This place is so empty
My thoughts are so tempting
I don't know how it got so bad
Sometimes it's so crazy that nothing could save me
But it's the only thing that I have
-Sum 41 "Pieces"

Gerron figured that after the short exchange, Dalby would leave. Not that he wanted him to. There was something comforting about the older man's prescence. There always had been.

However, Dalby continued to sit beside him in silence, sipping his coffee as he stared out at the stars.

Gerron wanted to blurt out the thoughts tumbling through his head. Perhaps if he spoke them out loud then his mind would quiet down. However, he had been on his own for so long, that sharing his thoughts was a foreign concept to him. He didn't quite have the courage to begin.

Dalby was right, he needed a friend. He was tired of being alone. He wanted soeone that he could lean on. Someone he could open himself up to and be vulnerable to. Someone that he could admit the guilt, fear and pain to and who wouldn't turn away because of it.

Dalby had shown on more than one occasion that he was willing to be that type of person. Even Tal on occasion still tried to strike up a friendship despite the fact that he kept to himself.

All he had to do was take that one little step toward the hand of friendhsip that they held out to him, but he couldn't find the courage to do so.

"You know, I thought I had lost you today," Dalby finally said, breaking the silence of the messhall. "And all I could think was that I had failed someone else, like I had failed Megan."

"You can't always protect those you love," Gerron ventured looking from the stars and down at the cup of juice he held in his hands. He thought of his mother and sister whom he had left to their deaths because his mother had wanted him to live. He thought of his father who for all Gerron knew, had given his life protecting his family.

Dalby had told him how his wife had died. He had offered that piece of information up not long after Gerron had joined Chakotay's cell. Gerron figured the older man had shared that piece of information with him in an attempt at getting him to open up. Over the years, Dalby had shared bits and piece about his wife, finally talking about her death last night in sickbay when he had finally managed to get Gerron to talk about losing his own family.

Dalby was the first person he had told about what happened that night. Even after learning about how he had left his family to die, the older man hadn't condemned him. Instead, Dalby had tried to get him to see that at the time, there hadn't been much he could do.

"However, you didn't leave me behind," Gerron ontinued. "If you had, I'd wouldn't be sitting here contemplating how messed up my life is right now. How messed up I am."

He felt Dalby place a hand across his shoulders, and for the first time in a long time, Gerron didn't feel the desire to pull away from another's touch. Instead he took reassurance from it.

"You've suffered a terrible loss in your short life. Your way of dealing was it was to hide behind anger and draw away from people. I did the same thing, with less of a reason than you had. That doesn't make you a terrible person, it just means you haven't given yourself a chance to heal. Perhaps this was the wake-up call you needed to start the healing process."

"I don't want to go through life alone," Gerron admitted. "I don't want to die knowing that there is no one that would miss me."

"Neither of those are true," Dalby told him. "They haven't been since Chakotay recruited you."

Gerron finally looked over at Dalby. "I don't want to just keep going through the motions of life. I want my life to mean something. I want to make a difference. I'm just not sure how."

"We'll figure it out together," Dalby assured him, pulling the younger man gently toward him.

Gerron let himself relax into Dalby's reassuring embrace. Leaning his head against Dalby's shoulder, for the first time in a long time, Gerron didn't feel alone. Closing his eyes, he felt at peace the churning thougths and emotions fading away.