Fic: Observer Effect (8/10)
Title: Observer Effect
Author: laughter_now
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy, with a smidgeon of Sulu/Chekov thrown in if you stand on your toes and squint
Disclaimer: I keep wishing for them, but I still don't own anything.
Summary: There's something down on that planet. Something no human ever encountered before. The Observers have watched many species fight it. And there is only one common thread to all those encounters - someone always dies.
Answer to this prompt at the buckleup_meme .
Incidentally, this will also fill the prompt "experiments by evil scientists" on my hurt/comfort bingo card.
Here you go with the next part. I changed some parts of the confrontation in this one from the original episode (though I left some parts just as they were, too). I always felt that the final confrontation could do with a little more emotion, and I hope I managed to get that into this.
Enjoy!
Chapter 7
Jim felt like he was the one who couldn't breathe anymore.
Standing there, looking at Bones' still chest, something was rising up inside of him, something deep and ugly that grew and grew until it blocked his chest and his throat felt too tight to breathe. A burning pressure was building up behind his eyelids, and it was hard to focus his gaze as he turned his eyes away from Bones' still face to look up at the monitor above the bed. The controls were beeping softly in alarm, and even without an extensive study of medicine it wasn't too hard to understand the readings.
No pulse. No respiration. No brainwave activity.
Bones was dead.
A choked sob tore free from somewhere deep inside Jim's chest, and when he looked back down at Bones' face, his vision was blurred so much that he had to blink a couple of times to bring his friend's pale face into focus. A hot trail of moisture ran down one of his cheeks, but Jim barely noticed anything but the sight of Bones, unmoving and so horribly lifeless in front of him, and the feel of his still chest beneath his palm.
Bones' skin might still feel warm from the fever, but it was only a matter of time before he was going to feel cold to the touch. And it…it just couldn't be. It wasn't fair. It wasn't…it wasn't right. A world without a living, breathing Bones in it wasn't right, wasn't supposed to exist.
Jim's hand slowly slid off Bones' chest, and he took a step or two back from the biobed, the fingers of his hand coming up to press tightly against his lips, as if trying to keep everything inside that was threatening to spill out of him at that moment, all the anguish and anger, the denial and gut-wrenching fear of a life without Bones.
Then Bones opened his eyes.
"I have so much respect for you, Captain Kirk."
Not even the hand in front of his mouth could hold back the startled gasp, and Jim's first instinct, his first thought was Bones, and he wanted to laugh and cry at the same time about this inexplicable medical miracle. He didn't even want to question it, didn't want to know how it was possible, how it had happened, as long as it meant that Bones was still here, that he wasn't dead.
But at the same time, he knew that it wasn't right, that something about this was horribly wrong. And it wasn't just the fact that Bones would never call him Captain Kirk. Captain sometimes, when they were on duty, but else it was only ever Jim, sometimes kid, or the occasional variation of you damn idiot. But never, not once, did Bones call him by his name and title.
And it was so much more than those two words that was wrong. It was the voice, too. Even though it was Bones' voice, and Jim's heart beat up a little faster at hearing it, something was immanently wrong with it.
And then Bones sat up on the biobed, sliding his legs over the edge as he turned to look at Jim, and Jim knew for sure. It was Bones' body, but it definitely wasn't Bones looking at him right then. It was an eerie sensation, to see his friend's pale and sweat-lined face look back at him with such a foreign expression of curiosity and yet at the same time distance in his eyes. This was Bones, but something was inside him that wasn't Bones, that was so different from Jim's friend that it was impossible to ever confuse the two.
"Who are you?" Jim rasped out, his voice hoarse and sharp, trying desperately not to let all the emotions that were running out of control inside of him show.
Bones…the thing that wasn't Bones slid closer to the edge of the bed, and out of the corner of his eye Jim saw that the readings on the monitor above the bed had spiked up again, showing those things that he had been so desperately wishing for - a heartbeat, brainwave activity - but on levels that were impossible for a human being.
"What are you?" Jim corrected himself, his eyes never once leaving the creature that was inside of his best friend, trying not to get swept away in a wave of overwhelming relief at seeing Bones again, seeing those hazel eyes open and alive even though they were watching him with a strangely detached expression instead of the usual gruff fondness Bones was never able to hide completely.
"I'm an Organian," the thing that wasn't Bones finally replied, using Bones' voice but without its usual lilt, like a piano that was slightly out of tune. "A non-physical life form."
A non-physical life form that was inside of Bones, and now Bones was dead. It wasn't hard to make the connection.
"What did you do to him?"
"Nothing. We never interfere with the development of other species. We are merely here to observe."
Normally, Jim was a quick thinker, but right now he had the feeling half of this conversation was passing him by. It was just too damn hard to focus on anything when Bones was dead, yet this…this thing was using his body to communicate with him.
"Observe what?"
Bones' shoulders rose slightly as the Organian shrugged. "How different species react to a threat."
And suddenly, it all made sense.
"You knew about the silicon virus. You knew it was down on that planet all along."
Something hard and unforgiving started to form in Jim's stomach as the Organian nodded.
"The virus is the reason we come here. It's how we study other species."
It was still Bones' body, and Bones was one of the people Jim could never harm in any way, and that was the only reason why he reigned in the sudden fury that took a hold of him and didn't pummel this Organian bastard into a bloody pulp.
"This virus killed two members of my crew. You knew it was out there, and you didn't warn us? Instead you watched while we tried to save them? You just watched them die?"
Something that could almost pass as regret showed in those hazel eyes.
"I wanted to warn you, Captain. But the decision was not mine to make."
Before Jim could even ask what the hell that meant, another voice cut into the stillness of Medical.
"You're breaking all our rules."
The Russian accent was still there, leaving no doubt as to who the speaker was, and Jim spun around just in time to see Chekov rise up on the biobed he had been lying on. The sheet Jim had so hesitantly drawn over him slipping off his face and body as he sat up. Jim took a startled step back as Chekov climbed down from the biobed, his torn uniform shirt hanging off his thin frame, revealing the electrodes Jim had placed on his chest what felt like a lifetime ago already.
"I told you, our rules don't apply to this species," the Organian inside of Bones replied defiantly, even as Chekov stalked over towards the scanner bed with a determination and menace in his steps that the young navigator had never shown in life.
"The decision is not ours to make. We follow the rules."
"We have to challenge the rules…"
"I don't care about your damn rules," Jim interrupted the second he finally found his voice again. He wasn't going to be a silent bystander as those two creatures discussed their regulations as if there was nothing more important in the entire universe. He didn't give a damn about them. He only cared about one thing.
"What happens to Bones and Chekov once you're done with their bodies?"
The Organian in Chekov's body turned towards him. "We have to leave them as they are."
"Dead."
It killed Jim a little inside to say the word.
The Organian nodded, and right there and then one thing was perfectly clear - it wasn't acceptable. And even if he had pretty much just stood by and watched this shitfest happen ever since Chekov and Bones had set foot on that damn planet, now at least this was back on ground that Jim knew his way around. He knew about negotiating, and about making even the most stubborn beings see sense. And right now, he wasn't above downright begging, either. But one thing was perfectly clear - if those Organians in any way had the power to reverse the effects of the virus, Jim wasn't going to stop until they used it. Chekov's and Bones' death was simply not an option.
He took a step closer to the Organian that was using Chekov's body, never once breaking eye-contact with the being.
"Listen, I know about not getting involved in the natural development of other species. It's a decision I have to make again and again, every single day that I'm in command. And it isn't easy."
The Organian nodded. "So we are in agreement."
"No. Because there's a line, one that you have to define anew each and every time. And sometimes you have to cross it. There's a difference between letting a species develop on their own, and not stopping them from running into their death blindly. This virus, our encounter with it, you could have stopped all that from happening."
A curious expression crossed Chekov's face then, just as if the Organian didn't get Jim's point.
"Then how would we have learned about humans?"
"How would you…you could have talked to us! We're talking now, why couldn't you have done so before? If there's something you want to know about us, go ahead and ask! And if you're non-physical beings and have to inhabit my crewmembers to do so, then you'd damn well better give me a warning and ask for my permission first, but talking to us in the first place might have been a good start!"
"Talking is a limited form of communication for us," the Organian replied almost with disdain. "We are much more evolved than humans."
"Not from where I'm standing."
The Organian inside of Chekov's body cocked his head to the side, an expression that was almost a challenge in his eyes.
"Most of our abilities are beyond your scope of understanding…"
Jim shook his head and cut the being short before it could even make its point.
"You might have evolved into something I can't even comprehend, but from what I can tell you lost everything that's important along the way. You want to learn about humans? Then let me tell you something right now. You wanna know what gives our lives meaning? It's not just observation and knowledge. It's things like empathy, and compassion." He turned his eyes towards Bones as he spoke, but had to look away before he finished to stop the sudden lump in his throat from choking him. Something was starting to unravel inside of him, something warm and not altogether unwelcome, but he didn't have the time to contemplate it right now. "Things like love. That's what's holding us together. That's what makes us care about one another, but to you we're only lab rats that you can observe. You don't care what happens to us, so don't you dare tell me that you're so much more advanced than we are. You don't know anything about us. You observed us for so long and you probably still don't know the first thing about humans, or about the two crewmembers that you killed!"
The Organian shook his head. "We know everything we need to know, and we learned everything we could about this crew. This body here," Chekov gestured down along his own body in a gesture that might have seemed comical under different circumstances. "His name is Pavel Andreievich Chekov, born Stardate…"
"Stardate 2241.178 in Moscow, Eurasian continent," Jim interrupted. "Serial number 656- 5827B. Rank Ensign, assigned navigator of the USS Enterprise. It doesn't take any superior evolution to quote a personnel file, damn it! If that's all you know about him, then you don't know a damn thing. You don't know that he has a mother at home who's never going to laugh again once I call her and tell her that her son died out here, thousands of light years away from home. You don't know that he's the youngest crewmember aboard this entire ship, and that everyone else has been looking after him in one way or another ever since we left Spacedock. You don't know that sometimes, he still gets homesick, and that the only thing that'll help is to let him talk about his home, no matter if he keeps telling stories we've all heard dozens of times before. You have no idea that everyone aboard the ship is going to be heartbroken when the news break that he's dead, because he's more than what's in his personnel file to them!"
Jim turned back towards Bones, unable to stop now that he had finally found a first outlet for the pain and rage that was threatening to consume him. It was a bit harder to face the Organian who was inhabiting Bones' body than it had been with the other, but Jim forced that turmoil of emotions away and didn't allow it to break his stride.
"Or what do you know about Leonard McCoy? What's in his file, all those facts and stats? Where he was born, where he went to med school, when he received his last vaccination shots? Or do you know that of all the people here aboard, he's the one who's constantly thinking and worrying about everyone else, and last to think about himself? Do you know that whenever there's a medical crisis, he keeps working his ass off because he sees every single patient that he can't save as a personal failure? Do you know that he's the best friend I've had in my entire life and that…" Jim's voice broke and he had to swallow against his suddenly dry throat, though he couldn't stop his voice from turning raspy and on the verge of breaking as he continued. "…that he's the reason I'm still alive, in more ways than just one?"
He shook his head and ran his hands across his face with a sigh, exhaustion suddenly making his limbs heavy.
"You don't know. You probably don't care, either. But if you want to learn about humans, those are the things you should be looking for, not what's in any files, or for how long we keep struggling if someone we care for is about to die. We're connected, in one way or the other. You take out one of us, and it affects us all. Some more, and others less, but it still leaves a gap that everyone can feel. And if you still had a shred of conscience left in your evolved state, then you wouldn't be standing by, watching how some of us die when you could have prevented it. If this is what you call a superior development, with rules as a piss-poor substitute for a moral compass, then I don't want any part of it."
Maybe it was the shouting, or the virus had simply run through its first stage of infection inside Jim's body at just this moment, but as soon as he stopped speaking, hard, hacking coughs started to tear through his frame and he had to hold on to the nearest console for support as he desperately tried to draw air into his lungs.
The Organians regarded him for a few long moments, the one inside Chekov with an almost exaggerated impassive notion on his face. It was him, too, who eventually spoke.
"We're leaving now, Captain. You will not remember our presence. And in three to four hours, you will die as well."
"No."
It was hard to tell who was more startled, Jim or the thing inside Chekov's body, but they both spun around towards the second Organian.
"Are you defying me?"
By the sounds of it, the Organian possessing Chekov could not believe this to be possible, but the one controlling Bones pulled himself up to his full height and took a step towards the other.
"I'm defying the entire protocol. What Captain Kirk did today, you said yourself that nobody had ever done that before."
"And in time we're going to observe more humans. Then we will be able to judge those acts."
"Or you could try to experience it for yourself," Jim replied, voice raspy and hoarse, threatening to set off another round of coughing. The two Organians turned towards him, and Jim got the feeling that this was his last chance to convince them of anything. He just didn't have the feeling he had much left to convince them with.
"If you want to know about being human, about compassion, you should try and act like we do. Humans show compassion."
Jim drew a deep breath and forced down the coughs that threatened to overcome him again. Looking at the Organians, he tried to gauge if his words had left any impact with them. But even though he was looking at two faces he knew so well that normally one look was enough to know what was going on inside these two men, right now he didn't see anything.
It were the faces of two strangers looking back at him.
TBC...
Thanks for reading. As always, please let me know what you think. Thanks a lot.
Please do not repost any of this content, or the comments you leave to it on Facebook or Twitter. Thank you.
Author: laughter_now
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy, with a smidgeon of Sulu/Chekov thrown in if you stand on your toes and squint
Disclaimer: I keep wishing for them, but I still don't own anything.
Summary: There's something down on that planet. Something no human ever encountered before. The Observers have watched many species fight it. And there is only one common thread to all those encounters - someone always dies.
Answer to this prompt at the buckleup_meme .
Incidentally, this will also fill the prompt "experiments by evil scientists" on my hurt/comfort bingo card.
Here you go with the next part. I changed some parts of the confrontation in this one from the original episode (though I left some parts just as they were, too). I always felt that the final confrontation could do with a little more emotion, and I hope I managed to get that into this.
Enjoy!
Chapter 7
Jim felt like he was the one who couldn't breathe anymore.
Standing there, looking at Bones' still chest, something was rising up inside of him, something deep and ugly that grew and grew until it blocked his chest and his throat felt too tight to breathe. A burning pressure was building up behind his eyelids, and it was hard to focus his gaze as he turned his eyes away from Bones' still face to look up at the monitor above the bed. The controls were beeping softly in alarm, and even without an extensive study of medicine it wasn't too hard to understand the readings.
No pulse. No respiration. No brainwave activity.
Bones was dead.
A choked sob tore free from somewhere deep inside Jim's chest, and when he looked back down at Bones' face, his vision was blurred so much that he had to blink a couple of times to bring his friend's pale face into focus. A hot trail of moisture ran down one of his cheeks, but Jim barely noticed anything but the sight of Bones, unmoving and so horribly lifeless in front of him, and the feel of his still chest beneath his palm.
Bones' skin might still feel warm from the fever, but it was only a matter of time before he was going to feel cold to the touch. And it…it just couldn't be. It wasn't fair. It wasn't…it wasn't right. A world without a living, breathing Bones in it wasn't right, wasn't supposed to exist.
Jim's hand slowly slid off Bones' chest, and he took a step or two back from the biobed, the fingers of his hand coming up to press tightly against his lips, as if trying to keep everything inside that was threatening to spill out of him at that moment, all the anguish and anger, the denial and gut-wrenching fear of a life without Bones.
Then Bones opened his eyes.
"I have so much respect for you, Captain Kirk."
Not even the hand in front of his mouth could hold back the startled gasp, and Jim's first instinct, his first thought was Bones, and he wanted to laugh and cry at the same time about this inexplicable medical miracle. He didn't even want to question it, didn't want to know how it was possible, how it had happened, as long as it meant that Bones was still here, that he wasn't dead.
But at the same time, he knew that it wasn't right, that something about this was horribly wrong. And it wasn't just the fact that Bones would never call him Captain Kirk. Captain sometimes, when they were on duty, but else it was only ever Jim, sometimes kid, or the occasional variation of you damn idiot. But never, not once, did Bones call him by his name and title.
And it was so much more than those two words that was wrong. It was the voice, too. Even though it was Bones' voice, and Jim's heart beat up a little faster at hearing it, something was immanently wrong with it.
And then Bones sat up on the biobed, sliding his legs over the edge as he turned to look at Jim, and Jim knew for sure. It was Bones' body, but it definitely wasn't Bones looking at him right then. It was an eerie sensation, to see his friend's pale and sweat-lined face look back at him with such a foreign expression of curiosity and yet at the same time distance in his eyes. This was Bones, but something was inside him that wasn't Bones, that was so different from Jim's friend that it was impossible to ever confuse the two.
"Who are you?" Jim rasped out, his voice hoarse and sharp, trying desperately not to let all the emotions that were running out of control inside of him show.
Bones…the thing that wasn't Bones slid closer to the edge of the bed, and out of the corner of his eye Jim saw that the readings on the monitor above the bed had spiked up again, showing those things that he had been so desperately wishing for - a heartbeat, brainwave activity - but on levels that were impossible for a human being.
"What are you?" Jim corrected himself, his eyes never once leaving the creature that was inside of his best friend, trying not to get swept away in a wave of overwhelming relief at seeing Bones again, seeing those hazel eyes open and alive even though they were watching him with a strangely detached expression instead of the usual gruff fondness Bones was never able to hide completely.
"I'm an Organian," the thing that wasn't Bones finally replied, using Bones' voice but without its usual lilt, like a piano that was slightly out of tune. "A non-physical life form."
A non-physical life form that was inside of Bones, and now Bones was dead. It wasn't hard to make the connection.
"What did you do to him?"
"Nothing. We never interfere with the development of other species. We are merely here to observe."
Normally, Jim was a quick thinker, but right now he had the feeling half of this conversation was passing him by. It was just too damn hard to focus on anything when Bones was dead, yet this…this thing was using his body to communicate with him.
"Observe what?"
Bones' shoulders rose slightly as the Organian shrugged. "How different species react to a threat."
And suddenly, it all made sense.
"You knew about the silicon virus. You knew it was down on that planet all along."
Something hard and unforgiving started to form in Jim's stomach as the Organian nodded.
"The virus is the reason we come here. It's how we study other species."
It was still Bones' body, and Bones was one of the people Jim could never harm in any way, and that was the only reason why he reigned in the sudden fury that took a hold of him and didn't pummel this Organian bastard into a bloody pulp.
"This virus killed two members of my crew. You knew it was out there, and you didn't warn us? Instead you watched while we tried to save them? You just watched them die?"
Something that could almost pass as regret showed in those hazel eyes.
"I wanted to warn you, Captain. But the decision was not mine to make."
Before Jim could even ask what the hell that meant, another voice cut into the stillness of Medical.
"You're breaking all our rules."
The Russian accent was still there, leaving no doubt as to who the speaker was, and Jim spun around just in time to see Chekov rise up on the biobed he had been lying on. The sheet Jim had so hesitantly drawn over him slipping off his face and body as he sat up. Jim took a startled step back as Chekov climbed down from the biobed, his torn uniform shirt hanging off his thin frame, revealing the electrodes Jim had placed on his chest what felt like a lifetime ago already.
"I told you, our rules don't apply to this species," the Organian inside of Bones replied defiantly, even as Chekov stalked over towards the scanner bed with a determination and menace in his steps that the young navigator had never shown in life.
"The decision is not ours to make. We follow the rules."
"We have to challenge the rules…"
"I don't care about your damn rules," Jim interrupted the second he finally found his voice again. He wasn't going to be a silent bystander as those two creatures discussed their regulations as if there was nothing more important in the entire universe. He didn't give a damn about them. He only cared about one thing.
"What happens to Bones and Chekov once you're done with their bodies?"
The Organian in Chekov's body turned towards him. "We have to leave them as they are."
"Dead."
It killed Jim a little inside to say the word.
The Organian nodded, and right there and then one thing was perfectly clear - it wasn't acceptable. And even if he had pretty much just stood by and watched this shitfest happen ever since Chekov and Bones had set foot on that damn planet, now at least this was back on ground that Jim knew his way around. He knew about negotiating, and about making even the most stubborn beings see sense. And right now, he wasn't above downright begging, either. But one thing was perfectly clear - if those Organians in any way had the power to reverse the effects of the virus, Jim wasn't going to stop until they used it. Chekov's and Bones' death was simply not an option.
He took a step closer to the Organian that was using Chekov's body, never once breaking eye-contact with the being.
"Listen, I know about not getting involved in the natural development of other species. It's a decision I have to make again and again, every single day that I'm in command. And it isn't easy."
The Organian nodded. "So we are in agreement."
"No. Because there's a line, one that you have to define anew each and every time. And sometimes you have to cross it. There's a difference between letting a species develop on their own, and not stopping them from running into their death blindly. This virus, our encounter with it, you could have stopped all that from happening."
A curious expression crossed Chekov's face then, just as if the Organian didn't get Jim's point.
"Then how would we have learned about humans?"
"How would you…you could have talked to us! We're talking now, why couldn't you have done so before? If there's something you want to know about us, go ahead and ask! And if you're non-physical beings and have to inhabit my crewmembers to do so, then you'd damn well better give me a warning and ask for my permission first, but talking to us in the first place might have been a good start!"
"Talking is a limited form of communication for us," the Organian replied almost with disdain. "We are much more evolved than humans."
"Not from where I'm standing."
The Organian inside of Chekov's body cocked his head to the side, an expression that was almost a challenge in his eyes.
"Most of our abilities are beyond your scope of understanding…"
Jim shook his head and cut the being short before it could even make its point.
"You might have evolved into something I can't even comprehend, but from what I can tell you lost everything that's important along the way. You want to learn about humans? Then let me tell you something right now. You wanna know what gives our lives meaning? It's not just observation and knowledge. It's things like empathy, and compassion." He turned his eyes towards Bones as he spoke, but had to look away before he finished to stop the sudden lump in his throat from choking him. Something was starting to unravel inside of him, something warm and not altogether unwelcome, but he didn't have the time to contemplate it right now. "Things like love. That's what's holding us together. That's what makes us care about one another, but to you we're only lab rats that you can observe. You don't care what happens to us, so don't you dare tell me that you're so much more advanced than we are. You don't know anything about us. You observed us for so long and you probably still don't know the first thing about humans, or about the two crewmembers that you killed!"
The Organian shook his head. "We know everything we need to know, and we learned everything we could about this crew. This body here," Chekov gestured down along his own body in a gesture that might have seemed comical under different circumstances. "His name is Pavel Andreievich Chekov, born Stardate…"
"Stardate 2241.178 in Moscow, Eurasian continent," Jim interrupted. "Serial number 656- 5827B. Rank Ensign, assigned navigator of the USS Enterprise. It doesn't take any superior evolution to quote a personnel file, damn it! If that's all you know about him, then you don't know a damn thing. You don't know that he has a mother at home who's never going to laugh again once I call her and tell her that her son died out here, thousands of light years away from home. You don't know that he's the youngest crewmember aboard this entire ship, and that everyone else has been looking after him in one way or another ever since we left Spacedock. You don't know that sometimes, he still gets homesick, and that the only thing that'll help is to let him talk about his home, no matter if he keeps telling stories we've all heard dozens of times before. You have no idea that everyone aboard the ship is going to be heartbroken when the news break that he's dead, because he's more than what's in his personnel file to them!"
Jim turned back towards Bones, unable to stop now that he had finally found a first outlet for the pain and rage that was threatening to consume him. It was a bit harder to face the Organian who was inhabiting Bones' body than it had been with the other, but Jim forced that turmoil of emotions away and didn't allow it to break his stride.
"Or what do you know about Leonard McCoy? What's in his file, all those facts and stats? Where he was born, where he went to med school, when he received his last vaccination shots? Or do you know that of all the people here aboard, he's the one who's constantly thinking and worrying about everyone else, and last to think about himself? Do you know that whenever there's a medical crisis, he keeps working his ass off because he sees every single patient that he can't save as a personal failure? Do you know that he's the best friend I've had in my entire life and that…" Jim's voice broke and he had to swallow against his suddenly dry throat, though he couldn't stop his voice from turning raspy and on the verge of breaking as he continued. "…that he's the reason I'm still alive, in more ways than just one?"
He shook his head and ran his hands across his face with a sigh, exhaustion suddenly making his limbs heavy.
"You don't know. You probably don't care, either. But if you want to learn about humans, those are the things you should be looking for, not what's in any files, or for how long we keep struggling if someone we care for is about to die. We're connected, in one way or the other. You take out one of us, and it affects us all. Some more, and others less, but it still leaves a gap that everyone can feel. And if you still had a shred of conscience left in your evolved state, then you wouldn't be standing by, watching how some of us die when you could have prevented it. If this is what you call a superior development, with rules as a piss-poor substitute for a moral compass, then I don't want any part of it."
Maybe it was the shouting, or the virus had simply run through its first stage of infection inside Jim's body at just this moment, but as soon as he stopped speaking, hard, hacking coughs started to tear through his frame and he had to hold on to the nearest console for support as he desperately tried to draw air into his lungs.
The Organians regarded him for a few long moments, the one inside Chekov with an almost exaggerated impassive notion on his face. It was him, too, who eventually spoke.
"We're leaving now, Captain. You will not remember our presence. And in three to four hours, you will die as well."
"No."
It was hard to tell who was more startled, Jim or the thing inside Chekov's body, but they both spun around towards the second Organian.
"Are you defying me?"
By the sounds of it, the Organian possessing Chekov could not believe this to be possible, but the one controlling Bones pulled himself up to his full height and took a step towards the other.
"I'm defying the entire protocol. What Captain Kirk did today, you said yourself that nobody had ever done that before."
"And in time we're going to observe more humans. Then we will be able to judge those acts."
"Or you could try to experience it for yourself," Jim replied, voice raspy and hoarse, threatening to set off another round of coughing. The two Organians turned towards him, and Jim got the feeling that this was his last chance to convince them of anything. He just didn't have the feeling he had much left to convince them with.
"If you want to know about being human, about compassion, you should try and act like we do. Humans show compassion."
Jim drew a deep breath and forced down the coughs that threatened to overcome him again. Looking at the Organians, he tried to gauge if his words had left any impact with them. But even though he was looking at two faces he knew so well that normally one look was enough to know what was going on inside these two men, right now he didn't see anything.
It were the faces of two strangers looking back at him.
TBC...
Thanks for reading. As always, please let me know what you think. Thanks a lot.
Please do not repost any of this content, or the comments you leave to it on Facebook or Twitter. Thank you.