Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to the Star Trek franchise, nor am I making any profits from the writing below. Star Trek is owned by Gene Roddenberry, Paramount, and J.J. Abrams and whoever else officially have rights to Star trek . I am none of these people, so please don't sue me.
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Chapter 10: Descent Into the Arms of Hades
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" What the Hell happened?" Shouted Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy as he knelt on the floor beside an unconscious Jim Kirk and ran his medical tricorder over the younger man's pale and blood smeared face.
From where he knelt on Jim's other side, quickly spoke up to answer the doctor's urgent inquiry.
" I am uncertain doctor. Approximately seven point four minutes before you were called, the Captain appeared to be in pain where he sat in the command chair. He said that he had a headache and that this was not the first occurrence of such an ailment. After saying this, the captain ordered Lt. Sulu to take the con and took his leave of the main bridge. He came here to this conference room, with expressed orders not to be followed. I knew that something just was not right, so I followed in the captain's wake. At this point, I was very concerned, so I began insisting that he allow me to escort him to Sickbay. Initially he refused, claiming that his headache would pass. He was standing with his back to me by that window over there. I reached out and gripped him by the shoulder. I made him turn around and face me. I was met with the sight of Jim with blood steadily flowing from his nose in profuse amounts. Shortly after, he collapsed and began to convulse violently. For his safety, I administered the Vulcan nerve pinch with as much gentleness as I could manage in order to render the captain unconscious. It was so that the captain did not injure himself during the convulsions." Explained Spock.
Throughout Spock's entire explanation, Dr. McCoy continued to assess Jim's condition, using his skills in multitasking since the situation called for it.
" Doctor please, have you ascertained the captain's condition?" Asked Spock as he watched the doctor work.
Around the three men positioned on the floor, several members of the main bridge crew stood at a respectable distance. All eyes were on their unconscious and bloody captain.
Uhura stood wringing her hands nervously as she stared at Jim's pale and blood-stained face. Uhura knew that for the rest of her days, she would never be able to forget such a nightmarish sight as the one before her now. A few feet away from Uhura, Ensign Chekov stood trying with great effort to keep himself composed. His eyes were wide and his lips were drawn thin over his clenched jaw. Seeing his captain, such a strong and seemingly invincible man reduced to such a state was simply horrifying. Under his breath, Chekov rapidly and softly spoke in his native tongue of Russian. He said the prayers his mother had taught him as a child, but this time he said them for his captain. Lt. Sulu stood by the conference room door, anxiously watching Dr. McCoy assess the captain. In all his life, Lt, Hikaru Sulu had never felt so utterly helpless as he did right now. There lay his captain, a man he had come to respect and admire so deeply, bloody and unresponsive. His captain had saved his life so many times over the years, starting all the way back to the Narada incident where they had been sent down to a doomed Vulcan to disable the drill that had been boring a hole straight to the planet's core. Sulu remembered how he had fallen off the drill and the captain had dove off after him. Jim had risked his own life to save Sulu's that horrible day and now, Jim was the one who needed help, but Sulu could do nothing but stay out of Dr. McCoy's way. Sulu felt completely powerless, and he hated it with all his heart.
Bones ran his tricorder over Jim a final time and then looked to the screen to rapidly read the results of the scan. What the doctor read had the blood in his veins turning to ice.
Spock watched in silent alarm as the color rapidly drained out of Dr. McCoy's face.
" Doctor?" Asked Spock, wanting to know what was going on now more than ever.
Bones tore his gaze away from the tricorder and brought his wide, almost panicked eyes to meet Spock's imploring gaze and spoke.
" Spock, we need to get Jim to Sickbay, now."
From the look on the doctor's face, and the tone of his voice as he had said these words, Spock understood just how truly dire the situation was.
Seemingly without even thinking, Spock reached for his unconscious bondmate. Bones watched as Spock used his superior Vulcan strength to easily pick Jim up off the floor. Spock carefully held Jim in his arms in a sort of bridal-style carry. Had Jim been conscious, he probably would have been turning bright red from embarrassment and loudly protested the overly feminized picture this painted him in. But Jim was passed out cold, and no one was finding anything humorous about the way Spock was carrying Jim. Jim just hung limp in Spock's arms, which only added to the already disturbing situation.
" Come Doctor." Was all Spock said before he was rushing out of the conference room.
" Mr. Sulu, you still have the conn." Added Spock to Sulu as he passed the Lieutenant out of the room.
"A-Aye sir." Said Sulu quickly as he watched Spock run across the main bridge to the turbo-lift.
Bones scrambled to his feet with his med-kit and ran after the rapidly retreating Vulcan. The doctor barely managed to get into the turbo-lift with Spock and Jim before the lift's door was closing with a soft hiss.
Once the lift's door was closed, the main bridge and the crew members who were on it were left in a stunned and eerie silence, all of them asking themselves a version of the same question.
What the hell had just happened to their Captain?
The ride to the deck that Sickbay was located in was normally a very swift one, but right now, the lift felt like it was going at a snail's pace to Spock and Bones. Both men had their eyes riveted to the unconscious man Spock held in his arms. In the minutes that had passed since Bones had first laid eyes on his best friend and captain, Jim's pallor had steadily bleached almost to a pure white. A fresh tendril of blood escaped from on on his nostrils, a stark red contrast to his pallid skin. To put it bluntly, with each second that passed by, Jim looked more and more closer to dead than alive.
But both Spock and Bones were not going to have that, not even for a millisecond. Bones rifled through his emergency medical kit and pulled out a hypospray filled with a medicine Bones believed would help stop the bleeding. He pressed the business end to Jim's neck and administered some of the sprays contents into Jim's blood-stream. Bones hoped that the hated hypospray would have Jim at the very least giving a small twitch, but Jim remained limp and unresponsive in Spock's arms.
" Damn it." Bones swore sadly to himself.
Thankfully, the turbo-lift finally eased to a stop and the door slid open with a soft hiss. Bones shot out first with Spock carefully maneuvering himself out of the lift with Jim in the good doctor's wake. Together the two men hurried down the corridor and through the doors of Sickbay.
The moment Bones and Spock with Jim in his arms stepped into the medical bay, the doctor's medical staff descended on them like a swarm.
" Spock, set him down on that gurney over there!" Ordered Bones as he pointed to the mentioned gurney.
Spock did as instructed, but he had to use all the will he had in him to relinquish his hold around his unconscious bondmate. Jim lay flat and unmoving once Spock had gently settled him on his back on the gurney. In the harsh, bright light of sickbay, Jim seemed almost to be made of marble, he was so pale. But marble could not belld red like Jim still was.
For a moment that seemed to span the length of a life age, Spock just stood there beside the gurney his T'hy'la was laying on and stared at Jim. The rest of the world seemed t o fade to the distant background, and there was just Spock and Jim.
As he stood there, Spock felt this strange, phantom crushing pressure where his heart was located. Though Spock had always prided himself on having adequate control over his emotions, at this moment emotional control was the farthest things from his mind. Spock felt terror, cold and paralyzing. The bond in his mind was screaming with it, it was screaming with pain and with loss. It was screaming for Jim, who was in no condition to soothe this terror and reassure Spock that he was still there. At this moment, Spock could feel only his own emotions, and where there should have been the warmth of the connection with Jim, there was a rapidly cooling void.
Spock was abruptly pulled back to the present when Bones almost knocked right into him. The good doctor looked slightly frazzled, but there was a hard intensity behind his brown eyes. His priority was properly diagnosing and treating his patient. He did not have time for distraction, and neither did Jim.
" Spock, I need you to take a step back and let me and my team work." Said Bones, although he did not bark this out sternly as normally would have.
" I understand Doctor." Said Spock as he made himself tear his gaze away from Jim and looked Bones right in the eye before he continued. " I apologize for being in the way. But please, help my T'hy'la to the full extent that is within your capabilities doctor."
Bones felt several emotions rise up inside on him at Spock's words, but he quickly battled them down and spoke.
" There's not need to apologize Spock, and you know full well that I'm gonna do all that is within my power as a doctor to figure out what's wrong with Jim and fix it."
With that, Bones focused his attention on the gurney that his medical staff was already crowding around.
" Alright people, let's get him into the exam room ASAP!" Ordered Bones sharply.
There was a small chorus of 'yes sirs' before the nurses and other medical personnel were pushing the gurney carrying Jim off towards the room McCoy had ordered them to take their fallen captain.
Bones followed close behind but paused to look back over his shoulder at Spock, sending the Vulcan what he hoped was a reassuring look before he quickly trotted after the gurney into the private exam room. The doors to this room shut once Bones had stepped through, effectively cutting Spock off from seeing what the good doctor and his team would set about doing in their full examination of Jim's physical state.
From where he had been left standing in the main Sickbay area, Spock stood and continued to stare at the closed doors of the examination room. Spock stood a tall and pale figure in the harsh light that illuminated Sickbay. Many of the medical staff who were not assisting Dr. McCoy stood in respectful silence and looked to Spock with concern they dared not to voice. Spock was immune to the many eyes that were watching him, his sole focus was on the doors to the room that held his gravely injured mate. Spock began to move forward, his feet seemingly taking steps out of their own volition. Before he knew it, Spock had stepped all the way across Sickbay so that he came to stand just a few feet from the closed doors of the exam room his Jim was in. After that, Spock just stood there and all he could do was wait for the doors to open.
Spock knew that when these doors opened again, he would get an answer to the one question he dared not voice out loud.
Was his bondmate going to live, or was he already too far gone to be helped?
Spock hoped with all his heart, mind, and soul that it was the former and not in any way, shape, or form the latter.
Meanwhile, on the deck where the main science lab was located...
While all of the drama and horror was unfolding up in the main bridge and was continuing to unfold now in sickbay, the Corvinian sphere remained where Spock had left it after Jim had given it back to him. It rested silently on one of the exam tables in its unique way of staying completely stationary without the need of a stand. It stood there on the table, looking rather unassuming.
However, unnoticed by the science officers who were working in the science lab, the Corvinian sphere had begun to minutely vibrate the moment that Jim had collapsed up in the conference room. As time had passed by, while Jim was being rushed to Sickbay, the sphere had continued to vibrate, and the energy that was held inside of it had stopped swirling at random and was slowly beginning to swirl in one uniform direction.
It was as if the sphere had sensed that something was very wrong, and was getting... agitated without drawing attention to itself.
Indeed, had this change in the sphere been noticed, the science lad personnel would find it to be very unusual behavior coming from what was thought to be an inanimate orb of energy.
A good two and a half hours later back in Sickbay...
Spock was still standing before the closed doors of the examination room McCoy had taken Jim into. The Vulcan had not moved even in the slightest from this spot in the one hundred and fifty minutes that had passed since he had carried Jim into Sickbay himself. But while Spock had not moved, around him there were several more familiar faces waiting along side him now. Standing in a small group a few feet behind Spock were Uhura, Chekov, Scotty, and Keenser. Sulu was still manning the conn like Spock had ordered him to, but the ship was almost at a stand-still, so the Lieutenant had not hesitated when Uhura and Chekov asked to be excused from the bridge for a moment to come down to Sickbay. News of the captain's collapse had spread like wild-fire, leaving everyone on edge and worried sick. Scotty, upon hearing the grave news, had rushed to Sickbay as well with Keenser right behind him. The two of them quickly joined Uhura and Chekov and together, the four of them stood in silent support for Spock and waited with along with him for news about Jim.
The group consisting of one Vulcan, three humans, and one small green lizard alien continued to wait for many more unbearably long minutes before finally, the small square-shaped red light above the doors to the exam room was extinguished, signaling that the doctor was finished.
Unconsciously, everyone from Spock, all the way down to Keenser held their breath as they waited the remaining seconds for the doors to the exam room to open. Uhura, Chekov, Scotty, and Keenser all stepped forward till they were all standing just a few feet behind Spock.
Then with a small hiss, the doors to the exam room were sliding open. At that moment, Spock experienced this illogical feeling of everything slowing down as if they were all in some kind of film.
The doors of the private exam room slid all the way open to reveal Dr. McCoy's emergency medical staff. The nurses and doctors that had made up McCoy's team all filed out of the room, all of them looking haggard after what had been a very long battle. Under Spock's sharp scrutiny, he noticed that several members of the team be they nurse or doctor also looked like they were doing their best to keep their expressions as neutral as possible. But Spock could see right through the crumbling veneer they were trying to put up as they walked past him,, he could see that many of the nurses and doctors were deeply shaken but what had unfolded behind closed doors.
Spock felt the gnawing unease he had been feeling throughout the entire two hours and thirty he had been waiting increase ten-fold in the pit of his stomach. The Vulcan watched the members of the emergency medical team filed out of the room, until his eyes caught sight of the one person who had been in charge during the entire ordeal. Spock stepped forward and side stepped the last nurse of the medical team. Spock came to a stop directly in front of Dr. McCoy.
" Doctor, what is the captain's status?" Asked Spock.
Bones slowly looked up to meet the Vulcan's dark, inquiring eyes. The Chief Medical Officer of the USS Enterprise seemed to have aged several years in mere hours. The color from his usually tanned features was all but gone. But it was the good doctor's eyes that had something inside Spock feeling a deep, awful chill.
The doctor's eyes, usually hard and determined, now seemed filled with loss, confusion, and utter disbelief.
Bones looked at Spock at just stared at him for several agonizingly long seconds. Then the good doctor finally parted his slightly colorless lips and spoke.
" Spock... I think it's best that we go to my office." He said softly.
Spock felt this strange roaring in his ears, like a storm was raging against his sensitive Vulcan ear-drums. Spock battled back the tightness that had suddenly made his throat constrict through sheer will and spoke.
" Please Leonard, just tell me." He said softly, and with what little stoicism he could muster.
Bones felt something inside him shatter at Spock's words, but years of professionalism and sheer strength of will helped the doctor keep the despair from showing on his face as he spoke.
" Spock I... I don't really know how to tell you this." He began and then fell silent as the words he had formulated in his mind suddenly left him.
" Doctor, you may be as blunt as you wish, just tell me the status of my bondmate, has his condition improved?" Interjected Spock, having no patience for sensitivity at the moment.
Bones took in a deep, steadying breath before he forced himself to just say it like Spock had asked.
" I'm not gonna lie to you Spock, Jim's condition is critical. We stabilized him as best we could, but his life signs are still weakening. My scans show that even though he doesn't have a single mark on him, not even any actual physical injury to his brain, his brain functions resemble those of someone who had suffered a catastrophic stroke." The Doctor explained, his voice wavering on the last few words he spoke.
For Spock, it was like someone had disabled the ship's inertial dampeners.
Jim... His beloved T'hy'la... Catastrophic stroke?
These words were not meant to be spoken in the same sentence, not ever. And yet, that was exactly was McCoy had just told Spock.
Spock having adopted the ways of Surak, hid his disbelief well as he spoke.
" Doctor, you are certain of this?" He asked.
" Yes Spock, I ran five different scans of Jim's brain activity, and they all told me the same damn thing Spock. His brain may look perfectly healthy, but it's been hurt bad... Most likely... beyond repair." Replied Bones, his voice faltering on the last two words.
This time, Spock felt the world shift even more profoundly than just moments ago.
" No, this cannot be... It cannot." Whispered Spock as he vehemently shook his head.
Bones watched in silent horror as Spock's mask of control began to disintegrate before his very eyes. Not being able to stand the sight, Bones reached out and gripped Spock by the shoulder as he spoke.
" Spock please, I know this just shocked the hell out of you, but you have to keep it together for Jim's sake. I promise you, I will do everything that is within my power to save him, to fix whatever the Hell happened to him, but right now he needs you more than ever. Do you get that Spock?" He asked urgently.
Spock eyed the naked desperation that was radiating and it made something in the Vulcan harden once in a small breath, Spock looked McCoy straight in the eye and spoke.
" I understand what you are saying Doctor. Please inform the rest of the crew of the situation." He ordered sternly.
" Of course Spock." Said Bones as he somewhat reluctantly withdrew his hand away from the Vulcan's shoulder and nodded.
Spock's eyes lost there new found determination for a moment as he spoke.
" Dr. McCoy, I wish to be by my mate's side, is that allowable?" He asked.
" Of course Spock. You and Jim share a telepathic link, maybe you being near him will help heal whatever it is that is causing his abnormal brain activity." Replied Bones softly.
Spock nodded mutely before he turned sharply on his heels and strode towards the examination room where his T'hy'la lay. The Vulcan did not spare Uhura, Chekov, Scotty, Keenser, or anyone else a single glance. His sole focus was getting to Jim, and seeing for himself just what state his husband had been reduced to.
When he reached the threshold of the examination room, Spock paused for a moment, a small part of him not wanting to know what he would find inside the medical room. But the Vulcan quickly quashed this part of himself and steadied his resolved before he stepped across the threshold and into the examination room.
Like Dr. McCoy had said, he had to keep it together for Jim's sake.
But in addition, Spock knew he had to be strong and composed for his own sake as well, for in no way was he ready to let go of Jim, not by a long shot, and not without one Hell of a fight against whatever this freak disease was that was trying to take Jim from him.