A/N: I woke up this morning, and this story was the first thing on my mind. I hate leaving things uncompleted, and this has been a thorn in my side for a while now. But I am determined to finish it for y'all. I can only say I'm sorry for leaving it untouched for so long.

McCoy spent sixteen hours in surgery with Captain Pike. He was worried, when he saw the extent of the damage, that there would be little he could do outside of an actual hospital, no matter how excellent the facilities the Enterprise were. The majority of the damage was to Pike's spine. A Centurian slug had latched itself to the spine at the base of the neck and Pike's back had been broken during torture. He also had fractures and broken bones throughout the rest of his body. McCoy knew that even with the best physical therapy, there was still a high chance that the captain would never walk again. At the end of the long surgery, Pike remained in a medically induced coma to help his body recuperate.

McCoy checked in with his head nurse the next morning before setting off to find Jim. If he knew Jim (and barring her bizarre behavior earlier with Spock, he did), she would still be working despite multiple injuries and little to no sleep for days. True to form, he found her in the Captain's Ready Room. She'd been in conferences with Starfleet admiralty since returning to the ship, and it had been her unfortunate duty to explain everything that had happened since leaving Earth.

He rang the buzzer on the door to no response. After two more times, he entered his medical override code into the pad and opened the door. "Jim?" he called softly as the door opened. Bones looked around the room and found Jim asleep on the desk. He walked over to her and placed his hand on her shoulder. She stirred slightly and her eyes fluttered open.

"Hey," she murmured, sitting up slowly.

"Hey. You didn't come to Sick Bay for treatment," Bones said. He pulled out a tricorder and PADD and began to scan her body for injuries.

She swatted the hand holding the scanner away from her face. "I didn't come down because I'm fine. And I had work to do."

Bones raised an eyebrow. "Fine? Then explain how you have a bruised trachea, fractures around your eye sockets, and four broken ribs, and I'm not even finished scanning yet?"

She shrugged. "It's news to me?"

"Dammit Jim!" he sighed in frustration. "Well it may be news to you, but you're damn well going to let me fix it now before it causes more problems later."

"Bones, I don't-"

He pointed a finger at her. "Uh-uh. Don't even think about telling me you don't have time. The admiralty can wait five more minutes." He pulled out a hypospray, ignoring the pointed look in Jim's eyes, and gently injected it into her neck. "That was for the pain. Now I'm going to run a regenerator over your ribs."

Silence fell between them. A beep came from the office computer and Jim moved to check it, but she put her hands up in surrender at McCoy's glare. When the ribs were finished, he moved the machine to Jim's right eye. "How's Pike doing?" she asked after a while.

McCoy shut off the regenerator and sat back with a sigh. "I don't know, Jim. There was so much damage, and only so much I could do here. I… I did all I could, but there's no guarantee that he'll ever walk again."

Jim reached for his hand. "I'm sure you did everything that could've been done."

McCoy took her hand in both of his, looking at the slight bruising around her knuckles. A small voice in the back of his head pointed out that their hands fit well together, but he shoved that in the background. It was all they needed right now to add that mess on top of everything else. He dropped her hand and moved to the large viewing window. Jim watched as he struggled. He made several attempts to say something, but in the end just heaved a sigh and collapsed in a chair.

"Bones, Pike will pull through. He's tough," she said. She frowned when he said nothing. "I'm sorry for not coming to get a check up after…everything." Still no response. She eyed him for a few minutes as his face grew more and more troubled. Jim walked over and sat on the floor beside him. She nudged Bones with her shoulder. "Hey. What's wrong?"

McCoy sighed and rubbed a hand over his head. "I thought I could handle this, Jim. I thought I could, but I can't."

She looked up at him. "What, space? The field medicine?"

He chuckled derisively. "No. That all I can handle."

She raised up onto her knees beside him and put a hand on his knee. "What then?"

"You. This," he waved his hand at the room. "This is what I can't handle." Jim frowned at him, and Bones took her hand in his again. "When you went over to that ship, Jim, I couldn't focus. All I could think about was the possibility of you coming back in a body bag. And before, when Spock sent you to Delta Vega? I can't, Jim. I just can't."

"Hey," she said softly, putting her other hand on top of theirs and squeezing gently. "Hey, we talked about this, remember? There was always a possibility of us getting stationed on different ships. It's the dangers of the job, Bones. And besides, I got you to put me back together, right?"

"Dammit, Jim, you don't get it do you?! Fixing some bumps and bruises from a bar fight is completely different than watching you get beat by Romulans and the Acting Captain of this ship because you insulted his mother! You could have died, Jim! Do you get that? You could have died and where would that leave me?"

Jim looked away and Bones pulled her back to look at him. "Bones…"

"I know. Dangers of the job. But, Jim, I can't do this. I'm not- I'm not strong enough. Could you?" He stood up suddenly. "Could you watch the person you love die?" He walked out the door without another word, leaving Jim in a stunned silence.

She sat there for what seemed like an eternity. He loved her. He loved her? She'd put her feelings for him aside a long time ago, knowing how damaged he was from his divorce, even after all this time, but she never once considered that he might love her back. Jim had always seen their friendship as an indulgence on his part, putting up with the wild, childish girl. He loved her? Since when?

"Medical to Captain Kirk."

Jim hopped up from the floor and pressed the call button on the desk. "Kirk here."

"Captain Pike is awake and is asking for Acting Captain Spock."

Oh boy. "Call Spock. Have him meet me there in five minutes." Jim picked up her PADD and smoothed out her borrowed uniform. She quickly walked down the hallway, nodding at a few people she knew as she passed. Outside the doors of the Medical Bay, Spock stood waiting for her. She greeted him with a smile and they walked in together. Jim scanned the area for Bones but did not see him. A blonde nurse came up and led them to Pike's private quarters.

Pike was reading when Jim and Spock entered, propped up on pillows. He laid the PADD down and greeted them with a smirk. "Acting Captain Spock. Cadet Kirk."

Jim shifted uncomfortably. Spock stated, "I am not the captain."

Pike's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, you're not the captain?"

Spock looked at Jim and back at Pike. "After the destruction of Vulcan, I was emotionally compromised. Therefore, per Starfleet regulation, I resigned my commission. Kirk, as Acting First Officer, was then promoted to Acting Captain."

"You. Emotionally compromised."

"Yes, Captain."

"And how did you come to find that you were emotionally compromised, Commander?"

Jim stepped forward. "I berated him." She turned to Spock. "And for that I am very sorry."

Pike rubbed his chin in thought. "Well then, why don't the both of you tell me what's happened since I left my ship."

Jim pulled out her PADD and, along with Spock, tried to give Pike a concise and accurate account of the events since Pike went aboard the Narada. She carefully avoided any mention of any details of her time on Delta Vega aside from meeting Scotty and beaming back to the Enterprise. Pike watched her closely during that, but said nothing.

When they were finished with their accounts, Pike said nothing. After a moment, he turned to Spock and asked him to leave while he spoke to Jim. Spock rose and left silently. Jim found herself wanting to pull him back into the room, dreading the dress down she would undoubtedly get from Pike once alone. She took a deep breath and looked at Pike.

"Alright, Jim. What aren't you telling me?"

"I don't know what you mean, sir."

"What, you expect me to believe that you just happened to come across the one engineer in the entire universe with an equation that can get you back onto the ship you'd just been thrown off?" Pike crossed his arms.

"Well that is the gist of it," Jim tried to shrug off the question.

"Cadet Kirk, do not make me order you to tell me."

"When I was marooned on Delta Vega, you're right. I didn't come across the base on my own. There was… You're never going to believe this, it's sounds crazy even putting it into words and I was there. Nero was from the future, we know that now, but his ship wasn't the only one that came through the singularity."

"You're saying there was another ship?"

"Another ship…with another Spock."

Pike gaped at her, slowly shaking his head. "You're right. I don't believe it."

"It's true. And they weren't from the future per say, as from an alternate reality. One where I'm apparently male, but that's beside the point."

He chuckled a bit, muttering, "Besides the point. Kirk, does Spock know about this?"

"Spock Prime told me I couldn't tell him. Something about universe ending consequences."

"Spock Prime?"

Jim shrugged. "I had to call him something. He knew about Scotty's placement and led us there."

There was much more to say, but a knock on the door ended their conference. McCoy stuck his head in. "Captain, good to see you awake. Jim, could you give us a minute so I can run some scans on him?"

Jim smiled up at McCoy, who steadfastly avoided her gaze. Pike noticed both of them were tense around each other. Strange, but he'd seen stranger only yesterday. Kirk stood, nodded a farewell at the two men and exited the private room.

McCoy waited until the door shut to initiate a scan. "How are you feeling, Captain?"

"Fine, except my legs. I can't feel those just yet. Where's Dr. Puri?"

"He's dead, Captain. Perished in the attack on Vulcan."

"Ah," Pike said simply.

McCoy finished his scans with a heavy sigh and sat in the chair Kirk vacated. "Captain, I've got some good news and some not so good news. Which do you want first?"

"Surprise me."

McCoy snorted. "Well. We had you in surgery for sixteen or so hours, repairing the damage the Romulans did to you. There was a lot. The slug was a particularly nasty bastard. It tore up your digestive tract. You had multiple spinal fractures and a shattered hip. And while you're healing well, I was limited with what I could fully fix outside of an actual hospital, as great as the Enterprise's Sick Bay is. You may have to go through some more procedures when we reach Earth."

"Will I walk, Doc?"

"I'm hopeful, but I'm just not sure."

Pike nodded. "I trust you, McCoy. It's why I requested you for the Enterprise. How are you liking CMO?"

McCoy laughed. "It's not boring, I'll give you that. We've had our hands full with the Vulcan survivors and the crewmen injured in the attacks, but we've got a good staff."

"And Jim?"

McCoy stiffened a bit, and sat up in the chair. "She'll always be a headache to me, sir. But she's been a damn good Captain. She hasn't asked any more of the crew than she gives herself." He fiddled with the PADD in his hands. "I'll leave you to rest now, sir. I've got some rounds to complete."

Pike stopped him when he reached the door. "McCoy, keep an eye on her, alright?"

"You don't have to tell me twice, Captain."