<USS Avalon> "Closing Doors"

 Closing Doors 

*Joshua Garrity and Victoria McEntire*
 
Josh breathed a sigh of relief when at last they all had gone. Though he'd 
enjoyed seeing a glimpse of their future, it saddened him greatly to know 
he'd miss seeing them grow into the people they'd become.

Once Moria had left, Victoria paced back and forth in her office. Her mind 
was ticking over, it wouldn't let her stop thinking. If JD had to take 
Anacrese to stablise his metabolism, would his father? And would he have 
brought the drug with him on what should have been a quick mission? 
"Marvellous doctor you make, Victoria McEntire," she muttered sarcastically.

Making a quick check that Joshua Garrity was alone, Victoria returned to the 
low tech room and its sole occupant. 

Josh jumped, startled, as the door slid open to reveal it's new occupant, 
trying to keep the now dismantled replicator him hidden behind his lean 
frame.

Her soft grey eyes took in the machinery with mild amusement but she made no 
comment. Instead, she said merely, "Anacrese?" 

His eyes went wide with surprise. She knew about that? "Um...yeah...I 
didn't...I don't...it's..." he stumbled, blushing furiously. "It's on the 
Avalon," he admitted at last quietly.

"JD needs it too," Victoria explained. She set the hypospray she'd brought 
with her next to him. "When was the last time you took any?"

He shrugged, blushing brighter. "A day....two maybe...I think..."

"Ah." Rolling her eyes at the uselessness of men, she pointed to the hypo. 
"Take it."

Josh glanced from it to her a moment, then nodded slightly. Silently, he 
injected the Anacrese then moved to hand her back the hypo before drawing it 
back to him, noting the upgrades and wondering if it was much more 
efficient. Silently, he began dismantling the tool and inspecting the inner 
workings, his eyes lighting up as he recognized some of the microbiotic 
workings as his own designs.

"Um..." Vix looked helplessly at her hypospray. "Please don't do that." 
Reaching out, she tried to take the tool back from him. "You're worse that 
Jaimo and JD put together."

Josh shot her an amused glance before quickly putting the tool back together 
and handing it to her.

"How do you do that so quickly?" Turning it over in her hands, she saw that 
it was back together perfectly. 

Josh blushed brighter, resisting the urge to shrug again. "My design," he 
admitted quietly. "On a PADD back ho..." he stopped midword and amended, "On 
the Avalon."

"Home?" Vix folded her leg up under her and sat on the floor. "We'll get you 
back."

Josh shook his head sadly. "You can't. Your timeline...your 
lives...they...I...we can't." A tear threatened but didn't fall as he shook 
his head and looked away, abruptly terribly interested in the dismantled 
replicator again. 

"We have no choice, we must do what we believe to be right." She smiled at 
him. "Don't you want to go home?"

He drew a breath, nodding slightly, then shrugging. "Doesn't matter what I 
want..." He looked at her earnestly. "I have to do what I believe is right, 
too. Your lives...your careers...they'd change...maybe...maybe not for the 
better...I can't..." He stopped, unable to find the words to explain, 
instead turning back to he replicator again and beginning to rapidly 
reassemble it.

"But we want you to go home." Victoria sighed. "Sometimes it's hard to 
explain things in words."

Josh nodded. He understood that better than he could possibly explain to 
her.

She drew a deep breath and tried again. "What I mean to say is that if we 
want it and you want it, why can't we send you home?" Watching him work, she 
shifted slightly so that her knees were tucked under her chin. "We're 
willing to take the risk."

He looked down at her and shook his head as he finished buttoning up the 
unit, then sat down cross-legged across from her. "I'm not," he told her 
gently at last, looking at her earnestly. "You're...all of you...such good 
people...with good lives...careers...memories... I don't want...I can't...I 
won't risk changing that..."

"Not all of us are so good," Victoria replied, looking away and biting down 
on her bottom lip.

Josh smiled slightly. "Yeah...you are..." he answered softly, rising easily 
and looking around at the rest of the room for anything else he could 
examine.

"Maybe... maybe if you'd been there, James would have turned out less 
cruel." Pulling herself into a tighter ball, she rested her cheek on her 
knees and stared at the replicator. 

Josh looked at her sympathetically. Drawing a slow breath, he returned to 
sit across from her once again. "He wasn't... trying... to be cruel," he 
reassured her in his very typically quiet tones. "He only meant...well, he 
thought he was...defending your honor. Just...well...badly."

Turning her pale eyes to stare into his striking blue ones, she shrugged. 
"It doesn't matter, Andy won't come back. That's why you have to go home... 
things can't be all that worse for some of us." There was no self-pity in 
her voice, just simple honesty.

Josh gave her a sad look and shrugged. "Losing people...you...you kind 
of...well..get used to it, I guess...after awhile."

"Have you?"

Without looking up again, he answered even more quietly than usual, 
"...getting there..."

"Why do you want to?" *If you don't have to*... Continuing to look him over, 
Victoria held back the sigh in her chest but allowed herself the tiniest of 
frowns.

Josh sighed heavily enough for them both as he rose and stepped away, 
repeating what he'd already said. "It doesn't matter what I want..."

"Yes it does!" Her cheeks flushed red at her outburst but she didn't take it 
back. "Stop being a martyr!"

Josh bit back the anger that rose quickly at the self-serving 
self-rightousness in that comment. "Maybe you should take your own advice, 
Doctor," He answered quietly in Vulcan when it passed, again relying on the 
Universal Tranlators to make him understood as he could never manage to be 
in Standard. "It's all well and good you being dissatisfied with your life 
and wanting it changed, the rest of the timeline be damned. But what about 
Moira's husband and children? And PJ's? JM's children? What about the other 
lives that would be altered, or possibly never exist? I'll stop being a 
Martyr when you stop being selfish," he stepped past her toward the sleeping 
area and closed a door between them, with no intention of opening it again. 
This conversation was, for the last time, over.

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