Reaper, L: Parting is Such...

Stardate: 00718.0852
Subject: Parting is Such...
Author: Louise Reaper
Time: Before "Burned Into My Memory (ouch)"
Scene: Starbase 185

"Thank you, Commander.  Yes, I'll be ready at 0600.  See you then."

Louise Reaper closed the Starbase's internal commlink and looked despairingly to the floor.  A male hand reached to her shoulder from behind, caressing it, kneading it.

"Then tonight is our last night together," a male voice said.  Louise did not respond.  Slowly, she reached with her own hand toward the man's, reluctantly, longingly. Softly, she said, "Yes."

A long moment of silence followed.  For Louise, it was less than comfortable, but welcome.  One long moment with only the dimness of the room to behold, only the familiar staleness of the air to contemplate.  Silently she closed her eyes and her hand became cold stone over that one of flesh on her shoulder.  She could touch, and it would mean nothing... couldn't she?

The silence was broken by a coarseness she was becoming all too familiar with.  A rough voice, an over-strong hand.  She was pulled away from the desk and spun around in her swivel chair.  There before her was the face that, only three long nights ago, comforted her in her moment of weakness.  It regarded her now with a distance that laid her bare, exposing her regrets.  She knew that distance was simply a reflection of that in her own gaze.

"John, I..." Louise began.

"... can't," the man abruptly finished.  "I know.  I can feel your reluctance." His words were cold.  He removed his hands from her body, and she relaxed unconsciously, but visibly.  The man looked off to one side, and shrugged.  "I should have known.  You're just too good for your own good.  And now you're going to run off to your high and mighty husband on the Starfleet fast track, and be a good little wife and mother again, eh?  Do you really think you can be satisfied with that role ever again, after what you've done here?  And do you think you could ever face that man after what you've shared with me?"

He was standing now, looming over her while she sat in the chair, shaking, sobbing, seeming to cower beneath his oppressive form.  She neither noticed his dominant stance, nor would she have cared.  She was in her own misery, wallowing in her misdeeds as they threatened to consume her.  Raging with herself in her own mind, she was taken by surprise when he took her by the shoulders and forced her out of the chair.

"Well, don't you have anything to say to me?" was what he meant to say, but little more than the first word ever escaped his lips.  Instinctively, Louise raised her forearms, separating herself from the powerful man's grasp.  Rising on her own, the heels of her hands came down below his ears with more force than she estimated.  The man reeled back, reaching for his head in pain.  As he became prone, Louise wheeled around and put her foot against his larynx, shoving him violently backward.  As he fell, he tripped on the coffee table, and fell neatly into the edge of the desk.  The base of his skull contacted cleanly, and separated from the spine.  He fell to the floor, finally, with surprising grace, and lay silent.

Louise stood dumbfounded as she looked upon the dead man.  She was shaking, her muscles tense, her heart pounding.  She began to sweat, or realized she had been.  She knew the meaning of the faint cracking sound she heard as his head hit the desk, but fought to deny understanding.  Turning wildly, she ran into the room where Istari lay sleeping, scooped him into her arms, and ran as fast as she could to the infirmary, the image of the powerful man following her all the way.

Louise Reaper
Civilian
USS Carpathia