Day 56: Bus 3

[rocksthecourt]

Waking carried a sense of disappointment along with it for the first time in a long time. Klavier actually sighed in irritation when he realized where he was. Damn it all. So they hadn't managed to move quickly enough to cover as much ground as they had hoped. It was a shame, really. Last night had actually proven to be relatively productive. If

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[doneinthree]

Doyleton. This day marked not only Kirk's second outing to the town, but also his second straight week as a prisoner, given that he'd awoken in the Institute on the night of a Doyleton trip two weeks ago. It felt more like a lifetime ago that he'd first walked through those abandoned and unfamiliar hallways with Chekov, and turned a corner to a sudden rush of the walking dead. A living nightmare and a lifetime ago, and somehow still not distant enough in his memory.

Suffice to say, Kirk wouldn't have woken up in a good mood even without everything which had gone wrong last night. But everything did, and today was Doyleton, and this was the fourteenth day he'd spent as the neophyte captain of a handful of Starfleet officers trapped in an insane asylum-slash-experimental facility-slash-live pinball game; but dammit, he could get up and deal with this latest round of bullshit for the fourteenth, fortieth or hundredth time if he had to. And he knew he had to. He was the captain. Whatever it takes, Kirk vowed himself.

Apparently what was demanded of him this morning was that he get dressed for cold weather and pretend that the nurse accompanying him wasn't a soldier capable of breaking his bones in a hundred different ways with her bare hands. As tempting as it was to see what else she could do with those hands, Kirk decided to pass on all staff or military interaction this morning and just get himself to the buses. He knew the routine by now. The most information anyone was going to him this morning was the brief intercom announcement by General Berg. If Kirk wanted to know what was going on with his crew, he'd have to find them himself.

As if the world could sense how close he was to taking a swing at something, the first person he saw in the crowd in front of the Doyleton buses was none other than Uhura, looking only slightly less flawless than usual in her hand-me-downs. Kirk grinned, and left the nurse-soldier in his snowy wake as he raced for the bus she'd just boarded. Something to be said for the power of positive thinking.

He got there just in time to slap the shoulder of the young man who was about to sit down next to Uhura, and was only a little out of breath for it. "Seat's taken. Keep moving," Kirk ordered, and slid past him into the aisle seat before anyone (i.e. Uhura) could protest. "Please tell me you didn't go through any physical, mental or emotional trauma last night."

[♥]

[xenolingual]

A day trip? Interesting. Uhura found herself mildly wary of the situation, but her roommate seemed to find it less than suspicious, so she followed suit. Mostly. In fact, this might have marked the first morning she outwardly complained about anything before leaving her room with her assigned nurse.

Because really, why wouldn't she be allowed to wear her uniform instead of the hand-me-downs they were given? Unless it was just another way for those in charge of the establishment to make the patients to feel like they weren't worthy of any better than what they were given. Which, in this case, was a very sad set of clothing and a giant puffy coat with a hood that made it hard to use her peripheral vision even when it wasn't covering her head.

She knew better than to question authority much more than her first initial reaction of 'I'm sorry, but, why?', so she let herself be lead outside without complaint. Even if she did make a point to stand at her full height, proving that yes, she was a few inches taller than you, Miss Pretentious Nurse-Soldier, and no, she wasn't hesitant to literally talk down to you once the buses were in sight. She could make it the rest of the way herself, thank you.

Uhura didn't move too far towards the back of the bus, just wanting to sit down and get wherever they were going, maybe find Spock and-

"Seat's taken. Keep moving."

She sighed, her eyes quickly making a point to stare down the back of the seat in front of her. She was about to make a remark about how maybe she wanted to sit by ..whoever that guy was, but Kirk was already talking before she got the chance.

"No, no trauma." Well, that made her nervous. "I spent the night in my room. Well, after I took some books from the Sun Room, but, why? What happened?" Uhura looked at him again, and he seemed fine, physically, but that meant somebody else probably wasn't.

[doneinthree]

Kirk winced at the question. He wasn't sure if he'd really expected to receive a status report without having to discuss everything else which had happened, but of all the items on this morning's impulsive to-do list, somehow "tell Uhura that her boyfriend(???) is still unaccounted for and that we also might down one CMO" hadn't made it all. This was probably why starship captains had yeomans. If only he could talk a nurse into donning a short red dress and fussing over his itinerary for activities beyond mealtimes and macaroni necklaces...

Well, too late for him to crawl off for another seat. Not that Kirk wasn't man enough to deliver some bad news (not bad, he corrected himself, Spock might be fine, they might both be fine, mostly, sort of, you can't jump to conclusions), but someone ended up crying or getting hysterical, then he didn't know what- Wait, was he talking about Uhura here? Terrifyingly efficient ice queen Uhura?

"You haven't seen anyone else this morning, have you?" Really, Jim? Of course she hadn't, or else why would she be sitting here alone right now? Kirk rolled his eyes at himself and continued on without waiting for an answer: "Never mind. You saw Spock's note yesterday, about getting taken tonight for observation. Bones and I went looking for him, but we... didn't get the chance to find him. I know he has to be around here somewhere, though."

[xenolingual]

Kirk read like a book most of the time. At least, Uhura was pretty sure she could understand the things he wasn't saying by his body language by now. And just then all she could read was 'bad news' (but maybe trying to convince himself it wasn't that bad), which... wasn't exactly ideal once he brought up Spock. She turned in her seat, just enough to look at him properly, and although her expression stayed even her eyes narrowed, just a little. And for once it wasn't because of something he said.

"I read it, yes, but I wasn't allowed to respond at the time. Apparently our rank seems to have an effect on more things than I realized." But she wouldn't get into that, lest she rant. Although really, she-

No, wait. No. Focus.

She took a slow breath, trying to sort through the implications of Spock being... lost. He knew he was going to be taken for a study, whatever that meant, but for how long? She could ask Kirk about the usual chain of events for this type of procedure, but for once in her life she only wanted to know the bare minimum. Just enough so she could figure out where she needed to be to make sure that Spock was okay. And of course they were stuck on that bus with no way of seeing if he was on one as well.

"Okay. What do we do now? What can we do?" There was a sense of urgency to her tone, maybe edging along what could be considered panic, but it was suppressed as much as she could manage, because there was no chance in taking action any time soon. Was there? Uhura knew how to be patient, and to lay out all the cards before making a decision, but this was different. It felt different.

"Do you think he's going to be headed the same place we are now, or is he still inside? We can't leave if he's still in there. I don't know how this works, Kirk, talk to me. Please." Ah, there was the slip of panic she was trying to avoid. Her lips thinned, eyes shifted, and if it was possible, her posture seemed to straighten even more. Kirk didn't need this, not from her. "I'm sorry."