Chapter 3 #3
"Her oxygen saturation is dropping," I said, and hated how my voice shook. "Nothing's working. The cellular regeneration isn't taking hold fast enough."
"Let me see." Zorn scanned her vitals, his expression grave. "The pathogen's affecting her differently. Younger immune systems respond more aggressively, the inflammation is worse because her body's fighting harder."
"Then we need to suppress the immune response while treating the pathogen. But that's contradictory—"
"Not necessarily." He pulled up treatment protocols on his datapad, fingers moving rapidly through options. "There's an experimental approach. High-risk, but given her deterioration, we don't have better options."
He explained the protocol, complex, dangerous, requiring perfect timing and careful monitoring. The kind of intervention that could save a life or accelerate death depending on execution.
I should have objected. Should have asked for alternative approaches. Should have defaulted to conservative treatment.
But the child was dying.
"Do it," I said.
We worked together, trading off interventions with the precision of a surgical team that had been operating together for years rather than hours.
Zorn administered the immune suppressants while I managed the regeneration field.
I monitored neural activity while he adjusted medication levels.
He called out readings while I made split-second decisions about dosage modifications.
It was terrifying. It was exhilarating. It was the kind of high-wire medical work that required absolute trust between practitioners because one mistake meant death.
And somewhere in the middle of it, between crisis and cure, between risk and reward, I realized I trusted Zorn completely.
Not just as a supervisor. Not just as a colleague. But as a partner in this work, someone whose judgment I relied on without question, whose competence matched my own, whose presence made me better at what I did.
The realization should have terrified me.
Instead, it felt like relief.
"Oxygen saturation increasing," Zorn reported. "Neural inflammation decreasing. I think she's responding."
The Thellian child's breathing eased. Color returned to her blue-green skin. Her vital signs stabilized, climbing from critical to merely serious to actually survivable.
We'd done it.
"Good work," I said, and meant it.
"We make a good team." Zorn's eyes met mine over the child's bed, and something in his expression made my chest tight. "You're extraordinary under pressure, Bea. The way you move, the way you think. It's remarkable to watch."
The compliment hit harder than it should have. I wasn't good with praise, never had been. Criticism I could handle. It reinforced the voice in my head that said I wasn't good enough, wasn't doing enough, needed to work harder. But genuine admiration? That was dangerous territory.
"We should check the other patients," I said, deflecting because it was easier than accepting.
"We should. But first—" He pulled out two more hydration packs, handed me one. "Drink. You've been going for six hours straight."
Six hours. Had it really been that long? Time warped during the crisis, stretching and contracting in ways that had nothing to do with chronology. It felt like minutes. It felt like days.
I drank.
Zorn watched me with that careful attention that suggested he was monitoring my condition as closely as any patient's. Checking for signs of exhaustion, dehydration, the kind of overwork that led to collapse.
"I'm fine," I said.
"You're functional. There's a difference."
"Functional is all that matters right now."
"No." His voice was firm. "Your health matters. Your wellbeing matters. You matter, Bea, beyond what you can provide to patients."
The words landed like physical blows. Because they challenged the fundamental principle I'd built my life around—that my value existed in direct proportion to my usefulness, that rest was wasteful, that self-care was selfishness.
"The other patients—" I started.
"Are stable for the moment. All critical cases have been addressed.
We're moving into a sustained care phase, which means we can afford to take breaks.
" He gestured at the medical bay, where Pel'vix and Dr. Ko'rath were managing patient monitoring.
"Come on. There's a break room. We're going to eat actual food and sit down for fifteen minutes. "
"I don't need—"
"This isn't a request." The gentleness in his voice didn't disguise the steel underneath. "It's a medical order from your supervisor. Fifteen minutes. Non-negotiable."
I should have argued. Should have insisted I was fine, that I could keep going, that breaks were unnecessary luxuries.
But the truth was my legs were shaking. My vision was starting to blur at the edges.
And the thought of sitting down, of not being responsible for life-or-death decisions for even a brief moment, was almost unbearably appealing.
"Fine," I said. "Fifteen minutes."
The break room was small and utilitarian, with uncomfortable seating and questionable coffee. Zorn handed me a nutrition pack that claimed to be traditional Thellian grain medley but tasted like cardboard and regret.
I ate it anyway, because fuel was fuel.
We sat in silence for several minutes, the kind of quiet that forms between people too exhausted for conversation. Through the break room's window, I could see the medical bay with patients resting, staff moving between beds, the controlled chaos of a sustained medical crisis.
"You were right," I said finally.
Zorn looked up from his own nutrition pack. "About what?"
"About me avoiding you. About me using work as medication. About—" I stopped, the words catching in my throat. This was harder than surgery. Harder than diagnosis. Harder than anything physical medicine ever required. "About me being unhealed."
His expression softened, but he didn't interrupt. Just waited with that infinite patience he seemed to have for everything except people neglecting their own health.
"Dr. Senna said something similar," I continued. "That I have martyr syndrome. That I think I can only justify my existence through constant sacrifice. That I'm trying to save everyone else because I couldn't save the people on Liberty."
"The crash wasn't your fault."
"I know that. Intellectually. But knowing something and feeling it are different things.
" I stared at my hands, steady now, though they'd trembled earlier.
Surgeon's hands. Healer's hands. Hands that had saved lives and lost lives and couldn't distinguish the weight of either.
"I was in hydroponics when Liberty hit the wormhole.
I was safe, relatively speaking. But Allie, my work partner in medbay, she was in the section that depressurized.
I switched with her. We traded duties that day because I wanted to see the garden she'd been talking about. "
The confession came out flat. Factual. Like I was presenting case history instead of admitting the guilt that had been eating me alive for months.
"So Allie died and should be alive, and you think you don't deserve the life you're living because she's not here to live hers."
"When you say it like that, it sounds irrational."
"Survivor's guilt usually is." Zorn set down his nutrition pack, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
"Bea, you didn't cause her death. You didn't push her into that section.
You didn't sabotage the ship or trigger the wormhole.
You survived through chance, same as everyone else who made it. "
"I know."
"Do you? Because everything about your behavior suggests otherwise.
You work yourself to exhaustion because you think you don't deserve rest. You avoid connection because you think you don't deserve joy.
You push everyone away because you think you don't deserve care.
" His golden-brown eyes held mine, unwavering.
"But you do. You deserve all of it. Not because of what you provide, but because you exist. Because you're a person worthy of care for her own sake. "
The words should have bounced off the walls I'd built. Should have been dismissed as therapeutic platitudes, well-meaning but ultimately meaningless.
But they didn't bounce. They sank in, settling somewhere deep in my chest where truth tends to live whether I want it to or not.
"I don't know how to accept that," I admitted.
"That's what therapy is for. That's what—" He hesitated, and something shifted in his expression. Became more vulnerable, more personal. "That's what I'm here for. If you'll let me."
The implications hung in the air between us, heavy with meaning I wasn't sure I was ready to unpack.
"We should get back," I said.
"In eight more minutes. You need the full fifteen."
"I'm fine."
"No." His voice was gentle but immovable.
"You're healing. And healing requires rest, requires care, requires accepting help from people who want to provide it.
So sit here for eight more minutes, finish your terrible food, and let yourself have this moment.
The patients will still be there. The work will still be there.
But you need to be functional, actually functional, not just barely upright, to help them. "
He was right. I hated that he was right. Hated that he could see through my defenses, could identify the pathology I'd been living with for months, could push back against the self-destructive patterns I'd refined into an art form.
But I also, and this was the terrifying part, appreciated it.
Appreciated that someone gave enough of a damn to call me on my bullshit.
Appreciated that Zorn cared enough to be the villain if it meant keeping me healthy.
Appreciated the stubborn refusal to let me destroy myself in the name of service.
"Eight more minutes," I agreed.
We sat in silence, eating terrible food and drinking worse coffee. And somehow, despite the circumstances, despite the crisis, despite the exhaustion, despite the emotional minefield we'd stumbled into, it felt almost peaceful.
Then Pel'vix burst through the door, her lavender skin flushed dark with urgency.
"We've got a problem," she said. "Three more patients just crashed simultaneously. And the pathogen is mutating."