Hello loves! At last, we have reached the final chapter of Blood Loss. Maybe by now you have caught on to the double meaning in the title :]

Thanks so much for sticking around. I hope you have had fun with this little foray into rebooting TOS.

Enjoy!

Jim entered the sickbay with Uhura, relieved to see only a handful of crewmen waiting to be treated for minor injuries. However, when his look around the room failed to provide him with Spock or Sarek, he wiped his damp palms on his pants.

"Bones?" he called.

"They're probably fine," Uhura said quietly, reassuringly. "McCoy is likely just cleaning up."

"Bones?" Jim called out again. Then he looked at Uhura, who had a hand placed reassuringly on his shoulder. "I'm fine," he insisted. "Promise."

It was true, Uhura had helped him most of the way down to sickbay, one arm loosely around his waist while he limped along, too tired and too out of breath with discomfort to say much—but he would never admit that to Bones. He wouldn't admit that he'd puked up his guts halfway down the sickway hallway with Uhura embarrassingly standing by. He wouldn't admit it.

But, knowing Bones, the doctor would likely figure it out anyway.

At last, the doctor appeared around a corner, drying his hands on a towel. He too looked exhausted, and his face was unreadable. "Are you quite through shaking the ship around?"

Jim was in no mood for jokes. "Spock, Sarek. How are they?"

Bones raised his eyebrows. "I don't mind telling you, but you sure make it difficult for a surgeon trying—"

"Bones!" Jim cried.

The doctor rolled his eyes. "Okay, don't get your panties in a bunch. Come in."

All hurt was forgotten in lieu of urgency as Jim followed his friend around a corner and through a door into the private ward of sickbay. The knot in his stomach was only alleviated when he saw Spock and Sarek awake and alert in their beds, both looking with interest at the small group. Jim grinned and moved to the foot of Spock's biobed, feeling all worry and tension leak from his body the more he saw his friend react.

"That pig-headed Vulcan stamina," Bones was saying. "I couldn't have pulled them through without it."

"Some doctors have all the luck," Jim said off-handedly, still too dazed with relief to say much else.

"Captain," Spock said, "I believe you'll find the alien—"

"We damaged their ship," Jim said, shaking his head to cut Spock off. "They destroyed themselves to avoid capture. Bones, Thelev's body will be brought to your lab. I want an autopsy performed as soon as possible."

"I think you'll find he's an Orion, Doctor," Spock added.

Bones frowned. "Orion?"

Spock nodded. "Intelligence reports that Orion smugglers have been raiding the Coridan system."

"But what would they gain by an attack on Starfleet?" Jim's forehead creased in confusion.

"Mutual suspicion and interplanetary war."

It hit Jim all at once, a refreshing flood of realization. "Yes, of course. With Orion carefully neutral, they'd clean up supplying dilithium to both sides and continue to raid Coridan."

"The thing that confused me was the power utilization curve," Spock said. "It made them seem more powerful than a starship or anything known to us. That ship was constructed for a suicide mission. Since they never intended to return to their home base, they could use 100 percent power on their attacks. The thing I don't understand is why I didn't think of it earlier."

He looked so disturbed, so befuddled, that Jim couldn't help but shoot him a sympathetic smile. "You might have had something else on your mind."

Instead of comforting the Vulcan, this only seemed to deepen his confused frown. "That hardly seems likely."

Jim shot a pointed glance at Uhura, and the two rolled their eyes in unison. "No, but thank you anyway," he said dryly.

"And Sarek," Uhura said, stepping forward. Her face was kind, but determined. "Wouldn't you like to say thank you to your son?"

Jim shot her a panicked warning glance—but this was the woman who stood alone against an armored group of Klingons without flinching.

"I do not understand," Sarek said, frowning.

"For saving your life." Uhura kept her gaze steady and resolute, even while Jim and Bones were simultaneously flinching back.

To their surprise, Sarek did not respond with his usual coldness. He regarded Uhura with fascination. To Jim, it seemed as if something long-forgotten flickered in the old Vulcan's eyes.

"Spock acted in the only logical manner open to him," he said, keeping his stare fixed on the Lieutenant.

Spock nodded his agreement. "One does not thank logic, Nyota."

Suddenly Uhura's composure snapped. "Logic!" she turned, frenzied, to Jim for support, but he backed away like a frightened dog. "Logic, logic! I'm sick to death of logic. Do you want to know how I feel about logic?"

Sarek tilted his head toward Spock. "Emotional, isn't she?"

Spock, however, kept his focus on a fuming Uhura. "She has always been that way."

From his biobed, Sarek nodded. "Your mother was the same way."

A beat. Then: "Why did you marry her?"

A calmness seemed to wash over Sarek, an understanding. A revelation, even. "Why did you choose Ms. Uhura as a companion?"

Uhura whipped her head back toward Spock, who had not ceased to hold her in his stare. For a minute, Jim saw it; saw the human eyes, full of loss and longing, of caution and compassion.

"It has seemed…the logical thing to do."

The pause that followed was quiet, tender. Uhura softened, swallowing as she too took in Spock's eyes and the meaning behind them. The two shared the moment in soft understanding, a connection that seemed in one moment to bridge a time that had been lost. A look that seemed to say it will be okay, and so much more.

As usual, it was Jim who rudely interrupted the gentle moment by promptly beginning to collapse. The relief of seeing his friend alive had worn off completely, as had the adrenaline, and every pain in his body surged forward with renewed intensity. The world swirled in dizzying contortions, and he swayed. "Bones…"

The doctor was quick, sprinting across the room and catching the Captain by the armpits just before he collapsed to the floor.

"No, no, I'm alright," Jim slurred, dimly feeling as if he was somewhere outside of his body.

"No, you're about to pass out," Bones said sternly, guiding him to an empty biobed. "I told you, didn't I, that you would over-exert yourself."

"'m fine," Jim murmured. "Just need to walk it off."

"The last thing you need to be doing is walking," Bones said, laying an increasingly unresponsive Jim down in the biobed gently. "If you keep arguing with your kindly family doctor, you're going to spend your next ten days right here." He paused, frowning. "If you cooperate, you'll be out in two."

Across the room, Spock began rising from his bed. "Doctor, I'll return to my station now."

Bones shot a threatening glance Spock's direction, a stare fierce enough to freeze even the Vulcan in place. "You are at your station Mr. Spock." Slowly, keeping his eyes on the red-faced doctor, Spock shifted his legs back under the covers of the biobed.

"Doctor McCoy," Jim said blearily, raising his head off of the pillow with effort, "I believe you are enjoying all of this."

Spock met the Captain's gaze across the room and nodded. "Indeed, Captain; I've never seen him look so happy."

"Shut up," Bones shot the Vulcan's way. When Jim opened his mouth to make another remark, the doctor turned on him. "Shh!" Jim tried again, but Bones held up a finger. "Shh!" Immediately Jim's mouth clamped shut, and he dropped his head back onto the pillow again in resignation.

There was silence in the ward, complete stillness, as every eye fixed on Bones. The doctor looked around, challenging them all, daring them to speak again, but everyone was mute. After a few seconds of this, Bones' face transformed into a grin—a true, genuine grin.

"Well, what do you know?" he asked no one in particular, puffing himself up. "I finally got the last word!"

It had to happen, guys. Because Bones is the best.

Anyway, I cannot express the extent of my gratitude to you all for your continued support and encouragement. It makes me happy beyond words to read what you have to say and see that people are reading my work.

Two orders of business:

1. I really failed at this in my last story, because apparently I don't understand the internet, so if you would like to check out my Tumblr, my url is pennflinn. I love talking to y'all through there as well!

2. I'm taking story requests! I don't have any more fics planned out right now, so if you would like to see something, let me know. I'm pretty busy with school now, but I get such joy out of these characters. Character studies? More reboots of episodes? A happy alternative ending to It Goes On? Let me know! (Although we all know the last one won't happen...muahahaha)

Anyway, long story short, thank you so so much for everything. Loves.

Till next time,

-Penn