From: GrayCougar@aol.com
Subject: "Seven Years" (spoilers for Endgame)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 16:38:32 EST

Here's a short bit--no plot, no action, no resolution--just a moment in time. 
Disclaimers: This is pretty much one long spoiler for Endgame. I don't know 
is Endgame is still considered spoilable <sp?>, but I put in some space for 
any pour soul living in some god-forsaken place that hasn't gotten it yet. And
as you've probably guessed, they aren't mine.
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Seven Years


     It has been seven years to the day now. Seven long years since I lost
something infinitely precious, before I even knew that I possessed it.

*****

The older members of my crew, those who've been with me the longest, know
better than to bother me with trivialities on this date, and they've warned
the
newer crewmen. The ones who have yet to see their captain fall into her yearly
depression. Apparently this last batch is brighter than the other groups that
have cycled onto and off of the ship. Or the horror tales passed though
scuttlebutt of those unfortunates who crossed me when I'm this depressed are
getting more graphic. Either way, I make it through the end of my shift and
back to my quarters without being interrupted, my thoughts undistracted.
Lovely.

Sometimes I think I'd welcome an interruption. Anything to keep my mind off
the one thing that my thoughts keep circling back to. A transfer request, a
systems failure--hell, the return of the Shadows. Though I'd probably take the
head off the poor crewman who brought the news.

That's right, Ivanova...use black humor to prevent yourself from facing facts.
To keep from thinking about the fact that seven years ago today *he* died for
you. And you still can't deal with it.

*****

I pour myself a shot of vodka. My customary method of greeting the wolf that
lives outside my door. But it's not the wolf that's coming tonight. Tonight,
even the wolf gives way to *him.* I can see him in my mind's eye. Cracking
some joke that's inappropriateness or outrageousness would make me smile
despite myself. Facing some new danger with his odd mixture of courage and
humor. Looking at me with the emotion I never allowed myself to recognize
while he was alive.

Emotions that I can't ignore now. Emotions that he made it impossible for me
to ignore by the very manner of his death. When we lay in Medlab, our
lifeforces linked as if by a slender silver chain through the machine. It was
across this chain that my psi talent reached, wakened by the trauma I had
suffered to body and soul. My thoughts entwined with his, forcing me to look
on all that I had refused to see. Hearts speaking across the distance
separating
us--hearts that might have been mirrored reflections of each other, so similar
they were, so guarded against any that might come close. His guarded against
others with humor that distracted, mine locked all others outside of
unbreachable stone walls. But still so very similar, in so many ways. And 
thus entwined we slid together towards the darkness, and the light. The dying
living and the living dying. Inescapably bound, until his final words cut the
cord between us, sending one spiraling into the darkness while the other
climbed into the light. 

With Russian cynicism I wonder exactly which one of us it was that fell into
the darkness.

*****

His ghost haunts me tonight. His face peers at me from shadows. His voice
whispers to me from the dark recesses of the room.

"You bastard!" I scream at him, at his memory, my voice harsh from repressed
emotions now overflowing. I throw my glass across the room, hear it shatter
against the wall. Liquid runs down the wall, and down my face, as the tears
finally come. They burn down my cheeks, salty-hot in my mouth as I collapse
on the couch, still cursing him incoherently as sobs rack my body. "Never
asked you to love me...never asked you to die for me...never asked you to
make me start to fall in love with you..." Eventually my sobs trail off and I
fall
into an uneasy sleep, still huddled in a miserable ball on my couch.

When  I wake in the morning it is to a red-streaked face and a head aching
from too much vodka and too many tears. Some cold water takes care of my
face, and a "hair of the dog" muffles the ache in my head. But there's no such
remedy for the ache in my heart. I remember how much it hurt after my father
died. How long it was before I could sit Shiva for him, and let friendship and
forgiveness begin to heal my heart. But friendship is in short supply these
days. Those that I could turn to in the old days are spread across half the
galaxy. Among my crew I am Captain to my face and the Ice Queen behind
my back. And even if I were surrounded by friends, it wouldn't make
any difference. Because before I would be ready to sit Shiva I'd need to me
able to forgive the one person I can't forgive...myself.

So I live my life and do my job, and sometime I go days or even weeks
without thinking about him, or about the hollow place inside my heart. But
today as I move about in the darkness of ship's morning my footsteps seem to
echo quietly back to me from my empty quarters...and from my empty heart.


Fini.


Gray