Dustie. Wake up Dustie. I need you to wake up now.

"I've got to stop waking up in the med bay."

"Yes, I think you do." Doctor Andrews had been beaten by a squad of Mech' Exterminators. Nothing else could make her sound as cluttered as she did. "That was a wonderful session before you passed out, and I think we might be ready to move forward, but you have some decisions to make."

Memory washed over me. "Oh, clutter. Just dump me in whatever fleet will take me. I don't care anymore." The lie burned my tongue, but I couldn't force myself to hurt Doc Andrews more than I already had.

She snorted; the sound drifted into a bout of coughing before she spoke. "The Captain isn't going to do anything to you about that. Doctor's orders. Her own fault for barging into a therapy session, no matter how well intentioned. Not like anyone really heard it, anyhow."

Doctor Andrews muttering to herself scared me for a reason I couldn't put words to, so I replied to the half-heard mumble. "Why didn't anyone hear it?"

"Because I chased them all out a few minutes before you really broke through."

"So why did the Captain come down?"

She shrugged, "Might have been to see how you were doing. It was closing on your normal workout time, after all, and you weren't anywhere near the gym. She might have heard the screaming, too. Unlikely, she's deaf as a post, but she might have."

"How does she know when I work out?"

"She's the Captain."

I thought about what I'd done as Cadet Captain, the perusal of files, the memorization of official schedules. Heat washed over me. "Okay. You need a night's sleep, Doc."

"So do you. Without me holding things back. We need to work out how we're going to do that."

"Aren't... don't you decide that?"

"Only in that I give you the options, then help you put them into place."

"Why do I have to do it?" I hated myself when I whined. Whining smacked of immaturity, and it sounded off pitch, too.

"Because you're too strong, Dustie." She whispered. "I have just enough strength left to do the most radical procedures. Anything else would require strength I just don't have. I don't think I've ever had that much."

"I'm not strong. If I were strong I wouldn't have nightmares."

"Cadet Dabig! Repeat what you told me about yourself!"

The doctor's barked orders reached down to the base of my spine, ripped me upright, and forced words from my mouth before I could stop myself. "I am not a coward! I am excellent!"

She sagged, strength pouring out of her by the moment. "That's better. Your nightmares have a cause, and I don't have time or strength to give you all the details right now. Suffice to say there are two sets of poorly suppressed memories vying for your conscious attention, and the most horrible of them are washing over you turn and turn again at night."

"Can you get rid of them? All of them?" The thought of freedom taunted me. Hope lied. I mustn't hope.

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"That's one option."

Hope always lied. "What's the cost?"

"You will lose things. I don't know what, we haven't time to detail that out. You might never notice, or you might notice tomorrow when you can't dress yourself. I just don't know."

I glanced down my front at the sweat and grime-soaked exercise gear covering me and thought about wandering around with this or less on until I relearned clothing. Inability to dress; bad. "What are the other options?"

"One of the sets of memories, the smaller one, is from your mother. The other is from your father. I could remove just one of them. Either one, your choice. You'd lose things, although the smaller would have less loss. Greater risk, but less loss."

Hope again... "Risk of what?"

"You... might not wake up you. You might wake up Dustin Dabig... Or Grace Li, if I took his memories away." Why did sadness fill her voice, and tears her eyes? My head spun. I really hadn't slept that much since my injury and recovery.

"Any other options?"

"It requires more trust than the others."

I'd trusted her with my soul. I couldn't trust more than that. "Go on."

"I am going to do something to your mind which will affect your vision. May I?"

I shrugged. "Sure."

A tiny pinprick of blue light strobed once in the lower left corner of my vision. A moment later, another, this time pink, flashed to my lower right.

"Do you see those?"

"Blue light to my lower left, pink on the lower right."

"Good, good. I can thread those through the memories. Through most of them. When those memories overcome you, you'll have that visual cue. It might be enough to disrupt immersion by itself..." The wavering in her voice came from more than fatigue. Hope lied.

"Might?"

"It might not. Between yourself, your father, and your mother, I can't tell who's strongest. Was. Might still be, if everything goes exactly wrong." The wavering in the doc's voice came at least partially from fatigue. I didn't have time to mess around with half-baked clutter.

"What good will it be, then? I'll just have a pretty nightlight in my dreams of being torn apart?"

"Well... yes. Remember what a nightlight is, Dustie."

"Never had one. Mother couldn't sleep with one on."

Anger sharpened the doc's focus for a moment. "Remember that word you used in reference to Her Imperial Highness?"

"You mean b..."

"Don't repeat it. But I heartily concur." She stopped, winded, visibly gathering her thoughts. I waited. "A night light is a beacon in the dark. Use it. Like that."

"I'm supposed to use it as a beacon."

"Yes."

"A beacon to where?"

She lifted her gaze from the floor to meet my eyes. Crow's feet radiated from her bruised eyes. She looked... wrong. Grotesque. She looked... She looked the way she did because she'd been caring for me instead of herself.

She was talking, and I was missing it. "...anywhere you like, Dustie. I can't take you there. Not every time. Maybe after I've rested a bit, I'll be able to. Maybe I'll be able to block them entirely, like this, for a while again to give you a break. But for now, this is everything I can do."

"Can we still remove them later?"

Her head jerked down and up, once, as she caught her breath.

"Okay. We do the lights thing then. What do you need me to do?"

Doctor Andrews lowered her eyes and exhaled, a long, drawn out breath. Her shoulders squared, her spine straightened. Even as it did, a weight settled onto me. I'd carried it before, but never noticed until someone took it away. I'd carried it every day of my life, after all.

The doctor inhaled, inflating as she did. When her eyes opened, the crow's feet, at least, were gone. The bruises remained, as did the lank hair and the sag to her cheeks. Her smile returned, though, and that made the weight on my own shoulders worthwhile. "I'll need you to go to sleep soon, but not right away. I need a little time to work. You don't need to stick around, though. I've worked with you enough now that I can keep tabs on you at a distance. Why don't you go get some food before you head to your room for that nap?"

I stared at her, suppressed fear and hope battling in my gut. Hope lied.

"Dustie? Is that you in there?"

"Of course it's me!"

"Who's your father?"

I rolled my eyes. "Daddy is Dustin Dabig, Mommy is Grace Li the bi..."

"Dustie!"

Seeing her bouncing back to normal sent a happy thrill through me, one that overrode terror and even swamped lying hope for a while. "I was gonna say billionaire bicycling business bimbo, I swear!"

"Go get some food, Dustie. I'll see you tomorrow after ATT."

I hopped off the exam table, my springy doll feet catching the infinite yet negligible extra weight of my parent's memories effortlessly. I snapped a salute to the doctor, waited until she waved one back at me, then proceeded to spin on my heel and march out the med bay door.

If I headed to my last meal, I would march there like a soldier, with a defiant smile on my lips.

I hoped Tiamat had some mashed potatoes left for a condemned woman.