Disclaimer: Voyager isn't mine. Kathryn Janeway, Chakotay, and gang are not mine. Sandrine's isn't even mine (though it might be fun if it was). The quoted passage is from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which I credited at the bottom of the quote.
Feedback: Please, send me any and all comments, nitpicks, etc. at scifi_shipper@hotmail.com (Unless of course, it's horrible... in which case send it to carlottaq@hotmail.com because she is my beta-reader. Just kidding.)
Rating: G, unless you can't deal with the talk of death.
Archiving: Of course, just let me know so I can keep track of where my stories are.
Author's Notes: This just came to me while I was reading the book.
'It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she, whom we saw every day, and whose very existence appeared a part of our own, can have departed for ever- that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished, and the sound of a voice so familiar, and dear to the ear, can be hushed, never more to be heard. These are the reflections of the first days; but when the lapse of time proves the reality of the evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences. Yet from whom has not that rude hand rent away some dear connection? And why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel?'
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 2nd page in chapter 3.
Forever Hushed
By Erin Cale
He swallowed the last of his drink with bitter resignation. He had never been one for alcohol, but lately he seemed to be consuming more and more of the stuff. Across the holographic bar, he saw Harry, Tom and a couple of their friends indulging in their grief the same way. They had invited him to sit with them. "Misery loves company," they had said. He had refused as politely as he could, considering the anger boiling up inside. How could they possibly understand what he was going through? His closest friend, compatriot... love... had died. He felt like there were a thousand different hooks in him, pulling at him, threatening to tear him apart.
She was gone, that was the hardest part. If he had lost any one of his other friends, she would have been there. Like a lighthouse, guiding his weary spirit back to safe harbor in the middle of a raging tempest. Now, he had lost her, and nobody else had both the will and the persuasive style to help him vent the feelings inside. Now he couldn't go anywhere without thinking of being in that place with her- Sickbay, the holodeck, the Bridge, her quarters, his quarters, even. All of them made him think of her. He often pretended that he heard her voice, or felt her touch, that she was really just finishing up her duty shift in her ready room. His mind would surely never accept her absence from his life. She who was so much a part of himself, as he believed he had been of her.
He looked down at his hands, clenching the holographic glass. The glass felt squishy, a horrible reminder that he couldn't hurt himself while the Holodeck Safety Controls were online. As he stared into the cup, one solitary tear escaped and ran, unnoticed, down his cheek. He finally felt it just as it dripped from his chin. It hit the table and seemed to shatter. He smiled at the irony. Here he was in a holographic bar, where nothing was real, and he had found a simile for his life- unnoticeable, not felt until it suddenly whirled out of control and finally broke against "reality". But he knew that water never shattered, that its very makeup was of two elements staying together to create one molecule of water. He knew that no matter how horrid he felt, she was watching over him, staying with him so that he could lead their crew home. She might have been forever hushed physically, but she would always have a voice in his heart and in his dreams.
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