12.

'… and get me the cardio-stimulator!'

Spock reintroduction to the Enterprise was a rough one, as he was manoeuvred swiftly from someone's arms onto a gurney that felt uncomfortably cold under his back. He blinked at the bright lights above him, registering a brief impression of the shuttle bay ceiling, before being jarred back to the physicality of his own body by the tight, crushing pain in his chest and the fact that he seemed unable to breathe. He had not even realised that he had fallen asleep – or more likely, fallen unconscious. He had a clear memory of Kirk carrying him to the small aircar, and perhaps later of a transfer to his hired shuttle, but at that point his awareness became hazy.

A drug hissed into his arm, the sharp sting of the hypo focussing his attention for a moment. A mask pressed over his nose and mouth, and the feeling of peine fort et dure lessened as oxygen rushed into his lungs. There was a ripping noise, and he felt cold air on his torso, and then the cold shock of the cardio-stimulator touching his ribs just above where his heart lay – and then he drifted into unconsciousness again.

'Bones, will he make it?' Kirk asked, staring urgently at the doctor over Spock's pallid form.

McCoy did not look up from his work. 'Should do,' he muttered. 'Just let me work. Christine, give me that dibenoline,' he said, holding out his hand.

Christine Chapel appeared to be in shock, caught between joy that the Vulcan was alive and concern about his condition, but she passed the hypo over without hesitation, doing her job as always despite her personal feelings.

'All right, let's move him,' McCoy said briskly, taking a reading as the drug began to work. 'He's stable enough to last to sickbay.'

And the medical team left the shuttle bay in a well trained blur of speed, leaving Kirk alone in a sudden silence that seemed to press in on his eardrums.

He stood motionless for a second, deliberately pulling back a professional façade over his personal worry. Then he moved stiffly to the intercom and punched the button with his clenched fist.

'Security, this is the captain,' he said in a clipped voice. 'Send a team to the shuttle bay to transport an unconscious prisoner to the brig.'

An acknowledgement came, but he did not wait to hear it. Instead he moved back to the small private shuttle and roughly pulled the unconscious form of Malis Arkania out onto the shuttle bay floor. He stood staring down at her unconscious face, her dark, untidy hair and slightly parted lips. She did not look capable of vicious murder, or of infiltrating a man's mind until he was almost sent mad. In sleep, she just looked like any other woman.

He deliberately turned his back on her. If he continued to focus on her feminine ordinariness he feared that a kernel of sympathy might begin to grow in him. She deserved no sympathy. She had almost caused Spock's death, twice now. She had raped that dear, intelligent mind. She had sown fear and bewilderment and guilt in someone who had done nothing wrong, and had continued to harass him right up to the point of his supposed execution. There had been absolutely no mercy in her actions. He would show no mercy in his.

He waited just long enough to give the security team brief explanations and instructions, and then turned on his heel and followed the familiar route to sickbay, and Spock.

He was frustrated by a shut door and a determined nurse standing outside it.

'Mr Spock's in surgery, sir,' she said quickly as Kirk stepped toward the door that she was trying to bar to him. 'No one's allowed in.'

'Nurse – er – Gable,' he nodded, stretching to bring the woman's personnel listing into his head. 'That's very commendable, but Dr McCoy didn't mean – '

'Dr McCoy specifically mentioned your name, sir,' she said with a mixture of firmness and apology. 'He can't be disturbed. He's working on the weakness in Mr Spock's heart, and he can't have distractions. The door's locked – on a medical command code,' she added, as Kirk showed an inclination to push past her anyway.

The captain sighed, and then smiled tiredly. 'I have to commend you for doing your job, Nurse Gable. See that the doctor calls me as soon as he's able.'

'I will, sir,' she said sincerely. 'And, sir – ' she said as Kirk began to turn away.

'Yes, Nurse?'

'We're all very pleased to have Mr Spock back,' she said with a gentle smile. 'It's the most unexpected gift…'

'Yes,' Kirk nodded slowly. 'Yes, Mr Spock is an unexpected gift, isn't he?' He turned back to her, more inclined to talk now he knew that there was nothing immediate that he could do. 'Did – the doctor say anything about his chances?'

'They're good,' she nodded crisply. 'The operation holds its own risks, but both he and Dr M'Benga are very experienced with Mr Spock's physiology. Dr McCoy said – and I quote – *tell the captain it's his job to keep the ship straight and level. Let me see to Spock.*'

Kirk smiled. McCoy always managed to be reassuring in his own unique way.

'Well, I think I'll trust Mr Scott to keep the ship safe and level for now,' he smiled. 'And what about Commander Stevenson, Nurse?' he began, picking a subject that might both be useful and keep his mind off the very vital operation going on only a few metres away. 'How has he compared to Mr Spock as a science officer?'

The nurse looked down at her boots, her clasped hands moving awkwardly.

'Well, I – It's hard to compare such different characters, sir,' she began tentatively.

Kirk moved a little closer. 'Off the record, Nurse. I'm intrigued. How have you found him?'

She cleared her throat nervously, then smiled quickly and said, 'I find him – a little rigid, sir. He's not the easiest person to work alongside in the labs.'

Kirk's eyebrow raised. That could be a description of Spock, by someone who was unfamiliar with the Vulcan, or did not like him very much. But rigidity in a Vulcan was an expected frame for their personality. Rigidity in a human science officer was something altogether different.

'You don't like him?' he asked in an undertone.

She shook her head quickly. 'I – don't think many people like him, sir,' she said in a rushed voice. 'I'm sure he's an excellent officer, but – '

'That's fine, Nurse,' Kirk nodded, touching a hand to her arm to spare her any further uncomfortable admissions. 'That's all I wanted to know. I've only met the man briefly. I needed to know what to expect.'

He exhaled a long, pent-up breath. He had not realised until now that he seemed to have been holding his breath since Spock began to experience cardiac difficulties again in the aircar en route to the shuttle park.

'Well,' he said slowly. 'I – guess I've got calls to make. I'll use the doctor's transmitter, Nurse. If he wants me, I'll be in his office.'

'I'll let him know, sir,' she nodded, and Kirk left the room, trying to work out what the hell he was going to say to Command.

******

Commodore Harley Statten looked both exasperated and faintly pleased as he looked out at Kirk through the viewscreen in McCoy's office. It was obviously the middle of the night where he was – he was not even in uniform, but clad in a dark burgundy dressing gown that was tied firmly across an obviously bare chest. He had sat very patiently, however, as Kirk had explained at length exactly *why* he was calling at this unpleasant hour.

'Let me get this clear, Jim,' he asked in his clipped, precise voice as Kirk fell silent. 'Commander Spock is not dead. He was not executed on Malker.'

'No, sir,' Kirk said, rubbing a hand awkwardly over his forehead. 'Well, sir – to be exact, they *thought* they'd executed him, but he was – well – '

Statten exhaled, looking briefly at another screen. 'Let's leave that for the doctor's report to explain, eh, Jim?' he asked. 'But – you're saying that the Malkerians *believe* him to be dead. They have no idea that he didn't die?'

'As far as I'm aware, sir,' Kirk nodded.

'And he *did not* commit the murder for which he was convicted?'

'No, sir.'

'But – you have the supposed murderer on board the ship with you? In fact, you assaulted and abducted a Malkerian citizen at the same time that you smuggled a condemned prisoner off their planet?'

'Y-es, sir,' Kirk said with rather more hesitation. 'But she was attacking Spock – '

'Telepathically,' Statten interjected.

'Telepathically, yes,' Kirk nodded. 'But cripplingly. His heart condition meant that if I'd allowed her to continue it would have killed him.'

'And you thought the only solution to this problem was to kidnap a Malkerian citizen at the same time as returning your – friend – to the Enterprise? For God's sake, why, Jim? Why not just bring him back, let your doctor fix him, and let him slip anonymously into society somewhere a long way away from Malkerian space? Why abduct a Malkerian and then tell *me* about it, for God's sake, so that I'm duty bound to *do* something about it?'

'Because Spock's innocent,' Kirk said stubbornly. 'And I want to prove his innocence, and have him reinstated in Starfleet with his former rank and position. I won't have him live like a fugitive on the boundaries of society. He's given his life to Starfleet, goddammit, and they did nothing to help him when he was facing trial on Malker, *or* when he was facing execution. It's time for Starfleet to give something back.'

It was Statten's turn to rub his hand over his face in exasperation.

'There would have been a hundred better ways to do this, Jim,' he said. 'Most of which don't include abducting a citizen of a non-Federation planet.'

'Not that would give Spock back his life and his career and his reputation,' Kirk said firmly. 'The *only* way to do that was to get my hands on the real criminal here. Will you just give me enough leeway, sir – just a few weeks – to secure the confession that will clear Spock? He was never given a chance at defence on Malker. Let him have it now.'

Statten sighed. 'I'll do what I can, Jim. I can see how important this is to you. And – privately, I don't believe Spock is guilty any more than you do. It suits Federation Legal for this crime to have been committed by a renegade Vulcan – they can hope to shrug that off as having nothing to do with Starfleet – but it's a damn thin story to me.'

Kirk laughed shortly at that.

'It suits Fed Legal for Spock to have done it because they think they'll get back into negotiations with Malker. It suits the Malkerian opposition party for Spock to have done it because it'll turn the populace dead against the negotiations. It's – a little crazy, isn't it, Harley?'

Commodore Statten smiled. 'Diplomacy is a little crazy, Jim. Dealing with two sets of people with vastly different mindsets and cultural backgrounds. Diplomacy's the craziest card in the pack. That's the problem.' He smiled again in sympathy at the look of exhaustion on Kirk's face. 'Jim, you look like you haven't slept in a week. Get some rest. I'll do what I can to iron out the ructions you've caused, and I'll get back to you. Okay?'

Kirk nodded tiredly, and smiled. 'All right, Harley. Thank you. I appreciate it – more than you can know.'

He waited, as protocol dictated, for the Commodore to cut the communication, then rested his head down on folded arms, and sighed. Rest seemed very tempting, but there were still shreds of adrenaline catching in his bloodstream, and he knew he had no hope of sleeping while he was still waiting to hear of Spock's progress.

Something must have happened to his exhausted body, however, because when he heard a voice behind him saying, 'Sir – ' in a very formal tone he sat bolt upright, momentarily bewildered as to where he was or how much time had passed.

'Where – ?' he began, then, 'Spock? Is he – ?'

'Yes, sir, I wanted to talk to you about Mr Spock,' the formal voice continued, and he focussed his eyes on the relatively unfamiliar face of Commander Stevenson, the replacement Science Officer.

He rubbed a hand over bleary eyes, saying, 'Sorry, Commander. I must have dropped off. What was it you wanted to say about Commander Spock?'

'I was a little confused about the presence of *Mr* Spock on the ship,' Stevenson said, putting heavy emphasis on the word *Mr*.

Kirk blinked, still too addled by sleep to fully take in the man's tone.

'It must seem a little odd,' he conceded. 'By – a miracle of biology – Spock did not die on Malker, and he escaped from captivity. I just got him back here – he needs urgent treatment.'

'Sir, he's a convicted criminal,' Stevenson said coldly.

Kirk blinked again, in amazement this time as he realised the thrust of Stevenson's apparent problem.

'Commander Spock is innocent,' he said shrugged, trying to keep the conversation from descending into the conflict that he sensed Stevenson wanted. 'And anyway – he served his sentence.'

Stevenson shuffled his feet. 'With all due respect, sir, his sentence was not properly carried out.'

'Are you saying that Spock should have been *executed*? Should still be executed?' Kirk asked incredulously. A cold feeling clenched at his heart just at the thought of that possibility.

Commander Stevenson shrugged, the expression on his face one of complete seriousness. 'Well, sir. It was the sentence for his crime…'

Kirk's face hardened. 'I'll have no advocates of the death penalty on my ship, mister. We live in a civilised society.'

Commander Stevenson shook his head slowly, then said, 'I'm sorry, sir. But my belief stands. An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.'

'Do you also advocate sacrificing a pigeon when a woman gets her menstrual period?' Kirk asked tartly. When Stevenson reacted with blankness, he smiled. 'No. I guessed not. You just pick and choose which tenets to live by.'

'I'm – not sure that I understand your meaning, sir,' Stevenson said slowly. 'But I'll be sure not to air those views on duty, Captain.'

'See that you don't,' Kirk said in a hard tone. 'In very little time Commander Spock will be declared innocent – and then I think a lot of people will be *very* grateful that the Malkerian punishment for Spock's supposed crime didn't work out.'

'Meantime, sir,' Stevenson said relentlessly. 'He should be held in the brig.'

Kirk's mouth opened, and after a moment he realised that he was gaping at the man without speaking. He snapped mouth shut again, and folded his arms across his chest.

'Mr Stevenson, you are a *science officer,*' Kirk said meaningfully. 'Mr Scott is the First Officer of this ship for now. Your duties are limited to scientific matters, not security. And Commander Spock's location aboard this ship is *my* decision,' he said with steel in his voice. 'At the moment, he has no choice but to stay in the sickbay. After then, he will return to his quarters. And as soon as he is reinstated within Starfleet he will be back on duty, and you will be *off my ship*, mister.'

Stevenson blinked, then said in a level voice, 'If I may be excused, sir…'

'You're excused,' Kirk said dismissively, turning away so he did not need to see the man leaving the room.

The door swished closed, and Kirk sat still at the desk, trembling with naked rage and shock at Stevenson's attitude. After a moment he pulled back some semblance of control, and pressed the button on the intercom.

'Kirk to bridge,' he said in a low voice. 'Uhura?'

'Lieutenant Palmer, sir,' came the cultured voice of the reserve communications officer. 'Lieutenant Uhura is off duty.'

'Palmer,' Kirk nodded. He had forgotten that it was the middle of the night on the Enterprise, at least as far as alpha shift was concerned. 'Sorry, Lieutenant. Miss Palmer, I want you to keep a tab on a crewmember's communications for me. Let me know if anything is sent off ship.'

'Of course, sir,' she said quickly. Such a request was not terribly unusual. 'Which crewmember, sir?'

'Commander Stevenson – the new science officer.'

'Yes, sir,' she said with more alacrity. Kirk was quickly gaining the sense that very few people on board the ship were particularly fond of Stevenson. 'I could block off-ship communications for him, if you like? Tell him there are technical difficulties?'

'No…' Kirk said slowly. 'Just monitor, and if possible record. Particularly communications to Command.'

'Of course, sir,' she said quickly. 'Will that be all, Captain?'

'That's all, Lieutenant,' he nodded.

'Then, Palmer out. Oh, and – welcome back, sir.'

'Thank you, Lieutenant,' Kirk smiled. 'Appreciated.'

He sat staring aimlessly at the desk for a few minutes – then rested his head down again on his folded arms. He had never expected his reintroduction to his ship to be a smooth one, considering the circumstances, but right now all he wanted to give attention to was Spock's health, rather than attacks from within and without on Spock's very presence.

******

'Jim? … Jim?'

He became aware of a firm hand on his arm, shaking it gently, and he jumped, raising his head swiftly and blinking at McCoy's face.

'Bones,' he muttered, rubbing what felt like a fine layer of grit from his eyes. 'Bones, Spock – '

'Spock's fine, Jim,' McCoy said with a warm smile, putting a hand to Kirk's arm as he stumbled to his feet. 'No, there's no point in going in to him. He won't wake for a good few hours. It was pretty severe surgery I had to put him through.'

'But – he's all right?' Kirk faltered.

'His heart's fine – or as fine as it can be after a five hour operation,' the doctor nodded, with a well-practised tone of reassurance. 'I've targeted each weakened area and stimulated healing, and he's getting stronger by the hour. But I had to have him on bypass for most of that time, and he's taken most of the stored blood we had for him in transfusion. It's a huge toll on anyone's body. He's gonna be very weak and shaky for a while. And – his kidneys were pretty much shot by the time you got him here, Jim. I've got him on dialysis while I culture replacement organs. He won't be able to leave sickbay for more than a few hours at a time until I can give him the transplants.'

Kirk blinked as he tried to take in the news, trying to work out if it were good or bad. The main thing was that Spock was *alive…*

'Jim,' McCoy said firmly, smiling at him, evidently realising his difficulty in taking everything in. 'It's *all right.* He has every chance of recovering from the cardiac operation, and the kidney transplant is practically a hangnail in comparison.'

'I want to see him,' Jim said firmly.

'Jim, I told you, there's no point,' McCoy insisted. 'I've still got him on the kylanil, so he won't even pick up anything telepathically.'

'I don't care,' Kirk said stubbornly. 'I still want to see him.'

'Okay, Jim,' McCoy said finally, with an indulgent smile on his face. 'You can go see him. He's in one of the private rooms.'

Kirk looked at him for a moment.

'Bones, you never used to look at me like that before – ' He broke off, suddenly self-conscious.

'Before what?' McCoy asked, ushering him through towards the private room. 'Before you worked out there was a little more between you and Spock than congeniality and chess games?'

'Yes, before – that,' Kirk said awkwardly.

'Well, you know what they say,' McCoy grinned. 'Love changes everything. Go on in, Jim,' he said, touching the release on the door. 'I'll wait out here.'

Kirk moved through the door, suddenly focussed on nothing but the figure in the bed at the centre of the room. He barely noticed the increased temperature and the dim light that had been set to make the Vulcan as comfortable as possible.

Spock was lying very flat in the bed, and was obviously naked from the waist up. There was a slight bulk under the blanket about the level of Spock's lower ribs, speaking of heavy bandaging across his chest. One slender arm was held firmly in a drip infuser, where emerald blood was slowly seeping into a vein beneath the grey cover. Yet another tube appeared to be removing blood and running it through a slim machine set at the side of the bed – the dialysis machine, Kirk assumed, although he had never seen one in use due to the rarity of such severe kidney problems in his time.

Kirk dragged his eyes away from the machinery and focussed on Spock's face, seating himself almost without thinking on the chair by the bed. Spock looked utterly peaceful, but there was an unhealthy cast to his skin. No one, Kirk supposed, could go through major heart surgery and look entirely well straight afterwards. The Vulcan's eyes were closed and relaxed. His lips were slightly apart, and his breath came in shallow wafts, slightly laboured by the restriction about his chest. His free hand was limp, just poking out from the edge of the blanket – and Kirk took it, unresisting as it was, and curled his own hand about it, feeling the startling chill of the Vulcan's skin.

After some time he became aware of the soft sound of the door, and looked up, to see McCoy standing there, watching him.

'They don't make these chairs comfortable,' Kirk began, suddenly self-conscious of the way he had been gazing at the Vulcan. 'They should make these chairs good to sit in for long periods. Sleepable-in. You know.'

'Do you intend to sleep in here, Jim?' McCoy asked, with an amused smile on his face.

Kirk straightened up abruptly. 'Well, I – I just think the chairs should be comfortable, that's all. Hospitals never think about the visitors…'

'We're generally a little more focussed on making the *patient* comfortable,' McCoy said pointedly. 'But – you can sleep in here if you like, Jim. I can bring in a gurney, if you think you can make yourself comfortable on that?'

Kirk looked around the room briefly, shrugging. 'Oh, Bones, you don't need to go that far,' he began. 'But – if you think it would help Spock…'

'To have you well-rested and happy when he wakes up?' McCoy asked. 'I'm pretty sure that would help Spock.' He sighed. 'Look, I think I might have one of those old folding portable beds in one of the storerooms. I'll look it out for you. Just be aware that you won't get the best night's sleep, what with the sensors beeping and nurses coming in every half hour to check on him.'

'That's just fine, Bones,' Kirk smiled.

He let his attention move back to Spock again as McCoy bustled about fixing up the bed – and then got into it without protest and lay down under the blanket.

McCoy stood there for a moment, following Kirk's unwavering gaze to the Vulcan's face.

'Jim, if you don't use that bed to sleep, I'll take it away again,' he warned.

Kirk smiled, and then dutifully closed his eyes, murmuring, 'See, Bones. Sleep.'

'You're damn right *sleep,*' the doctor agreed.

The last thing Kirk was aware of was the soft hiss of a hypo against his neck, and McCoy saying softly, 'Don't worry. You'll be awake before he is – but this way at least you'll be sure of a few hours rest.' And then the irresistible warmth of sleep took him.