Last requests

Posted on Sunday 9 May 2021 @ 14:33 by Commander Caroline Miller
Edited on on Sunday 9 May 2021 @ 14:39

Mission: A Cry from the Darkness
Location: Medical, USS Siegfied
Timeline: 2390
1020 words - 2 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:

Back post - 2390 – USS Siegfried

“Caroline, he keeps asking for you,” the CMO said.

The blond nodded. She had kept putting this off and couldn’t any longer. There wasn’t time. That dam virus was shutting down his systems and nothing they did was stopping it.
She took a few steps forward and stopped chewing her lip.

“I know,” she felt the other woman place a calming hand on her shoulder. “Its harder the closer you are to someone. We all loose patients but we never imagine … we never hope its someone that we work with every day. Try to be strong.”

She made the smallest of nods and tried to hold back tears. Taking a deep breathe she walked in. The forcefield was holding the virus at bay. She would be safe anyway as it only seemed to affect races who were telepathic, but they had to contain it.

Eidos was the last patient. It had mutated several times with each member of a telepathic species they had onboard. Betaziods it seemed to just be the nastiest.

The hallucinations hadn’t been fun for the Vulcans prompting one to also go into early pon farr and tear up one of the medical private rooms. It had taken 6 to sedate him. Worse he had decided the chief nurse was his intended and initiated a mind meld before they had even realised what was happening.

But the Betaziods with their empathic abilities also they were slowing going crazy not realising what was real, what was their reality. Eidos was blurring in and out and it seemed from the look on his face, he was in a current state of calm again and knew where he was and who he was.

“Hey blondie, chin up,”

That confirmed it. She nodded and smiled at him.

“How are you feeling?” she asked checking his charts on the bed readout. She knew exactly how he was feeling. He was losing control of his right arm and leg. This virus deciding to attack the neuron paths now. It was almost as the more it shut down in other areas the more the neurons decided to wire his brain for the hallucinations.

“Put it this way I won’t be dancing again any time soon,” he chuckled.

“Ei ..” she started. She wasn’t sure the right things to say though.

He stopped her turning serious. “No. Look I might not have long … before the madness takes me or lest it moves to my circulatory system. I know we haven’t managed to isolate it from upsetting the neuropaths yet. We both know I’m a gonna too … so Blondie I need you do a few things for me. And you owe me,” he said simply.

She nodded.

“Now I know you will all keep that photo of us on Risa and kiss it every day, keep the memory of me alive” he went straight back to joking, “And dedicate your lives to finding some way to destroy this horrible Beta quadrant virus and continue on my dedicated hatred of Starfleet jumping through wormholes at all. I’ve started daily petitioning the head of operations …”

The blonde managed half a smile. One of Eidos’s regular jokes was the amount of gripes he had with everything and who he claimed to be petitioning daily at Starfleet HQ.

“But?” she asked.

“But I only want you to take my things back to Sereh, I know they won’t be able to keep the body for a proper burial. You are all going to need to freeze me and dice me up for samples …

“Eidos …”

“You do. If you’re going to fight this, you need every bit of tissue, brain, blood … the whole shebang to try to understand it properly. We long ago knew the dangers and we all signed that little piece of paper. So once the life disappears from my eyes you must as they taught us at medical school see me as a corpse only.”

Caroline could feel her teeth subconsciously digging into her inside cheek. She blinked hard pushing back the tears.

“So will you do it? Make the trip to Betazed and take her all my things. And the message I prepared in case … well this exact situation you know ….” He looked at her earnestly.

“I will. You know I will,” she said softly.

“And stay in touch with her Blondie. She needs to keep as many links to me as possible. Continue being her friend,” he said with a smile. “If we had managed to marry and she had come out here and joined us I know you two would have been great friends. Thick as thieves.”

Caroline nodded. She had spoken to his fiancé on subspace. And met her briefly on Risa. They had all liked her. She wished she could step through and hold his hand. Squeeze it as she said the words.
“I will sort it all and stay as long as she needs me. I promise Eidos. Take that peace into the afterlife with you,” she said.

“Hell I’ll take the piece and watch on with the Goddesses,” he said seriously. “Don’t assume you will have completely got rid of me cause I’m dead. One day I’m even going to send a decent man your way. Help you break that ridiculous curse you have over your head and with relationships.”

She nodded again.

“Now as the rooms getting dark and I'm starting to see the great fire again I’d gladly ask ….

“I’m sedating you,” Caroline said quickly. She didn’t want him to be screaming and feeling those fires as if they were real again. She watched his eyes glaze over sleepily and noticed what they had feared. His left side was starting to take the same damage now.

At least she hadn’t cried.

It wasn’t the case a few days later when she had to officially sign his death off. Floxiona virus. Two words that would continue to haunt her for a long long time.

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