DISCLAIMER - Paramount owns them, I'll give them back when I'm done.
I can blame this on a very long week and a few depressing incidents. I think that the happy ending syndrome may have kicked in, but I don't think that it's all that happy. More satisfying.
No rating necessary, but if you want one, give this a PG.
As Simple as a Smile
by Harley
We go to work every morning hoping to see her smile. That smile - it's a rare gem that one will find once in a million days - but it will light up a life. And we spend the days searching.
It's been hiding more these days, covered in scowls or glares, perhaps frowns. And the occasional tear.
I don't know why she tries to be so strong for us, perhaps it has to do with determination, with that indomitable spirit that she knows will get us home someday. She just wants someday to be today, not tomorrow.
She doesn't understand that when we get home, life will be different. We will be split up, sent to different corners of the quadrant. And we will not be able to make her smile.
Today has been worse than normal. She spent it reading reports, locked away from all of us. The ship flies steadily towards the place that holds her heart. And my hands rest idly on the console, and I close my eyes.
In my mind, I can see her smiling, laughing, hair flowing down her shoulders. I can see her whispering comforting words to the people who want to make her happy. The vision continues to another, more romantic, but that thought is banished.
The impossible, she said. Her life is devoted to a place that may never be reached. And she doesn't see what is standing before her. She reaches too far into the future. Perhaps there is a hope of someday, but someday is not today.
And today, it might make her smile.
The steadfast leader, she doesn't know that we know. She wishes that she could let go, be herself . . . she can. But she thinks we would disapprove, that seeing her smile would be a punishment.
She doesn't know how wrong she is.
He is dead. The one who has supported her most, the stoic figure that stood behind the indomitable force and gave it the power. Her eyes do not fill with tears, she is trying to be strong. But I must blink away wetness, and I am not ashamed.
Someone who was once one who oppressed, wrote rules to be broken . . . someone who could make her smile. The never-ending logic, it's over.
She stands with her hands at her sides, looking down at him, confusion writ on her face. I can see the questions from across the room where I stand in my dress uniform. We talk quietly, not wanting to interrupt her vigil, but needing to hear each other to realize the reality.
As a hand is placed on my shoulder, her lips move in a whisper of a prayer, an art lost to her. Relying on his logic, she believed in the science. And now she wishes him well in his next life, her hand resting on the yellow-shouldered uniform that holds the empty shell of her endurance.
In this moment, home is further away than ever. She closes her eyes and clenches her lips together in a fine line.
And then she straightens, delivers the eulogy to commemorate her friend. Noting the dry humor that he didn't believe existed, his never-ending devotion to duty, and his calm center that has held her together over this trip.
And she allows us to say a word, and the one man who had trouble respecting him stands and says a few things. About his courage, his support, and something that I wouldn't have thought of. His . . . amusement, I suppose, at seeing the rest of us enjoying ourselves. And that he, too, agreed with the assessment that we are now a family, and that this ship is home.
And he looked to her, and said that. And she finally cried.
She doesn't smile at all now. She looks behind her, and she leaves or drinks coffee or glares at someone with those eyes that could melt dilithium.
He is dead. The one who loved her, who worshiped the ground she walks on. Her eyes do not fill with tears, but nor are they empty. There is some emotion there, one I have seen before.
Loss, maybe, not really. It is regret, but not sorrowful regret.
We stand together, whispering, needing to know that we are there together, and that we are alive. A hand on my shoulder, and I grasp it with my own, my own love pressing close to me.
I look into her eyes, and see my love reflected there.
I wish that she could know what that is.
She leans over the open coffin . . . for once there is a whole body to say goodbye to. Usually, we have pieces, we have nothing more than memories.
She places a hand on his chest, as we have seen her do so many times before. And when she whispers a prayer, it is coherent.
"I can tell you a story, an ancient legend, Chakotay." And everyone is listening, this is her personal goodbye. "It's about an angry warrior and a woman warrior who worked side by side in peace for a very long time. Within their tribe, they were both heroes, but without each other, they were nothing." It doesn't take much thought to know who she is talking about, and that it refers to some joke they shared.
"And one day, it came to the woman warrior, that the angry warrior should know more than peace. That he should know love." And her eyes start to tear, but the mess hall is silent. We stand in pairs, mostly, watching our infallible captain make a declaration of love to her fallen first officer.
"And just before she could garner up the courage to tell him, the angry warrior died." And she strokes his face. "I tell you, Chakotay, I thought your legends had happy endings." And she sombers. "I wish that I could tell you."
Her head is bent, and she leans against the casket.
She is one of us.
Someone, starts to clap, bringing hands together in the ancient gesture of appreciation.
She looks up, at her crew. She meets my gaze. And I nod.
There is nothing else I can do but give her approval for her actions.
Let her know that she is one of us. She looks back down at the casket, and her fingers trace the tatoo that has always mystified me.
And she smiles.
It seems right, somehow, that he was the one to make her smile.
She sits at the table, facing her family, those that make this ship, lost among the stars, home to all of us. She regards me with a strange expression, all I did was ask a question about loosened shipboard protocol. My betting pool seems to be endorsed these last few days of our journey towards her dream of long ago.
"Defining parameters?" she demands, placing her hands on her hips. "I don't think so. But I can tell you a story . . . ."
And suddenly, she is smiling.
*END*
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