Disclaimer: don't own
The next few days were quiet and filled with tense energy. The entire crew had been given the barebones report on their Captain's condition, and every minute was spent willing the ship to move faster, hoping to hear more news or updates, wondering what they could have done differently to avoid this scenario. No one could imagine life on the Enterprise without Captain Kirk, so the idea of him not making a full recovery just wasn't conceivable.
As soon as they were within range, McCoy and April moved Jim to a medical shuttle, and headed back to Earth's surface roughly twelve hours ahead of everyone else.
The Enterprise hovered above the planet just long enough for everyone to disembark, before the Yorktown towed the ship down to the shipyard at Riverside for repairs. The Enterprise was just too damaged to remain in orbit. They would need to make all the repairs at dry dock, and the Riverside shipyard was the best in the country, even though the ones in Oregon and Nevada were technically closer to Headquarters.
As soon as they were released from duty, the command crew and Carol all gathered to transport down together. Even Scotty was there; most of them had expected him to stay with the ship, but he was confident enough in the team that would handle the repairs, and he wanted to be there for Jim. He'd get back to work once he knew his friend was going to be all right.
Chris had already arrived with Marcus' ship, apparently named the USS Vengeance, and had updated the Admirals on the situation as he knew it. He had left Spock a message, telling them to go straight to Starfleet Medical and not worry about their reports just yet. The tone of the message indicated that he had already seen Jim, or at least gotten a medical report and knew how serious it was, so they didn't waste any time in heading over to the hospital.
They waited in near silence for almost two hours, joined by Chris roughly forty-five minutes into their vigil. "Jon asked me to keep him updated, but he won't bother us for now."
That was the last anyone spoke until McCoy reappeared, looking so defeated that for a moment, they thought they were about to hear him say that Jim hadn't made it.
He seemed to collect himself after a few moments, and made his way over to them, expression grim. "He's still alive," the doctor said wearily, and they all let out unconscious sighs of relief.
"Report, Doctor McCoy," Chris ordered, knowing that he would respond to the command. He understood the need to have something to pull himself together, and a direct order from a superior would do that.
It worked, as McCoy straightened up and met their worried gazes head-on. "I know you've got some of the basics already, so I won't go into too much detail." He grimaced. "At point blank range, a phaser can cause lasting damage. At minimal range – that is to say, zero – it can be even worse. Jim's on a ventilator, and we just spent the last however many hours making sure he stayed breathing." If he felt so inclined, he could look at a chronometer and see exactly how long he had been in an operating room with his best friend, but he really didn't want to know. "He's in an induced coma, on dialysis and almost a dozen other machines to keep his body functioning while we try to fix the damage."
There was a beat of silence, before Chris spoke up. "Just how bad is that damage?"
McCoy bit his lip, glancing back at the hallway he had come from, the hallway leading to Jim. "We need to replace his left kidney and possibly his liver as well. We can synthesize those and implant the replacements as soon as they're ready, but there are other issues as well. His heartbeat won't regulate, and the trachea and upper part of his left lung are burned from the phaser. We've got him on medication to hopefully sort out the heartbeat, but there's not much we can do for those last two, other than let them heal on their own. It's just too risky to try anything to speed up the process." He stuck his hands in his pockets and sighed. "He's also got second and third degree burns from the phaser, several broken ribs, a broken collarbone, and a concussion, but we're not worrying too much about those right now. The internal damage is what we're focusing on."
Chris let out a shaky breath. "Do whatever you can to save him, Doctor."
McCoy glared. "Already planning on it."
Chris smiled slightly. He would have expected nothing less. "So what's next?"
McCoy shook his head slightly, his expression softening, making him look much more vulnerable than any of them had ever seen the irascible doctor. "He's in isolation for now, and he's as stable as he'll get. We've already begun synthesizing the organs, which will take a couple days. I'm hoping that we won't have to replace the liver, and we've already begun the process of healing the burns to his lung, but it's delicate. There's no miracle cure here, and not a lot we can do to speed anything up. We just need time to fix everything, and Jim to hold on and give us that time. A lot of this depends on him." He was able to muster up a small smile. "But he's a fighter, and I know he doesn't know how to lose, so I'm trying not to worry too much about that aspect."
"So what do we do now?" Sulu asked quietly, from his spot at the back of the group.
McCoy pursed his lips. "There's nothing you can do from here. Go home, change, sleep, eat, and come back tomorrow."
No one looked too happy with that suggestion, but Chris nodded. "Sounds good. Can we at least see him before we go?"
McCoy inclined his head stoically. "Follow me." He led them down the hall to Jim's room.
They couldn't enter, but McCoy entered a code into the pad on the wall, and the opaque window cleared, showing them their Captain. Jim was pale and still, lying on the single bed in the room. Multiple machines were hooked to his arms and chest. The heart monitor was blinking steadily, almost in sync with the rise and fall of his chest. The tube in his throat was hooked to a ventilator that proved to be the only thing keeping the man breathing. April was inside, dressed in a sterile suit and apparently finishing the process of settling Jim into his bed.
"Why all the old fashioned techniques?" Chris asked curiously, looking at the doctor.
McCoy sighed. "They work. Some of the newer procedures just aren't as effective or reliable, and it's better to use the old fashioned methods with Jim's injuries."
They stared for a few more moments, before most headed back towards the exit. Chris, Pavel, and Carol were the only ones to stay.
McCoy looked at all of them and rolled his eyes. "You really can't do anything here," he promised.
Pavel looked disappointed, but April came out at that point, and immediately moved to his side, smiling reassuringly. She knew that Pavel thought of Jim as a brother, and was terrified of losing him. "Come on, Pasha, let's go get some coffee." She used the same familial term that Jim sometimes used, hoping it would comfort the young man.
She led him away, and McCoy turned back to the other two. Both were watching him with mulish expressions. He sighed. "If you want to suit up, I can let you spend a couple minutes in there with him. One at a time."
They nodded quickly, and put on the suits and masks that the doctor handed them.
Chris went in first and came to a hesitant stop by the side of the bed, afraid to touch Jim and risk messing up the machines or wires.
He couldn't help but think back to Jim's stay in the Seymour's Medbay, after Tarsus. He looked just as pale and near-death as he had back then.
After a few moments of silence, Chris let out a long sigh. "Remember Jim, you're not allowed to die on me. Just get better, all right? And soon. You've got a whole crew there for you. Not to mention me, Jon, Richard, Shay…" He sighed again. "Your friends need you to be OK."
He rejoined McCoy out in the hall, and Carol went in. Together, the Admiral and doctor watched as Carol hesitantly grasped his hand, making sure not to mess with the wires.
Carol made a valiant effort to hold in the tears behind her mask, but she couldn't stop a few sniffs from escaping. "Jim… I'm all right, your crew's all right. I promise. We just need you to be all right as well." She took a shaky breath. "You promised me you'd always do your best to survive. Jim, I need you to keep that promise. I love you, so much. I don't even know if I knew how much until now." She let out a quiet sob. "When you went down… oh God, Jim, for a moment I thought you were gone. I can't live without you, so please, keep your promise. I would never ask you to be less than the brilliant, daring, protective man you are, but I need you in my life." She leaned over and rested her hand briefly on Jim's forehead, before she made for the exit.
Chris walked her back to the Academy campus, keeping mostly silent until they were nearly at the officers' residence halls. "I'm sorry about your father," he finally said, glancing over at the young woman.
Carol grimaced. "We never really saw eye to eye," she confessed, keeping her gaze locked on the ground as she walked. "He didn't want me to join Starfleet, and he did his best to keep me off a ship as long as possible. When I made it clear that I was enlisting with or without his blessing, he tried to get me stuck in a lab for the rest of my career." She sighed. "I still cared for him, but he never seemed to care about what I wanted." Biting her lip, she admitted, "I will probably miss him, but I don't think he's really been a father to me in a while."
Chris was silent for a few moments. "He was still your father, Carol, even if you didn't get along. I'm sorry for what happened to him, and that you were forced to witness it."
Carol nodded slightly. "I'll give you that. But I cannot condone what he tried to do, what he actually did. There are so many ways that it could have been much worse, and if Jim were any less of a genius… so many more people could have died."
"Agreed," Chris said calmly. "So let's be thankful for the way things did turn out. Even if it could have gone better, just remember, it also could have been much worse."
Carol looked a little mollified, as Chris left her at the residence buildings, and went to go find Jon and Richard.
They were both in Jon's office, and were grateful for the update on Jim's condition, though it certainly concerned all of them. Chris didn't want to say that there was a chance – a scarily large one – that Jim might not be all right. But he was stable for now, even though there was a lot of internal damage. "The fact is, Doctor McCoy is worried, which should make all of us worried," he sighed ruefully, sinking down into the empty seat next to Richard.
It was incomprehensible, to imagine the worst-case scenario of Jim not making it. He was such a vibrant and bright person; they just couldn't imagine their lives without him.
After a minute of silence, Jon shook his head. "Please keep us updated, and I know we'll stop by the hospital as soon as we can, but things are kind of crazy right now."
Chris nodded quickly. "Yeah. Any updates on that?"
Jon grimaced. "Komack's trying to make waves, but we've got the backing of a significant portion of Admirals by now, and we're bringing him up before a review board. We don't think he knew all the details, but he was working with Marcus. He was probably more interested in gaining power than any of the specifics, but he was still involved."
Richard handed Chris a PADD so that he could look over the information they had on Komack's review. "We'll keep you informed, but we aren't expecting many issues. Komack was the first and only Admiral to come out in support of Marcus' actions when they became clear. Something about how we needed to prepare for a Klingon attack, and Marcus was trying to protect all of us. He seemed to skate right by the fact that the bastard's idea of protection involved wiping out an entire planet and getting the Enterprise destroyed and everyone on her killed."
"We really don't think he was involved in the planning," Jon reiterated. "He was just used because he had access to the Enterprise. If Marcus could have gotten the flagship in another way, he would have done so on his own." He pursed his lips in thought. "Komack's the one who set the leave schedule for the end of the Enterprise's five-year mission. He specifically set the departure date, possibly because Marcus wanted them on hand when everything happened. I mean, maybe I'm just drawing lines where they don't exist, but all this happened right before the Enterprise was to ship back out, so all the crew was back in San Francisco and ready to leave when Harrison attacked."
Chris considered that for a moment. Generally, ships could be given anywhere between one and five months leave at the end of a five-year mission, depending on upgrades and other mitigating circumstances that might draw out the leave time; so the two months the Enterprise had gotten wasn't unusual. But that didn't necessarily mean anything.
Jon shrugged. "Just a thought. We're going to call the Enterprise command crew, along with Lieutenant Wallace, since she was also involved, for debriefs within the next twenty-four hours. It'll be joint, rather than separating them. I know Jim's probably the only one who really knows everything, but we're hoping to get an idea of what happened from the rest of them."
Chris nodded and stood up. "Let me know if there's anything you need from me. I'm going back to the hospital."
Jon and Richard smiled reassuringly. "Will do."
Chris left quickly, and headed back to Starfleet Medical at a brisk walk.
When he arrived, he thought that he was the first one back; but at a second glance through the waiting room, he noticed Carol sitting in a corner, knees curled up to her chest. She was dressed simply in a pair of jeans and a Starfleet Academy Athletics sweatshirt several sizes too big – Jim's, most likely. It didn't look like she had done anything besides change in the hour and a half since he had last seen her.
Without saying a word, Chris moved over and took a seat next to the woman, going for companionable silence. He didn't think she wanted to talk anyway.
They sat there quietly for a while, as more of the command crew returned, all looking slightly better for some clean clothes, food, and a chance to unwind a little.
Spock and Uhura arrived first and together, followed soon after by Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov, who had brought Kevin along. The Ensign felt slightly out of place amongst the command crew, but Jim was like his brother, and he had nowhere else he'd rather be right now. They all took seats around Carol and Chris, settling in to wait, not saying anything after a solitary shake of the head from Chris informed them that there had been no news as of yet.
McCoy and April came by periodically to check on them, in between rounds and keeping tabs on all the other officers from the Enterprise who were still seeking medical attention.
McCoy knew that they wouldn't leave, despite his assurances that there would be no updates for a while. So instead, he found an empty break room and stuck them all in there.
Shay stopped by around dinnertime with food for everyone. No one said much, but they did thank her, and she didn't stay too long, not wanting to intrude. She cared for Jim as well, but she wasn't as close to the man as they all were. Chris promised to let her know if anything changed, and she headed back to the Academy.
Richard stopped by a couple hours later with real coffee, much to everyone's appreciation.
"Jon wanted to come as well, but things are crazy with the Admiralty at the moment," he apologized. "However, I am under strict orders to make sure you all get at least a little food and sleep, and to comm. him if there's any news." He glanced around at the empty containers. "Looks like you've got the food covered. I've already cleared it with Doctor Caraway; he says you can use this break room as long as you need, and no one will bother you." The hospital's director hadn't been completely willing to section off one break room, considering the high volume of injuries after the attack and the subsequent increase in doctors on duty, but Richard had enough sway to make it happen.
He stayed for a while, but had to get back to his duties after a couple of hours, so with a last update from McCoy – no change – Richard left the room.
The group spent the night in the hospital, most of them sleeping on the floor; there were only two beds in the room, which they gave to Chris and Uhura. Chris' injury from Nero still acted up from time to time, and he would not fare well if he had to sleep on the floor.
They had tried to give the other bed to Carol, but she refused, staying in her spot in the corner. She hadn't moved in hours, playing with the sleeve of Jim's sweatshirt, her gaze fixed on a spot on the far wall.
Though they tried to hide it, they were all worried about her. She had barely eaten dinner, and only took the coffee Richard had provided after a lot of prodding. Her eyes had yet to lose the haunted look, and no one thought she'd actually get any sleep, but there wasn't much more they could do, so they all settled down for the night.
It was sometime after midnight that April joined them. She glanced around the room briefly, seeing that most of her friends were asleep, and went to join Carol in the corner. The young Lieutenant was the only one still awake, but she didn't so much as twitch when April sat down.
The two were silent for several minutes, before April sighed. "Leonard ordered me to get some sleep, but I'm still too wired. Strange, considering I think this is the first time I've even sat down in almost ten hours."
Carol didn't say anything, so April continued talking, keeping her voice soft so as to not wake anyone else up. She spoke innocently of her rounds, how the Enterprise crew was doing, and anything that could potentially draw Carol out of her thoughts.
She stopped talking after a while, waiting for something; hoping she had helped, at least a little.
Carol finally drew in a shuddering breath, and curled even further in on herself, if that was possible. "I can't stop seeing it," she whispered tearfully, burying her head in her knees. April reached out and rested a hand on her back, rubbing reassuringly. Carol sniffed. "Harrison shot him, and he just… went down. I thought he was dead."
She glanced over at April, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "I can't live without him, April. I can't even imagine my life without him."
"You won't have to," April said quickly. "Jim's going to be fine. I know it's scary, and seeing him with all those machines wasn't easy, but just remember who he is. Strong, capable, doesn't know how to lose."
Carol nodded slightly, wiping her eyes with one hand as she attempted a weak smile. "I know. He's going to pull through. I have to keep believing that."
They lapsed back into silence, which was only broken several hours later when McCoy came in shortly before dawn.
Some of the others were beginning to stir, and quickly hurried to wake the others. Within two minutes, they were all gathered around the exhausted doctor.
McCoy looked around at them wearily, his expression slightly less defeated than it had been yesterday, though his eyes were lined and clearly showed his lack of sleep. "We're about to move Jim to surgery," he informed them. "We're going to replace his kidney, but I'm still holding out hope that the liver is fine."
"Do you expect any complications with the surgery?" Chris asked worriedly.
McCoy sighed. "The most concerning aspect we're thinking about right now is Jim's own immune system. It's entirely possible his body will reject the new organ. As it is, we're having a hell of a time keeping him comfortable." Several confused gazes met his statement, so he sighed again. "Jim's allergic to most of the standard painkillers. It's hard to find medications he can take, and several of the ones he's not allergic to that we could use, can't be taken together."
Chris nodded. "What about the other injuries?"
McCoy grimaced. "His trachea's looking a little better. It'll likely still hurt to breathe for a while, but we're keeping him on the ventilator for the near future so we don't have to worry about that right now, and his body doesn't have to make the extra effort to breathe on its own, which limits stress to the other injuries. The ribs and collarbone are still broken, and the lung damage is still pretty bad. That'll likely take at least a month or two to heal. His heartbeat is still irregular, but calming down and should completely normal out by tomorrow. Once we get the internal injuries further along in the healing process I'll get to work on the burns to his chest and neck. For now, we're keeping them cleaned and bandaged. The concussion is nearly gone, no signs of lasting damage. Kid's got a hard head." Chris chuckled lightly, while the rest smiled. McCoy looked at April. "We could use you in there if you're ready."
April nodded quickly. "Let's go."
The two doctors left, and everyone else sat back down to wait.
McCoy hadn't said how long it would take, but no one was planning on going anywhere until he got back.
Shay joined them shortly after the two doctors left, bringing coffee for everyone and taking a seat next to Chris. After several minutes of tense silence, she turned to her husband and smiled. "Remember that trip to Risa? How the hell did Jim even get there, or know that we'd be there?"
Chris snorted amusedly. "I've long since given up trying to figure out how the hell he does anything. I don't think Higgins ever got over having his ship fixed by a teenager."
The others all looked confused, so Chris had to explain about how Jim had surprised them on a shore leave years ago.
They got some amusement from the story, enjoying hearing about Jim before he became the famous Starfleet Captain that the universe saw.
"Jim's probably the strongest person I know," Kevin said quietly, looking down at the floor. "Back on…" He stumbled a little over the name of the planet. "Back there, he kept us all going. I know now, that he probably had no idea what he was doing, but back then he kept us all together. He kept us moving forward, and he kept us from falling apart." Kevin bit his lip, not looking up. "He became a captain at fourteen, and I don't think he ever really stopped. He's always been so strong, so determined to succeed, that he wouldn't let himself fail."
Chris smiled softly. "Jim's been facing the concept of a no-win scenario his whole life, the idea of failing just doesn't compute. That's how I know he's going to be fine."
They all contemplated the Admiral's words in silence, thinking about how Jim had told them that he had met Chris on Tarsus, at one of the lowest points in the young man's life. If anyone knew Jim, it would be Pike. They all thought of Jim as one of their best friends, but they knew that the Admiral probably knew him better than any of them. Chris had access to a part of Jim's life that they just hadn't gotten to see yet. Even if he had told them about Tarsus, he hadn't really shared much about what it had been like. He was still stuck on this idea that they wouldn't look at him the same, so though they had some idea based on what they knew of the situation, what Jim had actually told them, and what they had heard in the news after it had happened, they still didn't really know what he had been like back then. Other than Kevin, April, and to a lesser extent Pavel, and perhaps Carol, none of the others had gotten to see that side of Jim's life. It would come in time, but Jim didn't share easily, and his life had given him very serious trust issues, so none of them held it against him.
The next few hours passed quietly; conversations were few and far between, for the most part everyone waiting for McCoy and April to return without interrupting the silence.
When McCoy finally did come back, he still looked exhausted, but optimistic. "April's settling him into his room now," the doctor reported, as everyone stood up to meet him at the door. "He's back in isolation for the next twenty-four hours, to minimize the risk of infection or reaction." He sighed. "You can't see him yet, I'm sorry. But chances are, this time tomorrow he'll either be moving to the ICU or back in the OR getting a new liver." McCoy rubbed a hand across his face. "I'll let you know when Jim's out of the danger zone, but you should all go do something else for a few hours. He'd only feel guilty for making you stay here and be bored."
Chekov and Kevin, at least, looked like they were about to start protesting, but Chris chimed in with his own thoughts. "He's right. There's no point in sticking around if we can't even see him. Go spend a few hours in a real bed, get some real food, and stare at something other than the whitewashed walls around here."
Slowly, the group tricked out of the room, until it was just McCoy, Chris, and Carol. Carol looked at the doctor, her mouth set in a mulish line. "I've got nowhere to go and nothing better to do."
McCoy almost protested, but thought better of it, and just nodded. "I'll stop by later," he said instead.
"As long as you fit some sleep and food in as well," Chris admonished, looking him over with a critical eye. "You look like you haven't slept in days, which probably isn't far from the truth."
McCoy rolled his eyes. "I'm going to find somewhere to crash right now. Doctor Caraway already ordered me to go find a dark corner to hole up in for the next six hours at least, so he can pretend he told me to leave the hospital and I actually did it."
Chris snorted, knowing the likelihood of McCoy actually leaving the hospital before Jim was out of the woods. "Well that sounds like a solid plan." He looked at Carol and smiled reassuringly. "Do you want me to bring you anything? Something to take your mind off of things while you wait?"
Carol shook her head. "No thanks," she replied. "I'll be fine."
She took a seat on one of the empty beds, as McCoy and Chris left.
The two men walked down the hall in silence, before separating as Chris left the building and McCoy went to find the storeroom on the third floor that he knew no one ever used.
XXX
Twenty-four hours later, everyone was back and waiting, when McCoy found them. He actually smiled slightly. "We just moved him to ICU," he informed them, and everyone let out sighs of relief. "I don't think we'll have to replace his liver. It's still not great, but not bad enough to need more surgery. A complete transplant is really the most extreme option, and I don't want to go that far unless there's no other option. His body's already dealt with enough trauma in the last few days; no need to add to that if we don't have to. We'll start lowering the medication dosage within the next few hours. Barring any complications, he should begin to wake up in the next few days. Once he's breathing on his own, we can move him to recovery. That'll probably happen in the next day or two."
"What about the lung?" Sulu asked curiously. "You said it was still damaged, will that affect his ability to breathe?"
McCoy shrugged and grimaced. "Not significantly. The tube is taking a lot of stress off his body, so it can focus on other things instead of breathing. But we can't keep it in for too long, or it could have negative impacts. It could weaken his lungs, since they'll get used to not having to do any work. Taking it out will force his body to work harder, but the strain of breathing will also get his lungs to build some strength. It will likely hurt to breathe for a while, but in the long run, it's a much better option than keeping the machine breathing for him."
Sulu nodded, understanding.
"So can we see him now?" Chekov asked, dimples flashing as he smiled.
McCoy nodded, feeling himself return the smile a little at the younger man's pure happiness. "One at a time while he's in the ICU. And just a couple minutes each."
They all nodded quickly, and one at a time, let McCoy lead them down the hall to the ICU. Jim's command crew went first, because they knew that Carol would want to stay with her boyfriend as long as possible. Spock was the first one to step inside the sterile room, and then Uhura, followed by Sulu, Chekov, Scotty, and Kevin. Chris went next, before Carol finally had her turn.
There were no extra seats in the ICU, but Carol determinedly took hold of Jim's hand and leaned against the bed, glancing defiantly back at McCoy.
He just smirked amusedly. "I'll come kick you out around lunchtime."
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