Iris

TITLE: Iris
AUTHOR: luzmaria
ARCHIVE: Tell me first.
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: Reference to Gerentex in Season 1, PATS, & LCATBH
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, I only play with them.



I watched from the doorway as Trance shuffled restlessly in Hydroponics from on foot to the other, struggling a bit with her balance. She frowned as she continued to look for something. On her worktable there was a pouch with something inside, but I didn't know what it was. "Ooh, where is it? Trance, you're supposed to be good at finding things." She continued to shuffle and search. Finally, she saw her hand shovel in the dirt in a plant bed nearby. She began to walk towards it and tripped, ripping her pants and hurting her knee.

"Ow!!!" Trance began to cry in frustration.

And this was only two days after her accident. From what I was told, the day it happened they had to get her drunk while a doctor patched her wound to keep her from crying so much. The poor baby. When Dylan went to check on her, he came out beet red and wouldn't tell Beka whatever it was Trance or the doctor said to him. I figured my purple sparkly babe lost control of her vocabulary in Common or something. I don't exactly blame her.

Silently I walked towards where Trance was sitting on the floor, hugging her knee and blowing on it. I stooped down, balancing on my heels. "Trance, you OK?"

Trance sniffed and looked into my eyes. "It itches..."

"The scrape on your knee?"

"No", she shook her head and continued to blow on her knee. "My tail, it itches..."

I bit my lip. I'd seen this sort of thing before as a kid - someone loses a limb and they think they can still feel it. It was not an uncommon thing to see on Earth whenever someone stepped on a Nietchzean mine and had their leg blown off or had their arm amputated because of a gunshot wound. "You mean the area where it was, right?"

Trance looked up at me and blinked, but said nothing. She frowned again and began to blow on her knee some more.

I stood and held out my hand to her. She took it and I helped her up. "Come on, let's go to Med Deck and have Rommie check it out for you..."

"No, I have to dig a hole." Trance tried to go back to her worktable but stumbled. I just managed to catch her arm.

"Violete, the plants can wait. Let Rommie look at it."

"I don't want her to."

"Why?"

Trance looked up at me and let another tear fall down her face. "It looks icky."

"Trance..." I sighed. "It cant look that bad."

"I don't want anyone to see it." She whispered. I squeezed her arm gently. If anyone knew what it felt like to not want anyone to see your wounds, it was me. Beka, Trance, and Rommie were really the only ones who ever did get to see them, and even then only when I was too sick to protest. I have scars on my scars in some places.

"Trance, it will be OK. Rommie won't make a comment about it, she'll just clean the wound. You know that. If you want, I'll be there. I won't look while she's treating you if you don't want me to, I promise."

"But... Oh, alright."

"That's my girl." I said and began to lead her to the Med Deck.

"One condition, you look at it."

I stopped in mid stride. The babe. Wants me. To check. Her tail wound. "Did... I just hear you right?"  

"Yes. I want you to treat it. In privacy mode, or I go back to digging my hole."

Well, I just spent the past fifteen minutes just watching her struggle with balance issues. Trance can't keep her balance very well and probably can't dig that hole yet.

Besides, it's not like I had anything better to do at the moment. Except maybe fix Rommie's slipstream drive, tweak the environmental controls, work on Dylan's secret project #9... things like that. But I was worried about her, you know?

And besides, if I had a throne for every time she treated me for this infection here, and that cut there, Gerentex wouldn't have to worry about that 84,000 he owes me.

So to Trance's surprise, I just shrugged my shoulders and said, "Sure."



-----------------------------------



Trance hopped up on one of the examination beds almost as soon as we got there. I got the antiseptic out of the supply cabinet - hey, I've been on Med Deck often enough to know where everything is by now - along with a pain killing solution, cotton, some gauze and tape. I couldn't believe that Trance wanted me to look at the wound for her. I mean, I'm a guy, and maybe Rommie or Beka would be better choices...

"Rommie, privacy please." I turned around to see Trance had managed to unzip the top half of her cat suit and was already wiggling out of it. She had on a cotton bra that on anyone else would have been lilac in color on anyone else. On Trance, it was flesh toned. I could see the bandage in place from the small of her back downward under her panties. It was slightly brown in color. I tried not to wince at the sight. I mean, not like I've never seen blood or anything like that, but how bad was it?

Rommie's voice said, "Privacy mode engaged, Med Deck 2".

I stepped closer. "Trance, you've changed this bandage since the accident, right?"

Trance nodded. "Of course silly, and I put some iodine solution but it still itches."

That explains the brown staining. I approached her and placed one hand on her back. "I'm gonna take the bandage off slowly, OK?"

"OK." Trance winced as I pulled the bandage off her, stopping for a minute to move the fabric of her cat suit and panties down further. When I was done, I saw the damage done.

Actually, considering Beka said that it was blown off. It wasn't all that bad.

Whoever did the patch up did a good job. Even saved a small portion of the tail for what it was worth. It was a bit red and swollen, but it was healing. I began to clean the tail with the antiseptic, and Trance screamed from the pain. "Um, Trance? You're tail..."

"I know. It's terrible. It used to be so pretty, so long with a cute little point at the end. Now look at it. It's short and stubby." Trance sniffed. "My tail used to be special, so pretty..."

It still is special, it still is pretty, I thought as I applied the antibiotic.

Trance shifted uncomfortably and I taped clean gauze over the wound. "It's healing from what I can tell, darlin'." I moved her panties back up into place and zipped her cat suit back up, then I sat down next to her.

I felt her head come to rest on my shoulder. I tilted just enough to rest my cheek on top of her head.

"I used to use it to hold me up when I went climbing. I used it to help me whenever I had to go find things. I used to be able to defend myself and my friends with it. My tail made me special. Now it's gone."

I turned and kissed the top of her head. She shifted so that her head rested against the crook of my neck. I put my arm around her for support. "When my family was first moved to the camp in Boston, we had this neighbor who had this funny little limp. Turned out he had this false leg built for him. Never did found out what happened to his leg to make him lose it. But with his false leg, he was able to work, dance, run, and when my parents died a few years later, he took care of me. And I still get courier messages from him once a month. He managed to outlive almost anyone else I ever knew on Earth."

I heard Trance sniff again and felt her shift so she was leaning on me a bit more. She must have been tired.

"Trance, this may not mean anything to you now, but you can get used to doing everything without the tail. With or without it, you're still our sparkly babe. And you're always special."

Trance sat up and looked at me, then smiled. "Really?"

"Really."

Trance's grin grew wider and she bounced off the exam bed. I couldn't help but smile in response. "I gotta go."

"Hey. Want help digging that hole?"

She shook her head. "No thanks, I got it." You can come along if you want to."

I followed her back to Hydroponics. When we got there, she took the bag off her work table and picked up her hand shovel, walking to a plant bed. Opening the bag she pulled out a long plant with a purple flower on the end.

"This is a variety of Iris called Pauline. I think it's pretty don't you?"

Trance started to dig the hole. I watched her as she put the plant in the hole and scooped up the dirt around it. Looking up, she said "Want to get some coffee?"

"Um, sure."

I heard her whisper to the Iris just before we left for the Mess, "Goodbye, I'll miss you."


The End


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