m_findlow

Title: Coming full circle
Fandom: Original
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 31 - The road not taken at fandomweekly
Summary: All of Kensley's hopes ride on the efforts of one man.

Kensley heard the door bell chime. He didn't rush, preferring to finish the page in his book before setting it down and moving towards the door. When he opened it there was the young man again - the one who come to visit him before.

The man jumped at the sudden opening of the door. 'Mr Kensley! I thought... I thought maybe...'

'What? That I'd gone and killed myself, or maybe just died of old age? No such luck. You took your sweet time coming back. Did you think I might keel over if you dragged your feet long enough?'

The man stepped inside, letting the door close behind him. 'I'll be blunt with you, since that seems to work best. I've been busting my arse for you.'

'All that paper you had to push around,' Kensley muttered. 'You must be exhausted.' He watched the man's face scrunched up from the effort it took not to get angry.

'It's my reputation on the line for even trying to push your request through. You don't know how many people have laughed in my face. If I keep ruffling feathers too much, they're just going to throw your whole appeal out the window. I don't want them to do that.'

'Then I'm sorry your superiors are idiots.'

He slumped down onto a chair and put his head in his hands. 'They've labeled me a sympathiser.'

'What? For trying to help one old man go back home to earth? I didn't even know that was a thing.'

'They're trying to keep it quiet. Just murmurings from small groups claiming to want to go back because saying it isn't safe is a conspiracy.'

'It sort of is,' Kensley replied. 'What's your name, young man?'

'Jonathan.'

Kensley eased his old bones down into the chair opposite, pushing aside a pile of clutter on the tabletop where once he'd shared meals and deep conversations. 'Well Jonathan, what I can tell you - what your Commanders don't want floating round as public knowledge - is that of the twelve billion people on earth there's still nearly a quarter of them living down there. Africa couldn't afford to develop the technology, nor could most of Central and South America, or the island nations, what's left of them. They're all still down there, ekeing out an existence. Perhaps they're the lucky ones. The planet could survive with just a few billion. They're growing their own crops, farming sustainably. Doing the things we couldn't, or wouldn't. They could have just packed up and moved on in to the cities we abandoned, but they didn't. They knew the cost that more of the same would do. Living a simple life isn't stupid or demeaning, they just didn't have to give up as much as we did, because they never had it in the first place'

'If you give up this apartment, you won't be able to get it back,' Jonathan replied.

Kensley turned on him. 'Do you think I care if I have earth views? Folks been on the waiting list their whole lives for apartments that overlook the planet.' He gazed out the viewport. 'Looks so nice from up here, doesn't it? All blue and green. Everything looks better with perspective.'

'You're a respected member of First Fleet, sir. If you left...'

'Don't patronise me. I rode here on my husband's coattails, that's the truth of it. I put up with the late nights, all the times we rescheduled time for us so. He jetted all across the world, convincing governments that colonizing space would save our planet and our people. There were times I wished we'd just given up and enjoyed our lives but Scott always insisted we needed to be the generation that didn't bury their heads in the sand; that it wasn't fair for us to postpone the problem for the generation that followed. So, that's what we did. We dedicated our lives to twelve billion people instead of just two. We traveled the world but never saw more than the inside of a hotel room. We spent years living in each other's pockets. After they started moving people up here en masse, we had a choice. We were still young. We could have opted to stay. He faced out the viewport again. Sometimes I wish we had. But Scottie wouldn't have ever been satisfied. He was always tweaking things, suggesting improvements or modifications. He'd have done that no matter where we lived, but at least here we avoided the commute. Hah! And we used to think the jams on the interstate were bad.'

'So, you only did it for your husband?'

'We made the decision together. Scottie knew I had reservations about living up on a tin can, even if it was his beautiful tin can that he designed. He made this the best life we could have up here. That's what life is, Jonathan. Putting someone else's happiness before your own.'

'And now?'

'Now I want to go back because I know how much he'd hate me being alone and unhappy. I want to feel the breeze ripple through the trees again before I die. I want to see the place we worked out whole lives to save from complete destruction. Haven't you ever wanted to see it?'

'They say it's hard to breathe down there.'

'Nonsense. Only because you've been, living off pure filtered oxygen your whole life. Your generation treats the planet like it's dead, instead of the thing we saved from death.'

'If people all knew that, though...' Jonathan said, chewing it over.

'They'd all want to go back,' Kensley replied. 'Except they wouldn't, because they'd have to give up all these modern conveniences. Command are too full of themselves to realise that, so instead they use scare tactics to keep people here. If being an empathiser means letting people make their own informed choices about their lives, then you should be proud instead of ashamed.'

'I'll keep trying,' Jonathan promised.

'I know you will.'