Dreams Into Waking

Star Trek DS9 Fanfiction
Title:	Dreams Into Waking
Author(s):	Carolyn R. Fulton
Date(s):	1996
Length:
Genre:
Fandom:	Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
External Links:	Basilisk AO3
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Dreams Into Waking is a Star Trek: DS9 story by Carolyn R. Fulton.

It is a Kira/Odo story and has a sequel called Basilisk.

The story was posted to alt.startrek.creative and was also published in Love and Justice.

Reactions and Reviews

Okay. Despite my better judgment I started reading this earlier this week. I hadn't eaten yet, badly needed a cup of tea, was fighting a vicious sinus headache and had a dozen other things to do that my tired brain was vegging on, but guess what? This story made me _forget_ all that ... and it wasn't my first time reading it. (or even my third or fourth for that matter <g>) It is just *that* good and I felt it was past time I said that to Carolyn and to any newbies on the group who've overlooked it.

When I first read "Dreams Into Waking", I'd long been on the net, but was still fairly new to net-fic, being more of a fanzine person. This story truly opened my eyes. It was the first Odo/Kira romance I read that knocked my figurative socks off. It was also the first one I could *believe*, and trust me, it is hard to write these two characters! Odo and Kira are nigh-perfect for each other, but they are also both stubborn as two mules and edgy about romance, to boot. <g>

However, in this story, (which could easily be a wonderful script if TPTB are ever in a receptive frame of mind) Carolyn Fulton manages to deftly pair our two reluctant lovebirds together and keeps them true to character, providing us some unforgettable moments in the process. I won't give any of it away, go read it for yourself! Read it already? Read it again. You won't be sorry. It is full of delightful moments and tender passages that still spring to mind at times when I watch DS9 and think, "Ah ... what if?" *sigh* ... what if, indeed.

A nice story, although I still prefer "The Fire Rose", but then it was more towards comedy. This story had more pain involved -- not that I *mind* a bit of h/c with certain characters, but I tend to think that Odo's kind of been hurt enough in his life! OK, so you gotta have pain to have drama, yadda yadda yadda... Actually, I think the reason this one isn't higher up on my personal favorites list -- it *was* a good story, better than the "Essentials", either version, or "Basilisk" or "Third Moon Rising", I think -- is the virus thing. When faced with the spectacle of Kira sleepwalking right into Odo's quarters and seducing him, I naturally attributed it to her subconscious finally getting smarter than her waking mind and taking matters into its own hands, so to speak. The viral thing at the end felt very deus ex machina-y to me: tacked on to explain something that I was content to leave without explanation. *OK*, so people don't *really* sleepwalk into other people's beds because they can't admit to their conscious minds that they're in love with that person, *but*... *All right, already* -- so a lot of people would prefer an excuse -- er, logical explanation -- for Kira's nocturnal fit of hormones/reason, but the old "alien virus" bit is so, :ahem:, "well-used" on Trek it almost deserves its own acronym, like Yet Another Transporter Accident/YATA. (I should just be grateful it didn't involve a holodeck malfunction!) And then, to top it all off, that dreaming crystal of Odo's... *Why* was *that* in there? Does *he* need any outside help, or any excuse, to be having kinky dreams about Kira? *He* was never sleepwalking! The opening would work as well with *any* Gamma Quadrant/Founder artifact, and as for the ending -- any number of accidents could have laid Odo up in the infirmary, without him smashing a crystal... I take that back. Smashing the crystal in a fit of temper is perfectly in character for him under that kind of a provocation -- as seen in "Crossfire" -- and it doesn't have to be a "dreaming crystal" for the shards to be poisonous to changelings. The "having Kira tell the comatose Odo she loves him to bring him back to consciousness" occurs all over the place (and in many other stories with the characters replaced by others), which, come to think of it, is maybe a good reason to come up with a *reason* for Kira deciding she loves Odo to have a genuine effect in this case. Or maybe not. The whole scene is *still* straight from the land of movie cliche. I'm rambling. I'm crystallizing all this out in my mind as I type -- aside from rumbles of discontent at the "true love virus"/"dream crystal" aspects when I finished reading it from the original post, I hadn't really thought through all the aspects of *why* I didn't really approve of either of those plot devices. But then, I get nitpicky over the smallest things, don't I? (Remembering the lengthy back-and-forth posts over the timing of the final part of "Unexpected Dividends".)

basically a classic romance novel (although it's more novella length) in which kira starts having surprising erotic dreams. far better than your average harlequin, quite good, but still a bit sentimental for my taste.