Author's note: This chapter has mentions of sexual abuse. Nothing really explicit, but I just felt that you should be warned.

Chapter Ten

McCoy was supposed to be doing paperwork, but he was actually reading the files they had pulled from the old ship. It was a really good thing he had eaten hours ago; the callous, detached way the reports described what they did to Gael and her reactions to it was absolutely sickening.

A knock at his door startled him out of his thoughts of the hundreds of terrible deaths he could inflict on the people responsible for all of things Gael endured. He looked up to find Dr. Carol Marcus poking her blonde head around the door. "Do you have a moment, Doctor?"

"Of course." He motioned for her to take a seat on the other side of his desk.

"I was wondering if I might have a interview with...um...Gael, is it?"

"Yeah, her name's Gael," McCoy nodded. "What is it you want to discuss with her?"

"Well, we retrieved some of the equipment from the Russian vessel, and, well, we can't figure out the purpose of some of it."

McCoy shook his head. "I'd really do not want put her trying to remember that. She is just beginning to trust us. If she finds out you are trying to make that torture equipment work, she will lose all trust in us. Maybe for good. Besides," he continued. "It's all in these dang sadists' files. I'll send them to you." He picked up his PADD and sent the files to Carol's. "Just don't read while you eat. You'll lose your appetite real quick, fast, and in a hurry."

"That bad?" she winced.

"Already lost more than a few hours of sleep," McCoy tiredly ran a hand through his hair.

"That explains the picture Jim showed me," she mused. "Thanks for the warning."

"What picture?"

"Oh, I think you know which one," she grinned mischievously.

"Dang it," he grumbled. "I'm gonna kill that kid."

"Oh, come now, Doctor. I think it was sweet." She laughed, then sobered. "I think it's what she really needs."

McCoy nodded. "Good night, Doctor Marcus,"

"Good night...Bones..."

"Not you too!"

Carol just giggled as she left the office.

Gael sat in a dark, damp cell. Only one tiny window about the size of her head up near the ceiling let in any light. The center block walls and concrete floors were icy to the touch. Shivering in the thin black cotton pants and t-shirt she had been given to wear, she pulled her knees up to her chest in an attempt to conserve her own body heat.

One year. It had been one year since she had been captured by "the Institute". She was fifteen now. Aiden would be twenty, Keith would be eighteen, and Pat would be thirteen. Her parents would have been so proud as they celebrated each milestone throughout the year: birthdays, high school marks, anniversaries, Christmas...

Suddenly the iron door of her cell opened. A tall, blonde haired man entered. For several long moments he stared at her, looking her over. She felt like a piece of meat at the butcher shop, and he was trying to decide the best way to cut her up. He said something with a smile that made her blood run cold. Although, she could not understand him or any of the others in this place, she was fairly sure it was German that they all spoke.

Another test. He must here for another test. She always got "high marks" on their tests; she actually survived them. No one else had made it as long as she had. Most only lasted a few months.

She began to mentally prepare herself. Pain. Their "tests" were nearly always excruciating.

They man spoke again. All she could do was stare blankly up at him. He yelled his demand to her. Suddenly, he was kneeling in front of her, whispering cruelly in her ear. His breath on her skin send a shiver down her spine. His hand slipped under the hem of her shirt to caress the sensitive skin of her waist.

"Nay!" She cried, crawling away.

He grabbed the collar of her shirt, yanking her close to him. With a loud ripping sound, he tore apart her shirt...

"Nay!" She screamed, bolt upright in bed. It was the middle of night. She frantically gazed around, taking in the now familiar sight of the Enterprise Sickbay.

Closing her eyes, he felt her stomach churn as the ghostly sensation of countless men touching her, kissing her...

Suddenly, she threw back the sheets and frantically searched for a trash can or sink. Spying the hand wash station in the corner, she stumbled to it and barely made it before her dinner made a reappearance. Gael sensed one of the night shift nurses hold her hair back and rub soothing circles as she continued to retch into the sink. The nurse was asking her questions, but all Gael could hear was the haunting, seductive phrases of German, French, Russian, and a few other languages she could not identify that swirled around her mind.

Her weak legs gave out, and she sank to floor by the sink, the nurses trying to keep her from falling. Tears silently tracked down her cheeks as she continued to dry-heave there on the floor, the images of her abusers flashing behind her eyelids.

Suddenly, the flustering nurses were gone, and strong, warm arms engulfed her. Her head jerked head jerked up and her eyes met a pair of hazel ones. At first she struggled, but then she remembered.

McCoy. McCoy had hazel eyes. McCoy was safe. She blinked and her swimming vision came into focus. McCoy was there, holding her. She sagged with relief in his arms, still weakly dry-heaving.

McCoy sighed as he powered down his PADD for the night. Or early morning, rather. He was just trying to decide if it was worth it to walk all the way back to his room, or if he was just going to lay down in the couch in his office for a few hours sleep, when a scream from the ward ripped through the silence of the night. He dashed through to the ward to find Gael in a crumpled heap by the the hand-wash station with both of the night shift nurses hovering over her.

"She won't talk to us, Doctor!" One of the nurses said. "I'm worried that she's going into shock."

McCoy motioned them out of the way and pulled Gael into a tight embrace. She struggled against him, but soon stopped when she recognized him. She seemed to melt in his arms as she continued to weakly dry-heave with her stomach's cramps. He adjust his hold so that her back was to his chest to enable her to lean over his arm to vomit if she needed to.

"It's alright, Darlin'; I've got ya, okay? Nobody can hurt you anymore," he assured her gently as he finger-combed her hair back from her face.

"...I c-could see...feel...e'erythin'...o'er an'...an' o'er..." she choked out.

"See and feel what, Darlin'?"

She turned in his arms to face him. "They...they...t-touched...me...an'..."

McCoy's heart shattered. These "Institute" people beat her, tortured her, and that was not enough? The had to do this too. He had swallowed a hard lump of emotions before speaking. "Gael, did they touch you...in a...intimate way?"

All she could do was nod and bury her face in his chest. McCoy just held her tightly, and quietly dismissed the nurses to go about their other duties. He picked her up and took her back to his office

"Please, stay; donnae go," she whispered.

"I'm not going anywhere, Darlin'," he promised. He sat on ending of the couch with a pillow in his lap for Gael. She stretched out on the couch with her head in McCoy's lap. While she snuggled down and eventually slept, he was feverishly searching every data base he had access to in a effort to figure just who was really responsible for the atrocities they played out on the innocent girl in his lap.

The next morning, McCoy strode into the senior officers' meeting like a dark thundercloud. Everyone could feel the anger and frustration radiating off the doctor.

"Um, Bones, you okay?" Kirk asked cautiously.

"Dang it, Jim, no, I am not okay!" McCoy replied hotly. He told them what had happened the night before, and nearly all of them had choice words for Gael's captors. (Spock said nothing, so they did not know what he was exactly thinking, and Pavel used Russian very quietly, so Uhura was not sure what he said. She suspected it was less than...polite.) "Jim, we need to talk to Starfleet about this," McCoy insisted. "I searched all of my data bases and got nothin'. I wanna know who did this to her and pin their hide to the wall."

"Me too, Bones, me too." Kirk said. "I have compiled report based on Spock and Dr. Marcus' findings with the ship and quipment, as well as your reports, Bones, on Gael. Uhura, I want you to send this report back to Starfeet and request information on any group or organization that could possibly have anything to do with this." He handed her a data chip with the electronic file on it. "I'll get on in right away, sir," she nodded.

"Okay, let's get this day started, people," Kirked dismissed them after hearing reports from the Science, Engineering, and Communication areas. "Bones, when do you think you can let Gael out of Sickbay? She has got to be going stircrazy in there."

"Sometime tomorrow, and, actually, she seems to be doing just fine where she is," McCoy replied as they entered the lift for the bridge. "She was kept in six by six cell for the better part of the last five of her life. Sickbay is actually rather roomy in comparison."

"Wow," Kirk shook his head. "Is it bad that I really beginning to wish I could find these people and drop them off on a Klingon world and leave them to fate?"

"Jim, if we find some of these people still around and you give the order, I call dibs on pushin' the button to send 'em on their way."

"We catch them, the honor is all yours, Bones. You might have to fight Sulu and Chekov for it, though."

I know this chapter was rather dark. Sorry, but Gael has a dark past.