Phew! The second to last chapter. Take a moment if you wish. considering
I take forever with chapters.. Okay, moment's up! Read and enjoy! ^ _ -
v
Oh- wait.. Little important- no, VERY IMPORTANT- note: I'm changing perspectives for this one chapter only. It's probably a good thing to know that this is in TRIP's point of view before you start reading, or you will
be confused, and bad, evil reviews (you'll see why in about seven paragraphs) that could have been avoided if my memory was better make their
way to my mailbox. So. you can all read now.
Chapter 18
Broken Ties
"It's been a while, huh?" I said quietly, my voice choked with tears. "I... I'm sorry I took so long."
A light breeze swept by, the only response. The rest of the world seemed at a standstill, waiting in anticipation for the words that I had come to say. I swallowed back the sobs from escaping me, and continued.
"I know... I know twenty-six years is a long time t' wait fer an apology, but...." I could feel a stream moving down the side of my face, but I didn't care to brush it away. After all, if I swept away one, there were more to follow anyway.
"I owe it t' you."
I stood a while, thinking of what to say. It seemed so much easier when I was explaining it all to Jon. I had known just what to say, known just how I was going to say it, but now, it all seemed different. It all seemed wrong.
"Jeez..." I said, shaking my head at myself, realizing I had been staring off for a long while. "I'm standin' here starin' off at nothin' when all I wanted t' do was explain.... You'd prob'ly tell me t' just spill it right about now, huh?"
I wanted more than anything at that moment for that stone tablet to suddenly change into my father, to be *him* rather than just his name. I wanted to rewind the last twenty-some-odd years like I could a movie and change my past so I could have simply stayed to argue with the man some more that day I came back to Earth. I wanted to punch the young man that walked out of that house right in the nose, and drag him back inside to apologize for me... so that maybe I didn't have to do that now when it was too late.
"But..." I began, figuring that I should just keep going, "I'm not apologizing for my decision. Just... just fer not seein' *your* side of it. Fer walkin' out. Fer bein' so angry at'cha. ...Fer gettin' angry at'cha the time ya tried t' get back in contact with me. Not because I didn't wanna see you again, Dad... but... ya told me that there was no way fer me t' take care of K'Ela on my own. You said a lota things.... It was like ya thought the only thing I could do was fix a warp engine. Ya really didn't have any faith in me."
I took a deep but shaky breath. "Ya really didn't know what influenced my decision, so ya shouldn't've been so quick t' tell me I was wrong."
I could remember the day the Xyrillian ship had been destroyed. For a long time, I didn't want to come to grips that I actually would have to deal with my fast-approaching due date, and- what was worse- what that would mean. I stayed distant from the crew, all of them quick to either offer their condolences, or leave the room.
But over the course of that week, things started to change. What was once just a small, but painful, lump in my side wasn't just that anymore. Phlox's scan showed me this tiny little person, fragile as glass- a baby girl. *My* baby girl. Yes, she was Ah'Len's, but Ah'Len wasn't alive anymore. She was my responsibility. I found that this time, when I reasoned with myself that if she was taken out of my body and put into someone else, she wouldn't be mine anymore. my heart broke. I wanted this baby, more than I had ever wanted anything before.
Of course I wasn't that quick to make up my mind. I wanted to stay on Enterprise. It was my life. But on the other hand, I couldn't just leave this baby with just *anyone*- only because I wanted to keep the life I had. I had to take responsibility, even though I knew I was probably not the best father she could have. I was indecisive for a long while, slowly being drawn toward choosing fatherhood over my position on Enterprise, but my mind was made up the minute I discovered that my only two rational options were birth and abortion.
I couldn't believe that Phlox would even offer that to me, but he said he was obligated to present me with all my options, even knowing what I would say. I wanted no harm to come to her, and took the entire burden upon myself. Even as early as that was, I knew what I wanted.
Another breeze passed by, and I let a sad smile cross my lips, wondering if Dad had heard me.
"But... I dunno... maybe you were right about somethin'," I offered him, my voice still quiet. "The more time I spent alone here, the more I really felt like I was slippin' away. Sometimes I really didn't know how I was gonna be able t' do it all, hardly gettin' any sleep an' with no one t' help me. ...But there were good an' bad days, like anythin', right?"
I stared out into the sunset, quieted by the radiance of the orange and red, the sun dipping beneath the horizon and casting long shadows across the ground. "I really wish you were here t' see this," I murmured. "One of the best sunsets I've ever seen in my life...." I dropped my eyes to the ground. "...You prob'ly get some nice ones here all the time."
I shook my head. "You should'a been there the time me an' K'Ela went all the way up t' Canada. God, we froze our asses off," I laughed. "Stayed out all afternoon in the damn wintertime- with no car t' sit in, tryin' not t' get hypothermia, all just 'cause she wanted t' see the sun set. ...But then it turned out t' be one of the nicest." My smile faded once I realized what I had said. "I really wish you could'a been there."
"...I really screwed up, didn't I?" I tried to think it all over, tried to come up with another outcome if I had changed something, but what was there to change? Of course I wished I had made a better decision about leaving that day, but what more was there to change? Nothing else within my control seemed to have a better decision than what I had chosen. I would have never given up K'Ela if I had the chance, so what else was there to change?
Then it hit me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Trip, why do you think that makes a difference?" Jon asked.
I stared down at the sleeping little girl in my arms, and tried to fight past the overpowering tiredness to respond strongly. I was weak, but I needed him to know that I hadn't made the wrong decision, that I was capable enough to take care of both myself *and* her. "I tried t' believe I was the same, but I'm not. I'm just not comfortable around everyone like before."
Jon stopped, giving me a confused glare. "Including me?"
I nodded.
"And you're not going to even try? Trip, the whole idea of adjusting is to actually try to make things work even though things are different."
"Believe me, I tried. But every transmission and every conversation showed me that no one really was comfortable, and no one knew what to say. Your whole life for these three years while I was here was Enterprise, and meeting new people and new species, and you're gonna go back in a little while an' do it again. My whole life since comin' back t' Earth has been K'Ela. As much as I wouldn't trade this life with her in for the whole universe, you gotta realize we can't relate anymore."
Jon breathed out a long sigh, nodding. "I'm sorry, Trip."
The words left a sharp pain in my heart. "I'm sorry"? What did "I'm sorry" mean? What did those words ever do? What did they ever change?
He started to walk out.
"Now wait just a minute!" I hissed loudly. "Yer just gonna say 'I'm sorry' an' *leave*? Just like that?"
"What else is there to say?" he asked in a quiet desperation.
"I don't know!" I said, coming close to shouting, but my voice suffocated from the tears I held back.
"It seems like you've said all you wanted to say to me."
My short breaths felt like a painful effort, each breath piercing my lungs like sharp needles.
"You've made it perfectly clear that you don't want or need my friendship. You don't want my help."
"You can't give it to me!" K'Ela stirred at the harsh sound of my voice, but stayed sleeping. I was quieter when I continued, but, by far, not any less accusatory. "You abandoned us. You left with Enterprise and went on with your lives like I never even *existed*."
"How can you say that?" he whispered. "Are you forgetting all our transmissions?"
"You all were pretty quick t' leave," I reminded him.
"We can't all just stop our mission to talk to you," he said through clenched teeth. "We all have jobs to do."
I shook my head. "That's not what I meant."
"Then what *did* you mean?"
"It doesn't make a difference," I spat.
"I don't understand why you keep arguing with me about this- ever since we started back here! You keep telling me that it doesn't seem like we even care, that everyone is uncomfortable around you, that we can't relate!" His eyes narrowed. "How can you not understand how terrified we were to hear that *Florida*- of all places- was attacked! How can you not see *that*? Why do you keep trying to get away from us?"
All of a sudden, I felt like I was spinning out of control. Emotions reeled, and everything I thought I knew became blurred. Everything I had said hung from a thread between sensible and irrational, and I started to wonder if I was as fine as I thought I was. "...Cap'n..." I began, my tone somewhere in between sorrow and angry defiance.
"I'm not your superior anymore," he reminded me in the coldest voice I had ever heard from him, and left.
I stood there in disbelief, barely aware that I was standing, and a chill crept over me. I felt horribly sick. What was going on? What did I just do? Was everything I was feeling real? Was it really the truth?
Everything I had told him seemed right up until now. Now... what was it now? Was I imagining it all? Was it really as bad as I thought it was? Everyone on Enterprise... maybe they *weren't* as uncomfortable with me as I was with them. Maybe they *weren't* trying to avoid me. But whether or not I was right about that, my life's situation couldn't get any worse.
Enterprise was gone, pulled from beneath my feet, and my security was gone. Lizzie was gone, taken from me, and I could do nothing about it while Enterprise searched the universe for her murderers without me. My family was gone; I didn't want them to hurt K'Ela with their awful words, my awful memories. My father would never speak to me again, now more than any time before on account of what I had harshly reminded him of only days ago when he had called about Lizzie. My friends were gone: everyone on Enterprise gone with the ship, everyone on Earth not willing to see me now. Even Jon, my last thread holding me from plunging into darkness, had just broken away from me- all because I had spoken in anger, all because I couldn't bear having everything torn from me in so little time.
But what scared me the most was that I couldn't even trust my own mind anymore. I hoped that it was just anger and fatigue and nothing that rest couldn't battle, but it terrified me that maybe it wasn't. The fight with Jon became my second concern, my reasons behind the fight now my first.
I started to shake and I could feel my knees on the verge of buckling beneath me.... Then I remembered that K'Ela was in my arms. K'Ela was all I had left. I couldn't let her get hurt. I placed her in her playpen in case I passed out, and sat down on the couch.
But as soon as I knew she was safe, the thoughts returned again to suffocate me.
There was no fixing what I had done. I had destroyed too much to make any of it better. And even if there *was* a way to fix it, I had no idea how. I knew I *needed* to make things better, but why would any of them want to forgive me? And whose fault was it, even? Nothing made sense to me anymore, and the more I tried to think it all through, the more I realized that I was caught in a spiral- a spiral that I was It was all hopeless. Like being caught in a current, there was no point of struggling to escape it any longer. The waves would pull me under, the only question was of when.
I tried to sort it out, but my eyes were heavy with sleep and with tears. K'Ela was safely set down, so I allowed it all to wash over me and take me into a slumber not at all peaceful, but it was an escape nonetheless.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Even with the event resolved and with my friendships restored, I couldn't help but feel that same fear of falling away, of changing back into that person that I had tried for so long to stop from overtaking me. Never had I pictured myself like this. I thought I would have been able to handle this better. But then again, I never thought that I would have to face a lot of the things I did.
I continued to stare at the gravestone. "I really *did* screw up," I murmured. "This whole time I thought everyone was abandonin' me... when *I* was the one abandonin' *them*."
I paused, reflecting on my behavior. "Y'know the only person I actually kept in touch with this whole time was Hoshi? Yeah, I guess that's 'cause 'a how much she helped me, but...." The tears started to come back.
"Dad, help me," I managed to force out. "I can't.. I dunno what.."
I wasn't sure what to say or how to start, but then all of it just poured from me, all my emotions finally set free, without any need for explanation; they just exploded into the nothingness that should have been my father. "I need yer help... *please*! I should'a asked ya thirty years ago, but I need yer help.... I feel like I'm drownin'.... I never told anyone 'till now, but I can't take it anymore! I wish I had someone over these years that I could'a gone to, but I never did an' it was all my fault.... All of it.... I should'a said this t' Jon back then, should'a gotten some help or somethin'...."
All of the "what if's" and "if only's" just flowed from me then, how I should have talked to her and told him of this and that, how I should have maybe just once defended myself against one stranger's verbal attack judging what I had done, how I should have gone back to see this person and that person... but then I said something I never thought I ever would in the midst of it all.
"I wish I had never met Ah'Len!"
I stopped suddenly, shaking from the violent outburst, staring wide- eyed. I couldn't believe that I had just said that. But was it that I had said it... or that I had *finally* said it? Was that what I had been scared of for so long?
I had been trying so hard to fight through it all and still make K'Ela feel loved- so much that even her name reflected how much I wanted that for her. "My joy." Yes, that much I admitted. But she was also my burden, and that I never said. It hurt so much to finally say it, to finally not have to keep it buried inside for no one to know... but I was relieved.
I had tried so long to make everything clear, to make everything about this situation one thing or the other, that none of these feelings seemed right. But clarity wasn't the main thing I was after. Those feelings still weren't right. What was right about them when I sat wondering about what might have been, about what might have been better if I had chosen abortion? Those thoughts terrified me, but that never stopped them from resurfacing again and again. They bothered me so much, haunting me, making me question if my regrets and my disappointments made me a horrible person... making me question if maybe I didn't love my daughter.
But it wasn't true- and I realized that finally. Most of the time I was without those thoughts, and most of the time I was a pretty good father. Those demons came back rarely, but plagued me deeply in a way that not much else could hurt me. But... I loved her so much that those notions slipped my mind and my regrets didn't matter.
...At least... until she left.
What was there after she left? No more Starfleet, no more friends, no more family. Everything was gone and it was all my fault.... And the thoughts returned again. If only I hadn't met Ah'Len.... I wouldn't have lost it all.... But- it was *my* fault, not K'Ela's....
My heart began to ache once more. It was happening again. I was caught in that same spiral....
Wait.
I snapped out of it. None of that was happening right now. It was all in my past.
Sometimes it was far too difficult to separate the past from the present when I was alone. It all started to blur together like a movie seen far too many times to feel important anymore, started to fade like ink in the rain. But I promised myself that wasn't going to go on- not anymore.
My friends were with me, even if they couldn't always be. It was better now- now that I knew we would actually talk. Of course it wouldn't be exactly like before, and it wasn't going to be an easy transition, but there was so much more to look forward to now.
A small smile found its way across my lips. Oh, *definitely* a lot more to look forward to. I *was* going to be a grandfather after all.
Finding a lightness in myself that I thought I had lost, I became very glad that Jon gave me the idea to come here. It helped more than he would ever know. I just hoped he told everyone where I had gone. They had all done enough worrying over me.
I stood in thought a minute more, only this time... no ominous ones came to mind. I wanted to say something, but what? Nothing seemed right. Nothing seemed the perfect way to leave him, especially thinking back to how angrily I had left him last time... the final time really. But was there anything to say? Thank you? I miss you? I love you, Dad? I'm finally alright? No. None of those things. *All* of those things.
If he could really hear my thoughts, if it was really true that he could see me, staring down at me from heaven... then there was nothing more to say.
***************
You like? I hope. Well, the next chapter is the final one, all!
Something to look forward to.
Review now, make an author happy. ^ - ^
Happy New Year if I don't post before then! (Ha! *If*.. We all know
that's not gonna happen.)
Oh- wait.. Little important- no, VERY IMPORTANT- note: I'm changing perspectives for this one chapter only. It's probably a good thing to know that this is in TRIP's point of view before you start reading, or you will
be confused, and bad, evil reviews (you'll see why in about seven paragraphs) that could have been avoided if my memory was better make their
way to my mailbox. So. you can all read now.
Chapter 18
Broken Ties
"It's been a while, huh?" I said quietly, my voice choked with tears. "I... I'm sorry I took so long."
A light breeze swept by, the only response. The rest of the world seemed at a standstill, waiting in anticipation for the words that I had come to say. I swallowed back the sobs from escaping me, and continued.
"I know... I know twenty-six years is a long time t' wait fer an apology, but...." I could feel a stream moving down the side of my face, but I didn't care to brush it away. After all, if I swept away one, there were more to follow anyway.
"I owe it t' you."
I stood a while, thinking of what to say. It seemed so much easier when I was explaining it all to Jon. I had known just what to say, known just how I was going to say it, but now, it all seemed different. It all seemed wrong.
"Jeez..." I said, shaking my head at myself, realizing I had been staring off for a long while. "I'm standin' here starin' off at nothin' when all I wanted t' do was explain.... You'd prob'ly tell me t' just spill it right about now, huh?"
I wanted more than anything at that moment for that stone tablet to suddenly change into my father, to be *him* rather than just his name. I wanted to rewind the last twenty-some-odd years like I could a movie and change my past so I could have simply stayed to argue with the man some more that day I came back to Earth. I wanted to punch the young man that walked out of that house right in the nose, and drag him back inside to apologize for me... so that maybe I didn't have to do that now when it was too late.
"But..." I began, figuring that I should just keep going, "I'm not apologizing for my decision. Just... just fer not seein' *your* side of it. Fer walkin' out. Fer bein' so angry at'cha. ...Fer gettin' angry at'cha the time ya tried t' get back in contact with me. Not because I didn't wanna see you again, Dad... but... ya told me that there was no way fer me t' take care of K'Ela on my own. You said a lota things.... It was like ya thought the only thing I could do was fix a warp engine. Ya really didn't have any faith in me."
I took a deep but shaky breath. "Ya really didn't know what influenced my decision, so ya shouldn't've been so quick t' tell me I was wrong."
I could remember the day the Xyrillian ship had been destroyed. For a long time, I didn't want to come to grips that I actually would have to deal with my fast-approaching due date, and- what was worse- what that would mean. I stayed distant from the crew, all of them quick to either offer their condolences, or leave the room.
But over the course of that week, things started to change. What was once just a small, but painful, lump in my side wasn't just that anymore. Phlox's scan showed me this tiny little person, fragile as glass- a baby girl. *My* baby girl. Yes, she was Ah'Len's, but Ah'Len wasn't alive anymore. She was my responsibility. I found that this time, when I reasoned with myself that if she was taken out of my body and put into someone else, she wouldn't be mine anymore. my heart broke. I wanted this baby, more than I had ever wanted anything before.
Of course I wasn't that quick to make up my mind. I wanted to stay on Enterprise. It was my life. But on the other hand, I couldn't just leave this baby with just *anyone*- only because I wanted to keep the life I had. I had to take responsibility, even though I knew I was probably not the best father she could have. I was indecisive for a long while, slowly being drawn toward choosing fatherhood over my position on Enterprise, but my mind was made up the minute I discovered that my only two rational options were birth and abortion.
I couldn't believe that Phlox would even offer that to me, but he said he was obligated to present me with all my options, even knowing what I would say. I wanted no harm to come to her, and took the entire burden upon myself. Even as early as that was, I knew what I wanted.
Another breeze passed by, and I let a sad smile cross my lips, wondering if Dad had heard me.
"But... I dunno... maybe you were right about somethin'," I offered him, my voice still quiet. "The more time I spent alone here, the more I really felt like I was slippin' away. Sometimes I really didn't know how I was gonna be able t' do it all, hardly gettin' any sleep an' with no one t' help me. ...But there were good an' bad days, like anythin', right?"
I stared out into the sunset, quieted by the radiance of the orange and red, the sun dipping beneath the horizon and casting long shadows across the ground. "I really wish you were here t' see this," I murmured. "One of the best sunsets I've ever seen in my life...." I dropped my eyes to the ground. "...You prob'ly get some nice ones here all the time."
I shook my head. "You should'a been there the time me an' K'Ela went all the way up t' Canada. God, we froze our asses off," I laughed. "Stayed out all afternoon in the damn wintertime- with no car t' sit in, tryin' not t' get hypothermia, all just 'cause she wanted t' see the sun set. ...But then it turned out t' be one of the nicest." My smile faded once I realized what I had said. "I really wish you could'a been there."
"...I really screwed up, didn't I?" I tried to think it all over, tried to come up with another outcome if I had changed something, but what was there to change? Of course I wished I had made a better decision about leaving that day, but what more was there to change? Nothing else within my control seemed to have a better decision than what I had chosen. I would have never given up K'Ela if I had the chance, so what else was there to change?
Then it hit me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Trip, why do you think that makes a difference?" Jon asked.
I stared down at the sleeping little girl in my arms, and tried to fight past the overpowering tiredness to respond strongly. I was weak, but I needed him to know that I hadn't made the wrong decision, that I was capable enough to take care of both myself *and* her. "I tried t' believe I was the same, but I'm not. I'm just not comfortable around everyone like before."
Jon stopped, giving me a confused glare. "Including me?"
I nodded.
"And you're not going to even try? Trip, the whole idea of adjusting is to actually try to make things work even though things are different."
"Believe me, I tried. But every transmission and every conversation showed me that no one really was comfortable, and no one knew what to say. Your whole life for these three years while I was here was Enterprise, and meeting new people and new species, and you're gonna go back in a little while an' do it again. My whole life since comin' back t' Earth has been K'Ela. As much as I wouldn't trade this life with her in for the whole universe, you gotta realize we can't relate anymore."
Jon breathed out a long sigh, nodding. "I'm sorry, Trip."
The words left a sharp pain in my heart. "I'm sorry"? What did "I'm sorry" mean? What did those words ever do? What did they ever change?
He started to walk out.
"Now wait just a minute!" I hissed loudly. "Yer just gonna say 'I'm sorry' an' *leave*? Just like that?"
"What else is there to say?" he asked in a quiet desperation.
"I don't know!" I said, coming close to shouting, but my voice suffocated from the tears I held back.
"It seems like you've said all you wanted to say to me."
My short breaths felt like a painful effort, each breath piercing my lungs like sharp needles.
"You've made it perfectly clear that you don't want or need my friendship. You don't want my help."
"You can't give it to me!" K'Ela stirred at the harsh sound of my voice, but stayed sleeping. I was quieter when I continued, but, by far, not any less accusatory. "You abandoned us. You left with Enterprise and went on with your lives like I never even *existed*."
"How can you say that?" he whispered. "Are you forgetting all our transmissions?"
"You all were pretty quick t' leave," I reminded him.
"We can't all just stop our mission to talk to you," he said through clenched teeth. "We all have jobs to do."
I shook my head. "That's not what I meant."
"Then what *did* you mean?"
"It doesn't make a difference," I spat.
"I don't understand why you keep arguing with me about this- ever since we started back here! You keep telling me that it doesn't seem like we even care, that everyone is uncomfortable around you, that we can't relate!" His eyes narrowed. "How can you not understand how terrified we were to hear that *Florida*- of all places- was attacked! How can you not see *that*? Why do you keep trying to get away from us?"
All of a sudden, I felt like I was spinning out of control. Emotions reeled, and everything I thought I knew became blurred. Everything I had said hung from a thread between sensible and irrational, and I started to wonder if I was as fine as I thought I was. "...Cap'n..." I began, my tone somewhere in between sorrow and angry defiance.
"I'm not your superior anymore," he reminded me in the coldest voice I had ever heard from him, and left.
I stood there in disbelief, barely aware that I was standing, and a chill crept over me. I felt horribly sick. What was going on? What did I just do? Was everything I was feeling real? Was it really the truth?
Everything I had told him seemed right up until now. Now... what was it now? Was I imagining it all? Was it really as bad as I thought it was? Everyone on Enterprise... maybe they *weren't* as uncomfortable with me as I was with them. Maybe they *weren't* trying to avoid me. But whether or not I was right about that, my life's situation couldn't get any worse.
Enterprise was gone, pulled from beneath my feet, and my security was gone. Lizzie was gone, taken from me, and I could do nothing about it while Enterprise searched the universe for her murderers without me. My family was gone; I didn't want them to hurt K'Ela with their awful words, my awful memories. My father would never speak to me again, now more than any time before on account of what I had harshly reminded him of only days ago when he had called about Lizzie. My friends were gone: everyone on Enterprise gone with the ship, everyone on Earth not willing to see me now. Even Jon, my last thread holding me from plunging into darkness, had just broken away from me- all because I had spoken in anger, all because I couldn't bear having everything torn from me in so little time.
But what scared me the most was that I couldn't even trust my own mind anymore. I hoped that it was just anger and fatigue and nothing that rest couldn't battle, but it terrified me that maybe it wasn't. The fight with Jon became my second concern, my reasons behind the fight now my first.
I started to shake and I could feel my knees on the verge of buckling beneath me.... Then I remembered that K'Ela was in my arms. K'Ela was all I had left. I couldn't let her get hurt. I placed her in her playpen in case I passed out, and sat down on the couch.
But as soon as I knew she was safe, the thoughts returned again to suffocate me.
There was no fixing what I had done. I had destroyed too much to make any of it better. And even if there *was* a way to fix it, I had no idea how. I knew I *needed* to make things better, but why would any of them want to forgive me? And whose fault was it, even? Nothing made sense to me anymore, and the more I tried to think it all through, the more I realized that I was caught in a spiral- a spiral that I was It was all hopeless. Like being caught in a current, there was no point of struggling to escape it any longer. The waves would pull me under, the only question was of when.
I tried to sort it out, but my eyes were heavy with sleep and with tears. K'Ela was safely set down, so I allowed it all to wash over me and take me into a slumber not at all peaceful, but it was an escape nonetheless.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Even with the event resolved and with my friendships restored, I couldn't help but feel that same fear of falling away, of changing back into that person that I had tried for so long to stop from overtaking me. Never had I pictured myself like this. I thought I would have been able to handle this better. But then again, I never thought that I would have to face a lot of the things I did.
I continued to stare at the gravestone. "I really *did* screw up," I murmured. "This whole time I thought everyone was abandonin' me... when *I* was the one abandonin' *them*."
I paused, reflecting on my behavior. "Y'know the only person I actually kept in touch with this whole time was Hoshi? Yeah, I guess that's 'cause 'a how much she helped me, but...." The tears started to come back.
"Dad, help me," I managed to force out. "I can't.. I dunno what.."
I wasn't sure what to say or how to start, but then all of it just poured from me, all my emotions finally set free, without any need for explanation; they just exploded into the nothingness that should have been my father. "I need yer help... *please*! I should'a asked ya thirty years ago, but I need yer help.... I feel like I'm drownin'.... I never told anyone 'till now, but I can't take it anymore! I wish I had someone over these years that I could'a gone to, but I never did an' it was all my fault.... All of it.... I should'a said this t' Jon back then, should'a gotten some help or somethin'...."
All of the "what if's" and "if only's" just flowed from me then, how I should have talked to her and told him of this and that, how I should have maybe just once defended myself against one stranger's verbal attack judging what I had done, how I should have gone back to see this person and that person... but then I said something I never thought I ever would in the midst of it all.
"I wish I had never met Ah'Len!"
I stopped suddenly, shaking from the violent outburst, staring wide- eyed. I couldn't believe that I had just said that. But was it that I had said it... or that I had *finally* said it? Was that what I had been scared of for so long?
I had been trying so hard to fight through it all and still make K'Ela feel loved- so much that even her name reflected how much I wanted that for her. "My joy." Yes, that much I admitted. But she was also my burden, and that I never said. It hurt so much to finally say it, to finally not have to keep it buried inside for no one to know... but I was relieved.
I had tried so long to make everything clear, to make everything about this situation one thing or the other, that none of these feelings seemed right. But clarity wasn't the main thing I was after. Those feelings still weren't right. What was right about them when I sat wondering about what might have been, about what might have been better if I had chosen abortion? Those thoughts terrified me, but that never stopped them from resurfacing again and again. They bothered me so much, haunting me, making me question if my regrets and my disappointments made me a horrible person... making me question if maybe I didn't love my daughter.
But it wasn't true- and I realized that finally. Most of the time I was without those thoughts, and most of the time I was a pretty good father. Those demons came back rarely, but plagued me deeply in a way that not much else could hurt me. But... I loved her so much that those notions slipped my mind and my regrets didn't matter.
...At least... until she left.
What was there after she left? No more Starfleet, no more friends, no more family. Everything was gone and it was all my fault.... And the thoughts returned again. If only I hadn't met Ah'Len.... I wouldn't have lost it all.... But- it was *my* fault, not K'Ela's....
My heart began to ache once more. It was happening again. I was caught in that same spiral....
Wait.
I snapped out of it. None of that was happening right now. It was all in my past.
Sometimes it was far too difficult to separate the past from the present when I was alone. It all started to blur together like a movie seen far too many times to feel important anymore, started to fade like ink in the rain. But I promised myself that wasn't going to go on- not anymore.
My friends were with me, even if they couldn't always be. It was better now- now that I knew we would actually talk. Of course it wouldn't be exactly like before, and it wasn't going to be an easy transition, but there was so much more to look forward to now.
A small smile found its way across my lips. Oh, *definitely* a lot more to look forward to. I *was* going to be a grandfather after all.
Finding a lightness in myself that I thought I had lost, I became very glad that Jon gave me the idea to come here. It helped more than he would ever know. I just hoped he told everyone where I had gone. They had all done enough worrying over me.
I stood in thought a minute more, only this time... no ominous ones came to mind. I wanted to say something, but what? Nothing seemed right. Nothing seemed the perfect way to leave him, especially thinking back to how angrily I had left him last time... the final time really. But was there anything to say? Thank you? I miss you? I love you, Dad? I'm finally alright? No. None of those things. *All* of those things.
If he could really hear my thoughts, if it was really true that he could see me, staring down at me from heaven... then there was nothing more to say.
***************
You like? I hope. Well, the next chapter is the final one, all!
Something to look forward to.
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Happy New Year if I don't post before then! (Ha! *If*.. We all know
that's not gonna happen.)