Up and Away

[Damien Coleman]

== Elias ==

[Benjamin Elias]

==Archer, Eta Draconis - Elias Household==

What the hell are you doing here? Benjamin asked himself, and not for the first time. It had been years since he’d been back to the world of his birth, and yet he found himself running back here in his time of trouble.

Trouble. Yeah, that was one way to describe it. It likely wasn’t the best way to describe it, but it was certainly a choice. He leaned back in the chair, looking out over the mountains surrounding the town of Archer as the sun slid inexorably to the horizon. It was a view that he’d loved as a kid, but for some reason he’d grown to dislike it more and more as he grew up.

Maybe it just felt too confining, he thought. The mountain valley that the mining town was nestled in got dark quickly, much sooner than the clocks on the wall said it should, and in winter the snows made shuttles or the town’s only transporter the only viable routes out. He’d felt more and more like he couldn’t escape, and it had chafed at him.

It hadn’t helped that he’d been the main caregiver for his younger siblings, too. Responsibility had as much to do with that claustrophobia as the looming mountains did. He couldn’t blame his father for that feeling; he was a good man, and had done the best he could with a bad situation, but it still had left Benjamin paying the price.

It had taken years, but he’d finally come to terms with that. Forgiveness had taken a little longer, but then again he had been in the midst of his own unforgivable moment for a while, too. He took a sip of the tea sitting beside him. Forgiveness begins with yourself, or so they say.

“Doin’ alright?” his dad, Peter, asked as he came out onto the porch and took his own seat. Benjamin jumped; he hadn’t heard the older Elias come through the door. Fortunately, none of the tea spilled, and he set it back down to make sure there were no accidents.

“Yeah,” he said, picking up the padd that was resting on his lap. “I was just catching up on some reading,” he lied.

Peter chuckled. “You never were a very good liar,” he admonished his son. “You might have at least turned the thing on before using it as a prop.” Benjamin glanced down at the padd and realized it had turned itself off from inactivity. He wondered when it had done that, and just how long he’d been sitting here watching the sun dip low.

“Y’know,” Peter said, “I loved sitting out here with you and your mother. We’d watch the sun set every night we could and just listen to the bugs and birds.” He sighed, lost in the past. “It always helped me relax after a day underground.” He chuckled and continued, “It must have relaxed you, too, because you were always asleep before it was dark when we did that.”

Benjamin chuckled, sadly. “I don’t remember that,” he said, and watched Peter’s face creased by sorrow for just a moment, the long buried pain resurfacing for a split second. “I believe you, though,” he added quickly. “I was just thinking about how I loved the sunsets as a kid, and maybe that’s why.”

Peter nodded, looking back out across the darkening trees. The two Eliases just sat for a moment in silence, glad for the other’s company. A study in similarity and contrast, the two were cast from a similar mold: broad shouldered and strong backed, though Peter was several inches taller than Benjamin was. Peter’s hair had turned a bright silver and begun to thin, while Benjamin’s was still a thick black.

Both bore their own scars, too: Benjamin had his artificial eye, of course, but Peter had been forced to replace his right hand at the wrist due to a mining accident several years ago. At least the hand functioned properly, being purely Federation tech, but it had ended his time in the mines, sending him off to languish behind a desk. He had chafed under it for a while, but when pressed he had to admit that he was likely heading that direction anyway.

It would’ve pained a younger Ben to acknowledge just how much like his father he’d become, and really had always been. Now, though, he wasn’t so sure it was a bad thing.

Peter sighed, breaking the amiable silence as the lights came on with the fall of night. Fireflies could be seen in the distance, but the bird song had turned instead into the hoots of owls as they began their nightly hunt.

“Son,” he said sadly. “You know I don’t like to pry into someone else’s business,” he began. “But you’re my son. You’ve been here two days, barely said a word. I know when something’s up, and I know when someone needs to talk. You didn’t come here to take in the view.” He let the words hang for a moment, as did Benjamin. “I just wanted to let you know that you can talk, okay?”

Benjamin was silent for a moment just watching the lights in the trees, almost a reflection of the ones in the sky. He tried to let it sit, wondering if maybe the moment would pass. His grip on the padd became white-knuckled, feeling almost like he would snap it in half.

But when he noticed the tear start down his cheek, he knew he couldn’t stay silent.

“I think I screwed up, dad,” he said, voice catching as he spoke. He started to lay it all out - his relationship with Cera, if it could even be called that with as hidden as they tried (and failed) to keep it; the incident with Dayune at the Artemis launch; her having dinner with the legendary lothario, and then the resulting fight, because there wasn’t any other term for it. It had been a knock-down, drag-out fight, at least emotionally, and it hadn’t helped that he’d over-indulged from his still, both before and after.

“And then I signed out a shuttle and came here,” he said, not pointing out the obvious fact that Eta Draconis was a couple of days flight from Deep Space Nine. “I just… I didn’t know where else to go.”

Peter had, at some point, moved his chair closer to his son and had a hand on the engineer’s shoulder. As he dissolved into sobs, he used that grip to pull Benjamin into a hug where they sat for a couple of minutes, quietly listening to the crickets and the other noises of the night.

“You know, son,” he said quietly once Benjamin had recovered some, “there are two paths you can take with this.

“On the one hand, you can run. You screwed up, everyone knows it; if this Cera is as much the center of gossip as you say, she could spread the word to half the quadrant while you’re sitting here in this chair that you’re no good. Maybe you should go see if the Ferengi or the Nyberrites need a good engineer, get somewhere that nobody knows you and just bury your head in the sand.”

Benjamin was about to protest, but Peter kept talking quickly. “On the other hand, you can accept the fact that fights like this happen, and go back and work things out. Maybe you stay together, maybe you don’t; it sounds like she’s got a close friendship with this Dayune guy - I swear I’ve heard that name somewhere - and if that’s a problem for you then you’ve got to discuss it.”

“I know,” Benjamin said, irritated. “I know that.”

“Then why did you come here?” Peter countered. “If you knew it already, you could have already done something about it.”

Benjamin jumped up and started to pace. “You don’t understand,” he said. “I was drunk, and…” He sighed, trying to find the words. “Dad, you remember I told you about how I was so sick during that last mission?” Peter nodded encouragingly.

“Well, while I was out, I had a dream,” he continued. “And… well, Mom talked to me.” Peter straightened up in his chair, sitting a little straighter at this. “It seemed so real, and… she said that she was glad I was with Cera. In fact, in the dream we were all at dinner with the whole family, and… and it was so good. I just…”

Peter smiled and shook his head. “You just wanted it to be true, didn’t you?” Benjamin nodded, tired beyond words. He leaned back, sighing as he took a moment to think. “Ben, I know how much your mom means to you,” he finally said. “I know nothing in this world - not a person, not anything I can do, nothing - could replace just seeing her one more time.” By this point, both of them had tears falling down their cheeks, but the older man pressed on. “But you’ve got to remember that was just a dream - and a fever dream at that. It don’t mean a thing.”

“I know,” Benjamin replied, wiping tears from his scarred face. “I just… it felt so real.”

“I know it did. I had dreams just like it when you kids were younger,” Peter said. “She’d be back, and we would be whole again. I would be whole again,” he said as he clutched a fist over his chest. “And for a minute it didn’t hurt so much.

“But then I’d wake up,” he finished. “And it would hurt so much more than it did the night before.”

Benjamin just nodded, knowing exactly what his father meant. For a moment, he wondered if that was why he’d reacted like he had, why the fight had been so explosive. It probably had been a part of it, he had to admit. On the other hand, there were so many other things, too.

“You’re right,” he admitted. “I can’t just run away, not again. Not after… what I did last time.” He couldn’t even bring himself to talk about running away from his divorce and into a bottle, lest temptation rear its ugly head. “I’ve got to figure something out, one way or another. Face the problem and come to terms with the consequences, whatever they may be.”

His father nodded sagely. “First though, you’ve got another tough decision to make.” Benjamin grunted a question at the older man. “What do you want for dinner?”

They both laughed and stood, heading back into their home.