Not quite the same

Posted on 30 Dec 2021 @ 7:12pm by Lieutenant Commander Cintia Sha'mer & Commander Indi Hawk

1,501 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Home
Location: Corridor, USS Odin

After unpacking, Sha'mer looked around. Her quarters were still mostly bare, her few belongings seemed to enance its emptiness rather than fill it. She had lost most of her possessions when the Firehawk was destroyed and didn't have much of a chance to collect new mementoes. There was one framed picture of a sunset, a pretty rock she had found on the beach of the colony on which she had briefly served, and a small bottle of a local drink to remind her of an interesting night she had while in transit from the colony to here. Those things, the sword cane resting against her night stand and a dress uniform were the sole sum of her possessions. Well, she had always travelled light.

She had readied herself for the night: bathroom visit, undressing and changing in freshly replicated pyjama pants. Before the accident she used to sleep in the nude, but she disliked the feeling of the brace against bare flesh and settled for the pants compromise. Now she climbed into bed and ordered the computer to turn off the lights.

In the dark, she felt rather than heard the soft thrum of the machinery which kept them alive: the ship's life support systems and ventilation. Later, when the ship was on its way to whatever new mission would lie ahead, there would be another song added to the chorus, the deeper vibrations of her engines. Sha'mer smiled. Today had been a weird day, filled with strange encounters, and the unusual amount of exercise made her leg throb worse than usual, but she was still happy. She was back in space, where she belonged.

She fell asleep with surprising ease…

And woke up several hours later, in the middle of the night, thoroughly perplexed. This has been the strangest dream…

A dream in which she had been someone else, yet at the same time she hadn't been. A dream in which she had seen the Mirror Universe woman, the chief security. Sha'mer stared at the ceiling, almost invisible in the darkened room. Had this dream just been a flight of fancy, propted by the thought of what her counterpart in the Mirror Universe would be like? Or had it been something more… Had she, somehow, strayed into another person's dream?
She sighed and turned back to her side, pulling the cover away with an automatic gesture when it entangled the braced leg, and closed her eyes. But sleep, once fled, didn't return.

At last she threw the covers off and rose with a scowl. Her quarters, which had seemed so spacious when she went to bed, now felt as constraining and stuffy as her office had felt before. The problem was neither in the office nor in the quarters, she realised. It was her. She needed some space, she needed some room, she needed a place where she could see the stars.

So she quickly (for a given value of quickly) threw on some clothes, grabbed the cane and limped out.

The dream itself hadn't been new to Indi. She'd had for as long as she could remember. At least, ever since that one day. Over time, it had gotten less and less frequent. Cin's presence dulling her sense of what once was. But since they'd been in this universe, it had been an almost nightly companion. Tonight however it had been particularly detailed, hyper intense and had felt more real than usual.

Knowing it was useless to try to get back to sleep in this mindset, she decided to go to the gym. It would be pretty much deserted at this time of night, exactly the way she liked it. Of course, department heads were quartered on the same deck, and though she hadn't taken many steps outside her own quarters before...

..Indi came to a sudden halt as Sha'mer loomed up in front of her. Most people wouldn't describe her presence as all that strong, but she knew better. And then it dawned on her. "This was your doing," she spoke, indicating the intensity of the dream.

This time, at least, Sha'mer had sensed the approaching mind in time to prevent a near-collision. She had stopped, waiting with thinly veiled patience for the other person to walk past. But instead she got accused of… what, exactly? "Excuse me?"

Now she matched the face with the mind and realised it was the woman she had met when she came on board of the USS Odin… the woman she had dreamed about.

This was new to Indi. This Sha'mer didn't seem to know half as much about herself as her wife did. That could prove tricky. Then again, she'd looked up the woman's official file and at least most of the truth was listed there. At least species wise. It had been something else from what she'd been used to. Having to share in the secrecy and the carefulness not to be discovered. Here, it laid wide open, and she didn't exactly know how to approach it. Then again, she'd never been known for her subtlety. "You were in that dream with me. You fed it, kindled its fire. You put your energy into it and intensified it. You must have felt that."

'And you should've stayed out! This isn't your business!' she added carefully to herself, hidden behind walls that even her wife would have trouble reaching as long as she wasn't actively trying to breach them.

"I put a shield around my mind. Like I do every night. To keep out the unwanted thoughts of others. Their memories. Their nightmares." Sha'mer's tone was level, but couldn't quite conceal the fire which lied underneath, ready to burst out. "If it's anyone's fault-" She took a ragged breath and pulled herself back. This wasn't helping either of them. "No. Wait." She rubbed her forehead with her free hand. "I think I might know what happened. You two were, are bonded, right? Such a bond doesn't break easily. From what I can tell. I… have no personal experience with it. But I think that somehow your mind was reaching out, reaching for that bond, and touched upon the nearest thing to it. That resonance must've fed… whatever happened." She didn't want to ask if that dream had been real. If it had been anything more than an echo of a mind brushing against her own.

Indi narrowed her eyes--the gesture not lost despite the change of universe. If this one really was as ignorant, she'd have to thread carefully. Well. There was a difference between ignorant and inexperienced. She seemed to have the theory of things down well enough. And she never said it was her 'fault' exactly, and wasn't planning on it either. These things usually had a mind of their own. What to tell though.. "Yes, we're bonded," she spoke, her voice reaching the clipped edge that indicated just how much she missed her wife.

"Did she never teach you how to-" Sha'mer shook her head. Of course her Mirror Universe counterpart hadn't. Why should she have? Something like this was unprecendented, unique. Fuck. "Well, you'd better learn if you don't want to have a repeat performance. Block your mind. Put a wall around it. It's not hard. It just requires discipline."

So surprised by what she'd just heard, Indi was actually speechless. That didn't happen all too often. She was being told to discipline her mind? Excuse me? She was the human here! The other one was the Vo'Sh'un. Managing not to say any of that outloud, her mouth just worked like a fish on land for a few moments. "You're nothing like her."

"So you've said before," Sha'mer replied. And from behind the safety of her own mental walls, deep down where not even a true bond-mate would've been able to hear it, she added to herself: And you would do well to remember that, Commander. "I'm truly sorry for what you have lost. Maybe there are ways for you to return to the place where you belong." Crossovers between the universes happened infrequently, but they did happen, and sometimes more than once to the same person.

"We'll see," Indi spoke through gritted teeth. "Good night, Commander," she added as she shouldered her way past the woman to finally get to the gym.

Whether it was something in Indi's body language or her mind which cued her in was unclear, but either way, Sha'mer was able to twist to the side quickly enough to avoid being touched. Touches facilitated mental contact, and that was something she really wanted to avoid.

"And a good night to you." Though if the dream they had shared – if they had in fact shared it – had been exemplaric of the commander's dreams, Sha'mer doubted it would be. Then again, Sha'mer had had her own share of bad dreams. She made a mental note to tighten her mental shields before trying to sleep again. Then she continued on her own, slow way.

 

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