— Chapter Twelve —
— Trau'es —
The room went quiet.
Jim Kirk watched Spock intently.
The captain's expression was neutral, almost careful despite the strength. His previous steely look of determination and concern was only visible in the almost imperceptible narrowing of his eyes. There was a keen, calculated sharpness there; the piercing scrutiny aimed his way heavy enough to feel crushing. Jim watched him as if he'd find something hidden in Spock's face if he only looked hard enough; stared hard enough.
Spock maintained eye contact, just as silent and still despite the building stress from the captain's attention. It felt suffocating to be pressed beneath the weight of them, and he had the most irrational, shameful urge to roll over and curl beneath the covers just so that he might escape the sensation. It was a childish desire—although even as a child, he would never have indulged in such impulses—and one that was so undignified and illogical as to be unquestionably rejected. He did not have the option of avoiding this topic; not without succumbing to blatant displays of emotion and to do so was unthinkable. Spock regretted allowing Jim to ask his question. In fact, he regretted waking up at all. It required too much of him; demanded answers he could not give to questions he could not stomach. He should have stayed asleep.
After a moment, the captain let out a long, slow breath. He opened his mouth as if to speak only to visibly hesitate, the words catching at the last moment. He searched Spock's face again, eyebrows furrowing. Those clever, perceptive hazel eyes evaluated him as if he were looking for something specific. Spock was not sure what he wanted; he was not sure what he was supposed to give him. Whatever it was, the captain apparently hadn't found it because his expression tightened. He looked torn; a troubled mixture of both reluctance and apprehension, as if he had already established his next course of action but regretted its necessity all the same. It was not overly difficult for Spock to determine the reasoning for why that might be.
His stomach sank.
"It… did not hurt at all…" Jim repeated softly, almost pensively to himself. Spock watched as he mulled that answer over and identified the exact instant the captain came to a decision. Jim wet his lips, took a steadying breath, and leaned in patiently. When he next spoke, his voice was a careful, gentle coaxing. "Spock, just so that I'm clear, are you—you're telling me that at no point—that what they did wasn't harmful to you in any way?"
The captain's tone might have been comforting but for that hard edge of incredulity. Jim did not believe him. More than that, he also clearly suspected that Spock was purposely lying to him. The skepticism and doubt were obvious; audible in that cautiously mild tone, and visible in the uneasy tension around his eyes. The captain was attempting to give him a chance to rephrase, likely in an effort to preserve his dignity. It was a kind offer, but it was also a misguided one; such an option would only hold appeal were there more dignity to be found in disclosing the truth, which was not at all the case.
And there was the verbal emphasis again. Ever since Spock had joined Starfleet, he had desired, often daily and usually numerous times during those days, that humans would simply say what they meant. It would help facilitate clear, concise communication with them, which could only be advantageous to all involved parties. He'd said as much to the captain multiple times throughout their acquaintance, and there had been a noticeable effort to prevent misunderstanding between them ever since. However, in this one specific instance, he found he was fiercely glad that Jim still, on the rare occasion, slipped into the old habit of using a semi-ambiguous tone as a substitute for definitive words. Because Spock did understand what he was being asked, and he had no interest in hearing the reality of it spoken aloud.
"I… did not say that it was not harmful, Captain," Spock clarified steadily. His fists were clenched so tightly beneath him that he knew the skin had begun to bruise. He felt like vomiting. It was getting uncomfortable to breathe. "You asked if they hurt me, I said that they did not. Based on what I have inferred from your verbal application of inflection to assign a specific meaning to an unstated word, their actions do not align with your insinuation. I did not, however, say that it was not harmful to me. Indeed, it caused a great deal of harm, as Doctor McCoy can certainly attest to."
"I'm not talking about physical harm, Spock." Jim rubbed a hand over his eyes and his expression was no longer quite so neutral or patient. His stare, when he leveled Spock with it, was visibly dubious. It felt intrusive, invading, and far-too-knowing. Still, the captain once again offered him the benefit of the doubt and attempted to clear up a misinterpretation that they both knew did not exist. "That you were physically hurt is pretty obvious. Allow me to be fully clear, what I meant was—"
"I understood what you meant the first time, Captain."
Please do not say it, he wanted to tell the captain; to shout, to plead, to beg. Please leave this alone.
(Begging didn't make any difference, he thought distantly. Begging was useless.)
"And your answer remains the same?"
Spock nodded placidly. His tongue was bleeding from where he'd bitten it. There was blood staining the sheets where even McCoy's preventative measures had failed to stop his nails from breaking the skin of his palms. It was only due to so many years of concealing all visible signs of distress beneath loose robes that he was able to continue meeting the captain's gaze with a level one of his own.
Jim's expression flattened and, after another approximately eight-point-two-nine seconds of that sharp observation, his face further closed off to blank and inscrutable. Spock identified it immediately as that same flinty, serious look the captain wore when receiving troubling news or problematic mission commands that he clearly did not agree with. It was a hard, stony appearance that he skillfully applied when he needed to conceal an unfavorable reaction from those who might be watching for one. Spock had seen it before—countless times in fact—but he had never seen it aimed at himself.
"You're certain?" Jim asked him, his emotions and thoughts hidden securely behind that opaque mask of stoicism. "Truly certain? Because I'm going to be honest, Spock. I'm… not sure I believe that."
"Facts do not require belief, sir. They simply are, regardless of personal opinion."
The captain's lips thinned minutely.
"Spock…" Jim took a rallying breath and leaned in even closer, like one would do to offer a sense comfort or security. It provided him with neither; Spock only felt trapped. The captain's tone was still soft, but it also carried a forced quality to it now. "I'd like to think I know you pretty well by now, and so I know there's more to this. On the mountain, just before you fell, you looked at me like—" Jim stopped and clenched his jaw. His hands flexed against his knees. "… I'm aware you had a headache before that, and it was obviously a bad one; I'm not denying that you were in physical pain already. But I know you, Spock, and the kind of pain you seemed to be in, I've never seen that from you before. Right before you went over, the way you looked at me…"
Spock found it very easy to imagine exactly the way he'd looked at Jim Kirk. Like Jim had died. Like his closest friend had been murdered and it was his fault. Like he'd never see him again.
(Jim died in front of him again.)
The captain grimaced as he struggled to find the right words, and he looked at Doctor McCoy as if asking for help. If that were indeed the case, the doctor didn't seem inclined to provide any assistance. He was focused on reading through a PADD (some distant, detached part of himself hoped they were the quarterly reports, as the doctor had an aggravating habit of being several days late in delivering them) and appeared to pay them no notice at all.
"Look, when the shuttle landed, I didn't even need the tricorder to locate your position because I could hear you screaming," Jim said to Spock in a hard tone. "And when I finally did reach you, you were thrashing so violently that I had to use my entire weight to pin you down so you wouldn't hurt yourself—or hurt yourself even more, I should say. Doctor McCoy tells me that part of your head was practically caved in from being struck numerous times and, as far as I'm aware, you only fell the once. I'm interested in hearing exactly what about the Seskille's actions demonstrate any kind of benevolence, Mr. Spock, because let me tell you, after holding pieces of your skull together with my bare hands, I'm just not seeing it."
Jim's voice didn't shake, didn't even so much as quiver—his captain had far too much control over himself to emotionally lapse like that—but it had taken on a particularly taut and strained sound the more he spoke. As captain, Jim had been expected to take immediate command of the situation on Seskilles VII, and he had done so admirably. He had acted both swiftly and rationally, as befitting of an officer of his rank, and without displaying any trace of the panic he surely must have felt. It was only upon hearing the haunted gravity to the captain's words that Spock realized that the experience had shaken him decidedly more than he had let on in the moment.
Much of his rescue was a blur, but although Spock had not seen himself with his own eyes, he had seen his condition through Jim's, and that perspective had been in perfect focus. To both Jim's mind and his own, he'd looked dead already; lips purple, skin mottled, hair matted, face covered in blood, and eyes bruised. It had made for an alarming sight; he'd been a broken, battered shell of himself. Jim had already been assured by McCoy that Spock would survive by then, and so his mind had been more-or-less settled with no trace of immediate panic. While Vulcans often lacked a rich imagination, he found he did not require one to accurately picture the captain's initial reaction at seeing him. Spock knew that feeling intimately; he had also seen his best friend's beaten, shattered body.
(Jim dangled heavily from his grip, body limp and lifeless.)
(Jim died in front of him again.)
Spock felt an icy wash of dread creep through his veins.
The captain didn't believe him. Jim didn't believe him.
Spock had never been a proficient liar. As a Vulcan, it was not a behavior he routinely or readily engaged in. Certainly never enough to become practiced at it. He preferred concrete, unbiased honesty. He had been confronted on more than one occasion about his propensity to state objective truth with little regard for how it would be received by his human crewmates. He had always responded to those criticisms the same way: by declining to be dishonest for the sake of someone's emotional response. Lying was considered a shameful, contemptable behavior to his people, and even the thought of giving voice to them left a sour taste in his mouth. It was dishonorable, and he never taken any pleasure in the act no matter how necessary it might have been in times past.
He had lied now, multiple times even, and he had done so for the sake of someone's emotional response.
Jim still didn't believe him, of course, and Spock knew he was right not to. The evidence was damning, especially taking into consideration that it did not even come close to covering the true extent of the damage the Seskille had caused him. Jim might not have understood the magnitude of it, but he knew something was wrong, that the answers did not fit the evidence, and that Spock was lying to him.
("What else would you expect from a simpering, devil eared freak—")
Spock's jaw clenched, teeth gritting. There was the taste of blood in his mouth and in his throat from his tongue, and it soured his stomach as he swallowed. The rising urge to vomit, or to hide, or—to his appalled disgust—to begin crying was nearly unbearable. He tried to go into his mind, to bury it down as he did everything else, but the sand in his vast, ravaged desert slipped through his grasp like water and spilled away from him. The emotional impulses were left baking in the heat of the sun, exposed and out of his control.
(This was not befitting a Vulcan. Yet apparently, he was not and could never truly be Vulcan. Spock hated himself in that moment. He hated himself.)
Some small part of him, a fragment, wanted to simply tell Jim the truth of the matter. To confess everything that had happened and deal with the resulting emotional fallout, whatever that might involve. And yet, the words would not emerge. He could not make himself say what Jim wanted to hear. Why could the captain not simply accept these answers? Why could he not stop prying? Jim did not understand what it was he was asking Spock—not really. He was asking for honesty in order to help, but what would happen instead, Spock knew, was that the captain would finally realize just how out of control his friend had truly become. All those ugly, shameful parts of himself that he kept concealed would be forced on display and, after the truth of them came out, the captain would not want him.
(You belong in the circus, Spock, not a starship!)
He tried to find a response that might, in even some small way, put an end to the questions. His voice failed twice when he went to speak, and he had to clear his throat.
"Captain… I…" Spock steadied himself as best he could, tensing his muscles to prevent himself from trembling. It hurt to do so; his body had not yet fully healed, and the pain was a sharp reminder. "—I'll admit to there being a certain degree of… discomfort. As you say, the headache was painful. However, it was also caused by my own failure to realize that the Seskille were attempting to speak to me. After I determined the source, I tried to communicate with them in a way they would understand. The physical display you witnessed was unfortunate and, although I have little memory of it, sir, I do not doubt it was upsetting to see. The intensity of the Collective was an overwhelming experience and observing their mindscape a uniquely disorienting one. It resulted in numerous reactions that likely appeared alarming from an outside perspective. Nevertheless, while the experience was uncomfortable to me, it does not fit with what you are implying. I can assure you that I consented to their presence in my mind, Jim; I gave my explicit permission for them to enter it, and the act of them doing so did not hurt me."
(It was painful, but only because it felt so good. There was the sensation of pure relief, like a cool compress against an injury, as he stopped resisting against them.)
(Assault had never felt so good
…)
What Spock said was not a lie. It was also not the truth. The captain appeared to know it too, but he only leaned in further. This time, his tone was frustrated.
"You looked a far cry from just uncomfortable! You looked like you were being tortured! You were screaming like you were being tortured!"
"Captain, they did not intend to do—"
"I don't care what they intended to do, Spock, I care about what they did! Intentions don't mean anything! You almost died because of them!"
Spock stiffened, muscles locking up, and that cold pit in his stomach seemed to consume him. There was the distinct choking feeling of suffocating, despite all evidence to the contrary. He forced himself to breathe in, and even managed to do so steadily, but it was as if a vice had been latched around his lungs, constricting tighter and tighter.
Intentions don't mean anything.
He had not intended to violate Jim's mind, but he had. He had not intended to violate Doctor McCoy's mind, but he had. He had not intended to lose control, to hurt Jim once, twice, or even three times over, but he had. He had not intended to murder his captain, but he—
(Jim died in front of him again.)
"Alright, that's enough," Doctor McCoy said to the ringing silence, his tone even and composed. He didn't look up from the PADD in his hands, as if both they and the conversation were a distraction to his work. "Jim, get out."
"What?" the captain asked, startled, as if he had forgotten McCoy was in the room. He would not have been the only one; Spock had as well. The lapse of awareness in his own surroundings was unacceptable. "Get out?"
"Yes. Get out." McCoy finally looked up, expression one of casual nonchalance. "Out of my sickbay," he clarified after a short pause, languidly cocking his head towards the sickbay doors. "As in now."
The gratitude he felt for Doctor McCoy in that moment was dizzying in its intensity. The captain appeared confused, eyes flicking between them as if Spock had somehow asked the doctor to intercede on his behalf without him catching it. The frustration in his expression began to fade, replaced swiftly by one of remorse as he realized exactly why he might be getting kicked out.
"Is this because—"
"It's because I said so, that's why. And because Spock needs to rest, and because you're upsetting him, and most of all, because I'm ordering you out."
Jim stood slowly, hesitant to actually follow the command despite McCoy's instructions superseding his own when it came to matters of medicine. He looked more than a little hurt. It was only a dent to his pride, no doubt, because Spock knew his captain well enough to know that he did have a substantial ego, but the sight of that visible pain in his eyes, no matter how small or minute, felt like a physical ache in his chest. Spock had not been the one to order his captain away, but he had wanted to do so more than once. The near-tangible relief he'd felt at McCoy's intervention turned sour.
The conversation was not over. This round of questioning had been put to a stop, certainly, but there would be more like it. He would no longer have the excuse of injury to fall back on to escape it, and McCoy would not be able to come to his rescue a second time. His orders only overrode the captain's while Spock remained his patient; once he left the safety of sickbay, there would be very little the doctor could do to prevent further discussion.
And… Jim still did not believe him. He knew his captain. He knew that Jim would only dwell on the matter; perpetuating and exacerbating it until he drove himself to obsession. Spock had achieved what he had most wished to avoid. His ineptitude in dishonesty had only validated the captain's worry that there was a problem, and worse, that it was one Spock did not wish him to know about. It was certain now that Jim would fixate on discovering a solution to whatever scenario he'd undoubtedly already catastrophized in his mind.
Spock could not allow the captain to leave under that impression.
"Jim," Spock began, attempting to keep his voice as blank as he hoped his expression was. The constricting sensation around his chest was making it difficult to speak; he felt as if each word were choking him. "I am not upset; Doctor McCoy is incorrect. As a Vulcan, such emotions are not—"
"—No, I know. It's okay, Spock. I should be getting to the bridge anyways, and he's right, you do need to rest. I'll come back later, alright? I'll even bring a chessboard with me," Jim said to him with a weak smile, as if he wasn't clearly reluctant to leave. He had rarely been denied sickbay access when it came to Spock, and it was undoubtedly an unnerving experience for him. If anything, Jim had always been encouraged to be at Spock's bedside as much as he could, especially as his presence was often what kept Spock in bed at all. "Don't think I've forgotten about your winning streak lately, Mr. Spock. I'll confess to it now: I'm going to take full advantage of your head injury to try to break it."
Spock did not smile back. He felt all at once both too tired and too agitated, a strange mixture of exhaustion and nervous energy. Jim wouldn't be able to stare at him anymore, or ask questions, or look at him with that fond, undeserved warmth. The relief was staggering, but it did not ease the tension he felt. He would have thought he'd relax more the further Jim moved away from him, but that was not the case. Instead, there was the painful sensation of something beginning to strain in him, as if it had been winding very, very tightly for some time and only now had become critical.
"Sounds like a real party." McCoy didn't smile either, but neither did he seem annoyed. He merely looked calm. "Now go away."
"I'm going, I'm going. Sleep well, Spock, I hope you feel better."
The instant the doors slid closed behind the captain, that stress in him finally snapped.
Something seemed to crack; a heaviness rupturing open inside his chest like a dam bursting. It flooded through him in an icy, freezing chill, washing out all the emotions he'd been shoving back during the conversation. They battered and slammed into every reach of his mind, jolting him. A great, ugly, desperate feeling swept over him in a wave, already beginning to drown him as he tried to surface from it—but it tumbled him, leaving him only breathless and spinning.
There was a sound in the air, one he could not place. Spock tried to focus on it through the sudden ringing in his ears, but found it was difficult to focus on anything but the sinking, plunging rush in his chest, his head, his limbs…
He'd been pulled away from himself; dragged out to sea and left adrift far from the shore. When had the room become so distant? Spock tried to blink, but blackness continued to tunnel his vision and closing his eyes only made it worse. There was the nauseating awareness of the room spinning. His chest hurt, as if his ribs had broken again. His ankle throbbed. His head felt split open, spilling out. Perhaps that was what was drowning him, because he could not breathe—
"Spock?"
Spock brought a hand up, pressing it firmly to where he knew his skull had been fractured. It must have done so again, as he could think of no other reason for why it might be hurting. He could not tell if there was blood; his fingers did not feel wet, but they also felt oddly numb. Not frozen, but like he had not moved them in some time and they had fallen asleep. Tingling, fuzzy jitters; static beneath his skin. He wished the feeling would stop. He wished everything would stop.
(This vague remnant of Spock tried to make it stop. It did not. He begged for the memory to stop, because there would be no coming back from this. Not this! Not after so many times over. It did not. He pleaded and screamed for it to end. Please end this! It did not.)
(Begging didn
't make any difference, he thought distantly. Begging was useless.)(They did not understand what begging was.)
A strange feeling pressed against him, and for a moment, he could not make any sense of it. But then the shock of coldcoldcold registered on the highly sensitive tip of his left ear. Spock jolted, flinching away from the chill with a shudder of discomfort. The freezing sensation on his skin was an unpleasant sting, but it was also one that his mind grasped at like a buoy on the sea. The room swam was back to him, or was it he that had somehow returned back in the room? Spock did not remember when he'd left it to begin with.
He stared blankly at the shapes of his legs beneath the blankets. They were moving, vibrating and twitching enough to be visible through the layers of fabric. No… not vibrating, shaking. He was shaking; faintly trembling from head to toe. The alarms of the panels above his bed were shrilling loudly, he realized, and they hurt to hear. It was only after the cold object chased his retreat and pressed against his ear again that they finally began to slow and then silence.
Spock blinked, looking up uncomprehendingly at the doctor.
"Back with me?"
"Doctor?" Spock asked, pulling his head away from the cold item—a small medical icepack. He looked at it, but he did not understand it. His head felt curiously… empty. Like it had been dealt a stunning blow and was simply slipping away from him. His surroundings felt disconnected and muted. He was not drowning any longer, but now was floating instead. He wished he would do neither; he wanted only to lay down and go back to sleep.
"There you are. Here, hold this for me." Doctor McCoy gently eased one of his hands away from his head and slipped the icepack into his palm. Gloved fingers—gloved, Spock noticed faintly; they were safe, no skin contact—wrapped securely around his own to keep the pack in his grip. His hands were still tingling, his own hold oddly slack; he'd have dropped it without McCoy's assistance. The cold crept into his skin, irritating the extremely delicate psionic points in his fingertips, but his mind was starting to catch up now, and Spock rather thought that might be the point of the icepack at all. A distraction. A grounding focus, just as his fingernails had been.
He… did not know what happened. There was a series of events that he could put in logical order, ones that had taken place over the span of mere moments, but the reality of them felt vague, as if he had watched them happen to someone else. It was unsettling; Spock had always prided himself on his perfect recall. It seemed that was somehow failing him as well but, of course, not towards what he would most like to forget.
"I didn't realize you were having anxiety attacks, Mr. Spock. See, that's the sort of thing you tell your doctor."
Spock raised a brow, exhausted.
"I do not have them. I was… merely contemplating." His fingers unclenched from his palms slowly, and it was only now that he became aware of the pain from the small cuts. The stiff, painful knot in his stomach unclenched itself slowly, like a serpent uncoiling from a protective ball.
"Spock," the doctor began calmly, still speaking in that neutral, professional voice, "you've been unresponsive for almost five minutes. The moment Jim left, you just stopped reacting and shut down; wouldn't talk or move or do anything." McCoy offered him a small, reassuring smile. "Don't worry; you didn't do anything too bad; nothing you'd call outwardly emotional. You just went all vacant, like you were asleep with your eyes open. The panels gave you away, though; your vitals went skyrocketing. Consider yourself lucky I didn't sedate you."
Spock said nothing, focusing his attention safely back on the covers. He felt drained; the distant, floating sensation starting to ebb the longer he held the icepack in his hands. His body was throbbing and aching, like it might have done after a fight (Humans were so fragile when compared to Vulcan strength). His head hurt. His throat was dry. His ribs felt like they were broken again, because it hurt to take a breath. Each one squeezed at his lungs. Spock knew, logically, that they were fine. That his head was fine, that his body was fine. Logically knowing that did not erase the pain, although it should have. Once, only days prior, he'd have been able to simply push it aside.
He immediately rejected the notion that he'd had an anxiety attack—he'd not had an attack of any kind, one motivated by anxiety or otherwise. While he knew he was a poor example of one, he was still a Vulcan; such an emotional extreme was not possible for him. There was nothing to be anxious about, in any case. The danger was gone, his mind was his own, and his body was mending acceptably. There was nothing wrong, and yet his heart was still pulsing so rapidly that hurt. His breathing still hitched with each inhale and wavered with each breath out. His body still trembled; a faint, almost unnoticeable shake from head to toe.
There was nothing wrong. Surely if he were inclined to such episodes, they would have occurred during those moments of great stress instead of days after. Yet something had happened. He had not felt like this before; not when he'd been on the planet, and not during previous times of uncertainty. He did not remember even feeling this way after he'd returned from Vulcan. Much of those first few days were a kind of a blur to his normally eidetic memory, but he could not recall his hands going numb; in fact, he distinctly remembered being intensely aware of his hands at all times, to the point of near distraction.
There was nothing wrong now.
Finally, Spock cleared his throat and offered the icepack back.
"I am fine, Doctor," Spock said. "I am simply fatigued. Clearly, I require further rest to return to optimal levels."
The doctor ignored him and, to Spock's increased discomfort, took a seat on the side of the bed, rather than returning to the chair he'd been occupying. He took the icepack, but he also captured Spock's hands in between his own—Spock tried to jerk them back, but McCoy held firm. Gloves, he remembered. The doctor's hands were gloved; safe. No skin-to-skin contact. The mild tremoring in his hands didn't seem to faze McCoy, but the cuts he discovered after turning them palm up most certainly did. The doctor tsked, reaching to the tray for an antiseptic swab.
"Eyes up here, Spock. I need you to listen to me," Doctor McCoy told him as he began to gently clean the injuries, his voice serious. It was as professional as Spock had ever heard him. He steeled himself and raised his eyes, meeting McCoy's own blue ones as stoically as he could. The doctor was frowning at him, but it wasn't one of his exaggerated expressions of irritation or outrage. No, it was a careful, inscrutable frown that Spock recalled seeing only a few times before—the last being during the later stages of his Pon Farr, before his friends knew what was wrong with him.
("Get your hands off of him, Spock!")
McCoy searched his face just as intently as Jim had, but he seemed to be looking for something entirely different. Whatever that was, he gave no indication whether he found it or not. He didn't seem disappointed, but neither did he seem relieved.
"Let me start by saying that I know you're not being honest, Spock. No—" the doctor raised a halting hand as Spock opened his mouth to protest the accusation. "—no, hold on and let me talk. I'm not interested in hearing excuses; I just want you to listen. I may not know why you're hiding it, or what your logic is for doing so, but I know you're not being honest with us. You know it, I know it, and Jim knows it too. Thing is, I'm not going to demand answers from you—not right now, at least. Maybe not even at all. You wanna know why that is?"
Spock only stared, but McCoy seem unfazed by the silence and only continued.
"It's because I respect you, Spock. If Jim's heartfelt pleading didn't do anything, I'm not likely to have better luck with my own. Whatever it is that you're keeping from us? At the end of the day, you'll either tell us or you won't. It's really that simple. You'll either trust us to help you through whatever it is, or you won't. Jim and I can't make that decision for you, and we probably can't do anything to change your mind about it either, no matter how many times we ask."
A strange warmth bloomed in his chest, even as the cold pit of his stomach continued to gnaw at him. The mix of sensations felt unpleasant, and he was not certain which to focus on more. Humiliation at being caught, relief at not being questioned about it, dismay at the conversation, or the low burst of affection for the doctor. It felt like whiplash to feel so much at once.
"And listen, I know I may not show it all the time—and I know we argue and bicker and fight, because you're goddamn aggravating and you make me wanna rip my hair out—but I do care, Spock. I'm here if you need to talk about anything, no matter what that anything might be. If you decide that you trust us, I'll be here to listen and help however I can. That's the only question I'm gonna ask, Spock: that you know you can come talk to me."
"That was not a question, Doctor," Spock said, and his voice sounded hoarse, as if his throat were being constricted.
Doctor McCoy's eyes narrowed at him, lips thinning immediately.
"See? Aggravating. Answer the non-question, then."
Spock looked at the doctor; at the kind, worried eyes watching him from behind a faux-irritated expression. It had never been a matter of trust that prevented him from speaking up about what had happened. Rather, it was not a matter of trusting Doctor McCoy or Jim; on the contrary, he trusted them far more than he trusted himself. They would be able to handle the knowledge, respond appropriately, and do their best to help him through it. Both the captain and doctor would do everything in their power to be there for him, because they were his friends. They cared about him.
And he had violated their minds.
(Jim had touched his hand, his fingers, and he had been in his captain's head, as seamlessly as slipping into a body of warm water.)
(Humans were so fragile when compared to Vulcan strength.)
(Intentions don't mean anything.)
"I am aware," Spock said at last, but he could no longer hold the man's gaze and let his eyes drift firmly towards the motion of antiseptic swabs on the stinging cuts in his palm. The blood had been cleaned away, revealing skin that was already green with bruising. The touch had been so delicate and gentle that he had scarcely noticed it, and for not the first time, he felt a simmering fondness. "Thank you, Doctor. You… are a good friend."
That appeared to make the doctor only more worried, rather than less.
"I know I am, and you just keep remembering that as I say this next bit," McCoy said dryly, giving Spock's hands a diligent final inspection. They had stopped shaking sometime during the process and now lay relaxed in his friend's firm grip. It was a relieving feeling. "I said I'm not going to harass you for answers, and I mean that—but at the same time, Spock, I'm not going to have a repeat of last time. I'm not going to watch you waste away right in front of me, understand? If it comes right down to it, I respect your life more than I respect your privacy. If this whatever starts to eat you up, I'm going to step in however I've got to, got it?"
That was… less relieving.
"I understand, Doctor."
Spock understood that he would have to get very, very good at pretending.
"Good," McCoy nodded decisively, and then shifted so he was sitting back in his chair. That, apparently, was that. Matter taken care of. "Now, I want you to get some sleep, Spock. You're clearly exhausted and you need some actual rest, not whatever you were doing before. And if you can manage it, your Vulcan Thing would do just fine right about now."
Spock raised a tired brow, the fatigue aching at him already. The return to normalcy with the doctor's sniping was soothing in a way he couldn't describe. The routine arguing had an oddly calming effect, and it was becoming difficult to keep his eyes open.
"… Vulcan thing?" he asked, tugging his hands away from McCoy's grasp and securing them once more beneath the covers. The doctor let him this time.
"Your thing—your weird Vulcan healing trance thing. Get to it, Commander, so I can get you out of my sickbay and make both our lives easier. I care about you, Spock, make no mistake about that—but I'm sick of seeing you."
Spock shifted to lay back in bed, allowing the exhaustion to finally take hold… before realizing that McCoy had no intentions on leaving his bedside.
"… You may return to your duties, Doctor."
"You are my duty. If you think for even a secondthat I'm going to leave you unattended to escape the minute my back is turned, you've got another thing coming. I'm gonna sit right here until you're knocked out, and then I'm going to have you under guard. And why aren't you asleep already? Shut up and close your eyes."
With an ache of limbs, Spock turned onto his side so that his back was facing the doctor. In truth, it was reassuring to have McCoy at his side. He trusted the doctor to be there, at least in a professional capacity, and he was the only medical professional that Spock could make that claim for. The doctor had been a constant presence in his life, for better or worse, since he'd accepted the Chief Medical Officer position. He was simply always there, and Spock had come to rely on that unwavering support more than he would ever admit aloud. Few things could truly ruffle McCoy to any significant degree. Despite all his barking and snarling, Spock had the occasional thought that the doctor was possibly the strongest of them all. Certainly, he was likely the most resilient; he had proven his ability to efficiently handle conditions that would make other men blanch, time and time again. There were few individuals, perhaps only one other, who he held in such high regard. When it came to any medical concerns, Spock could trust him to do his job to the highest possible standard, and there was a consistent, steady comfort in that.
But this was not strictly a medical problem. The ravaged, ripped, churned sands of his mental desert were not an issue that could be solved by way of bandage or hypospray. This wasn't something that the doctor, even with all his vast knowledge and skill, could heal for him. The problem wasn't medical, or physical, or even entirely mental. The problem was Spock.
(They were right about him: about his inability to control himself, his illogical reactions, his lack of worth, his weakness, all of it.)
Closing his eyes, Spock tried to let his mind drift. A healing trance should not have been difficult to slip into; he had been trained in the technique since childhood. It required concentration and patience to achieve, but it was more-or-less a simple process. He would split his mind into the various components of himself and control his body's response to injury. He could force his muscles to mend, his bones to knit together, and his blood to fight infection. He could repair damage at the cellular level, if he allowed enough focus.
But first, he had to meditate.
Centering himself, he plunged into the destruction of his mind.
There were not words to describe it. Overwhelming was the closest equivalency he could find. Horrifying was another.
How did one even begin to sort through the desolate, ravaged lands he found himself in? Even as he bent to lift a handful of sand, it spilled from his fingers like water. He could not bury anything in this unfamiliar place. The memories he'd already covered were burning in the heat, exposed and decaying on the cratered surface. Every emotion, every thought, every feeling—all of it bleaching by the sun overhead. Everything was out of order; he did not recognize it as his mind any longer. It was simply a foreign, war-torn land; just another barren and lifeless place that could not sustain habitation.
They had taken this from him too.
(He felt suffocated here, in this strange place between awareness and memory. He could not breathe. He did not have lungs. He did not have a body. He could not explain this feeling to them, because they did not have a word for it. They did not have words like he did.)
Whatever this place had once been, it could not be returned to that state. There was no rebuilding his old barriers because those walls had crumbled; now just as indistinguishable to him as the sand was. There was no longer any solid foundation from which to build up from. Each step felt precarious and pitted to him, as if he would stumble and fall with one mistake. He did not know how to fix this. He did not think it could be fixed.
The doctor wanted him to open up to them, but this was not a problem that could be solved. Jim could do nothing, although he would burn himself out trying. McCoy could do nothing, although he'd refuse to give up. They wanted his honesty, but honesty would solve nothing. It would fix nothing. It would do nothing. To be honest with them would only result in the display of just how unstable he was. Despite the common saying, pain shared was not, in fact, pain halved. It was just pain that had been needlessly spread to others who would have otherwise been spared it.
Spock could spare them it, and he would. There was nothing else he could do but that. There was no apologizing for the gross invasion of their minds by himself, and he certainly did not deserve their forgiveness. His only option was to do his best to prevent any further damage, both emotionally and mentally. He could do that much for them, little though it was.
He knew that he needed to salvage this; Jim was now on the scent, and he would not rest until he knew what was wrong. The pitiful attempt at lying had only made the situation worse, and so he knew better than to attempt it in the same way again. Jim could spin truth as he pleased, and he was good at it, but Spock had never taken to the practice in the same way. It felt vile to do so; a sick, sour, unpleasant kind of taste in his throat and on his tongue when he let lie after lie drip from his lips. He could not repeat the same miscalculation twice, or at least not in the same way.
No, he needed to get control of himself. That was, he thought, the only way to fix this. Without control, he would continue to spiral further away from himself.
Jim suspected him already; his questions had been pointed and specific. Objectively, what had happened to him was not terrible; he had merged with others before. The mother Horta that had terrorized the mines of Janus VI had been one such creature, and that meld had arguably been worse on him. She had been in a great deal of pain at the time, both physically from her wounds, and emotionally from the innumerable deaths of her children. He had managed it then, and he could manage this now. The only remarkable difference between the two scenarios was that the Seskille had been far more… personal in their approach. That was manageable too, if he could only divorce himself from the resulting mess of emotion.
It should have been easy to do so.
It was not.
He had to get control of himself. There was no other choice; he could not go on as he had been. He could not afford to display such unbefitting behavior. It was deplorable, shameful, and beneath him. Emotions such as these—fear, worry, panic, horror, guilt—would only swallow him down that little bit more. Shred those last fragments of self-control he still had until they all spilled out. (And Spock knew what happened when he lost control.)
He remembered the last time he'd allowed emotion to dictate his actions in such a way. He remembered the last time he'd been honest with Jim and Doctor McCoy about his emotions.
(Jim dangled heavily from his grip, body limp and lifeless, and everything in Spock froze.)
(
"Get your hands off of him, Spock!")
(Jim died in front of him again.)
Horror surged, and he fought to push it back, push it away.
Control.
Control, control, control.
Taking a deep breath, he sat on the burning sand. He could not fix this. The land was too damaged and too ravaged to repair. There was nothing he could do but try to pretend that it did not exist; that it did not hurt him to see it. He could not fix his mind, but he could fix his body, as McCoy had suggested. He could heal and then leave sickbay, return to the life he'd worked so hard to build for himself.
That life had James Kirk, it had Leonard McCoy, and he liked it. If Spock were inclined towards the emotional expression, he might have even said that he loved it. It was his home, the only one he'd ever truly found, and he would not allow anything to jeopardize that. He'd nearly lost it with previous actions, multiple of them, and there had to exist some kind of limit he was approaching, if not already toeing at. The captain's tolerance for disruption to his life could only extend so far, and Spock had crossed too many lines already. The mess on Vulcan was but one incident in a dangerously long line of them. That Jim had given him yet another chance had been more than he deserved, and Spock had the sinking feeling that he would be offered no further ones. He was pragmatic, his captain. It would only be logical; at some point, Jim would understand that his friendship with Spock caused too many problems and end it.
And… Spock did not think he could survive long without that friendship. He did not think he would want to.
(Live Long and Prosper, T'Pau had said to him. Spock had not intended to do either.)
He would heal his body, ignore the damage to his mind, and he would go on as normal. Jim deserved that much. He deserved to have a friend who was not a constant source of frustration. Jim was satisfied with their current status quo, as was Spock, and to ruin it was unthinkable.
Spock would simply have to get it together, as the human phrasing went. He would simply have to do better, by way of pretending or otherwise. He had done it before. He had done it as a child, acting as if the comments of his peers had no effect on him. He'd done so again after he'd joined Starfleet, when the culture shock had been almost unbearable and all he'd wanted to do was go back to a home he didn't have anymore. It had worked in the immediate aftermath of the mess on Vulcan, when Jim and McCoy had both proceeded as if nothing had happened, and that Spock hadn't just murdered his captain in cold blood. Spock had feigned normalcy then, and eventually life had returned to normal. He would do so again now.
Control.
Focus. Breathe…
Control.
Spock reached deep inside himself, and he dissolved.
He was made of his own nerves, his own blood, his own bone. His thoughts were neurons firing through his body, and he raced through himself alongside them. He tunneled through veins, through marrow, through arteries. He became every part of his physical form; saw and felt and was the injured, broken elements. He was not Spock any longer, but a series of bruises and tissues and cells.
The doctor had done well, one part of the whole thought. The healing was not complete, but it was as close as medical equipment could manage. Humans would be forced to finish the process slowly and over a lengthy period of time. But he was not human, he was many fragments of a Vulcan. One component of himself was his brain; swollen and inflamed from the injury. He focused on this part; of the part of him that was his skull, of the tissues there, of the blood vessels in the section of him that was the skin of his head.
All the elements of himself scattered to the injuries. He knitted them together, stitching each strand and merging them into one unbroken whole—
(It was blending together. Spock. The Seskille. It was all blending together, and he could not make sense of it any longer. There was no separation. No single entity.)
No…
The entirety of him jolted, and all the shards of himself flinched as if struck.
He could not breathe. He was his chest, but it would not draw air. He was his throat, his trachea, the lobes of his lungs, the expansion of his ribs, but they were suffocating. He could not fill them. Breathe, he needed to breathe…
Oxygen flooded him slowly, some fragments expanding as they inhaled, and the tight sensation slowly faded from the many parts of himself. Breathe. Control. Focus…
Control, control, control.
He was his skull, his brain, his blood vessels, his nerves. He moved through the physical form, pulling parts together and releasing the tension he found there. Bruising behind the parts of him that were his ears, easing the swelling from the parts of him that were his frontal lobe. He tugged and pulled and soothed and loosened the various mechanisms of the one known as Spock, allowing some to come together and others to drift further apart…
(This vague remnant of Spock tried to make it stop. It did not. He begged for the memory to stop, because there would be no coming back from this. Not this! Not after so many times over. It did not. He pleaded and screamed for it to end. Please end this! It did not.)
(Begging didn't make any difference, he thought distantly. Begging was useless.)
(They did not understand what begging was.)
All the innumerable splinters of himself froze—(body limp and lifeless, and everything in Spock froze)—and he became aware that he was Spock. He was Spock, but he was trapped. Trapped in his body, as he'd once been trapped in his mind. He battered at his conscious to wake up, but he could find no exit and he could not get out. The Seskille hadn't let him out either; he'd been unable to make them. They didn't have the words to understand what he'd been asking. They didn't know what words were.
Jim died in front of him again…
Something unpleasant, sick, and churning filled his gut, his chest, his throat; he didn't breathe, he didn't move, he just… stared. There was pressure in his eyes, vision blurring and stinging with the onset of tears, but he didn't cry—couldn't cry—he could only stand there and look and look and look and not truly see, not fully understand…
No!
No, he needed to calm down. Control. This was a trance. He'd gone into a healing trance, and this was normal. When submerging so deeply into his biological state, it was difficult to exit it without outside interference. It was part of the process; his body would show signs of it externally and he'd be woken up. This level of fear was unacceptable; he was exhibiting behavior that was beneath him…
(He felt suffocated here, in this strange place between awareness and memory. He could not breathe. He did not have lungs. He did not have a body. He could not explain this feeling to them, because they did not have a word for it. They did not have words like he did.)
(Was this what bacteria felt like when examined beneath a microscope? Did those infinitesimally small creatures, existing in a way so foreign to his own lived experience, feel as gutted and abused as he did now?)
Spock shoved hard at the confinement, feeling increasingly sick as he battered at the boundaries of his own mind, at his own body, to try to free himself. Logic was drowned by sheer panic. Trapped—he was trapped. He needed out. Please, he wanted to beg. Please…
But begging was useless.
They didn't understand what begging was. His—
—skin was cool to the touch, and his pulse remained consistent. Maybe a touch elevated, but that was to be expected with his level of injuries. There was no external sign of medical distress; nothing that would have set the alarms off, and they had only blared out for a few seconds. There didn't seem to be anything wrong, but it was best practice to keep a close eye on him anyways.
Mr. Spock looked noticeably better tonight; the bruising around his eyes and behind the slim points of his ears had faded. He held himself differently as he slept now, posture less tense than it had previously been. His expression, always so serious, looked peaceful, calm. It was nice to see him this relaxed; he usually carried himself with such a severe air about him and it had always made her feel a little intimidated. It was only in the small, undisturbed moments like this that he looked so carefree.
His vitals spiked again. She frowned, glancing between her patient and the panels above his bed. Perhaps not so undisturbed after all; that was the second time they had jumped like that, and she didn't like the look of it at all. The last thing they needed was another medical emergency; he'd gone through more than enough of them already.
She'd only heard bits and pieces of what had happened down there, but it was enough to put together a rough picture. She'd helped transfer the stretcher from the shuttle bay to medical, and even the memory still horrified her. Mr. Spock had looked dead. His skin had been so pale that it had taken on a purple hue rather than its usual hint of green. There'd been blood everywhere; so much so that she'd barely been able to see his face through it. And when she had, only years of training kept her hands in motion while the rest of her had gone still from shock. She had been able to see his brain through the matted, frozen strands of his hair. His brain!
She'd held off on crying until shift was over, but it had been a near thing. The surgery had been a success with M'Benga and McCoy leading it while she and Nurse Slater assisted. Livia hadn't taken it all that much better; they'd commiserated about it the next day. Livia had previously worked in the labs, and she liked Spock; all of the Science Department did, they practically idolized him! Seeing him like that had been terrible. The Enterprise had its fair share of gruesome injuries, but neither of them had seen many of this extreme. As morbid as the thought was, if any other crew member had suffered a head injury like that, it would have been an autopsy she assisted with, not a surgery.
For not the first time, she felt extremely thankful that Mr. Spock was the way he was. He'd be okay and thank god for that. It was… perhaps bittersweet that he was on the mend, although she'd never, ever admit such a thing aloud. She felt guilty for even thinking it. He'd be back on the bridge soon, and she wouldn't see him unless he stopped by to visit McCoy with the captain. This was likely her last few stolen minutes with him, and she was not upset about it so much as a bit wistful.
Spock's hand was cool against her own; no sign of frostbite left in the long fingers. It'd been a close call with that too; the severity had required extra attention to ensure that there were no complications. Vulcan hands were said to be extremely sensitive, weren't they? She couldn't imagine how much it had hurt to have them freeze like that…
The vitals spiked again, and she focused her attention on them with a narrow gaze. But before she could get a detailed readout, they suddenly skyrocketed with a blaring screeeeech that had her jumping from her chair and dropping Mr. Spock's hand to—
The connection shattered, and Spock slammed back into himself.
(The human mind was so exposed and fragile; it lacked any shield at all.)
He jolted awake to the screaming of alarms and rising stomach acid in his throat.
The room spun in a nauseating blur; colors and objects and textures all mixing and merging together in a confusing and dizzying display that he could not make sense of. His mind spiraled through a tangled mess of emotions and sights and sounds that he had not felt with his own body, seen with his own eyes, or heard with his own ears. There was a sound through the shrilling, as if someone was speaking to him. He couldn't understand them, not through the maelstrom of shock that writhed through him.
There was still the awful, suffocating sensation of between trapped in himself, but now it had combined with that cold, chilling realization that he hadn't truly been in himself at all. He had been fighting the trance, and then he had been at his bedside, holding his own hand, and he had not been him anymore.
"Mr. Spock, sir—!"
No. He couldn't do this. He couldn't…
That was enough.
Control. Breathe. Focus…
Enough.
He needed to get out.
A weight was pressing him down, and a voice was loud in his ears as it kept repeating the same thing, over and over again—(Again and again, they violated his mind, his memories, his control.)—but he could not make out what they were saying. Did he even have ears? If he did, did they even belong to him, or had he stolen those too? Was he himself anymore?
Trapped. He was trapped. Hands pressing against his body, hands pressing into his mind; he had nothing left, because they'd taken everything already. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't move; he was being pressed beneath the weight of it all. Of them. The Seskille…
(Yet he needed to make them understand that they had to stop—please stop this, I beg you—because this was killing him.)
(Begging didn't make any difference, he thought distantly. Begging was useless.)
Panic flooded him like a surge, rising so thick in his throat that it felt choking. The colors of sickbay were a haze around him… but he couldn't focus through them because he wasn't there anymore. He was in the mindscape, the Collective pinning him beneath their overwhelming presence and forcing their way into his head. Again, and again, and again. It hurt.
The hands holding against his shoulders to try to keep him down were useless (—when compared to Vulcan strength) and he was able to push them off easily. Spock lurched out of the bed and staggered to his feet in a tumble of blankets and uncoordinated limbs. At once, he could tell it had been a mistake to do so; the room was spinning so badly that he had to clench his eyes closed and breathe sharply through his nose to fight off the rising urge to vomit. The pressure in his mind was nearly blinding. He had to leave. He had to leave, because this room was too exposed, too open, and his shields could not block any unwanted entry. He had to leave, because he feared that if he didn't, he'd not be able to again. This was his chance; a way to get out. Get out…
Get out, get out, get out, he begged.
(Begging didn't make—)
The Seskille hadn't let him go before, and when the hands returned to try to move him back to bed, he was not surprised.
"Mr. Spock, please lay back down. You shouldn't be up yet," a female voice attempted to soothe him down, speaking in calm, reassuring tones. "It's alright, allow me to help. Please, just—"
He wanted to tell her—the voice speaking to him—that she shouldn't ask for anything. That asking for anything was useless, and that they didn't understand what those words even meant. He wanted to tell her that he'd already tried to plead his case, and it had done nothing. (There was no understanding to the words he'd tried, and there would be no further understanding to any words he would try.)
Someone attempted to catch, but Spock flinched away. He needed to leave. His head was too full and too empty at the same time, and he could not take the risk that someone would rush into it. The door. He could get to the door and then to his quarters. He could lock himself away there; barricade himself away until he could get control over himself. He shouldn't be seen like this. It was disgraceful, disgusting…
(Spock hated himself in that moment. He hated himself.)
He only made it a short distance until his strength flagged and failed. He'd been bedridden, injured, and his body had been weakened by the convalescence. His legs were unstable beneath his weight; he could feel them begin to crumple as he staggered and tried to catch himself against the wall. Just a few more feet to the door… but he could already tell he was not going to make it. His legs dragged and he stumbled over them. Gravity tugged down and he braced for impact.
He did not fall.
Strong arms snapped out and wrapped around him, and Spock was roughly pulled in against something solid. For a moment, just a flash of a second, he thought he was trapped again, and he tried to struggle against whatever had restrained him. No, no, he needed to leave. He needed to get out. But then the scent hit him, distinct and familiar—leather, books, aftershave—and his body sagged bonelessly into the embrace before his mind could even fully register it. He knew that scent, knew the heat that encircled him. He'd know this particular human anywhere…
"And just where do you think you're going, Commander?" said the warm, steady voice of his captain, only centimeters away from his ear.
As always, a massive thanks to those reading!
I debated heavily on exactly how to end this chapter, and it could have gone either way. I cut a fair chunk out rather than let it drag for another six thousand words. That being said, that means a great deal of the next chapter is written, so expect that up sooner than usual! From here on out, things will begin moving a bit faster. I'm extremely excited for what is to come! There are scenes I've had planned for years now, and writing them is going to be a blast.
Mentions of Janus VI and the Horta are from the amazing episode 'The Devil in the Dark', which is also among my top personal favorites. I reference it in my daily life more often than I should ("Paaaain! Suffering!"). Such a fun episode and I highly recommend you check it out. There's a fantastic scene where Spock, who has been determinedly attempting to convince Jim to keep the unknown creature alive, realizes Jim's in immediate danger from it. Then he becomes all business and suggests Jim kill it immediately. Go figure.
Vulcan:
K'oh-nar — The fear of emotional vulnerability and emotional exposure.
Trau'es — Honesty; the quality or condition of being honest; integrity; truthfulness; sincerity.