Finding Home
by Philippe de la Matraque
Sequel to Alien Us
Chapter Fifteen
Malcolm Reed sat, knee bouncing, in a lawn chair surrounded closely on three sides by his therapist and his new family. A month ago, he'd found himself calling Elaine, Mom and Charles, Dad. He used the American terms as they were his American family. And both had smiled when he did. Mom had even hugged him, which only reinforced what Trevon had said.
What his father didn't know—and probably never would—was that, painful as it had been, Malcolm counted his worst psychological crisis now a blessing. Because of Trevon's patience in helping him see the truth of his birth parents and the love and acceptance of Trip's family, he felt he had a rebirth of sorts. His past didn't change, but it had led him here, ready to share a brief history of what happened in Sharu with three people who never asked.
His knee bounced because it still wasn't easy. But it was part of his healing. And he trusted Mom, Dad, and Miguel. "Less than a year ago," he began, "maybe six or seven months, I was sent on a mission with a MACO, Corporal Moody, and Ensign Hoshi Sato, our Chief Communication Officer, to retrieve someone who didn't belong on a pre-warp planet. We'd intercepted a mysterious subspace transmission. We hit something on the way down, lost power, and crashed on the planet. What we didn't know was that thing we hit caused us to travel back in time as we crashed. We crashed one year before we ever left."
That part was easy enough. It raised some eyebrows but, though the time travel was an important detail in the story, its mechanics was not. "Corporal Moody died on impact. Hoshi and I were injured but mobile. We hoped to reach a forest we'd seen on the way down before any natives found us. We weren't so lucky."
At that point, Lily jumped into his lap and curled up, forcing him to keep his leg still. She'd gotten pretty good at sensing when he got too tense or stressed. She purred and the vibration grounded him. "At first, it wasn't bad. They healed our wounds, did cursory exams. We didn't look like them at all. They were reptilian and looked a bit like our dinosaurs, if dinosaurs were smaller and wore military uniforms and lab coats. The ones that looked more like T-Rexes with long arms were the military. The ones in lab coats were more like pterodactyls that don't fly. They came in two sizes. The big ones were doctors and such, while the smaller ones were orderlies or nurses. They were all male."
"How did they reproduce without females?" Miguel asked.
"Oh, there were females," Malcolm answered. "But I never saw or interacted with them. And they only mate once every three years. We crashed at the start of the third year. That will come into play later."
He stroked Lily as he spoke. He'd covered the easier parts. He didn't plan on mentioning the collection of semen, or every single 'surgery.' They'd be there all night.
Now for the hard part. "After a month, they grabbed us and drugged us. We lost consciousness for a while." He took a deep breath and swallowed. "We woke up during the surgery. I could feel them cutting me, reaching in, the pain. I could hear them talking in very clinical tones. It felt like it went on for hours, and I wanted to die. Hoshi confirmed it happened to her as well."
Mom was on his right, and she put a hand on his arm and squeezed. He went on. "They took Hoshi away about a month later. I didn't know that though. They took me to surgery again. I woke up during it. I found out she was gone after. They concentrated on different regions of my body. Every surgery was the same though, in that I was awake. They'd keep me in a coma for a week after, allow my body to heal the rest of the month and do it again."
"Every month?" Dad asked, horrified.
Malcolm shook his head. "They eventually had explored just about everything surgically. So they tried chemicals on my skin, heat and cold tolerance. But when they opened my head, something else happened." He looked at Trevon, who nodded his encouragement. "I thought a thought to Hoshi, that I was glad she wasn't there to suffer as I had. And she answered." Raised eyebrows again.
Trevon cleared his throat. "Malcolm's telepathy is very different from mine. In some ways, it is more limited and in other ways it's much more expansive. He's limited in recipients. Not everyone can hear him. This Hoshi Sato could, and even on the other side of the planet. With time and practice, they could not only communicate, but share sight and sounds, and even sensation. With me, he can share memories and it's like I'm there having the same experience."
Miguel turned to face him. "Did he share one of those surgeries?"
Trevon blew out a breath. "Not intentionally, but yes, I have felt that in some of his unguarded moments early on."
"Talking with Hoshi," Malcolm went on, "changed everything. It was still horrid and looked more and more like we were left behind. But we weren't alone. We had each other. We told each other stories during the bad times, and we fell in love there half a world apart."
The next part was the hardest, and he felt his heart begin to pound. "As we came closer to the end of the year…." He paused for another breath. "Things changed. They tried harder to make me speak. They were more aggressive in their experiments, and one of the military was always there. They drugged me, but Hoshi could help. She'd tell me what to say. She's a linguist. We told the story of The Lord of the Rings in quite a few different languages. They let the T-Rex—my codename for the military guy—They let him pound on my leg until it broke. And he pushed me into a tub of water." His voice decreased to a whisper. "And drowned me. Twice."
He took a few shaking breaths, and Lily pushed against his chest. "Trip explained later that it was their mating time, so testosterone was high. And they switch ruling species around that, so the military was gaining power over the scientists. I had to have surgery on my leg, my chest. Awake. But somewhere during the coma, one of the orderlies—I called him Smeagol, but his name was Bayzhoo. He helped me in small ways before this. Like, he gave me a small amount of water in secret during the heat experiment. Now he had my communicator, and he gave it to me to call for help. Hoshi helped me with the message. Then I was out again."
"Wait," Dad said, lifting a finger. "You went after a message then crashed a year in the past—"
Malcolm nodded. "Yes, it was my message."
"But you didn't know," Elaine argued.
"I didn't," Malcolm agreed. "When I woke up again, I was being dragged into a room where the T-Rex was interrogating Bayzhoo. He killed him, then left me in that room with the body. A little while later and even bigger T-Rex roughed me up some more, then they dragged me out into the desert, laid me on the side of a hill, held me down, and pounded large stakes through my wrists, one at a time." He opened and closed his fists to remind himself that he could. Lily pulled one hand back for more petting and he obliged. "There were cables in my ankles, holding my legs up, pinching the nerves. Two pulled my legs out, and one pulled them together. They left me there in the sun to die."
Mom took his other hand and squeezed it in her two.
"That night—after I told Hoshi goodbye—Trip found me. Took me back to Enterprise and my parents said to take me off life support. Apparently, I came very close to dying, but I didn't."
"Did they rescue Hoshi?" Miguel asked.
Malcolm nodded. "Yes, she didn't suffer the same as me. They put her to work with their females. Farm work. And then, they would regularly take her back to the lab to, um, well, to impregnate her with a clone of me."
Miguel squinted. "Why?"
It was easier again. "Their females are less evolved. Not as smart or sophisticated. So they apparently didn't think any females could be equal to males. She had to be like their females. They never tried to talk to her or make her talk. The country she was in had to settle for the female alien. They wanted a male. So they wanted to clone me."
"So she was okay," Mom surmised, "when they found her, your crew."
"Well, no," Malcolm told her. "We didn't have a life there. No future. We didn't think Enterprise was coming anymore. We were no better than lab rats, or zoo animals, a slave. When she knew I was dying, she hatched a plan to join me. She almost succeeded. She nearly froze to death. Fractured hip, arm, jaw. She did heal faster than I. But we did manage to have a date before I had a heart attack. They sent me home for a heart. She had to stay for some secret mission." He sighed. God, he missed her.
"That must be hard," Mom said, "having her in your head all that time and now—"
"Nothing," Malcolm breathed. "I guess I can reach the other side of a planet, but not light-years through space."
"She probably feels the same," Miguel said. "She had you in her head."
Malcolm nodded. "I think everything might have been easier—even with my parents—if she'd been here. But Mom, you told me stories of Lizzie, and Dad, you talked about the kittens and Trip. Miguel you've shared stories of Albert and Owen. You took me in when I was at my lowest. And you're helping me to heal what I didn't know was broken."
"Did you experience any flashbacks in the telling?" Trevon asked silently.
No, Malcolm replied likewise. It hurt, but not as much as I thought it would.
Hoshi Sato looked out at the stars streaking by the windows. She was relieved that they were now heading home. But she thought she'd be happier than she felt. She was still twenty-one days from seeing Malcolm or talking to her parents. Trip had assured her the engines were running perfectly and that they could not go any faster.
Phlox was patiently waiting for an answer.
"I feel," Hoshi started. It should be easy to answer. But she didn't just feel one thing. "I feel glad, anxious, worried, impatient…."
"It's perfectly fine to feel many different and even contradictory emotions," Phlox said in response. "Though perhaps it would be healthier to entertain one feeling at a time. Can you allow yourself to be happy for one hour? Or agree to set aside worry for a time?"
"I don't think I can do happy," she told him. "I can distract myself from worrying if I have something to keep me busy. But now that the negotiations are over, but still no external communications, I don't have much work to do." There was always the UT. She'd envisioned it as a tool for real-time translation for all parties conversing. A human speaking English with a Tellerite would hear English, while the Tellerite would hear his own language. They could manage it with some species fairly well, like the Vulcans. But it needed to work for first contacts, too. They were still a long way from that.
"You're officially on leave," the doctor reminded her. "You needn't be working at all. What about hobbies?"
"Like what?" She really didn't know. She'd run an illegal poker ring at the Academy. Did that count?
Phlox sounded surprised. "What did you do in your spare time before the crash?"
She spent time with Cutler and Travis. Girl talk with Cutler and a few other female colleagues. With Travis, it was usually watching movies. She didn't need girl talk anymore. She'd found the man she wanted to keep. "Sometimes I'd cook."
"And what did you like to do back on Earth before you joined Enterprise?"
She had to think. That had been a few years ago. She'd been teaching in Brazil. She went on excursions into the Amazon Forest to learn the languages of the tribal people that still chose to live there. She played poker. Her mother had sent her a Bonsai tree. "None that I could do here in twenty-one days. Except maybe go to Hydroponics and help something grow. I had a Bonsai tree back there."
"Ah, those are the miniature trees?" Phlox smiled but not to his widest. "I do believe Lt. Carrillo picked up some saplings from M476234 a few months back. Perhaps you could start a Bonsai. You can always take it with you to Earth."
Tending a Bonsai was a calming exercise. "Okay, but not every tree is compatible with the process. And it doesn't take up much of a day."
"What about art?"
"What about it?" she repeated. "I'm not much of an artist."
"Perhaps as a therapeutic exercise then," he offered, as patient as ever. "To exorcise your demons, as they say. And you needn't draw. You can use compository software. Find images that most closely represent what you have in mind."
Probably easy enough, she figured. Start with dinosaurs, scale them down and dress them up. "I don't want to think about the orcs," she said instead. "I'd like a whole day where they don't even cross my mind. How would putting them in images help me do that?"
"Hoshi, you know that sharing the story helps it become less painful. Sharing it in a different way can do the same."
Wasn't that similar to what she'd told Malcolm, or wished she'd told Malcolm? "Fine, I'll try it. Still a lot of day to fill. And the days feel longer now that we're heading home but are still so far away."
He wasn't deterred by her pessimism. "Perhaps T'Pol can help you fill another hour with meditation?"
"No." She negated that right away. "That's like mindfulness. And I try, I really do, but when my mind has little to think of, it goes back to Sharu or to Malcolm."
"Hoshi," he said, in a tone that carried a bit of exasperated patience, "your anxiety for Malcolm will not change his condition on Earth for better or for worse." Phlox reached forward and took her hand. "It only hurts you. Your cortisol levels increased sharply since Commander Tucker returned, and they've only decreased slightly since you were relieved of the negotiations to now. You will learn his true condition in three weeks' time."
Of course, it didn't change Malcolm's condition. But she just couldn't help it. "But when I think of him—and I want to think of him—I end up picturing him pinned in the desert or catatonic in Mississippi. I know he has a therapist and Trip's family but I just can't seem to imagine him well and whole. I want to, I really do. I want to daydream about what life together might be like. I just get stuck."
"The uncertainty makes it worse?" Phlox asked. "Would you like to know what happened in the desert? I can relieve that uncertainty. Though it is very unpleasant."
She felt tears well up in her eyes but she nodded. "Can it be worse than what I imagine?"
Phlox squeezed her hands. "It might. We know from the scientists' records that he was injured before being taken to the desert. His femur had been previously broken as had his sternum. He was in a medically-induced, rehabilitative coma after surgery to repair those injuries when he was revived. It would seem he was violently beaten or roughed up prior to the desert as well. They laid him on the side of a hill, head down. There was a bruise I believe came from a foot of a large 'orc,' as you call them." He put his other hand to his own chest to demonstrate. "His arms were bent to ninety-degree angles and large stakes were driven into his wrists and then into large wooden blocks in the sand."
The tears slipped down Hoshi's cheeks. "And his legs?"
"Cables, two on the outside, pulling his legs apart. One between them, pulling them together. Where they crossed, they pinched the nerves. He couldn't rest his legs without causing even more pain. A defibrillator was attached to his chest, to keep him alive as long as possible."
Hoshi sobbed now. Phlox moved close and pulled her into a hug. "Is it better to know?"
She nodded against his shoulder. "I thought of worse, but it's terrible. When they started, I was doing the morning feeding. He held on in that heat and sun. I kept telling him stories. It was cold at night when he told me goodbye."
Phlox patted her back. "Now imagine him waking from surgery and a few days later, writing your letters. He could move all his fingers. He could walk a short way. He could breathe easily; his heart could beat strongly. He was well and healing. He was whole."
And she found she could. He'd written that his new heart loved her; it beat faster when he thought of her. But it was healthy, as were his nerves and even his eye. He'd said he would someday sweep her off her feet.
Malcolm finished feeding Lilibet and Seena, then headed for the shed. Lily had beautiful, dark brown points and big, blue eyes. And she had become his little shadow. Seena was Trevon's chosen kitten, the calico. The older couple he stayed with was allergic, so Malcolm agreed to care for them both until Trevon moved back to San Francisco. As such, Malcolm got the benefit of both of them sleeping with him, which was comforting and helped him get back to sleep after a nightmare. The other three kittens had been adopted out. The mother cat, now spayed, didn't much like people touching her and preferred to stay outside. But the family put food out for her and she stayed close.
Mom pretended she wasn't a cat person, but he'd caught her giving the kittens treats when she woke up late at night. Although that wasn't as often as before, for her or for Malcolm. They were both feeling much better rested.
Miguel only visited every few weeks now to do the obligatory checkups. Malcolm was feeling physically well now. He could walk and even run—in short bursts. The splints had come off, and he now got to work on something more interesting than picking up pegs with a pair of tweezers. Starfleet R&D had supplied him with the parts, and Malcolm had taken up working in the shed. He started with a replica of the force field he'd stabilized before. It was practically easy now. But it was still static, in only one plane. He was trying to find a way to bend and shape it. It kept his mind and hands busy. Though he wished he could brainstorm with Trip sometimes.
He was using an even smaller working replica to try and shape it around a simple cube when Dad yelled out the back door off the kitchen. "Malcolm, you have a visitor."
For just a moment, he hoped it was Trip, with Hoshi, and that Enterprise had returned. But he knew that was unlikely without some advanced notice. It wasn't Trevon. He wasn't due for another hour. Malcolm turned off the little force field and walked back to the house. He was surprised to see Dr. MacCormack having coffee at the table. She stood. "Hello, Lieutenant. Do you remember me?"
"I do," he replied and offered his hand. "You've come a long way."
Dad tactfully slipped off to the living room. The doctor smiled. "You are technically still my patient. I wanted to see you for myself before signing off on a declaration of fit for light duty." She took a scanner from her pocket. "May I?"
"Absolutely." Malcolm held his wrists out to her, let her scan his chest, take readings on his eye. It only took a few minutes.
She snapped the scanner closed. "You're still too thin, and need to continue training for strength and endurance, if you wish to return to tactical service. R&D had expressed an interest in you staying on and joining the team in San Francisco."
Malcolm wasn't sure what he wanted, and he didn't have Hoshi's input on the matter. "I'm keeping my options open at the moment. If it's 'fit for light duty', does that mean I need to report somewhere?"
She shook her head. "No, Lieutenant. You're fit for light duty but still officially on indefinite leave. You're still on the roster with Enterprise, and Enterprise is at an undisclosed location." She sat again, holding out an arm to indicate he should sit as well. "When I last saw you, I was very concerned for your mental health. Dr. Trevon has given me regular reports—not of private thoughts or feelings—but of your overall health. I was very glad to watch your progress. I'm sure you still have reasons to keep working with your therapist, but all told, you seem to be in a much better place."
Literally and figuratively, he thought. "I do feel much better. I would like to ask you something, if I may."
"Certainly," she replied.
"Can you tell me about your interactions with my sister?" The doctor was one of the last people to see and talk to Madeline.
She nodded. "Madeline Reed was determined. She came with a declaration by her doctor that she was of sound mind when she made the decision. She fought for it. We took some samples to test compatibility, and she proved to be highly compatible. The day before surgery, she returned. She wanted to see you. She started to cry and I helped her to imagine what you'd be like now, all healed up. She had a spell that night, in the hospital. A bad one. We put another bed in your room, and she slept there after the spell had passed.
"In the morning, she and her nurse took a flight around the city to see some of the iconic architecture of San Francisco. Then she came back. We prepped her for surgery. I explained the procedure and put the controller in her hands. It would push her into a spell and brain death. She wanted to say something first. She said, 'Malcolm first. Anything I have that he needs. Then the others. My brain goes to research. Maybe they'll find a way to treat these damn tumors. Don't tell my parents what I've done. Darlene will inform them.' Then she pushed the lever."
"Darlene?" He hadn't heard that name before.
She nodded. "Her nurse and companion. Scrubbed in and stayed with her right to the end."
Malcolm wanted to find this Darlene. "Do you happen to know Darlene's surname?"
"Not off hand," MacCormack replied. "But she scrubbed in, so she'll be on the surgical report. I can get that for you."
"Thank you," Malcolm offered. "My sister left me her flat in London. Maybe I can look this Darlene up. I have her journal as well. She said she was happy, that her death would mean something if she could help me." He felt his throat tighten. "I wish we'd stayed in better touch."
MacCormack reached out and covered his hands with hers. "I could tell she loved you very much, and I think she'd be glad to see you as you are now." She finished her coffee. "I should be getting back. I have a hospital to run. It was good to see, Lieutenant. Stay well, whatever you decide." He walked her to the door.
Hoshi woke up and marked the day on the PADD with Malcolm's letters. Fifteen more days to Earth. She sighed deeply, but got up and took a shower. She put on her civies after and tied her hair in a ponytail.
She'd promised to meet up with Travis for breakfast. So she walked to the turbolift and told herself it had been ten days already. Time was actually passing. It didn't feel like it. She felt like she was in some kind of limbo, stuck in the same day over and over again. Though she rationally knew that wasn't possible, and she'd had breakfast with Cutler, Phlox, and Trip in the past week, too.
She still worried about Malcolm and what his father's outburst had done to him, but the rational idea that he's had time and therapy to heal in Trip's family's home had started to sink in as well. He was likely better off than when Trip returned. Would she hear him as they got closer to Earth? He had reached her in Buftanis. They didn't know his maximum range. Would he know they were coming to even try? They couldn't contact Starfleet Command until they entered the solar system and not their families until two hours after the ambassador disembarked. Surely, she'd be able to hear him from orbit. Wouldn't she? Would he be ready to hear from her? Or would she have to wait for him to initiate? How could he know to do that if she couldn't contact him for over two hours?
She was still running scenarios when she got in line for food. Pancakes. She put two on her plate then spread some peanut butter on both before pouring on her syrup.
Travis smiled as he shook his head. "He converted you, didn't he?"
Hoshi smiled, too, remembering the earlier part of their date. "Have you even tried it?"
"Can't say I have," he replied. "My aunt, though, used to swear that peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches were good. I never wanted to try that either."
Hoshi cut off a bit and put in her mouth. She found it sticky, as before, but just as tasty. She wanted to wash it down but realized she'd forgotten a drink. "I forgot my milk." She started to get up, but Travis waved her back.
"I'll get it. Go ahead and eat."
He was back quickly and she took a sip to wet her mouth a little. "Are we going as fast as we can?" she asked.
"Solid warp five," he answered. "Trip says the engines are purring, so we'll get there on time. What do you have planned for the day?"
Hoshi blew out a breath. It was pretty much the same as yesterday. "I started a bonsai with one of the saplings Lt. Carrillo brought back. Phlox wants me to do some composite drawings. Otherwise, I'll probably work out, meet with Phlox, and maybe work on the UT some."
"Carstairs has been going a little stir crazy on the bridge," Travis told her. "Not much for a communications officer to do when we're running radio silent." He smirked. "Not much for a helmsman to do either really. Keep it pointed home and going fast. Straight lines are kind of boring."
"I would have thought I would enjoy a little boredom," Hoshi admitted, "after working hard in the fields or shoveling snow. But it just makes the days seem longer, even when I can't get my thoughts to slow down."
Travis leaned across the table. "Didn't I hear you used to run a poker ring at the Academy?"
Hoshi nodded. "And I got kicked out of the Academy."
"For a poker ring?" he asked, sitting back.
She shook her head and smiled. "For breaking the arm of the guy trying to break it up."
Travis chuckled. "Ouch. Glad they let you back in. Anyway, maybe we could get a couple others and have a friendly game. Renfield has a deck. He likes playing solitaire."
Hoshi found she liked the idea. "Anyone have chips?"
"Not that I know," Travis replied. "But I'm sure Trip'll have some nuts and bolts we can use instead. Want me to ask?"
Poker could kill a couple more hours. "Okay. I have to meet with Phlox at 1700. How about 1830?"
Malcolm watched the weather report along with Mom and Dad. Hurricane Griselda was projected to head into the gulf and onto the mainland. They were far enough inland to not have to worry about the full force of a hurricane, but even as a tropical storm, it could be rough. Malcolm wasn't too worried. Dad had assured them that he'd been through several actual hurricanes back in Florida. Houses these days were built to withstand much worse. Flooding was the only thing they needed to bother with. Houses and buildings could be sealed up tight, but water could still saturate the ground and come up that way. It could trap people until boats or flitters could get them out or drop supplies.
They were seventeen kilometers from the nearest river, so that wasn't an issue Malcolm concerned himself with. He managed to get the force field to curve around a cylinder by having the emitter project out and down, like an umbrella. Where it met another projection, it flattened and joined.
The report said Griselda would make landfall in eight days. He had that long, then, to get his force field to cover the house.
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