Prompt fill for "Comatose" - Skye Ryder and Evfra for rvtstudent
Pain searing and pulling and all together overwhelming dragged Evfra forcibly to the surface. He woke with a roar, batting away the hands touching him.
"Evfra, Evfra," someone spoke. "You're safe now. You have to let us treat you."
Treat?
He blinked rapidly to clear the tears from his eyes. White filled them instead. White ceiling, white tiles, solid white barriers that sealed him off from the outside and white uniforms on everyone around him.
Rescued?
Clearly, this wasn't the escape pod. But all thoughts fled when hands shifted him onto a hard bed. High pitched beeps and shrill screeching came from the machines that surrounded him. Pain filled him and he cried out.
"Get his leathers off now!" the doctor barked.
More hands, more lightning jolts running across his body. But through the fog, one thought rose to the top.
"Ryder… Where is she?" he gritted out through clenched teeth.
The doctor looked at him. A flicker of frustration and understanding crossed his eyes. "She's in good hands."
The screeching went on. Evfra realised it wasn't coming from the machines he was hooked up to.
Fear seized him. "I want to see her," he said, giving voice to the dread that filled his chest. "I need to see her."
The doctor sighed, but continued working. Sharp sheers made quick work of his leathers, completely baring him to the air. He shivered. The sounds from outside grew louder.
His fear won out. "Please." The Resistance Leader didn't beg, but Evfra de Tershaav the man would.
The doctor stiffened and nodded. He tapped his ushataliin. The white screen on one side turned transparent. There just inches away lay Ryder. Tears sprung to his eyes as he watched.
Angara hands pushed against her chest, bowing it in over and over. A tube was shoved down her throat as a machine forced air into her lungs, breathing for her. It was her machines that screamed and shouted, crying out that she was dying. Ryder was dying. His jaw tightened as he tried to rise.
"Fight," he cried out. "Fight!"
He didn't feel it when a sharp prick jabbed his arm. The tiny burst of strength ebbed from his body as he slumped back against the bed. Pain and consciousness slipped away, he drifted off staring at Ryder as the doctors tried to drag her back from death.
The next time Evfra woke wasn't quite so violent. He knew agony was just a twitch away so he held still and concentrated on his extremities. Fingers and toes, they worked and wriggled fine. Wrists and ankles next, then elbows and knees, that's where he stopped. The door opened. He had half expected Ryder to enter and ask how long did he intended to sleep.
It wasn't her. The ache in his chest intensified. It's a pain that no drug could touch short of putting him out like a light.
Andraknor blinked owlishly, surprised. "Evfra," he greeted. "I should get the doctor."
He shook his head and fumbled for the bed's controls. He managed to put himself into a sitting position eventually. "They had their time with me. Report."
Andraknor sighed and straightened with his hands clasped behind his back. "You were rescued—"
"Start earlier. What happened to the others after the cave collapse?"
The Hesskaarl looked at him for a moment. Pity? His lips curled at the thought. As much as he wanted to ask about Ryder, as much as the question rested at the back of his throat, he held it back. He was afraid of the answer and he was still the Resistance Leader, he had responsibilities. Ryder'd understand. She's strong, she's a fighter.
"The team took minor injuries, just scraps and bruises from the collapse. We weren't able to get to you because the entrance was blocked. But the shuttle bay still opened out to the sky."
Evfra made an irritated sound in his throat and Andraknor took the hint.
"We apprehended or eliminated the remaining Roekaar. The caves had been cleared out. And restoration work is continuing. Qivra is working with us to vet everyone working on the restoration. The people who were missing in the initial collapse have been confirmed Roekaar members."
His fist clenched tight by his side. Pain flared across his chest. He forced a breath out through his mouth. "A trap then, it was all a trap."
"Yes," Andraknor confirmed. "But one that you have handled and eliminated."
Evfra sagged back against his bed, weary and exhausted.
"The Tempest were the ones who rescued your pod. I did not know what happened on board, but their doctor kept you alive long enough for you to get proper medical attention here on Aya." A nurse entered and hurried out when he realised his patient was awake. Andraknor turned to go. "Rest, Evfra. We have got things well in hand. Security has been tightened."
As a doctor entered with the nurse, Evfra called out. "Ryder." Her name was heavy on his tongue. It felt precious, something to be hoarded and treasured. "Do you have news?"
He hated how scared he sounded. He hated how his chest tightened just asking it. But he asked because he must. The restlessness in his chest would yield to nothing else.
Evfra tolerated the doctor's questions for as long as he could before snapping. "I'm fine."
Sodar looked at him. Her almost pink colouration made her blue eyes all the more striking as she levelled her gaze on him. "You are far from fine. You almost died. If the Tempest crew was one second slower in getting you into a stasis pod, you would died. If you didn't have the emergency oxygen cannister, you would have died. The stars and planets had to align just right for you to be here telling me 'I'm fine'."
He stiffened. It was a long time since anyone but Ryder would put him in his place. Sodar listed his injuries in great detail. In the end when she had to stop to take a breath, he cut in. "Is there anything stopping me from leaving my room?"
Sodar eyed him critically before sighing and studying the machines arrayed behind him. A sigh escaped her lips, "You're going to go no matter what I say anyway."
Evfra didn't deign to reply while Andraknor waited patiently for the situation to play itself out.
"Fine, go but take the chair."
Evfra bristled. "My legs work fine. I was shot, I lost some blood but that's all."
A deep frown furrowed Sodar's brow. "You were bleeding into your lungs. You have not recover the capacity to exert yourself. The chair or you don't get to go. Your choice, Resistance Leader de Tershaav."
He clamped his lips tight, pressing them bloodlessly thin. If this was how he could see Ryder, he could endure the indignity of it. He could already hear Ryder's snorting laughter, poking fun at him before asking for a ride on it. A smile tugged at the edges of his lips before he tucked it away.
"Fine, a chair."
Sodar jerked her head at the nurse who came with her. He bustled out to get a hover-chair. "And…" she went on, tugging Evfra's impatient stare at the door back to her. "Prepare yourself. She isn't in good shape."
Andraknor was relentless. Making sure he was seated well, none of his IVs and tubes are tangled and were all hanging freely. If he didn't have the controls for his hover-chair, he would have gone off without him.
But that was before Evfra caught sight of the room, Ryder's room. It was marked by the number of her crew milling about outside. The look on their faces, and he was getting better at reading the aliens' faces, didn't bode well. They whispered and murmured amongst themselves and as one their voices went silent when they caught sight of him.
The eagerness to see Ryder took a sharp turn, it went bitter with fear and dread. But the chair moved him relentlessly forward, inch by inch by inch. His eyes counted heads. All of them were here even Ryder's second in command, Cora Harper. Everyone but her brother. It was Cora's face he sought. She was human, though different from Ryder, some expressions were similar. The furrow in her brow, the hand that rubbed the back of her neck and the stiff way she held herself.
It screamed of worry, anxiety and uncertainty.
Cora straightened and walked towards him. But the door to Ryder's room hissed open and a man walked out. River Ryder had the same sun gold hair, the same steel green eyes, but his did not hold the same strength of will or more accurately stubbornness. Instead, they were red-rimmed and puffy. Evfra stiffened in his seat, the pain flared in his chest and he gasped.
Andraknor stopped the chair and bent over to check on him. "Don't stop," Evfra forced through his mouth.
As much as he wanted to know, he didn't at the same time. As much as he hoped Ryder was fine, would be fine, had to be fine, the voice at the back of his mind told him to stop lying to himself. Here and now, when the evidence of everything counter to his hopes and wishes was presented to him, he baulked. Ryder would have chuckled and squeezed his hand to assure him.
Taking a sharp inhale, allowing his chest to expand painfully, he growled, "Do not stop." Andraknor sighed and the chair started moving again.
River stood barring Evfra's way into Ryder's room. He rubbed a hand over his face and straightened his hunched shoulders, but he couldn't get rid of the defeat in his eyes. Cora squeezed his shoulder and said, "Good to see you're up, Evfra."
Evfra managed no more than a grunt.
"River, I'll get the others to clear out," Cora said.
River nodded gratefully and soon he was left alone with Evfra and Andraknor. Teeth chewing on his lip, he was working up the words to speak. But Evfra spared him the trouble.
"How bad is it?"
River grimaced and with a broken voice he delivered the worst news possible. "She's brain dead."
Evfra didn't remember entering Ryder's room. He didn't remember what he said to River after the news. All that filled his head were two words — brain dead.
What does that mean?
An angara was either dead or alive, in a coma or awake. River tried to explain but the words were like shards of glass cutting his throat as he spoke. Evfra listened as dread spread like poison through his chest.
Evfra blinked, realising he was holding Ryder's cold limp hand. It was porcupined with needles and tubes, carrying drugs to sustain her. Shifting, he sought her face. It was obscured by more tubes, insidious, sterile and altogether foreign. One snaked down her mouth, strapped to her face, another into her nose, delivering nutrients. Her right arm was placed in a omni-cast, probably re-broken and reset, held together by steel rods stabbing into her skin. Its orange glow made her face splotchy and sick. A thin tube lay between her legs, the contents of the tube yellow as it drained her wastes.
A broken voice erupted from his throat. "Please," he begged, freely this time. Calling upon the ancestors for help, Ryder was human, would she return to the home of her ancestors to be reborn again? Or would she be lost forever among the stars and dust? He shoved his fist into his mouth, teeth biting down on it.
The sound of her heart rate monitor beeped loudly, taunting him with its steadiness. He glared at it, the waveforms formed and reformed in a hypnotic rhythm. He forced himself to his feet. Andraknor wasn't here to tell him no.
Tiny electrodes were plastered across her forehead. His eyes traced them to a monitor hanging over her like a deity waiting to reap her soul. Each line on the monitor was colourful and bright but they remained flat.
Brain dead. Ryder was gone. This was merely an empty shell of a body, the bright spark that's Skye Ryder had forever been extinguished.
A lump formed in his throat, he coughed roughly to clear it. It wouldn't budge. His breathing grew ragged as he tightened his grip on Ryder's hand.
"Ryder," he called, a low moan, pained and sorrowful. "Why? Why am I here and you're not?"
"Do you really want to know?" a voice asked.
Evfra jerked his head up, tears welling up in his eyes as his bio-electricity sparked sharply.
It was River. His voice hoarse, his eyes empty as he looked upon his twin. "Do you really want to know?" he repeated himself, harsher this time as anger flashed across his face. "I was there. I saw." Grief twisted into anger, igniting into a conflagration. "She was blue by the time we cracked the escape pod open. She gave the emergency oxygen canister to you. She give herself up for you," he snarled, finger stabbing in Evfra's direction. River averted his eyes as he clamped his jaw tight.
Evfra sagged into his hover-chair. The words were ringing in his ears as his eyes slid over to Ryder. Dark rings circled her closed eyes, her chest rose and fell mechanically. He gasped, letting go of her hand when he realised how tightened he had gripped it. The outline of his fingers were printed red on her skin.
"Why?" he rasped. "Why must you always be the hero?"
Ryder remained silent, the beeps of her heart rate monitor was the only sound that filled the room.
River walked noiselessly to the other side of Ryder's bed and took her hand, the one in the omni-cast. His thumb rubbed circles over her knuckles, scrapped raw by the ordeal of the past few days.
Days…
It was mere days ago Ryder was in his arms, her arms wrapped around his chest, her voice speaking his name over and over again. Now, everything had shattered around him. Ryder was alive but not. In that instant, he craved contact again, to feel her skin under his. He reached out and held her hand, pressed his forehead onto her knuckles.
The Roekaar had taken his favourite mother from him and now they had taken Ryder, the holder of his heart, too. How much more could they take? As much as he wanted anger to take him, to wrap his heart up in flame forged steel, protecting him against all hurts. But he couldn't, Not when he held Ryder's hand, not when she still lived, not when her heart still beat.
"She signed an DNR," River said, his words soft, almost inaudible.
Evfra lifted his head and their eyes met. Mouth dry, he was afraid to ask what that meant. What new human terms was going to make things worse than it already was?
"DNR, Do Not Resuscitate order," River said as if it explained everything. Ryder's steel green eyes stared out from her brother's face, weary as he straightened and sighed. "It means she didn't want to be kept on life support if the worst happened, it means I have to pull the plug because that's what she wants."
"But—." Speech failed him. Evfra's instincts was to fight anything and everything that threatened to take Ryder away from him. But what if it's her own wishes? He couldn't go against her wishes.
"I don't want to. We're on an angara planet. We do not have a treaty between our people to uphold these stupid things we've signed 600 light years away. I don't actually have to do this. But—" River's voice broke. His face crumpled like wet paper, brow furrowing, jaw clenched so tight Evfra could hear enamel grinding against enamel. His chest heaved as a sob escaped his lips. "Skye, you are the strong one. I can't do this alone, not without you."
Evfra couldn't stop the tears any more. They spilled over and down his cheeks, bold and unashamed as he clutched Ryder's hand. Two men holding onto her, one on each side, filling the air with splintered cries as the heart rate monitor beeped on and on and on.
Everyone stood around Ryder's bed. Their faces ran the gamut, stony stoicism from Drack and Cora, chewed on lips and tight mandibles from Peebee and Vetra, arms folded across chest and tight jaws from the rest. They surrounded the bed like sentinels, forming a solid wall around Ryder with just enough space for his chair. But beyond them were angaras, faces he recognised. It was a testament to the impact Ryder had upon them, especially taking angaras' cultural aversion to illness and injuries of others. This was respect of the highest degree.
The Moshae, Andraknor, Paaran Shie, Avela Kjar, members of the Resistance whom she worked with during the missions she ran to forge better ties between the Nexus and the Angara Nations stood shoulder to shoulder in the room. This was the lasting effects of her influence. Ryder would have denied it and deflect if she could now.
Sodar cleared her throat as Lexi took up position near the head of Ryder's bed. All eyes trained on them. Lexi turned to River who was trying his best to hold it together. His face was red from his efforts. "Are you ready?" Lexi asked.
River's jaw tightened, his eyes darted once to Evfra's but jerked away again. He hesitated before nodded tightly.
Sodar and Lexi peeled the electrodes off Ryder's chest. White bandages were stark against her bruised skin. They hid the bullet wound she had taken for him. Evfra took a deep breath and got to his feet. Jaal wrapped a hand around his side, taking some of his weight. The heart rate monitor beeped distressingly before Lexi shut it off.
The doctors waited. River bent over his sister, pressing his lips against her forehead, his hand brushing her hair out of her face. When he straightened, he threw a look over his shoulder right at Evfra. "What are you doing?" he growled. "She had chosen you. Out of all the men and women she ever had met, she picked you. Don't just stand there. I can't do this alone, she doesn't deserve to take this final journey without you."
Evfra stiffened as if slapped. Anger surged, fuelling his unsteady steps towards Ryder. The others parted to allow him closer. Jaal, ever watchful and careful, followed with a hand ready to help. His legs trembled, unused to bearing his weight, but pride made him stand tall. Ryder would have teased him if she could see him now, poking fun at his stubbornness even as she made sure he didn't hurt himself. How his chest ached to hear her voice again, to hear her laugh loud and free.
The stillness of the air made the others shuffled uncomfortably. But the angaras in the room were speaking in a language nobody but Ryder had begin to learn. Evfra could feel it. The low grade vibration in the air, unheard and unseen, but always felt. Grief ran across his skin, sorrow crawled across his shoulders, heartbreak seized his chest and wouldn't let go.
His shaky hand travelled across the small space and rested on hers. Evfra kissed it, savouring the touch, etching it into his memory. "I love you, Skye." Words he had seldom uttered, though she knew how he felt, he should have whispered them to her, shouted them over the roar of the waterfall on Aya and made his declaration to everyone. "I love you so much Skye Ryder."
Cora called out, "SAM, please transfer the Pathfinder mandate to me."
Silence greeted her words. "SAM?" River straightened, frowning at the lack of response from the AI. "Is SAM still unresponsive?"
Lexi nodded. "I've been in contact with Harry, the AI core is powered down there too. It seemed the trauma that Ryder had suffered affected SAM as well. It's not something we can do anything about now. Maybe once we can get to the Hyperion."
Cora nodded tightly. Evfra's breath hissed through his nostrils. What did that even mean? Why would SAM be offline? What happened really while he was unconscious? Did Ryder sit alone in the pod knowing she was signing her own death certificate? Did she know the risks she was taking when she gave up the emergency oxygen tank to him?
It took real effort to drag his mind from the spiralling questions that swirled in his mind. He had to be here for Ryder, these questions could wait.
"In accordance to the DNR order Skye Ryder had signed, we will be terminating life support, her organs will be harvested after her death has been certified by two medical doctors," Lexi announced.
The tube that led to Ryder's nose had been removed, leaving only the thick clear one going into her mouth marring her face. Sodar glanced at Lexi, waiting for a signal from the asari. At her nod, Sodar turned off the ventilator. The hiss-click sound that filled the room rattled to a stop. The slow and steady rise and fall of Ryder's chest came to a stop as the doctors worked to remove the breathing tube from her mouth.
"How long?" River asked, his eyes trained on Ryder's face.
Lexi sighed, clearing the equipment away. "An hour or so."
One by one, starting with the angaras they came forward. Some spoke of the times Ryder had touched their lives in ways big and small, others just stood and whispered words of comfort to the Tempest crew and River. All of them gave Evfra a wide berth. Soon all that was left were the people closest to Ryder. Her crew, the people who had her back from the time she arrived in Andromeda to the time she ended the Archon's reign of terror. And him, the lone angara in the room, the one she laid her life down for.
An hour wasn't suppose to feel like an eternity, but it did. Evfra ran through the gamut of emotions — grief over what was happening, anger at the Roekaar for their actions and most of all guilt. A fervent wish for this to all be over filled his chest — for Ryder's heart to stop beating, for her to be declared real and truly dead, for this agonising wait to be over. As soon as the thought came to his mind, he recoiled. How could he think that? Ryder deserved so much more than he could ever give and here he was wishing she died faster? What kind of person was he? Forehead pressed against Ryder's, his hand pressed against her chest, he could still feel her heart beating. She was still alive, still here.
Then, it happened.
A gasp, so soft he wouldn't have heard it if his face wasn't already over hers. Evfra flinched in shock. All eyes were trained on him.
"What is it?" River asked.
He swallowed, unwilling to give false hope. "Is it normal for Ryder to be this warm?"
Lexi frowned, running her scanner over Ryder's still body. "Her body temp has increased since the last time I've scanned her. This is not possible. A brain dead patient isn't able to maintain their body temperature."
It happened again. A ragged rasp came from Ryder. It's a motion so small, an action so mundane, but it sent shockwaves through the room.
"Did you see that?" Cora asked.
"That's what I heard just now," Evfra confirmed.
"She's breathing on her own!" River cried. "You told me she's brain dead."
"She is," Lexi insisted. "You were there when I did the tests confirming this. I did not want this to be true anymore than you do. This is impossible."
Evfra couldn't help the grin that stretched his lips as Ryder's chest began to rise and fall on its on. It was slow, the duration between one breath and the next agonisingly long but it always came. One after another, and then another and another.
"Ryder, Skye Ryder, has made a career defying the impossible."
And so here they were, Cora had drawn up a roster. Everyone took a shift sitting with Ryder. She took one look at Evfra and decided that putting him on the roster was meaningless. He was at Ryder's bedside day and night, much to Sodar's disapproval. In the end, even she had given in and set up another bed right next to Ryder's. The tubes returned, one to deliver nutrients, the other to take wastes away. Days passed, one after another. Ryder gave him hope in his darkest moment, but it was waning again. There was no further changes. Ryder breathed on her own, her heart beat, brain waves returned achingly slowly but that was it. She was locked in a time capsule of her own.
Days stretched into weeks. Lexi implemented electrical stimulation to help maintain Ryder's muscle tone as she lay in bed, dead to the world. Evfra healed up, was discharged and escaped Sodar's care. The galaxy went on.
But for Evfra, he was locked in the same time and space Ryder occupied. Neither moving forward or stepping back, remaining steadfast by her side. If pulling on the Resistance Leader mask before was uncomfortable, it was well nigh impossible now. The Resistance closed ranks around him, no longer was he torn between duty and his heart. If this had taught him anything, it was the Resistance didn't need him to run it, there were plenty of capable people to step up in his stead. But he could barely function when his heart lay on death's door.
In the dead of the night, he told Vetra to go take a break while he sat with Ryder. The heart rate monitor was now a soothing sound, it told to him over and over again that she was alive. Her arm was out of the omni-cast. It had picked up more scars. The bandages long gone, her bruises had faded. All that's left was for her to wake. If she would just open her eyes.
"Resistance Leader."
Evfra stiffened, his grip on Ryder's hand tightened.
"It's me, SAM."
The voice was coming from Ryder's omni-tool implant on her arm. "SAM, I thought you were offline?"
"I was but it was a voluntary power down," SAM explained.
He had questions, so many that they crowded around his mouth, and he was unable to get a single one out. But SAM knew what information was pertinent.
"I went offline because I had to expand all my bandwidth protecting Ryder's brain functions."
"What happened?" the words finally worked itself loose. "What really happened?"
SAM was the only other person in the escape pod with them, the only one who could give him the answers he sought.
"There was a limited oxygen supply on board the capsule."
Evfra nodded warily. The words River spoke were still etched in his mind. "I remember."
"Based on the rate of oxygen used and taking into consideration the limited amount in the cannister itself, it would be impossible for both of you to survive," SAM explained. "So the Pathfinder decided, given that I am able to control her physiology, to put her into a deep coma, akin to hibernation. It slows down her rate of breathing. The idea is to revive her again once the Tempest arrives."
Evfra gasped at the deluge of information SAM was giving him. This was planned. He inhaled, a sharp hiss of air through his flared nostrils. If it was all part of the plan, where did it go wrong?
"But when the pod was pulled on board the Tempest, a combination of the trauma she had already suffered, dehydration coupled with a number of other factors, I wasn't able to revive her. And it tipped her towards true brain death."
Anger flared in his chest even as it clenched tightly. It was a stupid plan with so many factors that could go so wrong, so horribly wrong. And it almost did. They had almost killed her. If they had pulled the plug one day earlier, Ryder wouldn't have the ability to breath on her own and she would have died. "What took you so long to tell me this? Why the silence? We could have killed her!"
"I've shut myself down to prevent as much brain damage as possible when the Tempest got you and Ryder to Aya for treatment. I was only now able to pull away enough to power up again to speak."
The growl he expelled ripped through his throat as he fought to calm himself. He could yell at her once she woke. "When will she wake?"
"I've protected and restored as much of Ryder's brain functions as I'm able. Without proper scanning and cognitive tests, I am not able to determine how much, if any, brain damage she had sustained from the failed revival. But she could wake any time. There isn't any drugs keeping her sedated—."
A groan interrupted SAM. Evfra didn't dare turn to look. He didn't want to find Ryder with her eyes still closed. He didn't want to have his hope dashed so violently, not yet. But the hand he held shifted in his grasp. He watched as her fingers curled as if she was too weak to move. One by one, each of her digits closed around his. Her grip was weak but it was unmistakable, she was trying to squeeze his hand.
A lump lodged in his throat as he turned inch by inch to lay his eyes on her. The nasal cannula curled around her ears and into her nose, delivering additional oxygen to her lungs. Electrodes were still plastered across her forehead. But what's different were her eyes. They fluttered, opening and shutting gently. A furrow developed between her brow as she groaned again, fighting her weakened body.
Evfra waited with bated breath. It was a split second, it was an eternity but Ryder opened her eyes. Steel green ones met his and tears spilled from his eyes. He blinked them away angrily so that he could see, to confirm over and over again that Ryder was awake.
"Evfra…" his name rasped from her lips, the sound so precious, so brittle.
It broke him free to move. He stood and bent over, pulling Ryder into his arms. "Ancestors, you're awake. You're awake…"
In that instant, everything that was wrong in Evfra's world righted itself once more. It didn't matter that the road ahead was long, and recovery would be tough, their tempers would fray. All that he wanted came true and he was whole again because Skye Ryder had woke.