Tears

by Adnesle

This is a three or four parts long serie. The .doc document is just not divided in chapters so... here it is in one block. Season three-ish I believe. Spoilers for KYEC. Deals with lots of Zo'or's angst. Liam/Zo'or romance also. AU.

TEARS : The First Tear

Da'an hugged to his chest with all his remaining strenght this little being of light. No, he could not be dead. He refused to believe it, not another... not once more... another of his child that had been fruitlessly born... too weak for survive... The young diplomat was still lying on the table where his body had been in labor since hours, working, forcing itself to bring this child to life, this child that he had carried inside him since already more than one complete year. He had not been able to decide, to force himself and the child to get separated from each other, at the last second the mind of the child had broken their intimate link himself with his wild but young strenght. But it was a known fact to Da'an, even if it appeared to be more painful every times. But in the past, for the other four children he had born, it had been like this too, he had always had... difficulties to say the least to break his privileged link with his child, it was simply psychological,
for every parent it was hard. Because anyway, Da'an would not teach his child, would see him rarely... No, no, it was not correct. He would not have taught his child... if he had lived.
He refused to let them take his child away from the tight cocoon of warmth and love that he had formed around him with his arms, like a cage, like a true cocoon, to preserve him from this cruel world. They would not take them apart, they could not take them apart... Not this one too.
Then, T'than's cold voice, this voice that he had by moments cherished, by moments hated of all his will. She was soft for this occasion this voice. "It is... It is too weak for survive. It is... dead... already Da'an." And with more strenght, on a more firm tone, the other Taelon repeated the words that Da'an refused to listen to, that he refused to hear, that his mind denied continuously, "It is useless Da'an. Do not harm yourself like this... It is too weak... my friend..." And the healers took the child away from him, took him away, out from his grasp.
A short cry escaped to his lips; he saw, he looked, powerless, still himself too weak, tired by the birthing of this false hope, he looked as the scientists carefully placed his child inside his cage, inside the last womb he would ever know. They put him in this small bubble that would achieve to feed him with the energy only sufficient from prevent him from dying. And Da'an knew, for having himself been walled away and stopped by this, that these bubbles had for function not only to protect physically the children that were too weak to live, but also to prevent their parent that had born them from contacting them by thoughts. They had to stay apart from each other. Affective linkage could not be created, because if they were, the parent had many chances to hear the franctic call of his child and to see him dying in his arms when he would have taken him off this protected, artificial environment of pur and perfect energy. Many deaths had been necessary before the scientists
were finally able to understand the phenomenon.
Despite all, he wanted to raise, raise form this table and run after the ones, these monters that were taking his offspring away from him, his child, toward the room that would be the only thing he would ever have the chance to catch sight of, away from Da'an's love... But T'than's arms kept him pinned on the table. He fought against them, oh yes he did, but he knew so well that his colleague and friend was firm in physical strenght as much as in mind, his strenght exceeded Da'an's greatly in fact, he could not win this, not in the state he was now in.
Tears wet his cheeks, blurred his sight, streaked his face. And finally he stopped all resistance against T'than and fell back hard on the polished surface of the cold table. He would need days to recover from that, the physical injuries caused by the difficult birthing evidently, his body had used his deepest energy reserves, in fact, it had almost emptied them, his energy core was lower than it had ever been before. He would need rest, his task of diplomat would once more have to wait. How many times did he have to go through this? This hard moment of their lives that very few of his fellows had gone through without facing later on terrible... His eyes filled with tears again when he reflected that the Synod would again force him, again and again and again, to take a mate, and reproduce, and produce more lifeless children like this one... How much would be needed until the scientists would realize that he could only produce dead children?... How many children would he
again abandon like this?...
In anger, he jerked back from T'than's soft touch that only wished to comfort him, but he needed to be alone; he locked, walled himself away in the private part of his mind, protecting, avoiding, distancing himself from these curious and soothing mind around him. They affirmed they knew, they understood, they could comprehend this, that every of them had already lived through this... But no, no one had lived what he, himself had gone through. He was the youngest Taelon to have born more than one child before his first millenia and in a so short period in time... No, very few of them could really understand what it was, what it was to lose contact forever with a mind, with something that seemed so close, so close that Da'an could touch it, could brush his mind with his, creating day after day the strongest of bond with him, listening to his very first coherent thoughts... Lose this dream, lose this hope... caused the greatest pain he would ever have been able to think of.
The first times, in fact, the first time, the first child that he had carried and born, had been the result of his very first ka'atham, of his first mating, of his first joining, of his first reproduction ritual... The taelon scientists had told him already, when the child was so very young, only a few days after its conception, that it had very few chances to survive, to be healthy when born. The young, impetuous Da'an had ben deceived that he would carry something that would die anyway, that his diplomat task would be disturbed by this during months, if not years... But it was always like this the first time and he would have needed to go through this anyway. He had rapidly begun to consider the child like something that he held dear to his heart, but that he knew he would lose anyway and his link with his offspring had not gone much further than some thoughts exchanged. In fact it was a good thing that the body of Da'an the young diplomat would prepare so young to do what
every of them would one day be forced to do; younger he started to produce children more he would produce and more he would produce, more chances there would be to have finally, and after so many years of deceived hope, a survivor, someone that would be the hope for their doomed race, child or children that could save their race.
The first time he had believed them, foolish as he was. He was young at this time, very young, and had yet to learn many things. Da'an had accepted the fact that he would personally suffer to save his people, to save his species, to preserve the hope, to serve his race and acccomplish the very meaning of why he had been created. He had joined with the mate that the Synod had given him only a few days after the beginning of his ka'atham, as soon as he had been physiologically able to stand the mating. As if he were decided to get done with this as soon as possible. After their joining, Da'an had looked in the eyes of his mate, much older than he, almost the double of his own age, despite all of an inferior caste, and he had seen there sadness and compassion for him. Then the older Taelon had turned away and Da'an had never seen him again. But he had understand why he had seen these feelings he first had not comprehended.
After the birth, after his child had been taken away from his young arms toward the pods' chamber, where there were these so many cocoons, where they were all dead. After this... Da'an had started to want a child, to desire it, not only for it to be the savior of his species, or to be their last chance of surviving. He did not care to know if his child would be sterile or able to produce children of his own, he was only preoccupied that he had sensed his first child as it had moved inside him, he had felt him inside his abdomen, he had heard its first murmur in his mind, his first conscious thoughts...
And with time passing, his hope had only grown, so much that now, seeing the healers taking his child away, the fifth one that he had born and that he had almost seeen dying, though the only life that were promised to them was to Da'an even worse than death, the Taelon had decided abruptly, like this, and though that many could pretend that he had been too greatly influenced by the previous events, meaningfully, Da'an sworn that this child almost dead in his arms would be the last one. Not the last dead, but the last that he would ever accept to conceive. He did not care of what the Synod would say because it was no more matter of his duty and loyalty toward his people; he had to think of himself, and he could no longer, not anymore, not once more, suffer like he had just done fifth times. This was too much to ask from him.
He left the medical bay for his own quarters aboard the ship, trying to ingore the small voice inside that told him fervently to go at this child's side.
He awakened. He recalled a great pain, his so young mind could remember easily that pain so intense, the sorrow of Da'an, the one that had taken care of him, the one that he had come of, the one that had born him, this sorrow that himself had felt when the moment to leave Da'an had come. But after the pain... It was very dark, very empty, like the most total of void in his mind. He remembered that he had extirpated himself from Da'an's warm body, trully extirpated, because the one that had so longly carried him had wanted to keep him within himself. But he would miss this proximity, physical as psychic, but something stronger than Da'an had wanted him to go out, to leave that little cocoon of heat in which he had grown.
The young child would soon learn that that was called instinct, insitinct of survival, of self-preservation. And that since this very first day, he should learn to master it and to use it everyday in that wild jungle called life.
And as soon as he had got out, that he had escaped Da'an, that he had left with regret and sadness this envelop of comfort and warmth, everything had frozen, eveything had stopped, the time had been blurred to fim... And for the first time, for this very first time Da'an had vanished, had gone away, had not been there present in his mind, no longer, to help and guide him. Then the young child had for the first time, but definitely not the last one, known fear and loneliness. The fear of being alone and being alone in his fear. Another vicious circle.
The infant had finished by awakening of this semi-comatose state that he had been plunged in; and he was alone, all alone, completly alone. Where Da'an had been gentle, comfortable, warm, a presence that cradled him with his caresses, his new environment was cold, icy, artificial, closed; but what scared him so much that he thought he was going to scream, was that he could feel no one, nothing around him. All thoughts surorunding him were closed, so desperatly distanced. He needed them, their thoughts, their comforting, soothing thoughts... He was way too young to survive all alone! He needed them. He would not survive much longer, alone like he was now. And he continued to scream in the darkness.
But the scared child finally calmed, after long and many hours had been counted down; he finally understood, that he was alone, that he would need to survive, that no one would come to get him out of this heel of silence. His thoughts calmed when he understood, when he realized that it was of no use to cry if no one was there to hear his tears.
Then, it was at this moment that he started to close, to wall himself away. To prevent, to avoid, to run away from this silence, he cut himself away from everything, even from the silence itself. For his young and shapeless mind, it was the most logical way, the most efficient way and the most realistic one to keep away this irrational fear of this terrible silence. What way was better to avoid the silence than to create his own silence? He knew that he had created this silence, he was the responsible for this and no body else was. It was somewhat soothing to know, that he prefered to be alone by choice than to be forced of, and it was all what his blurred mind could figure out at the moment.
His so young mind wondered why had Da'an left him alone. Why had he abandonned him? Why had he not come to seek for him, to pick him up in his arms, to comfort him, to soothe his tears? No, no he could not had let him alone. Not Da'an. Da'an could not have forgotten him like this. No...
The liquid and icy environment around him was starting to hurt him; he was tired and would soon fall asleep. But this same thing, this same instinctive impulse that had pushed him away from Da'an had the last moment, told him, ordered him to not succomb to the sleep's temptation. That sleep was death, that he would never awaken again. His tiny hands, this body that himself was not yet completly aware of, started to fight, to move against this liquid, to move in all way he coult think of, to break, to destroy these artificial surroundings that threatened to strangle him seconds after seconds.
And finally it broke. There was a shock and he sensed that something he felt, that a part of his body had passed through the energy field of the pod. That he could escape it! He continued to push, it was the same pain, the same greatest of pain that he had felt when he had had to separate from Da'an and that his aprent had not wanted to let him go. That something around him, also wished to keep him a prisonner. But this time, it was not alive and the child knew that he could triumph of something that was not alive. He exhausted himself, he continued to fight this thing that was closing even more and more closely around him now, as if to kill him.
He finally managed to free himself completly, when he sensed that everything broke around him, that he had defeated that thing that wanted to keep him inside its womb. He fell on something that was cold and hard that for the first time made him feel the truly and entirely physical pain.
He stayed longly like this, curled up on the floor, alone and lonely. It is alone that he took his first breath, and it is alone that for the first time he opened his eyes. And he was terrified of what he saw, all around him, dead, dead children that whispered, that murmured things to him, other dead less conscious, dead... simply dead, that were horrifying simply in their presence. He covered his ears with his hands. He could not bear to hear them, no...
He curled up tighter on himself in this chamber full of dead...
And this is how Da'an found him, He had not been able to resist the urge to come here and see him, to enter here, despite the firm orders and threats of the Synod. But when the scientists had reported unusual energy lectured in the chamber when the children were kept, he was almost there already, he had almost reached the door, almost entered inside. And he saw there... his child, that had already gone through his first growing period. He almost reached his parent's waist already. And... and he was there, on the ground, alone and he was crying. Da'an did not even took the time to put in words his curses toward the scientists that had said that his child was too weak to survive. He ran toward his child and even before he had joined him physically, he had already reached toward him in mind, gathered his young mind inside his own and, almost not noticing the wall of loneliness that he passed through, he entered in his child's conscience and hurried to comfort him, to calm him,
to promise him, to swear that it was not his fault, to promise him that in the future, he would enever be left alone again.
But when he was gathered in Da'an's arms, when he knew his warmth, his love once more, it was not the same thing, in fact it was so far away from ebing the same thing, there was still this little part of himself that cried, because Da'an had abandonned him, because Da'an had forgotten him, had let him alone. Things would never be the same, because now his mind was closed, between them would never be this open and shared love as it had before, as it existed between the other children and their parents, they could not share the same mind, the same link, totally open. Because the child would not be able to bear that. Not if he feared that again he would be left alone; no, he prefered to be alone, then to suffer again the separation.
He heard Da'an's soft, soothing whispers to his ears. "I will never leave you alone again. You have survived... You had survived... Your were alive... And I knew it... I am sorry... I never should have..." Seeing that his child needed nothing else but comforting, he hugged him fierely against his chest, tightly, for never let go of him again, as if they both wished to be again close as they had been, to again share this intimacy... "Zo'or, that is your name young one, my little one... The one who has survived, and will survive... This shall be your name... And my child I swear, you will survive."
And Zo'or snuggled up to Da'an, pressed himself against his parent, but this something, this fragile wall that with time would only be built stronger, this wall of loneliness, of fear to be let alone again, of anger, of untrust and of sorrow would always be between them. This silence that Zo'or had surrounded himself with only seconds after his birth, this silence would ever separate them.
His face pressed against Da'an's shoulder, Zo'or felt for the first time, trully and really, a tear flow down from his eyes and wet his cheeks. The first tear...

TEARS : A Tear of Blue

Liam Kincaid was resting in one of his favorite, most comfortable armchair, at his home in the main room of the appartment, that had turn after turn function of kitchen, bedroom or dining room. He was turned toward the window, the eyes raised to the sky where one could see, if his stare was piercing enough, the stars that shone through the dark gray clouds. A glass of wine in his hand, he was thinking.
He touched his lips lightly to the translucent liquid vaguely golden in color and the slightly acid taste, but still sweet, slid his way down his troath, leaving an acid feeling on its passage, this taste usual to alcohol. He once more raised the glass to his lips for dismiss the sensation of dryness that he sensed was about to fill his mouth. He folded an arm behind his head while placing carefully the glass on his stomach where it stayed miraculously in balance, moving following the movements of his torso inside which his lungs filled themselves with oxygen then released it. The liquid, agitated by the lines of small bubbles, trembled and threatened each seconds a little more to spill out on his gray shirt.
The young man looked fixingly at the columns of golden bubbles as they lost their perfectly still shape and became confused spirals when he took the glass in his fingers again. His thoughts whirled, wandering everywhere. He was looking out at the stars, absentmindly trying to get lost in their maze of light for finally get a little rest, but he knew that it was so completly useless. He would not sleep this night, he knew it. He swallowed what rested of wine in the curled glass then put it on the table at his side. He hesitated a moment, weighing the pros and cons, to know whether or not if he had to raise and leave that sanctuary of warmth and this comfortable position, half-lying in his armchair, for fill up his glass with even more alcohol.
Finally, he decided to fill up his glass again. He half leaned out of his chair, itself being almost bent in a completly horizontal position, and tried not to see the three other bottles he had already emptied. He grinned. Wine was not having the same effect on him as it did for Humans, or for other Humans, he would have needed about twice what he had already circulating in his system of the precious liquid for being intoxicated. But anyway, there was nothing else to drink. He filled his glass full then drank the rest straight from the fourth and last bottle. Then he returned to his almost contemplative state.
The curtains were completly open, letting a wide open view of the sky and the town below, all the lights had been turned off in the appartment, not even a small candle was shining... Only the light of the white and round disk that glimmered of this soft and still sharp light of his. He could even see its craters. But it was not why he was staring at the moon, not for stare at its beauty, a thing he had often did in the past... No, he was not really sure why he did.
Liam had politely refused Renée's invitation of dinner at her appartment, as he had been allowed to left the sickbay of the mothership. In fact, he had refused every invitations and requests that evening. He knew that Palmer doubted something was not well with him. And it was so hellishly true: something was not well. In fact, nothing was well. Nothing was okay in his mind right now.
His deepest convictions had been shattered in the two last days. And more and more he was thinking about it, more and more his motivations oscillated, threatened to pass over the dege, perhaps taking most of his reason with him, and that was what he now tried to avoid...
One day ago, his shuttle, himself and his passanger had crashlanded in the woods, lost in the middle of nowhere, in a wild forest. But that was not it either, he had not been harmed, or nothing more than a little scratch to his left hand. A slight wound, probably a branch had cut through his skin. But the cut, even if not very good looking, had touched no vein and would not threaten to infect, what had been firstly feared by the medics when they had seen its blue-purple worrying color. The shuttle had been almost completly destroyed at the impact and it was nothing but miraculously that they had been able to return in security on the homeship.
But the other person on board had been on his part gravely injured and had almost lost life. But it was not either directly that, this person was not dear to him, on the very contrary in fact, he had always considered him as an enemy that would be waiting for him at the next turn of event and that he and the liberation movement, which he was the leader of, had to avoid.
His convictions had not been shattered, it was something even beyond that, they had been completly messed up. He was very young and believed hard in what he defended, but since yesterday, it had changed.
One day Liam and Lili were eating in a little café and the conversation had naturally turned toward another subject: Da'an. A subject that Lili and him tried to avoid to talk about most of the times, both suspecting each other of being involved in a relationship with the American Companion that went past the limits of the `purely professional'.
Turn after turn, they had finally admitted that Da'an was far more important to them that what their work asked them to. And they both talked about their two types of work. Lili Marquette was at this time at this Taelon's services since almost five years and she had learned to know him and to respect him for how he cared about Humanity's sake, how he opposed the Synod's radical decisions and especially for this trust he had in them; a trust that one day she knew she would have to break and to betray... It was the consequences of working on both sides at the same time, one day there was going to be a battle and they knew that they would have to fight against some of their friends. In this sort of situation, there was a certainty that one day or another, sooner or later, they would have to betray a person dear to there heart, perhaps even to kill this person, with their own hands. And Lili had told him that the sole idea of point a pistol at Da'an and pull the trigger, in the
intention of killing him, made her quiver in disgust, exactly like she would have been asked to kill Augur or Doors. It was the same thing in her head.
Though not in Liam's... For him, since the first day, Da'an had been a mentor, the Taelon had taught him in secrecy to read, write and speak his mother tongue and Eunoia, sometimes incorporating the rudiments and principles of Kastra, the Jaridians' language. He had been a attentive and studious child, and sometimes so zealous that Da'an had been forced to ask him to rest. He recalled so perfectly all these nights spent together, in the American Companion private quarters. How much sleepless night had they shared? But if Da'an had been for him a teacher, he was nothing more than that. Of course, the hybrid would willingly give his life for the Taelon's and without hesitations, because he, contrary to his Companion, liked to honor his promises. And these promises, he had made them. The Companions's services had requested it from him, knowing that he would not be implanted like every other protectors. I solemnly swear to defend and protect with my life if needed any Taelons I
will happen to serve. He had said that sentence, strong and clear, the third day of his life, in front of the Synod's members, two representative of the President and of course some of his future colleague implants.
And he would honor his word, but nothing more, especially after what had happened these last months between him and Da'an. Their relations were already not exactly friendship as they had met, but plus like a cold respect, as it exists between the teachers and their students: knowing what the other is able to do, including what he was in measure of doing and what his conscience would have no difficulties to accept, one holds distance, keeping on surface polite relations, but always somewhat plastic, fake... Like the kind of politics the Taelons maintained with Humanity. This betrayal of Da'an, he had always been waiting for it, since their very first meeting he had known what would happen between them. He had waited this event like one waits for something so uncertain that it is almost unnerving. He had almost been relieved, but still, a part deeply buried in the fog of what had subsisted of his innoncence and childhood he had never have had cried, had gotten frustrated and,
after this fabulous wrath he had let flow on Da'an, this part of himself had finally and completly disapeared. He had then known in what kind of world he lived through and especially with whom he had to deal, to enemies that firstly pretended to be your friends, for then in an underhand manner seek into your private life for hit you in the back when you are waiting the least for it. Since this day, no informations, not a bit of feelings or a sign of trust, not even some words that could have indicated that a certain friendship still existed between them, despite all they had gone through... But nothingness had been the ordered word. Yes, nothingness of war had parted them definitly.
The memories of his alien father, Ha'gel, appeared now to him as blinding in truth. The Taelons were liars, they were desperate, but in the ethic of any evolved race - status they had given to themselves - certain things, certain acts were simply unthinkable to commit or even to consider it. And these things, these unspoken rules, they had broken it, infringed it, from all sides, in every possible and imaginable ways. Their evolution had made of them grasping, selfish, intransigent beings... Beings that ignored feelings as compassion, honesty, trust, frienship, beings that did not judge that destroy a people for simply surviving as a race was immoral... Kill or be killed. Always the law of the jungle, the law of the jungle of life, had once pretended Augur, it seemed years ago to him.
That was what he thought to be true less than 48 hours ago. And now, this balance, this perfect balance between the black and the white, this line between the good and the bad had gone hazy and become vague, confused and hazardous. A barrier that he could no longer trust, since it was no longer a right line, but a curve, with unforeseen turns and that sometimes made an incursion at its opposite side.
He now realized that he had, during the past two years, acted like the child he had the age of. The child that class every persons he sees at the first glimpse, the child that, when asked Why is it? answer Because it is. Had he ever wondered why? Why the good ones were on the good side? And especially why the vilains were on the bad side? The immediate reaction of doubt and untrust from his part had been childish... and stupid. There was no line to trace between the two sides. No longer black or white, but only shades of gray. On a battlefield, everyone is fighting, everyone can die, everyone is defending the cause in which he believes. On a battlefield, there are sides no longer, no, sides are not differents from the others. And to the point where they were now, the battle was perhaps not so far away from their time after all. To the point where they were now, everyone was fighting for the same thing: survival, survival of one species, in a so egoistic, so piority way that
one could easily come to put at questions the concept named evolution.
One can not judge a person upon the acts that his race is commiting. He had let his eyes being blinded, he had let his ears being barred from everything, from every single idea against his thoughts, that could shake the base of his existence. He had let his biased self being blinded and led. The Taelons were bad, they did have actions to reproach themselves, it was true, and even so perfectly true. They had commited actions that any person with the least drop of judgment would condemn without one hesitation. But, had he thought of how many deaths the Resistance had caused? Had he thought of how many innocents were dead by their fault? When one is convinced that the side for which he fights is the only one to be good, while everyone else is an enemy, he does not take care of that little details as for how many people he will kill... But then, Liam had passed through the fog, and had also passed beyond that state of categorization.
Individuals could not be judged for actions that other members of their kind had commited. Like in a jury, there were extenuating circumstances.
And only one person had been needed for make him realize all of those. His enemy. His enemy had made him realize what now appeared as so evident to him, so realistic. Realistic yes, but also so much more complex, then now the line was no longer clearly defined, how he could be sure that by giving someone his trust, he would not be betrayed... how give his trust... how not doubt of his own friends... and of his own enemies? The situation could turn up in the time of a blinking, the whole could change in seconds. His mind was no so confused, that he understood perfectly how could the expression `trust no one' might be truthful at many moments in one's life.
His eyes were closed. He re-opened them and noticed that the sparkling satelite had left the hiding and secrecy of the smoke-like cloud it had been hiding behind. The moon shone in the sky, so brilliantly that its light was almost hurting for the eyes, like the sun's.
The Moon, the stars, space, foreign galaxies... far, so far... And aliens. Zo'or was an alien. Liam wondered what he thought about, now, up there, in the stars, in a little chamber... alone, as always, so alone. Zo'or belonged to stars, he came from stars, he travelled through them...
Zo'or, this being that from so long he had believed unsensible, unbreakable, untiring, but especially that he had categorically placed on the vilains' side, yes, Zo'or had made his world and the unshaking principles on which he had built his very existence shatter in thousands of small pieces. Extenuating circumstances... Yes, maybe... And who could know, but Zo'or himself...? Vilains do not cry. And Zo'or did cry. Zo'or had twisted in pain. Zo'or had called out to help. Zo'or had cursed fatality and fate. Zo'or had shown himself to be weak, and especially, he had shown himself to be sad, so sad that his sadness, his pain and his loneliness had frozen in a wall of anger, doubt, disdain and hatred with which he had barred himself from everyone, everything and every kind of agression. How do not show his fear and sadness? The answer was simple but Liam had taken much time to find it. One can hide his fear and sadness by showing nothing at all, like this the certainty was that
nothing would pass through the control. Cutting himself away from everything, everything but this cause, and to tie himself to tightly, so pasionnatly to it that what made the being under the shell disapeared, vanished, was buried under the other personality.
And this other, he had seen him in Zo'or's eyes. He had seen the blue tears rolling down his cheeks. He had seen his hands tense, wanting to reach out for grip his own, he had seen this stare fixed on him... this stare, so sad, so infinitely desperate, a stare that he would have thought to see in the eyes of... of someone else than Zo'or. The Taelon had meant for him the personified harsh coldness. But now, nothing was right.
This kind of thoughts tortured him since he had slid the body of a half-unconscious Zo'or in the healer's arms that had carried the Synod Leader inside the small chamber in the medical bay. He had seen in these eyes, at this moment, in these tranluscent blue eyes fear, despair, but mostly dread, an immense dread... And these hands had gripped his arms, these nails that had buried deep into his skin for stay with him, in his arms, with Liam, he wanted more than anything to stay with Liam. The young man had taken him in his arms again and under Mit'gai's impatient stare, he had brought Zo'or inside the medical bay itself. When he had finished by lying Zo'or on a table, this one was already unconscious. And despite all, his fingers were so tightly pressed against his shoulder that he had to force for undo their grip. Why? And that was the only question about Zo'or that Liam had reflected upon and for which he had found no answer that he knew was the good one and he could not
fool himself very long with something of that importance.
Nobody else had remarked this strange attitude of the Synod Leader and honestly he prefered it to be so, then he would not be asked too many questions to which he could not respond. And people had judged wise not to give him answers, answers that he anyway prefered to find by himself now.
His eyes plunged deeply into the contemplation of this white moon, almost burning like a star to his eyes eyes. And this star seemed to overhelm him, to watch over him in every ways. His other glass of wine was empty and the dawn of day was shining the early raised town with its color, swimming into the horizon.
He had to see Zo'or. He could not sleep while ignoring what had really happened, without knowing why...
Kincaid was ceized by a sudden impulse and jumped on his feet, ignoring the aching protest of his body alreay tired from more than one restless nights. He made his way toward the kitchen part of the room. In the middle of the small alcove that he used as dining room, kitchen and occasionally as Resistance's meeting room, was a table. On this table, there was nothing but one object, one little thing. A rose. He had bought it to a young street girl that had probably just that job for survive earlier in the day when he had gotten home.
It was not an ordinary rose. It was blue and, even there in this simple glass of water where he had gently placed it for preventing it from dehydratation, a certain beauty formed an aura around it. He knew not on the moment why had he bought it, again one of these impulses he could barely manage to explain after. But now, he had understand why he had taken this rose, this blue rose. Because it was for Zo'or. Because at the first time he had seen it he had known it would be given to Zo'or. The flower was tiny, very tiny, almost a bud, it was not yet open to the exterior world. It had an oblong form lightly open on the top, where the petals parted a little from the center. Liam knew that if he looked inside it, the heart of this rose would be of a beauty and a color merely imaginable. A very dark blue, probably, since more the petals parted from the center, more they were of a palish color, almost of a blue-white tone at certain places. The stem was very thin and long too, but
what was the more evident, what caught sight when one looked at it, were the thorns. They were long, thin and seemed sharpened as razor's edge. He had himself gotten one of his hand too close to it, the first time, when he had taken it. He knew why nobody else had chosen this rose, because the thorns were far too big, far too showing, far too obvious to the kind eyes and the soft hands that would take it, even if the flower in itself was beautiful. This flower was like a tear. A tear of blue. Like Zo'or's tears.
It was almost four in the morning. He cut the stem in bias at its half-lenght, though the rose still looked like too small for the stem, too long. He let the bud rest in his palm, his skin tasted the petals' softness and the burning of this life against his alien organ that reacted by a faint tickling. He passed a thin silk paper around the frail flower which he touched lightly to the water in the glass for prevent the rose from a loss of its feeding sustenance. Then, he extended the arm toward a paper on which he wrote fastly about twelve lines then folded it in four and put it in his coat pocket. Liam placed the rose in security, shielded in the interior pocket of his leather coat, pressed against his chest. He passed a hand through his dishevelled hair. He knew he did not look precisely presentable, but he also knew that he would not have the courage - or the stupidity - of deciding to commit this act later on. Without a word, without even one second of hesitation, he
left his appartment and headed toward the Washington Embassy from where he could take a portal for rejoin directly the mothership's medical bay, without having to pass through an infinity of corridors. He felt the cool living presence of the flower againt his shirt and all what had survived of doubts in his young mind faded away.
Zo'or fixed the ceiling where the energy lines ran in all directions, feeding his aching physical envelope by their energy. He had counted them many times and had arrived to a different result each different occasions. His eyes were empty of all expression. Only, blue. A strange soft look had slipped over his features, making the usual icy mask fade away, a strange look that rarely his fellows had caught glimpse of. But yet, he was so completly alone that he could permit himself this small misdemeanour, and was anyway ready to put back in place the mask if Mit'gai entered unexpectedly.
All his physical feelings had vanished in his legs, belly and abdomen. He sensed nothing more than a vague presence, he knew that a part of his body was there, but nothing clearer. He felt sleepy and fooled by the painkillers he had been given by the healers. The pain would have been of such a level that he would probably have screamed of all his weakened strenght.
But his mind kept a relative clearness, allowing him to think in his own methodical, codly logical way. It reminded him of these reflexion moments in which he absorbed his soul and mind, when he was child - instead of using, like all the others did, meditation - alone, walled away from any distractions by the physical protection of his private quarters, in peace. Now peace was a thing to which he could even not long for, nor a peace of body, nor a peace of mind and especially not this inner peace he had hoped for, as he had hoped for forgiveness, and as forgiveness had not come.
A piece of healing purple material, vaguely silken when touched, circled tightly his waist and half of his chest. He felt like a child doing a nightmare. And he felt like the child who, when he knows it is nothing but a nightmare, wants to awake. He hoped so much that if he closed his eyes tightly and thought about his awakening, he would awaken and would come back in reality, in his childhood, this childhood he had always missed.
Zo'or wished so that Da'an was at his side, now, there, just beside the table, fixing him with these eyes... and in these eyes this look would be floating this look that would forgive him for everything he had commited and for everything he would be forced to commit in the future. But no. He was alone now and even if his parent was in the room, he knew more than well that what he would see in these eyes would be... sadness, sorrow, pain and anger, but no forgiveness. What he had done, what he had nearly more than one times given his life for, what he had employed all his strenght to was beyond what was morally pardonable.
And he had reflected much since the last twenty-four hours he had spent there, in this chamber, isolated form everyone - the physical barrier being more efficient than the psychological and social wall he had built around himself. Not only in the last twenty-four hours, but in the last days as well, his opinion had changed, on a certain number of things. The thing more noticeable of this group of fluctuating things in his mind had been concentrated mostly on a being. A human being, named Liam Kincaid.
Zo'or simply recalled that when he had been lying on a bed, dying, moaning, delirious - but in a sense more lucid than at every other moment of his long life - he had wished so hard for Da'an's presence beside him. That he was here, for turn on him this gentle gaze, for reassure him, for tell him that everything was going to be alright, that he would soon be healed, that they would return home, far away from this planet, far away from that power that destroyed him from the inside, return on his native planet, where he had run like crazy in the Si'um'shra gardens... But as always he had been left to himself, left alone, in his loneliness he had come to like for having been given nothing else in life...
With a single person in company. Liam Kincaid had been at his side, murmuring words that he could perceive through his delirium, as a mix of promises, reassuring, worried and calming words. Kincaid did not stop to assure him that he would not die, that he would fet out from this hell, that they would soon find a way back to the mothership, in security. And then he had been plunged through a dark and hard unconscienceness.
Something like a long, very long nightmare filled with delirious and awful apparitions. Then at a moment during this confused period, his eyes had fluttered open and he had found this young man leaning over him, his face very close to his, regarding him with a worried expression, not sad or compassionate, but worried, and this worry the young being projected toward him was quite all of what he could hope, and Zo'or had been somewhat relieved of knowing that someone cared for him. He had thought to see in these eyes a despising gaze, perhaps happy to know what fate would be reserved to him, it was why the Major words had surprised him somehow. This being was nothing more than a Human, a loyal protector that had sworn to serve them until his death would prevent him of doing so, but ultimatly only a Human and nothing further. And a Human, despite his perhaps compassionate thoughts, was not able, in all logic, to feel sorry for a Taelon. Even the implants were incapable of it, a
certain part of themselves being in constant rebellion against this slavish state in which their minds, their freedom of thoughts and their behavior had been chained. But in these green eyes that had plunged deep into his - so close to his that he had the feeling that nothing else in the world could exist outside this emerald univers in which he had slowly dived - he had seen inches by inches passing beyond the simple worry, seeing a kind of comprehension, a kind of... sadness, for what happened to him... It existed, it was weak, but it was there. And during that moment, nothing else had seemed important to his mind. One person, only one person, had seen through the shell. The delirium was often one of the more intimate ways of knowing someone. And it was all he had ever wished for, that a person was able to respect him, understand him and, over all, that a person had been able to stay by his side, during this worst that worse night.
Zo'or was not exactly sure of having seen what he believed had seen in Kincaid's eyes, but even an illusion, even a lie would have sufficed him now. Knowing that someone had cared for him, had seen this other, hidden side of his personality, had terribly relieved him from this invisible weight on his frail shoulders... And the state of extreme weakness in which he found himself to be, had encouraged that sort of affective dependency to grow in his tortured soul, pushing to ask for the help, for the closeness and for the comfort of this man. Then, really, he had felt for the very first time... accepted, or the exact word would be non-rejected. As so many people had chosen to reject him before. Kincaid had taken him in his arms, and he had accepted this comfort so kindly offered. Despite all, the man had quivered when the physical proximity of a Taelon had appeared to him a little too... exagerated. But, he had still not withdrawn from him, feeling that Zo'or needed his help,
needed it so desperatly... And he was right, how was he right?
In a sense it was sarcastic, that the only one who had, even during this short time, taken care of him, as someone takes care of someone who is dear to his heart, was a Human. It was why when they had gotten back to the mothership, in safety, even there, he had wanted to stay close to this man. He wanted to prolong indifinitly in time, he wanted to stay in these arms, in this promising sanctuary of warmth, something he had simply never had, a so simple thing amongst many other simple things he had not gotten, and perhaps this hard being that he assumed the role's of today, could have been changed, could have been killed in time... all what was needed was a simple touch of affection, a word of tenderness, a caress against his cheek... anything...
The Human would come to see him, it was a certainty now, an undeniable, irrefutable event...
Disobeying to the command that the small critical, logical and lucid part of his mind ordered him, he turned himself on his right side, as far as his restraints allowed him to. A small circle of light offered an exquisite sight of the space beyound its weak glass. The stars glimmered, reminding him each times, certainly, he raised the eyes for look at them how life as they knew it was ephemeral and ridiculous, if even these gigantic balls of light finished one day by vanishing in the Void.
Maybe Liam was looking at the stars too? Who knows? But it was yet a futile thought, he know how so well that this man had motivations stranger to his own, an agenda different of his, that Liam Kincaid probably despised him and his kind for what they were and that this gaze he had caught briefly was nothing but an admirable capacity of lying with emotions...
Zo'or sat back in a normal position and felt despite himself the tears slid, rolling on his cheeks. His hands agitated in the restraints that strapped him tightly to the medical table, wishing to free themselves for erase, for erase this shame that flowed down on his cheeks and hazied his sight. But Mit'gai had taken careful precautions. He was strapped too tightly for being able to free himself without ripping his wrists off, which action he was too weak for accomplish in the moment. He abandonned all effort and let his frail form fall back on the table with a sigh that cut through the regular rythmic of his sobs. His emotions were frozen, were melting all together, became confused, hazardous to difference...
His distress, emotional and physical, decided suddenly to allow the painkillers to triumph of the continuous battle in which Zo'or was fighting for staying awake, by sending him into that dark and dangerous universe of dreams, despite all his protests...
Liam leaned over the cot. He was knelt on the ground, a hand placed on the edge of the cot, the other against the floor, flat: it felt sore, he had probably hurted himself on something during the crash, but his priority was otherwise than checking for his own well-being right now. And he was looking at a living being in pain, he looked at him who was suffering and calling out for help and selfconsciously he did nothing for help him. Zo'or deserved it. Oh yes he did... But a small part of Liam just told him to defend and protect this person, this person in pain, Taelon or Jaridian or Human, each times he found himself in such situations. It was why he had not left Zo'or to die painfully and lonely, as he could have done and let him die off like the wretched person he was without getting anyone to ever knnow about it. But there Liam Kincaid was not able to let a person die selfconsciously.
And... And as he observed the details in Zo'or's features, contorted in fever or whatever the Taelons had for that, something he would have not believed if he had not seen it himself happened. A long tear, blue, shining in the dimly lit room in energy, formed at the corner of the alien's eye. Zo'or shook his head in his delirium and of this only motion had the drop of blue energy rolling on his cheek where it finally disapeared melting in his energy facade. At this moment, the bandage around the wound on his chest threatened to undo itself when Zo'or moved and tensed a little too violently.
And for the very first time since Liam was there looking at him, he pitied him, he felt tensed as soorow filed his mind and sadness for what happened to his alien enemy. The tears continued to flow down rythmically, continually, uninterruptedly wetting the Taelon's cheek in shame, forcing the sobs out of his chest.
It seemed that like the Humans, the Taelons did cry. But there were still so many others explanations to the phenomenon, perhaps had Zo'or being submitted to the same kind of experiment than Da'an had been, perhaps that the Humans proximity and physical closeness had a strange effect on Taelons in messing up their emotions... But even that, Liam could hardly imagine this Taelon submitting to this kind of experiment, nor think about him spending time with Humans otherwise than when he was forced to. He had neglicted the most plausible, most possible hypothesis, perhaps was it natural? Normal?
Normal... He doubted so, when one is crying, it is rarely something normal. One cries because he is chocked, one cries because the pain is so intense, is so unbearable that its height must be taken off of his shoulders. No, one did not cry when acting in a normal way. Natural... Then, this was possible. He was one of the best informed person for know that the Humans, the Taelons and the Jaridians were tied together so much tighter that these three parts dared to think of, then it was more than possible that it was a natural reaction for a Taelon too, even he had not rememberance of it through his father's memory.
His body tensed of itself as he heard Zo'or's call for help, Zo'or's demand for help, for his help, in this shaky and weak voice he had troubles and doubts to believe it was the Synod Leader's. The words could nearly not leave the alien's lips. He could despite all recognize some bit of Eunoia, some english words... perhaps, but especially he heard a name: Da'an. Zo'or wished for Da'an to be here.
His thoughts were abruptly stopped by sounds coming from Zo'or that were almost like cries, laments, or groanings in pain... Then the wide blue eyes opened, in one single shot, without even blinking once before. From this moment Liam knew, by seeing this stare floating in his orbs, that Zo'or was delirious, consequence of his injury perhaps or its following or... the last step that would lead the proud being to his pitiful death.
The Taelon fixed on Liam a gaze that troubled and chocked the young man to his core, and he just stood there, fascinated by this clearty, by this straight deepness. He read in these eyes anger, a vague frustration, but that... that was only the cover, the facade, the mask, and he sensed it, and he knew that it was nothing but a mask, a protection. And his gestures guided by an odd curiosity and a desire of knowing this person that he could not explain, he leaned closer to Zo'or and got to see in his blue eyes many things, else than that anger...
It was like an azure land, by which he was surrounded, circled form every side, every points he would look at would be blue now, and overhelmed by this surrealistic blue tone, strange and alien to every possible parts of mankind's knowledge. Liam did not feel lost, or dizzy, or not at ease and he inched closer yet, though he did feel diverted by this presence that filled every most little points that he would turn his eyes to. To a point, he could feel Zo'or's breath warming his cheeks, an irregular, uncontrolled, feverish and visibly painful breath. In these eyes, beyond the glassy facade, he knew read misery, pain, sorrow, and mostly... so, so much loneliness, more loneliness and cold hatred than he had rarely seen in a living being. His loneliness was such that it has changed in this hatred, this cold hatred, categorical, almost unseeable, but that, when seen, could pass for insanity, power abuse, despising, disdain... All of what the people customarily working at Zo'or's
side had learned to accept as if it were normal. In fact, it was not that, from Zo'or's part it was hatred, pure and simple hatred, after years of being alone, of feelings lonely at every moments, he had isolated himself and built an icy wall around himself...
How this beings had needed to suffer for crying, not in pain, but in loneliness? He was delirious, what would have been the easiest of explanations, but Liam trusted that it was not the good one.
Then an ashamed Zo'or had lowered his tears-filled eyes slowly, blinking as if he suddenly realized that he had been awakened and staring in such a way at Kincaid, as if it were something illegal he had been surprised in performing. He was visibly trying to convince himself, to forget, that a Human had seen him in this state, though that with the psychological and physical traumatism he had been under the clear influence of, it was more than justifiable. And his delirium had returned with hislong, slnder fingers catching Liam's hand and gripping it almost desperatly. The tears were always silently falling from his eyes. Zo'or raised in a half-sitting position, clunging to Liam's hand for support, ignoring his own painful smirks. This only move brought them to face each other in a very close motion, their face almost touching.
He was delirious, and Liam could be sure of what he was saying by saying that to himself. Delirious was definitly the word for describe Zo'or's condition, now. The words were half way between Eunoia and english, but the young protector still got to understand most of this odd speech. "Do not leave me... I beg of you... So many of my kind let me alone... I did not want to be let alone... I did not want... And why... Why did he leave me... Da'an... Da'an.... And now, I will die alone... is you leave me... Stay... please... I do not want to die... I want not... I have done nothing... I do not deserve it... It is their fault... They made me be what I am... I do not want to return there... I want not... Keep me with you... Stay with me... I want to stay with you... Do not let me alone... I beg for your pity... I would die... if you let me.... And I do not want to die in this darkness... I do not want to die alone..." The tears were rolling on Zo'or's lips and falling on their
melted fingers, as his voice became filled with sobs.
Liam, slowly, a little surprised, embarassed by seeing how the things were now going, though somewhat ashamed of simply pushing Zo'or away in this situation, undid the grip of the Taelon's fingers on his. When every physical contact was broken between their flesh, the young man seemed to crash into the reality's hard stoned wall and stepped away franctically, frightened, somehow. And Zo'or extended his hand out to him, then seeing how useless was his gesture, the disgusted look undoubtingly more than obvious on Liam's shocked features, he took his hand back to his side and curld his fingers to the center of his palm, forming a tight fist with it. "Then... I am really alone... Nothing and no one will ever be able to stay with me... I am alone and ever will be..." His chest was agitated with something that looked like spasms and a shaking he was not able to control that had him quivering hard. His motions were stiff, he slowly, visibly hurtingly, curled on himself, his
gestures like the ones of somebody who does feel pain but simply chooses to ignore it. His arms were now folded on his chest, on his energy lacking wound, his legs folded, his knees snuggled up to his chest, against his arms, his head lowered, his ample forehead against his arms. When Kincaid stepped out of the room, he distinctly heard the quiet sobs that come from inside and suddenly an unknown, dormant guilt twisted his stomach.
Even if it were Zo'or, even if it had been the Devil itself, he had hurted, he had caused pain, psychologically to a person who was already weakened with a serious energy loss and a profound wound, that had asked nothing of him but his presence. And in this case, perhaps that a psychological wound was more dangerous, maybe fatal, for Zo'or that the deterioration of his physical condition. Slowly, as if he were not completly sure of what he had to do now, he returned inside the chamber where Zo'or was resting. This one's eyes were again tightly shut. When he heard Liam's coming inside he fluttered them open and a whisper, almost a praying left his lips, "Stay..."
Liam's words surprised himself, "I am staying. I'm going to stay with you Zo'or, don't worry, I will not abandon you. But first, you must not curl up on yourself like that, you'll only get your wound to be worse." Listening to this, the Taelon's eyes became clearer, calmer, more fatigued also, and more painful, and he had soon obeyed to Liam's command to return in a lying position. The man, in a gentle move, took Zo'or's cold fingers in his hand. "I'm not going... I will stay... I'm staying, and I'll be staying with you until we'll get to return on safety aboard the mothership `kay?"
The kind of delirious crisis that had washed over Zo'or seemed to have weakened him a lot, and ashamed his proud self also... It was finding back the control of his disdainful, cold disguised self that he fell back into a heavy slumber as fast as he had come back in the conscious world.
The young protector still held protectively Zo'or's thin fingers. He knew that the Synod Leader was not totally unconscious, not yet, since he felt this pressure against his hand, this returned gesture of affection. It was just when the Taelon's fingers became completly translucent and unmoving in his palm that he decided himself to release them. After perhaps one or two second of hesitations, he took a small part of his shirt's sleeve and dried off the tear that still covered the alien's cheeks. There was in Zo'or, despite this permanent coldness and this constant disdain, something extremely noble and fragile at the same time. He had prefered to wait until he fell asleep for erase all signs of his misery and sadness.
He stayed there, the remaining ot the night, keeping his promise fresh in mind, staying at Zo'or's side, even if this one had thought normal that a Human would let him to his death... During the hardest moments that came through this night, when Zo'or twisted and trembled and moaned in his sleep, still victim of this kind of fever Liam had assumed, he had taken his hand in his and had squeezed it in, he hoped so, a comforting manner. Then his thoughts lost themselves in the soft blew of the wind and he allowed the sleep to drift him off this reality, putting to tomorrow every thought that had just appeared in his mind...

The flashback ended when he returned from the interdimentional world and appeared into the mothership sick bay. He had arrived at the taelon homeship's medical bay about one hour before and, finding there no one, he had walked away for get some cofee back on Earth with the firm idea to come back as soon as he was done with his need of liquid. Then he had wandered through the corridors and had finally made his way back to the medical bay via ID portals. It was three am, the first day schedule was going to begin soon with the awakenings of the earliest young implants, he saw them exiting their quarters or waiting for the shower as he went through this part of the ship. A young implant of the scientific section of the vessel was putting back some equipment in place when he stepped inside the waiting room.
Liam burned his lips on the too hot cofee and let out a soft hissing. The young woman did not show any sign or acknowledging or hearing. He taped his fingers on the wall softly, but still making her jerk back and turn on his this startled look. "Major Kincaid," she whispered. "What are you doing here?"
He advanced toward the scientist, "I'd like to talk to Zo'or. Can I..."
The answer was fast though immensely hesitating, "I... don't know Major. Mit'gai has asked me to allow no one in and I'm not sure how is Zo'or gonna react if he's awakened by you..." Liam turned slightly, griting his teeth, he had to find a way inside the chamber where the Synod Leader was resting. He had to talk to him. Or at least to give him waht he had to. She caught glimpse of the frustrated look that passed on his features. "If I let you enter, the fault will be mine if someone ever finds out..."
Kincaid took the advantage, the thought had occupied his mind during all the two hours he had spent wandering aboard and the conclusion was irremediable, he had to talk to Zo'or and he had to do it now. "I'll take all on my back if it can convince you. But I have to talk to him, just some minutes, nothing more..." whispered the young man with an anxiety more and more difficult to hide that the implant remarked quickly. It was not normal, not normal as in not in the regulations, but also abnormal speaking of sanity, to seek to see Zo'or, that every intelligent person on the ship had learned to avoid like pleague. She frowned, but finally made her way through the small stockage room toward the usual oval pinkinsh door, the door that led to the chamber where Zo'or was resting. She entered her password in the console, typing fastly, with the evident intentions of hiding its view to Liam, in such a way that she made a mistake and had to type it slower which action allowed the
protector the keep it in memory easily. After all he was still a resistant operator and all informations and codes could be useful in their situations.
Finally a revealing `clic' noise was herd and the young woman stepped aside for let him enter. Just before he passe dunder the arch, she stopped his apth of a strong grip on his right arm, "Mit'gai is returning in one hour, exactly, it's all the time I can give you after what I'm responsible of nothing..." He nodded, comprehending that he would have not chances left form her part then thanked her briefly and his pace brought him through the wall that dissolved for let him in then closed back, leaving the two persons inside alone. He listened to the pace of the girl outside that again wandered through the laboratory. The only thing to hope now was that she was not going to have a conscience crisis at the last minute and call security.
The room was dark, very dark, only lit by the small virtual window on one of the walls. It was just if his human eyes could make out the shape of the table with the being lying on it in the shadowy light. The room was small and circular, the ceiling was formed of a dome where a crowd of small energy lines were travelling faster than what the eyes could perceive, toward a sole point: Zo'or. He seemed to receive the energy through every smallest part of his skin - if the Taelons did have skin - for regenerate doubtlessly. Visibly he had been wounded a lot more seirously that Liam had believed or that the taelon healer had wanted or revealed to make him believe so. Perhaps that, even if he were now safe aboard the ship, his survival was not completly assured.
The Synod Leader was shivering and trembling, his whole body was moving spasmodically and Liam, approaching, saw that he was tightly strapped to the table by bounds made of the same material than everything else on this ship. He was under the influence of medecine, that was obvious when he looked at his face contorting in his sleep and his eyes rolling under the fluttering eyelids. Slowly, gently, the young man advanced and, leaning over the table, started to undo every strap that tied the young Taelon to his bed. He first freed his ankles and only at this moment, he remarked that Zo'or did not wear the white facade he used to cover his energy paterns with, neither that he did the obligatory, jumpsuit, colored with the tones of the diplomatic caste. Then the bound that enveloped his waist and hips then his wrists. They were so small, they looked like they would have broken if touched, that they would just dissolve in the air like dust if blown away by the softest wind. But
Zo'or's fingers gripped the edges of the table and his hands were again caught by this trembling that Liam had witnessed in the woods some hours before.
The hybrid quivered and felt suddenly cold as a chill went down his spine, when he saw the bleu and purpleish traces that covered the Taelon's face, down his cheeks and some even reaching the corners of his mouth twisted in this painful smirk. Slowly he first took the rose and the paper from his pocket and placed them on the table aside the one were Zo'or was resting, then he got a handkerchief out from his other pocket and in the same way he had done earlier, he dried Zo'or's tears away once more. The injured alien quivered violently and turned his face away when Liam's hand came in contact with it, but the Human's kind, gentle gestures rapidly convinced him that he was no longer in danger. And Kincaid wipped the tears away.
Zo'or seemed to relax after that, his body released a little of its tension and he crossed his hands on his chest, brushing them against the silken material that kept his wound from more energy-lacking. His face then took a curious expression even in his sleep. Liam allowed a fine grin to creep over his features. He was too tired for feel any anxiety or nervousness now and his only wish was that Zo'or would read his letter and accept his gift. He hoped, but honestly doubted that it would change much things for his taelon boss. With this same pencil that he had used to write the letter itself, he rapidly drew the symbol that represented the name `Zo'or' in Eunoia on the folded paper that he put back beside the flower, still hid by its white silk-paper. Turning a last glimpse to the suffering being lying on the table, he left the room.
When Zo'or awakened from his comatose state, the first thing that hit his senses was the fact that he was visibly no longer bound to the table. The second thing he came aware of was the abnormal and unseemly presence of two objects on the other table, some inches away from his head. He knew perfectly well that it was pretty impossible for Mit'gai to commit such a thing as to undo his attaches since his healing was far away from completed and his state was showing no amelioration at all, and knowing the healer's behaviour about taking precautions for all and nothing... No, the person that had freed him from the straps was probably the same that had placed there those two things.
He felt weak, hollow, fatigued, fatigued of everything, fatigued of life, fatigued of having to face this hopeless task each days more complex and greater that was his. He closed his eyes slowly and folded his arms on his chest, enjoying his newly regained freedom, which he wished to take advantage of to taste fuly this momen of calm and relative peace. The medecine that his pathways had been filled with began to lose their effect, but the pain was not worse than ealier and he would stand it if it did not grow in importance. In fact he coud permit himself to believe, without being able to establish a professional and sure diagnosis, that his wounds had healed... physically.
He sighed and refused to let these darkening thoughts take the contorl of his reverie. He felt more free to think, less stuck, less glued together in this unconscienceness cocoon caused by the medecine he had been given, a state that had made sure to keep his thoughts in the area of darkness and foolishness.
Then and only then, Zo'or lifted a hand to his face, this face and these cheeks that had been covered with tears when he had fell into slumber... All signs of this shame had vanished, as if it had never happened at all.
When he realized that, he quickly turned on his side - gesture that tore a groan of pain by its vivacity - and directed his attention on the two objects that were placed on the table at his side. Two things. Something that was inside some white-silk-paper and its slender form was vaguely cylinder shaped and looked quite curious. And a white leaf of paper, folded in four, his name, written taelon way, was drawn on the surface in a surprisingly well-done writing, though as evidently human in origin.
His trembling hand advances further and his agile fingers got a grip on these strange objects and brought them back on the table on which he was himself lying. Helping himself with his hands and arms, the Taelon managed to get back into a sitting position.
First he unfolded the paper that turned out to be a letter, not too long, perhaps twelve or fifteen lines, hand-written, a way of writing that was today rarely employed with the new communications brought by taelon science, though a little nostalgia hurted no one, did it? He took his time in contemplating and observing attentively the handwriting's long curves and larges strokes, remarking that every letters were singularly tilted to the left side, which brought a constant feeling of uneasiness. He had rarely been given the chance of seeing this side of human culture. And his tired eyes applied to comprehend this writing and its meaning:
I know that it must mean nothing to you, but I have seen this loneliness in your eyes. And... and I know what it is to be alone. I have seen you alone, I have seen you crying, I have seen you delirious, I have seen the other person inside you. I have seen the one you are hiding under the crual and unemotional mask. But I know that you hide for cry, I have seen it in yours eyes, I know that you dislike the idea of me knowing it... But, in fact, there are so much things that I gnore about you. The most important: why? Why do you act like this? Why do you hide? Many questions that I doubt you will ever respond to. I simply wanted you to know that I am not totally unsensible to this pain I have seen in you. And this is why I am offering you this gift. It is a rose. The moment I saw it, it made me think of a tear, a tear of blue, like the tears you cried. This rose is for you. At first sight, it seems hard, thorny and if looking at anything but that, the beauty of the flower
itself stay hidden... Perhaps are you like that... I am not sure. But I wanted you to know that I know this pain you hide inside, but that I do not know why. And that... and that I respect and admire even more for that than for being the crual and unfeeling person you would like to give the illusion to be...
Liam Kincaid
Zo'or's eyes read through the text in less that thrity seconds. Before even reading the last line, he knew from whom came this letter, and from whom this gift came as well... And he now knew who had come at three hours in the morning on the mothership, that had untied his bounds and dried the tears on his cheeks. Liam Kincaid. He had then come, as he had hoped... The trust he had in this man was perhaps not so futile as it had previously appeared him to be.
One person knew, the fact, the simple fact that only one person knew what he was, what he kept hidden inside, burried deeply inside his core, with the same passion than he had put in the elaboration of this mask and this life, that one being had broken his secret, had known how to see beyond the appearances, relieved him more than everything he had always thought possible. And Liam Kincaid knew his secret. And something under the mask warmed up when he thought to that.
He folded the letter in four again and took the small object in the thin white silk-paper. He carefully unfolded it and took the blue flower between his fingers... Then this was what he meant... A tear of blue... who would have seen a poet in this man? Despite all, this only appelation saddened him gently. Sad in thinking that it was for his tears that...
The flower had freshly opened itself, the petals slightly parted for allow the eyes to catch a glimpse of the rose's center, of a blue, blue like the sky of a cool evening in winter, blue like the depth of the ocean... A simple flower, could mean so many things in itself, much things could be said only in the action of offering this. It was so simple, thie gesture of affection he had ever been waiting for, this gift, this flower... No one had ever offered him a gift in the past, no one. But this man. And, in a way, he felt relieved, in knowing that someone had heard him, that someone had heard the cry of the child in him that every of his kind had refused to listen to.
Zo'or slowly drifted into this deep, dangerous slumber again, holding the tiny flower tightly between his two clenched hands, the letter pressed against his chest. He was curled on himself, for the first time forgetting this kind of dull pain that pulsed inside him since his childhood. He know now that someone really cared about him, that there was someone, somwehere that knew who he was... And this only fact allowed his thoughts to wander in the garden of dreams...
A whole week had passed during which Liam was not given any informations about Zo'or's condition. And this ignorance had found its end when, the previous evening, he had gotten a page from Sandoval telling him that the Synod Leader would re-enter his functions by tomorrow - today. The young man sat in front of his desk at the Embassy and after the casual nod toward his former taelon superior occupied to look attentively at the rolling datastream before him, Liam gazed at the moutain of paperwork that had accumulated since the last two days he had taken off. He would have a good clean up to do, accompanied by much work. Oh joy, he thought bitterly.
He had not received the least sign from Zo'or that his letter and gift had reached their goal. Kincaid had then simply concluded that perhaps his conclusions were wrong about Zo'or... Oh well, the Synod Leader would just have an even lower opinion of him, and that was not exactly what would change his life.
But, while he was digging in the different layers of papers in the impressive paper hill, he found an enveloppe between two sheets. Strange, he did not use to receive some mail, or anyway not at the Embassy, or very very rarely. He took off the enveloppe from its prison and drew away from the collapse of the mass of papers that shortly followed. It was white, closed using red sealing wax... He broke the seal and looked at what was inside: a white sheet of paper, all of the simplest. He unfold it. The writing - hand writing - was very fine, very stylized, high, but at the same time, so irregular, so curved, and something was repetitive in the way the letters got tied together, one after the other...
The child cried in the night
And still it cries
And always will it cry
The stranger came one day
And gave it some blue
A little fragment of blue
Only a little piece of blue
Was all it had ever asked for
And what always one had refused to it
But still it cries
In the dark
In the blue
It cries
But it cries less
But it cries
And for having sought beyond the shell Liam Kincaid, for that you have gained my respect.
And there was the symbol of Zo'or's name in Eunoia, a name Liam had himself traced on the letter he had given him. The poem had to be in Eunoia originally, he recognized the structures, the kind of words sued. Zo'or had translated it perhaps, or perhaps written it himself... But still the poem spoke by itself.
Liam let a certain sadness fill his heart, there he had many other business than taking care of his enemy's health, but to know that a person he had seen crying would forever be crying in away, alone, crying and lonely... The feeling uses to stay in fresh memory.
He sighed... And alter that day, he went on the mothership, piloting Da'an's shuttle. When he stepped on the bridge, he saw Zo'or sat at the place he was ever sitting into, and that in Liam's young mind, he had forever been sitting into and would forever be sitting into. His long arms were still thin, his hands were still shivering, but his eyes turned toward he and Da'an this same cold look, without the least smallest sign of acknowledging or gratitude or recognition, nothing but disdain and ice, so that Liam doubted it was the same person than the one who had adressed him this letter he had just read. Then when he passed by, when he came tos tand in front of Zo'or's chair, his hands stuck in his pants pocket, half-listening to what was Sandoval saying, he saw that lightning of sadness and loneliness pass beneath the cold blue, not even the time of a blinking. The Taelon wished not to show something else than this stiff anf harsh appearance that was his.
And Liam Kincaid understood that Zo'or hoped for nothing now, but death, death was the only thing he could hope to reach now, now that his main wish had been carried, now that someone had understand, now that someone knew the truth... This same stare that had been in his eyes, while he was dying, in the woods, only some days ago.
But Zo'or was crying. In the depth of his self, he was crying. And he would forever be crying. And Liam could change nothing about it.
TEARS : A Kiss to Soothe Your Blue Tears
And Zo'or understood. He understood in that moment, that despite everything he had believed, Da'an, the protector, the parent, the teacher that ever he had wished to see in this person that had longly appeared to him to be cruel and pitiless, he understood that Da'an had loved him, since the very first day, since the very first day he had held him in his arms and had hugged him to his chest, giving his warmth, his love, giving him life. This only child, this only child that he had been able to bear and to bring to term and to birth without death being the sole consequence, this only child, he loved him beyond belief, he loved him more than what Zo'or had ever thought to be possible.
The dread that he had caught in Da'an's eyes, when this one had discovered what kind of disgusting crime he had commited, this dread was not in front of the disgust of the murder, nor the fear of being himself assassinated as a witness, no, it was in fear, in fear that his child would be killed, executed, terminated like a criminal for what he had done. When everything he had done was to have wanted to live, unlike all the others, that he had had in himself that will to live, a so wild will that he had stolen this life he considered himself to be in such a need of. Zo'or wanted to live, never he had asked anything else, he had never asked anything than to have the right to live, that had almost been refused to him.
Zo'or felt the hands of Da'an pressed against his cheeks, like two burns that made him recall how cruel he had been toward this being's kindness, that he had been the one in fault toward this being that had given birth to him. Through this contact, he could read in his open mind, and he saw the terrible pain he had caused him, when he had rejected his help, his love that he believed firmly he had just never been offered, this love, he had simply chosen to ingore it, he had pushed it away, by isolating himself, he had cutted himself away from everything, away from this as away from everything else.
Da'an's hands were now gripping his owns avidly when he started almost instinctively, almost widly, like a vampire, to slowly, in a more than suffering and painful way for the submitted one, pull out this life, this force, droplet after droplet, that soon ran again in his thirsty veins, that he felt travelling inside him, leaving burning marks on its passage, in all his body. This saving energy had preserved his life. But... to what cost. And he could do nothing but see how dear was this price when, his need fullfilled, he released Da'an's hands, that without a sigh or a movement collapsed on the ground to not move again, would it only be to curl up on himself, his arms crossed on his chest. Himself and his body yet to assimilate this dizzying shock that had brought with itself this new source of life, of assured future, of this life that had been given to him... Zo'or let himself slid on the groung, first collapsing on his kness, then lying completly on the floor beside
this being in pain cocooned on himself.
First T'than's energy, then Da'an's that now filled every smallest part of his organism. His body had to adapt, he needed to adapt, it would need time and, though he felt somewhat... blurred and aching from the inside, as well as weakened from the transfer, he knew that he would not need to take rest before weeks. His eyes briefly closed, and when he opened them again, it was to find Da'an's blue orbs fixing a piercing stare on him, not totally lucid perhaps, but at least completly and fully conscious again. He knew that now one was to be here to be witness of his action. And he did what never ever he would have dared to do anywhere at anytime else. Zo'or passed his arms around his parent's frail body and embraced, almost like two lovers, he cradled Da'an in his arms, like never he had done, like always he had wanted the older Taelon to take him in his arms and to hug him like this. The artificial night necessary to the human crew of the ship fell on the inside of the
vessel, the lights dimmed slightly, the energy power lessened and the ghosts trapped in their coffins were shining in the dark, seemingly whispering between themselves.
Dawn found them like this. Zo'or had his back against the wall, Da'an his arms tightly snaked around his child's waist, his head against his chest, the hand of the younger one stroking his cheeks, neck and shoulders in tender, almost massaging movements. Both of them were lost in their own reverie. Da'an was practically dying, the time that had Zo'or stolen to him was to be counted in centuries, maybe in millenias of life, of joy and pain. Da'an liked so much to feel his chilf being so close to him, holding him in his arms, making him recall the few terrifying seconds after his birth when he had been told that his child was dead, and then he was holding desperatly Zo'or's thin body in only one hand as he was so small. To him Zo'or was only a child still, and did not owned to be killed, but on the contrary had to be allowed to live and had to do everything to keep his life to himself. And to Zo'or, Da'an was the parent and the loving protector that never before he had seen in
his older fellow. But for this only moment. After everything would come back to reality, the roles would take back their places, they would go back to their functions and would again be nothing else than political enemies. And it was for this, for this simple reason, because both of them had so rarely in the past known the love of a single person, a love so blind that it could forgive everything, that neither of them wanted to part.
Da'an made the first movement since Zo'or had taken him in his arms and captured his white hand in his own, pressing it lovingly against his cheel, allowing the other Taelon to feel the thoughts that would never been said aloud. "Will you ever be able to forgive me?"
The child melted their fingers together. He was not yet looking at Da'an, not still, not still, the eyes turned away and plunged deeply in the stars of looking thoughfully at the seemingly endless corridor where were placed all of these Taelons, all of his fellows that would never again see the light of their sun; no one would have been able to tell what he was thinking or so absorbed by, his slender face was hid by shadows and emotionless, though not hard, simply... still. When finally, he lowered the eyes to the hopeful face that had waited to meet his gaze, Da'an saw the long blue tear that rolled down his infant's cheek, now following the oval of his profile. It disapeared finally when it reached Zo'or's lips, but they both knew that many others would follow. "I am sorry, but never I will be able to forgive you Da'an. Not after all you have made me suffer." His voice was cold, but not deserted by every feelings, but the tone was sharp and cutting. He saw the suffering,
the terrible pain that he had provocated mirroring itself in Da'an's blue shining eyes. He turned the head away and once more the words flowed down his lips. "No, I cannot forgive for your past mistakes, but I can love you and let you love me. I want to get the love that everyone has ever refused to me and for which I cried. And I would like to die, saying to myself that my life was not futile to the point of gaining love from no one..." he whispered. His voice was shaking, his hands too, pressed against Da'an's cheeks. And still he was crying when he spoke these words.
The American Companion slowly closed his eyes and one, only one lonely tear, timid, vaguely roseish in color made his path down his cheek. "Then dying in your arms is the last task that you could allow me to carry. You can let me this last chance of showing you how much did I love you, how much do I love... You are my child, my joy, my pride, the only one I managed to carry to term... the only being I have always truly and completly ever loved, with all my soul... Let me die with you... It is the last gift I can offer you..." The words were getting softer, slower and visibly more painful to say with each seconds passing for Da'an, like a groan that would cause the Taelon pain by escaping his dry lips. Zo'or knew that Da'an was dying now, he had realized it in the middle of the night, caressing the mind of his parent, unconscious of the gesture of love that was for the first and last time given to him. And he was condemned to die, his energy had not only reached the point of
no-return but had passed even beyond it, it had dissipated to a point that even if he were place in death stasis now, he could not be saved and his agony would only be made more painful. Zo'or knew that Da'an wanted him to defend himself from this crime that he would be accused of , this including to reject the guilt on him, to accuse his own parent of killing T'than, in a rush of rage or despair or a mix of both.
Zo'or took Da'an's weak and trembling hands between his own shaking fingers and wordlessly, without even a stare to explain himself, he lifted them to his lips and he placed on their melted fingers a kiss filled with all the respect and the love that he felt himself being able to give. He pressed Da'an's closed hands against his cheek when he spoke, his eyes closed from which he refused to let the tears flow, tears that he felt coming. "You will die in my arms then. And I will love you as never I have loved you, and you will love me as never you have loved me..." he murmured.
The Taelon let his child cradle him still for some seconds, tasting this peace, this inner peace that both of them had very rarely known. Then the temptation became too high, his energy was no longer linked together, it did not join together, it was no longe a whole, and they could not hold his mind and conscience together for a longer time, he could not bear to stand this pulsing pain much longer. The whirling cloud of energy he had become, surrounded his child and Zo'or received Da'an's love like the last of gift, the gift that he had given him from beyong death, nothinness, void, non-existence... Da'an gave him more than this, he gave him his knowledge, then he said simply, "Let yourself being loved. Let them love you. They can. Thye will. I will be there, I will watch over you, I will protect you... My death cannot be stopped, you had to live, I have born you for this. You shall save them. And you will find someone to love you... It is a promise my child... You have
given so much of you, it is now time for you to receive..." Then even the faint whispering vanished from the thing air, now completly empty to the exception of a dreadful Zo'or and these cadavers that were giving to the scene a vaguely ghostly aspect.
The only Taelon alive raised, first on his knees, then completly. His features borne a look how softer, how more compasionnate, gentler that the one that was known to him. The difference was not obvious but to someone that was close to him enough, it would appear evident beyond belief. He was not too sure, even now, after this rare and thoughs hort moment of peace, if Da'an's gift was trully one or if it were not another burden to bear.
Liam sat in his bed, shaken off from his dream, his body stained with cold sweat. Da'an was dead. There were no doubts in his mind, the dream had more than realistic, not un the unreal side but on the sur-realistic side. Too real to be true, and still Zo'or's face where flowed down these long blue tears was printed on his retina, and the smaller, timid tears on Da'an's cheeks... His breathing was short, this nightmare was one of the worst he had ever seen. He could still hear in his ears Da'an's begging and shaking voice that murmured prays, that prayed for forgiveness. But that never obtained it. He fell back on the blankets, that he had doubtlessly thrown out of the bed during this intense dream.
The vision would haunt him, he felt it, he knew it. He would never forgive himself if he did not go aboard the mothership and look out by his own ways. Because if... if it were true, if Da'an were dead, if what he had seen had really happened this night on the home ship, then Zo'oe was crying somewhere, then Da'an was gone...
He rose so aburptly from the bed that it made him feel a bit dizzt, but even so, he was able to read the bathroom. Then and only then he saw the tears that were wet on the hairless skin of his cheeks. He had cried then, b himself, or perhaps was it for Zo'or's tears... He stopped the infernal train of thoughts and attempted to calm down by simply looking at his mirrored self, thoughtful. Was he ready to admit this? Even in a dream, in fact especially in a dream, the dream being the mirrors of memories and unavowed secrets of the subconscious; then as he had cried for Zo'or, perhaps was it because he had refused to avow to himself how had this Taelon grown into his esteem and had become important to him? Weeks after weeks, days after days he spent at the Synod Leader's side, since he knew his secret, since this famous letter, that he still kept in the interior pocket of his leather coat, Zo'or had taken a greater importance to his... heart. Because he had learned to see in
him, not this cruel and despising person that everybody knew, but the other Zo'or, the Zo'or that wished to still be young to cry in someone's arms, the Zo'or that hid every nights in his chamber, to have a little time to himself, to cry. And he, Liam Kincaid, knew that Zo'or. He saw it now in every details, in every moves, in every smallest stares... What everyone believed was despise was in fact all the accumulated result of this loneliness collected during his millenia-long existence... Maybe he saw this despair in the stares where there was not? Maybe he saw sadness, tiredness in the gestures where were only anger and impatience? Maybe. And maybe not.
With the back of his hand, he dried off the few tears of salted water that hazied his sight and swallowed the others that he felt coming, as his mind thought to Zo'or that, as soon as he could find a corner of darkness and loneliness - a loneliness that he had so much lived with that it almost become his friend - he hid in it to let out some tears before getting back in his normal state, if one could say, and become again that monster that everybody knew... the shell.
In rage in front his own stubborness, he slammed his fist against the ceramic wall. Would he finally have the guts to admit to himself that... could he accept the fact that, he, Liam, was feeling this strange, certain affection, where merged also admiration for this proud reature that was hidding to feel. A... certain affection...
But the images of his dream were so vivid, still, in his mind to make him forget completly this idea of going on the mothership, up there, to check out his fears by himself, just to be sure. He had no other choices, it was this or stay in ignorance and feeling his blood turn to ink until the morning. He barely took the time of catching his pants, a shirt and his leather coat. He jumped in his clothes, litterally, before hurrying toward the door, still not completly conscious, the sleep's fog being somewhat still surrounding his brain.
Closer he came to the ship, and more particularly to this room and more he felt the anxiety and the worry growing inside him, increasing faster than he had ever thought possible to. His pace quickened. Some minutes later, he came face to face with a door closed and locked: the door that led to this long corridor that he knew was filled with coffins, with all these condemned ones inside. The thought made a slightl shiver go down his spine. Despite all the tricks that he had almost religiously learned to master from the teaching of the one he considered to be his brother, Augur, he could not managed to open this door.
Then at this moment, Liam knew that the answer he had been coming here looking for was not behind this desperatly closed door. His feet led him, as they knew by themselves where to fo, toward the wing of the ship reserved to the personal quarters of the taelon crew. He arugued longly with the young volunteer that guarded the entrance to the long corridor where doors were lined beyond what the human eyes could seen. He finally got the permission to enter after many long minutes of debates and spicy argumentation - he had decidedly many problems with the reserved accesses controlled by volunteers especially when it was to see Zo'or, he thought as he recalled with a sharp precision his previous arguing session with the female implant of the medical bay. The last thing that he wanted to happen now was for sure the intervention of agent Sandoval, the affair was complex enough without his presence to mess up what was already messed. There were enough elements in this without the
need of yet another.
He was walking right ahead, he knew that the Taelons with the highest position in the hierarchy had theirs quarters at the back of the corridor and that he had to pass through it all until arriving to Zo'or's. He knew them quite well, he knew also that the private quarters of the Synod Leader were facing Da'an's, the American Companion being the second most influent being on Earth - speaking of the Taelons only because all factors known and officialy it was Thompson and officiously it was Sandoval. How many sarcastic talks had they have on this doorstep? About ten times perhaos they had exchanged with Zo'or jokes and ironic words, in Eunoia msot of the time, on the different persons that they were to meet, the events they had to attend to... He smiled at the good souvenir. It was in the moments like this that he had begun to see in Zo'or and Da'an something else than respected and unreachable people. But this was quite long ago, before he learned of what Zo'or really hid
under the mask. At this thought, his smile vanished and he continued walking along that corridor that seemed to last forever, until the mechanic working of his legs was stopped by a wall previously looked out by his eyes that prevented him from getting his nose broken against it.
Kincaid turned to the right and saw the familiar door of Da'an's quarters, he had learned to easily recognize it with the more pinkish tones that were travelling through it that made like a spot of difference against the wall. He almost entered, wishing to see and know if his dream was real, if his dream had been real and if Da'an, his... old friend was dead and gone, but he sighed and turned away. It could not be real he realized, the other Taelons would have felt it, there would be somewhat of an anxiety aboard the ship, amongst the Taelons it would be the most total of disorder, Da'an was a well known person amongst his kind... But ehre everything seemed to be gentle and peaceful as it always was. He looked at the door now facing, more blueish in color. His will was suddenly staggering, he was not sure, he was hesitating...
But it was almost without hesitation that, taking a good breath, he passed through the wall simply, knowing that it was not locked. He closed his eyes the times to feel his body passing through the energy filled door and shivered as the well known coldness ran down his back when the particles of energy spread apart to let the necessary place to the intruder. The vision, the scene, that welcomed him inside was bathed of a light shared between blueish and simply very hazy, almost unexisting, that was coming from the wall around him. He knew that Zo'or liked better to rest here than on the bridge, but only sometimes. And Liam had felt that today h would be resting here. After all even the Taelon needed to have some private life.
Liam advanced slowly, taking good care of softening the noise of his footsteps on the smoothed floor, toward the cloud of energy in the middle of the room, beneath which he could barely make out the form of Zo'or in his natural form, shining softly. He had, in a way or another, to betray his presence even before noticing or worrying over something abnormal and the cloud of life-giving energy, though Zo'or simply seemed to be sleeping in it and not absorbing any energy, dissolved into thin air and a Synod Leader visibly annoyed, if not just sharply angry almost jumped to his feet. "Who-..." He stopped as violently as he had begun speaking, he had had to be giving orders to not be disturbed, by whoever it was, judging by his quite breathtaking awakening. But the presence of the young man seemed to upset him only more, though in a better way for Liam's fate, because for anything else than official business he had never consciously asked to Da'an's protector's presence. "Major
Kincaid..." The words were hesitating, the Taelon had spoken so low that the tone was almost not audible. The rest though had gained back its assurance, "What are you doing here?" he asked, severely this time, almost coldly.
The young hybrid coule perceive well the nervous gestures of the young Taelon, gestures of hands that he made only when he was anxious, when he had something on his conscience that would not be good if revealed, when this something was very serious. Liam had already seen - but rarely - him like this. He announced the meaning of his visit in this direct and fully honnest manner that was his toward the poeple that he saw often, when he liked and wanted to cut short the lies and false and polite greetings, "You've killed T'than... haven't you?"
Zo'or had sat down on the edge of his seat while waiting for his guest to speak and to prepare himself psychologically to what would follow these words. To Liam's great surprise, the Taelons did not move, his facade did not even flickered, not even a blinking. If it had been only a dream and if Zo'or had nothing to reproach himself with, if the Taelon had done nothing this evening but resting, then he knew how to keep his blood cold, especially in situation where many of the ones whom Liam came to meet would have cracked if their were guilty. Liam knew not that Zo'or was able to keep the mastery himself to this point. A person that can difficultly hold back his tears should logically have some difficultues to keep his anger inside. His voice was on a tone between bitter and sweet, this fine smile almost a smirk to his lips, he responded, "And on which kind of hypothesis do you base your accusations Major?"
Liam sighed, seeing that Zo'or was only getting himself prepared to fight, political fight, verbal fight, but yet a fight. "I have not accusated you Zo'or, it was only a question." He hesitated and Zo'ot took advantage of this moment of silence to tilt his head slightly to one side, the lookon his features being surprisingly soft as the Human in front of him seemed to be dealing with the better choice of words. "I..." Liam took a deep breath, "I... would prefer to not be facing the Synod Leader but only... Zo'or... If I am... here, it is because I did a... strange... dream lthis night... And it was the kind of dream that tend to look more realistic than reality itself... more real, simply so... possible..."
Zo'or sank back into his chair. The Human standing in front of him was the only person that had ever cared about him, and still, during events that had marked them both permanently especially by their consequences. He had as soon established that hypothesis of... affective dependency, as he had then named it, this strange feeling that linked them together and was bringing them closer and closer ever. He had shivered when he had heard him enter, a part of his subconscious had welcomed his arrival, though the other half had backed away, repulsed by the weakness of the other, that weakness, it was only a need of company and affection. And now, he was there, asking him on the most neutral of tone if he had effectively killed the War Minister, member of the Synod Council, the General T'than... And Zo'or himself was there at the opposite, and was not sure as to what invent as answer, the two halfs of his soul - if still he possessed one - fighting, arguing for control. Tempting
him with at a moment adopting an attitude of kindness and at the other moment one of coldness. He tried to ignore himself as his voice escaped his lips, when the silence between them had grown to long to be perfectly innocent. "And in this... dream, you have seen the War Minister T'than, being murdered... by I ?" he inquired. How would he have wished to be able to feel this sarcastic smirk sweep on his lips, like everytimes before when he had had affair with a Human, especially when this Human seemed to be in the best of position, or to say... against him with the power to make his downfall a reality. But there had been a so long time since he had been waiting for what?... A word of kindness, for a soft stare, for the demand, gentle and asking, instead of cold and authoritarian... This emotion, this need that he had had so many difficulties to bring into avowal, was now on the edge to be satisfied... perhaps... his hunger of affection was to be fed, his fatigue of loneliness
would disapear... No, this occasion, he would not waste, this time, not another time. But even so, he could not allow himself and his... potential survival to reveal to this young man, as esteemed as he was to be, the criminal actions that had been commited this evening. If not, Liam Kincaid or not, it would be his end, his downfall and his ears would listen to the knell of death.
The young protector nodded sharply and went on, "But in my dream, there was not only this..." He interrupted himself, looking... quite awkward by what he would have to say. The Taelon had often noticed in this human element a strong tendency to show his emotions, or to overshow them, especially when he was nervous. And in any other cases, perhaps would have Zo'or enjoyed to see this other being plunged in nervousness, possibly caused by him, but curiously, he was now feeling as nervous as the young man appeared to be.
The logical part of Zo'or's controlling mind could not stop itself from place there a comment. "Then why have you come? To announce to me my downfall?" he simply... asked, revealing there by himself the guilt that he had hoped to be able to hide and more curiously than ever he felt no anger, as he normally `should' have to have been discovered in his intentions.
Kincaid's lips at this moment, showed a small vaguely sad grin. "I knew you to be alone, I knew you to be angry, I have guessed you to be young, but I would never have seen you to be such a fatalistic..." he whispered, his attitude nearing... watching, as he attentively seemed to scan Zo'or's form over with his eyes, as he had never seen before, or simply as he truly saw him now.
The Taelon sighed and briefly blinked before winding out of his lips a soft, "Continue," assured looking, though just enough shaking in the tone to make it clear to Liam's perceptions that Zo'or himself was sufficiently febrile with the situation.
"In my dream, you absorbed all T'than's energy, because you had no more for yourself, or at least not as much as you could wish to have. And then... then Da'an was there and he gave his own energy to you, that he possessed because you were still in need, weren't you?"
The only sound that managed to get his way out of the young diplomat's lips were these few words. "Stop speaking." Then, it was finished, he had just avowed, admitted to have commited the worst of actions, a murder, something that had not been done among the Taelons since millenias, if not more. But the young man saw there a way to continue, braving Zo'or's orders and the words again were carried through the air.
"And Da'an did give you his energy, and in my dream you took so much energy from him, that he finally died from it, from the loos, and he died in your arms, whispering words of love to you, because you are his child Zo'or aren't you?"
On the same tone, perhaps with some more strenght in this, as his parent's protector seemed to be willing to expose, to denude every of his most personal secrets, secrets, his dearest secrets, that himself would never have told, to anyone, to no one they would have been revealed. "Stop..." His hands were trembling convulsively. He felt the tremor in his cheeks and he knew that tears were coming, The words, of Liam, had not been pronounced with agressivity, but with calm; but in this calm there was such a conviction, such a feeling of knowledfe, that this man knew so mamy things more than those he implied to... Or maybe, murmured to him a little voice in his mind, maybe he was the one to whom he could confide every thing, every of his pains... without exceptions, all of these burdens that were heavier and heavier on his shoulders that were becoming more frail with each seconds ticking by. This possibly future... Though Da'an's death was somewhat to be feared to him, in the
depths of his self, he had simply ever wished to be loved by this being, that had given some of his incredible love for him tonight... and if Kincaid was saying the truth? Perhaps was Da'an dying?...
"And in you Zo'or, I have felt this need, this craving for love, this need for tenderness, thie need to be what you are to be, amongst your kind... This need of loneliness, but not to be forced to hide in it as you have been. Da'an wanted you to forgive him, in my dream... He begged for your forgiveness, and you answered that you could not forgive his past mistakes, but that you could love him as he could love you. And, when he died, he told you that you would find someone to love you-..."
Liam's voice was shaded and then interrupted by a soft, low-spoken prayer, coming from a Zo'or that kept his tears-filled eyes looking fixingly at the floor. "Stop... I beg of... you... Stop..." The Taelon felt his shame roll down on his cheeks and closed his eyes, tilting the head away, forcing the sobs to bed kept in his throat with all his soul, so much that he was hurt by the restrained anger toward himself.
The man lowered the head and then, as they were both staring away from each other, Zo'or never saw the waterly drop that had formed at the corner of his eyes. "I stop." And there was a long silence, a long entire minute of silence before someone, one of them, dared break the calm that had fallen, both were busy to hold back their unavowed feelings. Finally, "I would like to know if all of this is true or is to be perhaps?"
Zo'or sighed almost inaudibly, trying to hide to Kincaid's now attentive eyes the tears of sadness that had wet his white cheeks at the only memory of what had taken place some hours sooner. "I do not know."
"You cannot know if you can allow yourself to hope that it had happened like this, if Da'an if only dead in my dream and not in this reality?..." Nothing of Zo'or's body moved, not his lips, not his head, not a word neither a nod were communicated, but Liam should not have made the sentence to be interrogative as he knew for sure to be completly right.
When the Synod Leader spoke once more, his voice had recovered its harshness and its pride. "You have the answer that you hade came inquisitive for Major Kincaid, now leave me alone, I need solitude and clarity of thoughts. I will speak to the Synod tomorrow and you will gain what you were intending to. I will present to them my... my resignation from the leadership," he said, decided, visibly, only by the tone of voice and if not by the simple knowledge of the persona that Liam had developated, not meaning to do of himself a martyr. The Taelon's shining blue eyes, shining by the tears or by their natural color, the Human could not be sure, gazing out of the virtual glass into the stars.
Liam stepped somewhat forward. "Allow me to contrary your orders Zo'or. I do not think that your wish is to be left alone, and even less that you need to be, especially after what I have become aware of. I told you already that I know what it is to be alone, to have lived through this myself, to be constantly wishing for someone to be here, but I was to be left alone still. And also because I think that this loneliness that you have made to yourself an ally is poisonning you from within," he murmured sofly, making the taelon perfect memory recall exquisitely this bittersweet moment when he had learned, when he had known that someone knew.
Zo'or quivered all over, it was almost visible for the eyes to see. "No, no, you pretend to know me Major, but you know nothing of what I am and of what my loneliness is."
"But you've kept it, haven't you?" Zo'or felt no need in asking to what Liam was refering like this. He perceived the young man's stare as it passed over his shoulder and fixed something beyong his own self. The place where he had left the blue rose, the tear of blue, bathed in this energy field where, forever, it would live, eternally young, its petals to be forever blue and soft to the touch, sign of a brief moment that Zo'or had no wishes to forget now, not before having some more beautiful ones to replace to this one, something that he would probably never obtain.
The Taelon gave no response but climbing down from his chair and then down from the dais to the ground, sensing the piercing stare of Liam resting on his back. And still he was fighting against tears. Slowly, he walked around the room and reached his objective, this thin and weal flower that to his eyes meant more than everything else, than every kind of souvenir to anyone else, and it floated some distance above the ground, held together in the air by the surroundings of tight anergy that kept it form the passing of the time and of its consequences. The glimmering energy followed the least, the every curves of the plant and covered it very softly and delicately of a blueish skin that gave to it an appearance somewhat... alien, unnatural, or un-human at least; it was like a second skin, like if Zo'or had wanted to protect all of his treasures. Gently he stroked with a finger the petals, and like a living being that answer a cress, the rose seemed to collapse and press itself
into the palm of his hand, what brough to Zo'or a weak smile through the tears that were now blurring his sight.
He heard the man coming closer behind him, "And I have too kept your letter, because I, too, know what it is to have this desperate need for love and to not be able to find it, to see only aliens and cold faces wherever you turn to..." said Liam in an almost completly silented voice.
And it was at this moment that the young leader permitted to his mask to go in complete vanishing, letting the tears flow down, in a soft, unknown fall. He was always turning his back at Liam Kincaid when he spoke, "And... And I would have loved it so much to happen like this, if he could have asked me to forgive him. He told me that he could neither abandon me or betray me or let me die that he has not said me that he could not not love me, to not accompany me in my loneliness. And your dream is an illusion..." The tears melted with his words, flowing down form his eyes to his lips.
It was with a voice of such a kindness that never ever would have Zo'or told hismelf to be able to imagine that Liam spoke next, his tone filled with something like a compassionate pain, almost... loving tone... "Whatever you may think about it, your sufferinf anf your loneliness are not to leave me indifferent, even far from it, because... because from now on a little of your sadness and of your suffering is to be mine Zo'or, it is inside me," he whispered, his voice flying to the ears of a Taelon mesmerized by the sudden admittion of caring. Then... then the feeling was returned, and how much...
He slowly turned to become once more facing the protector, but it appeared that Kincaid was so much closer than expected that their chests were almost touching. The blueish tears were melting together on the Taelon's cheeks, they were still flowing. "I have not forgiven him, he could not love me and your dream is only a dream Kincaid..." He lightly shivered when he felt the fingers of Liam's right hand fumble to find his own and gripping them. He lifted a hesitating, nervous stare, the words were the hardest one he ever had to pronouce, "Love me Liam, as no one has ever loved me, and I will love you... Please..."
He knew that the only thing that prevented his hands from this uncontrolled quivering was the iron and strong, though not hurting, grip that the Human held on them; he knew that his tears were becoming hesitating and troubled, and what he could see, lightning the young man's eyes surpassed every of the verbal answer he could ever had hoped to get from him. He then knew that Liam Kincaid had not only accepted his burden and his secret, but that he had done so many more than this, that he had learned to... to love the beings that he was... that he really was, under the secret, under the burden, under the task, under and beyond every kind of barrier and covers...
Liam followed the slightly curved oval of Zo'or's profile with his free hand, and with his other hand hardened his grip on the young Taelon's fingers in an almost possessive way. And with his lips, he dried off his tears, feeling somewhat as if the little something that was missing inside him was suddenly filled; he received Zo'or's emotions, he accepted them... And he loved Zo'or. And Zo'or loved Liam.