A/N -- Many thanks to Exploded Pen and Strance for the feedback. May I have some more please?
Chapter Six –
She had seen that look before – the one that longed for something. She had seen it across the room in the bar the night they met. "You're changing my future. Don't I have a right to know about the one I'll never have?"
Looking away, Malcolm took her rations pack and ripped it open. "You need to eat something."
She stared from the food to him. Even though she was hungry, she wanted answers more. "I'd ask a simple question like 'Am I dead'? But everybody dies sooner or later."
Malcolm remained silent, opening his ration pack and taking a bite of a protein bar.
"Since you only look a little older than the Starfleet ID picture I saw yesterday, I'm assuming that something bad happened," she said, staring at him.
He felt the mouthful of food turn to chalk and he paled. He knew one thing he would never tell her – her role in the destruction of Earth.
"You would make a lousy poker player, Malcolm," Hoshi continued. "I'm obviously dead."
Malcolm swallowed his food and pushed it away, the reality of her words striking deep within him. Somehow he had kidded himself. From this point on her life would never be normal.
"Sooner than I would have liked," she whispered, trying to make light of her fate. "But I've led a good life."
"That's a rather fatalistic view of things," Malcolm replied, scraping back his chair and standing up, needing to distance himself from her.
"You didn't come all this way just to save me, did you?"
Snapping, he crossed the distance between them, grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "Stop it," he pleaded. "You'll go crazy if you dwell on it. You're on a different thread now. There is no such thing as fate or destiny." He pulled her into his arms and she yielded to him.
His own words barely made sense to him and he doubted she could fathom what he was talking about. He was hoping the effects of the temporal displacement disorder were the result of the quick shift into the future yesterday, but it was looking like it was a long term condition. It was only a matter of time before the insanity claimed him.
She sniffled, finally giving in to the frustration and crying.
Squeezing her tighter, he brushed his lips across her hair. "Damn the Xindi. Damn the Suliban. And damn Jonathan Archer to hell."
--
Later that night –
He was missing something. The perimeter of the house was secure – one way up and one way down. That's why he chose the house. It was easily secured, and it was available. The Suliban, although genetically advanced, would not be able to get into the house without using the stairs. Malcolm scoffed. Damn, he was paranoid. There was no way they would be able to track Hoshi here.
Paranoia and obsession – two traits he hated, yet embraced. He was obsessed with protecting her. But his paranoia was a double-edged sword. He had to keep her close to save her. In keeping her close, how long would he be able to dodge her leading questions? How would he explain if she ever guessed the truth?
Malcolm pulled the PADD across the table and tapped on the screen, pulling up her threads. Perhaps they would come alive and tell him what he needed to do.
He stared at the spiral-like thread that represented the current present. His focus blurred as he stared at the nonsensical strand. It looped and twisted so haphazardly, Malcolm's feeling of dread grew exponentially. What had he done to her? Why was this happening?
More questions churned in his head as he watched Hoshi's lines. Was he ever going to be able to stabilize the sequential events of her life? There were new ones out there for her. There had to be. He just had to find them.
What if there aren't any happily-ever-after threads out there for her? a little voice niggled.
"There has to be," he replied out loud.
Are you willing to spend the rest of your life searching?
He could feel irrationality encroaching on his reason as the never-ending line of questioning and self-doubt started.
Will she go insane before or after you do?
Shaking off the effects of sleep deprivation, temporal displacement disorder, and hopelessness, Malcolm tried to concentrate. There had to be something he had missed.
In his mind, the threads swirled around one another, constricting and releasing. They became one and followed the theoretical horizontal line that temporal theorists were always arguing about. Then it hit him.
Hoshi would never be safe here. They had to move quickly to counteract the current thread. He had gone too far back. There was no need to negate her role in the development of the UT. He only had to negate her role in the destruction of Earth. He only needed to –
"Warning!" the computer chirped. "Perimeter has been breached by two non-humanoid life forms."
"Bloody hell!" Malcolm cursed, snatching the PADD and bolting for the door. "Time to intercept?"
"Five minutes," informed the computer.
Knowing how quickly Suliban moved, they were not far away and there was no chance of getting down the stairs without running into them. He ran down the hall and threw the door open.
Hoshi did not stir.
"Hoshi! Wake up! We've got to go!" Malcolm shouted, grabbing her boots.
She sat up in bed, confused and groggy. "Wh- what?"
"They're here, Hoshi," Malcolm explained, grabbing her foot and shoving one of her hiking boots on.
For her, the statement was surreal as sleep still mired her consciousness. "Can't you just shoot them with your ray gun?"
"Damn it, Hoshi! Wake up!" He shook her, then put her other boot on.
"I'm tired," she sighed, looking at the packet on the nightstand and rolling over to go back to sleep.
"Bugger!" He grabbed the package and looked at it. She had taken a sleep aid. He put the package down and pocketed the UT. Picking her up, he carried her to the back patio. He set her down roughly.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" she complained half-heartedly, trying to shake the sleepy feeling and shivering in the cool night air.
Malcolm walked away and stooped down.
She heard an unfamiliar squeak as he turned a spigot on. What was he doing? She watched curiously as he dowsed himself in the frigid water.
"Turn around!" he barked.
She looked at him like he had gone insane, then she watched as he turned the hose on her.
"This will interfere with their tracking sensors, and it will help you wake up," he tried to explain, grabbing her and putting his hand over her mouth. "Be quiet."
She squirmed against him as the water soaked her through top and shorts. She sputtered and coughed, unable to form a coherent thought. Then she felt her world spin again as he lifted her in his arms and set her on the edge of the patio. He nudged her and she clutched the ledge. "Do you expect me to jump?" she asked, then felt something under her foot. It was the little crank elevator she had seen him using yesterday.
His hand guided hers to a rope. It was dark and she heard someone ascending the stairs.
Adrenaline had set in and the instinct to flee guided his actions. "I'm going to cut the line and we're going to ride it down," he stated calmly, climbing onto the ledge.
Panicked, Hoshi looked at Malcolm and nodded, hearing the footsteps get closer.
"When you hit the ground, run to the university. If we get separated, take a shuttle to Enterprise and stay there. If anybody asks, just tell them you've come to check on the UT installations," Malcolm instructed quickly.
"Right," she agreed, hearing the footsteps getting closer.
Malcolm cut the rope and they rode the elevator platform down to the ground.
Something popped and she felt a burning sensation in her leg. She slapped at her leg and cursed, "Damn bugs!"
"Are you okay?"
"Yes," she replied, looked up at the house and seeing two human figures peer over the side.
A flash of light lit the night and hit one of the shadowed pursuers, causing the other to jump back.
Malcolm holstered his phase pistol, grabbed her hand and tugged. "Run!"
They sprinted into the jungle, Hoshi no longer looking over her shoulder as fear of the shadowy figures raced through her mind. This was real. Somebody was after her.
"Keep running!" Malcolm shouted, pulling on her hand. "We're almost there."
They broke through to a clearing – the outermost edge of the university. In the clearing were two shuttlepods, which the university's interstellar space program used for field studies.
Malcolm looked over his shoulder and saw no signs of pursuit. Holding his phase pistol in front of him, he targeted the bushes.
"Professor?"
Hoshi jumped and turned around.
Her student, Pun Jab, walked away from one of the shuttles. He was in the engineering department and had obviously been working on the shuttle. "We heard you had some sort of family emergency. Is everything okay?" he asked, looking at her appearance.
She tried calming her nerves to talk.
"Professor Sato?" Pun Jab questioned, looking from her to Malcolm, who was still looking at the bushes, waiting for something to jump out.
"Pun Jab," Hoshi sighed, trying to catch her breath. "We need to borrow your shuttle."
"But –" the man started to argue.
"It's official Starfleet business," Malcolm intervened, brushing past Pun Jab and into the shuttle.
Pun Jab gaped. "But, but, there's p-paperwork and, and – "
Hoshi pressed her fingers over his lips. "Don't worry, Pun Jab. We'll have the shuttle back to you in no time."
Pun Jab shook his head in disbelief as he watched his teacher trail behind the strange man. If she wanted to have a zero-g tryst with the guy she picked up in the bar, she really should have given him more warning.
Closing the hatch behind her, Hoshi settled into the seat next to the pilot's chair.
Malcolm flipped several switches and readied the shuttle for flight.
"You do know how to fly this thing, don't you?" she asked.
He gave her a look that would have killed her where she stood if looks were an actual weapon.
She shrugged. "Well, I've only had the basics of shuttle flight and I'm not familiar with this model."
"Yes," he replied shortly.
The shuttle leapt into the air and Malcolm set a course for the warp five complex. It wasn't until they had broken through the atmosphere that Hoshi started asking more questions.
"Was it really necessary to hose me down?" she sniffled and punched his shoulder.
He paid little attention to the throb in his shoulder. "I did it to confuse their sensors," he informed her. "There are various life forms in the jungle. Their external sensors were looking for normal human bio temperatures. Plus I needed you to wake up."
"And what about preventing me from joining Enterprise?" she asked, raising her hand to hit him again.
"Do not hit me again," he warned, monitoring the shuttle's systems.
Heeding his warning, Hoshi hit the console. "Well? Why are you taking me to Enterprise?"
"I've come too far back into the past," Malcolm muttered with no intention of explaining himself further.
Hoshi stood up and started pacing the cramped space. "That's just great!" she shouted. "Don't you think before you act? You've totally corrupted my personal…personal…" She struggled for the right terminology.
"Timeline," Malcolm suggested.
"That's it," she agreed, snapping her fingers and limping as she paced.
Frowning, Malcolm looked at her. "What's wrong?"
Hoshi stopped pacing and turned. "What?"
"You're limping," he observed, pushing her down into the nearest seat and kneeling in front of her. He took her ankle in his hands and turned it slightly to look at the red welt on the side of her leg.
"Ouch," she grumbled, trying to pull away from him. "That hurts, you know."
He reached for his PADD and tapped in some commands.
"Medical subroutines activated. Scanning," the computer droned.
"It's just a stupid bug bite," she said, still trying to pull away from him.
"Will you hold still?" he growled, pinning her against the shuttle wall – his forearm beneath the underside of her breasts.
Hoshi nodded, feeling a flush creep up her neck.
"When did this happen?" he asked, backing away and waving the PADD over the swollen area.
Hoshi breathed a sigh of relief, her mind a puddle of desirous wants she chose to ignore. "Right when we hit the ground, leaving the house."
The computer chirped, "Xanal poison detected. Recommended antidote is thirty ccs of palan oil mixed with ten ccs of jagalox extract, administered through hypospray every eight hours for three days. If dosage is started within seventy-two hours of initial exposure, patient recovery will be one hundred percent. Failure to administer dosage results in death. Xanal poison is from the Suliban system and –"
Hoshi's eyes widened.
Malcolm swore. Malcolm swore, the desperate feeling of losing her again closing in on him.