The bed was hot and uncomfortable and he was sick.

And tired.

Sick of waking up in strange places with stranger people. Tired of feeling soft and heavy from drugs or weak with pain.

It was getting mighty old.

But PhaHks forced himself to move off the flat bed; an odd one, very low to the ground so he had to kind of roll off and push himself to his feet.

Just managing to keep his balance, he glanced around at his newest cell. White marble, it looked like. One small ornate table. One padded chair. Both ordered out of "Really, REALLY Rich R Us" catalogue. Hand carved, he guessed.

The only other stick of furniture was that delightfully functional floor mat, better suited for wrestling than sleeping.

The door was flush against the jamb and no handle in sight. It, too, appeared hand-carved but shined like porcelain. He touched its surface. Wood.

The next few seconds were series of blurred photographs in his mind.

But the door opened while he was standing just to its side. Through proceeded two arms carrying a flat tray with a bowl of something he could only assume was edible.

But he sure as hell wasn't going to stand there and ask. Never the easy way.

He clasped together both fists and brought them down on the head of whoever was holding that tray. Didn't give a damn who, either, because the door was open and that sole exit meant escape.

His Quantico training had taught him well. Find an opening and take it.

The tray and its holder fell but didn't, unfortunately, stay down long.

As his made his dash for freedom, a lightening fast hand grabbed his ankle and sent his timbering. Then two hands clamped around his upper arms and threw him around back in the direction of the room.

His subdue-er hadn't counted on his countermove, however, and PhaHks used that momentum to continue his spin and finished by locking his own arms around his attackers neck. He got in one, controlled uppercut to a nose and felt blood spill over his fist.

No time to relish the small win as his opponent drove his own hydraulic fist into PhaHks' side.

It knocked the breath out of his lungs and his feet out from solid ground. He went down holding his cracked rib. Every breath was a knife.

"Try that again and you will certainly die."

Hellbitch's voice. Vampira. Gothic drag queen.

PhaHks didn't bother looking up or even acknow- ledging her. His hand hurt like hell - *snapped bones usually hurt* - and he examined it critically. Tried to keep breathing. His fingers were not stained with red blood.

The Bitch's blood wasn't blood.

Blood isn't green. Unless...

"JEZ-UZ!!"

He was on his feet then, and across the room before his brain registered the movement. Dizzy, he looked at his fingers. Wiped them thoroughly on his pant-leg.

Now he was staring at her. Her nose was bleeding though stopping quickly. She wiped at it with the back of one clawed hand. Long, painted, predatory nails.

Veexow wiped and watched the human at the other end of the room. Why the sight of her blood, alien or no, would have caused such terror in him, she didn't know. But he had given up the fight early on.

Across the room is where he stayed, covering his mouth and nose with his hands and staring at her as if her very essence was poison.

She could punish him severely for attacking her. Should. But he was staring at her, pupils wide, and so she choose an alternative.

"There are many creatures..." She spoke very softly, hoping to calm him, "...many varieties of life, everywhere, PhaHks."

He stared, warily, sucking air through fingers. But at least he was listening.

"Most of them bleed, including myself. I won't hurt you."

PhaHks listened. The first time he had encountered green blood - a big-ass, ugly, alien, killer's green blood - it had choked and blinded him. The second time - another alien mercenary - it had almost killed him.

Not *hurt*?? "You broke my fucking arm!"

Veexow nodded in understanding. A broken arm. Drugged down. Locked up. So why trust?

Reasonable, his attitude. But certain facts remained indisputable and those were that he was alone in her century and not entirely safe. And he would have died if not for her discovery of him in that filthy Ferengi cargo hold.

So, somehow, trust must come.

"Where am I?" He asked her. Eyes were still scared but he was calmer and listening. And angry too. She knew he had a right to be.

"You're safe."

"Who are you? Why are you keeping me here?"

Again, reasonable questions. "Someone you can trust."

He huffed at her, his expression absolute disbelief. "I can count on both hands the number of times I've heard that, and it turned out to be a lie."

Veexow, at the time, had wondered if her punishment on his arm had been too forceful to bring home her point. Now she regretted it.

Always with this human, there would be doubt, Rhengar privately had said to her. There would be the continuing question of how much would be too much? How far would be too far? They knew so little about them. Humans. Physically delicate, yes. Emotionally fragile? Possibly.

Of one thing she was certain, they were more stubborn than Romulus' High winter.

To have survived his abduction by the Ferengi's...

"Please sit down, PhaHks. I can tell you some things. But I think you need to rest, too. And aren't you thirsty? Hungry?" Her voice was liquid honey and it had the desired effect.

He moved to his mat and slumped but told himself it was only because he was groggy and weak.

"Where am I?" he asked, calmer.

"You are here in my home. Fighting me will not alter that and it was necessary to bring you here to keep you safe. You may not like it but you could be here for a little while. And despite what has happened to you, I cannot tolerate attacks upon my person."

She moved toward him cautiously. "You need that hand looked at." And, ever so carefully, she touched it. She turned it over, palpitated the fingers, making him wince.

"Definitely broken." Touched his injured side. Cool skin over ribs. He was underweight. "And this."

"I had to give it the college try." He said. He was pale and shaky.

"I will summon the doctor."

PhaHks nodded, suddenly very sleepy. Shock. Experience

"We all have enemies, PhaHks." She said. "I'd prefer it if you and I are not."

He didn't bother responding.

After Rhengar repaired his broken fingers, Veexow had food delivered to his room. He ate, used the Head. Slept.

Later, when she returned, the gentle creature who had stroked his injured hand had been replaced by "Commander" again and she was all business.

He asked her why he was locked in and she told him quite bluntly that since he was not trustworthy to behave in a civilized way, neither was he trusted to walk free.

Yet.

His scope of freedom, she explained, within her "Family home" depended upon him alone and then she left him to think about it.

For many days she let him consider her words before one day she simply unlocked the heavy doors, swinging them wide.

He had almost been too afraid to move. She'd opened the doors but had not given him permission to leave. Was it a test?

But it was only minutes before his inclination to step outside his little prison overcame his worry.

PhaHks exited and found himself in a larger prison. Much larger. Prettier too, with rooms upon rooms, many like his, some different.

So many rooms connected by cool corridors he nearly lost his way once, but he backtracked and found his direction. For some reason, as much as he hated them, he wanted to be sure that he could find his way back to his "bed" and his own bathroom.

It was the only privacy he was allowed. It was the only spot in this place, wherever it was, that in theory, was his.

That first day exploring (and finding no exits to outside which was his true objective), he was surprised to find an enormous circular hall. It looked like something out of the glory days of Rome or Greece. Polished, stone floor surrounding rows of pillars the girth of ten men and as tall as five stories.

Later Bitch explained that each pillar represented a generation of her family, upon which was written the names of all in that generation and some of things they had done.

But looking at it now, all he could think was that the Bitch must be richer than Bill Gates.

On impulse, he started to run.

That day, he ran the circle of that hall until everything hurt. All his pent up rage, fear, and frustration manifesting themselves as a primal need to vent physically.

When his body told him to stop, he ignored it and ran harder, faster until he had no choice but to collapse against a low ledge by the outer wall and pant until his breathing calmed.

It had made him feel slightly better, less strung like a piano wire. Less wanting to smash something to bits. Or kill something.

After that, he ran every day, sometimes twice a day or more, depending how wired he was and depending how much he allowed his thoughts to stray into dangerous territory; like where in the world he was and how to escape.

Weeks of exploring turned into months until he knew every corner and turn in her rich prison-castle.

Vampire lady visited with him once per day in his rooms or came to watch him run. She spoke with him (he rarely answered), had meals delivered to him, but left him alone otherwise.

He asked questions, she answered them halfway. He'd get angry and shout and sometimes attack. Try to hit. She'd hit back much harder. He never won those discussions.

Occasionally, she had her doctor examine him, which he bore silently. Resentful of the indignity of being stripped naked in her presence while Doctor Ears checked his vitals with his little buzzing instruments, sometimes making comments about how much weight he had gained, muscle compared to fat tissue.

They never seemed to think to ask him. He was nearly back to his regular 165 pounds and leaner than when he was in college. Running so much now, he'd toned up, his shoulders now filling out the boring clothing she'd provided; the button less white loose shirt and fly-less "leggings".

Okay, he considered, so he was a lab rat. Or a curiosity, or something to relieve her boredom.

But just what the fuck was she?

Running, however beneficial, and eating, however necessary, were not enough in themselves to constitute a "life".

It grew harder each day to retain his tenuous hold on reality, especially *this* reality.

His days did not go by in a blur but rather a series of stills.

Dead lifeless hours with nothing else to relieve the routine of restless sleep filled with new and changing nightmares (or the mercifully drugged, dreamless stupor Doctor occasionally inflicted on him. He had ceased asking why).

If they were brain sucking vampires and he food, what the hell did it matter? Nothing changed the staring and staring of the maidservant when she would bring his wake up meal.

Nothing stopped Vampira's visits, which were becoming more and more like brain-picking sessions and less like conversation.

What did they have to talk to each other about anyway?

Questions and questions, every day the same fucked up questions. Or, when she received no answers, fucking new ones.

Nothing could stop the bouts of depression that had been growing worse and worse, making him not rise from his bed as before, not look at the Bitch from Hell when she came with her questions.

But he didn't speak to her. Didn't eat.

Once, he even prayed to God to wake him up or, if he was awake, to send him home. Or at least kill him. God hadn't answered him of course. *It was the prayer of a unbeliever anyway,* he'd thought later.

He was fucking terrified.

Weeks - months - worth of fear, all settled into a painful fire in his stomach. Eating hurt.

Each new day he wondered if it was the day he'd end up nuts. He fought insanity as it lapped at his reasoning, tickling him with how easy it could make everything if he would only let it.

He didn't think he'd stepped over into real psychosis, not yet. But was walking the deadline for sure. Probably crazy. Maybe not quite ready to embark on a career of drooling in a straightjacket, but was fairly certain he'd tried it on. It would fit.

No doubt about it.

Seeing him dropping weight again and his lethargic attitude caused his Jailer to visit him more frequently, not the end he'd been trying for.

But she was less talkative which suited him just fine. She brought him his food herself, which suited less but he said nothing. The maidservant a female youth, would set the tray down, stare for a few seconds and leave. She would leave him alone at least.

Hellbitch would preach at him to eat, sometimes with a warning that if he didn't, she have him force fed.

Those times when his appetite refused to cooperate, he'd pretend to eat, breaking the gross bread into bits, nibbling, pushing the chunks of whatever around until the whole mass would turn the stomach of a blowfly.

Mostly he just blanked out and waited out the day. Too much thinking made his head ache and awakened the fear in his gut.

The thought occurred to him once:

What if, one day, you woke up and all the unbelievable things of the world - monsters, vampires, demons, UFO's, aliens - came true?

And you were there, in it?

Not willing to accept the answers, he'd put it out of his mind for good. It danced around his subconscious here and there but was never allowed center stage.

All those years and now: Truth. Just. Terrified him.

He'd do jerk-off surveillance 'till social security if it meant getting out of this.

Hellbitch could shove her questions straight up her yellow ass.

He hated and feared her. Mostly hated but too sick with paranoia to do anything about it.

His weight dropped sharply.

*****

"Hey!" PhaHks shouted, the word echoing as he wandered through the high stone corridors and enormous rooms, rarely got mixed up now, not having to retrace his steps. He searched farther, deeper.

Doors but no exits. Nothing he could open. Or smash through either and proved it on occasion by dislocating a shoulder.

The rooms almost without exception were bare of furniture. Not a stick. But they were humid and pleasantly cool against his bare skin. He walked barefoot. Other than running, exploring was his only pastime.

"Am I the only one here?" Heard his own voice speak back to him off the beautifully grained stone blocks of every shape fitted together so perfectly, like a jigsaw puzzle. Even the floor was stone though polished to a glassy smooth shine. Like marble.

Each time he awoke in this place it sent his heart racing.

He hadn't seen Vampira for days. A servant would appear twice daily, leave food and vanish.

No one answered his shouts. The "M'Lady", how Doctor Ears referred to Bitch, was nowhere to be found. He stopped and listened. Not even a hum. Nothing.

After countless corridors and rooms produced no people, he felt a growing sense of panic. Tried to stifle it by shouting louder. No one appeared and that was worrisome, though he wasn't sure why exactly. But he needed to see someone, just so their presence would underline that he wasn't alive in purgatory.

He'd been drugged, strapped down, had his arm broken.

And his hand.

Been zapped with some kind of cutting edge laser gun.

Had his ribs broken.

All thanks to her. It was turning out to be quite a relationship.

But she was the only one with whom he had any connection in this insane reality. The only constant in between drug induced sleeps and disoriented awakenings. Thus far, that constant had held his fear at bay.

She was like Scary Auntie Vera and he was a little kid scared of monsters in the dark. Hating her, frightened of her but dependant on her too.

It was sick.

Right now, though, he needed to know he hadn't dreamed her up.

Ashamed of his frailty, he just needed to *see* someone, hear them speak his name.

He was about to yell again when she appeared so suddenly from around a corner, he thought maybe he was hallucinating. She wasn't there. Then she was.

It was nerve-wracking.

"PhaHks." she said, having heard his shouts over the mansions's monitoring system and locating him by scanner. No visuals here. She wouldn't allow it. This was her family home.

"Must you shout in my house?"

The anxious tension in his face, upon seeing her, eased. "I - I thought," he answered finally, "I thought I was -"

"What?"

"I thought I was the only one here."

"Clearly you are not. A meal has been prepared. Come." She walked back the way she had come, not bothering to check if he was following her. Evidently she expected him to.

And he did.

It was a small table in a small room adjoining a larger one. No furniture was present but for the ever present murals. She seemed to have a thing for them.

The table had place settings for two.

"Where's the floor cushions?" He asked sarcastically.

She seated herself. "They can be provided easily enough should you make that necessary."

He had not sat down. She motioned to the other chair and he seated himself. They were comfy.

""Docile" it is." he commented, frowning at the weird dishes. They were square and flat with no edge to hold in stray food juices. He had no idea what material they were made from. Only shallow spoons had been provided.

When the young female servant brought the food, he understood a little better. Three dishes were piled with pieces of varying "vegetables" - he guessed - none of which were soaking in excess water. The fourth dish held pieces of somewhat familiar grey semi-moist he-didn't-know-what.

She gestured towards this last food. "That is a synthesized high protein bake-meal peculiar to your physiological needs. We don't require it."

He looked at it dubiously. *Sounds irresistible.* But he didn't ask who in particular she meant by the "we".

She helped herself to ample portions of the vegetable dishes and left him to choose for himself.

He cautiously placed a few pieces of each onto his own plate. Took one heroic bite of the grossly described protein stuff. It wasn't bad. Tasted almost like pork. A bit bland.

She watched him nibble at the few vegetables, eating all of two kinds in earnest, clearly ravenous, saw him frown at the taste of the third, leaving it on the plate untouched, but she was satisfied that he was finally eating.

When he made no move for more once his plate was empty, she spoke. "PhaHks, you are thinner each time I look at you. Surely you must be hungrier than that?"

"I just haven't had my mind on food lately." In truth, the food was okay but he'd had his heart set on Chinese.

She understood she thought. "I have no intention of seeing you faint from hunger at my table and ruining my repast." She reached over and placed another slice of the protein meal onto his plate. "You need to eat or you will grow ill."

"Why do you care?" His eyes challenged her.

She wiped her mouth. "What has happened to you, PhaHks, is unfortunate. But I am not the one who caused it."

"Who did then?"

"Those responsible are dead."

"And what is it that's happened to me?"

Could he absorb such start truth? she wondered. Primitive human being, sitting in a chair crafted by non-human hands. He was five centuries beyond his own. Difficult to conceive let alone accept.

His mind, no matter intelligent and open to new truths, might never accept it.

Slowly. "What do you recall - what is the last thing you remember about your home?"

He responded without having to think, "I was driving home to.." he swallowed as the memory hit. "-to Chilmark, to my mothers. I stopped for a breather, climbed a small road-side hill. It smelled good." He choked on a piece of protein hell-bread, his voice trembled. "It was nice."

"And then?" she encouraged. Slow is better. Safer - for him.

He tossed the bread down on his plate. "And then I was puking up my guts in a black room surrounded by hairy bodies, my own shit and generally losing it."

She almost winced at the harshness in his voice. His words painfully sliced the air, arcing between them, causing a separation of perpetrator and victim.

She felt his carefully squelched demon memories which he could not yet look at. Knew them.

"And now you want to know where you are and who I am. What I am."

Saw him look down at his strange plate of food remnants he didn't recognize, at the walls made of foreign stone, at her and her yellow skin. Her other-worldly clothing, her upswept eyebrows and tipped ears, knowing them to be real.

"Now that you ask, no. No, I don't think I really want to know, actually."

"But you have another question."

"Yeah. I'd like to know one thing."

"What?"

"When are you taking me back?"

There was no hope in his eyes, she saw. But she would tell him. Could he handle the truth? A lie would be pointless since time would then prove her a liar.

"That is not feasible."

Too blunt when she saw his eyes panic though he did not move.

"I am sorry." she added.

He got up to leave the table, waited for her nod of permission which she quickly gave.

He spoke quietly, whispered it, "Figured as much." Carefully said words so as not to fold up and scream.

"Where are you going?" she asked him.

He wanted her to never ask anything again. *Where am I going??*

"I need to think." he said.

"About what?"

*Jesus!* He looked at the remainders of the meal and not at her: his future.

"I just need some time alone." he lied as his mind turned over the possible ways he could kick his own bucket. But he needed a tool, a stick, a rope.

Knowing his quarters were empty of anything sharp, pointed or useful for self-garotting, he wanted to go for a walk and see what he could find. He rolled the thought of suicide around in his mind. Tried it on for size.

"I think you have something on your mind, PhaHks. Something unwise."

Not only a life-sucking vampire but a BRAIN-sucking life-sucking vampire!

He closed his eyes against the scrutiny he knew he was under - was always under - and sighed heavily.

"Let me show you something." She announced and stood, walking away from him towards another imposing archway into yet another section of her castle/prison. She turned to see that he was not following her. "PhaHks, come."

He just didn't feel like wagging his tail.

Something on his face must have given away the hole in his chest where his heart used to be.

She stretched out one elegant yellow hand. "Come with me PhaHks. Please."

Soon they were sitting among trees and bushes and flowers; a garden all in pots. Big pots, little pots, long low wide rows of grasses and shrubs and all had opened before him at the top of a set of wide, stone stairs interlaced with wood carvings.

Stairway to a heavenly place. Compared to his sterile room it was heaven-like.

"I know you are frightened, in shock. Unhappy." she was saying.

He tried to drown out her voice and words and just focus on the warmth of the sun on his face.

Large, red sun.

It had scared him when he'd first stepped onto that tower top garden and saw a sun the wrong color. But as long as he didn't look at it, it felt delicious.

He tried to sort out some things as he baked his skin. Address his own questions.

Like, how to escape and where to. And where is *here*? These failing to be resolved - a nice high ledge and a flying leap into the hereafter.

But her words kept interrupting.

"I know you hate me and want to leave. But I think you understand the impossibility of that. I think you know the reasons why you cannot, even though you may deny it to yourself. You have been with me for nearly a year, PhaHks. We must find a way to establish a life for you here."

Heard some of her words.

He wouldn't do that. Not willingly. Fight her every inch of the way. Did she think he was just going to curl up and mew? Accept her warm bowls and little bed? Did she think he was her fucking pet?

A *year*?? A fucking YEAR?? They would think he was dead. The "Missing" file of him would still be case-open, and...he choked back a lump, swallowed it, ...his partner, she would never stop looking he didn't think. Not yet anyway.

Finally, in just a few months more, they'd become resigned to him being gone, and slowly "gone" would transform into "dead" in the backs of their thoughts.

And her life would go on. Probably improve.

He knew he wasn't home anymore. He knew something terrible had happened to him; something over which he was too terrified to think about; a god awful thing.

He knew but couldn't look.

Anguish was a physical thing. As real as lungs filling with air. As real as a broken mind.

He knew.

Hard experience.