One thing before you go, "oh look, another suicide plot, Jeeze, does this girl ever realize that gets old?" Understand that this is NOT just 'another suicide plot'. I can't tell you what it is yet, understand though, that while it might start out that way, we're looking at something totally different. The rating may go up, I doubt it but I'm giving myself space, because the villain...yeah... So...please give it a chance. Another thing to please do, REVIEW :P
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Jim sat next to the biobed, face in his hands and mouth pulled into a line. He didn't have room for tears anymore. McCoy sat next to him, face pulled into a grimace, but that didn't hide the way his eyes glittered suspiciously.

"What do we do for him?"

McCoy was silent for a moment, and then huffed out a sigh. "I don't know, Jim. I've never dealt with something like this before. I'm a psychologist as well as a doctor, true, but that's for humans, dammit… Not half Vulcans. Not for someone like Spock."

"'Someone like Spock', what's that supposed to mean, Bones?" Jim asked, looking up at him, his eyes were beginning to spit fire, and McCoy looked at the ground.

"What I mean is someone who's been trained their entire life to hold back emotions and who sees any SIGN of them as a weakness… Someone who watched their planet die…" His voice trailed off, and he just stared at the figure on the bed quietly, eyes vacant, not really seeing the body that lay there. "How did I not see it?"

Jim straightened slightly, and looked at Spock and then looked at Leonard, "Same reason I didn't Bones…he's Vulcan. Suicide…suicide isn't logical."

"And yet for some reason they seem to have an entire ceremony devoted to the act."

Jim flinched, trying to block out the images of what had awaited him in the First Officers quarters, the sight of Spock kneeling, half dead from blood loss, the smell of incense and copper thick in the air. The bloodstained knife resting on the pillow in front of him. He had rushed over, falling to his knees next to him before tearing the communicator off the desk and contacting Uhura to get McCoy down to Spock's room. He had applied a tourniquet, but the glazed look in Spock's eyes was more than he could bear, especially when accompanied by a faint push. Spock had tried to push him away.

Spock hadn't wanted to be saved.

It was the only reason McCoy could figure that the half Vulcan hadn't woken up yet. They had saved him from death three times since Jim had found him, the last two times without any real reason. Until it had become apparent through an invisibly grieving father that Vulcan's had more control over their bodies than any human could ever hope to have.

They had attached him to machinery. He was basically on life support.

Sarek was on his way, accompanied by Ambassador Salek. Jim didn't know what to say to them. He didn't know why. He had thought…he had thought that they had been friends. He had thought that he was 'happy'. There were so many signs, and now…

"Spock…" Jim finally said softly, reaching out and grabbing his wrist, not touching his hand, not wanting to violate that taboo. "Spock…" He didn't know what else to say. He didn't know what else to do.

Uhura hadn't been able to enter the sickbay in the days that Spock had been there. She hadn't been able to, but she had never cried on the Bridge, she had always been professional. Chekov was a little different. His youth made him more vulnerable, but he stood strong and professional, all of Kirk's crew stayed as strong as they could. In private, only they knew how they reacted.

"Jim…" McCoy said quietly, placing a hand on his shoulder, "Come on. You've been here for hours. He's not going to wake up yet, I promise I'll contact you when he has."

Kirk took a breath and nodded. McCoy walked him out, and then turned back. He looked at the half Vulcan stretched out there, attached to various machinery and pulled his mouth into a line. "If you die, you bastard, I will never forgive you. Please, don't hurt him. He cares about you, for some crazy stupid reason, he cares about you."

With one last look at him, his eyes dark, he sighed and left, walking after Jim.
….

The next day after shift, the ship was still making its way to New Vulcan due to the increased importance of any Vulcan, be it half-or otherwise, found Kirk where he was most evenings, next to Spock.

This time was different though. This time, Nyota cautiously walked through the door, Kirk standing up automatically as soon as he spotted her. Nyota walked forward briskly, unhesitant, the kind of air around her that somehow screamed that if she stopped now, she wouldn't come back. She sat next to Jim, avoiding eye contact, her head bowed.

Jim paused, and then looked back to Spock, then to Nyota, "I'll leave you alone. I'm sorry." He stood up, and began walking out.

"Wait…Kirk…" Nyota said suddenly, turning to look after him, her eyes big, and he realized that she was scared. "Please…I can't be here alone."

Jim blinked, and watched as her eyes filled, and he nodded, "Alright…alright…"

She gave him a weak smile, and let out a single choked sob, and he walked over, crouching down and wrapping his arms around her. That broke the back of her control, and she was sobbing into his shirt, quietly gasping 'why?' when she could gain the breath to whisper. Jim didn't cry, closing his eyes and holding her tighter.

McCoy crept in from his office, took one look at Nyota, who had her back to him, and Jim, who met his eyes over her shoulder and nodded, before retreating.

Minutes or possibly hours later she had cried herself out, but didn't remove her head from Jim's shoulder. Jim didn't make any move to remove her before she was ready, and she finally pulled back, looking at the damp spot on Jim's shoulder and giving him an apologetic half smile. Jim wiped away the last of her tears, and held her at arm's length, his eyebrows pinching together, "You feel better?"

"No," Uhura answered, a soft and self-depreciated smile turning the corners of her mouth, before she took a breath and looked back to Spock. Jim looked back at the half-Vulcan with fresh eyes, seeing him as she might have. He was pale and drawn. There were rings around his eyes, and he looked thinner than he ever had, and that was a frightening prospect. What had been a slender face before was now filled with shadows. They had been desperately trying to supply him with proper nutrients, but it seemed that even with life support he was finding a way to rebel. He was…vulnerable.

The strongest out of all of them was vulnerable, defenseless, and was in need of their protection, their strength. He had been for a while, Jim thought, and they had failed him. He twisted his mouth into a line and dropped his head into his hands finally, "What did I do, Nyota? What did I miss? How could…why did…why did he?"

Nyota opened her mouth and shut it again, "I don't know, captain." She finally whispered. "I have no idea, and I hate it. I thought…I thought I knew him. We broke up, but he…we were still friends… Jim…"

"Did you notice him acting strangely, Nyota? Was there any sign of this? Anything at all?"

Uhura shook her head, her eyebrows pinching together. "Nothing. He was….he was 'content'. I don't understand."

Jim gave her a soft smile, "That makes two of us…I'm…I'm gonna go. I'll leave you some time alone. I know you need it."

Uhura gave him a soft smile, "Thank you, captain. I'm sorry about your shirt…"

Jim looked down at the damp patch and back up to her with a grin. "At least it's still in one piece. I'd take a little salt water over the rips any day. I'm sure the people who actually GET my shirts would too."

Nyota managed a laugh at that, and Jim counted it as a job well done. He made sure to get all the way back to McCoy's office before his own shoulders slumped.

McCoy was waiting, leaning back in his chair, two glasses of liquor in front of him on the desk. Jim accepted one, sitting down on the other side. "Hey, Bones…"

"She finally got here. I'm glad, I was probably gonna wind up havin' to talk to her if she hadn't…" McCoy said conversationally, taking a sip of his drink. He was the ship's resident psychologist as well as their doctor. The newer crew was always surprised at the cantankerous doctor when he took on that duty. He was good at what he did, and whatever they told him, unless necessary for the ship's proper function, was never told to anyone. Jim had known that longer than anyone else, and their banter that doubled as sessions was so familiar to them that they could slip into it without trouble. Most of the time, Jim could even forget that they were really supposed to be counseling sessions.

"Jim…answer me clearly, please, are you blaming yourself?" This was obviously not going to be one of those times. He was being unusually blunt. Jim blinked, and sat back slowly, studiously ignoring him for the moment and finally taking a breath.

"No. Stop," Jim looked up at him in surprise at that word. Bones was never like this. "I know you well enough to tell that you're about to give me some bullshit response that you think I want to hear. Well I have news for you, I don't."

Jim took a breath, eyes flicking to the door, to the floor, and back to McCoy, emotions warring in constant turmoil under the surface, and finally gave a barked, "Yes, dammit, I blame myself! I'm supposed to be his friend, I'm supposed to have a friendship that 'will define us both in more ways than I can imagine', and yet… Bones, I walked in on him kneeling on the floor in a puddle of blood, a knife in front of him and a look of such…relief on his face that I…" He choked, gestured helplessly and collapsed back into his chair. "What did I do, McCoy? Why would he…I don't understand."

McCoy took a breath, and closed his eyes. "I don't get it either. I never picked up on it… I just… I took him for granted. Now that he's…" Bones' voice trailed off, and he slumped back in his seat. "I've never made that big of an error before that I couldn't see something that big."

Jim took a breath and drained his glass, thinking over his possible responses, and finally chose the simplest one. "Take your own advice. Don't blame yourself, Bones; none of us saw it coming."

McCoy shook his head. "That's the one thing that makes the least amount of sense. There's no logical explanation…"

On that note, Jim nodded and left.
…

Later that night though, Jim couldn't sleep. He had been experiencing that phenomenon lately though, so that wasn't much different. But this time something was different, this time McCoy's words were the cause of it. 'No logical explanation' he had said, and that got him thinking. The only one that had a logical answer was Spock, and it was in Spock's head…

That thought made him sit up. He swung himself out of bed and pulled on his black undershirt as well as some of the pants that he had strewn on the floor. He was in too much of a hurry to worry about his appearance too much.

That done he walked into the corridor, padding along the floor in his bare feet on the way to the sickbay. He spared no thought to what they might think, merely continued. He was on a mission, he doubted it was possible, he wasn't naturally telepathic, but if Spock…

He refused to get his hopes too high.

He walked into sickbay and directly up to Spock's bed, and after a moment's hesitation, crawled on it next to him. If this was going to take a lot of time, he didn't want to come back to his own body cramped. He begged that Spock would forgive him for it later. That done, he slowly reached out, pressing his fingers to the meld points on Spock's face, clumsily placing the Vulcan's own hand on his and desperately tried to force his consciousness into it. Desperately wishing for Spock to recognize him, have him pull him inside his mind, show him what was wrong.

At first there was no response, and Jim nearly broke down then and there, but then he felt a tug, something familiar… The next moment his world had turned upside down, and in the conscious world, Jim knew no more.

Five hours later, McCoy found them like that, their fingers pressed in the meld position. He took one look, and smashed his fist on the intercom, "McCoy to bridge, get to Vulcan double time, the situation just got more critical. The Captain's done something stupid again."