A/N: Sorry for the wait. I know it isn't as long as usual, but it was difficult to write, this one.

Disclaimer; I do not own Star Trek, characters, places, items, etc. etc. etc., and so on.


Chapter 5


"...You have to admit, this is completely a Spock thing to do."

"Bones, please shut up."

The room was silent for a moment. They sat in the dark, the captain and CMO, until a brief whistle of the intercom broke the silence. After a moment Jim stirred, standing to go punch the comm. button wearily. "Captain here."

"Sir, Commander Spock has beamed aboard with Chief Medical Officer Harcourt and Lieutenant Valit of the U.S.S. Defiant."

"...Thank you. Send them to the briefing room, Kirk out."


Scott looked at Spock, a tight smile on his face. "Nice to see you again, Sir." He said. "Captain is waiting for you in the briefing room with Dr. McCoy, and I'll be up in a jiffy."

"...thank you, Mr. Scott."

His heart was beating fast, though he had been fine just moments before. He moved to the door, mechanically, and led the way to the turbolift, attracting surprised stares and smiles from the crew. As the turbolift rose he tried to find the reason for his sudden apprehension, but it was difficult. His body was cold - were his hands shaking? Harcourt put a hand on his shoulder, lightly, and it occurred to him that they were going to the briefing room - but was he really falling prey to such an illogical association with that room in pain?

The lift stopped, the door opened, and Spock's breath hitched involuntarily as he saw the briefing room door.

Yes, apparently he was.

He entered, Harcourt and Valit close behind. The Captain stood, hands behind his back, unsmiling.

"Mr. Spock. Sit down, please."

He sat automatically, and Harcourt and Valit did the same. Something strange flickered in Kirk's eyes, then vanished.

Jim paced around the table slowly. A chill crept up Spock's spine, and Jim's voice was hard. "Mr. Spock. You said you have an... explanation for this mutiny?"

An explanation for mutiny? There was no such thing. Nonetheless; "Indeed, Sir. Dr. Harcourt and lieutenants Valit and Welkis are here as witness to my claims."

Kirk leaned back, crossing his arms. Mr. Scott entered. Spock attempted to find the appropriate words to describe his actions, strangely uneasy.

"It came to my attention, Sir, that the captain was abusing his authority. As I deemed it unwise to let his actions continue, I sought the most logical method to stopping them."

"Logical? How is mutiny logical, might I ask?"

Spock began to answer with his reasons, but the captain held up a hand. "Rhetorical, Mr. Spock."

Yet still I have an answer, he thought, and a month ago he would have said so, but now he was silent. His heart was pounding.

"Captain." This came from Valit. Kirk looked at him, raising his eyebrows. "Sir, are you aware of the specifics of the report we sent to Starfleet?"

"No. Is this relevant?"

"Very. If your communications officer could get the report from ours and send it down here...?"

"Your communications officer is in on this, too? Very well." He tapped the comm. button. "Kirk to bridge."

"Sulu here."

"Have Uhura get the Defiant's report from their Communications Officer."

"Yes Sir."

McCoy during this stared at Spock, strangely, and now he abruptly stood.

"What, Bones?" Kirk asked, impatiently. Learning that his first had mutinied (again!) had not left him with a pleasant demeanour.

McCoy, despite this knowledge, did not answer. Instead he opened the flap of his black medical bag and withdrew his tricorder. He strode forward to hold it against Spock.


Modern medical technology had improved greatly in the past few centuries. It did not, however, completely fix things in an instant, and still there were traces enough of old hurts for instruments to pick up.

McCoy, observing Spock, thought he looked more uneasy to his trained eye than the Vulcan had a right to, even in these circumstances. As soon as Jim paused in his questioning he stood and took out his tricorder, ignoring Jim's question at his actions, and turning it on held it too the Vulcan.

Out of his mouth came enough expletives to make Jim turn red, Harcourt's eyes to bulge, Valit to gape, Scotty to stare in admiration, and Spock to actually raise both eyebrows.

"Bones!" Jim came back to himself enough to stop him. "What is it?"

McCoy snapped his mouth shut, glaring at Jim so much that the proud starfleet captain actually recoiled, than turned back to Spock, his face red. "What the hell happened to you?"

"That is why we need the report," Valit told Kirk.

McCoy, still seething, whirled to Harcourt. "Don't look at me; I treated them to the best of my abilities, I couldn't keep him off duty without making the captain quite suspicious."

"What's going on here?" asked Scotty, bewildered. Just then the comm. whistled.

"Captain, the Defiant's report has been sent down."

"Thank you, Mr. Sulu."

Everyone else was silent. McCoy was apparently struggling with himself between looking at the report himself and staying next to Spock. His concern finally won over his curiosity, and he stayed put, still eyeing his tricorder with a grim expression.

Kirk looked now at the small screen in the briefing room on the table as the file was sent down. His face grew increasingly pale.

Verbal assault... Physical violence... List of injuries...

The pictures were worse - bruises splotched against the pale white of his first's skin, bones bent strangely out of place in ways that were not normally possible. He shuddered, staring at the words, neat and clinical, detailing the abuse, which had gone on for some two weeks, increasingly becoming more serious.

"God..."

Scotty moved to stand behin him and look at the screen as well, and what he said was hidden by his suddenly heavy accent, though it likely wasn't pleasant. McCoy wavered a moment, then had to come look himself. This time he said nothing, merely grasping his tricorder hard with white-knuckled hands.

The captain stared at the screen for a moment.

"Sir," Harcourt said, quietly, "I and my nurses can all attest to the validity of the - "

She fell silent as the captain looked at her, face strange and blank. "I'm sure. Harcourt, Valit, Welkis, please wait in the Ready Room. Mr. Scott...?"

"I need to check on the engines anyway, Cap'n," he said faintly. His eyes lingered on Spock as he walked by. His face was white.

Alone, the captain, doctor, and first officer were silent for a moment. McCoy stirred, then moved to check his tricorder readings again, and glad to have something to look at at, Kirk watched him.

McCoy frowned faintly. His heartbeat was dangerously high, even for a Vulcan. He reached into his black bag, found a mild sedative, and slowly moved to inject it into the Vulcan, careful to move so that Spock could see what he did the whole time. A part of him said that this wasn't necessary, it hadn't affected Spock, he was a Vulcan, but that was just what he wanted to believe; the other half was running through every psych class he'd ever took, because if there hadn't been any effects they had a cause for worry.

He slipped his tricorder into his pocket and waited.


Kirk noticed McCoy injecting Spock with a hypo. He found his voice. "McCoy, are there any - ?"

"His injuries were treated, but still need to finish healing, and with how many there are he's got to be in a good amount of pain," McCoy grunted, glaring at the report as though it were at fault. His hand moved down to Spock's shoulder, a rare gesture.

Kirk was quiet, staring unseeingly before him. Ganby had physically abused his first officer, his friend - and severely, too, by the look of it.

Giving comfort to a Vulcan, however, was not so easy a thing. Instead; "Frankly, I am glad you mutinied, then, Spock." He dropped the usual affectionate 'Mr.', trying to make the atmospere just a little less informal. "And I can certainly see your reasons. We'll keep Ganby in the brig. Until Starfleet calls to stay otherwise, they'll be no repercussions for you, but..."

"I understand, Sir." Spock said. His voice was still strange, disturbing; low, soft. His gaze was cast downward; he seemed determined not to meet Kirk's eyes.

He stood now, grasping his friend's shoulder, not knowing what to say, what to do, and could only look at an equally distraught McCoy helplessly.

What now?


Spock's half-lidded eyes watched the flame before him, hypnotizing, as he attempted to meditate. The effort was seeming increasingly futile. Despite all of his attempts, he could not seem to master his emotions. Furthermore, it seemed that his continuous failed attempts were having the opposite effect, by 'irritating' him at his failure. This had not happened since he was a child, after a particularly trying day, and for a moment he toyed with the idea of seeing Doctor McCoy to see if something was wrong, but dismissed the idea almost immediately. It could be physical, but though the thought was strange he believed it was a psychological issue, and in any case he had no desire to speak with the Doctor or Captain at the moment. But that was illogical, too.

His mind wandered now to the meeting in the briefing room. He had experienced that disturbing feeling of cold, though it was a usual temperature in the ship, and he had categorized the unpleasant sensation as fear, perhaps one of the worst emotions to experience. He did not understand. There had been some logic, at least, to the emotion when in the briefing room on the Defiant. There he could rightfully expect to be verbally attacked and physically harmed, and be in no way able to reciprocate the treatment. Here, however, he knew with confidence that Kirk and McCoy and Scott would never think to harm him, and no one else on the Enterprise would either, if some only for fear of repercussion. He had thought he knew this, in any case. Why was he having these feelings?


Review? Probably will only be one or two more chapters, I think.