"Jim...?"

Kirk pried his eyes open. He felt sick and tired, exhausted. He didn't want to look around and he didn't want to move, but there was someone more important that needed him and that person was asking for him.

"Spock." He pushed himself into a sitting position, rubbing his eyes. He must have fallen asleep; the last thing he remembered was sitting at the end of Spock's lounge.

He looked at his first officer hesitantly. "How are you feeling...?"

Spock looked about as good as he could be expected to look. He was pale, his eyes were swollen and tinged green. The tear tracks were gone from his face, but the ghosts of them were still fresh in Kirk's mind.

"Compromised," Spock said shortly, trying to sit up.

"Hey, no, stay still! You need to rest! Don't make me tell Bones- where is Bones?" he asked, putting his hand on Spock's shoulder as he looked around.

"I do not know." Spock looked at Kirk's hand on his shoulder. "Captain, I..."

"Shit. What the hell are they doing to him now..." Kirk muttered, looking towards the door. "We have got to get out of here."

"Jim," Spock said loudly.

Kirk looked back at him. "Yeah? Sorry, what? You still haven't told me how you're feeling. Bones said emotion can kill you. Being forced from you and all that. Tell me how you're feeling."

Spock seemed to struggle with words for a moment. He shrugged Kirk's hand off and sat up straight, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. "Mentally... crushed," he said slowly. "That is, however, illogical. I am... experiencing emotion, Jim."

Kirk tilted his head, frowning. "Yeah, they were... they were making you, er, human, I guess. I don't know, Spock, but it's... fine. I mean, it's just... natural."

"It is not natural for a Vulcan."

"Yeah, well... it's normal. Healthy. You know."

"It is neither normal nor healthy to have repressed emotions torn from one's body, from one's mind."

Spock's tone was more than a little unsettling. It was just then Kirk noticed Spock was shaking. Literally shaking, small tremors that were moving through his shoulders and arms every so often. It freaked Kirk out more than he would care to admit.

"Spock... it's alright."

"No, it is not alright," Spock snapped. "I must..." He curled his hand into a fist. It, too, was trembling. "... control... combat... My emotional state is... my own. They cannot... control it." Each word was uttered through clenched teeth on the Vulcan's behalf.

Kirk watched warily. He had never seen Spock reach an emotional state except for the time that he himself had taunted Spock into exploding on the Bridge of the Enterprise before. That had been explosive enough and he had been trying. Now it was just Spock, just Spock dealing with his emotions, emotions that he had had ripped from him against his will.

The possibilities of what Spock could do in this emotional state was actually something that Kirk deemed 'scary shit'.

"Spock..."

"It is not 'alright', Jim!" Spock exploded. "I refuse-" He broke off suddenly, snapping his teeth together with an audible clacking sound.

Kirk was sorely tempted to move away, but something held him in place. It wasn't psychokinesis this time. It was... worry? "Spock, look, you're going to be fine. Fine," he stressed, reaching out to Spock but not quite touching his arm for fear of losing his fingers. "Alright? Trust me. I promise."

Spock stared at his hand critically. His eyes were blazing. He looked ready to kill and that look was very, very unsettling on a Vulcan.

The door swung open. It distracted Spock's anger, deviating the blazing gaze to the double doors that had been opened. Kirk's guards went back up and he turned around immediately, ready to kick and claw and scream if that was what it took to get Spock out of here.

There was no reason for his protectiveness. The only person standing in the doorway was Bones.

"Bones!" Kirk turned away from Spock, crossing the room. "What's going on? Are you alright?" he asked critically, noting McCoy's pale complexion.

"I'm fine. I found out what they want, Jim."

"Yeah? What?"

"Me."

Kirk frowned, exchanging a glance with Spock. "What do you mean, you?" he asked, looking back at Bones. "What do they want with you?"

"They want me to become part of their colony. They need a doctor, and they want me."

Kirk snorted. "Yeah, did you tell them what they can do with their wants and desires? They can stick them right up their ass, because I'm not-"

"I said I'd stay," Bones interrupted in a monotone.

Kirk stopped short. He stared at Bones, trying to read anything, a joke, laughter, emotion from his friend's eyes. There was nothing except a blank, haunted look. It was, like Spock's laughter, something that Kirk never wanted to experience again.

"Bones-"

"I'm staying with them, Jim. Call the Enterprise and have them prepare to beam you up."

"Doctor, surely you realise-" Spock started.

"Can it, Spock. I don't want to hear your damn logic. Jim," McCoy said, turning to Kirk.

Kirk looked at him for a moment longer before straightening up. "Leonard, I am the Captain of the Enterprise and I make the command decisions here. I wouldn't leave any of my crew here, let alone one of my friends. I am not leaving you behind. Neither of you."

"I concur with Captain Kirk's statement, despite the undue emotion in which is it presented with. Doctor, it is likely that they will not let the Captain and I leave safely even if you choose to stay," Spock added.

"That's a risk I'm going to have to take, Spock."

"Bones, I'm not going to allow-" Kirk started.

"Dammit, Jim, I'm not asking! Take the green-blooded hobgoblin and get the hell out of here!"

Kirk winced. "Bones..."

"Just get out of here, Jim, before they find a reason to make you stay."

Bones turned away and strode to the doors without so much as a backwards glance, leaving Spock and Kirk in silence as their Chief Medical Officer walked away.

Still Plato's Stepchildren but subtly different all the same. Spock's anger is fascinating for me. We know he has it- TOS, this episode, for example, but even in this verse, the explosion on the Bridge- but it's difficult to write. Anyway, Spock's anger will be back. I always thought it was unrealistic for Spock to be so angry in Plato's and then it just went away.

Thank you for your support! :D I appreciate it!