Title: Planet's Promise
Rating: PG-13.
Author's Note: Just a disclaimer...Blah, blah, blah...I don't own Alpha Centauri...Blah, blah, blah...my writing wouldn't be called fanfiction if I did...Blah, blah, blah...I'm not making any money off of this, so don't sue me.
Planet's Promise – Chapter Two
Deirdre woke that morning with an aching sense of discontent. Her dreams last night had been extremely pleasant, leaving her in the morning to a sense of emptiness. She shook her head clear of the foggy memories, dreams of her white-haired scientist that she could never attain were the last thing on this planet that she needed. Somehow she knew that their relationship would never go beyond that of their friendship they had held so long ago, she assumed that he would never feel as she did, and had accepted it, never hinting of it to him. She ran a brush through her long, dark hair and let it hang behind her back, a few wispy ringlets fell forward to brush against her face. She sighed as she wrapped herself in a long, green gown from her closet, reliving her dream over and over in her head, cursing the day that she ever felt anything, friendship or more, for Prokhor Zakharov.
She laughed sadly as a realization hit her, 'Even if I wanted to tell him, he wouldn't even make the effort to respond and tell me I'm just a silly little girl that needs to get over some sort of infatuation. He cares that little. I can't believe I still feel anything for him at all. I suppose it is true what they say about absence making the heart grow fonder...'
She was about to head out the door for breakfast when Linley, her favorite empath and hand-chosen successor of the faction rushed into her room, panting heavily and holding out the commlink.
"Lady Deirdre!" The young girl caught her breath in heaving gasps as she tried to speak. "There...there's a communication for you, Channel Nine." Her breathing slowed considerably as her stationary position allowed it, "Do you want to accept?"
Deirdre looked at the device quizzically, her brows furrowed. "Channel Nine? Who on Planet is th ..." She stopped dead in the middle of her statement as a hoarse whisper caught in her throat. "Zakharov..."
"Do you wish to accept the communication, m'lady?"
"Yes, yes Linley, I will. Put him through..."
She held the small communicator screen in her hands, blowing an errant lock of hair from her eyes. The screen's static gave way to a clear picture of the white-headed scientist. He looked paler than when she had last seen him, his eyes were red and heavy, and dark rings had formed just underneath them. He looked tired and very worn out, but Deirdre did not feel sorry for him.
'It has been too long since I have last seen him,' she mused. 'He is far different, far worse looking than I remember. But it's what he deserves for abandoning me all those years ago.' Her stomach twisted and lurched in nervousness as he smiled at her, she bit her lip to keep her anger in check.
"Ah, the Lady Deirdre. It is so nice to talk to you again after all this time. You haven't changed a bit, you're as lovely as ever."
She averted his eyes as she responded, "I'm sorry that I can't say the same for you, sir."
His eyes shifted downcast as he looked in the communicator, her aversion led him to believe that she was more disappointed in him than he thought. The fact that she had called him 'Sir' only made him wince further.
"Why are you communicating me, Zakharov? There must be something you want, or need rather, so just get to the point." She feigned disinterest in hopes of hiding her conflicting giddiness of his attention, and fury of his lack of actions. Speaking to him was not as easy of a task as it seemed.
"Why the bitterness, Deirdre? I can obviously tell I've done something wrong..." He winced as her eyes narrowed at him, her anger finally winning out over any sense of happiness at seeing him again.
"How could you not know what you've done, Zakharov? You may be a genius, but when it comes to other people you have to be to most inept human being I know. Think about how long it has been since we have last spoken." His silence spoke for him as he inwardly stung from her words. Her lips twisted into a scowl as his eyes shifted back and forth, his smile deflating. "Look, it's early, I'm still waking up, and this is just going to have to wait until I can be more civil in expressing my anger at you." With that, she cut off the channel link and tossed the communicator on her bed, seething at Zakharov, yet beginning to regret the fact that she had been far less than pleasant to him. She shrugged off her guilt, 'That's just what he gets for ignoring my contacts for three years. If he's waited that long to hear me yell at him, he can wait a few more hours.' With that, her brain focused on breakfast, and she made her way into the dining chambers.
Zakharov sighed as he sunk into his chair. He had realized that Deirdre would be angry at him, but he hadn't expected her to be so hateful and vindictive. He thought back on the days when they had begun to drift, the days that had marked the beginning of his factions' latest major project, and realized that he had never returned her communications, he had always been so busy with organizing plans and making decisions about what to do. The ones he had returned were brief and rushed, and always interrupted; he winced as he thought about how times he told her that he'd get back to her, and then never did. His stomach sank as he realized that she had every right to be furious with him, and then some. If he were Deirdre, he wouldn't even have considered entertaining the communication from himself.
"I guess this is just another case of the book-smart genius having no social skills." He growled to himself as he made his way down to breakfast. "Peachy."
It was into the peak of the night when Deirdre had finally returned to her private chambers in the tall towers of Gaia's Landing. She felt drained yet relaxed, her day in the gardens helping to keep her occupied, her mind towards her first love, the environment. Making a beeline for her large bathing chambers, she rolled her neck to release the tension in her muscles and shrugged off her dirt-stained, sweat-drenched clothes. Turning the water to a moderately hot setting, she stepped in and let the grime of the day wash down the drain and out of sight. After feeling thoroughly cleansed and relaxed, she stepped out and dried herself accordingly, slipping on a green silk robe and tying it closed to ward away the chill of the building's artificial cooling. She reclined on her bed, only to have a thin, rectangular object lay cold and obtrusive against her stomach. She dislodged the offending item, only to sigh as she saw what it was.
"The commlink, wonderful..." She grumbled into the air, talking to herself as she often did, "I suppose I should call Zakharov back, be the better person about all of this and all...But what do I say to him? I should probably find out what on Planet he could possibly want with me..."
She pushed the button to his link, and waited as one of his attendants went to ask permission to receive the transmission from Zakharov himself. After waiting for almost ten minutes, Deirdre reached over the comm. unit, ready to close it shut after deciding that Zakharov probably wasn't intercepting the transmission after all. Just as her finger hovered over the button, a static image of Zakharov came over the line.
"Deirdre, wait! I know what you're doing, don't even think of pushing that disconnect button. I'm sorry for the wait, my attendants were having trouble finding me." He bowed respectfully in front of his screen, one that she guessed was located in his private chambers. From her view, she could see his bed in the background, papers scattered all over it.
'I wonder how long it's been since he's actually slept on that thing. I'm betting a week...' She remembered how horrible of a habit that was for him, back in the early days of their friendship she had managed to help him break it by talking to him right before it was time to sleep, making sure that he knew he needed to rest. On the occasional nights that he had spent at Gaia's Landing as a guest of Deirdre's, she often visited him right before she went to bed herself, physically forcing him to lie down and take a break. She sighed as she remembered how her constant reminders for rest had once resulted in an uncomfortable situation that could have easily turned romantic. He had fought with her that night, claiming that there were problems and formulas of all sorts that needed his attention; she had physically dragged him to bed until he initiated a wrestling match for several minutes, attempting to win his argument. In the end, she was pinned beneath him, one of his hands trapping both of hers above her, his other hand resting firmly against her waist. She had stopped squirming, and his head had come down, his lips mere millimeters from hers. At the last moment he pulled away, stating that he had won, and that he wouldn't be going to bed so early that night. At the sound of his voice, she shook her head clear of the memories and focused back in on her commlink.
"And for a minute here I had assumed that you had decided to decline my transmission." She yawned and pushed back a damp clump of curls that had decided to block her left eye from view.
"If I were you, I would have disconnected by now..." He laughed, amused at her lethargic state.
"I could have told you that, Zakharov. You're ever the impatient man, I'm sure that hasn't changed at all." She scoffed at him. "So, about this morning..."
"Ah, yes..." His expression turned sheepish, "I was just...uh...thinking a lot last night. I had been so wrapped up in business that I had totally forgotten about everything else, including you, Deirdre. I'm sorry for that."
"Prokhor, I'm not going to say it's alright, and I can't say that I'm not still angry...But may I ask why you just...stopped? I've been waiting for you for three years, Zak. Three years. That's a very long time, in case you haven't noticed."
His heart leapt as his old nickname that she had given him slipped from her tongue, "It was just...work, business. That sort of nonsense that none of us really wants to do but has to for the sake of everything. It took me a long while to get some of this stuff sorted out and fixed."
Her eyes filled with pain and she looked away, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. In that instant, he truly felt like a heel.
"I've missed you, Deirdre. I really have." He voice cracked with desperation. He hated seeing her in her disheveled state, the fact that he had caused it just added to his guilt.
"I know, and I've missed you as well, even if none of this was of my choosing..." She sighed.
"I'm going to try harder, I am."
"I surely hope so, Prokhor, I surely do.
The silence that now permeated through the connection was deafening to Zakharov's ears, he felt the need to say something, anything that could help to repair the damage he caused.
"You look tired."
"I know for a fact that you look about five times more exhausted than I do. Get some sleep."
"Perhaps I should, I can give these old problems a rest for the night..." He turned around to look at his bed, it was saturated with papers that he knew he didn't have the energy to move.
"And perhaps you'll be sleeping on the floor..." She covered her mouth with her hand, trying to hide her somewhat amused smile.
His shoulders slumped and he laughed in sheer disbelief that he had let his room fall to such levels of disorganization. "Well, Deirdre, I'll let you go, get some sleep. I'll, um, I'll talk to you again tomorrow, how about that?"
She remembered the last time he had told her that and frowned. "Please do try follow up on your words this time, Zakharov. Sleep well." With that, Deirdre waved at his disheveled form and cut the commlink. She knew that their friendship had hope if she could trust him again and release her anger. Of course, the aforementioned is always easier said than done, and Zakharov still had yet to prove that he would follow up on anything he said.
Zakharov caught himself whistling as he placed the piles of papers from his bed onto slightly messier stacks on the floor. He stopped dead in his tracks.
"I'm...whistling? When was the last time I did that?"
He smiled as he shook his head, running his fingers through his hair while assessing the clearing he had made on his bed. He picked up a pen and a piece of scrap paper, scribbling down a reminder to call Deirdre after breakfast tomorrow and taped it to his door, a place where he was sure to see it on his way out tomorrow.
Thoughts of her consumed his brain, some mild and others that were far too inappropriate for his own good. Still, he couldn't help his daydreams, the ones that he knew went far beyond the realm of friendship, the ones that he knew he would probably never tell her about. He couldn't believe that he had overlooked her for so long, but he vowed to himself to never forget about her again. He thought about that night that they had almost crossed the line in the guest room at Gaia's landing where, for an instant, he had her trapped beneath him. He could have kissed her there and then, but at the time he didn't have the will or the courage to do so. He hated himself for giving up such a viable opportunity, but hoped that there would be many more to come in the future, if they both could somehow forgive and forget his transgressions.
Completely exhausted, he fell asleep on top of his blankets, letting his unconscious and his dreams of Deirdre consume him.
TBC...