The BLTS Archive - Strands of Hope
by Cindy Wright (wishfulsinful@my-deja.com)

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A quick note: I wrote this a couple of weeks ago for a friend in need
of amusement. It started as an answer to the Hot Summer Night
challenge but took on a life of its own. I'm not sure the result
exactly qualifies. Oh, and thanks for the title, B!

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I remember the last time he came home.

It was a warm summer evening, much like tonight. The quiet hum of the
medical transport gliding up the long winding lane drew my attention
away from the vase of wild flowers I was rearranging yet again. As the
transport backed up to the edge of the front lawn, I rose slowly from
the porch swing, knowing it would take time for them to make the
necessary preparations.

The orderlies, smartly dressed in their Star Fleet blues, treated him
with the dignity and respect due a man of his stature. The doctor
followed them in and saw that he was settled in the master bedroom
before returning to the porch to transfer his case files and records
to me. They took their leave of us, looking gravely serious while
murmuring their condolences that such a great man should come to such
a tragic end.

I settled on the porch with the stack of records, knowing he was
deeply sedated and wouldn't take notice of my absence. Deep down, I
knew I would be better able to shore up my resolve if I were armed
with the facts. Without hard evidence, the brittle strands of hope I
clung to would surely disintegrate in a heap at my feet.

An accident. It was a euphemism, I knew. I'd used it many times
myself. It was the word doctors used when dealing with families who
might not be able to bear the pain of knowing that a loved one had
suffered immensely and without just cause before dying a meaningless
death.

But my love was still clinging to life. This euphemism was not one
used out of empathy by men who wanted to spare me eternal pain. It was
one used out of deceit and fear. Things were not going as planned at
Fleet headquarters. It's bad form to lose a war and even worse to give
up some of your best and brightest to the enemy with little more than
a feeble show of resistance.

An accident. Any doctor more than few years out of the Academy would
have known otherwise. The signs of torture were obvious, the
systematic breaking of the body, the progressive damage meant to bring
about capitulation. Oh, my love, why didn't you give in? Why did you
sacrifice yourself for a cause long ago lost?

I pored over the reports, mentally logging each point of damage while
trying not to think of the bastards who'd inflicted it in upon him.
There would be time for hatred later, I reassured myself. The healing
should come first.

Once I'd memorized the doctors' diagnosis and prognosis and calculated
the potential outcomes and pitfalls, I set aside the facts and went to
make peace with the reality.

He was sleeping very deeply, just as they'd assured he would be. It
would be hours before the sedative wore off. I could have awakened him
with a stimulant, but I needed to be alone with the wreckage of his
body before I could bring myself to face his questioning eyes.

The questions would be inevitable. How long until I'm well? Can I
return to command? Why can't I feel my left leg? Will I ever walk
again?

All in good time, my love.

I slid the blanket to one side of the bed and stared for a moment at
the government-issue pajamas that cover his body from collar bone to
ankles. Although a bit thinner, he looked much the same as did the
last time I'd seen him in our bed, weeks before. It was a carefully
planned deception, I knew.

Slipping the buttons free with trembling fingers, I opened his shirt
and sat on the bed beside him. The fading scars were still an angry
pink, crisscrossing his chest and belly before disappearing into his
pants. Plasma burns, the report said.

I traced each warm ridge with a cool, shaky finger, memorizing the new
landscape of his body. When I could stand to traverse them no more, I
slipped off his pants and turned my attention to his withered left
leg.

It was but a shadow of what it had been. The scar where they'd grafted
a new bone into his thigh was deep and long. I traced it from his hip
to his knee, over and over again. How many times I'd traced that route
before, in pleasure and joy, as only a lover can. I resolved to once
again make that journey with him, when he was whole. Perhaps even
before.

I stripped him and bathed him, wondering vaguely at the hands that had
done the same before they'd delivered him to me. I was certain they
hadn't taken the time and care I spent in making him comfortable.

Once he was safely dressed in his favorite pajamas, I awakened him.

The questions came as expected and I answered them as best I could at
the time. But it has been the passing days and months that have
answered them conclusively.

Since that fist time that I convinced him to venture out onto the
porch late one evening under the cover of darkness, we've marked the
passing of days and the answering of questions under the stars not
amongst them.

As I watch him coming up the path, a motley mix of wild flowers
clutched in his hand, I can still detect a slight limp in his
otherwise proud gait. He insists it's obvious, but I think we are the
only two who really see it.

Not that many have the chance to take notice of it. He is officially
retired now. Not the sort of retired that he was before, always
willing to head off on one more mission. Truly retired, content to
spend his days at leisure.

I never thought I'd see the day.

Even though we'd agreed to retire to LaBarre, he'd continued to take
on diplomatic missions when asked. I never complained. How could I?
The stars were still in his blood and who was I to deny him his
passion? I knew he'd come home again. He always had before.

But that final homecoming, the one that he will never remember and I
will never forget, changed him.

At first, he was anxious to get back to work, back to his old self.
Time showed him the error of this supposition. After much energy
wasted in resisting the inevitable, he resigned himself to celebrating
the smallest of victories. The first time he dressed himself. The
first time he walked a few steps on his own. The first time he climbed
the stairs. The first time we made love.

Others might think he's retreated here to hide out, a decrepit old man
no longer fit for battle. But I know better. He's finally realized the
wonder of greeting each day as a whole person, of seeing the sun rise
and set, of spending the evening lazily listening to the happy sounds
of the village children playing in the distance. He, at last, after
all these years of searching out new life forms and saving the lives
of countless souls, understands the miracle of what it means to be
alive.

As I feel him settle beside me on the creaky old swing and slip his
arm around my shoulders, I know that he is at peace with his decision.

He has come home.

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The End