Copyright 1999, Lyta. All rights reserved. No part of this story may be re-posted in part or in full without written permission from me.

Disclaimer: Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict is copyright 1998, Tribune Entertainment Co. Its characters are used without permission, no infringement is intended.

Rating: PG

Title: Kyrie

Author: Lyta

Lyta_1028@yahoo.com

 

Summary: Ronald and Dee Dee Sandoval’s lives are forever altered by his implantation.

 

"Kyrie"

 

            Dee Dee Sandoval smiled as she walked into her living room to find not only her husband home early but dinner already in the process of being prepared. Ron was not the most versatile cook, but he could and did prepare a limited number of dishes exceedingly well. One of those was spaghetti, which Dee Dee could see simmering on the stove.

            "Hi honey," Ron said with a smile. "How was your day?"

            "Fine," Dee Dee answered keeping it brief. She knew if he pressed her she'd fold like a house of cards and her big surprise would be lost. "Need any help?"

            "I'd appreciate it if you could pass me the strainer thing."

            Dee Dee chuckled. Ron could never recall the names of cooking utensils and had developed his own unique kitchen vocabulary that she had by necessity learned. She put her purse down on the counter and rummaged around in the cabinet until she found the required item and handed it over to her husband.

            "Thanks." Ron put it in the sink and dumped the noodles in before dousing them with water for a minute before allowing the water to drain. "Who knows, huh. This CVI thing is supposed to help improve my recall. Maybe I'll remember the difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon someday."

            "We can only hope." Dee Dee said, then she looked up and frowned at the open spice cabinet. "Maybe it will also help you remember to close cabinet doors."

            Ron shut the door and turned to face his wife. "Are you sure that you are all right with this CVI thing? If you have reservations let me know and I won't go through with the implantation. The bureau has already told me they won't hold it against me if I decide not to do it."

            Dee Dee took a deep breath. "To be perfectly honest, I am worried, but I've been a lot more worried by the things the FBI has asked you to do that don't involve cyber implants or Taelons."

 

***

 

            Ronald Sandoval took a deep breathe to calm himself as the whirling sound of the machines signaled the beginning of the implantation process. Maybe it was nervousness or the idea of the probe which was far too needle-like for his preference, but he was anxious for this to be over and done with. Dr. Belman had explained the procedure to him in detail, but Ron could not help but wish he was going in blind. Exactly what and where that CVI would be made him queasy.

            He could just barely see the edge of the probe as it neared him, he tried not to look at it but strapped down as he was to the implantation table it was not as though he had a great many options. Then he noticed Da'an observing the proceedings with interest from behind an observation window. No matter how many times he saw the Taelon, Ron still could hardly believe he was real. Maybe it was due to his long held belief in aliens finally being proven and he was afraid he'd make up to find it was all a dream and Dee Dee looking at him sleepily wondering if he was under too much stress.

            Then he felt the probe make contact with and pierce his skin.

            It came as a shock to him, such a strange sensation that he was too startled to do anything more than gasp slightly. Belman checked the readings of the equipment, and his vital signs, before indicating that the procedure was a success to Da'an. Ron neither saw nor heard the exchange, he was too focused on an odd feeling blanketing his mind, then everything mercifully went black. 

 

***

 

            Dee Dee was awakened by the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. She glanced at the clock, 3:23 am, and threw on a robe before walking over to the window. Below her she could see Ron approaching the house.

            He had not called as he had promised to let her know if everything had gone well and when she called him he seemed irritated. Dee Dee tried not to read too much into it, for all she knew he had a headache and Ron turned into a veritable grizzly bear when he had a headache.

            Still there had been something incredibly foreign and chilling about the look he gave her.

            Shrugging off those last thoughts, Dee Dee went downstairs. Ron was hanging up his coat in the hall closet and seemed not to have heard her approach.

            "How was your implantation?" She asked.

            "It went well." Ron said flatly. "Da'an was very pleased with my response to the CVI."

            "I'm sure he was," Dee Dee said annoyed. " You promised to call me after it was over, I got worried after a few hours and decided to call you. Even then you brushed me off, are you feeling all right?"

            "I have never been better. I simply did not have the time to waste on your questions when there is much important work to do for the Companions." Ron told her if he was reprimanding a child. Then he brushed past her and went up the stairs, the sound of his steps echoing in the darkness.

            Stunned, Dee Dee stood in the hallway for several minutes. The doubts and suspicions of earlier seemed to have been confirmed, but a large part of Dee Dee refused to believe them. She went into the kitchen and opened the fridge, staring longingly at the wine coolers, before removing a jug of orange juice and pouring herself a large glass. She settled herself on the couch in the living room and flipped on the television.

            She knew that she would not be able to sleep tonight.

 

***

 

            A week had passed since her husband’s implantation and she had given up most of her hopes that he would come home and be the Ron Sandoval that she had married. Instead he was an icy eyed man who looked at her with disapproval etched across his face when he deigned to look at her at all. Dee Dee pulled on a pair of stained old gardening gloves and walked into the backyard. It was a lovely late spring evening and it bolstered her spirits just looking at the garden, her pride and joy. She could see the driveway through the fence and frowned momentarily at the sight of the lone car parked there.  It seemed so surreal that she would ever find herself thankful that he seldom bothered to come home these days, preferring to stay at the embassy and work.

“Damn the Taelons.” Dee Dee whispered, it felt good to say the words aloud as though they were a release of a kind. She knelt beside the herb garden and ruthlessly pulled out the weeds, tossing them into a black plastic garbage bag. Before the Taelons, Ron usually was home in time for dinner, though it was true they ate later than most people. They would talk about their days and plan for the future over the meal or while cleaning up afterwards. They had such plans…

Dee Dee felt a tiny wave of nausea come over her hand leaned against the fence for a moment until it passed. She internally cursed the Taelons, the Ron she had married would have been so thrilled and excited when she told him her news, but she had wanted to wait until after the implantation.

            She was pruning the roses and still trying to clean her mind an hour later, when he came home unexpectedly on time. She heard his approach and knew with just a glance that he seemed troubled, the first outward sign of emotion other than disdain and contempt he had shown her in seven days. Her first impulse was to comfort him, but something about his manner made her wary.

            “Good evening Dee Dee.” Ron said, he took a deep breath and fingered the petals of the nearest rosebush as though lost in a memory. Then he shrugged it off and met her gaze.

            “I still love you.” Those were the words Dee Dee had wanted to her, but his tone was unusual, as if he hated himself for feeling that way about his wife.

            Then he turned and gestured, two men came toward her dressed in white coats. Dee Dee blinked in surprise. This seemed like something out of a movie. She struggled against them belatedly and felt a prick on her upper arm.

            “No!” She cried out as she went limp, one hand moving to her stomach.

            “It’s really better this way.” Ron said almost casually. “It really is.”

 

***

 

            Sandoval was carefully detailing a list of security protocols for an upcoming event that Da’an had decided to attend when his global began chirping. He pulled it out and opened it, surprised to see Dr. Hernandez from the Vandewater Institute. He had left specific instructions not to be contacted except in case of an emergency.

            “Dr. Hernandez?”

            “Agent Sandoval, there has been an unforeseen circumstance concerning your wife.”

            Sandoval frowned deeply. Part of him felt fear gnawing away that something, anything permanent could have happened to Dee Dee. That part of him prayed she was all right. The part of him under the control of the motivational imperative was annoyed by the intrusion. After all, he had put Dee Dee in that institution so he could focus for fully on his duty to the Taelons.

            “What sort of ‘unforeseen circumstance’?”

            “She was pregnant.”

            That hit Sandoval like a ton of bricks. Even his CVI could not quell his initial horror at the doctor’s use of ‘was pregnant’. “What happened, is she all right?”

            “Physically she will recover, psychologically however…” The doctor shook her head. “Only time will tell.”

            “Was there something wrong with the baby?”

            “No, but we were unaware that she was pregnant and the medications used on her have some unfortunate side effects in pregnant women.”

            Sandoval winced. Da’an would not be pleased by this, the Taelons valued new life above all else and he ached to have been even an unwitting participant in the death of an unborn child.

            “If we had known that she was pregnant this would not have happened.”

            “Thank you doctor, keep me informed.”

 

***

 

            Dee Dee lay on her bed staring at the ceiling tiles. The one directly above her had a faint brown stain in the upper right corner and 123 little black dots. The one to the left of it had a crack and 128 dots.

            Everything seemed a blur from the moment Ron had unexpectedly shown up in the garden, except for the moment when she realized that she was going to loose her baby. She remembering bending over with a sharp pain and people asking questions. They demanded to know why she had not told them she was pregnant. Dee Dee almost wanted to laugh, when had they given her the time? She had been sedated and dragged away and woken up here all without anyone asking her anything.

She did not care anymore now. Her baby was dead now. The child she and her husband had longed for, planned for and created of love, the last gift from Ron before he was snatched away from her by the Taelons. Oh, there was a man who had his memories, his voice, his body, even his mannerisms and quirks, but he was not Ron. He was Agent Sandoval. Her baby and her husband, sometimes she almost blessed the forgetfulness the drugs brought and cursed the brief clarity before someone came in with a syringe.

            Almost.

            They killed her baby and she wanted to never forget, to hate them and the Taelons for it.

            One of the nurses had told there that they had called her husband and Dee Dee curled up into a ball and cried. After a while someone came in and spoke to her in a soothing voice, but she did not care. Eventually she cried herself to sleep. She guessed they changed whatever drug they had her on because after that night she felt dead, no joy or sorrow just days of vacantly passing time.

            Agent Sandoval sent her some flowers, yellow roses, but she paid them no notice. It made her remember when the only way she could get through the days was to allow the drugs to numb everything. She blinked and resumed her inspection of the ceiling.

 

            On the tile next to the one with the crack were 134 black dots.

 

***

 

            Sandoval lay back and stared at the featureless ceiling, his CVI mercilessly dragging forth memories that a small, guilty, part of him wanted to forget. At the time it had seemed correct to commit Dee Dee, now it sickened him that he could have done something like that to the woman he loved.

            A first degree relative, a parent or a child…

            Maybe this was justice, for the death of the baby he and Dee Dee should have had. Justice for the guilt he had felt at learning the news was not for locking his wife in an institution but for having caused a death that Da’an would not have approved of. At the time all he had cared about were the Taelons in general and Da’an in particular, everything else took a distant second.

            Everything else, including his family, friends and most especially Dee Dee.

            Now Dee Dee too was dead thanks to William Boone, another casualty of his decision to join with the Taelons. He wanted to destroy them for how they had betrayed him. He wanted them to suffer as they had made him, Dee Dee and countless others suffer.

            Sandoval found it difficult to truly hate William Boone. Had not he himself arranged the murder of Kaitlyn Barrett Boone? The red headed implant was likewise dead now by Taelon hands, though in his case Zo’or had not bothered to use a proxy. In his nightmares he still saw Zo’or’s expression as he stared into the empty blue tank that only moments before had contained Da’an’s protector. It was at that moment that the last vestiges of his motivational imperative crumbled and he felt a searing hatred for the Taelons.

            Ever since the day his motivational imperative failed the baby he and Dee Dee should have had haunted his dreams. His CVI brought back every little hint of Dee Dee’s condition and he cursed himself for his blindness. He had been too concerned about his upcoming implantation, and Dee Dee had obviously wanted to wait until it was over and done with before telling him that they were going to be parents.

            A voice in his head mocked him, told him that his illness was justice for the deaths of Dee Dee, the baby, Kate Boone and all the others whose blood stained his hands.

            Maybe it was

            He fell asleep, more exhausted than he’d ever been. Someone else would have to carry on the fight against the Taelons. Maybe he would be granted the opportunity to see Dee Dee and their baby again, but he doubted he deserved such a boone.

 

***

 

            The church was quiet, only the sound of her high heeled shoes clicking softly against the marble tiled floor broke the pregnant silence. She made a quick survey of the area, her eyes drifting towards the hallway that led to the Resistance Headquarters for a fraction of a second, but she saw no one else. Then again Dee Dee had not expected to find many people in St. Michael’s Church at half past eleven at night.

            Dee Dee seated herself in a back pew where the shadows would envelope her and mask her features. She was taking an enormous risk in coming here, but she had felt drawn to Washington. It had been several days since she had last seen Ron on the news and Zo’or had canceled all his appointments for an unspecified reason. Dee Dee immediately knew something was terribly wrong when she noticed it was Major Kincaid who made the statement to the press, brushing off the expected questions from reporters. Ron was always the one who delivered such statements; something had to have happened to him.

            If someone had asked her how she would respond if Ron came back into her life after she lost their baby, she would have responded with a conditional answer. Ron Sandoval she would welcome, Agent Sandoval she would spurn. Her memories of Ron taking her from the institution were hazy, another casualty of the drugs, but nothing could ever dull the memory of his reimplantation. It had felt as though she had lost him all over again.

            And yet, there seemed to be more expression in his eyes after the reimplantation. It was hard to tell from video clips played or the news or printed photos, but she detected a definite something there. It was a struggle not to contact him. Time had done nothing to close her wound, how could it when the source of her hope and her pain was such a public figure?

            She looked up at the magnificent stained glass windows with their jewel-toned panes that depicted scenes from the Bible. Her father had been a Lutheran minister and thus skipping church or Sunday school was not an option available to her unless she was ill. A smile flitted across her lips as she recalled the old saying about preacher’s children: they were either obedient or impertinent. Dee Dee considered herself somewhere in between.

She prayed as she had not prayed in years that God would protect her husband. Her lips moved silently in the familiar words of the Lord’s Prayer. Then she heard the door to the church open and close behind her and immediately tensed. Dee Dee scooted further into the shadows and ducked her head, her hands folded in her lap as if in prayer. The other person’s footsteps continued in the same rhythm, without any hint of pause or hesitation. As they passed by her and went further into the main pain of the sanctuary, Dee Dee finally saw who it was and blanched.

The newcomer was a young man with dark hair that Dee Dee immediately recognized from the news as Da’an’s protector, Major Liam Kincaid. It was unlikely that he had ever so much as seen a picture of her, but Dee Dee felt a stab of fear and retreated from the pew and up a nearby set of stairs that led onto the balcony where the choir was seated on Sunday mornings. .Dee Dee knew she should leave, it was dangerous to remain, but there was something about the Major’s posture that was alarmingly like how Ron moved when he was under a great deal of stress. She shook her head, her worries were coloring her observations.

            Kincaid stared at the section of the floor for several minutes, obviously deep in thought. Dee Dee could not help but notice that he held his right arm in an odd manner as though it were sore. Finally he went to light several candles before departing as he had entered.

            Dee Dee walked over to where the Major had been and pulled a long match out of the small box and struck it. Then she lit three candles: one of Ron, one for their baby and one for herself. She silently prayed that Ron would be all right. He might not be there to call her cooking utensils by his unique names for them, ask her about her day, or hold close in the night but at least he would be alive.

            She walked out of the church and into the cool night, echoes of church services from her past running through her mind. The familiar scent of burning candles, parents trying to hush young children, the sound of the church organ playing the kyrie.

 

            “Lord have mercy…”

 

FIN