Chapter Text
“Computer, bridge lights normal.”
Spock does not consider stopping to appreciate the color seeping away from every surface of the bridge, his mouth set in a stern line as he wordlessly lowers his body with more force than is needed into the captain’s chair. His expression when he turns to Uhura asks in a direct, loaded silence what has happened in his absence.
She nods sharply in understanding. “Scanners picked up a Romulan vessel heading toward us at warp speed. It entered subspace three minutes ago and has just hailed. What do you wish me to do, Commander?”
Chekov interjects, “They have raised shields and I detect phasers aimed straight at us, sir.”
Spock looks at the viewscreen, a small craft hovering among the stars, facing the Enterprise in challenge. The sight causes him to sit taller, the position of command draping over him with a sort of familiarity as he says, “Mr. Sulu, magnify.” But command does not slot into his personal animus—the part of him that commits to professional obligation—with as much comfort in this moment.
Behind the façade he adopts as acting captain, Jim’s visage saturates Spock’s mind. He cannot forget precisely the way Jim looked as Spock had left his captain’s shuddering body in McCoy’s capable hands, and the images filter through his staunch attempts at levelness no matter his defenses. Inwardly, Spock berates himself. He must set aside any personal cares or feelings, he must put the safety of the ship and her crew above all else—
But the ship’s safety means Jim’s safety, and Jim’s health and wellbeing is flooding his mind, relentlessly.
Spock clenches his fist until the chair’s control panel threatens to break, allowing himself one final act of weakness before he shuts all the pieces of his soul that hold Jim above all else away into a part of his mind that will keep them safe. He will return to his captain, but now is not the time.
“Transfer to viewscreen, Lieutenant Uhura.”
The Romulan ship interior fills the screen, a young male meeting Spock’s eyes, his angled brow canted upwards in direct challenge. To Spock, his youth is apparent. The tilt of his lips betrays misplaced confidence, and Spock suspects the power at his beck and call with the people supplied along to accomplish his every whim has inflated his ego. Not for the first time does Spock experience gratitude that he has been taught to leave such things behind.
“This is Commander Spock of the U.S.S. Enterprise, to whom do I address myself?”
“You speak to Captain Dumim, jewel of the Empire, Commander,” a low voice growls, cocky and self-assured.
Spock’s face betrays nothing as he takes in the slinking, snake-like body language of the young Romulan. Fascinating. “Do you realize the consequences of threatening a Federation vessel, Captain Dumim? We have refrained from entering Romulan territory, and I do not hold to the belief that your superiors would indulge you in the fantasy you have dreamt for yourself of glory and conquest.”
Spock relishes the way the Romulan’s face drops its confident coloring, put upon by deliberate design. Spock feels his temper flicker to life within him. This confrontation is pointless, nothing but war games committed out of boredom as well as a youthful grasping at unearned respect. Spock will certainly not be affording him any.
“We have you at the tip of our swords, and yet you mock me so?” Dumim replies indignantly.
“I do not mock you. I simply state that which is true.”
Though Spock will accede, the confrontation does not come entirely unexpected.
He knows what the Enterprise appears as, all but dead in space with any scanner directed towards them showing low power and hardly enough to spare for weak shields. Their phasers may support them for one or two direct shots but would devour their needed stores for completing the journey they so desperately need to see the end of. Spock is at a disadvantage and the Enterprise is in true danger of either being destroyed or being boarded, and the reminder gives his spine an edge of steel.
Spock feels his impatience grow. He does not wish to deal with an opportunistic Romulan at such a time, he has far more important things to do. His jaw tightens beneath the skin. “What do you wish to accomplish from such a feat as this, Captain?”
The Romulan laughs, low and menacing. “Accomplish? Why, we will take you and your ship. I will deliver you to the High Council and be celebrated for years to come! I will be one of the first to take your secrets and your pride, Vulcan,” he spits.
“I assure you, you will do no such thing to me.”
Spock watches as Dumim leans forward in his chair, his face filling the viewscreen as his eyes seem to glow with hatred and maniacal fervor. “I could do a great many things to you and yours, Commander. You haven’t the strength to resist, I’m afraid.”
And suddenly Spock is quite through with pretenses. The threat isn’t baseless, he knows at every turn they are outgunned and the Romulans could outmaneuver them whenever they should so choose, but the quiet corner of his mind that he has banished Jim to hums and writhes at being ignored and really, why should he separate duty from his captain? The two go hand in hand as Spock draws incomparable strength from the man who has taught him so much over years spent at one another’s side.
So what would Jim do if he were cornered with nowhere to go?
Spock crosses one leg over the other, placing his chin on top of laced fingers as he too, leans forward, leveling an unblinking stare at the incorrigible Romulan. “We have far more strength than you mistakenly assume. We are the Federation’s flagship, to be less than excellent would be truly illogical.” Spock does not miss the twitch of Dumim’s eyebrow but Spock doesn’t allow an answer, standing up with folded hands behind his back as he walks towards the screen. Jim did always like games.
First, deal the cards.
“We are currently returning for repairs after exhausting our warp core following an incident with a rogue and highly dangerous asteroid. We have been traveling at impulse speed for a number of days, careful to not enter the Romulan Neutral Zone as we make our way towards Federation spacedock.”
Set the stakes.
He continues, “Of course, it is known to you how little power we have at our disposal, though I will remind you that we would hardly be taken so easily and without altercation.” He paces steadily.
Spock can hear Jim’s voice as if whispered in his ear, a soft smirk tilting up his lips. Call…or bluff, Mr. Spock?
“But you should know, Captain Dumim.” Spock turns, directing a fierce and sure gaze at the captain whose mouth has parted just slightly, enraptured by Spock not only admitting their every vulnerability but marking it out in plain terms. “We are not so helpless as we seem.”
Swiftly he turns to Chekov and Sulu, his face giving away nothing even as he hopes they will catch on to his idea. “Arm the corbomite torpedoes, Mr. Sulu. Mr. Chekov, set target to 1-1-7 mark 3. Countdown on my command.” He turns to see a wide-eyed Dumim, suspicion etched into sharp features. “That’s an order.”
He hears buttons depressed rapidly behind him and the crew calling out to one another as they lock on to the Romulan craft with the Enterprise’s photon torpedoes even as the scene in front of him unfolds. Dumim only takes a moment to look unsure before chaos erupts behind him within the bird-of-prey and the Romulan crew is heard informing the captain of the weapons aimed straight for them. The captain looks lost as his men speak in their mother tongue, rushed and with an edge of panic. Soon enough Dumim turns back to Spock.
“Corbomite? What is this? A new weapon in Starfleet’s hands?” he accuses.
Spock’s eyebrow rises. “Have you not been informed? Corbomite is the best of our innovative technology, using less power to create and inflicting far more damage. I say without doubt that a single blow from our stores would not only render you inoperative but entirely destroyed, left as inconsequential pieces for the vacuum of space to claim.” The lie rolls easily off his tongue and he witnesses it as if watching from afar. Jim awaiting him in sickbay makes it all seem rather inconsequential.
Dumim narrows his eyes even as sweat beads at his upper lip. “You lie.”
“Vulcans do not lie.” He stands straight, chin held aloft, a flat, unemotional expression held on his face that he knows—to many—comes off as arrogance and in this case he welcomes it. Let the Romulan not see a fiber of doubt in stern, dark eyes; for in this moment, he does not feel doubt even in himself.
Dumim’s eyes dart back and forth as if searching out the truth, weighing the possibilities he cannot possibly have had experience with before, given his age. He is at a loss, and Spock can see it easily.
Fold, he wills.
It is no surprise when a puffed chest deflates before his very eyes.
“I will not place my people into unknown danger this day.”
Spock slowly releases a breath he had been holding. “I think this wise. Possibly even beyond your years, Captain Dumim.”
The Romulan looks away sheepishly, his mouth twisting in anger. “But do not think for a moment that we are through. We will gather our strength, and return! You have given us information, a coveted currency in war, Commander.” He slams his fist down onto his own chair. “You may count on this, Vulcan!”
Spock feels his eye twitch. “Assuredly.”
He turns away dismissively, signaling for Uhura to cut off the transmission. The last thing the Romulan is allowed to see is Spock’s back as he makes his way into the turbolift, aching to be where he is truly needed.
I am coming, captain.
“Lay back, Jim. That’s it.” McCoy soothes a feverish brow, clammy sweat clinging to Jim’s skin as he comes out of yet another nerve-rattling episode of what seems like endless thrashing. Hazel eyes dart around the room as McCoy watches the confusion set in while Jim’s body continues to tremble from the comedown of the seizure. His breathing is unsteady and pulse rabbit-quick. Jim’s eyelids begin to droop. McCoy sighs. “I know you’re tired,” he says softly. “Sleep…if you can.”
McCoy takes the offered cloth napkin from nurse Chapel who has been assisting him in making sure that Jim will not hurt himself as he loses control of his body, and wipes at a small amount of saliva that has escaped the captain’s open mouth. He knows that Jim can’t help things like this and is even likely unaware of what is going on around him, but even so McCoy hates it. He hates that his captain—his friend—has been reduced to nothing more than surface autonomous functioning. Leonard has brought Jim back from the brink on too many occasions to possibly be comfortable with it and still call himself a compassionate man, but in such instances Jim has always fought; clung to life by the fingernails if he must. But seeing Jim so helpless…
It feels wrong on every conceivable level.
Red lights flash in his periphery but he ignores them and will continue to do so until he may not be able to anymore. He doesn’t know if they’re headed into battle or if Spock is dealing with just another confounding threat like the ones they seem to find their ways into no matter how much they would wish differently, but he figures he’ll know something’s up if men and women begin to pile into his sickbay. As it is, Jim’s welfare is taking up his time enough.
“Christine, how much of the acetylcholine did you give him?”
She looks up from where she can be found reorganizing her tray of medical supplies, much of it scattered in her haste to help him with Jim. “5cc’s, Doctor.”
“Right…” He lapses into thought.
That had been two episodes ago. Acetylcholine has been known to help realign neural transmitters, calming the motor functions of the brain that can become overactive and induce things like seizures and other erratic behavioral effects. McCoy looks up at the readings over the biobed, Jim’s brain still showing elevated electrotransmitter levels. He frowns.
“He should be coming out of it. We should be seeing improvement,” he ponders aloud. Chapel comes close, her eyes also narrowing in question.
“Maybe the source of the seizures aren’t based in the electro impulses passing through the neurons, Doctor?”
McCoy looks down at Jim who moves incessantly, discomfort lining his face. His eyes are closed now, but he chews at his bottom lip as if compelled. McCoy gently removes it from his teeth only for the man to turn to his tongue, an oral fixation he apparently can’t fight. Jim’s pulse jumps erratically—McCoy recognizes it as anxiety that can follow seizure activity.
The doctor feels his chest grow tender at the sight of Jim’s misery, an ache surfacing from deep within. “His glucose and sodium levels are practically perfect, and the scans don’t show any physical injury. The lexorin still in his system shouldn’t be causing something like this, though I guess he could be allergic. Seems strange that he wouldn’t manifest any sort of symptoms until days later…but we can’t rule it out.”
McCoy grabs his portable scanner once more, eyeing his readings closely as the tricorder pings a constant noise at him. He grimaces. “The problem is that I don’t know how long this will last, and the captain can’t handle many more episodes like this. He could slip into a coma if we aren’t careful.” He closes the tricorder viewscreen with a too-sharp snap. “There’s just too much I’m unsure of at the moment.”
He thinks back to how he had found Jim, sprawled on the floor with every muscle tight as Spock held him close, protecting Jim’s head with his own body. McCoy can’t say he’s ever seen the Vulcan look so close to panic, his eyes wide and worry etched plainly across his face. They were sitting against the bulkhead just underneath the comm unit when he found them—come running like a bat out of hell after Spock called—and he had listened intently as Spock then began to relate everything that happened before his arrival. McCoy needed to center himself to make tops or tails of the facts and figures that Spock was throwing at him, his momentary shock at seeing Jim so compromised bleeding into his cold professionalism as the ship’s CMO. Spock had timed the seizure down to the second and told him vaguely of what had occurred within the meld as well as what had led to Spock finding the captain on this particular deck.
Spock then pulled himself away, placing Jim gently in McCoy’s own hands as the captain finally began to come out of his attack, but McCoy had not missed the way Spock’s face had twisted into a marked grief as he turned his back on them both. He did not look at them when he spoke to McCoy, the doctor hardly recognizing Spock’s voice for how rough it had been.
“Take care of him, Doctor.”
And McCoy had every intention to.
However, acting on such intentions is proving far more difficult.
The red light that had been bleeding into McCoy’s awareness, no longer a bother any more than the usual colors of the bulkheads, flashes one final time before the color is extinguished. Spock will be gliding through McCoy’s doors sooner rather than later and with a jolt he realizes he wishes it would be to better news. He’s done his best to make Jim comfortable, and he has a few more ideas up his sleeve, but McCoy doesn’t envy anyone having to tell Spock their captain isn’t doing well.
At the same time, he wonders when exactly it was that such a reaction from the Vulcan became an expected outcome. McCoy smiles quietly to himself, even amidst the chaos of their current situation. Leonard McCoy has always maintained the idea that love is never one much to follow logic and rules. “You poor, poor Vulcan,” he says aloud to himself. “Jim gets you, every damn time.” The doctor frowns as Jim shivers beneath the thin blanket pulled up to his shoulders.
He sighs, worry pricking at his nape like a cold touch. “Jim gets to us all in the end, doesn’t he?”