Bad Dreams...

Posted on Tue Nov 14th, 2023 @ 9:38am by Lieutenant J'airesh Mora-Heath & Master Chief Petty Officer Chuck Finley [Reece]

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: USS Elysium, Lieutenant J'airesh's private quarters
Timeline: MD3 evening and during the night
1453 words - 2.9 OF Standard Post Measure

After having a very enjoyable evening together, J'airesh and Chuck lay in her bed, deep asleep. Chuck was on his back, J'airesh laying against his right side, head laying upon his bare chest, over his heart.

Suddenly, Chuck's sleep was disturbed by the activation of a very bad memory of the time when he was a POW, during the end of the Dominion War.

The cell was dark, cold and dingy. The life support barely sustained them, as the Jem'hadar were engineered to survive in much harsher environments. Chuck finished going over the escape plan one last time with his fellow prisoners. Once everyone was ready, he led them out.

Moving through the compound, the group stayed in the shadows as much as possible. The guard patrols had been reduced for some reason, though he didn't know why. Whatever the reason, his only concern was escaping and getting as many of his fellow Starfleet officers and enlisted out with him.

The group continued to move quietly, their destination, a cargo shuttle, now in view.

Suddenly, they were surrounded by Jem'hadar troopers. The enemy decended upon the unarmed prisoners without a word, engaging in hand-to-hand combat. Chuck fought with every fiber of his body, even with his diminished strength. After successfully killing one guard, another met him. As they fought, a second one quickly joining in.

The pair quickly overpowered the weakened and exhausted petty officer, and after he was on the ground, they continued their assault, breaking his legs, then stomping the middle of his back, snapping his spine in his lumbar region. They continued to pummel him with their fists and feet, causing more and more injuries...

"NO!!!!" He screamed as he bolted awake, after thrashing about the bed.

J'Air had been sleeping the sleep of the satisfied. She had been indulgent with her meal and was full of the nicest food and she had spent a wonderful evening getting to know Chuck better and ending up falling asleep wrapped around his gorgeous body, her head resting on his muscular chest when he suddenly began to struggle, very clearly having a nightmare of some kind, judging by the way he seemed to be reacting as if he were taking blows and grunting in pain.

As she began to wake, a little groggily probably as a result of the very nice wines they had consumed earlier that night, she found herself being pushed away from him with considerable force and being propelled both upwards and off the bed with great strength, leaving her to land against the wall on the right of the bedroom and seeming to splurge downwards to the floor as the gravity overpowered the impulse of the throw.

She let out a grunt of her own as the impact winded her and she struggled to fight air back into her temporarily emptied lungs. As she scrambled back up and over towards Chuck, to see what was wrong, she arrived back at the bed, just at the very moment he sat up, bolt upright and shouted NO right into her face, nose to nose, with contact.

J'Air pulled instinctively backwards, partly from the contact but also as the volume was intense that close. When he was so suddenly awake, and she was struggling with her nose pain, she had to blink to focus.

"It's okay" she told him very gently, pushing the drops of blood dripping from her nose aside with the corner of the nearest pillow-case and returning her gaze to his horror filled eyes, in concern.

"You were asleeb, you bust have been habing a dightbare" she tried to calm him, but her nose was visibly swelling and continuing to drip red.

"I'b god you" she took him into her arms and held him close to her, but she did realise how ridiculous that must sound as she tried to soothe him but couldn't speak clearly.

Once his mind cleared, Chuck saw the state of both himself and of J'airesh. A look of horror crossed his face. "Oh my God! Sweetheart! Did I do that?!" He carefully extricated himself from her loving embrace and bolted to the kitchen. "Wait there!" He exclaimed as he quickly moved through her quarters.

After a few rustling noises in the small kitchen were heard, he hurried back into the bedroom, holding a towel with something wrapped up in it in one hand, a small bowl and another towel in the other. "I am so sorry, my love!" He set the bowl and it's towel down on the end table on her side of the bed. After carefully sitting on the edge of the bed next to her, he spoke more gently, taking hold of the pillow in the ruined pillowcase. "Lemme see. Lay your head back."

"I'b ok..." she protested, still holding her throbbing nose, her hand full of blood and calling her a liar for all to see. She looked up at him and realised there was no point arguing as he had the situation better assessed than she did, especially considering how foggy her mind was feeling now that her heart had slowed down from the racing it had been doing a few minutes ago.

She lay back on the bed and tilted her head back as instructed. "It wasn't your fault...." she tried to say as he started to clean her up.

"Hush," he spoke softly as he gently and expertly cleaned up the woman he loved. Once the bleeding had stopped and was cleaned away, he gently examined J'airesh's face and nose. "Doesn't look like it's broken, thankfully. Though, I fear that you will have two nasty shiners in the morning." His face filled with regret. "I am so sorry, my love! I never meant to hurt you!"

"I know you didn't Sweetness, I know that." she soothed him gently. He was such a wonderful, kind, generous person and she already felt dangerously attached to him. "You were asleep" she continued. "You had no idea where you were or who you were with, how could you have possibly helped what happened?" she paused just slightly to wipe her nose. "And anyway, a few minutes conversation with my regenerator and all will be completely forgotten." she tried to smile at him to reassure him but the twisting of her lips just made her nose bleed more. She tried to get up.

"I should just go get that regenerator and get this fixed as soon as possible..." she said, putting the already bloodied pillow case against her mouth and nose and rummaging around to find her med-kit again.

Chuck felt a warmth in his chest, as he listened to her tender words. He shook his head slightly, still not knowing what he did, to deserve a woman as wonderful, caring, intelligent and drop dead sexy, as J'airesh was. What he did know was this, he would never take her for granted, and he would always give her his absolute best.

When she got up and started rummaging, he got back up too and gently grabbed her wrist. "Go lay down. I'll find your med kit and the regenerator." He guided her back to the bed and sat her down on its edge. "Keep your head tilted back, " he scolded her softly, a tender smile playing over his face. He then moved to where he remembered seeing her medical kit and returned to her side.

Kneeling in front of her, he removed the dermal regenerator from the bag and activated the small device. Then, with an ease that spoke of having experience doing so, he carefully worked it over her nose and face.

Several minutes later, he shut off the device, and angled her head down. So he could inspect his work. After a few beats, he grimaced slightly. "Damn!"

J'Air accepted Chucks gentle, competent care and immediately felt much better, until he said "Damn". Her eyes opened wider in concern and she looked up into his face, searching to see what she assumed must be wrong to elicit that exclamation from him.

"What? What's wrong?" she asked but then remembered to thank him for what he had done to fix her face. "Oh, thank you, that was very carefully and skilfully done......but did I move at the wrong moment or something?" she was looking worried.

Chuck just shook his head and sighed in resignation. In a complete deadpan delivery, he said, "You're still breathtakingly beautiful!" Mischief flitted behind his eyes as he finished speaking.

J'Air tutted in mock exasperation but reached up, cupped his face in her hands and kissed him deeply. "....and you are incorrigibly wonderful!" she breathed as she reluctantly let him go.

~OFF~