Adaptation

Time stopped in the quarantine room, as Dezi, the unfortunate nurse assisting in the procedure, slowly released the breath she'd been holding. She took a few steps away from the bed, her head pounding with tension. She turned away from the shivering, pale figure, wondering when his pain would ease. The almost inhuman sounds that Jim Kirk made were unsettling, taking a toll on her, and she couldn't begin to imagine what such pain was doing to him. Her throat ached as much from suppressing her emotions as from clenching her jaw. Nothing in her twenty years of nursing had prepared her for this.

"I know. I know," McCoy soothed. He stood over the young man's writhing body, one hand anchoring the feverish head to the pillow, the other splayed across his flat abdomen. McCoy had been constant in his vigil, unwavering in his attention, and completely immovable in his determination. "A few more minutes and you can rest. You can do this, Jim."

He'd been saying that for the past ten minutes, and Dezi wondered if the man on the bed believed him any more than she did. Still, she looked up at the time counter to determine when the session would end. Each aching second passed with interminable slowness, stretched out by Kirk's guttural sounds of suffering. Kirk had long since stopped replying to McCoy's words, and she didn't know if the young man now understood anything McCoy said. His face was a deathly shade of white, his eyes sunken and bright with fever, at times wild with pain. It was difficult for her to remember that just hours earlier he'd been alert and defiant, demanding to be released.

"Nurse," McCoy said sternly. He never took his eyes from Kirk.

"Doctor?"

"Get me another warm cloth. Make it two."

"Yes, Doctor." She moved to comply without hesitation, her legs carrying her with quick strides to the console at the end of the room. The distance from the bed did little to mute the sounds of pain Kirk was making, but she felt a very brief sense of relief at the reprieve of having to witness it. She retrieved the fresh warm cloths and returned to the bed, handing them to McCoy.

She watched as McCoy gently soothed a cloth across Kirk's fevered skin. The cloth was treated with a mild topical analgesic that seemed to ease some of Kirk's sensitivity. Rigors had become more pronounced in the past half hour; the strain on his muscles was altering his chemical balance. Rutgar had begun an IV of supplements, but even she could see that Kirk's organs were being adversely affected by the transfusion, and the IV was having little effect.

An alarm sounded and McCoy swore under his breath as he tossed the cloth aside. Both of them reached for the oxygen mask, the doctor's fingers capturing it before her own. She was by his side before she even realized that she'd moved, years of training kicking in automatically.

McCoy expertly slid the mask over Kirk's nose and mouth.

"It's okay. Easy, Jim."

She liked the sound of McCoy's voice when he spoke to Kirk. It was smooth and rich – a strange cross between how a parent would speak to a hurt child and how a lover would soothe and reassure. Kirk's intensely blue eyes searched McCoy's face and a low groan filled the mask. McCoy's hand smoothed the blond hair, now darkened and damp with sweat. There was something in the gesture, so intimate and personal, that she shifted her gaze from her patient to McCoy. His lips were tightly compressed and his eyes were dark with emotion. A muscle jumped in his jaw, but his hands were gentle, his voice compassionate. The two men were more than doctor/patient, she realized. They were close friends.

A chime sounded; the one they had all been waiting for.

Rutgar, who had been hovering on the opposite side of the bed, leaned over Kirk and checked the catheter in his chest. His fingers barely skimmed the line before they came to rest, spreading over Kirk's shivering ribs. "You're doing great. We're going to reset before we start again," he told Kirk. "You can rest for a while."

Kirk closed his eyes. His entire body seemed to deflate into bonelessness, shivering and sweating, his misery apparent.

McCoy held the oxygen mask in place and looked up at the monitor, scowling. He turned an unblinking gaze to Rutgar who seemed to guess exactly what McCoy was going to say.

"We'll introduce Dextronomin for his kidneys," Rutgar said. "And increase the plasma and hemoglobin again. That should balance things a bit."

McCoy's expression remained unchanged and challenging. Dezi shifted her weight from one leg to the other, feeling the tension between the two men. McCoy took a moment to glance at Kirk, then removed the mask to step away from the bed. It was the first time he had left Kirk's side, and the young man clearly sensed his absence. Opening his eyes, he searched for the familiar presence, too weak to even move his head.

Dezi stepped forward as McCoy and Rutgar moved off to confer. Now standing next to Kirk in the spot McCoy had occupied, she looked down at him and tentatively touched his hair. His eyes were incredibly blue and intense in a disconcerting way, as if he could look straight into her and see all her secrets, all her shortcomings, all her accomplishments. He was wicked smart, it was said, genius level, and for the first time since hearing about the man who had saved Earth, she actually believed it.

"Can I get you some water?" she asked. It was the only thing she could think to offer him.

"No," he said weakly.

In the background she heard Rutgar and McCoy arguing in hushed, angry tones. She could make out most of the words.

"We knew the risks going in," Rutgar was saying. "We're over sixty percent complete. We can't stop now."

"His liver and kidneys can't take this level of stress," McCoy said. "Not to mention what it's doing to his respiratory system and heart. His blood pressure is going through the goddamn roof."

Dezi concentrated on Kirk and tried to tune out the doctors, who continued their heated discussion.

Unfortunately, Kirk had also heard. "Not too happy," Kirk muttered.

She could see it was an effort for him to speak, to breathe. She pulled up the warming blanket, hoping it would offer some comfort. "You're in good hands. The best. Try to rest now."

She checked the IV fluids that were replenishing what the microfiltration was removing. It was unnatural to scrub blood to this degree. What they were putting back into Kirk was a watered down version of the healthy, life-sustaining blood that he needed. This was what made the procedure so dangerous and painful. When she looked down, she discovered Kirk was still staring at her.

"You really need to rest," she said again. The break wasn't going to be near long enough for him, and the pain would resume too soon.

"What's your name?" he asked. The last word faded to a whisper.

"Dezi."

"I was going…to guess…Dezi."

She smiled. "Were you?"

He closed his eyes suddenly, his mouth tightening with the pain. She rested her hand on top of the blanket. His skin was so pale and stretched thin across his young face. After a minute, he opened his eyes again.

"It's okay," he said softly.

She realized she must have allowed her fear to show. She quickly recovered. "You're not supposed to be comforting me. That's my job."

"Mm."

"Nurse." McCoy's voice came, his tone disapproving.

He had returned to the bed and she quickly stepped aside for him. He looked at Kirk. "I want you to rest. We can only give you half an hour. And you need every minute of it."

The stress clearly showed on Kirk's face and he shifted ever so slightly, but the motion was halted almost as soon as it began, his body too weak.

McCoy put a hand on Kirk's shoulder. "Just one more session. This one won't be as long, Jim. We're making good progress."

Even to Dezi's ears it sounded like a lie.

Kirk's eyes closed and he seemed to relax as they pushed in another unit of whole blood.

Too soon, they were starting the machine again. Dezi found herself tight with apprehension as McCoy leaned over and gently pulled the blanket back to reveal the IV lines.

It took Kirk a moment to com fully aware. The line began its greedy suctioning of his blood. "Wait. Wait…."

McCoy placed a on the pale chest. "We can't wait anymore."

"Just a few…more—"

"You can do this, Jim. Just one more time and it'll be over."

Kirk's features twisted into a mask of stress and pain. His respirations became quick and shallow as the machine removed his blood, filtered it, and pushed it back in with equal speed.

This time, Dezi did not step away from the bed. She stood next to McCoy as Kirk began to make the dreaded sounds of pain, and it was all she could do to keep from bursting into tears.


The quarantine room was finally silent. The specialized machines had been removed and only the soft beep of the bio monitor could be heard. McCoy stared down at Jim, who lay unmoving beneath the warming blanket. He'd been standing in place for the past hour, knowing that he should leave and get some rest, too, but Jim's chem panel was still below normal ranges and more than likely wouldn't level off for another eight hours. They were pushing in meds to compensate for the toll the procedure had taken on his body. Most of his organs had been negatively affected by the filtered blood and Jim had more IV bags hanging above him now than when he'd first been admitted.

"You'd be really pissed if you woke up now," he said to the unconscious man. But he knew Jim wouldn't be waking up anytime in the next twenty-four hours. His body had been so stressed by the procedure that they had to treat an entirely new set of issues and it was a balancing act trying to manage his metabolic levels. But the bacterium was gone. His blood was clean. In the meantime, Jim needed to recover his strength.

He walked to the edge of the bed, his feet dragging. God, he was exhausted. He put a hand to Jim's head, needing the reassuring feel that despite how still and pale his friend was, he was alive. Jim didn't even stir at the contact.

I hope this wasn't for nothing. Jim was still waiting on Kettrig's final decision. If that went through and medical cleared Jim, there was still the Academy Board to pass. McCoy had no idea why Komack wanted to see Jim, and Jim had said nothing of the visit. But a sick bed visit from a Board Admiral was never a good sign. Jim had pissed off more than a few officers with his little stunt on the Kobayashi Maru, and McCoy had to believe that mutiny and escape from exile only added to their impatience. The admirals had perched themselves a safe distance from Jim, like vultures waiting for a signal to pounce. McCoy hoped that the medical clearance wasn't that signal.

He released a breath and dropped his hand, stepping back from the bed to stretch his spine and ease the tension that had settled at the base of his neck. What he wouldn't give for a good massage. Was he really getting that old? There was a time when he could do a thirty-six hour tour in the Emergency Room and still meet Jocelyn for dinner at a high-tech club.

He looked down at Jim, noticing how frail and vulnerable he appeared. Hard to remember the cocky, self-assured man who had announced that he was taking the test again.

"Doesn't it bother you that nobody has ever won?" Jim had asked.

But it hadn't bothered McCoy. He saw the test for what it was – a psychological screening. In the end, how would Starfleet see Jim – as cutting-edge command material, brilliant and unpredictable? Or as a loose cannon not to be trusted?

The door opened and the night nurse entered.

"I thought you'd be off-duty, Doctor," she said politely as she checked the IV lines and regulators.

"I'm headed that way." His voice sounded weary. Whether he liked it or not, he wasn't going to be able to stay on his feet much longer.

"Dr. Rutgar's can handle everything, and we have your comm code."

"His liver panel is still problematic." And his kidneys were only producing at sixty percent.

She nodded without looking at him. "He's certainly wrung out. Hasn't moved in hours." As she finished checking the lines, she focused on Jim for a moment. "The procedure must have been difficult."

McCoy didn't reply. There were no words that would adequately describe what Jim went through. In his years as a physician he had never witnessed anything like it, and he hoped he never would again. Guerrilla doctoring, they used to call it in the twentieth century – doctors holding down patients as they screamed in pain.

"He'll be all right, though?" she asked, turning her head to look at him with uncertainty. "They got it all?"

Maybe it was because he was dead on his feet and seeing double, but McCoy thought he saw fear in her eyes, shadowed with a kind of childish hope, as if she had just asked if the tooth fairy was real, but already knowing the answer. He nodded. It had almost killed Jim, but they had scrubbed his blood of every trace of the bacterium. Starfleet bio labs had it now and it would spend the next months or years developing a treatment against it, should it ever threaten the Federation again.

The relief on her face was clear. The corners of her mouth turned up briefly. "Good."

The PADD in his hand beeped and he looked down at it, having forgotten he held it. A message from the Surgeon General's Office blinked in a demanding rhythm. Holding his breath, he touched the screen and opened the message. It was short and direct, like all of Kettrig's messages. It took him only a few seconds to read it, but he couldn't seem to stop staring at it. He didn't know how long he stood in place, but the PADD suddenly felt heavy in his hand and his head hurt. He looked up, raising his head as if it were an anchor. The nurse was gone and Jim lay in the same position, the monitors beeping softly. He wanted to stay with Jim, but he also wanted to be as far away from the hospital as he could get. He wanted to finish a bottle of bourbon and crawl into bed and sleep for a week. But he couldn't do any of those things. Not yet. He looked down at the PADD held numbly between his fingers.

For the first time in weeks, he didn't know what to do. He looked back at Jim's unmoving, sleeping form. Through everything the young man had been through, from jumping onto the Romulan drill, to exile and sickness, Jim had never given up. He'd risked his life for what he believed was right…and Earth had been saved because of him. McCoy suddenly realized that, during all of this, nobody had fought for Jim. The Academy Board had been quick to condemn. The Vulcan had been brutal in his determination to contain Jim, to teach him a lesson he was unwilling to learn.

McCoy's fingers tightened on the PADD. His heart slammed against his chest as a sudden burst of anger rushed through him. Goddamned bureaucrats! Everybody was looking to save their own ass, and nobody was willing to save Jim's. But what did they care anyway? Earth was saved, the Romulan ship sucked through a black hole never to be seen again. Even the bacteria that Jim had caught on the ship had disappeared. Well, he'd be goddamned if he was going to stand by and let them make Jim disappear.

He spun on his heels, feeling a renewed surge of energy. He was going to make this right.