B'Elanna couldn't help but grin when she heard the ventilation cycle begin. She tilted her head to listen to the sound and make sure it continued.
Tilting her head was a very bad idea.
Her vision blurred and darkened. She felt the strangest sensation-tingling, almost-travel from her face down to her hands.
The sedative was working faster. At this rate, it wouldn't matter if conditions in Sickbay were breathable, because she wouldn't be able to move to get there.
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to clear the fuzziness, and then opened them. Working as quickly as she could, she leaned back into the open panel.
She got rid of the meddling Doctor, straining to hear the sound of the power shutting off over the deafening noise of the fresh air flushing into Sickbay.
Satisfied, she leaned forward and turned the power back on. She rolled over on to her back, sending her vision tunneling. She shut her eyes, waiting for the dark ceiling to come back into focus. She lay there, thinking that with the progressing narcotic, there was no way she was going to make it back through the Jefferies Tubes without passing out. She know there was a hatch to Sickbay nearby in the Tube and decided to use that route.
She twisted over on to her belly, shutting her eyes to the instant dizziness. She crawled forward, stopping and using her good hand to wrench the hatch from the floor. Her head was loudly protesting both the unsteady crawling and the jerking movements of her arm. It thought she should stop and take a nap.
She ignored it, flipping back over and dropping her knees through the open hatch. She let her legs drop through. She held the edge tightly with her hand, wrapping her injured arm around her waist to keep it safe should her landing be less than gentle. She started to ease herself down.
The thought that the one hand she had to support herself on the rim of the hatch might not be strong enough occurred too late. Her weight immediately pulled on her shoulder. Her hand slipped off the edge. She tried to grab on again, scrabbling to gain control over her speed of descent.
She tumbled through.
She knew it wasn't that far down, but with her shaky sight it looked like she was falling into a void. It took forever for her to land, or so it felt. She tried to curl up around her arm, desperate to avoid landing on it.
Land she did, her hip absorbing most of the impact. Her head struck the floor right after that and she saw stars. She raised her head, staring through the pain.
She couldn't see anything clearly. The calm colors of the bio-beds swam before her eyes, intermixed with the brighter colors of the uniforms of the patients. She sat up and the walls started spinning insanely fast. She put her arm down to steady herself.
The wrong arm.
She heard someone let out a slurred Klingon curse-her, she realized.
Squinting her eyes shut, she tried to stand. She was swaying, trying to grab on to something that wasn't moving. Suddenly, something grabbed her.
Someone, rather.
That was wrong. Everyone in Sickbay was supposed to be unconscious, and she had gotten rid of the EMH.
Whoever it was persisted, dragging her across the room. She couldn't see who it was, everything blurred, the colors running together. She was driven against a hard surface. B'Elanna let her head roll back against the one stationary object existing to her at the moment, closing her eyes.
When she opened them, she could see a bit more clearly.
She was pressed against the one unoccupied bio-bed and Tom Paris was sitting on her.