Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek.
Chapter Fifty-five:
The first thing JT noticed when he regained consciousness was whatever he had been feeling earlier when he'd passed out in the Jeffries tube had stopped for the time being. Because the truth was JT had no idea what had happened or what had caused it. He had been feeling so many different emotions all at once it had been overwhelming and painful.
The second thing he noticed was the he was no longer in the said Jeffries tube, in fact he was lying in a bed and it was much larger and softer than the bio-beds in the medical bay. The material he could feel under him was quite possible the softest thing he had ever felt and the thick, but not overly warm blanket which covered him felt like home.
Home.
He had no idea where that thought had come from. The only place he had ever considered home, was his aunt and uncle's house. The farm house back in Iowa on Earth had never been home. Home was a place of love and safety and it had certainly never been that, thanks to Frank. So why did he think it felt like home?
The third thing he noticed was he wasn't alone.
There was someone nearby.
He could hear them breathing.
Opening his eyes, JT instantly shut them again as the low light of the room sent a spike of pain through his head. He groaned at the pain as he reached up and gripped his head. It hurt so much! He was used to getting migraines, but he'd never felt a headache quite like this before.
"Easy, kid," A voice nearby spoke with a thick Florida accent.
JT instantly tensed up at the sound of the voice.
He needed to get out now.
He needed to escape now.
They thought he was a monster and that he wasn't safe. He didn't want to get thrown in the brig. He just wanted to be safe. If he didn't move, if he didn't escape, what would they do to him? Would they do what Kodos had done?
But most importantly of all, he needed to find out what they had done to the others. If they thought he was a monster, there was no telling what they'd think of the others.
"Don't worry, I ain't gonna hurt ya," The voice, which JT identified as male, spoke again.
JT's heart began to beat faster, he could feel it hammering against his ribcage. He breathing began to come out it short and fast gasps. He couldn't catch his breath. He couldn't breathe. Eyes going wide, JT began to panic.
He couldn't breathe.
The male voice let out a curse. And then suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder, causing him to flinch at the contact.
"Phlox, get in 'ere," The male voice yelled. "He's havin' a panic attack!"
A wave of light headedness passed over JT suddenly and he was sure if he hadn't already been lying down, he would have fallen backwards. The hand on his shoulder began rubbing in small circles in an attempt to calm him down, but JT was panicking too much to even really feel it.
He still couldn't breathe!
The world around him was beginning to spin, it was making him dizzy and his stomach began to roll and he was sure he was going to be sick any second. And then nothing. The world stopped spinning and the dizziness and sickness passed. He could breathe again and unlike before there was a hand on each of his shoulders.
Looking up JT found the worried faces of Chief Engineer Tucker and the Chief Medical Officer, Dr Phlox staring at him. But there was no hate or disgust in their eyes, like he had expected to see, just worry and relief.
XxX
Jon shakes his head in disbelief. "Wait here, I'll just grab something to wrap that with."
"Where could I go?" Jim calls after Jon with a grin. "In case you hadn't noticed, we're on a ship in the middle of nowhere."
"You forget, I've seen you get out of more medical examinations and treatments than there are planets in the delta quadrant," Jon answers over his shoulder. "So I know you can quite literally disappear and go anywhere!"
McCoy couldn't help but feel ill at ease as the turbo-lift doors open and he stepped out onto the bridge. Sitting in the Captain's chair was Spock, his dark hair and blue uniform looking out of place where blond and gold should have been. Even Spock looked slightly more tense than usual as he sat in the chair.
Much to McCoy's surprise, Scotty was on the bridge working away at something at the engineering station on the opposite side of the bridge to Uhura station. All the senior crew were there, having headed up to the bridge as soon as Spock had passed on the information Scotty had told him. It was a scary thought, to know another crewmember aboard the ship was working for Kodos.
To make it worse they had no idea who it was. The ship's security footage had been tampered with, so that offered no help. All the crews files had been read and approved by both Jim and Spock, so anything even slightly off about one of them would have been picked up on… And if one of them had been on Tarsus, Jim would no doubt have recognised them.
His personal file had revealed how close up he'd gotten to Kodos and his followers. He'd been captured twice whilst on the planet and been face to face with Kodos and his men more times than he should have been able to survive. And many of Kodos men and taken great pleasure in causing as much pain as possible, Jim's medical records showed that so McCoy doubted Jim would ever forget any of their faces.
Suddenly the ship rocked and alarms began sounding as the red alert began flashing. Before Spock could even open his mouth and request a damage report, the bridge was sent into almost complete darkness as the all lights switched off and everything powered down. Then just as quickly as it had happened the lights flickered back to on and everything switched back on.
"What just happened?!" McCoy demands.
"I do not know," Spock answers, turning his attention to Chekov and Sulu.
Sulu turns in his chair to face Spock, his eyes wide and slightly fearful.
"We've been locked out of the ships system's," Sulu explains. "None of the controls are working… Something has overridden and taken control of the systems."
Spock opens his mouth to replay when suddenly the screen in front of them flickers and a man's face appears. He smirks at them, causing a feeling of unease to pass through the command crew.
"My, my," The man mocks. "I expected more."
McCoy glared at the man on the screen, there was something familiar about him but for the life of him McCoy couldn't work out why.
"Identify yourself." Spock orders his shoulders visibly tensing, he had a very good idea about who this man was.
"I've gone by many names over the last few years," The man answers, the smirk never leaving his face. "But I'm most well known as Kodos, the former governor of Tarsus IV."
XxX
JT sat at the table in T'Pol and Tucker's quarters, across from him sat Elizabeth and between them was a chess board. JT was attempting to teach Elizabeth how to play chess, which was harder than he had originally imagined it would be. But Elizabeth was quickly getting the hang of the game and JT knew it wouldn't be too long until their skills in the game would be evenly matched.
Across from them Archer was watching them play, a smile gracing his face as he sipped his coffee. JT had recovered quite well from the panic attack he had earlier, Dr Phlox had explained that panic attacks could be quite common for some people who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorders.
So Archer had volunteered to keep an eye on JT whilst T'Pol had to finish her shift and a complication in engineering had forced Tucker to leave in order to go and sort it out. Dr Phlox also had work to complete and none of them had wanted to leave JT on his own, so Archers who wasn't needed on shift again until the following day had volunteered.
But Archer could tell his presence was making JT uncomfortable. JT kept glancing at him out the corner of his eye every couple of seconds, like he was scared Archer was suddenly going to attack him. He kept shifting in his seat like he was preparing himself to run at a moment's notice, whatever JT had overheard in the medical bay really had affected him.
From what T'Pol and Dr Phlox had told him, Arched believed JT had suffered from a series of flashbacks triggered by whatever had been said by the engineer in the medical bay and flashbacks had been from his time on Tarsus IV, which couldn't have been pleasant in the least.
Dr Phlox had even said this incident would most likely set back JT's recovery.
All the trust they had earned was gone.
The sense of safety JT had felt aboard the ship was gone.
Everything they had worked to achieve had been destroyed in a couple of moments and it had almost been fatal for JT. All of three of them, T'Pol, Tucker and Dr Phlox, were keeping what had happened after JT had fled between themselves. All Archer knew was that it had been serious and that if Tucker hadn't found JT when he did, JT wouldn't be sitting teaching Elizabeth how to play chess like he was now… He'd most likely be in a coma, hooked up to countless machines in the medical bay.
Even now Eleanor was still hiding from the medical staff and the other six were still barricaded in their shared room. But Archer knew as soon as Dr Phlox cleared JT as completely healthy once more, T'Pol would take JT to sort it out.
It was only Tom, who still hadn't woken up since he'd been shot in the face whilst returning to the surface of Tarsus IV, who hadn't been affected by what ever that engineer had said. And Archer didn't know whether to be thankful or not for that.
XxX
Hey, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Latent telepathic abilities was the winner. Sorry it's taken me longer than usual to update this story. I had a minor case of writers block and I've been on holiday to Spain and didn't finish writing the chapter before I left. Until next time,
Blessed be,
TreeOfLife1997.
