The Greatest Man I Never Knew { Father's Day

[ships_counselor]

The greatest man I never knew, lived just down the hall
And everyday we said hello, but never touched at all
He was in his paper, I was in my room

How was I to know he thought I hung the moon


Part, The First

The day had been long, but neither extremely good or bad, hard or easy. A day, like any other day, slotted away. Her files checked and double checked, both her own and those of her whole counseling team. Her log for the day made and saved. She hadn't yet found her sleep clothes, but she'd sat down, brush in hand, as she turned the comm on and told the computer to call Beverly.

A conversation with Beverly before bed, one that didn't have to be work or checking in, and could be all at once for both of them, too, and whatever else it needed or wanted to be would be nice. A perfect foot note to end it all, and send her to sleep.

Deanna yawned, and started brushing the bottom of her curls, as the comm connected, and a voice said, "There's my Durango."

[ locked to Deanna & Ian Troi ]

Part, The Middle

After the call ended, Deanna sat for there staring at the off screen. First, convincing herself any of it had been real, and then, after that, after trying to stack it up next to everything else bizarre, but still real, that had happened since Q commandeered The Enterprise, tried to commit everything to memory, like it was sand slipping through her fingers already.

His voice. His smile. The way he moved.

She didn't know how long she sat there, or how many times she reached up to wipe a tear from her cheek, or when exactly she'd finally pushed up and left her quarters. Needing to talk to Beverly. Or Will. Whichever she happened to get to first. Someone else. Someone other than her own head.

[ ** Open to All As She Walks ]

Part, The Last

Deanna stopped at Beverly's door, still dazed, still in her work clothes. Her fingers pressed the chime, and she said, as though hearing her voice from so far away, "It's Deanna."

[ locked to BFF Beverly ]

Comments

[npcs_everywhere]

"Hello, little one." Ian Troi smiled from the comm image, proud and gentle and all good things a father should be. He never expected to get an opportunity like this after so long, but he was grateful.

[ships_counselor]

Deanna froze in a complex of confusion, as everything seemed to slow down and speed up all at once.

Her mother had gone and with her that name, that she wouldn't not stop calling Deanna, especially when she was trying infantilize her for her choices, but it was there. And it wasn't her mother's voice. And her eyes were on the screen when she flinched back in surprise even as her eyes went wide in shock, the word slipping from her mouth before logic could even catch up with her, "Father?"

[npcs_everywhere]

"Yes, it's me. It's all right, Deanna." The man on the screen seemed to be who he claimed to be. Just as she remembered. Concerned at her reaction, but not totally surprised. It would be a shock to anyone to see a deceased love one suddenly appear on screen. "I don't understand it either, but it's me."

[ships_counselor]

"That's not possible. You're dead."

Her words came fast enough, but nothing in her head or her heart seemed to be listening well enough to the logic behind the sounds coming out of her own mouth. He looked. Just like he should have. Just like her fuzziest of memories of him, and the few recordings her mother had from that time. Calls, and family outings. Her heart, in her chest, didn't care in the slightest, as it refused to slow down .

[npcs_everywhere]

"I know. I promised to read you Cowboy Ralph when I got back. I am so sorry, Deanna." He sighed, wishing he could have been there to hold her, to feel, if just for a moment.

[ships_counselor]

"That was-" She stumbles really. The words are in her head, but not in her mouth. It's like being a child, again, except it hadn't ever worked that way with him entirely ever even then. "That was a very, very-" The emphasis is elegant, almost eloquent, in a type of pain that tears are too transient for. "-long time ago. How is this happening? How are you--"

How was he him? How was she supposed to believe this? Was it some fluke? Some kind of joke?

[npcs_everywhere]

"I don't know, but it's our chance, Deanna, to say things we never got to say." Ian looked like he was barely holding back tears as well. He remembered everything. The last time he had seen Deanna and Lwaxana, their smiling faces. His last breath, thinking of them. "Like how proud of you I am."

[ships_counselor]

Her heart is in her throat. A solid lump. Dry and cracked, jammed up there, making it hard to swallow suddenly and absolutely impossible to look away from the screen. Her fingers having gone white on the brush in her hand, but she can't tell that at all at this point.

She should say something. But those words. Those words hit somehow harder into her center than a hit in practice ever could. Hit something so deep and so long, from childhood through even now, even if she never looked at it. Sitting her, in her Starfleet Uniform, so far down a path she might not have ever considered if it wasn't for him.

How long as she wanted to know if that would be true, and told herself it would have been.




But to hear it. To hear it, was just...

[npcs_everywhere]

"You've become such a fine young woman, Deanna." He smiled again, soft and sad, but happy. "I remember when you were so tiny. Do you remember all the songs I used to sing to you?"

[ships_counselor]

"Yes." It's a whisper, followed by a nod. "I never forgot them."



Beat. "Or you." She couldn't ever. She still carried him in her heart.
Even long gone. The things he'd held important and the ones he'd love.

[npcs_everywhere]

Ian was grinning, heart bursting at hearing his daughter say that. It's all a father could ask for. "Then I'm always with you, Deanna, just remember. Down in the valley, valley so low..." He started singing, just as he had done to sing her to sleep.

[ships_counselor]

Bewildered tears pricked her eyes as he began to sing a song her heart would never forget, in a tone and a voice her heart had not seemed to have forgotten at all, even though five minutes ago she would have questioned her ability on recall versus imagining it. The warm drawl of his tone on the very country words he had so loved and soothed her with often as a child.

The way the words wrapped around her, making her blink and her lips tremble.

Not even knowing how far he gets into the song, before she has to say the words that have been building up for at least a minute now. "I named my son after you." It hadn't even been a tough choice for whom and how, even if talking about Ian was something Deanna did only rarely, given how complicated and painful the entirety of that first contact had gone.

[ethnobotany]

It's the sound of Deanna's voice -- so distant and dazed, as though calling to her from across the ship itself after a disorienting time getting lost among the Jeffries Tubes -- that brings Beverly straight to the door. Rather than let the computer get her door or force Deanna to wait until Beverly was finished pruning her plants in her nightly ritual, the doctor sets aside her shears, moving quickly into the main room of her quarters. Pulling her night robe tightly across her body, she calls, "Come in," just as she reaches the door, so that she stands in the doorway as the doors hiss open. At once, she can see the difference in her friend, the dazed look to her face and eyes, the way she doesn't quite look like she's entirely there.

Beverly doesn't waste any more time. She gently reaches to guide Deanna inside and only once the doors hiss shut again does she speak. "What happened, Deanna?"