"I say again, this is the Enterprise." Kirk called over the comm. system from his spot in his command chair. "Damnit, Spock, can you read me?" There was no answer from the small ship being displayed on the bridge's viewscreen.
"His engines are down, Captain," Chekov told him. "Life support has failed, along with many other systems. I am picking up two life signs, but they are growing weak."
"Can we get a tractor beam on them?"
The Ensign shook his head. "They are too close to the ion storm."
Jim toggled the intercom. "Kirk to Transporter Room. Lock onto the signals on that ship and beam them aboard immediately."
"Aye, Sir," the crewman on duty replied.
The ion storm was interfering with the signals, so getting a secure lock took longer than the tech would have liked. Finally, he was able to energize the transport and watched carefully as two forms materialized on the pad. They were both lying unconscious on the floor, and he could very obviously see that the Commander was injured.
Seconds later, the door opened and McCoy charged in like a hurricane with a few medical technicians trailing behind. All of them were carrying equipment or pulling gurneys. The ship's Chief Medical Officer stopped short when he realized that his motionless patients were holding hands.
What the hell…
"She's alive," one of the techs reported as he quickly scanned Saavik with a tricorder. "But she's got high levels of CO2 and hydrocarbons in her blood stream."
"Same here," another added as he checked Spock over. "He's barely breathing and his pulse is very weak."
"Get some oxygen masks on both of them," McCoy ordered, "And let's get going. Can't do a damn thing for them here."
Back on the bridge, moments seemed like an eternity while they waited for word. "We have them, Captain," the transporter tech finally reported in. "They're both alive and on their way to sickbay."
Kirk nodded. "Good. Mr. Sulu, get us the hell out of here. Max warp until we're back in Federation Space."
His fingers danced over his console, a small grin on his face. "With pleasure, Sir."
An hour later, McCoy was standing beside a biobed, taking readings, when the patient's deep brown eyes opened. "Welcome back," he said.
Saavik slowly looked around. "We are on the Enterprise?" she asked.
"Mmm, got it right on the first try."
"How is Spock?"
"Just finished surgery. He's not out of the woods yet."
Saavik frowned slightly. "Out of what woods?"
McCoy gave a long-suffering sigh. "Nevermind," he replied. "We're monitoring him and should know more soon." Saavik started to sit up, but he grabbed her. "Where do you think you're going?"
"I wish to see him."
"I don't think so, young lady. You are still my patient, and I want you to get some more rest."
"Please, Doctor?" she asked. "We… I did not believe that either of us would be able to leave that ship alive. I simply would like to see him."
Something about her tone got to him. Whatever they had been through together, it had left a lasting impression. "All right," he finally gave in. "If I move you over to the bed next to his, you promise me that you're not going to get up off of it for the next couple of hours."
Saavik nodded. "I promise."
McCoy sighed again. "I'm gonna regret this, aren't I?" he muttered to himself.
By late that night, Spock was still comatose. Saavik kept watch over him from her bed, carefully waiting for any sign that he was awakening. Kirk smiled slightly to himself as he came into sickbay and saw her. "Has Bones read you the riot act yet?" he asked. "I'm sure you're supposed to be sleeping right now, aren't you?"
She shrugged. "So he believes, but I do not require sleep at this time…All I require is for Spock to wake up."
Kirk looked down at his friend. "You hear that?" he asked Spock's motionless form. "You don't want to keep the girl waiting, do you?" However, there was no response. "Stubborn, as always."
"If he was not so stubborn, I would not be alive," she pointed out. After a moment of thought, Kirk nodded.
"You're right. And I wouldn't change him for anything."
"Spock did not know that you were coming after him, did he?" Saavik spoke up after a few minutes of comfortable silence.
He shook his head. "Nope. Told me he didn't want to risk anyone else's lives."
"Then why did you come? By bringing the Enterprise into the Neutral Zone, you violated an inter-planetary treaty. If the Romulans had detected this ship, they would have considered its presence to be an act of war."
Kirk shrugged. "Yeah, can't argue with any of that. However, we got out clean. What the brass and the Romulans don't know won't hurt them."
"But you could not be certain of your decision's outcome before you made it. Why would you put so many at risk just for two lives?"
"Spock has taught you well, hasn't he? 'The needs of the many over the needs of the few'?" Saavik nodded. "Well sometimes, those few are of enough importance to enough people that they're worth risking the many. That's something you won't find in any Academy textbook, but it's damn important, just the same."
She slowly nodded. "Yes, Sir."
Kirk headed for the door. "Have a good night, Cadet."
"You, too, Captain."
A sharp, stinging pain across his face was the first thing that Spock was truly aware of as he awoke. A hard force suddenly met his cheek and the pain intensified, pulling him back to consciousness. His eyes fluttered open, revealing the ceiling of the Enterprise's sickbay.
He sensed a swift motion out of the corner of his eye and, with lightning quick reflexes, managed to grasp the hand that was about to strike him before it could do so.
"That will be unnecessary, Doctor," he hoarsely said.
McCoy shook his smarting hand as he reached over to grab his tricorder. He'd thought Saavik was nuts when she first told him that Spock would need painful stimuli in order to awaken from his healing trance. It sounded like he was being set up for a practical joke, but he doubted that such a thing would ever occur to the cadet. And it seemed to have worked.
After waiving the scanner's small probe up and down over his patient's body, McCoy finally nodded, satisfied that Spock was all right. "It's about damn time!" he berated the Vulcan. "Been a whole day already; I was starting to wonder if you'd given yourself brain damage!"
As the haze of his meditative coma began to clear, Spock started to remember the events that had occurred before his loss of consciousness. He attempted to sit up, quickly looking around. "Where is Saavik?" he asked McCoy, even as the world began to spin from his sudden movements.
"Easy," the doctor told him, pushing him back to lie on the bed. "You're not THAT much better."
Spock took a few breaths, trying to regain his equilibrium. "Is she all right?" he asked.
"I am well," Saavik promised as she slid off of her bed and came to stand beside his.
"See now? She's perfectly fine," McCoy added. "Got her all patched up while you were sleeping away – although neither one of you is getting out of here for at least another day. You almost had your lungs dry-cleaned, so I don't want to hear a single word about…"
He trailed off as he realized that neither one of them was paying an iota of attention to him. Their eyes had locked the moment that Saavik entered Spock's field of view, and volumes were passing unspoken between them.
"Oh, please feel free to ignore me," McCoy griped. "It's not like what I have to say is IMPORTANT or anything…" Still continuing to rant to himself – the only one still listening – the doctor headed for his office.
The Vulcan pair barely noticed his departure. "You truly are not seriously injured?" Spock quietly asked as he slowly sat back up again.
"I truly am not," she replied. "You were the one causing concern."
"My apologies."
She smiled slightly. "It is all right, now."
"Aboard the ship, I heard your final words before losing consciousness," he informed her.
Saavik raised an eyebrow. "You did?"
He nodded. "The term t'hy'la can have many meanings."
She recognized the glint in his eye. "Can it?" she replied, her tone light. "You were always far more knowledgeable about semantics."
"It can," he confirmed. "It may be used to describe a sibling, or a dear friend – "
"Or a soulmate," she purposely interrupted. "You are correct; there are many meanings. But I am confident that you can decipher my intentions."
"Indeed. I learned several things while our minds were joined. Why did you not tell me that you heard my father's…suggestion on the Colony?"
Saavik looked away. "You seemed to be adamantly opposed to the idea."
"But you are not?" he asked.
She slowly shook her head. "We have shared our experiences, our thoughts, our…feelings. It is true that we are not of the same age, but who each of us is has been tangled with the other for years. To continue that arrangement for the rest of our lives… No, I am not opposed to it."
"There are things I cannot promise you," he warned.
"I have not asked for any promises," she pointed out.
"We each have responsibilities that we cannot ignore."
"That is true," she agreed. "But we will find a balance."
After a moment of thought, he nodded. "Yes, t'hy'la," he told her, offering a hand with two fingers outstretched, "We will." Saavik accepted the gesture with a slight smile.
McCoy looked up from the PADD in his hands as Christine Chapel entered his office, shaking her head in a mixture of confusion, annoyance, and amusement. "What is it?" he asked her.
"Vulcans," she told him. "I swear!"
McCoy leaned to the side, trying to look around her and see what kind of trouble his patients were up to. If the two of them snuck out of here while my back was turned… However, he could just barely see that they were both still exactly where he'd left them. "What did the green-blooded, overgrown elves do now?" he asked Nurse Chapel as he continued to look around her in order to keep an eye on the pair.
She shook her head again, frowning. "They've got the social skills of cantaloupes, all of them. I don't know if I just overheard a marriage proposal or a business negotiation!"
McCoy's chair tipped over, leaving him sprawled on the floor. He stared up at her in utter shock. "Overheard a WHAT?"
TBC...
A/N: So, for those who wondered where the Enterprise was...do you think Kirk would really let someone go have an adventure without him? :-) And, as always, thanks for the feedback! One more chapter to go.
