(no subject)
Title: And Right Now the Room is Empty
Fandom: AOS
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: No ownership here, sadly.
Summary: Jo comes to visit her father on the enterprise, but things don't go as well as she had planned. Fill for hc_bingo.
Joanna waited impatiently at the space dock. Her father should have been there five minutes ago and she was eager to see him. She was even more eager to tour the Enterprise. The ship she had taken to the Delta VII space station had been fine, but she was certain the Enterprise would be better. And her mother wouldn’t be there to yell at her. She hoped her father wouldn’t be like that. He was always nice and gentle when he called.
Right now, her mother had an iron grip on her wrist, so she couldn’t get close enough to the window to look for the ship.
“Now you have to promise me that you’re going to behave yourself and mind your manners, promise me.” Joanna felt herself yanked even closer.
“I promise, mama.”
Her mother stared at her for another moment before she turned her attention back to the arrivals’ board.
Her father appeared a few moments later and she would have run to him if she could have escaped her mother. Instead, she stood next to her, rising up on her tiptoes to see him better. She waved, but after a quick glance at her mother, she stopped and stood perfectly still. She was afraid that her mother would suddenly change her mind and she would never see the inside of the Enterprise.
Her father caught sight of them and hurried over.
“Jocelyn,” he nodded.
“Leonard,” her mother replied, and her grip on Joanna tightened.
Her father crouched down in front of her, “Hey Jo,” he said, smiling warmly. Her mother finally let go of her wrist and she jumped into her father’s arms.
He picked her up, holding her close. She buried her face in his neck and was happier than she had been in months.
Her mother interrupted them, “Now I want you to have her back on time. I can’t afford to miss any more time at work.”
Her father grunted at that and her mother turned her attention to Joanna, “You know what I expect of you. Behave.”
Jo nodded and her mother gave her a kiss on the cheek and left.
“Hey Jo, ready to go?”
She nodded.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he told her and she smiled.
“I’ve missed you too.”
He hugged her closer and bent down a little to grab her backpack. They made their way to the transportation deck in silence, her father never putting her down.
Beaming aboard felt funny, but she was quickly distracted by all the different people who seemed eager to meet her.
“Bones!” yelled a man with short, blond hair.
She turned to her father, “Bones?”
He rolled his eyes, “Don’t ask.”
“And you must be Joanna,” the man said. She nodded.
“I’m Jim, your dad’s friend.”
Her father rolled his eyes again, “That’s one way of putting it.”
Jim and her dad took her on a tour of the ship - answering the few questions she dared to ask.
After the tour, they went to the mess hall where her father ordered her favorite dinner: mac and cheese. She ate it all, even though she wasn’t really hungry. She knew it was wrong to waste food.
“How about some ice cream?” Jim asked.
She shook her head, “No, thank you.”
Her father looked at her strangely. “You don’t want ice cream?”
“I’m full,” she replied, glancing between the two men.
“Maybe tomorrow, eh?” her dad said.
They sat in the mess hall for a little while longer while Jim told her a story about a living teddy bear with six-inch fangs. Her dad told him to shut up before he gave her nightmares.Secretly, though, she wanted to know more. She had been pleading with her mother for a pet - she would’ve taken anything, really, even a fish. Her mother refused, though, and bought her a small electronic dog for Christmas instead. She named in Benny, but after two weeks of its “realistic barking,” her mother removed its batteries.
She followed her father to his room where she found her knapsack placed on the bed. She went into the bathroom and changed into her pajamas. When she came back out, her father was already in his.
“Need help brushing your teeth munchkin?” he asked.
She nodded - her mama always did it for her, claiming Jo was too young to do a decent job.
“Open up,” her sad said, brushing her teeth with something that tasted like bubblegum. Usually, she loved the flavor, but tonight she had to try not to gag. Her stomach had begun to ache.
“All done,” her father said and she spit the toothpaste out into the sink.
He tucked her in before climbing into the other side of the bed.
“How about a bedtime story?”
She shook her head, which was beginning to ache as well. “I’m tired,” she explained.
He gave her a funny look, but ruffled her hair and said goodnight before he turned off the lights.
When she woke up, her head hurt terribly and she barely had the time to sit up before she began to puke.
The lights switched on and she gasped in pain. The light made the pain in her head worse.
“Lights, 50%.”
Her dad was behind her, rubbing her back.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Oh sweetheart, it’s fine. Let’s get you cleaned up, ok?”
She nodded slightly, her head still feeling as if it was about to explode.
Her father carried her into the bathroom where he helped her to get washed up and changed. He had just put a new shirt on her when she felt her stomach clench. She puked into the toilet this time, at least, while her father held her hair back. She tried not to cry, but her head hurt terribly and her stomach felt like it was trying to turn itself inside out.
“All right, darlin’, all right.” He picked her up again and she rested her head against his shoulder while he carried her to sickbay. She clung to him when he tried to put her down in one of the beds there.
“Shh, I just need to get Nurse Chapel, I’ll be right back,” he promised her and she knew she was being silly, but everything hurt and she really didn’t want to be left alone.
She let him put her down though, and tried to wait patiently while he was gone. Her stomach started up again and by the time he came back with a blond woman in tow, she had vomited over the side of the bed.
She was crying now and no matter how hard she tried to stop, she couldn’t. She managed to stay still while Nurse Chapel pushed a needle into her hand, but she still gasped in pain. Her father stroked her hair with one hand while he attached a monitor to her chest with the other. She was momentarily distracted by this and jerked violently when she felt another needle going into her arm.
“Sorry,” Nurse Chapel apologized, as she began to fill three different tubes with Jo’s blood.
“Get that tested,” her father told the woman, who hurried to finish and rushed out of the room once she was done.
Her father was studying the screens behind her bed. He stared at them for a moment longer before he turned to her. “Does anything else hurt or is it just your stomach?”
“My head,” she replied and he nodded, turning back to the screens for a moment. His hand was stroking her hair again and it seemed to help a little with the pain. Her eyes kept watering, even though she had stopped crying.
Her father regarded the monitors for a moment longer before he sat down on the bed with her. She huddled close to him, unable to tell if she was too hot or too cold, but grateful that he hadn’t left her again.
Nurse Chapel came back a little while later, while Jo was puking into a small bowl, her father supporting most of her weight as she leaned over it. “Here are the results, doctor,” she said, handing him a PADD.
He nodded at her and regarded it quietly. Jo, who had been learning how to read at school, found that she could not make out a single word. The letters seemed to blur together.
Her father continued to stroke her hair while he read. Before he put the PADD down, she began to gag again.
He tossed the PADD to the side, “Chapel, 5 mg of phoclorperazine.”
Chapel inserted a needle into the tube that was already in her arm and Jo was surprised when it didn’t hurt. After a few more minutes of gagging into the small dish, her nausea finally began to recede.
Her father, in the meantime, had demanded various medications, which Nurse Chapel injected through the tube. Her father continued to watch the monitors as she became more and more lightheaded.
Something was wrong and she panicked. “Daddy,” she cried out when a piercing pain shot through her head.
“Shit,” he got up from the bed even as she tried to cling to him. He began barking orders at Nurse Chapel.
Jo felt her chest tighten and began gasping for air.
“Don’t do this, Jo, stay with me,” her father put a mask over her nose and mouth that forced air into her lungs. “Don’t fight it, sweetheart, just relax,” he cupped the side of her face gently, but his focus was on the monitors above her head.
“She shouldn’t have reacted like that,” he said.
“Is she allergic to the medication?”
“Not that I know of, no.” McCoy rubbed his face. “Get M’Benga, I need him to run more tests. I can’t leave her.”
Jo felt herself relax a little, but then the shooting pain in her head was back and she was jerking against the bed.
“Jo, Jo, just relax sweetheart. I’m going to fix this, I promise, but you need to relax.”
She tried to listen, but the pain in her head was making it difficult to concentrate.
Her father turned to one of the other nurses on duty, “Get me some gel packs.”
When the woman returned, her father grabbed one of the packs and picked up her head very gently. Even that small movement made her cry out and her chest constricted again, pain shooting through it as the mask forced air into her lungs.
“Shh, shh.” her father placed her head back down, onto one of the gel packs, and the cold seemed to dull the pain a bit. He placed one next to her neck, one under each of her arms, and another between her legs. “We need to cool you down - it’s just for a little while, ok?”
She blinked up at him, afraid to move her head.
“Leonard - what happened?” M’Benga entered the small room.
“She’s infected with the Golian bacteria. When we gave her the standard treatment, she went into respiratory distress.”
“Is she allergic to it?”
McCoy shook his head, “There were no other signs of an allergic reaction, and the anti-histamines we gave her did nothing to improve her breathing.”
“Are the samples still in the lab?”
McCoy nodded, “Check with Chapel, but they should be.”
M’Benga glanced at Jo, and then back at her father. “I’ll come up with something.”
Her father looked relieved, “Thanks, Geoff.”
M’Benga nodded and left.
The next few hours went by in a blur for Joanna, as the fever continued to rise despite the cold packs her father continued to cover her with.
At one point she was certain that her mother was there, upset with her for causing such a scene. Jo begged and pleaded with her, but the mask over her face muffled the sounds. She tried to take it off, but a nurse stopped her.
She started to cry then, certain that her mother was there to take her home. She would never be allowed to visit her father again after causing all this trouble. She knew she was making the situation worse, but she cried and fought against whoever was holding her down, desperately wanting to escape her mother’s sharp gaze.
“Christ, we need to get her fever down now. Can you prep an ice bath?” McCoy demanded of Chapel.
She nodded and rushed to do as he had asked.
Jo fought as she felt herself being lowered into freezing water.
“Shh, we need to bring your fever down,” he continued to hold her under the water, even as she fought him.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please, I want to get out, please, stop,” she begged.
It looked like her father was crying, which confused her, since he was the one doing this to her.
“It’s ok, baby, it’s ok. Just a little while longer, I promise.”
She began to smell something like rotten eggs, while her hands began to clench.
”Christ, she’s seizing - get her out of the water, now!”
She was confused when she woke up in a bed, no longer covered in ice packs. The IV was still attached, but the mask was gone. She turned her head and saw that her father was in the chair next to her bed.
When she awoke a little later, he was standing over her bed, his hand on her neck.
“Morning sweetheart, how are you feeling?” He asked when he noticed that she was awake.
“Thirsty,” she said. Her tongue felt swollen and it stung when she took a sip from the cup her father was holding for her.
He stopped her when she tried to sit up on her own, “We’re just going to rest awhile, ok?” He sat down next to her on the bed, holding her close as she fell back asleep.
She wished that she could stay.
Fandom: AOS
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: No ownership here, sadly.
Summary: Jo comes to visit her father on the enterprise, but things don't go as well as she had planned. Fill for hc_bingo.
Joanna waited impatiently at the space dock. Her father should have been there five minutes ago and she was eager to see him. She was even more eager to tour the Enterprise. The ship she had taken to the Delta VII space station had been fine, but she was certain the Enterprise would be better. And her mother wouldn’t be there to yell at her. She hoped her father wouldn’t be like that. He was always nice and gentle when he called.
Right now, her mother had an iron grip on her wrist, so she couldn’t get close enough to the window to look for the ship.
“Now you have to promise me that you’re going to behave yourself and mind your manners, promise me.” Joanna felt herself yanked even closer.
“I promise, mama.”
Her mother stared at her for another moment before she turned her attention back to the arrivals’ board.
Her father appeared a few moments later and she would have run to him if she could have escaped her mother. Instead, she stood next to her, rising up on her tiptoes to see him better. She waved, but after a quick glance at her mother, she stopped and stood perfectly still. She was afraid that her mother would suddenly change her mind and she would never see the inside of the Enterprise.
Her father caught sight of them and hurried over.
“Jocelyn,” he nodded.
“Leonard,” her mother replied, and her grip on Joanna tightened.
Her father crouched down in front of her, “Hey Jo,” he said, smiling warmly. Her mother finally let go of her wrist and she jumped into her father’s arms.
He picked her up, holding her close. She buried her face in his neck and was happier than she had been in months.
Her mother interrupted them, “Now I want you to have her back on time. I can’t afford to miss any more time at work.”
Her father grunted at that and her mother turned her attention to Joanna, “You know what I expect of you. Behave.”
Jo nodded and her mother gave her a kiss on the cheek and left.
“Hey Jo, ready to go?”
She nodded.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he told her and she smiled.
“I’ve missed you too.”
He hugged her closer and bent down a little to grab her backpack. They made their way to the transportation deck in silence, her father never putting her down.
Beaming aboard felt funny, but she was quickly distracted by all the different people who seemed eager to meet her.
“Bones!” yelled a man with short, blond hair.
She turned to her father, “Bones?”
He rolled his eyes, “Don’t ask.”
“And you must be Joanna,” the man said. She nodded.
“I’m Jim, your dad’s friend.”
Her father rolled his eyes again, “That’s one way of putting it.”
Jim and her dad took her on a tour of the ship - answering the few questions she dared to ask.
After the tour, they went to the mess hall where her father ordered her favorite dinner: mac and cheese. She ate it all, even though she wasn’t really hungry. She knew it was wrong to waste food.
“How about some ice cream?” Jim asked.
She shook her head, “No, thank you.”
Her father looked at her strangely. “You don’t want ice cream?”
“I’m full,” she replied, glancing between the two men.
“Maybe tomorrow, eh?” her dad said.
They sat in the mess hall for a little while longer while Jim told her a story about a living teddy bear with six-inch fangs. Her dad told him to shut up before he gave her nightmares.Secretly, though, she wanted to know more. She had been pleading with her mother for a pet - she would’ve taken anything, really, even a fish. Her mother refused, though, and bought her a small electronic dog for Christmas instead. She named in Benny, but after two weeks of its “realistic barking,” her mother removed its batteries.
She followed her father to his room where she found her knapsack placed on the bed. She went into the bathroom and changed into her pajamas. When she came back out, her father was already in his.
“Need help brushing your teeth munchkin?” he asked.
She nodded - her mama always did it for her, claiming Jo was too young to do a decent job.
“Open up,” her sad said, brushing her teeth with something that tasted like bubblegum. Usually, she loved the flavor, but tonight she had to try not to gag. Her stomach had begun to ache.
“All done,” her father said and she spit the toothpaste out into the sink.
He tucked her in before climbing into the other side of the bed.
“How about a bedtime story?”
She shook her head, which was beginning to ache as well. “I’m tired,” she explained.
He gave her a funny look, but ruffled her hair and said goodnight before he turned off the lights.
When she woke up, her head hurt terribly and she barely had the time to sit up before she began to puke.
The lights switched on and she gasped in pain. The light made the pain in her head worse.
“Lights, 50%.”
Her dad was behind her, rubbing her back.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Oh sweetheart, it’s fine. Let’s get you cleaned up, ok?”
She nodded slightly, her head still feeling as if it was about to explode.
Her father carried her into the bathroom where he helped her to get washed up and changed. He had just put a new shirt on her when she felt her stomach clench. She puked into the toilet this time, at least, while her father held her hair back. She tried not to cry, but her head hurt terribly and her stomach felt like it was trying to turn itself inside out.
“All right, darlin’, all right.” He picked her up again and she rested her head against his shoulder while he carried her to sickbay. She clung to him when he tried to put her down in one of the beds there.
“Shh, I just need to get Nurse Chapel, I’ll be right back,” he promised her and she knew she was being silly, but everything hurt and she really didn’t want to be left alone.
She let him put her down though, and tried to wait patiently while he was gone. Her stomach started up again and by the time he came back with a blond woman in tow, she had vomited over the side of the bed.
She was crying now and no matter how hard she tried to stop, she couldn’t. She managed to stay still while Nurse Chapel pushed a needle into her hand, but she still gasped in pain. Her father stroked her hair with one hand while he attached a monitor to her chest with the other. She was momentarily distracted by this and jerked violently when she felt another needle going into her arm.
“Sorry,” Nurse Chapel apologized, as she began to fill three different tubes with Jo’s blood.
“Get that tested,” her father told the woman, who hurried to finish and rushed out of the room once she was done.
Her father was studying the screens behind her bed. He stared at them for a moment longer before he turned to her. “Does anything else hurt or is it just your stomach?”
“My head,” she replied and he nodded, turning back to the screens for a moment. His hand was stroking her hair again and it seemed to help a little with the pain. Her eyes kept watering, even though she had stopped crying.
Her father regarded the monitors for a moment longer before he sat down on the bed with her. She huddled close to him, unable to tell if she was too hot or too cold, but grateful that he hadn’t left her again.
Nurse Chapel came back a little while later, while Jo was puking into a small bowl, her father supporting most of her weight as she leaned over it. “Here are the results, doctor,” she said, handing him a PADD.
He nodded at her and regarded it quietly. Jo, who had been learning how to read at school, found that she could not make out a single word. The letters seemed to blur together.
Her father continued to stroke her hair while he read. Before he put the PADD down, she began to gag again.
He tossed the PADD to the side, “Chapel, 5 mg of phoclorperazine.”
Chapel inserted a needle into the tube that was already in her arm and Jo was surprised when it didn’t hurt. After a few more minutes of gagging into the small dish, her nausea finally began to recede.
Her father, in the meantime, had demanded various medications, which Nurse Chapel injected through the tube. Her father continued to watch the monitors as she became more and more lightheaded.
Something was wrong and she panicked. “Daddy,” she cried out when a piercing pain shot through her head.
“Shit,” he got up from the bed even as she tried to cling to him. He began barking orders at Nurse Chapel.
Jo felt her chest tighten and began gasping for air.
“Don’t do this, Jo, stay with me,” her father put a mask over her nose and mouth that forced air into her lungs. “Don’t fight it, sweetheart, just relax,” he cupped the side of her face gently, but his focus was on the monitors above her head.
“She shouldn’t have reacted like that,” he said.
“Is she allergic to the medication?”
“Not that I know of, no.” McCoy rubbed his face. “Get M’Benga, I need him to run more tests. I can’t leave her.”
Jo felt herself relax a little, but then the shooting pain in her head was back and she was jerking against the bed.
“Jo, Jo, just relax sweetheart. I’m going to fix this, I promise, but you need to relax.”
She tried to listen, but the pain in her head was making it difficult to concentrate.
Her father turned to one of the other nurses on duty, “Get me some gel packs.”
When the woman returned, her father grabbed one of the packs and picked up her head very gently. Even that small movement made her cry out and her chest constricted again, pain shooting through it as the mask forced air into her lungs.
“Shh, shh.” her father placed her head back down, onto one of the gel packs, and the cold seemed to dull the pain a bit. He placed one next to her neck, one under each of her arms, and another between her legs. “We need to cool you down - it’s just for a little while, ok?”
She blinked up at him, afraid to move her head.
“Leonard - what happened?” M’Benga entered the small room.
“She’s infected with the Golian bacteria. When we gave her the standard treatment, she went into respiratory distress.”
“Is she allergic to it?”
McCoy shook his head, “There were no other signs of an allergic reaction, and the anti-histamines we gave her did nothing to improve her breathing.”
“Are the samples still in the lab?”
McCoy nodded, “Check with Chapel, but they should be.”
M’Benga glanced at Jo, and then back at her father. “I’ll come up with something.”
Her father looked relieved, “Thanks, Geoff.”
M’Benga nodded and left.
The next few hours went by in a blur for Joanna, as the fever continued to rise despite the cold packs her father continued to cover her with.
At one point she was certain that her mother was there, upset with her for causing such a scene. Jo begged and pleaded with her, but the mask over her face muffled the sounds. She tried to take it off, but a nurse stopped her.
She started to cry then, certain that her mother was there to take her home. She would never be allowed to visit her father again after causing all this trouble. She knew she was making the situation worse, but she cried and fought against whoever was holding her down, desperately wanting to escape her mother’s sharp gaze.
“Christ, we need to get her fever down now. Can you prep an ice bath?” McCoy demanded of Chapel.
She nodded and rushed to do as he had asked.
Jo fought as she felt herself being lowered into freezing water.
“Shh, we need to bring your fever down,” he continued to hold her under the water, even as she fought him.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please, I want to get out, please, stop,” she begged.
It looked like her father was crying, which confused her, since he was the one doing this to her.
“It’s ok, baby, it’s ok. Just a little while longer, I promise.”
She began to smell something like rotten eggs, while her hands began to clench.
”Christ, she’s seizing - get her out of the water, now!”
She was confused when she woke up in a bed, no longer covered in ice packs. The IV was still attached, but the mask was gone. She turned her head and saw that her father was in the chair next to her bed.
When she awoke a little later, he was standing over her bed, his hand on her neck.
“Morning sweetheart, how are you feeling?” He asked when he noticed that she was awake.
“Thirsty,” she said. Her tongue felt swollen and it stung when she took a sip from the cup her father was holding for her.
He stopped her when she tried to sit up on her own, “We’re just going to rest awhile, ok?” He sat down next to her on the bed, holding her close as she fell back asleep.
She wished that she could stay.