"Sono" Part Sixteen (Epilogue)
Disclaimers in part one.
Malcolm leaned forward in his chair, focusing on the image of Phlox on his private viewscreen.
He said, "You mean that the remedy was in the snow itself?"
Phlox nodded his head.
"The captain was as surprised as you when I told him the results of the tests. It was some sort of counteragent."
"What about what we witnessed--the strange glow and what followed after?"
"Ah, that. That still has me puzzled. Perhaps something to do with the reaction--"
Malcolm's door chimed.
"Excuse me, Doctor. There's someone at the door."
"Understood. I'll see if I can come up with an answer."
"Thank you. Reed out."
Malcolm toggled the switch that shut the viewer down and rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, he went to answer his door. It swished open and he dropped his hand in surprise at who stood on the other side.
"Hoshi?"
"Can I talk to you?"
Malcolm stepped aside to allow her into his quarters. She sat down on the couch, and after a moment's hesitation he joined her.
She nestled back into the couch, and closer to him. She pulled his arm into place around her shoulders, and he couldn't say no to that, even though it was more than he should allow for his peace of mind.
For a long time, she said nothing. Just sat, not looking at him, or making any motion, lost in thought. He didn't speak, and the silence wasn't overbearing.
"It was so strange, Malcolm," Hoshi said.
He looked down at her, after she spoke. She still wasn't looking at him, but at some point on the floor.
"What was?" he asked.
"To be two people. I can't believe I didn't notice what happened to me, or put the signs together. I felt her when she left and if I think back I remember when she attached herself to me in the garden, but after that, I felt nothing, except that I would dream, and they were so vivid, but not part of me, but as if I was someone else. I think, she wanted to teach me something."
Malcolm's grip around Hoshi's shoulders tightened. "By hitching a ride in your sub-conscious? I'm sorry, Hoshi, but possession generally never turns out well for us."
She looked at him, her gaze intent.
"It was a mistake, on her part. She sensed a kinship, but she didn't know how different we were, or that by becoming a part of me, that she would be trapped."
"That doesn't change what she did."
"Malcolm, she was trying to find absolution. Trying to fix something she'd had no control over. Trying to give me a message. She thought she would be able to leave once she was done."
"What are you talking about?"
"She talked to me, let me see her life. She was caught between two men. Women then were treated as equal to slaves, to be bought and sold to whatever man would have them. She fell in love, but with the wrong man, and when she was sold in marriage to another, she kept seeing that man. He was jealous of her husband, his own master, so jealous that she feared for her husband's life."
"She feared for him."
Hoshi bit her lip. "She did. You see, he'd treated her well, like an equal and they were going to have a child. She made up her mind she would be faithful to him, but her lover would have none of it. The more she pleaded, the more violent he became. She defended herself. She killed him." Hoshi paused.
Malcolm whispered beside her, almost as if he was unaware of what he was saying, "And they executed her for it."
"How do you know that?"
"What?" he snapped, looking startled.
She turned out of his embrace. "How much stayed with you?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"I've been so wrapped up in myself and what I experienced that I forgot--Phlox said everyone was affected in some way. You, you were the other half."
She felt him stiffen, more than she saw it.
She asked, pressing, "What was it for you?"
"En--"
She swore, cutting off his warning. "Stop it, Malcolm! You will not do that to me. We're friends and you've earned the right to treat me that way, so use my name, and tell me: what happened to you?"
He should have been expecting that he chastised himself and forced himself to keep looking her in the eyes.
He'd spent the past few weeks, in the wake of all the revelations, trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle, coming up with an image that was still unclear. Something had happened to him, but how it matched up with everything learned, and now Hoshi's new information...he still had no solid answer.
"Nothing like what you went through."
"But it was something. You were part of what she was trying to communicate to me."
"I don't remember anything, Hoshi. Whatever she'd spoken to you--I received none of it. All I experienced was a presence; sometimes it pushed me away, sometimes it welcomed me. If I was chosen by her, too, why us? Why pick us? We--" He stopped and looked away, withdrawing his arm from around her shoulders.
Confused, Hoshi said, "Malcolm?" He looked at her, but his gaze skittered away from hers in the space of a flickered eye.
It was enough for Hoshi to understand.
"That's not why, Malcolm. We aren't them."
In one anxious movement, he sprang from her side and placed a few feet between them.
"Of course not," he protested.
"I'm afraid, too."
"Afraid of what?"
"Of what we want. Of breaking the rules that say we can't have it."
"There have been no rules broken."
"Yet. But you want to, don't you? If you could, Malcolm, would you break the rules for me?"
She saw him take a breath and his eyes go wide. She held her breath in kind, waiting, but when his face broke down into a barely held expression of grief, she had her answer before he spoke.
"No. We--"
She crossed quickly to him, stopping him from saying anything else with a hand across his lips.
"It's enough to know."
There was a charged pause as they stared at each other. Hoshi said, "Keep denying yourself, Malcolm, if you want, but I intend to stay here," she dropped her hand from his lips and landed it on his uniform, above his heart, pressing it there, "and time can change a lot of things."
She reached up, giving him a kiss. The sensation of her warm lips tingled across his scalp and he couldn't help but compare the last time she kissed him, with this. This was right, but before he could say anything or even reach for her, she smiled and walked out his door.
End.