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“Beverly? BEVERLY!” Jean-Luc shouted her name as he reached out for her and watched as she fell down the side of the cliff they had been standing on moments before. He watched, helpless, as she seemed to be tossed around like a rag doll and landed on a shelf about one hundred meters below him. Her eyes looked closed, and he prayed she was still alive. The cliff was unstable, that much was certain and Jean-Luc was torn between moving away from the soft edge to be safe and checking on Beverly.
He tapped his badge to ask for assistance from the rest of the away team, but the magnetic field covering the planet they were on had been causing interference all day and he had no luck, not even a ping off of it. He removed his shoulder pack and pulled out a length of rope. He knew there was no way Beverly herself could grasp the rope to be pulled back up as she appeared to be unconscious – Not dead, Jean-Luc kept telling himself. He looked for a suitable rock he could use to tie his rope to so he himself could climb down to her to at least check on her and make her comfortable. She had her medkit, so he lightened his pack to only the bare essentials for survival and slowly began climbing down the cliff face hand over hand down the rope, using the crevices in the cliff as footholds. He hoped the rope was long enough to reach Beverly and sufficiently tied down or he would risk falling himself.
The end of the rope was about ten meters shy of Beverly, and he hurled himself down when he got to the end. His ankle rolled under him, but he stayed upright. He rushed to Beverly’s side. Her eyes were closed and she looked to be seriously injured. He gently stroked her cheek.
“Beverly, please wake up?” He rummaged in his now lighter bag for a flask of water and ripped off his sleeve to wet it gently to wipe the dirt off of her face. Beverly let out a low moan. “Beverly? It’s me. Jean-Luc. Open your eyes for me?” Her eyes slowly opened.
“What happened?” Beverly tried to sit up, but then moaned as pain shot through her and she fell back onto the rocks.
“Don’t try to move yet. You fell off the cliff edge while we were cataloguing the plant life. Apparently, the edge is quite crumbly.”
“And I took you with me again?” Beverly tried to smile. It had been on one of their first missions as a new team when Beverly had started to fall and Jean-Luc had grabbed her and they both had tumbled into an abandoned base. Jean-Luc shook his head and pointed up at the rope.
“No, I climbed down to you. I couldn’t wait for the comms to work again. I needed to know if you were alright.” Beverly tried to move her arm, but winced.
“If my tricorder survived, it was in my pocket.” Jean-Luc nodded and apologized as he reached into Beverly’s pocket and pulled out the device. Beverly let out a short breath, but Jean-Luc didn’t know if it was due to pain or the fact that he had lightly brushed her hip. He hoped it was her reaction to his touch. He flipped the tricorder open.
“I think it’s alright.”
“Good. Do you know how to use a medical scanner?”
“I’m probably a little rusty. Give me a quick walk through?”
“Probably just easier to scan me and then show me the display.” Jean-Luc nodded.
“Agreed.” Jean-Luc ran the scanner over her and attempted to pass her the display. Beverly grimaced again.
“Well, I think my arm is broken without even looking at the scan. You’ll have to hold it for me.” Jean-Luc held the tricroder in front of her and Beverly hmmed a few times. “Press the blue button please.” Beverly continued to look at the screen and then nodded. “Concussion. That’s not a surprise. Broken arm, broken leg, broken ribs. I think I’m lucky that didn’t puncture a lung.” She saw the distressed look on Jean-Luc’s face and Beverly smiled. “I also dislocated my shoulder on the other side. Ok, that you can fix.” Jean-Luc grimaced but followed Beverly’s directions and soon Beverly was flexing her fingers. “Thanks.”
Jean-Luc tried his comm badge again, but it still only issued interference. “Alright. What else can I do to make you comfortable? I’m assuming I can’t heal any of your injuries?”
“Not unless you have a portable regenerator in your pack. I didn’t bring one. No, we’ll have to do things the old fashioned way for now. My uniform is pretty tight and probably helping to hold my ribs together, but I need you to try to splint my leg and arm.” Jean-Luc looked around the ledge they were on and spotted a bush. He pulled a knife out of his pack and crawled over to the bush and hacked at the thicker branches and then stripped them of all the smaller sprigs. He returned to Beverly’s side with two decent sized sticks. He held them up.
“I’ll have to make do with this.” He ripped off his other sleeve and tore it into strips. He gently wrapped her leg until she told him he had to wrap it tighter. She told him to rip off the sleeve on her good arm for more scraps and soon she was sporting crude splints.
“Well, if it was good enough for Nana. The important thing is that everything stays stabilised and also that you don’t let me fall asleep with the concussion.” Jean-Luc nodded and began to clean off some of the visible cuts on her face with leftover sleeve scraps and water.
“Don’t worry. Either the comms will work or someone will come looking for us.” Beverly shivered.
“I hope before nightfall.” Jean-Luc rummaged in his pack and found an emergency blanket which he spread over Beverly. “Thanks.” Jean-Luc offered Beverly a sip of water and he settled against the side of the mountain by Beverly’s head and gently moved her head onto his legs.
“Are you hungry?” Beverly shook her head. “No. But if you go into my medical pack there should be a hypospray with a broad based antibiotic so I don’t get an infection.”
“I hadn’t even thought about that.” Jean-Luc reached for the pack on Beverly’s side once more and pulled out the hypospray.
“That’s why I’m the doctor.” She grinned. She took the hypo in her good hand to adjust the dosage and passed it back. “Just push it against my neck.”
The two continued to talk as the sky started to change colours with Jean-Luc periodically trying his comm badge. He even tried using the tricorder to tap into the ship’s computer to send a message, but it was hopeless. Beverly shivered and her eyes started to become droopy.
“Don’t you fall asleep on me, Bev.”
“’m not.” Jean-Luc rolled his eyes.
“If you do, I’ll dump this bottle of water on your face.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” Beverly sent him a glare and he chuckled.
“I would endure your wrath if it kept you awake.”
“Hmm.” The two drifted into silence and before Jean-Luc knew it, Beverly had closed her eyes. Jean-Luc gently slapped at her face.
“Shit! Beverly, stay with me....wake up, Sweetheart...Beverly....I can’t live without you...open your eyes....”
“You know, Sleeping Beauty was woken up with true love’s kiss.” Beverly deadpanned. Jean-Luc flushed.
“You weren’t asleep, were you?”
“Nope. But aren’t you going to kiss me?”
“If that’s...what you want?” Beverly slowly nodded and Jean-Luc lowered his head to kiss her. Her uninjured arm went around his neck and she deepened the kiss. Neither one noticed the transporter beam that took a hold of them.