Subject: Grail: "Last Look Back" - `Don't Look Back'
<<Stardate: 47307.17- 11:00>>
<<USS Indiana>>
Captain Hillary Singh sat looking at herself in
the mirror wishing to God that she could take it all
back. Her whole life, she had dedicated to the
pursuit of discovery. To `the Answers'. And now, as
she faced the old woman she now was, she realized
that the Answers had already been discovered.
And all her life, she had been asking the wrong
`Questions'.
And the worst part of it all was that it took the
rejection of her darkest fantasy to make her see how
poorly she had squandered her life. It took one of
the most unloved men in the Alpha Quadrant to
show her what she had missed.
Captain Dracula could not make love to her
because he didn't love her. And even though that
was not important to her, it had been important to
him. And the shame she felt when he confessed
that made her feel like the child, and he the `Wise'
one.
It was not his rejection that had wounded her so
deeply. But, it was the realization that she had
never truly loved anyone. Except Devon Masur. And
she had left him to look for the Answers. And in the
eyes of Epic Terrakian, she saw that.
She didn't want to remember how he had pushed
her away, only a short while ago. She had kissed
his cold lips and for a moment, she felt them warm. But, then, he took
his kiss away and touched her face. And when he did, she heard music.
And it was not just any music. It was the violin. It was a song she
had heard only once before in her life. The night on Risa when she had
told Devon Masur she was leaving. And with the music came the memories
of the pain. She had loved Devon. Genuinely and deeply. And the young
Betazoid who played her such a painfully beautiful song had tried to
tell her that, all those years ago.
But she did not respond to the music, then. She responded to the
pain. She had punished herself with it then, and it had salved her. But,
she had misplaced its intention. She focused on the young musician that
allowed her to hurt and turned away from the man who made her able to
hurt.
And the music that had freed her soul from the pain of her failure,
brought that pain back, with all the accumulated interest of years of
denial. Of years of justifying her loss by telling her that she had a
Greater Purpose. Now, at this terrible point in her life, the music that
allowed her to go on stripped away her will to go on.
She fooled herself to think that she was looking for the Answers,
when all she had been doing was mapping her own backyard. And now, it
was Epic who would be searching for the Answers. And he could find the
Answers, because he knew the right Questions.
She cried again as she thought of Devon, seven years dead at the
Massacre of Wolf 359. If she had married him, as he had begged, they
would have shared the Indiana and so much more.
And now, the Indiana was as wounded as she was. And it would limp
back home. As she would. Except, there would be many to welcome the old
starship back. There would be no one to welcome her. Even Marouk was
dead. There was no reason to go back.
And just like that, it came to her like a starburst. She wouldn't
go back. She would go forward. It was too late for her. Her life would
never be complete, not in the way she now hoped. But, she could still
finish her life like she had always lived it. She could still search for
the Answers. Like Percavel, she would dedicate her life to the Quest.
But, unlike Percavel, she had found her Grail.
And this Grail made the continuation of her quest possible.
Straightening herself and wiping away her tears, she prepared to
confront Captain Dracula and force him to take her with him.
And she felt certain, with a sinister smile, he would.