Work Text:
Radiation leak detected.
Get out of there! Go!
Lockdown complete.
Captain!
Christopher Pike feels his flesh burning and melting as he scrambles for the door….
Radiation leak detected.
Get out of there! Go!
Lockdown complete.
Captain!
Through the glass he sees the horrified faces of the cadets he’d just been talking to, smiling as he conducted their inspection. Dusty is screaming; Muliq is at the intercom, presumably calling for medical help and a radiation response team. Yuuto is vomiting. Chris has a feeling he’s vomiting, too, but it’s hard to tell.
Radiation leak detected.
Get out of there! Go!
Lockdown complete.
Captain!
“I can get them all out, just one more second,” he thinks. “Ma’at, where’s Ma’at?”
Radiation leak detected.
Get out of there! Go!
Lockdown complete.
Captain!
Over and over he turns back, grabs T’Quiel, shoves Andrea into Dusty’s arms, herds everyone towards the door. But where’s Ma’at? How come he can’t ever find Ma’at in time?
It’s dozens of repetitions of this before he realizes he’s not just dreaming. The nightmares have come and gone ever since Boreth, and this isn’t that. In his dreams, the pain sets in when the radiation burns begin. In these repetitions, the pain is there before, during, and after the event. Eventually he understands: this is a memory. It’s finally happened.
After that, he slowly comes back to full consciousness. He’s in a hospital. He can see, but he can’t move his arms and legs. It seems like he’s breathing on his own, or at least, he can’t feel a respirator tube. He tries to speak and nothing comes out. He tries to turn his head to scan the room, but he passes out from the pain.
People come in and out of the room. Each one says their name and what they’re here for, but Chris quickly loses track. It’s hard to focus on anything. They change bandages and replace tubes and keep up a running commentary. What they’re doing hurts. He can’t scream. Hypos are injected in his neck almost constantly. Some of them seem to help, a little. Others do nothing at all. He can’t scream.
A doctor tells him that he has extensive nerve damage, including both motor and sensory neurons. His thoughts are scattered and slow. He assumes that’s also due to neuron damage. He wishes he could ask the doctor some questions. Physical therapists come and ask him to try to move. His fingers don’t follow his instructions. Neither do his toes. He can’t contract or extend any major muscles. He wishes he could scream.
“Hello, Captain Pike,” a smiling woman says. She’s carefully positioned herself to be in his line of sight. He appreciates the thoughtfulness. She’s got bright red hair and laugh lines around her eyes and that smile really is nice, although he knows it’s a professional mask rather than a happy expression. “My name is Gertrude Farrell. You can call me Gertie, once we come up with a system for you. That’s why I’m here. I’m your communications therapist.”
Pike appreciates the optimism and kindness in her voice. He wishes there were a way to ask her what she means by “system.” Fortunately, she’s anticipated that question. (Of course, she would.) She goes on, “Text-to-speech devices are the preferred option for most patients in your condition. In your case, we’re hoping that an eye-tracking system will work. That means we bring up a screen with letters, common syllable groups, the most common words, and you point your eyes at what you want to say. I’m going to walk you through a trial, but I don’t want you to get discouraged if it doesn’t work at first. All right?” Pike assumes that question is rhetorical.
This system is duly brought in, and Gertie does her best. Pike tries to follow her instructions – “Focus your eyes where it says ‘yes,’ Captain” – but his eyes can’t move quickly enough or hold still for long enough. The translation machine spits out gibberish. Pike wants to cry. Gertie says, “Don’t worry. We’re not out of options yet.” And she says it with enough conviction that at least two weeks go by before Pike stops believing her.
Commodore Jose Mendez comes in. “Chris,” he says, “Just in case no one’s told you, you’re on Starbase 11, in the Intensive Care Unit. The doctors are doing everything they can.” He pauses, as if to wait for a reply. Pike can only blink. The commodore clears his throat and adds, “The cadets you saved all send their best. And we’re keeping you on the active duty roster, for when you get better.”
Pike knows pity when he sees it.
The inability to move or speak is pure torture. The slowness of his thoughts is merely frustrating, by comparison. He tries to tell himself that it doesn’t matter, since he has nothing but time to think, now. Insult to injury, though.
He thought he’d made peace with his fate long ago. In the 9 years since his trip to Boreth, he tried to prepare for this. He made sure that his farewell messages for friends and family were recorded and saved. He kept his living will current, and resisted the temptation to check off the box for no heroic measures, just in case that counted as an attempt to evade (of the sort both Tenavik and Bad-Future!Pike had warned him against). Before leaving for his inspection tour, he’d even boxed up most of his clothing, just to save the yeomen a chore. In his hospital bed, he realized where he’d gone wrong. He’d prepared like he was dying, when he should’ve considered how he would live. How can one live without moving, without speaking, without coherent thought?
Certainly, he doesn't regret spending the past decade living like he was dying. He’d made good memories. He’d fought the good fight for Starfleet. He’d found love (for however long it lasted), explored strange new worlds, sought out new life, gone where no one had gone before. Now he is confined to a hospital bed, staring pointlessly at the walls.
One night, Vina materializes at his bedside like she had in his Discovery ready room so long ago. “Oh, Chris,” she says, looking at him with tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry this happened.” She reaches out as if to lay her hand on his forehead, but hesitates, no doubt afraid to break what is left of his skin. He hears her say, “Spock reached out, told us about the accident. The Keeper sent me to see for myself. I can’t stay long at this distance. I just want you to know we’re all rooting for you.”
It takes him a few hours to realize that that hadn’t been a dream.
Gertie walks in one day and Hemmer is behind her. Pike does a double take, at least as much as he can without moving his face. It isn’t Hemmer, of course, only another Aenar with a strong chin. Gertie says, “Captain Pike, this is Lt. Vanyi. His ship is docked at the Starbase for a few hours, and he agreed to help us out, if you’ll let him.” She gestures for Vanyi to come and stand where Pike can see him.
Vanyi says, “As you probably know, Captain, my species has telepathic abilities. For ethical reasons we’re not allowed to use them without permission. If you don’t want me to read your mind, just think no right now.” Pike emphatically thinks yes, please!
It’s the first time since the accident that he can communicate at all. He hears Vanyi say aloud what he’s thinking: “Thank God! Gertie, you’re a genius.”
Gertie smiles – that lovely smile – and says, “Captain Pike, it’s good to hear from you.”
“Chris,” he interrupts, via Vanyi. “Please, under the circumstances, call me Chris.”
“All right, Chris,” she says. “Is there anything we can do for you?”
“Tell the cadets it wasn’t their fault,” is the first thing he thinks of.
“I’ll make sure they hear it,” Gertie says. “Some of them have asked to see you. We’ve also had inquiries from Captain Chin-Riley and other old friends of yours. Do you want visitors?”
This one takes Chris a little longer to think of an answer for. “Not yet,” he finally manages to get Vanyi to say. “Not unless I can talk to them. Don’t want to be stared at.”
“I understand,” Gertie replies, “And we won’t do anything you’re not comfortable with. Now, as I said, Lt. Vanyi is only here for a little while, so I’d like to take this opportunity to ask your permission to try another communications system. It’s more involved than a text-to-speech device, so the doctors didn’t want to do it without your consent.” She holds up a diagram and tells him about a specialized brain implant, connected to a wheelchair with built-in life support, which would let him mentally control a blinking light. “Given the severity of the damage, the neurologists recommended against a more comprehensive set of implants,” she explains, “This would let us set up a way for you to speak in code. We’d start with one blink for yes and two for no, and then you could work up to more complex messages. Do you know Morse code?”
“If I ever did, I’ve forgotten it,” Chris admits. “But I can learn it.”
“That’s the spirit,” Gertie says. She asks, “Do we have your permission to try this implant?” Chris thinks, Hell yes! Anything is better than permanent silence! He really shouldn’t be surprised to hear Vanyi repeating that word-for-word. It gets a sympathetic look from Gertie, who says, “In that case, I’ll talk to the neurologist right away.”
The night before the surgery, Vina comes back. “Spock says he can’t get official updates because he isn’t your next of kin,” she whispers. “I’m here to sneak a peek at your chart. Please don’t be angry.” It’s a bizarre thing to say, and it’s not like he can stop her. He settles for watching her [fake] body move as she leans down to access the PADD attached to the bed.
He’s out of the OR and in the recovery ward before it occurs to him to wonder, why would Spock be talking to the Talosians?
He’s been moved from a bed to the promised wheelchair. It has all kinds of bells and whistles. It handles feeding and waste disposal functions, moves his limbs periodically to prevent pressure sores, monitors his oxygen intake and vital signs. And yes, it is connected to his new implant. With lots of coaching and focus, Chris can just manage to make it turn and roll forwards on command.
The yes/no blinks are easily mastered. Chris surprises himself with how excited he is to be able to say even that much. Communication is once again a possibility. It’s thrilling just to be able to say yes when a doctor asks if something hurts, or no when someone offers to put on music for him. Granted, he needs his interlocutors to ask the right questions.
Gertie sits with him nearly two hours a day, trying to teach him Morse. This is when they confirm that his working memory is shot to hell. Gone is the man who could multitask on the bridge of a starship during a battle. Now, the Morse gets jumbled in his brain, even when she has the alphabet guide open in front of him. The sluggish reaction of his eye muscles counts against him, too. By the time he finds the letter he’s looking for on the chart, he’s forgotten what word he was trying to spell. He’s also struggling to control the length and pacing of the chair’s blinks and beeps.
“Keep in mind, it probably took you a year to learn to speak, when you were born,” Gertie reminds him. “This will go faster because you already have a language to work from. But it’s still not going to be a quick process. Let’s focus on some short words to begin with. Can you do hi?”
She keeps saying she is very pleased with his progress. Chris wishes he could be as enthusiastic.
In the hours – the many, many idle hours – between speech therapy and physical therapy appointments, his brain continually returns to the question of Spock and the Talosians. To the best of his recollection, they’d very rarely discussed Talos IV. In fact, Chris had rarely mentioned Talos IV to anybody, ever. Getting kidnapped for breeding stock had been high on the list of conversational topics he didn’t want to bring up, as had Spock’s brush with insanity and being on the run from murder charges, to say nothing of how highly classified both incidents were.
With plenty of time on his hands, Chris resolves to figure this out. The first step is to go over what he knows. In 2254, Enterprise was lured to Talos IV. Vina got him alone (Chris suppresses the jolt of embarrassment he feels at how easily she managed that) and then he woke up in a menagerie.
Spock, though, what did Spock do? He was there – Chris remembered him smiling at the singing plants – but what about after the kidnapping? Did Spock stay on the surface, or go back to the ship? Chris can’t remember, though it must’ve been in a report. He remembered finding a way to escape, with Vina and Una and Yeoman…Colt…
…Yeoman Jerri M. Colt, yes. Mia to her friends. Chris wonders where she is now. He hasn’t seen her since the end of the Klingon War, since he went to Discovery. Though her mother had served there, hadn’t she?
Back to the topic. Talos IV. After the Keeper let them go – saying humans were too dangerous – did Chris ever discuss the place with Spock? He remembered conversations with some of his officers, building a consensus that travel to the planet should be outlawed. Was Spock in those meetings?
Someone walks into the room, and Chris loses his train of thought.
“Good morning, Captain. I’m here to tune up your chair. Is it working well for you so far?” One blink. “Can you move it backwards yet?” Two blinks. “Let’s see if we can fix that for you.”
Mia Colt, his old yeoman. Why did it seem like she was important somehow? Had she talked to him about Talos IV, after it was over? The last thing he remembered her saying about it was a joke, “Who would have been Eve?” Una scolded her – not ready to see the funny side, of course not, they weren’t even out of the system yet. Furthermore, the Keeper’s last words to the group had been that the Talosians were doomed to extinction. Hardly the most cheerful of moods on the bridge as they left. He’d give Colt credit for trying, anyhow.
It’s two days later that Chris makes the connection. He never discussed Talos IV with Mia Colt, no. He’d discussed Talos IV during a conversation about Mia Colt, years later. It must’ve been around 2260. He and Ash Tyler were catching up during one of his leaves on Earth. Tyler said that Josephine Colt – Yeoman Colt the elder, Mia’s mother – was trying to set him up with Mia. Chris must’ve been tipsy because he’d responded with, “That’s funny, aliens once tried to set her up with me!” Then, because Ash was the head of Section 31 and damn good at getting secrets out of people, Chris had told him the entire story of their first trip to Talos IV.
“What the heck are ‘unusually strong female drives’?” Ash had asked through his laughter.
“I have no idea. Maybe you should go out with her, find out what she’s unusually strong with, and report back.”
Ash had said, “I’d be terrified to ask her," and took a huge gulp of his drink.
“Well, we can’t exactly ask the Talosians, can we?” Chris had pointed out.
Ash had said, “Oh, and whose fault is that? You’re the one that got the death penalty attached to the place. What did you even say in your report, anyway?”
“I think ‘3 officers got kidnapped for planned breeding stock’ about covers it.”
“Yeah, but hadn’t the Talosians just told you they’d decided that was a bad idea?”
“I was taking no chances. Getting asked to breed a race of slaves is the kind of thing that shouldn’t happen twice.”
The conversation had turned to other topics, then.
Chris wonders if Ash had ever figured out what Mia’s unusually strong drives were. He wonders if Ash has heard about his accident. Is he one of the “old friends” that Gertie said wanted to see him?
One of the orderlies who comes to push nutritional slop down Chris’s feeding tube has an annoying verbal tic of saying, “You’re doing so so well.” Two so’s every time, and always uttered with little to no provocation. It reminds Chris of how one might talk to a spooked horse, or to an animal one was about to euthanize. Chris would’ve given a lot to be able to slug this orderly.
Focus, now. Talos IV. In 2257, Spock went back there for help after his brain came unstuck in time. The Talosians helped him, sent Vina to tell Chris where to find him, and used their illusions to confuse Section 31, giving him time to get away.
Come to think of it, they’d been almost too helpful, for a race on the verge of extinction. Hadn’t Vina told him, the first time he was there, that the Talosians had lost control over their own technology? How were they able to cure Spock so quickly? For that matter, why would a race that had been eager to enslave humans 3 years earlier be invested in getting Spock to safety? Those would’ve been excellent questions to ask at the time. Had he asked? Surely, he was a good enough captain to at least ask Spock about his return to Talos IV, even if he’d left it out of official reports.
Of course he had asked Spock for details. But there wouldn’t be any log of Spock’s answers, he realizes, because the conversation had happened on Discovery. All his personal logs from that time were sent – uh, got destroyed, he forces himself to think. Just in case today is the day Gertie brings in another telepath.
Well. Captain’s logs are supposed to record one’s memories, not replace them. Surely, he could recall the conversation. Just because it was 9 years ago, and Chris had gone through a massive trauma, doesn’t mean the memory is gone for good…
“Do you want us to put a movie on the viewscreen for you, Captain Pike?” Two blinks. “How about some music?” Two blinks. “Aren’t you bored today?” Two blinks. Leave me alone. I’m trying to think.
He and Spock spoke in the ready room. He asked why Spock went to Talos IV, knowing it was forbidden under General Order 7. Spock answered… What did Spock say?
He wakes up in the middle of the night, with the answer literally before his eyes. He sees his old ready room and Spock is saying, “The Talosians are remarkably grateful to you for showing them how fruitless an attempt to kidnap and breed humans would be. As a result of Enterprise’s visit, they’ve refocused their efforts to reclaim the planet’s surface. They’re working on it themselves, rather than trying to lure workers from off-world.”
“Why didn’t they try that in the first place?” Chris asks.
“They were convinced that their society was too addicted to the illusions. Recall that they wouldn’t engage in trade because they were concerned any race that learned that power would destroy itself,” Spock explains. “Now that they have come to terms with being alone on their planet, permanently, some of them have found a way to contemplate what was once considered impossible. Such as physical labor or overcoming their mental addictions.”
“All that because I wouldn’t breed in captivity?”
“Crudely put, but affirmative, Captain.”
The next morning, when he admits to himself that that wasn’t a dream, Chris is annoyed. Stop doing that, he thinks grumpily. It’s spooky. There’s no way to tell if the Talosians can hear him. He tries to remember how far away they are from Starbase 11. It’s a bit too much to ask of a brain that can’t manage the Morse alphabet.
Still, he supposes he should thank them for the final piece of the puzzle. In his visits of 2254 and 2257, Spock’s brilliant mind must have filed away three data points:
- the Talosians can give severely injured people the illusion of health;
- the Talosians are willing to help off-worlders;
- the Talosians owe Christopher Pike a favor.
When Pike later told Spock about the vision, his first question was “is it soon” not because he was dreading it, but because he was already planning the next step.
It all fits together. Chris understands. Spock is coming here, and then they are both going away. He’ll return to Talos IV, and Spock will get himself executed out of a sense of duty.
That stubborn bastard.
He remembers the conversation they had after the visit from his future self.
“Spock, you are very important to me.”
“As you are to me, captain. Chris.”
Spock should’ve told him then, or maybe Chris should’ve guessed, that he already had a plan. Because Spock never told him, he never got to protest, hell no, you can’t throw away your career and your life for mine, you’ve got a fate-of-the-galaxy-level destiny! Now, Chris can’t so much as send an email saying don’t do it. He can only sit and wait.
He prays don’t let him, I’m not worth it, hoping the Talosians will overhear. He throws himself into the communication therapy, desperate to master enough Morse to say, “Thank you very much, Spock, but I’ve decided that painful reality is preferable to pleasant illusions.” That’s not true – right now, pleasant illusions sound like a great idea – but he can’t let Spock do this.
When he finally manages to beep out * * * * (H) and * * (i), Gertie applauds.
On Boreth a decade ago, Chris said, “You're a Starfleet captain. You believe in service, sacrifice, compassion, and love.” That’s how he convinced himself that he could face his fate. Today, he is hurting and cranky and heartbroken and mostly believes he would like everything to stop. Stop it with the Morse code lessons and the painkiller sprays and the chair’s sluggish responses and his own brain’s sluggishness and the horrible wait for Spock to show up and commit a capital crime. He wonders if there’s any way to communicate that he’d like to terminate care and die.
Then, Mendez is back, and he’s brought three other people. Oh no, he thinks. I said no visitors. Mendez says, “I thought you might make an exception.” Two blinks.
Jim Kirk starts, “Chris. lf there's anything l can do...” Two blinks, though it’s nice of him to offer.
Next the fateful question from Spock, “Captain Pike, may l remain for a moment?” Chris considers two blinks, to delay the inevitable. But he blinks once.
When they’re alone, Spock says, “You know why I’ve come, Captain. It’s six days away at maximum warp, and l have it well planned.” Chris gives him two blinks. Spock insists, “l have never disobeyed your orders before, Captain, but this time, l must. l know. l know it is treachery, and it's mutiny. But l must do this. l have no choice.”
Christopher Pike keeps blinking no – no – no – no, for the next few hours. He knows it’s useless. He’s seen everything in Spock when he knelt beside the chair, including the service, the sacrifice, the compassion, and the love behind this decision.
Still, he keeps blinking no up until Spock wheels him to the transporter. It’s the principle of the thing.
Spock engineers his own court-martial to buy them time. Against his better judgment, Chris starts to feel grateful to Spock for arranging all this, and to the Talosians for keeping the whole charade going. Although, he would’ve preferred they not broadcast the full story of the time he got kidnapped for breeding stock in glorious Technicolor.
If Starfleet hadn’t agreed to drop the charges against Spock, he likes to think, he could’ve found the strength to say no to Talos IV. He tells himself he would’ve stayed and been a character witness in the punishment phase trial, using a telepath for an interpreter. In the event, though, the charges were dropped, and he found himself saying yes when Kirk asks if he wants to stay on Talos.
Next, there’s sunshine, and people welcoming him, and he can walk and talk. Maybe a better man, a stronger man, would go back and face reality. Chris Pike, though, takes Vina’s hand and follows her home.