"Why did you stop?" he asked. "Why did you let me die?"
"You were already gone?—"
"You gave up. Just like you gave up on them. Just like you'll give up on everyone eventually, because you're too broken to save anyone, least of all yourself?—"
The alarm jerked me awake at 0545, heart hammering against my ribs like it was trying to escape my chest.
I was shaking. Couldn't stop shaking. My hands trembled as I pressed them against my face, feeling the cold sweat that had soaked through my scrubs, plastered my hair to my skull.
Forty-five minutes. I'd gotten forty-five minutes of that.
I felt like death.
The hygiene unit mirror confirmed it. I flinched away from my reflection, couldn't quite meet those bloodshot gray-blue eyes staring back. When had the dark circles become permanent? When had my cheekbones gotten so sharp?
I splashed cold water on my face, tried to shock my nervous system back to functional. The water was too cold. Everything was too much. Too bright, too loud, too real after the nightmare's visceral horror.
I twisted my pale blonde hair back into something approaching professional. The bun I'd attempted yesterday had mostly disintegrated, leaving wisps everywhere that made me look lesscharmingly disheveledand morerecently resuscitated.
Close enough.
I pulled on a clean medical uniform with mechanical precision. Self-cleaning fabric, perfect fit, appropriate for any medical scenario. The Zandovian-designed scrubs were efficient in ways that should've been comforting but just felt alien.
Like everything else about my existence now.
The corridor was quiet this early. Night shift personnel heading to rest, day shift just beginning to stir. I made my way to the medical bay with the kind of focused determination that came from years of functioning on minimal sleep and maximum nightmare fuel.
The morning briefing was standard. Zorn reviewed overnight patient statuses, assigned duties, and discussed incoming rescue operations that might require medical support. His golden-brown eyes tracked across my face when he thought I wasn't looking, noting the tremor in my hands I couldn't quite suppress, the way I had to blink hard to keep the overhead lights from stabbing into my skull.
He didn't comment. Didn't mention my forty-five minutes of sleep or the fact that I looked like I'd been run over by a cargo transport.
Professional courtesy, maybe. Or he was saving his lecture for later.
I took my assignments and dove into work. Three new patients from an overnight rescue. A family of Vex'ali refugees with radiation exposure from a deteriorating ship. Standard treatment protocols: decontamination, cellular regeneration therapy, radiation purge. I've done this dozens of times now.
My hands knew the movements even when my brain felt like sludge.
By midday, all three patients were stable and resting. I documented everything in their medical files, cross-referenced treatment efficacy with Zandovian medical databases, and made notes for follow-up care.
Efficient. Professional. Exactly what was expected.
"Bea."
I looked up from my datapad to find Dana standing in the medical bay entrance.
She'd changed. Not the superficial things, though her auburn hair was down instead of pulled back in its usual practical braid, and she wore civilian clothes instead of engineering coveralls. The change was deeper. Something in the way she held herself, shoulders relaxed instead of braced for catastrophe. The permanent worry line between her eyebrows had smoothed. Her smile, when it came, looked effortless instead of forced.
Six months ago, Dana had been wound tighter than anyone I'd ever met, carrying the weight of sixteen lives on shoulders too young for that burden. Now she looked settled. Content.
Bonding had transformed her.
A sharp stab of something that might've been envy sliced through me. That is if I'd let myself examine it too closely.
"Dana." I set down the datapad, forced my professional mask into place. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah, actually. Just finished early. Er'dox kicked me out of Engineering, said I wasoptimizing systems that don't require optimization." She moved closer, her engineer's eye automaticallyscanning the medical equipment around us. "Which apparently is code for 'you're being obsessive, go spend time with actual people.'"
"Sound advice."
