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Katrina hated waiting.
She especially hated waiting when it came with the stomach twisting anxiety of uncertainty, dire possibilities weaving between her ribs, knotting themselves up inside her, reminding her of her own impotence.
Wrong kind of doctor, those possibilities said, mocking her with the obvious.
Stop it, Katrina. Everything is going to be fine.
But no matter how many times she told herself that, she couldn’t seem to convince herself that it was true. Because the truth was, she didn’t know. She hadn’t a damn clue, and the knowledge was screaming inside her.
In the hours between the notification from Boyce and her arrival at Medical, Katrina had managed to read what logs had been transmitted from the Enterprise, and after she’d arrived she’d managed to coax a few more details from James before he’d stormed off.
James…
She hoped he wasn’t doing anything more stupid than usual. He’d had that look about him, fear cloaked in defiance, as he sat beside her, looking as though he ought to be in a hospital bed himself. He hadn’t offered an explanation for his state of dress or the state of his face, and Katrina hadn’t asked. The report had explained enough. And if her head weren’t so busy spinning itself in circles, she might have had the decency to thank him for saving Chris’ life.
But then he’d shot out of his seat and rushed out of the waiting room without explanation, and in his current emotional state, there was no telling what sort of trouble he might go looking for. Or what sort of trouble would inevitably find him.
Katrina sighed.
The kid truly tried her patience on the best of days. Tonight, she simply didn’t have the capacity for his antics.
At this hour she was the only one left in the waiting room. There had been others earlier, but they had long since filtered out, patients called in for treatment, loved ones escorted back to see family members. The solitude was a small mercy in case her fraying control finally snapped under the strain of her anxiety. Though, at this point she thought she might kill for a distraction—the idle chatter of other patients; hideous art to criticize; James and his surly, battered countenance. Something!
The room was overstimulating in its sterility, providing her nothing else to think about except the precious little information she had and the dire possibilities worming inside her gut.
Centaurian slug.
Shattered vertebrae.
Damaged nerves.
Fractured hip.
Torn larynx.
Internal bleeding.
Sprained wrists.
Broken fingers.
The list went on, words she understood but couldn’t comprehend.
She’d always known it was a possibility; they both did. Torture for information was an unsightly reality of command, one no one ever wanted to talk about. Until it happened, and then all Command wanted was for you to talk about it. Endlessly. Until you doubted your own recollection.
But she hadn’t—
She hadn’t even gotten to see him yet. Chris had already been in surgery when she’d arrived. But she continued to sit and wait on the receptionist’s word that he was back there. Somewhere. On a surgical table.
The fingers on her left hand moved, spinning her engagement ring around and around and around. A nervous habit. Stop it, she chided herself and righted her ring. Now that she was alone, it was harder to keep herself from unconsciously exerting some of the nervous energy burning inside her.
Was it a good thing or a bad thing that he was still in surgery? Was no news good news or bad news? Why was there no news yet?
Take a breath, she told herself. They will tell you when there’s something to tell.
Five hours after she’d arrived, the doors that led to the surgical wing opened and a doctor she didn’t recognize walked into the waiting room. He was still dressed in a surgical gown, his hair covered with a cotton scrub cap. Since she was the only one left in the waiting room, he had to be one of Chris’ surgeons with news.
Suddenly, she was terrified.
“Mrs. Pike?”
Not trusting her voice to correct him, Katrina stood and said nothing. And anyway, she was Mrs. Pike. In every way but name.
“I’m Leonard McCoy, chief medical officer on the Enterprise. For now, at least.” He spoke with a southern accent; it was apparent now that he’d strung more than two words together.
Any other day Katrina might have introduced herself, provided her name and rank, offered sympathetic congratulations on his unwelcome promotion. Not tonight.
“How is he?” she asked instead, forcing a steadiness she didn’t feel into her voice.
“He’s going to be fine, ma’am,” McCoy said. Only years of training kept Katrina’s legs from giving out from relief upon hearing that statement. “We were able to remove the slug, however the toxin wreaked havoc on his nervous system. There was also significant damage to his esophagus and internal organs.”
While McCoy relayed Chris’ condition, Katrina kept her expression neutral, saying nothing. She’d learned long ago that silence was often the best way to get the answers you wanted. Let people talk themselves into revealing information they hadn’t intended on revealing.
“I was able to stabilize him while we were on the Enterprise,” McCoy went on, “however, I didn’t have the means to remove the slug until we arrived at Medical. And given how long it had been attached by that point…” He trailed off, his expression revealing that he’d disclosed more than he’d intended.
Then he cleared his throat and continued. “However, most concerning is the damage to his spinal column. We’ll know more once the swelling goes down, but he should regain the use of his legs.”
Dread gripped Katrina by the throat, but she did her best to keep the fear off her face. “Should?”
“I won’t lie to you, ma’am.”
Katrina…appreciated that. There was nothing more patronizing than information softened for her sensibilities. “Can I see him?”
“Soon. They’re getting him settled in Recovery. I’ll have a nurse come get you.”
With nothing else to do, she nodded. “Thank you, Doctor.”
And then she was waiting again, this time with slightly more information than she’d had before, mainly the knowledge that he was alive.
He was alive.
Whatever else came of this, they would face it.
When she was alone, Katrina allowed herself a moment, just one moment, in which to feel the relief of that fact. He was alive. She let out a breath that was meant to be a sigh, but it came out like a gasp. Quickly, she pressed a hand to her mouth to silence herself. It wouldn’t do to fall apart in a hospital waiting room.
Don’t ever let them see you weak.
It was a lesson drilled into her on her first day of command training. Weakness was exploitable.
She’d learned the hard way just how true that was.
Tears pricked at Katrina’s eyes. Blinking, she looked up at the ceiling to keep them from falling.
He was alive.
With a calming breath, she ran a finger beneath her eyes and said a silent prayer of thanks to whatever god was listening.
Unable to sit any longer, she paced to the window and looked out. The waiting room was too bright to see anything besides herself and the waiting room reflected back at her, but she looked anyway, pretending to find interest in the sight as she waited for the doors to open again. But she couldn’t stop thinking about McCoy’s report, about the list of injuries Chris had sustained. About the torture he’d endured.
Her reflection blurred. She blinked. The image in the window sharpened. She ran her fingers under her eyes just in case.
“Mrs. Pike?”
In the window, Katrina caught the reflection of the female nurse who stood framed in the doorway. Righting her engagement ring once more, Katrina steeled herself with a breath and turned from the window.
“I can take you back now.”
***
The room was dark, the overhead lights dimmed to a faint, almost non-existent glow. Outside the window, the San Francisco cityscape twinkled like a sky full of stars. But Katrina’s attention went immediately to the biobed on the right wall, where Chris lay unconscious, surrounded by monitors and wires and tubes.
“He should wake up on his own shortly,” the nurse said in that not-quite-cheerful tone of medical professionals, completely unaware of the crushing wave of emotion that had rendered Katrina motionless less than two steps from the door. More than Boyce’s transmitted list of injuries, more than McCoy’s post-op report, seeing him lying there had brought home just how close Katrina had come to loosing him.
“Doctor Boyce will be by in a few to check in,” the nurse was saying. “If you need anything, just press the call button on the bed.”
Katrina nodded in absent acknowledgment, not trusting herself to speak. Only when the doors swished closed behind the retreating woman did she move from her place near the door, going to his side.
Despite the evidence of what he had endured, he looked peaceful, his expression relaxed as if in sleep. He was dressed in a medical gown, the blankets tucked neatly beneath his arms. But beneath the glow of the monitors, she could see his features limned in dried sweat and grime, his hair caked with it, and there was a spot of something blue at the corner of his mouth.
Katrina had to resist the urge to lick her thumb and wipe that spot away.
Overcome with the need to touch him, to assure herself that he was alive despite the slight rise and fall of his chest and the rhythmic beeping of the various monitors that told her he was, Katrina took his hand in one of hers and gently caressed his head with her other. His skin was warm, gritty with sweat-salt and dirt, but warm and alive.
Her vision blurred; two tears dropped onto the bedding with soft little plops. With a heavy breath, she looked up, blinking rapidly as she ran a finger beneath her eyes once more, her thumb still stroking back and forth on his hand. Weeping would serve no purpose.
There were two chairs on the other side of the bed, a heavy-looking upholstered thing near the window that looked like it unfolded into something that might vaguely resemble a bed, and a thin metal contraption whose sole purpose appeared, on first glance, to be keeping visitors awake by means of torture.
Anesthesia could take a while to wear off, Katrina knew, and Chris didn’t appear likely to wake anytime soon. She should sit. But she didn’t want to stop touching him, even for a moment. Some irrational part of her feared that if she let go of his hand, she would lose him.
Irrational, she told herself, but readjusted her grip on his hand to hold it more securely, her fingers sliding between his, and—
She glanced down to confirm it. His wedding ring was gone.
Chris never took off his ring. Only when he went to the gym, and even then he wore a silicone ring.
Looking around the room, she noticed a bag of belongings on the built-in bureau. She released his hand to go open it, finding inside his boots and a smaller bag containing his badge and his class ring, but no wedding band. Katrina closed the bag and made a mental note to ask McCoy about it. Chris would be upset if it’d gotten lost.
With nothing else to do, she pulled the chair closer to the bed and got as comfortable as the metal-armed contraption would allow.
And then she waited.
***
He came to with a soft groan, then a whimper. The sound shook Katrina out of her doze, and she quickly moved to the edge of her seat so that she could settle a hand on his arm.
“Chris?”
Another whimper, his face screwing up in pain.
“Hey, shh...” She stood, leaning close and placing a soothing hand on his brow, stroking his hair. “Shh…”
Finally, he opened his eyes, blinking uncertainly until he caught her gaze, and his mouth opened on a silent word.
“Shhh. Don’t try to speak.” His newly repaired vocal chords would hurt for a while yet.
Still, he tried, mouth opening and closing until he managed a wizened, “I’m sorry.”
Katrina shook her head, stroking her hand over grimy hair, tears welling in her eyes once again. She sniffed. Damnit, she needed to be strong for Chris. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I—I bro—”
He swallowed thickly, unable to finish that sentence, but he didn’t need to. Even if she didn’t already know how the Narada had broken through Earth’s defense grid, even if she didn’t know Chris the way she did, she could see it in his eyes—tear-filled, guilty. He blamed himself for handing Earth to Nero on a silver platter.
There would be others, admirals whose self-esteem was tied to their ability to throw their badges around, who would blame him in order to overcompensate for their own fear and failure to neutralize the threat that had nearly destroyed Earth. Katrina would gladly remind them, with first-person, experiential evidence, that no amount of interrogation training could hold out against the toxin of a Centaurian slug.
But not today.
“No, my love,” she whispered, fingertips arching over his ear through his hair. “You survived.” She leaned in, gently kissed his trembling lip. “You came home to me.” And for that she was more grateful than words could express. So she simply kissed him again, touched her forehead to his. “I love you so much.”
Chris squeezed his eyes shut. Two tears made their way down his face, and beneath her, his whole body shook on a sob.
Katrina held him as much as she was able until his sobs subsided, murmuring inane words of comfort and whispering her love over and over. When he’d calmed, she wiped the last of his tears from his cheeks and kissed his lips, settling herself on the edge of the biobed.
Chris tried again to speak. Placing a finger to his lips, Katrina reached over and pressed the intercom button. “Can we get some ice chips, please?” she asked the nurse who answered. That would certainly make speaking easier.
It was only a few minutes later that a nurse came in with the ice chips. Katrina reached out an expectant hand before the woman could think to hand the cup to Chris. Katrina would not have him lifting a finger for courtesy’s sake. Not after what he’d been through.
“Thank you,” Katrina told the nurse when her fingers closed around the paper cup. The nurse didn’t miss the dismissal underlying her tone and left with a polite nod.
Chris tried to take the cup from her, reaching with a feeble hand, but Katrina pushed it back down to the bed, needing to do this, needing to perform this simple task to feel useful in the face of injuries she couldn’t heal. Chris made a sound of protest; Katrina cut him an admittedly irritated glance before he relented with an exasperated sigh and allowed her to feed him ice chips with the miniature plastic spoon.
After letting a few spoonfuls melt in his mouth, Chris indicated that he’d had enough, and Katrina set the little cup of ice chips on the rolling table.
“I love you,” he said. The words seemed to come easier though his voice was still hoarse.
Katrina leaned in and kissed him gently. “I love you too.”
“Enterprise?”
“Safe. James got her home.”
He sighed, relieved, then looked at her intently. “I’m sorry I went over there.”
“To the Narada?” she asked, confused.
He nodded.
Taking his hand, Katrina said softly, “Hey now. None of this. I’m just grateful you’re okay.”
“He took my—” Abruptly he cut himself off, eyes clenched closed. At his side, his left had curled into a fist. He pulled his hand from hers to rub at his third finger.
Understanding poured over Katrina like ice water. “He took your ring?”
Chris nodded, his distress clear from the tears gathering in his eyes and the way his focus seemed to alternate between her and something only he could see.
“Why?”
It was a moment before he said, “To take you away…like his wife was taken from him.”
To torture him.
And if Nero had succeeded in destroying Earth, he would have taken her away in more than just the metaphorical sense.
This time it was horror washing over her, twisting her stomach.
Chris was staring past her, at some point in the middle distance, and his fingers kept rubbing the place where his wedding band should be.
“Hey,” Katrina said and laid a hand over his. But her touch didn’t seem to calm him. His hand twisted beneath hers, worrying at his skin, compulsive and persistent, rubbing, rubbing, rubbing. As if he could make the metal reappear if he rubbed his skin raw.
“He was going to make me watch while—”
Katrina moved closer, taking his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. “Hey hey hey,” she whispered until he did. “I’m still here. I’m here. He didn’t take me away. He could never take me away. I’m here. I’m here, and I love you.”
Eyes falling shut, Chris released a shuddering breath as he grasped her wrists and nodded. Katrina kissed his forehead and sat back.
He swallowed thickly, and his voice was raspy when he asked, “What happened to him? To Nero? The Narada?”
“You’ll have to ask James. I don’t know all the details.”
“Is Jim all right?” He reached for the cup, but Katrina took it and fed him another spoonful of ice chips.
“He’s fine,” Katrina said. “He was very worried about you.”
“Is he here?”
“He was.” Chris waved away her offer of more so she set the cup down so that the ice wouldn’t melt. “But he was too anxious to sit still any longer. He took off a few hours ago. Would you like me to comm him?”
“No. He’ll just ignore it.”
“I don’t know where he went,” she admitted.
“Probably holed up in the nearest dive bar.” It was a statement of fact but just this side of leading.
“Would you like me to go find him?”
She could tell from the look on his face, the way he held back his answer, that he did. Inwardly, she sighed. “Okay.”
Reluctant to leave his side, Katrina busied herself tucking the blankets around him and fluffing his pillows, filling a cup with water, making sure it was within reach, and then adjusting and retucking the blankets. Chris watched her, radiating fond exasperation, and said nothing.
Finally, she was satisfied that he was comfortable and kissed his brow. “I’ll be right back,” she promised.
***
Katrina stood outside Chris’ hospital room, looking in through the window while James visited with Chris. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she saw the way James smiled and surreptitiously wiped his eyes, and the way Chris cut his laugh short, holding his side and wincing. Instinct told her to go to him, to make sure he hadn’t hurt himself further. But she knew that Chris would not appreciate her fussing like a mother hen in front of James. So she remained where she was, arms wrapped around herself in an effort to contain the emotions railing against the cage she’d put them in, and watched.
James Kirk had come a long way from the kid Chris had found on a barroom floor in the middle of nowhere Iowa.
Chris had seen potential in the kid. Katrina had seen it too, a well untapped. But that potential was untamed, burning brighter than a supernova. Potential was useless if it couldn’t be properly harnessed, and James was too independent, too stubborn, and too proud. Worse, he believed himself to be invincible.
But something had changed. She could see it even at the bar. He was subdued in a way she had never seen before, as if his experience on the Enterprise had finally brought him to heel.
Someone stepped up next to her. Katrina didn’t turn from the window, but a flick of her eyes to the right told her who it was: Doctor McCoy, now also looking in through the window at the pair in the room.
He was no longer wearing the scrub cap and surgical gown but had changed into a fresh uniform and lab coat. He was carrying a PADD, probably on his way to do rounds. There had been other crew from the Enterprise admitted besides Chris. McCoy would want to check on them.
Katrina said nothing and turned her full attention back to Chris, who was smiling at something James had said. If McCoy was here to give her another update or to give Chris any instructions, he could very well do so without her prompting him.
But McCoy did neither.
“You know,” he said, “from the start, Jim wanted to go back for him. The kid never had another thought in his mind.”
At his words, Katrina’s breath caught in her throat. There was a terrible, terrible truth buried in that statement, that Spock hadn’t, and Katrina couldn’t—wouldn’t—acknowledge that just yet. She’d trusted Spock with Chris’ life, and now she had to face the fact that but for a twist of fate, but for mutiny, Chris would not have come home.
And McCoy? Had he dared an opinion on the matter?
She didn’t—couldn’t—ask, fearing the answer.
Taking a breath, Katrina faced him. “Thank you, Doctor.” It was a dismissal as much as it was a statement. He had saved Chris’ life; she would forever be grateful for that. But she needed to be alone with what he’d just told her. She needed to think. Not just about what he’d said, but what it had changed.
James T. Kirk…
She had known that he’d beamed over to the Narada to save Chris; that had been in the report. What she hadn’t known were the circumstances under which he’d done it or how it would change her opinion of the kid.
McCoy nodded. “Doctor Boyce will be by in a few to speak with you both,” he said and left.
Katrina watched him for a moment, then turned her attention back to the men in Chris’ room.
…what am I going to do with you? she wondered, knowing that, whether by Chris’ will or her own conscience, she would be seeing a lot more of “Jim” Kirk from now on.
With a sigh, Katrina crossed her arms. And waited.