Abyss - [New Enterprise, Riviera]

[allmhadadh]

          I realized clearly that something extraordinary was happening. I was holding him close in my arms as if he were a little child; and yet it seemed to me that he was rushing headlong toward an abyss from which I could do nothing to restrain him... His look was very serious, like some one lost far away.

-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little

Comments

[buick_riviera]

Things had been going so well, up till now.

The Buick did not understand the conversation going on around her. She did not care. Scotty's confession--that he was leaving, that she was Leonard's--seeped through her like a chill she never felt in California.

She did not want him to go.

She was Leonard's, it was true, but he didn't need her anymore. Something was wrong with Scotty, and even her limited understanding could see that. Leonard had cared for her, had used her, had loved her. But Scotty had needed her in a way she had never felt needed. Had spoken to her almost as if he believed she could understand. Had been hers when no one else remembered her. Scotty made her want to be, to know, to feel. Scotty made her "her."

Though he could not hear it, a litany swelled within her that she could not quell, her fruitless outpouring of anxiety at his proposed abandonment.

{DON'T GO NOT ALONE DON'T LEAVE NEED ME NEED YOU SCOTTY DON'T GO}

[allmhadadh]

Scotty wasn't aware of her thoughts; he was well aware how sad he was at the prospect of leaving her, but there was little he could do about it. She wasn't his -- it was as simple as that. He couldn't make himself take away something important to someone else, just because he wanted to; in his mind, it was the worst kind of thievery. And there was no denying that the Riviera was important to Len

[buick_riviera]

The Riviera merely sat. It was all she could do.

She had never wanted something other than that more than this night.

Scotty was going. Scotty was with another human she did not know and they were talking about going away. She knew that humans needed each other, that they found comfort and meaning in the way they were entwined even if it wasn't the same as Len-and-Bill and what she'd tried to effect there. She knew that humans needed her.

She was remembering, suddenly, that they only needed her to get from one place to another. And somehow, suddenly, that was no longer enough.

She wondered when the Enterprise would talk to him. If it would make a difference. A tiny part of her wondered if she should bother, if it would change anything, if she should want to change anything. Scotty might be better off elsewhere if he was unhappy. The Riviera might be better of not knowing she could not make a difference even with words. But she was not capable of thinking that complexly about the situation, of bringing that to the forefront and