Prelude - It Isn't Right

Posted on Sat Jul 20th, 2019 @ 1:58am by Lieutenant Jéanne-Thérèse Marsol & Commander Logan Vance
Edited on on Sat Jul 20th, 2019 @ 2:11am

Mission: Preludes
Location: France, Earth
Timeline: 1940 - that night
Tags: Prelude

Logan opened his eyes in a crowded makeshift hospital. He was lying in a bed with a slow morphine drop and his leg freshly bandaged in . He cocked his head, looking for Marsol, wondering how long he'd been out.

Jéanne-Thérèse noticed that he was awake. She had taken charge of his care while at the makeshift hospital and had changed him out of his clothes and into the hospital patient clothes. She had made sure that all his trinkets stayed hidden. As much as she knew salvation was around the corner, she wasn't going to leave him behind - they were in this together.

“Bonjour,” she smiled. "Your items are safe." She pointed towards the stand where his clothes were folded.

He looked around and then back at her. "Hey…" He had a brief moment of panic when he realized he wasn't wearing his clothes from before. "Where is my…" He breathed a sigh of relief when he was them neatly folded. He checked the pockets to make sure nothing was missing. Not that he thought she'd take anything but he needed to be sure nothing was lost. When he was satisfied it was all there, he breathed a sigh of relief. "How long was I out?"

“Same day, sun just set,” she closed the paperback book she had been reading and put it in her backpack. “When you collapsed in front of the guard, they insisted you be brought in.”

He smiled sheepishly. "Well, I guess I should thank you for taking care of me then." He inched himself up to a seated position. "I assume they still have our guys in custody?"

“One tried to escape and was shot on sight. The other two are still in custody, yes,” she replied. “You’re welcome.”

He smiled at her and reached out to stroke her face. "I guess we'll have to find a way to sneak out of here to get you home." It felt good to not only have completed his op but to also be able to rescue someone who had been close to giving up hope.

“Now that you are mobile, we can,” she smiled. With them forcing him to get seen, she couldn’t do anything about it because she couldn’t lift his sleeping weight anyways to get him somewhere secluded to beam up to the ship, where she could have patched him up properly. “Either walk out or get discharged out,” she stated. “Might need some trickery for the latter.”

"As crowded as this place is? We could probably make it out with a little distraction," he proposed. He was still a little groggy but knew he'd recover better at a starbase than here, so he figured the quicker they left the better for him.

“Sure, let me go distract the charge nurse while you get changed,” she offered. She was getting excited. Home was finally a prospect for her, and now, since he was quasi mobile, it was becoming a reality.

When she walked away, Logan got up and changed back into his uniform. When he was done, he removed the picture from the inside breast pocket of his folded clothes. He looked at the back at the writing. Everything had fallen into place perfectly. It blew his mind that he'd been caught up in some weird time paradox thing.

He flipped it back to the front, taking a good non-delirious look at it for the first time. He and Marsol standing in front of some bombed out building. It was a side profile, not posed. The tender moment between them caught on camera. He wondered how it would happen. It would have to be soon, he imagined. As they were gathering to leave the city? Sooner? Later?

He looked into the background for clues and immediately he noticed something was off. A crusader tank behind them was a dead giveaway. The tank wasn't even first commissioned until 1941 and wouldn't be used in France until 1944. He'd been interpreting the date all wrong.

He turned it back to the front. Surely there was something he'd missed. They'd jumped forward? He looked at his leg. Still bandaged. Nearly identical to the bandage he had now. That was a good sign. His eyes shifted to Marsol. There was that gave him any clues, nothing that told him how she got there. Nothing… Until his eyes on her lower right arm, three inches below the elbow.

After he got dressed, she came back and asked, "ready?"

Logan didn't hesitate; he forcefully ushered her outside quickly and around the corner from the door. "Give me your right arm." She seemed confused and hesitant, so he grabbed it himself. "I said give me your arm!" he insisted and twisted it under one of the lamps so he could get a good look. He didn't have it long before she snatched it away but long enough to see there was no scar.

"Ouch, you're hurting me," she said as she pulled her arm back. "What are you going on about?!" she hissed at him as he looked up at her. He pulled her away from the building deeper into the woods.

"Fuck," he swore under his breath. "There's no scar on your arm," he said cryptically.

Her heart stopped. She was quiet as she reeled from his revelation. "What do you mean there is no scar on my arm?" She asked slowly and pointedly as she started spiraling internally as she now realized it had all been a ruse.

He hesitated as he thought of what to say. "The men I came here with… the ones you killed. They had a photograph. A photograph of you and me somewhere in France. On the back was written information, three dates and three names." He put his hand on his brow, as he tried to make it make sense. "I thought it meant I could take you home but the picture… you had a scar on your right arm…"

Her head cocked to the side as she tried to comprehend what he was saying. “Let me get this right,” she said as she folded her arms in front of her. “There is a photo that existed for over 400 years of you and me somewhere in France, and no one came to my rescue when I landed here? Instead Section 31 steals this photo, comes back to the wrong time to change the war, capitalizing on my misfortunes?” She was confused and angry that they had known all along that she was here to some extent at least.

"I don't know where they got the photo. For all I know Section 31 had it the whole time," Logan tried to explain. He really had no idea who'd had the photo and when. "The point I'm trying to make is, the whole reason I am here, right now, is because of that photograph. So if I take you home, right here, right now, I don't know what happens then. What that means for this whole timeline of events." It was enough to make his head hurt. Would they disappear? Would it break time? He wasn't a physicist.

She finally hit rock bottom. "You mean I have to be stuck here longer?!" She started swearing obscenities as she paced realizing what he was saying. “All because of a photograph that hasn’t been taken yet…” she raised her fists at the sky more angry at the situation than him. Her heart still ached as she tired rationalizing herself through this. “How do I trust you now? I blindly saved a man who got shot not knowing who he was, if he was a good guy or a bad guy. This same man now has the one thing that reminded me for the last five years who I am, who I was. And here… here there is a photograph that hasn't happened yet so i have to stay."

"I've never lied to you," he countered. "Do you really think I'd even tell you who I was if I wasn't being straight with you about wanting to bring you home? All I know is, if that picture never happens, I don't end up here and there's no one to take you home period. I don't like this anymore than you do so blame me for fucking up and interpreting the information wrong but that doesn't change that I will be back for you, Jéanne."

She stepped back away from him. "For a glimpse of this nightmare ending in true blind faith fashion, I've gone off the deep end mad in the last twenty-four hours. Because timing was wrong… it continues…" she said heatedly. "So now not only do I have to put blind faith in you, someone I don't even know his name, but in a photograph too?"

He was so used to keeping his cover, he hadn't even realized he'd never given his name. "My name is Logan Vance. I work for Starfleet Intelligence." He dropped his head. "I didn't even know why they picked me for this mission until after I was attacked. They had already taken me off of field work. It wasn't until I saw the picture that I realized why I was even on this mission. And when you told me it was June 6th, I just assumed that it us meeting would lead to the picture. And for the record, I did offer you the chance to go home before we left."

"And go where by myself?" she asked heatedly. "I haven't touched that stuff in five years. I was a nurse!" she threw her hands up in frustration. "Je suis un imbécile…Nice knowing you, Logan." She turned fuming and mumbling as she walked away trying to figure out how she was supposed to survive.

"Jéanne, wait," he reached out to stop her and caught her shoulder.

She turned as he touched her and slapped him on the cheek. "Va te faire foutre!" she screamed at him angrily pissed at the situation and at the false hope he had built up for her and turned again to storm off.

Logan stepped back. She was too upset to hear him right now. Maybe by the time he came back, she'd understand. He pulled out the communicator and took a deep breath. "Stay safe, Jéanne."

"No! Wait! I'm sorry!" she called as she turned on her heel and raced towards him as he shimmered away. "Please don't leave me!" She sunk to her knees on the forest floor and screamed out, crying as he left her all alone.

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Ensign Jéanne-Thérèse Marsol
Nurse, USS Coleman

Agent Logan Vance
Intelligence