Tom watched as Torres stumbled to her feet, shrieking what sounded like a garbled Klingon curse. Despite having looked straight at him moment ago, she didn't seem to know he was there. She was standing unsteadily, clutching one arm around her midsection, groping at the air with the other one. She'd either hit her head when she landed, or had breathed in more of the sedative than it looked like she had.
Either way, she was in no condition to fight like she had earlier.
That had to be a good thing.
He climbed off the bio-bed, knowing she probably wasn't able to see him, but moving swiftly anyway. Who knew how fast Klingons-even half-Klingons-recovered from a knock to the head?
She didn't struggle when he grabbed her by the shoulders and started pulling her towards the bio-bed. Nor did she react when he pushed her down on it. Her head lolled back against it and he thought she'd lost consciousness.
He hadn't thought she'd fallen *that* hard.
He shook her. Her head rolled to the side, but otherwise she didn't move.
Uh-oh.
He climbed onto the bio-bed with her, unintentionally kneeling on her in the process. She shifted when he did that, trying to move out of the way.
Okay, maybe she was just asleep.
He tried to reach for the tricorder lying on the medical tray nearby, but it was just out of his reach. Not that he'd understand what its readings were, anyway.
He tucked his fingertips under her eyelids and lifted them to see the whites of her eyes.
That probably wasn't normal.
Nor was the fact that he was poking his fingers into her eyes and she wasn't responding by trying to kill him.
She wasn't responding at all.
He barely remembered the one or two medical courses he'd had to take at the Academy-the alien physiology course was especially distant-but he thought he recalled something about certain sedatives being dangerous to a person who had recently had a head injury.
He had no idea if the sedative used by the Doc was one of those.
Who better to ask than the Doc?
The Doc, who would treat Torres, erect the force field around Tom, refill Sickbay with the sedative, and then want to continue with his impossible plan.
Tom sighed, dropping his hands from Torres' face. He sat back, a knee on either side of her. He found himself smirking, realizing just what this position resembled, and what conclusions the Doc might draw upon activation. He couldn't wait to see the Doc's expression.
Hey, he was being sent off to the front lines by the Doc. He deserved to see the Doc's face.
"Computer, activate Emergency Medical Hologram."
"Invalid Command," the computer responded.
The humor dropped from Tom's face.
"Why?"
"No such program."
"What?"
"No such program exists in the Medical Database," the computer's calm voice elaborated.
Tom looked down at Torres. Apparently she'd done a lot more than just circulate fresh air in and cycle the power.
"Nice job," he told her.
She, of course, didn't respond.
He looked away, searching his mind for what he was going to do now.
Something made him look back, where he barely had time to recognize the fact that Torres' eyes were half-open, before her fist slammed into his chin.
Pain blossomed across his face as he was knocked backwards.
But not off the bio-bed. And not unconscious.
Which probably meant that she was not fully recovered.
Even more indicative of that was the image of Torres struggling to sit up, barely noticing that he was still sitting on her, straddling her knees.
He lunged forward, catching the wrist of the hand that had just struck his face. He either caught her by surprise or her reflexes still weren't working, because he was able to shove her back down flat, reaching for her other wrist to make sure she didn't go at his face again.
She screamed when he took hold of it, writhing beneath him and doing her best to kick him in a very sensitive area. He avoided her feet-and her much more dangerously positioned knees-trying to pin her legs down.
Finally, she stopped moving.
She did not stop screaming.
It took him a moment to figure it out what she was screaming about. Her right wrist was definitely broken. He relaxed his grip on it slightly, enough that she went silent but not enough that she'd be able to get it loose and hit him again.
"*Let go*," she ground out, glaring at him with glazed eyes.
"Don't hit me," he retorted with the same urgency.