Old Familar Places

Posted on Fri Oct 23rd, 2009 @ 6:59pm by

984 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Shoreleave - Welcoming Old Friends and New
Location: Earth
Timeline: Current

ON:

Rain fell in a light mist around Kevin Larkin as he stood at the end of a familiar walkway. Despite the weather, the man had been standing motionless on his spot for the better part of an hour, attempting to decide how exactly he was going to approach the absurdly extraordinary task before him.

After relenting to the request of Kerr and Carter, Larkin had retreated back to the private room provided to him on the Normandy, drained from his conversation with the two of them. It wasn’t so much that he was having difficultly dealing with people; quite the contrary, since returning to civilization, he’d actually found social interaction a much simpler task than he remembered. What preyed on his mind now was the ridiculous situation in which he found himself. While he didn’t blame them for it, the familiar manner in which both his new captain and counselor had interacted with him felt rather unsettling. It simply reminded him of the fact that, while he had spent the last two and a half years in a prison cell, his life had continued on without him.

For the first time since he’d arrived at Outpost 482, he’d actually managed to courage to access ‘his’ personnel file, however reading of his clone’s activities only exacerbated matters. While he felt as though he was intruding on something that didn’t belong to him, at the same time he couldn’t shake the feeling that it had been stolen from him. Knowing that it probably wasn’t the best of ideas, he’d noted the date of one of his clone’s log entries and called it up using the same password he’d used on the Dragoon.

His face, but not his face, appeared on the screen in front of him. There were only few discernable differences, the largest of which was that his clone was clean shaven. He’d been on the fence about whether or not to completely shave of the facial hair he’d grown during his time with VISTA, but, seeing how it distinguished himself from the other Larkin, he’d instantly decided to keep it.

“Chief Science Officer’s Log. Believe it or not, I think I’m actually starting to settle in around here.� Larkin found his own voice coming from the screen, speaking words he’d never spoken, disorienting at first, but after a few moments it began to fascinate him. “The science department is shaping up to my liking, although I’m still finding calibration errors in the equipment. I guess that’s the drawback of having the top of the line technology: you’ve got to work the bugs out yourself.

“I am starting to get to know some of my crewmates, surprisingly enough. It took me months to get to know people on Starbase 87, but I’ve already had several interesting conversations with the Captain, and this afternoon I ended up having lunch with Lieutenant Carter.� The image of his clone scratched at the back of his neck nervously. “I think I…well I probably came off as idiotically as I always do around women.�

The man watching not-himself smirked as he thought of all of the incidents in his school and at the academy that he was sure must have been going through his clone’s mind. “Oh, you mean like with Stephanie Baker?�

“I just hope that I didn’t make as much of an idiot of myself as I did when I accidentally called Stephanie Baker ‘mom’ back in high school,� Larkin couldn’t help but laugh verbosely when his clone mentioned the exactly memory he’d been recalling. “Who knows? Maybe I’ve actually managed to make a couple of friends already, not that I have any idea how I accomplished it.�

Standing at the end of the walkway, Larkin smiled as he remembered watching his clone’s log. Somehow that moment had connected him with this new life in a subtle way. He’d realized that, even though he hadn’t experienced any of the past two years, someone who thought very much the way he did had. Despite the fact that there clearly were some differences in their personalities, the other Larkin had built this life for himself, which meant that in a sense he had just as much of a right to it as his clone had.

The following morning, Admiral Carleton had come to inform him that Starfleet had provisionally granted Kerr’s request that he be transferred to the Archimedes, which was news that made Larkin happier than he’d expected. He would be required to speak with Counselor Carter on a weekly basis, until it could be safely concluded that he posed no threat to the ship, and pending that assessment his movements about the ship were to be restricted. None of this mattered to Larkin. He was simply excited to be moving on with his life, and he actually was starting to see it as his life. The only request he had made of Carleton that morning was that he be allowed to do what he was about to before reporting aboard, and it had been willingly granted.

Steeling himself against an experience that he was sure would be filled with conflicting emotions, Larkin made his way down the walkway to a house he’d seen many times before. After one last moment of contemplation, he pressed a button next to the door to signal his arrival. A few moments passed before the door slid open to reveal a blond-haired, tall woman in her late fifties; the sound of a sickening crash broke the silence, as the cup of coffee the woman had been carrying shattered on the ground, a look of utter shock washing over her. “Hi Mom.�

OFF

Ensign Kevin Larkin
Chief Science Officer
USS Archimedes

 

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