Remember this poll? the first chapter is out!
https://archiveofourown.org/works/78120881
And I can hear him break, And he doesn't understand.
Elnor is totally fine. He doesn't know why everyone has been walking on eggshells with him. He's fine. He feels normal. He doesn't know why all the doctors and nurses and therapists are being pushed at him. He's fine. The doctors and nurses and therapists all figure he's fine. He's fine. Until suddenly, at the firing of a phaser, he isn't.
if you don't have AO3, the fic is under the cut!! (tho if you do have AO3, please come give me some love on there)
Chapter 1: the bad memories
It had been three weeks since Elnor had woken up on The Excelsior. Disoriented, confused, and in the midst of an active galaxy-ending-crisis.
Three weeks. Three weeks of Raffi fussing over him, three weeks of being shepherded to doctors and nurses and therapists. Every single one asked him questions he had no answers to. Every single one refused to explain why he was there. On the outside he seemed fine. To medical equipment he seemed fine. Even to himself he seemed fine.
He was cleared to go back to daily academy activities. Raffi still hovered over his shoulder, worry eminent in her face, but she never answered anything he asked her. Elnor conceded that it was probably just Raffi being Raffi. Overprotective of her “son”.
That was until combat training and a phasers blast went off somewhere near him.
Elnor was on the floor in an instant, the blast hadn’t hit him, not by a long shot, but he still couldn’t breathe.
Elnor’s heart was racing, the usual 240 beats per minute that his heart stayed at was now racing to be a hum of adrenaline that drowned out all the other sounds around him except the phaser shot replaying in his ears again and again. He felt the slick of his own blood on his hands, his heart hurt, it was beating so fast, he clutched at his stomach as a stinging pain spread through his right shoulder. What was happening? Why couldn’t he breathe? Was he dying? Was this what one of those “heart attacks” felt like?
Hands on him. On his shoulders, on his waist, on his arms. Trying to heft him up. He couldn’t. His legs wouldn’t hold him. He crumpled like a baby deer every time he tried to stand.
His vision was swimming. The taste of salt overwhelmed his already blaring senses, his tears seeping into his mouth and making him feel sick. He felt like he was going to puke. Black fog clawed at the corners of his sight, a tunnel slowly sucking him in until he felt like he was falling.
Everything was so loud and so quiet at the same time. White noise so overwhelming that Elnor was now drowning in it.
He could hear people calling his name far away. Thousands of light years away. But also undeniably close. Voices in his ears. Yelling. Screaming.
Elnor whimpered, his voice dying in his throat. The words that clouded his mind burned his tongue as he started to sob.
“I’m dying.” he cried, “I’m dying.”
— — —
The sense of panic was immediate when Raffi watched Elnor hit the floor.
Raffi had just fired off a phaser shot at a mannequin. It was to demonstrate the proper way to fire. Nothing less.
Elnor was in the front row, watching Raffi with intent. Her demonstration and firearm safety seminar was mandatory for the Star fleet security track. Elnor – who could slice a man in half like butter – was still unsure if the security track was his calling, but was still sticking it out. At least until the end of the semester.
When she had looked back from her finger lifting off the trigger, Elnor had already collapsed. She had heard the thud of his knees hitting the floor before she saw them. That was gonna leave a nasty bruise.
At first, she thought it was someone else, but when she turned to see the boy who was functionally her child on the floor, shock and terror in his eyes, did she truly register what was happening.
His fellow cadets looked down at him with worry, hesitant glances tossed his way.
Raffi dropped the phaser pistol, rushing over to Elnor and dropping to her knees to try to uncurl his hands from around where his Romulan heart would be. One hand clutched his tummy while his fingernails on his other dug into his uniform.
There was no way he could have been hit with crossfire. She was shooting in the complete opposite direction.
Elnor’s pale hand fixated itself just under his right shoulder.
Raffi’s eyes widened in realization.
“Goddamnit.” she cursed under her breath. “Give him some space!!” she called, shooing the cadets away from him with one arm. “Let him breathe.”
Raffi chewed her lip in worry as she worked to pull a quickly panicking Elnor back into reality. “You’re okay sweetie, it's okay.” she insisted.
“Elnor?” she called, Elnor’s gaze looked distant, locked on the ground in front of him as he twisted his grip on himself. “Elnor its alright, you’re alright.” she insisted. Elnor stayed curled up on the floor, showing no signs he even heard her. He almost seemed unconscious, his breathing laboured and his chest heaving, his face and ears started to flush green.
Raffi gritted her teeth, wrapping her fingers around his wrist to check his pulse. She couldn’t even count it. On a good day it sped fast enough to make her head spin. Right now she could rarely detect one beat from another. Much much too fast.
“Get me medical!” Raffi called over her shoulder. “You’re going to be okay, Elnor. You’re going to be okay.” she repeated, trying to ground the poor boy in a mantra.
Elnor continued to weep, his gasps getting more ragged the longer he sobbed. Raffi rubbed his back. Up and down, up and down. She kept repeating and repeating.
“You’re okay, honey, it’s going to be okay.”
Raffi tried to move him. Curling up on the cement couldn’t be comfortable, especially on his certainly bruised knees.
“C’mon baby, let's get you into a chair,” she told him, frowning when she watched his legs buckle and fold when he tried to stand.
Raffi sighed, holding Elnor close as his fingers grabbed at her arms, nails digging in roughly but she didn't care.
Elnor sobbed, his desperate tears soaking into their uniforms. He seemed to be repeating words of his own, choking and coughing on the syllables. Two words, repeated again and again.
“I'm dying.”
Raffi’s heart sank. Memories of a real dying Elnor flashing before her eyes. His shimmering emerald blood seeping through the makeshift bandages. She remembered that light in his eyes fading, the cold metal of his medallion pulling her attention as Elnor sucked in his final painful breath.
Raffi shook her head, pinching her eyes closed and shaking away the bad memories.
“I’m dying.” Elnor continued, “I'm dying. I'm dying. I'm dying.”
“You’re alive, kiddo,” Raffi assured, “you’re okay. You’re going to be okay. You’re not gonna die.”
The next day, once Raffi had managed to pull Elnor back to reality, after he had spent the night in a state of numbness where he even rarely blinked, after Raffi had found him curled up on her couch whimpering from nightmares, he was taken to the health building.
Elnor was almost catatonic, staring blankly into space somewhere just past the horizon. He’d just nod or blink or shake his head at questions.
He stayed still as parts of his past played out like a holo-novel. Little parts of that day that he had apparently forgotten. Little parts of that day that his mind refused to let him remember.
Doctors asked him questions and Raffi repeated them. Trying to urge any feeble type of response out of him. He tried. His entire body was exhausted, his muscles somehow had gone completely jelly and yet painfully contracted at random bursts. He ached for sleep but yet there was just too much of this itchy pulse in his core to let him stay down. He wanted to run. To hide. To cover his ears with a million pillows. Something to drown out that sound. A single shot. Again and again and again.
His breathing only came in shallow bursts. Every single one was a conscious decision. Like he was fighting lungs that were trying to drown him.
Drowning.
Drowning in blood.
His blood.
He had been shot.
Raffi’s hands applying pressure to a white hot wound.
Elnor’s breaths picked up again as he tried to squeeze his eyes as tightly shut as they could go. Not again not again not again.
“Hey hey hey woah!” Raffi exclaimed, filling with worry again as Elnor's shaking hands moved back up to clutch at that space just under his shoulder.
Elnor’s breath hitched on an intake and he coughed, he felt something wet and coppery stain his tongue. He couldn’t get enough air in fast enough, choking on a typhoon of blood that was flooding his lungs.
“Take a breath. It’s not real.” the Vulcan doctor in front of him spoke. “It’s just a memory. It's not real.”
“Tell me what you see,” Raffi asked.
Elnor could tell that they were just trying to help, and he tried to obey. To do what they asked. They were trying to help. But all he could manage to do in response was a strangled groan that slid into a choking, wet sob.
“I’m dying.” he groaned, he felt like he needed to puke. Like all this horror and memory and pain was welling up in the pit of his belly. It was overwhelming. The phaser shots turned to a loud ringing. Raffi’s sobs mixing in until his extremities started to feel cold.
“You are not.” the Vulcan doctor said simply. “You are experiencing symptoms of what Humans call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
“Yours has most likely been caused by the fact you died three months ago.” The Doctor said calmly, going back to typing notes on her padd.
Elnor’s heart stopped. Or at least, it felt like it.
It was real. It had all been real. All those professionals fussing over him and asking him all about how he felt. How he felt. Not once had anyone bothered to tell him. To pull the memory out from deep where his subconscious hid it.
Maybe then none of this would have happened. Maybe if he had known what he was supposed to remember then he wouldn't be shaking on the bed of crinkly paper. Maybe he wouldn’t be gasping for air with lungs that refused to work. Maybe they would have known the phaser shot would set him off. Maybe none of this would have happened.
The thought of a phaser shot sent him over the edge again. The plasma disruptor shot ringing in his ears again, sending his heart rate into overdrive again. Drowning him in fake blood that wasn’t really there as he struggled to take in even another breath. His stomach twisted with this newfound information.
He had died.
It was all real.
The phantom taste of blood turned to nausea, Elnor retching up what little of his breakfast he had managed to choke down. The stomach acid burned his throat, making his strained sobs and whimpers that much more painful.
And then... nothing.
Something pinched his neck, and the adrenaline drained from his system, leaving cold lethargy in the place of what used to be red hot panic.
His body still shook, and he could still taste the blood and bile in his mouth, yet no longer did he care about it. Though, there was a lingering shame that snuck in.
A Qowat Milat warrior reacting so poorly to a simple truth. It was shameful.
He was no longer dead. That was truth. He was no longer in the confederation timeline. That was truth. He was no longer in someone else’s body. He was no longer a less fortunate Elnor. That was truth.
People still sneered at him. He still got shoved around. That was truth.
The Vulcan Doctor before him was still disdainful that he was Romulan. That was truth.
Still, why did he suddenly feel... nothing?
“What did you just do?” Raffi’s shaky voice asked.
The Vulcan doctor put the empty hypospray cartridge down beside them on the counter.
“I administered a mild sedative. Something to pull his body and nervous system out of the distress mechanically.” The Doctor explained, “Since he is Romulan, and therefore not trained in the ways of keeping his emotions from ruling him, it is harder to bring him back from those kinds of states.” she added.
Elnor was vaguely aware that he should probably be offended by that statement. His entire race was just insulted by the very kind of person he shared most of his genetic makeup with. Yet, that same emptiness stayed with him. He felt nothing.
Elnor was also vaguely aware that feeling nothing definitely felt better than feeling all of it. Better than having disruptor shots echoing in his ears. Better than seeing the flashes of explosions out of the corners of his eyes. Better than seeing the lifeless body of that girl who had clung to him. The girl that version of him that body was supposed to hold probably knew. Probably loved. Probably would have agonized over losing.
“I am prescribing him antidepressants and I would also like him to meet with our therapist weekly so that he can start to recover.” the doctor explained, writing something on her PADD before handing it to him and Raffi to sign consent.
Elnor reached farther inside of himself. To touch that part of him that always felt everything. The part of him that should be upset at the way the doctor treated him. The part of him that would be clinging to Raffi right now for comfort and safety and reassurance. The part of him that would be nervous about taking medication to change him. The part of him that would feel grateful to Raffi for helping him through this newfound challenge. The part of him that loves Raffi.
The part of him that makes him fundamentally Elnor.
But all he gets when he reaches inward is an icy cage where his heart should be. A black hole in the pit of his stomach.
Elnor is silent while Raffi thanks the doctor. Elnor is silent when she nervously tries to talk to him on the walk back to his dorm. Elnor is silent for the rest of the day.
The heat is turned up all the way in his dorm but he still feels cold. He piles on blankets and drinks spice tea but still. Icy nothingness. An emptiness in him that can’t be filled by comforting food or warm drink or even spending time with his cat “Spot-3.0”.
Elnor has decided this newfound numbness is not so good after all.