II.
"Not everything gets a happy ending, Harry."
It's something Tom said to him years ago, although exactly when, Harry can't remember. And yet, he can still hear Tom's voice clearly (that wariness and fatigue he once mistook for self-centered bitterness) as he now stands outside an apartment in San Francisco, holding a trembling woman who clutches him like he might again disappear.
"I can't believe you're really here," Libby says, and Harry closes eyes. Tries to memorize everything about the way her arms feel, the sound of her voice against his neck.
"It's me," he says. "I'm really here."
Libby's live-in boyfriend appears a few meters from the door's threshold. And then, diplomatically, retreats from view, once he sees who their unexpected guest is.
"I should have commed before I came over. But I just needed- I wanted to see you in person."
"Harry... I'm so sorry-"
"It's alright," he interrupts. "Seven years is a long time. I don't blame you."
At this Libby, pulls back, her eyes filled with tears she won't allow herself to selfishly shed in front of him.
"I didn't know- we thought you were dead for so long! I thought- God. Harry, I was a wreck, for such a long time without you."
It's the kind of thing that would be a consolation to a man with a little less pain of his own under his belt, or else a smaller capacity for compassion.
"I'm glad you found someone who makes you happy," he says. And, to his credit, genuinely means it.
It's just that emotions are complicated things. It being possible to be happy for someone even when your own heart is being torn out in the exact same moment.
"I should go," he finally manages, when the pain of their silence overtakes its comfort.
"I expect to see you," Libby rushes to say. "You can come over for dinner. Introduce me to your famous shipmates?"
"It's good to see you, Libby," Harry says instead, not commenting on the invitation.
Maybe, in time, those things will be possibilities. But right now they're bad ideas all around.
"Harry," Libby calls, when he's halfway down the hall. "You look good. I think the Delta Quadrant suited you."
In a way, Harry thinks she's right. He just wishes it hadn't cost him the first woman he ever loved.
"Maybe," he forces a smile. Then disappears into the building's turbolift.
. . . . .
The temporary housing he's been assigned is several kilometers away, but Harry still walks the whole way back from seeing Libby.
It's one of those magical, cloudless San Francisco afternoons, though the streets are still wet from a morning of soaking rain. All of the ships overhead glimmer with sunlight, and the trees smell lush and promising.
None of it really cheers him up, but when he gets to the grounds of his own building, he's hard-pressed not feel a little better.
"How'd it go?" Tom asks Harry, before making a face at the infant daughter he's carefully laid out on a blanket in the grass.
"As well as a wiser man would have expected," Harry sighs, coming to join Tom in his little, make-shift camp.
"That bad?"
"It is what it is," Harry shakes his head. "Not everything gets a happy ending."
Tom's head shoots up here, his blue eyes watching as Harry lets Miral grab onto his finger, her tiny hand twisting a small smile from the distraught man's face.
"Sometimes that's true," Tom says carefully. "Other times the happy endings we get aren't the ones we saw coming, back when things began."
As if on cue, Miral gurgles, her father's face lighting up with joy. And though Harry isn't nearly dense enough to miss Tom's point, it's a little early for him to go embracing this particular brand of optimism.
"Is this weather going to hold?" he asks Tom instead. Then reclines lazily, his elbows off the blanket.
"No idea," Tom replies. "I would assume we'll get more rain."
"I wouldn't mind that," Harry says, lying flat on with hands tucked under his head.
He closes his eyes, surrounded by the sound of Tom and Miral, and the smell of dewy grass.
. . . . .
