Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Wake up! Malcolm! Wake up!”

The screaming wouldn’t stop; it sounded like Hoshi. Hoshi’s in trouble? Malcolm fought his way through the fog in his head, reaching out toward her voice and what felt like the world shaking as a dull, grinding roar accompanied by metal screeching filled his ears.

But always there was the screaming, Hoshi’s voice drawing him closer and closer to wakefulness until suddenly—

—he snapped into consciousness, into a hot, quaking metal room. He was handcuffed to a wide, rusted metal pipe, his wrists shackled on either side, through a long, thin loop of steel. Something was banging to his right, ringing with each rhythmic blow, accompanied by Hoshi’s voice, piercing and high and unlike her usual calm tones. His head hurt and his vision faded in and out, sound was echoing, but his eyes were finally open.

Blearily looking to the side, he saw Hoshi; she was handcuffed to the same pipe, but unlike him, her feet weren’t touching the floor. She was gripping the pipe and was balanced on her toes on a narrow ledge attached to the wall, slamming her foot into the metal as close to him as she could reach in a bid to catch his attention. But even as he watched, the wall crumpled a bit as the ceiling moved inexorably lower.

Hoshi’s face was contorted as she screamed at him. Why was she screaming? Was she hurt? His dazed eyes picked up blood on her face, on her arm, on her leg, and slowly his mind grasped that someone had hurt her, had hurt his Hoshi and made her bleed, wounded her, made her panic, and sheer rage blasted through him, washing away the daze and—

“Malcolm! Malcolm, I need you! Wake up, wake up, WAKE UP, MALCOLM!”

—he jolted into full awareness and heat flooded him, intense heat outside the room in which they found themselves and the walls were inching closer, the ceiling jerking down by degrees, the tortured scream of crushing metal shrieking along his nerves, and he realised they were in a shrinking metal box with no way out and Hoshi was screaming—

“Malcolm, look at me! Listen to me, Malcolm! I need you to focus! Break the pipe, Malcolm! Use your muscles, break the pipe!”

—and he grabbed onto the rusted pipe with both hands, hot beneath his palms but not yet blistering, and brought his full weight to bear, muscles writhing beneath the constraints of his shirt, lifting his legs to shoulder height and jackknifing them down as hard as he could, again, and again, and then again, Hoshi lifting herself and doing the same, pistoning her legs up and down—

and he did it once more, a roar of rage leaving him as he put every ounce of his considerable strength into breaking the pipe like Hoshi wanted and—

the pipe came apart at the join like it was aluminium instead of steel and Hoshi’s hands slid off her end, but the break had come outside the loop and his hands were still trapped inside the thin rounded loop that would not come apart no matter how he kicked and she pulled—

and then she was gone and he sagged in relief because she was safe and he could relax and go to sleep and let the heat get to him but it was okay because Hoshi was safe—

and then she was there again and digging a metal rod into one side of the strut, slamming against it, getting the rod into where it joined the pipe and twisting and she needed to get to safety why was she still here—

and suddenly the strut broke and he was falling, unable to stop himself, the heat sapping his strength, the ceiling crushing down further—

and he was on his knees, unable to move, sound echoing and garbled, and Hoshi was pushing him, why was she pushing him?—

and then she was behind him, her handcuffed arms thrown over his neck and pulling and he was choking but it was okay because it was Hoshi and she wouldn’t hurt him—

she had dug her feet into the ground and she was yanking him and screaming his name—

“Malcolm, push! Push with your legs! Malcolm, help me! PUSH!”

—and he had to help her, he had to help Hoshi, so he dug in his heels and he PUSHED—

and they fell out of a hole in the wall (was that a door?) and sprawled on the ground and he felt himself crushing Hoshi, he was too heavy for her, but her arms were around his neck and she was still screaming in his ear, why was she still screaming?—

“Pull your feet back, Malcolm, pull your legs back, get your feet out!”

—there was a blaze of fire and shriek of metal in front of him, like an angry overheated dragon, and Hoshi curled her legs around him and pushed her feet under his knees and yanked so that his legs came flying upward—

a crunching roar sounded and the metal box in front of them slammed shut and they were hit with an intense pressure wave, a wave of heat that sapped his strength in one fell swoop, and now Hoshi was sobbing in his ear, why was she sobbing?—

and as the world receded from him again he heard her voice, her beautiful voice, wracked with coughing, “Malcolm, I’ve got you, got your feet out, you’re good, we’re out, we’re out, thank all the gods—”

and the world went black, but that was okay, because Hoshi was safe and she had her arms around him and he could handle anything as long as she was safe and holding him.

Chapter Text

Hoshi was sore and tired and angry, so angry, but there wasn’t any time for her to sit and think or consider her next best actions. Malcolm had passed out on top of her and she needed to get him off of her and then away, there was no time.

She kicked her left foot out from under his knee and planted it flat on the ground and rolled him to her right and he slipped off onto the ground, her handcuffed arms still around his neck. She slid out from under him, kneeling quickly to check him as she pulled her arms away from his throat.

He was unconscious, bleeding from his head, and while she knew head injuries often looked a lot worse than what they were, it still wasn’t good that he was unconscious and had been for at least a minute—again—after having been unconscious for who knew how long inside the compactor.

She had to get him away from it and the fire, to somewhere their team could find and extract them. Team Awesome Force. The idea rang in her mind, surrounded by laughter and familiar voices, and she almost shook her head before she thought better of it. Got to concentrate.

Dammit, she might be concussed, too, she couldn’t take a chance. Kelby and his men hadn’t exactly been gentle as they’d manhandled the two. Hopefully it was just vertigo from being thrown around, and all that heat.

She had to get … where? What? Somewhere out of range of the jammers. She calculated that she’d have to get them at least three kilometres away to break the jammer range so their biosigns could be picked up. By Team Awesome Force! Hoshi squeezed her eyes shut, head pounding. She had to get them away before Kelby and his cohorts returned to gloat.

But how to get an 80-kilogram man that distance when he was unconscious, and heavier than she was?

First things first: get out of these damned handcuffs. She tried to find a piece of metal to jam through the links, but anything thin enough to get through snapped when she twisted. She gave up after the third try.

Only one thing for it; it wasn’t going to be pleasant, and she’d suffer for it later, not to mention not being able to use this hand much for the foreseeable future; but needs must. She grabbed her left hand, squeezing the fleshy part, set herself, and gave a sharp twist, feeling the joint pop out of place, hissing at the pain but now able to pull the suddenly limp appendage through the handcuff. One advantage to having dislocated this wrist more than once in combat and training.

Placing her hand flat on the ground, she leaned down hard with her other hand, holding it in place, gritting her teeth through the pain, manipulating it to find the most painful spot. With a sharp rotation of her arm, most of her weight behind it, the joint popped back into place. The sheer relief was almost overwhelming, and she knelt there for a few seconds just gasping as the pain ebbed from her, then used one of the thin wires to unlock the remaining handcuff.

But there wasn’t time to relax.

She scrambled over to Malcolm; now she could get under his back, link her arms around his chest instead of his neck, and pull steadily, pushing back with her heels, until she had him a safe distance away from the fire raging around the metal structure. Those bastards really wanted to make sure we’d be deader than dead.

Malcolm was still unconscious, his hands still handcuffed together, blood seeping from a wound on the side of his head, so she tore off the bottom of her button-up and wiped off the blood as best she could, trying to see how bad the wound was. It was a deep gash and would likely need stitches, so the best she could do was get him closer to safety; she ripped off his shirt sleeves and fashioned a makeshift bandage with one that she hoped would stay in place through her next manoeuvres.

The other went over the gash in her leg where Kelby had inserted and been about to twist his knife to try and get her to beg him to stop. Wishful thinking, asshole. Malcolm, handcuffed and beaten as he was, had kicked Kelby in the face to get him away from her. The little snot hadn’t been expecting that, and had stabbed himself in the leg with his own knife as it wrenched out of Hoshi’s leg when he fell backward. That had earned Malcolm another beating; she'd thrown herself over him to try and shield him, but that beating had given him a concussion. At least Kelby had left her alone after that, ordering that they both be tied up in the compactor instead of just Malcolm.

She focused on the memories to distract herself from the sting as she tied the shirt sleeve tightly over the gash, smiling grimly as she remembered Kelby’s shocked face. There, done. Now for the hard part.

She stretched Malcolm out on his back, his legs slightly apart, and prepared herself for her next move. Kneeling at his ankles, on his left side, Hoshi raised his right leg enough so she could get her hand beneath it. Taking a deep breath, she thrust her right arm under his leg until it reached her shoulder, rolling swiftly to her left, along his body, until she came back up on one knee, dragging him with her so that his leg was over her right shoulder and his torso hanging over the end of her left shoulder.

Her arm went through his arms from underneath, under his armpit, and his full weight came to bear across her shoulders, his head hanging down limply as she planted her foot and caught her breath, and then she heaved him up as she jerked her other foot up, weight forward into a sumo squat, heels back hard to keep her balance.

Malcolm was all muscle, and muscle was heavy. She couldn’t wait too long to get her feet under her and get upright, or she’d never be able to do it from a fixed position. Her momentum would have to help, so she planted her feet and lifted his dead weight, grunting as she rose, every vein in her head feeling like it was going to burst with the strain, fire coursing through her legs, particularly where she’d been stabbed.

“Get up Hoshi, up, up, UP, go go go-go-go UP!” and she locked her knees for a moment and pushed with her glutes and thighs, strong from hours of martial arts training but straining against the dead weight of an unconscious man who was 20 kilograms heavier than she was.

And then she was up.

Feet spread wide, Malcolm’s weight across both shoulders, arms through his legs and arms, she stopped for a moment, catching her breath. A feral grin spread across her face as she huffed air into her lungs.

“Now that’s a personal best shoulder squat you can be proud of!” she said to herself, and chuckled. “Now. Move. Move your ass and get him to safety.” But her feet wouldn’t move for a moment, and her grin faded. “Get. Your. Ass. In. Gear.” Still nothing. “I said move, Lieutenant! That’s an order!” and finally her right foot lifted and she took a step. “Left.” Her left foot lifted. “Right.” Another step.

She progressed slowly at first, but within five steps she was walking, slowly but steadily, putting the setting sun at her back and heading east, aiming for the cleft between two hills that she could see far in the distance. Heading for her team.

Team Awesome Force.

Chapter Text

It had been hours.

Hadn’t it?

It felt like hours. But probably only one. Not yet two, at any rate. Maybe.

The strain on her shoulders had settled into a dull, heavy ache across the muscles; it wasn’t as evenly distributed as a loaded barbell would be, but at least it was fairly curled, as she had pulled her arms together, bringing Malcolm’s arm and leg forward, and interlaced her fingers across her stomach.

Her neck and back hurt, but that was to be expected; she had this kind of ache during and after a good lifting session in the gym. It was nothing that a hot shower and good deep muscle massage wouldn’t fix.

Her leg ached where she’d been stabbed, but again, that was to be expected; the blade had been short and hadn’t penetrated very far, maybe a centimetre, and Malcolm had stopped Kelby before he could twist it. The fire from using every bit of her leg muscles to lift Malcolm had settled into a background throb as she’d walked; uncomfortable, but not unbearable. She’d suffered worse.

The biggest issue was thirst. She hadn’t had water for around five hours, ever since she and Malcolm had been captured by Kelby’s men. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There’d been a thoroughly unpleasant period of water-boarding, during which water had trickled down their throats, though not enough to properly hydrate them.

Not that it mattered; the heat and physical exertion inside the compactor had sapped whatever moisture they’d had, and the trek through the scrub-land had exacerbated matters. One small mercy was that she’d been carrying Malcolm since late afternoon, and the sun had since set, allowing the air to cool and reducing the amount she was sweating under her load.

But she was thirsty as hell, and he couldn’t be much better. She kept her mouth closed, to retain whatever moisture she could, but he was still unconscious, and his mouth had probably dropped open; she couldn’t turn her head far enough to be sure.

Not much further to go, she hoped. She hadn’t really been able to keep track of the distance, but she was sure she’d walked at least three kilometres by now. Under normal circumstances, she’d have jogged this distance in less than half the time, but circumstances were far from normal, and Malcolm’s unconscious state wasn’t helping. And for the past few hundred metres, she’d been climbing, as the ground sloped upward.

Just … she was flagging. She could feel it. She needed water, she needed to rest, she needed to give her back and shoulders and legs a break. But frankly, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to pick up Malcolm again if she put him down. So she’d just have to keep going and hope the team picked up their bio-signs and came running before she collapsed, because if she did it now … well, she hadn’t exactly been able to hide her tracks, and it was unlikely that any of their attackers were in anything close to her own state, let alone Malcolm’s.

Who stirred, for the first time in what felt like hours, and let out a groan. Oh, thank all the gods. He was waking up. There was a rocky outcropping a short distance ahead, just before the ridge - some grass and a few slender trees - and she headed that way as the man on her shoulders groaned again and shifted.

“Wha—” His voice was constricted, throat obviously dry. He closed his mouth again and she heard him swallow and move his tongue around in his mouth, trying to get some saliva moving. At least he wasn’t wriggling; Hoshi wasn’t sure she’d have been able to hold onto him in that case.

“I’ve got you, Malcolm,” she said, wincing at how hoarse her voice sounded. If her throat was dry, his must be like a desert.

“Hoshi …?” He still sounded dazed, though she could feel him trying to lift his head.

“Don’t move for a bit,” she instructed, and he stilled. That was one thing about Malcolm; there weren’t too many people he trusted, but when he did, he listened to whatever they were saying.

A few more steps, and—Hoshi turned her back to a large rock that seemed to come most of the way up her back, its surface large and mostly flat.

“I’m going to try and put you down without jolting you, Malcolm. But hold onto my arm. Just in case I drop you accidentally.”

“Okay. I trust you, Hoshi.” Despite the croak, she could hear his sincerity, and had to close her eyes against the rush of both pleased acknowledgement of his faith in her, and pained regret that he’d been hurt because of her.

She wedged her back against the rock and slowly lifted her shoulders, her bent arms holding onto his knee and elbow, so that he slid the few centimetres off her back but didn’t drop onto the rock. Somehow she managed to set him down gently before letting go and straightening with a muffled groan as her back protested.

Turning, she met dazed green-grey eyes at just about head height to her own. Malcolm looked awful, but he managed to give her a small smile nevertheless. He lay on his side, handcuffed hands curled up against his chest, in a foetal position. The strip of t-shirt she’d tied around his head was bloodied over his wound, but the blood seemed to have dried; at least he wasn’t still bleeding.

His lips were cracked and she couldn’t think that hers were much better. Leaning against the rock for support, she lifted a hand to his cheek.

“Sorry I got you into this mess.” Her mouth was so dry; she swallowed against the feeling of dust, but it made only a small difference.

“You didn’t. I followed you, remember?” He moved his hands enough to touch her wrist, and she slid her fingers into his.

Hoshi opened her mouth, and Malcolm squeezed her fingers. She stopped, closing it instead.

“Do you have water?” Her eyes dropped and she shook her head, downcast. “Then stop talking, bintang, and conserve energy.” His voice was a croak; she scanned the surroundings in a desperate bid to find something, anything, that might ease his thirst, wet his lips, get saliva moving. But the few blades of grass were minuscule, and the leaves on the trees too high to reach (and probably too dry, come to that).

She remembered something she’d read in a novel of the Old West, about tricks to survive in a harsh desert environment, and stumbled to the shady side of the rock, finding a few smooth pebbles under the surface of the sand. Dusting them off with clumsy fingers, she slid one into her mouth, feeling its coolness against her tongue. Working it against the roof of her mouth, she felt the dryness ease the smallest amount as the parched tissues reacted to the stimulation. Better than nothing; at least her tongue was no longer stuck to her palate, for one.

Back with Malcolm, she placed a smooth, flat oval stone against his lips. He opened his eyes, a quizzical lift to one eyebrow; she couldn’t bear to try and explain, so opened her mouth and showed him the small stone on her tongue. He seemed to grasp her intent immediately, parting his lips enough for her to slide the stone - a skipping stone, she’d have called it if she were near a lake, smooth enough to be skipped across the surface of the water - into his mouth.

He watched her, his mouth working, faint relief appearing as the deep grooves beside his mouth eased the tiniest bit; the trick might have worked for him, too. That, or they were fooling themselves simply because the stone felt cooler against the internal heat of their mouths, or because manipulating the smooth surfaces was keeping their tongues, cheeks, and palates from sticking together. Frankly, it didn’t matter; anything to feel just a little less thirsty, and if a stone in the mouth was what it took to fool their bodies, then so be it.

She closed her eyes against the understanding in his calm eyes, angling forward to touch her forehead to his. They stayed like that for a long while; she bent her knees enough to lean against the rock without feeling the need to sit, and held his hand as she somehow managed to doze standing up.

As dusk fell, she heard a sound. Two sounds. From back where they’d come, the sound of cars. They were being followed. And from over the rise just beyond the outcropping, the shriek of a high-velocity jet in the distance. It was a toss-up who would get there first.

The roar of powerful SUV engines died down as several vehicles stopped at the bottom of the incline. Doors opened and the sound of boots hitting the hard-packed dirt came to Hoshi’s ears, accompanied by raucous laughter and jeering. She didn’t bother lifting or turning her head; they had no weapons, and no strength left to run. Where would they go, anyway?

"Did you think you could escape? There’s nowhere to go.” Kelby’s voice was a sneer. “But please do stay right there. Easier to take you out when you’re in one place.”

She looked into Malcolm’s exhausted eyes, then turned her head slightly, just enough to see the thugs raise their weapons and take aim. She moved her head back so their foreheads were touching again; anything more was too much for her right then.

The weapons were cocked, and she heard Kelby’s amused order. “Don’t make it too quick.”

And all at once a Dreamstrike had screamed its way over the ridge and was hovering between them and their attackers, blowing up sand enough to force Hoshi into movement, leaning over Malcolm and pulling her shirt across to cover both their faces. A disembodied voice threatened mayhem unless the group dropped their weapons and left; Hoshi couldn’t help but quietly cheer on Janelle’s no-nonsense tone.

For just a moment it seemed as though Kelby might urge his men to fire anyway; at least until the familiar sound of a GAU-17/A Gatling Gun dropping into place with a heavy thunk reached her ears, accompanied by the clatter as weapons were dropped and hands—presumably—were raised. Shortly thereafter, running footsteps, car doors slamming, and racing engine sounds were heard; Hoshi had no doubt that, had the surface been tar or cement, tyres would have been squealing as the gang made their getaway.

Not that it mattered; she’d been on her feet for too long, after too much physical activity, injury, and emotional trauma, and not enough water, food, or rest. The world was going a little fuzzy, she thought, as Malcolm’s alarmed voice seemed to come from a great distance away.

Oh.

She was going down.

Well, then. Bend the knees and sag, to prevent bumping the head, she supposed. Somewhat more gracefully than a sack of potatoes, Hoshi slid down the rock and passed out.

Chapter Text

When she awoke, it was to the sound of beeping and the smell of antiseptic. Sickbay, then. The biobed on which she lay wasn’t the most comfortable, but it beat being stuck in a shrinking compactor that was on fire, or walking through a desert carrying an incredible weight, and with no water.

“Welcome back,” came a quiet, hoarse voice from her right; she turned her head and saw a cleaned, bandaged Malcolm leaning up against his pillows, the top half of the bed slightly raised; he still looked a little out of it. She couldn’t help smiling at him, warmed from the inside out as he smiled back.

“You’re looking a lot better, bakudan. I’m very glad to see it.” Her voice was hoarse, too, but no longer croaky; the half-empty bag pushing fluids into her system through the needle taped to the back of her hand - and the matching one at Malcolm’s bedside - probably had something to do with that.

“It’s thanks to you, bintang. If you hadn’t carried me away from there, well … let’s not go there.” For just a moment he looked serious, contemplating what their fates might have been. His face cleared and his smile returned. “Thank you for saving my life, Hoshi. I couldn’t have fought my way out of a wet paper bag, by then.”

“Because you were concussed, silly man. You managed to free us from the compactor, after all, but that took the last of your strength.”

“I don’t know how you did it. I know you have excellent endurance, but it can’t have been easy having me on your shoulders like that. And how did you get me there, anyway?”

Hoshi shrugged. “The same way firefighters and emergency services and military personnel do when they’re smaller than the person they’re moving—or one of the ways, at least. I literally rolled along your body to get you onto my shoulders. The hardest part was standing.” She chuckled. “What are you, just made of muscle?”

Malcolm looked slightly abashed, but grinned. “Yes, well—never thought I’d need to be carried by someone smaller than I am, but I should know better. And you are in excellent shape, after all.” His eyes travelled appreciatively over the bits of her that were visible, despite the bruises showing across her arms and throat where she’d been choked.

She laughed, a low, breathy sound that left his ears straining to hear more. “Doubt I’ll be lifting weights for the next few days, but when we’re both cleared for duty, I’ll show you the Ranger Roll, deal?”

His grin widened. “Deal. As long as I get to use you as my practice weight.”

Snickering, she gave him a thumbs-up. “You’ve got it. Even though you could probably just toss me over your shoulder with one arm.”

Malcolm held his grin for a moment longer, then his face turned serious again. “I guess at some point we have to talk about what we’re going to do about Kelby, not to mention his boss. He was out to kill us both, but before that, he’d planned to take you. I don’t want to think about what might have happened.”

Hoshi shuddered minutely, but she knew he caught it by the way his eyes softened. He reached out a hand and she stretched hers toward him in turn, but couldn’t quite reach. Sighing, she looked around for someone to help, but they were alone. So she plucked the straw from her bedside table - fortunately it hadn’t been placed into her drinking glass yet - and tapped Malcolm on the hand, smiling tiredly as he gripped it and tapped her in turn.

“I’d move our beds closer, but I don’t think either of us has the energy to get out of bed,” he quipped, and she grinned.

“That’s for sure. Maybe when we’ve rested and get wheeled out into the sun like invalids requiring Vitamin D.”

His turn to snicker; he handed her the straw and she placed it back on the bedside table and lay back, exhausted by the tiny exertion, still grinning like a fool.

She heard knocking and turned to see Janelle, Liz, and Esk beyond the window, pulling faces. Doctor Phlox walked into the room and the three instantly stopped clowning and stood back nonchalantly, looking as though butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths.

“Bunch of reprobates,” she muttered, flashing them a V sign where Phlox couldn’t see. They pulled shocked faces, pretending to be mortally wounded, and then fell about laughing, leaning on each other’s shoulders, while Trip, Travis, and Rostov joined them, waving at Malcolm.

The two invalids winked at each other as the doctor approached, his characteristic wide grin on his face.

They were right where they needed to be.