By Landry Steele and William Lindsay
100317.01
Following Desperate Times
-=/\=-
-=USS Serendipity=-
100317.01
Following Desperate Times
-=/\=-
-=USS Serendipity=-
Dwan Tubman set out into the Jeffries tube before him and Dane watched him move away with something akin to patience, knowing it was best to let Dwan leave remembering Dane had had a cool head when last he saw him.
The moment Tubman was gone however Dane quickly fastened the panel back into place and then started beating on Landry Steele's door.
"Steele!"
He waited a moment but heard nothing in response. He pounded harder.
"Landry, let me in!"
Again silence was the only reward Dane got for his trouble, as the vibrations of his fist on the door echoed down to nothing. He couldn’t just wait around though.
"Down it comes," he sighed, prepared to start pulling wires out of the panel and use manual override.
Before he managed to get to the wiring however, the door opened on its own.
What was revealed was a room of total darkness, save the utterly wrong sight of the unnaturally twisted space beyond the view port. It was not cheerful, it was not at all warm; it was nothing like the Landry he’d come to know and despise. This was much more like him and who he’d once been. In fact he swore he’d locked himself in this room before, or at least one a hell of a lot like it.
Sometimes this room came with loud and vague music to dull the mind, but now like so much more often it was bereft of meaningful sound. It was that sort of quiet, not so pure as silence, where your own movements each somehow echoed louder than the voices of memories were all that reminded you that you were still really here.
This was how he knew Landry was still here.
He heard her steps retreating as she slowly moved back over toward the window, having just released the door for him. Only then did he finally see her as she stepped slightly from the shadows.
Her face was framed by the misbegotten streaks of light outside, and now he saw a sight even more unbelievable and unexpected than the spatial disturbances that had enveloped them.
Landry Steele's features were unnaturally and hauntingly frozen, and remained that way as she sunk back into the chair before her, her knees seeming too weak to hold her up for any worthwhile length of time.
She looked like a complete stranger to him in this moment, there was no trace of the woman he thought he knew. It was like looking at a painting of a great adult mystery once so misunderstood in childlike innocence and only now finally realising what it is, and finding all that you’d thought of it was gone and the painting itself was utterly unfamiliar.
Had she been a painting she’d have moved no less. She appeared not even to breathe; completely motionless with eyes staring straight ahead as if fixed forward by the immutable finality of death. Whose death, Dane wasn’t sure.
"Landry, everything's gone to Hell and people on this ship are going to start dying." He approached slowly and spoke carefully, as the door closed behind him cutting off the light from the hall.
Though he feared what might happen if he pushed her too far too fast he really was left with no alternatives to honesty and hope. "That’s if they aren't dying already. Lair, she's," he stopped himself, seeing no response in her.
Now, he was disappointed. It seemed no one here mattered to her. He’d expected that she'd served aboard this ship long enough by this point that she should've started caring about someone here; or at least offered some indication that she was worried about the man she so seemed to idolize, the man she still insisted on calling Captain O'Sullivan. When someone disappointed Dane, even someone he had such low hopes for to begin with, he got angry.
"Damn it Landry, look at me!" He shouted as he rapidly spun the chair around to face him then shook her by the shoulders, though she remained as limp as a rag doll at first. "Don't you care? Doesn't it bother you that good people, people who haven't done anything wrong are going to die if Brody has his way? And he won't even tell us why. God knows what he's doing to the Captain over there and O'Sullivan and Lindsay..."
She’d almost but not quite winced at the sound of O'Sullivan's name. Now Dane was really furious.
Right now she was as useless to the fate of this ship as the chair on which she sat, and he turned away from her with as little feeling as he’d have done for that chair alone. He visually scanned the room for something, anything, he could use to try to wrest her from her seeming state of shock.
The closest thing he could find was a vase of flowers on the nearby table, which he quickly retrieved and then held in the air before her unmoving eyes.
Though she gave no outward indication and perhaps was not even aware of it on any level that could be called at this point conscious, the sight of the flowers was even more difficult for her now. They were intricately woven, bright and fragrant yellow roses; flawless blooms of the sort she always kept nearby just to feel that some small part of what she’d shared with Tucker remained.
The sight of them slashed at her just as if the thorns they contained had been thrust into her skin, and though you couldn’t see it either she was still certain that she was internally bleeding.
Suddenly she was overwhelmed by the memory of his breath on her skin as that low, hypnotically melodic voice sang that old song softly into her ear.
He’d repeated the last few words without the music after it ended, passionately whispering them before he finally stopped hovering and pressed his lips to her neck. She sighed and shuddered at the sensation.
“I’m gonna take you back to Texas with me, Landry. Make you my queen…give you anything your little heart desires.”
Her vision flickered in and out as she became so dizzy she was forced to close her eyes. She leaned her head back against his chest. She wanted to speak, to tell him that all she wanted in the world was him-- that would be more than enough-- but she could only weakly gasp his name instead.
“Ain’t nothing gonna stop us, darlin’, I promise you.” He smiled as he spoke now, and the sound of the expression resonating in his tone made her even weaker as he murmured on. “Yes sir. Gonna take ya back home with me when all this is over and we have some time. We’ll finally have time, just the two of us,” he promised.
Nothing else he could’ve said would have been more meaningful to her- or more effective.
He laughed softly then with some small, secret delight and the sound convinced her as no words could have that she’d follow him anywhere he wanted her to go. “Yes indeed,” he finally added, shaking his head as his smile became a fully realized grin. “My Momma is gonna love you.”
She desperately wished that he’d finally say that particular word in reference to his own feelings, at last. It was the one thing he hadn’t actually said to her with simple and explicit clarity and she longed to hear it.
If he would only say that he really loved her, Landry was as terrified as she was certain of the fact that there was nothing he couldn’t ask her to give him, no matter the cost, that she wouldn’t willingly offer.
The price of her soul itself would be little to pay to keep feeling this way…
With a great shout of frustration at her continued refusal to acknowledge his actions, Dane smashed the centerpiece to the deck. Then he stepped toward her again, crushing flower petals and shards of glass alike beneath his boots with every step.
"Landry! You can't do this. You can't just shut down for the sake of- of," he struggled to try to hold on to his reason when all he wanted to do in the moment was pick her up and shake her until she started to talk or at least until whatever brain rattled around her head fell back into place. "For the sake of a man like Tucker Brody."
Destroying the vase had drawn no response at all. Suddenly, however, it became clear his last words did.
Landry jumped out of her chair and lunged forward, grabbing Dane by the throat and slamming him up against the opposite wall. He struggled for breath as he found to his surprise that she was actually holding his feet up off of the floor.
"Shut up, Dane," She warned viciously as she shook him with strength that utterly amazed him and then she dropped him to the floor, where he landed in a startled heap, gasping for air and coughing violently. For an instant as he’d looked into her cold eyes, he thought she was really going to crush his windpipe and he had no doubt now that if she'd wanted to, she could have.
"Just...shut up," she repeated, muttering the words as she walked across the room and began upending any fixture she could get her hands on, spreading destruction with impressive efficiency as she moved.
Again he was seeing a new woman. This woman was powerful and very much alive.
Even had he not still had to fight to breathe Dane would have struggled to speak as he watched her and saw such unrestrained and inexplicable anger, having to roll out of the way of a flying chair as she took out what seemed to be a lifetime of her frustrations on the unsuspecting and entirely defenseless furnishings.
He’d never seem anything quite like it. He was put in mind however of stories he'd heard. They were stories of Zanh Liis doing something similar in the past, and he wondered if it was some sort of requirement, either by conditioning or recruitment, that female TI agents vent their rage on inanimate objects. The men, it seemed, tended to prefer to extract their own personal vision of justice from the bodies of living souls who had wronged them.
Even as more furnishing flew in his direction, Dane was still grateful in this moment that she was the former.
In his experience it normally took a death to stop a male agent. When Landry would stop was uncertain. However finally, with the room left in no recognizable state, she seemed to freeze; considering the chair she was standing over.
Quickly she turned to him, with hair disheveled and eyes that were frighteningly desperate where before they had been so lifeless.
She surged towards him far too fast for him to ever get away in time.
"If it was Gira," she rasped angrily at him, shaking as she reached out and grasped hold of his tunic, pulling him up to his feet to face her. "Look me in the eye and tell me that if Blane asked you to sell Gira out you could do it."
Dane's eyes flew open in disbelief, about to protest about how different the two situations were, when he was instead silent and that look was quickly followed by a sad understanding. Landry however wasn’t silent.
"Or if they asked Zanh to turn on O'Sullivan. Could she do it? Could he do it to her? Ask yourself that before you crucify me."
"I...I didn't," Dane stuttered. "Landry…"
She wasn’t really listening though, and he began to ask himself, looking at her now, if he knew a single thing about her that was real. He knew her as the gum-snapping, ditzy TI rookie who never seemed to do anything right except by lucky accident. Now he was beginning to wonder just how much of that was nothing but an act.
He was willing to bet at this point that all of it was the likeliest answer to that question.
"You know that feeling that you get, every time she walks into the room? Every time someone just says her name?" Landry continued, her eyes never leaving his but by her tone clearly still not seeing his fear. "That's…" she finally broke the stare and looked at her feet. Her words became less those born violently of anger and more those of consideration of something even she didn’t fully understand.
"But it's more than that. Tucker, he was my teacher in so many ways. He." For the first time Dane saw the slightest film of tears form in her eyes though not a drop fell to her cheek. "He made me what I am."
"What you are?” Dane asked with confusion. “Landry, you're-"
He stopped himself, not wanting to insult her, but finding it was awfully difficult not to remind her that she was still only an Ensign...an intern...someone who would still be returning Jonas Vox' subspace messages for him if not for Gem Lassiter sending her here to learn from O'Sullivan and Zanh...
Suddenly Dane realised that no longer seemed like that could be the real explanation for why she was here at all.
"I am an operative, Dane. I am no more a bloody intern than Ashton Ledbetter is." She shook her head at so many things; at nothing and everything all at once. "Yes, I'm lower ranking. But I'm older than you think, I've done more than you know and the real reason that they sent me here was because of you."
Dane blinked furiously in confusion, thinking he must have misunderstood her."Me?"
"You." She laughed incredulously. "They sent me to see if I could push you to the point of breaking. Do you think anyone is really," she sighed, "anyone could be as obnoxious as I have tried to be? I'll tell you it's a lot of work and it's damned exhausting."
"Wait." Dane had to stop. His head was spinning and they were getting far off the track he wanted to push her along. "We're supposed to be talking about Brody."
"Yes, Brody." Landry struggled just to say his name now, and she closed her eyes a moment to steady herself as images associated with that name overtook the external sights of her present surroundings. "He was a good man. He only wanted to help people. I can't believe it has all really…"
She shivered as she considered so many things that she’d once thought impossible and how little faith she could have now that anything was.
"Really what?" Dane prompted her, and she opened her eyes again to set them hauntingly upon him.
"That it’s all come to this," she answered, speaking no more words after she’d done so.
What could easily have been a lengthy moment of silence prepared to pass, but Dane quickly broke it buy reaching out and putting his hands on her shoulders. He spoke as emotionlessly as he could without forgetting the meaning of his words.
"Landry, I can't imagine how you're feeling but you have to really think about this. Whatever Brody was to you in the past, he is at this moment the man who is promising to start killing one of our officers at a time starting very soon if he doesn't get what he wants."
Landry didn’t even pause to let his words settle in.
"He won't kill Zanh," she quietly insisted, her declaration was as certain as it was chilling, and Dane's hair stood on end as the words hit his ears. "She'll wish she were dead, but he won't kill her."
Now, Dane hadn’t just had enough; he’d had too much.
"Okay. That's it." Dane shook her forcefully back and forth trying at least to make her fight him. "You say that TI sent you here because of me but what if that's not true? What if they really sent you here because you're the one who can stop Brody from destroying Zanh Liis and doing who knows what else with the Alchemy Project's technology? What if…?"
Again she wasn’t listening, but this time she scoffed rather than offering silence, to the very thought that Dane could have thought more than she had about what was going on here.
“You want to know the truth about me, Dane Cristiane?” she asked. “The truth about yourself?"
He stared at her, unsure what the truth about him had to do with the truth about herself and least of all anything to do with Brody. However that also meant he was too unsure to stop her.
"They sent me here to see if we could really be assigned someday as Jump partners. After some of the history with other teams they..." she looked at him with an expression now of complexity beyond description or even interpretation. "They wanted to be sure we could work together without killing each other or-"
"...or becoming involved." He didn't even have to think; he just finished the sentence for her as though he'd done it a thousand times before.
"Exactly." She looked at him coldly now, but without anger. "I know how you feel about Gira. And if you've had this sense of knowing that it's not going to change, well, I'm here to tell you that you're right. It's not. She's the one, Dane. No matter who else you may ever be involved with she's the one you want."
Dane knew she was telling the truth and so let the comment stand with neither objection nor addition.
"And Tucker Brody?"
She turned away now, once again sinking down into the chair, as she spoke words of bitter disappointment at life itself. "He's the one I can't have."
For the first time since he’d been here Dane felt like he understood at least as much as she did.
"Doesn't stop you though does it?" He sadly lowered both his eyes and his voice. "Wanting him."
There’d been new emotion in the words he’d said. Landry wondered for a moment if he was truly speaking to her now, or more addressing his own feelings for young Ensign Lassiter.
Still, from whichever angle he spoke it didn’t matter. Landry shook her head.
"No."
That longing never went away. History could be altered a million times over and a billion years may come to pass, but that undeniable reality would always be just as true for her.
No matter how many times she was resequenced, no matter what had been or would be or never could exist, he was the last person she thought of before she went to sleep at night. So often she had wondered whether he’d think of her at that time too, if even at all.
"I've forgotten and remembered the weirdest things, you know, with the resequencing," she whispered. "Yeah, I'm like a slate, they say. Wipe Steele's mind clean every time and she's all bright and shiny again. Brand new."
She sighed, staring vacantly ahead once again. "Sometimes I think I remember things about the people here on the Sera that I shouldn't. Strangest impressions, I get. Like every time I look at TC Blane in civilian clothing somehow I think unaccountably of coffins. Rather, of being stuffed into one by him."
A look of knowing sadness passed over Dane’s face, but he said nothing. He couldn’t tell her now that that image was a remnant of her memories from the mission they'd gone on to Klaestron to rescue Carrick O'Sullivan. It was the one that led them to the Sylph and stopped the Cascade, restoring Keiran to his proper place in history. She wasn't meant to remember that, so he wouldn't be the one to remind her. He’d clearly reminded her of too many bad memories already.
“I know you feel your feelings won’t change any more than mine could for Gira,” Dane softly insisted. “Maybe they won’t. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. I’m not asking you to betray him. All I’m asking is that you tell us what you know.”
Looking up at him, her eyes said that she saw no distinction, before she looked down to the dull, carpeted floor once more.
“You still don’t understand,” she protested, though it was more statement than complaint.
Dane started getting angry again, though it was a bitter type of anger now.
“What the hell did he do to you?” he demanded, unsure if he wanted to turn away or attempt to shake some sense into her again and so instead remaining completely motionless.
Landry however did move as her head seemed to drop lower as if it was just too heavy to hold anymore while she whispered her confession: thoughts that seemed fueled by some independent and unrelenting need to expand beyond the confines of her mind so they could live and breathe again. They overpowered her and took the form of words, moving quickly across her lips.
“He gave me everything,” she gravely answered, consumed by memories of all that meant to her. “He gave me more than I could ever give back, and that just made me want even more to give what I could. I was frightened; it gave him a terrifying power over me. I honestly thought I’d do anything for him. Only I…”
Landry stopped again, unable to continue speaking of regrets that were just too private to share, even with the man destined to become her future Jump partner.
Looking at her now, for the first time since she’d attacked him, Dane once again saw a weak woman. She wasn’t too strong to break; she wasn’t even strong enough to put back together. He realised he would get nowhere here and he couldn’t afford to waste any more time.
"It's really sad, you know." Dane said, as he shook his head in disgust and started walking away.
"What do you mean?" she asked, with confusion that he was giving up now of all times.
Dane knew that there had been something more than anything that could be called love between this woman and the man whose grip still held her captive in silence. He knew from his own dark past the power that one being could hold over another and how emotions could be manipulated to the advantage of a person willing to exploit those with purer hearts than theirs.
Unsure if anything could ever free her now, he regretfully spoke his final words.
"He's controlling you still, after all this time."
Finally, Dane Cristiane stepped out of Landry Steele's doorway, leaving her alone again in the spectral, speechless dark.
Ensign Landry Steele
Temporal Investigations Agent
Stationed aboard the USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Captain William Lindsay
Interim Director
Temporal Investigations
-=/\=-
NRPG: Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone. If you're going to celebrate with drink, please call a cab or designate a driver.
Sláinte!
~Zanh Liis
Temporal Investigations Agent
Stationed aboard the USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Captain William Lindsay
Interim Director
Temporal Investigations
-=/\=-
NRPG: Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone. If you're going to celebrate with drink, please call a cab or designate a driver.
Sláinte!
~Zanh Liis