Message From Home
Oct. 11th, 2015 04:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
churbooseanonSo a while back you might remember me doing a series of Maine as a Dad meta posts. The reason why was that I read a wonderful little short story by RoyalHeather of Ao3 called Only The Beginning which really got me thinking. After talking to the author I got permission to play with the concept and I promised to point back to them as the origin of the thought. Here, then, is Papa Maine. Also, I made him of Indian (as in Southeast Asia not North America) descent because I wanted to and because I just had this IMAGE of his wife in the most beautiful crimson and gold saree and Maine in a simpler sherwani for a very simple ceremony and because he couldn’t imagine being anything but plain next to his beloved’s radiant beauty and…. sklhtjerje feels.
Message From Home
“Mail call!”
There were few words that could stop everything and anything going on in the cafeteria, no matter what was going on. Granted anything said by the Counselor or the Director were they to be in the cafeteria would result in all eyes on them. Then there was Niner. If the pilot showed up and started yelling, well, everyone was listening. But the true power, that could be bestowed on anyone and everyone, had to be in those two words. Recorded messages from home were nice when they got text ones, but there was something about the electronic capsules of sight and sound that was entirely different. Maybe it was the fact that those messages were wonders of motion and reminders of longed for voices that could always be carried with a person. Maybe it was fact that the words were there, but not just as pieces of text that could hard to understand the emotion and intent behind. Letters you could hold in your hands, that maybe weren’t the sound of the voice wanted, but it was something. Videos, though? Those were limitless, played over and over until the sound and sight were burned into the soul itself.
There were rules, though. Ways mail call worked. Carolina always went last. Florida never went. Wash wanted to be near the front to get messages from his friends back in his old unit, pictures of his cats, words from his family. York seemed torn whenever his own messages came, took his datapad over and hemmed and hawed over whether to let himself take the data chip or not. But there was one rule that was never questioned, never refused. When the words were uttered, Maine always stood first. Everyone waited for him to get up and move to the crew member tasked with delivery. Always he moved first, and always there was something there waiting.
“Wonder who writes him,” Connie would whisper to Wash every time, and North would shake his head because speculation wasn’t his thing. Each week York would pick a new ridiculous answer: the circus he had run away from, a collection agency from the Moon colony, junk mail trying to sell him a ride on a cruise. So many different theories, different suggestions. None of them right.
“Agent Maine,” the crew member greeted with a brief nod. Maine didn’t even grunt in reply, just held out his hand. The woman sighed, hoping for something more. Maine knew why. There was a betting pool going on about what it would take to get him into bed with someone. Anyone. The woman, he believed, was in on it. He paid her no mind. The chip fell into his hand, utterly weightless at his side, but infinitely precious. Maine nodded and pulled his datapad out to slide the chip home. Not that he opened the awaiting messages. No one needed to see what waited for him. His own little capsules of secrets.
All eyes were on him, and he knew it. Had been since the first time it had been announced that messages had arrived to the ship. They were so rare, almost months apart. That fact alone nearly killed Maine. The fact that he couldn’t respond was almost murderous. But this, at least, was something. Satisfied that he at least had the messages, Maine slipped his datapad into a pocket and walked past the crew woman. He might have few traditions that were important to him, but immediately going to digest the news of home was one of the most important. No one even bothered to call out to say goodbye, but he didn’t care for it anyway. The only company he cared for now was the message.
His room was dark, always dark when he came back. Not because he liked it that way, Maine liked well lit places with some music playing to help keep his mind calm and clear. FILSS knew what he wanted though, what he needed. Always she dimmed the lights for him, turned up the heat in his room, and waited. Maine just smiled when he entered, nodded his approval, and slipped the chip from his datapad. A port opened in the control panel by the door and Maine slid it home before he moved to sit down in the far too small chair by his desk in the corner. Normally he wrote reports here, but this was something else entirely.
“Play,” he ordered, and he listened to the low whine as the holoprojectors in the room came online. He didn’t know why they were here, but he was thankful for them. Even more thankful for befriending the ship AI to get this special treatment.
“Of course, Agent Maine. I hope the news is good,” FILSS answered him. Another moment of the whining, and then the room was filled with light and two smiling faces.
There was beauty in the shaped light, beauty that went beyond the physical form. Not that the woman wasn’t beautiful in a classical sense. Her dark hair fell in wavy curtains around her face. High cheekbones were adorned with just the littlest bit of rouge, her deep black eyes accented with crimson and gold that matched the scarlet and gold sari he had bought her for the last birthday he had been home to celebrate. So hard to get gifts home these days. Still, she looked beautiful, as flawless and serenely composed as she had been the day he had been called back to the service and taken from her side. His beautiful Savita, with her smile as warm as a summer sun. And there, in her lap and smiling up at her mother as she tried to play with her mother’s earrings, was their little Laksha, already going on eighteen months. She’d grown so much since the last message, and still he’d never had a chance to hold his daughter.
The ache in his chest was deep and left him shaking, but he didn’t speak, couldn’t speak. Perhaps, somehow, Savita knew that. Somewhere in the past, when she’d recorded the message, she must have known how the sight of her and their girl would have left him speechless. She’d known since they were children how she stole his voice with the wonder of her, and always she smiled warmly as if she did not know. Could not know.
“Laksha, Laksha, look at the camera,” Savita cooed at their little girl, but the girl’s attention was fully on the dangling shine of her mother’s earrings, which drew musical laughter from Savita that warmed Maine inside and out.
“Sorry, beloved,” Savita spoke, finally turning her gaze on where the camera must have been. The image shifted slightly, FILSS moving the projection so that Savita’s eyes met his through time and space. “My sister Lali gifted me these earrings just the other day, and they seem to be no end of amusement to Laksha. I should not have worn them, but our little girl can be so willful. So like her father.”
“Shiii-ny,” Laksha answered her mother, still reaching for the earring, provoking another, if lighter giggle.
“Laksha, Momma will give you an extra cookie if you say hello to your Daddy.”
“Daddy,” Laksha parroted, and Maine had to reach up to wipe away the starting of tears. Savita had taught the girl the word, but could she even know what it meant? Savita always said she listened to his messages with Laksha there, but could the girl put the word together with his face? Could she know who he was? Could she even begin to understand?
“We had a lovely day when we went into town today…” Savita spoke, and Maine, he just closed his eyes and let her voice wash over him.
For him the words weren’t really too important. He would listen to the message another ten times before he went to sleep, no matter how long it was, no matter whether he was scheduled for a training session or not. What mattered in this moment was the sound of her voice. He’d take another watch to see her face, watch the expressions alight upon Savita’s brow and see the way his daughter played with her mother as she told all the little tales of life. And still he would watch, still he would wait, still he would listen. Because this, these two women who he loved and who loved him, they were why he fought. For the day he would come home and embrace his wife. For the day he would hold his daughter for the first time and make her laugh and teach her what ‘Daddy’ meant. For them and only for them had he returned to the service. For them and only for them he went through the burdens of the project. For them and only for them…
His precious treasures, so far away. Safe, that’s where he’s kept them. And someday soon, when they’ve won the war, he’ll return to them.
Maine listened so many times over, from his chair, from the floor as he exercised, from his bed as he drifted off to sleep. And once more while he slept, listening to stories of his daughter’s day in the market, and the kitten Savita had bought who played with the ribbons that she danced in front of little claws. Listened and let their voices give him peace.
