Land of the Living

Posted on Sun May 4th, 2025 @ 9:46pm by Lieutenant JG Katie Kellerman & Senior Chief Petty Officer Jadizon Enor

Mission: Doing What We Do Best
Location: Sickbay Recovery Room 1
Timeline: Night after Hostiles

Katie had been determined to stay awake in case Jadizon woke up, but the adrenaline crash from the excitement had gotten to her and she'd finally fallen asleep holding his hand. She hadn't slept soundly, though, and when she felt him start to rustle, her eyes snapped open.

Sickbay – First Words

The world sharpened by degrees. Light stopped being a blur. Shapes took form. Weight returned to muscle and bone.

Jadizon Enor blinked slowly, his vision swimming before settling on the sterile ceiling of Sickbay. His jaw ached. His chest throbbed. Everything hurt.

He exhaled through his nose, dry and gravel-rough. Lips cracked, throat parched. He swallowed—or tried to.

His voice croaked out, barely more than a whisper:

“…Enor to Quartermaster…”

He paused, lips twitching at the edges despite himself.

“…bring me a damn uniform, pronto. I’m not dying in a medical gown.”

His eyes drifted to the side, catching the vague form of a chair, the presence of someone nearby, blurred but familiar.

“…and maybe… coffee. Black. No sedatives.”

The pain was real. The exhaustion even more so. But Jadizon Enor was awake.

And complaining.

Which meant he was alive.

Katie sat up on her elbow on the cot she'd been lying on and put a hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat and letting out a sigh of relief. She reached up and pressed the button on the biobed's monitor for assistance, then gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "Hey," she said, smiling. "Sorry to disappoint, but no coffee, and you're staying in the gown."

As a nurse came in the room, Katie gently rolled the cot away and dropped to her feet, standing by. "He just woke up," she said.

The Tellarite nurse gave a grunt of acknowledgement and looked at the biobed. He loaded a hypospray and pressed it to Jadizon's neck, giving him a mild pain reliever. He gently raised the biobed to something closer to a sitting position and replicated a glass of water. "Have him drink this slowly," he said. "Once it is finished, if he cannot sleep I will administer something." Without another word, he glanced again at the biobed readings and left.

Katie took the glass and nodded, looking down at Jadizon. "Hey," she said, quietly, holding the water to his lips. "Sip gently."

Jadizon blinked against the overhead light as the biobed lifted him upright, grumbling under his breath like someone being dragged out of bed after a four-day bender. The pain meds hit just enough for him to feel aware, but not enough to dull his natural instincts—namely sarcasm and a desperate need to not look like a complete disaster.

He saw Katie. Saw the water. Sighed dramatically.

“This better be synthale or I’m filing a formal complaint with Starfleet Medical.”

"Hush and sip. You're dehydrated," Katie said.

He took a slow sip, then squinted. “Nope. Water. Figures.”

His voice rasped like someone had dragged it through gravel, but he still managed a half-smirk as he pushed the glass gently away.

“Alright,” he said, shifting with all the grace of a man who’d been hit by a shuttle and then electrocuted. “Sit-rep. What’s the status of the Chimera? Are we still in one piece? Did Kael make it back or did he get adopted by the locals?”

He looked down at the thin, crinkly fabric covering him and scowled.

“…And where in the void is my damn uniform?”

With a grunt of sheer stubbornness, he threw the sheet aside and tried to push himself upright. “I need to get back to—”

He got halfway up.

Then paused.

Wobbled.

And collapsed slowly back onto the biobed like a sack of bricks trying to look dignified.

“…Okay,” he muttered, staring at the ceiling. “Let’s circle back to that part after I figure out which way is up and whether or not my spine still works.”

Beat.

“…I still want the uniform, though.”

Katie gave an exasperated grunt as she put a hand on his chest in an attempted to stop him from getting up and was more than a little concerned when he crumpled back onto the biobed. She lowered the back support until he was lying down again. "Jadizon, your sitrep is you just had major surgery and you nearly died. You need to stay put, and that's Doctor's orders and an officer's orders so you have to double-listen," Katie said, trying to sound more authoritative than afraid. "The ship is secure; the boarding parties were rounded up and expelled. The captain stopped them cold and saved us, and we got our hands on some cool new technology for me to play with." She kept her hand on his chest, both to reassure her that his heartbeat was steady, and as a subtle reminder for him to stay put. "You will get your uniform when you are back on duty. Until then you are in sickbay in an hospital gown until Kally sends you back to your quarters, and then you and I will discuss if you need clothes. Until then, you do what she tells you, and you listen when I tell you, understood?" The more she talked, the more her voice got stronger. Stubborn or not, he was still mortal and she wasn't going to let him hurt himself through some ridiculous act of pride, not when she needed him.

Despite her attempt at being a hard-ass, her blue eyes were wide with concern and she put a hand on his cheek. "Rest and recover. That's an order," she said. "Now...do you want more water?" She gave a small smile. "Think of it as the lightest of beers."

Jadizon let out a low, tired chuckle as the biobed eased him back down, his body heavy with exhaustion and pain meds, but his mind still clawing through the fog of memory. The overhead lights were soft, but to him, they felt like interrogation lamps after the place he'd just come from.

His voice, when it finally broke the silence, was quiet—strained and raw like something pulled from the depths of him.

“I did die…” he murmured, eyes locked on the ceiling. “Not almost. Not barely. I crossed over.”

The words were heavy, too honest to be dramatic.

“She was there. Waiting. Wore a face I trusted… told me everything I wanted to hear. Promised peace. Rest. Let me believe I could finally stop.”

His brow furrowed. He didn’t blink. Didn’t move.

Katie didn't interrupt him, but frowned slightly as well. She had questions, but there would be time later to ask.

“And I almost did,” he said, quieter now. “I let go, Katie. For the first time in my life, I didn’t fight.”

His voice caught, trembled, and his hand curled into the sheet. His composure—always so sharp, always so ironclad—fractured.

“I didn’t think I was coming back.”

The words cracked him open.

His breath shook. Tears welled before he realized it, sliding unchallenged down his face. His fingers reached for her without thought, brushing the edge of her uniform before gripping it. Not hard. Just enough to say don’t go.

She leaned in without hesitation, wrapping her arms around him both comfortingly and protectively, and he buried his face against her shoulder. His body trembled.

The weight of survival, the pain he carried, the grief he never spoke—all of it spilled out into that small moment.

“…I was so damn tired,” he whispered. “I didn’t want to come back… but something in me… something real… held on.”

A long silence passed, filled only by the steady beep of his heart monitor and the quiet sound of his breathing against her.

He closed his eyes, not to escape—but to finally rest, just a little.

And with his hand still gripping her sleeve, he whispered, more to himself than to her—

“…thank you… for being here when I did.”

He didn’t let go.

And this time, he didn’t have to.

Katie kept her face down as she held him, not letting him see her tear up. She wanted until his grip finally slackened and his breathing deepened, making sure he was asleep. She pulled her cot back over to his side and crawled back on. She reached up to the controls and deactivated the overhead lights, the room now dark except for the lights from the monitor and equipment. She laid back down and held his hand again, relieved to hear him breathing steadily and calmly, thinking about how to get around what she was sure would be him arguing about his recovery. She smiled at the thought and drifted off.

Even in sleep, Jadizon’s brow twitched faintly—muscles still remembering pain, nerves still echoing the burn of combat and the weight of what he’d nearly surrendered to. But his breathing had evened, slow and steady, the rise and fall of his chest no longer strained, but at rest.

In the darkness, where the lights of Sickbay cast soft pulses across the ceiling, his fingers shifted ever so slightly—reflexively tightening around the one thing still anchoring him.

Katie’s hand.

No words, no stirrings, just a subtle squeeze. The kind that didn’t ask for anything… but meant everything.

For now, there were no nightmares chasing him. No voices pulling from the dark.

Only the stillness. The quiet hum of machinery. And the warmth of a hand that hadn’t let go.

In the quiet of the ship, Jadizon Enor slept.

Not because he was defeated.

But because, for once—he didn’t have to fight.