Chapter Seven

Sulu was listening to Pavel recount a prank that Scotty played on a couple of technicians the day before, when Paddy suddenly cried out in pain. She curled into the fetal position, holding her head in her hands. Pavel instantly ran to find Dr. McCoy, and Sulu tried to comfort her as best he could, pulling her into his arms and holding her to his chest until McCoy arrived.

"It's her head, Doctor," Sulu quickly explained.

McCoy turned to find the hypospray he wanted. "Try to hold her still, Sulu," he said. "I'm gonna have to sedate her." As gently as he could, McCoy administered the sedative, and she relaxed, unconsciousness, in Sulu' s arms. "Now, tell me exactly what happened," the doctor demanded.

"Ve vere just talking, Hikaru and I, and she suddenly just screamed," Pavel said.

"That's all?" McCoy looked to Sulu. "There has to be more to it that that. People usually don't get that level of a migraine like that. There has to be some kind of trigger; we're you to getting loud or something?"

"No, sir," Sulu answered with a shake of his head as he eased Paddy back down to her pillows. "Pavel, you'd better gather the trays; our break is almost over." The teen grabbed Paddy's tray as well his own, as Sulu retrieved his own from the floor where he dropped it in his haste to help Paddy.

"May ve come back after our shift to check on her, sor?" Pavel asked McCoy, glancing worriedly at Paddy.

The doctor ran his hand through his hair wearily. "I reckon so, but she is gonna need to rest after an episode like that."

"We'll just pop in for a few minutes after dinner," Sulu assured him. "Come on, Pavel, she'll be fine with McCoy."

She moved close to her father as three tall, burly men surrounded them. She and her father were on foot, walking the fence of their north pasture. In the distance, she could hear the sheep loudly bleating their displeasure at menacing strangers, who were mounted on horseback.

"We do nae want trouble, mister," the leader, a man with dark hair and a smile that gave her chills, said. "We jus' want yer girl, there." His tone was conversational, as if they were discussing weather.

Her father took half a step forward so that she was partially behind him. "We'll, if she's what ye are wantin', then it's trouble ye are goin' tae be gettin'. Ye cannae have my daughter; I know what really happens at tha' 'Institute' o' yers."

"Is tha' so?" The dark man answered. "An' jus' what do ye think happens at our Institute?"

"Those kids are nae students; ye use the poor lads an' colleens as guinea pigs fer yer sick experiments!"

A fourth rider approached. "Eldest boy is taken care of," he said to the dark haired man.

"Aiden!" she cried.

"Wha' have ye done to my son?" Her father demanded.

"Taken care o' him," the leader repeated with a chilling grin. "Like yer daughter, he has great potential. He will attend the Institute as well; he be a superior lad, and we'll teach him how tae use it."

"Nay!" her father cried, "If ye so much as touch a hair on my lad's head, I'll-"

The leader suddenly jumped of his horse, pulling a pistol out of his holster. He pointed at her father at point-blank range. "Ye'll do wha'? I'm afraid ye won't be much o' a help tae yer kids dead."

Her father was still for several long moments, then suddenly, he threw a punch to the leader's face. The last thing she heard before the crack of a gun shot rang out was her father's last words:

"Run, Gael!"

She sat in front of the leader on his horse, his iron grip across her chest holding her in place. Beside them, one of men held an unconscious Aiden before him in the saddle. They watched as three other men locked her mother, Keith, and Pat in the three hundred year old thatched cottage they lived in and threw torches onto the roof. Soon the little house was ablaze. As they rode away, she could hear the cries and screams of her brothers and dear mother.

She jolted awake, drenched in sweat and her own tears, tangled in her sheets. Her family...They were dead...murdered...They were gone...ripped away...

She curled into a tight ball, sobbing her grief into her pillows. Time lost all meaning to her as she cried and cried. Suddenly, warm, strong arms engulfed her, and she felt herself pulled up to someone's broad chest. She latched onto the front his shirt and let him rock her gently back and forth and stroke her hair.

McCoy walked into Sickbay to tell the nurses on duty to take their afternoon break. He had reported the incident at lunch to Kirk, then retreated to his office to catching up on his paperwork. He had lost track of the time; he was supposed to relieve the nurses thirty minutes ago. As he entered, he was met with the sounds of sobbing. Not just crying; the anguished sobs of a heart shattered by unspeakable grief. He ran to the only occupied bed and ripped back the curtain. Paddy was scrunched up in a tight ball in the sheets, sobbing so hard she could hardly breathe. None of the nurses were in sight. They must have gone on break and forgot to tell me.

Without second thought, he scooped her up, and sat on the edge of the bio-bed, holding her close. He gently rocked her back and forth, whispering comfortingly to her. He felt his heart break as she gripped the front of his uniform tightly in both hands and buried her face in his shoulder.

"It's okay. I've gotcha, Darlin'... Ol' Doc McCoy's gotcha." He whispered soothingly, carefully combing his fingers through her shoulder-length curls.

Slowly, her sobs diminished into sniffles. He tried to lay her back down, but she clung to him. Even though she was nineteen and too old for that sort of thing, McCoy didn't have the heart to force her let go. He had not read all of her file from the ship, but he had read enough to know that she was fourteen when they took her from her home in Ireland.

Five years. The devils had taken five years from the girl he held. She basically lost her teen years, some golden years of a young person's life, the day they took her, forcing her to grow up well before her time.

Instead of making her let him go, he eased up onto the bed and leaned back on the headboard, allowing her to snuggle down at his side with her head on his chest.

"You wanna talk about what happened, Darlin'?" He asked softly.

She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Pavel and Hikaru made me remember somethin'...my brothers," she whispered. "Aiden was five years older than me, Keith was three years older, an' Patrick was two years younger. Hikaru and Pavel reminded me o' Keith an' Pat an' the way they teased each other."

"Was?"

She sniffed as tears threatened to fall again. "When they took me, they took Aiden too. They...they...Sh-shot Daddy...They locked Mum, Keith and Pat in th' h-house...b-burnt it...down..." She buried her face in his chest once most as tears slipped from her tired eyes once more.

McCoy felt like he had dealt a blow to the stomach as he listened to her tell him of her family's demise. "Oh, Darlin', I'm so sorry," he managed to choke out as his anger at the ones responsible for harming so many innocent people blazed so hot that it threatened to render him speechless.

"Gael," she whispered. "My name is Gael."

"That's a beautiful name," he whispered back. "We'll have something to tell those troublemakers, Sulu and Chekov, when they come back."

Her grip on his shirt tighten. "They're all gone...I'm alone..."

"I've a gotcha, you hear? I'm not lettin' you go on alone. I'm here and I've got ya." He held her tightly, never letting go as she fell asleep in his arms.

The nurses found him there when the next shift came in, watching her as she slept on his chest, gently running his fingers through her coppery tresses.

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