All Things Inherit – Six – DizzyDrea

After Helena’s check-in, Chris decided to go beard the lion in his den. He had questions that only his father could provide answers for, and he didn’t want to wait until later to get those answers.

He’d had Helena help him into the wheelchair in deference to his parents, who’d probably lose their minds if he fell during the trip to the office. Thankfully, it was motorized, so he could navigate the house on his own. He rolled his way through the first floor—noting that furniture had been moved out of the way, so it was easier for him to move from room to room—and paused outside the office.

The door sat ajar, as it did most days, so Chris knocked on the door frame. His father’s head popped up, and he gave a wide smile, waving his son inside as he came around the desk and headed for the small sitting area near the windows.

“Come in, come in,” Charlie said. He moved a side chair out of the way so Chris could roll up beside the couch. “Looks like you’re getting pretty good with that thing.”

“It’s like flying one of the old starships in a simulator,” Chris said. He patted the arm where the controls were located. “Even has a joystick. I’d still rather be walking, but I’ve already had a busy day today with PT and getting ready to come here.”

“I’m glad there’s still some common sense left in that fluffy head of yours,” Charlie said with a wink.

Chris chuckled. His father had always hated the way he wore his hair, but Chris hadn’t been afraid to razz his dad right back for the beard Charlie Pike wore. Some winters, he’d looked like Grizzly Adams, something he’d never failed to point out.

“So, what can I do for you?” Charlie asked. “Come to ask me why I’ve welcomed you home with open arms after all these years?”

“No. Well, yes, but that wasn’t the first question on my mind,” Chris said. He paused. “Why did you welcome me home? You’ve always hated that I joined Starfleet, and now that job has nearly cost me my life. I’d have thought you’d want to gloat at a distance and be done with it.”

“Gloat that you were nearly killed?” Charlie asked. Chris could smell the fear and relief mixed together in the air between them and felt bad for being so confrontational. “I realized at some point that you were being driven by a sense of duty that I didn’t know you were capable of. I’ve studied religions for most of my life; if there’s one thing they have in common, it’s that people will go to great lengths to serve their idea of God, and that duty becomes their life’s work. You were no different. It just took me a while to realize it.”

“Wow,” Chris said. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“The Crusades were fought by soldiers who believed fervently that the Holy Land didn’t belong in the hands of those who would disrespect the land God gave to his people,” Charlie said. “They were devoted to that cause. Just as devoted as the Moors were to maintaining their possession of the land that Allah gave to Abraham’s descendants, including Ishmael.”

“I remember talking about that at the dinner table growing up,” Chris said. “I always managed to get A’s in my history classes, and my professors wondered how I could be so knowledgeable, beyond what most of my peers knew. They were impressed when I told them that world history was dinner table conversation.”

Charlie laughed. “I’m sure you kids would have preferred we talk about music or sports or something like that, but I’ve always felt that history provides us with perspective when we’re facing decisions and situations where there’s no clear right or wrong.”

“Because most of life is lived in the grey areas in between,” Chris said. “I remember those lessons, too. They’ve come in handy a time or two in my line of work.”

“For which I’m grateful,” Charlie said. “Now, what did you actually come in here to ask?”

“Coming online as a Sentinel in my 50s has been… a shock,” Chris said. “And a big adjustment. You’ve never talked about Sentinels and Guides in the family, so I have no idea where this could have come from.”

“Your mother’s family has both in their family tree,” Charlie said without preamble. “I have to assume that’s where you got the genes from. Given what we know about genetics, it’s a good bet that there are recessive genes in my family as well, though there’s been no documented Sentinels or Guides in the family until you for the last hundred years at least.”

“Why didn’t Mom say anything?” Chris asked. He’d lived with her for the first ten years of his life, and she hadn’t said word one about Sentinels or Guides in all that time.

Charlie shrugged. “When Willa left, she said she wasn’t cut out for life as an academic’s wife. She met Roger soon after, and they married quickly. She took you with them when they left for Trenden III. I told her before she left that she needed to have you tested, but she declined. Apparently, her new husband wasn’t fond of Sentinels or Guides.”

“Why didn’t she leave me with you?” Chris asked.

“I was a young academic, working long hours as a graduate assistant while I was working on my dissertation,” Charlie said. “She didn’t think I’d have time for you, so she took you with her. I warned her that it was possible that you’d come online, since she had Sentinels in her family history, and I had the recessive genes, but she just… ignored me and left.”

“I don’t get that,” Chris said, sitting back in his wheelchair. “I mean, she had to know it was possible that I’d come online. Even if she didn’t have me tested, it still had the potential to happen. And if she’d had more children, they might have come online as well.”

“Despite her preference to raise you herself, I don’t know that Willa really wanted to be a mother,” Charlie said, shrugging. “She never said as much to me, but I watched her with you. She wasn’t what I would call a loving mother.”

“No, she was quite distant,” Chris said. “Growing up, I was well taken care of but rarely catered to. She just wasn’t emotionally available. I’m surprised that level of neglect didn’t cause me to come online sooner.”

“Given that you came online as the result of a catastrophic injury, I’m guessing your brain just shut down the Sentinel potential within you,” Charlie said.

Chris raised an eyebrow. “Is that even possible? And how do you know that?”

“There are some African and South American tribes who worship those we call Sentinels and Guides,” Charlie said. “It’s been documented among those populations that both Sentinels and Guides can and have suppressed their ability to come online for whatever reason, and nothing short of a major catastrophe would bring them online.”

“Such as?”

“Such as a threat to the tribe,” Charlie said. “Or a more personal threat.”

“Like potentially dying,” Chris said. “Huh.”

“It’s likely you suppressed your ability to come online because you knew you wouldn’t be safe with your mother,” Charlie said. “And once suppressed, you could only break through the block you’d placed on your potential due to some kind of major stressor that required your abilities to save your life or the lives of others. Or both.”

“He’s right.”

Chris and Charlie turned to the doorway to find Len standing just inside, wearing jeans and a sweater, looking like she belonged in Montana.

“He is?” Chris asked.

Len crossed the room and joined his father on the couch. “He is. At least about your ability to emerge as a Sentinel being suppressed. We’ve seen it before in Sentinels. Guides can’t do it quite as well, because our empathy is more resistant to being blocked. There’s not a lot of research data on it in modern Sentinels because it happens so rarely, but it’s one reason being explored for why there are more Sentinels coming online now than there have been in years past.”

“Makes you wonder what’s coming,” Charlie said.

“You’re not the only one wondering,” Len said. “It used to be that there were more Guides than Sentinels online at any given time, but the numbers have become more balanced in the last ten years or so. And a lot of them are joining Starfleet.”

All three looked outside at the emerging starscape above the ranch.

“We have enemies out there,” Chris said quietly. “Tensions are brewing between us and multiple species, and between those other species. It’s not safe out there, but that was true before I came online.”

“That doesn’t mean there isn’t something huge coming,” Len said. “Something we can’t even conceive of right now.”

Chris’ mind flitted between the Klingons, Romulans, and Gorn. Of the three, the Gorn were still the biggest threat, but it could be any of them. Or someone entirely new.

“No sense worrying about something you can’t do anything about,” Charlie said. “I taught you kids to worry about today’s problems and let tomorrow’s problems worry about themselves.”

“Advice that’s saved my life on more than one occasion,” Chris said. He turned to Len. “Did you need something?”

“I stopped by the kitchen when I didn’t find you in your room,” Len said. “Helena told me that dinner would be ready in a few minutes and sent me to drag you two out of the office and to the dinner table.”

“I can smell it from here,” Chris said with a smile. “Helena’s idea of a light supper is a roasted chicken and fresh green beans from her garden. She may or may not have baked bread.”

“Oh, there’s a loaf of bread cooling on the counter,” Len said. “I got to sneak a bite. It’s fantastic.”

“I wish I could replicate what she does to make bread taste so good,” Chris said. “I think it’s her oven. She thinks it’s her patience.”

“It’s probably both and neither,” Charlie said. “But don’t tell her I said so.”

“I heard that, Charles Pike,” Helena said as she walked into the office. “I figured I’d have to drag all three of you out of here at some point. Charlie, come help me set the table. I’ve got some lemonade in the fridge, or you can have water.”

“Lemonade sounds lovely,” Len said as she stood. “I’ll even let Chris try it. His senses haven’t spiked on any food he’s tried so far, so I think he’ll probably be okay to have some.”

“Gee, thanks, doc,” he said as she started wheeling him out of the room.

“Someone has to keep an eye on you,” she muttered, so only he would hear. “You’d get yourself killed otherwise.”

Chris glanced over his shoulder to find his parents arm in arm, sharing a fond look, and wished he had something like that to hold on to. He could feel Len’s amusement at his train of thought, which was interesting, but something to think about later. For now, he had a chicken dinner to enjoy.

~0~

Chris and Len had gone for a walk early in the morning, about a week after their arrival. He’d enjoyed the fresh air and the smell of Spring in the air. He was used to running miles on the treadmill, so it was taking some getting used to for a walk at a sedate pace to tire him out, though he felt better today than he’d felt in days.

They’d returned to the house for breakfast and coffee. It had been his first cup since the accident, and he’d savored every drop of the one mug he’d been allowed. Thankfully, he wasn’t having trouble with any of the food he’d eaten so far. He’d been told that Sentinels that came online under difficult circumstances could have problems with their touch and taste senses, but he hadn’t experienced any difficulties so far.

“You about finished with that coffee?” Len asked as she set aside her mug.

They’d opted to take their coffee on the back veranda, so they could enjoy the view and the fresh mountain air for a while longer. It brought back good memories from Chris’ childhood, after he’d come to live with his father. The ranch was a beautiful place to grow up, and he’d been pleased when his mother had finally allowed him to come.

“Yeah,” he said. He set his cup next to hers on the table and stood up, stretching his back, which had gotten a little stiff from sitting still for so long after their walk. “I should get a shower. I can’t believe I got so sweaty on a leisurely walk.”

“Oh, no, flyboy,” Len said as she stood up. “You owe me thirty minutes of yoga before you can clean up.”

He followed her over to the mats they’d left set up on the back deck. Interestingly, Len liked to do yoga outside. The fact that she liked to do yoga at all was a surprise, but then again, he didn’t really know her well enough to know whether yoga was a feature of her life before he’d crashed into it.

“To answer your question, Guides are encouraged to take up some sort of meditative activity,” she said as she took the first pose, then waited for him to join her before she moved into the next. “I hate meditating, per se, so yoga was a good compromise. It allows me to focus inward without all the—”

“Woowoo stuff?” he asked as he followed her lead. “Yeah, I can tell that isn’t really your cup of tea. Honestly, I wouldn’t have pegged you for a yoga person, either, but I don’t really know you well enough to say if that’s just a first impression, or some deeper knowledge.”

“You probably don’t even realize you’re using your senses to figure out most of that type of information,” she said, moving easily to the next pose. He struggled a bit to get his body to match her, but she waited patiently for him to figure it out. “You’re going to find as time passes that you have sense memories and information you’ve stored that your body was collecting for years. I suspect you’ve been on the cusp of coming online for a while—maybe even years—so there’s a lot of that data waiting for you to need it.”

“I was standing there last night, about to get into a bed made with fresh sheets, thinking about how the smell of magnolias always reminds me of home,” he said. “Helena is from Atlanta, originally, and she always uses this one particular soap to wash the linens. I don’t remember smelling it on the sheets when I was a kid, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to associate that fragrance with her and home.”

“Exactly,” Len said. “What do you think of when you smell pine trees?”

“Solitude. Peace,” Chris said, not even hesitating. “Huh. I used to ride my horse through the forest when I was younger. We had a busy household, with two brothers and a sister at home, so the only quiet I could get was when I would ride. I wasn’t used to that many people in the house. I was an only child until my father and Helena had kids.”

“Makes sense,” she said. “It must have been overwhelming for you to suddenly have a large family when it had only been three of you before.”

“It was an adjustment, that’s for sure,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong; I loved having siblings. My childhood before I came to live with my father was lonely. But sometimes it could be… a lot. Everyone was always up in everyone else’s business, and there weren’t many quiet moments.”

“Even as a latent Sentinel, you may have been responding to some sensory overload,” she said. “It’s not uncommon for latents to have difficulties in certain situations. Not all latents, mind you. But the ones who eventually come online tend to have trouble with that sort of thing as children. It’s how we know they may eventually come online.”

“You know, I feel like I’m never going to catch up,” Chris said as he flopped down on the mat.

Len sat down and crossed her legs, facing him where he lay prone on the floor. “I’ve had years to learn all this. Plus, as a doctor, I had to learn a whole new class of medicine, just in case I ever had to treat a Sentinel or Guide. So you might consider cutting yourself some slack. You’ll get there; it’s just going to take time.”

“You might have noticed I’m not the most patient person in the world,” he said.

“Oh, I’ve noticed,” she said. She rolled to her feet and held out her hand to help him up.

He took it gratefully, feeling the soreness in his arms and legs from the morning’s activities. “You must have been a sadist in another life. I can’t believe I’m this sore from yoga.”

“For once, it’s not post-surgery weakness that’s your major problem,” she said. She headed inside, straight for the kitchen. “Yoga was kicking my butt at the beginning, too. It’s using your muscles in ways you’re not used to.”

“Oddly, it’s not the muscle pain I had when I first woke up, and just sitting up left my abs sore,” he said. “I guess that’s progress, right?”

She handed him a glass of water. “That’s progress. Normal soreness due to activity is a good sign that your muscles are developing and your healing process is proceeding as it should.”

The communicator on the kitchen counter beeped, so Chris picked it up and answered. “Pike.”

“Captain Pike, you have visitors from the Cascadia Foundation,” the security guard at the front gate said. “I can send them away if you’d rather not have guests.”

Chris shared a look with Len as he pressed mute on the communicator. “What are the odds they’re here to try to get me to reconsider my refusals to engage with them?”

“I’d say better than even,” Len said. “It’s up to you. They’re just going to keep coming if you don’t make your wishes clear. And we can report this bunch to the Council. According to Trudy, they’ve been ordered to leave us alone.”

“Apparently, these folks didn’t get the memo,” Chris said. He unmuted the comm. “Send them up. I’d like one of you in the house with us, just in case they try something.”

“Understood, sir,” the security guard said before ending the comm.

“You know they probably heard that, right?” Len asked as she put her glass in the sink.

“I don’t care,” Chris said. He downed the rest of the water and handed her the glass. “They don’t appear to care that I sent a message letting them know their presence outside the hospital was unwelcome. Or they think that doesn’t apply now that I’m home.”

“Well, at least they used the front door instead of trying to scale a fence,” Len said with a shrug.

“I defy them to try to scale a force field,” Chris said darkly. “Though I’d dearly love to see them try.”

They walked to the living room and stood by the fireplace to wait for their visitors. Chris didn’t want to sit down and give them the impression they were welcome in the house. He was already itchy about his territory being invaded. He could only imagine that it would get worse the longer they were there.

Commander Saulter entered the room, followed by three men, which seemed to pique Len’s interest. He looked at her. “Something interesting about our… guests?”

“It’s just the last time we had a visit from the center, it was two men and a woman,” she said. “Maybe they think your tastes run toward males?”

“They haven’t read my service records, then,” he said. He looked at the apparent leader of the group. A Sentinel, though not very powerful. “You are intruding on my territory. I have every right to punt you right back where you came from. What part of ‘leave me alone’ did you people not understand?”

“We thought we’d see if you’ve changed your mind,” the Sentinel said. He didn’t even introduce himself, which annoyed Chris no end. “You can’t think for a moment that having a sub-standard Guide will do you any favors.”

“What I think isn’t your business,” Chris said. “I only let you in here so I could tell you no to your face. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.”

“You can’t just dismiss us without even—”

Chris opened up just a little, like he’d felt Len do many times since he’d met her. The two Guides nearly buckled under the weight of his mind. The Sentinel struggled to stay standing, but he, too, appeared to be affected.

“Now, I know you understand the implications of what you’re feeling,” Chris said. “I will come down on your entire organization like a full photon torpedo spread if you don’t back off.”

“You can’t think we’re the only ones interested in you, Captain,” the Sentinel ground out. He’d gone to one knee, and his Guide had rushed to his side, both appearing weak and wobbly. “You’re unprepared to face the world you now live in.”

“I might have been unprepared when I first came online, but I’m catching up fast,” Chris said. “Come at me at your own peril, Sentinel. Because I protect my own, with everything in me. And not to brag, but that’s a lot.”

Another member of the security detail walked in, taking note of the scene. He gave Chris a curt nod before turning to Commander Saulter. “There’s a team from the Cascadia Foundation outside. They’ll be taking these three into custody when Captain Pike is finished with them.”

“Oh, I’m finished with them,” Chris said. “And they’re finished with me.” He turned to the Sentinel, who was just now regaining his feet. “Am I understood?”

The Sentinel shot him a look so full of venom that Chris could practically feel it. He smelled… sulfur in the air, which was curious. It was a smell he’d always associated with an oncoming fire. Danger in the extreme.

“Be careful who you court war with,” Chris said. “You might not like the outcome.”

He nodded at Commander Saulter, who practically frog-marched the Sentinel out of the house. He could hear the team from the foundation outside, taking the three into custody. He only pulled his mind back when he was certain they had those three well in hand.

He dropped down onto the couch, unaccountably exhausted from just the few minutes he’d held those three in his thrall.

“You okay?” Len asked, brushing her fingers lightly over his cheek. “You expended a lot of psionic energy putting those three goons in their place.”

“I’m tired, but it’s sort of… a satisfied feeling, if that makes any sense,” he said. His wolf appeared, chuffing at him as he settled his big head in Chris’ lap.

“It does,” she said. “You are just full of surprises, you know?”

“You knew I was capable of that, right?” he asked, turning to look at her.

“I suspected,” she said. “There were signs that you had empathic abilities when you were first brought in. I didn’t expect you to go and use those abilities without training. That was reckless.”

“I’ve been reading the materials you prepared for me,” he said. “You do remember that you included the sixth developed sense in your packet, right?”

“I remember,” she said. “I just didn’t expect you to go off and <i<>use it. You did so well, though I’m not sure it’s going to scare them off. They’re just going to keep coming at you.”

“Was it the same people as last time?” he asked.

“No, this was a different pair,” she said. “The fact that they brought an unbonded male Guide shows me they’re desperate. Either they didn’t have a female they could trust, or they really didn’t read your dossier.”

“We’ll figure this out,” he said.

“You’re such a Boy Scout,” she said, smiling at him.

“That’s me, always prepared.”

“You look like you could use a nap,” she said.

Chris huffed but couldn’t argue. “Yeah, I probably could. Care to join me? I have a nice, big, soft bed that’s distressingly empty.”

“Yeah, I’ll come with you, but we’re just sleeping,” Len said as she stood up and held out her hand.

He took her hand and let her haul him up. “I don’t think I have the energy for anything else. Plus, we should probably talk about all this before we let ourselves get carried away.”

“Agreed,” she said. “Nap first. Life-altering conversations later.”

Chris chuckled but led the way to his room.

~0~

Cast (from top left):
Anson Mount, David Strathairn, Adrian Holmes, Jess Bush, Zachary Quinto, Sam Neill, Sela Ward, Jean Reno, Damian Lewis, Stana Katic