CONSCIENCE
By
Shannan Palma
Timeline: After "Enemy within" (Day 49)
Author's E-Mail: palma.7@osu.edu
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Fellow Edenites,This is my first E2 story and I hope you'll forgive any discrepencies you find in it. Due to the fact that I am an incurable optimist, I did not tape most of the first season, believing (foolishly as it turned out) that NBC would show the repeats over the summer. Because of all this, I 've only seen about two of the episodes more than once, so this is from memory. It's mainly a Julia story, though the whole Julia/Alonzo romance-thing does play a part. I've always wondered what went through her head between "The Enemy Within" and "Redemption." The look on her face when she saw Alonzo had come back for her was haunting. Anyway, this is my little bit of (somewhat sappy) imagination. PLEASE, let me know what you think!
All the usual disclaimers. This is just fanfic and I don't want to step on any corporate toes. Characters, universe, etc. belongs to Amblin Entertainment, blah, blah, blah... This story, on the other hand is the original property of ME! and is copyright 1996. If you are unsure about whether you can copy/forward/post it, just ask.
Thanks!
Shannan Palma
October 23,1996
Conscience
She had never thought they would leave her. Kill her, it had crossed her mind. Somehow hold her captive, she had considered that one. Leave her alone, it had never even seemed a possibility. To her mind, inundated through years of training to think of the expedient first, abandonment was the fool's way of dealing with her treachery. Leaving her alive and out of their control was positively the stupidest thing her Council-training could imagine, and yet they had done it. They had left her. And somehow the young woman huddled tight against an alien tree did not feel like the threat their foolishness gave her leave to be. For all her brilliant intellect and self-sufficient posturing, inside beautiful ice-princess Dr. Julia Heller there lurked a lonely little girl who had spent her whole life trying to win the love of her distant ambition-driven mother, the friendship of her jealous and fearful peers, and, if nothing else, the approval of her ruthless and power-hungry sponsors, the approval of the Council. She had worked hard to fill the void left by the longings through devotion to duty and the "public good," gradually losing more and more of herself along the way. She had been an outcast without a prayer of acceptance, and then had come Eden. Then had come G889, and Devon, and Bess, and Uly, and True, and Yale, and all the others, and they had given her, unasked, both approval and friendship. Not only that, but they had given her the precious gift of their faith and trust, concepts so absent from her life that she had not even known to long for them. That would have been enough, it was more than she had ever had before. But then there was Alonzo. And he had given her, had wanted to give her, the most precious gift of all, his love.
But that was all in the past. The one gift she had been given as a child, the one lesson that no one, not her mother, not her peers, and not her precious Council, had ever failed to pass on, the unforgettable, unforgiveable, act of betrayal, that is what she had given back to the people who dared to make her dreams come true. She had been too used to pain think that there might have been another way. And now it was too late.
The howling of the wind startled her, disrupting the downspiral of her despairing thoughts and causing goose pimples to erupt in a frenzy up and down her arms. She rubbed her bare flesh briskly, the practical doctor taking over and forcing her to look to survival, as it always did when the personality of Julia Heller sank into this kind of depression. Not once since the crash of the colony ship had she suffered in this peculiar way that had haunted her adolescence. When her mother had banished her to her room and locked the door for hours on end, when the Council had given her a problem that she simply was not equipped to solve and threatened her with its ominipotent "or else" if she should fail, at these times the doctor came forward and Julia Heller simple left. She went away to a special place that only she knew, and there she found her own version of peace. On G889 she had not once needed this refuge, until now. The doctor raised her cramped body and made a bee-line for the single tent they had left behind. She rummaged around among her things until she found a jacket, insulated against the "unnatural" cold of planetary weather. She put it on and instantly felt relief from the chill, but at the same moment mentally, she lost it and ran back to the refuge of her tree. She pulled the brush up high around her as a shelter from unseen watchers.
With trembling hands she covered her eyes and sobbed soundlessly against her knees. The secret place that had held her sane through years of brainwashing and mental abuse no longer held any peace. Julia and the doctor were forced again into the uneasy alliance they had always shared, both knowing that this time, there was no escape from the truth. No outside force caused their torment, so there was nowhere to go to escape it. The jury had chosen to exile her, but the judge in her head termed the price of her crimes as not yet paid. The price that conscience demanded of her, was her life.
Somewhere around midnight she must have fallen asleep, Julia realized as she raised her tear-stained face from its resting place against the tree. Most mornings she woke slowly, needing time to figure out where she was and what had happened, that was how yesterday had been, but today that mercy was spared her, she remembered instantly where she was... and why she was there alone. With trembling hands she brushed away the pieces of bark that had somehow attached themselves to her overnight and peeked out from her shelter of brush at the tent and clearing. Despite the fact that her suicidal ramblings of the night before showed no desire to repeat themselves in the dawning light of the new day, she still could not bring herself to leave the safety of the shadows. Hiding seemed to be the only thing in her entire life that she had ever been good at. Reilly, at least, would agree she did it well.
With some trepidation, she thought for the first time about her options. As lonely and frightened as she was, she had come to at least one conclusion, she didn't want to die. She knew that now, as she had not the night before. Somehow, she felt that laying down to die would be wrong. As though her death would be the true unforgiveable betrayal of Eden. Because if she died, she would have sentenced them to some of her own torment. They had meant only to get away from her, not become her executioners. The guilt they would inevitably feel if they found out she had died would be as cruel as her own at hurting them. Because of that, she could not bring herself to give in to despair. She could not let herself die.
And yet asking her to live was so much more cruel of them. Alone, having known companionship. Hated, having known love. Feared, having known trust. Her conscience, freed at last, gave her not a moment's peace, even in the middle of her self-pity she could not help the knowledge that she deserved all of it. She had brought it on herself. The lurking clouds of last night's sorrow drew close around her heart. It seemed strange to think of her heart, they would say she didn't have one. The funny thing was, before Eden she would have agreed with them, but now? She knew she had a heart, she knew because she'd felt the pain when it was broken. Even before then she'd begun to wonder, something kept skipping a beat whenever Alonzo came near. But he would never come near again. A single tear followed the well-worn path of those come before down her cheek, alone, because she could cry no more. All her sane and reasonable rationalizations for living crumbled at the thought of him. Always, sleeping or awake, eyes open or eyes shut tight, she would remember the look on his face when he knew. Her body crumpled from its sitting position until she lay prostrate on the ground. Head hidden in the crux of her arms, she couldn't even cry. Her body shook with dry sobbing as her mind relentlessly replayed every moment she'd ever spent with him. From the first time, on the silent bridge of a sleeping ship, when she had looked into the old eyes of a cocky young pilot and been frightened to the core by the depths she found there, to the flashes of memory that accompanied her last sight of him, the night before mirrored in his eyes, then cracked with betrayal. She wanted to scream, but she was too far gone. Despair once more had control, and she was helpless in its grasp. She shuddered again and again, crying out silently her remorse and regret, sending with them her need. Someone. Anyone. In her heart knowing that only one person could really bridge the widening void in her soul and bring her back. Only one person save her from herself, this time she was not strong enough to do it alone, and the refuge of sleep held the terror of dreams, as it had not thought to before.
"Julia!" She was so desperate she could even hear his voice. As though from a great distance it echoed through the fog in her mind.
"Julia!" His voice, but he was not there. He hated her, and so she must hate herself.
"Julia!" She raised her head slightly, even in her dreams she could not imagine Alonzo calling her name like that. There was real fear in his voice. She wanted to go to him, but she was too frightened.
"Julia!" No longer able to ignore it, she stood up on wobbling knees and stepped around her tree. He was there. Black hair glistening, eyes shining with fear and growing desperation. He turned towards her and stopped, silent, face full of relief. The moment they spent looking at each other was the longest in her life. He had come back. He had come back, despite everything, for her. The void grew small and she drew a deep breath. When she released it she was already in his arms, no memory of how she got there. She clung to him as if her life depended on his being there, and at that moment, it did. Her legs gave out and suddenly his arms were the only thing holding her up. Tears flowed as she realized suddenly, his arms were enough.
-The End-
This text file was ran through PERL script made by Andy. Original text file is available in Andy's Earth 2 Fan Fiction Archive.