100 words ... Day 41: heaven
100 words for 100 days is back!
Day 41: heaven (ST:ENT, Tucker, G)
Well, this wasn’t exactly what he’d expected.
White - wasn’t that always how they showed heaven in movies? A big empty white space full of nothing. Trip chuckled softly. A bit like the inside of T’Pol’s head.
Huh? The sound was unexpected. Somehow it hadn’t occurred to him that he’d be able to laugh. If he could make sounds, that implied …
He looked down and recognised his own bare feet. He curled his toes in the soft sand and felt the gentle ocean breeze stir the hairs on his lower legs. He held his arms out in front of him. Whole.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. No pain in his chest, or anywhere else.
He looked up again and turned around slowly, his cut-offs and favourite Hawaiian shirt flapping around him as they caught the breeze. The beach and surrounding landscape gradually resolved into something tangibly familiar.
“It’s Tarpon Springs, if you were wondering.”
He whirled around at the sound of the voice behind him. “Lizzie?”
“Who else?” She stood a couple of metres away, hands on her hips, exactly the way she’s looked when he’d last seen her. Her long fair hair and blue sundress rippled in the breeze. “Well, don’t I get a hug?”
He closed the distance in four long strides and swept her up. She felt reassuringly solid as he crushed her against him. “You’re real,” he murmured into her hair.
“About as real as you are,” she said, smoothing her dress as he released her.
He conceded she had a point.
He glanced around the beach again, at the wavelets lapping gently at the shore. “So, not to sound ungrateful, but - is this it?”
Lizzie smiled. “For now.”
“Ahem. Not quite.”
Trip turned as he heard the new voice behind him. His heart clenched and he shook his head in denial. “No, not you. You’re …”
“Don’t worry, I’m not dead,” Malcolm said.
“Then how …?”
“He’s an echo,” Lizzie said. “A manifestation of your subconscious.”
“So … he’s not real,” Trip said, relieved yet disappointed at the same time.
“I’m as real as you want me to be,” Malcolm said, slipping a hand into his.
Lizzie took his other arm. “Here, you can be with the people you love. It doesn’t matter if they’re living or dead.”
Trip looked down at her, and then at Malcolm again. For now, that was enough.
~404 words~
Sorry for the hiatus - I hope to post daily from now on.