As the captain left, Lexxi breathed a sigh of relief.  She stood by the door, motionless, her mind racing.  This was not supposed to happen.  They were not supposed to care.  She was not supposed to get involved.  She'd been so close.  So close, until they came to save her.

Go ahead, end it all…

Sighing again, Lexxi moved to stand in front of the mirror.  She studied herself and sighed once more before catching herself and scowling,  The icy air in the room felt good after the hot stuffiness of sickbay.  Her cheeks were tinted gray-blue.  How she had fooled them!  Not strong enough?  Ha!  103% bullshit!  She had the strength all along.  In fact, strength had nothing to do with it.  Her plan would have been flawless.  The perfect fix.  With her body temperature so low, and the doctor believing there was nothing to be done about it, everyone would have assumed it had been an accident, and she would have been gone.

Go ahead, end it all…

Tell the truth…

It would have been flawless, she would have been gone, had there not been that single, ironic twist of fate.  Herself.

"Damn you," she cursed her reflection aloud, hoping to silence her thoughts, "damn you!"  Closing her eyes, Lexxi focused inward for an instant and willed the change to take place.  The room became chillingly cold and the blue was replaced by a dusky pink.  Once more gazing at her reflection, now more satisfactory, Lexxi mumbled softy, "Alexia Nicole Montgomery, you got your hands full now."  She sighed and looked at her feet.  "He thinks he loves you."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Well I'll be damned," McCoy repeated before bringing a hand down on his desk with a thunk.  "She can't do that yet!"

"Do what?  What's going on?"  Kirk had observed the change in the doctor's demeanor and did not understand.

McCoy had stood suddenly, causing the captain to take a step back.  He looked to Kirk and realized that he was clueless.  This would be the second time he'd explained this, and he didn't even fully understand it yet.  All in a day's work, right?

"Lieutenant Montgomery is not human.  But Jim, when you first saw her, she was as human as you or me, right?'

"Right," Kirk replied slowly, "I could have sworn that…it was!  Her blood was red, Bones!  On the planet's surface, I watched…I almost forgot, I watched her make herself bleed.  She rolled her eyes back, slowed her heart, stopped her breathing, collapsed, and bled.  And it was red.  Never seen anything like it!"

"Wow," McCoy sighed, "I never realized the extent of—Jim, she has such amazing control over her self, it's almost scary.  What she just did was totally changer herself to resemble a human.  Her injuries from before cause her to lose control and go back to…default, I suppose you could say, and drained the strength she needed to…compensate is what she called it.  She shouldn't have been able to, not yet anyway, unless," McCoy looked over his shoulder at Kirk as he crossed his arms over his chest, "I understand now.  It was all a trick."

"A trick?" the captain asked.

"A trick.  She could have compensated anytime."

"I don't follow you, doctor."

"She remained at default willingly.  She hates being there, it's obvious.  Her plan was to change back quickly and stay locked up, make us think she'd slowly regained enough strength.  Sure have me fooled.  But what I just don't get is why the hell she would want to do that."  The good doctor frowned.

Kirk imitated his friend, trying to sort through everything in his mind.  It suddenly hit him.

Let me die…

Low body temperature.  No strength to bring it up.  Hot shower.  The body temp slipped her mind, as did her recent injuries.  An accident, right?  No, it had been no accident.

"Doctor," Kirk finally spoke, "I believe our new charge is suicidal."