In Anand’s decades of experience, he found that when he woke up, he was almost always lying down somewhere. Usually it was in a bed, but he did occasionally wake up in a sleeping bag, or on a cot, or on the floor, or once in a bathtub.

He had never woken up standing in the middle of a forest before, which was clue number one that he had not actually woken up at all.

He grasped the nearest tree branch for support as he tried to get his bearings. There was no sign of the great bonfire he’d just been sitting in front of, and no distant murmurs or chants to be heard. It was perfectly quiet, except for the resonant trill of some unseen insects.

He didn’t recall getting up to leave the festivities. Then, as slowly and surely as his eyes adjusted to the dim light of the forest, a recollection coalesced in his mind: the somewhat embarrassing memory of being dragged to his bedroll after nearly passing out on the spot.

There was no one to be embarrassed in front of now. The forest around him was peaceful and–if he were being honest about the expectations he’d developed about the Varjokh dream world–a bit dull.

Oh well. “Better a boring dream than a nightmare,” he said aloud, just to fill the quiet.

A rustling sound from behind him made him jump, but relief flooded in when he recognized the familiar rocky carapace scuttling out into the open.

“Qsshrr!” He bounded happily over to his chief science officer. “I thought you said that Horta don’t sleep. Or–” A fantastic, exciting thought crossed his mind. “Do Horta dream without sleeping?” he asked in a low, reverent whisper.

Qsshrr, who had been in the process of scuttling right past him without acknowledgement, finally stopped. “Are you talking to me?” asked a voice that sounded far too clear and too masculine to be Qsshrr’s vocalizer.

“Uh.” Now that Anand looked more closely, her appearance was slightly off. The blue-and-green stones she used to decorate her carapace weren’t all the right shape or height, and she was moving like a drunken crab, whereas Anand usually thought of her as more of a graceful isopod.

“Hey, you work with the Horta!” said Not-Qsshrr, who was suddenly very interested in him. “Tell me, do you think I got this right? Looks-wise? I think I need to work on it more. When I become a butterfly, I feel like a butterfly, but right now I just feel like a guy crawling around in a heavy costume.”

Anand started inching away, glancing around the forest as he plotted his escape from the conversation, and was surprised to note that everywhere he looked the woods were coming to life. A number of Varjokh were strolling under the trees, some conversing with wild animals as casually as they spoke with each other. Flashes of light and curls of smoke marked the outlines of the fantastical structures and dreamscapes fashioned by Creator Varjokh. Some Varjokh converged on these new creations, and others meandered on their own through the trees.

Two Varjokh in particular, both also in the shape of Qsshrr, seemed to have spotted him and were clumsily approaching.

Anand groaned. He really didn’t want to spend the whole night judging the Varjokh equivalent of a costume competition.

Suddenly, he caught sight of a strikingly familiar arch out of place in the dark forest, and his heart leapt into his throat.

He offered a quick half-bow of apology to the approaching Horta as he turned on his heel and ran towards the arch. “I have to go!” he called over his shoulder. “You look fine, friend! You do you!”

There were words inscribed on the arch, and he slowed to a walk as soon as he was near enough to read them. Illuminated by the flowers and the trees were the impossible words “Federation Friendship Garden” inscribed in a myriad of languages and scripts, with the Devanagari letters most prominent. It was from the garden in Jaipur, on Earth. None of the Varjokh could have possibly created it in such exacting detail. Likely no one from the Babylon could have, either. No one would have it as fresh in their memories as he did; he’d been there mere months ago on his first real date with…

“I thought we had agreed that I would show you Colludia,” Cressida Brennan, who had absolutely no business being there, said thoughtfully. “But this is… nice.”

She took a step towards him, then another one. And then, just like she had done months ago, during their first (and, so far, last) date on the Babylon’s holodeck, she reached out for him. Back then, she had placed a flower in his hair.

Now, she plucked that same flower from where she’d placed it all those months ago, and twirled it to watch the gentle light of the trees dance off its flimsy metallic petals.

“So, are you going to show me around?” she asked without sparing him a glance, her eyes still locked on the flower. “Or do you still need to flip a coin to figure out what to do?”

Anand coughed out a breathy, nervous huff of laughter as he studied Dream Brennan. For being a figment of his subconscious, her eyes were no less intense. “I don’t know. I think this would be more fun with the real Brennan.”

At first there was no response, no movement at all, and Anand briefly wondered if the Dream could glitch. Then, slowly, Dream Brennan’s hand curled around the flower and she crushed it in her fist, the petals crackling like glass. “What makes you think the real Brennan wants to see you again?”

“Uh…” For all that it felt like his throat was closing up, Anand couldn’t help but make an aborted reach for Brennan’s clenched hand. It didn’t appear to be bleeding profusely, at least.

“After you made a fool of her on Casperia and made a fool of yourself over subspace, what makes you think you’re so appealing?” Brennan wrenched her hand out of the way and continued. “She probably just wanted some amusement, something to entertain her while she hitched a ride on your torpid little ship.”

“Wow.” Anand let his arms fall slack to his sides and willed the tightness in his chest to relax. “My subconscious is kind of mean.”

Dream Brennan’s face relaxed by the barest millimeter. She tossed the remains of the crushed flower and dusted her hands as she crept closer to Anand. And closer still. Much closer than the real Brennan ever approached. “Then maybe you should dig a little deeper.”

She moved quick as a snakebite, and Anand found himself breathless again as she pulled him down into a fierce kiss. This time, though, it was a good kind of breathless. He leaned back just enough to soften the kiss and Brennan followed his lead, tilting her head just so. It was nice. Of course it was nice. His id knew exactly how he liked to be kissed, and whom he would like to be kissed by. It was starting to make for a very pleasant dream.

Maybe too pleasant, as Brennan’s hand started slipping up beneath his undershirt. He grabbed her wrist and pulled away from the kiss, turning back and forth in a tight, panicked circle as he scanned for the presence of Varjokh among the trees and looked for Horta underfoot.

“Wait,” he gasped. “Hold on. How communal are these dreams, exactly?”

Brennan shrugged, and Anand could see irritation working its way into the mask of boredom on her face. “If you don’t want a date, and you don’t want this,” she said, speaking with a slow condescension, “Then what am I here for?”

Anand stared at her, and for a moment it seemed he had an answer on the tip of his tongue. Instead, what came out was a heavy sigh. As he felt his shoulders slump, he realized that Brennan hadn’t yet pulled her wrist out of his grasp. He let go, and took her by the hand instead.

Dream Brennan observed this with the barest twitch of an eyebrow, and when Anand started swinging their hands back and forth with a delighted smile slowly blooming on his face, the eyebrow twitched up further. “This is what you want?”

“It is kind of nice,” he admitted, and when she didn’t pull away he considered really pressing his luck and asking for a hug. He was distracted, though, by the fog rolling in thick across his skin and– stinging his eyes? Was this smoke?

He had no idea where it was coming from, but it moved so fast. Suddenly he could no longer see Brennan in front of him, and her hand slipped away. His breath quickened. The smoke filled his lungs, and then…