Jim opened his eyes, blinking away sleep. A figure garbed entirely in white stood at his bedside. Jim might have thought it an angel if the face he'd glimpsed had not been one he was accustomed to seeing contorted in fury and exasperation.

Wait a second. Wasn't he supposed to be dead?

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic. You were barely dead." Yep, that's Bones. "It was the transfusion that really took its toll. You were in a coma for two weeks."

Wait, what? "Transfusion?"

"Your cells were heavily irradiated." Dr. McCoy scrubbed a hand over his face, looking exhausted. "We had no choice."

It took him a second, but Jim hadn't been labeled "the only genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest" for nothing. The implications...

"Khan?"

"We synthesized a serum from his - superblood." Dr. McCoy explained. He leaned over the bed. "Tell me, are you feeling homicidal? Power-mad? Despotic?" Sassy bastard.

Jim gave a somewhat weak grin. "No more than usual." He blinked a few times to clear his blurring vision. "How'd you catch him?"

"I didn't."McCoy said. He moved, and person Jim hadn't noticed in his initial scan of the room walked up to stand before his sickbed.

Captain and First Officer regarded each other.

"You saved my life," Jim said warmly, gratitude audible in his voice.

Dr. McCoy rolled his eyes. "Uhura and I had something to do with it too, you know..." Everyone ignored him.

Spock, of course, never could accept thank-you gracefully. "You saved my life, Captain, and the lives of your-"

Jim looked at his friend with an expression of amusement mixed with fond exasperation.

Spock glanced at his shoes, and his shoulders seemed to relax just a smidgen. When he raised his eyes to meet Jim's again, the expression on his face was not a smile. But just barely.

"You are welcome, Jim."

P-P-P-PAGE BREAK

Jim had to remain in the hospital for another week after he woke up, simply because Bones was a hardass and enjoyed seeing him suffer.

At least, that was what he told anyone who would listen.

Unfortunately, most of the female nurses at Starfleet Medical were under strict orders to only check on him when he was asleep ("...to keep your greasy mitts off my nurses, Jim!") and he only saw Dr. McCoy when he was awake. Of course, he had visitors, but most of them were from the crew and were already acquainted with the good doctor. So, they refused to help him break out and go on the run.

Mutiny.

Nyota stopped by soon after Spock left, carrying some good pillows stolen from other rooms and a PADD with some computer coding on it for him to mess around with.

Sulu visited, bringing him a few books, a slinky, and a rubber ball, the latter two of which were confiscated by Dr. McCoy on the grounds of being "almost as damn annoying as you are."

Chekov brought him well-wishes from the folks in science and a box of the second most revolting home-made cookies he had ever tasted.

Scotty brought him a sandwich. Bless him.

A few Admirals also stopped by to question (read: interrogate) him on what had happened with Admiral Marcus and where the hell the USS Vengeance had come from. It had taken the combined powers of Spock's logical, yet somehow derisive insistance and Dr. McCoy's open heckling to get them to leave.

Spock had begun to awkwardly hang around his hospital room, and was around almost as much as Bones was.

Except, you know, awkward.

So, Jim asked him if he played chess.

On the last day of his "stay" (inprisonment), Bones came in pushing an honest-to-god wheelchair in front of him.

"Hell no."

"You wanna leave? Get your ass in the chair."

"Hell. No. I can walk out, Bones. I don't need a freaking wheelchair. Why are they even called wheelchairs, anyway? They don't have wheels! They use hover tech! It's...it's illogical!"

"They used to have wheels, and stop trying to change the subject. It's hospital policy. And even if it wasn't, you were unconscious for two weeks, bedridden for three, after dying from godamn radiation poisoning.Not even counting the injuries from the firefight and the Klingons and the guards on that giant black hellship and Khan beating the shit out of you in front of us. Get. In. The. Chair."

Jim got in the chair.

He started to fidget as Bones steered him down the hallway. "Hey, you know where my place is, right?"

"Actually, you're under medical surveillance-"

"What!?"

"-due to your death. You're staying at my place, where Spock and I can keep an eye on you."

Wait. Spock was in on this too?

Mutiny. It was all mutiny.