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Tracks
Only a few tears, as we ran for the runabout, and I quickly blinked them away. I had no time for grief then, still in danger, still needing to complete the mission. I had to complete it for you, so that your death meant something.
So I wept for you for a moment. And for what might have been but never was. For the paths not taken and those places left unexplored.
The others didn't weep. When I told Miles you weren't coming, he understood at once that you'd fallen. He's an old soldier, of course, so he understood and put it aside in an instant, to concentrate on his job and the mission. Soldiers learn to mourn later, weep later. Would Miles have mourned for you? Probably not, he's not your friend. But perhaps as a soldier he'd have respected your sacrifice and honoured your memory.
He never had the time though. None of us did. Too busy saving the Alpha Quadrant, too busy dying, falling into that blinding light.
And then we were ... elsewhere. And alive, all of us, including T'Rul, the Romulan you had carried into my infirmary only hours before. The dead Romulan. Dead, however long and hard I worked to save her. You watched my futile efforts with pain on your face and I knew the pain wasn't for her, but for me.
But now here she stood. Alive. And if T'Rul was alive… I couldn't understand then, still too groggy and confused. But over and over my mind said 'if she's alive…'
How can I tell you I wept for your death, while you smile at me across this table? How can I tell you I saw you die? None of it was real. Your death, the mission, the collapsing wormhole; all a dream, except one thing. When I looked in a mirror, back on the Defiant, I saw the tracks left by my tears.
End