Reversal {Star Trek Enterprise Mirror Universe fan fiction}

A Change

The hallways were strangely magical.

Doug had never liked starship hallways. They had been places where someone would try to knife him. Or, at best, conduits between one assignment and another, or a gateway to an encounter, perhaps, but nothing more, nothing special.

Yet there they were, holding hands like schoolchildren, smiling and laughing and talking to anyone who went by. Lili introduced him to, it seemed, everyone, and he was as gracious and polite as he could be, and they were all so very kind. People asked about their future plans, and he freely spoke of the restaurant and Lafa II and possibly doing some training for Starfleet. He felt young and alive – it was like walking in a garden. They stopped and he backed her into a wall and kissed her. She was a little surprised by that and said, "I thought you didn't like public displays."

"I guess I do now. Changing my mind about lots of things." he took off his jacket and casually flung it over his shoulder, and looked over to her frequently as they strolled.

"Oh, hi, Ethan." he heard her say.

"Hiya, Lili. I hear you're leaving,” said a young Crewman.

"Doug, this is ..."

He didn't hear the rest of it. He knew who that was.

It was like a crash, the end of the idyllic mood, replaced instantly by chaos and pain, fear and nausea. His thumb had been caressing her fingers. He stopped doing that, and instead pressed it into her palm.

She glanced down, seemed to catch the signal. "Uh, we have to go, Ethan. I'll see you later." she smiled at Ethan Shapiro as he walked away.

Doug steered her into a nearby empty lab.

"What's the matter?" she asked quietly, as soon as the door had closed.

He looked down. "That was Number Two." He was unsteady on his feet, reeling.

"Ohhh,” she said, “When did, when did it happen?"

"Thirty-two years ago. On the Vulcan home world. I phasered him in the belly,” Doug said, shaking.

"No, wait, wait. I guarantee that that kid is at least a good five years younger than that,” Lili said, “So unless you got him in utero, that's not him."

"The name is the same. It looks just, just like him."

"No. It's the nephew of him. Or his son. Or some cousin or something."

"The name ..."

"The names don't have to match. And neither do a lot of things. You should know that better than anyone, Doug. You should know that this mirror is distorted. It is not him." she made as if to leave the lab.

He put his hand out to stop her. "Lili, this is, I am so stupid. This is going to keep happening. There are a lot of people I can run into, and I know what I did – if not to them, then to their families."

"You'll be on Lafa II."

"And what about when the Enterprise comes back? Or I go and I do training? I am gonna see these, these ghosts over and over again. Did you know I almost popped Delacroix because he was in almost exactly a situation when I did that on the other side?"

Lili shook her head. "But you didn't, right? Doug, you're right. This is going to keep happening."

"Yes,” he said softly, trembling a little.

"What did you, what did you expect? Doug, coming here, did you think it would all be gone? You would have escaped all of it?"

"I, I don't know what I thought,” he said, voice breaking.