CH32
The EMH did most of the work while Johanna was forced to mostly just watch.
The EMH had started with the round embedded up against Rick's spinal column. Then he moved on to cleaning up the wound on his back, sealing it closed finishing by repairing the damage to his collar bones.
"How is he?" Johanna asks as she watches the EMH finish sealing the wounds on the last shoulder.
"The round next to his spinal column will take the longest to heal. The cell regeneration will only keep him in bed for a few hours after he wakes up.
The damage to his back, while more damaging was mostly just superficial, even if it didn't look like it.
The knitting of his shoulder blades is complete, however he is going to have pain in both arms as he tries to use his arms, likely for weeks to come. A little physical therapy should reduce that time a little.
Right now I have him on anti-biotics and pain killers. When he wakes the pain will be intense and I will likely need to increase his pain medication. It would be best if he slept for the next couple of days.
Otherwise he will live and in time never notice that he was shot at all, except for a few scars. The biggest of which will be the one running down his back." The EMH tells her.
Johanna sighed. By the sound of her daughter's voice he was someone important to her. "Now I just need to find out who you are." Johanna comments.
"You can reactivate me at any time. I have already pre-programmed in a couple of times based off of his injuries." And the EMH disappears, leaving Johanna alone with him.
"Now what do I do?" Johanna looked around. She had already spent months on a ship. "And no way to contact Jim." Johanna hung her head low.
Lanie had backed off from Kate having done what she could for her, needing to get her to an EMH soon.
Kate was relaxing with Alexis still in one of her arms. It had taken Kate a little work to calm Alexis down.
Jim had a lot of questions, however Kate was injured and he didn't want to add to her obvious discomfort. "I can go get our shuttle." Jim offers.
Kate however shakes her head. "This planet doesn't have space flight yet dad; they can barely get off their own planet. If you fly your shuttle in broad daylight, it will attract attention. Attention we don't need." Kate tells him.
"What about these two?" Jim waves his arm at the two dead Hunters.
"Put them on the roof for now, we can move them again later tonight when it gets dark. And dad, find out what happened to the guy on the door to the building." Kate asks of him.
"They threw him across the street slamming him into a building; I'll look at him before I come back." Jim tells him and moves over to Josh and starts to pick up his headless body.
"Oh these two also blew up a building not far from here." Jim comments picking up Josh.
"Eighteen floors tall? Mostly white with a lot of windows?" Lanie asks, as she starts work on cleaning up the mess.
"Yeah, they blew out the first floor causing it to topple over into a giant heap of rubble." Jim heads for the door with Josh over his back.
"They destroyed our home!" Lanie moans. "All my clothes!" Lanie deflates.
"Good thing you brought a sleep over bag with you." Kate comments smiling.
"Oh funny, you're a riot. Maybe I should check you bandages." Lanie glares at Kate.
"If the police have trailed them to here, we're going to have company soon." Kate points out.
"You won't be running anywhere Kate. You'll bleed out before you get very far." Lanie cautions her. "And you should probably drink another bag. You lost a fair amount of blood, and the baby needs you to be healthy." Lanie points out.
"What baby?" Jim asks from the front door, having come back from dumping Josh on the roof.
"Ooops." Lanie tries to melt away and disappear as she moves to the kitchen to get a blood bag out of the refrigerator.
"Uhm, dad, …. I can explain." Kate tries to shrink into the floor. "I think." Kate whispers, though still loud enough for Jim's vampire hearing to hear her.
"Then I suggest you start explaining Katie." Jim stands over his daughter who was still on the floor holding onto Alexis.
"You be nice to my mommy!" Alexis stands up and faces Jim.
"And this redheaded fireball is? ..." Jim asks not backing off from a 6 year old.
"My daughter." Kate scrunches her face while trying to smile at the same time.
Jim simply tilts his head, knowing his daughter didn't give birth and suddenly have a 6 year old child.
"Take the other Hunter to the roof and we'll talk dad." Kate offers. "Alexis honey." Kate motions her over so she doesn't have to see her dad pick up two halves of a dead guy.
While Jim is gone Lanie hands a warmed up bag of blood to Kate with a straw in it already. "Thanks Lanie." Kate gives her a weak smile.
"I'm glad I'm not you girlfriend." Kate was likely going to have to explain all this twice.
Kate closed her eyes and sighed as she sucked on her straw.
Jim has been sitting in a chair listening to Kate explain the last few months after they arrived on this planet. Kate doesn't specifically mention Rick's smell or the taste of his blood. Kate explains it as finding Rick " Irresistible", and that she just couldn't stay away from him.
Kate could see her father's face darken when she talked about Meredith and how she had treated Alexis. Kate could see Jim's initial facial reaction to the fact that Alexis wasn't biologically hers, naturally. And then harden the more Kate told him about Meredith.
Jim's eyes opened wide when she talked about Rick having a small portion of vampire DNA in his system, which the EMH explained as a reason why Kate was allowed to get pregnant from a "Human".
Jim's eyes opened even wider when Kate explained that Alexis now had some of Kate's DNA making her half vampire and half human. "I get to be a vampire like mom." Alexis had stated proudly.
It got a chuckle out of Jim. And Kate explained what the EMH had explained about the baby being half vampire and half human, and that she was likely somewhere near 4 weeks pregnant now.
The silence after Kate thought she was done and had explained everything was deafening, and Kate was starting to sweat under the stare her father was giving.
"Say something dad." Kate was dying here.
Jim opened his mouth and then re-closed it and sat silently for a moment. Then he looked down at Alexis who had been mostly silent through all of this.
Jim however could see that Alexis was trying to bury herself into Kate's side, she had even buried her head into Kate's chest from time to time. And even now Kate was mindlessly stroking her hair, which just screamed "I love you" to him.
Jim had heard his daughter's voice and how she spoke of this Rick. A Rick who had risked his life to take out two Hunters using primitive weapons. Though it had worked to a point Jim was forced to admit.
"Are you marrying him Katie?" Jim had already worked out that Katie loved him and the redhead next to her.
Kate finally smiled. "We haven't talked about it yet. We only just found out I was pregnant a week or two ago. I'm only over here on weekends when I don't have classes, like this weekend." Kate answers his question.
Jim didn't know if Rick was going to ask his daughter or not, and he wasn't going to ask her if she was going to say yes when or if he does. That wasn't up to him. He just wanted his daughter happy and it sounded like these two made her happy.
"And where do you fit into all this?" Jim turned his attention to Lanie.
"I know Kate loves both of them more than anything. They've been out on several dates, gone places and done things together. You should have seen what Kate did to Alexis's birth mother. Kate fought for Alexis.
You should have been there when Kate came home from a date where Rick took the three of them to a water color class." Lanie rolled her head. It got Kate to smile and start to giggle. Even Alexis was smiling and giggling.
Jim watched Kate hold Alexis a little tighter and simply kissed her head without thinking about it. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.
His daughter was growing up and had found love. Someone to love and love her back.
"I just wish I had pictures." Lanie commented.
Johanna was sleeping when the EMH clock activated his program, since Johanna had left him on. The EMH activated the scanner and it did is customary two sweeps of Rick's body.
The EMH adjusted the injectors to allow for Rick to wake up on his own time. There was no internal bleeding, his shoulders were still healing, and there was no indication of infection and no indication that Rick was paralyzed. However everyone was going to have to wait until Rick was awake to verify that.
Satisfied with the results the EMH turned himself back off and waited for the next alarm or was activated prior to that time.
Johanna was awake and sitting in the pilot seat looking at her screens, wishing that there was a blood bag left over. The EMH had used all four of them on Rick since he had lost a lot of blood. Johanna's throat was on fire.
They had run out of blood bags when they set down on the moon a couple of days ago. Jim had insisted that they wait a little while he scanned the planet below. When he found the location of the Hunters shuttle, they had taken off and landed not far away.
Following the Hunters after they left their shuttle was easy. They had left chaos everywhere they went.
Johanna was sitting there waiting for Rick to wake up when her screens started beeping. There was something coming up from the planet. Size and configuration suggested it was their shuttle.
Johanna watched it land and enter their ship. Johanna got up and went over to the airlock and waited.
The airlock soon cycled and Johanna could make out that it was Jim and he had brought some kind of box with him. It was blue with a white top.
Johanna helped him remove his helmet and then kissed him. "Katie took a round in her side, our EMH is working on her." Jim explains his presence. "I also brought you something." Jim sets the cooler down and opens it.
Inside were four blood bags in chips of ice. Jim reached in and pulled one out and handed it to his wife. "This Rick guy has six months' worth at his home for Katie and Lanie." Jim explains.
Jim had practically fainted when Lanie had shown him the two refrigerator's down in the parking garage. "Bless you." Johanna took the bag, kissed her husband and put it in the microwave.
"How is he?" Jim motions to Rick.
"The EMH had a lot of work to do. However none of his major organs are damaged. He's going to need physical therapy to regain the use of his arms. Both of his shoulders were shattered by Hunter rounds." Johanna tells him and goes back to sucking on her straw, feeling her throat start to feel much better.
"Who is he?" Johanna asks.
"You better sit down for this honey, you're not going to believe this." Jim tells her smiling.
Johanna was ready to start to panic at those words, however the look on his face suggested she needed to sit down.
Jim proceeded to explain what Katie had told him. "PREGNANT! Our Katie is, … Pregnant?" Johanna turns to look at Rick who was still asleep on the scanner bed.
Jim was still explaining what he knew when the airlock cycled and someone stepped into the ship.
Kate pulled off her helmet and walked directly to Rick sleeping on the scanner bed.
Jim and Johanna watched as she dropped her helmet on the floor and leaned over Rick and started stroking his hair while whispering into his lips. Then they saw Kate wipe away some of her tears and then kiss Rick on the lips, while her other hand rested on his chest.
They both continued to just watch as Kate stroked his hair and give his face whispers of kisses as she whispered to him.
It was eye opening to Johanna. Sure she had heard what her husband had said, however watching Kate show how much she loved him told Johanna even more.
Kate stood up. "Computer activate EMH."
Jim and Johanna stepped up to the scanner with Johanna right behind Kate and they all listened to what the EMH told Kate about the condition Rick was in.
Kate then turned and fell into her mother's arms. "I was so scared that I had lost him mom." Kate started crying into Johanna's shoulder.
Johanna could feel her daughter shaking as her crying turned into sobs and all Johanna could think to do was hold onto her daughter.
Kate was beginning to wind down and all three missed seeing Rick blink open his eyes, it wasn't until Rick gave a grunt from the pain he felt that he got anyone's attention.
Kate was out of Johanna's arms in an instant and back to leaning over his face looking at him while stroking his hair. "BABE! How do you feel?" It was a stupid question but it was all Kate could think of at the moment.
"I got shot, didn't I?" Rick's voice sounded like crap and even though they were the words Rick knew he wanted to say, it sounded like someone else was saying them.
"Just a little, yeah." Kate smiled down at him.
"Did we win?" Rick didn't remember much after getting hit.
"Yeah, my parents showed up and took out the last one." Kate tells him, still stroking his hair and then Kate gave Rick a feather light kiss. "Go back to sleep babe, I'll be here, and Alexis is fine."
"Sounds, … like a, …." And Rick was asleep again.
Kate laid her head down onto Rick's chest so she could hear his heart beat, it helped calm her down. Burying her nose into his chest and breathing him in, helped even more.
"You should be lying down, you just had surgery." Jim steps up and lifts his daughter up and takes her back to one of the beds.
"Alexis?" Kate turns on her dad before getting into bed.
"We don't have a suit her size, so we have to play musical shuttles." Jim explains. "I'll go get here and bring her up. Now get some sleep." Jim all but puts Kate into one of the beds.
It took a few hours, however the shuttle door opened and Jim escorted Alexis over to where Kate was sleeping. "Your father is this way." And Jim escorts her over to a still sleeping Rick.
Jim lifts her up so Alexis can see him and touch him. "Daddy!?"
It was actually three days before the EMH would let Rick leave the ship. In that time Rick and Alexis ate up almost all the food and drank most of the water that Kate and Lanie had brought up earlier.
Kate, Jim and Johanna finished off the other three blood bags in that time.
Jim and Johanna also got to know Rick and Alexis a whole lot better.
"I still don't understand something." Rick commented as they were closing up the ship and putting it back to sleep. "If we are deep into this tormented zone as you say, how did my father the vampire get here? And an even bigger question, how does my mother have vampire DNA in her?" Rick didn't understand.
"We are likely never going to know the answer to that son." Jim answers. "My first guess, for what it's worth. Your father being a 100% vampire would likely have been lonely here on a planet full of humans. In order to have a family he needed to add some of his own DNA to someone in order for her to become pregnant." Jim offer his opinion of how.
"So he bound some of his DNA to my mothers in his ship, like your EMH did to Alexis with Kate's DNA." Rick tries to wrap her mind around this.
"It's just a theory, unless we transfer everyone on the planet up here one at a time to run them under the scanner." Jim offers.
"So it's possible that everyone of Earth might have this dormant vampire gene, just waiting for a 100% vampire to show up." Rick tries to understand.
"Possible I guess. Once your medical finds this dormant gene they may find a way to activate it for those that want it. Turning your entire population into half vampire and half human." Jim points out.
"And the way nature works, if these hybrids have a child there is a chance that the baby will be either 100% vampire or 100% human, though the vast majority will be hybrids." Johanna adds her voice.
"So our coming here has the possibility of rejuvenating the vampire race?" Kate was following but keeping silent till now.
"It is possible. … If true a few hundred years from now our race will exit the tormented zone and re-join the rest of the universe. And we have our knowledge, plus a functional Hunter ship to design our ships off of." Jim points out.
It got Rick to start grinning wide and almost chuckling. "What babe?" Kate kisses his cheek.
"The universe is talking and maybe someday, long after we're gone, everyone else in the universe will have to start listening." Rick was smiling wide.