I stretch, raise my arms above my head, lean back, yawn, and pry my heavy eyes open. Even if it was a quick sleep, it was deep and dreamless.
Twisting around to lie on my side between his legs—legs that I didn't realize were so long before, I squirm to a more comfortable position against his body. "Ledi. What time is it?"
"There's still six minutes left before your hour's up."
That voice.
My body tenses.
I'm hearing things. It can't be him. Maybe I dreamed of him and my waking-brain wasn't ready to let go. Maybe I'm still dreaming. It's not the first time I've experienced the sight, smell, and sound of Dean in my sleep. I shake the hope away.
"Okay, Ledi. Let's get back to work." I rise, keeping my sights dead-ahead, not looking at the legs on either side of mine or the arms that rest at my sides. I slip out of the net.
A shadow rises in front of me cast by the lamps we hung from the overhead. The shape of that outline sends chills coursing through me. It extends far out, the boxy shoulders bulky arms, long torso, even longer legs have been etched in my brain from years of exposure. I know this shadow almost as well as I know my own.
"Wake up," I mumble. "Wake up, wake up, wake up."
"You okay, Nika?" He places a hand on my shoulder. The weight and size are too familiar. This has to be a dream.
I turn around.
Dean's soft smile greets me with its traditional upward quirk.
My knees turn to jelly. "Dean?"
"It's me, Ledi," he says in Dean's baritone.
I'm dreaming. I lean into it. If this is where I can still find pieces of him to supercharge my days, I'm happy to oblige my lonely soul. I cup his face, my skin exalting in the angle of his cheek carved by scars. "No. You're Dean. And this is my dream."
He laughs, his chest rumbling against my hand. "You're not dreaming. For the last hour, I've been scanning images from your memories. I've seen it all."
"Where have you been, Dean? Why haven't you come to get me so we can blast out of this hell?"
He wraps his hand around my wrist, pulling my it from his face. "It's me, Nika. It's Ledi. I've adjusted my settings to match the Dean in your memory, but it's still me."
I stare into the same chest covered by the familiar URE-issued gray shirt adorned with simple gray buttons down the front. I'm circled by the same arms dusted by the same scars and fine, yellow hair. The patch on his breast pocket should say FREYER. Instead, LEDI is embroidered in thick black letters. I recoil.
"The Dean of your memory intrigues me." He holds his enormous hand up to his face—a hand I've longed for since we departed Earth.
"This is a dream. This is totally a dream." I align myself with his body, toe-to-toe as we always are. "And that's okay. I'll work with this."
"Nika," he says, bending to whisper in my ear. "It's Ledi, not D—"
I shush him, pressing my finger up against his lips. My heart hasn't felt so light in so long. The hefty darkness lifts. For a second, we're Captains Dean and Janika of the URE. We're together. Finally. "I've missed you so much."
I rise to kiss him. Encircling his neck, pulling him down to me, I want to relish this moment in my subconscious. I take a deep breath, inhaling his scent—the earthy notes that make him so perfectly Dean.
Nothing.
I rise up on my toes and sniff the air around his neck.
Nothing.
I grab fistfuls of his civilian grays and breathe it in, searching for a single hint of earth or dirt. I grab his hand and put it to my nose.
Nothing.
Not a single scent.
I fling his hand away from me and retreat. "What's happening?"
"It's me, Ledi." He rakes a hand through his mousey hair. "You let me see your memories of Dean and I'm impressed. He gets it. From everything I've seen, he gets what it means to be human."
"So?" I shriek. Unable to keep staring at Dean in his most perfect form, I turn away and stare at the unfinished cockpit.
"It's all I've ever wanted."
I turn and walk away. "Wake up. Wake up, wake up, wake up."
"Nika."
It's impossible to resist. I spin around at the sound of my name in that timbre from my favorite years.
He tucks a strand of my short hair behind my ear. "The way he looks at you shows me everything I need to know about being human and being in love."
"You need to change back. Right now."
He stretches his long arms out above his head, his fingers brushing my ship's overhead. "I'm really comfortable in this form. I'm keeping it."
"Oh, hell no."
Ledi crosses his arms over his enormous chest in perfect Dean fashion. "What're you going to do about it?" He smirks. He goddamn smirks at me using the same voice Dean uses to tease me. He smirks, teases, and it's my unraveling.
I shove him. Hard. "No."
Ledi doesn't move. "Nika, please."
"Stop saying that."
"What? Please?"
"All of it. Stop. Now."
"No. This is me. This is who I want to be when I take a form. The last image felt too much like what Teeno expected me to be. That's not me. Never was and never will be."
I stare at the deck. "Then get out. Get out and never come near me again."
"Nika."
I spin around and scream. "Stop! I said stop."
His beautiful eyes soften, the hazel spark dims as he furrows his brow. He mimics the motion of intaking an enormous breath and I want to pound on his chest to break his gears. Stop being Dean. Stop doing things Dean does. Stop reminding me of everything I don't have.
"Okay," he says. "I'll be out here. I'm not leaving, I'll just be outside."
I don't watch him descend the hatch. Instead, I grab the welding gear I'd dumped the night before. "What kind of new fucking hell is this?"
Shutting down all the parts of my brain that want to believe Dean is right outside the ship, that his arms are empty and I could run into them and make the galaxy a better place, I return to work.
**A/N**
I'm sorry. I know this is mean. Poor Janika.
The good news is that this is the last chapter to go before we begin our climb to the climax of the story.
Thank you again for all your stars and comments! You all give so much life to this story and I can't thank you enough.
⭐️L