EPILOGUE: "- and Death."
AUTHOR: MNEMOSYNE
RATING: R, for violence and some language
CATEGORY: Angst, Drama, Romance, Action, Deathfic
CODES: R/S (heavy on the R) with touches of everyone
NOTES: We have reached the finale, everyone. Thank you so much to all those who have stuck by this story from the beginning, and especially to those who have given me such wonderful feedback! Your encouragement and kind words were what kept me going with this, even at times when I feared my inspiration had been lost. Thank you so much!
TWO YEARS LATER
"I brought you some orchids. Emma wanted to bring some daisies, but she ended up plucking all the petals off before we got here." Hoshi laughed softly. "For what it's worth, our daughter smells like a field of wildflowers now."
Sighing quietly, Hoshi Sato-Reed reached out and dusted some fallen leaves away from her husband's grave marker. It would have been befitting to give him a burial in space all those years ago, but Hoshi couldn't do it. For a man who had been afraid of drowning, drifting endlessly in the vacant maw of space would have been terrifying. Jonathan had understood, and had made the long trek back to Earth for the funeral.
That was two years ago now. But the pain was still fresh.
Delicately, Hoshi traced her fingers through the engraved letters of his epitaph.
Armory officer of the starship Enterprise
He walked with the stars, and he was brave,
but above all else, he was loved
"I miss you," she murmured, stroking the marker as though caressing his arm. "Emma misses you, too. She remembers how well you used to read her bedtime stories, with all the different voices." Smiling a little, Hoshi felt two hot tears slide down her cheeks. She ignored them. "I don't know how she remembers, but she does. I'm glad she does. " A small laugh. "She says you make Mr. Badger sound much more realistic than I do. Or weawistic, as she says."
She laughed again, then hiccupped and slumped forward, pressing her forehead against the edge of his gravestone. "Oh, God," she whispered, feeling her stomach flutter with suppressed sobs. "I promised myself I wouldn't do this this time. I PROMISED myself, Malcolm. I said I wouldn't… wouldn't cry…"
But it was too late. The first hiccup was followed by a second, then a third, until it was all she could do to breathe through the emotion that wrapped around her lungs like a vice, squeezing the air from them in an iron fist.
The five year mission was over. Enterprise sat in dry dock, awaiting its scheduled overhaul. The last time she had spoken to Trip, it had been all he could do to keep from squealing with boyish glee at all the new gadgets and gizmos they were going to install. "A whole new version of the UT, Hosh'," he'd told her with a grin. "One that really, really works this time!"
He'd been careful not to mention one thing about the Armory.
At home in Portsmouth - near Malcolm's family home - propped against Hoshi's alarm clock, sat an unopened letter from Jonathan. She hadn't opened it because she knew what it would say. Dear Hoshi, etc, etc… Please come with us, so on, so forth… Know it will be difficult, but think what you'll see…
She also hadn't opened it because she didn't know what her answer would be.
"I wish you were here," she whispered hoarsely, gripping the gravestone until her knuckles turned white and pressing her forehead tighter against its stony edge. "I don't know what to do, Malcolm. I can't think clearly like you could - not about this. I don't know if I can leave you."
I'm not going to leave you, Malcolm, because I don't WANT to. I LOVE you, you idiot
"Emma's happy here," she went on, letting go of the headstone just long enough to wipe away her tears, which were coming slower now, but just as hot. "Your mother dotes on her. I think your father does, too. I think… I think they both have… regrets, Malcolm." She released a shuddering sigh and let go of the marker, sitting up slowly. "We all have regrets."
They had buried him here in England because his mother had asked them to. Begged was a more fitting term; Hoshi had intended on burying him in Brazil, near the university. Or even America, in San Francisco, close to his old stomping grounds. He was a bona fide Starfleet hero - he deserved to be buried where he could be best remembered.
It was the pain in Mrs. Reed's eyes that had changed Hoshi's mind. A lifetime of remorse and a veil of guilt. "My only son, Hoshi," the woman had pleaded with her. "Please - I never told him it in life, but I've missed him. I've missed him for far too long."
Hoshi could tell she didn't just mean since he had joined Starfleet.
So they'd buried him in Britain, beneath a tree that had been there for centuries and spread like an umbrella over his grave. Hoshi thought Malcolm would appreciate the grounded nature of the tree's roots, miles as it was from the ocean shore.
"I made the bargain, Malcolm," she said suddenly as she stared at the stone. "I told the Amorphia that they could have me, as long as I could have you." Shaking her head, she looked away. "I knew you wouldn't like it. I knew you'd be disappointed with me. But I needed you, Malcolm. I didn't know what else to do. They were so strong…" She closed her eyes and hugged herself. "I think I hoped you'd find a way to rescue us." She swallowed. "But I never wanted this."
She could remember much of her possession, thanks in part to the control they'd allowed her. Vividly she remembered how good it had felt to fight with The Thing That Was T'Pol, but how frustrating it had been to pull her punches as part of the ruse. She could also recall how sick it had made her to lure Malcolm into the kiss, and then have her frail control torn away as she was pitched once more into the empty void at the back of her mind.
Then she remembered screaming - screaming so loud, her lungs had burned and her throat had ached. Screaming like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Then nothing.
Emma didn't remember anything about her time with the Amorphia. She didn't remember watching her father die, either, for which Hoshi was deeply thankful. She didn't know how she'd explain Malcolm's death to the girl when she was older; she wasn't entirely sure she could bring herself to do it. But could she let Emma learn about her father's death from a history book instead?
"I never thought being a parent could be so confusing," she confessed, idly rearranging the orchids she'd placed in front of his grave. "Trip visits whenever he can, and so does Jonathan. Travis was here just last week - I think he sees her as the littlest sister he never had." She laughed quietly despite her tears, then sighed. "They're all going back, though. To Enterprise. She'll miss them. I'LL miss them." //Unless I go, too…//
//It's too dangerous.//
//Climbing stairs is dangerous.//
//Not if you're careful.//
//The same goes for space.//
//Space killed Malcolm.//
//Malcolm killed Malcolm.//
"Stop!" she said aloud, trying to clear her thoughts. "Malcolm, what should I do? I don't know if I can face it again - all those worries. Those dangers. Emma's only a little girl; I don't want to leave her behind, but I don't think I could bear to take her with me. But what else can I do? Stay here? I don't think I can do that either." //Stay here and spend each day in an empty house that's missing you.//
"We were made for space."
Hoshi held her breath as the memory of a forgotten conversation slowly resurfaced.
"What do you mean?"
She remembered where they'd been at the time. Wrapped in a blanket in a private room in a makeshift ski lodge on Palamar, sipping something that resembled mulled cider and reveling in their honeymoon bliss. "What I mean, luv," Malcolm had continued, "is that we were destined to meet in space like this. Your name means star in Japanese, did you know that?"
She'd raised an amused eyebrow. "Yes, I was aware of that," she'd teased.
Malcolm had tickled her, and when she'd begged him long enough to stop, he continued. "Well that's a dead giveaway, isn't it? You belong in the sky." He had grinned at her. "And I'm a navy man. You're my guiding star."
Hoshi had chuckled. "You've thought a lot about this, haven't you?"
"You occupy my thoughts much of the time, so yes."
"What about our children? What can we name them, to keep in this spacey theme?"
"What would you suggest?"
"Well… Sora means sky. If we have a girl, let's name her that."
"Well that'll be a bit of a problem."
"Why?"
"Because I promised my sister that I'd name our firstborn daughter Emma."
"Why?"
"A bet I lost when I was five."
Hoshi remembered laughing. "Well you're lucky I like the name then!" And it had been her turn to do the tickling.
"Stop, stop!" Malcolm had laughed, grabbing her arms and wrestling her beneath him on the couch. "I can't take it!"
"Mwa-ha-ha-ha!" Hoshi had cackled wickedly.
"You know what this calls for?" Malcolm had asked.
"What's that?"
"For the navy man to use his sextent." He'd pulled the blanket up over them, cocooning them completely. "Do you see? Sex-tent?"
"You good for nothing punner. Kiss me before I leave you for someone who can make GOOD jokes."
So he had.
Hoshi continued to stare at his gravestone, willing him to give her a sign. Something more than a hazy memory about etymology and destiny.
"Mama?"
Hoshi turned away from her study of the grave and smiled as her daughter toddled over. "Yes, sweetie?"
The little girl's face was smudge with dirt; she'd been playing in a nearby copse of trees. Mr. Buttons - looking well-loved and a little the worse for wear - dangled from her fingers. "Whatcha doin'?" Emma asked drowsily.
"I was talking to your daddy," Hoshi said, smiling. She held out her arms. "Do you want to say hello?"
"Hi, dada," Emma said, cuddling into her mother's arms. Hoshi pulled the little girl into her lap and cradled her close, stroking her soft hair. She watched as Emma's eyes quickly drifted shut; normally, this was her naptime.
"What were you and Mr. Buttons doing?" Hoshi asked softly, voice soothing as she gently rocked her daughter.
"Namin' cwouds," Emma responded sleepily.
"Naming clouds? Sounds like fun."
"Uh-huh. I wike the sky."
Hoshi closed her eyes, resting her chin gently on her daughter's head as the little girl drifted off to sleep. "I like the sky, too," she whispered.
Softly, she began to hum a lullabye. It was Welsh in origin - she loved the sound of the Welsh language. Malcolm had always liked it; it reminded him of a time when his mother had loved him unconditionally.
"Huna blentyn, nid oes yma," she sang, "Ddim i roddi iti fraw… Gwena'n dawel yn fy mynwes… Ar yr engyl gwynion draw…"*
Sleep child mine, there's nothing here, While in slumber at my breast…. Angels smiling, have no fear… Holy angels guard your rest…
THE END
*Lyrics from "Suo Gan," a traditional Welsh lullabye. English translation by Frank Petersohn and J. Mark Sugars.