Chapter Three
Touched
Tia Anlor drifted in that quasi-dream state where she knew her body was in Sick Bay, on the Enterprise, thousands of calyaan from her world; but her spirit, her Neetaa, was home with her people. She stood in a vast garden in Pastuu, looking up into the daytime sky, seeing in the violet heavens the tremendous red gas giant Sabaoth, which took up a huge arc of the sky, its wide-flung rings displaying every color of the visible spectrum in wonderful disregard for any regularity but its own.
It was vastly distant, over two and a quarter million valyris; but it and Aura circled one another in stable binary orbit about the far more distant white star Ealus. So much larger was the ringed gas giant that in the daytime its reflected light bathed Aura with a ruddy glow, enough to cast its own shadows on the brightest of days. The daytime sky was blue when Sabaoth was not fully visible above the horizon, otherwise it was a warm violet; and when seen illuminated by Ealus in the night sky the true blackness of space was unknown. The planets' elliptical orbits were such that sometimes the tremendous rings were seen from above, sometimes from below, sometimes almost invisible when seen edge on, always presenting different aspects as its colors changed in hue and intensity.
It had always seemed ironic to her that that world represented 'Lord Sabaoth the Unchanging'; since change was its most prominent feature.
Nissa was with her. Her younger sister would now be all of ten palyis old, but in her dream the girl was only nine, exactly as she remembered her on the day before her frantic escape from her captured world. They stood together looking up at the sky, Nissa counting the rings visible in Sabaoth's massive belt.
But as she stared up at the representative of the 'Consort God', a soft sound intruded, growing sharper and more insistent until Sabaoth, Pastuu, Nissa and all of her world vanished into the darkness.
x
Tia opened her eyes unwillingly, resentfully, not wanting to let go of her home and her joy; finding herself lying flat upon her back in an uncomfortable biobed, the white curtain surrounding her visible in the blackness softened by tiny lights left on in some of the equipment in the Sick Bay; hearing soft sounds of muffled protests growing in intensity. "Liz?" She turned to the white curtain on her left. "Edal ca-klir tuvi?" The sounds did not diminish. "Liz?" She tried to sit up, to see through the curtain, but a sharp pain in her chest halted her. She lay back down, annoyed at having been awakened and unable to get up. "Liz!"
The sharp call broke through to the woman beside her, whose own sharp exclamation was more frantic than angry. The woman awoke, gasping sharply.
"Are all right you?" Tia repeated, this time in English.
"I – I was having a nightmare." The woman's whisper came back through the curtain, still hushed with lingering fear and colored by regret. "Did I wake you?"
"Daai." She was unable to let go of her annoyance. She thought of her sister so often, but even memory could not pull up the vision as sharp and clear and realistic as this dream had.
"I'm sorry."
"I Pastuu in was. I Nissa with was." Her voice shuddered in restrained emotion, annoyance vying with grief.
"Oh." Liz was silent for a long moment. "I was in the shuttlepod, watching John being slammed around by the bulkheads." Tia shut her eyes, trying to forget her own memories of that horror. "You woke me just as my own straps snapped." Liz told her gratefully.
"You in Pastuu would happier be." Tia observed, wishing she actually were able to invite her friend.
"I anywhere else would happier be." Elizabeth agreed emphatically, for a moment slipping into the other woman's syntax in an effort to reassert their bond of friendship, which she sensed was somewhat strained tonight.
For several long moments both young women were silent, each enclosed in the rectangular curtaining that separated them and shut out all but the most minute light in the nearly dark room. To Liz it felt like looking up out of her own grave, and found she had to reach out again: "Tia?"
"Daai?" She asked tiredly, having faded only to be brought back to Enterprise.
"May I ask you something?" For a moment there was no reply.
"Vuur." It took Liz's own sleep addled mind a moment to realize the younger woman had said 'ask'.
"When we were in the shuttle, when you were kneeling over John's body, praying, what was that gesture you made with your hands?" In the midst of a whispered prayer, the Auran had held her cupped hands over Abrams' head, and then slowly parted them as she moved her hands toward his feet, symbolically showering the body with something.
There was a very long pause, and Liz wondered if Tia had fallen asleep again. "Tia?"
"Tuvi ri pli vuur nyasi." Came the soft response in the darkness.
"What?" She inquired, having missed every other word.
"I my mind have changed. 'You me may ask not'." Even through the curtain, her annoyance stabbed like a sword. Had Tia known the woman was conscious, she would have been far more discreet back in the shuttle.
Liz felt the deep stab of the rebuke. "You never talk about your religion." She observed, trying not to let any feeling into her words.
"Nyas. Open I you all with am, but this wedsa, this 'private' is. Share much I do, but this mine is!" Her voice broke, and there was a flood of unshed tears in that one word.
"I'm sorry. I don't mean to intrude."
"Tuvi seelna sin ti, ni kil monedou fik fael tuvi ceisa."
Liz did not ask what her friend's bitter words meant. She did not know many of the words, but from the tone she doubted they were complimentary. She did not know her friend had told her that she always intended to intrude, but this time she had gone too far.
She knew Tia, saying it in Auran, was venting her feelings without wanting to hurt - openly.
She decided it was best to end the conversation for the night, before one of them, driven by spiritual, emotional and physical pain, said something that could not be disguised.
x
Liz lay for a long time in the darkness, unable to rest, fancying she could feel waves of anger through the curtains, trying to tell herself it was only her imagination. Gradually the other woman's breathing softened, and in time Liz decided Tia was asleep.
Liz lay still for what seemed an eternity, the dim pinpoints of light from equipment in the room showing as dim, diffuse spots of light through the white curtain. She could not doze off, nor could she get comfortable on the biobed. The pain medication that had let her rest had worn off, and she felt every injury, every bruise. No matter how she tried to keep it out of her thoughts, the pain would not let her rest.
She had just made up her mind to get up and get more of the drug to use on herself when the Sick Bay doors slid open. She heard someone come in, moving quietly. She was not expecting Phlox back, but did he perhaps have some kind of way to know that his patients were awake? She did not put anything past the Denobulan. Anyway, she was grateful. He would give her something to help her get back to sleep. "Who's there?" She called as softly as she could, not wanting to risk waking Tia again.
"It's me." An equally soft and utterly familiar voice returned, though not the one she'd expected, and she heard quiet footsteps approach. "Are you decent?"
She grinned. "I haven't been 'decent' in twenty years." Her grin widened when she saw the curtain at the foot of her bed move aside and Security Officer Jim Cein enter the small space, coming up on her left side. "What are you doing here?" She kept her voice so low she could barely hear herself.
"Security sweep for curfew. Bed check." He told her softly.
"'Curfew'." She mocked. "What time is it?"
"0216."
"Keep your voice down." She admonished with her own whisper. They listened very carefully, but after a few seconds all they heard was soft steady breathing.
"I think she's still asleep." Jim whispered, this time more quietly.
Liz had no doubt; Phlox had given them sedatives just before retiring for the night. But the dose he'd given Tia had been considerably stronger, intended to counter her faster metabolism. She wished he'd given her the same dose. "Just the same, she has the ears of a cat."
"While you have the body of one." He assured her playfully.
"Cut it out." She exclaimed quietly, even while unable to restrain a grin. He bent down to hug her, but it was only a half-hug, just his arms pressed to hers, his body briefly touching hers. He was all too aware of her pains. "Come on." She said when he released her. "I have to use the Head, so as long as you're here you can help me up."
"Great." He whispered with an 'anticipatory' smile, glancing about the curtained partition. "A little more privacy."
"Farg that." She told him, knowing he had been teasing. "I said I have to use the Head. You get to help me there and then stay outside where you belong." She pushed the pale blanket off, all too aware that the deeper blue smock she wore barely covered inches past her hips, leaving a generous expanse of leg visible. But she did not begrudge him the view; looking was all he was going to be able to do until she felt a whole lot better – though thus far in their relationship he had done far more than just look. It was his 'fault' that she was presently 'toasting a bun in her oven'. All right, she had to admit, it was both their 'faults'.
He was, however, a gentleman now; steadying her with just his hands on her arm as she made her way out of the partition on stockinged feet and across the Sick Bay to the 'privy', closing the door behind herself before turning on the light.
The light was momentarily blinding to her dark-accustomed eyes, and as she squinted into the intense illumination, she caught a view of herself in the large mirror that dominated most of the right wall. As her eyes gradually adjusted, she liked the view less and less.
Her short brown hair was uncombed; no problem there; but she was appalled at the bruises that covered her face. She had known her face was swollen and hurt like hell whenever the pain medication Phlox prescribed wore off as it had done now, but she had not yet seen the horrible extent of the damage. Both eyes were still blackened; her lips were unevenly swollen; her cheeks and forehead were bandaged to cover the scrapes and cuts from the punches and falls; treatment for the bruises had not yet shown any effect. She barely recognized herself, and was mortified when she realized everyone who had seen her today, particularly Jim, saw her like this. Worse, she recognized that these were the kind of bruises that would turn a sickly green long before they healed, if they were allowed to do so naturally.
Below the short hem of the blue smock her bare legs were spotted with dark bruises from the kicks she had suffered during her beating, when she'd fallen and lay helpless on the stone floor surrounded by merciless soldiers who used their fists and feet and the butts of their rifles to compel Travis Mayweather to surrender secrets about the Manaxians which he did not have.
She did not want to see the worst of it, but perversely she could not help herself. She knew how badly she hurt, but had to see the damage that accompanied it.
Grasping the hem of her smock, steeling herself against the pain to do it before she could lose her nerve, she slowly lifted the material, groaning at the pain in her abused body. She pulled the material over her head, holding it in her right hand and looking at the mirror.
Trying to keep herself from crying out in her distress, she was reduced to a whimper. Wearing only a pair of white panties, she could not avoid seeing what the brutal soldiers had done to her.
Her body, from shoulders to hips, was heavily covered in dark bruises and red welts. There had to be more than three hundred bruises covering her; only tiny spots of her body were showing through with her normal coloring. She turned, horror mounting as she saw how thoroughly the marks completely covered her on all sides. Barely a few tiny areas were unmarked; her body was covered with black bruises and livid red marks. Even her crotch had not escaped their brutality; the searing pain of two devastating kicks had felt as though they would have killed her.
Her body, unprotected by drugs from the Denobulan's pharmacopeia, flared in 'realized' pain at the sight of her devastated flesh.
x
"Honey?" There was a soft tap on the door, and the word barely penetrated. "Are you okay?"
She tried to keep control of her voice, but it was filled with misery. "No."
"I'm coming in." The door was more than half open before he'd completed the 'warning' and she turned, wanting to protest, clutching the blue smock to her body, cringing in embarrassment. She realized it was not her body she was trying to hide with her hands, her arms and the almost useless smock; it was the bruises.
"What are you doing?" She exclaimed, trying to keep her voice to a whisper so she would not wake Tia outside the room and add to her embarrassment, even while utterly humiliated as Jim closed the door behind himself, looking at her as they stood in the small enclosure. She turned her back to him, the smock pressed to her bruised breasts, face cherry red. She knew there was no way to cover the smallest expanse of her brutalized body, but wished she could just die of the humiliation. "Get out! Please, honey – get out."
"No." He took a step closer; they were practically touching.
"I don't want you to see me like this. I don't want anyone to see me like this."
"Beth, you're alive." He told her in quiet reassurance. "You're going to recover."
She could barely keep her misery from her voice. "They beat me. They were going to rape me. They were going to kill our baby!"
He put his hands on her arms, and she tried to shrink into herself, shrink away from his touch. It took a long moment before he managed to turn her around. She could not fight his steady urging, and finally allowed him to turn her to him. "They didn't. You heard Phlox; Michael is fine."
The tiny embryo, only 5 weeks old, was barely an inch long and was well protected.
She kept her face down, unable to look up at him. He took hold of the smock pressed tightly to her bare chest and gently pulled. She tried to keep her grip on it, but against his gentle and steady pressure she finally gave way, letting it slip through her fingers. It was not as if he had not seen her so many times before, but not like this. Not bruised and swollen and …
He took the smock from her and set it on the counter, next to the sink. Liz kept her hands covering her breasts. She felt somewhat foolish; the marks she was trying to hide covered every inch of her from shoulders to hips and she was hiding those on her breasts; but she could not help herself.
She kept her face down. "Please don't look at me." She pled in a desperate whisper. She normally so enjoyed his eyes on her, his hands on her, his body pressed to hers; but not like this. She did not want him to see the bruises, the red welts, the damage inflicted so brutally upon her body. "Please don't look at me."
He put his hand under her chin, and again did not press her; just a gentle but steady pressure until she looked up at him, blinking away stinging tears.
"Beth, these will fade," he gently kissed one tear streaked cheek, then the other, "my love won't."
The tears she had been struggling so hard to restrain for so long, ever since her rescue, burst through her hard fought control, and she threw her arms around Jim, sobbing brokenly; all her terror and pain and humiliation tearing at her as she clung to him and he held her, not doing more than holding her and being the presence and love she needed as she cried and cried and cried.