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As Jim leaves behind Starfleet’s central Yorktown hub, every inch of his body aches. Distantly, he remembers that he’s not actually gone for medical treatment since, well, everything. Spock’s injury suddenly turning into a medical emergency and Jim’s debriefing took up every second, until now.
Until here he is. Alone for the first time since everything started.
His crew will be in their arranged accommodations. A whole building to themselves, though they won’t take up all of it. There’s not enough of them left for that.
Jim’s chest hurts. He sucks in a breath, running one hand through his hair.
Suddenly, the solitude is too much. His crew’s not here—Bones isn’t here, Spock’s not here, nor Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, Scotty—he’s alone and what if they’re dead? What if he missed something, what if one of Krall’s crew is still here? What if he screwed up again and…
Breathlessly, Jim grabs hold of both his spiralling thoughts and his hair—the latter tight enough to hurt. Irrational, he’s being irrational. Illogical, as Spock would say.
Spock who was being wheeled away on a stretcher, side infected, the last time Jim saw him. They would’ve told him if Spock had deteriorated further, wouldn’t they? They wouldn’t’ve let him spend hours debriefing if Spock was dying, would they?
No, Bones would never do that to him. Not that Bones is the one caring for Spock right now. Bones was trying, but the Yorktown Medical staff on duty were pushing him away—understandably, Bones was in a state and his normally-steady hands were shaking—but Bones wouldn’t give it up. He’ll still be there, regardless of if he managed to bully the staff into letting him help. Unless Spock’s…
No, he snaps at himself. Stop that!
He needs to see Spock. Then everyone else, but Spock was the one dying injured the last time Jim saw him. He needs to see Spock alive for himself.
So, that’s where he heads. Yorktown Medical isn’t far from Starfleet’s hub so it doesn’t take long for him to make it there. He stumbles in through the doors into a bustling lobby and over to the reception desk.
Somehow—and Jim cannot say how—he ends up outside the ward that’s been allocated to the Enterprise survivors. He recognises each person in each of the biobeds and it’s relieving to see them there and alive—unlike most of his crew, no stop that…
Spock has his own room at the end. As a Commander, he has the right to a private room and, though Jim himself would rather be in the main ward with his people, Spock as a telepath is better off separate from everyone else. Jim takes the time to greet any of his crew who are awake on his way to Spock’s room. Once he reaches the door, he hits the button to open it.
And, for the first time in what feels like hours—days, even—Jim takes a real, full breath. Spock’s there, asleep but alive. The machines around him are a testament to that, beeping at a constant steady rate. Ordinarily, it’d be annoying, repetitive. Right now, it’s the sweetest sound Jim’s ever heard.
‘Jim?’ The fragile utterance of his name draws his attention to Uhura, sitting in the chair beside Spock’s bed.
He forces a smile. ‘Hey, Uhura. How is he?’
Uhura glances at the sleeping Spock. ‘He’s…alive. The infection should clear up quickly, so…’ She stops, dragging in a shaky breath. ‘You…you were debriefing, right?’
Jim steps inside the room fully. ‘Yeah. Nobody else needs to worry about it, not for a while. I, erm, told them to leave you guys alone for a few days.’
She nods, holding on tight to the PADD in her hands. When she notices his gaze, she smiles. ‘I was just…reading to him.’
‘Good, that’s good.’
Silence.
‘Len’s here too,’ Uhura says, fiddling with her PADD. ‘They dragged him off about an hour ago, he had…’ She stops, swallowing. ‘He had this bruise on his side he hadn’t paid attention too and they suspected he had broken a couple of ribs.’
Bones is hurt? Jim runs back through his last memories of his friend—Bones didn’t exactly look well but he didn’t seem injured, damn it, Jim’s slipping all over the place today. How did he miss that, he’s so…
Uhura sucks in a breath and Jim snaps back into the room, as she presses one hand to her mouth.
‘I…I’m sorry,’ she says, PADD slipping from her hands to the floor with a clatter. It’s a testament to how upset she is that she doesn’t try to pick it up. She fights back tears, clutching her mouth hard enough the skin below her fingers lightens a few shades. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t…’
Jim moves. ‘Nyota,’ he says gently, coming around the bed and laying a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s okay, you don’t…’
He’s interrupted when she hurls herself at him, burying her face in his chest. Jim wraps his arms tight around her, pressing his own face into her hair. She’s crying, sobbing. ‘I didn’t know, it was just me and Sulu, and I thought…I thought Spock was dead, that you were all dead, I thought we were—thought I was…’ She chokes.
She doesn’t need to finish her sentence. Jim knows what she was going to say.
She believed she’d lost everyone, for the second time in her life. That she was once again left almost entirely alone in the world.
Jim hugs her tighter. Every part of him—inside and out—aches. He’d thought that too. Had believed, for far too long out there in the wilderness of Altamid, that he and Chekov alone had survived. That Bones and Uhura and Spock and Scotty and Sulu, all of them were dead and it was his fault for not seeing through Kalara’s lies earlier.
But they aren’t. So many of his people are, but for tonight he takes comfort in the knowledge that some of his crew are alive. His closest friends are alive. Uhura—Nyota—is here in his arms, incredibly wonderfully alive.
Something gives inside of him and he folds in on himself, a terrible heaviness weighing him down. He’s exhausted.
‘Jim? Nyota?’ Bones’s voice is tired and alarmed. ‘What’s…’
Jim pulls out of the hug enough to spot Bones hovering in the doorway. He looks terrible and Jim abruptly wonders how on earth he’d assumed Bones was okay earlier.
‘Len?’ Uhura rubs at her face as she leans into Jim’s side, staying in a half-hug. ‘How’s your side?’
‘Fine.’
‘Liar. You broke them, didn’t you?’
Bones makes a face at her, sending a quick nervous glance at Jim. ‘I’m fine now,’ he reiterates. ‘And you,’ he says, turning his attention fully to Jim. ‘You haven’t had any medical attention at all, have you?’
Under any other circumstances, Jim would lie. He hates undergoing medical treatment, especially when so many of his crew are hurt.
But Bones is far too shaken, far too fragile, for Jim to do that to him. Bones needs someone to take care of, like Jim—admittedly—probably does need someone to check out all of those many aches and pains threading through him. Besides, Jim’s so very tired.
Instead, he sighs and takes a seat on Spock’s bed.
‘Have at it, Bones,’ he says with a dramatic wave of his hand.
Bones and Uhura exchange glances. ‘You’re…letting me?’ Bones says suspiciously.
‘Yep.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m too tired for anything else,’ Jim says.
Bones blinks. A familiar concerned scowl takes up position on his face. ‘Oh. Right then.’
He’s worried Bones now. Their whole song-and-dance after every mission gone wrong is tradition by this point, it’s part of how they both decompress. Jim just sitting down and letting him is a change—and Bones has never been a fan of change, even if it’s for the better. It seems Jim can’t stop hurting his friends lately.
Yet, he can’t summon up the energy to pretend.
As Bones gathers what he needs, Uhura sinks down next to him, hands clasped together. They’re still shaking.
Bones returns with a hospital tricorder, setting it to scan Jim. It comes back with a few broken ribs, bruises everywhere, and a nasty burn across his left leg. Muttering under his breath about idiots wandering off here, there and everywhere while they were injured—Jim’s sure Bones can’t possibly be talking about him—Bones pulls at Jim’s uninjured arm.
Moving sounds insurmountable. This is the first time he’s properly sat down in hours. He makes a face at Bones. ‘Do I have to?’
Bones rolls his eyes. ‘The chair is right there.’
Jim eyes the chair. ‘It’s a whole metre away, Bones.’
Bones and Uhura exchange exasperated glances. Uhura’s no longer shaking, Jim notes with relief. She wraps one arm around his middle. ‘Come on. Up we go, dumbass.’
‘That’s Captain Dumbass, I’ll have you know,’ Jim says, finally summoning up the energy to help get himself upright. He slumps into the chair in question and sits back. ‘Happy?’
‘Ecstatic,’ Bones snipes back. ‘I can regenerate the burn and bruises here, but I’ll need you on a bed for the broken bones.’
Jim sighs. ‘Can’t you do that tomorrow? I’m not going anywhere.’
‘You need to go to bed anyway, what’s the difference?’
This is a good point—Jim hates that. His attention drifts back to Spock. In the back of Jim’s mind, he replays that moment when Spock collapsed, face a deathly grey. He won’t be able to close his eyes tonight without seeing it, seeing his lovely ship go crashing into that mountain with so many of his crew on board, seeing the corpses littering her halls in those last minutes before he escaped.
A sigh draws his attention back to Bones, who’s watching him with an unreadable look in his eyes. ‘He’ll be alright. He’s stable.’
‘I know.’ Jim still can’t bring himself to move from this chair.
Bones watches him a few seconds longer before he sighs again. ‘Nyota,’ he says, glancing at her. ‘I hate to bother you, but could you maybe go rustle up enough spare blankets and pillows to make this place half-way comfortable?’
This garners a laugh from Uhura as she goes. Once she’s disappeared out the door, Bones hefts the dermal regenerator. ‘Sit still and this won’t take long.’
Under normal circumstances, this would be a tall order. These aren’t remotely normal circumstances. Jim doesn’t move throughout all of Bones’s poking and prodding—except for when Bones specifically has him move. Partway through, Uhura returns with an armload of pillows and blankets, as well as bedding backup—she’s found Scotty and Chekov along the way and has drafted them into the cause, they too hold massive loads of bedding.
Proving anew why Jim firmly believes she’ll be the first of his command crew to make Captain—Spock’s already proven his allergy to the very concept—Uhura whips the pair into shape and soon they have a passable assembly of bedding on the floor that could potentially be a large bed if you look at it sideways and squint. By the time Bones has done all he can with Jim in the chair, it’s ready.
Somehow, Jim ends up in the bed, with an osteo-regenerator around his middle and Bones plops down beside him. ‘Neither of us are leaving this bed until you get at least eight hours’ sleep, so don’t try it.’
Jim is sure there’s a dirty joke to be made there. He’s too tired to figure it out. ‘Cool,’ he says, drooping back into the pile of pillows and turning his gaze to the others. ‘You guys joining us?’
Scotty grins. ‘Thought you’d never ask,’ he says, flopping down to Jim’s other side and stealing entirely too many of the blankets.
‘You’re all idiots,’ Uhura informs them, nabbing the spot by Bones.
All four of them look expectantly at Chekov, who hesitates, eyeing the pile of bedding dubiously. ‘I don’t know…’
‘Come on, Pav.’ Jim manages something approaching a smile. ‘Don’t leave us. You don’t want to miss out on the hospital floor slumber party of the century, do you?’
‘I am sure those words were never meant to be said together,’ says Chekov.
He does, however, take a seat—falling asleep about ten seconds after he does so, drooping onto Scotty’s shoulder. Scotty seems okay with it.
‘How’s everyone?’ Jim asks him, keeping his voice low. ‘Have you seen Sulu?’
‘He’s with his family,’ Scotty says, shifting so Chekov’s more comfortable. ‘The crew’ve all settled into their quarters. I don’t reckon what happened has sunk in yet, but they’re alright for the moment.’ He grins briefly. ‘Jaylah’s basking in having a fully functional bedroom and bathroom. She was discovering the delights of hot showers when I left her. After about ten minutes of playing with the replicator and getting it to make random types of food.’
‘Well, at least one of us is having fun.’ Jim lets his head slump back. Bones and Uhura are both drifting off too. It won’t be long before Jim follows them. ‘Everyone’s safely sorted?’
Scotty hums. ‘Everyone alive has been accounted for.’
Everyone alive. That’s far too few people, but there’s little Jim can do about it. All he can do is do better in the future.
He will do better.
With that resolution resounding in his heart, as Scotty too settles down and slowly falls asleep, with his friends all around him breathing and alive, Jim finally lets himself rest.