“[Kirk] paced back toward his command chair, all eyes on him. "He must have a weakness.""Certainly," Chekov said. "Is he not basically humanoid? He could be poisoned, phasered, stabbed-"Kirk sneered. "Without killing him, Ensign."With a shrug, Chekov turned quietly back to his console, pulling his hands from his lap and placing them on the controls.”

“There was much to put out of his mind. Why was it difficult to forget Chekov's astonished delight which greeted him at the command airlock when he boarded. And on the bridge - Kirk! The mere name made Spock groan inwardly as he remembered what it had cost him to turn away from that welcome. T'hy'la!”

“Rory stood up with some difficulty, the chair still tied to him. He leaned over me [Maria] and managed to pull my ropes free. Then he turned to Dr Bloom.'We're escaping,' he said. 'Goodbye.'Chair still tied to his back, he ran with me from the room. I take it all back. Rory is just wonderful.”

“It doesn't hurt.""But my eyes do," said a coolly amused voice from the doorway. Jace. He had come in so quietly that even Simon hadn't heard him; closing the door behind him, he grinned as Isabelle pulled Simon's shirt down. "Molesting the vampire while he's too weak to fight back, Iz?" he asked. "I'm pretty sure that violates at least one of the Accords.""I'm just showing him where he got stabbed," Isabelle protested, but she scooted back to her chair with a certain amount of haste.”

“The facts of his existence are plain. I know that he will never silence those unspeakable voices. He heard how people killed, and how they died and their voices infected him, coursed through his body, poisoned him. He didn't know how to turn off the noise, or turn the hate back out onto the world like the rest of us. He turned it on himself. You could see that from the scars on him.”

“The little group before her finally moved on and Sarah took its place, standing before Tom like he was a painting in a museum.And then his vacant eyes dropped from that point somewhere above her head and he looked at her—looked into her eyes and registered her presence. His eyes widened and his mouth opened wordlessly.For the space of six heartbeats they stared at one another and then Sarah simply said, “Come home.” She held her hand out to him.He gazed at it for a moment.“Come with me,” she said softly.Slowly he rose from his chair and walked toward her. He slipped his hand into hers and his palm was warm and callused.She stepped back and pulled him along with her. Suddenly his arms went around her, hugging her tight, his head dropped to her shoulder and his mouth pressed into her hair as he whispered, “I can’t believe you’re here.”Her hands slipped up the smooth, supple skin of his back to hook over his shoulders. She buried her face against his chest, breathing him in, forgetting time and place and circumstance and just holding him.”