Chapter Text
“Shouldn’t repairing the damage be simple?” asks Commander J’etris that evening, as T’Volis reports on their progress. Or rather, lack thereof. “Our genetic technology…”
“The up-regulation of immune activity makes it extremely difficult to introduce the changes,” says T’Volis. “Furthermore, the precision of the tailoring suggests that the immune system may in fact attack healthy cells now. It will be a complex process designing an intervention that not only will address the damage, but evade these responses.”
“So whoever did this really knew what they were doing.” J’etris glares at the tabletop, looking out of place in the small ready room filled with Diane’s things–the family photos, the handful of plants, the calligraphy on the walls. She knows some of these things; a handful were personal effects Diane used to leave with her on Vulcan, and took back after they parted. She knows every line of the palm-sized wooden monkey by the terminal, an Earth one hunched in a pensive posture, a staff in one forepaw and a band around its head; the rough piece of pink quartz poking out from the pot of one of the orchids, the small knot of driftwood sitting by another. There’s a shelf of books whose titles T’Volis once knew in her sleep, the Earth swords on the walls, Diane’s favorite at the top, both lovely and useful with a practice tip in incongruous orange, the ones below it that are mostly just lovely, as Diane had put it. There is almost more of the woman she knew and loved in this room than there is in the body sleeping fitfully in Sickbay.
“They did,” says T’Volis. “But we are continuing to work on it.”
She has no other comfort to offer. The threat of failure has loomed closer. They are running out of time, and from the way J’etris looks at her, she knows it.
“Thank you,” J’etris says at last, her voice rough. “Regardless of outcome.”
Diane’s condition deteriorates again overnight. By morning, they decide it is best to sedate her, in the hopes that absolute rest will be able to do what nothing else can. T’Volis sits with her as she slips, too easily, into sleep. It doesn’t seem right. On some level, she was expecting Diane to fight this, too, illogically and foolishly and instinctively.
The anxiety permeates the whole ship, and sitting that afternoon in the ship’s lounge, datapads piled around her as Tyrell insists on both a change of scenery to keep the mind fresh, and on doggedly continuing to work, T’Volis notes that the ambient noise of the room is several decibels lower than her previous visit, the crew harried and unhappy. To her alarm, her glass of water is quickly refreshed each time it starts getting low–not by any of the lounge’s staff, but by attentive and determined crew. One leaves her a mug of the vilely sweet Terran hot chocolate, which mercifully Tyrell relieves her of. Some of them thank her.
Given that her best efforts have translated to very little progress, she does not find this logical. Neither does Tyrell, but that does not stop him from mechanically downing the plates of Earth sweets people keep leaving at his elbow.
There is an affection here, she realizes, and a sense of community, growing closer even in the face of despair, and they are offering that community to her even as they must suspect she is failing them and their captain.
She understands, maybe a little, why Diane is so willing to give so very much of herself to Starfleet, to this crew, and to the crew of the Bedivere before them. This is a starship in peacetime–what, then, was it like in war? Humans, as many species do, bond more closely under severe stress.
L’Nar, the youngest of her postdocs, is deep in conversation with a group of beings in Starfleet science blue. Of necessity it’s a grim conversation, but T’Volis can see the way L’Nar inclines her head, thoughtful and interested–the offer of camaraderie is profoundly compelling, especially under the circumstances. T’Volis watches, thinking of the other interactions between L’Nar and the Interpreter’s people, and wonders if L’Nar will be seeking that academic post after all.
“May I join you?” It’s Commander J’etris. T’Volis nods assent; Tyrell does not move, but J’etris is accustomed enough to his ways that she settles into an unoccupied seat on their other side anyway. She, too, looks tired.
T’Volis watches her, too. J’etris joined the crew of the Bedivere after the end of her relationship with Diane, and so she has neither met nor heard much of the Klingon woman before coming aboard. But she does, clearly, care a very great deal for her Captain and for the rest of her crew; she had been logical, polite, and compassionate. If T’Volis had not seen her in Sickbay seeking treatment for a pulled muscle sustained while beating one of the gym’s dummies into so much scrap, she would find J’etris unhealthily emotionally constrained for a member of her species.
J’etris does not ask whether they’ve had any luck. She just sits, a small bowl between her big hands, and stares right past both of them for a while. Then she says, “Is there any hope of a vaccine?”
Is there any hope Diane’s death will still save lives , is what she means, her intent and her grief as loud as if she shouted.
“That’s fairly trivial,” says Tyrell, shaking himself out of his trance. “Simulations are planned for tomorrow. It won’t do anything for anyone already sick, though.”
“I’m glad we have that much,” says J’etris. “I will tell the Captain.”
Who she knows perfectly well is unconscious. Perhaps because she hopes some part of Diane’s mind will pick up on it anyway, and find comfort.
Diane was part of this, is still part of this even dying, this enormous determined and compassionate whole, and sitting there in the middle of the ship’s lounge with everyone grieving and fearing for their Captain, T’Volis has never felt so acutely alone in her life.