TRIGGER WARNING: Please note this story deals with suicide and addiction.
He had watched the shifts change like clockwork without incident. The commander had for the most part spent her time sleeping. *Or more likely pretending to sleep,* Odo thought, paging through the day’s security reports. Enough humanoids had spent time in the holding cells for him to identify the differences between sleep and faking it.
For instance, at the moment, her breathing was regular, measured at a slow steady pace which could be faked, but there was the odd jerk of movement here and there he could detect under the blanket that was harder to reproduce convincingly.
The time on the console caught his attention, and a glance out at the Promenade proved that it was as quiet as it felt. The next shift change was due in a few minutes, but he also still had several hours left before needing to regenerate. Was Bashir right? Did he actually have anything in common with this woman?
Talpet was next up in the duty rotation, and he waited until the deputy had taken over his shift before going back to the holding cells. Something in him still wanted to maintain as much discretion around this as possible.
The memories of the Great Link – of the first time he had Linked, of tearing himself away from that and resuming his solitary existence, of being judged and forced into a solid form – had consumed his thoughts as he sat stoically at the console outside the holding cell.
But slowly a murmur started to draw his attention back to the present. He watched as her legs jerked and started twisting in the blanket. Still asleep, her brow furrowed as Diam struggled against something in her dreams.
Odo glanced down at the monitors in front of him, looking for any signs of medical distress, but all the readings were steady aside from a slightly elevated pulse. The murmurs were also getting louder now, but still unintelligible. Her face flinched, as if struck, and arms pushed away at anything they touched, bringing her close to the edge of the biobed.
“Commander?” he asked tentatively, stepping out from behind the console and approaching the cell. When she didn’t wake, he tried again. “Commander.” He watched as the muscles on her face contorted; if she had been awake he would have attributed it to recognition and confusion. But asleep they had only served to amplify whatever was going on.
“Have to go… no time. Get… no, leave it.”
Odo took a deep breath out of learned habit before projecting his voice with the same force he used to call clear across the Promenade. “COMMANDER!”
Diam’s eyes flew open and a hand clamped down on the edge of the bed to steady herself in a split second. Those same eyes darted around the room as she reestablished where she was. When they landed on the Constable, standing now less than two meters away, it all came rushing back to her and she felt the resignation settle through her body again.
“Should I call the Infirmary? It seemed like you were having another episode,” Odo offered as coolly as he could.
Diam smiled, untwisting the blanket from her legs so she could sit up. “Nightmare,” she clarified, both hands once again gripping the side of the bed.
“Ahh.” Odo paused, at a loss for what to say next. “So… not another symbiont memory then?”
The tone in his voice surprised her, and Kyleea looked at him thoroughly, trying to pick up on any hint of body language. She was surprised again to see a ripple of discomfort and uneasiness in his stance, the way his arm belayed how his hand tapped lightly against the other even clenched behind his back. It was enough to help drain away a little of her own unease.
“Not exactly,” she finally answered. “A memory of the host, a few years ago.”
“Would…” He cleared his throat. “Would you like to talk about it?”
There it was again, a cautious opening that wasn’t quite vulnerability. What exactly was going on? “If you’re trying to get on my good side to get more information out of me, Constable, I’m not sure there’s much left for you there. Besides, this wasn’t anything that’s not in my logs. Just look up the crash of the U.S.S. Alexandria.”
“You lost a ship?”
“No, not me, personally – I was only a j.g. at the time – but they also tend not to dwell on preparing you for those experiences at the Academy.”
“I must say I find that surprising. From my talks with the Starfleet personnel on the station, it seems that the Academy seems to thrive on overpreparation.”
“Yeah, well… I guess I wouldn’t disagree with that either.” Kyleea slid off the bed, grasping for balance as her knees buckles and her legs faltered under her.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the constable’s reaction: his own instinctual step forward before stopping himself. “I’m fine, just need to walk around a bit.” Her hand continued traced the biobed as she leaned into, slowly taking one step after another. “What about you, Constable? I don’t think you’d be here unless something were wrong.”
“Doctor Bashir requested we monitor you 26 hours a day.”
“Surely that’s something your deputies could handle. You must have more important things to tend to.”
“This late at night is relatively quiet on the station but my deputies are also more than capable of taking care of anything that might come up.”
“So it’s nighttime?” Kyleea scanned the walls of the holding cell. “It’s a little hard to tell in here.”
“2449 hours to be precise,” Odo offered.
Kyleea rubbed at the bridge of her nose. She couldn’t tell anymore how much time she had spent staring at the wall pretending to sleep and how much time she had actually slept. The hours and days were all melting into each other.
“Hmph, that explains it.”
“Explains what?” Odo countered.
“This is usually the time of night I’m getting my second wind, digging in to some extra research or catching up on reports. No one to interrupt or bother me.”
Odo walked back to the console, leaning back against the front edge and crossing his arms. “That can be rare time to come by.”
Her eyes shot over to him again, still trying to figure out the real reason he was there, or what had caused this complete change in his demeanor towards her. Was he trying to bait her somehow?
“Yes,” she replied, drawing out the word slightly as she continued to study him. “Especially being part of the senior staff on an exploratory vessel. The demands on our time are more than I ever imagined – I mean, you’d think Starfleet officers could be a little more self-sufficient at times but there seems to be almost constant demands on my time for this or that.”
“From what I read, you’re both Chief Science Officer and First Officer. Seems like that would be an extremely demanding position on a science ship.”
“Well, that’s what they train us to do, isn’t it?” Kyleea took a hesitant step away from the biobed, nearly collapsing onto the prisoner’s ledge and letting the wall keep her upright.
“You chose the command path, didn’t you? There must have been part of you that wanted that responsibility.”
“Maybe, but I don’t know what part of me that was anymore,” she said with a sarcastic chuckle. “Honestly I never was interested in command. But things have been changing – as I’m sure you’re well aware – and Starfleet needs… We need to keep our pursuit of science even in times of war; it’s part of who we are.”
“You think this is a time of war?”
“You don’t?” she countered.
Odo unfolded his arms, bracing them against the console behind him in a move he had seen Bashir and Sisko do many times when faced with an uneasy situation.
“Ahh,” Kyleea commented, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. “You’ve got voices in your head, too: one telling you all this can still be averted, the other knowing that we’re headed down the path to war all too quickly.”
“With all due respect, Commander, you have no idea what I…”
She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “It’s okay, Constable. You don’t have to pay any attention to a crazy woman and her words… no matter how true they might be.”
The irritation he usually reserved for Quark welled up inside of him. Why had he agreed to do this? No, how had Bashir managed to get inside his head as well and persuade him to?
“You can keep your reputation as unbreakable, Constable,” Kyleea added after a sigh, her head slowly lifting forward again as her eyes opened slowly to brace against even the dim lights. “But I have a feeling we know each other better than you may ever wish to admit.”
Odo studied her intently for a minute. Hadn’t Bashir said nearly the same thing? Had his brief time as a Human made him an ‘open book’ as they said?
“All right, let’s assume that’s true,” he said, walking back toward the cell and clasping his hands behind his back again. The slight turn of a smile at Diam’s lips caught his attention. “Something amuses you?”
“How easily you slip back into full Constable mode. It takes a lot of energy to always keep yourself in one identity, doesn’t it.” A moment of silence broke through the chaos in her mind and Kyleea grasped at it, but the mental energy it took turned her stomach and soon she was clenching her fingers around the ledge, bracing her arms to keep herself from falling over.
The dizziness passed after a moment, and Kyleea focused on the soft hum of the forcefield. Small beeps wove their way into it, and she spoke again without needing to look up. “Readings all normal, Constable. They always are.”
When she finally did look up, there was a look of irritation on his face. Clearly he did not take well to being read so easily. She could relate to that, even see the humor in the irony of it.
*Julian?* The thought was a whisper of their previous communications, the strain of just being awake starting to pull her back towards another comatose sleep.
*I’m here,* the reply came after a beat.
*Are you the reason Odo’s here, feeling awkward and uneasy enough for the both of us?*
What felt like an eternity passed as she tried to steel herself against the nausea building inside her.
*Julian?*
*I… yes, I asked the Constable to take a shift or two. You two have more in common than I think either of you know.*
*I’m beginning to pick up on that, but I’m not sure he likes the idea very much.*
She could almost feel the reluctant smile in his reply. *I’m sure he doesn’t – but I have the feeling you know what that feels like, too.*
*Touché.*
*Now get some more rest if you can.*
*Yes, Doctor.*
Kyleea pushed herself up from the ledge, an arm shooting out against the wall to steady against the wave of dizziness that threatened to consume her again.
“I was beginning to think you had dosed off.”
She forced herself not to smile again. That detached tone; she knew that one all too well. No doubt they had both been perfecting it for years, trying to keep themselves distanced from the people around them especially those they didn’t trust yet.
Yet. Did she want to earn the Constable’s trust? Maybe. If Julian was right, and they did indeed share something, it would be nice to know him better. Have someone that understood.
“Almost, but not on what passes for a bed here,” she replied finally, lunging to clutch the side of the biobed.“ A reluctant glance over the biobed and she wasn’t sure this passed for one either.
“It’s been my experience that the biobeds aren’t much better.”
“Spent some time on one yourself?” Kyleea drew herself onto the biobed slowly, muscles aching from even her small amount of movement.
“More than I’d care to admit recently.”
“Sounds like there’s a lot we’re both trying to avoid admitting.” Fatigue washed over her, and Kyleea couldn’t stop the shiver of cold that echoed through her body. “Maybe you can tell me about it… if you come back,” she yawned. Her eyes fluttered shut, catching sight of the Constable standing there, studying her.
Her brow furrowed as she was pulled into sleep again. It reminded her of Philor, the way the Guardians had always looked at him with a mix of sympathy and intrigue …
“Oh,” the Guardian replied. “Diam. Yes.” Her short answer was all that was needed as she made eye contact with the other Guardian Philor was working with.
“Yes, Diam,” Philor reiterated. “I was Joined a few years ago.”
There was another pause as the two Guardians shared another look. “That is good to hear,” the female Guardian finally said.
Philor studied her face; there was obviously something they weren’t telling him, but he had learned rather quickly that was anything but an endearing trait of the Guardians. Their time around the pools seemed to render them all socially inept. Rentika and … what was the other Guardian’s name? He never could seem to remember it.
Philor’s mouth opened to reply but he paused. Surely the Guardians knew he was Joined, even knew which symbiont he had. So why the pause, the hesitation in her voice? Or was it just another nuance of the Guardians’ socialization skills?
A small beep from the equipment he had been setting up pulled his attention back to why he was here in the first place: studying the pools and what it was that made them so attractive to the Symbionts.
But he made a mental note to ask Rentika just exactly what she had meant – and why the tone in her voice had made his stomach turn in the way it did whenever something felt off.
=^=
Her eyes fluttered open against the dimmed lights. She picked up the flicker pattern quickly this time, more familiar with it than she had thought possible.
Kyleea ran a hand back along her hair, flinching at its consistency and wondering how long it had been since she’d had a shower or changed… or done anything normal. Her legs felt leaden from lack of use, the muscle pull in one of them still an echo as she dragged them once again over the edge of the biobed.
Her head swam as the blood rushed from it and she listed from side to side, trying to find her balance. Philor always had this problem, an inherent sense of being off-kilter and unsteady. She had been dreaming of him, hadn’t she? Him and his stomach churning that never failed to turn up at the most inopportune times.
A new flood of memories rushed her mind. Kyleea clutched at her stomach as every memory each host had of Philor’s stomach flips bombarded her mind.
Her knees buckled as she jumped off the biobed but she caught herself enough to lurch towards to the wall, calling forth the head just in time. Her whole body heaved with her stomach, emptying itself of whatever fluids had been fed into her at some point.
But even emptied, the cascade of memories didn’t let up. She rocked back away from the head, now kneeling on all fours as her body continued to dry heave again and again. Muscles in her stomach she never knew she had started to protest and burn from the sudden use even as her head felt like it might explode from pressure.
The tears started to fall as the pain wracked her body. In some ways, she treasured it because it was physical pain, real pain. HER pain. But in every other way possible, she wanted it to stop.
Kyleea gave up on trying to control her body and picked up the one whisper of thought she could: to pray. Pray to the Prophets. Even as her body heaved and wobbled on tiring arms, she reached out in the way she had been taught and begged for relief. Begged for help to make it stop. Begged for forgiveness for whatever she had done to deserve this.
The tears melted away into sobs that caught at the struggled breaths between heaves. Sobs that she could no longer stem or try to restrain. Wailing, that echoed off the cold gray walls and carried her pain and Diam’s no doubt down the hallway and possibly onto the Promenade. It wouldn’t be very becoming for a Starfleet officer.
But she didn’t care. She didn’t care about much anymore, the persistent feeling of her stomach collapsed in on itself, the tightness that had replaced her sternum, her throat raw… every inch of her body that jolted and convulsed as she relived lifetimes of nausea.
Her elbows gave out, dropping her to her forearms as she stayed glued to the floor even as the convulsions continued. She could feel the drool starting to run from her mouth, mixing with any other fluid possible coming out of her eyes and nose. Her eyes flicked over the edge of the head, the floor, studying their details. Would this be it? Was this the type of pain Aylia had dealt with, the type she had run from in the first place? If that was the case, she could understand…
The sharp hiss of a hypospray broke her train of thought, pulling her back to the present for an instant before passing out.
=^=
Bashir slammed his hands down on his console. He was no closer to finding a replacement for the coine than the Symbiosis Commission, even with all their research at his fingertips.
“Doctor?”
“Constable,” he answered reflexively. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m here about Commander Diam. I understand she had another incident last shift.”
Bashir rubbed at the bridge of his nose, trying to stem the fatigue that was threatening to consume him. “Yes. As far as I can tell, it was a significant bout of nausea that wasn’t subsiding.”
“Withdrawal from the drug,” Odo offered, nodding his head. He had seen – and smelled it – too often in his time with Security.
“I don’t think so,” Bashir glanced over his console as he answered. “There are other symptoms that usually go hand in hand in cases like hers – a fever and chills, convulsions… No, if I had to hazard a guess, this was related to the symbiont; another flood of memories perhaps.”
“I see.” Odo studied Bashir’s face carefully. He now understood all too well the feeling of weariness a humanoid body could manifest. And also how stubborn the mind could be in warding it off. “Doctor, when was the last time you slept?”
“I’m not sure.” Bashir turned back to the console to input some more numbers and tried to push out the memories of hearing Diam’s thoughts whenever he had tried to sleep these past few days.
“Doctor.”
“Sleep is a luxury I can’t afford right now; neither can Kyleea. I haven’t been able to come up with even a partial substitute for the coine she’s been taking, and without something to stabilize the Balance… eventually her isoboramine levels will go critical, and they’ll be nothing left any of us can do.”
“What are they at now?” Odo asked, trying to decipher the answer from the glut of numbers on the screen.
“One hundred five percent,” Bashir sighed wearily. “Which frankly worries me more than if they were too low. It signifies that if it hasn’t already, the symbiont is close to taking over her consciousness. She’s literally being driven out of her mind. And I… I wish there was something I could do.”
“If it’s any consolation, Doctor, I’ve heard the same sentiments from Dax and Kira. She certainly wasted no time in making herself a home here.” Odo saw the argument rise in Bashir’s eyes, tired as he was. “No, Doctor, you don’t have to defend the commander; but if you’ll excuse me, I have some duties to attend to.” He nodded as a way of excusing himself, but stopped as he reached the doorway. “And Doctor, I would be remiss in pointing out that your fatigue may be getting in the way of your research. Of course, if you still think you can get along without sleep, I’m sure Commander Dax would be more than happy to debate the scientific points.”
The thought made Bashir’s shoulders slump even further. He had no energy to deal with logical arguments of any kind, especially from Dax. “You know, Constable, I think I might get a few minutes rest after all.”
=^=
Odo glanced back towards the holding area as Deputy Tannon showed up to take up the night shift. He briefed the deputy quickly on a few minor infractions that were under review, updated with his own notes on the matters, and then passed everything off. A check of the clock showed it was 2447, and he found himself still standing in his office as Tannon settled in.
“Was there something else, sir?” Tannon asked, queuing up her configuration of the camera feeds and controls.
“I… Deputy Fornira will be here shortly for the next medical watch shift. Have him take on Promenade patrol until I contact him.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied without hesitation.
Odo watched a few seconds longer as Tannon immediately fell into her work pattern. He admired that; some of the others – and certainly any of the Starfleet officers – would have made an ordeal out of the change in orders, but Tannon took it in stride without question in a way he appreciated.
Before he lingered long enough to draw her attention again, Odo strode down the short hallway back to the holding cells. It was rather unusual to have most of this cluster empty, but it had been another part of the arrangement.
Even among the dimmed lights, the lone cell and its occupant stood out. Odo approached quietly, studying for any movement, but there wasn’t any. In fact, as he drew closer it became apparent that Diam wasn’t even in bed. His eyes narrowed, studying the rest of the cell.
After a few moments, he found her, asleep and huddled in the back corner. He sidestepped to the console, scanning the medical readings to assure himself everything was normal.
Footsteps behind him caught his ear, and he wondered if Tannon hadn’t managed to catch Fornira before he started his shift.
“Constable, I didn’t expect to find you here this late.”
Her voice was quiet but in the absence of other sounds, it echoed loudly in his ears. He took a step closer to her and lowered his own in response. “I could say the same for you, Major. What can I do for you?”
“Actually I’m here to visit Diam. Julian mentioned it might help her stay grounded in the here and now to see more people she knows, and well I guess I qualify.” Kira peered into the cell herself, trying to make sense of the empty biobed.
“She’s in the back corner asleep right now, and I’d be reluctant to disturb that.”
“Do you mind if I stay here for a bit, just in case she does wake up?”
Odo nodded and for the first time noticed the object Kira had cradled in her arm. “A gift?”
“Yes, actually,” she replied, a broad smile covering her face. “I heard what happened to hers, so I thought this might help… even if it’s a little simpler than the original.”
“That seems like a nice gesture, but I’m afraid you won’t be able to leave it with her. Doctor Bashir’s orders were very clear.”
“Which is why we’re going to set it up just _outside_ the forcefield,” Kira started pulling out the expandable base. “At least, if that’s all right with station security.”
“Hmph.”
A smile tugged at Kira’s lips as she started to position the prayer wheel. Odo could pretend he protested, but she knew that’s all it was: pretend. The very fact that he was here to visit this late at night meant the layer of suspicion he had held over Diam had started to melt away.
“There, how’s that?” she asked quietly, turning it slightly to face the cell better.
Odo turned his study back to diagnostics on the console. “It would be better moved half a meter to the left, or she won’t be able to see it from where she is now.”
Kira nodded curtly and moved it the prescribed half meter. Her eyes traveled from the wheel back to Diam, crumpled in the corner. Kira’s mind flashed back to nights spent similarly huddled in caves and crevices; it was always the most defensive position available. Always the safest.
She chanted a short prayer over the wheel, one that had also been far too popular during the Resistance, before approaching the console herself.
“So, how is she?”
The edge of forced optimism in her voice made Odo glance up at her. He had long since learned this tone was a way to deflect from whatever memory of the Resistance had surfaced.
“Unchanged, I’m afraid.” Odo scanned through the readings he knew before scanning the medical notes on file. “She just had another round of sedatives last hour. Doctor Bashir mentioned they were going to start short cycles to try and give her some rest.”
Kira glanced over her shoulder. “Then she’s not going to be awake anytime soon.”
“We can make sure she knows you’re the one who brought the prayer wheel.”
A sharp nod was all the response he got, and a beat later she started for the hallway to leave.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Constable,” Kira said softly as she paused at the door, all the optimism and strength she had carried in with her bleeding away.
Odo responded with a nod of his own, meeting her eyes. He didn’t need to ask if she was all right – they knew each other better than that, but he did feel the need to say something to her. To lighten some of the load from her shoulders as he always tried to do.
“Maj… Nerys,” he corrected. “I’m sure the Commander will appreciate the prayer wheel. Doctor Bashir mentioned how disappointed she was to learn hers had been destroyed.” Odo watched as the muscles in Kira’s face relaxed ever so slightly, a movement so miniscule most humanoids wouldn’t even pick up on it. But it was enough.
As Kira left the security office, Odo’s attention turned back to Diam. Her readings had been consistent again for the time he had been there, but he wondered if she would ever feel like any of her load had been lifted. His mind drifted back to the Changeling that had restored his shapeshifting abilities – that exquisite moment of feeling like one’s self again.
From what he had pieced together from her personnel files, there was a chance the Commander hadn’t felt that way since before the Joining. The Diam symbiont had been a constant barrage on her system and her senses, and yet she had managed to perform her duties, climb the ranks, and survive the many perils of space exploration.
The only question left then was: could she survive herself?
=^=
Part IX has not been re-released yet; rewrite is looking like it’s going to have more parts than the original.