The characters and world they live in are owned by Paramount. No copyright infringement is intended.
Bottomless thanks to my beta, whose enormous and continuing effort – including, most importantly, the encouragement of the author – towards the production of this work, cannot go uncredited.
Thank you also to the reviewer of Chapter 2, and to all the previous reviewers, as well as those who have activated alerts, for your interest in the story. This is as much for you as it is for me.
Pain. Searing, stinging, all-consuming…and the ache that accompanied it, sending shivers down her spine. Sweat dripped down the side of her forehead. Was she feverish?
Effortfully, she sat up; black spots swam in front of her eyes, and she lay back down again, feeling defeated. She was so thirsty…and weak. She attempted to call for a nurse, someone…anyone to bring her water, to alleviate her agony just a bit, and as she opened her mouth, her parched throat unable to make a sound, a feeling of guilt for even trying settled heavily inside her heart.
Nevertheless, her efforts were noticed, and one of her caretakers made his way to her bedside. He brought a cup to her lips, and relief washed over her as she anticipated the cool liquid trickling into her throat…but the liquid wasn't water. She'd thought herself incapable of feeling any more pain, but as the fluid burned its way down her esophagus, her eyes began to water and she squirmed reflexively, even knowing she had nowhere to go.
Someone else came, observed her struggle. "She suffers," he stated flatly.
"Good," replied the other. "There was no comfort for her victims. It is only right there should be none for her."
With that, he touched her hand, a new flavor of pain arriving as he pinched the tube attached. She drew a sharp breath as her heart began to pound. So, this was how she was going to die?
She struggled to look around, to take stock of her surroundings, to find a possible means of escape…and a small figure scurried in the corner of her vision. It was just a glimpse; she couldn't quite be sure, but the shadow seemed to be in the form of the child she had failed to protect.
She wriggled intensely, trying her best to turn around, to look again to confirm her sighting, but the figure was gone, and meanwhile several pairs of hands descended upon her, preventing her from moving.
Chakotay held her shoulders tightly, knowing she would hurt herself further if allowed free, but still aching at the necessity, for she had not yet awoken from her nightmare, and he feared his actions would add to the terror of the situation in her dream. If only he'd allowed her doctor to enable the restraints earlier – but, perhaps foolishly, he had hoped his offer of comfort a few hours previously would allow her peace in slumber. However, it appeared he was powerless to chase her demons away – and that, more than anything else, pulled at his heart and forced his throat to constrict as yet another piece of hope for her recovery died inside him.
Suddenly, her eyes opened, but they were unfocused, wild…terrified. He froze, momentarily distracted by the assessment of her emotional state – long enough for her to throw a fist towards his face. He felt his jaw dislocate as she connected solidly, and he couldn't suppress an automatic grunt. Clenching through the pain, he held her tighter, forcefully pinning her arms to the biobed as he nervously awaited the signal that the electronic restraints had been enabled.
"Now," ordered the doctor, finally.
Relieved, the captain pulled back, only then noticing the purple-grey bruises forming on her arms where he had grabbed them. It was too much, all at once: the stinging sensation in his jaw and the realization that he had caused further injury to someone so dear, someone already enduring much more than was her due. His now-free hands moved to cover his face as it crumpled, and he hastily exited the room as tears began to fall down his face. Once in the hallway, he scrambled to find the nearest bench and, finding none nearby, collapsed against the wall, sliding down to the floor as he began to sob in earnest. A young intern walked past, eyeing him curiously, but too intimidated to stop and ask if he were all right; he didn't so much see as sense the presence of the student, but at the moment, he couldn't have stopped himself even if he'd wanted to.
A great sense of dread washed over him: eroding hope, eroding love, eroding his faith in fate. Surely she didn't deserve this – the pain, foremost, but also the indignity of it all – her once-proud strength turned against her, destroying her own body as well as those who loved her – her most private of needs tended to clinically by people who didn't even know her…and when they delayed, lying helplessly in her own filth, restrained even from moving aside.
What puzzled him most was the seeming indifference of the very doctors assigned to treat her. No, not indifference – it was stronger than that. They actively resisted helping her, as much as they could without violating the Hippocratic Oath. He wondered again why the EMH had been dismissed from the team, and as he thought of his old friend, the hologram himself appeared, standing over him. As the photonic's shadow passed over him, he looked up, tears still streaming down his cheeks.
His companion didn't speak, but merely reached down and pulled the human to his feet, then silently led him to a nearby treatment room, where he sat his patient down upon the biobed. I can't treat her, but I can at least treat you, his program assessed. He grabbed a regenerator from the cabinet and gently pulled the captain's hands away from his face so that he could heal the injury.
Chakotay made a valiant attempt to calm himself then, to hold still while the doctor did his work. In response, the doctor smiled sadly; he wanted desperately to offer words of comfort, but there were none. They both knew the prospects were grim; the medication he'd devised was a shot in the dark, and there was only so much research he could do without access to the patient herself.
Finally, when the river of grief marring the captain's countenance had slowed to a mere trickle, the hologram spoke. "I take it the drug didn't work."
The captain shook his head. "It did something," he admitted. "She seemed to know, for a while, who she was, if not her current situation – though she was still terribly frightened. But she didn't try to hurt me – well, until we woke her up."
The doctor peered curiously at his former commanding officer. "I suppose that explains the injury," he noted.
"She's still got a powerful right hook," he explained, "even if she hasn't been eating or sleeping."
At that revelation, the hologram exhibited an expression of mild alarm. "They're not feeding her?!"
"Well," Chakotay clarified, "they said she 's been refusing to eat. It's almost as if she wants to die." Speaking the words out loud made the prospect seem all the more plausible, and he shuddered.
"Wait," the doctor cautioned. "She's obviously got an enormous amount of adrenalin running through her system; it's consistent with the bioreadings I received, as well as her 'powerful right hook.' How did you manage not to dodge that?"
Chakotay peered guiltily at the floor. "I was…distracted," he admitted, neglecting to clarify further. "But what has adrenalin got to do with anything?"
Grimacing slightly, the EMH explained, "Adrenalin triggers the sympathetic nervous system and shuts down the parasympathetic nervous system. It may be that she wants to eat and sleep, but simply cannot. Her body perceives a threat, and she is in constant preparation to fight it or flee; the normalcies of sleep and digestion are left aside for a time when she is out of danger."
"So," the captain mused, "the key to her recovery would be to make her feel safe again?"
The doctor nodded. "Precisely. But we can't do that until we understand the danger she perceives…that is, assuming she has enough awareness of reality to be anticipating a genuine danger. Let's assume, for the moment, that there is something concrete in her mind, a cause of her fear. Do you think you can investigate that?" He paused, noting his patient's lack of immediate reply, then continued, "I know this is hard for you, but it'll be a lot harder if…"
"I know," Chakotay snapped, more harshly than he'd intended. "I'll try. It's just…hard. I wish we could get another doctor, someone who knows more…"
The doctor pursed his lips, wondering how much to reveal to the already-overwhelmed captain. Sighing, he decided that more information would be beneficial. "I did try contacting a brilliant doctor," he admitted, "a former head of Starfleet Medical. She's the CMO of the Enterprise."
"Doctor Crusher?" Chakotay asked incredulously. "Why her? And what did she say?"
"Well," explained the hologram, "she's known, in general, to be extremely sympathetic and apolitical, and she's done extensive research on Irumodic Syndrome, a degenerative disease with similar symptoms."
"All right," Chakotay interrupted. "So she's qualified, and might actually be willing to help," unlike the pricks down the hall. "Why isn't she here?"
A pregnant pause preceded the doctor's apologetic and baffled reply. "She said – and I am quoting directly – that she didn't take patients who had committed genocide."