So tired...
Her entire body hurt, except for her legs. Those were numbed, deadened, useless. Jadzia had stopped worrying about them long ago, focusing on making her collapsing lungs continue to work, wheezing painfully and scraping at the inside of her throat.
"Worf," she whispered, the effort of making a word making hot tears billow over the edges of her eyes.
Julian's face appeared in the dim tunnel of her vision. She realized dimly that he was crying too. "He'll be here soon, Dax," he whispered, squeezing her limp hand.
"Just hold on a little longer. I'm going to try and repair the nerve damage.
Dax tried to nod, but felt a horrible burning in her neck. She only trembled in response, feeling more hot tears burn along her pale face.
As Julian ran his instruments over her body, Dax felt a horrible upwelling of despair inside her. Her body seemed to be dying, one bit at a time. Her hands were almost as useless as her legs, like chunks of meat grafted onto her limbs. And no matter how hard she tried, all she could see was the phantom specter of a baby... a little baby girl... with Trill mottling running down the sides of her head, alongside the smaller Klingon forehead plating. A baby with a bright smile and laughing eyes...
Julian Bashir quickly shut off the machine as the woman on the table began shaking madly, her face crumpling.
"Jadzia?" he whispered, leaning over her and touching a hypospray to her neck. "What's wrong? Is it getting worse?"
"No..." Her voice was filled with grief, pain, rage... guilt.
"What is it?" He kept his voice calm, gentle.
"Worf... we were so happy... I wanted to tell him... tell him... that we could have..." Her voice dissolved in what seemed to be a mutated combination of a retch and a sob. A thin trickle of blood seeped from her lips, and Julian quickly wiped it away, feeling tears come to his own eyes.
Jadzia could feel the coldness seeping up her torso, like a slow storm front over a blue sky.
"I wanted a baby so badly..." she breathed, tasting blood on her tongue and lips. "I was going to name her... I was going to name her Mirial... but I'll never have her now..."
Dax's voice had deteriorated into a dreamy, almost singsong voice that Bashir dreaded. Her blue eyes were unfocused, drifting over the ceiling mistily.
"You're not going to die," he said vehemently, reactivating the scanner--and reeling at the sight of her readings. Her nerves were dead and dying, growing necrotic and disintegrating as he watched.
He glanced back at the dying woman, her hands folded over her stomach, her face turned almost bone-white in the dim light of the infirmary, then walked to her, each step seeming to stretch over an eternity. Her eyes were closed, but they opened slowly as he approached.
"I'm so sorry," Bashir choked, his voice and mind rebelling against the words. "I'm so sorry... please forgive me..."
She reached one almost-lifeless hand out and managed to ruffle it through his dark hair. A shadow of the old Dax reappeared in a faint smile on her face.
****
Jadzia felt the symbiont's connection severed as she awoke. Only her own life was her own... and the primal image of a baby... her curly dark hair, her light skin, her beautiful brown eyes...
"Jadzia!"
A voice. Quiet voice.
No, it was a shout... it was her hearing that was slowly deteriorating. Jadzia opened her eyes slowly, feeling as a lead weight were tied to her lids. It was Worf, his face lined with horror and worry, holding her nerveless hands in his own. The room was dim, but Jadzia could see a blurry figure standing behind Worf.
But now, she had eyes only for her beloved.
She couldn't feel her body at all, except for faint flickers of sensation in her head and chest, but even those were only burning pain. For a moment, her pale lips moved soundlessly. Then, the strangled sounds of death groaned from deep within her chest, like the screams of a ghost demanding release.
Worf's eyes widened a little in shock and pain, and he automatically shook his head, as if denying the reality.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, sucking another breath into her lungs. They were numbing now, seeming to fill with fluid as she tried to give him one last message.
Worf leaned close. He looked as if he wanted to cry, but didn't dare.
That's one thing I always loved about you, Jadzia thought with an inner smile. You were strong, you never cried... never...
"Save your strength," he urged as her lips moved again, trying to force more words out. Her beautiful blue eyes focused on him, but could not see now as the disintegration reached her brain, sinking her down.
But she couldn't save it. It was seeping away, insidiously, as if someone were sucking her dry of life, of feeling. She could only impart one message, the message that she was seeing with the eyes of prediction, as elusive as that future might be.
"Our baby," she breathed, "would have been so... BEAUTIFUL..."
Her eyes drifted shut, as the numbness penetrated her chest, stilling the heart that had triumphed over hate, over pain, over grief, and had found love and life where none had tried. She seemed to drift formlessly into a realm where there was no pain, no war...
And echoing in her mind was the delighted laugh of a tiny child.
~The End~
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