AN: Another warning for content. It's not kid friendly.
Delbert hates going through this alone.
The weight gain, the mood swings and the cravings all set in within the month, and he thinks it's a wonder that Sarah can still even look at him.
'God, I've gained so much weight already, is this normal?'
The canid quirks his head in the mirror, staring at his towel clad body. What used to be the gentle slope of his stomach had already expanded, ballooning with the litter of churning life inside of him. Life that he reminds himself every morning that Amelia helped create, and that thought brings him simultaneously closer and farther to her.
Sarah would tell him every morning that he was "Just glowing! Oh, I remember when I was pregnant with Jim." Jim would exit the room, a sour look on his face and a bagel hanging out of his mouth. But anyone who has been pregnant knows it's not a healthy sheen, a happy glow or anything of the sort. It's sweat from the extra exertion, and Delbert knows that it's just Sarah's way of being nice about it.
"Some grumpiness is to be expected, every one goes through it. This is a big life change, you and your wife must be so happy." Delbert's face falls at the mention of his wife, and he calmly explains the situation of her rapid deployment with a rough voice.
"There are support groups you could go to. Other people go through this sort of thing all the time. It seems scary, and your hormones are going to be all over the place. Just make sure that you are taking your prenatals and keeping yourself healthy."
Shaking a chalky pastel pill into his hand, he dry swallows quickly before going about the rest of his morning routine, strategically not thinking about anything related to Amelia.
Amelia.
He can still remember the feel of her silken hair through his hands and the smooth curve of her... spine. But it feels like it's been ages, even though it's only been a month.
Throwing the face in the mirror a sneer, he exits the steam filled bathroom, cringing at the chill lingering in his room.
"Oh Delbert, you've never looked more darling." Amelia's face swims into view on the screen, her signature red lips speaking over the rim of a white teacup.
"A- Amelia. When, how? How long have you been there?"
Amelia chuckles, setting the teacup down in it's saucer. "Only for a few minutes. I had hoped to catch you this morning."
Delbert rummages around in his closet for something that still fits, tossing aside old shirts and breeches. "Did something happen?"
Amelia is quiet, staring down at her nails. "This very well may be the last conversation we have for a very long while."
Delbert stops, walking back over to the screen and the tinny speaker. "What do you mean?"
Pursing her lips into a thin line, she continues. "We will be exiting federation space in a few hours, and after that, the fleet will be going dark."
Dark. No transmissions home. No Amelia. No news of Amelia. No way of knowing if she is safe. His world feels like it's ending. "What do we do now?"
Smoldering emerald eyes flick past the camera, then back briefly. "I'm going to put an end to this war before it has the chance to claim any more lives."
Rubbing his stomach absentmindedly, Delbert can't bring himself to even think about this. "Just come home darling. As soon as you are able."
Nodding, Amelia's eyes mist over. "You have no idea how much I miss you. Have you heard anything from the Doctor?"
Delbert nods, holding up his hand. "Five, Amelia. Five children."
Amelia didn't think she would be able to experience this kind of happiness while she was deployed. A laugh turns into a sob halfway through and she dabs at her eyes, quieting herself. "My word, five?"
"Come home soon dear. For the children." It's the same loving smile she's seen from him a million times, and Amelia finds herself glued to the screen, memorizing the lines around his lips and the way his brown eyes shine in the early morning.
The call cuts, and Amelia sits back, hand still covering her mouth.
Everything now has so much more meaning than it had when she had left port. Of course, she had every intention of returning home, of surviving what they were about to undertake. But the niggling thought in the back of her mind that maybe she might not make it through. Stray gunfire might take out the young admiral, effectively blotting her existence from the living world.
Breathing deeply cannot shake the emotion rolling in her chest and she stands quickly, pacing long lines into the floor.
"Admiral," Sterling peeks into the room, letting himself in after a moment. "Admiral we've reached the borders of federation space."
Back to the door, and to her first officer, Amelia responds. "Has the fleet reached full stop?"
"Yes ma'am. We await your orders." Door closing behind him, Mayhew comes to a stop behind admiral Smollet, confusion on his face. "Ma'am, is everything okay?"
Clearing her throat, Amelia turns to face her first officer. "I'm fine, thank you for your concern Sterling. I'll be on deck in a minute."
Sterling seems to consider her for a moment, standing still in the early morning. "I've seen that face before. You called home?"
Amelia nods, a smile dancing on her brows. "My husband and I are expecting children. Five of them."
Sterling laughs, extending a hand to her. "Congratulations, Admiral! This evening, we'll have a proper brandy to celebrate."
She seems to perk up at this, the corners of her mouth upturned in amusement. "Damn right we will."
Straightening her back, Amelia exits onto the deck, her keen eyes watching the men fall into line. 'Spit spot now.' Arrow would say, tugging on chins and shirt collars with a stern look in his eye. It isn't until her eyes avert upwards that she finds a curious rift before her.
Pale blue space striated into a void, the inky darkness echoing with potential, and danger.
"My word," Amelia mutters, staring quite literally into space.
Sterling feels his veins straining, his body reaching for the blackness that his mind so desperately rejects.
It had looked the very same now that it did all those months ago. Unchanging in the gentle tide between cosmic seas, and all the more entrancing, Sterling felt the primal call in his core, a none too gentle tugging in his spirit.
'This is where you belong, this is your home.' Like a half remembered whisper in his ear, and the clarion call of a nightmare he'd rather wish he could forget, Sterling doesn't- won't feel complete without the darkness that lies just beyond reach.
"The space we are about to sail into is dangerous. Few men have returned from it's depths, and it's contents are wholly unknown." Amelia stops before the ranks, admiring the pristine precision of the men she had commanded for only a few weeks.
The voice of his commanding officer should draw his attention, but he can scarcely hear her voice over the sound of his own blood singing in his veins.
"As you all have been informed, we will cease all outgoing transmissions effective immediately. The fleet will communicate with Morse code and luminescent signal flags. I'm sure I don't have to tell you all that your finesse in your craft will become your lifeline."
Green slits flick over to the helmsman, Ensign McKenna. "Full power to the starboard engines ensign, nice and easy into the rift."
The men scatter on the ship, each to their stations, and Amelia takes to the bow on the tip of the ship. Walking the thinning wood beneath her boots is a thrill, but now it's different. As she comes to her full height on the bow, the solar winds should be blasting in her face and blowing her hair back. But in the curious absence of matter, everything is still.
Amelia is the first to embrace the change as the darkness cloaks the gleaming flagship. Swathed in the muting darkness, her cream colored skin takes on an ashen tone. It's a far cry from the almost warm nebulae that she is leaving behind, with it's inky expanse interrupted by a brief smattering of stars. Wrong. Everything about this region of space feels so utterly wrong.
Casting a glance back at her first mate, she finds glowing veins and shining silver eyes where muted blue used to be. For his part, Sterling looks horrified, staring down at his hands with quivering lips and swimming eyes.
"Lieutenant?" Amelia abandons the bow, walking towards her first mate with apprehension in her usually sure step.
"Admiral!" A bellow from above alerts her to the masts. A layer of transparent frost had already begun to cover the gleaming sails, the cold seeping in through the external shielding on the ship.
Acting quickly, Amelia clambers up the mainsail. "Tie down those sails, switch to manual power!"
The ice shelf advances over the ship quickly, and the heated plating on the deck does little in the way of hindering it's progress. Frightened men chip away at the growing murky ice with anything they can find, and it isn't until the ship has been eclipsed by the frost that everything suddenly snaps.
Just as he had seen it happen before only a few weeks previous, Sterling watches as the ship returns to normal. The ice had not only receded, but ceased to exist. A figment of the imagination of every soul on board, it would seem. But Sterling knows better.
"What just happened?" The crew comes to a dead stop on the deck, casting nervous glances between themselves.
"Admiral," Mayhew manages to flag down the red haired fleet admiral, snagging her arm gently. "There's something we need to talk about."
Green eyes narrow dangerously in his direction before she nods briefly. "It would seem so."
Shutting the door to her office firmly, Amelia turns to her first officer, and for the first time in a short career, is utterly speechless.
"I suppose it's about time I talked to you about my time in captivity." Shining silver eyes darken, churning with the unpleasant memories.
Bewildered, Amelia sits on the edge of her desk. The fact that there is a correlation between Sterling's time as a prisoner of war and this region of space is both fascinating and completely dangerous for every one on board.
"I wasn't taken prisoner by the Proycons. My record was falsified after my debriefing and the things I'm about to tell you are classified under section 31 purview." Sterling sits, running a hand through his black hair.
"Do you mean to tell me that the government knew about this region of space already, and didn't think it fit to tell the fleet admiral before sailing into it?"
Sterling nods, pursing his lips. "That would be correct." Skin pulsing, he clenches his hands.
Flinching, Amelia's eyes bore into his. "Further, you knew something about this, and didn't see it fit to notify me until now?"
"I couldn't!" It's a scream, bitten out from wind chapped lips and a face screwed in grief. "I can't go back for them. They're still alive, and I can't go back for them."
Gripping him by the shoulders, she sinks to her knees in front of him. "Pull yourself together man! Tell me everything you know."
"The crew of the Seraphim, they are all still alive in captivity." Hoarse at the end and ultimately ashamed, he can't meet her eyes.
Sinking back on her knees, she stares open mouthed at the sailor. "You left them all?"
Openly weeping, Sterling's head falls into his hands. "It was the best chance I had of ever getting them help. I didn't know when I left what they had done to me." Shoulders sagging and strength gone, Sterling Mayhew falls to pieces in the otherwise deathly quiet stateroom.
Stepping away, Amelia finds herself pulling the brandy and glasses from her bottom desk drawer. It had been a gift from Arrow all those years ago upon graduating from the academy, and it still sat in it's box. The amber liquid descends into the cups quickly, and it's at that particular moment that she remembers her last drink. Post coital bliss, and ensconced in Delbert's study, he had reached for the first bottle he could find. They drank from the bottle on a Persian rug on a Tuesday night.
Setting the leaded crystal glass in front of him, she sips from hers immediately, her eyes rolling into the back of her head.
"Once they get a hold of a person, something happens to your mind. You start to see and hear things, hallucinate. They can put anything into your head." Sterling stares dejectedly into his brandy before swallowing it all in one go. It wasn't a celebratory brandy. It was the brandy that is used to calm oneself after a shock, and it had been exactly what Sterling needed.
"It's a game for them. No one ever gets killed because once the body is dead, the fun is over. But the brain is a resilient thing." Echoing words that aren't his, an alien smile ghosts on his face for less than a second.
"And their influence reaches farther then their own space, yes?"
Sterling shrugs. "That seems to be the case."
Peering down at him, Amelia addresses the final concern. "You're telling me that everyone that was aboard that ship is still in enemy hands?"
Mayhew nods, setting the glass down on her desk. "Yes ma'am, Captain Hawkins included."
Breathing in sharply, she mentally goes over every inch of what Jim had told her of his father. Wayward sailors could, potentially at one point earn command of a vessel after a field promotion. It wasn't unheard of.
"Hawkins?"