Come Hell or High Water
Chapter 1: Tides of Time
She was freezing.
The cold penetrated right through her skin to her bones where she felt her muscles tense and her heart race and her fingers grow numb as all blood rushed to keep her heart beating at a steady pace. She felt something warm brush at her skin that felt so achingly familiar to her that she reached for it, holding it tightly. Her face began to tingle as the numbness receded.
"Well, it looks like she's regained consciousness," she heard someone grumble, a man, by the deep rumble of his voice that echoed through her flesh. She whimpered and wrapped her arms around herself as he freed his arm.
"Miss, can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?"
She could only shiver as she nodded the best as she could, blinking her eyes open only to wince at the bright lights.
Someone laughed. "That's better."
A dark figure knelt down in front of her, stroking her hair softly. "Are you all right?"
"C-c-c-c-cold-d," she croaked. Her voice was sore, and each breath left a hot scar down her throat.
His hands moved to rub up and down her arms, trying to warm her with the friction. "Bones, we need some thick blankets over here."
"Do I need to remind you that you can't give orders in my Sickbay, Jim?"
The man in front of her laughed. "Don't want our lady-friend to freeze."
Someone pulled a thick comforter over her and she sighed, pulling it up to her chin. There was a whirring sound about her ear and she moved to find the source. She found herself staring into the eyes of a tall man in a blue shirt, running a small object up and down her body, taking his time.
The other man moved her head to divert her attention. "Can you tell us your name?"
There was a pause as she ran through her memory, tried to remember anything she could. Brief flashes of her life came to her before she replied. "A-a-a-mb-b-er," she stuttered.
He smiled. "It's nice to meet you Amber. I'm Captain James T. Kirk," he said. "and you're currently on my ship."
She nodded.
"She seems to be okay. She'll need to stay warm to keep off hypothermia while her body adjusts," the blue-shirted man said. Amber assumed he was a doctor. He pulled out a small instrument no longer than a pen and pressed it against the skin of her leg. She felt a small pinch before he tossed it into the trash.
"So you cured her?"
"Yeah. Wasn't too hard - it was a good thing that the cancer hadn't spread too far - missed most of her vitals."
She had a million questions rushing through her head that she was dying to ask the captain or the doctor, but the swish of the door opening prevented her from chattering out her queries.
"Keptin, Mr. Spock says he needs you the bridge," a man said, adorned in a similar golden shirt. He didn't seem to notice Amber laying there.
"I'll be right there, Mr. Chekov," Kirk said. The other nodded and exited the room. He turned to Amber and said, " here is going to take care of you. I promise we'll answer all of your questions, okay?"
She nodded and watched him disappear through the doors.
McCoy cleared his throat to attract her attention as he sat down next to her bed. She tracked him with her eyes, feeling the heat build up again within her, thawing out her organs before welling up to seep through her pores. She sighed, feeling far more comfortable than before as McCoy studied her.
He leaned back and began, "So Amber, we were able to kill the cancerous cells in your body and take out the tumors without too much trouble." He paused to examine her reaction, but continued when she didn't respond. "You're clean now."
She nodded. Her eyes glazed over as her thoughts drifted off and McCoy sighed, trying to fish for a conversation starter, a way to pull more words from her blue lips. He tapped his fingers against his thigh as he watched her.
"Feeling any warmer?" he asked hesitantly. She didn't look any better in the few moments that she had been swathed in blankets. Her skin was still pale and made her look ghostly and ill. Her eyes were glazed over and blank, dull and without life. Unfamiliar with any previous dealings with survivors from old cryonics experiments, McCoy didn't know if her state was normal or if he should be concerned. He resigned to leave it to time and fate. He and his medical staff would be there to help her as much as possible, but with uncertainty. She was far from being in a stable condition.
She nodded slowly, her head moving in more of a jerk than a smooth affirmation.
McCoy groaned to himself. "I can't do this nurse crap," he muttered, standing and walking over to the wall, pressing the button of an intercom. "Nurse Chapel, report to Sick Bay."
"On my way, doctor," came the filtered voice.
In a matter of moments another woman stepped through the doors and smiled down at Amber. She had soft blonde hair and smooth skin accompanied by a pair of thin lips and blue eyes. "You called for me?" she called out.
McCoy nodded. "Yeah." He leaned over to whisper into her ear, gesturing at Amber as inconspicuously as possible. She nodded and moved to allow him to leave.
The woman took his place in the chair at her bed, still smiling maternally. "Hi Amber, I'm Christine," she said.
Amber nodded. "H-hi."
"Dr. McCoy told me about your situation. I know you must have a lot of questions," she said.
Amber nodded. "I'm confused. Where am I?"
"You're onboard the Starship Enterprise," she said.
Amber furrowed her brows. "Starship?"
Christine sighed and hesitated. "I guess we should start from the beginning," she said to herself, clearing her throat as if she had a lengthy tale to tell. "We found you floating in space, frozen in time."
"Frozen?" Amber muttered. Flashes of memories came back to her of her mother crying over her bedside, her younger brother chatting happily about his day at school, her friends leaving her notes and homework and showing her pictures of senior prom, an argument with her mother over her burial - she wanted to be buried without a coffin beneath a willow tree to let her body return to the soil, while her mom wasn't willing to let go. She had thrown her rosary away -, the doctors frantically working over her body before she fell out of touch with reality.
She gasped. "She did it," she whispered.
Christine was confused. "Who did what, sweetie?"
"My mother," Amber continued. "She didn't bury me like I told her to." She felt tears well up behind her eyes but chocked them back. She could cry when all others had left her, when she was left to be watched by the silence and the whiteness of the four walls surrounding her.
Christine patted her hand and said, "I'm sorry."
"So that means," Amber trailed off, trying to think through the headache that the pain of being forgotten by all that she had known had brought. "That means that I'm in the future."
Christine nodded slowly.
"What year is it?"
"2259."
A chill ran through Amber and she froze, the cold slowly leaving her having nothing to do with it.
She was nearly two hundred fifty years in the future...
The bridge was buzzing with activity as the Enterprise sped forward at Warp 1, hurdling past stars. Sulu and Chekov were busy at their stations while Lieutenant Uhura handed her report on the condition of the rescued Vulcans to McCoy.
"Thanks," he said, scrolling through the dossier. He groaned at the number of names present before running a hand through his hair.
"Having trouble, Bones?" Kirk said, swirling around in his captain's chair.
McCoy rolled his eyes. "It's all these damn Vulcans."
"Statistically, the damage to the survivors could have been dramatically worse," Spock said, not taking his eyes from the screen in front of him. "We are incredibly fortunate to have a limited number of casualties."
"Speaking of survivors, how is our little ice princess?" Kirk said, smirking. "She talking yet?"
"Nurse Chapel is talking to her now. There's no way in hell I'm going to be able to coddle information out of her," McCoy replied.
"So she's alive?" Sulu asked from the helm.
"That's correct. Her name's Amber and she's now cancer free," Kirk said.
"Fascinating," Spock said. "I was not aware that the subjects of cryonic experiments still existed in revivable conditions."
Chekov turned around confused. "Cryonics? Has something happened?" he asked.
Kirk chuckled to himself. "You didn't notice her?" he began. "We picked up a young girl in a Cryonics chamber who had died of cancer. Bones was able to reboot her again and she's resting in Sickbay right now."
"Quite calmly, too, might I add, so I don't want anyone disturbing her for awhile. She's going to need to come to terms mentally with where and when she is," McCoy warned.
The bridge, excluding Kirk who smiled, nodded in understanding, though curiosity was present on nearly every face, professionally or otherwise. Kirk, blatantly obvious about the fact that he would be in there with her in a matter of hours, was the furthest from professional of the bunch. There was no denying that she was far from unattractive, though he knew that she could never match the beauty of some of the women he had known, but there was something different about her, something delicate and fragile, old-fashioned and docile, a trait he had never seen before.
Spock held nothing but Vulcan fascination. To converse with such a person, stuck in time for centuries, would be a great intrigue. Her own first-hand account of how history had played out, how science had grown and expanded, how technology had become more and more advanced would be invaluable. No one else would ever have the same opportunity.
There was no denying that Uhura was hoping Amber would be able to provide some girl talk, the one thing that the Enterprise severely lacked, though Nyota loved her work. She wondered how the social life of a teenager had changed over the years. Textbooks could only provide so much information, but to hear from someone who had grown up in it and lived it would be so much better. Had she graduated from her high school? Was she going to college? What was her favorite music? Did she have a boyfriend?
She turned to the young navigator at the helm and caught Sulu's eye, who smirked and jerked his head towards his friend with a knowing look. She nodded.
If Amber and Chekov were about the same age...
She had a strong feeling that there would be many playing for the title of matchmaker in the coming weeks.
The Sickbay was dark and quiet as Amber sat up in her bed, rubbing her hands over her arms. It was a habit she had developed to combat her panic disorder that she had gratefully grown out of, but the motion still calmed her when she was stressed or scared, though these feelings had escaped her as well in the past years of her life. Even if her last years were still hazy, there was a spark of confidence coming back to her as memory after memory returned to her, as if she was relearning who she was.
She sighed and rested her head in her knees, looking out the window into deep space. It was a calming sight that she would never have seen in her own time, especially with talks about shutting the space program down. She thought it was real loss when there was so much to know about their planet, their galaxy, their universe. She didn't have the mind for it and would never dream of studying space and physics professionally, but just knowing that it wasn't so foreign anymore would have been wonderful.
The others in the beds around her were fast asleep and covered in gauze and bandages. She hadn't caught a glimpse of anything more than their backs. They hadn't moved once from their injuries. Amber wondered what had injured so many people to this extent, hoping that it was simply an abnormality.
She sighed, her throat sore and hoarse. Reaching over to her bedside she tapped the intercom twice, signalling for the doctor as he had told her to do. Within minutes he walked into the room wide awake with his PADD at his side. She was fascinated by the PADDs that she had seen everyone carrying around. It was comforting to know that technology hadn't knocked her too far back - if they were anything like an iPad, she could manage. He finished typing something before meeting her eyes.
"Something wrong?" he asked.
"May I have a glass of water please?"
He nodded and smiled to himself, walking around the bay to his office. "You're gonna creep me out if you stay this polite," he said, returning with an ice cold glass of clear water.
She took it from him gratefully, sipping it slowly. "Habit," she said. She grew silent, returning to the window. McCoy noticed her gaze and sat down next to her.
"It must be strange," he began. "The world's changed."
She shrugged. "I guess. I just wonder if the people have changed as well," she said.
He raised an eyebrow at her statement but didn't question her further. She took another sip from her cup and turned to McCoy, opening and closing her mouth as if she wanted to say something. She stopped after a few tries, laughing weakly to herself. "I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name."
He smirked. "McCoy, Leonard McCoy. But you don't need to worry about my name. Jim is the one that's gonna go ballistic if you don't remember him," he said.
She nodded and a glazed look came over her face as she tried to match the name with a face. So many people had spoken to her that she couldn't remember them.
"I'll point him out next time he comes by," he assured her, patting her on the shoulder.
She nodded. "Thank you."
A glance at the clock on the wall had McCoy standing and turning to the door. "It's late. You need your sleep," he said.
"I've been sleeping for over two hundred years. I think I'm okay for a night," she said with a small smile.
He chuckled but nodded nevertheless. "I suppose. But I better see you in bed by morning," he ordered.
She nodded. "I promise." She watched McCoy open the door to leave and disappear down the hall and deeper into the darkness of the ship.
Amber couldn't tell when morning came and felt slightly stupid as she waited for the sun to rise outside the window. It took her nearly an hour to realize that there would be no sun, then another ten minutes beating herself up for her stupidity. She didn't even notice the lights as they grew brighter. The process was slow and at a steady pace. She didn't recognize the change until she noticed she could read sign above the door clearly.
She reclined to her back, rolling over to her side to try and fall asleep, but her mind wouldn't settle, wouldn't rest. She didn't hear the door open or the man sit in the chair beside her bed until he was smiling at her and patting her cheek happily.
"How are you doing today? Bones ready to let you go yet?" he asked.
She blinked, at a loss for words. Who was he? His face was familiar. However, she liked the think that she would remember someone named Bones. She raised an eyebrow.
"What did I tell you about harassing my patients, Jim?" Amber sighed in relief when McCoy stepped in followed by a much younger man with flawless pale skin, his hands clasped behind his back at attention.
She looked to Jim, recalling him introducing himself to her earlier the previous day. He was smirking rebelliously. "I was only trying to start a conversation," he defended.
"Yeah, right," McCoy took his place with his guest on the opposite side of the bed as Amber moved to sit up again. "Amber, this is our Science Officer, Mr. Spock," he introduced.
Spock bowed his head in greeting. "I hope you are feeling well," he greeted.
Amber nodded and replied, "A lot better now that I don't have tumors growing inside my organs." She didn't hear what he said next as she examined his eyebrows, curiously slanted upwards on his face, and his ears, pointed at the tips much like an elf's. She briefly entertained the thought that he might not be human. It was plausible. If mankind had gained the knowledge to travel in space, there was a high chance that intelligent life had made contact. She wondered where the days had gone when meeting an alien would have shocked her or caused her to doubt her sanity.
"...and the Captain has requested that you join the crew for lunch," Spock concluded.
Amber shook her head and regained her focus. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" she asked.
Jim laughed and stood, stretching out his back. "Let's just get it out of the way," he told Spock, who raised an eyebrow before nodding. Jim sat down on the bed next to her feet and said, "Spock isn't exactly human, as I'm sure you noticed," gesturing to his officer.
Amber nodded. "I did. I was merely curious," she said, looking away embarrassed.
"Quite understandable," Spock said. She could have sworn she heard McCoy mutter, "First she's over polite, now she sounds like a Vulcan."
"As I was saying," Spock repeated. "As long as permits it, Starfleet regulation states that we must investigate and record your circumstance for arriving on the Enterprise. A large number of refugees have taken quarters here, so you will not be returned to Earth for some time until they are relocated. A room has been prepared for you in the meantime and our libraries are at your disposal should you wish to learn about all that you have missed. The crew has also expressed a...tremendous interest in meeting you, and I expect they are preparing a welcome for you in the Mess Hall for today. Attendance is voluntary," he concluded.
Jim laughed. "No it's not. I'm ordering you to get down there for a decent meal."
McCoy shook his head in defeat when Amber looked over to him. "Well, I don't see a pressing reason for you not to go," he began.
"But," Jim said for him.
"But the minute something isn't right I better see you back here."
Amber smiled and nodded. "Yes, sir," she said.
Kirk got to his feet and quickly said, "Well, I guess I should talk to a certain seamstress to get you something to wear," before walking out of Sickbay.
Spock sighed. "I assume that means you will taking leave of the Medical Ward?"
Amber looked up at McCoy with large, glistening eyes. He sighed and nodded. "Get out of my sight, you rascal," he said, ruffling her hair as she sat on the edge of her bed, testing her feet for the first time. She let go of the mattress and would have fallen straight to the floor if McCoy hadn't caught her by the elbows.
"I take that back - you can leave after you can walk."
After minimal physical therapy to get her muscles working normally and offers from Kirk to assist her as she washed up and changed, Amber managed to get her legs to move her around at a decent proficiency. Unexpected steps tripped her and running was obviously out of the question, but McCoy had released her for lunch, so she soon found herself wearing a blue dress with the Starfleet Insignia on the breast as she towel-dried her long hair. She met Kirk at the door as she quickly pulled her hair into a wet bun at the base of her neck. She tried to keep a few stray pieces from falling into her face, but gave up when there was no sign of her hair behaving.
"Why don't you take a break, Bones? You've been working non-stop since Nero died," Kirk said.
McCoy scoffed. "Without me this entire ship would be dead within a week."
Kirk opened his mouth to retort but paused and thought better of it. "Fair enough," he agreed, letting the door slid shut behind him as he ushered Amber down the hallway, happy to have her all to himself.
"So, Amber," he began. "Tell me about yourself."
She hesitated before answering, watching crewmen hustled about. "What would you like to know, Captain?"
He laughed. "No need to be so formal. Call me Jim," he said, letting his arm wrap around her shoulders. "And I would like to know everything there is to know about you."
She smirked and shook her head at his flirtatious antics. "I have a feeling I'm going to be repeating this a lot, so why don't we wait until that investigation was talking about before I give my life story?"
Kirk smiled. "Sounds like a plan."
He stepped aside and let her enter the Mess Hall first. Amber looked around at everyone with curiosity and a growing smile. Hundreds of crew were sitting and eating their meals, wearing shirts of red, blue, and gold as they conversed happily to each other. It seemed that all boundaries and formalities fell while they ate, for she couldn't differentiate between commanders and their subordinates. It felt comfortable and cheerful in the large room and Amber was almost distracted from the change in years.
She let Kirk take her by the hand and drag her to a table at the edge of the hall where a group of Starfleet personnel was seated. They turned and watched Kirk pull a chair out for her in-between a dark-skinned woman in red and an Asian man with dark hair in yellow.
"Everyone, may I introduce Miss Amber Young," Kirk said, standing behind her. Amber watched many of their faces light up with a smile and she had the utmost certainty that Jim had been talking about her to his crew.
He leaned down and asked her what she'd like to eat.
"Really, I can get my own food," she said.
He held up a hand to her protests. "I insist. You are my guest. What can I get for you?"
She sighed and rolled her eyes with the woman sitting on her right. "I don't know, a turkey sandwich?" she suggested. He was gone instantaneously with her order before she could change her mind.
Amber turned to the woman and asked, "Is he always so...enthusiastic?"
She laughed. "All the time," she replied.
"Having a pretty young lass like yourself aboard doesn't help, either," a man said across from her. She smiled at his Scottish accent. He reached across the table to shake her hand. "Name's Montgomery Scott. It's a pleasure."
She nodded. "Likewise," she said, taking his hand.
Scott's introduction opened a floodgate of hands in her face as they all followed suite, introducing themselves one after the other. Amber knew that she wouldn't remember all the names being thrown at her, much less match them to the correct face.
"Nyota Uhura," the woman greeted, pushing the people off of her that had leaned over from the opposite edge of the table to try and join in on the conversation.
"Hikaru Sulu, pilot," the Asian man said.
She nodded to Spock as he approached the table and sat down on the other side of Uhura and he returned her greeting.
"And this is our First Officer -" Uhura began.
"We've met," Amber said. " is the one that invited me to lunch."
They turned to him in surprise. "Spock invited you?" Scott asked in disbelief.
"I was simply passing along the message," he assured.
Amber turned to Scott and said, "I couldn't help but notice your accent."
He laughed. "I'd be surprised if you didn't."
"You're Scottish?" she asked.
He nodded. "Right you are, lassie."
"Have you been to the Edinburgh Vaults?" she couldn't help but ask, a light flickering on in her eyes.
He laughed. "Have I been to the vaults," he mocked. "You bet your pretty head I have. It's a national landmark!"
"Really? Is it actually haunted?"
He took a bite out of his sandwich and leaned forward as he continued: "I can't tell you that for sure, but there have been some strange things happening down there. Why, once my cousin Edna was down in the vaults and she swears she was attacked by a spirit! Although, not much has ever happened to me."
"Not scaring her with another ghost story, are you Scotty?" Kirk said as he returned with the food. She thanked him as he set down a plate in front of her with a large turkey sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes sticking out of the side.
Amber smiled and opened her sandwich, taking the tomatoes out. "He's just humoring my historical curiosity," she said, taking a small bite out of one end. "I'd love to see the vaults," she continued, returning her attention to the Scottish man in front of her. "but circumstances in my time prevented me from doing most of what I wanted to."
They grew quiet and it took the captain's spirit to inject cheerfulness in the anxious atmosphere. "Well, if you want foreign, you should talk to Chekov. Where'd he go anyway?"
"We couldn't all leave the bridge at once," Sulu said. "He offered to stay behind."
"Chekov?" Amber questioned.
"Ensign Chekov is our navigator," Spock said.
"He's Russian and he'll be more than glad to tell you everything there is to know about Russia," Kirk said.
Sulu chuckled to himself. "Oh yeah."
"Really?" Amber said, not quite picking up on the joke.
"I'll take you to meet him after we're done here," Uhura promised.
"I don't think so," a new voice said. Amber turned to smile up at McCoy as he stood behind her chair. "I need my patient back in Medical when she's done. We have unfinished business," he said, giving her a pointed look that told her to hurry.
She nodded and took the last few bites of her sandwich before standing, maneuvering around her chair. "I'll take a rain check on that, Nyota," she said, before following McCoy out of the hall.
Nyota waved good bye to her.
The door hissed closed behind Amber and Kirk immediately shook his head, smirking at the woman next to himm. "It's not going to work," he said.
Uhura met Sulu's eyes mischievously. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Title Reference: "Tides of Time" by Epica