A/N: Everything displayed in this chapter is fictional, just so you know. None of this is based on real life events. The italics indicate dreams. Much love!
Mara sat back down, discouraged, defeated, and for some reason oddly afraid. She looked over at T'Son who had fallen into a restless sleep as a result of high fever, again. She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. Why was she so nervous? It didn't make any sense-well, apart from the fact that she was locked in a Romulan brig and could be killed any minute, but this was a different kind of fear.
It was the kind of fear that took over your whole soul…the kind of fear that made you want to curl up and just sob. She hadn't felt this way for ages, it seemed. And she supposed it was. Mara coughed hoarsely, and gulped down some water.
Just then, a Romulan guard entered the brig, and stood in front of the door, carefully loading a syringe-the anti-psychotic that Toreth had lovingly prescribed, Mara assumed. Her muscles tensed as she waited for the guard-or doctor, whichever you prefer-to come and give her the medicine.
The Romulan came forward, eyes on the syringe, and Mara leapt forward, her hands clawed and grasping for his wrist. Mara grabbed his wrist as he shouted in anger and tried to insert the syringe in her arm. With all her strength, Mara kept the syringe as far away as she could. Unfortunately, the guard was too strong for her. Fortunately, T'Son had woken up and was able to help her. They wrestled the guard to the floor, and T'Son pinned him down while Mara quickly injected the anti-psychotic into the Romulan's system.
A few moments later, the guard was babbling on about blue ponies and sounding more psychotic than anti-psychotic. "Thanks," Mara said breathlessly, and T'Son nodded, holding onto the wall as he tried to steady himself from the dizziness.
"Get the keys," he rasped out, and Mara blushed, embarrassed that she hadn't already thought of that. She quickly retrieved the keys, and went over to the door to unlock it. The brig door swung open with a beatific screech, that sounded more angelic than anything else Mara had ever heard before in her life.
"Okay, let's go," she said, turning to T'Son. "Right," T'Son said, and walked slowly out of the brig, leaning against the wall for support. "Oh, great," Mara sighed. "We will never make it out of here with you acting like a turtle!" "Not my fault!" T'Son snapped at her. "You're the one who got infected first! You probably brought it on the ship! If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be here right now!" "Yeah, will if you had just FIRED me first, you wouldn't have lost at least three of your male personnel to the waste disposal system, morgue, or Siberia a day, either!" Mara shot back.
"Oh, shut up," T'Son groaned. "It's not like humans are immune to viral infections," Mara continued. "I mean, you act as if-" Mara was cut off the next second before she could say anything as a burly arm was wrapped around her throat and threatened to squeeze the air out of her lungs as she kicked desperately for freedom. "Son of a-" Mara started to shriek, and then the next moment, she felt a disrupter placed against her temple, and she stopped kicking the Romulan in the shins immediately. "Son of an angel," Mara said, smiling sweetly up at the Romulan.
As the hold on her throat increased in intensity, Mara stopped talking as she realized that talking apparently wasn't allowed here. As Mara considered the odds as to whether or not she could escape safely (she calculated them exactly 50-50, although she was probably wrong), the thought of escaping flew out the window as he pressed the disrupter even tighter against her forehead.
"Don't…play with me," the Romulan growled in her ear. Mara coughed and was about to offer him a Tic-Tac but thought twice about that one as she didn't want to upset the demon from-the darling little angel. "I can assure you, I had no intention of playing with you," Mara rasped out and gasped for air as she couldn't breathe.
"Shut up," the guard barked at her. He motioned to T'Son. "Get back in the brig." T'Son went into the brig immediately. "Let's go," the guard said to Mara, and they walked off down the hall, disrupter pointed at Mara's back.
T'Son rolled his eyes and groaned, and now wished he had fired Mara when he had the chance.
"Hello, Mara," Toreth said pleasantly as Mara walked into the room, wincing as the disrupter stuck painfully in her back. "Mara, this is Vokar," Toreth said, motioning towards Vokar as Mara stood at the front of the room, now with two guards surrounding her. "Vokar, Mara."
Vokar made no move to say hello to the Federation prisoner, so Mara made the first move. "Charmed," she said. "Welcome to the Kaleh, Dr. East," Vokar welcomed her. "Gee thanks," Mara said dryly. "By the way, Tori, I love my rooms. Simply adorable. The interior decorator did a fabulous job with the way he arranged the cot, the slime, and the rats motel right next to the waste disposal unit. Fabulous view-Ow." Mara shut up as the disrupter once again dug into her back and it hummed.
"Well, Dr. East," Toreth said, "we've brought you here so that you can reveal some new healing techniques to us. All you need to do is explain it to us, and we'll do the rest."
Mara scoffed. "Are you kidding? Like I would expose valuable Federation information to barbari-ow! All right, you've convinced me. Well, I ain't got all day, let's get this show on the road."
For the next four hours, Mara carefully and meticulously explained every detail of her life's work-always at the threat of death, as Toreth preferred it, of course. (A/N: lol MARTINI!!)
"And that," Mara finished with a sigh, "is how you can cure mentolistglohemia. Please, hold your applause: I know my work is ingenious. Can I go lie down and die now?" "Certainly," Toreth said, and motioned for a guard. "I was kidding!" Mara laughed, slapping the table. "Girl, don't you know how to take a joke?" She cleared her throat, and said, "By the way, do you think you could give me something besides a bathrobe to wear? Just out of mild curiosity."
"Well…" Toreth said. "The only clothing onboard is a Romulan uniform." "Is it warmer than wool?" Mara asked. "Oh, yes." "I'll take it." "That could be considered an act of treason against the Federation," Toreth warned. "It's no different than wearing a MASH outfit to the hospital when I'm supposed to wear my nurse's uniform," Mara answered. "I've been looking for a way to get fired anyway."
Toreth shrugged. "Okay," she said. "Riklo will help you get dressed." "Actually, that's very kind of you, but I've been dressing myself for about 22 years now," Mara said. "I think I can handle it."
"Whatever," Toreth shrugged again. "Get T'Son after you've helped Mara, Riklo." And then she sneezed. And sneezed again. She was silent for a moment and then looked accusingly at Mara, who smiled smugly. "Got flu?" Mara inquired.
Mara huddled underneath the covers of the cot in the warm Romulan uniform, grinning as she thought about Riklo's black eye, and wincing as her stomach protested where Riklo had slammed the disrupter in her gut.
T'Son had been gone for about five hours now, Mara thought, and wondered if maybe he was receiving medical treatment for the flu.
After T'Son was thrown into the brig, Mara seriously doubted it. She got out of the cot and helped him into the bed. "How was it?" Mara asked, sitting down on the floor again. "Um…"T'Son said. "It could have gone better." "That bad, huh?" "Pretty much." They were silent, and then T'Son smiled and said, "Toreth kept sneezing and coughing throughout the whole thing, though." Mara giggled. "By this time tomorrow, the whole ship will probably be infected."
Mara was correct. The next day, half the ship had called out sick, and when Toreth said that no more people could call in sick, about a third of them called out dead.
Toreth was watching a holovid, her nose bright green and a bag of cough drops and a box of the Romulan equivalent to Kleenex beside her. Every so often, she would tear her eyes away from the screen and let a cough drop dissolve on her tongue or blow her nose. "I love this movie," Toreth sniffed, watching as Apollo 13 landed safely back on Earth.
"How did you get this ancient holovid?" Vokar asked, coming into her room. "Oh, hi, Vokar," Toreth sniffed, pausing the screen and pushing a pile of used Kleenex and cough drop wrappers out of the way so he could sit down.
"Are you feeling any better?" Vokar asked, kissing her forehead. "Yeah," Toreth said, coughing. "It could be worse. I think I'm delirious. My nose weighs ten pounds. My voice is practically gone. I'm burning up. I have absolutely no energy. Much better. I mean, yesterday the list included vomiting. So far I…haven't…" And with that, she promptly threw up in a bucket she had lying on her lap.
"Okay," she said, collapsing back on the pillows. "Maybe I'm not so good. Could you hand me the Lindt's Lindor truffles?" Vokar tossed her a box and she muttered thanks as she unwrapped one and proceeded to eat it. "Won't that just make you throw up?" Vokar asked. "No," Toreth answered. "It's the bread of life. Ambrosia of the gods. I swear, if I had ever met the guy who made these, I'd have given him his own warbird." "Um. Wow," Vokar said.
"I think I'm going to sleep now," Toreth said drowsily, and dropped off before Vokar could say good night.
"Are you coming?" Stephanie asked Rachel, standing halfway up the stairs. Rachel stood undecided, twirling her earring. "I'm trying to decide whether or not to stay here or go with you," she said. As Stephanie stood silent, she made it clear that she was going up whether Rachel went or not. Rachel sighed. "Okay, I'll come with you," she said, an uneasy feeling in her gut.
They climbed the stairs and stepped over a block of wood that prevented anyone from entering the front door of the house. "Look at this," Rachel said. There were chairs stacked on top of each other, an ancient TV set, and a picture on the wall. "Look," Rachel said in a hushed tone.
The two girls stared at the picture. It was normal enough; it was a beatific scene depicting white fluffy clouds and an angel ascending to heaven. The strange thing about it was that the angel's back was turned.
"Come on, let's go in this room," Stephanie said, pointing to a bedroom at the back of the house. "Okay," Rachel said agreeably. They stepped over trash and even a jar of lollipops that were from the 1970s at least.
"Hey, look, a photo album," Rachel said, pointing at a photo album lying on the bed of the bedroom. She and Stephanie went into the room and Rachel started to reach for the photo album but stopped short at seeing something furry on the cover. "What is that?" Rachel asked. Stephanie reached out and flipped the furry thing over-to reveal a dog's head. "Is…is that a dog?" Rachel asked in a hushed whisper. Suddenly the girls noticed the corpse of the dog-its claws curled and the skin tight around the bones. Strangely, there was no sign of blood.
They stood in shocked silence for a moment until suddenly a horrible feeling of evil swept over them, the tell-tale metallic taste of it in Rachel's mouth, almost like blood. "Let's get out of here," Stephanie said in a low voice, and they dashed from the room and down the stairs, Rachel shrieking "Oh my God! Oh my God!" Stephanie unconsciously shushed her, her mind somewhere else, and she heard a loud knocking sound coming from behind them as they ran outside of the house and to the top of the road.
Toreth moaned and tossed restlessly in her bed, sweat beading her brow as she was wracked by the nightmare-or was it a memory? Before she had time to fully wake up, she fell back to sleep…
"Ready?" Stephanie asked them. Rachel and Nathan nodded, and Rachel gripped the pocket-knife tighter with one hand as Stephanie held the crucifix out in front of her and held Rachel's hand with her other. Rachel held onto Nathan's hand and all three bravely walked into the basement door of the house, prepared to face whatever evil might lie there.
Already Nathan and Rachel could feel the presence of something evil lurking in the upstairs, but were determined to go upstairs. They reached the stairs and Nathan gasped as if he had seen a ghost. (A/N: No pun intended LOL) "I can't do this! I can't do this!" he said, and ran outside, Stephanie and Rachel quickly following.
"What is it? What's wrong?" Stephanie asked. "I've seen those stairs before," Nathan said breathlessly, shivering and dizzy from the evil he felt. "I know it sounds crazy, but I've seen those stairs before, in a dream. I dreamed we three went up the stairs and one of us rushed forward into the room and got hurt. I'm sorry, but I can't go upstairs."
Toreth moaned louder, and thrashed around in the bed-sheets, Kleenex and cough drops dropping to the floor.
"Her name is Carolyn. She had blonde hair and blue eyes and was wearing a pink dress. Something bad happened to her"…"I can't go up those stairs"…"You have to see the dog, Nathan. I don't know why, but you have to"…"We need that photo album! I don't know why, but we need it"…"He barred the door! Damn it, he barred the door and now we can't get it!"…"Don't go there again"…"He was black, and had eyes of cold fire, and a smile that was pure evil"…"Who owns it? Can we explore there?"…"He took a kid inside and the kid didn't come out! He locked the door and I couldn't get in, and I could hear him crying through the walls, and he was so scared! I couldn't get to him, because I'm not strong enough or brave enough to open the doors and rescue him, and now he might be dead because of me!"…"It's just a life, it doesn't matter"…"I'm waiting for you, child of light"…
Toreth screamed and wrenched herself from sleep, sweat pouring down her back and shivering all over as Hank's voice that had spoken to Mara so many times before in the past echoed in her head…a voice of pure evil and darkness.
And suddenly the memories were able to flow freely and she shuddered with the impact of memories once forgotten now remembered.
"It was real," she whispered, wiping her brow. "They were telling the truth! We did know each other somehow…oh, it was real!"
Mara and T'Son just stared at each other, not saying anything. What was there to say? They were locked in a Romulan brig with practically no hope of returning to the USS Royale safely and alive.
They turned as they heard panting and keys turning in the lock of their brig door. Both stared at Toreth as she staggered into the cell, eyes wide. "I remember," she gasped out, sitting down against the wall. "I remember everything!"