All Too Well
By Laura Schiller
Based on Star Trek: Voyager
Copyright: Paramount
"Maybe we got lost in translation, maybe I asked for too much. But you keep my old scarf from that very first week
But maybe this thing was a masterpiece ´til you tore it all up,
running scared – I was there; I remember it all too well.
'cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me.
You can't get rid of it,
'cause you remember it all too well … "
- "All Too Well", by Taylor Swift
I'm not surprised, thought Captain Afsarah Eden, shaking her head and putting her hands on her hips. Willem always was a terrible housekeeper.
Admiral Willem Batiste's quarters were huge, and somehow he'd still managed to clutter them. The bed was unmade, the desk stacked with padds and paper books. There were unrecycled dishes on the tables, some with crumbs of food still clinging to them, and clothes scattered over the floor. The whole place smelled of beer, sweat and curry. When Afsarah had insisted on clearing her ex-husband's things out by herself, she had known it would be an emotional experience; she hadn't expected that her first emotion would be disgust.
In a way, it made sense that a member of Species 8472, creatures that did not wear clothes and lived on organic ships which needed no tools to operate, would be unfamiliar with the many posessions needed to keep up a human lifestyle. Still, she argued, with an all-too-familiar stab of resentment. After so many years, he should have at least learned how to clean up after himself.
She tried to pretend it was a stranger's life she was packing up, but the attempt was futile. Almost everything had a memory attached to it.
His paper copy of Macchiavelli's The Prince lay open on his desk; the lively arguments they'd had about that book were beyond count,.She had enjoyed their debates so much at the beginning of their relationship, convinced that he was learning from her as much as she had learned from him, until she finally understood that there was no reasoning him out of any of his beliefs, and that his "the ends justify the means" mentality had nothing theoretical about it. He really was prepared to break Starfleet regulations for his own personal gain, as his desperate bid for home had shown.
There was his favorite ratty bathrobe which she'd futilely tried to replace, draped over the bed. It had holes in the elbows, frayed hemlines and stains that would no longer come out; it would have to be recycled. There was the red plaid shirt she used to borrow as a nightgown; he'd teased her about how ridiculous it looked, coming down to her knees, but she had wanted something to remind her of him when they were separated by their duties. She dropped it briskly into the replicator, set it to 'clean', and placed into a storage container to be sent to the Borg War Relief Fund along with his other civilian clothes.
She recycled his reading glasses, which she'd once thought made him look even more distingushed. He must have had a lot of trouble with his eyesight compared to his real body's. She stripped down the bed, fished a pair of boxer shorts out from under it, and cursed at the dust-bunnies making her eyes water. She opened every drawer of his cupboard, shaking her head at the chocolate bars stashed there. Without a concerned wife to criticize his eating habits, he needn't have hidden them. Unless he was just embarrassed to find something human he enjoyed?
All these petty disputes about silly things, she realized bleakly. Was I too hard on him? Did I make him feel like he couldn't be himself in our home? Is that why he never trusted me enough to tell me what he really was?
But this was old territory, and the fact of Willem's species didn't change the conclusions Counsellor Cambridge had helped her reach about her marriage long ago.
Nonsense, Afsarah, she imagined her friend saying. If anything, you were too soft. Most women would have blown that man out the airlock long ago. It was to your credit that you tried to fix your marriage, but some things simply can't be fixed.
What hurt her most was that, though she recognized nearly every object by himself, she couldn't find any trace of the man she'd fallen in love with in the atmosphere of this room. This was the room of a lonely, frightened, selfish alien trapped in a human body. The William Batiste she'd thought she knew – handsome, charming, powerful, more confident in himself and his place in the universe than she would ever be – had been nothing but an illusion. And so was his love.
"I tried," he'd said matter-of-factly, "But ultimately, I found living with a human more trouble than it was worth."
The contents of the drawer became a watery blur. She blinked hard … and caught a glimpse of lavender.
She tugged it out, buried her face in the soft knitted wool, knelt on the floor and cried.
It was her old scarf. The scarf she had worn on their third date, a museum exhibition on Earth religions in the time before the Federation.
"I have to say," she'd confessed, "I often wish I could believe in the promise of those ancient texts, but I can't."
"Neither can I. Makes you feel alone in the universe, doesn't it?"
"I don't even know who my parents were or where I came from. For all intents and purposes, I am alone in the universe."
"I know exactly how you feel."
Willem had pulled her gently forward, by the ends of that same scarf, and kissed her right there in the falling snow. "We don't have to be alone, Afsarah," he'd whispered, and she had believed him with her whole heart.
She had clung to that memory for so long, using it to excuse everything – the mess, the neglect, the bitterness, the lies. After her divorce, she had tried to forcefully erase it, focuing on all her ex's worst qualities instead to fuel her recovery. Only now could she see it for what it truly was.
When he'd accused her of having a soft spot for strays, he had been his own best example. It was his loneliness that had drawn her to him, and vice versa. But if loneliness had been their reason to stay together, it was a very poor reason indeed.
Still, he had kept her scarf for all these years. If she had meant nothing to him, he would have thrown it out long ago.
When she'd protested her appointment as Voyager's captain, he had told her that, if it came down to a crisis, there was no one he'd rather have by his side. And before leaving for fluidic space, he had told her everything. The painful, complex aftermath of their failed marriage had ended on a note of compassion, and in the big picture, that was really something to be grateful for.
Afsarah smiled a bittersweet smile at herself in the mirror as she draped the lavender scarf around her neck.
"Safe journey, Willem," she whispered to the empty room. "Take care."