Left in Darkness (Kirk/McCoy--PG-13)
Title: Left in Darkness
Author: sororexitium
Rating: PG-13 due to some disturbing imaginery.
Pairing/Characters: Kirk/McCoy, Spock, Chapel, OC
Disclaimer: I'm just floating through someone else's dreams. I own nothing.
Summary: It comes on suddenly one week during their second tour.
Notes: We're going back in time to see a condensed verson of Jim's loss of sight. This is part of my Only With The Heart series. Be prepared.
It comes on suddenly one week during their second tour. It had, in all probability, been going on for a while, but it comes to a point where Jim is suffering from a migraine so bad that he’s stumbling into Sickbay, his hand cementing the well-traveled path because he can’t stand to have his eyes open even a little. He tells Leonard that he needs something and he needs it now and really that’s all the doctor needs to hear because Jim has only ever asked for pain medicine when he’s about to pass out from the pain. The hypo gets rid of his headache…the disappearing peripheral vision lingers.
Its day seven of the exact same routine before Leonard breaks Jim down enough to have a test run on him. His contacts aren’t a strong enough prescription anymore, which is most likely causing the missing sight. He tells Jim to take it easy, while shining a light in one eye, then the other. He still has reaction. The captain of course doesn’t take it easy. Never does, even at Chief Medical Officer’s orders. He forces on and Leonard watches with a deepening scowl and a gnawing in his stomach.
By week three, Jim’s peripheral vision is gone, and he haltingly tells Leonard that it’s not a migraine he’s suffering from. His eyes feel as if they’re burning right out of his skull. Leonard runs more invasive tests, much to the captain’s chagrin. What he finds turns the gnawing in his stomach into vicious bites and causes him physical pain. Jim’s optic nerves seem to be degenerating, quickly, fraying and disintegrating before Leonard’s very eyes. Jim asks what’s wrong when he calls in Doctor Chapel from one of her patients, insisting that she take a look as well. She confirms his fear.
Week six, and Spock, McCoy, and Chapel have been reprogramming the nanobots. There’s not much else they can do. Chapel has suggested nerve transplants, but optic nerves are too sensitive to go carting around space and by the time they reach a space station whatever transplants they have will likely be on their way to not working, never mind what will become of Jim’s ability to receive the nerves. Spock suggests that perhaps they could try to rebuild Jim’s nerves, instead of a transplant. The problem with that is there’s really not much to rebuild. The nerves are little fraying like hamburger meat. Leonard and Christine are damn fine doctors, but there are limits to what even they can do, but the nanobots can try.
Jim sits patient in the fourth chair, craning his neck to see every little thing because at this point he’s down to tunnel vision. He has no suggestions, not even hindering jokes…and Leonard already misses them.
Forms go fuzzy in Jim’s eyes before Leonard and the other two can properly program the nanobots. He only sees lights and blurred figures flitting around in front of him. He lies down on the operating table, and before Nurse Jayne puts him under, he tells Leonard to lean in close, closer…stop. He stares at Leonard for copious moments, breathing in and out. His eyes flicker over what must be every single nuance of the doctor’s face, finally settling on his eyes for heartbreaking seconds before he gives the okay to be put under.
Week eight passes and it almost seems that the nanobots are working. They seem to cobbling Jim’s frayed nerves back together with ease. Jim stays in bed with nearly constant supervision to make sure he actually stays where he’s supposed to. He has a mask wrapped firmly around his eyes, to keep the light out.
And then week nine.
Leonard wakes the heart-stopping sound of Jim’s agonized screaming. He jerks upright, ordering the lights on which make Jim’s screams louder. The captain is scrubbing at his eyes, the mask torn off and lost somewhere Leonard doesn’t care to notice. All he can think of is to stop Jim from scratching at his face. He grabs Jim’s hands in a vice grip, wrenching them away from his face. He makes soothing noises to Jim, doing his best to reach for a hypospray while holding on to Jim’s fighting hands. His screams have mutated into choking sobs and tears slowly trail down his face…and…and his tears are red.
Something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
He and Christine flush the nanobots from Jim’s eyes, but it’s too late. They’re damaged more than they helped. Spock is trying to decide where the programming went wrong, his passive face pinched more and more with each passing second. Leonard and Christine try to find if there’s anything left to salvage. There’s nothing. The nerves are obliterated, and the nanobots, which had worked their way into the eyes itself have destroyed the cones and rods, scared the retina, turning Jim’s pupils a milky gray.
Leonard holds Jim’s hand until he comes too, gripping hard enough to bruise. When Jim awakens, Doctor Chapel is there to do standard procedures. She checks vital signs, reflexes, and shines the light in Jim’s eyes and this time…
There’s no response to light.