FIVE

 

"Beam my shuttle aboard, a Borg ship is coming!"

"What more should you idiots put me through to get this right?"

"A Q messed up, but it is a mess that can and should have been cleaned up in the first place. Lena was supposed to be born no more than fifteen years after her brother, the other Chosen Slayer. But the nature of her brother's birth stopped that from happening."

"Lena didn't belong in her timeline, she doesn't belong here either. Where I'm headed for she does belong."

A young female drone appeared right behind him. "Look out!" Lena screamed.

The needles penetrated her neck. Voices rushed at her with such force she screamed as loud as she could to be heard. Skin crawled, her blood ran cold. Her body fell to the floor.

Then it was quiet.

"She will get back to Voyager someday, I promise."

The demon grabbed Zare by the throat and pushed her into the warehouse wall. "Slayer," it hissed. It made her drop the axe, and it tightened its grip on her neck. It got closer to her. It then pulled an annoyed face, "this one's an imposter."

"James," Zare tried to yell out.

The demon forced its claw into Rean's back, he fell to the ground. Zare shook her head, "no, we haven't got time." She looked down at Rean, he fell limp in her arms.

Frenit stepped closer to him, "why, you scared of a little height or a little bit of water?"

James stared blankly at him, "I'm not answering that question."

"Aaaw how cute, now push him," Frenit ordered.

"You've got to be kidding me, he's dead."

"It doesn't matter, whatever you do will result in someone dying. Whoever that'll be is up to you."

"You may not be a Chosen, that I know, but you do have the potential to be a powerful Natural. You've just got to realise that something's always going to hold you back from getting there."

"Maybe that's why all the other Slayers die young, you watchers don't let them live."

"No, I don't see why my baby can't be the one. You can't stand the fact that my DNA could save the Q continuum."

"You know what I still can do. One little snap of the fingers will make that virus inside of Jessie, disappear in an instant."

Ian squinted his eyes as he ran toward the light, then an ear piercing scream from behind them both made Ian turn around. He quickly caught a figure running right toward him, it took all of his strength to hold her back. "James!" she screamed at full strength just as the anomaly started to die down. "No," she cried.

"The only difference is that this is the last time it'll happen. This way I won't hurt you."

"The visions, the Captain's daughter. Is this the difference you were talking about?"

"Q would say anything to you, anything to throw you off."

"Who are you?" Kathryn asked.

"Kiara," the girl said.

"I checked her DNA with Kiara's. They match," The Doctor said.

"Me? That's a funny joke, nobody comes here just to see me. Nobody seems to like me," Craig laughed.

"I like you."

"When I saw you I had a vision. I saw that you would be split into two girls. I knew that people wouldn't see you as separate individuals so I thought I had to do something."

"To cut a long story shorter, Kiara is Morgan's daughter, not Kathy's."

"Kathy, I put Kiara into you so you'd think that Kiara is your daughter."

"What the hell for?" Kathryn asked.

"So Morgan wouldn't be born," Q replied.

"But I remember being a kid on that sphere, are you saying those thirteen years on the sphere didn't happen?"

"Maybe that's a good middle name, because I was thinking of Lena."

"Lena, she's your daughter," James said.

"Exactly, and she nearly ruined my life," Lena said.

Kiara sighed in relief. She threw her arms around Lena and hugged her. Lena looked back towards the guys looking confused.

"You only try when she goes out of her way to hate you. You're going to have to be more understanding and caring whenever she needs it. For goodness sake, she doesn't have to ask, she's your daughter."

"Captain we can escape them. A Game Cube has just appeared on the nearby planet, co-ordinates 452 mark 64," Noah said. Everyone else were raising phasers.

"Right, what about the Softmicron, how did they get involved?" Lena asked.

"We captured a few during a game trip we both had, our supply had gone down you see. We discovered Softmicron were similar creatures. Since they have caused a lot of damage, killed millions, we figured killing an odd few of them seemed insignificant," Ransom replied.

"That won't last long honey. In order for Kiara to be able to stay on this ship, without taking it into a dimension filled with Teletubbies that is, she'll have to be trained. She can't do that while she's here."

"But you can't go. I know I am not the best mum in the universe, and I was never the best sister either but..." Lena stuttered.

"Lena you'd do it if it were you," Kiara said.

"Maybe but I've been horrible to you a lot, I was mad at the whole me being your mum thing for a long time but I wasn't mad at you. I have to make it up to you and..." Lena muttered.

"You're more like a sister to me, you've looked after me and stuff. I've got to do this or I wouldn't be a very good person."

"But... I love you," Lena stuttered.

"I don't know, somewhere I can do what I'm good at," Lena replied. She turned to face him, "is there a club for mopers and murderers?"

"Do you think she'll even want to come back after training?"

"Of course she will, what kind of question is that?" James replied.

"Listen Craig, I hope you're not going where I think you are with this. We split up twice because you couldn't trust me," Lena said.

"I do love you, I don't think that'll change."

"I heard that one, but you were the first girl who ever gave me a chance. If you don't love me that's fine, but that only really affects me doesn't it?"

"I'm sorry Lena, but that was the wrong mission. Noah set a course back to Earth, Angela you may resume command."

"Sorry Lena," Angela sighed.

"Thanks but I deserved to fail."

"The answer is no. I don't love you, heck I don't even fancy you. You don't actually trust me, and don't care about how I feel about you yet you still propose to me. I'm sorry if I'm sounding harsh but it's better than keeping you in the dark isn't it?"

"I'm not mad at her. Obviously I used to be, who wouldn't be? The thing is if she raised me, I'd be different and I would have probably lived on starships my whole life. Bottom line is, I never would have met you," James replied.

"Yeah but you always said it was the principle of the thing, and you went through a lot to get where you are now," Jessie said.

"So? If I had to choose between an 'easy' Starfleet brat life and the hard one with you in it, then I'd choose the hard one," James said.

"She's dead, I found her... in her bed, cold. I think her throat's been cut."

"Yes and when were you going to tell me? You had plenty of times."

"I'm sorry but I didn't want to hurt you guys," James muttered.

Despite the situation Lena laughed, "oh really, well if you had told me sooner then I would be less hurt and not angry at you."

"You're not a bad guy, and I know you really care for your family. But this isn't going to bring them back. Your kids need you now, now more than ever. Jessie believed in you more than anyone."

Craig stepped up and put his arms around her. She moved her hands so she could cry into his shoulder, and put her arms around him. "Don't worry, it's going to be ok."

Lena looked back up at him, "wait... yeah, everything's going to be ok."

"We could be, I'll wait for you, you know that."

"Don't let this get to Daniel but, I did have more fun with you. I can only be honest with you, right."

"Really, so..." Craig said.

"But he's what I need right now. Maybe someday," Lena said, looking uncomfortable.

"Yeah I do. She saddens me you know. Do you even know what pain she's going through?"

"I have a good idea," James replied.

"I don't think you do. She's so miserable, and so sick of everything. It's no wonder she hasn't tried to fight back," Ylara said.

"Time's up, she lost and now she's left us."

"She's gone Jess, Ylara won."

"You're wrong," Ylara said forcefully. "You can take my place. Go home."

"No. Answer me first. Has your suffering eased, has it gone completely? Did abandoning your life work out for you?"

"She cannot take your place. All you are doing is allowing the body to die. Stop resisting."

"No," Ylara's mind was made up. "I'm finally doing something right."

"It's all right. Everything's fine now."

 

The stars streamed by, each one looked exactly the same, stretched across the sea of black. It felt darker inside the room than the outside did, it was suffocating. No, soul crushing. She appeared darker as well. Her long hair covered the only parts of her face he would have been able to see, her clothes were dark and depressing.

He turned his head to one side to see Kiara lying on the sofa, curled up under a small jacket. Her eyes were restless but shut, she was dreaming.

She wasn't though. With her legs hunched up against her chest and her arms resting on her knees, Lena's attention was towards the window. He wondered if she had heard anything he had to say, he then wondered if he deserved to even bare his soul to her at all. All that he'd done was selfish and cruel. He didn't deserve to be in the same room as her. He felt that he still had to tell her though, confess that her pain was his fault, or maybe it was to explain what he did to himself out loud.

Craig realised that he'd been silent for quite a while and Lena had barely moved since he had come in. He was right, she couldn't have been listening to him. It was time to leave her be, he decided. Kiara would be furious if she woke up and saw him there, and the last thing he wanted was to upset anyone. Again. He turned to leave the dark room.

Craig was barely at the door when he heard a sigh so quiet, he almost didn't hear it.

"I... remember," he heard a light whisper.

He realised in those few seconds that he had held his breath when hearing the sigh. It felt like he had to actually force himself to breathe back out. He didn't dare turn back around, his head only looked over his shoulder. Lena hadn't moved yet, but it was definitely her voice he heard.

"I'm sorry. I was out of line, all the time," he said in a hushed voice. "I loved you, that doesn't mean that you owed me anything. I..." Shut up Craig.

"No," another whisper.

Craig listened to his own thoughts for once, he kept quiet and patiently waited for her.

It felt like hours before she spoke again, but in reality it was only five minutes. "My life... before I was here."

He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. Her life was in tatters, everyone who hadn't died had let her down, why would she want to remember all of that? Only her experiences made her the girl he loved. It then pained him to remember that probably wasn't even true either. The Q's had fabricated her childhood to fool everyone into believing she was somebody else. Most of her life was a lie. Maybe it would be for the best if...

"I was happy," she whispered, interrupting his train of thought. What she said not only interrupted it, it derailed it and crashed into a building. Happy? "Mum and dad, James and the kids, Rob... Michael. Then that Q came and..." She finally moved her head, her focus seemed to be on Kiara. "Took her, everything away long before the Borg came."

"I... don't understand," Craig voiced his thoughts out loud. He hated himself for that.

"I was alone and then... I was here," Lena whispered, her eyes were squeezed shut. Even in the dark he saw a tear roll down her cheek. "I forgot it all, what was me was gone. I belonged there, but I didn't. I don't belong here, but I do. I'm here, but I'm not."

"Oh my god," Craig stuttered as what she was saying dawned on him. He hoped he was wrong, this was too cruel.

Lena moved just a little so she could turn her head and look at him. He only just made out her eyes in the darkness, he could see the pain haunting them. "Who am I? No... why am I here?" She was back to staring out the window. "What am I supposed to do?"

Craig didn't know how to answer her. He just did what she did and stared out of the window.

 

THE END

 

Written
4th, 7th, 22nd April 2014
7th, 12th, 15th, 19th - 24th, 26th - 30th May 2014
1st - 6th June 2014

Also Written
(Some scenes were taken, most altered from older episodes. Below are only the ones where more than one "paragraph" was taken from it)
Caretaker Reboot - November 2008
Caretaker (Original Version) - 30th March 2002
Crying, Dying - 26th & 28th May, 1st June 2003
Do's and Don'ts - 23rd to 30th June 2003
Broken Wreck - 2nd, 15th to 17th July 2003
Death Wish - 19th to 21st August 2003
The Grove of H'Taria - 20th & 22nd May 2005
Alternate Scorpion - Between July 2005 and 4th December 2006
True Q - 20th October 2001
Three's A Paradox - October 2013

 

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