Chapter 54 Discussion
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Tamar pulled her head down from off Malachi's shoulder and placed it gently on his chest. She could stay there forever just listening to the steady rhythmic pumping of his heart, the inhale, exhale of his slow, relaxed breathing. Tamar had never known what she'd missed, how she could want something, someone so much that she had met only a few short weeks before. This, this was where she belonged, right here.
He had been through so much for her, because of her. Tamar still couldn't believe he'd put up with her, with everything she'd shoved at him. Anyone else would have turned and run from her. He, on the other hand, had taken it all. Why? Why would he treat her like a princess, when she was so much more like a frog? It was as if he knew her, all of her, without needing the time to get to know her. He saw through her outer self, the self everyone else saw, the one she let no, made everyone else see, down to who she really was. The insecure, small, timid girl who wanted nothing more than to hold her baby in her arms, to raise a family. The child wanting, screaming, aching for someone to take her away from everything she knew, everything she'd been trying to escape.
Now she was here, on a ship the size of a small planet, floating between Jupiter and Uranus. Her brain told her she should be terrified, that there was no way she'd get away from all of these people. Their stink, their sounds, their stares were a constant reminder to her that she was not normal, and never would be. When the looks of all the people walking by the door became too much. When all she wanted to do was leap out the door and tear them all into bloody chunks, she would feel him shift below her, would hear him mutter something in his sleep, and that slight motion, the sound of his glorious voice would pour cool water on embers of her anger.
"Please heal," she whispered to him. "I don't know how much of this I can take."
"Hello." A cheerful voice sounded from the door.
Oh great, her again. Tamar thought to herself, rolling her eyes before she poked her head from under the covers.
"Hi, what brings you here?" Tamar eyed Tammy sidelong.
"Just thought you could use some company. Most people don't know you enough to come past the door." she stepped into the room. "Me, on the other hand, I know you don't bite."
"Oh, is that so? Don't you mean, I haven't yet?" Tamar opened her jaws as wide as they would go and watched Tammy's eyes go wide.
"No, I mean you don't. If you did, you would have already. I know you don't like people that much, but the least I can do is keep you company. Besides, there really isn't much for us to do down here. He is our only patient." Walking over to the far wall, she sat in one of the plush chairs lining it.
"What do you want to talk about this time?" Tamar asked.
"I don't know. Maybe where you're from. I'm from the great state of North Dakota, Kramer to be specific. It's a little town just south of the Canadian border. I have, I mean had a family there before." she waved a hand over her head. "All of this happened. I guess they're all dead now." A silence fell over the room until Tammy slapped her knees and continued.
"What about you? Where are you from?"
"A lab."
Tammy was, by now, used to these kinds of answers. Tamar would answer with as few words as she could until she got tired of the one-sided conversation and left. Well, today she had nothing to do, so she would wait and get an actual conversation out of her this time.
"You worked at a lab?"
"No, I was worked on at a lab."
"Worked on, what do you mean, worked on?"
"Have you seen anyone else in your life that have this?" Tamar pinched a portion of her arm hair and pulled on it, drawing her skin away from her arm to give the girl a good look.
"Or these." She pulled her lips back to give her an eye full of her fangs.
"Well, ah, no. But I didn't think you got them in a lab. I thought, maybe...
"What? That this was done to me after I was born, no. I was born with these, grown to have them. So, I would be very good at the job for which I was born." Tamar pushed herself carefully back down, the body contact helping to calm her nerves.
"And what job were you born for?" Tammy asked softly.
"Killing, and they made me very good at it."
Tammy watched a shiver travel under the covers.
"She used to be, no more. Now she doesn't have to do anything she doesn't want to, never again."
"Quiet, you shouldn't be talking, you're supposed to be resting. I can handle a little conversation."
"What do you think woke me up? If that's your idea of handling it, you still have a lot to learn." Malachi wheezed. The emotional trauma Tamar had been feeling, being enough to wake him from a deep sleep.
"What do you expect? I don't do people and talking every well."
They were both talking to each other without any regard for the woman in the room with them. To them, she didn't exist.
"You need to try, at least. There are a lot of people on this ship, and you're staying here for the foreseeable future. So, try to play nice. I need my beauty sleep." Exhausted, he let his head fall back on his pillow and was out before she could say another word.
"Ah, I'm still here, you know. Trying to be nice and give you someone to talk to. You are a girl, aren't you? Most girls love to talk."
"Do I look like most girls to you?"
"Well, no, but there's got to be at least a little girl in you somewhere, isn't there?"
"I don't think there is." Tamar sighed. "I wasn't raised to be like, to think like a girl. I was trained, or at least they tried to train me to see a target, and then kill the target. That's about it." Tamar didn't even bring her head out from under the covers to speak that time.
"Sounds harsh, I'm sorry." Tammy told her.
"Don't be, I am who I am, and if it wasn't for where, and how I was raised, I would have never met this guy." Tamar patted Malachi's chest with infinite tenderness, as if she's break him if she did it too hard.
"I am going to ask you something that everyone on board is dying to know. You don't have to answer if you don't want to but, what happened down on the planet? How does a guy who everyone here knows has no use for women come back with someone like you? I mean, you're not exactly a normal girl, you've even said it yourself."
"That's a long story. As to why he brought me here, at times I'm still not sure. Look at me," she brushed both hands over her body. "I'm a lab experiment gone bad, and he's, he's." Tamar stopped talking and silence reined in the room once more.
Tammy waited, not wanting to push Tamar. This was the most she'd spoken since she'd begun to come and visit once a day. She didn't want to ruin it.
"I mean, look at me." Tamar blurted. "I have hair all over my body. I shed on everything I touch, and I have to work to make sure I don't shred things with my claws. What do I have to offer him? Why would he want me?" Her voice was tortured, her eyes welled with tears she could not hold back.
"Because guys are strange sometimes. I'm not sure what you two have been through. I can only tell you this. If he brought you here, he has a very good reason. I have a suspicion that you know what that reason is, so why don't you tell me why he brought you here. He risked his life to get you here. Why would he do that?" Once more, Tamar didn't speak for many minutes, until.
"But I don't deserve him. He's the most honorable person I've ever met. Me, I've done things that would make him gag, or worse."
"Once he wakes up, you can ask him. I still think you already know. I mean, you are laying on top of him, right?" If Tamar's cheeks could have been seen, Tammy would have noticed a red blush spread over them.
With a very girlish giggle, Tamar pulled the thick blanket over her head and grabbed onto Malachi's chest, her entire body vibrating. Tammy took that as a sign that the conversation was over and stood. She'd been around Tamar long enough to understand that talking to her was a lot like talking to an actual cat. Body language and movements a lot of the time spoke louder than words did.
I'll talk to you some more tomorrow," she said from the door, keeping a light tone to her voice.
Tamar didn't answer, she couldn't. When something she didn't want to face came up, she always retreated. Nothing physical could make her back down. She'd been trained to face everything head on. The only reason you ran was to bait your enemy into a tactical blunder. This, though, this was something different, something she was never trained to handle. He loved her, she knew he did, only did she? When you're raised as Tamar had been, you have no framework to go on. Having never seen love, all she could go on was the way she felt and let's just say her feelings had never been very reliable.
But this had to be love right. His book had said what love was, and he'd checked off every book. Sure, he wasn't perfect, but even his flaws made her want to know him more. He was faithful, kind, he never took for himself, he gave of himself to the point of near death. He served her with a selflessness she hadn't known was possible. So yes, he loved her, but what did she feel for him? Did she love him, or was this just thankfulness for being saved?
What do you think? Do you love him? He told you love was a decision. The question is then, do... you... love... him? That voice in her head spoke to her again. It was as if, when Malachi saved her life, he'd given her something like he had. Most of the time it just asked her inconvenient questions, like at that moment.
"How am I supposed to love him? How? I don't have anything to give him, nothing to bring."
He doesn't want anything; he only wants you.
"How do you know that? What are you anyway? This is getting weirder and weirder."
When you exist inside a guy's head for almost three hundred years, you get to know something about him. And to answer your second question, I am a spawned AI program. When Malachi put a piece of us inside you to save your life, far more than just a tiny fragment of substance was transferred.
"Great!" Tamar shouted, then remembering where she was quieted. "I have what Mal does, or am I just going crazy?"
You're not going crazy; I've been growing in strength for the last couple of weeks and only now am I strong enough to begin to communicate with you.
"I only want Mal too. But I've never done anything like this before. How can we even have a relationship in a world like this? He's going to attack them once he's recovered. I know he will. What do we do then?"
What everyone else has done since the beginning of time, your best, and leave the rest up to the one who tries men's souls.
"You sound like Malachi, you know that."
"I have been inside his head for a very long time. It's a wonder I'm still sane."
"So, you would know all his dirty little secrets, wouldn't you? Oh man, this is great." Tamar had the feeling of a child stealing from the cookie jar.
"Nope, no can do. Claw made sure that as I was being transferred, every one of those files were destroyed. I have no recollection of anything that transpired before the Nest was immobilized in null space. So, you're out of luck."
"Great, just great. He knows everything about me. It's like he can see right through me. How do I compete with that?" Tamar whispered.
Just like he does. He's not telepathic, you know. He's just a student of people, and he's been doing it his whole life. People give away far more than they realize just by how they live their lives. Everyday things they do can tell you how they feel, what they want, even a little of what they're thinking. Throw in a few simple questions and you can have a pretty good look into someone in just a few minutes.
"That's why he always lets other people speak before he does, that sneaky little..." Tamar was once again amazed by the man she'd fallen in love with.
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