Love Letters
Posted on Nov 15, 2016 @ 12:33am by Captain Siobhan Reardon
Edited on on Nov 15, 2016 @ 12:34am
Mission: Aftermath
“Love Letters”
(Continued from “Shattered Lives”)
=/\=
Maybe I've been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Leonard Cohen, “Hallelujah”
=/\=
Location: USS ZHUKOV
SD: [2.16]1113.2035
Scene: Bridge→ Ready Room
Time Index: Almost immediately after the events of “The Last Battlefield”
Siobhan Reardon’s face was pale and wan, her eyes forward, blinking, but not quite seeing.
It would be nineteen years. Next month. The redhead made a brittle noise, like a stifled cough, and shuddered. It was a milestone that she had looked forward to in her career, even as she had considered her future with Dexter Marxx. But any thoughts of celebration had been shattered as she played with the memories in her mind. When she arrived on the ODYSSEY, Dex had been the newly minted ExO, nursing wounds he would not allow anyone else to see. His reluctance only strengthened her resolve to see him through it, as Counsellors fresh out of the Academy are wont to do.
Then, a short time later, the Locusta had entered her dreams, espousing a future where they were husband and wife. And they explored that prophecy with cautious but open minds, and their relationship unfolded, and in the same moments intertwined. Eventually, the predictions came to pass and they were married in a grand ceremony aboard the ODYSSEY. But a few hours later, in the dead of that joyous night, the ship was destroyed and they were held hostage on the Vigilance Platform. Rescue did come, weeks later, but too late to save their unborn child. Eventually, they were happy for a time, but it was far too short. Promotions and assignments grew to overshadow their feelings. In the end, they were both CO’s, married more to their ships than each other. A divorce was inevitable and that’s where it had stayed, for a long time. Almost 15 years. Reardon was never sure if Dex had moved on, but recent events had solidified that he hadn’t, in her opinion... but it was even more and more obvious to her that she definitely never had.
Their paths to command had been different, but they were cut from the same cloth. And at this moment, Sio could only see that fabric as impossibly worn, all its tatters and rips and frayed edges waving in the vacuum of space, almost as the first flag did that graced the lunar landing. Damaged, but defiant.
What Dex and his crew had done may have been a tremendous sacrifice, but she knew his desire to serve, defend, and protect others guided his actions today, and truly, on any day. But that did not change the chill that washed over her in unrelenting waves, knowing she would never hear his voice again, or feel his strong hands grasping her in a tender embrace, or be able look into his eyes and know they shared an enduring love, however inconvenient. The pain was far too great.
Sio hadn’t spoken but a few words since they left the irradiated husk of the CENTURY and she had arrived back on the bridge of the ZHUKOV, rendered dumbstruck. She bit her lip, trying to focus on the tasks at hand without an emotional display. They had taken on some of the evacuees from the heavily damaged and destroyed vessels, and were trying to mobilize within their fleet as a support ship. The logistics were off the scale. But they were safe. And they were home.
“Captain?” It was the authoritative voice of the Ktarian Operations Officer, Summer Naamah.
“Commander?”
“Your lip’s bleeding. Are you ok?”
The metallic taste didn’t hit Siobhan’s tongue until Summer asked the question, and she wiped her mouth and gave a benign stare to the feline woman, before trying to nod in the affirmative. Commander Naamah returned the look, then reluctantly accepted the non verbal response and went back to her duties.
Siobhan slumped in her chair. There was not a single doubt in her mind that Dex would have wanted her to carry on, to continue. As the Great Wheel spins, and the name Dexter Marxx is added to the circle, life must move forward. But that fact, combined with his immense loss, did not add up to the sum of its parts. She couldn’t go on. She was broken.
“Jonah, may I have a word?”
The Aussie/Trill hybrid acknowledged her request, and followed her to the Ready Room.
“Thank you, Commander. I know now’s not the best time.” She replicated a glass of water and placed herself behind her desk.
“Better than earlier,” he began, trying to ease the tension he felt seeping into the room. She gestured for him to sit down.
“I wanted you to know how invaluable you’ve been as my number one,” Sio spoke, her voice wavering a little. “That makes it easier to do what I have to do now.”
Jonah’s sea colored eyes looked puzzled, but he pressed on, his mind set on getting his words out before she continued. “My deepest condolences on the loss of Admiral Marxx. He will always be a hero.”
When she heard the word “hero” it felt like someone was stabbing her with a rapier. She took a long, slow breath, eyes squeezed shut, trying to hold the tears in. A few seconds later, it was a bright green gaze that she levelled against her ExO. “I would rather have the man... than the legend,” she uttered in a small voice. “Do you understand?”
“I’m trying to.”
“I actually found myself wishing today that I’d never laid eyes on Dexter Juraj Marxx.”
Britt shifted in his seat as he watched her face contort into a mass of regret. “Surely you don’t-”
“Oh but I do…” she replied haggardly. “The amount of time we were together was just a footnote on a very long paper entitled ‘My Career in Starfleet’. But I thought about him all the time. I wished and I waited, hoping he would come back to me. All the time too stubborn and too willful myself to forgive him for divorcing me long distance. I had even convinced myself he couldn’t possibly care about me any more. That made is easier to ignore- but not impossible.”
“You’re not alone in your grief, I assure you Siobhan.”
“Assurance is so much crap,” she spouted, anger bared through damp cheeks and red-rimmed eyes. “We should have had the assurance that our *own* people wouldn’t try to destroy us!”
“If I have anything to say or do about that, we will have that security again. I don’t know when, but it *will* happen.”
Sio knew he was stating the truth but it didn’t hurt any less. “I appreciate that, Jonah. But I think it’s too late for me.”
“You could easily lead for another ten years or more. You have an intuition that continues to surprise me.”
“It wasn’t enough to save Dex, though, was it? And now, I’m wishing we’d never met, but not because I wish I’d never known him. It’s so I could meet him all over again and cherish every single moment.” Her voice was raspy and breaking again.
“Listen… you could use some rest. Let us do the workflow today and you get refreshed. Maybe see the medic? It’s been a helluva day.”
“No,” she replied matter-of-factly.
“*No*? Captain Reardon, you’re exhausted and obviously upset. Everyone will understand.”
She raised her hand. “Let me finish, Commander. I need more than that… some ‘happy pills’ and a couple days’ sleep isn’t going to fix this. That’s why I called you in here.” She glanced at the chronometer. “As of 5:42 pm San Francisco time, I hereby declare myself temporarily mentally unfit for duty.” She stood, recognizing the utter shock in Jonah’s face, but standing firm.
“Mister Britt, you have Command.”
=/\=
Location: Reardon’s Quarters
Her breaths kept catching in her throat as the door swooshed closed behind her. The ship that was once her home and her haven now was the constant reminder of everything that had happened. “Drey? Ondrej?” Her calls were met with no answer.
She removed her jacket and let it fall to the floor, revealing her black duty shirt. She sat on the couch and put her head in her hands. It was throbbing with all the events that led up to this moment. Sio lifted her head, noticing she hadn’t touched the glass of water she’d made and left behind in the Ready Room while talking to Jonah Britt. But before she could get up and replicate another, she noticed a data device resting on the corner of the coffee table. She picked it up and turned it on to look at it, even though she already knew what was on it.
The PADD contained an unsubmitted request for a one-year leave of absence. She’d made the decision just a few days ago… that she wanted to spend an entire year with Dex. Not that it would make up in any way for their time apart, but it could be a new beginning. Their relationship deserved that chance… a chance they weren’t going to get. Her throat burned, tears blurring her vision and beading up on the display screen, and she wiped them away from the device with the sleeve of her shirt.
And now… she had been robbed of her future as surely as Dex had been. Fairy tale endings were only for other people. All that was left was the snickering curtain of the grimdark, showing no mercy and all its madness to the stricken woman.
She crumpled to the floor, her body convulsing with sobs she had not allowed herself to release until now. There was a medium pitched whining noise that Siobhan finally realized was coming from her, a baleful cry of grief that sounded more like a feral animal than any sound that could come from a human. “Noooooooooooooooooooo…” she moaned, heaving gasps between cries of desperation.
“Mom?!” Drey had been in his room when he heard the noises and found his mother prostrate on the living room carpet, pounding the floor with her fists, the PADD tossed aside. “Mom!”
She raised her head in tearstained despair, and Drey helped to her feet, then seated her back on the couch, cradling her. “Dex… is… dead,” she cried stridently. “The CENTURY-”
Drey nodded, tossing his too-long brown bangs out of his face. “We know, everyone saw what he did. He did an honorable thing. Think of the lives he saved.”
Sio cried even harder, leaning into her son’s shoulder. “That’s... of no comfort.. to me.”
“Shh. Nobody said it had to be.”
“I loved him,” she said in a muffled voice. “And I wasted so much time not telling him.” Siobhan began to weep again in earnest.
Drey had seen his mother react in many ways, but this was beyond anything he’d known. He pushed his worry down into the pit of his stomach and continued to hold her as she shook and grieved. His voice was only a whisper. “He knows, Mom. He knows.”
=/\=
Maybe there's a God above
And all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
Its not somebody who's seen the light
Its a cold and its a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
=/\=
Susan Ledbetter
Writing for
Siobhan Rose Reardon
