“Park…Park…what are you doing?”  Park Seoyeon opened her eyes and startled at the sight of her parents looking at her with concern.  “There we go, sleepy head.  We were wondering what you were doing.  It’s time.”  

She looked around her and felt a chill run down her back.  Her old room in her parent’s home in California.  Everything was as it had been.  Every detail. Every poster.  “What is going on?  I was on the Mack…and then…why are you here?  Why am I here?”

Her mother tutted with her tongue, “Whatever are you talking about, Park Laura Seoyeon?  It’s time for you to get ready to travel to the Fourth Fleet Academy.  Shuttle leaves in four hours, and we don’t want to be….”

Park exploded, “Get the hell out of here.  You’re not my mother.  She’s dead…and it’s just dad now.”  The woman moved to speak, and Park shouted, “Get out!  GET OUT!”  Her mom’s eyes went wide, and her eyes began to fill with tears, and she fled her daughter’s room, crying down the stairs.  Seoyeon felt her heart ache with guilt at that moment.  What was going on?  Her mother had been dead for five years.  What was she doing in her room again?  She had been on the Mack in the command center in the cargo bay during the battle…

“Shields are…”

“Commander, take cov…”

The sounds of fire roared at the edges of her consciousness as the images of consoles exploding and sharp debris flying everywhere at once.  Support beams crashing into the deck.  The world going sideways.  Then…

Darkness.  She opened her eyes and was still in her childhood room, but it was fading in the evening light.  She asked, “Am I dead?”  The light above her flickered out, and the air grew cool against her skin.

“You are not dead, my Park Laura.” The older face of her mother came out of the mists, her old clothes replaced with a resplendent robe.  “You came close.  Even now…” She stroked her daughter’s face, “They’re working to save you.  They love you…and care for you.” She leaned in and kissed the startled and confused face of Park, “It is hopeful for me to see my daughter with such…good people.”

“Mom…what the hell is going on?” The room had grown dark until it was just her and her mother on the bed, a faint light emanating between them.

Grace Seoyeon spoke as if she wasn’t listening, “You were my love.  I wish I had said it more, my dear.  We ended on such…bad terms.”

Park’s eyes remained wide.  Was she really talking to her mother?  She decided to play along.  Her mother’s presence brought warmth to the cold and dark room.  “We argued about your nearly sending me to a boot camp.”  She remembered the words somberly, “I told you I hated you.”

Grace’s face, or whoever she was, flashed at the memory, “It wasn’t our strongest moment, daughter.”  She stroked Park’s hair, “I wish I had told you I loved you more, dearest.”

The younger of the two felt her tears welling up as she confessed, “I wish I had too, mother.”  They embraced, and Park felt the warmth of her mother spread to her and fill her with a burst of joy and love that brought on more tears and sobs as the two remained tightly bound.  The lights began to brighten around them.  Park asked, “What is happening?” The world became like the sun and blinded her.  She could hear Grace Seoyeon whispering in the wind as she felt warm air swirl around her.

“You will live.  You..will…live.”

“Shock her again!  Come on, Park.”  Henry Longfellow stood over the operating table as his patient’s flatline screeched on and on.  They’d come close to securing the damage to her heart and brain, but something had gone sideways with the most significant muscle in the body…it had simply stopped working.  He felt the slow seep of panic chewing at his outer layer of nerves.  He wasn’t in the mood to lose anyone anytime soon…and his XO threatened to spoil that mood.

Nurse Asato Hiro frantically upped the change and shouted, “Clear!”  The body of their XO arched and hit the bed.  The entire operating room staff stared at the EKG.  And waited. You could hear the breathing of each person, Hiro would remember later.  There was a sense that time stood still as each of them willed for the EKG readings to rise from the dead like Frankenstein.

Beep.  Beep.  Beep.  Longfellow shouted relief and returned to Seoyeon, “Let’s close her up and get her to recovery.  Cranial pressure is relieved, and the heart is operating back where it’s supposed to be.  Let’s bring our girl home.”

The light slowly faded as the words whistled through her memory.

“You will live….you…will….live.”

Her eyes flitted open, and the first face she saw was Wren.  She gasped out, “Reporting…for duty…Captain Walton.”

The smile from her friend and CO was the second brightest thing she’d seen today.