Disclaimer: See parts 1-5
Note: Thank you so much for the reviews, everyone! I know this has taken far longer to finish than it should have done, but I'm hoping to sort myself out for next time. I hope this isn't a disappointment after so long a wait!


SEVEN


There was an impression of dampness, of heat and heavy breathing and exploring hands in a fog of indistinct sound, scents, and images. It was dark, but he saw flashes of her, like snapshots mounted on a black gallery wall - snatches of skin, of hair, vague notions of leaves all around. Here and now, she was alive, and warm, a soft, breathing bundle against him. Here and now she was touching him with gentle whispers of her hand across his skin like rain, and he didn't push her away.

Her hands clasped his neck, cradling his head in that oddly mothering way she had, her flexing fingers spread through his hair. All else was hasty, frantic, blurred - but this one sensation, at least, was as bright and real as anything Malcolm had ever felt.

Light flooded into the darkness, a white horizon widening to a vista, and he realised he was waking up, though he didn't remember sleeping a second time; but that touch at his neck, his vulnerable, unprotected neck, refused to fade along with the rest of his dream.

He opened his eyes, flinching at the hateful glare . . . and had made a startled, kittenish sound in his throat before his shattered reserve even knew he was awake. But he couldn't be awake. He couldn't be alive. The apparition before him, looking down on him with anxious liquid eyes and framed by ragged ribbons of uncared-for black hair, couldn't be real.



He ran his tongue nervously over his teeth, tasting the stale, dry taste there; the name felt heavy in his mouth. Heavy, and alien. Malcolm could only drag himself a little from the floor, careful not to disturb her supporting hands, and drink in every detail of her mascara-smudged face.

I probably don't look my best, she said, with an awkward smile. But you don't look so hot, either.

His hand crept out, reaching for her arm, catching in the folds of her uniform. He had been so afraid, for an instant too endless to cast lightly aside, that he would go straight through her like Japanese steel through silk. The flesh under his palm was instead solid, warm, and real. Perfectly real. He felt for her elbow, her shoulder, neck, face . . . and the initially gentle movements became a frantic investigation, the tests a need for comfort, and within moments he was holding her tightly to him. Her body, at first rigid with surprise, quickly softened against him and moulded itself to his shape.

You . . . you did it? she asked, breathing the question against his earlobe. The rush of heat made him shiver - but he didn't push her away.

Yes, I did it. For better or worse, Hoshi, I did it.

He felt her gulp, and disentangled himself enough to look at her face. She was perfectly inscrutable, a mask of exquisitely complex emotions threaded one beneath another like the weave of a fabric. He supposed what he saw most prominently said more about himself, and his guilt, than it did about her.

Good. Then you can tell me about it once we get out of here. She pulled insistently at his arm, and Malcolm smiled woozily to see her small frame struggling to haul his entire weight up without his intercession. He went where she pulled, shakily, swaying a little as he clambered to his knees. He resisted as Hoshi braced an arm around his shoulders, hooked his over her neck, and started to half-drag him to the door on their knees. Whatever that gas had been, it had shattered his hand-eye co-ordination, and although he made an effort to accept a little of his own weight, still he had to rely on her to bear the brunt of it. He couldn't help but smile at that, albeit grimly. Malcolm Reed wasn't used to taking orders from this slip of an ensign.

She hauled him out into a hewn rock corridor, and, wrapping both slender arms around his waist, pulled him to his feet and steadied him. Had he been a little more aware, he might have started at this raw corridor; after so much metal, so much tasteless recycled air and those awful glaring lights, he had expected a complex characterised by the same; a ship, perhaps, or a bunker in those distant, hazy mountains he had seen from the shuttlepod what felt like an eternity ago. This may well be those mountains still; but if so, then it was not in them, but under them. His eyesight was blurred and the walls were little more than a smudgy brown impression of height to either side, but the support of Hoshi's arms around him, quivering a little with the strain, were a solid, tangible anchor in a misty world of half-seen things and half-heard noises.

He was suddenly aware that she was speaking, and channelled every ounce of his concentration to the sound of it; an urgent whisper, then a louder one, never daring to raise above a murmur. But for the longest time, he couldn't make out what she was trying to say.

She was tugging again, this time not to bring him to his feet, but to urge him to his right, away from the cell. A part of him wanted to turn one last time, a defiant last glance, a mocking good-bye to that hateful box of metal and light and distorted voices like the call of drowned men at sea. But his head refused to move. This way, she panted, and this time, hearing what she tried so hard to say to him, he followed her lead.

They staggered on down identical corridors for what felt like forever, but since his every impression of time had been lost - had been stolen from him - in that cell, the specifics meant nothing, and it may have only felt that long. In reality it couldn't have been; Hoshi was barely out of breath when they finally came to a halt, despite having dragged him so much of the way.

In here. Quick, she whispered, and Malcolm felt himself shoved behind a natural angle of rock which had not been smoothed when the corridors were hacked out of the mountain. She followed him, pressed close enough to send her heartbeat through him, and leave her sweat on his skin. Sometime in the past day and night she had pushed up her sleeves and tied her uniform top up to her midriff in the front; clearly his cell had not been the only one to suffer from excessive heat. He might have wondered if these beings functioned in different temperatures to humans, in other circumstances, and if his wits had still been his . . . but as he focused all he could think of was the pattern of Hoshi's heartbeat, and the way his had begun to regulate to it. Almost as if she kept him functioning when his every instinct was to sleep.

Did you hear something? he forced, not hearing his own voice except as a distant murmur that seemed to come from very far away. Then, catching the way her face tilted to him with girlish amusement, he added: Stupid question.

Yes. Ssh.

Malcolm straightened himself against her and held his breath in check until the footsteps Hoshi had heard so much earlier than he had - boots marching, frighteningly like the ones he had imagined - had neared, swelled, and passed by. He felt her sigh out what she had held in her lungs, and she tremored against him in the tight space. If Malcolm had been even a tiny bit more aware, he might have found it distracting. Or worse - he might have been so blinded by rage at what these creatures had done to him and fear at what they may have done to Hoshi that he might have charged out after the invisible soldiers and finished what he should have done when they first sighted that figure in black armour, what felt like years ago to him now.

It's safe to go, Hoshi hissed. I'll just . . . Malcolm halted her with a hand on her arm, and although weakness and insensibility permeated his every muscle, an unexpected urgency flowed through his fingers and made them grip harder than he had meant them to.

Wait, Hoshi, he said, powerlessly. She looked at him with real surprise in her eyes - red eyes, he now noticed. Maybe that was the fundamental difference between them, the one thing he couldn't believe she would ever accept of him; she was able to cry. How . . . how did you find me? I mean . . . they didn't let you go, did they?

There was a ripple in her sleek bronze cheek, as if all her teeth had tightened at the word. You were right about that, they're not trustworthy and they weren't going to let us go. Then she smiled, and Malcolm lost what little sensation still remained in his vital organs. Lucky for us they're pretty dumb as well.

His lips moved to form some kind of a question. She stilled them with a touch, and a shake of her head, and a tilt to her eyebrows which T'Pol would be actively jealous of should she ever see it. Vulcan or not, she would be jealous. They left their recording equipment in my cell, she explained. It seems they're dumb - in both senses of the word - but they're not deaf. I played my voice on it and when one of them came in to finish me off I hit him with my boot. You remember I was carrying them? I don't think he'll be out long, but it was long enough for me to run.

You're amazing, he murmured - and for that moment, despite the faint certainty that more soldiers would follow and every second wasted was an opportunity lost, he couldn't take his eyes from her. That's one decoy tactic we were never taught at the Academy.

She smiled. I know.

And they were off again, Hoshi leading the way.

-------------------------------------

The moment he first heard it, everything fell into place. He understood why the corridors were of bare rock, why the air tasted natural still and not the processed metallic fake he had breathed in the cell, and why Hoshi seemed unconcerned about their means of escape. They wouldn't need to steal a shuttle or hack into the communications systems for an emergency beam-out, so long as their arms and legs worked and they didn't mind a little exertion. And he understood, suddenly, why their crew mates had been apparently unable to find them, even with Enterprise's most powerful sensors on overtime.

This leads out to the waterfall, doesn't it? he asked her, after they had run silently and falteringly for some metres. But before she could reply, the noise deepened to a thunder, and as they rounded a corner into darkness and spray alighted on his skin like kisses, he was answered. Weak moonlight filtered through the curtain of water and cast gunmetal shadows and shuddering ripples across the floor, the walls, the ceiling . . . and Hoshi's anxious, flushed face, pale beneath the rosy haze of exhaustion colouring her cheeks. All the fire had drained from her in the instant that the waterfall came into view. She must know what his reaction to this little surprise would be. And be afraid of it.

This is the way they brought me in, she said, softly, not looking at him. The unlit cavern was too dim to see if it was with regret or with muted force. Their vehicle crashed, you know, with you in it, and I thought . . . She sighed, tearing air from her lungs as if it were poisonous to her. I thought if I made a noise - distracted them - you could get away. So I screamed. Led them right to me.

I was unconscious, he replied. That scream, that scream he had been so annoyed at her for giving, that sound that had echoed even into his uneasy dreams . . . it hadn't been the shriek of a girl too frightened or too inexperienced to know better. It had been the decoy of a woman who knew all too well what she did. A part of the vehicle fell on me, and that's all I remember.

All you remember? Then you didn't hear me scream and think I was the sort of wet-eared ensign that was too young to know better?

He said nothing. He couldn't deny it all to this walking lie detector. Instead, taking his eyes away from her and scouring the greasy light and granite dark of the cave floor, he asked: How can you even bear to look at me, Hoshi? he said, disguising as a question the rhetoric he expected no real answer to. I was going to let you . . . I mean, when that hour was over I had no way of knowing they wouldn't . . . I nearly killed you, Hoshi. Would have done, if they hadn't . . . And there he hesitated, his mouth suddenly dry. He couldn't bring himself to say a word more. Not when . . . not when she had gotten herself caught for him. No matter how much easier things might have been had she not, had he been captive without that kind of hostage; it took nothing away from what she had done.

Hoshi brought a hand up and ran her fingers through his hair, softly bristling the unruly, sweaty locks aside. What were you supposed to do? You had no way of knowing they wouldn't kill us both anyway. And you didn't know then what you know now. I honestly don't know what I would have done in your place. And it worked, Lieutenant. I didn't know if you saw or not . . . but it worked. These . . . whatever they are . . . must have thought we'd double-crossed them. I wish I could be more certain of that, but they're not too big on the chit-chat. All I know for a fact is that they'd been informed by spies in the city that the EM barrier didn't work.

Malcolm sniffed and blinked against the sodden darkness, letting himself drift into the circle of her arm as she bristled his hair. He looked into the utter blackness of her hair and the angle of her shoulder, finding the emptiness cathartic. And the governors knew about the spies, didn't they? he whispered. That's why they told me it hadn't worked, why they told everyone it was a colossal failure. They were planting false information. But how did you know?

I've got good ears, Lieutenant. Too good, sometimes. And yes; I know exactly what I do to you, and I do it on purpose.

Caught in a wave of dizziness, Malcolm rested his head on her shoulder a moment, glad that she wouldn't see him blush. You weren't supposed to hear that.

And you weren't supposed to get carried away with a subordinate. Her voice was like packed ice against a sore tooth, cold and uncomforting but hitting the spot it should to uproot the pain. A hand crept up and swept across his brow above the right eye, down over his cheek, volcanic to the touch and hypnotic - call it the painkiller. He waited, braced, vaguely anxious that time was wasting but even more anxious, and more certain, that she would say no more.

She did.

But you did it, she said, more kindly. You must think I was born yesterday, Malcolm. You've broken rules before, and I know it bothers you when you do . . . but it's never stopped you. You've taken risks when it really mattered. A smile twisted Malcolm's face as he felt those very determined fingers take their customary position at the base of his neck, cradling his tousled head and raising it carefully from her shoulder. So I know that wasn't the reason you backed off. Chestnuts? she asked, softly.

Malcolm somehow kept the smile in place, although it stung to do it. He wasn't used to feeling two feet tall. he agreed. Maybe even dessert.

As long as it's not marshmallows, you're on. Hoshi grinned, and her hands fell away. For the first time since being bundled brutally into that armoured hover vehicle Malcolm was standing, unaided, his back groaning with complaint and his head swollen still from the gas - but he felt fine.

Incredible, actually. Maybe Phlox should start prescribing regular Hoshi as a cure for depression.

So what next? he asked, as both stared, hypnotised, at the cascading curtain of foaming white water in front of them.

Aren't I supposed to ask you that, Lieutenant?

Well, you could, Ensign, but I'd hate to rain on your parade when you're so obviously enjoying yourself.

Hoshi tilted that seductive, brow-arching gaze at him again, went to the cave wall, and pressed a tiny outcropping of rock. Instantly the waterfall that roared like a thousand seas lessened, quietened, and dwindled until only quivering ribbons of water and scuds of foam remained, and a blue moon glowed beyond the cave mouth.

Ah. That solves the getting-dashed-into-interesting-puddles-of-red problem, anyway. Malcolm tottered unsteadily to the cave's brink, and looked down. Twenty feet below him the turbulent black water he remembered with such instinctive dread, like a tiny fingernail scratching at a blackboard in the back of his mind, was boiling down into silken ebony, the lake calming as the waterfall abated. It looked deep, down there.

It looked like a grave.

Hoshi's hand was suddenly in his, and as he turned with the inevitable question on his lips she stopped it with a kiss. Malcolm let the uncertainty fade unasked and concentrated instead on the warmth of her, on the tiny whips of tangled black hair tickling his neck, and the wet skin gliding against him. She broke from him first and seriously, eyes fixed on him like a targeting scanner, laid little kisses like spots of fire across his cheek. Then, pressing her mouth to his ear, she whispered: Haven't you learned anything, Malcolm? I won't let you drown.

Malcolm pulled back, startled. And then he did a funny thing; he laughed.



He was still laughing as they linked hands, kissed . . . and jumped.