Alec left the operating theatre and leaned against the wall in the prep-room, closing his eyes. The surgery on Captain Veyr had been long and hard fought but in the end he and his surgery team had been successful. Even now, Dom was supervising moving the big captain to recovery while Alec took a moment out to clean up and recover himself.

He opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling. He was exhausted, every muscle in his body screaming. As well it should be, they’d been in there for hours. That was the thing people missed about medical, about surgery… about pretty much everything sickbay did on board a ship.

While the captain and the bridge team fought ship to ship, and hazard teams and sometimes security fought with phasers and sometimes hand to hand, the doctors and nurses aboard the Reverent didn’t have the luxury of an enemy they could see. That they could hit, be that with a phaser, a cannon or their fists.

No, he and his team fought death itself, and it was an utter, unrelenting bastard. Insidious and the worst predator in the galaxy. None of them could escape it, not even the long-lived lanthanites. Death was a persistence predator, it would always get you in the end.

But he and his team put themselves between their patients and it.

Fought it off.

Battled it on a daily basis.

Even for people they didn’t like, and he had to be honest with himself, he did not like Captain Kiryx Veyr one little bit. Not only was the guy huge, ripped (apart from the gaping hole in his chest musculature Alec had had to fix), he was handsome, and obviously had charm in spades.

Worst, Alec knew there had been something between Kiryx and Buck. Knew it down to his bones. Why else would she have reacted the way she had, like she was scared of the big guy dying?

And then there was that comment. ‘That night’.

Alec’s jaw tightened and he rubbed a hand over his jaw. Night. Singular. At least he tried to tell himself that. It wasn’t working.

His roar of rage was more a bark and clipped off as he pushed off from the wall. He should go and talk to her, but he didn’t want to. Not now. Not yet.

He crossed to his locker and stripped his scrubs off with short, violent movements. He’d saved Captain Veyr, because that was what he did. He was a doctor. And doctors saved people.

Didn’t mean he had to like it. Didn’t mean he had to like his patients. He just had to make sure they didn’t die.

”Christ,” he hissed, yanking on casual clothing. He wasn’t on duty now, they were back in their own reality, and by god, he needed a drink.