Chapter 41- Redemption

Scotty was not a man easily given to panic, so when I saw the relief in his eyes at the sight of me exiting the elevators, I knew something serious was going down. "Och! Thank the stars ya showed up!" He whispered tensely at his post outside of the main engineering room. "Ah didn't think the lad would last long enough to see ya." I didn't know what the situation was, but it was obviously taking a serious toll on Scotty. Like me, he had been awakened and notified about a problem in his department, but his disheveled look and red eyes couldn't be totally attributed to his being roused out of a deep sleep.

"What is going on?" I asked quietly just in case anyone else was listening.

"It's Carmello." He sighed rubbing his pale face. "Ah only got part of it, the lad wouldn't talk to me, but Ah think his lass broke it off. He's up on a catwalk wantin' to throw himself off."

"How long has he been up there?" I inquired folding my arms and formulating a plan.

"Ah just got here, but from what Ah hear, at least 20 minutes." He answered. "The whole damn department has been watchin' him from the floor and tryin' to talk him down."

I nodded my head decisively and settled on my approach. "I will need your help, Scotty." In high stress situations where people feel helpless and anxious, giving them a task often helps by providing a focus and Scotty looked like he needed one. It just so happened that he had the skills and authority to make it happen.

"Aye! What do ya want me to do?" He asked standing straighter and regaining his sense of control.

"First I will need you to get all of your people away from the catwalk. Send them somewhere that he can't see them, but try to do it quietly while I have him distracted. After you get that done, I want you to call McCoy and tell him to bring a hypo of whatever he thinks will calm Carmello. Tell him to get as close as he can, but stay hidden. The last thing I need is for Carmello to spot him and panic like a wild animal."

"Aye!" He nodded. "Ah can send all me people to 10 forward."

"That would be a good place." I commented. "McCoy is in my room." His mouth twitched into a brief smile, but I knew that he wouldn't say anything because the situation was too serious. That didn't mean I wasn't going to hear about it later, though. "Ready?" I asked placing my hand on his shoulder.

"Aye. Ready as ever." He replied taking a deep breath to steady himself.

We entered the main engineering room to see a crowd of red shirts all looking up at the young, dark haired man perched precariously on the wrong side of the railing approximately 30 feet off the ground. From that distance, it was possible to die if he was determined enough to land properly, but it was equally likely that he would just be seriously injured and McCoy would find himself in the operating room for the second time that night. I spotted a vertical stairwell that led from the floor to the catwalk, but I didn't want to go that way if I didn't have to. "Scotty!" I hissed. "Is there another way up there?"

He quickly took stock of my dilemma and responded, "Aye. There is a small service shaft that runs into the access hall to his left. C'mon, Ah will show ya." He tugged on my shirt and I followed him. Squeezing into the tight space and crawling up and over obstacles felt a lot like being a rat in a maze. If I didn't have Scotty guiding me, I would have been lost for sure. As I slowly crawled behind him in the hot, dark, stuffy shaft I wondered how he could remember all of the twists and turns and I tried not to yelp when the toe of his boot came crashing down on my finger. "Sorry." He whispered over his shoulder. "Ah am going to go up a wee bit more. The exit is there." I could barely see him gesturing to a vented grate on our right. "Give it a little shove and it will swing right open."

"Alright." I answered moving toward the bars of light. "I will give you a few minutes to get back down. Good luck."

"And to ya, lass." He breathed in the darkness before changing directions and going back the way he came.

I crouched motionless in the dark shaft like some monster spying. I couldn't help but wonder at the ridiculousness of the whole notion of officers climbing through the dank bowels of the ship as though it were just part of the job. McCoy would likely have to come the same way and I could just imagine him swearing with every breath as he crawled along. This was another item that didn't get covered at the Academy unless this is what they meant by 'whatever it takes.'

I stayed in the darkness until I couldn't take it anymore. Scotty should have been down by the time I decided to push on the grate. It took more than just a little shove, but at least it didn't go clattering to the floor as I imagined it would. I climbed out of the black hole and into the clean, white light of the hallway and quickly smoothed my hair and uniform to look somewhat presentable before taking a deep breath and stepping into his line of sight.

His large brown eyes were wide with panic when he spotted me. "Don't come near me!" He pleaded. "I'll jump, I swear!"

I kept my face neutral and put my hands in the air to indicate that I wasn't there to harm him. "Ok, you're the boss." I stated casually leaning on the railing and looking at the crowd below. I took in their worried faces passively as I tried to remember everything I could about Carmello. From what I could recall, he was the second child of a middle class Italian family in New Jersey. He seemed like a down to Earth kind of kid, so I knew the soft approach wouldn't work with him.

"If you came up here to talk me out of it, it won't work." He informed me as his eyes began to swell with tears. "I already made up my mind and you ain't gonna stop me."

I glanced at him and pretended to be completely uninterested. It was a huge gamble, but I thought it would work for him. "Who said I wanted to?" I asked almost yawning. "Look, if you want to off yourself that is up to you." He blinked in disbelief and I knew that although he may have felt like jumping, he was too ambivalent to go through with it. He had been up there too long. People who were truly committed would have climbed up, took one last look and dived off head first without a word. The whole affair would have been over in less than 30 seconds, but he had been up there for almost 30 minutes. If he was trying to make a statement, he had an audience, but yet he didn't jump which told me he was waiting on something. He needed a little push which I wasn't about to give him.

"You don't care that I am going to kill myself?" He asked in wonder. He had caught me inching closer and barked, "Stop right there! Don't come any closer. You will try to grab me." I had to hand it to him, he was a smart kid.

"Please." I mumbled watching Scotty quietly direct people out of the area below. "Look at me. Do you think I would have the physical strength to catch you and haul you back over the railing? I'll tell you what would most likely happen: I would go over with you and while you might think today is a good day to die, you aren't taking me with you."

He seemed mystified by my apparent lack of concern. "Then why are you here?"

I gave him a sidelong glance and answered, "If your life has absolutely gone to shit and you think the best way out is to commit suicide, then who am I to say you can't? It's your life, right? Suicide has long been an honorable exit strategy for many cultures and I think there are times when death is the best option. I just want to make sure you have thought this through before you go through with it."

His eyes narrowed somewhat as he leaned backwards against the railing. "You think killing yourself is a good answer? What kind of counselor are you? Aren't you supposed to tell me that I have a lot to live for and all that?"

"A very pragmatic one." I answered dryly. "And as for telling you that you have a lot to live for, I don't know that. Do you?"

He seemed to ponder it for a moment as he looked out over the empty floor. If he noticed everyone was gone, he didn't appear to care. "I did." He almost whispered. "I was engaged to this nice Catholic girl I met before I went to the Academy. She stuck with me the whole time and promised that she would wait for me when I was shipped out. I told her it might be years before I got back, but she swore that she loved me and said it didn't matter. But today I got a message from her that she was lonely and couldn't put her life on hold while I was out here. She sent the ring back to my folk's house in Jersey and said she was in love with another guy."

I glanced over my shoulder when I noticed a shadow and saw McCoy peeking around the corner with a hypo dangling in his hand. I shot him a look that demanded he step back and he did as soon as Carmello turned his head in my direction. "So you are going to throw yourself off the catwalk because she couldn't wait?" I asked trying to pretend I was keeping up. "I know you must be disappointed, but can you blame her? It seems that even you knew that it was too much to ask."

"Yeah, I knew." He admitted. "But she was perfect and without her I can't face being out here in the nothingness."

"Carmello, no one is perfect." I corrected. "Even if she was straight out of fairy tale, she had to have been flawed in some way. That doesn't make her a bad person, it makes her real. I know that this extended mission is hard, especially being out here in the unknown parts where everything familiar is gone, but trust me. People can find themselves in the most isolated and frightening circumstances and still come out on the other side intact." I knew this because it had personally happened to me.

"I know." He began to cry. "I am just so ashamed. I bet everything on her and now I am alone. Now the whole department thinks I am crazy. How am I going to face them again?" He really seemed distraught and I could see why. No one wanted to be seen as the weak link on the ship.

"They will understand that you were pushed to your limits." I stated flatly. "You are a human with feelings, not one of those machines down there." I gestured haphazardly at the floor below. "I can tell you that Lieutenant Commander Scott will not think less of you for taking the loss of your fiancé hard. I would worry more if you didn't. Your crewmates were trying to help you, they were concerned for your safety- doesn't that tell you a little bit about how they will react to you?"

"I guess." He sighed wiping his eyes. "I just feel so foolish for overreacting."

"Well, we all make mistakes. Welcome to the human race. Now that you see your life isn't worth ending over a girl, why don't you come on this side and we can get you settled."

He began to swing his leg over the rail and then hesitated with a panicked look. "You mean in sickbay? I don't want to be held in the isolation room up there." He had a point; the isolation room was used to quarantine patients from the general population. It consisted of a single bed walled off by thick Plexiglas from floor to ceiling with a double sealed door that hissed when you opened it. It reminded me of a brightly lit version of the cell Hannibal Lector was held in during "Silence of the Lambs."

"Ok, I will make you a deal." I said cautiously. "Come over the rail and I won't take you to sickbay if you agree to let Dr. McCoy give you something to make you feel better and you swear upon your mother's honor that you will call me the minute you begin feeling as though offing yourself is a good idea."

His feet landed with a ringing thud on the metal grate floor when he vaulted the railing. "I thought you didn't care if I did." He challenged.

"I said I was pragmatic." I smiled. "And had the circumstances been more dire I may not have judged your decision negatively, but I never said I wouldn't care."

"Does Dr. McCoy have to know about this?" He asked apprehensively. "Or the Captain? I don't want this to ruin my career."

"I understand your concern." I nodded. "But Dr. McCoy has to know so he can manage the medications, I can't do that. And as for the Captain, he will find out because I am going to take you off duty for a day or two, but I know both men very well and I can assure you that this will not reflect poorly on your chances for promotion."

As soon as the last word fell from my lips, I knew I had lost him. He bolted for the railing and I was right behind, struggling to keep him from going over. He got in a good shot to my face with his elbow, but I held him tight in a chokehold and wrestled him to the floor while calling for McCoy. The floor vibrated with his heavy footfalls as he rounded the corner in a sprint. I flipped Carmello over so he was laying on me and facing McCoy when he arrived. The two men fought briefly as Carmello attempted to push McCoy away and kicked at him violently, but McCoy persisted and with sheer force wrenched Carmello's head enough to the side to inject him with the hypo. I held tight until I felt him go limp and McCoy and I looked at each other panting in exhaustion from the adrenaline and the struggle.

"McCoy to Medical. I'm going to need a stretcher in engineering." He directed wiping sweat from his brow. His eyes settled on me and he asked, "You ok?"

I was knowing that I had not lost another patient. I was so close to another Meyers that I could almost see him falling over the railing and me going over with him. But instead he was safe and although my lip pulsed with pain, that was all that mattered to me.