Author note: This isn't my best chapter, but I thought it was best to at least post something.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. I'm just an adolescent girl with too much time on her hands.

"Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torments of man."- Friedrich Nietzsche

And then there was silence. A long silence, during which everyone stopped. Everybody, every life form aboard the ship just paused and inhaled sharply, yet not one person knew why. They'd been fine, going about their jobs and then suddenly, something was wrong.

It was a feeling. A moment where the entire universe seemed out of sync, just existing but not living and it was enough to stop Jim's and Nyota's hysterical laughter so they too fell into that quiet, frightening void that the rest of the ship had fallen into .

There were no shared glances or murmured whispers because each person shook off the feeling of sorrow and pain and loss and just continued. Almost everyone.

There were a certain few, to whom that silence signalled the end of the life that was slowly, but surely, tumbling down around them, leaving a dusty, burning crater of devastation that they would someday have to fix. But not that day. Not any day soon.

No one knew what caused the silence and yet, they all knew, somewhere, deep down.

Nurse Christine Arabella Chapel, aged thirty-seven years, two months, fourteen days, three minutes and forty-six seconds, was dead.

And from within the silence, there was the sound of crying.

"Dead? She's not dead. Don't tell me that she's dead because she isn't! She can't be! She can't be fucking dead! That's not right! That's not how it's supposed to be! She's not dead, so shut the hell up, you bastard-"

"Leonard-"

"No, don't talk to me, don't even look at me! You're lying, you are. This is some sick, twisted joke and I'm telling you, when I'm finished with you-!"

"Doctor McCoy, please calm-"

"If you tell me to calm down one more time, buddy, I'll put your head through the-"

"I'm so sorry, Leonard."

"Sorry?"

Sorry? What use was that? Why did everyone say sorry, like it mattered, like it helped anything? It meant nothing. It meant nothing to Bones. She wasn't dead. She couldn't be. That stupid intern, he'd got it wrong, he'd made a mistake. Christine was fine. She was going to be absolutely fine and she'd wake up and smile and laugh that laugh of hers and then Jim would recover and life was go on as normal, go on like it did before.

Bones felt disconnected, almost. The screeches from his own mouth, he barely registered them, like it wasn't him crying and spitting in the corridor and while the world looked normal, it wasn't real to Bones. There was no way the universe could ever look right if Nurse Christine Chapel wasn't in it. Life would never be life without her and it hurt Bones, it hurt him more than words or tears and nightmares could ever explain. She wasn't dead.

If she was dead, then why was he still alive?

"Shhh….it's okay….it's alright, Len…."

The floor was cold beneath his palms, sterile and his arms, his legs wouldn't support his weight any more. Strong hands caught him beneath the shoulders, held up from the ground because he didn't want to hold himself and they dragged him out of plain sight, away from the stares and the pitiful looks.

But he couldn't stop crying.

If he did, if he stopped screaming, then he'd have to think. He'd have to accept that she was gone. That she was never coming back to him.

And the worse part of it all was that he never told her just how much he loved her.

And now, he never would.

"Jim." Christopher Pike had wiped away the stray tear from his cheek when it had first appeared there. He had to stay strong, composed. It's not that he knew Nurse Chapel well, though her death was tragic in every way, it was the fact this was all because of what happened to Jim and Nyota and the others. The others, who were more like mummified shells with a faint pulse, had been placed into the same room and Spock had been quick to protest at Uhura being put in there too. He never said out loud that she might hurt someone else, but it was there, in the undertones of his blank expression.

She had killed Nurse Chapel, after all.

She was a murderer.

The Su'ille had done that to her.

"Jim, it's time to leave." He took the boys wrist and pulled him back, away from Uhura in what seemed like a swift movement. He found himself unable to look at her because of what she'd done and although he knew it wasn't her fault, the same way nothing was Jim's fault, he still just couldn't handle it. Not at that moment.

Jim walked normally with no protests at being led back through medical bay like a child with his hand in his fathers, or at least, the closest he'd ever had to one.

"What's happened, Chris?"

Even in his state, Jim could feel the weight in the air. He could read every doctor and nurse in that ward and they were all screaming misery. It wasn't the kind of misery he was feeling, however. It was something else entirely. Something worse, something you couldn't come back from in a lot of ways.

Chris tightened his grip of Jim's hand, but said nothing, so Jim dug his heels into the floor and glared with more emotion than he'd shown in a long time. For a few brief minutes, the lives of everyone else mattered a tiny bit. A tiny bit.

Pike moved his hand to the back of Jims neck and took a steadying breath.

"It's Nurse Chapel, she's-"

"Dead."

Jim finished the sentence for him, the word meaning nothing from his lips.

"Yeh. About ten minutes ago."

"Hm."

And that was the only response he gave. Chris watched with a bleak down turn of his lips as Jim turned his focus to the floor and the Admiral looked over at the brunette Nurse Beasley, who tidied away the already tidy shelving unit in the background.

"Where's Leonard?" He found himself asking, knowing just how much the middle aged doctor would be hurting.

"In his dorm. We had to give him a sedative." Her voice quivered, her bottom lip trembled and she turned away, back rising and falling rapidly because she wasn't going to cry again.

But like everyone else, the tears just wouldn't stay away.

"Come on, Jim."

They left medical bay, barely noticing the odd stillness of the corridor, usually full of the hustle and bustle of the crew. It was deserted, mostly, as by that point, Christine's death had been officially announced and the crew were allowed an hour of mourning, before it was back to work as if nothing had happened at all.

"Hush little baby….don't say a word…." None of humans looked up as Jim sang, softly, delicately under his breath, the lyrics shaking as he shivered in the sudden chill of the cell, "Momma's gonna buy you a mockingbird…"

He wasn't sure why he was singing. He told himself it was to help Queenie, who whimpered repeatedly to herself, her bruised body quaking with hitched breaths and Jim had taken up residence next to the older woman, one scratched hand upon her head. But maybe by singing a song that meant little to him, he could pretend he was somewhere, someone else. It made a difference to Queenie at least. He'd heard her hum during her work many times before and a good Captain would have acknowledged it and then forgotten. But not Jim.

Besides, no one had ever sung to him.

"And if that Mockingbird won't sing, Momma's gonna buy you a diamond ring…And if-"

"Can you stop singing?"

Azeri was by the cell door, black eyebrows knotted. It occurred to Jim that Azeri wasn't hurt or injured in the slightest, beside a graze beneath his left eye, but Jim was too tired to wonder why that was. Perhaps the Su'ille just hadn't got around to him yet.

"Why?" Jim asked, bluntly.

"Because you're annoying me." Azeri growled, shooting daggers with his eyes even though he was the best off out of them all. Jim clenched his jaw (which hurt) and continued running his fingers through Queenies matted hair, in some vain attempt at quiet her cries. "Tell her to shut up too."

Jim glared through the darkness at the other man, who must've been about Jim's own age. Azeri Lincoln. He was known for his hot temper and lack of patience but the captain hadn't ever seen him talk so coldly, so callously.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Lincoln?" Jim hissed, weakly, but with enough venom to make Azeri flinch briefly.

"What's wrong with me?" Azeri made out like he was going to say something else, but then he stopped himself, thinking better of it.

"They haven't even touched you yet."

"They're not gonna, neither."

Jim blinked slowly, cocking his head to the side. "You can't stop them."

"I don't need too, Captain. They're gonna leave me alone."

"Why would they?" Jim sighed and leaned his head back against the grimy wall, wincing as his hair got stuck to something unnameable.

Azeri shrugged, his eyes darting suspiciously around the cell and he pulled his coat tighter around his body, signalling the end of that conversation.

"Why would they, Azeri?" But Jim was interested now. "Why would they leave you alone?"

Jim could actually see the man's face screw up in concentration as he came up with some kind of lie to cover his tracks and the Captain found his heart beating a little faster, "because-"

"Because he made a deal."

James Kirk hesitated and looked over at the other man who'd interrupted the conversation. Dean was gazing at Azeri blankly, his nose broken and bent out of shape. Jim hated not knowing what was going on.

"What?"

"A deal, Jim." Dean ran his nail over the ground, leaving long, white marks. "If they left Azeri alone, then he'd give them more humans to experiment with."

"You're joking. He wouldn't do that, he's no traitor." But you could see the doubt in Cupcakes eyes as everyone, including Queenie, looked over at Azeri Lincoln, who suddenly looked very scared.

The look in his eyes said it all.

Cupcake lunged with more strength than what should have been possible for a man with his injuries and it took everything Jim had to hold the bigger man back and away from Azeri.

"I had to do it! I had to-"

"You gutless coward!"

"I'm not a traitor! I was pretending! I wasn't really going to do it!"

"You betrayed us, Azeri. You betrayed your race!"

"How does it feel, humans?" He came out of nowhere, the leader of the Su'ille and that frightened them. How could something so big, so dominating, glide into a room like he was nothing more than a shadow?

All previous arguments forgotten, Cupcake released Azeri and they all backed slowly away, except Queenie and Uhura, who were dragged by the others. Jim stood as tall as his protesting muscles would allow, his face set, his chin held high. He had to at least look confident, even if he felt nothing of the sort.

"This is even more interesting than I expected. Pain, that's one thing, but the knowledge that one of your comrades sold you out, well, that's something else entirely. Maleke!"

Maleke swept in through the open door, grey scaly skin glistening in the lamp light.

"Yes, master?"

"Take that one." He pointed towards Uhura. "Commence phase six. Those two-" a gesture towards Cupcake and Azeri, who had his eyes screwed tightly shut, "take them to the vaults. You know what to do. And James?"

Jim subconsciously drifted towards Uhura, who despite her state realised something terrible was about to happen and scrabbled to her unsteady feet. "No, take me instead of her."

But Jim didn't feel brave.

"Courage? That's an interesting one." The master grinned a sickly grin. "Maleke?"

"Yes, master?"

"Take them both."

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."-Kurt Vonnegut.

Sorry if this doesn't clear much up, but please review and tell me what you think and any possible ideas for the next chapter/chapters.