In The Middle Of The Night

Posted on Thu Sep 6th, 2018 @ 11:00pm by Commander Rita Paris

Mission: Holographic Horrors
Location: USS Hera, Deck 8, Lieutenant Paris' Quarters
Timeline: 2395

In the overly spacious quarters on the overly spacious starship, in the grand and empty bed that she shared with no one, Rita Paris stirred.

Sitting up, she put her hands in her thick blonde tomboy-cut hair and scratched her head to stimulate her scalp, then pushed the hair out of her face. When she slept, it often pulled forward into something of a toucan’s beak of hair projecting over her face. Looking around the bedroom, then up through the wide viewports in the ceiling of the senior officer’s quarters, the ancient astronaut gazed at the stars. No streaks of smeared light, the light of distant stars twinkled in stationary positions at the moment in drydock, as the half-asleep human tried to recall what had awakened her.

Something had changed, something was not the same; but it was nothing she could define. Something familiar had nudged her to wakefulness, rather than jolting her awake from a dream reliving her past life, or waking from one of the nightmares she was beginning to experience with disturbing frequency. This was something oddly comforting, that she couldn’t quite place. But it was strong enough to rouse her from her exhausted slumber, to bring her to a mostly awakened state.

Rising, she padded to the bathroom. Once upon a time she had slept in the nude, but since becoming marooned alone in the future of another dimension entirely, the withered branch of the Paris family tree had taken to sleeping in oversized t-shirts. It made her feel less vulnerable, and as the Hera had a penchant for emergencies at all hours, she didn’t want to have to charge into action naked except for a phaser if she could help it. She’d been manufacturing different tops bearing jokes that only she would care about or get, quite intentionally. This evening it was a loose beige tank top with brown Vulcan lettering that read ‘Vulcan Science Academy dropout’. Gathering up the soft cotton material in her hands, she sat down and relieved herself.

A slightly full bladder wasn’t enough to wake her though, and it hadn’t felt like that. It was something else, tugging at her subconscious, at the very edges of her perception. Something important. Someone.

Briefly she considered that it could be Sonak, and her heart skipped a beat. But she knew that was delusion- the experiment had been today, and she had waited for hours to see if anyone would show up, and no one did.

If she was going to survive in this odd future in which she found herself, the hard-luck heroine had to accept that she was going to have to become self-reliant. There was no somber scientist nor dashing starship captain coming to rescue her. Well... Captain Telvan was, to be fair, pretty dashing for a lady. And Rita strongly suspected the piratical starship commander would come to her rescue if the lost navigator was in peril. But as for a way home, the antique Starfleet officer in near-mint condition was on her own, her past long gone and quite removed from her. The line from that song in Aida... the past is now another land, far beyond my reach.

The future is a barren world, from which I can't return...

But still… something. The instinct that had served her so long and so well insisted this was somehow significant.

Reaching out with her feelings, her fear and loneliness and love and need and longing, Rita Paris cried to the universe the name of the last kolinahr. Vainly she tried to perceive him, to touch his mind, to call to him as she had so often through pure human instinct. It was folly, she knew. It was just her mind rationalizing, trying to give herself hope. She had tried when she’d landed here, then when she had said her goodbye to him. Rita knew that to keep trying was to do nothing but invite heartache.

Accepting her fate and building a life here in the future was the sane option, instead of trying to dwell on her lost life and love. There was nothing to be accomplished by pining for him or for her life that was. If it had been possible, Sonak would have found a way. Since he had not arrived after the experiment had concluded, given the time/space coordinates she had sent to him, then she had to accept that he was unable to come for her.

With no rescue in sight, stranded by circumstance, she would have to adapt and commit to building a life here. Which really wasn’t an awful prospect. Starfleet still explored, starships still needed pilots and captains still needed able officers. She had made friends here, and she served a purpose on the unique starship which was now her home.

But yet.

There was a feeling, a sensation, like an echo of something familiar. There was nothing more than that- an inkling, a hunch, a notion that somehow… but she could feel nothing. Against all logic, her heart told her that he was out there somewhere, even though she could not sense him. Against all evidence, the idea persisted.

“You are far too old to play games like this, Rita. He’s not here, he’s not coming and you can’t sense him. You just want to, and that’s what you’re really feeling. Just wishful thinking while you’re sitting on the can in the middle of the night, that’s all.” Rita wiped herself, rising from the toilet which then flushed itself behind her. Washing her hands, Rita looked at herself in the mirror. She’d lost a lot of weight, which was starting to affect her strength and endurance. But she looked great, she mused. Daddy would be so proud. ‘Almost not fat’, he’d offer as a backhanded compliment - she could almost hear him now.

Padding back to her bed, the all-too-human woman stretched and yawned. It had been a long and exhausting day that had ended in crushing disappointment, despite her attempt to be stoic about it. When her communicator had vanished and nothing had replaced it, her heart had broken more than just a little. The displaced damsel had gotten her hopes up. But when no one had arrived, no transporter beam, no rescue party, no weird science, not even a return message, Rita Paris had felt abandoned.

Life went on. So must she.

As she lay back down in the bed that was far too large for her to sleep in alone, the long-lost lieutenant curled up around the body pillow she kept close. It was neither warm nor firm, nor was it a good substitute for the man she wished were here who would remind her that he was no man. Cursing herself for her weakness, a single long tear slid down her cheek, then another.

“He’s not coming, Rita. Let it go. Time to accept that, and get on with your life,” she chided herself miserably as she sniffled and tried to stifle the flow of tears. “Logic is irrefutable, but the desires of the heart know no reason,” the lovelorn lieutenant muttered. After another moment, her exhaustion won out over her grief and self-pity, and she began drifting back off to sleep.

Oh, Sonak… she sighed as she slid from the waking world, her consciousness drifting into sleep.

A sound from the voice she knew as well as her own replied with no words, supplied by the piece of his katra that dwelled in her subconscious mind, stirred to action by the pining in her heart. It did not wake her, and she would not recall it in the morning. Yet that last thought of his presence as she dozed off would bring her peace of mind, and the confidence to face the next day.