I already survived this once [ota]

[chaotica]

A starship never sleeps. Even the third watch, in what would be the wee hours of the morning in an equivalent planetside clock, functions enough to keep a capital starship under control. Which is to say, hundreds of people are going about their duties. But, a starship does have rhythms, and this shift represents the time when people are least active socially.

Which is exactly why Hugh Cambridge sits himself down in Ten-Forward now.

Because the nightmares are back.

They haven't been around for years. Oh, they'll rear up, one night in a very long while, usually aimless strung-out sequences, endless starship corridors, shaking lights and fires and ever-morphing enemy encounters. Cambridge's nightmares are never specific things, but they're not subtle, either. He's afraid of what's coming, just like he used to be afraid of what had already happened.

He rests his forehead on the bar after the second Scotch - the real stuff, not synthehol - and begins to breathe deep and quell his panic.

-

On another night, after another nightmare, he quells it in a different way.

Open the holodeck doors - they're not locked for privacy - and there's a studio, mirrors all along one wall. Cambridge dances with a single partner - female, lovely - in some pseudo-jazz number, something old-fashioned.

It's easy to see that he's trained, on first glance. His movements are precise and practiced, and he is flexible, strong enough to do lifts, jumps. But, next to a professional dancer, he wouldn't look very good. Technique or no, Cambridge isn't an artist of dance. He doesn't elevate the dance, doesn't make it his own. He just does it. It makes him an unusually good dancer among laypeople, but not much at all among dancers.

Doesn't matter to him. He's there to be distracted, not to show off.

Comments

[dictaphonic]

Will doesn't always keep regular hours, and so it happens that he's in Ten Forward tonight as well, reading documents on a PADD, when Cambridge arrives and starts his drinking. Will is focused enough on his studies that he doesn't even notice him at first, though. Cambridge is already on that second Scotch by the time his presence registers.

"Oh. Hello!" As Will finally notices the familiar face, he calls the words across a mostly empty room, tone bright. "Up late as well? I thought I-" But he cuts himself off now, realising just a bit too late that Cambridge looks rather wretched. "Erm." He shifts uncomfortably. "Sorry. I probably shouldn't have interrupted."

[chaotica]

"I'm that obvious?" He sighs. He hadn't meant to broadcast his emotional state. Unavoidable, maybe. But he would rather not show weakness so overtly, not in an unknown situation like this.

He turns, so he's leaning back against the bar. "Thought you'd...?"

[dictaphonic]

The next time Cambridge wants to be subtle, he probably shouldn't look ready to collapse over a glass of alcohol. However, that isn't to say that Will really knows what's wrong--only that something most likely is.

"Um." He shifts uncomfortably. "Well, I just...thought I'd be here alone, at this time of night." He pauses before venturing: "Are you all right?"

[chaotica]

"Four limbs, ten fingers, ten toes, one appendix," says Cambridge, "and no traumatic head injuries. I could be having a worse day."

He could, of course, be having a better one.

"Oh, please," he says, "you're timid now, after you got the brunt of me when I appeared?"

[dictaphonic]

Will made a face at that. "I'm not sure what you mean. I was trying not to be rude." He looked sheepish as he admitted, "I have a tendency to do that. Often without noticing. A character flaw, I suppose some would say..."

But taking that as an invitation to pry, he added, "And at the risk of being rude, I have to admit, that's a terribly superficial list when it comes to the well-being of a human." He blinked. "Or whatever race you happen to be. I'm sure the statement still applies."

[chaotica]

"If I really want you to go away, I'll tell you," he says, "how's that? No need to attempt subtle social cues."

He rubs at his temple. "And I said that I could be having a worse day," he says. "Not that I was well."

[dictaphonic]

"Oh." He blinks at the offer. He isn't used to people being that upfront, but it's a very appealing prospect. "Okay. Thanks! ...I think."

He nods, and after a second's pause to consider whether this might qualify as too blunt, decides to go ahead with: "Yes, which is why it wasn't a very helpful answer." It's oddly liberating, he finds, to stop worrying for a moment about being accidentally rude. But he's also still concerned about Cambridge--and wondering just what it is that's caused him to be up at this time of night in such a sour mood. So, wondering what answer he might get if any, he adds, "What happened?"

[chaotica]

"I was kidnapped from my own time and placed in one that is proximate enough to have already been a part of my life but far enough that I cannot return to my previous circumstances," he answers. "And that's unhelpful as well. Try again; I'm sure you'll hit on a good phrasing of the question."

Verbal sparring is at least something.

[dictaphonic]

Will wrinkled his nose. He loved the workings of language; it was one of many topics about which he had perhaps too much random knowledge--and that was to say nothing of his penchant for rambling to himself for hours on end. But he was used to analysing words, not wrestling with them. "Then, tonight specifically?" he amended. He almost added 'What brings you here?' but he could already imagine the answer that would earn him.

[chaotica]

"Tonight, I continued to exist in this time and place," he says. "But, very well: a traumatic incident from my past approaches, and unfortunately, as long as I remain on this ship, I am bound to experience the incident again, albeit from a different angle. The emotional effects of that have manifested, as one could expect."

He might as well be talking about a computer problem, the tone he takes.

[dictaphonic]

"Oh. Oh my." Not minding Cambridge's tone in the least, at first, Will was too startled by the news for words. "But what--no, you won't be able to say. Um." He scratched his head. "There isn't any way you could stay at a port for a bit, is there? So you won't have to experience it again?"

He was trying to resist the temptation to try to ask more about what this incident was. He knew that sharing knowledge of the future like that couldn't possibly be allowed, but it was also rather terrifying to hear Cambridge refer to the near future like that.

[chaotica]

"Yes, I'm sure the Department of Temporal Investigations is terribly eager to let me loose," says Cambridge, dryly. He hasn't tried to leave, but he's pretty sure that if he did, there would be problems.

He's also sort of hoping the Enterprise crew will live up to their reputation and pull some insane solution out of a hat. He's not terribly impressed by what he's seen so far.

[dictaphonic]

Will's brow furrows at that. "What would that have to do with it? You'd be avoiding a paradox by not getting involved--wouldn't you?"

The bigger problem, as far as Will could tell, would be that there was no telling how long it would take for the ship to return to a particular port for Cambridge. Meaning, if getting Q to come around was his only way home, it could prolong his stay here. But surely, Will thinks, that would be preferable to having to live a horrible event a second time.

[chaotica]

"Well," he says, "I would do my best to escape their authority and their surveillance. People like me are supposed to be quarantined. Our actions are unpredictable. And I won't be locked up."

[dictaphonic]

"'People like you'?" Will repeats, confused. "People from the future, you mean? Do they really never have time travellers who encounter historical events in this universe?"

From his experience, major events are where a time traveller can most likely be found, so it sounds odd to him that they would be locked up for their presence at such a point. But either way, he's with Cambridge--he doesn't want him to end up locked up.

"If you need your, erm, situation kept under wraps?" he adds. "Mum's the word, as far as I'm concerned." Because Will might be a babbler, but he does know how to keep a secret when specifically told to.

[chaotica]

"I don't suppose time travelers never show up," he says. "There have been several incidents of people accidentally going to the past that I can recount off the top of my head. Though... those occasions tend to be secret. One virtue of being from the future, supposedly, is that you can manage to avoid detection in the present."

He shrugs. That ship has sailed, for him. He's detected.

"Once you are discovered," he says, "then the law of the time probably will do its best to figure out what you know, and how that can be used."

[dictaphonic]

Will looks rather stricken at this idea. After all, it's never happened to him--not quite like that, at least. "But they haven't done anything so far," he protests. "They've given all of us free reign--well, mostly free reign. And they didn't have to. Do you really think whatever is coming will make them look for your future knowledge specifically? A-assuming they even find out you have any, that is!"

And even if they do know, from his point of view, the Enterprise is currently full of knowledge, technology, and abilities from a variety of universes. He's not sure why Cambridge would be so certain that they'd target him more than any of the other potential resources they have access to.

[chaotica]

Cambridge doesn't respond, not immediately.

Actually, he probably is a bit more paranoid than is strictly warranted in this time period. The Federation is as close to a peaceful utopia now as it's ever been.

The problem is, if they knew what was coming in their future, they would already be going after the knowledge in his mind. The Dominion, the Borg.

"I don't know," he says. "I think this is already a timeline apart from the one I knew." What happens next has a level of unpredictability.

[dictaphonic]

"Well, then there you are!" Will declares, relieved at his reaction. "Even the knowledge you have is fallible, so if anything some of our technological knowledge might be more immediately valuable--i-if the threat you're worried about even happens, that is. So! I really wouldn't worry so much about it."