Second
Sight
Breakaway + 4 yrs, 9 months
Sandra rolled over and wrapped her arm around the waist of the man next to her in their bed. She sighed as she snuggled in. If she was going to remain sleepless, she might as well be comfortable. She found that she had come to treasure these quiet moments before they had to get up and start their respective days, hers in Command Center and Alan's wherever his day's duty might place him. And, she admitted to herself, she had come to depend on these quiet interludes ever since Dr. Mathias' disturbing news that their unborn daughter's genome was not entirely normal. She just wished she could share Alan's buoyant optimism that all would be well.
Sandra was almost always the first awake, which suited her just fine. The cool temperatures mandated for personal quarters had made togetherness a virtue, and she enjoyed the warmth and comfort of Alan's body next to hers, the feel of his hard muscles under her hand, the way he would curl into her embrace. And if there was time, Alan was also usually up to making love first thing in the morning, which was to her the perfect way to start a day.
Today, there was time.
Sandra kissed the bare shoulder in front of her and ran her hand down his chest and belly. She paused, confused. Something was wrong. She knew this body intimately and well, but it was simply not possible for it to be here in her bed. Her and Alan's bed.
She had had vivid dreams like this before, but they had stopped years ago. Her grief and anger had finally been put to rest with time and Alan's persistent kindness. Except for the continual gnawing worry over her daughter's future, she was for the most part content in her life. In any case, her recent marriage to Alan and the knowledge she was pregnant with his daughter left no room for old angers. There was no reason for her to dredge up these old emotions... was there?
She sat up and reached to turn on the light. It all seemed so real, impossibly so. She needed to get up and walk around. She would call Alan and see what was keeping him from their bed.
"Sandra, wait."
Drenched in a cold sweat, her heart beating madly, she threw herself out of the bed and landed in a tangle of sheets. It was Paul's voice, not quite as she remembered it, but close enough.
"Sandra..."
She tripped and stumbled hard against the wall, but managed to put as much distance as the small room would allow between her and the stranger in her bed. It had to be a dream...but if this were a dream, or a nightmare, would her great toe hurt so much where she had just stubbed it?
The room's light brightened enough that she could now clearly see the older mustached and bearded man point a battered and scuffed commlock at the control panel.
"Huh, it still works." The voice sounded rough, as if coarsened by years of hard use.
Without thinking, Sandra clutched the bed linen to her body, although Paul certainly had had numerous occasions to see her naked. Could this be a clever trap? Were there aliens on Alpha again who could pull memories out of her mind and make them oh-so-real? She looked closely at the man. There was a certain... presence that was familiar. But Peter had seemed real enough when those jelly monsters had almost fooled the Alphans into destroying themselves.
Almost as if he respected her embarrassment, the man looked away to give her a chance to rewrap the sheet about herself more carefully.
"Sandra, I know this must seem just a little out of the ordinary..."
Tucking the corner of the sheet into a sarong, she snorted without meaning to. That certainly sounded like Paul. He'd downplay his own execution.
The man paused at her noise and looked up at her, the corner of his mustache twitching up in acknowledged mirth as he continued, "...but I had to say good-bye, and ask a favor."
Sandra tensed in the awkward pause that followed. Many aliens had come asking for favors over the years, and Alpha usually suffered for it. She darted a glance to the bedside table and thought of how swiftly she could reach her commlock and hit the emergency button. Security could arrive in minutes. She might end up looking like the fool if this were all a hallucination, but better that than this bone deep apprehension.
She looked back at the man still sitting up in her bed and watched him look around the quarters. He nodded his head at things she had had in her old quarters, and even smiled a little at the framed front-page newspaper article of Alan's Eagle landing at the University of South Florida.
"Sandra, has Alan been... kind to you?"
Sandra nodded her head, her eyes softening and her hand moving down her belly to cradle her unborn child.
Paul saw the change in her expression and the protective maternal gesture. "Good. He was interested from the first time he met you, you know, but I worked at keeping a distance between you two. I'm glad to see he didn't give up."
The man got up out of the bed, but made no effort to come any closer. Sandra was relieved to see he wore pants.
"I didn't mean to hurt you, Sandra, but I know I did. Can you forgive me?"
If this were an alien invasion, it certainly was the oddest to date. There was no sense of threat or hostility, only a certain wistfulness and regret. Slowly and cautiously, Sandra walked over to the man. There was an intent expression on his face. This was important. Perhaps even the reason for this haunting, for that is what she thought it must be. Paul and the others must be dead by now. Dead and gone to dust, even. Greatly daring, she reached out and laid a tentative hand on his bare chest. The skin was cool but not cold. He did not feel dead. She startled a bit when he covered her hand with his own and interlaced their fingers. It was a gesture so like Paul at his kindest. He looked down at their joined hands and spoke softly, earnestly.
"Can you forgive me?"
She looked up into his sad brown eyes, eyes that pleaded for pardon. She had been so very angry for so very long. She had even almost starved herself from the grief at his betrayal. The old anger flared briefly, roared into a burning fire... and then went completely out. She sighed. She had moved on and had found peace. Why, she could even fly an Eagle now.
The man continued to look into her eyes, then smiled gently and nodded.
"Thank you, Sandra."
The man, Paul, leaned over, pulled her into a gentle embrace and kissed her lightly on the lips. The mustache tickled like it always did. He paused again and looked into the distance for a few moments. Still holding her close, he touched her slightly gravid middle and looked back down again to Sandra's eyes. "You needn't worry about your daughter, Sandra. She'll be exceptional. They all will be. Fate will treat you kindly. Unlike us..."
As Sandra puzzled through his phrasing, she absently felt Paul wrap her fingers around something hard. He let her go and walked around her out toward the main living space. Again he paused, but this time did not look back.
"Please tell the Commander I'm sorry."
Paul continued on toward the main door now dressed in an old style uniform with a flame red sleeve. The beard was gone and he looked years younger. He smiled at her one last time as her eyes blurred with tears, and then he was gone. She was alone.
Sandra raised her hand to brush away the tears when she noticed what she held. It was Paul's battered and weathered commlock with the familiar wobbly number four key. Looking at the impossible commlock, she dashed away the last of the tears and thought of Paul's words. Maybe her daughter would be all right after all. She dimmed the lights and slowly sat down on the sofa. She would await Alan's return and tell him... what? She was not sure. From the back of the sofa, she pulled across her shoulders the thin blanket she kept there against the chill and tucked the ends under her folded legs. Sitting in the dark, still holding Paul's commlock, she thought through what had just occurred, and realized that throughout it all, she had not said a single word.
31 May 2006
MDG