Chapter Text
Two weeks.
Two weeks of sleepless nights and strained days.
Two weeks without hope.
Without Jim.
The radiation and the spinal cord injury had taken a mighty price: Jim’s life. Unfortunately, it was the transfusion that, while bringing Jim back from the true beyond, had taken the real toll. Leonard wasn’t sure if Jim would ever come back, and more importantly if Jim would come back the same. It had been two weeks of waiting, two weeks of utter hell.
Leonard didn’t leave Jim’s side for one moment. While others filed in and out, Spock, Uhura, Chekov and Sulu, crew, families of the dead, families of the living, Leonard stayed by Jim’s side through them all. He was a mess, tired, starved, a wreck with nerves, but he also knew he was Jim’s family, the only one who had been there, and would always be there.
That always part, Lenard knew, was beginning to look a lot more bleak.
And then, one morning, as the lights were just breaking through Starfleet General’s many windows, even creeping into Jim’s room which, now that the brightest star Starfleet had yet seen, seemed to be slipping away, was never so bright, Jim opened his eye.
With ragged, frantic breaths, Jim reentered the world of the living.
Leonard, turning to face his patient, swore he saw the light of God in Jim’s blue, blue eyes, shining ethereal, but so alive.
With trained nonchalance, and a practiced, even quip, Leonard began checking Jim’s vitals. Jim was cold, nearly 90 degrees, and as Leonard explained, briefly, how Khan's “super blood” had saved Jim’s life, he continued to receive worse and worse readings. Jim was awake but he was in no way cured.
Spock, perhaps sensing the doctor’s growing distress, stepped forward, distracting Jim and allowing Leonard to safely look at the computer screen beside the biobed. It was true, Spock had saved Jim’s life, even Leonard could admit that with only a small protest, but it takes a lot more than one person to really give that life back.
Jim never felt the hypo enter his hand, only the warm touch of his best friend, removed a bit as a doctor should be, but in no way impersonal. One minute he was looking up at Leonard, the next minute he was back into darkness.
The darkness was peaceful, safer than it had been in Jim’s coma, but only for a moment. Soon, the darkness was interrupted with flashes, Pikes face as he died, his mother waving goodbye, the reactor, the pain as radiation coursed through his body. He had to keep going! He had to! The feeling of numbness in his fingers as he tried to climb up to fix the reactor, and then the pain, coming in waves, coming fast, coming for him. The flashes showed him the moment he fixed the reactor, the feeling of his legs breaking. It showed him his fall, breaking his back. It showed him his climb back to the door, the knowing feeling that he would never make it back to humanity and yet still the need to reach the door. It showed him Spock's face, his voice, his hand pressed against the glass. The flashes, sticcado, violent, bright, showed Jim his own death, a thousand times, in the span of a second. The sounds, the lights, the flashes, dying, dying, dead.
This time when Jim woke up, God, whatever that imposter had been, was nowhere to be seen in Jim’s eyes, only fear, only sadness, only panic. His breathing was rapid, ragged, pained, he thrashed about shaking and crying. Had Leonard not been sitting, vigilantly by Jim’s side like he had every night before, Jim would have fallen out of bed.
The beeping of the monitors, Jim’s breathing and his cries, the thrashing and the shaking, melded together in pain and chaos. The only solid thing in the room seemed to be Leonard. He had quickly grabbed Jim, holding him firmly in his arms, allowing him to shake and cry but to also feel the calm that was Leonard, the safety that was his arms. Leonard held Jim for a long time, murmuring softly, “It’s ok Jim, it’s over, it’s over, you are safe, you are with me” he didn’t force Jim back into reality, but simply guided him there, protected him, delivered him.
Finally, the shaking and thrashing stopped, and Leonard loosened his grip, but Jim, still crying held onto his sleeve, begging Leonard, silently, not to leave him. Leonard held Jim once more, looking over him and then over to the biobed display. Jim’s O2 stats were falling fast as his heart and respiration rates continued to rise, though at a slower rate. Leonard gently detached one of his arms from Jim, grabbing an oxygen mask, and gently putting it over Jim’s face despite his soft protests. Finally, his O2 stats began to rise again, and his heart rate slowed, as did Leonards.
Jim was left a shaking mess, confused and embarrassed. He let go of Leonard and turned away from him, hiding his tears as he came back to himself.
Leonard would have none of that, with a gentle hand, he turned Jim’s face back to him, looking him squarely in the eyes.
“It’s ok, Jim.” He said evenly, his hand resting firmly on Jim’s shaking shoulder.
“You had a panic attack, it’s to be expected, it’s ok.” Leonard’s brow crinkled in concern as he looked at the man below him.
Jim looked up at him with humiliation, fear, and panic still in his eye. And pain, so much pain.
“You need to sleep again, Jim. You know I can’t give you much more pain medicine, we already have concerns about you building a tolerance for the few pain meds you’re not allergic to, and you will need those later, but I can give you more sleep meds so you can get some rest.”
“No!” Jim’s voice was still shaky but convicted as he refused. He still had the faint tone of authority in his voice, but none of his normally boundless energy.
“I don’t want to sleep, I don’t want to go back there, I can’t face it alone.”
Leonard sighed.
“Okay Jim, I understand.” He sat down heavily in his familiar chair by Jim’s bed.
“In that case we will just have to wait out the night together.”
Leonard, looking at Jim’s face, pinched with pain, turned away from him as if he was trying to hide it, realized for the first time, just how difficult Jim’s recovery would be. Jim was not the man he had died as, Jim was broken, injured, ill. He was in pain, afraid, he felt alone, but Leonard knew he was not. The road would be long, he had no doubt, but Jim was in no way alone. Jim had a whole crew behind him, and Jim had Leonard, had Bones, beside him, to hold his had, to bring him back to the land of the living.
Jim finally closed his eyes, and Leonard, never really taking his eye off his patient, began to plan Jim’s recovery.