JDL | Fleet Admiral Blyx Red, Captain Aleksandr Dunross & Commander Marcus Carrol M.D. | "Deeper Wounds" (Part One)

Posted on 241708.18 @ 4:39am by Fleet Admiral Blyx Red & Captain Aleksandr Dunross & Commander Marcus Carrol M.D.

Mission: Hush [BQ Plot]
Location: Medical | Cold Station Theta
Timeline: 2 Days Post Op

Doctor Carrol had spent the better part of the last 48 hours alternating between duty status and the on call bed in the recovery ward. He had insisted he be available when, not if, Admiral Red woke up. Against his orders, Captain Dunross had been allowed to occupy the chair next to his patient and had been there since shortly after she was placed in recovery. He pulled Admiral Red's chart up on his PADD. Her vitals had improved under the medically induced coma and her body had already started to show signs of healing. All good quest to Marcus that she was ready to be weaned off the medications and allowed to awaken on her own time.

"Captain Dunross," Marcus said as he came in the room. The man was still sitting at the Admiral's bedside holding her hand, "I am going to lower the aesthetic and allow her to wake up. It will be several hours before she regains consciousness, however. If you would like to change, shower, or shave, perhaps now would be the time." Marcus was also going to conduct an examination and preferred the room emptied of onlookers as he did so. The patient deserved that much.

“Da, Doctor, you are correct, I should go and wash up,” Aleksandr said, “I do not want her to see me like this in any accord.”

Aleksandr gave the doctor an appreciative smile that did not reach his eyes and moved quickly out of the doors and returned to his quarters. While he visited Blyx often, he had not yet moved in with her. He was not sure she wanted him to, so he maintained a place of his own. However, with every step of the way back to his quarters, Aleksandr decided that situation must change.

Marcus nodded as the man stood to leave thinking, that was easier than I had hoped. "Take your time, Captain. She's not going anywhere anytime soon." Withdrawing his tricorder, Marcus did a quick vitals scan, confirming what he had just said. Her breathing was slow and steady, her blood pressure was low but her white blood cell counts were returning to normal and her hemoglobin was increasing. All signs that blood was slowly replacing the excess saline in her veins.

Marcus stepped up next to the biobed and quickly conducted a skeletal scan so he could ensure there were no breaches of marrow into the blood stream. Along with blood clots, fat embolism syndrome was a small concern that could stand in the way of a full recovery. With a broken rib the risk was small but with so many breaks that risk had increased.

Marcus noticed Captain Dunross was still looming in the doorway watching him. "She will be fine. Vitals are strong and there is no sign of complication from surgery. Captain, do we know any more about her attacker?" Marcus asked out of curiosity.

Aleksandr took a deep breath and pursed his lips. He studied the physician with cold steel grey eyes before he answered. "The investigation is still very early, Doctor. The perpetrator of this crime has had the bad manners to die before he was questions. However we track down his friends, family, co-conspirators, and any one with any remote affiliation to the crime and there will be questions that will be answered."

He paused to look at the doctor one last time before departing. As soon as he exited, his aide fell into step behind him and just to the left. He walked along the Promenade for a few minutes without saying anything, deep in thought. His aide stayed silent and continued her work and murmured conversation as to not disturb Aleksandr's rumination. Each of his agents were familiar and knew how to respond to his needs and preferences. Letting out a slow breath, Aleksandr turned to the aid as they continued to walk, who quickly ended whatever conversation she was having.

"I want the move done immediately," Aleksandr said. He did to have to say which move and to where. There were several contingency plans that were prepared for activation. When he first arrived on the station and took up his post, he prepared for the day that he and Blyx may reunite. While he was willing to wait for Blyx's invitation, this attack on her took that out of her hands. He would be her bodyguard if need be. "Cleanse and reclassify the apartment as a safe house and activate listening posts plan Ceta-Four-Three-One."

"Yes, Director," replied the Betazoid-Human hybrid. After a moment of quick conversation and tapping at the ever present padd she carried, the aid gave a nod of completion.

Aleksandr nodded in acknowledgment and proceeded to Blyx's apartment suit. Sensor buzzes that were only detectable to an operative sounded as he approached her quarters. A pair of operatives dressed in Federation security mustard yellow stood guard outside the doors. A thin smile of appreciation as the only reward his subordinate would get for a job well done. When he entered, he already found a fresh suit of clothes waiting for him and his toiletries already stacked in his preferred places. It pays to have a well trained and motivated staff. It did not take long for Aleksandr to shower and shave. Shooting his cuffs, he exhaled, trying to rid himself of the emotional wreckage of the last few days before he returned to Blyx. When she awoke, he wanted his face to be the first thing she saw.

---

Sleep had come, forced at first but then of Blyx’s own accord. The mist of sedatives slowly had begun to disappear from her system, forced away by heart beat after heart beat and a system that metabolized and processed the toxin quickly. Genetics would be to blame for that, a series of evolutionary traits passed along from old Irish, Scottish, and Slavic roots that had crossed and intermingled for centuries before deciding they truly had a distaste for inebriation of any kind.

From the second that sleep became a ‘choice’ her body made, the dreams had started. At first, they were fuzzy, mere remnants of the drugs as they slowly gave way to clarity. Then they were dreams of the past, of times spent laughing in bed and stealing forbidden kisses in a Captain’s ready room. Of course, those kisses belonged to the Captain himself, but the fact remained that they were taboo to the extreme. She hadn’t cared then. She didn’t care now.

Then came her senses, infiltrating her dreams with memories of mint and chocolate and fine cream. She could remember the feeling of stubble as it ran beneath her fingers and cheek and lips. She could remember the feel of his weight cradled between her thighs and muscles beneath her palms. That had all been so very long ago, back when a smile would brighten the depths of his eyes. They’d once been so soulful, now they were shark-like and cold at best.

Then came real time senses… The ones where she became acutely aware of sounds and smells and sensations all around her. She felt it when she was jostled by the nurses coming to check her wounds, when Alek pressed a kiss to her forehead and sat back to do whatever it was he was doing. Reading, she presumed. He did a lot of that nowadays. There were murmurs and mutters, the sound of doctors and tricorders. Pain… There was almost always pain even through the medication, but she wasn’t one to complain.

Then came light. It pierced through her eyelids in a most uncomfortable manner. In fact, it forced her to blink. It was more of a flutter of her eye beneath her lids at first as they struggled to open. Her consciousness surged away from the din of sleep, effectively freeing her from the gray layers of twilight. Then she was awake. Conscious. Aware. She could only see the blurriest of figures, all of them swimming, but she was awake and she wasn’t laying on the floor of her new office, bleeding. Her fingers twitched against the rough sheets. Blyx wanted to speak, tried to speak, but her voice was dry as desert gravel from lack of use and all that came was the hoarsest of whispers to the tune of “Where am I?”

“Shhhh, it's okay, Blyx,” Aleksandr croaked out as he sought to find his voice, “You’re in the infirmary and everything’s okay… You’re gonna live.”

Aleksandr had been holding onto Blyx's hand as she awakened from her coma. During the entire process, one way or another, he'd kept her hands in his, admittedly more as a comfort to himself than to her even though he kept having to alternate them to wipe and dry them, not wanting her to feel how nervous he was. It was a torment to him, having to wait for news from the doctors that had worked on her and all the while plans to exact his revenge on the perpetrators of this crime were in the works. The boy that had gotten himself killed was not a lone assassin. There are never lone assassins. Aleksandr knew that he'd find anyone and everyone even remotely responsible for what had happened, and a punishment would be exacted in kind. A wave of fury flashed through him and he turned his focus back to Blyx. He'd combed and brushed her hair after returning fresh from his shower, having wanted her to look her best as well. Reaching down, he gave her a kiss and smoothed back her hair before cradling her cheek in his palm.

"You're safe now."

Her eyelids felt like weights had been taped to them. Even as she woke up, they kept wanting to droop shut, sending her back to sleep. Blyx refused. She was determined to struggle awake and rise above the tide of uncertainty and the haze drugs left hanging over her like a dark cloud. She could hear some, see the contours of them in a fuzzy aura, someone from far away and distorted that spoke of safety, that she was alive, in sickbay. At first, she could barely remember what had happened, but then the memory of the boy's eyes came to her in a flash, forcing her to take a sharp, startling breath. He had hate in his eyes. Hate and so much anger, but they were so young and full of potential. Blyx's own eyes were open now, searching a new pair. A familiar pair. They were gray and lit with a certain kind of life that left her wondering about everything they've seen. Alek. She'd know them anywhere. He'd been the one talking of safety and likely the one who had been touching and caressing her. "Want... To... Go... Home..." She half breathed half slurred with thanks to the remnants of the sedatives that kept her down, "Take me?" If anyone would keep her safe, nurse her back to health from the hell she'd been through, it was likely to be him. Even if he were to fail on that front, at least she'd be allowed to die with her dignity intact and not pent up in Cold Station Theta's Sickbay with scratchy sheets and people poking, prodding, and pitying.

Aleksandr moved quickly to get the attention of the medical staff without letting go of Blyx's hand.

"Let's get the Admiral ready go!"

The authority that Aleksandr wielded did not extend to the Infirmary, but he expected to be obeyed anyway. His Starfleet credentials that identified him as a Captain were legitimate in that he was indeed a Starfleet captain, but not one on active duty, nor serving Starfleet in any capacity. To Aleksandr, such things did not concern him. So when he ordered that Blyx be made ready to leave, he turned away with the expectation that his commands were obeyed. “I’ll get you out of here, my love, I’ll take care of you now. A click of his commbage told him that his team was ready and the path back to Blyx’s quarters was made clear. He was not going to take any chances with getting her back home safely.

Marcus was finishing up with a patient consultation in the room across the hall from the Admiral's when he heard Captain Dunross giving orders to his staff and demanding that they prepare the Admiral for transportation. He sat down his PADD and walked into the room. "Captain, I'm afraid the Admiral is in no shape to be moved. I'm also afraid that even if you were the Commander in Chief of Starfleet, your orders don't carry much weight in medical, Sir. Trust me when I say, she is where she needs to be right now. As soon as she is recovered we will discharge her, but not before."

Aleksandr’s nostrils flared as he bit back the retort he was about to speak. He wasn’t sure quite what stayed his hand and there several long moments before he managed to utter a response. Sucking on his teeth, tasting the rebuke the doctor handed to him. He was aware of arrogance the medical professionals usually displayed and decided that the doctor was behaving as expected. He held out a hand to wave away any response from his security. He will let the doctor have his way, for now.

“Da,” Aleksandr said with a nod. He gracefully put Blyx had down with a caress and kiss before turning to the doctor again. He gave the man a hard cold star that made his gray eyes seem to frost over. “Da, please excuse me,” Aleksandr said with a smile that failed to reach his eyes.

With a snap of his finger his security team gathered outside the room and waited for while he moved to a corner of the room to not interfere with the medical personnel, but within eyesight of Blyx.

---

Fleet Admiral Blyx O. Red
Commander
Beta Quadrant
Starfleet

Captain Aleksandr Dunross
Director
Section 31
Starfleet

Commander Marcus Carrol M.D.
Chief Surgeon
Cold Station Theta