Chapter 1
My dreams, never quite as it seems
"Vitals!", an imperative voice exclaimed urgently amongst the beeps and noises of the multiple machines and people surroinding a body on a bed. "Sonia, vitals! Quickly now!"
"Just a moment, doctor Greene, I'm almost there…"
"I don't have 'just a moment', Sonia", snapped doctor Greene. "And neither does the patient. Now, do you have those vitals or will I have to stop CPR to get them myself?"
That seemed to get to the already flustered Sonia, for she finally brought herself to whisper:
"It's just that--- I can't hear a blood pressure, nor feel a pulse".
"Well, I assure that's not due to your overwhelming clumsiness, Sonia, although I would like to blame it on that. No, that's because the patient's on full cardiac arrest. Now, tell me capillar glycaemia", doctor Greene commanded, slightly breathless.
It was then that Severus noticed she was kneeling on the bed by the patient's side, whilst rhythmically pressing at his chest, then realeasing, and pressing again, to apparently no end. She was leaning the full weight of her body on the patient, and a part of Severus he didn't know he still possessed suddenly thought that the loose tendrils of sleek black hair that had escaped the clip, and swayed gently with her movements framed her pale face in a rather attractive way.
Somewhat astonished at that random thought, Severus focused his attention once again on the scene before his eyes.
"Sonia? What happened to that capillar glycaemia?"
"Um… um… Hold on…" Sonia dropped something and doctor Greene rolled her eyes in exasperation.
"Someone?", she claimed, still pressing the patient's chest.
"Please, doctor Greene", Sonia begged, "I'm right on it, just let me…"
But someone was already ahead of her.
"30, doctor Greene".
"Bingo", said doctor Greene. "Right, get me 50 cc of D50, and I mean get them now"
"IV push?"
"IV push indeed. And pass one amp of adrenaline through the other line as well".
Once they did as told, doctor Greene looked at the screen on the right side of the bed and sighed.
"Drat, he's on VF… All right, people, back away. I am going to defibrillate. Jeanne? Paddles, please. Thank you. Charge at 200. Ready? People, I'm gonna hit. Everyone CLEAR!", she cried, as everybody stepped back from the bed. Once she made sure no one was in contact with the patient, doctor Greene pressed the buttons on the paddles she had placed on the patient's chest. Severus was startled to see the patient's limbs shake violently, and he wondered what on Earth had she done to him, but apparently she didn't care to explain for she asked instead:
"Rhythm?"
"Still VF"
"Right then, charge at 300. Everyone CLEAR", and she hit yet again.
"Seems he's in, doctor!" , Sonia exclaimed happily. Doctor Greene gifted her with a withering look that Severus himself would have been proud of, and then turned her attention to the screen, peering at the somewhat arrhythmic mountains and valleys that seemed to be so important.
"No, he's not", she said, harshly. "For crying out loud…. Charge at 360! CLEAR!", and yet again, the doctor hit and the patient jumped.
"Still fibrillating", someone said.
"Damn! All right, Back to CPR then!", she climbed onto the bed again and kneeled to resume her compressions. They kept it up for what it seemed forever, alternating with what was called defibrillation, until doctor Greene called to a stop.
"Asystolia for fifteen minutes, and completely mydriatic. It's time to pronounce him".
They all looked up in unmistakeable consternation.
"Time of death, 2 hours and fifteen minutes", doctor Greene said.
Severus was sure the dream was bound to end soon, but he was proven wrong as suddenly he was looking at the black haired woman named doctor Greene once more.
She was alone in what it seemed to be a changing room, sitting on a wooden bench with her back leaning on a locker behind her. She had discarded the hairclip, so her hair was falling heavily in a lank cascade to her waist. She seemed tired.
But most of all, sad.
She turned as someone behind her spoke.
"Fiddler?", it was a gray haired man in a white coat.
"Yeah."
"You all right?"
"Guess so."
There was a moment of silence.
"You did all that was there to do".
"Still, he shouldn't have died", Fiddler said firmly, and suddenly, Severus got a glimpse of what was going through her mind. I felt life still within him, something went wrong.
"You can't always win, Fiddler, dear. You must learn that", said the gray haired man and put a hand to her shoulder. "You're the brighest resident I've ever had, but even you can't beat death".
Severus thought the bloke sounded oddly like Dumbledore.
"Oh, I know, doctor Allen", Fiddler replied. "But he wasn't supposed to go yet".
"How do you know?"
"I… just do".
Doctor Allen stared at her intently but said nothing. Fiddler stood up and made a move to leave, but at the last moment she turned her head, causing her hair to fly around her.
"Could I ask you a favor?"
"Certainly".
"Move Sonia to another ship, or move me. I just can't work with that dunderhead".
Dunderhead, Severus thought. A word he used quite a lot.
Back in his dream, Dr. Allen smiled.
"Oh, Fiddler…", he started, but something in her greenish-blue eyes made him reconsider. "All, right, then, I'll see what I can do".
"Thank you, Ambrose", she said, and without another word, strode out of the room, with a martial gait that oddly resembled Severus' own trademark pace.
Severus Snape slowly woke from one of the weirdest dreams he could ever remember having.
He had dreamed of her again.
Indeed.
A dream full of beeping machines and wailing people, all of them surrounding an inconscious person and following the orders of a snapping, black haired female that reminded him strongly of himself.
He had been dreaming of her for over two weeks now, on a nearly daily basis, and although he hated to admit it, the thruth was that fact was beginning to disturb him.
At first, he'd thought he'd been dreaming with his subconscious' female version of himself, dark-haired, pale-faced and barking in exasperation at a growing number of white-dressed dunderheads, just as he would have done to Longbottom.
But this was getting out of hand.
"Drat my subconscious", he cursed, for he truthfully felt the last thing he needed that morning was yet another of those fully detailed dreams swarming with Muggle procedures and terms he didn't understand nor care for… And with Fiddler.
The woman he was beginning to know through his dreams.
But as the day went on, he found out that his mind kept reliving the latest dream, analyzing the scenes in his head and marveling at the fact that he kept longing for the night to come.
He told himself it was for curiosity's sake only, but at the end he had to accept he only wanted to see her again.
"Nonsense!", he snapped mentally, angry at the mere acknowledgement of a longing he kept hidden even to himself. "She's not even pretty".
And he was right, she wasn't, or at least, not by the usual standards. She wasn't blonde, tall nor slim, she didn't wear make up, and Severus didn't remember ever seen her wearing another thing than a loose surgery scrub and a white coat.
But it was the hair, those incredibly black strands of lustrous straight hair that fell to her waist and framed her face what kept Severus' mind wandering back to the image of her all day long. Because it reminded him of something he couldn't quite pinpoint.
He was brusquely brought back to reality when a running something bumped carelessly into him. He lowered his piercing gaze to the offending object, and smirked.
Potter. He should have known.
"Potter, aware as I am of the fact that it takes you an extraordinary amount of wits to keep focused on your steps as you wave your cheering fans, I must ask you to keep from getting on my way. 50 points from Gryffindor".
"I didn't see you coming, sir", Harry replied harshly.
"Get your glasses adjusted, then", Severus said, dismissevily and strode away, robes billowing, leaving Harry shaking with rage.
Had Severus decided to use Legilimency just then, points wouldn't have been the only thing deducted from Harry.
Severus Snape entered his heavily warded chambers and headed directly to his bathroom. Despite of most of his students' opinion, Severus Snape indeed enjoyed his daily evening bath. It was, perhaps, the only time and place when he allowed his own wards to fall and examined thoughts and feelings objectively.
He poured himself a glass of brandy and stepped into the near-scalding water. Slowly, he felt his taut muscles begin to relax and his eyes drifted shut.
And the image of Fiddler Greene popped out of nowhere in his mind.