Finally! The uploads are working so I can get back to updating both this and Under My Skin'. Sorry for the delay, it wasn't me!

EIGHT


She lay there, breathing. Was she breathing? There was a whistle in her head that might only have been an echo of her lungs, idling in and out, expelling carbon dioxide, letting in oxygen and nitrogen, but it sounded like a cruel wind through broken glass. Outside of her, slicing through her, not a part of her body but a force against it. Was she breathing? Was he? That last blow had sounded like a rock slamming into a paper bag full of wet sand, muffled, its shock absorbed by tissue and bone. He hadn't made a sound. He hadn't then, and he didn't now, not even now when his prison warder had gone and left him with only the cool darkness to hear. Only these blind four walls to see his pain. She strained over the screech in her head and shuffled forward in the ink-black vent until her cheek bruised against the razor-edged grille, still listening, holding her breath. The wind in her ears dimmed and billowed to nothing and of course it must have been her breathing, roaring inside her like a bursting dam. It must have been, because now that she stopped, it stopped.

She turned an ear to the grille, and waited. She expected the faint squeal of the bunk as he climbed back on, the scuffle of his feet pacing on the deck in those rough rag-tied boots, anything . . . but there was only utter stillness. The resounding ghost of that last blow cracked against the inside of her skull, and involuntarily she gasped out her last reserves of air.

(I don't know what they did to you . . . but I can tell from your face that it wasn't pleasant)

That battery-acid taste had risen in her mouth again, drier this time, stripping the moisture from her tongue and the skin from her teeth. She swallowed it back defiantly. Where was this man from? What could possibly have happened to him to make him so acceptant, so resigned, and somehow so powerful? She remembered the harsh heave of his chest as he breathed against her, that high, fast, tuneful quiver that had been so much her husband's in his most emotional, most vulnerable, moments. It was excited, feverish . . . but it had been frightened this time, too . . . hadn't it? Like he waited between every breath for someone to hurt him again. That breathing. Those eyes, so quick and bright and fierce as they studied the world around him. The silence. It was adding up to something but they weren't numbers she cared to crunch - one and one made two but maybe, just maybe, she wanted them to be wrong this one time and make three.

"You can come out, Hoshi. He's gone."

She froze, and sucked her breath in hard again. He had heard her. Screw it, he had heard her.

"Hoshi. I know you're hiding somewhere. I can hear you. Come out."

There was no accusation in it, precious little anything in it, and Hoshi twisted her hand to the grille and loosened its already loosened edges. She could have wriggled backward down the vent to the junction and turned back to her own quarters and the open vent she had left there, kept herself out of this equation, but in a dull, unthinking way she knew she was already in it - this time, one and one did make three, and there had been three people on that planet, the two that had exchanged veiled threats in here and the one that had watched them do it.

(He's twice the man you are)

But she had a feeling, a tight, fluttery feeling like flailing goldfish in a waterless bowl, that neither of the two she had been listening to were who she thought they were.

She swung down from the open vent, feet first, her hands grasping the sharp edge, and hung there a moment, trying to get a sense of him in the black. He was too still, too silent, and she dropped down reluctantly. If she landed on him, it would be his own stupid fault. "He's not Captain Archer," she said. It wasn't a question, any more than his ever were. She wished it could have been. She wished that more than she could say.

There was a warm rush of air to the right of her, neither a laugh nor a sigh but a musical something hovering between. Between one world and the next, in shades of unfathomable grey. "Oh. He is, Hoshi. Sad to say. He's just not . . ."

"Not my captain Archer. Just like you're not my Malcolm Reed." There was no laugh this time, only silence. He seemed to use it like a second language - and like any language, if she listened hard enough, if she studied hard enough, she would eventually begin to understand it. She had come across something similar, once . . . a silent race, without vocal chords and without gesture and yet somehow communicating in ways she couldn't begin to comprehend. Telepathy? She would like to believe it, if only for the distinction of being the first human to encounter an extrasensory language. "There was another me . . .wasn't there?"

"You weren't supposed to hear that."

"Wasn't there?"

"Yes."

She gulped, taking what felt like a mouthful of gravel down her throat. She hadn't expected him to be quite so up front about it. "What happened to . . . her? He said the two of - us - were captured, presumed dead. Who captured us?" She asked it without expecting much of a reply, but maybe that would be just as well - because although she asked who had captured them, what she was really asking was who had killed her.

There was a tearing sound, the scratchy whine of fabric being ripped by two hands. It was coming from her left, and she seized the indication of his whereabouts eagerly. She had automatically turned a little that way before she realised how pointless it was. "Them," he said, in a voice that was itself little more than a shade of grey. "Or their foot soldiers, to be more precise. I never saw who they worked for."

"Describe them to me."

The ripping stopped, but she heard his sharp intake of air in the pause, and waited, her chest squeezed dry and her lips quivering apart in a shaky little sigh of her own. "I never found out exactly where they were from," he continued, slowly. "It took me months to even get a name. They're not . . . normal, Hoshi. Not like the other aliens we've met in our travels."

She nodded to herself and folded her arms tightly around her, pulling her fingers inside her sleeves. The room was warm, but ice had struck into her bones with sudden, raw resolve. "You can't tell me anymore."

"Oh." He chuckled, wickedly. Weakly. She tried not to hear the pain in it because she couldn't afford for her emotions to take over, to even kick into gear. She couldn't afford to prejudge anything he said or anything he did. Instincts rose and she pounded them down harder than she had ever hit the strong man scale at a fairground. "I can. I just . . . I'm not sure that I should."

"Because it's to do with . . . another me?"

"Precisely."

Checkmate. It was a stupid thing to remember at a time like this, ludicrous even, but she wasn't about to apologise for her own mind's oddities today. The one time they had played chess had been back in the days when they were still Lieutenant and Ensign rather than Malcolm and Hoshi, back in the days when all she knew of him was snatches of conversation over their stations or brief dinners with Travis in the mess hall. They had never finished that game, never found out who would have won . . . but she didn't plan on being out-strategised now. Maybe it was time to find out just how evenly matched they were. "If my Malcolm has somehow gone to . . . wherever you came from, I think I have a right to know as much about that place as I can. Who is this 'they'?" she asked, brokenly.

In the darkness, he sighed, more deeply than before. This time it was full of nothing but regret. "It was about six months ago. I was on a mission planet side with my Ensign Sato, and we were . . . ambushed. They kept us separately, didn't let us speak to each other. They wanted me to do something for them. Something my conscience wouldn't allow me to do. And when I wouldn't do it . . ."

"Go on."

"When I wouldn't do it . . . they threatened me with her life."

"She died." That wasn't a question, either, and even more than the first she wished it might have been. Maybe in another life, she thought, bitterly. In another life. "Describe them to me."

"When we first saw them . . . they were in ranks, along the hill. There must have been hundreds of them. I don't know, it was too dark to see. We hid in the lake we'd seen earlier that day, underwater. Needless to say I didn't much like that part."

"But she wouldn't let you drown." It came from her mouth like a ghost from the deeps of an ancient house, cold on her breath and colder as it hit the room's warm air. Her body was like ice; it was only logical that anything she had to say would sound as much.

The silent ranks along a hill. Those flashes of black armour in acid neon lightning. Storms, water . . . she knew without another word from him that this man and his Hoshi had seen those selfsame creatures, been taken by the same unrelenting hordes, and subjected to the same dilemma that had thrown them together. If she asked him about chestnuts and I Spy and kissing in the rain he would complete the gaps in her story with a faultless tongue and even more flawless memory, she was sure of it.

But she was a professor at heart, a true collector of knowledge, and this, like everything else, had to be put to one final test. "Describe them to me," she said, firmly. "Please. Just tell me what they looked like."

"Tall. About eight feet or thereabouts. Black armour, elongated limbs. Helmets, you couldn't see their face . . ."

". . . but you didn't want to. I know."

For a moment, nothing. Then: "How could you possibly know that?"

"Because the same thing happened to us. Six months ago. But I get the feeling it ended very differently for you. And . . ."

She couldn't say it. Much as she wanted to be bigger than that, larger than the situation swamping her, she couldn't push through that last dreadful hurdle. Thinking of that other Hoshi's death should have been like thinking of a sister's, a twin sister, granted, but a separate being still, something outside of herself and removed from her . . . but as her exposure to this Malcolm taught her things she would rather not learn, she had come to think of him not as Malcolm Reed's twin brother but as him, mark II. Thinking of that other Hoshi was like attending her own funeral, and she shivered, wanting her husband's arms around her. Wanting to lay her head on his shoulder and listen to his breathing. Wanting to lose herself in him and let him take her mind away from her body for a few minutes, if minutes was all they could afford. She closed her eyes, pressed her knuckles into them, bringing to mind the rapid, syrupy heat that flowed through her when he did those very things . . . clinging to a memory of him fused to her, knowing it would have to enough.

"And for her," the silent man in the blackness said in her place.

"Yeah."

"I have to ask, Hoshi; how did you . . . I mean, how did it end? How did you get out?"

"When that hour was up . . . they let me talk to him. Just one last time, before they did what they threatened to. I think they thought I could change his mind, make him do what they wanted."

"And he did?" Again, no accusation. No incredulity, no horror or wonder or reaction of any kind. Just that, a statement of fact. Nothing more and nothing less.

Checkmate.

"He did, but it's not what you think," she added, hastily. "The EM barrier he'd built around the city worked and the shot was deflected. Well, soaked up, to be more precise."

"And they just let you go?" That was scoffing, unbelieving, and no mistaking it.

(We're both dead anyway, Ensign. You know that, don't you?)

"No," she said, defensively. "I escaped. The damsel in distress escaped and I rescued Prince Charming before the gas they were leaking into his cell could finish him off." The flash of anger passed like a cloud shadow on the earth, and she bit her lip, cursing herself for being so thoughtless. How could she have been so thoughtless?

If she could have seen him, she felt sure she would have been given a curt nod, his mouth set into a thin, grim line, his shoulders pulled back in that slightly pompous way of his. She could imagine it, bright enough to leave it scarred onto her retinas like the sun's afterimage. "You know how you're feeling right now, Hoshi? You might be denying it but you feel like the world ended today. Now you have every reason, every reason, to expect your Malcolm will come back safe and sound. My Hoshi's gone. I've had to live feeling like that and worse every day for six months, and they weren't a pleasant six months, believe me. Your 'captain' had that right."

It was the most he had said in one burst, and it had been because of her. If she had heard pain in that gasp moments before, then she heard it breaking like surf in that sharp speech. Like surf at the base of a waterfall. She took a hesitant step in the direction of his voice, half-expecting that he would back away from her as he had in the clearing. The silence told her that he hadn't budged. "Malcolm, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But if . . . if it ended differently where you come from . . . how long were you there? Surely Enterprise . . ."

"Enterprise." He swallowed so hard she could hear it, close beside her now, so close. "While I was away Enterprise was attacked. The crew were scattered. Earth was all but ripped to shreds and Starfleet fell. It was three months before Trip and your Captain Archer could get to me."

She had held her arms out to him. She didn't know why. Maybe it was an automatic gesture, a ward against bumping into him in the dark, a sign of truce lost without light . . . but she couldn't help but realise, privately and against every grain in her body, that she was responding to his voice. Her darling ambitious lieutenant had sounded like this only a few rare times, and every time, this had been her first instinct. He had never let her hold him the way he held her, he always had to be in control and be the pillar of strength . . . but it hadn't stopped her from making the gesture, all the same. She did it now without thinking, and quickly dropped her arms to her sides. "You were there for three months?"

"It felt more like three years, if that helps. They figured I would be useful. They had learned a lot from you - from my Hoshi - and they could write notes to me to make their various demands. For technology, mostly, but I couldn't help but think . . . but assume that they had another agenda. They didn't like it much when I said no. After what they'd done I wasn't about to give them anything, no matter how . . . persuasive . . . they were."

She swallowed, railroaded by the insurmountable knowledge that nothing she said would be enough. And maybe saying nothing would be the most she could do . . . but it would take a far braver and colder woman than she was to hear that revelation and show no reaction to it. "What happened for those three months, Malcolm?"

"Why are you asking?"

"Well, I . . . it's just . . ."

"Morbid curiosity? That's all right. It's only human, Hoshi, wanting to know. Wanting to know for the sake of knowing. It's that dark little rush, that tiny bite of interest that compels you to look at the accident as you pass by, even when you want to look away. Looking at the very cold, very dead face of somebody you love and knowing it's a mistake, but doing it anyway. You can't help asking the question even if you don't want to hear the answers, and sometimes the answers haunt you for life. So the real question is: do you want to ask?"

He was so motionless, so devoid of artifice; the amusement was there and it was like a slap across her face, it was knowing and unaccusing and she couldn't help but feel hopelessly overpowered by his logic and his silky, secretive tone, like bitter chocolate and cream. It was the whisper of temptation that fluttered in the back of her mind, darkly attractive, sweetly repulsive. Compulsive. He was baiting her, and it had been a long time, a long time, since she had been out-charmed and disarmed by anyone. Hoshi swallowed again, feeling her body turn to water from her chest to her toes in a fainting gush. It felt like the ground falling away from her, that little hitch of gravity as a lift plunged downward into nothing. "Do you want me to ask?" she returned.

"It would be a sign that you cared, wouldn't it? Some indication that you were prepared to accept what I have to say." He appeared to take this moment to consider; she waited, tensed, but determined not to let him trap her that way a second time. "Yes," he said, after a moment. "I want you to."

"Then I'm asking." She listened for his breathing again, so shallow now, as close to silence as she had ever heard from human lungs, and took a careful step towards him. She couldn't be more than two feet from him, but he didn't move away. "What happened to you, Malcolm? What did they want with you?" It was barely a whisper, and as it faded she felt that serene breath she had latched onto like a life buoy in a flat sea gush warmly on her face. There was a murmur of movement, a suggestion of his hand lingering by her hair as if to touch her . . . but it fell away again without contact, without closing the negligible space between them, and she released a gulp of air she hadn't been aware she was holding.

"I said I wanted you to ask. I didn't say that I would tell you." Then, clearly meant for his own ears and not hers: "Not this accident."

"But you want to tell me. You do, I can hear it in your voice. Don't forget that I know you, or at least I know Malcolm Reed. Better than anyone. You can't fool me."

He sighed. "Hoshi . . . I'm flattered you're willing to accept me so easily. That I'm telling you the truth, even if it isn't very much of it. But don't believe everything you see. I'm not the same Malcolm Reed you say you know so well, and the things that made me what I am . . . they didn't make him."

"But you were. You knew this ring and you went on the same mission . . . I'm willing to bet that you have the same memories as my Malcolm right up until that day in the bunker. I don't know what else to believe but it's the only thing that makes sense. What are you? A clone? From some freaky mirror universe? What?"

"I'm not a clone. Test-tube, re-mapped DNA, that sort of thing, you mean? I might have the same body and the same memories to a point, as it appears we do . . . but I don't imagine a clone would have the same scars. Scars that nobody knows about but you. How could anybody copy what he never allows anyone to see?"

"How do you know he doesn't let anyone see them?"

So obvious, and yet she didn't see it coming. "Because I don't. I have the same scars, Hoshi. Maybe even one or two more. I'm trusting you know them as well as I do. I know you won't be able to see them, not in here, but . . . if you need proof, you can feel them. See with your hands the same way you 'feel' with your ears, and I know you do. I won't bite."

She hesitated, but it was fleeting, and not for the reasons she might have imagined, half an hour ago, that it would be. If he wanted to grab her and use her as a convenient human shield then there had been enough opportunities; he had trapped her against that wall without effort, he was close now, and seemed to understand her whereabouts in the dark far better than she understood his. No, she wasn't afraid of him, not in that way; but being so close to him . . . being so close to that wonderful rough-and-tumble smell and hearing not just that satiny voice treading the air as softly as his feet trod the deck, but the vibration in his throat, the purr that idled underneath, and to feel the unnatural heat thrown from him . . . to sense all that and know this wasn't her husband, to have her mind telling her something so very opposite to all her senses combined . . . she didn't think she could survive that. Not now. If her Malcolm was here, maybe it would be different. This . . . it felt like being unfaithful.

"You're carrying out a scientific study, Hoshi. It's up to you. Believe me without evidence if you like, if that makes you more comfortable . . . or don't. Or find out for yourself. I'm not going to force you."

Hoshi gave a watery sigh and pressed both palms against her hair, loose now, off-duty style and undisciplined. That was what this was; undisciplined. But if she could prove he was telling the truth about this then the chances of his other stories being the truth increased exponentially. About the captain, about her husband, everything. "Okay," she gasped; then again, more firmly. "Okay. Guide me."

There was a rustle, and she heard the slightest scuff of feet on the deck. Light, so light. He was edging closer, and stopped when he bumped into her. Fingers met her arm and trailed slowly to her wrist, locking around it, guiding it to him. Feeling their way when seeing was out of the question. Seeing with her hands and feeling with her ears. The skip in his breath and the rasp of it in his throat had a texture she had never felt with her hands. Like velvet. She gulped, letting her arm move with his, until it slipped under the hem of his loose-fitting shirt. The 'captain' must have given him his own clothes back, a small mercy, but a mercy nonetheless. Her palm met his back, hot, smooth, and he let go of her wrist, trusting her to do the rest by herself. He was barely breathing anymore and she could only hear her own, fast and furious in her head.

Ridges. Tiny ridges, threading his back. That fine line from his right shoulder to his waist, the thicker band cutting across it . . . others besides . . . the evidence of shrapnel from a crashed vehicle, all as it should be.

Hoshi fell back as if he had burnt her.

"All right," she wavered. "All right. I . . . I have to go. I have to . . . just go."

"Okay."

He reached out and with his hands flat on her shoulders, very gently turned her towards the vent. At least . . . she assumed that was what he did. "I'll give you a boost up," he said.

She shuddered, glad he had already taken his hands away and hadn't felt it. Nobody should be so acceptant. It wasn't natural. It wasn't human. "In a minute. There's something I have to know."

"What?"

"Why did you call me a child?"

There was a pause. Ask a stupid question, Hoshi.

"To protect you."

"That's what I thought."

She raised her foot and he found it with both hands and slid them under her boot sole, braced to heave her upwards. He counted to three, and boosted her. She reached upwards with both outstretched arms and caught the vent's edge effortlessly to haul herself up . . . but he called her back as he had before, waiting until she was safely inside, speaking before she had time to vanish. "Hoshi?"

"Yes?"

"You will come back, won't you?"

She almost turned back . . . but what would be the point? She couldn't see him. And anyway . . . she didn't think she would want to see the faint hope on his face that she heard in his question. A real question, and not a veiled imperative or rhetorical tactic. An honest question needing an honest answer.

"Of course," she murmured. And left without looking back.