LLEGO CON TRES HERIDAS
~I Come with Three Wounds



Te recuerdo Amanda (I Remember you, Amanda):

Suena la sirena
de vuelta al trabajo
y tu caminando
lo iluminas todo
los cinco minutos
te hacen florecer...
...la vida es eterna en cinco minutos.

The sirens ring,
Calling us back to work
And you walking
You illuminate everything
These five minutes
They make you bloom
...this life is eternal, in 5 minutes

Trip's POV:

Since the moment I gazed over the precipice of time, seeing empty space, populated with memories and ghosts of a place I once called home, I've known I would die in the emptiness of space, alarm klaxons blaring, sparks flying around me, the officer in me shouting orders with my last breath. This would be the vengeance I sought, dying to make sure no one else I love does; that you don't. I throw the last switch on the warp reactor even as the burns eat through me like acid, sending all the power we have left to the torpedo tubes, giving Malcolm one last shot, and remembering the lifetime I lived in those five minutes when you kissed me at last before you stepped out that airlock to fulfill your destiny.

Cucurucucu Paloma (The coo of the Pigeon):

Cantaba de passion mortal, morÌa.

I sang of mortal passion, dying bit by bit.

Archer's POV:

Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe I cursed you as I cursed myself to wander this Earth forever as a ghost, but I couldn't do it alone. I couldn't bear to live a life without you. So I transported back for you, waded through the mass of unconscious bodies, of people I was once responsible for using their dying breaths to beg me to save them, as my once-proud starship sunk deeper into the heat of the corona to join the doomed weapon that they sacrificed themselves to stop. I found you with your hand welded to the scalding heat of the main power valve, and ripped your flesh from it, longing to feel your heartbeat against my chest despite the EV suit. There was only room enough in the escape pod for two. So we became the only two survivors of these sacrificial heroics.

Llego con tres heridas (I Come with Three Wounds):

Llego con tres heridas
la del amor,
la de la muerte,
la de la vida.

I come with three wounds:
that of love,
that of death,
that of life.

Trip's POV:

You come to see me daily, sitting beside me with that slight crease in your brow I used to love. You tell me about the peace process, but I'm beyond caring. You keep asking the Doctors if something is wrong with me, when the bandages came off and I still don't talk. I see the flash of hurt and anger in your eyes when they say there isn't: the only things other than concern for me and that numb detached stare, I'd seen play on your once-elegantly-enrapturing features. Why can't you understand? I loved you, but you've doomed me. How can you think I want to live on when so many people I loved had to die? There were more promising individuals to save. I was already broken by one death, and you let me live with eighty more. If you really selflessly loved me, you would have let me die.

El preso numero nueve (Prisoner #9):

Padre no me arrepiento ni me da miedo la eternidad
yo se que allÌ en el cielo el que juzga nos juzgar·
voy a seguir sus pasos voy a buscarla hasta el mas alla.

Father, I do not repent and neither does eternity scare me
I know that there in heaven the one who judges will judge us
I will follow your footsteps. I am going to look for her until the great beyond.

Archer's POV:

I see the accusation in your eyes. As much as I would like to believe there are medical causes to this silence, taken from me by the cold irony of this unjust world, I am blessed with the ability to see that stirrings of your incredible spirit through your eyes. You blame me for their deaths, for you succeed where my last-ditch negotiations failed. You blame me for coming back, when you know I could never leave you. I was selfish, and, some say, a mistake, but I will never regret it, because you can't regret things that are out of your control. I love you: that's a fact as inevitable as the turnings of the planets in the sky. You judge me, Starfleet judged me, and history will too, but I would do it over a thousand times, if just to glimpse your wounded but still glorious soul again.

La llorona (The Crying Woman):

Dicen que no tengo duelo, llorona
porque no me ven llorar
Hay muertos que no hacen ruido, llorona
y es mas grande su penar...
...y aunque la vida me cuesta, llorona
no dejare de quererte

They say I don't hurt, llorona
Because they never see me cry
There are dead that don't make a sound
And their sorrow is much greater,llorona...
...and even if life costs me,
I won't stop loving you.

Archer's POV:

You won't let me touch you, so a medTech walks you back onto the blessed Earth for which we sacrificed so much. I don't leave your side as we pass through the multitudes living on our bought time. You maintain your silence, but I see where you want to go in your hallowed eyes, about to spill tears. The spire stands tall, overlooking the sunny bay, black and white marble intertwining reminding me how we had to let in so much darkness to preserve the light of our world. You trace every name belonging dead friends and colleagues, even though the doctors tell me you can't feel with those abused fingers. But you're the only one who can feel. You cry, great heaving sobs. I watch you with love in my eyes. Love is the only emotion tying me to land of the living; the others have already passed on.

No nos moveran (We Won't Be Moved):

y desde el fondo habladme toda esta larga noche
como si estuviera con vosotros anclado
contadme todo, cadena a cadena, eslabon a eslablon, y paso a paso
afilad los cuchillos que guardasteis
ponedlos en mi pecho y en mi mano
como un rio de rayos amarillos
como un rio de tigres enterrados
y dejadme llorar horas ,dÌas, aÒos, edades ciegas, siglos estelares

And speak to me from the bottom of this vast night
As if you were anchored here with us
Tell me everything, chain by chain, link by link, step by step
Sharpen the knives you all keep
Put them in my chest and in my hand
Like a river of orange rays
Like river of entombed tigers
And leave me crying hours, days, years, blinded ages, star-speckled centuries

Trip's POV:

Now I've released the long-caged tears, the poltergeist's wail, it seems words are no small feat. I finally face you, unleashing all my carefully guarded anger. I ask you to justify your actions. I accuse you of spite, apathy, selfishness, with strangled rasps. I hate you with the same passion I once loved you. You tell me you love me a thousand ways. Every word cuts me like a knife. Love: a pathetic defense, now. Even love can't redeem this pain eating away at me. All those years we wasted, afraid love would make you put me before every name carved into this cold stone. In the end, you did it anyway, forgetting every soul on that condemned ship, mine included. When my long-atrophied muscles finally give, you repeat your empty offer of love, finally leaving me alone; the only sound I can make, the gentle rain of broken weeping.

Paso rio (I pass the river):

Paso rio
Paso fuentes
siempre te encuentro lavando los colores de tu cara

I pass the river
I pass the fires
I always find you, washing the colors from your face

Trip's POV:

You haunt me. At first it was everywhere I went: pictures I took of us together: My promotion to commander; on the first M-Class planet we explored; proudly posing amid engine construction; and worst of all, standing among ghosts. But even as media coverage of our heroics dies down, I must catch glimpses of your empty countenance across long dining tables or through crowds. My health gets me out of many functions, but every time it warrants my appearance, you're there. You avoid me, not wanting to see the seething hate I still feel for you, smoozing with the brass, but still not smiling, not your real smile, the one I loved so much. Even locked alone in my workshop, reviewing engine schematics, I see you in every equation, in the dustless squares that used to outline pictures, in my own scarred features as they mirror your listless stare.

Esquinazo del Guerrillero (The Guerilla's Serenade):

oye el rumor de las armas
que ya suenan los balazos
que ya suenan los balazos
escucha lo que yo siento
no vuela la alondra en vano
si en brazos la lleva el viento.

Hear the rumor of arms
Hear that the shots have sounded
Listen to what I feel
The lark doesn't fly in vain
If the wind takes it in its arms

Archer's POV:

I've retired to teaching and appearance-making. Everyone knows I'm only half present, but they are honored anyway. I'm only really here when watching you. Even when you look at me with hate, all I feel is love. I watch you scowl across a crowed table or steal glimpses of your bittersweet smile. It creeps onto your face whenever someone reminds you of a fond memory of ghosts. You aren't really smiling; you're transporting yourself back to a time when you knew how to smile. I rejoice in every still-graceful movement, even ones muted by pain of injuries that will haunt you until death, like the memories of times past. Every breath you take, every time you tilt your head in question, every time your unfeeling hands accidentally stain your dress uniform, vindicate me. How can you say the universe would have been better off if you had died?

Gracias a la vida (Here's to Life):

Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto.
Me ha dado la marcha de mis pies cansados;
Y en el alto cielo su fondo estrellado
Y en las multitudes el hombre que yo amo

Thank you to life, for giving me so much
It has given me the march in my tired feet...
...And the high heaven and its star-scattered floor
And in the great multitude, the man that I love

Trip's POV:

Today's another day. I stroll across the property, watching my nieces play by the main house, blond pigtails flying. I smile, remembering how clueless you were, trying to 'command' the kids at a Tucker family picnic. It's getting easier to smile with time. I run an arthritic hand through graying hair as I enter the woods. I walk despite the pain, just needing to do something. I used to sort myself as I ordered parts with my hands, but these hands aren't good for much anymore. I manage to sit on a log, and watch a lark land on a nearby branch. It cocks its head, reminding me of Porthos (another casualty) begging for cheese. Suddenly it hits me: I'm lonely, living among the dead. I sit here, finally enjoying the here and now of this inquisitive bird before me, and wish you were here to enjoy it with me.

Las Madres Cansadas (The Weary Mothers):

Cuando los soldados, sus garitas, dejaran,
Y en las trincheras sus uniformes quemaran,
O mi general, tus fieles tropas, ya se abran olvidado de ti,
Y la gente del mundo ya, descansara!

When the soldiers leave their posts
And the trench fighters burn their uniforms
Oh my General, your faithful troops, open themselves to forget you
And the people of the world will finally rest.

Trip's POV:

I find you here again on the beach, remembering the days when we ran carefree through the surf, playing tackle-football, brushing that dangerous attraction that would be our undoing. You're on the porch swing of your fathers home, with the same haunted look he wore when he knew he wouldn't complete his life's work. I follow your gaze to the hazy seascape, wondering if there are tears enough in that vast ocean to mourn our loss. I settle once again into the crock of your arm. Or is this the first time? Your hair is long-white, but the look of completion in your haunted eyes as they meet mine, reminds me of those seconds we thought we'd have the luxury to die in each other's arms. I rest my head on a now-fragile shoulder, knowing that we two old ghosts can finally rest in peace.