McCoy spied Hannah in the Mess Hall, head bent over a PADD, coffee sat half-drained on the table in front of her. She sat with her legs crossed on the chair, and her mouth moved rapidly, but no words came out. He slid into the seat opposite her, expecting a response, but received none.
"Most people would go straight to bed after a 12 hour night shift," He commented dryly. Hannah barely glanced up at him, grabbing the coffee mug greedily and gulping down at least half of its contents. As she placed it back on the table, she deigned him with a response;
"I'm not most people. I am one people. One person. Whatever, words are hard." Her words tumbled out of her mouth, mumbled and barely recognisable. McCoy pushed on the screen of her PADD, forcing the device on to the table and stared sternly at her.
"You can't vaccinate a planet with no goddamn vaccines," He chided. Hannah merely blinked at him. "You can't run on empty- go to bed!" McCoy elaborated. Hannah rolled her eyes and picked the PADD back up, her actions response enough. McCoy folded his arms, leaning back in the chair and merely watched her, disapproval clear in his eyes. Hannah looked up slowly from her PADD, and glared at McCoy.
"I am not tired," She insisted stubbornly. "And I have a lot of reading to catch up on if I'm going to be useful here."
"You've learnt all of Vulcan anatomy, Romulan anatomy, how to use all the equipment, and all the Star Fleet protocols and you've been here, what, a month and a half? Two months?"
"74 days actually," Hannah answered, immediately, barely even pausing to think. "And I mean, technically all I've done is memorise it. I understand nothing." McCoy groaned.
"It's like having a second Spock," He muttered, before snapping his gaze back on to Hannah. "But don't side track me. This-" He took the PADD out her hand, and crossed his arms, -"is not essential, sleep is. You criticised Jim for a lack of sleep. Practise what you preach."
Hannah's attempts to sleep were futile. She acted out the motions of going to bed; she got changed into pyjamas, brushed her teeth, plaited her hair into a long braid so she didn't end up accidentally inhaling it… but still sleep eluded her. Her brain was too wired, and every time she closed her eyes, she was forced to relive a different memory. She was almost grateful when a summons to Engineering gave her a reason to leave her quarters. Scotty explained that McCoy would judge him for breaking his hand sticking it somewhere it didn't belong again. She dutifully trudged out her room, retying her hair, and asking Scotty where he'd tried to stick his hand this time:
"Is it a burn I'm treating or a contusion?"
"Welllll…" Hannah closed her eyes and shook her head, knowing the Chief Engineering couldn't see her, but hoping her exasperation still transmitted itself through the ship.
Kirk sat at the table in his quarters, a glass of something in his hand. He wasn't entirely sure what he was drinking- it tasted almost like brandy, but somehow both better and worse. The taste however, was not the purpose of the drink. He wanted nothing more than to just be able to not be the Captain of a ship stuck out in deep space for five minutes. He missed the ground. He missed the possibility of going somewhere outside of this metal can named The Enterprise. Adventuring into the unknown was fine, until two members of his Bridge crew stopped talking to each other- Sulu and Chekov had refused to speak to each other in days, and both refused to explain why. It was petty and childish, and was driving Kirk insane. He'd also had to deal with repetitious encounters with the same parts of the ship breaking again and again, the same computer malfunctions announcing a self-destruct when none was initiated. Even when he did go on an away mission to a new planet, he was always spouting the same diplomatic drivel as usual, or collecting the same samples. Nothing new had happened since they had accidentally acquired Hannah, and he simply didn't know how he felt about her.
Hannah gave up pretending to be awake. She rubbed the heel of her hand aggressively into her eye socket, and groaned. Her limbs sagged with exhaustion, but her brain was too wired for her to sleep. She almost regretted the coffee, but it was better than the alternative. The infection that had caused her to hallucinate was finally starting to wear off, after a month in hell. Of course she had told Kirk and McCoy she was fine, and that it wasn't still affecting her- after all, it shouldn't have been. McCoy had told her all traces of the bacteria was gone, and so really the hallucinations should have stopped, yet they pestered her still. Ever too proud to admit she needed help, Hannah had gone on ignoring them, only acknowledging the figures she saw in the privacy of her room, where she could rage at them, and cry and fight them tooth and nail as much as she wished.
"Are you okay?" Kes, a kind red-shirt, broke Hannah out of her self-pitying daydream. Hannah nodded slowly, closing her eyes briefly.
"Just tired, I haven't been sleeping well." Technically, Hannah didn't lie. She hadn't been sleeping well, but that was due to her own insistence on staying awake. Kes squeezed her shoulders swiftly in a one-armed hug.
"Go get some rest," She ordered Hannah, not-unkindly. Hannah smiled at her, and turned to leave Engineering. She didn't go to bed.
12 hours later, Hannah still hadn't slept. She darted through the Med Bay, in an odd way grateful for the influx of casualties, because at least it kept her brain occupied. As long as she kept moving, just moving, she would be fine. Grab that tricorder. Inject them with that hypospray. Next patient- not a priority, move on. She could do this, she was fine. Everything was okay, she just needed to treat this burn, and get Wilson to stop whimpering pathetically. The burn wasn't even that severe, it was only a first degree burn- Hannah mentally scolded herself as she thought that. An injury was an injury, pain affected people differently. Her pain didn't detract from his, she just needed to do her job and not judge.
"Jim, what the hell is going on?" McCoy faintly demanded in the background, as two more injured crew members were delivered into the Med Bay, supported by two either side of them.
"Consoles. Overhea-" gasped out the woman Hannah grasped. Hannah shushed her, and grabbed a tricorder.
"Hey, it's okay. Don't try to talk, you're gonna be okay." Hannah's empty words of reassurance seemed to work. She ran the tricorder over the bright green skin of her patient, and looked up at Hendorff who'd delivered her to Hannah.
"All systems had a major energy surge, most decks had damage of some kind. A lot of the crew is injured- especially in engineering," Hendorff explained quickly, before turning and leaving. Hannah injected the woman with a pain killer, and anti-inflammatory agent, before inspecting her burns closer.
Drained and sweating, Hannah stumbled out of Med Bay, resorting to finally go to bed and sleep. She'd been awake for well over 48 hours now, and the exhaustion had set into every single crevice of her body. She walked close to the wall, almost leaning on it for support when Kirk ran into her. Literally. She bounced off his frame, falling to the floor in shock. He offered her a hand, and Hannah thankfully took it, allowing him to pull her back upright.
"Please tell me nothing else is going to go wrong," Hannah pleaded, looking up at Kirk with heavy-lidded eyes, deep purple circles encasing her eye sockets.
"Don't think so," Kirk answered, slightly curtly. Hannah took half a step away from him, unable to resist the instinctive reaction to his hostility. Kirk frowned, and paused. "Is everything okay?" The change in tone almost made Hannah break down on the spot into a sobbing mess, but she choked back the flood of emotion that suddenly swamped her. She nodded, and mumbled a response about just being tired as she trudged away from the Captain.
The door demanded attention just as Hannah sat on her bed.
"Come in," she groaned, reluctantly admitting the unknown visitor at the door. The door slid open, and the Captain walked in. Hannah frowned. "Captain, look, I'm not in the mood for a lecture or whatever, I am so tired-"
-"I know." Kirk cut across her. "And I remember you said you don't sleep well alone, so-" Kirk hesitated, and pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. "-I don't know, would you like some company? I promise I will behave." Hannah's expression didn't change. She merely stared at Kirk, unblinking, for an entire minute. The minute passed in an eternity. Kirk opened his mouth to speak again at the exact moment Hannah sighed and nodded.
"Please," She whispered, her pride deserting her finally at the prospect of actually being able to truly sleep again. Kirk's heart broke, seeing the frailty of the woman sat before him as her shoulders drooped and her head sank down towards her shoulders. He was barely even conscious of his movement as he came and sat down next to her, but he did register the weight of the head that rested against his shoulder. He felt the depth of her weary sigh as she relaxed, her frame sinking on to his, and he slowly moved an arm around her waist, murmuring words of no consequence into her ear.
Hannah woke, for the first time that week, naturally. She was not jolted awake by some terrible dream, nor summoned to the Med Bay. She merely woke up, and it was heavenly. She slowly opened her eyes, looking up to the ceiling, calm, content. Then the prickling sensation that she was not alone pestered her neck. She sat up and scanned the room, only to see a ghost sat in the chair facing her.
"Miss me?" He drawled, a cruel smile warping his features into something not quite human. His eyes were too cold, his mouth too hard, and there was something implacable wrong about him. He tilted his head, looking at her with those piercing, mean little eyes. "Or perhaps you miss baby Aimee more?"
"Shut up." The words fired from Hannah's mouth before she had realised she spoke. She glowered at the figure as it crept towards her, growing larger, dominating the room. Hannah did not move. She merely watched it, wary of those cruel eyes, reminding herself over and over that this was not real, this was merely her brain playing tricks on her again. "You are dead. You can't hurt me."
"Are you sure about that, sweetheart?" The man purred, drawing closer to her bed. "I might not be able to touch you, but I never needed that to hurt you. Little Hannah could always cope with so much pain, but she was weak, so weak she couldn't even protect a little girl from big bad me." Hannah drew her gaze away from the man, and closed her eyes. She breathed out, a long, slow, shaking breath. Steading herself, she pressed a hand over her heart, willing it to slow down. Her index finger twitched on her collarbone as she let out a second deep breath.
"Hannah?" Hannah opened one eye, suspicion ruling her motion. The Captain sat in her bed, propped up on his left elbow and looking at her, brow furrowed. Hannah groaned and closed her eye again. She dropped her head on to her knees, and groaned, clapping her hands over her ears.
"This is new. And worse," She moaned, her voice muffled by her knees. "Go back to Liam, I can at least handle Liam." She peeked out from her defensive position, cradling her knees. Kirk was still there, looking concerned and adorable as always. Hannah lifted her head and turned to look at the apparition.
"Who's Liam?" The Kirk-figure asked. Hannah rolled her eyes and sat back, folding her arms grouchily.
"Oh come on, for a creation of my own brain, you can do better. Aren't you going to guilt trip me about not belonging here, about not belonging anywhere here and being delusional enough to think I could ever be part of your crew?" Hannah laughed, but there was no mirth in her laugh. Hollowness echoed around her quarters, as Kirk sat up to look at her better. Hannah mock-gasped. "Or why don't you talk to me about how I was foolish enough to actually care for you, and think it could be reciprocated, and aww is that love? How naive. How fucking-" Hannah's voice broke off, as hysteria rose in her. Kirk instinctually reached for her, but she flinched away. Despite her movement away, his fingers still caught the side of her hand as she flung herself off the bed. Hannah paused, and turned back to look at him, horrified.
"What are you talking about?" Kirk pleaded with her, almost fearful of the ramblings of the young woman before him. Hannah merely stared at her hand, Kirk's fear mirrored in her own frozen expression. Her other hand shot up to her mouth, as she stifled a cry, biting down on her finger. Pain radiated through her, and the pain was grounding.
"Please tell me you are not really here," Hannah whispered. Kirk pushed himself off her bed, and grasped her by the shoulders. Hannah flinched at the touch, feeling the warmth of his hands, the scrape of calluses against her bare shoulder. "Oh God," She unconsciously breathed.
"I am really here," Kirk assured her, looking into her face deeply, scanning for anything that would help him understand the situation. "What did you think I was?"
"Get out."
"What?" Kirk blinked. Hannah ripped herself away from Kirk, and pushed him roughly away.
"Get out, go. Just-Just leave. Please," She begged, her words torn, half-formed. Her throat swelled and she couldn't speak anymore. Kirk turned, looking at the husk of a girl that fled from him, and then left.
Kirk went to the one person who always seemed to understand everything; Spock. Unfortunately for Kirk, emotions were not Spock's strong suit, so understanding the emotion-driven woman was not going to be aided by the Vulcan. Kirk still tried him, and used him merely as a sounding-board for working out his own reaction to the strange situation he had just left. Leaving Spock's room, with only the extra information that Hannah seemed to be suffering from the effects of extreme trauma, Kirk felt disorientated, lost almost. He meandered back to his own room, only to find the woman he'd left behind standing there. Hannah held her right arm in her left hand, hugging it close to her body. Her toes pointed slightly inwards, giving her the appearance of being pigeon-toed, the toes of her upper foot curling in on themselves so much that they bent the shoe encasing them.
"I'm sorry, that must have been… weird," She spoke quickly, quietly. Kirk merely nodded. Hannah stared at him for a moment, and then let her words spill from her in a frantic rush. "Remember that virus-bacteria… whatever- that thing that made me hallucinate, well it brought a lot of things to the surface- things I havenae had to deal with for years, and well, I didnae. -Deal with them, I mean, at least no the fist time around…" Hannah trailed off, seemingly running out of breath. Breathing deeply, and quickly, and she finished with; "And now I cannae deal with them. I don't know how." Kirk didn't respond to her, after all, how do you respond to that? Hannah paused, and then nodded, largely to herself.
"Well. I'm going to go then." The words were becoming more and more heavily accented, her Scottish roots overhauling her words and making them near impossible to understand. Hannah spun and fled the corridor, walking away quickly, clinging to the edges of the corridors, her head down.
Hannah was so preoccupied with her own thoughts that she almost didn't notice the young Ensign sat alone in the Mess Hall. The room was otherwise deserted, silent and still, yet the chair Hannah veered towards was the one Chekov sat in. Her eyes snapping into focus at the last second, she abruptly changed course and sat down next to him. Both of them looked a little bit shell-shocked, dismay drooping their heads. The normally upbeat ensign didn't speak, merely stared into the dregs of his cup. Hannah dragged her gaze up to look at Chekov, alarmed by his uncharacteristic quietness.
"You look about as rough as I feel," She said, mostly to break the silence. Chekov jolted back to the present, and looked at her: the gaze of a startled deer fixed on the source of the noise. Hannah blinked, and reached out for the Ensign. "Is everything okay?" Words failed Chekov. He opened his mouth as though to speak, and then closed it. Hannah squeezed his hand, and let go of it, returning it to the glass of amber liquid.
"Today is the anniwersary of the destruction of Wulcan." Chekov's voice was almost too quiet for Hannah to hear. She craned her head to listen to his words, and leant forwards on the table. "Spock's mother…" he trailed off, unable or uncertainty as to how to finish his sentence.
"Chekov, I'm so sorry," Hannah whispered, getting up and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. The young Russian raised a hand to her arms, and held her against him tightly, the hug providing much needed comfort and reassurance- reassurance he didn't realise he still needed. Hannah didn't let go until Chekov's arm dropped back to the table, and even then she still watched him warily, concerned. Knowing the burden of a having a death on one's hands, the two of them sat together, largely silent, for the next few hours. Words did not need to fly, for company was all they needed; simply to know they were not alone.