[b]Coffee[/b]

      Jeremy cautiously walked through the corridor. They'd told him it would be empty, but he couldn't get himself to trust them. He kept expecting to have one of them jump at him at every intersection.

      Walking up had been to go from one nightmare, to another; A sleeping one, to a waking one. As soon as he'd started panicking they left him alone. Once he'd calmed down, one of them entered the room, but stayed by the door. She was female, in charge of the medical bay. He'd met her before, but he couldn't remember her name.

      "How are you feeling?" she asked.

      He glared at her. "How do you think I feel? I want to get out of here. I want to go back to Earth. It's driving me insane! I know what they did to me, and I still want to go back."

      "Do you remember what was done to you on the station?"

      He shook his head. "I just remember being forced into a chair, then there's pain, hate, anger."

      "We are going to help you." She took a step toward him.

      "Stay away!" he tried to push himself tighter against the wall.

      "I'm a friend," she soothed.

      "I know that! But you're terrifying me!"

      She left the room then. The rest of the communications were done over comm. Eventually they'd told him they couldn't keep him here, he needed to go back to his quarters.

      He couldn't go back there, that's where the monster was waiting for him.

      They'd made arrangement for new quarters, in one of the vacant habitation sectors. A ship like this was never at full occupancy, unless it was war time. Even if everyone were to bring their families with them, there would still be empty quarters. As it was, more than half the people on board either lived alone, or only with partners. That left a lot of empty quarters.

      As they had promised, the way to his quarters had been free of people, and he'd slowly made his way there. Once there he quickly entered, and closed the door behind him, only then able to breath again. He leaned back against the door, and slowly slumped to the floor, crying. He wanted Gral to hold him, to comfort him, but Gral was the monster out to hurt him.

      He screamed, holding his head. He couldn't reconciled both thoughts. They had done something to his mind, twisted it to the point where he didn't know if he could trust anything he thought. He couldn't even summon the box to help him. When he tried, he felt it, just out of reach, but it wouldn't appear.

      After a time, his mind calmed down, out of sheer exhaustion. He stayed there, catching his breath, then stood. He would get over this, somehow. The first step was to settle in.

      On the desk were a few piece of clothing, and two large sacs. He had no idea what they were, until he went closer to them, and the aroma reached him. The rich scent calmed him. There was a datapad on the top sac. He took it and turned it on.

      "I know this isn't going to make up for what was done to you, but hopefully, it will help sooth you. Xenial."

      Jeremy put his face against the sac and breathed in deeply. Coffee. Xenial had finally been able to find him coffee. He had to make himself a cup, right now. 

      He looked around. These quarters had a cooking area, since he wouldn't be able to go to the mess to eat, but it hadn't been supplied yet.

      He hadn't had coffee in years now, and yet he could feel the craving coming back. He really needed a cup of coffee.

      He looked at the door.

      He'd have to brave the outside to get what he needed. He couldn't move, his craving warring with is fear. Then he realized he didn't have to go outside.

      He took the pad, wrote up the list of what he needed, and sent it to Xenial. Then he put away the clothing and sat down to wait.

      He jumped when the door buzzed. He went to it, and his hand hovered over the unlock button.

      "Who's there!" he yelled, knowing sound didn't carry well through the door.

      "It's Xenial," came the muffled reply. "I have the things you asked for.

      Jeremy looked at the button again, trying to decide, just how badly he needed them. His hand fell away, and he rested his head against the door.

      "Can you put them down! And leave!" he tried to catch his breath. "Please!" He was crying again.

      "Okay," Xenial said, and then added. "We're here for you Jeremy. I'm leaving now."

      Jeremy hated this. He slammed his fist against the door, over and over. They were his friends. They were the ones who had taken him in, accepted him, even with his differences. They hadn't questioned his motives, they hadn't regarded him with suspicions, they had accepted him.

      Humans were monsters for making him afraid of his family.

      He waited for a full five minutes before opening the door. He had to glance on each side, before he could step out to take the box, and bring it in. 

      He put it on the table, and pickup up the pad.

      "I'm sorry," he sent.

      "We will wait for you," came the reply.

      Jeremy fought the tears, He wasn't going to cry again, he promised himself. Never again would humans make him cry.

      He took a moment to compose himself, and then set about making the first coffee of his new life.
      
[b]Combat[/b]

      Jeremy stood in the middle of the large room. It was featureless, except for the four mats on the floor, probably six meters on each sides, it was basically empty. He looked around again, he could see people walking by through the two doorways, but no one was paying him any attention.

      He wasn't sure what happened here, and if not for the message he received, telling him to come here, he didn't think he'd ever come here.

      "Hello Jeremy," someone said, startling him, and making him move away. It took him a moment to take hold of himself again.

      "I, I, I'm sorry, I didn't see you there," Jeremy stammered.

      She looked at him, tilting her head. "I'm Amigerlianfernel, I command gamma squad, and I am also a combat trainer."

      Jeremy nodded, his breathing slowly. "Okay, why did you want to see me?" She was a little shorter than him, with silver fur, spotted with black.

      "I'm not the one who requested this session. The captain did." She moved closer to Jeremy, and he found himself taking a step back. "I will not hurt you. Now that you are starting to feel more comfortable around us again, he has asked me to train you. It's been three months since your abduction, correct?"

      "A little more than that."

      She nodded. "Please come closer."

      "Look, I don't really need to learn how to fight. I'll just stay on the ship form now on."

      She motioned for him to come closer. After a moment of hesitation, he did. "You can not spend the rest of your life on the ship. Please show me your hand." Jeremy raised a hand to her. She took it and turned it over, examining it, and his fingers. "Since you don't have claws, I'll start by teaching you close fists techniques, until we can find something to correct this. have you even been in a fight?"

      Jeremy had to think back rather far. "When I was a kid, I think. I've never been one to look for fights."

      "That's good. A Hunter doesn't want to fight, but it's his duty to stand between the threat and the innocent."

      "I thought hunters were the name of a military unit."

      She looked at him. "Not here. The Hunters on the ship follow the ancient ways. For us, it is a way of life. It means I well never let someone be harmed. I will give my life to protect my people."

      "Isn't that a little extreme?"

      She shook her head. "The Hunter's creed is this : 'We are Hunters. We die so our people live.'"

      "I don't know if that's for me," Jeremy said.

      She smiled at him. "You're not being asked to become a Hunter. It isn't something anyone can be forced to be. Your mate wants you to be able to defend yourself should humans try to kidnap you again."

      Jeremy nodded, it wasn't an unreasonable request. He had no plans on dealing with humans again, but he couldn't know what was going to happen.

      He took a deep breath. "Okay, how are we going to do this?"     
      
[b]Convalescence[/b]

      "How is he doing?" Gral asked.

      "Physically, he's healthy," Gariel, the head medic said, looking over the information on the datapad she was holding. "What ever they did to him, it didn't cause any physical damage."

      "What did they do to him?"

      "I don't know for certain, other than it affected him on a mental level." She pulled up an image of Jeremy's brain. "As you can see, he is extremely stressed, even while being unconscious. From what I'm seeing, I can tell you that he is afraid, but I can't tell you why. I recommend that a mentalist see to him, other than that, if the techs can work out what was done to him, we might be able to come up with a treatment. Other wise all we can do is hope that you rescued him before there was any permanent effects."

      "Thank you, Gariel."

      She put a hand on his arm. "Don't worry, he will get better."

      Gral wanted to nod, to agree with her, but she hadn't seen the fear in his little warrior. He had been terrified of him. "I'll go see what the techs have found out."

      * * * * *

      Gral looked at the pieces spread over the work table. "Have you figured out what they did to him?" He asked Thuruk.

      "They injected nightmares directly into his mind using this." He waved at the parts. "The work that went into building this is impressive, disconcerting, and terrifying. I can't imagine how they tested it to make sure it would do what they wanted it, and nothing else." He looked up. "Are we really going to let the people who built this into the federation?"

      "I can only hope the Gods will work against them. At least we aren't supporting them anymore. I can't see who in their right mind would support them either." Gral leaned back against the wall. "Do you know why I can't get close to him, while Saul was able to pick him up?"

      "They made you the center of his nightmares. I think they were trying to turn him against all of us, but because of how close he was to you, they wanted to make certain you would never be together."

      "Did they succeed?" he asked weakly. "Will I ever be able to hold him again?"

      "I don't know. They had him for hours, but not for as long as they wanted. The program they were running had hours to go before it concluded, so that's in Jeremy's favor, but I have no way to know how advanced it was on the part that dealt with you. I wasn't as gentle as I should have been when I took the processing center out of their machine. It was all I could do not to smash it."

      "I understand," Gral said. "I don't blame you, I blame them. I want to go back there and rip their heads off. Thank you for stopping me from killing them."

      "Just following your orders," Thuruk smiled, but it didn't hold. "How hard do you think they'll come down on us?"

      Gral shrugged. "There's no way to know. Jeremy's position on the crew and as my Heart is established, and no one's argued against him."

      "Would anyone contest it?"

      "I have enemies. If they can find a way to use that against me, they will. Gods, I hate politics." He headed to the door. "Keep working on it, send anything you find out to Gariel."

      * * * * *

      Jeremy walked through the corridor, greeting those he knew, and nodding to anyone he wasn't familiar with yet. He'd made this walk often over the last six month, and daily over the last two. 

      Getting back on his feet after what had been done to him, hadn't taken long. Being able to move about among the kelsirians, let alone work with them took longer. It had been a month before he stopped looking for the exit each time there was more than two of them in the room with him. Another two before he didn't have to force himself not to jerk away each time one of them touched him, and another one to stop jumping each time someone he hadn't noticed appeared in his field of vision.

      Now, he was working on what he considered his last real obstacle. This time the shaking didn't start until he was standing in front of the door. He reached for the bell, and his stomach lurched. He pulled away and sighed, he'd try again tomorrow. He turned and headed for his quarters to get ready for work.

      He stopped when he saw who was buzzing his door.

      "Ambassador Querik?"

      The older kelsirian turned and looked at him. "Jeremy, it's so good to see you again, but it's just Querik. I'm not an ambassador for the time being."

      "What happened?"

      "Nothing, I just decided to take some time to focus on my family. With being posted on varying stations through the federation, I hardly got to see my mates."

      "You have more than one? Couldn't they go with you?"

      "Yes, two females and one male. If they weren't busy with their own careers they could, but they are successful in their on rights back home, so I decided to take a break and look after them for a while. I'm on my way home, actually, and I through I'd travel with you, since you're heading in that direction too."

      "I didn't know we were heading to Kelser, I've been spending most of my time in engineering."

      "How are you adapting to being on the ship?"

      Jeremy eyes Querik. "I've been here for over two years. I'm pretty comfortable."

      "I'm glad to hear it. I worried that you'd miss your people."

      "I am with my people."

      "I'm glad you feel that way. I know the crew thinks of you as one of them."

      "Why are you really here?" 

      "I'm here because I'm heading home, I swear."

      Jeremy eyed him again, obviously not quite believing him.

      "I haven't seen you since you first joined the crew, why don't you show me your favorite place on the ship?"

      "My favorite place?"

      "Yes, surely you have one, some place where you like to go to relax, where you don't have to concern yourself with what is going on outside."

      "I, I guess I do."

      "Show me."

      Jeremy took Querik to engineering.

      "This is your favorite place?"

      "Well, one of them, it's pretty high on the list. I'm comfortable here, I'm in my environment."

      "You have list?"

      "Yeah."

      "Why don't you show me another place on that list?"

      Jeremy took him to the mess hall, and then a few of the recreation rooms he liked going to, the one with the movies, the one with the games and the quiet one. All the while knowing that he wasn't doing what Querik had asked of him. Querik wanted to know what his favorite place was, not those close to the top of the list.

      He took a breathe to calm himself and headed across the ship. Querik followed him silently, until they stood in front of a door. Jeremy tried to reach for the buzzer twice.

      "What's here?" Querik asked.

      "You wanted to know where my favorite place was." He reached for the buzzer and pressed it.

      "Enter," the voice on the other side said, and the door opened.

      Jeremy started sweating on seeing Gral behind his desk. He wanted to run away, a voice at the back of his mind saying that this was the monster who had hurt him and stolen him from his family. He took a step forward.

      Gral looked up and stood on seeing who was in the doorway. "Jeremy? Are you okay?" He stepped around the desk and took a step toward him, but stopped.

      The voice was louder now. 'He's coming to hurt you. Run, run away.' Jeremy closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around Gral, surprising him. The voice told him to move away, that he wasn't safe here. He only held on tighter. Gral gently wrapped his arms around him

      "This, this is my favorite place on the ship," Jeremy whispered.

      "Welcome back, my little warrior."

      "I'm sorry it took me so long, and I don't know if I'll be able to do more than this."

      "It's alright. If this is all I get, I'll be alive."