NEW: ENT Back Home 1/1 [PG] (A, T, both implied, OC)
KayJay
Author: KayJay
Contact: kwa...@gtcom.net
Series: ENT
Part: 1/1
Rating: PG
Codes: A, T, (both implied), OC
Summary: Even nameless, faceless members of the *Enterprise* crew have
their own reasons for staying on into The Expanse.
Spoilers: Maybe for "The Expanse" but nothing concrete.
Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, not mine. Poo.
Archive: No archive, please
AN: Done for Mara's Gershwin Challenge. I've never heard this Gershwin
song, so I have no idea if it is fast or slow. I guessed slow. Thanks
to DH & JR for a quick beta.
* * * * *
Back Home
By KayJay
Gramma's house always smelled like winter.
Even in the oven heat of August, with the Alberta winds whipping the
tall grass like froth and making the white muslin curtains at her
bedroom window dance, Bekka was sure the musky scent never changed.
Ever since she could remember, it had greeted her each summer the
moment she stepped with her suitcases from the screened porch through
the heavy walnut front door. Only before, she didn't know why the
house smelled that way, all closed up and solid, like nothing lived
there.
During the last year she'd figured out it was winter that made it so.
Mama had said it would be easier on her -- on daddy too -- if she'd go
on and stay with Gramma a while. Just until things were figured out,
and they were sure there wouldn't be any more attacks. It was safer
here, on the edge of the Buffalo Commons, in a place where hardly
anybody lived anyway, so probably nobody would get hurt. Most days,
that suited Bekka just fine. Today had been no different.
It was five minutes to ten when she went out the back door to sit on
the stoop, looking up at the brilliant night sky and biting into a
juicy peach from the full crate they'd bought at the Jack n' Jill that
afternoon. Music drifted through the open window above her head, and
she pictured Gramma sitting in her velvet chair at the vanity,
liberally applying the moisturizer cream that made her smell of rose
petals. Every night, without fail, she put on one of her old music
discs, to wind down, she said. Bekka knew not everyone was like her
grandmother -- an eccentric old woman with long brown hair streaked
with gray and a love of anything older than her.
She recognized this particular collection of songs from the early days
of recordings -- Gramma played them a lot lately. She told her she
liked the old songs, because things were different then. Better, in
some ways. There was less unknown, and more promise to the things in
life. Sometimes Bekka heard her crying as she listened to them when
she didn't think her granddaughter was around.
A rich female voice sang along with the simple melody.
//All the flowers are in bloom, back home,
And all the birds sing...//
When Grampa had still been alive, he'd made the pilgrimage to the back
yard every night, with Bekka in tow from the time she'd been old
enough to follow him. Altair, Deneb, Vega -- they were always the
standouts, the brightest stars she could see, and Grampa had made sure
she knew their names. They had to be important places. She wondered if
her brother would ever go to any of them.
//There's no room for gloom, back home,
For it is spring...//
Methodically she staked out the night sky, locating all the familiar
constellations. Taurus and Gemini, Ursa Minor, and the Big Dipper,
following the edge of its bowl in line to the North Star. At this
longitude it sat quite high in the sky -- in Florida she sometimes
hadn't been able to find it easily because of the trees, or the
streetlights in their neighborhood. But here on the dark prairie, the
star stood out as if she were at sea, sailing a great ship to places
unknown.
She used to find that comforting and a little exciting, especially
when she was younger. They'd learned in school all about what the Warp
Five engine would do for people here on Earth, how it would be easier
to go farther faster and meet new aliens. Maybe even some that the
Vulcans had never seen. How thrilling it had been to her then, to
think they could make new friends.
Now that optimism seemed childish.
//Yet our hearts would be lighter,
Dear, and life would seem brighter...//
Her family had made the trek to Bozeman one summer four years ago when
she was eight, piling into the car and driving for hours past the
prairie potholes and across the Dakota Badlands, stopping there to eat
the summer sausage and tomato sandwiches that Gramma had made for the
trip. She'd slept most of the way through eastern Montana's vast open
countryside, only waking when the mountains looked as tall as half the
side window.
The First Contact museum and site made quite an impression on her, but
with her brother even more so. If she closed her eyes she could see
him now, all of sixteen years staring wide-eyed at the statue of
Zephram Cochrane like he was a little kid again. If she listened
closely, she could hear him chattering away on the drive back home,
making her crazy with "Vulcans this," and "Starfleet that." And if she
really tried, really thought about it, she could still feel the joy
and excitement in the hug he gave her after he graduated boot camp,
two years later. It was different from his hug a few months ago,
before he left for something called the Delphic Expanse. But she
didn't like to think about that much.
//If we knew that you too
Were back home...//
Bekka stood up, chilled in the late summer evening. The high-pitched
whine of a mosquito droned in her ear, and she swatted at the air. She
went back into the house, the screen door slamming behind her.
Fastening the hook-and-eye to keep the dog inside, she padded quietly
through the downstairs on the way to her room.
The tinny music grew louder and then faded again as she passed the
player, orchestra swelling, old-timey scratches crackling into the
room even on a digital copy of the old recording. She imagined the
same tune wandering through the same rooms, two hundred years before.
The farm had been in her family for generations -- her
great-great-grandfather had built the house, raised his family. When
he died, he'd become the first in a long line of relatives who now
took up the southwest corner of the town cemetery. Bekka already had
her spot picked out, underneath a flowing weeping willow.
Nothing much had changed here during all the years from then to now,
even during the wars. Nothing much changed, ever, in this part of the
world. Except in Montana.
//We all are yearning back home
For your returning back home...//
Her room was chilly, and even now the air moved slightly through the
open window. It had been close to thirty-five today, but the nights
still cooled down to blanket weather. She lowered the sash to an inch
above the sill, and changed into her blue cotton nightgown.
Leaning over, she picked up a news article that had blown down from
her collection on the wall, its carefully-torn edges bent and
dog-eared. *Enterprise to Search for Xindi*, it read. The faces of the
bridge crew in the stock photo displayed an air of confidence and
certainty. She often thought the captain looked almost ready to smile.
He hadn't smiled much when she'd seen him at the families' reception,
when mama and daddy sent for her to come to California. When her
brother was going back into space.
//It's been so lonely wanting you only;
No more I hope you'll roam...//
Plopping down on her twin bed, she cuddled into the sheets, their
coolness making them feel clean. This had been his room before he'd
left, where he'd stayed during their summer visits. She stared at the
patterns in the tiles above her, finding the same pictures and faces
that he used to point out to her...the monsters that floated above his
bed just to scare her. She was older now, more mature, but sometimes
she still felt uneasy in the middle of the night. Even though it had
been more than a year since the attack, her nights were still filled
with dreams.
Their house had escaped most of the damage, but only by a block.
Debris had filled their yard, and the windows had broken, but like a
tornado on the plains, the beam had been fickle with its kindness. But
not with its destruction.
Bekka had stared for a long time at the white-painted lines in the
middle of the road that ran past her house, leading as it always had
to the intersection with the four-way stop. Beyond that, though, where
her best friend Lianne had lived, where she had eaten pizza with the
French club, where she had waited every weekday for years for the
transport, the earth seemed to drop away. Everything that had existed
between her house and school a mile further had been taken. The chasm
hadn't simply swallowed everything -- it had erased it all, as if it
had never been.
//Here where the lights are aglow,
Back home may seem to be slow...//
Her gaze fell on a picture of her brother, standing proudly in his
crewman's uniform. He'd had to explain to her the difference between a
crewman and an officer; being only ten she'd blanked out while he told
her about his job. She felt guilty now that she hadn't paid enough
attention to what he'd said, then or ever. She was proud of him,
especially now. Especially with where *Enterprise* was going, and what
they were trying to do.
She looked at the article again, with its equally proud-looking crew,
and recognized one of the faces as her brother's boss -- his superior
officer, she corrected herself. Commander Tucker, she read again in
the caption below. His first name was Trip, her brother had said.
Weird. He'd been friendly enough at the first send-off, when
*Enterprise* had launched. A *real* Southern accent, she remembered,
not like in the central part of the state where they had lived. Kinda
cute, too. She smiled. Lianne had been jealous when she told her she'd
met him.
When her family had seen Mr. Tucker again, he was different. Lots of
people were different now. He was still cute, but the darkness that
hovered over everyone since the attack seemed particularly attached to
him.
//But where the skies are bluer,
You'll find that cares are fewer...//
Bekka reached up and turned out the bedside light, watching as the
moonlight filled her window. When she was really little, she thought
the moon hung at the end of the universe. As she grew older, she was
happy to find out there was more, beyond. But now she sometimes wished
it had been true. It felt safer somehow.
//And I know that hearts are friendlier and truer, dear,
Away back home.//
She closed her eyes, hearing her gramma's sniffles from the other
room. The ten o'clock siren pierced the silence outside of her window,
crying from the small Dakota town a mile and a half away. Folks
already in bed would sleep through its eerie comfort; those still up
would know it was time to turn in, because tomorrow was always another
day.
She would sleep without tears tonight, as she had every night since
she'd left home behind. The dreams would return again -- maybe they
would be kind tonight, and she'd remember her friends, play on the
merry-go-round, eat homemade strawberry ice cream with her family,
wrestle with her brother. But she knew the screaming would start, too,
and then Gramma would be there to hold her, smelling of rose petals,
rocking her, telling her everything was gonna be all right.
Telling her lies.
Nothing would ever be the same again. Even here. Even in Montana. But
things could get better at least, Bekka knew, if *Enterprise* was able
to save the world.
And then it could bring her brother back home.
-- end --
Ke Roth
of familiar memories of my summers spent with my grandparents. But you
evoked a lot of other, eerier memories as well; I especially thought
your line:
>
> Nothing would ever be the same again. Even here. Even in Montana.
brought back a lot of feelings I have left from 9/11.
Very poignantly told, and very beuatifully written. Thanks for posting
it.
KE
Alex Voy
> I loved this story. Your imagery was excellent and brought back a lot
> of familiar memories of my summers spent with my grandparents.
I too really liked this story, even though I have no idea what it is
about and I'm just not an *Enterprise* fan. But I don't need to know
the background, because the story stands alone just fine. Everything
is explained in a few deceptively casual words.
I love the imagery and the continuing use of all the senses. It has
an almost dream-like quality that is quite compelling. I tried to
pick out a phrase or paragraph that I particularly liked, but there
were too many to choose from. It's very consistent and polished.
An excellent story that works on several levels.
Alex
KayJay
> of familiar memories of my summers spent with my grandparents.
Great...I was reaching for that. I started to think that Bekka could
be my great-great-granddaughter. ;-)
> But you
> evoked a lot of other, eerier memories as well; I especially thought
> your line:
> >
> > Nothing would ever be the same again. Even here. Even in Montana.
>
> brought back a lot of feelings I have left from 9/11.
9/11 is our generation's Pearl Harbor. And while things have moved on
in the last two years, it is true, that even in the most remote places
in this country, something has changed.
> Very poignantly told, and very beuatifully written. Thanks for posting
> it.
Thank you for the feedback!
KayJay
KayJay
> about and I'm just not an *Enterprise* fan. But I don't need to know
> the background, because the story stands alone just fine. Everything
> is explained in a few deceptively casual words.
"Deceptively casual"...ooo, I like that! Thank you for the feedback.
Glad you liked it!
KayJay
Seema
> Title: Back Home
> Author: KayJay
Oooohhhhh
Since I've been avoiding spoilers for ENT in general, I only had a dim
idea of what happened towards the end of season two, but...
S
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This was a terrific character portrait. The descriptions are vivid --
there are some places where I can hear/smell/see exactly what's going
on. In addition, I appreciate the subtlety of this piece -- the quiet
grief under the surface and the faint sense of desperation. The
aftermath of the attack on Earth and how it affected Trip et al is
understated and well written. Very, very nice. Thanks for sharing.
seema