BACKLOG | Capt Neyes, Cmdr Neyes, 'Ennui' - "The Baffled King Composing Hallelujuah" Part I

Posted on Thu May 28th, 2015 @ 11:27am by Captain Landon Neyes & Commander Logan Grant, PhD.

2,767 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Ennui
Location: Trill Sector

=/\= Before Landon and Tristan returned to Vindicator, while the Vindicator crew waged their battle with the Atlanteans =/\=

Dyma was a comfortable little place to live, filled with its small villages scattered about the moon like freckles across the skin of the man’s sanguine lover. From where she sat upon a sofa she was able to watch as he slept fitful as ever. His dreams were always of her, or death, mainly her and death together. Every once in a while he’d dream of something different and his mouth would open in breathless gasps, his eyebrows lax, his chest heaving. It had lent to more than several tilts of the watcher’s head, and quiet giggles as those dreams were probed and displayed for their wanton, voyeuristic eyes. Her. Again. Always her. The brilliant woman with the vibrant, life-filled blue eyes that seemed to shine for him and only him. Her smile, her pouts, her laughter, and the way her lips wrapped so seductively around the sound of the man's name – alluring to say the least, even the watcher had to admit. These dreams were so much better than the ones where he watched her bleed to death in his arms and that beautiful light drain from those gorgeous, icy eyes.

They knew what he wanted… What he feared. They knew the quickest way to elate him and the quickest way to kill his very soul. He wanted the freedom she represented and the simplicity she refused to accept. No pips, explosions, or terror plots. He simply wanted a love, her love, where nothing else could poise to take him from her ever again. A reality he was so very desperate to attain, but running for his life was helpless and hopeless to create or see to fruition. That’s where they came in, rising like a cat from the couch with their mouth painted by mischief. The single wave of a hand and the tables turned, the times turned, the watcher became an indelible figment of the imagination, but the place stayed the same and the game began.

“Landon…” Rochelle shook the Trill’s shoulders, her fingers kneading at his muscles with no small sense of urgency as she stood over him. “Landon, wake up!” She plucked at him, trying her damnedest to wake him up as her voice slipped away to nervous giggles.

The Trill's eyes snapped open. Without a moment of hesitation, and driven entirely on an instinct grown from centuries of survival, Landon spun over from his rest on the bed and shot an arm out defensively to the spin and deflect the figure above him.

They'd been on the run for less than a week, and hiding in plain sight was the best option for the three wanted men. He'd left Rochelle on the Vindicator, and it was less than a willing decision they both made for the good of his brother and nephew. Staying on board hadn't been an option, so they turned tail and hoped to stay low enough for it all to blow over. The moons above their home had provided the surest shelter of anywhere else, having no real permanent residents, private locales and very little necessary policing. When he was a child he'd visited the stations and parks, remembering they were the calmest of the destinations, the easiest to stay hidden in, and the easiest to see when you were being followed. He had been sure they'd get at least a month of safety out of Dyma.

Apparently proven wrong, his heart beat swiftly but purposefully in his chest. Fear wasn't a factor as he leapt to his feet on the far side of the bed, hands poised and ready to attack. "Who..." His words caught in his throat. "How are you-?"

"Jesus, Landon." The redhead gasped and deflected the attack, nearly coming off her feet. At the moment, standing up right was a great difficulty on its own without having to play dodge the startled Trill. "You had a head injury during our last run from the Commission, remember?" She started, watching the wild eyed animal in front of her begin to grow softer as the realization of who she was began to dawn. So much so that she felt safe enough to drop her hands and resume their protective cradle around her very pregnant belly. "We married last fall on your family's estate, it was beautiful, Commodore Levine officiated, remember?" She asked, her nose wrinkling in a wince even though her head shook yes as if to help guide him along memory lane. "The baby?" She finally added, her teeth clenching as she tried so very hard not to give into the pain that rippled through her massive mid-section. Brushing her ever wretched lock of stray hair from her face, Rochelle was certain of one thing. Awake or not, cognizant of the last little bit or not, she was in labor and labor was starting to hurt worse than any other injury she'd ever been inflicted by. "Remember?"

No. He didn't. A hard panic shot through his mind as it processed what she was saying. From his recollection, she was over Atlantia on board her ship thousands of lightyears away through a wormhole. There was no wedding, no child. They were running from the commission, but she didn't come with them... did she? He idly reached up to his head, which suddenly throbbed, and felt the bandages covering a massive wound.

"I don't." An eye twitched as he looked her over, suspicious and worried. All the same, he could tell she was in pain. The sight of Rochelle with child, burdened and heavy, terrified and excited him all at once. If it were real, and that was a serious if to him at this point, then things were going well for them. Had they managed to find some balance in their life? Had she left the Vindicator? She wouldn't.

His head pounded again. "Ugh. What is going on? Tristan! Get in here!"

A moment later the hurried footfalls of his brother sounded through the wooden walls and floors of the cabin. "What! What's wrong?"

"She's coming, Tristan!" Rochelle could hardly believe her own voice as it rang with no small measure of urgency and excitement. Her eyes were massive, round as saucers as they locked with the younger man. For long he'd been an enemy and the very last person she'd ever expect to share a home with, but times had changed over the course of what felt like forever and now she reached her tiny hand for him, quietly asking him for her support as she tried to find somewhere to rest her weary little form. "Dear God is she ever coming." She grimaced, digging her nails into the Trill's tender flesh as she anchored herself to him. "I thought this crap was a myth!" Despite bit of resolve she tried to swallow, there was no stilling the heavy pants that curled their fingers around her. "Long..." She hissed, sinking against the bed far less daintily than she would have liked, the choice taken from her. "How long did you say this takes?" She asked, looking between Tristan and Landon, ever certain that the latter would snap out of his fog and leap to her rescue yet again even if she truly knew that only time and good old mother nature would save her from this one.

Tristan took her hand and pulled a chair to the edge of the bed. Throwing a blanket to spare her modesty, and helping her sit up with a few pillows. "Faster than you think, but it depends." The younger Trill tried to reassure her. "Landon, get my medkit from the kitchen. Remember, Rochelle, we talked about needing to do this in the house. We can't risk taking you to a medical center." His empathetic features bright and supportive as he put on his 'doctor face' for the woman his brother had devoted his life to. Rochelle and him had grown closer as friends since his arrival on Vindicator, then later their ventures running from the commission, and it was his sincere honor to be a part of this immeasurably huge moment in their lives. "How long are your contractions lasting now? Less than 30 seconds, or more?"

"Longer!" She winced, "I had them timed at forty-five and fifty seconds a piece when I was in the shower." If asked, she'd have swore she was going to die right then and there from a broadened spectrum of absolute embarrassment, which was quickly tabled and thrown roughly into a box by the pain and the anxiety that came to grip her by the throat with freezing hands.

Landon's face was white as the moments passed before him. If he'd thought it was a program, he'd have pulled the plug on it already... but it was real, there was no doubting it. The trees outside filled the fresh air rushing in through the open windows with the scents of the forest. The cool crisp feeling of an early rain tingled on his skin as the zestful spring day gave in to an afternoon sun. The tension of Rochelle was indescribably accurate and, he had no choice but to believe it was her. He'd even utilized his ability to track footfall patterns to recognize Tristan as he came down the stairs. It was all checking out.

Breaking from the room, Landon grabbed a chronometer off the wall and gripped it firmly in his hands. His eyes widened more as the readings came out to validate what she had told him. Months had passed and gone. His brow pressed down as he tried to register what all had transpired. A wedding, a baby, they were still on the run. He looked around for any sign of something out of the ordinary. Not knowing what he was looking for didn't stop him from trying to find anything out of place. On the sofa was a bag with weapons, a few crates of supplies were placed around in the general living space. It looked like a place someone would stay if they knew they might need to leave in a hurry.

He quickly grabbed the medkit and rushed back into the bedroom. "Got it." He said. The fingers on his left hand feeling the metal of a wedding band as it pressed against the kit's handle.

"Remember our breathing." Tristan handed the little redhead a firm hand-gripper. "Focus on your focal point." As he handed it to her he pressed a hypospray to her neck. "Try to relax, and we'll be done in no time."

"Fuck the breathing!" Rochelle spat as she arched her back away from the pillows, they may as well have been set on fire or laced with nails and her skin quivered and swam away from them as the latest of her contractions threatened to split her in two. "Too fast, Tristan... This is too fast!" She cried, grabbing anything she could around her. It wasn't right, it wasn't... Right. The watcher within the copper haired woman let her eyes linger over Landon as he came bolting back into the room. It was more than right. It was perfect. He was terrified and confused, like a rabbit cornered by a hungry hound and no whistle was being blown to pull the dog off his scent. Rochelle cried out through gritted teeth, her tiny hand reaching for her bewildered husband, begging for some form of salvation with wild eyes of all her own. "I wish we were on the Vindicator!" She screeched, tears beginning to well in her eyes as they met Landon's as her other hand released its death grip and smoothed along the arm of the chair rapidly as if that would soothe what was going on within her.

The pangs of guilt started to set in. He was stood there, worried and lost in his own life. If he really didn't remember, there were so many things he would have lost. Her pregnancy, Gods... their wedding. He knelt down next to her and took her hand. "I'm here. Tristan is just as much a doctor as Rotek, and you don't need a fancy starship for this... trust me." He said, remembering birthing his own children in previous hosts' lives. His eyes searched hers for something to hold onto, and all he saw was mirrored confusion and fear.

Landon took a deep breath in and took her face in his free hand, wiping away the glistening moisture at the cusps of her features. "I love you. We'll do this together."

"I love you, I'm try- Jesus Christ Tristan make it stop!" She yelped and squeezed her eyes shut tight. Rochelle was in the throes of it, unable to escape, and it drove her absolutely wild that she wasn't in control. "Vindicator could..." She swallowed hard, "Vindicator could have this over by now. We could..." The little woman froze, not daring to move, not daring to breathe and the watcher within had a hard time keeping from breaking the role they'd immersed themselves in so heavily. They knew they had Landon by the proverbial short hairs, completely eating out of the palm of his depicted lover's shaking hand, feeling remorse, pain, guilt, worry. It was practically shedding off of him in great big sheets.

It was time. Time to throw the poor bastard over the coals, the game taking a sickening twist with the sound of a medical tricorder going ballistic and the redhead's pretty peaches and cream complexion draining of that lovely color. White as snow. White as...

"Been..." Rochelle was starting to feel cold, so so very cold as she mentally counted down the seconds to her next contraction, trying so hard to keep time as Tristan worked feverishly around her, "We've been looking forward to meeting her for so... So long." Something was wrong. She was certain of it, she could feel it, but she wouldn't dare dream of telling him, not when he seemed to worried. What she didn't know was that she was bleeding, badly, and even still her eyes reopened with no small measure of hope and admiration as she turned her head, his hands cradling her little face, to look at him. Her latest contraction over, she was able to smile at her lover. "I'm... So tired, Landon... She... She needs to be here..." She shivered in his grasp, her eyes closing momentarily as she tried to concentrate on what was going and staying awake. "Such a big day, daddy... Be here soon."

Two weeks early, the placenta had separated from her uterine wall many thanks to a fictitious event where she'd lifted something she shouldn't have in her never ending quest to be useful. She'd started spotting a few days prior, but thought nothing of it. Tristan had informed her that such was to be expected as her pregnancy came to an end, but Rochelle going into labor was the least of their concerns, the child had demanded that her lease on life not be over, and she would be granted life - but at a cost. Her mother was hemorrhaging and it was going to to get worse as labor progressed, sped along out of sheer necessity of the situation. Had they been aboard the great big fancy starship, the problem likely would never have been a thing. It wouldn't have happened with so many people there to take over duties and watching the Commodore during her final days of pregnancy with a wary and careful eye. Amelia would have been there, Rotek and his fancy equipment as well, but instead Rochelle had thrown it all aside for the love he so desperately craved, leaving the Vindicator when he'd asked her to and disappeared from everything she'd ever known to take a chance with the unknown. In this rendition, the watcher's rendition, Rochelle had run away when asked, knowing she was carrying a child they'd created during their first tryst under the blinking eyes of the stars and, like everything else, the watcher knew Landon would come to the grim discovery that, in effect with his own selfishness, he'd caused the entire ordeal. Like it or not, there was simply nothing Tristan could do to save the woman, but the child... The child had hope even as her hopeful mother's tender, fragile body began to fail all around her.


=/\= TBC =/\=

Captain Landon Neyes
Former Commanding Officer
USS Vindicator

Commander Tristan Neyes
apb Landon/Spaceman

All others played by Spaceman

 

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