ENT WIP: Finding Home 11a/? R/S [R]

[Philippe de la Matraque]

Title: Finding Home
Author: Philippe de la Matraque
Part: 11a/?
Series: ENT
Rating: R (for discussion of violence and torture)
Pairing: R/S light
Archive: Yes to Trekiverse.org, otherwise, please ask.
Contact: pdelam...@gmail.com
Web: http://gabrielle.sytes.net/Trek/stories/findinghome1.html
Summary: Sequel to Alien Us. Malcolm Reed barely survived to see to be
reunited with Hoshi Sato. But things have taken a downturn and now he
needs a new heart and a way to heal.
Author's note: I deliberately use italics like this *in text** just
because it makes conversion to HTML so much easier.

Star Trek: Enterprise

Finding Home
by Philippe de la Matraque
Sequel to *Alien Us**

Chapter Eleven


They stayed in the park until evening. Malcolm now knew the older man
was Trip's father. He and Miguel had asked about Madeline, but Malcolm
hadn't felt up to talking further. They didn't pry. They talked more
about their Lizzie and about Albert and Owen.

Malcolm had dozed off before lunch. Then he and Trevon had separated
again. The day was about Madeline though, and Trevon let Malcolm share
whatever memories he wanted.

Malcolm was exhausted as they wheeled him back to the house. It was
the first time I'd really seen it. It was a one-story ranch style, with
brick siding. The older woman he'd met before, Trip's mother, came out
to greet them. And she said they had a surprise for him.

Trevon must have known what it was, because he helped him back to his
room and turned him toward the bathroom. Malcolm felt his chest
tighten. He could be in there. But only so far. The toilet and the
sink. He couldn't go any further.

"Your friend, Trip, asked a favor of Starfleet Research and
Development," Trevon said. "You have been chosen to beta test this new
shower."

Malcolm found it hard to breathe.

"It's safe, Malcolm," Trevon assured him. "You won't drown. You won't
even get wet." He gently pushed and Malcolm had no choice but to go in.
"It works by sound waves."

Malcolm couldn't see a shower head. There was a drain in the floor,
though. There were bars all around and a lower set on each side at the
back where there was a bench built into the wall.

*No water,** he told himself. Trevon sat him on the bench.

"No need to even disrobe, though you could get a deeper clean if you
did. Just push this button." He pointed to a spot between the upper
and lower bars on Malcolm's left. He stepped back and closed Malcolm
inside.

*No water, just sounds.** Malcom's hand shook as he reached for the
button. At first, nothing happened. Then he heard something, a low,
whooshing sound. As it grew louder, there was a vibration through the
bench and a brush of air. The whooshing began to pulsate. He could
feel it in his ear drums. But there was no water.

"Arms up," Trevon said, from outside the shower.

Malcolm put his hands on the bars. They were warm. If Father was
waiting in the room past Trevon, Malcolm couldn't hear him. The pulsing
sound waves drowned out any but the closest words. White noise. The
wind then died down, the pulsing stopped, and the whooshing went away.
Trevon opened the door.

Malcolm didn't rise anyway. He needed Trevon to leave. There was
another part of the bathroom he needed.

"You can do this anytime," Trevon said. "Do you need assistance to get
back to the bed?"

Malcolm shook his head.

Trevon nodded. "I'll leave your PADD on the bedside table. There are
other entries you may like to watch. Reach out to me if you need
anything. Otherwise, I'll see you tomorrow."

With that, he was gone. Malcolm used the bars to stand and held the
counter as he closed the bathroom door. He relieved himself, cleaned
his hands, and returned to the bed.

"So you're afraid of water now?" Father's voice dripped with disdain.
"Thought it was just drowning. That my son should be such a coward.
You're a disgrace."

Malcolm just wanted to sleep. But he dreaded what awaited him in his
dreams. T'Rex and Sauron had both visited as he dozed in the park.

"They should have eaten you instead of sending you back in this wasted
carcass."

They didn't send him back. They tried to kill him. But if he argued,
Father would only call him out for disrespect and insubordination.
Still, exhaustion won out and he fell asleep even with his father still
insulting him from the corner. As his mind lost its grip on
consciousness, he heard his sister's voice pushing back, saying he was
always worth her heart.


"Mom, I think I made a new friend today." Lizzie had come bursting in
the back door. "She's from England and has this great British accent.
She's an architect, too, just like me."

Elaine smiled at her daughter. "You should invite her over for dinner."

"Oh, she's been here for a while now, visiting her brother."

Elaine woke with a start and was surprised to find herself in bed.
She'd just been doing the dishes when Lizzie--. No, that was a dream.
But surely this new friend was Madeline. Charlie had told her Malcolm's
sister was also an architect after he and Miguel had come back from the
park.

It was kind of disturbing. Was her dream just a dream? Or was
Elizabeth really visiting? Was she a ghost that Elaine could only
experience when she slept? If that was the case--and she wasn't
convinced it was--then she'd said Madeline had been coming, too, to
visit her brother. On the one hand, it would be nice to think her
daughter was still around. But on the other, it was sad to think she
was just around to haunt her mother's dreams. Elaine didn't believe in
an afterlife as her ancestors had, but a dead person unable to rest was
a sad thing. And she didn't want that for Lizzie.

As she made her way to the kitchen, she continued to muse on the idea.
It was a common belief about ghosts that they came from traumatic deaths
and murders. Lizzie was certainly murdered, but Malcolm's sister had
chosen euthanasia to end an illness and help her brother. That, to
Elaine, was a loving and noble death, not something that would lead to a
haunting.

So, all in all, she believed it was just a dream. Her unconscious mind
had taken her unrelieved grief and flavored it with a newly realized
commonality between her daughter and Malcolm's sister.

She tried to decide if she wanted warm milk to try and sleep again when
she felt a hand in hers. Startled, she turned sharply to find Malcolm
her sleepless companion once again. She squeezed his hand. "Are you
hungry, dear? You slept right through supper. I can heat up some soup."

Instead, he pulled her toward the alcove, and she realized he was
holding something. A data PADD. He sat and she sat next to him. He
released her hand to turn on the device. He placed it between them, and
Elaine could see a pretty, blonde woman on the screen. She looked as if
she'd been crying.

He started the video and the woman began to speak. "Why me?" she asked
the camera. She had a crisp British accent. "I'm sure many people have
asked that over the centuries. But why? I'm young. I'm healthy. Or I
thought I was."

So this was Madeline. Elaine saw more commonalities to her Lizzie.
The hair, of course, but also the way she moved her hands when she talked.

"I can't just talk to a computer, so I'm going to talk to you, Malcolm."

Beside her, Malcolm choked back a sob. He hadn't expected that.
Elaine put her arm around his shoulders and pulled him to her. On the
screen, his sister told how she found out she was ill. Mistakes in her
plan for a new building. Her boss worried and sent her to a doctor.
And then she said how she got sick: the Xindi. Hundreds of people, who,
like her, had hoped to make the swath of destruction beautiful and
useful again, now had inoperable, untreatable brain tumors. Madeline
was quite distressed, understandably. Still, she hoped to see her
building built--without the mistakes--and she hoped to see her brother.

That was apparently the first of several videos, dated seven and half
months earlier. In her next video, she was noticeably stuttering her
words. Their mother visited often, to fuss over her. Elaine would have
done the same, truth be told, but she recalled Trip saying his parents
didn't even want to see Malcolm. Where was this mother's motherly
concern for her son? Madeline complained that it made her feel like a
child. Then she revealed that both her parents called her daily.

Elaine held Malcolm tighter. There was a strange dichotomy in their
treatment of their children. And then Madeline named it, showing she
understood what was happening. Trip had been right. Malcolm's father
was too rigid and saw his son's aquaphobia as a character flaw. That
Malcolm had not joined the Navy had meant that his father would never
give his approval or affection, despite Malcolm's hopes.

But then Madeline turned it around beautifully. She was proud of
Malcolm, approved of his choice of career, and had even bragged about
him to her friends. He mattered to her, especially as she faced her
coming death. She closed the entry when their mother came to the door.

In her third entry, she bemoaned the lack of fairness, the things she
never got to do, like see Prague. Oh, Lizzie had loved Prague. And she
wished she'd gotten a kitten. Or fallen in love. She envied her
brother his life of adventure, his heroism in saving the planet. She'd
never seen saved one life. She had after all, Elaine realized.

"She saved yours," she whispered to Malcolm, who was now fully crying
as he watched his sister sink into depression.

But her fourth video was different. She'd learned of her brother's
ordeal, or at least that he'd been dying and her parents had ordered him
off life support without even seeing him as it would be too
troubling--for them. And she asked if they would even cry for him as
their mother did at nearly every visit. Then she smiled. Because
Malcolm didn't die. She extolled his ability to exceed expectations.
She noted their father showed some concern with her but never broke
decorum, while their mother fretted and fawned, hoping in miracles.
Again, she hoped she could see her brother again, perhaps if he was sent
home to heal.

When the next video played, Elaine saw a marked difference in Madeline.
She smiled more and it went all the way to her eyes. She'd recorded
this one only a couple weeks before, knowing she'd be donating her heart
to save her brother. She felt happy about it. She hid it from their
parents, as they'd try to prevent it. And Elaine loved her when she
told Malcolm not to grieve too hard, "so you don't break our heart."
She exhorted her brother to heal, to live, and to love.

Elaine found she had tears in her own eyes, but happy ones. Malcolm's
sister had loved him deeply and had gotten a chance to say goodbye.
Elaine never doubted Lizzie's love, but perhaps she'd sleep better if
her daughter had had the same chance. Still, Malcolm was deprived of
love from his parents, and that had deeply wounded him. Perhaps his
sister's very obvious love would help him heal. Even though he wept, he
seemed less confused. He pulled the PADD to his chest.

"Whatever your father said at the hospital," Elaine whispered to him,
"it wasn't true. She chose to save you. And you were worth it to her."

"I see him," he whispered back. "He says it's my fault. Sometimes she
argues with him."

Elaine's chest hurt for him, but she was glad he'd admitted to seeing
them. She had thought he was seeing other things last time. "That's
your grief talking," she told him. "He's not here. We wouldn't let him
in."

"I see them sometimes, too." He started to shake.

"Who?"

"The orcs," he breathed. "Or T'Rex, Sauron."

Orcs and Sauron. *The Lord of the Rings.** But T'Rex was a dinosaur.
That didn't make sense, so who could they be? The reasons he needed a
heart? "Are they the ones that studied you? That hurt you?"

He nodded. "They can't be here. They can't be real."

"It's trauma," she said, wishing Trevon was here to explain it. "When
they hurt you, they caused that trauma. They're only flashbacks. They
can't hurt you anymore."

"Sometimes I get lost."

"It's okay. I do, too," she admitted. "Sometimes I dream my daughter,
right here in this room. Then I come here expecting to see her.
Tonight I dreamt her telling me she had a new friend." She touched the
PADD. "Then you helped me meet her. Thank you for sharing that with me."

"I dream when I'm awake."

"Oh Malcolm, I'm no therapist." She squeezed him again. "But I am a
mother. Your parents were wrong to reject you. They may not want you,
but we do. And I'm going to do my best to love as your mother should
have. If you'll let me."

"I was twelve," he sobbed. "They drowned me."

Elaine was shocked. "Your parents?"

"Bullies," he replied. "Couldn't swim after that."

She was glad it wasn't his parents, but it still shocked her. That is
why they withdrew their love. "So no Navy," she reasoned. "They were
wrong to judge you for that. My Lizzie loved to snorkel. We taught all
the kids. We were at the beach almost every day in the summer. Heck,
it was Florida, it was nice most of the year. I can't snorkel anymore.
I don't want to see a beach. She was in the water when it happened.

"So, if that's a character flaw for you, then it is for me, too. But I
don't believe it is. Neither did Madeline. And it sounds like she knew
you better than your parents did, so I'd take her word for it."

He didn't say anything more, even as her arm grew tired. So she stood
him up and walked him back to his room. "You should try and sleep some
more." She pulled back the covers and even tucked him in. "Is he here?"

Malcolm pointed to the corner.

Elaine turned to the corner. "This is my house," she said, addressing
Malcolm's vision of his father, "and you're not welcome in it. You are
a bad father and you do not deserve him. So he's my son now, and if you
persist in tormenting him, I give him full permission to curse you out
in every language he knows."

She looked back. "He still there?"

Malcom gave one shake of his head. "Good. I mean it," she told him.
"If he comes back, you tell him off." She pulled the chair close.
"I'll sit here 'til you fall asleep. And I wish you good dreams."


Trevon felt positive about his upcoming session with Malcolm. He'd
received a communique quite early in the morning, regarding another
nighttime encounter between Elaine and Malcolm. This time, Malcolm had
initiated the contact. He shared his sister's journal with Mrs. Tucker
and even admitted seeing his father and the inhabitants of Zheiren.
More than that, he'd told her, in brief, of his deepest hurt: the
drowning. That was the inciting incident to losing his parents' affections.

But Malcom had only shared inconclusive evidence of abuse thus far.
Zheiren also needed addressing, but it seemed the denizens of that
country were occasional visitors, while his father was near constant.
Still, he'd only just begun to grieve his sister honestly, and that
needed more than one day in a park.

Charles let Trevon in and offered him some tea. Trevon declined and
asked to Malcolm right away if he was awake.

Trevon found him sitting on his bed with the open case containing his
sister's will. "Good morning, Malcolm. I hope you had a decent night's
sleep." He pulled the chair closer to the bed. "Has she left you
something?"

"Everything," he answered, audibly though quietly. He showed Trevon a
list of bequests.

"Ah, an address in London. Where is London?"

"England, my home." Not audible, but Malcolm still wasn't up to saying
more than a few words audibly at this stage.

"England, part of Great Britain," Trevon recited. "I've been told your
accent is British. But this wouldn't be your childhood home?"

"A flat. She lived in an apartment."

"And everything in the apartment. You'll have some sorting to do when
you get there. But it will be good for you to have a home address that
doesn't include your parents."

Malcolm picked up a small, cylindrical container. He shook it.

Trevon guessed what it was. Dr. MacCormack had let him know the
hospital had cremated the right hand of Madeline Reed, at her request,
so her brother could have something of her. Her parents had received
the body. "Ashes," Trevon said. "Just one hand. Your parents had the
rest for a funeral."

Malcolm stared at the container before gently pressing it back into the
case.

"Would you prefer we talk of your sister?" Trevon asked.

Malcolm nodded.

"Yesterday, you were remembering her. What did you remember?"

"Madeline always welcomed me home."

Trevon nodded. "You were away at school."

Malcolm closed the case then pushed it away from him on the bed.

Trevon guessed. "School was not a haven from your family. And home
was not a haven from school. Were you still bullied at school?"

"No one would dare."

That made sense. "Because you were too well known after the incident?
Too many intrusive memories then? The lack of justice?"

Malcolm nodded.

"What was it about home, then?"

The scene changed and Trevon felt himself sitting in a vehicle, moving
through the streets of Evington Academy. Stuart Reed was at the
controls. He cut a large figure as Malcolm was still rather small for
twelve. Malcolm occasionally cast a glance at his father, but Stuart
Reed never even looked over once. Nor did he say a word. Instead
Trevon's only distraction was the territory going by outside the
windows. It seemed an overcast day though it wasn't raining. The
architecture there was very different to San Francisco or Louisiana.
Many of the buildings and houses looked much older.

"If this is to be a silent trip, can you speed it up?"

There was a change in the location. A mix of modern buildings and
technology with the ancient. The time on the control panel had moved
forward more than an hour and twenty minutes. When Stuart began to
talk, Trevon half expected him to ask about Malcolm's school term. But
when he started telling tales of his own tour of duty on the *HMS
Churchill**, Trevon wasn't really surprised. And he felt the younger
Malcolm's queasiness and discomfort at the mention of the sea.

Another skip, this time of 25 minutes, and Stuart was still talking and
ignorant of his son's uneasiness. The vehicle stopped as did Stuart,
who exited. Malcolm got out, too, and pulled his bag out from the back.

"He's back!" a young girl exclaimed as she came running from the house.

"Madeline Mary Reed!" Stuart bellowed. "We do not carry on so.
Perhaps you should go away to school. Maybe you'd learn to act with
dignity."

Madeline glared at her father for a moment before sighing and turning
to Malcolm. "Welcome home, Malcolm. We missed you. Shall I carry that
for you?"

Stuart grunted behind them. "He's not an invalid. He can carry it
himself."

She moved to his other side, pulling him away from Stuart. "Well,
*I've** missed you," she whispered.

That was the scene Trevon had seen on the way to the park. "Was it
always like that? Only Madeline showing enthusiasm at your return?"

Malcolm on the bed nodded. The scene faded. "She could be annoying
sometime, but she didn't change, like Mother and Father did."

"I was an only child, so I can only imagine," Trevon admitted. "I've
had clients with younger siblings. They can be complex. But she became
an ally for you, away from your parents."

Malcolm nodded again. "She encouraged me about Starfleet."

"Did you keep up communication after you joined?"

Malcolm shook his head and his eyes looked moist.

"Was that on your part, or hers?"

"Both," he whispered.

Trevon nodded. "Why on your part?"

"She was home," he said, barely louder than his whisper.

So home also meant parents. "You couldn't talk to her without going
through your parents. After four years, she could also leave home and
start her career. Why not then?"

"What I was doing. Covert ops." Telepathic again. Malcolm's head was
down, perhaps indicating shame.

"You weren't proud of that. Okay, why on her part, do you think?"

"They wouldn't allow it."

"And after she left home?"

He shrugged. "Habit? She didn't say."

"Perhaps it was habit for you both. Do you regret it?"

He nodded. "I only thought of Mother and Father."

"Perhaps she regretted it as well. How did her journal make you feel?"

"Sad. She was sad. Dying."

"But in the last she was happy?" Malcolm had told him so in the park.

"Saving me gave her a reason."

"How did she find out you needed a heart if the hospital didn't contact
her?" Dr. MacCormack had been insistent that she'd volunteered.

"Trip. She called the ship coming home."

Trevon smiled. She had finally broken habit. "She called to talk to
you, but you were in a medically-induced coma. She talked to Trip
instead. She reached out *before** her decision to donate her heart."

"Her journal was to me."

That was a surprise but a nice one. "She addressed it to you rather
than just, 'Dear Journal?'"

Malcolm nodded. "She loved me."

Trevon smiled again. "It sounds like she loved you very much. We do
need to get back to your father, but that can wait for a bit. You need
time to grieve."

"She was there," he said, audibly.

Trevon wasn't sure how to process that statement. "I don't think I
understand."

Another scene began to play, though it was raining outside now. The
family was at the dinner table. No one spoke until the plates were
empty. Then Mary Reed reported Malcolm's excellent grades while looking
at Stuart and not her son.

"I got full marks, too!" Madeline stated. "I like geometry and art
best. What are you favorites?" She was looking right at Malcolm.

Malcolm tried to remember how old she was, but answered, "Maths and
science."

Madeline went on about being a brownie and working on an architecture
badge.

Then Stuart cleared his throat and Mary dismissed them from the table.
So they couldn't even have a conversation. Had Stuart being stewing
over Malcolm's aquaphobia the whole term?

Malcolm gladly left the table and went upstairs--two flights. He
closed his door and fell back across his bed. There was a knock, and
Treven felt young Malcolm sigh even as he tensed. But when he opened
the door, it wasn't Stuart, but Madeline, and she held a box. The scene
shifted and it was clear they had been showing off their badges to each
other for some time.

Then Madeline spoke again. "What happened to make Father angry at you?
Before you went way last time, you ran away from the lake and Father.
Are you afraid of the water?"

Children can be very perceptive. When Malcolm replied it was drowning,
not water, she pointed out that he could swim. So Malcolm asked if she
had bullies at her school. She did but she hoped they wouldn't notice her.

Malcolm joked lightly but said they were hurting a younger boy. Trevon
was pleasantly surprised that young Malcolm had shared that primal hurt
with her, even as vaguely as he had. She pulled him into a hug. Their
parents had only told her that he was ill. Malcolm promised he was fine
now, and she let him go before admitting she hadn't wanted him to go
away to school. It was boring without him. Then scene faded away.

Trevon understood now. "She's in the stories about your father."
Perhaps she had been his descant then.

[Alan Heah]

I find it disorienting, of course, how little Malcolm speaks out loud, what is reported that he said, and what isnplayingbin his wounded mind as if actual and happening while actually still recall.

Which is good. I too have my traumas, and that's how jarringly blended and familiar they sometimes sound.

The multiple approaches to therapy and healing are awesome fun.

I think Reed is lucky, and the real world in the West is more fortunate than where I am in Southeast Asia.
I have had to self-teach and self-train, and it's become well-enough adapted, but more imperfect. Like natural healing if a fracture.

[Philippe de la Matraque]

It's supposed to be something disorienting, because Malcolm is still
somewhat disoriented.

I have PTSD, too, but not really flashbacks myself. And yes, therapy is
good if you can get a therapist that gets it, whatever trauma you have.
Sorry if that's not available where you are. Are any of the online
therapy options (like BetterHelp available outside the US/Western Europe)?

And I have to think by the 23rd century, it'll be better just about
everywhere else. I'm not a therapist myself, but I've seen a few. I
think the neatest thing they can do is make you look at something from a
different direction and suddenly you have a new understanding.