In The Light, Part II
Posted on Sun Aug 28th, 2022 @ 6:12pm by Lieutenant Commander Sofia Nikedoros & Lieutenant Jai & Solan
2,198 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission:
What Lies Ahead, Between, and Behind
Tags: jai, sophia
[ cue soundtrack ]
“All right, Solan, let’s see you move that arm.”
The Vulcan child sat on the biobed, his face making very clear his dissatisfaction with his medical care. The skin still bore some muted green bruising from the fall that had brought the boy into the colony’s Emergency Room.
Hesitantly, the elf-eared boy lifted the arm that he had been cradling and stretched it out toward the tattooed Tibetan who sat eye-to-eye with the youth.
Jai’s soft, brown eyes probed the child’s face for any reaction there as the boy went through the movements. “How’s that feel? Any shoulder pain?” the Only asked, even as he folded the tricorder away.
His question was answered by a wordless shake of the Vulcan boy’s head, the scowl on the boy’s face never once faltering.
If Jai didn’t know better, he’d swear the Vulcan child was radiating pure disdain toward him.
Smiling wanly, the former monk seemed to perk up slightly. “No? Well, wait a second… what do we have here?”
Leaning forward, Jai reached a hand to the back of the boy’s sculpted left ear and brought his hand around as though having just removed something. Rotating the hand around so that his palm was held toward the boy, the pediatrician revealed a piece of icoberry taffy. “Smile? Nothing? Nothing?” the monk ventured, his efforts rewarded with what seemed a deepening furrow on the child’s brow – if that was even possible. “Totally leaving me hanging,” Jai complained in jest, depositing the candy in the boy’s hand and helping him down from the biobed.
[ “Doctor Jai, please contact the nurse’s station.” ]
Ignoring the call for the moment, the boy hopped down from the step stool he used to hoist himself up beside the biobed. With one leg, he pushed the stool underneath the biobed even as he looked up at the omnipresent, hovering parent. “He’s fine. Any pain or problems, just let me know.”
The looming Vulcan woman merely looked down as though he were stupid. “Of course, Doctor. As would only be logical,” she remarked flatly, guiding her son away from the former monk.
The remark drew a chuckle from Jai. “We do love logic in Pediatrics,” the Tibetan chimed, in a whimsical fashion. Tossing the padd containing the patient chart up into the air, catching it between both palms as the child-doctor emerged out into the hallways of the hospital.
In the distance, at the far end of the hall, he could see Gunnar struggling with Old Daka. The boy wasn’t sure if it was karma or fate that the Nordic PA had drawn the chart for the matriarchal colonist’s physical therapy, but from the distance it seemed to be going as poorly as it ever did.
Mostly her refusing a wheelchair or any assistance.
Any other situation, Jai would have come to the man’s defense. But Old Daka? The boy turned down the hallway before he hoped that either of them had seen him.
“Would you file this please,” Jai uttered, announcing himself even as he passed Solan’s chart into the hands of Crewman Caerson as the boy stepped in front of the nurse’s station and waited to be told what he was doing next.
It was the hierarchy of the hospital. At the very top of which were the nurses, and it was a wise doctor who did as they said and stayed out of their way otherwise.
Another padd containing a patient chart was handed down to him. “Human, male, eighty-seven years of age,” the Benzite nurse supplied, as Jai’s eyes started going through the vitals. “Confusion, weakness, fatigue, shortness of breath.”
The boy gave a faint nod, even as the mirth seemed to drain from out of him as the details on the preliminary presented a sobering fact-pattern.
“Page Counselor Nikedoros, please,” the boy noted somberly, glancing up at the Benzite for a moment to confirm his request had been heard.
The sense of dread that the boy had when he’d glanced at the chart had solidified into a knot in his stomach as the tricorder confirmed his assumptions.
Farkas din Challa had thinning wisps of white hair that framed a gaunt face. It was clear that in his prime, he had likely been a formidable fellow. Now reduced to a frail old man.
While Jai had been examining him, the patriarch had dozed off for a moment. As Jai saw the faint, hazel-colored eyes flutter open, the boy leaned over the bedside as he said, “Hello.”
There seemed a mix of emotions on the man’s face. Confusion. Disorientation. The room had two of his adult children in it, as well as Commander Nikedoros, but by the look on the man’s face, Jai would have estimated that the man was lost and struggling with fear.
The boy’s eyes moved momentarily back to glance at Sofia, as though to confirm what he was seeing.
Sofia's heart went out to the doctor. She had been trying to prepare the family for what she fully expected to be very hard news, but it was the doctor who would have to deliver it; the son at least would not accept a terminal prognosis from anyone else. If he would accept it at all. She inclined her head to Jai with a look of profound sympathy, sending a silent prayer for strength and grace for everyone here.
When he turned back to the man, the boy adopted the same friendly tone as he asked, “Can you tell my name?”
The confusion seemed to deepen, Jai holding his breath for a moment as he feared he might have sent the man into a panic, before Frakas finally answered, softly, “No.”
Would Sofia know him well enough to tell the smile was fake? “Well, then, it’s nice to meet you. My name is Jai,” the boy supplied. The second time that they were having this introduction. Looking for a lifeline – proverbial or literal – the boy’s hand moved to indicate the man standing by the bedside. “Do you know who this is?”
The hazel eyes shifted, the head turned slightly as the man’s mouth fell agape for a long moment. Then, a spindly arm came up, grasping at the air until the son reached out to take it.
“Dorak,” the man proclaimed.
The man seemed taken aback by that for a moment. “It’s Paku, papa,” the man corrected gently, as he leaned over the old man and laid his free hand on his hand. “You’re in the hospital. This is a doctor. You’re going to be fine.”
At that diagnosis, Jai again turned his head to glance at Sofia. This time, the boy gave a nod to indicate his concern for the son.
The counselor moved closer to both adult children. Sofia had met with the family several times as both caring for their aging father, and accepting that he was failing, had become more and more difficult. It was not an easy thing to accept after all. Frakas had been a strong man, a man who had built a life for his family out of hard work and sheer determination. But his had been a hard life, mostly out on the edge of colonized space and far from the medical checks and treatments that allowed most humans now to live past 100 years. She understood how unfair, how unthinkable, an end like this seemed to his children. And how hard it was to even consider that the man who had always been the family's rock was crumbling.
"The doctor will do what he can, Paku," she said gently.
Picking up a hypospray, the boy entered a prescription into the pharmaceutical module recessed into the lab table. A vial of liquid popped up a moment later, which Jai loaded into the back of the hypo as he turned back toward both father and son.
“This is going to help you rest,” the boy noted simply, holding the device out for the man to see, before the boy switched his grip on it and leaned over to press the tip against the side of the man’s neck.
Then, setting the hypo aside, merely monitored the vitals for a minute more as the old man drifted back to sleep again.
Picking up the man’s chart, Jai made a few updates and then straightened up. Drawing in a deep breath, the boy turned and started out of the man’s room.
Paku followed him out, the woman staying by her father’s side as the physician stepped out into the hall.
The man’s hand caught the boy by the shoulder and spun him around. “You will make him better?”
The desperation in the man’s voice was only too recognizable. Letting the breath out that he had been holding, Jai took a moment to answer. Finally, looking the man in the eye, the boy said, “Your father is very old.”
There was a sharp intake of breath, as Paku recoiled away from the child-doctor. The boy’s eyes flicked over toward Sofia, then took another breath before he continued. “There is systematic cellular degradation that is starting to cause multiple organ failure.”
The man spun around at that. “But there must be something you can do?”
The boy’s eyes moved to the padd in his hands, his mouth falling open and then closing again. A thumb tapped against it. Finding his courage, Jai looked up as he offered the only diagnosis he could. “He’s dying,” the boy stated, as gently as he knew how, but with a finality that he knew inflicted pain. The boy’s head gave a nod toward the room as he offered, “I can treat his pain and make his as comfor...”
A hand connected with his chest.
Shoved backward, Jai felt his feet scraping against the floor in vain, as he fell back. Landing on his tailbone, there was a clatter as the padd slipped from his grip and struck the floor by him.
“That’s not good enough,” the man snapped loudly, his voice echoing through the halls. As the boy looked up, he saw a finger pointed accusingly at him as the man said, “I won’t accept that.”
"Paku!" Sofia's tone was part shock, part chastisement, but with more than touch of command tone implied 'halt'. She stepped between him and the doctor. "You have heard hard painful news, I will be here for you, and for Sala, to help you through this, but I will not accept you abusing a doctor." She put a hand on his arm, lowering the accusing finger. "You are a better man than that."
The man jerked his arm away from the woman, as the boy picked himself up from the floor.
"If you won't do something, then get a doctor in here who can," the man uttered flatly, shooting a glare at Sophia and then at the boy, before the man turned to make his way back into the room with his father and sister.
Moving up beside the counselor, the boy felt his shoulders sag in defeat as he let out a long sigh. "When my job's over, you're going to have your hands full with this one," Jai noted wryly, turning his head to look up at the woman.
"Grief is never easy." Sofia contained a sigh. "Unfortunately, Paku seems be hitting denial and anger at the same time now." She looked at the Only, thinking that he'd seen so much pain and death in his long life, but in many ways he was still just a child. Putting a hand on Jai's shoulder, she offered an apologetic smile. "I should go back in to them. Are you okay?"
"Yeah," the boy offered, putting his best face forward.
Okay, that was a lie.
"I don't think anyone ever really handles that kind of pain well," Jai opined, glancing from Sophia toward the room and then back again. "I think their father will make it through the night, but I think the end is coming in the next day or so," the boy noted, offering up his best guess for how this would go.
In that sense, medicine wasn't an exact science. The man might die tonight. Might live another couple of months.
She'd been around medical long enough to know no doctor was really okay after something like that, but she judged him okay enough for now. Certainly, more okay than the people watching their father slowly die. "I understand. These things happen in their own time. All we can do is try to ease the pain."
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