Part I - Back again

Posted on Thursday, 28 December 2023 - 11:35am by Commander Soral & Lieutenant Alex Kingsley

Mission: Operation: Lobes & Liberties
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: Post Rescue of Away team

ON:

Soral sat by Alex's bedside. He stared off into the distance looking tired and haggard, more so then he had ever looked. When he arrived she was still asleep but he was assured that she was doing well. Still he sat there unable to sleep.

Dreams had been rare amid a drug fueled haze, but when they came they were impossibly vivid and ranged from the absurd to the terrifying- sometimes both. Such was the case now, when she awoke while the monitors tracked the spike in heart rate and blood pressure before she awoke with a start and found herself in her darkened room in sickbay. It took a few seconds for reality to replace illusion and for her to realize she wasn’t alone.

“Soral?”

Soral's eyes were drawn back to her. "You are safe in sickbay." He paused. "How are you feeling?"

“More like myself,” she admitted. “I may get allowed home to rest for good behavior. Maybe.” She turned so she was facing him. “I didn’t think you’d come back.”

"Why would I not come back?"

“I broke the bond, hurt you in every way possible…” She reminded him quietly. “And you wouldn’t tell me what you were thinking… so naturally I assumed the worst because I don’t blame you for hating me.”

"I do not hate you. I understand why you broke the bond, I have done something similar. When I thought you were lost it was so final...I was not sure that I wanted to go on."

She frowned as she digested his admission, looking horrified as she moved to sit up. “Soral, no… you can never think that way! Ever. The future is never guaranteed especially out here. And you have so much more than me in your life. Like children who need their father. And yes, a grown woman who can be just as much work at times as her grandchildren… I am not all that you are.”

"For me you are." He studied the wall. “T'Varis fought hard to bring me back and Belladonna to center me. I had other Vulcans who were trained in the bond braking to help get me functional but even after that I was not alive, existing, but not alive.”

And yet you can’t bare to look at me… she slipped out of the bed, keeping hold of it for support as she stood behind him. “But you are alive. And every day you will get stronger and heal. I did what I thought was right. Lexi was doing all she could to shield you from what was happening, to make sure my pain never became yours but it became too much. And I’d have been damned if I was going to let them take your life too.”

He turned around and took her into his arms. "It seems that we are forever trying to protect one another and in the process we cause one another pain."

“Quite the pair,” she agreed quietly. “I thought… I was sure, that I’d never see you again.”

"And I you." He allowed himself to hold her. "But there is so much we must talk about. So many decisions that have to be made that I do not wish to think of."

She nodded, inwardly stealing herself. “Of course,” she replied, beginning to untangle herself from his arms so she could sit on the edge of the bed. “New Romulus awaits.”

"It does but the question we have both avoided. What that means for us; for our marriage."

“Honestly…” she took a deep breath. “It means we are far apart, living different lives…”

"With the bond broken by Vulcan law so is our marriage. We are still united under Earth laws." He pointed out.

“I'm sure the woman who severed a bond with Shar of Vulcan would pretty much be banned from stepping foot on Vulcan anyway,” Alex observed as she looked down at her hands. Her wedding ring was not in place, instead it was safely in her quarters while she had been off the ship. “I don’t regret us for one second and despite everything I still love you. But this is a new chapter for you, a new life to build with the children at your side. I have a hard time picturing us in that new life.”

Her voice broke at the admission, at the realization of how true it was. His path was now so far from hers… “and you need and deserve someone who is going to be there every day at your side just like she was. I think you know that too. I’m not ready for that and it’s unfair on you. I’ve never been what you needed even if I was what you wanted.”

He studied her and walked over tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "You would never be banned from Vulcan. The house there is your home, Laura's home, it always will be. I have had it changed to your names. I may be starting a live on New Romulus but with our children, they will always be our children. You have always been what I wanted and needed yet I find as is always the theme of my life I cannot keep what I need or want, perhaps a price for being a worshiper of the Vulcan God of the dead. I am never truly alive but in a state of living death, confined to a hell in this mudguard existence."

“If you are in hell we both are,” she managed between tears. “I’m so sorry…”

He cupped her hands. "You have nothing to be sorry of." He kissed her gently. "You are, and forever will be my anchor to humanity, to love, to happiness."

She looked up at him, squeezing his hands as she tried to calm herself and regain some composure, “no matter what, I am always be there for you. All of you. And when the time comes,” she reached up and touched the side of his face, “which it will, you will deserve all of the happiness she brings you Soral.”

"And you deserve a man who will not bring you grief. I wish you to find someone who is worthy of you Alexandra...even if it is that puss filled lieutenant...I will try not to airlock him between now and when I leave."

She couldn’t stifle the laugh at his clear jealousy, wrapping her arms around him. “You always brought me more happiness than pain, like a protector and a knight all rolled into that uniform of yours,” she whispered. “Which was always better off than on, for the record.”

It felt odd to tease him and try to lighten the mood, but she refused to fall under a well of more pain. Perhaps because she had resigned herself to this ever since he first mentioned New Romulus. Everything after that point had been a futile attempt to preserve a ghost of their marriage.

He held onto her and smiled. "Yes well that was all to ensure I stand out in your mind and no puss filled lieutenants could compare." He pulled back and took her face in his hands. "So then am I to assume that we are proceeding with a divorce by Federation law?" He wanted her to say no but he knew what her answer would be. The coward in him could not let him have final world on this.



To Be Continued....