A Matter of Time

Posted on Sat 8th Aug, 2026 @ 9:11pm by Lieutenant Victor Delling MD & Commander Paul Graves PsyD & Lieutenant Niamh MacAran MD & Lieutenant JG Antoinette Breidinger

2,317 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: [MAIN] Learning to Fly
Location: Sickbay, USS Thunderchild
Timeline: Explosion + 7 Days (11 weeks PRIOR to "Learning to Fly")

Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity. — Hippocrates

The fascinating experience of seeing his own body from above the operating table in the unfamiliar OR and communicating telepathically with Renato Solis faded from Paul Graves' awareness as he returned to his body. It felt leaden and too small. It ached, dimly, from the defibrillation attempts, and his throat momentarily felt sore from the intubation before he surrendered to the potent anaesthetics and ceased feeling anything.

Paul opened his eyes seven days later in a state of complete bewilderment. Nothing looked familiar. He lay in a hospital bed with a ventilator tube down his throat, tubes between his legs, and IV tubes in his arms. Various beeping and chiming sounds rang in his ears. It made no sense. What had happened? Nothing but fog answered his silent questions.

Who am I? he asked himself, feeling a sense of rising panic. That question, though, had a ready answer, and Paul relaxed in deep relief. Not total amnesia, then, just--whatever the word was that meant only brief amnesia. Someone could tell him soon what had happened.

The place was pretty quiet, save for a set of heavy feet stomping their way toward his location.

"Damnit sir, this had better not be another false..." and then the tone changed; became cheerful and surprised. "Commander!" Nurse Breidinger appeared in his vision. Her hair was clearly disheveled. But, she wore a surprised smile. "Sir, you're awake." She was immediately looking at readouts, silencing alarms, making notes on the biobed's terminal. "Do you know your name? Rank?" She grabbed a penlight from her pocket and started shining it in his eyes, waving it back and forth.

The nurse looked vaguely familiar, but her name escaped him. She felt happy, relieved, Paul thought. She had lovely, straight brown hair and brown eyes. She looked tall and slender, and Paul suspected she worked out some.

I'm guessing 'Commander,' Paul thought in answer to her question, amused. He nodded, though the ventilator made that awkward. Paul tried to give the nurse a thumb's-up sign, but his right hand was slow about it.

Checking my...the black things in my eyes, he thought as she shone the light into them. What happened to me? The last thing I remember, I was...I was...getting into a...thing that goes up and down. He could picture the little carriage but had no idea what it was called.

Hopefully the nurse had some answers.

"Patient still has delayed motor abilities. That is to be expected. Don't worry, sir, that should start going away within a day. Oxygen levels are...above average...and patient is breathing on his own." She tapped away at the bedside terminal. "Removing ventilator." Those eyes looked at him. "OK Commander, I am going to take this thing out." She removed the pillow from under his head. "This is going to feel a little weird. I need you to look up...well...this way."

She held a hand above his vision causing him to look up, straightening his throat.

The nurse placed a gentle but firm hand upon his forehead and, with some gentle pulling, the tube in his mouth, down his throat, and in his lungs, started coming out. "Doing great sir. Just a second longer." The tube was now in his throat. "Just one more pull and," the tube was fully removed.

Paul tried not to gag as the tube came out. His throat felt sore and full of phlegm. He cleared it and coughed a couple of times. The nurse, after dropping the ventilator into a basket on the other side of the bed, held a pan for him to spit into should he need. Speech came out in a hoarse whisper. "Might--" He couldn't remember what was supposed to come next, and 'might' wasn't really the word he wanted.

Toni raised his head and replaced the pillow. "I bet you would like some water right about now." She looked to the side and commanded, "Water. 1 cup. Room temperature," and a familiar sound started whirring up.

Thank the Four she could understand what he wanted, Paul thought, because he certainly couldn't. He nodded at her because that was easier than trying to form sentences. "What--hah--Where?"

"Thunderchild, Sick Bay. You gave us quite the scare, sir," the nurse said as she straightened. She took a step back and looked him up and down, observing and taking note. "You were found unconscious in the Transporter Room after an emergency beaming from 109 and you were brought here immediately. It was touch and go for the first few hours. Commander Severide allowed us to use her blood to help us...you along. Lucky we had another Betazoid/human hybrid nearby as, without her aldosterone, you might have suffered permanent damage to your telepathy. And you gave me plenty of false alarms," she said nearly laughing. "You were out about a week so," she waved her own hand before her face, "you are going to have these eye floaters in your vision for another day or so. Expected. That should go away as motor functions return."

Paul nodded his understanding, then coughed again and pointed toward the replicator, looking a question at her.

Toni snapped her fingers. "Water. Yes. Thanks for reminding me," and she stepped away for only a second before returning with a cup of water.

Paul took the cup in his left hand, which was shaky but nevertheless stronger than his right hand. The water felt like perfection, going down his parched mouth and throat. After a couple of swallows, he set the cup down on the tray by his bed. "Water--good." He frowned, trying to recall what was the polite phrase to say next. Why couldn't he just speak? "Thhhh. Thhhuhh" He gave up and shook his head.

"Sounds like you may have a little bit of Transient Global Amnesia going on," she said as she went back to the bed's terminal and tapped away at it some. She returned to Paul's side. "I know that sounds more dreadful than it really is. TGA is only temporary amnesia. And it can affect speech." She looked him in the eye. "You have literally forgotten how to speak," she explained. "The words are in your head, but your mouth simply won't act as it should. Those vocal chords are not responding as they should. Again, temporary."

Toni was not sure the regulation on such things, but, as a nurse, she wanted to make sure the state of her patient. "You did lose blood but we kept that at a minimum. And we made sure your aldosterone did not plummet. Given that, would you like to try projecting a thought to me? See if the telepathy is still there?"

Paul blinked. Well, why not? he thought. Telepathy didn't depend on words; that was simply how it was transcribed. Why are we on Thunderchild? he thought to her and hastily reined in the multitude of other questions that leapt to his mind. He didn't know if his nurse was a telepath too, and if she wasn't, his thoughts had to be crystal-clear and distinct so she might be able to understand them.

There was not much response from Toni. Though their eyes were locked onto each other, him peering deeply into hers and she peering deeply back into his, she had no reaction that she had received his thought. The nurse straightened and shrugged. "Nothing, sir. Sorry. I guess..." and then she thought, '...I am not telepathically inclined.' She smiled at him. "But I can guess you were wondering why you are on the Thunderchild. We have a voice recording," she explained, "of you ordering the 109 Computer to perform an emergency beaming of you to this ship." She looked him up and down again. "And you did that with less than a few seconds to spare. And..." her tone grew grave, "I must share with you, sir. While we were operating on you, Kidan did pay us a visit. He is a full Betazoid and, though he is a universal donor, we could not predict what blood from a full Betazoid would do to a hybrid. But we were able to extract some of his aldosterone. You know, as a backup for when Commander Severide could donate no more. I do not know how a full blooded Betazoid's aldosterone will react in," she motioned toward him, "a Betazoid/human hybrid. It may do nothing, may bring your telepathy back to normal. It may be delayed. It may even boost you beyond your imagination. I don't know, but we were low on options. With your permission, sir, I would like to monitor you. To log any anomalies that may arise."

Telepathy would have been convenient, Paul thought. It would have allowed him to instantly communicate the vast tangle of what he wanted to say. As it was, he had to sort through the confusing entirety of it and pick out only the most important thing. "Your feelings--clear."

Anything projective was usually more difficult for him than reception so, as far as Paul was concerned, he had at least adequate psionic functioning. Enhancing it could come later.

Victor walked in looking tired, but delight blossomed in his face, genuine and unfeigned when he saw that Paul was awake. Not only was he awake, he wad extubated and trying to communicate. He briefly wondered why he hadnt been notified for an order to extubate, but he would deal with that later. "Hi Paul. Glad to see you awake. Still foggy?"

Paul gave him a broad smile, a little lopsidedly, but it happened. "Vic--Victor! Hello!" He paused. "Foggy--yes. You?"

"Sleep deprived" the other doctor chuckled as he looked over at the other staff, wordlessly indicating they should report on him.

"He seems to be doing fine, doctor," said Toni. "Maybe a little Transient Global Amnesia going on but seeing familiar faces should make that go away quickly. Everything else..." well she could see that Victor was looking at the readouts and understanding that everything else was in order.

"Everything else is treatable with time, attention and more hard work than you're going to care to do. " Victor said softly, his eyes not leaving Paul's.

Paul gave Victor a wry look. "Tired, thinking of--of." He tried to articulate the rest of the thought and then shook his head and shrugged. "Hard work, yes. Weeks." He paused. "Station--How bad?"

"Unserviceable...at the moment," said Toni looking away of Paul to Dr Delling a time or two. "But Starfleet is sending its Corps of Engineers to give us a refit. Whoever planted that device, cannot scare us away and will not be able to do that again. You rest, sir."

Paul held their gazes. "Fay--" He sighed. "Cah-az...Deaths?"

Toni shrugged, not knowing what it was he was trying to say. She also knew she did not have the authority to speak on the resulting casualties. She was going to leave that up to the doctor.

Toni turned her attention to Dr. Delling. "Permission to turn in, sir? And...perhaps a day of rest?"

Victor glanced up at her and offered a nod "Yes and yes, you've earned it."

"Thank you, sir." Toni logged herself out from the biobed's terminal. "You rest, Commander," she said to Paul before wrapping up.

Paul gave Toni a quick smile and a wave in thanks.

"Casualties?" Victor asked, to reinforce the word in Paul's database of words. He would rebuild them in time, but the work involved would be extensive.

Paul nodded, his expression worried. "Caz...zhul...teece," he repeated. "How bad?"

"Practically none on the station. Some minor injuries during the evacuation and some stress-induced injuries like your own. No deaths were attributed to the device. " Victor smiled softly and patted his shoulder lightly.

Paul wilted with relief against his pillow. "Thank...Four. So...ga-lad." Then he gave Victor a puzzled look. "Stress? What...happ-nd...me?"

"You pushed too hard." he said simply and then elaborated after a deep breath. "Your telepathic center was not designed for what you forced it to do when you helped evacuate the unwilling evacuees of the Garden District. You burst a blood vessel. We treated it like an aneurysm, but a small part of your brain was damaged. Even with our advanced technology, we can't regenerate that, so you get to make new pathways."

Paul's eyes went wide and he paled a little. "I did? How--I alive? No rre-re-member."

"It seems that before you lost consciousness you had the computer beam you to safety."

Paul shook his head. "Terr-ranzporters--good things." He paused, suddenly remembering something. "Can you tell Renn-ato Solis I awake?"

"I will see that a message is sent to him."

"Thh-ank you. We ss-poke during opp-eratiion," Paul said. "Said I tell him when awake."

"Thats very interesting, considering your psionic ability was at almost zero, according to your neurotransmitter levels." Victor was quiet and contemplative for a moment, wondering, not for the first time what happened as a person neared death and was wrested away.

Paul let out a long breath. "Felt peaceful, calm, loved. Ren-nato--very al-larmed. Saw my body. Watched defib. Then I al-larmed. Things I need do. Not finished. Came back." He shook his head. "Miss it."

"That just means we need to build you a place to find your peace." Victor reached over and clapped him gently on the shoulder. "It's a new beginning."

Paul nodded after a moment. "Thank you--fff--being here. Feel so... orve--orver--hw-elmed. Will take time."

"We have all the time inthe universe now." He squeezed his shoulder lightly and sighed the sigh of the relieved to see his friend recovered. "Take all the time you need."

 

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