Promise of Love (5 page)

Rieko thought about Shawn's reaction. This wooden ship with all the perfect details, all the hours Shawn would know it had taken. It was just the sort of thing Shawn would like, and knowing the work it took would make it mean that much more to him. “Stuart, of course, he would love it."

"You sure?"

"Yes.” Shawn would be so honored by it and it would mean more knowing it bore the name of this ship he loved. “He'd cherish it.” She knew it was the truth. She could see Shawn picking the proper place to proudly display it, somewhere he could look on it often.

"How do you suppose I do it?” he asked. “Give it to him?"

"Why don't you just walk up to his ready room with it tomorrow?"

Stuart shook his head, terror in his eyes. “I can't do that.” He was too private a man to go tramping around the ship with his creation. She wondered if he knew Shawn wasn't going to hide it in a closet.

"Walk it to his quarters.” She gave him another solution. That was near enough he could easily hide it, and then an explanation would be a private thing between him and the captain.

Stuart nodded his head. He looked proudly at the ship again. “Every little detail is perfect."

She knew she shouldn't ask about Stuart and his perfectionism. It would hit too close to the one subject he never talked about: his father. What was the worst that could happen? He would clam up and stop talking for the night?

"Why are you such a perfectionist?” she asked.

Stuart just looked blankly at her for a moment. “I'm not,” he finally answered. “Nothing about me is ever perfect.” Failure showed in his voice and eyes.

"Why do you strive for perfection?” she modified the question and tried again.

Stuart stared at her and for a moment she thought he would avoid the question and change the subject. “He demanded it of me,” he spoke softly. His face masked anything beneath the surface. He, Rieko knew, meant his father. “Nothing about me is perfect. Nothing ever was, but he wanted me to be perfect,” he said.

"Nobody is perfect.” Rieko kept her words soft, almost afraid he would stop talking to her.

"He is.” Stuart's words held conviction. Rieko knew it wasn't true, and she knew Stuart believed with all his heart it was.

"I tried.” His voice cracked. “I've tried so hard.” His eyes filled with tears, but they didn't, or wouldn't, fall. “MacEwan's don't cry,” after all. Suddenly Rieko saw it. What she had taken as perfectionism and a hatred of failure was really a son still trying to please his father.

He looked at the model ship again. “It's perfect, isn't it?” he asked her. Rieko silently nodded in reply afraid that any words might end his monologue.

"I usually blow them up,” he stated.
Blow up his models? Why would he do that
?

"It took me years to figure out how to make them right,” he continued, and Rieko settled in to just listen to his quiet voice as it echoed back to her from some far away place. “I'd always mess up, have to throw them into the rubbish. Then I finally got one right.” His eyes lit up at the memory. “Must've been about eight. And I showed it to Dad. I was so proud."

His face of joy crumbled. “He said it was a rather simple model.” Rieko could see a proud young Stuart showing off the project of all his hard work. His father's words of failure that had burned deep enough to still cause such pain today.

His blue eyes met hers. “So, I blew it up. It felt so good.” His voice held enough pleasure that his statement scared her slightly.

"You could've gotten hurt.” Rieko still felt concern for the little boy who now sat as a grown man across from her.

"I did. The first time I got hurt,” Stuart continued, “he was away, so I showed Mum. She took me to the doctor to fix it. I thought she wouldn't tell.” A frown grew on his face.

"She told him.” The pain of that long ago betrayal still rang in Stuart's voice. She silently wondered what his punishment had been.

"I tended myself whenever I got hurt after that,” he told her. “You can barely see the scars now.” He turned his hands to look at his palms, and childhood wounds mostly wiped from his body, even if the reasons behind those wounds were still fresh in his memory.

"I'd buy the models in secret and hide them while I built them. There was a place out in the woods where I'd do it. Made sure it was all cleaned up when done."

Rieko realized he was likely telling her secrets he might not have shared with anyone before.
How does a person keep so much of who he is from the world? Why would he want to
?

"I tried so hard to measure up,” he told her. “I wasn't smart enough or big enough or strong enough or brave enough...or good enough. “Those words were repeated to him so often they had been etched into his being.

"I'd put it all into those models, all I couldn't be in real life,” Stuart said. Everything he was told he should be, everything he had been told he wasn't. “Then I'd blow it all up.” His voice filled with anger and hatred. “With a loud boom and shrapnel everywhere.” She saw now where his love of explosions came.

"Rieko, it felt so good.” He lifted his blue eyes to meet hers, and still a small part of her shivered at his enjoyment of destruction.

"He was a boxer.” Stuart lightheartedly changed the subject. “Won some Royal Navy championships when he was younger. He'd go into that ring and pummel the other guy. He used it as a release, like me blowing up models."

"Have you blown them all up?” Rieko wondered how many that was.

"I've never given one away,” he said in response, not answering her question. “It'll feel nice.” He smiled over at her. “Like giving someone a piece of me. Maybe that's what I should do from now on.” His voice held resolve as if he had turned over a new leaf.

Since Rieko had gotten him talking, she asked, “How did he feel about you joining Earth Space Fleet?” She made sure not to use the word father.

"I'd already failed him.” Stuart shrugged a thin shoulder. “I had to get away.” His voice sounded quiet and full of desperation. Stuart closed his eyes and paused for a moment. When he looked back at her, his eyes held such pain. “He has such power over me. Just one wrong look.” He shook his head, his voice a whisper. “The thought of one wrong look."

The pain in his voice was now tinged with fear as his body shook. “He was going to destroy whatever was left of me.” His eyes held tears he would not let fall, while across from him Rieko shed tears for his pain.

"He's still there, even out here. I can't get rid of him.” Stuart's soft voice cracked at his realization.

"Why Earth Space Fleet?” Rieko asked, hoping to lighten the mood.

Stuart blinked several times as if clearing his head, he smiled that crocked half smile. “Because it's like that ship.” He nodded to the model that had brought them to this moment. “There was a time when MacEwan's sailed the open seas, alone out there in that giant span of water and sky.” He voice filled with reverence. “Now there isn't a place on Earth not connected to every other, but out here we're all alone in a little ship in the vastness of space. Just like those first MacEwan's who took to the seas."

She smiled at his reasoning. He was out here to explore like the rest of the ship, but not so much to find new things but to prove humanity was big enough to deal with the hardships of the exploration. He actually seemed excited by the same isolation that scared Rieko so.

The room fell silent for a moment. “Sometimes I wonder how much of me is me.” Stuart wondered aloud. “How much is him, them.” Rieko knew he meant his father and the MacEwans who had come before. “How much of me is the way it is because he molded me."

Rieko couldn't imagine anyone shaping independent Stuart, but then she knew that parts of him weren't his. “People don't mold children,” Rieko spoke.

"You can mold anyone,” he told her, with a sure voice, “if you're strong enough, they're weak enough."

"You aren't weak, Stuart.” How could he think he was weak? He was probably the strongest man she knew and all that he had told her tonight simply reaffirmed it.

"I like the way you say my name,” Stuart said, seemingly out of nowhere.

His eyes looked at her for answers, and she knew she had none. Rieko moved to sit beside him on the bed. She placed a hand on his face. “Your love for blowing things up, that is Stuart,” she said.

"Is that an attribute?” His voice held sarcasm.

"Your protective nature, self reliance, attention to detail,” Rieko continued a list of his attributes.

"The last is his. Can we not talk about this anymore?” His eyes pleaded as much as his voice. “Please."

Rieko nodded her head. She knew her cheeks were wet with tears she had let fall for those he could not.

"Oh, Rieko; I didn't mean to make you cry.” With concern, Stuart wiped the wetness from her soft cheeks.

Rieko closed her eyes and leaned her forehead to his. “You're a good man, Stuart, no matter what he's ever told you.”
Who does that to their own child
? “Thanks,” she said. Tonight he had to a great extent let her in as she had asked him to, as he had wanted to. “I love you."

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"Hey, Rieko, come in here,” Taylor called to her from inside the Captain's ready room. “Ya gotta see this."

Rieko wasn't surprised to see the wooden model sitting on Shawn's desk. The rest of the bridge crew, except Stuart, were all there looking at it.

The Executive Officer, Commander Poloski's dark eyes ran meticulously over the small wooden creation. “The Lieutenant's attention to detail is commendable.” She almost complimented Stuart as she raised a pale eyebrow.

Mike, the helmsman, was bent down with his dark face inches from the ship, his hazel eyes full of wonder. “How long do you think it took him to make?” he asked the room.

"He didn't say,” Shawn spoke. He stood back from the rest with his arms folded across his chest. Rieko was sure he would have already studied the gift in great detail after Stuart gave it to him last night.

Taylor was down in front of the ship with Mike, a finger lightly tracing the wooden hull. “He just gave it to ya?” His voice held disbelief.

Shawn nodded his head in reply. “Yeah."

"Why?” Mike shook his head.

"As a gift,” Shawn answered, “he thought I'd like it."

Taylor stood up. “He spent who knows how many hours building that.” He pointed at the model ship. “To give it away.” Taylor's voice rang with that excited disbelief of his. He shook his head. “I'm never gonna understand the man."

Shawn smiled and lightly chuckled. “I doubt you ever will."

"If you will excuse me, I have work to do,” Poloski spoke crisply. “As do all of you,” she added as she left the room.

"We need to stop gawking by the time Stuart gets done with that little emergency in the armory.” Shawn gave a glance out the door to the elevator.

"Rieko, you get a look at this?” Taylor asked her.

"Yes,” she answered. She stood across the room from the model. All three men looked at her, as if they knew she and Stuart shared something. “I like the way the shape of the sails make it look like it's going somewhere,” she said, to get their gazes off her.

"Probably took him hours just to figure out how ta do that,” Taylor said. Rieko wondered if he knew how close to the truth he likely was.

Mike stood up. “It is beautiful.” He sighed as he left the room and made it seem a little less crowded.

Shawn leaned in toward her and softly asked, “How long did it take him to make?"

Stuart had answered that for her last night before he left to give the model to the Captain. He claimed he didn't know the exact hours, although she figured he probably did. The answer he had given was a couple hours a week since they had left Earth. Rieko hadn't needed to calculate the time to figure out it was a lot.

"I promised him I wouldn't tell,” she replied.

Shawn just looked at the ship, likely thoughts about who Stuart really was running through his head. He nodded at her answer with a look of intrigue on his face. Rieko excused herself to get ready for the day's work.

She softly heard Taylor's voice through the open office door. “Just when did that happen, the two of them?"

Rieko stood before Taylor's door the next day. Why had she told Stuart she'd do this? Because he'd asked her to, and Stuart wasn't a man to ask favors. She pushed the door chime and waited for the chief engineer to beckon her in.

"Door's unlocked. Come on in.” His voice rang from the inside.

Rieko entered. She had an official reason for her to be here, although not a good one. “Got that report on the next star system done.” The excuse, however, was rather lame, since Taylor didn't really need to know any of that. Her eyes made a nonchalant glance over his quarters.

Taylor's quarters were neat but disorderly. The bed was made, but the desk where he sat was piled with reports, books, and data chips, as well as the floor near it. Pictures hung on the walls. Personal items cluttered the shelves.

"Thought I'd drop the report by,” she finally added.

"Rieko, ya didn't have to do that.” Taylor took the offered data file she handed him.

Stuart had asked her to find something Taylor would like a model of. A poster of Utopia Planetia was the largest item in his room, but Taylor should get a model of something that had an engine.

"It was done, figured there was no reason to wait,” she said. He didn't seem to mind the lie as she sat in the chair across from him.

An old red die cast miniature of an automobile sat on one shelf. She thought it was a corvette. A NASA space shuttle sat beside it, and a miniature of some ancient rocket. All were possibilities for the model Stuart wished to build.

"That model Stuart made was something else, wasn't it?” Taylor said. He didn't know how close to her reason for being here he was.

It was Poloski who spoke to Stuart about the captain showing off the model. Later Stuart had asked Rieko what everyone said about it. Rieko mentioned how much the others had liked it.

Stuart having turned over that new leaf, had decided all the models he made from now on would be given away, and somehow Taylor was chosen for the next model. It made sense. Beside herself, Stuart was closest to Taylor on the ship.