Revelations ((Swan/Kent))

[Samantha_Kent 0]

Sam walked into sickbay, her legs still wobbling slightly from the abrupt return to normal gravity. She had sent the spider which had followed her back to Arcadia into one of the science labs until she figured out what to do with it, and was now on the lookout for something that would restore the usual amount of strength and feeling to her leg muscles. Her eyes flicked around the room, noting two bodies on biobeds at the far end; she squinted slightly, trying to see if either of them was Brian. She had no idea whether he had returned safely from that suicidal mission of his and the fact that he was not here was either a very good sign or a very bad one. She shook her head slightly and looked around for one of the doctors, hoping to get her legs taken care of quickly and get out.

 

Katherine looked up hearing another person enter the medical department. She was shocked to see that it was Sam and that she was noticeably limping, but it was hard to tell which leg was bothering her. Kat moved towards Sam with her hands extended. "Ms. Kent? What happened? Here, let me help you to a bed." Kat gently took Sam by her right hand and got behind her placing her arm around her waist to help steady her.

 

Sam stumbled again as Katherine Swan approached her and grabbed her around the waist, helping her towards a bed. "Thank you...I was with Commander Alces's team in the nebula," she explained, letting Katherine help her onto the indicated biobed. "No gravity on the ship we had...so coming back here's been a little odd."

 

Kat helped her up on the bed and gently laid her back. "So the gravity is bothering you? You weren't injured like the others?" Kat asked as she motioned around to Archie and Torre. I've patched up two officers already."

 

Sam glanced over at where Kat indicated as she lay down on her back. She could see Archie in one of the biobeds; she was glad to see that he was getting treated for his arm. His injuries had clearly been serious and her meager field medic training was nowhere near enough to deal with them. "No, I wasn't hurt," she said, shaking her head. "Archie was the only one." She paused, then looked mildly concerned. "Should I come back when you've taken care of them?"

 

"No, no. He's resting for the moment. Whoever worked on him in the field did a good job. All I had to do was tidy up a few rough edges that where unnoticeable to an untrained physician. He's lucky that someone was around. Now, as for you, lay there a moment and I'll get something to help you readjust and get your balance back." Kat moved across the room and picked up a hypo from the drug cabinet, then walked back over to Sam and picked up a tricorder just to be safe.

 

Sam looked pleased at this and let herself sink into the biobed, feeling extremely heavy. "Commander Alces and Lieutenant Daena and I cleaned him up as best we could but there wasn't much to work with, unfortunately." She made a mental note to brush up on the field medicine she had learned at the Academy before she next went out on an away mission. She then glanced sideways at Katherine as she reapproached. "You were on one of the teams that went to New Atlantis, weren't you?"

 

Kat scanned Sam with the tricorder to make certain that there was nothing else wrong, like an inner ear issue or something like that. "Yes, I went to New Atlantis. I have to say it was an odd trip but we all made it back alive and uninjured surprisingly." Kat looks at the report on the equipment. "Looks like you're OK. Just a bit of instability due to the quick gravity change. This will help ease that a bit." Kat then places the hypo to her neck and presses the drug into her system. "Did anyone else complain of this problem? Or are you just hypersensitive to the change?" Kat placed the hypo and the tricorder on the table next to Sam and looked the science officer in the eyes.

 

"There was quite a bit of unsteadiness and falling over in the TR," Sam replied, shrugging slightly. "So it might be either." She leaned her head back as the hypospray hissed into her neck and felt some of the odd weight in her body dissipate a little. "Yeah, that helps," she said, pushing herself up into a sitting position. She was relieved by what Kat said about the planetside teams suffering no casualties. She intended to go find Brian as soon as her legs were steady enough to carry her easily...if Kat's team had been so lucky perhaps his had been as well. She couldn't see who the other body was next to Archie; the bed was angled away wrong.

 

"Whoa there, Sam, not so fast. I want you to remain here for at least an hour to get your strength back. Gravity-less environments can take effect on you in more ways than one. I don't want you leaving here until all of your vitals are back to normal. The heavy feeling in your limbs is just one problem. Your organs are also feeling the effect even though you can't tell it." Katherine turned, picking up the tricorder once more and handing it to Sam. "I know you know how to read the results here. Have a look. As you can see, the blood pressure is elevated, your pulse and even your breathing are higher than normal. All of this affects your other organs as well."

 

Sam looked at the tricorder and grinned. "Guess I can't claim ignorance of what all that means, huh?" she asked and let herself drop back down on the bed. Blast it, she didn't much want to be bed-bound right now...she had too many other things to do. But she knew better than to make a fuss about it. "So how have you been since Axrekrav?" she asked conversationally, figuring she might as well talk to someone if she was going to be stuck here. She had spoken with Kat a fair amount during the Axrekrav debacle but Sam hadn't much seen her since.

 

Kat took the tricorder and placed it back on the table, glad that her patient understood what she was trying to do for her. "Well..." she stopped, wondering if she should go on, but then figured it was better that she be honest with her new friend. "Well...I finally finished my doctorate exams. I'm awaiting word on whether I'm going to get my doctor's license or just remain a field tech." Kat looked away for a moment before looking back to see what her new friend was going to think of her not being a real Doc.

 

Sam noticed Kat's distinct hesitation and raised her eyebrows slightly as the other woman went on to explain her situation. Sam hadn't realized that Kat had anything other than the usual letters at the end of her name that one expected from a Fleet medical officer. "Ah..." she said, slightly startled, then added quickly, "Well, congratulations!" She paused, then continued, "I didn't know you were still looking for your license." Unconsciously she rubbed at the spot on her neck where Kat's hypo had injected her; so far she'd seen nothing to cast any doubts on Swan's medical abilities but it certainly threw a different light on the situation.

 

Kat smiled a bit. "Thanks. It's kind of a long story as to why I'm trying for it, but I know you don't want to be bothered by it. You just sit and rest for a bit and let the drugs work their magic. You will be able to go in an hour. I'll go on and sign your release. If you have any more troubles you might want to come back and let one of the doctors have a look at you." Kat turned away and began walking towards her console to input the information that she had collected on Sam's visit. All visits to medical had to be recorded no matter how big or small. That was the first thing that Dr. Knollwatcher had told her and the one thing she would never forget.

 

Sam rested her head on the pillow of the biobed and stared at the ceiling with a slight laugh. "Well, it's not like I've got much else to do at the moment," she said cheerfully, hooking her hands behind her head. "Unless the science department comes up with some pressing business in the next sixty minutes." They were between missions now, thankfully...it was only personal business that had her at all champing at the bit to leave, and Kat had managed to pique her curiosity, not something which in her was easily satisfied. She tilted her head slightly to look at Kat by the console.

 

Kat turned back and looked at her patient. "You don't want to hear about me, Im boring." She turned back and again started tapping on her console.

 

Sam chuckled. "I've yet to meet someone who's more boring than the ceiling of a sickbay." She couldn't tell if Kat actually didn't want to talk or was only trying to evade for Sam's sake. If it was the former, she would ease off, but in her experience this kind of cat-and-mouse game tended to mean that someone was trying to decide whether or not to say something they really wanted to say.

 

Kat turned back to Sam and looked at her face. What would she think of her if she knew the truth about her and how she came to be on this ship? Would she still consider her a friend? Or would she be like the marines that came into sickbay and did not want her to even be in the same room with them when they were being treated. Would this person still consider her a friend, or an archenemy? There was only one way to find out. She took a deep breath and walked back towards Sam pulling an exam stool out as she did so. "Well...I'm not sure what you're going to think of me afterwards but here it goes." She took a deep breath before she began.

 

That got Sam's attention and she half-sat up on the bed, watching Kat with a curious expression. Clearly her questions were opening up a can of worms she hadn't expected.

 

Kat sat on the stool. "I'm not from your time, to begin with. I'm from another era. And..." She stopped and looks down to her hands as she messed with her fingers below the bed-line. "I am not even really Starfleet. I'm a renegade." She stopped there to see what Sam had to say about that much before she continued.

 

Sam blinked once, slowly. A renegade? Kat had not exactly struck her as the outlaw, devil-may-care type. That was Brian's realm, on occasion, and she had occasionally managed to meet some of the Bajoran resistance outlaws during her youth...but Kat had seemed...unassuming. "Go on..." she said, keeping any judgement out of her voice and leaving only curiosity until she knew the full story.

 

Kat took another deep breath and continued, not looking up at Sam, ashamed at what she had done to this crew and their ship. "I was captured by the Empire and forced to work for them to keep my family safe. Somehow, the Empire found out about a device that the Arcadia had, that allowed it to jump time, that had gone wrong. The Empire thought it could steal the technology and use it. I was an plant, to protect the one that sabotaged the experiment to allow the Arc to return to its time, and to try to help him steal the unit. I was also instructed that if he was caught, my family would be killed. They even gave me proof by making me watch them kill my brother in front of me."

 

The words poured out of her and Sam only understood about half of what she was hearing. She got enough though...Kat had been forced to work for an enemy of the Arcadia...something out of time...she had seen her brother killed and had therefore helped to sabotage the Arc. Not a word of this was anything Sam had expected to hear. "Prophets..." she muttered, not sure what to respond. "How long ago was this?" she asked, a nice noncommittal question.

 

Kat looked but to her but only for a second, and then looked back down, again messing with her hands. "It was about a year ago." She then continued, knowing this would be where she would more than likely lose her friend, but she wanted to be totally honest with her. "The man I was protecting was almost caught sabotaging the drive and I had to keep him from taking the blame." Kat's voice lowered. "I went after an engineer, until she confessed that she did it to keep me from beating her any more. The saboteur was set free after this and I completed my task. But I was caught helping the saboteur get away...as I was told, the Marines were not happy that one of their own was a traitor and took out revenge on me -- which landed me in SB after they gave me the same beating I gave the officer, while I was locked up in the brig. I was then visited by the CO and told that if I wanted any help from them at all in my defense I would have to tell them everything I knew. I did finally give in and spilled everything. I figured I was dead anyway, when it was found out that I had been caught and told everything I knew. I guessed my family was gone too." Kat's eyes started tearing up as she spoke.

 

"The captain helped me rescue my family after I helped them capture the saboteur, but when my father found out that I worked for the Empire..." Kat took a breath, tears now running down her face. "He disowned me. So I decided to stay here and take my chances."

 

Sam remained silent, slightly bewildered and definitely stunned, watching Kat as she talked, beginning to cry as the words continued to stream from her. Clearly this was something Kat had been holding inside for a long time and Sam was glad that none of the other medical staff was around at the time as it left Kat free to tell the whole story...whatever it was. Sam had to admit she didn't know quite what Kat was talking about at all points, and even the points she understood were startling. Kat as a Marine and a spy, beating up an engineer to prevent her own cover from being blown? It didn't match up; it threw Kat into an entirely different light, and not a very flattering one. Sam opened her mouth to reply, then shut it again, not sure what to say. She had not had any idea what kind of story she had been getting into, and now she regretted her curiosity intensely.

 

Kat looked up at Sam's shocked expression. "I understand if you don't want to speak to me again." She stood and turned back towards her console. "There are several who think that way and will not allow me to even be in the same room while they are here. I'll have one of the other doctors look in on you later. You'd better get some rest." Kat wiped he eyes with her sleeve as she made her way to her console.

 

Sam grimaced and let her head flop back on the pillow behind her. She had never felt so honestly uncertain about the right action to take as she did at this moment. On one hand, if Kat was telling the truth (and why would she say all that if she wasn't?) then she had tried to betray this ship and its entire crew; on the other hand...Sam had made it a point in her life to judge people by what she saw them doing, what she experienced of them, not by the past. And Kat had been one of the first people she had talked to on Arcadia, during that long terrible mission on Axrekrav -- she had never given Sam a single impression of being anything like what she apparently was. And the shame radiating from her now was almost palpable; whatever she had done she had clearly taken a hell of a beating for and was perhaps still receiving one, in her own mind.

 

Sam sighed. She knew this past now and would take it into account but she refused to judge the other woman solely upon it. "I don't give ultimatums like that," she said tiredly, looking up at the ceiling again. "I'll just take that one step at a time." Glancing sidelong at Kat as she walked towards the console, she raised one shoulder up and down in a shrug, then leaned her head back and half-shut her eyes, waiting for the proscribed hour to pass.

 

Kat heard Sam say something but was to embarrassed to turn to ask her to repeat it. She would just leave the woman there and write up an order for one of the other doctors or a nurse to check her over before her release. She sat at the console and pulled up the charts of the 3 patients she had treated on her shift. All three where doing well and would more than likely be released before she returned for her next shift. She was glad that the nurses in SB had worked with her long enough to know that she was sincere about treating her patients and wanting to help folks whom would allow her to help them. At least THEY knew her skills were true to her real being.