CHAPTER 13: When I Must Leave to Join Her There
AUTHOR: MNEMOSYNE
RATING: R, for violence and some language
CATEGORY: Angst, Drama, Romance, Action, Deathfic
CODES: R/S (heavy on the R) with touches of everyone
Malcolm had never felt so alive as he did right now, running down the corridor, Hoshi at his side. Seeing her again - holding her, breathing her scent - had reinvigorated his blood. This lost cause didn't seem quite so lost anymore. The ship could have been coming down around his ears, anti-matter plasma pooling in radioactive puddles around his ankles, and he would have felt ten feet tall.
"Where are they all?" he asked as they paused and peered around a bend in the corridor. "I don't like running in the open like this."
"It's the fastest way to travel," Hoshi reminded him. "Most of them are on the bridge, charting a course to God knows where. They swarm when they get a chance, like moths to a flame. I think it comes of having a collective conciousness."
"Damn them," he muttered, shaking his head and placing a hand on her abdomen to stop her as he checked around another dodgy corner. "I don't like shooting at something with a thousand heads. Ten thousand is even worse."
"Don't worry," she said, nimbly moving past him and continuing her jog down the corridor. "Now that you're here, everything's going to be fine."
"You put an awful lot of faith in my abilities, luv."
She came to a stop and turned to give him a dazzling grin. "You'd have me put them somewhere else?"
Malcolm smiled a little, then chuckled. "I'll let your optimism carry us both," he said, then quickly sobered as he looked at the door which stood before them. "Here?"
Hoshi looked at the door as well, her own face growing serious. "Here."
Malcolm set his jaw. Reaching out, he took her hand and squeezed it. "Okay."
She nodded and keyed the door. It opened, and they stepped inside. Immediately, Malcolm felt his stomach curdle.
Like phosphorescent pupae, what remained of the crew of the Enterprise dangled from the ceiling of storage bay one, encased in sparking, blood red EMS fields. Every few seconds, a wave of red energy would ripple over the surface of one of the cocoons, then quickly spread to the others. Inside their electromagnetic cells, the crew waited in utter stillness, frozen in static time.
"Dear God," he breathed, clutching Hoshi's hand tighter. "Why?"
"The larder."
He looked at his wife, horror written across his face. "Food."
She nodded solemnly.
Malcolm wandered slowly forward, eyes turned upward at the crew. There was Neiman, from Engineering. And Demarco, from the Mess. And there -
"Captain Archer," he hissed in disbelief.
It was the captain, without a doubt. Even through the crackling electromagnetic field, Malcolm could make out his commanding officer's distinctive jaw line and broad shoulders. The captain was slumped in his stasis prison, eyes open and glassy, as though he were staring into an empty hole.
Where did you come from?
The Void
"And you brought a bit of it with you, didn't you," Malcolm muttered under his breath, still staring at the motionless figure of his superior.
Hoshi's soft touch on his elbow brought his gaze down. "They keep them here until they need to feed," she told him quietly. "That's why the lights flicker. The EMS fields are an incredible draw on the ship's power. That's probably why we aren't traveling at warp right now. When they take down the field - or put it up, for that matter - it disrupts the power flow and makes the lights flicker." She forced a small smile. "I knew you'd go to engineering when you saw that happen. That's one of the ways I kept track of you." The smile quickly faded. "That's why I put Nichols in the corridor like that."
He squeezed her hand. "There are gaps," he observed, gesturing to a "hole" next to the captain's cocoon, presumably where another EMS net would have held another crewmember.
He saw Hoshi nod out of the corner of her eye. "That was … Trip," she murmured, clutching his arm tightly.
He turned to her and held her shoulders firmly. "We'll get him back, Hoshi, I promise," he said, surprised by the stridency of his own voice. "We'll get them all back, if I have to break into Daniels' quarters and build a time machine to do it."
"You can't bring back Nichols. Marylebone."
Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her close to his chest and rested his cheek atop her head as he stroked her hair. "Never say never, luv," he murmured, closing his eyes and rememorizing the rhythm of her breathing.
"What happened to my realist?"
"He went on a little vacation and came home to find his house on fire, and all that was left to him was hope."
"And me. I'm still here, Malcolm."
He smiled faintly. "You and hope are indistinguishable, Hoshi," he murmured against her hair.
They stood that way for a long minute, until Malcolm forced himself to separate from her. "How often do they feed?" he asked.
"You saw Engineering. There are thousands of them to nourish, and they've been drifting in space for a long time." Her eyes roamed over the cocoons suspended above them. "They'll be back soon, and they'll take someone else."
Malcolm didn't like the bland acceptance in her voice. "Then we'll have to think of some way to keep them out until we can determine how best to defeat them." He started towards the door again, mind skimming over fragments of plans and snippets of ideas. "You said their harmonics were in tune with the EMS field T'Pol used. Perhaps we can turn that to our advantage."
"Malcolm."
He stopped and turned, a little puzzled. "Yes, luv?"
She hadn't moved from their earlier position, and her almond eyes watched him quietly. "Kiss me?" she murmured.
Malcolm's face softened. "Hoshi…" Everything had been so jumbled after she'd rescued him. It had not even occurred to him to kiss her.
She crossed the floor between them and cupped his face between her palms. "I've wanted to do this since they took over," she whispered. "I've missed you so much."
Malcolm didn't respond. Instead, he leaned his head down and covered her mouth with his own. The rest of the world seemed to fade to a shimmery black smear around them as the kiss deepened and her fingers tangled in his hair.
It took him close to ten seconds to realize that the world WAS turning to a shimmery black smear around him, and that Hoshi's lips had suddenly turned cold against his own, as she exhaled steadily into his mouth.
With a strangled cry, he pushed her away, stumbling backward and staring at her with wide, disbelieving eyes. "Hoshi?" he breathed, praying that she could explain everything; that this was not really happening.
The petite woman stood still and considered him calmly. Slowly, she nodded. "Yes," Her voice deepened to an echoing boom as she said the word. "We are Hoshi." She tilted her head. "She did warn you not to trust your own shadow. We can hear the memory. You did not listen."
Malcolm felt something inside his soul break, as crushing realization sank down on his shoulders. Now, even hope had left him.
Don't worry, everyone! I haven't forgotten Emma and everyone else. ;) Give me a little more time, and all will become clear.