De-Lighted To See You: A "Henry Must Suffer" Mystery

Posted on Sun Mar 15th, 2026 @ 5:30am by Lieutenant Kally Kellerman & Ensign Henry Taylor & Tessa di'Orion

Mission: Lower Decks
Location: Henry's Quarters/Sickbay

Henry woke up already groaning, and not in a good way. Well, partly in a good way. He and Tessa had the previous day off together and had enjoyed a relaxing morning, followed by another training session in the holodeck. With Henry no longer having to hold back, he was learning some things rather well, and had defeated a basic holographic opponent with a wooden training sword.

He'd been rather proud of himself to begin with, and even though it had caused him considerable pain, seeing the pride in Tessa's eyes made every bruise and sore muscle worth it. The plan had been dinner and then back to his quarters, but they'd headed for the sonic shower together and dinner never actually made it to the agenda.

Now with adrenaline and hormones down to mortal levels, Henry was feeling every muscle in his body screaming for help, and the sleep they'd gotten didn't feel like nearly enough.

He gently shook Tessa and kissed her cheek. "Angel, we need to get going," he said, yawning.

"I don't want to." Tessa moaned into her pillow, curling up defensively and clutching at the blanket that had been thrown back by her boyfriend.

"I know, but we're on duty soon," Henry said. He climbed over her and gave her a playful smack on her bare behind. "C'mon. we'll sneak back for a nap on our lunchbreak. I get the feeling we'll both need it."

She turned her head to look at him, trying to shift her rear end out of the line of fire, even if there was a slight smile on her face from the attention. She did love it when he teased her, most of the time at least. "Just five more minutes? Please? I promise I'll be up then."

"All right, five more while I shower, then it's your turn," Henry said, feeling a bit bad for her. Maybe they'd overdone it a bit after all.

A shower, a fresh uniform and a replicated bowl of oatmeal later, Henry walked over and gave Tessa another playful swat on the rear. "Hey, wakey wakey," he said, smiling. As she turned to look at him, he gave her a sympathetic smile. "You look as tired as I feel," he said. "Maybe we take it easy tonight, hm?" He squeezed her hand. "What do you want for breakfast?"

She gave him a small smile as her eyes opened again. She'd fallen off to sleep again without issue as he'd gone for his own shower, but she still didn't want to get out of bed. For a moment she debated asking if she could call out to get more sleep, but she'd made a promise and slowly started to swing her legs out over empty space, "I'm not hungry today.." She said in a quiet voice, "I think I'll just wait until lunch."

Henry raised an eyebrow. "You sure? You've been voracious the past few days, even for you. Are you feeling all right?"

She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned into him for a few seconds as she wrapped an arm around him, "I'm fine, just tired like you said." She used him to pull herself to her feet and wobbled for just a moment as she shook herself to try to wake up, "An easy night tonight? Maybe come back here and watch a movie with dinner and get an early night?"

"Good idea," Henry said, giving her a kiss. He ate while she showered and changed, and they left his quarters together, heading for Sickbay. As they walked in, he kissed her cheek goodbye and walked over to his station, sitting down with an audible sigh of relief.

Kally had been nearby and looked over, noting Henry's dark circles and pale complexion. "Good morning, you two," she said as Tessa waved to her slowly, heading over to where she knew her list of tasks for the day would be, then Kally walked over to Henry, lowering her voice. "You look like you've been run over," she said.

"Practically was," he said. "Busy day on the holodeck, yesterday."

"The holodeck....right," Kally said, giving him a knowing look. "Look, Henry, I appreciate you are giving this fight training your all. I also appreciate that you two are in love and reveling in your newfound physical relationship."

"Kally--" Henry started.

"But you need to pace yourself. If you keep going full throttle like this, you're going to burn out, and I can't have you suddenly dropping in the middle of a shift."

The PADD clattered to the floor as Tessa swayed and reached out for the biobed she was standing next to to steady herself. Her skin was noticeably paler than it had been that morning, "I don't..." She said, whether to herself or to someone else wasn't apparent and irrelevant as she followed the PADD to the floor without any other warning.

Henry was out of his chair like a shot, his aching muscles forgotten as he flew over to her, catching her fall before she banged her head on anything. He swept her up and lifted her, feeling her hanging limp in his arms.

"Room two," Kally said, leading the way, Henry hot on her heels. She rushed inside and activated the biobed as Henry lifted Tessa onto it, lying her down carefully. He ran to grab a tricorder and a hypospray, coming back and flipping it open, scanning her quickly. "Pulse thready, metabolism faltering. Her body's shutting down!"

"All right, breathe," Kally said, her tone breaking through his panic. She came around and took the tricorder, looking at the readings. "It's reading like malnourishment," she said. "Has she been eating right?"

"She skipped breakfast, and we kinda didn't get to have dinner last night," he blushed a bit. "But the past few days, she's been eating plenty," Henry said. "At first I'd hoped it was..." he went pale. "Is she pregnant?"

Kally scanned Tessa slowly, saying a silent prayer. After a moment, she shook her head. "No," she said. "Whatever this is, it isn't that."

Henry also breathed a sigh of relief and programmed his hypospray. "Administering a direct nutritional infusion," he said. "If we can compensate, we can buy some time."

"All right, I'll monitor," she said. She watched Henry press the hypo to Tessa's neck and she scanned her. "it's barely absorbing," she said, shaking her head. "Up the concentration."

Henry dialed up the dosage and injected Tessa again. He watched the biobed as her readings somewhat improved and grabbed the hypo again, but Kally shook her head. "Any more could be toxic. We bought some time, let me go study these readings."

"I'll stay here and monitor her," he said, pulling over a stool and sitting down.

Kally wanted to say something about being too close to the situation, but she knew he wouldn't leave Tessa's side yet, so she nodded. "If anything changes, call me immediately," she said.

Henry nodded and held Tessa's hand. As the doors closed behind him and they were alone, he swallowed nervously. "Stay with me, Angel," he said.

“I’m fine, just a bit tired and achy.” Tessa gave him a smile and a squeeze of the hand, her voice far softer than normal, more of a murmur than anything else, “I’ve been overdoing it the last few days, I just need some rest...” Her eyes drifted from slotted to closed and she exhaled deeply, her chest remaining flat for several seconds before she inhaled again, but not the normal full breath nor the steady one of sleep.

Henry frowned. "Achy where?" he said. When she didn't respond he shook her gently. "Tessa, c'mon, sweetheart, please stay with me." He watched her biosigns dip and he began to panic again but tamped it down; he didn't have the luxury of losing control. Her kidneys were struggling, her breathing was labored, her body ached. Triage said handle symptoms until the doctor could diagnose. Despite Kally's warning, he gave her another vitamin booster, tailored to her symptoms. Her biosigns steadied a bit and her breathing eased, but she stayed asleep.

When he saw she was somewhat stable, he tapped his combadge. "Taylor to Doctor Kellerman. Tessa's unconscious. Kidneys struggling, breathing shallow. She said she was achy."

Kally gave a grunt of confusion. "Come over to the lab," she said. "I'd like a second set of eyes."

Henry looked down at Tessa, still holding her hand, not wanting to leave her side. As if reading his mind, Kally said, "you can only do so much sitting there being upset," she said, gently. "You'll help her better by helping me."

Henry nodded at the wisdom, even though there was no one to see it. "On my way. Taylor out." As the channel closed, he brought Tessa's hand up and kissed it. "I'm still going to marry you," he said, quietly, "and we're going to have a large, happy family. I promise." He kissed her cheek and stood back up to leave, but paused, looking down at her body. He pulled the edge of her boot back, looking at the bottom of her calf, seeing some splotches of red. He pulled her boot off and her sock, seeing a few more splotches. The other leg was similar. He took the boots and socks with him and rushed to Sickbay's medical lab.

As he rushed in, he saw Kally sitting with two bowls of oatmeal and stared incredulously. "I'm sorry, did I interrupt your breakfast?" he said.

Kally looked at him and scowled. "Stow it, Ensign," she said. "One is from your replicator, one is from mine. I checked Tessa's replicator habits for the past couple weeks. She should be getting proper nutrition. So, I wanted to make sure there wasn't a problem with your replicator, and the replicators in general. So far, nothing. However, there were several times where there's no record of either of you replicating something. Were you skipping meals?"

Henry thought it over as he sat down. "No, that could be times we ate some of the foodstuffs she brought from Tial," he said. "It's been her way to fight homesickness. But I checked those supplies when we first opened them, and they met nutritional guidelines."

Kally mulled that over, and noticed what he was carrying. "You took her shoes?" she said, confused.

"I noticed a rash on her lower legs," he said. "It had been concealed by her boots. I thought maybe there was something in them that was affecting her."

Kally took her tricorder and scanned them carefully, but shook her head. "No foreign contaminants," she said. "These boots have never left the ship." She stood up and paced. "All right...rash on her legs, aching joints, appetite up but metabolism down, kidney failure, body shutting down." She frowned and looked at Henry. "If I hadn't seen her replicator usage, I'd say she had scurvy."

"And you're sure the replicators aren't malfunctioning?" Henry said.

"We can have engineering check, but these two samples both register as normal nutritional composition," Kally said. "So it's something else. Something environmental, maybe? What else has changed recently?"

"She's moved here," Henry said. "I mean that alone is a big change."

"But she's lived here for months," Kally said. "Hell, she's been here longer than we have. If it were something with the ship she should've shown symptoms long ago. Something's happened recently that's changed her body's metabolic process," she saw his face, "and she most definitely is not pregnant yet," she said.

Henry still looked haunted, despite the reassurance. "Sex..." he said slowly. "We've been having sex. That's the biggest recent change."

"It can't be; I cleared you both," Kally said. "Neither of you had any diseases to transmit, and you're biochemistry was compatible. Sex shouldn't have any negative effects on either of you."

Henry sat back and thought. If they took everything they'd said to be true, there had to be a connection they were missing. She was suffering from scurvy, but had plenty of nutrition. It was a recent change to her lifestyle, but sex itself shouldn't be harming her. He thought of their time together, wondering if Cass' predictions of him causing them hurt were somehow coming true after all. If he'd just let her stay on her planet--

"Oh...fuck..." he said. "It is scurvy."

"Her vitamin C intake has been fine," Kally insisted. "Even for her species, she doesn't need--" she caught up to Henry's thinking immediately.

"Phosphorous," they said together.

"Her body relies on phosphorous to process everything, not just vitamin C," Henry said.

"Being away from her home world cut off her constant supply in the air, water and food, and what few meals you've had from her supplies have kept her going," Kally said, then frowned. "But, again, she's been here over a year, and Cass never exhibited these symptoms."

Henry thought hard. Sex seemed like another factor, but Kally was right. Sex shouldn't be affecting Tessa like this. There's no reason sex would cause a drop in phosphorus levels, unless...

"Her glow," he said slowly.

"Her glow?" Kally said. Then realized what he was referring to. She'd seen Tessa take on a slight glow more than once in their work together.

"When her people focus, or are emotionally charged, they....glow," he said. "She uses it to heal my sore muscles, and she gets that way when she's angry or highly focused when sparring." He blushed hard and put his hands to his head. "Oh god....and when we...when she..."

"She glows when she climaxes?" Kally said.

Henry nodded, looking distraught. "Last night she was a bit dimmer than usual, but I assumed she was tired and hadn't thought much of it. I've gotten so used to it from how often we...." he stopped and blushed harder. "Jesus, I've been literally screwing her to death." He said it without humor and without irony, the statement sounding more like an accusation as he took the blame for the situation.

Kally decided she'd remind him of that line later when they could laugh about this, but kept her face serious for the time being. "All right, we know the problem, let's go figure out a solution. If she needs an infusion of phosphorous, let's try some levels to see what her body needs to work with."

Henry nodded and stood up, following her out of the lab, both of them rushing back to Tessa's room. As they entered, Henry let out a breath as he saw her vitals were still holding. She was still unconscious, but she was alive.

"All right, prep another infusion but let's up phosphorous levels to 400% above standard," Kally said.

Henry programmed the replciator and a moment later, a vial appeared. He slapped it into a loadable hypo and pressed it to Tessa's neck. Kally scanned Tessa slowly, watching the readings. The effect was rapid. Her vitals recovered and her body's metabolism began to roar back to life as it received the materials it needed. She wasn't normal yet, but she was much closer to safe.

"Give it an hour then we'll check and give her another dosage," Kally said. "Once we get her back to baseline, we'll work on a regular regimen."

Henry nodded, tears flowing openly as he stared down at her.

"Henry, this isn't your fault," Kally said, quietly, coming around to give him a hug. "Once we get this corrected, you two can go back to your happy, loving life together, and you'll be all right. If anything, it's best this happened now, and not once you two..." she paused and swallowed the rest of her words. "She's going to be all right. Just start there."

Henry nodded, hugging her back. "I'll monitor her," he said.

"I'd expect nothing less. Keep me posted," Kally said. She gave Tessa's hand a squeeze and left to go file the report for him.

Henry sat back down and held Tessa's hand in his, watching her readings steadily improve. Her breathing had eased and she was sleeping soundly and he took comfort in that.

It was another hour before Tessa’s eyes opened again, her hand squeezing Henry’s being the first sign that something was happening. This time they opened halfway just long enough to adjust to the light before they were fully open as was her normal procedure. Her skin had returned to its normal pink, here and there had been a brief flicker of brightening as if her body had been resetting itself and testing out what it could do again.

She tried to sit up, but before the sensor suite stopped her upwards motion, she sank back down, still too weak to actually make it. “Henry?” She asked, her head hitting the pillow once more, but face turned towards him with that soft smile, “Hey there, what happened? Where am I?”

Henry had sat up feeling her hand hold his and he used his free hand to grab his tricorder and scan her quickly. "You're in exam room two," Henry said. "You collapsed."

“I don’t remember collapsing.” Tessa shook her head slowly, “I remember coming through the door, going to get my schedule for today and glancing over it, then… I don’t remember anything after that.” She gave him a sad smile, “I’m sorry, I just don’t. Did you find out what happened?”

Henry looked at her and his eyes were nothing but pain. "It seems your body's more reliant on phosphorus than we'd initially realized, and you've been burning through it recently, and your body couldn't absorb enough nourishment to keep up with things." He held off before telling her exactly how she'd burned through it, but he had a suspicion she'd figure it out.

Tessa’s eyebrows furrowed briefly as she took in the words, then her eyes went wide as everything sunk in. She went over the fatigue she’d been through, the lack of appetite over the last day or so, then everything that she knew about her anatomy and her home world, then about the Federation and the ship and human anatomy. And there it was. It was so obvious it should have smacked her in the face the entire time. Her eyes teared up and she turned her face away from Henry so he wouldn’t see her shame, “Oh Gods, I’m such an idiot..”

Henry immediately leaned forward and put his hand on her cheek, turning her back to face him. "Tessa, this is as much my fault as anyone's. You are, I assure you, not an idiot."

“Yes I am.” Tears fell from her eyes, “It’s one of the first rules of space travel: be aware of one’s self and your surroundings. Sure, it’s usually meant to make sure your ship doesn’t go drifting into a dense asteroid field and hit a ginormous rock, but even with our own atmosphere and food, the people in our earliest ventures out to the Veil of Asta had to rely on recycling their organic waste and returned in poor shape. Their phosphoric levels were at about fifty percent, leaving their aura much weakened and deficient. Ever since then, every expedition had fortified foods that had supplements built in, but the other aspect is to minimize our concentration points, to not activate our auras if we could help it.”

Her feelings were obvious in her voice. “When Cass and I were taken, the umm… Well, our abductors took along what food stores could be salvaged, just in case we couldn’t eat their food, it just made more sense to feed us our own, and that conveyed on Trarim as well. Then Chimera picked us up and we managed to bring some of it along, but I’d been not activating much in that time until I met you and even then, not much until after I came back on board after we visited home. Since then, we umm…” Tessa blushed a deep red, “Have been rather excited and I must have been burning through my reserves like a sun. I guess I just forgot about the need for a supplement, I was having too much fun.”

Henry finally smiled softly. "Well, I'm glad you're having fun," he said.

"And you'll keep having fun, so long as you take care of yourself going forward," Kally said from the doorway. She held a food tray in her hands and walked over to Tessa's bed, placing it over her lap. She pulled off the cover, revealing a large bowl with green leaves, red berries, pale grains and golden cubes. "My mother's favorite barley and butternut salad," she said. "High in phosphorous, tastes delicious, and should put some spring back in your step." She put a napkin in Tessa's lap and put the cover aside on a counter. "If we were back home, I'd have you drink a large glass of barley water with some lemon, but the replicator can't do it right. The real stuff is far more nutritious anyway."

The sensor dome removed from blocking her, Tessa reached for the controls to bring her to more of a sitting position to accept the dish of food, a grumble in her stomach reminding her that she’d actually skipped two meals and telling her to get back to filling it. “It looks amazing!” She grinned up at Kally as she happily accepted the bowl, digging in immediately, “Thank you!”

"And now that our morning crisis has been resolved," Kally said, wryly, "we should get to work."

Henry turned to her. "You can't expect her to work after what happened," he said.

"Her? No. You? Yes," Kally said.

“But!” Tessa tried to object to the statement that she wasn’t going to be working, I want-“

"You want to get better," Kally said. "And you can do that from your bed," Kally said.

"She needs--"

"She needs food and rest, and she'll get both right here," Kally said. "You will move her to recovery when she's done eating and has her strength back, and then she can stay there for the rest of the day until your shift is over. By that time, I should have a regime extrapolated from what we've scanned so far. You'll be at your station, and I promise you can check on her throughout the day. All right?"

Henry nodded. "Yes, Doctor," he said.

"Good. Soon as she's done, get her moved physically, then in the system, then get to your duties. If you'll excuse me, I have patients waiting." She smiled at them and left.

“Hmpf.” Tessa grumped only once, the sound muffled and muted by the squash and cranberries she was happily consuming, “I guess I’ll be stuck in bed for the whole day. I had virtual surgery on my task list today, it was going to be fun!” She complained before a few leaves entered her maw to join the slaughter, “Think you could sneak me some study materials before I’m left to my own devices?” Tessa asked her boyfriend softly, to ensure that Kally couldn’t hear.

"I think I can manage that," Henry said, smiling with relief and sitting down in a chair next to the biobed, suddenly feeling exhausted. "That was....that was upsetting."

"That was.. Unexpected." Tessa said quietly, "I really didn't think about it that much, I just took it for granted." She glanced back at the bowl and gathered her nerve, "It's not too late for you to back out, you know. I won't hold you to your words." She tried to keep the worry out of her voice.

"Are you joking?" he said, looking up at her. "You think a little near-death panic could change how much I love you?" He stood up, pushing aside his fatigue and leaned over, kissing her with every ounce of feeling he had. "And besides," he said when they pulled apart, "if the roles were reversed, I know you'd love me just as much if I were in that biobed."

"Absolutely, I'd be the first one at your side." Tessa confirmed instantly. "If you went all brain-dead, I'd still love you, or if we got separated, nothing could keep me from coming to find you again." She freed one hand from holding the bowl, balancing it on her stomach instead, holding it out and opening and closing it to get him to give her his hand, then squeezed it tightly when he finally relented, "We knew that we'd come across unique problems, this is just one of them. We are going to get past this, and become stronger for it. I know that Lady Kellerman says she's going to come up with a regime for me, but I know my people better. I'll come up with something better, even if I have to get daily injections, or just program the computer to add additional dietary phosphorous for anything I order from a replicator."

Henry smiled and took the empty bowl from her and put it on a counter. He kissed her hand and squeezed it. "How about we start with standing up and getting you to a more comfortable bed so you can get lie back and read a bit," he said.

"You know, she just said to move me physically, didn't say I had to move under my own power." Tessa reached out with her arms as if to wrap them around his neck with a broad smile, "It means you could carry me if you wanted to."

Henry leaned down and kissed her as he scooped her up in his arms. "Excellent point, Your Grace," Henry said, standing up. He carried her out of the room and down the corridor to a recovery room, stepping through the doors and depositing her gently onto a bed. He activated the monitors and made sure things were set before swinging a floating monitor over to her. "Here you are," he said. "All the studying you could want." He looked into her cornflower eyes again and patted her hand. "I'll check in on you in an hour or so, okay?"

"Or so." Tessa agreed, drawing the monitor closer to her and making a couple selections and a corner turned into a set of vitals and a few more selections brought up a few other readings, "And I'll keep an eye on my readings as well. If anything happens to any of them or they just look wonky, I promise I'll give you or Doctor Kellerman a call, okay?"

Henry nodded. He appreciated the reassurance, but he knew it wasn't just for him. He could see the undercurrent of fear in her eyes, hiding behind her warrior pride; they were both acting far calmer than they felt. She'd gotten far too close to the edge of the abyss for either of their comfort and even though she was safe now, it would be a bit before that fear faded.

"I'm just a room away," he promised. "And I'll be back to check on you soon."

Tessa nodded as brightly as she could, "And I'll be looking forward to whenever you do!"

He smiled and stepped back from the biobed, letting go of her hand at the last possible moment, then left the room

After Henry had left the room, the young Tialan exhaled and looked at her hand, the one that he'd not been touching, not been seeing and noticed that it was shaking like a leaf. She grasped it with her other hand to stop it as she slowly took another breath so as not to elevate her heartrate on the vital she knew that someone was watching. She had to be strong for him, had to reassure him that she was in no danger.

A minute later, Tessa's screen lit up with a message. Don't study TOO hard, Angel. Don't forget, tonight we're going to be cuddling up with dinner and a movie. I love you.

Finally she smiled even as she keyed in for another full scan of herself. Phosphorous was the most critical mineral she required metabolically and while her people had a good knowledge about what it did within their systems, she now had access to the best medical available. It was time to make use of it. For Henry's sake.