One

Kirk awoke in the sickbay, his stomach hurting something awful and his brain feeling a little disoriented.

He didn't know how he'd got there; in fact, he didn't remember anything about what had happened. Trying to sit up proved to be a bad, painful idea, so instead he rested against the bed and looked around.

"Bones," he croaked, his voice raspy.

"Jim! You're awake!" He was there within seconds, running a tricorder over Kirk's body and looking him over with concern. "How are you feeling?"

"Like shit," Kirk told him with a sly grin. "What happened? I don't remember a thing." A quick sweep of the room revealed that he was the only one there; obviously no one else had gotten hurt. That much was good.

Something like pain flashed in McCoy's eyes, and Kirk felt his smirk falter ever so slightly. "You don't remember anything?"

Kirk shook his head, but waved it off. "Ah, it'll probably come back to me eventually. So what happened? It feels like something trying to gnaw its way out of my stomach."

"You've got…you had internal as well as external bleeding, Jim," McCoy told him. "Something hit you real hard down there and gave you a real thrashing. Opened a deep wound under your ribs, cracked a couple, and opened one of the major veins in your stomach. Another half an hour and you'd be a goner."

Despite himself, Kirk grinned. "Well, I'm lucky you were there for me, wasn't I?"

"You don't know the half of it, idiot."

"So I take it Spock's taking care of things on the Bridge? If he wasn't, he'd be here meditating or something. He always is. It's like the guy thinks I'm going to fall at the drop of a hat."

He didn't like the expression that crossed McCoy's eyes.

"What? Did something happen to him too? Is he resting in his quarters?" He shook his head. "Or maybe he's in the lab, then. Did he—"

"Jim!" McCoy's tone was curt, but it was too raw to be angry.

Kirk fell silent.

McCoy took a breath. "Spock's dead."

Even though the look on the doctor's face was too real to be a prank, Kirk laughed anyways. "You're kidding," he told him matter-of-factly, though dread was beginning to pool in the pit of his stomach.

With an exasperated sigh, McCoy closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Kirk, when we got down there, he was already gone," he told him, his voice slow and careful. "The damned thing was going to explode or something again, and we could only bring you back." He paused, taking a deep breath and looking back at the young captain. "I'm sorry, Jim. I'm truly sorry."

The feeling Kirk had wasn't much different than being hit by a train. His heart thudded hard in his chest and his breathing began to quicken again as everything came back to him.

Next thing he knew he was struggling to get up, to get back to the bridge and divert their course, and the machines were going off and McCoy was injecting him with something and everything was going fuzzy.

Then his struggles were weakening and McCoy was holding him down, his face pained and filling Kirk's vision.

"Damnit, Jim."

Kirk had weird dreams after that.

They felt almost like memories, crystal-clear and lacking in the surreal nature that dreams usually had. That, and he didn't have the usual control one had over their own body. He was running along a rocky path, red sandstone boulders rising around him. The city was right in front of him, and he put on an extra boost of speed to reach it.

Daring a glance back, his heart rose to his throat as he saw the sand fire storm raging not far behind. He needed to be quick if he was to make it there before it reached him.

He ran through the deserted streets, feeling the hot wind beginning to blow against the back of his neck. Relief flooded him when finally he saw his own house, and upon reaching it, threw open the door and dove inside.

A woman rushed over to him, clutching him close, and he embraced her back.

"Oh, Spock," she gasped. "You mustn't scare me like that ever again. You knew there was a storm warning."

"I will try not to, mother," he mumbled, and Kirk's mind was suddenly screaming with confusion.

Spock?

He woke with a jolt, his eyes flying open and hands gripping the bed sheets on either side of him. Raising a hand to his head, he rubbed his temples and groaned. Did he just dream of one of Spock's memories?

Shaking his head, he sighed and let his hand fall. No, that was absurd. How could he possibly know of that? He'd never even been to the surface of Vulcan before it was destroyed, unless you counted hurtling towards it at breakneck speed with no parachute and clutching your chief physicist like he was your lifeline as 'sightseeing.'

Kirk didn't know how long he'd been out. He looked around the room to confirm that it was empty—the only other person there was an ensign that was asleep a few beds away—and then pulled down the covers that concealed his body. A white bandage was wrapped around the entire length of his torso, and gritting his teeth in pain, he began to pull it off.

It took him a while, but finally he had the skin of his stomach revealed. Angry purple bruising covered his abdomen and just over the left side of his chest, and a healing wound ran from below the right side of his ribs diagonally to his left hipbone. The regenerator strapped to his chest was doing a good job of healing it, though it would take some time yet.

He'd seen worse.

After haphazardly putting the bandage back on—or, half-on, and then covering it with a fresh uniform sitting on the chair beside his bed—he swung his legs over the side of the bed. The fact that he could actually sit up was a very good sign.

Standing, however, proved to be an ordeal. Once the muscles of his stomach were clenching with the effort of being on his feet, they started to hurt. Muttering curses under his breath, Kirk sat back down.

He needed to get back to the Bridge. He needed to get into the swing of things again; he needed to do something to distract him, to keep him from thinking and remembering everything that had happened.

His mental shields were down, he realized too late, as a flood of images bombarded his mind. Images of what had happened, of the whole ordeal, of far too much blood and rain and mud and the explosion and—

"Jim!"

McCoy's shout distracted Kirk from the harmful thoughts, and he whipped his head around to face him.

"Goddamnit, I will sedate you again, and you know it," he growled, stomping over to rip the uniform off of Jim and shove him a little too hard against the bed. Kirk would have made a joke laden with innuendo had he not been gritting his teeth against the pain. "You took off your bandages, didn't you? Of course you did. Have I ever told you that you're the worst patient I've ever had?"

"Many times," Kirk told him with a grin.

"Well, obviously not enough. And I don't think that 'worst patient' quite covers it. Is there even a word in the human language for it? Remind me later, and I'll ask Uhura if there are any in other languages."

Kirk chuckled. "Bones, you're going to give yourself a heart attack."

"No, that'll be you that gives me one," McCoy growled. He reached up a hand, pulling on the hair above his ear. "Look, you're giving me gray hairs."

"I don't see anything other than brown."

"You're not even looking. They're right there."

"I think you're kidding with yourself."

"I think you're being intentionally difficult."

"I think so too."

McCoy fixed Jim with a stern glare as he went about fixing Kirk's dressing, being intentionally rough as he wound it around his stomach. "You're impossible."

Kirk beamed back at him.

"I swear to god," McCoy grumbled, finishing with the snip of scissors on the medical tape. "Now you leave this one on. Or so help me, you'll need bandages on a lot more than your stomach."

Rolling his eyes, Kirk crossed his arms. "I just wanted to see. I won't do it again."

"Children 'just want to see.' Adults choose to do the responsible thing, the logical thing, and leave it alone."

"It would not be logical to leave injuries unattended and without attention as you propose," Kirk blurted out. "It is, however, logical to assess the severity of one's wounds before trying to exert themselves."

McCoy turned, slowly, with a face of both curiosity and sheer disbelief. The two men stared at each other, equally shocked, before McCoy spoke. "What the hell?"

"I don't know!" Kirk cried out. "I didn't say that. It was like…fuck, I don't know, it just came out!" He rubbed a hand against the back of his neck, his gaze flittering nervously around the room. "Jesus Christ, what the hell did you give me?"

"That wasn't any medication there, Jim," McCoy told him. "You sounded like the hobgoblin for a second." Too late he realized what he'd said, and his eyes were immediately wide and apologetic. "Wait, I didn't mean it like that—"

Kirk shook his head. "It's okay."

Looking at him dubiously, McCoy sighed and crossed his arms. "You're going to need to beam back down there with a research crew sooner or later to figure out if the planet is stable," he told him. "We can't take the chance of just assuming it is. Starfleet'll throw a fit."

"I know," Kirk said, running a hand through his hair. "It's not like they won't already."

McCoy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, whatever." He took out a tricorder, taking some more readings on Kirk before straightening himself once more. "I've got to get back to work. If I find your bandages so much as fiddled with, so help me, I'll shove so many hypos in your ass you'll look like a porcupine." He took a few steps, and then turned around again. "And Jim," he continued, "For your own sake, try to get some goddamn rest."

Although he nodded, Kirk knew he would do no such thing. He waited until McCoy had left the room, and then he fell back against the bed with a soft whumf. He didn't want to close his eyes; he didn't want to think about what had happened. No, he couldn't become compromised, not when such daunting matters were at hand. And with no First Officer, he couldn't afford to let something happen to him.

Not that it wasn't right now. Kirk had no way of knowing until he got out of the goddamned sickbay.

He'd stay in bed, then, as McCoy had ordered him, and get better. And then he'd go back to command, take over the Delta or Beta shift, and work himself until he dropped.

He managed to make himself sit in that bed for almost an hour and a half. By the end of it he was twitching to get up and move, to go back to work, to do anything.

With an exasperated groan, Kirk sat up once again and reached for the sweater McCoy had placed just out of his grasp. He had just about reached it when he was struck with a thought.

They should go to New Vulcan.

He wasn't sure why, he just knew that there was something of great importance there that he needed to be done. Besides, he hadn't been there yet, with the current mission and all.

He'd also need to face Spock's father sooner or later. As much as he was not looking forward to it, he knew that Sarek deserved the news to his face rather than over a phone call. It wasn't necessary, and Kirk dreaded having to tell him what had happened.

Telling him his son was dead.

Telling him Spock was dead.

Kirk let out a sigh and clutched his head in his hands, resting his elbows on his thighs. Squeezing his eyes shut, he shook his head slightly in his grasp. No, he couldn't think about this. Not now. He'd allow himself time to grieve—and grieving was putting it nicely—but not now. He knew that it would gnaw at the edges of his consciousness until he actually was compromised, but hopefully they'd be done by then and he could take a shore leave.

McCoy would request one too, no doubt, to watch over him. He knew that much—McCoy was a painfully obvious man to Kirk. Though other times he took comfort in his friend's presence and care, this time he just wanted to be alone.

He was still sitting with his legs hanging over the side and his head in his hands when one of the nurses returned. For a second she just hovered there, unsure of whether to leave or approach him, before cautiously taking a step forward and placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Captain," she said, her voice gentle.

Kirk sat back up; smiling at her like the whole thing was nothing. "Yes, rest, I know. Bones was very…adamant about that."

Nurse O'Hara. He knew he recognized her. She'd been assigned to the Enterprise right before their mission. She was a quiet thing, incredibly caring and overly sympathizing. More than once Kirk had played up a very minor injury to gain her attention, but now her concern felt almost overbearing.

She smiled back, helping him lie back down and checking at the gauze over his torso. "Don't be too rough on it," Kirk joked. "One little tear and Bones'll have my head, thinking I did it. He told me that clear as day."

Giving him a look, she redressed it and then turned to leave. "McCoy also said if you're not asleep by the time he gets back, he'll make it happen with a blunt object," she told him, a slight smirk on her face. Goodness, the doctor was rubbing off on the other medical officials faster than Kirk had thought.

He nodded to her, watching her leave, and planned the Enterprise's course of events. They'd finish up with Genesis and then they'd go back, stopping at New Vulcan along the way to get it over with.

By the time McCoy got back, Kirk surprisingly was asleep, his face twisted in discomfort and his brow sweating. A quick check from the tricorder revealed this wasn't because of his injuries, and McCoy crossed his arms and shook his head slowly.

"I'm sorry, Jim," he muttered.

Note: Tardy update, I'm terribly sorry. Under normal circumstances I usually add chapter much quicker than that, but these are no normal circumstances.

This story will be finished, I've got the whole thing planned out and the next couple of chapters almost done, but there's gunna be a two-week hiatus (until the 10th of April or later). So bear with me, and I'll aim for another two or three updates as soon as I come back! Spock'll come back somewhere in those chapters, too.