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.