What dreams may come
((OOC: Possible trigger warning for date-rape.))
"Another?" he purrs, and Marlena smiles at him and gives an aborted half-nod, but that makes her head swim so she mumbles a sound of assent. The golden liquid seems to glow as it slides in slow-motion from the neck of the bottle, splashing into her glass. She raises it to her lips slowly so as not to slosh it and ruin her jade silk dress.
She can't remember who he is, some ambassador or other from one of the Empire's new subject planets. His skin has a soothing greenish cast but she can't see his face, but his hand is warm on her arm and the other one at the small of her back feels very nice as well. The reception has gone on for hours, more than one guest is passed out across a table, and Marlena feels she has adequately executed her duties as Empress so she's entitled to relax a little with this handsome ambassador.
She's stumbling and he's supporting her, half holding her up, as they make their way to his quarters--she assumes they're his, because they don't look like hers. A stray thought struggles forward from the foggy back of her brain, Spock will kill me, but she forgets it--truly, honestly forgets what she was thinking a moment ago, and spends a moment longer trying to remember what it might possibly have been about because she has a feeling it might have been important, then gives it up as a bad job because the ambassador is kissing her neck in a way that really demands all of her attention.
She's far too drunk to manage the intricate fastenings on his tunic but he laughs, catches her fingers in his and kisses them and helps her out of her gown, lays her down on the bed as though he wants to worship her. She gets plenty of worship as it is, but she can't argue, couldn't find the words even if she wanted to. He murmurs her title, "Empress," not her name, and kisses her skin and she shivers. The Empress doesn't get drunk and let men take advantage of her. Spock would kill you for being so careless. She jerks away, physically throwing her body away from that thought. Movement catches her eye and she turns her head, but it is only a mirror. She wonders if perhaps in the reflection she might see the man's face. He lifts his head, turning toward the glass, and she catches her breath on a gasp.
It's her. The ambassador wears her face, her body. The green cast to her skin was only the sheen of her dress. She's straddling someone on the bed, someone golden and naked and far too drunk for this to be okay, someone wearing a familiar face. "Jim?" No, he's dead, it can't be him, he's gone. Through the haze of liquor and lust there is hurt in his eyes. Not Jim.
"Bill." When she says his name he smiles up at her, loose and imprecise, and reaches for her but she flinches away and screams and sits bolt upright.
"Marlena." Spock is instantly alert, reaching for her across the bed they share. Outside the door, she knows, are a pair of Imperial Guards, the Empire's finest, and beyond them the rest of the Imperial Palace, vast and empty at this time of night.
She twists out of Spock's grasp, not wanting him to sense the remnants of her dream. He could hold her if he wanted, but he lets her go.
"I'm all right," she tells him, though she's still breathing hard. "It was only a dream."
If only. Her sleep was plagued, more often than not, by spectres of that other Enterprise, in the universe she'd visited all those years ago. Strangers appear, bearing the faces of people she knew, and insinuate themselves into her life, while her friends and lovers and casual acquaintances grow distant or vanish altogether or leave, begging her to follow. Sometimes in her dreams, her own husband bears strange tattoos on his skin, Romulan markings of names she used to know. Meira. Harold. Nora. Ephram.
Spock silently holds out his hand, two fingers extended, an offer she can take or refuse as she wishes. She takes it, pressing her fingers to his briefly. His touch is comforting, and she feels the tension leave her, the fragments of the dream slipping from her grasp.
Marlena thinks maybe Spock knows more about what happened in the other universe than she's told him. He's never spoken of it, and she knows he would not judge her. It is a comfort, but a small one. It's not his forgiveness she needs.
"Another?" he purrs, and Marlena smiles at him and gives an aborted half-nod, but that makes her head swim so she mumbles a sound of assent. The golden liquid seems to glow as it slides in slow-motion from the neck of the bottle, splashing into her glass. She raises it to her lips slowly so as not to slosh it and ruin her jade silk dress.
She can't remember who he is, some ambassador or other from one of the Empire's new subject planets. His skin has a soothing greenish cast but she can't see his face, but his hand is warm on her arm and the other one at the small of her back feels very nice as well. The reception has gone on for hours, more than one guest is passed out across a table, and Marlena feels she has adequately executed her duties as Empress so she's entitled to relax a little with this handsome ambassador.
She's stumbling and he's supporting her, half holding her up, as they make their way to his quarters--she assumes they're his, because they don't look like hers. A stray thought struggles forward from the foggy back of her brain, Spock will kill me, but she forgets it--truly, honestly forgets what she was thinking a moment ago, and spends a moment longer trying to remember what it might possibly have been about because she has a feeling it might have been important, then gives it up as a bad job because the ambassador is kissing her neck in a way that really demands all of her attention.
She's far too drunk to manage the intricate fastenings on his tunic but he laughs, catches her fingers in his and kisses them and helps her out of her gown, lays her down on the bed as though he wants to worship her. She gets plenty of worship as it is, but she can't argue, couldn't find the words even if she wanted to. He murmurs her title, "Empress," not her name, and kisses her skin and she shivers. The Empress doesn't get drunk and let men take advantage of her. Spock would kill you for being so careless. She jerks away, physically throwing her body away from that thought. Movement catches her eye and she turns her head, but it is only a mirror. She wonders if perhaps in the reflection she might see the man's face. He lifts his head, turning toward the glass, and she catches her breath on a gasp.
It's her. The ambassador wears her face, her body. The green cast to her skin was only the sheen of her dress. She's straddling someone on the bed, someone golden and naked and far too drunk for this to be okay, someone wearing a familiar face. "Jim?" No, he's dead, it can't be him, he's gone. Through the haze of liquor and lust there is hurt in his eyes. Not Jim.
"Bill." When she says his name he smiles up at her, loose and imprecise, and reaches for her but she flinches away and screams and sits bolt upright.
"Marlena." Spock is instantly alert, reaching for her across the bed they share. Outside the door, she knows, are a pair of Imperial Guards, the Empire's finest, and beyond them the rest of the Imperial Palace, vast and empty at this time of night.
She twists out of Spock's grasp, not wanting him to sense the remnants of her dream. He could hold her if he wanted, but he lets her go.
"I'm all right," she tells him, though she's still breathing hard. "It was only a dream."
If only. Her sleep was plagued, more often than not, by spectres of that other Enterprise, in the universe she'd visited all those years ago. Strangers appear, bearing the faces of people she knew, and insinuate themselves into her life, while her friends and lovers and casual acquaintances grow distant or vanish altogether or leave, begging her to follow. Sometimes in her dreams, her own husband bears strange tattoos on his skin, Romulan markings of names she used to know. Meira. Harold. Nora. Ephram.
Spock silently holds out his hand, two fingers extended, an offer she can take or refuse as she wishes. She takes it, pressing her fingers to his briefly. His touch is comforting, and she feels the tension leave her, the fragments of the dream slipping from her grasp.
Marlena thinks maybe Spock knows more about what happened in the other universe than she's told him. He's never spoken of it, and she knows he would not judge her. It is a comfort, but a small one. It's not his forgiveness she needs.