Catalina had always hoped to visit her best friend's dimension, but certainly hadn't expected it to occur when she almost died.

Of course, it would have been at the hands of Warlord Shank who, she would learn several months later, had also survived the explosion.

At the time, though, Catalina was both trying to reconcile herself with the fact that yes, she was going to die.

Death hadn't exactly been a foreign concept to her. Both of her parents had died before she turned ten, and in her grief, that had been when Suzee had first appeared. She'd thought she was going crazy, especially since no one else could see her invisible friend, but when Suzee had explained the specifics of how she was from another dimension and how their minds were linked...well, Catalina decided to go with it.

She had tried to avoid talking to Suzee in front of others, but on Yensid, this sort of mental connection was quite common, and Suzee would forget that Catalina would likely be viewed as a nut job if she started talking to someone no one else could see.

Besides, Suzee always had something to say, and helpful advice to give. So far, people thought that Catalina was immature, maybe still coping with the death of her parents, and certainly got annoyed when she'd begin a statement with, "Suzee says."

But she hadn't been locked up, and she could still talk to her friend when others were around, instead of waiting until nighttime or in a bathroom stall or when she had a rare moment to herself. If others just thought that Catalina was immature, so be it.

She rather thought it had caused her to develop thick skin.

At the moment, being physically restrained by the Spung overlord, her thoughts were a mix of, "Grozit, I don't want to die, I really don't want to die!" and, "Well, maybe I'll see my parents again..."

"I'm going to bring you over," Suzee said, almost calmly, but her gills moved the way they did when she was nervous. It was an undeniable tic she had, even when all other signs pointed to Suzee keeping her cool. "The explosion will tear the dimensional fabric, and I can pull you through."

Hope, mixed with doubt that her best friend could actually achieve such a feat, combined with dread at leaving her own dimension indefinitely (well, it had to be better than burning to a crisp...) rushed through her.

Shank was gone now. It was just her.

"If you c-can," she managed to get out.

"Of course I can," Suzee replied, flipping her shoulder length hair. "Hold tight."

Then, there was light, and tugging, and suddenly, the spaceship was replaced by a room. The room was empty, just as it had been moments before when Catalina saw her best friend there, but now, she stood there.

She looked down at her hands. They were fine. She didn't feel any pain, either. There was a mirror, she noticed, and although it wasn't very long, Catalina could see enough of her body to determine that not only was her face and hair entirely unscathed, so (somehow) was her uniform.

"It worked," she murmured. "And... I'm in your dimension?"

"See? I told you it would work!" Suzee was, admittedly, at least a bit gloating as she spoke, but as she had saved Catalina's life, perhaps she was allowed to. "I knew that when the protomix blew, I knew it would tear the dimensional fabric just enough to pull you through."

"Yes, you were right." Catalina rolled her eyes.

But then, her friend's attention focused elsewhere. "You...you can see me? Cat, Cat, they can see me!"

Now, it was Catalina's turn to gloat. "They won't be able to call you imaginary anymore!"

She watched, as she had in the past when Suzee interacted with her parents, her older sister, Carmee, her teachers, and the handful of friends ("Not best friends, Cat!" she'd always reassured her. "They're my friends, sure, but you're my best friend!") within her dimension. A part of Catalina was amused as her friends from the ship, her Commander, and her uptight (but yes, mostly well-meaning) teacher fumbled with the proof that Catalina's "imaginary friend" was as real as them.

Except, which Catalina realized a few minutes before Suzee, this meant that they had traded dimensions. Suzee, for all of her engineering genius, hadn't taken into account that her pulling Catalina into her dimension would cause her to fall into Catalina's.

At least, she was on the Christa. If Suzee died, after saving Catalina, she didn't think she'd be able to cope.

Then, the ship was landing onto a foreign planet, and even though Catalina could feel that Suzee was all right--because if one of them died, the other would know--she felt the connection waver, then drop.

Catalina waited in the empty room, feeling the silence for several minutes. Loneliness washed over her.

She's still alive, Catalina told herself. Suzee will fix it. She'll be back by tonight, maybe tomorrow, and we'll figure out what to do next. We can switch back, probably, because who wants to be on some strange planet with Harlan and Ms. Davenport when her parents are right there?

In the meantime, Catalina would wait. She was, after all, still alive.

After taking a deep breath, she opened the door.

Author's note:

Way back when Space Cases aired, I taped a bunch of the episodes on my family's VCR. I was twelve when it began in 1996. It was my favorite show. I wrote fan fiction, possibly the first I ever published on FFN, but I stopped after a certain of years. Honestly, I don't even want to look at my earlier works, because they are probably BAD.

Well, my parents, although not old, are in the process of transferring to me stuff from when I lived there. Books, report cards, binders from old classes... and my Space Cases tapes.

I purchased a VCR/DVD combo off of eBay, figuring I would be out around 60 dollars if I couldn't get it to work. After some trial and error, I got the right combination of settings--and proceeded to load the first of several tapes. Ah, memories!

Which lead to this plot bunny. What is Catalina's life like on Yensid? And what is Yensid like?

This fic is definitely going to be something I figure out as I go along, and it will be more character heavy than plot. I kinda have an ending in mind, which spans past the end of season two, but we'll see where my muse leads me.

Finally...if you like this, could you leave a review?