Copyright 2000, 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: G

Title: The Gift

Author: Lyta

Lyta_1028@yahoo.com

Summary: Siobhan Beckett finds a package waiting for her.

“The Gift”

Siobhan Beckett was surprised to see a package neatly wrapped in brown paper waiting for her on her desk in the London Taelon Embassy. She set down her purse and hung up her coat before going over to her desk to examine it. There was no return address, but the various stamps and seals on it indicated that it had gone through all the security checks without incident.

Siobhan sank down into her chair, and rested her chain on her hands. Her name and address were handwritten in black ink, and it was smaller than the usual packages she received, mainly clothes from on-line catalogs to replace items ruined during the course of her work as a Companion Protector. She ran her hand along the package before turning it over and peeling apart the seam held together by old fashion scotch tape.

Inside was a small dark blue velvet box, of the variety that usually contained fine jewelry. Intrigued, she opened the lid and gasped. On a bed of creamy white satin was an Alexandrite cut into the shape of a heart and set with a white gold chain. She held it up to the light and admired the necklace before slipping it around her neck, absently noting that whoever sent it had chosen her favorite seventeen inch chain length, all the while wondering who had sent the gift.

Then she noticed a small card, the size most often included along with floral arrangements taped to the box. The card was pale pink with a red heart in the center, in the inside, written in the same handwriting was ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’.

Part of her, for a reason Siobhan could not even begin to identify wanted to cry. Another, more logical part tried without success to identify who had sent the gift, noting that the Alexandrite was the traditional birthstone of June.

FIN