John and Marlena (Finally) Get a Q!

Chapter 41- Boxed Up

Marlena forced her eyes open and shifted her position on the couch. Sleep was gathering like a thick comforter, struggling to envelop as it shaded the edges of her consciousness. In an effort to ward off the encroachment of the weariness that threatened her, her eyes searched for something, anything to stay awake. Seconds later they settled on the remote control that lay on the shining surface of the table. She smiled despite herself, wondering how on earth Eugene had managed to keep it so clean, free from small sticky digits. Then, of course, she remembered how.

She reached out for the remote and then sank back into the welcoming softness. A tap on a button produced an image that she recognized as a starship hurtling through space. An ironic smile brushed its way across her lips as she regarded the television for a moment. There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, that are dreamt of in your philosophy....

With another tap of a button, she found herself watching an English woman trying to teach her how to make pastry. "Great lot of good that will do me," she muttered to herself before she switched channels again.

This one wasn't much better. Some woman was talking to a man in a wheelchair with bandages on his face and it seemed he was her dead ex-husband returned to life. Marlena watched for several minutes before changing channels again with an utterance that bespoke what she thought of such drivel.

Finally, she gave up on the channel surfing and hit the play button hoping desperately that the Babe tape wasn't still in the video player. Not that she didn't like Babe. She had adored it. The first ten times. When you were getting close to three-figure viewing, the talking pig began to wear a little thin. She hoped the children would find something else soon. She still couldn't forget the relief when Belle's six-month obsession with RiverDance came to an end. Not that she didn't like RiverDance either. It was just that she almost felt she could have danced every step along with them, which was of course what Belle had wanted to do every time she had seen it.

However, it wasn't Babe in the video player. She had forgotten what they had watched last. At least she had until the image flickered into life on the screen and her heart began to pound.

It seemed that she spent so much of her time and energy trying to forget him, to try and convince herself that she didn't care that much anymore. Yet all she had to do was to see his handwriting or smell his cologne in the air and her heart would constrict with the loneliness and the idiocy of it all. It infuriated her that just a look from him could reduce her to a quivering mush. Or just the sight of him could make her heart race until she felt positively dizzy. Somewhat like she did at this moment.

His words pierced through the utter tiredness she felt and the misery in his eyes reached into her soul and plucked a melancholy tune on the strings of her love. She wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the screen, her eyes glittering in the half-light as she struggled to understand what was happening to her.

******

John studied the utilitarian hospital carpet as he attempted to piece it together in his mind. As if it would help him concentrate, he closed his eyes and brought his fingers to his temples as he sifted through half-remembered moments and diaphanous recollections.

With a grunt of frustration, he looked up at Q angrily.

"I can't remember alright? It's all so hazy." He shook his head as though it would clear the cobwebs that obscured the past with such tenacity.

"Just hazy, or unusually hazy?" Q asked, his tone imbued with the boredom he felt. Sometimes he wondered why he bothered to help this dimwit. It certainly couldn't be for Marlena's sake.

"Now that you mention it..." John looked thoughtful, "it is kinda strange. Normally I would remember events like that pretty clearly." He blinked as a memory slipped craftily between the layers of his consciousness. The astonishment on his face was banished as another thought came to mind, a fact he had overlooked.