something to do (Pavel Chekov)

38

Doctor Kotir asks Pavel if he wants to have a chat and Pavel refuses. He can feel himself shutting down and he doesn't want to talk about the mess that's tumbling inside his head. He has a headache and he wants to pass out for the next few days but his eyes remain open and his head keeps throbbing. He's back in the spider's web and he's more tangled up than ever. Doctor Kotir tells him he won't force anything, but he suggests Pavel has a rest and has a talk with him when he's feeling better. He can't see that happening in the foreseeable future, but he nods and goes back to trying to make himself pass out on the biobed.

McCoy comes back and gets a million questions thrown at him. He answers in three sentences.

She's alright. She's in recovery. You need to get some sleep.

Pavel gets given a small spray and McCoy tells him to take two sprays on his tongue and he does, feeling it start to kick in as soon as the bottle is back in McCoy's hand. He sighs, feeling his eyelids start to get really heavy really quickly. For a second, he can feel Eadie's fingers in his hair, though he's not sure whether he's imagining it or not.

Pavel wakes up somewhere that isn't medbay. He wakes up to heavy air and black bars with a faint ominous glow. He shakes his head. He's dreaming and he knows it. He knows he's in medbay. He gets up and goes to touch the bars, yelping when they send a faint sting through his fingertips. He shakes his head. He's in a dream, he's not supposed to be in pain.

"I don't know what's going on," a soft voice mutters. He turns around. Eadie is there. Her eyes are red, and her face looks puffy. "I woke up a few minutes ago. I don't know... I don't know what's happening. I don't remember a thing."

"No," Pavel says firmly. He touches the bars and stings himself again, looking at the faint red mark it has left. "No," he says again, taking a few steps back and collapsing. "This is a dream. This is a fucking dream. This is a fucking dream."

"Come here," Eadie instructs, gesturing for him to come over. He does, curling around her and starting to sob.

Pavel is right though. It is a fucking dream and he wakes up in medbay screaming and unable to breath. He gasps for air and McCoy comes over, trying to get him to calm down and stop thrashing. Pavel doesn't listen and McCoy puts a pale purple sticker from a cupboard and slaps it on Pavel's shoulder. He takes a deep breath and everything goes fuzzy. The room spins and he stops thrashing, just crying out until it slows and his vision returns to him.

"What's going on?" McCoy asks, putting a hand on his shoulder and trying to calm him down. Pavel shakes his head and pushes McCoy away before he throws up everywhere. McCoy passes him a sick bag and he throws up again.

A few nurses come over and one of them gets Pavel to lay back while she wipes his face over with a warm cloth. He's freezing and he has no idea what's going on. A nurse takes the sick bag from him and removes the sheets that were on him. They help clean him up and put more sheets on him, trying to keep him warm. He goes to thank them but his voice doesn't work and he lays back, looking at McCoy in the hopes of some sort of answers.

"Did you have a nightmare or something?"

Pavel nods. His throat aches from throwing up and he signs to McCoy, unsure what else to do. McCoy holds up his PADD and tells him to keep going. He starts signing again and the PADD reads allows what he's signing. He tells McCoy about the dream; about how real it was. He tells him about Eadie and the black bars. He tells him about feeling real pain.

"Where's Eadie?" Pavel finally asks, his voice coming out in a sharp whisper. He sounds like he's been trying to swallow gravel and McCoy passes him a gel pack to nurse for his throat.

"She's still in recovery. We're letting her sleep as long as she needs to. Her body has been through a lot. She might need a while before she can get back on her feet again. She's doing okay though. We're keeping an eye on her. You can come see her a little later. We need to worry about you and what you just went through."

Pavel has very little interest in anything other than seeing Eadie at their current point in time and he sits back, waiting for Doctor Kotir to come back. He sits down beside Pavel and asks him to recap what happened in his dream. Pavel sighs.

"I was in the cell again. I woke up in the cell and I was aware. I knew I was supposed to still be in medbay. I went over to the bars and when I touched them, I felt my hang stinging. My fingertips were red. Eadie was there and she told me she'd woken up just earlier and she didn't know how we got there. I touched the bars again they still stung me. She told me to come over to her and that's all I remember. It was real. The thick air, the smell. It was definitely the cell."

"Pavel. Our brains can play tricks on us. It probably was real. It was probably exactly what you experienced."

"I'd knew you'd say that," Pavel groans, brushing his hair from his eyes. "I don't want to hear it. I was there. I wasn't here. It... It was real."

Doctor Kotir nods and changes the subject. He asks how Pavel's feeling about his own upcoming surgery and he doesn't know how to answer. He just wants to go to sleep and not worry about his body doing odd things like growing bonus organs. He looks at Doctor Kotir and shrugs.

"I'm just sick of going to the toilet constantly. I can't bring myself to worry about it too much when I have Eadie on my mind. She's sort of taking up top priority recently. I just worry about her and keeping her safe. It feels like she's all I really have left after the cell."

"Think about everything you had before the cell. You still have all that now. Maybe you're not seeing it but you've made so much progress. You managed to talk about what happened to you as a child to not just Eadie but to Sulu and to me as well. You've become fluent in another language. You've done a lot for yourself, despite the circumstance you were in."

Pavel nods. The doctor has a point. He doesn't argue, just going back to talking and taking his mind off Eadie for a little while.