I HAD to write this. Saw Into Darkness last night and was flailing the whole way through. I thought I was dying. GO SEE IT before you read this. I recommend it highly. Afterwards I just had to write this. It's a bad first draft but at least it's out of my head. Too much passive tense, ugh. It will be continued, read and review and give suggestions for improvement if you have them! Totally unrelated to Charged Moments. Characters don't belong to me!
"He's our only chance to save Kirk!"
Uhura's shout rang jarringly through Spock's brain, cutting the distraught rage that had been pulsing through him. Kirk was dead, Spock saw the life leave him and was unable to do anything, couldn't even sooth the fear his captain felt.
Yet as these thoughts ran through him, another side of his mind thought logically about the possibilities presented by an individual like Khan. In a split second he knew – they must get Khan back on the ship alive.
McCoy had ordered all of the concerned crewmembers out of the ground medical unit. Half of them were still supposed to be with the ship for God's sake. He allowed one nurse, and Spock, to stay as he readied the blood vial and removed Kirk from the cryo-tube. Spock was tense and silent, hands gripped behind his back as he stood at Kirk's left shoulder. The transfusion was quick, but there was no immediate sign of change from the monitors. McCoy had shown Spock the tribble but, as no tests had yet been run on humans, Spock calculated a 48.92% chance of success regarding the revival of James Tiberius Kirk. The continued flat line was maddening.
An hour later McCoy returned from dinner with some fruit, setting it on the chair next to Spock.
"That is appreciated, Doctor."
"You should go get some rest, Spock. If Jim's numbers change I had Scotty rig an alarm to alert me immediately. You will be the next to know."
Spock looked away from the monitors, fixing McCoy with a dark look. "I will stay."
Spock arose from his trance to a quiet beep. He brought his head up sharply and watched the machines, holding his breath. It cannot be.
Another beep, a spike in the heart monitor and a flare of machine activity as the body's other functions began to run again. Spock let out a small noise, lurching forward to place a hand on the captain's chest. It was warm again. The heart under his hand was slow, as all humans' were compared to the Vulcan organ, but it was beating. He is alive. James Tiberius Kirk is alive!
Spock's hands came up to his face as he knelt next to the biobed. He is distantly aware of his rapid breathing, too fast, and the sound of a door swishing open as McCoy comes running in. Some yelling – the doctor is yelling at the unconscious captain, half furious and half ecstatic. You idiot bastard don't ever do that again! Spock hears through a fog, and in minutes McCoy is shaking his shoulders, shouting at Spock now. He cannot move, then he feels the minute pinch of a hypospray on his neck before he sinks into sleep.
"Who knew the hobgoblin could even experience shock? Here Spock, eat something. You've been out for only three hours but you didn't eat any of the goddamn fruit I paid for earlier." Spock opened his eyes, automatically running mental scans of his body for damage. He briefly considered arguing with the doctor about his earlier state, but instead he accepted an orange from McCoy and sat up in the biobed, intending to eat until he heard the whir of machines across the room. His head came up at breakneck speed.
"His systems are functioning normally. He might stay asleep for a few days due to the extent of the damage done by the radiation and due to the introduction of foreign cells. His body has to adapt. But he will wake up." McCoy looked from Kirk back to Spock as he finished, dead seriousness apparent in his eyes. "Now eat."
Minutes later the doctor left, mentioning something about the civilian patients waiting in another hall of the medical unit. Spock finished eating quickly and rose from the bed, crossing the room and returning to the chair he'd previously occupied next to Kirk's prone form. After studying the captain's face for a long moment, Spock brought his hand up to the side of Jim's face and almost hesitantly found the meld points.
Mostly darkness. His unconscious mind was quiet, but as Spock probed a little farther into Kirk's mind he saw strokes of color, vague shapes, then the brilliant splash of Kirk's thoughts. The heart could have been lying to him, but this. This was Kirk, not just his body. Spock knew Kirk would not feel his presence at this time, and in the privacy of their minds he allowed his deep relief and complex struggle concerning the emotions he'd experienced since Kirk's death to flow through the meld. He was familiar with many of the feelings, the concern and the guilt and the grief mirroring his mindset back when his planet had been consumed and he'd lost his mother. However, the other emotions caught up in between were vague and confusing: a deep ache in what felt like his heart, pleasant and painful at the same time, and a strong sense of being alive. Kirk had been dead, but Spock had not ceased to function, so why was he responding to the revival as if the roles had been reversed?