DISCLAIMER: Many of these characters (i.e., Trip, Hess) are not mine. Those that are, well, I refuse to be held responsible for my channelling abilities. They are who they are, and I'm afraid I can't do much about it anymore. This story is written for entertainment only.
I've picked a last name for Trip's mother's maiden name, mainly because my research skills aren't good enough to find if there's ever been a reference to it. If anyone knows otherwise, PLEASE let me know and I will fix it. This is not an intent to re-write history (I've done enough of that), it is purely through lack of my own knowledge, and a need for the narrative to continue.
Chapter 2: Rabbit Holes
It's a matter of trust…
-- Billy Joel
Do cats eat bats? Do bats eat cats?
-- Alice
[ Space. Final frontier, valued commodity. Growing up there'd always been enough, and then all of a sudden it was Residence at university and shared quarters at the academy. He could move out now though, now that that damned first year was over and Starfleet medical had their assessment as to how well you got along with others. About damned time. Not that he didn't get along with others; just sometimes, they got too close. And when they were getting too close in the next bed… well sometimes even a pillow over the ears didn't help.
Unfortunately, it seemed as though everybody and his dog had decided that San Francisco was THE place to be, and spare rooms were rarer than coelacanths and apartments were up there on par with the dodo. Thus, he found himself on a beach at midnight, preferring cold sea air to the stale warmth of the academy. You were always more of an outdoors type of guy, anyway. Swimming, diving, football… all of them outdoor pursuits. Days spent with Toby, camping trips with his buddies – all of his happiest moments lay outside. Too much time spent indoors and he began to wonder where the stars were, whether or not they only existed in his imagination.
Getting out there, now that will be different. Indoors sure, but stars out every window. Bleeding past in streaks of light, so close you could reach out and touch them. Pick a direction and fly anywhere. Who cared who your roommate were when you danced through the cosmos, in the ultimate out of doors, not even hemmed in by a planet. God, that's going to be nice.
Still, if he didn't get his own space down here pretty quick, he wasn't going to make it to get out there. He'd be locked up for beating his roommates to death with a pillow or… He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. No. That was not an option. It would never be an option. He'd kill himself before he let that be an option. "There has to be something." Didn't anybody have a basement they weren't using, an empty bedroom from a child gone off to college? A tool shed? He didn't need much space, just his own.
Something fluttered out of the darkness, tumbling over and over until it landed at his feet. A small rectangle, no bigger than eight-and-a-half by four-and-a-half inches, probably someone's trash. Picking it up, he realised it was an old-fashioned business card, something nobody used anymore. The moonlight proved to weak to reveal the writing, so he trekked up the path to study it under the streetlight.
The front held an odd looking logo, a pink line drawing of a fuzzy rabbit holding a plasma rifle, an evil look on its rabbit face. As he looked closer, he could see it wasn't a line drawing at all: the entire image was made up of tiny ones and zeros. Below the logo was a single line of type: Gina Todd. When he flipped it over, he found the back covered with handwriting.
350/month. Utilities inc. Shared kit/bath/util. MUST be tlrt,nonjdgmtl. NGA!!
Okay, the first part I understand. Amazingly 350 was within his budget and even if he had to share a kitchen and bathroom, that was perfectly fine. Whatever the hell tlrt, nonjdgmtl and NGA meant however… they weren't terms he'd ever come across in a rental description. Then the last line… 1000101011-1100111011000. It took a minute for him to realise, then flipped the card over to look at the front, and then back again, a smile spreading across his face. If an engineer couldn't translate that…
555-3308. A contact number. But it looked odd, like – what was it – a telephone number. Archaic technology again. Nobody had telephones: the network was gone, lost in the war, never to be rebuilt. Yet, despite its style, the card was fairly new, so it couldn't be a telephone.
Okay. You know this person likes puzzles. So obviously, the number is a puzzle too, right? A screening process to make sure they get the right kind of person. He thought back to some of his favourite stories, Poe's Dupin tales. The puzzle seems complex because the human mind likes complex solutions. So the best puzzles are those with a simple solution, the one everybody overlooks.
'Every problem has a solution, one that is simple, elegant and wrong.' Lately he'd been hearing another voice just underneath his own thoughts, a negative warning little voice that seemed to enjoy shooting holes in all his best ideas. He had been going to go to the nearest com-box and type in the number, see what happened. He looked at the logo again, then down the street. A small café was still open, and they had data-web access. Find out what this is, then go jumping in with both feet.
In the café, he scanned the image into the computer and told it to look for a match. An instant later one popped up: Pink Killer Fuzzy Bunnies Inc. He popped on over to their site and found it to be a programming company. Well that fits in with the binary. A line at the bottom of the page caught his attention: Please enter the data code of your inquiry followed by a small entry box that would hold no more than eight digits. Not a contact number, but a code, probably very specific to the site itself.
Here goes nothing. He typed in the number (including the dash) and was rewarded with a new page. A single line, address and street. And a little counter telling him he was the fifth person to reach this site. Oh no. Four people before him – what were the odds that one of them had managed to snag the room first? He massaged the bridge of his nose with his fingers; a headache threatened to move in. All that just to find out that you were four people late?
"It ain't over till it's over." Oddly, sometimes the voice was the only thing that kept him going. It didn't suggest, it demanded and in the kind of tones that even an admiral would jump to. He'd first heard it in those gruelling early days at the academy: when his mind threatened to leave his body because his body was no longer habitable. Those long ugly days of PT that made football training seem like summer art camp. You are not going to quit, it argued, you will make it through this. There is no way you are going to quit. You made a promise, now stick with it. So on those days when every other part of him tried to say that it wasn't worth it, that nothing was worth it, he still didn't have the nerve to give in, like so many of his classmates did. It harped on him more than any coach, any drill instructor ever could. And he did make it, pushing through the pain and exhaustion, coming out on the other side a full-fledged Starfleet trainee. Many apply, few are chosen. An old saying, now adopted now by Starfleet as a motto. The same thing here?
He decided not to wait: at least he could head over there to take a look. The address listed it as about a block away from the Vulcan compound; he found a tall, narrow house, well lit up despite the hour. Logic and basic human decency said wait until morning, but curiosity and desperation won out. I need my own space.
There was no doorbell, so he had to knock. Before his fist could land twice, however, the door opened, seemingly of its own accord.
"Hello?" He peered cautiously inside, but no one was visible. Should he just step in, or what? "Hello?"
A staircase lay to the left of the door, going to a second floor landing. On the landing, a small head peeked through the railing. "Hello?" The voice was a perfect imitation of his own, right down to intonation and accent.
"Hi." He smiled; children had that automatic effect on him. One day I'm going to have lots of my own. "Is your mommy home?"
"Hi. Is your mommy home?" Again, that same, eerie imitation, like a recording and playback.
"I know it's awfully late, but I'm here about the room."
"I know it's awfully late, but I'm here about the room."
Okay, something definitely was out of whack here. Finally another door on the landing opened, and a man came out, gestured to the child. He looked down at Trip, clearly defensive. "What do you want?"
Oh, God. All I wanted was some space of my own, and now I've gone and made someone think I'm a child molester or something. Is there nothing I can do right? Aloud he said, "I'm here about the room." He waved the card for emphasis, hoped it would work.
"Oh." This seemed to mollify the man, who walked down the landing and banged on another door. "Geen. Some guy here about the room?" He then returned to the child and herded him inside without ever touching him. And in that instant, it became clear.
Oh.
Out of the second door came the last thing Trip expected: another child, but with an adult's head. It was only as she moved across the floor that he realised that she was an adult, and that she wasn't standing up. "Hang on, I'll be down in a minute." She wheeled herself quickly across the landing. She disappeared into a door adjacent the stairs, and then came out from behind them, this time on his level. "It was easier to install the ramp elsewhere than destroy the front room. Besides, the heritage committees would kill me if I messed with the foyer too much. At the same time, they can't do too much to me without breaking the accessibility laws. And you are?"
"Charles Tucker the third, ma'am. Trip." He waited at the door, uncertain or not as to whether he'd received an invitation to come in yet.
"Polite, too. I don't know when I've ever been called 'ma'am' before. Isn't that supposed to apply to little old ladies?" Mischief twinkled in her eyes, though he had to admit that she definitely wasn't a little old lady. Black hair, bright green eyes, and she couldn't be a day over twenty-two. "Gina Todd." She held out her hand, and he realised he had to walk over to shake it. He did, and the door closed behind him on its own.
"So. You're clearly looking for a room." She looked him up and down, critically. "How did you find out about this one, and what makes you think you'll qualify?"
He brandished the card again. "This fell at my feet. I worked out the number, went to your site…"
"Most wouldn't. So you jumped through my first hoops. Do you think you'll get through the next ones?" It was a clear challenge, something a Donnelly never backed down from. Thank-you, mother.
He looked her straight in the eye, like he did his instructors at the academy when answering one of their questions. Never let them see you flinch. "There's not much I can't do when I want to, ma'am."
"Confident, too. You met David, what do you think?"
David. The boy or his father? Time for a gamble. "Autism's rather rare now, isn't it? Most people have the gene repaired before it manifests in their child." He paused for a moment – not long enough for her to reply – then added one more shot. "The echolia is interesting, though. With most, it's just the words, but he seems much more of a mimic." None of which he would have known were it not for his summers at camp. Volunteering, not attending. And while the incentive for the first year had been purely for an edge in the scholarship awards race, the second, third and fourth years had been through pure love of the job.
"Do you think Angelo was wrong not to have him 'fixed'?" She showed no surprise at his identification of the source of the child's apparently strange behaviour, but he could definitely hear the quotation marks around the last word.
He decided to ignore it. "I don't know. On the one hand, it can be argued that by not doing so he's limited the boy, made it impossible for him to have a normal life. On the other, he obviously loves and cares for his son, and gene therapy always includes a risk. Is it a risk I could take with my own child? I don't know." He had a good idea what nonjdgmtl meant now: non-judgemental. Working on that shorthand, could tlrt mean tolerant? It still didn't give him a clue about NGA.
"Do you have kids?" An illegal question, surely she knew that.
He decided to answer anyway. "No. But I plan to. Someday."
"Why did you come here at one-o'clock in the morning. Surely there was a better time?"
"I didn't want to get lost, ma'am. He who hesitates?" Okay, not the best answer, but he'd be damned if he'd let her push him into giving up. The lights had been on, the door had opened.
"What do you do for a living? It is 350 a month."
"Yes, ma'am, I was able to read that. I'm with Starfleet ma'am."
"And did you read the part where it said No Government Agents?"
Damn. So that was what NGA meant. "Well, I wouldn't exactly call myself an agent of the government, ma'am. Starfleet is an arms-length organisation, kind of like NASA was. And I'm just a trainee, ma'am, there's no guarantee I'll make it through the entire course."
"Why not? Aren't you good enough?" Godamn, this woman could be a younger version of his mother. Pushing him one way, then coming out of the other direction with a shot aimed for damage. Brain ticking along so fast it was a wonder she didn't get charged with speeding violations.
"Better. I just don't completely fit in with all the culture, ma'am." There, it was out, the one thing he never dared confess down there at Starfleet itself. The fact that he chafed against the rules, that no matter how well he seemed to get along with everybody, he was friends with none of them.
A slow smile spread across her face, and she extended her hand again. "Neither do any of us, here, Charles Tucker the Third. I think you'll fit in just fine."
Holy, shit. He could barely keep from screaming and jumping up and down as he reached to take her hand again. I got it! Part of him wondered what it was that the other people missed. Did they not show up yet? Did they, like he almost did, wait for an appropriate hour? Or maybe it was their performance on the questions. The bigger part of him didn't care. All that mattered was he got it: he actually got his own room. ]
Not the first place I'dve gone, had I had a choice. Gina ran more of a techie-artist's commune than apartment or boarding house, but probably the place I most needed to be. He smiled at the memory: somehow getting lost in the past made it easier not to concentrate on what he was doing in the present. And to realise how easily it could have worked out differently. Gina had intended to post the cards in more typical venues: Laundromats, cafes, and the like, but David, after tiring of the designs of the cards themselves, tossed them from the window and onto the wind, watching the new design they made dancing away. It was a measure of the attitude of the place that Gina hadn't scolded or been angry, but laughed at the result. God's own delivery system, she'd called it, guaranteed to bring the right candidate. And David – in some ways – was closer to "normal" than many of the other residence, some which came and went with astounding frequency. Frighteningly, Gina had been right. He did fit right in.
The ship jerked, pulling him out of his thoughts, then went into a spin. Normally that would merely be a slight equilibrium problem for some people, most wouldn't even notice it unless they looked out a window or happened to be running the helm. With inertial dampeners offline however, it was more like being caught in a whirlpool or tornado. Especially when the movement became more tumble than spin, centripetal force jerking them first in one direction then another. Desperately he wrapped arms and legs around the ladder, his mind suddenly occupied with visions of hard landings. Remember, you used to like being in the tree house. Not that the tree house had ever behaved like a psychotic amusement park ride, but… Yeah, and there weren't many windows either. As long as you were in the house, you couldn't see where you were. Or where you could end up very quickly for that matter. He tried to remember whether or not you were supposed to close your eyes in a situation like this, gave up and clamped them shut. What was a little dizziness compared to outright panic, anyway?
After an eternity that was probably less than a minute, the ship stopped its dance and equilibrium returned. He could hear DiLorenza resuming her climb, and then the noise ceased. Her footsteps grew closer again, and then there was a gentle tap on his shoulder.
"Uh, uh." He shook his head; his entire body trembled. He stayed wrapped around the ladder, holding tighter to it than he'd ever held to anything in his life. Up, down, it didn't matter, because he wasn't going. He could die here, rot here; he didn't care.
The tapping became a tugging, as she grasped a handful of his uniform, the message coming across stronger now. He whimpered and pulled closer to the ladder – how it was possible he didn't know – tears beginning to streak his face. He didn't care if DiLorenza noticed, didn't care that his image of capable, confident Starfleet officer eroded away in the tears, washing away with the dried blood. Fear had too deep a hold, moving in past his mind and straight into his nervous system.
She let go of his uniform, reached instead for his hand. Slowly, gently, she massaged the space between thumb and forefinger, until the muscles unclenched of their own accord. Only then did she establish a firm grip on his forearm, pulling it upwards until his fingers brushed the next rung of the ladder.
Come on. It was an unspoken communication, the only kind he was capable of hearing. Come on. Slowly he let himself be lulled by the promise, by the fact that she was there, and wouldn't abandon. He sensed she'd coax him up rung by rung, if she had to, but would never leave him behind. He felt his heart decelerate, until finally it resumed a slow, regular beat. He wouldn't, couldn't open his eyes; darkness had always been his first, favourite and best refuge. Only when the sound of DiLorenza's climb stop did he allow himself the merest peek, and instantly regretted it. They were at Engineering, but one look at the doors told him what DiLorenza had already worked out. The metal buckled, not enough to create a gap, but enough from preventing the doors from sliding into their sockets. Fuck. He wanted to start crying again, this time from sheer frustration. Now the only place to start was the Bridge. Another three decks: he couldn't make that, just couldn't. Already he felt exhausted, if he tried to go further he would fall, and – as Inner Charles so recently pointed out – be going that much faster when he hit the bottom.
DiLorenza seemed to understand what he was thinking. She took his hand again, a gesture to move onwards. I can't.
Tucker. If you stay here, you will die. You can do this; you've done tougher things before. This isn't survival training; it's the real thing now. One foot over the other, hand by hand. Just when he thought he had Inner-Charles figured out, the son-of-a-bitch changed personalities on him. We can debate the topic later. Now we need to insure that there is a later. DiLorenza can't do this on her own, so unless you have decided that serial killer is your new title of choice, you have to help her out. Understand?
She stared down at him, her eyes saying more than her lips ever could. Come on, we have to keep going. It's the only way, I'll be right here.
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak, unsure that he even still had a voice to speak with. Onwards and upwards, towards what, he wasn't sure.
C-deck passed, he could feel his arms pulling against his shoulder sockets, his ankles weakening from the stress of his weight being dropped down past his heels, instead of the proper balance they were used to. His foot slipped…
DiLorenza grabbed his arm, steadying him. She made as though to shake him, to pull him along again, but one look in his eyes made her stop.
She can see it. The pain, the exhaustion, the frustration and fear. No poker face for him now, it was too hard to simply maintain consciousness. He leaned his head against the wall, unable to hold it up anymore.
Scratch, scratch, scratch. What the hell? He jerked his head back from the wall and stared. Looked at the door and did some calculations. Hess. Lieutenant Hess' quarters lay just on the other side of the bulkhead. His department second complained all the time about the noise from the turbolift when she was trying to sleep, but obstinately resisted any suggestion that she move.
Probably doesn't want to go through the work of re-installing everything. Amazing the amount of noise, you could put up with, if the alternative meant extra work. A lot of extra work, considering all the stuff she had to move.
Uh, Trip… Inner-Charles sounded hesitant, as though reluctant to bring something up.
Besides, Hess was never happy if she didn't have something to bitch about…
TRIP!
"What?" Too tired now to care about whether or not he spoke aloud. DiLorenza couldn't get a worse opinion of him now, even if he worked on it. The answer served to wake him, instantly.
Hess complains about noise from within the turbolift. We are in the turbolift, and aren't making that kind of noise.
Which meant that the noise came from the far side of the wall. Hess' quarters. "I don't think we're alone." The words came out, the softest of whispers, but DiLorenza seemed to hear. Immediately she took up a position towards the side of the ladder and gripped one of the doors. He nodded, manoeuvred himself into position, and said a brief prayer. Together they pulled, the B-deck doors slowly moving back. A quick glance revealed darkness; what little they could see thanks to the glowstrip appeared empty. He scrambled out of the shaft, grateful for the feeling of solid deck beneath his hands and knees. He waited until DiLorenza stood beside him before he got to his feet, and gestured for her to hand him the glowstrip.
He moved close to the door of Hess' quarters. They hadn't heard anybody leaving, which meant that whomever was in there was probably still in there.
Who? Was someone else left behind in the rush? Hess? If not Hess, then why were they rummaging around in her quarters? He nodded at DiLorenza to pull the door back then dove inside as she did. There was a thud as he landed on the floor, then nothing. The glowstrip tossed odd shadows off the furniture, but there was nothing to indicate that anybody was there. Yet he knew he heard something, that he hadn't imagined it. He got up and stepped forward, slowly.
Movement flashed in one of the shadows, followed quickly by another. Startled, he spun and watched two small figures heading for freedom. He couldn't have seen… not…
I guess Porthos isn't the only four-legged auxiliary crew we've got. He breathed deep, trying to let his heart return to normal. He hadn't thought he had any adrenaline left until that moment. "Goddamn cats and rabbits. Only Nic." So that was why she'd never move. Nobody was supposed to have pets; the doctor's animals were classified under 'medical gear', and Porthos had the advantage of being Archer's closest companion. Captains get extra leeway. His famously sensitive nose (not as good as T'Pol's, but damned near) confirmed what he'd just seen; the scratching must have been a litter box. Scared the shit out of me. He felt a giggle coming on, but if he started that, he'd never finish.
{Remember the day you started laughing and it took you five hours to stop? You only paused to puke, and then kept going again. Wasn't that the time you almost broke your neck falling down the stairs at school? Danny Malone pushed you and you fell, and when you stopped you just started laughing, freaked the hell out of everybody…}
"Where the hell have you been?" Funny how Toby skipped the climb. She wasn't afraid of heights. He wondered if she could see his face in the dark, catch the look of disgust that he shot at her.
{Um, it would have looked kind of weird, me floating beside you all the way up that ladder. Besides, I thought it might be too distracting for you, I know how you are with climbing things and all, and I thought that it might get you thinking about the drop, and then you'd be getting scared, and that's never a good thing when you're ten metres up in the air with nothing to land on but…}
"Toby." His voice carried an extra measure of warning. The last thing he wanted to think about right now was how close to death he'd been. He'd been closer, sure, but somehow heatstroke and drowning didn't hold the same dread as a fall.
You've not been that close to drowning yet.
Close enough. And both brushes with heatstroke had been near fatal. Hot and humid I can handle. Hot and dry…you might as well toss me in a tumble-dryer. Odd, because most people found the humidity more taxing, but it was all what you grew up used to.
Suddenly he was aware of how close his own quarters were. Clean clothes, a chance to straighten himself up a bit. He could smell himself now, the sour-sharp scent of terror sweat permeating every fibre of his uniform. I'll burn it before I wear it again. His face felt raw too, salt and blood dried on it, sucking the moisture from lower layers. He broached the suggestion to DiLorenza, saw no indication of protest. He offered her a change as well, even though one of his spare uniforms would look silly on her, like a kid playing grown-up. Maybe something from Hoshi's quarters, they were here on B-Deck too.
No. A quick shake of her head indicated that she felt no need to replace what she was wearing.
"Suit yourself." He headed down the corridor, going more on memory than vision. A year and a half into the tour made this a familiar journey, one he'd made more than often while dead on his feet from working a double or triple shift.
You've got to learn to delegate. Okay, so he was a bit of a control freak. But that way if things went wrong, he'd know who needed to take responsibility, and would take it. No one to blame but myself.
No one to blame but yourself for your heart attack and stroke.
Modern medicine could fix that; kick him out again good as new. He rounded the corner and took an even ten paces. Home, sweet home. He didn't need the light, he could find anything in here in utter darkness, but somehow the light was comforting.
"Coming in?" He didn't want to leave DiLorenza stranded alone in the corridor, in the darkness.
Who are you kidding? You're the one who doesn't want to be alone.
Her entire body froze up, and he realised he'd said something wrong. A second later he comprehended what it was.
"Relax. It was just a simple question. I know what my reputation is, but I promise, I'm not playing spider to your fly." Step into my parlour indeed. In her shoes, he'd probably have done a double take as well. He smiled, trying to put her at ease. "I'm too worn out for pretty much anything now, anyway." An old expression flashed across his mind. "Plumb Tuckered out."
{Ouch. I think that's the worst one you've come up with yet.}
Accurate though. He was suddenly aware of how sick of himself he actually was. He stank, he itched, and his behaviour wasn't up there on his best list either. Yup, I sure wouldn't mind being somebody else for a while, in some other universe where this isn't happening. Some other Charles Tucker, lying on a beach, drink in one hand, someone gorgeous in the other. That would be nice.
And to think I have to live with this. Inner-Charles sounded disgusted at the thought, and even Toby was making a nasty face.
He headed for the bathroom, and found out too late what he should've already guessed. If the power was out, then so was the water. No shower. No working recycling system on the toilet, either. Explain that one to the kids back home. He was pretty sure who was behind his infamous "poop question" those first few months out, and if he ever laid hands on the kid… You'd probably give him a big hug and take him out for ice-cream, isn't that right, Uncle Trip. Easy to tell whose family that child belonged to.
He crossed the room to his desk, his habit of keeping all decorations up against the wall proving to be a blessing. Top drawer, back right hand corner. His fingers located the pre-moistened shop towels he kept there. Another old habit, from back in his mechanic obsessed days as a kid. Rather than run back and forth to the bathroom every time he wanted to switch from working on a greasy piece of machinery and his computer (or having a snack), it was so much easier to simply clean them at the desk and keep going. He pulled one out and set to work on his face as best he could in the dark without a mirror.
That accomplished, he moved to the closet. From the top drawer of the built-in that ran down one side of the closet wall he pulled clean underwear, socks. From the second…
It should have been a uniform shirt for under his coveralls. He felt something else instead. Soft cotton, raised lettering. The shirt. The shirt Gina bought him one day, and that David refused to accept him without. So much so, that it was generation four or five of the shirt; each identical to the last. Autistics don't like change. And David had decided that Trip – for some reason – wasn't Trip without the black t-shirt with the white raised words that David couldn't read. YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS BECAUSE THE VOICES ARE TALKING TO ME.
How appropriate. Impulsively he slipped it on instead, and grabbed a pair of jeans from the drawer below. Technically, if there was no crew, then there was no duty roster, and so he, it followed, was not on duty and therefore not required to be in uniform. And as comfortable as the uniform was, it was still a uniform, something that vexed his independent spirit.
And now another connection fizzed, then held. How very true…
[Sunlight dappled the wall in a bizarre ever-changing dust mote mosaic, drifting, twisting and jumping. Chaos swirled into ever more complex patterns, patterns told stories. History, eternity, all writ out in front of them, light, shadow, line and curve. Close -- one standing one standing and one sitting -- not touching, but somehow one creature, studying the universe unfolding in front of them. Seeing. Understanding.
He'd come into his room, looking for some quiet study time, only to find David there, watching the sun. No sense asking the boy to leave, he'd be gone as soon as his own study finished, instead Trip decided to work around him.
Except… studying reaction equations became impossible, then suddenly pointless. He could calculate anything he wanted, but he had no idea exactly what it was he was calculating. Too many numbers got in the way of the reaction itself. He kept finding his attention drawn back to David, until in a fit of frustration and insanity decided to try to find what it was the boy could see. Over two hours ago, he'd sat down beside David and began watching with him. Soon the man with no patience found himself sharing mindspace with the child who had it all. As he stopped thinking, just observed, things began to shift, to make sense. All of creation within one beam of light, slowly moving across the wall, broken gently by pieces of Earth. Light, shadow, matter, anti-matter, quarks, photons, gravity, space and time – all of it there, beyond words, beyond any language the human mind could normally comprehend. Together they simply watched; let it happen. Neither one moved, save breath and the least of blinks, not even when Angelo came in, first furious and distrusting, then shocked at what he saw. David, who avoided company, who shared his world with no one, in silent communication with Trip, who loved noise and lights, and seemed most at home in boisterous crowds than in silent contemplation. He later confessed jealousy that a near stranger could form a closer bond than he with his own son.]
What Angelo failed to understand was that Trip had not found a way to reach David, but rather David, a way to reach Trip. Taking him from the edge of burnout, lighting the way back from the event horizon of the overly driven. I learned more from David in two hours, than from all my time in an Academy classroom. He doubted he'd have made it through that encounter with the Arkonian, Zho'Kaan, but for David's tutelage. Hoshi was great for languages, sure, but David taught him that true communication needed no language; that in most cases words only served to obscure. Who cared if he couldn't speak a word of Vulcan, or even French for that matter. Thanks to David, he could understand butterflies.
And DiLorenza. She too spoke to him in that wordless language. And she, like David, had that capacity to live in herself, it seemed. He, conversely, still had that inbuilt desire to be the best, be the brightest, to have everyone proud of him, that situations so out of his control – like this one – scared him, brought out the guilt and paralysis.
He sat down on the edge of his bunk to tie his shoes, and felt his eyes closing on him. He was tired, so tired. Surely a couple of minutes just sitting here wouldn't hurt. Just a couple of minutes, then he'd get going again. Just a couple…