Finding Home
by Philippe de la Matraque
Sequel to Alien Us

Chapter Four

**One month in the past**

**One month in the past**

Oh, Malcolm! What happened?" Madeline had tears in her eyes. She wore a device on her wrist that was showing a green color on its display. "Here I've been bemoaning my upcoming lack of existence while you almost died just the other day! When Mother told me, I admit I heard a bit of sadness in her voice. But it hit me like a three-ton weight to the chest. They ordered you off life-support. I couldn't believe it! When I asked if they'd seen you, she said no and that it would have been too taxing. Taxing? For them?" She rolled her eyes and threw up her hands in disgust.

She sighed and focused again. "I was devastated. Would Mother and Father now be left with no descendants at all? Would they even cry for you? Mother's nearly in tears every time she sees me, and that's nearly every week now."

Madeline sighed and smiled at the camera. "But then you didn't die. I like to think you were too stubborn and wouldn't let them have the last say. You always did exceed expectations, didn't you? Others would think you too small, too sick with allergies. But you outswam them, excelled at martial arts, and shined with brilliance at maths and physics. Who would have thought that young man would go on to earn twenty-eight merit badges? You bested Father by two. Or who would have thought that one who suffered trauma as you did and our father's near-constant disapproval would still harbor such strong moral fiber?"

The smile faded and she wiped at her tears. "Oh, Malcolm, I was thrilled that you survived, but I know you must be in a very sorry state to have been so close to death. I don't pretend to know even one inkling of what befell you to bring you to that state. But at least you have survived and are expected to keep doing so, according to Mother.

"For the record, when I do see Father, he keeps his usual stiff upper lip and never breaks decorum. But I do see a softness in his eyes and occasionally hear a slight quiver in his voice. He speaks kindly to me, as always, but it's mother who frets and fawns. She still hopes in a miracle cure. It's stifling. I gave up on that weeks ago. Everything they try makes these tumors grow, not shrink."

Another tear made its way down her cheek. "Oh, I do hope they send you home to recuperate. Then I might get to see you one last time. Or at least one last time before I lose all my mental faculties altogether. If that does not come to pass, know then, that I love you, brother. I love you dearly. No Xindi brain cancer can take that away."

"Madeline, dear!" A woman's voice from another room. "Come and eat."

Madeline rolled her eyes again. "Mother's here. End recording."

Trip checked his messages every hour since he'd returned from his first meet and greet with R&D. Mom had teased that he'd wear a rut in the floor going back and forth. He'd returned home for lunch but then just stayed. Like his father had said, it beat mopin' in a waiting room.

Albert and Miguel had come over from Alabama, too, since they hadn't seen Trip for years. They brought their teenaged son, Owen, but the boy just sat on the couch playing video games on his tablet while the grown-ups talked.

Albert didn't say much really, beyond the usual small talk. It hurt Trip a little that his big brother couldn't separate his distaste for Starfleet from his little brother. Miguel, however, took him aside and asked about Malcolm's injuries. He was a home health nurse by trade, so Trip gave him a bit more of the details than he'd done with his parents but not so much about Malcolm being cut open every month or tortured later. But he did describe the way Malcolm had been found in the desert.

The message came just as everyone was gathering for dinner. Trip was the last to sit down. "Well?" his mother asked. She paused just as she was about to start dishing up the fish.

"He's out of surgery," Trip told the family. "Everything's lookin' good so far. They're gonna try waking him up tomorrow morning. I've gotta be there for that."

"It will be good for him to see a friendly face," Miguel suggested.

"That's my thinking," Trip agreed. He spooned a few hush puppies on his plate and passed the bowl around.

"I'm glad your friend is doing better," Albert said. Then he passed around the tartar sauce. "Owen, put that down. We're at the dinner table."

Owen rolled his eyes but put his tablet on the floor under his chair.

"How old are you now, Owen?" Trip asked, spooning some tartar sauce onto his own plate. The fish was perfectly seared and it smelled wonderful.

"Fourteen," the boy replied, with still a hint of his Irish brogue.

Trip was shocked. "Wow! You were a lot smaller the last time I saw you."

Miguel put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "He's really shot up this last year. He's almost taller than me now."

The fish was heavenly. No one could make it as good as Mom. Albert, Miguel, and Owen left soon after dinner. Owen had school the next morning. Mom had just a little bit of the pie left so she and Dad let Trip have it, knowing he'd leave early for San Francisco the next morning. Trip went to bed early with a full stomach and a homey feeling he hadn't realized he'd missed so much on Enterprise.

When he woke early the next day, he went to the kitchen hoping to make a quiet breakfast so Mom and Dad could sleep in.

"What would you like?" Trip spun around, surprised at his mother's voice. She was sitting on a bench in a little alcove set into the kitchen wall. "I can make you something." She started to rise.

Trip sat beside her instead. She was wearing her pajamas and robe but she looked ragged and tired. "What're you doing up at this hour? You and Pop were up talking past midnight."

"I don't sleep so well sometimes," she said, waving him off. She got up and went to the fridge. "Sometimes she visits me in my dreams. It seems so real. I wake up hoping she's here but...."

"Mama." Trip got up and took the eggs from her hand. He set those on the counter then pulled his mother to him. "It's been a couple years now. You should talk to someone."

"I know," she replied, breaking the hug and picking up the eggs again. "I just feel silly." She moved to the stove.

"Grief doesn't have an expiration date," Trip told her. "And everyone goes about it their own way. I got angry and bitter. I went into the Expanse achin' for revenge. Kept me from sleeping well, too, to be honest."

The eggs started to snap and pop in the pan. "Get a ham slice from the fridge," she told him. "What helped you?"

"Stopping the Xindi went a long way." He handed her the ham, and she added it to the skillet. "And Vulcan neuropressure. It's kind of like massage."

"Hadn't considered massage," she admitted. "I suppose I could try that."

Trip gave her a kiss on the cheek then went to the fridge for some milk. He didn't want her to see his face. He could feel the heat in his cheeks as he remembered where that Vulcan neuropressure had led.

Dad arrived just as Mom was plating the ham and eggs. "I'll make us both some, too," she said.

"Sit down, Gracie." Trip's father kissed her on the cheek then went to the fridge. "I'll get it."

Mom put the plate in front of Trip with a knife and fork then sat down beside him. "What's the plan for today?"

"Well, I got R&D to wait until after noon." He took a bite of his scrambled eggs. "I'm gonna be there when they wake Malcolm up. I hope to spend the whole morning with him. Then I get to go over Malcolm's adjustments to the EM field."

Mom reached a hand over to touch his arm. "You're a good friend, Trip."

Trip set down his fork for a moment. "I keep thinking about what they did to him and how he must have felt, thinking we'd left him and Hoshi there. They gave up hoping we'd come for them. I don't want him to feel like that again. I can't stay until he's ready for duty again so I wanna spend as much time as I can before I head back to the ship."

The stove was popping again. "Why did you wait so long, anyway?" Dad asked.

Trip finished his eggs and took a long swig of his milk. "The farther the shuttle got from Enterprise, the farther back in time it went. A year ago, we weren't anywhere near that planet. Once we caught up, we had to know we could get them without that happening again. We had to find them and make a plan to get them out while also destroying all the evidence they were ever there. Then we found out Malcolm was sentenced to death. We had to go then, ready or not. Thankfully, it worked out."

"You said it got worse in the end," Mom said. "That was 'worse'? A death sentence?"

Trip nodded. "Staked out in the desert for hours and hours. He stopped breathing on the way back to the ship."

"But you got them both," Dad remarked. "You told them about the time travel?" He sat down and handed Mom a plate.

"Yeah," Trip downed the rest of his milk and stood. "They went from angry to confused and kind of horrified." He put his dishes in the sink. "Well, it's time I got goin'." He kissed his mom again then headed out to the flitter.

Maintenance had done well with the room. The light blueish-gray walls felt calming to Dr. MacCormack. The overhead lights were bright now but two lamps graced the room. One nearer the bed and one nearer the loveseat that had been placed on the opposite side of the room. Two tall plants stood guard in opposite corners, one at the front of the room and one at the back.

Her patient was still unconscious, but that was going to change today. She pulled back the blanket on his feet. His ankles were bandaged neatly and very tightly to restrict movement. She recovered his feet and lifted one of his wrists. It was splinted again, which was understandable, given the damage the spikes had left to the surrounding bones. She removed a neural stimulator from a pocket on her lab coat and tested several spots on the palm of his hand. His thumb and fingers jerked slightly with the current and straightened, just as she'd hoped.

She lifted the blanket from his chest then and eased his hand down. He was now packed in heavy bandages to protect the new microsutures closing his chest. The monitor showed a strong, steady pulse underneath. She covered him back up. The last bandage was wrapped around his head and covered his right eye. Yamato had assured her that his eyes would still match in appearance once the bandage came off, and his visual acuity would be restored.

All told, Malcolm Reed looked peaceful lying there. "Well, Lieutenant," she spoke softly, "today is the first day of the rest of your life. In an hour or so, you'll get to start living it." Commander Tucker was on his way in from Mississippi. Then they'd wake Malcolm Reed up.

They were waiting for her when she arrived back in London. Darlene wasn't sure how they'd known to be here. She had planned on contacting Madeline's parents after she had got home.

"Where is Madeline?" Admiral Reed demanded when she stepped out of the transport alone.

"There's a lock on her door," Mary Reed added. "What's happened?"

Darlene took a deep breath and straightened her posture. "Mr. and Mrs. Reed, I'm very sorry to inform you that Madeline Reed passed away yesterday afternoon. She's here in the transport. I've brought her home as she wished."

"Why weren't we notified yesterday afternoon?" the admiral pressed. Mary just stood quivering as she tried not to cry publicly.

Darlene held firm. "That is not what she wished."

The admiral moved forward a step. "Why was she even away? Why San Francisco?"

So they knew that much. This was delicate. "She wanted to see the architecture. And her brother."

"Malcolm is in San Francisco?" Mary's voice was so quiet, Darlene had almost not heard it.

She kept it vague. "Recovering from his wounds."

"And she died there?" The admiral had kept moving closer to the point Darlene had to step back.

"She went deep into a spell. Black. She didn't come out of it." It was half the truth. Madeline hadn't wanted them to know about the transplants. Darlene figured they'd find out eventually. But she wasn't going to be the one to tell them. She pulled a PADD from her bag. It held a copy of the death certificate. Dr. MacCormack had couched the cause of death in so much medical-ese that it was somewhat hidden that it had been voluntary, but it very clearly showed the ultimate cause was the cancer.

The admiral snatched the PADD. "What were you planning on doing with her?"

"I was to deliver her to Naird and Sons Funeral Parlor and then to contact you. She'd said you'd want a traditional funeral."

"Not with Naird and Sons," Admiral Reed ordered. "And not in London. We'll take her home, to Kota Bharu."

"She has friends here," Darlene argued, knowing it wouldn't sway him. "This was her home."

"Was that in her wishes?" he asked. "What of her will?"

"I had nothing to do with her will," Darlene told him. It was the truth. "She only asked me to do as I was doing should the worst happen while we were away. Naird and Sons was only to hold the body. She said you could make whatever funeral arrangements you wanted."

"Then we are taking her home." He went to talk to the pilot of the transport. Darlene ducked back inside. She picked up her bag and the refrigerated case. She laid one hand on the transport case and said a silent good-bye. Madeline was now at the mercy of her parents. Darlene stepped out of the transport and started walking away. Mary Reed was still just standing there, but the tears were flowing freely now. "I'm sorry for your loss," Darlene whispered as she passed. She didn't look back again.

The black nothingness slowly receded, allowing sensation and memories, and began the process of awakening Malcolm Reed. Eventually, he registered that he was lying on his side with something soft behind him. His chest felt restricted. What had they done? He didn't remember waking this time. His arms didn't hurt so it wasn't them. His back felt fine. He had a vague ache in his leg, but that he did remember and it wasn't so recent.

Hoshi! he cried out. But she didn't answer. He started to panic.

"Malcolm." A hand touched his hand and he remembered his wrists. The spikes being pounded in. "Open your eye, Malcolm."

Eye. One eye. Oh god, not again. He opened his eye expecting to see the lab, those three fingers reaching for him. But there was only Trip.

Trip stood and put a hand on Malcolm's shoulder. "It's okay. You're safe."

"Where?" Malcolm's tongue felt thick. His mind felt slowed, like he was half drunk. He took in the room behind Trip. Blue, soft lighting. Machines beeped behind his head. It didn't fit.

"Starfleet Medical," Trip said, sitting down again. "Do you remember? We came to Earth. You needed a new heart."

Needed, he thought, catching the tense of the word. He now recognized one set of beeps as his pulse. "When?"

Trip smiled. "It's all over. You got the new ticker installed and a few other things to boot. Look! You're squeezing my hand."

Malcolm lifted their hands so he could see it. All his fingers were wrapped around Trip's. He lifted his other hand and straightened his fingers. All five of them moved. A bit shakily but they moved.

"Got your ankles done, too, and worked on that eye a bit. Doc said if they hadn't, it would've gone blind in a few years."

Malcolm used his now working hand to feel his right eye. He felt bandages instead. "Still there?" Why was it so hard to talk? It wasn't for lack of breath. That was easier now even with the tightness around his chest. Instead, he felt his mouth was stuck in slow motion.

"Yeah." Trip smiled. "It's still there. They're hoping you won't need any more surgeries for a long, long time."

Trip sat back and Malcolm realized there was someone else. A woman in a blue jacket. No, not a jacket. It was long, like a light coat. A lab coat. "Lieutenant Reed, I'm Dr. MacCormack, Starfleet Medical. It's good to see you awake. You may still be feeling a bit foggy. You're still slightly sedated. You must have had some awful dreams or memories. You were starting to give that new heart a workout." She lightly touched his chest, through the blanket. "It's still new to the neighborhood. You need to be gentle with it while it gets settled in." She stood back up. "How do you feel otherwise?"

Malcolm took a moment to answer. He checked in with all of the things that had hurt before. He was kind of sleepy but the only pain he felt was muted. Probably pain meds if he'd just had surgery. He could breathe easier, move his fingers. "Better."

"Do you think you'd like to sit up a bit?"

He nodded.

She adjusted the pillows behind him and he fell halfway back, not onto his back but still turned partially toward Trip. Then she took a controller from somewhere near the bed. The top of the bed began to rise until he was half sitting up, half leaning back onto the pillows.

He could see more now. The door to his room was open, and people in and out of uniforms and white lab coats went back and forth beyond it. There was a tall, leafy plant in the corner. Near the ceiling, there was a screen. A short brown sofa rested against the wall behind Trip.

"We have you on some good pain medicine. You can push this button, though, if the pain gets worse or something doesn't feel right. If you need anything." She pointed to a red button on the controller. "This controls the screen." Now she pointed to a group of buttons near the top of the controller. "And these control the bed." Those controls were on the bottom. She tucked the controller into a pocket on the side of the bed.

Part of him wanted to panic with the beeps and the tube he realized was taped to his left arm. But this room was so different from the lab and even Sickbay that he felt calmer at the same time.

"Are you hungry?" the doctor asked.

He realized he was. Thirsty, too. "Yes."

"I'll send in some gelatin. Gotta start simple, work up to the bigger stuff." She touched his arm then backed away. "I'll let you and your friend get reacquainted for a bit, then I'll check in on you again." She walked out the door.

Trip leaned toward him. "You're a VIP, ya know. You rated the CMO herself."

"When?" he asked Trip.

Trip didn't let the brevity of the question faze him. "We got into town two nights ago. Surgery was yesterday morning. It's now Tuesday morning, twenty-three days since we left Enterprise."

Malcolm lifted one of his hands again and opened and closed his fingers. "Yesterday?"

Trip smiled. "Yeah. They plugged in some new nerves then put your wrists back together. Doc says they'll still need time to heal. But you should be able to walk a bit on those ankles in a day or two."

Hoshi, he tried again. He wanted to tell her it worked. He had a new heart; he could move his fingers. He listened but heard nothing except the sounds in the room. Suddenly his chest hurt. Not a sharp pain like something had come undone. The pulse kept beeping steadily.

"Malcolm, what's wrong?" Trip moved forward again, taking one of his hands.

"Hoshi," he breathed. "She's gone."

Trip relaxed but didn't let go. "It's probably just too far. She's okay. Phlox and the captain won't let anything happen to her. Travis said he'd drop in on her, too, keep her company."

Malcolm closed his eye and told himself she was there. Just too far. "I don't know how to do this without her," he whispered. A tear trickled from his eye.

"I know," Trip said. "You both got each other through everything for so long. Probably feels like a piece of you is missing."

That was what the pain in his chest was. Her absence.

Dr. Koy Trevon was walking and reviewing some of his colleague's cases when he stopped suddenly. "Hoshee!" He looked around, wondering who had said it. It had sounded concerned, like someone was calling out in fear. It had sounded so close. No, not close. No one looked as if they were talking to him. No one seemed panicked. Then he realized, it wasn't audible. He'd heard it in his mind.

He'd only been on Earth a week, but he knew he was the only Betazoid here. And humans, if he remembered correctly, were not known to be particularly telepathic. There were anecdotal reports throughout several centuries of history, but none could be proven. Still, someone had said that word. He was considered fluent in English, as was required by the IME. But he didn't know this word. He stopped a passing orderly. "Excuse me. What kind of word is 'hoshee?'"

"Sounds like a name," the woman replied, and it made sense to Trevon. He wouldn't be expected to know every name. "Maybe Japanese," the orderly went on. "It's a region here on Earth. Small island, lots of people."

He thanked her and she moved on. He looked around again. He was in the recovery wing. Blue room, number 36A. Ah, there it was. Lt. Malcolm Reed. He wanted to study the case thoroughly before he introduced himself. Dr. MacCormack had warned him the patient was likely highly traumatized by his ordeal. There was at least a terabyte of records to read up on. Now that he'd noted the room's location, he went on toward the center of the complex. He found the park there to be very relaxing. On the way out, he used the PADD to look up Japan.

He found a shaded bench and sat down to read. He heard the word one more time, though it sounded more distant and not as panicked. It sounded almost excited. But he was engrossed in the reading and tucked it away for another time's rumination. By four in the afternoon, he realized he'd forgotten all about his midday meal. The records for this patient read more like scientific notes on a research subject, though one Dr. Phlox had inserted his own annotations here and there. One of them pointed out a discrepancy in the anesthesia used during 'exploratory' surgeries. The patient would have awoken at some point, still paralyzed but fully conscious for the remainder of the procedure. It was horrific when one stopped looking at it from the perspective of the scientists, whose research notes he was reading. From the subject's point of view, it was torture and vivisection, over the course of multiple months, those consisting of forty days each. The subject had even attempted suicide multiple times after the female of the species was removed. Phlox had noted her as Ens. Sato.

Dr. Trevon looked up to take a break. He had been sitting in the shade of a tree, but the shade had moved as the sun traversed the sky. He stood and stretched muscles that had been sitting still for too long. He saw some waterfowl in the pond at the center of the park. Birds were chirping in the trees while small mammals with long, furry tails skittered up and down and around them. A few patients were enjoying the park as well as hospital staff on their breaks.

"There you are!" Trevon turned to see Dr. Caletta approaching. Caletta had been assigned to help him get settled in. Caletta was a likable sort, friendly and sympathetic. He had a good rapport with his patients. He clapped Trevon on the shoulder. "She gave you the new transplant case, didn't she?"

Trevon indicated the PADD. "Haven't gotten to that part yet. I'm only about two thirds through it."

"Dr. Novak told me about his wrists. One-inch-thick spikes." He held up a hand to indicate the measurement.

"I've read worse already," Trevon told him. "But, for some reason, it's classified and I'm not to confer with anyone without Dr. MacCormack's approval."

Caletta smiled. "She threw you right into the deep end."

It took Trevon a beat to get the metaphor. "Ah, well, severe trauma was my specialty on Betazed. Just imagine, prolonged torture of the body, physically, and of the mind, telepathically. I've had some really disturbing cases. I find it very satisfying to watch those cases heal in mind and body."

"You want some coffee?" Caletta asked.

"That and some food," Trevon replied, placing a hand on his stomach. "I've apparently missed 'lunch.'"

Caletta's eyebrows went up. "Whoa, and you're only two-thirds through it. If you don't take a break you won't eat until breakfast tomorrow."

Trevon chuckled. "Lead on, then. I'm famished."

"So what's it like?" Caletta asked as they walked back inside, "going from a planet full of telepaths to one where there aren't any?"

Perhaps, and perhaps not, Trevon thought. "Much quieter," he answered aloud.

Trip had had to leave to meet with R&D about the EM field Malcolm had stabilized a few years back. Malcolm didn't feel snubbed. He was too tired and, frankly, weak to deal with R&D. Besides, he trusted Trip not to take all the credit. Trip had said R&D had asked for him and that Trip was just a stand-in.

But once Trip was gone, Malcolm felt less safe, less able to keep his memories from pushing into the present. Every time he started to doze off or one of the surgeons—four of them had apparently been involved—came to check on their handiwork, his skin started to crawl and the beeps on the machine came quicker. That prompted an influx of sedative which, while it didn't put him to sleep, made it harder to think straight and remember that he was on Earth and not Sharu.

It was easier with Dr. MacCormack. Maybe because she was a woman. No one he'd run into in Zheiren had been female. Some of the nurses who checked on him more frequently were women, too. It helped. He preferred them to the men.

The gelatin he was given kept him less hungry, but he never quite felt full. It did, however, make him feel less thirsty. To try and occupy his mind with something other than horrible memories or the absence of Hoshi, he'd turned on the screen. As he scrolled through the offerings, he found an ironic choice. The Lord of the Rings trilogy from the early twenty-first century, all fifteen hours or so of the Extended Edition. So he started the first one and tried to lose himself in the story to keep his mind from wandering.

Trip returned in the early evening. Malcolm paused the movie so Trip could tell him about his meeting with R&D.

"They're really excited about the EM field," Trip told him. "And kind of embarrassed they didn't come up with a way to stabilize it themselves."

"'Necessity is the mother of invention,'" Malcolm quoted. It was a little easier now to talk. "We needed to block the web from expanding."

"Right," Trip agreed. "So now they think they can adapt it to lots of things, like brig doors or quarantine facilities. Anything with a frame. But Admiral Issu's got bigger plans. He has challenged them to put it to protecting ships by 2160."

"That's a big leap," Malcolm commented. "The frame balances the field from all four directions. It can't bend to wrap around a ship."

"Yep." Trip sat on the small sofa and leaned back, crossing his ankles in front of him. "I'm not even sure an EM field is the right technology. It's relatively weak. It could hold off the web creature, and you used a phase pistol to test it. But could it stop a torpedo?"

"Or a directed energy weapon like our plasma cannons?" Malcolm remembered tweaking and testing the field back on Enterprise. It seemed like a million years ago, another life.

"So that's what's buzzing at R&D now. Brainstorming applications of the EM field technology and trying to come up with something to wrap around a starship. I get to stay for a couple of weeks and help with that. We may even come back with Enterprise for some upgrades by the time the mission is over."

"Or get the materials to upgrade on the fly," Malcolm suggested. "Better than being stuck in space dock."

Trip shrugged. "I don't know. It would give Hoshi time to see her family, and a certain Tactical Officer I happen to know."

"I'll still be here?" Malcolm had thought he'd go back with Trip, let Phlox take over his care again once he'd recovered enough.

"You're stuck here for a while, Malcolm." Trip leaned forward. "You still have a lot of healing to do." He smiled playfully. "And frankly, Lieutenant, you're out of shape."

"A vain attempt to slow them down," Malcolm told him.

The smile disappeared. "I'm sorry it didn't work. 'Course, then you weren't really able to exercise all that much anyway."

Malcolm shook his head. "Even if I'd had been in the best shape of my life, I couldn't have fought them off."

Trip nodded. "I've seen 'em," he admitted. "The ones with the teeth anyway. And Bayzhoo. He had a friend besides you. He showed us where you were. He showed us Bayzhoo first."

"Think he was one of the smaller ones." Malcolm remembered a face in the window of the door to his room. "T-Rex was one of the big ones. Killed Bayzhoo." He didn't realize his hand had gone to his neck. T'Rex's fingers were wrapped around it, squeezing, lifting him like nothing more than a rag doll.

"No Lord of the Rings codename for that one?"

Malcolm didn't reply. He had a faraway haunted look. "Malcolm?" Trip tried again. "Are you still with me?" He stood up.

One of the machines started beeping madly. By the time Trip made it to the bed, Malcolm's eyes were rolling up under his lids. The beeping slowed and Malcolm passed out.

Trip realized that must have been a particularly bad memory he'd gotten lost in. Trip wished he'd gotten to see some of the stuff Phlox had seen. What had T'Rex done that terrified Malcolm so much that the sedative put him to sleep instead of just slowing him down?

Trip turned to go back to the loveseat and was surprised to see Dr. MacCormack in the doorway. "That must have been a bad one." She leaned against the door frame. "I was hoping you being here would make that less likely."

Trip frowned, unsure of her intent. Was she just teasing or would she tell him he'd have to leave? "What he's been through isn't going to go away just because I'm here," he countered.

"No, it isn't." She came further into the room. "What led up to it?"

Trip wasn't sure he could trust her, but she probably had everything Phlox had seen anyway. "Did you know he deliberately weakened his body in an attempt to slow the surgeries?"

"No." She went to the chair and turned it to face Trip before sitting down. "My notes—and there are many—are from the scientists' perspective with certain annotations by Dr. Phlox. My guess is they didn't feel it warranted postponing."

"Well, he said he couldn't have fought them anyway. I said I'd seen one of the toothy ones. He said it was a small one. Mentioned a big one he called T-Rex. He touched his neck."

MacCormack thought for a moment. "One Colonel Zhenah, a Raptor, started intervening in the later weeks. At one point, the plan called for seeing if the 'alien' could breathe underwater."

"Oh shit!" Trip dropped his head into his hands. "He's aquaphobic. They drowned him, didn't they?"

"With Zhenah's involvement, it wasn't as scientific as the Wingeds would have it. He shocked them with his cruelty. Apparently, he grabbed the 'subject' by his neck and threw him toward a tank of water, then he pushed him into it and held him down. One hand was apparently big enough to wrap all the way around the subject's neck, leaving puncture wounds from his claws. Once revived, the subject scrambled under a bed like a wild animal."

Trip sighed, picturing one of those bigger than the ones he'd seen. That one's hand had hardly been bigger than Trip's. But big enough to wrap around Malcolm's neck? Holding him under water? "They didn't know it but they used his worst fear against him."

"So that was arguably one of the worst memories," MacCormack surmised. "Perhaps avoid talk of the 'toothy' ones for now. It's good for him to talk about what happened, but he just got that heart." She touched his shoulder as she got up. "Sedative should ease up after fifteen minutes. He'll probably wake up in an hour or so. Good time for you to grab a bite to eat, perhaps."

Trip nodded. He was hungry. He looked up at her. "He used codenames for the others. One named Bayzhoo, he called Smeagol."

"Ah yes!" She smiled. "I caught the Tolkien vibe when he called himself Samwise Gamgee under narcotics and proceeded to launch into twelve different languages to tell the story of his quest to destroy the One Ring. His profile didn't mention him being a linguist."

Trip didn't reply to that. He had promised. Besides, he didn't think Malcolm's telepathy could affect his health one way or the other. Dr. MacCormack didn't need to know. "I think you're right about getting a bite. I wouldn't want to eat a burger in front of him when he's stuck with gelatin. He likes pineapple, by the way. They got that flavor?"

"I'll look into it," she said. "Thanks for the intel." She took out a scanner and moved toward Malcolm's bed so Trip left and turned toward the canteen.

Dr. Trevon kept reading, right through dinner and on into the night. He was sure Lt. Reed was going to be one of the most traumatized clients he'd ever worked with. And he'd worked with some incredibly severe cases.

He once had a young woman of twenty-nine, whose father had kept her hidden in a bunker under his basement, drugging her food to curtail her telepathy and her reproduction capacities. She was raped hundreds of times in secret, and no one had any clue she was even down there or that the bunker existed at all. Even her mother hadn't known what had become of her daughter, lost at the age of seventeen. Her father had played the grieving father to a tee. Police had surmised that she must have been murdered, since no one had heard from her even telepathically since her disappearance. But as no body was found, the case went unresolved for a dozen years.

Only a bout of illness brought an end to her abuse and imprisonment. As she was unable to eat, the concentrations of the drugs in her system dropped, and everyone within a two-kilometer radius had heard her screams in their minds. Her telepathic ravings got her out of the basement and into an asylum. It took four years of working with her, daily at first, to bring about a level of healing. She'd never be a full-fledged member of society. She had a deep distrust of older men. Trevon had left her in the custody of her doting mother three years ago. He transferred her to a female therapist for long-term care. Her father was still in prison and expected to remain so for many more years.

Malcolm Reed would never get that kind of justice for the wrongs done to him. He was rescued from Zheiren, and Zheiren presumably went on without him, confused but ultimately, unpunished. Though he had only spent one year there and not twelve, it had been agonizingly painful even when the scientists hadn't intended that to be the case. His treatment had eventually devolved into outright torture and a hideous death sentence carried out in the desert from which he was extracted.

With one exception, the last part of the data he'd been given changed wholly to Dr. Phlox's records. He noted the anesthesia discrepancy again and the precarious condition of the patient before and after his near-death on Enterprise after his parents had ordered him removed from life support. Trevon made a note to explore that. It seemed odd to Phlox that they hadn't wanted to see their son and were so quick to give up on him. Trevon agreed.

But it was Phlox's last note that stood out to him. The patient had been sharing a quiet breakfast with one Ensign Hoshi Sato when he suffered an infarction. The determination was made that he needed a new heart, so he was sent to Earth for transplant. The last notes were from Dr. MacCormack detailing all the transplants he'd received and the positive prognosis resulting.

Ensign Sato's given name was Hoshi, and she had been with the patient in the beginning. 'Hoshee.' His patient, Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, was the source of the word, the name. He was the telepath.