Chapter One: Dyspnea

Molly never thought herself the sort of fool to look at a tiger in a cage and think it a wonderful pet. All she saw was teeth and bone and blood, an animal with an untouchable wild heart.

She was looking at one such animal now, arm out stretched through a hole in the force field awaiting a blood sample, fingers curled in deceptive relaxation.

She felt his eyes on her skin like a tangible force, the edge of a sharp nail running from wrist to elbow to neck to cheek. Everything about him was dangerous.

"Why aren't we moving, Captain?" The captive's gaze snapping forward, lighting on Captain Kirk's face-twin missiles locking onto a target. "An unexpected malfunction, perhaps in your warpcore, conveniently stranding you on the edge of Klingon space."

Sample collected, Molly retreated away from the clammy orbital of Harrison's body heat. Mumbling something about sample decay, Molly fled the brig not waiting to be dismissed.

The scents of soap and Klingon sand lingered in the recirculated air of the passageway, hitting Molly's sensitive nose and setting her face awash with pins and needles. Unidentifiable aromas settling deep in her lungs.

Once, during her sophomore year at university, Molly had mishandled a beaker full of methylene chloride. She'd been transporting the solvent back to the fume hood when someone had jostled her, casting the beaker and it's contents onto the yellowed tile floor. Grabbing a paper towel, she'd knelt to deal with her mess before anyone could get over the broken beaker, the liquid seeped through her lab coat and jeans. The scent had, at first, seemed pleasant. As the lab wore on, it had become more and more difficult to draw breathe-as though a balloon had inflated under her ribs, there was no room for air.

She remembered with startling clarity the way the solvent's fumes had refused to leave her. Each powerful exhale merely draining her of oxygen faster.

She felt that way now. Some ancient part of her brain told her no lung treatment invented would purge John Harrison's scent from her body.

Don't be ridiculous, Hooper. You have too much work to do. With that, Doctor Molly Hooper, Interim Chief Medical Officer of the USS Enterprise pulled herself together and made her way to Medical Research Bay 6.

The very picture of calm, cool, and totally, absolutely, unaffected.

Dyspnea: Difficult breathing; Uncomfortable breathing; Feeling like you are not getting enough air.