Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Chapter Text

Father and son transported up to the Merrimack late that afternoon to give Decker a chance to collect the last of his personal belongings, before beaming back down to a transporter station in Milwaukee and embarking on a high-rail journey up toward Green Bay. Night had fallen by the time they got there - early autumn around the Great Lakes was still not a particularly sunny time of year. Will spent much of this leg of the journey regaling his father on his last deployment aboard an escort frigate assigned to the Gliese sector. The air taxi they took from Green Bay to Lakewood had a comfortable private seating compartment above and aft of the cockpit, where they discussed the extraterrestrial illness that was slowly draining the life out of Will's mother. When they reached the old homestead, Decker felt abominably hungry - but after what he and Will had spoken of, eating wasn't even on the sensor array until he'd seen what his wife was going through.

Maria Trask had been a promising young naturalist and a student at Cornell University when she met Matthew Decker, a cum-laude Starfleet cadet on his science rotation, on a 2236 exobiology mission in the Octantis sector. After they were married in 2239 in a low-key Starfleet ceremony, the Decker homestead had begun as a vacant parcel of land abutting some repatriated Menominee territory. As Decker gained seniority in Starfleet and Maria's name gained more prominence in exobiology circles, they'd found this an incredibly ideal spot to build a home and start a family. At first Maria spent her days exploring the Menominee wilderness, listening to the flora and fauna and hearing the stories of the mass extinction event that had narrowly been averted - ironically enough - by World War III. Before Will was born, she'd even joined her husband on one more short exploratory mission and gathered extraterrestrial plant life to see if it would be adaptable to Earth's ecosystem. Some experiments had gone better than others; she'd ended up building a small arboretum down the hill from the house, where she could safely ascertain whether or not an alien plant species was invasive or harmful before it got loose. The arboretum still stood, and Will requested the air-taxi pilot to drop them between the arboretum and the house, as long as the moon was shining brightly.

The east end of the arboretum still had its runium lunar panels for a roof, which nourished the Vendelian ringnut shrubs Maria had watched for three days and three nights to determine that they could only photosynthesize moonlight. With a proper root system, the nuts they produced were a rich natural source of potassium and iron for most carbon-based life forms. Just outside the arboretum stood her proudest discovery - a Murkish giant bluewood. Its species was native to the high temperate forests of Murka IV, but if Maria had one claim to fame, she'd found that the 500-meter trees craved carbon dioxide - they could thrive on Earth and purify its air to a whole new degree if their soil was appropriately treated.

As the Decker men walked through the arboretum, the moon hit the transparent panels of the midsection and illuminated a tall, thin shrub that was well cordoned off from the other vegetation and passers-by. Here Will paused, explaining to his father that this was the culprit, a Veloran redstalk. That plant was a warning, the only reason Maria had kept it around. That plant, growing in the sandy loam in which she'd rooted it, had begun to exude a toxic oil from its stalk that Maria had only identified when a bare spot on her back accidentally came into contact with it. The oil burned her skin, admitting a pathogen that took over a month to incubate before the Veloran blood plague began to consume her platelets and dry out her blood vessels. Leukemia was history, now this filthy alien disease, eating up Maria Trask's life in similar fashion, was news.

The house, at least, was just as Decker remembered it, with its two stories, its wide veranda and its exponential advantage over his quarters aboard the Merrimack. Maria's rock garden looked unchanged in the moonlight, sprawling out behind the house and gradually narrowing into a stone-lined path leading down to the lake that lay between the homestead and the Menominee wilderness. A three-seat dinghy rested on the shore beside the path, covered in a weatherproof shroud.

Father and son crossed the veranda to the kitchen door and passed inside. Some of the cookware and kitchen gadgets had been rearranged, but the table and chairs were in the same place as always: and then in came Louie, investigating these large bipedal invaders who had just entered his home, and pausing to stare at Decker as if to demand "and where have you been?"

"Ah, Louie, you look just like my old communications officer with less hair," Decker chuckled. "Sure you're not an ancestor of the Caitians?"

Will smiled, but Louie just ambled over to dive into his kibble bowl. Then heavier footsteps emanated from the lounge abutting the kitchen, quick anticipatory footsteps, foosteps light and tapping yet somewhat erratic. Only one person's feet could be falling. And then, there she was, with her curly blonde hair, her wide smile and her glittering but anguished blue eyes.

"Dad!" she gasped as she set forth from the doorway.

"Ah, there's my Brandi, Brandi the beautiful!" Decker greeted her with his arms wide open and his kiss firm on her cheek. "My God, look at you. I didn't authorize you to become a woman!"

"Some things you just don't have authority over, father dear," Brandi said with a forced giggle.

"And some things he does," Will was still smiling. "Dad's been promoted. I may now address him as 'Commodore'."

"How wonderful," Brandi said, appraising her father admiringly. "How did all this come to pass?"

"I'll tell you about it at dinner time," Decker said. "But right now, I'm here for one and only one reason."

Brandi's face fell, and she inhaled deeply. "I know. I think you're just in time."

At the top of the stairs, Will touched his father's arm. "She can barely see anymore," he muttered. "Better if you say something to her so she knows it's you."

"Trust me, Will, there's plenty I want to say to her while I still can."

Brandi entered the den first, and Decker held his breath, not sure what to behold. But what he did see flattened his spirits: slumped in her favorite swing chair, which had evidently been moved inside from the veranda, Maria already looked like a ghost, a vanishing ghost, a ghost down to its vanishing skeletal remains. She had almost no coloring left, her breathing was shallow and her arms were shriveled, the blanket that covered her lower body looked completely level. She turned her head slowly as she heard people coming into the room.

"Brandi...." Her voice was little more than a whisper. "Is....is there another blanket floating around somewhere? There can't be enough warmth in here."

"Maybe there is," Brandi said gently. "I brought someone to see you." She moved an ottoman over next to Maria's chair.

Decker sat on the ottoman and took Maria's wraithlike hand in both of his own. "Honey, I'm home," he murmured. "The potato's in the pot."

Maria's eyes opened - they were bulging from her shrinking face and they were dusty and pale, but they lit with a sudden sparkle and she lifted her head from its pillow. "Matthew!" she breathed, turning her head to bring her eyes to as much focus as she could muster. "It is you, Matthew....is the water luke-warm?"

"You hit the mark," Decker smiled. "Need to use the john?"

Maria gave what she could for a soft laugh at the biblical in-joke that had endured through their marriage. She reached up with a trembling hand and touched the side of his head. "Oh, Matthew, what's Starfleet doing to you? Look at all this gray of yours."

"It's a sign of wisdom and experience in some cultures, you know." Decker laid his hand over hers. "Your Murkish bluewood is shading the entire house now, and have you seen its bark lately? Gray as an overcast sky."

"I see so little now," Maria whispered. "I see Brandi near me, I see you and Will in the stars when I close my eyes, I see....I see that Veloran redstalk behind me, waiting to stab me in the back." She laid her head back and blinked slowly with a sigh. "I'm so glad you're home, Matthew. I needed to see something to give me joy. How long do you have with us this time?"

Decker became conscious that Will and Brandi had both left the room. "I'll be on shore leave for a month. I'm taking over a new ship, but it's going to be in spacedock for a few more months of refit time. So I'm going to take whatever time I can get to be here with you." He bowed his head and shook it. "God damn it, Maria, who said it had to lead to this? I never met a woman who loved nature and ecology like you do, how did it have to wind up here?"

"Shush, shush, shush, Matt. No more of that. Just give me one more thing to be happy about, I don't care what, just let me remember what being happy felt like."

Tears sprang to Decker's eyes. He gazed at her and gently patted her hand. "I'll be around as long as I need to be, then," he pledged. "I'll find something. If that's the last thing you want, then damn it, I'm not leaving here until it's done."

When Maria next drifted off, Decker returned downstairs to find Will and Brandi setting out a couple of large baking dishes bearing brook trout, butternut squash and German-style potato salad. Louie was contentedly noshing on some minced salmon, and Tina, his white-socked sister, showed an observable interest in the meal the humans had been preparing.

"Let me tell you kids something," Decker said dryly, regarding the cats. "Once you've served with Caitians, you can't help wondering what insidious schemes are forming in the minds of domestic cats."

"We've got a couple of Caitians on the Perry," Will said. "I happen to think the reverse is true, domestic cats prepare you for the mood swings Caitians can have."

"But they're such a sweet, affectionate people all the same, aren't they?" Brandi ventured.

"I guess when they want to be."

Decker sat at his accustomed old spot on one side of the table and procured the potato salad as Will and Brandi sat across from him. "Now tell me something, Brandi," he said. "Just tell me one thing that'll make your mother happy now."

"She's just happy that you're home, Dad," Brandi said earnestly. "I know she is."

"So do I, but that's not enough." Decker looked at her inquisitively. "Can she withstand a transporter beam?"

Brandi eyed her still-empty plate, folding, unfolding and refolding her hands underneath her chin. "In her condition, I'm not sure. I'd have to talk to her doctor about it...."

"What did you have in mind?" Will asked.

"Well, how long has she been up there in the den?" Decker queried.

"I'm not counting anymore." Brandi gulped. "Weeks, anyway. Maybe a month or so."

"Well, I've never known a human who loved being out in the middle of nature more than your mother, and there's one place comes to my mind where she's never been happier. You know that island out on the lake, the one with the oak glade?"

Will smiled and nodded. "Her favorite place to listen to the wind and the water. I think that's where she feels most at peace. I think we...." His voice trailed off as he looked aside. Brandi was doubling over, covering her face with both hands and breaking down sobbing. At once her brother leaned over to hug her as her father rushed around the table to offer his own consolation.

"Why is this happening to us," she cried. "Why does Mother have to die and why do we have to watch her die like this and why is there still all this disease and fighting and death after all these years!"

"I don't know, sweetheart," Decker muttered in a thick voice as he rubbed her shoulders gently. "God help me, I don't know. Times I think I joined Starfleet just to pluck around and find out, but....damn it, I still haven't." He paused and sighed as Brandi sniffled loudly and rubbed her nose. "Listen, Will, as long as we're both on leave, let's raise Starfleet Medical and talk to an expert on extraterrestrial diseases, see if we can't make things a little more peaceful for your mother."

Will nodded. He didn't speak, but tears were filling his eyes as well. An easy time this wouldn't be for any of them. He couldn't fathom how his father was maintaining his composure and his ability to make decisions and give directions, but neither could he know how hard Matthew Decker was fighting to keep his agony from overpowering him.

Who was that man? The one talking to mother? He'd been here before. Mother was always here. But the man - he'd been here sometimes. Then he was gone again. He never stayed long. Mother's friend? She usually seemed upset with him when he visited. She seemed unhappy to see him now. But now....now no friend....no upset....no trouble with mother....time....to sleep.

Carol Marcus carefully leaned over the playpen. Little David was out like a light. She turned away and carefully crossed the room back to where Jim Kirk stood beside the door. He'd just given her his news and she'd just renewed her wishes.

"How's he learning?" Kirk asked in a low voice.

"Oh, he's ahead," Carol said with half a smile. "He's well ahead. He can read already, he's finding his way around home computers. I think if anything, when he comes of age, he'll be much better suited to the Silicon Valley Institute than to Starfleet Academy."

"Well, ultimately it's his choice," Kirk said. "You should give him a chance to collate all the available data before he makes it."

"Why are you so worried about his future all of a sudden?" Carol asked pointedly. "It took you almost two years just to acknowledge his existence."

"Things change," Kirk said sagely. "Assignments, missions, life circumstances. I'm about to assume my first command, Carol. There's no telling what will happen in my future, let alone David's. And I....I want him to have a future."

"Then do as I ask. Leave us in peace, just leave us out of your life. You chose Starfleet, like you always do. You always choose Starfleet over the people who share your life. And now that Starfleet's planned it for you, go out there and live it. Take care of your people and let me take care of my son."

"He's as much my son as yours." Kirk's eyes flashed with animosity. "If you want me to stay away, then I will, but just...." Kirk glanced toward the sleeping toddler in the playpen. "Don't let him forget where he came from, Carol. Please."

"Go look at him, Jim." Carol cocked her head. "Go take a good, long look at him."

Light on his feet, Kirk complied. He eased over to the playpen and stared at the small boy, the head of curly blond hair, the half-open mouth emitting soft snores. "He looks incredibly like you already," Carol said. "I can never look at his face without seeing yours. I can never forget where he came from....and where I don't want him to go."

"It's up to him," Kirk reiterated. "When he comes of age, when he chooses his path, to whatever end it may lead him, it's his choice. Remember that." Kirk turned away from the playpen and trod softly back toward the door, turning to face her.

"Goodbye, Carol," he said, gripping her shoulders. "Take good care of our son, but let him take control of his own destiny."

Carol pushed her hair away from her face and stared down at the floor between his feet, out of responses, just wishing he would leave. Seeing her anguished expression and her folded arms, Kirk turned from her, passed through the door, and was gone.

"Matthew?"

Maria's eyes opened and she peered about the den, looking disoriented. Decker, sitting on the chaise reading a book he'd picked up again after Dimidium, arose and went over to her. This time she seemed to know he was there, who he was, as soon as he took hold of her hands.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Like I'm visiting Andoria," she murmured.

"Well, we won't go visiting any supermassive ice cubes like that, not this time. But we do have a visit planned." Decker crossed to the open door and called for Brandi. Then he headed over to a communication panel on the sideboard.

"Norpin Alpha Transport Control, this is Commodore Decker," he hailed. "Stand by to beam three personnel to prearranged coordinates."

Brandi came over to Maria and took her by one hand and arm. "If you can still stand, Mom, now's the time," she said.

"Are we....going somewhere?" Maria's face was full of concern.

"A special surprise," Brandi smiled. "We talked to Dr. Erban and he gave his approval for a short transporter hop."

"Not beaming me into outer space now, are you?" Maria asked facetiously.

"Perish the thought," Decker replied. "Besides, if we were, would we be going out there with you?" He held her other hand and arm opposite Brandi.

"This is Dad's idea," Brandi added. "And I happen to think it's a great one." Gently, gingerly, she and Decker helped Maria to stand - disturbingly, she was down to featherweight, even lighter than the last time Brandi had helped her out of that chair.

"Norpin Alpha Transport Control to Commodore Decker," came the voice of the transporter operator. "Coordinates are set, standing by for your word."

"Energize," Decker answered. He eased his arm around Maria and held her close to him as the transporter beam took them away, to a freshly tuned-up pattern buffer in an orbiting transport platform. Then, on to their destination it turned them.

Will looked up from the stump upon which he'd been splitting firewood with a polished axe, as he heard the air displacement of the beam. He laid the axe aside, walked around the bonfire he'd been building in the middle of the glade, and greeted the trio as they materialized. Maria saw him first, looked past him at the fire: she was unable to discern her surroundings, but as she looked blankly around, it dawned on her where she was. She took as deep a breath as she could in her condition and expelled it in a joyful cry.

She hadn't thought a visit to her favorite island possible anymore. Brandi could have handled the dinghy easily enough, but Maria was in no shape to take even two steps out of the house. Even now she was overwhelmed by emotion, losing her footing and almost falling flat before her family hastened to prop her up. The breeze and the ripples on the lake felt and sounded the same as they always had, the trees formed the same old familiar glade. Her island, her place of happiness.

"Come on, Mom," Will said. "We've got you." He guided her forward and toward his wood-splitting stump, where all three of them helped Maria to walk over and sit. She pulled her thick blanket close around her and shuddered, rocked back and forth as the wind touched her and the fire warmed her, and her husband and children gathered around her, offering her their own warmth.

"Remember the first time we all shared a fire out here?" Decker asked her.

"I was four," Brandi giggled. "And I was halfway through the bag of marshmallows before anyone knew it."

"Holy terrors, the lot of you," Maria smiled as she rocked back and forth to warm herself. "I....Matthew, I remember something, something that was always in the back of my mind when we came out here for a firepit."

"I'm all ears," Decker said.

She looked straight at him, her eyes dusty but intense. "When I'm gone....don't feed me to those flames. Do you understand? Don't cremate me. Lay me to rest here. I love this earth, I love all its life and all the life on every planet we've visited. And I want to be part of it for eternity - I want my mortal remains to nourish this earth. It's untiringly nourished us for so many ages....it's the least that I can give back."

Decker clenched his jaw almost as tightly as his eyelids. His wife had just made a last dying request of him and he still was just as disbelieving as Brandi that it was coming to this. He was a Starfleet flag officer - damned if he was going to break down and cry, much less in front of his children. Finally he nodded his head.

"I swear we'll let you rest where you love being the most. If it's right where we're sitting now....well, that's why I brought you out here in the first place."

"This was your idea, Matthew," Maria breathed, as if the fact of it came as no surprise to her. "And Brandi's right, it was a good one."

"Couldn't think of anywhere you'd be happier to be," Decker said offhandedly.

"Because there isn't anywhere....just here....my island....the whole earth."

Will turned to throw a couple more logs on the bonfire. "I don't want to be a wet blanket, but....can you stay out here for very long?" he asked apprehensively.

Maria had closed her eyes, but she smiled. "Son, if I want to, I can stay out here until the earth takes me back," she told him. "Just let me sit for now....enjoy the air and the water and being with all of you....just let me enjoy being happy, one last time."

Dampness was visible under her eyelids. By now, there were no dry eyes left around that warm, comforting bonfire on that serene island, that peaceful bastion of nature. Will fed the fire, Brandi hugged Maria close, and Matthew crouched next to her, holding her hand. Suddenly, his mission in life had become very clear to him, as he whiled away his wife's dying days in the natural world she so loved.

Maria died ten days later. There were no signs that the transportation had worsened her condition, but she'd had to take to permanent bed rest afterward, and her suffering ended beside her husband. At first Decker shed nary a tear - he had known how long it was coming, the misery with which she was now finished. It was when Brandi came into the den and found Maria lifeless on the chaise beside him, and burst into inconsolable tears, that he almost lost his own composure. Will wouldn't find out till later in the day: he'd been preparing the spot on the island where they had taken Maria to enjoy her beloved environment one last time, for the fire had softened the ground and fertilized the soil, just as Maria would have enthusiastically explained it.

That was where they prepared to bury her - traditionally as anyone else throughout the history of humanity. It was a dying request that was eminently honorable. Will took care of digging the grave as Matt and Brandi welcomed Maria's old friends, colleagues and prominent members of the science community to pay their last respects in her rock garden. The greetings and the recollections of her life kept Brandi occupied, and she managed to hold herself together, but it still wasn't lost on her that soon her father and brother would be returning to duty and she would be on her own for the first time.

They loaded the old dinghy with the degradable wooden casket carrying Maria's remains and as many rocks as it could hold, and out to the island they rowed, where Will awaited them in the midst of the glade next to the open grave. He had even prepared a headstone, using an acid imprinter to engrave the date of his mother's passing into the rest of the inscription. All three of them took turns scooping dirt back into the ground on top of the casket - though Brandi could barely hold the spade. At last, the grave refilled to ground level, they gathered scores of rocks from both the dinghy and the shore of the island to cover the mound of earth. There together they all stood, as they'd known for over a year they must, and offer one last farewell. As the sun touched the hills one more time, the three of them stood there in silence, reflecting, ruminating, missing.

Matt Decker could have been standing at that headstone for an hour and not reread the words engraved on it. The inscription had burnt everlastingly in his memory. He looked from the top of the stone to the rock-covered mound of earth sprawling at its base, and still he didn't look at the words. Right now, the reminder was too painful.

Beside him, Brandi rubbed her wet eyes. Opposite, a slight crinkle sounded as Will lifted a small slip of paper from his side. He read the paper aloud in a soft voice, but the tremor was still there: Matt could just discern it over the light breathing of the wind through the trees.

"Do not stand at my grave and weep," Will murmured. "I am not there; I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glints on snow. I am the sun on ripened grain, I am the gentle autumn rain. When you awake in the morning's hush, I am the swift, uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight; I am the soft stars that shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry; I am not there. I did not die."

Matt fought the rising lump in his throat as Will lowered the poem from his flooding eyes. Then Brandi began to cry. Matt pulled her close and kissed the side of her head, fighting both the lump and the tears in his own eyes. It was too much for Will, and he sidestepped over to both of them, joining in the embrace. They stood together in silence and listened to the wind, listened to the rustling leaves and grass. To Matt it felt as if he could hear Maria's voice whispering over the fronds, but for Will, the wind reminded him almost too vividly of his mother's hand on his cheek. And all Brandi could feel was Maria combing her hair from the time when it was long enough to comb.

As Matthew Decker hugged both his children and Brandi cried on his shoulder, at last he, too, broke. All three of them stood together weeping and clinging to each other, weeping despite their unquestionable Starfleet marks for courage, weeping despite what the poem had told them.

At last Matt pulled himself together and ground his teeth. "She is what she loved the most," he told Will and Brandi, fighting to get his voice under control. "She loved the earth....and now she's part of it. She never wanted it any other way. There's one last thing we can do for her now, Will. One last thing to make her happy."

"What's that?" Will gulped.

"Keep our worlds safe. Whether it's Earth or Alpha Centauri or Canopius - never let any of them come to harm. Next time someone comes to one of our planets with destruction on his mind....make sure he never gets past the Deckers."