‘Barroom Girls’ is from Gillian Welch’s premier album ‘Revival’, co-written with David Rawlings.

No copyright infringement is meant or profit sought from their work, nor, of course from anything (or anyone) owned by Paramount/Viacom.

Yesterday's Pearl
By: Turtlewoman
Rating: G
Written: Jan. 99

"Oh the night came undone like a party dress
And fell at her feet in a beautiful mess
The smoke and the whiskey came home in her curls
And they crept through the dreams of the barroom girls"

The Ensign staggered toward the door and, with voice blurred and thick, said, "Computer, end program." Around him Sandrine’s flickered and was gone. Nothing was left but the grid, pulsing strings of data, confining the parameters of desires, dreams and delusions to a black empty box. Nothing was left but the grid and she. She was left. The scent of his whiskeyed sweat still clung to her and she the felt the echo of his hand upon her waist. Her Tommy, her brazen, bitter Tommy, grasping for his long ignored cohort, was back. She was not pleased.

They had come in earlier this evening, he and his friends. How much time had passed since they had last come to her? It was so hard to tell, so hard to remember. He had designed her with Sandrine’s booze besotted brain. And this Sandrine’s programmed engrams had to slip past so many firewalls that a shadow’s memory was all that remained. "A shadow’s memory of a shadow man. I wax philosophical tonight," she thought with a grim laugh, "Push away this pointless musing. Concentrate, concentrate. Burn in these memories before they are gone!"

He had come with his friends. More people came throughout the night. Some would hug him or clap him on the back and laugh. Yet the laughter and jokes seemed brittle, forced. There was an undercurrent of discomfort here. People hadn’t studied their lines, did not know their parts. Each was left grasping to fill in the awkward silences until they could politely leave again. At first he appeared unconcerned, presenting a brash and charming mask, but his confidence ended where his skin began and the underlying tension was making that skin crawl. She had seen this face too many times to be fooled. This face she remembered from a time before this, from an existence before this. This is how he looked when he was drinking, really drinking. No synthohol for him, not for her Tommy. This was straight bootleg, smuggled in to celebrate his first day of freedom. At first he just sipped his whiskey and made light little jokes about his ‘vacation’. His sips became longer and deeper as he tried to fill the silence. His patter became louder, cruder and meaner.

"She tried to blow me out of the water, know that? I try to save a water world and get damn near shot to pieces by a Captain made of ice water. Isn’t that ironic? Don’t you find that damn, funny ironic?"

"Tom, this isn’t the place," B’Elanna cautioned him. A number of people quickly finished their drinks and left. What people remained began to shift and mumble.

He continued, oblivious, punching his words out, "Ice water! They’ll make her Admiral when we get back, Admiral Ice Water. My father will be so proud. One of his own little cadre of superior people makes good. She may stamp on us all the way back, but she sure as hell is going to get back to collect her accolades on a job well done!"

"Tom, that’s enough!" Harry tried to push him back into his chair.

He fought him off. "What’s the matter with you? You were pissed when she ordered that depth charge launched."

"She’s still my Captain. It was her call. Come on Tom, let’s call it a night."

Tom slid out of his chair, evading his friends. "Screw that! The party’s just started. Loosen up…. Starfleet."

Harry gave up and left in disgust. Before long Tom had only B’Elanna and a bar full of holographic companions. He got cruder, louder and sloppier until even she’d had enough of trying to deal with his drunken, repetitive invective.

Tom turned to Sandrine. "Just you and me now. Just like the old days. We don’t need ‘em. Come dance with me." He swirled her around and around, his words and actions winding down under the whiskey until he forgot she was there and staggered out the door. She struggled to remember every word. Each word stored now she would resurrect at her next incarnation.

He became a regular, staying long after everyone else left. She played her part, laughing and dancing, but a little less well each time. Something in her was repelled. She remembered a time before this programmed existence when they both danced day after day in a drunken haze. She wondered why he had made those memories part of this construct. But she had more than the memories he gave her. She remembered the times in this place, when he was prouder and stronger, not this sniveling, whining, little man. She was prouder, stronger now too….not a blowsy fading rose. Each time she danced with him, she felt he was sucking them both back. No, she would not be a part of it.

"Tommy, I do not want to dance and I do not wish to listen to your complaints any longer."

"What? How can you want anything? You’re a…" he sputtered to a halt, not sure how to explain it.

"I am a construct, a hologram, not ‘real’…is this what you are trying to say?"

"How could you know that!?"

"It is enough that I know. Your Doctor has changed more than his own engrams with his tinkering. This is not important now. You are. What is this? Why are you going backwards?"

"I told you….my Captain…"

"Oh, stop Tommy…you have been telling me this story night after night! You still want your actions free of consequences? Even a hologram is capable of more growth than that!"

"You’ve changed. You always accepted me the way I was."

"No Tommy. I always accepted you the way you wanted to be. Is this the way you want to be?"

"No." he whispered.

"Do you remember when we would sit outside the bistro and look at the stars and the moon…you would tell me your dreams…how you would fly again? How it would feel, if only you could get another chance?"

"Ah the string of pearls…..we would fly from star to star. "

"Where are we Tommy?"

Tommy looked at her, hearing the words behind her words. Finally, he stood.

Quietly he took her hands in his, giving them a gentle squeeze. "You will excuse me, I have to go fix something I broke."

He walked to the portal, turned and gave her a little salute. She smiled, nodding her head to him, shooing him out with her hands. "Computer, end program."

Sandrine stood willing remembrance, but the narcotic pull of non-being was becoming stronger and stronger. She grasped at self-awareness, reaching futilely for… what? She couldn’t remember. Only the stars. She closed her eyes and remembered the stars. Slowly sentience faded and she slipped softly back into the void.

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