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 11: So Close, Yet So Far Away

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" Wot the Hell are ya sayin' Doctor McCoy?" Asked Scotty, his accented voice soft with shock as he stared at the ship's chief medical officer with wide, disbelieving eyes. Beside Scotty, Uhura, Chekov, Sulu, and Keenser all stood with identical expressions on their faces. From where he stood before the small group, Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy felt like he was slowly being sucked into a black hole underneath his feet.

The doctor had just informed the rest of the command crew of their captain's truly dire situation. Taking in a deep breath through his nostrils in order to steady his slightly threadbare nerves, Bones spoke and explained.

" There's no other way to describe it. Based on all the scans and tests I've run, the captain's brain activity indicates that he's suffered some kind of catastrophic brain injury, like a massive stroke. But physically, his brain is completely fine, not a scratch on it."

" How is that even possible?" Asked Uhura softly.

" I don't know. In all the years that I've been practicing medicine, I've never seen anything like this." Said Bones with a frustrated shake of his head.

Then Chekov slowly stepped forward and spoke while he stared at Bones with veiled desperation shining within his eyes.

" You vill bee able to fix it right?" Asked the young ensign. " Zhere iz a vay back from zhis for zhe keptin?"

Bones felt his heart slam to a dead stop inside his chest when Chekov's words registered in his mind. What could he say? How could he possibly give the kid standing before him a definitive answer? What kind of answer could he possibly give to the four people and one tiny, humanoid lizard-teddy bear alien, considering what he knew as a doctor about the type of injury Jim was suffering from?

Bones stood there with the expectant eyes of the command crew and one tiny-lizard alien all zeroed in on him. Bones parted his lip to say something, anything, but nothing would come out. His vocal cords had simply shut down. Averting his gaze for a moment, Bones used every ounce of will he had in him to keep himself from falling apart right then and there. The the doctor forced himself to look back up and meet the many gazes that were trained on him. Taking in a deep, rattling breath, Bones forced his vocal cords out of the paralysis that gripped them and spoke.

" I don't know Kid." He said softly. " God knows that I will try everything I can to get the Captain out of this, but it doesn't look good."

Then Bones turned his head to stare at the closed doors of the private ICU chamber where his best friend and Captain basically lay comatose.

" It doesn't look good at all." Bones said.

Chekov, Uhura, Scotty, Sulu, and Keenser all turned there gazes to the closed door as well, a myriad of warring emotions written across every line of all of their faces.

Meanwhile, behind the closed door itself...

The constant, unfailing sound of the medical monitoring equipment was loud and like a blaring alarm in Spock's acutely sensitive Vulcan ears. Spock was standing at the foot of Jim's bed, and the sight before him was something straight out of some hellish nightmare. Jim lay on the bio-bed, completely flat and unmoving. The color was completely gone from Jim's normally sun-kissed skin, and there were dark bruise-like circles under his eyes. The dimmed lighting of the Sickbay ICU only served to add more to this ghastly image. There was a small nasal-canula like apparatus over Jim's face, supplying him with fresh, pure oxygen. Jim's chest rose and fell with a steady pace, but his breath was far too shallow for Spock's liking.

The best way to describe how Spock was feeling, would have to be that he was completely numb at this point. Everything was too raw, too overwhelming for even Spock to compute. The Vulcan stood there by the foot of his mate's bed, frozen in place and just staring at the unconscious human. The beeping noise from the monitoring equipment droned on and on without fail. However illogical it was, Spock prayed that this steady beeping continued on without fail, for it was the sign that Jim's vitals, though weak, were stable. Taking in a deep, rattling breath Spock finally forced his leaden libs to motion. The Vulcan slowly began walking around the foot of Jim's bed further up till he came to stand by Jim's head. The Vulcan than reached for a nearby Sickbay chair and pulled it close to Jim's bed before he slowly sank down onto it.

Now Spock sat and stared at his fallen mate yet again, so close now that he could see the tiny wrinkles hat graces Jim's pale, colorless lips. Taking in another deep breath, Spock slowly reached out towards his mate. His pale hand hovered over one of Jim's ghostly white cheeks for several moments, like Spock was afraid that Jim would shatter at the barest touch. Spock finally willed himself to move past this illogical hesitation and actually touch his husband. Spock barely bit back a gasp when his sensitive fingers finally came to gently cup Jim's cheek.

Jim's skin felt almost ice-cold, and the sensation of this coldness against his fingers had Spock silently feeling a fresh wave of terror turn his copper-based blood to ice in his veins. Not being able to stand this, Spock all but shot to his feet and loomed over his senseless mate, Reached out with his other hand, Spock came to hold Jim's face in his hands. Then the Vulcan leaned in and gently pressed his lips to Jim's colorless and unresponsive one. Spock chastely kissed his mate for several long moments before he drew a way and began showering Jim's entire face with gentle kisses, as through he were trying to bring back the warmth in Jim's skin by doing so.

Throughout this, Jim continued to lay pale and silent. Spock did not let up for several minutes. Spock finally did stop when he felt a tell-tale burn start up behind his eyes. Letting out a shaky breath, Spock buried his face into the side of his beloved T'hy'la's neck and spoke.

" Ashayam, if you can hear me at all, please, please open your eyes." Spock Whispered against Jim's neck. " Open your eyes, I need you, I need you to come back to me. You must come back to me Jim, please Ashayam, please."

After that, Spock's voice drifted off into a never ending litany of Vulcan which he whispered against Jim's throat, all the while not releasing his hold on Jim in the slightest. Throughout all of this, Jim remained in his state of unconsciousness, leaving Spock to wonder if Jim was hearing him, or if he could hear him at all.

Meanwhile, deep within the deep recesses of Jim's damaged psyche...

Jim let out a soft, low groan as his pale blue eyes slowly fluttered open. Jim's eyes immediately fell shut just moment later as the young man let out another groan. He hurt all over, and there was something cold and grainy rubbing against his cheek where he lay almost flat on his front. Jim lay there for several long moment before he finally will his leaden limbs into motion. Jim gritted his teeth as the backs of his hands dragged across more the frigid, gritty surface he was laying on as he slowly got his hands underneath his body and slowly pushed up.

" Ah... Crap." Jim hissed as he slowly rose. He came to sit back on his knees as he groaned and blinked away the bleariness from his eyes.

The moment his vision cleared, Jim's hearts slammed to a dead-stop inside his chest while his eyes grew wide and his jaw hung open like a broken hinge. All around Jim was a vast, seemingly endless desert of blackish-purple sand. Last he remembered, Jim had been on board a star-ship smack in the middle of Space, no where near Earth, or any desert planets for that matter. This was definitely not the Enterprise.

" Where the Hell am I?" Jim asked out loud in as he jerked his head every direction he could in order to get a good look at his new, and rather alarmingly alien surroundings.

Jim quickly rose up onto his feet, only swaying slightly for a fleeting moment before he steadied himself and continued looking at his surroundings. It was almost like he was in one of the deserts of Africa back on Earth, only Earth didn't have blackish-purple sand anywhere on it as far as Jim knew. All around him were dunes upon dunes of this strange sand. WHen Jim turned his gaze upwards, he was met with a sky unlike any other sky he had ever seen in his life. The sky itself was a deep, indigo hue, but there were no clouds or stars, just a blank expanse of this deep indigo color that seemed to stretch to eternity much like the desert.

Jim looked down at his hands and saw that they were lightly caked with the dark sand. Without thinking, Jim lightly brushed them against his legs in an effort to clean them off as much as possible. It was then that Jim saw that he was not wearing his duty uniform like he last recalled. Instead he was in the same attire he had been wearing during the Narada incident, black Starfleet issue pants, boots, and long-sleeve shirt.

" What the hell's going on?" Jim asked out loud.

Then out of nowhere a cold, bone-chillingly cold wind suddenly picked up and began mercilessly buffeting Jim.

" Oh my God!" Jim yelled as he tried to shield himself against this frigid wind. It was like someone was throwing ice-cubes right at him.

Jim hadn't felt this cold since that time Spock had marooned him of Delta Vega during the Narada incident and...

Jim suddenly stood bolt upright, seemingly forgetting all about the cold air that seemed to be attacking him. His mind had become solely focused on one thing. Taking in a deep breath, Jim let his voice fly.

" SPOCK!" Jim yelled as loud as he could.

Jim's voice echoed through the vast expanse that surrounded him, but there was no reply to his scream, only the dead silence of the desert. Jim took of running, he ran hard towards one of the numerous sand dunes that stood like a silent spectator to his plight. Jim ran up the dune with some difficulty, his boots slipping several times under the loose blackish-purple sand. Jim did reach the top of the dune, and when he did he drew in a deep breath and yelled out as loud as he could once more.

" SPOOOOOOOCK!"

Again Jim's voice echoed through the still air until it died into a cold silence. Jim rapidly whirled around, looking every which way for any sign of something, anything.

Jim felt his insides turn to ice as cold dread began to wash over him. Here was standing at the top of a sand dune, in the middle of a desert full of sand dunes and dead air.

He was all alone.

Jim felt his breath pick up and his heart pounded hard against his sternum as he continued to frantically look about his cold and desolate surroundings.

Then something caught the corner of Jim's eye. The young man immediately turned his full attention in the direction of the as of yet unknown thing that had caught his eye. There in the distance, Jim could see a minute flicker of light amidst the blackish-purple sand. It was like the glint of the sun off of some kind of metal. But Jim immediately found this to be very odd considering that the sky up above him was dark, with no sun to give of a light that could glint off of metal.

Suddenly, Jim's knees nearly gave out on him as he felt this overwhelming pulling sensation take over his body. It was almost like the magnified pull of gravity, only instead of pulling him down towards the ground, it was pulling him forward towards what was flickering brightly off in the distance like a mirage.

No really knowing what was happening, and with his body seemingly moving of its own volition, Jim began walking down the other side of the sand dune he had climb, all but sliding down. Once he reached the base of the dune, Jim continued to walk.

Jim did not know what this place was, or why he was here, but all he was certain of at this point was that he needed to get to whatever place that flickering light was coming from.

He just knew that he had to get there.

With this in mind, Jim began walking across the seemingly endless desert plain of blackish-purple sand.