1128: The Rise and Fall of Silence

by William Lindsay and -=/\=-Keiran O'Sullivan
Stardate 101201.12
Soundtrack: Brothers in Arms, as recorded by Celtic Thunder, featuring Ryan Kelly
During and after Here, There, and Everywhere

-=/\=-

-=The O'Sullivan Residence=-

The previous murmurs of conversation were all but inaudible now. The farther their steps drew them from the porch, the more the silence between the two men became painfully obvious.

It was not one of their usual, comfortable silences; the simple kind that partners in work and the closest of friends can share and exist in and find it restorative. Instead this was the most difficult and painful variety. It was that silence that settles like a dense fog between two people wrestling tiredly with emotions they'd rather not deal with at all. It was the kind that can sink a friendship, no matter how strong, straight to the bottom of the ocean if someone didn't find the courage to first attempt to break it.

As stubborn as both men could be, neither one of them was willing quite yet to make that first sacrifice of pride. The only sound that filled the air was the pattern of their footfalls, as boots again and again struck the soft Cork ground.

They walked side by side, step by step, but neither man looked over to see the other’s face. Keiran’s eyes looked dead forward, occasionally falling to watch his feet strike the ground, but his mind was clearly far away.

Will glanced around the surrounding land a few times but ultimately his eyes never strayed far from the area directly in front of them.

Will only stopped to look around again as O'Sullivan paused to take in the view of the house in the distance. Just barely, Keiran's eyes could make out Liis' shadow as the porch light shone down upon her. If he focused very carefully, he could see her earring glinting in the light and, as she reached up to twist the chain of it, the refracted colors emanating from the facets of the stones in her wedding band.

He had no doubt that she was the single reason that Will had come to dinner tonight- had to be, because Keiran had never invited him.

As difficult as it would have been, a large part of him, perhaps the best part of him, still felt guilty about that fact now. Here he'd opened his home to the crew of the Sera, specifically those of the command crew; those who were family, this night. Yet he'd neglected to include the man who was closer than his family could ever be- that troubled, wayward younger-brother figure that he could never quite figure out if he wanted to protect or strangle with his own two hands.

That choice however would have to be made later, as that younger man’s patience for this silent walk ran out, and in deference it seemed to the position Keiran had always held in their partnership, he spoke first.

“Tis a beautiful garden ye’ve got here,” Will finally volunteered, though he was unable to hide the effort in his tone.

“Thanks,” Keiran mumbled, not angrily but with the speed of a man not encouraging conversation. He began walking again, slow steps that never changed to the long and rapid strides of which he was so easily capable, suggesting that even if he didn’t want to be here he knew he should be.

“Yeah,” Will muttered tiredly in agreement.

As they continued to walk once more in silence, out the corner of his eye Keiran then glanced over to Will for a second, wondering whether looking at him would feel different this time than all the last. Finding it really didn’t, he quickly returned to looking forwards again.

"Time for a question." Keiran decided, forcing himself to stop walking and truly look William in the eye.

Will simply nodded.

"Are you here of your own accord or did she insist upon it?"

"She asked. She did'na insist."

"Ah." It wasn’t that it was his intention to make this difficult on William, but at the same time he just didn’t know what he expected of him. Keiran let out a deep and sullen sigh. "I know how Liis 'asks' for things. Has a way of gettin' under yer skin and ya just can't say no to her."

"I could've said no to her. Unlike you, O'Sullivan, I'm not under the impression that all the worlds love Zanh Liis. I for one could take her or leave her." For just an instant, the spark returned to Will's eyes, and when it disappeared again it became all too clear to Keiran just how much this past mission; this assignment at TI, had taken out of him.

"You nearly did."

The words were spoken before Keiran could stop himself, and he could tell by the change in Will's posture that they hit harder than any physical blow could have.

"I may not have looked before I leapt, Keiran, and gotten her in deeper than I ever intended, that's true, every word of it. Whatever mistakes in judgment I made, I swear, never in a million years of time linear or otherwise did I ever intend upon leavin' her behind. Not to save my own ass, not to save yours and not to save anyone else's!"

"To save the timeline, then."

"Hey, now." Will raised his hands in a defensive gesture and out of habit, used Keiran's signature 'stop there and not another step' turn of phrase. "She's TI as much as you or I will ever be. She knows that we're expected to give our lives or the lives of those dearest to us to save the timeline. She would have died if that was what it took, and willingly."

"For the timeline, yeah. For Brody's revenge? Hell, no." Keiran folded his arms and gave a truly irritated sigh. “What d’ya want from me, William?"

Will was surprised by the directness of the question, and had to think for a second to really know what to say.

Keiran continued. "Is there somethin' specific, or are ya just here to lecture me on codes of conduct that I taught ya to begin with?”

“I don’t really know what I want,” he answered. “Forgiveness would be nice but I know I’ve no right ta expect ta get it. What I don’t want though is fer things ta be like this between us forever.”

The suddenly new expression on Keiran’s face, reflective and almost absent, said that he didn’t want that any more than Will did. He just wasn’t sure how to change things back.

“Forgiveness is a fine thing,” Keiran acknowledged. “I know yeh don’t believe in it, but I was always taught the Lord can forgive us any sin. God knows I’ve been glad many times mehself ta know that’s true.”

“Well, maybe the book makes some good points now and then,” Will offered with as much respect as he could ever muster for Keiran’s faith, though it was clear that Keiran couldn’t simply change how he felt no matter the book that said he should. He opened his mouth to make a flip remark about how maybe he should retrieve the copy Keiran had given him as a gift years before from beneath the wobbly coffee table where it balanced out uneven legs, but quickly bit the words back, thinking he liked his teeth in his mouth and knowing Keiran was beyond the end of his patience already.

“I know I’m no saint, William,” Keiran muttered, shuffling his massive weight from foot to foot as his boots began to leave indentations in the soil below. “I do want to forgive ya, but it’s just it’s not as easy as it ought ta be.”

There was a pause as Will wondered whether there was even any point in asking the next question.

“Why’s that?” Will finally said, with neither anger nor curiosity but with simply acceptance that he wouldn’t be able to change it even knowing the reason. "Why is this time any different from before?"

“Deciding on forgiveness is easy. Something they never really covered in Sunday services was how you were supposed to make the anger go away. Men tryin' to follow the example led by Christ are supposed to be better than that. Better than this. I swear, I could be, if it were different. I'd keep turning the other cheek until Kingdom come. But she...what this did to her.” He exhaled sharply. "I'm angry at you, William. Am really, really angry and I don' know just how ta let go of it."

Despite the tone of Keiran's voice, Will's mood lightened for the moment. He knew O'Sullivan could never hang on to anger very long. Bitterness had been another thing, but the Irishman's anger usually burned hot and fast and then soon dissipated. "Ya know, this isn’t the first time I’ve done something ta really piss you off.”

“I know that ta be sure,” Keiran answered. For merely a second a slight smile crept to his lips, before falling completely away to leave only his previous unhappy expression. He looked down at the ring upon his left hand and then back to the house, and Will knew the reason that he was having such a hard time this time around. It wasn't that he had to forgive Will now for anything he'd done to him, it was the pain and suffering Will's decisions had caused Liis that Keiran still fought with.

"It’s different this time,” Will finished the thought without Keiran even having to.

“Is always different with Liis. You know that.” Keiran rotated now, head, shoulders, then his entire form, at last, toward the man who, aside from Liis, had been for years his closest friend and confidant. "She's tough, is true. She's been through things that leave grizzled old soldiers cringing and sick ta their stomachs to hear about. But she has a limit, William. She can be broken, and you and I have both seen how close Brody brought her to that. If you'd told me, or her...if we'd known-"

"Aye I know, Keiran. For all it’s worth I really am sorry." Will's expression was devoid of any sense of irony or sarcasm now- he was entirely sincere. "If I could turn back the hands and do it over, I would, you know that. But I can't. So I'm askin', if I told you that, upon my word, I'd never let anything like it happen again, then, do you think that in time you might find your way to look me in the eye and shake my hand just the same as you've always done?"

Keiran stared at him, unflinching, as he considered. After a moment his eyes flashed from rage to sorrow and he closed them as in that instant he relived, not at all by choice, many of the times they'd saved each other's lives, fought with each other and for each other, and always managed to come out of any struggle closer friends than they'd been before.

Will seemed to read his mind, and spoke to the memories playing out in it. "Am not askin' for any favor based upon anything we've been through in the past," he clarified. "I'm not askin' for it today. Not even a year from now. Hell, I know it's gonna take a long time before you can look at me and see anything but the interior of that holosuite on the Poseidon, and Liis suffering in it." He looked away now, struggling against things he did not care to even stop pretending weren’t there.

"If you want'ta know the truth of it, Keiran, is gonna be a long time before I look in the mirror without seeing that, myself." He let his words sink in before going on. "I have no right to expect your forgiveness, and if it turns out that you can't give it at all, is not gonna change the way I look at you. You're the best man I've ever known, Keiran. Even if I can't have your friendship now, am willin' to wait for it."

Keiran shivered suddenly, and as he looked back toward the house he saw the last of the shadows surrounding Liis fade away in the haze of a transporter. It was getting late, and he hadn't really had a single chance to talk to her since she'd been back to Medical. He was anxious for this to be over, just as he knew Lindsay was. Though he knew himself better than to believe that it would be completely over tonight or even in the days immediately to come, he also knew that he'd hate himself if it never ended at all.

He started walking back towards the house without saying another word, and William dutifully followed.

Just before they reached earshot, Keiran spun on him. "You're leavin', on a Jump. Aren't you?"

Will nodded. "Jonas is back, Keiran, that's my cue. There's a ship waiting for me."

Keiran blinked. "Soon?"

"Yeah. Soon."

Keiran reserved his reaction about Jonas Vox' return to the director's chair for another time, and focused on the man before him. "You're gonna come back to us in one piece, aren't ya?" He said, with just enough of a pause before he spoke the words to confirm he really meant any concern that could be read into them.

At hearing the question, Will's shoulders finally relaxed. "Aye, I am." He didn't give Keiran his trademark, wise-ass grin now, but his eyes did light up with the mischief of which only he was truly capable. "I rather like all my parts where they are. I'd hate to disappoint all the ladies waitin' upon my return to this timeline."

Keiran turned an about face and continued to walk, a slight worried smile on his face in the knowledge that he didn’t know whether it was a good or a bad thing that Will never seemed to change. They reached the foot of the porch and Liis slowly descended the steps to meet them. Both men inclined their heads toward her in greeting.

"Gentlemen." She folded her arms and rocked her weight from her heels to her toes. "Have a nice chat?"

"Yeah." Keiran said, his eyes unable to leave her face for a moment now to look at anything else. "Did. William?"

"We did at that. Now, I," he stepped closer to Liis and offered his hand. "I'd best be goin'. You know how I feel about early mornings."

"Yes. Like me, you prefer to hear from others how they went after they're over." Liis finally looked at Will directly, and then she did something neither man was expecting.

When she took his hand, she pulled him closer and clasped him into a hug. She held on for a long moment and when she drew back, she placed a quick kiss upon his cheek. When she drew back, tears glimmered in her eyes but did not fall. "Safe journeys, William."

Unsure what he should do or say, Will simply nodded. "You too, Captain." He turned then and looked at O'Sullivan. Very slowly, he extended his hand. "Keiran."

"William." Keiran grasped on, and shook it once, firmly. "I don't have my compass an'a'more, mind? Can't come and bail you out this time."

“Aye,” Will acknowledged, with an understanding in his eyes that Keiran found truly surprising. “I know ye’ve other things that ya need ta be doin’ anyway.”

Keiran could tell that in his own way, Will was supporting his attitude that the timeline and all else in it could be damned before Liis ever became any less than his top priority. Feeling her hand now tightly grasping his, Keiran realised Liis could tell that too.

“Besides,” Will added, a smile creeping onto his features, “the trouble ya get into when yer getting yerself outta trouble is often when you have the most fun.”

“Mind you don’t have too much fun, yeah?”

The smirk now thoroughly settled onto Will’s face. “And you mind you don’t have too little. Otherwise I might have ta come back ta make things interestin’ again.”

The look between both men’s eyes said that for however things may have been between them now, they both hoped they would be seeing one another again soon. Liis squeezed Keiran’s hand tighter again, as if to say that in her opinion they would.

“Lindsay to Vanguard,” Will said, finally hailing the vessel in orbit. “Beam me up.”

The moment the last of Will's transporter signature faded, Keiran immediately grasped hold of Liis, once again pulling her into his arms and holding her so tight that her feet no longer touched the ground.

Captain William Lindsay
USS Vanguard
Temporal Investigations

and

-=/\=- Keiran O'Sullivan
Security Liaison for The Alchemy Project
Stationed aboard the USS Serendipity NCC-2012

1121: How Easy We Forget

by William Lindsay
101021.1930
A Few Days After The Ultimate Risk

-=USS Serendipity=-

Like a sore animal after a very long and painful day, the Serendipity had finally limped home. Finally once more in orbit of the Earth, the TI ship having dropped her off some distance away to let her travel back on her own power, officers and civilians alike breathed a sigh of relief.

For some the Earth was either a first or second home. For others it was just a nice place to visit. For all though it was solid ground; a safe place to which they could return to stock up on supplies and to enact their well-needed repairs.

For William Lindsay though, this time, it was something more. When he last left he did so in the knowledge that he would not be returning to his post as Director of Temporal Investigations. He hadn’t much time left in his scheduled six months anyway, but he was certain that no one got to lock down the entire department and then let a ship as dangerous as the Poseidon get away without being at the very least asked to step very far to the side during the ensuing investigation.

Frankly, Will couldn’t give a damn about the position anyway. There was too much responsibility, too many restrictions, far too much paperwork, and very few ways an honest man could have any fun with it. The quicker he could get back to being Captain William Lindsay: Jumper Extraordinaire, the better.

Besides, there were far more important things to be concerned about. By his actions, the man he respected most in the worlds could so nearly have been killed, and more importantly to the man himself he almost lost his wife in the process. As much as William Lindsay may have seemed to some as the type of man to embody the saying; ‘out of sight, out of mind’, some things he simply didn’t forget and this was definitely one of them. He knew it’d likely be a while, if ever, before Keiran forgave him fully for what had happened.

As they walked together towards the Serendipity’s transporter room, the silence from the Irishman was a different kind than just his naturally quiet manner. It wasn’t angry; it was just an unusual brew of personal worries about the woman he loved, and all the completely usual questions they brought.

Will could surely think of many things to say to give him a reason to speak up; at least three of them each involving one of the more voluptuous female saints, and one of them involving all three, but for all the good it could do to get the man to relax once in a while, it just wasn’t the time for that now.

“I’ll bet Liis’ll be glad ta be gettin’ her crew back in ta one piece again,” Will suggested, merely making conversation.

“Mostly one piece,” Keiran replied; explaining the remark though his mind was clearly still on his wife. “Lieutenant Ryn has been offered a chance at what she’s callin’ the ‘dig of a lifetime’ on Trill. So she’s already on her way there. We’re also losin’ Mellice from security. We’d barely pulled into orbit before we got an Admiral by the name of Harris on subspace. He didn’t say what but apparently he’s got some important top secret mission, and Mellice’s the only man who’ll do.”

Will nodded, suspecting the two of them would not be the last to want to take the chance to transfer off ship while they were here at the Earth. The truth was that for all but the truly fortunate, life in Starfleet rarely involved standing still.

“At least the Alchemy’s back in her bay,” Will added, again trying to make some attempt at small talk.

Keiran nodded his agreement but said nothing, leaving them with another moment of silence as they arrived at the transporter room door. Suddenly Keiran stopped in his tracks and Will turned to see what was wrong.

“William, this won’t take long, yeah?” he asked eyeing the door. Even though Tucker Brody was no longer on board, and she’d officially returned to duty this morning, Keiran was clearly still not happy about the idea of being apart from Liis.

She’d asked him to come along here to ‘keep William from making any more trouble’. In truth she had to know that once the Sera broke orbit it could be a while before Keiran and Will saw each other again, and so if there were some things that still needed to be said it was better they be said now.

“Not long,” Will replied. “I best just run meh eye over the place. See how much progress Andrews made ta getting her up and runnin’ before he left.”

“I’ve studied the preliminary reports. Accordin’ to them the lockdown’s been basically completely undone.”

“Aye, but one thing they didn’t mention was the state of the bottle of Romulan ale I left in meh desk. They’re a bloody valuable item nowadays, ya know?”

Keiran offered no real response to the remark, and Will once again considered whether bringing up those saints wouldn’t be the worst thing. Of course, he knew enough of the Catholic faith to understand that there was one woman for whom he’d only need to so much as question her virginity to get a response.

Will was in fact entirely prepared to do just that, a marked irritation entering his features that Keiran was so much in his own head, before something inside him once more told him this just wasn’t the time for it. He breathed a slight sigh; apparently one in frustration, yet that irritation was nowhere to be found in his tone when next he spoke.

“How’s she doing?” Will finally asked, softly so as to make sure no one overheard him.

This was followed by a long pause on Keiran’s part, leading Will to question whether he’d even be getting an answer. He soon found though that Keiran was just carefully considering what he should and for that matter could say.

“She’s makin’ progress,” he finally responded, knowing it was the best thing you could say after an ordeal like Liis went through. She had made progress to the point where the trio of judges; Liis, Keiran and Doctor McKay, all felt she was ready to be back on her bridge. There was still a long way to go though.

Will nodded that he understood, and then sighed, realising that his friend had things he needed to be doing right now, even if that just meant staying nearby just in case, instead of spending the time with him.

“Wish her well for me,” Will finally added. “Tell, her I hope to get back to see ya before you break orbit.”

“Aye, I will,” Keiran replied, nodding to his friend. A sudden uneasiness overtook him, and he ran his hand over his beard in a thoughtful gesture. “Tread lightly, William.”

Will grinned. “What fun is that? You know me, O’Sullivan. Where angels fear to tread, I dance.” Will’s voice faded as he continued down the hall on his way, still talking. “And dance, well too. With the most beautiful woman in the room in my arms.”

Keiran couldn’t help but smile as much as his current mood allowed. Some things never did change.

-=Transporter Room Three=-

Will stepped alone through the transporter room door.

Looking up and seeing him Crewman Parrish quickly began to work the console.

“I have your coordinates already loaded, sir.”

A slight grin curled at the corner of Will’s lips.

“That eager to get rid of me, are ya?”

“No, sir,” Parrish answered, hoping his actions hadn’t been misunderstood. “I’ve just received the correction, sir.”

A look of confusion passed over Will’s face, indicating that he’d made no such request.

“What sort of correction would that be?”

“Just a small one, sir. Approximately seven metres from the previous coordinates.”

By Will’s reckoning, that’d be just enough to place him outside of his office instead of in. Apparently someone in TI, likely whoever had been left in his chair, had decided that his travel plans needed a little bit of a tweak.

While he could have gotten himself beamed to the original coordinates anyway, ‘unauthorised’ transports into Temporal Investigations had a way of causing people to overreact. For seven metres it really wasn’t worth it.

Moving to take his place on the transporter pad, Will nodded to Parrish.

“Energise.”

-=Headquarters of Temporal Investigations, Earth=-

Soon he found himself rematerialising in the office of the Assistant of the Director of the department of Temporal Investigations. Though he’d not really thought of it before he’d arrived, Will now spared a thought for what had happened to the woman who’d last occupied this office. It was funny how quickly so much anger you have for a person when you’re looking at them can just turn to sadness when they were gone.

His thoughts were quickly, or at least outwardly, replaced as he realised she’d been replaced as well. Behind her desk now sat a far younger woman. Will immediately observed that she was the type of woman who’d have made doing his job a hell of a lot harder and so smiled at her accordingly as he approached.

“Captain Lindsay,” she said, though it almost sounded like it’d been meant to be a question. How she said it wasn’t disrespectful. Her tone however was purely and unenthusiastically one of business, suggesting to Will that she might not have been as much fun as an assistant as he thought. His smile diminished slightly with the realisation, then even more as she lifted a box from under the desk and placed it in front of them. Sticking out the top, there was the unmistakable neck of his bottle of Romulan Ale.

“What’s all this?” Will asked as he pulled the box towards himself, and started rummaging through it. It appeared that the entire personal contents of his desk had been emptied into here.

“Of all the bloody cheek…” he complained under his breath.

Evidently whoever had been selected to run the place in his absence had made themselves right at home already. He’d expected they’d at least wait until he’d officially been unofficially asked to step aside before they started redecorating.

Were he here Will knew Keiran would have seen the plan forming in Will’s head to give the new man a piece of his mind, and given this person was, even if just temporarily, the new department head, he’s also have suggested that was a bad idea.

*Y’ve got yer things. We’ll get back to the ship now, yeah?* he could almost hear Keiran’s voice prompting him.

“The Director specifically asked that I invite you and Commander O’Sullivan to see him while you’re here,” the young woman said, her tone giving no indication as to why. “Is the Commander not with you, sir?”

“He specifically asked to see both of us?” Will asked curiously. He understood why the new man might have wanted to see himself but what he’d want with Keiran was less certain.

“Yes, sir, the Director’s instructions were quite clear.”

“Aye, well I’m afraid I’m all he’ll get. O’Sullivan’s not comin’.”

The young woman looked a little worried, evidently not too happy about the idea of her new boss not getting what he wanted. It gave Will pause to wonder just what type of man he was, and fear as he knew one man who could inspire just that type of fear in an assistant.

Curious, but with a bad feeling about what he’d get when that curiosity was satisfied, he placed down his belongings and moved in quickly the direction of his former office. Will didn’t bother to knock as he pulled open the door.

It was then that is bad feeling was turned quickly from disgust to outright rage with what, or rather who, he saw sitting behind his desk.

It was none other than the slight smile, distinctive nose and shining bald head of Admiral Jonas Vox; a pile of paperwork having already formed in front of him.

The last time anyone had seen Jonas Vox it was Keiran when he was being led away in handcuffs for his actions which had caused the Cascade that, until recently, Tucker Brody had been using to torment his wife. Were he here, Keiran would have done his best to hold his tongue because he knew if he let it loose it’d say something he’d regret. He’d have clenched his fists for much the same reason.

Will however often fell a little short of Keiran’s level of restraint.

“What the bloody hell are you doing here?!” He unceremoniously demanded, marching his way towards his old desk and almost knocking off the African violet plant that’d now taken its place there.

Vox pretended not to notice Will’s shock or frustration, just leaning back into his chair comfortably.

“Time off for good behaviour. So they tell me,” Vox answered as close to cheerfully as he could manage. The man looked a little older but sounded almost rested after his time away. “I don’t remember any of it, of course.”

The last time Keiran had looked upon this face he’d described him as a defeated man, but now most cuttingly of all Vox was actually smiling. Evidently the resequencing that followed his six- month sentence, now cut short, had been completely successful; likely in removing not just the memory of the sentence but even the crime.

“So, that’s it, is it?” Will scoffed. “Yer little vacation’s just over and yer back the same place ya always were.”

“That’s right,” Vox answered smugly, sounding as though six months away from the demands of power, and the headaches of Zanh Liis, had if anything just relaxed him. “I was told you helped out around here in my absence, Captain.” His tone was juts mildly disapproving; as if to say Will wouldn’t have been his first choice for the position but he seemed not to work out too badly. “I just thought you’d like to know that the department’s in good hands.”

Will scoffed, knowing exactly what happened to the agency in Jonas Vox’s hands. That was when the corruption ran wild; the same corruption that he’d been brought in here to stop, and which he wondered how long it’d take before Vox began to build up again. Thinking of this was when Will remembered something which he’d hoped would have put if not Jonas himself then many of his comrades still unexposed under lock and key for a very long while.

“What about the file?” Will asked, his tone indicating he didn’t expect he was going to like the answer.

Jonas raised an eyebrow, feigning confusion.

“What file is that?”

Will’s eyes did not move from Vox as he slowly and firmly spoke each word, so Vox could have no chance to later claim to have misunderstood this.

“It was taken from a PADD a man by the name of Jamieson gave ta me. It was locked but it contained a hell of a lot on the corruption in this department.” Will made a point of ensuring Jonas was really listening to what he said next, leaning in a little closer over the desk. “I already launched a formal investigation to crack it open when I was sitting in that chair.”

He’d also kept a copy, backed up to the Sera’s computer, though he thought it best to keep that little bit of information to himself.

Vox’s expression did not alter with the news.

“Oh, that file,” Jonas replied, clearing his throat and pretending just to have remembered. “Don’t worry about that. We’re certainly working on it. I’ve chosen just the people for the job.”

*I’ll bet you did,* Will thought, certain that by the time they got to see it no one Jonas wanted protected would have their name showing up anywhere on that file.

Will was now prepared to turn away and storm out in disgust but there was another question he needed to have answered.

A look of curiosity crossed Vox’s face as he was counting all the differences in Will’s demeanour to the last time he remembered seeing him. He wondered if the reason for his time away hadn’t been something to do with him. More likely though it’d been something to do with Zanh Liis; very little trouble in his life had ever not been related somehow to Zanh Liis.

“Ya said you wanted to see Keiran too,” he mumbled, his words unusually stilted, as inside he was thinking not just of all the pain this man had caused to Keiran and Liis but, on Keiran’s behalf, remembering what he’d done to the entire crew of the USS Perseids.

“Yes, I did,” Vox answered, contemplating the way Will was addressing him. “Actually I was looking through his file before after I heard his name come up. I was curious. There doesn’t appear to be any record of his current assignment…”

Then in an instant Will’s anger seemed to slip away and in spite of himself he was smiling. The speed with which it happened was quite disarming to Vox and it showed.

Vox didn’t know, but now Will did, that all his knowledge of the Alchemy Project really had been resequenced away, just as they’d promised it would be. The entire first year of its operation would be gone from his memory. Maybe in time he’d figure it out, but this meant right now he wouldn’t even know which ship Liis and Keiran were on, let alone that she and O’Sullivan had married. For once the mighty Jonas Vox couldn’t interfere in their lives. For once he was the one in the dark.

“He retired,” Will answered still smiling, and in terms of Temporal Investigations it really was accurate.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Vox said in surprise that Will would even say it; believing that no one ever really retired from Temporal Investigations.

“Ya shouldn’t be. He’s never been happier.”

“Yes…” Vox was clearly confused, not liking this feeling that Will knew something important that he didn’t. “Well I’ve got a lot of paperwork to catch up on. Tell O’Sullivan though that if he ever wants to return to active duty, he knows where to find me.”

“Aye,” Will answered in a way that made Vox firmly believe Will knew Keiran had no intention of ever seeing him again. “I do.”

Captain William Lindsay
Jumper Extraordinaire
Temporal Investigations

NRPG: Bravo, Captain Lindsay- and thank you again for keeping the ship afloat while I’ve been so sick this year. We couldn’t have made it through without your hard work and dedication. Thank you. ~ZL

1117: Forks in the River

by Denise Moreno
101007.2300
After Galatea’s Last Gift

-=The Temporal Investigations Ship Commanded by Paul Andrews=-

Misery should by all rights have been granted no physical form. It was an intangible quantity; that empty draining suffering that spilt upward from one’s heart to pool upon the curves of their face. Yet the pathetically sullen site of this one old woman, sitting silently in the darkness of her cell, with her head bowed low and her eyes half closed, could have been given no other name.

She was not crying. Sadness brought one to tears. True misery placed one on the other side of them. So instead Denise simply sat unmoving, attempting to draw in a breath so deep that it containing some spark of the life that had left her, but finding her lungs possessed no such strength right now.

She’d felt trapped for decades in this life, so perhaps she shouldn’t have felt so closed in between the four walls that now surrounded her. Yet there was one hint of freedom; that flickering flame of foolish hope, that had until the lock on her door had first clicked shut somehow kept her heart from freezing. That flame had been sustained in her dreams, the cruellest part of any human being that you can ever take away, which had for longer than she realised let her look up to imagine something more. Her eyes however were now directed to the floor, her body nearly too limp to ever stand again, as she asked herself how it’d possibly come to this.

It was a curious and destructive sensation when one realised that with all the wrong they’d done that even giving away their only chance at happiness; the very sacrifice of all they had just to do what was right, gave them no sense of pride. She’d sworn to herself that she’d stop feeling sorry for herself though, so she felt no pity for the woman she’d become.

She was alone here. That was only naturally how she’d always ended up. Whether out of fear for her safety, or some passing respect for her meaningless former station, they’d separated her from the rest of the crew into the smallest cell in the brig of this ship; from a far younger and more necessary generation, than the one she’d once commanded.

Her ship, the once great and mighty USS Poseidon, was dead.

Her engines were burnt out before he’d arrived and Paul Andrews hadn’t wanted to bother dragging her all the way back home. So after she’d been stripped of her crew one by one, some taken back to the Sera and others like Denise taken to Andrews’ ship itself, they’d simply decided to destroy her with a single blast of weapons far superior to her own design. Denise hadn’t even seen it. Had it not been for a casual comment in the conversation of her guards, coming to deliver her food while disregarding that she was even here, she wouldn’t have even known it now. It made her wonder if when she died alone, if anyone she’d once known in her former life would ever learn of it.

She didn’t know quite what the future entailed from here. She wasn’t quite crazy enough to think she’d escape imprisonment, which was a shame because if she’d been a little madder maybe they’d have treated her and let her go. She’d known exactly what she was doing and so she would surely live out her life in a cage; an exhibition for the observation to all those who would dare to dream of challenging the unbendable will of the Department of Temporal Investigations.

It wouldn’t be like this cell though. This cell was practically an anachronism through the crudeness of its design. There was no forcefield for those can so easily fail. This cell was designed for the enemies, but for their own agents who’d lost their way; even those of her very nearly treasonous ways, surely she’d be headed to be a prison with a more civilised guised. Depending on how important they thought she was, maybe she’d even pass the famous Jonas Vox; the man who’d played far more of a role in beginning this whole mess than her, as he headed for his freedom.

Four walls however were always four walls to the person stuck between them.

Finally raising her head, though it was a struggle against her neck to even try it, she tried once again to look around. She wanted to absorb some sense of this place; to know all she could because that was the only way she knew how to live. Before she had any such chance to learn, her head and her eyes snapped violently down to the ground, forced to fall against the overpowering horrific weight of what she saw.

There was not a lot to see. There was so very little furniture in this room. There was this unadorned bed, barely strong enough to support her weight, which doubled as her seat. The sheets were plain, the mattress uneven, and the pillow was sewn into the frame to ensure it stayed in its proper place.

On the uncarpeted floor sat her breakfast tray, the porridge like substance they’d served her left untouched and the plastic spoon remaining firmly plunged into its centre. Of course against the opposing grey wall, at most three steps away, were the minimum required facilities for such a potentially lengthy journey. Perhaps intentionally chosen for atmosphere they even included the requisite dripping sink, the solitary sound of individual drops of water slowly striking one after another, perhaps standing in place of her tears, reminding her each time her thoughts were silenced that this room was to be her dining room, her bedroom and her bathroom all in one.

None of that was what made looking up so hard to bear. It was the fact that over the sink, clearly visible in spite of how low she’d turned the lights, sat the most vindictive object she could have ever imagined them placing here with her. It was a mirror. The face she found there appeared to have aged to far older than should be possible within a single lifetime. Her eyes were red and baggy, though she swore once they had sparkled. Now wrinkles and imperfection wrapped like a lose net around her skin, trapping the woman she’d once known in somewhere very deep underneath.

She was so very tired.

She saw no point in trying to fight it anymore, and so she allowed her body to fall gracelessly onto its side. She didn’t bother to move up to her pillow. Simply closing her eyes where she was she found herself finally in real darkness. There were no more faces of the people she should save, or of those who’d hurt her. There was simply nothing there, and she felt like finally she could rest.

Her body did feel so heavy right now and before she was even aware it was happening, her mind began sweeping her away into sleep.

Then suddenly it was daylight and she felt the warm spring sun strike her skin and heat her back.

The grass beneath her feet was wet and felt strange as she moved. In fact, she realised, it was between her toes, and she couldn’t help but to think that it tickled.

There was a sound, one she hadn’t heard in years, the simple persistent buzzing of a bee as it moved past her ear. It was a bad sound on its own but since it spoke of the return of the kinder weather it was one she always loved to hear.

She was in the shade but only barely of a rake thin tree that towered above her, bearing no fruit. It appeared she was in a garden as she saw the a few sparsely placed flowers; common daisies that seemed quite a bit bigger than they should be, yet somehow she didn’t think of their size as her hand reached out to grab one.

Yet it wasn’t her hand. The skin was smooth and fair. The fingers were perhaps a little pudgy but they certainly weren’t arthritic anymore. This was the hand of a child of maybe six, and how oversized the flower appeared as she yanked it with all her might from the ground seemed to support that entirely.

Then she brought it to her nose and it tickled, much like the grass on her bare feet, and she couldn’t help but think how funny that was. It was then she heard another sound she hadn’t heard in even longer than the bee as she realised she was giggling at how it felt.

“What’s so funny?” a voice absolutely overwhelmed with affection asked her, as she felt a pair of loving arms wrapping around her.

“The flower,” she answered, still giggling as her nose still felt a little funny even now it was gone.

“Oh, so, you like flowers do you?” her mother asked as the child felt herself being lifted from the ground.

“I think it’s pretty,” she answered, now twirling the stalk around in her hand.

“Well you know what?” her mother asked with just about the biggest smile that child would ever see. “So, do I.”

She continued to twirl her flower, looking at it in complete fascination.

“When I grow up, I wanna be a gardener,” she added absently, completely forgetting her plan from last week to be a dancer.

“Well you can be anything you want to be,” her mother assured her with absolute faith, placing the sloppiest kiss on her cheek, which made her laugh again.

“Then I want to be just like you,” she said, finally turning from her flower to craning her little head up to examine her mother instead.

The woman looked so happy, in that way a child can’t quite understand is only because of how much they’re treasured, and as she swung her around the child laughed again.

She felt herself getting a little dizzy but she didn’t care, until the sun’s glare caught her eyes as she span and so she shut them tight, not needing to see the view to enjoy the experience. Then suddenly the spinning stopped with the sound of a thud and a creak, and she opened them, to find she was a very old woman again.

She didn’t turn or even sit up, but as she heard the deafening finality of the locks once again she knew that they must have just taken her breakfast tray away. Staring upward at the beautyless patterns where the ceiling was joined together, much as that child had stared at her flower, Denise was suddenly feeling more isolated than alone, as it really occurred to her all she wouldn’t be seeing or doing anymore.

Her mother’s garden was of course long since gone. Yet even when it was there, she hadn’t taken a walk in it since she’d been a child. It’d been outside her window all through her teenage years yet she couldn’t recall even stopping to feel the grass between her toes or to pick a single flower again. She just hadn’t taken the time.

She hadn’t even thought of that day in years. It was no surprise, now that she thought about that child with an adult’s retrospect, that she would have tried and failed to do so much. She did want to turn our just like her mother; that loving family woman who could handle anything. She’d also wanted to turn out just like her father; the powerful Starfleet overachiever, almost never around, who’d worked his way up from the bottom.

Now that she thought about it, he was exactly the reason she’d chosen to join TI. It was supposed to be the ultimate fast track; to give her plenty of time when the career was firmly in hand to deal with those far more difficult matters of love. The first dance she’d ever been invited to she’d turned down telling herself she had to study, when she was really just afraid of what would have happened if she’d said yes.

Now she looked on that moment longingly, she squeezed her eyes tightly for just a moment almost as if attempting to convince her younger self to take that risk that was no longer open. Only then did the tears finally come, beginning to flood her closed eyes and spill out.

She knew that even if she had gone to that dance and that nervous young man had found something in her to fall in love with, that she wouldn’t have had the son that she’d started all this for. She would have had her family though; some people to miss her if she ever made enough stupid mistakes to end up somewhere like this.

No one would miss her though. If you can disappear from the Earth without anyone even noticing, she wondered, did you ever really live there?

She couldn’t help but consider, as she found herself softly sobbing, if her life had all been a waste. Maybe it was more than just one bad decision; maybe she’d gotten them all wrong.

Many people believed that life was a path of your own creation, where every turn you added could lead you to a far different destination. Yet Temporal Investigations taught you that it was more like a river, with very few forks where you could choose to go another way, meaning that all the rest of the times when you’d fight to go left or right, were just a pointless and tyring struggle.

In the end it was still in the hands of others far more than your own. She had learnt from the protestations of Lieutenant Wilson as they had all been dragged down to the Poseidon’s brig that he’d ordered Stacey Geller, a Lieutenant Denise never really got to know, to bring a security team to main engineering; a team that never showed.

If they had they would have no doubt be able to stop her or at least to delay them all a good long time, and Brody would have gotten his wish. This was not some technical oversight; Geller must have made the decision to hold them back. It was like in that moment when someone finally had a chance to make it happen, Geller wanted Brody to fail. Maybe Denise would never learn why that was but it was the single difference that meant she was still alive.

More than that, she was scared.

Her sobs had suddenly turned to shakes, like the rushing waters of her sorrow were running so fast as to move the surrounding shores.

All the numbness she had felt in misery had abandoned her and she was now so very terrified of what was going to happen.

As much as it felt like the end of her journey, this was one of those forks in the river. To the left she had the chance to live out the rest of her life in four walls. To the right, there was a chance she’d get better.

William Lindsay had made her an offer that until this moment she hadn’t even been able to consider. Officially her role in what had happened was unclear. Under interrogation her crew had all said so far that they’d always believed she was nothing but Brody’s puppet.

So in benevolence she didn’t really understand, Will had been able to officially offer her the chance; if she cooperated and told them the logistical secrets that only she’d known, that she could have her time at Temporal Investigations resequenced away and then be set free. After all, she was an old woman and it probably wouldn’t be that long before she was more suited to a care home than a prison anyway.

Yet resequencing was never intended to be used on the scale of wiping away a career that had lasted so long. It was the difference between correcting a mistake with a fine brush and drenching the effected area with turpentine; more likely that not ruining the rest of the painting in the process as it dripped down.

She would be losing all she’d become, if not all she’d ever been, and as much as she was crying right now at the prospect of her future she still didn’t want to die.

Yet as she thought of that little girl she’d been, she considered that even if she’d never be her mother, her father or even a dancer, perhaps she could be a humble old woman with a garden. She knew what the right choice was.

As frightening as it was and even though she still didn’t really understand at all how it’d actually come to this, she was going to start anew.

Denise Moreno
Former Commanding Officer
USS Poseidon

1116: Galatea's Last Gift

by Landry Steele
Stardate: 101002.12
Following How Are The Mighty Fallen

-=Sickbay, USS Serendipity=-

Landry Steele had seen, in her twenty-eight linear years of living and then some, more dark and ugly things than she cared to count, even if she had the time and patience to try.

One by one she'd done her best to dismiss them completely or else, in the cases of the worst of all things, compartmentalize them as efficiently as possible. It was cruelly ironic that this was a trick that Tucker himself had taught her: to take the things that distressed her most and file them away inside a small corner of her mind, to be called upon in moments like this as a reminder that things can always be worse.

This time, as she tried to file through that catalog of disasters she’d locked up inside, she didn’t believe it was true. For him, there was no way things could possibly be worse.

She almost forgot to breathe as she contemplated what she was about to find on the other side of the door. She doubted any of the dark and ugly things she’d ever seen could prepare her for what she was going to see next.
"Aren't you going to go in?" The security guard asked, fidgeting his hands nervously. Her pacing was making him more anxious by the second for his long overnight shift to end.

"In a minute." Landry replied. Or three, she thought. The moment that you leave for breakfast.

"Well, my replacement will be here in,” the officer began, sounding slightly confused and only perking up when he spotted a figure in the distance. “Oh, look, here he is."

He looked up and gave an anxious nod to Dane Cristiane, wasting no time before he began to hurry down the hall, past him.

"Hey!" Dane called, "What about my start-of-shift briefing?"

"Captain said to let Steele into Brody's room. She can stay as long as she wants, but yank her out at the first sign of trouble!" The man called back over his shoulder. "Consider yourself briefed!"

"O'Sullivan would have his ass for that." Dane shook his head in contemplation. "Blakeslee, twice over. Sloppy." Dane stopped as he saw Landry looking at him with desperate, plaintive eyes. He groaned, unable to ignore them. "Why do I get the feeling you're about to ask me something that O'Sullivan will have my ass for later?"

"Because I am." Landry said. Then without warning she unbuttoned the top of her uniform and started to pull it up over her head.

"Hey, whoa, what do you...you can't get me to do anything by-" Dane protested, his hands flying up to cover his eyes. An instant later he felt her hand slap upside his head. "OW! What the hell was that for?"

"For thinking what you just thought." Landry replied. "I'm wearing something beneath it, genius. I don't want to go in there in uniform. It'll only upset him."

"He's been yelling your name for the better part of three days," Dane said softly. "Seeing you is going to upset him."

"Not if I do it right." Her eyes flashed up to him again as she straightened the shoulders of the simple sweater that she'd hid beneath her uniform. "Not if you help me."

"How?"

"Turn off the video monitors."

"You're out of your mind! The room is soundproof. He could kill you and we wouldn't know it until it was too late."

"He won't hurt me," Landry insisted, pausing while a group of nurses walked past, ready to start their shift. When she was sure they were out of earshot she resumed. "I don't know what he may say, though, and I think that whatever it is, he deserves this last chance to say it to me without anyone watching."

"And I would do this for you why?" Dane folded his arms. He was still angry at her- at least he was trying to be. The way she'd looked the last few days gave him pause, but it was difficult for him to put aside how he felt about her withholding information at the start. Though he didn’t claim to be known for total honesty, this was information that could have made the difference between life and death for everyone if they'd had it at the right time.

"Because," Landry looked once more around to ensure no one was listening, then stood on her tiptoes and whispered in his ear. "At some future time in some future place, you are going to ask me to do something very dangerous and very over the line for you, or to look the other way while you do it," she explained, still whispering but returning her feet to the ground. "This is the favor you will hold over my head in order to get me to do it."

The sound of certainty in her voice, a foreknowledge of future events that Dane had only ever heard among TI agents who had experience in the field far beyond his own, chilled him through.

"Damn, I hate it when you people talk like that."

"You are one of us 'people', Cristiane. Don't you forget it."

"You're part of this crew," Dane countered, wondering just what trouble he was about to bring upon himself because he just couldn't say no. "Don't you forget that."

The expression on her face could at first glance have been called one of acknowledgement, but then he decided it seemed more correctly interpreted as a very sad sort of acceptance. "For how long?"

Dane said nothing and Landry moved to the panel. She quickly began the work of fooling the video capture system into thinking it was updating when it was not. It would record the first sixty seconds of her inside the cell with Tucker, then it would shut off and repeat that footage on a loop continuously until she changed it back. A simple trick for one of her experience: mere child’s play. "You know, it doesn't matter," she said, answering her own question. She finally turned to Dane and nodded; squaring her shoulders to assert her readiness for something she couldn’t possibly be ready for. "I'll remember."

"I'm going to burn in O'Sullivan's private Hell for this." Dane moaned as he reluctantly keyed in the access code to release the door.

"O'Sullivan's Catholic. His own private Hell is pretty much the same as everybody else's."

"Don't count on it," he said, as she began to step forward. The part of him that wasn’t at all angry made him grab hold of her arm as she passed him, and she stopped and looked back over her shoulder. "Hey, Landry. Be careful in there."

She nodded, and as the door finally opened, she tried to inhale. She found it felt like attempting to breathe at elevations approaching several thousand meters above sea level; dangerous, disorienting, and in the long term, lethal.

There was no satisfaction in the knowledge that she’d been right when she’d thought that nothing could prepare her for this.

As she stepped inward, the sight that met her seemed to sting her eyes just to behold. It brought with it an excruciating numbness, similar to that which overcomes you when you’re staring at a coffin and can’t quite believe someone you love is really inside.

Brody was sitting tucked away in the corner, his body shaking just a little, his eyes blankly staring off into distances far beyond these walls. He seemed to be whispering, but it was to someone only he could see. She couldn't be certain what he was actually saying for his secretive words were his alone.

Slowly she approached him. At first she crouched down and then finally she knelt beside him. He continued simply to stare; like she wasn’t there, but that was no surprise because it felt like he wasn’t either. Tilting her head towards him she whispered his name, but found he offered no reaction. She ticked down the seconds in her head until the live video feed cut out, and then she tried again.

“Tucker.”

Her eyes weighed heavily in their sockets and only seemed willing to move with the greatest possible effort. This all felt so futile. She forced herself to repeat his name again several times before finally, with no apparent difference to be found in how she’d spoke, her voice somehow registered.

He turned to her, though it seemed to be more towards the direction of her voice than as if he was truly seeing her there.

"Landry?" he whispered, confused that she was wherever he thought he was. He was barely audible, his voice still completely spent.

She reached out a gentle hand and ran it along the stubble that had grown upon his normally smooth, meticulously groomed cheek. "Hiya, Tuck." She tried to smile, but the result was hollow, a mere curving of the corners of her mouth without any joy in her eyes to truly light up her face. "What do you say we get you a shower and shave? You'll feel so much better afterward."

She wanted, if nothing else, for him to arrive at his destination looking as he had when he'd last been seen by his colleagues; former equals who would now be the ones passing judgment on his actions. With the single initial glance they’d be deciding his entire future. If she had anything to do with it, he'd arrive properly dressed and looking presentable.

It was the very least she could do for him.

"Oh, I," he looked down at his standard Sickbay attire and frowned. "What happened?"

"You've been sick, Tuck. Really sick. But you're getting better and they're going to let you leave here soon."

"Oh, it was...it was that..." he tried to snap his fingers as if doing so would somehow prompt completion of the memory he couldn't quite catch. It seemed appropriate that his fingers didn’t quite make the sound correctly, and he was left to furrow his brow towards them in futility.

"That bug you picked up at the conference, remember?" Landry lied. It felt so wrong. She’d done it far too easily for her own good, and been much too convincing to congratulate herself on her efforts. What else was she to do? She refused to take from him what little peace he seemed to feel, just because she was finally near him. "Your fever spiked really high, we were all so worried."

"Is that why I can't remember?" he asked, reaching out and taking hold of her hand. "There's somethin', I know I'm supposed to remember."

"I’m sure it’s nothing you need to worry about now. Come on." She slowly rose to her feet, fighting to stay standing on ground that seemed to shake and crumble beneath her. "Let's get you cleaned up."

"Have to, right?" Tucker whispered. "We're goin' out tonight. aren't we?” His eyes actually flashed concern and he cursed himself, but it was not an angry curse. “Damn, that's what I was supposed to remember. It was a surprise."

"What was?" Landry offered both of her hands and Tucker managed to get up, wobbling a little as she put her arm around his waist to steady him. She led him over to a locked door and keyed in a security code, accessing the sonic shower unit.

"Impossible to surprise you, you know." He laughed, brushing his fingertip over her nose. "So I booked it early. For our anniversary."

"Our anniversary isn't for three weeks." Landry played along, though she had no idea exactly how long it was supposed to have been, since they lived a life that he now only remembered in delusions.

"Exactly." He truly smiled now, and he leaned forward and tried to kiss her. Suddenly Landry's heart plummeted to the floor and she turned her face away, causing his lips to only graze her cheek. Tucker laughed.

"I am sorry, Mrs. Brody, I know that you hate little more than gettin' whisker kissed." He allowed her to lead him forward into the shower. She stepped out and after the door was shut he began to disrobe, throwing his clothes over the top to her. Something clicked in the back of his mind and he activated the cleaning cycle, sighing as the heat warmed his bones and chased away some of the sadness that he suddenly didn't quite understand. "Did you bring me a razor?"

Landry froze; this all felt so crazy. Yet after a moment's contemplation she realized that she had to fully play along with the charade.

She unlocked the supply cabinet in the corner and pulled out a standard, Sickbay issue safety razor. "There you go." He reached out beyond the door of the enclosure and took the device, then automatically began putting it to its proper use.

"You okay in there?" she asked, wringing her hands with a mixture of nerves and near physical pain.

"Oh yeah. Forgot how good a shave can feel." he answered. Then he pursed his lips and whistled a few bars of a very familiar song. Her heart felt like it was slipping out of place before he stopped for no apparent reason and rasped, "Thank you, darlin'."

Landry sighed with equal measures of relief and uneasiness, as she moved towards the replicator. Without even thinking, she put in the access code to unlock it, and then produced some fresh clothing. It was civilian wear that would at least dignify the man that she still believed existed, somewhere deep inside the shell before her. Moments later she was handing them over the top of the shower to him, and he laughed again at the gesture.

"How many years do we have to be married before you finally quit doin' that?" he asked. "It's not like there's anything here you haven't seen before."

"There's such a thing as privacy, Doctor Brody and so it'll take more years than we ever will be married before I stop handing you your clothes over the top of the shower." Landry answered, attempting humor and failing. She cared too much to laugh just now. "Do you think I can get you to eat something? Soup, at least?"

"Oh, I don't know," he frowned as he emerged, still teetering uneasily and leaning against the wall for support. She wanted to rush to him but purposely held herself back. He hated being fussed over when he was sick. If she did too much now, she might give herself away. "I'm still not feelin' right. I think I'd best wait a little longer."

"All right," she said, with acceptance for what must be; a feeling she was rapidly becoming far too accustomed to.

By the time Tucker struggled into his clothing- which she let him do on his own so as not to risk violating his stubborn need for independence- she had put fresh linen on the biobed and turned up the air recirculation units to high, freshening the room up considerably from the state it was in when she first entered it. She looked up in alarm when she saw him stop moving toward her and drop his head into his hands.

"What's the matter?" She couldn’t stop herself from rushing up to him now.
"Spinning," he rumbled, clearly struggling for his balance. "Room won't stop spinning."

"That fever really took it out of you. Better get you into bed." She pulled back the fresh sheet and patted the mattress, again forcing the smile that chiseled away at her heart a little more every second she held it in place. It felt like the heaviest of death masks, and she just didn't know how much longer she would be able to bear its weight.

"Only if you come with me." Tucker whispered in her ear, as he wrapped his arms around her from behind. The sensation was entirely familiar to Landry in a way that nearly stopped her pounding heart, but she knew that she couldn't risk forgetting for even an instant just how different the man before her was from the man that she'd fallen in love with.

"Now, I thought you didn't feel up to eating. You can't possible feel up to anything else. One must respect their limits, isn't that what you're always telling me?"

He sighed as she fussed with the pillow behind his head and he smiled at her wearily. "You are correct, Ma'am. Still," he held his arms open wide to her. "No reason you can't help keep me warm, is there?" he shivered suddenly, appearing shocked and dismayed by processing his sense of the temperature. "It's damn cold in here."

Landry bit her lip, considering that she really shouldn’t risk this. Then she reminded herself that her whole purpose in being here was to give him memories of a few perfect, fleeting moments of peace and contentment to take with him where he was going. Even if the attempt turned out to be futile, at least later she'd be able to tell herself that she'd tried.

She nodded and he moved over, making as much room as he could for her. She had no choice, given the narrow measurements of the surface that supported them, but to put her arms around him and rest her head against his chest.

This was so much harder than she’d expected.

She sighed softly, dangerously close to becoming completely lost in the moment. The beating of his heart was hypnotic, and as he began to lazily run his fingers through her hair she could almost believe, for just awhile, that she really had her Tucker back in her arms.

"The boys didn't get it, did they?" he asked, the moment she pulled the sheet up over them and he felt she’d finally settled in.

"Hm?" She wasn't sure exactly what to say now; a clear reminder that none of this was real. She waited, and hoped he'd offer more information to help her pretend for him a little longer.

"The boys. They didn't catch the fever from me did they? It's awfully contagious the first two days."

"No," Landry assured him gently, closing her eyes and trying to hide the fact that tears were now streaming down her face. "The boys are fine. They're staying with my Dad this weekend, remember?"

"That's right. ‘Cause it's impossible to get time alone with their beautiful mother with two rowdy young cowboys in the house,” Tucker’s voice conveyed this all really felt completely natural and everyday to him. “Did Jake get his cast off this mornin’?"

"They rescheduled for Monday, remember?" She asked, feeling a strange contempt for how easily the words had come.

She fell silent again, suddenly deeply disturbed by how easy it was to just go along with him. It was so simple to help him believe that life he remembered, the one he insisted he still had, was the one she was living too. She could so easily forget what was real herself, and she wasn’t sure she didn’t want to.

It was only in that moment she fully accepted that she couldn’t just abandon reality as she knew it for his sake now, not for his sake, or that of her broken heart. She had to remain in it, no matter how far he drifted from it, in case he should finally one day return and look for her there.

"Gonna be a miracle if that boy sees twelve." Tucker sighed. "We have got to keep him out of the treetops. Luke keeps trying to go up after him but his legs are just too short."

"He's only four. He'll catch up." Landry said, her voice breaking. Suddenly she was unable to hide her tears any longer. Her shoulders shook, and she heaved a sob against his chest. Tucker put his hand beneath her chin and made her look up at him.

"Hey, now, what's all this?"

"I’ve been so worried about you," she said, speaking with complete truthfulness for the first time since she’d entered the room. "You scared me, Tuck. You really, really scared me."

"No, it's more than that. You never usually cry. Ever! Well, not unless..." he stopped, his eyes flashing. He tried to speak more clearly and muttered a curse when he found he still had no voice. "Damned sore throat. Worst part of this whole thing." Finally, he sat up and Landry sat up with him. He leaned his forehead against hers, and suddenly his mind seemed to jump tracks.

"That's right," he mumbled, "You only cry when you're pregnant. All those hormones. You cried a hell of a lot more with Lily than you ever did with either of the boys. You..."

He stopped abruptly, his mind now in a completely different place than had been, and all the light and all the happiness faded from his face. "Something bad happened to you, Landry. To us. I, I know it- I."

"Tucker," Landry tenderly placed her hands on either side of his face and gazed at him with adoration through her tears. "The boys are fine. You're going to get better. I'm right here, beside you. Where I was always supposed to be." She reached down and grasped hold of his fingers desperately. "For now, just let that be enough. Please."

Her heart raced as he seemed to scan her features, considering, trying to understand the conflict he saw so plainly written upon them.

"You've been so sick,” she whispered. “Please. Just rest now."

"Alright, alright. Don't you worry now," he finally relented, leaning back again against the mattress and gesturing for her to retake her place against his chest. "You need to rest too. Come on."

With her heart in her throat, Landry laid her head back down and held him tight. "Go to sleep now, Tuck, okay? I'll …wake you when it's time to go," she whispered. "Just rest. Everything will be okay."

He sighed, exhaustion overcoming him again. With her close by, all he knew was that he was tired, and falling asleep in her arms sounded like the best thing in all the worlds.

"My yellow rose of Texas," he stifled a yawn before pressing his lips to the top of her head. "I love you, Landry. I always will."

She closed her eyes, certain that the last shards of her heart were now broken and falling away, piece after piece showering effortlessly down onto the ground below them with the last few blows of Pygmalion's mallet and chisel.

"I love you too, Tuck. Always."

Landry Steele
Temporal Investigations Agent
Assigned to the USS Serendipity NCC-2012

1115: How Are The Mighty Fallen

by -=/\=- Zanh Liis O’Sullivan
Stardate 101001.17
Soundtrack: Hallelujah (as performed by Rufus Wainwright)

Three days after Forever Lost

-=/\=-

How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished! Samuel 1:27

-=/\=-

-=USS Serendipity=-

The captain of the ship called Sera turned heavy, downcast eyes up at last, tilting her head in the direction of the unseen space beyond the obvious wall beside her.

Her hair swung forward with the motion and kept on moving; falling as a dark, drawn curtain against the colorless skin that clothed her high, hollow cheekbones. Her earring jingled loudly, far too merrily for her present state of mind.

She reached up, silencing it abruptly before finally raising an open-palmed hand to point directly instead toward that haunted room: the room that had dominated her attention the past seventy-two hours and continued to do so even now because of the single, troubled mastermind it contained.

Its walls were nearly soundproof; that had been part of the redesign of Sickbay. A noiseless place, created so that if one patient was particularly distressed or restless that those in the surrounding bays could slumber on, undisturbed.

It was never intended, Liis thought, to serve as the local adjunct of Starfleet Medical’s teeming madhouse.

Yet, that was all it seemed ever to have done. She herself had spent time in that room, as had Rada Dengar and now, the current occupant.

With no way to tell if he’d actually finally ceased the wailing he’d resumed the moment he was brought on board, Liis turned to Dalton McKay now for answers.

“Has he stopped?”

“Captain, I am much more concerned about your current medical status than in catchin’ up on how anybody else is doin’.” McKay hemmed. “Remember, Mama always said ‘if you want to succeed at business you’d best start by mindin’ your own’.”

“My mother never said that.”

“You don’t remember your mother.”

“Beside the point. I’m certain she never said anything like that.” Liis uttered a groan as McKay applied gentle, direct pressure to the orbital and maxillary bones of her face. They were still sore, though the dermal regenerator had outwardly healed the blows that had blackened her eyes and broken her jaw.

She knew better than most that inward healing, the kind that no outsider can see or observe, was the kind that takes much longer. For that kind of healing, physically and emotionally, she was going to need a lot more time.

“Ow.”

McKay stopped his probing. “Ow?”

Liis nodded. “Yeah. Ow.”

“’Ow’ as in, ‘that smarts’ or ‘ow’ as in ‘I feel like an angry centipede in cleats is doin’ the Texas Two-Step on my face?”

“What the hell does that even…” Liis threw her hands into the air.

McKay sighed. She was clearly too distracted to play their usual, rousing round of guess the meaning of the metaphor today. “How bad does it hurt on a scale of one to ten?”

“Today or compared to when I got back?”

“Right now.”

“I can live with it.” Liis answered enigmatically, as she hopped down from the biobed. She grabbed her jacket from a hook on the wall and threw it on. “Will you answer my question now?”

McKay sighed. Perfect recall of their conversation meant he wouldn't be afforded the luxury of feigning ignorance. "He didn't stop until he completely lost his voice. Then he finally collapsed from exhaustion."

Liis recoiled. “You didn’t sedate him?”

“We attempted to sedate him. Tried every drug in the book, Captain, and a couple off-label. He just wouldn’t stop. His resistance was almost…superhuman.” McKay shrugged uneasy shoulders. “We could have set a phaser on stun I s’pose but that seemed…” He didn’t finish his thought, because the look on her face said he didn’t have to.

“He didn’t…hurt himself, did he?” Zanh’s stomach threatened to reverse on the dry toast and coffee that Keiran had begged her to choke down. “Did you have to use restraints?”

McKay shook his head and lifted his tricorder, scanning her again. He frowned as it beeped to confirm the results he had dreaded. “See? Your blood pressure is goin’ off like a Roman candle and your heart rate is off the map. You’re not well yet, Captain-“

“Dalton,“

“You haven’t slept and you’re droppin’ weight faster than a turtle in an Iron Man contest…”

“What the bloody hell?” Zanh finally ripped the tricorder and its scanner away from him and summarily threw them across the room. “Dalton, listen to me. I am in no imminent peril of death by deprivation or starvation. The man in the next room is my responsibility, at least until we get back to Earth. I need to be apprised of his condition.”

“You broke it, you bought it,” McKay grumbled, observing his scattered equipment with irritation. Zanh’s narrowing eyes told him he’d better get back to the issue at hand. “He’s my responsibility, Captain,” he tried, but he stopped. He knew this was personal for Zanh, and being she was the Captain and the decision to keep Brody out of lockup where the rest of the crew felt he belonged was hers, she did have the right to know if the man in their care and keep had finally stopped screaming.

“No, we didn’t restrain him. No, he didn’t do any permanent damage to himself- well, maybe his vocal chords, I don’t know but if he did we can fix that later.”

“Did he ever say anything else?”

McKay was now the one casting his eyes to the floor. “No. Just the one word. Only…” he paused, retrieving his tricorder and quickly reassembling all the auxiliary parts to form the whole, just to busy his hands.

He could cure almost any disease of the body with the accumulated knowledge of hundreds that rode around in his program. There was just only so much-- so frustratingly little-- anyone could do for the mysterious and debilitating ailments of the mind. Finally, he closed the tricorder and finished his thought. “Only her name.”

Zanh’s immediate response was deeply felt, but barely perceptible.

“You’re cleared to return to duty, Captain,” McKay finally announced. “Whenever you feel ready.”

“That’s convenient, because I feel ready right now,” Liis replied, moving toward the door. “First order of business, I want to see him. Open the door.”

“Captain, I don’t think-“

“Open the goddamn door, doctor. That’s an-“

“Captain?” A female voice, familiar but drained of all recognizable emotion, begged Liis’ attention

She turned and saw a tired, pale Landry Steele standing over her shoulder.

“Steele, I already told you…“ McKay moved before Zanh could react, raising his hand into the air in protest of Landry’s advancing steps.

“It’s all right, Dalton. I’ll talk to her.” Liis’ eyes locked on Landry’s; taking stock of her soul as only Zanh was able; reading into her though Steele tried mightily to keep her conflicted feelings concealed. “Can we use the room?”

“Of course.” Dalton nodded, first to the Captain in acknowledgement then to Steele as he passed by.

Landry stepped inside. As the door hissed shut behind her, she wasted no time in speaking. “Please, Captain. I heard that he’s been calling for me. Can’t I see him?”

“Don’t you have more pressing issues on your mind, Agent Steele? Like whether or not I’m about to bring your career to a swift and definitive end?”

“I’ve done that already with my behavior, Sir.” Landry droned, not really caring one way or another what happened to her Starfleet future right now. In this moment she had only one concern, and he was locked up in a room that for the last three days had remained maddeningly inaccessible to her. “I understand that, and I know that I have no right to ask you for anything..."

“Damn right you don’t. Your actions, or rather your initial failure to act and disclose what you knew could have brought about the destruction of not only this ship but the timeline itself as we know it.”

“Yes, Sir.” Steele answered, offering nothing on her own behalf. It’s impossible, she thought, to defend the indefensible.

“Do you regret those actions?”

Landry shifted now. She honestly didn’t know yet what she felt so she answered as clearly as she could. “I regret disappointing my crew mates, Sir. Specifically Cristiane and Commander Blane. I also regret that my actions could have caused loss of life among this crew.”

“You should. In fact, that’s just the really short introduction to what should be a very long list of regrets here. You really blew it, Landry, and, honestly?” Zanh ran a hand back through her hair and huffed a frustrated sigh. “I am not sure exactly what to do with you yet.”

“Decide my fate at your leisure, Captain. I deserve neither compassion nor consideration after what I’ve done. But the man in that room, over there,” she paused to draw a breath, and her voice became unsteady. “He was a good man, once. A man who tried to do what was right and help people. You and I among them.”

“I suppose you’re going to tell me next that he just got lost somewhere between the desire to help the masses and his quest for absolute power.” Zanh muttered, more to herself than Steele but the look that flashed in Steele’s eyes told her that the remark had been heard all too clearly.

“With all due respect, Sir, he is human. As such, he must wrestle with his inborn weaknesses, his darker side against his better self.”

“As do we all, Agent Steele.”

Landry shuffled her feet slightly. “What was that verse of the Bible Tuck always used to quote? The one his mother read all the time?” She thought for a moment. “Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upwards.”

“Tucker Brody as Job? I don’t think so.” Liis said, staring beyond Steele and out into the distance. She was wrestling with her own better self in this moment all right- the person she was locked in an epic battle with the one she wanted to be.

The former said that she’d already shown Brody more than enough mercy after all the levels of Hell he’d put her through.

The latter insisted that no kindness shown to one so broken could ever be enough to be deemed truly righteous.

“My husband is quite the Bible scholar, you’ll recall,” Zanh said, countering Steele’s unspoken assertion that she didn’t know what she was talking about. “I find myself thinking of the words of David instead.”

Without speaking, Steele's eyes asked which Zanh had in mind.

“How are the mighty fallen,” Zanh recited.

Landry bowed her head. Her shaggy, auburn locks tumbled downward, obscuring her tortured face.

“So. You want to see him,” Zanh continued, beginning to pace and violently twisting the chain of her earring. “To what end, Landry?”

Steele shrugged her shoulders, her head moving in a motion somewhere between a nod and a shake. Her hesitance to answer instantly infuriated her captain.

“Do you hope to talk sense into him? To try to bring him back to some state in which he is capable of reason or subject to redemption? Because I’m afraid that all medical evidence indicates that at this point, and for likely a very, very long time, Doctor Brody will be incapable of anything close. He may never be.” Zanh watched the pain fog and then evaporate in Steele’s eyes, and she had to admire the woman’s firm stance in the face of such scrutiny.

“Still…” Zanh sighed, hating every moment of this for more reasons than she could count, “Contrary to popular opinion and my own best efforts to deny it I do have a soul. So I’m giving you one more chance to answer my questions honestly.” She stepped forward, leaving no space between her and the woman she was addressing. She lowered her voice to the point that even at this range, Steele had to strain to decipher the words.

“I warn you, Landry, if my bullshit detector so much as emits a single ‘ping’ when I hear your responses then your next step will be to immediately pack your things and prepare to disembark the moment we reach Earth. Leaving your career, your combadge and your Temporal Compass behind you. Do you understand me?”

Steele nodded, her expression as fixed as stone despite the fact that acidic tears burned behind her eyes.

“Then I’ll ask you again,” Zanh whispered, “why do you want to see Tucker Brody and what possible reason could there be for me to allow it?”

Landry shuddered and offered one sentence in answer to both questions.

“Because I love him, Captain.”

The honesty in the words combined with a direct, unflinching stare convinced Zanh that Steele was telling the truth, and Liis was forced to ask herself in this moment how many times she would have answered with those exact words to so many, varied questions.

“You know he’s not…” Zanh paused.

“I know.”

“I mean, he thinks he’s- that you are-“

“I’ve heard the rumors, Captain.” Landry replied softly. “I know what I’m walking into. I…” Finally, she was forced to look away. “If I can offer him any kind of comfort at all, in the time left before they take him from this place and lock him away from all the world then I want to do it. For the sake of everything we’ve been.” She could hide the tears in her eyes no longer. “For the sake of the good man he once was.”

Now it was Zanh who averted her eyes. She damned herself in this moment for being able to understand not only the reasons Brody was driven to madness but also Steele’s for grasping so tightly to the shreds of her own fraying sanity.

“All right.” Zanh spun toward the door, activating it with leaden footsteps. She paused but did not look back. “As long as it doesn’t further agitate him, you can stay with him until we reach Earth. Then,” her voice broke, and she cleared her throat to try to steady it. “You’ll have to let them take him, Landry. Can you do that?”

“I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

Zanh didn’t answer. She simply began moving again, giving the word to the guard outside Brody’s door to let Steele in, pay strict attention to the monitors, and to pull her out at the very first sign of trouble.

She strode out of Sickbay headed port but suddenly turned on her heel starboard, deciding that she needed a few hours more on her own to contemplate all that had happened before she was ready to retake her rightful place on the bridge.

-=/\=- Zanh Liis O’Sullivan
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012

1112: Forever Lost

by Denise Moreno and Tucker Brody
Stardate: 100922.15
Immediately After To Do Better

Denise moved eagerly. She was so close. It looked like she was finally going to make it. Only then instantly she stopped in her tracks; her stomach fearfully sinking, as an all too familiar pained and angry voice shouted out viciously from behind her.

-=/\=-

“HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!”

Everyone but Denise, including the two Serendipity officers, turned to see who it was. For her it was entirely clear from the voice alone that it was Tucker Brody. Denise simply froze in place, almost able to feel the phaser that Brody had aimed square at the centre of her back.

“The Captain is no longer to be trusted. I am now in command of this vessel.”

“This is mutiny,” Denise said, turning slowly and confirming every suspicion that Brody did indeed have a phaser at the ready. What was truly shocking however was the state he appeared to be in; not just physically but psychologically as well. The man’s normally military posture had been replaced by a bent, burdened stance and he teetered in an obvious struggle to keep his feet beneath him.

“You don’t look well, Brody...”

Brody ignored her comments entirely, speaking loudly to all around him.

“Captain Moreno came here to destroy the Temporal Drive. She’s lost her nerve and wants to strand us all here, in this time.” All eyes turned to Denise, some accusing and others disbelieving. She was far past caring what any of them thought of her, still she recognised the doubt in the eyes of a few and dearly hoped she could use it.

“I am still in command of this ship,” she reminded them all in her most determined, disciplined voice, which was tremulous in spite of her wishes. “I order you to escort Commander Brody to the brig.”

Some of the crew looked afraid, some looked uncomfortable, but not a single person moved.

A smirk crept over Brody’s face and Denise knew right away that her bluff had failed. There was no way she could force anyone here to obey her any longer.

“I’m not going anywhere, Captain." Brody gestured with a tilt of his head, his voice dropping to a tone of cold finality as he added, "Now step away from the Temporal Drive or I will kill you.”

As her eyes caught his, she had no doubt that he would fire. Yet what unnerved her most was the unmistakable instability she found gleaming in those normally focused eyes. Tucker really didn’t look well. For a second, she found herself thinking of how her hand; her shaking hand, was so close to her own phaser. She calculated the risks. Brody was the only one who had his weapon fixed on her, and she doubted his reflexes were operating at full capacity right now. She took in a deep breath, her eyes never leaving his.

There was a chance that she could fire first. She just had to do it without hesitation. Realising that was the factor which would determine who lived and who died, her hand began to move away from the weapon. If she could kill without hesitation then she was too far gone already. "All right,” she said softly, putting her hands up and stepping towards Brody.

The action should have calmed or at least comforted Tucker, perhaps eliciting a smug grin, yet his countenance merely grew more anxious. His hand vibrated from side to side as if to indicate she must hurry. The smirk he’d worn before had completely faded, replaced by the grimace of a silent mouth poised to bark orders, as if he wanted to demand she do something more but he didn’t know what.

This was not the Tucker Brody she knew.

Fully aware now what he had become and in spite of herself, for just a moment a trace of pity crossed Denise’s features. The expression of disgust and fury that immediately leapt to his face in response made Denise’s heart skip in a beat in shock; shock, that was, that he didn’t immediately kill her where she stood.

“Perhaps I am not the one who’s lost their nerve,” she wondered intentionally aloud, searching his eyes for any hint that she was right. Evidently, Tucker would not take this calmly.

“I HAVE NOT LOST MY NERVE,” Tucker spat, and though every sense in her wanted to back away in fear her feet were too past caring to move. What she saw as she looked deep within him said that he was right about this, but wrong about so very much.

“Look at you,” she droned, forcing her lips to form the words even as the world spun around her and her hands and feet tingled, going numb from fear. “Something’s changed in you, Tucker. Everyone here can see that.”

“I AM,” he started, but stopped; insisting his tone be calmed. “I am merely more…more determined, more focused…than ever.”

Denise saw her chance and she took it. She focused her eyes on his with all her strength and what little remained of her composure, attempting to unsettle him in that way she’d seen him do with many others before.

Instantly she realised her error as a small, mocking laughter began to fall from Tucker’s lips. Somehow, her failure had returned to him some sense of stability.

“Oh, that’s very good, Captain,” he said with mild amusement in stark contrast to the unsteadiness still in his stance. “What did ya think was going ta happen? Was I supposed to fall apart and then suddenly everyone would rush to your side?”

Denise wanted to argue, to fight him on his terms, but then something happened under the weight of his glare that she could no more resist than she could've prevented the scorching of her face if she’d been looking into the sun itself. Railing against all efforts to fight, her eyes fell away from his, just for an instant, but for a thousand times too long for anyone to have missed it. Murmurs began in the gathered crowd around them.

“Everyone here knows that I will deliver them through time. They know I am willing and able to do whatever it takes,” Tucker insisted, and even as many of the murmurs were near inaudible whispers, in her heart Denise could feel that not one of their agents disagreed.

“You’re right. They do,” she said, close but not quite yet defeated. “But they don’t know what they’re getting themselves into and I think you know that.”

Again Denise turned to speak to the crowd. She slowly drew in and released a breath, wondering if she had any chance of making them listen, or even if Tucker would give her the chance to continue.

“You think you know him. You don’t trust him but you’re sure, you’re so confident, that his goals are the same as yours.” Her tone grew more anxious, even desperate as she spoke. “Well, you thought you knew my goals too, but you were wrong. It’s true I did want to take us back. I wanted to take us back more than anything, but I was never intending to change the illustrious Department of Temporal Investigations to suit our, or even my, purposes.”

Curiosity passed over a few expressions, but not a single person seemed at all swayed.

“Temporal Investigations has taken everything from me,” she said, all the frustration of decade after decade finally catching up with her as her breathing grew less even. “So I was going to destroy it; to go back to just the right point that I could stop it from ever coming into creation. It’d have been like tearing away the first vital bricks, to cause this hideous monument to our arrogance to come crashing down to the ground. Time would have been restored to what it should have been. My life would have been restored to what it should have been.”

Her eyes moved from person to person, finding nothing but blank stares as though she was speaking some foreign language to suggest that her own actions meant Tucker’s motivations could be unknown to them. She realised she was wasting her breath.

Tucker exhaled a short, bitter laugh. "Your life. Your life?" His voice rose again both in volume and in pitch. "That's right, because everything that has ever happened, for all time and in all time is about YOU, isn't it Denise?” Anger was overcoming his words as he began to speak each and every syllable with increasing speed. “Never mind the lives that time has stolen from the rest of us too, every man, to the last.” His eyes became wild; he was practically shouting now.

He drew in a deep pained breath, the sound by the ears of others was morphed into a vicious threat, clearly conveyed by burning eyes which spoke volumes about what he intended to do with the rest of his life. The unstable determination that radiated from him in this moment felt like an unstoppable river; the water running angrily and uncontrollably along once solid ground and tearing it away to nothingness. “Well it's time to put things right, and that's exactly what we're about to-."
Abruptly mid-sentence for just a second the river froze, as at the back of the room a low, rasping voice rose that no one had ever, in a million timelines, expected to hear.

"It's over, Tucker."

Brody startled and spun. In an instant his weapon was trained on the woman the voice belonged to: his eyes widening because this very sight should be impossible.

The voice emanated from a woman battered, and bloodied by his own hand: a woman whose weight was being almost entirely supported by the strong arms of her husband.

"Captain Zanh!" Jamie Halliday exclaimed, unable to contain himself a moment longer. Ashton Ledbetter reached up and put his hand over Halliday's mouth, only releasing him once Keiran O'Sullivan gave a look that told Ashton he'd better let go or there'd be Hell to pay if they all got out of this alive.

"You..." Brody's eyes burned through Zanh. "This is all because of YOU!" He began to shake and sweat profusely. Another, entirely different sort of look was exchanged across the room between Keiran O'Sullivan and Ashton Ledbetter now: all other eyes were remained fixed upon Zanh Liis and Tucker Brody as they stared each other down.

Denise Moreno was, for the moment, too shocked to act.

The computer counted down seventy-five seconds until initiation of the Temporal Drive.

"We've all lost in the past." Liis said evenly, her tone as calm as it was commanding. "How much of the future we lose is being decided this instant, in this place. Do you really want-"

"I want what belongs to me!" Tucker cried, his arm shaking as he struggled to keep hold of the phaser. "I want my accomplishments. I want the life that you, that the other timeline, took from me. I want my wife. I want our children- I-" he trembled even harder as the computer indicated that there was now merely seconds until the drive would activate. Soon he'd be well on his way back to all those things that History had so cruelly denied him.

Looking upon him, the sadness that ran from Denise Moreno's eyes all the way to her heart was now abysmal and complete. This was the moment where she could see so clearly just how little really separated her from the likes of Tucker Brody, and all traces of fear or doubt were suddenly gone.

As Zanh held Brody's gaze, Denise took a halting, half-step forward.

[Sixty seconds until the Temporal Drive is engaged.]

"I want what you took from me." Brody repeated, the stubborn demand for things that deep down he knew no one could ever return to him now, but for which the rage and bitterness that practically was consuming him refused to ever acknowledge were forever lost.

Unbeknownst to Brody, O'Sullivan's eyes shifted toward Moreno, and he gave her a nearly imperceptible nod of approval as he saw what she was planning to do.

"How did I take your life from you, Tucker?” Liis demanded, so tired but so much more so of this persecution for crimes she had no memory of committing. “What happened-"

"What happened?” Tucker snapped, almost as if the anger he felt and the tragedy of his life should be enough to tell anyone, let alone this demoness who’d dominated his nightmares, why they were here. “What happened is that TI has been punishing me in this lifetime for mistakes I made in another. How can you hold a man accountable for errors in judgment he hasn't even made yet? Decisions that have been erased by time itself?"

The way he spoke now, his eyes growing absent from the room and seeming to look back across all the worst moments of a lifetime all at once, made Liis realise how much larger many of the targets for his hatred were than her. At least in his mind, Temporal Investigations itself, this organisation that he’d spent so much of his life immersed in, was causing him this inner torment no man deserved.

"I don't-" Liis continued, her eyes showing him a sudden, shocked compassion. Though she knew he deserved no such consideration, she wondered now how much of this monster before her came from the man himself and how much from the evil she’d seen herself within the higher ranks of Temporal Investigations: the same dark hearted men and women as lacking in courage as they were in conscience.

Those of Jonas Vox’ sort.

The same ones who had taken so much from her, and from Keiran.

"I released you from the hospital." Tucker's voice dropped, barely audible now as he appeared to be far more back there than he was present here. "I let you go, and you were still sick. So sick that it cost so many lives. Your ship. Your crew."

Liis felt her stomach knot and fought the urge to recoil in horror at this disclosure, even as Keiran's hand squeezing tightly against her shoulder reminded her that he may be lying- she knew, somehow that he was not. In a life that hadn’t been and now wouldn’t be, a ship full of people she cared about and would have gladly laid her own life down for would have died, because of her. Nothing had happened here, but the knowledge made her feel somehow colder as it broke away another piece of her soul. In this instant she understood a little more of what Tucker had been living with now for so many years.

"The line was corrected. Erased. But it didn't matter. No matter what I did, they were going to carry that mistake forward. They were going to penalize, to hold me back. To keep me from the life I was destined to live and the woman meant to stand at my side."

"Landry Steele." Keiran whispered into Liis' ear, and she stood just a little taller though her face offered no confirmation she'd heard him. Her eyes however did say that she doubted if all of this was really just about what he’d been denied in this timeline, if it was just the redirection of anger at himself for what he’d done in another.

"You can't be certain that making this jump will correct everything." Liis warned, as Moreno continued to move incrementally forward. "All you'll be doing is ensuring that everyone on this ship, and on mine, including Landry is deprived of the futures they are meant to have."

Brody winced, an involuntary physical reaction to the mention of Steele’s name.

"What about my future!" Brody shouted, his words so strained that it was like every further second he lived in this timeline was a new cause of insurmountable pain. "What about the past that was ripped away from me?"

Liis offered him no audible answer; she didn’t need to, as a look was exchanged between the Serendipity officers. Deep down all those with experience with non-linear time knew that for all their technology and their resequencing abilities, the one thing that could never really be truly changed was your own past. Success may be fleeting, but every mistake would be with you forever.

Denise was fully aware of this fact as she considered what might be the biggest mistake of her life, looking up to the Temporal Drive with her hand brushing down once again over her side, a shudder passing through her lips.

“I’m sorry.” Liis spoke honestly and sadly as her eyes burned through him.

A look of confusion and disbelief passed over Tucker’s face to have heard those words. He was completely unprepared and unaware of just how much she meant by it though, as out the corner of her eyes Liis watched Denise withdraw her phaser from her side and aim it to the drive above her. Only at the last instant did Tucker realise, his eyes widening in horror as he turned a rapid about face, too late to do anything but watch as Denise’s weapon fired.

“No!” he screamed, as the beam struck at the very heart of the drive. In an instant the energy spread like a wave of fire, burning away at the vital components, exactly as Denise knew it would.

Only then it didn’t stop, as with a flash of light and a violent sizzle, the energy was redirected. Ashton and Jamie had reconnected the drive so as to cause it to burn out the engines should they try to use it, and those same connections now caused the phaser energy to travel a path of flaming sparks all around them. True flame would have spread no less efficiently in the driest of forests, as the energy moved like the hand of death casting the once functional systems into being little more useful than ashes.

“No. No. No…” Tucker insisted to himself, taking his head into his hands, and tears building in his eyes.

A soul-shattering wail rose above the sound of the fire suppression system alarms. Jamie hurried to override both the system and the alarms as there was no real danger of conflagration. Everyone stood perfectly still, unable to move, speak, or look away as Tucker Brody collapsed to his knees.

His screaming continued, unabated, and the sound of it chilled Zanh Liis through. Her own knees faltered, and Keiran grasped her more tightly around the waist, keeping her from falling down.

Then, the sound stopped, and in the split second it took for the man to make the motion of raising the phaser in his trembling hand and turning it on himself, Zanh Liis broke free of the grasp of her husband and dove, snatching it away and groaning as she landed painfully on the deck beside him.

She tossed the weapon to Keiran, who grabbed it out of the air in one swift, smooth motion even as he tried to comprehend what she had just done.

Brody looked up at her, his expression indescribable as the tears filled and overflowed from his eyes.

“No, Tucker.” Liis whispered, remembering darker times when a better version of the very man before her had prevented her from taking the same dark, violent action against herself. “No.”

The sound of boots pounding as they carried someone into the room sounded behind the group, though still, no one turned or moved.

“Keiran, as Interim Director of Temporal Investigations I order you to arrest Dr. Brody, and the rest of the Poseidon’s misguided crew. Ledbetter, assist Captain O’Sullivan in…” William Lindsay ordered, only now stopping to look down and see that Zanh Liis had reached up, and placed her hand on Brody’s cheek. Brody shook as a man freezing to death in the unforgiving waters of a frozen ocean; and yet even after all he had put her through, all the times he had haunted the worst of her nightmares, she was determined to show him compassion.

“No, Will.” Liis insisted. “He needs to be in a hospital, not in prison.”

“We’ll let the medical staff decide that, right?” Keiran stepped forward, once again placing a hand on Liis’ shoulder.

“Send him to the Sera,” Liis insisted. “Turn him over to McKay. I trust him to make the determination.”

Keiran and Will exchanged a glance, and out of respect for her experience with the man and aboard this ship, Will deferred to her request.

“Very well. The rest of you, into the brig. Beginning with you.” He took the phaser out of Moreno’s still shaking hand, and clamped his other hand down on to her arm. Finally, she returned from her own thoughts to the present.

She looked up, taking a moment to lock eyes with each member of her former crew. “You heard Captain Lindsay,” she said softly. “I expect you all to give him your full cooperation.”

Liis watched as Ashton Ledbetter and Jamie Halliday stepped forward, each taking hold of one of Brody’s arms and lifting him up before hauling the man from the room.

While everyone else filed out, Keiran assisted Liis to her feet. He moved carefully as he proceeded, taking such good care to ensure he didn’t do so too quickly, he looked at her with an expression of deep complexity and concern. There was a one word question burning in his mind that he simply had to ask.

“Why?”

Liis shrugged her aching shoulders, and unable to give any logical, definitive reason, she gave the only reply that she could. Though it would have been confusing to anyone else, to a man who understood her mind, her nature and her convictions as well as Keiran did, it was the answer that made the most sense that any could.

”Because.”

Denise Moreno
Former Commanding Officer
USS Poseidon

and

Tucker Brody, MD, PhD
Former Temporal Investigations Agent

NRPG: And there you have it, ladies and gents (wait, I’m the only chick here, but still) this is what happens when a man travels 14,000 miles (literally) to kick his Captain’s keister back into gear and finish the mission.

And so politely, too.

Thanks, Danger. ~ZL