Fever

Chapter 1

Everything was quiet. She could barely hear Spock's breathing. If she did not know that he was a living, breathing being, and in private, her surprisingly passionate lover, she would have thought he was some Greek statue brought to life. She had cried, screamed and broken things in her quarters. Now she was silent and calm, while she washed his unmoving body with a damp cloth.

"He's in a coma," Bones had stated, after examining Spock.

"I didn't even know Vulcan's could go into comas," was Kirk's murmured reply.

"Evidently they can," Bones frowned.

Nyota had remained silent. She would not cry in front of her fellow crewmembers. Spock was her partner; something that was common knowledge aboard the Enterprise, but that did not mean that she would act unprofessionally. She would deal with her emotions privately. She knew that Spock would approve of this choice.

"He obviously contracted this from Mortem?" Kirk asked.

"I'd say so, Jim. That was where we lost contact with him for a while."

He had been unconscious for eight days, and she had grown increasingly empty and hopeless. She knew that Spock was strong, far stronger than most humans because of his Vulcan blood. Bones had no idea what was wrong with him, however. He did not know if this was Spock's body's way of healing, or if he was dying. He could not tell if what Spock had contracted was viral or bacterial, because it hid itself away from each test and examination. She knew that Bones had allowed Spock to be in his quarters because if Spock was dying, it was better that he died surrounded by what he possessed, rather than in the clinical surroundings of the sick bay.

Nyota could not hold his hand because his skin was scorching to the touch. It was like touching a naked flame. Occasionally she took his hand because she forgot how hot he was, and snatched her hand away with tears of pain and frustration in her eyes. She could only speak to him, and that provided little comfort when he could not reply. Constant silence was unbearable, however, and so she spoke of whatever came to her mind, even topics she knew that Spock would have displayed little interest in when conscious. She found herself babbling more and more as time passed. Her thoughts were becoming fractured from a lack of sleep, and she wondered if this was what the creeping onset of insanity felt like.

Spock dreamt. Something that he had not done since childhood, because meditating had extinguished the need for such unconscious reflection. He heard the screams of billions of people. The sound surged through his body like naked electricity. The feeling of death engulfed him, and he tried to stand while his body convulsed from the shock. He was blind. No light penetrated the darkness in which he found himself. He stretched out a hand, but felt it cut through air.

"Hello," he said, but silence rang in his ears.

He felt a greasy curl of fear in his stomach, but suppressed it in his practiced way. He had to think logically, and fear, which invariably led to panic, did not encourage logic. If he was to know where he was, then he needed to think calmly and sequentially. Due to his sight being rendered useless, he would have to utilise his other senses. He smelt the air, and caught a faint odour of intense heat, but nothing more. He reached the conclusion that he could not stand in one place, because this would not prove logical. A creature could very well be dwelling in the darkness, and if he stood in one place, he could prove to be the ideal prey.