A/N: And so a new world dawns - one without obsessed sons, rampaging Sixers and shadowy corporate fat cats with expensive armies. Time to look to the future!


PART FOUR

HOME

Chapter Twenty Eight

One Big Happy Family

Standing on his veranda, Jim stretches briefly before setting out for his daily combination of exercise and security patrol. The air is clear and fresh thanks to the rain that fell overnight, and the skies have cleared to allow the rising sun to light his way. The day promises to be very warm later on, but at the moment, it couldn't be better.

Jogging easily, he makes his way out to the fence line on his usual route, where there is nothing of note or concern. He waves cheerfully at one of the stall holders, the wife of Yseult's Miller, Graham, as she stacks fresh spelt loaves that still steam from the oven onto a rather jerry-built trolley to transport them to the marketplace. If he's had an early start, she's been busy since the early hours - only a dedicated artisan could be so keen.

As he makes his way around the edge of the market place, one element of his morning run that is new - and rather unexpected - joins him, "Morning Shannon."

He's still not used to this, "Er…morning Mira."

Of all the new people who have come into the Colony, she is the one person he couldn't find a place for. Her skills are undeniable, and she has proved to be an excellent leader - but they already have leaders. Thus, with no other career path open to her, she will be starting her new job today as his deputy: Terra Nova's two-person civilian police force. It's an idea that they have mutually formulated during previous morning runs - though Jim has found it far harder to persuade Taylor to allow her access to a sidearm should they need weapons.

There is an air of sadness about her that is only really becoming clear to Jim now that he is losing his almost instinctive distrust. Her motives for aiding the Phoenix Group stem from more than mere profit - unlike those of her followers. They were specifically hired, but she had an additional prompt to grant her aid; and the price she has paid for the loss of the terminus vastly exceeds that of those who came with her. Such is her fierce pride, however, that even now she rarely speaks of it.

They run in silence. While Jim is capable of being almost gratuitously garrulous at times, Mira has never been one for pointless conversation, and her refusal to fill silences with witless chatter is as disconcerting to him as it is remarkable. Eventually, however, she consents to speak, "How are things progressing with the wedding?"

"Slowly," he admits, "Maddy's kind of set her heart on a white dress - but we haven't got access to white material to make it. I'm going to go talk to Max today, find out how that loom's going."

"And how's Max?" Like everyone, Mira has fallen into the habit of using Yseult's nickname, despite hardly knowing her.

"She's fine - particularly now that she and Malcolm are back together properly." Jim wonders how much he should tell Mira, though there's no one in the colony who doesn't know what happened at the forge a month ago. The details aren't well known, of course - but rumour and speculation has emerged in an attempt to fill in the gaps, despite his resolute attempts to stem it.

"Just as well Taylor killed him - what was his name; Mike?" Mira says, grimly, "If it'd been me, then he would've lost things."

"He was built like an elephant." Jim reminds her.

She doesn't reply, but her glance at him is quite pitying. She is, of course, a far more capable fighter than Yseult, and probably knows points of vulnerability on a man's body that the altogether more demure metalworker hasn't even heard of, "Though I'm still astonished he got up again after she hit him on the head with a large hammer." She adds.

"Elisabeth found the reason for that when she did the autopsy." Jim says, "Sometimes when people get a whack on the head, it causes a bleed - but they can still function for a short time."

"Of course." Mira nods, interpreting the explanation, "An epidural haematoma. He must've recovered into a lucid period. He would've keeled over even if Taylor hadn't shot him - but how long it would've taken is anyone's guess. He could still have killed them both before it happened - or not."

Jim doesn't quite glare at her for her additional knowledge, but it's close.

"Look." He says, suddenly drawing to a halt, "Before we start working properly, I need to know; I get that I can rely on you, but I need to know that you're going to accept the discipline that this job needs. Are you going to accept authority from me?"

She stops as well, and eyes him with an odd expression: not scorn, nor dislike, but not entirely respect either. There's no doubting that she accepts he's a capable, skilled individual - and that he has Taylor's absolute trust, which she lacks. She also lacks his ability to not take himself too seriously, and he suspects that it's that aspect of his personality that she particularly struggles to grasp.

"If you mean, 'am I going to contradict you, object to your orders or show general low-level insubordination', then feel free to say so out loud. I'm not blind - I'm well aware that letting bygones be bygones is hardly going to be easy. I'm also under no illusions that we're about to embark upon some form of glorious friendship." She looks off into the distance, "This is not what I envisaged - and my intention at this point in time is to make the best of it. I imagine that'll change as time passes; but at the moment, I'm working on accepting that this is how it has to be."

Jim regards her again. She isn't as fortunate as he is - his children are here with him. Her daughter, on the other hand, is not - and the means to reunite with her has gone. Probably forever. No matter how uncertain he is of her loyalties, there's no doubting her courage and forbearance.

They resume their run again until he reaches his house, "Shift starts at oh nine hundred. I'll meet you at my office in Boylan's."

"Boylan's?" she stares at him, surprised at his choice.

"Josh does better coffee than Taylor." He offers.

She looks at him with slightly narrowed eyes, and then there is just the briefest ghost of that smile again - before she turns and continues her jog back to her own place.


Pete hands over a steaming mug of coffee, "Try that blend - Geoff's upped the arabica."

"Thanks." Yseult accepts it and takes a sip, "That's good. I like it."

Her desk is in the workshop where they keep their kitchen equipment these days; the shed that she once used now in the process of being pulled down to be replaced with storage buildings. After what happened there, she wants rid of it - though she's drawn the line at re-siting the forge. Everyone is solicitous of her feelings these days; probably because they all feel guilty at failing to hear her screams when Mike attacked her.

"Pete." She looks up at him, "What's happening with gossip? I can't believe no one's talking about it."

He sits alongside her on the desk, and puts an arm around her shoulder, "They are - a bit. No one knows what to make of it - none of us saw it coming - and no one's pretending they had suspicions. I knew he was nursing some unrequited lust or other - but I had no idea at all that it was aimed at you." He looks at her more closely, "You should know that no one's thinking that it was obvious, and you didn't do anything about it, or that you should've stopped him before it got to that point. We all thought he was just a good mate like me, Graham and Geoff."

She nods, "If he'd chosen any other time…it's only because he coincided with lunchtime and locked me up so I couldn't go and visit Malcolm. He came in search of me when I didn't turn up with lunch." She shudders.

"Christ, I'm sorry Max." Pete sighs, "I had no idea at all that this was going to happen - why did he snap? It's not like we've never left you two alone for long periods before."

"I found out what he'd done. He was pretending to be helpful, or maybe he was genuine - I have no idea. He offered to tell me the security override for the doors in the colony. He must've not realised that I knew that the person who smashed the catch on the cover of the scorpion's vivarium got into the labs using the override. Once he noticed I'd figured it out - it all changed. I suppose he felt he had nothing to lose. I didn't know that he'd been using the code to break into Malcolm's house overnight and move things around."

"He what?" Pete stares at her, shocked. This, none of the team knew.

"I don't know what he thought he'd achieve - but it made Malcolm start to think that Lucas was haunting him."

"How did he get the override?" Pete asks, quietly.

"Kate Maybright - she kept giving it to him so they could find unoccupied places to meet for sex when she was on duty. When Taylor found out, he sacked her."

"Good."

"I don't think so." Yseult shakes her head, "Have you seen her? She's my height, a similar build to me and she's got brown hair. Given what he was saying to me, I think Mike was using her as a substitute. She was completely into him - and if she was as into him as I'm into Malcolm, then I can understand why she did it. Besides, after this happened, she sort of figured that out for herself. You have no idea what she's lost thanks to him - what I went through is pretty minor in comparison - I still have my job, and the man that I love."

"I don't call attempted rape and boyfriend-murder to be minor, Max."

"I'm speaking comparatively. What have I lost?" She pauses, "If she's willing to accept it, I'm thinking of offering her a place on the team - even if only as an apprentice. Terra Nova doesn't have room for people to be unemployed - she needs a job, and she's as much a victim of Mike as I was. Besides, it might help to lay his ghost." Yseult looks up at Pete again, "D'you know what Mike said to me? That he was pleased when Niall died; he called it the best day of his life."

"Jesus - that's beyond sick. I'm glad he's gone - you deserve better."

"I have better, Pete. I have Malcolm." She sips at her coffee, "Blast - it's cold, and it was so nice, too. Come on. We've got some more people starting today. I'm hoping that one of them can take over as my assistant; I can't run that blast furnace on my own."

Most of Mira's group - Yseult refuses to use the term 'Sixers' any longer - have been assimilating into her teams over the last couple of weeks, two working with Geoff as part of a new 'engineering' team as they have the requisite skills, but the rest currently taking on labouring work as they get to know their colleagues prior to possible internships. The remainder of the group have been recovering from some nasty infection they acquired in the forests prior to arrival, while one of the three survivors of the Phoenix soldiers has also been assigned to Sustainable Industries for her to rehome.

Whereas Mike had once been her de facto second in command, his demise has promoted Pete into that place, so he joins her as she heads out into the yard to greet the new arrivals.

In less than fifteen minutes, most have been assigned to the labouring teams, while one enormous specimen by the name of Ben, who has metalworking skills, stands nearby to discuss the blast furnace, and the lone soldier, a solidly built young man from Ohio by the name of Louis, offers nothing of use but a willingness to find something to do. Being a soldier, he has few skills of a practical bent; but Pete needs someone to help him with the coppicing - something that doesn't require a ten-year apprenticeship to learn - and they could do with another collier. Before lunchtime, the two of them have headed off to the forest to discuss the delicate art of hacking wood, and Yseult is cycling back to the main compound to join Malcolm for lunch.


Perusing results on her plex, Maddy looks up to see that Malcolm is sitting at his desk in his 'proper' office, looking off into space again. In the two weeks he's been back at work full time, he's been inclined to drift off on occasions, though the staff who don't regard him with annoyance tend to take it in turns to find a pretext to go into his office to bring him out of his contemplations without looking too overt about it. Looks like it's her turn, then.

She hasn't had much in the way of details over what's happened to her boss over the last few weeks. All she knows is that bad things happened, and he nearly lost his life several times in frighteningly short succession. Dad won't tell her anything more than that - not that she's asked for such details as she knows it's not her business - but she hasn't forgotten that moment she saw the dead scorpion, and fled desperately home to summon her parents to save him.

Being unable to take a formal doctorate, she is instead preparing to embark upon a research project of a suitable calibre to achieve one, under his supervision, and her internship has become a full time job. The search for an antivenin has largely fallen into abeyance, as there just doesn't seem to be any way to negate the effects of the venom. Thus, she has turned to the ongoing development and refinement of the analgesic compounds that she has identified instead. While the initial compounds she researched proved to have potential side effects during the final workups prior to clinical testing; if the results on her plex are anything to go by, they'll be able to synthesise a proper test version of the latest compound as early as next week. Once that's done, she can concentrate on developing a potential antibiotic from one of the yeasts that the late Rob Stanley was growing.

"Malcolm?" she stands in the open doorway, waiting for him to come back from wherever he is. It only takes him a minute or so, and he turns to look at her, "Maddy - sorry: miles away. What can I do for you?"

He looks thinner than he did when she saw him last; a little pale, too - now that the redness from exposure to the sun out in the Badlands has faded. The rumours that circulate are likely to be utter rubbish, but still, there is no getting away from the fact that he suffered a great deal, and is still recovering. Smiling, she holds out her plex - at least she has something to distract him for a bit, "I've got some good results from the latest batch. I think we could be getting somewhere with the first of the analgesics."

As it always seems to do, the prospect of reviewing successful outcomes brightens him considerably, and he reaches out to take the offered plex with real interest, "That's great, I think you were pretty disappointed when the first lot didn't pan out, weren't you?"

She nods, and he smiles - currently something of a rare thing - before checking through the formulae she has presented.

"You're right." He approves, "These look very promising indeed. When are you going to start the preparatory work to assemble the compound for synthesis?"

"After lunch." Maddy looks up to see Yseult approaching, "Talking of which…"

The moment his eyes rest upon her, his face seems almost to light up; there's no missing what she means to him - no missing it at all. As she shares something of that wonderment every time she sees her fiancé, Maddy completely understands his joy at seeing the woman he loves, and fetches back her plex as he rises from the table to greet Yseult. She doesn't even mind that he seems to have completely forgotten she's there, though Yseult waves briefly to her before they depart.

Returning her plex to her workstation, she logs off, and heads out to find her mother. She does, after all, have a wedding to plan.


There are no cartons today. Since Yseult is a very capable cook, she has largely taken over Malcolm's kitchen; and suddenly he has stocks of ingredients in his cupboard and fridge instead of assembled meals provided by one of the market vendors. Thus the salad has been prepared at home, and they are washing dishes rather than putting cartons into the disposal.

"I think I've got a budding romance amidst the coppices." Yseult says, as she washes a plate and sets it on the draining board, "Pete and Louis have really hit it off - it seems that he was having to conceal his sexuality as much as Pete used to have to. They only met this morning, and the pair of them are already thick as thieves."

Malcolm smiles beside her, "I'm glad about that. Pete's been a great friend to you; besides, he's the only one of your lot that never called me 'Captain Khaki'." He pauses, as she goes a little stiff beside him, then looks worried, "God, I'm sorry Max - I was just kidding; I never meant to…"

"No - I know…it's just, he coined that name - and he did it because he hated you. No one uses it anymore." She turns and snuggles against him, "Besides, he can't hurt us now unless we let him, and I don't intend to."

Without thinking about it, he enfolds his arms about her. It's the same for him - Rob Stanley is gone, so is Lucas Taylor. He's been to the grave, and made it very clear to the corpse rotting within it that enough is enough. The pair of them can only hurt him now if he lets them. The trouble is, he's having a hell of a lot of difficulty with the 'not letting them' part of that statement.

At least that knife is back in the kitchen drawer where it belongs. He still has the nightmare now and again - less so these days - but when he fights out of it, she's beside him, and he no longer searches the floor for scorpions when he wakes. She might well go to her own house during the day when she needs to, but she always spends the night with him - something for which he is more grateful than he can express.

It's not just that she comforts him when he has the nightmare - but that moment of waking in the morning to feel her close by; those times during the day when she almost unconsciously rests her hands on his arm, or his leg, purely because he's there and she likes that sense of tactile contact. When they sit in the weekly briefing, her right hand may have a stylus to record notes on her plex, but her left hand is usually on his thigh. The Shannons probably know she's doing it, and perhaps even Taylor does, too; but they don't comment.

There's only one change since that incident at the forge; she no longer sleeps naked in his bed, nor has she been able to accept his hands close to her most intimate areas. She never used to mind him seeing her without clothing; there was a time when she would startle the hell out of him with her almost casual nudity in his presence - but no longer. Regardless of her comment about not allowing Mike's attempted attack to impact upon her life, it's destroyed her unselfconsciousness, and no matter how much she reaches out to him, his hands are permitted so far, and no further. Sexual contact is, to use a cliché, thoroughly verboten for the time being. Without her express consent, however, he has no wish to push it: she'll accept him when she's ready.

Lunching only takes a short part of the hour that they take together; the rest of it spent sitting together on the couch, "I'll make some tea - leave those dishes, I'll finish them." He ushers her to the couch, and she smiles at him. No - while she can't accept that final step in terms of intimacy, she hasn't stopped loving him - he can see that - and he has no intention of spoiling it through impatience. She's far too precious to him to do that.

It takes him no more than five minutes to clear the rest of the dishes, and they are soon together on the couch, drinking tea and just revelling in their closeness. How the hell did he manage to live without this? A house empty of anything but scientific papers - and he thought that he was content…

Yseult shifts slightly alongside him, "Malcolm, do you love me?"

His eyes widen, "Of course I do - absolutely and completely. I probably don't say it enough, so maybe I should."

"Mike said he loved me." She murmurs, darkly.

"He didn't love you, Max. What he felt wasn't love - it can't have been. No one can claim that they love someone, and then attack them. If they do, then they're liars, or they haven't the first idea what love is."

"And you do?"

He looks at her, bemused at her question, "I can't claim to have a definitive explanation for it, but I remember how my parents loved each other. It's hazy - but they were a team, and they trusted each other absolutely, and they had such a deep friendship with one another. And, the one thing that's never gone away for me is knowing that they loved me. It was like being wrapped in a warm blanket; having that torn away when I was ten is something that I've had to try very hard to stop from overshadowing it. I haven't always managed to - but if we have even a fraction of what they had, then I know it's for real."

"I must sound horrible - but…I'm finding it hard to differentiate between what Mike thought love was, and what I thought it was. He was convinced I'd led him on; but I can't work out how I did."

"That's because you didn't. Mike created a construct and let it dominate him. Rob Stanley did the exact same thing with me: nothing I said made any difference - he blamed me for his sister's suicide, and it drove him to spend a year preparing to kill me. In Lucas's case it was a bit different. He did the same thing, but his construct was focused on his father. He saw me as just a means to an end: a valuable commodity."

"I think that must be how Mike saw me, in a way." Yseult muses, "It's as though he'd put me on a pedestal - and, he had me on the floor, he couldn't shatter that awe by actually touching me; well, not at first, anyway. I imagine that would've changed if he'd got my gear off, but you intervened before it got that far." She shudders, "I just can't get past that. You must be so fed up with me but, every time I undress before bed, I can see him looking at me, his eyes just rabid with this weird combination of worship and lust. I stopped being a woman, and became an object."

He holds her close, "I promise you, Yseult Maxwell, that I will never, ever, touch you without your consent. Nothing gives me the right to do that - my uncle made it very clear to me, and so did my House Master at Harrow."

"Your House Master?" she looks bemused.

He nods, "It was a ridiculously macho society in the school at that time - but he refused to allow us to think of women in that way, nor did our Matron. I think our House was probably the only one that did it - there were two very nasty incidents in other Houses while I was there - and lesser ones in all the others. It stood me in good stead for my move to the US; if I'd arrived at Northeastern with that attitude, I would've been sacked in less than a year." His eyes rest on her again, "So believe me when I tell you: you're not an object, and you're not mine to do with as I please. Anything we do as a couple, we do together. Except for presents and surprise parties."

Yseult turns to him, her eyes intent, and a little damp, "That's your promise?"

"That's my promise: nothing without your consent."

Sitting astride his legs, she lifts her t-shirt over her head, then unhooks her bra and shrugs out of it, "Then this is my consent. Touch me - make love to me. Here and now. I've had enough of being an object: I want to feel like a woman again."

Malcolm says nothing, but reaches out to draw her close.


Pete looks up as Yseult comes into the commandeered office, "I was going to say 'you're late', but I've seen that blissed out look before."

"Shut up, Pete." She reddens, but there's no mistaking her happiness.

"Good, was it?" he grins, "What was it you were saying? 'Shut up?'"

"That's what I was saying."

"Then I'll shut up."

"Do." But then she smiles and clasps him into a hug, "God, I'm so happy, Pete! I can't tell you!"

"Just as well you can't, madam. That's a confidence way too far." He looks at her for a while, "It's good to see you like this again, Max. He really does make you happy, doesn't he?"

She nods.

Disengaging from the hug, Pete fetches the office plex, "This'll make you happy, too. Geoff's sent a message about the loom - it's looking pretty good."

She grabs the device and reads the message, "It certainly is." She gives him a quick peck on the cheek, "Thanks Pete. You're a fantastic friend."

"Like I always say, love. As long as that's all I am."


The loom rattles busily, the shuttle being fired back and forth at remarkable speed. For all people's reliance upon engines, the power of water is something that everyone's forgotten - and it's only now that it's being rediscovered; but then, the number of people the loom has to serve is considerably smaller.

Geoff, a slight man with short brown hair and a bit of a short-sighted squint, is looking over the mechanism with approval, as Ninette, their head weaver, watches the developing cloth with an expert eye. She's used to using a manual loom, and she's extremely good at it, but it's too slow to serve the colony, and they need the fabric they're weaving rather more quickly. The cloth that she's creating on her hand loom is for the same project, and it will have the artisan touch that the forthright Frenchwoman prefers alongside the altogether more manufactured appearance of the cotton that is being created at ten times the speed.

"How's it going?" Yseult asks him over the clatter of the shuttle.

"Really well, Max." Geoff advises, "The pieces fitted together brilliantly, and the mechanism's sound. Whoever designed the original loom really knew what they were about. This is doing a great job."

"I can do better." Ninette calls across, though she smiles as she speaks. While her English is also fluent, unlike Yseult she has never lost her accent. But then, it seems to suit her magnificently Gallic temperament.

"How long before we have a suitable quantity?"

"I would say, another three hours." Ninette estimates, "I want to 'ave more than is needed, to decorate the orchard."

Yseult smiles - she'd forgotten that in the midst of all that has happened over the last few weeks. With no really fine, 'romantic' space in the colony to celebrate a wedding, someone suggested the Orchard and the idea stuck. Thus two plans have been set in motion, the one that they want to implement, and one that would do as an alternative if the weather doesn't cooperate. While a lot of the artisans who came through with construction and science staff have been keen to volunteer, someone was needed to coordinate it, and it seems that Ninette has stepped up to that particular plate. Someone's already on standby to make Maddy's wedding dress - the problem has been providing her with fabric to make it. Now, at long last, Geoff and Ninette have, between them, solved it.

"Are you better today?" Ninette asks her, stepping away from the loom. They all know what Mike tried to do.

"Much."

"You are 'appy with Malcolm - I can see it. 'E is a good man - it's obvious that 'e cherishes you."

"As much as I cherish him, Ninette." She accepts the weaver's proffered hug.

"Make sure 'e asks you to marry 'im as soon as possible. I want more practice with the loom."

Her eyes widen, "We haven't discussed marriage yet - it's not something that we've even thought about. It's a bit soon after what's happened."

Ninette smiles at her, "Discuss it. Soon. I expect to make more cotton for your wedding dress."

"Okay! I'll think about it!" Yseult laughs at her intent expression, "Let me know when you've got the cloth ready - I'll let Elisabeth know so she'll be expecting you to drop it off. I'm not taking the credit for your work."

"Who is making the dress?"

"Jacinta Costa - Alfredo's wife, the guy in construction."

Ninette nods approvingly, "She's a good choice. I'll talk with 'er about the properties of the fabric to make sure there are no mis'aps."

"I'll leave that to you, I think. I'm rubbish with fabrics - if it can't be heated or hammered, then I'm pretty useless."

"Says the woman who built the loom." Geoff calls across, having heard her comment, then he looks across at her, "Aren't you meant to be building an arbour, or something?"

"Only the support poles. Judith's weaving the arch out of oak withies from the coppices. I think everyone's gone a bit potty - but how often do we get the chance to have weddings around here?"

She smiles as they return to their work. The way things are going, this is likely to be the wedding of the Eon, never mind the decade.