Last Looks

Posted on Apr 02, 2017 @ 6:37pm by Commander Jacob Crichton & Ambassador Xana Bonviva
Edited on on Apr 02, 2017 @ 6:37pm

Mission: In Place of God

= Last Looks =

(cont’d from “The Smooshy Hour”)

LOCATION: USS PHOENIX

SCENE: Transporter Room 3

STARDATE: [2.17] 0402.1425

Jake had arrived early, hoping to be waiting there for Xana when she came to beam down to the surface of BOLARUS IX. He dismissed the transporter tech on shift (“Go grab a coffee and a bathroom break,” Jake had said, remembering his earliest days at the academy, when he’d pulled shifts in the transport hall and had spent long hours standing at the transporter controls, staring off into space), and proceeded to wait. It didn’t take long; Xana had gotten an early morning too, it seemed, and she arrived a few minutes after Jake, with a few of the PHOENIX’s security personnel along to help her with her luggage. She halted when she saw Jake, her expression a combination of hope and surprise. He thought Xana must believe he’d come to make one final push, to get her to stay, or at least to reconsider the dissolution of their marriage, in light of the illness she’d been diagnosed with. He hadn’t; they’d made their goodbyes, bittersweet as they were, and to draw things out any further would be to cause both of them undue pain.

“Jake,” Xana said.

“Xana,” Jake smiled. He looked at the pair of security officers who’d come with her. “I can take it from here, guys.”

The security officers set down their bits of luggage and left, leaving Jake and Xana alone in the transporter room. They stood staring at one another for a moment, their instincts drawing them together even as the reality of their relationship kept them discretely apart.

“I just thought I should see you off,” Jake said, hoping to put her as ease.

“Oh,” Xana said. “I thought you might have come to convince me to call everything off, and run away with you in a shuttlecraft.”

“The thought crossed my mind.”

Xana smiled. “What stopped you?”

“I’m not sure Kane would let us get away with one of his shuttles.”

“He might blow us out of the sky, just for the opportunity to be rid of me,” said Xana.

Jake smiled, but it was a weak smile. “It was good to see you, in spite of everything.”

She nodded. “It was.”

“And I guess… this is the last time, for awhile.”

“You’ll always know where to find me,” Xana said.

Jake stepped out from behind the transporter console and crossed the room. They fell into each other’s arms, and their lips met. The kiss had none of the desperate passion of the other night, their last night together, but it was warm and sweet, and they held it for as long as they could. When they broke the embrace, each of them felt like they’d left a part of themselves behind with it, and came to the unconscious realization that they might never be whole again. Then, Xana stepped back from Jake, and cleared her throat.

“They’re waiting for me on the surface,” she said.

“Right,” Jake nodded. Given the reconstruction efforts on BOLARUS IX, there weren’t many places Xana could be going to. “Same place as last time?”

“I’ll start there,” Xana nodded.

Jake nodded as he typed in the familiar coordinates. “Alright then...I guess then this is goo--”

“Don’t say it,” the azure woman said shaking her head. As Jake looked up, he saw her standing on the transporter pad, shaking her head, causing tendrils of white hair to come undone and fall on across her face. Closing her eyes she said, “I...just can’t right now.”

There is no perfect way to say goodbye. It can be light and airy; it can be wrenched from the depths of our hearts. There can be a formality to it or all the emotion wrung from every drop our being. But saying “goodbye” creates a fixed point in time; you don’t just say “goodbye” to another person; you’re saying “goodbye” to that person that they are in that moment. The unacknowledged truth is that you are saying goodbye to who they are because even if you see them again, they will never be the same, and neither will you.

Both Xana and Jake had said goodbyes before -- to friends, to family, colleagues -- they said goodbyes in everyday life and sometimes for the final time. They even said it to each other over the years.

But this was different. This was a fixed point in their story that had begun with an Abyss...and selfishly Xana didn’t want it to bookend it with a goodbye in the PHOENIX, which is what it felt like.

“Xana.”

The politician opened up her eyes to look at the handsome Executive Officer; and for one of the few times in her life she was mute.

Without looking away, Jake’s hands settled over the transporter’s controls. It had been a long time, but the steps were drilled into his memory: Pattern lock and verification, doppler compensation, initialize pattern buffer. Finally, Jake’s hand hovered over the final control, which would trigger the transport sequence. He hesitated.

“Be safe,” Jake said quietly.

Xana exhaled at that. “You too,” she said.

“Energizing.”

The transporter whined, and Xana was carried away in a shimmer of light. Jake remained where he was, staring at the now empty transporter pad, for several moments. He felt like he wanted to cry, but no tears came, and when he was sure that they weren’t coming he straightened, took a deep breath, and turned towards the transporter room’s exit. The transporter chief whom Jake had relieved was nearby, leaning against a wall and cradling a mug of coffee between her two hands. When she saw Jake, she straightened abruptly.

“Sir!”

“As you were,” Jake said, waving the formality away, as he continued past her and made his way towards the turbolifts.

=[/\]=

NRPG: Xana has departed the station, and we’re knocking on the door of our next mission. Lots of good posting from everyone in this “between missions” break (I think Sarah gets the lion’s share of the praise for that, since she even managed to pull a Joint Post out of Jerome, of all people ;-), let’s try to keep up this momentum into the next mission!

Oh, and please remember to get your color texts for your quarters out too!

A Joint Post By…

Sarah Albertini-Bond

~writing for~

Xana Bonviva

And

Shawn Putnam

A.k.a.

Jake Crichton

Executive Officer

USS PHOENIX