something to do (Pavel Chekov)

49

Eadie wakes up on Pavel’s chest the next morning and runs her fingers through his curls. His eyes open and he yawns, seeing her and closing them again. She lays there for a while and eventually convinces herself to get up and get dressed.

Pavel stays in bed and rolls onto his stomach, grunting just a little.
Pavel stays in bed and Eadie tries to get him up once more. He just grunts again and tells her he wants to stay in bed. She sits on the edge of the bed and waits a little. He stays where he is. She doesn’t think he’s sleeping.

“P-pav?” She asks, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“I can’t,” he says in Russian. “Not today, Eadie. I can’t.”

Eadie strokes his hair. They were having such a good day yesterday. She was hoping they could hang around their room and spend time in one another’s company before going back to medbay. She tells him to get some rest and kisses his head. She leaves their room and goes walking. She heads to medbay and finds McCoy.

“No Pavel, hm? Everything alright?”

Eadie nods, borrowing his PADD and typing out that Pavel is tired still. McCoy seems sceptical. He scans her again and shows her the scan. She’s looking pretty clear and McCoy shakes his head. He asks if she’s been experiencing any pain and she shakes her head. He asks her how she has been feeling recently and she takes a few seconds to try and push some words out.

“B-b-better,” she says.

“I think now might be a good time to start you on some speech therapy. I’ve talked to another doctor about it. She’s here now. She doesn’t think it will take as long as I predicted. She has a few oral sprays and stuff that help your vocal tract or something. Think you’re up to it?”
Eadie nods enthusiastically and McCoy brings her into a small office and introduces Eadie to Doctor Sanders. She asks Eadie a lot of questions and takes notes as Eadie tries to talk. She seems patient and listens with her eyes sharply focused on Eadie. She picks up a box of coloured sprays and inspects one, putting in on the table.

“Two purple. Two light green, and two grey.”

Eadie nods and sprays them in her mouth, swallowing and trying not to cough. Doctor Sanders doesn’t ask her to talk yet, just making her follow along with a whole lot of breathing exercises. She encourages Eadie to straighten her back and say her full name.
Eadie breathes in. “Eadie So-sorana Carmen.”

“Again. Deep breath.”

“Eadie Sorana Carmen.”

The doctor smiles and Eadie breaks out into a grin, amazed that she’s starting to clear up her words a little already. She keeps going. They stay for a few hours and the knots in Eadie’s speech start to loosen and untie.

The doctor sends her off with a spray to take twice daily and a few breathing exercises to try on her own to keep up the progress. She’ll come back in soon but until then she wants to work hard and get her voice back to a point where she can have a conversation again. She’s starting to get impatient and frustrated with herself and though she knows Pavel would sit there for eternity and listen to her, she wants to get some kind of normality back.

McCoy asks how she went and she grins at him, taking a deep breath.

“It went… We-well. I’m going to g-get my voice b-back. I will learn to t-talk again.”

“Oh wow,” McCoy mutters. “That’s an improvement. You should go show Pavel. I’m sure he’ll be excited to hear it.”