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He wanted to get up.
Elnor wanted to get up but all capability for movement seemed to have been blown out of him along with the wind in his lungs that left him in a cry of pain when the phaser hit him. He’d never known pain like this – every miniscule jostling, every breath ached in waves that emanated from the oozing burn in his chest. It forced involuntary tears to leak from his eyes as he gasped on the ground.
He was scared.
Distantly, he could hear the Magistrate questioning his friends and that made it even worse. Maybe if he could control the pain, like the nuns had taught him, he could help them. He focused on his breathing, and tried to slow it, hissing through clenched teeth. For a split second, he locked eyes with Raffi and tried to get up, but collapsed again.
“I thought a safe galaxy was a human galaxy. Why the concern?” he heard the Magistrate say. “You should have seen what that one did to my security team.”
That statement was enough for Elnor to fire a defiant, prideful, yet wobbly glare in the Magistrate’s direction, before weakness overtook him once more. Sweat had broken out on his face with the effort, and he wasn’t sure if he could move again. He was reminded of the beating that security team had given him; though it paled in comparison to being shot, their blows had not been light. He could vaguely feel the bruises simmering below the skin of his face, his stomach, his heart, his ribs, and other places he was beginning to forget.
He heard Seven trying to salvage the situation, but it seemed like that wasn’t going well. His vision dimmed at the edges for a moment. This wasn’t good. Nor was the attempted convincing of the Confederation officers, as a firefight broke out. All Elnor wanted to do was help his friends. All he could do was lie gasping and writhing weakly as the officers were vaporized and the fight ended. His friends rushed to his side.
“Elnor!”
“Everything’s gonna be all right.”
He could hear the worry in their tones. Raffi dropped beside him, her hands gently assessing and reassuring him.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you,” Elnor choked out.
Raffi’s face crumpled. “No, no…” It was so unfailingly Elnor of him for that to be his only concern, and it broke her heart to hear him trying to be strong.
“We need to go. Raffi, get him to sickbay,” Picard directed. “Rios, get us out of this damned place!” With that, the crew jumped into action. Rios ran to his chair and brought up the controls.
Seven sank to the floor beside Raffi. “Raff, stay with him. I’ll go see if there’s something we can move him with.” Raffi barely responded but continued to stroke Elnor’s hair with her fingers. A minute later Seven returned with a spine board. “It'll be best to get him on here.”
Raffi took a deep breath and touched Elnor’s face. “Honey, we need to move you. I’m going to roll you onto your side. It’s going to hurt, okay? You can do this.” Elnor steeled his jaw and nodded wordlessly. Seven placed the board next to him and then Raffi gingerly rolled him on his left side. Even so, Elnor couldn’t stop the drawn-out groan that escaped his lips and when Raffi rolled him back onto the board, his breathing came in guttural, agonized moans.
Raffi and Seven scooped him up and carried him to what passed for a bed in sickbay. Raffi cursed this reality and wished for the cushioned biobed aboard the La Sirena she knew, or better yet, the state-of-the-art facilities onboard the Excelsior. The medical systems hummed to life and, even though the patient was not human, alarms sounded immediately. Raffi set about looking for something, anything to help Elnor, while Seven began tearing away the fabric around Elnor’s wound, earning a renewed round of cries from the young Romulan.
Every movement she made sent torrents of white-hot pain across his chest. Now he wanted to be strong, but it was all he could do to hold back the full-blown screams. At least the lack of air in his lungs helped his cause, but they were beginning to burn from oxygen deprivation. He blinked rapidly as his vision dimmed again, and as she finally seemed done messing with his shirt.
Behind him, he could hear Raffi feverishly opening drawers and cabinets and crates. “No medical tricorder.” A clatter - another crate opened. He heard her swearing, but his hearing seemed to be fading in and out. It was getting harder to breathe.
Elnor heard Seven’s voice now, something about skin and bleeding, and the ship lurched in an explosion. He gritted his teeth again as his wound was jostled, and then Seven was pressing a pad to the gaping hole in his chest. This was the worst pain he’d felt so far, and he screwed up his face against it and against the broken sounds emanating from his throat.
Then Raffi and Seven switched places. For a second, Elnor was able to focus on Raffi’s tear-streaked face above him amidst his whimpers. The ship lurched again. Despite their predicament and despite the fact that nothing in this sickbay was meant for him, he had begun to feel a little clearer and the pain ebbed the tiniest amount. Raffi… He needed to be strong for Raffi.
Raffi was trying to console him, but he suspected that her words held more meaning for herself than for him. “You’re gonna be just fine, okay?” Their brown eyes met and she saw the usual youthful spark in his, undimmed by his suffering. She swallowed hard.
“Hey, honey. Tell me another story about Vashti. Tell me… about a time you did something you shouldn’t.” She was stalling, trying to distract them both. The ship rocked and spun once more and Elnor winced and gasped, then smiled.
“One time… I stole a bowl of sweet cream from… Raha,” Elnor began. “She led our house.” He paused and took several shaky breaths. The enemy fire from the Confederation ships seemed to have ceased for now, but he could feel the hull starting to vibrate as the engines accelerated. “I… It was her favorite thing and she w-would go and get another bowl every time I took it.” Raffi smiled back at him.
Overhead, the lights flickered to green. Raffi knew it would be a rough ride, so as Elnor continued his story, she grabbed some straps from one of the boxes she’d opened and began to secure them around his body.
“But every time she left, I’d put the bowl back.” She tightened the strap around his chest, and he hissed in a breath. “So she would go put the second one back, and then I would hide the first one… again…” Elnor smiled weakly at the memory and Raffi smiled back, but his breathing had quickened as La Sirena picked up speed.
The quaking of the ship finally got so severe that Raffi crawled on top of him and shielded him with her own body. “Hey. Hold on, baby. It’s okay, I got you.”
Once again, Elnor was afraid as the pain intensified. He dimly registered that he was traveling faster than he ever had in his life, and had no idea what would happen next. Still, Raffi’s presence brought him some comfort. Then everything seemed to suddenly stop – the vibrations, the sparks raining from the ceiling, even the pain in his body. It was a welcome respite, but short-lived as La Sirena emerged from time warp only a few seconds later. While the pain returned, the ship’s lights had returned to blue and the shaking had ceased.
“That was a good story,” said Raffi as she climbed off of him. Elnor smiled at her again.
Suddenly, alarms blared ship-wide and the ship began rattling harder than ever. Elnor felt a swooping feeling in his stomach as La Sirena sank into a dive towards Earth. Then the sickbay lights and systems started flickering and he felt the full brunt of his wounds threatening to return. Raffi’s eyes were wide as she bent down and clutched him once more. La Sirena gathered more and more speed and Elnor moaned at the pain as it grew.
Then, with a horrible, bone-rattling lurch, the ship crashed into the ground. Elnor screamed as he felt something give way inside of him. He had no idea how he could even produce so much sound, since he seemed to have no breath left. Raffi closed her eyes and held onto him, the ship threatening to throw them both off the biobed before finally coming to a halt. Raffi was finally sent rolling to the floor, and Elnor’s agonized wails stopped abruptly as he passed out.
The ship was dark, only illuminated by dim emergency lights. Raffi got up and her heart stopped for a split second when she saw Elnor’s unconscious frame. She relaxed a bit when she saw him breathing, but knew that his condition had gotten worse thanks to the crash and the loss of power. Elnor stirred and she started freeing him from the straps.
“We need power in the sickbay, now!”
Elnor was regaining consciousness slowly, but his breathing was more labored than ever. “I’m stronger than you think,” he gritted out.
“Oh yeah? Prove it.”
Elnor grunted and gasped, “Can’t. Busy at the moment with – mmph – organs.” His voice had broken with the torrents of pain engulfing him. When he was first shot, the sensations had been sharp and fiery. Now, they were more intense but also somehow deeper. There was a pressure on his body that he couldn’t seem to lift.
Raffi sobbed out a chuckle at his rebuttal, surprised. “Was… was that your first joke?” Elnor grinned in response, but then his face faded into a grimace, a small pool of blood at the corner of his mouth. Without warning, he coughed, then sobbed, then groaned, and more blood flowed out of his mouth. Raffi turned towards the bridge and shouted. “We need power!”
She rubbed his chest, trying to do anything to soothe him as more coughs wracked his body. Finally, they faded and he was left wheezing. She took her sleeve and wiped the vibrant green off of his cheek.
The spark in his eyes had dulled. His ears were ringing and he could hear the blood rushing in them. His vision had blurred. He knew that his strength was running out.
“Raffi,” he whispered.
“I’m here, honey.”
“There was… a message… to that story.” Elnor sucked in a few shallow breaths. “My medallion. The nuns gave it to me…” His eyes found Raffi’s. “Get it for me please? It’s in my pocket.” He registered her acknowledgement, her rummaging around in his pocket. His voice quivered. “It brings me comfort, knowing I earned it even in this reality.”
Raffi extracted the necklace and inspected it. “Oh, it’s – it’s beautiful.” She didn’t know much Romulan but Elnor had taught her enough for her to read, “Sem n’hak kon.”
Elnor thought of what that medal meant to him, how he had earned it once he’d learned to embrace the present. He smiled through heavy-lidded eyes and translated, “Now is the only moment.”
Raffi repeated his words, and nodded, remembering the story of spontaneity he had just told her. She turned back to him to give it to him, but saw that the spark in his eyes had already gone out, and he lay there, unseeing.
All of her thoughts ground to a halt, or vanished completely, and she felt shock drain into her as she looked at him. Now is the only moment. She began to tremble and draped herself over his body once more. Now is the only moment. This was the only moment she could inhabit, even as she hoped beyond hope that it didn’t exist. This was the only moment she could inhabit until she found a way to bring him back.