again.
It was a mistake however that had in the end resulted in the blessing that was Tam. As much as she loved her son, she could not regret it now, not truly. She couldn't imagine her life without him. So she could not truly hate herself anymore for that stupid mistake especially not when Rada had said, whenever he could tell that she was remembering back, that he forgave her for it and she didn't have to think of it anymore.
She always continued to think of it however; because of the long years she had spent trying to make one idiotic choice right by making a second one.
She hadn't intended to hurt him though she knew that leaving him would. She had only wanted to spare him. To save him the pain of knowing not only that she'd let him down but what the consequences would do to his life. She had no doubt that he loved her enough to turn his life upside down, leave the Academy and stay with her, and the child she was carrying whether or not he had fathered it.
At the time she believed there was no way possible she could have let him do that. She just could not let him do that.
Still, now she hated herself for the fact that she hadn't been capable of letting him try.
She could've had so many years with him, if she'd only trusted more. He may have left Starfleet, but if she had let him then he wouldn't be in this situation now.
She couldn't be bothered because she truly wasn’t motivated to think about what the consequences for the rest of the telepaths in the quadrant, indeed even herself and her son would have been if the Domox had come and Rada had not been there, aboard the Serendipity, in his post as Chief Engineer and able to do what it was he did to save them all.
It was all too complex. She couldn't think about the bigger picture because what she'd lost- her entire life and the love she'd come so much to rely on that made it what it was- the images of what had been became so large that they eclipsed every other perspective that she could possibly have had.
Finally accepting that this was as real as things would ever feel again she tucked the seashell back into her pocket now. She then patted her hand against it, confirming that it was safe there, and sighed. Since she'd moved out of their shared quarters, forced to pack up every item that could possibly stir a memory in him of what had been and render him again crippled by his emotions, she had carried it with her.
Every time she had seen him in passing, every time she had stopped to consider that maybe things could be someday again what they were, she would reach into her pocket, grasp hold of that shell and remind herself that while it was real it was also a piece of the past, just as everything they had together was now past.
She cast her eyes up at the sunset again and closed them tight. She inhaled and breathed deeply, the surroundings now and only for an instant seeming so real she expected to actually take in the scents of the air as they had been that night. Information like that however as so many other things from that night could never be captured or contained by a file on a holodeck.
Soon after entering she had asked the computer to remove all of the people from the popular Pier 39 area, and then she’d begun to retrace the steps they had taken that night. Each of those steps now felt insurmountably harder to take as she passed sights so deeply familiar she could hardly stand to look at them.
The restaurant where he'd taken her for dinner.
The shops and cafe's they'd passed as they wandered, sometimes talking and laughing softly, other times simply smiling in silences that felt far too comfortable to be without meaning. There were moments when his practiced defenses would slip, just enough, that she'd have to fight the urge to smile as she read so clearly the thoughts on his mind that he did not, and would not ever say to her aloud.
One such thought nearly broke her ability to keep a straight face, as she thought to herself with satisfaction that the electric blue dress has been the right choice, as had the black sandals that crisscrossed her feet. Of course, as Rada was ever the gentleman he’d been reluctant to ever be seen to look out of fear his healthy attraction be mistaken for anything else but when he thought she wasn’t looking, she could tell that he was.
"So much to see." She smiled brightly, her eyes aglow as they came to a stop at a spot overlooking the bay.
He politely nodded that there was though was clearly and so sweetly at a loss for how to respond. Wren however suffered from no such moments of endearing, tongue-tied bashfulness.
"Rest a minute?" she asked with quiet warmth. It was more that she wanted to see what he'd do if she could only get him to hold still a moment.
Any pretense of grand confidence he’d had when they’d first met had been so quickly eaten away when she’d been allowed that tiny peek into him and he’d known the facade was gone and so now he just seemed to be trying to always stay busy so he’d never be seen to not know what to do.
He'd been fidgeting all night long, twirling his fork in his fingers between bites of food, fussing with the linen napkin folded neatly beside his plate. Once she'd looked up from her food and caught him staring and he was so unnerved that he nearly knocked over her ice water. It had only taken one of her better, more gentle smiles and wink to remind him that she didn't mind if he stared at her, not really. It wouldn’t have taken a telepath to see that reassured wasn’t the only thing that made him feel.
Having worked so hard to get him to come this far out from himself Wren wasn’t going to give him a chance to start feeling more nervous again now. Luckily she was at this moment rather calm, and feeling so safe with this young man she could relax, and simply scan the view in its beautiful complexity to easily find a topic of conversation.
"That is so pretty." Wren pointed into the distance to an island where a stone tower stood, flashing a brilliant flare of white light every few seconds.
"That'd be the Alcatraz Light," Rada informed her. His brilliant hazel eyes- eyes that unbeknownst to him so captured her attention, rolled upward and to the right as he recalled the specifics. "It was built in eighteen fifty-four, but the current tower was actually first lit in nineteen-oh-nine." He had turned slightly away from her, looking out now toward the light more intently and she felt such temptation to read him to know just what genius lay behind that breathtaking stare. "Had a third order Fresnel lens originally, but that's long ago been removed and replaced..."
Then suddenly he stopped cold, though cold was perhaps far from the right word for it, as he became aware that Wren's hand was on his arm.
It was then that he physically gulped.
They'd been out on several 'dates' by this point but still, he had never dared venture to touch her no matter how strong the desire. As skittish as she knew him to be about her telepathy, she had never before really tried to touch him either. In that moment, it appeared she had changed her mind about that decision and he fought to hold his focus as her hand slowly slid down over his wrist and clasped for his fingers.
"Prison, you know," he blurted, as he stared in a state close to dumbfounded down at her hand. It was so soft, and he was so completely unsettled by the sensation of her touch that the very first unromantic thought that came to his mind was the only thing that his brain felt was safe to say. So he'd said it.
Wren simply laughed and those budding feelings within him became so incredibly stronger in that instant. "Yes, Alcatraz was a prison. I know," she said and he suddenly felt not quite as stupid as he had a second before.
She followed his eye line down and looked at their laced fingers which was a sight so innocent but one which could tell a trained eye so much more. Even without telepathy she could tell much about a man from how he held her hand. Some men held too tight as if to declare to the world she was theirs. Others barely held on with limp, disinterested fingers, as if uncomfortable even to be seen.
Rada did it gently but just tightly enough, and she noticed that his palm was sweaty. She found it to be endearing, and she also found that despite the fear that momentarily could be read in him, he didn't let go.
She smiled more broadly, and tugged him up and along by the hand. "I still think the light is pretty."
Figuring it was safe to nod and that he could safely agree at least that the light could be described as pretty wouldn't get him in any deeper, he did so firmly. He wished the light could've kept him from crashing into the rocks, as it had so many ships in times past. No such luck...
"Let's walk some more," she suggested with that playfulness that came with the knowledge that he’d turn down no request she made.
"Yes. Walking. Walking is good." Rada nodded again, almost talking to himself. The look in his eyes, one of terror and at the same time one that told her how thrilled he was to be holding her hand this way, made her even more certain about the decision she had made tonight when he'd nearly spilled her water glass into the basket of dinner rolls. He was too much of a gentleman, too worried about acting on impulse...and acting on impulse was one of the things she was best at of all things about her she hoped he would enjoy.
Tonight, she knew she would definitely act on impulse and she would make sure he tumbled over the cliff of reason right along with her. Anything less would just not have been enough to do justice to such a perfect night; one made even more perfect for her in the knowledge that he was such a gentleman he would expect nothing of the sort.
They paused again at a spot where they could make out the brilliant orange of the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. It was fascinating to see how he seemed just that little bit less uncomfortable here, staring at this work that in its time displayed such remarkable engineering than to deal with something, like her, that he didn’t understand. He had no idea how much she’d have him understand.
Again, Wren sighed the sort of musical, longing sigh that carried with it a smile. Everything was so pretty tonight. Everyone around them seemed so happy, but then she figured that perhaps it was just that she was so happy that she was incapable of picking up on anyone's negative emotions, the way she felt now. She dismissed that though because this moment felt too right to acknowledge there could be unhappiness anywhere around.
"Lovely," she whispered, eyes finally turning from him and now directed toward the bridge.
"Yes, she is." Rada murmured, looking at her and nothing else from the instant she had looked away.
Wren's lip curled in the way of a woman trying to seem like she understood less than she did. "I didn't realize the bridge had a gender."
Rada's eyes widened, only slightly as he realized he'd done it again, he'd betrayed the fact that he was taking in other facets of the immediate scenery with a much narrower focus than she.
"It was once the most popular place in the United States for committing suicide," he announced, once again spontaneously repeating aloud the very first unromantic thought that came into his head.
Now Wren did laugh out loud. He was just too sweet for her to hold back and the way his breathing always seemed to pause for just a moment said he liked her laugh far too much for her to want to.
Rada's cheeks took on color. In a way that spoke of just how at ease she was in his company, she gently reached up with her free hand and felt the burning of his skin. "You know, I was right about you the very first day I met you, Rada Dengar." She shook her head with amusement that was actually something closer to amazement. "You are weird."
Shyly Rada did his best to look away. Then his hand began to slip from hers, and she knew that her moment had come.
He was set off kilter, and she had just the thing in mind that would tip him the rest of the way, that would either make or break their potential to be something really very interesting to each other in the future. Either she'd finally succeed in breaking through the last of his defenses tonight, or she'd know that to continue trying would only be a frustrating waste of her time. Either way the way her heart had beaten that much faster with the thoughts told her she didn’t want to wait anymore.
She grabbed hold of him by the shoulders and before he could react or even think, she pulled him to her and she kissed him.
The kiss was quick, lasting merely a second with her lips brushing over his more than actually pressing against them. Her aim was to throw him a rope, and see if he grabbed on to it.
Rada most certainly grabbed on. He kissed her tentatively at first, but still with unmistakable desire.
After an amount of time that Wren couldn't begin to measure but that had been sufficient enough that the sun had finished setting, she finally felt him draw back to catch his breath and opened her eyes. She could sense that he felt dizzy, as he took in the sight of her as she was, now bathed in the soft light of the moon and the glow of city lights. His chest rose and fell rapidly, and even as she tilted back a little she found his hand hadn’t left from where it’d settled on her back.
"Rada," she said softly, but firmly, "I want to go home now."
He stumbled back an unstable step and quickly released his hold upon her. "I'm sorry, I thought-" he stammered, utterly horrified. "I thought, after you, I mean, you did do it first." He began to try to fathom what he'd done wrong that would make her want to end the night so abruptly, but even as he started to form an argument in his head in which he would try to convince her that it was still early, that they could continue on their walk, or go for dessert, or any one of a hundred other things as long as she'd not leave things this way, Wren reached up and gently applied the tip of her index finger to his lips to silence him.
"Rada," she repeated his name, and her voice sounded different and more intense than he could ever remember having heard it before. "I want you to take me home."
"Of course," Rada interrupted, leaning back so that his lips could move again. "I wouldn't dream of not seeing a lady safely back to her door," he seemed almost insulted that she would imply such unchivalrous behaviour was possible for him because he had no idea how common such behaviour was.
"You don't understand," she again laughed softly, though quickly her expression changed to something Rada had definitely never seen in her before. "I want you to come home with me."
"Oh..." Rada's mind tried to process the words but it was no use whatsoever.
There was no way to process anything so far into the future when all he could see was here and now like her eyes, the curve of her lips calling out to him and begging to be kissed once again- all he could hear was the pounding of his own heart in his ears.
Wren however had no such inability to know exactly what was going to happen and she reached out and linked her arm with his, and once again she tugged him onward.
The solitude of Wren's heartbreaking memories was broken by the voice of the computer. For an instant lost in thought and time she’d actually forgotten everything that had gone wrong and all she could think in this moment was that this was proof that machines were incapable of ever knowing love.
^Access to the holodeck is being requested by Captain Zanh.^
One she processed the words it truly woke her from any thoughts as pleasant as those she’d had of love even that which was now lost. Now she felt angry.
"Damn." Wren whispered to herself and to the universe that mocked her so by keeping her in it. Of all the people she could possibly have to see tonight, the last one in the galaxy she wanted to was Zanh Liis.
She briefly considered simply refusing access because there was nothing more Liis could do her now. Knowing that if Zanh was seeking her that she'd stop at nothing until she found her, Wren decided that there was nothing she could do but face the woman. But she wouldn't let her see her here, not in this place that held memories so personal. In spite of all she knew, when she saw Liis her anger made her see a hardened woman and she daren’t even speak with such vulnerabilities so clearly on display.
Besides, if her memories were all she had left of Rada, then she would damn be sure she kept them to herself, so no one could ever possibly begin to tell her that she had to give those up for the greater good, too. She had already learnt that the greater good need not involve her.
"Computer, unlock the door and," she said with more difficulty than she would have cared for, adding finally, "discontinue program."
With her words all of San Francisco and so much of history seemed to vanish into thin air, replaced by the sterile, heartless and meaningless black and yellow grid of the Holodeck's natural appearance. Though the gentle breeze was gone the room suddenly felt so cold, and Wren shivered as she felt it but she forced on her composure.
"Arch," she choked softly, squaring her shoulders and blinking hard against the tears in her eyes that Zanh Liis would not be allowed to see.
For the smallest comfort she reached down and patted her pocket. The shell was still there.
Wren looked down at the floor as she heard the arch opening and a pair of booted feet making their way toward her. She had been so absorbed in her own relentless anguish that she had not at first been able to read Zanh when she'd entered the room and she really hadn’t cared to; it was only upon looking up and into the woman's steel blue eyes that Wren couldn’t help but feel a flash of her own concern that allowed her emotions to be drowned out by the screaming of Zanh's own.
"What's wrong?" Wren instantly demanded to know, for she was certain something was and there was no doubting the only reason anyone would tell her about it. "What's happened to him?"
Before Liis could speak, Wren's hands flew to her mouth in horror, and she gasped. "No. No, you didn't."
Wren was making promises to herself but they fell so quickly short and were replaced violently as her previously diluted anger separated from all else and clarified; quickly becoming a truly caustic level of raw, concentrated rage.
In an instant her hand raised up and away and she did what she had wanted to do for so long now: she backhanded the Bajoran clear across the face.
“You irredeemable bitch,” Wren spat accusingly. Liis thoughts were so clear to Wren now, and she made no polite charade at pretending she couldn't read them, every one. "How could you? After all the times you told me that I dare not risk trying to make him remember!"
"Wren he was starting to remember already," Zanh Liis protested, ignoring the smarting of her reddening cheek and refusing to allow herself to react in any other way either to the Betazoid's physical strike. The only thing that surprised Liis about the slap, honestly, was that it had been so long in coming. "I did what I thought was best for-"
"You were wrong!" Wren shouted with rarely seen vehemence. "You were wrong the first time and you're wrong now! And Rada is suffering for it! You had no right." Her words utterly dripped with venom. "You HAVE no right! None of you! Not your or Starfleet or bloody Temporal Investigations-"
"Don't tell me about Temporal Investigations!" Zanh's voice elevated now. "There isn't anything about what they can take from you that you have to explain to me."
"But you got him back, didn't you? You got Keiran back and I will never, ever get my Rada back. So you have no right to tell me that you understand what Temporal Investigations has taken from me."
Though the fury in Wren’s words coupled with the tears Liis could see biting at the woman’s eyes were enough to freeze almost anyone with regrets for having even spoken, Liis couldn’t afford the luxury of regret right now. She could only deeply inhale a puff of air to try to steady herself before she continued as calmly as she was able.
“Don't you think that it-" Zanh began, balling her hands up into fists as the now all too familiar shaking returned to them. "Don't you know that every time I see Rada, I think of you and Tam? That every time I see him look out a window with that lost expression in his eyes or up to the sky like he's trying to remember why he bothers to keep on breathing when there seems no point in doing it, don't you think that..." her voice trailed off, as she knew that there was no way that she should or ever could try to convince Wren that even if she couldn't completely understand her suffering, that she did empathize with it.
Empathy was not what Wren wanted now, perhaps not even what she needed in the moment. She needed someone to direct her anger toward, and Zanh knew she was the most obvious and acceptable target.
Seeing the depths of Wren's pain reflected in every aspect of her countenance- in not just her eyes but the way her shoulders rose and fell with quickening speed as her breathing grew shorter and she began to wring her hands- she allowed it.
"Hate me as much as you want, I understand.” Zanh continued in a low, even voice, thinking if I were you I'd hate me too. "I can't judge you for it and if I’ve learned by this age that if someone really hates your guts there isn't a damn thing you can do to change it."
“You can’t change anything!” Wren protested furiously, her chest heaving at the very thought of what Liis had done.
“No, I can’t,” Liis agreed. “But you can.”
Wren was clearly confused and it was enough to stop her from reading Liis and to stop her from talking just long enough so Liis could continue. “Rada is going to be taking extended shore leave on Earth. Extended that is until he gets the help that he needs.”
Suddenly Wren’s mind began to put the pieces together of Liis thoughts. Liis actually thought there was some sort of hope.
She wanted Wren to go there, to be the one that helped him find his way back with the memories intact, but Wren already knew that couldn’t work.
Now she had to turn away, still so determined not to let Liis see her cry even as she accepted there was no way to keep the tears from her eyes.
“I can’t,” Wren protested with a broken voice, desperately trying to find a reason beyond the humiliation she didn’t want to accept of what had happened. “It almost killed him when you tried it.”
Liis now struggled to keep herself together, there was no good way to tell someone that you expected them to do something that could very well end a loved one’s life. "True. But I'm not you." She let her words hang in the air a moment, watching the expression in Wren's eyes change again.
“He’s going to find out. Eventually. Probably damn soon. Finding it from you is the only way he might be able to get through it,” Liis argued, trying and failing miserably to sound like she had any real faith that this was going to work.
“Please. You don’t understand,” Wren begged, desperate for Liis not to make her say this. “I can’t do it. He already knows how I feel. He,” Wren had to stop as she brought up her hands to cover her face as if both to hide the tears and to block out the humiliation that the man who’d loved her once wouldn’t even look at her now.
“How could he?” Liis asked with confusion, noting that Wren’s rage at her was not the rage of a woman who’d told Rada everything herself.
“Because I wrote him a letter," Wren confessed, sobbing openly now. "I told him everything and I put it in his quarters. I couldn’t get it back and he must have seen it by now. It meant nothing to him.”
Now Liis was taken aback. For an instant she became completely unsure if Wren really was the right choice for this task. She considered this new information carefully, trying to fathom that the woman would so carelessly write such a letter one moment and then try to get it back the next only to give up when she failed.
Then she remembered another letter; one that TC Blane had given her on the Alchemy, months that seemed such a lifetime ago.
Though more care was taken in the delivery of that letter than the one Wren had impulsively written, Zanh truly couldn't fault her now for having been desperate enough to do it. She had no TI training, she had never signed on for any of this. She had done the best that she could, and in the end she was the one who, in all of this, had never brought a moment's pain to Rada. No matter how much it hurt her, in the end, she had held back as much and as long as she could and Zanh knew that sometimes that was all you could do when you truly loved someone.
Liis was now more certain than ever that if anyone could help Rada that Wren was the only one with a chance of success. If Rada loved a woman like this then it was possible he could love no other.
If he loved her as much as she loved him, then there had to be hope, no matter how slight, that love could still save him from himself.
Clearing from her mind the very last of her doubts, Liis continued. “Listen to me. I sent Rada off in a shuttlecraft the second we got back. I did not allow him to return to his quarters, he was never out of my sight until he took the Destiny out of the bay. I can tell you for an absolute certainty, Wren, that he has not seen that letter.”
Instantly Wren’s sobbing stopped even if the tears didn’t as she turned to focus all her attention on Liis.
Liis was telling the truth.
Wren gasped at the realisation and spoke in quiet disbelief to herself. They were very different tears in her eyes now. “He may still love me.”
Liis said nothing to her remark, knowing it wasn’t meant for her to hear, but instead simply tried her best to focus on giving Wren as much help as she was able to do this. “You need to pack.”
“I am already packed,” Wren quietly answered, feeling as if this was a sign, then quickly realising something. “I can’t take Tam with me. I’ll,”
“We’ll look after him,” Liis assured, and suddenly the look Wren gave her was something completely different. It was actually thankful. “You just look after Rada.”
Something in Wren’s face almost seemed to break with those words as she considered that she was actually being given permission to try to bring him back.
Though she’d rarely cared for authority, having refused herself that permission for so long it was such a beautiful relief to finally have it from anyone.
“Thank you,” she whispered with a mixture of stunned disbelief and incredible gratitude. She considered just what trouble Liis could get into for doing this rather than sending Rada to Starfleet Medical and was just amazed that she would do this, not for her she was sure, but for Rada. “I know this is completely against the rules for how we’re supposed to do this.”
"Yeah. Well." Zanh shrugged her shoulders. "Let me worry about Starfleet. If anyone's neck is going to get wrung for this in future, it'll be mine."
Before she could begin this journey, Wren had just one more thing she had to ask of the woman before her. She felt that Liis truly had no concern now for what trouble this might get her into, and Wren had a hard time believing that she would really do something like this to give her and Rada another chance. "Why?"
"Someone once said to me that love is the highest law." Liis said, pausing as she recalled the words of a phantom from her past.
Wren watched as Zanh twisted the rings on her left hand; sensing that the emotions the Bajoran was fighting back were as deep as they were conflicted. The conflict however had nothing to do with concern for her own career or command. It was only the desperate hope that in doing this, she'd really done the right thing for Rada Dengar.
After a moment Zanh's feelings took on a strength of renewed resolve, and Wren could feel that the captain was convinced that this was the right decision.
Liis spoke one sentence more before she turned and headed back through the arch. "Sometimes, Wren, going off the grid is the only choice we have left."
Manager of The Afterthought Cafe
Civilian Crew, USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
-=/\=- Zanh Liis O'Sullivan
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012