Received: from [66.218.66.94] by n28.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 17 Jul 2004 19:08:01 -0000 X-Sender: asc-l@ix.netcom.com X-Apparently-To: ascem-s@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 37672 invoked from network); 17 Jul 2004 19:08:00 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.166) by m1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 17 Jul 2004 19:08:00 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO granger.mail.mindspring.net) (207.69.200.148) by mta5.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 17 Jul 2004 19:08:00 -0000 Received: from h-66-167-56-30.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net ([66.167.56.30] helo=katiedell.ix.netcom.com) by granger.mail.mindspring.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 1BluXN-0006Za-00 for ascem-s@yahoogroups.com; Sat, 17 Jul 2004 15:07:57 -0400 Message-Id: <6.0.3.0.2.20040717150613.03d304a0@popd.ix.netcom.com> X-Sender: asc-l@popd.ix.netcom.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 6.0.3.0 To: ascem-s@yahoogroups.com X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 207.69.200.148 From: ASC Archive Team MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list ASCEM-S@yahoogroups.com; contact ASCEM-S-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list ASCEM-S@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 15:06:26 -0400 Subject: [ASCEM-S] NEW: TOS Revenant [R] 6/6 K/Ch, ChFF Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-ELNK-AV: 0 TITLE: Revenant AUTHOR: Djinn CONTACT: djinn@djinnslair.com http://www.djinnslair.com SERIES: TOS RATING: R CODES: K/Ch, Chapel Fic Fest PART: 6/6 DISCLAIMERS: Paramount and Viacom own these characters--I'm just warping canon--and trying to explain some things. SUMMARY: Sequel to "Commander" and the final installment in the look Death is a lot more like life than Christine expects it to be. She can feel David's hand on hers, can feel warmth and energy from the light they are passing through, can hear him as he is explaining something to her, something she has tuned out as she looks back toward Spock. "You can't help him now. And pretty soon you won't feel the need to. It's what lets us move on, get to work." The light closes in behind her, cutting Spock off from her view. "Goodbye," she whispers. David is watching her with a tender expression that she never saw on his face in life. She realizes that he is different, the sharpness, the impatience with everyone and everything who couldn't keep up with him, seems to be gone. "Where is Jim?" "Well, that's actually the relevant question. You see, he cheated death again." She frowns, and he laughs. "Let's go," he says, and his form seems to dematerialize as if he's being beamed somewhere. "Go where?" she asks, trying to figure out how he left. Then she feels an energy brush her, and David's hand reappears on hers, tugging her after him. She feels her body becoming less solid and fights the feeling. "It's all right. I do it all the time. Just relax." David's voice is amused. She stops fighting him, and the world dissolves. There is nothing, and she is nothing, but she has the sense of motion, and she can tell that David, who is also nothing, is still next to her. It is very confusing. They rematerialize in the mountains in what looks like southern California. There is a cabin, hidden away in the pines. And a man is chopping wood. It is Jim. "Et voila," David says, walking close to him. "He doesn't know we're here." He smiles, a hint of his wicked, mercurial smile in the expression. "Or rather, he can't see us." She rushes to Jim, tries to touch him but her hand goes right through him. But Jim stops what he is doing, and he looks around, his eyes going wide then narrowing, as if he's trying to remember something important. "Jim," she whispers, getting as close to him as she can without having to re-experience the disconcerting feeling of falling through him. He stops, his expression clears and he grins, the old grin that he used to give her, but then another voice calls out, "Jim?" and he turns, his expression goes cloudy for a moment, as if he's trying to hold on to the happiness, then he becomes calm again. Antonia is walking out of the house. "This can't be right," Christine says, watching as Antonia walks up to Jim, strokes his cheek. "Right and wrong mean nothing here, Christine." David takes her hand again. "Let's get a little perspective on this." She resists his tug. "Just tell me why she's here." "She's not here." He makes a face, the old impatience resurfacing, and it makes Christine feel better that this part of him, at least, hasn't changed as much as she thought. "Come on." She lets him pull her, out and out and out and suddenly they are in space and she is watching a bright ribbon of something as it moves, twisting forward as if by a group of children playing "snap the whip" or as if it was a sh'iril. "What is it?" she asks, mesmerized by the beauty of the thing, the alienness of it. "It will be called the Nexus. But that's not how it thinks of itself." David moves them closer. She can feel the energy flowing off the thing as it travels through space. Huge amounts are being expended. So huge it feels wrong. "It's hard for it to move, isn't it?" David nods. "For all its elegant twists and advances, movement is not its natural state. It was once part of a larger entity, something so alien we would have had no words for it. A storm pulled it apart, out of its own dimension and into our own. It's been trying to find its way back home ever since--to rejoin the rest of itself. But it can't, of course. So it traverses this path, over and over, revisiting the same spots in our galaxy every seventy- eight years." "Jim got caught up in it?" David nods. "The ribbon that was in the reports. That was this. Only they don't understand it. Won't for some time." She frowns at him. "How do you know all this?" He laughs. "I've been dead a lot longer than you have, and I haven't just been sitting around playing some harp. Besides, I was curious about where my father went when he didn't show up dead. And I found him. In Isirria Latall. That's the closest I can come to making the sounds that the Nexus uses to refer to itself." "You said movement wasn't natural for it?" He nods. "If it were still in its home dimension, it would be joined with the larger self. It would not move, just bask in the serenity that was its existence. There was no effort, no pain, no loneliness, no anger, no passion. Just contentment. Serenity. Perfect tranquilly." "Sounds boring." "I agree. But then we're used to scrapping and fighting. There are some humans who seek serenity. The prefect stillness within. And Vulcans come close." She shakes her head. "Vulcans do not come close." This she knows about. "There are untold depths of hidden passion under that serene front." "Okay, I'll give you that. But my point is that not all beings would view passion as the paramount ingredient for a meaningful existence." Christine moves along the Nexus, feeling the energy shift as she goes. "Why does the energy change?" "See for yourself." She peeks in, sees a young woman, cradling a baby. She is leaning back in a rocking chair, holding a bottle and crooning as the baby falls to sleep. It is a scene of perfect peace and love. Christine backs out of it, moves further along the entity, dipping in when the energy changes again. A man sits on some cliffs overlooking a great orange sea. He is drawing the scene, humming softly to himself, his alien voice making clicks and whirrs that go with the humming sound. She pulls out, turns to David. "Is it all like this?" He shrugs. "Keep going." She does, and he follows her, as she samples each different energy. Different but all the same. Tranquil, peaceful. Stultifyingly boring for someone like Jim. They end up back with him. He is chopping wood again. A simple routine, repeated endlessly. Reach back for the log, lay it on the block, the axe is raised high, he lets it fall. Thwack. The log splits. If it is still too big, he chops it again. If not, he puts it in a pile to the side and grabs another log from the pile of unchopped wood. He doesn't seem to notice that the pile of chopped wood never grows too much, that the pile of wood yet to chop stays about the same. No matter how long he works. She huffs in frustration. "Why? This is meaningless." "To you. To me. Probably even to him if he could actually tell what is going on. But not to the Nexus." David moves her away from Jim a bit. "Don't feel with your human senses, feel with something else. Find the energy and follow it." She frowns at him, but turns back to Jim. As he chops, she tries to sink into the air around him, feels her body begin to dematerialize a bit, and hears David murmur, "Yes, good." She is drifting, and as Jim chops, energy flows out of him, out of the action, out of his serenity. Energy that is siphoned off and pulled away. She follows it. It is powering the Nexus. She feels other streams of energy coming in and realizes that everyone trapped in the entity is providing power to it. Power so it can move. She returns to the pines, to Jim, to David. "It can't move without them." "That's right." David smiles, and this time the expression is totally mischievous. "And it needs them calm to get energy it can use. Let's have some fun, okay?" "Don't hurt him," she says, suddenly worried. "I'm not going to hurt him." David leans in close to Jim, close enough to say in his ear. "Chris." Jim's head turns slightly. David moves to the other ear. "Chris." Jim nearly misses the log as he chops down. "Chris," David says louder. Jim puts down the axe, looks around. "Chris?" He suddenly smiles, and it holds true exuberant joy, and very little serenity. "Chris?" he yells to the pines, as if she is wandering in the woods and his voice will bring her to him. Horses whinny, and Christine turns, sees that part of the scene has shifted to Idaho. She looks back at Jim, they are still in the mountains. She looks the other direction, and she sees the plains and the grove of trees where they made love and where Caya and Kaiser are still tied up. "Chris!" Jim is running now, running away from the mountains and onto the plains and the air around them is rumbling. "Feel the energy now," David says. It is jagged, spiking crazily as Jim runs faster, yelling for her. "Follow it, see what happens," David says, almost pushing her after it. It goes the same place as the other energy, but the Nexus cannot seem to use it. Instead of being sucked into the entity, this new, wilder energy is only spinning around. She can feel the Nexus itself rising up somehow. A great feeling of pressure snaps down, and the energy stops spiking. The pressure turns into a fog that rides the energy trail back to Jim. She follows it. Sees him stop running. "Chris," he says brokenly, then his expression clears even as Idaho, and the golden plains, and their horses wink away. "Jim?" Antonia walks out. She strokes his cheeks and he smiles, but the smile is a bit sad, as if he knows he has just lost something precious. Then it clears. He smiles at her, a serene smile, no exuberant joy in this expression. "There's a lot of wood to chop." She smiles. "Yes. And later on, we can make a fire and sit by it." Jim nods. Turns away from her and starts to chop again. Christine starts to laugh, even though she feels as if part of whatever is left of her heart is breaking. "Antonia is here because she bores him?" "That's pretty much the size of it." David grins at her. "Feel better now?" She smiles, feels bad about it but can't stop herself. "I do." "I figured you might." David sinks down to the ground, stretching out as he watches his father chop wood. "So now you see the problem. He's stuck here. He won't age; he won't die. And he can't get out." "Not ever?" "Well, eventually someone is going to come for him. But he won't be able to get him out." David grins again, this time the expression is pure trouble. "Not unless we prep him first. Doctor Chapel, we have our work cut out for us." She sits down by him, watching Jim. Even if he doesn't know she is here, it's still a treat to see him. "And you have a plan, I take it?" He looks over at her and chucks her nose gently. "This time, you're going to be the protomatter." She has no idea what he's talking about, but doesn't care. He's smarter than she is, about this place that seems to be death, and about physics. If he thinks they can free Jim, then she's in. She'll do anything to get him back. Anything. ------------------------ She is drifting, watching Spock handle her burial preparations. He is not taking her back to Earth, and she is glad for it. He's burying her where Gramton's House has buried all their dead for centuries. The Klingons and Vulcans have similar views on the meaninglessness of a corpse once the spirit has left, but she knows Spock takes care with hers to show that he honors her. She wishes she could touch him, make him realize she is there, and that she is not gone. He is so closed off now. She worries about him. But she can only worry about him for short periods. As soon as she stops watching him, she forgets about him. David says that is normal. He says the only reason they don't forget about Jim is because he is not where he is supposed to be, and they have a job to do. They must free him and until they do, they will never be able to forget him. She is willing to believe David, because she knows that Jim is never far from her thoughts, even when she's nowhere near the Nexus. The afterlife is big and confusing, and pretty much anything she wants it to be. She's looked for people she loved, found them and yet didn't. Some have gone on to new lives, some stay put, but whichever they chose, there is always a part of them that remains in wherever this is--Heaven, Nirvana, Valhalla, maybe Sto-Vo-Kor. She smiles, still enjoys moving her face to express emotion. And some-- like Scotty and Jim--never made it. She is not worried for Scotty, sees at least a resumption of his life eventually. But Jim? Jim is trapped. In a hell that is filled with perfect contentment. There are other kinds of hells. She found Matthew, but he couldn't see her, is still obsessed, and his existence now is filled with Klingons who attack those around him while he is powerless to stop them. David told her it would stay that way until he lets go of his hatred. Until he gets bored or tired of it and sees his hell for what it is, just his own feelings getting in the way of his moving on. Maybe that's what hell always is--obsessions and passions a person just can't let go of? She thinks of the guilt she carried so long over Genesis and over keeping David from Jim. But David doesn't seem to care, and the universe recovered from whatever Genesis did. She was the one who had trouble letting it go. Although she thinks on Qo'noS, she finally gave it up, finally quit obsessing over her own guilt. Of course her passion for Jim and this need to "rescue" him might also be a form of hell. But she can't imagine David sharing it, so she makes herself stop thinking like that. She feels David calling her. He's back in the Nexus, is waiting for her to come back too. She moves there with barely a thought. Jim is still chopping wood. "Is this all he does?" She knows the answer to that. It is nearly all he does. And it is up to them to broaden his repertoire, and to make these activities that bore her to tears feel wrong to him. She moves close to him. "Jim," she says, stroking his hair. She's become better at not sinking into him, at riding the energy field that surrounds his body. As she touches him, he shivers. "I'm hungry, Jim. I'm so hungry." David nods in satisfaction, as Jim finally puts down the axe. They've been working on this for a while, and Jim has never put down the axe. Finally, he is moving toward the house. Antonia steps out onto the stairwell, but he does not appear to see her. "I'll make you eggs," he says. "Yes," Christine murmurs, trying to keep him from getting excited enough that the Nexus will notice. "Ktarian eggs." He smiles. Ktarian eggs appear on the counter. He cracks them. Adds dill, the way he taught her to like them. Antonia moves into the kitchen, this time he sees her. He looks down at the eggs, frowns. "You don't like these." She doesn't move, just stares at him, as if this is not scripted and there is nothing for her to do. "Who liked these?" Jim asks softly, staring down at the frying pan. Christine can feel him getting agitated. The Nexus moves in, Antonia right behind it. Her hand is on his cheek even as the entity's presence is pushing his emotions back down into something manageable. A moment later, he is chopping wood again. Christine looks at David. "That didn't last long." "It's progress though. We just have to keep at it." They let him work, let the Nexus return to normal. The entity does not seem aware of them. Or if it is, it cannot touch them. But Antonia seems to hover. So maybe the Nexus is more aware of what is happening then they think. Antonia sits on a large rock, watching Jim chop wood. Christine sits down next to her. "I gotta tell you, toots, this is not very flattering to you." The woman stares at Jim, a dreamy smile on her face. Christine remembers the woman who stared up at her so angrily, who left her girth loose, who may have fought for Jim once they got back to their cabin and she realized he was really going to leave her. "In fact, I don't actually think you were this boring in real life. So I guess this is how he remembers you." She pats the woman's hand. There is nothing but energy there and Christine has no problem connecting with it. Antonia is not human, is only a projection. "Tough break, kid." Antonia stares serenely ahead. David looks up from where he has been studying the grass. "Try something new, Christine. Something that will get a rise out of him." She gets up, walks back to Jim's side, not paying attention to the axe, which goes though her head harmlessly on his back swing, or his elbow as it comes up and melts into her instead of pushing her away. She thinks for a bit, then leans in. "Jim, when is the wedding?" He doesn't miss a beat. "Our wedding, Jim. We never got married." He falters a bit in the next downstroke. "We were going to get married, Jim. Right after the launch, remember? A small wedding with just our friends. Don't you remember what we planned?" He looks at Antonia. "We never got married." Christine sighs. "No, dumb ass. _We_ never got married." She regrets her language at once--even as David breaks up laughing--but Jim seems to respond to it. Apparently, it's not something Antonia would have said. He's dropped the axe, looking around again as if missing something. "We were going to be married," he says softly. "Who was I going to marry?" "Jim?" Antonia is moving closer, reaching up to stroke his cheek. David makes an impatient sound. "We really have to get rid of her. She's a definite downer." He stands up. "Keep going. I think you're on to something." "Where will you be?" He shrugs. "I have a mad scientist to visit. He may need some encouragement building a certain weapon." He shoots her a look. "I'm good at building weapons, remember?" Then he grins. "Besides, it's fated. If I wasn't supposed to reach him, I wouldn't be able to. God knows I can't reach mother, and I couldn't reach you when you were wallowing in grief for my father." He shrugs again. "Oh, well. Bye." And he is gone. She sighs. Leans back to Jim's ear and whispers, "I'd like some eggs, Jim. Ktarian eggs." He smiles. "They're your favorite." He looks up at Antonia. "No, they're not." Antonia gets up, runs through the cheek stroking routine again and he goes back to chopping wood. Christine yawns. She is so bored. This saving Jim business is tedious work. -------------------------- They're making progress. Antonia doesn't come out to the chopping block anymore. David thinks that Jim is keeping her away, that it is getting too confusing for him to hear Christine's words and see Antonia's face. Antonia is still inside though, when they go in to make eggs. Or when Christine reminds him of the day he came bounding into their room, breakfast tray in hand and asked her to marry him again. He was on leave, and it was the last leave before he stood down. And he kissed her as he set the tray down, and as she ate Ktarian eggs, he told her that he wanted to marry her after the mission was over, once they settled down somewhere. It was one of the happiest days of her life. Now it's the happiest day of Antonia's life. Even if she is the picture of composure as she accepts. Christine is trying to change that. Jim is bounding up the stairs. Christine waits for him at the top. As he tries to open the door, she whispers, "I love you, Jim." Leaning in, she kisses him on the lips. He touches his mouth, the movement almost involuntary. "I love you and I would love to be your wife, Jim." It was what she said back then. He stares at the rustic wooden door, frowns as he looks back on the wooden staircase. Their apartment in San Francisco was modern, not rustic. There were no stairs. The door was dark, stained a dark espresso not this light rough-hewn pine. His frown grows deeper. "Not here." "That's right. Not here. It didn't happen here. You never asked her, Jim. Chris, you asked Chris." "Chris," he murmurs. She can hear Antonia on the other side of the door, the knobs turns, and he whirls, looks at it. "Not here," he murmurs. The doorknob continues to turn, but Antonia can't get out. He won't let her out. Dissonance, Christine realizes. This is cognitive dissonance at its most basic. She wasn't all that hot for psychology, but she suddenly wishes she paid more attention in class. "Chris was going to be your wife." She moves closer to him. "I was going to be your wife. Remember?" She kisses him again, trying to ride the energy field, somehow give him something of herself. He sits down on the stairs, closes his eyes. "Chris?" He is clenching his hands and she can feel the Nexus reacting. The reaction has an emotion now. And it is growing. The Nexus is learning to feel annoyance. She wonders what will happen if it learns to feel rage. What she is doing is not without potential cost. She knows that. But David assures her it is what they are supposed to be doing. And he is right when he says that they cannot usually interfere. She has not been able to help Spock, or bring any comfort to her other friends who feel as if they are being abandoned one by one. Len and Ny didn't even know she was there when she tried to console them. If she can reach Jim, it is because she is supposed to. She has to believe that. She crouches behind him, enfolds him in her arms, putting all the love she feels for him in the hug. "Let's go riding, Jim." He looks up. "I want to ride Caya." He laughs. "I want to ride Kaiser." "Yes." The Nexus allows the scene change this time. Horseback riding doesn't bring a rise. Not yet anyway. He rides Kaiser in a controlled canter, his every movement graceful-- and serene. Antonia rides up on her bay. He smiles at her. Christine can keep up with them, even if there is no Caya for her to ride. She suddenly would give anything for that bitchy mare. She'd love to let her bite Antonia's horse. She moves closer to Jim, ignoring Antonia. Seeing that he is headed toward their grove of trees, she says, "Oh, no you don't." Not that she's really worried he'll make love to Antonia there. She's never seen him make love to her the whole time she's been working on him. Sex, for someone like Jim, is never a serene activity. Although a part of her wishes he could make love to Antonia and not feel much. It would make her feel better in a petty way. But she knows that Jim Kirk isn't like that. He makes love with his whole self. And the Nexus can't support that. No matter who his partner is. She lets herself rest on his horse, riding pillion behind him as if he is a knight of long ago. "The ravine," she whispers over and over as he rides. "Jump the ravine, and I'll come for you." He doesn't seem to hear her, then suddenly he is wheeling Kaiser and heading back the way they came. "Jim?" Antonia keeps up with him until the ravine comes in sight, and then she falls back. "Yes, love. How many times has Antonia jumped this damn thing, huh?" She laughs as he charges Kaiser at it, feels a thrill as she rides the energy-horse over the ravine. Jim is laughing too. "Chris,'" he says softly, so softly she is not sure he is aware he called her name. "It's wrong, Jim. The ravine is wrong. Jumping it feels wrong. No danger. There is no danger. Remember the danger? Remember when I jumped the ravine on Caya? Remember how you couldn't make her jump for you?" "Damn horse," he mutters, his gaze fixed on the ravine. "Yes. Where is she, Jim? Where is Caya? Where is Chris?" "Chris," he says again. Then he looks down, laughs softly. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours." She laughs. "You think I won't," she says back to him, sees him tense. He looks up at the hill. Antonia is silhouetted on it, the sun making her look like some tragic ghost. "You won't stay with her," Christine says. "You'll come back to me, Jim. Remember the ravine. Remember me." He suddenly yells, loud and long as if he has gone crazy, then he claps his heels against Kaiser, not giving him room to get up speed to clear the ravine. He clears it anyway--a normal horse wouldn't have made it. Jim rides him to the edge, looks down. "Something's wrong," he says. She can feel the Nexus coming for him. Antonia tries to ride down the hill but she only gets halfway before she winks out, reappearing back up on the top, silhouetted again. Jim looks up at her, looks back at the ravine. His look is troubled. Then he winks out too. "We're definitely making progress," Christine says, as she follows him back to the woodpile. -------------------------------------- "Okay, that's it." David appears beside her, pulling her away from Jim. "Are you sure? I've got a good riff going on us not having kids." She's beyond bored at this stage, but she's not certain she's ready to give it all up. "I'm sure. It's time to let fate do its work." He points to the woods, where a bald man wearing what she thinks is a Starfleet captain's uniform is standing. "How long have we been at this?" she asks. "You don't want to know. Besides, time is meaningless." He grins at her. "They should not allow brilliant physicists access to infinite knowledge." But she grins at him. She's glad he's been spending eternity with her. He doesn't like to talk about it, but she knows he loves Jim. His devotion to the cause--and to the insane Doctor Soran's weapon--is evidence of that. She frowns. "Isn't it inherently wrong to help someone develop a weapon?" "I only whispered inspiration in his ear." "Still..." He laughs. "Not if it is never used." She picks out the most likely timeline and follows it the way he's been showing her. From where she's standing, it looks like the weapon will be used. David smiles. "What if my father gets out? See what that does to the timeline." She follows a new timeline that has suddenly sprung up as the most likely and gasps as she sees what happens. David isn't smiling anymore. "You'll be together." "David. Does it have to be like this? Dying alone?" "He won't be alone. I promise." Suddenly he disappears. "David?" She calls for him but he is gone. She watches Jim, as he listens to this other captain's--Picard's-- outrageous story. He goes into the kitchen. The eggs are already cooking--regular eggs, the kind Antonia likes. She thinks the Nexus is taking no chances. Jim takes them off the stove. He grabs the Ktarian eggs, starts telling Picard about them. The facts are all wrong, and Jim looks as if he is not bothered by the inaccuracies. But when he gets the breakfast tray together, when he goes bounding into his and Antonia's bedroom to ask her to marry him, he never makes it there. She laughs. They are in Idaho. In Harry's barn. It is the day she came for him, she knows it even though he thinks it is two years earlier, when he was so mad at her and met Antonia. He rides out, and Picard rides after him and she passes Picard, catching up with Jim as he jumps the ravine. "Something's wrong," she says. And he tells Picard the same thing. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. They've won. She and David have won. She sees Jim look up at the silhouette. "I'm sorry," she says, not to the figment that sits on the imaginary horse but to the real woman, long dead now, who never really had a chance with him. If Antonia couldn't hold him here, in paradise, when could she? Christine may be hell, but she is Jim's hell, and he'll take her over any perfect heaven. And then he's free. She feels the energy in the Nexus jolt, as one of its old and trusty fuel cells follows the newest one out. She feels the entity's bemusement, wonder. No one leaves the Nexus willingly. Only those who are ripped away, like Soran, ever leave. She can feel Soran. He's happy, his energy settling in where it once flowed. He is so supremely happy. His happiness will be short lived. Picard has found a way back that puts him on Veridian III before the weapon fired, just as David's timeline predicted. Jim and Picard stop Soran, they stop the weapon. But no one stops Jim from tumbling off the cliff as the catwalk collapses beneath him. No one is there as he hits the ground, blood filling his mouth. No one but her. "Jim," she says, trying to touch him. He can't see her. Picard races down. He is there, there so Jim won't die alone. "It was fun," Jim says, with his old grin. The grin she has worked so hard to have him use again. The grin that says, to hell with it all, let's just do it. The Nexus has lost. Jim Kirk is back if only for this short time. And the Nexus is streaming away. It will not take him back. Not him, not Picard, not Soran. Suddenly, Jim is looking past Picard, looking at her. And she realizes he sees her, as a look of wonder comes over his face, and he says, "Oh my." She holds her hand out, the way David did to her, and Jim reaches up, even as his body falls back, dead, gone, lost. But not to her. She pulls him up. "Hello, Jim." He stares at her in wonder, then laughs. It is the laugh she remembers from when times were good, and they had not hurt each other so much that they couldn't laugh together. From the days on the ship, or the days long after when they finally made the bad times go away. "Chris," he says. "It's me." She wonders which Chris he sees when he looks at her. Maybe he sees all of them, the way she somehow sees all of the Jims she's ever loved. It should be disconcerting, but it is comforting, seeing them all reflected in his face. Young, old, the years in between. All of them so dear. All of them her love. "I've missed you, Jim," she says, and her voice breaks, and tears she was not sure she could still cry are falling. And he is pulling her close and kissing her and saying, "Chris. Chris," in between the kisses. She laughs and ruffles his hair and pulls him closer. "You were lost." He nods. "I know that now." He smiles. "You rescued me." "Well," a new voice sounds from behind them. "She didn't do it alone." Jim turns, sees David. He smiles, a smile she thinks that he never probably gave his son during life. She sees David smile too, and it is the most beautiful smile she has ever seen him give anyone. "Couldn't let you rot there," he says, his eyes twinkling. "I should say not," Jim says, winking at him. He pulls her with him as he walks to David, and draws him close. She feels David's hand on her arm, patting gently. As if to say, "See. I told you we'd save him." She sobs, and smiles. She has never known such joy or felt so moved. Is this what death is then? This...completeness? Jim looks down at her. "Let's go home." And she nods, and waits as David looks back at Picard, who is building a cairn of stones over Jim's body. "He is a good man," David says. Jim turns around. "He is." Then he looks at her and smiles, and they kiss again. "I am home," she whispers. "I'm with you." Jim nods and kisses her again, then, pulling David with him, he leads the way into the unknown. She knows he doesn't have a clue where he's going, and she glances at David, sees him wink at her. "That's my Dad," he mouths to her. Then they both follow Jim into the light. FIN Messages from this list are mirrored on the ASCEM newsgroup. Read http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCEML/files/faq.txt for more information about your subscription to ASCEM/L. Yahoo! Groups Links