Jim supposed he should be revolted. After all, he was carrying a dead body in his arms, and probably had been for the past hour or so.
But for some reason, the more he thought about the fact that the only girl he actually knew but had never slept with was dead made him mad. More than mad, actually. It was a kind of anger he had only ever experienced at the hands of his step father, on those days when the world seemed to be deteriorating around him. Now, this same old anger was brewing behind his eyes. It was a cold and calculating and ready to get revenge.
A few minutes later, Jim and Scotty were marched into the bridge along with their security team. Completely mindful of the task the older Spock- Spock Prime as Jim was now thinking of him- had set to him, he was allowing his anger to fuel his aim of"emotionally compromising" the captain.
"What are you doing here?" Spock demanded immediately. Jim rolled his eyes, barely managing to conceal his fury.
"We thought we'd pop in, get a spot to eat, and help you improve your taste on the decor in here," he replied sarcastically. Spock looked at him for a second, eyes unfathomable, then turned his attention to Scotty, who was dripping water all over the floor.
"Are you in Starfleet?" he asked coldly. Scotty looked from Jim back to the captain and seemed to be wondering exactly what was going on.
"Uh, yes," he said, nodding. "Can I get a towel?"
Spock ignored him, much as Spock Prime had done.
"We're traveling at warp speed. How did you manage to beam aboard this ship?"
"You're the genius," answered Jim. "You figure it out."
"As the captain of this vessel, I order you to tell me," ordered Spock, cold gaze becoming frostier with every passing second. Jim smirked.
"Well I'm. Not. Telling." After every word, Jim paused, accentuating his belligerent tone. "Acting captain."
"You," barked Spock, addressing Scotty. "How did you beam aboard this ship?"
Scotty looked from Jim to Spock and then back from Spock to Jim. He raised two hands in the universal gesture of nonviolence.
"I'm not taking sides."
Spock seemed to be confounded. In all his years as a Starfleet official, no one had actually ever intentionally said "no" before and it startled him
"What, Spock?" Jim said quietly. If you didn't know him, you might think that his quiet tone was of complete control. If Devon had been alive and at his side, however, she could have explained that the slight pucker of his lips and furrow in his brow expressed more anger than you could ever imagine, and it was using him to its own advantage. "Doesn't that annoy you? Make you a little angry?"
The silence in the room was absolutely complete. No one on board the Enterprise had even dreamed of ever talking to a superior officer in that manner before, much less actually done so. It was so unprecedented that some were actually gaping, mouth wide open, as they waited for Spock to reply.
But their patience went unrewarded as Spock decided quite logically that it would prove fruitless to continue to question Jim and turned his attention back to Scotty.
"You are not a member of this ship's crew. As such, under penalty of court martial, I order you to explain to me how you beamed aboard," he hissed at the engineer, normally arched eyebrows now drawn low over his cold eyes. Before Scotty could reply, Jim had continued.
"You're the genius here, Spork," he spat, using Dev's mutilation of the Vulcan's name. "Figure it out for yourself."
"As the captain of this vessel I order you to answer the question!" Spock's voice, normally so quiet and collected, could only now be described as raised. Jim smiled to himself, relishing every moment of Spock's emotion. It was time to deal the last blow. "Guards! Escort them to the brig!"
"What is it about you?" Jim asked quietly, eyes burning. "Your planet was just destroyed- your mother murdered- and you're not even upset?"
Spock's reply was terse. "Your presumption that these circumstances in any way impede my ability to command this vessel is completely and absolutely inaccu-"
"Yet you were the one that said that emotion was necessary for command." It was his trump card. "I mean did you see his ship, Spock? It was effing huge. Did you see what he did to your planet? Fear, according to you, would be an asset in this situation-"
"You will not lecture me on the merits of emotion."
Kirk smirked, taking a step closer to Spock. It was, from a certain point of view, the wrong thing to do. From Jim's perspective, it was exactly the right thing to do.
"Step away from me," warned Spock.
"What's it like, Spock?" Jim asked. His anger had not abated, but charged his words with an energy that was felt by everyone in the room. "To feel nothing, no fear, no anger, no love."
The statement was unexpected, and caught Spock like a blow to the gut.
"Or the need to avenge the death of the woman who gave birth to you? You feel nothing! It must not even compute for you!"
It was the last straw. In the next moment, many things happened very quickly.
The first thing was that the lift doors swung open, revealing Chief Medical Officer McCoy, who took in the scene before him with one glance. Anger and anxiety passed over his face in quick succession as events started to occur. Also in the lift was an older Vulcan named Sarek, who was known to the crew as Spock's father. He watched proceedings with the same expression as any Vulcan would wear whether they were watching a weather report or a fight to the death.
The next thing was the eruption of Mount Spock. With a yell that spoke of untold anger and grief, he punched Jim with a devastating right hook to the jaw. Kirk was knocked off balance, dropping Devon's cold body on the floor as he himself crashed into a control panel. Spock followed, delivering a crushing and bewildering series of blows that Jim was barely able to block and evade. He was driven back against the con, overcome. Then Spock was choking him and the world turned fuzzy with lack of oxygen. Through Jim's confused brain, he vaguely realized that he had grossly miscalculated. The man wasn't just angry or upset- he was deranged. And it looked like he wasn't going to release the horrible pressure on Jim's windpipe any time soon.
The rest of the room watched in horror as their captain strangled James Kirk. They all knew James Kirk. Most of the girls either loved him openly or harbored a deep affection for him underneath a sarcastic exterior. The guys weren't as fond, but still respected him, though whether because he had a record for most girls in one night or because he held the record for passing the Kobayashi Maru, no one could be quite sure.
Spock's breath came in short, quick gasps as he struggled to maintain his grip on Jim's windpipe. He locked gazes with the suffocating man, watched impassively as the life and fight drained out of his eyes.
Through the silence in the room came one, imperative syllable, falling from the lips of Sarek.
"Spock!"
The word seemed to shake the caveman from Spock's system. He looked up, seeming almost surprised to find himself strangling James T. Kirk. With a self conscious shrug, he released his choke hold and stood up straight. Jim coughed, wheezing and choking as air flowed back through his crushed air passageways. Spock looked around the room, suddenly completely aware of the attention he had from the crew of the Enterprise. A few steps, and he was standing in front of where Doctor McCoy was crouched over Devon's prostrate body.
"Doctor..." he said softly. "I am...no longer fit for duty. I hereby...relinquish my command on the grounds that I have been..."
He paused for a long time.
"Emotionally compromised. Please note the time and date in the ship's log."
And he walked out of the room.
Beep beep beep. Beep.
Bones pulled out his communicator with a sigh, flipping it open with a dismissive gesture of disinterest.
"What in the ruddy heck do you want?" he snapped into the machine. The caller was Uhura, who replied with a hurt tone.
"Captain Spock wants you on the bridge," she informed him. "And there's no reason to be so unfriendly."
With a click, the connection was severed. After stowing his communicator in his pocket, rolling his eyes to high heaven and muttering some less-than-kind things about Spock under his breath, McCoy moseyed on over to the lift. He barked a few orders over his shoulder with such ferocity that any guard dog would have been proud to hear it. The lift arrived with a soft ping. Bones stepped onto it and muttered, "bridge." The decks whizzed past and he was halfway to his destination when the lift came to a sudden halt and opened its doors.
In the newly made entry way stood an old, gray haired Vulcan. McCoy inspected the alien with interest, as something about him was vaguely familiar.
"I am Sarek, father of Spock," the Vulcan introduced himself. Bones could have slapped himself in the face. Of course! How could he miss family resemblances like that?
"Leonard McCoy," Bones replied. "Chief Medical Officer. Just call me McCoy. Everyone else does."
The lift closed its doors and continued its ascent to the bridge. The two occupants of the small enclosure stood silently, and in McCoy's case, awkwardly. How was one to make small talk with a Vulcan? Did one make small talk? And if you did, what were you supposed to talk about?
Too late to worry about that now. They were at the bridge, just waiting for the doors to open.
They slid apart with a quiet hiss. Bones had only two seconds to see that Jim was alive before-
WHAM!
McCoy watched in horror as Jim was punched in the face with a devastatingly powerful right hook, and then closed his gaping mouth as Devon was dumped on the ground. Without wasting another second, Bones ran over to the girl and crouched over her, pulling out his tricorder and taking readings faster than anyone should be able to.
The results that came up on his instruments were ambiguous. But no time to worry about that now. Her heart, which was beating (at best) one time every thirty seconds. That needed to be stabilized immediately.
Drawing out a small hypo that he always carried with him, Bones loaded a large dose of one of the strongest steroids he possessed, desperately hoping that it would jump start her heart again. It did.
There was a collective gasp from the room, and Bones looked up. Spock was strangling Jim. That didn't surprise McCoy much, but it did worry him. There wasn't really a logical reason for Spock to be strangling Jim. So why would he-
"SPOCK!"
Sarek spoke up, his voice strong and clear in the silent room. The captain released Jim, who wheezed and floundered around before choking down a few lungfuls of air.
Spock glanced around himself, and Bones almost felt sorry for the man. All he had tried to do was help, and now here he was, humiliated in front of his crew and his father.
"Doctor..." Spock said softly, addressing Bones. "I am no longer fit for duty...I hereby relinquish my command on the ground that..."
Bones studied the Vulcan face before him. If he hadn't just tried to kill both of his best friends, he might feel a certain kinship with Spock. But he may have just killed Devon, his...friend. Crush? No. Friend.
"I have been emotionally compromised. Please not the time and date in the ship's log."
Spock walked out of the bridge. The silence which had taken its hold on the mouths of everyone continued its reign of power until someone broke it.
"You couldn't keep her alive, could ya' buddy boy?" Bones growled at Jim, who looked vaguely annoyed.
"Don't blame me, blame Sporker. He's the one who threw us off the effing ship. She's dead, isn't she?"
The words took the whole room by surprise. Just like Jim had a reputation, Devon also had a reputation that preceded her more than a disgusting stink precedes a skunk. "Dead + Devon" in the same sentence just didn't equate.
"As dang near dead as anyone can get while still being alive, Jim," McCoy replied, voice almost choked. Everyone stared. Was Leonard McCoy, the gruffest of all the doctors in the school, who was known for being calm and collected at every turn...he was about to cry? "She's in a coma. Probably'll never wake up."
Jim felt his heart sink. So it was worse than death. At least, if she had been dead, there could have been a remembrance ceremony. Devon could have been remembered as the kind of person she was, not a drooling comatose idiot on life support.
The news was terrible. It made him want to cry, then to go beat the bloody brains out of Spock's skull in revenge.
But no one let him do that. Jim was in control of the ship now. It was his duty. He was not emotionally compromised by the situation at hand, and he was going to do everything in his power to avenge his friend's fate.
"Great," someone from the back of the room said. "Now we're down a captain and have no dang first officer to replace him."
Jim took a breath and squeezed Dev's hand. He looked at McCoy. "Take her down to sickbay."
"What about the effing ship, Jim?" the doctor retorted.
"I'll take control." He got up and strode confidently to the captain's chair, sitting down.
"WHAT?" seemed to be the general consensus of the room. Sulu spoke up, informing the room that, "Captain Pike made him first officer before he left."
"You've got to be kidding me," Uhura muttered to herself, walking over from where she had been handing a PADD to one of the technical officers in the front of the room past the captain's chair. "I sure hope you know what you're doing...captain."
Jim looked at her, and back at Bones, who was gently picking Devon off the floor and apparently thinking that no one was looking, carefully pushing a few stray strands off her face and gazing down like her closed eyes like they held the secrets to the universe. Maybe for him...they do, Jim thought before turning his attention back the communications officer.
"You know, Uhura...so do I."
And...it's been way way way too long. I wish I could say that this is the last time I'm going to do this, but to be honest, I'm human (SHOCKER, I know!) and I have problems/homework and...Sometimes I don't have time to take a shower or sleep, which is gross I know, but the honest truth. I love you guys to pieces, but right now I'm completely overloaded.
On a more positive note, I am REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY sorry for keeping you on that disgustingly cruel cliffhanger for A MONTH. I feel terrible =/ Now, I promise, there is a good reason this chapter is late. I got sick in the UK for two weeks with strep, had a 106 degree fever which is...I think like 42 degrees celsius, though I could be mistaken. So I came back from the UK after two weeks and was sick for another week at home, meaning I missed this exam and...lots of work. I'm almost caught up now, so things should be going back to normal. But I'm in a reproduction of the Sound of Music, so between that and training for figure skating, I have no time. Sorry again =/
Anyway, I want to know what you thought of this chapter. I've been trying to write it for FOREVER, but the words didn't come, and the style was really inconsistent. If it's awful...do tell. If it's wonderful...say something nice. If you want to strangle me for the delay, send a Spock-like strangle via a review :)
LLAP TO EVERYONE!
-Owly