A Piece of Home
When Kirk and Spock finally found Bones the day after Vahl'Sai's incident, he was in the labs staring at a computer screen, which appeared to have a close up of Vahl'Sai's broken arm on it. "You're staring at that thing like it's going to start singing the meaning of life to you," Kirk said in greeting. Bones didn't even turn around. "Hello? Earth to Doctor McCoy, this is your Captain speaking!" Kirk tried again, but Bones just continued staring at the screen.
"Captain, look," Spock prompted calmly, motioning to the image that Bones was so keen on. Kirk glanced at Valh'Sai arm scan, not really interested in seeing it again. It had been bad enough to be present when Spock deliberately broke her arm, he didn't want to study the damage. However, there was something that caught his attention just before he could look away and he found himself stepping closer, looking more intently.
It wasn't just an image, but a recording of Vahl'Sai's progress throughout the night. McCoy had left a scanner over her pinned arm to monitor the way the marrow worked on the break. They had reset the bone just after arriving at Med Bay, giving enough time for the marrow to drain into her blood but not enough that the bone would start to heal incorrectly. In the span of twelve hours, between starting the recording and now, the fibers of the bone were already beginning to knit back together.
Speeding up the video, they were literally watching Vahl'Sai's arm mend before their eyes.
Kirk could do no more than mutter, "holy shit."
"If the rate of regeneration continues like this, her arm will be back to normal in less than two weeks. Like it had never happened," Bones explained, finally leaning away from the screen and pausing the recording. "All signs of the sedative are gone, too, and the marrow levels in her blood are decreasing as her liver and kidneys filter it out."
"Is she awake?" Spock asked first, Kirk having opened his mouth to do the same only a split second too late.
"Yea," Bones answered tiredly. "And she's a worse patient than you," he added on, glaring at Kirk. "She hates Med Bay. And with so many scanners and equipment hooked up to her, I can understand why. She can hear and smell everything—I turned off one of the beeping machines in a nearby room and her irritation levels dropped significantly. We opened the window on the right side of her bed and now she's sitting so close to that side she might just go off the edge without realizing."
"Yea, she doesn't seem like the kind of person to like sitting still, either," Kirk agreed, crossing his arms as his eyes drifted to the frozen image of her arm. He kept forgetting how different she was, and then reminded in the most glaringly amazing ways.
McCoy pushed away from the screen and stood up, sighing tiredly. He'd been there for hours already—as soon as she woke up, actually. "Pike's with her now. She's got to meet with Admiral Bennet later. I think she's tempted to jump out the window and flee while she has the chance."
Kirk snorted in amusement, but went quiet and still when Bones turned to look at him.
"You think I'm joking but I honestly have a concern that I'm going to go back to her room and find the bed empty with her cast on the floor. From what she told me about past injuries, she set herself back to heal twice as long because she refused to take it easy. She broke her femur and ran around until it splintered again and put her back in bed."
"Wha—she broke her femur?"
Bones gave his friend a deadpan stare. "That's what you took away from that?"
In Vahl'Sai's private room in Med Bay, she was standing in the small bathroom that was just off of her room; barely enough room for the shower, sink and toilet. A simple mirror hung on the stark white wall, matching every other white thing surrounding her, and she found it hard to look at the reflection staring back. She hated the pale tone of her skin and the dark shadows beneath her eyes. It looked like she'd lost the fight of her life.
Her arm was also encased in a cast, the web-like design showing sections of her flesh beneath. Thankfully, the dark spider-veins that had appeared because of the sedatives were gone and there was no outward sign that her bone had been broken. McCoy and his team had been able to mend the break without having to do invasive surgery, for which she was grateful. Turning her arm over, she frowned at the markings on the inside of her forearm, once more turned a bright blue because of her body's natural defences.
Pike had been looking at them a few minutes before when he'd been by to visit, having seen her markings before but shocked at the blue hue that had overcome them. Never in her life had she seen her markings change colour before coming to Earth, and in less than a week she had witnessed it twice.
Through her door, Vahl'Sai could hear when someone entered her main room, the hard tap of boots telling her it was a larger man, wearing regulation Starfleet boots. Turning away from the mirror, wincing once more at her reflection, the Sahvarian opened the door to the adjoining bathroom and stepped out, looking to where Admiral Bennet was still in the doorway.
"Commander Vahl'Sai," he greeted, what appeared to be guilt in his eyes as he looked down to her encased arm.
"Admiral Bennet," she answered. "I would salute, but-"
"No, please," he assured, halting her when she lifted her bound up arm. One of the downsides to the surgery Bones had decided to do on her arm was that the nerves were very sensitive, and too much movement—especially lifting her arm—caused pain to ricochet up and down the limb. "I understand that you're in need of rest and you are probably tired of having to tell people what happened, and I have read the reports given from the other security officials that were there, but I want to hear it from you, if you wouldn't mind."
Vahl'Sai motioned to the chair that Pike had occupied short minutes before, sitting on the edge of her bio-bed so that she was facing the admiral, slightly taller than him because of the arrangement. Bennet's attention flicked down to her wrist briefly, taking in the stark white of her cast against her dark skin. The stark contrast made the cast all the more obvious.
Wanting to get things over with, Vahl'Sai repeated the story to the Admiral, the same as she had told everyone else leading up to that moment. It truly was getting frustrating to have to do the same thing over and over, but she knew that it was for the better and hopefully would prevent this from happening again in the future.
Bennet's face was set into a strict frown by the time she had finished retelling her story, her mouth slightly dry from all of the talking. Bennet seemed to have noticed, because he calmly picked up the class bottle at her bedside and held it out to her. Vahl'Sai took the offered bottle with a nod of gratitude, letting him remain silent as he processed what she had told him while taking a couple of careful gulps from the bottle. She could detect a slight flavour in it—McCoy had told her that it was vitamins, one that shared the closest make-up to the plants on her planet so as to help keep her healthy while her body mended.
"Thank you, Commander Vahl'Sai, I'll let you get back to your rest," Bennet finally stated as he rose from the chair. Vahl'Sai stood up to see him off, but he only let her get to her feet before he held up a hand to stop her. "You rest, Commander. Knowing you, you'll be back on your feet sooner than you should, so I'd prefer you rest while McCoy is still keeping you in here."
Vahl'Sai's usually strict green eyes softened at the Admiral's words, amusement dancing behind the usual façade that she left to mask herself from most people. "Good afternoon, Admiral."
"Get well soon, Commander."
When the door closed behind him, Vahl'Sai fell back to sitting on the edge of her bed with the glass bottle still cradled in her hands.
It was true that she wanted nothing more than to get out of there. It was only out of her respect for Dr. McCoy and not wanting to cause him undue stress that she sat in place and tried to withhold the urge to jump out the window. Admittedly, she had already peeked out to see how far of a drop it would be and knew that she could easily make the three stories down to the ground. She'd jumped much more than that in the past.
Placing the water bottle back on the side table, Vahl'Sai moved over to the open window. Leaning her temple against the side frame, she closed her eyes as the soft breeze that drifted in caressed her cheeks, pushing back any loose hair from her face. If she couldn't go outside, this was the best she could take for herself while healing. Pike assured that they were going to be trying to get her to her room again, though she had been moved to a new dorm with better security.
It wasn't as though she would need it, though.
She had heard a saying over the time she had been on Earth. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. She would not let someone get close enough to harm her again. She knew her allies were—anyone else was considered an enemy until proven otherwise. Whoever was after her was willing to go to great lengths, but there was still the caution that needed to be taken considering most of her time was spent on the campus of Starfleet, a highly secured and monitored facility. And now they were going to be watching her like a hawk.
Sighing softly, the Sahvarian longed for the freedom of her planet. At least if she had wanted to get away from her uncle's pestering guards she could flee into the forest and lose them in minutes. That was not an option here.
The hiss of the door behind her signaled another visitor.
"I hope Bones wasn't right and you intend to jump outta here."
The sound of Kirk's amused voice drew a reluctant smirk to Vahl'Sai's lips before she opened her eyes to glance over her shoulder at the Captain. He was dressed down in more casual clothing, hands in the pockets of his trousers as he stood just inside the doorway.
"It is quite tempting, but I think I would rather avoid the wrath of Dr. McCoy," Vahl'Sai answered honestly. Kirk snorted in amusement before he stepped further into the room, coming around the bed so he could talk more easily with the Commander.
"I'd ask how you're feeling but I imagine the exhausted look on your face tells me enough," he started carefully, hoping she wouldn't be offended by his phrasing.
"My arm still aches from the surgery and I am tired, but now that the chemicals are out of my system I am feeling much better." Turning her eyes back toward the window, Kirk could see the forlorn look that came to her expression by looking out at the green yard and the water that stretched beyond it. "I just want to be outside."
Bowing his head slightly, Kirk scuffed his foot on the floor as he looked down at his shoes a moment. "Normally, I'd break you out of here and take you out to let you get some air, just lay in the grass for a while, but I'll admit that what happened last night scared me half to death." Looking back up, Vahl'Sai had turned her attention back to him with a guilty look on her face.
"I had not known I would react so badly. I knew that he had injected me with something, only a small amount actually getting beneath my skin, but I had not known that the chemicals in Earth drugs would kill me." She was speaking in complete honesty, her green eyes reflecting his pain as they both remembered the night before, from two very different perspectives. "I also know that my freedom is about to be greatly restricted," she sighed, moving from the window to sit on the edge of the bed, nudging the empty chair with her foot.
Falling to sit in the somewhat uncomfortable chair, Kirk mirrored her sigh. "Yea, I figured you'd have guards posted outside your door when I got here, but apparently Pike and Bones got to them first and scared them off."
A smile twitched at the corners of Vahl'Sai's mouth, her eyes beginning to lighten with mirth as the tense conversation between them eased somewhat.
"I saw the recording that Bones took of your arm, though. You're unreal, you know that?" Vahl'Sai's head cocked to the side, not quite understanding what he was implying. "Your arm is probably going to have healed by the time classes resume. Your bone was snapped in half and it's already pretty much back together all by itself. You're…amazing. The things that you can do blow my mind."
For the first time since he had met her, Kirk could see the faint darkening of Vahl'Sai's skin tone. She was blushing.
Leaning forward until his elbows were resting on his thighs, Kirk narrowed his eyes as he took in the bashful expression on her face. "You're not complimented very often, are you?"
The Sahvarian swallowed thickly as she avoided looking at him right away. Kirk and Pike had a striking similarity in how easily they could get beneath her skin. She didn't know anyone else that was able to wedge themselves into her heart without her even realizing it. Pike was one of the few who had actually taken to complimenting her, usually on things that made her different from everyone else, as a way of easing her into the Starfleet program. Kirk did it just because he was speaking him mind, in plain honesty that he felt should simply be said.
"Not really, no," she admitted a moment later. "Thank you, Jim. You have been very kind to me."
"Well it's all true. I wish more people could see what I see. You may be different from others here, but most people only listen to the rumours or stories of your planet and base their opinions off of that. From what I've seen of you, you're a loving person that only wants to protect as many around her as she can. You're strong, and independent. You're beautiful." The final word caused Vahl'Sai's bright green eyes to snap to his in surprise, but his warm blue eyes and calm smile told her that he wasn't trying to flirt with her like he did with most other women. "You are. In more than just an exotic way, but in general. And your students think your fantastic…though sometimes a bit scary."
Vahl'Sai gave a breathy laugh at the last bit, wondering if that was a bit of Kirk's initial impression of her bleeding through. She hadn't been so kind to him when he'd first joined her class, and now look at where they were.
"Thank you, Kirk."
"Jim," he corrected immediately. "We're not working together yet and I'd like to say we're friends, so just call me Jim."
Valh'Sai could feel warmth in her chest, knowing she had a friend that appreciated her for being herself. "Very well, Jim."
He hesitated a moment, curiosity shining in his eyes as he looked at her. She almost wondered if he'd changed his mind and didn't want to speak, when the words came spilling out in a sheepish rush, "so is Vahl'Sai you're only name or your first name? Like what's the less professional way to say it? I mean not that your name-"
Valh'Sai's laugh cut the captain off, her eyes closed as she let out a full-blown laugh that creased the corners of her eyes with lines and bared her pearly fangs. "My people do not have last names, so Vahl'Sai is my only name. If I met someone new on my planet I would introduce myself as saying 'I am Valh'Sai, daughter of the Ere'Cura clan'." Kirk blinked in surprise at the new, unfamiliar name. It rolled off of Vahl'Sai's tongue so fluently and sensually that it blindsided the usually flirtatious man. "However," she continued after a moment, "my friends called me Sai-Sai, or just Sai."
"Really? You create nicknames out of your full names over there?" When she looked mildly confused over what he meant, the man elaborated. "Like how I go by Jim, even though my name is James. Jim's a nickname. Bones is my nickname for McCoy, but that's not because of his name, just something he said when we first met."
"I see. Then, yes, we do the same in both regards."
"Can…can I call you Sai?"
The old nickname, one she hadn't heard since she'd come to Earth and joined Starfleet, brought a warmth to Vahl'Sai's chest. She hadn't realized how much she was missing her old life until Kirk uttered that name. Swallowing thickly, the woman could do no more than bow her head and nod her consent.
Jim noticed her reaction but knew better than to say anything. In the years that she had been at Starfleet, she'd never really been treated like she would on Sahvariah; to have someone call her something that reminded her of home was going to an adjustment. He knew that Pike had tried to be the person to offer her that familiarity, which was made more noticeable when he was able to understand the word marrow the night before. However, they had to keep their relationship at a more professional level since he had been her commander and she was barely even a cadet. He'd definitely helped her to integrate into Starfleet, but Jim wanted to be the one to help her realize she didn't need to hide who she was and conform completely to Earth and Starfleet.
He only hoped that he could still do that while trying to see how she and Spock were together. That had kind of fallen into the background when he let himself get caught up in the fascination with her people—he did know that the two had spent some time together, and they seemed to get along, but he didn't know much beyond that.
Hopefully the new semester would present some interesting changes, even if Vahl'Sai was a bit more restricted for her own protection.
Sorry that it's been so long, hope the update was worth it!