Title: Mirrors

Author: R.Schultz (cousindream@aol.com)

Series: ST:TNG

Code: Crusher/Yar/?

Rating: PG-13, some innuendo, bad language.

Disclaimer: Star Trek belong to Paramount. I'm just playing and will put Trekiverse good as new. I make no money off'n them. This STORY belongs to me under common-law copyright.
Spoilers: Set in the 1st season, after the episode "10010011".

Written Feb. 2001, for the Femme Fuh-Q Fest. Apx. 2300 words.

Warning: Consensual sex between two(fictional) adult women is favorably mentioned. Go elsewhere if you no like, or your parents or politicians would disapprove. Adios. Toddle off.

Summary: Natasha Yar is trying to cope with an undesired change in her life.

Comments to: cousindream@aol.com

MIRRORS

by R. Schultz


"If you study terminator, sunset, lines carefully, you can sometimes see some of the craters. Any sort of glass allows you to make out many of them, and you don't need slanted light blending into darkness to define them. See? You can just make out Winnipeg now. In a minute you'll be able to make out the twinkle at the other end of the lake where the present small city is. Not a twentieth the size of the old city, but of a respectable size, nonetheless. At least for nowadays.

"Yes, you've noticed some of them. The two kilometre towers of the Mexico City Arcologies there are lit by the sun long after the earth below is dark. Otherwise they'd be invisible without
some visual aid."

Of course Ruti was never rich enough or lucky enough to ever see the homeworld. None of us ordinary troopers could, in the Legion. Yet Terra certainly has more information, by volume,
available about it than any other planet in Federation space. We all knew about Mother Earth, even if we were another race born at the edge of the quadrant. Even back on Turkana you could access vacations and take tours through it, on the holo's, the pleasure suites. Visit ancient Carthage. Watch Cochrane fire our first FTL Drive and contact the Vulcans. Listen to Mal-Habram from front-row seats.

Ruti made a good guide nonetheless.

"You once told me you wanted to stand on Luna and look down at Terra," Ruti asked. Did you ever achieve your goal?" Why had I erased that from his memory? Why that particular part of our little visits? Oh, yes... I'd wanted him to always be amazed at the view or my achievements. I could talk to him even while I was marshaling my thoughts and ordering them.

"Oh, yes, I did. Quite a number of times. Once I had begun study at the Peter The Great Academy in Moskva, we had many maneuvers that occurred on the surface of the moon. And in nearby space."

"From the tone of your voice, it must have been fun."

"It was that. Frightening, exciting, challenging. In one exercise we were squirted off the FSVG at the rate of one a second at close to Eight KPS, only a half-K up. It didn't take long to reach touchdown at that speed. We had safeties, but we never know until we were a point-K up, whether our own individual suit would brake us and land us. I loved it. It was one hell of a ride, even if a damned short one."

"And at the Academy?"

"The emphasis swung back to Academic subject's again. Just like those months at Mendaleev. Abstract Sub-Atomics was my Hell, though. If it wasn't for Geordi my first year, I might have crashed and burned."

"But you didn't," he smiled. "Or Tensor Calc or Comp's Three through Ten. I can access some of your records, you know, being a holo projection. You got good grades.

"I always felt you were the brightest trooper in Lifters, in or out of the Legion. I'm glad..." he began. Then he looked away from me. Like he used to.

I never got into his mind the way I could others, but his was a mind whose thoughts meant a lot to me, then, in the Legion.

I'd been able to rebuild many of his characteristics into the program. When I'd recreated him, I realized how closely I'd studied him when we were lovers. Now Ruti bent over, grabbed a fistful of Luna pumice and sat upright with it. Letting the moon dust run through his hands. He still didn't look at me when he asked the question. He always asked the same question, but it didn't wrench my gut like it once had. Deep inside I needed this reminder of mortality.

"Tash?" dust sifting through his fingers. "I'm dead now, aren't I? We couldn't sit out on the surface of Terra's moon like this if we .. I .. were real." A shaking of my head.

"Did you see me die?" I gave a shaking of my head. "I'd hoped not. It's easier that way. One minute you know I'm somewhere else. The next time you see me I'm something to eventually let go of. A memory, a few synapses, an odd series of electric charges produced by a few million neurons.

"A ghost. Ghosts fade."

My foot could not stop metronoming, one leg crossed over the other like that. It bothered me that I could remember so little of our lovemaking. That especially I'd wished to cherish for a long time. There hadn't been that many men in my life, after all. Lots of them in my body, yes, but not in my heart.

I remembered some of it.

One very bad morning, we had taken cover under the blades of our crippled lifter. Friendly fire destroying everything not protected somehow. The heat growing lethal, the air red from the plasma fire, the smoke thick, knowing any second we might die. The other two troopers, Kebnebe and Happy, carefully looking out under the other side of our half-destroyed lifter. As Ruti and I mated like mad Targ. Our vehicle overhead was being hit by stray rounds of unfriendly at the same time. And then there was our insane giggling when you pulled a sliver of a steel fragment out of your butt.

"You brought me here for a reason, didn't you?" he said. "You need something and you called me up. I hope you're going to let me die for final some day. I'm unfinished as I am. And so are you."

I need your advice, Ruti, I want you to validate a course of action. And you're just a holo created out of my own memories. Inaccurate, too heroic, too stoic, too loving. Well, none of us are perfect, not even holoprograms.

"You complained quite a lot about my other women, Ruti, and I'm trying to understand how the hell you could stand by me like you did. I mean, sometimes the whole troop must have noted my
cheating on you."

"You never used the word cheating before," he noted, "and yes, I complained. Your memory is being selective right now. The fact remains that your bedding other women did not please me. I
simply had the good sense not to ever put you in a losing decision about it. I never told you it was them or me."

I nodded, looking at him sideways, not feeling very proud at this moment.

"Instinct, or some other skill, told me not to force you to choose between them or me. As long as you could have both you'd stay with me. Make you choose and you'd leave."

I stared at the dusty surface of the moon for a long minute. "Was I that much of a bitch, Ruti?"

His wry smile, the one where only one side of his mouth would crook up. "You designed this program, Tash. What do you think? You know you were a bitch.

"At least you were a hot one," he stated. "And you always crawled back in my bed."

Creating a program like this is always a form of trauma therapy. You wind up flaying your skin bloody with revelations you hadn't previously admitted. But afterwards you can heal.

Now Ruti was an old friend who has forgiven me my many sins. But we only talked when I had a problem. His figure was the one I'd chosen years ago to be my sounding board. Maybe conscience, too.

He smiled sideways at me, waiting for me to continue. Knowing I would agonize with him, worry, complain, vent, even seek his advice. By making him a being separate from me, he became my confidant. It was a good way to talk with myself. Over the years he'd also collected quite a memory chip. Where I allowed it.

"Ruti..." Damn it! I still got embarrassed sometimes.

"It has to do with your latest love, doesn't it? That red-head, the Doctor. Is she still..." Waiting for me to fill in information like whether she was or not, or even if she was still alive.

"She cheated on me." A rush of words, getting it out fast. Trying to minimalize the pain.

Ruti put a toothpick in his mouth, one eye always on me.

"We went to a place called StarBase 74 for a refit. The ENTERPRISE got stolen. Just for a while. It was returned. But it was pretty scaley for a while. Lots of excitement. I was totally losing my warp core over the situation. Standing there in the control room, watching the ENTERPRISE fly away without me. And me the head of security. I was really feeling useless at that point. And mad. Furious.

"Bev was in the control room with me, looking as lost and surprised as the rest of us. After the shock wore off, I took her off to a corner of the next room. I was feeling in desperate need of a little consoling, and meant to hold my baby, get my feet back on the deck.

I had her in the corner, and we were kissing pretty hot and hard shortly thereafter. A little bit of comfort at a very bad time. She wrapped herself around me even as I cuddled into her. By this time we were known as a couple throughout the ship, so a little lesbian love was nothing unusual for us to publicly flaunt.

I got my hands under that blue coat of hers and was caressing her butt when she stiffened under me. It was that sudden tensing under me that made me start noticing something.

She didn't have any panties on underneath her uniform suit. I mean, these uniforms don't show much, but my hands were right on her butt. She was naked underneath that suit.

Bev's face went white and cold, and that alone told me all I needed to know. Some time between this morning and now she'd been naked enough to lose her panties.

I was even thinking clearly enough to realize it was probably a man. Males especially liked to keep little souvenirs like that. A few females did too, but not many.

She been excited this morning about re-meeting a Doctor of Cybernetics, a Doctor Terence Epstein. Someone she knew years ago, in Medical school.

Bev had been dancing with anticipation that morning. Talking about her new program she wanted him to beta. I'd given that body of hers a few quick fondles while she was dressing. I could remember her unders were one of her high-waist panties, satin, dark blue. One she'd replicated because I liked her in blue so much.

Now she didn't have them on anymore.

The look in her eyes confirmed it. Beverly Howard Crusher had been a cheating cunt bitch.

"Tasha," she said. "I ... It just happened, I didn't plan it, I was always in love with him, and back then, in school..."

"Please. I didn't mean it. It just happened..."

Maybe if I'd slapped her hard, or beaten her up, maybe if I'd let myself go off in one of my rages, you remember them, Ruti. Maybe then we could have worked something out..."

A long silence.

I lifted my eyes to see Ruti looking at me. Neutral, not commenting, waiting for me to explain further.

"So you left her?" he finally asked. `Are you going to get back together, do you think? Is that why we're here, sitting on a bench in a vacuum? You want to talk yourself into taking her back?"

"I can't. I guess that's why I'm here. Getting straight in my head again, with you. Deciding what I can't do or must do."

Silence again. There's not much noise on the moon, even a holographic Luna.

"I don't recall how many times I took you back, Tash. But it was quite a few times. You remember. The times I couldn't look at you, the hurt inside. Feeling the same hurt so many times didn't make it hurt much less.

"Why is now so different, Tash? Is it because you're the one hurting? I know you've been cheated on before. Didn't you forgive and forget?"

"Not always. Not since the Academy. Not lately." Looking him in his eyes. "Am I growing up, Ruti? Or just growing old?"

My foot still now, unmoving. I was staring at the Luna surface. "I'm a hypocrite, I know, but it's the way I am.

"Ruti ... I've never had anything in my whole life. Nothing. Except for StarFleet. Except for my lovers.

"Not the quick affairs, flings, the overnight gropes. I mean real Lovers. I've had nothing. Except them." Looking into Ruti's eyes.

"And most of them have died or gone away. I think I've gotten less casual about it now. Or I'm a bigger hypocrite now. But I can't bear to share like... I can't do it. Let her go screw some male and crawl back into my bed. Our bed. Hers.

"Hell....I've got to get my own cabin again. Damn it..." A softly spoken curse.

"I forgave you a lot, Tash," he reminded me.

"It's not just that, I returned. "Maybe I need some roots now, and I thought she'd be them. We've been ... For months.

"I kept hoping she'd propose to me, Ruti. Jean-Luc could have performed the ceremony. We could have been married, but she couldn't bring herself to accept me in that way. She couldn't do it.

"Then she did this male.

"I'd say the signals were pretty clearly stated, wouldn't you? I can be her lover but I can't be her wife. I can't live that way any more, Ruti.

"Maybe her own engines are pretty strong, inside her. But the days are gone when I could love a woman and ignore the taste in her mouth and in her groin of her latest male. Long gone. I can't do that anymore."

In the end I let my Ruti hold me a little, while I cried. Wondering when and where I'd changed. Knowing I couldn't go back. It hurt so very much. But it'd hurt even more the next time she'd cheat on me. Even worse, I might start cheating on her in retaliation.

Better to make a clean break of it. Better for me, and maybe eventually for Bev. I still felt like such a hypocrite, though. Maybe I'd feel that way for the rest of my life.

I was moving through the light pumice before I knew it, leaving Ruti behind me. I'll leave him his memories this time. He should remember what a arrogant, unforgiving bitch I was. I turned and he waved one hand at me. Ruti. Always patient, always a good sounding board. Always willing to hold up another mirror so I could face my sins.

END

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