A New Beginning

By dreamofshadows

AN: My favoritest thing to do with fanfiction is create a new character and see how things would be different with that new character. Enter Sheila Ann Bridger, Nathan and Carol's daughter, who is conveniently the same age as Lucas. :op This is my interpretation of the first episode. Enjoy. :o)

Disclaimer: I own nothing seaQuest. Darn it all. I am, however, borrowing. Heavily. I do own Sheila. Bwahahahaha.

Prologue

I'm so tired, but I can't sleep
Standing at the edge of something much too deep
It's funny how we feel so much
But we cannot say a word
We are screaming inside
But we can't be heard
-Sarah McLachlan – I Will Remember You

She was lost in a maze. No matter which way she went or how much she backtracked she kept ending up at dead ends. It was dark, almost pitch black. She didn't know how long she had been stuck here. Days? Months? Years? It felt like she had been lost forever. She could feel the panic rising, although she struggled to remain calm. She began to run. She had to get out. She had to find an exit, lest she become lost forever...

Sheila Bridger sat up in bed with a start. For a moment she felt disoriented, but it slowly went away as she realized she had been dreaming. Again. She kept having the same dream, every night, for almost a month. She sighed and swung her legs out of bed and searched for her sandals with her feet. She knew she wouldn't be able to fall back asleep right away. She grabbed a sweater on her way out the door. A walk on the beach would calm her down enough for more sleeping.

She shivered slightly at the cool ocean breeze. Walks on the beach were becoming a nightly ritual for her lately. She wasn't exactly sure why she kept having this dream, but walking helped her think and she had a pretty good explanation figured out. Not that she could do anything about it, really. Her father would never let her leave.

The thing was, she felt trapped on this island. The only time she was ever allowed off it by herself was when they desperately needed groceries from the mainland her father got really involved in Darwin's training and felt he was onto a breakthrough. And if she took a millisecond longer than he thought it should, she could see the worry in his eyes.

She knew he was just trying to protect her – and protect himself at the same time. She felt that way about him sometimes, when he was doing something a little risky, like when he was fixing the leak in the roof last month. They were the only family the other had left, and after losing Bobby, and then her mother, Sheila couldn't bear losing her father too, and knew he felt the same way about her.

But she was 16. She need to have a life. She needed friends. She needed more than seclusion on an island with just her father and a dolphin for company. She just didn't know how to get it.