Reed's Armory -- A Malcolm Reed Fanfiction Archive ..

Title: A Waking Dream

Author: Kalita Kasar

Author's e-mail: [email protected]

Author's Web site: http://kalkasar.ussimperator.com

Rating: PG

Category: Slash

Pairing: Tucker/Reed

Series: The Dreams Series

Summary: Malcolm is troubled by nightmares after Shuttlepod 1

Archived to Reed's Armory on 11/20/2003
First posted June/July 2002

A Waking Dream


'Is he all right? - Are they going to be all right? - Is Rostov alive? - I'll
call a medical team! - He's safe...he's safe...thank God. - Should I
touch him? - Is he going to be ok? - Is it over? - Where am I? - What
happened? - T'Pol?'


A jumble of confused voices filled his head and the commander struggled to
escape them.

Trip stirred weakly as he opened his eyes. Hoshi was crouched beside him;
she smiled as he looked at her.

"Are you all right, Commander? Don't try to get up; the medical team is on
their way."

Trip stared into her eyes for a moment as he tried to make sense of the
thousand and one thoughts and feelings that clamoured for
attention. He felt as though he could hear and feel inside of every person
in the room.

Someone was missing; one of the voices that had come through stronger than
the others. Trip rolled to his side looking around with eyes that refused to
focus. He had to find the owner of that voice, it was important.

'We reached for him, we wanted to embrace him; we wanted to take away the
singleness... but we could not touch him. He stopped us when we tried. He
did not want to be one.' Trip blinked, struggling to make his eyes focus as
he searched the cargo bay. Trip groaned with the intensity of emotion attached to
those thoughts; loss, desolation, confusion.

Suddenly, he found himself lost in gentle grey eyes that met his own.
'Malcolm.' Trip drew a deep breath as their eyes met. Malcolm's was the
voice he had heard - the one who thanked God that he was safe. Trip stared
into the lieutenant's eyes; he blinked and parted his lips to speak.

Malcolm smiled at him and then turned away.

'No!' Trip pushed weakly against the floor with his hands, trying to get up,
but Hoshi gently held him down. He could only watch helplessly as Malcolm
spoke briefly to a crewman and the two men left the cargo bay.

'He did not want to be one.'

Trip closed his eyes with a small moan and sank down on the floor. He was
too weak right now to even think straight, much less try and work out the
jumble of thoughts and emotions. At least, he noted with relief,
the myriad of voices that had flooded in on him initially was subsiding.


--/--

Released from the sickbay finally, Trip Tucker walked the halls of the ship
restlessly. He'd been advised to go back to his quarters and rest but he was
not able to. He felt a dull sense of something that was not quite
loneliness, but not a pleasant sensation either. It had plagued him since
the entity in cargo bay two had gently lowered him to the floor.

Separateness. That was the only word he could find that even came close to
being applicable.

Trip sighed, walking the too-quiet halls of this too-empty ship. He was
alone, and he didn't like it.

Alone- it was wrong. We reached for him, we wanted to embrace him; we wanted
to take away the separateness... but we could not touch him. He stopped us
when we tried. He did not want to be one.

Commander Charles Tucker III stopped in his tracks as the voices - it was
more than one voice, neither male nor female but somehow both, echoed in
his mind again. He blinked and shook his head to clear it away.

Phlox had told him that he might retain some memories of the experience.
That such a joining of minds was often permanent, but that it was also
harmless and may fade with time.

Trip sighed. Strange how Jon didn't seem to have those memories; neither did Rostov,
Kelly, or Zabel. He had asked them if they remembered anything about reaching out
to someone who wouldn't allow them to touch, and all had denied it.

He palmed his face with one hand and walked on. Before too long his restless
feet carried him to the one place that had always been a safe haven. He felt
the tension ease from his shoulders as he stepped into engineering and was
instantly surrounded by the deep, resonant throb of Enterprise's heartbeat.

It was like re-entering the womb sometimes. Although Trip didn't recall back
that far, he imagined that the all-pervading throb of the engine would feel
pretty close to the beat of a mother's heart to a foetus.

Climbing the ladder to the upper level of engineering Trip rested his head
against the side of the warp drive. He closed his eyes, letting the gentle
beats pulse through his body. It was almost the sensation he wanted. He
could almost imagine the soft enveloping tendrils of The One surrounded him
and he felt his breathing steady.

'Get outta here! Trip stared into terror filled grey eyes as he struggled
against the tendrils that caught and held him. He watched the sharp
features of the Armoury officer, as the man seemed to freeze, horror evident
in his face as their eyes met.

Zabel scrambled up a ladder but was too slow and the tendrils caught him.
There was a desperate struggle for a few moments before Mark was dragged
from the ladder, his rifle clattering to the floor; still Malcolm didn't
move, his grey eyes wild with terror and the dawning light of something
else...

Go! Trip pushed every ounce of strength he possessed into that command as he
was lifted bodily into the air and finally, Malcolm seemed to come out of
some kind of trance. He stumbled backwards, eyes still glued to Trip's face,
and then he ran as though the furies pursued him; bolting for the hatch, he
lunged through it and slammed it shut.'

"God!" Trip's eyes snapped open and he pushed himself away from the
reassuring presence of the warp reactor; stumbling backwards for a couple of
paces before he was brought up short by the safety railing. His heart
pounded uncomfortably in his chest, and he could feel tremors all through
his body.

The sheer terror in Malcolm's eyes as that creature had pulled Trip off his
feet still haunted the commander and he leaned heavily on the safety railing
for support. Even more haunting was the other emotion Trip had glimpsed just
moments before Malcolm bolted.

Trip swallowed hard and shut his eyes. "Oh my god..."

Continued in Dreams Are Illusions

~the end~