TITLE: Chance
E-MAIL: eli @ popullus.net
ARCHIVE: Ask, please.
SUMMARY: A plea in the silence from the one that started it all.
RATING: PG
POSTED: Sept. 5, 2002
AUTHOR NOTES: Thanks to Fialka and sunshiner for beta service.
STORY NOTES: Takes place during Unrealized Reality, but in an unknown place far, far away. I can't stop questioning the why. Why did a whole race take a chance on a lone human far from home? This is a piece of one possibility. I know there are others in my head, but this one just poured out.
DISCLAIMER: We haven't seen much of him, but even he is not mine. Read.
Ah. They found him.
I have been keeping a close eye on him, watching him learning, discovering. This one has gotten so far on his own. Pride is not an emotion I feel often.
This wormhole glows. It tugs, pulls. He must have felt it. Why else would he stay so long in that one place, watching it appear time and time again? But it is not just pulling at the strings of this realm. Its reach stretches all the way to that other realm, where they are. I could tell and so could they. I felt it. They pulled him in.
Surprise. Curiosity. Satisfaction. Fear. These are emotions I have felt tied only to him. It is finally happening, and I can’t help but hope. Will they stop to consider? Has he learned enough? Or perhaps too much. Is this finally the end?
The reins are slipping from our grasp. A bittersweet moment, even if the grasp has been loose in recent times. Loose because of exhaustion, both physical and emotional. Keeping our eyes open for so long, we have started to go blind. We are experiencing the blindness as a race, and I hope the others understand and will let us go.
Take him. He is our hope. He is everyone’s hope.
I know he will be angry. That is part of what makes him what he is and what we need. It is what I saw in that first meeting. It is why we gave him the knowledge. His anger, his wonder, his inability to stop questioning the way things are.
He will be better than we were.
Part of his anger will be personal. I accepted that from the start. But now I must confront that reality. This is when his eyes will be opened to everything. To the future. To the past. I will not be the one to open his eyes, and that hurts. More than it hurt when I was the one to open the eyes of the other, when I knew what that step would mean. I am beginning to wonder how he has affected me.
There is an element of danger to our plan now that it has reached this point. The danger that they may attempt to find us. They understand retribution. We anticipated that the risk would be offset by the conditions, the physical reality that is this realm. But the entire plan hinges on an unknown. And now I am questioning the wisdom of the decision to let it be his choice. Their choice.
You all must accept it, accept that we are gone.
They cannot hear that plea. He cannot hear our wishes. That is what we chose, and the uncertainty weighs on me.
How far have we wandered? How much have we changed? Can we still predict, with any certainty, what those others will do? I am no longer sure. We have never been able to accurately predict what he will do. That is part of his gift. Right now it feels like our curse.
I long for the freedom that being his father gave me that first time and whenever he let himself forget. We do not experience that closeness, that immediacy, that connection. That is why he is what this realm needs.
Will you let him be what we all need? Will he let himself be what he can be?
Time has passed since they pulled him in. I cannot tell how much. How did I let myself get so distracted? I am not worried about the smaller things. The rest still keep watch, as well as we can now. I am free to allow myself to be distracted. This is my watch, my charge. But it is still disturbing to have been unaware.
I try to picture what is occurring, to determine whether I would know if they ended his life. I believe I would. I have been paying much closer attention since I became aware there were two, the ramifications of that fact. I have noticed no change since this realm returned to how it should be, and that must be a positive sign.
Perhaps they took the time to consider. If that is the case, while the others did not know before, they will know now what we have done. They will react, even though they will not truly know our reason why. They will suppose. They will not guess. I am still trying to explain that concept to the rest. I cannot, will not try to explain how to guess to the others.
But I am trying to guess now. I do not have enough data to form more than a vague hypothesis of what the others may be doing to him, with him. So I must guess. Have they taken the time to teach him? Have they realized his potential? Has he? Will they all accept our decision?
Please. Please, take this chance.
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