Harsher Realities
Beep…beep…beep…
Insistent. Rhythmic.
Annoying.
As usual, the soft electronic blip of the heart monitor counting off my heartbeats breaks through the blissful silence of sleep and drags me back to world of wakefulness.
And a world of panic as I become aware of something snaking up my nose and down my throat. Blind panic, sheer animal terror crushes me, makes me claw at my face, scream, "Get it out! Get it out!! GET IT OUT!!!"
Hands, cool, calm, strong, take hold of my wrists, pull them away from my face while the accompanying voice whispers gentle reassurances.
"Mairghread, shh, calm down. Calm down, Mairghread."
I know that voice, those hands, this cadence.
"Mum?" My vision, blinded by overly bright lights and panic clears to reveal the isolation room—bright, large, high ceilings and glass walls, opaque to me but transparent to those on the other side—and hovering in my vision, Mum's face, a little pale, a little wan, a lot tired.
"Yes," she sighs and glances over her shoulder, raising her eyebrows as though to call someone over.
"What is this?! Get it out!" my hands scrabble once again to tear out the offending tube, only to have Mum one again restrain my hands—it is a sign of how weak I am that she is able to do so. If I were in full health, a team of marines would have trouble holding me back.
"Mairghread, stop!" she commands me sharply, and I obey, ceasing my frantic struggling. "Dr. Beckett put in a feeding tube to help you regain your strength more quickly. I am aware that it is…uncomfortable, but please leave it," she ends more gently, lowering my hands to rest at my sides before raising the head of my bed so I am almost sitting up.
Now that the panic is gone, I can see the wisdom of the feeding tube—my hunger has been deadened to dying coals, like a fever that is more of an irritant than a danger. I can hold up my head, my arms with no trouble, though I can still feel the extreme weariness which is less due to the need for energy than it is a reminder that I am inexperienced at healing. Like an untrained man climbing a mountain because of the force of circumstances feels battered the next day, so does my body remind me that it is untrained for such exertions as I put it through to save my brother.
My brother—Gilleasbachan! The sedative must have worn off by now, he will be panicking…Ah! I see him,not ten feet away on my left, lying in a bed much like my own.
"Gilleasbachan! I have to see him!" I lung forward towards my brother, only to jerk to a halt when strong hands grab my shoulders. "Mum! Let go! I have to see him!"
"Hang on lass," Dr. Beckett appears from nowhere (at last!), pulling off his stethoscope and warming the bell in the palm of his hand before slipping it under my scrub top and over my heart. "He'll nae notice if ye take a moment for me tae check ye over. He's sleeping quite nicely."
Dr. Beckett frowns slightly as he listens to my heart and lungs—I can only assume he does not like the way my heart is racing and fluttering in my panic and haste—but seems satisfied none the less. He smiles and taps the feeding tube taped across my face. "Ah assume ye'd prefer this tae come out."
Sweet relief! "Yes please!"
He chuckles as he starts to position me part-way sitting up, supported by pillows, and spreads a towel across my chest. "I thought so." He clamps off the flow of liquid nutrition through the tube and flushes it with water and air. "This will be a mite uncomfortable," he warns me as he untapes the tube from my face and gets a good grip on it. "Hold your breath, and try to relax. One, two three."
Gah! It's like vomiting in slow motion through my nose and I cannot help but gag and cough as Carson pulls it out and tosses it into a nearby biohazard container.
Eventually, my gag reflex calms down enough for me to choke out, "Can I see him now?"
Mum exchanges an exasperated glance with Carson before joining him on the other side of the bed. "Of course lass. Here," he helps me to swing my clumsy legs around and unlocks the wheels to the IV pole. "Watch the lines now."
I slide off the bed to land on legs wobblier than unset cafeteria jello and be caught by Mum and Dr. Beckett before I land on my face. "I'm alright," I reassure them before they can begin to worry or send for wheelchairs or, worse, put me back in bed. "Just a little dizzy." It's a total lie and I can tell from Dr. Beckett's face that he doesn't believe me in the least—my legs are slowly holding more and more of my weight, but their also shaking like a crystal in front of a stereo.
"One step at a time, don't rush it," he mutters the physical therapy mantra as we cross the 10 foot gap like insane contestants in a multi-leg race. By the time I reach his bed, my legs give out completely—my body letting me know in no uncertain terms that, quite frankly, it doesn't have the energy for such exercise—and I land hard in the plastic bedside chair by grace of Mum and Carson guiding my fall.
"Careful now! Ach, I should have made you use a wheelchair," he mutters as he checks my IV to make sure it didn't pull out. "Ye see? We've taken good care of him."
Now that I see him, all my worries seem like the terrified, inane ramblings of someone newly awoken from a nightmare then the justified fears of a concerned sister and caretaker.
They have given him a real bath, washing away the last lingering odor of death and decay from the hiveship. His hair has been rid of the clotted blood and grim, combed free of knots and tangles—it shimmers damply on the pillow, silky as my own. The faint, clean odor of infirmary soap, like sweet almonds, hovers around him like a warm cocoon, soothing and safe. Temporary casts have been set on his arms and legs; even under the blankets, his legs seem terribly thin, delicate, brittle in comparison. White gauze on his exposed skin makes him seem both pale and slightly healthier—his skin is not so white as the gauze, there is a touch of color in his face.
He looks almost young, child like, his features relaxed and smooth in dreamless slumber…and yet, he looks old. The silvery white hair creeping back from his temples, like snow covering an obsidian plain. The fine web of wrinkles around his eyes, his mouth, furrowing his brow even in sleep. He's over 18,000 years old—of course he would have aged, a practical part of me points out. He's not even supposed to be alive.
Stop it! I quickly move to crush these thoughts before they can gain a foothold in my mind. I cannot let these thoughts have any sway. I must concentrate on bringing him back to life.
Tentatively, my hand shaking, I reach out to touch his fingers which lie atop the creamy infirmary blanket, protruding from the white plaster.
His nails, before jagged with ground-in dirt, have been cleaned and cut smooth. As I wrap my fingers around his, I can't help but notice how very cold they are. To be sure, wraith hands are not known for their warmth but his is like ice.
"Dr. Beckett…"
"I know, luv," he interrupts as he glances at the softly beeping monitors. "I just sent one of the nurses for an electric blanket tae help bring his temp up. He just doesnae have the energy tae spare on keeping himself warm."
I nod mutely and return to studying Gilleasbachan's face as the electric blanket arrives and is draped over his still form.
There is an oxygen mask over his face—the clear plastic clouds slightly with each shallow exhalation, then clears when he breathes in again. Slow, rhythmic…clouded….clear….clouded…clear…shallow breath, sallow skin…
"I gave him a light sedative—keep away the dreams," Carson murmurs in my ear. "From what I saw, I didna think dreams are a pleasant retreat from the lad right now."
Again, I nod mutely, entranced as I watch my brother. Except in strange, vague memory and dream, I have never seen another wraith. Except in my earliest infancy, I have never seen another member of my family in the flesh. I have grown up, was raised, have lived among humans—I cannot regret this or say that my human family failed merely by virtue of the fact that they are not wraith, not of my blood and yet...
But here, here is my brother, one of my own kind, my own kin. His skin, too pale, too bruised, too broken though it is, is like mine own. His eyes, clouded with pain and exhaustion, are like mine—catlike slits for pupils and sharper sight. His tattoos match mine—mathiar's star on our temple, athiar's three arrows on our right hands—but he also has his own on his design on his forehead, because he reached adulthood among our hive, our family. His mind is like mine own, reaching out for another's touch—I have often longed for that touch, which I must avoid; I have long had to hinder this instinct, hold it in check. Human minds are not designed, not accustomed to constant companionship.
Will I have to hinder it still? Has time spent alone with only the queen's mind taught him to fear and hate that touch, so intimate? Can I convince him again of its goodness, the comfort it can bring? Will he allow me to heal him in that way? Can I heal him?
I gently squeeze Gilleasbachan's fingers, a promise to him and to myself that I WILL heal him, that I will find a way, even if it means traveling beyond this galaxy to find a healer with the knowledge.
And he squeezes back.
The movement is slight, barely perceptible, it could almost be an muscle twitch.
But I don't think so.
"Gilleasbachan?" I whisper, clumsily scrambling to my knees on the chair so I can better see his face.
"Mmmm…"
His soft moan is the confirmation I need to know that he is here, he is alive and he knows that I am here beside him. His eyelids flutter lazily and his chest expands haltingly, raspingly under the blanket—but there is none of the panic I expected, only a calm…haziness.
Carson must have given him the good stuff.
Slowly, he rolls his head on the pillow till his glazed, clouded gaze falls on me and his eyes try vainly to focus. "Mairghread?" he murmurs, his voice thick with sleep and muffled by the oxygen mask.
Tears prick my eyes and I grasp his hand all the more tightly. "Yes, yes! I'm here."
His eyes wander hazily. "Where…?"
"We are home, brother," I reach out to touch his face with my other hand. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Carson move around to the other side, pulling his stethoscope off his neck. "You're safe now."
He frowns, confused. "Home? Gone…"
The tears begin to run down my cheeks—he is home, he is safe but he cannot believe it, the only home he ever knew was destroyed, and even hazy from painkillers he knows it. Unobtrusively, Carson listens to my brother's heart and lungs, his brow furrowed with concern.
"No, Gilleasbachan, home is here, with me," I tuck a damp lock of hair behind his ear. "You can rest now. Heal."
"Mairghread, luv," Carson comes back around and speaks quietly in my ear. "I do nae know if tha's possible. He needs sustenance. If he cannae feed or eat like ye…"
"I will feed him," I whisper back, softly enough that I do not think Gilleasbachan can hear me.
"No!" his eyes clear for a moment, fear giving him clarity through the painkillers. I guess I underestimated his hearing, like John always underestimates mine. Interesting. "No, you don't have to…" he trails off, gasping for breath.
"Gilleasbachan, calm down please! Athair's serum, I took it, I can eat for us both," I try to assure him but he shakes his head, grasping at my hand frantically.
"No" gasp "no," he gasps. "I can" gasp "eat."
"Gilleasbachan, there are no aged, no criminals…"
"Not" gasp "humans" gasp "bread" gasp "Who" gasp "did you" gasp "think" gasp "tested" gasp "serum?" he collapses back onto the pillow, the monitors wailing about hyperventilation and low blood oxygen.
"Tha's enough!" Dr. Beckett barks sharply as he injects more sedative into the IV port. "He needs tae rest. An' so do ye, lass," he points me back to my bed. "Ye can stay in here, or go back tae yer quarters, but ye need food and rest. Doctor's orders."
"Come, Mairghread," Mum grasps my elbow and pulls me away, supporting most of my weight as she guides me back to my bed. I glance over my shoulder to see Gilleasbachan's eyes flutter shut once again and the monitors displace slowly normalize. "We'll get food in the mess hall and then return. Carson will take good care of him till then."
I nod, too stunned to speak. Gilleasbachan was given the serum? Is it possible that the unspoken fear in rescuing him was needless?
If only it were as easy to heal his spirit.
TBC
A/N: Thank you for all the reviews! Here's hoping I continue to please.