Post 445: Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road

Stardate: 70919.1700
Title: Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road
Author: =/\= Zanh Liis
Scene: Quarters
Time: Hours after "I don't have time for this." (12 hours before Indy leaves Earth's orbit)
--------------------------------

The insistent pounding on her door told her not only who was outside, but that if she didn't open the door, he was going to go get security.

She really didn't want to talk to anyone. She really just wanted to be alone. But there he was, and he was obviously not going to go away.

"Computer, release the doors." her voice was hoarse, and she set the glass in her hand down onto the table before her.

Taking one last pounding swipe at the doors, Jariel fell more than stepped through them as they opened at last. He was signing furiously.

"I know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." Liis replied rapidly, to the barrage of questions he'd gestured at her, which included but was not limited to; "Why the hell didn't you answer, do you have any idea how terrified I was and how close I was to waking up the entire security department on this ship or just taking down the doors myself?"

Liis walked toward the replicator and ordered Jariel a cup of tea. She set it on the table. She tried to sweep away the bottle and glass that she'd kept company with this evening, but realized it was too late to hide them from him now. He turned stark white.

[[You've been drinking?]]

"Yes. And I planned to drink a hell of a lot more. But you interrupted me."

This was not the Zanh Liis that Jariel knew.

His mind quickly flew past worry- and landed somewhere in the vicinity of shock.

She abhorred little more than the use of substances for the purpose of attempting to escape ones troubles. She had come to that conclusion based on experiences in another time, another life. Experiences he only knew of because of his orb visions of her lives, and their pasts.

He threw his arms up into the air helplessly.

"I know." She shrugged as well. "I know how long it's been since I had a drink. But tonight I only had a couple of coping mechanisms available to me, and this seemed the least of all evils."

She picked up the glass and tilted it toward her lips again, but Jariel snatched it away angrily.

[[No.]]

He threw it against the wall and shattered it. [[Not while I'm around.]]

He tried to embrace her, but she refused and pushed him away.

[[Please talk to me.]]

She cast her eyes up to the ceiling. "He really rattled me. I promised myself I was not going to let him rattle me, but he did, damn it." Zanh replied, pulling away from him and wrapping her arms around herself as if she were trying to keep from freezing to death. She was, in fact, shaking.

[[Corbinsky?]] Jariel frowned. He had wondered when she'd so quickly shaken off his inquiries about the man's uninvited visit earlier- he knew that nothing this serious would be so easily dismissed by a woman who had made so many sacrifices for the sake of the temporal integrity of their universe as it was known.

"Yes. Corbinsky." Liis snarled, and she picked up the decanter of alcohol that sat on the table and threw it at the wall, shattering it just as the glass had a moment before. "He. . .just had to do it. He had to reopen every old wound. He had to go and tell me that if I didn't listen to him, it would cost me."

[[Your life is in danger?]] Jariel asked, but as soon as the words were signed, he knew it had to be far worse that that.

Liis had never been afraid to die- least of all in service of her crew mates, or the Federation. She would not be seeking comfort over the news of her own imminent demise at the bottom of a bottle. But someone else's. . .

[[Salvek's life?]] he signed, and then seeing the pain in her eyes, he realized that she was a woman desperately afraid she was about to lose everything- everything she had worked so hard for. [[My life?]]

Liis slumped down onto the couch and held her head in her hands. "I am such an idiot! I should have known. Regardless of what TI told me, I should have known it was NEVER a good idea to be in the same place so long with you and Salvek, both. I must have done something; or must be about to do something monumentally stupid."

[[Or, he could be lying, Liis,]] Jariel had to lift her head up to make her read his words. [[He has ample reason to lie to you to try to get what he wants.]]

"But he never asked for anything. He said he was here to help. To teach me." she sighed. "Maybe the lesson he came to teach me is that I should not be aboard the Independence."

[[So, what? You run away?]] Jariel sighed sharply. [[You go back to TI and start living on their treadmill again and maybe it's the right thing or maybe it's not? You can't know. Are you willing to throw away the life we're building here- just because of the ramblings of a madman?]]

"Maybe he's not the one who is mad. Maybe I am."

[[Liis,]] Jariel stepped closer to her again. [[If you're mad, then the whole universe is. You have seen clearly in more maddening situations than anyone else I've ever known. You just have to have faith in your own vision.]]

"I can't see anything clearly at this point." she confessed. "My vision is so clouded that I'm second guessing everything I do. My god, Jariel how did I end up where I am?" she stood again and stepped away.

"When I took Morris up on his offer to return to service here I never imagined I'd be sitting in his chair. I'm finding myself in the middle of diplomatic nightmares I never imagined or wanted. And I can't do anything to stop them." Her shoulders slumped and her eyes clouded. "I just watched a good man take a very long fall just for the sake of politics. POLITICS!"

She ripped the combadge from her uniform, and stared at it a moment before throwing it, too, across the room. "I'm becoming the very thing that I have always hated, and swore I would never become."

[[What you hate is deceit, and disloyalty, and you have not become someone who practices those things.]] He protested. [[You have tried to prevent them from winning out, with varying degrees of success. But that's what happens, the more responsibility you get. The more you accept, the more is put upon you. You can't win every battle. You can only do the best you can do, Liis. You cannot do any more than that.]]

"What if my best isn't good enough?"

[[It will be,]] he reassured her gently, [[If you just keep your eyes front, and keep moving forward.]]

"How can you still have so much faith in me?" She asked softly. Her eyes were devoid of tears, but her expression was forlorn.

[[Because even though you can't see your way clear right now,]] Jariel replied simply, [[I can still see you just fine.]] He picked up a small package and handed it to her. He had been carrying it when he came in, only she had been too distracted to notice.

[[Letters,]] he explained. [[For you. From me. I wrote them while I was recovering on Bajor, and sent them on to Command not knowing how to find you. They've finally caught up to you.]]

"Interesting timing." Liis replied softly. "Should I read them?"

[[If you doubt in any way that I knew what I was doing, what I was risking, when I came here to be with you, then yes,]] He turned and moved toward the door, [[you should read them, Zanh Liis.]]

Liis rotated the package in her hands, and then, only when she was certain she was alone, sank back into the couch and stopped fighting the biting tears which had formed behind her eyes.

-------------------------------------------------------
=/\= Zanh Liis
USS Independence NCC-90791