"Loving you is more painful than I deserve"

[Vex Xiang 0]

"Loving you is more painful than I deserve." (Personal Log, Maturin)

 

"Well, this is a pleasant surprise," her face was crooked with a strange kind of smile. It was a mixture of calm approval and disinterest. "I see if I try to contact you three dozen times in a single week you actually bother to answer me."

Maturin took a sip from his glass, a chilled vodka. "I considered ignoring it," Maturin responded.

"I wouldn't have been surprised. You've ignored me for the past three years, it wouldn't be a change. In fact if I wasn't checking up on you every few months I would have thought you'd be dead by now."

Dox smiled a quirky, sick smile at his ex-fiance as he raised his small glass and gave it a shake and made the ice jingle. "I found something far better than suicide."

Shannon just gave him a cold stare. It was like speaking to a stranger compared to the man she knew before.

"Have you talked to your parents at all?" she asked.

"No," Dox was becoming impatient, "what do you want, Shannon?"

She looked irritated. "I wanted to tell you...I thought you needed to know. I'm getting married."

"Congradulations," he said flatly.

Her brow wrinkled in anger. "That's it?" her voice over-pitched, "that's all you have to say to me?"

"What the hell do you want me to say?"

"I don't know...how about showing a little emotion? Maybe you should try actually caring about anyone but yourself anymore. I'll just go ahead and assume that you'll refuse to come?"

"Why on Earth would I?"

"If you came out of that little bubble of self-pity you've made for yourself, you'd know that your father is giving me away. Isn't that an irony? My ex-close-husband's father walking me down the isle to wed another man."

Maturin leaned to the side and began refilling his glass from a half-empty vodka bottle. "I've always  wanted you to remain close with my parents."

"Ever since they lost their son I suppose they've clung on to me."

There was a long moment of silence, where Shannon was expecting Maturin, like any normal person, to ask about her future husband, about her life, his parents, anything. But Maturin just stared at the screen.

She broke the silence. "So how is your new career?"

"Terrible. Miserable."

"Oh?" she inquired for more detail.

Dox sighed. "I really don't feel like I'm doing any good in society. I've been having constant conflicts with some of the other officers. I hate the constant protocals and rules that frankly get in the way of just getting a job done. I had an argument with some stuffy engineer. Something about biohazard protocals. I didn't follow them, granted. But there wasn't any risk, I already knew, so its not like it was important. The man was just shoving his weight around like a typical pompus high ranking officer.

"And I've had some arguments with my coworkers. The other doctors are...they baby the crew and the injured like little children. Take your medicine, do this, do that. Honestly I don't care whether the patients do what doctors recommend...its their life and they should be responsible enough to take the advice of professionals. Seriously, if some idiot crewman doesn't want to listen to my medical advice why should I go out of my way to pamper him like a twelve year old?"

Shannon just sat there. "Have you made any friends?"

"Not really. Just this," he said as he raised his glass with a wink and gulped down the liquid.

"You know it's really hard for me not to care about you. It's not for lack of trying. Loving you is more painful than I deserve. And you're not even going to ask me how your parents are doing are you?"

"I hadn't planned on it."

She growled. "Fine. I just wanted you to know whats happening with my life, not that you would care. I'm sorry your life is so hard for you right now, but you bring it on yourself. So fine. Just sit there and feel sorry for yourself and drink yourself to the grave. You let me know when Donalek Maturin decides to come back."