Returning the Favor
By John (Clifford, Crichton, Elflore…)
Disclaimer: I don’t own diddly, you know the drill!
Rating: G, not even a Farscapean curse in sight!
Spoilers: Big, honkin’ spoilers for “Hidden Memory” and “The Ugly Truth”
Summary: This story picks up with Stark right from where we last saw him, being dispersed, in “The Ugly Truth”. He winds up…somewhere…and finds an old friend waiting for him.
Archiving: Please email me and ask first, thanks.
Feedback: Any and all comments more than welcome!
For an instant, and for an eternity, the universe was light. Blinding, burning, painful…as if Stark were bathing in the molten heart of a star.
Then the light faded, and the warmth became soothing. He could feel a cool hand holding his own, see a smiling face.
Gradually the face rippled into focus, like a reflection in water. Big brown eyes, constantly enlivened by one emotion or another, a childlike grin, and golden hair pulled back into a loose but practical ponytail.
Gilina.
A woman…a girl, really…whom he had known for far too brief a time. Who’s light had been extinguished before it could burn it’s brightest, like far too many of the souls he had known. Which is why he’d always made certain to *remember*…every face, every spirit, every spark.
So who shall remember now, he wondered idly, now that I too have been darkened? Zhaan, perhaps?
Then Gilina’s voice stepped into his thoughts, moved them gently aside. “Hiya.”
“Hello,” he replied. For the first time, he looked about them. “What…exactly is this place?”
Her laughter sparkled. “You mean you don’t recognize it?”
He did, and yet… “I think I may have been here once before, when I was a boy. And yet, somehow it’s…truer, deeper. Even the shadows seem to shine…”
“Whatever it is, wherever it is…it’s a wonderful place. And I never did get the chance to thank you for sharing it with me. Until now.”
For the first time since the light went away, Stark frowned. He did not feel sad…somehow he did not even think that possible, in this place…but he didn’t feel quite as content as he had a moment ago.
“So…I really am dead, then? My preparation wasn’t enough…”
“Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t…” Gilina shrugged, and her smile refused to fade. “Maybe you’ll go back there, one day.”
“But you don’t know?”
“No…and I’m not sure anyone does. A lot of beings seem to expect there to be more answers here than there were back there, but I don’t think it really works that way.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
Again, that luminous laughter. “I was a tech…and worse, a Peacekeeper tech. We weren’t supposed to even consider the possibility that someplace like this could exist, let alone how or why. You’ll learn to understand what you need to, and be content with the rest. And if they need you back there…” She nodded towards some indiscriminate point in the distance, but just for a moment, he was certain he saw galaxies spinning in her eyes. “You’ll know.”
Stark took a long, deep breath; staring inward, staring back. Then Gilina squeezed his hand, and began to lead him forward.
“Come on,” she said. “Let me show you a place *I* used to know…”