When Harper entered medbay, Trance almost felt like shrinking away by the anger radiating from the engineer. She looked at him to see if it was even worth asking the question. She felt a rush of sympathy for him, able to tell the conflict of emotions raging inside him. Anger…fear…sadness…she willed herself not to think of it. She didn’t need two people to worry about. He walked over to where Dylan had placed Beka and Trance cringed, wishing he hadn’t. The red-haired pilot was still sedated, but her eyes were red and swollen, her cheeks tear-stained and she had a small cut next to her mouth where Trance guessed she had accidentally hurt herself while fighting. She had a hospital gown to replace her ripped shirt and her wrists and ankles were restrained. When Harper saw this he threw a glance at Trance that struck her as questioning, and somehow desperately pleading at the same time. She sighed and went over to him, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder, which was immediately rejected.
“I’m not keeping her prisoner,” she explained, “I just don’t want her to wake up and go hysterical again. She might hurt herself and I don’t want that. I’m not going to keep her restrained, ok?”
“But,” Harper interjected, “the problem was that…he…well, you know…to her, and if she wakes up and she’s restrained, don’t you think she’d just panic?” Trance considered this for a moment.
“Yes, she might,” she concluded, “but she’s safe here with us, isn’t she? So as we don’t know how she’ll react, I think it’s probably better that we can calm her down without her being able to hurt herself…or anyone else.” Harper shrugged and sighed, looking away from Trance. “So…did you talk to him?” He nodded, and Trance waited for a moment. “And?”
“Well, what can I say?” he mumbled angrily. “He confessed.”
“So…” Trance asked tentatively, “they’ve…met before?”
“Yep. On that drift. Probably before she got started in that business…they seemed pretty well protected there.” Trance swallowed. The thought of Beka having to do that job after going through such a trauma…she wondered…Harper noticed her apprehension and frowned. “What?” Trance sighed.
“Well, traumas like that…they generally take time to get over. But she didn’t really get the opportunity to get over it, did she? So now that she’s back here, and she’s safe, she might…experience the after-effects…like a sort of delayed response.” Harper gave her a blank look.
“Huh?”
“What I mean,” Trance explained slowly, “what happened was traumatic, right?” At Harper’s nod, she continued, “but with the work she had to do, she had to suppress the feelings that would naturally come from such a trauma.”
“Yeah..:” Harper nodded.
“But they have to come out at some point! And I think this might have been…the trigger. Only problem…with the whole suppressing her feelings combined with the added trauma of her…work, I think it might be a whole lot worse than it would have been if she’d just come back here straight after and dealt with it.” Harper bit his lip.
“So you saying…aw, come on Trance! It’s not fair!”
“I know Harper. It’s not…it’s really, really unfair, but that’s what the universe is and all we can do is make the best of it!” Harper turned to leave and held a hand up to stop her from saying anything else. The doors to medbay shut, leaving Trance alone with Beka in the room.
****
A frightened gasp came from Beka’s bed and Trance rushed to her side, watching her friend’s eyes slowly open. Her fists clenched and when she realised she was restrained she started bucking off the bed and tears formed in her eyes again, but not a sound left her lips.
“Beka,” Trance soothed, “it’s me, Trance. No-one’s going to hurt you, it’s ok. You’re only restrained because we were worried you’d hurt yourself.” Beka stopped struggling and resigned herself to sobbing silently. “Look, I can take these off you now, can’t I?” She looked up as if she had only just realised Trance was in the room.
“Yeah…yeah, I’m fine. Of course you can.” Trance pursed her lips together in a forced smile as she undid the restraints. She didn’t want to let on how she felt, but she didn’t like it that Beka said she was fine when she obviously wasn’t. The last thing she needed right now was more suppression of her feelings. Beka sat up and pulled her hands over her face, through her hair.
“I’m going to go and have a shower,” she mumbled as she stood up. Trance hesitated. She would have liked Beka to stay in medbay, but she didn’t want her to think she was a prisoner.
“Ok,” she said, trying to fake happiness. “That’s fine. Just…” She trailed off.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she chirped, “nothing at all! Well, you know, if you want to talk, you know where I am.”
“I don’t. I’m fine.” She quickly walked out, not even seeming to notice the hospital gown she was wearing.
“Rommie,” Trance whispered, “keep an eye on her please.”
****
She stepped into the shower, her whole body trembling. A feeling of déjà vu hit her as she tried to scrub the feel of him off her. She’d done this before. It hadn’t worked then, until she learned to suppress what had happened. Somehow it didn’t seem to work now. Maybe it was just too soon? Maybe she’d get the hang of it again and be able to stop feeling all these things again? Some part of her told her this wasn’t the right way to go about it, but she didn’t want to listen to that part.
“Please, just go away,” she whimpered. She sank down on the floor, shaking violently.
Somewhere in the circuits of the ship, Andromeda sent a signal through the wires, the machinery. Her android received the signal and was immediately on her way.
