Unfinished Business

Chapter 1 : Bitter Ashes

August, 2270

The five year mission had ended and the crew had scattered to the four winds for long leave while the ship was being refitted and re-provisioned. The two of them had traveled together, publicly for the first time, to another small cabin on a different lake, on a planet where they had never been before. Their plan was to stay here for two weeks, just enjoying being together, relaxing, recovering from stress. And then to Vulcan, where things would be very formal. And then to Earth, to Africa, where things would be very warm and happy. They had much to share, much that had been concealed until now.

They had been here three days, most of it spent exactly where they were right now, tangled together on the bed. He lay between her legs, his head pillowed on her belly, while she ran her fingers through his hair, relaxed, sated, happy. And then he stilled, lay impossibly still, until she breathed a question. And he took her fingers from his hair and laid them under his cheek and shared the wonder with her. And felt such a swell of overpowering joy flood through him that he could barely contain it.

He awoke in the middle of the night a week later. She was in great pain. He bolted upright, raised the lights, saw the spreading stain on the sheets, felt her rage and sorrow. He touched her face gently, trying to share, wanting desperately to help, and she cried out and pounded him with her fists and screamed and shook. He recoiled in dismay. She curled herself into a ball and sobbed. He rose and gathered her up, sheets and all, and stumbled out to the flitter, heading for the town at top speed. He carried her into the hospital, laid her on the gurney, watched in stunned disbelief as they wheeled her away.

Heart aching, he stood where he was until the doctor returned, telling him she would be fine, there would be no permanent damage, they could try again, sometimes these things just weren't meant to be. He stood and endured the man until he finished. He nodded. He turned and walked away, back to the flitter, back to the cabin by the lake. He stood on the shore, shoulders slumped, body racked with pain. He had felt her despair, her pain, the bleakness that had overwhelmed her. Surely she hated him now, blamed him for what had happened. He did not see how she would ever forgive him this pain, this sorrow. His body bowed under the weight of it, he sank on his knees, pounded his fists into the ground. Great sobs tore through his body, shaking it.

After some indeterminable amount of time, he recovered sufficiently to do what needed to be done. With great care and tenderness, he closed down the link between them. Almost, he did the final thing needed to break that link completely, but he could not bring himself to do it. He left only a bare trickle, enough that he could tell she still lived. Slowly he built walls around that last tenuous connection, sealing it off inside the most secret part of himself. The lack of that bright presence within his mind was almost enough to send him over the edge into blackness. He trembled and shuddered. It took great fortitude to regain his control over himself, his emotions. He rose and turned to the cabin, packing his things, her things. Her things were damp as he folded them into her duffle. Water seemed to fall from somewhere onto them.

He put both duffles into the flitter. Back to the hospital. He carried her bag into the building, gave it into the care of the woman behind the desk. Paid all her bills, left there a sum sufficient for her transportation back to Earth. These things he could do for her, if nothing else. He walked down the hall, stood outside her room in the darkness, watched her sleeping there. His cheeks were wet again. He did not understand how this kept happening.

He turned, left the building, sat in the flitter. There was only one option left to him now. He headed for the spaceport, turned in the flitter, booked his passage to Vulcan. He left his duffle sitting on a bench in the spaceport there, little caring what happened to it, and headed for Gol.