A raincheck from reason

He sighed as the door chimed. I was just after 2pm. He took a deep breath as he stepped towards the door. He hoped it was her and not them. They'd been turning up at irregular intervals since the evening before, including throughout the night. The door would chime and he'd find a note. Hate mail, accusing him of the vilest of atrocities. She smiled sweetly as his door opened, her huge bag over one shoulder and Nefren cradled in a fabric sling on her chest. She was dressed as she always was in loose fitting, muted colours that suited her complexion. The only difference was her long hair was in a knot, rather than braided into a plait as she usually seemed to wear it.

"Um sorry…I… Can I t…take a raincheck?" he asked.

Her face fell, clearly she was disappointed. "Of course, no problem." she replied. "I hope you're okay?" she added looking concerned.

He wasn't okay. He was about as diametrically opposed from okay as he could get. He rubbed the back of his head. "I'm just…there's a communique I need to deal with." he lied. The fact was the torture had followed him from the Enterprise, and he really didn't think he could take any more and the last thing he wanted was for her to be tainted by her association with him. But he could never tell her that.

"Oh. Well. I have some studying to do so I won't get bored or anything." she forced a smile and he was surprised he could tell it wasn't genuine. She normally seemed so self-assured. "Maybe another day?" she suggested.

"Count on it." It was his turn to fake a smile this time and he watched as she walked away. He sighed deeply and returned to the terminal and the stack of offensive notes beside it in a pile. It wouldn't take long to finish the amendments to the system that he needed to do. There were two ways to accomplish his task in hand. Turn of the safety protocols on the replicator, which would flag up on the control panel in engineering. Not necessarily a problem, but he needed time for his plan to work, uninterrupted by a theoretical busybody Engineer. The other option was to change his species in the ships manifest. Something that would cause confusion should he wind up in Sickbay, but otherwise unlikely to be noticed until it was too late.

He walked over to the replicator, then paused and went back to the terminal and sent a delayed intra-ship memo to the CMO. The last thing he wanted was for her to find him. He'd already left other letters on file. One to his father, one to Counsellor Troi and one to Taryn thanking her for her friendship however brief and apologising for not coming with her to the arboretum. He had wanted to, more than he could say. He walked calmly across the room and made his order at the replicator. He took the delicate cup and sat on the corner of the bed. He stared into the cup for a moment before raising it to his lips and downing it in one.

The Klingon tea burned as it slid down his throat. A heat that intensified with every passing seconds as he choked and writhed, convulsing on the bed, froth emerging from his nose and lips that seared acid hot against his flesh. His pulse thumped in his ears, an echo of his heart that beat hard in his chest. So hard he felt and began to wish it would explode as the agony grew. His vision grew red, a redout, something he'd only experienced under g-force during gravity training at the Academy. The sudden realisation his blood pressure was driving too much blood to his brain was his last rational thought.

"Barclay? Reg?! Come on pal." the words echoed through the darkness as he felt someone slap his cheek to rouse him. "Open your eyes? Let's see those peepers?" He blinked and saw four faces peering at him. "Hey pal. Welcome back!"

Reg struggled to focus his eyes. He could make out two men and two women working on him, cutting him out of his clothing. Three were in blue uniforms, medical staff he assumed and the fourth, he realised with alarm, was Taryn. "Wait don't." he protested feebly, his throat hoarse and stripped as she used a cutter on his trouser leg towards his groin.

"Shut it you prat." Taryn snapped. "Serves you right if I nick your balls. Do you have any idea how stupid what you just did is?" He began to croak. "Don't answer that. Your throat is all fucked up. Just shut up and listen." she chided. "I'm on your side. You have friends on the Enterprise and how do you thank us? You selfish prick! How do you think your Dad would feel if you died?" He struggled to cover his modesty as she continued to remove his clothes. "You're covered in acidic puke, you idiot. I have five brothers and I help nurse my Grandad, I've seen a cock before!" Reg was about to point out she'd never seen his when she whipped off his cut underwear and covered him with a sheet so fast he doubted even Data could've got an eyeful.

"That really isn't a recommended way to speak to a suicidal patient." one of the men warned her in a Scottish accent.

"This is Counsellor Duncan Fraser, Dr Houghton and Nurse Merrell. Fortunately, they're too professional to refuse to treat you whatever atrocities the rumour mill says you've done." Taryn added.

One of them, the man who wasn't Scottish and was standing over his head, clicked his fingers in front of his eyes and Reg looked up at him. "Open wide for me, that's it." he stated as he inserted a device in his mouth and down his throat. "This may pinch a little." Reg bucked as he activated the device, in agony but unable to scream. The other's held him down as he convulsed. "All done." he said brightly and removed the probe. "That's your stomach contents vapourised. You may feel nauseous, but to be frank that's the least of your worries."

"How did you know?" Reg whispered hoarsely.

"One of the idiots on board warned me to keep Nefren away from you. In case you cook and eat him." Taryn rolled her eyes. "I came straight back to check on you and called for assistance when you didn't answer the door."

"Where am I?" he asked barely audibly, it certainly wasn't Sickbay.

"Your quarters." The nurse replied tersely as she worked. "Some of our 'colleagues' didn't want you in Sickbay." She added. "In case you tried to sneak into the mortuary and give the cadavers oral sex. I want them all on report by the way Heath."

"No shit. You and me both Kit. I'll be having words with Jonesy as soon as we're done, his day off or not. You won't be deep-throating anything for a while pal, living or dead and eating ain't gonna be a barrel of laughs either." Dr Houghton smirked and gave him a hypospray to the neck. "Incidentally, you're going to be fine. But you'll ache like a son of a bitch for the foreseeable. You're lucky to be alive, you rolled face down and barfed. The worst of it came up and you managed not to aspirate any but you're covered in acid burns."

"It wasn't supposed to work like that." Reg croaked.

"Yeah, for some reason you had a weird enzymatic reaction. It turned your saliva to acid. Klingon Tea, that evil shit should be outlawed." Houghton stated as he scanned him. "Do you need something for the pain?"

"I…I have a…an addictive history…"

"Duncan?" Heath Houghton looked over to his colleague who shook his head to indicate he didn't know. "What was your poison?"

"He's a recovering holo-addict." Taryn replied.

"Nothing chemical?" Heath asked Reg to confirm and he shook his head, wincing at the pain it induced in his face and throat. "That's important to know. I won't give you anything that commonly forms a psychological addiction as well as a physical one." He patted Reg's shoulder. "You should have mentioned that when you checked in on arrival you know?"

"I'll get some Hiparantol from Sickbay." Kit stated.

Houghton nodded. "And some Preternoidol and Berantin." he requested as she disappeared from view. "Another dermal regenerator too. We can get this done quicker if you handle the more superficial burns. AND HIS NOTES!" he bellowed after her.

"Given how everyone's behaving can you blame him for not saying?" Taryn defended as she changed the soiled bedding around him and Houghton treated his burns. "None of it's true. He struggled to adjust to a new ship and didn't fit in so he created a world where he did. These rumours are all malicious, my friend Rick from the JAG office has been looking into it. He called yesterday after we got back from the Arboretum." she told Reg. "I was going to talk to you about it today. He's not sure if it will help anything yet, but he's been in touch with your friends on the Enterprise. I meant what I said earlier, you have people in your corner, you didn't need to do this." He felt her push a bunch of gathered sheets under his back and watched her walk to the other side of the bed. "Can you roll over?" He co-operated as she turned him with Duncan's help and pulled the clean sheet straight under him. "There we are." She gathered the soiled bedding and clothing careful not to touch anything nasty and dumped them in the recycler.

"He's going to need to be on suicide watch." Duncan recommended in a whisper to Taryn as he resumed handing instruments to Heath. "I can see he felt persecuted and the situation was hopeless, that's understandable given all the notes we found. Whether he'll try again or not?" There was a pause. "Either way we need to protect him from the abuse so he doesn't feel this vulnerable again."

"We could move him to my quarters. At least the hate mail should stop for a while and I'll keep vigil. I sleep like a Vulcan." Taryn added.

"So that's how you look so fresh and alert even though you have a newborn." Duncan told her.

"You don't need to do that." Reg croaked and reached out to Taryn, "There's…enough on your plate."

"Don't be a prat." Taryn replied and took his hand in both of hers. They felt warm against his skin, but far from as delicate as they appeared. They were strong, calloused although not unpleasantly so. These weren't hands that plucked the odd rose, did needlepoint and little more, the hands of a Princess. These were hands that worked, an Engineer's hands but they were well cared for. Her cuticles were smooth, as were her manicured but short, strong nails. He'd heard Orion females had nails like talons under all the polish and he wondered briefly if her strong hands were a genetic trait. He'd always liked Counsellor Troi's hands, but to be honest, Dr Crusher's healing hands that touched demonstratively and were far less cultivated fascinated him more. He suddenly realised he was thinking about the real women, rather than the versions he had created and this surprised him. Even after all the counselling sessions, even though he had deleted most of them, his holo-deck creations had continued to feel more real to him than most people in the real world.

The hands holding his now felt very real. They belonged to someone who was quite possibly the realist person he had ever met and he held on to her as though she were a lifeline.

"I need to be somewhere, but call me if you need me." Duncan told them. "I'll speak with you soon Reg." he patted his arm before leaving the room.

Kit returned and handed Houghton a padd before she began setting up hypos. "This may knock you out for a while. Extreme drowsiness is a common side-effect but you won't end up hooked." Heath assured him as he pressed one to his neck. "Don't worry, we've got you. We'll take good care of you."

"Thank you Doctor." Reg croaked.

"Try not to talk and everyone calls me Heath." he grinned. "Between you and me it's short for Heathcliff but don't spread that around. Mom was a Bronte fan." he admitted as he carried on working.

"You kept that quiet. And I thought Kitten was a crappy name!" Nurse Merrell laughed as she powered up a dermal regenerator. "It could have been worse though, my sister is Bunny."

"Kits a cool name." Houghton told her. "Do you prefer Reg or Reginald?" Reg rocked his free hand to show he wasn't bothered. "It's quite a noble name. Do you like it?" Reg gave a thumbs down. "From your notes you're number three. Changing it would cause a shit storm I bet. I also see you're a Klingon apparently, you crafty bastard. So that's how you got hold of Klingon tea." He picked up another hypo and used it. "This will help with tissue regeneration, especially mucous membranes that we can't reach easily like your gastric tract. It's red raw down to your stomach but fortunately it's all still intact." He looked over at Taryn. "Taryn's an unusual name. Orion?" he asked.

"Welsh." Taryn replied. "My father is a Welshman. We all have Welsh first names."

"What does it mean?" Heath asked. "Pretty much anything is better than a field with a sharp drop."

She giggled at that and Reg felt a pang of jealousy at how easily the medic was making small talk with her. "Thunder, it's actually a boy's name traditionally."

"It suits you." Heath told her. "I heard you were from a large brood. Come on, let's have the roll call?"

"Geoffrey is the eldest, then there's Haydn, Cadfael, me, my twin brother Emlyn, My sister Tegan, Aneurin, then my baby sister Bronwyn. And now there's Nefren, but he's from my biological mother's side. As far as we know he's the only one but with her… who knows." She began to stroke the back of Reg's hand gently. It felt nice and his eyelid's began to grow heavy. He felt himself sinking into the sheets. Sheets she'd changed for him. She really was an angel.

"Your twin green too?" Heath asked with interest as he resumed work repairing his lesions and he could feel Kit working on his shin.

"No, he looks Vulcan, except more cheerful. The rest of my siblings are fully human."

"What did your step-mom think when your Dad rocked up with hybrid twins?" Kit asked.

"He was between wives. His first wife died having Cadfael. Our Egg-donor took advantage of him while he was still grieving."

"She sounds like a piece of work." Heath said sympathetically. "I read your little guy's notes, it's appalling the start he's had..." Their words started to blur, as though they were part of a dream as Reg drifted off to sleep.