Chapter Text
“You should rest,” Kyle said.
Thomas pretended not to hear. He jerked his foot out of the nurse’s hands and fastened the fresh bandage himself. Outside, through the open curtain, a chorus of jeers was fading, dying down to a low murmur at the end of the hall.
“Call security,” said Thomas firmly. He slid off the bed and into his wheelchair. While Kyle tapped his combadge and murmured a warning to the security forces, Thomas shrugged the nurse off his arm. “Let me go,” he said.
“Sir, you are officially on bed rest,” the nurse said, matching his steely tone. “You’re not leaving until you’ve had a warm meal and at least eight hours of sleep.”
Thomas skidded his palm over the right wheel, trying to angle around the nurse, but she blocked him with her boot. On the other side of the cubicle, Kyle ended his conversation with security and joined the nurse, sneaking up on Thomas from behind. He grabbed the chair by the handles to prevent Thomas from moving forward.
“Dad–”
“Security is already posted at Vissal’s room,” said Kyle calmly. “They’re moving her to a safe location as soon as the crowd calms down.”
“Onu–”
“Yumelo is helping,” Kyle said.
Thomas’ protests died in a stammer. He stopped fighting the nurse and went utterly still. Slowly, he turned to look Kyle in the eye.
“She’s helping?” he said, his voice quiet.
“She’s being a leader,” Kyle said, raising one eyebrow to show he shared Thomas’ discomfort with the situation. “So far she’s managed to keep them from growing violent.”
“She’s the one who leaked the information in the first place!” Thomas said. “If she’s calming them down, it’s only to curry favor–”
“Then let her curry favor,” said Kyle, his patience strained. “God’s sake, so long as it keeps Vissal safe, who cares what Yumelo does? Do you really think, Thomas, for one moment, that the Federation is going to look kindly on the one prisoner at Lazon Two who isn’t suffering from malnutrition?”
In response, Thomas just turned away again and rested his cheek on his fist. The angle of his head and the hunch of his shoulders hid his face entirely. But Kyle could see the tight rise and fall of Thomas’ chest, a little too shallow for his liking. He dismissed the nurse with a wary nod.
“What do you think Yumelo’s up to?” he asked, moving away from Thomas’ chair. He kept his back turned to his son, focusing on the replicator instead. Anything to give Thomas some privacy.
“I think she wants blood,” said Thomas, his voice a little thin. “And I think she wants a scapegoat.”
“Why?”
“Gives us a common enemy. Someone to fight against.” While Thomas spoke, Kyle punched in the code for a hot cup of raktajino, decaf. The smooth scent of blended liquor and aromatic coffee filled the air, and behind him, there was a sigh and a shift of weight as Thomas relaxed a little. “If she can lead the camp against a common enemy, then she has a way to gain some power back,” Thomas said.
“And why does she need power?” Kyle asked. He waited until the replicator was done and then tapped his fingers against the mug, testing its warmth. He stirred a liquid sedative into it and carried it over to Thomas.
“Both hands,” he said, and when Thomas refused to listen, he forcibly broke Thomas’ grip on the chair and placed both of his son’s hands around the mug. Thomas accepted it with a scowl.
“She doesn’t need power,” he said, taking a sip. “She wants it. She had it in the camp, thanks to all her outside trading. And she wants to have it again.”
Kyle leaned on the edge of Thomas’ bed, giving it some thought. Thomas took another drink, longer this time, with one ear cocked for the quieting crowd outside.
“What did you put in this?” Thomas asked.
“A sleep aid and an anxiolytic,” Kyle said. “Doctor’s orders. She sent the authorization straight to my PADD.”
He crossed his arms, preparing for a fight, but Thomas just made a face and drained the mug in one go. Together, they listened to the crowd, shouts dissolving into murmurs. A few prisoners shuffled past Thomas’ open curtain, heading back to the rec room with tension knotting their shoulders. A wave of weary sadness washed over Kyle at the sight of them: too frail to really hurt anyone, yet full of rage. He glanced down the corridor toward Vissal’s cubicle, where Yumelo was waving the last few stragglers away with far more efficacy than the security guards.
Kyle twitched the curtain shut.
“I’m next, aren’t I?” Thomas murmured.
Kyle turned sharply. His spike of alarm faded, morphed into something more hollow, when he saw Thomas’ posture – the bone-deep exhaustion hanging off his frame. “Next for what?” Kyle asked.
Thomas lifted one shoulder in a lopsided shrug. “Tribunal,” he said.
“You’re not next on their list, no,” Kyle said. “And yours won’t be like Vissal’s. Vissal, remember, did not break any laws to get her here.”
Thomas half-smiled at that. “So mine will be worse,” he said a little wryly.
Since that seemed almost to cheer him up, Kyle didn’t bother to deny it. He stayed silent, sensing something else behind Thomas’ grin. And in a matter of seconds, that grin faded away.
“That’s not all I meant, though,” Thomas said. “I mean, if they turned on Vissal, they’ll turn on me too. It’s just a matter of time.”
He said it so factually, without any emotion, that Kyle believed him. He took a quick, deep breath to chase away the empty feeling in his gut.
“You have twenty minutes before that sleep aid kicks in,” he said, avoiding Thomas’ eyes. “Do you need the bathroom?”
Thomas stared at his closed curtain, his eyes distant. Maybe envisioning the trek to the bathroom, with that angry crowd watching. “No,” he said.
“Then let’s get you to bed.”
They’d gotten it down to a business-like routine. Kyle helped him remove his day-clothes from his seat in the chair and let him lift himself back onto the bed, balancing on his heels, where his feet were less likely to hurt. He folded the day-clothes into a portable laundry beneath the replicator, where they would be fresh for the next day. Only when that was done did he dim the lights and activate the privacy shield; he turned to leave, as he always did, without saying goodnight.
But this time, even though his face was buried in the pillow, Thomas reached out and stopped him. His fingers hooked around Kyle’s in a tight, impulsive squeeze – so quick that Kyle didn’t have time to return the gesture. He’d barely processed it when Thomas pulled his hand back and tucked it beneath the pillow, his expression hidden from sight.
Kyle couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. He stared at Thomas in dumb shock, a painful vice heating his stomach – and old images, of Elisabeth in her sickbed, of twelve-year-old Will recovering from his broken leg, of his last disastrous meeting with Will and the anbo-jytsu match where he cheated yet again, all swirling in Kyle’s head.
He couldn’t face it. He squeezed his hand into a fist, his skin stinging where Thomas had touched him.
He left without a word.