A/N: Before this story gets started, I want to make it abundantly clear that there is nothing wrong with being Hard of Hearing or Deaf. I myself have hearing loss, and it affects me daily. This is the story explaining why Mac'hla wears hearing aids , and how she lost most of her hearing.
"Can you see it, lass?"
Lieutenant Commander Mac'hla was up in a Jefferies tube, attempting to assist in the repairs after The Enterprise had been ambushed in an attack.
Though Mac'hla was a botanist, their original plan was to become an Engineer, and they had completed all necessary courses to become one. Unfortunately their dyspraxia made it exceptionally hard to handle tools, and so they had chosen the science route.
Since The Enterprise was quite damaged, engineers could use all the help they could get, and fortunately there was a young Vulcan with a quick mind and ability to climb available.
"Yes, sir. I am accessing the panel." she said, tightly gripping a screwdriver so as to not drop it.
"Alright, I'm going to cut the power to it." Scotty said, "Lean back for a minute."
Mac'hla leaned up against the wall of the tube, peering down and waiting for Scotty's signal.
As Scotty flipped the switch, a circuit shorted and sparked. The charge ran up the tube into the open circuit and exploded with a deafening boom. The tube filled with smoke and sparks and Mac'hla came tumbling out.
They held their ears, hearing only ringing and the muffled sounds of voices around her.
Scotty reached out and grabbed her shoulders, but he could only hear faint traces of his words.
"What?" she asked frantically, "Mr. Scott, I cannot hear you!"
Scotty placed his hands over Mac'hla's and pulled them away, gasping as he saw the large amount of green blood oozing from her pointed ears.
He said something and began to pull out of engineering, but not before shouting orders to the other engineers.
"Alright lassie, let's get you to sickbay."
"Pardon?" Mac'hla asked. Though externally they appeared calm and collected, inside they were panicking. They knew what had happened... their eardrums had ruptured, and they didn't know if it could be fixed.
Mac'hla's balance was thrown even farther off. Most balance comes from the inner ear, and with the damage being as severe as it was, she could hardly walk.
Scotty wrapped his arm around their shoulder and directed the,m while they held their ears in pain.
"Doctor McCoy!" Scotty said frantically, "It's Maggie!"
"Of course it is." Bones grumbled from the other room, "What did they do now?"
"I believe I have sustained injuries to my eardrums!" Mac'hla said, very loudly. They couldn't hear their own voice.
McCoy turned the corner, seeming bored and unconcerned until he saw the soot covered Commander with her shoulders gleaming with blood.
"Son of a bitch..." he spat, and pulled Mac'hla into a medical bed, "What the hell happened?"
"She was up in a Jefferies tube and the circuit board shorted! It must've reacted with the gas leak and blew up! It was deafening from the bottom of the tube, but the wee hen was right next to it!"
"Can you hear me?" Bones asked as he scanned over their ears.
"I cannot hear you, Doctor." Mac'hla said, only seeing his lips move but not hearing his inquiry.
McCoy felt goosebumps run up his arms as the results of the scan showed up on screen.
Vulcans have three eardrums in each ear, each being responsible for processing a different type of pitch. Netrekans have larger ear drums, being nearly 50% larger. This is to make up for the wildly echoing sounds of the canyon.
In Mac'hla's right ear there was only one eardrum remaining, in the left there were two. Mac'hla could hear certain pitches... just not the pitches that they were speaking in.
But what worried Bones the most was the way they were damaged. Vulcan eardrums do not regenerate when damaged like a human's would. If there were anything left at all, he could easily mend it... but Mac'hla's eardrums were absolutely decimated, leaving nothing but green, bloody mush trickling out her ear canal.
"Are they alright, Doctor?" Scotty asked, brushing soot off of Mac'hla's face. It wasn't going to do much– they were covered head to toe in it, but in his mind, this simple gesture was comforting... at least to him.
McCoy bit his lip. Normally he wouldn't answer in front of the patient when it came to something this serious, but it wasn't like Mac'hla could hear him.
"Ruptured... no, scratch that, obliterated eardrums. Vulcans have three in each ear, but now she only has three– three total."
Scotty sat down on the chair by the bed and bounced his foot anxiously, "I should've known... I should've been more careful."
Mac'hla seemed to know how Scotty was feeling, even without hearing his words.
"It is not your fault." They said gently, albeit very loudly, "You could not have known."
Scotty patted their knee and smiled sadly, "I'm sorry lassie."
He stared at the green blood on his hands and sighed.
"The best I can do at the moment is stop the bleeding, alright darlin'? He asked, wiping away the thick blood from Mac'hla's face.
Mac'hla stared at him blankly, not having heard him.
He held up the gauze and pointed at his ears. Mac'hla nodded.
They closed their eyes as he cleaned their stinging ears... they knew their hearing would never be the same. They knew that just one wrong move had changed things completely.
