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Sharon wakes to Camille, lying by her side in their shared bed.
The fact that this once common sight causes a spike of alarm, is on it’s own, heartbreaking. She aches, more deeply than she thought she could, this reminder bringing all the pain back.
She knows right away it is a dream---Camille is multiple universes away, all but unreachable---and that only makes it hurt more.
Camille smiles; she is beautiful even in the barest of light, strips of moonlight sneaking in the blinds of the window lie across her skin, her eyes are deeper and darker than ever in the clinging shadows, her hair like ink spilling free across the white pillowcase. The smile is just like her; despite all the strange possibilities of what this could be, now knowing about the stargate…an alien possession, an alien shapeshifter, an alien illness inducing hallucination…but Sharon knows this is a dream, or perhaps more accurately a nightmare. This is Camille, just like the day she left, just like she must be on that distant ship, just like Sharon desperately hopes she will be if she returns.
So it is a dream, or a nightmare, but it brings a bittersweet sense of relief nonetheless: when Camille really visits, it’s always wearing a stranger’s face. Sharon would love her in anyone’s body, but she misses seeing, touching, knowing her so completely. So Sharon doesn’t hesiate to reach out to the dream-Camille, tracing the smile spreading across her lips.
Sharon says it gently, without any anger or disappointment, a simple statement of fact:
“You’re not real.”
The dream-nightmare-whichever-but-still-Camille only smiles wider, just as true, through and through.
“Of course not…but it is me.”
It hurts even more to hear it confirmed, but bittersweet is not just the aching, there is the most tempting thread of joyfulness woven in with the pain. Sharon has her own truth to say out loud:
“I know. I'd know you anywhere.”
She can see her wife in the bodies of the soldiers they send, a different woman each time, but all smiling at her just the same. The same smile as the dream, no matter the different shapes or plushness of the lips involved. It’s always still Camille, inside, where it really counts.
The dream obviously can’t read Sharon’s mind, like an alien probably could, because she says:
“Would you? I haven't exactly been myself, lately.”
It’s more of a joke than anything, if a dark one, but Sharon knows that, deep down, Camille is a little insecure. This is like the most hellish long distance relationship, and neither of them asked for this. They’re both gamely trying to make the most of it, but sometimes doubt begins to creep in. They love each other as deeply as any human could, but against things so far from human, will it be enough?
But it’s easy for Sharon to say what she was just thinking, with no doubt in her voice or in her mind. Her hand traces tiny, fond circles at the corner of Camille’s mouth, which is still smiling the slightest bit as she stares at Sharon:
“You’re always yourself, even like that.”
Camille pushes into the touch, but says:
“Are you sure?”
Sharon can hear that this not just a rehash of the previous not-my-body question, despite it’s similarity. Underneath is a tremulous but yawning, far more existentially deep question. Not just bodies and distances but why did this happen to us. Even so, Sharon isn't exactly sure which specific philosophical crisis Camille could be considering, so she simply asks:
“About what?”
Camille’s eyes flutter away, then back, a tiny nervous motion that tells Sharon she’s really worried about what she’s about to say.
“I don’t know, do you see me, now, as a dead end…of sorts?”
Sharon has to bite back an instant, instinctive swell of anger, not at Camille directly, but at Camille thinking she could be anything but the illuminating light of Sharon’s life. She is enough, distance and bodies and alien bullshit be damned. Sharon tries to keep her voice even and tone consoling when she finally does reply:
“Never.”
Camille must see or hear the truth in Sharon’s reply because she relaxes slightly, a little bit of weight lifting. Sharon knows she is afraid, of not just losing Sharon, but of everything that has turned her life upside down. The lack of air, water, food that isn’t gruel. The constant, inescapable danger. Sharon wants to give her somewhere to forget it, somewhere to feel safe despite it all.
Sharon looks the dream-nightmare-Camille straight in the eye and speaks with everything in her:
“I will love you, through space and time. Even if you never come back in your own body. Even if we are always separated, because no amount of distance is enough to sever our bond. Nothing is enough to keep us apart, nothing. Do you understand?”
The dream-nightmare-Camille smiles one last time, which is all Sharon needs. She pulls the dream into her arms, even as it begins to fade away. The real Camille waits, in some other body lying besides Sharon just the same, but in their shared, bittersweet reality. At least, now, Sharon knows exactly what to say to her when she wakes up.
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