Repeated Images

by Amiroq
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Disclaimer: Character theft? Me? Never!

Dedication: To Thomas, who is a right bastard for giving me this plotbunny. Here's the line that inspired the damn thing (talking about twins' psychic links): "I imagine it would be much stronger with your exact duplicate."

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Harry awoke sometime in the early morning, suddenly and with no period of half-wake. He didn't abruptly sit up, but after orientating himself and calming down a bit, he did slide out of bed and head for the bathroom.

It was impossible, that was what it was. There was no way that what he'd dreamed - the sights, the sounds, the goddamned sensations - could have been an actual reliving of his counterpart's death. He shivered, both at the thought and the memory. Space had been cold. None of his dreams had ever been that. . . that detailed. He shivered again, pulling out the basin and splashing the refreshingly cool water on his face. Except that brought back the memory again.

There was only way way to know for sure. In his-- well, dream, he guessed - in his dream, B'Elanna had climbed down two rungs of the ladder and reached for him. Their hands had touched, for two beats, before the ship rocked again and he'd slipped. If he asked her, and that had really happened. . . Well, freakier things had happened, hadn't they?

He got all the way back to his bedroom, and had, in fact, picked up his commbadge before realising that this mightn't be the brightest idea. Despite the fact that it would make him sound utterly crazy, B'Elanna was hardly talking to him recently. He could hardly blame her - if his dream was not a dream, she'd been through something pretty traumatic, and he was just reminding her of the fact every time she saw him - but he doubted waking her in the early hours of the morning to ask her exactly what had happened when she failed to save her best friend's life was going to help matters much.

So instead, he dressed (it wasn't that early, and after all, he didn't think he'd get back to sleep) and picked up his clarinet. It was too early to actually play, since most of his neighbours were probably still asleep, but he sat down and practiced his fingering, letting the familiar 'click click' of the metal calm him.

Dammit, but he needed a drink.

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End


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