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

[chaotica]

"Are you asking if there's a past version of myself, out there, skulking around?" asks Cambridge. "Because there does appear to be, yes."

Or, at least, he's located a personnel record. It's possible that his past self has vanished. He wouldn't necessarily have access to the information if he had.

[magnetic_magpie]

That actually got a smile and a small laugh. "Actually I assumed there was a younger double of you out there. Which...given what's happened on this ship might have been a faulty assumption." He'd noticed Dr. Crusher, of course, but had thought it was properly limited to the ship.

"No, we have this happen sometimes, we don't try to keep people from meeting their other selves. Why do you?" Different universes, different rules. He understood that - but it didn't mean he wasn't curious as to why.

[chaotica]

"Because it is assumed that the timeline has inherent virtue and integrity," he says, "and meeting your past self would inevitably destroy this, and lead to paradoxes."

He reaches for the bottle, again, giving himself a fresh finger or two in the glass.

"I admit that I never met myself," he says. "In my case, it would alter the timeline, beyond doubt."

[magnetic_magpie]

He didn't quite snort. It was a near thing, an equal cross between amused and bitter, but he managed to stomp the reaction down. "They do and they don't, from what I've seen. It's messy, unintended consequences and all."

Magneto mulled it over. "I don't know that I could stop myself, even knowing the risks."

[chaotica]

He shakes his head. "There's nothing I need to warn myself about," he says. "There's no knowledge that he could have that would avert his choices and would improve his life. The lessons I learned, the people I met, the disasters and the miracles, I took towards becoming the person I am. I'm certain that if I avoid one disaster, I'll fall into another - these lessons need to be learned. And if I managed to avoid everything, I would have acquired much less wisdom along the way. I just don't see the benefit in helping a past self steer the boat, as it were."

Note that this is all focused internally, on what happened within his psyche in the past, not what happened outside of his body. Cambridge does fully want to avert larger events. But he would be better suited to that himself, without enlisting the help of the man he was.

[magnetic_magpie]

He listens, puts together what Cambridge is saying with what little he knows of the man. He notices it's focused internally, and he isn't sure, entirely, what to make of it. He doubts the man hasn't lived through historic events and he doesn't really understand how a person is a person without being defined by the history they've lived through. He doesn't really understand this is a problem, either.

It leaves him puzzled, because he's not understanding.

"But changing things, environment, changes you. Change the past, you change the person you are now. So telling your past self anything about the time between you does change you, you still wouldn't be the same person."

[chaotica]

He raises his eyebrows.

"Do you think I plan to change the environment?" he asks. "Because that, of course, would be illegal."

[magnetic_magpie]

"Your answer focused on you. Not events around you. They've made you who you are. So if you wouldn't be willing to change those things, you couldn't change what, for you, is the past." So he was questioning what Cambridge would do, really. "And it may be. But what is moral and what is legal often disagree."

[chaotica]

"You misunderstand me," sighs Cambridge. "If I change, I change. If I don't, I don't. My point is that I'm not invested in either of those outcomes."