Remembrance - Part II

Posted on Sun 19th Nov, 2017 @ 3:23pm by Colonel Horatio Drake

638 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: A Phaser as Deadly as a Candlestick
Location: Deck 27: Drake's Quarters
Timeline: MD-01: 0430 Hours

“Red Alert! We are being attacked by massive chocolate bars! Major Drake... fire the chocolate melting ray!”

Horatio burst out laughing. Patrick, who up until a few seconds ago had been lying next to him, had suddenly jolted up, thrown on hiss tunic, which was lying on the floor next to the bed, and gone into one of his characters.

“Don’t be stupid” Horatio said in a mock stern tone “if we were attacked by giant chocolate bars I would fire the chocolate melting torpedoes... everyone knows the melting ray would do nothing...”

Patrick broke into a huge grin, he loved it when Horatio played along with one of his stupid characters,m he loved the fact that they made him laugh so much... he leant over him and looked deep into his eyes.

“I love you Horatio.” He said, his voice quivering slightly.

“I love you too, Patrick” Horatio replied, embracing him in a tight hug after gently kissing him.

“Listen” he continued “I’m sorry I was late coming home on shore leave... the Liberation’s having a new type of phaser array installed and I had to be there to oversee the removal of the old one... you know what these starbase engineers are like... they’ll just as soon...”

Patrick placed a finger over Horatio’s lips... “Don’t worry, I know how important it is to you, what’s important is that I’ve got you now” He said, once again smiling... he tucked his head under Horatio’s arm and placed his arm over him.

He smiled but it soon disappeared, he could have sworn he saw a glimpse of sorrow in Patrick’s eyes. He had been gone too long this time, then, to top things off, he had been four days late in his arrival.

Enough was enough, Starfleet wasn’t going to come first anymore, he couldn’t keep putting Patrick second, something had to be done... action had to be taken.

The smile returned and he held Patrick tight and they both drifted off to sleep. His decision was made.

===

“The time is 0430 Hours” The computer’s dull, monotone voice broke his dream and awoke him.

“Urgh” the noise the produced was more guttural than anything else. There were a lot of things that Horatio was, but a morning person was decidedly not one of them. To top it off, he had probably only had a few hours sleep.

“The time is 04...”

“Alright!” He yelled, “I’m up, I’m bloody up!”

Drake pulled himself up from his sleep – which should have been classed as a nap – and sat on the edge of his bed, getting his bearings. The dreams were a fairly regular event of a night; he was perturbed by them to begin with but they now lent as a reminder to the memory of Patrick.
He hadn’t done any courses in anything even related to psychology at the Academy so had no idea as to how the whole process worked. All he knew is that they were completely subconscious.

‘Did that mean Patrick is subconscious?’ he thought to himself. He didn’t even know what he was asking. All he knew is that parts of him seemed to be slipping away with each passing day but others parts seemed to remain just as strong as they were when he was alive. He wondered for a moment whether he was blocking parts of him out?

Given his recent adventures on the Bretagne, even dreams like this were a welcome distraction at the moment. All the time he was thinking about Patrick meant he wasn't thinking about the horrors on the forsaken Miranda class.

He stood, stretched and disregarded the notion, making a mental note to check it out with Graves at their next session.

 

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