Subject: Grail:"Great Brightness"-'The Chosen Path'

'The Chosen Path'

by: LtCmdr Janice Hargen

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Janice wiped the tears from her eyes, finally calm enough to do so. She

had come to terms with what she was ages ago. She consciously

straightened her shoulders. It was time to stop acting like a baby and

move on. Picking herself off the ground, she surveyed the room. The

table and chair were each in several pieces, which were littering the

opposite side of the room. They had shattered upon impact. She bit her

lip, a wave of emotion coming over her again. She wouldn't let herself

break again. The time had come where she had to accept the facts and move

on.

Swallowing heavily, she forced the sob down that had come to her throat.

She didn't want to accept the facts. Accept that she was - her throat

closed as she even thought it - incapable of love. But no man, no matter

how intelligent, how much of a genius he was, no man could ever replicate

love. Oh, she could care for a person, as she did for both Epic and Eve.

And she could comfort them when they were upset, and hold them when they

needed to be held, and care for them when they were hurt. But she would

never fool herself into thinking that she was capable of love. She wasn't

good enough for that.

She didn't bother to straighten the room. It would serve as an efficient

reminder. A perfect thing to show her what she wouldn't allow herself to

succumb to again. Instead, she stepped before the mirror and stared at

herself. The long dark hair, traveling past her shoulders, down her back,

and ending just above her knees. The eyes, staring at themselves, unable

to see anything within them. The finely sculpted features, the gentle

line of her chin. Her jaw tightened more the longer she looked at her

reflection. Suddenly, her hand flew up and smashed the mirror, glass

piercing her fist, the light reflecting off the shards as they tumbled to

the ground. It was so fake. All that she saw was so very fake.

Licking her chapped lips, she stared down at the mess at her feet, the

light making the pieces glitter like jewels. Taking a deep, shaky breath,

she closed her fist even tighter, the shards digging their way even deeper

into her flesh. She could feel pain, quite distinctly. But she could

turn it off when she wanted. Which made it just as fake as anything else.

She looked down at her hand, finally. Blood ran down her fingers, pooling

itself on the floor. She stared at it curiously, almost morbidly. Oh,

Mandan had created her well. "If you prick me, do I not bleed?" The

quote ran through her mind madly. Oh yes, she bled. But that didn't make

her any more human. Not according to her standards. She was missing a

major asset that humans, all humans, possessed. The ability to love.

She shook her head, trying to knock herself out of the terrible,

self-loathing mood she was in. She reached for a washcloth, wrapping it

around her hand. She'd clean the "blood" later. And the mirror. She

swallowed, hard. If she closed her eyes, she could see Epic, looking like

he needed her so terribly. She couldn't make herself abstain from going

to him again. She would - she couldn't help it. But she would try to

draw herself away. Ever so slowly, but surely. She couldn't risk hurting

him. It was unfair to allow him to feel for her the way she tried to fool

herself into thinking she felt for him. That had happened once - and she

would never be able to forgive herself for what it had done to him.

She dropped the washcloth on the table, unheeding of the mess it made.

All would be cleaned up later. All of the physical mess anyhow. Her hand

had stopped bleeding, as she knew it would. She pulled out a repair kit

and quickly fixed the minor cuts. It was enough so that it would look

like she had been to sickbay. She could fix that later, too.

She left her quarters, her face drawn, but her stride steady. She had

finally found a path to take and would follow it, no matter how much it

hurt her to do so. The pain would fade eventually. Just as the pain in

her hand did. It would take longer, of course, but knowing that she would

have saved him from the eventual pain would help. For every relationship

she had been in ended in pain and torment. It was inevitable.