No, I don't own Star Trek.
Picard's POV
It felt like forever before we reached the planet. Once again, I found evidence of Q's help. There were already coordinates programmed into the transporter. The away team and I beamed down as quickly as we could, my heart racing.
We arrived in some sort of catacombs. Underground, dark, and cold. I could hear water dripping from the ceiling.
Hugh is somewhere in here. I told myself, He's got to be.
We followed the tunnel we were in through a set of abandoned doors and into what looked like a medieval dungeon. The walls were lined with cells that had forcefields for fronts. I could hear very faint, distant screaming, and it made the hairs on my neck stand up.
"This place is giving me the creeps." Riker whispered.
"I know." I answered. We quickly hid behind a wall when to screaming stopped and was replaced with heavy footfalls and the sound of something dragging on the ground. I motioned to everyone to follow the sound. It led us to an older block of larger cells, still with forcefield fronts. The footfalls ended with a door slam and the hall was silent.
"Split up!" Riker hissed. I was fine to let him take charge. My mind wasn't on the others anyway. I started going up to the cells and shining my light inside. But all I saw were puddles of dirty water and dirty old chains, heavy and black, which I supposed were used to hold prisoners in these cells. With each empty cell I checked, my heart sank more. Maybe Hugh wasn't here, and Q was just trying to force us to do something for him. That's what it was looking like.
"Captain, over here!" Riker called in a loud whisper, "There's something here!" I raced over to him, as did the others.
"There, in the back." He pointed as I shone the light. At first I only saw more puddles and chains. But then my eyes followed the chain. It was attached to...something...in the back of the cell.
"Geordi, get this cell open!" I hissed.
"Already on it, sir." he whispered. A moment later, the forcefield disappeared. Slowly, I crept toward the back of the cell. As I did, I could just barely make out a small whimpering sound. Whatever this thing was, it was alive. Barely. As I approached, I could make out its legs, bound by the chains, and its arms. I felt my stomach lurch when I saw that one arm was bent at multiple odd, unnatural angles.
That's when I noticed the hand at the end of that arm. A mechanical, cybernetic, Borg hand.
"Oh God." I gasped. I carefully rolled the body over and confirmed what I was afraid of.
It was Hugh.
He was almost unrecognizable under layers of dirt, filth, and blood that covered his normally pure white skin. His face was a crisscross of gashes with dried blood over them. But most alarming was how loose some of his implants looked. He was way too skinny underneath them. They'd starved him! Not even an energy conduit in the cell!
"Ohhh, my poor Hugh." I gasped as I carefully lifted him into my arms. I could feel him shivering weakly. As if reading my mind, Dr. Crusher ran over with a blanket and I wrapped it around Hugh's shivering form.
"Worf, get the chains off him." I ordered. The Klingon nodded and got to work with his phaser. Hugh whimpered softly from my arms as Dr. Crusher repositioned his broken arm so he could be moved. I could only imagine the pain he was in. I didn't want to think of what I would see once we cleaned all the dirt and blood off him. Right now, I just wanted to get him out of here. As soon as Worf freed him, I stood with Hugh clutched in my arms and ran for the beam-out point.
Hugh's POV
Everything hurt, like it never had before. I had tried to strike at one of my tormentors when they momentarily unshackled my hand. That had been a mistake. The next thing I knew, my arm was all but ripped off. I screamed like I never had as I heard loud snapping and cracking, each sound accompanied by an onslaught of pain as tears poured down my face, my vision blurring, despite the fact they had returned my eyepiece. I was barely aware of being taken down from where I hung, or my legs buckling under me as I crumpled to the floor. Right on top of my injured arm. To make matters worse, they just dragged me over the floor back to my cell, where they bound my feet again and left me laying there.
I was dimly aware of a light shining into my cell and hushed voices. Even when I heard footsteps coming toward me, I couldn't have moved if I wanted to. I was so weak. So tired and cold. I just wanted it to end. I just wanted to rest.
"...Hugh." A single word cut through the haze as I was turned over onto my back, then carefully, slowly lifted up. Something was wrapped around me, shutting out the cold air of the cell. That voice...those hands...It couldn't be...
"Worf, get the chains off him." Yes. It was! I felt someone handling my broken arm carefully and gently, as if trying to avoid causing me any pain. Then the chains around my ankles fell away. Almost immediately, I was lifted into the air, held tight against the man's chest, my head on his shoulder.
"J-Jean-...L-L-Luc..." i squeaked out.
"Shhhh, yes Hugh, I'm here. I'm here and I've got you. You'll be all right now." I could tell by his voice breaking that he was crying. I even felt some of his tears hit me. I barely registered the transporter beaming us back to the Enterprise, or anything else as Picard carried me through the hallways, his eyes glancing down at me with sadness and worry. He took me straight to Medical, where I was laid on a soft bed, Jean-Luc seated at my side, holding my organic hand, rubbing it gently as Dr. Crusher assessed my injuries.
Then came Geordi and Data, who worked out a way to bypass my arm and attach a regeneration line from my power converter. Relief washed over me as I felt energy flowing into me, my strength slowly coming back. I was able to open my eye more to look at Picard, who was watching like a hawk. I forced a smile at him through the pain. He brushed tears from his eyes as he leaned over and tenderly kissed my forehead.
He took me in his arms and held me close as Crusher got to work setting my arm, trying to fit both bone AND Borg implant back together. He laid my head against him, and dried my eye when I screamed and sobbed in pain for what seemed like hours before she was finally finished, my arm secured in a cast and sling.
Picard's POV
"You'll have to clean him off before I can do anything else, otherwise he could get an infection." Beverly said. "Use the pool, I can drain it and refill it later."
"I can assist with that. Cleaning him." Data said softly.
"Please do." I said as I picked Hugh up again and took him back toward the therapy area. I could see Data slip into waterproof pants as I carefully stepped down into the hydrotherapy pool, until Hugh was laying on his back in warm water, my arms underneath him as Data waded in and started cleaning his implants and the spaces between them with speed and precision only an android could achieve. With one of Data's arms replacing one of my own, I took a wet cloth and began gently cleaning off Hugh's face. He winced as I touched the claw wounds and I gave him a little squeeze with the arm still under him, softly stroking his cheek with the other and all the while whispering words of love and comfort to him.
When it was done, Data and I dried him off and took him into one of the private recovery rooms where Dr Crusher was waiting. It was painful to watch her reopen the wounds on Hugh's face, peeling away every last bit of scab and dried blood as he let out soft little whimpers. I dried tears out of his eye as she applied medicine to his wounds to prevent an infection.
"He'll be okay, Jean-Luc." Crusher assured me as she pulled the blankets up over him, "At least, physically he will be. I'll let you be alone with him now." I nodded my thanks as she left, then turned back to Hugh. He seemed even more small and frail now as I gently hugged him. The painkillers Crusher had given him started to kick in and his eye closed as he slowly went to sleep. I carefully climbed onto the bed beside him and laid down, holding him close. Yes, he was hurt, hungry, and probably scared out of his mind. But he was back. He was safe.
Come on, you didn't think I'd ACTUALLY kill HUGH did you? I could never do that.