Another longer pause as she again looked at the others and Kirk saw McCoy give a slight nod before Uhura looked back at him, looked deep into his eyes for a moment then slowly shook her head before looking at him with annoyance and sorrow, "I am so sorry for what happened to you, Captain, for what was done to you, but, but I cannot be in the same room as you just now. I do not even want, right now, to be on the same ship as you. After all you two mean to each other, all you have been through together, after all he did to get you back, you treat him like, like" she closed her eyes and shook her head. "I, I can't, I can't even bear to look at you right now. This may show why." She looked at McCoy as she pressed the play button, "It is the only copy, I did not want others to ever see it, to know about it. Please destroy it after you have shown it to him so nobody ever sees that." She walked out without another word.
On the screen Kirk watched as Collins's mouth seemed to sneer as he looked at Spock who stood before him, "Why, Mister Spock, that is as close to begging as I have ever heard of from a Vulcan. I have never heard of a Vulcan begging for anything. Your kind don't, do you? Your kind just doesn't beg for anything."
For a moment Spock closed his eyes and Kirk saw McCoy put a hand on the blue shoulder, Spock shake his head, open his eyes and look at Collins, "Sir, I am begging you. Please let me go find the Captain."
The recording ended with Scotty going over to Spock and putting an arm around him and leading him from the bridge after Collins had denied him permission. Kirk just looked at that last shot for a long time. Something was not right. There were niggles at the back of his mind. He closed his eyes. He had seen how Scotty was supporting Spock and walking away with him.
From how Spock had walked away with his head down, shoulder slumped and letting Scotty support him reflected just how deeply hurt he was. For a moment Kirk felt an odd satisfaction that it felt a portion of what he had felt. Seeing it walk away appearing so crushed. Deep inside himself Kirk felt a deep dread growing, a dawning of a reality. They were walking away and all he saw was a bent head. In his nightmares, his memories, he again saw Spock leaving him, walking away, yet he had always seen Spock's face. It. Spock. It. Spock. Spock. Everything in him seemed to suddenly freeze. How could he see Spock's face if he were walking away? All those times he was walking away yet Kirk saw his face and heard the voice saying, "Spock's abandoning you."
"Bones," he looked at McCoy who was still looking at him in a very disappointed way, "the, the drugs they gave me, what, what could they have done?"
"It was very strong hallucinogenic material with possible hypnotic elements so if they showed you images or kept repeating things your mind would have accepted it. If they had kept repeating things to you, simple images and phrases, repeatedly showed you the same sets of images with the same messages constantly for those six days then they would become your reality, they would be what you believed to be real. The hallucinogenic drugs were in the food you ingested as well as in the air you were breathing in and would have totally distorted your reality. You simply could not fight it."
His mind started a slow chant, "He wasn't leaving. He wasn't leaving. He wasn't leaving. You weren't abandoned. You weren't abandoned. You weren't abandoned." And Kirk closed his eyes and shook his head as he tried to clear it.
"Jim, what do you remember about going down there?"
Kirk kept his eyes closed, remembering. "The Commodore, Spock and I had gone down to check out the buildings and surrounds for the meeting. The Commodore sent Spock away to check the other building about three hundred yards away and got a guide," Kirk stopped. The Collins had argued with Spock before sending him away pointing out his senior rank. There had been that old look of smugness that he used to get whenever a scheme was going well. Then there was the way the guide had approached Collins was like they knew each other. The guide had said he was ready to take care of the Captain. Take care of not show around. So many things he had not been alert to as he felt safe with his old shipmate, with a man he thought of as a friend.
He took a deep breath and slowly let it out, "Replay, replay that part of the tape where Collins is talking, slow it down a just a fraction." Kirk kept his eyes closed as he listened to it. The voice. He concentrated as he listened. It was that voice. That voice he heard as the shadowy images of Spock walking away. It was that voice that was always there taunting him about Spock. "Play it again, emphasis Spock." He closed his eyes as they played it again, seeing again those shadowy images. An icy finger touched his core as the pieces fell together and the shadows vanished. It had been projected images and that voice, Collins's voice. Collins was the "he". Collins was behind it. Collins not Spock.
Still sitting with his eyes closed he tried to think what Collins had to gain by doing all this. There had to be a reason for Collins to get him to such a hateful state against Spock. It was obvious that Collins was going to sell him as some sort of pleasure slave, would have if Spock had not defied him and come back for him. Collins would have had a reason to set him against Spock but,
"Keep him off my bridge." My bridge. The ship. Collins was after the Enterprise. He had never commanded a starship. Since he arrived on the ship he had often spoken of how he would command such a ship. That was another red alert he had missed. Clearly Collins had been after the Enterprise for some time and had it all planned. Collins had primed him to attack Spock like that so if he somehow managed to escape and Spock found him in a public place he would react as he had and be deemed unfit to command. That was what he used to do, make sure that whatever he did looked harmless, casual, totally unplanned yet he would have had everything planned out. He had everything planned out but had overlooked Spock's loyalty. Spock. Collins had used him and, in front of the crew, had sadistically abused Spock's Vulcan core. He suddenly stood up, "The bastard! Where, where is he?"
"Collins is on the planet getting things ready for tomorrow's big thing." Sulu said, "and I am due back on the bridge."
"There's things we need to be doing," Scotty just nodded at him and he and Chekov left, leaving just him and McCoy in the room.
For a moment Kirk stood trying to sort in his mind what had to be done in the order he should do them. When he went towards the door McCoy grabbed his arm and stopped him before he got to it, moving to stand in front of him to totally block his access to the door. "If you're thinking of going to Spock, forget it, Jim. Whatever you are thinking of saying or doing, leave it. Wait. I will see him later but you shouldn't, not till I tell you. You are far too worked up about this to be with him right now. And he is definitely in no state to see you."
"Bones, I have to. I have to. You saw what I just did, what Collins did to him, to me, to us. You heard what I said to him, how I said it. I have to let him know I now know I was wrong, so very, very wrong. I have to get him to understand it was the drugs and not me. I have to make him understand it wasn't me."
Surprisingly McCoy let go of his arm and looked at him, "Go on then, go. Go finish the job you and Collins have done on him. You saw on that tape how he was shattered enough as it was after Collins had him beg, but you didn't see how Collins treated him from the time they beamed back up without you, you have no idea of the constant pressure Collins put and kept on him, and how he harangued and badgered Spock about where you were as he knew Spock was after the captaincy of the ship and had been behind that building collapse. We could all see it, the way it was splintering away at Spock. Not once would Spock allow Collins to talk about you in the past tense. He challenged Collins in that quiet way of his whenever Collins tried to berate any of us, stating he would ensure things were as the Captain liked them. Now, after that outburst of yours, he should easily crack wide open as soon as he sees or even hears you. Just by going to see him now you should be able to easily destroy his very core right now, you shattered him enough to expose it. In case you had not noticed Collins did a fine job of starting to really expose that core."
Kirk saw him shake his head then looked him right in the eyes. "Jim, if you had said and done what you did to Spock to any one of us it would not have mattered that much. We grew up knowing, showing, and understanding how to deal with not just our emotions but those of others. Spock didn't. With us it would just have been a few days and a few drinks and it would be done with. I don't know with Spock. We're close, this ship's bridge crew is very close, but the two of you were always like one, you're that close. Hell, you were closer than best friends; you were the other half of each other, maybe the better half of each other. I am so sorry Jim, but I don't think you have that now."
Kirk wanted to protest, wanted to say that Spock would understand, but then remembered how he had been when he had last seen him. He had not thought of how it was just how Chekov had stood with him that kept the Vulcan upright after he had turned to walk away.
"While you were down there he drove himself more than you can possibly imagine trying to find where you could be. When Collins toyed with him and made him beg it more than incensed me. When I saw how Collins deliberately did that to him knowing how it would hurt him, how it would push him just about over the edge, I wanted to slowly and painfully kill him in ways no physician should ever even think of treating another being."
McCoy quietly looked at him for a moment then moved clear of the doorway, "I can see it in you, Jim. I can see you really want to go to him. So you just go and do whatever you have in mind, go down there with all that emotionalism in you pouring out and irreparably shatter that exposed core. Go on, you go as you are right now. But Jim, just don't you dare be surprised if I, if we can't put him back together. Don't you dare blame anybody else if he won't come back to us. I'm not even sure if we can get him back at all now. This time he is just too hurt, too tired, and possibly, forgive me Spock, most likely feels too alone, too unworthy, too unwanted and too unloved to want to come back."
For a moment McCoy rested his hand on Kirk's shoulder so his Captain and friend would look at him, "While you were gone and he was dealing with Collins I saw, we all, saw him retreating back to his Vulcan side, closing us off. He did not want to involve us, did not want Collins to do anything to us. He was looking for you and protecting us. He was saving your ship and your crew for you." For a long time Kirk felt the understanding and sympathy in the hand that gripped his shoulder again and saw the sorrow in the blue eyes, "This time, Jim, you really let him know there was nothing and, far more importantly despite his protests about Vulcans not having emotions, no one for him to come back to from wherever your words and actions finally pushed him."
A/N Thanks to all who are enjoying this - just letting you know that I'll be back in a few days this strange thing called "the real world" demands all of my attention for the next few days which is why this chapter is so long. Have fun.
