CHAPTER 7
Spock's head pounded and felt fuzzy as he woke up. His eyes opened to slits and finally opened fully as his eyes got used to the light. He could tell it was early evening and that there was still a good three hours left of sunlight. He then noticed that he was on his side and that his shirt was tucked under his head. He slowly sat up and was unable to stop his hand from holding his head.
"So you finally decided to wake-up. How are you feeling?"
Spock slowly turns his head to the right to see a concerned Leonard gazing at him. Spock removes his hand from his head and tries to stand.
"Whoa! You're gonna make your cut worse if you move around too much. Besides, you need more rest, stay seated," ordered Leonard as he stretched out a hand to prevent Spock from getting up.
Spock sat back down, but leaned away from Leonard's hand. Seeing this, Leonard brought his hand back, but thought of what he's going to need to do.
"Spock, I noticed that cut on your back and it seems to me it needs to be stitched up," Leonard said slowly.
Spock looked up from the ground to Leonard's eyes with his shoulders hunched.
"Hey Spock! You're awake!" came a call. Spock's gaze turned from Leonard's eyes to look in front of him across the fire to see Jimmy bounding to them with something in his hands. Jimmy slowed down and walked around the fire to Leonard and said, "I was able to make a basket out of bark so we could use it as a bowl," Jimmy handed the bark bowl to Leonard and then looked over to Spock, "I had to use your knife to cut the bark, I'm sorry I used it without asking you, but you were asleep and I didn't want to wake you."
"It is alright. Under the circumstances there was no choice," replied Spock.
Jimmy smiled and then looked down at Leonard. "So, do you think it'll work?"
"Yah, you did pretty good work on it. We'll just have to see if it'll hold water."
Jimmy took the bowl back from Leonard and ran to the stream and dipped the bowl in. "Hey! It works!"
"Good," Leonard said with a satisfactory nod. "Now bring it here with some water in it. We'll need to wash Spock's back since he rolled back in the dirt."
Spock stiffened and looked at Leonard. "That will be unnecessary. I can wash myself."
"You can't reach your back easily and if you're thinkin' about using your shirt I'm tellin' ya right now that it's not clean enough. I know that you're a touch telepath or whatever, but you're gonna need to let me clean you up and sew up your back so nothin' can get in and give you an infection," Leonard said sternly giving Spock a hard look.
Spock knew that he was still stronger than both humans, even in his injured state, but could not come up with an argument that was logical to fend off Leonard. He shifted and knew that he had to surrender to Leonard, but knew it would be highly uncomfortable.
"Leonard?"
"Hmmm?" answers Leonard with a quizzical expression and a lifted eyebrow.
"You may wash my back. However, I ask that you try to keep your emotions in check as I can feel everything you think and feel when you touch me," Spock responds quietly.
Leonard's face softens and he gives a nod to Spock. When Jimmy comes back with the bowl of water, Leonard takes it and grunts as he tries to move towards Spock.
"Hey Spock? Will you move over here? I can't exactly move since my leg's injured," explains Leonard as he gives Spock an abashed grin.
Spock lifts himself up and takes a couple steps and sits with his back to Leonard. Leonard gains a professional mask and pours some of the water onto Spock's back. He touches Spock's back and gently, but firmly rubs off the dirt. Spock tries to block the feel of Leonard's hand and to his surprise feels limited emotion coming from Leonard. 'So humans can control their emotions,' Spock thought to himself.
Leonard was efficiently cleaning Spock's back and poured more of the water to wash away the loosened dirt and finished. He quickly withdrew his hand so Spock doesn't have to bear his touch for the moment. He almost thought he heard a sign of relief escape Spock. 'Must be my imagination.'
"Spock? I'm gonna need to stitch you up, so you may need to do some mental block. This might hurt a bit," Leonard's concerned voice said over Spock's shoulder.
Spock nodded and tried to prepare the best he can for the pain he knew would come.
Leonard took one of the straitened hooks and reached out to the fire to sterilized it. After what he thought was enough and also since the piece of metal was getting hot to the point of burning his fingers, he pulled back and let it cool down. He picked up some fishing line and pulled it threw the eye of his improvised needle. Jimmy was watching all of this intently about two feet away with his legs crossed.
"Okay, Spock. My father is a doctor, so I've seen this done a lot. I've also have sutured a couple animals before. So don't think I don't know what I'm doing," announced Leonard. "Okay, I'm gonna start stitching you up, so you may want to brace your self."
Spock couldn't stop himself from gritting his teeth when he felt the needle bite into his flesh and the tingle of the line being pulled threw. He was proud, though, that he was able to stop his hands from going into fists. Leonard was quickly and carefully stitching up both sides of the gash together and pulling them tight together and hoping he was doing okay. He had told the truth of having watched his dad giving his patients stitches and that he himself had done it on animals, but animal and humanoid skin was a little different.
Five minutes later Leonard was examining his work and smiled proudly to himself. "I'm done now," he announced.
Spock's back felt strange since it now had fishing line strung through it.
"What are you going to do about your leg?" asked Jimmy, who had been silent until now.
"I hadn't really thought about it, other than thinkin' I'll hafta sew myself up," Leonard said thoughtfully, then grimaced at the thought of all the pain he's going to go through since his leg is worse off than Spock's back. "There isn't a chance that one of you know how to sew? Suturing and sewing is similar, it's just that you can't tighten the string up too tight, or otherwise the skin will be puckered up."
"Well, Mom does a lot of cross-stitching. I watch her a bit sometimes and she taught me a little," volunteered Jimmy with a little blush. "Not that I plan to do any cross-stitching," he added defensively.
"That would be fine. But boy, I wish I had some pain killers. Spock? I didn't hurt ya much did I?" asked Leonard with concerned eyes.
"No, you also controlled yourself admirably," added Spock stoically.
Both humans eyes widened, realizing that this was the first time Spock had complimented anyone.
They were silent for a moment and then Leonard coughed and said, "Thanks."
"I guess we should start unwrapping my leg," mumbled Leonard.
They set to work, carefully unwrapping Leonard's leg and washing it. It was still bleeding and Spock found his nose assailed by nauseous smells. When they all looked at Leonard's cleaned leg, they found that it was very messy and would take a LOT of stitches. The whole time while Jimmy and Leonard was cleaning the leg, Leonard tried to keep himself from screaming and felt a tremendous relief wash over him when they were done washing his leg. He found that he was sweating profusely from the pain. Then he remembered that it wasn't even halfway done with since they had yet to sew his leg up and he grimaced at the prospect.
"Um, Spock? You may want to clamp down on my leg so I won't thrash about while Jimmy's sewing up my leg," mumbled Leonard while he looked to the ground.
Spock gave a nod and asked Jimmy, "Are you ready to proceed?"
"Yes," answered Jimmy.
Spock took a firm hold of Leonard's left leg and Jimmy went to work.
About half an hour later Jimmy put in the last stitch and heaved a sigh of relief along with Leonard, who looked a bit pale. Spock removed his hands and washed up.
Spock was a bit shaken since his contact with Leonard provided to let him feel every anguished internal scream and pain shot through nerves as Jimmy put stitches in Leonard's battered skin.
"Um, guys?" asked Jimmy timidly.
"Yes?" Leonard croaked.
"I'm a bit hungry and I know what we saw may want us to turn into vegetarians, but we finally have dead meat over there." Jimmy pointed at the blue alligator. "I'm pretty sure I could cut it up and we could cook the meat on some of these rocks if we stick it right by the fire."
Spock turned green, but knew his human companions would need the energy and that he won't stop them from eating the meat. He would not join them in the barbarous practice.
"You may use my knife, I need to look for food," Spock told them.
"You can eat with us too, you know. I meant all of us," said a confused Jimmy.
"I practice vegetarianism," stated Spock.
"Oh," both humans replied.
"I will be back shortly."
Spock did not want to be there when Jimmy cut up the animal, he knew he would become sick. He already was feeling a little dizzy with the close proximity to Leonard's blood. Spock walked a little ways into the forest and searched for what he hoped was edible berries and plants.
Jimmy, on the other hand, was cutting up the alligator already and had some thin slabs ready. He tried his best in cutting the pieces thin so they would be cooked thoroughly, because he didn't know what diseases there might be. As the meat started sizzling Spock returned with an armful of greens and proceeded washing them at the streams. He had smelled them carefully and took a bit of each in the forest and spit them out to see if there was any negative effect from them. It was risky, but he had to do it. Fortunately for him, all the plants he tried did not seem to be poisonous. But he also knew some poisons may take a day or two to let themselves known after they were in his system. If he was alright in the next couple of days, then they would know what plants would be edible and won't have to worry about starving.
Spock almost looked at the meat in disgust, but held himself in check. They needed to eat as he did and it wasn't his place to criticize another cultures eating habits. They ate their food quietly while Jimmy cooked a lot more meat than they could handle eating in a week, much less a day, on the explanation that they would need to have food ready for later and that it would rot without a refrigerator to keep the meat in. He was planning on letting it cook until there was no more moisture left in it.
Spock blanched at the smell of cooked animal and tried to keep his food in his stomach as they all drifted to sleep around the small fire. Waiting for tomorrow to plan what they were going to do.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I think I'm supposed to put disclaimers on my fanfics, but I always forget. Besides, I stuck one in the summary, but if that's not enough I do not own any of the Star Trek shows or anything affiliated with it, except for my Star Trek action figures… :-) This is intended for ALL chapters written and ones soon to be.
Thanks to Lady J and all those who have reviewed so far. Special thanks to The Doctor who gets me off my lazy butt to write more.