Author's note: I am so scared right now. I told myself I would never even attempt to write a Star Trek fic due to the depth and specificity of the language and the structure of the universe, but here I am. I did a good amount of research, read other fics for months, and finally decided that I loved Kirk and McCoy's friendship too much not to just try. If you've read any of my other stories, I try to write the characters and the scenarios they get in with as much accuracy and believability as possible. I don't do anything extra, I just want my stories to seem like another episode/movie, with tons of protagonist whump and excessive amounts of detail, obviously.

I hope you enjoy! One more time, I am so sorry for any mistakes or any unrealistic/inaccurate descriptions of anything Star Trek related. I really tried!

- M Rae

Alpha shift had begun about one hour ago and so far the night had been utterly uneventful. The bridge was nearly silent while the crew worked on their various areas of specialties, reviewing recent reports and closing out projects that were left unfinished from the shift before.

Alpha shift was used to this down time, however. For the first hour and a half or so, there was little to no interactions occurring amongst anyone which caused the bridge to equate to a library than it did to its usually bustling and lively self. The reason for this was simple, though. It usually took Captain Kirk about an hour and half to catch up on his own reports before he started any kind of pranking, teasing, and conversing with his crew for the remainder of the eight hour shift.

Kirk sat in the center of the bridge in his favorite command chair, slumped back slightly with one ankle resting on the opposite knee. He was tapping away at his PADD, reading and signing off on the various reports he somehow just could not keep up with.

Being a captain of a Federation Starship definitely was not an 'at ease job'. On the surface, it was flashy and honorable, the task of commanding and leading apparent. But it was also filled with many hidden jobs including Kirk's favorite, reading and signing off on every decision that had anything remotely to do with his beloved ship.

Another ten minutes passed by in this state and Kirk was finally just about done with his reports. Let the shenanigans begin, he thought wryly as a grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. He scrolled to the bottom of one of Scotty's final engineering requests and was about to click 'approve' when a sudden stabbing jolt of pain shot straight through his head.

Jim slammed his crossed leg down to the floor as his PADD clattered to the deck. His forehead fell into both his hands and he gasped in pain.

All eyes on the bridge snapped over to look at their captain's suddenly curled-in form in the center of the room as Spock jolted up from his seat. "Captain?" He asked instantly.

Jim waited for the agony to lessen, but it didn't let up in the slightest, which caused him to squeeze his eyes shut in both shock and misery. The strained, crescendoed scream that was then ripped from his throat was cringe worthy and Spock closed the short distance from his post to crouch in front of Kirk swiftly.

The whole bridge crew recoiled in horror at his outburst. Jim Kirk did not scream. Their captain was nothing short of stoic and his pain tolerance was off the charts high, a simple fact that kept Leonard McCoy from stroking out in worry every time his best friend injured himself while on duty and covered the seriousness of it up with a joke and some sarcasm. But right now, Jim was not joking, which meant something was very wrong.

"Captain!" Uhura shot up from her chair next and ran over as Kirk let out another more strained, but still agonized scream, his fingers clutching his head tighter.

Spock grasped the man's bicep, trying to get a look at Jim's scrunched face. "Captain, have you been injured? Where do you need assistance?"

"Captain! What's wrong? Is it your head?" Uhura exclaimed from behind Spock, sliding to her knees in front of Kirk's stiff, bent forward position. She reached for his chin to try and get him to look up when she saw his nose begin to bleed from both nostrils. Another desperate scream slipped out of his throat then as he looked to be in complete agony.

"Get McCoy, now." She cried over her shoulder to the bridge and turned swiftly back towards Jim.

"Kirk, it's okay, just try and breathe, help is coming, we're gonna get McCoy." Uhura babbled trying to get her captain to relax.

"Bridge to McCoy." Sulu called urgently through the rapidly increasing noise filling the room.

"McCoy here." Leonard's aggravated voice sounded through the bridge. "–What the hell is that noise?" He added as Jim suddenly let another crescendoed scream slip from his throat.

"It's the captain." Sulu responded quickly. "He seems to be in extreme pain, it looks like it's his head, we nee-"

"I'm on my way." He answered, all previous traces of irritation gone from his voice, and the link cut out.

"Mr. Spock, I'm getting a reading of a ship in our sector, approaching fast." A voice spoke from behind one of the navigation panels. Sulu instantly shifted his gaze away from Kirk and down to his display to assess the new threat.

Spock snapped his head around and looked at the ensign, then at the screen sitting in front of him. "Can you lock down the location of the approaching vessel?" He inquired.

"Searching now, Sir, standby." The ensign answered quickly.

The crew came alive and the deck was now bustling with noise and incoming data.

"Captain, look at me, can you hear me?" Uhura tried to calm her superior again but Jim wasn't hearing anything besides his own blood pounding in his ears. His jaw was locked in spasm from the strength of his clenched teeth, his eyes screwed together impossibly tight. He was huffing and moaning as blood continued to trickle down from his nose, trail across his lip and drip down onto the paneled floor between his feet. All he could do was sit there and take it.

"Jim!" Leonard exclaimed as the lift doors swooshed open. The captain's best friend sprinted to the center of the bridge, med kit in hand. McCoy had heard his friend's desperate screams and shouts a few levels down while still on the turbolift and his already heightened level of concern had skyrocketed before he had even made it through the doors.

McCoy was the opposite of comforting and consoling, even with his own patients. But the bond he and Kirk had somehow formed during their academy days, and now continued to build as chief officers on a Federation starship together, meant all boundaries were off the table when it came to one another. They knew too much about each other, too much about each other's habits and pasts to not care as much as they did. Jim had become a combination of Leonard's surrogate brother and son in the five years they had known each other, and as much as the kid annoyed him, he was the most important person in McCoy's life right now.

"What happened?" The doctor demanded, as he dropped to a knee in front of his friend just as Spock and Uhura hustled out of the way. He didn't miss the ringlets of blood that were raining below Kirk's bowed head as he kneeled. He immediately gripped one of Jim's forearms and placed his other gloved palm around Kirk's jaw trying to tip his head up to see his face like Uhura had previously tried.

"I have no idea. He was fine and then all the sudden he bent forward and started screaming." Uhura recalled, horrified.

"Okay– Jim? Jim. Can you hear me? I need you to look at me." McCoy switched his focus to his best friend, but when he didn't respond, Leonard began sweeping through Kirk's hair to see if there was a wound of some sort that had gone unnoticed. He checked his ears next then slid his fingers to Kirk's carotid to check his pulse which was rapidly beating. Jim moaned helplessly again from the pain, and McCoy's heart twisted in sympathy. "Alright, hold on, I'm trying Jim, just hang on…"

The noise on the bridge had elevated substantially and the urgency and seriousness in the room was profound.

"Ze approaching vessel haz dropped out of varp, sir. Zey are off our stowboard side, approximately nine kulometers." Ensign Chekov addressed Spock suddenly, glancing down at his writhing captain once he finished his statement.

McCoy then assessed the lines of blood flowing down from Jim's nose and swiped at the blood with his gloved thumb. He withdrew his hand quickly to see if there was any clear fluid mixed with the crimson, red substance but to his relief, he saw no cerebrospinal fluid leaking from his friend's head. Thank god, at least his brain's not exploding.

Kirk's body was extremely rigid and McCoy was unable to move Kirk's hands away from his clearly agonizing head to assess any farther. "Damn it all." He huffed impatiently. He turned his head to Uhura. "He was just sitting here. He wasn't touched? Did he look sick or anything?" He prattled, none of this was adding up and Jim's condition was severe.

"No, Sir, he was fine. He just grabbed his head and started screaming out of nowhere." Uhura was beside herself worried, she had never seen her captain in this state before.

Jim kept his face scrunched in agony as he panted and grunted in his CMO's grasp. Another scream was then ripped from his throat without warning as another bomb exploded inside his head. So this is what dying feels like, Jim thought morbidly.

The doctor flinched at his friend's exposed outburst but swiftly gathered himself again. He hooked his hand around the base of Kirk's head and squeezed his neck empathetically. "It's okay, I got you, I'm gonna fix this." McCoy cooed as he reached down for his tricorder with his free hand. He swept the device around Jim's head first, then to his back.

The machine blipped and McCoy read through the results quickly. Tachycardia, elevated respiratory rate, peaked pain levels, elevated blood pressure, and increased intracranial pressure. Shit.

That last one was a medical emergency. Increased intracranial pressure could lead to necrosis of brain tissue and irreversible brain damage. Maybe his head is exploding.

McCoy dropped the tricorder at once and reached into his kit for a hypospray filled with a high dose pain reliever, a blood pressure reducer, and a diuretic.

"They're locking phasers on us!" A tactical officer suddenly shouted.

"Shield's up, red alert!" Spock ordered immediately. The Klaxons sounded instantly and the bridge was bustling with orders and activation sequences.

"Are we under attack?" McCoy spun around and looked towards the helm in alarm.

"Activating shields."

There was a bellowing explosion that caused the Enterprise to jolt from the impact. "We're taking hits!"

"Svitching to combat mode."

"Shields raised."

"Arming phasers and torpedoes."

Jim shouted again and McCoy scrambled to slide his friend's collar down to inject the blood pressure reducer first, then the diuretic.

"Our weapons have been disengaged sir, they've overridden our tactical controls." An alarmed tactical officer reported.

"We're being hailed." A communications officer seated next to Uhura's station voiced.

All eyes shot over to Spock and the captain, then up towards the viewscreen as Spock responded for his incapacitated leader.

"On screen."

There was a slight delay in connection before a humanoid face appeared over the helm, his eyes were jet black and his face was bent in concentration. A Betazoid, no doubt.

"This is Commander Spock of the U.S.S. Enterprise. You have fired at a Federation starship without warrant, I order you to surrender or we will have no choice but to disable your ship's engines and incarcerate the entirety of your crew to undergo legal reprimands through Starfleet." Spock's voice was dark and demanding.

The Betazoid did not respond, nor did he make any move to talk. He seemed to be distracted, in fact, and was looking beyond Spock's stiff form to something in the distance.

"Your captain is strong." Was all the humanoid said and his eyes narrowed.

"What the hell does that mean?" McCoy questioned, disturbed.

Most of the crewmen's eyes shifted tensely towards Kirk. An overwhelming swell of protectiveness engulfed the doctor and both he and Spock moved in order to shield Kirk's form from the Betazoid's view on the bridge. Leonard gripped his friend's shoulder and knee tightly in comfort as he let out another shocked cry.

"I demand to know whom I am speaking to." Spock commanded over the doctor's grumbles.

The Betazoid's eyes enlarged again once Kirk's body was fully shielded and he finally locked eyes with Spock.

"I am Trex. There will be no surrender." He stated simply.

McCoy turned to face Jim again and administered the final hypo filled with a high dose pain reliever, one that Kirk was not allergic to. His knee was bent up under Kirk's dropped head and rivulets of blood began to spot onto the doctor's pant leg. He didn't seem to notice though, nor did he care.

As soon as the hiss of the hypo sounded, to Leonard's relief, the captain's body finally deflated some. Jim fell forward into the doctor's awaiting arms as one of his hands finally ungripped his head and latched instead onto McCoy's shoulder. Leonard held Jim up as he panted, the pain now severe rather than excruciating.

"Your ship's shields have been disabled." Trex spoke again after turning away from the bridge momentarily.

"As have yours." Spock countered back after a nod from Chekov.

"You will find that they are not." Trex retorted casually, rubbing at his eye as if bored. "I want to speak to your captain, the fate of your starship depends on it." The Betazoid narrowed his eyes again.

Kirk remained slumped forward against his friend, huffing for breath, but tilted his head up to glance towards the helm. His head was still throbbing and he was on the verge of throwing up, but he focused in on the man with black eyes speaking on the screen. Recognition jump started his thoughts and Kirk struggled to concentrate, his crew was endanger.

Spock stood his ground and tried to deter the Betazoid's focus away from their captain. "If you will not surrender, we will have no choice but to destroy your vessel, our weaponry is far more superior than your own, you will not survive"

Trex looked past Spock again towards the center of the bridge, seemingly not hearing a word the commander had said, or was simply discounting his threat. He looked for Kirk but McCoy's body was still crouched in front of the captain's struggling form, and Trex was unable to make eye contact with the man. He sneered and called out to him anyway.

"Captain Kirk! Why don't you tell your crew what is really going to happen here, hm? Can you tell them what you see?" After waiting a moment with no response, he snapped his fingers rapidly as if to get his attention. "Captain, I asked you a question." The gesture caused the whole bridge crew to fume in anger.

Jim's eyes slammed shut and he shifted beneath Leonard's protective hands as his mind was taken over again. He recoiled as his whole body tensed before he let out another strained scream, this time laced with a word. "Nnoooo!"

Trex smiled.

"What the hell are you doing to him!?" McCoy shouted with rage, finally seeing the connection between the Betazoid's actions and Kirk's pain levels.

"Just giving him a glimpse of what's to come." He stated, ominously.

McCoy twisted his shoulders around to glare at the asshole tormenting his friend. "Rot in hell, you bastard, just tell us what you want."

Trex ignored him and carried on his torment, beginning to pace within the screen's parameters now. "Your life has been tragedy after tragedy hasn't it, James?" He continued addressing Kirk as the bridge crew wearily listened on.

"I can't help but feel bad for you." He shook his head sadly.

"Neglect, abuse, torture, loss." He stopped and pondered this for a moment. "And you're only what, 27?"

He turned back towards the bridge again. "What hasn't happened to you?

Jim let go of McCoy and gripped at his head again, his face scrunched tighter in pain. Then he shouted, anger laced in his rasped tone. "Stop– get out of my heaaad!"

"Cut the connection!" McCoy shouted in alarm as he spotted a fresh thin stream of blood drip down the side of Jim's jaw. He worked to locate the source. He gripped his friend's cheek and knelt up on one knee, horrified to see a pool of blood filling his ear. "Shit." He twisted his friend to peer into the other ear, the same amount of blood pooling out of that side as well.

McCoy spun around to look at Spock sternly. "Spock, I'm serious. Blow that bastard to oblivion, Jim's critical."

"It won't make a difference." Trex called back instantly, holding his hand up in pause.

"He's broken beyond repair anyway, as is your ship. You will see we have taken control of your weapons, shields, and transporter abilities now. Your captain is incapacitated. You are defenseless in every sense of the word."

Spock looked to one of the tactical operations officers who was furiously working away at the controls to no avail. He looked towards Chekov next, who was doing the same.

"I'll give you ten minutes to live, goodbye…" Trex shifted his gaze over to the captain's face and nodded his head once to address Jim. "Captain Kirk." He finished with a grin and the screen went black.

TBC