Author's Note: A quick stop to throw in some long overdue thanks to my readers. Special shout out to Leona2016 for your wonderful reviews of my scribblings - I hugely appreciate your support, and for those who are following the story - again, I really appreciate your support, too. It's great to know that people are enjoying 'the story what I wrote'.

Having avoided the need for a fire extinguisher two chapters ago (thank you for not flaming me!), just a quick pointer that I've referred back to and tweaked an incident that occurred in Displaced in this chapter as it drives the interaction between the characters and some developments in the tale. Rather than merely plagiarise it, I hope that people won't mind its recurrence here in a slightly altered context. Those who've read Displaced (and if you haven't, do - it's fab, and it has Wash in it) will recognise it.

And on we go...as always, I own nothing except the contents of my imagination...


Chapter Eleven

Contrition

Jim bounds into the Command Centre, his expression concerned, "What's up?" The call from Taylor demanding that he return from his morning routine patrol - which normally consists largely of just walking around with intent - was sharp and unexpected.

Taylor looks up from his plex, and indicates Guzman standing beside him, "They're back."

"We're sure?"

Guzman nods, "There are repairs under way - in a manner of speaking. The storm brought a lot down, and that's what's made them noticeable. I think they've been there since before the Solstice - but we couldn't tell. They're damn good at hiding themselves."

Jim exchanges a worried glance with Taylor; Mira's returned, and they didn't notice. God, she's good, "How bad did it look?" He asked.

"Pretty bad. From what we could see, the damage is very heavy. They've lost a lot of structures up in the canopy - they're so well hidden up there that we missed them. For all we know, they could have been there since the harvest; but we've got no way to know."

"That suggests that Mira knew we'd be watching for them." He is not sure now whether he should've pushed harder to install some cameras. At least they would've known she was back if cameras went offline, "They haven't come here, though. Anything you could see that would indicate why that might be?"

Guzman shakes his head, "Nothing. They've lost the backing of their employers, so perhaps they're too short of weapons to try to take us on. If they have abandoned the Phoenix soldiers, then they'll be pretty much on their own. We've got no convoys for them to raid anymore, all our resources are self-contained. We could stay in here almost indefinitely."

"Besides," Taylor interjects, "She knows I'll come looking, and I'll take 'em down tree by tree."

Jim is not sure if he is serious, so he says nothing.

Taylor sits back with a sigh, "Looks like the decision's been taken out of our hands, Shannon. Time to double up security?"

"I think so." He agrees, a little tiredly. He'd only just got the rosters completed. Now he has to start them all over again.


Despite a lack of an official announcement that the Sixers are back in the area, everyone seems to know. Probably thanks to the additional guards at the gates. Add to that the general efficiency of the Terra Nova grapevine, and the news couldn't possibly stay quiet for long.

Naturally, no one knows exactly why they're back - as few are aware of the real depth of the situation in the Badlands. That Mira has come back suggests to all who are 'in the know', and to plenty more who aren't, that the supposedly strong partnership between their enemies has irretrievably broken down. She's had enough, and has left her erstwhile allies to sink or swim. Figuratively speaking.

Guzman's reports are regular, and surprisingly comprehensive given the normally secretive nature of the group. From observations, it's becoming clear that they are in dire straits. Their canopy network has been all but destroyed, most of their structures are roofless, and the number of injuries caused by falling debris is extensive. It is certainly not lost on Guzman that he can actually see all of this. If she were at her fullest strength and resources, Mira would never, ever be so careless.

"Why hasn't she come?" Taylor muses, mostly rhetorically, as he and Jim review the latest report, "It looks to me like they're on the point of falling apart, but she hasn't appeared at the gates yet."

"Let's face it, Taylor," Jim snorts, "she'd rather eat slasher dung than come grovelling to you. It's going to take a lot of adversity to drive her out here."

"She's still pretty quiet." Taylor adds, "No raids on our patrols, no attempts to break in through the fence. Either she's too busy trying to keep house and home together, or she's trying to avoid antagonising us; keeping us sweet, I guess."

"And if she is?"

"Trust me. It's not working."

Jim shrugs, and heads back downstairs to resume his daily wandering about that serves as a form of security patrol. The market is busy, with the stored vegetables proving to be very popular; though there is little in the way of non-vegetable protein. He can only imagine that everyone else is as sick of beancurd as he is. There are only so many ways that Elisabeth has found to make it palatable. Or at least mostly palatable.

Work has begun on rebuilding their large hall; something that went up after the occupation as a place to hold functions and events in bad weather. The crews are busy, as are several metalworkers, including Yseult's associate whose name that Jim always seems to need several minutes to remember. A massive man, Mike seems to tower over most of his fellow workers, but Jim supposes that his life as an experimental blacksmith has made him that way. Either that or his father was an elephant.

"Where's your boss?" he asks cheerfully, as Mike manhandles a recently cast aluminium joint with a fearsome pair of iron tongs.

"Not sure at the moment," he answers, concentrating on the building part, "I think she said she was going to see if Graham was ready to come back to work. He's nearly mended now. Besides, this sort of thing is too heavy for her - she's pretty strong, but not that strong."

Jim stares at Mike's bulging biceps, and shudders slightly. The amount of work to get them like that must be astonishing; the man must be the strongest human being in the colony, "Remind me not to organise an iron man contest."

"No point, Deputy." Mike grins, his lifting done, "Who'd win it over me?"

Leaving the crews to their work, Jim resumes his patrol. His journey these days takes him out to the fence line, and he tends to follow it as far as he can - though he's upped the overall security patrols - and he never knows for sure what he'll find. Yesterday, he saw some weird bird thingy…

"Jesus!" He can't help his profanity as he comes across Malcolm and Yseult, having sneaked behind the stack of emergency generators outside the laboratories. The pair almost leap apart, startled and not a little embarrassed to have been caught snogging like a pair of randy teenagers. Thank God that's all that they were doing, "Er…just on patrol. Don't mind me." He is not sure if he is even more embarrassed than they are. Yseult, he could see doing something like this - but Malcolm? God, no. The man has a stick so far up his ass he'd never be caught dead doing something so not stick-up-the-ass uptight.

Or so Jim thought. At least the formerly uptight scientist has the grace to have gone a magnificent shade of red. But then, Jim can feel his own cheeks burning, and he hastens away with all speed. What was that Taylor said about a notebook and scorecards? But then, an encounter like that would be, to him, at least, off the charts.

"Taylor," He says, cheerfully as he returns to the Command Centre, "You are not gonna believe what I saw Malcolm doi…" his voice trails off at the sight of an entirely unexpected person in the room.

She is as tall and statuesque as he remembers; though her garments are rather more battered and mended than they had been the last time he saw her - and there are no longer feathers in her braids. Mira's eyes are hostile; but otherwise she seems to show no outward ill intent. But then; she can't afford to.

"What - no escort?" he asks, after a few moments' awkward silence.

She ignores him, turning back to Taylor, whose own hostility is entirely visible, "That's my offer. Intelligence, survival skills and extra hands, in exchange for a return to the Colony."

"Excuse me?" Jim asks, having missed the initial discussions.

Taylor glares at her, "You don't have much that we don't already know, we have a whole department of people who are capable of taking us low-tech, and I have plenty of pairs of hands. What makes you think you have anything we need?"

She returns his glare, but then scowls, "That storm in the autumn took out most of our structures, and we've already lost people because they can't get up into the trees. I'm not interested in playing you off against Hooper and his soldiers - they're pretty much dead in the water now that they've lost us. I just want to keep my people safe." She pauses, clearly about to divulge a highly unpalatable statement, "And I haven't got the capacity to do it anymore."

"Tell me what you know about the Phoenix encampment, and I'll consider it."

"Not a chance in hell. You get what I know when we're allowed back in. Not before." She counters.

They stare each other down for several minutes, before Taylor finally speaks; "I'll take your offer to my senior team. If they agree, you're in. If not, you're out. Take it or leave it."

Her eyes angry, but with no alternative, Mira nods curtly, "I'll await your communication."

"You do that."


Taylor sits quietly as three pairs of eyes regard him with varying degrees of emotion, "That's her offer. Come back to the Colony in exchange for intel about the Phoenix soldiers, their survival expertise and their genetic material. No prejudice, no fine print." There is no disguising his distaste.

"I can't help wondering if it's something we should consider." Elisabeth ventures, after a considerable pause, "Whether or not we need the intelligence, or their survival abilities, the one thing that we could do with more than anything else is more genetic diversity in the Colony. There are around a thousand of us - and no matter how you look at it - our overall diversity isn't good enough to ensure our long-term survival without adding new genes. The genetic diversity of humans is startlingly limited - and even though the catastrophic bottleneck theory's long been discredited, there's evidence that humanity endured an overall long-term bottleneck that reduced the diversity of Homo Sapiens as a species - but even the most conservative of estimates of the lowest degree of population shrinkage suggested double the number of people we have in Terra Nova. If there aren't that many of us to begin with, we're in danger of experiencing pedigree collapse sooner or later. The more genetic variety we have, the better our chances of survival."

"Are you serious?" Malcolm asks, sharply, "Why would we want them back after what they did?"

"Completely, Malcolm." Elisabeth doesn't rise to it, "Can we afford to hold grudges in a world where we're the only population, and the only increase is going to come from within that single population?"

"Elisabeth has a point." Yseult adds, "Wouldn't we be cutting off our noses to spite our faces if we refuse to let them come back? They need us far more than we need them, I get that - but at the same time, I could always put them to work with my teams. They may have developed some techniques that would be of use to us."

"You know my views." Taylor sighs, "They were sent here by the people who wanted to destroy everything that we'd built - everything that we wanted to get right this time around. That's something that I would find it hard to get past. No matter what they claim they can offer, it's not something that we can't do without."

"I'd have to disagree on that score, Commander." Elisabeth shakes her head, "I still think that the diversity issue is too important to ignore. I don't know how many of them are left, but even if there are only thirty of them, that's still something to add to our gene pool. If we can't deal with the concept of welcoming them back, then perhaps it's more palatable to view them as a commodity for our long-term benefit."

"No." Malcolm's tone is surprisingly vehement, "I can't accept that. They broke away from us, and then they came in and tried to take everything away from us. How are thirty individuals going to prevent pedigree collapse? Either way, it'll happen or it won't. As long as we're careful over consanguinity, why should they be of any use to us?"

"You'd leave them out there to die?" Yseult asks, shocked.

"They'd've done exactly the same thing to us." He snaps back, "They did it. You weren't in the Compound - you have no idea what it was like."

"Easy, Malcolm." Jim intervenes. So far, he has said nothing. His own feelings are somewhat ambivalent: he can see Taylor's reasons for refusing the return of the Sixers, but he can also see the validity of Elisabeth's argument. While he doesn't know exactly what 'pedigree collapse' is, he can guess. Like it or not, they could use the Sixers; though he thought Malcolm would be more level-headed about the whole thing.

"No, Jim." Malcolm's expression is strained, "People died - good people who didn't to anything to deserve it. All Mira and her crew wanted was to take everything away from us; and they made people suffer over it. Decent people - remember what Lucas did to you? What he did to…"

"I remember." Jim interrupts. The last thing he wants is to raise the spectre of Alicia's murder. Not in front of Taylor. Besides, she sacrificed herself so that he and his family could escape - he hasn't forgotten; how could he possibly forget?

"We can't see things in black and white, Malcolm," Yseult tries again, "I wish that it were that simple - and I know that we were confined to our end of the colony, so we weren't as badly affected as you were. But, can we really afford to turn our backs on any offer of assistance to keep ourselves alive?"

"And have them stab us in the backs? You have no idea; no idea at all what they did!" he is suddenly astonishingly angry - no not just angry - something else…

"I know that," her expression is worried, her tone placatory, "they kept us away because they didn't see any point in bothering with us. We didn't lose anyone, and we didn't have the opportunity to help with the resistance. I know that - but if we live in the past, then how are we supposed to be ready for the future?"

"Maybe because the past won't leave you alone!" he shouts, standing up so suddenly that his chair falls back behind him with a shocking clatter, "Forget it, Max. You have no idea at all what we went through - and if you want the people who hurt us to come back, then be my guest!" He turns and stalks out of the Command Centre, leaving her staring after him in distressed shock, while everyone else is merely stares.

"That went well." Jim mutters, mostly to himself.


"I've hurt him, Elisabeth," Yseult weeps, "Oh God, I've really hurt him - what if he doesn't want to speak to me? I can't lose him - not now…I love him too much for that…"

Sitting with her arm about her colleague, Elisabeth tries to think of something she can say that will console her, "Give him some time to calm down, Max. I've never seen him lose his temper like that before - but I don't think it was because of you. I think there's something he hasn't told us - but I couldn't begin to guess what it might be. I was assuming he was angry because they killed Steve McCormick in front of him. That was the only reason he agreed to repair the broken terminus."

They are alone in the Command Centre; Taylor has exercised his executive veto, and thus the Sixers are not to return - at least, not immediately - but, like many men unexpectedly confronted by female tears, he has considered discretion to be the better part of valour. Jim, on the other hand, has gone in search of Malcolm.

"You really do love him, don't you?" Elisabeth adds, quietly.

Yseult nods, "More than I thought I could ever love anyone again after Niall died. I always believed that there was only one person out there for you - and that I'd found him. When I lost him, I thought my world had ended - but it didn't. I just assumed that my soulmate was gone and that I would just have to learn to live without him. Then I met Malcolm. I don't really believe in soulmates anymore, but…I never thought I'd feel that sense of closeness that I had with Niall ever again. And then I did."

"I know what you mean." Elisabeth smiles, "About that sense of closeness. I have that exact same thing with Jim." She pauses, then continues, "Actually, now I come to think about it, I didn't have it with Malcolm."

"You?"

She nods, "I dated him for a year when we were at Oxford. I think it was a meeting of minds more than anything else - we were both dreadfully brainy - but that was all we really had in common. He'd decided from the start that he wasn't going to start a family - because he didn't see any point. I couldn't accept that all hope was lost - and that uncovered a whole seam of incompatibility. I called it off in the end, though that was mainly because I'd decided to switch from Pharmacology to medicine, and I knew we were both working too hard to keep a rather redundant relationship going. I transferred to St Thomas's in London, then I went on to Chicago to finish my training at Northwestern. That's where I found Jim."

"I heard somewhere that Malcolm recruited you because he wanted to try again." Yseult ventures, nervously. She really doesn't want to believe that.

"He certainly recruited me - though I'm not sure he really believed he had a chance with me. I think it was probably some silly romantic dream he had, but mostly it was offering me a new life, and recruiting the best trauma surgeon he could think of; I had quite a reputation, you know. He knew that Jim was in prison - but he didn't know about Zoe, so perhaps he thought that it would be a new start for me and our children as much as some ridiculous attempt to persuade me to take up with him again. Jim's arrival squelched that before it even had a chance to begin. Besides, he dotes on you, so there's no risk of him trying anything with me ever again."

"And I've destroyed it." She whispers, and starts to cry again, "God, I'm sorry," she hiccups, "I'm not normally such a limp biscuit."

"Welcome to the heartache of your first major row with your significant other. It's been a long time since your last one, so you've forgotten what it's like." Elisabeth sympathises, "I think I was much the same when I had mine with Jim. Believe me, once he's calmed down, I have no doubt that Malcolm will feel a complete idiot, and he'll come grovelling back."

"I can't lose him, Elisabeth. I can't - I couldn't go through that again."

"Come on, Max. Let's go and find him. I think you need to be saying this to him, rather than to me. Don't you?"


Not knowing Malcolm's routine, Jim has no idea where he might have gone, and takes something of a punt in seeking him out behind the generator stack.

"Wow. That was quite a show." He says, standing in front of Malcolm, who is sitting on an upturned crate, his elbows on his knees and his head down as he stares at the grass between his boots.

"She wasn't to know." Malcolm admits, very quietly, "God - I gave her hell and it wasn't even her fault."

"I didn't realise that McCormick's death still played on your mind."

"It wasn't that."

"Pardon?" Jim stares, confused. If his hatred for the Sixers is not thanks to McCormick's murder, then what was it?

"After…" he clears his throat, and tries again, "After you left the colony, and Lucas killed Lieutenant Washington, because she wouldn't tell him where Commander Taylor had gone, he started looking for people who might. His first port of call was the Senior staff - and I was the only one left."

Jim narrows his eyes - even Lucas wouldn't have been so dumb as to shoot the only person who could mend his broken apparatus…

"He couldn't have me shot, but he was convinced I knew where Taylor was - that you'd told me, or Washington had, because I was the only member of the senior staff left in the compound. So he left me with two of Mira's men and told them to get the information out of me. His only demand was that I had to be able to continue working on the terminus once they'd got it." He stares at the grass, "They sat me in a chair, fixed me to it with cable ties and set to work on me with one of those shock prods. I think it took them about two hours to accept that I didn't know where you all were: I didn't find out until after I'd finished repairing the terminus. Skye told me so I'd know where to go once I'd blown it up."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Jim asks, aghast. How could anyone not have noticed that Malcolm had been tortured?

He shrugs, "My clothes weren't scorched - they opened my shirt and used the prod on my chest and back. When they'd left me, I just sat for a bit to get myself back together again, pulled the shirt back over my shoulders, refastened it and went back to work on the terminus. It wasn't that hard to ignore the pain - even after I had a coat on. The burns weren't that bad."

"But you didn't tell anyone. Why not? Elisabeth could've given you something for the pain. She used derma-spray on my burns - she could've done the same for you."

"What was the point?" Malcolm asks, looking up at Jim with a shockingly bitter expression, "After what Lucas did to you, and to Josh? After Washington gave her life? What was that in comparison? Besides - D'you think I don't know what people think of me? If I had told anyone, who would've even cared?" Suddenly his eyes are brimming, "Why do you think I was hanging around you lot once it was over? I didn't have anyone else to be with - and I just needed to feel that I wasn't completely isolated, even if all I could do was lurk nearby and look like some pathetic hanger-on! Have you any idea - any idea at all - what it's like to be surrounded by people and still be completely alone because they all want to be with other people more than they want to be with you? The only person I've come across in the entire time I've lived in this blasted Colony who would've given a damn about what I went through is Max - and now I've bloody driven her away!"

"No you haven't…" Jim begins.

"I love her, Jim." Malcolm's voice is wavering in distress now, "I really love her - and I gave her hell. What am I going to do if she won't have me back?"

"I…er…" Jim falters. He's never seen Malcolm like this before, and has no idea how to deal with it. To his mind, this is the man who tried to leave him stuck in the future so that he could have another try with his ex-girlfriend; and he's never really been able to get past that. He is hardly a suitable confidante: hell, he doesn't even like Malcolm all that much…

Cross with himself for his cowardice, he pulls himself together, "Look; sitting here isn't going to answer that question. You need to find her, and talk to her. When I left to look for you, she was in floods of tears - probably because she's thinking something not that different from you." He pauses, "If it's any help, Taylor decided that we're saying 'no' to Mira."

"I don't care about the bloody Sixers, Jim. I just need to know I haven't wrecked it with Max."

"She's the only person who can answer that question, Malcolm. I haven't got ESP. Go home: I'll tell Elisabeth to send Max there. You're going to have to resolve this like grownups."

He watches as Malcolm walks away. He's never seen the Science Officer in such a vulnerable state; nor has he realised just how aware Malcolm is that people regard him in a similar fashion to the local insect life - something they could do without, but tolerate because it's too much bother to do otherwise. Suddenly, he feels very guilty. If Malcolm and Max resolve their idiotic spat, then perhaps he and Elisabeth should attempt to socialise with them. Perhaps he won't be quite so irritating if she's there to dilute him.


Nervous, Yseult stands at Malcolm's front door and tries to find the gumption to knock. All she knows is that Jim has told Malcolm to go home, and the Shannons have, collectively, ordered her to go and see him. They're right, of course. No one can resolve an argument but the two people who have argued.

Squaring her shoulders she raises her hand to knock, only for the door to open.

"I'm sorry," she begins, rather desperately, "I had no idea that I'd hurt you - I'm so, so…"

"Never mind that; just come here." Malcolm reaches out and enfolds her in his arms, pulling her into the house and booting the door shut behind him. For a while, they stand like that - clinging to one another as though they never intend to let go again.

"I'm the one who owes apologies." He says, eventually, sitting her down on a sofa, "I took out a lot of anger on you for something that wasn't even your fault. I let my feelings get in the way of my objectivity, and you got caught in the crossfire."

"Perhaps - but I should've been more aware of your feelings."

"Not if you didn't know about them."

She looks at him, bemused. He sits beside her, and she leans against him while he entwines the fingers of her right hand with his, "There's something I haven't told you. Something I never told anyone until about half an hour ago when I more-or-less shouted it at Jim."

She looks up at him, and sees he has turned very pale, "Someone hurt you, didn't they?"

He nods, "Two of Mira's men. After the Shannons escaped the compound, and Lucas Taylor killed Alicia Washington, they wanted to find out where Commander Taylor was hiding out. I was the only senior staff member left, so he assumed I would've been told. I hadn't been - but that didn't matter. The only restriction he placed on them was to leave me fit to work after I'd told them what he wanted to know, so they tortured me with a shock prod for two hours before they finally accepted I didn't know anything."

Her grip on his hand tightens, and he continues, painfully, "There wasn't anyone else in the labs; just them, and me. I was terrified - absolutely terrified - because I had no idea what they were going to do to me, and they covered my eyes, so I couldn't see what they were doing. Once they'd gone, I raided the medkit in the lab, and then made myself get back to work. I never told anyone; while I was working to sabotage the terminus I had something else to concentrate on, so I managed not to think about it. By the time I'd rejoined the other exiles, there didn't seem to be any point in mentioning it. The burns were under my clothes, so no one saw them; and I hid the pain. After what they'd done to other people, I assumed that everyone would think I was just angling for sympathy if I said anything. I have no illusions as to how people in the Colony see me: I used to be too obnoxious to notice it - but then I grew up."

"I don't see you like that." Yseult whispers, almost tearfully, "I wish I could take it back - all of it. If I'd known what they did to you…"

He looks up at her, and a lone tear escapes from his brimming eyes, "No, Max. You're the one who's right - not me. We can't think with our feelings these days. As long as I don't see the two of them, and I have you, then I can let it go."

"That's still not fair, Malcolm."

"Who said life was fair? If life was fair, then I wouldn't have lost my father at the age of ten. I'd still be Scottish; but I'd also probably not be here, and I certainly wouldn't be with you. All things being equal, I know which I'd prefer." He smudges at his damp eyes with the back of his free hand, then fixes his gaze upon her, "God, I love you, Max; you can't begin to know how lonely I was until I met you. I pretended to myself that I liked to be alone because it left me free to work - I even believed it for a while." He frees his other hand from hers and lifts her chin to claim a kiss.

As they break apart, she looks up at him, her eyes fixed upon his, "Make love to me."

He looks at her, startled at the suddenness of her request, "Are you sure?"

"More sure than I've ever been of anything in my life." She whispers, claiming his lips with hers as he gently lays her down on the couch.