Thank you so much for the warm welcome back! Here's part 2, which mostly consists of me being mean and putting Jim and Uhura in painful, slightly awkward positions that totally require innuendo and snark...or will, eventually.
Enjoy!
Uhura didn't actually lose consciousness as she and Kirk fell through the concertinaing floor. She wasn't sure if that was a blessing or a curse. Despite maintaining awareness, she was unable to process much of anything other than the sound, the fear, and of Kirk's arms; strong and surprisingly protective around her. She dimly processed him curling a hand around the back of her head, sheltering her from the shower of shrapnel that rained down on them as they fell.
Their impact with the ground below seemed to take an eternity, yet the suddenness of it came jarring, knocking the breath from her lungs. Dazed and dizzy, she lay where she landed, her heartbeat loud and heavy in her ears.
The silence that followed the explosion echoed around them before screams from a distance slowly filtered their way through her faltering consciousness. In the wake of chaos she found herself turning to Kirk and wondering when he had become her safe harbor. She'd have thought that Spock would have been at the forefront of her thoughts, but while she knew she her lover would always keep her safe, Spock lacked Kirk's single-minded ruthlessness that had somehow become reassuring. She might not always be safe with Kirk, but if the captain was in her corner, she knew they could survive anything.
So the lack of Kirk's authoritative voice was almost as much of a shock to her as the aftershocks of the explosion.
Taking a quick assessment of her condition she accounted only cuts and bruises. Despite the fall, she hadn't injured herself at all on impact.
It was with that thought at the forefront of her mind that she finally took notice of the arms that were still wrapped around her. She shifted as much as she dared, suddenly far more afraid than ever.
Her lack of serious injury made sense when she took stock of Kirk's body below her, his arms holding her tucked into his chest. They weren't quite horizontal, but inclined at a slight angle that left Kirk's head thrown back, his neck bloody and flecked with debris.
For a moment she feared he was dead. Only thin slivers of his blue eyes were visible and his chest barely rose beneath her. Then suddenly he drew in a sharp inhalation, his eyes opening wide and his arms tightening around her so suddenly it drew a gasp from her throat.
Aware that she was still sprawled over her captain as he struggled to draw breath, Uhura tried to wriggle out of his arms but was thwarted by Kirk's own panic and the press of something sharp and hard digging into her side.
"Captain! Sir, Captain!" She tried to call him out of his shock, watching as consciousness came and fled from his eyes. He was struggling valiantly but seemed to be having problems focusing on anything.
Unable to see how badly he was hurt, Uhura could only fear the worst and so reached up, her bloody, dirty hands framing his face and forcing him to focus on her. "Kirk! Kirk, come on now!"
"Uhura?" Kirk's eyes sharpened with focus and he frowned, reaching up to touch a cut on her cheek that she barely even felt. "You're hurt." The speed in which he grabbed a hold of coherency and alertness would have been intimidating if she hadn't seen him woken out of a dead sleep and launching into action thirty seconds later.
"Look who's talking." She wasn't a tearful person by nature, but the relief that swept over her with Jim's return to consciousness left her blinking rapidly against a sting in her eyes.
Now that Kirk had relinquished his hold on her, Uhura tried to move away. She gently rearranged his arms so she could see how badly he was hurt.
She had barely moved a few inches when Kirk shouted in alarm. She was dragged roughly back down against his chest, his arms over her head, and once more the earth moved beneath them.
There was nowhere further to go down, but that didn't stop the rain of debris from above. The tremors lasted less than a minute, but from the sound of it the whole building seemed to come down on top of them.
She shoved roughly at Kirk's hold and tried to protect him with her own arms; furious and scared when he refused to let go. She screamed in his ear, mostly rage and fear, but he stubbornly held on.
Eventually the tremors stopped and the world fell quiet again. Kirk still refused to relax his hold on her for several long minutes and so she could do little more than lie against his chest and listen to the quick, uneven rhythm of his breathing. It sounded wet and shallow and she knew even then that there was something wrong, seriously wrong, with Jim Kirk.
As soon as she was able, she tried to move and felt her chest tighten at the small, hurt sound that escaped Kirk's lips. "I'm sorry." She choked. "I'm sorry."
"Don't." Kirk's voice was thick and echoed as he whispered so close to her ear.
Tentatively, she tried rolling to one side. Her effort was impeded by the weight of what looked like one of the supporting beams that pressed down on the small of her back. It wasn't crushing her to the point of pain, which suggested that its decent had been interrupted somehow, but she could not turn enough to see what, or how, it was resting. It was also impossible to draw in more than the most shallow of breaths as she was pressed even tighter against Kirk.
They were pinned that way. There was barely a hair's breadth between their bodies and for all she knew the entire building was just waiting to bury them both.
"Can…can you slide out?" She asked. If she braced herself, maybe Kirk could wriggle out from beneath her.
"No." Kirk said softly. "Can you?"
She shook her head hopelessly. "Maybe they can beam us out?"
"I think," Kirk's voice was completely wrecked. "that second time…I think it was an earthquake. With the seismic activity it would be too risky. They won't try unless they have no other option."
"Right." The intricacies of transport mechanics and the related physics were beyond her. She knew the basics, as all cadets did, but beyond that she was clueless. There had been one memorable morning right before Gamma shift when Kirk, Scotty and Chekov had spent a good twenty minutes gabbling together like excited children as they discussed transplanetary beaming equations. She and Sulu had been completely in the dark. It was also the first time she had seen Spock look at the captain like he was a particularly interesting science experiment. "And the first time?" She asked, already knowing the answer.
Kirk's expression was grim. "That was an explosion. A sonic blast, by the sound of it." She wouldn't have been surprised if he was right. When it came to the strange and violent things they encountered in the world, Kirk usually knew what they were dealing with. It was impressive, and sad.
"Who in their right mind would bomb a linguistics conference?"
"Terrorist, lunatics, visionaries. Pick one." Kirk laughed and Uhura was horrified to see blood staining his mouth. "I swear your boyfriend has the shittiest timing. One minute earlier…"
Uhura found herself rising to Spock's defense as she frequently did when Kirk and he became embroiled in their intellectual pissing contests. Spock didn't need her in his corner, but it wasn't like the rest of the crew were going to side with him when they could fall behind Kirk the golden hero. "This is not his fault." She snapped.
Kirk instantly looked contrite. "I'm not saying it was." He closed his eyes and took a slow breath that sounded like it hurt. "Fuck me, Bones will never let me off the damn ship after this."
"It's not your fault either." Uhura found herself surprised by how easy it was to attempt to reassure him. "And…thank you."
Kirk looked stunned. "For what?"
She could do nothing more than rest her arms against his and lower her head to his shoulder. "Protecting me."
"I'm your captain, Uhura. Kinda in the job description." He actually sounded insulted. And hurt. She wondered if she was imaging it, or if perhaps an effect of his injuries. Either way, she could not find the words to respond. Her silence clearly worried Kirk, because he spoke again. "Not that I did a great deal of good." He paused, bit his lip, then seemed to find a resolve to continue. "Are you…how bad?"
She looked up in surprise. "I'm fine. A bit bruised but it's nothing."
Pinned by those intense blue eyes, she wondered if anyone had the fortitude to lie to him and was grateful she didn't have to. She returned his gaze with a levelness that made her own resolve strengthen.
Eventually he nodded. "Good. Ok."
A nasty thought began to form in her mind. "Captain –"
"Jim." Kirk corrected. "I can't even think about how many regs we're breaking right now, what with you using me as a pillow and all." He actually grinned at her. It was terrifying. "Calling me captain is just going to freak me out. I half expect Pike to jump out of the walls and read me the riot act."
They weren't breaking any regs at all, and she was sure he knew that. She went along with him regardless. "Jim. You're hurt, aren't you?"
Kirk looked at her levelly. She could see the battle in his eyes and wondered what it would cost him to be honest with her. Men like Jim Kirk did not allow themselves to be vulnerable.
So when he exhaled softly, blood bubbling on his lip, she knew it was bad. "I don't think I'm going anywhere for a while."
Uhura's breath caught in her throat. Suddenly she remembered the sharp press of something hard against her side when she had tried to roll off Kirk before the second tremor.
With fear and nausea rising in her gut, Uhura wiggled one of her arms down until she could press her fingers between their bodies.
For all that he was broad-shouldered, Kirk was shockingly narrow at both the hips and the waist. There wasn't a huge amount of space between them, even with the curve of her own body. Barely half an inch from her side she felt the solid metal spoke of a floor support, bent by the collapse and impact of the ground and angled upright.
Directly through the side of Kirk's chest.
Her breath caught in terror as she understood exactly how perilous their situation was.
She couldn't move to give him the space to draw more than a shallow breath. He could not move at all. Eventually, they would both suffocate.
And if, by some miracle, Uhura was able to squirm free without bringing the entire building down on top of Kirk, there was no way he was going anywhere. From her tentative probing she could feel exactly where the spoke had penetrated Kirk's body and the blood on his lips made a horrifying sense.
If he stayed as he was he would slowly and painfully drown in his own blood.
If Uhura was able to move him, or if they were beamed out, he would bleed out in minutes.
This time the tears were uncontrollable and her voice caught in her throat. "Oh god…Jim."
"Hey," Kirk soothed with increasing difficulty. "It will be ok. Spock will find us and there's no way he'll let me die if it means missing out on a chance to glower disapprovingly at me. And even if he did," Kirk smiled in a broken, reassuring way that made him look terrifyingly young, "Bones will bring me back just to lecture me to death. We'll be fine."
And damn her to hell and back, but she believed him.
TBC
