The Princess of the Lenna Dell
By Crystal Wimmer
Chapter 1
Laura Roslin, President of the Colonies, was tired. That was an understatement. She was exhausted. Thankfully, in just a while she would at least be able to lay down. Still, the destination of the bed she was headed to would not make matters better.
But she was damn glad there was a place to go. The Lenna Dell was a fine ship, such as she was, and was probably the only thing keeping Laura alive. Once a research vessel from Caprica, it had been a legal solution to the outright ban of networking within the medical community. Scientists hadn't been allowed to accumulate their information on a network, compiling research and cross-referencing findings, so ships had been designed for that purpose. Central locations for research and pharmaceutical development, they had been home to some of the greatest minds of the planet in the areas of medicine and drug therapy.
The Lenna Dell had been between locations at the beginning of the war, and had defied the order to land due to the combustible nature of many of her chemicals used for processing. She had gone into the atmosphere, and that had been what had saved her. Once Colonial One had started gathering a fleet from the miscellaneous vessels left intact, the Lenna Dell had slid right in with the rest. It hadn't been until weeks later that they had realized the true treasure they had.
As illness and disease swept the overcrowded conditions of their ships, and injuries made themselves known, the need for a central location for the medical personnel became evident. Gathering essentially every medical worker from every ship, they had been brought together and then redistributed with a more efficient understanding of what was available. The ship once more became a central location of information, only this time it was practical rather than theoretical.
It had been upon that ship that Doctor Salik had located someone with the experience and desire to treat a tenacious type of breast cancer that had been making Laura's life a living hell. She didn't want to complain; after all, she was at least alive. But that didn't make constant nausea and incessant pain following radiation any easier to manage. The part of her that was grateful that the chemicals still existed and the radiation equipment as well was not at the fore.
The treatments had been going on for over a month now, aggressively trying to destroy the tumor or at least reduce it to an operable size. The chemotherapy was literally unbearable. She passed out most times after vomiting for hours on end, but the radiation was worse. Her only saving grace was that the treatments did have breaks in between, and she had a few days to heal and recover. And, she still had her hair. It wasn't much, but with fleet depending on her for some kind of leadership, it was all she had.
Laura held her head as the transport vessel began to dock. She absolutely hated this part of the journey. She could have managed if there were no landings or takeoffs, but the launching and docking was enough to make an already unbearable nausea completely unacceptable. She closed her eyes tightly, breathing in through her nose out from between gritted teeth, and just tried not to lose what little breakfast she had choked down. She needed what little strength the food would give her, and she certainly wouldn't be able to stomach it later today.
Finally the movement around her stilled and she was able to open her eyes without the cabin spinning. She was here. The worst was over, for now.
She waited until she heard the pop of the hatch, and then tried to stand. Billy was at her side in a heartbeat, his thin arms bracing her without his ever being asked. When he'd come on as her assistant, he couldn't have expected this. She sometimes felt guilty for dragging him into this, but he never complained. He was just there; a quiet and supportive presence that was ever efficient. She couldn't manage without him. Maybe that was why she had never offered him the option to leave. Thank the Lords he had never asked.
Once she was steady he moved back to an appropriate distance. She appreciated the discretion as much as the support, and thanked him with a shaky smile. He returned it with one more genuine, and she was reminded again that she had life a lot luckier than many. She could get through this. She didn't have a choice.
"Good morning, Miss Laura."
President Roslin took a deep breath and smiled at the sunny voice that awaited her in the docking bay. "Good morning, Princess," she told the little girl. "How are you today."
"I am just fine," Katee told her with a grin. Then Laura lost her audience as Katee spotted her assistant behind her. "Mr. Billy!" he squeeled.
"Hi, Katee," he responded, obligingly picking the girl up and twirling her around him twice before setting her back down. Laura wished she had that kind of strength, even as the squeeling made her head ache.
"I'm 'posed to walk Miss Laura to the treatment room," Katee announced unnecessarily. This was not a new routine.
"Lead the way," she told her with a small hand gesture. Katee turned and took off at a skip. Billy had to take Laura's arm to help her keep up. Still, it was worth the rush. There was something clean and sweet about Katee that Laura missed in working with adults. The beauty was that Katee would always be sweet.
Perhaps it was years in the schools, but Laura had known on sight that Katee was a special little girl. It wasn't the stereotypical roundness of her face, or the flat bridge of her nose. It wasn't even the slow speech or odd shape of her eyes that had announced the most common congenital anomaly from Caprica. What had shown Laura just how special the child would be had been a simple smile, innocent and honest and pure. Laura had known then that she was in love.
What she hadn't known was what a child like that was doing on the fleet's hospital ship. While she had been pleasant enough in the girl's presence - not a trial, as she loved children and always had - she had been less polite when she'd spoken to the lead physician.
"Shouldn't she be with her parents?" Laura had asked Doctor Hucker, the ranking military physician that had taken over the command of the medical personnel.
"Most definitely," he had replied, and had then said no more.
"Well." she had prompted.
"We don't know who or where they are," he had said with a sigh. "She doesn't even know her last name. When she arrived just after the attack, she was sick and weak, so we nursed her a bit and she sprung back with the resiliency of childhood. No one seems to know where she comes from or where she belongs, so she's stayed here."
The explanation made sense, but it didn't satisfy. "She needs to be with other children," Roslin had announced, her skills as an educator coming to the front of her mind. "She needs the social and academic exposure. We need to transfer her to one of the ships that has adequate facilities to educate her."
"How many educational specialists are still alive?" the doctor had asked. "What ship would that be? Who would she stay with? The only option we found was the Kastyline, and I refuse to put her on the orphan barge. She'd be eaten alive by that group."
Laura had her own ideas about the Kastyline, the ship where they had placed most of their child care workers and their families along with the four hundred children that had been parentless following their survival of the war. It was a horrible solution, but distributing the children throughout the fleet would take time. It had been the best they could do. The ship was first priority after the Galactica for protection and supplies, and it was staffed to the best of their meager ability with teachers and as many pediatricians as they could recruit. They did their best for the children. Laura demanded that much, and the Commander hadn't argued. He too realized that the children were their future.
But the doctor was right. A disabled child would be fodder for teasing. Children never meant it, and often regretted it, but they were cruel by nature.
"How old is she?" Laura had asked softly, guessing six or seven by her size.
"We're not sure. Taking in the teeth that have come in, we'd estimate ten or so. She doesn't know her age. All she knows is that the techs here are nice to her, and she can help in small ways. It's a functional life, and it's the best we can provide.
Laura hadn't been able to argue, although the mother in her regretted the child's constant exposure to illness and suffering. The Lenna Dell was a good ship - state of the art in many ways - but the most serious of injuries were sent here, and the most ill of patients. Due to space and the difficulty of transporting people back and forth in their limited shuttles, they tended to move the doctors rather than the patients.
That had been another challenge. Getting the medical personnel in one place was beneficial for consultation and convenience, but with over forty ships to manage it wasn't always easy getting the doctors to the patients. Some of the ships had assigned physicians and techs - ships like the Galactica and the Astral Queen, where populations were large and the potential for injury and illness high - but for most of the ships there was only a tech stationed aboard, if that, and a doctor that rotated through once every week or two. Even on the Galactica, specialists only came once a week for appointments and only the rarest stayed aboard for extended treatment. It was not an ideal situation, but nothing about their ragtag survival was ideal. They did the best they could.
And yet Laura had to believe that there was a better place for this child. Exposure to cancer patients, insane patients, and critically ill patients could not be good for her. Or so she had thought.
But Katee was a resilient child, full of laughter and joy with the world around her. She brought a ray of sunshine to the dismal gray of the ship, and she could make all but the most ill of the patients smile in gratitude if nothing else. She was a walking, talking beam of light.
She was also the only thing Laura looked forward to on this damned ship. As they reached the treatment room where she would receive the day's medications, Laura sat heavily onto the narrow bed. She had done this before, repeatedly, and she still hated it. Each treatment seemed to make her weaker than the one before instead of making her better. There was much truth to the saying that often the cure was worse than the disease.
Katee fluffed her pillow and smiled, and Laura had to smile back. "What have you been doing?" she asked the child, even as Billy took his seat by the door. She had never asked him to stay for these sessions; he simply seemed to think it was part of his responsibility to her. She wished that she were strong enough to send him away, but likely she would need someone to call for a tech when it got really bad. There were times she couldn't even reach the call-button.
"I been working," she said proudly. "I got to take trays for breakfast, and I'm gonna go pick them up with Miss Kathy," she announced. Such pleasure, Laura thought, from such menial work. How much they could all learn from this child.
"That sounds fun," Laura lied.
"Do you want a food tray?" Katee asked with a furrowed brow.
"No, Princess," she replied. "My tummy hurts me when I get my shots."
Katee nodded gravely. While she had been protected from the most ill of patients, there was only so much she could be guarded when she essentially had free-roam of the ship. It was either that or imprison her, and even Laura couldn't see that as an option. The crew seemed to take care of her, each one looking out for their little princess, so Laura hadn't pushed matters with Doctor Hucker since that first encounter. It was just as well. The man had a commanding personality and was far too much like Adama for her liking. He was military, and had no tolerance for politicians. Like it or not, Laura was that. At least until they could make arrangements otherwise.
Yet to force an election would mean revealing her illness to the fleet, and that was a panic she didn't want to be responsible for. They had few enough leaders to rely on, and most took heart from her understanding nature and status as a member of the "real" council that had once existed by their election. Letting them know that she was ill - possibly even fatally ill - would undermine the fragile security that she and Adama had tried to foster.
Adama. He knew. It hadn't been possible to keep her illness from him, as he was privy to every flight in the fleet, and was personal friends with Doctor Salik, who ran the fleet Life Station. Patient confidentiality be damned, the doctor had the Commander in his office within minutes of her request for assistance with the matter. It hadn't been one of her finer moments.
To his credit, Adama had been both understanding and helpful; she had to give him that. It didn't mean that she liked his demand that she immediately begin therapy aboard the Lenna Dell. She did so under the guise of encouraging the patients and regular maintenance physicals, but her weekly visits would soon look suspicious. If all went well, another month would make the tumor operable and they could just get it over with. That had been Adama's hope. Explaining her frequent illness, however, had been done by blaming the stress of command, and she didn't like the implication. She could perform her office duties as well as anyone, regardless of how she had obtained those duties. She refused to leave the fleet to solely military leadership. The people - the regular people - deserved a voice.
So she provided that voice. She provided the diplomacy. She did her best to begin building the cabinet by appointment or election, whichever was most practical at the time. She tried to keep the civilian matters separate from the military machine, and she prayed every day that she would be able to remain healthy enough to do so.
As the technician arrived with a little bag of clear fluid, she wondered once more if maybe she was being unrealistic in planning anything at all.
"Good morning, Madame President," the tech said softly. "How are you feeling?"
"Her tummy hurts," Katee supplied.
The technician grinned. "I imagine it does. This won't help much. I can give you an injection for the nausea, though. The choice is yours."
She had taken the shot before - out of pure desperation - but it tended to knock her out for hours and leave her groggy for days. And the vomiting wasn't really stopped by the shot, but rather it was delayed. She would still throw up; better here than in her quarters where she would have to clean up the mess herself.
"No, thank you," Laura replied. "Let's just get it done."
The tech nodded, and waited while Laura unbuttoned the first few buttons of her blouse to reveal the direct line catheter they had placed at her first appointment. The drugs were far to damaging to regular veins, so this went into an arterial line. From there it went to her heart, and into every cell of her body. Now, if the damned stuff would just work, she would believe it worth the torture of the treatments.
With Katee watching avidly, the technician inserted a needle into the catheter line and begun the infusion of deadly chemicals. There was something vaguely insane about poisoning one's self to get healthy, but she was beyond caring about the irony. Instead, she looked over at the bright and sunny face surrounded by long, straight blond hair and equally straight bangs. It helped to keep herself centered on something other than the misery.
"Can I read you a book?" she asked the child.
Katee's face began to glow as her smile spread wide and fast. "I'll go get one," she said anxiously, and scampered away as quickly as her legs would carry her. It was an old routine for them, even after no more than a month. Laura would read one of the rare books remaining from their home world - she wasn't even sure where they had come from - and Katee would curl up beside her and point to the pictures. Her favorite was that of a beautiful fairy princess with wide blue eyes and long blond hair. That was where Katee had gotten her nickname. She was the Princess of the Lenna Dell, the guardian angel of sick politicians, and the only bright spot in an otherwise gloomy existence.
But for the moment she was out of the room, and Laura could let the fatigue and frustration show for just a few minutes. Billy noticed, and came over to hand her the pillows that had been shoved aside when she'd seated herself on the bed, and to hand her a small basin for when the inevitable occurred. She thanked him with another silent smile, then let him off the hook.
"If you'd like to go somewhere else," she began.
"I'll stay," he said softly. "It's the least I can do."
"Why do you say that?" she asked in confusion.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before answering. "I told you that my parents moved to Picon, but I didn't really tell you why."
"You said it was to be with your sister, and their grandchildren."
His eyes widened that she had remembered the long distant conversation, but he didn't comment. "That's true, but there was a reason they went then. Mom had just been diagnosed with cancer. She wanted what time was left with her family. In a way, I guess she got that. But if things had been different, it might be her with the treatments, and I don't think I'd want her left alone for them."
His face was so earnest, and so young, that she was reminded once more of Katee. There weren't many people in the fleet that retained any semblance of honesty or graciousness anymore. Survival was foremost, and it was every man for himself as supplies ran low and space ran lower. To see such a generous gift, even if it was just of his time, was something she hadn't expected.
"I'm so sorry about your parents," she told him gently. "They must have been amazing people, if their son is any indication."
Billy blushed a little at that, then handed her a blanket that was at the foot of the bed and took his seat back in the chair next to it. Katee would be back soon enough, and it was better if they weren't overly serious when it happened. At the very least, reading a book to the child would pass the time, and force her to keep herself together for a few hours longer.
Right then, every hour was important.
Chapter 1
Laura Roslin, President of the Colonies, was tired. That was an understatement. She was exhausted. Thankfully, in just a while she would at least be able to lay down. Still, the destination of the bed she was headed to would not make matters better.
But she was damn glad there was a place to go. The Lenna Dell was a fine ship, such as she was, and was probably the only thing keeping Laura alive. Once a research vessel from Caprica, it had been a legal solution to the outright ban of networking within the medical community. Scientists hadn't been allowed to accumulate their information on a network, compiling research and cross-referencing findings, so ships had been designed for that purpose. Central locations for research and pharmaceutical development, they had been home to some of the greatest minds of the planet in the areas of medicine and drug therapy.
The Lenna Dell had been between locations at the beginning of the war, and had defied the order to land due to the combustible nature of many of her chemicals used for processing. She had gone into the atmosphere, and that had been what had saved her. Once Colonial One had started gathering a fleet from the miscellaneous vessels left intact, the Lenna Dell had slid right in with the rest. It hadn't been until weeks later that they had realized the true treasure they had.
As illness and disease swept the overcrowded conditions of their ships, and injuries made themselves known, the need for a central location for the medical personnel became evident. Gathering essentially every medical worker from every ship, they had been brought together and then redistributed with a more efficient understanding of what was available. The ship once more became a central location of information, only this time it was practical rather than theoretical.
It had been upon that ship that Doctor Salik had located someone with the experience and desire to treat a tenacious type of breast cancer that had been making Laura's life a living hell. She didn't want to complain; after all, she was at least alive. But that didn't make constant nausea and incessant pain following radiation any easier to manage. The part of her that was grateful that the chemicals still existed and the radiation equipment as well was not at the fore.
The treatments had been going on for over a month now, aggressively trying to destroy the tumor or at least reduce it to an operable size. The chemotherapy was literally unbearable. She passed out most times after vomiting for hours on end, but the radiation was worse. Her only saving grace was that the treatments did have breaks in between, and she had a few days to heal and recover. And, she still had her hair. It wasn't much, but with fleet depending on her for some kind of leadership, it was all she had.
Laura held her head as the transport vessel began to dock. She absolutely hated this part of the journey. She could have managed if there were no landings or takeoffs, but the launching and docking was enough to make an already unbearable nausea completely unacceptable. She closed her eyes tightly, breathing in through her nose out from between gritted teeth, and just tried not to lose what little breakfast she had choked down. She needed what little strength the food would give her, and she certainly wouldn't be able to stomach it later today.
Finally the movement around her stilled and she was able to open her eyes without the cabin spinning. She was here. The worst was over, for now.
She waited until she heard the pop of the hatch, and then tried to stand. Billy was at her side in a heartbeat, his thin arms bracing her without his ever being asked. When he'd come on as her assistant, he couldn't have expected this. She sometimes felt guilty for dragging him into this, but he never complained. He was just there; a quiet and supportive presence that was ever efficient. She couldn't manage without him. Maybe that was why she had never offered him the option to leave. Thank the Lords he had never asked.
Once she was steady he moved back to an appropriate distance. She appreciated the discretion as much as the support, and thanked him with a shaky smile. He returned it with one more genuine, and she was reminded again that she had life a lot luckier than many. She could get through this. She didn't have a choice.
"Good morning, Miss Laura."
President Roslin took a deep breath and smiled at the sunny voice that awaited her in the docking bay. "Good morning, Princess," she told the little girl. "How are you today."
"I am just fine," Katee told her with a grin. Then Laura lost her audience as Katee spotted her assistant behind her. "Mr. Billy!" he squeeled.
"Hi, Katee," he responded, obligingly picking the girl up and twirling her around him twice before setting her back down. Laura wished she had that kind of strength, even as the squeeling made her head ache.
"I'm 'posed to walk Miss Laura to the treatment room," Katee announced unnecessarily. This was not a new routine.
"Lead the way," she told her with a small hand gesture. Katee turned and took off at a skip. Billy had to take Laura's arm to help her keep up. Still, it was worth the rush. There was something clean and sweet about Katee that Laura missed in working with adults. The beauty was that Katee would always be sweet.
Perhaps it was years in the schools, but Laura had known on sight that Katee was a special little girl. It wasn't the stereotypical roundness of her face, or the flat bridge of her nose. It wasn't even the slow speech or odd shape of her eyes that had announced the most common congenital anomaly from Caprica. What had shown Laura just how special the child would be had been a simple smile, innocent and honest and pure. Laura had known then that she was in love.
What she hadn't known was what a child like that was doing on the fleet's hospital ship. While she had been pleasant enough in the girl's presence - not a trial, as she loved children and always had - she had been less polite when she'd spoken to the lead physician.
"Shouldn't she be with her parents?" Laura had asked Doctor Hucker, the ranking military physician that had taken over the command of the medical personnel.
"Most definitely," he had replied, and had then said no more.
"Well." she had prompted.
"We don't know who or where they are," he had said with a sigh. "She doesn't even know her last name. When she arrived just after the attack, she was sick and weak, so we nursed her a bit and she sprung back with the resiliency of childhood. No one seems to know where she comes from or where she belongs, so she's stayed here."
The explanation made sense, but it didn't satisfy. "She needs to be with other children," Roslin had announced, her skills as an educator coming to the front of her mind. "She needs the social and academic exposure. We need to transfer her to one of the ships that has adequate facilities to educate her."
"How many educational specialists are still alive?" the doctor had asked. "What ship would that be? Who would she stay with? The only option we found was the Kastyline, and I refuse to put her on the orphan barge. She'd be eaten alive by that group."
Laura had her own ideas about the Kastyline, the ship where they had placed most of their child care workers and their families along with the four hundred children that had been parentless following their survival of the war. It was a horrible solution, but distributing the children throughout the fleet would take time. It had been the best they could do. The ship was first priority after the Galactica for protection and supplies, and it was staffed to the best of their meager ability with teachers and as many pediatricians as they could recruit. They did their best for the children. Laura demanded that much, and the Commander hadn't argued. He too realized that the children were their future.
But the doctor was right. A disabled child would be fodder for teasing. Children never meant it, and often regretted it, but they were cruel by nature.
"How old is she?" Laura had asked softly, guessing six or seven by her size.
"We're not sure. Taking in the teeth that have come in, we'd estimate ten or so. She doesn't know her age. All she knows is that the techs here are nice to her, and she can help in small ways. It's a functional life, and it's the best we can provide.
Laura hadn't been able to argue, although the mother in her regretted the child's constant exposure to illness and suffering. The Lenna Dell was a good ship - state of the art in many ways - but the most serious of injuries were sent here, and the most ill of patients. Due to space and the difficulty of transporting people back and forth in their limited shuttles, they tended to move the doctors rather than the patients.
That had been another challenge. Getting the medical personnel in one place was beneficial for consultation and convenience, but with over forty ships to manage it wasn't always easy getting the doctors to the patients. Some of the ships had assigned physicians and techs - ships like the Galactica and the Astral Queen, where populations were large and the potential for injury and illness high - but for most of the ships there was only a tech stationed aboard, if that, and a doctor that rotated through once every week or two. Even on the Galactica, specialists only came once a week for appointments and only the rarest stayed aboard for extended treatment. It was not an ideal situation, but nothing about their ragtag survival was ideal. They did the best they could.
And yet Laura had to believe that there was a better place for this child. Exposure to cancer patients, insane patients, and critically ill patients could not be good for her. Or so she had thought.
But Katee was a resilient child, full of laughter and joy with the world around her. She brought a ray of sunshine to the dismal gray of the ship, and she could make all but the most ill of the patients smile in gratitude if nothing else. She was a walking, talking beam of light.
She was also the only thing Laura looked forward to on this damned ship. As they reached the treatment room where she would receive the day's medications, Laura sat heavily onto the narrow bed. She had done this before, repeatedly, and she still hated it. Each treatment seemed to make her weaker than the one before instead of making her better. There was much truth to the saying that often the cure was worse than the disease.
Katee fluffed her pillow and smiled, and Laura had to smile back. "What have you been doing?" she asked the child, even as Billy took his seat by the door. She had never asked him to stay for these sessions; he simply seemed to think it was part of his responsibility to her. She wished that she were strong enough to send him away, but likely she would need someone to call for a tech when it got really bad. There were times she couldn't even reach the call-button.
"I been working," she said proudly. "I got to take trays for breakfast, and I'm gonna go pick them up with Miss Kathy," she announced. Such pleasure, Laura thought, from such menial work. How much they could all learn from this child.
"That sounds fun," Laura lied.
"Do you want a food tray?" Katee asked with a furrowed brow.
"No, Princess," she replied. "My tummy hurts me when I get my shots."
Katee nodded gravely. While she had been protected from the most ill of patients, there was only so much she could be guarded when she essentially had free-roam of the ship. It was either that or imprison her, and even Laura couldn't see that as an option. The crew seemed to take care of her, each one looking out for their little princess, so Laura hadn't pushed matters with Doctor Hucker since that first encounter. It was just as well. The man had a commanding personality and was far too much like Adama for her liking. He was military, and had no tolerance for politicians. Like it or not, Laura was that. At least until they could make arrangements otherwise.
Yet to force an election would mean revealing her illness to the fleet, and that was a panic she didn't want to be responsible for. They had few enough leaders to rely on, and most took heart from her understanding nature and status as a member of the "real" council that had once existed by their election. Letting them know that she was ill - possibly even fatally ill - would undermine the fragile security that she and Adama had tried to foster.
Adama. He knew. It hadn't been possible to keep her illness from him, as he was privy to every flight in the fleet, and was personal friends with Doctor Salik, who ran the fleet Life Station. Patient confidentiality be damned, the doctor had the Commander in his office within minutes of her request for assistance with the matter. It hadn't been one of her finer moments.
To his credit, Adama had been both understanding and helpful; she had to give him that. It didn't mean that she liked his demand that she immediately begin therapy aboard the Lenna Dell. She did so under the guise of encouraging the patients and regular maintenance physicals, but her weekly visits would soon look suspicious. If all went well, another month would make the tumor operable and they could just get it over with. That had been Adama's hope. Explaining her frequent illness, however, had been done by blaming the stress of command, and she didn't like the implication. She could perform her office duties as well as anyone, regardless of how she had obtained those duties. She refused to leave the fleet to solely military leadership. The people - the regular people - deserved a voice.
So she provided that voice. She provided the diplomacy. She did her best to begin building the cabinet by appointment or election, whichever was most practical at the time. She tried to keep the civilian matters separate from the military machine, and she prayed every day that she would be able to remain healthy enough to do so.
As the technician arrived with a little bag of clear fluid, she wondered once more if maybe she was being unrealistic in planning anything at all.
"Good morning, Madame President," the tech said softly. "How are you feeling?"
"Her tummy hurts," Katee supplied.
The technician grinned. "I imagine it does. This won't help much. I can give you an injection for the nausea, though. The choice is yours."
She had taken the shot before - out of pure desperation - but it tended to knock her out for hours and leave her groggy for days. And the vomiting wasn't really stopped by the shot, but rather it was delayed. She would still throw up; better here than in her quarters where she would have to clean up the mess herself.
"No, thank you," Laura replied. "Let's just get it done."
The tech nodded, and waited while Laura unbuttoned the first few buttons of her blouse to reveal the direct line catheter they had placed at her first appointment. The drugs were far to damaging to regular veins, so this went into an arterial line. From there it went to her heart, and into every cell of her body. Now, if the damned stuff would just work, she would believe it worth the torture of the treatments.
With Katee watching avidly, the technician inserted a needle into the catheter line and begun the infusion of deadly chemicals. There was something vaguely insane about poisoning one's self to get healthy, but she was beyond caring about the irony. Instead, she looked over at the bright and sunny face surrounded by long, straight blond hair and equally straight bangs. It helped to keep herself centered on something other than the misery.
"Can I read you a book?" she asked the child.
Katee's face began to glow as her smile spread wide and fast. "I'll go get one," she said anxiously, and scampered away as quickly as her legs would carry her. It was an old routine for them, even after no more than a month. Laura would read one of the rare books remaining from their home world - she wasn't even sure where they had come from - and Katee would curl up beside her and point to the pictures. Her favorite was that of a beautiful fairy princess with wide blue eyes and long blond hair. That was where Katee had gotten her nickname. She was the Princess of the Lenna Dell, the guardian angel of sick politicians, and the only bright spot in an otherwise gloomy existence.
But for the moment she was out of the room, and Laura could let the fatigue and frustration show for just a few minutes. Billy noticed, and came over to hand her the pillows that had been shoved aside when she'd seated herself on the bed, and to hand her a small basin for when the inevitable occurred. She thanked him with another silent smile, then let him off the hook.
"If you'd like to go somewhere else," she began.
"I'll stay," he said softly. "It's the least I can do."
"Why do you say that?" she asked in confusion.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before answering. "I told you that my parents moved to Picon, but I didn't really tell you why."
"You said it was to be with your sister, and their grandchildren."
His eyes widened that she had remembered the long distant conversation, but he didn't comment. "That's true, but there was a reason they went then. Mom had just been diagnosed with cancer. She wanted what time was left with her family. In a way, I guess she got that. But if things had been different, it might be her with the treatments, and I don't think I'd want her left alone for them."
His face was so earnest, and so young, that she was reminded once more of Katee. There weren't many people in the fleet that retained any semblance of honesty or graciousness anymore. Survival was foremost, and it was every man for himself as supplies ran low and space ran lower. To see such a generous gift, even if it was just of his time, was something she hadn't expected.
"I'm so sorry about your parents," she told him gently. "They must have been amazing people, if their son is any indication."
Billy blushed a little at that, then handed her a blanket that was at the foot of the bed and took his seat back in the chair next to it. Katee would be back soon enough, and it was better if they weren't overly serious when it happened. At the very least, reading a book to the child would pass the time, and force her to keep herself together for a few hours longer.
Right then, every hour was important.