by C. V. Walter
He tilted his head to the side at her angry tirade and looked down at her clenched fists. He tapped her hand gently and she clenched them tighter as sparks shot up her arm at his touch. It must have done something to him, too, because he pulled his finger back quickly.
Molly glared at him, determined not to feel any sympathy. If their skin was this reactive to each other it must be making him uncomfortable as well. Good.
He held his clenched fist out in front of her then opened it, pointing at her hand when he was finished.
"Not until you open the restraints."
With a glance at the monitor next to her head, he ran his finger down her arm until they reached the restraints. She shivered, letting a hiss escape between her clenched teeth. He did it again and the corners of his mouth twisted up into what she could have sworn was a grin.
His next stroke was with most of his hand and her back arched off the table, her breath escaping in a whimper as her fingers opened reflexively to claw at the table. Her legs jerked against the restraints on her calves and she swore when her heels couldn't find enough leverage to push against.
"What the fuck are you doing to me?" she demanded, her voice hoarse. "Why are you doing this?"
He looked down at her face and she could have sworn the look in his eyes was hungry. Anxiety raced through her. When his gaze moved to her hands, she realized she was still digging her fingertips into the table. His hand moved towards her and she flinched until it landed on the restraints.
With a faint click, the metal cuff around her forearm opened then retracted into the table. She tried to sit up and reach for the other cuff but the hand on her shoulder held her firmly against the table. After a moment of struggling against him to sit up, she reached up to push his hand off of her. As soon as she touched him, she realized her mistake.
Heat shot through her hand and down her arm. She gripped his arm hard and panted softly, trying to will herself to push it off. He saved her the trouble and pulled it away from her, hissing between his teeth.
Molly struggled to sit up and roll over to fumble at the cuff on her other arm. That was when she felt the pain through her entire body. Her mouth was hanging open and she was panting hard, trying to see through the waves of pain that rolled through her while she worked to find the catch on the cuff.
The alien came into view in front of her, squatting down to catch her eye. When his hand hovered over her arm, she froze and looked up.
He started talking to her, the concern obvious in his voice, his words coming faster than they had before while he kept his hand poised over her skin.
Her jaw set, Molly gritted her teeth and pointed at the cuff on her arm.
He nodded and put his hand over the cuff. It clicked and retracted into the table.
Molly pulled her arm to her chest and laid back, her breath coming from her in pants as she tried to bring her body back under her control.
"I don't know what you did to me," she told him, blinking away the moisture forming at the corner of her eyes. "But this fucking sucks."
Chapter 3
Mintonar was concerned. The alien they'd rescued from the crash wasn't reacting in any way like he'd predicted. Her vital signs were erratic, though she did seem to have some control over them, and her insistence on removing the pain relief bands was baffling.
He didn't want to think about what her reaction to his touch might mean. Or that he felt it, too. He'd heard about his species ability to sense genetically compatible partners, had even experienced the slight tingling sensation it was described as once or twice, but this was lightyears beyond that. The fact that he could feel that reaction to an alien was fascinating to him.
While she, the alien was definitely female, clutched her arm to her chest and tried to control her breathing, he glanced up at the monitor next to the bed. Everything was healing at a much faster rate than he was used to seeing and it was putting a lot of stress on her circulatory and respiratory systems. Removing the bands hadn't helped that but the struggle she was going through was worse.
It hurt him, like a blow to the gut, to see her in pain.
He knew the regen table she was on was uncomfortable. It was the longest he'd ever had somebody on it and he wished he was happier with how much she'd recovered before she woke up so he could pull her off.
Absently, he stroked her shoulder, hoping to ease some of her discomfort while he watched the monitor. He wished she'd keep talking to him. Even if he couldn't understand her, he liked the sound of her voice. That he could hear the changes in her emotions and pain levels in the tone of what she said was helpful, as well.
Theoretically, the universal translator installed just below his ear was listening, too, and would eventually pick up enough of her syntax and usage to be helpful but he had no idea how long that would take. When she started talking again, she sounded angry and scared.
Hiding his sigh, he looked down at her. Arms still clutched against her chest, she was hunched in on herself, everything about her body language telling him she was in pain.
"I know it hurts," he told her, using his best bedside voice. "I wish you'd let me stop the pain."
She looked down at her legs then back up at him, her lips set in a hard line. Mintonar couldn't help but shake his head.
"No, if I thought you'd stay still long enough, I'd see if I could find the temp rings. But I think you're too scared and have no idea what I'm saying so you'll try and get away as soon as I move. I wish I could trust you to stay put but you have no idea what's going on and I have no way to tell you." He stroked her shoulder again and she frowned at him.
He opened his mouth to say more when the comm chime at the door went off. With a quick glance, he saw one of the nurses who was holding up a dinner tray. He started to shake his head then thought better of it. He nodded and activated the comm to talk to her.
"Thanks, Damina," he said. "Leave it there but could you add a couple of the temp cuffs to it?"
"You sure?" the nurse asked. "You've already got it on the table. Are the ones attached not powerful enough?"
Mintonar looked down at the alien and gave a wan smile. "I want to give it more freedom of movement. I think laying still is difficult for it."
"Fascinating," the nurse said, her voice eager for more information. He knew she wanted to come in and see the alien. Every member of the medical team had walked by the window while he'd been in there, some of them more than once.
"Indeed," Mintonar agreed. "Grab the cuffs and we'll see if it makes a difference."
"Sure," Damina said and hurried away.
Well, that was one thing off his mind, at least. When she came back with the cuffs, he might be able to leave long enough to get the tray before the alien tried to fight her way off the table. It would hurt if she did. A lot. And she was obviously still in pain from trying to pull the second cuff off by herself but he wasn't going to put anything past her.
He wondered if the bio-nanos were having any effect on her pain levels.
The ones he'd given her had been blank. Deliberately left that way while in stasis so they could be used on any living being, most doctors considered them to be inefficient. It was better, the argument went, to have to reprogram from existing data than to have the bio-nanos gather their own.
Most doctor's tended to go for the easy answer, the one that gave them the least amount of work. In their defense, most doctors didn't expect to be treating an injured alien in their operating room. Mintonar hadn't, either, but he was glad he hadn't had to initiate regen, piecing together what was obviously broken, while reprogramming bio-nanos.
Damina returned with the cuffs and hit the comm chime to pull his attention to her. She waved the package with the cuffs at him through the window then bent to put them on the tray. When she stood back up, she waved again and he nodded.
With a look down at the alien, he realized she'd been watching him.
"I know you can't understand me but maybe if I keep talking, you'll at least get t
he intent. Please don't move. I'm going to try and get something to help you."
He squeezed her shoulder then let go, backing away cautiously while she watched him. With quick strides, he turned and walked to the door, grabbed the tray Damina had pushed in the room, and returned.
When he got back, she was still watching him, her mouth pressed into a firm line while she took deep breaths through her nose. He glanced up at the monitors and realized she was controlling her breathing. Her circulatory rhythm seemed to have steadied and he marveled that she was able to do all of that in her condition.
Setting the tray down on a table behind him, he picked up the cuffs and showed them to her. Her eyes widened and she shook her head, her deep breathing broken in her fear.
"I don't know what you think these are," he told her, pointing to her arm. "But they really will help. Will you please let me help you?"
She clutched her arms tight to her chest and he sighed. Taking one of the cuffs, he held the outside against her bare upper arm and saw the tense muscles relax. The pain relief field was stronger inside the cuffs but enough was part of the metal that they could be used to relieve minor aches and pains just by touching the affected area.
He recognized the moment she realized what the cuff was doing for her when she looked down at the one touching her then back up at him. Holding up the other one, he opened it and gestured to her wrist. With most patients, he would have grabbed her arm and just put the cuff around it. The way she reacted when he touched her skin told him that was a bad idea.
Tentatively, she moved her arm away from her chest and held her wrist out to him.
Carefully, making sure not to touch her skin with his, he put the temp cuff around her wrist and snapped it shut. The visible relief in her face as she laid the arm back against her chest eased a band around his heart that he hadn't known was there. He gestured for her other wrist and she lifted it for him. He snapped the cuff around it and had to force himself to let go.
The urge to run his fingers down the soft flesh of her inner arm was strong. He knew what would happen, knew how she would react, but he desperately wanted to feel her skin and the flash of recognition that would race through him when he did.
He didn't know why it was happening or how they could possibly be compatible, he'd have to download the information from her nano's later, but the feeling of recognition was one he could get addicted to very easily. She laid her arm back against her chest and let out a deep breath.
When she spoke to him, there was a note in her voice he hadn't heard yet. It was lighter, as though she was recognizing the ordeal she'd put herself through. He wondered how much she knew about what was happening to her.
"They're not as powerful as the ones connected to the table," he told her. "And they'll have to be recharged at some point but if they'll keep you lying down and not trying to run away, I'm happy to use them."
She looked at him and he could see she was thinking.
"I wish the translation program would hurry," he told her, a wry smile curling his lips. "It's difficult to treat you when you can't understand what I'm saying and I can't ask you questions. The information from the monitors is great, and the nanos will give me more, but I need to ask you more about you specifically."
She said something and he was almost certain she was asking him a question. He'd love to be able to answer it for her but had no idea what she was trying to get across.
"I'm sure you have a lot of questions for me, as well," he told her. "And I want to answer all of them, if I can."
His patient huffed out a breath and drummed the fingers of one hand against her collar bone as she looked around. When her gaze came back to him, her mouth was set in the firm line again and he was ready to hold her against the table if she tried to get up. He was half-tempted to stroke her shoulder again for a while, just to soothe his own nerves.
She raised a hand and made an exaggerated pointing gesture to her chest. "Maw-lee," she said, pronouncing the word very carefully. She pointed at him and raised her eyebrows.
Maw-lee? he thought. Was that her name?
With a frustrated sigh, she made the pointing gesture again and repeated the word. "Maw-lee," she said. When she pointed at him, he almost laughed.
"Mintonar," he told her. "I'm called Mintonar."
Her eyebrows drew together and he repeated his name.
"Min-tone-ahr?" she said carefully.
He nodded. "Mintonar," he repeated, saying it carefully for her. Then he pointed at her and said, "Maw-lee."
She smiled and let out a string of words he had no idea what they meant but she seemed happy that he'd said her name.
Chapter 4
Molly felt better knowing the doctor's name. And that's what she was pretty sure he was. He seemed to be genuinely concerned when she was in obvious pain and she'd figured out there was something about the table and the cuffs that was helping with the pain.
The fact that she'd never felt the kind of pain that had rocketed through her when she'd tried to get up concerned her. What happened? And what was he doing to fix it? The pain hadn't gone away entirely but she felt better with the dull ache in her muscles and joints than she did not feeling anything.
Except, she hadn't exactly been numb before, it was more a lack of any kind of stimulus to let her know something was going on. Now that she could feel something, she was just as happy to continue laying on the table and not move as he could want her to be.
She wondered what else was on the tray he'd brought over.
"I feel like we should be having a conversation," she told him. "Not that I was ever much for actually socializing but I figure if we're both here and you're trying to do things that involve my body, I should at least be able to carry on a conversation, don't you think?"
Mintonar looked down at her and raised an eyebrow. He gestured at her to keep talking and she took a breath.
"I'm not entirely certain what happened but I'm guessing you had something to do with whatever hit the space station? You don't seem like the kind of aliens to be planning some kind of hostile invasion where you wipe out the natives but if you are, I would recommend against it."
He frowned and made the same gesture.
"Dude, I have no idea what to say to you. I'm ready to start reciting poetry except the only poems I can remember right now are dirty limericks with punchlines you wouldn't get even if you could understand English. Culture matters a lot for those kinds of jokes, you know?"
He nodded and sat down, gesturing for her to go on.
She sighed. "Right, keep talking so you can understand what I'm saying. I'll bet there's a translator program around here. I don't see any kind of ear piece so I'm guessing it's somewhere in the room? Unless you have it implanted somewhere which would be really weird but kinda convenient, I bet. I mean, I know I have a couple implants that make things work better, or in a way that's better for me, anyway. Is whatever you're doing going to interfere with that?"
When he didn't respond, Molly frowned. "I want a translator, too. I had one in my suit. It wasn't great and it got hung up on some of the Asian languages but it was enough to let me communicate with people who didn't speak the same way I do. If I help program your translator, will you be able to download the information to mine so it works better right away?"
The doctor leaned back slightly and his elbow bumped the tray he'd brought her cuffs over on. He turned to look at it and Molly tried to see around his arm to get a better view.
"What's that?" she asked when the sight of it proved elusive.
Mintonar pulled the table around to his left and pushed a button on something on the tray. A few seconds later, something that sounded like steam escaping came from the object he'd pushed and a button popped up. He pulled the top off the thing making all the noise and a smell unlike anything she'd ever encountered hit her nose.
It smelled like Christmas dinner and fresh baked cookies, if they also had a hint of dark nights and whipped cream.
"What is that?" She breathed and her stomach grumbled.
Mintonar turned to her in shock.
"Sorry," she told him. "It just does that. I guess I haven't eaten in a while and I don't see anything here that looks like it deals with fluids or nutrients or something? I don't know what you'd use but that smells amazing and I'm really hungry. If I can't eat, I understand, but maybe some broth? Or something?"
He asked her a question she didn't understand and she pointed at the tray.
"Is that something I can have?"
With a thoughtful look, he reached over and changed the display on the monitor. Strings of a language she couldn't understand flowed by and he nodded. Looking down at his tray, he lifted a spoon and scooped up a small amount of something orange and mushy.
Molly reached for the spoon and he pulled it back, shaking his head. She pulled her arm back and he brought the spoon closer to her mouth. She opened her lips and he put the spoon inside, pulling it back out once she'd closed them again.
Part of her was tempted to complain about being able to feed herself. The other part was enjoying the taste of the food he'd just given her. With a texture like mashed sweet potatoes, the flavor burst over her tongue, making her moan in delight.
Mintonar looked up at the monitor and smiled. Scooping up a bit more of the food, he waited for her to open her mouth again and fed her more. She ate half his dinner that way before she felt the hunger pangs subside and she was sorry to stop.
"That was delicious," she told him with a sigh. "I don't know why you wouldn't let me feed myself and I'm sorry I ate your dinner but I don't know that I've ever tasted anything that good. And if that's just field rations for you guys, I really want to stick around and see what real food tastes like."
He took his own bite and she watched the way his mouth worked. She'd noticed it before, mostly human lips a darker shade of blue than his skin and hints of a grey tongue but now her thoughts drifted to what it would feel like. His lips looked soft and his chin firm. She knew she was applying human ideals of what was attractive that was fine, since she wasn't a member of his species.
