Warning: Mentions of some dream-state torture in this chapter.
The doors to the sickbay flew open, a stretcher accompanied by the CMO and several nurses came charging into the room.
The trolley smacked against the door to the operating theater, making a similar reprising role of when Kirk was first transported out of Tarsus as a kid.
He was lobbed onto the table, a nurse began cutting off his already half torn and blood-stained golden shirt.
"Bag him," McCoy ordered, dragging over some very hefty looking defibrillators.
If all else fails, resort to dark age stuff.
Another nurse attached an oxygen mask to the man's face, preparing to close the stab wound to Kirk's chest for the third time.
"Okay hands away-" McCoy set off the machine to shock him, sending the Captain off to a bumpy ride on the table.
"Still no output," called one of the nurses.
"Dammit.." McCoy jabbed a hypo into the side of Jim's neck, then turned to Chapel. "Start a blood transfusion, half of it is probably on the corridor floors of this tin can," he retorted, setting the voltage amount on the defibs higher.
"Hands off."
Smack.
The same time as Jim's head hit the table, the god send of a sound named "Kirk's heartbeat" started wailing on the monitors.
"He's back in sinus rhythm.." Chapel called, relieved, finishing the blood transfusion.
"Alright, I'm not wasting any time." McCoy strode back over to the table and glared menacingly at the opened wound. There was a very high chance he'd go back into cardiac arrest again if that wound wasn't closed.
"Give me that regenerator. Set it to the second lowest setting." McCoy said, "Make sure it heals it slowly and effectively." he hovered the device over Jim's chest, getting a strange feeling of de ja vu.
….
12 minutes later, McCoy stood back and shook his aching arm around.
"If I have to close that wound again I'm gonna make him do it himself" he grumbled, tossing the regenerator aside.
Quiet high beeps started coming from the monitors.
"Doctor, he's coming around," a nurse read from the vitals.
"Oh, no you don't!" The CMO replied, grabbing a hypo from the tray and jamming it into Jim's neck.
"Nnnnnnn..." he groaned, attempting to fight off the drug like the idiot he was.
"Go back to sleep Jim." McCoy told him.
Jim's eyes refused the doctor's command and slowly slid open.
...
"Close your eyes Jim." was the first thing he heard.
Jim shook his head, determined to stay awake.
"Four shots of these for two days?" a quiet voice in the background dragged him closer to the surface.
"Yeah, should keep him asleep for two days."
Wait.
Two days?
McCoy was going to make him sleep for two days?
"No" he forced himself to breathe. The doctor's face looked exasperated from above him.
"Yes" the face said.
"Buh' ship die w'thou' m'"
"No it won't." The face was staring at someone angrily, mouthing something to them that Jim was too tired to even attempt to understand.
Shortly after, Jim wished that he did, as he was stabbed in the neck with a hypo. Again.
Shit. He was going to be asleep for 2 days.
48 hours.
But he needed to go back to Tarsus.
"Hate you," was the last thing he managed to splutter out before finally giving into the pull of the drug.
Void. Darkness. He was drifting through a dark empty void of nothing. Loneliness. Nothing. Dark. Empty. Void. Alone.
Alone.
Alone.
Empty.
Drifting.
Noise. Jim heard a noise. Perhaps he wasn't alone. Or his mind was playing tricks on him. Because he was in a void. Alone.
A gentle hustle and bustle. A buzzing white noise that grew louder. And quieter.
The Void.
Nothing.
Alone.
"Heart...'hrough.. roof..."
A human voice. A real voice. There was someone in the void with him!
Jim felt himself push to the surface as he realised this. He pulled and pushed, struggled, dragging himself, out of breath. The void wanted him to stay, but Jim didn't want to.
A fast beeping sound. Constant beeping. High pitched beeping.
Aching in his chest, heavy aching.
"..in pain.." a voice drifted past him, and everything was silence again.
Pain.
Pain.
He knew where he was.
He was where he tried to be.
The world was his, and it was like a dream. Dream.
Jim was dreaming. And the void was no longer a void.
Dreaming.
The pain.
Pain.
Tarsus.
Kodos.
Kodos was experimenting on him again, and he was in pain.
He had given himself to Kodos so that the child might live.
"The girl is dying, James" the bitter voice of the executioner echoed through the void.
Jim battled to the voice. He had to save her.
He battled hard, pulling through the darkness, clawing his way through. Until it all came into view.
Kodos was deadpanning above him. No emotion. No expression. Just his eyes glaring down into Jim's soul, the feeling making him nauseous and scared. Fearful. Terrified.
Kodos twisted away from Jim, and stood out the way, revealing a girl. She was on a table next to him, conscious, but crying.
He realised he was in a sickbay.
"Jim! Jim please help me! You told me you'd help me!" the girl sobbed, receiving a slap in the face by the man.
Jim tried to speak, but found he couldn't. His mouth couldn't open. His captive gave a gut-wrenching smile.
"You talk too much. Your lips are sewn together."
Jim felt his stomach turn. He needed to be sick.
"Your turn." Kodos turned to the girl. "Your death will improve the spirit of James!"
The girl screamed.
"No! Please don't hurt me! I didn't even do anything! Jim! James! Please! Jim! Ji-"
Jim's neck wouldn't move, and he watched in horror as the girl's neck was slit open with a knife in the hands of Kodos. She gurgled, her eyes rolling back as the life slowly left her, while Jim screamed his throat raw, with no sound going past his lips, screaming from the inside of his mouth but no more.
"Are you gonna tell me more about Starfleet now?" Kodos asked him.
Jim rapidly shook his head. Kodos looked disappointed in him, then grinned.
"Then I guess I'll have to do this;"
Kodos picked up the girl by the hair, dragging her off the table, making Jim want to cry the second he heard the girl's neck snap. His captive threw her outside, then marched back over to him.
"Perhaps you're too impassive to care about other people." the man hissed in Jim's face.
Jim's body was shaking, his limbs chattering against the table, his eyes burned with tears of fear and sadness.
"Let's try this," Kodos picked up something Jim swore he recognised, but didn't know the name of.
With the press of a button, the roar of fire burst out the end of the device, Jim could feel the heat from where he was laying.
As Kodos inched closer to him, Jim began blinking rapidly, the searing heat burning his eyes.
Kodos shoved an elbow into Jim's stomach. The flame was forced into Jim's neck.
"Call." Burn. "Starfleet" Burn. "Command." Burn. "Right."
"MMMMM!" Jim's eyes were practically screaming at his torturer in fiery white hot pain.
"NOW!" Kodos yelled back. Jim didn't answer. There were a few moments of tense silence and shuddering of terrified limbs before-
"Alright then." and the fire was again burned into Jim's neck. Except this time, it didn't disappear. Kodos held it there, burning and burning.
Jim could feel his flesh burning, his body was almost seizing from the amount of sheer pain he was in, bile dribbled out his mouth, while he continued to scream inside his throat.
His eyes rolled back in his head. And there was once again the void. Loneliness. Fear. Dread.
..
He shot up with a huge gasp, his mouth could move!
Jim sucked in all the air he could, then proceeded to vomit the contents of his stomach onto his lap, his body still shuddering in fear.
A nurse grabbed him by the shoulders, to which Jim reacted by throwing them across the room.
He was stronger than he first anticipated.
"Sir! You need to calm down!" the nurse on the floor said. "Your heart rate is through the roof!"
I wonder damn well why, Jim thought to himself, somehow feeling out of control of his body. He knew he was over-reacting, but his fight-or-flight instincts had him using superhuman strength.
As another nurse tries to grip onto his shoulder, Jim latches onto her shirt and hauls her across the room, with him falling off the bed.
Chapel walked into the room at that moment.
"What on earth is going on?" she asked, then making eye contact with Jim on the floor.
With one hell of a scream, Jim lunged towards her.
"Arrrrrggghh!" he barged into a doctor on the way. Another nurse looked up at Chapel.
"Get McCoy!" she shouted at her desperately. She took one more glance at Jim and legged it out the room.
Good, they have to get reinforcements. That means I'm stronger than them.
"Captain, please get back onto the bed.." a nurse asked him delicately.
"No way" he replied moodily. "I stay here" Being trapped on the biobed, of course, was just another way of Kodos' 'friends' to hurt him.
"Sir please-"
"NO!" he screamed, lunging after her like a rabid animal. "NO NO NO NO NO-"
The nurse was backed up against the wall, panting desperately, half in fear and half breathlessness.
"Captain! Stop! This violent behaviour isn't like you! This isn't you!"
He launched himself at her, throwing punches, wailing in tears at every cry.
"NO, NO! No, no, no.." Jim stopped shouting in protest, realising the screaming was draining him, while simultaniously realising he'd made a fool of himself in public. This certainly wasn't him.
"Jim?" a comfortingly familiar voice boomed behind him. "Jim, breathe for me." A hand gripped his arm, pulling him backwards into the embrace of another body. "Breathe, in through your nose, out through your mouth. Alright kid?"
He heard the unmistakable voice of Bones in his ear.
What if it was still Kodos?
What if he was still dreaming?
What if he was still on Tarsus?
What if his whole life on the Enterprise was a joke made up by Kodos?
He shook his head violently, regretting it instantly as sledgehammers smashed his skull to bits. He cried out in agony, his head hurt so much.
Kodos did this to him.
Again.
He was back. He was never gone.
But if he was never gone..
Then that means since then, how many people did he...?
Jim was yanked back onto the biobed by none other than Bones, then rolled onto his side. Another nurse seemed to be attempting to strap an oxygen mask to his face but was failing miserably at it, thanks to Jim rapidly twisting his head from side to side and refusing it.
"Jim? Look at me, Jim." Bones tried to get the Captain's attention. His head sluggishly followed the voice.
"Feel funny, Bones" Jim managed to blurt out, regardless of his heart rate skyrocketing. Bones' face was blurry in front of him.
"Yeah, I can see that. Hold on," he took a hypo from a tray a gently pressed it against Jim's neck. "You've been asleep two days."
Jim scowled at him.
"That was your fault.."
Then it struck him.
"Kodos"
He heard McCoy sighed inwardly, the bed dipping. Kirk looked up to find McCoy sitting on it.
"Yeah, I remember you telling me."
Jim frowned, feeling surges of guilt at his sudden outburst. He was surely going to be reprimanded for that.
"You're not Kodos" he determined, mostly to himself.
"No. And Kodos isn't here. He hasn't been for years." Bones was only talking to himself, beginning to sort out more hyposprays now that the kid was relatively calmer, and was not in fact about to murder a nurse. "Did you have a nightmare about him? The sedative I gave you shouldn't make you dream.."
Kirk rolled his head away from Bones.
"I didn't."
I did. And I'm certainly not letting you do that to me again.
"I know it'll be hard, but try to get some more sleep" McCoy sighed, patting him on the shoulder. "You don't want the rest of the crew thinking you're unfit for duty, do you?"
Jim shrugged, sliding further down into the blankets to get rid of the blinding whiteness of the room and the lights combined.
"I'm already unfit for duty." he said. "Unless you're saying I am, in that case I'm out of here—"
Jim didn't even manage to lift his head from the pillow before McCoy interrupted his train of thoughts.
"No, but soon they're going to start getting suspicious. The longer you're in here anyway." McCoy answered him. "At the moment only my sickbay staff have seen you..." he paused for effect, "..loopy"
Jim scoffed.
"Loopy? Hardly."
The bed 'undipped' itself, the sound of footsteps leading away from it. Pacing from the CMO followed. "You've thrown 3 nurses against the wall ten minutes ago accusing every single one of them being Kodos. You overdosed yourself three days ago, stabbed yourself the day before that, I think it's safe to say it's getting pretty hard to cover your arse."
He has a point.
"Not to mention the fact that on Tarsus, you—"
"I get the point Bones!" Jim exasperated, "I want to be left alone now. Stop hovering."
McCoy scoffed, the pacing footsteps soon disappearing into the distance, allowing Jim to realise the CMO had finally left him in peace.
McCoy was half sunken into his chair, slumped over his desk in paperwork. Paperwork so exhilarating that he had fallen asleep on it.
Dealing with Jim on a regular basis was already hard on the man. Trying to cope with him now was almost painful. This was the first time the doctor had managed to sleep since putting Jim into a medically induced coma two days ago himself.
All of a sudden, a loud scream erupted and sent McCoy's veins rushing; with papers flying everywhere, he was up and out the room instantly. The scream had come from sickbay, but McCoy knew that room too well. How was it possible for the sound to be that loud without any alarms in the sickbay going off to warn him?
Then it hit him instantly; his sickbay had a backroom.
Right on cue, the backroom door flew open, revealing a nurse running out, almost tripping over her own feet, looking around the room madly. Her eyes caught sight of McCoy, relief flooding her face, they stormed up to each other.
"Sir, the Captain, he's started attacking us again," she lifted up her arm to reveal a gash on her inner elbow and fingernail scratch marks all over her skin.
"Get yourself seen to, I'll deal with this," he replies, walking straight past her and into Jim's isolated room, preparing himself for what he might find.
Of course, Jim's bed was empty.
McCoy's eyes darted around the room, attempting to locate his patient, and then found him pinning a man up against the wall.
But they didn't have medical uniform on.
"Jim?" he asked, slowly walking around to get a better look at the person he had in his clutch.
Careful inspection showed him that it was Scotty; instantly the doctor leaped up behind Jim and tugged him backwards. The Captain's grip on the man remained.
"Jim! Let him go! What the hell are you seeing? That's Scotty!" he tried to make Jim see sense, but the younger man's eyes were filled with fright. Clearly he didn't recognise him.
McCoy took a large stride in between the chief engineer and the Captain, prying Jim's fingers off of Scotty's neck. He pulled the Scotsman aside, and ushered him to the door that led him out of Jim's room. He hastily obliged without a word, a quick nod before leaving to show his gratitude.
Kirk was frozen to the spot, glaring a hole through McCoy.
"What the hell did you do? You've endangered the ship!" Kirk shouted then was about to make a run for the door before McCoy grabbed his arm and hauled him back.
"Jim, that's Scotty. Who are you seeing? Tell me!"
"No.. no that's.. that's..." his face suddenly dropped to a dead stare.
"I'm going to kill him."
McCoy wanted to hit his head against the wall. He decided to push the kid.
"Jim, lay back on the biobed before I hypo your backside into next week."
Kirk spun around and launched himself at McCoy, sending him flying across the room like an accidentally jettisoned rocket.
That's it.
"Jim! Get the fuck back onto the biobed before I strap you down!" he roared, standing up from the floor.
McCoy instantly regretted those words when he saw the colour drain from his friend's face, but nevertheless obeyed.
Jim walked away from him, climbing onto the bed and sulking like a child.
Satisfied that he wouldn't move, he twisted his head to the door, gesturing for the nurses to come back in.
"I know what I have to do now." he muttered to them. "Let me know if he changes". He was answered by nods and nurses muttering "yes sir" before heading out to the main sickbay.
…
McCoy caught sight of Scotty sitting on the far biobed, the furthest from the door to Jim's own isolated sickbay.
Don't blame him, he thought, folding his arms and approaching him.
The man looked apprehensive of course, but smiled anyway.
"You feeling alright?" he asked simply, glad that his vitals were all normal.
"Aye. I really cannae explain what 'appened! I just came to visit the Cap'n, he looked at me as if I killed someone and attacked me!"
McCoy shook his head in disbelief.
"It's not your fault Scotty. Jim's been having some uh.. real difficulties. I'm going to deal with it though." he told him. "Oh, you can go by the way."
Scotty nodded, swinging himself off the end of the biobed and jumping to his feet.
"When you go back to the bridge, can you get them to hail Admiral Pike." McCoy said, as an order more than a request. "Tell them that Doctor McCoy wants to speak with him."
The engineer's eyes lit up as he realised what the doctor wanted to do.
"Aye. I'll let you know." he gave a grateful nod before turning to leave sickbay. McCoy watched the man leaving, sighing to himself.
Most of him didn't want to do this- in fact he didn't want to do it at all. Involving Pike in this was sure to upset Jim and cause even more problems, but the young Captain needed help. More help than McCoy could provide.
"Doctor McCoy?" the voice of Chapel snapped him out of his thoughts.
"Huh-yeah?"
"The Captain is asking for you. Saying he wants to go back down to Tarsus.. he's rather distressed." she informed him remorsefully.
"Alright. Thanks nurse." he dismissed her, and headed towards the back of the sickbay. Again.
…
"Jim." McCoy greeted him, inwardly kicking himself realising he sounded like Spock.
"Bones! Did that nurse send you here? I need to go back down to Tarsus." Jim was pretty jumpy right now. "Get a landing party ready, notify the transporter room-"
"Jim."
"Tell bridge that I want Chekov with me, he really can-"
"Jim, listen to me."
"-Get me out of danger lately. I think he has an eye for danger, but not in the bad way, you know? I-"
"Jim," McCoy didn't hesitate to take his hand. "Take some deep breaths kiddo." he felt Kirk try to pull away, his breaths growing quicker.
"In fact I think Sulu would be really helpful. I mean he has hand to hand combat. He can protect me- not like I need protecting mind, I mean look at me, I'm-"
"Jim. Try to calm down kid." he gestured at the other nurses to leave.
"-I'm-I'm-I-I-"
"Jim. Slow down."
"-I'm in such good shape I should be able to fight on my-my-my-my-"
"Copy my breathing Jim, in and out, real slow now." McCoy attempted to calm him down before he has a full blown panic attack.
"I don't want- don't want- don't- want.. don't.. want.. - I don't, don't-"
McCoy skilfully swiped a hypospray's contents of a light sedative into the back of Jim's neck.
"Come on, lie back," he instructed, moving his hands across Jim's shoulders, pushing him down to the bed. Jim didn't fight him.
A couple of silent moments later, Jim's body started trembling. McCoy almost jumped into emergency action before realising the kid was crying. He closed his eyes for a second, taking a small breath to let out some of his inner frustration, and then closing Jim into his embrace.
"I've got you kid.. I've got you." he reassured him, mentally noting how feverish the younger man's skin felt against his. Kirk continued letting out his emotions, McCoy couldn't help but have a heavy heart ache for him as he cried into his shirt.
"I'm tired of this, Bones.." he whimpered, voice muffled from speaking into the doctor's shirt.
"I know kid, I know."
He was going to fix the kid, no matter how much or how long it took.
The comm beeped.
"Doctor McCoy to the bridge, Admiral Pike is waiting for you."
McCoy eased Jim away from his shirt, stepping towards the comm and hitting the button. "On my way."
He turned to make an exit when;
"Bones..?"
He sighed, treading back over to Jim for a second. Pike could wait for a bit.
McCoy gently brushed back Jim's hair, which was annoyingly sticking out all over the place.
"I'll be right back. I've got Pike over the hailing transmission and we're gonna sort out what to do with you."
Jim sat up abruptly.
"Why? Are you trying to get me kicked out of command? Bones!"
"Jim I'm not trying to get-"
"I trusted you! More than everyone else!"
McCoy rubbed his head against his hands and exhaled. After everything Bones allowed Jim to put him through, did he really think he'd call Pike up just to throw Jim's command off the ship?
"I'll be 10 minutes." he replied, stepping back. "Don't you dare get out of that bed!" The door hissed open and shut, Jim was left alone to the mercy of his fears again.
On his way to the bridge, McCoy was lost in thought.
Jim was a survivor of Tarsus IV. That must be a hell of a lot to put on the young man's shoulders. He'd never even bothered to mention it until now, and recently, Jim's normal self was slowly being tossed out the window. There was honestly no way he could keep up command of the ship while in a state like this, and Bones intended to help him keep that command, not relinquish it.
The events of the past few days were sure to stay with both Jim and Bones forever. And possibly change how Bones thought of Jim. Perhaps there was a reason to his careless recklessness imbedded in his personality after all. And Jim was kicked into that reason face first. Experiencing the most traumatic time of his life all over again.
That didn't explain why he was obsessed with going back down to Tarsus though.
If he was so terrified of it that he had hallucinated his captive on the ship three times and caused himself grievous injury twice, why the hell did he want to go back?
Knowing Jim, he probably would.
And Bones certainly didn't want to patch him up again.
McCoy stepped into the bridge, nodding at Pike who was already on screen.
I sure hope he wasn't waiting for me this whole time.
"Doctor McCoy. What can I do for you?"