Chapter 21 - Guest, Part 1

It had been three hours according to the clock between the nav and helm consoles, which was operating in a time dilation field. Kirk circled the stations, getting minor updates he had to focus hard to follow. He came back to the center seat. He wanted to visit sickbay again, but worried how it would be perceived. Then decided he didn't care how it was perceived.

"Do you need a break, Mr. Riley?" Kirk asked.

"No, sir. I'm fine."

"I'm going to leave you with the conn, then."

Sickbay was still as a tomb. Chapel sat at the small desk in the back. The bed monitors had been muted.

Kirk walked over to the injured crewman who wore a pain neutralizer that presumably explained his slack jawed appearance. Kirk resumed his seat beside the other occupied bed. Spock lay with his head canted to the side, eyes closed. He looked incredibly vulnerable and Kirk wished he hadn't left him alone.

There were a hundred things clamoring to be spoken but Chapel would overhear.

Chapel came over, watched the monitor for a while. "He's doing much better with you here," she said, and walked away.

The weight of everything settled hard on Kirk. He watched Spock's chest rise, pause, descend, then a long long gap passed before it rose again.

Rand came in with reports. Stood at the foot of the bed while he looked them over, departed again with a nod.

Hours ticked by. Kirk pondered the state of the Federation, feeling bleak in the moments where he was honest about what could realistically be expected of the future.

Spock was in a trance more than eight hours. Chapel came by more often. Kirk stopped pacing and looked at her hopefully.

"He's eighty percent healed. I expect he'll come up out of it soon. You know how Vulcans get broken from a healing trance, right?"

Kirk shook his head.

"They need pain. Just so you're warned." She held up a nerve stimulator, set it to high, placed it on the tray next to the bed.

Kirk pushed his shoulders back and pretended the thought of that device being used didn't make his own nerves scream. He sat down again.

Minutes later Spock's hand moved. Kirk stood up and called to Chapel.

She bent over Spock and spoke to him in Vulcan. Spock breathed unevenly, replied in a whisper. Kirk locked his hands behind his back to keep them off Spock. Chapel put the stimulator on the side of Spock's neck. Kirk's arms jerked, longing to stop her. The first jolt made Spock's neck rope taut. The second made him emit a noise of pain. The third, his arm came up and he moved her hand away. He smoothly sat up.

Kirk exhaled in relief, heart racing, and stepped closer. "You all right?"

"Yes." Spock looked a little ruffled, but more alert than seemed possible moments ago.

Kirk wanted to grab his arm, but Chapel was right there, unwrapping the splint from Spock's hand with great care not to touch him.

Chapel ran the Feinberger over Spock's chest. "He can be released anytime. Where are you going to put him?"

Kirk rubbed his chin. "My quarters have the only door on the ship that can't be overridden by security."

Chapel lowered the scanner and gave Kirk a dubious look from under her eyelashes.

"That all right with you?" Kirk asked Spock.

Spock nodded.

"Why don't I get you settled in."

It was mid-second shift, so the corridors were empty. Kirk felt more relieved at this than he wished he was. He didn't want to feel the need to explain why he was leading a Vulcan around the ship, even his ship.

"There is a second bunk here," Kirk said, pulling out the bunk opposite his own. "A narrow one. There are actually four in here, if you hunt around, just in case the ship has to carry more than the usual number of beings."

"Sit down and rest a bit," Kirk said.

"I do not require rest," Spock said.

"Well, sit down and don't rest."

Spock sat on the extra bunk and slid back on it so his soft desert boots were up on the edge of Kirk's bunk. He looked up at Kirk expectantly. Kirk put a hand out and held it over Spock's shoulder. When Spock didn't react, Kirk let his hand fall on a bony shoulder and said, "You can't imagine how pleased I am to have you safe. And I'm deeply sorry I didn't manage to keep you safer, from my own crew, no less."

Spock met his gaze with that youthful steadiness of his. "I am rather pleased to be here, no matter the circumstances."

"Are you sure you're all right? I don't mean physically."

"I am all right, James."

Kirk hadn't heard his first name in months. He felt undone. And he doubted Spock's assurances. He squeezed the shoulder under his hand, and managed a pained smile.

"I'll take better care of you from here on. But I do need to go to the bridge. Here's a padd, don't use it to edit anything, if you would, please. But you can look around the ship's schematics or watch the feeds."

Spock nodded. When he looked away he looked vaguely haunted, or maybe Kirk was just projecting.

Kirk said, "The lock is keyed to my biometrics only. I'll add you to it when I figure out how. No one will bother you in here."

On the bridge, Riley appeared baggy-eyed. Kirk relieved him and sent him off to rest. The bridge crew felt exactly the same as when Kirk had left, quiet and crisp, so he knew it wasn't general knowledge that he had taken their former prisoner to his quarters.

There was still no word on the Tico, but the background radiation may be interfering with communications. Kirk wondered if they should have given chase also, even as slow as the Ranger was in warp. Instead, they kept pace with the captured flagship and advised Wasp on repairs and the best sequence of maneuvers for escaping the star between radiation bursts when the time came.

Shift changed. Riley returned, looking considerably better. He stood beside the center chair for a while.

Seemingly out of the blue, although Kirk suspected he had to build up to it, he said, "I can take the conn if you'd like to rotate off, Captain."

Kirk turned to him, observed his better than normal posture, the way his gaze held steady on the screen, the way he failed to rock up on his toes. The ongoing professionalism generated by Kirk's losing control gave him a dark amusement as much as it depressed him. It wasn't real professionalism, it was a façade for self-preservation.

Kirk waited half an hour to verify everything was ship shape, then he handed off the conn with the instruction that if things were quiet Riley could hand it off to the split shift officer of the deck if he needed a break.

Kirk found Gall in the mess area.

"I need to get a message to our usual mystery correspondent. Any ideas?"

"The first communications we will regain will be legitimate messages to one of the Federation relays on the spacelane thirty light years away on a subspace channel at full power on a tight beam. Anything else will require we get most of a light year away from this monster star."

"Understood. Let me know when you think we can try sending something."

"I'll be studiously considering the problem in the meantime, sir."

Spock looked up as Kirk entered his quarters. He was still on the spare bunk, reading from the padd. Apparently hadn't moved.

"Just me," Kirk said.

"I recognized your footsteps approaching." Spock placed the padd aside.

Kirk sat on his own bunk across from Spock, looking him over, trying to discern signs of internal damage. Spock seemed more certain of himself but otherwise the same as Kirk remembered.

"I'm glad you're here," Kirk said. "How are you doing?"

Spock put his feet on the floor to make room. "You inquired about that already. I assume you are asking repeatedly to relieve your own emotional strain since you are aware of the answer I am able to provide."

Kirk clasped his hands together and leaned on his elbows propped on his knees. "I am worried about you, but it is my worry, as you say. I feel like I'm asking for your sake, but it might be entirely for mine, since asking doesn't change the state of the world." Kirk bowed his head and smiled painfully. "You are undermining the entire idea of human caring."

"I do not intend to. I have been steeped in rather the opposite for ninety six days."

"You are an idiot," Kirk said.

"I expected that you would disapprove."

"I did. I do."

"You can be as annoyingly protective as my father."

"Ever occur to you that it might be for the same reason?"

Spock fell silent, thinking. "No."

"Speaking of which, can I get you something to eat? Forget I asked. Let me get us both something to eat. Being around you makes me hungry for some reason."

Kirk returned with two vegetarian plates, which were even more tasteless than the 'continental favorites.' As he dug in, Kirk decided that so called vegetarian was easier to eat since he didn't even know what the colored blocks were pretending to be.

Kirk paused in eating and put his hand on Spock's ankle, after the usual warning of hovering his hand nearby.

"You okay?"

Spock tilted his head. "You repeat that question often."

"I still feel guilty as hell. And helpless as hell."

"I do not understand. But if it assists you to express these sentiments, I have no limit on how many times I am capable of hearing them."

Kirk pictured what must have been going on in security before he arrived. He would have to look at the tapes to write his report and then wouldn't even have to imagine. The helpless pain returned with even more force.

"I could fly into a violent rage at the drop of a hat," Kirk said. "My crew knows that and has been doing everything short of saluting me in response to that threat. Me, a threat to my crew."

"This I do understand."

Kirk looked up with hope. "You do?"

"Vulcans are peaceful, most Vulcans are, that is, because we have adopted the difficult disciplines of Surak to suppress our violent passions. If we are pushed too far, they can re-emerge, and these passions are difficult to restrain once let loose. They must burn out."

Kirk relaxed. "You do understand."

Spock fell thoughtful. "You threaten your crew because of the harm to me?"

"That and my helplessness over the situation with Vulcan. But yes, mostly over you. But I'd be nearly as enraged if you were one of the other random prisoners." Kirk didn't feel hungry any longer. He sat back from the plate on his lap. "How did you get singled out?"

"I made the mistake of assuming you would be one of the ones boarding our vessel. As a result I was the first one stunned and the first to subsequently recover."

"I was busy fighting a battle on the bridge. I didn't have time to check on who'd been brought back over."

"In that case, your guilt is misplaced."

"No, it's not. My crew are entirely my responsibility. And who we are failing to be is destroying me. I've been living on delusion, and learning that is destroying me too."

"If I may, I believe you are overreacting. Perhaps you need rest."

Kirk gradually let the affection he felt grow into a smile. "Spock, I wouldn't let anyone else on this ship talk to me that way. Except maybe my CMO. But she couldn't bring herself to care enough to say it."

"I thought I was hallucinating when she spoke Vulcan the first time. Quite disorienting."

"She took me by surprise too. Some heartbreak in there, so she doesn't mention it."

"I did not sense that, but I would not expect to."

Kirk smiled. "I got the distinct sense she was taking something out on you that she couldn't take out on some other Vulcan because he isn't around. I'm guessing he."

"That would explain her odd choice of words in Vulcan. I thought it merely awkward language learning. There are certain Vulcan words only used during martial arts. She has an affinity for those."

Kirk laughed. Spock's expression didn't change.

Kirk finished his plate. Set it aside. "I'm having a hard time believing you are not more emotionally injured than you are letting on."

Spock pointedly looked away for the first time since he'd been on board. "I am reluctant to explain my state of mind because you have a great number of other concerns."

Kirk smiled slightly. "Worrying about you without data isn't going to help me."

Spock nodded, continued to stare at the wall over Kirk's shoulder. "I have been through experiences I had not imagined plausible before. This most recent experience of violence seems incidental."

Kirk reached for Spock's hand, and Spock smoothly pulled it out of reach.

Spock found Kirk's gaze again. "I do not mean to seem aloof. But the hands contain the highest concentration of nerve endings. It is difficult to avoid spontaneously melding with you if you touch me thusly."

Kirk felt his body warming up. "A meld sounds intriguing, I admit. What I read of them."

Spock steepled his hands and rested them in his lap. "I find melding to be unpleasant."

Kirk considered that. "On the bridge of your family's ship, when you caught me when I got thrown going to warp. That wasn't a meld?"

"That was barely more than nonverbal communication. Talking without speaking. Melding is a partial to complete merging of consciousnesses." Spock's shoulders rose up tautly as he spoke.

Kirk saw these signs and worried more. "I'll be more careful. I don't intend to make you uncomfortable."

Spock said, "I can tolerate direct nerve contact if I have a few uninterrupted moments to prepare."

Kirk was sensing damage and it made him feel better to get access to it. When Spock was burying it all, it worried Kirk more.

Kirk heard the shift change chime with some surprise.

"Do you need to report to your duties?" Spock asked.

"No. Riley can decide to stay on or not. If we go to alert I'll be out of here like a shot. Let me see the padd, I've been trying to optimize the shifts, and after the battle, I realize I haven't considered the reserve personnel for critical areas that might all get tied up at the same time, let me show you the issues. I expect you can help."

"I would like to be of use."

Kirk turned the padd around to show him the columns of names. "Note, I can arrange for additional crew to work on qualifying for other stations if necessary. Assuming we'll have downtime again."

The door chimed five seconds after Spock raised his head in awareness of someone approaching. Kirk could've heard the footsteps if his head had been down on the bunk, but not otherwise.

Kirk stood and triggered the door. It was Riley. Showtime, Kirk thought.