Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six - Burning Down the House

The day had started out like any other for Carol Marcus. She was still sad about the confrontation she had with her father over her choice of partners, but was hopeful that they could work through it. She had tried to call him a couple of times to check up on him but he was either too busy or not there. She noticed that he seemed off and had dark circles under his eyes. She tried to talk to him about it but the one time she did manage to talk to him for more than two seconds, he brushed it off. He curtly told her that he was busy with the mess caused by the Romulans and the Klingons and had little time to sleep and to drop it. She did and he ended the call with a brief mention of calling her when he wasn’t so busy. That had been more than a week ago. She had been busy with the parasites business and helping out in the lab on figuring out what exactly they were. The Council Members had since woken up and were told what had happened to them. They could remember everything that had happened to them since they had gone to the planet and were caught by the parasites. Apparently they had brought back a queen from the planet, she had had plans to eventually take over the whole planet but once she had learned of Jim and Spock along with the Federation council; well that had morphed into interstellar domination. Crazy.

She sighed again as she pushed her hair back behind her ear. She put her eyes back at the viewer of the microscope and looked at the sample taken from the parasite. It was quite fascinating to look at. The creature breathed through the host so there was no real air passages in it. The “tail” was an extension of its frontal lobe that they were able to use to connect to the host. They were still working through the DNA makeup of the creature and they were analyzing samples they had taken. It was a carbon based life form, but other than that there was no similarity to human in the fact that it adjusted to whatever host it took. 

She straightened with a sigh and wrote down her observations in her PADD. She looked up when the door to the lab opened, it was Commander Spock. “Hello Commander. Are you here to work on the parasite?”

“No, Doctor Marcus. I am here to bring you to the Captain. There is an urgent matter that he needs to discuss with you.”

“Okay, Commander. Once I have put everything away, I will be right there. Am I meeting you in your quarters or his ready room?”

“Please come to his ready room. I will take my leave and let him know.”

“Alright, Commander,” she said as he left the lab. She frowned as she knew that they could communicate telepathically with each other so she had no idea why he needed to go there to tell him. She sighed again and started putting everything away.

**********

Carol arrived on bridge fifteen minutes later and headed to the Captain’s ready room as per the instructions. She pressed the chime and waited to be let in; when the Captain called enter, she stepped in and walked over to stand before his desk. She noticed that Commander Spock was present and standing behind the Captain who looked pale and unwell. “You wanted to see me, Captain,” she said as she stood at parade rest.

“Yes, Doctor Marcus. Please be seated,” he said and gestured to the seat to her right. Carol sat down and waited for the Captain to speak.

Jim took a deep breath before he spoke, “Carol what I have to tell you will be very hard to hear, so please listen to me.”

She nodded at how serious he sounded; she hoped that she was not being reassigned.

“I just received a message from Starfleet,” Jim paused and took another deep breath. “Your house caught on fire and burned down.”

“What?” she whispered. She could feel a knot forming in her stomach and she knew something bad had happened.

“The neighbors reported the fire. By the time that the fire company had made it to the scene, the house was fully engulfed. They were able to put out the flames but not before the house was destroyed.”

Carol started to shake her head as tears ran down her face. She knew something was coming and she did not want to hear it; did not want it to be real, “No, no, no,” she whispered.

“I’m so sorry, Carol,” Jim whispered. He had tears in his eyes as well. He may not have gotten along with the Admiral, but he loved Carol as a sister and did not want to see her in pain. “They found a body in the house. They are testing it now as it was…” he never got to finish as Carol stood up from her chair and ran from his office. Jim closed his eyes and sighed at the pain in his chest. He knew that some of it was his own but mostly he was feeling Carol’s emotions right now. He tried to close off the empathic part of his brain but her pain battered at his shields. He reached over and contacted sickbay.

“Jim what do you need?” Bones asked as he came in view.

“Bones, is Christine working right now?”

“Yeah, she’s one duty. Why?”

“You might want to let her go early.”

“Is something wrong?” he asked in concern.

“Yeah, Carol is going to need her right now.”

“What happened?”

“I just had to tell her they may have found her father’s body in their house that burned down.”

“Oh God. I will send her now.”

“Thanks, Bones.”

“No problem, Jim.” He cut the call and sent Christine back to her quarters.

Christine hurried to their quarters. She walked into hear her girlfriend crying her eyes out on their bed; she went over and sat down behind her. Carol felt her weight on the bed and rolled over, burrowing into her stomach. Christine may not have liked Admiral Marcus but she knew that Carol loved him despite their argument. All she could do was hold her and whisper words of comfort in her ear until she fell into an exhausted sleep. She knew that Carol would have a long road to recover from this and she would be there every step of the way.