Chapter 11
I'll keep holding on
I'll keep holding on
I'll keep holding on
I'll keep holding on
Holding, holding, holding
– Simply Red (Holding Back the Years)
=/\=
There was nothing to do but fly. Everyone had gotten an individual message from Carmen. All it said was "Gather up anything you can think of when it comes to Marisol. And Boris, too. We'll talk later. Keep this strictly confidential."
So as the various teams flew – and Otra, Kevin, Crystal and Levi stayed behind – everyone began to marshal their resources when it came to their two now-dead coworkers.
Deirdre and Carmen sat in the Audrey Niffenegger. Deirdre piloted.
"Can we talk about Marisol and Boris?" Carmen asked, "Or is that too troubling right now?"
"I guess it's all right. Now that I know there was something going on, it does confirm some things that I had thought I was seeing."
"Like what?" Carmen inquired.
"Well. They were together a lot. At first I thought it was medical stuff, but then the main surgical work was done. All of the new people had gotten their physical enhancements, so what else was there to talk about?"
"True. What else did you see?"
"She was strange," Deirdre said, "and I knew her for the better part of a year, yet it feels like she was just this stranger. I mean, I never knew him that well at all, either, but he always seemed kind of, well, approachable. She always seemed cold and distant. It made me wonder how or why she had become a doctor in the first place."
"I suppose if we need a doctor for any reason, we'll call on Yimiva in the Calafan unit. I do hope Otra doesn't have any more serious episodes like she had today. Then we really will need an on-call doctor for all the time, and I've got no one on tap to replace either Boris or Marisol."
"I'd say so," Deirdre said, "uh, rounding 2900. Man, Audrey is slow!"
"Well, perhaps Mister Grant and Mister Daniels can get Fluxy back. I wonder how they're doing."
=/\=
They were a lot closer to their destination, but they were going to 2192 instead of 2063, and the HG Wells was a lot faster and nimbler than the Audrey Niffenegger.
"How do ya'll wanna do this?" Tom asked.
"Hmm," Rick was piloting, "I guess I'll keep the Wells. Otherwise I'll be totally stuck if you can't get back. But you can, I assume, get Fluxy."
"I hope," Tom said, "how are you gonna get me to the other side of the mirror?"
"The septum between the universes isn't that thick there. I guess it's a bit like the Earth's crust. You'd think it would be the same thickness everywhere, but it's actually not. And the same is true of the separation between the two universes. There are places where it's thinner than in other spots. The Lafa System is one of the absolutely thinnest of spots. Plus the Calafans of 2192 actually all know about the mirror, whereas that's not necessarily the case for Klingons or Trill or the like."
"All right, but a pulse shot still needs to be fired, right?"
"Right. I'm thinking, we'll go to 2192. We'll land, even, on our side of the pond. Talk to the Beckett family. They obviously either got the headstone there or it was kept there with their approval so they're the ones to start with. Then I figure I fire a pulse shot somewhere near the ground. I guess you could hop over, eh?"
"Not too high. I'm just not much of a high jumper. It looks like we're rounding 2400."
=/\=
On the Audrey II, HD piloted as Sheilagh paced a bit. "I still can't believe it. I feel terrible, and I wasn't close to either of them."
"Well, I mean, c'mon, Sheilagh, it's not like you shouldn't feel anything. Two people you know just died. And it was not very nice the way either of them went. My God. I don't wanna know what was happening that, that caused this."
"Me neither," she said, "It makes me feel a little like nothing is worthwhile."
"Why do you say that?"
"Well, how can we believe in love or marriage or whatever if it just falls to pieces as spectacularly as all that?"
"Sheilagh, you must know people who are divorced."
"I do," she said, "and that's fine. But to just carry on like that, and then have it all end like, like the way it did?
"It's not like that's never happened before, or anything, either."
"It just, I dunno, it seems like it's something that should happen to other people. I want to, I want to believe that things can work out and people can go through life without, well, without causing so much deliberate carnage in each other's lives. And I'm not even talking about their deaths. Just, in general, people seem to be so damned mean." She walked to the back of the ship, where there was a sleeping area. The ship had been promised to Marisol. It still had some of her personal effects in it.
Sheilagh walked into the bedroom area and sat down on the bed and just started to sob. HD realized something was amiss – more amiss than perhaps she was letting on – and threw the ship into auto. He walked to the back.
" think I get what you mean," he said, "All we seem to see these days are a bunch of things that are really terrible. Where's the good stuff?" He sat down next to her and awkwardly put an arm around her shoulders. His face betrayed his nervousness, but she could not see that.
"And who are the good people?" she sobbed.
"Well, you are."
"Me?"
"Sure," he said, "you're the best one."
"The what?"
"The best one. And, and not just of the chicks but in general. C'mon, don't you know that?"
She kind of lunged at him to hug him, and he reciprocated, a little startled but glad to be, finally, holding her.
She kissed him on the cheek and he did the same back and then thought better of it, and kissed her mouth, close-mouthed, lower jaw twitching and trembling a little. She looked him in the eye. "What are we doing?"
"I dunno," he said, "Something I, uh, I've wanted for a while. But I, uh, you don't have to. If, uh, if you don't want to."
"I, uh, I want to."
=/\=
That's all I have today
It's all I have to say
– Simply Red (Holding Back the Years)