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“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I'm fine," Eli lied. He wasn't the type to take sleep deprivation lightly.
The canteen attendant looked at him sympathetically. He must have thought to himself it was better to be a junior staff and sleep tight at night, than an exhausted Lieutenant Commander with dark circles around his red eyes.
Eli picked up a tray and sat down at the table, but he had no appetite at all. Several of the junior officers he knew sat down with him. A little conversation ensued, the usual morning chatter about how today's menu wasn't to someone's taste, how the shift hadn't started yet and someone was already tired, how they'd been dreaming about things all night…
“Does anyone dream about smells?” Eli mentally scolded himself at once. He wanted to talk, to tell what he'd been dreaming about, to hear the usual words of encouragement in return. He wanted to see how his companion didn't take his fears seriously, and to be infected by the disdain himself.
He wished he could stop smelling the acrid smell of fuel in his nostrils. Forget how the ground shuddered beneath his feet from the explosions.
To forget how screams can be heard in the distance; to forget the feeling of animal relief that someone else was hurt, but not you, feeling, not smoothed by adrenalin. To not feel the hot wind hurling the fumes in your face. Then first a mechanical screech, and a second later a blinding red, turning to white, and then to no color at all; and a wave knocking you down, tearing your eardrums, hurling you into the void with the debris, with some crumb, ripping off your clothes and skin before you ceased to exist…
His neighbors looked at each other.
“I never seem to smell in my sleep," said one of them, the one sitting directly across from Eli.
“Neither did I, but once…”
They started discussing their dreams, and Eli tried his best to listen to them. After a few minutes they switched to another topic.
And, of course, that didn't make Eli feel any better.
“I have to ask about your health, Commander," Thrawn's voice was familiar, cool and calm, and the question was not idle. When would Thrawn ask idle questions... Eli sighed.
“It's all right. I just didn't get enough sleep.”
“As I recall, Commander, you've always had a good night's sleep.”
“In fact…” Eli sighed again, and then looked up at the ceiling. He just needed to get it out. Thrawn was someone Eli trusted more than himself, trusted his life without hesitation. They were alone — otherwise Thrawn wouldn't have asked personal questions — and, after all, what did he have to be embarrassed about…
“...Actually, it was because of a bad dream. I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't sleep again.”
Thrawn was quiet for a while.
“How often are you unable to sleep because of bad dreams?”
Only now Eli realized that he had been waiting with bated breath for his answer — and was finally able to exhale. Thrawn, true to himself, had hit the mark.
“It's been going on for almost a year now. I remember the first time I saw him. He didn't bother me for almost six months, and then I started see it more and more often.”
“And that's not normal for humans," Thrawn clarified.
“I've heard of some people having the same dream their whole lives," answered Eli, feeling a growing sense of relief. ”But that's rare. Sometimes people are haunted by the same nightmare because they're afraid to see it, and that expectation keeps them from putting it out of their minds. They end up seeing it over and over again.”
“Is that dream haunting you that you're afraid of?”
“No," Eli answered honestly. “I get bombed over and over again. Each time the place, the setting, the people around me are different... But the nightmare is the same. If I was afraid of it, I wouldn't have joined the navy.”
Thrawn was silent longer this time, and Eli suddenly felt uncomfortable again.
“Could it be due to overwork, Commander?” Thrawn said at last.
“Oh," Eli almost laughed. “I'm sticking to my regimen, sir. Honestly.”
“I believe you, Commander. I hope your bad dreams stop bothering you, or you might want to see a doctor.”
“If you say so, sir. And... thank you.”
“You're welcome, Commander," Thrawn replied thoughtfully.
...he woke up with his heart pounding out of his chest, on the sweat-soaked sheets clinging to his body. He couldn't know where he was, or which of the two realities was real — this one or the one he'd just escaped from.
...the rumble, the fire, the debris, with the occasional survivor wandering about, stunned, burned, living corpses in blistered skin…
...a monstrous, incomparable smell, a cacophony of soot, stone dust and burning meat...
...the shudder of the earth continuing to come from afar, from all sides, transmitted right to the bones…
...amidst all the black, fire-red fog, was the miraculously surviving wall of a house with a window without glass and a white curtain fluttering in the hot wind…
He knew he had a duty to stop it.
Not the dream, the dream was only a symptom, a cry for help; he had to stop what would inevitably happen if he did not intervene.
He sat with his feet down on the floor and his hands in his hair until the alarm sounded, and then slowly, like he was sick, he started to get ready for the shift.
On the bridge, beside the unfailingly cool Thrawn, among the unsuspecting crew, he felt like a piece of a perfectly honed, carefully oiled machine and he realized again that his dream was a bliss. Just a nightmare. He needed to see a doctor; Thrawn was, as always, right.
“Lieutenant Commander,” Thrawn addressed him when no one was around.
“Yes, sir.”
“Has your dream never changed?”
“It changes all the time, sir," Eli answered tiredly. “Same event, but from different angles. And it's not a bombing... It's something exploding on the ground. Perhaps even underground. Possibly mines... Or warehouses.”
They looked at each other.
“I'll see a doctor, sir," Eli said obediently.
“It would be the right thing to do, Commander.” Why was Thrawn looking at him as if he suspected something? It didn't help at all.
“I'll go right after my shift, sir.”
And he did, as he had promised Thrawn.
And for two whole nights he slept the sleep of a righteous man, and was disturbed only by a slight heaviness in his head in the morning.
And then there was Batonn.
He marveled at his own serenity as he sat in the conference room while Thrawn, Yularen, and Pryce exchanged suspicious glances and calculated who was to be named guilty... or vice versa, who would be rewarded for what had happened. At least it didn't concern him. It was empty inside him, as if the tumor that had been tormenting him had finally been cut out.
It was over. Turning back time was not in his power; it was in no one's power.
And why did he even think he could do anything? He didn't believe in dreams. The coincidence that had happened to him could have been a story he would tell in good company, when, after a few drinks, everyone began to discuss incredible life incidents, ghosts, vampires, and Jedi. It might have been — if it hadn't been for the number of victims.
Of one thing he was sure: this dream would not bother him again. Of that he was absolutely convinced. And from that conviction he was almost happy.
No more feeling that something depended on you. No more unconscious attempts to explain things to others. No responsibility... for having dreams.
“I'm quite content to be your aid, Admiral," he said without the slightest hesitation when Thrawn hinted to him that he might be promoted; it didn't even take him a second to consider. Thrawn had once already taken away from him a carefree life in which he wouldn't have to decide anything or run against time if he wanted his conscience to remain clear... It had been a long time since Eli had been mad at Thrawn for this. After all, he'd done far more good and saved far more lives in his current position than he could have as a supply officer. He had nothing to reproach himself for. He didn't.
“Maybe," Thrawn agreed. “Or maybe not.”
“Lieutenant Commander," he added after a brief pause. “I have a request of a personal nature.”
Eli felt uneasy cold inside.
“Yes, sir?”
“It's about your dream.”
“I don't see him anymore, sir.” Have pity on me for once in your life, Thrawn, is that a big deal for you or what. Pretend it's not serious, that it's just a dream!
“If you start having a recurring dream again, please let me know.” And without looking at Eli, he added, "I ask for nothing more.”
“Lieutenant Commander?” he repeated.
“...Very well, sir," Eli said.