Chapter 8 - No More A Smart Little Girl With No Heart
Mei-Wan stared into Todd's eyes and saw the concern growing. It would become fear, then hurt if she didn't say something soon.
She knew now she did love him. It wasn't the ring he'd just put on her finger, nor the flashes of memories belonging to the Mei-Wan of this reality. She felt honest to goodness, full fledged, heart about to leap out of her chest love for this man. She knew she'd be happy spending her life with him. There was no doubt in that. He worshiped the ground she walked on and more and more she did the same with him. She didn't think she had ever been this happy.
All she had to do was say, "Yes." That's all that stood between her and a life of love and happiness.
Goodbye, Jack. I hope you found happiness wherever you ended up.
She couldn't help smiling. For the past two years of her life, she couldn't ever bring herself to the point of really and truly putting her life with Jack McCall behind her. It always terrified her. But as she looked at Todd Nakano, she realized she could stand on her own. She didn't need to cling to Jack to survive any longer. She could have her own life. And this time, she would make it one worth living. She had been given a second chance, a new start. Mei-Wan decided this time she would let her heart have its way.
Her mouth opened to accept the life Todd Nakano was offering.
But...
It wasn't Jack McCall she was really saying goodbye to; it was Mei-Wan McCall. She would play the part of the woman Todd knew and loved for the rest of her life, taking on the life of the woman she appeared to be. No one outside of Hank Evans would ever know and he had ample reason to keep the secret.
But she had just come to understand she could have her own life and now she would have to give up her identity and live a lie.
She had deceived Todd these past weeks and hated it. Now she was about to commit to continuing that deception for a lifetime.
No. I am me. I'm not her; no matter how much I want to be her.
It was time for this lie to end. It was time for Mei-Wan McCall to stand up for herself and tell both Todd and the Universe who she was.
"Todd," she began with not nearly enough breath. But she knew this was the right thing to do. "I'm not who you think I am."
Todd's apprehension evaporated. He couldn't resist a grin. "Really? You're not the most beautiful archaeologist in Starfleet?"
She did her best to keep his charm from distracting her from what she knew she had to do. "I'm not the woman you fell in love with." Her eyes turned to him. "You remember back on New Years when I woke up in the middle of the night?"
He frowned. "How can I forget; it was the last time we made love."
"Before I found myself in bed with you, I was on a planet called Folam Six fighting to stop beings called the G'voda from activating a time machine."
He laughed. "Very creative, Mei. You know, if you're not sure about getting married, I can give you some time. You don't have to make up crazy stories."
"That's just it. I am sure about marrying you." She took his hand in hers. "I just can't lie to you anymore."
His smile disappeared. "Come on, Mei. This isn’t funny."
"I know it isn't." She gently rubbed his hand. "Prior to that morning I was married to the captain of the Chamberlain, a man named Jack McCall."
"That was the guy you asked Captain James about." He slowly pulled his hand away from her. "You’re not kidding are you?"
"I asked her about him because in my reality Jack McCall and Larissa James went to the Academy together and were in love. She died on their first mission after graduation."
"Where is my Mei? What have you done with her?"
"I didn't do anything to her. The G'voda time machine exploded when our torpedoes struck it. Some sort of temporal displacement must have occurred."
He shook his head. "That's not how temporal displacement works!"
"I know it's not supposed to work like this."
Todd grabbed her hands now. "Where is she?!"
"This is your Mei's body. I don’t know where she... I don't know."
His grip on her hands tightened. "Tell me where she is!"
"I told you, this is her body. I keep remembering things--- her memories of you and her together." Mei-Wan could tell Todd was near exploding into a full rage. She didn't blame him. The woman he loved was gone. "I'm pregnant with your baby."
He released her, more out of shock than her attempts to work free from his grip. "What?"
"Your Mei had been pregnant for nearly a month when I found myself here." She could tell he was having trouble with all of this, but the pregnancy was the one thing which could prove her story. "I went through her personal logs and she felt it was the one way to get her family to accept a marriage with you."
Todd leaned back in the couch, his eyes fixed on some point in space. "You wanted to get pregnant?"
"No, your Mei..." She chuckled and fell back against the couch. "I guess I really shouldn't make it seem like we're so different. Confronted with the same problem I probably would have made the same stupid choice."
He turned to her and smiled. "Mei never has been able to stand up to them."
"I know," she whispered. "I've had the same problem."
Todd slowly looked her over as if for the first time. "You're really from another timeline?"
She nodded, unsure if he was accepting what she'd told him or if this was his way of running away. "Surprisingly, aside from Jack and Larissa it's not a whole lot different. Li-Na doesn't exist."
Todd snorted. "That at least sounds like an improvement."
"My mother was injured by an explosion and lost her second child. I'd always wondered what my sister would have been like. As much as she drives me crazy, it's hard for me to wish she didn't exist."
"What about me?"
"I don't know. I never met you in the life I had so I have no idea if you exist or not."
"But we certainly weren't together." Todd looked away. "You're married to someone else."
"Yes."
His brow tightened. "But you were going to say 'yes' to marrying me. If you're married, how..."
"I'm stuck here." She looked into his eyes, more sure of herself than she had been for a very long time. "I love you, Todd. I have decided to make a life here with you."
"Have you tried to find your husband?"
"Yes, Hank and I..."
"Evans is in on this too?"
"Hank, Jack, and I were all caught in the explosion of the time device. We've tried searching for Jack. His father wasn't born here and his mother is married to someone else." She took a breath. "He doesn't exist."
Todd placed his hand gently on her stomach. "You sure this isn't his child?"
"Jack and I..." She put her hand on his. "Our marriage hadn't been going well for some time. We..."
"I take it you were surprised to find yourself pregnant."
She grinned. "That's one way of putting it."
He brushed a patch of his dark hair away from his eyes. "Where do we go from here?" he asked.
"Look, I know this is a lot to get through. I've had a month and I'm still having trouble with it. I can understand if you want some time to think about all of it." She grinned. "But you just put a ring on my finger and I was about to say 'yes'."
He couldn't help smiling. "I never thought I'd be the one asking for more time, but this is a set of pretty extraordinary circumstances."
"This baby won't wait forever," she told him with a serious look.
He exhaled heavily. "How many months are you..."
"From what Preston has said, I should deliver sometime in late July."
"So, in seven months we'd better have something figured out." He stared at her as if trying to read her mind. "How much of my Mei's memories do you have?"
"Not a whole lot, but every day I remember something I know wasn't a part of my life." She smiled at Todd. "It usually involves you and I, I mean you and her together."
"You mean together, together?"
"Uh huh."
He smiled. "Having sex?"
"A lot of the time, yeah."
"You think whatever happened is reversing itself?"
"I have no idea, but I haven't had the experience of being thrown back into my own timeline at all since coming here." Mei-Wan touched his cheek. "This is where I'm going to live the rest of my life. I'd very much like it to be with you."
He leaned over and their lips touched gently.
Her comm badge chirped. She pulled away from their embrace to answer the small device. "Yes?"
"Hank Evans. Can I see you for a few minutes?"
She rolled her eyes. "I'm kind of busy. Can it wait until morning?"
"No, it can't wait. I found something you'll want to see."
Mei-Wan sighed. "I'll be there in a few minutes." She tapped the badge to cut off the communication. "Sorry, but I better go see what it is he's dug up."
"You think he's found a way to reverse all of this?"
"I doubt it. We haven't any idea what caused it." She stood. "I shouldn't be too long."
"Oh, no. I'm coming with you."
"Todd, Hank's liable to be angry that I mentioned any of this to you. It would be best if..."
He smiled. "Hey, this is the only way I can confirm your story. Otherwise, I might begin to think you're just nuts or something."
She smiled. "Okay, but realize Hank isn't likely to be pleased about you knowing who we really are."
"I'll do my best to ease his worries."
***
"Are you out of your damn mind, Mei?! Why the hell did you tell him of all people?!" Hank Evans bellowed at both Mei-Wan and Todd as they stood on the other side of his desk in the Security Office.
"I did what I had to do, Hank. I'm not going to live a lie for the rest of my life. At least not with Todd. I had to tell him."
Still fuming, Hank glanced at Todd Nakano. "You know, you're supposed to report this so we can be turned over to Temporal Investigations."
Todd grinned. "Then the longer I keep this secret, the more incentive I have to go on keeping it."
Hank chuckled and smiled at Mei. "I like him. He reminds of Jack when he was younger."
Mei-Wan didn't like comparisons between Todd and Jack. They were far too different in her mind to compare them in any way. "You said there was something you wanted me to see?"
Hank's mood changed completely. "I found him."
Mei-Wan's eyes widened. "Jack?"
"Yeah, but," He stopped, his mood shifting to a far more somber one. "It might be better if I just tell you instead of showing you."
"Where is he, Hank?"
"It's not so much where, though that is interesting as hell, but when he is, or rather was."
"Was?"
"I'm afraid Jack is dead."
Facing Jack's non-existence was hard enough for her, but… Her ruminating stopped. Something didn't make sense. "How can he be dead if he never existed?"
Hank smiled wide as he sat down at his desk and motioned her to come around to see the display. "That's where it gets interesting." He touched a control and the screen came to life. "I set the computer to do a complete search of every record for the name Jack McCall. It took a while, but aside for some references that obviously weren't him, I was left with two which I thought had some possibility."
An image of printed text appeared on the display as Hank continued, "According to this newspaper account, a man named Jack McCall was executed, hanged by the neck to be specific, for the 1876 killing of someone referred to as Wild Bill Hickok."
"James Butler Hickok?!" Mei-Wan nearly shouted.
"I knew I'd heard that name before," Todd said. "Jack McCall was the guy who shot Wild Bill. I learned that in history class back in high school."
Mei-Wan turned to him, her face showing the fear she felt. "James Butler Hickok didn't die in 1876. He lived into the twentieth century fighting for the rights of racial minorities--- native peoples and Asian immigrants mostly."
"In this reality, he died in Deadwood in 1876."
Shaking her head, Mei-Wan looked back to Hank. "Jack is a Starfleet officer. He wouldn't have killed a historical figure like Hickok."
"I thought the same thing, so I checked a little more. The Jack McCall who killed this Wild Bill was a lot younger than our Jack."
Perhaps it was the child she now carried which brought the next question to Mei-Wan's mind. "Could Jack have gone back to that time period and had a son?"
"I considered that too. I'm not absolutely sure the one who killed Hickok wasn't related to the Jack we know, but searching for a connection brought me to this." He touched a control and another newspaper flashed on the screen. Across the top there was a headline which read: Bank Robbery Thwarted. "This is from a town in Nebraska in 1874."
Mei-Wan quickly read through the text describing a robbery by a group of ruffians referred to as the "Prange Gang" which had resulted in one of their number being killed by a local cattle rancher. The rancher's name was Jack McCall.
"How can we be certain, Hank?"
After touching several controls a worn and faded yellow image was displayed. It took a moment for the face to register from behind the beard, hat, and clothes, but there was no doubt. The man in the article was Starfleet Captain Jack McCall.
"Oh my god..."
"Yeah, can you imagine Jack as a cattle rancher?" Hank asked with a grin.
Mei-Wan frowned. Hank knew full well that wasn't the reason for her shock. However, it did amuse her to think of Jack spending his days concerned with livestock instead of new life forms. "You said he was dead. Do you know when and how he died?"
"You do understand that this all took place five hundred years ago. No matter how it happened, Jack would still be dead by now."
"How did he die, Hank?"
The display changed again. "Several weeks after Jack stopped the bank robbery, other members of this Prange Gang ambushed him on a cattle drive. Jack had been shot over twenty times." Hank turned to her. "I'm sorry, Mei."
Hank was right. They were talking about something which happened five hundred years in the past. Jack would have been dead anyway. But it didn't make her feel any better. Her husband was dead, killed by men exacting revenge.
She had at least some of the answers she'd been seeking. It couldn't be a coincidence that another man named Jack McCall had killed James Butler Hickok. Her Jack's presence in the nineteenth century had to be tied into the change in history. She read through the article where it described how Chester and Horace Prange had died in their ambush of Jack. He'd obviously fought for his life, inflicting deaths on the other side before...
Prange...
That name seemed familiar to her. But she didn't have time for another mystery.
Mei-Wan now knew how history had changed and that Jack had been a part of it. She and Hank had a decision to make, but it wasn't one they could discuss in front of Todd Nakano.
Mei-Wan turned to him. "Todd, would you mind letting me have a chance to go over all of Hank's information? I... I really need to be certain this is my husband."
"I'm sorry about this, Mei. Finding out someone you cared about is dead isn't easy, but it is better than when you thought he didn't exist. He had a life."
"And for that I am grateful despite the horrible way it ended for him." She smiled and gave Todd a quick kiss. "I just need to be sure this is really him and... I guess I need some time to grieve too."
"I understand. Looks like we both have a lot to think about." He put his arms around her. "I'm going back to my quarters. If you want to come by and talk later, I'll be up."
Mei-Wan nodded as he walked toward the door.
"Uh, Nakano..." Hank started, getting Todd to face him. "Do we have an agreement that you'll keep quiet about Mei and me?"
"I won't reveal your secret, Evans." He looked at Mei as she stood reading from the comm display. "I have more reasons than you know to keep my mouth shut."
After Todd left, Hank went back to Mei-Wan. "What exactly did he mean by that?"
"Hmmmm?" Mei-Wan asked, her attention focused on the information she was reading.
"Nakano."
"It's a complicated situation, Hank. He knows I'm not the woman he fell in love with, but we do love each other."
"Sounds like every relationship I've ever heard of," Hank said with a smirk. "Now, what was it you wanted to talk about with him gone?"
Mei-Wan smiled. "Do you always assume people are motivated by hidden agendas?"
"Yeah," Hank snorted with a laugh. "So, what are you up to?"
Mei-Wan's smile faded as a stern determination took its place. "Now that we've found out both how the timeline was changed and where Jack is, what are we going to do about it?"
