Chapter Nine

Scotty entered the room with uncharacteristic hesitation. He stopped just inside the door and looked at Kirk who lay curled on his side, facing the window. He was never good in these situations. Hospitals made him uneasy. He hated the smells and the sounds, and the people inside were…fragile and unpredictable.

He had an aversion to fragile things. It was why he and Kirk had instantly connected. They were two people who could not be broken. Who else but the unbreakable would have attempted to transport onto a ship in warp without so much as a test?

"Live or die, Laddie, let's get on with it," he had told Kirk back on Delta Vega.

It wasn't like he had anything to lose. But Kirk had rescued him from a life of mediocrity on a desolate station where he had been dumped and forgotten. Appropriated him for an insane mission against impossible odds, and now he was chief engineer of the best ship in the Fleet.

"Are you going to stand in the doorway or go in?" McCoy asked quietly.

Scotty looked at him, uneasy. "I—I don't want ta disturb him."

McCoy softened. "You aren't disturbing him, Mr. Scott. He can use the company."

"His system is struggling to get going," McCoy said. "At least he's eating now."

Scotty remained in place. He really wasn't good at this. What was he supposed to say? How was he supposed to act? Jim had saved his life by preventing him from going into the radiation-filled warp core. He had saved all their lives, and now he was struggling to recover.

Scotty jumped when McCoy put a hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him, the door sliding shut behind him. Kirk roused at the sound, and turned to look at him. For a moment, he felt like the proverbial child with his hand caught in the cookie jar.

He was good at fixing engines. He was just as good at getting out of trouble as he was at getting into it. He was good at getting drunk and starting fights. But this….

"Scotty." Kirk's voice was rough and weak.

Scotty pulled himself out of his reverie, aware he'd been staring. "Jim, I dinna mean to disturb your sleep."

Kirk smiled softly. "I wasn't sleeping."

Scotty made no move to walk to the bed. He watched as Kirk gingerly rolled onto his back, pressing a hand to his stomach.

He looks so pale and thin.

He hadn't seen Kirk since they laid him in the cryotube. McCoy had warned him that Jim was recovering but was very weak. Scotty hadn't known what to expect, exactly, but the man in the bed looked more than just ill. How was it possible that the young man looked worse now than when he was dead?

Kirk's eyebrows rose slightly in query, an invitation.

Move, you bloomin' idiot!

He walked to the bed too quickly and too loudly, feeling awkward and self-conscious. The sound of the monitor played like an out-of-tune orchestra in the background, making him all too aware that he was in a hospital. "I came by two days ago, but you were sleeping."

Kirk nodded. "Tell me about our ship. How is she?"

At that, Scotty beamed and straddled the chair. He spent the next twenty minutes giving Kirk a detailed report on damage and repairs, adding in all the enhancements he wanted to make and how Starfleet was fighting him point by point.

Kirk chuckled softly at the end. "Never satisfied with what Starfleet Engineering has to offer."

"Well," he said with a mischievous grin, "she's gotta last five years in deep space."

Kirk frowned.

"We're gonna get the new program, Jim. I know it. I want Enterprise at her gleamin' best."

"Don't count your chickens, Scotty. Command hasn't even put this Khan issue to bed, yet. I doubt they're looking to elevate Enterprise to a premier initiative."

"I don't know, sir. Be a good way of distracting Federation citizens from the war Marcus tried to start." He shifted his weight. "Give them something to champion – new worlds, new civilizations and all a'that."

"Maybe," was all Kirk said.

The room seemed small and confined, pressing against him. Scotty shifted on the chair, suddenly claustrophobic.

The doors hissed open and a nurse entered. She smiled pleasantly as she walked past him to inspect the medication dispensing machine. She tapped a few buttons without comment and made a quick inspection of the IV in Kirk's arm.

Scotty didn't know where to look. If he looked away, it meant he was uncomfortable – which he was. But to watch the examination seemed too intrusive. It was clear Jim was uncomfortable, in constant pain and very weak. He watched as Jim winced, shifting positions slightly.

He desperately wanted to leave the room. He didn't want to see Jim this way.

And suddenly he was standing near the warp core on Enterprise, looking through the sealed access door as Kirk crawled toward him. His mind raced-how long had it been? But time didn't matter. The radiation levels were lethal. Jim was a dead man.

"It's all right, Scotty," Kirk said.

The nurse had gone, leaving Scotty on display in the cramped, undecorated room, staring at his friend. He felt heat rise in his cheeks, but he forced himself not to look away. His mouth was dry, his throat tight.

"I would have gone in there with you," he heard himself say.

"I know."

He couldn't look away. "I feel like I owe you an apology."

Kirk smiled at that. "I should be apologizing to you. You were right about the torpedoes."

Scotty shook his head. "I'm an engineer, Jim. I don't know about wars and diplomacy. I leave those decisions to Command. But I do know what we did was right. We stopped Khan and Marcus. The diplomats and bureaucrats can take care of the rest."

Kirk nodded. His eyes seemed heavy.

"Ach, I've tired you. I should be goin'."

"Scotty."

He stopped, already turned and one step away from the bed. He looked at Jim.

"Thank you."

But he had done nothing, his mind protested. Jim had taken it all on himself, paying the ultimate price without hesitation. Since then, Scotty had watched the media frenzy from which he hoped Jim was shielded. The public had latched on to Starfleet's youngest captain like a lifeline for a drowning man. They had not seen what Jim had sacrificed, how agonizing were his decisions. They only saw the unbreakable hero.

He simply nodded.

McCoy braced Kirk as he vomited violently into the small basin. The muscles beneath McCoy's hands were rigid as Kirk's body convulsed to expel the contents of his stomach. Though they were only introducing purified liquid food, Kirk's digestive system still rejected it.

Curled onto his side and gripping the edge of the bed as an anchor, Kirk continued to convulse with dry heaves, his body shaking from the strain. McCoy nodded to the nurse who removed the small basin. McCoy leaned into Kirk.

"Breathe, Jim. Try to relax."

Sweat poured off Kirk's face, now colored a ghastly shade of gray. If he heard McCoy, he seemed not to show it, caught in the waves of convulsions that wracked him.

"15ccs of portapheline," McCoy ordered.

The anti-emetic medicine should ease the nausea and vomiting. The drug had a mild sedative effect that also controlled the spasms. McCoy hadn't wanted to use it because of potential side-effects, and Jim's system had become even more sensitive to medications since the radiation.

Kirk's spine arched, his fingers twisted into the sheets.

McCoy wrapped an arm around Kirk's chest, trying to support him. "Easy now. Just relax," he said softly next to Kirk's ear.

Don't fight this so much.

The monitor sounded an alarm. Kirk's oxygen saturation was dropping.

"Tri-ox, stat!" he ordered.

The nurse was quick. The hypo appeared in his free hand in seconds, and he pushed the medication into Jim's carotid artery. The alarm silenced and Kirk drew a few shaky breaths. The convulsing eased, paused.

The nurse administered the anti-emetic into the IV as McCoy continued to hold his patient. A few more sporadic spasms – weaker and shorter – and then stillness.

It was over. Kirk was heavy in McCoy's arms and he gently eased him to lie on his back on the bed. Kirk's head lulled to the side and he made no movement as McCoy settled him.

"Okay?" McCoy asked.

"Oh, yeah, I'm great," Kirk managed. His lips, like the rest of his face, had lost all color.

"It's gonna get better, Jim."

"I hate what you do for a living," Kirk said weakly, his eyes closing.

"I know you do."

He stayed with his friend long after Kirk had fallen asleep from exhaustion. He was standing at the window, staring at nothingness when Spock entered.

The scenery out the window seemed stark and barren– buildings of concrete and glass set against a featureless blue sky. There was nothing natural about it. It was industrial, metropolitan, and he hated it. For the first time in four years he missed Georgia.

He punched the controls and the filters lowered. He turned to look at Spock. "You're in dress."

Spock did not comment, but looked at Kirk who lay sleeping. "He is still not able to process the Dysphagia Diet."

"Food stayed down longer than the last time," he said, following the Vulcan's gaze to the very pale and utterly still Kirk. "First I couldn't get him to eat, now I can't get him to accept the damn benzodiazepine."

He had thought to slow things down for Kirk once he saw how violently the young man's system reacted to food, but Kirk was now determined to eat and win the battle with his body.

"You know how Jim is," McCoy said with a sigh, "once he gets something into his head. …I wish there was something we could do."

"Perhaps a different mix of liquid foods with fewer proteins."

"He needs a high mixture of fatty acids and proteins or his body starts leaching from itself. His entire G.I. system was stripped by the radiation." He shook his head. "It'll get better. He just has to go through this process, Spock, cruel as it is."

"I realize. I thought to make it easy on him."

McCoy snorted despite himself. "Jim Kirk doesn't do 'easy.' You should know that by now."

"It has been three weeks. I had hoped his recovery would be more pronounced."

"Don't you start, Spock," McCoy said tersely. "He's impatient enough for both of you. I never said he was going to recover in a few days. This is going to take weeks, maybe months before he's anywhere near ready for active duty."

"Doctor, please lower your voice."

McCoy stared at him nonplussed. "Jim is under so deep from exhaustion that you could fire a phaser on full in this room and it wouldn't disturb him."

"Let us hope it does not come to that."

McCoy stared at him for a moment. "If that's a joke, it's terrible."

A single elegant brow lifted.

McCoy put a hand on the back of his neck and rubbed at the tension. "I'm tired, Spock. It's days like this that I long for a good old-fashion appendectomy. Why are you in dress uniform anyway? I can't believe there's anything you could possibly tell HQ that they don't already know."

"They have concluded their findings on Admiral Marcus." Spock did not elaborate further.

"And?" McCoy prompted impatiently. Getting information from the Vulcan was often like pulling teeth.

"There was a public briefing."

McCoy drew an impatient breath. "Spock, I'm really tired. If you've got something to say, just say it."

"Admiral Marcus has been posthumously discharged with dishonor from Starfleet. There are five other officers who will be court-martialed for their complicity in building the Vengeance and awakening Khan."

Dishonorably discharged? The least that bastard deserved. Hundreds of people dead and maimed because of his war-mongering. And the charges don't even take into account that he created a monster to serve his own demons: Khan. But wasn't Starfleet forgetting something?

McCoy stared at him. "And what of Marcus' attempt to kill us? Does Starfleet have anything to say about that?"

"No."

McCoy stepped away from the window, cursing. Of course not, he thought bitterly. Why comment on a little thing like internecine terrorism? Starfleet would love it if all just went away, but there was a goddamn starship in half the buildings at Fleet headquarters, too big to sweep under the rug.

He glanced at Kirk. "What about Jim?"

"Captain Kirk's actions are deemed heroic and just. He is being awarded the Medal of Honor."