by Lair Kellyn
81219.17
Awhile after Hearing the Unspoken
-=Sickbay, USS Serendipity=-
81219.17
Awhile after Hearing the Unspoken
-=Sickbay, USS Serendipity=-
She forced her eyes open and immediately squinted them shut again, the bright lights overhead burning like the very flames of the Firecaves.
She was suffering from one hell of a headache.
She tried to remember what had gone on, what had been said and done on the planet Lethus IV. From the moment that TC Blane knocked her to the ground everything blurred together. Memories only came to her in vague images, fragments of sentences, and the impression that she’d gotten from the voices of those who had spoken to her that they did not expect her to be waking up again.
As she tried to raise herself into a sitting position, she felt a burning pain in her side and in her chest, and began to wheeze. Panic always made the spasms of her lungs worse, and the more she remembered of what had happened and what was going on around her, the worse the constriction as she fought to pull in air.
“Hold up, hold up. You can’t be chargin’ off like a filly out of the gate at the Run for the Roses. You been beat up pretty good.”
Dalton McKay had a serious soft spot for the woman in his care. She was, after all, responsible for the majority of what, and who, he actually was.
As his programmer she was probably the closest thing that a Photonic could have to a mother figure. It almost seemed silly to think of her that way considering that his appearance was designed to approximate that of a man closing in on sixty. His programming also gave him the wisdom of a much older being, beings in fact, though if you were going by length of actual existence, he’d be coming up on his second birthday sometime in the new year just around the corner. Any way you sliced it, he just felt attached to her like nobody else.
“Ugh.” Kellyn groaned, nodding gratefully as he administered the medications that would help free her airways and also suppress the pain. “Anyone get the number on that garbage scow?”
“I can tell you this much,” McKay’s smile faded. “It had Romulan plates.”
Kellyn’s eyes closed, and she sighed heavily. “Is there any news about my daughter?” She had a good idea that if Salvek was not here and waiting faithfully by her bedside for her to open her eyes, that he could only be one other place; trying to save their child.
McKay put a hand on her shoulder. “He’s a little ahead of us, but we’re closin’ in by last report.” He assured her gently. “Cap’n looked in on ya, when she was here before to see Blakeslee. She’ll be glad to know that you’re wakin’ up.”
“But the Captain is in Ireland.”
“Not anymore, she ain’t.”
Kellyn considered the implications of this. If Zanh was back, then the situation was as grave as it could be.
“I need to speak to her.”
“I’ll pass the message along, but she’s busier than the queen bee durin' honey season. Might take a little while to get her attention.”
As much as Kellyn hated the idea of being put off by Zanh, she knew that the woman was only trying to do what she’d always done...look out for Salvek, and Arie.
“You ought to be getting’ some shut-eye, Lair Kell-“
“Hey,” suddenly, Kellyn seized McKay by the sleeve. “You said the Captain came to see Blakeslee. Which one and what happened?”
McKay frowned. “Zander he’s…hurt pretty bad.”
“I want to see him.” Kellyn threw her legs over the edge of the bed and fought the urge to list to the side as her balance was still impaired.
“Now just a cotton-pickin’”
“I want to see him now. Please.” Kellyn sweetened the demand by adding the last word but McKay was not impressed.
“You’re gonna fall over and conk yourself on that pretty head of yours. Or add a few new wrinkles to your nose.”
“Then you’d better help me.”
McKay sighed and allowed her to take his arm. He walked her slowly over toward the tent where Zander was isolated, in a sterile environment to prevent him from falling prey to infection.
“You better have a sit down.” Dalton pulled up a chair, and helped Kellyn ease into it. “You’ve got two minutes, so make 'em count. I’ll be haulin' you back to bed very shortly, Miss.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
T’Dara was adjusting the settings on Zander’s automated pain medication pump, and it beeped in a way entirely too cheerful, in Kellyn’s estimation, for the purpose that it served.
She made a promise to herself that as soon as this was over and she had five minutes to do it, she would take the pitch of that damned thing down several notches until it sounded as somber as it should. T'Dara and Kellyn exchanged a polite nod to acknowledge the other before the nurse moved away.
“Look at you.” Kellyn chided Zander affectionately. She had come to have quite an appreciation for Blakeslee, not only as an officer but as a family man.
He was an excellent father, and especially after her recent baby-sitting experience with his energetic twin sons, she knew that he must have the patience of a Vedek, and energy of a Warp core and a heart as big as the whole of his home world.
“Ship’s in crisis and all hell’s broken loose and here you are taking a nap.”
Only because Blakeslee was so diligent and dedicated, would anyone ever tease him about such a thing.
“I have a feeling you can hear me, Zander. I’ve spent enough time flat on my back in a biobed to be willing to take that bet.” She sighed. “You’ve got to hang on. I know it’s hard and sometimes the pain gets so bad…” Lair had, in fact, been burned very severely herself in the past year, when the power overload had happened on the Alchemy and she’d ended up getting electrocuted. “You have to go from second to second, if minute to minute seems too difficult. We’re all watching over you.”
“Commander Lair?”
Kellyn turned slowly to see Zander’s lovely wife, Samthia. The woman looked drawn and weary, and Kellyn truly felt for her.
She wished that she could volunteer to take the kids on for a few days, to keep them occupied so that Samthia could focus solely on Zander. Then again, she knew that sometimes parenthood could provide motivation to withstand trials that, if you did not have small, vulnerable lives depending upon you, could cause even the strongest of wills to buckle and concede defeat. "How are you holding up?"
“I have been ordered by the Doctor to get some rest,” Samthia said softly, deftly deflecting the question and looking like she wished she could stay exactly where she was. “Xander has made it known that he doesn’t want the boys to see him until he is better…”
“I can understand that. Do they know that he’s in Sickbay?”
“Yes. They keep asking what they can do to help him. It is hard to look into their faces and say that there is nothing.”
Kellyn’s eyes lit up. She saw Dalton approaching and prepared to be ordered back to bed herself. “Listen, Samthia, I may have an idea on that. Give me a second.”
Kellyn struggled to stand on her own, and she addressed Zander one more time directly. “Hold the line, Commander. I’m stuck here in Sickbay myself for awhile, so I’ll look in on you again in a little bit.”
Zander registered no response, but still, Kellyn was sure that he’d heard her.
“Bedtime, little lady.” McKay insisted. “That goes double for you, Lieutenant. I told you to go home half an hour ago.”
“Give me one minute with Lieutenant Wej-Blakeslee before she goes, all right?” Kellyn requested. McKay retreated.
"One, Mississippi..." McKay counted off softly, indicating in his way that her time would indeed be limited to a minute. "Two, Mississippi..."
“I have an idea.” Kellyn said, leaning over to whisper in Samthia’s ear.
-=An hour later=-
“Zander, you’ve got mail.” Kellyn smiled broadly.
She was half loopy on her own pain medication, and barely keeping herself together as panic washed over her again and again, in and out like an angry tide every time she thought about Salvek and Arie.
There was nothing she could do for them right now, so she would do what she could for whom she could while she was waiting and clinging to hope.
She took the pieces of paper she held and prepared to affix them with tape to the outside of the clear tent enclosing Zander.
She positioned them so that the view of him was not obstructed for the staff but so that he didn’t have to try to move his head to see what they were, either. All he’d have to do would be shift his eyes, left and right, and he would see what had been created for him.
“This one, a lovely rendering of the family, I believe, was done by Johannes.” She couldn’t help but smile softly as she saw the enormous, circular head attached to the tiny stick body of a man in a square box of yellow and black; intended to be a Starfleet uniform.
It was a child’s rendering of his father complete with oversized fingers and arms much too long in proportion to the rest of the body as they reached down and held the outstretched arms of two identical, little stick-figure boys.
Their mother was in the picture as well, standing just beside Zander with a wide, pink bow of a smile drawn in crayon upon the oval that was her face.
“Great job, he did. He likes bright colors apparently.” Kellyn then got ready to secure Thomas’ drawing to the plastic as well. “Now this one, he likes monochromatic colors. Not at all flashy. But what's fascinating is, as different as these two are, they both drew you the same way. Big eyes, big smile, and holding them close.”
Kellyn tilted her head to the side and regarded Thomas' drawing carefully, as one would while admiring a priceless painting in one of the finest galleries in the quadrant.
“He’s got you holding him and his brother, one in each arm, Zander. You’ve got to open your eyes and take a look.” She held the picture up and then looked back and forth between Zander and the picture his son had drawn. “Had no idea your head was so big.”
She finished placing the drawings where she wanted them, and then felt overwhelmed all of a sudden by exhaustion and slumped down into the nearby chair.
“Listen, Zander. I know that you’ve got a long way to go. But I hope that looking at these pictures might help to remind you of what’s really important. Those boys need their father. So don’t you dare think that you’re going to allow yourself to give up, at any point. The circle of your family has to remain unbroken. You’ve just got too much left to do in this life.”
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Commander Lair Kellyn
Engineering Research and Development
The Alchemy Project
Commander Lair Kellyn
Engineering Research and Development
The Alchemy Project