As Charlie and McCoy continued to work on their patients, Charlie began to wonder when a rescue was going to be underway. After all, that was what the mission was for. She decided that she should ask Spock, as he was the acting captain now. She tried contacting him, but her only answer came from Chekov.

"Mr. Chekov, where is Captain Spock?" she asked quickly.

"Zee Ceptain has gone to zee pad. He eez beaming down to zee planet. You may still cetch heem."

"Thank you!" she called as she scurried to the pad, pushing past various Starfleet members only to arrive just in time for him to beam out. Turning to Kirk she asked "So who is the captain, now?"

"I guess that would be me," he replied quietly.

"How long does Vulcan have?" she asked the officer operating the pad. The entire ship was aware by now that the planet Vulcan would soon not exist.

"Approximately fifteen minutes."

She now turned to Kirk. "Captain. Permission to beam aboard as many Vulcans possible?" He gave her a dumbfounded look. "The primary purpose of this mission was a rescue mission, was it not?" He nodded. "Then may we beam as many Vulcans aboard as possible so as to fulfill that mission to the best of our abilities?" Kirk nodded again, serious for one of the first times in his life.

Charlie ran to the operator. "Beam aboard as many Vulcans as you can from anywhere on the planet's surface."

She then hailed the med bay. "Dr. McCoy, please send nurses and orderlies to the pad to receive refugees from the planet." She turned to the pad and within moments there were a number of very confused Vulcans attempting to make sense of their surroundings. "Please step off the pad," she urged. The Vulcans quickly complied, stepping down just in time to be ushered to the med bay by orderlies and nurses. "Keep the nurses and orderlies coming," she asked one of them.

In the next ten minutes, this was the pattern that everyone's actions took. Charlie was not breathing very steadily as her pulse raced and she raced against time. After all, Spock already disliked her. She could only imagine how unhappy he would be once he learned she had taken action on her own initiative without any orders from him. However, she couldn't think of that now. She had a job to do – directing traffic.

Just as another group of Vulcans was removing themselves from the pad, she heard the order from Spock to beam his party back aboard the enterprise. She swallowed hard as Spock's party was beamed aboard, but was surprised to see a look of complete and utter agony on his face. She grabbed Kirk and dragged him with her to med bay. "What are you doing," he griped.

"Saving our asses. Can't you tell that something happened on the planet? If he catches us doing something against his orders now, we are dead." He gave her his signature confused look. "Didn't you see how distraught Spock was?"

"Vulcans don't have emotions," was his only response, to which she rolled her eyes, disbelieving. She was not Spock's biggest fan and she was quite aware that Vulcans weren't eager to display emotions but she knew very well from what Nyota had told her that Vulcan emotions did indeed exist – even more potent than the human counterparts.

"Dammit, Jacobs, what is going on?" McCoy demanded.

"That is exactly what I would like to know." Charlie should not have been surprised. After all, Spock was incredibly good at sneaking up on her. She froze, then turned her rigid body to face Spock. "Please, Dr. Jacobs, elaborate on the current situation."

She decided that, in this case, the truth was the best option available. "This mission was meant to be a rescue mission. So, I wanted to rescue as many Vulcans as possible in order to fulfill this rescue mission to the best of our abilities. I went to find you and receive permission, but you had already left. So, I received permission from Kirk who was, at the time, acting captain. I was simply doing my job, Captain." The room became quiet as they all waited for Spock's response.

"Did your activities interfere with my return to the ship?" he asked quietly, the tension in the air becoming thick.

Charlie didn't understand why Spock had asked her so intensely, but she answered just the same. "No, sir. The pad was clear when you issued the order to beam you aboard."

"Then your logic was sound," he admitted, although it seemed he admitted it grudgingly. "How many were saved?"

"Sixty-seven, sir." Spock nodded and walked slowly out of the room, as if scarcely comprehending the situation.

"I can't believe you went off and did that on your own," mused McCoy. He had already been very impressed with her but this incident put her at least at eight on the badass scale. She had out-logicked Spock! "Although now I'm a little mad I didn't think of it myself. You avoided his wrath, though, so congratulations."

As they were all sitting on the bridge, discussing what their next course of action was, Charlie was beginning to become concerned about Spock. Despite what Kirk had said earlier, Vulcans did have emotions and Charlie was beginning to fear that Spock's were compromise his ability to function as a captain. After all, he had just lost his entire planet, along with his mother. She and McCoy glanced at each other and she could tell that he was thinking along similar lines because worry was etched on his face matched hers exactly, listening to Kirk and Spock argue. She secretly agreed with Kirk but there were two things that kept her from saying anything. First, she hated the fact that she actually agreed with Kirk. Second, she did not want to anger Spock. He already didn't like her, so she certainly didn't want to make him dislike her even more. Plus, she was a doctor and certainly not qualified to be disputing with a Starfleet officer.

That is, until Spock ordered Kirk to be sent off the ship and marooned on a nearly uninhabited planet. "What?" she and McCoy exclaimed, as Kirk was hauled off, unconscious.

She and McCoy quietly shuffled to the med bay in complete disbelief. "So did that…?" he began.

"Yes. Spock really did just maroon Kirk." Charlie now had no doubts in her mind about whether or not Spock was fit to continue acting as captain. McCoy bobbed his head, eyes blank. "We need to evaluate Spock psychologically. He isn't thinking clearly, or logically."

They began working together once again and, once again, they complemented each other very well in the med bay. Soon the bay was all sorted through with the injured all taken care of. Charlie was about to discuss the situation with McCoy again – happy to have her confidant who wouldn't squeal to Spock – but the captain called McCoy down to the bridge just as Charlie had begun to approach him. She could have been wrong, but she could have sworn he looked a little disappointed when he realized that he had to leave. He walked past her on the way to the bridge, but she said as he left "I'm going to talk to someone about Spock. I can't just sit and wait as he screws up." But, before she left the sick bay, she turned to one of the more competent nurses that she had found on the ship. "Nurse Chapel, please make sure that the med bay doesn't completely fall apart while Dr. McCoy and I are gone."

She followed McCoy to the bridge, trying to find Uhura. She was probably one of the only people on the Enterprise who could talk sense into Spock. If she couldn't, then Charlie very much doubted that anyone could. She found her and pulled her off the bridge for just a moment. "Nyota, you have to know that something is wrong with Spock." Her friend lowered her eyes. "He just marooned Kirk on an icy wasteland. Now, if he hated Kirk's insubordination so much, he could have had Kirk confined anywhere on the ship and Kirk wouldn't have been a problem. Beyond that, Kirk's insubordination was warranted because Spock's decisions have not been the best since the disaster on Vulcan. Look, he needs a psychological evaluation and McCoy is one of the most qualified Starfleet medical officers to do so. Please, Nyota," she begged.

"I know that something is wrong, Charlie. But what can we do? It takes more than a couple Starfleet cadets to force an evaluation like that on the acting captain of a ship."

"He's your boyfriend. I realize that I am putting you in a difficult position and I am sorry for that but our current situation demands that action be taken."

She and McCoy arrived at the med bay at the same time. "I hope you had better luck than I did," he growled. "That green-blooded hobgoblin doesn't even understand the huge mistake he is making and of course he didn't believe that I had any idea what I was talking about regarding Jim!"

"My luck was marginally better than yours," she informed him. "I got in touch with the mutual friend that the Commander and I share. Hopefully, they will be able to work something out. Otherwise, I am fresh out of ideas," she said, exhausted.

With all the action that had been going on, Charlie's light brown hair had begun to come out of its braid and frizz in every direction possible. She pulled her hair tie off and began to redo the brain when she saw McCoy gawking at her. "What?" she asked.

"It's nothing…it's just…I knew your hair was curly but I had no idea it was like that."

She flushed, realizing that McCoy's stare was due to her frizzy hair. She knew that it…had a lot of volume but that was no reason for him to act so shocked. "Shut up," she groaned, having finished the new braid.

They both began looking around the med bay for things to do when Charlie remembered something absolutely horrifying. "McCoy, have you seen Allison?"

He shook his head, not realizing the implications of his response. "Why?"

"I haven't seen her anywhere," Charlie began. "And I sent her to deck six…with Dr. Puri." It finally struck Charlie that she was at least partially responsible for the other woman's death.

The same thought finally occurred to McCoy as he saw the mortified expression spread throughout Charlie's face. He knew that while both of them had been a little responsible because they had sent her there, he also knew they couldn't blame themselves, especially because neither of them could have possibly known. McCoy hadn't known Allison very well, or particularly liked her, so he could see this very clearly. The look on Charlie's face told him that she was not thinking as clearly about it as he was.

"Allison…" she said, eyes growing wide.

"Charlie," he said, firmly grabbing her shoulders, "Now is not the time." She began nodding her head and collecting herself so he didn't really need to say anything else, but he decided that he would add a very true fact. "It's not our fault. You can't blame yourself." He felt useless just holding her shoulders like that – she probably need a lot more to pull herself together – but he wasn't quite sure if anything besides the awkward contact they had now would be appropriate. Charlie had also never seemed to him like the hugging type and he certainly wasn't. Nevertheless, he kind of wanted to hug her.

Charlie drifted towards one of the Vulcans who had been more seriously injured – a handful of broken ribs with some smoke damage to their lungs. She knew deep down that McCoy was right and she couldn't let the guilt eat her alive but that didn't make the guilt any less potent.

McCoy had never called her by her first name before. It seemed so weird that he would call her Charlie instead of Jacobs or Dr. Jacobs, though it wasn't quite that strange. After all that they had been through together recently, it shouldn't be weird at all for them to be on a first name basis.

McCoy was hailed by Spock and ordered to come to the bridge again, causing McCoy to begin grumbling angry things and using language that would probably even make the Vulcan on the ship cringe. "You're coming with me," he said, pointing at Charlie.

"But he only called you and I need to be here to take care of this mess. The med bay isn't designed to hold so many people."

McCoy shook his head. "I'm not dealing with that Vulcan without you there to back me up."

This had to be breaking about twenty rules of med bay protocol but when Charlie thought about it, protocol had already gone to complete shit on this mission anyway – protocol had been thrown out the window from the beginning! To hell with it, she'd go with him. "Lead the way, Doctor."

No sooner had they arrived on the bridge when an intruder was detected on the ship. "Are you sure it's an intruder, Captain? After all, don't you think we would have detected an intruder long before now if one was actually on the ship?"

"Unauthorized activity was detected and two unauthorized individuals were detected doing it. That would imply an intruder."

Within minutes, Kirk's sorry ass, along with some other dude, was hauled onto the bridge. She and McCoy had mirror looks of astonishment on their face, wondering how the hell he could have done it.

"Jim has a plan," McCoy whispered to her.

"What?" she whispered back. "No way." What could Kirk's plan possibly be?

"He's trying to compromise Spock," he explained as the argument between Kirk and Spock continued. "I know Jim and I know that he's a pain in the ass sometimes and says stupid things and completely defies authority. But I have never once seen Jim act malicious."

And he was acting malicious. "You never loved her!"

After that the Vulcan attacked Kirk in an emotion display that Charlie had never seen from him before – had never conceived was possible for him to display. Kirk definitely got the worst of the fight but by the time it was over, Kirk got what he wanted. "I relinquish command," Spock said quietly. "On the grounds that I have been emotionally compromised. Please note the time and date in the ships log."

Spock hadn't even said anything about Charlie's unauthorized presence on the bridge as he walked away.

That left Kirk as captain of the Enterprise. Charlie knew then that this could go only one of two ways: either they would have incredible, almost unbelievable success or they would have an incredible, almost unbelievable, failure.