Editing Forest of Dreams

<span style="color:#800000">'''The idea of an unmedicated Joshua on something as stupendous as an Ark ship was too shiny for me to withstand and Andy was willing to share with me what Joshua was thinking and feeling about it all. Thanks, Andy!--Maer'''</span> <br><br><br>

'''Saturday, 05 Feb 2524'''<br>
'''Ark Ship ''Amenoukihashi'''''<br>
'''0030 hrs, ship's time'''<br><br>

I'd slept with Joshua in any number of places over the years. A cold concrete floor in a shed on Meridian, a pallet of pine boughs under a snow-banked tree on Meadow, a flower-strewn featherbed in a beach cabana on Angel. None of them, however harsh or pleasant, could match the Ark ship we currently trod. Or rather, Joshua trod, pacing to and fro while I tried to get comfortable on the deck. As a crew we'd undertaken the trip to ''Amenoukihashi'' hoping to find genetic material uncontaminated by Halcyon and find it we did—the entire ship looked to be filled with cryogenically frozen ancestors, asleep for half a millennium, dreamers of a new world, unconscious saviors of humankind. Were it not for the knowledge that I might be called on the morrow to rescue the ship from oblivion and therefore I needed my sleep, I would have been as keyed-up as my husband. It's not every day I got to explore a derelict ship in the middle of nowhere that was a five-mile long cave of wonders. Of course, it was the middle of nowhere part that bothered me most. I tried not to dwell on everything that might go wrong by finding a distraction. In Joshua, as usual, I found it.<br><br>

"Keep that up and you'll wear a trench in the deck," I said to my husband, squirming yet again with the blanket.<br><br>

---<br><br>

"I can't sleep," he admitted. "I'm exhausted, but I can't sleep. Too many thoughts tumbling through my head." Then Joshua realized what he said and clarified. "Thoughts of my own, that is." He just kept imagining what it must have been like, being one of the people choosing to give themselves up to lifetimes of cold sleep. Throwing themselves across an unknown void to an unsure destination.<br><br>

---<br><br>

I gave up on the blankets and rose to join him. I slipped my arm around his waist and matched his stride.<br><br>

"I can't sleep either," I said, stating the obvious. "But I'm going to have to get some rest soon. I'll be useless tomorrow if I don't. Big day coming up."<br><br>

I fell silent as I considered it. I would have to find the engine room, breach its defenses and failsafes, and take over the massive engines. I would have Beglan on hand to help me, possibly Joshua through his ten minute pick up ability, but three hands to man the engines of a ship ''this'' big? ''No wonder I can't sleep''.<br><br>

"Look," I said. "Wanna take a walk that isn't in circles? I'm sure the others wouldn't mind a little less restless and a little more rest, hm?"<br><br>

---<br><br>

Joshua tersely nodded. "Yeah, let's go talk a walk. And you're going to be fine and kick ass, as usual." He threw the last statement off casually, as if it was a fact like gravity or electromagnetism.<br><br>

---<br><br>

I gave him a playful bump with my hip but waited until we were both in the corridor out of earshot before replying.<br><br>

"Well, I'd rather kick ass than kick the bucket."<br><br>

---<br><br>

"That's not going to happen. We're going to sail these people to their destination. They were the first spacers, after all." He paused, looking up at the monstrous towers of cold storage, thousands of people and yet only a small portion of the ark's population. "You know, I think they're dreaming, Rina."<br><br>

---<br><br>

''Better dreaming than screaming'', I thought but didn't say. I hoped Joshua didn't pick it up but I couldn't help thinking it. As awe inspiring as this ship was, the possibility that someone could be frozen yet still be aware just made my flesh crawl, the ultimate nightmare for the twitchy control-freak that was me. Aloud, I asked, "What are they dreaming?"<br><br>

And I held him a little tighter as we walked through the forest of dreamers.<br><br>

---<br><br>

"It's just this constant background, nothing specific, but really, they're dreaming about going somewhere new, somewhere that they could start a new life." ''They were dreaming about '''hope'''''.<br><br>

---<br><br>

"I wonder what they'll think when they wake up and find out that we've five suns and more worlds than they can shake a stick at. I keep trying to imagine what it would be like to go to sleep for a nap and wake up with everything so ... completely different."<br><br>

---<br><br>

"Sometimes I feel like I actually did that, you know."<br><br>

---<br><br>

"You do?" Curious at the turn the conversation had taken, I moved in front of him and made him pause. "When?"<br><br>

---<br><br>

"Sometimes, my life in Blue Sun, whatever it was, seems like another universe altogether. Like one day, I decided to hop on an ark called ''Summer's Gift'' and let it take me to new hope and a new life." Joshua never doubted how lucky he had gotten finding the crew of the ''Gift'' back then. If he hadn't, he might have been like this ark, adrift and full of unfulfilled dreams.<br><br>

---<br><br>

I stopped dead in my tracks and Joshua fetched up right against me. "I don't know what to say to that."<br><br>

---<br><br>

He placed his hand on her cheek. "Don't need to say anything, but maybe it helps you understand why I feel so empathetic with these travelers. Like there were a hundred million Joshuas in these towers." As he finished his thought, an amusing thought crossed his mind and it was all he could do to get it out before he started breaking out in laughter.<br><br>

"Can you imagine how much that would drive the rest of the crew mad? They can barely tolerate one of me."<br><br>

---<br><br>

I hugged him and murmured into his shirt, "Sometimes you drive me nuts and I ''love'' you."<br><br>

---<br><br>

"That's fair. I occasionally drive myself nuts and I'm awesome." He hugged her tight and then spun her halfway around, holding on to her hand so they could start walking again, hand in hand. "But hopefully we can do right by all these sleeping Joshuas and get them put somewhere where they can live in peace. After they help us find a cure, that is."<br><br>

---<br><br>

I didn't tell him what I thought when we first encountered them, that finding the cure might mean sacrificing some of the lives we were currently trying to save. It was too depressing. So I simply walked with him and squeezed his hand.<br><br>

---<br><br>

"I guess it's that somewhere they can live in peace portion that will be a problem. I hate that we have to wake them in the middle of a war. But some things, our choices are limited."<br><br>

---<br><br>

"Even so, the choices here are better than the ones they left behind." I walked on in silence a bit, looking at the cryo-units overhead. My voice was hushed, as it had been since we entered the chamber, feeling as if I were in a church or at a funeral. ''It's a touch of both'', snarked my inner pessimist. I told it to shut up. "Although that does remind me ... I need to ask you something."<br><br>

---<br><br>

He smiled as he looked around. "As long as you don't mind a peanut gallery, I'm all open ears." ''And mind''.<br><br>

---<br><br>

"We're all on borrowed time." I stopped and looked him in the eye, took both his hands and held them to my face. "So I'm only going to bring this up once. If I don't make it before the cure is found, mourn me if you must, but promise me you'll live."<br><br>

---<br><br>

Joshua rolled his eyes a little. "Oh, my Russian drama queen, don't worry, I will mourn and then live my life. But that said, you're not going to die, I'm not going to die. We are going to find a cure and we're all going to be fine." He kissed her lightly on the lips. "I tease because I love. And the same goes in reverse for you, if I die in a blaze of glory, I trust you not to throw away everything you've done for yourself."<br><br>

---<br><br>

I bristled a little at the sobriquet but had to admit it was accurate. Crazy times called for a bit of drama, though, and crazy certainly defined our current time. Aloud I only said, "I promise". I kept anything else I would have said behind my teeth. ''Seeing as they'd only be dramatic to little purpose''.<br><br>

---<br><br>

Joshua could tell Rina was a little upset, but that was okay. She had to know that he wasn't going to bury himself in a coffin 6 feet deep with her if she died. He loved Rina very much, but that tendency of hers to take every thought to its dramatic or paranoid extreme occasionally needed to be reined in. He wouldn't want her to stop doing it...but it probably wouldn't hurt if she did it a little less.<br><br> 

"I love you and you love me and that's all we need."<br><br>

---<br><br>

Despite everything we'd seen since the war began, Joshua refused to give way to pessimism or despair. Even factoring out his unmedicated state, Joshua remained perpetually optimistic. It was his nature and I loved him for it because my own steadfast refusal to quit stemmed not from optimism but from a bone-deep drive to deny the Universe the satisfaction of winning. Which is a very different thing. A caustic and vindictive thing, one that I could not hope to maintain for long and remain unconsumed by it. I loved him, yes, but I needed him to offset my worse qualities even as he inspired me to surpass my best. As usual, Joshua arrived at that conclusion first and carried it through. And as usual, reminded me why it was important.<br><br> 

"All we need," I echoed. Because right now, it was all we had. <br><br>






----
'''Go to''' [[Joshua Drake | '''Joshua's Crew Page''']] or '''[[Marina Kseniya Sebastien | Rina's Crew Page]]''' <br>
'''Go back to: ''[[Mutineers Timeline, Season Seven | Season Seven, May 2523 -- ]]'''''<br>
'''Go to [[EPISODES]]''' or '''[[MTimeline#2511-2518|TIMELINE]]'''<br>