Delenn moved aside to allow the doctor access to his patient. Two nurses followed Franklin into the room with a gurney and awaited instruction.
"Hey, Lennier," said Franklin, waving his medical scanner over Lennier's body. "Talk to me, buddy. What's going on with you?"
His eyes still closed, Lennier mumbled,
"Delenn says I need to go to Medlab."
"And Delenn is very right," replied Franklin, his brow furrowing as he examined the results on the screen of his scanner. Then he removed a penlight from his pocket and bent over his patient. "Can you open your eyes for me for a second?"
Lennier obeyed, but winced and tried weakly to pull away when Franklin shined the light into his eyes.
"I know, I know. You must really hate this thing by now," sighed the doctor. "Does it hurt anywhere?"
"I'm so cold," Lennier whispered, clearly fighting to keep his eyes open. "I don't…I don't feel well at all…"
Franklin seemed to realize he wasn't going to get any coherent answers from his patient. "Okay. We're gonna get you to Medlab now. Just hang tight." He motioned to the nurses, who immediately commenced bringing the gurney forward and moving Lennier onto it. Lennier seemed almost completely limp in their arms as they moved him from his bed onto the rolling table.
As the nurses were securing Lennier, Franklin turned to Delenn, who had watched the whole scene with her heart in her throat. The look on Franklin's face had seemed more concerned by the second.
"It's not good," he said in response to her unasked question. "His temperature's pushing one hundred and five. We've got to get him cooled down as soon as possible. Did he say anything to you about anything hurting, or any other symptoms he was feeling?"
Delenn shook her head. "No. He has only had a couple of brief moments of lucidity since I got here, and he hasn't said anything other than that he feels cold." She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, almost as though she were hugging herself. "I fear he is quite delirious. He never complains in my presence. About anything." If only he'd said something about how tired he was. I would have given him more time to rest and maybe he wouldn't have taken ill. But I should have seen the signs, and made him get some rest. Delenn cut the thought off. No, she couldn't slip back into thinking like that. She was of no use to Lennier if she spent all her time blaming herself. She relied on him so much, but right now, he needed her.
"Okay. We'll start running tests when we get to Medlab to see what's causing this. Hopefully whatever it is will pop right out at us and we can get it treated quickly."
"I am staying with him. In Medlab." Delenn's words were a statement, not a question. "He did it for me." And it's the least I can do.
The doctor smiled a little. "I wouldn't have expected anything else."
By that time, the nurses had finished securing Lennier on the gurney. The short walk to Medlab felt as though it took forever, although their pace reflected the situation's urgency. They did not run into anyone in the hallways, which was merciful. Poor Lennier would have been so humiliated if anyone had seen him being wheeled off to Medlab.
Once they reached their destination, Delenn was left to stand outside the window of a room in the Intensive Care Unit and watch as Franklin and the nurses cared for her friend. She would much rather have been at his side, but she knew that right now, the best way for her to help Lennier was by staying out of the way and letting the medical professionals do their work. They had taken Lennier out of his robes and dressed him in a light cotton hospital gown, which was better for his body temperature but not for his comfort level. When they started surrounding him with cooling pads, Lennier struggled, but after only a couple of seconds his weakness got the better of him and he went limp. Then one of the nurses drew several vials of blood while Franklin examined Lennier more thoroughly. Lennier seemed barely responsive as the doctor poked and prodded him. Finally, Franklin said something to one of the nurses, and then emerged from the room. Delenn hurried over to him.
"Have you found anything?" she asked hurriedly. She knew that this was undoubtedly what Franklin wished to discuss, but her anxiety had tempered her inhibitions a bit. It was as though she couldn't stop herself from asking. Luckily, the doctor seemed to understand.
"It's looking more and more like some kind of infection. His lymph nodes are very enlarged, which indicates that his body is trying to fight off some kind of insult. We're running his blood work now, which will give us more information, and we'll get cultures set up and run viral panels. If the fever is caused by an infection, those will tell us what organism is causing it, so we can treat it more effectively. In the meantime, I'm going to get him started on some broad-spectrum antibiotics to hopefully start hitting whatever this is until the cultures and panels come back and we can use something more specific. As soon as my nurses get an IV catheter in so we can get fluids and antibiotics going, I'm going to run some scans so we can figure out where in his body the problem is originating from." He finally took a breath. "Sorry, I know that was a lot of information really fast. You okay?"
Of course not! thought Delenn. My dear friend is desperately ill and I just want him well so I can tell him how much I appreciate him.
But of course, she did not say that. Doctor Franklin was the last person she should take her worry out on.
"I know you are doing everything you can for Lennier. I trust you."
He smiled at her, but the smile did not meet his eyes. He was about to respond when they were both startled by an abrasive, metallic clang and a cry from one of the nurses from inside the ICU room. They both made to run toward the room, but Franklin held up a hand.
"Wait here." His tone held no room for argument, and it took every ounce of self-control in Delenn's body to keep from snarling that she was an ambassador and she would not be ordered around by anyone and how dare he… But then she remembered that she was supposed to be staying out of the way, by her own admission. Her anger faded, but her fear remained. She rushed to the window.
The noise had undoubtedly been made by a metal tray full of medical implements that had fallen to the ground. Lennier, who less than a minute prior had been too weak to lift his head, was suddenly sitting up. His whole body was shaking so much that Delenn could see it all the way from where she was standing. His chest heaved with exertion, his fingers gripped the sheets so tightly that his knuckles were white, and his eyes were wide and frightened. Delenn had seen Lennier nervous before, on occasion. And when they were down in the isolation vault with the Markab during that terrible time the previous year, she had seen him afraid, even though he had tried so valiantly not to show it, for her sake and for that of the people dying all around them. But she had never seen him express anything close to the terror she saw in his eyes at that moment. She had no idea what was going on in Lennier's mind, but she could only imagine how terrifying the world could seem if one was as delirious as he was. She needed to be in there with him - the lack of fulfillment of her innate need to provide comfort was so overwhelming that she dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands.
Franklin and the two nurses were spread out along the walls of the little room, keeping a safe distance. Delenn watched Franklin slowly take a step toward his patient, but Lennier, seemingly hyper-aware, snapped his head in his direction and immediately brought his hands into position for combat, with his second and fifth fingers extended upward. His hands shook with the effort required just to keep them at the ready, but still Lennier stared the doctor down, the intensity of his gaze enhanced by the fever-brightness of his eyes. Then he said something – what, Delenn could not tell for the glass between them. Franklin replied softly, and then Lennier spoke again, shaking his head with wide eyes, trying pull his legs up to his chest in an effort to get his entire body as far away from the doctor as possible, but failing and almost tumbling off of the bed in his weakness.
It was then that Delenn decided to ignore Franklin's orders. Someone was going to get hurt – either Lennier, in his compromised state of mind, was going to attack one of the health care professionals, or he was going to fall off of the little hospital bed. She didn't know if she could help – Lennier was so tense and frightened – but she had to try. She was just about to hurry through the doorway when she almost ran into Franklin, who was coming out of the other side.
"I am going in there. Now." Her tone held no room for argument. To her surprise, he nodded.
"I was just about to ask you to. Delenn, he's a danger to himself and others. I can't even get close enough to sedate him." Franklin shook his head in frustration. "But I have to get an IV line in – if we don't get antibiotics into him, and soon, he's in really serious trouble. I can't talk to him – he's speaking in Adronato. I can't understand him, and I'm honestly not sure if he can understand me. Delenn…I don't know if we're going to be able to get through to him. But if anyone can do it, it's you."
Delenn had been worried about the same thing, but she could not bear to think about what might happen to Lennier if she failed, so she did not allow herself the time to think.
"Ask the nurses to come out," she told Franklin quietly. "I will go in. You will stand in the doorway with the sedative. I will tell you when it is safe."
Franklin nodded, and stepped back into the doorway to motion for the nurses to come out. They looked quite relieved.
Delenn entered the little room slowly, carefully picking her way over the scattered medical implements and metal tray, which lay facedown on the floor. Miraculously, Lennier was still sitting up, though he was swaying more and more. When he saw her, however, he tensed, and his hands went back up into combat position.
"Lennier." Delenn spoke as quietly and calmly as possible, the words of her native tongue, Adronato, feeling like old friends to her. She had always loved the way her language sounded, and she hoped that it would be of some comfort to her friend now.
"Lennier, it is I, Delenn." She continued to walk forward, slowly, but still he remained in defensive position, his eyes darting up and down her figure uncertainly.
"You know who I am, Lennier," she continued, voice as low and even as ever. She stepped forward again, but this time Lennier shrank away from her.
"Please don't hurt me," he whispered, his voice trembling. Delenn felt as though someone were tearing her heart in two.
"Lennier, I would never, ever hurt you." She located a rolling chair, pulled it as quietly as she could next to the bed, and sat down into it so that her eyes were finally at the level of his. She hoped that her presence might be less threatening that way. Lennier's hands fell to his sides suddenly – he no longer had the strength to keep them up in combat position. Taking advantage of the opportunity and moving as slowly as she could, Delenn reached out and grasped her friend's hand. At first Lennier jumped and tried to move away, but suddenly he stopped and squinted at her.
"De…Delenn?"
She nodded, and she could see the tiniest bit of tension flow out of his body. Running her thumb over his knuckles and smiling at him, she murmured,
"That's right. I am here, and here I'll stay." She slipped a hand behind his back to attempt to gently lower him back down onto the bed, but when he felt her trying to do so, he stiffened.
"You should lie down, Lennier," she soothed. "You need to save your strength."
He shook his head vehemently. "They're trying to kill me," he sobbed.
What? Lennier's fevered mind must have been even further gone than Delenn had thought. She reached up and laid a hand on his cheek, suppressing a wince at the terrible heat she felt radiating from it. The vitals monitor above the bed said 105.6 degrees Fahrenheit – Lennier was getting worse, and the extreme emotional stress was only accelerating it. She did not want to think about what might happen to him if they could not stop the rising fever.
"Doctor Franklin and the nurses aren't trying to kill you. They are trying to help you," she reassured him. "I know you're feeling terribly ill and everything seems frightening, but you have to let them help you. They want to give you some medicine that will help you feel better. But you have to let them do what they need to." She felt him sway beneath her hand, but with a jerk, he managed to hold himself upright. This burst of adrenaline had to be almost over. She had no idea how he was managing to remain sitting up this long.
"Please lie down," she murmured. "Lennier, you must rest."
"No," whimpered Lennier. "C…can't lie down. Delenn, they're trying to kill me…"
She froze suddenly, realization striking her. Of course. How could she not have seen? The answer had been right in front of her the whole time.
"Doctor Franklin," she whispered fervently, turning her head to where he was still standing in the doorway. "Does the end of the bed raise?"
Franklin furrowed his brow. "Button on the left of the remote," he whispered back. "But why…?"
She waved her hand to quiet him. She located the indicated button and, keeping one hand behind Lennier's back to steady him, held it down until the half of the bed closest to Lennier's head was at a forty-five degree angle.
"It's safe now," she told Lennier. "It was just a misunderstanding – they didn't mean it. The humans do things differently from us, remember."
She eased his torso gently back to rest on now angled bed, and finally, finally, he let her. She ran her hand up and down his arm a couple of times as he rested his head against the pillow, and for a moment he was calm and relaxed. But then another paroxysm of chills struck him, and he shivered violently and tried weakly to push off the cooling pad that covered him like a blanket. Delenn took both of his hands in her own to prevent him from doing so. Lennier didn't even try to struggle this time – he just lay there, trembling, defeat in his eyes.
"I'm freezing," he whimpered hopelessly.
"I know. I'm so, so sorry, Lennier," whispered Delenn, hoping that in his delirium he hadn't caught the way her voice broke. This shouldn't be happening. You don't deserve this. My sweet, loyal Lennier.
"Ni moshna. Not…not your fault," he murmured, and Delenn fought back tears. Even now, he was trying to reassure her.
"Delenn," whispered Franklin from the door. She'd forgotten he was standing there. She realized he must have no idea what was happening – her entire conversation with Lennier had been in Adronato. But the doctor could doubtlessly see that the fight seemed to have gone out of Lennier, though whether it was due to the wearing off of the fever-induced adrenaline rush or from her ministrations, Delenn could not be sure. She nodded to Franklin, and turned back to Lennier as he approached.
"Lennier," she murmured. He met her eyes, the picture of devotion, just as he had been when he had sworn himself to her side all those many months ago. He was so fixated on her that he did not even flinch when Franklin drove the needle of the syringe that held the sedative into his arm. "You are the best aide I could ever have asked for. And because you are so good, I need you to do something for me right now, all right?"
"Of course, Delenn. What is it?" he whispered, even as he began to struggle to keep his eyes open. Delenn smiled, hoping to make the last thing Lennier saw of some comfort to him.
"I need you to go to sleep."
And sleep Lennier did. The sedatives overwhelmed his already exhausted body and his eyes fluttered closed, his hands going limp in Delenn's. But as Franklin hurried around the room, calling the nurses and gathering supplies, all Delenn could do was sit there, still holding her friend's hands, trying not to allow the worry to overwhelm her. After a time, she felt a hand on her arm. The touch was gentle, but she jumped a bit anyway.
"Sorry," said Franklin. Delenn shook her head, indicating that it was no matter. Franklin continued.
"We've got the IV catheter in, and we're running fluids and antibiotics now. We're getting ready to run him through the scanner, to try and see what part of his body is causing the problem."
"Yes," said Delenn, struggling to pull out of her own thoughts. "I…I will wait outside."
"You can sit with him as soon as we bring him back," Franklin reassured her. She nodded and turned toward the door, but then paused and turned back to the doctor.
"Doctor?"
"Yeah?"
"For future reference, the Minbari view sleeping in the horizontal to be tempting death – it is why our beds are at a sharp angle to the ground. Long ago, our physiology made lying parallel to the ground very dangerous. We have since evolved beyond this, and logically, we know the peril is no longer present."
"But Lennier's logic has abandoned him," Franklin finished for her, realization dawning upon his features. "I knew that about Minbari. I'm such an idiot - I can't believe I forgot. I'm sorry."
"I think that Lennier will understand, when his lucidity returns," she replied. When. Not if. When.
The doctor nodded gratefully, and then went to fetch his patient, leaving Delenn to her own devices. She tried to meditate, but to her immense frustration, she found that she was unable to put aside her anxiety enough to reach the plane of calmness required. Two years ago, things would have been different – nothing, no agony or fear had been too great to keep her from the religious practices she held so dear. But after her experience with the Chrysalis Device, she found deep meditation in very emotionally trying times to be more difficult than it had been previously. She could only speculate that it had something to do with the fact that her newfound humanity made her more emotional than she had been when she was pure Minbari, and she simply did not know how to keep that emotion in check yet. Or perhaps she would never learn, and she was not sure if she wanted to. It was though every feeling she had were enhanced – the joy, the love, the grief, the worry, the hurt. Some of it was amazing. Some of it could be overwhelming. Today, she felt very overwhelmed.
Lennier would be able to meditate, she thought with an ironic chuckle. The teacher from Lennier's temple whom Delenn had spoken to when Lennier had first been assigned to her had said that he had the best focus and skill of all of the novitiates – in meditation and pretty much everything else. When their world was falling apart around them, as it so often seemed to be these days, Lennier's rituals of meditation and prayer were what saw him through. He seemed to take such comfort in having a sense of order and structure. Delenn supposed that was a result of his years in temple, during which he had been expected to follow a rigid schedule every day. And she supposed she understood – when everything was in limbo, grasping at even the smallest breath of order could be comforting.
And now, everything in Lennier's mind thrown had been thrown into disarray. All sense of order and structure was gone, replaced by uncertainty. It was no wonder he was so terrified.
Abandoning her attempts to focus on her meditation, Delenn decided to pray instead. That came easier. The Minbari did not believe in one god, like in many of the human religions; nor did they believe in multiple gods, like the Centauri. They prayed to any being that may be present in the universe, without pretending to understand something so much bigger than themselves. And so Delenn prayed to anyone, anything, that might be out there in some corner of the universe and willing to listen to her. She prayed that her friend would be all right. That her Lennier would be well again and at her side, where he belonged. That this one little piece of order and structure in her own world of uncertainty, her little candle in this sea of darkness - whom she had come to rely so heavily on without even realizing it - would be restored.
She didn't know how much time had gone by when she heard footsteps approaching her. She looked up to see Franklin coming toward her. She made to get up from her chair, but he motioned her back down with his hand and pulled up a chair beside her. He looked haggard, exhausted. And in no way optimistic. Delenn's stomach did somersaults for what had to have been the hundredth time that day.
"You found something?" she prompted, fighting to keep her voice from trembling.
He nodded. "Unfortunately, it wasn't what I was hoping." He inhaled heavily, as if fortifying himself to deliver the news. Delenn found herself gripping the edges of her chair so hard that her fingers ached, but that was all right because the pain gave her something to distract at least a part of her mind, in order to keep her from falling into abject panic.
"Because I suspected Lennier had an infection, I calibrated the scanner to look for concentrations of bacteria within the body. If an organ lights up on the scan, it means that the infection is there. For example, in hepatitis – an infection in the liver – the liver would light up. Or in pneumonia, one or both of the lungs light up." Delenn nodded, indicating that she understood his explanation. Franklin took another deep breath.
"Delenn, Lennier's entire body lit up. He has sepsis – an infection in his bloodstream. I don't know where it started, but it's spread throughout his whole body. It's everywhere."
Delenn swallowed past a dry throat, trying to process the information. "What…what does that mean?"
To his credit, Franklin met her eyes. She supposed he must have had a lot of practice delivering bad news, in his profession. But she doubted that this fact made it any easier.
"It means it's worse than we thought. Much worse."
"But he's not…" No. No, don't even say it.
"We'll hit it hard, try to knock it out know before it gets any worse. Minbari are one of the strongest beings I've ever encountered. And I learned three months ago that while he might not look like it, Lennier's a fighter."
It was a good speech. Delenn would give it that. Franklin was trying so hard to raise her spirits and make her feel secure in the possible positive outcomes of this situation before he confirmed the negative ones. But she had a feeling she already knew them in her heart.
"But he could…die…from this?" She felt like she was choking on that word, that awful word. The war with the humans had taken so many people she cared about. Each and every loss had hurt her individually, each new episode of grief carving out new indentations, holes in her heart. But some deaths had been harder than others – one in particular, the first death, had made her soul feel as though it were being rent into a million pieces. But the thought of losing Lennier hurt her as nothing had since she had held Dukhat's lifeless body in her arms.
Franklin sighed, his shoulders sagging. "I'm afraid so," he said quietly. "Getting his fever down to a point where he's stable is going to be a major challenge. And sepsis is a very serious illness with a high mortality rate. We'll know more once the cultures come back. Right now I have no idea what the source of the infection was, but the pending test results should help with that too."
Delenn nodded slowly, automatically, her eyes on the floor. She suddenly felt as though she had reached her capacity for information she could process. Like a broken computer, her mind had shut down. But her heart…her heart was a different story. That felt like someone was wringing it like a wet cloth.
She barely felt Franklin lay his hand on her knee. When he said her name, she blinked and stared numbly into his eyes.
"Delenn, I know you and Lennier are very close, and that this is a lot to process. How are you doing?"
She didn't even want to begin to answer that question. It did not matter how she was doing. All she knew was that Lennier needed her – and she needed to be with him. Her presence was the only thing she could give him – and she had to do something.
"Can I sit with him?" she whispered, trying and failing to keep her voice from quavering.
"Of course. He's still pretty heavily sedated, so it will likely be at least a couple of hours before he's responsive at all. I don't know what his state of mind will be like when he wakes up, but he definitely seems to respond well to you. I think having you here will do him good."
It was a sweet thing to say, and Delenn would have smiled at the doctor had she been in any state of mind to do so. Instead, she rose, dipped her head briefly, the engrained motion taking over, and walked back into the little room in the intensive care unit.
Lennier lay with his eyes closed, nestled beneath the large cooling pad. He seemed to be shaking a bit less, likely due to the sedative Franklin had given him, but his chest still rose and fell much too quickly. And he was so pale – the Minbari were as a species quite fair-skinned, but Lennier looked positively ashen. The bed had been raised up again so the back was at a forty-five degree angle with the ground. Delenn hoped that Lennier was perhaps resting a bit more peacefully knowing that.
But looking at him, hooked up to more machines and devices than Delenn would have thought possible, made Delenn feel anything but peace. Since the day Lennier had come onto the station, she had felt an innate need to protect him – he had been so young and innocent, naïve even. And even though he had learned much over the past two years and proven himself to be worldlier than she would have expected, that feeling had never gone away. But seeing him like this, so helpless and vulnerable, and knowing that there was nothing she could do to help him…she did not think she could bear it.
Not nothing. She remembered what Doctor Franklin had said a few moments before, about her presence doing Lennier good. So, she would do what she could. She sat down again in the chair she had taken before and took Lennier's limp, much too warm hand in her own.
"I am here, Lennier," she whispered. "Just like you have always been for me. I am here - and I will not leave you. I promise."
