(no subject)
"I don't like it," Sulu said, firmly. Behind him, the screens of the shuttle flickered and stuttered with the footage of Jim, bound and gagged and pinned in place with the threat of heavy pointed spears.
"You don't have to like it," Bones growled back. "You just have to do it. Dammit, Sulu, that's Jim down there!"
Sulu's back stiffened. "I'm aware of that, Doctor McCoy," he replied with the cool professionalism that Bones secretly admired. "But while the Captain is absent, I am in command and it is my duty to ensure the safety of this crew."
"What about Jim's safety?" roared Bones. "You're just gonna leave him there to be killed by that pack of savages while you're deliberatin' about duty?"
"Doctor McCoy," warned Sulu, his tone still dangerously cool. The kid had been spending too much time around the hobgoblin, that was clear.
"Sulu, they're gonna kill 'im," Bones cut in desperately, before Sulu could start up again on logic and duty and any number of things that were irrelevant when Jim was facing certain death at the hands of vengeful, sadistic natives. "Just do as they want. Beam me down." He swallowed, hard. "Please, Sulu."
Sulu's dark eyes were troubled. "The Captain would never approve that order, Doctor McCoy."
"Yes, he would," Bones lied. As a matter of fact, Jim would die a thousand deaths rather than send of his men to stand in his place. Even if that was an illogical response. Even if the man in question deserved it more. "Look," Bones argued when Sulu did not immediately disagree. "Antinious is threatening to kill Jim only because he wants to speak with me. You can spare me for a couple of hours of polite conversation. You can't lose the Captain of the Entreprise to bein' hung, drawn and quartered on some god-forsaken primitive planet."
Sulu gave a reluctant nod. Bones' reasoning was hard to argue with. Still, the frown didn't disappear.
"Are you sure he just wants to talk to you, Bones?" And Sulu-the-acting-Captain was gone, replaced by Sulu, the worried friend. Bones wanted to look away. He forced himself to continue looking at Sulu, to keep his voice casual and light.
"Antinious' healers wanted to know more about our medicine and technology. I refused, naturally. Prime Directive and all. It seems that while they had to be happy with that answer, Antinious has decided he doesn't. Let me down. You'll get Jim back, I'll spend a coupla hours lecturing them on biochemistry and biotechnics, and we'll all be happy."
"How do you know Antinious is trustworthy?" Sulu argued. "He was quick enough to threaten Jim, how do you know he won't do the same to you?"
Bones clasped his hands behind his back to stop them shaking. He scowled at Sulu. "He's a very predictable man," Bones said gruffly. At least that part was true. "He's angry at Jim 'cos Jim represents the Federation that failed to save his firstborn son. Me, I saved his daughter's life against all odds." And while that was technically true too, Bones thought in desperation, the devil was in the detail.
Two golden-haired children, aged twelve and fifteen, skin mottled with poison and gasping for air. Bones knew from the moment he saw them that one of them was going to die. There wasn't enough time, and there was only one of him. His orders had been to save the elder boy, the heir apparent. But as he'd reached over to inject the first course of the antidote into the unconscious boy, the girl's eyes had flown open to lock in with his.
She looked like Joanna. Her eyes were wide and terrified as she struggled to suck in air. "Papa," she gasped, meaning Antinious, of course, but her small hand scrabbled for Bones' own in her delirium, and, "Papa," she begged again, and without thought, Bones had pressed the hypospray with the antidote into her side, and she had lived while her brother had died.
Antinious's howl of grief and venomous fury still echoed in Bones' mind.
"All right," Sulu said reluctantly. "If you're certain that he's not going to hurt you."
"I'm certain that he's going to hurt Jim," Bones said grimly. "Beam me down now, dammit, before it's too late!" If one of them had to pay for this monumental mess they'd found themselves in, better for everyone that it be him.
Sulu looked at him, and looked at the crackly image of Jim, now slumped to the side and bleeding from the head. He nodded decisively.
"Prepare to beam down, Doctor McCoy."
-------
Jim surged back to consciousness, straining against the ropes around his wrists in panic.
Only there were no ropes, only the clatter of metal as he knocked over a tray and the frantic warning beeps of monitors and machines. His hands were free. His head was in agony, but his hands were free and the surface beneath him was suspiciously bed-like, and - "Bones!" he tried to call. It came out as a hoarse croak, so he coughed and tried again. "Bones!"
To his surprise, it was Sulu who appeared at his side.
"Captain! How are you feeling?"
"Tell Bones I want the best drugs," muttered Jim, cradling his head in his hands to stop it from exploding. "Where is he, anyway? His skills are slipping. I think my brain's leaking."
A pause a moment too long from Sulu.
"Doctor McCoy is currently planet-side with Antinious," Sulu said.
Jim's heart skipped a beat.
"What?!"
"At his insistence, Captain - and at my subsequent order. Those were the terms of your release."
Jim felt ice cold terror flood through his veins.
"You exchanged Bones' life for mine?! Didn't you hear me give express orders not to let him on that planet?"
Sulu went white. "There was no audio with the transmission, Captain. Only footage of you in distress, and Doctor McCoy's insistence that he was in no danger."
Jim struggled to sit upright, then swung unsteady legs over the edge of the bed. "Yeah, well," he said grimly. "I have a bad feeling he's gone beyond danger into the territory of truly screwed. Let's go!"
-------
He couldn't breathe. White hot flares of pain hammered at him from everywhere, making him choke and gasp.
"Bones! Bones, Bones, we've got you, you prize idiot."
That was Jim, hands both rushed and gentle, holding his head still, pressing against his ribs with enough force that Bones momentarily lost track of time.
"...that again, I will personally see you court-martialled -"
"Jim," Bones croaked. "Shut up. Be... useful."
Breathing was even harder now. The edges of his vision were fading in and out.
"We're ten minutes away from the Enterprise, Bones, there's a med team waiting..."
"Don't have... ten minutes," Bones forced out. "Lung's... collapsing." He could taste blood with each breath, frothing at the back of his mouth. "Get my... kit."
"Jesus, Bones." If it had been anyone else, Bones would have said it was panic, but Jim was one of the ungodly few who positively thrived under pressure. Which was good, Bones thought dazedly, because he didn't have time for Jim to panic.
"Whatdoyouneed?" came Jim's voice, rushed and, ok, maybe slightly less calm in a minor medical emergency than when he was singlehandedly responsible for saving the world. Huh.
"Oxygen," gasped Bones, and a few moments later a plastic mask enveloped his face, and some of the darkness cleared from his vision, even if breathing was no less painful. He closed his eyes. This was not going to be fun.
"Needle," he commanded, but Jim only looked at him, confusion and terror and determination and anguish all mixed up.
Bones lifted an arm that weighed about a thousand tonnes and scrabbled at the oxygen mask.
"Needle," he repeated, the words less muffled this time. "Syringe... air... out." Jim's hand closed over his own, infinitely stronger, infinitely gentle, to guide the mask back on.
"You want me to perform chest surgery on you, Bones?" Jim asked, part laughing, part hysterical, but part "I'll do this if it's the last thing I do", because that was Jim Kirk, that was his boy.
Bones struggled to lift the mask again. "Not... surgery," he groused. "Remove air..." A ragged gasp. "From... chest cavity." Another tearing breath. "Collapsing... lung."
Again: Jim guiding the mask back on. His eyes met Bones', huge and determined.
"I've got this," he said, squeezing Bones' hand beneath his own, still keeping the oxygen mask on.
I know you do, Bones said without speaking, because he had to save his words for more practical things, and because he knew that Jim knew, too.
He dragged his other hand up his side, numb fingers exploring as they went. Something hard and sharp, protruding. Slick and warm to touch. Bones ignored it for the moment. Triage. He counted up the ribs. Tapped a place between two ribs. Lifted up the mask.
"Cut... shirt. Or needle breaks."
He distantly felt the cold pressure of a knife, and the shock of air against his side.
"Needle...here."
Two fingers tapping at the space between his ribs. Black swirled, menacing and irresistible. Bones closed his eyes, let the mask drop for a moment. This was gonna hurt like hell.
Jim shook him roughly, and he scowled angrily back. He just needed a moment. It wasn't every day you oversaw treatment of your own pneumothorax. But Jim was relentless.
"I can do this, Bones, I've got you, but you're gonna need to give me instructions. Stay with me, Bones."
And this time, it was Jim who tugged the mask away.
"Syringe. Two inches. Between... ribs and... lungs. Suck out... air. Slowly... Don't... stop."
Jim's hand was trembling over his. Or maybe it was his own hand that was shaking. His chest felt like it was being crushed by a molten band of metal. The sting of the needle heightened the pain. Wicked, sharp steel. Punching through skin and muscle into emptiness.
Jim's hand, steady on the syringe. He must be the one shaking, Bones realized. Jim was steady. He was the one falling apart.
"You're doing ok, Bones," Jim told him firmly. "I've got you, and Sulu's got us just five minutes from the Enterprise."
Slowly, slowly, the band around his chest eased. The shaking didn't stop.
"Cover the wound... with plastic," Bones told Jim, but the mask was still on and his lips were uncooperative, so Jim had to take the mask off, and Bones had to tell him again.
"No can do," Jim answered, the fierce grip of his hand the only thing keeping Bones anchored. "There's a great big piece of metal in the way."
"Take it... out," Bones insisted. "Cover.... seal three... sides." He wasn't shaking anymore. He was floating away, weightless and free.
"Bones..." began Jim, but, "do it," said Bones, and there was pain, and there was the hot rush of blood, and then there was nothing.
-------
"The Captain is here to see you," Chapel told him, the first time he had opened his eyes and kept them open for more than ten seconds.
"The Captain has been here ever since you were brought in," a second voice corrected her, and Bones recognized Sulu's presence. "Spock's assumed temporary command on the Captain's orders." The distance of the voice changed, which Bones guessed meant that Sulu was standing. "I'll assist him on the bridge now that you're awake. Good to have you back, Doctor McCoy."
Bones drifted in and out in the silence that followed, until Jim said, tightly, "Sulu blames himself, you know."
"That's ridiculous," Bones said. "It was never his decision. Always mine."
"What the hell kind of decision was that?" burst out Jim. "Swapping your life for mine, like we're in some kind of adventure movie? You nearly died, Bones. I ordered you to stay off that planet!"
"It was the right thing to do," Bones said tiredly.
Jim rounded on him, furious. "That is the most ridiculous, bone-headed -"
"Jim," said Bones. "Jim. I'm a doctor, not a Captain. The Enterprise can stand to lose one, but not the other."
"No!" Jim's eyes blazed. "She can't afford to lose either."
Bones smiled crookedly. "She doesn't have to. If the Captain's free to make the plans. It was the right thing to do, kiddo."
Jim buried his head in his hands. They were shaking, Bones saw. He reached over, weakly, and laid his hand on Jim's.
"You nearly died," Jim said softly, his voice muffled by his hands. "Bones..."
"But I didn't," Bones told him gently. "You did good, Jim."
Jim shook his head. "I'm a captain, not a doctor," he said with a choked laugh. "Don't make me do that again, Bones." Don't make me hold your life in my hands. Don't make me free at the cost of your own life.
Bones lifted weary eyelids to look straight at Jim. "I'll always do what I need to do, Jim, and you'll do what you need to do. And somehow, it's gonna work out ok."
"I've got you, Bones," Jim said in reply. "I'll always have your back."
And this time, when the darkness came, there was comfort, not pain.
"You don't have to like it," Bones growled back. "You just have to do it. Dammit, Sulu, that's Jim down there!"
Sulu's back stiffened. "I'm aware of that, Doctor McCoy," he replied with the cool professionalism that Bones secretly admired. "But while the Captain is absent, I am in command and it is my duty to ensure the safety of this crew."
"What about Jim's safety?" roared Bones. "You're just gonna leave him there to be killed by that pack of savages while you're deliberatin' about duty?"
"Doctor McCoy," warned Sulu, his tone still dangerously cool. The kid had been spending too much time around the hobgoblin, that was clear.
"Sulu, they're gonna kill 'im," Bones cut in desperately, before Sulu could start up again on logic and duty and any number of things that were irrelevant when Jim was facing certain death at the hands of vengeful, sadistic natives. "Just do as they want. Beam me down." He swallowed, hard. "Please, Sulu."
Sulu's dark eyes were troubled. "The Captain would never approve that order, Doctor McCoy."
"Yes, he would," Bones lied. As a matter of fact, Jim would die a thousand deaths rather than send of his men to stand in his place. Even if that was an illogical response. Even if the man in question deserved it more. "Look," Bones argued when Sulu did not immediately disagree. "Antinious is threatening to kill Jim only because he wants to speak with me. You can spare me for a couple of hours of polite conversation. You can't lose the Captain of the Entreprise to bein' hung, drawn and quartered on some god-forsaken primitive planet."
Sulu gave a reluctant nod. Bones' reasoning was hard to argue with. Still, the frown didn't disappear.
"Are you sure he just wants to talk to you, Bones?" And Sulu-the-acting-Captain was gone, replaced by Sulu, the worried friend. Bones wanted to look away. He forced himself to continue looking at Sulu, to keep his voice casual and light.
"Antinious' healers wanted to know more about our medicine and technology. I refused, naturally. Prime Directive and all. It seems that while they had to be happy with that answer, Antinious has decided he doesn't. Let me down. You'll get Jim back, I'll spend a coupla hours lecturing them on biochemistry and biotechnics, and we'll all be happy."
"How do you know Antinious is trustworthy?" Sulu argued. "He was quick enough to threaten Jim, how do you know he won't do the same to you?"
Bones clasped his hands behind his back to stop them shaking. He scowled at Sulu. "He's a very predictable man," Bones said gruffly. At least that part was true. "He's angry at Jim 'cos Jim represents the Federation that failed to save his firstborn son. Me, I saved his daughter's life against all odds." And while that was technically true too, Bones thought in desperation, the devil was in the detail.
Two golden-haired children, aged twelve and fifteen, skin mottled with poison and gasping for air. Bones knew from the moment he saw them that one of them was going to die. There wasn't enough time, and there was only one of him. His orders had been to save the elder boy, the heir apparent. But as he'd reached over to inject the first course of the antidote into the unconscious boy, the girl's eyes had flown open to lock in with his.
She looked like Joanna. Her eyes were wide and terrified as she struggled to suck in air. "Papa," she gasped, meaning Antinious, of course, but her small hand scrabbled for Bones' own in her delirium, and, "Papa," she begged again, and without thought, Bones had pressed the hypospray with the antidote into her side, and she had lived while her brother had died.
Antinious's howl of grief and venomous fury still echoed in Bones' mind.
"All right," Sulu said reluctantly. "If you're certain that he's not going to hurt you."
"I'm certain that he's going to hurt Jim," Bones said grimly. "Beam me down now, dammit, before it's too late!" If one of them had to pay for this monumental mess they'd found themselves in, better for everyone that it be him.
Sulu looked at him, and looked at the crackly image of Jim, now slumped to the side and bleeding from the head. He nodded decisively.
"Prepare to beam down, Doctor McCoy."
-------
Jim surged back to consciousness, straining against the ropes around his wrists in panic.
Only there were no ropes, only the clatter of metal as he knocked over a tray and the frantic warning beeps of monitors and machines. His hands were free. His head was in agony, but his hands were free and the surface beneath him was suspiciously bed-like, and - "Bones!" he tried to call. It came out as a hoarse croak, so he coughed and tried again. "Bones!"
To his surprise, it was Sulu who appeared at his side.
"Captain! How are you feeling?"
"Tell Bones I want the best drugs," muttered Jim, cradling his head in his hands to stop it from exploding. "Where is he, anyway? His skills are slipping. I think my brain's leaking."
A pause a moment too long from Sulu.
"Doctor McCoy is currently planet-side with Antinious," Sulu said.
Jim's heart skipped a beat.
"What?!"
"At his insistence, Captain - and at my subsequent order. Those were the terms of your release."
Jim felt ice cold terror flood through his veins.
"You exchanged Bones' life for mine?! Didn't you hear me give express orders not to let him on that planet?"
Sulu went white. "There was no audio with the transmission, Captain. Only footage of you in distress, and Doctor McCoy's insistence that he was in no danger."
Jim struggled to sit upright, then swung unsteady legs over the edge of the bed. "Yeah, well," he said grimly. "I have a bad feeling he's gone beyond danger into the territory of truly screwed. Let's go!"
-------
He couldn't breathe. White hot flares of pain hammered at him from everywhere, making him choke and gasp.
"Bones! Bones, Bones, we've got you, you prize idiot."
That was Jim, hands both rushed and gentle, holding his head still, pressing against his ribs with enough force that Bones momentarily lost track of time.
"...that again, I will personally see you court-martialled -"
"Jim," Bones croaked. "Shut up. Be... useful."
Breathing was even harder now. The edges of his vision were fading in and out.
"We're ten minutes away from the Enterprise, Bones, there's a med team waiting..."
"Don't have... ten minutes," Bones forced out. "Lung's... collapsing." He could taste blood with each breath, frothing at the back of his mouth. "Get my... kit."
"Jesus, Bones." If it had been anyone else, Bones would have said it was panic, but Jim was one of the ungodly few who positively thrived under pressure. Which was good, Bones thought dazedly, because he didn't have time for Jim to panic.
"Whatdoyouneed?" came Jim's voice, rushed and, ok, maybe slightly less calm in a minor medical emergency than when he was singlehandedly responsible for saving the world. Huh.
"Oxygen," gasped Bones, and a few moments later a plastic mask enveloped his face, and some of the darkness cleared from his vision, even if breathing was no less painful. He closed his eyes. This was not going to be fun.
"Needle," he commanded, but Jim only looked at him, confusion and terror and determination and anguish all mixed up.
Bones lifted an arm that weighed about a thousand tonnes and scrabbled at the oxygen mask.
"Needle," he repeated, the words less muffled this time. "Syringe... air... out." Jim's hand closed over his own, infinitely stronger, infinitely gentle, to guide the mask back on.
"You want me to perform chest surgery on you, Bones?" Jim asked, part laughing, part hysterical, but part "I'll do this if it's the last thing I do", because that was Jim Kirk, that was his boy.
Bones struggled to lift the mask again. "Not... surgery," he groused. "Remove air..." A ragged gasp. "From... chest cavity." Another tearing breath. "Collapsing... lung."
Again: Jim guiding the mask back on. His eyes met Bones', huge and determined.
"I've got this," he said, squeezing Bones' hand beneath his own, still keeping the oxygen mask on.
I know you do, Bones said without speaking, because he had to save his words for more practical things, and because he knew that Jim knew, too.
He dragged his other hand up his side, numb fingers exploring as they went. Something hard and sharp, protruding. Slick and warm to touch. Bones ignored it for the moment. Triage. He counted up the ribs. Tapped a place between two ribs. Lifted up the mask.
"Cut... shirt. Or needle breaks."
He distantly felt the cold pressure of a knife, and the shock of air against his side.
"Needle...here."
Two fingers tapping at the space between his ribs. Black swirled, menacing and irresistible. Bones closed his eyes, let the mask drop for a moment. This was gonna hurt like hell.
Jim shook him roughly, and he scowled angrily back. He just needed a moment. It wasn't every day you oversaw treatment of your own pneumothorax. But Jim was relentless.
"I can do this, Bones, I've got you, but you're gonna need to give me instructions. Stay with me, Bones."
And this time, it was Jim who tugged the mask away.
"Syringe. Two inches. Between... ribs and... lungs. Suck out... air. Slowly... Don't... stop."
Jim's hand was trembling over his. Or maybe it was his own hand that was shaking. His chest felt like it was being crushed by a molten band of metal. The sting of the needle heightened the pain. Wicked, sharp steel. Punching through skin and muscle into emptiness.
Jim's hand, steady on the syringe. He must be the one shaking, Bones realized. Jim was steady. He was the one falling apart.
"You're doing ok, Bones," Jim told him firmly. "I've got you, and Sulu's got us just five minutes from the Enterprise."
Slowly, slowly, the band around his chest eased. The shaking didn't stop.
"Cover the wound... with plastic," Bones told Jim, but the mask was still on and his lips were uncooperative, so Jim had to take the mask off, and Bones had to tell him again.
"No can do," Jim answered, the fierce grip of his hand the only thing keeping Bones anchored. "There's a great big piece of metal in the way."
"Take it... out," Bones insisted. "Cover.... seal three... sides." He wasn't shaking anymore. He was floating away, weightless and free.
"Bones..." began Jim, but, "do it," said Bones, and there was pain, and there was the hot rush of blood, and then there was nothing.
-------
"The Captain is here to see you," Chapel told him, the first time he had opened his eyes and kept them open for more than ten seconds.
"The Captain has been here ever since you were brought in," a second voice corrected her, and Bones recognized Sulu's presence. "Spock's assumed temporary command on the Captain's orders." The distance of the voice changed, which Bones guessed meant that Sulu was standing. "I'll assist him on the bridge now that you're awake. Good to have you back, Doctor McCoy."
Bones drifted in and out in the silence that followed, until Jim said, tightly, "Sulu blames himself, you know."
"That's ridiculous," Bones said. "It was never his decision. Always mine."
"What the hell kind of decision was that?" burst out Jim. "Swapping your life for mine, like we're in some kind of adventure movie? You nearly died, Bones. I ordered you to stay off that planet!"
"It was the right thing to do," Bones said tiredly.
Jim rounded on him, furious. "That is the most ridiculous, bone-headed -"
"Jim," said Bones. "Jim. I'm a doctor, not a Captain. The Enterprise can stand to lose one, but not the other."
"No!" Jim's eyes blazed. "She can't afford to lose either."
Bones smiled crookedly. "She doesn't have to. If the Captain's free to make the plans. It was the right thing to do, kiddo."
Jim buried his head in his hands. They were shaking, Bones saw. He reached over, weakly, and laid his hand on Jim's.
"You nearly died," Jim said softly, his voice muffled by his hands. "Bones..."
"But I didn't," Bones told him gently. "You did good, Jim."
Jim shook his head. "I'm a captain, not a doctor," he said with a choked laugh. "Don't make me do that again, Bones." Don't make me hold your life in my hands. Don't make me free at the cost of your own life.
Bones lifted weary eyelids to look straight at Jim. "I'll always do what I need to do, Jim, and you'll do what you need to do. And somehow, it's gonna work out ok."
"I've got you, Bones," Jim said in reply. "I'll always have your back."
And this time, when the darkness came, there was comfort, not pain.