Chapter Two

Jim was aware first of the pain. It was sharpest in his left knee, a hot steel blade driven deep then wrenched, allowing him no reprieve. He shifted slightly, as if to move away from the pain, but quickly discovered that he was restrained. Something warm and unyielding held his injured leg, twisting it into an unnatural position that seemed to enhance the incessant stabbing. Despite the agony in his knee, his leg was paralyzed from his upper thigh down, and all he could do was lie unmoving as the pain chewed into him with sharp, gnawing teeth.

What the hell happened? He was on the bridge, wasn't he? No. No, he'd gone planetside. His thoughts wavered and drifted. He couldn't seem to hold onto an image or idea. He had a sense of urgency, of something he must do, but that also faded as the pain rose.

It was so difficult to breathe. A tight band was wrapped around his chest, crushing his lungs. Every slight breath he drew took a tremendous effort. He hungered for air, but his lungs protested with each faint breath as if he were inhaling broken glass. Tiny shards punctured his lungs and ripped at the center of his chest.

He heard a moan escape him as he opened his eyes. He could feel his heart hammering against his chest wall, sending thin filaments of electric shock into him.

Someone drew near, though he could not see through the shadows and grey mist that surrounded him. It was then that he realized something light and hollow covered his nose and mouth. An oxygen mask.

"Jim?" A hand on his shoulder, cool and comforting.

He knew the voice, the touch. Bones.

"You're in Sickbay."

A shiver tore through him, igniting more pain. No. Sickbay was bright and smelled of antiseptic. The ship would hum and vibrate beneath him, lulling him into a safe slumber the way a mother lulled her child. He couldn't feel his ship. He couldn't feel anything beyond the agony in his knee and the tearing in his lungs. He blinked again. His head hurt, but it was an annoyance among the pains in his body.

"Bones?" His throat hurt. The word came out faint and garbled. He barely heard the sound of his own voice, his ears filled with the sudden rush of blood and the frantic pounding of his heart. He swallowed past the rawness, but it did not help.

"I'm right here, Jim."

The hand on his shoulder tightened reassuringly. Where? He blinked, trying to clear his vision. It was so difficult to breathe.

"You're all right. I know you're hurting. Try not to move."

He couldn't move. His body was pinned to the soft cushion beneath him, immobilized and aching like an insect set out for dissection. "Can't see."

"I know." The cool hand moved from his shoulder to press to his chest. It anchored him in the darkness. "I'm going to take a look in your eyes."

A small light shot into his eyes, sending a white hot needle into his skull. He closed his eyes and raised a hand to fend off the light, turning away from it with a moan. A hand gently grasped his chin just below the soft mask that covered his nose and mouth.

"Hold still, Jim."

Everything had returned to shadows and darkness. His head pounded and he kept his eyes shut to stave off the pain that was quickly receding.

"Sorry. I need to test the reaction of your pupils. It'll only take a second." McCoy's hand left his chin and was repositioned on his face. A thumb pulled back one lid, forcing his eye open as the light found its mark again. He moved against the hand, but it held him steady. The light left for a brief moment only to reappear in the other eye.

"Okay. I'm done." Bones' hand lingered a moment on the side of his face before retreating. "Rest your eyes."

As quickly as the pain had begun, it had ended. He rested his eyes for a moment before opening them again. Dark shadows floated around him. Somewhere in front of him was Bones, although he could only see a charcoal figure that blended too easily into the washed soot-colored background.

"Where are you?" he asked, straining to focus past the murkiness. The effort to speak made him breathless and dizzy.

"Right in front of you." A hand touched his arm, lightly clasping. "Can you see me at all?"

He knew where Bones was from the sound of his voice, but he couldn't see enough to be sure. "Shadows."

The hair on the back of his neck raised and he had the overwhelming sensation that someone was watching him, someone other than Bones.

"Shadows are good. That's something. It's only temporary. You'll see more every day."

Temporary? The mask made talking difficult and he disliked the feel of it pressing against his face. It was suffocating him. He reached to take the mask off and instantly felt Bones' hand on his, gently pulling it away from the mask.

"You have to leave that on. You need the oxygen right now." Bones squeezed his hand. "Just rest."

Speaking took such an effort and he had to push the words through the mask to be heard. He wanted it off. He wanted to move, to be free. Everything was pressing him down on the bed, restraining, punishing.

"I know it's difficult to breathe right now. That's going to get better. Try to take short breaths. The mask is feeding you oxygen."

He felt hands on him – hard, cruel, immovable.

He reached out and his hand made contact with something solid and alive. His fingers curled into the familiar fabric of Bones' tunic.

"What is it, Jim?" Bones asked, carefully pulling Jim's hand from his uniform.

"Someone's here." He could feel it, menacing and deliberate, someone watching…waiting.

"It's just me with you. You're in Isolation Room One. You're safe."

He shook his head. His heart pounded. No, he wasn't. No one on the ship was safe. An alarm sounded a frantic chime above him, but it seemed distant.

Someone was waiting—

"Jim, I need you to calm down."

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move, and my god, his knee felt like it was on fire. Something tugged near his right breast and he felt a sharp pinch and pressure deep within his chest. He frowned against the strange sensation, but didn't have the strength to investigate.

"Spock." The words came out as a moan deep in his throat. He had to free himself…get to the bridge.

He moved his right leg, as if to leverage himself. Immediately, a hand rested on his thigh, stilling his movements.

"Keep still, Jim."

He didn't want to lie still – blind and paralyzed. He shivered again. Something soft and light covered his chest and shoulders, but it only served to weigh him down. Another thing to hold him in place…oppressive…binding.

"Rest." A hand softly touched his hair.

He was so tired. There was something he had to do, something important, but before he could focus on a single thought, the darkness swallowed him and pulled him down.

McCoy kept his hand on Jim's right leg as he watched the monitor display with concern. Jim's temperature was still too high at 39.5 and his O2 sat remained below eighty-five percent. Even though the toxins had stopped their assault, Jim's body continued to struggle to flush them out and recover.

Spock entered the room silently and stood opposite McCoy, near Jim's injured leg. The doctor had drained some of the fluid out early this morning, hoping it would provide some relief. The knee was swollen twice its normal size, most of it from the trauma it had sustained, the rest from the toxins that were destroying the cells.

McCoy studied the monitor, noting Jim's urine output was below normal levels. That meant his kidneys were shutting down and not filtering the toxins from his blood as they were designed to do, something Jim could not afford at the moment. He was counting on Jim's body to assist in the process. These small delays were causing imbalances throughout Jim's system.

"Has he been conscious?" Spock asked.

McCoy could see him in his peripheral vision – lean and straight, wearing an undecipherable expression as he stared at Jim's sleeping form. "Briefly."

"Did he say anything relevant? Anything regarding what happened?" McCoy frowned as he continued to study the monitor. He was weighing his options: give Jim's kidneys a few more hours to kick in and maybe increase the fluids to see if that didn't prompt them to function or go straight to dialysis. But dialysis left the kidneys not functioning. He pressed a call button on the side of the monitor panel.

"Doctor?"

He sighed and looked away from the panel. "He's in pain, Spock. He's confused and can't see. Our conversation focused on that."

"Any information he has is vital to the investigation. The sooner we have that information, the more quickly this matter can be resolved."

…this matter can be resolved….The words angered him, as if Jim were an inconvenience, a political misstep that needed to be addressed and put to bed so that everything could resume normality. It was as if the man in the bed between them did not exist.

"I'm not going to interrogate him!" McCoy spat. "Finding whoever did this is not my priority."

"It must be my priority, Doctor."

"Listen to me, you—"

The door hissed open and Chapel entered, only to stop uncertainly just inside the room. She looked from Spock to McCoy with an expression of concern and confusion.

"Run a blood panel, Christine," he ordered her in a clipped tone. "I want a draw every two hours. And set up for a cellular scan. I want a closer look at his kidneys."

"Yes, Doctor," she said and turned immediately to comply.

He spared a glance at Spock. "I'm trying to keep this man alive."

He reached up to the IV regulator and tapped a command into the panel to increase the fluids. If this didn't work, he could try a diuretic to stimulate the kidneys.

Spock glanced at the monitor and then back to Jim. "Is there a concern?"

"I have a dozen concerns," McCoy said tersely, then paused and got control of his anger. Despite Spock's dispassionate tone and controlled demeanor, McCoy knew that the Vulcan cared for Jim. His head began to pound with the start of what promised to be a hell of a headache. "His kidneys are slowing down. His urine output is low and that means they aren't filtering the toxins out of his body."

Spock was quiet for a moment. In the stark lighting of Sickbay, McCoy could see the angled planes of his face, the deep set of his eyes and the facial muscles taut and controlled beneath the pale skin. To an untrained observer, he looked disciplined and impassive. But McCoy saw the way the Vulcan's eyes softened with concern, the slight hitch in his breathing and the faint pull of his black brows as they almost drew into a frown.

"Is this an effect of the toxins?" Spock asked.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out."

The dark eyes looked up at him. "You reported that the efficacy of the toxins had begun to diminish. Why is he still so…affected?"

McCoy's eyes rose. "I said they had stopped attacking his system. I didn't say the damage was undone. We can't reverse the effects. I can only hope the poison flushes from his system before it does permanent damage." He released a short breath and looked down at Jim. "And anyway, he's doing a hell of lot better than he was twenty-four hours ago."

"That is not readily apparent, Doctor."

He threw the Vulcan an impatient look. "Are we finished?"

"I do not wish to seem indifferent," Spock said slowly, "but everything the Captain says, however irrelevant it may seem, must be considered as potential vital evidence. My priority, Doctor, is to prevent another attack. He is most vulnerable at the moment."

McCoy scowled at that thought and looked down at Jim. He had not considered the possibility of another attack on the Captain. Jim's young features were pale and relaxed, free of the pain he'd seen earlier. But even as protected as they could make him, Jim was still vulnerable. Spock was right. The young captain could not see, could not move, and was weak and dependent on the medical machines for some of his basic functions. What if someone on the ship did want to hurt him? What if their vigilance was not enough?

He looked at the Vulcan. "He thought someone was here and became agitated. That could be residual from the attack."

"Or he could be trying to tell us something."

McCoy's eyes hardened. "Christ, Spock, you're sounding paranoid. That's not going to help Jim."

"Neither will indulging in denial, Doctor. The danger, however chimerical you may feel about this, is real."

Jim awoke with a strange sense of peace and the feeling that someone waited on him, as if he had been interrupted in a task and now needed to finish. The thought floated away as the pressure in his chest drew his attention. He ran his tongue over his upper lip. His mouth was dry and his tongue felt too big for his mouth.

Slowly, he became more aware of deep ache in his knee, a dull pain that seemed to be just beneath the surface, like an angry snake waiting to strike. He recognized the heavy sensation of pain meds flowing through his veins, making him lethargic and fuzzyheaded.

He opened his eyes and blinked. He saw white, dingy and blurred, on his body. Beyond that were grey forms without shapes, indistinguishable and shifting. Beyond those dancing forms was… nothing.

Shit.

This wasn't good. He closed his eyes. A deep throbbing had settled in just behind his temples. He felt his heart rate increase.

Calm down, he commanded. His training kicked in and he assessed his surroundings, using his other senses. He was on the ship, he knew. He could feel the steady hum and pulse of the engines, smell the familiar filtered air with a hint of disinfectant he knew only too well. Sickbay. From just above him, the soft beep and strum of the bio monitor confirmed his thoughts.

Okay, he'd been hurt somehow.

There was a shuffling sound and the air stirred. He opened his eyes again as one of the grey forms appeared near him.

"Do you see me?" Bones asked.

He shook his head weakly, wincing at the pain the motion caused. "What's wrong with my eyes?"

Silence.

"The toxins are affecting your occipital lobe." Bones' voice was thick with concern. "It'll clear up as the toxins are flushed from your system."

Toxins?

"What are you talking about, Bones? What toxins?" He felt a heavy pressure in his left knee.

"Jim, don't you remember waking up in Sickbay yesterday?"

He scowled. "No. What happened? How long have I been here?"

His knee was starting to throb painfully. He turned to look at it, but he could only see the watered grey mist. It felt heavy and lifeless except for the pain.

"What do you remember?" Bones asked, not answering his question.

He reached out to explore his knee, stretching his hand across his thigh. A hand captured his, stopping him.

"Your knee's been injured. It's still very sensitive."

"Feels strange." It hurt to talk. His throat was raw and achy. He rested back against the softness of the pillows, letting Bones place his hand back on his stomach.

"There's a lot of damage. I have it in an immobilizer to keep it from moving."

"My throat hurts."

There was a scrap and a metallic clink off to his right.

"Have a few sips of water," Bones said as a straw was pressed to his lips.

He drank greedily, feeling the cool water soothe his sore throat. Suddenly, the straw was withdrawn.

"That's enough for now."

Drinking made him a little breathless and dizzy. He took a few moments to catch his breath as his thoughts slid into place, fighting for attention over his aching body. The shadows in front of him were distracting. He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling a strange comfort in the darkness.

"What do you remember, Jim?"

He ignored the pain in his knee as best as he could and searched his thoughts for his last known memory, but everything seemed jumbled and disjointed, like clips from several different stories all strewn together into a potpourri of mirages – illusive and displaced. "I'm not sure. I see things, but…everything is all muddled."

"Just take your time and tell me what you see." Bones' hand lightly grasped his right bicep. The hand was cool and strong. "Don't worry if it makes sense."

He opened his eyes. "I remember everything was too bright. It hurt my eyes. Somebody was holding me down…I think. I wanted to get away, but I couldn't move."

Strong, cruel hands held him in place.

"That was yesterday, here in Sickbay," Bones said. "I checked the reaction of your pupils with a penlight. Your eyes were a little sensitive and your leg is immobile, so you can't move much. It may feel like you're being held down."

The pain in his knee increased, a sharp biting that bled out toward his thigh. "I was on an oxygen mask."

"Yes. The toxin is affecting your respiratory system, among other things. I had to put you on oxygen to keep your saturation levels high enough to not to affect your brain function. Even on full oxygen, you struggled."

"It's better?" There was a pressure in his chest that made breathing deeply difficult. He contented himself with shallow breaths.

"Yes, the toxin stopped its progression, but your body is slow in flushing it out. That's why it's difficult for you to see right now."

The throbbing in his knee increased to a maddening tempo. He shifted uncomfortably. "What the hell happened to my knee? It's killing me."

"You got shot with an arrow. That's how the toxin got into your system."

"Arrow?" Shit his knee hurt. He reached for it, instinctively wanting to rub away pain that radiated from it. Hands immediately captured his and gently, but firmly pulled him back. Another hand planted on his shoulder, reinforcing his position.

"Ah. It's not going to feel better touching it, Jim. Your knee took the brunt of the toxin, not to mention what the damn arrowhead did to your knee. Most of your cartilage is gone. That's why I immobilized it."

The throbbing elevated to a piercing. He frowned. "You didn't fix it?"

Bones let out a short breath. "I can't until the toxin is clear. It's destroying a lot of your cells in the knee and will most likely reject the new cartilage. Plus, there's too much swelling right now to do anything."

The hand on his shoulder squeezed lightly. He shivered, feeling a pinch near his chest.

"Are you cold?"

"Who the hell shot me with an arrow?" His head had begun to pound, creating a pulsating pain behind his eyes.

"That's what Spock has been trying to find out. Do you remember going down to the planet?"

Of course he remembered the planet. It was a secondary exploration for the Federation. The planet had already been surveyed and classified years ago. The first contact team had made their evaluation. Someone on the team had ingeniously named the planet Aegis, presumably because the planet's medicinal capabilities. The Enterprise's job was to gather samples for Starfleet Medical and Science and reassess the possibilities of a Federation post. Science aside, the planet was located in a strategic corridor between the Klingon Empire and the Federation. And then it all came together. "That planet is classified as Uninhabited."

"Yes."

He shivered again and felt sweat run down his neck. He tried to shift his position to find a more comfortable position, but the movement jarred his knee, sending a piercing agony into it. He cried out from the sheer intensity. The pain drove him to lurch up in bed. A sharp pull on his right breast was all but lost in the wave of pain emanating from his knee. Out of instinct, he reached for his knee, feeling the world tip and spin around him.

Alarms wailed above the sound of Bones' cursing.

"Damn it, Jim."

Arms caught hold of his shoulders and easily pushed him down into the softness of the mattress. He struggled to breath, suddenly overwhelmed with dizziness and pain. Trembles shook his body that suddenly seemed hypersensitive and raw.

A flash of white…hands held him down….

"Get me 15cc's of Noraphine. Jim, I need your to lie still."

What have we done?

Above him, shadows moved. There was a click and hiss of a hypospray. He felt a warm pressure in his chest as his knee screamed in agony. He braced himself with his right leg, trying to get away from the pain, but his movement only caused more pain.

"Kill those alarms," Bones said, his tone clipped. His hand grasped onto Jim's thigh right above the knee on his uninjured leg and held him firmly in place. "I need you lie still, Jim."

No, he had to move.

Another set of hands, small and soft, rested on his left side at his ribcage and just below his hip, lying flat against his thigh. He lashed out at the hands, knocking them away, but his body wasn't cooperating and the hands held firm.

They weren't supposed to be here.

Exhaustion suddenly weighed him. His body felt heavy and he recognized the effects of strong pain meds pulling him down. Wait…stop. "Bones…."

He reached out into the shadowy grayness, his arm trembling with exertion. There was something there in the shadows, just outside of his internal vision, pressed close to the walls of his mind…someone waiting….

"It's all right, Jim." A cool hand caught his. "Just relax and the let the medication work."

The pain began to recede as the shadows melted into blackness. A shiver tore through him. He made a strange noise at the back of his throat. He tried to move, to keep his eyes open. He felt his body convulse with the effort then fall back into the bed, limp and useless.

"Hey, easy." Bones' voice was close to his right ear, gentle and commanding. "Don't fight it so much."

His eyes pulled shut. He fought to breathe, fought the darkness he was sinking into and the heavy liquid running through his veins that made his body ineffective. "No."

A hand pressed to his fevered forehead. "You're safe. You can let go now. Just let go."

It was the last thing he heard.