Part VII.

March 4th, 2248
Baltimore, Maryland

 

Everything he had planned shattered with a crash, a scramble, bared teeth and blood.

Everything.

In a moment, there was motion and in the next there was silence, but for their breathing, harsh and rapid and the sounds of a biobed running off of a tricorder recording--

--and in that moment, Andrew Corrigan had never been more helpless and lost in his life--

--and in that moment, whatever being was usually called Montgomery Scott wasn't even there; what was left was too hurt to stand, scrambled back to a wall and dripping blood on the pristine floor with wild eyes--

--too hurt to stand, but not too hurt to fight.

His watch beeped, and Corry realized he was crying, startled right out of his containment, and the moment ended with his own motion, half on auto-pilot, to get a towel from the cupboard and the answering motion, all instinct, bared teeth at the corner of his vision, and Corry was shaking. He put his hands on the counter, fist tightening on the towel; closed his eyes, tried to think, tried to breathe right--

--and he was running out of time.

He made himself turn back and move.

"Scotty--"

No recognition.

Corry edged closer, and he couldn't stop shaking, and he met that wild gaze, and he tried to sound steady through his tears and failed completely.

"God, Scotty, please," and he couldn't stop begging once he started, "we need to move, so please--"

--and all of the slow approach ended in a flash, with Scotty trying for the door, gaining his feet for only a moment until his left leg gave out, and Corry putting himself in the way, and they collided in light, pain, tears, a snarl, a fist; landed hard on the floor and Corry tried to get hold of those fists before they could clock him again, and his fingers slipped in blood--

--and it ended with his voice pleading,

"Wolf."

Silence fell, but for their breathing; everything else in the universe had contracted down to the space of bodies and fractions.

"Cmon, Wolf," he said again, so heartsick he was choking on it, because it was the one name only he still used, and maybe it would be enough to get through. And Corry could barely see through his tears, and Scotty's fingernails were digging so hard into his own wrist he could feel where the skin was broken and he was now bleeding himself, but he begged anyway, "Don't fight."

It was like asking the wind to stop blowing, or the world to stop moving, and Corry knew it, and he asked anyway because they had less than fifteen minutes to get this situation under some kind of control, and god, if Scotty was in this state when a troop of doctors and nurses came to check on him--

They held perfectly still, and Corry blinked the tears out of his eyes, and only then became aware of the tears cutting silent tracks down his brother's face. And Scotty stared back at him, teeth still bared, but there was something else there, something Cor recognized flickering in and out, and then the nails finally left his wrist and Corry didn't even think, he just moved; reached out and grabbed the fallen towel he'd taken from the cupboard and wrapped it tight around the opposite forearm he was holding where Scotty had torn the peripheral IV line out when he'd bolted. 

He was too panicked to feel relief, but he could talk, and so he did, for his voice as much as the words themselves. "I've gotcha, but god, if you never trust me again, I need you to trust me now, okay? I swear, I'll get you out of here, but you have to trust me," Corry said, fast and sharp and not even knowing if anything was getting through.

Until finally, it did.

"Cor," was Scotty's answer, small and cracked and scared, and it was an acknowledgment and a question and heaven help them both, a plea. "I've gotta go," and it was more frantic there, and Corry could feel him winding up to try to bolt again, even as hurt and disoriented as he was.

"I know," Corry said, dragging on every bit of calm he could, not even bothering to wipe away his own tears now. "I know, I know," he repeated, over and over, he didn't know why, keeping the pressure on that forearm with one hand and he got the side of Scotty's head with the other, trying to keep him in the moment and not darting desperate looks for the exit points. "I know, you will, I swear that the only way anyone's gonna stop you will be over my dead body, but stay with me, okay? Because neither of us will get out of here if you don't."

He was asking the wind to stop, the world to stop, the universe to answer and maybe, in some way, it did.

"I'll get you home," Corry begged, "just let me."

And Scotty hitched a sob, leaned his head into Corry's hand, closed his eyes tight in a cascade of fresh tears and gave a short, jerky nod.

 

 

 

Twelve minutes.

The plan had been pretty simple; wake Scotty up himself before the docs did, long enough to get a good read of his mental state, explain what was going on and hopefully avert any panicky reactions. Because even if Corry never knew why, he knew Scotty would normally rather drag himself through an overheating engine conduit on his belly before he’d go see a doctor for anything, and this was going to be like throwing accelerant at a forest fire by comparison.

So, Corry thought maybe he’d be able to gain control of the situation first.  For everyone’s sake.

Then, he figured, once he did have Scotty calmed down, he’d make arrangements for his brother to leave, even if AMA, so that he'd have a chance to heal somewhere that wasn't going to drive him into a nervous breakdown. Which wouldn't be easy, and it was bound to piss off everyone in Starfleet Medical, but it wouldn't be impossible.

At least, that was what Cor had thought at the time.  The very best of intentions.

And the naïve belief that he could fight a storm.

So, Corry had sent his mother home.

"I need you to trust me, Mom," he had said, as she stood at the head of the recovery room bed, stroking the hair of her unlikely, adopted son as he slept on, still under heavy sedation.

His mother had looked back at him in confusion amidst quiet devastation, and Corry made himself sound steady.

"I need you to go home. We'll be home soon. But I've got to do a few things, and I'm pretty sure they're things that I can get into trouble for, so please?"

His Mom could have demanded a lot of him, right then, and Cor knew he'd tell her anything she asked. But she didn't; her eyes were troubled, but she only asked him, "Will this end up in another court martial?"

Cor's bottom lip had quivered, but he still forced a smile when he answered, honestly, "It might."

She left Scotty with a kiss on the forehead, and her biological son with a long, hard look and a fierce hug. And then she did it. She trusted him. She left. And he knew, even though he couldn't follow, that she found somewhere and cried her heart out because that was exactly what he would have done, too.

But he had a plan. So, he recorded those baseline biobed readings, of his unconscious brother, into his tricorder so that he could loop them back to the diagnostic port to the bed. Because the minute Scotty made any sort of show of shaking off sedation and waking up, someone would show up, and Corry knew full well that would at least be highly stressful, if not outright traumatizing. And in between nurse visits, every fifteen minutes or so, Corry called his attorney and triple-checked that the power of attorney that he held would override Starfleet's authority, even pushed right to the breaking point.

Frankly, neither he nor his attorney were completely sure it would, even with two case laws behind them, but it was better than going in without any ammunition. And his attorney was advising him at every chance not to do anything that would land him in hot water, but it was too late for that.

Once he had a good baseline read, he looped the recording, mindful to leave no gap or break in the steady pattern. And then he discretely plugged it in. And when the nurse didn't even blink at the last check, Cor knew it would work.

He knew the schedule. Surgery on that scale, even with the best doctors and best technology available, was hard on a body. They wanted to wake Scotty up pretty slowly, which gave Cor plenty of time to pull an end run and do it first.

He waited until the last minute, and then he took a flying leap off the cliff and prayed like hell that he'd live to see the bottom.

The nurse was barely out the door when he had moved; unhooked everything but the peripheral IV line -- though he didn't try to pull the central IV line catheter itself yet -- and used that peripheral line to push the synthesized sedation antagonist he'd made in the lab the day before, and since he couldn't rely on the biobed to tell him when Scotty was waking up, he kept a close eye on his brother, which did absolutely no damn good, because Scotty went from a one single moment of drawn eyebrows to escape velocity, faster than Corry could even comprehend, and shattered every good intention he had.

Now, the plan wasn't a well-coordinated if debatably legal end run around Starfleet Medical.

Now, the plan was to survive. By any means necessary.

Eleven.

"Deep breath and hold it," Cor said, still breathing hard, but his hands were steadier than the rest of him was, and Scotty did what he was told, and grit his teeth together when Corry pulled that central line catheter free, then pressed in hard with the gauze to keep pressure on the large subclavian vein it had been in. Corry didn't have enough time to do this right, but it'd have to do until they could get away. "Okay, breathe. Still with me?"

Scotty only managed a nod, shaking like a leaf and still darting looks for the exit points when Cor couldn't keep him in the right now, and Corry's watch beeped off the minutes. He had managed to half-carry and half-coax Scotty back to bed, and there wasn't much time left before they had to be ready.

Ten.

"You've gotta keep calm," Corry said, his voice cracking a little as he said it, and new tears getting away from him, making a total mockery of what he was trying to say. "You've gotta keep calm, and you've gotta let me do the talking, 'cause god, Scotty, if you panic or bolt or heaven help us, fight, they're never gonna let us walk out of here, and--"

And that would be it. Whatever would happen to them would be catastrophic. Corry didn't even know what. Just that it would be catastrophic, and more for Scotty than for him, and everything inside of him curled up in a ball at the thought of it, even as he kept himself outwardly in motion.

And he knew that every single move they were making was absolutely wrong, procedurally and medically and logically and sensibly. And he knew now that it was the only thing they could do, too.

Nine.

"Cripes, you’re always complaining about me changing plans without warning," Corry said, choked up, with a half a mirthless laugh.

"Sorry," Scotty said, small and teary, and it hurt so bad to hear that Corry lost his grip on what passed for composure all over again.

"I'm not," was all he managed in answer.

Eight, seven and six beeped past with them pressed forehead-to-forehead.  In terror.  In tears.

He drew back only when his watch gave him six, and put the best dressing he could where the central line was, finished putting a dressing where the peripheral had been torn out, and felt the bright pain in his wrist where Scotty had drawn blood. Got into the closet where all the personal stuff was stored and tossed the probably-too-big sweats to Scotty, and double-checking after that he had Scotty’s penlight in his own pocket. "Get dressed. Okay?"

Five.

And then he got to cleaning up the blood on the floor, and disposing of the towels, knees watery.

Four.

God knew how much pain Scotty had to be in, but he did manage to get dressed, even ghost pale and just out of what turned out to be more like seventeen hours worth of surgery, and Corry wished he could give him something for it, but he didn't have access to anything strong enough and Scotty would probably be sick as a dog before anything over-the-counter could do much good for him anyway.

Three.

Corry got another towel out, wet it in the little sink, mopped his own face off roughly and tried to get himself into some kind of shape, and was a whole lot more gentle sitting on the edge of the bed to mop Scotty's off. "They'll have to come through me to get to you."

He didn't even know why. Why his brother was so deeply terrified. Why he was, himself, except that his brother was. How it could have gotten so out of control, how it could have spiraled so far that now their lives were being counted in breaths and seconds, all for something that to most people would be upsetting, but not earth-shattering like this. Corry didn't know why.

But he knew how much he was asking. Asking Scotty not to fight, in a situation where every single instinct was screaming for him to. He knew what he was asking.

Two.

"Got me?" Scotty asked, voice quivering, and Corry felt nails in his wrist again, but this time it wasn't fighting, it was holding on for dear life.

Then, in the North Atlantic, Corry had been confused and distracted by trying to keep them both afloat, and it was only over time that he realized just how important that question had been, and back then he had answered, "I've gotcha."

Now he was terrified, but he knew exactly what it was he was being asked, and this time he answered, "Always."

Where you go, I will follow.

One.

With their time almost run out, he set the room as right as could be and unhooked his tricorder, looping the strap over his head. He called up that power of attorney, signed and verified, on his PADD. He called up his own attorney and had him on standby.

And he put himself between his brother and the door.