by Rada Dengar and Lair Kellyn
80825.12
Concurrent with Rescue Orders
-=Sickbay, USS Alchemy=-
80825.12
Concurrent with Rescue Orders
-=Sickbay, USS Alchemy=-
Rada was barely able to force his eyes to open. There was a light, a white light burning into them from somewhere above. Eyes open or closed made no difference; that was all he could see. One second it shone so brightly that it blinded him and then just as quickly as it had come, it began to fade.
There were figures above him. They were just blurs of dark clothing and definitionless faces. He didn’t know where he was but it seemed so obvious, this was death. He couldn’t make out their voices but they seemed some how familiar. They sounded like someone did speaking to you when you weren’t quite awake.
He realised that he was lying down and brought his arms to his side to prop himself up. His body felt heavy on the sore arms and he was barely able to support himself. He felt a hand on his chest holding him down, it was not forceful as if to restrain him but merely firm as if to say ‘relax, you don’t have to get up yet.’
He turned his head and began to make out faces. It was a sad site before him; it was Wren and Tam. He was hit by the realisation that if they were here too; he’d failed them, he’d let them be killed.
There was another face above him, it was Kellyn. He was not surprised; she’d died before and it seemed quite natural that a part of her would be here now. He was surprised however to see young Lair Arie and even more so that the style of the room looked like Federation décor. It was familiar, very familiar.
This was the sickbay on the Alchemy.
Rada realised now that he was alive, a bit sore perhaps, but he was alive nonetheless.
He praised the deity which he had begun believing in a few seconds earlier when he believed that he was witnessing the afterlife as he realised that if he was indeed alive then they were as well. He began to laugh as he realised that the white light had been little more than one of those torches that doctors use to test the reactions of your pupils.
The doctor suddenly jerked his head sharply to the side, indicating that he wanted everyone to step backward.
He gestured with an open palm toward the exit, intending for the Vulcan nurse T'Dara to escort the children out beyond the glass divider separating the waiting area, and she did so, without a sound.
Tam and Arie moved along obediently.
As they reached the waiting room, the girl felt that she should try to say something to the boy who stood so grave and still beside her.
"My name is Arie," She offered. She looked at his ears, and couldn't help but ask the question burning in her mind. "Are you Vulcan?"
"I am Vulcan and Betazoid." Tam droned, staring at his mother through the window as she refused to be parted from the man lying injured on the bed.
"I'm Vulcan and Bajoran!" Arie explained excitedly, lifting her hair up above her ears to display their distinctive shape as if she needed to prove this. "I've never met another half Vulcan before, let alone someone so close to my age. How old are you..." She realized now he'd never given his name. "Who are you?"
"Tam." the boy replied softly. "Is he going to be all right?"
"I am sure that our doctors will do all that they can to help him. But he opened his eyes," Arie explained, "That is a good sign, I know that from when my mother was sick."
On the opposite side of the glass, Lair Kellyn bit her lip, and exhaled with relief when she saw Rada's eyes opening up.
She felt an eerie sense of knowing that he had been walking the path she had started upon herself at points in the past; the one leading to that great train trestle in the middle of nowhere.
She was grateful that something had stopped his journey before completion, and returned him to the caring keep of his friends and crew mates.
“He said his name was Rada Dengar, is that true?” Tam asked absently.
“Yes, that is his name.” Arie said innocently, not realising what hearing that meant to Tam.
“Then he really is my Dad.” Tam concluded “Mum tried to tell me but I didn’t believe her,” he cast his eyes down and said in what was barely more than a whisper “I was scared of him.”
Rada was coming back now and Wren could feel it. There had been one brief, terrifying moment when he had seemed to accept it all. To concede that the fight was well and truly over and he’d lost. A wave of melancholy had enveloped him and worst of all he had done nothing to hide it. Then suddenly, he’d laughed. It warmed her so much that it almost stung, like when you first step into a shower on an icy morning and your feet feel like they’re defrosting in the water; it’s the breaking of a frozen surface that you didn’t even know was there.
"But, you said you were Vulcan and Betazoid, and Rada," Arie questioned, but she quickly bit her tongue.
She didn’t understand what Tam had meant about Rada being his father but she didn’t feel this was the appropriate time to press him on it. She knew that the definition of a parent wasn’t always clear cut. If anyone could comprehend how flexible the definition of a parent could be, it was the orphaned girl from another timeline, who found her parents again here.
What was more perplexing to her was how anyone, particularly someone part Betazoid who should have been able to get an immediate sense of the man, could be afraid of Rada. She could tell that for all the relaxed confidence that Rada may try to project at times, he’d still struggle to justify saying boo to a duck, even if he did he’d probably regret it if he scared the duck away. Still, there had been times in her life when she felt irrational fear and so she knew just how powerful a sensation it could be.
She lifted a hand as if to place it reassuringly on Tam’s shoulder but decided against it at the last second and said simply “He is going to be okay.”
Tam smiled sadly and then turned to the glass “In there, the Bajoran woman, she’s your mum?”
“She is my mother, yes.” Arie confirmed, moving her hand back down to her side.
“What’s it like? I mean, having a parent in Starfleet?” Tam asked, he’d always just assumed he knew the answer to that question; having a parent in Starfleet meant that you never had a chance to see them but that you can’t complain because they’re just doing their duty. Yet here was Arie and there was her mother in a Starfleet uniform, perhaps things were different for her.
On the other side of the glass partition, the doctor looked at Kellyn, his eyes asking her assistance. She knew what he wanted, for her to reach out to the woman beside her, thereby temporarily removing her from Rada's bedside. This would allow him the chance to truly do his job and care for the engineer's injuries.
Kellyn slowly lowered her own gaze and blinked once in an exaggerated fashion to show that she understood, but held her hand up begging a moment longer for the couple.
She had been on both sides of this equation in her own life in the past; the one injured and the one standing by helplessly only able to watch events she had no control over unfold with maddening slowness. She knew that the willowy Betazoid whose eyes showed such pain at seeing Rada suffer needed to be alone with him a moment first before being shuttled out of the way, doomed to that most wrenching, soul-crushing Purgatory known as the Critical Care waiting room.
"It's different for me than for most Starfleet kids," Arie explained, confirming Tam's suspicions that she, and her experience of being with her mother as she was, was something unique. "I get to be with both of my parents, and the ship is our home. My mother is a research engineer. She used to do what Rada does, but she had other work she needed to do. My father is the First Officer, and I see less of him than I do my mother. Duty often takes him away for days at a time," Tam could sense Arie's sadness at this, but he felt something else too. A sense of gratitude he couldn't, with a child's command of his telepathic skills, classify.
He didn't know that Arie was remembering their recent days as a family on Betazed, and reliving memories of a time that would not come again, at least not for a long while. "But the work they do is important. They help people."
"Do you..." Tam had another question now. "Do you know him much?"
"Rada?" Arie's lip curled at the edge into a smile. "Oh, yes. He's one of my favorite people on the whole ship."
"This isn't a very big ship," Tam blurted, innocently speaking his worry aloud.
"Not this one, silly. Our regular ship. This is just the little one. The big one has a couple hundred people on it and Rada is still one of my favorites."
Arie did now take the liberty of reaching out and stiffly patting Tam on the back of his shoulder. "I have a wonderful father, but I will tell you something, Tam..." She nodded toward Rada, just as he disappeared behind a curtain drawn back by T'Dara, leaving Kellyn and Wren on the other side from the patient.
"Your mother is sad," Tam announced, interrupting before Arie could finish. He watched closely as Kellyn put her arm around Wren's shoulder and then wiped tears she could not prevent away from her face with her other hand. "She is upset to see my father in pain."
"They're good friends, my mother and your...Rada." Arie whispered reverently. "They work together often, and they care what happens to each other." Arie watched as Wren buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with a sudden storm of sobs now that they were in a safe location, and Rada was getting the care he needed.
Kellyn comforted her as best she could, leading her out toward the children in the waiting area in slow, cautious steps; knowing she was now supporting more of the Betazoid's weight than the woman realized.
As the children watched their mothers' approaching, they each instinctively put their small hands up flat against the glass, pressing little noses to it in a vain attempt to touch them while still obeying the mandate that they stay behind it.
"I will tell you one thing," Arie volunteered, continuing her earlier thought as her mother came around the corner at last. "I think that any child would be lucky to have Rada Dengar as their father."
Hearing this, the look on Lair Kellyn's face changed, instantly and completely.
She looked at Wren again, her eyes asking the unspoken question that Wren could read all too clearly telepathically.
*How is that possible?*
Commander Lair Kellyn
Engineering Research and Development
USS Serendipity/Alchemy
and
LT. SG Rada Dengar
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Alchemy NX 53099
Engineering Research and Development
USS Serendipity/Alchemy
and
LT. SG Rada Dengar
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Alchemy NX 53099