<USS Meridian> =/\= Separation Anxiety =/\=

  • From: HotSheep4U@xxxxxxx
  • To: ussmeridian@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 21:59:30 EST

=/\= Separation Anxiety =/\=


The lounge was clearly marked, and empty. Sarah went in, still holding 
Rikka's hand.

Once they were in the lounge, Rikka couldn't hold in the giggles any more, 
and she burst out giggling.

"What's so funny?" Sarah wanted to know.

Rikka couldn't stop giggling. "You are." But just as suddenly as she started 
to laugh, she stopped. "I'm sorry. It isn't funny really." But she still had a 
big smile on her face. "Can I ask you something?"

"You know you can always ask me anything," Sarah told her, and sat down on 
the nearest chair. She was hungry and thirsty but afraid to get anything from 
the replicator because it might be infested with the Borg virus.

"Do you like my Dad?" She asked. Her face was serious. "I mean... I don't 
know, how to ask it right." She chewed her lower lip. "Remember how I asked 
about 
Ensign Saunders? I mean..." Her voice trailed off.

Sarah felt her face heating up and knew it was very red.

Rikka saw her blush. "I'm sorry. I can't ask it right. It's tricky. You 
know?"

"It's very tricky." Sarah's voice came out near a whisper, and she pulled 
Rikka to her and hugged her. "It's so tricky, I can't tell your dad how I feel."

Rikka was confused. "Why not?"

As frightened and confused as Sarah felt, it helped to have Rikka on her lap. 
"Because if he doesn't feel the same way, it would be very... awkward."

"But he does." Rikka blurted out. "I know he's told you that he likes you. 
Hasn't he?"

Sarah shook her head slowly. "Not that way. Not... like, to get married."

Rikka gasped slightly. She didn't think she had asked that. But she had the 
answer she was trying to get all along. She giggled again and she couldn't help 
it.

"Don't you dare tell him," Sarah exclaimed, suddenly horrified at the 
thought. "Well, not unless he asks specifically. Okay?"

"Why not?" Rikka asked. "If he likes you, I mean....."

"Think about it." She tapped Rikka on the nose lightly, and laughed at the 
little girl's expression. "What happens if you go up to your dad and say, 
'Daddy, Sarah wants to get married to you.'? Do you think he would just say 
yes? Or 
would he get kind of funny about it? I think he would maybe not take it 
seriously."

"And you want him to take it seriously?" she asked. "You really want to get 
married to Daddy?" Her face was serious. She had said once that she wished 
Sarah could be her mom but she never thought that it could actually happen. 

Sarah wrapped her arms around Rikka and held her close. "My heart sings for 
him," she said softly. "Remember Gathering Day?" She prodded Rikka with a 
little flash of memory. "Everybody who was starting to like each other that 
way, 
would eat a flahmen flower together and then they were a couple. But," she 
added 
sadly, "your dad wouldn't know that, would he?"

Rikka shrugged. "He might. I don't know." Rikka didn't really know much about 
how her mom and dad had met or courted, or any of that. Rikka's face got 
serious again. "This isn't because of what I said, is it?"

"No." Sarah glanced longingly at the replicator. Her throat was dry and her 
stomach was starting to growl. Didn't they have sealed emergency rations around 
here somewhere? "No, it's nothing you said, angel. I would be a mom for you 
even if your dad didn't like me at all," she promised recklessly.

Rikka could feel her stomach growling too and sighed. "But if you were my 
mom, we couldn't be friends any more," she said sadly.

"Says who?!" Sarah demanded. "Of course we can be friends! I always used to 
envy the girls who were best friends with their moms, because I didn't have a 
mom to be best friends with."

Rikka smiled. "Grammy says you can't be. She said that she and mom weren't 
best friends." 

"Well, not everyone is best friends with their mom. But some are. And we can 
be." Sarah grinned. She was still glancing around the lounge. "I wonder if 
there's anything to eat in that emergency supply storage?" She had spotted the 
markings on a wall panel. "I'm afraid to get anything from the replicator 
because it might be infected, but emergency stuff should be okay."

"I'm hungry too." Rikka said. 

"Let's go look." Sarah tossed Rikka off her lap into the air, stood up, and 
caught her as she came back down.

Rikka scowled at her playfully. "Hey... you better be nice or I will tell." 
She giggled, knowing she wouldn't tell her father anything. At least not 
really.

Sarah giggled, too. She could tell when Rikka was teasing, and she knew that 
Rikka could feel her fear of scaring Alex away. She popped open the emergency 
panel and looked over the supplies. There were drink boxes of juice and 
coffee, and a choice of hot meals or cold snacks, all packed in crush-proof 
emergency crates. "What are we having for lunch?" she asked.

Rikka shrugged. "I don't care. I'm just hungry."

Picking something at random, Sarah brought it over to the table in the center 
of the lounge. "I'm hungry, too," she said.

Rikka sat at the table. "I think Daddy, does like you though, Sarah. I 
mean... " She hesitated. "Well, the same as you do, I mean."  She took one of 
the 
packages Sarah set on the table and opened it.

"Did he say anything?" Sarah's lunch turned out to be pasta, green beans, and 
something chocolate. With fruit punch to drink. It was all right... if you 
were hungry. Sarah was hungry.

Rikka shook her head. "No. But... I don't know... I can just tell, I guess." 
She took a big bite of a sandwich.

Sarah tilted her head curiously. "How can you tell?" she asked. "Sometimes it 
seems to me like he starts to say something and then changes his mind... is 
that what you mean?"

Rikka nodded. "Sorta." She swallowed the rest of the bite of sandwich. "It's 
hard to explain, I guess. I mean... he..."  She stopped. "Well, didn't you see 
the way he was looking at you?"

Sarah shook her head. "No... I mean, I didn't notice anything different."

Rikka giggled again. "You didn't see the questions he had?"

"Questions?"

"Sure.... He was questioning something in his mind." She looked at her. "You 
couldn't tell?"

"You know him better than I do," said Sarah. "And... well, maybe if we are 
going to be close like that I'll be okay with reaching to find out what he's 
feeling. But normally for someone who's not in the family, it would be kind of 
rude for me to do that."

"Maybe... but..." Rikka stopped. "I think he would like it if... " She had a 
thought. "Remember when we had our picnic during Festival?" Rikka asked.

Sarah nodded.

"He thought the feeling was you. Doesn't that tell you something?" She asked.

"The warm... that you were giving him..." Sarah said thoughtfully.

Rikka nodded and took another bite.

Sarah chewed her green beans slowly. "It's all so confusing, sometimes," she 
said.

Rikka nodded, her mouth still full.

The klaxons sounded and Alex looked up at the noise. The ship was locking 
down all bulkheads for separation, though the time until the actual separation 
itself could be much longer, depending on what the Captain ordered. He decided 
to go check on Rikka again. He quickly went around the corner to the lounge. 
Near the door he heard Rikka and Sarah talking. He heard Rikka ask, "How is it 
confusing?" and stopped and waited before he entered the room. He wanted to 
give Sarah a chance to answer.

"I've never been in love," was Sarah's reply. "So I don't know how it's 
supposed to go."

Alex raised a brow while he was out of sight. Was that what he had been 
feeling too? He knew it seemed familiar but... He forced himself to focus on 
what 
he was there to do and backed up a bit so it looked like he was just coming 
into the room.

He smiled as he entered. "You two doing okay in here? They've started and I 
wanted to check on you."

Sarah nodded, but she felt herself blushing. Had he heard anything? Could he 
possibly see her as anything other than Rikka's special friend, too young to 
be involved with him? "We're fine. We found some emergency rations and had 
lunch." She looked at the chocolate stuff in her meal, that she supposed was 
meant 
to be pudding.

He watched her as she blushed, and smiled a bit. He shook his head, thinking 
great Alex, first D... and now... can't you just find a nice simple girl to 
like? "You must be brave. But I don't think I would try that." He indicated the 
brown substance she seemed to be looking at.

She giggled. "I think it's some kind of chocolate. But not my kind of 
chocolate!" She looked up at him as she laughed, and managed not to blush too 
badly 
this time. "What do you think, Rikka? She's lucky," she told Alex, nodding at 
Rikka. "She got chips and a cookie with her sandwich. I should have looked for 
two of those meals instead of grabbing this one."

Rikka scrunched her nose at it too. "Looks like melted crayon to me." She 
giggled. "I can share my cookie if you want?" She offered. 

Alex smiled thinking that his daughter was lucky for more than just getting a 
good dessert in her rations. "Perhaps you should have." He smiled warmly at 
Sarah.

Sarah opened her shield and put it around Alex again. "Share the cookie with 
your dad," she suggested to Rikka. "I'm kinda full, really."

Alex went and scooped Rikka up and sat her on his lap. She broke the cookie 
in half and gave one half to him. Alex looked at it and smiled over to Sarah as 
he broke it in half again before handing half to her. "I'm not really that 
hungry either. How about we share it?"

When he looked at her so earnestly, she couldn't possibly say no. "Okay," she 
agreed, and hoped her smile didn't look too goofy. "Thank you."

He tilted his head as a question formed in his mind and he watched her. It 
was strange, he thought. If he had just randomly seen her on the street, or on 
a 
Starbase, he wasn't sure he would have even noticed her. But now... he had 
known her for just a few months and he could remember only one other time in 
his 
life that he felt anything close to what he felt when he would spend time 
with her. 

But Rikka was always there. Always with them. How could he be sure?

Finally he spoke. "I... " He changed his mind again. "Can I ask a personal 
question, Sarah?"

"Sure," she agreed quickly. Maybe too quickly.

"Well, I was just wondering... How did you learn about... well I guess I am 
asking how did you know you wanted to become a Doctor?"

It seemed a strange sort of personal question, but Sarah didn't mind 
answering. "I've always wanted to be a doctor," she said. "Even when I was very 
small. 
I always wanted to heal people and make them feel better, and since that's 
what doctors do, I wanted to be one." She blushed again. "Of course, now I've 
found out I'm a Healer, too, so it makes sense that I wanted to heal people..."

"How did you find out... that you were a Healer, I mean?" 

"When Rikka fell... when I Healed her..." Sarah stammered.

He looked at her. Could it have been that way with D? he wondered. "It was 
that recently? I mean, you didn't know before?"

"I didn't know," admitted Sarah. "I knew I was different... but I didn't know 
how or why. When we went on our camping trip, I met two girls -- my cousins, 
they said they were. And after that I've been able to access the memories and 
things consciously instead of having them all pop up in dreams that I couldn't 
figure out what they meant."

His eyes got wide a moment and he tilted his head again. "Could... Is it 
possible, I mean...  Could you help Rikka learn to do that?"

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Is it something that can be shared again?"  The idea of his daughter being 
able to access memories, perhaps specific memories, both thrilled and scared 
him. "Could you help Rikka see the memories too? It would be a way for her 
to..." his voice trailed off. 

Rikka, ever the bright child, finished the thought. "I could meet Mom that 
way." 

Alex smiled down at his daughter. 

Sarah nodded slowly. "I told you," she said. "I can get the memories from 
Rikka, and Assemble them for both of you." She took Rikka's small hand in her 
own. "When you're older, angel, you can Assemble for yourself. But for now, let 
me do it for you. There are some things that might be too scary for you, until 
you get bigger."

"I was thinking of something a little grander than just that," he countered. 
"I was wondering if we could find out what your special gift would be as 
well." He looked at Rikka again. "Unless you already know."

"Not everyone has a special Gift," Sarah explained. "Usually if there is one, 
it comes out in adolescence."

Alex nodded. "Well, it was just a thought." He was disappointed, but there 
wasn't anything he could do about it. He brushed the remaining crumbs of the 
cookie off of his hands. "I should get back." He didn't really want to go. He 
smiled at Sarah again. "I wish I could just stay here and hang out with you 
two. 
I think it would be more fun."

"So stay..." Sarah said softly. "What is it you're supposed to be doing now 
that we're separating, anyway?"

"Monitoring. Checking systems. Making sure every thing is working right. That 
sort of thing," he said. Gads, that sounded like it wasn't that important, he 
thought to himself. He chuckled at the thought. "It sure sounds like I could 
stay, doesn't it?" 

Rikka giggled at the joke.

Sarah nodded. "Or... is there anything I could help with?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I don't think so... not anything in Engineering anyway. 
They are just around the corner. I'm sure if I am needed they will come get 
me." He really didn't want to go, and hoped that no one would come to get him. 

Sarah let go of Rikka's hand finally and folded her hands on the table in 
front of her. "Do you think we're going to be all right?" she asked softly.  "I 
mean, the whole ship. Not just us."

"Sure," he tried to sound reassuring. "We'll be fine. We are going to get 
everything straightened out and be back at the game site in time for our courts 
martial." He tried to crack a joke. But realized that it wasn't really that 
funny. "Sorry. I'm sure we'll be fine."

Sarah looked pained.

He saw the expression on her face. "I'm sorry. I do that sometimes. I was 
just trying to make a joke." 

"I know... I'm just scared," she admitted.

Rikka piped up. "Me too."

Alex smiled weakly. "Listen to me. We are going to be fine."

Sarah took Rikka's hand again, and then reached for Alex's hand too. She just 
needed the comfort of contact.

He reached for her too. Taking her hand and gently stroked her fingers with 
his, finding that he needed to feel the comfort of such a simple touch. He 
found himself thinking about being alone with Sarah. He wasn't sure why. 

Her head spun for a moment. It was such a gentle touch... such a loving 
touch. Could he have any idea what it did to her? She looked at Rikka, trying 
to 
hide the spark of desperate love that must show in her eyes.

She had failed. Rikka saw it and giggled, causing Alex to look at her. That 
in turn caused her to quickly stop. But she had an idea. "Daddy... I'm a little 
sleepy. Can I lay down on the couch over there?" 

He nodded, "Sure honey.  I can get you a blanket, too, if you want?" 

She nodded and got up and went to the couch.

Sarah tried to adjust her shield, but it was just too much. "Rikka, let me 
help you set your own shield to stay around you while you nap," she suggested.

Rikka agreed. Meanwhile, Alex found a blanket along with a pillow in the 
emergency supplies. He took them to his daughter, who was already on the couch. 
"Here you are." He put the pillow under her head and tucked the blanket around 
her. "You feel okay?"

Rikka nodded again. "I'm just tired, Daddy."  She really was.  It had been a 
very long and tense day.

Sarah helped Rikka shield, and hoped it would hold as long as necessary. She 
thought it would. Rikka was a smart child and a fast learner. "There," she 
murmured, and kissed the little girl's forehead before backing out and 
separating 
their shields.  With a little nudge from Sarah's mind, Rikka was asleep 
almost instantly.

Alex smiled. Even though a part of him was pained by the thought of someone 
other than Delilah mothering her, he liked the idea of her having someone to 
fill that role for her. Back at the table with Sarah, he said something that 
seemed to come from out of the blue. "It is complicated isn't it?"

She nodded, her mind far away. And then wondered if they were thinking about 
the same thing. "Life is complicated."

He chuckled. "And I thought it would get easier as I got older. But it's 
nice..." he stopped again. "Like I said... its complicated."

"What's nice?" she asked curiously.

"It's nice that Rikka has someone like you to help her," he said. It wasn't 
what he was going to say, but he couldn't say that. How could he say that he 
was falling for her, too?  She would think that it was only because of Rikka, 
wouldn't she?

Sarah had to look away as her cheeks flamed. "I made Rikka a promise, 
earlier," she admitted in a near whisper.

Alex raised a brow. "Oh? What was that?"

"I promised I would be like a mom to her." There, she'd said it. Her 
shoulders tensed as she waited for him to object.

"I'm sure she liked that." It pained him to hear it, but at the same time, it 
felt right too. He saw her tense, though.  He chuckled a bit at his own 
thoughts.  Could he be honest with her, he wondered?

"Is it all right?" she asked. "I mean... you're not angry...?"  She couldn't 
look him in the eye.  If she did, she was sure he'd see right through her.

"I don't know. It's very confusing for me."  He took a chance at being 
honest. "I like the idea of her having someone else to look after her.  It's so 
difficult to do everything on my own the way I have until now. But at the same 
time..."  His voice drifted off.

"At the same time, I'm not her mom and we're not a couple." Each word stabbed 
at Sarah's heart as she spoke them. Her voice broke on the last word, and she 
still couldn't look at him or she'd burst into tears.

He wasn't looking at her, either. He couldn't, at least not right away. When 
he did finally look at her, he spoke almost in a whisper. "That wouldn't be so 
bad, though, would it?"

Her brow furrowed as she tried to make sense of what she thought she'd heard. 
Slowly, she turned to look at him. "What did you say?" Her voice was scratchy 
and rough.

It was his turn to blush and look at the floor. He repeated it at the same 
volume. "That wouldn't be so bad, though, would it?"

Sarah thought her heart was going to burst right through her chest, it 
pounded so hard. She never did figure out how she got from the other side of 
the 
table to his lap. But there she was, suddenly, wrapping her arms around his 
neck 
and sobbing into his shoulder as if she was Rikka's age.

At first he was taken aback by the reaction, but once he was able to regain 
his composure, he began to comfort her. "Shhhh. It's okay." He stroked her hair 
and her back gently. 

As she gradually began to relax, and to feel safe in his gentle embrace, she 
reached to mesh with him, tentatively sharing the warmth and the song of her 
heart. And shyly looked up to watch his eyes.

He felt the song she was sharing with him, and he could feel his stomach 
tightening. But the look on her face calmed him, at least for the moment. He 
brushed the stray tears from her cheeks and smiled at her.

"I've been so afraid," she whispered.

"Of what?" he asked.

Sarah gulped. Hard. "That you would say I'm still a little girl myself," she 
confessed.

He cringed and remembered again just how young she was. "You don't act like 
one." He truly didn't think of her as a little girl, most of the time. He knew 
she was young, but her behavior was such that he saw her as an equal. "At 
least, not to me." He smiled at her warmly.

She brought her hand up to his face, tracing the line of his cheek with her 
fingertips. Meshing with him... sharing... The smile on her face was a pale 
echo of the joy she felt inside.

He smiled at her touch; it even caused him to blush again. He was happy, too. 
Happier than he could remember feeling in a long, long time.


=/\=


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