Title: In Time
Author: ChristineCGB
Email: luberluber@yahoo.com.au
Web: http://Appelsini.tripod.com/Christine
Rating: PG
Category: VOY J/C
Disclaimer: Aside from one or two familiar names this story would be barely recognizable by Paramount so I'm not about to agree that it is, in any part theirs.
Summary: "Time has eroded the feelings but not this connection, this pull".
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In Time
You spend a great deal of time worrying about how you look tonight. More than you usually do. You decide in the end that no amount of scrutinisation can cover up the grey in your hair so you stop looking at it. You come as you are. As who you are.
You want her to notice, though. That you look good for your age. That you still manage the physique of someone much younger than you. That you still turn heads with your smile.
But it's natural to feel this way. To feel that there are things that will never be finished. So you tell yourself, it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean there's anything left.
When you get there she's the first one you notice. And she notices you too. Time has eroded the feelings but not this connection, this pull.
She's married now. You notice him too. He's an Admiral or an Ambassador or something important and it's just as you always knew it would be. She's married to someone important and you are alone. But you've had relationships, none of which compared to her. Nothing ever compares to her.
The party is for an old friend, but they are all old friends here. B'Elanna kisses you on the cheek and tells you how well you look. Harry is at your side telling you he is glad you could make it. You congratulate him as "Commander Kim". The party is for his promotion.
It's been so long since you've seen any of them and they were once all you had. Time moved you on so fast that your ties could never keep up. But you wanted it that way. You wanted each day to take you further and further away from that feeling where you wake up with the memory stabbing you like a knife in your stomach.
You
revel in their company now because you can. Because it doesn't hurt anymore.
Because the feeling that lingered for years longer than it should have is gone
and you are you again. Whoever you are.
She
approaches you or you approach her. You're never quite sure which but there you
are. She tells you she is surprised to
see you here. Like everyone else, she thought you had disappeared, that you
didn't want to be found. You take pleasure in telling her that you kept in
touch with B'Elanna. That you kept relationships that she didn't know
about. That you lived and still live
all this time.
She
seems unphased but you know she hides things well.
Her
drink disappears quickly and you think of how you have chosen a non-alcoholic
beverage because drinking reminds you of the time when you drank because of
her. You notice with disappointment
that drinking holds no such sad reminiscence for her.
You
wonder if she ever mourned you. You
gave up expecting her to mourn the way you did long ago but you want to believe
that she grieved and that a part of her felt as you did when it was all gone.
She
asks you how you are and you tell her you are well. You give little away. You
don't tell her that you still haven't worked out whose side you're on or which
way you are going. You want to have secrets that she no longer has the keys to.
You want to be an enigma for her, as she always was for you.
She
doesn't look a day older than when you last saw her and you admit, grudgingly,
that she has this over you too. No matter how hard you try to beat her she'll
always be more beautiful, more successful, so much more confident and self
assured. She'll always possess a sense of direction that you only ever had when
you had her.
And
you never really had her.
You
excuse yourself because you want to be the first one to do so. You've been left
by her so many times in the past that the slightest indication of her movement
away from you causes a sinking feeling and you remember all too well what it
was like to drown for her, to be so completely submerged that you no longer
know how to reach the surface.
You
part.
You
talk. You reminisce with your friends and the memories aren't as painful as
they once were. You're surprised to
find that everyone remembers the good times and the bad are long
forgotten. And you can tell a tale or
two. You can make people laugh and listen intently to your stories. And you listen with genuine interest when
they tell their stories in turn.
It's
different now.
The
night passes. The speeches are made and the toasts lifted before you think of
her again. You locate her across the
room talking emphatically, as she often does when engrossed in conversation. A
slight incline of her head and she catches your eye. She looks unabashedly at you for a full second before looking
away again, not even pausing to halt her speech.
You
wonder what it means that she can find you so quickly in a crowded room and you
know it means nothing and everything at the same time. You know she wants to be
by your side listening to your stories, finding out every detail about you that
she's missed in the years you have been absent from her world. She wants to
laugh with you and remember everything that was beautiful and sad about your
relationship. She wants be near you, to drink in you and the excitement that
charges the air every time you are together and if she could she would fall in
love with you all over again.
You
know because you want it too and it's as constant as the slow attack of time on
your features.
But
it's as impossible now as it was then.
There's never been a right time and the issue is far too old for there
to ever be a right time in the future.
It's
just all over. Said and done and forgotten.
You
go to the bar again and order yourself a drink. A real drink. You stand at the bar and drink it slowly
allowing yourself to feel it's heat, allowing yourself a feeling because you
tell yourself it's a reward you deserve. Because you spend so much time telling
yourself you fell nothing.
When
you finish you head back to the party to find that you can no longer see her.
You search the room and cannot locate her or her partner among those
present.
You
wait a while to see if they return, and when they do not you slowly realise
that they have gone without goodbyes or promises of further contact.
You
don't ask if she has left or if she sent her regards because you know what
they'll think. That you're still in love with her, that you're still holding on
to her memory like a treasured toy from your childhood and you don't want
anyone to think of you as sad, as pitiable.
You
stay. Later you will leave alone, smiling as everyone tells you how good it was
to see you again. You will return to your lodgings neither sad nor happy, still
unable to decide whether the night was a success or failure.
And
you will wonder if there will ever be a time when you will be free of her,
really free, so that you can forget her in her presence and be you.
Whoever
you are.
(fini)