Copyright ©2000, Tracey Harnack. All rights reserved.  No part of this story may be re-posted in part or in full without written permission from me. It's characters are used without permission, no infringement is intended.
Disclaimer: Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict is copyright 2000, Tribune Entertainment
Co.
Rating: PG.
Title: Deny Thy Father

Author: Tracy Harnack

Description: Joshua Doors tries to sort out his feelings after his father's death.

 

Deny Thy Father

 

Joshua Doors trudged blindly out of Resistance HQ and out into the street, sparing not a glance for the cars as he crossed. He was too numb to care. Liam’s words of reassurance echoed in his ears, offering cold comfort to his broken heart. He shivered.

                It was a bleak, frigid, late fall day. Only a little light and no warmth from the sun made it through the heavy clouds. Everything around him was gray and damp. He’d cried all he could; nothing was left in him. His grief had settled around him like a cloak. The agony and guilt no longer stabbed at him sharply, but had become a heavy, constant pain, an insistent weight on his soul.

                “Joshua, wait!” came a female voice from behind him. He turned slowly to see Renee standing on the opposite curb. He shook his head and kept going.

                “Wait!” Renee called again. He heard a honk and screeching tires. “Watch where you’re going, damn it!” she swore at the driver of the offending car. She drew up breathlessly next to him, buttoning the coat she had hastily donned to come after him. It was too big on her, and he realized she must have accidentally grabbed Liam’s instead of her own.

                “Leave me alone, please,” he said through gritted teeth. Part of him was grateful for her concern, but he couldn’t bear company right now, especially not the company of someone who knew what he’d done, how he’d been the cause of his own father’s death. He swallowed hard.

                Renee shrugged and fell in to step next to him. He didn’t have the energy to drive her away. He turned his thoughts inward again, to the turmoil of self-hatred and grief roiling within him. They walked silently for a while. Joshua almost forgot Renee was there until she laid a hand on his arm and said firmly, “It really isn’t your fault.”

                He shook her off and threw himself heavily onto a bench nearby. “Stop saying that!” he said thickly. “It is my fault and we both know it.”

                Renee sighed and walked over to sit down next to him. She wanted to reach out to him, but there was an invisible barrier around him that prevented her. “It was the Taelons, Joshua. The computer was controlling your mind, making you do the things that got your father killed. You couldn’t have stopped it: you weren’t in control. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

                Joshua’s soulful brown eyes locked with her icy gray ones. “Yes, I can,” he said evenly.

                “You—” Renee began, but he silenced her with a hand.

                “I can blame myself because it is my fault,” he told her. “Yes, the computer was controlling my actions. But it couldn’t have made me do it if something in me hadn’t felt that way. We both know that the Taelons still haven’t found a fool proof way to control human will. Even when they implant something directly into our brains, they can’t make us go directly against what we want for more than a few months, a year, maybe. A computer operating from a distance couldn’t make a human do something unless it had something to grab onto, some part of him that wanted to do it.”

                Renee swallowed. “You’re right,” she said hoarsely, feeling as though she’d just been hit by a truck. “You’re right. The computer couldn’t do anything unless part of me agreed.”

                Joshua’s eyes widened. “No, I didn’t mean…” he trailed off, realizing that there wasn’t anything he could say to help.

                “Most people think I’m just greedy, cold, self-centered, cruel, unfeeling, and greedy,” she continued.

                “But on the inside you’re really caring, kind, and loyal,” he finished. “I know, remember?”

                Renee shook her head, blond hair whirling. “No, that’s not it. Part of me is like that. Part of me, not the computer, wanted that job, wanted the money and the prestige. Part of me cares only for myself, for money and power and fame, Joshua. I try to fight that part, but it’s still there, inside me.”

                Joshua was quiet. Finally, he said, “I only wanted to hurt him a little. I never wanted it to come to this. I only wanted him to know what it was like to feel like I felt like. I didn’t want to really hurt him, I just wanted him to fail a little bit.”

                Renee nodded, forcing her thoughts off the ugly revelation about her own soul and on to the man who needed her help. “That’s only understandable,” she soothed. “It was his success that kept him away from you when you were young, and he did make you feel like a failure until he realized what he was doing. It’s only natural that you’d want to show him what you’d been through.”

                Joshua bit his lip. “I loved him, you know. He hurt me, and he hurt my mother, and sometimes I even hated him, but I did love him. I never got to tell him…there’s so much I didn’t get a chance to say. And now it’s too late, and I’ll never be able to.” He drew a sharp breath. “Why couldn’t I just let it go?” he asked. “He said he was sorry, and I knew he meant it, so why couldn’t I just forgive him, why did I have to keep trying to get back at him. He gave me so much; he never gave up on me even when I was doing all I could to drive him away. And what did I do for him? I betrayed him, and I destroyed him, and then I killed him.”

                Renee moved closer to him and put her arm around him. “You’re only human, Joshua. We all do things like that. Even me, even Jonathan. Look at what he did to you when you were young. We all make mistakes.”

                Joshua shook his head. “But he realized it in time, before it was too late. Once he saw his mistake, he threw everything he had into making it right, even when he knew it could cost him his fortune, his reputation, and even his life. I didn’t. I didn’t see until after he was dead. I have to take responsibility for that.”

                “It was my fault, too,” Renee said softly.

                He looked at her in surprise. “But you had nothing to do with it!” he protested.

                She smiled a rather a gristly smile. “Oh, but I did. Liam and I came to find you, because we realized that something like this might happen. When we saw that the artificial intelligence was going to execute everyone in the building, Liam went to go rescue the staff and told me to find you and Jonathan and stop what was happening. I didn’t get there until Liam did, when Jonathan was already gone.”

                “You can’t blame yourself for not being fast enough,” Joshua said.

                “I didn’t go right to you, Joshua,” she admitted. “I had plenty of time, you and your father weren’t very far from me. Liam had to go twice as far, rescue twenty people, see them to safety, and then come all the way back. I knew where I was going, I could have been there well in time to stop it. But no, I had to take the walking tour of One, Taelon Avenue!,” she said ruefully. “I just had to see if I could gather the last little bit of information about the building for the Resistance.”
                “Dad would have—” he started.

                “Your dad knew the difference between when to worry about strategy and when to worry about people!”

                Joshua took in what she just said silently. “Well, I guess everyone makes mistakes,” he said quietly.

                Renee tried to smile and failed. Stillness prevailed for a moment, until Joshua tried to hide a sniffle. “Are you okay?” she asked.

                “I just miss him so much,” he choked. “I can’t believe he’s dead. I can’t believe I let this happen. I thought he’d always be around…”

                “I know,” Renee agreed, her tone far more sedate than normal. “He was my mentor…almost like a—” She bit off the last word as she realized what effect it might on her friend.

                “A father to you,” he finished for her. She winced as he continued bitterly. “You were…his favorite protégé. He was always talking about you, when he was home. ‘Renee is so bright’. ‘Renee is brilliant at business’.  ‘Renee knows what she wants and how to get it’. ‘Renee knows where her loyalties lie’.” His handsome face twisted in pain.

                Renee drew away from him. “I’m…sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean…”

                Joshua smiled humorless. “I know you didn’t. It’s just…”

                “He seemed to care more about me than you.”

                “Yeah.”

                “You know that’s not true, don’t you?”

                “I do now,” he said. “I didn’t then. It’s not your fault.”

                She nodded.

                He looked at her with a childlike expression on his attractively sculpted features. “I just wish I could see him one more time…Tell him I’m sorry.” His voice broke and he turned away from her. “Tell him how much I love him.”

                Tears overflowed from his chocolate brown eyes and his broad shoulders shook with silent sobs. Renee’s nurturing instincts took over and she reached out to gather him into her arms. He buried his face in her coat, and she stroked his hair, rocking him back and forth and resting her chin on the top of his head. She tried to murmur words of comfort and to her surprise found that she was crying also.

                She had never been much of a crier and she hadn’t let herself go since Karen had been killed. She pushed all thoughts of her daughter from her mind. If she thought about that, she would never be able to stop. She let her tears for her old friend fall into Joshua’s dark blond hair, even as she knew that his own tears were soaking the front of her clothing.

                They clutched each other for comfort and grieved together for uncounted minutes. Finally, Renee recovered enough control to try and soothe Joshua’s pain. She had never been very good at making people feel better, but she did her best, muttering calming, reassuring phrases into the young Doors’ ear. After awhile his shaking stopped. Slowly, he pulled himself out of his pain. Taking a deep breath, he straightened. Renee kept her arms about his shoulders.

                They looked at each other, eyes red and raw from crying, emotions laid bare before each other. Joshua reached out a hand to Renee and touched her face gently. Her skin was smooth. He cupped her chin in one hand and looked into her wintry eyes. “Thank you,” he said earnestly. She smiled a little and tried to turn away.

                Quickly, impulsively, Joshua leaned forward and kissed her fully on the lips. She half pulled back in surprise, but then relaxed and melted into him. When they broke apart they stared at each other in surprise, almost shyly. Joshua locked his eyes with her again, and leaned forward to kiss her a second time but she held up a hand.

                “No,” she said softly. “Not…not now.”

                His face fell, but he nodded his understanding.

                “Maybe later,” she said. “But right now…It’s too soon, and we’re both grieving. We might not really be feeling what we think we’re feeling.”

                “I know,” he said.

                “Are you going to be alright?” she asked, the concern plain on her beautiful face.

                Joshua nodded. “I think…I will, maybe.”

                “We need you, Joshua,” she said standing up. “The Resistance needs you…and I think I need you.”

                He stood up as well and she embraced him again. “Come see me soon?”

                “Yeah.”

                “Never forget what the Taelons have done,” she said. “Always remember that they are the ones who caused this. Not you.”

                “I will,” he promised soberly.

                She smiled a little and, tucked a strand of blond hair behind one ear, turned and headed back towards St. Michael’s. Joshua watched her disappear and sighed. As he walked the long way back to his own apartment, his heart still ached and he still felt ready to burst into tears like a little boy, but he no longer wanted to die. He knew—one day—the pain would get better. It would never go away, but eventually he’d be able to live again. And he swore to himself that he would keep his father’s memory alive for as long as he lived. He would make the Resistance work, if it took every breath in his body and every cent he had. Then, maybe, he would have atoned for his sins. As Liam had said, he was his father’s last, best hope.


Fin.