Sickbay, Wednesday 28th August 2391

Lying back with a groan, Moragh cringed at the memory of his dishonourable behaviour. He'd been feeling very odd by that time but had put it down to the headache and lack of food. In his line of work, drinking too much was dangerous, and although he'd become very good at maintaining a façade, he very rarely over-indulged. Nor had he ever willingly or knowingly used so-called recreational drugs. If he had done, he might have recognised the signs of intoxication before it was too late.

He'd gone for the burger, but on the way had bumped into two of Krang's daughters with one of their Terran friends whom he'd recognised as Jenny… the same Jenny who was Gray-ham's mate. It was bad enough that he'd spoken so rudely of her to Gray-ham, but meeting her for the first time in person, he'd insulted her to her face. She spoke very good tlhIngan Hol as it turned out, and to his surprise, instead of cringing or showing fear, she'd berated him for his rudeness. Impressed by the way the human girl had stood up to him, he'd apologised (sort of) and patted her on the shoulder in a gesture meant to indicate his approval before taking his leave.

That, Moragh thought glumly, really should have been the end of it, and it might have been… would have been… had he not gone back to his office for a couple of hours after lunch, inhaled more of that khest'n pollen, and then followed through on his idea of visiting Krang and bragging about the whole thing.


Sickbay, Tuesday 27th August 2391

Today had been a surprisingly good day, and although Krang was tired, he was in a good mood. He'd had his usual morning session with Solkar, and the Vulcan Healer had told him that if all continued to go well, he saw no reason why he could not soon be discharged and continue his treatment as an outpatient.

Today's physio session had also been good – challenging, but in an enjoyable way, the new protocols that Doctor Kroll had developed being much more suitable for his needs. A week or so ago, they'd introduced him to Tai Chi Chuan, a Terran martial artform not too different to the Klingon Mok'bara at which he was expert. When he'd commented on the similarity, one of the therapists – the young, annoying one who had thankfully stopped saying 'we' all the time, had asked him to demonstrate, and the result was that he'd ended up teaching it to them. There had been a sparring session afterwards. The original plan had been to program a holographic opponent, but instead, the Klingon doctor had made a habit of coming down to train with him.

What was also nice was being allowed to sit in a comfortable armchair between the two sessions, instead of being confined to that Kahless-forsaken bed, and he spent the time reading or chatting with whichever family member happened to be visiting. As it happened, he'd been in bed – which he didn't mind so much when it was his choice – dozing lightly when Moragh arrived to see him.


"I wish you could have seen it, Krang my old friend." Moragh punctuated his story with a bellow of laughter. "You chose well when you recruited him! I've never seen a tera'ngan act like that; it takes a lot to impress me, but honestly, the man could have been born Klingon. And that ship of his…"

"Was this before or after you insulted a young ensign and then broke a bone in her back?" The voice was T'Lia's, and it was cold enough to make an Andorian shiver. She was standing in the open doorway, having come down to talk to Krang about what had happened to Jenny – who courtesy of Moragh's over-enthusiastic pat on the back, had ended up in sickbay with a broken shoulder, and ask his advice on how to appropriately deal with Moragh's increasing aggression.

Right now, the Vulcan woman appeared outwardly calm, but to Krang, who knew her very well and had long ago learned to read the tiny, well-hidden signs that indicated her mood – in this case, the faintest hint of tension around the mouth, and eyes that were ever so slightly narrowed – it was obvious that whatever had happened, she was very angry about it.


Sickbay, Wednesday 28th August 2391

Moragh shifted uncomfortably, remembering how from that point on, it had all continued to escalate with all the inevitability of an out-of-control juggernaut careering downhill after a brake failure. Had it happened to anyone else, Moragh was honest enough to admit he would have found it funny… except being the target of Krang's anger was never going to be even remotely humorous.

Not for the first time, he wondered what Lorgh was going to say, or more importantly, do. He'd briefly considered the idea of just dying to escape his vengeance, but the Operations Master was relentless enough that he'd probably follow him to Gre'thor in order to punish him. He should throw himself off the Barge of the Dead. Letting the Kos'karii, the pale, serpent-like demons who inhabited the blood-red waters of the river, feast on his soul, would surely be less painful than anything Lorgh would do to him.

Krang had listened, Moragh remembered, with mounting fury as the Healer explained how Jenny had come into sickbay with a broken bone in her shoulder. As it happened, she'd been helping out in A&E that afternoon and had not only treated Jenny herself but had been there when her worried friends had come looking for her. Kally and K'ehleyr, she said, had corroborated Jenny's story, and with some prodding, told her how insulting and aggressive Moragh had been.

At that point, Krang had gone mad! His voice rising ominously, he'd laid into Moragh and by the time he was done, he was in full 'Klingon mode', and another of the 'unbreakable' water containers sailed past Moragh's head and smashed against the wall. He had heard stories of Krang's prowess in this regard, but hearing about it and being on the receiving end were two different things.

By that time, T'Lia had begun backing slowly towards the door, and when Krang shouted at Moragh in his native tlhIngan Hol to get out and not come back until he'd fixed things and had a full check-up to find out what the khest was wrong with him, he'd been very quick to follow her.

That had still not been the end of it. Hurrying away from sickbay, he had witnessed none of the chaos that had erupted behind him – although he'd heard it all in great detail afterwards – as the human, Gray-ham, had found out about what he'd seen as a blatant attack on his mate, and come charging down the corridor, roaring like an enraged sabre bear that he was going to kill Moragh!

He'd been unaware of the other items, namely Krang's padd and reading lamp, that had been thrown after him, both of which had ended up in pieces in the corridor. Nor had he seen Mackenzie arriving, although the Admiral must have walked right past him, carrying a large paper bag containing a very unhealthy takeaway meal as a gift for Krang.

He'd missed seeing T'Lia grabbing Gray-ham at the juncture of neck and shoulder, effortlessly rendering him unconscious… and how she'd glanced back into Krang's room, taken one look at his red face and furious expression, and without even bothering to cross the room, reached out with her mind to shut his off. "Sleep now," was all she'd said and Krang had immediately collapsed back on his pillows.

He'd also missed Chrissie's arrival – and while he was sorry that he hadn't got to witness the spectacle of the normally placid Vulcan doing the neck pinch thing, he was thankful to have avoided the human woman's inevitable ire. She was petite and had no fighting skills whatsoever but crossing her was never a good idea. He was thankful also that she'd bothered to investigate what was wrong with him when everyone else, including T'Lia, had assumed that he had just imbibed too much bloodwine and was drunk. Without her intervention the toxins in the lily pollen might actually have killed him, and at the very least, he owed her a massive 'thank you' for saving his life.

Krang's wife had came through, pausing in confusion at the scene before her. Two of her daughters were sitting on a bench looking a little dishevelled. T'Lia, looking decidedly flustered. A man whose identity she could not determine was lying senseless on the floor in front of Krang's doorway at the Admiral's feet. "Oh God!" she thought, or maybe she said it out loud; she was not entirely sure. "I hope Krang didn't kill him, whoever he is!"


Tuesday 27th August 2391

Making his way a little unsteadily back to his office, Moragh realised too late that he'd forgotten to ask about some painkillers for his headache. He passed by a couple of agents, including Kahsil, but he was not in a good mood and when they spoke to him, he growled, wordlessly warning them to go away and leave him alone. There must be something wrong with him, he decided hazily as he sat down at his desk, because the perfume of the flowers, which earlier had seemed pleasant, now felt overwhelmingly strong.

Not completely understanding what had just happened, Moragh was feeling unjustly accused and sorry for himself. He hadn't meant to hurt the girl. It was true that he'd gone a little too far with Gray-ham… Graham, he corrected himself, making an effort to pronounce the man's name correctly, as was the respectful thing to do. The human's reactions had been so astonishingly Klingon, it had been fun to poke at him a little to see what he'd do. The razor-sharp knife against his neck had been a bit less fun, as had the promise to kill him if he insulted his mate again. Where, he wondered again, had that thing even come from?

He was not even remotely apologetic about his dealings with Graham, but he was not so pleased with Krang's anger. Why was his old friend taking the side of the human? It had been completely proper for him to test the mettle of an agent whom he didn't know.

The headache was intensifying, and he could feel the sharp tendrils of pain behind his eyes. They were itching, and blinking, he put up a hand to rub them, inadvertently smearing more of the toxic pollen into his eyes. The air felt heavy, and it was getting hard to breathe. He laid his head down on the desk, thinking that a moment of rest would make things better. What was happening? Had someone poisoned him? The thought was alarming, and realising that he needed help, he tried to sit up again, but it was too much effort. Before he could summon the strength to move, he slipped into unconsciousness.


FedKIN Offices,

Tuesday 27th August 2391

Chrissie had known Moragh a long time, and as she had observed over the years, he was as judicious about his consumption of alcohol as Krang was. It seemed to her that something was going on, something that no one else seemed to have noticed. There was no way that Moragh had got drunk and picked a fight with a Terran girl he didn't even know. If no one was going to do anything about it, she decided, it was up to her.

Krang's wife was well known to the watchdog at FedKIN and when she said she needed to see Moragh urgently, she was waved through. The first thing she noticed when she entered what had been Krang's office, using the override code her husband had taught her, was the cloying, overpowering scent of lilies. Her eyes quickly took the enormous bouquet sitting right on the desk, behind which was Moragh, sprawled insensate in the large, leather chair. Stepping closer, she could see that there was a lot of pollen on the desk. Recalling Krang's violent reaction to the tree pollen all those years ago in Mauritius, she took out her padd and entered the botanical database where she quickly found the required information. Ah… as she suspected, lily pollen was toxic to Klingons. In large concentrations it would act as an intoxicant, and in rare cases, it could even cause death.

Stowing the padd, she resolutely picked up the huge and very heavy vase of flowers and carried them out to the reception area where she handed them to Arthur, whom she knew by name, explained the problem, and asked him to dispose of them. Not waiting to see what he did with the flowers, she returned to her self-appointed task.

Instructing the computer to extract and filter the air from the office to remove a contaminant, she set it for two cycles, to make sure it would get all the pollen in the room.

Moragh had not moved or reacted in any way to her presence, which was worrying. Having no intention of putting herself at risk by getting close enough to wake him, she decided that it was time to call for assistance. Tapping her combadge, she called sickbay and asked for someone to attend a medical emergency in the FedKIN offices and to bring an antihistamine suitable for Klingons.

While she was waiting, she went to a supply closet, and taking out a device that she would call a 'hoover' but which probably had another name in this century, she got to work, cleaning the carpeted deck all around the desk, moving on the rest of the room, and when she was done with that, wiping down every other surface she could access with a damp cloth.

When a doctor and a nurse arrived, she opened the door for them and gave them a concise summary of what had happened and what probably needed to happen, especially getting Moragh into the shower to wash off the excess pollen, and into a fresh uniform.

The medical team said they would take it from here and Chrissie returned to the outer office to find it still empty. She left Arthur a note, telling him that medical personnel were in with Moragh and were treating him. There was, she added, bound to be shouting, but he should ignore it.

Not at all pleased that it was now too late to join her daughters for dinner, she headed for the promenade and ordered something her girls had told her about, a banana split with three flavours of ice cream and extra chocolate. Ice cream and chocolate, she thought with tired appreciated as she settled down to eat; it was a combination that would solve all problems.


Sickbay, Meeting Room 1

Tuesday 3rd September 2391

"…and with that settled," T'Lia said, looking round the room as she prepared to bring the meeting to a close, "we have only one patient left to discuss."

"That would be Krang, I assume?" Solkar asked.

"It is indeed," his mother confirmed. I think that it is time we consider his release from sickbay. It's time he went home."

Elbows leaning on the table, Solkar steepled his hands thoughtfully. "I believe you are right, although the recent incident with Security Captain Moragh does indicate that he needs some reinforcing of his anger management skills."

The physiotherapist bit back a snort of laughter. "He's a Klingon; they're experts at anger. It's in their nature."

Considering that comment to be unprofessional, Kroll let out a warning growl, and T'Lia quickly intervened to ward off the impending confrontation. Those two did good work together, actually, but their interactions were usually contentious, and she just wanted to finish this meeting without it turning into an argument. "Lieutenant Commander Paignton, I would like your assessment please on the patient's physical condition."

"He is doing very well considering the extent of his injuries," Paignton said, giving Kroll a wary glance. "From a physio point of view, it's fair to say that he still has a long way to go until he's back at his full strength. However, I can see no reason why he should not be discharged and continue his sessions as an outpatient. Psychologically speaking, I think it will be a big step forward and will significantly aid his recovery."

Solkar nodded. "I must agree with that assessment."

"I have to say, the nursing staff will be very pleased to see him go home," Ulami said quietly. "Although, bad behaviour or not, he will be missed. It's not often we have a patient stay this long in hospital and we've got used to him."

"T'Lia was quiet as she considered their answers. "It appears that we are in agreement. I will have the discharge documents drawn up ready for tomorrow. Now, if there is nothing else to discuss, I think we are finished for today. Meeting adjourned."

There was a scraping of chairs as everyone stood up and made their way to the exit. Reaching the door, Kroll stopped and looked back. "You do not seem completely pleased," he observed. "What is troubling you?"

"I'm just being a little over-cautious," T'Lia admitted. "I am concerned for his wellbeing and that of his family." She let out a little sigh. "Besides, I've grown used to having Krang around. It's going to be odd not having a Klingon clogging up my sickbay."

"Really?" Kroll bared his teeth in a suggestive grin. "T'Lia-oy, I assure you that if I have anything to do with it, there will be a Klingon clogging up your sickbay… and your life… for a very long time to come."