Title: Redemption
Author: Asha MacKay
Rating: R
Spoilers: Ouroboros
Summary: Trance has night terrors. (I know it doesn't tell you much, but read on.)
Disclaimer: I don't own Trance, Rhade, Andromeda, etc. I'm not profiting, yadda yadda yadda, I'm really tired…
Oh and also, I really don't know much about night terrors, so if you have them and you hate this story, don't flame me. Flame me for better reasons, but not that one.
Thanks to Sarah for being my beta again.
A sob rang through the corridor. It was soft, but with his Nietzschean hearing, Rhade picked up on it instantly. He couldn't imagine who would be awake so late at night. He often walked the halls after everyone went to bed; it gave him time to clear his head without anyone on his heals. The Andromeda was a large ship, but there were quite enough people to make it seem crowded at times. He'd hoped to be alone, or at least undisturbed, since the service bots were usually the only thing moving on this part of the ship. Apparently, they weren't.
He heard a tiny whimper and followed it a little further down the hall, then waited for the crying to resume. Soon his ears could distinguish what sounded like a frightened woman, or perhaps a child. He continued toward it and had almost reached the med bay when a muffled scream assaulted his ears. He rushed into the room and immediately saw with confusion the form of Trance, or rather her hair. She was slumped over a table with a computer and medical instruments on it. Her head was buried in her arms and her shoulders shook violently. The scream subsided and her tiny hands clenched and unclenched, the left one grasping the first thing it found: a scalpel.
"Trance!" Rhade called in a sharp staccato. She didn't respond; if anything, she grabbed it harder, breaking into full sobs. He rushed over to her and grabbed her wrist as blood trickled down onto his hand. "Trance!" he snapped again, grabbing her shoulder roughly with his other hand and shaking her to let her know he was there. She jumped, immediately quieting and letting the scalpel fall from her grasp. Lifting her head slowly, she stared up at him with large wet eyes that were full of confusion. She seemed almost disoriented, and didn't even realize that her hand was bleeding, or if she did, she didn't care. Tears still streamed down her face, and she looked as if she were shivering.
Rhade didn't have the slightest clue how to deal with her, so he dealt with her hand instead. "You're bleeding," he said softly, turning her hand over and looking at the damage she'd done. It wasn't too deep, so he walked over to a shelf and grabbed a towel and some gauze. When he turned around, she was staring at her hand in bewilderment. Raising her eyes to his, she asked, "How did this happen?"
"You don't remember?" he asked, kneeling beside the table and pressing the towel to her hand with a bit too much force. "Am I hurting you?" he asked when she flinched. She didn't answer, but he eased up a little anyway. "I was having a nightmare," she muttered a few minutes later. "But I'm fine now. I think I'll go to bed." She began to rise, but a hand clamped down on her shoulder and pushed her back down.
"The bleeding's stopped but you're still shaking. I think you should stay here for a while." He began wrapping her hand in gauze.
"I'm okay, but thanks," she answered softly, but tears fell silently from her eyes again and betrayed her. Rhade looked up at her and saw them, once again completely at a loss as to what he should do to calm her. He reached up and wiped a few tears from her cheek in a feeble attempt to make her stop crying. "Must have been some nightmare," he said. "What was it about?"
"It… was nothing." she wanted to tell him, but didn't want him to know that she'd actually been remembering what had happened before she'd traded places with her former self.
Rhade pulled a chair from nearby and plunked it down across from her. "It wasn't nothing," he replied, sitting down. "What was it?"
Trance sighed and gave in. She needed to get it off her chest, anyway. "It was a memory… Beka and I were the only ones left…" Trails of moisture once again made their way down her cheeks. "I should have saved them, but I was so scared."
"But you lived," Rhade said gently.
"You didn't," she answered, looking up into his eyes.
He had absolutely no idea how to respond. All he could do was stare at those huge brown eyes and wonder what she'd lived through, and how she'd survived.