"Yeah, I'm not from Mars."

FANFIC- theneutralzone@lj

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:42:47 GMT

Title: Harm
Fandom: Star Trek RP: theneutralzone@lj
Rating: PG-13: violence, mild language, sexual themes
Pairing: Deven Lanford (2373) x Jimena Kirk (2258~Mirror)
Notes: My twisted mind does these things. Don’t ask. :|

-_-_-_-_-

There really wasn’t much to do besides wander anymore. Stuck here, with none of the math working out, it was frustrating as much as it was exhilarating being with her here. He found himself smiling as he walked rather aimlessly through the station and his thoughts turned inward, to the incredible, amazing, indescribable memories that he had accumulated of her, of them.

…and speaking of her, his grin grew wider as he saw her back ahead of him, faltered as he realized that something was wrong- she was holding herself differently, the way she carried herself was just a bit off. He approached from behind her and reached out a hand to her shoulder-

-but never made it that far. Before he even knew what had happened, his back met the wall painfully, a strong hand held him there, leaving bruises on his shoulder, the other holding a knife against his throat. He choked back the fear that suddenly rose in him, noting that the look in her eyes was wild, untamed…dark.

She eased off with a grin once she noticed who it was, sheathing the blade…somewhere- he couldn’t have followed the motion if he had wanted to.

“God, Lanford, you should know how to sneak better. You’ll end up dead that way, and I’d hate for it to be because you got clumsy.”

…Lanford? What was she trying to do? Was it…was she…again? He’d never seen her use a knife before, and now a last name?

But no, she was leaning in now, pinning him to the wall, kissing him roughly enough to leave bruises. Her nails dug in to his skin through the fabric of his shirt, dragged down painfully. He made a small noise and pulled back, earning a glare mixed with confusion from her.

“…the hell-”

“Are you alright, Ena?” He interrupted quickly as he found his voice and before he could lose it again, all the concern and worry he was feeling evident in his voice and his expression. He couldn’t say what was wrong with her, and it scared him, but he reached up with a hand and placed it gently on her cheek.

She gave a cruel laugh and pulled back from his touch, fingers digging deeper into his shoulder until he had to bite his lip against crying out in pain.

“Am I alright? Am I alright?” Again that cruel laugh that hurt more than the bruises. “Am I alright? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Wrong with me? Ena-”

“What the hell? Since when have you ever been allowed to call me ‘Ena?’”

“…what?”

She gave him a look that made him want very much to disappear- like she was sizing him up.

“I can’t decide if I like you playing dumb or not.”

He didn’t really have a response to that and so he kept silent, which seemed to be the right answer. She grinned yet again and eased the pressure on his shoulder, though she didn’t release him. She moved her face closer to his kissing her way up his jaw until she could whisper in his ear.

“Maybe I like it after all.”

He couldn’t resist a shudder at her breath on his ear; it was so dark, something was very wrong.

Apparently, she misread the action, and her free hand wandered down his chest and played with the waistband of his pants.

At that point, he simply couldn’t take it any longer and he shoved her as hard as he possibly could, and gave a half-strangled “stop it.” But it was the best that he could manage.

She did not like that at all. Her glare could have killed him and her grip on his shoulder tightened into the bruises until he couldn’t resist the cry of pain that escaped him.

“Stop it? Stop what?” He struggled against her and she shoved him hard into the wall again- she was stronger than he was, always had been.

“You’re mine, remember?” She dipped her hand into his waistband, running her fingers over his hip-

-and she pulled back as if she had been burned and slapped him across the face hard enough to send him staggering to the floor.

“What the hell are you playing at?!”

“What am I-”

“Leave. Get out of my sight, imposter.”

“…Ena-”

“I said go!”

And he fled before she could inflict any more harm, hearing her fist hitting the wall behind him.

FICLET- theneutralzone@lj

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:30:46 GMT

Title: Practical Experience
Fandom: Star Trek RP: theneutralzone@lj
Rating: G
Pairing: Deven Lanford(2373) x Jimena Kirk (2258.45)
Notes: Inspired by old threads. Surprise for Jimena!mun (aka Kat).

-_-_-_-_-

Up until now his life had been simple enough. Even in this place, it wasn’t terrible. Here he had found the kind of love he had only hoped for back where he belonged.

Strange that the one that was perfect for him came 100 years too soon.

And now this. Even the shadows of that terrible dream couldn’t taint this moment. Even the knowledge that they would have to leave and confront that couldn’t stain the feelings that overwhelmed him to the point of tears as he looked down at the two of them asleep.

There had been a lot of those lately, tears.

Carefully, he bent down and lifted the tiny newcomer- only a few hours old- from his sleeping lover’s arms, holding the small child close and feeling her warmth. Gently, he ran a finger down her soft face and the infant yawned and opened her liquid blue eyes to look up- almost curiously- at her father. He smiled down at her as she fidgeted a little and grabbed hold of his finger in both of her tiny hands. She was so quiet, looked so intent, that his smile grew even wider and he lifted her higher, placing a soft kiss on her cheek, giving her a proper welcome as she giggled softly at him.

“Hello, Lovely.”

Her smile was the sweetest thing he had ever seen, and he felt tears in his eyes. He blinked them away and she yawned and settled into his arms and went back to sleep. As her eyes closed again, one of the tears he had been holding back fell down his face and, laughing silently at himself, he wiped it away with the back of his hand, moved over to a chair, and sat down, cradling the tiny child in his lap.

He heard Ena stirring in the bed off to his left and he smiled yet again. Everything seemed so perfect now, like nothing bad would ever happen again. At this moment, it was just him, his sleeping lover, and the exquisite new life he was now holding. Thoughts of the scoldings he had received from his captain were left behind and forgotten as his entire would was now the tiny sleeping face, so close to his own.

Even with the practical experience he had with the fluidity of time and the futility of fighting against it, he wanted so desperately to stop everything- freeze the universe and relish the moment forever, the cavalcade of overwhelming feelings that flowed over him with the time that he knew he could never get back.

But he knew that he would try and hold onto it.

FANFIC- theneutralzone@lj

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 22:25:50 GMT

Title: Letter Games
Fandom: Star Trek RP
Rating: PG- Character death, angst, mild language
Pairing: Deven Lanford (2373)xJimena Kirk (2258.45)
Notes: Present for Jimena mun (aka Kat). After and inspired by angsty thread of angst. Oh you plot domos.

-_-_-_-_-

It was hard to believe that it had already been six years since he had come back- all but materialized into the same moment he had left- now holding a little girl he hadn’t been previously, unexplained tears drifting down his cheeks. It didn’t matter, though. A few words from the captain and she was his.

Still, even six years later, a starship was no place for a child. With him gone half the time to do his duty, it was surprising that she even recognized him at all as “father.” It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the caretakers, just…

…the girl needed her mother- the one that had died before even he was born.

And that began the idea- the game.

-_-_-_-_-

“Papa!”

He grinned and scooped her up in his arms, planting a kiss on her cheek; it was the one thing he had ever insisted on- that he be there when she had finished school for the day.

“Papa, wait ‘til I tell you what we did today!” It was eerie how she hadn’t managed to pick up his accent, though she was exactly like they had imagined her all those years ago after the nightmare; blonde hair and those gorgeous blue eyes that he had fallen in love with- right down to the freckles. And a brilliant troublemaker- just like her mother.

“Was it exciting, love?”

“Uh-huh!”

“Well, I have something exciting for you to do too.”

-_-_-_-_-

Everything was laid out when they got back to their quarters. Her tiny blue eyes widened at the display of old-style paper, pens, and pencils- in every color she could think of and even a few more. She looked up at her father with those eyes of hers and asked her question in an awed voice, school and her exciting day forgotten.

“What’s all this, Papa?”

“I thought you might like to write a letter.”

“To who?”

“Your mother.”

“Mama?” Her eyes widened again in surprise. “But I don’t know who she is, Papa.”

“So this is a good way to get to know her.”

And that was all it took. She moved over to the table and picked up a pencil and a piece of paper as her father watched her look of concentration with a smile on his face.

About halfway though her letter, she looked back up at him, her expression halfway between concerned and exasperated.

“Aren’t you writing one, Papa?”

“Of course, lovely.”

-_-_-_-_-

“You wanted to see me, sir?” It had been a while since he had been on the bridge, in the ready room- maybe about six years. The last time had been when they had first gotten back.

“Yes, Lieutenant.” His smile wasn’t unfriendly. “Consider it checking up on you.”

“I’m well enough, sir. As well as I can be when I missed by a hundred years and a reality.” His eyes weren’t blue here- they were brown. The only reminder, then, was his little girl; oh how she looked like her mother. But they both knew that he didn’t need to explain his statement.

“And how is miss Holly?” He saw the hint of a smile on his captain’s face- their choice in names never ceased to amuse him. To them it had been entirely logical: born back in that place that they thanklessly still remembered, given the name of the more-than-computer that had cared for them- the name they had both dreamed of.

“Just as well as any little girl can be without her mother.”

-_-_-_-_-

It really was hard to believe. She was nine now. Somehow, it always felt like he was about to miss something. As clichéd as it sounded, she really was growing up too fast.

He couldn’t help but smile as he watched her writing another letter to her absent mother. She concentrated so hard on it that she didn’t notice his loving gaze.

She was so enthusiastic about this. They wrote one together once a week, but she would write and write and write on her own- even without his prompting.

Sometimes she’d even get one back. The first time she was ecstatic, and she immediately sat down and wrote another one. Now she lived for those responses, checking immediately upon waking so she could read it before school began for the day. There wasn’t always one there, but they were there often enough to keep her excited, though they came sporadically enough to insist that it was a human response from far away.

He was rather proud of that.

-_-_-_-_-

Fate was often cruel, it seemed.

The thought flickered though his mind for the thousandth time on that thousandth sleepless night as he sat alone in the bed and recalled the night they had said goodbye forever.

It was cruel, playing out almost exactly as it had in his dream.

"I’ll take care of her”

“I know you will."

If he had known then how prophetic it really had been, he would have been better prepared. But it was only a dream, only a nightmare, only real.

How much more could that place haunt him?

-_-_-_-_-

They kept up the letters for a long time. She dropped off on the frequency, but he knew she wrote them other times than their weekly sessions. Sometimes he would catch her pouring her aching heart out to a mother who wasn’t there but who still managed to answer her letters.

Most often, though, it was in secret. After all, a fourteen-year-old girl wasn’t allowed to love her mother.

She would still wake up excited to find another letter, even though she knew the secret. She hadn’t seen him, but she wasn’t a child anymore. She knew. But she played along in their game.

She never had the heart to tell him.

-_-_-_-_-

It was news she should never have had to hear. Her father was lying in Sickbay- dead. He shouldn’t have been. The Enterprise had been in a battle, she knew, the deck he had been on had been hit. Only he shouldn’t have been injured- he, however, in his infinite sweetness, had pushed a superior officer out of the flying path of a large piece of shrapnel.

Maybe that was what mother had fallen in love with.

She made her way in to Sickbay; they wouldn’t let her see him. She was eighteen, dammit, she had a right- but first they had a question. Maybe something she could help them with.

Dumbly, she had nodded.

He had said something, they said, right before he died.

What was it.

“Ena.” Did it mean anything?

She shook her head, but she knew. Her mother’s name- the pet name he used only for her. The “love’s” and the “lovely’s” he transferred to her, but “Ena” was only her mother’s.

Alright, you can see him now.

Vaguely, later, she remembered that she had cried.

-_-_-_-_-

She was a civilian. She had no business on the bridge- except that she had been called there. By the captain, of all people. And yet, that was all that seemed strange- not that she had lived her entire life on that ship and there was a place she hadn’t been.

She left her escort at the door of the ready-room and stood staring the captain directly in the face with her fierce blue eyes. Maybe it was her Kirk blood.

For some reason, that only made him smile- like he knew. She wouldn’t speak to him, she determined. Not until he spoke to her. She was just as content to continue the staring contest until the end of time, which, she knew, was rather fluid.

Finally, though, his expression dropped back into somberness, and he spoke.

“I am sorry, Miss. Your father will be missed.”

“Is that why you promoted him?” Commander in death. It was ironic, really. Perhaps she had been a little impetuous in the asking. She didn’t care.

He stood and paced a little, hands clasped behind his back.

“I am aware of your unique heritage. Your father and I were on that station together.”

That station. Her father had told her about it two years ago when they stopped the letter game., though he never confessed to writing the letters on her mother’s behalf. She did keep them, though. All of them, in a little box under her bed. Her “mother’s” responses.

The captain continued.

“He certainly wasn’t what I had expected. He always seemed to find some way to impress me. He saved the Enterprise from the Borg, he saved several people from hallucinations on that station, and he saved a man yesterday. That is why he’s been promoted.”

She didn’t answer. She was busy thinking, remembering times with her father, remembering his gentleness, his sweetness, his patience with her outbursts; her mother had been that way, he said.

“I like to think he was a fri-”

“Sir,” she interrupted quickly, looking back up at him and brushing an errant strand of blonde hair out of her face. “Can I ask you to do something for me?”

He raised his eyebrows but nodded. And she, encouraged, dove ahead. She wouldn’t show him her nervousness, her very un-Kirk-like weakness.

“The next time we stop by Earth, could you let me off? I’d like to enroll in the Academy.”

And there was that smile again. She wondered how many times her father had seen it.

“Of course.”

-_-_-_-_-

It had been two years since she had been deposited on Earth to attend Academy- science, like her father, but her Kirk blood burned to be a captain someday, like her mother- and already Holly Lanford- now twenty- had a reputation for being an unreachable beauty; blonde hair, blue eyes which weren’t famous in this world, though she knew that somewhere there was one where they were- somewhere her mother was, watching her and proud. And father was with her.

She stood on a hill overlooking the complex, watching students milling about like ants as she thought once more of the mother she had never known, who had died before even her father was born.

Slowly she tore up all the letters from their game and gave the pieces to the wind that felt like a mother’s hand caressing her cheek. She closed her eyes in a silent prayer and returned to the bustle of the Academy.

-_-_-_-_-

Let the messages thereon be carried to a place where there is no time.

FICLET- theneutralzone@lj

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 05:28:35 GMT

Title: Ice Cream Kisses
Fandom: Star Trek RP-theneutralzone@lj
Rating: PG-fluffy bedroom scenes
Pairing: (2373)Deven Lanfordx(2256.45)Jimena Kirk

-_-_-_-_-

He was having that dream again- the house in Iowa, the baby girl, them dancing in the yard, the words that he almost said- only to wake up holding her and wonder what it all could possibly mean as his mind caught up to where is body was, remembered what had happened, allowed the sounds- the infant’s sleeping noises, the disembodied music- to fade, reality to come falling back into place.

He gently disentangled his limbs from hers and sat up on the bed moving slowly so as not to wake her. He paused for a moment, rubbing at his face with his hands before he slid carefully out of the bed and started pacing the dimensions of their shared bedroom.

He never paced- not usually, anyway. Not unless he really had something to think about. And he did now more than ever.

He stopped for a moment to look down at her- still sleeping and lovely, and he couldn’t help but smile. She was something entirely unexpected, and somehow she kept surprising him with her physicist’s laugh and her ice cream kisses.

He wasn’t so stupid as to lie to himself; he knew how he felt- he’d been feeling it for a while. Four-hour lovers and now was in-. And it frightened him to be…with her. She was still the same person, had the same personality, the same quirks- he knew the reputation, knew he couldn’t tell her the words, afraid that they would drive her away to the next.

He found little ways to say it, removed any harm from the word- a playful nickname, and that was all the meaning it had- or at least to her. He made the word safe, harmless- just another of his British quirks- but he only said it when he meant it and he meant it each time he said it. Which only made it that much harder to say.

He turned at a soft noise, saw her roll over, searching for him in the tangled blankets with seeking arms and he bent down and took one of her hands in his own before she could wake at his absence, slid back into the bed next to her, pulled her closer, held her as she slept.

So…what was the answer? What did he say? Or did he say? Those forbidden words that he couldn’t speak, couldn’t think…and yet…yet he felt them- every single one of them resonating in his head, his mind, his heart… his unwavering commitment…

“…I love you.”