Chapter 10
Chapter ten
Earth
What’s your name?
The question bounced around in his head, refusing to land.
He stared at Doctor Wynn Lambdin through the spaces between the rotating shelves. Her dark eyes caught his, the color entrancing—a rich earthy tone, similar in shade to the soil she piled into the pots. A pink flush brightened the paleness of her face.
Her emotions battered against him in waves, imitating the rain that continued to ravage the terrain.
It was becoming increasing difficult to brace himself against the deluge.
A part of him did not want to, intrigued by the way her moods affected him.
Her gaze felt heavy, and a foreign sensation swept over him in its wake.
He did not understand that part of himself, as strange to him as naming her emotions, but it grew in purpose and need. He did not understand how to cope with that either.
Why had The Four not warned him it would be this way?
She touched the control beside her, and the shelves rotated upward on her side and down on his. This sort of mechanism could be useful back at home, and he stored the visual memory of it inside his mind to tell the others later.
Her body bent at the waist as she pulled more pots from beneath the cupboard and set them in front of her with a click clack.
“Are you not going to tell me your name?” she asked, her voice husky, the sound doing things to his insides he had not experienced before.
What was that sensation, that feeling? He did not have a name for it.
Her brow pinched, her eyes moving from him to the pots in front of her. “Or don’t you have one?”
Her question brought a memory, a time when others called to him without touching his mind. A time when arms wrapped him tight and kind eyes filled with tears and worry.
The memory settled inside him, and with it, a name surfaced.
“Iax,” he said, the word tasting odd in his mouth. When was the last time he spoke it aloud?
So many years ago, he could not remember a specific day.
Her head snapped up, her eyes meeting his again, and his heart thumped heavily in his chest. He realized he liked having her focus, her full attention.
“Iax?” she repeated.
The sound of his name from her mouth created a cascade of shivers across his shoulders, a pleasant sensation he wanted to experience more.
“That’s your name?” The sharp emotions she had sent him earlier morphed into something calmer, though no less potent.
“Yes.”
“Iax,” she said again with a nod. “Okay.” She returned her attention to her pots. “It’s a nice name.” Her eyes met his briefly. “Did someone name you? Or did you name yourself?” She shook her head a little.
He searched backward in time, the answer existing in the same place as past emotions.
“Someone named me,” he answered while old memories surfaced.
A woman hummed a song.
A home filled with laughter.
“Who?” Her hands stilled. “Who named you?”
He did not understand why she asked this question, but he again searched for the answer he needed.
A man who carried him on his shoulders.
A hospital bed and whispers of concern.
“My parents.”
Her shoulders relaxed slightly, and a strained chuckle escaped her lips. “I thought maybe you all grew from pods or something.” She concentrated on her task for a while before asking, “Were you always Calypson?”
He tilted his head, considering her question.
“Or were you changed?” she added, clarifying. “Did you travel to Sector Ten?”
More memories surfaced, a ship filled with sick people. A stranger with kind, concerned eyes.
“I was a child when I arrived in Sector Ten.”
Her expression slackened; her lips parted. Then her brow furrowed.
“Were your parents pilgrims?” Her words were harder now, biting at him like her emotions. “Did they journey with you?”
Other fragmented memories surfaced, ones steeped in pain and fear and confusion. Of being squished on a transport, others sick like him. Of an unfamiliar woman holding his hand. So much fear, but the sickness weakened him.
The feelings mimicked what he had felt from Wynn since arriving here, tugging at a point in his chest he did not know could move.
“They did not.” And sadness, so similar in flavor to hers. He remembered that the most.
“Bastards.” The words whispered from her lips, much quieter than the emotions cascading toward him. Why would she be so angry? Not at him, but on his behalf?
“I’m sorry.” Her emotions slumped along with her gaze. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
The emotions shifted in his chest, blooming into something softer, parallel to her own. “What are these words you say?”
“I’m sorry?”
He nodded.
She stared down at her hands for a moment, then continued on with her work while she spoke. “It’s an apology. I’m expressing that I feel regret about what happened to you. Showing empathy, because it must have been a horrible experience.”
Her words struck him speechless. He tried to understand this empathy she spoke of, but his mind grabbed onto logic, on reason, and he could not voice either his confusion or his acceptance of her words.
They remained silent while she worked, her hands scooping dirt, filling pots, and adding seeds.
Lightning flashed in an arc, followed by a rumble of thunder loud enough to mute the voices she played from beside her.
It was a game, one he had learned of a long time ago but hadn’t followed since his initial voyage to Sector Ten.
A gust of wind stronger than the last splashed rain against the pane behind her.
She twitched at the sound, then paused in her work. Her fingertips pressed against the edge of the pot, and her eyes jumped to his.
“I’m Wynn.”
He nodded his agreement. “Yes. Doctor Wynn Lambdin.”
She sipped a quick breath. “How do you know that?”
“They told me your name before I came to collect you.”
Her entire body went rigid, and the emotions that had calmed turned sharp once more. “Who? Who told you that?”
His memories returned to when he had embarked on his journey to this planet. He had been told many things, some he was not supposed to divulge. Other instructions had not shared that decree.
The answer to her question lay in a mix of those instructions, but he had also promised not to lie. “They are The Four.”
Her lips parted. “Who are they?”
“They lead us.”
“Why would they tell you my name? How do they know me?”
“I was told to collect you.”
An emotion shot out at him, one very similar to when she shouted at him to take off his glasses. Her mouth parted, then her lips formed a word. But she stopped herself from speaking, only making a slight sound, cutting her question off before she asked it.
He tilted his head, trying to decipher the action. When she had asked so many questions prior, why would she stop herself now?
She turned her gaze to the work surface, eyes blinking, then refocused on the objects in front of her. A hum passed her lips, then her hands were moving again, filling soil into the pot, and adding a seed from the small container beside her.
He watched, mesmerized, as she repeated the action over again. And again. Her emotions calmed, and another feeling emerged inside him.
The lack of her eyes on him created a disconnect, a need.
She did not lift her gaze to his as she worked on one pot, then another, only glancing at the game playing on the work surface from time to time.
She filled shelves and rotated them upward until she tended the last of the rows.
The pots she had started with sat in front of him on his side of the counter.
She gathered her bag of dirt and shuffled down to the next section. The game’s feed moved with her.
He followed too, but found the rows of pots distracting, a barrier he no longer wanted between them. He continued to walk all the way around the row of moving shelves, then toward her again.
Her emotions shot outward, then settled when he stopped beside her beverage. The deep brown color of the liquid contrasted with the pristine white of the cup.
As her emotions calmed, she raised her gaze to his. “Have I met you before?”
He considered her question. “No.” There had been no point in time when their paths had crossed before this.
Another emotion welled inside him, one that did not seem appropriate to the situation. Why would he feel… a loss at never having met her before?
She stared at him at length, her eyes expressing things he could not name, but her emotions rolled over him in appealing waves.
“You’re so human.” She shook her head. “But you’re also… not.”
She refocused on her work, and his gaze returned to the cup on the counter. The aroma rising from its surface was unfamiliar, both moist and bitter. He leaned forward and inhaled deeper, trying to decipher its contents.
“Do you want to try it?”
His eyes jumped back to her. She stared at him with an odd pinch to her lips and her eyes crinkling.
“Yes,” he replied, only realizing it was true after she had asked the question.
She jerked her chin forward. “Go on then.”
He assessed this new, lighter expression a moment longer before regarding the cup on the counter. Picking it up, the outside warmed his skin, and the wafting scent increased in strength as he lifted it closer to his face.
Her eyes burned into him as he took a sip. Bitter flavor exploded on his tongue, making him twitch. He had never tasted anything so pungent, and could not decide if he liked the flavor or loathed it. He took another sip.
The second taste did not inspire him to take another, so he set the cup back on its saucer.
When he turned toward her, she glanced away to refocus on her tasks. “I don’t usually eat breakfast. I should have asked if you wanted anything.”
He did not respond to her statement, uncertain if she waited for an answer. Silence descended between them. The longer it grew, the more fidgety she became, her emotions pulsing toward him in small bursts, until she returned to her task.
She finished her row of shelves and moved on to the one with larger pots, jade-colored stems punching through the soil and reaching toward the stormy sky above. The greenery reminded him of home, and his chest panged—another feeling he had not experienced before and did not know how to handle.
Her fingers lightly stroked the leaves, then pressed into the soil. She pulled out another silver cannister from beneath the counter, this one filled with packets. She tore one open, then sprinkled the contents around the slender stem before setting it back in its place on the shelf.
He enjoyed watching her like this, content in her world—no fear or distress overtaking her. Another novel sensation filled him the longer she relaxed in his company, a feeling that warmed his skin, his head, and his heart.
He had never thought much about his heart, except that it pumped blood through his system and beat with a regular rhythm. Now it sped up as hers had done, emotions tangling inside him in ways he did not understand and could not decipher. What was it about Doctor Wynn Lambdin that affected him?
Instinctively, his mind reached outwards, searching for answers from others around him, but there was no one, no connection to ease his disquiet.
Why did his breaths speed up when he watched her tuck a strand of black hair behind her ear, leaving a smudge of dirt in the wake of her actions?
Why did he have the urge to touch her, to brush his fingers against that smudge to see if her skin felt as soft as it looked?
His fingers twitched at his sides. He would not go against her wishes and touch her without permission, no matter how these desires swelled the longer he watched her.
She placed the next completed pot on the shelf, and retrieved another, the material of her clothing stretching over her curves.
None of the parameters of his mission included concessions for the scenario he now found himself in, this waiting period with no objective but to examine his charge and question his purpose.
But he could not find it within himself to be disappointed that the weather delayed their return journey if it meant watching her perform the tasks that gave her joy.
And that was what it was, he realized, this new throbbing emotion from her that rolled over him in pleasant waves. Joy. Happiness. Peace. A state of being opposite to fear.
He wished to experience this combination of emotions with her.
The shelf hummed as it rose upward, then it jerked and clattered. Iax looked up in time to see one pot not quite in line with the others tip as it caught in the mechanism.
Crack. It splintered, and Iax moved before he could think twice.
His one hand on her stomach, his chest against her spine, he spun her out of the way of the falling debris.
And in that one second, that one breath, his cheek briefly touched the flesh of her forehead.
He inhaled sharply, the sensation akin to the moments when his essence returned to his body.
His skin tingled, and the feeling spread along his face and down his neck, reaching all the way to his fingertips.
His heart thudded hard in his chest, once, twice.
Thwack, thud. Ceramic pieces and lumps of dirt landed on the countertop and the floor.
Wynn’s body curled inward, her heart beating rapidly against his chest, her emotions rising in a surge to crash over him, that fear, but something else too that he had not yet experienced, a shocking sensation that made him release her on a breath, their bodies disconnecting.
“Ah!” she cried out.
He thought her distress a reaction to their proximity, but she dove toward the mess of broken pot and dirt. She cradled the curved sapling, its bright green shoots contrasting with the dark of the soil.
He moved again. In a breath, he reached for the stack of pots on the countertop, then the container of fresh soil. On an exhale, he crouched beside her, new soil already in the pot and waiting to accept the bruised plant.
She jerked straight, her eyes widening at his appearance in front of her. A breath left her lips in a puff, and color rose high on her cheeks. Her eyes jumped between his, then landed on the pot in his hands.
“Thank you,” she murmured, her shoulders relaxing as she took the offering. She shook the dirt from the sapling’s roots, then gently settled it in the new bed of soil.
The middle bent in a depressed state after its fall. She brushed her fingers over its leaves, then stood to turn her back on him. Clack, it went on the counter, her hands now free to deal with the rest of the mess the incident left behind.
Iax stood too, watching her while a defeated sensation spread through him. Just as easily as the pot shattered, he had broken his promise of not touching her without her permission. He did not know how to fix the error.
So he spoke the only words that might help.
“I’m sorry.”