Moving the remainder of the supplies from the engineering compartment was no easy task with broken ribs, but thankfully Chekov and Sulu had moved the larger items.
They had departed over an hour ago and she'd checked in with them twice. Things were going as planned, but it was still early yet.
"Is there anything else, sir?" she asked, crossing her arms and stopping in front of Commander Spock.
He was still sitting on the floor by her overturned console, attempting to fix the bone knitter. It was clearly awkward and slow going with only one arm. He looked at the stack of supplies sitting against the wall carefully, and said, "No, cadet. Seal off the engineering compartment."
"Aye sir," she said grimly.
When she'd done as he asked, she watched the shuttle's power signature climb steadily and smiled. They weren't dead yet.
She checked the time: twenty more minutes until she'd need to check in with Sulu and Chekov. She looked around for some other task to occupy herself when she narrowly dodged an errant spring flying toward her face.
"Would you like some help, Commander?" she sighed, looking over to Spock.
He had the bone knitter clenched between his knees to hold it in place while he reassembled the energy components. He looked at her and then back to the bone knitter.
"I do not think-" he began.
"I don't know why you think it's better to do that on your own," she interrupted.
"I do not think it would be logical to deny your assistance, cadet," he finished, looking at her in a way that seemed too sardonic for a Vulcan.
She grimaced in embarrassment. She'd always been a hothead who spoke her mind. She'd become a lot more tactful in her methods and far more skilled in picking her battles than she'd been when she was younger, but clearly she still wasn't perfect.
She quickly joined him on the floor and took the bone knitter. He also handed her a tiny copper coil and a pair of tweezers, and began walking her through the microassembly of the bone knitter's components. It was tricky work and she wished she had better lighting, but Spock was patient with her, and even helped her comb the floor when she dropped a silicon buffer barely larger than a grain of sand.
It was a bit strange working in such close proximity to him, but the delicate nature of the work and the miniscule components demanded it. Ten minutes later, she put the exterior casing on and held her breath. She flipped it on. Still not working.
"Ugh," she groaned, making a snarling face at the medical device and leaning back against the wall forcefully.
She winced from hitting her ribs and fought back the growing frustration welling inside of her.
"Your anger will not mend the bone knitter," he said, looking at her with a slightly raised eyebrow.
"I know that. Sir," she said carefully. "But we do need to get it working. If we don't get that tourniquet off of your arm in the next four to five hours, you're going to lose the limb."
"I am aware, cadet, but your negative emotions will repair neither the bone knitter nor my arm at an increased rate."
She bit her tongue and dismissed the idea of smacking him. Of course, he had said it himself: they had about a fifty percent chance of dying here, which also meant if she did slap him, there was a fifty percent chance no one would ever find out.
She began to chuckle but quickly suppressed it with a slight shake of her head. She detected a microexpression of curiosity on his face. They reached for the small screwdriver simultaneously, and when her index finger brushed the knuckles of his right hand, he instantly recoiled.
"Sir? Are you ok?" she asked in alarm.
"'Ok' is a very imprecise term," he said briskly.
"I- yeah, never mind," she replied, rolling her eyes and picking up the screwdriver. "Actually, no. What is it? Do I bother you? Did I do something wrong? Sir?"
"Vulcans simply do not prefer to be touched," he said.
She looked at him incredulously.
"Really? You tackled me earlier," she retorted. "I can't think of many species that 'prefer' to be thrown on the ground."
"It was necessary for the preservation of your life," he explained.
She was thinking back on the crash before he even began his answer. It was difficult to remember what exactly had happened in the chaos of the shuttle's final moments. Her eyes darted over to the ejection tube and it quickly dawned on her. He had saved her life.
She had been leaning up against the ejection tube from the force of the gravity. A support beam in the engineering compartment had come through from behind the adjacent wall, and if she had been standing there when they crashed, it would have broken her neck or maybe crushed her skull.
She was alive because he had grabbed her with his right arm and pulled her onto the floor and shielded them both from the falling ceiling panels with his left. His decision had shattered his left arm, but it had saved her life.
She didn't know what to say, and was trying to formulate a way to thank him when he said, "Cadet, perhaps you could stop daydreaming and focus on the task."
He thought she was daydreaming?
"Well, obviously me touching you just now was an accident," she said, waving the screwdriver unceremoniously. "I wasn't trying to hold your hand or anything."
"That is evident."
"But I'm sorry," she replied. "It was an accident. And thank you."
"Why are you thanking me?"
"For saving my life," she mumbled.
"You are welcome."
She returned her attention to the bone knitter, listening to Spock's instructions and doing her best to temper her emotions. She found her mind drifting readily, usually in Spock's direction.
He was so naturally boring and unexcitable. What exactly would it take to piss him off? Frustrate him? Make him smile? Make him cry? Were those things even possible? She tried to imagine him laughing at a joke or tearing up at a funeral, and she just couldn't.
She wondered what he was like as a child. As a baby. Surely not even Vulcans were born logical.
What had he been like as a teenager? Were Vulcan teens moody and hormonal too? If he had gone to any of her schools, she imagined he probably would have been viciously picked on. Maybe that was one advantage to the stark Vulcan philosophy: bullying and teasing were almost certainly considered "illogical."
"Cadet Uhura?"
"Hmm?" She snapped back to the present.
"The casing?" he explained, offering the round, cylindrical component to her with his good hand.
"Oh, yeah, sorry Commander," she said, gingerly taking the small metal backing from his hand so as to avoid touching him again.
She noticed her hands were trembling slightly and wondered why. It was probably just some combination of being hungry, tired, injured, stressed, and working with these tiny damn components. Still, she hoped he hadn't noticed.
When she finished replacing the inner casing, she handed the mostly-assembled bone knitter to him.
"I'm overdue to contact the away team," she said, standing up and flipping the communicator open.
Her hands were still shaking. How annoying.
Sulu and Chekov were on schedule and doing well. She noted it in the log and checked the shuttle's power usage.
"We're at forty-one hours remaining, Commander," she declared.
They were consuming power faster than he'd calculated.
"Adjust environmental settings to seventy-five percent," he ordered.
Her fingers swiped across the terminal and she frowned. They would have slightly less breathable oxygen, but they weren't exactly doing calisthenics either. Of course, it was also going to be getting a little chilly with the temperature controls lowered but thankfully, blankets were the one thing this garbage scow of a shuttle seemed to have in good supply. She must have moved two dozen of them out of engineering, and they were currently stacked by the compartment door they'd sealed off.
"Power is back up to fifty hours, sir," she said, as she returned to the floor next to him.
With his good hand, he'd managed to get two of the four screws into the backing of the bone knitter while she'd been occupied.
"Here," she said, holding out her hand expectantly to take the screwdriver and the bone knitter to finish the task more efficiently.
She sensed a sort of apprehension in him, and wondered if he was really so proud that he wouldn't accept help. It didn't seem very logical. It took nearly a minute for her to artfully work the tiny screws into place and when she was done, she set the screwdriver down with a measure of trepidation.
"Here goes nothing," she said, toggling the button to turn it on.
It crackled and she felt a slight humming in her palm.
"Yes," she said gleefully under her breath.
No more broken ribs. No more looking at Spock's grisly wreckage of an arm.
She then had a horrifying realization. He wasn't going to be able to do this on his own.
Oh no. Oh gross.
She wouldn't have called herself squeamish, exactly, but she'd learned in her first aid course last semester that there were some things she didn't handle as well as she wished. Even when they were just simulations, things like arterial blood sprays and protruding bones had always made her a bit queasy. She hadn't even really looked when she put the tourniquet on his arm.
"Perhaps you should turn it off to conserve energy, cadet," he said.
She flipped the switch on the bone knitter and blushed slightly.
"How do you want to do this?" she asked.
He stood and looked around, then took a seat at Chekov's damaged computer terminal. He draped his arm across the broken screen, and looked back at her.
"Did you see any anesthetics in the med kit?" she asked.
"Regrettably, no," he replied.
"Well, I realize synthesizing stuff is out of the question, but I saw some sedatives earlier, if you-"
"No, cadet. It would be irresponsible to forgo consciousness for my own comfort under the circumstances."
"You're seriously going to let me do this without any meds at all?" she asked in disbelief.
"Yes, I believe that is the only logical inference you could draw," he replied.
Was that Vulcan sarcasm?
She frowned.
Maybe he should be nicer to the person who was about to be in a position to cause him significant agony.
"Yeah, ok," she said, moving toward him. "It's your arm. Sir."
He began pulling back the sleeve of his shirt and she tried to act naturally, but she was finding it increasingly difficult to fight back the urge to look away or vomit.
"This might be more efficient if you could assist me," he said, looking up at her patiently.
Oh, now he asked for help.
"Are you sure you don't mind me touching you?" she asked, trying to keep the mocking in her voice to an appropriate minimum.
"It seems unavoidable," he replied.
Damn. A small part of her had hoped he would have said "yes."
She took a deep breath and started rolling back the cuff. She could almost feel the pain emanating from him but he sat there without complaint.
"Maybe it would be better if I cut the sleeve?" she offered, reaching behind her to sort through a large hard case of engineering supplies.
She located a pair of engineering sheers that worked remarkably well on cloth. She cut upward toward his elbow and uttered a slight whimper when she revealed the actual fracture. It was grotesque.
"Cadet?" he asked, his placid face examining her. His face was so calm, like he was sitting for afternoon tea.
"Let's just say there's a reason I'm in communications and not medicine," she mumbled.
"I presume you have taken the full semester first aid course?" he asked.
"Yeah, but I've never actually done anything like this," she explained, waving to his arm.
"No one has ever done anything until they have," he replied. "I am confident you will perform adequately."
His voice sounded slightly clipped and she could tell he was in an extraordinary amount of pain.
"Yeah, let's just get this done," she said, trying to steel herself for what was coming.
Chapter 12, Section 9b of the Starfleet Comprehensive First Aid Manual: Setting a Compound Fracture. Set the bone. Check for fragments and chips. Repair blood vessels. Knit the bone. Seal the laceration.
"Are you sure you don't want anything? Not even something to bite down on?" she asked.
"I am certain, cadet," he replied.
"Ok," she said, feeling the blood drain from her face as she whispered, "Set the bone, check for fragments. Repair-"
She grabbed his arm more firmly than she probably meant to and quickly forced the two parts of his forearm into a straight line. He made a strange, throaty, guttural sound but didn't scream.
Check for fragments, check for fragments, check for fragments…
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" she yelled, working as quickly as she could.
His skin was frighteningly white. She grabbed the bone knitter and quickly set to work patching the damaged vessels and bone fragments. He began to sway in the chair and his eyes fluttered. He leaned on her and his torso against her broken ribs made her want to scream.
She kept going.
She was nearly done when he completely lost consciousness. He slumped against her as she awkwardly finished sealing the wound. When she was done, she checked his pulse.
Still alive.
She breathed a sigh of relief but then quickly wondered what to do. She tried to pull him out of the chair to lay him on the ground but he was absurdly heavy, and even slight strain to her ribs caused her agony.
It took some work and caused some pain, but she managed to wrestle him to the floor while taking great care to protect his head and neck. She laid him on his back and checked his breathing and pulse again anxiously.
It was hard pushing back against the fear because for the first time her in life, she felt absolutely, truly, completely alone.
"Oh please wake up," she whispered, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes.