Tegan Chronicles STV Style 3:

What's Left of the Flag 31

She walked into her quarters, leaving the lights at ten percent. She stalked directly to her night stand and jerked the drawer open letting the movement pull her off center. It was still there, exactly where she had left it. She whispered quietly, "delicious."

She probed the bruise on her side with her the first two fingers on her hand while the rest held the dagger firmly. She smirked even as she mentally kicked herself. "Level five hand to hand combat trained and you forget to drop you elbow, leaving the door wide open for Seven." She talked to herself as she began to pace. "That was a rookie mistake."

She still remembered Seven's fist connecting with her jaw and her blood spattering the silvery-gray bio suit the woman wore. She bit her lip opening the wound to taste the thick hint of iron. It's not enough. She slammed her back against the wall and slid slowly down it. The blade in her hand talked to her. Beckoned her. Taunted her.

Everything about Tuvok was calm, even when he walked into her quarters to find her holding the dagger with its tip resting on her thigh. She liked that about him, his calmness. She could breathe around him.

"Lieutenant?" He watched her with interest. He would have been more concerned had he just walked in to find her like this, but she had called.

"I didn't mean to wake you. Please, call me Tegan."

"I was not asleep." He looked down at his hand before extending it.

"No." She refused to hand the dagger over. "If I was going to hurt myself I wouldn't have asked you to come." The truth was, it was exactly why she had asked him to come. That and she knew Kathryn would probably freak out and go all Janeway on her. She needed help, for what exactly she didn't know.

"Logically you do not want to hurt yourself but you want to feel the pain."

She stared at him. "What makes you say that?"

"I should have come to you sooner." He admitted. "I've been struggling with the same thing."

"With what?" She wasn't going to admit to anything.

"I crave the pain like an addiction."

Delicious. "I don't." She looked away from him, her weakness pushing her. "Besides your Vulcan."

"I can still feel pain." He didn't think she needed to be reminded of the fact.

"Oh right, the whole…" She didn't notice what she was doing, she didn't see him move or hear him before she felt his hand cover hers. She brought her eyes to meet the dark depths of his.

"Indeed." He held her hand and the dagger firmly in place not allowing her to push it in further and not pulling it out of her leg. They both new the truth was they could handle pain to a point. "I will help you."

She looked down at her leg. "I didn't…"

Tuvok touched his badge. "Two to beam to sickbay."

"Please state the nature of the medical…" The doctor was still programed to automatically turn on with his original message when anyone beamed into the infirmary. "You again?" He looked down at her leg and visually examined the shiny silver blade buried in the black uniform material that was soaked with what he could only assume was blood. "Isn't that the…"

"Yes." Tegan growled cutting him off. "Just take care of it."

Tuvok looked at him and nodded.

The doctor noticed the placement of their hands. "Was this self-inflicted?"

"It was an accident Doctor." Tuvok responded before Tegan could, earning a curious look from both her and the holo-doctor. It could have been classified as an accident. She hadn't consciously done it, had she?

"So," The doctor ran his tricorder over the area. He didn't believe Tuvok and posed his question to his patient. "Jurroth's dagger mysteriously transported from the drawer in my office to your leg?"

"That pretty much sums it up." She reasoned it wasn't a lie if they both knew that it wasn't the truth.

"Mmm hmm, I see. You can pull the knife out." The doctor stated flatly as he looked over the medical tricorder. "It's relatively shallow and you didn't damage anything important." He shot her his patented look of complete and utter annoyance as he picked up the dermal regenerator. "I assume you will let me treat you this time?"

Tegan nodded. Despite his sometimes overly dramatic expressions, she noticed the lack of emotion the doctor gave off. It made perfect sense. He was made up of photonic energy and force fields after all. She filed the piece of information away.

"I wonder what Captain Janeway would say if she knew you were in here for the third time in 36 hours."

"Doctor patient confidentiality," Tuvok reminded him.

"If I believe my patient is a danger to herself I have a moral and legal obligation to report it."

"Legal?" Tegan laughed as the doctor scowled at her.

"I have the situation under control." Tuvok assured him and looked at Tegan.

"Besides Janeway knows about my sparring match with Seven." Tegan ignored Tuvok's intense gaze. "I'm surprised she didn't contact you to confirm I'd actually seen you about it."

"She didn't." He looked down at the skin and his brows lifted.

"What?" Tegan asked as he pulled the medical tricorder out and ran it over it again.

"Seventy percent healing. That's new for you, twenty to thirty percent better than your normal." He smiled briefly. "I guess I'm getting better at treating you after all."

"Nana." Tegan whispered ignoring his self-congratulatory pat on the back.

"Your gift?" Tuvok asked.

"I don't know but that would be the logical conclusion." Tegan turned to look at him more directly. "Were they real?"

"I think so." His eyebrow twitched. "We were not in your mind."

"Where were we?" It seemed like the next logical question for her to ask.

"I do not know. I came to you through your mind but we were not in a place fabricated by your brain."

"I don't know, I've got a pretty good imagination." Tegan grinned. "Are we done doctor?"

He blinked and looked up from the tricorder he was pretending to read. "If this continues I will have to report it."

"You already have reported it, to me doctor."

"Of course Commander Tuvok." He pressed his lips into a disproving line.