Chapter Text
Shran felt like thi had woken up, but the room just didn’t look quite real. The walls resembled the Aenar house more than thiis quarters back on the Kumari, but the result was neither, and the dark rainbows in the air were trembling and shifting, not unlike the blurred star trails zooming past the portholes at warp speed.
Thi turned in the bed and—
The family wasn’t there. Thi could feel their minds, like they were just in the adjacent room, but the only ones thi could see right now were the tiny Talla, but a few hours old, fast asleep in sher warm bundle, and a shadow figure sitting on the edge of the blanket pile.
Thiis blood ran cold when thi recognised the tall silhouette.
“I have a feeling that I know who you named the kid after,” Talas said, flashing a grin at thiim through the cold darkness.
“You.” Shran’s lips barely moved.
“Sure am. Glad to see me?”
Glad wasn’t the word, but Shran was asleep, not unconscious to the point of forgetting thiis whole life. “But you’re—”
“Dead, yes. Doesn’t mean I can’t come check on you. Looks like all is well, though.” Talas looked around with a critical expression, undoubtedly ready to comment on how far thi was from thiis hometown.
She looked so real, so alive— Thiis mouth tasted like blood copper when thi found it in thiim to speak again. “I don’t think anything has been well since you died.”
She glanced at thiim again, quirking a white brow. “That bad, huh?”
“I thought it would hurt less after a while. It doesn’t.” Admitting out loud that thi was hurt was unheard-of in Andorian culture, but there was no sweet lie thi would want to hide behind. This wasn’t the bridge; this wasn’t even reality. Only thiis words were true. “I don’t think I’ll ever not miss you.”
“At least something beautiful came out of it.” She was studying the baby’s face now, curious but not inclined to touch. “We could never, you and I.”
“When she grows up, I’ll look at sher and see you.”
“I always knew you have a long memory.”
“And I always knew you have a cruel sense of humour.”
Back in the day, she would have snapped or sneered at thiim, showing sharp and dangerous teeth once again, but now she just shrugged and raised a hand, fingertips coming together. A Southern Andorian gesture of an ancient good luck blessing, with a hint of farewell.
Thi wanted to grab sher hand, to touch and feel sher once more, no matter how cold and dead—but the vision dissipated into myriads of rainbows, and she was gone once again.
***
Jhamel felt zher thoughts stir towards consciousness, despite zher exhaustion after zher whole body had to open and let the baby out. The tiny bundle was in zher arms, but the rest of the family felt like they were just out of reach, except for—
Zhe would recognise that presence anywhere. “Gareb?”
“Jhamel,” the voice echoed across time and space, floating into zher mind like the word had just been spoken.
Are you alive? Where are you? But zhe knew the answers to those questions, even in zher sleep, and didn’t ask them, much as zhe wanted.
“The important thing is that you are alive and well. And that baby is very cute. Congratulations, my dear.”
Chi sounded like chi was right there. Zher weak hand only found air when zhe reached out; something in it felt like a hint of warmth, or a memory of it, rather, leaving zher colder than before when zhe had to lower zher arm again.
“You will feel better in no time.”
“I won’t feel better. Not with you gone.” Zhe couldn’t recall them ever arguing, but there was no way to agree with chim now. “You asked me to remember you—I couldn’t forget you if I wanted.”
They’d been inseparable since childhood. They’d shared dreams for years, and there had always been more when they would wake up and run off to catch rainbows or chase ice bores. Chi had taught zher so much, had shared zher every joy and every grief. When chi had been abducted, zhe had still known chi had been alive. When that shot was fired—it felt like someone had shot zher, through skin and shell and flesh and bone, and now the agony flashed through zher mind again.
“Stay,” zhe whispered, maybe out loud, reaching out again.
But the presence was fading away, leaving only a dull pain in its wake.