Chapter 17: The Last Word

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"Dr. McCoy, you need to take a break."

Leonard McCoy looks away from the monitors over Jim Kirk's biobed long enough to shoot one of his trademark frowns at the presumptuous young medic standing behind him. The medic is a head taller than the doctor—a genderless Benarian with ruffled purple skin and a fringe of colorless fur bracketing a lipless mouth- -but it quails visibly, tucking in its long arms and ducking backwards towards the glass door.

"When I want your advice, I'll ask for it," McCoy says. "Go bother someone else."

The Benarian disappears into the hall and McCoy lets his shoulders sag. He is tired. It's been fifteen hours since they'd gotten Jim out of the cryotube and started an infusion with Khan's blood. So far he's relatively stable—though he's running a fever and his blood pressure has been rocketing all over the place. The induced coma damps down some of the inevitable metabolic stresses, but at least once an hour the monitors sound when something else goes wrong—high glucose levels, falling amounts of dopamine, fluctuations in total blood volume. When Jim does wake up, McCoy has a list of grievances ready to lob at him.

A slight noise at the door—that pesky medic again. McCoy whirls around to tell him to go away but is startled by the sight of Spock standing there instead. Still wearing his torn uniform—a gash across his nose and brow untreated—Spock looks as tired as McCoy feels. Dark circles are under his eyes. When he steps forward into the room, he favors his left leg with an almost imperceptible limp. He ought to be in a hospital room of his own.

"What are you doing here?"

Ignoring McCoy, Spock crosses the distance to the bed. His eyes dart over Jim quickly and then settle on the beeping monitor.

"The Captain?"

"Hell if I know," McCoy says. "I think he's going to be okay—eventually. But that's a guess, and I know how you feel about mere guesses."

Spock blinks and turns his gaze on the doctor. "Your guesses are never mere."

"Well," McCoy says, coughing to cover his surprise, "thanks." He waits a beat and says, "You didn't answer my question. Why are you here? You need to get that looked at," he says, pointing to the dried blood on Spock's head.

"I have not had time. Until a few minutes ago, I was being debriefed by Starfleet. Admiral Keen is initiating an inquest into Admiral Marcus' involvement with Section 31."

McCoy feels his own blood pressure rising. "Cloak and daggers! Is that what we are now, a spy organization? That's not what I signed on for."

From the corner of his eye McCoy sees Spock wobble—a tiny motion that gives away his exhaustion.

"Sit down," McCoy says as gruffly as he can, "before you fall down and I have you hauled to the emergency room." Spock opens his mouth—undoubtedly to protest—and McCoy crosses his arms and glares. "No arguments. There's a friendly medic out in the hall just itching to be helpful, and if you don't sit down immediately—"

"Your point," Spock says, easing himself into the only chair in the room, "is well taken."

"Shut up," McCoy says, pulling out his mediscanner and waving it over Spock. Just as he thought—contusions, cracked ribs, a hairline fracture in his tibia, lacerations on his face and hands. Anyone else would have been doubled over in pain. Or flat on his back unconscious. McCoy clucks loudly.

"You should have seen someone hours ago," he says, adjusting the scanner and waving it over Spock's shoulder. "Torn rotator cuff. That's gonna need some repairs. I'm admitting you—"

"I appreciate your concern," Spock says, struggling to sit upright, "but I am due back at Headquarters at 0700."

"Aren't you listening to me? I just told you that your injuries require medical attention now."

Spock doesn't wince—not exactly—but the expression on his face gives away some internal calculus. "Doctor, there are many people requiring more urgent care. The civilian casualties alone—"

"Are tremendous. I know that. The emergency rooms are swamped. The needs of the many. I get it. But that doesn't change things with you. Whatever Headquarters wants from you can wait, and besides, I thought you said you were debriefed already."

"About Admiral Marcus. There's the other more pressing matter to discuss."

He cuts his eyes at Jim and McCoy sighs. No use to pretend he doesn't understand. Using Khan's blood has opened the proverbial Pandora's box.

Not that it could be helped, of course. Jim was dead—would still be dead—if Khan's blood didn't have recuperative and regenerative properties. Properties that made the Augments such a threat hundreds of years ago. Which make them a threat now if they are ever revived—

McCoy feels Spock looking at him.

"As soon as the captain is stable," Spock says, "I expect the Admiralty will want to talk to you."

"Let 'em," McCoy says. His bravado sounds false, even to himself. "I'm ready."

The monitor beeps and McCoy heads to the side of the biobed. "Fever spike," he says. A nurse, alerted by the monitor, bustles inside, ready to assist. McCoy waves her away.

"I got this," he says, picking up a hypospray from the counter. He hesitates a moment—50cc or double that?—and decides on the lower dose. He can always increase it later if Jim doesn't respond.

A constant of the universe—how much easier it is to add than subtract. A dose of medicine; salt in the soup; a spouse.

McCoy rubs his hand through his hair and shakes his head. These are the kind of crazy thoughts he gets when he's punchy for sleep. Perhaps that Benarian was right—

Placing the empty hypospray on the counter, he glances over at Spock. He's still in the chair, his eyes at half-mast. When he sees McCoy looking him over, he starts to rise.

"Wait just a minute," McCoy says, picking up another hypospray. "Here's something for pain."

"I do not require anything," Spock says with some asperity.

"I'm a doctor, dammit," McCoy says, "not a mind-reader, but I can see that you're hurting."

"I am in control of my pain, Doctor," Spock says, his hands gripping the side of the chair. "As I indicated earlier, I have another meeting at Headquarters. Any pain medication will dull my faculties."

Taking a deep sigh, McCoy says, "At least let me get you started on an antibiotic. That's a nasty cut on your face. And you need a stitch or two."

"Doctor, I—"

"Look, Spock, I can pull rank and keep you here in the hospital so you can get the treatment you need, or you can cooperate and I'll let you be on your way shortly. Your choice."

Something inside Spock seems to collapse—some resolve or force of will buckling and giving way. He makes an audible sigh.

McCoy picks up a hypo and holds it up to the light, adjusting the dosage. "If it makes you feel any better," he says, motioning toward the biobed where Jim lies still and pale, "I'm going to be here…for the duration. I'll let you know if anything changes, but you aren't going to do anyone any favors if you collapse. You aren't indestructible, you know. People count on you, it's true, but they care about you, too. Don't forget that."

Spock cuts his eyes at McCoy, the hint of a frown on his face. "You are not the first person to remind me of that today. I have not forgotten."

"Uh huh," McCoy says, pressing the hyprospray under the side of Spock's jaw. "Lieutenant Uhura came by earlier looking for you. Seems you weren't answering your comm. She hadn't heard a word from you since…this."

He motions toward Jim.

Jim. The dead tribble. The Enterprise falling from the sky. The frantic pursuit for some of Khan's miracle blood—

"I was in the debriefing," Spock says, his voice becoming softly slurred. "I knew she would understand my silence—"

Like a light going out, Spock closes his eyes and his head bobs forward. Finally. McCoy pats his trusty hypo. Stepping to the doorway, he calls out to the startled Benarian medic walking by, "Be helpful for a change and bring a gurney. And an electrostimulator. And a portable biomonitor. We have an extra guest at this party."

XXX

When she wakes up, Nyota doesn't know where she is. She doesn't panic—her Starfleet training is too thorough for that—but her heart rate is elevated and her senses hyperaware until she remembers bunking here in an empty dorm room at the Academy.

A quick glance at her comm gives her the time—0532—the sun just coming up. She's surprised that she's slept so long, if not particularly well. Her eyes feel crusty and the stitches on her forehead throb. With the flick of her thumb, she checks her message queue for some word from Spock. Nothing.

Last night she'd spoken to his father in the hospital, Sarek offering his apartment as a place to stay while he headed to Paris to Federation meetings. She'd waited outside the captain's room until it was clear that no one was going to tell her anything definitive—if anything definitive could be told—and she left when she realized she was in the way more than anything else.

Spock was nowhere. Or at least he wasn't telling her where he was, and she had been too tired to spend much energy tracking him down.

But she should have heard from him by now.

It's true that they've been going through a rough patch lately, false starts and stops as they lurch their way past the initial shock of the Vulcan genocide, the death of Spock's mother, the general chaos of Starfleet field promotions and funerals and hasty reassignments…her head hurts thinking about it all.

Still, on the bridge when Spock had turned to her, a plea in his expression, she'd known without a doubt that she held the future in her hands, that Spock would do whatever she said—and she'd said, "Go get him," certain that no one but Spock could go after Khan. No one. And she knew in that same moment what Spock had known earlier in the volcano, that putting his life in jeopardy wasn't a dismissal of what he felt about her, about them, but a necessity of the moment.

A quick shower and a detour to the campus cafeteria for a cup of coffee and she's on her way back to the hospital, her comm in her hand as she walks across the neatly mowed commons, a weird contrast to the still-smoldering ruins near the Presidio plowed into rumble by Khan's ship. Or Marcus's ship. Another loss of words—knowing what to call it.

She flicks her thumb to refresh her message on her comm. Where are you? Are you okay?

To her surprise no one stops her in the hospital as she makes her way up the lift to the floor where she assumes the Captain is still being monitored. As she heads down the hall she can see Leonard McCoy standing in a doorway, his blue scrubs rumpled, his gaze directed inside the room where she hears faint beeps.

Right before she reaches the room McCoy turns and sees her.

"Shh!" he says, putting his fingers to his lips. Nyota looks inside and sees Spock sleeping on a gurney near the door.

"What's going on?"

McCoy gives a self-satisfied smirk. "Sometimes I surprise myself," he says. "He'll be ready to go home soon. Not ideal—I'd rather keep him under observation—but at least he's had a few hours hooked up to the electrostimulator. Took care of a few tears and breaks, anyway."

To her surprise, Nyota feels her eyes water. She's so relieved to know that Spock has been here for hours, unable instead of unwilling to respond to her. Stepping closer to the gurney, she examines his face, his lashes dark against the pallor of his cheeks, his hair ruffled in a way that would embarrass him if he know he was on public view.

As if sensing her presence, Spock suddenly opens his eyes.

"Well, hello Sleeping Beauty," McCoy says. Spock pointedly ignores the doctor and looks at Nyota.

"I was in meetings at Headquarters."

Nyota bites back her automatic reply—how hard would it have been to let me know where you were? You couldn't send me a single word?

"I know," she says instead. "It's okay."

It's not really okay, but it is, too. Or it will be, after she gets over some of the shock of what's happened.

Not just what's happened to the ship and the Captain and her crewmates, but to this relationship—the past few months stumbling their way forward to an uncertain destination.

Spock rocks forward slightly and Nyota slips her hand behind his back to help him sit up. As always, he's warm to her touch, even in the cold hospital room.

"Easy there," McCoy says as Spock sways slightly. "He's still a little loopy," the doctor says to Nyota, "though if you go slow, you can take him off my hands. I have far more serious matters to take care of."

He darts a glance in Kirk's direction and Nyota says, "How's the Captain doing?"

"Better this morning, though he's not out of the woods. We should know more after we do another liver scan this afternoon." Turning to Spock, he says, "If you promise not to cause any trouble, I'll let you leave. Nope—don't argue with me, not if you want to get out of here today. Silence is golden, Spock. Let me have the last word and you can be on your way."

Nyota sees Spock open his mouth—and then close it. Bracing himself on the edge of the gurney, he pushes himself upright, pressing his side against hers. Hooking her arm through his elbow, she steers him through the door and down the hall to the lift.

Only when the doors shut and the lift begins to move does Spock ask where they are going.

"Didn't you hear what Dr. McCoy said? Silence is golden. You'll know soon enough."

The hoverbus is already in sight when they exit the front of the hospital. Staying close to Spock's side to keep him steady, Nyota manages him on the bus and then off again a few minutes later when they pull up to the stop closest to the Vulcan Embassy.

"You are taking me to my father?"

"He's in Paris for as long as the Federation is in meetings," Nyota says. "He knew you'd need a place to stay."

Spock nods once, a surprising capitulation. "And you?"

His question catches her off guard. Of course she is planning to stay here with him. Perhaps he doesn't want her to? Her heart hammers in her chest so hard that her face flushes. Is he saying that it is time to part, that the crack between them has widened into a larger chasm?

He might need some time alone—or worse, just time without her. What she thought she had sensed on the bridge—his seeking her approval, her granting it—might have been in her imagination only.

Instead of answering, she motions to the security panel and Spock puts out one hand to steady himself while he taps in the entry code. In a few more steps they are inside, Spock leading the way down a narrow hallway and almost collapsing on the bed. For a moment she stands there, swaying slightly, watching as he winces visibly and settles, his eyes pinched shut.

"You need to rest," she says, leaning forward. "I'll—I'll be going then."

Spock's eyes flick open, his brow furrowed.

"No," he says, his voice raspy. He pats the bed beside him, a gesture so unlike him that Nyota breaks into a reluctant grin. Tentatively she perches on the side of the bed, as upright and unmovable as a tree—or so she thinks. Before she can stop him, Spock snakes out one arm and circles her waist, pulling her down onto the bed next to him.

"No," he says simply, his grip tightening, his eyes closing. She listens as his ragged breathing slows and softens, certain that he is asleep. But the moment she starts to pull away, Spock's eyes open and he says, again, "No." Clearly she isn't going anywhere. That single syllable anchors her in a way no other word could at that moment—more than any demonstrative declaration of love or intention. With a sigh—not of dismay but of satisfaction—she closes her eyes and lets herself drift into a dreamless slumber.

XXX

Even when Spock is asleep, he isn't. Not fully, not the way his mother was truly unaware of her surroundings when she curled up in bed, eyes shut, her mind like a traveler leaving her body behind. Noises, smells, motions—at some level they are part of the landscape of his sleeping life. An interference of sorts. An insistence that he attend to things outside himself.

As soon as McCoy slaps the hypo on his neck, Spock knows he has been—as the good doctor would say—slipped a mickey. His eyes slide shut but he listens idly as a medic bustles about, hooking him up to a stimulator. The tibia break, the torn rotator cuff—as soon as the machine begins to hum, Spock feels his body respond with warmth and tingling, indicating an increase in blood flow.

He tries to lift his hand but can't. A wave of indifference washes over him—an effect of the drug, no doubt.

The meeting at Headquarters at 0700. Undoubtedly, he will miss it. He resigns himself to doing nothing more than healing until Dr. McCoy's medications wear off.

Not nothing—he can still hear and sense the movement of the doctor and the medics in the room. At first they are close, adjusting the monitor near his head, attaching a lead to his chest, pulling a blanket over his legs.

Then their footsteps retreat across the room where Spock knows the Captain lies in an induced coma, a thready beep signaling his heart rate, a lower hum and occasional click or hiss as IVs and electrodes measure his progress or lack of it.

Although Spock has often heard humans describe the passage of time in relative terms, he's never quite understood the perception until now, and now the evening passes slowly. Being unable to move is not worrying until he hears Dr. McCoy manipulating some piece of rolling machinery near the Captain's bed, hears the doctor mutter a string of expletives. A clatter and a rush—and then Dr. McCoy takes a deep breath and says, "Okay, that's better. Give him another 12 units every half hour until his oxygen saturation level starts to rise."

"He's stable now, Doctor," an unfamiliar voice says. "You can get some rest in the break room. I can stay here and watch."

"I'm not moving," McCoy says. "Push one of the recliners in here, and then go find someone else to bother."

The realization that McCoy obviously intends to stay at Jim's bedside is surprisingly reassuring. Spock feels something inside him relax—and the next thing he knows, he is looking up at Nyota's face.

The trip from the hospital to his father's apartment near the embassy is a blur—a disturbing kaleidoscope of unfocused colors and shapes. The only constant is Nyota's cool touch, her hand under his elbow keeping him steady.

His father's bed rises up and his cheek presses against the chilly fabric of the pillow. A stirring of the air around him, the burr of something said, and he knows that Nyota is preparing to leave. The idea of her absence makes him physically shiver and he musters the energy to reach out to stop her.

No, he hears himself say. No to being afraid to feel, no to living without the consolation of shared joy and pain, no to facing the future alone. I have so much I want to say—

When his head clears—when whatever this is the doctor has given him leaves and he has enough wit to speak intelligently—he will tell her how much he needs her, more now than ever.

When his mind is no longer fuzzy and foggy he will muster up the sorts of metaphors he knows she finds meaningful, fanciful language that often feels forced and unnatural but which he employs because it brings her joy—and tell her that she is his guiding star. Half of his heart. As necessary as his next breath.

When he can think again, and talk again, he has a great deal he wants to tell her—explanations for his silence, apologies for his distance.

And he wants to hear what she may want to say in return.

But for now he needs to close his eyes and keep her close. She cannot leave—for if she does, he will fly apart. He will cease to exist. He will disappear into nothingness.

No, he says, willing her to stay, himself to live. No.

A/N: The end at last! Thank you to everyone who stayed along for what became a protracted ride with a fickle Muse. Finding a way to tell this story without retelling "Deeper Into Darkness" proved to be quite a challenge, so thank you for jumping with me over portions of the story already told elsewhere! It's always such a pleasure to write for you—and your kind notes and encouragement mean more than you can know.

Sadly today we got word of Leonard Nimoy's death. Of all the characters I routinely inhabit on these pages, Spock is the one for whom I feel the most affinity. I think most of us who love Spock love him because he is us—the nerdy outsider, earnest and often clueless. For bringing to life such a memorable character, Leonard Nimoy enriched us all. He will be greatly missed.