Chapter Eight

A few hours later, Chekov, Sulu, and Kirk strode down the hallway to Sickbay. When their captain learned that his pilot and navigator were visiting their mysterious guest, he invited himself to go with them. They entered Sickbay and were greeted by one of the nurses.

"Where's Bo-"

She immediately put her finger to her lips. "Follow me, Captain," she whispered. She led them around the privacy curtain, and the men's jaws dropped. Their gruff doctor was asleep, leaning on the headboard, the girl snuggled close to his side. He had one arm around her, the other hand resting on his PADD in his lap. "He was there when we came on shift," the nurse explained. "She wouldn't let go of him, so he asked me to bring him his PADD so he could work on paperwork. He must have fallen asleep at some point about an hour ago. They look so content, I haven't had the heart to wake him."

"That they do, Nurse, that they do," Kirk smirked as Chekov and Sulu covered both of them with the light blanket draped across the foot of the bed. Pulling out his comm, he turned on the camera mode and took a picture. Perfect blackmail material, he thought.

"Come on, guys, I think she's doing just fine." Kirk said, motioning for the younger men to follow him.

The next morning at the senior officers' meeting, Kirk looked down the table at McCoy. "How's Miss Frozen doing since her episode yesterday?" he asked.

"She slept most of the afternoon," McCoy answered. "I wanna run some tests. She remembered the day she was taken from her family when she woke from the sedative. I think there must be a connection between the headaches and remembering."

"Vot makes you zink zat?"

"She said watching you and Sulu was what triggered it," McCoy explained. Sulu and Chekov shared a worried look. "You reminded her of two of her brothers." McCoy continued. "If trying to remember is what triggers these episodes, I want to see if there is we can do to minimize the pain." He pulled his PADD from his lap onto the table to check her charts. "Other than that, she should be free to go a few days, though I'd feel better if she could be assigned a room fairly close to Sickbay, so I'll be close if she has another episode."

Kirk nodded. "I think that could be arranged. Anybody have anything to report?" He glanced around the table. "No? Then to your places everyone."

McCoy returned to the Sickbay to discuss running some tests with Gael. Also vaccines. Since she was from the early 2000's, there was a whole lot of diseases that she had never contact with, and he was not, after all she had lived through, risking her life by assuming that she had an advanced immune system just because she was healing quickly from her few centuries in cryo-stasis.

He was pleased to see a nurse leaving with Gael' s empty breakfast tray. They were one step closer to getting her to fully trust them. "How are you feelin' this morning , Miss Gael?" He asked as he ducked around the curtain. "I saw that you made short work of your breakfast this mornin'."

She grinned guiltily. "I've always been fond o' pecan pancakes."

McCoy raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Is that so? If I had known that was all it would take to get you to eat I would made you some days ago," he huffed with good-natured grin of his own and a shake of his head. "You can tell us these things, you know, Darlin'."

"What things?"

"Your preferences," a new voice rang out as the curtain was pulled back to reveal Kirk. He was grinning. "Man, if I had known finding you a 21st century kid to work with would put you in such a good mood, I would have tried to do it long ago." He turned to Gael. "Don't let this guy fool you with his Southern charms; he's a down-right grizzly bear most of the time."

"Only to people who skip out on their required physicals, Jim."

"But their so boring, Bones!" Kirk moaned. "Besides, if I feel fine, what's the point in sitting under all your torture devices only for you to tell me I'm fine?" He continued, then turned back to Gael, extending his hand. "Jim Kirk, Miss."

"Gael," she answered shyly. "I'm Gael."

"Oh, Gael is it? Poor Chekov is going to be disappointed. He seemed so proud that he had named you Paddy." He grinned. "I think Gael is much prettier," he leaned down and staged whispered to her. Her grin widen at his antics.

"Thanks ye, sir,"

"Hey, she's a polite one, Bones! Unlike some others I could mention..."

"And I'll be polite to you, kid, the day you come in here, sit yourself down, and submit to a real, full-fledged, Starfleet regulation physical."

"Aw, come on, Bones!"

"Bones, nothin'," McCoy interrupted, trying to shoo Kirk out. "Now get back to your bridge. I need to talk to Miss Gael about some tests and vaccines."

Gael felt her blood run cold at the words "tests and vaccines". That sounded an awful lot like code words for experiments. She was really beginning to trust Dr. McCoy. The way he had held her yesterday had warmed her heart like nothing else since she was taken. She felt so safe...protected...cared for with him, but he said those words, all of her old fears about him came back.

"Hey, you okay?" Jim Kirk' s voice broke through her thoughts. Her head shot up, her wide, nervous eyes darting between Jim and McCoy.

"Please, nae more tests," she whispered shakily. She pulled her knees up to chest, hugging them tightly. "Please nae more...I can't...nae...please..." She trailed off weakly, tears filling her eyes.

McCoy was kneeling by her side in an instant. "I just want to find a way to help you with your episodes. If there is a way to help you find your memories without so much pain, I want to find it for you, Darlin'."

"Nae more...please, nae more..." she shook her head, her eyes pleading.

"Gael, darlin', you might not have to go through all that pain. You've already been through so much." McCoy pleaded with her. "I'm not experimenting on you, I promise."

"Bones would never do anything to hurt you, Gael," Kirk said, uncharacteristically serious. "And if he tried, he'd find himself marooned on some distant uninhabited planet, per request of the whole crew."

Gael shot him and alarmed look. "Planet? Crew?"

"Yeah, crew. How else do you run a starship?" Kirk answered, confusion showing on his face.

"Starship?" Gael was growing more and more alarmed with each word Kirk said.

"Sweetheart, this the USS Enterprise."

McCoy cut in. "Darlin', where do you think you are?" he asked gently.

"One o' th' Institute's bases," she whispered.

"Institute? What institute?" Kirk asked in confusion.

"That's who took her from her family," McCoy answered. "Gael, we aren't with this Institute. This a Federation starship; we're all members of Starfleet."

"Federation? Starfleet?"

Just then, Chekov and Sulu entered, carrying lunch trays. "What's wrong?" Sulu asked, quickly setting the trays he carried down on a near by bed.

"I'm tryin' to convince her to let me give her vaccines. I, for one, don't want her to die from no protection against Andorian shingles or somethin'," McCoy replied.

"Where are we?" Gael suddenly asked Chekov and Sulu.

"Um, ve vere in ze tventy-fourth sector-"

"Where. Are. We?" she repeated, carefully emphasizing each word.

"We're on a starship," Sulu answered, confused. "the USS Enterprise."

She stared at them for several long moments.

McCoy was beginning to get worried. "Gael?"

Suddenly, she tossed her sheets back and dashed out of Sickbay. They were so shocked that it took a moment for the men to have the presence of mind to go after her. Thankfully, she did not go far. They ran out and found her at the end of the hall, standing in front of a large window showing a star-strewn view of space. She sank to knees as they approached, staring out of the window.

"Tha'..."

"That's space, Paddy," Chekov said gently. "Vere did you zink ve vere?"

"Laboratory," she whispered. "This is impossible..."

"What do you mean? Of course it is." Kirk said.

"No, it is not!" Gael cried, turning on her knees to him. "No one has this kind o' space travel!"

"Earth has this kind of space travel for centuries," Sulu calmly explained, kneeling beside her. "You were frozen for a long time."

Her breathing grew ragged. "How long?"

"We guessing around 300 years," McCoy said. "Come on, Darlin', we need to get you back to Sickbay. This is why I want to give you a few vaccines; there's a host of diseases out there you've had no contact with before." Gael said nothing but let Sulu and Chekov guide her back to her bed in Sickbay.

"This just got really complicated, didn't it?" Kirk sighed.

"Yeah," McCoy replied, running his hand through his hair. "and I have feelin' that I probably just lost what trust she had in me."

"I don't know, Bones, she seems to trust you a lot," Kirk suddenly grinned.

"What makes you think that?"

"Young ladies like Gael don't curl up with guys they don't trust."

"Dang it, Jim, what are you talkin' about?"

If Kirk did not know better, he would say McCoy actually blushed. "As if you didn't know, Bones," he smirked, pulling out his comm. He brought the holopicture he took the day before.

"Where...how...?"

"Pavel, Sulu, and I came down after our shift. You were out cold," lurked answered. "Not that I blame you. If I had a cute, little thing like her latched onto me, I wouldn't go anywhere either."

"Dang it, Jim, don't talk about her like that." McCoy hissed. "She's just a scared kid who lost her parents much too early in life."

"What? I didn't say anything." Kirk held up his hands in surrender.

"You implied," McCoy retorted. "With you, that's the same thing. We all know how you are, Jim." Kirk opened his mouth to reply, but McCoy beat him to it. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have a traumatized patient waiting on me." He strode past Kirk into Sickbay to find Gael sitting on the edge of her bed, Chekov sitting on one side of her, Sulu on the other. The Asian man held her hand while the young Russian had a hand on her shoulder.

"The vaccines really aren't that bad," Sulu said as McCoy approached. "We've both had a bunch of them. It's just a few stings in the neck, and it's done."

"He ees right, Paddy," Chekov said. "I have had lots of zem." He ducked his head. "I used to get sick alot ven I vas younger." He looked up at McCoy. "Vould it hurt me eef I took ze waccines too? To show her zey von't hurt her."

"I don't think so," McCoy nodded. "You've already had most of the illnesses I want to inoculate her against anyway."

"How vould zat be?" Chekov asked Gael. "I'll take zem first, and you can vatch Dr. McCoy do eet." She looked up at him, seeming to search his face for deceit. "I promise, I vould not be doing zis unless I had complete faith in ze doctor." Slowly, she nodded, and hesitantly slipped her hand in his. "Good," he smiled widely. "Ve vill be right here ze whole time, von't ve, Hikaru?"

"Of course," Sulu gently squeezed her hand.

"Okay, let's do this so you kids can eat," McCoy said. He carefully prepared the hyposprays and brought them over on a rolling table. He picked up the first one and lightly jabbed Chekov's neck with it. "See? Nothin' to worry about, Darlin'." He picked up the next one, and gently brushed her hair back so he could see her neck. She squeezed the younger men's hands tightly as McCoy gently pressed the hypospray to her neck, and she gasped when she felt the sting. They continued the same way for all six vaccines, Gael receiving little words of encouragement from all three men.

"All done," McCoy said as he pressed the last hypo to Gael's neck.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Sulu smiled, slipping an arm around her.

"You did really vell, Paddy," Chekov added, with a grin of his own.

"Oh, don't you have something you wanna tell these two?" McCoy asked, grinning as he brought Gael her lunch tray.

She slipped her hands from theirs and began twisting them nervously. "Um...me...me name's Gael..."

"Gael? That's really pretty," Sulu smiled. "Is that Irish?"

"Aye, it means Irish, actually. 'Tis where the word 'Gaelic' comes from."

"So I can't call you Paddy any more?" Chekov asked, almost seeming to pout.

"Pavel, you knew we were only using that until she remembered her name," Sulu gently scolded the teen. "Besides, it's too nice of a name to not use it."

"Mister Chekov can call me wha' he likes, Mister Sulu," Gael shrugged. "I've nae been called by my name since in was fourteen."

"No, I vill call you Gael," Chekov said. "Please, call me Pavel."

"It's just Hikaru, Gael," Sulu added with smile.

She gave a tentative smile of her own. "Thank ye, Pavel. Thank ye, Hikaru." She glanced down at her lunch. "I guess ye had better eat afore her lunch break is o'er."

They retrieved their trays and sat back down, the trio falling into quiet conversation as they ate sitting side-by-side.