A/N: So it has now become clear that this will run longer than "Out of Time" against my original intentions. I will try to wrap it up in 30 or so. I just have a few more things to throw at our merry band…so a huge thank you is order for those of you who have followed along all this time. Special thanks to OceanFae and ArbitraryBlackness- you guys rock! One last thing before I set you loose- what happens to Morgan is based on actual research by NASA in 1965- who knew?! Reviews are love. Cheers!

Chapter 23- First Time for Everything

It was a good thing I was still in Scotty's office. He and I were singing bawdy drinking songs when McCoy appeared in the doorway with a look on his face that made me immediately jump to my feet. The last time I saw that expression he had been up to his elbows in human guts for hours on end when the Romulans attacked.

When he spoke, his voice was barely controlled panic. "Collins, we have a problem."

I followed him to the cargo bay where Spock and Jim stood in the control room looking out at a person in a blue uniform pacing the floor aimlessly. It was not at all peaceful, the person was clearly agitated judging by the way they gripped the sides of their head with their hands with way too much force. Whoever it was seemed to be muttering to themselves, but I couldn't see the face clearly.

"It's Meyers." McCoy sighed. "I don't know what the hell happened. He said his head hurt. When I tried to examine him, he seemed distracted, almost completely out of it. I was checking his pupils when he let out a god awful scream and ran out of the sickbay yelling something about taking his brain."

I silently cursed myself. I had made a note to check on him again, but I didn't get around to it. Now I knew that he definitely was not speaking metaphorically, he had been experiencing auditory hallucinations all along. I sighed.

This is not going to be easy.

I quietly closed the door to the control room behind me, leaving McCoy, Jim, and Spock behind the massive wall of glass. Trying to make sense to someone who was deep in the throes of psychosis was a risky business. I didn't have to get him to stop decompensating entirely, I just had to get him off the dock and safely into an isolation room in sickbay so McCoy could give him an antipsychotic. That was the grand plan. If I could even lure him off the dock and back into the engine room, I would consider that a win since it was a more confined space and he could more easily be controlled.

"Stay where you are." He commanded, extending a shaking hand toward me. "Don't come any closer."

"Ok." I agreed in a soothing tone. I stayed near the wall next to a loading strap and a stack of crates just beneath the viewing window. "I just came out here to talk."

"I know." He laughed. "You want me to go back inside where the Romulan will get me. Well, it won't happen. I will shoot myself out of this airlock first."

I noticed him hovering near a switch on the wall and I looked back at the men in the control room to see a unanimous sentiment that it was not a good thing. I looked back at Meyers while behind my back I grabbed the loading strap that was attached to the wall and wrapped it around my wrist, just in case. "Meyers, what Romulan are you talking about?" I asked softly.

"Him!" He yelled pointing at McCoy. "He came to remove my brain. He will take it back to Romulus so they can probe it for secret information that even Starfleet doesn't know, but I can't let that happen." McCoy? Was he confusing him with Spock somehow? "Make him stop looking at me! He is trying to read my thoughts. He can't if he can't see me." He pleaded.

I turned to face McCoy and pointed at him through the glass and gestured for him to turn around. He squinted at me incredulously, but I persisted. He threw up his hands and finally complied, but even from behind I could tell he was pouting. Jim said something to him, but the glass was so thick I couldn't hear him. I turned back to Meyers who had resumed his pacing. "There. He can't see you anymore. Can you tell me how you know he is a Romulan? His ears aren't pointed."

"Of course not!" He scoffed. "They cut them off so he could fit in unnoticed, but I know what he really is. I can see it in his eyes, he hates humans. He tries to hide it, but I can see. They sent him because they know about me."

"What kind of information does he want?" I inquired. I knew for a fact McCoy wasn't a Romulan with surgically altered ears nor did Meyers have access to any special set of knowledge, but it is best just to play along with the delusion rather than refute it. If I could get Meyers to trust me, maybe I could end this thing safely.

"No, no." He laughed shaking his head. "I can't tell you. I have been chosen to keep this knowledge. Besides, I know you work for him and he controls you with his mind. If I tell you, you will tell him."

"Fair enough." I conceded. There was no real way I could disconnect McCoy and I. "What are you supposed to do with this information?"

"I have to keep it until a messenger comes." He replied pacing faster.

"Do you know who this messenger is?" I asked.

"Yes, I have already met him." His eyes were becoming vacant and I had a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I looked around the empty room. "Is he here now?"

"He says I have to go." He whispered.

"Go where?" I didn't like where this was going at all. This was so much easier in the hospital. If all else failed, he would have been dogpiled by cadre of orderlies and he would have been forcefully injected with a heavy psychotropic to subdue him until the episode went into remission.

I was just trying to think of a way to signal for security when he looked through me with his empty eyes and swung his arm out to activate the switch. In one horrifying instant, the door slid open and he was sucked out into the blackness of space. I was also pulled toward the gaping hole, but the strap caught my wrist and my body jerked hard when it stopped the tremendous force of rapid depressurization. Fans in the dock screeched as they tried to maintain atmospheric pressure, creating a constant sucking vortex against the vacuum that existed beyond the hull of the ship.

I looked up at the window to see McCoy's palms pressed against the glass and the look in his eyes couldn't be described as anything other than sheer terror. My free hand slipped, leaving me hanging by my wrist. My body jerked again when my shoulder slid out of the socket and I looked pleadingly at McCoy, reflexively gasping for air that no longer existed in the room like a fish out of water. I didn't have time to take a breath before Meyers hit the switch and now I was getting close to passing out.

I was fading fast. I could feel the blood vessels in my eyes bursting like mini fireworks and the saliva in my mouth almost boiled. I fought to remain conscious. I looked up again and it looked like Jim was screaming at Spock. It may have been my oxygen starved neurons incorrectly processing what I was seeing, but I watched Spock vault the control panel with speed and grace that a human was simply incapable of. He pushed some buttons on the panel and the blue wall appeared over the missing door.

I instantly fell to the floor with a thud as the ambient pressure was reestablished, at least I assumed. The truth was, I didn't hear it. Nor did I hear the door open or McCoy's voice when he and Jim leaned over me; his lips were moved in absolute silence. I felt so cold, I started shivering. McCoy gently shook my shoulders and I looked back at him, wincing when my dislocated shoulder was moved. He spoke in a slow, exaggerated manner so I could read his lips. He wanted to know if I could hear him. For reasons unknown to me, I used sign language to tell him I was deaf. I hadn't used sign since I learned it in college and it was beyond me how I remembered it. McCoy frowned and said something to Jim who sprinted off. He continued to speak in the direction of the control room and soon Spock came into view and effortlessly scooped me up.

I was very uncomfortable with my circumstances. I didn't want to be carried like a child, yet I was amazed at the ease with which he did it. He was deceptively strong for his size. I let my head fall against his shoulder and took comfort in the extraordinary heat of his body. It was probably because I had been exposed to the extreme cold of space, but he felt abnormally warm. The scent of his skin was unusual, but not at all unpleasant.

Still, I couldn't help but think that I did not deserve such mercy. I tried to talk a patient off the ledge and failed. In his vivid delusions, he almost took me with him. I deserved it. I was almost thankful each time a shock of pain from my shoulder stabbed me like jagged glass, it reminded me of the consequences of my negligence. Never had I lost anyone. I was always too careful to take my eyes off the road and the one time I did, a person lost his life and it was all my fault. Did that in some way make me a murderer? Whether it did or not, that was how it felt.

Spock swiftly rounded the corner to the sickbay and placed me on a biobed. McCoy quickly took over, barking orders at people just out of my field of vision. He shined a light in my eyes and then seemed to do nothing but look down at me with a sense of relieved tension. I read his expression to mean something like he thought I was a goner. I looked down to imply that I wished I had. He scowled at me, but that was how I felt. He looked up and his expression said it was about damn time.

Uhura appeared and smiled tensely at me and it dawned on me that was probably where Jim had sprinted off to. McCoy spoke to her and she signed "Doctor will fix shoulder. Shots first." I closed my eyes and felt the hypo in different locations around my shoulder. I knew exactly what he was doing. I had done sports med in high school and I knew how to reduce a dislocated shoulder. I knew he had given me a muscle relaxer so they wouldn't spasm. I also knew what was coming. He would put a boot in my armpit, grab my wrist and pull until it popped back into place. It was painful, but I didn't care. The mental pain I felt was far worse. I fought not to cry. How could I have let this happen?

He waited a few minutes for the medicine to take effect before doing exactly what I knew he would. I clenched my teeth as I felt bone sliding against bone and the damaged muscles pulling frantically in the opposite direction he was. Finally, there was a decisive thud when the ball again sat firmly in the socket that formed the joint. My arm went through several sensations: burning pain, coldness, and strangely numb seemingly all at once. When I opened my eyes, Uhura signed, "Wiggle fingers." I did as she asked slowly. "Feel numb?" I shook my head no. McCoy poked my hand and fingers in several places to make sure I had full sensation. "Grab." She commanded. McCoy placed his warm hand in mine and I squeezed with as much strength as I had. "Where hurt?" She asked.

Nowhere he can get to.

I lied and said I didn't hurt, earning an impatient glare from McCoy. "Just want to sleep." I signed.

She conferred with McCoy and stated, "Doctor said you sleep here."

"No." I argued. "Want to sleep in my bed."

She translated for McCoy and replied, "Doctor said yes, but will see you in room." Great. The last thing I wanted was a house call from him. I just wanted to be left alone, but I was surprised he agreed at all.

He and Uhura escorted me to my room and he wouldn't leave until I let him give me a painkiller. Uhura gave me his instructions. He was going to leave a preloaded hypo on my desk next to my bed in case he got tied up and couldn't get back to me. He looked down at me and I felt guilty because I knew he was going against his better judgment in giving me what I wanted. He wanted me in the sickbay where he could hover and obsess, but I wanted to be left alone with my grief. I had never cried in front of anyone and he was the last person I wanted to witness the flood of tears that flowed like a bursting dam the moment he turned his back and left. The sobbing continued until I had no more strength and fell into a deep and fitful sleep.