"Even the Way You Kiss Me is Different"

[Vex Xiang 0]

"Even the Way You Kiss Me is Different" Personal Log

 

      "I can't explain it," she sighed, her eyes falling to Dox although her head remained motionless. Both of them lay in the bed, their silk sheets drawn up to their necks, naked, staring up at the ceiling.

      "Everything is different now...I don't know why. The way you talk, the way you look, the way we make love. Even the way you kiss me is different."

      "I don't know what you want me to say, Shannon," Dox blinked robotically.

      "Tell me what's happened to you these past two years. I know it must have been horrible, but I want to help," she pleaded to him.

      Dox sighed and rolled away from her. "There's nothing you can do for me. There's nothing anyone can do for me."

      They lay there silently for a long while. Neither of them knew what to say...the only sound was of their steady breathing. Finally, Dox returned onto his back.

      "I'm leaving," he said.

      There was a quiet pause, but Shannon didn't seem at all surprised. "Where will you go?"

      "Back to the academy. I'm going to join StarFleet. Get back out into space."

      She remained stoic, despite the tears that formed at the corners of her eyes and dripped down her hairline, rolling along the rim of her ears before falling to the pillow. "I wish you'd never gone to that war."

      "I can't take back what I've already done," he told her.

      "But," she sighed, "its been less than a month since you've been back." Another silence. "What happened to the man I fell in love with?"

      "He's dead," Dox said heartlessly.

      "Then its over," Shannon told herself out loud. Her fingers caressed the golden engagement ring on her index finger, with a small but beautiful clear gem in its fixture.

      The two of them just laid there. Dox looked over at her, and saw the cold stare in her eyes as she gazed at the ceiling. Since he had been back, he'd drawn all the joy out of her. He couldn't bear to do that to her. She was so vibrant, so alive. She deserved someone better. Dox was no longer suited for her...he wasn't the man she had fallen in love with. That man was dead. And Dox had no idea what of him was left. So he just watched her...her emotionless stare.

 

      Dox's eyes were fixed to the lifeless stare of the woman beneath him. It was the first time Dox had seen death since the end of the war. He had not known how he'd react. But the episode he had just experienced in front of Drake made him ashamed. He couldn't bare to look down at those eyes any longer. With his fingertips he closed the eyelids of the dead woman. He closed Shannons lifeless gaze.

      It was as if the sound had been turned off...and slowly it rose in volume again as he broke his fix away from the woman and looked out into the restaurant. The sights and sounds came back to him. The smoke attacked his lungs and he realized again that he was on McKinley station. Why his mind was playing so many tricks on him now, he wasn't sure.

      But this was his duty. He had seen this so many times before, endured it for so long, he didn't want to be there another minute. Somehow he composed himself, and willed himself to go on. Soon, he thought, it would all be over.