Disclaimer: Paramount owns Star TrekTM and these characters. But I wrote the story and take full credit (or blame, as the case may be) for everything contained therein.
This is yet another before-the-fact Unforgettable story. Hopefully canon will render it obsolete.
A thank you to Guinan and Michele, one for cheerleading; one for inspiring.
Comments welcomed at:
Morning. I awake and stretch. My body feels at ease, relaxed. As if some tension that I have carried for a very long time, so long that I have even forgotten I carried it, is gone. Dreams. I remember dreaming. A woman. Yes. A woman moving under me, her mouth open under mine. I smile. It is an old dream, then, familiar. One that I have lived with for years. I open my mind and an image floats up. A woman. Yes, but not the one I expect. Not her. Not Kathryn. A stranger's face. I reach for the image and it shatters under my touch-- as dreams often do. Gone. It's gone. Time to rise and shower. I have Bridge duty this morning.
I am standing in the shower, my mind blank and formless, when the vision comes. Kathryn's face. Her eyes so full of pain it nearly drives me to my knees. I stumble and reach to the shower's wall for the support it offers. I order off the sonics and call for water, hot water , to drive away her pain.
I am running late now. No time for breakfast, though maybe a cup of coffee on the way. I cannot find my boots. They are not where I left them. Where I habitually leave them. Beside my bed. Be prepared. Be ready. A lesson hard-learned at the Academy. I search for my boots and finally find them across the room and careless on the floor, scuffed as if I had thrown against the wall in anger.
I am late now. And no help for it. I step out upon the Bridge and she swivels toward me. Her eyes are merry. I must have missed a joke. "Good Morning, Commander," she greets me. Then her eyes follow me as I start across the Bridge, feral and possessive. It has been a long time since she looked at me like this and I take my time. In my seat, I call up the status reports on my board . Her hand reaches out and stays mine, her fingers resting lightly on my wrist. "Rough night?" she asks, her voice pitched low, for my ears only. I smile sheepishly. "Couldn't find my boots," I reply. Her smile falters and something-- some hurt--flickers in her eyes and is gone. The moment passes and I almost doubt what I have seen. She smiles and says, "Whatever the reason, I'm glad you're here." Strange, she is never this direct.
I leave to make my morning rounds. Everything is shipshape and nominal. Save in Engineering where B'Elanna complains of gremlins. Someone has changed the shield's harmonics, though no one remembers who. And the computer has no record. Odd.
I return to my office to write up the morning's logs. I reach for my padd and find a something else. A handful of cream colored papers, folded loosely with my name on the outermost. Curious, I read the story there. Twice. This is some stranger's life. Not mine. But even as I deny it, I know it isn't true. It's written in my own hand, and in the language I first learned to speak. I call myself by my true name, the name I won for myself, not this one I wear for strangers.
I know I should bring this to the Captain, to Tuvok . Our computer security has been breached and they have tampered with our minds. But how can I? How can I take this to her? To Kathryn? My betrayal and her pain.
I gather the papers and my courage and stride to her ready room. To Kathryn. To betray her yet again.
End