Chapter Six

The persistent chime penetrated McCoy's brain, rousing him from a sound sleep.

What now?

In the history of medicine, no doctor had been allowed to sleep the night through and not be bothered at least once in his professional career with an emergency or the occasional fretful patient. McCoy was no exception. He was Chief Medical Officer on a Federation issue starship full of some four-hundred plus beings, trapped in a vessel with little or no help available. In his tenure, he had not gone more than four nights in a row without an interruption. He was hoping to break that record someday.

He rolled over to hit the release button on the terminal next to this bed. "McCoy."

He didn't bother to open his eyes, hoping it was a minor issue that would allow him to go back to sleep – an order that needed his approval, or pharmacology only he could prescribe. After so many years in residency when his hours were almost criminal, he had conditioned his body to fall asleep quickly, getting sleep in when and where he could.

"It's Dr. Wessin, sir," the young male voice came through the sound system in McCoy's assigned quarters.

There was an edge to the voice that instantly alerted him. Wessin was the on-call physician on gamma shift; a competent doctor, but a bit inexperienced and often over-eager.

He opened his eyes to the dark interior of his quarters. He had not activated the viewing screen. "What is it, Wessin?"

"Captain Kirk is spiking a fever, sir. It's 39.4 and rising."

Shit!

His feet were on the floor before his brain had a chance to register the movement. "Computer, lights. When did it start?"

"About two hours ago, sir. I gave his 120mg of Privicia at 0234."

He was struggling into his pants, his adrenalin pumping. "Why the hell didn't you call me earlier?"

"Captain Kirk's temperature has been fluctuating for days. I thought it was another minor elevation."

"Well it's not." He pulled on a tunic in a single, angry motion. His mind was racing through diagnoses. Jim's blood tests had come back clean - no sign of infection and the toxin was almost completely out of his system. Except for the visual problems and headaches, Jim had recovered substantially in the past week he'd been in Sickbay. There was nothing that should be causing a high fever. "What are his vitals?"

"Respirations 22, BP 110 over 60, pulse 150."

Tachycardia. Goddamn it. He grabbed his boots and headed toward the door. "Get him on a cooling blanket. I'm on my way. And don't do anything else."

By the time he entered Sickbay, Wessin and two nurses were in the isolation room with a feverish and barely conscious Kirk. Wessin quickly handed him Jim's chart, but he didn't look at it right away. He moved to the side of the bed and looked down at Jim. Pale and shivering, Jim lay beneath the cooling blanket, eyes closed and moving restlessly.

The neuro scan he'd run two days ago had shown what he'd expected: interference in the occipital lobe. No masses or inflammation. Jim had even been able to walk to the end of the room and back with little support. His balance had been off, but that was expected.

"Did he complain about any pain or feeling flushed?" he asked, pulling the blanket down to Jim's hips. He drew the Sickbay gown up to expose the abdomen. He'd known toxins to hide in the liver for weeks before evincing any physical signs. The liver could hide accumulations even from cellular scans.

"No," Wessin replied. "He was a little restless and his respiration was up, but his pain indicator was at normal level for him."

He gently palpated Jim's liver, concentrating on what his sensitive fingers told him. He felt no mass or inflammation. Looking up at the monitor, he studied the readouts. He had lowered the dose of analgesic within the past twenty-four hours, but that would not have caused a fever. The vitals indicated an infection. He glanced down at the chart in his hands. Blood gases looked poor, but the white blood cell count was normal. No infection.

He moved the blanket aside to examine the injured knee. The calf muscle he had graphed in place had been giving Jim some issues. The nerves had been hypersensitive and firing off shocks of pain. But when he examined the knee, he could see no swelling or distortion. The leg was still discolored from the toxin, but when he put his hands on the firm calf, he felt no heat or tremors.

"Run a deep cellular scan on his leg," he ordered. "Maybe something is still lingering in the new tissue that we missed. And I want a CBC and full liver panel."

"Yes, sir." Wessin hesitated a moment. "Did I miss something?"

McCoy shook his head, reviewing the vitals again as Wessin left. What the hell was causing such a high fever? He studied the monitor and frowned. In addition to the rising temperature, the other vitals were showing fluctuations: heart rate, arterial pressure, blood-pressure, oxygen saturation. What he would expect from a high fever.

"Hang a unit of saline and start him on Niotripine, slow drip." He covered Jim with the blanket. The Niotripine was an iotrope that would help with the heart's contractibility and hopefully get Jim's heart rate stronger and bring the blood gases closer to normal.

He tapped the orders into the PADD and handed them to the nurse before moving toward the head of the bed. Jim's lips were softly parted as he drew shallow breaths. His chest contracted with the rapid respirations. The fever was causing his brain to send signals to his body to cool down, secreting hormones, shivering and constricting blood vessels – all in an attempt to cool the body. The problem was, those attempts were causing an entirely different set of issues. Ones McCoy now needed to manage.

Jim's brows wrinkled slightly as his eyes fluttered open. The blue eyes were bright with fever, but unfocused. The pupils were dilated. He shivered as he struggled to orient himself. "Wessin?"

"It's McCoy." Jim still wasn't seeing clearly.

A nurse moved to the IV regulator and began to hang a new bag of the solutions he had ordered. The motion caught Jim's attention.

"What's wrong?"

"You have a high fever. I'm going to give you some fluids and medication to help reduce it."

The frown persisted and his gaze drifted slightly. He moved restlessly, pushing the cooling blanket away. "Cold."

"You need this on you right now." McCoy returned the blanket to cover Jim's chest. "We've got to cool you off."

"Someone's here," Jim said weakly. His breathing was becoming labored and he scanned the room in a desperate attempt to interpret the images that surrounded him.

"Just me and a couple of nurses."

Jim shook his head. His frown deepened. "Someone's calling me."

"No." He put a hand on Jim's fevered forehead, feeling the heat rising through his palms. ""No one's calling you, Jim. Rest."

A faint chime sounded. He looked up at the monitor. A first level warning of low oxygen saturation. He tapped at the control panel on the biobed, activating the oxygen source that would deliver a field of high-concentrate oxygen around Jim. It was less obtrusive than a mask, which Jim did not tolerate as well. He watched as the oxygen saturation climbed and leveled off.

Jim became still. The shivers ceased as he lay exhausted, breathing shallowly.

After a moment, McCoy turned his attention to Jim's file.

It was before the start of alpha shift when Spock walked into the isolation room at the rear of the main Sickbay. He had been alerted that Kirk's condition had unexpectedly taken a significant turn for the worse. No other information was given in the terse and brief update, forcing Spock to make a personal appearance and evaluate the situation. McCoy was not prone to overreaction, and was entirely competent as a medical doctor, but his attachment to the Captain had, at times, made him overprotective.

The doors into the isolation room hissed open, announcing his arrival. He stopped abruptly just beyond the threshold, unprepared for the emotional assault that struck him. Pain and fear attacked him with such intensity that he almost gasped from the sheer magnitude and rawness of it. In his years among humans, he had never felt anything as divergent as the emotions that filled the room, pressing into each corner like an invisible entity angrily trying to find escape. He knew instantly who was responsible for the emotions. Despite the vitality, he could easily recognize the thread of warmth in the mind that was becoming more familiar to him each day.

McCoy and two nurses hovered around Kirk's bed, sponging his bared skin with cloths, but he barely noticed them. His entire focus was on the man in the bed, shaking with fever, muttering rapidly in a string of chaotic and senseless thoughts that barely resembled English.

Delirium.

He took only a brief moment to put his mental shields in place, then walked to the bed. "What has happened?"

McCoy stood on the opposite side, wiping Kirk's shivering body. He didn't look up at Spock's approach, but kept his focus tightly on Kirk. The blanket had been pulled down to Kirk's hips to expose his torso to the medical staff's ministrations. Kirk moved restlessly under their hands, weakly batting at them as if the mere touch of the cloth irritated him. "He's spiking a high fever."

Spock looked up at the monitor. Temperature: 41.3. Dangerously high for a human. "What is the cause?"

The last report he had reviewed, a mere fifteen hours earlier, had shown favorable progress in Kirk's recovery. He had stopped by during alpha mess call to share a light dinner….

"Am I fatiguing you?" he asked Kirk, eyeing the tray of half-eaten food.

Kirk was resting against the mattress, in a semi-upright position with his eyes closed. He opened them at Spock's question, a small smile curling the corners of his mouth. "No. Just resting my eyes."

"Doctor McCoy informs me that your vision is improving each day."

Kirk grimaced. "We have different definitions of improving. Anyway, if Bones had his way I'd be in Sickbay for another week." He sighed loudly and shifted. "I'm ready to get out of here."

"Doctor McCoy is merely exercising caution for the sake of your well-being."

Kirk frowned. "Don't you start, Spock. We're not getting anywhere with me lying in bed."

Spock nodded. "Doctor McCoy informed me of your plans to beam down to the planet. Do you think that prudent, given the circumstances?"

"I sure as hell can't find what I'm looking for up here." Kirk paused. "I assume we are still orbiting the planet?"

"We are." He sat silently, studying Kirk. In the past two days, the Captain had regained some of his strength. McCoy's treatments and care had given his complexion some color. Soon Kirk would be released to convalesce in his quarters. Spock contemplated if now was the time to inform Kirk of his decision to go into lockdown, of the guard at the door and of his suspicions of an internal affairs situation. "Captain—"

Kirk flexed his injured knee with a wince. "I hate being hobbled." He rolled his head along the pillow to look at Spock. "We missed something, Spock."

"Obviously."

"I have to get down to that planet. It's the only way to learn what really happened."

"You believe that beaming down to the place where we found you will trigger a memory."

"It'll trigger something." His expression deepened and for a moment he appeared sad or forlorn, then he pulled himself out of it and glanced at Spock with a very boyish look . "If Bones doesn't let me out of here soon, I'm going to break that door down."

Spock took a deep breath and looked down at Kirk whose steady stream of words filled the room. "Doctor?"

"I don't know," McCoy said tersely, not looking away from his task. His hands moved with sureness over Kirk's fevered skin, expertly avoiding Kirk's attempts to strike at his hands. "Christine, lower the setting on the cooling system another three degrees." McCoy looked up at the IV solutions that were almost empty. "Keep the chilled saline running and piggy-back it with 400ml of Propastylin."

"Yes, Doctor." She stepped away from Kirk to comply with McCoy's orders.

McCoy set the cloth aside and was pulling the blanket up to cover Kirk's shivering body when Kirk suddenly reached out and grabbed hold of McCoy's sleeve, twisting his fingers into the tunic. He leaned forward, his eyes wide and fever-bright. He had not stopped the incessant stream of words since Spock had entered the room.

"Get to the guard they are waiting for me I can't see I don't know get to the guard they are waiting I'm coming I can't see I can't see." His head dropped back in exhaustion, but his hand kept a firm grip on McCoy's sleeve, holding the doctor in place. "Get to the guard they are waiting what have we done we have to go back."

On and on it went, his words filling the confined room with urgency and fear.

McCoy rested a hand on the top of Kirk's head. "You're safe, Jim."

"They're there I can't see I can't see."

A sharp whistle interrupted Kirk's string of thoughts.

"Doctor McCoy to Med Bay One. Code Green."

"Damn it," McCoy swore softly and carefully extricated himself from Kirk's grip, turning to Spock as he did so. "Stay with him."

McCoy didn't wait for a response, but dashed past him and out the door, leaving him alone with the delirious man. For a moment, it seemed as if Kirk had sunk into himself, mumbling softly with his eyes half-closed. His arms were slightly curled with his hands over his chest, shaking and trembling from the fever. The IV lines shook and Spock could see where McCoy had secured them to Kirk's forearm to keep them from being pulled loose.

Spock stepped to the side of the bed, feeling the emotions pouring from Kirk unchecked. It was a unique experience for Spock. In his limited time with Kirk, he had come to know the human was emotional, passionate and exceptionally intelligent. But he was also disciplined and undeniably guarded. He let few people into his personal life, from what Spock had observed. Some of this guardedness was due to the exigencies of command. But the rest was Kirk's nature. He was a private man.

Kirk roused suddenly, his eyes opening wide and searching. They locked onto Spock with desperation. "Don't leave. Don't leave."

Spock stood in place, uncertain of how to respond. His first innate reaction was to tense, as though he were about to retreat. He glanced momentarily at the door.

Kirk reached out and caught hold of Spock's sleeve with his trembling fingers. "Sam. Sam…don't…don't leave me."

Spock looked down at the flushed face, twisted into an expression of grief and anguish. The heat from Kirk's fingers penetrated the thin fabric of his tunic.

"Don't leave me with him. He hates me." Kirk's hand tugged at him, clawing.

Spock hesitated only a moment before covering the hand with his own. He winced at the onslaught of emotions that assaulted him with the contact.

A fisted hand slammed into the side of his head and sent him reeling. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth, and his ears rang. Numbness faded quickly to a biting sting that spread across the side of his face. He struggled for balance as another fist sent his small body to the ground. In the pain was a flutter of satisfaction that he had borne it without breaking, but it was not enough. He knew he'd been left behind. He was alone….

Spock could not touch the mind that reached out to him, and would not have tried even if he were able. Such an act was an unforgivable violation of Vulcan ethics and a deep betrayal of trust. All he could do was squeeze the trembling hand. "I will not leave you," he said in hushed voice.

"I'll be alone. Stay with me. Don't go."

Such desperation in the blue eyes and a longing for understanding, to answer the question that had plagued him since childhood, the question Spock clearly heard in the chaos of the fevered mind: Why did you leave me?

Then, in an instant, the emotions shifted. The pain and longing morphed into rage. "Fuck you, then. I don't need anybody."

Spock could feel the energy drain from Kirk. His grip weakened, but Spock kept hold of his hand.

"I'm going to get out of here," Kirk said faintly. His eyes rolled upwards slightly as the lids slid closed. Finally he lay still, his body spent, his lips softly parted with faint breaths.

For a long time, Spock held Kirk's hand, watching him breathe, his mind finally at rest. Then Spock lowered the hand to the bed and straightened just as the med-bay doors slid open.

"Dumb ass," McCoy was mumbling under his breath as he entered. His sleeves were rolled up and his tunic was rumpled. He looked agitated as he walked up to the bed and studied the monitor before resting his eyes on Kirk. At that, his expression softened. He laid a hand on Kirk's face and gently pulled back one of the closed lids with his thumb, carefully examining the dulled blue eye. He took a breath. "He's unconscious."

Chapel, obviously delayed with the same emergency McCoy had attended, arrived with the prescribed medications and McCoy stepped out of her way with a heavy sigh.

Spock followed him as he stepped away from the bed, rubbing a hand to the back of his neck. "I don't know where the hell it's coming from. His blood tests are clean. The muscle graph is good. The cells around the knee are normal. No issue with the implants, and the scans don't show anything that should be causing a fever."

Spock merely nodded.

McCoy's hand froze on the back of his neck. His eyes narrowed. "You're quiet. Everything okay while I was gone?"

"Yes."

McCoy's eyes stayed on him a moment longer before looking away. "We'll keep pushing the meds. His body can take this fever for a few more hours without damage." He looked back at Kirk, now lying motionless. "Let's hope it breaks as quickly as it started."

Everything around him moved at an incredibly slow pace, as if the world outside his body operated in a different space. Through blurry vision, he saw Bones hovering above him, a worried expression pinching the other man's features.

Don't worry, Bones.

He couldn't make his tongue work. It was paralyzed in his mouth, locked down at the very back of his throat.

Bones' hand pressed to his forehead and he saw his friend's lips move, but he couldn't hear what was said. Sounds were as distorted as his vision, so he closed his eyes and let the darkness take him.

The next time he opened his eyes, his body was on fire and everything was accelerated to warp speed: thoughts, lights, sounds, the very air he breathed. All of it rushed him into a fast-moving stream where he was helpless to slow down. He could feel his heart hammering and his lips moving as thoughts raced into his mind. Images and sensations collided as if he could feel colors. Hands touched him, soothed him, punished him, ignored him. He was hot and cold at once, achy and revived, feeble and powerful.

Sometimes he couldn't move and other times he was in constant motion, racing to keep up with his thoughts. For a moment he was the center of everything. At that moment a thought pressed into him, insistent and strong, a narrow beam of energy that bore into his skull and was buried deep in his mind.

We are waiting for you.