Chapter 16: Rescue

Joe was shivering bad, her teeth chattering. She was lucky it wasn't winter or she doubted she would last longer than a few hours.

She tried splashing, tried attracting the attention of the sleeping merfolk, but they tended to move away from the ships as they slept. In case the ships moved and, Kai told her, the engines could be very loud under water. It was just better to stay away from them.

She tried yelling for help again but no one heard her. Her tiny voice was lost to the wind, completely unheard even in the still of the night.

She was trying to stay curled in on herself as she floated, trying to keep as much heat around herself as possible. She wanted to survive this with all fingers and toes in tact.

She knew it was possible to get hypothermia even in warm, tropical waters which this most certainly was not. Even though it was summer, the water was cold. Water was a great conductor for the heat that the human body produced. It would be stealing her heat a lot faster than the air would be able to, making hypothermia set in fast.

Her hair was wet, drying at least, but wet and freezing. She was shivering hard, clamping her teeth down to keep them from chattering and biting her own tongue.

She did have one thing in her favor.

The CBI's she had been taking made from merman blood gave her a bit of protection. Merpeople were evolutionarily made for deep waters where it was much colder than the surface. She may not be a mermaid, but she did have that CBI in her veins.

It didn't do much, but it did just enough.

Hypothermia was slower setting in, giving her time. In normal circumstances, she would be dead by sun up. But those CBI's gave her protection against the cold.

Her muscles started getting weaker, she had to strain to keep herself as compact as possible. Her arms crossed over her chest, her fingers squished between her arms, her legs clamped together, drawn as close to her chest as she could manage.

Her body was shaking hard, tremors that made her bones ache and exhausted her. Even as it fought to survive, her body was killing itself.

She drifted in the water, trying to stay back from the ship so they could see her as soon as possible. She couldn't yell anymore, the tremors and cold prevented that and she couldn't draw sufficient breath.

"Joe!"

She heard her name spoken, not from the ship, but from behind her. Before she could turn to look, a pair of wet, cool yet still kind of warm, arms were wrapping around her. She recognized Flavian's scared face.

A moment later, Adara's head came up from the water and she was wrapping her arms around the human girl too. Their bodies were cooler than hers during normal times, but not when she was bordering on severe hypothermia. They created a little cocoon of warmth that Joe almost moaned at it, it was so nice.

A few minutes later, the air started to brighten.

"Hey!" Flavian called up to the ship but no one heard.

"It's okay, Joe." Adara promised. "It'll be okay."

Flavian and Adara took turns crying for help. Joe was able to curl in on herself more efficiently now. She was like a ball, they were keeping her afloat, keeping her warmer. Not warm, but warmer.

It wasn't until the sun broke the horizon that a sailor heard their cries.

He stuck his head out from the rail, spotted her, then turned to cry 'man overboard' just like they would in the movies.

"Come on, Joe." Adara and Flavian started swimming her around to the same lift that she had been using just a few days ago to have a nice, private moment with Kai.

By the time they reached it, it was all the way on the other side of the ship, it had already been lowered. There was a sailor, Ben, Joe was sure he was called, waiting with a blanket standing on it holding out his arms for her.

The merfolk passed her over, Joe didn't resist at all. She couldn't really help. The tremors were still bad enough to keep her muscles from functioning normally and she didn't want to try to speak for fear of biting her own tongue.

"That's it. Come on." Ben pulled her onto the platform and even as it was being raised, was rubbing her arms up and down, trying to create a little heat with friction.

"Sweetie!" Ilia was waiting for her at the top, stripped down to just her undies. "Come here, come here!"

Ilia pulled Joe close to her and began pulling off her clothes.

Joe didn't resist, she was trying to stay upright and she knew she had to get those garments off as soon as possible.

"Goodness, what happened?" Ilia asked as she pulled her closer. Joe didn't bother to answer as sailors began throwing blankets over both of them as Ilia started rubbing her, trying to work some heat back into her limbs. "God above, Sweetie. You're freezing. You're lucky I'm so hotblooded." She tried to laugh a bit at her own joke but Joe could see the genuine worry in her face. "What happened?"

"I-I f-f-fell." Joe lied.

She remembered it so clearly.

Someone had pushed her off the ship. But Joe wanted to keep that information to herself for the moment. She needed to think it over carefully before she did anything. Mental processes were impaired when one was hypothermic. She wasn't making any decisions until she was back to herself again.

"Let's get her to sickbay." Ilia said trying to wrap as much of her own body around Joe as possible.

It was an important part of warming Joe back up. Ilia wasn't in her underwear for no reason or because she had been pulled from bed before she could get dressed. Joe could see a pile of hastily thrown clothes around the deck from where Ilia had thrown them as she stripped. She was sharing her own body heat with Joe, warming her up.

"Kyma!"

Joe turned as Kai came running from up under the deck. He had on only a pair of pants that were wet from where he had thrown them on after jumping out of the scuba pool.

"Don't touch, Kai." Ilia told him sternly. "You're too cold blooded for this and you're still wet."

Kai didn't argue but he looked helplessly on as Ben came back, scooped Joe up in his arms, and ran with Ilia down to sickbay.

"What happened?" he asked to the rest of the crew that had gathered.

"Said she fell." one man said, shrugging a bit. "Probably screwing around by the rails."

That was wrong, Kai knew it without being told that Kyma had lied. She wouldn't do something as foolhardy as mess around by the rails. Especially if no one was around, in the dead of night.

So how did she end up in the water? He turned to go back down, headed for sickbay.

XXXXXXXX

"Better?" the doctor asked Joe kindly.

"Better." Joe smiled back.

It had taken about an hour, but the shaking had stopped and she was able to talk normally again.

The doctor, having been forewarned about her coming, had already prepared some heat blankets. They were like giant heating pads and almost hurt after so long in the freezing water. He had given her some candy, trying to get some sugar in her. Her body would metabolize it, turn it into heat, quickly. Ilia had hugged her until Joe told her that she was fine.

She had changed out of her soaking wet clothes, which was only the underwear Ilia hadn't ripped off of her, into some comfortable sweats.

Kai was there, standing close but not touching her. His body temperature, even with his legs on, was lower than hers.

"You sure?" he asked. There was a thermometer hooked up to her finger but he kept checking it orally. The one on her finger was completely useless to provide a core body temperature but it told the doctor how cold her extremities still were. Joe waved it at him, the machine declaring she was, yes, completely fine now.

Her core temperature had dropped only to 93 degrees F. Anything above 90 was completely survivable as long as the person was warmed back up.

Other than those three, no one was around. The doctor had closed the door, telling the others not to disturb them unless it was an emergency. He needed to talk to her as alone as possible. Kai and Ilia both refused to leave her side though and Joe told the doctor anything he wanted to say he could say in front of them.

"I wanted to talk to you about your CBI's." he said.

"CBI's?" Ilia asked. "Whose CBI's?"

"Mine." Joe smiled.

"I've had her taking an experimental DCBI." the doctor said. "Merman and changer blood mixed."

"What?" Ilia looked shocked. "Sweetie, why didn't you tell me about that?"

Joe shrugged.

"I'm glad she didn't." the doctor said. "How many people know about it?"

"Just us now." Joe said.

"And Josh." Kai put in, still not touching her though Ilia had her pretty much tucked into her side. Ilia had yet to put on more clothes but the fea didn't seem the least bit concerned.

"Josh knew?" Ilia looked offended. "Sweetie, I thought you liked me?"

"We barely mentioned it." Joe recalled. "We only said 'injection' we didn't say 'CBI'."

"But we did mention gills." Kai recalled. "He could have inferred."

"I doubt it." Joe shook her head. "Few people even know there is a CBI for humans much less a DCBI."

"DCBI?" Ilia asked.

"Doubled Changer Blood Injection." the doctor told her. "That's good. We can trust Josh. But, not the point. I think that we have sufficient proof that they work." he smiled at her.

Joe nodded, smiling a bit. "I don't think I would have survived the night without them."

"Why did you lie?" Kai asked suddenly.

"Huh?" Joe looked at him. He was still keeping a distance between them. She could see the worry in his deep, black eyes. But he was still concerned about stealing any of her precious body heat. "Lie?"

"You said you fell." Kai reminded her. "You lied. What really happened?"