Disclaimer: JMS, I mean no harm to your creation. We're not worthy! We're not worthy!
First, do no harm.
Stephen nestled Janice closer and sighed into her hair, softly, so as not to wake her. He couldn't help but reflect. It wasn't Janice's fault that her mother had been a doctor, not Janice's fault that the former doctor, Laura Rosen, had fallen.
And it wasn't Janice's fault that he was thinking about his own oath as a doctor. 'Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death...'
"What are you thinking about?"
"Huh?" He'd woken her. Dammit.
"What are you thinking about?" She propped herself up on her elbow, drifts of hair slanting downward to tickle her nose.
He tried not answering for a second, which didn't work. Finally, he shrugged and admitted, "Being a doctor."
The muscles around her eyes tensed. "You still think my mother did something wrong."
"No, no!" Never arouse the tigress near her kin. Janice's protective instincts would likely never die down. "I was thinking about me."
She sat back, still frowning. "And my mother."
"Well, that started it."
"She did the right thing."
He paused for a moment to form his thoughts. "She acted. That's what's important."
"You don't sound too sure of yourself." Accusation.
"It's not that." He sighed. He didn't want to get into a fight, not now. "I was thinking about a patient of mine."
She crinkled up her brow. "How does that relate to my mother?" Very direct, was Janice.
"It's just that I did something, and I worried afterward if I made the right choice." A pause. "Frankly, I expected to be forced into resigning."
"What happened?"
"I... misjudged." He could feel himself smiling, bitterly. "The thing about alien cultures is that we forget how seriously different some of them are. I mean, you see differences among humans, and you can at least work through common humanity to find a way to work things out. With aliens, sometimes there is no way to work things out."
She was waiting.
"I misjudged," he admitted, "And someone died. But if I hadn't acted, he would have died anyway. So I think... all we can do is try. If we don't do something, then we have to pay the price for inaction, and know that we could have tried to help and didn't."
Janice understood. She smiled, a bit sadly, and curled around him, nestling back into his arms. Stephen closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep.
It was years later, and Janice gone for almost as long.
"Why! Why is this so important? Now, if you want me to do this right, then I have to know what this is all about."
"Stephen--"
"I mean it."
First, do no harm...
"Stephen, I've asked some hard things of you in the past. This may be the hardest of all. I don't think you're going to like it, but we don't have much choice."
Primum non nocere...
Walking slowly into the hallway, shock still not letting him really believe what he'd heard.
Sometimes, you just have to act...
"The Sheridan I know, he never would have told me what this one just did."
Most especially must I tread with care in the matters of life and death...
"He's right, he's right... it's the only way, I just wish to hell that he was wrong."
He looked over at Lyta, looked down. "I have a long term job for you. Are you available?"
She nodded.
"Good. Start packing, we'll leave in a few days, as soon as I take care of everything."
"Where are we going?"
"Mars."