Work Text:
The cough starts after they get back from Praxis IX.
Dureena sits in the shuttle and watches as Dr. Chambers sees to Natchok Var, the alien Dureena and Gideon retrieved from the planet. Dr. Chambers is gentle yet efficient, helping him out of his seat and onto the stretcher, speaking in a warm, soft voice the whole time.
The tickling feeling rising in Dureena's chest is slow and subtle, at first, but when it hits, it feels like her lungs are trying to work their way out of her body. She coughs, violently and at length. When the feeling finally recedes a little, and Dureena becomes conscious of the world around her again, Dr. Chambers is looking at her with the same worry that was previously directed at Natchok Var.
"That's a nasty cough," Dr. Chambers remarks. "Are you okay?"
"I had to pop the seals on my suit, for a bit. Took a couple lungfuls of methane. It'll pass," Dureena reassures her. She's a little surprised that the cough has lasted this long. During her time as a slave on Praxis IX, she suffered the occasional exposure to the atmosphere, and while the after-effects were always unpleasant, they usually ran their course fairly quickly. It's been hours — she shouldn't still be affected. But perhaps her body isn't as resilient as it used to be, back then.
"Are you sure?" Dr. Chambers asks. "I could take a look."
Dureena imagines Dr. Chambers bending over her, speaking in that same soft, low tone that she seems to use on all her patients.
"I'm fine," she tries to say, before being interrupted by another coughing fit. This one is harder and longer, and Dureena feels a little faint by the end of it.
This time, Dr. Chambers insists that Dureena accompany them to medbay.
*
But between Natchok Var and the Moradi, Dr. Chambers is too busy to deal with Dureena's cough personally. So Dureena is left to the dubious care of Dr. Chambers' nurse, Tracy.
After about an hour of poking and prodding her with various cold instruments and frowning at computer screens, Tracy concludes that the cough is probably just a side effect of methane inhalation, and gives her a prescription for cough drops to soothe the irritation in her throat.
The drops taste vile. But they do seem to stop the coughing before it starts, so Dureena begins carrying them around with her and popping one in her mouth every time she starts to feel that tickle deep inside her chest.
*
On the shuttle down to Theta 49, as she's watching Dr. Chambers talk animatedly about the process of researching the virus screen, Dureena has a coughing fit for the first time in a few months. It's a wet cough, deep and aching, and when it's finally over it feels like there's something caught at the back of her throat. It takes a few swallows before the feeling recedes.
On the other side of the shuttle, Dr. Chambers and Gideon are exchanging worried looks.
"Is that a side effect of the virus screen?" Gideon asks.
Dureena shakes her head. "Just a cough. I've had it for a while."
Dr. Chambers frowns. "Since Praxis IX?" she asks. Dureena nods. "I thought Tracy said that was lung irritation."
"Yeah, she gave me cough drops. I've been taking them whenever I feel like I have to cough. But you said we can't eat or drink anything on Theta 49, so I left them behind on the Excalibur."
The lines between Dr. Chambers' eyes draw even closer together. "You've been coughing for months, and you haven't come to see me?"
"I haven't been coughing," Dureena objects. "That's what the cough drops are for."
Dr. Chambers gives her a look. "When we get back to the Excalibur, you are going straight to medbay."
*
Dureena forgets all about the cough once she discovers that there's a lost tribe of Zanderians living on Theta 49, and that they are very likely infected with the Drakh plague. It's simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. She's no longer the last of her race — but if they can't find a cure to the plague, and her people succumb, then she'll be all alone again.
Unfortunately, while Dureena forgot all about her cough, her cough didn't forget about her.
As she's watching Dr. Chambers talk to a young Zanderian, trying to reassure the boy that the syringe she's using will only hurt for a second, she feels that tickle in her chest again, building and building. With no cough drops to fend it off, she dissolves into a coughing fit, long and hard and painful, and the world narrows to just the spasming pain in her chest and her throat.
When she comes back to herself, struggling to draw breath, she finds that Zyla — the tribe leader — has helped her over to a bench over in a quiet corner of the cavern.
Dureena looks across the cave, wondering whether Dr. Chambers witnessed her latest coughing fit. But there's no sign that she has — she's moved on to her next patient, a young girl this time.
Dureena's throat twitches, but this time when she swallows, it seems to stop the tickle in its tracks.
"I did not realize," Zyla says quietly, drawing Dureena's attention back to her. She is staring at Dureena with a strange look in her eyes — a little sad, a little wistful.
Dureena narrows her eyes. "Realize what?"
"That you were afflicted with hanahaki."
Dureena blinks. She didn't have a lot of experience with relationships, before her parents sold her into slavery. But she does remember the lessons that her tribe elders taught, about love and romance. They always lectured about how it was important to be open and honest about your feelings, because eventually, too much dishonesty could cause imbalances and blockages, and eventually a condition called hanahaki — flower lung.
"No," Dureena says, because she's not in love, she can't be. "It's just — a cough."
Zyla picks up something from the dirt, and places it in Dureena's hand.
It's a white petal, smeared with blood.
*
After three years as a slave, and five years in the Thieves' Guild, Dureena isn't great at honesty. Or feelings.
So it's not surprising that she immediately gets into an argument with Dr. Chambers over what to do about the Zanderians here on Theta 49. Dr. Chambers wants to take them away from here, to prevent the plague from spreading. But this is their home — the only home they have left, after the destruction of Zander Prime. Haven't they suffered enough?
She starts to regret the threats she makes almost as soon as she's uttered them. And then Dr. Chambers is kidnapped, to be used as leverage by a splinter group of human colonists, and she regrets them even more.
When Dureena watches their ship explode in the sky, it's no longer the flowers that are choking her — it's tears. Tears she doesn't let herself shed.
Fortunately, it's all a ruse, conjured up by Gideon to trick EarthGov into thinking the colonists are dead.
Dr. Chambers is alive and well.
But that doesn't mean Dureena has to do anything about it.
*
She does have to go to medbay — not to confess, or to apologize, but because she needs to know the results of the tests that Dr. Chambers ran on the Zanderians.
The results aren't good. A year.
Dureena feels utterly off-balance. And then Dr. Chambers swears that she'll do everything she can to save Dureena's people, and the tickle in Dureena's chest blooms into a full-blown attack. She coughs and coughs and coughs, and the flowers crawl up her throat, choking her. She can't breathe, can't think. The world goes gray, and she collapses.
*
When she comes back to herself, she's lying in a medical bed in one of the isolation bays. Dr. Chambers is sitting in a chair beside the bed.
"Welcome back," Dr. Chambers says, a soft warmth in her voice, as she holds out a glass of water.
Dureena feels a twinge in her chest as she takes the glass from Dr. Chambers. Desperate for some kind of distraction, something to keep the flowers in her lungs from rising up and overwhelming her again, she looks around. On the other side of the glass doors, someone in a hazmat suit is crouched on the floor near the door.
"I've got Tracy gathering samples of the material you coughed up for analysis," Dr. Chambers explains. "And I've placed the two of us under quarantine for forty-eight hours. I think it's safe to say you're probably not infectious, since you've had that cough for several months, but we've had a few too many near-misses recently — if it turns out that that stuff really is infectious, I'd like to keep it contained."
Dureena blinks.
Forty-eight hours. In near-constant contact with Dr. Chambers, experiencing her compassion and her kindness and her care. Choking on the flowers in her chest, and the words stuck behind her teeth.
She can't do that. She can't.
"No quarantine," Dureena rasps out. The water is helping a little, but her throat still feels on fire.
"Look, Dureena, we have to be safe. We don't know what this thing is —"
"We do," Dureena insists, setting her water down on the table beside the bed and sitting up.
Dr. Chambers frowns. "We do?"
Dureena doesn't particularly want to explain hanahaki — especially not to Dr. Chambers, who might be able to put two and two together and figure out what feelings Dureena isn't being honest about. But she doesn't have to explain everything to get her point across. "It's ... a condition my people get, sometimes."
Dr. Chambers looks dubious.
"Zyla told me about it," Dureena explains.
"Oh! I see. Did she tell you anything else about it? What is it caused by? Is it treatable?"
Her curiosity, her enthusiasm, makes Dureena's throat tickle. She swallows down the sensation and presses her lips together tightly. "It's ... a private matter among my people. We don't discuss it with outsiders," she lies.
"Oh," Dr. Chambers says, suddenly subdued. "Sorry."
"But it's not infectious," Dureena insists. "So we don't need to quarantine."
Dr. Chambers bites her lip. "I'm sorry, Dureena. I really am. But once we start quarantine procedures, policy dictates that anyone inside the quarantine can't cancel the quarantine. In case the illness is something that affects their judgment."
"I don't care about your policies, I need — I need to get out of here!" Dureena surges to her feet and lurches towards the door — she's a thief, she's been trained to get through doors like that — but she's weaker than she thought. As her legs collapse out from under her, Dr. Chambers grabs her by the arms and steadies her, walking her back towards the bed.
As Dureena collapses back down onto the medical bed, she feels something rising in her throat. She isn't sure if it's flowers again, or simply tears of frustration. She rolls over and faces the wall.
"I'm sorry," Dr. Chambers says softly. "I know you don't want to spend forty-eight hours locked in here with me."
The very idea of it is terrifying. Dureena's throat already feels torn up from all of the coughing, and her lungs are a constant, dull ache. How much worse will it get, over the next two days? Especially since she has no doubt that after every coughing fit, Dr. Chambers will be right there with her, bringing her water and helping her stand and —
Dureena's chest burns at the thought.
But if this really is hanahaki, she's going to have to start getting honest about it. Before it kills her.
Maybe she can start small.
She rolls onto her back. Dr. Chambers is still watching her, a sympathetic look on her face. "I dunno. It could be nice — you know. To spend some time together," Dureena admits.
Dr. Chambers seems surprised. But then she smiles. "Yeah. I think it could be."