Pain snaked through Kirk's heart. Panic and pain in equal parts, and something else, something he now found familiar, but distinctly alien. He was falling, but not falling, something, something in a world of silence was holding him up. Something had latched onto him so firmly it had become a part of him and losing it would be a kind of waking death. A hundred years of waking death.

So familiar. So Alien.

"Spock?" Kirk snapped awake, heart throbbing in his ears.

"That's your first officer, isn't it, sir?"

Kirk required a moment to figure out where he was. Shuttle. Potemkin's crewmembers. Pullman. That was her name.

"Do you need to get a message to your officer, Captain? We can rely a message."

Kirk shook his head. It was Spock. It was Spock's pain. Not pain as part of some kind of incompatibility between Vulcan and human. Just Spock's pain.

Kirk's entire body tingled in horror. Pullman leaned over the collar and flicked one of the switches on it.

"Looks okay. Can I do anything for you?"

"No." Brusque. He wanted to be alone with his realization.

She sat back, more at attention than before. Calm, watchful, attention.

Kirk tried to see through the roof of the shuttle. Was Spock always in that much pain? Were all Vulcans like that? He had no answers.

"What's our ETA?" Kirk asked.

"Thirty six minutes. I can put you on a comm to your crew, if you want, sir."

"It can wait." But a moment later, he said, "But I need a status report."

She went forward and, after some low conversation, returned. "They are still subduing the natives and confiscating anything outside their tech level. Only minor casualties."

"The planet is too close to Federation space to remain under the Prime Directive." Kirk said this without thinking. He amended it by saying, "Obviously, it would be ideal if they were, but they are too close to the new traffic lanes to sustain it. It would have been better eased into it by the sociologists than the weapons' smugglers." It seemed so clear now, when before it was only orders and how best to implement them. He wouldn't make that mistake of perspective again.

Kirk must have drifted off again because he woke to someone shaking him. "Captain. Do you want to be beamed aboard? Your CMO wanted you to avoid the transporter, but if you are feeling critical we can override him." She flicked something on the collar and moved away, but was still sitting forward, ready to act.

It took half a minute to process what she had said. He said, "My CMO would rather no one ever get in a transporter." He felt his mouth smiling faintly. "He said something about exacerbating the cellular damage."

"That's possible, sir. Your oxygenation is good, but the collar is maxed out on toxin removal. You are probably noticing that buildup. It will make you feel like hell."

I'm a sack of half dead cells, Kirk thought to himself. He moved his fingers to reassure himself that he still could. But I'm not dead and neither is my first officer. Not this mission. I didn't kill either one of us.

But thinking of Spock made him ache. He pictured him as he had been on the planet, holding his tricorder, calm as the sea. Was that only a thin mask, hiding all that pain all the time? The thought horrified Kirk in a way he had never been before. Spock moved through his duties with a stoic precision that Kirk envied, because he'd been lulled into thinking it meant there was peacefulness beneath it. What if he'd been entirely wrong? What if underneath was a seething ball of emotional agony?

In the front of the shuttle the radio crackled to life and the rumble of docking maneuvers started.

"Almost there, sir. Ten minutes, at most."

Kirk wanted to bristle at her continued reassurance, but in all honesty, he partly needed it. If she really thought he was a legend, she was doing remarkably well. A legend who woke up calling for his first mate. Kirk twisted out a wry smile for himself. He didn't want to care about his image in front of an Ensign from a ship he wasn't assigned to. But this was the reputation he couldn't help care about.

"I'm not a legend, Ensign."

"Begging your pardon, sir. That's not for you to decide." He could hear a smile in her voice.

Kirk smiled too, then felt a pang at losing access to this banter as soon as the shuttle docked. He shook his head and tried not to care.

He was only the Captain. He was only doing his job and not particularly well. And he maybe wasn't strong enough for this duty. He had waited too long with Mitchell despite Spock's clear warnings. He hadn't been able to help his long-time friend and refused to recognize the greater danger because it was inconvenient to how things were supposed to work out.

And he felt the same fear regarding Spock. He may be helpless to do anything for him either. But Kirk didn't really know the Vulcan, and he couldn't just ask him what was going on. Perhaps he could contrive to touch him again, to see if the pain was an ongoing experience for him. But that was silly. He should just talk to him. Kirk was his commander, after all.

Kirk's muddled head waded through possibilities without deciding anything or relieving his anxiety by formulating a plan. Any plan. Even a bad plan. He heard the subspace crackle again but found himself unstirred by it. It was probably a good thing they were docking. He'd give McCoy hell if this shuttle ride turned out to be unnecessary. But Leonard McCoy wasn't the old country doctor he claimed to be, so likely it was the wisest course, but McCoy could be damn irrational about transporters.

Spock was probably already giving McCoy hell. That is, if they had time to think about him in the middle of the mission. Kirk had a suspicion now that Spock was frequently thinking about him. It made him feel strange to imagine it. Spock could think about a lot of things: advanced astral physics, alien molecular botany, six dimensional computing. All of those seemed appropriate. Was it possible that phenomenal mind was fixed on Kirk, after just two short months, hence the pain? It was such a very odd idea, but it fit the facts as observed, and Kirk couldn't dismiss it without contrary evidence. In his own sorry state, he didn't have enough defenses to avoid feeling terribly sorry for the Vulcan. He hadn't gotten used to Spock, from a command perspective nor from a personal perspective, but he had gotten used to feeling affection for him. That had been remarkably easy.

Could the pain be for him? Kirk? So implausible. So awful to imagine day in and day out. With no chance of relief. A hundred years of half death. No. Waking death.

The shuttle tapped to a landing and the familiar sound like sand particles rubbing on the hull began as the shuttle bay filled with atmosphere.

Pullman came to the back of the shuttle-Kirk hadn't realized she'd gone forward-and began unhooking the stretcher. She glanced at him, paused mid-cinching of a strap, and stared. Then looked away and finished up.

She positioned herself awkwardly and called over her shoulder, "Fetch the antigravs, Broder. They should be bringing them to the shuttle door."

The shuttle door hissed open and air exchanged in a rush and the pressure again equalized. Pullman turned to Kirk and reached for his face, hesitated, then deliberately swiped her thumb over his temple, sweeping away moisture Kirk hadn't realized was there.

Kirk was too tired for the egotistical disgrace of this to hit him fully, but a burn started low in his gut then rose to his cheeks.

The antigravs were being arranged under the stretcher and other crewmembers were coming on and off the shuttle. It didn't smell like the Enterprise.

"They're going to take care of you, sir," Pullman said as she latched the last corner of the stretcher down. She smiled faintly, "Although that probably wasn't what you were thinking about."

Kirk faintly shook his head, relieved beyond expectation at being understood.

The shuttle bay was dimmer than the shuttle, but he could still read stripes.

"Captain Okudo," Kirk said from his horizontal position, "Permission to come aboard?"

"Of course, Jim. My CMO is itching to try out his new regeneration tank on you." He waved them on and Kirk recognized his footsteps following, giving orders.

What followed was a blur of activity. Too many people were touching him. Unknown equipment was being moved around him and inserted into him, and the drugs changed. The pain returned: throbbing, deep tissue aching. He welcomed it as real pain he could understand. And before he could tire of it, everything faded out.

"Jim?"

Kirk had the strangest sense of having been awake for hours, perhaps days, but not awake enough to comprehend his wakefulness. It made him feel utterly exhausted. He moved his hand and was pleased to feel it hit his own face, which he rubbed vigorously. His hand was working well. He stared at it and beyond it, at McCoy.

"Bones."

Behind McCoy stood Spock, whose eyes held a well-like depth for just an instant before his visage flattened out and even Kirk could imagine believing there was nothing behind the mask of his face.

"Report, Mr. Spock."

Kirk listened with half an ear to a retelling of events and the inventory of what was recovered. Upon Spock winding down, Kirk attempted to sit up.

"Little early, Jim."

But Kirk managed. "I've been down for too long," he said. But his heart was racing, which was obvious to all from the monitor's noises.

The Potemkin's CMO came in with another doctor. The two of them were a thin and bird like pair, could have been brother and sister, and Kirk didn't recognize them at all from before he went under. They pronounced him in no danger, despite the monitor's complaints.

Kirk spent a long minute gauging whether he could swing his legs over the side of the bed or whether he'd simply pass out if he tried. He managed and felt better, not worse. Kirk stretched each shoulder with relish while McCoy argued with him.

"Bones, I want to go back to my ship."

"There's no rush."

Kirk looked at the hands McCoy held up to stop him. "Well, I want to be upright for a bit."

McCoy dropped his hands. "That's fine. Just stay where you are. You're pushing it."

Kirk resisted looking up at Spock. He wasn't just pushing it for himself and he didn't want to give that away.

"How are the crew faring for injuries?" Kirk asked.

This properly distracted McCoy for a while, letting Kirk get used to being upright without the doctor's scrutiny. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Spock drawing into himself, hands behind his back, at ease, but not in the least at ease.

Kirk's anxiety about what he needed to do was shifting into curiosity about his reticent first officer. When you were in command and didn't know what to do, the first thing to do was exude confidence while you gathered facts. Kirk sat up straighter.

After some wrangling, McCoy agreed to a round of mild physio for Kirk. Spock excused himself to return to his duties.

"Yours and mine, I'm afraid," Kirk said. At the door to sickbay, Kirk halted him. "Thank you, Mr. Spock."

Spock stopped and gave a distracted nod. That hadn't been the right thing to do. The Vulcan disliked being singled out.

"Bloody elf has higher priorities," McCoy grumbled well before the door sealed closed and Spock might not have heard.

Kirk's hand twitched, wanting to hit him. The desire was so strong it made Kirk reel to remain still.

"Well, let's get you started," McCoy said, directly the full body physio machine over to the bed.

Kirk badly need to burn off this anger. "Yes, let's."

Halfway through a round of leg presses with almost no resistance except Kirk's battered body, which was bad enough, Kirk said, "Bones, if you don't ease up on Spock I'm going to do something we will both regret. But you more." He spoke with clear controlled anger, which had faded until he'd brought the topic up.

"I'll let up," McCoy grumbled.

Kirk moved to work his arms. "If you ever get a real reaction out of him it will be extreme dislike of you. And what will that have accomplished?"

"Are you kidding? I'd call that a victory."

Kirk did four more lifts before replying. "I wouldn't."

"Jim, he gives as well as he gets if you hadn't noticed."

"Because you haven't left him a choice. Lay off. I'm serious."

McCoy shifted the machine around so Kirk was working his abdominals, but he didn't have any strength left. He sat hunched over, giving great attention to the task of breathing, wondering if his body might just fail then and there.

"You going to reprimand me?" McCoy honestly sounded like he was enjoying himself. Kirk suddenly understood how he could be so caring yet go through a divorce nasty enough to send him into space.

"No." Kirk sat back, swallowed hard, breathed some more. "I'm not going to bother reprimanding you. I'm going to punch your lights out."

McCoy blinked at him. "You really mean that?" He didn't seem alarmed. More intrigued. It made Kirk flounder.

"You are only the second person in a Starfleet uniform I've ever had the urge to punch unconscious, McCoy." Kirk let the anger flow through all the way to his fingertips and grabbed the handles to do a few abdominal curls using that energy. "And now that I think about it, you both have Irish names." Kirk did one curl after another against the will of every cell in his body. "I hope . . . Finnegan . . . also . . . went . . . through . . . a terrible . . . divorce."

Kirk dropped his arms, breathing again with great concentration. "What a happy thought."

McCoy was studying him, but with less the eye of an amused psychologist and more that of someone shocked dumb.

Kirk decided to drive the point home. "An even happier thought would be if his wife slowly poisoned him."

Kirk hunched forward, trying to recover for another set. There was no human way he could manage.

"Finnegan, eh?" McCoy drawled.

"Don't," Kirk said. "You may kill me here."