Each day was gruelling, endless, and grey. The buzz of the chronometer had long since been replaced by the lancing pain of a swift kick to the small of his back. Shuffling through the breakfast line he quickly learned to down the grey, slightly oily gruel before anyone could grab his portion from his hands.
His universe had shrunk from the vast jewelled expanse of space to the grey twilight of the netherworld in which he toiled. He worked hard. He had to. Those who didn't were punished, and many of those never returned. He laboured in a tunnel with forty others, all hacking at the walls, trying to fill the carts with dusty grey ore.
He didn't even know what he was mining. He asked a guard once and the response was a vicious blow across his face with the butt of a phaser rifle. He learned not to ask questions, not to stand out in any way, to become as grey as the shadows that surrounded him.
There was no colour in his world; everything was grey. Grey rocks, grey dust, grey clothes, grey gruel. The straw in his pallet had faded to grey. They skin of his captors, even their eyes were grey. His own skin, he knew, was also grey. Grey beard, grey eyes, he blended in and stayed alive.
There was no colour in this world; at least, not in his waking world. Every night while the others collapsed wearily to their pallets he would take a few moments to remember. Slowly twisting the spigot on a tap, he would allow colours, and then images of his other life, to gradually flood his mind.
The warm beige walls always appeared first. With them came the remembered feel of the thrum of the engines under the deck. He could remember the sound of his boot steps in the corridors. He savoured the whoosh the doors made as he allowed his mind to travel further.
Initially his mind wandered everywhere. Sometimes he would recall his family; his mother, father, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. Sometimes he would allow past comrades to join him. Occasionally he even remembered old flames. As time went on though, more and more often his thoughts would turn to her.
He looked forward to sleep. Laying on his cold, dusty, grey pallet was a luxury he cherished. For only there would he permit himself to think about the past, to wonder about things beyond his prison, and to hope for a brighter future. Only there would he permit himself to think of her; to remember her.
Memories of her made him feel warm. It was as though the very colours that surrounded her infused his very being. Red, blue, ivory, they delicately wrapped themselves around his heart and filled his soul with light. With her in his mind he could withstand the bone and spirit crushing routine of daily life in the mine.
In his mind they would sit, sometimes in his quarters sometimes in his ready room, and chat about mundane things. He would relate the events of his day, describing any new additions to the crew in his tunnel, the number of carts of ore he produced, and even anecdotes about some of his fellow prisoners. In his dreams she never reacted with shock or sadness to his tales of suffering, but accepted them as a part of who he was. She would tell him about injuries she'd treated, the play she was working on, her latest research, and anything else that came to mind.
They would sometimes engage in friendly arguments over philosophy or literature. He loved those debates. In his mind it never mattered whether he won or lost. She was so much more animated when they argued. The colours were more intense, and he could feel their effects long into his work day.
So long as they let him sleep he knew he could survive in their grey world of misery. Sometimes, as he lay down amidst the others, his blood would freeze with the thought that he might forget the colours; that his dreams would become as shadowy as the world around him. Heart racing, he would open the door to his mind and she would walk through, smiling and filling his world with vibrant colour. He knew without a doubt the night she faded to grey would be the day he lost the will to continue to exist.
His feet carried him, unthinking, from the tunnels into the main compound. He knew the way to the meal line, the latrine, and his pallet like he knew the way from the bridge to his ready room. Some of the prisoners talked. He remained silent. He knew a few of them wondered who he was and why he kept himself apart. He didn't care. He drifted like fog across a field, silent, touching no one.
The whispers of those gathered in the compound grew unusually louder as he exited the last of the tunnels. Taking his eyes from the grey puffs of dust kicked up by the man in front of him, he looked more carefully at his surroundings.
There was a commotion in the centre of the area. A large group of people were on their knees with their hands behind their heads. Thinking it was to be an execution of some of the workers, he quickly turned his gaze back to the ground, but he froze when he heard someone shout – in Klingon.
Looking more carefully he realized it was the guards and overseers who were on the ground. They were surrounded by a small force of heavily armed Klingons. During the fight for control the Klingons had become as dusty as the rest of the habitants of the mines. This was another grey scenario, albeit different, at the end of another monotonously grey day. He shrugged his shoulders, releasing his own cloud of dust, and made to move toward the food station.
There! A flash – nothing more. Were his eyes deceiving him? Again! It couldn't be. He couldn't let it be. He couldn't let her out into his grey world. He needed her to stay in the world of colour, where she was safe, and where she could keep him alive. The brief glimpse of red among the Klingons had to be an illusion!
He turned to the worker in front of him and tapped him on the shoulder. In a voice hoarse from disuse, he told the man to hit him. Puzzled, the man refused. He used every ounce of strength he had to form the words to the worst insults he knew and he was rewarded with a savage crack across his jaw.
He blinked and looked again at the scene in the middle of the compound. The throbbing pain in his jaw assured him he wasn't hallucinating. He watched, waiting, hardly daring to breathe.
There! A flash of red. It's real! She's real! He knew that he had to escape his world of shadows. He had to get to her. He had to stand out. She would never find him, the greyest of greys, if he didn't show himself. He stepped forward.
He needn't have moved. The instant he entered the compound she knew he was there. Like iron to a lodestone her gaze fixed upon its target. She saw him step out from among the others. She saw his eyes, the sight she had risked her life and career to see once more, and she witnessed his transformation.
He entered the compound a tired, shuffling old man. He blended in perfectly. As his eyes met hers they took on new life, and with each step his grey façade slipped away. Each step brought him closer to her. She watched his spine straighten, his stride lengthen, his shoulders broaden. By the time he reached her side all remnants of the shadow were gone. She was face to face with the starship captain she knew and loved. He was filthy and emaciated, but he was alive and that was all that mattered.
The stress involved in getting into the mine disappeared. She shifted her grip on her phaser rifle to gently lay a hand against his cheek. He was alive. All the court martials and disciplinary hearings in the universe were a small price to pay for the gift of this man's life.
"You're here," he rasped in disbelief.
"I'm here," she replied.
The sight, touch, sound, and smell of her sent waves of warmth and colour crashing through him. Overwhelmed by the onslaught, he staggered. She quickly wrapped her arms around him to hold him steady.
"It's over. I'm here," she soothed him. "Let's get you home."