A/N: Another chapter, already? Yeah, I've been overly invested with this story and now it's full of angst.
Also, shoutout to MrsKirk who's been commenting on every fanfic chapter of mine ever since like the dawn of time.
Also, please keep commenting, it's the only email notification I ever want to get.
Uhh, also, ENJOY THE ANGST
Obviously Bones was trying to anesthetize him—the dizziness, the light-headedness, the sweet smell of the gas and weak vulnerable feeling in his limbs.
Gradually, the world became darker, and he struggled to keep his eyes open.
He tried to stay awake, because damn it, he couldn't sleep, he had to save everyone from Cadel.
But the drug that was gushing through the mask forced over Jim's face was too strong.
He sighed.
And he let go.
He didn't know how long he'd be standing there; cradling Jim's head while trying to put him to sleep, pressing his thumb across his forehead in a repetitive motion to soothe him.
The chemicals absorbed into Jim's skin must have been keeping him alive and somewhat paralysed until they ripped the sheet off and he started screaming from the pain.
He currently had a laryngeal mask airway stuck down his throat to keep him breathing.
McCoy had been more scared than anyone on the ship when he walked into the room and saw Jim awake and panicking on the table in a delusional frenzy thinking he needed to save everyone on the Enterprise from Cadel.
Clearly when Jim was down on Bovis, Cadel had done more than just cut him open, and he dreaded to think about what.
"Doctor?"
He blinked, phasing himself back into reality.
They were in the operating room. Jim was asleep. He could actually start to repair the damage.
He just had to keep up his cantankerous irritable reputation for a few more hours before he could lock himself in a room until Jim woke up.
McCoy glared down the very obvious dissection looking incision and lay his hand out.
"Retractor."
Slap.
Sometimes he wondered if this was against regulations. It was a general known rule that surgeons should never have to operate on their friends…but if he's the head surgeon and CMO, what's he supposed to do? Leave a traumatic injury in the hands of some ensign because of the 'rules'?
Head down and concentrating on the area, a nurse piped up behind him.
"How the hell has this man survived for so long?"
He grunted, inserting the retractor into Jim's chest wall and looking for any evidence of injury from that bastard Cadel.
Another man responded to the nurse, "I don't know, but I have a feeling it's something to do with that sheet."
He held out his hand again, not looking away from the site, "Forceps."
Slap.
"What is it, doc?"
McCoy huffed a quiet sigh and shook his head.
"I don't think the bastard got far enough to do any damage, his organs all look intact."
There was a quiet 'hmmm' from another doctor.
"Should we test the mains?"
He frowned, "He's not a machine, dammit!" but he reached away and looked between the several organs, "But uh, yeah, let's make sure they can still run at their peak."
At least he would be able to seal him up knowing for definite whether there has been permanent damage.
He still would need to do many a physical on Jim to monitor him, which was going to be fun.
With any luck he'd be too fatigued to argue.
"Doctor?"
He glanced up again.
Damn it, stop getting distracted.
"Yeah. Run a peak artificial stress test on his heart and lungs first."
Luckily with technology nowadays, they could use a machine to artificially force an organ to work at their maximum peak. If it failed or fluctuated within the first twenty seconds, they'd know there was damage and fix it while they still had him open.
"I'm attaching an artificial pump now, doctor," a nurse said, a low humming noise droning from the machine under the operating table.
McCoy watched carefully, waiting for Jim's heart to suddenly fall into VF or go into cardiac arrest completely, but to his surprise, it continued to pump normally. In fact, his lungs were automatically picking up to compensate.
He nodded to himself and waved the nurse off, "He's fine. Looks like there's no damage," he informed them, tapping a few options on the monitor to send a record to his PADD, "Cadel must have just managed to open him up before he got side-lined by us."
The nurse controlling the pump cringed, "Sounds like it would've been painful."
McCoy rolled his eyes, "He was awake and screaming, the hell you'd think he was doing? Actually, no, don't tell me."
He caught another doctor smirking to himself at the subtle innuendo known to their Captain, before striding back to the surgical site and getting ready to close it.
Thank god you're safe, Jim…
"No, Mister Spock, I cannot permit you to leave until Doctor McCoy has discharged you!"
Spock stared at M'Benga, hovering by the exit doors that wouldn't open due to override.
"You are suggesting that I will be held here against my will." he speculated, tone questioning as if in surprise.
The doctor sighed, "Well, yes, I can't let you leave, you know that," M'Benga stepped away from him and gestured back towards the biobed. Spock remained put on the spot.
"I am the first officer of the Enterprise. Surely, I must have some control over my own personal—"
"And McCoy is a grade above all of us!" M'Benga interjected tiredly, having been arguing for a while now "Hell, he's above the Captain, so, medically, he can get him to do whatever he wants. And right now, he wants you to stay here and me to ensure that you do."
Spock craned his neck slightly and pondered this. Perhaps there really was no logical, legal way out of this confinement.
"I do not understand why I am to be held here. Am I not fit for duty?" he tried it another way.
His doctor sighed, "You are. In fact, you could be commanding the ship from this room for all we care, but McCoy has the last word," there was a beat of silence before he said softly, "We can't let you out until McCoy comes back, Spock."
He considered this again, deciding it would be best to go with what the good doctor ordered.
Besides, if he left here without consent, McCoy would probably drag him back in here and keep him in the room for three days just out of spite.
"Very well," he finally agreed, moving away from the door and perching himself on the biobed, ramrod straight, "I will remain here until Doctor McCoy is out of surgery."
M'Benga nodded slowly, before adding for good measure, "And he has to come and see you for himself as well. Don't just walk out, now." He raised an eyebrow.
Spock raised one back.
"Of course. You are dismissed, doctor," he said, as if he were allowed to dismiss his attending physician.
For a second he wondered if he was becoming emotionally compromised.
Perhaps he should meditate to settle his mind. Not that he would admit to anyone that it needed settling.
….
McCoy came sauntering in ten minutes later, his hair dishevelled as if having just been attacked by a crew member.
Unfathomable anxiety suddenly pitted at the bottom of Spock's stomach, and for a second he wondered if Jim had survived, going by how stressed the doctor looked.
To make matters worse, the man smiled at him gently.
"Hey Spock," he greeted, gesturing to the biobed, "Sit down for a second will you?"
Slowly, Spock stopped gazing at McCoy's unkept hair and stalked over to the biobed, uncertainty sitting in his gut and causing him to remain quiet.
Gazing concerned at him, Spock watched as McCoy followed him over with a stool, perching in front of Spock's biobed and facing him.
"What of the Captain?" he asked with as much Vulcan-strength as possible.
It suddenly dawned upon him how terribly injured Jim was, and how unlikely it was that he would survive. The image of Jim lying screaming on the table on Bovis with his insides exposed to the air suddenly made its way to the forefront of his mind.
It seemed like forever until McCoy finally spoke.
"I'll start with the good news," he spoke softly, taking a deep breath as if trying to compose himself, "He'll live. That's what you needed to know, right?"
Spock felt a huge relief wash over him, nodding subtly at the correct assumption.
"Yeah. Well, his organs are fine. Those bastards didn't get as far as they wanted to, we managed to get there just in time—"
"We were not in time, doctor," Spock interjected roughly, "You and I both saw the state of his body on Bovis."
McCoy closed his eyes, taking another deep breath and raising an eyebrow, "Yeah. I was the one that had to close it, Spock. But not before ripping the entire incision wide open to get a good look. Yeah? Yeah. I had to close it myself. You didn't see that."
It was clear the doctor was stressed. Very stressed. Perhaps even more stressed than he was. Doctor McCoy was human, after all. Vulcans like himself didn't get stressed.
"And what of the bad news?" he asked instead, wanting to know exactly what he would have to prepare himself for.
Was he not breathing? Would he have to be permanently relinquished of command? Was there unforeseen damage?
McCoy bit his lip, opening his mouth to speak but pausing. Spock craned his head and tried to figure out what he was doing.
"Fuck." Spock heard him mutter, watching as McCoy clenched his fists and threw his head into his hands. "Fuck."
Spock waited for a while, knowing that despite their usual attempts at banter, McCoy was definitely not one to be joking with right now. The doctor was generally an emotional man, and this would likely have pushed him beyond his limit.
"I'm sorry, Spock. Y'know, for actin' like an idiot, like this. It's just…god. He's so out of it, y'know? I can't fix mental instability as easy as I can a physical, human body."
Spock nodded slowly, realising that McCoy was trying to tell him the problem without specifically admitting it.
"I take it the ordeal has made him mentally unstable?"
McCoy avoided eye contact, then shrugged, "He's not insane, or anything like that. He's not violent." He paused, meeting Spock's gaze again, "He's just scared. Very very scared. Acting like he ain't seen a damn human being in his life." He sucked in another breath.
"I tried to bring him out of the anaesthesia when we brought him into his room. Completely flipped out on me, and on my staff. Had to put 'im back under again as he was totally freakin' out."
McCoy remained quiet for a few moments, likely trying to stop himself from showing emotion.
"He was fuckin' crying, Spock. Crying. Jim Kirk, crying. Can you imagine that?"
Indeed I can, doctor. I experienced it for myself.
"Tried to ask him how he felt, he just started crying and looked at me as if I'd killed his entire family. I'll never forget the way his eyes looked at me. He was so fuckin' terrified."
Spock grasped his fingers and lowered his gaze, trying to process this. Did Jim remember who they were?
"I'm pretty sure it's a classic case of PTSD, brought on by the traumatic experience with Cadel," McCoy explained, beginning to shift back into his professional doctor tone now, "I have a bad feeling the bastard wasn't even intending for Jim to come out of that room alive, didn't give a shit about how scared he was."
Spock pursed his lips at the urge to storm over to the brig and beat the shit out of Cadel, regardless of his mind pushing him to keep in control of himself. His father would be ashamed. And his mother, if she was still…
"But he came out alive, and now he's seriously fucked up. Chapel's got him in restraints, and I had to put him so far under I had to put him on a ventilator as his breathing was compromised…"
Spock let himself stare at his feet.
"I fuckin' hate this, Spock."
Blowing out a long breath through his nostrils, he raised his head to meet McCoy's gaze, and nodded.
"I too, hate this, doctor."
...Beep…
…Beep…
…Beep…
…Beep…
It was that constant rhythm that began to irritate Jim back into consciousness. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't ignore it. He was always a light sleeper, ready to jump into command-mode and all.
…Beep…
…Beep…
He opened his eyes with the intent to survey the room. But there was only darkness, with a slight blue light luminating from the monitor above him, incessantly beeping.
Jim decided he wanted to move his head, to get a better idea of his surroundings, but found he couldn't.
His head twitched, and it jerked something in his throat, and its presence suddenly became obvious to him, realising something was sticking out of mouth.
His eyes widening a bit more, he tried to grab at the object, only to find his arms wouldn't budge.
Unable to remove the contraption in this mouth and down his throat, he panicked, eyes burning from the forming tears, and he tried to move. He hardly noticed the irritating beeping anymore.
Beep—Beep—Beep—Beep—Beep—Beep
It grew louder, quicker, more urgent, at the same rate of his thumping heart racing in his chest.
He vaguely felt his chest quickly rising and falling, and he clenched his fists, terrified.
The rapid urgent beeping in his ears soon were accompanied by a swoosh, and quick footsteps that grew louder, closer.
A small light turned on beside him, like a bedside lamp, and he was forced to stare at a blonde woman dressed completely in white clad uniform, somehow looking both worried and concerned at the same time.
She smiled down at him while his heart continued to race, eyes burning from unshed tears that wouldn't fall, as he couldn't move his head.
"Hello dear." She greeted gently, pacing over to him slowly, "You're okay. You're on the Enterprise. You're safe."
Jim continued gazing at her wide-eyed, still petrified of all the things going on with his body more than anything else.
"I know you're scared, but I promise all this stuff is here to keep you safe, okay?" Jim felt a gentle tap on his hand, knowing she was referring to the restraints.
"And this in your mouth is helping you to breath. Now, the fact that you're awake and not struggling on this tube here means that your lungs aren't quite ready to work on their own yet, so I'm gonna get my boss to take a look and make sure you're alright, okay?"
The tears were flowing freely now. He felt warm tears slide against the sides of his face and onto the pillow, unable to move at all away from the spot.
The woman offered another worried smile and quickly walked away, the light now shining into nothing, and Jim was left panicking, wondering just what the hell was happening.
He moved his eyes to the left of him, just about able to see the contraption in his mouth connected to a tube, that was leading away from him and onto a large white machine. There was a blinking orange light on the panel, and he wondered if that was to do with his breathing.
Looking at the rest of his body the best he could with his immobile head, he noticed many more tubes appearing from the end of the blanket and connected to the same machine. There was another machine at the end of the bed with a tube running under the middle of the blanket, and he wondered what it was connected to.
Glancing to his right, there was a much smaller, tiny tube running out of his arm; under the restraints and falling freely onto the floor, trailing along for a while before it was met with a tall stand, several multicoloured vials on it.
Seconds later, loud footsteps resurfaced, except there was multiple.
The blonde woman returned, except with a man this time, who was also wearing the white clad uniform.
He looked more nervous than the woman did.
"Hey buddy," the man said, with a noticeably southern drawl, "You weren't supposed to wake up for a while yet, but I guess I should've predicted this. Your body just wants to irritate me."
After that last four words left the man's mouth, Jim hands suddenly began to shake, and he had no idea why. He panicked, but didn't know what for.
"Ah…you do remember that? It's alright, I'll make sure to supress it when you're better." The man sat on a stool beside Jim, a seat he didn't even realise was there.
Then, the doctor reached out to a silver drawer and pulled out a small square contraption that was about the size of his hand, and began hovering it over Jim. That too made strange beeping noises.
The man spoke to the woman beside him, "His lungs are still undamaged but don't seem to want to start…" he sounded incredibly concerned, his features crinkling and frowning in the harsh bedside light, "It might be that damned chemical. Get me a full blood count and analyse it for any presence of the chemical."
"Yes sir." And the woman walked away…and around the bed…to the other side.
The man glanced up to the monitor and watched it for a while.
"Doctor McCoy?"
Jim forced himself to look out of the corner of his right eye where the woman was calling the man.
"His hands are shaking. Is it a seizure?"
Jim glanced back over to the man named McCoy, and he only had to take one look at Jim wide-eyed frightened face before shaking his head at the woman.
"No, he's just panicking again," he glanced back up to the monitor and licked his lips, "Give him ten milligrams of diazepam, it should settle his vitals down."
"Yes sir."
Jim's wrist suddenly felt cold, the feeling running up his arm and causing an uncomfortable feeling in the crook of his elbow.
McCoy stopped reading the monitor, offered a small smile to Jim and rolled up on the stool beside his head.
"This is just a small setback kid, don't worry," he heard the man murmur, a hand suddenly placed over his forehead, "It could've been much worse. Hell, it has been much worse, so this is nothing."
Jim glanced up at the man, a wave of dizziness suddenly washing over him, his face flushing.
He blinked slowly, trying to force himself to stay awake so he could look into worried eyes that seemed so familiar.
"Just sleep, Jim. Close your eyes."
Instinctively his mind was telling him not to trust this man, that this man would undoubtedly try to hurt him.
But another part of him felt kind of…safe, and protected, by this man leaning over him, his hand over his forehead.
He blinked again, and again, until he struggled to keep his eyelids open.
He felt a warm hand squeeze his before he let go.
Well, this was just great.
Jim's lungs didn't want to start.
Absolutely perfect.
Because he couldn't come out of the OR, lie on a bed and wake up like every other normal human being out there.
Nope.
Something had to go wrong, because it was Jim Kirk. And with Kirk, something always went wrong.
He could restart a heart, but how the hell do you restart lungs?
The question was something McCoy had been pondering since Jim had passed out again, which was perhaps an hour ago.
Until his head nurse made a breakthrough.
"Sir, it seems his blood is clear of the toxin but his lungs are full of it," she explained, handing him over a PADD with her findings, "It's not that his lungs don't want to start, it's because it can't start."
McCoy glared at the floating red symbols all over Jim's toxicity x-ray.
"His lungs are paralysed."
Well.
"I'll be damned," he exclaimed, watching the little red warning symbols floating around the black and white picture on screen, "So, it got into his lungs, huh. How the hell did it manage that?"
He scowled at the red dots, as if he could scare them away.
"I assume he…inhaled them," Chapel said from in front of McCoy, still watching the live feedback.
"Inhaled them…how…?" he murmured, quickly swiping along the picture to see if the toxins had infested any other part of his body.
Thankfully, it just looked to be centred in his lungs.
"Cadel?" Chapel offered, clearly running low on detailed explanations.
McCoy raised an eyebrow, inhaling deeply and passing the PADD back to his head nurse.
"Right. So, we go see the bastard in the brig." McCoy looked around the room to see how many people were left in duty, "If he can shed any light on how it got in there, we could get it out."
Thankfully, two doctors were still walking around, not including Chapel herself.
"I recommend bringing Mister Spock," she offered, sliding the PADD on a nearby tray and pointing to the wall comm, "I'm sure he'll be…happy to accompany you," she smiled.
McCoy smirked, storming over to the wall comm and slamming his fist onto the button.
"McCoy to bridge."
"Spock here, doctor."
"We're going to the brig to uh…interrogate Cadel,"
Best not mention the Captain's condition or else the whole damn ship will be swarming outside sickbay.
"I assume your notifying me of this, is an offer for me to accompany you?"
He rolled his eyes, "Yeah, Spock, if there's someone to take over. Y'know, acting-acting captain."
"I will be down momentarily."
Then the transmission ended abruptly.
Grumbling under his breath, McCoy pushed past Chapel and retrieved his PADD from the tray, needing something to take notes on.
Spock appeared by the door minutes later.
Not walking into sickbay, but standing outside the strip of the room, waiting in the corridor.
"Too scared to come in, huh Spock?" McCoy teased, trudging over to the door with his PADD under his arm, "Chapel, take over in here."
"Yes sir."
"Doctor, Vulcans are not capable of feeling afra…"
Whoosh.
Spock knew that the doctor was hiding something from him the second he looked at his determined face.
McCoy never came to interrogations unless it was medically necessary. The man was practically glued to sickbay from the time his shift started until it ended.
So when he calls Spock to go on an errand with him, marching down the corridors sternly like a man on a mission, he knew something had happened while he was on the bridge.
"Doctor—"
"Spock—"
They both gazed at each other while continuing to walk, before McCoy shrugged and flapped his hand, "Go for it."
Spock narrowed his eyebrows, watching McCoy's face very carefully. He didn't even seem to notice; the man was just fixated on the path ahead of them.
"Am I correct in my presumption that something has occurred with the Captain while I was on duty?"
McCoy merely snorted, "That's what I was gonna tell ya about," he raised an eyebrow and took out the PADD from under his arm, "Despite Jim's lungs being perfectly functional, they won't start."
Spock shot a glare at him and stopped in his tracks. If Jim was not breathing, then he is currently suffocating.
McCoy however just rolled his eyes at him, "Not like that, Spock, I mean…he's on a ventilator, so he is breathing, but his lungs are paralysed."
They continued walking.
Spock raised an eyebrow, "Paralysis? I had assumed this would not happen again once the chemically infused sheet was removed?"
He nodded, "Yeah, it didn't. He can move his limbs but not his lungs. And it's weird, cause' he was breathin' perfectly fine up until I anesthetised him."
Spock watched McCoy's face dropped as he came to a conclusion unknown to him.
"Doctor?"
McCoy stuttered, "Uh…well, now I think about it, perhaps it was a reaction set off by the anaesthesia. So…essentially it's my fault. It must have been dormant in his lungs and reacted to the drugs…huh."
Spock didn't quite understand what the doctor was going on about, but assumed it made sense to him.
"If I had just waited another hour, we would have detected it on the x-ray and removed it before it did any harm."
Spock interrupted his thoughts of self-pity, "Negative, doctor. If you had waited longer than it took you to get him into surgery, he would have died."
McCoy glared at him, "You got odds for that, Spock?"
He raised an eyebrow, "Affirmative. I believe it would be eighty sev—"
"Yeah, yeah, okay, stop."
The other eyebrow went up. Why ask for the odds if you don't want to hear it?
"Anyway, we're here now. Let's go see what the bastard did to his lungs."
Spock nodded slowly, noting the doctor was likely to have an emotional outburst during this 'interrogation'.
"And what exactly are we to ask the prisoner?" he hadn't actually been told why they were interrogating him.
McCoy turned and glared at him as they approach a guard, "The hell do you think?" the guard nodded idly and let them pass, "Cadel paralysed his lungs and we need to know how to be able to reverse it, and he sure as hell didn't stuff a sheet down his gut."
Spock didn't reply, merely stepped onto the brig corridor and quickly made his way to the first cell before McCoy could.
"Oi, you son of a bitch!"
Perhaps he should walk faster.
"This behaviour is not logical, doctor, we must remain calm and professional."
McCoy gave him a death stare before darting in front of him, "I don't give a shit, Spock," then he turned to the prisoner who looked pretty surprised to see them there, "You…you piece of shit. What did you do to the Captain?"
The prisoner, Cadel, gazed at McCoy for a second, before standing up from his seat and slowly pacing over, "You mean James?"
McCoy huffed, "Yeah I mean James, damn it! His lungs are paralysed, what the hell did you do?"
The man actually seemed generally surprised. "They are? They're paralysed?"
"Don't play stupid with me, you bastard," McCoy spat, completely forgetting Spock was right next to him at this point, "They're replicating rapidly, we can't drain them unless we know how it got there."
Cadel raised an eyebrow similar to how Spock would, generally seeming interested, "I assure you, this was an accident. It was true I paralysed his cardiovascular and respiratory system before my work on him, but I did not intend for the toxin to remain in his system."
McCoy was red-faced at this point, and suddenly Spock was 'glad' he had been called down to accompany him.
"Well, it's not in his heart anymore, that's working fine, no thanks to you. Now tell me just why the hell his lungs are currently sittin' there like a fuckin lemon!"
Spock subtly raised an eyebrow at the odd comparison.
It took a few moments, but Cadel shook his head.
"Nah."
McCoy pressed his nose to the glass, "What the fuck do you mean, nah?"
Spock stepped forward, "Doctor," he hissed in warning, "This is futile. Step away from the prisoner."
McCoy shoved him away, "Hold on, Spock. Cadel, did you even intend for him to walk out of there alive?"
"No."
"You son of a—!"
"Doctor." Spock held a hand out in front of McCoy, nudging him away from the glass wall.
He could clearly see he needed to get the man away from the prisoner.
"Let us visit the other humanoid, Ruri. Perhaps she could be of some use."
McCoy glared at the other man through the wall, panting like a riled lion.
This time it was Spock's turn to lead the other man away from the room and across the corridor. He ordered to the guard, "Release the shutters."
A huge metal wall suddenly fell from all four walls of the inside of the prisoner's glass panel, covering up any sight of him.
Silently, both men walked to the next cell, to find Ruri sitting in the corner of the room, just absentmindedly staring at the floor.
McCoy trudged over slowly, pressing a few buttons on the panel to open up a small hole in the glass wall where they could speak through, which was also used as an entrance for an arm to take a blood sample.
But he didn't need that today.
Spock watched the other man take a deep breath to calm himself.
"Ruri."
Almost instantly, the woman's head shot up, apparently in alarm, but upon seeing them, seemed to settle.
Which was odd. She should be afraid of her future at the hands of Starfleet instead of feeling relieved by their presence.
"Get over here."
Despite the doctor's stern voice, Ruri quickly stood up and walked over, stuttering and apologising illogically.
"I'm so sorry, this wasn't how it was supposed to be," her voice shook, "Cadel took it too far, that's not normal for us, I-I swear it's usually a humane process—"
McCoy shut his eyes and raised his hand to tell her to, essentially, shut up.
"Frankly, I don't care about that right now," he bit back, "I do however, care about the fact that our Captain is lying in our intensive care unit, terrified and stuck on a damn ventilator because his lungs can't start."
Ruri frowned, "Why not?"
Spock heard McCoy mutter damn it under his breath.
"Well, I was hoping you could tell me that."
They were then left staring at each other wordlessly, McCoy looking like he could kill someone and Ruri looking as if she was debating something with herself.
"He wanted to see if his body would restart itself on its own."
McCoy glanced up at her, furrowing his eyebrows. "Oh, yeah?"
She nodded, "This was before he…you know…opened him up. And before I…left the room. He, Cadel, basically he just—"
"Spit it out, woman, what did he do?"
Ruri sucked in a breath.
"It's not standard procedure. He just wanted to see if his body would automatically revive itself if his organs shut down."
McCoy scrunched his fingers into a fist, "How?"
Ruri bit her lip, "He was still unconscious, if that's any consolation. Cadel just…stuck this…tube down his throat, forced it into lungs, where the air is."
Her glance fell to the floor. "Attached it to this…machine, it's usually used to revive someone who had an adverse reaction but it had the opposite effect."
She swallowed hard, "Pumped a lot of these toxins into his lungs, for…about ten minutes. It travelled into his heart, into his brain, his entire body, and he just…paralysed it. Just to see if it would restart on its own."
Spock dared to glance at McCoy, noticing his jaw clenched, breathing heavily through his nose.
"And you didn't try to help him? Jim?"
She hesitated, and shook her head, "I couldn't. Cadel was mad. If I tried anything…you don't know what he's like. He's the one that does all these mad experiments on him, not me. I'm just his assistant. I'm disposable and he was angry."
McCoy grunted, "And why was he angry?"
Ruri fidgeted with her hands. "Did you know about the implant in his head?"
He shook his head.
"Um, you damaged the implant when you fixed his eye. It was supposed to be recording visual input for everything James sees, it was expensive, and your fixing his eye corrupted the implant."
McCoy scoffed, "You mean to tell me Cadel tortured and nearly killed Jim because of a fuckin' broken implant?"
Ruri nodded solemnly.
"I'm so sorry."
McCoy stared at her for a moment longer, before spitting "Sorry doesn't cut it."
Spock took a step closer to him, "Doctor. Do you have the information you need to heal the Captain?"
McCoy ignored him, "Do you know how to reverse it?"
Ruri gazed back up at him again, "Why? What's wrong?"
The doctor was gritting his teeth, "Because, Ruri, he's sedated, restrained and flat on his back, stuck on a ventilator because his lungs are still paralysed from that damn toxin you gave him."
Ruri craned her neck, "It was reversed—I reversed it when Cadel was satisfied. He was breathing on his own—I even came to see him again before Cadel started his final procedure."
McCoy nodded, "Well, after I anesthetised him—"
"You anesthetised him?"
There was a pause, McCoy looking like he was close to smashing the glass.
"Yes."
Ruri pursed her lips, "Um…it can take 24 hours for the toxin to completely die. I deactivated the toxin, but it sounds like the anaesthetic drug reactivated them and started duplicating again, until there was enough produced to take hold of his respiratory system."
McCoy nodded, then froze, realising something.
"Hang on—if it's reproducing, doesn't that mean it's going to start shutting down his other organs too?"
Thankfully, and to Spock's undisclosed relief, Ruri shook her head.
"No, there's not enough toxins. It would take a week before there would be enough produced to start paralysing his other organs. It only worked when we did it because Cadel had stuffed a tube down his throat and fed him the toxins for ten minutes straight."
Then she paused and said quietly, "You're very lucky that the only toxins left were in his lungs. If the others in his body were still functioning, his other organs would be shutting down too."
McCoy nodded, seemingly having calmed down a little now, knowing what happened and probably going through in his head how he was going to fix it.
"Well, this is new territory for us. How do we reverse it?"
Ruri looked uncomfortable, wrapping her arms around herself, "I only knew to do it the way Cadel taught me, which is with the tube."
McCoy nodded determinedly.
"Push seventy milligrams of Phostecan Flexeprotin through the tube to make sure it reaches directly to his lungs. Make sure his lungs aren't moving or he'll choke. Fill his lungs completely with the medicine—"
"What!?"
"…Fill his lungs completely with the medicine, wait for the toxins to die out, then reverse suction on the tube to drain the liquid."
McCoy's face had turned pale.
"How the hell long does this take?"
"About five minutes waiting time once all the liquid is in his lungs. Another five to account for inserting the tube and draining the liquid."
McCoy visibly swallowed and was going even more pale.
"That's borderlining brain damage. Is that why he's terrified and confused?"
Ruri shook her head, "No, like I said, he was fine when I came to see him later. I would say his confusion is likely down to the limited amount of toxins entering his brain with the oxygen. Not enough to shut it down but it is enough to confuse it."
Spock watched silently as McCoy spun back around for a second, rubbing his hand over his face and staring at the wall wide-eyed.
Clearly, there is a very fine line with the procedure. Brain damage begins to occur after ten minutes without oxygen, he knew that much.
"This is my fault," he heard him mutter quietly, "This is my fucking fault. If I…didn't anesthetize him…"
Spock approached him carefully, "It is not your fault." he spoke sterner than intended, "Jim would have died had you not operated, and it was inhumane to keep him awake in his state."
He paused, trying to think of how else to comfort the human.
"Now you must simply destroy the remaining toxins to heal Jim's body."
McCoy continued staring at the floor for a while, hand pressed over his face, before nodding slowly.
"Yeah…"
To his surprise, the doctor then suddenly walked out of the room quickly, without saying another word.
Swiftly, Spock approached the worried looking humanoid. "We appreciate your compliance. You may have saved Jim's life, despite being part of a cause that almost ended it."
Spock walked away, marching quickly to catch up with McCoy, missing the hidden regretful tear falling from the captor's eye.
He only hoped they would be able to cure Jim in time.
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