Huge thanks to my amazing alpha/beta Insanity-Red for all the help.
"Hermione?"
Harry stood outside the privacy divider that separated him and his best friend. After stabilizing Shev, who'd gotten injured the worst during their disastrous escape attempt from the sinkhole, she'd gone in to address her own injuries.
That had been roughly thirty minutes ago, and Harry, having dealt with the tasks that required immediate attention—and quite frankly, distrustful of the current state of quiet—had decided to see if Hermione needed any help.
"Hermione!" he tried again, picking up on the slight buzzing of the Muffliato cast just behind the curtain.
"If you don't reply in three seconds," he said, his worry rising with every moment of silence from her, "I swear, I'm just going to come in. And I don't care if you're—"
"I'm not . . . entirely decent, Harry," came her weak response.
"Yes, I already gathered that much."
He knew Hermione had gotten a pretty nasty plasma burn, with parts of her suit melted right into her back (Starfleet standard issue flight suits were fire and heat-resistant, but not fireproof). Evidently, she'd had to remove it.
"Do you need any help?" he asked carefully, knowing that the location of the burn would have made it difficult for her to properly treat herself.
A long moment of silence followed, after which Hermione replied, panting slightly, "Yes, please. If you don't mind."
Harry rolled his eyes to himself at the thought of him minding such a thing and swiped the curtain out of his way.
All the hours he'd spent studying first aid during his Auror training and at the Academy couldn't have completely prepared him for what he saw behind it. Hermione sat on the bed, facing away from him as she held a sheet to cover her otherwise topless front. Her back was streaked with angry red blisters, which she'd clearly been attempting to heal—but their position on her body, combined with how they must have hindered her mobility and focus, had prevented her usual success.
Harry's stomach churned. Not that he couldn't handle the sight, he simply hated to see his best friend hurt. Besides, there was a reason why he hadn't become a healer—he didn't exactly want to see and handle things like this every day, several times a day. Being a healer required a type of strength that Harry wasn't certain he possessed.
He wordlessly retrieved his wand and got to work. As if she'd been slapped, Hermione's spine went taut and her back muscles contracted harshly.
"I'm sorry," he said, pausing mid-spell. "I'm not as practised in these as you are."
She took a moment to collect herself before replying.
"You're doing just fine," she said encouragingly. "Keep going."
But every incantation seemed to only cause her more pain, pain, pain.
"Am I doing something wrong?" asked Harry, his temper flaring inwards. Hurting her was not his idea of helping.
"You're not," she replied, swiping at a stray tear. "It's just that . . . There's a reason why many of the healing spells are meant to be performed after taking a potion for pain."
"Any you haven't taken any?"
"No. The one we've got makes me slow and drowsy, and I can't afford that at the moment."
"A hypospray?"
"Only in small doses—which I've already administered. Otherwise, it's much the same. Don't worry, Harry. I can handle this."
Harry had no doubt that she could. After all, she'd withstood the torture at Bellatrix's hand.
The mental comparison made him cringe—really, any link between him and Bellatrix would have done the same—and he fervently wished that they had a different way to manage pain.
But with one look at the stubborn, pain-white face of his friend, he pushed away his own frustration and regret in favour of getting her healed. Harry continued with the spell, pausing several times so the pain wouldn't cross the threshold of her tolerance. But three agonizing minutes later, he set his wand down entirely, though his work remained unfinished.
"I'm not . . . This is harder than I thought," he said, barely able to look at her. He simply couldn't cause her more pain like this. "Maybe I should use the dermal regenerator instead?"
"Spells are faster," she replied, catching her breath. "But maybe . . . we could do it in shifts?"
Harry nodded and picked up the dermal regenerator. Then, realizing that she couldn't actually see him nod, gave a verbal confirmation and switched on the device.
"I don't understand why he did it," she said, already noticeably less in pain.
Harry, usually in tune with Hermione, was too focused on keeping his hands steady to immediately catch her train of thought.
"Sorry? Why who did what?"
"Shev," she clarified. "Why did he jump in front of that plasma conduit to protect me?"
Harry had wondered about that too, briefly. In all the chaos and confusion that accompanied their escape, he wasn't even sure how Shev had made it to Hermione's side so fast from his position at the helm.
"Maybe because he likes you?" he suggested.
"I don't think so."
"You don't think he likes you, or you don't think he did what he did because he likes you?"
"We barely know each other!" she said. "And he could have died. He must have known that. And he's much too selfish to simply sacrifice himself like that. No, there has got to be some other reason."
"Well, why don't you ask him when he wakes up?"
Not that Harry wasn't grateful—nor would he ever forget what Shev had done for Hermione. But he had too many other things on his mind to spend much effort contemplating the Andorian's seemingly suicidal actions. The only thought that crossed his mind, for now, was a brief marvel over how Shev, though undoubtedly still a sod, was not quite 100% a wanker.
"Oh, I intend to," Hermione said.
She shifted slightly, barely even moving, before she caught herself with a wince.
"How's the ship?" she asked.
"Not good," he replied with a sigh. "Life support and emergency power are holding—barely—but other than that, everything is down. I can fix it, of course, but it'll take some time."
"We'll probably miss Christmas. And Will's concert."
She paused, then added, "And Beaufort's press conference. That one I'm alright with missing, by the way. I wasn't all that looking forward to it, anyway."
Harry was surprised that she remembered about it at all, given the circumstances. She was obviously attempting for levity, and Harry decided to play along.
"Well, now that you've reminded me," he said, "I'll just have to double my efforts to get you back in time."
She began chuckling, but it quickly turned into a pained moan.
"I'm pretty sure I have a couple of cracked ribs."
"I can take care of that," said Harry, picking up his wand once more.
Without causing too much pain, he added mentally.
Fifteen minutes passed, and Hermione's back looked much better. Harry began applying a salve that would speed up the healing and prevent scarring. Hermione, her eyes closed, swayed slightly.
"Maybe you should get some rest," he said. "Out of the two of us, you've been awake the longest. You won't be much use to your patients if you're barely standing."
"Thank you for your concern, Harry, but I can't sleep right now," she countered. "Shev's still in need of medical attention, and there's just too much work to be done. We're not in the void, nor in that energy field anymore, but I don't think we're in a normal space, either. We need to figure out where we'd been sucked into."
"We will. Soon enough."
As he said the words out loud, the terrible sense of foreboding that had been tucked away at the back of his mind resurfaced. And what he saw through the viewport—a passing current of white particles—wasn't helping either.
He took a deep breath. "I just hope we won't be too disappointed when we do."
Hermione, dressed in a fresh flight suit, emerged from behind the curtain just as Harry came back from the forward section of the vessel with some nourishment.
"Here," he said, handing her a bottle of water and a protein bar.
"Thank you, Harry. And you're remembering to keep up your own strength?"
"Yeah, I'll eat while I work."
He studied her face for a moment and nodded to himself. Though he didn't seem entirely satisfied, it looked as though he at least trusted her to not keel over dead the moment he left the room.
"Well, I'll be over there," he said, jabbing his thumb in the general direction of the cockpit and engineering compartment. "I doubt you'll need me, but yell if you do."
With that, he left.
Hermione stared tiredly for a moment at the spot where Harry had been a few seconds ago. A voice behind her made her jump, and she winced in pain from the sudden movement.
"I gotta admit," said Shev in a strained voice, "I'm jealous of you two."
She whirled around to look at him. "Jealous?"
He was on the bed, face down. His body was covered in blue blisters, skin charred black in certain places from plasma burns. Nearly all of his platinum hair had been singed. Beads of sweat were rapidly forming on his forehead, and his damaged antennae were beginning to fold in on themselves—a blatant indication of pain and/or extreme discomfort.
This should have been me, she thought.
But instead of dwelling on what should and could have been, she decided to focus on something more useful—her patient.
"Why?" she asked as she busied herself with preparing a hypospray.
The last one she'd given him should have lasted longer; he shouldn't even be awake just yet, but she'd apparently underestimated the Andorian metabolic rate. She obviously needed to increase the dosage so he wouldn't completely burn through his meds while she waited for the chemical synthesizer to finish making a more potent analgesic.
A potion for pain would have been her go-to in this case, since it would have a longer-lasting effect, but that option had been quickly ruled out. In this universe, she was able to brew only one variety of pain potions, and Shev, unfortunately, was allergic to one of its ingredients. It was a good thing she'd taken the time to familiarize herself with the medical histories of her fellow examinees.
"Let's see," said Shev, his voice strained. "Where should I begin?"
That's right, she thought to herself. Keep him talking. Make him focus on something other than pain.
"You're obviously very close, and it's clear you'd do anything—probably even die—for each other. Anyone paying close enough attention would see that."
He took a shuddering breath and stifled a moan.
"You love each other, even if you aren't in love. I mean, I heard him refer to you as his sister, and you called him your brother. But he's not actually your brother, is he?"
"He is," she replied. "In all the ways that matter, he is."
Hermione walked over to him and pressed the hypospray with an analgesic to his neck, releasing its contents. He sighed as the pain began subsiding.
"But you don't look alike," he insisted, "and you have different family names. Don't you humans have the same family name if you're siblings?"
"Not always. There are plenty of reasons why siblings might not look alike or have the same last name."
"Still, I firmly believe you two aren't related by blood. My guess is you're just very good friends."
There was a long pause, and Hermione busied herself with performing a diagnostic spell.
"That's the kind of relationship I really want in my life," he said quietly. "But I don't have anything like it. That's why I'm jealous."
"I had no idea you've been paying so much attention to us."
It was somewhat unsettling, really. If Shev, who she barely saw at the Academy, knew this much about them by simply observing them, then what else did he know? What might other people know? At least he hadn't seemed to know about their magic—he'd been much too surprised earlier—so she and Harry must have been doing a pretty good job of hiding it.
Shev's lips stretched into a grin. "Mostly you. A girl who manages to break my nose the first time we meet does leave an impression."
Hermione bit on her bottom lip. That incident seemed so long ago, as if in another life. Time was a strange thing, indeed.
"I wasn't trying to impress you," she said.
No, she'd been trying to get rid of him, trying to prevent a bar fight that would have surely ensued had she not punched him first. She'd been too agitated by his inability to accept 'no' as an answer; he'd been obviously, and frustratingly, unused to refusal.
Later, when Hermione and Harry had begun attending the Academy, she'd found out why. Shev had a bit of a reputation. Many admired his physical attributes and found him aesthetically pleasing. He never seemed to have a problem finding a date. It was possible that Hermione was one of the few to ever refuse him, which made her a target of his frequent come-ons.
"That makes it even better." Shev's grin grew wider. "Did you know that Andorian females are far more aggressive than Earth females? So if you—"
Realizing with a start where he was going with this, she cut him off: "I am not an Andorian female. So believe me when I say that was not me coming on to you."
He pursed his lips. "Pity. I'll never say no if you do."
Maybe when hell freezes over, thought Hermione as she placed her wand back into her bracelet and picked up the dermal regenerator. The particular healing spell she needed to perform to treat his burns didn't seem to do much for Andorian physiology.
"Who was the dude with red hair?" asked Shev after several moments of silence. "The one who called you 'sweetheart'? You and Potter both looked like you saw a ghost. You know, when Nagilum—"
"Father Christmas, dressed in none-of-your-business," she interrupted sharply.
And, before he could ask any more questions, she asked one of her own, "So, why did you do it?"
He blinked at the sudden shift in conversation. "What?"
"Why did you protect me from that explosion? Don't get me wrong. I'm very grateful. But I'm also very confused. You and I aren't exactly best friends."
He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes.
"Where I grew up," he said, "people keep a score. And I owed you. But now I think we've come close to being even."
"What are you talking about?" The hand holding the dermal regenerator paused in its motions. "You didn't owe me anything."
"Yes, I did," he insisted, opening his eyes to look at her. "You saved my sister's life."
"Your sister's . . ." she echoed and trailed off, realization dawning on her.
Two and a half years ago, when she and Harry had been on New Vulcan, there had also been a number of different groups on humanitarian missions to help the Vulcans rebuild. One member of the Andorian group had been attacked by a large scorpion-like creature native to the planet. The Andorians appeared to be particularly susceptible to the venom, and the victim would have died, had Hermione not thought of using one of her potions on her.
"Tahla," she said, her tone more a statement than a question. "Tahla is your sister."
Shev offered a small nod, the motion making him grimace in pain.
"That makes you," continued Hermione, "Ambassador Vella's son."
He nodded again, then scoffed. "Mother might have even shared with you how unhappy she is with my decision to join Starfleet. She seems eager to tell almost anyone she comes across."
"Not really. She just said she had a son at the Academy. That's all."
This was true. But Hermione hadn't missed the hints that there was something strained in the relationship between the ambassador and her son. With dozens of Andorians attending the Academy, Hermione couldn't have really known that Shev was the son in question. Besides, she had been—and still was—too busy to speculate and pay attention to someone else's drama. But now that she studied Shev a little closer, she could see some similarities he had with the Ambassador—in the shape of the eyes, the form of the nose, the curve of the mouth.
What were the chances? Small world, indeed.
"She wanted me to follow in my father's steps," said Shev. "As did my father. He's a general in the Imperial Guard."
"And you?" asked Hermione, walking over to the small desk where the chemical synthesizer had been set up. "What did you want?"
The improved analgesic would be ready in 5 minutes and 39 seconds. The temperature was still optimal.
Shev scoffed again. "You might be the only person who ever asked me that question."
He sighed. "I don't know, to be frank. At first, I chose Starfleet because I knew it would annoy my father the most," he confessed. "And now . . . I've grown to genuinely like it here. I've made some friends, and I feel like I can actually do something good with my life."
He paused for a beat. "It helps that I'm recognized as my own person, and not just the ambassador's son or the general's son."
Hermione let out a hum of agreement as she switched on the dermal regenerator again. "You've made it to the top twenty-five to participate in the treasure hunt. That's not an easy task."
"And was really hoping to win it, too." He sighed. "And now . . ."
"We'll have to settle for the consolation prize?" she supplied. "Not dying, that is."
There was a breath's silence.
"Winning or not," Shev began, "I still think you can get an assignment to any ship you choose after graduation. I mean, you're practically blazing through the Academy, going through the course load in record time. And you're really good at what you do. Starfleet is lucky to have you."
In the forward section of the vessel, one of the terminals began beeping incessantly. Harry swore, letting it know exactly what he thought of that. Evidently, he'd spent a lot of time around Scotty.
"You and your brother both," he added. "Obviously.
"And thank you," he added after a pause, "for my sister. Despite my relationship with my parents, Tahla and I have always looked out for each other."
"You are welcome. And thank you—for earlier."
Shev nodded, then took a slow, measured breath. It seemed to pain him to do so. Hermione thought that this was when he'd mention their magic and begin asking countless questions.
"Your abilities," Shev began, confirming her suspicions, "the ones you call magic—I assume the knowledge of them is classified?"
"It's on the need-to-know basis, yes."
The chemical synthesizer signalled that Shev's medication was ready, and Hermione began preparing a hypospray.
"And how many people know about it?" he asked carefully.
"Not many. And Harry and I would like to keep it that way."
"Understood," said Shev with a nod. "It's probably better that way. Safer—for you guys.
"Besides," he continued, "I probably still owe you for patching me up and all, so you can be sure I'll keep my mouth shut."
"Where I grew up," she said measuredly, "we don't keep a score. We help people because it's the right thing to do."
He made a face—one that said he thought her words were painfully goody-two-shoes. "As I said, my lips are sealed. Cross my heart and hope to die."
Hermione let out a small chuckle. "You know, for someone who's not native to Earth, you've certainly picked up our colloquialisms."
Hermione had wondered about it when she'd first met him, and then more during her years at the Academy: the manner of his speech and usage of idioms was oddly smooth for an outworlder.
"Growing up, I spent a lot of time on Earth," Shev replied. "Because of the Ambassador Mother, you know. Plus, I had a human nanny. She taught me a lot. I can tell you about it, if you like."
"Maybe another time."
"But—"
"No buts. It's time to rest. Doctor-in-training's orders."
He sighed. "You'll never let me live that down, will you?"
She pressed the hypo to his neck. "Never."
Hermione was restless.
Some lives worked better with routines, and hers was one of them. Nearly every morning (if she wasn't sleeping off a late night shift at the hospital), she rose at 5 AM, pulled on her trainers, grabbed her music player, and headed out, bleary-eyed, for an hour-long run along the shore. At some point, threading her way through the grimly determined commuters, swerving around reversing hover-cars, she would become fully awake, her brain slowly wrapping itself around the musical rhythms in her ears, the soft thud-thud-thud of her feet hitting the pavement.
It was Nyota who had recommended running, back in the early days of her life in this universe, when loss could strike her unexpectedly, sending her thoughts into a toxic black fug. So Hermione had taken her friend's advice and had begun using the world outside, the sound in her ear-phones, the rhythmic motion of her arms and legs—as a kind of deflector, a sort of white noise to drown out the horrible loudness of her emotions.
I do not have to think. I do not have to think. I do not have to think.
Eventually, it had become a habit, an insurance policy, a means to clear her mind before and after a stressful day.
But not today. Nor the day before. Nor the day before that.
They were stuck—and it was hard to tell exactly how long they'd been so—inside an anomaly. Even after all the repairs had been completed, their chronometers didn't function properly. Sometimes they showed the time speeding up, sometimes slowing down, sometimes seemingly standing still, and sometimes even going backwards. The same was true for all their watches and other timepieces, and even the tempus charm.
So, in all likelihood, the chronometers were working correctly, but they were inside a temporal anomaly of sorts.
Or perhaps a temporal vortex might be more appropriate, given the swift current of white particles that could be seen with the naked eye through a viewport.
A vortex their ship was caught up in with no means of pulling away. Yet.
Thankfully, they weren't dead in the water anymore, although power levels were fluctuating in a slow but definite downward trend.
Propulsion was functioning just fine, but still, every attempt to escape so far—including magical means—had resulted in nothing.
Communications systems were fully operational as well, and Krell—now almost fully recovered from her encounter with the vacuum of space—had been transmitting a distress call on a loop. However, she had been unable to receive any transmissions, nor pick up any other kinds of signals whatsoever. Hermione and Harry had even tried sending Patronus messages to James and Chris, respectively; but there was simply no way of knowing whether their friends had even gotten them.
In the end, it was clear that they would need to find their own way out. The messages were more for peace of mind than out of any real expectation that a rescue would be forthcoming; a way of telling the universe—and hopefully, more specifically, their friends—that they were still alive and looking for a way home.
Even if a way out seemed impossibly far at the moment.
Although there was no telling precisely how long they'd been stuck in the anomaly, Hermione was sure that by now they'd missed a lot more than just Christmas, Will's concert, and Beaufort's press conference. Both of her patients were fully healed, and within the normal passage of time, their injuries would have required approximately two to three weeks.
The ship's power levels were declining, but thanks to some spells and runes, not as fast as they would have otherwise. They didn't need to worry about food, thanks to the on-board protein resequencer that produced nutritious, if not entirely palatable, food. Water wasn't an issue either, thanks to the Aguamenti. But still, they couldn't stay here indefinitely. They needed to find a way out.
Hermione was sure they were missing something important, but what?
There had to be a way out. There had to.
"Granger, will you stop pacing?"
Shev threw her an annoyed look, briefly looking up from his umpteenth read-through of the database's resources on temporal anomalies.
"It helps me think," she replied, continuing to pace around the cockpit.
"Well, can you—I don't know—take a break?"
"From thinking?" Harry interjected, looking up from one of the magical books he was flicking through. "Fat chance."
Shev rolled his eyes. "From pacing. Seriously."
She sighed and took a seat at her station, turning to the instrumentation.
"Whatever this current is," said Shev, pointing a finger at the viewscreen, "it looks like it's slowing down."
She analyzed the readings. "You might be right."
"And we've still got no idea where it's taking us," Harry added. "I mean, it's obviously taking us to the centre of the vortex. But what is there?"
It was a rhetorical question, so no one bothered answering.
Harry closed the book, tossing it onto the pile he'd been steadily working through. "And here's yet another pearl of wisdom that's absolutely no help in escaping a temporal anomaly."
"Guys!" said Krell, turning to the rest of them, her yellow eyes wide. "I'm picking up a distress call!"
"Great, they can join the club," said Shev dismissively.
"Honestly, Shev," said Hermione. "You'd think that after all the time we've spent in radio silence, you'd be a bit more enthusiastic."
"Who's it from?" asked Harry.
"Just give me a moment," said Krell. "If I'm right, the message was sent almost two hours ago on a very slow carrier wave. I'm going to speed it up."
Moments later, she played the message through the speaker: "Mayday. Mayday. This is Captain Bashir of the Hercules. To anyone who can hear this transmission, we are in need of immediate assistance. Respond, over."
Hermione sought out Harry's eyes. This message wasn't the choppy and static-filled version they knew, the one James had spent hours trying to clear up. No, this version was very clear, as if the ship in question was very, very close.
"Hercules?" said Krell. "The ship that disappeared without a trace a hundred years ago?"
"Okay, I know this look between the two of you," said Shev, his gaze flicking between Hermione and Harry. "What's up? Spill the beans."
"Oh my God," said Hermione, as her eyes caught something on the sensors. "I'm picking something up. It just popped in on our sensors."
"What is it?" asked Harry.
"A ship. Twelve degrees by point seven."
"Is it the Hercules?" asked Krell.
"I'm not picking up a transponder signal, and we're not yet in visual range, so I can neither confirm nor deny. But I have a feeling that it is."
Once in visual range, Hermione magnified the readings on the hull and put them up on the viewscreen.
"Holy sh—" began Harry.
"Ship?" finished Hermione. "It certainly is."
In disbelief, they stared at the hull registration.
NX-09 Hercules.