Dark sad eyes stared at Keiko with a facial expression that never seemed to change. Every feature was outlined in tension so strong Keiko wondered when it would break. Her expression was that of sheer emotional agony. Like a child's face looks before breaking into a torrent of sobs, but the sobs never came. Just that agonized about to break down sobbing look. But as the girl never did break down, Keiko realized that such was her existance that the look of agony was perpetual. Eyes that begged for help she seemed to know would never come. And other than that, the child displayed no emotion at all. That she was familiar with from her work with so many traumatized Bajoran children.
Other than the muscle tension, the girls eyes were sunken into their sockets and rimmed with dark. Her cheekbones jutted out, and her cheeks were hollows. She had every appearance of a child that was starving to death. She was so thin even her thigh bones were visible beneath the skin.
Abuse. Extreme abuse. Even if Keiko wasn't able to see the scars and bruises, she would have known this to be true. She knew enough about the physical signs of continuous life endangerment to realize what caused the girl to be so thin and look on the brink of death.
The girl had been with them now for days. She spoke to no one, and would only allow Dr Guarani, Keiko O'Brien, and Dax to be near her. The males on the station it was clear that she was simply tolerating, with stiffened muscles as if it were a physical chore to be around men for too long. But in the immediate presence of women her entire body relaxed markedly.
Keiko simply continued as if her newest student could both understand her and speak, and was simply choosing not to. She spoke as if the girl spoke back to her.
"-so, Molly said that if Miles didn't give her back her piggy, she was going to push him into an airlock!"
The sound of Keiko O'Brien's laughter filling the room was a relief. It was a momentary lightening of the dark heavy atmosphere that filled the spce around their new charge.
Ben Sisko leaned against the doorframe and simply watched the interaction for a brief time before heading up for a staff meeting again, about this girl.
"I don't know where she would have heard language like that," Keiko continued to her silent companion, "but it is slightly disturbing." she paused a moment and with a sharp laugh added, "If I didn't know better I'd swear Miles takes her with him to Quarks!"
Sisko quickly averted his face and stifled a laugh lest either betray him, or his knowledge of the truth.
Although he made no sound, Keiko abruptly turned in her seat looking towards him. She extended a flash of a smile, her brown eyes crinkling up at the corners.
"Commander Sisko! How are you?"
He nodded to her. "Well, thank you. How are you doing today?"
"Quite well!"
SIsko realized then that Keiko was amplifying her own emotions, perhaps as a way to compensate for her claimed newest students' lack of emotional expression. It reminded him of the communication efforts amongst individuals who spoke different languages. They invaretably spoke their language louder at the other person, as if that would aide in understanding. It made him uncomfortable, as this exaggerated display of emotion from Mrs. O'Brien did. it made Sisko want to leave. So, in short order, and with an excuse, he did.
... ... ... ...
Ben Sisko was drifting in and out of the conversations in front of him, and for once, he didn't care. He kept seeing the girl's wide awake face before his eyes. Her expression was one of someone resigned to a life of pure misery and suffering. And she looked it. Her face looked like the face of a dead child.
"So this child is being harmed, but from where?"
O' Brien raised up from his seat, aggitated, making his way round the room as he added his thoughts to the group. "How is she able to be here is a bigger question. The Doctor was able to determine that she does come from the 21st century. How then is she able to be here now in flesh and blood?"
Sisko sighed. So many unanswered questions.
"Can she write?" Dax looked from the Chief to Julian, certain that avenue would have been tried first thing. "If she can't speak perhaps she could write."
"She showed no interest in that." Miles, speaking of course of what Keiko relayed to him.
"Do we know she can understand us?" Kira couldn't believe how stupid these people were sometimes. That should have been the first thing ruled out.
"There's no way to be certain," Dax spoke now thinking of her own painful experiences with the girl,"but she seems to."
Sisko felt as if the barrage of comments and questions were swirling around him, as if he were adrift at sea. Here he was, the commander of a station, and expected to exude authority, confidence and trust and here he was, wondering if everyone knew just exactly how out of his depth he felt here.
As he was thinking this, he saw Dax's steel gaze leveled at him from across the table in the wardroom, which was where everyone was gathered because the creator of this story knew of no other places aside from Quarks and Keiko's school. School room? Is it ever clear how many different age groups that woman is teaching? The writers really could have done so much better with writing out Keiko O'Brien's storyline...but anyhow-
Everyone else, thankfully was not looking at Benjamin Sisko, they were looking at whomever else they were addressing questions and comments to, only occasionally did they look to him- or perhaps he was just now noticing it. How long had he been sitting there for, lost in a combination of his own thoughts of inadequatcy and thoughts of the nameless girl who was still for the moment on his station.
Dax made a coughing sound in her throat, and with a sigh, weighted again by his feelings of failure, Sisko forced himself to sit up straight and address the senior staff.
He looked at Bashir, first.
"Is the girl unable to understand, unable to communicate? You said she had a skull fracture, did she also have damage to her brain?"
-And yes, if you haven't noticed doctors on Trek violate HIPPA so much I'm really surprised no one has meme'd it yet. So we're going to continue that tradition, also because it amuses me.
Bashir was silent for a long moment. Sisko waited. Finally, Julian answered, "She has significant brain damage, but the scans indicate that the damage is both old and on-going. Whoever caused damage to her brain initially is still doing it."
"Julian, what are you talking about? That doesn't make any sense!"
The group stared in shock at Kira. It was understandable that she would take this girls plight more personally than anyone else, but for her to get so upset that she addressed an officer not by title or rank but by their first name was unusual, even for her.
"Actually, Major," Julian drew out her title in tight lipped anger at her disrespect, "it does." He looked back at Sisko. "This isn't something we often see in the Federation today, but it is still apparent in Bajoran brains, in the brains of anyone who has grown up in longstanding physical harm."
"Explain."
"Her hippocampus is under developed the dedrites(not the actual name. It's a fatty highway throughout the brain that allows for brain development and brain communication) that are supposed to be throughout her brain are sparse and tiny when they should be plentiful and fat they allow for communication throughout the brain, and are critical in development of different parts of the brain. That in particular indicates either extreme malnutrition, or, physical trauma- when these neural pathways are first forming, or all of the above. Malnutrition, if the body isn't getting enough fat, which is the building block for these neural pathways, they will present as in this child. Likewise, if a child is living in conditions that causes continuous fear-"he stopped and corrected himself, wanting to be certain he was perfectly clear,
"not just fear, but fear for one's life on a daily basis", the body responds by going into a survival mode, not storing any fat, the adrenal glands produce cortisol and in on going situations the continual stress and adrenaline cause the body to not absorb nutrients properly, as all of the body's organs, including the brain quickly become damaged under these conditions. "
"The child is clearly currently being abused, which means the brain and the rest of the body are still not allowed to develop at the pace they should be, nor even to catch up to a healthy, non abused child of the same age. You'll notice that she is small for her age, and that she is extremely thin a result of stunted growth due to the lack of nutrient absorption as mentioned earlier."
"Or," Kira interuppted him, feeling she was the only one in the room who should be speaking on any of this, "they could just not be feeding her."
Kira's tone was flat and emotionless, as though bored. Bashir however, knew that this was a conditioned stress response, as well as a learned behavior of guarding one's true feelings, neccesstated by Kira's own life under constant threat.
"Actually there is no indication of starvation, Major."
Jadzia opened her mouth to speak, but Julian was faster, as he continued, "But there are other physical issues that indicate that the child is living in horrible conditions-"
This time Dax spoke. "What other physical issues?"
Bashir looked down at the table in front of him. "I'd rather not go into that at this time."
She was going to press him for more, but could see Bashir steeling for a fight. And if she'd learned anything about the young man, it was that at least when it came to his patients, he had the tenacity of a razor-beast.
"Is this one of those...holocaust people?" Kira remembered hearing mention of this from members of Starfleet when they'd arrived on the station, as some sort of comparison to help them comprehend what they often called "the Bajoran situation.'
"Ah, no," Julian shook his head.
"You're sure?" She still looked at him as if he were daft, which was not only annoying but in this case insulting. He certainly knew more about this girls condition and what period of Earth's history she was from than Kira did.
"Perfectly," he felt his face grimacing in anger as he spat his answer out through clenched teeth and tried yet again to tamp his anger down. "Her clothing indicates a traceable date. She is from long after that unfortunate time in Earth's history."
Kira looked at him as if she still doubted it. Her arrogance was infuriating. He looked away. His patient couldn't afford his judgment to be clouded.
Finally Sisko spoke. "You look as if you wanted to say something else, Doctor."
"Yes, sir." The tension in his shoulders relaxed somewhat as he looked at Sisko.
"Simply that the information I've gained and," he emphasized, "from the extensive knowledge that I have regarding human brain development," he cut a pointed glance at Kira, "and hormone disruption- her brain indicates she was put in danger at a developmental age of approximately two years old- of course the danger she was exposed to could easily have been ongoing from birth, or in utero. "But," he cut a curt look to Kira yet again,before she could think of interrupting him again,
" her hormone levels indicate that she is currently in danger. It may be a different danger than what she initially underwent, but there is no doubt that her brain has reason to believe that she is still in danger and is responding accordingly."
"And,based on her physical size...," Sisko thought it a good idea to sum up what he was hearing as much to ensure understanding as to give his first officer and CMO the opportunity to stop giving each other death stares, "I would say physical assault were ongoing throughout her childhood or she would not still be underdeveloped with an underdeveloped brain, correct?"
Bashir remembered the baseball bat that Commander Sisko was fixated upon, convinced that was the instrument of her injuries in the Infirmary,
"Well, more or less, yes. If the trauma had stopped at a younger age her brain scans would show different results, but the tell tale sign of current abuse is her hormone levels, nutrient deficiencies, blood pressure and heart rate"
"We have no indication that the child was being physically harmed before the incident recorded in the infirmary." Odo's voice was cool, unaffected.
Bashir's jaw dropped. Why were so many people willing to side step his expertise for their own opinions? "In fact there are plenty," he used the same tone as he'd given to Kira, "there are multiple signs of past injuries."
Odo gave him a withering condescending look. "But no evidence beyond that, no witnesses."
This time Mile O'Brien decided he'd better speak up before his friend killed everyone in the room. "Ah, actually, witnesses were usually needed for any woman or child to get sufficient protect from whomever was hurting them back then. Even with DNA evidence, men walked off Scott-free all the time. It's today that we don't need witnesses when there are physical signs of mistreatment, Constable."
Odo visibly ruffled at this rebuke. "I'm simply trying to lay out the most likely scenario, Chief."
When Sisko saw the chief roll his eyes, he stepped in again.
"So how do we help her?"
"We can't do anything," O'Brien spoke finally. "She's out of our time."
"Well," Sisko shrugged his shoulders the how taking a backseat for the moment,"that matters less to me than the fact this child is in danger. Given what I know about Earth's history at that point, I'd say it's quite likely this child has been abducted, and if that is the case, it should be simple to look for historical record of her abduction as her family would have reported it to the authorities."
"For that we'd need a name," O' Brien reminded him.
Ben shrugged. "So we'll get it, eventually. And when we do, we'll be able to know a lot more." He sighed and straightened his back, realizing he'd begun to slouch under the imagined weight of this problem. "Until then I believe all we can do is keep her safe and happy while she's here."
As everyone nodded, he added a curt, "Dismissed," order and watched as everyone filed out of the room to resume their day's duties.
Except for Bashir. Benjamin Sisko knew when he was being lied to, and he didn't like it. In seconds, he ordered the doctor to stay behind.