Tessa...

Somewhere in the haze between dreams, a voice lingered, haunted Tessa’s ears. Colors swirled darkly though a sweetly beckoning abyss, and somewhere in the depths, she almost thought she could see light, could see...

“LC!”

Tessa’s eyes came open slowly, painfully, her vision a blur of light and broken color. In the haze, she saw something move, lines, a face, felt something brush against a body that still felt formless and undefined, reluctant to take its familiar shape around her. Lips moved sluggishly, formed words as she blinked to clear the blurriness off the face that watched her, the features whose brightness she recognized almost immediately.

“Hey.” She croaked, blinked, sniffed. “Phoebe. Hey, you’re okay.”

Phoebe nodded absently, gaze wholly focused on Tessa’s eyes. For a long moment, she just stood there, tears in her eyes, expression a battle somewhere between joy and sobbing agony, hands nervously knitting in front of her, until somewhere inside, something broke, forced her forward into a pounce that came so suddenly Tessa’s eyes hardly had time to widen even a fraction before the young Lieutenant collapsed against her.

“Oh my god, LC!” Phoebe sobbed into Tessa’s shoulder, clinging to her, burying her face into the nanofabric of her hospital gown. “I thought I’d lost you! I was so worried!” Her voice gave way to a sobbing cry as she buried her face further into Tessa’s shoulder, her chest. Slowly, shakily, Tessa moved one fatigued and uncertain hand onto Phoebe’s back, weakly rested it there.

“Easy, Phoebe, easy.” She sniffed, managing a smile despite the tears threatening to form in her own moistening eyes. “It’s okay now. I’m okay.”

“We were all worried.” Another voice added. Glancing up, Tessa caught the eyes of Jose Cordova, the gentle edge of a smile that he offered. Stepping up to the edge of the hospital bed, he hesitated, stopped a pace away, uncertain, unsure. A moment later, Phoebe pulled away, moved to stand upright again, hands already knitting back together in front of her.

“It’s good to see you’re okay, Jose.” Tessa smiled softly, straining a little to push herself up as she fought against the weakness that gripped her and used what passing strength she could muster to glance at herself, her surroundings. Medical, came the immediate realization, the Von. An intravenous line crept across her arm and into the sheets of the hospital berth, connecting her to a machine– and then the dizziness came, the nausea that rose up to wash through her, drop her back to the bed as quickly as she had risen. She exhaled sharply, and in an instant there was a nurse at her side, hands reaching out to her, hesitating as she closed her mouth, sunk lightly back into the bed. Eyes moved in distant, sluggish searching motions, lips parting, hesitating against a swallow.

“How... long was I out?”

“Almost ten hours.” The nurse reached out, clicked on a palm-sized flashlight and quickly opened and checked Tessa’s eyes, felt at her neck. “You’re lucky a team found you when they did. If you had lost any more blood, we might not have been able to bring you back from the brink.”

“What happened?” She blinked, licked her lips, brows knitting. “I don’t remember...”

The nurse hesitated visibly, met Tessa’s eyes and then looked away again just as quickly, sharing a glance with Phoebe and Cordova that said nothing, passed Tessa’s eyes virtually unnoticed. “We don’t really know for sure.” She finally said, clicking off the flashlight, taking a deep breath. “There was a puncture wound in your abdomen serious enough that we had to rush you into surgery, but no evidence of any projectiles, residue...” The nurse shook her head. “My best guess is you were stabbed by something.”

“Stabbed?” Tessa coughed the edge of an ironic chuckle. “Man, I don’t know what I had to drink last night, but it must have been some wild stuff if I can’t even remember being stabbed.” The nurse looked at Cordova, glanced back at Phoebe again. In the silence, Tessa closed her mouth, hesitated. “Hey... what’s up? Why is everybody so quiet and beat up about this?”

“Lieutenant Commander Eisenherz,” The nurse began, paused almost thoughtfully. “What’s the last thing that you remember?”

“I don’t know.” Tessa shook her head, cracked the edge of a grin. “Flying, I think. It’s all really blurry.” She shook her head. “Why? Did something happen?” Eyes roved, tracked across Phoebe’s strained features, Cordova’s steady, distant gaze. “Hey, where’s Izzy? Is she around?”

Phoebe swallowed painfully, face drawing to a pale shock as fresh tears worked their way out of the corners of her eyes. Suddenly off balance, uncertain, Tessa opened her mouth, tried to say something, offer something, but before anything could come, Phoebe looked down, sniffed, closed her eyes. Cordova pulled in a deep, steadying breath, then stepped closer, took a long, quiet moment to find his LC’s hand, to gently fold it into his own.

“Tessa, we...” He hesitated, shook his head against the pain that rose within him, fought to be released, boiled steadily under the walls he had lifted, raised around it. “I thought you knew.”

“Knew what?” Tessa swallowed, lips parting as an edge of cold panic set in, seized her heart and stilled her breath. “Jose, I...”

“She’s gone, Tessa.” He said quietly, hand gently squeezing hers, eyes blinking against a hint of moistness. “They found her laying next to you, holding your hand.”

And then, in a terrible flood of frigid pain and razor-edged memory, the whole thing came burning back into her brain, stitching itself deep into her psyche. Lips parted as she remembered, and as her eyes widened, skin tingling, burning, lost in a tide of vicious imagery that hurt to think about, hurt to focus on, a single word escaped her mouth, slow and small, so quiet only Cordova heard it pass her lips.

“No.” She managed. It didn’t seem real, and yet she knew it was, knew that in the flash of an instant, the Coralate had taken away the only person she’d ever truly loved, her reason for living, her reason for being, existing. Eyes closed on a kind of death-like stillness, and as the haze of shock settled over her, she felt the tears budding at the edges of her lids, pushing slowly through.

Izzy.

Oh god, Izzy.