Chapter Text
Character: Purple Trance meets up with Golden Trance on the planet Seefra
Prompt: #60 walk, Table 3
Disclaimer: Andromeda and all of the characters who appear here or are mentioned belong to Tribune Entertainment and Fireworks Productions; they are not mine. The story refers to events from seasons 4 and 5 and diverges a bit into the AU territory for bringing Purple Trance Gemini face-to-face with her adult Golden incarnation. Prompt #60 walk
“Even the Best Fall Down “ by karrenia
Pronouns are problematic, so are explanations. Having to explain her decision to switch places with her much younger and purple-hued counterpart with her now-adult incarnation had been a piece of cake compared to this.
The purple Trance Gemini stares back at her from a distance of about two-hand span’s width; but in relative terms, it might as well have been a lifetime, or an entire reality away.
Gold Trance is painfully aware that it was true even back aboard the Andromeda Ascendant; it would stand to reason that the universe could simply not take more than one Trance Gemini at a time.
Neither of the two required a perfectly logical and scientific theory to understand that this uncanny juxtaposition of the two incarnations of Trance was not only improbable. It was also potentially dangerous.
Reading the churning emotions that roil beneath the surface: it is hurt, puzzlement, confusion, as well as there might be. Gold Trance can also detect anger. At that moment she is uncertain at whom that anger is directed.
The younger Trance’s face screwed up in a grimace. “This is all your fault.”
“That lies within the realm of possibility,” the older one replied. Figuring that they could conceivably spend hours in a stare-down, which while entertaining, it hardly accomplished anything. “Could you be more specific?”
“The switch, or that we’re all stuck on Seefra.”
“The first, well,” she shrugged. “I can’t really say I’m sorry about that. I did what had to be done under the circumstances.”
“Do you want to know something else?” her younger self remarked casually, reaching up with her right hand to finger comb some of the snarls in her hair. “I hate to break it to you, but there really is no such thing as a perfect possible future.”
“I know,” the older Trance whispered.
“Then why did you keep telling Dylan and the rest of the crew that it was possible?” The younger version of Trance left off her attempt to tame the snarls in her hair and gave her older incarnation a thorough inspection.
The tail was no longer present; along with her amethyst-hued skin tone and the devil-may-care cheery attitude that had marked her bubbly personality.
Instead, the hair and skin were a golden hue held in place by many sharp-pronged hairpins, and the bubbly personality replaced by a more serious composure. “Do you really want me to answer that? As Dylan would say, it’s a moot point.”
“I suppose, from where you’re standing, it must be.” The younger Trance glanced down at the ground where she stood.
She took a long look back at the ramshackle village where even now Dylan was exhorting the locals to stand up and form a cohesive force, and find a means to escape from the planet.
“Does he know about, well, my being here?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Can you get us out of here?” the younger one asked after a moment.
“Even if I had the power to free us from the, well, limbo-world that is Seefra, I don’t know if I would, or should.”
“Damn you!” exclaimed young Trance with a heat that surprised both of them.
Younger Trance took several steps that closed the gap between them: She was not even consciously aware that even as she stepped forward her hands had coiled into fists with every intention of smacking off that self-satisfied smirk off of the face of her adult incarnation.
When thought and deed at last caught up with her young, Trance realized that her upper arms were grasped in her adult incarnation’s iron grip.
“It’s not my place.” Golden Trance remarked with a sigh and slackened her grip slightly.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that it’s not my place. Dylan and the others, Harper, Rhode, Beka, all of them, they need to get out of this one without me.”
“Let me go.” Young Trance squirmed and tilted her head back. You won’t help them?”
“Very well.” Gold Trance at least released her grip, shoving her younger self away. Not with a great deal of force, but enough to bring some distance between them.
“It’s complicated.” Young Trance glared at her and ignoring the white marks on her purple skin. Fine, it’s complicated. It’s always complicated.”
“It was that way back when you were me, and I guess I might become you, geez. I get it! Really I do, but then I just have one more question.”
“Fire away.”
“Why?”
“For a complicated situation, I guess I should have a simple answer; It’s because I have reached a point where my journey with Dylan and his crew has reached an end.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.“
Golden Trance heaved a sigh and scuffled her booted feet into the hard ground before she looked up once more. “Not completely. I understand this planet is where Dylan Hunt and his crew go down one path and I’m going another.”
“All very well, but….” Purple Trance trailed off her earlier anger and confusion at what she had perceived as her adult incarnation of nonchalance. Smugness had tapered off, but only to replace with a melancholy ambivalent feeling that she could not quite explain. “Where does that leave me?”
“I don’t know. You being here was not foreseen.” Gold Trance Gemini wondered what force had brought her younger incarnation here and in place, or if the entire conversation was a product of her over-active imagination.
The powers that be certainly are aware there had already been enough what-ifs, or the like, in her time.
Another occurred to her. ‘If I could go back and do it all over again, under the same set of variables; would I make the same choice as I did before? Would I switch places? Truth to tell, Yes, Yes, I would.’
Staring into the golden eyes of her younger counterpart, it knocked Gold Trance out of her meandering reverie. “Yes! What were you saying?”
“Maybe I’ll return to the reality where I ended back when we switched places.” Her younger self nodded. “That makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“It would be best,” the other woman nodded.