1085: Pygmalion's Project: One

By Landry Steele
10513.2
Concurrent with Shattered Harmony

-=USS Serendipity=-


Landry Steele stood at the threshold of her quarters, wondering what would happen now if she tried to open the door.

Something had happened, she was certain of it. Something seriously wrong.

No one had come to check on her or attempt one last time to convince her to see reason. Not even Dane had come back for another try, and that told Landry that the situation on the ship was far more grim than she had ever wanted to imagine.

She had finished, as best she could for now, putting things in the room around her back into some sort of order. A futile exercise especially if the Sera was in, as she believed it was, serious danger of being blown to smithereens or collapsed in upon itself like a dying star.

Still, she had gone through the motions anyway.

After all, she'd had nothing better to do.

Nothing else was left but to continue to think of him, and remember things that would only make her feel worse.

They were hell, the memories of their first dinner together, because the rest of the evening-- something she couldn't stop herself from recalling just as clearly-- hurt so much worse to relive now.

Not that she truly ever could relive it. As vivid as the memories were and as many times as she'd tried to recapture them since she and Tucker had parted, there was no substitute for the warmth of his voice. No fantasy could match the touch of his hand. No dream, day or night could effectively reproduce the intoxicating thrill of his kiss.

Usually, as difficult as it was ever to do, she was capable of forcing herself to shut those memories out, or at least stop them before they reduced her to tears. Tonight, everything was different.

The more time that passed on this worst night she'd ever known the harder it became to banish his ghost.

-=Flashback, 2387 Current Timeline: Earth=-


She was intoxicated, though it had nothing whatsoever to do with the wine. Tucker Brody was her drug of choice and one for which she was developing a serious, inescapable addiction.

Being in his presence produced a high that set her heart pounding at dangerous new speeds. Her skin tingled with an energy she'd never known; her inhibitions slipped effortlessly down her body and onto the ground around her.

She was lost in this moment to every sensation but the almost electric charge from his lips as his mouth met with hers, and she wouldn’t have had it any other way.

They clung to each other in the entrance to his home, where just moments before she’d nervously tried to suggest she should go.

She found they were moving further inward, into the foyer but she was really too distracted to care. Her head held between his warm hands, each of his kisses more powerful than the last.

Any other time she was sure she’d have been fascinated to study every detail of the house, to learn all the secrets that it spoke about the man who lived in it. Now however she was in too little control of herself to notice them- a true captive to the images her mind so vibrantly held of how the rest of this evening might play out.

It’d been such a perfect night; one which she’d only not call magical because she knew that he’d worked to make it this way.

He'd caused reactions in her so much stronger than any spell, with his hands and his voice and with that brilliant mind that as hard as it was to believe, must be real.

When they’d left the restaurant she’d expected him to be taking her home and that she would perhaps be graced with a polite goodnight kiss. Instead he’d brought her here and this eternal moment felt far more than a kiss for the night. It was instead the kiss of a lifetime; the kind that women come to believe, after a certain age, only existent in fairy stories.

It honestly had been her intention to make a hasty retreat the moment she saw his front door.

His home was everything thing he was and all she could have expected it to be. It was situated on a secluded little street, behind an iron railed fence, where none would find it unless he wished them to. Its design was timeless and it was strong. With Victorian redbrick walls and round-arched windows, this large house somehow shone of warmth, brilliance, and elegance no matter the light.

Yet something in the ancient structure was frightening, and frightened was exactly how she’d felt as they had approached it. It wasn’t really a fear of the house, but of how she felt for him and just what they could be.

She was already feeling things she had no entitlement to; not after only an evening. She felt so much unlike herself now, as each desire built and those wants seemed so much more a right with each progressive kiss.

She couldn’t believe any kiss could render her so utterly willing to chuck aside her lifelong hesitance to seem anything less than a lady- which it did- if he didn’t feel the same way.

Whatever she was feeling though and as insignificant as it now seemed, he’d somehow known it exactly. She had been almost shaking beneath his gaze, stumbling awkwardly around her words for an explanation as to why she should go.

Those piercingly beautiful eyes had searched hers. He’d just kept staring into her eyes and her soul, saying everything without a word, erasing her very last shred of resistance.

In her silence he’d taken her hand in his and leaned in closer, his breath on her cheek, as he whispered with such strength, “Don’t be frightened, darlin’. Not of what you might become.”

Those words had sent her heart into overdrive and it was far too late for her to put a stop to any of it. Anything he wanted from her he was free to not only take, but she was so much more than willing to give to him.

She had been vaguely aware of the lights coming on around them and of the sound of that door closing behind. She was far too entranced by his nearness to process what those sounds meant; literally and symbolically. All she could think as they kept moving further inside was that she hoped he would never let go.

Letting go was exactly what Tucker did next.

Confusion spread rapidly over her face. Her heart plummeted as she felt his lips part with hers and his hands moved away from her face.

She opened her eyes to find him grinning as he leaned his forehead in, not quite touching her own. It was the knowing smirk of a man sensing his victory was near, and he let her wait a good long time before a simple yet unstoppably powerful question washed over her.

“So darlin’," he murmured, "what would ya like to do now?”

-=End Flashback=-


That night had truly been the most unforgettable of her life.

Truly unforgettable, in that the memory of him and of it was so engraved into her soul that no amount of memory resequencing had been able to wear it away.

That alone was enough to make the tears bite harder now as she considered everything that she could never have again.

It wasn’t that she was selfish, in fact if she’d been able to let herself think only of the thrills she could have then she’d have had countless more nights like that since then. It was the fact that she couldn’t allow herself to become what he wanted that had cost her the greatest love she'd ever known.

She knew that she’d had no choice, but that didn’t stop the overwhelming regret she now felt. She had lost things that she’d never really had, including perhaps affection he’d never really give.

From the very next morning he had set to work on his small changes, in so many ways she was blind to at the time. Now she could see them so clearly and they should have made it easier not to think of all they could have been.

No matter how much she tried to resent them and him for them, they never offered her any real solace.

-=Flashback=-


She had woken the next morning with a smile on her face and lazily groped her hand around his bed in hopes of finding Tucker where she’d left him. She felt a contentment she never had before, as she thought of him being there beside her.
Her smile only faded when that hand found only empty space, and she opened her eyes to discover she was alone. Then she frowned.

She didn’t want to be alone.

Before she could begin to worry though, she heard a beautiful, faint sound. Many of the words were unclear, but what was undeniable that it was the sound of his singing voice coming up from the floor below. Craning her neck she listened hard to try to make out the lyrics.

“You’ve traveled down some dusty roads and slept out in the rain, but this yellow rose is always here when you come home again…”

She’d never heard this song before but it was one she was determined to commit now to memory. She was also determined that she’d hear it coming from him in person.

As her senses now began to focus she recognized the smell of bacon frying as it carried on the air. He must have been making them breakfast and she decided that she should join him. Judging from the angle of the warming streaks of light that webbed together and bridged themselves a path from the window to her position in the bed, she decided it might even be closer to time for lunch.

Even with the bright sunlight it was still cold in this room. That alone could have made her reconsider leaving the bed. Then she smiled as she saw that hanging on a hook on the door was a lacy, feminine robe; a design much more likely meant for her than for him. Throwing back the blankets and reluctantly placing her bare feet onto the freezing floor, she hurried over and quickly wrapped the soft garment around herself, appreciating both the robe’s warmth and its luxurious texture as she did. Then she smiled again, wondering what Tucker might think of her in this.

Judging by the color and the care he'd taken in replicating it, she grinned with the realization that he likely already had.

Agent Landry Steele
Temporal Investigations
Aboard the USS Serendipity NCC-2012