Original Fic: Mirrors [First draft]
Feb. 12th, 2011 05:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethMalcolm kept catching sight of himself in the mirror, and it kept on startling him. Ridiculous, of course. But the image of self from the outside, without the echoes of his wife’s thoughts, felt cold and unnatural; he kept reaching for the connection every time it happened, and every time he kept bumping into the nothing where the door should be, like a bee into a window pane.
… He’d never seen a bee so close to the hull it hit a window pane, couldn’t imagine why they’d want to fly through the floor so badly anyway. He had the phrase without the context, and its originator stayed sunk behind crystal beyond him.
She was so still. Only the medical machines moved her.
He turned away and paced the room again, and once again the mirror caught his eye.
The uniform didn’t help, of course. He’d spent a lifetime outgrowing green for red, a short career adding blocks of officer black, but her House blues were new on him. As her partner he was entitled, here even required, but still, a cold stranger kept looking out of that glass at him.
He turned to her again. She looked better, much better than the planet, better even than when he came in today. The life support case was doing its work, its every program under close supervision. Institute medics in their House blacks had a bad name only to the ignorant. Ravens they may be, but what they scavenged they gave back whole. He could trust them to it. She would.
The lack of reassurance echoed empty. Thinking alone felt like talking to himself. His skull was too large.
In it echoed another of her images: Snow White in her crystal casket, cold and all but dead. A cold rebirth, emptied of memory… to reach out and find the door with nothing behind it…
Footsteps behind him. He turned, snapped to attention, eyes on the four stripes. He’d saluted before wondering if it were custom in this uniform. Trice certainly lacked the habit.
But the Captain returned it with practiced efficiency. “As you were.” He stepped past and went to rest a hand on Trice’s casket, something Malcolm hadn’t quite dared. “Oh, it’s safe enough. Just never crack the seal.”
Malcolm nodded, mind boiling with questions.
The Captain glanced around at him and grinned. “Speak freely. I can hear you either way.”
Malcolm glanced at the deck and tried to pull his mind to order. A dozen things he ought to know sprang up, mission status, casualties in Fleet, how they were for time, but all that rang loudest was: would Beatrice be alright?
“She’s responding well, everything straight down the line expected. Nobody told you?”
Malcolm looked up and shook his head, the last few days of calm silence as Ravens circled flitting through his mind.
“Psionic House,” the Captain rolled his eyes, “No company manners. Just because they’re networked; they forget. They’ll keep her under until the nerves regrow, maybe finish her eyes… you think she’d rather wake?”
“She can use my eyes. She did on the way here.”
The Captain nodded slowly and looked thoughtful. Malcolm felt that subtle shift in perception that he’d learned meant a second set of thoughts in his mind, the cold room taking on familiarity. Immediately he flipped his attention inwards to a true familiar place, a fortress he knew every last bolt of: his mother’s torpedo room. He called for Beatrice automatically but it once again crashed short. He reached instead for other memories, ones neither he nor an intruder would want to stay in.
“Woah, woah, hey! I’m out, I’m out! I’m sorry, I should have realised: you don’t recognise me.” The Captain raised hands and backed off physically, an empty gesture for a powerful psi.
“No, sir, I do not.” Malcolm tried to balance cold and courtesy. He had that bee buzz feeling again, reaching for information he kept in Trice’s head, but it wouldn’t come.
“Might help to know: Blue has only one Captain. I’m it.” He reached slowly in the neck of his uniform and pulled out his chipped tags.
Malcolm pulled his reader from its pocket and flipped it open left handed. He had no weapon but his reflexes weren’t ready to stand down yet. The Captain met him half way and slotted the tags in. Malcolm glanced down, then stopped and read it through properly.
Not only was this man a Captain, he was Malcolm’s Captain. His commanding officer. The assignment was writ clear, sealed with all the proper codes, as binding as every order he’d had.
So why did he not know this? The absent knowledge yawned like a black hole, skewing all calculations. He hadn’t thought he’d been so badly hurt as to drop something.
“You weren’t, not this time. She was protecting you.” The Captain put his hand on Malcolm’s, held the reader steady as he took his tags back. “Only Blue agents know me. Cuts down on the drama.”
Skin to skin Malcolm caught images of fire and blood, old ghosts that called to his own. Again he reached for Beatrice, for stability, for confirmation.
“But you’re Blue now, aren’t you? More than we knew. Partner on the papers can mean a lot of things, but I think…” Brush of mind against his again, not the longed for, but permitted with all due clearances. A gentle call to recent memories, to the quick back and forth of his married life. “That’s more day to day contact than half my staff. I’m sorry. We should be treating you as a silenced path.”
“Not much of a telepath, with only one I can read.”
“But that one is one of mine. She should know we treat you right. Welcome in.”
The Captain released his hand, stepped in and gripped his shoulder. Without that skin on skin he left Malcolm’s mind a little, and Mal leant after it, chased contact. He caught himself, straightened almost to attention again, curled his thoughts in.
“Hey, I mean you’re welcome. You won’t be alone.”
The wave of pure panic that followed that statement was contrary to all intentions, but the idea they were making provision for her absence…
“She’s still here, right here, I swear.” Malcolm could feel the Captain reaching away from him, trying to reach her, but she was too deep under for either of them. “I’ve seen a lot of people through this. She’ll wake up soon as they let her.” His mental note said to let her, soonest. He threw it at the Ravens like a paper aeroplane.
Malcolm knew another metaphor that was not his own, but this time he had two possibilities for the source. Worse than the uniform, another certainty slipping.
He felt the Captain’s mind withdraw.
“Okay, so that’s not working for you either… I’ll just, be here. If you need anything.”
The impossibility of having a Captain at his beck and call was overlain by the constant beat of fear about his partner. His other half. She would wake up, but in what state?
“There’s no reason to think she’ll be losing any.”
“Neural regrowth… it’s not a safe procedure.” It was the line between revival and rebirth, after cryo freezing.
“She never froze, and it’s not her brain that’s regrown.” The Captain ran a thought through the slowly falling fears. Not only Malcolm’s fear but Beatrice’s, imprinted there as solid as their link. The Captain grinned wryly, offered his own images of her. “And between you and me? We could get her back anyway.”
Malcolm caught hold of the Trice pieces like catching falling leaves. His own metaphor this time, school courtyard in sharp artificial autumn. Each piece fit like a puzzle clicking, a new aspect of her illuminated. Her Captain, in truth, and he knew her.
Malcolm sagged a little, suddenly felt as tired as the hours should have made him. The Captain steered him into a hard backed chair. Malcolm sank into it, and let him take the watch.
… He’d never seen a bee so close to the hull it hit a window pane, couldn’t imagine why they’d want to fly through the floor so badly anyway. He had the phrase without the context, and its originator stayed sunk behind crystal beyond him.
She was so still. Only the medical machines moved her.
He turned away and paced the room again, and once again the mirror caught his eye.
The uniform didn’t help, of course. He’d spent a lifetime outgrowing green for red, a short career adding blocks of officer black, but her House blues were new on him. As her partner he was entitled, here even required, but still, a cold stranger kept looking out of that glass at him.
He turned to her again. She looked better, much better than the planet, better even than when he came in today. The life support case was doing its work, its every program under close supervision. Institute medics in their House blacks had a bad name only to the ignorant. Ravens they may be, but what they scavenged they gave back whole. He could trust them to it. She would.
The lack of reassurance echoed empty. Thinking alone felt like talking to himself. His skull was too large.
In it echoed another of her images: Snow White in her crystal casket, cold and all but dead. A cold rebirth, emptied of memory… to reach out and find the door with nothing behind it…
Footsteps behind him. He turned, snapped to attention, eyes on the four stripes. He’d saluted before wondering if it were custom in this uniform. Trice certainly lacked the habit.
But the Captain returned it with practiced efficiency. “As you were.” He stepped past and went to rest a hand on Trice’s casket, something Malcolm hadn’t quite dared. “Oh, it’s safe enough. Just never crack the seal.”
Malcolm nodded, mind boiling with questions.
The Captain glanced around at him and grinned. “Speak freely. I can hear you either way.”
Malcolm glanced at the deck and tried to pull his mind to order. A dozen things he ought to know sprang up, mission status, casualties in Fleet, how they were for time, but all that rang loudest was: would Beatrice be alright?
“She’s responding well, everything straight down the line expected. Nobody told you?”
Malcolm looked up and shook his head, the last few days of calm silence as Ravens circled flitting through his mind.
“Psionic House,” the Captain rolled his eyes, “No company manners. Just because they’re networked; they forget. They’ll keep her under until the nerves regrow, maybe finish her eyes… you think she’d rather wake?”
“She can use my eyes. She did on the way here.”
The Captain nodded slowly and looked thoughtful. Malcolm felt that subtle shift in perception that he’d learned meant a second set of thoughts in his mind, the cold room taking on familiarity. Immediately he flipped his attention inwards to a true familiar place, a fortress he knew every last bolt of: his mother’s torpedo room. He called for Beatrice automatically but it once again crashed short. He reached instead for other memories, ones neither he nor an intruder would want to stay in.
“Woah, woah, hey! I’m out, I’m out! I’m sorry, I should have realised: you don’t recognise me.” The Captain raised hands and backed off physically, an empty gesture for a powerful psi.
“No, sir, I do not.” Malcolm tried to balance cold and courtesy. He had that bee buzz feeling again, reaching for information he kept in Trice’s head, but it wouldn’t come.
“Might help to know: Blue has only one Captain. I’m it.” He reached slowly in the neck of his uniform and pulled out his chipped tags.
Malcolm pulled his reader from its pocket and flipped it open left handed. He had no weapon but his reflexes weren’t ready to stand down yet. The Captain met him half way and slotted the tags in. Malcolm glanced down, then stopped and read it through properly.
Not only was this man a Captain, he was Malcolm’s Captain. His commanding officer. The assignment was writ clear, sealed with all the proper codes, as binding as every order he’d had.
So why did he not know this? The absent knowledge yawned like a black hole, skewing all calculations. He hadn’t thought he’d been so badly hurt as to drop something.
“You weren’t, not this time. She was protecting you.” The Captain put his hand on Malcolm’s, held the reader steady as he took his tags back. “Only Blue agents know me. Cuts down on the drama.”
Skin to skin Malcolm caught images of fire and blood, old ghosts that called to his own. Again he reached for Beatrice, for stability, for confirmation.
“But you’re Blue now, aren’t you? More than we knew. Partner on the papers can mean a lot of things, but I think…” Brush of mind against his again, not the longed for, but permitted with all due clearances. A gentle call to recent memories, to the quick back and forth of his married life. “That’s more day to day contact than half my staff. I’m sorry. We should be treating you as a silenced path.”
“Not much of a telepath, with only one I can read.”
“But that one is one of mine. She should know we treat you right. Welcome in.”
The Captain released his hand, stepped in and gripped his shoulder. Without that skin on skin he left Malcolm’s mind a little, and Mal leant after it, chased contact. He caught himself, straightened almost to attention again, curled his thoughts in.
“Hey, I mean you’re welcome. You won’t be alone.”
The wave of pure panic that followed that statement was contrary to all intentions, but the idea they were making provision for her absence…
“She’s still here, right here, I swear.” Malcolm could feel the Captain reaching away from him, trying to reach her, but she was too deep under for either of them. “I’ve seen a lot of people through this. She’ll wake up soon as they let her.” His mental note said to let her, soonest. He threw it at the Ravens like a paper aeroplane.
Malcolm knew another metaphor that was not his own, but this time he had two possibilities for the source. Worse than the uniform, another certainty slipping.
He felt the Captain’s mind withdraw.
“Okay, so that’s not working for you either… I’ll just, be here. If you need anything.”
The impossibility of having a Captain at his beck and call was overlain by the constant beat of fear about his partner. His other half. She would wake up, but in what state?
“There’s no reason to think she’ll be losing any.”
“Neural regrowth… it’s not a safe procedure.” It was the line between revival and rebirth, after cryo freezing.
“She never froze, and it’s not her brain that’s regrown.” The Captain ran a thought through the slowly falling fears. Not only Malcolm’s fear but Beatrice’s, imprinted there as solid as their link. The Captain grinned wryly, offered his own images of her. “And between you and me? We could get her back anyway.”
Malcolm caught hold of the Trice pieces like catching falling leaves. His own metaphor this time, school courtyard in sharp artificial autumn. Each piece fit like a puzzle clicking, a new aspect of her illuminated. Her Captain, in truth, and he knew her.
Malcolm sagged a little, suddenly felt as tired as the hours should have made him. The Captain steered him into a hard backed chair. Malcolm sank into it, and let him take the watch.