Back in Simpler Times
By: RadcliffePotter
Hi all! This is my latest brain storm, an AU story where the Enterprise travels back in time (courtesy of Daniels) and meet someone who will change the future of all mankind. For permission to reproduce, please email mtownley at eden dot rutgers dot edu I don't own anything or make any money from this. Please read, review, and enjoy!
The sun was arching lower and lower into the sky. The first hints of pink were beginning to tinge the horizon. It would soon be dusk. Madison James lazily watched the sky transform. She had finished all her chores for the day, so she allowed herself this simple pleasure. Times were hard and she had learned to appreciate even the smallest of things.
Despite the late hour, it was still quite humid. The summer days were long and hot, with plenty of time for all her work to be completed. "Madison James! You get your lazy ass down here!" yelled the grating voice of her drunkard father.
There was a farm to be run, but Charlie James could never find time to do any of it. For him, there were two things and two things only to be done each day: drink and mourn the loss of his wife. Thirteen years ago, this beloved wife had died of pneumonia, leaving him with their dream farm and a five year old daughter. He had never liked Madison. When his wife had told him that she was expecting their child, he had been excited at first. But Charlie was a man with whom the bottom line was priority. And he soon came to realize that their new, small, pink, squalling "bundle of joy" was nothing more than a continuous expense.
Over time, Charlie grew to hate Madison. However, he loved his wife dearly and she loved her daughter dearly. And so for five years, Charlie was forced to act as though Madison was the single greatest thing in his life. Upon the untimely demise of his wife, Charlie's hate made itself abundantly clear. Not only was he now bereft, the love of his life gone, but he also now had a true reason to hate Madison. His wife, Delilah James, had done (in his mind) an unspeakable thing. She had willed everything, the farm, all her money, and anything of any value, to her daughter as she wished to see for her future needs.
In a towering rage, Charlie had hidden the old will, somewhere where only he knew of its location, and created a new will naming himself as the recipient of all of his wife's possessions. Madison knew nothing of the first will or the "new" will, only that she had received nothing and since she was legally a minor, was left under the care of her father, Charlie.
Since that most unfortunate incident, Charlie had allowed his hate for his daughter to openly show. He spent most of his time drunk, wallowing in his own self pity, and the other half mistreating his daughter and forcing her to do all the work required of the farm. Madison, for her part, didn't know why her father hated her. But years of neglect rather than making her hard and
bitter, helped her to learn valuable skills: a love of the earth and green things, how to care not only for herself, but for the farm and all the animals on it, how to deal with difficult people, and how to be independent. And it gave her a thirst for knowledge and a yearning for the comforting silence and companionship of a good book.
True, she had no love for her father, more of a begrudging acceptance that until she turned eighteen years old she would be under his thumb. They interacted, but there was no love. They lived on the same farm, but there was no contact other than the necessary moments to accomplish day to day business.
"I said, Madison James, get your lazy, stupid ass down here now!" She could already hear his drunken voice slurring. She had two choices: she could go down and potentially face another drunken rage, or she could stay right where she was, up in the barn loft.
As soon as he was able, Charlie had forbidden Madison from living in "his house". And as such, she was exiled to the barn loft. Actually, she quite liked the arrangement. She had a large amount of space to herself, rather like a bachelorette pad. And even better, she was safe up there because more often than not, Charlie was too drunk to be able to climb the ladder up to the loft. Such was the case now.
Madison decided to stay right where she was. She was sure that he couldn't see her, so perhaps later she could say she was cleaning out the chicken coop and that she hadn't heard him calling. But more than that, she simply wanted some time to herself and a chance to watch one of the most gorgeous sunsets she had ever seen. After a few more attempts bellowing up, Charlie left. He might be loud and obnoxious, but he wasn't stupid. Even he could tell that he was too drunk to attempt climbing the vertical ladder up to the loft.
Watching the sun finally set, Madison decided to stay and watch the lingering pink and golden strands of light dance across the fields of corn. The view from out of the barn loft was breathtaking. Their fields of apple trees gave way to fields of wheat, barley, and corn. Off to the right of the barn were the field where they pastured their four horses and their cattle. To the left of the barn was the muddy pit where the pigs lived, now currently asleep, semi-immersed in mud. And at the edge of their fields lay a hill and then a deep dip in the land. Rather like a mini-gorge, the dip was sudden, but the slopes and bottom of the hill were grassy. The hill down to the gorge was fairly steep, but not so much that she couldn't wander down into the dip and safely back up if she chose. This land was her land. She knew every ridge, dip, crack, and hole in every field, orchard, and pasture.
And as she lay in the hay in the barn loft, she couldn't help but wish that things would change. Not being particularly religious, as her father didn't believe in "such nonsense" she wasn't exactly sure who to wish too. But, she figured that surely someone would be listening. She recalled when she was very young that her mother mentioned someone called "God" and his followers called "angels". Better than nothing.
"Hey, uh, whoever y'all are up there," she began nervously, unsure of why she was suddenly nervous, "God, I guess, um, if y'all aren't busy, I was wonderin' if I could talk to ya. I mean it's not that I don't like where ya put me, 'cause I do, but sometimes I wish things would change. If I could just know that this is the way things were supposed ta be, it would be alright. But I just want to know if I should be doin' somethin' else. So, if, ah, you could just give me a sign or somethin' I-"
She was cut short as a she saw a small bright shooting star. She withdrew a breath in a sort of reverent noise. "That's it!" she mumbled to herself under her breath, "That's my sign!" But the shooting star didn't shoot out of her line of vision. Rather, it seemed to be shooting closer and closer to her.
Madison closed her eyes and shook her head vigorously. Surely she must be imagining things. She opened them again. The star was coming still closer – so close that she realized that her star would hit the earth. She scrambled closer to the window. The star flew in at an amazing speed and with an earth shaking crash, landed in the dip on the edge of the fields.
She was up in a flash. Down the ladder in an instant, she was running towards the dip There were small bits of hay in her sun faded strawberry blonde hair. Her brown leather cowboy hat was askew. She jammed it mercilessly back onto her head. Now, was not the time to have to go chasing after her hat! Her blue jeans were worn soft and tucked into her brown leather cowboy boots. Her boots were old and there would soon be a hole in the bottom of them, but none of that mattered now.
She pounded down between the apple trees, legs pumping, bosom heaving, heart racing. She could feel beads of sweat sliding down the sides of her white bra. She wiped hurriedly at her white tank top above the problem spot, but was in too much of a hurry to really do anything about it. She reached the edge of the fields, brown plaid shirt tails flying, and stopped dead in her tracks.
At the bottom of the gorge lay her star. But by now, she was more than certain that it wasn't in fact a star. She hastily tucked her shirt tails into her jeans and buttoned her shirt. She was seventeen now and more than capable of dealing with this. She had dealt with storms. She had dealt with birthing cattle. She had dealt with draught. And now she was dealing with living in the Depression. So this should be no different. A situation that she was unfamiliar with, but that she would do her best to work through. She adjusted her cowboy hat, wiped her sweaty hands on her pants, and her sweaty forehead on her shirt sleeves which were rolled up to her elbows. She tried to calm her racing heart and her ragged breathing, and she set off down the hill.
She trotted down the hill, closer and closer to the thing that had crash landed in her gorge. It was silver and very large. Not at all what she thought a star should look like. With a red stripe running down the side of it and two silver wings jutting out from the main body of the thing, it looked more like a bird than a star.
She sniffed the air, it smelled of dust and the same metal smell that she associated with the tractor. She made the mistake of touching the star. She jerked her hand back with a yelp. The star had burned her! A half dollar sized red and tender spot on the palm of her hand was already aching as badly as if she had burned it on a camp fire pot.
Apparently, lesson number one about "stars" was not to touch them! She inched closer still, not daring to touch anything else. She froze as she heard voices. She looked around in bewilderment and soon realized that the voices were coming from inside the star! Someone must be inside! She circled around, but could not find a way to get in to the star - or whatever it was. And she was still reluctant to touch anything again.
She froze as she heard a scraping sound. With a hiss and another small scraping sound, a door opened from the star. Madison was unsure what to do. Stars weren't bad, were they? Should she run? She quickly discarded that thought. This was the most exciting thing that had ever happened. She crept closer to the door. Smoke was billowing out in thick clouds. There was a fire inside the star!
A shadowy figure approached the exit and stumbled out. Funny, he looked human. A tall, somewhat lanky man with blonde, smoke dirtied hair half stumbled out of the door. He was dressed in what seemed to be a uniform, but unlike any uniform she had ever seen. A dark, navy colored, one piece jumpsuit. The red stripes by the shoulders and a long zipper were the only distinctive features of the outfit. He was gasping for breath.
Madison abandoned all sense of fear and wonder and went into red alert. She had seen smoke fires before, and knew the damage they could do, to animals as well as people. She had to help him. Dashing over to the star, careful not to touch the outside of it, with all her strength, she hauled the man out of the star and up on to the sloping hill of the gorge. He was coughing feebly, but once he got in a few breaths of clean air, he seemed to breathe easier.
He grabbed her arm and muttered, "The Cap'n, Malcolm," before his eyes fluttered shut. She felt for a pulse and found one, slow but still there. He was safe for now. There were still others in the star! She couldn't leave them to die! A sudden thought occurred to her. These must be angels, since angels lived up in the stars. Angels saved people and now she had to do her part to save the angels.
Dashing into the star, she was immediately overcome with white smoke and a strange smell. She took a deep breath, and looked around as best she could. Slumped over in a chair with a wicked looking gash on his head was another man. Brown haired, tall and muscular, he wore the same jumpsuit as his companion, but on his shoulders were yellow stripes. She quickly approached and tapped him on the shoulder. No response, but still a pulse.
Struggling him off the chair, she nearly collapsed when she took his full weight as he half slumped over her shoulder. Now breathing heavily in exertion and finding it harder and harder to
breathe, it was a relief to stumble out of the star. Slumping onto the grass, she half dragged and half carried him over to the blonde man. Both were blissfully unconscious.
With a few scraggly and stuttering breaths, she plunged back into the star. A sort of greenish hue had lent itself to the smoke, making the place seem more otherworldly than before. There! The final man lay on the floor, apparently uninjured, but obviously deeply unconscious. She tugged and wiggled and yanked until she pulled them both free.
Realizing that clearing the star was a priority with so much smoke, she gave one last struggle and the third man was on the bank beside his compatriots. Madison fell to her knees, eyes tearing, struggling to breathe. Each breath came as a hacking cough and only by sheer force of will did she not black out. She kept telling herself that she only needed to take one more breath, one more breath…and in such a manner, she was able to clear her lungs and her head.
Still somewhat hazed, she now realized that she had a true dilemma on her hands: three unconscious angels were resting on her hill, a star had crash landed into her dip, and she had to keep her father from finding out – providing of course that he wasn't too smashed to have missed the whole thing. Struggling to her feet, she muttered at the sleeping figures, "Don't worry, I'll be right back." Setting off at a dash back to the loft, she knew she had a job to do.
So whatcha think? Should I continue? If you like whatcha read, then jab that button down there and drop me a line. Thanks! ;)