disclaimer: Star Trek and all recognizable characters, places, creations, etc. are not mine. They never will be either. *le sigh*

warnings: semi-graphic depiction of injury, language

notes: I wrote this in about an hour, all told. I apologize for any weird mistakes.

Split the Blood to Bone

They find her unconscious in the turbolift.

"Spirits," says Chakotay.

"Shit," says Tom.

They drag her free into a relatively undamaged hallway of Deck Seven, while B'Elanna makes a run for the smoking ruins of Sickbay for any medical supplies that remained intact, and Tuvok to go find The Doctor. Tom kneels by her side, pressing pale hands against blood that runs too fast from the bullet hole in her thigh; Chakotay sits with her head in his lap, his fingers rubbing smooth circles on her temples, just like his mother had done when he was a child and sick.

"If I can't slow the bleeding," Tom says, his pale hands painted with dripping scarlet, "we're going to lose her."

"How did this happen?" Chakotay asks, of no one and everyone.

"There's a reason all evolved societies transition to energy-based weapons," Tom says. He removes his hands from the wound in his captain's leg for a daring second, and uses it to rip free the bottom half of her pant leg. He wads it into a ball and presses it against the wound. It soaks through in less than a minute.

"What do you mean?" Chakotay asks, as Tom swears again and presses the soaked bandage tighter against her leg. Blood seeps between his fingers.

"Projectile weapons—like the ones used at the time of World War II—cause way more damage than energy-based weapons," Tom says. "They always do. With energy-based weapons you don't run the risk of bleeding out and, barring a few incidents, do far less damage going in than a single bullet from a projectile."

Her face is slick with sweat, her mouth thin and white with pain. Her eyes move restlessly beneath her eyelids. Chakotay wonders what she is dreaming about.

"You know a lot about this kind of thing," Chakotay says.

"What can I say?" Tom says with a shrug of his narrow shoulders. "I'm a history buff."

Tuvok returns a minute later, The Doctor and a de-Klingoned Neelix in tow. "What happened?" The Doctor snaps, seeing her stretched out on the floor amid the debris.

"Bullet hole to the upper leg," Tom says. "No exit wound. The bullet must have torn through her artery at some point—she's bleeding out fast."

The Doctor does not pale—it is not in his subroutines—but his mouth flattens and his eyes go to slate. "I'm going to need you to help me perform a surgery," he tells Tom. "And Commander, Mr. Tuvok—I'm going to need you to hold her down while we do it."

"B'Elanna is getting supplies," Tom offers.

The Doctor pulls out a medkit with a flourish. "I retrieved this from a Jeffries Tube on the way down," he says. "It will be enough to start."

Chakotay holds her shoulders, Tuvok her leg. Tom rips open her pant leg to the hip while The Doctor pulls out a laser scalpel and a pair of tweezers from the medkit. Then, with strategic precision, The Doctor kneels by her side and, turning on the scalpel, opens a thin red line an inch above and an inch below the mess of the bullet hole.

"Hold the sides open," he instructs Tom, who grimaces but obeys.

An agonizing and bloody minute later, in which Chakotay grunts and Tuvok has to shift so that he is sitting on her ankle and pinning her leg to the ground with both hands around her shin, The Doctor gives a triumphant cry and pulls from her leg the twisted metal ball of a crumpled bullet. "Got it," he says, and drops it, already forgotten, to the side. His hands are as bloody as Tom's.

He sutures the artery, deft and desperate. It is clumsy and will need to be done again, with better tools and better lighting, but it is enough to stop the bleeding. Tom then runs a dermal regenerator over the hole and the incision. Her pale skin ripples as it grows together, hiding muscle and bone beneath blood-smeared, pale scar tissue.

"Crude," The Doctor says with some displeasure.

"But effective," Tom adds, wiping his hands on his pants. The blood on them smears, and does not come off.

"Will she be okay?" Chakotay asks, still holding her chest and shoulders.

"She's not out of the proverbial woods," The Doctor says. "She needs a blood transfusion. But I think she'll pull through."

"When Sickbay blew, I doubt any of the blood survived," Chakotay says.

"Someone in the crew is sure to share a blood type with the captain," Tuvok says. It is the first time he has spoken since his arrival.

"Ensign Ballard," The Doctor says. "We just have to find her."

"I will go," Tuvok says, rising. "I will return as swiftly as I am able."

He disappears into the turbolift, and is gone. Chakotay turns to Tom and The Doctor.

"I think we had best move," he says. "This isn't a very defensible position."

"Let's go to the nearest Jeffries Tube section," Tom recommends. "We can lock the Tube, and the inset will give us an advantage over anyone coming down the hall."

"Good idea," Chakotay says. "Tom, help me carry her."

They lift her carefully, mindful of the injured leg, and with The Doctor leading, make their way down the debris-strewn corridor to the nearest Jeffries Tube hatch. "What a mess," Tom comments once, as they pick their way around a buckled piece of bulkhead plating. The wall behind it sparks and hisses as they pass.

They lay her down gently on the floor, and then Chakotay goes to seal the Tube hatch. Tom draws his phaser and goes to sit against the corner of the small inset, the weapon small and black in his hands. The blood on them makes his hold slick, and he tries again to wipe it away on his pants.

Chakotay settles on the floor by her head. "Hold on, Kathryn," he whispers to her, and runs his fingers through her sweat-matted hair. The Doctor pretends not to have heard as he kneels again by her leg, and runs a medical tricorder over the now-vanished wound.

They wait.

~*8*~

Kathryn wakes slowly, like the dawn.

The first thing she is aware of is the pain. It radiates out from a point in her leg, at once burning and sharp, as if a pointed ember had been lodged there. It makes her sick to her stomach, and makes her head throb, and makes her want to claw at her skin until she can rip the ember out of it.

The second thing she is aware of is the hand holding hers.

She opens her eyes.

Chakotay sits slumped against the wall at her side. It is his hand that holds hers, large and dark and streaked with soot and ash against her pale, crimson-streaked skin. His eyes are closed, and his breath comes in long, even draws, his chest rising and falling with steady, comforting rhythm.

Kathryn looks around her. Tom is just visible, sitting with B'Elanna at the entrance to the Jeffries Tube section. Their shoulders are nearly touching, and Tom's head is bent toward B'Elanna's. There is the soft murmur of voices, but Kathryn cannot make out what is being said.

Lindsey Ballard is the first to notice she's awake.

"Captain," she exclaims, jolting upright when she sees her eyes open. Tom and B'Elanna turn quickly, and Tom flashes her a quick, boyish smile of relief before turning back outwards. Chakotay wakes as well, consciousness smashing into him with the force of a hammer against glass.

Kathryn tries to smile. It feels like cardboard, and makes her head throb. But Lindsey smiles in return, relief and joy warring in her eyes and in the curve of her mouth. Chakotay squeezes her hand.

They help her sit. The world swoops around her, dancing a spritely jig before settling into her stomach. Kathryn leans over and throws up, vomit splashing as it hits the floor. Lindsey grabs her shoulders and Chakotay sweeps her hair out of her face.

"Easy there, Captain," Chakotay says. He does not say her name, but he may as well have; the way he says Captain is as intimate as prayer, as honest and true as any name could be.

Kathryn sits back. Her stomach is a fist and her leg aches, but the world has righted itself and is no longer trying to crawl up and down her throat. "Thank you," she says, not meeting either Lindsey's or Chakotay's eyes.

Chakotay lays a hand on her shoulder. "How are you feeling?" he asks.

"Better," Kathryn says. It is a lie, but it is an honest lie.

The Doctor appears around the corner. Tom and B'Elanna move to give him room to walk between them.

"How are you feeling?" he asks, smiling brightly as he kneels in front of Kathryn.

"I've been better," Kathryn says. "But I've been worse."

The Doctor nods. He runs the medical tricorder in his hand up and down her body, then lets it hover over her leg. "I'm going to have to perform another surgery to fix the damage I did to you in the last one," he says, "but you should be able to walk on that in the meantime. It'll hurt like hell though, I'm afraid."

Kathryn frowns. "Why?" she asks.

"The surgery Tom and I performed did some minor nerve damage," he tells her. "But never fear, I can fix that as well. I'll just need a functioning Sickbay first."

Kathryn nods. "Okay," she says. She looks around her again, at Chakotay with his hand still braced on her shoulder and his expression grim, at Tom and B'Elanna sitting guard, at Lindsey Ballard pale and tired, at The Doctor with her blood still staining the sleeves of his uniform. "Okay," she says again, and then gathers her feet beneath her and, using Chakotay's arm as leverage, pushes herself up to a standing position. She wavers for a second, the world once more leaping around her, her leg throbbing and burning in tandem. But then she steadies, Chakotay rising swiftly and deftly grabbing her by the elbow. "Okay," she says a third time. And then,

"Let's go take our ship back."