Miles To Go Before I Sleep
A Voyager/Crusade crossover by Taya 17 Janeway.
I know I'm getting worse. I can't help it.
Author's foreword: Now that Voyager has ended, I'm waiting for the Enterprise tapes to arrive, and in the meantime I've found another series to shower my affections on. J Yep. 'Tis Crusade! I am definitely hooked- now I'm trying to get my hands on some B5 too (tho' I suppose this'll take a little more cake: five back seasons of Voyager took me more than a year to get through!) Anyway this is dedicated to Jadzia-in-the-states, my sis, qwerty and Ezzy! (and my husband of course… long story … *smyle* ….)
Chapter One: Lost Identity
[Do not trust]
[Do not trust]
Trust who?
The deep raspy voice resonated in his dreams; he was trapped in a formless, featureless world. His other dreams, which he remembered as crisp and clear with a devastating sharpness, were never like this. He was lost in a fog,; a fog intangible as he was.
Who am I? What am I? Where am I?
Why couldn't he remember any of his other dreams? Something so clear and sharp should have burnt its way into his memory, yet all he could dredge up were shadows of memories of what had transpired.
His lack of a reference point, lack of grounding, lack of knowing why gnawed into him with frustrating intensity.
[Do not trust]
I don't understand. Who are you? What are you?
Someone was tapping on his shoulder.
He struggled to wrench his eyes open. He was becoming aware of his own body now; he was lying on some sort of soft bed, uncovered, his feet were bare. He twitched a finger; it barely moved.
A voice cut into his thoughts: male, nasal. "Can you hear me?"
His mouth moved, but no words came out.
The male voice sounded insufferably pleased. "It appears that our patient is getting better."
A warm touch on his hand: the owner of the male voice? No, there was someone else speaking; a deep, husky female voice. A woman. "How are you feeling?"
He finally managed to get his eyes open, and immediately squinted at the bright light that flooded them. "Ah."
"It's alright- take it easy." The touch on his hand was warm, reassuring. "You've had a rough time."
Bit by bit he opened his eyes and looked around him. The world slowly swam into focus into him. He was lying on a diagnostic bed in a circular room brightly lit by yellow glowpanels all along the circumference of the wall to his left. The room was done in shades in darkling silver and chrome, with various black consoles ringing the bed beside him. The half of the room to his left opened into an even larger room, with more beds, some occupied, some not. A silver bank of consoles stood between the room he was in and the open space of the other room; in the next room were more consoles, the same sleek style of décor; a small circular anteroom to the side. A door at the far end. He surmised that he was probably in some kind of sickbay, if the faint medicinal smell lingering in the air was any indication.
There were two people in the room hovering over him, one a tall, thin balding man with a thin, wide smile that stretched, it seemed, from one ear to another, obsidian eyes twinkling with a hint of self-congratulation. Beside him was a petite woman with a mane of reddish hair, wide cheekbones and oddly delicate features. She carried herself with an air of confidence that reminded him of something that he could not quite put his finger on. "I'm Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager. We came across your ship in this nebula by accident. There was no distress signal, but we detected your life-sign and beamed you onboard. But your ship…" She paused. "It was heavily damaged, and we couldn't salvage it before the engines blew." Her fine brow puckered slightly. "I'm sorry."
He blinked. "What… happened?" was all he managed to say.
"I was hoping you'd be able to tell us," said Janeway with a slight gesture of her hand. "Was your ship attacked?"
He tried to think, but he couldn't remember anything about a ship. He couldn't even remember leaving Earth in the first place. The more he tried to connect what he could remember to his current predicament, the more he seemed to lose his ground. It was like trying to look at a dim star at night: when you didn't look directly at it, it shone bright in your peripheral vision, but when you turned your head to look at the distraction, it disappeared. "I can't remember," he confessed.
Janeway nodded. "What were you doing out here?" she asked. "Were you looking for something, or someone-?"
He blinked. Didn't she understand? "I don't remember anything."
Janeway's eyebrow raised slightly, briefly. "What's your name, stranger?"
He struggled to sit up, and pain spasmed briefly up his lower back. The balding man (presumably the doctor) tried to restrain him, but he waved away his assistance. "I don't know. That's not my name."
"What's not your name?" asked Janeway, the slight puckering of her eyebrow becoming permanent.
"Stranger." It was taking a lot of effort to remain sitting upright.
Janeway gave him a genuinely concerned look. "You don't remember your name?"
"No." He tried to look genuinely apologetic, but deep inside he was beginning to get worried. How bad was it, he wondered, when you didn't even know who you were?
Janeway turned to the doctor. "You said he would experience temporary amnesia. But you didn't mention anything of this scale."
The doctor frowned, creasing the space between his brows with deep furrows. "There was a substantial amount of brain damage, but my first impression was that it was not something I couldn't handle." He rubbed his chin with one hand and supported the elbow with the other fist as he contemplated a nearby console. "Obviously I was wrong in making that judgement."
Brain damage? He didn't like the sound of that. "Is there something that I should know about?"
The doctor turned back to him with a troubled sigh. "You suffered extensive injuries when your ship was damaged," he said. "Multiple fractured ribs, two crushed vertebrae, no lack of internal bleeding, third degree burns covering thirty percent of your body, as well as severe concussion." He gesticulated in the air with one hand as he said this, his elbow never leaving the arm across his waist. He gave his patient a direct stare, his hand frozen in place. "Your brain, I'm afraid, suffered some oxygen deprivation, as well as internal hemorrhaging. The amnesia you are currently experiencing may last several days, or it may be permanent. There is no telling with such injuries; the human brain is highly resilient, so I wouldn't sign a death warrant just yet." Another gesture of the hand.
He must have paled, because Janeway placed a restraining hand on her doctor's shoulder. "Don't upset him too much. He's been through a lot; he should be resting now."
The doctor's hand dropped slightly as he shot a disgusted glare at his captain. "The truth has never hurt my patients," he said somewhat tersely. Then his features relaxed into a more congenial expression. "But I believe you may be right." The doctor pushed him back down onto the bed; he was too tired to resist. "You must recover from your injuries. Perhaps you will remember more when you awaken."
Janeway patted him on the shoulder. "We'll speak later. Have a good rest." Then she moved out of his field of vision. The soft sound of a hydraulic door hissing open and close followed shortly after.
He closed his eyes, wanting no more than to lose himself from the growing nightmare. As he drifted off to sleep, the same smoky voice came back to haunt him. Trapped in that window between sleep and consciousness, he thought that it spoke quite true. How could he trust anyone else when he didn't even know who he really was?
