Fortune {Star Trek Enterprise Fan Fiction}

A Special Thing

"... it's going to remain hard for me if I have to keep looking at you, and thinking about you." – Deborah Haddon

"I want to expand my world. I'm just not so sure how to do that." – Doug Beckett

=/\=

Chip Masterson sat up.

He couldn't believe how kind people had been. And they so didn't need to be. But they had been, and not only was he okay, but so were his wife and Beth and the others.

No one had hurt them. No one had ratted them out to the Empress. At least, they hadn't yet. He was always wondering, worrying, when the other shoe would drop. Not if, but when.

But at least, for now, they were all right.

And that doctor – what was her name? Miva? She had been so kind, and so professional. He had had nothing to pay her with until Charles and the others had returned. They had brought in a small elekai, and had shared the meat with the doctor. She had laughed a little, unused to bartering, but it was all that they had. Then she'd heard that Charles was a tinkerer – well, not a tinkerer, he was more skilled than that! And she'd asked him if he could, perhaps, take a look at her cooling unit when he had the time. He had promised, and so that's where he was now, and Jennifer had gone along with him.

And right now Chip, he was back in the cave, sitting with Lucy, who still was in some pain a bit from her leg fracture, but was going to be fine, it was obvious. The kids were pushing each other a little, and he'd had to struggle, sometimes, to get Charlie to stop pulling his daughter's hair, but they were okay and things were, at least for the time being, pretty good.

Maybe they'd be able to get some better clothes. Maybe the kids could finally get some shoes.

Shoes, dropping shoes. Chip's thoughts, as they often did, returned to the Empress and her legions and her ship and her conquests. He had been a conquest, too, as much as the Xyrillian home world had been. When she'd worked her wiles on him, he hadn't thought it all the way through, and she'd ended up pregnant and suddenly there were twins and he was somewhat tied down.

That, of course, had been her plan. She'd go after the higher up men, have a kid with them, and that would keep them around, assuming the men were even one-quarter of the way decent and actually gave a damn about the children they'd fathered. Torres hadn't cared one way or the other, and perhaps that had been better, but Chip wasn't cut from that cloth so, when the twins arrived, he had begun to plot how to, somehow, get them away from her.

And with Lucy, it was even more urgent, as he had fallen for her, hard, and she for him – at least that seemed to be the case – he was often questioning, but it was his insecurities rather than any indications on her part that were causing his doubts – and then they had really needed to leave.

The opportunity had arisen, very recently, and they had escaped. And there were no more birth control shots out in the wilds, so Lucy was expecting, and Beth was expecting again, and they'd end up with a dozen kids between them if they didn't watch it, and Miva had been kind and practical enough to suggest that maybe the next thing they should do, once those two kids were born, would be to get shots so that they could raise this generation without everyone starving.

It wasn't a great life. There was no art, no entertainment, no comfort, and no ease. He and his family were dressed in rags. When the hunt didn't come in, he and the other adults sometimes went without food. He had no idea how the kids would be educated, although Miva had said that they could be put into any of the area schools with no trouble.

But at least they were free, and he was more than grateful for that.

Living in a cave, and eating whatever had been brought down by his friends – brothers and sisters, he had to figure they kinda were – well, freedom was the most precious thing he had, after the family he could see next to him.

Now if he could only get Charlie to quit pulling Takara's hair.

=/\=

"Well, don't lose yourself in the process." – Pamela Hudson

"Easy to forget lots of things." – Doug Beckett