Sharaih, ever since Alexis' return two months ago, hadn't stopped watching Alexis. And when she started asking Alexis very odd, almost embarrassing questions about her physical health, Alexis began to understand that her niece was preparing for, even hoping for, a pregnancy. And when Sharaih began to suggest she visit the family's resident doctor, it took more energy than it should have to convince her niece that she wasn't going to.
With her niece persisting on the possibility only made Alexis do further research. What she found out gave her pause, but did not make her worry. If she was pregnant, Alexis would have certainly known by now.
Having barely seen her husband since his thezde cycle, she got accustomed to life on her own that was quiet and still hot, but not boring at all. She had access to plenty of movies, music and books an on her tablet. And while continuing to learn the language of the planet, Alexis took up a form of sewing that was far more complicated than the cross-stitching that she was accustomed to, but was more satisfying when finally something clicked and she understood how to do the complicated hobby.
She still took rides and walks, still joined the family members during the strange, far too humorous commingled dinners.
Alexis received texts from her husband every day, several times a day. Whenever he had a moment. When they began, she was both excited and horrified. He didn't spare her anything. Told her exactly what he had been through, what was going on and how much danger he was in. Strange, with the texts being so factual, almost clinical in their details that she was able to derive such emotional anxiety from his messages.
Being able to respond after receiving his first message took her two days. Now, months later, the ongoing separation afforded her a form of desensitization that allowed her to get past his concise, overly truthful messages and see and read and take delight in his form of, what she considered, love letters.
The only time she actually saw him now was during his rare video calls. Those became less frequent when Airaih noticed the distress they caused. How was she supposed to respond when she heard the sounds of battle not far in the distance as he talked? Or when an explosion rocked the compound, the screen going black with weapons fire still commencing until the video link terminated in entirety?
There had been eleven Decepticons. Now there were only seven. But seven were enough to cause havoc and deaths and destruction. Was enough to keep the planet's military occupied as they tried to locate and destroy, as they tried to keep them far from homes and a distance from their families.
They succeeded for the most part. But when they didn't, the devastation that the news feeds announced was a blunt reminder of how brutal the Cybertronians were, as if she could ever forget. Now close to figuring out the Decepticons stealth capabilities, Airaih assured her that the interlopers would not find the planet's power grid that they now knew they were looking for, nor would they ever get a chance to contact their master.
It was amazing how far she had come in such a short time. How she could calm her emotions and pray the worries away. How she found such solace in the comfort of her God, the steadfast belief that Airaih was protected and safe.
"Alexis!"
The sound of pounding began against her door, but it was the perceptible stress that was an undercurrent in her name that had Alexis jumping up from her chair and opening the door.
"We have to go, Alexis," Sharaih was out of breath, her chest heaving from some unknown exertion, her eyes wide and intense.
Alexis could have asked why, but intuition had her grabbing an already packed bag and following after her niece without hesitation.
From a distance, Alexis watched her home burn. Saw for the first time, Decepticons on the planet Renth. They were searching the house for something. When they didn't find it, they took off in as much haste as they had arrived, leaving smoke and fire dancing, leaving a horrible pang in Alexis' gut.
"What do we do?" Sharaih asked, her intonation still breathless and now evidently cursed with fear of the unknown. Suddenly, with the display of emotion and uncertainty, her niece seemed much younger to her.
Drawing her eyes away from the destruction of another haven and turning around, Alexis wiped off her eyes with tears she hadn't even realized she shed. Mouth set firmly, resolve quickening her breath and making her back straighten, Alexis spoke with a strength that shouldn't have been possible with the tragic circumstances, with what was happening behind her.
"We get away from here. We try to stay alive."
Her firm words were enough to get the small, young group she was with to react past what had happened. Truthful enough for them to start walking away from what once was their home.
They were tracked and pursued for a long three days after. On the fourth day, exhausted, numb and paranoid, it was all Alexis could do to just keep moving. Her tablet practically glued to her hands, she used it to guide her steps, used it to avoid the small anomalies on the screen that appeared, disappeared and returned. No wonder the military had such a hard time tracking them. They could make it seem like they were everywhere, as if their numbers were unending.
Returning back to a small abandoned shop where they had left the others in order to search for water, Sharaih grabbed to her hand and pulled her back. That didn't stop a sharp stabbing sensation prickle over her body, or from her hearing the cackling as Alexis lost consciousness from a discharged energy weapon.
Two days spent in a small constructed cage that was continually being filled, Alexis still couldn't stop her eyes from traveling to a mound of confiscated weapons nearby that were close enough to see, but not close enough to help.
"Shall we start again?"
Dread filled Alexis. The cage though, the people in it, remained silent. There should have been crying and screaming, pleading too, especially for what was to come. She heard a couple whimpers from the children, but even that was tapped.
"Still refuse to talk?" A pointy-headed Decepticon drawled, far too delighted when he got no answer. He bent down, his sharp fingers pushing through the now open cage. Alexis felt the touch of cold metal, but it wasn't she that was taken out, it was Sharaih.
For a moment, all she could do was watch. Alexis was paralyzed by what she knew was going to come, tormented by her helplessness.
And then something astounding happened.
The Deception was shot, not once, but three times. One of her fellow captives, a captured soldier, had gotten loose and taken hold of two of the appropriated weapons, both aimed and still firing at the Con. Hope flickered anew. Until the spine scratching cackling began again, until the soldier went flying back, dark blood spurting and the shocking sound of his body impacting firmly with another filled cage. He didn't get back up.
Sharaih was put back in the cage. The door to it though was left wide open.
"Anyone else wanna come out and give it a go?" the Deception stared at the captors, his mouth set in a firm line of smugness. He wiped at the scratch left on his small chassis. The Con was the thinnest she had ever seen. He had a pair of obviously malfunctioning wings on his back and a persistent twitch to his mannerisms that spoke of injuries never correctly attended to.
Another soldier left the cage, grabbed a weapon and fired at the Con. The shock of the Vildan being killed was no less vivid than the first. When the last soldier got up, Alexis tried to stop him. Something was wrong with the weapons or the Deception was just able to endure it. Either way, any further similar actions were fruitless. That didn't stop the man from leaving the cage, from joining his comrades in death from his attempt.
"Guess that is the end of you plucky ones. Take away your soldiers and you Vildans are as weak as you are passionless." The Decepticon said with disappointment. His orange optics returned to the caged organics as his shoulders lifted with expectation of a pleasurable task.
Sharaih grabbed hold of Alexis and tried to stop her, but before her thoughts could catch up with her actions, she was walking toward the pile of weapons, ignoring the renewal of cackling that began. Picking up her weapon of choice, Alexis tried to steel herself and stop the shaking.
Releasing the staff weapon to its full length, she went through short defensive preparation of movement that Airaih had taught her that was supposed to calm the mind. Suddenly, strangely, she was grateful for all her time among the Decepticons, even being chased and stabbed by the fear inspiring Barricade. The experiences had tempered her fear when among them, allowed her a unique perspective that while didn't eliminate all the distress, did allow her to master the terror.
The pointy-headed Decepticon was nowhere near as frightful as the Seekers had been. Compared to them he seemed like a spoiled child playing with his toys. Alexis used the strength from those thoughts and advanced. Twisting the staff in hand, she barely managed to tap it against the Con's foot. But her second whack was far stronger, as was the next.
In his arrogance and with great enjoyment from her innocuous actions, the Decepticon just watched. By the time a seam came apart on his pediform and the Con stopped laughing, her staff was deep inside the exposed joint and twisting.
Like Goliath, he went down. But he was not dead, just temporarily disabled. She knew things about Cybertronian structure both from her time with the Seekers, her brief training with the Autobots, and from what Airaih had shown her diagrams of. Never would she have thought she would be putting it to use. But when the Deception started moving again so soon, Alexis knew that she didn't apply enough force. Taking a step back, chuckling spitefully at herself because she knew trying to distance herself would do little good, she watched the Decepticon stand back up and his weapon fold out and aim down. Not at her, but the cage she had come from.
A burning hole appeared in the middle of his chest right before he exploded. Flying metal scratched against her skin and Energon splattered her already dirtied clothes. A hand gripped to her shoulder, a familiar voice called her name.
"Alexandra."
By then she was busy with trying not to throw up. What she had just done, or tried to do, caught up with her. The trembling was back, this time with a vengeance and her legs buckled. The rod fell out of her tightly clenched fingers, rolling slowly on the ground until it got stuck in a pool of thick Energon.
Someone caught her and the putrid smell of spilled Energon was overshadowed by a familiar scent, by her name being said again, this time low and breathed hotly against the side of her neck.
She could sleep. Alexis deserved sleep. But she couldn't. Cleaned and looked after, she felt akin to safe, knowing that should have been enough to allow her the reprieve that she deserved. But her mind was explosive, racing through her skull with the provided adrenaline that had her seeing and understanding things that she really wouldn't have unless death gave her a glimpse of its predatory visage.
When she felt the presence of her husband behind her, she felt no remorse for throwing her arms around him, for finding his mouth with her own, for giving in to everything she felt and wanted to feel. When he pushed her slightly back, Alexis thought he was refusing her. Instead, he led her further away from the camp, lowered her on the cloak he had taken off and didn't dare let go of her again.
Alexis woke up to the feel of a body behind her, to a hand wrapped around her thigh. Unaccustomed to such an arrangement, she sat up quickly. Airaih looked up at her with the corner of his mouth lifting gently.
"I assume that..." he started.
"I missed you? Very much," she finished for him. A smile tugged on her mouth and sprang into a grin. Settling back near him, she placed her head on his chest and allowed herself to hear the insistent tempo of his hearts. She loved him. So much. The very idea of what she felt for him left her lightheaded, astounded and slightly fearful.
"I'm sorry that I didn't find you sooner," Airaih spoke lowly, his body shifting to allow him to twist to the side, bringing Alexis with him. "The thought of anything happening to you, makes me... distraught." The last word was twisted and covered with tension, filled with remorse and longing.
His mouth momentarily lingered above the pulse along her jugular. His fingers found and twined in her own. He stared down at her, allowing Alexis to see the vulnerability of his fear. Their foreheads met, their eyes closed in a synchronized communion.
Airaih tensed. Rolling to the side and up on his feet, he had his gun aimed before the figure of his brother coming through the brush was seen.
Zarnaih gave each of them a quick glance.
"We are about to depart," he told the two and then disappeared as silently as he had appeared.
Walking back to the others, Alexis could feel Airaih's gaze on her. Just about to reach the camp, he stopped her and tugged her away from the view of the others.
Abruptly, he dropped to his knees, his arms wrapping around her, his head pressing lightly against her middle. She laughed at his actions, but stopped when he didn't detangle himself, only pressed closer. Her hand found his head, her fingers tangling in his hair, then moving to feeling the exquisite curve of his ear.
Getting up, his hand brushed against her cheek, his eyes held her own.
"We are going to have a beautiful child, Alexis." Airaih finally spoke.
Alexis blanched and choked on the breath she had just taken in. Of course he wanted children, it was even more a part of his genetic makeup than it was her own. But still, saying such things made that unfathomable shameful fear that always came when she thought of her future with Airaih cling to the surface of her flesh.
"You're not, I mean..." she stuttered, engendering an expression of endearment on her husband's face. She had taken the provided herb during his heat cycle, and both knew he couldn't get her pregnant outside that. "Why would you say that?"
Airaih frowned tightly, sensing her unease.
"Only to prepare you for the eventuality, for when it becomes truth. The thought of you with my child, Alexandra..." He let the words float away, the subtle possessiveness astounding and more of a turn on than it probably should have been. Getting back up, he brought the back of her palm to his mouth before turning it back around in order for him to hold on to her hand.
This wasn't happening. She wouldn't believe it. But with the blood pouring out of her husband's wound and through her fingers from an unseen trap sprung by one of his young nieces who Airaih had managed to push out of the way, only for him to take the brunt of it, she watched his wracked breathing, watched the blood that spilled from the corner of his mouth.
Sharp metallic barbs stuck out of his chest. They were so close to returning to home. A home Airaih had told her was far from destroyed and already being repaired with security upgraded.
"They won't ever breech our home again," Airaih had just assured her. "They are looking for the security council members. Each member holds a piece of the security key to the power grid. My brother and I have a piece of that code. That is why we were attacked. Somehow they learned who was on the council, since then..."
And just like that, even before he finished what he was saying, not even a breath later, after scooting the child out of the way, he was down on the ground bleeding out and eyelids fluttering.
A week passed. A week after they returned to their home. A week of watching Airaih get better, only to deteriorate worse than before despite the medical attention he received. She refused to leave him.
"The barbs were poisoned," the physician informed Alexis at some point. "Don't be alarmed though. The barb that caught your leg is not enough to harm you," sharp eyes flickered over to her husband, "irrevocably."
She almost screamed at the old man, nearly burst out in a fit of madness from the calmness of the doctor's words. As if he hadn't, however roundabout, just said her husband was going to die.
Alexis refused to believe the doctor. After all, he didn't have the last word. Praying harder and longer and more desperately than she ever had, Alexis wouldn't allow herself to give in to the hopelessness. Airaih would live. He would because she believed that he would. She had faith. He would survive. He wouldn't die like this, so suddenly, so unexpectedly.
"You're still here," Airaih's eyes fluttered open, the yellow hue of his reflective gaze brighter than ever before. "You look dreadful," he whispered, his deductive gaze sweeping along her form. "When is the last time you slept or ate?"
Alexis tried to hold it back, but she burst into tears from the sight of her husband awake and even talking, of knowing who she was. The Decepticon's poison was not only deadly but slow and painful. She saw that in the tremors of his body, the terrible wincing. Alexis knew it first hand.
"Airaih..."
He stopped her words when he forced himself to sit up. He brushed the tears off her face.
"You are stronger than you know, Alexis," Airaih whispered, his words so strained that she nearly didn't hear them. "I'm feeling... better," he told her, his voice dry, his tone picking up strength, enough that she pulled away and looked at him.
She made her way to the water pitcher on the stand. He shook his head. "I prefer some juice, something sweet," He caught her hand as she passed the bed, "Zsar'inay."
Confused, not knowing what he had just called her, the word replayed itself over and over in her head as she went and got him some juice. He had called her such a thing before. The first time they made love and multiple times since. But she never knew until then that it wasn't several words, but just one. Looking up the corrected word in one of the books on her tablet that she used to study the language, Alexis found it this time, now that she was more capable in spelling and sounding out the complex letters. It was an archaic word, one from the ancient Vildan language, which explained why her translator had difficulties with it.
Returning back to the room, the glass almost slipped out of her hand when she saw her husband standing and carefully, tediously stretching. She hadn't seen him standing since the Decepticon trap. Relieved, happy and bordering on giddy, she smiled wide, handing Airaih the juice he had requested.
Everything was going to okay. Everything was fine. She knew that as his clear, sharp eyes swept over her emotional form, his other hand reaching for her own.
Zsar'inay. The word whispered inside her head again, warming her immensely now that she knew what it meant.
Beloved.
