"Captain." he grasped his arms and shook him gently. "Jim. I am Spock. Of whom are you imagining me to be?"
Kirk's body stayed unyielding against the Vulcan's grip, eyes fixed onto Spock's, as if watching for any signs that he were to hurt him.
"I.. don't know. I don't know who you are." Jim's eyebrows furrowed.
"Then why are you showing such deep negative emotion towards me?"
Jim's cautious eyes watched Spock's face a little while longer, before his shoulders visibly relaxed.
"Spock.." he whispered, gazing down to the floor, mouth gaping. Spock seemed content with the outcome of that breakdown.
"Do you believe me now when I say that you must stay in sickbay?" he stood back from him a bit, to allow him room to breathe.
"I understand.. why I should be there." He looked away from the Vulcan and faced the wall. "Really, I do, I just…" he closed his eyes and fell back into the wall in exhaustion. "I just can't."
Spock folded his arms, head turning towards the turbolift doors that opened shortly after. He raised forward a hand that signalled he could leave first. Jim made a mumble noise and dragged himself out the lift and onto the bridge.
There were mumbles from the crew the second that they spotted Kirk walk onto the bridge. He shook off the feeling that they were so obviously talking about him, ordered Spock back to his station, and slumped onto the chair.
Kirk sighed.
"ETA Mister Chekov..?" he asked quietly, clear tone of grief, misery, in his voice.
"Emm.. tventy seven meenets Captain!" came the complete opposite of Kirk's voice. He forced a smile at the Russian boy. He was always so cheery.
The intercom sounded. "Doctor McCoy to the bridge. Jim, get your negligent ass down here now!"
Kirk rested his head against the chair, silently taking breathes and ignoring the beeping that followed with "Jim! Jim answer me damn it!" and "Get down here now!"
He continued to pretend the comm didn't exist, shutting his eyes and trying to bring his mind elsewhere.
"Don't make come up there, Jim." Kirk's eyes shot open. Spock went into defence-mode.
Kirk's eyes wandered over to Spock, attempting to make eye contact that read 'get rid of him.'
Spock, the overly-intelligent being that he was, read Jim's face like a book, and strode over to the comm.
"Doctor McCoy, this is Spock. Attempting communication with the Captain is causing him visible distress. Please refrain from calling in again. Spock out." And ended the transmission.
Kirk silently thanked his lucky star-date that Spock and McCoy didn't always get on very well. It meant that both of them were able to oppose each other without hesitation, but cared for and supported them if they needed it.
"Approaching planet orbit, sir." Came Sulu's voice. "We're in orbit, it's safe to beam down." was followed a few minutes later.
Kirk stood up instantly and turned to Spock.
"Spock, with me. Call down to medical and alert Nurse Chapel to assist me."
Spock hesitated for a second.
"Captain, might I enquire as to why Nurse Chapel is attending you to the planet surface rather than Doctor McCoy?"
Jim visibly cringed.
"It's good to change out the landing party every now and then." he lied. Well, it was true that it was good to change the landing party every now and then, but that wasn't the reason he had swapped McCoy for Chapel. And Jim was pretty sure Spock already knew why.
"Ready ta' beam ye' down sirs…" then Scott saw Chapel. "..and ma'am."
Kirk, Spock and Chapel all jumped onto the platform and waited to be beamed down. Scotty shifted the controls around and before they knew it, they were dematerialising. Onto Tarsus IV.
"Remind me, what was the mission again?" Chapel asked 5 minutes after being beamed down.
After a brief pause of silence, Spock and Chapel both turned to look at Kirk as if to enquire why he hadn't answered yet.
He saw their eyes staring at him.
"Oh uh.." Kirk jolted back into reality. "I-I-It's.. um.." Kirk swallowed hard and shook his head. "Can't remember." he finished quietly.
Spock turned away and faced Chapel, straightening his posture.
"I believe we are to cover grounds of the planet, to collect physical evidence of the, as you would say, atrocities that were taken place here."
Chapel looked confused.
"But the mass-murders here took place years ago. Why now are they fishing for evidence?"
Spock curved away from her and let himself take in the surroundings. It was so… bare.
No life. No food.
"That is something you should take up with Starfleet Command." he answered.
The three walked a couple of miles across the planet, picking up random evidence of the massacre, such as broken weapons, food, even some of the rocks kept their blood stains after all these years.
"Really can't imagine what it must have been like to be here.." Chapel mused, picking up another piece of rock.
"The amount of suffering that occurred here, really does appear to be unimaginable to the human mind." Spock replied, taking the rock and plopping it in a bag.
They eventually ended up in fields and fields of dry land, deflated crops, and complete nothingness. An absolute wasteland.
"I believe this is the area in which food were previously grown." Spock informed them, gesturing towards the empty dirt fields.
"Yeah.." Chapel's voice seemed distant with sorrow. "All those people that starved.."
At that moment, Kirk audibly hiccupped. Spock rotated in the spot to look at the younger man; and wanted to kick himself.
What an illogical emotion he was expressing!
Jim Kirk had streams of tears down his face, his eyes were puffy and red, and he seemed to be hyperventilating.
Chapel raced over and embraced him, much to Spock's surprise at this gesture.
"Oh, Jim.." she quietly hushed.
At the touch, Jim jumped back and fell onto the dirt.
This is the dirt where everyone died.
I'm sitting on the dirt of the place where everyone died
Everyone died.
He lunged back into reality with a gasp, realising he was on the floor, on his back, staring party at the sky, and partly at Chapel and Spock, who were bending over him.
"Jim, you may return to the ship if you find this planet.. uncomfortable." Spock spat the sentence out before he realised he called the Captain by his name.
Kirk's breath hitched in his throat.
Uncomfortable?
He stared up at Spock furiously, his fingers curling into the dirt, seeping into his fingertips. Spock made the logical choice to withdraw.
"Uncomfortable?" he said out loud, sitting upright and stumbling to his feet.
"Un..COMFORTABLE?" Kirk lunged forward to attack Spock, while the Vulcan himself did a perfect 180 turn in order to nerve pinch him from behind, but Kirk ducked and kneed Spock in the stomach before he did.
Chapel grabbed Jim's wrist and pulled him back.
"Captain.. stop this." she ushered quietly, gesturing at Spock with a shake of her head to stay away.
"IT WAS NOT UNCOMFORTABLE!" he bellowed, making another attempt to attack Spock—jumping forward and yelling like a mad-man, while Spock grabbed the man and spun him so his back was against him, wrapping his own arms tightly around the Kirk's chest to stop him from moving.
"I apologise if I offended you, Captain." Spock whispered softly, in an attempt to calm him down.
Kirk stopped struggling, and lay slack against the Vulcan.
"Let's just move on.." he whined, mostly to himself.
Hours later, the landing party had walked for approximately 26 miles without stopping. The entire planet was lifeless, and if it wasn't for the cool temperature, would have been similar to that of a bare desert.
They approached a rather large building—or larger than the standards of the smaller ones they had come across.
Chapel pushed against the door, shaking her head at Spock, to say "Can't get in."
Spock craned his head to the side, then pressed his body against the door, seconds later shoving it inwards. It left the other two people in the party impressed.
As unemotional as Spock claimed to be, his slight smirk showed that he was obviously pleased with himself.
Pushing into the room, Chapel gasped when she realised where they were.
"Sickbay!" she breathed, eyes glancing around the room at all the empty beds, blood stained pillows, sheets, walls, floor, and most of all, the medical instruments.
Spock approached a tray of scalpels and brought out his tricorder.
"Fascinating." he acknowledged, turning to look at all the other equipment. "It appears that all these instruments are unclean and have not been sterilised."
Chapel approached him and read the readings from the tricorder, mentally drawing to the same conclusion.
"It's logical to assume that this facility was not used to treat the sick, but rather torture or kill them, and from observing the environment- in inhumane ways."
Chapel nodded in agreement. She felt sick to her stomach thinking about how many innocent people were gruesomely tortured.
"They were probably helpless." she declared, using a latex glove she had on to pick up a blood-stained scalpel, dropping it into the evidence bag.
CLASH.
Chapel spun around instantly, her heart dropped when she saw Jim on the floor. With a stab wound to his stomach.
Oh god.
She rushed up to him, brushing the younger man's hair back and addressing to the injury.
"Jim? Speak to me! What happened?"
She swallowed hard when she realised what he was stabbed with.
A scalpel.
From the sickbay.
He had stabbed himself.
Chapel was then craning her head back to Spock and nodded, knowing he would understand what to do. Spock nodded back in acknowledgement and flipped open the communicator.
"Spock to Enterprise, put Doctor McCoy through." he announced into the contraption. Kirk heard him and visibly tensed up, squeezing his eyes shut in pain from the sudden movement, Chapel rubbing his arm up and down.
"Jim..." Chapel found herself speechless. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know you felt this bad about being here!"
"McCoy here, what's going on? Where's Jim?" Came a gruff voice from Spock's communicator.
"Jim is with us on Tarsus IV, doctor." he explained, thinking over how to word that the Captain of the Enterprise just stabbed himself.
"Jim, stay with me- no, open your eyes, open your eyes Jim! Spock!" Chapel shouted for the Vulcan as Kirk allowed the life to ebb from him.
"What? What the hell is going on?" McCoy was yelling through Spock's comm now.
"Doctor.." Spock paused, and despite himself, turned to Chapel for reassurance. She desperately nodded.
"Tell him!" she shouted. "He's dying!"
The southern drool spoke again.
"What? Who's dyin'? Jim? Is he alright?"
Spock inhaled.
"Doctor, the Captain has been stabbed."
Sweet blackness.
Sweet nothingness.
Sweet relief.
Jim had no choice in the matter. Everywhere he looked was a reminder why he shouldn't be alive.
Why he didn't deserve to be alive.
The thoughts, the voices, the constant hallucinations, they were overwhelming him; wanting to make him beat the shit out of himself with a baseball bat.
But the sickbay.
Oh, the sickbay.
The very place in which he received his scars and most terrifying memories.
He wanted to cry.
And off a whim, he stole the same thing that stole his mind of sanity.
A scalpel. And stabbed himself where it hurt- his stomach. He felt sick. But the feeling went away the same way as the blood rushed out of him.
That's one extra scar on his body caused by the very instrument of torture that he was holding.
Jim thought he made the right decision.
If he had the energy, he would have smiled. He let his eyes close. He would see his lost friends now.
"Shit! You kiddin' me! God damn it." McCoy went silent and started muttering curses.
"We'll beam you back up, but will send security down to help." he said a few moments later.
Spock hesitated.
"That will not be necessary, doctor." he interjected, rotating to look at Jim.
"Why the hell not? There are still savages on that planet! They could kill you!" McCoy threw at him.
"Doctor, there is no one else here."
The comm was silent.
"The Captain stabbed himself."
A few anxious moments passed before McCoy's voice appeared again.
"Get him on this ship. Now." he hissed, yelling orders at the bridge crew to get them beamed up.
Jim was vaguely aware of the noise and commotion around him. There were voices, serious voices, demanding things of other people.
And a brush of wind against his face.
What happened?
His mind switched to Tarsus.
Oh right. He was on Tarsus.
"Alright Jim, hey, hey, hey, just relax now, kid."
Jim had automatically shot up to defend himself, but was only even more confused when he was being carried down bright halls, the people with him were not of Tarsus. They were clean, wore masks, and one of them had taken theirs off to talk to him.
So he was recognisable.
But Jim did not recognise him.
Jim wanted to ask where he was. He was pushed back down to the bed by the talking man.
"Hnnghg ghh mmm?" Jim gagged instead.
"You're an idiot, you know that?" was the reply. Jim balled his fingers into a fist and let out a small whimper.
The doctor, sighed.
"Do you know where you are, Jim?"
Kirk opened his eyes again, the motion of being rushed somewhere overwhelmed him, his eyes drooping again. He shook his head.
"You're back on the Enterprise. And by all the power invested in me, you're actually going to sickbay this time and staying there."
Sickbay.
So he was still on Tarsus. And he was being taken to be experimented on.
He jolted upwards and promptly screamed.
His stomach was on fire!
"Burns!" he bellowed out loud. A pair of hands pressed onto his chest forced him back down; which one hand then lay out and gestured for something to be put in it.
Jim heaved for breath as a hypo was placed in his hand, the man looking at Jim sympathetically.
"No!" Jim begged, squirming away and immediately arching his back at the rocketing pain.
"Yes." the man said firmly, and fluently swiped the hypo down to Jim's neck. He hissed at the cold hitting his skin and the sudden pain, but his eyes rolled back, becoming limp.
McCoy cursed to himself over his friend's condition.
The sickbay doors flew open and people sprang into action.
"Get him in the operating theatre, make sure he's heavily sedated, I need to comm Spock." the CMO ordered. Then he paused.
"Actually, nurse, you comm Spock, tell him he's acting Captain, and to meet me in sickbay at 1900 hours."
Chapel gave a quick nod to McCoy and rushed out the room.
As Kirk was wheeled into the OR, his mind pushed him back into consciousness.
He blinked his eyes open, and his heart skipped several beats when he recognised being on a gurney, the blue tinted lights overpowering his senses. He panicked.
"Bones!" he bellowed, sitting up to take in his surroundings and almost throwing up at the state of his body.
Two pairs of hands were pushing him back down, the CMO's face came into view above him, seeming to be the only doctor without a mask.
"Jim?" he asked cautiously, wondering if he really recognised him.
"God" Kirk breathed, his eyes glazing over.
"Yeah, you were involved in an.. accident." McCoy lied, pulling Jim's eyelids back as he shut them. Kirk groaned.
"I'm gonna fix you up, then we're going to talk." His eyes narrowed into a scowl. "Seriously. Talk."
Jim almost shivered. Bones' scowl reminded him of something. Something that tickled- no, poked at, his mind.
"On three" he heard McCoy say. "Quickly- one, two, three." Jim was hoisted onto the table, it was freezing cold against his back.
"Thas' cooold.." Kirk murmured, slowly becoming more aware of a burning sensation in his chest. He heard fiddling behind him.
"You won't be feelin' cold for long" McCoy reassured him. "If anything, you'll be out cold."
"Why'm not sleep?"
"I'm tryin' to find a powerful sedative that your dumb ass isn't allergic to."
Well that explained the fumbling noises.
Out of nowhere, Kirk's stomach suddenly skyrocketed with a sharp pain.
"Ah!-" he reacted, his eyes shooting open, the light to his eyes making him want to vomit.
McCoy grabbed a different hypospray and pressed it gently against his neck.
"We need to operate, doctor." Chapel warned him, watching Kirk's vitals slowly drop.
Jim inhaled slowly and deeply, in some kind of dreamy state.
"Bones..." he whispered, an arm outstretched to keep a grip on the world.
A shrill alarm sounded, alerting the doctors of another problem. McCoy darter back to the monitors.
"Damn it, he's going into hypovolemic shock," McCoy grumbled, and felt himself begin to panic, grabbing a set of hypos and wheeling them over on a tray.
"I.. don't..want.. hyp-hyp-h-h-"
Jim then felt a cold sting against his neck, followed by another, and another, and another.
"S-stop!" he choked, flashbacks of Tarsus re-emerging, noticing his vision blurring, his consciousness willing him to sleep.
McCoy took another look at the monitors.
"We have to start now. He won't feel anything and should be too out of it to notice."
Chapel nodded at the controlled voice of the CMO.
"We do this the old fashioned way." he informed them, eyes analysing the stab wound, "Could need to do a thoracoscopy. Scalpel."
Chapel quickly obeyed; giving quick glances to the vitals in case it showed signs of pain.
McCoy grunted at the sudden burst of blood once the scalpel in Jim's chest was removed.
"Clamp here, I'm gonna' get a regenerator." he declared, manoeuvring his hand so that Chapel could push down onto the wound.
"You doing okay there Jim?" Chapel asked lightly.
There was a grunt coming from the younger man, and then "feel sick."
McCoy returned with the device.
"It'll be done soon," he reassured him, shrugging his shoulders while making eye contact with the half-conscious man.
He hovered the regenerator above the wound, Jim's vital signs soon stabilising.
"Okay, try to take your hand off him," he ordered Chapel, becoming satisfied when the readings remained stable.
"I can finish up here, doctor." Chapel told him gently. The CMO nodded wearily.
-
Leaving the OR, McCoy dragged himself back to his office and slumped into the chair.
He wasn't sure how much longer he would be able to take Jim constantly getting himself into shit. It's not normal for Captains to get extensively injured on every. single. mission.
Staring into space for a few moments, he moved his eyes to his desk, and slowly leaned forward until his head was in his arms, and fell asleep.
-
The CMO was startled awake by a ringing noise.
Shit, Jim was in trouble again?
Instinctively, he shot up out of his chair, momentarily realising he fell asleep on duty, and then brushed it off to grab the nearest hypo with the title "Hypo's that Jim-Isn't-Allergic-To" written in huge bold red letters.
Then froze when he saw Chapel standing in front of the shutting office door, looking staggered.
His shoulders fell and he sat back down again, defeated.
What had the kid done to him?
"I.. just wanted to tell you that Jim is awake now. He's completely fine, though slurring his words a bit."
"That'll be the pain meds.." his eyes darted to the nurses' face in suspicion, "You did give him pain meds?"
Chapel smirked a bit and shifted her weight to the side.
"Of course I did. And before you say it—no, he's not allergic to it." She explained, eying the hypo in his hand.
McCoy sluggishly stood up, folding his arms and making his way to the door to see Jim.
It was going to have to be an extremely interesting conversation.
-
"Ssssss' Boooones!" came a loud voice before the CMO had even entered the room.
McCoy squinted as soon as he saw him.
"Jim. You feelin' alright? Any pain?" he asked, striding up to him and checking his vitals.
"Mmmmm…" was the Captain's slurred reply, rolling his head around the pillow. "There's an elephant on my stomach"
McCoy turned to Chapel.
"So, you're in pain?" he directed at Jim, but stared at Chapel while saying it, accusingly.
"Yeeeeahhh but only a little bit.. hmmm" Kirk rolled onto his side and attempted to sit up.
McCoy shot over.
"Whoa whoa, oh no you don't."
Jim was shoved back down again. He grunted.
"I need to.. resume command of the Ent'prs"
"Not like this you're not." McCoy plunged a hypo dosed with pain killers into Jim's neck, who squirmed on impact, groaning.
"Not like what?" Kirk asked innocently. He heard the CMO sigh reluctantly.
"Jim, do you remember what happened before you were brought into my sickbay?"
Jim's face was intense with thought, seemingly pondering every mind-boggling equation it could fathom to come up with. His eyes lit up suddenly;
"You had no mask on and told me to shuddup!"
McCoy took a frustrated exhale and shook his head.
"No, Jim." he closed his eyes for a second. "Look Jim, I'm not going to sugar-coat this. You stabbed yourself."
There wasn't even a hesitation in Jim before he had started laughing.
"Ahhh… good one B'nes."
McCoy took a large stride over to his patient and leaned in closely.
"I'm not joking! You were brought up here with a stab wound, and I intend to find out why!"
Jim's head lulled from side to side.
"Well.. you answered your own question a minute ago.."
McCoy's face looked confused.
"You said.. that I stabbed myself, that's why I have a stab wound."
McCoy gave a breathy exhale and rolled his eyes to the sky in frustration.
"Why did you hurt yourself, Jim?"
The younger man shrugged, oblivious to the situation.
"Dunno.. can I go to sleep now?"
"Jim." The CMO's voice was daring him now.
But Kirk didn't know what to say. He really didn't remember.
He just woke up in McCoy's OR, then was briefly knocked out, then woke up with pain in his stomach.
Staring up at the ceiling and ignoring his doctor complaining at him, Kirk tried to think back to the last thing he could remember.
Let's see, Jim thought.
I was on a planet, with Spock and… Scotty? He contemplated this. No-Chapel.
Which planet? It was pretty bare, kinda like a desert of sorts. A sinking feeling dug deeper into his gut, but he couldn't find out why, so he ignored it.
Vulcan? No, there was no-one there. And Vulcan is.. gone. Jim froze. His eyes grew wide, and seconds later, an alarm start screeching. His biobed alarm.
Gone. All gone. Everyone is gone. All my friends, all the children, all the crops, the food, everything-everything-everything. Jim's eyes searching wildly for his captive. His heart thudded in his chest.
Fuck, it's getting hard to breathe.
"Damn it—you remember now, don't you?" was the in-control voice of his CMO.
Jim continued wheezing for breath. He found himself suddenly readjusting his eyes to the ceiling, with McCoy standing over him, gruffly ordering people around, judging by the look on his face.
"Jim, tell me what you remember." McCoy asked with smoothly, a lot calmer than Jim was used to. Kirk shook his head wildly.
"I can't."
"Yeah you can; come on, it's alright. It'll be confidential between us."
Jim wanted to shake his head again in protest, but he couldn't summon the energy. Black spots surrounded his vision, the feeling of vertigo and nausea taking over. He felt himself sink.
"Jim!" was the last thing he heard before succumbing to the beautiful darkness.
TBC..