(Una WHUMP - Strange New Worlds)
Most just don’t die twice.
For Una this must be- god- maybe the sixth time.
If she comes back from this one, she’s gonna break their tie. Pike has never wanted to lose so badly before.
Right now, he’s just stuck with her heart in his literal hands as Chapel yells instructions at him angrily. Man can that woman bawl.
She’s competent at least, though. That keeps him from feeling worse but- right now- there’s nothing that can make him feel better.
His ship has barely escaped that skirmish alive, his sickbay’s in such disrepair that the power’s stopped working and god- there’s gonna be more than a few funerals to plan by the time this is over.
Right now, though, he’s gotta keep his first officer’s heart beating. Gotta keep massaging and squeezing. He needs to keep up the rhythm and maintain the beat.
That’s the thing about being a captain, sometimes you just gotta do something. Not think about it too deeply.
“M’BENGA!” Screams Chapel and it makes Pike’s heart drop and- god no he can’t drop Una’s heart and what’s even thinking and-
“Captain, keep her heart going or I swear to god I’ll castrate you where you stand.” Warns the nurse and he falls back into place.
Pike’s has cursory medical training, enough to learn that when shit hits the fan you do what the nurses are telling you and you do it unquestioningly.
Even when your best friend’s chest is split open and her ribs are showing and her lungs-
Are moving. Her lungs are finally fucking moving and it’s DISGUSTING.
He’s retching into the garbage disposal the
moment Christine excuses him.
“Report.” He barks as he bursts into sickbay. He’s got the padd with the deaths already in hand and really, really wants to bring back the bastards who did this just to kill them one more time.
Twenty two lives. And he hopes to god it’s not about to be twenty three.
“She’s stable. Intubated but-“
“Brain damage?” He asks because Pike wouldn’t know what to do if that was true. If she lost the oxygen she needed so desperately because he couldn’t keep her damned heart beating properly.
“Too early to tell.” Frowns the Doctor, approaching his friend very carefully. “Christopher- are you-“
No. No he is not fucking okay.
She’s awake and Pike finds that he’s fully prepared to resign his commission if she’s gonna need round the clock care after this. If she’s wheelchair bound or disabled or-
He’d always thought space was where he’d found the meaning of home. That Enterprise would always be that place.
But it won’t. Not without Una at his side and-
Is Una his home? Is she what defines that?
The thought is sobering. Terrifying.
Una is fine. And he breaks.
He holds her and just lets it all spill out pitifully like he’s the one who just had to be resuscitated and had a tube shoved down his lungs for twenty four hours straight.
“How many?” She manages, finally. Her voice is unpracticed and shaky and god she must be in pain but the first thought that comes to her mind is how many that they must have lost on that day.
That was the current tally, apparently. He knows it’ll hurt her but Una deserves more than a lie.
“Chris, that’s almost 10% of the crew.”
He knows that. It’s actually 9,7%, for the record. He’s had to do the maths for the admiralty already.
But all he’s managing to think is ‘thank god none of that number is you’.
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