Lt. Tahna Meru - We'll All Be Here Forever (Part II)
Tahna Meru
((Bajoran Bar, Promenade, Deep Space Nine))
A subtle twitch, in the corner of the older woman's eye. Meru might not have noticed, except that the statement startled her.
Tahna: You did protect me, in a way.
Maybe (definitely) not in the way she'd meant to—Meru had still left. And she'd certainly gotten into more than her fair share of trouble while in Starfleet. Kidnappings and bombings, travels through time and encounters with her darkest fears, druggings and near death experiences. Pahna, she'd even dreamt up experiencing the Occupation, the one thing her mother had tried to protect her from more than anything else. That probably never would have happened if she'd stayed on Bajor. Yavarel had tried to keep her daughter close to protect her from harm, but…
Tahna: You gave me your courage, your stubbornness, your grit. You couldn't protect me, but you did…um, arm me. Gave me the tools to protect myself.
And now, maybe I'm more like you than I'd like to admit.
Was it possible they were always meant to mirror each other? Both seeing the possibilities in every curl, every frown, and hating each other for it?
Meru, all her mother could have been.
Yavarel, all her daughter might yet become.
What a fate. Meru’s chest ached, and her mother’s eyes were hard as stone, and she wanted to be anywhere but here.
Tahna Y.: For months after we moved to the farm, we’d wake up to find you’d snuck out overnight.
Yavarel turned the coffee mug in her hands, studying it like she was looking for cracks, but she did not drink.
Tahna Y.: We’d always find you asleep in the kava fields, wrapped up in that quilt, worn out by stargazing.
Tahna: …then Fa painted the night sky on my ceiling. I remember.
It was still there, to this day, though the paint he'd used for the constellations had lost its glow long ago. It was a labor of love, painting the ceiling—it had taken him an entire week. She'd moved her mattress to the floor of Tara's room, where the girls completely failed to get any sleep, and instead stayed up all night reading and discussing plot twists in excitable whispers.
After the stars dried, their nightly book club had moved to Meru’s room, where the artificial constellations bathed everything in a comforting green glow.
Tahna Y.: I worried we'd wake up one morning and you'd just be gone, stowed away on the next shuttle out of there.
A half-smile graced the younger Bajoran's face, though it didn't quite reach her eyes, as she searched for a joke to lighten the mood. Make the air breathable again.
Tahna: I thought about it, but I liked my family too much.
Dammit, Meru.
As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew she'd made a mistake.
Yavarel frowned, more severely than before. Withering. Meru dropped her gaze to the mug of tea, shoulders falling, shrinking in on herself ever so slightly. Anywhere but here, she wanted to be anywhere but here. She’d rather be back in the damn rift, or trapped in Skarbek, or—
Tahna Y.: When you first applied for the Academy, your father told me that it was impossible to expect a girl born in space to stay rooted to Bajor.
Tahna: ::Quietly:: He's always been poetic.
Tahna Y.: He's always been right. Especially when I really wish he wasn't.
Tahna: Marnah…
But, like a dam finally breaking, Yavarel just kept speaking. Still serious as ever, hesitant to make eye contact just like her daughter.
Tahna Y.: I was so focused on making sure you didn’t turn out like me, I never saw who you were.
Meru reeled back, as if she’d taken a phaser shot straight to the chest. But it wasn’t…bad. Painful, Bentel, it was so painful, but… Why did that simple acknowledgement hurt so much?
It was the last thing she’d expected. She was supposed to say her piece, get shut down by her mother for the zillionth time, and leave to drink her sorrows away. She wasn’t supposed to…to…to do whatever this was.
Meru’s hands clenched the mug, and she drank in the sweet scent of the tea, staying present at all costs. Waiting, assessing, then letting the words tumble out.
Tahna: You spent your life fighting for Bajoran freedom, for the right to exist on our own planet. You wanted me to appreciate that, your sacrifices. And I did, I do, more than you will ever know.
Skarbek had seen to that. Forced her to spend time in her mother’s shoes, in a way. Even though it was an experience Meru would never dare share with the woman, even if they were on the best of terms, it had informed the guilt and heaviness in her heart.
Tahna: But I couldn’t stay here when there's so many folks who need help out there. And…and you're the reason I was even able to make that choice in the first place, even if you wish I'd taken the other path.
Tahna Y.: I still wish you’d taken the other path. It’s a lot damn safer, for one thing.
Yavarel sighed. The words hung in the air, stinging lightly. Less painful than they might have been, than they had been in the past, but still…
A nearby table erupted in raucous laughter, and Meru glanced over, welcoming the interruption. A young couple, by the looks of it, Bajoran and human, in fits over some joke. Joyful. Achingly happy.
Meru’s heart clenched, and she tore her gaze away, settling back on her half-drained mug. After a second, when the bar quieted again, Yavarel cleared her throat.
Tahna Y.: But you— you are the greatest thing I’ve lost, and I am proud of you, Meru.
Meru’s breath caught, a tear threatened to spill out that she tried (failed) to blink away. When she gathered the courage to look up, every muscle in her body involuntarily tense like she was under attack, she didn’t know what to expect. But all she saw in her mother’s dark eyes was…sincerity. Honesty, vulnerability, behind the impenetrable mask.
And Bentel, that broke her.
Meru nodded, and nodded again, and opened her mouth to say something, anything, but…but she had nothing. Not one word, no single note for this unfamiliar tune. No use wiping away the tears, either, they’d stop on their own time.
She pushed the mug to the side, unsteady hands lingering a moment before letting go.
Slowly, hesitantly, Meru reached across the table, taking her mother’s calloused hands in her own.
She didn’t know where to go from here. She’d been at odds with her mother practically her whole life— what came after that?
Practiced breaths steadied her breathing, and the tears gradually slowed, until Meru could see past the emotions. Just over her mother’s shoulder, out the door of the bar, stood a small market stand hawking shirts, mugs, souvenir-strips of gold-pressed latinum, cheap models of the station. One customer was haggling with the owner loudly enough to be heard in the quiet bar.
Hopeful brown eyes met a pair identical if more weathered.
Tahna: Do you– ::She hiccuped, damn crying.:: Do you want to shop for terrible souvenirs with me?
Tahna Y.: Absolutely not.
Meru stared at her mother. Yavarel’s tone was stern, but something twinkled in her eyes, something hinted in the twitch of her lips. Something new.
The women burst into laughter.
fin