Title: A Time of Need

Author: SabaceanBabe

Rating: PG

Word count: ~500

Summary: It didn't matter who started it or what was what, Cottle had work to do…

Author's note: Unbetaed, written for Jack Raby at Across the Salt as a thank you gift. All he wanted was "something from 4.5."

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"What in the everlovin' frak is that?" Cottle didn't bother to remove the cigarette from his mouth or even to look away from the broken arm he was setting. The boy's mother had brought him in an hour earlier, frantic, her panic causing the boy – couldn't be more than eight years old – to panic. It had taken that long to calm them both down so the arm could be set and Cottle wasn't about to stop now.

There was another burst of sharp sound outside sickbay, and this time he did look over his shoulder, shouted, "Ishay! What the hell is going on out there?" He noticed the boy stared at him, his eyes wide, so the rest of what the doctor was going to say was muttered under his breath. "Damned idiots need to settle down. I'm trying to work in here."

"Oh, Gods." Ishay sounded shocked. "Oh, dear Gods." No. Make that frightened.

Cottle slapped the last plaster-soaked strip onto the boy's arm more hastily than he would've liked, but it wasn't too far from the mark. "What's your name, boy?"

"Elliott, sir," the boy whispered, and then flinched as another gunshot sounded, just outside the hatch. It was then that Cottle realized the rest of what he'd heard were also gunshots and possibly a percussion grenade, which was absolutely stupid aboard a ship in space.

He took the half-consumed cigarette from his mouth and stubbed it out on the metal tray, next to the tub of thin, wet plaster. "Elliott, you go find your mother and you take her to the back of sickbay. Can you do that for me? I don't want either of you to leave, just yet."

"Yes, sir." Plainly terrified, Elliott ran to his mother and Cottle walked at a more sedate pace to where Ishay leaned beside the closed hatch. She shook visibly and about jumped out of her skin when someone pounded on the hatch from the other side, accompanied by yet more gunfire.

"Doc Cottle! We need you!" The shout was muffled by the layers of metal and insulation, but still clearly audible.

"Layne, honey," he said, forcing a gentleness into his voice that he didn't feel, "you're going to have to unlock the hatch. Whatever's going on, there're bound to be casualties."

For a moment, her expression was just like little Elliott's had been when he'd told him to go to his mother. From the corner of his eye, Cottle saw mother and son huddled on an empty bed. He looked back at Ishay, who took deep, long breaths to calm herself. She blinked at him as if seeing him for the first time in a long while. "Doctor, our own people are shooting at each other out there."

He grunted and reached for the wheel, spun the hatch open. "All the more reason to open that hatch. They need us, Layne. There's been enough death around here."