When Chekov woke up that night, he did not know immediately what had woken him, so deeply had he slept. And then he heard the coughing. Dry, rasping coughing, accompanied by wheezing, rattling breaths.
He jumped up and rushed over to Christine's bedside. She seemed still asleep, though moving restlessly. Her face was flushed from the fever, and her bedclothes were drenched in sweat.
Pavel cursed quietly, distraught that he had awoken only now. He had been tasked to take care of her. He should have gotten up sooner.
He put his hand against her cheek. It felt clammy and warm to his touch. "Chris. Can you hear me?"
She mumbled something indecipherable and threw her head around on the pillow.
Pavel pressed his lips together and made a decision. He did not want to leave her like this, but Doctor McCoy had said to wake them if she needed help. And if Chris Chapel had ever looked as if she needed help, it was now.
He snuck out of the door, into the hallway and turned right. The wooden floor felt cold under his naked feet, and every breath of his seemed much too loud in the silent house. Not nearly as loud as Christine's laboured breaths, though. He pushed down the handle to the others' room as silently as he could, a habitual notion made redundant by him coming to wake one of them. Whom he should wake he had not yet decided as he stepped into the dark room. But the decision was soon taken from him.
"Mr Chekov?" Spock asked and sat up in bed, a ghostly figure in the pale moonlight.
"It's Christine," Pavel said.
Spock took one look at Chekov's horrified face, swung his legs out of bed and, in his cotton underwear, hurried past him to Christine's bedside.
Once there, he sank to his knees next to her bed, taking in her flushed face, the strands of hair sticking to her forehead, and the distraught sounds she made as she moved in her restless slumber.
"This unwell, she should not have been left alone."
"She was not this unwell in the evening," Pavel said, standing next to him. "Doctor McCoy told me to fetch someone if her condition deteriorated."
The Vulcan sighed but did not take his eyes off Christine as he answered. "Let me rephrase: If there was the potential for her condition to deteriorate to this point, she should not have been left alone even for a moment."
Instinctively, Pavel straightened up, almost standing at attention. "Yes, sir. I'm sorry."
There was a pause, the only sounds Christine Chapel's laboured breathing and erratic murmurs. Spock put his hand on her upper arm and pressed it lightly, a gesture of comfort she undoubtedly did not even notice. For a moment, Pavel thought he saw some emotion pass through his eyes, some mixture of concern and regret. But it might have been the play of shadows of the moon and the cypress tree outside.
"You did everything you could have, given the situation you were left in." Spock glanced up at him, his lips a thin line. "We should have had an additional person stay with the two of you so that she would not have to be left alone." He pushed himself up from the floor and sat on the edge of the bed instead. "I should have noticed," he said softly, his eyes back on Christine. "I was too busy with my ill-fated mission of Marie-Claire to grasp the gravity of her illness."
Pavel pursed his lips and stepped closer. So it was regret he had seen earlier. "You did everything you could have, given the situation you were left in."
Spock shook his head. "No. Thank you, but no."
He frowned down at Christine, who had begun to move again in her sleep, caught in some fever dream or the mere discomfort of her illness. He reached out to place one hand on her upper arm again. The fingers of his other hand he pressed against her wrist lying limply over her stomach to take her pulse.
Pavel smiled when she immediately quieted down somewhat as Spock touched her.
Spock sighed. Her pulse was what he had expected, given her condition, and her skin felt much too warm and clammy.
"These people do not even have antibiotics," he said bitterly. "And to think they are her ancestors. It is a wonder you humans survived until First Contact."
"It was a wonder, yes," Pavel said, bristling slightly. He straightened up again, this time out of defiance. "A wonder that led to your life. This is your history, too. Your mother's ancestors are alive right now. They are your ancestors, too." He paused and took a deep breath. "I am sorry if I have been out of line."
There was a moment of silence, and then Spock inclined his head. "Thank you, Mr Chekov. You are right, of course."
Pavel nodded curtly. "Shall I fetch Doctor McCoy?"
Spock looked up at him at last and shook his head. "In this time and with what we have, he cannot help her much more than we. Let him rest. If she deteriorates to a point when the end seems near, then you shall fetch Doctor McCoy and the Captain. For now, I guess a cold damp cloth and some water to drink will have to suffice if you can find those things in this house."
Pavel did not move. "When the end seems near?" he asked, not wanting to believe what he was hearing. "You mean when she is dying?"
"Yes," Spock said softly, his eyes back on Christine. "At this point, it is a realistic possibility."
Pavel stepped closer still and slowly put his hand on Spock's shoulder, a shoulder heavy with self-ascribed responsibility. "I think Doctor McCoy and Captain Kirk would like to be with her, even if they cannot help."
Spock glanced at the hand resting on his shoulder, then looked up and met Pavel Chekov's gaze. At last, he nodded. "Very well. Fetch them, then."
Pavel left, and Spock turned his attention back to Christine. Yes, it was probably better if Doctor McCoy was here. He might not be able to save her, but he could comfort her, something Spock felt entirely unprepared to do. But whoever prepared for this, for sitting at a friend's deathbed? No one would want to prepare for that, and few people did.
He reached out to tuck a sweaty strand of hair behind her ear. She shivered at his touch, mumbled something, and very slowly opened her eyes. Upon seeing him, her lips curved into a tired smile. She opened her mouth to say something, but another coughing attack shook her.
She gripped his arm and Spock saw the panic in her eyes as she failed to draw a full breath between coughs, only wheezing helplessly.
He took her arms and pulled her up into a sitting position. Weak as she was, she immediately collapsed into him, and he held her up with one arm and thumped her back with the other hand as she coughed into his shoulder, rattling, violent sounds. But he seemed to have helped a bit, either by dislodging some phlegm or opening her airway by the changed position.
As the convulsions stopped, she groaned feebly, one hand clutching the fabric of his undershirt. "Spock?" she whispered hoarsely.
He stroked some strands of hair from her forehead. "I'm here, Christine."
"That bad, huh?" She let her head fall back to look at him with gleaming eyes. "I feel terrible."
"No wonder." He touched her forehead. "You are hot."
"Now you tell me." She chuckled, and it became another cough.
He held her firmly, cradling her head as she shook. When the spell had passed, he kept her upright with one arm and after only a second of hesitation slipped into bed behind her. He leaned against the headboard and pulled her with him to keep her in a semi-sitting position.
She had her eyes closed again, either having dozed off or being too weak to keep them open. With a small sigh, she leaned onto him, instinctively pulling her legs up and curling against him.
He put his arms around her, noticing how fragile she seemed. Fragile and much too thin. She was not wearing anything but the short period-typical men's underwear, just as he was, and it struck him how strangely intimate the scene was. She shivered, and he pulled her closer. Despite what her trembling might lead one to believe, her body felt much too warm through the thin layers of clothing and where her naked skin touched his.
He looked up when the door opened again and Doctor McCoy, Jim Kirk, and Pavel Chekov came in. Pavel needn't have alerted them, as they had woken up from the ruckus some moments ago and had noticed Spock was missing. McCoy was already carrying a bowl with water and a handful of rags over his arm, and Jim was holding a carafe of water and a cup.
Jim stepped closer, put the things they had brought on the table and sat down in the chair where Spock had sat last evening while Bones and Pavel sat on Christine's bed.
McCoy bent closer to examine Christine, glancing up at Spock as he did so. He thought about asking him if he wanted to switch places with him but ultimately decided against it. Spock would say if this was too much for him, too far out of his comfort zone. For the moment, it did not seem to be, which didn't surprise Leonard all that much if he was being honest. Despite what one may think, Spock had always had rather good bedside manners. He didn't need to draw attention to it now, not when Christine seemed relatively comfortable.
"How is she?" Pavel Chekov asked from behind him as he straightened up from his examination.
McCoy looked at Spock, met his gaze and realised that Spock had noticed, too, was perhaps showing as much care because he knew.
"She's dying," Leonard said but didn't look at Pavel. He was unable to meet the younger man's eyes when his voice was so full of fear. He did not want to turn and see the lack of hope in his eyes or worse, an accusation.
He was looking at the Vulcan instead. Spock's eyes did not hold any form of accusation or even disbelief or panic. If he felt any such thing, he was doing a pretty good job at hiding it.
But just as everyone else who had stood at the bedside of a friend, a relative, some person Leonard McCoy hadn't been able to save, Spock looked at him with a silent question. For most people, the question was 'Why?'. 'Why can't you save them?', then 'Why is this happening?', and then the inescapable 'Why them?'. With Spock, the question was 'What?'. '
'What has to be done?' and 'What can I do?'. Even Spock looked at him for guidance, at him, the doctor.
"You're doing very well, Spock," Leonard said briefly and stood up. He left to fetch something from the other room, returning with a blanket. "We forgot to give this to you yesterday," he said. "Snagged it from the pile of things that came from the home front."
"We thought, especially as a Vulcan, you might want something against the cold," Jim added. "Bones made sure to take the nicest one, just for you."
"Shut up, Jim," McCoy grumbled. "Well, anyway, some woman in Britain knitted it for some needy soldier, and I thought you fit the description. It's all right if I use it for her, right?"
Spock nodded, and his eyes grew softer for a moment. "Thank you, Doctor. And of course, it is all right." He raised an eyebrow at the doctor as he bent forward to wrap both Chris and him in the heavy woollen blanket.
McCoy resumed his place on the edge of her bed, and they all settled in for the worst.
Christine drifted in and out of consciousness, accompanied by dreadful coughing fits. When she talked, it was seldom coherent but in delirious murmurs. Her temperature refused to go down, and Spock's shirt was soon damp with sweat where she was leaning against him.
The minutes ticked by agonisingly slow and yet too fast when every single one carried the possibility of being the last for her.
"Mr Spock, can't you work some of your Vulcan magic on her?" Mr Chekov asked after a particularly violent coughing fit, his eyes fixed on her flushed, unconscious face.
"My Vulcan magic?" Spock raised an eyebrow. "There is no magic involved, concerning me or any other Vulcan."
"I always believed there was a little bit of magic about you," Pavel said with a wistful smile. "All that mystery surrounding Vulcan customs. You even have a ritual for reuniting your soul with your body. You have a transferrable soul, to begin with. Are you sure there is nothing there that can help her?"
Spock met his shipmates' imploring gazes. With Chekov's words, they had begun to look at him hopefully. A misguided notion, as there was nothing he could do to save her. But that did not mean he had to sit idly by and watch her die.
He bit his lip and nodded. "I can try," he said, not wanting to promise anything. But if there was a chance that he could take some of her pain from her or soothe her mind, he would at least not let it go untried.
Watched by the others, he took some deep breaths and grounded himself, then put his fingers on Christine's face for a mind meld.
"Your mind to my mind," he murmured and closed his eyes. Very carefully, he reached out to her. But, in her feverish state, she did not reach back and only a dissonance of subconscious thought answered his attempt. "Your thoughts to my thoughts," he said, both verbally and telepathically, an appeal to reach back to him if she could. But she didn't, only errant thoughts touched him, and the continuous maelstrom of her consciousness whirled ahead, threatening to pull him in. At least this was how he would have described the sensations he was experiencing had he been asked. He tore himself away and ended the meld.
"I could not reach her," he said and dropped his hands from her face as she continued to move deliriously, her face twitching in her disturbed sleep. "She does not reciprocate my attempts at establishing contact."
"Forgive me for going out on a limb," McCoy said slowly, "but even to me, she doesn't seem like she's able to reciprocate much, even though she may want to." He waited for Spock to nod and then added, "Maybe, if she wants to but can't, you have to reach harder, look deeper."
"Try again," Jim added. "Please."
Spock raised an eyebrow. Leonard McCoy had no idea how accurate his assessment was. If such a verbal description of immaterial processes could ever be called accurate. Spock did not even try to explain the immense hazards of doing what he was proposing. It did not matter anyway. He had made his decision.
He moved his hands back to Christine's face and prepared for another mind meld.
"Wait!" Jim burst out. "Is it safe?"
Spock glanced back up at him. "Almost," he lied and closed his eyes.
Just as last time, he reached out to her, but she did not reach back. "Open your mind," he whispered, hovering at the edge of her consciousness, about to take what his friends would call a leap of faith. "Let me in," he pleaded and hurled himself into the maelstrom.
He tried to grasp at thoughts, but they evaded him. Sometimes, a tendril of her consciousness would latch on, and he knew she realised he was there. Every time that happened, it seemed as if a shiver of recognition passed by, a burst of light, warm with fondness. He failed to establish a coherent connection, though, and nothing more than fleeting images reached him, as her feverish mind was probably much too busy with itself and its body to reach out to him. At least this was Spock's hypothesis. It would make an interesting study at some point. But not now. Now, he had to either leave or act. She had noticed he was here, so he knew he was able to transmit even though he did not receive.
The next time he saw that burst of recognition, that feeble attempt to reach out, he reached for it in turn and held onto it. And when there was another tendril of consciousness, he did the same. And with another and another. They were struggling to get free, to follow the chaotic pattern of her delirious mind, but he held them back, by mere strength of will. Whenever he noticed a thought directed at him, he grabbed it and held it tight. And as he was doing so, along this train of thought he transmitted as best as he could notions of comfort, warmth, reassuring images, but also an appeal to fight, to come back to them, even if it was for one last time.
He did not know whether he had been successful when the first thought slipped away. The next moment, the whole bundle was gone, and he made preparations to end the meld before he dove too deep to resurface.
When he opened his eyes, he saw Jim bent over him, looking extremely worried. And his concern was directed at him and not at Christine. McCoy and Chekov nearby were wearing similar looks of dread.
"Spock, what did you do? Did it work?" One of Jim's hands was on his cheek, the other holding a damp cloth, and Spock realised he was sweating, and Jim had used that cloth to wipe his brow. He looked scared, undoubtedly shocked that the Vulcan had exerted himself to this degree.
"I do not know," Spock murmured. He took his hands from Christine's face and noticed they were shaking. "I may have reached her this time. I do not know if it achieved anything." He looked back down at her. As his face dried and his hands stopped shaking, her condition seemed unchanged.
For some moments, all of them were silent. Spock looked down at Christine as the hand clutching his shirt twitched weakly, and she drew some rasping breaths. If they were on the Enterprise, the appliances in sickbay would be able to keep her comfortable, perhaps even save her. But thrown back into the past, recovery seemed unlikely, and there was no comfort for her but her friends' presence. Spock hoped he was doing the right thing, but chances were that in a situation where a good outcome was impossible, doing his best was always the right thing. He wondered whether any other Vulcan would have cradled her like this, if it was logical. But, then again, not any other human would have done it either. And it was irrelevant if it was logical because her needs were beyond logic now.
A muffled groan made him turn his full attention back on the woman in his arms. She had opened her eyes, blinking up at him through the half-darkness.
Jim bent over them with a cup of water. "Drink," he said gently, and raised the cup to her lips.
She took one or two weak sips, interrupted by small coughs. "Captain Kirk," she whispered when she had finished, looking up at him with a tired smile.
"Doctor Chapel," he said, matching her tone as he felt her temperature again. Much too hot, still.
"Doctor? I'm a doctor now?"
Jim nodded. "With the rank of commander."
She smirked just as her eyes fell closed again. "Cool," she whispered and drifted off without even noticing that Pavel and Leonard were there as well.
"Bones?" Jim asked, looking over at him with an imploring gaze.
He shook his head. "It's not looking good, Jim."
"But, this quickly?" Pavel burst out next to him and gesticulated wildly with the cloth he had been holding ready. "She can't die now." Only now did he realise that she really was dying, now, at this moment. He had not wanted to believe it, but he had to. Even earlier, when he had asked Spock to help her, he had not fully grasped how far gone she had already been.
"She can, and she probably will," Spock said. It would have sounded harsh had he not been holding on to her so gently.
"She's been sick for a while," McCoy said. "It's really not as quick as it seems."
"Well, it can't get worse than this," Jim murmured.
McCoy sighed and shook his head. "No, it can. And there's nothing I can do."
"You did all you could," Pavel said and laid his hand on the doctor's wrist. "No one is blaming you." Despite the gravity of the situation, he saw some relief in the other man's eyes as he said so. It vanished quickly, though, as they waited for the things to come.
It could get worse, and so it did, at around half past one in the morning. Christine had started to move more restlessly again, and her breathing was coming more irregularly.
"Shh, it's all right," Leonard murmured, almost falling on Spock's legs as he bent over them to touch her face.
She shied away from his touch and the next instant ripped her eyes open to stare at him with a haunted expression. She was shivering, the blanket had slipped from her shoulders, and she was holding on to Spock's arm as if for dear life.
"Help me," she whimpered, her nails digging into his arm with surprising strength, "I don't want to die."
Spock pressed his lips together as she looked up at him with pleading eyes, too weak to raise her head, pleading with him to tell her she was not going to die.
"It's all right, Chris. We're here," Leonard mumbled as he reached out to caress her clammy face.
"Where am I?" she asked, her panicked eyes wandering around the room. "What planet?"
"Earth," Spock said calmly and pulled the blanket back up.
Her eyes widened. "We're back home?"
McCoy nodded and patted her cheek affectionately. "Yeah, you're home. Don't you worry."
"But I don't know this place," she mumbled. "I don't know where I am."
It was clear from her unfocussed look that though she was awake, she was anything other than lucid. Though she seemed to have calmed down a bit, she did not speak again, only mumbling erratically if anything. Her eyes remained open and sometimes looked around the room in a fearful haze, sometimes stared into space, lightyears away. Episodes of mindless panic and pleading whispers alternated with episodes of detachment during which she did not seem to know them, and she was shivering and coughing all the while.
In time, the panicked episodes grew less noticeable, and there were long periods during which she did not react to anything, not to Pavel taking her hand, not to Spock tugging the blanket in around her, not to Leonard's soft whispers as he wiped her brow.
Jim wondered if this was it, if she would slip away without saying another word, without another moment of lucidity. Maybe it was better this way if she didn't notice too much of what was happening.
His eyes fell on Spock. He had been perfectly composed all the time, but one had to be blind to think he wasn't affected. The very fact he was here spoke volumes. And the way he was looking at Christine, the furrowed brow and his lips pressed into a thin line, told Jim that something was weighing on him.
"Something on your mind?" he asked, leaving it up to him to decide if he wanted to talk about it.
For some seconds, Jim thought he would get no answer at all, but then Spock raised his eyes and said, "I was wondering if it was that important, trying to get information by spending time with Marie-Claire." He raised an eyebrow and gestured at Christine. "I could have been here instead."
"Your being here would not have prevented her from becoming this ill," Pavel said, in a reversal of roles.
Spock shook his head. "No, it wouldn't." He looked back down at Christine, who was currently staring into the space behind Jim's left ear. "But I believe that she would have liked it had I been here earlier."
McCoy hadn't changed his position since Christine had woken up and was still kneeling over Spock's legs. Now, he suddenly bent forward to check Spock's temperature.
"Thank God," he grumbled as he sat back, plopping down next to the Vulcan's legs on the bed and leaning against the wall.
"Doctor?"
Leonard shrugged. "I thought you might have a fever, too, the way you're talking all of a sudden."
"Don't dwell on it," Jim said quickly, not wanting the two to start bickering now of all times. He touched Spock's shoulder and pressed it softly. "You're here, now."
The hours ticked on, and Jim became certain that Christine would never talk again. But then she did, either because she was clinging to life that desperately or being propelled by that strange ability often seen in humans to collect every last bit of strength to say goodbye before they died.
It was Pavel who noticed, after a while of her staring into space, that she was crying, silent tears running down her cheeks. And just as he pointed it out to the others, she shivered slightly, closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, that blank stare seemed momentarily gone. She was still crying, though, and shivering.
"Hi Pavel," she whispered to him kneeling in front of her and immediately started coughing.
He reached out to stabilise her head until it had passed, once more realising with a pang of sadness how weak she was if she could not even hold up her head by herself.
When she had stopped coughing, her look wandered upwards, searching Spock's face above hers. "Don't leave me," she whimpered with a teary smile. She raised her trembling hand to his face, touching his cheek with the ghost of a caress before her hand fell on his shoulder. Exhausted as she was, it was a wonder she managed as much. "Promise you'll never leave."
Spock pursed his lips. It was illogical to promise something one could not guarantee. "I promise," he whispered nonetheless and wiped one of her tears away.
She closed her eyes as he touched her, and a feeble sob escaped her. She gripped the hem of Spock's shirt, shaking with both the feverish shivers and her crying. A little wet spot was spreading on Spock's shirt where her head was lying. She continued to cry, mostly silently. Every once in a while, a small whimper escaped her, but she seemed much too weak for full-blown sobs, let alone talking. Hoping to comfort her, Spock was stroking her back, and the crying slowly subsided, until it stopped completely. The shivering, too, became weaker and then stopped. An uneasy silence settled.
Jim leant forward in his chair, perched on the edge. "Bones. Is she…"
Leonard got up and bent over her. "No," he mumbled, "but any moment now." He sighed and sat back down on the bed, this time leaning against the headboard next to Spock and Christine. "You wanna give her to me?" he offered, gently taking the dying woman's hand in his.
Spock shook his head. "Not unless you want to hold her instead."
"Nah, better don't move her," Leonard mumbled. "Not when she seems comfortable now." He shrugged and leant closer to the Vulcan, careful not to let go of Christine's hand. "I just thought you might not want to be the one to hold her when she actually dies."
Spock raised an eyebrow. "That assumption is illogical. I have been holding her all night with the expectation that she may die at any moment. Now that the moment approaches, I see no reason to change my behaviour." He inclined his head towards the doctor. "Again, unless you want to hold her instead."
"I don't think it'd make a difference to her at this point," McCoy whispered, smiling bitterly. Thank God it didn't. It was worse enough she had been so afraid earlier.
Spock nodded. "I agree."
McCoy frowned up at him. "Why are you offering for me to take her, then?"
"In case it made a difference to you, to be the one to hold her."
"You know," Leonard said fondly, "I get why she liked you so much."
Spock chose not to answer. He turned his attention back to Christine instead. On his other side, Jim was watching, helplessly waiting for the inevitable, and Pavel was kneeling next to the bed, his lower lip trembling slightly.
They waited, and again, the minutes ticked away.
In fact, it was taking rather long. Longer than 'any moment' would have led you to believe.
After a while, McCoy examined her again. "Hm," he said and frowned. "I don't believe it."
"What is it, Bones?" Jim whispered.
Leonard shook his head in disbelief, his hand resting on Christine's brow. "Her temperature is sinking. And listen, she's breathing better."
"Does that mean she will live?" Pavel asked.
"She's not in the clear yet." McCoy sighed deeply. "But there is hope."
Christine continued to hover somewhere between sleeping and waking, not fully conscious but not asleep either. There were no anxiety-riddled episodes anymore, and her whole demeanour was calmer. The shivering had abated, and when she mumbled something, it wasn't marked by terror anymore.
One time, it must have been around four in the morning, she suddenly opened her eyes, stared straight at Chekov still kneeling in front of her, and said, "I had the strangest dream, Pavel. We were soldiers in the First World War. And you and I were brothers."
"What a strange dream indeed," Pavel answered gently.
She leaned back until she was looking into Leonard and Spock's faces over her. Spock raised an eyebrow, and she smirked. "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," she muttered, closed her eyes and fell asleep at last without another comment.
"Well, I guess at this point, we'd do well to follow her example," Jim said after a while. Pavel was already in the process of falling asleep at the foot of Christine's bed, and Bones was yawning deeply.
"I sure will," Leonard grumbled, then glanced sideways at Spock. "You, too. You must be tired."
At first, Spock didn't react. Then, after noticing his stare, he turned. "Did you say something?"
McCoy's frown deepened. "I said, you must be tired. And now I know you are if your hearing problems are stronger."
Spock only nodded. He had had trouble understanding his shipmates for the last half an hour, his hearing injury making itself known with the growing exhaustion. And it would have been a lie to deny that he was exhausted by the nightly ordeal.
Jim blinked over at him sympathetically. He understood very well how tired he must be. His own mind felt both too full and so very empty at the same time. He was even too tired to feel relief. And, in comparison, he had barely done anything. He hadn't done a mind meld or held Chris Chapel all through the night. He smiled over at Spock then. To be the focus of that Vulcan's loyalty was a blessing indeed.
"Sleep, Spock," he said. "That's an order."
Spock nodded again and closed his eyes, fully knowing what Jim was doing, that he was commanding him to sleep because he knew it was easier to follow an order than admit to having been affected by all this.
Soon, he seemed to be fast asleep, and Bones next to him was snoring soundly, both of them holding on to Christine. Jim shook his head fondly and went over to the free bed, slumped down on it and was asleep seconds later, barely having managed to get under the covers.
