"While you were having your conversation, Kirk, two communiqués for you came with my name as one also to be notified. One was from our top medical team and the other from the science team." For a moment, as he looked at Admiral Billings, there was a meeting of minds and Kirk saw on the Admiral's face that his assumption had been right and that, for now, he had to remain in control. This was not the time to react.

Fallet looked at Kirk then at the Admiral as Kirk put the communicator back on the desk, "Like I was saying, Kirk is far too close to his crew. He and that half-Vulcan Science Officer almost think alike. And it was that thing's intervention in my trying to do the job that meant I could not function properly. He would challenge my authority when I would discipline a crewmember. It even dared to tell me sending that proton torpedo was asinine. We were not attacked after I took that action so I was right and Kirk agreed with me."

Kirk had taken a step towards him when the door to the meeting room flung open and an out-of-uniform Chekov raced up to him, "Sulu has a craft ready that vill have us there in seventy-six hours." He turned and looked at Fallet, "If he dies, you die." and rushed out without looking to see if Kirk was behind him.

"Excuse us, Sir." Kirk grabbed Fallet's arm in a vice-like grip and pulled him up and out of his chair, "I think the Commodore needs to see what he did up close. He needs to see the damage. We will take him with us to Bannet Base."

"But it's quarantined and we're confined." Fallet looked and sounded frightened for the first time.

"We are going and you are coming."

"Admiral, you cannot allow," Fallet tried to pull away from Kirk's grip but Kirk let his fury at the man give him added strength.

"I think it is an excellent idea." The Admiral looked at Kirk. "It has been my experience that many Commodores tend to lose touch with what happens after a weapon is fired. You will go with Kirk."

"When we get back I will file so many changes against you, Kirk, you will,"

"Fine. Move."

"Oh, Captain Kirk," the Admiral looked from Kirk for a moment as Kirk reached the door, still holding firmly to Fallet's arm, "while you are gone we will make a thorough search of the Commodore's quarters with our top science team and his belongings. You will be sent a report of what we find and the other findings should be of some comfort."

There was absolutely no way of hiding the near hatred that both Sulu and Scott felt toward Fallet when Kirk arrived at the craft half-dragging him and Kirk could understand it. As he all but thrust Fallet into a seat he said, "For your own safety do not move or talk, Sir."

"Estimated arrival time on Bannet Base sixty-nine point five hours, Captain."

"Chekov said seventy-six."

"That was before I saw I could tune the engines up just a mite. We should get warp seven from her. Got rid of things we'd not be needing to lighten the ship." Kirk saw Scott look at Fallet and braced himself to get between them but Scott looked back at him, "Uhura said we should try to be there in less than three days."

After they had been level flying for a time Sulu said, "All Uhura said was there was an accident, we should try to get there in less than three days, and that it was Spock. It is bad, isn't Sir? It was in her voice."

"There was an explosion that separated them. In saving Uhura and McCoy Spock got infected with gainine which is fatal to Vulcans. He's," for a moment Kirk stopped as he realized he had to say it and that saying it would make it real, "he's internally bleeding to death." Kirk took the small glass that Chekov handed him and drank it. Icy cold water. He needed that. He took the second glass and drank it. He needed to think. He took the third glass as he tried to think.

McCoy looked at the clock and then back at Spock, seeing the paleness of his skin and knowing even if they'd had his blood type and kept giving him blood transfusions there was nothing that would stop the internal break down at a cellular level going on within the Science Officer. There was no way to stop the bleeding. Gently he placed his hand against Spock's cheek, "Jim's coming, Spock. He and the others. You have to hold on till then. Jim will kill me if anything happens to you before he gets here." McCoy watched as Uhura used a damp cloth to wipe the rest of the Vulcan's face, neck, and shoulders, seeing the slightly greener than usual marks on his neck where the cord had been, "You had to go and keep me to my word, didn't you? I'll know next time not to trust you like that. Damned fool thing to have me do, could have choked you to death. You just rest. Uhura and I are right here."

One of the girls that Spock had mentioned, a Janet Wallen, showed promise walked up to him with an elderly woman carrying a container of what closely resembled a red sludge, "I know this will sound odd but my grandmother is a natural feeler and healer and when I told her what had happened to a Vulcan she made this paste and said we had to come now and put this on his feet and legs then, when the time is right and his family is all here, there is a ceremony for drawing the poison out and him back. My parents and the parents of three of my friends are alive because of it; many others scoffed at her old ways and they all died. I thought I would come and see if we could try. Mister Spock has shown me so much and did not care that I am a woman in what here is a man's field. Some here believe that there are some things that are just for men. He told us there were endless possibilities. It cannot harm him."

McCoy looked at Uhura then at the old woman and nodded. Slowly the old woman walked to the bed looked at Spock for a moment then placed her hand under the sheet where a Vulcan's heart is and closed her eyes for a moment then lifted the sheet off Spock's feet and opened the lid on the red sludge. The smell was immediately nauseating and McCoy wondered why he had agreed. It was warm and the elderly woman carefully used a small ladle to pour it over each foot, alternating between the feet, applying several layers and applying it to just below the knee of each leg before wrapping a cloth McCoy recognized as an insulating compression wrap to encase his feet and up to his knees and slightly raised the head of the bed. She placed her hand briefly on Spock's face with her little finger just touching his temple and her thumb on his throat then again closed her eyes for a moment.

After she took her hand away from Spock's face the elderly woman just sat with her eyes closed for a moment then took one of Uhura's hand and one of McCoy's and placed one of Spock's hands between them and held the three hands in her two and sat silent for a moment then released their hands. "We wait. When all his family comes we finish. This helps draw out evil poison, family puts in love. When he feels all the love he will fight better. For now he fights as he knows the one who means the most to him is coming. He knows you will help him stay till the other gets here."

Two grey-green eyes looked at Uhura then at McCoy, "He cares very greatly for you two, he does not show it as it is not the way of his people, but there is one coming who means more to him but has hurt him greatly. You must not allow the one that means the most to him near him if that one does not think of him that way. Do not let the other near him immediately as there were bad words from him to this one last time that have wounded him to his greatest depths. This one heard the words and said nothing. He accepts them as truth from how they were said."

McCoy swallowed, looked at Uhura and saw she was also remembering how Jim had sworn at Spock and called him an insubordinate subordinate officer who was grossly over-stepping the line as it was his bridge, he was in command. It still stunned the doctor to remember how Kirk had dismissed Spock from the bridge by telling him the get hell off his bridge and say the hell out if his life. As far as McCoy knew that was the last time they had spoken. The last words Spock had heard from Jim was to stay the hell out of his life. Jim had been and continued to spend all his time with Fallet talking over past encounters and future plans. He turned and looked at the elderly woman who was still looking at him, "What if the other had said words he did not mean?"

"If the other spoke them and they were said to hurt or they need not be said then they were meant. Had the other immediately apologised, as one who cares does, then this one would fight to live as he would know they were a reaction. This one is fighting only to hear that voice again, to feel the nearness of that one again but nothing beyond that. As angry words were the last he heard from the other they must not be together unless he first calls out the other's name of his own free will, unless he speaks to the other first and of his own free will, unless he reaches out his hand for the hand of other first of his own free will. The other must remain silent until this one decides and approaches him in that manner."

"That will be difficult." Uhura looked at the elderly woman who looked at her, "The other will want to speak to him, will have things he will feel he must say."

"You say they are kinsmen? I forget the Vulcan word for close kinsmen."

"They are t'hy'la, very close friends. The other was not feeling well when they last spoke and said things he did not mean but said them."

"If they are still that then this other one must fight more to bring him back. The other must be willing to show to him there is nothing to hide from. The other must be willing to show him there is nothing to fear from him. There must be a proving." The woman looked at how Uhura was holding Spock's hand, "He thinks of you as a sister and you," she looked at McCoy, "as a brother but the other one is more. It is good you are here with him, helping hold him here till the other arrives."

Over the next few hours McCoy realized Spock had not declined as rapidly as before. There was a decline but not as drastic as he had thought. He looked and saw how Uhura was still holding his hand and the elderly woman held Uhura's other hand and was sitting with her eyes shut. He had heard the old stories about natural healers and never really met one or overly believed in them but he realized there had to be something at work as the change was there and the only difference was the elderly woman and her sludge.

Looking at Spock and seeing how he showed the tell-tale signs of advancing Gainine, the profuse sweating and his head tipped back with his mouth wide open as his lungs started to need more oxygen as the lobes slowly filled with blood McCoy wondered how he would tell Jim if Spock died before he arrived. He also wondered just how he would keep Kirk from him should Spock somehow still be alive. A part of his mind hoped that Spock would just slip away to where there was no pain. The Vulcan had had more than enough of that from Kirk for the last few weeks without the physical pain he was now experiencing.

All on the bridge had seen how what Jim had said to him and how he had said it had hurt Spock. They had all seen how deeply Kirk's action and words had hurt him. McCoy shook his head, Spock had deliberately, for the fifth time, stopped Fallet in the middle of a berating tirade against a crew member. It had been against him when he had gone to the bridge as he usually did, and Fallet had started to criticize him when Spock told Fallet he was incorrect and out of line. Totally inflamed Fallet had, in his own manner, berated Spock, then Kirk had also callously lashed at Spock and finished by restricting him to his quarters for the remaining days of the mission and banned him from any contact with the crew. Closing his eyes he could see Kirk glaring at Spock telling him "to get the hell off my bridge and stay the hell out of my life," As if that had not stunned them enough Kirk had later slowly looked at each one of them individually and said Spock could be replaced as easily and quickly as any of them could If only Spock knew Jim would be hating himself for what he had done.

The green-blooded computer could not fully understand human emotions and Jim's reaction to Fallet would be beyond his understanding, especially when a trained human physician did not fully understand it. Oh, he had his suspicions as to what was happening and had tried to get Kirk down to Sickbay for a check-up but Kirk and Fallet had known the questions to ask and rules and regulations to quote that ruled that out. Although he was sure the Vulcan was beyond hearing or feeling McCoy gently touched the side of his friend's face and whispered, "Spock, you just try to hold on so at least Jim can say goodbye. He and the others are on their way so you just hold on. He, he loves you so much. You have to know that what he did, how he acted, was not really him. You have to know he did not mean what he said. You have to know that it was something more than him trying to see what it was like to be somebody else, that something else was affecting him. He and I both think his mind has been compromised in some way. I need your help with him, Spock. He needs you for so many reasons. Dammit Spock, that cussed Vulcan side of you should want to show the human side which is stronger."

A tenuous thread was holding him to the world. He recognized the sensation of light pressure on his hand as that of Lieutenant Uhura holding it and that hand that often touched his face was Doctor McCoy. There was a strange sensation in his body as though it were invaded. His body had been invaded before but not like this. Gainine. He remembered. The explosion. The structure McCoy and Uhura were on crumbling. A pipe a meter to the right of the slab they were on and seven hundred centimetres below it the only way. Had to be done in one mission. His feet going through the rusted metal. There had been pain. Then wherever here was with McCoy and Uhura but not Jim. No. Jim did not care. He had Fallet. Fallet was human and an equal. Jim's words came back. "You are nothing to me but an insubordinate subordinate officer." Jim would not care and had ordered him to "stay the hell" out of his life." He was aware of a slowing of the invasion, of strange fingers touching him. A healer. Human but with unusual emanations in the, in her touch. Not reading his mind but, but his emotions. She would know of his relationships with the others. It did not matter. Nothing matters as Jim. Jim. McCoy mentioned Jim. Jim and the others. All coming. Jim's mind compromised. The eyes. When Jim had told him to stay of if his life his eyes were wrong. Not his anger. Something else. It was getting harder to breathe. But Jim's eyes were wrong. So this is the sensation of cellular collapse: fascinating how it is slowly progressive. Jim's eyes. McCoy and Uhura would be there and he could rest a few minutes. He had to ask about Jim's eyes.

Kirk woke lying across three seats with his head on a pillow on Scott's thighs, his pelvis resting on a cushion on an empty seat and his feet on Chekhov's thighs. A blanket covered him. As he sat up he looked accusingly at Chekhov, "I would not have taken the drink from Scotty as I thought he would try it but you I used to trust.

"Mister Scott said so. Four more hours, Sir."

"Sulu?"

"We're on target, Sir. Can't get any more out of it."

Across the walkway Kirk saw Fallet slumped in his seat, "Our guest?"

"Oh, Sir, I must have made his a wee bit stronger. With luck he will sleep till we are there."

"How far from where we land to the hospital?"

"We'll be landing five metres from the entrance. Uhura got that sorted."

"Any, any word on,"

"He is still with us, Sir. Doctor McCoy and Uhura are with him at all times and he is still holding on."

"When we arrive there's Fallet,"

"Uhura's been a busy lassie in that she has arranged for some locals to watch him and to show him what his action has caused. She says they are very direct in their approach."

For a moment he sat in silence, felt a strong hand grip his left shoulder and another hand grip his right upper arm, "We are to land and go to Spock. They will take care of Fallet. Uhura said she had made it clear that they are not to kill him."

"I, I owe each of you a huge apology. These last few weeks I was,"

"Intoxicated by Fallet's reputation and his persona." Scotty looked at him, "Aye, we all know and understand. Now and then your thinking has been different when an attractive lass has been around but not like this, never had I seen ye like that. It was a trifle worrisome but Mister Spock said it would pass. He was right. Tis good to have ye back, Sir."

"I feel the same, Sir."

"I agree, Sir. I just hope we get there and Mister Spock can see you, and see that he was right."

"Right? Right about what?"

For a moment the three were silent then Scotty looked at him, "Ye almost had a full scale mutiny to deal with, Sir. The way ye let Fallet talk at us and treat us. Spock said ye were just too, too,"

"It is obvious that the Captain is, on a subconscious level, totally captivated by and is temporarily being influenced by Commodore Fallet's history, stories, and charismatic if not self-serving persona. I am certain this is but a temporary mental apparition and that, should an emergency arise, the Captain will resume command and be himself again. It is a certainty that he will return to himself once Commodore Fallet has left the Enterprise. We must be patient and understanding as we wait for that to eventuate." Sulu looked at Kirk very steadily, "I had to keep saying it over and over to myself each time you did not back us on the bridge and when you let Spock take Fallet's anger when Spock told him we knew what we were doing, Sir. It was difficult to sit in silence when he would be sent from the bridge but he had told us not to interfere."

Kirk thought back and could not remember Spock saying anything apart from, "Yes, Sir." each time he had been dismissed from the bridge. "He only just acknowledged, and"

"Ahhh, Captain, ye, of all people, know he can speak volumes with just a slight change in his posture, slight move of his hands, or a look. That is what we got. That look he gives that means he knows what he is doing and to leave things to him. I've, we've all seen him give it to ye and ye have always stopped, if only for a moment, and often changed direction."

"Did any of you see him after, after I,"

A/N Going to be a long busy weekend so no writing for a few days. Stormy and wet but have lots of yard tidy-up to do and berries and fruit to pick so will get back when I can. Take care and have fun.