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The same day as That Darn CAT. Captain's in the Thompkins Clinic.
"When I have a little girl," the Captain whispered, "everything will be different."
The little girl in her arms—the most beautiful creature in the history of newborn babies, angelic, petal soft, tiny in her bundle of pink baby blankets, made a contented sound and looked up at her mother with eyes deeper than the deep blue sea.
Mother. Her mother. This was the Captain's baby, her child, a daughter of her very own. Little Ensign Evey, fresh out of Starfleet Academy, ready to take her place among the stars.
She started humming the Star Trek theme, the original, a fitting first lullaby for her Kitten.
She hadn't really intended to call the baby Kitten. It had just been a placeholder before she had known if she was having a boy or a girl. She hadn't been comfortable saying David-or-Elizabeth (the family names she had always been expected to bestow on her firstborn, as opposed to Storms and Keziah, the family names that had been encouraged but not expected) so she had gone with Kitten. It was cute, it fit the theme, and it made her smile. Jonathan had heard her say it once, and the fact that he had remembered the nickname and applied it to the child when no one else had was so touching, what could she do but go along with it?
Evelyn was an awkward name for a child, anyway. If only she hadn't been so drugged up when she filled out the birth certificate, she might have remembered her childhood plans. Elizabeth Janeway Crane would have been a fantastic name. It would have virtually ensured her an interesting son-in-law one day.
Then again, maybe the Captain shouldn't have been allowed to name the child at all.
"What do you think, Kitten?" she asked the baby, who blinked sleepily at her. "Would you be happy named Sara or Mary?"
"Mary's not such a bad name."
It was as if the entire room had lit up, as if Christmas—normal, joyful, real Christmas—had finally come.
"Meimei!"
"La," replied the girl in the doorway. She moved to her older sister's side. The Captain couldn't get up, but she held one arm out for a hug.
"What are you doing here, kiddo? Did Mum and the little girls come with you?"
"Nope, just me." She ran a finger gently around the rim of the baby's tiny pink ear. The Captain grinned.
"You want to hold her, Mary?" Her sister was startled by the use of her own name, so rarely were the real things used within the family, but she recovered quickly.
"Could I?"
The Captain handed her daughter over with a smile.
"How did you get in here, anyway? They wouldn't let my friends stay after visiting hours were over." Her meimei just cooed at the baby in her arms. "And how did you know to come here? Have you been talking to Beck?"
Meimei looked up with an enigmatic smile.
"Now, girl, you know I ain't got no hold over your sweet cousin."
The Captain stopped breathing. The voice was the same as it should have been, but the accent couldn't have been farther from that of the borderline Yankee child born amid the palm trees, with her truest roots in the steel graveyards of the zombie heartland. There should have been nothing in her of the blues man who was not a blues man, whose voice the Captain knew from an encounter that she could only remember in disjointed fragments that hurt to examine too closely.
"G-give me back my baby," she whispered. The person who was not her sister continued to smile.
"Why?"
"Give me my baby! She's not yours! You can't have her! I never said you could have her!" She tried to throw off the blanket and stand up, even knowing her legs probably wouldn't hold her.
She couldn't move. The demon laughed, not the laugh of an innocent young woman. When she spoke again, the voice was smoother, deeper, almost masculine, with the echoes of a cultured English accent.
"Silly girl. Don't you remember when you first knew you were coming to me?" The Captain winced. Yes, she did remember that night. She remembered it very well. "You were twelve."
"I remember."
"You tried to sell your soul."
"I remember!"
"You said, 'God, or Satan, whoever's listening.' But by that time, you had already decided that God wasn't listening, if He existed at all. Your own lack of faith gave me first crack at the case."
"Shut up!"
"When you finished whining—I'm sorry, outlining your proposed deal—there were no pyrotechnics to show you that your terms had been accepted, so you assumed I wasn't listening, either. But I'm always listening, Mon Capitan. And you've been mine for most of your life."
"Shut up! Shut up!"
"Incidentally, you stupid cow, even you realized that, without knowing the true value of what you were trading yourself for, your very touching sacrifice might not even be worth it. And, do you know, your sweet little sister turned out just fine even without your guidance—or maybe especially because you weren't there to mold her in your image. Isn't that right, Kitten? She'd be out of my grasp, anyway. She didn't need you to protect her."
Kitten started to cry.
"Stop it! Stop it! Just leave her alone!"
The girl who was not a girl started pacing back and forth, soothing the infant with a well-placed hand on the back.
"Who are you more worried about, La? Your sister or your daughter?" The Captain squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force her emotions back under control.
"Please. Don't hurt them. You've got me, okay? I'll do whatever you want. Just leave them out of it."
Again came that inhuman chuckle.
"I know you will."
"I'll…I'll kill you," the Captain said through gritted teeth. Her visitor laughed.
"I doubt that very much."
"Please…" She sobbed. "Please stop."
"All right, if that's what it takes to carry on the conversation." The voice was masculine, smooth and deep. The Captain opened her eyes to see Errol Flynn smirking down at her, still holding the baby just out of her reach. "Does this make you feel better?"
"Slightly," she snapped. "Give me my baby."
"No. I like her. Maybe I don't want to give her back."
"You can't have her!" She sobbed. "She wasn't included in any deal I ever made with you, you son of a bitch! Give her to me!"
"I might be willing to trade," he taunted.
"For what? Me? Fine. You can take me right now, if you want. Just let me make sure Kitten gets to where I want her to be."
He shook his head, the dashing grin widening.
"I already own you, girl child." He tickled the baby's chin. She made a tiny sound of distress. "I want something else."
"What?"
"Oh, nothing that isn't within your power to give," the demon said smoothly. "You know, I would have no claim at all on that sister of yours if you hadn't made her the focus of your little deal. Not the smartest move you ever made, La."
"No," the Captain gasped. "No! Fuck you! You can't have her, either!"
He raised his free hand in a "don't look at me" kind of gesture.
"You're the one who brought her into this."
"I was twelve! I didn't know what I was doing! I was just trying to protect my baby sister the only way I knew how—and—and—you can take your deal and shove it up your lake of fire! GIVE ME MY DAUGHTER!"
"What is she worth to you, really? Would you give the lives of your friends? Your squishy master? I would love to get my hands on that one."
"N—" She hesitated. For Kitten and Meimei, what wouldn't she give? They were innocent. And weren't she and all her companions on the fast track to Hell anyway?
But if that were the case, why would he be asking?
"What do you really want?" she asked. The demon laughed.
"Ah, now we can talk."
And talk they did.
And just as before, the Captain found that she couldn't think or even speak of the new deal they had made…not until the time was right.