The BLTS Archive- Waxy Candles
by Ellen Milholland (pretyclose@aol.com)

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Spoilers: Timeless

Archiving: Yes: ASC, JuPiter Station. Others, please ask.

Standard disclaimers apply. I own nothing and nobody.

For the candles in my darkness. You know who you are.

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"Man is one world, and hath
Another to attend him."
     -'Man,' George Herbert
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She must've known the program was running when she came in. It's a
public program, and there's never a reason to put a lock on the door.
Most everyone's come here once or twice, no matter what their faith
is.  Even I come here once in a while, to be with people, or to enjoy
the beauty. And okay, I'll admit, sometimes I come here for guidance.

Ensign Nrina M'rin turned the program on half an hour ago, and she's
still sitting in the first pew, eyes closed and head bowed. She's
praying for her family back home, and her daughter, Ir. She thumbs the
rosary beads, and they click a little too loudly.

I turn my eyes back to the woman who just entered. The red and black
of her uniform look wrong here. Too official somehow. Like she's
trying to deny the reasons she came, even though I know. Though she's
never told me, I know.

It's pretty much common knowledge that she's come here before. I've
seen her here before, during Sunday worship. There are a few who come
like clockwork, and there are others, like me, who come once in a
while when they need guidance.

Obviously, this is one of those times... for both of us.

She walks in, and she lowers her eyes against the bright light
filtering through the stained glass. She clasps her hands behind her
back, and watches her boots hit the stone flooring. I follow her with
my eyes, and she does not look up to see me across the small space.

The arch disappears behind her, surrendered to the thick, wooden doors
that are much more appropriate. Voyager disappears with the arch, and
we're left in the dusty relic of pre-WWIII Earth.

She heads towards the candles, a long table against the back wall.
More than a hundred candles are set in the holders there, but only a
few are lit. Nrina lit a couple, I saw, and, I'll admit, I lit one.
Okay, I lit a few.

One for me, and one for her, and one for my friends. All in a little
row, and the flames flicker and dance with one another. One for the
sorrow, and one for the joy...

Harry's asked me about it before. He's asked me why I come here, why I
light the candles... Most of the time, I shrug it off, and tell him to
mind his own damn business. When I'm in a really good mood, I just
tell him that sometimes even I've got to believe in something.

I'm not sure he understands.

She picks up one of the short, white candles from the holder, and she
considers it for a moment. I can see her running her fingers across
the wax, soft beneath her touch.

I know those hands, and I know those fingers... and this is a touch of
reverence.

She closes her eyes, and I see her lips move. They're motions I know
well enough, words that I learned as soon as I could talk, and have
repeated a hundred thousand times since.

Even from a few feet away, I can recognize the Our Father. She opens
her eyes, and then touched the wick of the candle she's holding to one
of the lit flames. Her candle lights, and she sets it down in one of
the slots.

I've never heard her pray before. She never seems to pray aloud, at
least in my presence... and we're with each other quite a bit. If she
does, it's silent. And she just might... I know I do.

I know she has a rosary. I'll admit, I was a little stunned when I
found it. I wasn't searching her room or anything like that, but I was
looking in a bedside drawer for my discarded communicator before she
woke up one morning... and there it was.

Frankly, I was scared shitless. What would she do if she found out I'd
been snooping around in her drawers? And I was pretty sure she'd have
my head if she knew I'd found the delicate rosary. She'd never shown
it to me before, and she's never mentioned it since.

And I've never asked. Religion is maybe the one thing in our
relationship that we don't touch with a ten-foot pole. I've seen her
here, and she's seen me, but we've never come together.

There are two worlds. One that we share... on Voyager. As friends and
lovers and confidantes and everything in between... Before her, I
always thought that one plus one equaled two. And now I know, one plus
one can equal anything we damn well want it to.

And there's another world, too. The one here, within these holographic
walls... and beyond. The one that we share, and yet we don't... The
one where she speaks silently and listens with her heart.

Sometimes, like now, I wonder what she prays for. Her ship? Her crew?
Me?

I know I pray for her... for her well-being, for her strength. I pray
that she lives forever, and I ask God that He keep her under His
wings.

In times like these, we all need something to believe in.

The slipstream didn't work, and our spirits have fallen lower than
ever, it seems. We're ten years closer, but our goal still lies
decades away, and instead of getting nearer... sometimes it feels like
we're getting farther and farther away.

She's feeling the effects of it, too, just like everyone else, if not
more so. She won't admit it, even to me, but I see the pain in her
eyes when she thinks I'm not looking. I've heard her talking in her
sleep, and I've held her through tears she doesn't know she sheds.

And I've prayed for her.

But I don't know if she's prayed for me. I don't know if she's pleaded
with God to spare me from His wrath, for I have sinned... big-time.
But I'm hoping.

And this is something for her to believe in. In this time, when
everything's different and nothing's changed, she needs something to
believe in. Something bigger than herself, bigger than me, bigger than
Voyager... bigger than the whole damn delta quadrant. And I think she
has it... in the rosary and the Our Father and the soft waxy candles.

Her salvation's in the little dancing flames and in the filtered,
colored light of the sanctuary... and so is mine. Even when we're
burning in those flames, we're blessed by the heat and by our own
tears.

And we've found something to believe in.

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The End