686: Complications

by Fleur Le Marc
81203.20
A day after Strength to Speak

-=Orphanage at the Monastery at Altaan, Bajor=-

Fleur did not even recall having fallen asleep when she bolted upright to the sound of Tress' cries.

They'd had little luck getting the baby to settle down in a crib. She clung to Fleur, or Camen, and would accept no one, and nothing else in their place.

The medication to make her sleep had worn off by this time, and the sweet and kind doctor called Adams had told Fleur regretfully that it was too dangerous to give her more so soon.

The fever seemed to be relenting a little, and this gave Fleur hope that perhaps Tress was finally over the worst of it. The little girl had finally ceased her constant trembling, and she had stopped signing the word ‘cold’ again and again.

Fleur had only meant to close her eyes for a moment, but glancing up at the remnants of waning sunlight as it crept in through the windows, she knew she'd been asleep for hours.

She began to whisper comforting words in the baby's ear, but they did not seem to do any good. Even when Fleur tried speaking in French and calling Tress chou chou, her mood did not improve as it usually did with a little gentle coaxing.

"Tress, look, eh? Look at me, show me where you hurt." She knew from talking with Camen about his experience that the high fever tended to accompany an unrelenting headache, and Fleur was wounded to the heart at the thought of the sweet little baby suffering pain she could not articulate.

"Maman," Tress repeated, again and again. "Maman Fleur, no no." She shook her head fiercely from side to side, unresponsive no matter what Fleur tried to do to get her attention.

"What's happening?" Azalea Adams rushed in from the next room and hurried to bathe her hands in sanitizing lotion before approaching.

"I do not know, Doctor. She simply woke from her sleep, and started to scream."

"Tressie," Azalea's kind eyes and beautiful face focused on the toddler. "What is it, baby? I wish you could tell me."

"No no. Maman. Maman." The baby pushed herself up closer against Fleur, afraid, at this point, of Adams or any other stranger.

"It is all right, Tress, she will not hurt you I promise," Fleur reassured her.

It was upon watching the child react, or rather her lack of a reaction, that Adam's heart fell to her feet. "Fleur, speak to her again. Call her directly, by name."

Fleur blinked in confusion.

"Just say her name. Loudly." Adams instructed.

"Tress!"

The child continued staring down at Fleur's shoulder, twirling a strand of her hair around pudgy fingers.

"Louder." Adams asked again, catching her lower lip between her teeth for a long moment before releasing it and shifting her weight uneasily. "Yell it."

"TRESS!"

Still, the child kept humming to herself as though in her own solitary world, and Fleur's eyes filled with tears as she began to grasp what was happening.

"Non, non, my chou chou," she whispered, and finally she closed her eyes and reverted to a prayer from her childhood that she had not spoken in years. "Our Father, Who art in Heaven..."
Adams had to force the tears back from her eyes at the sound of the woman's earnest pleas to a higher power to stop an event that had already taken place.

"Wait." Adams saw a stack of books piled up on a shelf in the room where they were, and she ran over to it, picking up several and bringing them back with her. She stood before Le Marc, just over the baby's shoulder. She and Fleur held a tense gaze as Adams threw the books to the ground where they landed with a loud, definite thud.

Tress did not look up.

Finally, Fleur grabbed Tress by the hands and kissed her tiny fingers to get her attention. Tress turned her tear-stained face up toward the woman she had come to view as her mother, eyes questioning.

"Tress," Fleur tried again, and the little girl tilted her head to the side like a curious puppy. Then Fleur slowly raised her hands, and began to sign. [[Love Tress]]

Tress smiled softly. She looked at Fleur with great confusion, and shook her head from side to side. "Mama." she said again, "No no." She began tugging on her ears, one at a time, and she made a sign that she had seen Camen make only once, back in the Plains when she had tried to run away from him. [[Bad.]] Tress signed.

Fleur reached out, tears streaming down her face, and touched Tress' ear gently. [[Ouch?]]

Tress shook her head again. [[No. Bad girl.]] Tress signed, her perfect rose-petal lips turning downward as she began tugging on her ears again. Fleur burst into an uncontrolled sob and began kissing the baby, rocking her in her arms.

"No, no, Tress. You're not a bad girl." Fleur ceased kissing her only when Tress applied her dimpled hands directly to Fleur's cheeks, frowning when she felt the moisture on her skin.

[[No, Mama. No sad.]] Tress shook her head. [[Good mama.]]

"I want to take her back to the Alchemy." Adams announced, unable to stand the sight of this a moment longer. "I have to scan her, see if there's anything that can be done to restore her hearing."

"I am going with you then." Fleur began to look around for Camen, wondering at the fact that he had not instantly come running the moment that Tress started crying, as he would usually have done. "Where is the Vedek? I must tell him that we are leaving."

"Fleur, while you were asleep," Azalea hesitated to put any more stress on the woman than she was already under, but felt there was no alternative.

"Camen? He is hurt?"

"No, no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean." Adams had nearly lost, at this point, the ability to form coherent sentences. "Vedek Timal, he had a seizure and lapsed into a coma. We already moved him to the Alchemy. He's on advanced life support, and we are trying everything we can to keep him..." She didn't have to say any more. "Jariel is with him."

"Why did no one wake me?" Fleur grew angry, even as she stood up and hefted pudgy baby Tress onto her hip. Fleur was so tiny that the baby's legs dangled halfway down her petite frame.

"Jariel instructed us not to."

*Of course he did,* Fleur thought. *He always puts everyone else's needs first, and he thought I needed sleep more than he needed me to hold his hand.*

"Is Timal going to die?" Fleur asked outright. "He is the closest thing in this life Camen has to a father. I need to know."

"I wish I had an answer to that, Fleur, but I can only tell you right now that things are very bad."

"We must go." Fleur headed for the door but Adams caught her by the shoulder.

"I'm going to call for transport, I don't want to waste time on the walk." Adams tapped her badge. "Adams to Alchemy."

[Samson here.]

"Three to beam directly from my location to Sickbay."

[Acknowledged. Stand by.]

Moments later, they were aboard the ship and Tress blinked, wide eyed with amazement. She gasped softly. "Lookit!"

"Oui, chou chou. Lookit." Fleur whispered, hoping that the child would turn upon hearing her voice, but it did not happen. She merely continued looking all around her, eyes darting from one brightly lit panel and shiny surface to the next.

Sickbay on the Alchemy was tiny, and though Timal's bed was curtained off, Camen immediately recognized familiar voices. The sound of them brought him out of his deeply troubled thoughts, returning him to the moment.

"Fleur," his voice shook as he appeared before her and spoke her name, wondering how he was going to tell her how serious the situation with Timal really was.

The way that he said the word was heartrending, a plea to her for strength, because he felt his own slipping away more by the moment. She set Tress down on the closest biobed and she signed to her.

[[Good girl. Sit now.]] Tress threatened to fuss, but Fleur's pleading expression gave her pause. [[Please, good girl. Sit.]]

Tress began swinging her feet over the edge of the bed, and humming to herself, still confused as to why she could not hear her own voice.

Adams approached the baby slowly, finding that as long as she could see Fleur and Camen in her line of vision, that she seemed content to stay where she was. She handed Tress a small toy, one of many she'd replicated on the trip to give to the children of Altaan. Tress cooed with delight, and made friends with the little stuffed animal.

Adams began to scan Tress with a tricorder, and nodded to Fleur that she could see to other immediate concerns.

Fleur took a step toward Jariel, arms open, and without hesitation rushed into them. She was supporting more of his weight than he knew as he held her, and she brushed tears from his cheeks, her fingertips soft against the bristle of days of unshaven stubble upon his face.

Neither of them could speak. All she could do was hold him, and hope that somehow, her presence would be comfort enough to try to help him through what lay ahead.

She grew angry suddenly, wondering if she was a poor substitute for the woman he really wished were there, and holding him instead.

Angry, not because she was jealous, though in times past that would have been the primary emotion associated with any such a thought.

She was angry now because she felt she could not give him what he needed, and he deserved to have it. If what he needed was Zanh Liis, she should have been here.

*Where the hell is she,* Fleur raged internally, *Again when he needs her, she is nowhere to be found.*

Finally, the sound of Camen's voice in her ear drew her attention.

"He may not," he began, unable to continue.

"Shhh, it is all right," she reassured him. "Everything is going to be all right."

"I knew," he gasped, trying to regain control of his breathing, "that you would tell me that. Just keep..." he drew back and looked into her eyes with such pure adoration that it left Fleur awestruck. "Just keep telling me that."

She leaned forward and pressed her lips against his cheek, and then he buried his face in her hair as she continued to hold him close.

Fleur glanced over his shoulder at Adams, who had Tress' completely fascinated by the beam of a tiny flashlight. She shone the light in the baby's eyes. She stuck out her tongue in order to try to get the baby to parrot the behavior and sure enough, Tress giggled slightly and stuck her tongue out, allowing Adams a peek inside her throat.

"No no." Tress kept saying, and she stuck her tiny index finger into her ear. "No."

Camen looked up, suddenly realizing that the doctor was very interested in Tress' condition…and that they must have come back to the ship for another reason besides Timal.

"What's going on?" He asked, terror in his eyes.

"We're not entirely sure," Adams skirted.

"Doctor, do not attempt to protect me." Camen insisted. "The truth."

Adams looked at Fleur, and Fleur drew Camen off by the hand, gently over toward the nearest chair.

"Sit down, Camen."

"Fleur,"

She caught him off guard and pushed him down into the chair. She dropped to her knee before him, took both of his hands in hers, and looked up at him with fresh tears in her eyes. She couldn't say the words.

[[Perhaps,]] She signed slowly, [[The Prophets had a plan in bringing you to Tress. In...you teaching her to sign.]]

"No!" Camen's plea was devastating, his shoulders slumped as his head dropped into his hands. "No, it wasn't anyone's plan."

Tress, who had been watching Camen out of the corner of her eye, frowned deeply. She began to sign, and Adams asked Fleur to translate.

“She says,” Fleur whispered, “No sad.”

“She keeps making this sign repeatedly,” Adams said, mimicking Tress' gesture. “What does that mean?”

“It means…father.”

Camen lifted his head, and looked up at Tress. Their eyes met, and Tress repeated the sign, and then began trying to scramble down from the biobed.

“Whoa, Nellie, hold on a second.” Adams lowered Tress to the floor and the moment she let the child go, she hurried to cross the room to get to Jariel.

The toddler looked up into his deep, warm brown eyes with great concern. [[No sad.]] She signed again. Then she spoke another single word, though she could not hear herself saying it. “Papa.”

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Fleur Le Marc
On Bajor

NRPG: To our readers who don't know, [[these symbols of double brackets]] indicate words signed in USL :Universal Sign Language~ZL