Eavesdropping

[Cmdr Ayers 0]

Nick had once spent an afternoon in the woods behind his paternal grandparent's home sitting in the middle of a small clearing blindfolded just listening to the sounds around him and sensing the movement and pattern of life as it likewise flowed around him.  It was freeing and somewhat intoxicating to be able to sense life instead of just see it or hear it, to feel far more connected to the universe then most people would ever know.  

 

      Now as he lies on a biobed in Sickbay for what frustratingly seems like the hundredth time, feeling even more helpless then he did the last time, Nick finds himself wishing desperately for even just the ability to say even one measly little word.  When his body had been shutting down..dying..in the observation lounge his empathic senses had likewise started shutting down.  It was like suddenly being struck blind, deaf and mute all at once.  He could normally sense the entire station and to some distance beyond but at the moment Lt. Hawke and Doctor Images are the only ones "visible" to him.  A weak tremble just at the edge of his empathic senses seems to be the Captain's unconscious mind but he isn't willing to put money on that one.  And then there was the mi......

 

      With a little effort he focuses on the mental connection with Lt. Hawke, as grateful for the lifeline to the world that was beyond him right now as he is for the feel and warmth of her touch against his face.  He isn't quite sure what exactly was keeping her there, surely the station needed her, especially with the Captain and him once again indisposed.  On the other hand it's not like he was regretting her presence, even if he is a bit curious as to why she had remained.

 

      Back in the Observation lounge, when he thought he was going to die, his thoughts revolved around the pain it was going to put his family through and also the thought that at least he wasn't going to outlive those he cared about outside of his family.  While he knew that his Mom wouldn't have traded him, his younger siblings or their father for anything, not even to change what had happened to her homeworld, he also knew that deep down a small part of her soul was pained at the idea that she would outlive by centuries her human husband and would most likely outlive even her children's children.  That knowledge had colored his personality, making him guarded about allowing people close.  It wasn't certain that his natural lifespan would be any longer then any full-blooded human but it was a reasonable enough expectation given his heritage to believe that his natural lifespan would be at least several centuries.  Granted, that guardedness had cost him as well, like when he....

 

      He cuts the memory off before it has time to form in his mind.  What was done was done and there was no point in going over old regrets.  He closes his eyes briefly and with a mental sigh he clears his mind of the line of thought he was on.  

 

      He tries shifting his position as he tries to figure out what it is exactly Images is trying to do.  He listens to their conversation and frowns to himself as it becomes increasingly obvious that what Images was proposing was unethical to say the least.  He picks up on Hawke's sense of unease and anger over what Images was saying.  He grows a little frustrated at not being able to do more then listen in on the conversation.  Finally he decides that the fates had evidently decreed that he wasn't meant to be more then an audience right now so he closes his eyes and tries thinking reassuring calming thoughts.