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Technical Difficulties

Chapter 14: Of Flatlines and Family

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Kirk awoke in Sickbay. Everything was dark, but he knew the smell, the feel of the bed, the displacement, the soft whirring of medicinal machinery.

Experimentally, Jim rotated his shoulder, feeling the place where the wound used to gape from Finnegan's blast. There was only smooth skin; he flexed, and the muscles bulged like they always had. Jim wondered at the perfection of Bones' work; he even felt the smallest of hairs growing back on the replacement skin. No other doctor Jim had ever had before was that thorough.

He turned his attention to his other arm, the one that had been crushed and useless. He could feel it, flexed his fingers, felt the crook of his elbow bend with his other arm. Yep, still working.

With a second of hesitation, Jim floundered with his hands down to feel his legs. First his right leg, which seemed to be fine. Then the other. With a start, Jim felt a tough covering the bottom portion of his leg. There seemed to be metal supports beneath the rough, bulky cast. This was the leg that he'd wrenched a bone out of… Hey, it still moved pretty well, and Jim was sure this was just some new method Bones thought up to get him to heal better.

After he checked out all of his major wounds, Jim tried to think of any others he had sustained, but since he wasn't in pain anymore, he couldn't remember. So he yawned and swung his legs over the side of the bed. His stomach grumbled, and so he set off for the replicator across the room. With a start, he realized that he was walking with a limp.

Shrugging it off, Jim had had worse. Besides, it was only temporary.

On his way back to his cot, Jim called for lights, 75 percent. His toast with raspberry jam was then illuminated, and he saw that not only was the toast burnt to an unrecognizable crisp, but the jelly wasn't even raspberry. It was like, blueberry or something. I mean, it's unnatural, isn't it, to smear blue goop onto your toast? Jim thought so.

Abandoning his sad, pathetic excuse of a breakfast and picking up a stylo and PADD instead, Jim got to work on updating himself on the ship's actions since he'd been under and all that jazz. Of course he was going to get updates from Spock and all the other commanding officers once he was back on duty, but he knew that Spock was sleeping, so Jim didn't bother to call him.

He was just getting to the finer points of the written report by the Council on the aid sent to the Enterprise when a door swished open.

Bones stumbled in, looking half-asleep and utterly exhausted. "I thought I saw a light," Bones grumbled when he saw Jim. "Dammit, Jim, go back to sleep, it's past three in the morning, dammit."

Smiling, "But I have so much to catch up on!" Jim indicated the PADD with a wave.

Sighing, Bones went back into his office. Jim thought he was going to just go back to sleep or something, but within a minute Bones was back. With some coffee in each hand.

He sat on the cot facing Jim, and handed him one of the coffees. "Might as well. You need a stimulant right about now anyway, though usually I don't approve of caffeine right after major surgery. I s'pose it's less invasive than a stimulant shot… D'you want a brief now, or later?"

"Well, I mean, if you're up for it. You look like you just came back from the dead, Bones."

"By saving your ass, yeah. Dragged myself through hell to retrieve ya, kid. Might as well call me Lot. Just don't look back."

Jim chuckled. "It wasn't that bad, was it?"

Bones sipped his coffee. "Nah, just fatal." Looked back at Jim. "If we hadn't gotten you when we did, you would have died of asphyxiation or internal bleeding or infection in another ten minutes, maybe."

Jim put down his coffee and PADD, holding his head in his hands, curling down onto his lap. "Jesus, Bones."

"That fucking bastard," muttered Bones, his eyes screwed up in anger. "Not only did he fucking kidnap you, he damn near almost killed you. Looks like he beat on you for over twelve hours for the first day alone… Jim, wasn't this guy your friend from the Academy? What the hell is wrong with him?"

Jim let out a long breath, still looking down at his toes.

"Well…" he began.

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The worst thing was, they had started out as friends.

Jim had always been a loner before, but here at Starfleet people flocked to him because of his fresh attitude, stunning good looks, and amazing intellect instead of running away. Once they got over the initial shock, of course. Jim was, for once, popular, he was the cool kid. He knew it was superficial and none of these people were really his friends, as smart as they all were, as fun as they all were. None of them really understood him, nor did they try to. Jim was popular in the fact that he was infamous more than the fact that he was a great person, he knew that.

The only sincere person he had met here, really sincere, and wasn't completely disgusted by him (there were quite of few of these people, who thought he was the most obnoxious person in existence) was Bones on the shuttlecraft. After actively seeking him out by breaking into the relatively unguarded living quarters and schedule systems, Jim pretty much forced the issue and got what he wanted: a best friend.

But Bones wasn't really all that up for crazy parties all the time, and he certainly wasn't going to constantly pander to Jim's every need. So when Bones decided to stay in for the night instead of gallivanting through the local nightlife, Jim went out alone.

It was on one of these nights, when Jim went out alone, that he met Finnegan.

Yeah, Jim had never really stopped starting fights. Especially in bars with a lot of people who knew him and particularly hated him. Like Cupcake, for example.

Now, Finnegan was always up for a bout, no matter the reason for the fight, so when four guys were beating on Jim, again, what could he say, this was almost too familiar, this had already happened, he guessed they just hadn't learned from last time, Finnegan jumped in on Jim's side, and together the two of them took down the Security officer wannabes. Until they got beaten to a pulp themselves.

And that was that. They became friends. In the Main Sickbay, they had beds right next to each other, and when they first awoke, seeing each other across their cots, both of them in bandages, all they could do was laugh.

Jim wondered later how such a good beginning could end so incredibly awfully.

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"But how did it happen?" Bones grumbled.

"I'll get there, I'll get there," Jim said, mock-patiently.

But he didn't get there. The door opened before he could get out another sentence, and both the Captain and Doctor were so completely distracted that they completely forgot about the entire thing as Spock walked in. Bones rolled his eyes as Jim and Spock started that whole eye thing that they did.

"I'll remember this, Jim, don't think you'll get out of this one," Bones grumbled as he slouched back to his office, waving over his shoulder without looking back.

He sure as hell didn't want to see or know what exactly was happening in Sickbay at that moment in time, so he shut the (hopefully soundproof) door. Falling back into his chair, which squeaked the tiniest bit as it swiveled.

"Them and their goddamn mushy eyes," Bones mumbled into his flask of mysterious whiskey. Hell, he didn't even know if it was whiskey, its smell was so foul. That's when you know, Bones thought philosophically. That's when you know you shouldn't drink something: when even a master surgeon can't identify its basic alcoholic makeup from smell alone. He downed the rest of the flask in one long draught. Definitely not whiskey.

Lolling his head, leaning so far back his Adam's apple stretched his skin tightly over his neck, tiny sprinkles of tears squeaked out from corners of his clasped eyelids, and they ran, no, danced, no, tinkled down Bones' temples in sparkly little grooves illuminated by the low overhead lights.

It was from the drink. From the drink.

Bones wiped the side of his face with a sleeve without craning his head, just laying there, staring at the ceiling.

Damn, was that whiskey strong.

Hand moving over his face now, first pinching his nose, covering his eyes, then gliding over the gristly five o'clock shadow on his chin. This next part was what confused Bones the most.

He felt like shit, he hadn't slept, he was running almost solely on fumes, he was drinking his sorrows away, he missed his daughter, he hated his ex-wife, Jim had almost died again, the Enterprise had run into a fucking planet, he missed his daughter, he had gotten a severe concussion and his skull cracked, there was a potential murderer on the loose somewhere in space, Finnegan could get away with it, and he missed his daughter.

Why the hell was he smiling?

"…I need coffee, dammit."

Going to the replicator, his hands drumming on the counter waiting for the hot water and the coffee beans to appear, his mind alighted on the funniest things. The way Spock would say, 'Captain,' with that look in his eye when something hellish had gone down on the bridge, that was when Spock was at his most emotional on active duty. A kind of desperate yet confident dependence, a sort of belief that Jim would make everything okay. The way Jim would always call on Spock first in Sickbay after a particularly dangerous away mission, even if he had been the only person admitted. Completely obsessed with one other person's existence to the point where he utterly disregarded his own. Even more than Jim obsessed over the crew.

A multitude of things rushed to mind, some things more telling than others. But really, the most telling thing of all was the normal routine. Image after image of normal day every day on the Enterprise, everyone together, but those two so connected beyond anything else.

Bones had known it in his bones longer than he cared to admit.

Much longer.

Bing! His coffee was ready. Startled out of his thought train, Bones grabbed the coffee and stalked back to his chair, plopping down, sipping. As he gave himself a second, curling his fingers around the cup, shifting back into the chair to a more comfortable position, fluttering his tired eyes half-way closed, letting the steam from the coffee drift into his every pore, Bones let himself give a small smile.

He had always been a hopeless romantic at heart.

A laugh came bubbling out, no, more like a chuckle that shook his shoulders, accompanied by some more tiny little drops of tears dotting the crinkles around his eyes.

For the first time in such a long time, Bones was crying because he was happy.

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Scotty blinked a tear out of his eye, his finger smarting. "Oeaw!" He experimentally stuck the digit into his mouth. Bad idea, really. He spit it out, along with the dreadful tasting ointment covering it.

Doing a suture on yourself was a lot harder than he'd expected. Scotty had never really been all that keen on learning the trade in the medical arts, so to speak, and so he'd never really gleaned the basic skill set, per say.

Because everyone needed to learn life-saving procedures at least once in their lives, and Scotty was certainly not being directly influenced by the fact that he had been utterly helpless in a certain recent situation to help the injured. No, that would be absolutely inconceivable.

Flicking his hand back to the PADD and checking over the procedure once again, then studying the old surgical textbook thoroughly for all chemical reactions that would be caused versus the ones he would have to induce, Scotty picked up the medical tricorder and medical laser scalpel that Nurse Chapel had so kindly bestowed upon him.

"Ah, so that's it, then," Scotty breathed triumphantly after finding the wrong stitch, fixing his mistake avidly. He had always been quite an energetic student.

When the laser hit his hand once again, the blue light ghosting over his messily attempted suture, Scotty's hand froze.

Then his whole arm seized up, in a fit, his shoulder locking unnaturally, his neck's blood vessels working furiously as they bulged from his skin, his face turning bright red as he struggled to breathe. His entire body was seized in tremendous pain, wracking his body in seizures of agony, his heart, his heart again, it was burning, it was exploding.

Scotty fell to the ground of Engineering, surrounded by a maze of towering machines.

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Uhura hadn't left her station since the emergency rescue mission had begun. Here she was, sitting on the bridge, hectically connecting channel after channel to communicate what needed to happen when to all appropriate stations at all the appropriate times. And she also needed to keep an ear on intership communications, along with any possible news from Starfleet base. After all, the most important component in successfully tractor beaming a damaged ship a few lightyears in distance was communication.

Sighing, Uhura sat back for the spare minute she had to sort through her thoughts.

Spock had left his station some two hours ago, which disconcerted her flow of concentration even now. Why had he left? Spock was never one to freely leave his post at any time during his scheduled hours. Yet he had done just that.

Probably to check on the status of Captain Kirk, thought Uhura absentmindedly, as she pressed a unique sequence to open the Starfleet secure channel. Nope, no new messages from the base or from the two alongside ships dragging the Enterprise across the sector.

A red signal started beeping ominously on Uhura's station. Annoyed, she flicked off the warning signal with aplomb.

Uhura's fingers flew over her PADD, tapping the edges of her fingernails smartly against the touch screen, to check exactly what the warning sensor meant. There needed to be a replacement in the mechanical aspect of the pinpointing sensors. There; sent directly to Engineering.

The minute was up; it was time for Uhura to check to amount of inflow shipwide that she had to relocate and send outside the ship. The only messages that got sent directly through Uhura were the ones that needed to go outside the Enterprise; all others could go straight to their intended stations. However, in times of crises, there were masses of messages that Uhura had to plow through to send. Most were crew messaging their families; others were all work-related messages about repair needs or resignations or injury reports or things like that.

But Spock had left his post.

To see Kirk.

And he still wasn't back.

Uhura's delicate hands paused over her station before she plugged in her earpiece and went to work, trying to blot out all other thought with what was directly before her.

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Stumbling back together, both of them completely exhausted, Sulu and Chekhov made their way down to their deck. They were lucky that they had the same hours, the same deck, and their rooms were right next to each other, because they ended up limping to bed after terribly stressful shifts together most of the time.

Both of them were currently functioning at less than optimal capacity. Slowing to a stop before their turbolift, Sulu broke the silence.

"God, today was bad, huh?"

Chekhov paused to think for a second. "Ya, especially bad."

Sulu took a breath. "For a minute I really thought – "

" – Zat ze keptan vas dead?" finished Chekhov sadly. "I sink eweryone did."

The turbolift opened, and there was someone else already inside. Taking a few lurching steps in and calling their deck number, Sulu felt like their extremely private and personal conversation had been rudely interrupted by this other officer's very presence. Chekhov followed Sulu's steps, his eyes unfocused and sad.

Glancing back over his shoulder, Sulu caught the look. He threw his arm over Chekov's shoulders and didn't say a word.

Neither did Chekhov.

At the end of the ride, they stepped out together from the turbolift and made their way down the hallway. Every step was awkward and they tripped over each other's feet in their fatigue, but they finally made it.

"Hey," Sulu muttered. "See you tomorrow."

"Vant a drink?" Chekhov offered, his eyes already half-closed from his body trying to manually shut him down.

Sulu grinned weakly. "You would… I'd really love to, but… I'm kind of dead at the moment, so… Probably not a good idea…"

"Vat do you mean?" Chekhov seemed revitalized at the very thought of consuming alcohol. "Wodka eez alvays a good idea."

Against his word and his will, Sulu was tugged into Chekhov's room. Not that he really minded; he liked spending time with his fellow bridge officers. Pavel Chekhov especially.

The door swished shut behind him.

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Scotty woke up in Sickbay, completely disoriented. He stared at the ceiling, smiling at it, thinking that it looked just absolutely dapper there, with its new paint job. Whoa, that light there is just so bright. So incredibly bright… And look at that, a hanging piece of ceiling there, it's so fitting, such a nice decorating touch, really…

He jolted out from his nonsensical thought process when he suddenly felt the urge to get his pack of tools and fix the broken ceiling. This time his eyes blinked with focus, and he recognized his surroundings. He pushed himself up with his elbows.

When he found himself being pushed roughly back down, Scotty noticed someone else was there. A muttering growl alerted him to the exact location of this other person, and his gaze slowly traveled from the ceiling to the hands pressing down on his chest. Ah, they were gone by now. But then, where had they gone? To the left? No, nothing was to the left except for more hospital beds. Then, to the right. Yes, indeed, something was indeed there. Scotty wasn't sure what he was looking at for a second, but focused mightily upon that blue thing, and finally came upon the Starfleet logo emblazoned on the chest – aha! 'Twas a Starfleet uniform! That meant that a Starfleet officer was aiding him. Thankee kindly, sir. But no words came from Scotty's mouth. He cocked his head slightly, and his brow furrowed in innocent confusion.

"Yer under a series of medications, that's why y' can't talk yet."

Scotty's head floundered for a second before swinging up to find the mouth who talked. He found a face, attached to the blue Starfleet uniform, and the lips were moving and sounds came out. Focusing for another moment, Scotty ascertained the identity of the other officer. It was the good Doctor. Scotty smiled goofily.

"You'll be pretty damn near loopy fer another half hour." The Doctor stood up suddenly, or at least suddenly according to Scotty, and moved further along the bed to get to a plate of tools.

He picked up a device, a… what was it? Scotty recognized its composition, he'd fixed a million of those bloody things before, it was… a hypo. Yes, a hypo.

"Here's the next set of medication. Dammit, Scotty, this is one hell of a condition you've got, huh?" Focusing on refilling the hypo with some chemical Scotty hadn't the foggiest idea about, the Doctor paused in his admittedly limited monologue.

"But goddammit, you shoulda come to me right away, the first time you had a heart attack. Dammit, Scotty, even you should know that having a heart attack is not just another day on the Enterprise…" The Doctor shot the hypo into his neck.

Scotty's head dropped back on the pillow.

"…And dammit, it's a bad sign of an enlarged heart after serious reconstructive surgery." Bones sighed and pinched his nose to calm himself down. Some of these goddamn officers would rather die from preventable conditions rather than admit having any sort of weakness that affected their duties onboard the Enterprise.

"And really?" Bones snorted as his fingers ran over Scotty's rudimentary stitches. "A do-it-yourself suture on your own hand? Scotty, this is just ridiculous. Even if you are pretty good at it, I can't allow you to operate on yourself. That's bullshit. I'm taking away any connections you have to get medical tools so you can't do it anymore."

Bones sat at his by-patient chair, hand still resting on top of Scotty's.

A moment of silence, before: "Dammit, man, this is the second time you've come into Sickbay in the past month for a serious condition… You need to be more…"

Bones paused. It really wasn't Scotty's fault he had gotten hurt; he'd been mauled by Slistas, and that's where all his current health problems rested. So Bones couldn't really tell him to be careful, because Scotty's 'care' really hadn't had anything to do with his injuries. What would be a better word, then? Safe…?

Deep in thought over this mysterious word, looking deeply into Scotty's face as if it would harbor the answer, the noise of the door swishing open startled Bones into action. He stood in panic, snatching his hand away, and look accusingly at whoever had opened the door to his Sickbay.

It was Chapel. She was there for the morning shift. Frozen in the doorframe, with a funny, knowing smile on her face, Bones knew something was up.

He stalked off gruffly to his office.

"Morning, Nurse," he grunted.

"Good morning, Doctor," she said happily in response.

Embarrassed past all other conceivable methods, Bones hid away in his office from Chapel's growing smirk. He knew that it was extremely unprofessional to be talking to an unconscious patient the personal way he had been going on, and it wasn't even Jim he'd been talking to! Chapel knew that Jim and him were good friends from the Academy, so that had always been suitably agreeable, but dammit. It was just plain awkward for someone to walk in on a private moment like that, especially between two officers of high rank. It felt like he'd been caught at doing something he shouldn't have.

And to be talking to that other unconscious officer? About all these things that he hadn't had to say to the man, really. All these things that he should have just waited to say when Scotty was awake. Bones wasn't one to talk to unconscious patients, except to Jim and occasionally Spock when they'd done something more stupid than usual on an away mission. The two of them were like Bones' family, though, and that sort of thing was to be expected. Talking to an unconscious patient was like a desperate attempt to reassure yourself that the other person was still responsive, that they were still okay. Bones rarely did it, and even more rarely actually noticed that he was doing it. So this particular revelation, that he had been talking to Scotty's unconscious form on that cot, meant that Bones was accepting more and more people into what he considered to be his family.

Which made it all the more embarrassing that he'd been interrupted. And that Chapel was the one who saw it. She would know exactly what was going on.

Bones grumpily sat in his chair with his arms crossed. Hmph. Hadn't been his fault Chapel had walked in on them. He started angrily typing up a report on Scotty's health.

He fell dead asleep in the middle of it.

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The Enterprise finally reached Earth, tugged along by two other starships into port. Finally, after what seemed like years, the crew relaxed into their quarters for one more night, unable to sign out to planetside quarters because of their fatigue.

Only the skeleton crew remained, well-rested from their last off-shift. The bridge was sparse, but all the main positions were still filled. Another communications officer took over for Uhura, another Security detail replaced another squad from the brig guarding Finnegan, and another post took up Engineering. New squads of engineers beamed on board to continue repairs every half an hour.

For a moment, the crew of the Enterprise let out a long breath, allowing themselves to relax in the comfort of home.

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End of Part 14

To be continued

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Author's Note: Late again, I know. I deserve to be brutally tortured. But let's look on the bright side – new Scones development, more character introspection, more Sulu and Chekhov appearances, life is good. Well, this chapter is such a stress reliever for me, it's so peaceful… relatively, of course. I mean, shit still goes down with Scotty's whole heart failure thing, but hey. There wasn't a big huge fight scene, so as far as I'm concerned, it was calming and winding down the tension. Get ready for a helluva chapter next time, with Finnegan's trial, more explaining about the Academy, and other epic shit!