Disclaimer: All rights to Star Trek Enterprise, the characters and situations, except as noted below, are reserved by Paramount Studios.
Tia Anlor (Tee-ah Ahn'-lor) is my own creation.
This is the 12th story in this series, the others being 'Golden Girl'; 'A Few Words'; 'Glistni'; 'Small Time'; 'Acquisition'; 'What Do I Do Now?'; 'For Want of Kilyiis'; 'Daasii'; 'Noblesse Oblige', 'Roses and Thorny' and 'Time and Again'.
This story takes place 1 day after 'Time and Again', and continues the events of that story. Tia has been on the Enterprise for five months.
Future stories will include 'Starlight Maiden', 'Armageddon', 'Luuru' and others.
Rating: G

House of Cards
By JMK758
Chapter One
Li Bul Vaz Minya Edal

Commander Charles Tucker opened his eyes to dim light, surprised to find that he was not alone. Resting enfolded in his arms was the warm body of a young woman, her long golden hair spread out over her bare body like an extra blanket. Her flesh, for what could be seen, was nearly as golden but in the ways human bodies are various shades of pink from the ree of blood. She lay huddled, her body pressed to his in an effort to find security more than warmth under the light sheet.

He vaguely remembered her coming to him not long after oh-three-hundred, after having avoided him for more than a day. She had said not a word, had not responded to his whispered words, but had gotten into bed with him, pressed close as he put his arms about her and held her as she fell asleep, her breath warm against his chest.

Yesterday she had not left her quarters, had spoken to no one, and even now as she lay in his arms, hands to her chest as though to protect herself, he found himself becoming deeply disturbed.

Something was wrong, terribly wrong, and it had only a little to do with what had happened to her.

But whatever it was, he simply did not want to think about it.

Yesterday afternoon, after a late evening of time jumping chaos, Malcolm Reed had had no problem at all thinking about it.

ooo

"It doesn't add up. I'm sorry, it just doesn't," Reed had told him in the Mess Hall over their dinner.

"What doesn't?"

"Anlor. She was assaulted, or so I'm told."

Trip knew he called her Tia, why the distancing formality? He had a feeling he wasn't going to like this conversation.

Assaulted? Hell; Raped!

"But this is the same young woman, about three quarters my size, who knocked me bum over teakettle not two months ago, took me out in eight tenths of a second and left me unable to move for half an hour."

"What are you saying?" Tucker had demanded, feeling his anger mounting.

"I'm not saying anything," the man had insisted, "I'm only wondering how someone who can handle herself as well as she obviously can, can be assaulted like I hear she was."

"You haven't seen her!"

"No; and neither has anyone else, not even Phlox. You said she won't see anyone. I just wonder –"

"You said then that it was reflex, that if she thought about what she was doing she couldn't have done it."

"Yes, and the more I think of it the more I'm not sure I wasn't wrong. Maybe it was reflex, but who taught her the reflex?"

That was nonsense. "You through?"

"Not a bit," had only aggravated him more, but he'd listened. He couldn't help himself.

"After we settled on the Temporal Cold Warrior, when his poison did him in, Hoshi and I went back to Anlor's quarters, the 'scene of the crime' so to speak after Anlor had asked you to leave.

"While we talked to her I managed to get a good look around. Both women took me through what happened, where everybody stood, where Hoshi had fought the man because Anlor had hidden behind her, too scared to act. And that in itself was odd."

"Now wait a moment!" he had challenged but Reed didn't.

x

"Hoshi fought him alone and got knocked out. She woke up with Anlor kneeling over her, sobbing after having been assaulted. Her dress was torn to shreds, her panties torn apart on her left side but still on her right thigh and she was bleeding from her nose, from deep gashes on her breast and from her crotch or so Hoshi reports. I never did see the dress, it had been resequenced."

"I know." He had thought destroying the bloody dress and panties would be a good thing.

"She was kneeling beside Hoshi, then when she bent over, crying, her blood got all over the front of Hoshi's uniform."

"I know that. There was a lot of blood. There was nothing to clean it up with, I went to get a mop and bucket."

"Yes, good thing we got there before you got back."

"Why?" he'd asked and hadn't wanted to.

x

"The blood was all over the floor next to where Hoshi had lain. But Anlor said she'd kicked him off of her, kicked him in the testicles, ran for the comm panel to call the bridge and alert me to the murders of Phlox and the others."

"If you're headed toward a point, get there." He hadn't liked hearing the details of his beloved's rape, especially since he hadn't been there to help her… or Hoshi.

"I did not find a drop of blood anywhere, except where Anlor was kneeling when Hoshi revived."

x

Tucker had wanted to argue a couple of scenes and sequences that made absolutely no sense, had thrown down his napkin in disgust and stalked out.

He'd told himself that it was to keep from hitting the man for doubting Tia's account of her assault, or perhaps for finding evidence that didn't support the sequence of events as they'd been told it; but the truth was that he had wondered the same things himself.

Too often.

And he really didn't want to know. But the more he allowed himself to think on it, the more things he couldn't answer, and the less he wanted those answers.

ooo

Now he held the young woman in his arms, and as he moved slightly, drawing her closer, his hands on her bare back, she stirred, looked up from his chest to his face. In the dimness he could make out the burnished gold coloring about her right eye; and against his chest he could feel the large medicated pad adhered to the right side of her left breast, which was all the treatment she had been willing to accept.

"Dampris ilinta," she whispered.

"Good morning," he enunciated pointedly. She looked away, unable to maintain eye contact.

He ran his hand down her side to rest upon her bare hip, but she moaned and stiffened, apprehension bright on her face. "I won't touch you," he promised. "It still hurts." It was not a question – he knew how much pain she was in.

"Ealyiis, um, 'thank you'. Hurts it terribly does."

x

It was worse, by far, than she had expected. She had not wanted to view the damage; but when she had, she was appalled at how bad it had been.

"Phlox could heal you. Why won't you see him?"

"Nyas," she whispered. "Can not."

x

He fervently wished that he could understand her reluctance. He had done everything he could for her, which was precious little, before she had shut him out yesterday. She wouldn't see him after the initial time in her quarters, after he'd returned to her but found Hoshi and Malcolm in the room with her, and so he'd been surprised she had come to him in the late night. He had done nothing that might drive her away, but only held her as she fell asleep.

x

"How are you?"

"Cusla," she whispered, but he pressed his hand a bit harder into her back and she sighed. "'Well'. I well am, Shar-les."

"You can't draw away," he said softly. "Not if you're going to reach out."

x

Yesterday she had not said anything to him in English, had stayed locked in Auran. It was such a departure from her months of struggling to learn and keep to English, to communicate in their language, that he had been concerned. He hadn't pressed her yesterday, she'd been too fragile, but today he felt he should remind her of her determined stand, lest she withdraw from all of them.

"I want to talk about it not," she whispered so softly he could barely hear her. "I want to talk about it never. Li bul vaz minya edal." She caught the look in his eyes and sighed. "'I it want over to be'."

He didn't answer, remembering his conversations with Hoshi and Malcolm, so different yet agreeing on one point.

This would not be over soon.