I’m not sure if I am already awake because my bladder is insisting I empty it, or if it’s the erratic, half-mumbled speech tumbling from Geordi’s mouth, but either way I sit up in bed, and stare into the pixilated darkness of my bedroom. I squint more out of habit than need and the soft green light across the room resolves itself into a time display. Two am. Oh-two hundred. Whatever. Either way it’s late, and he’s dreaming.
At a loss – do I let his dream play out, or do I wake him? – I ease myself from the bed. Practicality kicks in: first, empty bladder, then deal with boyfriend’s nightmare. My mind races in circles, talking to itself. Myself. Boyfriend? Is that what he is? I mean, I’ve known him since we were ten, but this is only the second time we’ve slept together. I don’t close the bathroom door, choosing to keep an ear out, in case something changes. From this perspective I can’t see the clock, but I see another pair of twin green lights just above the foot of the bed. Perry, my Chihuahua, named after the fictional editor of a fictional newspaper from a twentieth-century comic book, is also awake. Typically, he’s staring at me, and won’t leave his spot on the bed unless there’s the prospect of food or a walk. Can’t say as I blame him.
I finish attending to nature’s demands, and wash my hands with cool water, splashing my face as well. My apartment has a sonic shower, which is great on mornings when there isn’t time for hair to dry, but water always feels cleaner somehow. The sinks are all water. I like it that way. I pause near the end of the bed and scratch Perry behind the ears. “Go back to sleep, little man,” I tell him. He emits a doggie sigh and lowers his head back to his paws.
Blinking red diodes on Geordi’s temples catch my attention. Normally, I don’t notice them, either because I’m just used to them, or because I don’t generally stare at him in the darkness. I look past him, to the nightstand on his side (it’s already his side) of the bed, see the blinking green lights of the matching connections on the VISOR he takes off to sleep. Memory flashes, and I remember sleepovers of a different kind, when we would each be in a sleeping bag on my father’s living room floor, or his father’s, or in an old-style tent pitched in the back yard, when I would see those same blinking lights, the same gleaming metal reflecting them. I slide back under the covers, and realize he’s still muttering.
“I can’t see, I can’t see,” I can discern the words now, and I freeze, horrified. “Romulan, Human, what does it matter if we die down here. Work with me, man.” The reporter part of my brain wonders if there is a story here, and then my conscience and heart remind me of who I am, who he is, who we are together, and I reach out, touch his shoulder, and shake him gently.
“Geordi,” I say. “Geordi, wake up. You’re dreaming.” I keep my voice pitched soft, let warmth infuse it.
“You’re bleeding,” he says, and I rub two fingers together, and then realize he’s still caught in his nightmare’s web. “Or I am. Can’t tell. Even if I could see, couldn’t tell. Blood’s blood with this thing. Doesn’t matter if it’s red or green.”
I gasp at that, shake him a little harder. “Geordi, wake up, please?” The stress invades my tone; his words seem creepy to me in the dark. I could turn a light on, but I don’t. “Geordi, its Kat…”
Hearing my name seems to help, because he sits up, and rubs his eyes, then puts his hands to his temples, and massages them. “Kat?”
“Right here,” I say, and I move so I’m sitting right against him. I raise my knees to my chest, wrap my arms around them. He’s sitting cross-legged now, fully awake. “You were dreaming,” I say. “Something about red and green blood and not being able to see.” I lift one arm, and stroke his face softly with fingers that are still damp. “If you want to talk about it, I’ll listen.”
I hear the sound of metal clunking against the nightstand. He’s reached for his VISOR, but it’s taken two attempts to pick it up. I see the ghostly outline of his hands as he raises it to his face, and hear the soft click as it settles into position. Only now does he turn to me. “I was dreaming.”
I laugh softly, stroke his back, and feel the warmth of his skin beneath the green t-shirt he wore to bed. “Yes,” I confirm. “You were.”
“It was last year,” he begins. “We were on a planet with violent ion storms…”
He settles his arm around me, and we sit together in the middle of the bed, with Perry the Chihuahua sleeping at our feet, and I listen to his soft voice as he spins the tale. It’s an hour before we go back to sleep, and even then I keep waking up, looking up, and finding comfort in the soft green glow of the clock.
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