Katrina sighed as she stared out of the window at the unchanging view of stars outside. Sure, a hospital room on Starbase 46 was a definite improvement to her quarters on the Klingon ship, and she knew she ought to be relieved she was out of there. That didn't change the fact that the main emotion she was feeling at the moment was boredom. She'd never been good at recuperation.

She'd been here for a week now, after an indeterminate amount of time on the Ship of the Dead (she'd given up counting the days early on after several periods of unconsciousness made it hard to keep track). After the initial flurry of communications from Starfleet expressing approval at her conduct whilst a prisoner, and from her few remaining family members who were relieved she'd been rescued, she'd been pretty much left to herself. Apart from her daily therapy sessions and interactions with the medical personnel handling her rehabilitation she didn't have much to fill her days. Reading books and catching up on the war news could only take up so much time, after all.

The problem with all this time was it left her with far too much space to think. As a professional, she knew the benefits of having time to process what she'd been through but the reality, she was finding, meant that she ended up dwelling on some things more than she thought could be helpful. Could she have done anything differently? Could she have avoided the deaths of her security detail and the Cancri elders? Could she have escaped earlier? Had she given anything important up to the Klingons that she didn't remember? She was fairly sure that she hadn't, but there was always a niggling piece of doubt that returned to haunt her.

And most importantly, had Gabriel known what he was sending her into? Had he sold her to the Klingons to keep his ship?

A few years ago, she would have known the answer to that one. Gabriel was a law unto himself but he had a strong sense of right and wrong. The Gabriel she had once known would never have put someone else down to keep himself up. But the war had changed him, like it had changed them all. Now she didn't know what to think, who to believe.

Bringing herself back to the present, she checked her PADD. Christmas Day was in a week's time and she was due to take a shuttle home tomorrow to spend the holiday with her cousin in Atlanta. She was trying desperately to look forward to it, attempting to divert herself with thoughts of presents and food but her mind kept returning to the endless litany of questions. It was hard to focus on what Aunt Annabel might like this year when you still didn't know if your ex-not-quite-boyfriend had tried to send you to your death. Pushing the questions down again, she applied herself with more vigour to the task and managed to keep herself focused.

When she next checked the time, it was nearly time for her evening meal. Although no longer bedbound, she was still mostly confined to her hospital room and moved between her chair, her bed and her tiny en-suite bathroom as little as possible. Putting the PADD aside, she stretched and carefully manoeuvred herself into the bathroom to make use of the facilities. When she returned, there was a plate of hot food sitting on her table, and a sparkly red bag with a card attached next to it. Curious, she gingerly made her way across the room and looked inside the bag. Inside was a bottle of some very nice whiskey – far nicer than she'd usually buy herself. Her heart stuttered for a second, then started beating twice as fast. Her breath coming quicker than usual, she opened the card with fingers that were suddenly tingling. The message inside was short, and left her head reeling. Trust him to leave her with more questions than answers.

Kat,

I'm sorry. Merry Christmas.

Gabriel

This is a few firsts for me - my first Disovery fic, my first canon compliant fic and my first het ship. I love Admiral Cornwell but can't quite work out who to ship her with so sticking with canon for now until I work it out. I'm also working on a couple of ideas for longer stories but this popped into my head while I was wrapping Christmas presents this afternoon - it didn't turn out quite as I expected but they just wanted to come out and play. Hope you enjoyed, let me know if you did!