by Keiran O'Sullivan
Stardate 101020.20
Soundtrack: The Island by Celtic Thunder, featuring Keith Harkin
Concurrent with, and following, The Ultimate Risk
-=The Captain's Quarters, USS Serendipity=-
Stardate 101020.20
Soundtrack: The Island by Celtic Thunder, featuring Keith Harkin
Concurrent with, and following, The Ultimate Risk
-=The Captain's Quarters, USS Serendipity=-
Personal Log of Keiran O'Sullivan: Stardate:101020
Most people who have met her would tell you that Zanh Liis never cries.
Even, or should I say especially, those who work most closely with her are well aware of her loathing for tears. Her stubborn refusal to give in to her own held out through years of service, except under the most extreme circumstances and even then if she did cry, she did it alone.
That's not the end of it, though. Her awkward discomfort with similar emotional displays on the part of others is also well documented, whether tears of joy or sorrow. I believe the reason at the heart of this reaction was the fact that for so many years of her life she was, effectively, frozen. It could have been said of her, I suppose, that of all things, the only thing she was really afraid of was of breaking down and letting anyone see it.
Most would say that she just takes everything as it comes, lets it roll off of her shoulders and keeps right on going, roaring on into the next new day anxious and eager to seize all the opportunity that it holds.
Nothing fazes the tenacious, pernicious Zanh Liis- that's what most people have said. Love her or hate her, nothing could stop her or even knock her off stride: that was what everyone believed.
In times past, one of those people would even have been me.
No more.
It's not just the change in her since I married her in this current, so-called proper timeline in which we find ourselves living. The one I dreamed of more nights than I want to remember, and feared would never come because I knew I could never forget her.
The change came before that, or so she tells me, in the time she thought she'd really lost me, after only just recalling all that we had been and catching a glimpse of what we were still meant to be and would assuredly become, if only given the chance.
No longer do I believe what I once did about her limits, because mine are the shoulders onto which Zanh Liis' tears now fall.
I'll do my best to catch and dry every single one before the world at large should ever discover her secrets.
I'll hold her to my heart and keep her safe there. It's the only thing she's ever asked of me, truly, and something that I am only too eager to give her. Not once do my arms enclose her that I don't remember in that instant what it felt like to feel so removed from her- by light years of physical distance, by time and History itself, or held at bay by her own resequenced mind, which could not quite grasp just what it was at the time that was so familiar about me that, as she tells me now, looking into my eyes was "like staring directly into the sun- tempting, dangerous, and if done unprotected, destructive."
She's had to protect herself from so many things over the years. Fight so many uphill battles in wars she never would have personally waged. She's had to sacrifice, she's had to lie awake at night dreading the coming of the dawn when she'd have to face the consequences of her willful actions or worse, what she called her "stupid mistakes".
She always, however, did face them. Then, she kept doing what she'd always done: her best.
This is why it seems so intolerably cruel to me that she's had to suffer what she has, at the hands of a man who blamed her for things completely out of her control. Even still, when she was faced with not only the chance for revenge upon him but also to watch him literally destroy himself, after all the pain he'd caused her, she still couldn't accept it. Her conscience simply wouldn't let her allow it.
I'd tell her that she was showing the true meaning of righteous mercy in that moment, only if I did, she'd probably throw something at me, or at least remind me again that she's a rarity among her people: she's an atheist.
When we got back aboard the Sera two days ago...well, it was the middle of the night, but that's not the point. All she wanted to do was stand in the hot water, trying to wash away pain and misery that only really seemed to fully hit her the moment she stepped into our quarters.
The ship was so still, so absolutely lifeless in that hour. All who could sleep, slept. The rest tried to shake off the phantoms and nagging, unanswered questions and go about their duties. Those who have them on board, took their first chance to reconnect with their families. Some tried to contact members of crew still on Earth, to which we'd set course.
But Liis just stood there in the shower, until the skin of her fingertips wrinkled to match the ridges in that nose that make me absolutely weak in the knees. Until finally I gathered her into a towel, into my arms, and carried her to our bed.
I set her down upon it and to my surprise she grabbed hold of the headboard. She rattled it soundly, as if trying to make sure it was real and still bolted to the floor, as she remembered it. She mumbled something about it 'feeling real enough in her hand', and then, I saw the threads begin to unravel.
The blank stare she'd worn on her face since the moment they'd taken Brody away began to melt, withering away in the heat of a conflagration of tears. They fell silently at first, and I put my hand to her cheek and brushed them away, one by one. Then she dropped her face into her hands and her chest began to rise and fall so fast. She heaved in desperate gasps of air as her shoulders began to shake.
As gently as I could, I took her hands from her face and again turned her toward me. At last she fell into me, her head against my chest, and she sobbed.
I leaned my back up against that wooden headboard, the one I had crafted in every detail with my own two hands, and I held my wife to my heart and I promised her that I wouldn't let go.
She asked me how long we could stay that way, at once both hating and accepting of the fact we couldn't forever.
I told her we'd stay as long as she needed.
Then I told the computer to lower the lights, and as her tears trailed down my skin I tilted my head backwards, eyes toward the ceiling, trying to conceal from her the tears there that I could no longer fight.
Finally, she slept.
I watched her for the longest time, my hand just stroking through her hair as I kept her close beside me. Eventually I fell asleep too, and before I knew it, it was late afternoon the next day.
I managed to get out of bed without waking her and as I moved toward the replicator I heard my combadge sound, on the table beside the door right where I'd left it. It was McKay, and he would wait no longer to go over Liis with a fine-toothed comb. I warned him that she swore she wasn't leaving quarters or seeing anyone until we were in orbit of Earth or damn close to it, and he reminded me this wasn't a problem: he makes house calls.
So I asked him for fifteen minutes lead time and I returned to the bedroom with a tray. Coffee and toast, only, but something I hoped that she'd at least try.
When I woke her with a gentle kiss to the forehead she groaned, and responded by putting my pillow over her face.
When I told her I'd brought coffee she emerged, and actually allowed me to hand her the cup before she put it to her lips, tilted it back, and then stopped.
She set it aside without drinking a single sip, and I knew then that the road ahead of us was going to be longer and rougher than I had ever wanted to imagine.
After the doctor left--which he did only after we agreed he'd be back in the morning-- she sat on the edge of the bed, unmoving, for the longest time. She was still wearing my bathrobe, she realized, but she didn't care. I'd gotten cleaned up during her time with the doctor and asked if she'd let me take her to dinner in the lounge, she said no, she only wanted one thing, and that one thing was me.
What could I say to that?
She didn't cry anymore, that second evening, instead she seemed emotionless as she spoke of the things that Brody had done, and said. Of the beating she'd taken at the hands of his crew, of the memories of the place he'd replicated to imprison her mind and soul even more effectively than her body.
I told her how we'd been locked up, too, and how I had wanted so badly to get to her sooner. She said that it was all right, but part of me still wished that somehow, I could have prevented this ever happening to her.
God, I wish I could save her all the pain that life can bring. Were it in my power, I would, and she'd never know anything but happiness again.
Sure as God's in His Heaven if she agreed to it tonight I would take her back to Ireland for as long as she wanted. Forever, if that was what it took to put the light back into her eyes that I love so well.
Sometimes, I really don't think that woman will ever understand just how much it is that I truly love her.
We talked all night and into the small hours. Even as it was, with the things we discussed being so dark and filled with sadness, the hours still seemed somehow to tick by so quickly. The passage of time goes unnoticed, even to those of us who have lived and died by it, when it's spent with those we hold most dear.
Every time I've asked her the question, "What can I do for you?" she's only ever given me a singular answer. Two words of request, sometimes whispered, sometimes sighed. Sometimes she doesn't say the words at all, she just looks at me, with those eyes so deep and blue and complicated that I can't begin to fathom how a man could ever resist them.
The only thing she ever asks is for me to hold her.
Finally, this morning, we were informed that we're nearly to Earth, and Liis knew that it was time she had to go back out and face our world and all who populate it. This ship is a small world all its own, inhabited by a menagerie who have become more family than crew. Every family has its troubled children, and we've got a few of them that will have to be dealt with, one way or another. If they recognize they've strayed, then they'll likely do all right in the end. If they can't see the error in their ways, then their chances of continuing on aboard this ship, and in Starfleet itself, are questionable at best.
We've another whole world of trouble, dark and deep, waiting for us back at TI. No, that's wrong-not a world, more like a swamp: stagnant, swarming, murky waters difficult to navigate and populated by animals who will grab you by the throat and pull you under for the kill, given the slightest opportunity.
All the while, I will be watching over her.
She's gone to Sickbay, now. She's been there awhile, perhaps she decided to go straight to the bridge, afterward.
Or maybe she--
Keiran heard a noise below and immediately stopped tapping away on the PADD in his hands. With one final keystroke he closed the log and then set the device aside.
He rose from the large chair on the landing of the staircase between the loft and the ground floor of their quarters, resting his hands on the railing and staring downward. He'd first heard the door, now her unmistakable, inimitable footfalls.
"Liis?"
Without a word she raced up the stairs toward him. The moment she reached him she took hold of him and pulled him fiercely near to her, so close he could feel her heart beating against his chest.
"Liis, I thought," his voice changed tones when he realized she was shaking. He pressed his lips to the top of her head before he moved them next to her ear. "Hey now, what’s all this, then? Are ya alright?"
"I can't," she whispered, clasping on to him as if her life itself depended upon it. "I'm not ready yet. One day more, here, like this. Just us. Please."
"'Course, it's all right. Here, I'll..." he pulled away for just a moment, activating his badge. "O'Sullivan to Blane."
A tired version of a familiar voice returned his call. [Blane here.]
"The Captain and I will be returning to duty tomorrow morning, first thing." Keiran said. His eyes questioned Liis, and she nodded once in agreement.
[Very well. Anything you need?]
"Time, Thomas," Keiran whispered, pulling her closer to him again. "Nothin' else, just need a little more time."
-=/\=- Keiran O’Sullivan
Security Liaison
The Alchemy Project
Security Liaison
The Alchemy Project