Author's Note: So yeah, here's another chapter. Enjoy and review ~Dreamers!


Bonds Beyond the Stars Chapter 9


-Nicole-

A full hour had passed when Nicole was finally able to reign in her vomiting, at least long enough to meet Lotor in the ships infirmary. A few times he had contacted her through the radio of her jumpsuit, which Nicole kept nearby to communicate with him. More than once, Lotor would call her, her responses assuring him that she had not again collapsed on the bathroom floor while she continued to reject the remaining contents of her stomach.

Nicole was still to nauseous and afraid of whatever was happening to her biologically to argue with Lotor when he led her into a healing pod.

"I understand your fears concerning our more advanced and unfamiliar methods of treatment," Lotor began, his face etched with concern as he took her hand and helped her into the pod, "but it is the only way I know how to help you recover."

Nicole looked up at him then, his eyes looking apologetic as he pulled out a fairly large needle from a silver tray of surgical tools off to the side of them. Unwillingly, her heartrate quickened, and Nicole fought not to pull away from him. Closing her eyes, she rolled up her sleeve, offering Lotor her arm, fighting back tears, her body covered in a cold sweat. Nicole waited patiently for him to inject her with the needle, suppressing a shiver when she felt his large hands circle her elbow, his thumb brushing tenderly at her veins.

But the pain never came

Confused, Nicole opened her eyes, it wasn't like Lotor to hesitate. Looking down, she was surprised to see that the needle was already in her arm. Damn, he was good.

He pulled her into him then, her sweat-dampened forehead colliding gently with the armor of his shoulder plate. Faint movement around her wrist. Lotor was drawing her blood into the needle. He must have pulled Nicole's face into his chest so that she would not see anything that might further upset her stomach.

"You will be cured shortly," was all that Lotor informed her, the needle already removed as he kept a finger pressed to Nicole's wrist to halt the blood. "I am going to make a few adjustments to your nervous, digestive, and circulatory systems so that your body will be able to efficiently process Galra food." That was all he told her.

Nicole felt as if something was off about him, like he was omitting information from her, but she nodded in agreement anyway. She made to pull away from him and back into the pod, but Lotor halted Nicole when he hugged her to him, still holding the needle as he wrapped his arms around her. He didn't say anything, and at this point in the game, he didn't have to. Nicole could feel his worry for her, and it was as genuine as her driving hatred for the Galra that killed her mother. The two emotions, while different, were equal in their strength.

Lotor released her from his embrace and sealed the glass doors to the pod, a blast of impossibly cold air forced her body into cryosleep. But unlike all of the other times Nicole had been thrown into a pod, she fell asleep with the knowledge that Lotor had grown to care for her, and that she could trust him.


-Lotor-

Once he had ensured that Nicole was properly taken care of, Lotor summoned his Generals to the infirmary, before demanding that the four of them guard Nicole.

"What's going on?" Acxa questioned, sensing the murderous aura emanating from him.

"We have a traitor in our midst," Lotor informed them, heading towards the door. "You have your orders. I'll fill all of you in later: once I have freed the heathen's head from their shoulders."

Lotor summoned the entire crew of the fleet to assemble in the hangar, telling them nothing. He walked along the line of Galra men and women alike, stripping them down to their very souls with his eyes. When he came to stand before the nervous form of the ship's chef, Lotor drew his sword, decapitating the man before he had the chance to even blink.

The crew stared in horror as the Galra bleed out before them, his head rolling away from his now lifeless body.

"Let this be a message to anyone else who dares to conspire against me behind my back," he glared at the crew, eyes traversing the masses as he searched for any possible accomplices of the chef, satisfied when he found no one else. "Dispose of this coward and return to your posts," Lotor commanded, his legs carrying him back to the infirmary, blood still dripping down the metal of his blade while he pushed the image of Nicole's horrified expression from his mind.


-Nicole-

Having grown up in Florida, Nicole had never seen snow in her life. She looked around her now, the landscape around her bone dry, and completely covered in a white powder. The ground beneath her feet was a mixture of fine grey powder and varying sizes of gravel, with sharp cliffs lining the horizon. The terrain was covered in craters, and if not for them, Nicole would've been convinced this was what the inside of the snow globe looked like, before the glitter was shaken.

Everything around he was foreign, but also unnervingly familiar, and Nicole hadn't the faintest idea why.

She turned around when a bright light caught her attention. It was a star, its rays illuminating the large, dark orb of what looked to be a planet off in the distance. As the planet turned lazily of its axis, Nicole could see the beginnings of daybreak across the sphere's northern and southern hemispheres. When the light grew in brilliance and revealed more of the azure planet, continents came into view.

Continents Nicole recognized.

The planet was Earth, and Nicole was standing on its Moon.

It was as if the floor fell out from under her. Suddenly overcome with a crippling wave of homesickness, Nicole began to cry, her screams rendered soundless, stolen by the vacuum of Space all around her. She fell to her knees then, her fall cushioned by the dust of the Moon and the lack of gravity. The dust around her scattered away like flour, returning to the surface far too slowly had there been any amount of wind or atmosphere to interfere with its descent. Nicole continued to soundlessly scream into the cruel darkness of emptiness and death around her, the stars too far from her reach.

Why was she there, all alone? Was this all just some sick dream? Would her mother be there to make her pancakes when she woke up, alive and well?

Where was Lotor?

Without warning, Nicole a deafening roar shook the very sky around her, rumbling through her very core like thunder over the ocean. Unable to locate where the sound had come from, Nicole looked around her, finding nothing. But Nicole was too numbed with the rawness of pain and impossible sadness to care. Let the monster kill her.

Just let her die.

Another roar, this one louder, longer, as if defying her last thought. But Nicole found a strange solace wash over her, as if the roar was trying to soothe the emptiness that threatened to drown her.

It sounded like a lion.


-Nicole-

Waking with a start, Nicole reached to her left in a panic, needing a comfort only physical contact could provide and knowing that Lotor was there. Her hand found Lotor's forearm, and she clung to him as she fought to calm her ragged breathing. Setting down the tablet he had been reading from, Lotor's arms encircled her then, lifting Nicole off the bed and into a tender embrace, sensing her fear from what appeared to have been a terrible nightmare.

Lotor said nothing. He didn't have to. He was simply there for her, and at that moment, Lotor's presence was enough.

Surprising them both, Nicole actually hugged him back, returning his embrace with her own as he cradled her in his arms.

"How do you feel?" Lotor asked once her breathing had calmed, and her heartbeat had steadied in rhythm.

"Better," was all Nicole said in response.

"…What is it that troubles you?" Lotor inquired, curious as to the nature to her uncharacteristic clinginess. Nicole still didn't pull away from him, but instead held him even tighter as she breathed her next words.

"I trust you," she whispered. "Don't you dare make me regret it."

"…Whatever inspired that?" Lotor mused aloud, having not expected such a statement from her so suddenly.

Nicole took a shaky breath. "If you wanted me dead, I'd be dead. If you wanted to keep me as your prisoner, you wouldn't have trained me. If you did not care about my physical well-being, you wouldn't have healed my wounds or my sickness," Nicole hesitated then, still unable to look at him. "If you did not care about my emotional state, you would have raped me instead of giving me my own room. You're too attentive of me to want me dead."

"Rational," Lotor granted, peering down at her quivering form as he continued to hold her, his face full of concern.

"I guess…I could show you some gratitude," was all the warning Nicole gave Lotor, before pulling out of his arms enough to sit up, and kiss him.