Stardate 2260.54

Dagny opened her eyes to the buzzing of the door. She had no idea what time it was and didn't particularly care. It had been three days since the Sekla had rescued her from the wreckage of the Albret. Or had it been four?

She rolled back onto her left side and closed her eyes. The door buzzed again and she muttered a soft growl. She wanted to think it was Dr. Voris—he'd been so kind to her—but she somehow knew the person standing on the other side of the door and insistently pushing the alert button wasn't the gentle Vulcan doctor. How could she have kissed him like that?

The intercom hissed to life and a voice said, "Miss Skjeggestad, it's Peter Jamieson from the Terran embassy? It's 0900 hours."

She clenched her jaw and muttered to herself, "My name is not Skeh-jeg-eh-stad."

She'd met a lot of people over the past few days—hospital staff, social workers, low-level bureaucrats, reporters, well-wishers and more—and not a single one had managed the correct pronunciation. The ones with better people skills would see her name in print and cheerfully ask if they could call her "Dagny."

She missed being surrounded by people who didn't view the name Skjeggestad as a form of advanced lingual acrobatics. She missed her family. She missed her friends. She even missed Dr. Voris.

She sighed and heaved herself into a sitting position. They'd let her out of the hospital on Valder Station last night—or had it been this morning?—and given her a room in the diplomatic lodgings adjacent to the hospital. She'd been given a huge bag of prescription autoinjectors and a PADD with access to local databases and networks. One of the nurses, a woman named something like Laura or Laurie, had given her a bag of gently used clothes that were all too big. Or maybe Dagny was too small.

The buzzer persisted; Dagny rubbed her eyes, struggled to her feet, and hobbled to the door of the tiny room, passing the built-in lavatory on the way. She hated the mirror because the reflection staring back at her was a stranger. She'd lost her long, thick red hair and what had grown back was a shade much closer to blond. It was now long enough to tuck behind her ears, but she'd never worn her hair so short.

The color bothered her most. There were still reddish patches near her temples and at the base of her neck, but she'd lost the hair her mother had given her, the same hair she'd shared with Ingrid, Johan, Olav, Hedda, and Henrik. The storm had literally taken everything from her aside from Erik's necklace and Tolik's book. She touched the stone at her throat and sighed.

She hit the door release and was greeted by a portly man with a red face flipping through screens on his PADD. "Oh, Miss Skjeggestad, I was worried something had happened. I was just calling the hotel staff to open the door."

"It's pronounced Sheh-geh-stadt," she corrected him.

"Oh, pardon me then," he said, turning his PADD off and facing her. "I was hoping you would let me call you Dagny."

"That's fine."

"Then call me Peter. May I come in?"

Dagny glanced over her shoulder at the compartmental room behind her. The bed looked more like a nest with sheets, pillows, and blankets heaped in disarray at the edges of the mattress. The bag of all the medications she was supposed to take had fallen out of the hard, plastic chair and autoinjectors covered the floor. It was strange that she didn't care—she usually preferred spotless order. A family of fourteen could quickly make large family quarters look like a garbage heap without constant attention to cleanliness and organization. But she was no longer part of a family of fourteen.

"I have twin toddlers; no need to worry about a little disorder," Peter said, looking around the disheveled room.

She stepped aside and let him in. She was so tired and all she wanted to do was sleep. "Why are you here?"

"I had thought Beatrice from Health and Social Services told you I would be stopping by today."

"Who are you again?" she asked. "And what day is it?"

"I'm Peter Jamieson from the Terran Embassy on Aldebaran. It's Stardate 2260.54. Ambassador Curtis has asked me to extend his deepest condolences on the loss of the Albret."

Dagny gazed at him dispassionately. It would be polite to ask him to sit, but there was no clean space to take a seat. Also, she didn't care. She'd had enough of everyone's condolences. Why couldn't people just let her sleep?

"Have they found the wreckage?"

"Ah, uh, no. I'm very sorry. This storm has really put a wrench in things and Starfleet says the ship has most likely been totally destroyed. I'm so very sorry."

Dagny closed her eyes and forced herself to take a breath. "Stop saying you're sorry. None of this is your fault."

"Well, still, uhm, can I get you anything? Have you eaten today? Are you feeling well?"

Dagny blinked several times and sighed. "No, I mean, yes. No, I don't need anything and yes, I'm-" She couldn't bring herself to say she was feeling well. "I'm alive."

She had a persistent twinge of pain in her temples and her entire body pulsed with a low-grade ache. She couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten and she was probably overdue to take her medication. She would get around to it eventually.

"Well, Beatrice tells me that you weren't able to give her the names of any contacts for people back on Earth, but I wanted to let you know that the embassy has taken up the search for relatives and-"

"I don't have any relatives on Earth," she snapped. "At least none that know me well enough to care. The ones who did all died."

"Now surely someone-"

"No," Dagny insisted.

Her Uncle Knut, her father's brother, had left the ship a more than a decade ago, but he'd left because of a drinking problem and no one had heard from him since. Dagny wasn't exactly eager to rekindle her relationship with him, especially under the present circumstances.

After the events at Vulcan, a number of people had left the ship. The Svendsen family had moved to the colony on Cestus III, and Ann Svendsen was her father's second cousin. She knew the Svendsens about as well as she knew any other family on the Albret, but that didn't mean she wanted to become a burden to them. Erik's only sister, Asta, had stayed behind on Andoria, but her dead fiancé's sister wasn't exactly family and she wasn't sure she could face her.

"I'm sure Beatrice will work with you on getting settled somewhere. The embassy has taken an express interest in your case and wants to help you as best as we can."

"Why does the embassy care?"

"The Albret was well-known throughout the Federation, after what happened at Vulcan. There's been a huge outpouring of support for you. People want to help you. They want to know about you."

"I lose everything I have and I become famous?" she whispered.

Peter's facial features shifted uncomfortably. "Maybe that's not the best word. There's a lot of sympathy."

She felt angry enough to cry, but she was all out of tears.

"The point is, there are a lot of people who want to help you back home, if you just-"

"I've never been to Earth," Dagny interjected. "Earth is not my home. The Albret was my home."

"Is there somewhere else you would prefer to go?" Peter asked, his tone softening.

Aside from her paramedic training on Deneva and her brief stay on Andoria during the overhaul to the Albret, she'd never even stayed on a planet for more than a few days. She thought of Cestus III again. She thought of Asta Larsen on Andoria, but there was no way to know if she was still there. She thought of her sister's friend, Julie Karlsen, who had moved to a place on Earth called Australia to go to acting school. She closed her eyes, but all she could see were the pale-lit corridors of the Albret and the dented walls of her clinic. That was home.

"I don't know."

"Well, there's no rush to make a decision. The Terran embassy is willing to accommodate you here for as long as you need. But are you sure there isn't anyone at all you want me to contact? For any reason?"

She opened her mouth to tell him "no" once again, but paused. "Yes, the Vulcan ship that brought me here… is there a way to contact them?"

"Certainly," he said, clearly relieved she'd finally come up with a task for him to perform. "I'm sure they're still docked in orbit. The Federation Transportation Authority halted all travel through this sector of space for the next ten days while they investigate the causes of this unusual storm. It's been a bit of a nightmare, really."

"No kidding," Dagny retorted numbly.

His face turned a peculiar shade of gray and he busied himself by scrolling through several programs on his PADD looking for information. "Did you wish to address to one person specifically or the crew in general?"

"Oh, uh-" She sighed. "I guess I'm not really sure."

Only she was sure. She wanted to talk to Dr. Voris, to thank him, to apologize for that ridiculous kiss, to see him.

"I would be more than happy to forward along any kind of message you wanted to send," Peter said. "Or I'd be happy to draft one for you, if you don't feel up to it. Just a simple note of thanks."

"Uh, yeah, I uh- whatever you think is best."

The door buzzed again and a voice called through the intercom, "Dagny, it's Laura from the hospital. I'm coming by to check on you."

She exchanged glances with Peter, who took several shuffling steps back toward the door.

"I'll leave you to it," Peter said, smiling through an obvious grimace. "My contact information should be programmed into the PADD Beatrice gave you. If you need anything or think of anyone you want my office to get in touch with, let me know. Or let Beatrice know. And I'll work on drafting that statement of thanks to the ambassador and crew of the Sekla on your behalf."

He engaged the door release and ran into Laura Frost, the nurse who'd spent much of the past several days caring for her. Laura was a kind person and if she was being honest, so was Peter, but she didn't feel up to their personal brand of kindness right now. She felt like an infant that had to be handled or cared for.

"How are you this morning, Miss Dagny?" the nurse beamed, striding through the doorway just as Peter stepped out.

"Not much has changed since you were last here," Dagny sighed. "Whenever that was."

Laura didn't even attempt a fake smile; she nodded and gently stroked Dagny's hair. "You gotta take it one day at a time."

"I think that's probably true for anyone," she mumbled.

"But the point is, we all have good times and bad times."

"Have you ever had times as bad as these? What I'm going through?"

Laura frowned and shook her head. "No. I honestly can't even imagine."

There were tears brimming in the woman's eyes and Dagny almost felt guilty, but she was too irritated for all that. She didn't want pity, or sympathy, or banal well wishes. She wanted her family. She wanted her home.

Laura sniffed and looked around the messy room. "I take it you haven't done much of anything but sleep?"

"Something like that."

"Have you had anything to eat since you left the hospital?"

"No."

"You're going to have to do better than that," Laura sighed, stooping to pick up the autoinjectors from the floor.

"I'm just not very hungry."

"Have you had a shower?"

"No."

Laura finished counting the autoinjector canisters as she put them back in the bag and said, "It doesn't look like you had your morning medication either."

"I guess not."

"Dagny, part of the condition of you getting released from the hospital was that you would keep up with these things. I'm very worried about you."

Dagny crossed her arms and looked at the floor. "I don't want to go back to the hospital."

The hospital was loud and brightly lit, full of an army of nameless strangers marching every which way and poking and prodding her with questions and hyposprays. Several reporters had tried getting into her room on the day she'd arrived, but Laura had valiantly fought them off. She'd never been allowed to sleep for more than a few hours at a time, and no one seemed to care how tired she was.

"I know you've been asked this a few times, but is there any chance you're thinking of hurting yourself?"

"No!" Dagny snapped. "I don't want to die, I don't want to eat, I don't want to shower. I just want to sleep and be left alone."

"I think it's best if we readmit you," Laura sighed. "I don't want you here by yourself."

"No, please, I'm sorry," Dagny protested. "I didn't mean to yell, I just- I'm so tired."

Laura nodded and pulled her into a hug. Dagny's chin began to tremble at the tenderness of this young nurse. She didn't envy Laura for the job she had, trying to console a person who'd lost everything and everyone. She spilled a few tears on Laura's smock and pulled away, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

"How about you get in the shower and I'll tidy up around here?"

Dagny took longer than she intended in the sonic shower, letting the pulses massage away the sweat and dander that had built up after two days without showering. When she emerged half an hour later, she found Laura sitting in the chair by her bedside, tapping one of the single dose autoinjectors against her leg.

"You're overdue for your medication," Laura said, holding up the red autoinjector.

"I know," Dagny sighed. "Let me get dressed and I'll take it."

She pulled on a pair of loose-fitting black pants and a white top from the bag of clothes in the corner Laura had given her. She fingered the soft fabric of the shirt, thinking Laura was probably the kindest person she'd ever met. Aside from her mother, of course.

She stayed and ensured Dagny took her morning medication and ate a bowl of watery beet soup with supplemental nutritional powder. Because of the damage the radiation had wrought on her body, she was stuck on a restricted diet while her system reset itself. It took nearly an hour to choke down the disgusting liquid but she managed it eventually and Laura congratulated her on being a "trooper."

Laura eventually left, citing her duties at the hospital, but she promised to come by and check on Dagny tomorrow morning before her shift. Dagny promised she would take her evening medication and eat dinner, and agreed that if she didn't, she would allow herself to be readmitted to the hospital. By the time Laura left, Dagny was having a difficult time keeping her eyes open.

She fell onto the bed but had a difficult time falling asleep despite her physical and emotional exhaustion. Her mind was just too full, her soul, too heavy. Every time she closed her eyes she'd see the faces of her friends and family and would wonder how long it would be before she'd start to forget what they looked like.

When sleep finally did come, it was full of nightmares that were occasionally interrupted by Dr. Voris saying, "Remain calm: you are nearing the end of a cellular regeneration cycle." She woke up every hour, feeling more restless and frustrated each time.

She would always manage to fall back asleep though and Dr. Voris slowly became a dominant presence in her dreams. She longed for him, for his patience and comforting companionship, for the touch of his hands on her face. Every time she would relive that moment, she would wake before his palms could slide over her cheeks and would find herself alone, twisted up in her sheets, sweaty and agitated.

At 2214 hours, she awoke from another unfulfilled dream about the Vulcan doctor and rolled out of bed. She was so tired but productive sleep simply seemed out of reach. She stormed over to the chair with the bag of autoinjectors, primed one, and slammed it into her thigh with unnecessary force. She lost her grip on the slender injector and let it fall to the floor, sinking to her knees beside it and wondering why she wanted to laugh, cry, and scream all at the same time.

The nurse had told her to call into the hospital if she was experiencing and unusual symptoms and she began to wonder if hovering on the cusp of mania counted. What was happening to her?

The buzz of the door made her jump but rather than shrink away in annoyance, she leapt to her feet with energy she hadn't experienced in days and slammed the door release with the meat of her fist.

And there he was: Dr. Voris had come. She took several tentative steps forward and noticed his eyes were glassy and distant.

"Dr. Voris?" she whispered, her voice rough and strained.

His eyes snapped back into focus and he blinked rapidly. "Dagny?"

"Please come in," she begged, desperate to be alone with him.

He blinked several more times and looked around the room in confusion before finally making eye contact with her. "Why are you here?"

"This is my room," she told him, wondering why he would ask such an obvious question.

"Yes." She saw the muscles of his throat struggle to swallow.

"How did you know where to find me?"

He looked away as his mouth formed several silent words. "I… do not know."

"Will you please come in?" she insisted, reaching for his hand.

Her fingertips glanced the knuckle of his right hand, sending a primal emotion coursing through her body. He grabbed her hand so tightly it strained the bones and made her wince, but she didn't care. She took a full step toward him, nearly pressing her body into his and he started to reciprocate but froze mid-motion.

She could see the whites of his eyes: they looked panicked and confused. He released her hand and recoiled. He was shaking and panting. All she wanted was be near him.

"I must go," he spluttered, whipping around on his heel and nearly running down the hallway. "I apologize for intruding."

"Voris, please don't leave," she wailed, chasing after him.

"I cannot stay," he called over his shoulder, increasing his speed to a run.

She slumped to her knees in the middle of the hotel hallway, wondering what she'd done to drive him away. She couldn't even understand what had just happened. She started to cry and crawled back to her room. She didn't even bother getting in bed, but chose to curl up in a ball on the floor and sob until she felt lightheaded.

She lay on the hard carpeting for what felt like an eternity, tossing and turning and wondering what was wrong with her. When she got to the point where she felt like she was going to jump out of her skin, she staggered to her feet and made her way to the door, almost as if on instinct. She clawed at the door release button and stumbled into the hall, unsure of where she was going but certain she desperately needed to get there.

Voris paced frantically in the main room of his diplomatic lodgings. He'd spent the past three days alone in intensive meditation and it wasn't working.

He hadn't been able to return to New Vulcan and T'Rya due to the Federation Transportation Authority shutting down interstellar travel across five sectors while they researched the cause of the largest neutronic storm in Federation space in recorded history. The storm had come on so quickly and without warning and due to the unique radiation signatures, had been virtually invisible to modern scanning technology.

Voris had done everything he could to secure passage home but had been refused at every turn due to the possibility of another storm forming at any moment. Voris was willing to risk it because remaining on Aldebaran without a mate meant certain death, but ship captains had proven far less inclined to take the chance.

But he had a mate. He knew that now, somewhere in the far reaches of his consciousness. His memory, judgment, and reasoning skills had nearly dissolved, but he still understood that he'd wandered to Dagny's room without prior knowledge of where her room was. He hadn't even consciously known for certain she was on Valder Station, but he'd found her all the same, drawn to her on instinct through a telepathic mating bond.

He needed her. He burned for her. But he could not have her. She wasn't his to have. He clawed at his face and darted back across the sitting room, taking long strides and deep breaths. What had he done?

He needed to seek an alternative mate, yet he also dimly understood that if humans and Vulcans could form genuine telepathic mating bonds—and it certainly seemed as though they could—Dagny's life was also in jeopardy. When Vulcan males entered pon farr, their bonded mates eventually began showing symptoms in the later stages too, experiencing a cascade of neurochemical imbalances until the pon farr could be resolved through a prolonged period of telepathic contact and intermittent mating. Dagny's behavior had been just as erratic as his. What had he done?

If they did not mate, they would both die. How could he ask such a thing of her? How could he not ask?

Bitter self-loathing snuck into his consciousness and he growled audibly, sensing the last vestiges of his ethics were losing the battle to physical need. The plak tow would be upon him soon. Would it be hours? Minutes? He didn't know. He'd never had to face this alone.

He thought of T'Sala and screamed. Why had she died and left him alone? He would hate her if he didn't miss her so much.

In his hysterical wanderings around the sitting room, he tripped over the low table near the couch and roared with rage. He picked up the flimsy piece of furniture and slammed it against the wall, watching it crack into several pieces. He grabbed a vase of flowers on the end table and hurled it against the door, watching the porcelain fracture into hundreds of pieces.

He took several ragged breaths and then shuddered, horrified at the prospect of losing all control. He fell to his knees and uttered a low whimper as he slid into a prostrate position on the floor. His body was shaking and his mind was racing and he couldn't bear to do this anymore. He fell onto his left side, allowing his skin to absorb the coolness of the tile beneath him. He wanted to end this torment.

He opened his eyes and saw a large shard of porcelain from the shattered vase within arm's reach. He grabbed it before the idea had even fully formed in his mind.

He could end it. If he died, perhaps Dagny would no longer continue to be affected by his pon farr. She might recover. But he didn't actually know. He suddenly hated his people for their senseless taboos and refusal to discuss or research this critical condition.

He glared at the dull piece of porcelain in his hand and gripped it tightly, watching a trickle of bright green blood flow down his wrist. He was beyond pain or caring. Was suicide logical? He tried to arrange the facts in his mind but his logic had completely eroded away. He squeezed tighter and the blood continued to flow.

An insistent pounding on his door broke his trance. "Voris?"

He felt a wave of elation amidst the anguish. How had she located him? He should go to her. He shook his head violently and clasped the shard harder. "Go away!"

"Please let me in," she begged. "I need you."

Seconds later he was on his feet and opening the door, wondering why he'd done it. She shouldn't be here. She hadn't asked for this.

But he needed her, and from the frenzied look in her eyes, she needed him too. She wandered into the room and he felt his nerve endings firing in rapid succession. He dropped the large piece of porcelain, ignoring the sound as it crashed to the floor and broke in half. It took nearly everything he had to take a step back and turn away from her.

"Voris?"

"Go away," he breathed.

"I can't. I want to, but I can't." She took several more steps forward, walking through the remnants of the vase with her bare feet.

"Please," he wailed. The word came out as little more than a terrified squeak.

After three more steps, she was less than an arm's length away and he latched onto her face, experiencing almost instant relief. He could sense her thoughts through his fingertips and probed at the pliability and innocence of her mind. She leaned into his body and kissed him once again, but unlike before, he was wholly lost to her.

He returned her affections hungrily, tasting the salt of her lips and the warmth of her tongue. The physical telepathic contact was beginning to settle his mind, but it was doing nothing to quell his physical need for her. Her hands started to fumble with his belt and he moaned, breaking away from their kiss.

"I need you," she whispered.

He stared at her, cupping his hands tightly around her jaw, afraid to let go and break the necessary physical bond between them. Rivers of tears were cutting a path through the green blood he'd inadvertently smeared on her cheek. She was shaking. He renewed their kiss and was startled to realize she wasn't the only one crying.

They began an awkward procession to the back bedroom, shedding their clothes as they moved in tandem. She fell backward onto the bed and pulled him on top of her, and that was the last thing he could remember.