Chapter 5

Meanwhile Spock's concern was growing. He thought about everything the Captain had been through during the past twenty-four hours and marvelled at how something as seemingly fragile as the human body could withstand such a vicious assault. By rights the man ought to be dead – Spock had thought he was when he'd first found him.

He'd ordered a security team to deck five straight away, leaving control of the bridge in the very capable hands of Mr Sulu. There hadn't been enough time to inform Scotty of what had happened, and Spock recalled the full horror of the sight that had greeted him as soon as he'd arrived on the scene.

As the Vulcan rounded the corner he was momentarily halted by what he saw – two motionless figures, both unconscious, slumped on the floor. One was clearly the Andorian, the other that of the Captain.

"Jim!" He exclaimed – but his call received no response.

This scared him – the man looked dead.

Kirk was lying on his front, his body prone and still beneath the comm where he'd evidently collapsed before he'd had the chance to finish his message. A first glance of the scene hadn't flagged up any evidence of what may have happened, but it was a logical assumption to think that he may have succumb to a head injury.

As he cautiously approached it became apparent that the alien ambassador was out cold, a knife lay near his hand – fresh blood still glistening against a father vicious looking, serrated, curved blade. Spock kicked it away – as far away from the Andorian as he could – before turning his attention to the Captain.

Kirk's head was turned to the side, his mouth slightly open. The gold of his uniform shirt was stained crimson. He was making a horrible gurgling noise and it became immediately apparent that he'd been stabbed. Spock wondered what was keeping the security team – it felt like hours since the Captain had made his initial call to the bridge to let them know that he'd been attacked. He had to remind himself that time always seemed to slow down in a crisis, making everything seem as though it was taking much longer than it actually was. It had taken him a little over a minute to reach deck five – he estimated that security couldn't be that far behind.

As if to confirm the accuracy of his assessment he heard the sound of running feet approaching them from the opposite end of the corridor and looked up to see a team of four or five red shirts – armed with phasers – round the corner. He didn't waste any time in giving them their orders.

"Get him out of here." He barked, indicating the Andorian, and watched as the red shirts hauled the limp frame of the alien to his feet. "Take him to the brig." He told them. "I'll question him later."

It all happened so quickly that some of the red shirts didn't even seem to notice the Captain, but a couple of them observed the injured man with concern.

"Is he…" One of them started to ask, but Spock shook his head as he removed his two fingers from Kirk's neck where he'd been checking his pulse.

"He's alive." He confirmed.

The man breathed a sigh of relief. He nodded, holding back from the rest of his unit for a moment before, with one final glance at Kirk, turning and following slowly along behind. Spock only hoped that he wouldn't say anything. News of what had happened to the Captain could quickly spread panic amongst the crew.

He looked to the unconscious and bleeding man at his feet, assessing his condition as best he could. He could tell just by looking at him that he'd been badly injured, and he placed a warm hand on his shoulder – in an uncharacteristically tender gesture – to let him know that someone was there. It was evident that any attempt to rouse him would be pointless – Spock could smell the blood as he reached up with his one remaining free hand to flick the switch above his head.

"Spock to sickbay." He spoke urgently into the comm. To his relief he didn't have to wait long to receive a response.

"McCoy here." The doctor responded. He sounded tired – his voice strained and gravely – and the Vulcan suspected that he probably hadn't yet given up trying to find an alternative blood donner for Sarek. He was a dedicated surgeon, nobody could question his compassion – if somewhat hidden behind a slightly frosty façade – nor his commitment to his job, but he did have a tendency to spread himself far too thinly sometimes.

Spock was the only Vulcan aboard the Enterprise. Even as a half Vulcan his blood was the closest match to his father's, if they could filter out the human element. It was only logical that he should be the donner. He was young, and healthy, and strong, and his body could tolerate the stimulant with little to no short-term effects… but even he didn't know where this new situation now left him. With the Captain now out of action that made him the acting Captain, and he knew his responsibility to Starfleet and the Enterprise outweighed any duty he had to do right by his father. Sarek would understand why – he would know that the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few – but he wasn't so sure his mother would agree.

"This had better be important Spock." McCoy growled. Jim groaned, and instinctively Spock squeezed his shoulder gently, hoping it might bring him some comfort. He was still making a horrible gurgling noise, and from this close proximity Spock could hear the weak wheezing and the wet rattle in his chest as he breathed out. His lungs were filling with fluid, but he seemed to be regaining consciousness, and with that came an increased awareness of his pain.

"Doctor, we need you down on deck five immediately." He told him. "It's the Captain, he's been injured."

"What happened Spock?" McCoy asked him urgently.

"I don't know the exact series of events doctor." He explained, and he could sense the man rolling his eyes in exasperation at the other end of the line. McCoy always hated the way the Vulcan talked – as though he was reciting from some scientific manual.

"He was attacked by one of the Andorian ambassadors." He told him. "He appears to have been stabbed."

"What's his condition?" The doctor demanded to know – he remained calm and professional, but Spock detected a slight change to his tone upon finding out what had happened to Kirk. It became more urgent as he slipped into medical mode. Spock gently lifted the Captain's shirt with a forefinger to assess the extent of the injury beneath. The material was saturated with blood, and as he observed the deep puncture wound to the man's back he placed both hands over the cut, putting as much pressure as he could on the injury to try and stem the flow of the bleeding. He watched as the crimson liquid oozed out between his fingers, and ran down the backs of his hands. It soaked into the cuffs of his own shirt, ruining it immediately. Spock's anxiety grew. He looked around but realised that the corridor was uncommonly deserved – he realised they were on their own.

"He's bleeding badly, unconscious and unresponsive." He explained.

"Is he breathing?" McCoy asked.

"Yes." Spock responded. He was watching the laboured rise and fall of the man's chest. "But with significant difficulty." He told him. "Doctor, I think the blade might have punctured his lung. He's sustained a penetrating injury to his back, left hand side, about an inch wide, but I can't determine how deep."

"Alright Spock, I'm on my way." He said. "Apply pressure to the wound, and keep it on until I get there. You need to try and control the bleeding."

Now that Spock had removed the Captain's shirt from the wound and there was nothing to soak up the blood it pooled beneath his fingers. His hands were slick with it, and he really wished he had some gauze or bandages to soak it up with.

"McCoy out." The doctor officially signed off on the conversation, observing proper protocol, but Spock hardly noticed. He was busy trying to turn Kirk over onto his side. The man's chest bubbled and rattled painfully, and his breathing was getting louder. It was the sound of a man in respiratory distress.

"Jim?" The Vulcan asked his friend as he cradled him in his arms. He hauled him upright in his lap in a bid to try and prevent him drowning in his own blood, which now he'd moved him he observed had pooled in copious amounts beneath him. The sight of it, in such a huge quantity, filled the human half of his heart with dread whilst the dominant Vulcan part of him tried to remain calm so he could retain control of the situation. As he pulled him upright Jim coughed, and a small trickle of blood dribbled out from between his half open lips – confirmation of an internal bleed. Spock gently wiped the man's cheek on the cuff of his sleeve – the shirt he was wearing was by now so saturated with blood that a little more wouldn't make any difference. He looked at his friend's face – his skin clammy and white, his lips and eyelids tinged with blue. His hands weren't enough to staunch the flow of the bleeding, there wasn't enough friction for him to apply enough pressure, and they kept on slipping. The blood continued to pool beneath them and dribble out between the gaps in his fingers, no matter how tight a seal he tried to create. He was fighting a losing battle, and in the absence of any proper first aid kit he began to tug at a seam in the arm of his own, already ruined shirt until he created an opening big enough to tear a strip of fabric from it. He balled it up and pressed it to Jim's wound, watching as it turned purple as the colour of his rank mixed with crimson blood. It wasn't enough, and so he tore another length – placing it over the first. He tore off enough fabric, layering one strip over the top of another, until he'd created a compression pad thick enough that the blood no longer seeped through the top layer of fabric. Both the arms of his shirt were now missing up to his shoulders and a chunk of the torso was also gone, but Spock didn't care how he may appear to McCoy or anyone else when they arrived – he knew that the doctor would do the same under the circumstances. A shirt, after all, could be replaced – he had five others, neatly folded, in a drawer in his quarters. A life on the other hand, especially one as important as a Starfleet Captain, could not.

Jim moaned, and began to squirm in Spock's arms. His pain hit him like a frake train as consciousness slowly began to return to him – his lungs were screaming for air, they burned with every breath, and the throbbing in his back was indescribable.

Jim's arms flailed and as Spock reached out to grab them in a bid to stop him injuring himself further his friend's fingers skimmed his bare wrist – they were freezing cold. From somewhere deep within the recesses of his pain induced delirium Jim must have registered the contact he made with another because his blue eyes opened a crack and peered up at the Vulcan – recognition flashing across his face.

"Sp…sp…ock…" He stammered through the sticky liquid clogging his throat. He could taste blood.

"You mustn't talk Captain." His friend told him in his usual, unaffected way, but Kirk recognised the worry in his eyes, and it alarmed him. Why shouldn't he talk? He wondered. He wanted to tell Spock about his pain, but something about the way he was looking at him told him that he already knew.

"You've been badly wounded Jim." The Vulcan told him, and his friend's use of his abbreviated name concerned him even more – he so rarely addressed him by anything other than his rank. "Doctor McCoy is on his way." He explained. "Just try not to move. Try to relax."

Kirk wanted to ask him what had happened, but he didn't have the breath, not the energy to talk. The fact that he was finding it so hard to breathe scared him, but he tried to do as Spock had instructed, and struggled to recall for himself what had brought him to this moment. It all came back to him in a rush. He'd been ambushed by the Andorian ambassador, they'd struggled – the alien had had a knife. He couldn't remember how their fight had ended, but evidently it hadn't been in his favour. He vaguely recalled knocking the Andorian unconscious – at least he thought that he'd been unconscious.

Panic suddenly surged though him – if the Andorian had got away the whole ship would be in danger, the man certainly had a mind to kill, and the means to do it.

He knew that talking would use up valuable breath, breath that he knew he couldn't afford to waste, but he had to know if the Andorian had been caught, and if not warn Spock of the danger.

His first couple of attempts to form words failed as he couldn't even get his lips and tongue to move properly, he was weak and he knew that he was failing, the darkness was beckoning to him again. He didn't have much time.

"Wh… where's the… Andorian?" He was finally able to ask, with a tremendous amount of effort. Speaking drained him, leaving his lungs screaming for air as words used up what little they had, and took up precious breaths. The words didn't quite come out as he'd intended, they were slurred and somewhat distorted by his inability to get his lips and tongue around the sounds needed to produce them – but he hoped that Spock would understand.

"The Andorian has been taken to the brig Captain." The Vulcan explained, to Kirk's relief. "He no longer presents a danger."

Kirk breathed a sigh, and Spock felt the man's body go lax in his arms. He was beginning to fade – slipping back into unconsciousness again.

"Try to stay awake Captain." Spock tried to encourage him, and he felt his long fingers curl around his wrist – checking his pulse. "Don't go to sleep now. Doctor McCoy's on his way. Hold on just a little longer."

Spock had never understood why people said such things in the presence of someone who was dying, but he spoke these words now out of sheer desperation, and in the absence of anything else meaningful to say. There was nothing he could do to keep the Captain from losing consciousness, and he couldn't reassure him that everything was going to be alright.

It was illogical to assume that anyone should have power of the physical failing of their body – when their organs were shutting down and there was no longer enough strength left within them to stay alive – but he understood that it was also perfectly natural to want to spur a loved one on to fight for as long as they possibly could.

As a Vulcan Spock couldn't comprehend the concept of love – he couldn't even begin to imagine how it felt to have so much emotionally invested in another to cause one to abandon all reason and logic. He'd never felt anything even vaguely akin to it in his lifetime. Love was an emotion and his Vulcan heritage had taught him that all emotions were illogical, and therefore not an efficient use of one's energy.

At least that's what people believed of him, and it suited him to have it so – but in truth Spock did know what it felt like to love. As a child growing up on Vulcan he'd always stood out from the other boys for his ineptitude to hide his ability to feel emotion. He'd doubted that he felt it as strongly as he might if he were wholly human, but a plurality of feelings had haunted him. Happiness, sadness, anger, fear and envy had been like a nagging ache, always on the periphery of conscious thought no matter how hard he tried to supress them. His childhood had been spent in constant limbo, not completely human, and yet not Vulcan enough to fit in with the other children either. They'd singled him out – had taunted him, saying that he wasn't really Vulcan. Consumed with rage, and confused about his own identity from a very young age his relationship with his father had been strained pretty much all his life. To him he'd always appeared cold and unfeeling, distancing himself from his son, giving the boy the the impression that he didn't care. Whatever Spock did had never seemed to be enough. He'd never celebrated his successes, comforted him when he'd cried, or come to his aid when he'd witnessed him being picked on by the other Vulcan boys. Spock had been a bitter and resentful child, but there was one person he had loved in the midst of his pain, and that had been his mother. It had seemed that just as his father had sort to push him away, so had his mother drawn him closer to her. He had even expressed his feeling towards her on more than one occasion, telling her that he loved her – much to Sarek's dismay.

School had been a nightmare, but Spock had been blessed with a good brain, and a thirst for knowledge, and everyday he'd thrown himself into his work. He'd worked harder and longer, until he'd become smarter than anyone else in his class. He'd excelled at maths, and linguistics, and had been commended by his teachers for his remarkable propensity for science. He'd learnt more about his heritage, eventually embracing his Vulcan identity, rejecting the human part of him, and had eliminated everything that wasn't logical from his life. Eventually he'd lost the ability to feel the nagging presence of the emotion that afflicted him almost completely.

The human part of him recognised that Jim was probably the closest thing to a friend he'd ever had however, and was ever likely to. He had so often tried to justify his feelings by telling himself they were attributable to nothing more than the healthy respect he felt for his commanding officer – to think that he might feel actual friendship for another man had made him feel ashamed – but over time Spock had had to accept that he simply liked having Jim around, he valued his company – and he supposed that if that constituted friendship it really wasn't that bad a thing. Now though, watching as he slowly slipped away from him he wondered what possible benefit there could be to letting someone get so close to you that they started to get inside your head. Spock couldn't think straight – there was very little he could actually do to help Jim. He wasn't a doctor – as a scientist he had a limited knowledge of the human anatomy, and of basic first aid. Although this knowledge was superior to that of most nothing he'd done so far had succeeded in stopping the bleeding. It was becoming increasingly apparent that Jim needed an operating theatre and a surgeon. He needed McCoy.

He didn't like the way any of this made him feel – and he supposed that this was what it was to be truly helpless.

He wondered how much time had passed since he'd spoken to McCoy. There was no way to tell down here – no sense of time. Seconds felt like minutes, so he imagined minutes would probably seem like hours – his perception of time was good enough for him to realise that it hadn't been that long. Finally he heard the sound of the elevator doors opening and closing further down the corridor, and a flurry of footsteps and what sounded like a gurney – its wheels rattling along the floor. He tore his gaze away from Jim for just a moment as he looked up instinctively in the direction from which the sound was coming, and felt the man go limp in his arms – he looked down and saw that his eyes were closed, the lids puffy and grey, and his breathing had suddenly become even more laboured. His chest was heaving with the effort of drawing in breath, his diaphragm pumping like a bellows – he'd lost consciousness again.

"Jim!" Spock exclaimed, trying to rouse him. He shook him slightly, as best he could without risking causing him anymore damage, and without taking one hand from the seeping wound, but he received no response. "Jim!"

It was at that moment that McCoy appeared around the corner, closely followed by Doctor M'Benga and Nurse Chapel. He was somewhat surprised to see M'Benga, whom he'd assumed would take over Sarek's care in the absence of Doctor McCoy, being an expert in Vulcan physiology – but he supposed there was very little anyone could do for his father right now, and it made sense that the Captain's condition would warrant the attendance of the ship's three most senior medical personal.

It took McCoy only a few seconds to survey the situation with an expert eye before leaping into action. He didn't even acknowledge Spock, but bent down beside him as he barked at Nurse Chapel.

"Get a dressing on that, quickly!" He told her, indicating the wound. He observed the massive amount of blood as he whipped out his hand-held scanner and began assessing Jim's condition. Nurse Chapel primed the sterile gauze from the portable surgical kit with an anti-septic fluid. The pressure pack itself was infused with silver suphadiazine to help slow the development and the potential spread of any infection – although with a penetrating wound like the Captain's it was likely that any bacteria would have already been injected deep into the chest cavity.

Whilst all this was going on Spock didn't notice Doctor M'Benga bend down beside him until he felt his hands being removed from Jim's back. With the Captain now being taken care of he stood up and took a step back to survey the situation. His shoulders sagged slightly.

Doctor M'Benga was kneeling in the pool of the Captain's blood, the knees of his trousers smearing the crimson liquid as he slid himself across the floor, trying to get a better angle over his patient. The blood soaked rags – all that remained of Spock's ruined shirt – were tossed aside in the chaos as Nurse Chapel bent down to apply the pressure packet to Jim's chest and McCoy leaned further over him to check his pulse – placing two fingers to his neck, either side of his jugular vein.

"Jim?" He asked the man gently, but with a suitable degree of urgency, to try and provoke some sort of reaction from him. "Jim, can you hear me?" He asked again – but like Spock before him he received no response. He then leaned in closer over his back, carefully lifting the dressing to inspect the wound, whilst Nurse Chapel cut away the blood-soaked shirt from his back. He grimaced as he observed the mess the blade had made.

It was deep – a life threatening injury – and the skin was ragged and torn. It certainly wasn't a clean cut – the knife had chewed at the flesh as it had gone in, suggestive of a serrated blade. He could hear when he breathed in that some of the air which should, under normal circumstances, have remained within healthy lungs, escaped through the hole in his chest – the tell-tale sign that at least one lung had been punctured during the attack.

"God Jim!" He cursed under his breath – evidently his findings coupled with the tri-corder readings had been far from reassuring. Nobody had spoken a single word to the Vulcan since they'd arrived on the scene. McCoy hadn't even paused to ask him what had happened, there hadn't been enough time. Even he'd been surprised by the severity of the injuries the Captain had sustained. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting when Spock had told him that Jim had been attacked by the Andorian, but he hadn't expected it to be this bad – as soon as he'd seen him he'd known that his friend had been mortally wounded.

"Christine I need you to get me ten ccs of morathial and forty milligrams of pulmozine please." He said, turning to Nurse Chapel as he spoke. She leapt straight to her feet, but her response time evidently wasn't fast enough for McCoy who was still carefully examining his friend, looking to back up his readings with his own observations.

"Quickly!" He barked at her.

She fetched the bag containing all the drugs and medical equipment they'd brought with them and placed it down beside him, before setting about preparing the two hyposprays. The Captain's condition was serious – her advanced nurse's training had meant that she could be under no illusion in this regard – but as soon as Doctor McCoy had asked her for the morathial she'd known that his condition was critical. Morathial was a drug used to treat only the most seriously injured of patients, when their blood pressure was dangerously low, pulmozine helped stimulate breathing. If the doctor had felt the need to use both of these drugs together then that meant the man was already in respiratory failure.

She handed the two hyposprays to him, and he quickly emptied the contents of both into Jim's arm.

"Get the respirator on him." He then ordered her, before turning to Doctor M'Benga.

"His vital signs are unstable." He told him. "He's going into hypovolemic shock, with massive internal bleeding."

"We need to get him back to sickbay." M'Benga concurred.

McCoy nodded gravely in agreement. The longer he remained out here the more precious time they lost, but if they tried to move him now he could bleed out before they could get him to sickbay. He'd already lost a massive amount of blood, his body was going into shock and his vital signs were bottoming out. Their only choice was to pump his full of powerful drugs and hope this was enough to stabilise his condition long enough to enable them to move him without killing him.

"I'll need to operate." McCoy concluded. "The blade has punctured his left lung, but we can't even think about moving him until his condition has stabilised."

"Can I be of any assistance?" Spock asked, feeling utterly useless standing in the corner. McCoy looked at him as though observing him for the first time. He realised that as soon as they'd arrived on the scene all three's focus had been on Jim – the Vulcan's presence had been practically forgotten.

"Yes." McCoy said, thinking out loud and grateful for the extra pair of hands. "Take the mask from Christine Spock." He told him. "Keep it steady over Jim's mouth and nose. The gas should help him to breathe a little easier." He then turned to look at Nurse Chapel as Spock did as instructed. He took the mask and held it over Jim's face, noticing from this new proximity that the Captain wasn't gasping for air anymore and he appeared to be breathing slightly easier.

"Nurse I need you to pass the following drugs to Doctor M'Benga," McCoy meanwhile was saying, "we need trioxin, cordrazine, coranalin and a tri-ox compound. M'Benga I want you to draw the maximum amount of each, but don't administer it. I'll inject him." He told them.

Doctor M'Benga nodded. He wasn't in as senior a position as McCoy, but his experience in his own field of expertise very nearly mirrored the Chief Medical Officer's exemplary grasp of general medicine. He wasn't quite as skilled a surgeon, but he evidently approved. Spock watched as Nurse Chapel passed several vials of medication to M'Benga, who then syphoned off a measured dose of each into several of the small canisters, which he attached to a number of hyposprays, before handing the first of which to McCoy.

"Cordrazine." He told him, indicating which of the drugs he was giving him first. Spock had a fairly sound grasp of some of the most common drugs, and a fair amount of knowledge about many of the lesser used, restricted ones, too. He knew that cordrazine was a powerful heart stimulant – its effect was quite similar to that of defibulation used in years gone by, only instead of delivering an electric shock to the heart, the chemical compound was strong enough to stimulate the heart back into normal sinus rhythm. It was a dangerous drug though – too much could very quickly kill a patient, especially one who's heart was already weakened – and therefore was only used on those whose heart had already stopped or those who were at serious risk of suffering a cardiac arrest. It was the first indication Spock had of just how seriously injured the captain was. McCoy carefully examined the hypo, checking for air bubbles, before injecting it into a vein bulging in Kirk's neck. He waited a couple of seconds before running his hand-held scanner over him again, this time paying very close attention to the area directly over and surrounding his heart, and after a further moment he turned to M'Benga and smiled.

"We have normal rhythm." He confirmed, to everyone's evident relief. He was then handed the next hypospray – as happy as they all were that the captain's heart was beating normally again there was no time to celebrate.

"Trioxin." M'Benga said. This Spock knew they would be being used to treat Jim's lung injury. McCoy then injected the following drugs into Jim's arm in quick succession.

"Coranalin." This drug was also used to treat damaged organs.

"Triox Compound." This oxygenated the blood, and would make it easier for him to breathe.

Whilst they waited for the cocktail of drugs to take effect McCoy then turned his attention to the wound in Jim's back, but as he carefully lifted the edge of the pressure pack Christine had secured in place blood began to ooze and bubble up from the deep hole in his chest, and the doctor quickly replaced the bandage again with a grimace. As he did so a quiet moan escaped Jim, and the man shivered where he lay. He was so weak he could barely move, but Spock was still holding the respirator mask over his face and he watched as his eyes cracked open slightly. They were glassy and without focus – clouded by blood loss and pain. The Vulcan doubted, in his current state, that he would have a true sense of awareness of what was going on around him.

"Triptacederine, quickly." McCoy said, turning to Christine, who quickly handed him the hypospray, and he emptied its contents into his friend's arm. Triptacederine, the Vulcan knew, was a powerful painkiller, and after a few moments Jim seemed to relax slightly. He stopped trembling and seemed to slip back into unconsciousness. The doctor ran his hand-held scanner over him once again and seemed pleased with his findings.

"He's stabilising." He told them all. "Heartrate is still slightly irregular but strong, and steady. Blood oxygen levels are rising. Pressure is still low though. We need to move him now. Christine, take the respirator mask from Spock." He told her, taking charge of proceedings as they prepared to move the captain. They only had a small window of opportunity in which to do so, once the drugs in his system wore off there was no guarantee how his body would respond to another dose. Certainly any more cordrazine would very likely kill him – his heart would likely be unable to cope with the high dose of stimulants. "Doctor M'Benga and I will lift him." He said. "M'Benga take his legs, I'll take his shoulders."

Spock moved aside as Nurse Chapel appeared beside him, handing over charge of the respirator mask to her. He stood up and stepped back, stretching his aching legs which had stiffened and set in place whilst he'd been kneeling on the floor. He watched McCoy and M'Benga lift the captain gently, Christine keeping the mask steady against his face as they moved him to the gurney. They positioned him on his front, lying him flat on his stomach with his head turned to the side. Nurse Chapel and Doctor M'Benga then whisked him away quickly on McCoy's instruction.

"Get him to sickbay, now." He ordered. "Prep for surgery. I'll be there in a minute." He then turned to look at Spock, observing the state the Vulcan was in for the first time. He took in the blood-soaked rags he was wearing, the full length of his uniform shirt arms missing all the way up to his tattered shoulders, and his hands stained crimson with blood. He frowned.

"You'd better go get yourself cleaned up Spock." He told him and, looking down at himself, the Vulcan nodded. He gave no outward indication of what he was feeling, or the thoughts filling his head but his dark eyes conveyed a level of concern McCoy knew he would never voice out loud. His ruined shirt was testament to the fact that he'd done everything he could for his friend before the medical team had arrived. Spock looked tired – under normal circumstances he would have recommended that he rest after what he'd been through but he knew the Vulcan would protest and he really didn't have time to argue with him and present his case at the moment.

"What would you say his chances are doctor?" Spock asked – blunt and to the point as always.

"I'll do everything I can Spock." McCoy promised him. "I'll let you know."

The Vulcan nodded – there was nothing more either man could say, but he could tell by the doctor's tone and the look on his face that things weren't good. McCoy then turned and hurried away and Spock, after commanding a team to clean up deck five, made his way to his own quarters to wash and change his shirt before returning to the bridge to let them know what had happened.

"McCoy to bridge." Spock was immediately pulled from his reminiscence by the sound of McCoy's voice requesting him over the comm. "Spock, are you there?" The doctor asked. He sounded tired.

"Spock here." The Vulcan answered him. "How's the captain?"

Outwardly he appeared the architype of calm, his concern caged, but like a frenetic bird privately he was impatient to find out how the captain's surgery had gone. Scotty still hadn't ceased contacting him – the chief engineer was evidently unsettled by his own concern for his friend – and Spock was weary. He wouldn't admit to it but the Ambassador's constant requests for information and their complaining was beginning to get to him. As well as feeling utterly exhausted and drained of his usual energy he was also starting to feel somewhat breathless.

"He's in recovery now." McCoy explained. "The operation went well. It took a lot longer than I expected though. There were a few complications. He's going to be in a lot of pain when he wakes up."

"Complications?" Spock frowned. "What do you mean complications?" He asked him.

"Can we discuss it here?" McCoy sighed. He sounded weary and tense, and the Vulcan could tell by his tone alone that the surgery had evidently been tough on both patient and surgeon. McCoy's reluctance to discuss anything further with him until they could speak face to face also made him feel uneasy.

"I'm on my way." Spock told him. "Spock out."

He cut the comm, getting gingerly to his feet and stretching the muscles in his stiff and aching legs – he'd been sitting for far too long.

"Mr Sulu, you have the con." He told the helmsman.

He wasn't in peak physical condition, and he could feel it within his own body that something wasn't right as he left the bridge. He was confident that it wasn't anything serious, he just needed a little longer to recover from the after effects of the blood transfusion the day before, but he hoped that McCoy would have bigger issues occupying his mind, and that he wouldn't notice all the same.