Two Weeks Later - 2263

"There's no way that's true!" Chris Elson shouted across the table whilst shaking his head violently.

"I'm telling you it's true, Kelly told me." Olakunle Oyesile fervently answered.

"She did not!" The dismissive wave of Chris' hand in front of his face made Olakunle laugh, leaning back he wrapped his arm round Adam's chair.

"She did! Kelly, tell him you told me!" Olakunle pleaded, Clementine Kelly shook her head at the two men.

"I told him Chris." Clementine confirmed as she picked up her food tray and pushed out her chair as she stood.

"But how do you even know?!" Chris looked at her incredulously and then continued to argue with the other two men. Olakunle gathered his own tray in his hands and stood, glancing at Kelly, instantly spotting that she was sweating and holding her chest like she couldn't breathe.

"Kelly?" He tried to get her attention. "Chris!" Chris instantly looked from Olakunle to Clementine.

"Kelly? Are you alright?" He asked gaining the attention of Adam Sailing who was also sat at the table. Putting her tray back down on the table her hands blindly tried to grab something to hold on to. Clementine felt like there wasn't enough air in the room, spots of light were dancing in front of her and she watched as the room capsized.

"Kelly!" All three men were up and hovering over her in an instant but it was Chris who was right next her.

"What the hell?!" Adam yelled, wincing when he saw that she'd caught her head on the table on the way down and was now sporting a rather nasty gash.

"She does this." Olakunle explained as he tucked his arms under her shoulders and heaved her up.

"Does what?" Adam asked giving him a hand by putting his arm round her waist.

"Pass out." Olakunle jutted his head towards Chris who being the biggest out of the lot of them took her from them and began carrying her out of the mess. Adam and Olakunle followed after, watching Clementine's head bob and swing.

"Kelly suffers from Panic disorder." Olakunle explained to Adam as they swiftly walked behind.

"Panic attacks?"

"Panic attacks that are recurrent, it's genetic, her Mother suffered from it." Adam made an 'O' with his mouth as he listened.

"That's kind of not ideal, don't you think, when you work on a Starship?" The other two men started laughing nervously at Adam's observation.

"Don't you ever let her hear you say that Sailing! You hear me?" Chris shouted over his shoulder as he walked in to the Medical bay. "Doc!" He shouted catching McCoy's attention who was stood on the other side of the bay. Chris set Clementine down on one of the beds and the three men stood around her. "She hit her head this time Doc." Chris said to McCoy who was now stood by the bed, Adam noting that from the way the CMO greeted Chris and looked at Clementine this certainly wasn't the first time they had paid him a visit.

"Alright Elson, I'll take it from here." McCoy started waving various pieces of apparatus over Clementine's head, when he noticed that Chris, Olakunle and Adam were still stood at the foot of her bed he exhaled loudly. "Will you get out of my damned medical bay, you're cluttering the place up!" He shouted at them.

"Always a pleasure Doc," Chris replied belligerently, he'd never liked the CMO's attitude. McCoy stared him down until the three men reluctantly left leaving McCoy shaking his head at Clementine who had started to come to.

"Easy now, easy." He reassured her as she blearily opened her eyes and started putting the pieces together. When she saw McCoy she knew she was in the Med bay, the sterile white ceiling and walls always a dead giveaway.

"Bloody hell!" She exclaimed exhaustively, McCoy smirked at her as he finished healing the cut on her forehead.

"Where were you?" McCoy asked her.

"In the mess." She watched him as he waved the dermal regenerator over her head a couple more times. "I hit my head?" She asked.

"You did indeed."

"Bloody hell!" Clementine closed her eyes and shook her head, it had been a few months since the last time she'd suffered an attack and she'd been actively working on stopping herself from worrying about having another. "Please don't put this in my file." She asked suddenly, looking back up at him, he caught her eye but looked away.

"You know I can't do that." He answered asking her to sit up, she tightened her jaw and waited until he'd administered whatever hyposprays he'd wanted to administer.

"Doctor McCoy, you know I can't have another incident in my file, if I do they'll take me off this ship. Look, I'm fine. I got myself to the Medical bay…" She was panicking, her hands gesturing frantically.

"The hell you did! Elson, Oyesile and some other poor soul brought you in!" McCoy gestured wildly himself.

"Sailing?" She asked throwing him off his train of thought.

"How the hell should I know and I don't even damned well care!" McCoy threw his tricorder down on the table next to him in frustration. "I'm sorry Clem but…"

"Change my medication!" She interrupted.

"I can't, you know there aren't any other medications I can offer!" He looked at her sympathetically, patting her arm softly.

"The meditation techniques are helping that Commander Spock suggested, I'll do more of that!" She could feel her throat getting tight and her eyes were stinging. She wasn't the type to show her emotions openly, so she fought against the feelings that were beginning to boil over. McCoy was still shaking his head, his arms crossed and his feet planted firmly on the floor. "I'm asking you for a favour." She whispered to him, McCoy looked into her reddened green eyes, her cheeks and nose were flushed pink and she was biting her bottom lip.

"Do you know what set it off this time?" He asked, not wanting to give her any sense of hope but not wanting to be the one who took everything away from her either. Clementine thought about his question, she knew it was coming and all she wanted to do in the world was lie right then and there. Tell him a reason that she could then tell him she could fix, make sure it didn't happen again, but the truth was she didn't know. There wasn't anything that had set her off, she'd just been sat there with her friends having a well-earned laugh after a long shift. Realising she couldn't even enjoy that tipped her over the edge, clearing her throat she stifled a sob.

She reminded herself to thank Chris, he'd been picking her up and carrying her to a medical clinic or the closest first aid kit since they'd been at the Academy together. When Chris had first started going out with Olakunle and she'd passed out in their dorm room Olakunle had wondered what the hell was going on, but Chris had quickly explained it to him and over time when Clementine did have an 'episode' they would both make sure she was all right.

"No," She answered him finally. "There wasn't anything." She knew she was signing her own death warrant but she couldn't lie to McCoy, he'd been too good to her over the years. Signing her off for active duty when the majority of CMO's wouldn't, patching her up when she'd unluckily hurt herself when suffering an attack. He'd even stayed with her when she'd suffered several attacks in one day, by the end of it she'd been exhausted, experiencing a sense of derealisation and McCoy had been the one to make her realise that her and the world around her was real.

"Clem," McCoy growled out, closing his eyes in dejection.

"I know, it's alright." Clementine smiled sadly at him trying to make him feel better. "Thanks for patching me up, I take it I'm off active duty?" She already knew the answer, McCoy nodded at her.

"I'll let you know when you can go back to work," he told her quietly while she hopped off the bed and smoothed down her blue tunic.

"Yep, I know you will." She started walking away, pulling her hair out of its long ponytail harshly as she went. It suddenly felt tight against her scalp and was giving her a headache.

"Clem!" Turning she looked back at McCoy expectantly. "I'm sorry," he didn't know what else to say.

"You don't need to be, but…" she smiled at him again. "Me too."

Clementine Kelly was one of the many Science Officers on board the Enterprise responsible for the ship's sensor readings. This was great, because it meant she could pretty much sit at a station all day and run diagnostics, write reports and analyse data.

This suited her just fine.

When she had been at the Academy her ultimate goal was to become a Senior Science Officer but her disorder had brought that nice little aspiration to a careening halt. She had fought for her place at the Academy for years, first pleading with Starfleet and then after being rejected by them, taking it up with a number of Council Members of the Federation itself. She had found an ally in Council Member Chin Kuan Ng, who argued that no member of a Federation planet should be discriminated against due to a medical disorder that was untreatable due to a ban on genetic engineering, a policy which was imposed due to the Eugenics Wars nearly three hundred years earlier. She remembered sitting in the Council Chamber, located on the first floor of the fifteen-story building in Paris called the Palais de la Concorde.

2254

"You are asking us to ignore the deaths of thirty million people Councillor!"

"I'm asking you to pay attention to one person that has no connection with thirty million dead. She's the one paying the price now!"

Later, Clementine discovered that Chin Kuan Ng was a descendant of a 'Khan', when he mentioned he'd been brought up in the Sahara Reclamation Zone, a known place of exile for descendants she'd finally put the pieces of the puzzle together. She'd heard the stories as a child from her Mother, after it was known that many of the Augments had taken normal humans as spouses and had children that were half augment and half human, these spouses and children were preyed upon by a society who would execute them for the crimes committed by the Augments themselves. Being a descendant could lead to a dishonourable discharge from Starfleet and most certainly removal from the Council so Clementine never mentioned it to him or anybody else. She was just eternally grateful that this man who had clearly had to hide who he truly was his entire life had fought so hard for her.

That's when she had decided not to fight anymore, knowing that there were people in actual physical danger due to their genetic makeup, rather than herself, who had always felt at a disadvantage because a very simple medication wasn't allowed to be made.

Perspective, that was the word that kept coming to her.

Clementine had graduated from the Academy one year before Khan's attack, in the immediate aftermath calls were made to ensure that the ban on genetic engineering would never be lifted. Investigations uncovered not only the many descendants of the 'Khan's' but an increasing number of well-meaning parents who had had their children illegally modified in the hopes of improving their lives, those investigations went as far as convicting some of those parents.

Clementine had asked her own parents if they had ever considered taking her to one of the Non-Federation planets that were free to practice genetic modification when she had been a child. They told her not only had they considered it, they had boarded a shuttle to one such planet.

"What happened?" she'd asked her Mother.

"The risks were unquantifiable but your Father had argued that not trying was worse than trying, we were sat on the shuttle and I spotted a little girl, she was… she was very ill. I knew it was because her parents had thought it was the right thing to do. It was me Clementine, I told your Father I wasn't going to do it to you. I made him take us home. After, more and more we heard about other parents who had done it and their children, given the illegal nature of the operations, had been left with defects. I knew then and there that I had made the right choice."

2260

When Doctor Puri, who had been integral in her medical clearance had been replaced with Doctor McCoy Clementine had been nervous. She hadn't known whether or not the new CMO would agree with Doctor Puri's opinion on the matter. She had known for hours prior to receiving his decision that she was going to have an attack and she'd done everything she could to prevent it. Keeping her wrists cool, going for a run, finally she sat herself on the floor of the store cupboard. It was quiet, dark and Elson knew to make sure to keep anybody else from going in.

So when McCoy had comm'd her and there had been no answer he took it upon himself to go find Lieutenant Clementine Kelly. He'd been working through a long list of Crewmembers on board who had ongoing medical conditions, chronic treatments, preventative treatments and so on. So by the time he had got to her, he was tired, angry and in desperate need of a drink. Walking in he scanned the room quickly, seeing that one station was vacant he went over and asked the man sitting adjacent where she was.

"Err, she's a little busy right now." Chris answered defensively, McCoy narrowed his eyes at him and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"Well I'm a bit busy running a damned medical bay so I'd like to know where the hell she is, now Lieutenant." McCoy spoke angrily. Chris nodded mutely and stood from his stool, walking over to the cupboard he gave the door a gentle knock.

"Kelly?" He whispered through the door, all the while McCoy watching on before striding over to stand next to Elson.

"She's in there?" He asked disbelievingly.

"Yes Sir," Elson nodded his head. "It helps to keep her calm." He explained.

"She's having an attack?"

"She's trying to prevent one."

"What set her off?" McCoy was curious, he'd only read her medical file and had never met the woman. Puri's notes were substantial but clinical. McCoy had always felt he'd taken a more instinctual approach to his Patients, what worked for one didn't for another and so on.

"You Sir." Elson answered, realisation dawned on McCoy and he uncharacteristically blushed from embarrassment.

"I see, well. If you could give me a minute." It wasn't a request and he stared pointedly at Elson who eventually nodded and walked away back to his station where he kept an eye on what was going on. The man might have been a Doctor but he knew what was best for his friend.

"Lieutenant Kelly?" McCoy knocked on the door and waited. "Lieutenant Kelly, it's Doctor McCoy, open the door please." His patience was waning, he had things to do. "Lieutenant Kelly," the door opened and the very pale face of Clementine Kelly looked back at him, a grimace of a smile plastered on her face.

"Doctor McCoy," she greeted him even though he could see the perspiration on her temple and the fact that her hands were trembling.

"You're having an attack now?" he asked, his primary concern in that moment being her wellbeing.

"Yes, it's mild." She answered as she concentrated on her breathing.

"You know what works for you?" He said as he watched her squeeze her hands together and close her eyes, as always focussing on her breathing. "Do you want me to take to you to the medical bay?"

"No, it's going but I could do with knowing whether you're kicking me off this ship? Sir." McCoy waited while she blew out some last large breaths and opened her eyes, looking at him as if he was a buoy out at sea. His hand went automatically to her wrist and she brought it up towards him, knowing that he was checking her pulse.

"It's calming down," Clementine nodded her head and tried to stop herself from rolling her eyes at the fact that he was stating the obvious. His brown eyes watched her green intently until finally he knew that she had pulled herself back and quite frankly, he was impressed. He had already made his decision about her active duty status before he'd gone to see her but now he was pretty sure she should remain on board. "Doctor McCoy, I'm Clementine Kelly." Holding her hand out towards him McCoy took it and they shook hands confidently.

"Lieutenant Kelly, I wanted to let you know I've extended your active duty status…" the beaming smile she gave him nearly melted his hardened heart, nearly.

"Really?" she asked incredulously.

"It's what I said isn't it?" McCoy answered gruffly as she all but jumped up and down in the store cupboard, her long ponytail bouncing up and down behind her.

"Thank you so much Doctor McCoy, you won't regret it, I promise. I can handle it, have been handling it, it was just that today, knowing you were making the decision. Well, it was a lot!" He found her excitement infectious and fought the urge to smile back.

"I want you to check in on regular intervals Lieutenant, you hear me? And any changes to your routine, however small you come tell me. If I ever hear of you being in a priority one environment and something happens you'll be gone quicker than a cat on a hot tin roof." She agreed with his terms and then thanked him again before he turned and left, not before hearing her shout to her fellow Officers.

"See I told you! You can't get rid of me that easily!"