"Iversson?"
Gazing down at the woman's face, Lex felt the familiar prickle of dread. Iversson was as still and cold as an effigy on top of a tomb. The improvised dressings must have done something, the patch of blood from the gunshot wound was no bigger… but she looked so lifeless.
She pressed two fingers lightly to the scientist's throat. At Lex's touch, her eyelids fluttered.
"Alexa," She croaked "What happened?"
"Isaac is alive!" Beaming, Lex took her hand, squeezed it.
The Professor blinked dazedly "What?"
"I don't know how but Scar managed to save him! He's alive!"
"Thank heaven." Iversson closed her eyes with relief.
"So you've got to recover," Lex squeezed her hand again, trying to transmit some warmth into the cold flesh "For Isaac's sake. We'll have to deal with your injury – " She reached over to try and touch the bandages but the injured woman laid a feeble hand on her wrist.
"No... please..."
"I know it hurts," Lex said gently "But I have to look at it if I'm going to help you – "
"Alexa, I'm dying."
"Don't be ridiculous!" Lex burst out "You're going to be fine, just let me – "
"Please, listen to me…" Iversson's voice was weak, but the urgency of her tone made her listen "I need you to… p-promise me… something,"
"You already know we'll look after him!" Lex squeezed Iversson's hand tightly "You don't even have to ask that; Isaac's like a brother to Selim. I'll keep him safe and I'll love him, I swear it!"
"I know," Iversson smiled faintly up at her "But it's something... more difficult I must ask…"
"Ask it."
"I want you to tell Isaac he and Selim are… real twins, born at the same time… that he's not … a clone."
Lex stared at her "What?"
"I want Isaac to believe … I took him from you… when you were in Nevada…"
"But that doesn't make sense; Selim wasn't even born in Nevada! I was still pregnant when I escaped!"
"Isaac doesn't know that… Selim probably doesn't… truly understand… if you and the exotic think of a story… stick to it… they'll believe … the new baby too…" She smiled and raised a faltering hand to brush Lex's stomach.
"But … but it's a lie!"
"I know… I'm sorry to… put this burden on you."
"Why? Why do you want me to lie to him? To them both? It's not fair!"
"Alexa please – you must see, this is the only way Isaac can have… real parents…I want him to have Selim as his … real brother… not see himself as a clone…"
"But how can I explain why we never came to get him back? He'll think that we didn't want him!"
"Tell him… I lied… told you he was… dead..."
Lex stared at her for a few moments in silence "But… you love him." She said finally "What if it makes him hate you, thinking you told all these lies?"
"I… have to put him first… for once," Iversson shut her eyes again, when she opened them they were wet with tears "It's my last sacrifice," She said "My last … gift … to him…"
Lex stared at her, unsure what to do; her first reaction was that deception on such a scale sounded horrible and wrong but the more she considered it… the more the idea made a weird kind of sense.
Genetically Selim and Isaac were brothers, they might as well have been twins. Genetically, she and Scar were his parents; he was a product of their combined DNA just like Selim. In her heart she felt him to be her child, what did it matter if she had never carried him inside her? It was a lie, but a lie but so close to the truth it almost didn't matter…
"But it would mean a lifetime of deceit," She thought "Not just deceiving Isaac, but Selim as well. This new baby too. And what about Scar, would he ever agree to it?"
Iversson was watching her anxiously "Please Alexa… please let me do this for him…"
"Mommy?"
Isaac stood hesitating on the threshold, looking fearfully at Iversson lying inside the strange metal sarcophagus.
"Darling… my darling boy…" Iversson smiled at him despite the pain. She tried to hold her arms out to him but she was too weak.
"It's alright Isaac," Lex said "You can come in if you want to."
She put a hand on the boy's shoulder to reassure him, guiding him over to the Professor's side.
Iversson's smile stayed on her face as the boy came near, though Lex could see she must be in agony "Isaac," She whispered "Precious… I have to… leave you…"
Isaac's eyes were full of tears already "Please don't go away." He said, his voice breaking "Stay with me Mommy!"
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"I'm… dying… " Iversson lifted her hand to stroke Isaac's face, shaking so badly she could hardly hold it up "I …. love you… so much my darling, please ….please remember that…"
"Don't go Mommy," Isaac clutched her arm anxiously "Don't leave me alone!"
Lex stood and watched the Professor stroke the boy's forehead with a faltering hand, trying to swallow down the lump forming in her own throat, holding back the tears for Isaac's sake.
"Can I really do this?" She thought "If I don't, I'd be throwing away the chance for both Selim and Isaac to have a real brother! What right have I got to take that from them?"
Scar sat in the pilot seat, his talons dancing across the controls. Selim was beside him. After Lex left the cockpit his son had slipped into the chair next to him, holding on as if he never planned to let his father out of his sight again.
Scar didn't object, he felt triumphant "Just when I thought this day could not be any more pleasing to me, my son has killed a Queen – and he has not yet achieved five solar cycles in age! I will make a warrior of him yet!"
"Of course, he did not do it alone…" His gaze slid over to where Isaac sat in the co-pilot seat "The facsimile also showed courage."
The other boy seemed mesmerised, watching on the screen as the Chameleon's plasma cannons scythed through the legs holding the Weyland complex above the water. "Perhaps he is an abominable replica, what do I care? I saw the way he killed the hard meat!" He grinned to himself "Yes, he is definitely worthy of my consideration… "
He snapped back to the task in hand; systematically destroying the supports until both halves of the structure crumbled and slid beneath the waves, never to rise again.
Scar purred with satisfaction "Let them rot in the underwater tomb they intended for me!"
He was in the process of programming a destination into the autopilot when he looked up and realised Isaac was missing. At some point the boy must have got up from the co-pilot's seat and slipped out unnoticed. Scar flipped the switch to activate the autopilot and rose to his feet. Selim followed, all but glued to his father's side.
Cursing under his breath, Scar padded down the corridor towards the medi-pod chamber. He knew that was where the boy must have gone. Doubtless, Isaac wanted to know what was happening to the human scientist but Scar knew there could be no good outcome for her. Strangely, part of him wanted to protect the boy; to shield him even though he didn't know how.
When he reached the medipod chamber, it was as he had expected; the scientist was dying. He didn't need any tests or machinery to tell him that. It was evident in her pallor, in her uneven breaths, in her fluttering, birdlike movements.
Lex had her hand on Isaac's shoulder as the facsimile clutched at Iversson's arm. His distress was very great.
When Selim saw this, he immediately relinquished his hold on Scar and went to stand next to Isaac. His son didn't say anything, just stood close to the other boy so their shoulders were touching.
Scar was about to enter the room when Lex raised her eyes to meet his and he froze in the doorway, transfixed.
In that moment everything about her seemed to conspire to seduce; her pregnancy, always so fascinating to him; the wild black hair like a halo of shadow around her head; the blood staining her soft mouth and throat and chest, making her look as if she had devoured her fellow humans alive.
And her eyes. More than anything else it was her eyes that stopped him in his tracks.
"Scar," She said "She's dying."
He nodded. Of course she was dying, he had seen her injuries.
Then Iversson spoke, her voice just a thin thread of sound "Isaac… should know… the truth…"
Scar's scowled as he approached the medipod "The truth?"
"He's yours…" Iversson gasped and choked, struggling to get the words out through a mouthful of blood "Isaac…he's your… son… you and Lex…"
Both boys turned to stare at him in astonishment "W-what do you mean Mommy?" Whimpered Isaac, turning back towards the scientist with huge pleading eyes.
"Isaac they… are your parents," She raised a trembling finger towards Scar and Lex "I s-stole you… it was wrong… I… I'm sorry …" She grasped his wrist "D-darling … please … f-forgive me… "
Scar couldn't process the scientist's words for a moment; he turned to look at Lex, waiting for her to make some sense of this madness.
"It is true Isaac." She said in a strange voice "You are our son… isn't he Scar?
His brow drew down as he stared into her eyes, for a moment he was lost, searching her face to try and understand "Why is she telling this lie? Agreeing with the scientist when we both know it is not the case?"
He could feel both females and the two children watching him, waiting for him to speak.
"Is it true Mei'Savir?" Selim breathed "Is Isaac truly my brother?"
Scar wanted to answer but he couldn't look away from her huge dark eyes. They were black on black, just like they had been in his dream and they seemed to have a gravitational pull all their own, a vortex that dragged him in.
Suddenly he realised it didn't matter why she wanted it "Whatever the reason," He thought "For me there is no choice. There has never been any choice. If she says Isaac must be our son then he shall be so from this moment. I can deny her nothing."
He could feel the force of her will beating against him, beautiful and terrible like sunlight.
"Give me this thing S'Kia and it will all be yours; everything you want in one fatal blow. Surrender."
He could not withstand those black, black eyes.
"It is true," He said, "Mei'Sika."
From far away he heard the scientist's choking breaths stutter and then stop and
Isaac's broken wail as he flung himself across her. He clung to her, his small body racked by sobs, while Lex and Selim held onto him as if he was in danger of being washed away.
Scar stared down at them in horror. Now he felt like he was about to drown, dumbfounded by this outpouring of misery. Suddenly the wave of their grief and pain loomed up before him; too big, too close, too raw… and he was powerless to stop it.
Unable to help himself, he wrapped his arms possessively around them; his female and all of his children.
Six months later:
Isaac struggled awake with a gasp, tears streaming down his face. He listened in the darkness for the familiar sighing of the waves around the complex. Instead he could hear the pulsing of huge engines.
For a moment he was panic stricken, then he heard Selim's deep, even breathing from across the room and remembered where he was; on the Chameleon. Knowing Selim was there made him felt better. Isaac always found reassurance in the presence of his brother.
"My twin brother." He thought, savouring the words.
Lex and S'Kia called them the twins now. They had done so ever since Isaac had come on board the spaceship he now called home. Sometimes Isaac felt like he had been with them so long that he had difficulty remembering anything else, other times – like tonight – he would be suddenly filled with fear, bewildered at the strangeness of it all.
He tried crawling into the bed next to Selim. Sometimes when he felt miserable just being close to Selim's warm sleeping body was enough. Not tonight though. Tonight he felt like there were too many memories crashing around, just like the waves had once crashed against the glass wall of his old room.
He got up in the darkness and crept to the door, pressed the release button, and peered out. Apart for the ever-present noise of the engines, all was still. The ship's low level nighttime lights washed everything in a red glow.
Isaac slipped out and crept down the corridor that led towards the cockpit. He didn't know where he was going – there wasn't really anywhere to go on this spaceship – he just wanted to get out of the dark little room.
Isaac glanced around nervously. He did not want to run into S'Kia.
He had mostly come to accept that the hunter wasn't a monster, at least not the kind of monster Isaac had imagined. Not a monster in the same way as the horrible smiling devils were monsters, but still…. still there were times when he dreamed about what S'Kia had done to Farrell.
In truth, Isaac still found Selim's father frightening "Except he's my father too now." He remembered uneasily. That fact on its own was so strange he didn't know what to think about it … he almost couldn't think about it. Isaac had never had a father before "I wonder if all fathers are as scary as mine." He thought.
Cautiously he put his head around the doorway into the cockpit and stopped short. In here, the red of night time gave way to a beautiful shimmering light. It was coming from the screen over the console which showed hundreds and hundreds of glittering stars flying past.
Isaac gasped, he couldn't help it. He had never seen anything so lovely.
"It's really something, isn't it?"
He jumped as Lex's face appeared round the side of the pilot seat, the chair was so big he hadn't been able to see her sitting there.
"Can't sleep, huh?" She said.
"I – I'm sorry," Isaac stammered "I didn't mean to get out of bed – "
"It's OK, I come out here sometimes when I can't sleep." She beckoned him "Come and watch the stars with me."
Isaac hesitated, glancing around nervously. He suspected the hunter would not be so forgiving of his nighttime wanderings.
She smiled then, as if she knew just what was worrying him "S'Kia's sleeping," She said "Even he has to sleep sometime."
Tentatively he approached and she patted the seat next to her "Come on, this chair's big enough for both of us, even now I'm so humongous!"She pulled him in beside her, putting an arm round him and he huddled against her side. It was true that her belly was huge now, but in a way it was comforting. It felt like a big warm cushion and he snuggled against it gratefully.
"Having nightmares again?" She asked, stroking his forehead.
"Yes," He admitted in a small voice.
"Was it about your Mommy?"
He nodded against the blind softness of her belly, not trusting himself to speak.
"It's OK if it was."
"I still miss her," He admitted, voice cracking "I know you're my Mom now but I – ".
"Isaac it's OK to miss her." She said softly "It's normal to miss her. I do."
"But why did she have to die?"
"She was very badly injured."
"I mean… why did Weyland kill her?"
"Because Weyland was a bad person, she wanted to hurt you and your Mommy was protecting you."
"But it's not fair!"
She sighed "Sometimes there just isn't a good reason why bad things happen to good people."
"But wasn't she bad too? Mommy said … I mean Iversson said… she said she stole me from you!" He looked up at her, his eyes brimming with tears "Why would she do that?"
"She loved you," She looked sad, almost as if she might cry herself "Isaac you have to remember that. Whatever Iversson did, she always loved you."
"But she wasn't even my real Mom!"
"Well sometimes that doesn't matter. Love is what matters and she loved you." She squeezed him "And anyway, I am your real Mom and I love you very much."
"But why did she lie?"
"Isaac she made a mistake, it's human to make mistakes."
"But I'm not human, not like you and her!" He burst out in anguish. "I'm not even a real person, just like Farrell said!" He was crying now, his childish shoulders heaving with distress. She held him, letting him sob for a while, his tears wet against her skin.
Eventually he became still and his gasps ceased and she lifted his chin up so that she could look him in the face.
"Listen to me," She told him firmly "Weyland and Farrell were wrong. They were wrong ok?"
He nodded uncertainly.
"You are my son and I love you." She said "Human or yautja, it doesn't matter, I still love you."
He sniffed "How can it not matter?"
She shrugged "Look sweetheart, I don't even know if I'm human anymore…I don't feel human but I'm not yautja either. I don't know just what I am now… but Isaac it doesn't matter because everybody – whether they're human or yautja or something else – everybody is only trying to make their way in this world. You just have to look after the people you love, like we are going to look after you and Selim and your little future playmate in here." She smoothed the tight curve of her stomach.
Isaac rubbed his eyes, momentarily distracted. In truth the idea of the baby was both disturbing and exciting. He hadn't really understood what the swelling meant until she'd explained to him that another child would soon be here and that child would be his brother or sister. He was just getting used to having one brother and now he was going to have another? Isaac found it all a little overwhelming but he also liked to think that soon there would be a baby to play with.
"Is it going to be human or yautja?" He asked.
She shrugged again "A little of both. Want to listen?"
"What will I hear?"
"Secret baby stuff," She grinned "Go ahead and find out."
He laid his ear against her stomach, tentatively at first "It sounds like the sea," He listened more "And I can hear bumping."
"That's the baby's heartbeat."
"I hope that he'll be here soon," Isaac yawned. The rushing sea sound and the thumping of the tiny heart were making him relaxed and sleepy. His eyelids were very heavy as he curled himself up next to her, feeling like he was listening to the calm waves once again. After a few minutes he was asleep.
Lex sat and held him like for a long time, letting the tears run down her face as the stars drifted past like clouds of fireflies.
Author's note: Thanks again for all the love for the last chapter people! I hope you enjoyed this chapter too. Please review and let me know what you think. I'm nearly finished with this story but not quite. Just one more instalment to go!
