Chapter Forty
This Bleak Necessity
Elizabeth Cutler
I know why Malcolm moves so quickly: Zenobia is getting panicky because he isn't responding to her. It's simply horrible watching her, even apart from the ruin of a face that was so lovely and so full of intelligence – even if the intelligence was once aimed at destroying me. She doesn't even look human any more, just like a frightened animal, and her whimpered appeals are getting louder. The walls aren't particularly thick. Someone could overhear, and then questions could be asked. If we manage to get away and she starts talking, a whole lot of trouble could start. She probably couldn't string many coherent sentences together, but she could probably say enough for people to put two and two together if the right ones happened to hear her. And that's all it would take.
And almost worse, Malcolm doesn't look fully human either as he grabs her wrist and throws her onto the bed. He's spoken often enough of the Pack half of him, and I'll be honest it was hard to believe – I suppose as much as I love him, perhaps because I love him, I wanted to believe it was just an excuse for doing what any man would like to be able to get away with. But his face has changed, it's hard and purposeful and pitiless in a way even I never saw it at his worst aboard Enterprise, and his teeth are drawn back in a feral snarl. She wails with joy and relief as he paws at her scanty clothes, and he bites her shoulder blade so hard it leaves teeth-marks on her skin.
I've seen enough. More than enough. Grabbing at my clothes, I almost run into the bathroom – I'd flee into the corridor, but I'm stark naked and running around in the buff in a comfort house is likely to get me mistaken for one of the whores. Blinded with tears, I drag my clothes on. It takes a moment before I can nerve myself to open the door, but when I finally manage it I don't look at the bed – the sounds are enough; the awful, un-human noises both of them are making turn my stomach. I blunder to the bedroom door and make my escape, and get myself down the corridor to the waiting room, which is fortunately empty. I suppose I'm taking a risk sitting here in case Viv has any early customers, but I'd imagine the door's locked, because there's nobody up and about yet.
He didn't waste any time. According to the dingy old clock on the wall, only about five minutes have passed before Zenobia dawdles out. She looks at me with a smile that would be beatific if it wasn't so hideously innocent; she's not even gloating at me. She's just happy with all the world, and I'm just the one who happened to be around to be smiled at. She turns aside and leaves through a side door, clearly just floating on air.
I suppose I'd better go to Malcolm. Though for all I believe he really didn't have any choice, other than killing her to keep her quiet, I don't want to see him lying on the bed where the hollow where we cuddled up together must be still warm. It's the bed where he made love to me last night, where he told me I meant the world to him. And less than six hours later he was shamelessly fucking Zenobia Towneley like a goddamn dog on the same sheets.
But when I finally open the door he's not lying there in a pool of post-coital bliss. The window's closed so he hasn't gone out that way.
The only other option is the bathroom, so I push the door open, expecting to find him showering. But though he's in the shower cubicle, the water's not running. He's simply sitting huddled on the floor, his head on his knees, and after a moment I see his shoulders are shuddering with sobs.
My hurt and resentment dissipate on a wash of pity. I pull the door open and kneel beside him, at which he flinches away from me. "I'll never be free of it, will I?" he chokes. "I had to hurt you for that bitch. I should have just killed her." He lifts one hand and claws at his scalp. "If I could get it cut out of me I would, when I see what it costs…"
"Malcolm." I risk using his name – the door's shut, and we're alone. I catch his hand, and slip my fingers through his. "None of us can help what we were made, love. At – at least you made her happy. I don't suppose she has much to be happy about in a place like this..."
He rubs the hand across his face before turning it towards me, filled with the emptiness of despair. "All that time you loved me when I was a bastard, all the time you cared for me when I was a monster, and this is all I can give you in return. I love you, Liz, Christ knows I love you, but I don't know if that's enough. I'm not even human, and there's a part of me that doesn't care.
"Sometimes I think about the lives we lead and I wish you'd never come aboard Enterprise. You could be a head nurse in some respected facility, doing useful work, saving lives. You could have met someone else and fallen in love, had a family. You could have had a decent husband, kids, a comfortable home.
"And what have you got instead? A twisted fucker on the run who can't even be faithful to you, and a shakedown bed in a refugee camp.
"Lucifer. If I was half the man I'm not, I'd run out in front of the next gun I hear fired and put you out of your misery. Lucas would have you back like a shot. I bet Burnell would wipe the records for you after the work you did at Jupiter Station. God knows, half the Fleet knows our history. All you'd have to say is that I forced you to come with me because I wanted to keep my fuck-toy, and they'd believe that, no problem…"
"Don't you dare talk about yourself like that, Malcolm Reed! Or about me, either!" I pull off my clothes and step into the shower with him, snapping on the power cord as I do. "Stand up, this minute!"
Time was when he'd have bounced to his feet in a fury at being spoken to in such a tone. Now, between tiredness, misery, shame and the long toll that life has taken on his body, he has to struggle upright, leaning against the tiles. He doesn't even meet my eyes, but just stands there in front of me, shoulders slumped with self-loathing.
He's not General Reed any more. He's just Malcolm, and whatever he is, whatever he does, I can't stop loving him.
I switch the water on and it courses down over us like forgiveness, the brief cold soon dissipating. I push out a handful of gel and start to wash him, starting with his hair, and after a minute or two he almost shyly starts to return the favor. At first it feels hesitant, awkward, but we've done this so often that it lapses into a dear familiarity. If I shut my eyes I could imagine we were back aboard the Fortress, and still in pursuit of Trip's better world.
His hands are tentative to begin with, but they know every curve of my body, know where to press and stroke for maximum effect. It's the human Malcolm who presently lifts me and presses me against the wall, our bodies slick with soap and water, and I welcome him into me. While I was here I thought I might as well check out the whores for sexually transmitted diseases, and was able to verify Viv's assertion that they were all clean. Now that precaution pays off as I enjoy a worry-free reunion with my husband.
Yes. Pack will always have a claw-hold in him. Nothing either of us can do will change that.
But nothing has changed since I told Zenobia in that first clash over possession: I will have the best of him.
