Sara lay amidst the furs quietly. She had watched Wolf leave after he'd dimmed the lights. She cried with her face buried in the pelts so that he wouldn't hear her. Mourning for a life barely lived. She was twenty nine years old, had never married or had children, her love life had almost been an Olympic event (a boyfriend every four years or so). Life had just started looking good when Wolf had taken her. She had been full of hope for the future. Everything had been at her fingertips. The debts for her education had just been paid off barely six months ago, she was saving for marriage, children, a home…
Her parents had been so proud of her new job, her mother had been pushing for Sara to get closer to the handsome Greek entomologist, and she had finally done so after two years of watching him from afar. Two years of watching, waiting, hoping, dreaming… she had assumed he had been in a relationship. Jennifer the secretary had told her that he was single after six months. She wouldn't admit it to anyone but she had fantasized about marriage and olive-skinned children, with her green eyes and Andreas' midnight black hair, and a summer home on the Mediterrean.
She should have approached him… She should have made the first move instead of thinking him out of her league. She should have...
And then what…? The little voice in the back of her mind mocked cruelly, she would have been torn from a husband and children rather than a life just beginning. Torn from a life that would have caused so much more pain. That she was single, with no children, no pets, a small one bedroom apartment… Her thoughts trailed off. She thought of the circumstances of her abduction (unaware that her parents assumed she had died in the nuclear blast), how Wolf had smashed her rear windshield, and her car had swerved onto the shoulder of the road. It would look bad. Her parents would think the worst, that she had been kidnapped and murdered, her body dumped somewhere in the wilds of Colorado, never to be found. She would join the millions of missing people that were never found. There would be no closure for her family… Oh God…
She closed her eyes and whispered a prayer under her breath for her parents, and then her mind wandered back to Wolf almost against her will. The big alien had tried to comfort her when she had cried, placing her on his lap. He'd even touched her cheek gently.
He hadn't answered her when she'd asked if she was his pet, but it was obvious. He fed her, watered her and even took her to the bathroom (on a leash… like she was a dog…). She curled herself into a tighter ball. She was glad in a way that no one from her past could see her now. She wasn't a world renown anthropologist by far, but her reputation had been good, her work had been well researched and she had done her fair share of historical papers. And now… she was a pet. An alien pet no less… demeaning did not begin to describe how she felt.
The door swished open and her eyes slid open. Wolf had re-entered. He was staring down at her in silence before he moved towards his weapon wall, clicking buttons on his wrist computer as he went. The wall panel opened and he began the ritual of disarming himself and cleaning his weapons and armour with his laser, setting each piece delicately on that crystal stand of his.
She watched him fascinated. He hadn't done anything apart from training with the robots, and yet he was meticulously cleaning his gear as though he'd been in an all out war. It took him a couple hours to do this and she was almost asleep when he finally stood up and removed his mask to set it on the stand beside the wall. The sound of pressurized air escaping echoed ominously in the silent chamber. She noticed he kept this odd looking netting that covered his body from neck (there was this weird metal coil around his throat that he never removed) to ankle and those wrist gauntlets.
Sara didn't move a muscle as he settled in the bed beside her. Surprisingly not that close to her as she had expected, she barely felt the mattress dip beneath his weight and she knew he was heavy . After a few minutes of muted silence, she slowly turned onto her back so that she was facing him, she was at eye level with his shoulder. In the faint light she could see the spiky protrusions on his shoulder, they looked like those same hair that went down his chest, but a little thicker. There was a good three feet between them.
She inched her way towards him, not wanting to wake him if he was asleep, but needing the comfort of his presence. He was, after all, her world now, all that she had. She was utterly dependent on him for her survival, in every aspect of the term (she did not have a choice in the matter). Sara couldn't navigate his ship if she tried, didn't know where the food was, and without him to take her, did not have access to the water (she was in denial about the water they drank being the same water in which they had bathed).
This was a new kind of loneliness, the silence was oppressing and just knowing that they were in the depths of space, like Star Trek type of deep space (this was serious) was terrifying. Sara was scared, very scared, to the very depths of her very mortal soul. She had never known fear like this, never known hopelessness like this. She did not like it. He was her only anchor from madness, despite being the one that had caused her this.
Two feet separated them now. She blinked back tears and continued to inch her way towards him. She was as silent as a church mouse until he turned towards her suddenly and dragged her gingerly towards him. She gasped but didn't fight him as he tucked her into his side. He let out a deep breath, his mandibles spread and almost immediately began purring.
The tears that had filled her eyes spilled when she closed them, falling onto his thick hide heedlessly. That exotic scent of his surrounded her slowly and Sara snuggled into his side while his heavy arm touched along her back, pushing her tighter against him. His clawed hand settled on her fur-covered hip, all encompassing. He purred until she finally fell into a dreamless sleep, her nose buried in his skin, her legs intertwined with his, and her fingers clutching the netting on his side tightly.