Chapter Eight

An hour before Jim knocked himself unconscious in Sickbay, Pavel Chekov returned to the Bridge. All eyes discretely focussed on him as the turbo lift opened, the other crewmates on the Bridge attempting to hold the façade of work while desperate for any scrap of information on their lost Captain. Sulu held no such illusion. He leapt from his seat at the helm and pulled Chekov across to Uhura's abandoned work station.

'Did you see him? Is he okay?' Sulu demanded.

Chekov only shook his head, unable to answer.

'He's not okay.' Sulu asked, the statement becoming more real with every expression that flit across Chekov's face

Chekov merely shook his head again and pushed past Sulu to take his seat at the helm. All eyes on the Bridge followed him, and Sulu suddenly became very angry.

'What are you all looking at?' he demanded. 'Get back to work.'

The officers did so, and Sulu took his own seat. Three minutes later, a memo blinked on Chekov's screen.

H. Sulu: You did see him though, right?

Chekov shut his eyes firmly, reopened and typed.

P. Chekov: Yes.

H. Sulu: What the hell happened down there, Pavel?

There was a few minutes silence between the terminals, and Sulu had given up on an answer.

P. Chekov: The Captain is not the same.

The reply came quickly.

H. Sulu: Is he sick? What is it?

P. Chekov: Yes, he's very sick.

Sulu breathed an audible sigh of relief.

H. Sulu: Don't worry about it. McCoy's got it sorted.

The lie in Chekov's response was detectable even as he typed.

P. Chekov: I'm sure he has.

The full-body scan mapped Jim's entire system, detecting the blood flow in each capillary and mapping his neurons. He lay on the scanning biobed with a holographic scan hovering above his body, identical to Jim in every muscle and ligament. McCoy sorted meticulously through the mass of data, expecting to find half-healed wounds, internal bleeding, evidence of torturous surgeries, only…

'Doctor McCoy.'

'Shut it, Spock.'

He searched for heart palpitations, the uniform artificiality of regenerator healed tissue, dental records in case one tooth had knocked free.

Nothing.

But McCoy kept digging, he had to know what they did to his best friend, why he cowered in fear and lashed out in anger. But there was nothing, nothing to suggest Jim had been mistreated beyond a little underfeeding. There were the scars that littered his chest and back, yes, but they were little more than skin-deep, and all evidence pointed to them having been roughly healed in the last few months at most.

'This doesn't make any sense.'

McCoy stepped back from the terminal and rubbed a hand across his face, scratching at the slightly itchy skin of his newly shaved face.

Spock stepped forward, his hands clasped behind his back, fingers toying with the frayed edge of his sleeve. 'Explain, Doctor.'

'Look, if I hadn't seen him myself, what he's become…' McCoy trailed off, but at Spock's look, forced himself to continue. 'If I was just looking at this data, I would say that he has only been gone for the three months, there's nothing outside of the evidences of basic survival.'

'Perhaps Jim did not spend as much time within the time dilatation field as we thought.' Spock theorised.

'Then what the hell happened to him?' McCoy yelled, turning around driving his foot into the wall.

Spock flinched slightly at the burst of emotion and weighed his words carefully. 'Doctor, I think it is time to consider the option that-'

'No! That's not what happened.' McCoy denied.

'The captain has very little physical injuries, yet his mind is corrupted.'

'We're not going there, Spock, it's not an option.'

Spoke gave him a look that let him know he was being horrifically illogical and placed a hand on the sleeping Jim's arm. 'The consequences of mental violation are disastrous, Doctor McCoy, particularly on a psi-null species such as yours. It is fortunate therefore that I have been highly trained in my psychic abilities.'

'How can you do that?' McCoy bristled.

'To what are you referring?'

'Talk about psychic rape like it doesn't mean a thing.'

'Of everyone on board, I am the most qualified to discuss psychic intrusion, Doctor, and believe me, I do not take this matter lightly.'

McCoy frowned and didn't meet the Vulcan's eyes. 'What would that mean?'

'If Jim has been psychically violated, he will not easily trust, his mind may be fractured.' Spock recited. 'There are literally thousands of possible outcomes.'

'Then narrow the margin.' McCoy demanded.

'That will require significant mental contact with Jim. Perhaps even a meld.' Spock met his eyes. 'Will you give consent on his behalf?'

The question threw McCoy off for a moment.

'I-'

'Doctor McCoy. Will you consent?'

'I can't be the next in a long line of bastards that tortured him. I won't.' McCoy denied.

'Whether you wish it or not, you are responsible for the Captains health and wellbeing.' Spock reminded the doctor. 'And while I cannot force you to make a decision, I must remind you that almost all medical treatments have necessary risks and temporary damages. If performed correctly, this meld could be no different from an exploratory surgery.'

McCoy dug fingers into his hair and turned around. 'Do it.' He hissed through his teeth.

Spock nodded assent and moved towards Jim's unconscious form.

'Wait!' McCoy turned back and grabbed Jim's limp hand, entwining his fingers around his best friend's unresponsive ones. 'He's not going to be doing this alone.'

The smallest flinch was evident around Spock's eyes, as if he had taken personal offence at the statement, but did not contradict him; instead, his voice grew soft.

'This will be as non-invasive as possible.' He said, stepping towards the biobed and unlinking his hands from behind his back.

It's just a surgery. McCoy repeated in his mind like a mantra. Spock's hand is merely the scalpel.

Long fingers spread across Jim's face, fitting onto invisible points.

Incision.

Spock's eyes fluttered closed and Jim released a soft moan, twitching in his sleep.

Exploratory surgery. Determining root cause of unexplainable physical symptoms.

Unlike every surgery McCoy had ever been involved in, this one was silent, motionless. Everything was taking place in the space between the two minds and McCoy was deaf and dumb to it all. Long minutes stretched and joined together without a sound other than the biobed's steady beeping and his own ragged breathing.

Finally, Jim let out a choked sigh as Spock pulled his hand away.

Surgery completed. Results awaiting analysis.

'What is it, what did you find?' McCoy demanded gruffly.

'The numbers.' Spock murmured. 'It was a game. He turned it into a game.'

Diagnosis: …

'15432.' McCoy recited.

'It was the score. You were correct, Doctor McCoy. There was no sign of psychic interference. However, there were other mental scars.'

Diagnosis: Psychological trauma.

McCoy let out a sigh of relief. He was treatable then. Jim was not lost.

Spock finally met his gaze, eyes wide under slanted eyebrows. 'It is much worse than you think, Doctor.' They both turned to their unconscious captain.

'It is likely that recovery may not be possible.'

'I don't want to hear that.'

Prognosis: Hopeful.

Wow. It's almost been a full year. I'm so sorry! I hate abandoning stories, particularly when I'm so attached to them, but I have so many ideas and demands on my time in real life that I just sort of let them linger and I hate that. I've been so busy with university and life and travels and being published, plus, I have my second-in-a-series manuscript due in like a week.

This one's going out to all the people who got an email notification in their inbox today and went "What the hell is that? I don't remember reading that." and then got this far (again). I love you so much!