Title: Home and the Second Wave Part 2
Author: Meridian
Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to say I own these characters (hell, as much as I'd like to just own Ben Browder and Sebastian Spence), I don't. They belong, I suppose, to the Sci-Fi Channel or whoever sells them the episodes. Whatever, they sure as hell don't belong to me, nor do I have express written or oral permission to use them. Um, not suing me would be greatly appreciated, as I am not making any money from this story, nor do I have much to begin with…thanks so much. And ps…some stuff is made up entirely, as people who actually live in Salem, Mass. will attest. Just let it slide? Please?
Spoilers: Oh boy, spoilers! Well, none really for the First Wave portion of this story, just you have to know the basic characters there…Farscape Spoilers? Let's see…Nerve, The Hidden Memory, and Bone to Be Wild…that should cover most of it, save for vague and infrequent references to past eps…Oh and one more thing? These events occurred in a reality separate from the Farscape world that ended with Family Ties (I began before the episode altered reality a bit, so please, just through Bone to Be Wild, thanks)
Note: This is a crossover, so knowing both shows would greatly aid in your understanding of events. It's not necessary, but it helps. Thanks to my story consultant Michelle (what would I do without her?) who proved that you don't have to watch either show to follow and yes, even like the story.
Formatting Notes:
[[…..]] Indicate memory
Italics…thoughts
********* Indicate change of scene
------------- Same setting, only separate from the action taking place previously
HOME AND THE SECOND WAVE
Part 5
Salem, Massachusetts
(Salem Center Hospital)
Tatiana Blackford was on duty tonight, turning down the beds in the newly vacated rooms in the Intensive Care wing of Salem Center. She sighed, wishing that the task did not fall to her as often as it did, but there was no helping it when the maids were too busy being sick to come in on schedule. Why am I, an RN, turning down beds? She had no answer to her own question and no recourse but to sigh and make the best of it.
At least the hospital was quiet. Tatiana was hesitant to utter the phrase "almost too quiet" for fear she would jinx the serenity of what was usually a bustling ward in the hospital. No new patients had been rushed in from surgery or the Emergency Room, not tonight anyways. The last patient had been tucked in at ten, a record, she imagined.
This peace was not to last, not for more than a second after Tatiana had a chance to grumble about the dull quiet. Another nurse came scurrying down the hall, clutching her credentials as she tried to pin them to her pink scrubs.
"Tanya! We've got a live one!" At last. Tatiana took guilty pleasure in the thought that someone was in desperate need of care and that it would alleviate her boredom. She took off after Jessica Simmons, the nurse in the pink scrubs, following her without a word all the way to the elevator.
"What's up, Jess?"
"We're on tap for a patient who may be transferred to the ICU. They want us in Emergency to provide familiar faces, you know." Tatiana nodded. The ER staff liked the idea of incoming patients getting to see their attending nurses right away as a measure to cement trust later. She turned to Jessica, trying to cover her adrenaline high and failing.
"So, who's our guy?"
***********************
The car ride had been extremely tense. Lita had not come any where near the speed limit from the second they reached the road until they stopped at the hospital. Cade spent most of the time shrinking against his seat, praying Lita would not attract the cops' attention. That would have been problematic to say the least.
No one spoke, save for Sylvia counting under her breath. Cade kept glancing in the rear view mirror at Aeryn. Her eyes never left Crichton. Occasionally, she would appear alarmed by Sylvia's tone, but most of that alarm had been there already. Mostly, Aeryn's gaze was a calm mask stretched thinly over concern. Something about her attachment struck him as admirable, despite certain uncomfortable associations he had formed between human-alien matches.
And Cade was positive there was a match there. From what Chiana had indicated, Crichton and Aeryn were a pair even if they did not know it yet. Clearly, Aeryn's anxiety proved some of that true.
There was no other time to think over the implications of what he suspected as they arrived at the hospital. Sylvia burst out the side door, leaving them behind. Lita had apparently anticipated this. She killed the engine, stepped out, and opened the trunk.
"She's probably going to get a stretcher, just sit tight." Sylvia returned with a whole lot more than just a stretcher. Two interns flanked her sides, one pushing the stretcher, one carrying a small medical kit. The interns were hard pressed to move Crichton with Aeryn there until Sylvia assured her they were trying to help. Reluctantly, Aeryn released him and promptly took up a position behind the stretcher, listening intently to the interns and Sylvia.
As they rolled Crichton, still unconscious, into the Emergency Room, Aeryn tried to follow, only to have two nurses hold her up.
"I'm sorry, Miss, but only medical technicians past these doors." To Cade, it was obvious Aeryn neither understood nor cared for this rule. He placed a hand on her arm.
"Don't. You won't be able to stay with him if they have to call out the security guards on you." This seemed to halt her progress a bit, though she was not hesitant to throw murderous looks at the nurses. They knew exactly the threat she did and could not voice.
If you do anything to hurt him while I'm out here, you'll regret it.
----------------------------------
What was her problem? Tatiana shook her head after the encounter with the silent woman who she could see was still outside, pacing for lack of a better idea.
"God, for a minute there, I thought we were going to have to get her restrained." Tatiana nodded in agreement with her friend. "What a bull she was…thinking she could just barge into the ER."
"She just didn't look happy to let him go. The EMTs who brought him in said she followed them like the plague." Tatiana nodded at the two workers outside talking to the desk manager.
"Well, can't say I blame her. He'd be something of a fox if he wasn't so…" Jessica did not finish her sentence. Tatiana peered over at the man being worked on. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, seeing nothing. Not one question the doctors hurled at him was answered. She could see what Jessica meant about the 'so' comment. The man on the table was yellow, indicating possibly a liver condition. His skin was pale enough to allow the color, which might have been less pronounced otherwise, to be more predominant.
His eyes caught her breath in her throat. They were beautiful. The irises were blue, not light not dark, but a tantalizing mix of the two. Their beauty was fleeting as the emptiness there became more obvious. Nothing was working behind those blank blue orbs; the mind was dormant, separate from the body. Briefly, Tatiana looked up and back at the door, expecting to see the dark-haired companion still playing sentry. Indeed, she was there, but a man next to her was apparently trying to talk her away from the door.
Tatiana sensed Jessica next to her, heard her suck in a breath in surprise. From the corner of her eye, Tatiana saw recognition in her friend's gaze. It could not have been that Jessica knew the woman, she would have said something if she had, so it must have been the man. Tatiana's eyes flickered back toward the door and absorbed the man's profile.
He, too, was handsome, but in a much different way. His hair was blonde, cut slightly longish but not so that it was hanging off his head in that shaggy cut that was popular nowadays. The tan on his skin was that of a traveler, not of a beachcomber. That kind of coloring was beaten into the skin with the wear and tear of time.
"117." Tatiana turned at the whisper from Jessica.
"Something wrong?" Jessica's eyes snapped to Tatiana.
"Just checking his pulse," she moved away to help the doctor collect serology samples. Tatiana watched her leave without saying a word. While she dove into the routine, making herself useful without being a nuisance, Tatiana watched Jessica. The other nurse made no more cryptic references. Only that one. Tatiana read the heart monitor. Currently, the problem was the beats were too infrequent; the patient's heart was only beating about fifty times a minute. Unless the monitor had been broken, there was no way it could have read a hundred and seventeen a minute ago.
She's lying. About what? And why?
***********************
Salem Center Hospital
May 15
"Morning Sylvia, darling, how are you?" Sylvia stood to kiss her friend Steve Phillips on the cheek as they embraced. While they made small talk, Aeryn tapped Cade on the shoulder. When he turned to look at her, she appeared confused.
"What's a psychiatrist?" Cade nearly laughed at the sheer absurdity of the question before he realized that Aeryn would have no idea what that meant. Lita, sitting next to him on the bench, smiled but said nothing.
"It's a special kind of doctor. He can help your friend with his…mind troubles, I guess you could call them." Satisfied, Aeryn returned to her pacing in front of Crichton's door, her steps more secure now that she was assured that this man was not an enemy. Neither Sylvia nor Steve paid her any mind as introductions were made all around.
"Steve, you remember my daughter, Lita." Lita shook his hand and smiled as she nodded to Cade.
"Steve, this is a friend…well, actually an employee of mine, Jack Parker." Cade silently thanked Lita for keeping up the ruse. The two men shook hands, each nodding, a nonverbal "how are you?"
"I hear we have a serious trauma case here. You said it was urgent, so I pushed seventy most of the way here. What's up?" Cade left the medical terms to Sylvia and Lita and went back to join Aeryn, still pacing in front of Crichton's door. He peered in at the immobile figure on the bed. The past twenty-four hours had done wonders for Crichton's composure, if not for his mental health. A few rotations on the dialysis machine filtered out most of the wastes that had built up in his system and had given his liver and kidneys a much-needed break. According to what he had picked up from the doctors, all of whom reported directly to Sylvia, the damage to those organs was not severe or permanent, but that relieving the strain on them would ensure a speedier recovery.
"Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome? Sylvia, with all due respect, unless that guy went through the Gulf War, chances are it's just a case of depression, perhaps even schizophrenia marked with bouts of catatonia. That explanation would account for his symptoms and is a lot more plausible. I'll have to ask him to be sure."
Both Cade and Aeryn tensed at that. They shared a look to be sure that each had the same bad feeling; they did.
"Sylvia," Cade was cut off before he finished his thought. She nodded, took Steve by the arm and sat him down for a long discussion in an empty room. Noticing Aeryn and Cade's panic, Lita laughed.
"Hey, it could be worse, guys. At least she knows she can trust Steve. And what if they had placed him in the ICU? No way would you get to play bodyguard, Aeryn. They'd have had security pin you down so fast…" Lita continued to laugh at her own joke, continued to see the bright side whereas Aeryn and Cade could only see problems. Her words had not assuaged their fears. Aeryn did stop pacing long enough to stare in the room at Crichton. Once more, Cade saw the wrenching fear under her plastic toughness.
"Will he be all right?" The question had caught him off guard. Cade had been wondering the same thing.
"He should be fine, physically." It was the other aspect of healing that he was not so sure about. Aeryn sensed this, sensed the human's sadness in his words.
"Will he be safe here?"
"What do you mean?"
"There was another Earth where not even he was safe from your kind." Utterly confused, Cade could only wait for further explanation. None was forthcoming.
"Care to let me in on this other Earth?"
***********************
"He's here."
"Are you sure?"
"There isn't one of us who wouldn't be. If you don't trust me, then you come up. This is supposed to be your assignment, not mine."
"Why is he there?"
"Came in with a small band and one wounded guy, male, thirty-ish."
"Recognize him?"
"No, but I'm checking on it. The whole group is hush-hush about what's wrong with him. I saw the shrink talk to the doctor that came in with the patient."
"He's not one of us, is he?"
"No, he definitely bleeds…and bleeds and bleeds. The dialysis machine was running for hours on him. He had symptoms of…"
"Spare me this discussion for another time. Keep an eye on our target. I will join you there shortly." Jessica Simmons cradled the phone against her ear. Despite herself, she was afraid, afraid of the man she had met two days ago. He was a terror to them, the only human to be so threatening. The voice on the other line ended, starting her panic anew.
"And, Joshua?"
"Yes?"
"Please, hurry."
***********************
"What is it with your species?" Aeryn crossed her arms in a frustrated gesture. Cade could not blame her. It had taken the Sebacean a good hour to describe the short trip to the false Earth that she had mentioned.
"What do you mean?"
"All you do is ask questions. Can't you just accept?"
"No. You don't learn that way." Aeryn raised an eyebrow at that explanation. Why is learning important? All you need to know is a problem and what to do to fix it. She did not bother to share this with Cade. After a cycle with John, she knew how to avoid a philosophical conversation.
"I take it you're leaving after he wakes up?" Aeryn bowed her head, suddenly unsure of how to answer that. She had asked herself the same question, only her wording had been slightly different. Will we leave with him or without him? She still had not made up her mind. Instead of answering, she gazed back at John through the glass. The 'mind-doctor' Cade had told her a little about was still in there, talking to Crichton, asking him more questions than even Cade had. These people ask too many frelling questions.
"I hope I'm not interrupting folks, but I just thought I'd tell you all that you're welcome to take advantage of guest services while your friend is here," the chipper nurse from the Emergency Room had appeared around the corner, smiling at them with the widest grin she could manage. Lita, Sylvia, and Cade all looked relieved; Aeryn nodded and returned to staring at Crichton through the glass.
"Could you show us, uh, Nurse Simmons?" Lita read the tag on the white uniform. The smile never left Jessica's face.
"Please, you must call me Jessica. I haven't let anyone call me 'Nurse Simmons' since I graduated school. This way everyone!" Her chipper attitude brightened all who followed. Cade nudged Aeryn with his elbow.
"He'll be fine. Come get something to eat." Aeryn shook her head. Over Cade's shoulder, she could detect Jessica's displeasure with having her offer refused. Aeryn was all the more frustrated for not being able to communicate her distrust verbally, though Jessica seemed to understand well enough through body language.
"Come on now, Miss. Your friend is in the best of care, I promise. After I walk you down, I'll be right back up. I'll keep an extra sharp eye out for any ne'er-do-wells, promise. Okay?" Aeryn shook her head and refused to even look at Jessica.
"I'm sorry, but she's hopeless. I wouldn't mind the company though," Cade extended his arm to Jessica. Jessica had to overcome the lump of paranoid fear in her throat, though, fortunately, her smile never faded. She twittered as she took his arm. Aeryn turned sharply at that laugh. It was unnatural to her ears, nothing like John's laugh, or Lita's, or Cade's, or any of the humans' she had heard so far. This curious and slightly enervating sound started to draw her away from the door. She might have followed if the doctor, Steve, she reminded herself, had not come out just then.
"Oh, still here? Well, then I can be the first to give you the good news." Aeryn's whole being brightened at his good humor. "It looks like your friend is on the mend. The fainting spells will definitely stop now that he's gotten his system cleaned out. It doesn't appear to be catatonia after all, which is very fortunate." Aeryn's brow wrinkled and she frowned. The doctor sighed and nodded.
"Yes, there is a 'but' coming. Your friend is still reeling under the immense emotional trauma…I would even go as far to say Sylvia is right. He may be experiencing some Post-Traumatic Shock." Aeryn barely heard him mutter, "Although there isn't anything I can think of that might have done that…" To her, that was irrelevant information. What was important was that Crichton would be all right. They would help him, she and Zhaan, Chiana, D'Argo, Pilot…maybe even Rygel would step down from his mountain of pride and offer a helping hand.
"Would you like to see him?" Aeryn would normally have hidden her excited response, but she did not care if this human saw her anxiety or not. Steve laughed at her hopeful look. "Go on in, but take it slow and easy. And try not to stay for too long. Watch one of those nurses pokes her head around the corner and yells at me for it." Aeryn smiled, unable to thank him with anything more than that gesture. He apparently understood, returned her smile, and left her alone.
As she pushed her way into the soft-lit room, Aeryn's eyes sought John's own. She had not stepped completely inside the door before the two pairs were locked on one another. Her dark eyes held sadness and guilt, but also hope and compassion. His were softened with pain, but the piercing blue eyes held hers as she moved closer to him.
"Hey." The sound was stronger than it had been, but the frailty still threatened to tear her heart from her body. She sat on the stool next to his bed, uncertain now about coming in. Is this really a good idea? One tired, pained smile from John was her answer.
This wasn't a good idea...this was a great idea.
End of Part 5