Chapter 8 - What Might Have Been
9 April 2379...
Mei-Wan strolled across the bright green lawn in front of Starfleet Headquarters. A salty breeze blew in from the bay while the sun shined down from the middle of a bright blue sky.
San Francisco, though not the city of her birth, had been the place she had always thought of as home. It was where she had grown up and where her parents still lived and worked. But this day it was a place where she had business to attend to.
The Chamberlain had only been in Earth orbit for two hours, but Mei-Wan had already been in three meetings with Starfleet officials, attempting to get both Robin and Li-Na released from the custody of Temporal Investigations. So far, she'd not been very successful, but she hoped this next appointment would show more promising results.
There was one other difference between this meeting and the others: Mei-Wan had not been the one to ask for it. That had come from the man she was about to see.
***
Starfleet CinC, Admiral Bartholomew James sat behind his desk in a large atrium-like office overlooking San Francisco Bay. The gray-haired man motioned Mei-Wan to take the seat across from him.
"Thank you for coming, Lieutenant," the admiral said as he glanced at a PADD on the smooth surface of his desk.
While he looked like the same person she had met in the other timeline, his eyes told the story of a man with far too many burdens, many of which Mei-Wan suspected were self-generated.
"My pleasure, Admiral," she said with a smile.
He sat back in his chair and watched her for a moment. "I've read the reports of your recent time travel," he said. "The information you gave Temporal Investigations is most interesting, more so for what isn't stated."
"Sir?"
He gave a brief smile. "It's all rather antiseptic. You told them the facts while avoiding the truth... apparently, about a great many things," James said with a scowl.
Mei-Wan took a long breath. "Admiral, I answered their questions to the best of..."
"And as we both know, unless the right questions are asked even the truth can cover a lie." His expression softened only slightly. "And I will allow you to keep your secrets in exchange for one truth."
Mei-Wan sat confused for a moment. Then she understood. "Your daughter?"
Admiral James nodded. "How was she in that timeline?" he asked. His earlier harsh look now gone, he seemed to be almost begging Mei-Wan for any small morsel of information about his daughter, dead now for two decades.
"As I said in my report, she was captain of the Chamberlain," Mei-Wan told the admiral. "She appeared to have the respect of her crew and..." Mei-Wan chuckled. "Larissa James was a CO not to get on the wrong side of."
Admiral James smiled. "I take it you got a chance to see the more intense aspect of her personality."
"Not only see, but experience first hand." Mei-Wan thought a moment. "And intense would be an understatement, sir."
He laughed. "You should have seen her growing up, Lieutenant. There were days I thought that girl would make me gray."
Mei-Wan glanced at his head full of gray hair. The Admiral followed her gaze and grinned.
"I guess she succeeded at least in part." His mind drifted a moment. "I would have given up just about anything to have been in your place... to see my little girl again."
Mei-Wan leaned forward in her seat. "For what it's worth, Admiral, from everything I've heard about her, I think she was happier here, in our reality."
He looked down at his desk, not certain how to feel about that revelation.
Mei-Wan did her best to smile. "I know that probably doesn't give you much solace, but I think she found love here."
"With Jack?"
"In the other timeline she bore the burden that Jack did over the ambush that killed her here. It was another officer who died there, but the pain of that experience weighed heavily on her."
Admiral James leaned back in his chair, as sunlight beamed through the large array of windows in his office. "It can be so hard with children... to know what's best for them. As you get older, all you do is think back to all the times you failed them--- all the places you could have done it better." He looked at Mei-Wan. "I guess as much as I wish there had been something I, or Jack, could have done to save her from the fate she suffered, there are worse things."
He paused a moment. "I've managed to have your sister, Li-Na Lau, released from Temporal Investigations and into your parents' custody. They will still keep her under surveillance, but understand, if she makes any attempt to time travel, extreme measures will be taken."
Mei-Wan smiled wide. "Thank you, sir! Thank you very much!"
James grinned. "You can pick her up after you leave here."
She thought a moment. "And Robin Nelson?"
James' grin faded. "I'm afraid I can't help you in her case. According to Temporal Investigations, she's far too belligerent to release. And considering her engineering background, they consider her too much of a threat to our timeline."
Mei-Wan wasn't surprised about Robin, considering the anger she'd seen in her the last time they'd met. But because of that she felt all the more guilty. It was because of her that Robin was so angry. Once again, she had failed her friend.
"Thank you for coming by, Lieutenant McCall," Admiral James said. "Perhaps we could find some time to speak further of your experiences with Larissa in the other timeline. I understand the Chamberlain will be here for several weeks."
"Yes sir," Mei-Wan said. "And thank you Admiral for Li-Na."
James nodded and then returned to the PADD he'd been reading from when she entered.
"Sir, there was another matter I needed to discuss with you."
He glanced up. "Yes?"
"It concerns a device that we found buried on Dalvanax Two in the other timeline," Mei-Wan said. "If it is here in our reality as well, it may be able to aide us against the G'voda."
***
The return to the Lau residence that afternoon started with shock, then turned to stunned silence, then finally, cautious joy. Sheng and Bao-Yu Lau had been expecting their daughter Mei-Wan, but the arrival of a daughter who'd been lost due to an accident before she'd even been born was more than they could have ever prepared themselves for.
It took Mei-Wan nearly an hour to explain the broad strokes of Li-Na's existence and how she came to be with them. The restrictions upon their new daughter's life as dictated by Temporal Investigations frightened them more than a little, but such concerns passed quickly once they learned of Li-Na's pregnancy. A grandchild on the way was the sort of news they'd always prayed to hear from Mei-Wan. However, this day, they didn't concern themselves over the source of the next generation of their family.
For Li-Na's part she was excited to finally be the center of her parents' attention after having lived in the shadow of Mei-Wan her whole life in the timeline of her birth. She decided she was going to enjoy her new life.
Several hours later, after the celebration had ended, and her parents listened intently to the details of their new daughter's life, Mei-Wan sat alone in her father's study, watching the rain fall from the sky. As a child, she'd often found herself in this room when she had something to ponder. There was an authority to this place, a wisdom to it, even when her father wasn't present. She needed the kinds of answers this room had provided her so many times in the past.
The past... she thought. She'd been so focused on the past for far too long. It was time for her to not only join the present, but to enter the future. Both her own, and that future which stood before the people she knew and loved. The past was a place of comfort, but it was also stagnant. Despite her recent travels, she knew there was no real way for her to change her personal past. All she could change was her future by making the choices which allowed her to be who she wanted to become.
One choice she'd put off for the past several weeks loomed large in her mind now. She couldn't go on not knowing any longer.
Mei-Wan turned on the data terminal in her father's study. She had resisted checking up to this point because she didn't want the electronic eyes of Starfleet command and Temporal Investigations looking over her shoulder. At least that was the excuse she used to delay this moment.
She operated the controls and waited.
On the display an image appeared along with a large amount of biographical data. She ran her finger along the line with his name: Nakano, Todd.
Her heart came alive. It was him.
He looked exactly the same. Place of birth, Academy class, class ranking, current service rank, marital status...
No. The joy of the previous moment gave way to utter hopelessness.
No.
Spouse: Nicole Arias Nakano, Lieutenant, Engineering Division.
Tears fell from Mei-Wan's eyes.
This Todd Nakano had never known Mei-Wan Lau. He'd never made love to her. He'd never fathered her child. His life consisted of days spent with his wife Nicole aboard a starship, as its operations officer.
Mei-Wan couldn't invade that life, announcing what had happened in the other timeline. There would be nothing good to come from it, only pain and suffering. And she had seen enough of both for one lifetime.
The man in the image had never loved a woman named Mei-Wan.
She switched the unit off and went over to the large window sill she had sat in so many times during her childhood. She remained there consumed by loss once again.
Finally, she found her way to something positive.
He has his life, she told herself. And I have mine. Maybe it's time I make the most of what I have, rather than obsessing on what I don't have.
But the pain that gripped her heart would always be a part of that life. Love wasn't something which could be turned off like a switch and this love refused to go quietly into the darkness.
Yet it changed nothing.
The Todd Nakano Mei-Wan had fallen in love with was forever lost in the changing currents of the flow of time. All she had left were the memories, some her own, others those belonging to the Mei-Wan Lau of that other timeline.
As she watched the rain caress the leaves of the plants outside the window, Mei-Wan felt lost in the familiarity of the home she'd grown up in. So much had changed and she feared more change was yet to come. But in the chaos swirling before her, Mei-Wan knew she would grieve and go on. She was determined to make her new life one worth living.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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Dark Horizon Story and Characters Copyright ©2004 Michael Gray
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