"We should check the other patients," I said, deflecting because it was easier than accepting.
"We should. But first—" He pulled out two more hydration packs, handed me one. "Drink. You've been going for six hours straight."
Six hours. Had it really been that long? Time warped during the crisis, stretching and contracting in ways that had nothing to do with chronology. It felt like minutes. It felt like days.
I drank.
Zorn watched me with that careful attention that suggested he was monitoring my condition as closely as any patient's. Checking for signs of exhaustion, dehydration, the kind of overwork that led to collapse.
"I'm fine," I said.
"You're functional. There's a difference."
"Functional is all that matters right now."
"No." His voice was firm. "Your health matters. Your wellbeing matters. You matter, Bea, beyond what you can provide to patients."
The words landed like physical blows. Because they challenged the fundamental principle I'd built my life around—that my value existed in direct proportion to my usefulness, that rest was wasteful, that self-care was selfishness.
"The other patients—" I started.
"Are stable for the moment. All critical cases have been addressed. We're moving into a sustained care phase, which means we can afford to take breaks." He gestured at the medical bay, where Pel'vix and Dr. Ko'rath were managing patient monitoring. "Come on. There's a break room. We're going to eat actual food and sit down for fifteen minutes."
"I don't need?—"
"This isn't a request." The gentleness in his voice didn't disguise the steel underneath. "It's a medical order from your supervisor. Fifteen minutes. Non-negotiable."
I should have argued. Should have insisted I was fine, that I could keep going, that breaks were unnecessary luxuries. But the truth was my legs were shaking. My vision was starting to blur at the edges. And the thought of sitting down, of not being responsible for life-or-death decisions for even a brief moment, was almost unbearably appealing.
"Fine," I said. "Fifteen minutes."
The break room was small and utilitarian, with uncomfortable seating and questionable coffee. Zorn handed me a nutrition pack that claimed to betraditional Thellian grain medleybut tasted like cardboard and regret.
I ate it anyway, because fuel was fuel.
We sat in silence for several minutes, the kind of quiet that forms between people too exhausted for conversation. Through the break room's window, I could see the medical bay with patients resting, staff moving between beds, the controlled chaos of a sustained medical crisis.
"You were right," I said finally.
Zorn looked up from his own nutrition pack. "About what?"
"About me avoiding you. About me using work as medication. About—" I stopped, the words catching in my throat. This was harder than surgery. Harder than diagnosis. Harder than anything physical medicine ever required. "About me being unhealed."
His expression softened, but he didn't interrupt. Just waitedwith that infinite patience he seemed to have for everything except people neglecting their own health.
"Dr. Senna said something similar," I continued. "That I have martyr syndrome. That I think I can only justify my existence through constant sacrifice. That I'm trying to save everyone else because I couldn't save the people on Liberty."
"The crash wasn't your fault."
"I know that. Intellectually. But knowing something and feeling it are different things." I stared at my hands, steady now, though they'd trembled earlier. Surgeon's hands. Healer's hands. Hands that had saved lives and lost lives and couldn't distinguish the weight of either. "I was in hydroponics when Liberty hit the wormhole. I was safe, relatively speaking. But Allie, my work partner in medbay, she was in the section that depressurized. I switched with her. We traded duties that day because I wanted to see the garden she'd been talking about."
The confession came out flat. Factual. Like I was presenting case history instead of admitting the guilt that had been eating me alive for months.
"So Allie died and should be alive, and you think you don't deserve the life you're living because she's not here to live hers."
"When you say it like that, it sounds irrational."
"Survivor's guilt usually is." Zorn set down his nutrition pack, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "Bea, you didn't cause her death. You didn't push her into that section. You didn't sabotage the ship or trigger the wormhole. You survived through chance, same as everyone else who made it."
