Authors: Marla Therron
Suddenly, there was an arm around her waist, dragging her up, which only made the place where she'd been hit hurt worse. She screamed her pain, but the person holding her only kept dragging her on.
"Stay with me," someone was saying as the darkness grew and receded like waves washing over her, dragging her under, "Stay awake!"
She clung to consciousness, catching flashes of wet streets and crystal weeds growing between silicon paving stones. Glass and copper garbage in glittering alleys where they crouched, hiding and afraid, hoping to pass unnoticed.
"We're almost there. Just hang in there a little longer."
Erena tried, she really did. But darkness swallowed her up inexorably and swept her away downriver towards the drowning pools of burning fever dreams.
After all the noise and rattling fear of where she had been, she woke in perfect silence, her eyes opening all at once. The room she was in was white and clean. Something about it had the antiseptic air of a hospital, despite the fact that she saw no medical equipment.
Perhaps, it was just that she was expecting to wake up in a hospital, if she woke up at all. Her shoulder throbbed at the memory, reminding her of where she'd been injured.
She reached up to touch it and found it bandaged, but it didn't feel nearly as painful as she'd expected. It still hurt, especially as she sat up, but nothing like what she'd expected to feel.
There was little in the small room except the single bed she was laying in and a nightstand in front of a window. A vase sat on the nightstand full of purple flowers. Erena pushed back the covers and swung her legs out of the bed, looking down at herself.
She was wearing a simple white shift, like a hospital gown but cotton or something similar rather than paper. There were a series of white dots running down the inside of her right arm. They felt like paint when she touched them, but she couldn't peel them off.
She decided to forget them for now, standing up instead and going to the window. There was bright, pale light coming from it, like early morning sun, and beyond it she could see a serene green meadow filled with flowers, nodding in the breeze.
Curious, she touched the glass, and saw the image flicker. Not a window at all, she realized, but a screen. Probably there to make her feel less trapped in this otherwise windowless, featureless room.
She heard the click of a door opening and turned, surprised. An alien was standing there, feminine, with blue gray skin and violet eyes.
"You shouldn't be up," the woman said, frowning, "You're still injured. Or at least, I think you are."
"You think I am?" Erena asked, turning away from the window to face the stranger.
"To be honest, your species physiology is baffling to me," the woman shrugged, "The hit you took should have killed you. I have no idea how you lived through it. Magic?"
The woman threw her hands up, she had eight of them, then came closer, shooing Erena back towards the bed.
"Where I am?" Erena asked, beginning to be concerned.
"Still on Diamat," the woman explained as Erena cooperated with being pushed back onto the bed, "I am Doctor Yll. Major Shang brought you to my clinic in rather bad shape."
Erena flinched, hearing that title.
"Major," she repeated, the word sour on her tongue.
"Ah, you're right, sorry," Doctor Yll laughed, tapping on the white dots on Erena's arm to bring up small holographic screens displaying Erena's stats, "I keep forgetting he's not part of the stellar police any more. He was when he met me, you see."
Erena looked away, curious despite herself.
"In my culture, females can't become doctors," Doctor Yll went on, "So I could never get licensed. I ended running an illegal clinic out of an alley. Not exactly prestigious, but I get to do what I love! And then I found Shang in a dumpster one night after he caught the wrong end of a shootout.
I patched him up, and in return he helped me legitimize my practice. I hadn't heard from him since he left the force though. I figured he was dead! Imagine my surprise when he shows up on my doorstep again, looking like I just pulled him out of the dumpster, and carrying you. I really thought he-"
"I don't really care," Erena cut her off, annoyance growing, "Can we please talk about something besides him?"
Doctor Yll looked surprised, but shrugged it off, going back to examining Erena's vitals.
"Well, from everything I can tell," she closed the holoscreen with a swipe and a hopeless smile, "You're doing great. Keep in mind I've never seen your species before.
But the laser burn is healing nicely. I got you a synth skin graft so quickly you may not even have a scar. Part of your collar bone and shoulder is a synthetic alloy now as well, since the laser basically vaporized your bones there. The good news about that is, if you ever need to bust through a door, well, your shoulder is basically a battering ram now."
"Handy," Erena hummed, looking at her bandaged shoulder in concern.
"It's been about a week since you were brought in," Doctor Yll continued, "You were in shock for a while, and then I had to keep you under for optimal recovery from the surgery. Having your bones replaced is not fun. You did not want to be awake for that."
"I can imagine," Erena agreed, though the thought of being unconscious so long worried her.
"I'd still like to keep you here a little longer for observation," the doctor went on, "In case your body rejects the alloy or something else pops up, not to mention the..."
She trailed off, glancing at Erena's stomach in a way that made Erena tense automatically.
"The what?"
"I'm guessing you weren't aware then," Doctor Yll cleared her throat, looking uncomfortable, "I'm not surprised, considering it's been less than two weeks. I believe, and I could be wrong considering my knowledge of your reproductive system, but I believe you may be... pregnant."
Erena's heart thudded in her ears so loudly she assumed she must have misheard.
"What?"
"Assuming it's normal for your species to bear live spawn," Doctor Yll smiled apologetically, "Then you are carrying a child. Or, a very weird parasite."
"But, how?" Erena babbled, "I haven't- I mean, I /couldn't/- We aren't even the same species!"
"Yeah, generally, being different species is a pretty effective contraceptive," Yll conceded, "But Shang's species is a bit unusual. Their issue is highly adaptive.
If the species they mate with is within a certain margin of similarity, they still have a pretty decent chance of conceiving. And your species is preternaturally close to his, genetically speaking. I'd almost say there was a shared ancestry, but that's not my field, so I wouldn't want to make assumptions."
"Did he know?" Erena asked, anger and fear tangling within her, making her feel almost nauseous, "Did he know he could do this to me?"
Doctor Yll shook her head quickly and Erena felt a moment of relief for that at least.
"Shang's never taken much of an interest in the biology of his own species," the doctor said, "Thinks it's pointless, since he's practically the only one left. And even if he had been aware of that quirk of his people, he couldn't have known you were within the margin of genetic compatibility. Hell of a coincidence though."
Erena slowly laid back down, staring up at the ceiling in cold shock. She was pregnant. Pregnant with Shang's baby. She ran her hands over her stomach, trying to process that thought.
"Of course, if you don't want it," Doctor Yll spoke more gently, seeing that Erena was overwhelmed, "We can discuss termination. It's still so early that there's not even really a fetus yet, so the procedure would be relatively easy. It may even be the medically responsible choice, considering I don't know how a hybrid of your two species will develop, or whether carrying a pregnancy like that to term might be dangerous for you."
"I need time to think about it," Erena was still looking at the ceiling, her throat dry and her pulse pounding, "I should probably talk to Shang."
"It's your decision," Doctor Yll reached out to squeeze Erena's shoulder reassuringly, "I'll respect that, whatever it is. If you need more information about either decision, I'll answer any questions I can."
Erena nodded mutely and, after a moment, Doctor Yll stood, leaving Erena alone with her thoughts.
A child. It wasn't a possibility she'd ever really thought about for herself. She'd started training for the space program so young that it had never felt like an option.
Astronauts didn't have time to be pregnant or looking after newborns, not to mention the toll it would take on her body. She'd always been so careful. But now here it was out of the blue. A baby. Her baby.
What if something went wrong? A barrage of fears suddenly fell on her like weights from the sky. What if her species wasn't quite close enough to Shang's and the child was born too deformed to survive, or just enough to live in pain the rest of its life? Or what if trying to carry it killed her? Who knew what a baby like this would need in order to survive in the womb?
Thinking about it, the chances that she wouldn't miscarry seemed slim to none. She supposed the advanced medical technology here would help, but still. Could there be any hope of a happy ending for a child like this? Erena felt dizzy. She closed her eyes.
What would Shang say? Would he want to keep it? Would he be excited, disgusted? Did she want to tell him at all? Rin'rokir's words kept repeating in her head. She told herself she shouldn't believe them. The bug was definitely a liar.
She certainly didn't have the whole story. But she couldn't let it go. The look in Shang's eyes, guilty and pained, echoed in her soul, making her certain that there was at least some truth to what Rokir had said, regardless of the whole story. And that was enough to make her question her every interaction with Shang. She had just felt like she was beginning to know him...
Later in the evening, Doctor Yll returned to her room with food, but she left Erena to eat alone, and when they light in the fake window dimmed abruptly to darkness, Erena went back to sleep, her head still whirling with anxious thoughts.
Two days passed that way, with no sign of Shang. Erena talked to Doctor Yll when the other woman had time for her, discussing the possible difficulties of the pregnancy mainly, but also anything else that came to Yll's mind.
The doctor had a talent for chatter, which Erena found a relief against the otherwise empty silence of her room. On the third day, Erena's worried finally overwhelmed her anger.
"Is he coming back?" she asked, unable to look at Yll as she did, her hands balled into fists in her sheets, "Did he leave me here?"
Yll, sitting on the edge of Erena's bed, shifted uncomfortably.
"I don't know," she confessed at last, "I believe he will. He barely even let me patch him up before he took off. He told me to look after you for him and then he was gone. But I don't think he'd just leave you here."
Of course he wouldn't
, Erena privately agreed,
I'm way too valuable for that.
"If he didn't," Erena said instead, "if he never came back for me, what would happen?"
"I suppose we'd have to get you some paperwork," Yll hummed thoughtfully, "I still have some contacts from back when I was unlicensed that could help. We could find you a place to live, maybe a job. Terminarchs get a stipend and it wouldn't be hard to claim that's what you are. You could make a life here. Even with the baby, if you wanted."
Erena looked down at the sheets, considering it. The fabric was smooth under her fingers. Similar to microfiber, but made of a plant she'd never seen or heard of, grown on some planet she'd probably never see. What a fantastic concept. She should be excited about that.
She could live on a planet like this. See things no human being had ever seen, do things no human being had ever conceived of! So why did it all seem so pointless now? All she wanted was to go home. All the curiosity seemed drained out of her.
There was a crash suddenly, beyond the door to Erena's room.
"I'll be right back," Yll promised, and hurried to check on the noise, leaving the door cracked behind her.
She heard shouting, another crash. Erena hadn't left this room since she'd woken up here. Maybe there was still a little curiosity left in her. She stood up and her shoulder barely twinged anymore as she crossed the room to the slightly open door.
The office beyond Erena's door was drabber than the clean, soothing room she'd been staying in, with gray carpets and pale blue walls and furniture that almost certainly wasn't the kind of DIY pressboard you could order from catalogs back on earth, but it certainly resembled it.
There was a tidy little waiting room and an empty front desk and a hall of doors like Erena's. A table from the waiting area had been knocked over, strewing metal tablets that Erena was willing to bet would display old magazines if she picked them up. There was blood splashed across them, trailing down the hall. Erena followed it.
"-can't believe you did this to yourself. Why didn't you come back earlier?"
Yll's voice, shrill and accusatory, grew louder as Erena approached an exam room at the end of the hall.
"I couldn't risk them following me here. I had to make sure I'd lost them."
Erena's heart skipped a beat as she recognized Shang's voice. He'd come back.
"These are the worst stitches I've ever seen," Yll was still complaining, "It might have been better to just leave the wound open. Hold still, I'm going to need to cut them out so I can reseal this properly."
Erena jumped as she heard Shang shout in pain. He swore loudly and creatively.
"Couldn't you have used the anesthetic first?"
"Maybe next time you'll remember to go to the doctor when you're hurt, rather than waiting three days and piling more injuries on first!"
As Erena reached the open door of the exam room, she saw Shang sitting on a table, gripping the edge and cursing under his breath as Yll's eight hands worked in mesmerizing tandem to repair a deep, ugly looking gash over his ribs. His pointed ears twitched, hearing her footsteps, and he looked up at her.
Erena stood in the doorway, clutching the frame. She'd underestimated how much it would affect her, seeing him again. Those eyes seemed to go right through her, leaving an aching hole. Why was she so affected by him? Was it just because of the baby?
No, if she was honest, she'd been feeling this long before she'd learned she was pregnant. There was just something about him that drew her in. Even now she just wanted to hold him. Instead she stood firm in the door way.
"You came back," she observed.
Yll paused, looking back at Erena.
"I wouldn't leave you," Shang spoke softly, his voice almost yearning. Was he feeling the same thing she was right now? Was this weird pull between them mutual?
"You shouldn't be out of your room," Yll warned, still working on Shang's stitches, "There could be all kinds of germs floating around here and I don't know your immunities yet!"
"I know you wouldn't," Erena ignored Yll, staring holes in Shang, "I'm too valuable, right?"
He looked away, guilty. Yll looked deeply uncomfortable.
"It's fine," Erena continued, "You don't have to explain it to me. I've already made my decision. You're going to take me back to earth like you promised."
He looked up at her in surprise, frowning.
"I'm not the only human out here, remember?" Erena tightened her jaw as she spoke, trying to control the tempest of conflicted emotions raging in her chest, "The rest of my team was taken too. Which means there are other creeps out there like you looking to take advantage.
The earth is in danger no matter what happens to me. At least if I get there first, I can warn them. So, we'll make it a gamble. You bet on being able to find earth before any of the others. I'll bet on being able to kill you before you can sell the information. Deal?"
"Wait a second," Yll looked between then, wide eyed, "It's not like that- is it? Shang?"
"Deal," Shang agreed, still unable to meet her eye. Erena felt the knot in her chest tighten further, wishing he had fought her about it. Wishing, he had at least tried. She turned and hurried back to her room in silence.