A moment for grief, before her story starts again.
Spock was tall and broad, the kind of guy Cally honestly went for. Her own personal hell had been leaner, with longer hair and a cheeky grin. A band tied around his upper arm just because he liked that kind of Mick Jagger look. She could close her eyes for a billion years and his smile would dance behind the lids. Would he ever leave her? She thought not. He was the only one she could remember perfectly, through time and space and absence.
After the flurry of Jim's departure for Starfleet, Cally crept away, closing her bedroom door and sliding down it slowly, exhaling as she did so. She sat like that for a moment, revelling in the utter silence, listening to her heart beat dully, and glancing around her room. Just as she had left it.
Cream walls, velvet curtains in a mauve colour … a bed with the metal frame she had repainted white herself, covered in a matching purple throw, with fluffy cushions to ward off nightmares. A shelf stood opposite it, covered in knick-knacks; badges and porcelain puppies; jewellery boxes and hats; a whole host of ballet dancers in various attitudes. Teddy bears sat placidly on the top shelf, draped in costume jewellery that she couldn't bear to part with. Photographs. A row of them smiled at her, and suddenly she was dragging herself up to investigate them, on legs that felt shaky.
She ran a hand over the familiar faces … her, aged three, sitting on the knee of her mother who had had a sad face as long as Cally could remember; the sorrow hidden in her eyes, her hands clutching her small daughter close to her as if it could keep her there forever. Cally was a gap toothed, over excited little girl with platinum pigtails and freckles the size of quarters. Her hands trailed the glass to the silver frame of the next picture. She couldn't hold back the smile as she saw the characters in the next image. James was a teenager, a few years older than she was, pouting into the camera, making it the stiff portrait of two siblings. She was nine, her hands folded neatly on the skirt of her rose coloured dress, awash with frills and decorations. She was a little lady, from her neatly curled hair to her pristine white shoes. She wasn't smiling, instead she was looking solemnly out at the camera, her eyes as blue as James', though they would darken with the years. His suit was perfect too, even if he had a cut on his forehead, and his eyes were sulky. The Polaroid stuck into the frame showed the two as they normally were. She was sitting on James' lap, howling, tears flowing down her face while James, only about ten was holding her around the waist, laughing. His head was thrown back, mirth unmistakeable. They were always at odds, Callista and James.
There was one frame turned downwards, and she skipped over it. The next skipped forward some years; she was sixteen, and it was Christmas. Her mother had taken it, a picture in the snow of Warren and his daughter Callista picking out the Christmas tree. They were both swaddled in quilted jackets, their faces red from the cold, grinning widely. She could hardly keep her concentration over the next few, holiday snaps, old friends, piano recitals. An absence, where there should have been the missing photograph of her brother's commendation; the day he had been made captain. She had stood beside him in a blue dress, smiling proudly, with a face too pale and shaken to be looked at comfortably. They had never printed the pictures. Cally's face had been too full of ghosts.
It had been almost a year since then. And two long years since that fateful moment, when she had downed tools after the emergency was over and walked alongside his stretcher to the morgue. She had washed her hands and shook for what seemed like years. It seemed funny that her brother was the first to shock her into action, after all this time. She hadn't even noticed the instruments in her hand until she had looked down to see her fingers flying; doing what she did best. Fixing things. Fixing people. Fixing Jim, really.
That was Cally's lot. She was a peacemaker; a repairwoman. She picked people up, dusted them off and set them back on her feet. That was the deal, when you had parents like Cally's, who wanted what was best for you, and could only look longingly after their boy James, wasting his life and causing trouble. When you saw those sort of pained looks on your parents faces, and you heard their subdued, disappointed conversation from the time you could understand their words, you didn't really have a choice. You knew as a dutiful daughter that your future would have to be one which made them proud, because one of you would have to take responsibility and there was no way it was going to be their beloved James.
So. That's what she had done, working quietly and conscientiously and planning her future. Of course, it hadn't all been books and servitude – Cally had fallen in line as she had been expected to, but she had found plenty of opportunities to stand out, too. And certainly, she had enjoyed her few moments in the sun, but they had never lasted, and she had never expected them to last. Ever since she was a little girl, Cally had watched from the sidelines, happiest cheering the people she loved on.
I was Jack's biggest cheerleader, she thought, suddenly. She waited for a pain; a stab to remind her why she never thought of him, but it didn't come. She merely felt the soft sadness sweeping through her, a sadness that had been so much worse in the beginning. The sadness that in the beginning had crippled her, the grief which had made rooms spin when she saw blood, and remembered.
A desire came whispering along with the sadness, surprising her. She hadn't felt one of the kind for so long that she didn't even consider denying it. She reached out along the shelf and plucked the overturned picture out of the line. When it rested on her lap, she steadied herself and turned it over, drinking in the colours and the unbridled joy shining in her eyes. She was sixteen, her hair flowing down her back, her cheeks flushed and her arms entwined around a boy a year or two older than she was. He was tall, wiry and muscular. Shaggy brown hair, a strong jaw, white, white teeth and dark honey brown eyes, grinning into the camera; his arms twined around her too. His life just about to start. They were heart to heart in the glare of the sun, dressed in summer clothes, faces full of promise. His name had been Jack, and through the years they had been best friends, companions. The term seemed meaningless for what they had been to each other. Flipsides of one coin, but he was gone, now.
He was made for the life he chose. She shouldn't cry for him.
And she mightn't have – if it wasn't her fault. If she hadn't been there, the one to feel the burden of his death rest squarely on her shoulders. She stared into his face for a long time, before carefully replacing it on her shelf, standing alongside the other photos. The sunset seared a line of fire down Cally's walls and suddenly it looked to her like the room of a child.
She had left at sixteen and been back only for two years since. She hadn't changed a thing. An homage to his memory. Surely that was unhealthy? Surely that was more the territory of grieving parents; of old widows? Of people incapable of moving on?
A whisper of fresh air blew through her open window, and an urge rose in her to unfold her legs and chase it across the fields as far as she could. Would the flight be coloured with memories of him? She didn't know.
A/N: Last reflectiony chapter for a while, methinks. :) Thanks you again to Cuckoo on a String for your review, and I'll keep my eye out for any more crazy dreams of mine to tell you. ;) Also thank you to BaDWolF89 for your encouraging words, much appreciate it. Just wanted to say hello to you lovely lurkers, lurking about and reading this -I have many times been a lurker, so I have a strange fondness for you. But if you ever want to put a review up to say what you think, sure wouldn't I love to read it? ;)
