Katianna rested on the bed, but very restlessly. Captain Alcon had repaired the main damage to her body. Her back hardly ached at all and there was no signs of the other injuries she had sustained in her holosuite program. But because of her prior injuries and that she wasn't exactly at the top of her game with her immunity levels she was being held on a 72 hour medical hold. Even Kassia had had concurred with the good Doctor about keeping her there . .She was working on 48 hours at the moment. Was she really going insane, she wondered. She wouldn't accept that. She was only training . . . getting herself ready for whatever the future held . . . wasn't she?
In front of her was a tray that contained her lunch. She'd eaten some of it, and pushed the rest of it around her plate. She just wasn't hungry, yet she knew she was suppose to eat . . . she would, she told herself . . . eventually . . . She picked up a PADD that contained a book Kassia had recommended to take her mind off of her medical hold. It was interesting - It was a story from Earth, circa 20th century where an undercover agent for the United States lost his memory and everyone was after him except a woman that fell in love with him. But she couldn't concentrate . . . She read five paragraphs without retaining a thing. In frustration, she tossed the PADD down on the bed and closed her eyes with a heavy sigh as she rubbed her face. She was in another version of hell, she thought cynically.
Paul entered the room suddenly. "'Ello, Katianna! 'Ow are you zhis fine day?"
She suddenly opened her eyes and was met by Paul's gaze. She smiled and laughed lightly. "Outside of being kept here when I would rather be somewhere else, I guess I'm okay . . . How are you?" she said, offering a spot on the bed to sit. "It's good to have a visitor . . ."
"Ah, ze usual," Paul said. "Ah jus' had to get away for a moment an' see what mah favorite masochist 'ad done to herself zhis time!"
Katianna rolled her eyes and shook her head with a smirk on her face. "Yeah . . well . . . One has to keep up appearances," she replied. As she adjusted herself on the pillow there was a twinge in her back, but it was minor. She grunted slightly, but it was hardly worth noting, she thought. Not compared to other pain she'd had.
"You've got to find some other way to take out your frustrations!"
"I'll let you know when I find one," she replied. "But I'm sure you'll be happy to know the Captain has put me on probation for the next month. I'm not allowed to alter the safeties on any holosuite programs. If I do, I'm busted . . ." she replied and sighed and looked down at the sheet. "She's also having me talk to Kassia twice a week too . . . Guess she thinks I'm crazy."
"Good! Eet's about time!" Paul said. He sat down at the foot of the bed. "You take too many foolish chances! As eef Ah'm one to talk! Ah 'ave notheeng to risk, though," he said. "You...you 'ave zhose beautiful children. Don' take their mama away from zhem so soon!"
Katianna was silent for a moment as a lump grew in her throat. "Paul . . . I don't want to take their mother away from them . . . I don't . . ." As her green eyes looked at him she wanted to say more, but she didn't. Something stopped her. Maybe she was afraid of what she would say, of what she was feeling, of what she'd been feeling . . .
"Zhen don't," Paul said firmly. "They need you, now more than ever. There's only one person who can give them everything you can."
"Paul, you're my friend, right?" she asked, tears misting her eyes. "Do you think I'm crazy?"
"A relative term...and one with too much of a negative edge," Paul told her, looking her straight in the eye. "You've been behaving in a self-destructive manner, endangering both yourself and others. You've been neglecting your children. You're so focused on beating Kalimar that you've allowed him to strip your life of anything worth defending. There is an Earth saying: 'If you fight dragons long enough, eventually you become a dragon: stare into the Abyss, and it shall stare into you.'
Paul sighed. "I would not tell you these things if I did not care, Kat. Such extreme obsession is not healthy, and you do need help. But I am and have always been your friend. I will stand with you through this."
"What if I have to be a dragon to fight a dragon?" she said, tears now in her eyes. "I just feel like the universe is depending on me and I have no idea how to save it . . ."
"Then the universe is no beter off than it was with Kalimar," Paul snapped. "You are starting to become the madness you sought to fight. And don't hold to such conceit. If the universe only required you to save it, then the rest of us never mattered to begin with."
"All I know is what I was told by the prophesies," she replied. "Somehow in some way, it comes down to me . . . That's what I have been living with. Maybe you want to call it conceit, that's fine . . . I know what Kalimar can do. I've seen it first hand. I would love it if it weren't me . . . I would love it, if he weren't after my son . . . But he is and I have to stop him. But he kills just to kill . . . Because he can and because it's fun . . . Can you imagine what that's like to live with? I know that not a lot of this is new to you, but this isn't some joke or something I'm making up . . ." Suddenly she was quiet and looked down onto the sheets. A tear hit the bed. "I'm tired of it . . . I really am."
"Then don't bear the burden alone! Prophecy is a very tricky business," Paul said. "Who knows what the author really meant? Just because you're the one with the magic bullet doesn't mean you're the only one who must face him! It also doesn't mean you have to sacrifice everything and everyone dear to you to do it. Otherwise, all you've done is allowed Kalimar to take your life in exchange."
"It's better he take my life than anyone else's, if I can take him down first," she said, "But see . . . that's the trick of it. How do you destroy a demon?" She laughed, but it hid a cry. "I can't ask anyone else to die with me. We've been over this, Paul . . . I love all of you too much to ask you to die for me."
"Not by becoming a demon yourself, but by countering the demon with light. And we love you too much to let you take the burden alone."
"How can I have you share something I don't even understand? That I don't even know how to fight?" She took another deep breath. Memories were starting to hit her and her first instinct was to run to the holodeck, but she couldn't. She was trapped in sickbay . . . She had no way of even fighting against Kalimar in her head.
Paul saw the turmoil in her mind. "I am just upsetting you...I should go. Obviously the real fight needs to be won in your mind. I submit to you that Kalimar is not your worst enemy at the moment."
"Wait!" she said as she grabbed his hand. "You're not the problem . . ." She pulled him closer to her. "Would you stay for a little longer . . . " She closed her eyes, trying to block out the tears. "Just hold me for a little while . . . I won't say anything more about Kalimar if you won't," she replied, her green eyes shining with unshed tears.
Paul put his arm around her and held her as she began to sob tears pent up too long. "Kalimar is not your worst enemy at the moment," he repeated himself. "You are. If you destroy yourself, then Kalimar has won--even by the rules of this convoluted game you've entangled yourself in."
She couldn't dispute him . . . Some of her thoughts lately had been very dark when she allowed her mind to idle. But she didn't talk about it. Instead she kept her mind focused on the training. On Kalimar. She had tried to spend more time with the kids, but it still wasn't enough . . . She was spread thin and she knew it. And there was the guilt . . . somehow feeling responsible for Kalimar being in existence and being unable to stop him from releasing the Kosst Amojen . . . Her mind was a whirl like it always was when she let it go. Too many emotions and thoughts . . . She hated being who she was, but not like she could change it . . . Slowly her sobs quieted down, but she made no move to pull away from Paul. It was the only comfort she had at the moment . . . Knowing how much he cared . . .
Paul said no more. He'd said all he could think of. He, too, knew the danger posed by Kalimar, but at the same time he also knew that no one person was capable of stopping such evil, no matter what the prophecies said. Oracles never give you the practical side of the business, he thought to himself has he held Katianna close to him. And even if that one person was the vessel of deliverance, it did not a bit of good for her to destroy herself before the enemy could be met.
Long-forgotten catechism lessons suddenly came to the front of his mind. In order to rid the world of evil, Christ had to keep himself pure of all sin and corruption. Perhaps this is Kalimar's true goal: to corrupt the one person who can defeat him so badly that she's unable to function. We have to get her help--and soon!
Paul held her even more tightly as Katianna's sobs quieted down, knowing the inner turmoil was still very much alive.
Finally the sobs subsided. "When do you have to leave?" she asked. "Or do you? Could you stay for awhile . . . Maybe keep me company . . . Please?"
"I'll stay as long as you need me," Paul replied. "And maybe a bit longer..."
"Thank you," she replied, still not letting him go. She wasn't sure if she'd be able to . . . Right now he was her life raft in a stormy sea and she was holding on for dear life. She sighed softly curling further into him.