#simplecountrydoc

[fallenfirebender-blog]

If you had to give up your bending to be able to stay with your Father (McCoy) would you?

"Yes," she said, pressing her eyes shut and looking away.  She looked ill just from the very idea, but there wasn't even a scrap of hesitation in her voice.

"A fighter who cannot fight without their bending is not a fighter at all.  A bender who cannot function if it is taken away is barely even a person.  To let yourself become so wrapped up in one aspect of yourself that you'd sacrifice your friends or family or Spirits know what else just to keep it is to be a turtleduck of a person, hiding in a shell at the first sign of danger and barely even existing as an independent being."

Her whole body shuddered, and she wrapped her arms around herself, shaking her head.  "But to give up one's bending is still giving up a part of one's self.  It would be like losing a hand, or my eyes.  I could still function.  I could still live.  But it would be a fundamental loss and the idea makes me nauseous.  I'll . . . just have to hope it never comes to that."

[fallenfirebender-blog]

What if McCoy and his entire universe is just a complex hallucination your mind created so you could have a father figure?

This was the second time she'd gotten a hallucination on this topic in two days.  She wasn't going to dignify it with an answer, because she knew the shadowy figure was only giving voice to the thoughts she tried so hard to repress, rather than saying new or unknown information.  She excused herself from her station, working hard to keep her voice even and on her supervisor as she did so, but the man could recognise that Azula was genuinely in distress when she explained she needed to go to medical.

She slipped in and headed straight for McCoy's office and sat down in the patients' chair across from him, then put her head down on his desk.  "I think I'm developing a resistance to my medication," she said, a distinctly whining tone creeping into her voice.  "I know I haven't missed any doses, but the hallucinations are getting bad again."

[fallenfirebender-blog]

McCoy isn't really your father. He's just a delusional old doctor, as screwed up as you are if he would adopt someone like you as his daughter. He must be desperate to have chosen /you/.

Azula froze, every muscle going perfectly still as she fought to suppress a reaction to the words.  She wasn't going to dignify that with so much as a word, she wasn't going to dignify that with a response, she wasn't, she wasn't she wasn't she wasn't....

Azula did something very uncharacteristic of herself, or at least, something that hadn't been characteristic of herself since she was fourteen years old.  She'd learned long ago how to manage hallucinations, to ignore these shadowy figures and the things they said to her, but this was too much.

With a scream, Azula lashed out at the greyed out figure, an arc of blue fire searing into the wall behind the now vanished hallucination.

Then she curled up on the floor to cry.

[fallenfirebender-blog]

[PADD message: McCoy] Azula Chekov is stuck

[PADD message: Azula] On or in what, where?

[fallenfirebender-blog]

"Tell him I fainted while he was in surgery," she said, already knowing how to get McCoy to behave himself about resting for a while.  "I haven’t had enough sunshine lately, tell him we both need the shore leave.  He might be at least slightly more amiable to the idea if he’s taking care of me, too,” she said, quite concerned about her father and his work ethic.  A strong work ethic was good and all, but…she didn’t know what she’d do if something happened to him.  Go mad, likely.  ”And I’ll take better care of him from now on,” she promised quietly.

[simplecountrydoc]

McCoy woke up again a few hours later, this time more coherent than the first. He found Azula by his bed.

"Boy, I feel like I’ve been hit by a warbird," McCoy said, sitting up a little bit in bed. He touched his stomach gingerly, content that the deep pain was gone. He frowned though at the lingering taste of the blood in his mouth. "Dr. M’Benga fixed me right up. I’m feelin’ well enough to get out of this bed."

He might have claimed to feel well enough, but he still looked a wreck, and his eyes lied on him to tell that he was still tired.

[fallenfirebender-blog]

"Get up and you'll have third degree burns to the soles of your feet," Azula said seriously, lighting a fireball in her hand.  She'd settled beside his bed, and reached out to put her hand on his shoulder and push him back down again.  "You're going to rest and I'm going to enforce that," she grumped, though it was clear that she was just worried about him.

[fallenfirebender-blog]

Although it was plain to anyone with eyes that the strange girl Doctor McCoy had brought on board with him was ill and in need of attention herself, she had resolutely refused to let them so much as look at her the entire time McCoy was suffering from the fever brought on by his injuries.  The most they could do was bring food to her as she sat her bedside vigil beside him.  Though M'Benga and Nurse Chapel had both tried to reason with her, Azula's answer was quite firm.  She didn't trust doctors, and wouldn't let anyone but McCoy do anything medical to her.  Even when she was clearly in pain, if a hypospray came too near her it was answered with fire; though she clearly didn't want to hurt anyone she was willing to defend herself from what she saw as an unidentified threat.

While her illness was clearly dangerous, it wasn't critical either.  She sat at McCoy's bedside the whole three days the fever raged, until the medicine she'd brought with her was finally allowed to be added to what he was taking.  The fever cleared within a day, and while it was a bit awkward for her having sat there and pretended to be Joanna all through his fever, mostly she was just glad to see he was doing better.  The days they'd been holed up in the cave together had taught her to care for him, and she was curious about this strange world he lived in where the strong didn't prey upon the weak.

Once the danger of his fever was over, Azula retreated to the quarters she'd been given aboard the ship, and while she did come to check on him regularly still, she also gave him space to recover in peace.  That and she really didn't want to be in the medbay longer than necessary.  He'd just been cleared for duty, she'd heard, and so she was debating going to see him when her door chimed.  She got to her feet to go answer it, and smiled awkwardly when she saw he'd come to visit her.  "Hi," she said, moving out of the doorway to let him come inside.

[fallenfirebender-blog]

simplecountrydoc: "Promise me... you'll never do that again."

Azula hung her head, eyebrows knitting together as she stared at the floor.  "I don't understand . . . .  The Captain said we'd never make it home safely if we didn't get those crystals, the merchant wasn't going to sell them to us, so stealing them was our only option.  Why is everyone angry?" she asked, looking up at him with tears in her eyes.  It seemed . . . she genuinely didn't understand that what she'd done was wrong, nor why.

[fallenfirebender-blog]

simplecountrydoc: "Don't touch me."

"You're drunk, dad, it's time for you to go to bed.  And I'm taking you whether you like it or not."