Coming Apart At The Seams Part II
Posted on Fri May 29th, 2026 @ 11:40am by Lieutenant Addison Talbert & Major Hastios Eilfaren
Edited on on Fri May 29th, 2026 @ 11:41am
1,956 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
In The Nick Of Time
Location: Sick Bay - Deck 4 - USS Herodotus
Timeline: MD009 1452 Hrs
Maren froze.
Her eyes widened, and whatever little relief had started to form broke apart immediately. The panic came back, but softer now, trapped under the sedative and exhaustion, making her shake rather than fight. She pushed herself up onto one elbow and reached toward the edge of the field, stopping just short of touching it.
“No,” she rasped, voice hoarse, still thick from the tranquiliser. “No, don’t… don’t put me in a box.”
Her gaze flicked from Addison to the security officers and back again, wet and furious and frightened all at once. She hated that she sounded scared. Hated more that she could not make herself sound anything else.
“You said you weren’t taking anything,” she muttered, curling her hands back toward herself, wrists held close like damaged things. “Then why am I still locked up?”
"It is but for a few moments." Addison answered truthfully, while she went to take care of the wounds on the guards.
She hoped that by the time she was done with security, the sedative would have calmed Maren a little bit more.
Giving a pat on their shoulders once she was finished, Addison walksed to where Maren was, shuttingt off the forcefield.
Gently she said to Maren. "I need to take care of your wounds, and this means I will be touching you, to do so."
By the time Addison returned, the sharpest edge of Maren’s panic had dulled into something slower and stranger.
She was still scared. That hadn’t gone anywhere. It sat under her skin like a bruise. But the sedative had wrapped the fear in thick glass, leaving her staring up through the holding field at the Sickbay lights with unfocused, too-dark eyes while her thoughts arrived late and soft around the edges. The forcefield kept her pinned in place more than she liked, not hurting her, not exactly, but holding her still in a way her body remembered before her mind could argue with it.
When the field dropped, she noticed it a second later than she should have.
Her hand twitched first, then her shoulders shifted faintly against the biobed as if she was testing whether she was allowed to move again. Her gaze drifted toward Addison and narrowed a little as she tried to follow the words. Touching. Wounds. Take care of them. That made sense. Probably. Her brain filed it under things people kept saying that sounded reasonable if she didn’t look too closely.
“Right,” Maren murmured, voice rough and distant now. “Because last time everyone touched me, it went super well.”
There was still sarcasm there, but it had lost most of its teeth. It came out softer, almost sleepy, with just enough stubbornness left to prove she was still Maren under the medication.
She looked down at herself as much as the angle allowed, as if only now remembering she had a body. Blood on her hand. Blood at her mouth. A sting along her palm that felt very far away and oddly unimportant. Her jaw ached in a slow, pulsing way that made her frown.
“Did I hit someone?” she asked after a second, blinking back toward Addison with hazy concern creeping through the sedative. “Or did someone hit me? Because… honestly, could be either.”
"You had damaged yourself, as well as the security personnel who brought you in." Addison answered calmly.
Addison glanced towards the men she had worked on, then back to Maren, "And yes, you were hit as well. Possibly an emotional response from your wave of emotions."
"Now once more I am going to see to your wounds." Addison reaching out and cleaning the wounds that Maren had.
As Addison worked, her brow furrowed thinking of what security had said, the episodes that Maren had gone through. Temporal Psychosis, how Meren was acting it certainly checked all the boxes. Her skin prickled up, realizing that the sedative that had been given to Meren, had a short time before it wore off.
As she went to close up the wound on Maren's hand, Addison stopped, she needed a blood sample to diagnos just what was going on.
"Maren, I'm going to be taking a sample of your blood, as I need to find out just what is going on with your body." Addison stated, deciding to let the young woman know what she was doing, and why.
Maren watched Addison work with heavy-lidded eyes, her focus drifting in and out as the sedative kept the sharpest edges of everything wrapped in cotton. She still flinched a little at the cleaning of the cuts, but it was delayed now, more offended than frightened, as if her body kept sending reports and her brain was filing them very slowly.
When Addison mentioned taking blood, Maren blinked at her.
“Blood?” she repeated, voice rough and faintly slurred around the edges. “You have scanners.”
Her brows drew together as she tried to make that thought line up properly. It clearly annoyed her that it wouldn’t.
“That feels really… pointy. And old.” Her gaze drifted toward the medical equipment, then back to Addison. “Like, I’m from the terrible universe and even I know that’s weird.”
She shifted slightly on the biobed, not with enough strength to pull away, just enough to show she was still thinking about it even through the haze.
“What are you looking for?” she asked, quieter now, the sarcasm thinning into something more uncertain. “Because if it’s the thing in my head… I don’t think it’s in my blood.”
In a soft gentle tone, Addison remarked. "Its not as barbaric as it used to be. I've got a device that is meant to draw blood painlessly."
She walked over to where she kept the sanitized instruments, and brought one out. Even if they were different sorts of hypospray they still needed to be kept sanitary. There was a field which did the job of not only keeping them clean but also sanitized the hands.
Walking back over Addison held up the device. "This is how I will be drawing the blood. And as for your questioning, I need to find out how to combat what your body is doing to you. This will only take a moment to get what I need. "
Maren watched Addison hold up the device with the bleary suspicion of someone who was still sedated but not quite sedated enough to stop being difficult.
“I know what a hypospray is,” she muttered, her words a little slower than usual but still unmistakably Maren. “I’m traumatised, not from a cave.”
Her eyes followed the device for another second, then drifted back to Addison’s face as the explanation caught up with her properly. Combat what your body is doing to you. That landed somewhere under the haze. Not fixing her. Not taking something from her. Trying to stop whatever this was from dragging her back into that place in her head.
She swallowed, then looked away with the sulky reluctance of someone who hated that the doctor had a point.
“Fine,” she said at last, voice quieter. “Do it.”
A beat passed.
“But if it decides I’m not allowed coffee either,” she added, because apparently even sedated she still had priorities, “I’m blaming you.”
A muted chuckle, Addison responded "You will be able to have coffee, and I'll join you in imbibing in the strongest cup of coffee, non replicated. Courtesy of me. I do have a secret stash." she paused "Well, its not so secret, now that I mentioned it to you."
Addison went on as she reached over and took a sample of Maren's blood. She placed it upon the tray then finished up taking care of the young woman's wounds.
Wounds taken care of, Addison glanced at the time, giving a frown. Time was ticking away more rapidly than what she wished it to she didn't have as much time as she had previously before the sedative would wear off.
"Okay Maren just relax there, and I will be working on devising a way to combat this situation.
After taking the blood sample, Addison entered it into the analyzer. The cellular images flickered across the monitor. Her eyes watching the patterns that were revealing themselves.
Her eyes narrowed as she slowed down what she was seeing. The cells weren't dying—they were unraveling. Their structures loosened and separated like frayed threads, as though time itself was pulling them apart.
That gave Addison concern, she recalled the solution that the DTI had given her to combat M'ressa's condition.
Threads unraveling, there was a solution when dealing with fabric, perhaps there was something she could utilize. Adhesive, wait there was the natural adhesion that did bind cells together.
She needed to do a patch something that would keep Maren more settled, and not unraveling. She looked at M'ressa's file then back to Maren's blood and the analysis. There was the information, a trick to get Maren's body to think it is connected to her timeline.
Maren will have to dose herself up, once a day, to keep herself in the timeline of the Herodotus.
Turning, Addison walked over to Maren carrying another hypospray. "Here, this will keep you from coming apart at the seams," handing the hypospray to the young woman.
"Once per day and, no this won't keep you from having coffee." Addison remarked, giving a smile.
Maren watched the hypospray in Addison’s hand with the slow, heavy suspicion of someone who was still sedated enough to feel floaty, but absolutely not sedated enough to stop having opinions.
“Coming apart at the seams,” she repeated, blinking at her. “That’s… not creepy at all.”
She took the hypospray because apparently that was the shape her life had now. Temporal rifts, guarded doors, emotional explosions, and a doctor casually handing her a daily dose of please continue existing in this universe. Her fingers curled around it carefully, though her gaze stayed on Addison for a second longer than usual.
“Once a day,” she murmured, trying to make it sound like she wasn’t bothered by that. She absolutely was. “Great. Love that. Very normal teenage routine. Wake up, brush teeth, stab self with timeline glue.”
The coffee comment landed a beat later, and despite everything, despite the blood and the panic and the awful lingering fuzz of the sedative, Maren’s mouth twitched.
“Yeah, about that,” she said, her voice still rough but gaining a little of its familiar edge back. “Your computer already decided I’m too medically tragic for caffeine, so unless your secret stash comes with a way to bully the replicator, I’m not holding my breath.”
She glanced down at the hypospray again, then back to Addison, her expression softening just a fraction beneath the sarcasm.
“But… thanks,” she added, quieter now, as if the word had to sneak out while the rest of her wasn’t paying attention. “For stopping the whole…” She gestured vaguely with the hypo, apparently unwilling to say unravelling out loud again. “That.”
A pause.
Then she sank back against the biobed with a tired, drugged sort of dignity.
“Still think Sickbay’s weird as hell, though.”
A Joint Post By:
Maren Malbrooke
Civilian, USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Addison Talbert
Chief Medical Officer
USS Herodotus DTI-30656
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