Chapter Four: Crisis Management
McCoy slams his fist on the intercom button in the Transporter Room, keeping the stretcher close at his side. He presses his left hand against Jim's shoulder—Jim is staring blankly at nothing, looking pained and withdrawn—and starts barking orders: "Attention, crew: this is Dr. McCoy speaking. Clear the corridors on Deck Four and Deck Six. Medical, prepare for incoming casualties! Ready both ORs. Send M'Benga with a team to the Transporter Room. Chapel, meet me in Treatment Room Three."
He hurries the stretcher through the empty hallways to Medical. As he moves, he keeps up a constant soft murmur that is meant to focus Jim, to draw him back from wherever he's gone: "Don't worry, we'll have you fixed up in no time. I'll give you something for the pain in a minute. I'm taking you to MedBay now. I cleared the corridors, just relax." Jim doesn't respond beyond a grimace and a flick of his eyes to the side, which McCoy interprets easily—he knows Jim pretty well—as "Shut the fuck up."
He does.
Christine is waiting for him in the treatment room, calm and attentive, but her mask breaks as she glimpses Jim for the first time. "Oh, God," she murmurs, as she sees the bloody cuts on the Captain's cheeks and creeping over the back of his neck--all that is visible above the blanket--and Jim flinches at her reaction. But she recovers quickly; after all, it's not the first time she's had to treat a seriously injured Captain. She arranges her expression into something resembling bland reassurance and smiles down at him. "Glad to have you back here, Captain, we were worried about you."
McCoy nods at her. He was right to choose her to assist; she's the most professional of his nurses and the most discreet.
They gently transfer Jim to the biobed and she hands him the tricorder, peeking over his shoulder to see the readings with him. The intra-abdominal injuries that he'd suspected through his cursory manual exam are confirmed. Most of the other cuts are superficial—painful and messy and potentially disfiguring, but not life-threatening. Jim's humerus fracture should have been an uncomplicated injury, but it looks as if the break was deliberately aggravated. He shudders at the thought. The bones are now completely misaligned and there is damage to the surrounding tendons and ligaments.
He scans lower. Christine's eyes widen, and she gives him a questioning look: What the hell happened down there? There are signs of abrasions from the rape, but nothing that will require invasive procedures, thank God. Still, it will need topical treatment and he can't hide that. There are no secrets in a medical ward. Jim knows that, too.
Christine starts an IV line and he instructs her to administer a sedative and begin prepping Jim for surgery. Jim closes his eyes, and McCoy notes with satisfaction that she clasps his left hand until he loses consciousness.
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When McCoy emerges from surgery, all he can think is: Food. Shower. Drink. In that order.
He's been updated on the other casualties, knows they're not serious and are being cared for. Jim will be out for a few more hours, and he needs to rest and process what's happened, and think about how he's going to approach…things.
But Spock is waiting for him, stern and coolly expressionless as usual. His hands are clasped behind his back in his favorite pose, the one that makes McCoy think that he's got something to hide.
McCoy is drawn to hands, because hands are easy to read. The eyes may be the windows of the soul, but hands are the gateway to the heart. Hands reveal so much, from the way they are held, the way the fingers move, how they feel when you grasp them. McCoy has surgeon's hands, steady and exquisitely sensitive. Jim's hands, he knows from close observation, are strong and animated and constantly in motion. He loves to watch them.
Spock tends to conceal his hands from view. He never instigates casual touch. Even when seated at a table, Spock keeps his hands in his lap unless he's holding a utensil or operating a console. Spock's posture, McCoy thinks, conveys secrecy and evasiveness. Perhaps this is typical behavior among touch telepaths, a sort of necessary defensive mechanism, but he doesn't like it.
"What is the Captain's condition, Doctor?" Spock inquires without preamble.
"How much do you—"
"I have been briefed on the events in the restaurant by the uninjured crewmembers. I am aware of how the Captain…" he pauses, as if searching for an appropriate word, "…acquired his injuries."
McCoy nods. Good. At least he won't have to tell that story.
"There's nothing life-threatening. They broke his arm, beat him, and then used a knife."
"Please be more specific." Spock's voice is annoyingly calm.
McCoy sighs, and begins a more detailed description. He doesn't mention the rape. He considers briefly whether it could be considered part of doctor-patient confidentiality and therefore non-disclosable, but he can't really justify it. Jim would certainly prefer that the information remain private, but the fact is, he's not a private citizen. He clearly identified himself to his captors as a high-ranking representative of Starfleet and the Federation, and knowing that, they tortured and sexually assaulted him. There is no way that he can keep that from public record; if the Federation seeks legal redress, Jim may even be called to testify. So Spock has to know.
He's a doctor; he can discuss the clinical aspects of rape without flinching. It carries no more stigma to him than any other bodily insult; in fact, he can think of many injuries to body and mind which are much, much worse. He should be able to talk about it bluntly and dispassionately.
But he chickens out. He's just too tired, and he can't bring himself to say the words Jim was raped. "There's more, but I'll put it in my medical report," he says, and looks Spock in the eye. Spock is nothing if not thorough; undoubtedly, he will read the report and find out for himself.
Spock nods, as if deciding not to press him. "Very well. I would like to speak with him as soon as possible. Please page me when he regains consciousness."
"Spock…" McCoy hesitates. It's not that simple, he wants to tell him. Maybe Spock doesn't understand the repercussions of an experience like what Jim went through. How can he? I didn't tell him everything. "After something like this, Jim may be a little withdrawn. He won't be himself. He needs time to recuperate, not only physically, but emotionally."
"So I surmised, Doctor," Spock says evenly. "And I expect that you, too, need to recover."
"I'm fine," he tells him, taken aback."Just a little tired."
"Perhaps you should rest. I know that you have a close relationship with the Captain," Spock says quietly. "You must have experienced his suffering keenly, being held close enough to hear his distress yet unable to prevent it."
Hearing Spock's simple but painfully accurate words, McCoy finds his throat suddenly swollen, and feels as if the wave of emotion he has been holding at bay is suddenly threatening to overwhelm him.
He swallows and takes a deep breath. "That's a fair description."
Spock averts his gaze and seems uncomfortable. "The other hostages that I interviewed were quite clear about it in their accounts. And you should know, Doctor, that those of us who remained outside, either onboard the ship or at the colony's military headquarters like myself, also experienced…the unpleasant sensation of helplessness."
McCoy doesn't respond, ashamed that he hasn't stopped to think about what it must have been like for those who could only watch, wait, and worry. And he can't quite grasp the fact that Spock, of all people, is showing him sympathy and kindness.
Spock seems to take his lack of response for agreement, saying, "I will be waiting for your call." He turns away, hands still locked behind his back.
Watching Spock's stiff, retreating figure, McCoy finds himself looking at his hands. He notices how tightly Spock is clasping his fingers together, how the knuckles are white, how the tension runs up through his biceps and into his taut shoulders.
He considers, for the first time, that the Vulcan's hands may be expressing something other than evasiveness, after all.
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McCoy grabs something to eat and allows himself the luxury of a quick shower, but feels compelled to make rounds before collapsing on his office couch. The Enterprise crew was lucky; there are shrapnel wounds and blast trauma that bear watching, but Jim is the most acutely injured.
Sulu has been treated for phaser burns—painful as hell but not serious per se—and tugs at his sleeve as he stands next to his bed, checking the readings. "Hey, doc, how's the Captain?" he asks.
"He'll be fine," McCoy says. "He's out of surgery."
"That's good. Good. But why was he…I mean, what did they, uh…" His voice trails off awkwardly.
McCoy's not sure how to answer. How much should he reveal? He's not even sure himself what happened to Jim, although he saw the end result. And Sulu was there, listening, like the rest of them. He's Jim's hand-to-hand training partner, and Jim would certainly consider him a friend.
"Let him tell you himself, if he wants to," he finally offers.
He decides to go to sleep before anyone asks him any more questions.
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He wakes with a start four hours later. Who turned down the lights in his office, he wonders, annoyed. Had to be Chapel. That woman is a damned mother hen, he thinks ruefully, although he knows that he needed the sleep. He splashes some water on his face and stumbles groggily toward the small recovery room where Jim was taken after the surgery.
Jim's awake, talking with Christine, and he feels a flash of guilt for not being there when he came out of anesthesia, which is always a disorienting and unpleasant experience for him. But Christine has seen it before and she knows how to talk him through it.
From the sound of things, Jim's been up for a while.
"McCoy'll want to keep me here for a week," he hears Jim saying to Christine, as he walks toward the room.
"Take your time and rest for once, Captain. There's no rush."
"And I look like a tribal warrior," he complains. "It'll scare all the girls off."
"The marks shouldn't leave a scar," Christine tells him gently. The dermal regeneration hasn't begun yet; his cuts have been sealed and treated to prevent infection, but cosmetic reconstruction is a post-surgical intervention.
"That's a good thing," Jim says. "People already think I'm an obsessive attention-seeker." Chapel laughs softly and shakes her head.
McCoy steps into the room, leans against the wall and folds his arms over his chest, thinking, what the hell. Jim's voice is a little weak, but he's smiling.
He doesn't look at McCoy.
But Christine does. She frowns at him from behind Jim's head. Something's not right, she's saying. Christine's an experienced nurse and she knows about the stages of recovery from abuse and trauma. Flirting and self-deprecating humor aren't normal reactions.
McCoy knows more about Jim's issues than she does, and if there's one thing Jim can't stand, it's being made to feel weak and helpless—again. So he isn't surprised to see that denial, defiance, and bravado, the trademarks of his stormy adolescence, have been resurrected for this situation.
"I can't imagine why," McCoy drawls from the corner of the room.
"Bones, it's about time you got here," Jim says, winking at Christine, "I wanted to ask you—"
"The answer's no."
"You don't even know what the question is." He's still looking at Christine, who's giving Jim her listen-to-the-doctor-if-you-know-what's-good-for-you look.
"I know what you want to ask, and no, you can't leave Medical yet."
Jim finally looks up at him, and McCoy sees enough in that brief moment of eye contact to convince him that Chris has to leave the room right now.
"Christine, why don't you let me check over the Captain," he says, phrasing it as a request but speaking in a tone of voice that makes it clear that she'd better move, and pronto.
As she leaves the room, the animation drains from Jim's face, and he closes his eyes. He looks exhausted and very young. McCoy sinks down into the chair next to his bed. He strokes the hair off Jim's sweaty forehead and pats his shoulder.
They don't say anything for a long time.