EPILOGUE
"Do you feel nervous?" T'Resa asked as Ethan fiddled with his white bow tie. His mother had helped tie it but he felt claustrophobic in the tuxedo.
"No."
"Yet your fingers tremble like thin reeds in the breeze, Ethan Janeway-Bellamy."
"T'Resa, I'm practicing my vibrato."
"Like a nervous violinist? I see. You could have fooled me. I do not feel your edginess."
T'Resa walked up to him and smoothed his tie. In actual fact, he was nervous. It wasn't his first recital, but this one was before an audience and in the audience there were people who had come specially to watch him perform. They were his family, his extended uncles, aunts and cousins. Some were of Voyager's old crew and their next generation of children.
"Yeah. I can see how you'll plonk your fingers all over the keyboard and ruin my piece."
"I do not plonk a honky tonk," she said sternly. "I am Vulcan. Vulcans do not plonk."
"Fine. Just peep there through the door for me, will you?"
"No. It is protocol that no one shall peep...through the door. I take the stage first. You know that, Ethan. The audience will applaud. After they have applauded, you will enter and take the stage. Your cello is there. Before everyone arrived, you had already tuned your instrument and played a few arpeggios to warm up."
"Does that not suggest an absence of nervousness?"
T'Resa moved closer to him. She was as tall as he. A Vulcan pianist - the granddaughter of Captain Tuvok - who looked way too imperious for her seventeen years... He was fifteen but they had both started at Juilliard at the same time, when T'Resa was eleven and he was nine.
"You are nervous. I shall tell you it is…okay to be nervous."
"T'Resa, I am the son of a former Borg. I'm supposed to have nerves of steel…literally."
"Come. Are you ready? Professor Von Bulow is busy announcing…"
Ethan's heart gave a sudden lurch as T'Resa moved to the door, ready to walk onto the stage and take her seat in front of the grand piano. Professor Von Bulow, their grand master, was ninety two but he could still play Elgar well. Ethan had perhaps a few seconds' reprieve before he too had to walk on. He heard the old professor's voice, saw T'Resa disappear through the door.
They were all here to see him perform Fauré's Élégie. He flexed his fingers, felt his heart hammering against his ribcage. He tucked the bow under his arm and pinched his cheeks. Then he closed his eyes and became quiet for a few seconds. Taking a deep breath he followed T'Resa to the stage.
"Ethan Janeway-Bellamy…"
He strode on to the stage, turned to face the audience and bowed. He became calm. The beautiful Fauré Élégie was already settled in his heart and mind and filled him with peace as he took a few seconds to look at the audience. Suddenly, their presence was no longer so intimidating.
They were all there, sitting in the first row and the second. Elizabeth and Gracie, his sisters, sat in the first row. Gracie smiled broadly, showing her missing front tooth as she clapped hands enthusiastically. She was only six and already she was showing proficiency in playing the violin. Gracie also followed him everywhere. He didn't mind much. She was completely adorable and everyone loved her.
Elizabeth was eleven years old and she looked serious even though she smiled at him, too. He thought how she would always be a serious young lady, too interested in mathematics and physics. She couldn't even plant a tomato or extract a good meal from the replicators. But he loved Elizabeth dearly. She was heading for the Academy. That much was clear to everyone who knew her well. She had their mother's colouring and gleaming dark hair and grey eyes.
Their father sat next to Elizabeth. His sisters' cranial ridges were much less pronounced than they were on their older brother. Ethan smiled inwardly. The ridges were all he'd inherited from his father. Icheb Janeway-Bellamy looked proudly at him. Even at forty five, his father's hair was still as dark as when he had been much younger. He didn't look like he had aged at all. Ethan loved his father and he loved his mother Shaira, who was as gentle a woman as Aunt Carmen, Mike Ayala's wife. Gentle and firm. He should remember that about women.
Ethan recalled how Uncle James told him that his father had never been interested in Shaira Begum Khan during their Academy years and even in the years that followed.
"The first time your father saw your mother he told me that his heart did nothing but beat in the normal way," Uncle James had said, emphasising the word 'normal'. "And look at him now. He has eyes only for Shaira and his heart does nothing but beat in warp drive."
And Shaira Janeway-Bellamy, with her Indian heritage, graced him with her most beauteous smile for she was a very beautiful woman.
"I was a fool to let her go, but she loved your daddy, Ethan," Uncle James had told him one day. Ethan thought how glad he was that his daddy married Shaira and produced three children.
Now his gaze travelled to the people in the second row. Uncle James, Mike and Carmen Ayala and their daughter Michaela, who was a Starfleet lieutenant. Next to Michaela sat Kathryn Hansen, his aunt. She was only five years old when she was adopted by his grandparents, just as they had adopted his father, Icheb, as their own child. Katie was also a young Starfleet lieutenant and he adored her.
Ethan took a deep breath as his eyes rested on his grandparents, now seventy years old. He loved his parents, but if anything, he loved his grandparents with all his heart and much more. Kathryn Janeway-Bellamy looked so proud as his eyes met hers. She smiled at him, her mouth curving in the same way that he smiled too. He had vague memories still of how mad she had been because Grandpa told her she couldn't remain sixty forever and the last time she tried that stunt, she wanted to be fifty forever. Grandma Kathryn raised her hand only slightly in salute, a hand that rested against her heart. He knew, even though he couldn't see it, that her other hand was held lovingly in the hand of Grandpa Ethan, who loved her to pieces. Everyone could see that.
His eyes rested finally on Ethan Bellamy. Young Ethan thought his heart would burst with pride. He firmly believed there was not a grandson in the Federation who could have wished for a better role model than he had.
He was passionate about his grandparents who encouraged him in his art, who had stimulated him from the moment they noticed that he had a gift of music. They were his greatest heroes. Grandma Kathryn still taught at the Academy and she told him that should he ever make the decision to enter, she'd be there to teach him, come hell or high water. He rather liked the high water bit and Grandma was still sprightly for her seventy years.
Grandpa had his latest novel published and as usual, he had given Grandma Kathryn the leather bound manuscript to read before it went to the publishers.
He just plain loved them.
He had his grandfather's eyes, they all said, right from the time he was old enough to understand. He also had snow white hair like his grandfather. When he asked Grandpa about it once, he was told how it was in his genes and how it jumped a generation, even though his father Icheb was not born of Kathryn and Ethan. Except for his cranial ridges, he bore little resemblance to his own parents, although Elizabeth and Gracie looked like Icheb and Shaira.
"Then I'm very happy, Grandpa," he told Ethan. "I stand out!"
"You always will, son," his grandfather had said and the older man's eyes had gone soft when he spoke.
And so, along with Grandpa Ethan's white hair and green eyes, he had also inherited his grandfather's talent to play the cello. His very earliest memories were of his grandfather sitting on the deck of Beaver's Lodge, playing the cello. It fascinated him, seeing the older man bent over the instrument, hearing sounds that drifted from the very heavens to his ears.
Grandma used to tell him that Grandpa was communicating with the gods, but he, young Ethan, knew differently. Grandpa was playing all his music for Grandma Kathryn. Ethan gave a little sigh of pleasure. He was sure glad he was the first to follow in Ethan Bellamy's footsteps.
Which was why he was here today, to perform in his first public recital. The applause had died down now and he moved carefully to sit down on his stool, then hugged the cello to him. It felt like an old friend. He stroked the wood, wondering for a moment at the brilliance of the instrument, his grandfather's Khalmeyer handed down through so many generations.
He looked at his grandfather again. The older man nodded smilingly.
Then Ethan turned to T'Resa who was waiting for his cue. He gave an imperceptible nod. T'Resa's fingers caressed the keys in the first notes and in harmonious counterpoint, young Ethan bent his head and filled the small auditorium with the first melodious sounds of Fauré's Élégie.
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"I
have done what I could. Now, let God judge!" - Gabriel Fauré