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"Gwyn? I have a weird question," Rok said in their shared quarters after she'd already gone through her round of goodnights - to only Zero and Gwyn and Murph this time, because the boys were still on the bridge. Gwyn had been sent to bed early because apparently she still needed a lot of rest and Janeway cleared her for light exercise only anyway. And she really tired easier, too easy for her liking, but it's not like she was about to admit that.
"What is it, Rok?" she hummed from the top of the bunk bed. "Shout."
"I believe it's shoot," Zero chimed in from below.
"That makes less sense, Zee," Gwyn frowned.
"I'm quite sure Dal says shoot," Zero insisted and though Gwyn couldn't see them from here, she imagined they shrugged lightly. They've been picking up more and more gestures, especially lately. (And sometimes used them wildly inappropriately, which was both hilarious and endearing, and sort of reminded Gwyn of her own struggle with foreign expressions in an alien language.)
Nevertheless, Gwyn was pretty sure this time she got it right and it was shout.
She sighed and hit her commbadge on the small shelf next to her (they've made the rule of not sleeping with your commbadge on after the night when Jankom's snoring through the intercoms led everyone into a state of panic, because they thought it was some kind of emergency alarm.)
"Gwyn to the bridge. Dal?"
"Cap'n Dal here," the answer came immediately. "What is it, Gwyn?"
"When someone has a question... is it shout or shoot? We're in a disagreement with Zero."
"Uh... it's shoot."
Gwyn groaned in frustration. Rok chuckled, and she could even hear a stifled laugh from Dal through the intercom. Then the boy added, "I thought you were supposed to be getting a lot of rest and you guys are having a sleepover down there?"
The thing is, Dal's been... overly concerned about whatever she was doing. And yeah, Gwyn understood why. Sometimes, a part of her even found that it felt nice. But she did not like to be babied. They even had a big argument about it before, in front of everyone.
"Sleep-over?" Zero asked then, with that curious tinge in their voice, and Gwyn hoped they successfully averted the conversation to a safer topic.
"Yeah, buddy, it's like..." Dal started, then hummed. "Like, people go over to their friends' house and they share a room and y'know, they talk and sleep together. Saw it in one of Janeway's old holos."
"We already do all of those things every night, Dal," Rok pointed out.
They really did. Most nights, all of the crew bunked together in the shared quarters, even if Dal insisted that as captain he had the right to his own room. (The truth was he only ever spent time in that room when he was sulking and avoiding the rest of them.) But they all shared a room, watched holos or read together in bed or chatted into the unregulated hours of the night sometimes, and slept together too. Gwyn was used to Rok's hums and other small noises by now, as to Jankom's snoring and Dal's constant shuffling and the faint glow of calmly shifting light that was Zero in their sleep.
So every night, essentially, was a sleep-over.
"Rok has a point, Dal," Zero chuckled lightly. They must have come to the same conclusion.
"Whatever," huffed Dal, then put on his best captain-voice. "Gwyn, go to sleep. Or I'll send Janeway after you."
"You wouldn't," Gwyn hissed, knowing Dal knew her enough to hear the teasing voice in her threat.
"Oh he would!" Jankom Pog quipped in through the intercoms. His voice was faint, like he was speaking from the other side of the bridge, but Gwyn was certain he was laughing at them.
"We'll sleep, Dal. I promise," Zero interjected quickly, trying to keep the peace between them.
"Yeah, yeah, sure," Dal said and Gwyn just knew he was rolling his eyes fondly. "Dal out."
"So..." Gwyn sighed heavily, but her heart wasn't in it, "shoot, Rok."
"Oh!" The girl clasped her hands together as she remembered this whole thing started because she'd wanted to ask something. "You remember everything now, right?"
"Yeah," Gwyn nodded. "The details are still fuzzy. But mostly everything."
"So uhmmm," Rok held the mmm for a long time, like she was trying to buy time to word her question right. "Could you tell me what Zero looks like?"
Gwyn breathed sharply and pushed herself up to her elbows.
It's not like she minded the question herself. Along with everything that'd happened on the holodeck, it's been on her mind a lot, actually. But the thing is, the nature of Zero's true appearance had been a touchy subject to their Medusan friend at best, even before. Now it was outright an active minefield, one they were all still in the awkward process of learning to navigate.
And Rok must have realized that, because she gasped.
"I mean..." she hurried to explain from behind her hand that she'd quickly covered her mouth with. "It's just... you're my friend, Zero, and you know my favourite colour an' my favourite animal and where my name comes from and I know your favourite holoprogram an' your favourite place to hang out on the ship, but it's kinda... weird that I don't know what you look like. An' I keep trying to imagine, but I sorta always just picture you with the suit..."
She stumbled a bit over the words towards the end, like always when she was nervous.
"I... I must say I'm curious myself," Zero admitted after some hesitation, and Gwyn let out a tense breath. "I don't exactly know what I look like either. I'd like to hear it, if it's okay, Gwyn."
Gwyn let herself fall back onto the pillows and stared up at the dark ceiling.
"It's okay, I just... I can't really describe it," she sighed. "That part of my memory is still a mess, but even if it wasn't... I don't think I could find words for it in any language I speak."
She'd tried before, to explain just to herself, but could never put into words what she experienced that day on the holodeck. She had thought about comparing what Zero was like to an ion storm, an exploding warp core, a supernova. None of them felt exactly right. None of them could she reconcile with who she knew Zero was, her friend who slept in the bunk below her and who always got a little too excited when they found something new, no matter if it was a scientific theory in the computer's database or a holodeck programme they hadn't seen before.
She contemplated her next words carefully.
"I do know it was... beautiful."
"Beautiful?" Zero quietly gasped, even though they didn't even breathe any air. "No one's ever described me as beautiful before..."
"Well, no one's seen you before," pointed out Gwyn gently.
"I could have told you that too, Zero," Rok said and her voice was now sleepier, but still every bit as genuine. "I can tell even with the suit you're probably really pretty."
"Oh," was all Zero could say, still probably in a quiet, awestruck shock. "Thank you, Rok."
Gwyn smiled.
"You know what, Rok?" She turned to her side to look at the girl in the bottom bunk across from hers. "They look like a star, from up close."
Even in the dark, she could see Rok's bright blue eyes widen and a smile sitting out on the girl's face.
"I fail to see how that's possible," Zero chirped in. "Stars from up close are massive, fiery balls of-"
"No." Gwyn bent down, hanging her head upside down from her bunk to look at Zero. Her friend flinched back a little at the sudden movement, and Gwyn could hear Rok giggle from the other bed, probably as she saw all of Gwyn's braids fall at once and hang upside down from the top of her head.
"I mean," she explained, "when you're a kid and you look up at the stars and wish you could fly up and visit them all. How you imagine them."
She smiled and wondered how funny that must look in her current position. "That's what you looked like, to me."
"I like that!" Rok exclaimed and when Gwyn turned to see, she was grinning, even in the middle of stifling a yawn.
"I... I like that too," Zero whispered.
Gwyn nodded, then she pushed herself back up to her own bunk. “I used to do that a lot, you know, when I was young. Imagine the stars. But guys... we really should sleep now."
"Yeah," Rok agreed with her through another yawn, then shuffled comfortably into her covers. "Good night, Gwyn!"
"Hmm, good night, Rok," Gwyn answered and pulled the warm covers over her shoulder.
"Good night, Zero!" Rok continued, as she did every night.
"Good night, Rok," said Zero and their voice was still a little bit choked back.
"Good night, Murph!"
"Mrm-mm."