Presents

Posted on Sat Jan 4th, 2020 @ 12:55pm by Lieutenant Commander Carolyn Corrigan MD & Lieutenant JG Ilan Rol

2,727 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 102 - The Rising Tide of War
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD1 , 0900 hours

ON:

"... finally, we have a new intake of medical students. They will start arriving this week but it will be staggered starts over the next three weeks depending upon their rotation so please be nice," Doctor Corrigan announced to the assembled medical staff. The lounge was packed, yet it had been a while since they had all been able to gather together. With one exception.

The first five minutes of the meeting, after she had to climb up on a table and whistle to get everyone to quieten down, was fielding questions on how their department head was doing. For now, though, every eye in the room fell on Mendez who had chosen that moment to take a bite out of a chocolate brownie.

"What?! Kids have gotta learn, right?" he protested innocently.

Carolyn rolled her eyes. "Quite. So, anyway, we need someone to take the first day orientation."

If people could have crawled through the floor to the next deck to escape this, she knew they would have. Everyone looked everywhere but at her. She sighed, "okay... so the doctor with the most amount of complaints from the nurses it is..."

She touched the screen on her padd, surprised. "Mendez, you aren't number 1 this month. Congratulations. Kai, I don't know what you did to the lovely staff in the ICU but I suggest chocolate, alcohol and a grovelling apology. In the meantime, you get orientation duty. Congratulations."

Doctor Ryan groaned, waving away the applause from his colleagues.

"Okay, go do some proper work," she ordered, waiting for them to start filing out before she climbed down from the table, accepting the hand that Dr Harris held out towards her. "Thanks."

He smiled, "No problem." He avoided the gooey eyes. He'd liked Carolyn from the start but had be an donkey butt to her for the sole reason that he knew she deserved better. Their one night together had meant more to him then he'd let on. There had not been a repeat but...he was hopeful. "I just checked on Hades. He's still in a coma, damned Vulcans. I should warn you about that...not many know but a Vulcan puts himself in that state to heal. Once he heals you have to do a specific thing to help him wake up."

"Do I get to slap him?" she asked hopefully. "He deserves one and I never got the chance. Had to save his life and all that. Do no harm, really, they did not think that one through..."

He laughed, "Yes you do. Slap away...but only when he wakes up."

Rol entered the room on his way to see Hades. He figured he'd stop by Carolyn first. "Carolyn!"

Carolyn turned towards the familiar voice, "Lieutenant Rol. I feel like I haven't seen you in forever. Did you get my message?"

"I did indeed." He smiled.

"Well, I don't know if you will actually like it but just promise me you wont break it," Carolyn said as she took his arm, guiding him towards her office. "Promise?"

He laughed, "Alright. I promise."

Once in her office she shuffled around the somewhat chaotic collection of reports, journals and heaven knew what, rescuing a what was clearly a box which had been neatly wrapped and in a bow. "Don't be mad, okay?" she said as she turned and handed it to him, "and you can lock it away somewhere until you are ready, but … for you."

She leaned back on the desk to let him open it. Hoping he really didn't get mad. But from the day he had broken down, broken his earing... it had taken a while to have an exact copy made.

He opened the box carefully. When he looked inside Rol stayed silent for a lone while. He then looked up. "You...fixed it?" He kind of regretted breaking it and now here it was whole.

"I had it remade," she admitted, "I didn't want to steal the original from you. I was on DS9 and sketched out what it looked like and... here it is. Is it okay?"

His eyes filled with tears. "I..." He swallowed past a lump in his throat. "It's...." He swallowed again. "Perfect."

"Don't, you'll cry then I'll cry and then Harris will never let me live it down and think I've gone all warm and fuzzy inside," she teased him, turning her head away so she could avoid doing just that. She took a deep breath, straightening up. "Not many people have kept annoying me as much as you and even used ice cream and chocolate against me. You are a good friend and I didn't want you regretting something you did in anger."

He thought a moment. "Do you have a lazer scalpel?"

"Sure..." she said slowly, disappearing for a few minutes before returning, "you promised not to break it, remember that."

He laughed and swiped at his eyes. He gently turned the earing over an turning up the lazer scalpel power while dulling it a bit he carved an infinity symbol on the back. He entered his initials in one loop an then passed it to her. "Put your initials there. On Bajor this links our Pahs as friends for all time."

"This isn't some crazy Bajoran wedding thing is it?" she teased, sticking her tongue out at him as she inscribed her initials with a little more flair than he had. She winked at him, grinning, "I'm a surgeon, I do this to like every patient."

He threw his head back and laughed with abandon. Shaking his head he studied her and then gave her a hug and a kiss on the temple. "Harris was right about you."

"Oh? What did he say exactly?" she asked, curious.

He smiled, "That you are a rare diamond." Rol studied her. "Do you know that he's sweet on you?"

“We are talking about the same Harris?” She asked with a grin. “He may have implied it. And then things happened like our boss almost dying.”

He smiled, "No.. afraid not. I know a friend of his who told me that he's been sweet on you since day one." He studied her. "He's a good man Carolyn. That's all I'm gonna say about it."

Just before she could answer a nurse came running in. "Doctor! Doctor!"

“What’s wrong Karyn?” Even as she asked the question she was following her out of the office. There were no audible alarms which was a good sign...

“It’s Doctor Hades...”

Carolyn didn’t wait to hear any more, breaking into a run. A quick glance over her shoulder confirming Rol was following the second the nurse mentioned Hades. He was close behind her as she entered his room and she stopped, “I don’t know if I should hug you or slap you,” she admitted as she approached the bed.

His eyes were wide open but his face was a mask of pain. It was as if he was here but not. "n...Not wake....slap me. Need to come to consciousness...slap me!"

Carolyn glanced at Rol, remembering what Harris said. “You are my witness if someone calls security,” she told him, while turning and slapping Hades across the face. His cheek was red and her palm stung from the force of it but she shook it off. She gave one more for luck - it was cathartic at least.

“Better?”

"Again! Must keep hitting me."

Rol coughed. "Oh this is not weird at all." He rolled his eyes.

“Rol, hit him,” Carolyn said, pushing him towards the bed, “you can hit harder than me.”

"No way!" He held up his hands

“Just do what he wants so I can be mad at him again,” she told him, paging Harris in the meantime.

Rol shrugged and did as she asked. At about the fourth slap Hades grabbed his arm. "Alright! That's quite enough. Thank you Rol." Hades sat at the end of the bed.

Harris rushed and kicked the air. "Damn it I was hoping to get a few shots in."

Hades stood up and raised an eyebrow at Harris. Vulcans tended to put themselves in a Coma to recover and at the last minute they would wake. The pain had helped Hades come to full consciousness. He looked past Harris to Carolyn. "I'm alright!" He stumbled a bit and Rol and Harris helped him sit down.

Harris pushed Rol out the door with Rol muttering something under his breath leaving Carolyn and Hades alone.

Arms folded across her chest, waiting until the door closed before speaking. “Hardly,” she corrected as she studied his vitals, “but extensive surgery and a almost a week of treatment to reverse the damage to your other organs means you will be. If you rest. And I don’t mean Hades rest, I mean I will get your daughter to sit on you if I have to rest.”

She stayed back, leaning against the wall as she studied him, “how do you feel?”

Hades studied her. "I'm alright." He was well aware of her surgical intervention. When he went down on the promenade he'd initiated his own coma to try and heal the Vulcan way. He'd heard everything said. He'd felt his wife's kiss on his forehead, felt his daughter hold his hand, had even heard the surgery prep until they'd put him under. "Carolyn. Come here." He said.

She raised an eyebrow at the tone. “I’m fine right here,” she assured him. “You should get some rest. I’m sure Kalani will be on her way down.”

"Carolyn," he said; his speech not allowing for options. "Come here please."

Rolling her eyes she pushed off the wall, stopping a few steps away from where he sat. “Since you said please,” she clarified.

With great strain, Hades stood. He wrapped his arms around her and enveloped her in a big bear hug. "Thank you." He whispered.

“Don’t be all nice when I’m trying to be mad at you,” she warned him, although there was no anger in her voice as she tried to keep him steady. “Besides, it was distinctly self preservation. Your daughter is very ... you. When you are in a scary mood.”

Hades ended the hug and sat back down on the bio bed. "Yes... I have noticed. She has picked up some of my most charming traits." He looked at Carolyn. "How bad was it?"

“Do you mean her threats or the fact it took almost eleven hours to fix the damage to your heart, never mind the rest of you. So it was bad. You should never have hid this from us. We could have had your specialist here instead of a comm link. I thought ... anyway, you will be as good as new if you rest and take your medication. Which, by the way, will be done by me or Harris.”

He sighed, "I will talk to Kitana. She has a lot of her mother in her, Drucilla always was temperamental...even for a Klingon." He sighed, "Carolyn I did the only thing I could. I was hoping this would all get taken care of but there was a medication shortage. It was me or the patients. The needs of the few outweigh the needs of the one."

“Oh please... And the needs of your wife? Your daughter?” She shot back. “You chose to hide it from everyone. Three times you almost died on my table, three times!”

She took a deep breath as she moved to lean back against the wall, trying to quell her temper. “You could have told her, at least. Instead she learned it from Harris. Like I did.”

"How the hell did he know?" That little remark brought some strength into him.

“A question for him,” Carolyn pointed out. She had no intention of landing Harris in trouble. For one, it had given them a slim chance of keeping Hades alive. And well...

He studied her. "There is something more to this. What are you not telling me?" He raised and eyebrow in Vulcan fashion.

“Don’t know what you mean,” she said with a dismissive shrug. “Now, will you please rest?”

Hades sighed. "Fine. We will re-vist" He studied her. "How is Kitana?"

“She is a... force of a nature. She donated blood for your procedure. She would have probably given you most of her vital organs but I was not going there,” Carolyn assured him. “To be honest, I think you scared her. It just isn’t cool to act scared if you are half Klingon.”

He sighed and scrubbed his hand down his face in a weary gesture. "I...She..." It was a rare occurrence to see Hades speechless.

He laid back on the bio bed trying to form words. It was hard at the moment but he'd try. "She's only just met me. I do not understand how she could have gotten that attached already."

"She may have just met you, but I'd bet she's spent a lot of time thinking about you," Carolyn pointed out as she put a hand on his arm. "Just rest up and let the rest sort itself out."

He looked at Carolyn an then placed his hand on her. "I'm glad you're here."

She squeezed his hand. “Likewise,” she told him, grinning, “do you know how much paperwork is involved if your boss dies in your OR?”

He actually laughed. "Yes. Well it's a fail safe. To keep the ACMO from snipping the incorrect thing."

The door whooshed open and Kalani rushed in. "Hades!" She ran to the bedside as he sat up she wrapped her arms around him tears pouring from her eyes. She looked over at Carolyn. "Thank you!"

Carolyn grinned, “you are very welcome. I wouldn’t thank me quite yet. He is going to be a difficult patient. Legendary, I seem to remember.”

Kalani stood up and placed her hands on her hips. "Oh is he now."

Hades had the good grace to look sheepish.

The door opened again, this time it was Kitana who entered. Kalani moved aside to let father and daughter have a moment. She was still working on the step mother thing. It was...interesting. She stepped over to Carolyn and they moved aside.

Kalani whispered. "How close did we come to loosing him?"

“Too close,” Carolyn conceded, “but he is healing better than we could have wished for.”

"Stubbornness and the genetic alterations." Kalani motioned or them to step outside.

The mood in the corridor was decidedly happier, word spreading amongst the staff. Gossip always spread at Warp 10. “Both of those things,” Carolyn confirmed as she leaned on the wall. “His records are sealed, only myself and Harris have treated him. I had EMH programs assist with surgery and Nivar and Harris dealt with them. But all that, he will honestly be fine. If he rests up.”

She sighed, "That will be the hard part. He is... stubborn and his daughter picked it up. After the surgery I had trouble getting her to rest." She smiled, "She is so much like him." She looked at Carolyn. She knew the woman cared about Hades too. "How have you been holding up?"

“Better now he’s awake,” Carolyn admitted, smothering a yawn. “Sorry! And tired. I guess I’m getting too old for practically living in here. Anyway I’m fine. Harris and I have this covered and haven’t killed each other. So all good.”

She studied the woman. "Why don't you go rest. The rest of the team can take it from here."

“He will eat them alive,” Carolyn pointed out. “But maybe... I need breakfast first and rounds still to do. Then I’ll think about it. Go back in and see him. Try to make him rest. He actually listens to you.”

She smiled, "I will be with him and I will make sure he plays nice with the other doctors." She laughed a little. "Did anyone every say that doctors make the worst patients"

“Everyone,” Carolyn nodded. “Since the dawn of time.”

She smiled and hugged Carolyn with her whole heart. "Thank you for keeping them both safe."

“Your very welcome,” Carolyn assured her. “Go be with him.”

Kalani gave a nod. "Thank you." She hurried away.

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