K'oh-nar Chapter 11: Wafaya, a startrek: the original series fanfic

— Chapter Eleven —
— Wafaya —

Jim dangled heavily from his grip, body limp and lifeless, and everything in Spock froze. Hypothermia had set in long ago, stiffening and numbing his limbs. Still, he did not relinquish his grip on the captain. He did not think his hands could move enough to release it, and he also found that he did not want to. Holding tight to him was all he could offer now, worthless though it was.

Joy. Pure, satisfied joy. Be part of the collective, burning one. Happiness and peace; it was not a death but a celebration! No sense of loss but of creation. Whole and part of many. Create and be created. Share and be shared with!

The captain had gone slack, his eyes half-lidded and empty of the vibrant spark that usually lit them. A strange expression had frozen on his face; something between horror and happiness. This expression would stay there, frozen in place and never crossing into one or the other. Red smudged beneath his nose, no longer bleeding but still wet, and Spock wiped it away gently. It didn't matter, because Jim wouldn't notice. Jim wasn't there anymore; he had already gone.

"Captain," Spock tried, watching the sporadic rise and fall of Jim's chest. It was shallow, labored. It would fade out over time, slowly but surely, and then it would stop. "Jim, come back." There was no answer, as he'd known there wouldn't be.

Spock had nothing left now; they had taken everything. His mind, his control, his captain. Jim had become part of the collective, and he had left his body behind like a shell. An empty, lifeless husk that just waited to die.

No sense of loss, only joy! Only happiness and creation.

"Please give him back," Spock told the Seskille. Begging. It was useless to beg, a lesson he knew well. He'd tried repeatedly, over and over again, and it hadn't made any difference then, just as it would not now. The Seskille didn't know what begging was. The captain had begged and pleaded not to be taken, to be left alone, and they had stolen him anyways, as they had stolen everything else.

The captain's chest slowed and then it stopped.

Spock sat there in the freezing stone room, abandoned on the lifeless planet, and watched as Jim died in front of him again.

"—est in my quarters, Bones. I'm not worried about it."

"Well that's just great, Jim, 'cause I'm worried about it. Your shoulder was partially dislocated, and you damn near froze to death. Hell, you were so cold when you got up here that you couldn't even form a sentence. So no, Captain. You'll get out of that bed when I say you can get out, and not a second sooner."

"Alright, alright, I get it. I'll stay put."

"I wouldn't have even let you go back down to that hellhole except that I was afraid you'd do something stupid trying to follow us. I thought to myself 'Leonard, you can at least keep an eye on him this way', but then you go on rushing ahead like the devil is chasing you and completely undo everything anyways. I don't even know why I bother anymore."

"I said I get it, Bones. I'm not going to move an inch. You sure you're alright?"

"Just fine, but you know something? I'd be a lot more fine if you two could stop trying to send me to an early grave. I swear, I don't know what's more exhausting—watching you both try some kind of asinine, life-threatening stunt, or keeping you still long enough to patch you up after you somehow manage to pull it off."

"Here… take a seat; you look like you're about to fall over."

"Yeah, that's what being up for thirty-six hours will do to a man, not that I'll get any appreciation for it, mind you. I guarantee that when this one wakes up, he'll try the same nonsense you just did, as if he didn't have my hands in his guts not two hours ago."

"The surgery was successful, though? No issues?"

"I told you he'd survive it, Jim, and he did. Not for lack of trying, though; his Vulcan insides are all shifted around compared to a human, and finding my way through that mess wasn't exactly easy. Spock's not healed yet, and he won't be any time soon, but he's a damn sight better than he was. His abdomen is all fixed up, his ribs and ankle are knitted back together, and the frostbite and hypothermia are being treated."

"And his head?"

"Well, that's a bit more complicated. Physically? It's on the mend, but I'm not gonna lie, captain, it was bad."

"I thought I saw—it looked like there was… bone."

"There was. When I say bad, I'm underselling it. His head was fractured in two places; one side was split completely open and pieces of his skull got depressed into his brain. That Spock was even awake, let alone coherent enough to talk, is nothing short of a miracle. That kind of traumatic injury would have caused permanent brain damage to any one of us, and that's the best-case scenario. My opinion? If he weren't a Vulcan, Jim, he'd have died from that fall, no question about it. As it was, he came close to it. Damn close."

Voices.

Murmured, disjointed voices washed over him, and Spock became steadily aware of the individual words. It was a sluggish, weighted process that left him exhausted. The voices were familiar to him; one smooth and deep and the other gruff and rumbled. He knew those voices, recognized them just as he would his own, and some tense feeling in him eased upon hearing them. They felt like ice on a wound, relieving and numbing to his mind, and he basked in the steady, calming noise of his friends surrounding him. This reality was acceptable; this was good. It felt comfortable to stay there, drifting in a fog of peace and solitude. No dreams, no nightmares, no anything. It was tranquil where he was, and some part of him knew that tranquility was something he'd had very little of lately.

Spock lacked the ability to focus on the conversation for long; the context was impossible to determine, and he couldn't find enough energy to piece it together. He didn't think he wanted to understand what they were saying, because he knew, on some level, that doing so would shatter that calm he floated in. But he didn't need to understand what they were saying to listen to them saying it, and each word was relaxing that unsettling clench in him.

Those voices meant warmth. They meant home. They meant that he was on the Enterprise, and that he was safe. Jim was there, and so was Doctor McCoy; he could allow himself to sleep without any further concern because they were at his side.

But even as he floated there, suspended in a kind of lull, thoughts began to manifest. A sense of disquiet that slowly erased the calm serenity of his previous state. Unease crept in like a toxin, injecting into the quiet around him. A question formed in his mind. It was a question he didn't want to ask, because he knew—he knew—he did not want the answer. Spock was aware, without fully knowing how, that if he asked that question and if he knew that resulting answer, he would have to confront the horrors that came with it. While he did not know—did not want to know—what those horrors were, he knew with certainty that he was not ready to face them.

He would have to wake up eventually. He could not sleep forever (Live Long and Prosper, T'Pau had said to him. Spock had not intended to do either.) and he had already been sleeping too long as it was. It would be of no further physical benefit to remain in this state; his nightmares continued to haunt him, and they offered him no rest from the horrors they manufactured. But they were, in some small way, preferable in that they were manufactured. Reality brought no such relief.

No. No, he could stay here longer, questions unasked, answers unknown, and remain in this blissful, peaceful darkness. That calm, suspended state between waking and sleeping.

… But he did not stay there.

There was something wrong.

It began as an itch. A prickling sensation at the very corner of his mind; something scratching just slightly at the fringe of that tranquility. He did his best to ignore it, to shove it away, but it persistently continued to claw at him. It was a feeling, an emotion. One that informed him that there was something terribly wrong with what was happening to him—and with what had happened to him. That itch began to sting, and then it began to throb. A pain Spock could not find the source of raced through his mind, jolting and spiking so deeply that he could not evade it.

He felt gutted. He felt happiness…

The darkness gave way to blinding, glaring bright, and it took many moments before Spock could understand what he was looking at. A desert.

His desert.

An endless sea of sand was a visualization he used in meditation; one that often brought him great comfort. The undesirable or intrusive emotions and experiences of the day could be safely buried deep beneath bright, smooth dunes. The sand would swallow and suppress them, rendering them ineffective to his mind, and he would continue on uninhibited by unwanted feelings. The vast horizons of his consciousness were as familiar a sight to him now as his own reflection; it was here that he buried the inconvenient truths of himself. Not destroyed, but instead made to be harmless. Controlled. This was a place of calm, of peace, of logic. It was a sea of dunes that were as consistent and ordered as its creator.

That… was not what he saw now.

Something was wrong.

His desert was destroyed—no, it was desecrated. The dunes were churned and spilt, the ground dug open and pitted and hollowed out as if something had gone through the landscape and uprooted the entirety of it. All those thoughts and emotions that had been so neatly organized away were now baking in the air; exposed like a raw nerve to the elements. And above him, the sky was burning.

Burning fire in his blood, pouring through him like acid…

Whispers reached out for him, like claws digging into his head, and found he couldn't breathe. He couldn't talk, or move, or scream, because he didn't have a body anymore. He had abandoned his physical form to rot on that dead, frozen planet, and he'd become part of the collective. It was his happiness…

(Jim died in front of him again.)

He pinned the captain against the bulkhead, and he could see the captain's skin purple from where he dug his fingers in. The choking, gasping sounds were weakening, fingernails clawing ineffectively at his arms and wrist. It would not take long until he stopped struggling; Jim would dangle heavily from his grip, body limp and lifeless.

Humans were so fragile when compared to Vulcan strength.

Spock idly wondered if he should put into action his previous plans. They'd no longer been needed, because Jim was alive. The captain was alive. No, the captain was dead, and it was his fault. His fault, because he had lost control, and Spock knew what happened when he lost control. Yes, those plans would be required after all. Animals that went rabid were often required to be put down…

He hoped that McCoy didn't grieve him. How did you grieve a friend who had not truly died?

Jim died in front of him again. The sand of his desert spilled and warped that little bit more.

"Shh, Spock. It's okay, you're safe..."

"He having another one?"

"You're supposed to be asleep."

"Look who's talking. So are you."

"I got a few hours, which is probably more than I can say for you. Were you sleeping in your office just now? Bones… you need to get some actual sleep at some point. I don't want to make it an order, but I will if I have to."

"His vitals keep spiking and it sets off all the alarms; I couldn't sleep through that racket if I tried to. Don't look at me like that, skipping a night here and there isn't going to kill me. You wanna see true sleep deprivation? Try Starfleet Medical Academy; that'll make this seem like a damn cakewalk. Someone needed to keep an eye on him through the night, and I was up already going through the quarterlies. M'Benga'll relieve me for alpha shift and I'll get a nap in then, Captain."

"I'll hold you to it, Doctor. I can't have you start collapsing on me, or I'll be down two chief officers. Not having Spock is hard enough. Bones, be honest… is he alright? He keeps thrashing."

"I don't know what to tell you, Jim. If you want, I can tell you that Spock's gonna heal up just fine physically; that it was bad, but it wasn't anything I couldn't treat. Honestly, it's not the physical part that's got me worried. The Vulcan brain is anatomically complicated enough already, but when you get into the whole mental and telepathic thing… Jim, I just don't know. It's not something us humans can really get, or at least not enough to properly evaluate and diagnose a problem with it. All I can say is that, by my estimation, he should have woken up by now."

"I thought a healing trance usually kept him pretty far under?"

"Usually does, but he's not in a healing trance; this is just regular ol' sleep. He's not gone into one since we got him back, and hell if I know why. Spock's used that Vulcan witchcraft for a lot less, and if there were ever a time for pulling that kind of alien trick, now would be it. It's concerning me that he isn't."

Voices.

Spock recognized them, hearing the sounds register in ears he was only distantly aware of having. The tones were familiar; the voices echoing around in his mind. What was not familiar to him, not any longer, was the mind they echoed in.

Ravaged.

Something was wrong. This terrain, a land that contained the very depth of himself, had been torn through carelessly.

It had once been ordered, logical, neat. Now, it was jumbled, tossed around, ripped at. Unburied, dug, and ruined, to the point where he recognized nothing of it. The dunes had been flattened or hollowed out, the ground churned apart and blasted. It was as if it had become a battle ground; sullied and dismantled. It had been ruined beyond any identification or understanding, and he could make little sense of the resulting chaos. He would not be able to find order here. He would not be able to find anything at all.

Something had gone through his head, he realized. Something had been here, tearing through it with reckless, violent abandon. No, not something… someone.

Someone had been here.

There was a name lurking in the fringe of his thoughts. An awareness of what—of who—had done this to him.

Spock stared at the remains of his decimated mind and desperately tried not to think of it. No. No. Please stop. Please, he couldn't stand the thought of it…

But begging was useless.

They did not understand what begging was.

(He had begged and pleaded. It hadn't worked and trying to make it stop only served to worsen the pain. Pain to the point of wanting to die. He couldn't take it. He couldn't stand it. He had given in, surrendered, and the pain had ended. Assault had never felt so good…)

He let out a sigh. One hand rubbed tiredly at the bridge of his nose, and the other gripped gently onto long, thin fingers.

Looking down at Spock, one wouldn't have known what happened two days prior. Sure, he was a little too pale, and dark bruising mottled the skin around his eyes and ears, but he actually looked alive now. No longer curled up in a tight ball to protect himself from the cold, no longer bleeding out or seizing on frozen rock. Save for the remnants of healing injuries, he just looked like Spock, serene and quiet as he slept. It was good to see him actually resting, for all that the act of it still worried him. He should have woken up by now, and it was deeply concerning that he hadn't.

At least Spock seemed calm. For most of the night, he'd been thrashing around in bed or mumbling to himself incoherently, and it had been nerve-wracking trying to keep him from hurting himself. All efforts to wake him up had failed, but his fits had finally ended a few hours prior and thankfully hadn't started back up. Neither Bones nor himself had been able to do much for him, or even determine the exact cause. At best guess, they were from nightmares, but none of them could be sure of it. He didn't like not having solid answers when it came to Spock.

And… he realized that he hadn't ever thought to ask Spock what he usually dreamt of, or if he even could dream. It had never come up in conversation before, and the thought was shameful. How could he claim to be his best friend and not know something like that? How many times had he gone on and on about his own nonsense dreams over a game of chess? That he'd not once thought to ask Spock about his own was unacceptable. He would do better, he vowed.

Spock's hand in his own was slack, but it was comfortable to hold now. He recalled how cold the Vulcan had been; how cradling those hands in his own felt like cupping ice. The fingers had been purple from the temperature, and he'd had the worst fear that moving them too suddenly would snap them off like icicles. They were back to normal in his grip; he examined the differences between them idly, marveling at the contrast of Spock's olive skin against his own tan. The skin was cool—cooler than human body temperature—but that was normal for Spock.

Some part of him had always found that odd. He was used to it by now, but he remembered it had been startling to find out that Spock ran colder than humans did. It just… didn't seem fitting. Everything about Spock always felt so warm to him; gentle, calming, kind. It was present in the soft brown of his eyes and the private not-smile he wore when being teased. There was nothing—not a single thing—about Spock that had ever seemed cold to him. Other Vulcans, sure; he hardly associated warmth or tenderness with the likes of the woman T'Pring or her beau, what's-his-name. The one with the stinkface. Stan? Stonk?

He'd described him as such to Spock once, using those and other colorfully insulting names. In turn, he had been delightfully and memorably treated to the very subtle, nearly unnoticeable spasm of Spock choking on his tea.

The boatswain whistle pierced the air.

"Bridge to Captain Kirk."

Reluctantly, he stood to respond and let go of Spock's hand—

Spock slept, but not well, and not deeply. There was something terribly wrong.

His dreams, distorted and jumbled though they were, held a sickeningly slimy feel to them, as if his mind had been moving through oil. He felt uncomfortable in his own head and there was the very distinct sensation of invasion. Of something creeping and lurking where it did not belong. Invasion, his mind screamed; violation. He could not tell where it was coming from; he did not think he was being intruded on. He thought he would immediately recognize it if he were.

The vandalized state of his mental desert suggested that Spock knew the feeling, and that he knew it both intimately and painfully.

There was something wrong. That crawling, ill sensation only grew the longer he dwelled on it, and so he tried not to. He tried to pretend that his dreams were merely that. That they were only dreams, and that the foreign, sick awareness in him, like a pit opening up, was nothing more than a logical reaction to the distressing state of his psyche.

(Again and again, they violated his mind, his memories, his control.)

He tried to go back to sleep, his mind recoiling from the feeling of intrusion as if it had been struck, bludgeoned. Intrusion. Invasion, Violation. The feeling was paralyzing; the very core of himself reeling and frantic. This was wrong. A dream, Spock told himself. It had been only a dream, just as all the others had been. He tried to convince himself of it; the illusion was his last defense, and he could not give that up. Everything had been taken already, and begging for relief, for mercy, for it to stop, would be useless.

They did not understand those words, or what words even were.

(They forced him to feel. The confusion, the grief, the horror, the nervousness, the pleasure, the tenderness, the amusement. All of the emotions from all of those moments, stacked together and crammed against him violently. He could not block them out. He could not suppress them beneath his sea of sand. He could only sit there and take it.)

Again, and again, and again…

(Jim died in fro—)

No. No, he did not want to know. He did not want to think of it. Not the name, not what had happened, not the feeling of being violated, or of being rushed into, or of being so very out of control. He couldn't do this; he couldn't think about it…

A dream.

Just a dream.

He scowled at the PADD in his lap. Paperwork. Massive amounts of paperwork. Not only that, there was paperwork about the paperwork; about each individual bruise, scrape, cut, and burn that had taken place this past quarter. It would justify what supplies he needed to order, but it always felt like a slap to the face to see all those figures laid out like this.

They were… doing better than usual, at least. There had been less fatalities, which he couldn't really attribute to anything short of pure luck, because it wasn't like their missions had gotten any easier. The total number of injuries had decreased—which was good—but the number of critical cases had gotten worse—which wasn't.

He glanced at his patient. Case in point.

Between Spock and Jim, it was little wonder the severity had skyrocketed. They were apparently doing their damned best to compete for the gold medal in the worst injuries competition, because he could think of no other explanation for the stupid stunts they frequently pulled. Not that, he amended with a guilty glance, Spock had really done anything to put himself into this position. Falling off a mountain was frankly absurd, but it had been purely accidental. At least he hadn't tried some ridiculous half-cocked rescue mission at the expense of his own hide, unlike someone else had.

The Vulcan was still asleep, he noted… and only asleep. Not in a healing trance, not pulling some kind of alien magic or regenerative ability out of his sleeve, but just… asleep. The sight of it annoyed him something terrible. In fact, it downright pissed him off, because he'd been banking on that healing trance to speed things up. That it wasn't happening was nothing short of concerning, and it made him fear some kind of brain damage. The vitals didn't support it, but the Vulcan brain was far more complicated than the human one, and he didn't have the knowledge to be certain either way… and that irritated him even more.

Out of all his patients—hell, out of all the crew—Spock was the one he worried about the most.

He'd never admit it aloud and would flat-out deny it if anyone accused him, but it was true. There was something about Spock that set his every internal alarm off; something that made him sit up and watch the Vulcan that little bit closer. Oh, he worried about Jim too, but he could trust Jim to know his own limits—push them to the brink of stupidity, sure, but he knew them. If Spock even knew his limits at all, he had no issue regularly exceeding or ignoring them at his convenience. Worse, he seemed to sabotage them entirely when it came to his own wellbeing and safety, particularly if Jim was involved. He still hadn't forgotten about that disaster on Vulcan, or how Spock had been more willing to die than open up to them on any kind of personal level. Ever since that mess, he'd been keeping vigilant. Rightfully so, it seemed, 'cause Spock had been raising a lot of red flags, and he didn't like the look of them one bit.

He could feel a scowl forming. This wasn't professional; he couldn't be biased when it came to those in his care, but he was only human, and this was one of his closest friends, so sue him. He'd come to rely on Spock's ability to bounce back quickly, and with more than a few pointed, arrogant, contemptuous comments about medical malpractice. He wasn't doing it this time. He wasn't doing anything, and damn him for choosing now of all times to be unpredictable. They'd come too close to losing him, and he couldn't help but run a mental list of each and every way that could have happened.

If his third vertebrosternal rib had shifted even a half-inch to the left, Spock would have punctured a lung. If his skull had been bumped even slightly in the same spot as the worst fracture, the bone would have penetrated into his brain. Those tricorder pieces, which had already cut deeply into his large intestine, had also gotten dangerously close to his liver. They'd have shredded it to ribbons.

He'd patched Spock up as best he could, because that's just what he did, but damn if he didn't wish he could have done more for the Vulcan. He knew he'd formed something of a trio with Spock and Jim. Together, it felt like they were an indestructible team, but knock one of 'em down, and it felt like a gut punch. It made 'em all act off. Spock was unconscious and hurt, Jim kept wandering in at all hours, upset and looking like a kicked dog, and here he was, sitting here and holding the Vulcan's hand like a complete sap. Spock wouldn't ever let him live it down if he found out; he'd mock him about it, endlessly and relentlessly.

He moved the limp hand back to the bed, patting it once before resting it gently at Spock's side—

That slimy, gutting feeling of invasion worsened.

Spock did not understand; his mental landscape was barren, empty, and he was alone. There was only himself in his mind, shredded and fragmented though it was. He was not being invaded. He was not being attacked. There was no one else here, yet the alarms were blaring like a klaxon in his mind.

Violation, they shrilled in warning. Assault.

Memories began to form. Screaming. Begging. Pleading. Spock pushed them away desperately; tried to shove them beneath the ravaged dunes. The sand spilled away from him. There were too many holes, and he couldn't find one that had not already been desecrated. The memories would not fade, and they only began to throb and pierce and twist at him. Spock did not know how to make it end…

(The pain was gone, and surrender had never felt so good...)

Spock did not want to think of them right now; he did not want to remember them. He couldn't, because then he knew he would wake up and the reality he'd find would be far, far worse than dreams ever could be. It would be real. It would be his new truth, and… Spock was afraid—no, he was terrified of what that truth might demand from him. He didn't want to think of anything, he didn't want to know anything.

He only wanted to sleep and avoid it for that little bit longer.

But awareness slithered in anyways, and Spock slowly noticed the stiff texture of sheets beneath his fingertips. He heard the low, pulsing thrum of the body function panel monitoring him. There were voices. He didn't open his eyes, although he thought he could have if he tried.

Spock did not try.

"He just looked awful."

"Awful, like in pain?"

"No—I mean, yes, he'd told me he had a migraine, and it was definitely a bad one; he could barely walk. But his expression just went… I don't know how to describe it."

"You don't have to if it's gonna make you upset."

"I'm not upset. And anyways, you didn't see him or you'd be upset too. The way he looked at me… his eyes. They were just… I don't know how to describe it, Bones. I don't even know if I can. They were just... destroyed. I've never seen him look at me like that before."

"And then he went over?"

"I tried to grab him, but he just kept moving away. I slipped—that's how my shoulder got knocked—and by the time I got back up, he was already falling. I couldn't get to him in time."

"Slipped, huh?"

"Yes. I slipped on the ice. It was snowing. There was quite a lot of it."

"Uh-huh."

"Bones, don't."

"What? I'm not gonna rake him over the coals for it, Jim. Not after I just stitched him back up. Am I thrilled? No, not at all, but I'm also sure he'll punish himself plenty enough for the both of us, and I'm not gonna support his ongoing habit of self-flagellation. All I care about right now is that you're alright, he's going to be alright, and I'm alright—and thanks for asking, by the way."

"Are you alright, Doctor McCoy?"

"No. Now get out of my sickbay, Captain Kirk, and go bother someone else. I'll let you know if anything changes."

Spock recognized those voices. He recognized Jim's voice. The captain sounded distressed; his voice always took on a particularly tight quality when he became upset, and it was noticeable now. It was alarming, so much so that Spock began to crawl through his broken mindscape towards awareness. He couldn't understand the words themselves; they were distorted and nebulous and did not fully make sense to him. However, the tone was unmistakable and he tried to pay attention to it; tried to understand it.

(There was no understanding to the words he'd tried, and there would be no further understanding to any words he would try.)

The captain was worried; anxious. Spock needed to… he needed to focus on it. He needed to fix it. It was his job, his responsibility, his mission. Jim had been and always would be his first priority; there was nothing else more imperative or more crucial to him than his captain's wellbeing. And right now, his captain was upset. That was unacceptable.

The distress he heard felt like a physical ache. Jim was dissatisfied and Spock did not know what to do to ease it. With increasing awareness came the unfortunate realization that he was liable to be the cause of the problem; that Jim was unhappy about the circumstances surrounding his continued state. The solution to that was simple: Spock could wake up. He could open his eyes and the matter would be handled. Logical. Ordered. Easy.

He wanted to do it. He tried to do it. But his mind pulled away from the act of waking as if burnt—reeling, horrified, and stunned—and he did not open his eyes. He failed to grasp why such an action seemed so beyond his ability. Confronting the reason for that felt… ill-advised.

Spock tried to convince himself that it was safe to go back to sleep; that he could rest knowing that the doctor was watching over them both. McCoy would take care of Jim; the captain's welfare seemed to be his personal mission too. It was one of the few areas of commonality they shared and what had allianced them together in the first place. He trusted the doctor implicitly and without hesitation; held him in the highest esteem. The doctor would keep careful, vigilant watch.

He could fade back into his haunting, confusing fog of dreams and pretend that his world consisted of nothing but darkness and fantasy. He could pretend that nothing had happened at all, and that when he finally did open his eyes, those nightmares would be over and he could go on as normal. Because he suspected—and that question that he did not want to ask began to form despite his best efforts to suppress it—that his new normal would be significantly different than it had once been.

For a while, he slept again.

He dreamed of his body rotting beneath him, turning to dust and snow and wind while his mind was taken over and brutalized far, far away from it all. He screamed in his nightmares, and he begged, but no one understood what he was saying. And after a point, neither did he. He did not understand what begging was, and it was his happiness to wither away into nothing…

When he found himself waking up, he tried desperately to fade away back into the relief of unconsciousness; to wander and lose himself in his vast, upturned desert for a little bit longer.

However, this time Spock could not fall back to sleep.

The low, murmured voices reached him and lulled him into that strange, floating state between awareness and oblivion. Already, feeling was starting to return to him; Spock could feel his body, heavy and exhausted and sore. He could feel the weight of the blankets over him. He could feel the scratching fabric of the sickbay scrubs. He could hear the low, thrumming pulse of the body function panel monitoring him. He could feel the soreness of his throat when he swallowed; how dry and raw it was. He could smell the sterile, medicinal air so distinct to sickbay.

He didn't open his eyes, not quite ready to alert those around him to his present waking state. He first needed to understand his circumstances before he could make a rational decision on how to approach them. Once it was established that he was conscious, he suspected that things would move quite quickly and allow very little time for preparation.

Spock could hear the conversation and this time, he could tell what it was they were saying.

"—actly fit for an interrogation right now," the familiar and welcome voice of his captain said. Spock took quick notice that the timbre of his voice was taut and held a peculiar antagonistic quality, as if sporting for a fight. It raised flags immediately, perking his attention even as the act of focusing made his head begin to ache.

"I'm not suggesting that he is, James. I'm perfectly aware that he's not been well. I merely came to pay my respects and check in on him, just to see how his condition is coming along."

That voice was also familiar, but considerably less welcome. Ambassador Hammett was in the room as well, if not at his direct bedside. His decision to feign sleep had proven wise.

"His condition, Roger, is that his head's been smashed open. Twice. Clearly, he's not ready for questioning any time soon. He almost died down there, and if he needs to sleep it off for a few days or even a few weeks then that's what he'll get."

"I'm aware he's a personal friend of yours, but there's no need to sound so hostile, captain. I wasn't exactly planning to shake the Vulcan awake and demand answers! I'm not a monster, I do actually have a heart. What happened to Commander Spock was very serious indeed, and I wish him all the best in his recovery, I really do. However, like it or not, I'm not the only one who has questions. Starfleet's been breathing down my neck, which means I'm under pressure to breathe down yours. I don't like it either and if it were up to me—"

"Well it's a damn good thing that it isn't up to you, isn't it! It isn't up to anyone of you, whether that be Starfleet Command, the President of the Federation, or God himself!" an entirely new voice snarled out, ill-tempered and assertive. "As Chief Medical Officer, all matters regarding Commander Spock's health are up to my judgement, and mine only. And I'll tell you the same exact thing I told the crew, the captain, the admiralty, and everyone else who's had the gall to try to tell me when and how to do my job! My patient is unconscious after a critical injury, and I'm not going to prematurely wake him up for your convenience, no matter who is breathing on who. He'll wake when he wakes, and not a second sooner."

The suddenness of Doctor McCoy's intrusion into the conversation suggested he'd just burst from his office, and the rapid, stomping approach of footsteps towards Spock's bedside furthered the notion. When he spoke next, it was directly beside the bed. There was a soft pressure on his shoulder where the doctor laid a gentle, protective hand. The warm and reassuring nature of the touch eased an apprehension in Spock that he hadn't realized had started forming at the raised voices.

"Now see here—"

"No, you see! You keep bumbling on in here like I'm gonna give you a different answer! Well, I'm not. You might have authority to overstep anywhere else, but in this room, I'm in charge! If you don't like that, tough. Come back here with a medical degree, and you can badger me with all the nonsense you like, but until that time, your questions are just going to have to wait 'till I'm good and ready to decide he's fit enough to answer them."

There was a ringing silence in the room for a long, tense moment.

"I see. Please keep me apprised of Commander Spock condition and inform me if wakes up. I'm not the only one interested in knowing exactly what happened down there. Captain, doctor, good day."

There was the faint sound of hurriedly retreating steps and the door sliding open. It wasn't the ambient noise of the hallway that he heard, but the unflappable, melodic voice of Nurse Chapel. She sounded markedly smug.

"The door is over there, Ambassador."

If Hammett responded, Spock didn't catch it. The door slid closed behind him.

The hand on his shoulder had tightened throughout the confrontation possessively but not painfully, and the firm support was admittedly of immense comfort. Spock had never felt quite so grateful for the doctor's overbearing nature as he did in this moment. There existed very few better lines of defense than the blistering fury of Leonard McCoy in a true rage and, while he'd always considered the reaction to be unnecessarily emotional and melodramatic in the past, he discovered he might have to reevaluate his opinion now that it had been applied on his behalf.

"… If he wakes up—as if I'm some fumbling intern who doesn't know what the hell I'm doing." There was an audible snort of disdain, and McCoy had never sounded as indignant as he did now. "I swear, that man does his damned best to get right up under my skin, Jim. It's like he tailors each word that comes outta his mouth to piss me off. If he wakes up—of all the stupid things..."

"He's certainly a piece of work," the captain responded, and there was the low creak of a chair beside Spock. He hadn't realized that the captain was also so close. "I'm beginning to think that Scotty had the right idea after all. What I wouldn't give sometimes to just—"

Spock did not see what motion it was that Jim made, but it was not difficult to surmise that he was throttling the air.

(With the strangling hold of the ahn-woon wrapped tight around his neck and keeping him partially suspended—)

His breath hitched, unnoticed.

"If I just so happen to see him fall out of an unfortunately placed airlock, Jim, no I didn't. I didn't see a damn thing and I ain't saying anything to anyone about it."

"Mm, and I imagine that none of the crew would see anything either," Jim said, sounding amused for a brief moment before his voice abruptly sobered. "… Unfortunately, he not entirely wrong—out of line, yes, but he's right about Command. Admiral Beran's been putting the pressure on both of us, and he's not exactly known for his patience. Starfleet's gotten jumpy since we've confirmed the existence of pergium, especially with it being so exposed. Without an exclusive agreement, it's currently up for the taking, and that makes them nervous."

"I thought we were the only ones to know about it."

"The trade vessel Boa does; they're the ones who tipped the Federation off about it in the first place. Command's concerned that the Boa's been talking to more than just us. That kind of information could sell for a hefty price to the right—or wrong—people. I swear, Bones, this is turning into the Sherman's Planet mess all over again."

"They think it was sold to the Klingons?"

"Not them specifically, but it's one possibility—and, as much as I hate to admit it, it's one they're right to be concerned about. Mining agreements are a bit of a… politically loaded topic right now." The captain hesitated and Spock heard a specific kind of fatigue there, indicative of being overwhelmed and overworked. "The Federation's currently organizing a conference on Babel to discuss the Coridan situation, and our own Seskillies VII problem really isn't all that dissimilar. An undefended planet comprised of extremely valuable minerals deposits… I can understand why they might be frazzled, even if I don't agree with the way they're handling it. If we somehow lose it, it's not going to be a good look."

He heard McCoy grumble something but what that something was he couldn't tell.

Spock was no longer listening.

Seskilles VII.

That word; that name. Seskilles VII. Hearing it spoken aloud—being reminded of it—battered at some small, fragile defense he'd built from desert sand in his mind, and it collapsed the moment his ears registered the name. All Spock could do was desperately clutch at the toppling walls he'd created and try to stave off the inevitable for that little bit was not ready to hear it; to confront it. He didn't want to know…

(Begging didn't make any difference, he thought distantly. Begging was useless.)

The terror hit him first, and with it a floodgate opened to allow in all the rest. Memories rushed at him all at once, like a terrible wave, and slammed into his mind with such force that he was swept away in it. Over and over—(Jim died again and again)—he was sent tumbling.

Jim dying. The Seskille invading his head, forcing him to experience whatever they wanted to see. His frantic attempts to make them stop going unanswered, because they had no understanding of it. Screaming for his captain, for the doctor, for anyone to make it end. Jim dying. Jim being hurt by his hand. Leaving Vulcan for the last time, watching it sink into the distance. Hugging I-Chaya as a child. Repotting a plant with Lieutenant Sulu. Watching Jim fall asleep during a game of chess and realizing the affection he felt was not strictly based around friendship. Burning inside…

The sand of his desert, which had so lightly covered his memories like a dusting of snow, spilled away and revealed the ugly, writhing, shattered thing he'd been trying to avoid uncovering.

He'd been hurt by the Seskille. He'd been—they had…

(Desperate and pleading, Spock tried once more to force their understanding; to shove back at them the reality of what this cost him. What they were doing to him. To make them aware of the pain they were causing, with each and every layer of his control they peeled away.)

Violation. Intrusion. Pain—sharp, agonizing, overwhelming pain—clawed at the already-shredded remains of his mind. He reeled away from it, terror overtaking any rational, logical thought, but it made no difference. He could not escape his own head, and he could not escape the Seskille. Despite being far away from them, and despite his mind being empty and entirely his own, the evidence of their destruction still bled freely and grievously. Where they had scraped and ripped at him felt diseased; septic and festering like an open wound. There existed no aid he could apply to stop such an infection from spreading.

He wasn't there anymore, Spock told himself. They were gone. Over and over again—(After experiencing it, over and over again, it should have stopped affecting him. It should have stopped hurting. It did not. He felt it as if it were the first time, each time. Every time. Jim died in front of him again.)—he repeated it like a mantra. He wasn't there, they were gone. He wasn't there, they were gone.

(The Seskille rushed in, just as he knew they would. They delighted at the invitation, their warm, joyful, radiating emotions washing over him like a flood, and it was his happiness—)

He recalled, so much more distantly than he could the rest, the aftermath of it. He remembered hearing his captain calling his name and Jim rescuing him. He remembered opening his eyes to find his head in Jim's lap. He remembered McCoy's green-stained gloves working swiftly at his side, and Jim holding his hand and… and—

Horror struck him like a tangible blow. With the horror came guilt, sickening and creeping and vile. The mind-numbing shock of realization stole his breath from him, and he could faintly hear the machines monitoring him begin to screech. There was a rush of movement around him, but it felt so insubstantial compared to his memories. No. No. The knowledge of what he'd done, of what he'd let happen…

(They had invaded Spock, they had ruined him, but they would not do the same to Jim; he would not allow it.)

But he had allowed it.

He recalled the brush of Jim's fingertips against his skin as his captain tried to slide gloves onto frozen hands. The contact had sparked a connection between Jim's mind and his own and, had his barriers been raised and shields still firmly locked in place, this would have been potentially uncomfortable but of little consequence. He'd been exposed to humans for far too long to not know how to defend against unintentional telepathic insight resulting from their tactile nature. But his barriers had been down, his shields shattered, and his mind had not been his own.

(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.)

He had seen through Jim's eyes on the planet, as if they had always belonged to him. Those thoughts and feelings had felt comfortable to Spock; so familiar and warm after being in pain for so long. The act of such a thing, of violating Jim's mind was… it was inexcusable, what he'd done. Unforgivable. And it—

It had not been the only time.

Spock felt as if everything had come to a grinding, shocking halt. For a moment, he could only breathe—in, out, in—and beg.

(Begging didn't make any difference, he thought distantly. Begging was useless.)

… He had been holding his own hand and watching himself sleep. He felt relieved that his friend was resting peacefully and that he would eventually be alright.

… He had been holding his own hand and watching himself sleep. He felt concerned that his friend hadn't woken up yet, and that he might not have enough skill to treat the reason for it.

Violation, his mind had screamed at him. Invasion! But it had not been himself who'd been invaded. He'd seen through Jim's eyes in sickbay, and he'd seen through McCoy's eyes. They had touched his hand—held it in their own—and he had rushed into their heads in the same careless manner the Seskille had done to him.

(The Seskille rushed in, just as he knew they would.)

Spock had lost control.

He'd lost control of himself, his mind, his body, and his defenses. He'd lost control in ways he'd not imagined possible, and after a certain point, he'd even lost it willingly. Spock had let the Seskille in; let them breach into his head just so that the pain would stop. He'd allowed them to take from him whatever they wanted, just so that he could be spared some kind of pressure and discomfort. He'd let them in so deeply that they'd found Jim too.

Spock remembered Jim reaching for his hand, and the realization of what that might mean, because he had no control over himself anymore. The slightest brush of fingers against his own, and he'd shoved himself into the captain's mind, not once, but twice. He'd violated the doctor after the man cared enough to offer him comfort while unconscious. Neither of them had even noticed him in their heads; they hadn't noticed his own mind clenching at their thoughts, their feelings, their sight. Such an invasion of their deepest privacy had been out of their control and out of their ability to block.

It had not seemed to hurt them, but the deadened feeling of betrayal was an agonizing pain in its own right. Spock knew well that intention mattered very little when weighed against the result. The Seskille had not intended to hurt him either, but they had. Was what he'd done really any better?

Spock lay there, nauseous to the very core of himself, and heard the conversation of his friends around him. The familiarity no longer felt comfortable but disquieting. They spoke of him in calm, quiet words, and each word was colored by affection and friendship. It made him feel sick, because they spoke of a friend that did not exist. What he'd done to them, deliberate or not, had been heinous. Their ignorance of his actions didn't make those actions any less wrong.

This was his fault.

Why could he never simply keep control of himself, Spock wondered. What was it about him that was so fundamentally flawed that he could not maintain any kind of self-discipline or restraint? Each time he lost control, he always somehow hurt the ones he least wished harm towards. Again, and again, and again.

(And then Jim was dead once more, body limp and beaten, and he felt it all over again. And again. And again.)

Behind closed eyes, Spock could see Jim die in front of him again. He could feel the tears in the back of his throat, the stinging in his eyes, the way his body had started shaking with the fading adrenaline and the increasing shock. He remembered knowing with absolute certainty that, in only a few brief moments of unchecked violence, he had just ended both Jim's life and his own.

(Live Long and Prosper, T'Pau had said to him. Spock had not intended to do either.)

His throat seized, choking on his next breath as he fought the rising urge to vomit.

"Spock?" Jim's voice, soft and warm to his ear.

No.

No, he did not want to wake up. He did not want to open his eyes. He wanted to go back to his ignorance and wander aimlessly and desperately through his ravaged, desecrated desert without end. He wanted to deny all of it—of what he'd done, of what he'd been made to do, and of what he'd allowed to happen.

His fault.

The thrumming pulse of the body function panel spiked.

"Hey—shh, it's okay…"

A hand brushed against his own; just the barest texture of fingertips against his knuckles—concernworryaffectiontendernesswarmth flooded eyes snapped open with that horrible sense of intrusion and Spock flinched away from the physical contact as if burnt.

His breath couldn't catch; Spock felt suffocated as he blinked and pulled himself inwards. He heard the shrill blaring of the machines monitoring him as the rapid pounding of terror raced his pulse and set the alarms off. The light of the room felt akin to a blade in his eyes after so long wandering in the dark, and he had to clench them closed to stave off the stomach acid rising in his throat. The darkness was comfortable. Safe. He could not allow himself that comfort for very long, though.

Hands were reaching for him again, well-intentioned and conciliant, but he could not allow them to touch him. Not again, because he had no control anymore. He would forcibly enter their minds, just as the Seskille had done to him. He would have no choice but to do it, and they would have no choice but to endure it.

(He could not block them out. He could not suppress them beneath his sea of sand. He could only sit there and take it.)

His body protested the action with an aching throb of pain, but Spock ignored it and shoved his hands beneath the blankets to keep them far, far away from the comforting touch of his friends.

"Move," came the doctor's gruff voice at his side as he jostled Jim backwards, and Spock was able to breathe easier at the sound, because he knew that McCoy would touch him only minimally. The captain would want to soothe him with physical contact, as his inherently tactile nature demanded, but the doctor had always been far more reserved about such things. If McCoy had to touch him, he'd keep it strictly clinical and professional. In this moment, Spock felt immensely grateful for the doctor like he never had before.

The room was blurry when he opened his eyes cautiously. It made his head pound. Objects swam into view as he tried to focus; the familiar weave of the sickbay covers, the empty beds across from him, the abandoned PADD near his feet, and Jim.

Jim.

He'd murdered his captain once, Spock thought vaguely. He'd held the man—this painfully fragile human man—by the neck and strangled him until his body had gone limp.

But Jim wasn't dead any longer; he was alive. He hadn't ever truly been dead to begin with. It had been a trick, he reminded himself. A trick. Logically knowing that, after seeing Jim die so, so many times, did nothing to stop the chilling pit of dread in his stomach.

(A common response to trauma, because the captain had died, and he seemed to be the only one who remembered it.)

Part of him yearned to stare; to soak in the sight of his very living, very breathing captain and never stop looking for fear of it being taken from him. Everything else had been stolen already, and he did not think he could stand this being stolen too. The other part wanted to clench his eyes shut and see nothing at all. It could not be stolen if it did not exist.

Spock remembered being blind after undergoing treatment to kill the Denevan parasite. The feeling had been alarming and shocking to him at the time. He remembered experiencing an overwhelming amount of conflict over it. Now though, the thought of being unable to see held a certain kind of appeal.

Shock… he thought he might be going into shock. The feeling was distant. Everything felt distant.

That was acceptable. Spock sincerely hoped it stayed that way too, because the further he was away from what had happened, the better he could function.

Blinking tightly, he focused on the objects around him. On the bed. On the monitor to his right. On the ceiling. On the weight of the blankets securely covering his hands. It didn't help the hollow feeling of cold, but it helped him pretend it wasn't there.

"Doctor McCoy," Spock acknowledged, his voice hoarse. "Captain."

He looked neither of them in the eye. Spock thought he was far, far too familiar with their eyes—and with looking through them—already. Instead, he stared at the ceiling and summoned up a blank, empty expression. It was a practiced one to make; he'd been concealing his distress in this manner his entire life. As a child, it had been harder to conceal his emotions. As an adult, such a thing was more instinctual to him than breathing. This expression was carefully crafted to be as void and lifeless as possible. It was the same one he recalled wearing when Sarek had expressed his utter disappointment in him on his last day on Vulcan.

(Sarek had certainly made his stance on Spock's value and worth as a son quite clear, and it was apparently found to be deeply lacking. It was nothing that Spock had not already suspected for years now, and he supposed the confirmation of it was preferable to endless wondering. It made leaving easier, in any case.)

Beneath the cover of the blankets, his hands began to tremble. He remembered them shaking from the cold as he struggled to find shelter on the planet's surface—he also remembered them growing so cold that they'd stopped. Now, he clenched them tightly enough to cause pain, nails digging deep into his skin. They had been trimmed at some point and could not easily bite into flesh enough to bleed. The doctor had undoubtedly noticed the distinct crescent-shaped cuts on his palms and taken measures to prevent further ones. It was to the doctor's credit that Spock was able to feel his hands at all; he had previously wondered whether the frostbite would have caused permanent damage. Trauma to his fingers might have prevented the egregious act of betraying his friends.

Spock swallowed the rising nausea and cleared his throat; it felt gritty and raw, and he numbly accepted the straw that was offered to him by the doctor, drinking in a steady few sips of water. It did not help much; he suspected the tightness there was emotional, rather than physical.

(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.)

"Computer, dim the lights to fifty percent," Doctor McCoy instructed, and the room darkened to a more comfortable level. Some of the physical pain in his head faded, and he gave an absent nod towards the doctor for the consideration. He was not certain whether his reaction had given him away, or whether it had merely been medical intuition, but he was thankful for it all the same.

"How are you feeling?" Jim asked him, pushing back to his side insistently, and his voice sounded so relieved that Spock felt immediately ashamed.

He should have woken up earlier. His behavior had been nothing short of selfish cowardice, and it had served no purpose in the end. Postponing his awareness of the events had not erased the events themselves; in fact, forcibly ignoring them and remaining unconscious had only actively added to the stress his captain was under. That was unacceptable. His own comfort mattered very little when it came at the expense of his friends, his crew, his ship.

(Spock hated himself in that moment. He hated himself.)

"Awake," he said in response. He kept his attention fixated firmly on the ceiling but could see in his peripherals the captain smiling at him. "… and alert, although somewhat perplexed as to what happened."

He knew what had happened. He remembered it so intensely that the room he was in now felt less real. However, expressing ignorance would potentially delay the inevitable questions. Not for long—he knew that an official debrief must soon follow, as per procedure—but he desperately needed the postponement until he could determine how to move forward, what to say, how to act.

Coward.

(Spock hated himself in that moment. He hated himself.)

"Jim, get outta his face. Spock, eyes on me. Follow this." The doctor took swift control with that serious, stern manner of his. Obediently, Spock allowed his gaze to follow the stylus—up, down, left, right, forward, backwards. There was a comfort in the routine of it. "Good, now hold still a moment while I check you over. Are you okay with the captain being in here, or do you want me to kick him out?"

Spock knew if he declined, that Jim would leave without taking any offense; he was entitled to medical privacy that even the captain couldn't breech unless under highly specific circumstances. He wished he could send the captain away, even just briefly, to escape from the warm smiles and fond hazel eyes that watched him. He deserved none of the compassion he saw there, not after his actions both on the planet and after they had left it. He'd invaded Jim's mind without his consent—not once, but twice.

How was he any different than the Seskille?

But it was expected that he would allow Jim to remain in the room, as he always had in the past. There existed very little true secrecy between the three of them, medical or otherwise, and to enforce it now would raise entirely new concerns. Jim would rightly guess that there was something Spock wished to conceal from him, and he would worry endlessly about what that something might be.

He'd caused Jim enough trouble as it was without adding further problems.

"He can stay," Spock said tonelessly, and he saw the captain's smile widen. The sight would have once sparked something warm in him. Now, he only wished that Jim would stop looking at him like that because it made him feel terribly empty.

Spock watched, in carefully timed glances from the ceiling, as the doctor began to his routine health assessment. The function panel was checked and double-checked, a hypospray was pressed into the side of his left arm and immediately sickened his already churning stomach. Gloved fingers very gently parted his hair to probe at his scalp, inspecting what he presumed to be one of the surgical sites. The conversation he'd overheard was distant and unfocused, but he recalled their discussion about his injuries. He'd shattered his skull…

While his expression remained one of blank stoicism, he allowed it to tighten minutely in entirely feigned disapproval towards the doctor's actions. As he would have once done. As expected of him.

Expectations, Spock suspected, would come to play a very important role in his new reality. And this was undeniably a new reality for him. There existed a version of himself that was before the Seskille and one that existed after, and they were very different. The Vulcan that beamed down to the planet had not been the same one that had returned. However, he realized quickly that he was expected to be the same.

"Any tenderness? Pain?"

Yes. Yes, there was pain. If he had not logically known that the doctor had knitted the bones back together, he would have thought his skull was still fractured open. His brain—his mind —felt as if it were exposed to the air. As if it were leaking and bleeding down his neck and into the pillows beneath him. Every nerve, every thought, every memory jolted and twisted and ripped at it. He felt as if it had been mutilated, the throb of each pulse of his heartbeat bludgeoning into it again, and again and again—

(Jim died in front of him again.)

His head hurt. His body hurt. His mind hurt. It hurt, and he wished desperately that the pain he felt there could be eased by anything. Any combination of medications or hyposprays. He'd take any and all of McCoy's toxic poisons, if it would only lessen the clawed, degraded feeling inside. If such a remedy existed, Spock thought he might lower himself enough to even plead for it.

(Begging didn't make any difference, he thought distantly. Begging was useless.)

"Spock?"

He had been silent too long.

"No," Spock said softly.

McCoy scoffed loudly. "You sure about that?"

"Yes. However, I am…" Spock paused, conflicted. He could tell the captain and the doctor how he was feeling. That he was in agony; in such crippling, paralyzing pain that he wanted to scream. He could tell them that the physical pain wasn't his concern at all. That his mind was mutilated; that he was horrified, shocked, afraid, guilty, reeling, and that those emotions hurt far more than his body ever could. He could tell them in full honesty that he wished for nothing more than to be lost in the shredded darkness of his own head rather than lay here awake and alert to be suffocated by their fondness, concern, and friendship for him. He could say that.

Spock cleared his throat and tried once more.

"I am… admittedly uncomfortable."

"Uncomfortable?" Doctor McCoy immediately homed in on him with an eagle-eyed stare, narrowed and focused. His tone was gentle; one could call it almost kind, but it was also unyielding. "Uncomfortable in a painful way?"

"Not as such." There was pain; indeed, all he could feel was pain. His head was throbbing. His chest ached. His fists had tightened enough to bruise his palms. His mind felt flayed and dissected, and he wished—desperately wished—that it would stop. "I am uncomfortable due to my current medical surroundings, the sight of which causes me inordinate amounts of dissatisfaction. I am quite ready to be discharged, Doctor—at your convenience, of course."

He heard the captain huff a startled laugh. While he did not look at McCoy, he could pinpoint the exact second the gentle kindness vanished from his expression.

"My conv—are you out of your goddamn mind?!" Doctor McCoy snarled furiously, looming over him in a way that Spock knew to be a threat. His finger stuck out, but it did not make contact. Despite his irritation, he remained mindful about the state of the recently knitted ribs. "Are you purposely trying to sabotage your recovery? I don't know how much you recall, Mr. Spock, but why don't I tell you what I remember? I remember spending fourteen whole hours putting your reckless Vulcan hide back together! I remember being up to my wrist in your innards to pry out pieces of circuit board! I swear, the only reason I know you haven't misplaced your brain entirely is that I remember that I felt it with my fingertips while digging around in your thick head for shards of your skull! Discharge my a—"

"—I do believe that's a no, Mr. Spock," the captain told him, and there was a definite smile in his voice. "And I'm afraid I'm going to have to take McCoy's side on this one; you're going to be here for a while yet. Doctor's orders… and, frankly, my own."

"I see," Spock nodded, blank-faced and factual. He wished his nails had not been trimmed; it was harder to keep his expression blank without the sharp sting to distract himself. An old habit that he'd shamefully engaged in since youth, but an occasionally necessary one for composure. "In that case, sir, I would appreciate an update on the present situation. I'll admit that my recollection of events is… moderately disjointed. Perhaps I might call on Doctor McCoy's newly discovered eidetic memory to fill in the gaps."

The doctor grumbled, unmollified by Spock's easy agreement of his extended stay. Spock had known that his potential discharge from medical observation would be denied with swift and striking fervor, but it was expected that he would try it. He was expected to attempt to leave sickbay quickly. He was expected to make pointed, erudite comments towards Doctor McCoy. He was expected to behave, say, and think like the Spock he no longer felt like.

In truth, there was little Spock wanted more than to remain here. To be secured under strict and rigid medical observation, and to further delay the inevitable mission debrief. As long as he was declared medically unfit for duty, he was exempt from official questioning. However, verbally attempting to leave had put both the doctor and captain at ease; it blunted the sharpness of their immediate concern for him. That made the expended effort not only beneficial to him, but also beneficial for his companions. Practical.

It felt good to be doing something useful on their behalf, after what he'd done to them.

(Spock hated himself in that moment. He hated himself.)

"I'm not shocked you're feeling a bit fuzzy; there are side effects to breaking open even the most stubborn of Vulcan heads, and memory is usually the first to go with that kind of injury," Doctor McCoy said, and his rough tone was calmer now. "But the gory details are going to have to wait; I didn't just send that blowhard away only to rile you up myself."

Spock could rely on, if nothing else, the doctor's protective nature when it came to the wellbeing of his patients. The context of it in this instance, however, was unclear. He raised a brow, puzzled.

"The ambassador was here a bit ago," the captain cut in, and that smile was gone from his voice. Spock risked a glance over at him, and saw his expression tighten up into one of carefully concealed fatigue. Guilt crept in at the sight of it, infecting and sickening. "He's… being himself about it all, which is about as much as can be said on that."

"You mean as much as you can say on that, Captain. Trust me, I've got a whole long list of things I could say about that clown." Doctor McCoy was already prepping another hypospray, and Spock watched him warily for a moment before directing his gaze safely back to the ceiling. "He's been down here every few hours, trying to get a status update. I'm ready to file a formal complaint for harassment and invasion of medical privacy."

"The ambassador has… been insistent, then?" Spock asked softly, reluctantly.

"He's certainly being an irritant." Jim was evading the question, clearly unwilling to let Spock know how much pressure he was under from both Ambassador Hammett and Starfleet Command. He did not need to let Spock know, however, because he had overheard it himself. "But nothing I can't handle. I've never seen a man so eager to debrief in all my career."

"And that's an understatement, Spock. I'm pretty sure he would have tried to cross-examine you during open brain surgery if I hadn't thought to have Christine guarding the door. She sent him packing and my ears are still ringing from it."

"He has questions," Spock deduced, although it was not at all difficult to do so. He'd known what the diplomat had wanted. He had been trying to avoid exactly this. While the severe nature of his injuries had delayed his own interview, his friends had no such convenient excuse.

Jim gave him a small smile. Spock could see it from his peripherals.

(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.)

"He does," the captain said, and there was a brief pause of hesitation. "… I'll admit that I do too, but that can wait—"

"No, Jim."

"—that can wait until you're feeling—"

"Ask them," Spock said in as toneless a voice as he could manage. His hands shook so violently beneath the blankets that he had to shift his weight onto them to prevent the trembling from being noticeable. He wanted to vomit. "I will do my best to answer, sir."

"No, Spock." The doctor displayed none of the apprehension that the captain had; if he had questions of his own, he did not appear interested in asking them. "Save it for the official debrief—when I clear you for it."

"Doctor McCoy…"

"Spock."

"Just one, Bones," Jim tried to appeal with wide, hazel eyes. "Not even an official one, either. I promise. Just this one, and the rest can wait."

McCoy stared him down for a moment. Whatever he saw there seemed to sway him and he gave a low grunt. Jim turned the force of that distressed expression towards Spock, who failed to look away from it fast enough. The sincerity, affection, fear, and concern he saw there plummeted into his stomach like a stone.

(Spock hated himself in that moment. He hated himself.)

"I'm sorry, Spock," Jim began gently. "I know you're not feeling well. I wouldn't even ask at all, except that I need it to know how best to move forward while you recover—"

"Jim," Spock interrupted tiredly. He wanted to roll over and pretend this was not happening. "Ask your question."

The captain hesitated but gave a short nod.

"Alright." Jim laid a hand on the bed; not quite touching Spock's arm, but within centimeters of doing so. Spock allowed the almost-contact, aware that physical touch was how the captain gave and received comfort and wishing to offer whatever relief he could provide. It was not touching his own hand; it was safe for now. "I don't know if you remember it, but you told me down there that the Seskille were in your head; that they were telepathic. I'm aware that… that sort of thing—a meld, I mean—is considered very personal to Vulcans. Very, ah… intimate."

He nodded, throat too dry to respond properly. From the corner of his eye, he could see McCoy's head snap up to stare at them. Spock was reminded, with a sinking feeling of dread, that the doctor had his own experience with mind melding—rather, with a forced meld, courtesy of a parallel reality version of Spock.

(The human mind was so exposed and fragile; it lacked any shield at all. Doctor McCoy couldn't have fought it off if he tried—and Spock was certain that the doctor hadtried, for all the good it would have done him.)

"I'm not going to pry too much right now, Spock, but you seemed… like you were in a lot of pain. Right before you fell, you looked at me like—" Jim cleared his throat, face tightening into something hard at the memory. "—and when I found you later on, you looked—I'm… I'm aware that it's considered an invasive thing to your culture, and I wanted to know whether they—whether you permitted—God, I'm going about this the wrong way."

"It's fine, Jim. Please speak plainly."

"Spock, did they hurt you?"

Spock stared down at his lap, but he did not see it.

He did not know what to do. He did not know what to say. There had been an emphasis to the sentence that was so unmistakable in meaning that even Spock understood the context of it. The captain wasn't asking about the physical injuries, he was asking about the emotional ones—the telepathic ones. Of all the questions the captain could have asked him, this was the last one he'd ever wanted to answer. He wished, desperately, that Jim had asked him anything else. He wished Jim had interrogated him; demanded answers to any and every question except this one. Because Spock didn't know how to respond to it, or what response would be best received. What did the captain want to hear him say?

He could tell the truth. He could tell the captain that the Seskille had not only hurt him, but they had done something so criminal and unspeakable to him that he couldn't even think of the word without feeling sick. He could tell the captain that the Seskille hadn't cared what he permitted, because they didn't know what permission was. That they hadn't cared how much Spock had begged for it to stop, because they didn't know what begging was either. He could say that he'd never felt so simultaneously degraded, sullied, and shattered as he had when they'd ripped into his mind.

He could tell the truth, get it into the open, and then deal with the consequences.

And Spock suspected that the consequences of it would be severe.

Jim had never taken the feeling of being powerless well; it sharpened him with guilt and persistence. The less control the captain had, the more he raged and fought to get it back. When presented with a problem that had no solution, James Kirk would do everything in his ability to solve it—and if he lacked the ability, he'd never stop trying until he somehow gained it. It was one of the traits Spock had always admired in his captain; the inherent desire to disregard the very concept of no-win scenarios and find a solution anyways. Jim was man driven by the desire to right the wrongs he saw, regardless of his actual capacity to do so.

… And regardless of the cost to himself.

If he told the truth, Jim would dedicate himself to rectifying a problem that Spock knew—knew—could not be fixed. He would look for a solution, so that he might put everything back exactly how it was. He would apply that brilliant, intelligent mind of his to the situation with stubborn insistence, because he simply did not believe for even a second that it could not be done. If he failed, he'd only try harder. If he failed even then, he'd take more extreme measures. When it came to his ship, his crew, there were very, very few things that the captain wouldn't do for them. And when it came to his friends…

Spock remembered the last time Jim Kirk had done everything in his power to help his closest friend.

(With the strangling hold of the ahn-woon wrapped tight around his neck and keeping him partially suspended—)

(Jim died in front of him again.)

(After experiencing it, over and over again, it should have stopped affecting him. It should have stopped hurting. It did not. He felt it as if it were the first time, each time. Every time.)

(And then Jim was dead once more, body limp and beaten, and he felt it all over again. And again. And again.)

(

"Oh, I think you'll find there is very little I wouldn't do for you, Spock, ramifications or not. You're my friend; my best friend. Your life is worth far more to me than a fancy starship or some rank braids ever will.")(The gold of Jim's command uniform was ripped, bloody from the fight—their fight—their fight, because he did this—and his face looked beaten in. Bones broken; skin bruised, but unmistakably Jim Kirk. Jim, who meant more to him than any person ever had or ever would. Jim, who had risked his captaincy and his career to save his friend's life. Jim who had been killed—murdered—by that very same friend he'd given up everything for.)

(Jim died in front of him again.)

(Humans were so fragile when compared to Vulcan strength…)

"I understand if you don't want to answer, Spock. I realize that it's a rather personal question…" Jim said suddenly, hesitantly. "… and a loaded one. Maybe I should rephrase…"

The captain was upset. He was upset and Spock hadn't even answered him yet. It was more than clear by the tone of his voice that he'd taken the silence as a confirmation of what he feared to be true, and the longer the silence continued, the more his concern grew. It was in his voice already. Worry. Determination.

He remembered that Jim had sounded just as worried and determined in that sandy arena on Vulcan.

(Jim died in front of him again.)

McCoy was watching them very closely. "Maybe you should just leave it alone, Jim…"

(Jim died in front of him again.)

(

He would do anything for this quiet, sleeping human, Spock thought to himself silently. There was nothing he would not do, no lengths he would not go to, to keep this man safe. One tiny human captain, comparatively insignificant in a universe of incalculable numbers of sentient beings—and all of them, every single one combined, was less precious to him than this one was.)

(Jim died in front of him again.)

(Jim had been and always would be his first priority; there was nothing else more imperative or more crucial to him than his captain's wellbeing...)

Spock took a short, steadying breath and looked up, expression smoothing into one of complete nonchalance.

"On the contrary, doctor," Spock said very evenly. There was bile in his throat. There was blood under his nails from where he'd finally split the skin of his palms. "It is a valid question. Rephrasing it would be redundant in this case, Captain. I understand what you are asking me."

"Then you'll also understand why I'm asking it," Jim said, and while he was clearly relieved at getting any kind of answer at all, he remained serious and tense. Determined.

"I do. Your concern is appreciated, but unnecessary. The Seskille are a benevolent species."

"And I'm glad of it, but that's not what I'm asking, Spock." The captain refused to budge. "Did they hurt you?"

(Total surrender felt so good—deliriously good—and he hated himself for it.)

"No, Captain," Spock lied, properly meeting Jim's eyes straight on. "They did nothing to me that I did not allow. It did not hurt at all."

Thank you all so much for your patience! I was on vacation and this ended up being completed a little later than I hoped it would be.

This is the longest chapter I've written so far at almost 14k words! I actually had an entirely different chapter completed that was about half the length, but I realized I wasn't satisfied with any part of it. I ended up scrapping the whole thing and rewriting an entirely new one in the span of a single day, which I'm far more pleased by! I've had that last line planned for years now, since before this story even had an actual plot, and I'm so excited to finally be using it.

There are a few specific TOS episode references in this chapter! The mention of Sherman's Planet is from the iconic episode 'The Trouble with Tribbles', and the Denevan Parasite is, of course, from the often-referenced 'Operation - Annihilate!'. However, the conference on Babel, and any discussion about the Coridan issue is from 'Journey to Babel', which chronologically takes place shortly after the conclusion of this story! There will be a number of references to the issues surrounding that episode, and although it isn't mandatory to watch to understand the reference, it is the first episode with Spock's parents and also in my top five! I cannot recommend it enough if you have not seen it; Amanda is wonderful, and Sarek is... a bit less wonderful, but an amazing character!

Vulcan:
K'oh-nar — The fear of emotional vulnerability and emotional exposure.
Wafaya — Denial; the act of asserting that something alleged is not true; a defense mechanism that denies painful thoughts.