ten_fwd | Wishing you were somehow here again... [OPEN]

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Wishing you were somehow here again... [OPEN]

((OOC: Figure she's going through this routine every night this month. Feel free to forward-date or back-date tag-ins.))

Growing up among the Cainites of the Order, Fatima had picked up on mechanisms for coping with stress from all across the world and across time. But not a single one of them was making it easier for her to deal with the emptiness of the space next to her in her bed. She'd been stuck on this flying Hilton for months now. But sleep still didn't come easily. After knowing what it was like to hear someone breathing beside her on the pillow, Fatima was having more than a little difficulty letting go.

Fortunately, growing up among the Cainites of the Order had also provided Fatima with a few extra outlets she could use.

It was usually after midnight when she would slip into the leotard Beverly had given her. The halls were quieter at night. Fewer people. Fewer judgmental crew members staring after her like the invader that she was. And the training facility was usually empty.

First, she'd start with a few yoga stretches. Some aggressive chin-ups. Knuckle push-ups. And then the real work would begin.

Somehow, her iPod had managed to survive her ordeal in Zelien. Fatima had doubted very much that she'd ever be able to coax any music out of it, but it was working now. All of her songs were there. Well, they weren't exactly her songs. The classical music was from Liam. The rock-and-roll was from Denise. And the oldies were from Auntie Diana. Didn't matter though. She always listened to the same song anyway. Survivor's Eye of the Tiger on repeat, the earbuds shoved deep into her ears, like she wanted to block out the rest of the world.

The punches she threw against the punching bag were precise and powerful. Fatima had fused the martial arts styles she'd studied with street boxing. And despite the work-out clothes, she always trained in her high-heeled boots. As she used to argue to Arty, you never knew what you were going to be wearing when someone attacked you. Better to be prepared for anything.

If only her loneliness could be punched in the bag.

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"Really?" Beverly jokes easily, her smile coming without reservation as it does so rarely here these days. Pushing forward, she comes to stand beside the punching bag. "You might need to teach me what it means."

She does understand being unable to sleep or sometimes even rest. Sometimes the memories are worse than the nightmares. Sometimes they combine so that neither waking nor sleeping hours are safe. It's like the time Beverly lost Jack, only on a much larger scale. But she feels as though she's been going through the same coping mechanisms now that she had back then, the same time she'd had to take to deal with what had happened.

And she can certainly understand Fatima's position. Acutely, even. Oddly enough, she's a good one to have that conversation with.

"I felt that way after I lost Jack," she murmurs softly. "That didn't have as much to do with horrors like you two faced, more that I really loved and missed him."

The bad part is that it doesn't really get any better.

"At least with Q in charge, there's always a chance that you'll see him again." Unlike Jack and Beverly. She doubts even Q has the power to bring back the dead. Though really she shouldn't doubt the one here. He has a lot of power and cosmic boredom. Who knows what he'll do?

Fatima knew that they were treading on sacred ground when Beverly said Jack's name. She'd never outright asked, but she was intuitive enough to know that there had been a husband and that husband was no longer in the picture.

And now she knew.

"My Auntie had this saying," she muttered, trailing her fingers along the surface of the bag. "She used to say blood is blood is blood. That the point of blood was to sustain life, whether it was in a cow or a human or a three-toed sloth."

The origin of the phrase actually came from Diana's indifference to where her blood came from, as long as she could stay alive. But that was beside the point.

"Loss is loss is loss," Fatima continued. And she looked up at Beverly, forcing herself to smile. "I'm just glad I haven't lost you."

Yet...

Beverly so rarely mentioned Jack because on most days the pain was still too much to bear. Even though she had managed to love others in the time since her husband's death, a part of her would always love and miss him. A part of her had died that day with him. If Fatima had cared about Sam even half as much as Beverly had loved Jack, then living without him must be difficult indeed.

"I wish I could say it gets better," Beverly sighs softly, her attention on the punching bag, as though that will make this topic easier. "It was harder at first. The bed was so empty and so cold. I felt the weight of my loneliness in every waking hour. Now I can go days... weeks... sometimes months without dwelling on his death until it just hits me again, like it just happened. And sometimes I still can't get his face out of my mind. Maybe it just gets easier to cope."

Even she can't say. Some days are better than others, but she will always miss Jack. Fatima may always miss Sam, too.

Beverly's lips curl upwards slightly and she reaches over to gently smooth her hand against Fatima's back. She's done this before, as comfort for both of them. Touch is often how Beverly shows she cares.

"I was a little late in coming, but I'm here." She's here and she remembers. The fact that both of them remember Zelien will be their strength for a while. They have a lot to deal with, even now. What better way to do it than with someone as close as they are to each other?

Fatima practically melted under Beverly's touch. There were so few people in her life she allowed to touch her, let alone in such an intimate way. But either by force of personality, by shared memories, or some combination of the two, Beverly had gained her trust enough.

And she needed someone she trusted.

Her lips twitched slightly. It was a grotesque parody of a smile, but it was close enough. "Missing him's better than the nightmares, anyway."

No need to elaborate. She was sure, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Beverly was having them too.

Who wouldn't?

Beverly is definitely dealing with the nightmares just as much as Fatima, if the fact that she's up and out of her quarters at this hour says anything. She did leave Wesley a note to tell him that she's fine and she'll be back, but she didn't want to wake him up with her screaming. Her nightmares are intense here and they've changed recently. Where they were just about Zelien and the horrors she experienced there, they have since morphed to include memories of her last moments in her own timeline. And that means one thing:

The Borg.

Her nightmares now include such joyful scenarios as the people she cares about getting assimilated or killed by the cybernetic beings. Her other crew being hurt yet again. Fatima dying in her arms. Kaede being assimilated as a child. It's been horrific and so hard to sleep through. So when she woke up tonight, she didn't even try to go back to sleep.

Now she's glad she didn't. Spending time with Fatima is preferable to a lot of things.

"You know what's really funny?" she muses, her mind wandering to a related subject. "Missing someone who's actually here. Wesley is here, but... he's missing so much, so many critical events haven't happened in this timeline yet. It's so strange to me. Everyone on this crew I knew at one point and most I still do. I can't tell if I miss them or... the people they will someday become."

Everything is strange now and she still doesn't know what to make of it. But she manages a small smile, genuine as always, her hand remaining in place against Fatima's back, for her comfort as well as her friend's. "I'm glad I still have you, too."

What they would do without each other, what Fatima had done without her at first, Beverly doesn't like to think about.

Fatima leaned against Beverly a little. She was her rock. Her anchor. The very notion that she'd spent a few months on board the ship without her seemed almost ludicrous now. But then, she'd spent a good amount of that time still convinced it was just another one of COMPASS's little experiments. All of it was a blur now; the man who looked like Jefferson and the medical tests and Prim's kindness.

This...this was real.

For better or for worse.

"I understand," she murmured. "Kind of." She hadn't experienced that sort of phenomenon firsthand. No, she was still alone in the multiverse, where her world was concerned. But she'd seen it with the Winchesters. Sam was so young, so naive compared to the rest of them. She'd seen the way they sometimes looked at him. Like a stranger wearing a familiar face.

Which was why she thought of the same advice once again. "It's sort of like a second chance, though. If you want it to be. A chance to make a difference choice."

The soft huff of a laugh that thrusts itself from the depths of Beverly's being isn't a humorous sound. It's derisive, like the idea has crossed her mind before but she turned it down. She has to turn it down time and again, can't interfere for so many reasons. It's a jumbled blur to her sometimes and she has to fight with herself.

In the long run, she might be able to make a couple of different choices, but even if she warned them about the Borg and Locutus, that wouldn't change the fact that it would happen. Even were they prepared, the Borg could still overtake them, kidnap their captain, and leave them in dire straits. The problem will arise in how everyone reacts to her after it happens, after each difficulty comes to pass. Will they understand why she couldn't say anything? Or would they condemn her further for not warning them, for obeying Starfleet's rules and not saying anything? It's a difficult line that she walks now and she isn't sure how to convey it to Fatima without explaining everything.

"I wish I could," she admits softly, resisting the urge to pull away and withdraw into herself. "I wish I could save them from what's coming, but I can't. I would be doing them a handful of favors only to change the lives of everyone in the Alpha Quadrant. Would it be for the better? I don't know. We may never know. But I'd rather take the heat for upholding the Temporal Prime Directive than change things and have to worry about all the lives I've affected."

It's going to be a difficult position to uphold and she knows that. She probably isn't ready for the backlash she'll get once the Borg show up and Locutus happens. But it's the best she can do with what she's been given. Besides, with Q involved, who knows what will happen anyway?

Fatima frowned, listening to Beverly. She was, in essence, rejecting the very thing that Fatima and Sam had planned on doing. Going back and changing things. Maybe for the better, maybe not. But as far as she was concerned, the future was a malleable thing. It wasn't written in stone. All they had was the present.

"I understand what you're saying," she said, carefully and slowly, as though she were struggling a bit with her words. "But the thing is...the future of this world has already inherently been changed. Our presence here has already set different paths in motion. We're like dozens of butterflies flapping our wings, just breathing the same air as these people."

Philosophy had never been Fatima's strongest suit, but she'd listened to Artemis enough to understand some of the basics.

"By our very existence here, this is no longer your world or your timeline. There's no way events can unfold the way they did in your life. Even if you say nothing at all."

Beverly would have understood what Sam and Fatima wanted to do and supported it in their worlds if they thought it was necessary. But in any universe that's similar to hers... It's too complicated. But how does she explain that?

"It's... more than that," she sighs wearily, moving both of her hands to the punching bag to give them something to do. "I know. Everything you're saying echos the war I've been having with myself since I got here. Events haven't been the same. The child virus? Wasn't a virus in my time. It was a transporter accident and it affected four people. Q was supposed to be ejected from the Continuum and turned human by now, but as far as I can tell, that hasn't happened, either."

Though she would pay a lot to see that again.

"You remember the Captain Kirk who was at Zelien? The one I considered my crew there along with Doctor McCoy and Ensign Chekov? They were from an alternate reality, too. I've had my fair share of alternate timelines and what if scenarios already. Having to live one is..." She lets out a heavy breath, her eyes climbing the bag in front of her as she thinks.

"I also have to live by Starfleet's rules and regulations. Not that I usually abide by the Temporal Prime Directive when lives are at stake--" See also: Lily. "--but it's very important to all of us. It's a way of life, a philosophy, not just a rule. These sorts of little events aren't what I'm most concerned about, though. I can't talk about the big things because no one here will understand the horror. Not yet. And how can I tell them that someone very important to this ship is going to be assimilated so I can pioneer the techniques used to bring people back from the Borg? So that later on people like Hugh and Seven will have a chance at another life. This isn't a decision I can make lightly and once I make it in the opposite favor than the one I have followed so far, there will be no going back. I'd talk to Deanna, but..." She shrugs helplessly. Even her counselor can't help her right now.

"I guess there are just too many variables. Believe me, if I could take you to my timeline, this would be so much easier." Except she wouldn't want to expose Fatima to the Borg in any universe. Not that she'll have a choice here, she suspects. The Borg won't change their objective. They want Earth. The only trouble is figuring out when.

In all actuality, Fatima only understood about half of what Beverly was saying. She wasn't clear on how the number seven was involved and had no idea who this Hugh person was. But it didn't matter. Beverly was saying things that she probably needed to say. And anyway, Fatima was smart enough to fill in the gaps, to form her own understanding.

And what really mattered, more than the exposition, was the agony that Beverly was going through. Fatima understood that.

Even if she didn't agree.

"There are ways to save the world without breaking rules," she said. "I mean, that was what I did back home. My boss would get visions of terrible things that were going to happen because of the supernatural. And my team and I would go out and stop them from happening. And the rule was that no one could be aware of our work or our presence. It wasn't a foolproof method--I mean, we once lost Youngston, Ohio, instead of the world--but it worked. Maybe there's a way to break the rules without actually breaking the rules."

"Sometimes I think it's easier for everyone else than it is for us Starfleet officers," Beverly admits, frowning slightly at an imperfection in the bag's overlayer. "I just don't know if this is a choice I can make. And I can't just... stop the Borg from coming here. They aren't the kind you can reason with. The problem with them is... we don't have the ability to stop them without drastic measures. I know what will stop them when they come, but we can't do it until someone from our crew becomes one of them. If I even hint at the plan that will work, or tell our senior staff that our first plan will fail and we should try another first, the Borg will know when they grab our crew member and the real solution won't work. If that happens..." She pauses, the memory of the alternate future where Earth was nothing but Borg haunting her for a minute. "If that happens, none of us will be the way we are. At best, we'll be one of them and there will be no escape. That's the sort of choice I'm sitting with."

She feels like she's just caught between personal and professional issues. She wants nothing more than to help, to save this crew from the Borg threat, but she also knows that they grow and change, as does the entirety of the Federation. Everything changes once they really meet the Borg and Locutus is created. If she could save Jean-Luc from that, she would. She doesn't think she can, though, and that's what really drives the nail through her heart. If this event happens the way it should, even though it won't happen when it should, Jean-Luc will be so angry with her by the end. The whole crew will be and she can hardly blame them.

"Some of the other events I think I could go with your suggestion. Even the major ones aren't as difficult. But this one... I'm just not sure and it isn't like I can go to even Troi to ask for her professional opinion without making that choice."

Maybe she's making this too complicated. Maybe she's oversimplifying it, but this is just how it feels to her and Fatima is the only person she can reasonably talk to about it without risking too much right now. Maybe she could talk to Riker or Deanna, but then she would have to swear them to keep things from the captain and it's hard enough doing that herself. She doesn't want to add that to their plates, too. Unless there's a chance it would help. Feeling a headache coming on, she closes her eyes and presses her forehead against the punching bag. She is so angry and frustrated with Q right now, more so than usual. What she would love to do is give him a piece of her mind, for all the good it would actually do.

"Do it," Fatima said. "With those other events. Do it. You have a gift of knowledge. If you don't use it, then COMPASS and Q and anyone else that wants to control us and our actions will win."

And as for the big one that Beverly seemed to be wrestling with...well. Maybe it was better to start small. Maybe one act of rebellion against this directive of hers would give her the courage she needed to make a decision.

The future was theirs to make. Fatima didn't want to see Beverly give in to fate.

Maybe it was one rebellion and maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just a way to ensure that these people wouldn't die out prematurely and that some version of them would survive. That this crew would survive. No matter how many times she has told herself that she doesn't belong here or that these people need their real Doctor Crusher back, Beverly does still care about them. She cares about what happens to them, too.

Sighing wearily, she nods, finally lifting her head to give Fatima a smile as worn as her sigh. "I guess I just needed to hear that," she admits softly. "Thanks for talking me through it."

Fatima is becoming a bit of a rock for Beverly, too. The doctor trusts the young woman greatly and respects her opinions and ideas enough to truly think through them when the time comes.

"I understand how that is," Fatima said gently. "Sometimes, I just talk at someone when I'm really trying to...well. You get it."

She sighed, turning to look directly at Beverly. "We're never going to be the same, you and I," she said. And it wasn't a piteous declaration, or wallowing. Just a simple statement of fact. "We have an open wound by the name of Zelien. One that we can't just...lay to rest."

Lay to rest. Now there was a turn of phrase, regarding that hellhole.

Maybe there was something to it...

No, they never would be the same. Even in her own timeline, Beverly knows she wouldn't be able to handle things any better. She would potentially be worse off, actually, considering what was going in when she left. The idea of laying their memories to rest, though... She tilts her head slightly.

"'Laying it to rest,' hmm? That almost sounds like a suggestion."

The only question is how. There is the holodeck and they could use that. But what would they do? Have a sending off? Or a funeral service of some sort? If so, what kind? It certainly would be interesting and might help them both in the long run.

"What, like a funeral?" Fatima asked, going down the same line of reasoning. "I'm not sure that would help. Funerals are depressing and we're already pretty messed up."

A pause.

"Although..."

It was right in front of her really. Her answer to all grief back home. She'd even indulged in the same vice in Zelien. And if there were real alcohol on the Enterprise, no doubt she'd be drunk all the time.

"Maybe a wake?" she said thoughtfully. She was half-Irish, after all. But no. No, no. Her eyes lit up. "Or a party! Some big send off! A way to blow off steam! Like, New Orleans style!"

"We could borrow one of the holodecks for a time," Beverly muses, agreeing that this would be good. She might not be a loud party person, but getting some of their issues out in a positive way might be a good idea. And it might help some of the other people who are feeling cooped up here, too.

Why not?

"I think you might be better at planning parties than I am, but... maybe it would be good to help us... let go a little." It can't hurt, right?

The more Fatima thought about it, the more she liked it. What was it Artemis used to say? Catharsis? Well, whatever it was, they needed it.

They really, really needed it.

"Do you think the captain would let us throw a party?" she asked. Because if there was one thing they didn't need, it was trouble. And Fatima was getting a pretty good sense of how important Picard was to Beverly.

"If it's nothing raucous and just encompasses the holodeck, I don't see why not. But I'll talk to him." Whenever the best time turns up, she'll bring it up. Fatima is right in that Jean-Luc is very important to her and she to him. They are best friends, after all, even with the time line differences between them. Of course, for those who know them and know to look, there is something even more between them, something each is holding back from the other, something personal.

That little thing called love. And right now both are determined to take it to their graves.

"We'll find a way to make it work."

Unfortunately, raucous was exactly what Fatima had in mind. And something with a fire. A bonfire. They could write the names of everyone who'd wronged them or left them or been swept away. And burn them as a sacrifice. There was no body, but there would be ashes.

Well. Maybe holographic ashes.

Whatever, they'd make it work.

"All right," Fatima said, nodding. "You talk to the captain, and let's see what we can do."

"I'll let you know when I know," Beverly agrees. Whatever they can work up will help them both in the long run.

"Are you going to stay here all night?" She has yet to decide what else she's going to do with her night. Probably end up in the arboretum sometime. That seems to be her fallback here.

"Dunno," Fatima admitted. She absently pressed the bag with her fingertips, sending it swinging back and forth in a slow, lazy motion. "Probably won't sleep until morning."

'Morning' was, frankly, a relative term as far as she was concerned. But at least it meant she would have the room to herself.

All alone with her nightmares.

"I think I'll be heading for the Arboretum, but I'll drop by in a few hours," Beverly muses. "Just to see if you're having better luck than I am." Likely neither of them will sleep, but she can hope. "Or maybe I'll just see you for lunch."

They'll both be exhausted, but at least they'll be exhausted together.

"Look forward to it."

Fatima didn't feel any particular need to specify which 'it.' Either or both would suffice.

She wasn't feeling...good. Not by a long shot. But she felt better than before, anyway. Beverly could do that.

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Wishing you were somehow here again... [OPEN]

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