<USS Avalon> "Vigil"

Vigilby Ensign Sussanna Jameson 


We walk the roads laid out for us. The words echo across years and distance to 
materialise in my mind. I open my eyes but the light has gone, everything is 
dark now. Everything has gone. I strain to feel people around me, hear them 
moving around, but still there is nothing. Closing my eyes, I try to find peace 
within me, but there is none there. All gone from me.

He was such a pure soul, so good and sweet. Being here, as I am, alone in the 
dark, I am forced to think of him for the first time since Harak gave me a 
goodbye. But it wasn't a goodbye for me. He is still in my heart. The pain 
taints his memory and I know he should be alive. Who am I to judge the path he 
was chosen to walk? Who am I to decide whether someone should live or die? And 
yet, as a doctor, do I not do that every day?

Questions swirl through my mind. Memories of another time, another death. She 
had been good and kind also. I run from those thoughts, from that pain. But I 
am not fast enough, they catch me and hold me down, force me to watch on as 
they play in my mind like a horror movie.

---------------------------------

"Mama, wake up Mama. I have your tea here, nice and hot and sweet, just like 
you like it." Anna leaned over the bed at the still form of a woman who 
appeared to be in her late forties but was clearly showing the effects of a 
long illness. The room smelled of sickness and death, a stifling, clawing scent 
that made her head spin.

Running a hand over her mother's forehead, she knew in her gut what she would 
find. It was cold and tacky, and there was no movement from the touch. Anna 
grabbed the tricorder beside the bed and ran a very brief scan. Nothing. Laying 
it aside, she simply sat by the bed and looked on.

Quietness surrounded her and the light above was tinged with darkness. She felt 
her eye lids heavy with exhaustion, but refused to let them rest. It was 
peaceful here, a place to think, to reflect, to remember.

"You look tired, Anna, why don't you go to bed?"

"G'day sport. No thanks, I'm fine just here. And who would keep you company if 
I left now?" She smiled up into John's gentle blue eyes and felt better, he had 
that affect on her.

"What are you reading?" he said, pointing to the book open in her lap.

Grinning, she showed him the cover. "It's that silly twentieth century comedy 
book you lent me. It's funny, I like it." The cover read "P G Wodehouse - Very 
Good Jeeves."

"Yeah, I like that one. I thought it might appeal to you." He grinned back at 
her, his smile warming his eyes and bringing dimples to his cheeks. "Jeeves 
rocks."

Anna's laughter rang out, instantly making her feel better. "That he does."

"Hey, can I keep a hold of your copy of Dracula? I still haven't finished it, 
it takes a lot of reading."

"Well it is a classic, sport. It's not some crappy vampire b-movie. It's the 
original, the first and scariest. You've got to work at it."

"Hmm, maybe vampires aren't my thing. I can't really connect to the dead."

Bitterness swept through her but she pushed it aside and quickly brushed away a 
tear. "No, you are definitely one connected to the living."

"Why do you like it? Vampires and horror movies? What is it that appeals to 
you?"

"I don't know. They've always fascinated me, the idea that something so 
gruesome, so horrific could exist even in our imaginations. It's a wonderful 
thought. That we are capable of conceiving something so evil, even though we 
claim to be evolved beyond such things."

"It hasn't got anything to do with your mother, does it?"

She smiled sadly and looked again into his soft eyes. "Now that's not fair, no 
perceptiveness, no psycho-analysing your superior officers."

"Why are you here, Sussanna?"

"To keep you company."

"But I'm not here anymore."

"I know."

The sound of her book hitting the floor made her jump up. He was still there, 
laid out and cold. She reached over to stroke the side of his face and kiss his 
forehead. "Goodbye, sport."

---------------------------------

The darkness is still there, but it is tinged with colour. My pain, so heavy 
and suffocating before, is lighter now. I can see shapes, outlines, nothing 
certain or definable, but enough to give me hope.

Other related posts: