She was so still on the deck. It’s no wonder that no one noticed her, until Tom said something, Sara’s always been a quiet person. And yet she wasn’t breathing. Tom said there was a pulse, but it took him three tries to find it. The tricorder was emitting a fast-pased bleeping noise that’s just one step below the flatline.
I don’t think there wasn’t one person on that bridge that wasn’t shocked into silence by what they were seeing. All right, so they didn’t much care for Sara in the buddy-buddy sense of things, but when you’re in the situation that we were in, and facing the journey we were facing, you become more than crewmates, more than shipmates, more than just people that serve together. And in the three months she’d been on board, Sara had, probably unknowingly, fit herself into a niche here as well.
I was the one that took her to sickbay. Looking back I don’t even really remember doing it; I heard the tricorder and the next thing I knew I was putting her on a diagnostic bed. I do remember Harry saying that the transporters were offline, but other than that, I guess the adrenaline kicked in, the fight-or-flight instinct that everyone has in some way or another.
All right, so I’m not being perfectly honest. Sara hasn’t had the best time of it since she came aboard, not that she had a lot of choice in doing so. I’m the one that ordered her here, and then I go off and forget about her for close to three weeks. It was after the encounter with the ‘not-a-nebula’ (as I heard it called one day), that B’Elanna finally noticed she didn’t have the extra pair of hands around that she was used to. Sure enough, the one that’s small enough to slip through the cracks had done it again.
She’s faced more uphill battles in three months than others have in three years. First there was getting the Captain to recognize that she was capable of not only holding a position but acting like it, never mind the fact that she was and still is a child, at least in my eyes. When you get to my age, there aren’t many ways to think of a person of Sara’s size. Of course who could forget the wormhole we almost found. Then there was the business with B’Elanna and the Sikarians. After that came Seska’s startling defection, and we all (even me) questioned the fact that if Sara was such a telepath, how come she didn’t know or at least have a clue about it?
I haven’t been the best first officer that I could have been for her. I haven’t even been the best friend that I could have. It was a big change for me, to go from the Maquis back to Starfleet, and while some conversions are easy, this one wasn’t. In the early weeks I was busy dealing with all the different attitudes and B’Elanna’s promotion, especially after she broke Joe Carey’s nose. Then came the incessant protocols that I had to uphold, never mind that I myself had forgotten a lot of them. Add in duty schedules, supply missions, shifts on the bridge and one very cranky hologram wanting your people in sickbay immediately if not sooner for physicals, and you have one very busy first officer.
I’d forgotten the last time I’d said two words to that girl that didn’t have to do with duty or protocol, or simply used her as a venting cushion for my own frustrations. Things that weren’t her fault crept into conversations (rather, yelling sessions), and she’d stand there and take whatever I had to say, head down, arms behind her back. From what I’ve gathered, B’Elanna wasn’t much better – she wanted Sara around to do the dirty work and crawl through the Jefferies tubes, something she’s quite good at because of the fact she’s so small. Other than that, she was shunted down to Deck 15 because no one could get any work done in Engineering with Sara there – either they gaped at her, avoided her, or stepped on her. B’Elanna’s words, not mine. Or should I say, B’Elanna’s excuses, not mine.
I used the excuses to cover up the fact that as much as she now has opportunities to see things that others won’t, it was my feeling that she didn’t belong where she was. Hell, none of us did, but we’re all adults, either Starfleet trained or rejected in the case of the Maquis. But Sara was just…Sara. She wasn’t along for the ride, but she wasn’t old enough in my eyes to be able to deal with our situation.
And yes, I’ll admit it, I felt fear.
There were the Kazon to deal with – there’s still the Kazon to deal with – Seska’s out there somewhere, and who knows what beyond that. Vidiians, strange races that don’t know us and some that won’t care to. I was afraid that her life would end before it had even begun. I didn’t want a 14 year old to die before seeing her next birthday. Part of me tried to distance myself, hoping beyond some hope that if by some ungodly reason she did come to harm, it wouldn’t be as hard to face the responsibility. Because no matter which way it ends up, that’s just the way I feel about her – responsible. She came to me when she was 13, more or less two years ago, or thereabouts.
I’ve never seen a girl so in need of a family, and yet so independent.
So one can imagine how I felt, standing there watching the doctor administer medication, try to bring her back from wherever she was. Her heart had stopped before I could get her to Deck 5.
Legally, she was dead.
But by some miracle, or perhaps just the quick intervention, she was brought back. I saw the readings on the monitor change from a flatline to a pulse. Normal breathing patterns. Normal brain waves. Her skin went from ashen and blue to pink. She gasped for air, moved around a bit, and fell asleep, probably from the hypo the doctor put at her neck.
