Blast Doors and Hard Truths

Posted on Sun Nov 16th, 2025 @ 3:04am by Lieutenant Irynya & Ensign Noah Balsam & Petty Officer 1st Class Gatien Savoir

Mission: Port of Call
Location: Deck 2, Section 12
Timeline: Mission Day 0 at 2120

[MD 0 concurrent with and immediately following In the Aftermath]

The lift doors had just closed with Noah inside, leaving the nurse on the frustrating end of the turbolift in the corridor. "Deck two, Arboretum, direct." He said, lifting his injured chin to address the lift.

"Deck two, sections thirteen through fifteen have suffered structural damage. That location is not recommended."

With a thrum of frustration and panic, Noah clinched his eyes shut- and then shouted with taut hands in a pent up claw, "Just. Sh-shut up and get me clo-close! Override, authorization Balsam Iota 71 Charlie Delta 6 Ampersand."

"Rerouting." The computer said dispassionately. The lift began to move up, shunting up and then to the side.

---

The lift foyer was empty apart from the purple-locked nurse who was shifting impatiently from foot to foot as Irynya sprinted up to him calling, "Hold the lift!"

"Ah would if da t'ing were here," Gatien said, his usually placid exterior cracked with frustration. "Ah," his features smoothed, "'ere we ah." The next lift arrived with a pleasant chime. "Computah," he said as he gestured for Irynya to precede him, "What was lift one's destination?"

Irynya's face was tense, lips pressed together in a line. Her hands, not yet fully treated, ached suddenly as if her body wanted to remind her that she'd done a lot of running already. Slowly she flexed her fingers outward, feeling the pseudo-scar tissues from the Kazon medical treatment tug uncomfortably. "Thanks," she murmured to Gatien, once he was inside the lift with her.

The computer chirped, and then intoned to Gatien's query in its emotionless feminine, "Car four is approaching deck two, section fifteen. Arboretum. aft access. Botany lab. Hydroponics Access Chute. Biology Lab."

Gatien's dark gaze searched out Irynya's as if to ask, 'what the...?' "Dat boy's addled. 'e should be 'eaded to sickbay, not--" he waved his hand to indicate the ensign's odd destination.

"Computer," Irynya said with a sad weariness that twisted with the confirmation of her worry. She glanced at Gatien, sensible of his comment, but unable to formulate a short enough reply to cast any helpful light on Noah's actions. "Please take us to the same destination."

The computer chirped as if acknowledging the command, but rather than move it spoke. Irynya found herself imagining an uncaring tone to the voice where she logically knew no such thing existed. "Deck two, sections thirteen through fifteen have suffered structural damage. That location is not recommended."

"Damnit," she spat. The seconds between Noah's car leaving and their own seemed to draw themselves out. "Damage notification understood. Take us there anyway," she bit out.

"Access denied," the smooth female voice replied. "Override authorization?"

Gatien shot Irynya a troubled glance that said as plainly as speech that he had serious concerns about her mental well-being. Nevertheless, he was as concerned about Noah's physical well-being so, like the good triage nurse he was, he put 'Irynya's mental health' into the 'worry about it later' box and said, "Medical override Savoir Omega Three Three."

The computer chimed its acceptance and the car began to move. Once they were underway, Gatien pinned the weary flight controller with a dark, uncompromising stare. "Why is dat boy goin' to da ruined seck-shun o' da ship? Ah know y'all wasn't heah, but it really doan look good up deah."

The Risian sighed, drooping as she did. "Because Ensign Tor was killed," she answered. The weariness she felt in that moment weighed heavily in her tone. She wanted to sit down. To curl up and sleep. To wake up and have the nightmare be over. "And they were..." she continued, hesitating only for a moment, "friends. Really good friends." This she knew was true, but also not. Tor's feelings for Noah had been clear as day to the Risian. Enough so that she and Noah had talked about it only a few weeks prior. He may not have seen her the same way she saw him, per se, but Tor had been special to him nonetheless.

"We've all been worried... sick..." she continued even though Gatien hadn't asked her for anything more than what she'd already said, "about what had happened here. About ourselves. About each other. It's... I think.... maybe... we thought it was all over when we made it back."

Her heart hurt in a way that no amount of tending by Sickbay would help. It hurt for what they'd already been through. It hurt for Tor and for F'Rar and anyone else they'd lost. But in that moment it hurt most for Noah. "We just... I just... can't let him face this alone."

Gatien's stare lasted a moment longer than was comfortable, then he turned away, crossing his arms over his broad chest and muttering something that sounded sort of like a french curse.

The lift car came to a less-than-smooth halt, and the computer chimed. "Deck two, section twelve. Location adjacent to extreme structural damage. Entry not advised."

"T'anks," Gatien said with a lacing of sarcasm, rolling his eyes. "Like an overbearin' tahnt," he muttered in an aside to Irynya as the lift doors slid open.

The trip wasn't long. The Sojourner wasn't large and with its damage, its capacity was much reduced. The heave of the lift carried them up and then shunted them to the side. When the doors opened, the corridor was dark. Carbon scoring damaged the inner bulkhead panels. Fissures sizzled with containment fields just behind the exposed damage in the bulkheads. But the evidence was writ large: the corridor simply ended with a heavy containment door. Debris was toppled near it- structural beams, a panel of center ceiling lighting, and the twist of a door blown away from its track. The whole area smelled of ozone and burnt metal, burnt circuitry, strange medical... something. Suffocatingly like talc and anesthetic.

Against the blast door a crumpled figure sat. His knees were up and parted. He was leaning his elbows into his knees. His head was down. He was just trying to breathe.

Irynya had wanted a witty response. Something to confirm she knew what she was asking and to lighten the heaviness of what was happening. But when she reached for it there was nothing and so she shot the nurse a pained smile and stepped out into the corridor. Section 12 was, as the computer had warned, in terrible shape and it took the Risian's eyes a moment to adjust from the bright light of the lift to the near dark of the corridor.

Still, it was only a half moment before she spotted him. Or at least his legs. The way he sat looked as if he wanted to curl in on himself, but she knew with a deep familiarity that those long legs could only curl so far.

"Noah," she exhaled in the split second that she spotted him--unnecessary except to confirm in some tangible way to herself that he was there, in front of her.

She sprinted the remaining distance between herself and the blast door, and dropped to her knees next to him. "Noah," she said, this time hoping to get his attention. And then, in a squirming readjustment she straightened up on her knees, shifting so she could put her arms around him and tuck him awkwardly against her. She ducked her head into his hair and breathed the only words she could think. "I'm so sorry."

Gatien's swift inhale was silent-- his professionalism would warrant no less-- but even so, his heart rate ratcheted up a notch at the sight of the crumpled figure. He stepped forward, but was not fast enough to pass Irynya, who all but flew past him. "Don'--" he began, but she had already gathered the lanky ensign into her arms. His jaw clamped down on anything else he was going to say. If there was damage, it was already done. He followed her at a brisk, but more controlled walk, sinking to a crouch in front of the pair.

"Ensign Balsam," he said, his quiet voice rounded off by his accent as he waited to assess Noah's cognitive abilities, and from there, depth of shock, if any. He didn't think the young man's injuries had been severe enough to warrant such a collapse, but until he was as certain as Irynya that his position was emotional rather than physical, he was taking no chances.

Noah had no more tears. He was dehydrated as it was, having spent so much time on Subrek's ship, crawling through dry heat. He didn't respond at first to either his friend or the nurse. He was staring at his thumb and he moved it in a clasp of his hands, His stare aimed down. "Why..." He asked with his voice a low, cracked whisper. "She never hurt anybody... all she ever...." He trailed off and shook his head. His eyes closed.

Everything hurt. Just... everything. The elation, gone. When he looked up his eyes were dry, but red. "She never hurt anybody..." He repeated. His mouth screwed into a grimace of totally lack of comprehension, "She grew...." He couldn't remember the word. It was blocked. "Things..." His head sank. His breath out was ragged and he leaned in to his fingers. Their played shapes rested against his face and for a moment, Noah looked thirty years older.

"Oh cherie," Gatien said, with the delicate concoction of sympathy he had developed over the year, never straying to close to pity, "When you're in a bettah place, you'll remembah dere ain't no why to dese t'ings." If there was one thing he'd learned throughout his time caring for the sick and injured, it was that looking for the 'why' was a quick trip to a padded room.

Subrek's dead body stood out in a mindscape of chaos. Kazon battling Kazon, battling for power. With a clench of his fist, his mind skirted by things that he couldn't really fathom. Subrek didn't deserve anything fast. The thought was a sour bile and he swallowed it down. He blinked. "Sorry.... I'll-I'll go to Sickbay now..." He pushed on his legs- a bolt of pain shot up one but outside of a wince, he just... didn't care. He used his back to "walk up" the blast door's cold body to begin to stand.

After a moment of holding him awkwardly Irynya relented. His reaction, or more correctly his non-reaction, set off blaring alarms in her head while the worry she'd been continuing to shove back threatened to strangle her. She released him, sliding into a sitting position woth ner own back to the door before tucking her arm around his shoulders again. It was his voice, though, that scared her most, making her heart twist with a mixture of grief and fear that she didn't know how to address. He sounded so lost... so far away.

She didn't have words. Couldn't have answered him if she did. So instead she sat there, plying his shoulder with gentle pressure from her fingers. Hoping it was enough to merely be present.

"I'll go with you," she said when he began to stand. She scrambled to her feet, started to reach out to help him as well and then hesitated, unsure after the non-response to her earlier embrace.

"OK...." He almost echo-whispered. His head down, he nodded. He... couldn't... This all felt like a horrible nightmare and so as he rose with Irynya's help, he squinted his eyes. Irynya might have heard the soft childhood pleas of a scared little boy breathed past his lips. "Wake up wake up wake up wake up..." They were almost unvoiced. But the shape of his mouth, a fairly familiar thing to the Lieutenant? Perhaps she knew. His tired red eyes shifted to Irynya. He couldn't smile but he could at least tilt his tired head to rest a moment atop hers. He could kind of feel the texture of her hair. It... wasn't the ideal texture. They had been through hell. But that was all he could for now.

One arm around Noah's waist the Risian stood there a moment while the knot of worry that felt as if it might be climbing up her throat loosened every so slightly. She closed her eyes for half a second, breathing, and then opened them to look to Gatien.

"Would you..." she started, twisting to glance up at Noah's profile when he lifted his head again. "... come with us?"

As sure as she was that she knew every injury Noah had sustained from the time they'd arrived to the time they'd been split onto separate shuttles, she felt less sure of getting to Sickbay. She wanted desperately for someone else to be in charge. Even just for the time it took to get them both to a different part of the same deck. She could help. And she was prepared to put up a fight if anyone, the kind nurse who had gone on this chase with her included, tried to make her leave Noah's side at this point. But she wanted someone else to do the rest.

"We'll go togethah," the nurse confirmed, watching their movements with an attention much sharper than his casually concerned expression would suggest. Perhaps he was more worried about Noah's condition than he was letting on. Then, knowing how important autonomy was, he said, "Grav stretchers ain't far away. I'll get one?" The uptilt of his voice at the end of the phrase, worded as a statement, left just enough open for the pair to-- hopefully-- easily accept without losing their pride. Not that Gatien thought they would, but he was always willing to try.

Blinking, Irynya opened her mouth to formulate a reply--opened it and then closed it again when none came. Did they need a grav stretcher? It was only the other side of the deck... right...? She felt the weight of Noah's arm around her. He wasn't stumbling. He was really just barely leaning on her--perhaps more attached to her for comfort than actual physical help. Whatever they did she just didn't want to be separated from him and at that moment even the thought of relinquishing his arm around her stoked a protective desire to refuse. She twisted her head, trying to glance at Noah's face and only managing a quick look at the profile of his nose.

"Uh...." she tried again, "I think we can walk if we take it slow."

And then, not waiting, she set off, pausing only enough to make sure that Noah was in step with her as she moved past the nurse and toward Sickbay.

FIN

A Post By

Lieutenant Irynya
Chief Helmswoman

Ensign Noah Balsam
Systems Specialist

Petty Officer 1st Class Gatien Savoir
Nurse