<USS Avalon> Eye of the Storm

=/\= Eye of the Storm =/\= 
by Camdell Loyen and Kaera Ashayu
Kaera was in her office when the intruder alert sounded, and automatically 
she jumped up to go and secure the library. As she left her office, the outer 
door opened and she dove behind a console... but it was only Cam. He looked 
around a bit wild-eyed, and Kaera came out and secured the door before turning 
to 
him. She didn't speak; she didn't need to. The fear in her eyes spoke for her.

"It's all right, Kaera," he told her. "You okay? The babies?" he asked 
quickly as he was looking at her having watched her dive behind the counter.

"Fine." Unconsciously, she rested a hand over the small bulge of her belly. 
The scales there had softened and were expanding gently with her pregnancy. "Do 
you know what's happening? I mean... comms will be down if we're boarded, can 
you reach anyone... telepathically?" It still made her uneasy sometimes that 
he was a full telepath. But she loved him, and now she took his hand and clung 
tightly.

"I am sensing some fear, but mostly a tighter sense of focus from most of the 
crew," he told her and squeezed her hand. 

"Oh." If they were tightly focused, they wouldn't appreciate him butting in 
to ask questions about what was happening. "How did you manage to be arriving 
here just in time?" she asked.

"The alarm sounded, I wanted to get to you to check on you and the babies," 
he told her with a smile. 

But the alarm had just sounded. Was he precognitive, too? Kaera wasn't sure 
she wanted to know. "Let's sit in my office," she offered. Another locked door 
between them and possible hostile visitors wouldn't hurt. And she had a couch 
in there now -- Cam had insisted she have one brought in, for those times when 
she needed to stretch out and rest for the sake of their expected offspring.

Cam nodded and smiled. "Shall we?" he asked with a slight bow and a wink.

"I hope Miriam is all right," said Kaera as she locked the office door and 
initiated all the library computer security protocols from her terminal. "She 
might have been on her way here already." It was almost shift change time.

Cam reached out for her with his mind, but couldn't manage to make enough 
contact to say anything other than she was all right. And that she was 
completely 
focused on whatever it was she was doing. "She seems fine," he said. 

"Sometimes," Kaera said, joining him on the couch, "sometimes I'm frightened 
by what you can do. But at the moment, I admit I'm a little envious."

"Hmm, " he said. " Well, I don't mean to scare you," he said. "You could 
probably be taught how to do some of it," he added.

"How?" she asked. If he was trying to distract her from her fear of 
intruders, he was doing a good job.

"Its a matter of focus, mostly," he told her. "Can't you sense some of what 
the babies are doing?" he asked.

"Mostly, they are growing," she laughed. "They move about. I can feel them 
moving sometimes, now."

He laughed a bit. "You can't feel anything else?" he asked. "I mean, besides 
them moving about, in there," he touched her belly. "Nothing about what they 
are feeling?"

Kaera laughed again. "I am supposed to be an empath, aren't I?" she said 
wryly. "Funny that I never thought of sensing them that way." Relaxing against 
the 
back of the sofa and the curve of Cam's arm, she let her senses flow out and 
around, feeling the small sparks of life within her. Floating in 
semi-darkness, there was a sensation of comfort, of quietude and belonging. 
They were not 
yet large enough to feel cramped in there.

Cam smiled brightly. "Tell me."

In this state of relaxed sensing, it was easier to show him, letting her 
feelings join with his to guide him to the place where she was. With a growing 
feeling of wonder, Kaera realized that, no matter how little she had ever 
wished 
to be a parent, she wouldn't trade this for anything.

He could feel her joy at that moment and smiled. He sat back and enjoyed her 
happiness, letting her have her escape from the more real events that were 
happening elsewhere aboard. He leaned in and kissed her neck gently. "Glad you 
are warming to the idea of motherhood," he told her.

"Are they likely to be telepaths, like their daddy?" she murmured, enjoying 
his kisses along the sensitive ridge of her neck.

"Well, at the very least empathic like their Mum," he said between kisses.

"Mmmm... And will I ever get used to that?" she questioned. She knew he could 
feel exactly what he was doing to her, and let him keep doing it. In the 
background, the alerts were still sounding, but none of the alarms on the 
library 
had gone off so far. Of course, a ship's library was probably the last place 
intruders had any interest in.

"Hmm," he groaned as he kissed some more. "You like it, eh?" he asked 
playfully. 

"I love you," she said seriously. "Even if I never do get used to being an 
empath." But it was hard to maintain that serious demeanor for long under his 
talented kisses, and moments later she moaned softly.

He smiled. "Well, I suppose I can give you some ways to get used to it," he 
said just as seriously as he continued to kiss her neck and nibble along the 
ridge.

Will you speak to me silently? she thought to him. He'd done it before and 
she'd shied away. Now she was curious to know if he could hear her thoughts as 
she heard his. Her hands caressed his face, trailing down his neck to his 
shoulders.

He smiled at her as he felt her hand touch him. ~~Like this?~~ he asked 
mentally

It was strange and almost frightening, but she'd asked for it. And in this 
eerie space between fear and love, with the sound of the alarms echoing softly 
in the background, Kaera smiled. Like that, she thought back. You can hear me...

~~Yes,~~ he answered her. ~~I can hear you,~~ he went on. 

My people don't have psi abilities, she said, and she was teasing because 
they'd been over this numerous times. Her people might not, but she as an 
individual certainly did. But our son and daughter will be freaks like me. Her 
eyes 
sparkled with barely-contained mischief.

He chuckled. "Freaks," he said, "eh?"

"Well, maybe not," she laughed aloud. "Maybe just telepaths like their 
father, whose people do have psi abilities."

"Well, I am rather fond of their freakish mother, " he teased and kissed her 
neck again.

"What if the intruders find us in a compromising position?" Kaera protested, 
laughing. But her hands were touching and caressing him, too.

"They'll probably be jealous," he said with a laugh. "I suppose that means we 
should stop," he went on, but he kept kissing her neck.

"I suppose..." She didn't stop, either.

~~You aren't stopping,~~ he told her and kept kissing around to her ear 
letting his left hand come to rest on her belly.

I'm not? I suppose I'm not. She turned her face so that instead of him 
kissing her ear, her lips met his and opened slightly.

~~No, you're not,~~ he said again as their tongues met and played in each 
other's mouths. 

Kaera felt as though Cam's mind was enfolding her, as if she was floating on 
a warm sea of love and desire... but underneath it all, she felt a nagging 
sense of guilt. Shouldn't they be doing something to help their crewmates? Or 
at 
least secure their own area further? Why were they making love in the midst of 
a red alert, with intruders on board?

Then she felt Cam flinch, and flinch again, and through the connection that 
joined them she could feel pain, and heat, and burning. And a sense of life 
being extinguished. She pulled back and gazed, stricken, into his eyes.

He looked into her eyes, as his own were beginning to fill with tears. ~~I'm 
sorry,~~ he mourned. "I can't..." he leaned forward and started to kiss her 
again, trying to hide from the pain once more.

Oh, Cam... Kaera wrapped her arms around him, trying to wrap him equally in 
her feelings of love and sympathy. She kissed him back, sensing now how he 
needed these emotions and sensations to distract him from the death and 
destruction going on around them.

During the war, Kaera had seen -- and felt -- her share of death. She knew 
that feeling of life vanishing, knew it intimately. But she had had to be in 
relatively close proximity to the person dying, in order to feel it. Cam was 
feeling it from distant parts of the ship.

Striving, she suddenly found the trick to shielding him inside her own 
emotions. And held him tenderly, with kisses turned soft, as he realized it 
wasn't 
all blasting in on him any more.

Cam felt the pain level drop some. The pleasure he was feeling from her was 
helping as was the pleasure she was giving him. ~~Kaera, it's OK. We should 
stop...~~

She ended the kiss, gently, but continued to caress his face and neck with 
both hands. "Will you be all right?" she whispered. "Am I shielding you enough?"

Cam took a deep breath. "I'll be all right," he said. "You don't have to," he 
told her. "Protect the babies."

"They are fine," she assured him, and knew it was true. "They have natural 
shields at this stage. Not much can bother them." She kept her emotions firmly 
wrapped around her lover, holding him close empathically as well as physically. 
"You should have told me, Cam."

"There is more," he told her. "Something you need to know. It will affect you 
and the babies."

Kaera's curiosity was piqued. What could affect both her and their children? 
"Yes?" she inquired.

"I'm a catalyst, Kaera," he told her quietly. "I have the ability to help 
those with latent telepathic abilities expand them. Make them stronger," he 
said.

"That's why I've developed so much more control..." she guessed aloud.

"Yes, in part anyway," he answered. "You have the potential to do more," he 
told her. "If you want it."

"What sort of more?" She was holding his hands now, looking at him very 
seriously.

"You could be a full telepath," he told her. "Our children will almost 
certainly be."

Reflexively, Kaera froze in place, shivers of terror crawling up and down her 
spine. And her shield involuntarily dropped away from Cam.

Cam flinched as he felt the shield drop away and he was confronted with the 
full level of pain and suffering from the rest of the ship. "It's all right, 
Kaera, I can help you. You don't need to be afraid," he told her.

"Oh... oh..." Again, she could feel his reaction to the empathic input around 
him. This time, it was much easier to shield him, and she smiled a little at 
the accomplishment. "I'm sorry. I -- I can't help remembering what they did to 
telepaths... on my homeworld."

"We can survive here," he told her. "It's safe here."

Which was an odd thing for him to say as the artificial gravity rippled under 
them in a wave. Someone must have cut a power cable and the backups had come 
on. Safe, with their ship being invaded? It was funny, though, how Kaera did 
feel safe in his arms. No matter what. ~~We will keep each other safe,~~ she 
told him tentatively, trembling as she stretched her mind in that way she'd so 
often sensed from him and from other telepaths.

~~Yes,~~ he encouraged her. ~~That's it.~~ He kept her with him mentally. 
"You are doing well."

The alarms stopped suddenly, and her little office was eerily quiet. But the 
all-clear was not sounding... not yet. That could be a good sign... or a bad 
sign. Kaera snuggled closer and laid Cam's long bronze-coloured hand over her 
belly. ~~I... love you,~~ she ventured, and let out a long sigh, trying to 
relax.

~~And I you, Mum,~~ he teased gently. "Just relax, you need your rest," he 
reminded her. "They'll sound the all clear soon." He knew there had been a few 
casualties, and that he would be busy over the next few weeks. Helping the 
injured recover.

She nodded silently. She, too, would have her duties once this was over. 
Perhaps less directly helping, but helping nonetheless. And, in the circle of 
his 
arms, she relaxed and let the idea of being a telepath just... grow on her

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