Crash and Burn

"Please lay down Captain." Jade said, gently pressing on his shoulder to get him to lay flat.

"It's just a hangover Doc. I'll be fine." He tried to sit up again.

"Last time you said that to me you ended up in a termainal coma. Until about two minutes ago you were dying of mulitple organ failure. I will not let that happen again. So help me I will sedate you." She looked him in the eyes so he could see her sincerity.

"You died! You actually died!" Katrina said, pushing through the two medics and gripping onto Jay's hand. Jay winced and looked down at the contact. Katrina had grabbed the hand with the drip in it. As he saw this, the slow dawning notice of the other tubes and devices around him came into focus.

"Does that mean I can't have a kebab?" Jay asked quizzically.

"It was the nanophage." Katrina looked sternly at her husband, trying to get through to him.

"Please. We at least need to remove the heart bypass." Jade said, adjusting some of the nearby machinery and switching off the EM field.

"How did you cure me?" Jay's voice was instistant, Katrina and Jade danced about the issue. Not wanting to think about it yet, not needing the extra worry.

"Cass Did." Phi said, breaking the tension.

"How?!" He was getting frustrated, the monitors refelecting his agitated state beeped more insistantly.

"It was Brittany's plan all along. She wanted Cass, knew that she would give herself up for the cure." Katrina said, soothing Jay by running a hand through his hair.

"We gotta go get her! We have to go after her!" Jay said, trying to get up.

"I know, but you need to rest." Katrina said, looking to Jade and Phi for help.

"There isn't time." He struggled to sit up. Jade's patience snapped, she was tired, sore and dressed like a hareem slut.

"Be my guest Mr Chrysler. Lets see how far you get with all these machines still wired in!" She let go and watched him. He floundered on the bed in his weakened state, grimacing as something internal caught on something else internal.

"Ow..." He grumbled laying back down.

"Quite. Now please lie still and we can get this all sorted with minimal fuss." Jade said, scrubbing up to perform surgery on the Captain.

***

It was only a few hours later when Jay was back, tubeless and in recovery.

"Go get some sleep." Katrina smiled. "I can look after him here for now."

"Well, plenty of bed rest and..." Jade was in Doctor's orders mode, but caught the smirk on Kat's face. "No. Not like that."

"I'm sure that we can manage. Both of you. Go. Sleep." Katrina shooed the two out of the intensive care bay. Jade paused by the comms pannel and punched in the details for a ship wide announcement.

"This is Doctor Black, I am pleased to announce that Captain Chrysler is in full recovery. He will be fine..." She paused, wondering if she should say something about Cass. The crew needed rest. Adding that thought would only cause needless worry. After all, what could they do against the STCP? But then again she couldn't lie either. "Cass retrieved the cure from Brittany, at the price Cass returned with her. We... We will be getting her back somehow." Jade floundered. She wasn't good at the whole leadership thing. "Till Jay is recovered fully we can't do anything. It's too risky. For now rest and get ready for whatever comes next." She cringed, thinking that she sounded like an idiot. Some pep talk that had been.

***

"You know Tami? I don't even know where to start so much has happened. Firstly I don't know what to think about being 3,000,000 years into the future, it's hard to think of everyone being dead. Abbie, Dan, Sean, Rhiannon... All of them. I know that I had no real familly left, but they were my familly. I didn't realise how lonely I was until I came out of stasis. Fernando's changed everything. All those people that I knew but didn't know, that I have encountered in the Training bay, but not actually really met or talked to..."

Jade lay back on the bottom bunk, converted into a sofa by the aplication of more scatter cusions than was prehaps needed. Yes she could have a plush officers quarters now there were so few people left, but she liked the cosy feeling of her quarters. Same as before stasis, just older. There were many times when she dozed off on the bottom 'bunk' amongst the soft pillows. Somedays, she preferred it.

"Then after all the stress, it was like being back in the space corps again. What would they say if they knew the reason I was transferred was because the combat was too much for me? The triage I can handle, but the constant fear of my own death was too much. It took me back, the arena assult brought it all back, and then Alex grabbed me and it was like being back in the flat with Tony..."

The rest of the room was pretty much standard, although every surface was covered in crystals, plants or candles. A large brightly coloured crystal 'cave' stood several feet tall in one corner. A relic not needed but saved from destruction on the mining decks. Overall there was a homely, if oddball feel to the room. It was easy to forget that Jade was into her 'alternative stuff'.

"I feel liike I've let them all down. I wasn't here when they really needed someone to help. Poor Cass is so wounded, she just needs someone to hug her and say it'll all be ok. Like Abbie did for me. But now she's gone and I don't know how to start looking for her. I swear if that Brittany does anything to her... Jamie keep himself to himself, i'm worried though, he still hasn't seen me for his medical. Jaxx is... An odd one. Alex needs some serious therapy, but there isn't anyone here. I do what I can, but i'm not sure it's enough. I think I'm too close... I think that I'm... No... No I wont admit it. You can't make me."

There was a soft, melodious music playing across the speakers in her room. The sound of flutes, pipes and bells creating a relaxing atmosphere. Jade sat and listened for a while, eyes closed against the world.

"I didn't know how far I was willing to go for them, but I owed them. Didn't I? I needed to do those... Things... I needed to help them. Sure they could get out on their own, but what sort of person would I be? What sort of Doctor? what sort of friend? If I had let them do that? Let them suffer to save my own skin... Only Asclepius and my vows carried me through... Maybe it's time to get that tattoo I've wanted for ages..."

The fragrent incense in the burner began to gutter slightly. Running out of dried herbs to burn the smoke died away slightly.

"Then the swamp. Those bugs and those awful things I did. I hope he forgives me for the scissors. I really wouldn't want to hurt him at all. He is fragile enough without my help damaging him more. That said, the sahara didn't help either. I don't know if I was pretending, if it was Jaaday's influence coming through, if I was just scared I was going to die or if... If..."

She looked down at the person she had been speaking to. The soft, plushy dragon gave no reply, simply stared into the middle distance with glassy eyes. Jade hugged the creature closer, it was about the same size as her torso overall and covered in soft green mottled scales.

"Oh shut up, I know. I always fall for the bad ones don't I? But he's different. He's... We reach out for any human contact when we are scared. Right?..."

She let out a huge sigh and sank further into the mass of fabrics. Tami continued to be hugged, as mute and placid as a cuddly toy can be. Jade let out a squeel fo alarm as the overhead lights made a dramatic popping sound. The room plunged into darkness.

Jade stumbled over her own feet the few paces to the door, Tami forgotton in the rush to escape the black. As she reached the door, the light from the coridor spilling into the dark room, she paused on the threashhold, not sure what to do. Admitting to Jamie that she was too scared and needed the light bulbs changed was too much. It was a fear she wasn't proud of, liked to keep hidden. She stepped back from her quarters, the door sliding shut. She didn't know who else to turn to.

Walking along in her grey fleece dressing gown and bunny slippers she most likely looked ridiculus. With every step she took, the ears flopped up and down. Flop, flop, flop. Silly childrens slippers, that she'd had for ages but were so comfy. The top of the 'Mr Men and Little Miss' nightie just visible through the folded wrap of the dressing gown. She looked drab and childish. She felt it too.

She walked till she reached his quarters and paused. Not wanting to knock and see him. Not wanting that awkward silence and atmosphere between them. Her stomach twisted in a string of nervous butterflies, her arm feeling tingly with nerves. Going back to that dark room was just as bad. She didn't have any matches so the candles were out. She swallowed a hard lump of nerves and knocked on the door.

No one answered. No one replied. The door didn't open.

"Alex... I... I need a favour?" She hesitated. She could hear faint sobbing from behind the door. "Alex are you ok?" Jade knocked on the door harder. He didn't answer, it didn't open. The sobbing ceased. "Alex? Please answer, I just want to make sure you are ok." Her own reason for coming to see him forgotten temporarilly.

She stood there for several long minutes before giving up. As she went to walk away, Alex obviously assuming she had gone, began to sob again.

"Fine then." Jade leant on the door and slid to the ground. I'm going to stay here until you either talk to me or open this door."

And with that, she began to sing to herself to pass the time. Bright and chirpy songs that filled the coridor and filtered through to Alex's room. Songs that in her dark time Abbie had sung to her, through a locked door while she cried. Simply knowing that she was there was enough, and eventually she let her friend inside, needing to talk to someone.

"When you feel all alone. And the world has turned it's back on you. Give me a moment please..."

Jade smiled to herself at how silly she looked. Lying in a doorway, singing to a locked door.

"When you feel all alone, and a loyal friend is hard to find. You're caught in a one way street, with the monsters in your head..."

<Tag!>

OOC - FYI: Crash and Burn by Savage Garden. Hold On by Green Day also works well when in sad places. :)

Also, you don't open that door i'ma keep singing till you do. :p I have a large resevoir of songs to use! Don't make me break out Downtown (Girl Interupted?) or Dirty Dancing again... ;p