By Wren Elton
100509.2330
After Unexpected Familiarity
-=A Small Apartment, San Francisco, Earth=-
100509.2330
After Unexpected Familiarity
-=A Small Apartment, San Francisco, Earth=-
“Wren?” Rada asked in disbelief, unintentionally squinting his eyes as if to make this picture make sense. “What are you doing here?”
Now her every sense had suddenly furiously focused upon him, blinding her not just to the sights but to the thoughts of all around her. Unfortunately those thoughts included her own and she just stared at him unable even to murmur out any sort of response. He was here, but she wasn’t ready, but she couldn’t go, but she couldn’t possible stay.
Entranced by the familiarity of being so near him without time for any of the carefully practiced self-control she’d held around her expectations for so long, she found she couldn’t move. She just wanted to stay in this moment while even all the confusion on his face and the lockdown of his mind, was yet to shatter the illusion of forced sensation out of time that made her feel like he still loved her.
Dear old Madelyn began to smile broadly, quite wrong about what she was seeing but still more astute that Wren had given her credit for as she mistook the evident pounding of Wren’s heart for that of a woman who’d fallen in love at first sight but never told the man. Daryl, she thought, must have been far more handsome than dishonest old eyes had told her.
Remembering the feeling from her youth of the simultaneous release and capture of the heart, among other parts of who she was, she also recalled the moments after such a meeting and the pain that so often ensued. She remembered feeling the fool and being utterly convinced that that was exactly what the young man thought of her as she recalled of her failure to speak. She wouldn’t let this young woman’s silence sentence her to such a fate.
“She came to see you actually,” Mad quickly chimed in. “She was hoping you could help her access the old tavern across the street. You know, the one you were asking about the other day.”
Rada’s eyes never moved to Mad, remaining instead set on Wren in confusion. Seeing Wren here felt so out of context, like the image he saw was the blending of two photographs from vastly different times in his life. However there was something more to that look now that she’d mentioned that tavern.
“Why do you want to get inside?” he asked.
Before she could answer however the sudden assault of her senses began. As she saw the light glimmering in his eye she recalled the illuminated brilliance she’d found there as they reflected the light of the moon above.
From her angle she had found a shadow cast upon his cheek and she remember how he looked with his head slightly bowed and seeing his eyes dare to glance at her when he thought she wasn’t looking.
Though hardly bashful then she actually felt her cheeks flush now which took her back to the warmth of his skin with that electricity of her first touch of his hand.
Then she saw him laughing, that beautiful laugh, in that tiny beaten tavern where he a gentleman seemed so out of place. It was such a wonderful time.
Only then the vision of that tavern began to warp to it now boarded up, locked away, untouched for far too long, and it seemed to reach a cold hand into her chest as she realised how it reminded her of his love. Maybe that love still existed within him but now it was as inaccessible as that tavern and just as unstable; likely to collapse if one attempted to force their way in. Her illusion of what had been had just been shattered and though her heart could no longer break, another crack formed in one of the shards that lay on the ground by his feet.
This was way too soon. She had to find a way to get out of here, but with every second that passed that just became harder.
“She used to be the manager,” Mad quickly explained, believing in her all honesty that she was helping. “She was hoping she could look around the old place again.”
“Well, I’d be glad to help,” Rada said immediately, his voice conveying a quiet eagerness to see this particular building. “That’s if it alright with you.”
This time Mad paused for a moment and eyed Wren to give the young woman a chance to answer. She knew it got to a point in a conversation where a young couple needed to be free from outside influences. To help with a sentence of two was no issue but just from what she felt in the room she was certain that this could very easily lead to activities where this young man would much prefer a young woman to Mad herself. She thought it was a pity, really.
“Yes, of course,” Wren answered slowly and softy, finally finding her words as she exhaled quietly, and managing somehow to hide the shaking she felt from her voice. It was such a struggle that she really wasn’t thinking of what would happen next as she concentrated entirely on the now. “I’d love your help.”
With all her focus she’d managed to make her attention return enough to the moment to observe that before she’d even finished talking Mad had started moving away. She was leaving them alone and Wren’s eyes flew rapidly wider. She definitely wasn’t ready for that yet.
“I think I’ll go look at those shelves now,” Mad announced loudly though much more clearly to Wren than to Rada as she moved very quickly to her bedroom and before the Betazoid even had a chance to object the door was closed behind her.
Though she knew it would be sensible to keep staring at the door she found herself unable to stop her eyes from finding him again. As she did, this room and the distance between them felt so much smaller. Now there was nothing more between them but her willpower; which she could almost take in her hands and feel crumbling.
“I have a little…” Rada started out slowly before he just had to stop and sigh then to ask a question about the continued lost look in Wren’s eyes. “Are you alright?
She heard such gentle concern and care that just made her want to scream that of course she wasn’t. Instead however she breathed deeply, bracing herself as well she could against the assaulting tide of this moment, before she responded.
“I’m just a little surprised,” she said with amazing calm as she tried desperately to remind herself of every reason why she couldn’t just shout that she loved him. “Mad said I’d be meeting someone called Daryl.”
Now she could see that Rada felt a little awkward as he brought his hand up to rub the back of his neck. She’d always felt he looked so sweet, so shy, when he did that. Her heart had never ceased to race a little faster since the first moment she’d seen it and with her panic already it now made it seriously threaten to seize up.
She had to get out of here and she glanced involuntarily to the door out for just an instant. He didn’t miss it though and the look in his eyes as he saw how stiff and anxious she was becoming, so clearly not wanting to be here, was enough that she hated herself for ever allowing it to happen. She could read her knowledge of him almost as easy as an open mind. He was wondering if she was scared of him.
“Well, the thing is that I’m sort of trying to start a bit of a new life here,” he explained, not meeting her eye line as if he were a great monster just trying to seem unintimidating to the innocent person caught in its path. “So as part of that I decided to try out a new name.”
“An Earth name,” Wren observed worriedly. Though it would have meant nothing to so many people, Wren knew how proud Rada was of his heritage. To take an Earth name was practically to denounce that entire life, thousands of years of history before it, as if one mistake outweighed it all.
“It makes things…simpler,” Rada answered finally and softly, so clearly wishing he could form a coherent lie.
She knew he must have been so desperate for people to not question his past. He wanted them to think he just belonged here. Obviously he lacked the knowledge and likely felt he lacked the strength to answer questions of what horrible thing he’d done to mean he had to come so far from where he started. It was hurting him but she couldn’t tell him that this atrocity that now ate away at his very soul, was to save the life of the woman he’d loved. Considering again the toll her love had taken from him, she wasn’t sure she even had a right to want it back. Then he looked up at her again, his mind so clearly at work, and she really didn’t care what was right.
“You’re not surprised?” He partially asked and partially said quietly to himself.
That was when she realised he’d spoken of starting a new life here and she didn’t react at all. She was no one special and if she knew then he must surely believe the entire ship did too. He probably thought they all considered him weak or cowardly, so now Wren had no motivation to go when to stay gave him a chance to see none of the hatred he surely felt he deserved anywhere in her eyes. There was only silent adoration.
He didn’t see anything though as he somehow missed a momentary glance of hers that should by rights have lit them both aflame. He was in so much pain that it left it impossible for him to feel. This silence between them, awkward in a way their silences should never be, was only hurting him now more.
“Why Daryl?” Wren asked immediately, the first question that came into her head, as this realisation struck her.
“It just came to me,” Rada replied uncertainly, not wishing to reveal that he’d seen the name scribbled repeatedly on one of the desecrated pages of the Bible in his room by someone he was sure felt more at home there than he. “It was either that or Engley.”
“Your middle name,” Wren thought aloud without really thinking at all.
“Yes...” Rada replied in a tone that asked how she could possibly know that and Wren’s heart seemed to want to leap from her chest in a very different way than it had when she first saw him. Then it was fear of what she right do whereas now it was terror of what she might just have done.
She rapidly started trying to go backwards.
“You once told me that it was how you got your Academy nickname,” she offered quickly, unintentionally holding her breath hoping as she did that it didn’t raise more questions. She couldn’t afford more questions now.
Then for what felt like an eternity he seemed to mull this story over in his mind, while she just shouted a telepathic prayer to the Betazoid gods.
“Of course,” he finally replied, clearly unconvinced but not wanting to admit to having forgotten telling her this.
Red, for Rada Engley Dengar, had been a nickname he rarely thought of let alone had any reason to bring up. In the entire time they’d known each other she’d only used it once and it was a moment that she could never have forgotten. He’d looked almost hurt and asked her not to use it. He’d hated that nickname but it didn’t matter to him if other people called him it. He’d never see many of them again. Yet he couldn’t bear the thought of hearing it for a lifetime…
So given his feelings for it he certainly had no reason to tell it to Wren, who to his mind he only met years after the Academy, so he didn’t know why he would. However much to her relief he clearly did know that he wanted to change this topic and quickly. His words however were of no relief to her.
“Look I’ve really finished everything I need to do here for the moment. I can help you get into your tavern straight away if you want me to,” he suggested and Wren’s mouth opened but no words spilled out.
Again she was assaulted by images, but they were no longer from her memories. Now she saw him on his knees on the street in front of that tavern as he wept for what he’d done, while the clockwork gears of his mind each disintegrated into sand, slipping onto the ground before them and being swept across the evening winds. Seeing that place again could be the thing that broke him and she couldn’t help herself from voicing her objection aloud.
“No!”
Had his reaction been to be mad then it would have been painful, but it would have been nothing compared to this look in his eyes like he thought he had everything in the world to apologise for.
He slowly exhaled and dropped his eyes down.
“I’m sorry. I should have realised you were just being polite,” he said softly, entirely sincere in his apology and his belief that she had every right not to want to involve him. He thought she was rejecting him. She found she couldn’t hold back anymore.
She suddenly jumped forward and pulled him into her arms so tightly, her hand moving up and down his back as her breathing got too heavy even whisper the thousands of words she needed to say to him right now. It’d been so long since she’d touched him let alone felt him pressed so close against her. She had missed it so much that tears started to form in her eyes as she felt his arms gripping her back.
In an instant she felt she had him back and it was as much joy as she had ever known in her life. Only then he started shaking and all the warmth she’d felt in him was gone. Now his pain was unshielded and his grip was not loving but desperate; like a blind man reaching out for an object, he knew not what, as he fell to the ground.
Now the tears in her eyes were truly flowing as she wondered what she’d done. He wasn’t ready yet. She may just have destroyed any hope that he had.
Wren Elton
Manager, Afterthought Café
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Manager, Afterthought Café
USS Serendipity NCC-2012