The Key

by Pauline Baird Jones

  “Good.” He blinked a bit, then turned and took his seat. “Perhaps your…report had better stay…verbal.” He nodded to chairs.

  Sara sat down, looked at Fyn, then began talking.

  * * * *

  Despite her report being verbal, the story of her shooting Fyn spread through the survivors. Possibly because of Perkins. He was the only survivor of the jarhead detail, since he’d been flying the cloaked ship and escaped the explosion on the Dusan vessel.

  Fyn was supposed to have been with them, not down on the outpost. One good thing had come from Helfron’s interference.

  Helfron and his Ojemba had survived, though it had been a near thing. Like Henderson, they’d got trapped on the bridge, but had managed to hold out until Sara took down the network.

  They’d all taken a beating, but they’d also won a great victory. The Padre had reminded them of this during the memorial service for the fallen. Sara had sung “Amazing Grace” with tears trickling down her face.

  Her first meeting with Carey and Briggs, who was still stuck in bed and hating it, was pretty embarrassing. They looked at her. Then they looked at Fyn. Then they looked at her again. Finally Carey said what they were thinking.

  “You actually shot him?”

  Sara blushed. “Yes, sir.”

  “Damn.” That was Briggs.

  “Through the heart. You shot him through the heart?”

  “No. My aim was a little off or he wouldn’t be here, would he?” Though not as off as they thought. Which was probably why he was still around to be healed. Only the old man knew how close to death Fyn had come.

  “Damn.” That was Briggs again.

  “I’m surprised the Gadi leader is still alive,” Carey said.

  Sara was, too.

  “At least he’s gone off the idea of marrying you,” Carey added. “You finally convinced him you wouldn’t be a…safe addition to his harem. Think he’s afraid you’d incite a rebellion.”

  Sara grinned. “He’s right about that.”

  “Damn.” Briggs again. He looked at Fyn and it seemed he tried to find something else to say, but in the end he was back at, “Damn.”

  Sara sighed. “None of you are ever going to let me forget I shot him, are you?”

  They all looked at Fyn. He shrugged and then he grinned.

  “I can live with it.”

  Live with it being the operative word, Sara thought. They were both going to live. Actually, all three of them were going to live. Baby Miri was doing great. They were going to name the next girl after Evie.

  “We’ve been ordered to limp our way back to Earth,” Carey said, “for refit and resupply. The Boyington is going to relieve us and monitor the region while the Gadi and the Dusan sort things out. By the time we get back to earth, we should have some sort of official status for you, Fyn.”

  Fyn nodded his thanks.

  “There’s going to be one last official reception before we go,” Carey added. “Old man says neither of you have to go, but he thinks it would be…nice.”

  Sara looked at Fyn. “We’d be happy to attend, sir.”

  Maybe she’d wear her dress. Wasn’t going to fit her in a few months.

  “Damn.”

  Maybe by the time they got to Earth, Briggs would be able to speak in sentences again.

  * * * *

  The reception was aboard the Boyington. Sara wasn’t sure if it was Halliwell doing a hand-off to Colonel Sheppard, or if he still didn’t trust Helfron on his ship.

  Sara found herself looking around for Gaedon—even though she knew she wouldn’t see him. According to the Old Man, his replacement was a former Ojemba.

  They were coming out of the dark.

  Things weren’t great, but at least they had a chance to get better.

  To her surprise, Helfron actually came up to them. At least he wasn’t wearing pink and lace. Now he looked like a real leader of his people.

  No one shook hands. Too much had happened for that. She felt Fyn shift restlessly when the leader took a little too long examining her dress.

  “You look lovely, Captain,” he finally said.

  It was probably a good thing she’d been trashy nice, instead of nice-nice for their meeting, she decided—though she still didn’t get it. The face that looked at her out of the mirror was a lot happier and a lot less closed, but it was still thin and pale.

  “Thank you, sir.” Sara stepped closer to Fyn and his arm slid around her waist.

  “I understand you are both leaving with the Doolittle?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish…you wouldn’t. There is much good that Miri’s heir could do here.”

  “Don’t you think it’s time your people stopped looking back and started looking forward?” She hesitated. “Besides, if I stayed, there’d have to be a buttload of changes for women.”

  “The…air force?”

  Sara grinned. “He told you?”

  “I…insisted.”

  Someone pulled Fyn to the side, leaving them alone in the crowd.

  Her smile faded. “I miss him.”

  “He liked you very much.” He hesitated. “If you hadn’t met Fyn first, would things have been different between us?”

  Sara stared at him. She didn’t know how to answer him. “I can’t see myself in your little band of bond mates. I’ve always had trouble…with crowds.”

  “Do you think you’ll ever return? This is your home, too, is it not?”

  Sara covered her stomach with her hand. Was it? It didn’t feel like home. These weren’t her mother’s people, at least, not the people she’d left. Maybe someday they’d find their way back to what they’d been. Or forward to something better.

  She saw Helfron’s eyes widen.

  “You are having a child.”

  “We’re having a child, yes. A girl.” She smiled.

  His eyes lit with something. “Perhaps some day we can arrange a match between her and one of my son’s.”

  “I suspect she’ll be like her mother and choose her own path and her own guy. In fact, I know she will. Because that’s how she’ll be raised.”

  He smiled then. “I hope to someday meet her.”

  He held out his hand. After a brief hesitation, Sara let him take hers. Because Fyn wasn’t dead. He raised it to his lips, then let her go.

  “I don’t think it is over between us, key keeper. We will meet again.”

  Sara looked at him, her eyes narrowing. “Well, make sure it’s like this. Don’t make me shoot you. Cause you know I will.”

  A smile flickered on his mouth. He nodded, then turned and left her.

  She felt Fyn’s hands settle on her bare shoulders. She leaned back against him.

  Maybe they’d be back. It wasn’t her call to make. There were other galaxies out there to explore. She put her hand on her stomach again. It was hard to believe anything could compete with what she’d found in this galaxy.

  Epilogue

  Sara stopped the car in front of the house and turned off the engine, her expression the closed one Fyn thought she’d left in the past. She stared at the house, a small, white framed building sitting in a row of similar houses. For three years, Sara had called this place home, but now she seemed reluctant to get out of the car.

  They’d been on her planet for three weeks. Sara’s world would probably have been more…unsettling…but the nanites that had saved his life were now helping him bridge the gap between her culture and his.

  Thanks to them, he could read and he could recognize things he’d never seen before. It was strange, but in a good way. At least he could go around with her and not be so ET—especially now that he’d seen the movie. Helped him understand why Sara had been surprised when ET looked like her people, he thought with a grin.

  There was still no outward sign of the baby. She was just coming up on the end of her first trimester. But his nanites—Sara called them the nannies—kept him almost as well informed of the baby’s progress as they did Sa
ra.

  It was a strange way to live, but not a bad one. Sara had told him, she could remove them from his system, but he found he didn’t mind them. It strengthened the bond between them. And it increased his situational awareness of where she was. He needed that, particularly in this crazy, fast-moving world of hers. He wasn’t entirely convinced someone wouldn’t come after her sometime.

  Though this corner of it was slower paced than some of the places they’d seen driving cross-country to the wedding. This Louisiana place was hot and humid, which forced the slower pace, he decided. The food was great, too, his favorite so far. Not that he didn’t like the drive-up food. How could you not like bags of food handed to you in exchange for money?

  When she didn’t move to get out, he took her hand. “You okay?”

  “They say you can’t go home again, but here I am. Only this isn’t really…home.”

  “Do you wish you hadn’t come?”

  “I always feel like that girl in the picture is following me around. Like a specter. But here, I’m the specter. When people look at me, it feels like she’s what they see, not who I am now, not what I’ve become.”

  A specter was a ghost, according to the nanites. “That bothers you?”

  “Kind of.” She sighed. “Helfron said that where one comes from isn’t as important as where one finishes.”

  “He’s an ass, but he’s right.”

  “Here…I don’t feel—” She frowned. “It feels like where I’ve been isn’t real. I feel more like I was, as if the past is trying to take back the ground it lost.”

  “If that wasn’t real, I wouldn’t be here,” he felt bound to point out. All these feelings, it was like trying to navigate an asteroid belt. She didn’t think this hard before she shot him.

  He realized she was looking at him. And probably reading his mind. Her smile flickered on her lips and her eyes opened up again, letting him in. He leaned forward and kissed her.

  When he stopped, she asked, “You’re never going to let me forget I shot you, are you?”

  He thought for a minute. “Probably not.”

  She grinned. “Punk.”

  But the grin faded too quickly.

  “What is it you’re afraid of, Sara? I’m a guy. I don’t have a clue.” Carey had told him to say this when he was stumped. Girls like guys who admit they don’t know things.

  She grinned again, but it didn’t last either. Her gaze turned back to the house.

  “I’m not sure.” She sighed. “But let’s go find out.”

  He was happy to get out of her little car. It was not meant for legs like his. Or his body. Probably not right for anyone’s body, except maybe the movie ET. These craft were a strange way to get around. If his people had used wheeled transport, it was before his memory.

  He stood by the car, waiting for the feeling to return and looking around.

  These houses were very different from the houses on Iona. Their houses had been made of stone and mineral, and low to the ground. This row of houses was actually lifted off the ground. Something about flooding, according to Sara.

  The swamps of this place, that they’d driven past on their journey, would have been at home on Kikk. Lots of dense foliage and a Louisiana version of a biter, if Sara was to be believed. He liked these trees better, though. They stood tall and their roots gripped the ground, like they meant to stay.

  As Sara stared at the house, the front door opened and a dark skinned woman came out onto the wooden…porch. It was weird to know what it was…without actually knowing what it was.

  She was tall, almost as tall as Sara and strong looking, but attractive, with big, dark, closed eyes. If she was the happy bride, she didn’t look too happy. Her arms crossed over her ample chest.

  “I didn’t think you were coming.”

  A pause.

  “Wasn’t sure we would.”

  A guy came out the door behind her, a big smile cutting his face.

  “Shawn?”

  LaShaunda half turned toward him, but didn’t speak.

  “I’m Sara and you must be Kente.”

  Fyn didn’t think he’d heard Sara sound quite like this before.

  Kente looked past her and met Fyn’s gaze, one brow lifted.

  “This is Fyn.”

  Not too informative. Why didn’t she want them to know he was her mate?

  Kente eased past LaShaunda and they shook hands, his brows rising in a question Fyn couldn’t answer either. He shrugged.

  “Why are we all standing out here? Come on in.” Kente took LaShaunda’s hand and pulled her around with him, then almost pushed her through the door. He held it for them, then followed them inside.

  The inside was cool and dim. Fyn looked around. It was a room with lots of history. Pictures everywhere. Worn, but comfortable furniture. It didn’t surprise him that Sara stopped by the piano, her hand brushing along the closed top.

  She looked over her shoulder at LaShaunda. “Do you still play?”

  LaShaunda’s chin lifted. “Yes.”

  Sara’s lips tightened. She took a breath, her gaze sweeping the room now. She looked almost amused when her gaze made it back to LaShaunda.

  Fyn looked at the pictures again. Sara wasn’t in any of them. That didn’t seem like what he’d heard of Evie. He looked at Kente again. He shrugged and rolled his eyes. The air between the two women was thick with tension.

  “Why don’t we all sit down?”

  Neither woman moved.

  “Why did you invite me, if you didn’t want me here?”

  Sara didn’t sound upset, just coolly curious.

  “I didn’t think you’d come.”

  “Shawn.” Kente gave her a look.

  “Why did you come?”

  Sara shrugged. “For your mom. For Evie.”

  LaShaunda flinched.

  Why did that make her mad? Fyn was way out of his depth. Kente looked like he was, too.

  “Tell her, Shawn,” Kente said. Shawn didn’t speak. “She wanted someone here who remembered her mom.”

  Sara’s eyes widened, then she nodded. “I can understand that.”

  “Can you?” Shawn sneered.

  “Yeah. My mom is dead, too.”

  “Whatever.”

  Fyn saw the color come into Sara’s face, saw the narrowing of her eyes.

  “Here’s an idea. Why don’t you try to be grateful you got eighteen years with Evie, instead of being pissed over the three years you had to share with me?”

  Shawn glared at her.

  “What is your problem? You didn’t like me before I moved in. What did I ever do to you?”

  Their gazes clashed like crossed energy beams. Fyn was surprised there were no sparks.

  Shawn crossed her arms and shrugged, her gaze sweeping over Sara with pointed dislike.

  Sara shook her head. “This was obviously a mistake. Kente, it was nice to meet you. I hope you’ll be…happy.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Shawn stepped in front of Sara.

  Fyn could feel the change and see it in Sara. Her warrior came back online.

  “You want to finish what we started in the girls’ bathroom, Shawn? Because I’m ready this time.”

  LaShaunda’s hands clenched into fists, but she didn’t move.

  Fyn stepped in front of Sara. Kente did the same for LaShaunda.

  “Do you really want to beat her up before she gets married?”

  Sara started to grin.

  “Oh, like she could.”

  That girl seemed to want an ass kicking.

  Sara frowned and he could see pissed fade into thoughtful. She leaned around Fyn. She opened and closed her mouth twice, as if she needed to be careful what she said, before she finally spoke.

  “You know, the only person who isn’t over that is you, Shawn.”

  Shawn jerked away from Kente, showing them all her back.

  “Did you ever listen to anything your mom used to say? Cause she’s in my head all the time
, giving me advice. Hasn’t been wrong yet.”

  Shawn’s shoulders hunched once. Kente looked confused. Fyn probably did, too.

  Sara looked at Fyn as she went on, “She told me once that getting stuff out didn’t always make things better. Best way to get over things is to just forgive…the other person. Or yourself.”

  Shawn turned around now, but her expression was beyond his ability to read.

  “I know your mom. She’s not worrying about it, other than to hope you’ll just get over it. That’s probably why she pushed us to get along. She knew when you did, you’d have forgiven yourself.” Sara paused. “Your mama was a wise woman. Listen to her.”

  “We—”

  Sara cut her off. “Don’t. Don’t do this. We were fourteen. Young and stupid. We got in a fight. That’s all I remember. And that it…changed the course of my life. I don’t want to look back or turn over any rocks. I have a great life thanks to your mama. And you.”

  “That’s it? It’s just over?”

  “It can be. Hey, I shot Fyn and he forgave me.” She looked up, a slight frown crinkling the smoothness of her brow. “You did, didn’t you?”

  He grinned at her. “I’m working on it.”

  He slid his hands around her waist and pulled her close. She could shoot him any time she needed to, as long as they ended up back here, with her in his arms, for always.

  Her mouth curved up and they almost forgot they weren’t alone.

  “So he’s your—”

  “What, did you think I brought him for protection?”

  Shawn’s lips quivered.

  Kente frowned. “You shot him? She shot you?”

  Fyn nodded. “Some gomers got the drop on me and were using me as a hostage to pressure her. It worked. We both survived.”

  Both their eyes widened as they looked up at him. Fyn had the feeling they were wondering how big the gomers were who got the drop on him. He grinned.

  “Speed,” Kente said suddenly. “Remove the hostage.”

  Sara smiled at him. “Exactly. Thank you for getting that. I’m glad someone finally did.”

  “You shot him?” Shawn couldn’t seem to get past that.

  “Yes, Shawn, I did. Don’t make me shoot you, too.”