A/N: Thank you SnidgetHex and pallysAramisRios for reviewing!

Chapter 8

Agnes kept biting at her thumb anxiously as Emil studied the data from the Romulan base. She wanted to help, but her grasp of organic medicine didn't extend to exotic toxins the Romulans had cooked up in a lab.

Cris was sitting on the floor in the back of the alcove, mostly hidden behind the bio bed. He'd stopped talking to them when it became clear they weren't going to let him out, and Raffi had stopped trying to reason with him. Seven had been right; you couldn't logic away brainwashing.

Raffi went over to the alcove. "Are you hungry?" she asked. "You haven't had anything to eat or drink in a while."

"I don't trust anything this ship could replicate," he replied blandly. "Not while the synths are in control."

"I'm in control right now," Raffi responded.

"So you think." He got off the floor and moved forward to engage them again. "We've all been pawns. Picard used you to get to me. Full circle, they must have figured," he said with a bitter snort. "Make a nice little PTSD reunion."

Agnes's heart constricted each time a twisted version of the truth came out.

"How long before Vandermeer comes for you?" Raffi pressed. "It's been a while. Surely he knows things didn't go to plan by now."

"He'll come," Cris said staunchly.

"But he hasn't," Raffi insisted. "Because he was just a figment used to twist you around."

Cris scowled and went back to sit on the floor in a huff, away from them all.

Raffi sighed.

Picard walked by the door and paused to catch their attention but didn't come inside. He was keeping his distance so as not to get Cris worked up again, so Agnes and Raffi went out to talk with him.

"How's it going?" he asked.

Raffi shook her head gravely. "Nothing's been able to get through to him. I don't know, JL, they really did a number on him. Maybe the more time that goes by and the worst he's expecting doesn't happen, he might start to question things."

"That could take a very long time," Agnes said soberly.

"And the longer we keep him prisoner in the medical bay, the harder it will be to regain his trust," Picard added.

"Basically we're screwed," Raffi said.

Agnes wrapped her arms around herself, despair eating away at her.

Emil came out. "I have something."

Raffi quirked an eyebrow at him. "You don't look encouraged."

The EMH nodded sagely. "It's something we should discuss."

Agnes wasn't sure she liked the sound of that.

Raffi activated the internal comm and called everyone to come down to the mess. Once they were gathered, Emil stood there and gave his news.

"I've studied the data from the Romulans," he began. "And I believe I've developed a counter agent to weaken those neural connections that were formed as a result of the brainwashing."

"That's great," Soji said enthusiastically.

"It's risky," he quickly added. "Altering brain chemistry isn't an exact science. It took the Romulans two days of dosage adjustments and tests before they felt confident in initiating the next phase of their reprogramming. So I can't guarantee it will work here, or that there won't be complications from the attempt."

"What kind of complications?" Raffi asked.

"Irreversible brain damage," he said bluntly.

Agnes cringed at the thought of that. So saving him meant potentially killing him. How were they supposed to choose?

Picard straightened in his seat. "I don't believe Rios would want to remain like this. He would not want to be forced to hurt innocent people."

"I agree," Seven said.

Raffi shook her head. "I agree on that too, but what about the risks? We should just keep trying to break the brainwashing with time and patience."

Agnes definitely supported that route, though what if that didn't work? What if they worked so hard and they couldn't break it? "If we wait," she brought up to Emil, "will it be harder to undo?"

Emil pursed his mouth. "It very well may. Right now the neural pathways have only recently been changed, so there's still some elasticity there. If we wait too long…those alterations could very well become permanent."

"We're talking about a very dangerous, experimental procedure here," Raffi pressed. "We could lose him for good."

"Haven't we lost him already, though?" Elnor spoke up. He looked around at each of them. "That is not the Captain Rios we know. He does not remember we are his friends. He does not remember who he is."

Everyone fell solemn at that. Elnor was right.

Agnes stood up and nodded to Emil. "Do it."

Emil inclined his head gravely and headed back into the med bay. Agnes, Raffi, Elnor, and Seven followed, while Picard and Soji were left outside to wait in the dark.

Emil walked through the force field and replicated a hypospray on the other side. Cris immediately tensed and stood up, watching warily.

"I'm sorry for how this looks, Captain," Emil said regretfully. "But we are truly trying to help you."

Cris tried to get away, but there was nowhere to go in the small alcove. So he turned and lunged to attack the EMH instead. It was a desperate move, and they all knew it, because Emil merely adjusted his photons so Cris flew right through him and crashed into the wall. Emil then spun and jabbed the hypospray into the back of his neck. Cris immediately sank to the floor, sedated.

"Deactivate isolation field," Emil ordered, and the field zipped off.

Agnes and Raffi moved into the alcove to help get Cris back onto the bio bed. Then they got started on this last ditch effort to save their friend.

Colors and shadows swirled in an endless kaleidoscope around Rios. Laughter echoed in his ears, morphing from joyful to sinister and back again. Jana's face flashed before his eyes, smiling one minute and set like steel the next as she strode toward him with malicious intent. He tried to twist away and escape, but he couldn't move. His limbs felt disconnected from the rest of him. Alonzo blew his brains out in front of Rios, but then he was sitting at the table and getting knocked out by the synths. Rios felt like his skull was going to explode.

Outside voices warbled around him.

"His heart rate is increasing."

"I warned you this was going to be tricky."

"Cris, baby? It's me, Raffi." Something squeezed his hand.

He tried to focus on that last voice, turning his head toward it. Everything was fuzzy but he thought he could make out someone sitting beside him.

"Hold on. Everything's going to be okay. You're safe on La Sirena."

La Sirena…his ship. The ibn Majid's decks contorted around him, a bulkhead splashed with blood and brain matter.

"Remember how we met?" that voice went on, lilting and soothing.

Memories blurred with the others as she painted pictures of the past. Rios tried to find his way to the surface, but no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn't break through the miasma shrouding him in fog and twisted images out of his nightmares.

There was a pause, and Raffi's voice changed, taking on a sober tone. "And then the ibn Majid made first contact with two beings—Jana and Beautiful Flower."

The other images swirling in the background returned in full force. Vandermeer put the phaser in his mouth and squeezed the trigger. Jana's face loomed over Rios's as she plunged her fingers into his brain and turned it to pudding. He jerked and moaned as it all bombarded him in a spinning eddy of confusion and pain.

"They were nice, remember?" Raffi went on, rubbing his forearm. "Beautiful Flower drew a sketch of you and Jana talking and laughing. You still have it. And Jana liked French fries with a peppermint milkshake." She paused again. "What happened next wasn't your fault. It wasn't Vandermeer's fault. Starfleet Security threatened to destroy his ship and crew if he didn't kill them."

Rios twisted and whimpered as Alonzo shot himself in the head again. "Stop," he rasped. "Please stop."

Raffi was holding his hand, but the contact felt distant, like the rest of his body. He was trapped, unable to escape the torment.

"I am so sorry all that happened to you," Raffi said.

He saw Jana dying, then laughing maniacally, then advancing on him with fingers outstretched. Rios flung his head back and forth, blinking rapidly in an effort to dispel the visage. His surroundings shifted into a new environment this time—a med bay with monitors beeping out readings and Emil and Agnes conferring over them. Conferring over him.

He lolled his gaze toward Raffi sitting by the bio bed. "Why are you doing this?" he croaked, stung by the betrayal.

Raffi's expression pinched with anguish, and she brushed his hair back from his forehead tenderly. "You're sick, babe. We're trying to help you get better."

"Then make it stop."

Raffi exchanged an aggrieved look with Emil and Agnes.

"We're working on it, Captain," the EMH told him.

Rios turned away with a moan. He didn't believe them. They were hurting him. Why were they hurting him? Right, the synths. The synths were behind this…

"We met up again a year later," Raffi started talking again, switching topics. "We'd drifted apart before that. I had…my own problems after the Mars attack. We had alienated everyone else in our misery, but when we found each other again…our brokenness didn't scare the other. We stuck together, you remember?" She squeezed his hand and cupped the side of his face. "I'm right here with you now too, Cris. We're going to get you through this."

Another voice filled his mind, echoing those same words. He saw Alonzo standing before him, alive and well. It was too much, pulling his mind in all these different directions. He wanted to scream.

"And then we met up again recently when I passed a job on to you," Raffi continued to ramble on. "And I hitched a ride because you were heading to Freecloud, where I knew my son was." Her voice turned sad. "Remember what a miserable friend I was? That I never even told you I had a son? Even after all the times we'd been there for each other, I'd kept that from you. Do you remember what you said to me?"

Rios tossed his head to the side with a whimper.

Raffi didn't answer her question, but went on, "And you brought me coffee the next morning after I'd slept off the worst of my relapse." She sighed. "I would have loved for you to meet Gabriel. That door's closed for good now. But it's good I came back, since you ended up needing my help to save the galaxy when the Romulans tried to destroy the synths and the synths tried to destroy the universe to protect themselves. But Picard made a heroic flight into battle with La Sirena—which I know you were peeved about—and by almost sacrificing himself, he convinced Soji not to rain down destruction on everyone. The synth ban was lifted and the synths are at peace with everyone. They want to be able to live just like everyone else."

Rios shuddered as Jana's fingers dug into his brain. "No…"

Alarms on the monitors started blaring, and then there was a flurry of activity around him. Emil injected him with hypospray, and Agnes appeared at his side, looking down worriedly. He sank into darkness.

He woke to the sensation of fingers carding through his hair, and he turned his head toward the source. Agnes gave him a pained smile.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

He tried to move but couldn't get his limbs to respond. "What's wrong with me?"

Agnes bit her lip. "You were taken by Romulans. They drugged you."

Rios didn't remember that. He remembered… Disjointed images flashed through his mind again like lightning, and he squeezed his eyes shut to block them out. But they were still there, like spikes through his skull.

"I can't move," he grunted. "Why can't I move?"

"That's an effect of us trying to counteract the toxins in your system," Emil's voice replied.

Rios tossed his head to the side, the only movement he could seem to accomplish. "No. No more."

"Cris, look at me."

He slitted his eyes open to look at Agnes.

"I know what it's like to have my mind played with and manipulated. You helped me through that, and I'm going to help you."

"Where's Alonzo?" he whimpered.

Agnes gave him a sad look. "He's not here. He died ten years ago."

"No, I saw him."

"It wasn't real, just a manipulation."

Raffi entered his field of vision. "We're trying to help you, Cris. Do you trust me?"

He wanted to, but part of him felt like he shouldn't, and he didn't know why. He didn't know what was happening.

"No," he muttered. "What are you doing to me? Stop!"

Agnes clasped the sides of his face and pressed her forehead to his, tears streaming down onto his cheeks. "Please come back to me," she pleaded.

"I never left you," he mumbled as dizziness swept over him again.

He woke again, feeling tired and heavy.

"His brain chemistry is almost back to normal," a voice that sounded like him but not quite was speaking in the background. "I'm not saying that's going to fix the rest of it, but it should help."

Rios's vision was a bit clearer as he opened his eyes to the ceiling of the medical bay alcove.

Raffi hurried to his side. "Hey."

He furrowed his brow. "What happened?"

She took a breath and told him he'd been kidnapped by Romulans, tricked into believing Vandermeer was alive and that the synths were secretly working against them. She watched him carefully as she explained he'd been drugged and brainwashed before they'd released him.

Rios could only stare at her blankly. Everything she was saying, he could remember, but it felt like watching a holo novel.

"Do you remember that Picard and Soji are the good guys? That they're our friends?" Raffi asked tensely.

He frowned. "Yes?" He didn't mean for it to sound like a question. "I- I don't understand." He pressed his palms to his eyes. "Everything's jumbled."

"That would be the effect of the brainwashing mixing with reality," Emil supplied. "It will take some time to recover fully from it. But as long as you're not feeling homicidal, I'd say this is significant progress."

Rios remembered trying to kill Soji and Picard—twice. He looked at Raffi in confusion and horror. "Raf…"

She pulled him into an abrupt hug and held on fiercely. He didn't know what was real right now, except for her, so he held on too, afraid that when he finished waking up from the nightmare, reality would be just as worse…