Stardate 2260.200
Voris' eyes drifted open. He sniffed the air, finding it cold and full of a pleasing, savory smell. For the briefest of moments, he was transported back to his home with T'Sala, shortly after their wedding when they'd had in a single room apartment above a library in Gol, right before he had begun medical training at the Vulcan Science Academy. His former mate had often insisted on rising early to make plomeek soup, which they would eat together while watching the traffic on the busy streets below through the tall windows of their tiny home. They would often mate afterwards. They had both been eager to begin a family, but that had been before they had learned T'Sala would never be able to carry a child of her own.
A clang followed by a loud splash interrupted his reverie. "Dammit!"
The piercing sound of Dagny's curse caused any last memory of T'Sala to fade from the forefront of his consciousness. He was no longer curled up in bed next to the naked body of the love of his life on a warm spring day in Gol, he was huddled under a pile of quilts on a remote colony world listening to the moody grumblings of a human woman, pregnant with a child neither of them had intended to have.
He saw her shadow moving through the blanket they had hung as a privacy curtain. "Dagny?"
"Sorry to wake you up," she called.
He blinked several times. Reminiscing was illogical; T'Sala was dead and Vulcan was gone. He had experienced more lapses in his logical judgment in recent weeks. He had been unable to find a private moment to meditate and an influx of new colonists earlier in the week had left him quite busy. He was exhausted, mentally and physically, but he could see no opportunity for respite in the near future.
He threw his legs over the side of the bed and stroked his chin. Deciding he did not need to shave, he quickly dressed and pulled back the privacy curtain to see Dagny on her hands and knees sopping up what appeared to be plomeek soup into a large pot with a sponge.
Voris silently grabbed a second sponge and got down on his knees to assist her, but she quickly muttered, "Don't bother, I'm almost done."
"Then I will mop."
"I've got it, Voris." Rather than argue with her, he stood and made his way to the food preservation unit to find an alternative to breakfast.
"So, you're just going to eat without me, then?" She twisted around to stare at him.
"I intended to prepare food for you as well as well," he replied, unsure why she would insist on cleaning up the mess herself but be angry that he would continue to assemble their first meal while she cleaned. "Furthermore, you led me to believe you would tend to the spill on the floor."
She grunted, turned back to the spilled soup, and scrubbed so vigorously that pieces of the sponge started to catch on the uneven stone. He could feel intense irritation flowing from her, but that wasn't unusual. Ever since she had started wearing the temperature monitor and taking the immune suppressants, she had been perpetually annoyed, unhappy, and withdrawn. He sensed it was largely due to the emotional disturbances associated with human pregnancy, but he was reluctant to attribute the whole of her wrath to her condition.
Something was bothering her. They shared a weak bond and he could easily detect powerful emotions and sometimes even fleeting thoughts, but she kept whatever was upsetting her tucked away so far into the recesses of his mind that he couldn't venture a guess. Any time he tried to speak to her about it she would grow defensive and angry.
He grabbed two bowls and portioned out two helpings of the thick stew she had made the night before and set them on the table. She wrung out the sponge into the pot and stumbled to her feet, wiping her hands on her thick sweater. The outline of her figure startled him. For weeks, her belly had slowly filled out, giving her a plump, slightly overweight appearance, but the woman standing before him now was obviously pregnant. Had she looked that way the night before?
"Why are you staring at me?"
Voris looked away, conscious her growing anxiety and insecurity. "You look well."
"I feel fat."
"You are pregnant."
"You thought I didn't know?"
He blinked and sat down at his usual place at the table without further comment. Dagny sat across from him and began shoveling the root vegetable stew into her mouth with ravenous speed. She had only taken two bites before she set her spoon down and asked, "Do you have to breathe so loud?"
Voris cleared his throat. "I require oxygen to live."
"But do you have to suck in air through your nostrils like that?"
"I am not breathing any differently than I normally do."
She huffed and resumed eating. She ate at a frenzied pace, driven by an appetite that seemed to grow every day. Voris was curious how much weight she had gained—a month ago, she had weighed fifty-three kilograms, which was much healthier than her pre-pregnancy weight of forty-six kilograms, but she was retaining a considerable amount of water, giving her hands and face a somewhat bloated appearance. To accurately gauge her true weight, he would need to perform a body mass assessment, but he decided he would avoid mentioning it for several days.
She was so often irritated when he mentioned anything relating to her pregnancy and since he lacked the free time to perform a detailed scan until the day after tomorrow, there was no logic in upsetting her until he needed to.
"You can talk, you know," Dagny mused. "You don't have to walk on eggshells around me."
"I presume the concept of walking on eggshells is euphemistic and not literal?"
Dagny rolled her eyes and swallowed hard. "I'm sorry if I snapped at you earlier."
Voris' eyes made contact with hers. They were sad and sullen, but he got the distinct impression Dagny was aware of how unpleasant she'd been in recent weeks and was angry with herself for being unable to control it. The problem Voris now faced was how to respond to her confession.
His experience in the past few weeks had demonstrated that agreeing with her might make her angry, or it might make her cry. Lying and trying to persuade her that she hadn't been as disagreeable as she believed could also make her cry, or it might make her angry. Dismissing it as a consequence of her hormones would also probably make her angry, but probably not as angry as ignoring her confession altogether. There was no possible way for him to respond that would not invoke another series of unfortunate reactions. Then again, there was no possible way to accurately predict how she would react at all, which she proved moments later when she asked, "Did you eat the last apple in the preserver?"
He furrowed his brow and stared at her. "How is an apple relevant to our conversation?"
"I thought we had an apple in the preserver."
"I have not consumed an apple in quite some time. If there was one in the preserver that is now missing, I did not eat it."
"All I really wanted was an apple for breakfast." She sighed loudly and turned her focus to scraping the last of the stew from the bottom of her bowl.
He blinked several times, struggling to understand how her desire to eat apples related to her moody behavior and subsequent apology.
"Anyway, aren't you supposed to be down in the mines in thirty minutes?" she asked, rising to her feet and collecting their bowls.
"Yes," he admitted, retreating to the lavatory to perform his customary morning hygiene rituals of cleaning his teeth and oiling his hair.
He had a very busy day scheduled. Samantha Bergeron and the shift supervisors had recently approved his request to visit the mines to perform wellness exams for workers on each of the three shifts. That morning, he was scheduled to spend eight hours in the secondary mines meeting with the workers of Alpha shift to update their medical records, perform annual wellness exams, offer routine vaccinations, and write and refill prescriptions.
Most colonists only visited the clinic when they had an immediate need and due to the demands of the mining schedules, most of the miners never came to the clinic until a minor problem had expanded into a more serious one. His goal was to improve the overall wellness of the colony through education and prevention, which would improve the efficiency of his medical practice.
He left Dagny to tend to the dishes and descended the stairs to the clinic to perform a last inventory of the equipment Dagny had packed the day before. The clinic was in a state of disarray with cabinets and tables from the left wall now positioned along the wall by the surgical suite. An engineering team had come the day before yesterday to begin work on the convalescent annex, and they would begin drilling early next week.
Dagny would have to be sequestered to their quarters while they worked due to the large amount of dust they would generate. He had installed biofilters on the entrance to the clinic to remove most pathogens from anyone entering or exiting, and she wore a face mask and took level 2 precautions when treating patients to protect herself from any pathogens that might slip through in patients who were sick with an active infection.
There was another set of biofilters on both ends of the stairwell leading to their quarters to make their home a sterile environment where she could remove the face mask and gloves. All food and outside items had to go through a decontamination process before going upstairs and the tedium of maintaining such rigorous sanitary protocols was wearing on Dagny.
She often complained of the discomfort of the mask, the indignity of having to wear gloves when handling patients, and the frustration of being confined to such a small space for the next three months while she was on immunosuppressants. She didn't complain about loneliness, but he suspected the social isolation was wearing on her most of all.
Aisla had come by a few times since Dagny's confinement had begun, but several of her Orion relatives had arrived on the Oglethorpe several days earlier and she had been too busy to work in the clinic since then. The Ann and Nicolas Svendsen had also returned on the Oglethorpe, which had been on a routine mission to the Aldebaran sector to pick up and drop off ore, and though Ann Svendsen had come and spent most of the afternoon with Dagny the day before, Ann had her own duties and family to tend to.
"Aren't you going to be late?"
He turned to see Dagny at the base of the stairs, arms crossed over her swollen stomach and eyes squinting over the top of her white face mask.
"It takes 9.5 minutes to reach the secondary tunnels from here at my usual pace," he explained, closing his bag of supplies and hoisting it onto his shoulder. "I simply wished to ensure I had the necessary equipment."
"I packed that bag."
"I am aware."
"Are you saying I'm too incompetent to pack a bag now?"
"I do not recall ever having referred to you as being incompetent."
She rolled her eyes, an action which was all the more noticeable because the bottom half of her face was shielded from view. "What all do you need me to do today? I mean, I know you'll just go back behind me tomorrow and fix it, but…" Her words trailed off and hung in the air. It eventually became apparent she had no intention of finishing her thought.
"The Oglethorpe delivered a drive with software updates for the tricorders. It would be helpful if you could install them on the secondary tricorders to ensure the new software is functional."
"Wow, it's like we're living in the year 2000," Dagny smirked.
"It is an antiquated means of enhancing technology, but given the colony is isolated from all Federation servers, it is the only conceivable way."
"Anything else?"
"Nothing, other than tend to patients. I will take a communicator, should you require assistance."
"You're sure the communicators work down there?"
"The communicators are functional in the vast majority of the underground complexes and tunnels. The bulk of the gallicite that prevents us from using communicators to contact the surface is in the tertiary tunnels near the main entrance."
Dagny didn't acknowledge his response. She simply hoisted herself onto the stool by the computer and began flipping through the medical databases. Voris readjusted the position of his bag's strap and headed for the door. "Goodbye."
"Bye," Dagny murmured, shifting herself on the stool to face away from him.
Voris moved at a brisk pace through the main tunnel system. Rather than reflect on his duties for the day, he thought of Dagny's recent erratic and unkind behavior. It was so unlike the woman he knew but truthfully, he didn't really know her. They had only met five months ago. Perhaps his initial impression that she was a calm, gentle, and resilient individual had been incorrect. Or perhaps she really had just become a slave to the Vulcan pregnancy hormones that were currently sustaining their child.
He had the sense he was being unfair. Vulcan females had a lifetime of experience with controlling emotions to assist them during the tumultuous period of pregnancy and childbirth, and even most Vulcan mothers eventually spent more and more time in intensive meditation as their pregnancies progressed. Dagny didn't even know how to meditate. He wanted to help her any way he could, but given her recent meanness, it was logical to conclude that offering to teach her how to meditate would be met by a vicious verbal assault.
But he also knew he would need to do something. In another month, the fetus' midbrain would be developed enough that Dagny would begin feeling what the child felt in addition to the chaotic and unpredictable emotions caused by the hormones. If her mood was difficult to tolerate now, it would be much harder to endure when that started happening.
Were they on Earth, he would have recommended she meet with a psychiatrist. Though he had a broad set of skills, he had little training or experience in assisting human patients with mental and emotional health. He was ill-equipped to handle mental health patients of any species, really. There were Vulcan psychiatrists and psychologists, but they specialized in treating Vulcan patients who lacked the ability to control their minds through logic and meditation, usually as a result of a degenerative neurological disease.
He considered himself. It had taken months in the wake of Vulcan's loss to come to terms with his grief and in that time, he'd lost weight and slept poorly. He might have considered meeting with a Vulcan mental health professional, but there were none who had survived Vulcan's destruction and he had believed alien specialists not suited to the task of caring for Vulcan patients. So, he had continued meditating and eventually restored his emotional balance, but it had taken nearly a year to adequately heal himself.
But was he fully recovered? He recalled enduring pon farr in the hotel room on Aldebaran. He vaguely remembered destroying furniture and feeling angry that T'Sala had died. No matter how much he meditated or ignored it, that pain was still buried deep within him and had reemerged when he'd been vulnerable because of pon farr. It seemed probable, likely even, that a similar phenomenon was occurring with Dagny because of the side effects of pregnancy. She had lost her family, friends, and home only five months ago and was also coping with an unintended, high-risk hybrid pregnancy.
It was a logical explanation, but it offered little in the way of a solution. He was considering seeking Dr. Govorski's opinion when he noticed a figure waving at him. "Good morning, doctor!"
"Good morning, Mr. Zernon."
"Just finished dropping off a box of apples to the Conroe family," the Tellarite huffed, pausing as he reached Voris.
While he wasn't sure why the grocer would feel compelled to offer Voris an explanation of his whereabouts, his confession still gave Voris pause. "Do you have more apples?"
"The greenhouses gave me the last of their harvest this week. I don't have much left, but I have a few boxes."
Dagny had developed an unusual fondness for apples in recent weeks, eating four or five a day. He thought of her frustrations earlier that morning that their preserver no longer contained any apples and asked, "What would you trade for one of your boxes?"
"For you? Nothing. Can you come pick them up now?"
"I have other obligations to attend to at present."
"As is always the case for me too," Zernon replied, a small squeal escaping as he sighed. "But I can reserve a box for you, if you'd like to pick them up on your way back to the clinic."
"Yes, thank you."
Just as he and Zernon parted ways, he was immediately confronted by Aisla and two other Orion women, one of them was holding a baby on her hip and had clearly been crying.
"We were just coming to see you!" Aisla said, stroking the infant's head.
"Is something the matter?"
"Lula has a small cough and runny nose. I keep telling her they all go through this, but she wanted to come see a doctor, just to be sure."
Voris turned to the group of Orion women, unsure which one Lula was. Aisla, sensing his confusion, laughed. "I guess I should start at the beginning. My aunt, sister, and niece arrived on the Oglethorpe two days ago. Dr. Voris, this is my aunt, Anja, my sister, Morna, and her daughter, Lula."
"I see," he replied, turning from Aisla to the women. "It is an honor to make your acquaintance."
The younger woman, whom Voris assumed was Morna, shot a sideways glance at Aisla and mouthed something. Aisla rolled her eyes and said, "You're not in the commune anymore. Male doctors are quite common."
Morna looked unconvinced but turned so that Voris could see her daughter. The girl had two rivers of mucus streaming down her nose and puffy eyes. Voris leaned forward to get a closer look, but the little girl sneezed, sending moisture into Voris' face. He winced and wiped his face, the pulled his tricorder out of the side pocket of his bag to check the child's vitals. "How old is she?"
"Seven months, measured in Standard time," Morna replied.
"And how long has she been showing symptoms?"
"This started about three days ago."
"Is she eating normally?"
"Yes, but she hasn't been sleeping as much and I'm worried she's going to stop breathing in her crib."
Anja scoffed. "All babies get the snuffles. I never heard of it killing anyone."
"I would think you would be more worried about your own granddaughter," Mora snapped, bouncing Lula on her hip to try and keep her from fussing.
"She is your first child," Anja sighed. "When you have five children like I did, you'll stop worrying about these little things."
"But you're not a doctor," Morna retorted, looking from her mother to Voris.
"Her temperature is slightly elevated, but I am in agreement with your mother," he replied, powering down the tricorder. "I regret I do not have the time to perform a more comprehensive exam, but Dagny is in the clinic and can assist you."
"You're sure she's ok?"
He knew she was referring to Lula, but he thought of Dagny. The child appeared to have a mild respiratory infection, but if it were a pathogen that could also infect humans, Dagny would need to exercise care. The clinic's biofilters could only offer so much protection, which was why Dagny also taking level 2 precautions to prevent contracting disease from patients. She often complained about the mask in particular. What if she took it off while she was alone in the clinic?
"I cannot say for certain without a more detailed examination, but I see little cause for concern. I would recommend a decongestant to alleviate her symptoms and if they get worse and do not improve within three days, I urge you to return to the clinic."
"But what if-"
"Thank you, Dr. Voris," Aisla replied, cutting her sister off. "I know you're very busy and have places to be. We won't keep you."
The women started off in the direction of the clinic and Voris continued on to the secondary tunnels, listening to the sound of Orion bickering echoing off the stone walls of the main tunnel. Traffic was light but he was still forced to lengthen his stride. His delay in talking to Zernon and Aisla's family was threatening to make him late.
As he walked, he extracted the communicator from his bag to warn Dagny that she was about to receive a patient with symptoms of an upper respiratory infection. It took three attempts to reach her and when she finally replied, the sound of her voice was tinny through the upper speaker. The gallicite didn't prohibit the use of communicators below ground, but it still had an impact on clear communications. "What?"
"Dagny, did you receive my last transmission?"
"Yeah, Aisla's niece is coming by the clinic with a cold. So what?"
"I was checking to ensure you were wearing the proper protective equipment," he explained, swerving as he rounded the corner to avoid hitting two men leaving the secondary mining tunnels.
"Yes, Voris. Ugh, why do you always have to check up on me like I'm a little kid?"
"I was simply giving you the courtesy of informing you." Rather than wait for her reply, which was almost certain to be hostile, he snapped the communicator shut and made his way to the shift foreman's office. He passed a number of people who were leaving and filed in with a group of workers waiting to begin their shift.
In an effort to circumvent the crowd and avoid being late for his initial meeting with the foreman, a Klingon woman named Kor'la, he excused himself to a narrow tunnel that lead to a side entrance of the main control room of the secondary tunnels. He walked quickly but paused when he heard a pair of whispering voices.
"I'm not so hard up that I'd lay down in a tunnel with you," a woman giggled.
"This isn't about being hard up. I like you, you like me. So, let's have some fun." Despite the hushed quality of the voice, he had good ears. It was Pearson Schoenbein.
His identification was confirmed seconds later when the woman sighed and replied loudly, "Bye, Pearson. Come by my quarters this afternoon after your shift. If I'm still in a good mood, maybe I'll let you in."
"Well then, I look forward to it."
A woman with green and copper mottled skin emerged from behind a large rock on the left and startled when she saw him. She was Suliban, tall and elegant. She stepped out of the intermittent shadows created by the sparse overhead lighting and gave him a polite nod just as Pearson appeared behind her.
"Oh, uh, good morning, doctor," Pearson said.
"Yes."
Voris hadn't seen Pearson since the day he'd found him in their quarters, talking to Dagny. He hadn't spoken to anyone about the paternity of Melana's child, not only because he was obligated to maintain his patients' privacy but also because he could find no logic in revealing such information. Melana and the child were dead and revealing the truth would not alter that fact. Also, the only living people who might be entitled to the truth—were he not bound by ethics to conceal it—were Shrell and Mr. Schoenbein, and he failed to see how revealing it would benefit either of them. Given Shrell's temper, it could possibly even lead to violence.
"Do you… need something?" Pearson asked.
"No."
"Well, uh, I should get to work," Pearson, said, rubbing the back of his head and shrugging. "See you around, Lejiin."
He exchanged nervous looks with the Suliban woman and started shuffling toward the control room. Voris followed behind.
"So, how've you been, doctor?"
"Well."
"How is Dagny?"
"She is well also."
"I heard she's sick, like she has to wear a mask and stuff in the clinic."
"I am obliged to protect the privacy of my patients and thus, I cannot discuss her condition with you."
"Good to know you're a man who can keep a secret."
"It isn't about keeping secrets, Mr. Schoenbein, it's about professional integrity. I take the confidentiality of my patients seriously."
"Right, anyway, I'd really appreciate it if you didn't mention seeing me with Lejiin to anyone."
He nearly replied that Pearson's dalliances were none of his business, but that wasn't literally true: the deaths of Melana and her child were a direct result of his indiscretions. He was still considering his response when Pearson shrugged and added, "It's not that I'm ashamed or anything, it's just that I don't like getting involved in colony gossip and drama."
"Nor do I."
They reached the door of the control room and strode through it without another word.
"You are late," barked a tall Klingon woman standing over a bank of monitors.
"Sorry, Kor'la," Pearson said. "I was triple checking those scans from yesterday. Just wanted to make sure everything was in order."
Voris slowly craned his neck to observe Pearson. He'd just told a lie and appeared genuinely untroubled. And he knew that Voris knew it was a lie, and yet, the falsehood seemed to come so easily to him.
"Do not be late again," Kor'la barked, crossing her arms and glancing at Voris. "You are the doctor?"
"Yes."
"You are late too."
"I apologize."
"You do not work for me; it is not my duty to account for you. You will avoid interfering with operations, but you are free to move around the upper levels."
"I understand, thank you."
"You will also be with a technician at all times. I have assigned someone to escort you." She tilted her head in the direction of a pair of people sitting at a monitoring station along the back wall.
Voris was paired up with Gaz, the fiancé of the Tellarite woman he'd treated for a pulmonary embolism two weeks earlier. It turned out that when Gaz wasn't fretting over his fiancé's health, he was excessively chatty and familiar. Voris followed him down to a break room on the level below where a handful of people were already queued to receive vaccinations.
His first patient was a middle-aged human man who, in addition to needing a full battery of vaccines, was deeply concerned about a growth on his posterior and willingly pulled down his trousers in front of everyone so that Voris could get a better look. Gaz roared with laughter and all Voris could think was it was going to be a very long day.
Dagny turned away from the computer screen. She wanted to scream, but managed to hold it in. She didn't relish the idea of feeling her hot breath lingering in the itchy surgical mask covering the lower half of her face. She wanted to take the ridiculous thing off but every time she felt tempted, she would snap back to reality in a flood of guilt and panic. The mask wasn't just protecting her, it was protecting the baby. It was the last line of defense against dangerous pathogens and based on the results of the blood test Voris had taken the day before, she didn't have much of an immune system left.
It wasn't just the mask though. She was constantly hungry, none of her clothes fit, she was bored out of her mind, and grouchier than she'd ever been in her life. Even just taking a hot shower ran the risk of setting that stupid temperature monitor off and every time it went off, Voris would remind her to be more careful. She was chilly right now, but she knew putting on a sweater would eventually make the thin, latex beacon adhered to her abdomen start that annoying beeping sound.
In addition to the fact that her trousers were being held up by a rubber band woven between the fastener and the loop, she'd also found a couple of stretch marks on the underside of her belly that morning in the shower. She didn't tend toward vanity but the angry red marks on her stomach bothered her. When she admitted it didn't make sense that it would upset her so much because after all, she didn't have a partner to maintain a pretty figure for, she decided she was upset because she was so alone. No Erik, no family, no friends… just Voris.
Smug, know-it-all Voris who breathed loudly through his nose and never stopped staring at her. Dr. Voris, who seemed to notice every single thing she did and remind her how it was hurting the baby. He talked about the baby so much and she often felt like he only bothered to express concern for her well-being because her body was temporarily housing his child.
She slid her index finger over the bridge of her nose and scratched under the mask. She knew she was being ridiculous, and it bothered her. Did awareness of her irrational thoughts make her any less irrational? Probably not.
She glanced around the mess of the clinic, wondering what was taking the tricorder software so long to update. She'd had to rely on old-fashioned techniques of measuring pulses, blood pressures, and temperatures all morning. It had taken nearly twenty minutes just to collect the same amount of data that a tricorder could collect in about twenty seconds, but since she'd had so few patients, it hadn't really mattered.
Still, it had been inconvenient. Earlier that morning, Aisla had come by the clinic with her relatives to get her sick infant niece checked out, and she'd been unable to run a blood or sputum sample without a working tricorder. But Aisla had indicated that Voris had seemed unconcerned when he'd met them in the tunnel, so she'd sent them home with a decongestant and a suggestion that they should come back if the baby got worse.
She turned back to the computer screen to continue reading the organic chemistry text on the outdated database. She had read the same paragraph on carboxylic acids three times and still hadn't retained any of it. Her heart wasn't in this anymore. It seemed pointless, wasting her time studying for the impossible task of getting into medical school. Even if she ever moved to a place that actually had a medical school and even if she could actually get admitted, she didn't want to go anymore.
Something changed the night Melana died. She'd thought she had everything under control and it had cost Melana her life. How arrogant she had been. Holding Melana's dying son in her arms had broken something in her and now she knew just how tired she was of death and how it seemed to follow her everywhere.
She closed her eyes and tried to hold back the tears. How had she managed to care for 141 people on board the Albret for so long by herself? She realized only now just how lucky she'd been for so long. Aside from the loss of Vulcan, the worst thing she'd ever encountered was an ion storm that had overloaded several engineering plasma conduits and sent a quarter of the engineering crew to her tiny clinic. She'd kept everyone alive, but they'd also been lucky that they had been within three hours of Starbase 7.
She used to think she was good at her job, that she was a plucky, resourceful paramedic, but when she really thought about it, she decided she wasn't a skilled medical professional—she had just been lucky. Until she wasn't. Her luck had run out that day the neutronic storm had struck and her ineptitude had killed almost everyone she'd ever known and loved. She used to beam with pride whenever Voris had praised her skills, but now it made her feel angry. She wasn't talented or capable—she was an imposter.
She finally burst into tears and descended into a vicious cycle of grief, hating herself for crying, and crying for hating herself. If she wasn't a paramedic, what was she? If she wasn't going to go to medical school, what was she supposed to do? Raise a baby with Vulcan guy she barely knew and live happily ever after? She ran her hands over her bulging tummy and really started to wail as she tried to figure out how her life had come to this junction.
"Dagny?"
The voice was a woman's but she couldn't bring herself to open her eyes and see who it was. Instinct drove her to twist around on the stool and reach out her arms to hug the person standing just behind her shoulder. It was awkward, but it felt good to just cry, even if it was soaking her face mask.
"Oh Dagny, what's wrong?"
"I- I- It's- I just-" was all she could manage to choke out. After another minute, it slowly began to dawn on her that the kind stranger wasn't a stranger at all, but Ann Svendsen.
Ann petted her head and extricated herself from the desperate embrace to find a tissue and offer it to Dagny. She wanted to blow her nose, but the mask on her face made it impossible. She nearly started to cry again, but took several deep breaths.
"Did something happen?" Ann asked, tilting her head to listen.
"No."
"Then what is it?"
"I don't want to be a doctor anymore. I don't even want to be a paramedic. I don't want to have a baby. I didn't want any of this."
Ann's face fell and she pulled Dagny back into another tight hug. Dagny took it as a cue to burst into tears once again and thankfully, Ann just let her cry without demanding any further explanation. When she finally managed to get hold of herself a second time, Ann asked, "What makes you say you don't want to be a doctor?"
"So many people are dead because of me."
"And a lot of people are alive because of you too."
"I don't feel cut out for this. Any of this."
"I'm not even sure where to start," Ann mumbled, finally stepping out of the hug to look Dagny in the face. "Can't you take that silly mask off? I'm not sick. You won't catch anything from me."
Dagny nearly started crying again, but dabbed at her eyes with the tissue and shook her head. "It's because of the baby."
Ann bobbed her head. "I know this has to be very overwhelming. Even when you plan to have a baby, it never stops being terrifying."
"I know how to take care of babies," Dagny groaned bitterly. "My mother gave me plenty of practice."
"But I understand when you say it wasn't something you had in mind for your life. What does Voris think about this? Have you talked to him about it?"
"No, and I don't think I can. He just constantly reminds me that I'm not taking care of myself."
"That's because he cares about you."
"He cares about the baby."
"And you're that baby's mother. He cares about you too."
Aisla had said something similar once. Dagny clenched her jaw, barely managing to keep herself from saying something hateful about her baby's father.
"But I get that he's not exactly the man you thought you'd settle down with."
Dagny uttered a weak laugh and pulled out the aquamarine amulet tucked into her shirt, holding it out so Ann could see. "Did you know Erik Larsen asked me to marry him, right before the Albret was lost? He gave me this for my birthday. It was his mother's."
Ann offered a pained look. "Did you love him?"
"Not really." She hated herself for this confession, but it was the truth. "I think I was just in love with the idea of being in love. He was a nice person and I'd known him forever."
"It's not wrong to want to be in love."
"All the boys always liked Frida and Julie because they were pretty and funny and always knew what to say. It was nice to have someone notice me. But now I can't help but wonder if we would have been happy. I feel like if the storm had never happened, I'd probably be in the same situation, pregnant and resentful. The only difference is, it would be Erik's baby instead."
"There's no point in thinking about what might have been: that's done with. I think it's a bit late to change your mind about having a baby, but that doesn't mean you can't go to medical school and maybe fall in love someday."
"Who's going to want me when I already have a baby with someone else?"
"It's not the twentieth century and even back then, people fell in love with people who already had children."
"Just once, I wish something in my life could be easy," Dagny sighed, slumping back onto the stool.
Ann gave her a sad smile. "But then you wouldn't be you. You are a good person and you deserve to be happy."
"Thank you."
"It's the truth."
Dagny nodded, desperate to go upstairs and wash her face. "Did you need something? Medication? Check up?"
"Oh, no," Ann laughed. "When I saw you the other day, you said your clothes weren't fitting, so I went through my trunks and found my old maternity clothes. They're definitely worn, but I gave them a good wash and they're almost good as new." She lifted a bag from the floor and offered it to Dagny.
Dagny resisted the urge to start crying all over again and would have been successful, had she not reached into the bag and pulled out a dress printed with pineapples. She didn't even need to check the tag: this had once belonged to her mother. Clothing on the Albret tended to cycle through at least a dozen owners, getting patched and mended many times before finally being retired to the reclaimator. Even though it didn't make any sense, she held it up to her face mask and inhaled deeply, searching for any lingering scent. Even if her nose weren't stopped up from crying, it had been years since this dress belonged to her mother. She was truly gone.
Ann stayed with her for another two hours and left just after 1800. Voris should have been back and she considered reaching him via communicator but decided against it. It was technically too early to close the clinic, but aside from Ann, no one had come through her door since early afternoon so she made sure the buzzer was working and headed upstairs to get rid of her awful mask.
When they'd first arrived at Bergeron colony, she'd wondered if they would ever get clinic traffic back to a manageable level and their hard work had paid off. Mornings could still be busy sometimes, but now the clinic was also subject to lulls that could last for days. It probably wasn't in good taste to wish she could have more patients just so she could have some more company, but talking to Ann for the second half of the afternoon had kept her mind off her troubles.
Ann had made some good points about giving motherhood and medical school and Voris a chance, but now that she was gone, she felt the temptation to start feeling sorry for herself again. When she reached the top of the stairs, the first thing she saw was the little round table in the center of the room, and then she felt bad for a different reason. She ripped off the damp, itchy face mask, slinked forward, and set the bag of maternity clothes Ann had given her on the worn surface.
She thought of breakfast that morning and winced at the thought of how mean she'd been to Voris. The way he breathed through his nose was annoying, but he hadn't deserved the way she'd snapped at him. Before she could start feeling awful for being so moody, she thought of her father and his many sayings. One of his favorites had been, "You can't change the past but you can always fix the future."
She vowed to apologize but decided an apology probably wouldn't scratch the surface of how insufferable she'd been lately. None of this was his fault, really. She absentmindedly stroked the top of her bump and smirked, correcting her thought slightly. Some of this really was his fault, but he still didn't deserve to be yelled at for whistling through his nose.
She wondered how she could make it up to him. She had a feeling he would just dismiss any kind of nice gesture as illogical and unnecessary, but she still wanted to try. He'd been working so hard and getting so little sleep lately that she thought he might appreciate a nice dinner and an early bedtime.
She checked the food preserver and found some rillan, a stringy Vulcan gourd and other assorted herbs and thought he might enjoy balkra, a traditional Vulcan casserole. Dagny had no opinion on the dish either way, but he seemed to like it and she didn't have any better ideas. She set on a pot of water to boil to soften the hard, outer skins of the rillan and started chopping the herbs. When she realized she'd forgotten the k'rhth'a—a word she couldn't pronounce but described an herb that was somewhat similar to rosemary—she went hunting through the bottom drawers of the preserver. What she found at the back of the drawer on the left made her equal parts ashamed and excited.
The apple. That round, shiny, red, delicious ambrosia fruit she'd accused Voris of eating that morning. It was just an apple; why had she had to snap at him over it?
She sniffed it fondly, feeling her stomach grumble. She'd never particularly liked apples… until now. Cravings were one of those silly pregnancy symptoms that she'd always laughed about. She'd teased her mother for wanting pickles or sauerkraut or vanilla ice cream, but now she understood. There were times she felt like she could kill someone just to lick apple juice from their fingers. She tore hungrily into the outer flesh, relishing in the juice that flowed over her tongue.
She dipped the rillan into the boiling water, greased a square pan, then sat down at the table to finish off her apple, gnawing it down to the core and then polishing off the core too, just for good measure. She collected the maternity clothes and started making room for them in her dresser, but soon she was faced with a pile of regular clothes that needed a new, temporary home. Unfortunately, there wasn't much storage space in their tiny quarters.
Thanks to the generosity of the Bergeron colonists, she and Voris had ended up with way more possessions than they needed. Another group of thirty or so people had arrived with the Oglethorpe several days ago and she thought about paying forward some of the kindness they'd been shown. Dagny sighed, frustrated that she couldn't leave the clinic to go out and meet some of these newcomers.
She pulled the storage trunks out from underneath her bed and moved things around to make space to store her old clothes when a large, cylindrical item fell out, hit the floor with a thud, and rolled under her bed. She had to get down on her hands and knees but what she uncovered was an orange and purple candle. It looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn't remember where it had come from. She sniffed it, thinking it smelled musky and herbal, like Voris' home on New Vulcan.
After putting away her clothes, she carried the candle to the table and set it in the center, thinking it would make a nice centerpiece, especially if she was making a traditional Vulcan meal. She lit it and then turned her attention back to preparing dinner. The skins had finally softened on the rillan so she dumped the hot water into the sink, blanched the gourds, and started peeling off the thick outer layers.
She was so focused on her work that she didn't see Voris standing in the doorway. He was holding a box and staring at the candle, and she suddenly felt a flash of sadness and anger pulsing from him. "Is everything ok?"
"Where did you find that candle?"
"In a trunk under my bed."
"It is not yours."
Dagny's ears started to ring. "I-I couldn't remember where it came from. It was packed away with a lot of the stuff we got when we first moved here."
"It is not yours."
"It's just a candle."
Voris turned his head to look at her and the apparent fury in his eyes made her feel nauseated. She had sensed his anger on a few rare occasions before, but had never actually seen any outward sign that he was angry. "It was given to me by my mate."
She swallowed, suddenly aware how dry her mouth was. "I'm sorry."
Voris' brow relaxed. He blinked several times, seeming to realize just how close he'd come to losing his temper. "It is not yours."
"I said I'm sorry," Dagny repeated, her voice cracking as she started to cry tears of hurt and anxiety.
"Your apology isn't necessary. Do not touch it again."
Her hands started to shake, sending flecks of mashed rillan to the floor. "It doesn't seem very logical to get mad over a candle."
"Nor is it logical to cry."
His curt rebuttal sent Dagny over the edge. She descended into hysterical tears, wondering why he was being so mean. It was just a stupid candle.
Voris stepped forward, set the box on the table, and extinguished the flame between his thumb and forefinger.
"All I wanted to do was make a nice dinner and make you feel at home!"
"You should make a greater effort to control your emotions."
It was the worst possible thing he could have said. She wasn't sure why she did it, but she picked up one of the gourds she'd recently skinned and hurled it at him. Voris ducked and it splattered on the wall behind him. He turned to face her, glaring at her with dangerous eyes. She bit her lip and said in a low voice, "I hate you. You ruined my life."
His expression instantly neutralized. They stared at each other for what felt like hours, but it was Voris who looked away first. Dagny took an anxious step forward, fighting both the wild urge to keep yelling and start apologizing profusely. Without saying a word, he swiped the candle from the table, glided in the direction of the stairs, and was gone.
Dagny started crying again, shocked and confused by what had just happened. She had never been so angry and she couldn't understand what could be making her feel that way. She stumbled toward the table, and seeing what was in the box Voris had brought home, started wailing uncontrollably.
Apples.