Cabin Fever I
Julia: Valentine's Day, Part 3
by Jayel
We stayed that way for the rest of the long afternoon and into the night, just talking. "Alonzo, tell me about your parents," I said, turning to face him. "I don't think you've ever mentioned them."
He smiled. "That's because I don't remember ever meeting them," he said, twisting a lock of my hair between his fingers.
"What? What--why don't I know this?" I demanded, hurt for him because of the pain I could see in his eyes, hurt for me because he'd never shared it.
"I don't know, Doc," he teased. "It's recorded in my bio files--" "You don't remember them at all?" I interrupted, bio files holding no fascination for me whatsoever.
He shook his head. "No . . . the first place I remember is a hospital--apparently we had all been in some kind of accident, and they were killed. I was so small, I couldn't tell them what happened, and if they ever found out, no one bothered to tell me." He took a semolina bar out of his pocket and tore it open. "My first memory is of a pretty doctor asking me questions I couldn't answer." He grinned. "Maybe that's what made me fall so hard and fast for you."
"Were you old enough to talk?" I asked. "Yeah, I think so," he answered. "I must have been--I told her I wanted my mom." His expression darkened to an uncharacteristic scowl. "I don't remember it so much as . . . That doctor's report is still part of my file--I've read it a hundred times. And in it, she says I cried for my mother." He tossed the bar back into his back untasted. "But I have no memory of my mother's face or even why I wanted her."
I took his hand. Was there anything in the doctor's report about what happened to them?"
"Not by the time I saw it, no," he answered. "The story was that the hospital had a power surge and lots of data was lost. When I first became friends with Val, probably around the same time your parents were thinking about being born, Tara looked at the file for me . . . the way she does, you know . . . "
"Yes," I agreed.
"She said there'd been deliberate cuts in the data, that parts of it had been sliced out on purpose," he said, his unfocussed gaze turned toward the Terrians along the wall.
"Have you ever tried to find out why?" I persisted. He looked at me like I'd suggested he fly back to the stations on his own power, then gave me the fly-boy grin. "My doc," he sighed. "Do you know what kind of blind security clearance I had to maintain to fly the runs I was flying? If I'd made those kinds of waves, I'd have been lucky to get work on a station-to-station garbage scull."
"So you just let it drop?" I asked weakly, culture shock catching me unaware again. We had all been together so long, and 'Lonzo and I had become so close, that sometimes I forgot how different our lives had been before, how wide a gulf we had crossed to come together.
He shrugged. "It didn't seem to matter that much," he admitted. "Whoever they were, however they died, my parents had been dead for more than forty years by then, and I had a life." He toyed with a handy rock, scraping it against the smooth ripples of the floor. "All I cared about was flying--I grew up in an orphanage, never alone, never having anything that was mine. Being in that ship, being in control--that was what was important." He looked up at me with serious brown eyes that made my heart ache just looking back. "Maybe it sounds cold--"
"No," I hastened to promise him. "It makes sense . . . " I looked away for a moment, then back. "It also makes me understand how . . . how strange it must be for you, being tied down, being--"
"Being connected to you?" he interrupted with a smile. "Being part of this little circle of us and Valentine?"
"And the bigger circle of the Eden Project," I admitted. He leaned forward and kissed me, deliberately pressing his mouth to mine for a long moment. "It is strange," he said, making me look into his eyes and really hear him. "Strange and scary and completely perfect."
"Are you sure?" I couldn't stop myself from asking. "So sure, you can't imagine," he promised. "Julia, honey, when I lost my first family, I--I don't miss them, all right? I never have--for whatever reason, I don't remember them." He framed my face with his hands. "But if I lost this one? No amount of flying could ever make it up."
I slid my arms around his neck and held him tight. "Good . . . " He laughed, a low rumble in his chest that was as comforting as distant thunder under my cheek. "I'm sorry I never told you about them, doc," he said, cuddling me close in spite of Valentine's ever-present bulk. "I knew how hard it would be for you to understand--"
"I forgive you," I said.
"But you know, you're just as bad," he pointed out. I drew back and looked at him, completely mystified. "What are you talking about?"
"Tight lips," he said. "You've mentioned your mother several times--" "Always in the most pleasant of terms," I said sarcastically. "Yeah . . . but didn't you have a father?" he finished. "Ah," I said, not sure how to answer. "My father . . ." I settled myself more comfortably against him, telling myself firmly that turnabout was fair play. "My father died when I was six," I said at last.
"Do you remember him?"
"Oh yeah," I said, smiling. "Very clearly. He was . . . well, very different from my mother, for one thing. He was a doctor, and he loved . . . he seemed to love everybody, everything." I stopped, trying to put the confused whirlwind of feelings into words that made sense. "He was full of life, very passionate about things--unlike my mother, who always looks before she leaps. But she loved him, too--They were very happy."
"How did he die?" he asked gently. "Nothing terribly dramatic," I answered. "It was actually sort of silly--his appendix burst while he was working a long shift at the hospital, taking care of radiation victims from an industrial accident." I grinned through threatening tears. "He told his scrub nurse he thought he'd eaten a bad hot dog for lunch."
"You and your mom must have been devastated," he said. "We were," I admitted. "I didn't realize at the time how hard it must have been for her--that's when she really started shutting off." I looked up at him, touching his cheek. "I didn't really understand it until you." He kissed me again, a quick, sweet reassurance before I settled back into his arms. "My dad . . . . he used to sing me this song--for years I thought he made it up just for me, but the words don't really fit for a little girl--It just has my name in it."
"How does it go?" Alonzo asked.
I laughed. "I don't remember," I retorted. "Sure you do," he persisted. "Come on, doc, sing it for me." "I really don't remember most of it," I said slowly. "Sing what you remember," he urged. "Okay, okay," I agreed grudgingly. "But I'm warning you, I am nobody's idea of a singer . . . Let's see, how does it start . . . . ? 'Half of what I say is meaningless . . . But I say it just to reach you, Julia . . . Julia, Julia . . . Ocean child . . . Calls me . . . So I sing a song of love for Julia . . . '" I stopped, embarrassed. "The chorus is the part I really remember."
"I know that song," he said, his face alight with affection. "I've heard it--Tara used to have a recording of the original version, and yeah, it's mostly that chorus . . . But I remember another part that does make me think of you." He started singing, surprising me with how sweet his voice was, very casual but clear. "'When I cannot sing my heart . . . I can only speak my mind . . . Julia, Julia . . . More and more . . . Touch me . . . So I sing a song of love for Julia . .. . Julia . . . Julia.'"
"You do know it," I said, tears in my eyes for no good reason except it had been so long since I'd heard those words and it was just so perfect that he knew them. "But tell me something . . . why does that part remind you of me?"
"Because of what it says," he said, kissing my cheek. "It's you . . . you speak your mind to keep from singing your heart." He turned my face up to his and smiled. "But you sing it to me."
"Yes," I agreed, reaching for him. "Every single note . . . " I kissed him tenderly, and he deepened it, lowering me to the cave floor and moving over me as his tongue explored my mouth. "Alonzo, wait," I said reluctantly, "I can't . . . I mean--look at me, for heaven's sake."
He stopped, a look of infinite patience and near-infinite frustration on his beautiful face. "I know," he admitted with a sigh. "Sorry, doc . . . " He sat up and looked around at the silent, stone-like Terrians, and suddenly an idea lit up his face. "Hey . . . "
"Yeah?" I asked suspiciously.
He grinned. "Do you trust me?"
End of Part 3.
Author's Chapter Notes:
The song quoted here is "Julia," officially copyrighted as a Lennon/McCartney composition, but actually written by John Lennon by himself. It's on the The Beatles (the White album).