Note: For those who need to be wary of such content, this chapter contains depictions and discussion of self-harm.

Chapter IX: The Night Shift

Julian did not remember falling asleep, but once he was under he slumbered uninterrupted until the computer announced, in its calm feminine voice, "The time is 1800 hours."

He groaned softly and began to uncurl his rounded back and huddled limbs. Julian ached from lying too long in one position: he did not seem to have moved at all during the night. Kukalaka was still in his arms, his sweet, familiar face somewhat squashed from being clutched so tight. Julian rolled onto his back, tented his knees, and braced the bear against his thighs like an easel. Gently, lovingly, he worked the stuffing back into its proper shape. Kukalaka's sculpted nose, the velvet long since rubbed away, and his tiny quirked mouth of red felt, gave his snout an expression of almost ironical affability that Julian loved. His black eyes glittered in the warm light of late afternoon, shining through a window over which Julian had in his distress forgotten to close the blind.

"The time is 1802 hours," the computer intoned insistently. Julian had forgotten to acknowledge the alarm.

"I'm up, I'm up," he grumbled. It didn't matter what you said, but you had to say something or the infernal machine would keep offering reminders at a preset interval until the end of time. When he'd shared quarters with Erit, Julian had learned that the Andorian was an accomplished sleeptalker: he could say enough to disable the computer's snooze function without ever getting nearer to consciousness than Stage 2 sleep. It was an impressive trick, but it had made him late for more than a few labs and lectures over the years.

Julian really did have to get up. He had an hour until he was due in the Infirmary for his duty shift, and he would have to get something to eat beforehand. His stomach was pinched and grumbling, and he had a headache of the kind he ascribed to going too long without food: the pastries and fruit in Paris had been almost eighteen hours ago, and it had hardly been a hearty meal. Still, he dreaded facing the mess hall with its gossiping crowds. They'd almost certainly be talking about Saturday's attack upon the Moab colonist — assuming there hadn't been any more sensational developments in Ghent since. If there had been, Julian was too cowardly to look. He rolled out of bed and refused even to look at his workstation as he padded to the closet to put Kukalaka away.

He laid his bear gently in the lockbox, which he'd lined with a square of fluffy flannel in a fit of sentimentality some years before. He knew he was too old to be making up a cosy bed for an inanimate object — but then again, he was also too old to be clinging to a security toy in the dead of night. Julian didn't care. Palis's tirade had cut him off from the one reliable source of human consolation in his life, and he had to find comfort somewhere.

A small, sad smile touched his lips as he adjusted Kukalaka's plump little arms and then planted the tip of his finger on the bear's nose. "You don't care that I'm unnatural, do you, old chum?" he asked. And Kukalaka, as he always did, gazed up in his cordial way that seemed to say no one in the Galaxy could be more worthy of love than his owner.

It was just an emotional projection, informed by the countless children's stories about anthropomorphic toys, but it made Julian feel less hopeless, less bitterly alone, than he had felt coming back from Paris. He closed the box carefully and reset the elaborate locking algorithm. Then he got to his feet and fished out a clean uniform.

(fade)

It was peak activity time in the mess hall on the ground floor of the Medical Academy dormitory tower. Julian could hear the buzz of animated conversation as soon as he stepped off of the turbolift, and he saw at once that almost every table was full of students leaning in to gossip in eager, fascinated tones. A shiver ran up his spine: it had to be a new development, then, and he couldn't bear to speculate what it might be. He wasn't sure how the situation could possibly get worse for the genetically enhanced colonists in Belgium, but he did not doubt that was the case. There was no sense of outrage in the room, as there surely would have been if something had happened to favour the colonists: only an air of fascination and shock and morbid curiosity.

Julian forced himself to close his ears to the voices, blurring them all into one droning buzz, as he joined the line for the replicators. Ravenous though he was, he also felt vaguely nauseous and food no longer seemed appealing. When his turn came at one of the units, he ordered one of his reliable stand-byes for those occasions he needed a substantial meal that would keep him satiated for a prolonged period of time: a chicken thigh with ginger curry glaze on a bed of plump-grained Norpin rice and shaved radish. A tall glass of water, sorely needed after such a long, deep sleep, rounded out the meal, and Julian took his tray away from the replicators, scanning the room in vain for an unoccupied table.

"Bashir! Over here!" Erit's voice drifted over the drone of a dozen conversations. He waved from the far side of the room, where he was seated at a table with one vacant chair. Simultaneously grateful to be able to sit with someone who enjoyed his company, and disheartened by the knowledge that now talk would be completely unavoidable, Julian made his way across and set down his tray.

"Where have you been all day? I've been looking for you," Erit said as Julian slid into the empty place. The other two chairs were also occupied by familiar faces: Cadet Nawrell, whom Julian hadn't known was friendly with Erit, and Cadet T'Priel, who was near the top of their graduating class. Nawrell smiled warmly, and the Vulcan offered a courteous nod.

"Sleeping," Julian said honestly. "I'm on duty in the Infirmary tonight."

"Excellent," said T'Priel coolly. "Then I can expect the files to be in good order tomorrow. On my last shift, I was scheduled after Cadet Lucier. His record-keeping is… substandard."

The arc of her brow imbued that ordinarily only mildly disapproving word with a weight of blistering criticism. Julian couldn't help but feel a little smug satisfaction at that. After their encounter the other day, Julian was not exactly feeling charitable towards Bruce Lucier. He sawed off a piece of chicken and raised it to his mouth eagerly, suddenly famished again.

The welcome flavour of the meat turned to ash, however, when Erit turned to him and said; "Then you haven't heard!"

Julian forced himself to swallow, rather than allowing himself to choke on his dread. "Heard what?" he said, his heart sinking. Those poor people: what had befallen them while he'd been trying to sleep away his heartache?

Erit looked at Nawrell, who nodded hurriedly. T'Priel was watching her fork as it quested through her salad for choice morsels, but she, too, was clearly anticipating Julian's response to whatever the news might be. Erit leaned on one elbow, and his voice was equal measures eagerness and solemnity as he said, "The Nova Squadron inquiry has reached a verdict. The squad captain's been expelled."

It took Julian a moment to make sense of the words. Nova Squadron? The flight accident. The dead cadet. But Erit's words didn't make sense. Starfleet Academy wasn't in the business of scapegoating survivors. "What?" said Julian, completely baffled.

"I know!" Erit breathed in an astounded whisper. He continued a little more audibly, but still with the frantic pace of an underground newsrunner in wartime. "One of the pilots confessed: Nova Squadron wasn't following their flight plan. They were trying to execute a Kolvoord Starburst, and one cadet lost his nerve and collided with the next ship, which collided with the next one, and so on. And all four of them lied, and tried to cover it up!"

Julian was speechless. What Erit was saying was incredible enough: the idea of Starfleet cadets lying to conceal a comrade's cause of death was nothing short of horrifying. But he also couldn't quite get his head around the fact that this must be what everyone was discussing tonight. It was far more sensational, far more rumour-worthy, than the goings-on a third of the planet away. The Moab IV colonists could not possibly compete for the attention of the Academy populace when a scandal of this magnitude had broken in the heart of campus. Now that he troubled to listen, he could hear the eddies of opinion and speculation all around him.

"…heard Admiral Brand was furious. She thought she had no choice but to let them off with a reprimand, but then…"

"…absolutely disgraceful! Who do they think they are, lying to the administration like that? If you ask me…"

"…course they didn't expel Crusher, not with his connections! He's Captain Picard's protégé, you know. Helmsman of the flagship with a field commission…"

"…Albert's poor father! Can you imagine?"

"…thought he walked on water. But I never liked him. Ever got a good look at Nova Squadron? Four out of five were human — only one variety of human, at that! Locarno hand-picked them all…"

Erit snapped his fingers under Julian's nose. "Bashir?" he said, and not for the first time.

Julian blinked at him. "Sorry…" he muttered, trying to rally his wits. "They tried to execute a what?"

"A Kolvoord Starburst," Nawrell said breathlessly. She set down her utensils and held up her hands, two fingers extended on the left and three on the right. She brought them in towards each other, interlacing them as she spoke. "Five ships in a ring. They cross within ten metres of each other and fly off in a new direction, igniting their plasma trails as they go. It's spectacular but very dangerous!"

"It has been banned at Starfleet Academy for almost a century," said T'Priel with icy disapproval. "And for good reason. The last time it was attempted, during preparations for the celebration of the successful ratification of the Khitomer Accords, the result was also a catastrophic collision. On that occasion, all five cadets were killed, instead of one. The surviving members of Nova Squadron are fortunate."

"I'll say they are," said Erit. "Crusher and the two women, anyway. They all could have been expelled. Not really sure why they weren't."

T'Priel cocked her head and lifted her eyebrow almost to her hairline. "I meant they are fortunate to be alive, Mister Erit," she said. "Nicholas Locarno may have lost his place at the Academy, but he still has his life. Something Cadet Albert can never regain."

Erit's antenna twitched in irritation, but he managed to keep most of it off his face and out of his voice. "Yes, of course," he said. "Still, I can't even imagine getting expelled just on the verge of commencement like that, can you? All those wasted years…"

Julian didn't want to think of that. He particularly did not want to imagine being called up before an inquiry panel of his own, as he might have been if he had failed to carry off the ruse of affection with Palis last night. If his own secret ever came out, expulsion would only be the beginning.

He drove that thought from his mind and tried to focus on his meal, while the others carried on with the disjointed and probably not entirely accurate details of the Nova Squadron investigation. Listening to them, and to the whirlwind of like conversations all around him, Julian was sure of one thing: no one but he even remembered the existence of the Moab IV colonists today.

(fade)

Sunday nights in the Academy Infirmary were almost always quiet. That was unfortunate, because if there was ever a night when Julian needed a crowd of rowdy drunks or an epidemic of Cartalian Fever, this was it. Instead, he treated one first-year cadet for menstrual pain, diagnosed a teaching assistant with allergic rhinitis, and administered the third infusion in Professor T'Vrok's immunotherapy series. Doctor Shirakawa was in her office, filing reports: available if her resident had need of her, but content to let him run the Infirmary until then. She never hovered over him as she did some of his classmates. She never had need.

Julian updated the patient charts, downloaded the latest supplement for the Interplanetary Pharmacopeia into the database, and reorganized the drawers of the instrument carts. He checked on the one inpatient in the clinic: an unfortunate casualty of yesterday's Parrises Squares intramurals, under observation after the repair of a crushed lumbar vertebrae. The cadet in question didn't even need fresh ice chips, much less medical attention: Nurse Petrakis had the matter well in hand. Julian inventoried the linens. He sterilized the bedpans. He defragmented the active memory on the replicator.

By then it was only 0100 hours, and he had nothing left to do but think.

It had been almost a day now since he'd parted from Palis, and the wound was still fresh: raw and open and as painful as any plasma burn. He sat behind the intake desk, staring with unseeing eyes at the resting computer display, and trying to will the anguish away. She hadn't meant to hurt him. She had only meant to share her views with the man she loved, whom she had naturally assumed would agree with every word. She trusted him. She thought she loved him.

She had eviscerated him.

Julian could feel the warmth of her breath on his throat, a hot wind out of some unthinkable hell instead of the usual tropical caress. His flank and his nipple and his jaw burned with the shameful memory of her fondling fingers. Where her cheek had rested in the hollow of the opposite shoulder, he felt bruised and brutalized. On his lips, he could taste the sour memory of their parting kiss.

Julian buried his head in his hands, scrubbing at his eyes as if he could scour away the image of her upturned face, dainty and heart-shaped and milky pale. As if he could obliterate her adoring expression as she nuzzled nearer to him and murmured sweet words that could never outweigh the hatred she'd spilled at the viewscreen.

He felt a sudden wave of nausea that drew him up to attention in the chair. He gripped the armrest, bracing himself as he fought it. Julian swallowed hard against a sickly-sweet flood of saliva, and then crumpled forward over the desk, driving his fingers deep into his scalp and clawing fistfuls of hair as though he could rip these memories from his mind by the roots.

Just then, the perimeter alert chime sounded, and Julian straightened, hurriedly smoothing his hair and tugging his uniform in an attempt to look respectable. He forced his face firmly into its calm, professional lines. You're almost a doctor, damn it. Act like one! he admonished himself.

The door to the infirmary slid open, and a young woman came in. She was clad in a long, dusky green nightgown, her bare feet hastily shoved into a pair of standard-issue uniform boots. Her hair was blond and very long, spilling haphazardly out of its elaborately braided coiffure. She was clutching her left hand, wrapped in a towel liberally streaked with bright red blood. Her face was very pale, her lips were white, and her eyes were enormous with shock and pain.

Immediately, Julian rose to his feet and went to her, hands outstretched at the ready. She was swaying, and she looked likely to faint. She faltered as he drew too near, and he froze, watching her.

"It's all right," he said, calm and reassuring. "I'm here to help you. I see you've hurt your hand."

Her lower lip trembled. Now he noticed the ridges on her nose: she was Bajoran. There were only a handful of Bajoran cadets at the Academy: it wasn't a Federation world. "Are you the doctor?" she asked.

"I'm a resident," he said. "Cadet Bashir. Come on, let's get you to a bed."

He closed the distance between them cautiously, ready to stop if she showed the least sign of skittishness. Instead she took a lurching step towards him, and he took her elbow, reaching behind with his other hand to support the other one. He led her towards the nearest triage bed, but she balked, pressing against him. Beneath the flimsy cotton garment, her skin was very cold.

"Don't you… is there anywhere more private?" she whispered. Her voice cracked and she added, almost sobbing; "Please?"

"Of course," Julian said gently. He made a course correction and guided her into Procedure Room Delta. As he helped her over the threshold, he called back over his shoulder; "Nurse? Can you mind the desk? I'm with a patient."

An affirmative acknowledgement came from the surgical suite in the back, and Julian could hear Nurse Petrakis approaching. He cleared the doorway and instructed the computer to close the door. Helping the wounded young woman up onto the biobed, he asked; "Is that better?"

She nodded unsteadily. She was staring down at her wrapped hand. A wet blossom of blood was soaking through the towel, darker and fresher than the other streaks. "It's so silly," she said, in a giddy way that told him she was fighting off panic. "I was working with the hyperspanner, fine-tuning a torpedo guidance circuit, and my hand slipped…"

She had been fine-tuning a torpedo guidance circuit in her nightgown? That seemed improbable. Julian pulled the instrument tray closer to the bed with one hand, while the other opened a fresh chart on the computer console above the bed. "What's your name and rank?" he asked.

"Cadet Sito," she said, drawing in an unsteady breath and clearly trying to compose herself. "Sito Jaxa. Sito… Sito is…"

"Your surname," Julian supplied reflexively, when he saw her groping to explain. Her eyes flicked to him, momentarily astonished out of their anxious blankness into an expression of mild surprise. He smiled at her, his best confident, physician's smile. He hadn't smiled on his own account in over twenty-four hours, but for a patient, it was easy. "You're Bajoran," he said, expounding upon his understanding. "Bajorans honour their heritage by putting family names before the individual ones. It's a beautiful way to show respect for your forebearers."

She gave a tiny, tremulous nod, and then hung her head. "I don't think my forebearers would be honoured to have me use their name tonight."

Julian's lips parted in sudden understanding, and his fingers paused momentarily as he typed in her name. Sito Jaxa. She was one of the Nova Squadron pilots. He'd heard her name at least a dozen times at supper, not once in a favourable light.

He wasn't about to say that to his patient. "What's your service number?" he asked.

"TS-590-247," she recited, with the rote crispness of long habit. Julian verified he had the right file, and nodded.

"It doesn't look like you have any allergies or medical conditions," he said, taking in the totality of her history in a glance. A sprained ankle last spring, a case of Levodian influenza during the campus outbreak two years ago, treatment for assorted contusions and minor injuries associated with training exercises. In her first year, she had been on a regimen of nutrient supplements that had been first titrated, then tapered, but there was no pharmacotherapy on record since, not even contraception. "No current medications. Is that all up to date?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"All right, then, Cadet," he said bracingly, opening the medical tricorder and unclipping the scanning wand. "I'm going to take a look. No, just keep holding pressure there," he instructed as she started to move her good hand away from the makeshift dressing. "I'd like to get a little more information before we move anything."

The scanner began to hum, its sound both familiar and reassuring. The whole situation was reassuring. He had a patient to focus on, someone outside of himself to care for; another person's needs to tend, when he couldn't cope with his own. And he had reassured her, calmed her, and got her safely onto the biobed. He was doing good work. Worthy work.

Work that might one day justify your existence…

She had a deep laceration of the webbing between finger and thumb, slicing well into the adductor pollicis and nicking the index branch of the radial artery. Julian kept his face pleasant and calm, even though alarms were sounding in his diagnostic mind. A hyperspanner had done this? Only if she'd been holding it to her hand deliberately.

"You've got a nasty cut," he said conversationally; "but nothing I can't put right. It's good you came promptly."

She was staring into her lap, transfixed by the bloodstains on the towel. "I tried to stop the bleeding," she said, almost dreamily. "It just wouldn't stop."

He glanced up from the tricorder screen. Her face had gone from pale to ashen, and there were beads of perspiration trickling into the first nasal cleft. "Time to lie down," he said briskly, laying aside the tricorder and bracing her shoulders with his left hand while the right closed over her grasping fingers, stabilizing the injured limb beneath. "Easy, now. Just lie back slowly. I've got you."

She let him guide her into a supine position, swinging her legs up of her own accord. She hitched her hips into a more comfortable alignment, and he adjusted the firm foam pillow to support her head.

"May I take out this comb?" he asked, seeing one of her delicate hair accoutrements was oriented at an awkward angle, probably stabbing her scalp.

She nodded wordlessly. She had abandoned her hold on her wounded hand: her right arm was outstretched as she tried to tug down her nightgown further down her legs. Sliding onto the bed had rucked up the hem almost to her knees. The movement to adjust it was anxious, almost defensive. Julian noted this with concern, trying to recall Bajoran standards of modesty. Then he thought he understood. According to her file, she had been born on Bajor itself. If she had also grown up there, a beautiful adolescent girl on a planet overrun with Cardassian soldiers…

"Would you prefer a female doctor?" he asked gently. "My supervisor, Doctor Shirakawa, is just in the other room."

To his surprise, fear instead of relief lanced through Cadet Sito's eyes. "She's a senior officer?" she asked.

Julian nodded. "She holds the rank of Lieutenant Commander."

The young woman screwed her eyes tightly shut and gave another taut little nod. She had expected as much. "I'd rather you take care of it," she said. "If… if you don't mind."

He forced a little chuckle. "Of course I don't mind," he said. He took a pair of gloves from the tray and snapped them on deftly. "Now… may I call you Jaxa, or do you prefer Cadet Sito?"

Her eyes flicked to his face again, puzzled. "Jaxa… Jaxa's fine," she said. Then, fragilely; "Don't you know what happened?"

Julian deliberately misunderstood her. "You said a hyperspanner slipped," he said. He picked up the autosuture without even glancing at the tray, and started to unwrap the towel. "Don't worry: I'll have you fighting fit in a few minutes."

"I meant the inquiry," she said softly. "Admiral Brand's verdict. I thought… I thought it would be all over campus by now."

"It probably is," Julian allowed, knowing it would do no good to lie to her. "Word travels fast around here."

Word travels fast around here. What an understatement. Gossip passed from mouth to mouth faster than a Priority 1 subspace transmission. Sensational or scandalous tidings travelled faster still. The Nova Squadron verdict had come down in mid-afternoon. By now, it would be halfway to Sacramento — and that was just accounting for the overland route. It terrified Julian, sometimes, how quickly such news travelled. If anyone ever worked out his own secret, it would be common knowledge throughout the Academy before he had any hope of damage control.

"Don't you… doesn't it disgust you? What we did?" his patient asked.

Julian lifted his gaze from the last layer of gore-stained terrycloth, and met her eyes steadily. They were misted with unshed tears and poisoned with self-loathing. He would have told his patient what she needed to hear regardless, but in this case it happened to be the truth.

"No," he said soothingly. "It doesn't disgust me. I don't know any of the details: only the rumours. It's not for me to judge."

She closed her eyes hurriedly, and her whole chest hitched with the effort of drawing in a breath. Julian turned his attention back to the hand. The blood was seeping through the towel, wetting the fingertips of his gloves. He removed the last fold, baring the ugly wound. He frowned, then reached for the hypospray loaded with the neural blocking agent. He knew he had the right one, but he tipped it anyway, reading the label on the vial. He always double-checked. It was standard procedure, but it was also common sense.

"I'm going to freeze your arm," he said, reaching across to apply the device to her far shoulder. "It'll feel cold, and very heavy, but there's no reason for you to be in pain while I work."

"Maybe I should feel it," she mumbled, casting her head away from him. Misery radiated off her like a forty-three degree fever. "It's my fault."

He had a feeling she wasn't talking about the laceration. "You're not going to feel it," he said resolutely. "Not in my Infirmary."

She made a muffled sound that might have been a nervous half-laugh. "I thought you said you're a resident," she said thinly.

"I am. It's my last semester." He depressed the hypo against her arm, pressuring-in the medication through sleeve and skin and muscle to the nerve. "Nine weeks from now, I'll be a real doctor."

He uttered that eager little boast in a joking tone, hoping to amuse her further. Surely amusement was preferable to whatever darkness swirled in her heart tonight. He couldn't imagine being in her position, culpable in the death of a classmate because of a reckless accident. He had lost patients — by the end of their program, any properly trained medical student had. But that was different: he had done everything he could for each one of them, not cast away their lives on what amounted to a dare.

That was perilously close to casting judgement. Julian closed his mind firmly to the thought and focused on the young woman before him: frightened, vulnerable, and in far more pain than could be attributed to her physical hurts.

"Then it's not really your Infirmary, is it?" she asked, surprising him pleasantly with the note of teasing in her voice. She even dared a fragile ghost of a smile.

"No," Julian allowed appreciatively. "I suppose it's not. But I'm still in charge of your care, and I won't leave a patient in pain while I work. Do you feel that?" He pinched the fleshy part of her forearm, four centimetres below the crease of her elbow.

"No…" She sounded surprised, and she lifted her head from the pillow to look.

"It's still there, I promise," Julian said. He flattened her hand gently and explored the edges of the wound. He frowned. No cauterization, no signs of scorching. A hyperspanner hadn't done this. This was the work of a knife.

"What did you say happened to your hand?" he asked, leaning in closer and blotting away some of the blood to clear the field.

"I was reprogramming a field core modulator…" she began, then stopped, trying to remember the previous lie. She had lost a lot of blood: at least three hundred millilitres on the towel alone, and who knew how much before she had wrapped it. She was probably lightheaded and faint, struggling to think clearly.

Julian adjusted the autosuture, and sealed the hole in the artery. The smaller blood vessels could wait while he got a better look at the damage. "You don't need to give me a story," he said, gently reassuring. "I can see it was done with a knife. A very sharp one. If it was an accident, that's fine. I just need to know whether you did it yourself, or if someone else did it to you."

"Did it to me?" Cadet Sito sounded incredulous. Her head snapped up, and a fog of dizziness filled her eyes. She laid it back down gingerly and sighed as she stared up at the instruments above the bed. "No, it was just an accident. I was cooking…"

She said it uncertainly. She hadn't been cooking. Julian could only imagine one reason she might lie: to protect her assailant. "I can call Security and have them investigate," he warned, trying to make it sound like a negotiation, not a threat. He had her best interests at heart, and he hoped she understood that. "If someone attacked you because of what happened with Nova Squadron…"

"No one attacked me!" she cried, anguished and alarmed. Suddenly, he believed her "No one… they've said some awful things. Cadet Ferny spat on me. But nobody's actually hurt me."

Her eyes were tightly closed again, and Julian looked slowly up from his work, horrified. Someone had spat on her? At Starfleet Academy?

Then again, he remembered the footage from the waterfront in Ghent. Flying fists and boots, snarled obscenities. Earth was supposed to be a paradise, a lush and peaceful utopia. But it was a utopia populated by mortals, and some of them were capable of tremendous cruelty.

"Cadet, that's assault," he murmured. "You should report that."

She shook her head frantically. "Reporting it would only make it worse." Her voice was rigid with the effort of holding back tears. When she spoke again, it was in a broken whisper. "I didn't want to do it. The Kolvoord Starburst. Cadet Albert wasn't the only one with doubts. But Cadet Locarno said…"

Her voice trailed off and she pressed her lips together so that they vanished in a thin, white line. Julian wanted to console her, but he didn't know what to say. He had noticed that she was referring to her squad-mates formally, by rank and surname, and he wondered what to make of that.

"You don't owe my any explanations," he said soothingly. He kept his eyes on his work, repairing the fissure in the muscle and meticulously aligning the severed nerves as he went. "Just try to relax. I'll be finished soon."

"No, you don't understand," she said mournfully. "I… Doctor, have you ever done anything because you were afraid to speak up for yourself?"

Julian's hand went very still. He stilled it, because he feared that otherwise it might have faltered. He could feel the warm, smooth palm against his breastbone, delicate fingers toying with his skin. He felt his skin crawl with shame and dread as she kissed his earlobe and whispered to him. Mmm. Mon trésor, encore une fois…

No! he commanded himself sharply. That wasn't the sort of thing he could afford to think about while he was in the presence of a patient, let alone actually treating someone! It was unprofessional and unacceptable and reprehensible.

Julian forced a slow, steady breath, and focused on engaging his patient. Clearly she needed to talk; she was anguished and surely traumatized. Fixing his mind on the strategies he had learned in his psychiatry rotation, he offered her the reassurance that she was not alone in this very universal experience.

"Yes, I suppose I have," he said, relieved at the measured calm of his voice. "It's difficult to speak up for yourself sometimes."

"I wanted to be the best," she sighed. She was blinking very rapidly as she stared up at the ceiling. "It was the only way to get out: I had to be the best. The cleverest, the quickest, the bravest. I tried to be the strongest, but I'm too small." She tucked her chin to look down at her body with a sad little twitch of the lips. "Luckily, the Academy doesn't focus on physical strength."

"A good thing, too," Julian agreed. "Or all they'd have in their recruiting pool would be Vulcans and Gorn." And freaks like you, an inner voice taunted.

She managed a tiny giggle. "And Klingons?" she added. "There's a Klingon serving on the Enterprise. Lieutenant Worf, Chief of Security." The little light of amusement doused itself. "I was the best," she whispered. "I got out. The Captain of the Cairo only sponsors one non-citizen to the Academy each year. He picked me."

"You should be very proud," Julian said. He returned the autosuture to the tray and picked up the dermal regenerator. He started with the deepest layer of skin tissue, knitting it slowly and smoothly back together. "The Academy entrance exams are gruelling, even for people who grew up in the Federation school system."

"Like you?" asked Jaxa, surprising him with the question.

He glanced up at her. "Me?"

"Did you grow up in the Federation school system?"

She seemed to be vacillating between a desire to talk about the things weighing so heavily on her heart, and to make inconsequential conversation. He could adapt to either: speak to your patient as your patient speaks to you.

"I did," he agreed. "Mostly on Earth, but I spent some time on the Moon. And almost a year on Invernia II."

"I don't know that world," she said thoughtfully.

"No reason you should," said Julian. "It's an unaffiliated planet near the Romulan Neutral Zone. It's very pretty. Vast rainforests."

"Bajor's pretty, too," she murmured, and her voice broke. "The parts of it that are still like they used to be. But the rest… the strip mining, the labour camps, the garrisons, ruined cities, poisoned farmland…"

She was perilously near tears, and trying to fight them off. Julian groped for a distraction. "Jaxa? Can you close your eyes and touch your right index finger to your nose for me?" he asked, moving his arm so that she could free hers.

"My nose?" she echoed unsteadily, surprised and still grappling for control.

"Yes, please," Julian said. "Just touch your finger to your nose, three times in a row."

She obeyed him. The movement caused her other hand to shift a little, but he was ready for that, and the dermal regenerator followed her seamlessly. "Like this?" she asked. Her voice was more level now. She was engaged instead of distressed.

"Very good," he said. "Now tug your ear lobes, one at a time?"

She complied. Out of the corner of his eye, Julian noticed that only the right one was pierced. He was more interested in the set of her mouth, which had relaxed a little out of its anguished tautness.

"Now see if you can pull out one of your hairpins without opening your eyes," he said.

She reached up and felt around in her soft, golden waves of hair. She found one of the little combs and drew it out, opening one eye to peer almost impishly at him. "Doctor, are you trying to see if I'm drunk?" she asked.

Julian grinned sheepishly, although he had been doing nothing of the sort. It had primarily been a distraction tactic, with the added benefit of reassuring him she was not too far impaired by loss of blood. "You're not," he allowed.

"No," she said. Then she sighed, letting her arm fall back onto the biobed. She looked very weary. "Cadet Locarno — former Cadet Locarno — is probably drunk by now. I wish…" She closed her eyes and shuddered. "I know what he did was wrong, but he believed in me. When he picked me for Nova Squadron, I was so proud and happy. I thought, this is it. You've done it. You're the best. I was so grateful. I was the only non-human he picked, you know."

Julian did know. The homogenous majority of this year's Nova Squadron had attracted criticism from the Tellarite Resource Centre and several of the informal clubs for off-world cadets. But according to tradition, the squadron captain had the firm authority to appoint whomever he chose, so all that anyone could really do was hope his successor would rectify the situation. The assumption, until today, was that one of the two Cadets Second Class on the current squad would replace him: either Jean Hajar or Sito Jaxa. Julian supposed that wasn't the case anymore.

"I couldn't say no to him," Jaxa sighed. "I couldn't. He was so excited, and Cadet Crusher thought it was a brilliant idea — he was helmsman on the Enterprise, did you know that? Acting Ensign at fifteen… he's been out there. He's done the things we're all trying to learn to do."

The awe in her voice was plain. She had admired her teammates enormously. Julian adjusted the settings on the instrument in his hand, and started work on her transitional dermis. "I understand he's an unusual case," he said.

She nodded. "And I'm just a Bajoran. Some people say I don't belong here." A shudder rippled through her body. "I suppose that's what everyone is saying now."

Julian hoped that wasn't true. He was afraid it might be. Not because of her species, of course, but because of the accident and the subsequent cover-up. "It sounds to me like you belong here," he said. It was something he longed to hear himself, but he couldn't even dare to voice his doubt. "You've had to overcome a lot to earn your place. One mistake doesn't change that."

"It almost did," she whispered, pressing her lips together so forcefully that they went white. "They wanted to expel all of us, but Cadet Locarno took responsibility. I heard… I heard he told them it was his fault because he was squadron captain. He said he was the one who convinced us to try the Starburst. And he said he was the one who told us to lie."

"Wasn't he?" asked Julian.

"No!" she cried, raising her head to emphasize the word. She sagged back against the pillow. "Yes. I mean, yes and no. The manoeuvre was his idea. But… but he didn't have to tell anyone to lie." A shudder ripped through her, and Julian had to lift his thumb from the control pad of the dermal regenerator, interrupting the beam so it didn't go awry. "I did everything I had to in order to get here," she said. "I was prepared to to anything I had to in order to stay. Even lie about what happened to Josh."

It was the first time she'd used any of her comrades' given names. A single tear trickled from the corner of her eye as she sucked in a spasmodic breath. "I was willing to lie in order to stay in Starfleet," she said. "Starfleet. It's an institution built on truth and integrity, and I was prepared to betray that just so I could stay."

Julian's mouth was very dry. He readjusted his hold on her hand, and reactivated the instrument, fixing his eyes and his mind on his work. It was better than thinking too hard about what she was saying.

"Cadet Crusher, Wesley, he told the truth. Nobody had to force his hand. We would have gotten away with a reprimand, but that would have been wrong." She closed her eyes again, clearly fighting the urge to weep. "They've voided our academic credits: we each have to repeat this last year. B-but we can stay. I can stay."

Julian adjusted the frequency of the beam and started his final pass, the one that would mend her epidermis and seal the wound without a trace.

"That seems like a harsh penalty," he said softly. He couldn't even imagine it. Kept back while the rest of the class advanced? Forced to repeat classes when you'd already learned everything a professor had to teach? And the humiliation of it…

"I know I should be grateful," Jaxa said. "I am grateful. But…"

"But it's going to be hard," he murmured.

"Yes!" It was almost a cry, taut and pained. "I could bear it, if people weren't so… disgusted by me. I tried to get supper in the South Lawn Mess, and they all just…"

She shuddered again. This time he was prepared, and followed the movement without interrupting the work of the dermal regenerator. "Is that where they spat on you?" Julian asked. He felt hot, horrible rage on her behalf. Whatever mistakes she had made, whatever her failings, nobody deserved that kind of abasement.

She nodded. "Cadet Ferny, he was Josh's friend ever since they were little boys. They grew up together in Canada. I can't blame him: I got his friend killed."

"It sounds to me like it was a decision the whole squadron made," Julian corrected gently. She might not be able to take comfort in that now, but maybe it would help her later. "You said Cadets Locarno and Crusher were pushing for the manoeuvre, even though they knew it was dangerous. Knew it was banned."

"Cadet Hajar, too," said Jaxa. "And I didn't say a word. Josh was the only one brave enough to object. I knew it was too dangerous, I knew it was foolish, but I didn't say a word. Maybe if I had, if it'd been two against three, maybe…"

"You can't dwell on the maybes," said Julian. "You'll make yourself sick. There! Good as new."

He released her hand, and she lifted it in front of her face, looking in quiet amazement at the flawless, new-healed flesh where a few minutes ago there had been a gaping wound.

"You can't even tell I cut it," she said in quiet awe. "Back home, it would've taken weeks to heal, if it didn't get infected and cost me my whole hand."

Julian's brows furrowed at this. He knew the situation on Bajor was bleak, and that the Cardassians' brutal rule made it difficult to obtain the necessities of life. But the idea that a simple laceration, even such a deep and ugly one, could result in amputation was horrifying. Where were the doctors? Where were the aid workers who were supposed to go to ravaged worlds?

Kept out by the Cardassians, of course. He really did take for granted the freedom and peace he'd been born into. He didn't think it was wrong to feel that way: peace and freedom were things everyone should be able to take for granted. But clearly for Sito Jaxa that wasn't the case.

He reached into the instrument tray and found one of the packets that contained a damp, sterile cloth. He broke the seal and took it out. Julian could have simply used the sonic sterilizer, but he thought there was value in the more tactile approach. She needed reassurance. Touch, even purposeful touch, was reassuring.

"Here, let me clean you up a little," he offered, reaching for her wrist again. She gave him her hand and watched as he wiped it gently clean, exerting steady pressure as he worked. He paid careful attention to the webs between her fingers and the creases on her palm. As the streaks of drying blood were transferred to the pale blue cloth, she shivered.

"Why are you being so kind?" she asked. He took her other hand, and started cleaning it as well.

"You're my patient," Julian said, mildly surprised by the question. The answer seemed so self-evident.

"That means you have to treat me," Jaxa argued. "It doesn't mean you have to be good to me. Comfort me. Wash me." She nodded at the cloth.

He offered a small half-smile and shrugged, self-effacing. "It's only a courtesy," he said.

She shook her head. "It's not. No one else… even Wes and Jean won't look at me or talk to me. Why is that? I understand everyone hates us, but why do we have to hate each other?"

"Do you hate them?" Julian asked. He tossed the cloth into the laundry bin and heard the biohazard shield hiss closed behind it. He got up from his stool and went to the dispensary cupboard.

"Of course not," Jaxa whispered. "We were all in it together. It was… it was real. Like really being in Starfleet. Even though we were lying, hiding, we were a team."

"Then why would you suppose they hate you, when you don't hate them?" Julian asked. He opened the drawer of blood product supplements and found a vial of ferritin protein suspension. She hadn't lost enough blood to need a transfusion, but she'd recover from her ordeal faster with a ready supply of new iron.

"I don't know…" Jaxa murmured. She sounded genuinely astonished at this realization. "But why won't they talk to me?"

Julian sighed softly. He thought he understood all too well. "They're feeling all the same things you are," he said. "They're frightened, humiliated, ashamed of themselves and what they did. Talking about it, or even spending time together, is going to bring all those feelings to the forefront. Maybe they're not ready yet. Give them time."

She looked at him, brows furrowed so that the first two creases of her nasal ridges seemed deeper than before. "Is that a human thing?" she asked. "Avoiding the people who know what you're going through?"

Julian thought of the Moab IV colonists, just a transporter trip away in Belgium. He'd been in Paris only twenty-four hours ago, and that was just a hopper ride away. He hadn't dared to make the trip. He hadn't even considered it, even though they might be the only people on the planet who knew what he had gone through. Was going through. Would go through, if the truth about him became known as the truth about them had.

"Sometimes," he said. He held up the hypospray so she could see it. "This is ferritin. It'll help your body recover from the blood loss."

"Thank you," Jaxa said, her voice very small.

He applied the device to her shoulder, pressuring the supplement into her deltoid muscle so that it could be distributed into her bloodstream gradually. Although the hypo was painless, he rubbed the sight gently with the side of his thumb. It would encourage increased circulation to the area. And the prior physical contact had calmed her noticeably. Perhaps this would be a comfort, too.

"I think you should lie there for a few more minutes and rest," he said. "You mentioned you tried to get supper — does that mean you didn't? I can bring you something to eat."

She shook her head. "Food would probably choke me right now, anyway," she said. "I'll try again at breakfast."

In her place, Julian wasn't certain he'd have the courage to try again. She'd have to face all the same people in the morning, or the same sort of people, anyway. By then, there wouldn't be a person on campus who didn't know the whole sordid tale.

"At least let me get you something sweet to drink," he tried. "After a loss of blood, it helps to get your serum sugars up again." She still looked reluctant, so Julian fixed her with a firm eye. "Doctor's orders."

"All right," she acquiesced with a little sigh.

He grinned. "Good. What's your pleasure?"

"Anything," she said. "Really. I'm not fussy."

He didn't imagine she was, having grown up on a world of famine and poverty. "I'm going to the replicator anyway," he said, putting a lilt in his voice to show he was in good humour. "You might as well tell me what you'd like best to drink."

From her expression, he could see she had to acknowledge the sense in this. "Papaya juice," she said. "Just papaya, not one of those cocktails with other equatorial fruits."

He was a little surprised by this. "Papaya juice?" he echoed. It was an unusual choice, and very specific.

She nodded. "It tastes almost like kava fruit," she says. "Looks like it, too. Two different fruits on two different worlds, sectors apart, one grows on a tree, one grows on a vine… how can they be so alike?"

"I don't know," Julian admitted. "Sounds like a question for a botanist."

Jaxa laughed, a small and tremulous sound as if she didn't feel she had a right to it. "Do you know any botanists? I'd love an answer."

"I don't," said Julian. "If I ever meet one, I'll be sure to ask. Lie back and relax. I'll be right back."

Out in the main chamber of the Infirmary, Nurse Petrakis was behind the desk. He looked up and grinned as Julian passed. "Everything in hand, Bashir?" he asked.

"Simple laceration," Julian said, moving to the replicator. "Just replenishing fluids now. The patient will be ready for discharge soon."

"You're the only resident I know who likes to prescribe sugary drinks," said the nurse, shaking his head and going back to his reading. "We're running an infirmary, not a café."

"Papaya juice, chilled," Julian said. The pillar of sparkling light appeared, and a tall glass of pulpy coral-coloured fluid appeared. To Nurse Petrakis, he said; "Treat the person, not the symptoms. First year medical school."

"Right," said Petrakis. "You've just got a pathological sweet tooth, and you're recruiting."

He was right about the sweet tooth, at least. Julian shrugged amiably and went back to the procedure room. Jaxa lay where he had left her, hands now folded over her diaphragm as she stared up at the ceiling.

"One papaya juice, as requested," Julian said. He held it out to her, and then used his left hand to help her sit up. She shifted on the biobed, pushing with her heels until she found a comfortable position, and then sitting with her legs curled slightly to the right as she took the glass and drank. Her eyes fluttered closed in a moment of rapturous pleasure.

"It's perfect," she said. A faint flush touched her cheeks as she explained; "Starfleet replicators don't seem to make any Bajoran food. It's not that I mind Federation food — I'm happy to eat it, I promise. It's just that sometimes…"

"Sometimes you'd like a little taste of home," Julian agreed, nodding. "I understand completely. My first year at the Academy, I couldn't find a replicator that made a decent syllabub."

"What's a syllabub?" asked Jaxa, genuinely curious.

"It's a sort of a dessert, made with cream and wine," said Julian. "It's an old English treat… there was a place in the city I grew up in that used to make it with real ingredients."

To say he grew up in Guildford was probably an exaggeration, but Julian had spent more years of his childhood there than anywhere else he could remember. And some of them had been the best years, too: between the ages of eleven and fifteen. His parents still lived there, which was probably why he didn't just call it home.

"Cream and wine?" Jaxa asked, wrinkling her nose.

Julian shrugged. "That's the English for you," he said. "In any case, I'm sure if you put in a requisition, Food Services would look into finding some patterns for Bajoran dishes. They're very accommodating."

"Maybe I'll do that," she said. But the studious way she looked down her nose into her glass, tucking her head to take another sip, told him she wouldn't. Maybe if he'd suggested the same thing two weeks ago she would have considered it. Now, she clearly didn't want to ask for any special consideration, or draw any attention to herself, not even from Food Services.

Julian took the opportunity while she was occupied with the juice to do one last quick appraisal of her condition. The colour was coming back to her cheeks and her lips. There were faint rings of fatigue under her eyes, probably the result of sleepless nights while the inquiry spun out its grim course. Her hand was completely restored to its natural state, and the other one, holding the glass, wasn't shaking. He made a quick sweep of the rest of her body, finishing at the incongruous sight of bare calves rising from highly polished uniform boots. Satisfied that all was well, he started to look away, when his eyes of their own accord moved back to her lap.

"There's blood on your nightgown," he said, his thought springing to his lips without consideration.

Jaxa looked down. There was indeed a stain on her lap, right in the valley between her thighs. It was about a third of the way down the length of her femur, shaped like a key from a Japanese maple. Her hand shot down to cover it, instinctively defensive.

"I must have dripped on my lap," she said, a little too quickly. "There was blood everywhere, Doctor: I'm going to have a lot of mopping up to do when I get back to my dormitory."

The stain was hidden from sight, but Julian had seen it clearly and his unnaturally flawless eidetic memory recalled every detail. There was feathering around the edges of the stain where blood had wicked into the fibres. It hadn't dripped onto the garment from above: it had soaked through from the inside.

"It's not from your hand, Jaxa," Julian said gently, coming up beside the biobed.

"Yes," she said. The hand holding the half-empty glass was trembling now. Ripples coursed across the surface of the papaya juice. "Yes, of course it is."

He caught her roving gaze and held it. "No," he said softly. "It isn't. You're still bleeding, aren't you? Your leg is bleeding."

"I don't…" she started. She tried again. "It's not… I mean…" She shook her head fractionally. "It's nothing," she chirped, her voice tiny and fragile. "It doesn't hurt."

Julian tilted his head, fixing her with a gentle, reproving expression. He saw her falter under his look, ashamed to be caught in a fib. There was fear in her eyes, too, but he could see she was wavering.

"Jaxa," he coaxed; "let me help you. Let me take a look."

She moved as if to comply, but found her right hand still full of the glass. She looked at it helplessly, almost frantically, and Julian gently took it away, setting it on the instrument tray without taking his eyes from her.

With a little tremor of dread, Jaxa reached down with both hands and gathered up the hem of her nightgown. Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, she drew it up to reveal her smooth knees, and then the first few centimetres of the slender white columns of her thighs. Julian watched with a clinician's eyes, ready to respond calmly and professionally to whatever he might see, as befit the physician he aspired to be.

What he saw when she finally rucked the garment up around her hips still smote him with dismay and empathy, though he hoped the former did not show on his face. Perpendicular to the plane of her left femur were three cuts, deep into the subcutaneous tissue on the inside of the thigh. Two of them were perfectly parallel to one another, and the third had started off that way before veering off in a haphazard tail. The wounds were already clotting, though both legs were streaked with blood.

Julian's lips parted soundlessly as he understood. He raised his eyes to his patient's face to find hers very bright, watching him warily. As their gazes met, she cast hers away, down into her lap. She closed her hands around twisted fistfuls of nightgown.

"Well, Doctor?" she said, very softly but with remarkable steadiness. "I suppose this is the end for me, isn't it?"

(fade)