TRIGGER WARNING: Please note this story deals with suicide and addiction.
Her eyes shot open, immediately blinded by the light shining into her face. Her hands flew to her neck, clawing desperately to undo the shirt knotted around it.
“Hold on now, it’s okay,” a voice said from somewhere around her. Years of tactical training and she was rolling to her right side, pushing up with that arm while shading her eyes from the light with the other, eyes darting around ready for the instant she could refocus on whoever was around her.
“Doctor!” This time the voice came from behind her and she completed her movement by jumping off the bed and spinning to face it, a free hand clutching at her neck as it tried to lessen the pain. She faced the… nurse, judging by the clothing, every muscle poised to act. It was a solid 30 seconds before the nurse moved at all, and then only to flick her eyes to something else. She spun to face whatever had drawn the nurse’s attention.
*Kyli, stop.*
Her feet tangled together mid-spin, throwing her off balance and breaking her concentration. What…
*No, Aylia,* she responded, staggering to one side.
*No. Kyleea. Kyleea Diam.* Was this coming from the person approaching her now? He looked familiar, but she couldn’t remember which host had known him.
A sharp pain in her left temple drew a hiss of pain and her hand flew from her neck to try and stem the new pain.
*Commander Kyleea Diam of the U.S.S. Roddenberry.* The voice in her head stepped closer even as she pressed both hands now against the temples of her head.
“Stop talking,” she gritted through her teeth, the pain of talking nearly buckling her knees.
“Kyli, it’s all right. Julian… remember?” He took a light hold of her arms, both to steady her and reassure her he was real and not just another memory.
Pain had forced her eyes closed and she struggled to open them again, to block out the barrage of lights that seemed to cut right into her skull. But he had seemed familiar, and maybe more than just a distant memory. Their eyes met and she felt a shock of recognition there.
Then, in an instant, she saw him glance past her and felt the hiss of a hypospray on her neck.
=^=
Her eyes shot open, braced for a blinding light in her face. But only a dim glow filtered into her gaze this time. Her head still pounded though, even in that low light. A series of near-silent chirps echoed off to one side, and she pulled herself up slowly into an elevated position to focus enough to read them.
*Kyli?*
*Julian,* she thought with relief, sinking back against the bed exhausted.
*I must say I’m relieved you at least recognize me this time.*
Kyleea closed her eyes, a hand rubbing at the ridge of her eye sockets as she tried to piece it all together. “What… what happened?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. As far as I can tell you had some kind of seizure, but what triggered it is a mystery to me.”
“Aylia.” The name passed through her lips in a whisper of a breath as she started to remember.
“That was Diam’s fourth host.”
“Yes.” Kyleea pushed herself up against, spinning to let her legs hang over the edge of the biobed and hunching over as her head started to spin. “How… how long was I out?”
“Almost 13 hours. We had to keep you sedated till whatever this was normalized.”
She remembered. Remembered the incident she had relived as well. What Aylia had done for the safety of the symbiont, the measures she had taken to cover her secrets. She could still feel the tightness around her neck, still smell what the air had been like that day.
*Kyleea?*
Jolted out of her reverie by the thought, she sat up and met Julian’s eyes for the first time since she had been awake.
“Where did you go just then?”
“Are you a counselor now too, Doctor?” she asked, trying to stretch her neck.
“If I need to be.”
“How much do you know about Aylia Diam?”
“Only that she… that Aylia took her own life, but no one was ever sure why because the trauma blocked out a lot of those last memories.”
“Well, consider those locks busted open now.” The weight of the memory and Aylia’s fight with the addiction settled in on her shoulders, pulling her back to reviewing everything that had happened.
The scanner passed in front of her face and she blinked, suddenly aware again of her surroundings and the fact that Julian was trying very hard not to let concern overwhelm his medical training.
“It was the coine. Aylia served as Premier Delegate for the AER – the Advancement of Extrasystemal Relations – and it was an extraordinary amount of pressure. Imagine, trying to build the footwork of relationships with other species. She nearly…” Kyleea stopped, her voice cracking on the next words as she saw the common bond she shared with her past host. “She nearly worked herself to death; the coine was the only thing that let her keep going, but then…” She narrowed her eyes, searching for more memories that were still coming into focus. “Diam was the one that got addicted, almost formed a need for it, but there’s only so much a host body could take. In the end, Aylia couldn’t break the addiction without help or killing herself… I remember too many people had found out, the blackmail and extortion was starting to impact my work, forcing me not to push for introducing xenobiology into the Trill education system. I…”
Kyleea draw a hand across her neck lightly, just to reassure herself there was nothing before scratching the back of her head to disguise the movement. “Aylia committed suicide so she could escape all of that but also block the memories so no one would ever know. To free the Diam symbiont of falling into that addiction again.”
Julian set the scanner back on the tray, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms. “Then we’ve got to find a way to resolve this; it’s almost killed you once. And if the Diam symbiont was addicted to this once before, I can say it likely already is again.”
“That makes no sense. The symbiont would never the hurt the host. We’d both die.”
“Maybe, but addiction tends to throw all rules out the window.”
A silence filled the room as she contemplated what her future would be. By the Prophets, even if they managed to figure out the actual physiological issues, how would she manage the Balance without the coine? And what was Starfleet going to say about this? Surely there were programs to help, but would she have to take a leave of absence.
“I need to go back to Trill. The Guardians might be able to figure out…”
“I don’t think even the Guardians can help you, not with the addiction at least. That’s the most pressing issue, and I’m afraid with nothing close to a substitute there’s nothing I can do to make it easier.” He pushed off the wall, taking a step towards her and letting his arms fall down to his side.
“So I have to go back to that cell?”
“No. I need to keep you here, do whatever we *can* do to at least make this bearable and keep an eye on your levels.”
She pushed a hand against the biobed, staring reluctantly at the standard issue pillow. She wanted to be back in her quarters, surrounded by even what few things she had brought with her. “Could you bring my prayer wheel here?”
“Of course. I’ll have Nurse Tagana retrieve it. Anything else?”
*A normal life.*
*Trust me, they’re overrated,* Bashir responded. “Why don’t you get some more rest; it will help with clearing the rest of the coine from your system.”
“How about lying here awake staring at the ceiling?” Kyleea asked swinging her legs back up onto the biobed. But he was somehow right – she was tired already.
“As long as you don’t make any comments about the décor, then sure, go right ahead,” he chuckled, a smile briefing breaking the severity of their situation. *Don’t worry, Kyli, I’m going to be right here.*
She nodded, but the comfort that sentiment normally would have brought her fell on the sword of what she knew was coming. *You may regret that in a day or so.*
=^=
It became clear all too quickly why Kyleea stayed so busy with her work: without it, her mind conspired to fill the void. Every time she felt herself drifting off to sleep, the memories surfaced again, and each time they became more detailed, more intense. But staying awake had given her no respite either. Scenes still appeared before her, set off by too much time spent in labs and medical facilities over eleven lifetimes.
She began to lose track of what now even was, which of the hosts he was on a daily basis. The memories had become full visions, drawing him back into lives she had already lived through a few times.
Her eyes landed on the prayer wheel they had brought. There was at least some peace when she looked at it despite the feelings of mock and disbelief that also bubbled up inside her. But she could only lie in that position for so long before having to adjust on the sliver of a biobed barely more comfortable than the slab in the holding cell.
A moment of clarity followed her last meditation, and she recognized Bashir as he entered the room. His face had seemed to be in a constant perplexed and frustrated state every time she saw him now, and she felt guilty for it. She watched as he ran the same scans he had run every half an hour or so for the last day, the same scowl cross his face.
“I don’t understand this. Your isoboramine levels are actually *up* to ninety-nine percent.”
“Is that bad?”
“Honestly I’m not sure. I’ve been sending your test results back to Trill, but they keep coming back with the same message: that you should be the picture of health.”
“Well in that case, I guess I’m free to go,” she said, even as another vision started in her periphery. She watched it play out, steeling her stomach as she realized it was one of Embrozia’s memories. Deep underwater as they had worked on the suboceanic terraforming project on Yertiuk III. The thought of being stuck that far down, under all those millions of gallons of water had never sat well with her. The claustrophobia of those memories started to creep in and she forced her focus instead to Lerdana. Lerdana who had suddenly left her position as head of the Trill Foreign Relations entourage to live in seclusion. Nice, quiet, surface-side seclusion.
Was that the fate that awaited Kyleea as well?
=^=
The voices drifted into her dreams like another of the memory scenes she had already given up on fighting.
“…don’t think a zhian’tara is a good idea, Julian. If she’s already as fractured as you say, it may be impossible for the symbiont to support it without the past lives completely breaking down.”
“Then give me *something,* Jadzia. The Symbiosis Commission has been useless, and she’s getting worse by the hour. I mean, look at this.”
“I’ve never seen isoboramine levels that high.”
“Exactly. If they don’t level off soon, the symbiont may completely take over the Joining. And then I don’t know if there’ll be anything left of Kyleea to help.”
“Have you run any of this by Starfleet Medical? Or maybe even the Daystrom Institute?”
“They’re ‘looking into it.’”
“Julian, you’re working yourself into oblivion with this, and you won’t be any good to her if you can’t think straight yourself. Maybe you should take a few hours, get some sleep yourself, and we’ll come at it from a different angle.”
She could almost see the way his body slumped as he acknowledged how right Dax was. But then even that image was replaced by another, the way Reter’s children had ignored him after his absence. Only now the children were the corpses of the previous hosts and they started to quickly swarm over her, clawing for the Diam symbiont.
Kyleea felt the constriction in her throat as she tried to cry for help, but she was paralyzed by the Diam symbiont itself. She felt each tear at her skin and scream in her ear.
*Julian… can someone know they’re going insane?*
There was a long pause, and she knew he had turned to study her. *I’m not sure, but I’m doing everything I can to help…*
*I know,* she thought, mentally flinching as the attacks continued. *But I also know Dax is right and you need some rest. You’re no good to me if we both start hallucinating.*
=^=
*Run!*
Poljiara’s voice echoed off the sides of the cave, carrying back down the tunnel to the few others on the robbery. But it was also a command to herself, to get her own legs moving.
She hurdled the small outcropping of rock in her way and picked the second tunnel, weaving her ways through the turns and switchbacks. There wasn’t time to try and look at readings, keep from knocking herself out on the outcroppings of rock, *and* dodge the disruptor fire coming at her.
Which is how she found herself in a dead end. Trapped. Her hand tightened over her own disruptor, regretting her disguise and that it left her with the imprecise weapon over something more standard issue. She had failed her mission either way, unable to identify who was responsible for a string of leaks of classified Trill research. And now she was most likely going to die as well. If there was a possible shining light, somehow the Diam symbiont might survive.
The voices closed in on her quickly, and she dug her back into the rockface behind her as much as she dared without impairing what shot she might have.
“Put it down,” one of them demanded, drawing closer to her steadily. They really had no fear, but then she supposed most thieves didn’t.
“Stay. Back.” Her attempts to shift position even the slightest were met with more rock. The pursuer took another step towards her and she raised her hand slightly to meet him with a disruptor blast straight in the chest.
Only her weapon didn’t fire.
That. That wasn’t right. She checked the weapon and tried to fire again, but still nothing. A sharp pain in her left temple doubled her over, her free hand reaching out to brace herself as she fell to her knees.
“Help me get her over there,” the pursuer said, but she couldn’t even lift her head against the pain.
They grasped her under the arms, and carried her over to a ledge. What? This hadn’t happened. This wasn’t how it had happened.
The pain in her left temple worsened and she felt her stomach turn in protest. What was happening?
“We’re going to need a cell prepared. I can provide equipment, but it’s not safe to stay here.”
*RUN!* she screamed in her mind, but nothing in her body could respond any longer.
*It’s all right. We’re here to help you.*
She recoiled at the voice in her mind. *What are you doing to me? Get out of my head!*
*I told you I wasn’t going anywhere, Kyli.*
Her body knew that name, but it wasn’t hers. Or was it. How could she be multiple people? There was a thread of understanding somewhere, but it had become unraveled and the strain of putting it back together made the pain in her head explode into a blinding shard piercing through her.
Her body started to shake as the tears came, unable to stop them or the tremors that started to echo through every muscle and fiber of her body.
“Get her up there. Nurse, 5 ccs of tricordrazine. We’ve got to get the seizure under control.”
“Nooo,” she mumbled. “Lemme go. It’s not right the order…the order must keep the order… not again can’t lose it again.”
The last thing she felt was her body seize and buck against wherever they were keeping her before everything went black.
=^=
The hardness of the cave floor seeped into her body, waking her as it began to complain. Only, as she opened her eyes, she was not surrounded by dirt or darkness. Her hands registered the cloth beneath her, the blanket laid across her… and the hum of a forcefield a meter away.
“She’s awake,” said an unknown voice from behind her.
Her body responded slowly as she tried to sit up, every muscle sore to the bone. She looked around, anchoring herself in her surroundings. She studied her hands, turning them over slowly before flexing her fingers.
The soft pad of footsteps behind her caught her attention.
“How long this time?”
“17 hours.”
Her shoulders slumped, defeated. “I take it you had to sedate me again?”
“It was the only way to get ahead of the seizure. That, and uh, you destroyed part of the Infirmary.”
“What?” Kyleea asked, looking back over her shoulder.
“I don’t know what you were going through, but it was clear you weren’t going to let anything get in your way. In fact, if you hadn’t backed yourself into a corner, I don’t know if we would have found you in time.”
She gingerly lowered herself off the biobed, testing the strength of her legs and clutching the edge for balance. A hand reached up to her now bare ear, aching for the earring that had once given her at least some constant connection to her faith. Slowly she took a few steps around the bed.
“Your earring’s safe; we secured it once we realized it might be a risk for you to…”
“To have something dangling draped on my ear? Perhaps you’re not that wrong.”
“But I’m afraid your prayer wheel didn’t fare as well.”
Shock registered on her face as the news sunk in. “It took me a *year* to build that, and it was almost perfect.” Her eyes shut in pain at the loss. ”So that’s why I’m back in a cell now, for my own safety?”
“Think of it as your own personal Infirmary.”
“Oh yes, that takes the sting right out of it.” She saw the wince in his posture as her sarcasm and frustration hit home. “No, Julian, it was the right thing. You need to protect me from myself in whatever way you can.”
“You’ll have someone here full-time, security and medical, in case there’s anything that you need or…”
“Or for when I go off the rails again.” Her weight shifted to one leg as she tested a step away from the bed, heading for the corner of the cell. “Julian, if it… You know the symbiont is the priority here, right?”
“We’re not having that conversation yet. And frankly at this point, I’m not sure Diam could survive without a host to help buffer the imBalance. You both need each other more than ever, and I’m not giving up on either of you.”
The small button she pressed revealed the small sink and she hesitantly splashed some on her face, the shock of its coolness helping shake off a little more of the fog she felt. Her arms braced her as she leaned against the sink, trying to regain her full focus.
*How are you doing?*
“Please, Julian,” she said waving him off, “I’ve got enough voices in my head these past few days. Just talk to me.”
“All right. How are you doing?”
A weary laugh escaped her throat before she could clamp down on it. “Oh, this is exactly what I had in mind for a nice quiet vacation, you know? Nothing like an existential breakdown to really crush any last remnant of stress. On the plus side, I think I’m catching up on my sleep.”
“Well good to know the penchant for Trill sarcasm is still beating strong,” he responded, striding closer to the forcefield. “I get it, but we’re all trying to help you…”
“Why?” Her head snapped to look at him, tendrils of damp hair whipping and hanging over face. She felt an anger well up inside her from nothing, but she was too tired to fight it back.
“What? What do you mean ‘why’? I’m a doctor, you’re my frien…”
“Bah, save it. We barely know each other Julian, certainly not enough for me to know why the hell it is we can communicate like we do.” His body tensed at the mention and she felt a rush of satisfaction, seeing him made uncomfortable. “As for being a doctor, all that means is you’re obligated to it. That or I’m a mystery, a puzzle for you to solve. Only I’m not sure there *is* a solution, my good doctor. So maybe it’s better if you just left me here and got on with your life.” Kyleea crossed her arms defiantly in front of her, trying to avoid the stinging of the stretch that caused in the sore muscles.
A few moments passed between them, silent except for the buzz of the forcefield and the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears. She watched him set about checking some readings, making some adjustments, and finally calling for the security guard to return.
“All right, *Commander,* if that’s what you want. I’ll continue working on your condition from my lab. In the meantime, we’ll have someone monitoring you for your own protection.”
The mask she had brazenly slapped on was starting to slip – she had been prepared to fight, to argue with him, not for him actually to accept it and leave. Or maybe he had just decided to play along with her fit. She reasserted the cross in her arms and stared at him as he left.
And somewhere a faint voice wondered if she would recognize him when she saw him again.
=^=
“Doctor?”
Bashir took a deep breath as the voice caught up behind him. He was tired and the last thing he wanted to do was quarrel with the Constable. “Yes?”
But the Odo that caught up to him as they entered the front security office was anything but combative. If anything, he seemed as uneasy as Bashir himself felt. Bashir watched as Odo stood behind his chair, fingers tapping lightly against its edge as he formed his question.
“What is it, Constable?” Bashir finally asked, trying to move things along.
“Commander Diam, is she…” Odo paused, his eyes flickering over to the camera he had trained on her cell. “Is she in any danger of harming herself?”
A ripple of tension released from his body as he heard the question. Perhaps this wasn’t another battle he was going to need to fight after all.
“By the very nature of being Joined, I would say no. The highest priority a host has is to the symbiont.”
“But there’s something that hasn’t got you convinced of that, isn’t there.”
Sometimes Bashir forgot just how good Odo was at his job. “You’ve got me there. The fact that her fourth host committed suicide to try and spare the symbiont is a level of… dedication that isn’t common. With the way these memories are flooding her mind and sometimes completely taking over, I can’t be sure of anything right now. Which is why I needed to make sure we could protect her from herself and keep her under constant watch, something I can’t do with the limited staff we have at the moment.”
“Of course, Doctor. The deputies are already scheduled in 2-hour shifts so we’ll have a heavy rotation to keep an eye on the Commander.” Odo tapped a few notes into a PADD to occupy some of the nervous energy he could feel building inside him.
“Actually, Constable, I was wondering if you might be able to personally supervise the Commander as well, as much as your free time allows of course.”
“Me?”
“I know this is a bit unusual, but I think your experience with the Link makes you uniquely qualified.” He stepped around the guest chair. “Some of what the Commander’s described of her experiences sounded very familiar. You understand what it’s like to hold yourself separate and then be thrust into a group of voices. It may not have been quite as traumatic, but you’ve managed to come out the other side of it somehow, and stronger I think.”
“My people enslaved my friends and colleagues in an attempt to gain knowledge about how successful a bid to overtake the Alpha Quadrant would be, and then cast me out for trying to save those same colleagues, Doctor. I wouldn’t exactly call that a normal family relationship.”
“You’d be surprised,” Bashir mumbled under his breath, looking away in thought to avoid the Constable’s gaze. “But all the more reason for you to look in on her. Maybe even talk to her, see if there’s anything you could share that might help her fight while we try and figure out how to treat it.”
Odo tapped the PADD against his open palm. He knew the Doctor was right, but the thought of actually talking about his experiences wasn’t something he relished. On the other hand, if he protested, the Doctor was liable to stick around even longer. “All right, Doctor, I’ll see if I can’t take a shift or two. I wouldn’t mind getting some answers myself, anyway.”
“An interrogation is hardly what I had…”
Odo held up a hand to stop him. “No, of course not. But if there’s anything I can learn in just speaking about her experiences, it would be beneficial. Now, if we’re done here, I believe we both have work to do?”
“Yes, of course. Contact me if anything changes.”
Odo nodded curtly as the Doctor left, looking out onto the Promenade for a few moments before his gaze was drawn once again to the camera focused on the Commander’s cell.
Wondering just exactly how much they might have in common.
=^=