Lagrange Point

by grissomesque

Summary:

Tom has never been very good at endings.

For @jp-prompt-fest prompt #3, Drinking Buddies

Notes:

Lagrange Points are positions in space where the gravitational forces of a two-body system like the Sun and Earth produce enhanced regions of attraction and repulsion. These can be used by spacecraft as "parking spots" in space to remain in a fixed position with minimal fuel consumption.

There are two endings to this story.

In one, Tom and B’Elanna settle on Earth. She accepts a promotion; he declines one to stay with Miral. Miral thrives on Earth. Once a year, the crew gathers for a homecoming reunion. And he and B’Elanna are fine.

“I should get home,” Tom says. He makes no move to rise.

In the other, there is a mountain town without a name, a halfway point. A bottle on the crooked table between them. A secret they keep, for reasons they don’t discuss.

“You should get home,” Kathryn agrees.

In this version of the story, there is another anniversary, one only he and Kathryn remember. And he could tell his wife that the date they mark is that day the Caretaker changed the course of their lives. That they drink to what they lost by coming home. He could.

But Tom has never been very good at endings. His life carries him along from limbo to limbo—prison, Voyager, marriage… and for ten years, now, this unspoken thing between them, a bottle on a crooked table, a mountain town without a name.

“I’ll get us another,” he says, home a little later each year.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 22 of Astrotheory