A/N: Thank you SnidgetHex, pallysd'Artagnan, and 29Pieces for reviewing again!
"Drifting"
2389-2390
They drove with no destination in mind, save to get as far away from San Francisco as possible. That first day on the road, Raffi drove all through the night, with the help of a stimulant she'd replicated before leaving the apartment. She had a stash in her bag for when she'd need it. Rios didn't notice her use it; he was still recovering from that attempt on his life and had fallen asleep in the passenger seat of the hovercar.
They didn't talk about what happened. Raffi didn't ask for more details on the ibn Majid and Rios didn't volunteer any. He wasn't doing well, she could tell. He flinched in his sleep, an occasional whimper slipping past his lips without his knowledge. He'd come awake with a heaving gasp like he'd just woken from drowning and then curl against the door shivering.
One time he woke abruptly and immediately told her to pull over. She'd barely stopped on the side of the road before he was falling halfway out the door and retching in the gravel. Raffi climbed over the seat and knelt behind him, one hand rubbing circles on his back and the other braced across his forehead.
"Okay, honey, you're okay."
He wasn't, though.
And neither was she, really.
The stimulants kept her going initially but after two days on the road she needed a drink, badly. She pulled into a tourist spot outside a local bar.
"Let's get drunk," she declared.
Rios wordlessly climbed out of the hovercar and followed her.
She downed her first glass in one go, practically inhaling it. Rios slumped in the stool beside her and took his drink at a more sedate pace but with a steadiness that suggested he was well-practiced at this routine. They drank until the proprietor started giving them shifty looks, then Raffi ordered one last bottle and took it and Rios back out to the hovercar where they sprawled out in an awkward arrangement of limbs across the seats.
She knocked back a hearty swig and passed him the bottle. He took his own drag and handed it back.
"Still no idea where we're going?" he asked.
"Wherever the wind takes us," she replied with a drunken smile and raising of the bottle.
They were sloshed by the time they finished it off, Raffi in that blissful numb state she'd missed these past couple of days.
The next morning they dragged their asses out of the hovercar and found a place to get some coffee, which they both chugged like it was an instant miracle cure. It wasn't. But Raffi had packed hypos for this too. She was, after all, a functioning alcoholic.
They got back on the road and simply drove, the miles rolling by aimlessly. Rios started taking his turn at the helm, though his level of concentration seemed to be by sheer force of will alone.
They stopped at scenic landmarks and tourist spots, living on coffee, liquor, and sometimes food. Sometimes they drove all night and sometimes they stopped to get a room at a motel for some decent sleep and a shower. It was an easy, mindless routine, and being out in the beautiful countryside helped Raffi ignore the sad state of her life.
But she couldn't forget.
"We should find proof of what Starfleet Security did," she said one day while Cris was driving and she had a PADD in her lap. She was trying to look up the ibn Majid as a starting point but nothing was coming up. Rios had said the ship's records had been erased, but this was on such a thorough scale that not even she could mine past the shield for the gold nuggets.
"You won't find anything," Rios said tonelessly.
"That's the spirit," she muttered as she swiped through a few more avenues in search of something. "Damn."
"Told you."
"There has to be something," she pressed. "A mention somewhere in an unrelated file. A shipping manifest, someone's letter home. Come on, Cris, you knew everything about the ibn Majid."
"And what would be the point?" he rejoined. "It's not like anyone would believe us. Two outcasts expelled from Starfleet in disgrace with 'mental issues' in our files."
"We can't just let them get away with it!"
"They already have."
"And you're content to give up?" she spat, anger churning her blood with vitriol. "You, Picard, even Vandermeer. Starfleet betrays you and you just decide to throw in the towel."
The hovercar swerved as Rios brought it to a jarring halt. "Don't you dare talk about him!" he seethed. "You weren't there. You didn't have to stare down the barrel of a cannon aimed at your entire crew if you didn't betray everything you believed in, everything you were!" He pounded a fist against his chest. "They would have destroyed my entire ship. You want to go digging at it? What lengths do you think they'll go to, to make sure it stays covered up!"
He rocked back, face red, and slammed his palms against the console.
Raffi twisted to look out her window, fuming inside.
After a few moments, Rios veered them back onto the road. Neither of them said another word to each other for the rest of the day, and when they stopped at a motel for the night, they got separate rooms.
Raffi ordered a bottle of vodka from the replicator and slumped on the bed, hating herself as much as she hated the rest of the world and everyone who'd let her down.
She was started out of sleep later by the sound of something hitting the wall. Not quite fully awake, she banged the wall in a return signal to shut the hell up. Then she heard a scream, a long, tortured cry partially muffled by the walls. And she remembered Rios was in the next room.
She scrambled from her bed and out the door in only her shorts and tee. For a split moment, she expected that bitch from his apartment to be attacking him. But when she burst into his room, it was dark, save for the eerie glow of a porch light streaming through the uncovered window, and the only one there was Cris, thrashing on the bed in a twisted tangle of sheets.
Raffi flung the door shut behind her and rushed to his side. "Cris. Cris!"
He was drenched in sweat, head twisting back and forth and choked sounds stalled in his throat.
Raffi grabbed his flailing arms and tried to pin them down. "Cris! Wake up!"
His eyes shot open, black and unseeing, but his writhing eased.
Raffi released his arms and captured his face in her hands. "Cris, look at me. You're safe. You hear me? I've got you. I've got you."
That familiar, harsh gasp of a dying man expanded his chest as his body bucked beneath her, eyes clearing of their momentary madness and snapping toward hers. Then he squeezed them shut and let out a strangled sob. Raffi drew her legs up on the bed and bowed over him, cradling his head in her arms. Cold sweat mixed with hot tears dampened her shorts.
She didn't say anything. There were no words for this. Nothing she could do except sit and hold him in the dark, both of them broken shells of who they'd once been.
…
The next morning Raffi extricated herself from the bed and went to the replicator to make coffee. The earthy aroma filled her nostrils and prickled those sensory receptors in her brain with their tantalizing appeal. She took a small sip of the hot brew for herself before carrying it back over to the bed and sitting down.
Rios grimaced as he came awake, eyes squinting as he looked around the room. Raffi handed him the cup of coffee. He pushed himself up to sit against the wall and took a tentative sip. Neither of them said anything, but unlike the cold shoulder they'd been giving each other yesterday, this was a silence of understanding.
Raffi gave his knee a squeeze, then got up to go shower.
After more coffee and a change of clothes, they both looked marginally human again and got back on the road.
Rios never complained about the temperature, but Raffi noticed that despite the sweaters he kept wearing, he always seemed cold. Sometimes he'd crank up the heater in the hovercar; other times he'd just sit in the passenger seat hugging himself and look miserable.
So Raffi made the unilateral decision to change direction and head south for the desert. Maybe a warmer climate would do them both good.
…
They gradually stopped spending so much time on the road and started staying longer in the places they stopped at, sometimes a few days, sometimes over a week. It wasn't like they had any place to be. They'd stay until they got bored or antsy and then they'd head to the next stopping point. Currently they were in a small town in New Mexico.
Rios was out…somewhere. He'd taken to long walks in the countryside, sometimes for hours, while Raffi occupied herself with trying out the local vegetation. There was some nice shit growing out here, particularly of the smoking variety.
Raffi stared at the empty, transparent holo screen in front of her, trying to work up the nerve to make the call. It was Gabriel's birthday. He was sixteen now. Raffi hadn't seen him in three years.
She took a swig of alcohol to steel her nerves, then tapped the screen. There was the small pulsing frequency of the call going out, but a moment later it was shut off. Raffi frowned, wondering if there'd been a glitch, and tried again. The same thing happened.
Her heart dropped into her stomach with a sickening squish. He'd rejected her call.
Hands shaking, she tried Jae. The signal pulsed and pulsed, and her heart rate quickened as she waited to see if it would be dropped as well.
The screen filled with a holo image of him and it took Raffi's breath away. He looked exactly the same, and Raffi self-consciously tried to smooth down her frazzled hair. "Hey, babe."
"Hey," he replied stiffly.
Raffi's throat constricted. "Is, um, is Gabe there? I wanted to wish him a happy birthday."
"He doesn't want to talk to you."
She swallowed hard. "And he has every right to be mad at me. But please, just a short hello. He's sixteen today."
Jae sighed. "I'm sorry, but he's made it very clear, he doesn't want to hear from you, and I'm going to respect his wishes."
Tears welled hotly in Raffi's eyes. "How is he?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from cracking. "Is he doing well? Are- are you both…?"
"We're fine," he said tersely. He let out a harsh breath. "You're still drinking?"
She glanced at the liquor bottle conspicuously in view and quickly moved it from the table to the floor.
Jae shook his head. "Don't call us again." He swiped his hand and hung up before Raffi could get another word out.
She stared at the translucent screen, chest tightening and tears spilling down her cheeks. She grabbed the bottle of liquor and chugged, trying to dislodge the spiky lump in her throat. A broken sob burst out and she slid from the chair to the floor. How had she ended up like this? This wasn't what her life was supposed to be. This wasn't what she was supposed to be.
She was going to suffocate under the roiling anguish, anger, and grief, and so she snatched the pipe of snakeleaf off the nightstand and took a long, shaky inhalation. The effect was almost instantaneous, a wave of calmness sweeping through her veins.
It wasn't enough, though. With the pipe in one hand and the bottle in the other, she sat there in utter desolation, alternating between vices in a desperate attempt to make it all stop.
Eventually the haze of the snakeleaf and the warmth of the alcohol anesthetized the pain and carried her off to float in blissful nothingness.
Until something slapped her face, hard. She moaned, head lolling limply to the side. She barely felt the sting of the second slap. She tried to tell the offending thing to go away, but it came out in a slurred garble.
Arms slipped under her back and legs, and the next moment she was being lifted up in a whoosh. The room spun in a dizzying whirl of flashing lights and spots. Then her feet were being slammed down on tile and a splash of cold water struck her face. She spluttered but was too insensate to escape it.
Arms were wrapped around her torso and a body was pressing her against the wall to keep her upright. The pressure of the spray increased, frigid streams running down her face and neck and soaking her clothes. She gave a violent shiver.
Awareness gradually returned and she started making out a stream of Spanish curses.
"Ungh, stp," she grunted, shoving weakly.
The rapid Spanish continued, too fast for her to even clearly make out the cuss words she did know. But finally the water was shut off and Rios lifted her into his arms and carried her back out to lay her on the bed.
"What did you take?" he demanded, patting her cheek insistently again.
She tried to swat his hand away. "Nothing."
"Dammit Raffi!"
She heard him move away and start rifling through things on the floor. There was another curse under his breath, then what sounded like the faint tapping on a PADD. Then came the beep of the replicator. A moment later, a hypospray was pushed against her neck and depressed. A surge of chemicals flooded her system, neutralizing some of that blissful numbness she'd worked so hard to achieve. Raffi moaned at the spike of pain behind her eyelids it caused.
Rios let out a shaky breath and sank into a chair. "Goddammit, Raf," he muttered again.
She flung an arm over her eyes and tried to suppress another groan.
"You can't keep doing this."
She bristled and shifted her arm enough to shoot him a glower. "You're gonna tell me how to deal with my messed up life?" she scoffed. "You can't even deal with your own. So piss off."
Rios didn't say anything, didn't lose his temper, didn't snap back. He just sat there for a moment before wordlessly getting up and walking out.
Raffi slammed her head back against the pillow and mentally cursed herself. Maybe it was her fault and she drove everyone away.
Rios didn't come back that day. Raffi figured he'd gotten a separate room. But he didn't check on her the next morning, or that afternoon. Irritation and guilt niggled at her gut in a warring cycle. She finally dragged herself from bed and went outside. The sun was extra bright and she squinted painfully as she staggered to the reception desk to ask which room her friend had booked.
"He didn't," the receptionist replied.
Raffi frowned. She headed back outside, glancing at the parking lot where the hovercar still sat. Rios hadn't driven off without her. So where was he?
She went back to the room and tidied up a bit before opening the curtains. He'd probably gone off on one of his hikes.
Overnight though?
Raffi replicated some food, glanced at the bottle and pipe, and pushed them under the bed out of sight. She hung around the room, watching television, puttering around anxiously, all while keeping one eye out the window for when Rios came back.
He didn't.
Night fell and Raffi was alone once again. She didn't know what to do. She couldn't just drive off without Cris, but if he'd walked out on her for good then screw him.
She fished the bottle out from under the bed and popped it open to finish.
Rios was gone for two damn days before he finally showed up again. Raffi was half ready to cuss him out, but the words died on her tongue when he walked into the room, bruised and bloodied.
She jumped to her feet. "What happened?" Had Starfleet somehow tracked them down?
But Rios just shrugged and started to peel his jacket off, the movement eliciting a wince. If he'd been attacked, he would have been more worked up, Raffi was sure.
She eyed him warily for another moment as he shuffled over to the chair and slumped into it. When he didn't move, she walked to the replicator and punched in for a med kit. Taking the materialized kit, she went back and sat on the foot of the bed across from him, picking out a dermal regenerator. She then reached out to gingerly take his hand and laid it in her lap, running the dermal regenerator over scraped knuckles. She didn't comment on them; she recognized self-punishing behavior when she saw it.
She finished with one hand and reached for the other. "It was Gabriel's birthday," she said softly. "He refused to take my call."
Rios shifted his vacant gaze toward her, eyes turning commiserative. "I'm sorry."
"He has every right to hate me," she said, though the admission burned her soul. "I wasn't there for him, even before…" She choked off.
Rios was quiet for a moment, then, equally soft: "No one gets it all right, Raf."
She finished with his other hand and leaned forward to treat the swollen abrasions on his face.
"You can't do that to me again," he whispered after a few beats. "I can't…don't leave me with a dead body." He broke off with a hitched breath. "Not again."
"Hey." She set the dermal regenerator down and cupped the side of his bruised cheek. "That's not what I was trying to do. I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
He lifted pained eyes to hers. "After he killed them…Vandermeer…I went at him hard. Pretty hard." He looked away, squeezing his eyes shut against a welling of tears. "I saw when that last straw shattered in his eyes and he put the phaser in his mouth and blew his brains out. And now you're here, because of me, and I can't—"
"I was doing a good job of screwing up my life without you," Raffi interrupted. "Thanks for pulling me back." She brushed her thumb under his split cheekbone. "Don't you go getting yourself killed," she added with a sad smile. "You're all I have left."
He reached up to cover her hand with his. After a moment, she went back to gently wiping away his wounds.
If only the scars on the soul could be so easily erased.