Chapter Eight:
Alexander returned to his quarters to find it
empty. His parents were probably still in the
infirmary. Relieved to not have to face anyone, he did
not instruct the computer to raise the lights and
attempted to eat a light dinner. He could not even
finish a salad for lack of appetite. A few days ago,
he had believed his life was perfect. Rosa was
perfect. Now he couldn't even talk with the girl whom
he could once tell everything.
I have to talk with her, he decided. Just say
anything. It's better than this silence between us.
Replicating a red rose, he decided to go to her
quarters. She loved flowers and so he hoped the
gesture would ease the tension between them.
"Rosa," he said as she greeted him at the
door,"may I come in?"
"Are you going to just ignore me like you did
before?" she asked coolly.
He did not offer her the flower, but hoped she
would notice it. "I'm sorry for that. I was wrong."
He hesitated, waiting for her to respond. "Please. . .
." Now he did offer her the flower. Although she took
it, she quickly discarded it on a small table. He felt
like she was throwing him away.
"You can come in," she said. Alex could not tell
whether she was still angry with him or not. "I think
we need to talk anyway." As they moved into the room,
they both looked at the sofa--and remained standing.
Rosa folded her arms across her chest, afraid to open
up to the boy she had spent countless hours in chatter
over the past three months.
He looked toward her and she met his gaze
squarely. Without thinking, they were in each others
arms the next minute, Alexander lifting up her shirt to
fondle her breasts and Rosa struggling to unfasten his
pants. With his pants only half undone and her panties
down to her knees, she took him into her. They backed
against the wall for support and rocked quickly to and
fro, both of them working up a sweat. There was no
tenderness in their lovemaking, only pure and painful
lust. Out of a strong sense of guilt, both teenagers
desired suffering over pleasure.
"Hurt me!" she pleaded. He bit into her shoulder,
and she screamed, feeling both pleasure and pain. "I'm
such a bad girl. I need you to punish me."
He growled in her ear, which brought sharp
memories of the first time he had growled at her. As
he was about to cum, Alexander suddenly pulled out of
her and pushed her away.
"What the hell are we doing!" he exclaimed.
Quickly, he pulled up his pants.
They looked at one another with shock and fear.
What had they become? Alexander wondered. Animals that
acted on instinct? Did they no longer care what
happened to themselves?
"We're punishing ourselves," she told him, "the
only way we know how."
"Well, it's wrong! We have to stop this! This
isn't talking. This isn't anything!"
"What are you saying?"
"I think I should leave."
Rosa wanted to say something. It was obvious by
her startled expression, but as before she could not
speak up. Instead, she pulled up her panties and
hastily ran into her bedroom.
Alexander left. He did not want to return to his
quarters where he knew his parents would eventually
show up. Yet as he stepped out into the corridor and
studied the options around him, he knew he had no other
choice.
*****
Rosa did not know how she was supposed to feel and
so she allowed herself to grow numb. She could not
stand being cooped up in her quarters after what had
happened between her and Alexander, so she left.
She wandered around the promenade level aimlessly
going from shop to shop. She browsed through clothing,
flowers and a variety of souvenirs without a purpose.
She really wasn't looking, but rather going through the
motions as a means of busywork. In the past week, she
had gone from a carefree teenager who did as she
pleased, to the distraught, impetuous young woman she
was today. She had been a bit vane before. Now she
hated herself.
No matter how quickly she hastened from shop to
shop, she could not completely block her thoughts and
the image of young Shannara being pulled out of the
bath water raced through her mind like a series of
snapshots. For fifteen years, Rosa's existence had
been one mainly of self-centered interest. It wasn't
so much that she disliked other people or that she had
deliberately wronged others for her own personal gain.
But until she had seen Shannara's bloated purple face,
she had not thought much about the welfare of anyone
other than herself.
That's why it's my fault Alexander's little sister
is dying! She screamed inside her head. It was my idea
to invite myself over to his quarters when I knew his
parents would be away. I wore the provocative mini
skirt, knowing full well what I wanted to happen. Alex
was supposed to be watching his little sister. And I
didn't care!
She closed her eyes, trying to remember the
energetic face of the young girl and could only picture
the moment her boyfriend had pulled his little sister
out of the water.
Oh god, if she dies, I don't want to live!
Rosa reached the end of the line of shops and came
to a balcony that peered over the deck below. As she
leaned over the railing, she thought about how far of a
drop it was--at least thirty or forty meters, she
imagined. One step and she would be walking away from
all her pain.
She held her breath. Tears stung her eyes. What
am I thinking?! She screamed in her head.
Do it! another voice whispered. Five seconds and
it would all be over.
Rosa bit her lip. She lifted her right foot to
the bottom rail.
Nervously, she glanced around to see if anyone was
watching her. The closest person, a woman browsing
through dresses on a rack, was more than thirty meters
away.
No one can stop me, she realized. If I really
want to, no ne could keep me from ending it all right
now.
She lifted her other leg. Then her right leg went
over the top rail. She released her grip.
And she was falling.
And then she wasn't.
Someone had grabbed her by the back of her shirt.
Dangling precariously thirty meters in the air, she
wondered frighteningly for a split second if time had
slowed way down. Maybe that was the punishment all
suicides received--five seconds to fall in reality, but
like minutes to the sinner. The sensation made her
dizzy, and she looked up to see a handsome man in his
mid twenties holding on to her with little effort. He
looked like an angel, she decided. And maybe he was.
She felt her heart beating faster as she stared into
his kind eyes. He pulled her back to safety and said,
"I don't think you really wanted to do that."
She wanted to ask him so much. Who was he? Where
did he come from? How did he get to her so quickly?
Why did he care when she was nothing less than a
murderess. Yet stumbling to the floor, she barely
managed to utter, "How?"
He did not answer the question. Instead, he
smiled knowingly at her. "You will see new hope in the
haze," he promised her. "If you just let yourself get
past today." And then he turned and walked away from
her.
She stared at him until he was out of her sight.
She wanted to chase after him, but thought better of
it. He would have stayed if it were necessary. With
that thought, she suddenly realized that her desire to
end her life had subsided. She still felt the guilt,
but it no longer consumed her.
Beverly and Picard had finished their dinner, but
remained in the restaurant to talk for a while. Most
of their conversation centered around fantasy of their
running off together, none of which either of them
really expected to carry out. Since she was facing the
window, the doctor noticed the young man as he walked
past. She gasped.
"What is it, Beverly?" the captain asked as he
gripped her hand. "Are you feeling all right?"
"Yes, I'm fine," she barely managed. "I'm a
little tired, though. Would you mind if you escorted
me back to my quarters and we called it a night?"
Disappointment painted his features, but he nodded
and like a gentleman walked with her to her quarters.
As Robin turned to input some data, she caught a
familiar face among the crowd outside engineering.
"Wesley," she uttered in disbelief. Could it
really be him or just someone who looked like him at a
glance? She couldn't let him out of her sight without
knowing!
"Ensign Lefler," a commanding voice called out to
her.
She moaned, silently berating herself for
forgetting her duties. All she needed was to be
written up for insubordination! She turned around to
face Jeckyl's wrath. As frightened as she was, she
couldn't suppress the urge to chase after her estranged
boyfriend. What was he doing here?
"I have some news I'd like to share with you."
"News?" Inwardly, Robin wondered what she had
done wrong now. Yet at the same time she felt a
strange relief that he hadn't noticed that she'd almost
bolted out of engineering to chase after a man she only
thought was Wesley Crusher.
"I have recommended you for a promotion. I know I
push a little too hard sometimes but that is because I
want to see my crew succeed. Sometimes people are
capable of a whole lot more than they realize. I'm
always here to nudge you into proving yourself. Well,
you've certainly proven yourself with me. Your work on
this station has been exemplary."
Robin smiled. She could not believe what she was
hearing! After putting up with his complaints almost
daily for months, she was now receiving not only his
praise, but a recommendation for promotion too. "Thank
you, sir. This means a lot to me."
"I'm sure it does," he said with a nod. "Good
luck to you."
Turning back around once again with the intention
of inputing data, she remembered about Wesley. He was
long gone now and she asked herself if she really
wanted to see him after all this time? And if she did,
what would she say to him?
"It can't be a coincidence," she realized aloud.
"He has to be here because his mother's here. Maybe I
should go have a talk with her." With that decision
made, she anxiously waited out the last hour of her
shift.
*****
"You've really seen Wesley?" Dr. Crusher said near
tears. Robin had roused her from a semi-conscious
state, but the news had quickly awakened her. "Then
I'm not hallucinating."
"I thought. . .well, if he's here--"
"That he would have been in touch with me?"
Beverly frowned. "Not exactly. I've seen him briefly a
few times, in my quarters, on the Huron, just this
evening out in the corridor, but he doesn't speak to
me. Then he disappears. I thought I was going crazy,
but if you've seen him, too--"
"Then he's really here."
They both mused over this for a moment, Robin
playing dreamily with her hair. After a moment, she
looked the doctor straight in the eyes. "I guess we
should now ask ourselves what are we going to do about
it? If he's hiding from us, how do we corner him?"
"We can project our thoughts," Beverly said,
growing distant. "Did Wesley ever tell you about the
time I was caught in a warp bubble?"
"Yes. He said the Traveler helped him rescue
you."
"What he may not have told you is how he summoned
the Traveler. His thoughts were so concentrated on the
need to rescue me that the Traveler picked up on it."
"Are you saying he telepathically picked up on the
Traveler?"
"I don't think the Traveler would refer to it in
that way. He'd call it something like a total mind
transference. Wesley inadvertently sent his thoughts,
his mind, into a plane he didn't even know existed."
"And this is the plane the Traveler took him to
several years ago?"
"I think so. The Traveler once said that the
mind, space and time were all part of the same whole
and that Wesley had come closer to realizing that than
any Human before him."
"That seems like a fairly easy theory to accept,"
Robin replied, "but how do we apply it to the real
world? How do we reach this plane?"
"I guess the first step is believing. If we
concentrate hard enough on our desire to talk with
Wesley, maybe he'll do the rest of the work for us."
"I hope I don't offend you, Doctor, but I'm not
sure I want to talk with him."
For a moment, Beverly was taken aback until
acceptance came. Wesley had led Robin to believe he
wanted to marry her only to abruptly leave her without
even a goodbye. Robin's hesitation, if not anger, was
justified.
"I'm not saying no," Robin clarified. "I just
need a day or so to think about it."
Crusher nodded. "I understand." She suddenly
felt a strong urge to be alone--and brood. "Contact me
when you've made your decision. Now if you don't mind,
I'm very tired."
After Robin left, Beverly instructed the computer
to dim the lights to twenty-five percent. For a long
while, she sat up in bed thinking deeply. Wesley,
don't you know I want to see you?
Why had he chosen now to come back? Did he know
about Shannara Rozhenko's injury? And if he did, had
the Traveler given him the power to perform miracles?
"Wesley, if you have the ability to save a dying
girl's life, please, please come to me now. Don't let
her or her parents suffer any longer." Silently, she
added, Don't let me suffer.
She waited several more minutes before crawling
under her covers and smacking her pillow with a fist in
frustration. For the first twenty-three years of her
son's life, Beverly felt they had had a close, healthy
relationship. Now he was little more than a stranger.
*****
That night as Rosa lay in her guest's bed,
reflecting over her attempted suicide, she could not
get one thought out of her head. I had let go. I was
falling.
And that man had been no where nearby.
I had let go!
