Work Text:
Memories, Or Letting go of a Dream
The bleak landscape was a perfect mirror for the state of his life at the moment. Gray, and lifeless, that’s what his days felt like lately. In a cosmic joke, the very same day that Lisa had walked out of his life, winter had crept over Macross and had taken it into a chokehold.
He hurries inside of his house, inside, the dark void doesn’t bring any respite from the coldness. With a heavy step, Rick walked in. Sighing, he wearily took off his coat, half tempted to just leave it laying where he had just taken it off.
‘It’s not like anyone is gonna come over and see me’, he thought snidely. ‘No one is gonna see the mess I left.’
Not bothering to turn the lights to stave off the coming darkness, Rick walked to his room. Still dragging his coat along, he dropped it in his still unmade bed, messy from a restless night of little sleep.
Seeking some solace, he stepped towards his desk, where Roy’s old helmet sat. Reverently, he put his hand over it, as if somehow he could connect with his Big Brother. He tried to shake the oppressive silence surrounding him. Not only had his relationship with Lisa fallen apart but everyone’s with it as well. He still couldn’t believe how his life had turned upside down in just a matter of days.
*************
“Hey Skipper.” Max’s usual greeting didn’t ring the same as usual. It sounded forced, like their relationship seemed lately.
“Hey Max, what news do you have for me today?”
And where Max would usually start gushing about the new planes they were trialing, or the new recruits, the small trickle of them that still signed up, or even about his girls, as he called them, Max just shrugged and said, “Not much Rick.”
Rick turned his back on his friend and busied himself in looking through the pile of reports in his desk. He didn’t want to see his old friend forcing himself to be civil to him.
Distractedly, he noticed the amount of papers on his desk had exponentially grown, where he had just tossed them there to tackle them at a later time. The papers were piling up, he noted, and he really should take care of them before someone came yelling at him for not finishing them, Rick thought absentmindedly. That reminded him of the time when Lisa had done just that. It had been way, way in the beginning of his days of being a CAG where he had not placed that much importance on paperwork, thinking it was beneath his other duties.
After tearing him a new one and calling him all kinds of irresponsible, she finally explained the importance of the reports and why they were needed.
After he had yelled at her and called her all kinds of names related to witch, he had finally calmed down to understand what she had said to him, and he had grudgingly promised to her to never let his reports pile up again.
And here he was, leaving them neglected, like he had done then.
“Rick, you ok?” Max’s voice cut through his memories.
“Oh, yeah. I was just thinking that I really need to get these darned reports finished before someone comes looking for them.” Rick injected false exasperation that he was not feeling.
Max, who had been a wide-eyed, and silent spectator of that fight years ago, knew exactly who Rick was referring to. Especially since it had been a point of major ribbing on his part any time the papers started piling up, warning his superior about the wrath that would find him if he didn’t take care of them fast enough.
“Oh yeah, stack’s getting tall.” Max replied awkwardly, “Do you want some help with that?” He added, hesitantly.
‘It’s not gonna be the same,’ Rick thought, as he again averted his gaze from his uncomfortable looking friend. Rick was used to finishing his reports with Lisa badgering him to finally do them. If he was honest, in some cases, he left them unfinished on purpose, just to have her company and have her interject her own opinions on what happened in the various missions. Thinking about it made him feel nostalgic of those late nights.
“No, thanks Max. You have stuff to do.” Max opened his mouth as if to retort but Rick relieved him of that by saying, “This is why I came here on my day off, to take care of all this. Take care of your regular duties.”
“Ok Rick, just call me if you need anything.” Rick nodded, as he rounded his desk and sat down.
“Oh, and Max, please close the door on your way out, I don’t want to get distracted, you know.”
“Sure thing, skipper.” The last thing that Rick saw was the wary blue eyes of his friend, as he closed the door after himself, leaving him completely alone.
*********
“Man, every time I think she cannot have any more ice on her veins, I get schooled, again!” The voice was getting closer, passing right in front of his door.
Rick gripped the pile of reports tighter, wrinkling some of the papers, as he stopped from opening the door.
“Dude, I know! She’s like a robot, man.” Another pilot, was that Jeffries?, replied. He leaned in closer to the door, wanting to eavesdrop on their conversation. He wanted to let them dig themselves in a deep enough hole where they could not get out of for a while. Then he would tell them what their punishment would be for talking that way about a superior officer.
But before they could continue, a voice cut through their conversation.
“You better not be talking about who I think you are talking about.” Miriya’s voice rang through.
“Captain Sterling, sir.”
“Don’t pretend to have any consideration for your superiors after what I hear you two talking about.” She hissed at them.
“No, ma’am.”
“Now go about and finish your duties without any more gossiping, or I will give you more work so that you are too tired to do so.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“On it, ma’am”
“And it’s sir or Captain Sterling to you two!” She reprimanded, and he could hear their voices yelling back excuses as the two pilots scampered off.
In another time, Rick would have jumped in and tore a strip of their asses, right next to her. In another time, Miriya would have turned to him, equal parts pride at the fact that she could still scare the lower ranks as she used to as a Quadrano, and equal parts exasperation as she bemoaned the fact that micronian soldiers had no respect for their superiors, especially the female kind. In another time, they would both complain about lack of respect overall and go about their day.
But after that day, he knew that there would not be any camaraderie coming from her. Ever since that day, Miriya had been giving him the cold shoulder. There were no gray areas with the Zentraedi woman, so for her, if she thought you had done something wrong, you did not get a little bit of her compassion. As if compassion was something she had learned in her time among the human race.
At the end, he stayed behind, like a coward, not wanting to see the condemnation in her eyes at not coming up to Lisa’s rescue like he usually did.
**************
All in all, it had taken him two days to finish the reports. He had turned in the papers to the Flight Officer on duty. Not her, it was never her. Lisa had changed her schedule to avoid him completely.
“Big Brother, where do I go from here? The girls are not talking to me, not that I blame them. Even worse, I know the Trio are gossiping behind my back. They think they are so slick, but I know them by now.”
Life kept going on without him, sometimes he imagined himself standing still as everyone around him moved about their day. Life was leaving him behind, stuck in the past.
“I’ve done some pretty dumb shit before, but this time I don’t know how to fix this. I’m so alone.” He whispered in the silence.
At the end of the day, if he was truly honest with himself, he was just so disappointed with his actions as everyone else. While he disliked deep introspective dives into his actions, it was obvious at this point.
He felt as if there was no hope for him at all. He looked to his left, towards the wall next to his doorway. More specifically, to the poster he had placed there. He had strategically put it there because it was the first thing he could see in the mornings.
Since he hung it, that poster of Minmay had been his reason for living. It reminded him of why he had joined the force in the first place. He waited for the elation that he normally felt when he saw pictures of her, but he felt none of that. Even finding it upside down that one day had not put a damper on his feelings. He had been puzzled and angry when he had found it like that, thinking what kind of sick joke Lisa had played on him, but now it all made sense.
If Vanessa was right, and Lisa did love him, he could understand why she had done it. Had she been jealous? It seemed like such a petty thing to do, so beneath Lisa, but he knew that Lisa could be vindictive when she wanted to. On the surface level, she seemed so prim and proper, so professional, but he knew her better than that. He himself had been a victim of her little acts of petty revenge. Early morning flights, short turnarounds, and worse, mop up operations right after tiring missions. Like Star Saver, when she had ordered him to go after Khyron, when he had successfully completed his mission, he had been so tired, and he’d finally had Minmay so grateful in his arms…
‘Ah!’ clarity hit, ‘no wonder she did that!’
Looking at Lisa’s actions through the lens of her being in love with him… no wonder she tried to separate them. White hot fury filled him, making him stand up from the force of the emotion, shaking him from his apathy.
“How dare she do that!” He burst out. With the next breath, the feeling left. ‘At least she had cared enough to get jealous.’ Wasn't that what he wanted, what he craved? Someone to love him and to care about what he did? Minmay would probably not even blink twice even if she saw him kissing another woman. And to be fair, in the same situation as Lisa, he would have done the same.
The battering of feelings left him shaking, his body tense and shaking. He wanted to run, as if he was escaping a band of Zentraedi. But he knew that he could not outrun his own thoughts.
‘And this is why he never liked to think too hard about his feelings.’ Rick thought.
Desperately, he wanted to drown his thoughts, to keep them away from one more day so he could get up, and do it all over again… He sprang toward his living room, turned on the tv and then walked resolutely to the kitchenette to set a kettle to boil. Whistling a very off-tune song to drown out the kaleidoscope of memories and recriminations, he started looking for tea and cups. Opening and closing loudly empty cupboards, until he finally opened one that had all he needed, but as he reached for them, his arm stopped with the realization of who had left them here.
“Here, I got you a set of cups. Maybe this way we are not always drinking from paper cups and littering the environment.” She had casually said, as she arranged them neatly in place.
“Thanks, my first house warming present.” He had said, teasingly.
“You have been here for months, you dolt.”
“It’s not too late to start making this a home.” He had teased back, as he’d grabbed two of the mugs to make them coffee.
Now the cups sat there, unused. Next to them, was the tin of tea they had shared that rainy night which had made him reevaluate his relationship with her.
He missed Lisa… so damned much! This time last year, they had spent their days together. Looking back, he remembered how light everything had felt, how right it felt to be sitting next to her, spending time together. Hindsight being 20/20, he realized that he had not been that happy in a long time. And he had squandered all that for an empty promise, a childish dream. What had he expected to change? To have Minmay finally realize that she wanted him, and that she wanted to be by his side?
With all his thoughts distracting him, it took him a while to hear the news blasting from his TV. A familiar name made him leave the kettle running as he turned his attention to the news. Minmay, on the news. Her name, her presence, always turning up when he least expected it.
The soft chime of his doorbell brought a stab of hope. His heart sped up, as he hurried to the door. Expecting to see honey colored hair and deep soulful green eyes, he stood frozen, the door halfway open, trying to reconcile the disappointment at seeing the wrong face at the other side of the door.
“Minmay.” He murmured. Why did her presence suddenly make him feel the same as when he saw his radar filled with enemy ships?
She didn’t acknowledge him or raise her dark colored head, which was almost white from the snow. She looked like a sad puppy, and his traitorous heart ached at the sight. He couldn’t in good conscience leave her out there, or send her away. As much as he didn’t really feel like seeing her today, he couldn’t turn her away.
“What happened, Minmay?” He asked gently as he walked towards her.
She did not respond, but she raised her head, her eyes deep pools of sadness. His heart thudded painfully at the sight of her tears. How did she manage to have such a hold on him? His arms hovered, in an aborted hug, but she was much faster than him and she barreled on to him to hang from his clothing like a limpet.
Wasn’t he glad to see her? Isn’t this what he always wanted, for her to come to him when she needed a safe place? He WANTED to be her safe place. From afar, he heard the faint whistle of the kettle, stirring him from his inertia.
“Hey, why don’t you come inside, where it’s warm.”
As he handed her a cup of decaf, not tea, not THEIR tea, he felt caught in groundhog day. He almost laughs at the irony that is his life. As soon as he wishes to move on, she appears in his house. It’s almost as if the universe wants to give him the total opposite of what he wants. Every night that he dreams of her with him, to finally come back to him, every long day when he longed to have her be in his house waiting for him… and when he finally doesn’t want that anymore, she always shows up.
“Are you feeling better now?” He blurted out, trying to drown out his invasive thoughts.
“I’ve had it, with everything!” His heart sank at her heartbroken cry. “I can’t take it any more… all the attention. I just needed to get away from it all. I just felt like everything is falling apart and I’m losing myself.”
Rick just watched her fall apart in silence. The irony of being in this moment not lost in him. Like everyone else, they had all been dealt a shitty hand in life. Hers was more privileged than most. Everyone had lost a lot and felt demoralized.
‘Heck Lisa had lost her father in front of her and she still kept going.’ He thought with irritation. ‘Lisa was not a quitter, she would never give up for something so silly. She was a fighter, she always keeps going.’
“It happens to all of us sometime in our lives.” He replied curtly. “We go through life, losing things along the way.” And sometimes things needed to be left behind, he thought sadly, but continued. “But you still have your songs, those should make you happy.” That’s the only thing that has ever made you happy, the sentiment went unsaid.
“It’s not enough to like to sing, I don’t want to sing anymore!” She declared petulantly.
He sighed, “Minmay…”
“I won’t sing anymore.” She declared solemnly, as if she was making a promise to him and to herself.
That worried him, he wanted to dismiss her, to send her on her way, but he knew he wouldn’t. Not when she was like this, so fragile.
“Why won’t you?”
“Because I can’t.” She answered, evasively.
A dark thought invaded his mind, “Did something happen between you and Kyle?”
“Don’t mention that name to me, ever again!” Nailed it. “I won’t see him ever again!”
Ah, she was here because of Kyle, not because of him. A moment of clarity hit, he wanted to move on from this, from her, and whatever this half relationship that they had. He realized that he was not comfortable with her here.
At the same time, she was still talking about how her and Kyle’s relationship had gotten too predictable and how they knew each other so well. How they could pick on each other’s weaknesses just by looking at each other.
‘And me, Minmay? Can you tell, what is my weakness?’
“No one cares, except for you. You are the only one that seems to care about me.”
With those words, time stood still, and then reversed. The clock had reset, and everything was like it had been in the past. Except that this time, he did not feel elated. On the contrary, he felt invisible arms grip him from behind and drag him back down. Everytime that he seemed to be resurfacing from the hole that seeing her and being dejected by her left him in, she always came back to drag him back in.
As his thoughts spiralled, Minmay carried on, taking his silence as a permission to vent about her work and how no one took her seriously. He had to hold himself back from rolling his eyes at her. Everytime she came back, she just tainted his memories of her.
‘How many times can you complain of the same thing before realizing that you yourself ARE the problem?’ He thought unkindly, suddenly to realize that he had done the same thing to Lisa in the past. He was looking at a mirror of himself right now. Playing the victim, feeling unloved when he’d had someone right in front of him that loved him.
“Would you mind if I stayed?” The question seemed to pierce the spiral of his thoughts.
“Huh?” Rick blinked at her stupidly, his brain still processing.
“I know I’d be a bother if I stayed forever, but just for tonight?” It seemed like he stayed silent for too long, because in a rush, she said, “I have nowhere else to go. Please, for old times?”
At her words, his life displayed as an endless row of corridors that led to the same place, and the same moment. They had played out this scene before, in multiple ways, and with different words, but it always boiled down to the same thing. Every time he found balance in his life, that he started to heal from the wounds her casual disregard brought on, she always came back and the whole cycle started again. And he always let her, because he was so in love with her that any scraps of her attention were valued and treasured… but he was tired of the ups and downs, the vicious cycle of love, hate and self loathing. He just wanted to have a normal relationship, one where they would both be equals, where his partner supported him, not a one sided relationship!
“Please, Rick, please!”
“I don’t mind…” He heard himself say, but his brain screamed at him, ‘Yes, he did mind!’ He wanted to say goodbye and mean it. He wanted her gone for a long time, enough for his heart to heal, for him to see around himself without her constant presence. For the first time, he felt choked by her presence, by her cloying perfume, her voice grated at him and he just wanted to cover his ears, open the door and tell her to go. But he wasn’t going to do that, was he? That would be a bad friend, how could he want her gone if she was the love of his life?
“I don’t mind,” he said one more time, calmly. “But are you sure this is what you want?” Are you sure that it is ME you want?
A labyrinth with no end, definitely no happy ending for them, not when she never wanted to start anything with him.
“We belong together.” she said, confidently.
His response was a sad twist of his lips, his mind sadly supplied the thought that, ‘No, they really didn’t.’ He did not belong in her world because she had never invited him in, she had never given him a space. He had been clinging to her, not realizing the giant chasm that had formed between them and he was tired of building a bridge of excuses to reach her.
“Stay. For tonight, you can stay.” But tomorrow, I need to start making sure that I let you go for good. For my happiness…
The End.