A/N: Thanks SnidgetHex, pallysd'Artagnan, and ComtesseAlanna for reviewing again!

I knew from the beginning I'd be going AU with this, but AU in the sense that this backstory takes a completely different path than canon established yet will still end up where the show begins. With the exception of Rios and Raffi going through their shit together in this verse. Hope you enjoy the angst-filled ride to come. ;)

"Ruination"

2389

Raffi was dragged from her drugged-out stupor by the incessant beeping of an incoming call. She had half a mind to ignore it. No one friendly contacted her anymore. And no one in her current circle of acquaintances used official channels.

She groaned and heaved herself upright, slapping haphazardly at the console. "What?"

A video link popped up of a woman in a white uniform. "Hello, I'm trying to reach Raffaela Musiker."

"Who's looking?"

The woman hesitated, and Raffi could feel her judgmental waves wafting through the screen. She glanced away at something in her hand. "Raffaela Musiker is listed as the emergency contact for Cristóbal Rios."

"Uh-huh," Raffi muttered absently as she searched for a bottle of something to wash down the bad taste in her mouth.

"Perhaps you know of another family member we could contact instead?" the woman asked tentatively.

Raffi paused, brow furrowing. "Wait, what?" She turned back to the screen. "Who is this?"

The woman pursed her lips. "County General Hospital in San Francisco. I'm trying to reach—"

"What happened to Cris?"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss—"

"You called me! I'm his emergency contact. Now what the hell happened?" she demanded, almost sounding like her old self when she'd worn the uniform.

The woman's face pinched in displeasure. "He was found in the bay with an excessive amount of barbiturates in his system. He likely went off the Golden Gate Bridge. It's a miracle a private yacht found him and fished him out. He's being treated for overdose, hypothermia, and water in the lungs, though obviously he'll be held on a psychiatric hold."

Raffi blinked dumbly. What? "You must have the wrong person," she said. Rios was on a ship out in space somewhere, not on Earth, and he certainly wouldn't try to kill himself.

The woman glanced at her PADD. "No, we have the right person. Are you sure there's no one else we can contact?"

Raffi shook her head. "No. Thanks."

The woman nodded and disconnected the link.

Raffi sat on the floor for several long moments, trying to get her brain to work. It was a mistake. It had to be.

And in any case, why should she care? She hadn't spoken to Rios in a year and a half. She was probably only his emergency contact because he'd never thought to change it. Surely his captain on the ibn Majid would have been notified.

Found in the bay. Barbiturates.

Raffi drummed her fingers on the carpet, clenching her jaw against the urge bubbling up inside. She didn't need this right now.

She pushed herself up off the floor and rifled through her clutter for a jacket, then headed out. She was jittery as she stood in line at the transport station, and it only increased once she found herself outside the doors of the hospital. Yet she managed to steel herself and go inside.

"I'm looking for Cristóbal Rios," she told the person at reception. "The hospital called to tell me he was here."

The receptionist, a version of a hospitality hologram, was silent for a brief moment as it sifted through the records. "Fourth floor. Room 457."

"Thanks."

She headed for the lift, heart rate increasing with each step. When she got off on the fourth floor, her pulse was pounding. She walked down the pristine hallway in search of the room number and drew to a stop when she found it.

You came this far, she chastised herself, even though every nerve ending was screaming for her to turn around and leave. Or find a bottle.

She stepped inside. The room was quiet save for the soft beeping of a bio monitor. Raffi moved around a curtain that was halfway drawn and sucked in a sharp breath when she laid eyes on her old friend.

He looked…haggard. And not just from the pale complexion left by the remnants of hypothermia. He hadn't shaved in days, maybe longer, there were dark crescents under his eyes, and he looked thinner in a definitively unhealthy way. Raffi barely recognized him.

A holographic stabilizer was positioned over his lungs, probably to filter out the water in them. Heat was emanating from the bio bed and being insulated by a blanket that covered most of his torso down to his feet.

Raffi moved closer and carefully took a seat in an empty chair by the bed. Something tugged at her bitter heart and she reached out to take Rios's hand. His fingers were cold.

"God, Cris," she breathed.

The monitor beeped out its steady readings.

Rios's fingers twitched in her palm and she stiffened. His eyelids fluttered open and he lolled a groggy gaze her direction. She didn't know what to do. But there wasn't surprise, irritation, or even disappointment at seeing her there. Just a depth of devastation that stole her breath away.

"Raf." His voice broke and he squeezed her hand hard, half pulling her forward, half rolling toward her. She moved automatically, leaning down as he pulled her into an awkward, desperate embrace, clinging to her like she was the only thing left in the world.

It terrified her.

But she sat there and let him until he gasped and collapsed back on the bed, a hand pressing weakly against his chest.

"What the hell were you doing?" she blurted. "Jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge drugged to the gills? Were you actually trying to kill yourself or did you just slip?"

Rios blinked at her dazedly. "What?" He roved his gaze around the room, brows knitting together. "How did I get here?"

"Some people found you in the bay and dragged your ass out before you drowned," she said snippily. She didn't know why she was angry, that her best friend from the Academy had tried to kill himself? That things had gotten that bad for him and she hadn't known? That her own wallowing in self-pity and misery had been interrupted by his and now she was here and she was supposed to be what, a shoulder for him? When he hadn't been there for her.

"The bay?" he repeated slowly.

Raffi snorted. "Yeah. Guess those drugs left you with some brain damage. How could you do something so stupid?"

"I didn't!" he protested vehemently, then winced as the exertion pulled on his chest. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about but I didn't try to kill myself. I was…" His face scrunched up as he tried to remember. "I was walking home after getting drunk at a bar. I wasn't even near the bridge."

Now it was Raffi's turn to frown. Either he was confused or simply trying to deny he was suicidal to avoid the psych hold. "What are you even doing on Earth?" she asked instead. "Why aren't you on the ibn Majid?"

Something dark and haunted filled his eyes and he turned his head away. "It's been decommissioned," he said hollowly.

That was surprising news. "What happened?" she asked in a level tone when he didn't elaborate.

Rios squeezed his eyes shut, his breaths hitching now and the holographic stabilizer beeping in response.

"Okay, okay," Raffi hushed. "You don't have to tell me right now. Just- just take it easy."

She sat there awkwardly as Rios seemed to drift off again. She wished she'd brought a damn PADD with her so she could look up what had happened with the ibn Majid. It must have been bad to reduce Rios to…this.

Cris slept on, the bio machines doing their thing to filter out the sea water and barbiturates from his system. The longer Raffi sat there, watching with nothing to do, the more antsy she became. She picked at strands of her hair, putting them in her mouth nervously as her leg jiggled uncontrollably. She needed a drink. Or a hit.

Biting her lip, she gave Rios a long look before standing up and leaving his room. She stopped in the doorway to look up and down the hall. A nurse went into a room several doors down. Another was talking to a doctor at the end of the hallway near the lift. The nurse's station was vacant.

Raffi carefully crossed the aisle, glancing every direction as surreptitiously as possible as she sidled up to the replicator. She just needed a pick-me-up, something to keep her going until she knew what was going to happen with Rios.

She tried not to fidget suspiciously as she punched in the request for a stimulant and waited for it to materialize. Once it was ready, she snatched up the hypospray and beat a hasty path down the hall to the stairwell. She was careful not to make any noise with the door as she slipped onto the landing. The shakes were bad now and she raised the hypospray to her neck.

"He's still alive," a voice echoed up from the floor below.

Raffi froze.

"How is that possible?" a second voice snapped. "You told me you were thorough."

"I was. A boat on the water found him and got him medical help."

Raffi almost dropped the hypospray. She pressed herself against the wall and held her breath.

"I can finish the job," the first voice went on. Both were female.

"No. It was supposed to look like a suicide."

Raffi's blood ran cold. And wait a second, didn't she know that voice? She edged herself forward to the railing and chanced a look down. She only caught the back of a brunette's head…and was that a Starfleet uniform? The other voice must have been on a comm link.

"Then how would you like me to proceed?" the woman in the stairwell said stiffly.

"Rios knows too much. We will have to implement a memory wipe."

"It would take too long to perform a precise one."

"It does not have to be precise. Neurological damage would not be unexpected after his recent incident."

Raffi's heart dropped into the pit of her stomach and she had to stifle an audible breath. Inching back to the door, she opened it as silently as possible and slipped back onto the hospital floor. There still weren't many nurses about and she sprinted back to Rios's room.

"Cris, wake up, come on." She grabbed his shoulders and shook him, eliciting a groan as his eyelids fluttered heavily. Damn, the barbiturates. Raffi snapped her gaze down to the hypospray she still had in her hand. She no longer needed it now with the adrenaline coursing through her system. She pressed it to Rios's neck instead and injected the stimulant.

"Mmph," he moaned. "Raf?"

"We need to go, now." She grabbed his arm and hauled him upright. The bio monitor started beeping more urgently and she swiped at it to shut it off.

"What's goin' on?" he slurred, grimacing as she swung his legs over the edge of the bed. She cursed under her breath at his lack of shoes.

"You're right, you didn't jump off the bridge. Someone drugged and pushed you," she explained hurriedly.

"What?" He continued to frown in confusion, but then something seemed to click and he went rigid.

Raffi wanted to ask what the hell was going on but they didn't have time. She slung one of his arms over her shoulder and they made their way to the door, pausing to glance if the coast was clear. She didn't see any doctors or nurses—or Starfleet officers for that matter.

Rios bit back several grunts as they hobbled down the hallways and Raffi tried to ignore the way his breaths started wheezing. She ducked into an empty patient room and deposited him on the bed.

"Sit tight," she said and slipped back out. She found a storage room with some scrubs and snatched a pair off the shelf. Shoes were going to be tricky.

Rios was thankfully where she'd left him and she hurriedly helped him out of the patient scrubs and into the nurse ones. Then they continued their harried escape from the hospital. By the time they reached the street, Raffi was seeing Starfleet uniforms everywhere she turned and jumping at every flash of movement in her peripheral vision.

It was a miracle they made it to a transport station, that no one stopped them since they didn't look exactly inconspicuous, and that they made it all the way back to Raffi's apartment in one piece.

Rios was ready to collapse the moment they got through the door, and Raffi had to brush several empty liquor bottles off the couch before laying him down on it. Sweat had plastered his hair to his forehead and he was breathing harshly, arms wrapped around his chest.

"Shit," she muttered. "You probably needed more treatment."

"I'll- be- fine," he said hoarsely, dropping his head back on the cushion and closing his eyes.

Raffi sank onto her haunches on the floor, her own adrenaline high beginning to crash. "Why is Starfleet trying to kill you, Cris?"

He didn't open his eyes, but his throat bobbed and she thought she saw a tear trying to squeeze past his tightly shut lids. "You were right," he said. "There's something…wrong in Starfleet. I did something…we- we were ordered to." His breath hitched. "I don't know how to live with it," he whispered brokenly.

Raffi reached out and took his hand in both of hers. "What Cris? What did you do?"

He shook his head. "Vandermeer couldn't live with it. He murdered two beings of first contact and then blew his brains out right in front of me. Left me to finish his orders and cover it up. If I didn't…Starfleet Security was going to destroy the ibn Majid, with all hands on board. Starfleet." He looked at Raffi with sheer devastation.

She had no words for what she was hearing. If she hadn't already spent the past few years believing something was corrupt in Starfleet, she may not have believed this herself. She licked her dry lips. "Who ordered it?"

He was silent for a long moment, breaths coming more shallow and painful. "Commodore Oh," he said quietly.

Raffi straightened. That's who she'd heard in the stairwell on the comm link.

"Cris…" She shook her head. "Why didn't you come to me?"

He turned that pained, watery gaze back toward her. "I thought they might have been watching me. For six months after I was reassigned to Earth and the ibn Majid erased from the records, I tried to be the dutiful Starfleet officer, tried to live with it. They discharged me last week, claimed it was post-traumatic dysphoria, and I've been in a bottle since." He snorted. "The stressor that pushed me over the edge, I'm sure they were planning on saying." He sobered, expression pinching again as his voice dropped low. "And I didn't want you to know what I'd become."

Raffi's own eyes welled with tears, and she cast a somber gaze around her dismal apartment with its empty booze bottles lying everywhere and tangled holograms spouting conspiracy theories. "You'll get no judgment from me," she said sagely.

Rios's eyes turned sad. "I'm sorry."

For this, for the past. For everything.

"Yeah, me too."

They settled into a commiserative silence, two once bright and rising stars who'd had the promise of everything at their feet.

How far they both had fallen.