Dangerous Changes

Warning: contains semi-graphic descriptions of a early pubescent female body and the changes inherent thereto. If you don't like it, skip this, will include brief recap in next chapter.

A/N: I know this chapter is short. But I'm on vacation, so provided I get reviews and the wireless I'm using holds up, I should be posting every day or so. Enjoy and Review!

The clock on her nightstand said 4 am.

So why was she awake?

Admittedly, she was an early riser. Five thirty or six, she usually got up to say her morning prayers, light a candle for Mom and Dad's safety that day. Some days she ran with Dad, other days she practiced with Mom, though most days now she made breakfast, since she was nine- or ten-years-old and therefore could be trusted with a toaster and precut fruit.

But four was a little too early.

Twin aches joined by sharp, needling pains in her chest make a rude for a rude awakening, she thought ruefully as she began to massage her sore breasts, then stopped suddenly.

Oh no, she thought in a panic. Please no! she jumped out of bed and ran over to the mirror, pulling off her pajama top in desperate haste.

Never before had such an unwelcome sight met her eyes staring back at her in a mirror.

Where yesterday stood a flat-chested child, today stood a girl with breasts already grown to the size of apricots.

She looked at her hand in terror—already, what had yesterday been a dark spot on her palm was deepening into a pit that would soon be a feeding slit.

Mairghread burst into tears. What should have been a time for rejoicing, her first step towards womanhood, was instead for her a time of terrible distress. She knew that with puberty came the hunger. The hunger that wouldn't be satisfied by bread, only life energies.

She would kill herself before she let that happen.

Uncle Carson. Maybe he could help. Maybe he could stop this from happening. Maybe he could make her like Peter Pan from the story Uncle John and Uncle Rodney told her, never growing up.

Mairghread pulled on a loose dress and quietly slipped from her room. Mom and Dad might be asleep, or they might be out, or they might be talking—one never knew.

The livingroom was clear, so she slipped out the "front" door.

Sgt. Lukinov and Lt. Johnson were on the graveyard shift guard duty that morning. They were sitting outside the door, quietly debating the relative virtues of desert and deciduous forest planets.

Mairghread gave them a brief nod of greeting as she passed. She knew they were there and why, but she didn't particularly mind. Before Uncle Rodney had fixed the manual controls of the transporters, she had needed them in order to move across the city. They didn't bother her, she listened if they told her she couldn't do something—it was a pleasant coexistence.

"Mornin' Mary," Lt. Johnson said as they fell into step with her. "Sleep well?"

She shrugged. "Okay, I guess. How was the shift?"

"So far, so good," Lukinov replied in his thick Russian accent. "Vair are you go-ink?"

"See Uncle Carson," she told him tersely. Usually, she could enjoy a pleasant conversation, but this morning her mind was on other things, like the fear that at any moment she would feel the hunger and her companions would suddenly seem more like comestibles.

The marines nodded and followed silently. This was not an unusual occurrence. Mairghread was often up and about shortly before their shift ended, and her morning "rounds", as they were known, frequently included going to see the good CMO who, more often than not, had stayed up all night on something and hadn't eaten recently. The little girl seemed to think it her duty to make sure the sleepless Scotsman went to bed for at least a few hours and ate something more than powerbars and caffeinated brews.

Not that this was much of a problem. It meant that they actually got to stretch their legs and wander closer to home all in the line of duty.

It was an added bonus that Mairghread could sweet-talk the cooks into giving her real food for herself, Carson, and anyone she was with.

Mairghread knocked tentatively on the door frame to Beckett's office.

"Uncle Carson?" she inquired softly, trying not to make the man jump as he sat staring at his laptop.

He did anyway.

"Mairghread!" he gasped. "Ye gave me quiet a fright, lass."

"Sorry. Um, Uncle Carson…"

Beckett could see immediately that something was bothering her, but probably not in the "I have a headache way". She was like everyone else on the bloody base—never said anything about being hurt till someone caught them and dragged them to the infirmary.

"What is it luv? Tell me," he took her hand, led her to an empty bed and closed the curtain around them for privacy.

In answer, Mairghread pulled her thin dress taught over her chest, making her developing bosom noticeable.

"Make it stop. Please," she begged, clearly terrified by her changing body.

"Mairghread, it's pairfectly normal. There's nothing wrong—" Beckett began in the voice he normally employed the first time explaining to Rodney that a splinter, even a splinter from a ten thousand year old piece of dead wood, was non-life-threatening.

"Yes there is!" she interrupted and stuck her hand out in front of her, palm up.

"Ah," said the good doctor, realizing her concern.

"I, I can't let this happen!" Mairghread whispered, on the verge of tears. "I won't! I won't let the hunger…"

"Hush lass," Carson soothed and pulled her into a hug as she cried. "There's nae need for tha'"

"Yes there is!" she cried despondently. "I-I-I don't want to hurt anyone! Please, make it stop!"

"Ah cannae do tha', luv…"

"Then I'll go ask Aunt Elizabeth to lock me in the brig before the hunger comes."

"Nae, nae, no need for tha' yet!" he told her. "Ah cannae stop ye growing, but Ah think I can keep ye among us safely."

Mairghread furiously scrubbed at her tears with a fist. "How?"

TBC

Next: Retrovirus, 4.0

Haha! more cliffhangers! Now, press the little purple button please!