PART THREE.
Her head was bowed and, while she knew she probably needed to set up an appointment with Dr. Mathias, to speak with him about anxiety and sudden feelings of inadequacy, Sandra came to Helena instead. Perhaps it was because she knew the woman was in a quandary herself but, in all honestly, they had been friends for years and it just seemed right that they talked.
"You really have nothing to worry about, Sahn." Helena appeased.
They sat in her quarters, in the open lounging area, coffee pot and cups on the table before them.
"No? His beautiful, exotic alien fiancé returns, only a day older than when he last saw her, and I should not be worried?" Sandra lifted fingers to touch the underside of her smooth chin. She had noted what she perceived as a second chin starting to make an appearance and was self-conscious. "What if Maya decides to fight for her man?" she wondered. "I cannot compete."
Helena smiled gently and tolerantly at the smaller woman. Although she undoubtedly should not have said anything, probably better advising Sandra to speak directly to the Psychon on the matter, Helena admitted: "I spoke with Maya and she understands the situation. She is honorable and can see that you and Tony are close and enduring. She would never do anything to jeopardize that."
"And she is inconsolable, I'm sure. Men like nothing better than to sooth a lovely heartbroken woman." Sandra picked up her cup and sipped thoughtfully. She then took a breath, "Maybe she is honorable, and does not intend to cause trouble, but I do not think Tony has looked into my eyes since the moment that Eagle appeared on our scanners. Then when he saw them, saw her, I could feel him tense-up right beside me." Sandra exhaled, "He still loves her."
"Sahn, he was in shock. So was I … " Helena paused and swallowed slightly. She looked off in the distance, momentarily recalling what could have been a dream or hallucination. He stood there, just having stepped off the travel tube, handsome and looking for her. And Helena was terrified. "It was as if our past came back to haunt us."
Suddenly remembering, Sandra placed her cup on Helena's table and turned to look at her friend closely. "Have you told him? Are you going to tell him?"
Helena's eyes darted slightly then closed. "We haven't had a chance to be alone yet." She spoke above her own cup, allowing its aroma and warmth sooth her frayed nerves. "I have many things to tell him, Sahn." She then opened her eyes and saw sympathetic brown eyes looking into her own, "I just don't know where to start."
"You are a heroine, Helena. Everyone who was there, who knows what you've been through, knows that you did what you had to do. You went beyond what any of the rest of us could do – even Tony. I nearly lost him that day, Helena, and still might have if … if it wasn't for you." Then she added, "Alpha would no longer be. John, Alan, Maya …. They would have come back to nothing." And it nearly killed Helena, although many tried to gloss over that fact. Helena amongst them.
Curious, Helena almost asked Sandra about Alan, what it was like for her to see him after all these years. Alan had always been a bit of a playboy but before he left on Eagle Three Helena sensed he and Sandra had taken a turn in their relationship. He was no longer a mere protector but something more tender. She recalled Sandra being very upset when the Eagle was lost but she could not quite fathom it, deeply in grief herself at the time. Instead, Helena shook the question off for another time and said: "I'm not so sure John will feel that way. But if he and I hope to rekindle what we had he'll need to know. Besides," she added glumly, "Evidence of the encounter is all over my body. He's bound to notice if ..."
Sandra shivered and nodded sadly.
As if to test their line of conversation, a blip came over Helena's compost and John Koenig's face was on the screen. There was silence for a count of ten. He then asked, "May I come in, Helena?"
Sandra reached over and touched Helena's hand, "Be strong." She whispered and stood as the door parted.
He entered slowly, pensively, but smiled fondly when regarding Sandra.
"It is so good to see you again, Commander." She lifted her hand and he took it, "I am sorry that we treated you coolly at first but we had to be careful."
"I understand." John said and squeezed Sandra's fingers gently, "I would have done the same."
The smile slipped ever so slightly from her face. The base now appeared to have two Commanders. Personal issues aside, if she knew her husband as well as she thought she did Sandra recognized that Tony would not give up his command easily to another. Yet, this was Commander Koenig, a brilliant man and leader. Perhaps if he wanted it bad enough Tony might be willing to hand it over. After ten years, Tony just might want the rest. She thought to have a long conversation with her husband in bed this evening. Perhaps Helena was going to do the same with John? She smiled privately at the thought. "I have things to do." Sandra abruptly said and pulled her hand from his. "Take care." She called to both and quickly walked from Helena's quarters, allowing the door to shut behind her.
"Sandra and Tony, hunh." He said, more as a statement of fact than a question as he moved further into their, or her, quarters.
"Yes. They are good together." Helena said, "She gave him strength when he needed it most."
"And Maya?"
"I've talked with her. She is in pain but will be well, I'm sure."
Koenig stood quietly, looking at Helena as she pushed Sandra's coffee cup away and procured another fresh cup from the decorative mug hanger on the table top in front of the sofa. "Sit." She said, motioning to the sofa cushion beside her. She poured John a cup of coffee and added a little milk, remembering how he liked it. She then handed him the cup as he sat down.
"How is A.J.?" he asked quietly, sipping.
"Good. I was going to go see him, perhaps even pull him out of class so I could better explain what is happening, but his teacher, Pamela, told me to leave it to her. It would come easier, she thought, hailing from a mentor. She said I could add all the loving touches a mother should after she released him for the day. That should be soon." Helena looked from her cup to John's profile, "I think she wanted to give me some time to adjust as well. No point in his mother bursting into tears, trying to explain the unexplainable to her child, before she was ready."
"And are you ready?" he asked, quietly.
"It may be something we should talk with Aaron about together, John. By the way, he prefers to be called Aaron, not A.J. I'm not sure why."
"He's growing up and has his preferences. All boys eventually do." Koenig spoke a little sadly. The couple were quiet for a few moments, drinking their coffee, when he said, "Ben thought it would be a good idea for the two of us to have a conversation tonight. I was going to do it later, when I thought you were ready to see me again, but he thought I should talk with you right away. He seemed to think you might have something important to tell me."
"And you didn't want to speak with me tonight?"
He looked at her, a bit stunned, "Yes, of course I did… do. I mean, I wanted to talk to you the minute I saw you but … I just wasn't sure …" He stumbled then, "Hell, I'm not sure I am ready, Helena. I know how insane this is for you but it is for me also."
Helena could not help a short chuckle. Even in their past, when John was nervous and frustrated, he had a look about him that was part drowning man and part small boy with a puzzle. "You need a good orientation, John. All of you do. Yet, there are some things … personal things …"
"Yes?" His voice held a question, feeling Helena was holding back as much as Ben did. Although Vincent said Helena had not remarried, that did not prevent her from having a deep, loving relationship with another man. Perhaps that was what he could not tell his one time Commander.
Determined, she put her cup on the table and took his to do the same. "I am going to tell you something you will not want to hear." Helena spoke bluntly, "I didn't want to bring it up, if I'm being honest, but if we hope to have any kind of relationship, if we want to be a good mother and father to Aaron together, you need to know. I can't keep it a secret from you. It has become a part of who I am…"
The dread in her voice, despite its resolve, made Koenig inwardly cringe. This was more than another man. Apparently, something terrible, potentially appalling, happened and the strain on Helena's face merely added to Ben Vincent's uneasy manner in Medical Center. John steeled himself for the worst.
"Two years after Eagle Three disappeared, while we were travelling through this black void, the moon was approached by a savage alien race. We don't know how they found us. Maybe it was merely by chance. Anyway, they were humanoid but big and brawny – and warlike. We did everything to keep them out of Alpha but along with their viciousness came advanced alien technology. They were on us and in the base before we knew it. Many Alphans, including the children, managed to make it to the lower levels and safely hid from them but Command Center and the upper levels, including Medical Center, were there for the taking. Tony tried to bargain with their leader, Brount, but it broke down."
Koenig noted that the name of the alien appeared to leave a bad taste in Helena's mouth, but she shook it off.
"Tony was sent to Medical Center, unconscious with broken ribs, a leg, and contusions. Did you notice he walks with a slight limp even now?"
He did and John also noted a scar on Tony's face.
"The aliens ran rampant through-out the base and, in the end, I took command of Alpha."
"You." John said, simply, unsurprised. Helena was a competent leader.
"Yes, someone had to. I did my best to talk with them. I told Brount we would give them all we reasonably could if they would just leave us in peace. He agreed on one condition ..."
Koenig felt his back suddenly straighten at Helena's hesitation, her troubled expression. It spoke of trauma and unspeakable pain, he quickly realized. And what was it that warlike, unconscionable men wanted from women, particularly a woman who looked like Helena, when they knew they could take anything they wanted?
"Brount … He saw me as a woman of strength. He appreciated that. He wanted me."
Koenig sat still, his breathing controlled, fists clenched and tightening.
"I was not going to be a victim, John. But they were destroying the base and would have made it impossible for us to continue, even for another year, if I did not do something. So … I agreed."
Unable to prevent it, Koenig's teeth clenched.
"However, I set the rules; the where and when. Not that it helped that much …I spent twelve hours with their leader." Helena cleared her throat and looked about the room, "But not here. I couldn't. Not in quarters I shared with our son and certainly not in the same room where you and I had …" She shook her head, feeling helplessness and oppressed despite what she told John. She detested her decision even now but, as Sandra said, she was left with little choice, as their leader and a woman. "When it was over their leader, despite it all or because I had pleased him, was as good as his word. They left us. Brount and his men did take some vital supplies but nothing we could not do without for a while." Helena closed her eyes and her voice grew low, into a mere murmur. "Only a few Alphans really knew what made them go away, including Tony, Sandra, and some of the medical staff."
Koenig's eyes held unshed tears that threatened to fall at her next statement.
"Medical needed to know because they had to treat me. I was physically and somewhat emotionally out of commission for quite some time after that. Sandra took care of Aaron for me. He was only two at the time and accepted that I was simply ill." Then, she added, not looking at him. "It was brutal."
Silence.
He felt sickened.
Carefully, John reached over and placed his hand on one of hers, feeling it shake underneath his own. She had made a decision that saved Alpha and it nearly destroyed her. He tried to get his head around it. He wanted to say the right words, to reassure her, but they were eluding him. All he could think to say was, "If I had been here that never would have happened, Helena." He did not say 'It's my fault.' but the self indictment hung in the air.
She shook her head and spoke in a gentle monotone, "Not true, John. I told you what happened to Tony. The same would have happened to you, Tony or Alan or anyone … I'm not sure my decision would have or could have been different."
Gulping, he pressed - "Maya could have did something. She would have used her molecular transformation powers to stop them." he insisted.
"Perhaps. But she wasn't on Alpha. John, and I had to do what I did." Helena's voice was suddenly deceptively firm.
Koenig could not even imagine the horrible physical and emotional issues Helena must have had to deal with in the aftermath. Even after eight years she still appeared to be working through the ordeal. She was the mother of a very young son at the time. She had to have been thinking of Aaron and all the other children, most being babies at the time. Then there were mothers and fathers, workers, and loved ones - many probably in Medical Center with injuries, like Tony. She had to take command and save her people. Yet, she was forced to do the one thing Helena loathed to do most. She used her body to rid their home of a sadistic alien menace!
Finally, John asked, "Are you all right?"
She countered, eyes now looking into his, reserved and unnaturally cool. "Are you?"
This time he did not pause. "Helena, I love you." He said then added, "I think you are the most remarkable woman I've ever met in my life. And I want to spend the rest of it with you – and Aaron."
With a gasp of breath, allowing the façade to drop, Helena fell into his arms with a sob and allowed him to hold her.
END OF PART THREE.
(In PART FOUR A.J. finally meets his father. How will he react? Also, Helena might have another secret or two to reveal to John. And what about Maya, Tony, Sandra, and Alan …? More surprises, good and bad, are in store for Moonbase Alpha!)