Alarms blared through sickbay, alerting staff of incoming wounded.  Bones cursed, startling badly enough to drop the PADD he was reviewing onto his desk, where it cracked, fizzed and sparked in its death throes.  Glaring at the now-useless PADD, he cursed again, then headed into sickbay.  They were supposed to be indestructible devices, so he was never going to live down now having destroyed two of them.

“What do we have?” he asked over his shoulder as he ran his hands through the sonic wash.

Nurse Christine Chapel skimmed the report on the computer screen.  “Looks like two members of an away team, third killed on-site.”  Bones flinched slightly, but only she saw it.  She shared a sympathetic smile.  Her partner worked in engineering and she often was afraid he’d end up on one of the beds in sickbay or on one of the lists they didn’t like to talk about.  It was one of many conversations between the Chief Medical Officer and the Head Nurse during long shifts together.

“So where are these two?” Bones demanded.  He surveyed the two beds his technicians had prepared and nodded curtly, thereby pronouncing them ready to receive critical patients.

He heard beeping, an indication Nurse Chapel was consulting the computer.  “Doctor, apparently their condition is too critical and beaming is not advised.”

For a moment, Bones saw red, anger distorting his vision.  When patients were in that condition, the standard procedure was to send medical personnel on-site to stabilize the wounded.  Unable to turn and glare at anyone because the technicians were clothing him in surgical dress, he shouted, “Why the hell wasn’t I asked to beam down to treat them if they were critical?”

Before anyone could answer, two groups, each with stretchers, crashed through the sickbay doors.  His techs directed the groups to separate beds, where stasis fields were then erected.  Blood drenched everyone, but the group on the left seemed to be covered with more blood.  Bones therefore turned to the patient on the left.

He saw the shredded gold command tunic first.  Denials sprang to his mind – please let it be Sulu, please let it be Chekov – even as he felt guilty for it.  As he moved closer, though, he knew that body, had loved that body, for that’s all he looked like now.  It was Jim lying there as pale as he had been after the Artraxians had tortured him.  His injuries then had been neat, surgical wounds inflicted due to deliberate torture.  What had been done to him this time was horrific.  Bones would guess battle-inflicted wounds, but it was even beyond that.  He’d been flayed.

The wounds bisected his stomach deeply enough to nearly expose organs, missing his liver by inches, it appeared at first glance.  There were also deep wounds to his arms and thighs.  Even now, despite the stasis field that was intended to stop the bleeding via pressurization, blood was starting to pool underneath him.

“Doctor McCoy!” Nurse Chapel shouted, startling him.

Sound rushed back to Bones like an ancient freight train.  Scrubbing a hand over his face, he growled, “Doctor Estilon, you take this patient.”

He felt the shockwave run through sickbay as much as he heard the collective gasp, but he couldn’t help Jim this time, not in the condition Jim was in, not if Bones himself was going to freeze in reaction.

Bones turned to the second patient, moving quickly to the bedside.  This patient was less-severely injured than Jim, suffering mostly burns and nerve damage, though there were some of the same blade-inflicted wounds, albeit not as deep.  Only after working on this patient for half an hour did he realize it was Scotty.

Part of his brain tried to work out what the hell sort of away mission would have consisted of Jim, Scotty and a third member – and just who the hell had been that poor soul – and what were they doing that they ultimately suffered life-threatening injuries from a blade?  But every time his mind wandered down that path, a critical alarm would sound from Jim’s bed and his attention would be split once again between Scotty and Jim rather than between Scotty and his own mind.

It took two hours before Scotty was finally stable.  Doctor Estilon was still working on Jim, cursing the tech working the dermal regenerator over Jim’s left thigh.  Bones debated for a moment offering his assistance, but knew that if he tried, Doctor Estilon would resent it, seeing it not as assistance but as a takeover.

Bones stepped back and allowed the nurses to strip off his protective clothing.  He walked into his office, steps slow and shuffling, feeling years older rather than hours.  He was unsurprised to find Spock waiting there for him.  He didn’t waste his breath telling Spock he should be on the bridge since Jim would be incapacitated for some time.

He slammed himself into his chair, its familiar squeak and hiss oddly comforting.  He couldn’t even muster up the energy to pour a drink for himself.  Hell, he wasn’t sure he could keep one down until he knew Jim would survive the moment, not thinking beyond Jim’s survival.

“I am surprised, Doctor,” Spock said at last, breaking the tense silence.  Bones glanced at him, but Spock didn’t continue the thought.

Rolling his eyes, Bones dragged a hand over his face and stared through the clear wall of his office through to sickbay beyond until it became too much to watch Doctor Estilon, Nurse Chapel and most of his staff work on Jim.  Bringing his eyes back to Spock, his voice was rough when he demanded, “What the fuck happened?”

For once, Spock didn’t reprimand or chide him for his colorful language.  Maybe the damned Vulcan was learning there were times that called for a colorful metaphor or two.

Spock tapped the PADD in his hand, then slid it across the desk, discreetly pushing aside the remnants of the one Bones had broken hours earlier.  Bones ignored it, which Spock must have known it would do, because he began a verbal report without prompting.

“At twenty-three hundred last night, the Enterprise received a distress call from a crashed Starfleet shuttle.  The transmission was traced to Traken III.”

Bones frowned.  “That’s a desolate rock.  Who the hell would be piloting a shuttle there and why?”

A very faint line appeared briefly between Spock’s brows, then vanished.  “While we wondered the same, the fact remained that a Starfleet shuttle was in distress.”

Bones rose from his seat and, planting his hands on his desk, leaned forward.  “Why were there no medical personnel accompanying the rescue party?”  His voice was low and controlled, but vibrated with anger.  The entire incident had been a cock-up from the start.  He would have expected better from Spock, who should have known the rules of engagement regarding away missions with potential injured and sent for medical personnel.

One of Spock’s eyebrow’s rose.  “But there was medical staff aboard, Doctor.”  He brought the PADD to himself again.  “Medical Technical Ensign Crisp.”  He looked up.  “You did not send him?”

Bones suddenly felt his head spinning.  Spock hadn’t seemed to have developed the capacity for lying yet, so if he said there was staff aboard, there was staff aboard.  Yet Bones had never received the page for an away mission, let alone given orders assigning a rookie ensign to accompany the Captain and Chief Engineer.

“Didn’t anyone question the assignment?  Didn’t it seem fucking odd I’d send an ensign with Jim and Scotty?” Bones asked wearily, some of the anger leaching from his voice.

Spock’s look said do you take me for a fucking idiot? though his tone of voice was deceptively mild.  “Of course, Doctor.  However, I verified his orders myself.  They were signed off on by you.”

Bones collapsed into his chair, numb, and rubbed at his closed eyes.  He hadn’t signed off on any orders.  He hadn’t seen the request.  Someone on his staff had intercepted the request, overridden the system and managed to assign himself to the away mission using Bones’s access codes.

“Fuck,” Bones whispered.

“We will have to devise a system to circumvent the saboteurs and root them out,” Spock murmured.  There was a thread of something in his voice.  Personal affront, probably.  “As well as redesigning security protocols.”

Bones made a dismissive motion with his hands.  All that went without saying.  “What happened to Crisp?”

“He was the member of the team who was killed,” Spock replied.  Bones knew he should be upset – after all, a member of his medical staff had died, a crewmember had died, and he was sworn to uphold the sanctity of life – but if the man had sabotaged or betrayed them somehow, he really couldn’t care, especially when the result had been Jim’s mangled body.  In the end, Crisp was luckier for being dead than he would be were he to face the wrath – and interrogation – of the command crew.

“What attacked them?” Bones asked softly.  He was suddenly so tired, so beyond exhausted that he was running on fumes.

“The shuttle had been hijacked.”  Bones, staring out at Jim’s bed, heard Spock set the PADD on the desk once again.  He was reciting from memory then.  “The Starfleet shuttle crew of four was probably killed during the initial hijacking, though it appears one of the crewmen allowed the hijacking party aboard.”  Spock rose and crossed to the wall, entering into Bones’s line of vision.  He stood impossibly straight and still, hands behind his back, in a posture Bones was coming to recognize as one Spock used to exercise control over himself.  “The hijacking party consisted of three Klingons.”

Bones sucked in a sharp breath.  “Klingons,” he whispered.  It explained the injuries Jim had suffered, both their depth and severity.  Bones was certain the away team hadn’t gone down to the surface armed to fight Klingons.  The best defense for a human against a bat’leth was a phaser shot to the face.

“From what we can piece together,” Spock began after a silence punctuated only by the muffled sounds from sickbay, “Ensign Crisp entered the shuttle as Mr. Scott began work on the engines and the Captain performed reconnaissance.”

Bones rose from his chair and crossed the room to stand next to Spock.  “The Klingons were in the shuttle.”

“Two died in the crash,” Spock added.  “As they had killed the four-man Starfleet crew during the initial hijacking, a Klingon was the lone survivor.”

Bones could see in his mind’s eye how it must have played out:  the Klingon knew a Federation ship would arrive, summoned by the distress beacon.  After lying in wait, the Klingon would have attacked any Starfleet personnel who opened the door.  Bones could only be grateful that Jim hadn’t been the first to enter the shuttle.

Spock then turned slightly, looking over at Bones via a sidelong glance.  Bones continued to look straight ahead.  Doctor Estilon was entering his fourth hour of working on Jim.  By the movements of the staff, Bones thought the peripheral wounds had been dealt with and they were still attempting to treat the thoracic injuries.

Spock voice was low and tight when he began, “Have you considered the possibility – ”

Bones turned and slammed Spock to the wall, a forearm across the Vulcan’s neck cutting off speech and nearly cutting off air.  Had he tried, Spock could have freed himself since Bones wasn’t exactly well-trained in hand-to-hand combat, but he didn’t try.

“Don’t fucking say it, Spock,” Bones hissed.  “I’m not discussing any possibilities right now.”

Their eyes met and held for a moment before Spock conceded, dropping his gaze.  Bones released him, returning to his observation spot.  Spock straightened his tunic, ran a hand over his hair, then resumed his position as well.

“After the Klingon killed Ensign Crisp, he exited the shuttle and attacked Mr. Scott.”  Spock’s voice was cool and even, certainly more smooth than before Bones’s outburst.

Maybe we both needed the emotional release, Bones thought wildly.  The hobgoblin is half-human after all.

Several techs moved away from the medical bed, their protective surgical dress so blood-spattered they could have been mistaken for working in an abattoir rather than a medical bay.  The monitors above Jim’s bed still showed him as alive, though, despite all appearances of having bled out more than once.  Bones really was going to have to have a talk with Jim about blood and the fact it belong inside his body, not on the floor.  This sort of thing was happening all too often for Bones’s peace of mind.

“And Scotty’s neurological damage was sustained when?” Bones asked softly, distracting himself.

Spock shifted his stance, his uniform rustling with the movement.  “Mr. Scott was thrown against the engines during his fight with the Klingon.  The engines overloaded.”

Bones nodded.  The overload surge caused the nerve damage and burns and must have fooled the Klingon into thinking he was dead.  Bones snorted.  Scotty would love the idea he’d fooled a Klingon.

“Let me guess:  the commotion drew Jim from his recon,” Bones murmured.

“Yes.”  Spock didn’t elaborate.  There was no need since Jim’s injuries spoke for themselves.  “The Captain did manage to inflict a mortal wound upon the Klingon, who died as the second rescue party arrived.”

Bones scraped a hand down his face.  “And barely managed to hail the Enterprise for rescue?”

“Correct.”

Dammit, Jim.  How am I supposed to survive out here if you keep trying to die on me?

Doctor Estilon made a final pass over Jim’s stomach and chest with the dermal regenerator, then pulled the thermal blanket up to his chin.  Stepping back, he allowed the techs to divest him of surgical gear.  The moment he was stripped, he stormed into Bones’s office, the glass wall rattling with the force of the door slamming into it before ricocheting back to slam shut.

“Doctor McCoy,” he hissed before noticing Spock.  Pulling up short, he reined himself in and, lips thin with suppressed anger, murmured, “Commander Spock, sir.”

Spock nodded.  “Doctor Estilon.”

Bones rolled his eyes.  “At ease.”  The other doctor glanced between his superior officers, clearly torn between anger and nerves.  “You may speak freely.”  Unlike my conversation with the Admiral.  Bones shuddered lightly at the memory, drawing a quick, curious glance from Spock.  Bones answered with a sharp shake of his head.

Doctor Estilon took a deep breath before beginning, air whistling through his not-quite-human nostrils.  “Doctor McCoy, I do not appreciate being tossed into such a situation.  Given the rank of the patient and the severity of his wounds, I would have been much more comfortable working beside you as your assistant than taking responsibility for the patient.  Sir.”

Bones crossed his office in just a few steps to stand in front of his assistant.  This was the last fucking thing he needed right now – open insurrection by his medical staff.  There were few occasions when he had cause to be glad his ex-wife had driven him to join Starfleet at the ripe old age of twenty-eight when he already had a few years on the cadets and a few years of practice under his belt.

This was one of those times.

“Doctor Estilon,” Bones said, voice so low and controlled that it might have been Spock performing ventriloquism.  “Though I allowed you to speak freely, if you ever again attempt to berate me before reporting a patient’s condition, you will be demoted.  If you ever attempt to berate me in such a fashion for expecting you to do your job, you’ll be made an ensign on some backwater colony so fast and so far away your mama will need to call in favors to find you.

“Now, Doctor Estilon, do you have something to report to me?”

The younger physician seemed to shrink in upon himself, his righteous fury evaporating under the dressing down by his superior in front of the First Officer.  It was a much-cowed Doctor Estilon who reported, “The patient suffered severe trauma to the torso consistent with a large blade wielded with significant force.  This same blade inflicted trauma to the patient’s thighs and right arm.  The lacerations to the arm were both defensive and secondary wounds.  The patient was in shock from severe blood loss and required multiple transfusions.  No internal organs were damaged though there was bruising to the liver and peritoneal cavity was exposed for a short time.  There are other contusions and abrasions consistent with a fight, all minor compared to the massive initial trauma.”

Bones nodded.  It was what he had expected, given his brief look at Jim’s injuries.  “Your prognosis?”

“Extremely guarded.  If he can make it through the first twelve hours without infection setting in, his prognosis will be greatly improved.”

Bones stared Doctor Estilon in the eye until the younger man looked away.  “Dismissed.”  Doctor Estilon left, head held high but clearly broken to Bones’s will.

“Do you agree with his assessment, Doctor?” Spock asked.

Bones startled.  Spock had been so silent that Bones had forgotten he was there.  Sighing heavily, Bones gave a small jerk on his head to indicate Spock should follow as he exited his office.  Spock did so as Bones walked to Jim’s bedside.

The silver thermal blanket covering him to his shoulders helped to regulate body temperature.  After losing so much blood – especially for the second time in three months – Jim’s ability to regulate his own body temperature was compromised.  It made the contrast of his skin against his dark hair and shiny blanket all the more disturbing, though.  Jim was supposed to be full of life, not a near-corpse.

Bones checked the display above the bed.  “Yes, I agree with most of Doctor Estilon’s assessment.  Though, knowing Jim, I predict he’ll wake in eight hours, not twelve.  He’ll also survive.”  He’d damn well better survive.  Spock turned a questioning look on Bones, who tapped a few orders into the chart.  “Jim has a high resistance to standard sedatives and Estilon ordered the standard dose.  I can’t add to it now without risking overdose.”

He moved to Scotty’s bedside.  Color had returned to the engineer’s face and the pink of the healed burns was fading.  “Scotty should be discharged within a day or so, barring any complications.”

Bones stood between the two beds, hands at his sides, staring absently in Jim’s direction.  He was so tired.

“Doctor, you should get some rest,” Spock said quietly.  Bones heard him, but didn’t acknowledge him.  “Doctor McCoy.”  Bones wished Spock would go away.  “Bones?”

Bones looked up.  Spock had never deigned to use his nickname, preferring the formalities of titles instead.  “Yes?”

A faint green colored Spock’s cheeks, but it could have been a trick of the light, which was darkening for Gamma shift.  Spock cleared his throat, then said, “When I was sick once as a child with the Vulcan equivalent of a cold, my mother sat by my bedside and kept me company.  She said it was a common human custom.”  He tipped his head to one side.  “Perhaps you would care to do the same.”

Blinking uncertainly, Bones could only slowly nod.  “I would like that.”  Maybe Spock acting human was a hallucination brought about by sleep deprivation.

Spock cleared his throat and brought a chair from another bedside, placing it between the two occupied medical beds.  Bones adjusted the chair until it was at shoulder level of the two patients, then sat, propping his booted feet on the edge of Jim’s bed.  Though he frowned slightly, Spock made no comment.

“Thank you, Spock.”  Bones thought he might choke on the words, but they were easier then he thought to say.

Spock inclined his head in welcome.  “I will return in the morning unless there is a status change.”  With that, he turned on his heel, hands loosely clasped at the small of his back, and left sickbay.

Though there was still medical staff bustling about, it felt to Bones as if there were only the three of them in sickbay.  He could hear the clean-up in process from earlier and was pleased with it; he could hear the monitors behind his head, their beeping letting him know both his patients were alive and functioning; he could hear soft conversations between nurses and technicians behind a partition, punctuated by an occasional laugh.  He adjusted his feet, moving one ankle onto the other, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes, trusting his training to wake him if any of those background noises changed.

When he woke, he knew it was several hours later by how gritty his eyes were, the pain in his locked knee and the faint line of drool on his chin.  He pulled his leg down from Jim’s bed, gritting his teeth against the pain shooting up his thigh as he bent his knee.  He should know better than to fall asleep in that position.

He stood and crossed to the sink, splashing water on his face and rinsing his mouth out while there.  A glance at the chronometer showed he’d slept for five hours, which was the longest uninterrupted stretch of sleep he’d had in several weeks – the irony was that it took Jim being at death’s door to get it.  He changed his clothing from the small closet inside his office, freshening himself, and ordered coffee from the replicator.

His nurses had performed the hourly checks on the two patients through the hours he’d been sleeping – and he could only imagine the aw, sweet looks he’d received for that, and rolled his eyes.  He reviewed the notes on Scotty first.  The engineer was progressing as expected and, if he continued to do so, Bones would discharge him that afternoon, but not release him back to duty until the following day.  He grinned briefly to himself and made a mental note to tell Keenser about the restriction on duty.  Keenser was quite protective of his pet human.

Then he turned to Jim.  There was a bit of color in his cheeks now, so he no longer looked like a corpse, but that was small comfort.  Bones released the alarms, then the stasis field so he could examine the patient – and he had to think of Jim as “the patient” and not “Jim” or he’d never get through this.  If he thought of “Jim” being the mangled man on the medical bed before him, he might go a little mad.

Bones pulled back the thermal blanket and sucked in a breath.  Jim’s – no, the patient’s – torso was crisscrossed with livid red welts.  He knew that two hundred years ago the patient would have died, or, had he lived, his torso would have been plastered with stitches and other primitive surgical techniques.  That knowledge didn’t make looking at the patient any easier.  Only knowing how close to death the patient had been upon arrival comforted Bones before he snorted in self-derision.  He couldn’t even make up his own fucking mind, so how was he supposed to help the patient?

He folded the blanket back to the patient’s hips, allowing the patient some modesty while freeing his hands for the exam.  He traced the welts lacing the patient’s stomach, feeling for any binding or swelling.  There was no reaction from the patient, which indicated either deep sedation, coma or nerve damage.  Knowing Jim, Bones attributed it to nerve damage.  He paused above the patient’s navel and realized he’d named the patient again.

Bones pulled the thermal blanket up, tucking it under the patient’s chin, and stepped back, resetting the field over his lower body.  Directive 563, Subdirective A or not, wouldn’t matter at all, Bones knew, if Bones himself couldn’t separate his personal and professional lives.  There had to be a point at which that separation was a necessity, where the good of his patient overrode the good of his lover.  His stomach twisted into a knot, his coffee serving to exacerbate the acidity until nausea rose and ate at the back of his throat.

He stood at the foot of Jim’s bed and stared down at him.  Seeing Jim so still was always unnatural.  Jim was a force of nature, so full of life, that to see him frozen was disturbing on a nearly primal level.

He heard a shuffle of feet behind him a moment before hearing the cleared throat.  Bones half-glanced over his shoulder in acknowledgment.

“Sir, Commander Spock has been paging you.”

Bones bit back the reply he wanted to give his tech to pass along to Spock, something that involved bodily orifices.  Instead, he said, “Tell Commander Spock to return to sickbay if he wants to talk to me.”  He could almost feel the kid’s nervousness – and where the hell does Starfleet get all these timid recruits? – but the tech left with the message.

Spock found Bones thirty minutes later, still staring at Jim.  He stood next to Bones, watching, for a moment before speaking.

“I read your report on Mr. Scott.”  Spock inclined his head sideways, viewing Bones obliquely.  “He is unconscious and likely to stay that way?”

Bones glanced between Scotty and Spock.  “Yes, for probably another three or four hours, I’d say.”

“And we will be otherwise undisturbed?”

Then Bones noticed Spock was tense.  Between Jim so still and Spock tense, it was a day of unusual events.  Bones wondered briefly at what things that might make Spock tense, but then decided it would be easier to have the conversation than speculate.

“Yes, most likely,” he said.  “Especially if we stay around Jim’s bed.  Any conversation we have can be masked as official ship’s business.”

Spock nodded slowly at that, a certain incline of his head that, by itself, spoke volumes.  He handed a PADD to Bones, who glanced at it.  There was a list of files cross-referenced with a timeline and ranked with a priority code.

“Dammit, Spock, I’m a doctor, not a data analyst,” Bones grumbled.  He tried to hand the PADD back, but Spock waved him off.

“Keep it for now.  It will serve as camouflage.”  Bones sighed, but kept the PADD.  “We brought the crippled shuttle into Cargo Bay 2.  Ensign Chekov proved himself unusually adept at accessing hidden files in the memory of the shuttle’s computer systems.”

Bones bared his teeth in something resembling a smile.  “The kid hacked the system.”

Spock closed his eyes and took a deep, pained breath.  “Just so, Doctor.”  Reopening his eyes, he gestured to the PADD in Bones’s hands.  “That is the data from the shuttle’s computers.  Doctor, that shuttle was not there by accident.”

“What?”

“Further, neither do I think the Enterprise was ordered to survey the area by accident.”

Bones turned slightly and frowned at Spock.  “We were ordered to be in the right place at the right time by someone’s reckoning to ‘rescue’ that shuttle?”

“That shuttle was en route to Autrelia Prime on orders from Admiral Jellico.”

Bones stared at Spock for a long moment, then hissed, “Fuck.”

“Not now, Bones,” Jim mumbled, words slurred nearly to incoherence as he shifted on the medical bed.  “Hurss t’much.”

Bones shoved the PADD at Spock and moved to Jim’s side.  The sedative had worn off at least two hours earlier than expected.  He wished he had a goddamned map of Jim’s weird body chemistry.  Between the sedatives that didn’t last long enough and the allergies, Jim was enough to keep Bones busy for a long while.

“Are you in pain, Jim?” Bones asked, voice firm.  He’d long-since learned that when Jim was still partially under the effects of a sedative or painkiller, he responded best to a strong, firm tone.  Bones brutally quashed the memory of any other times Jim responded to a strong, firm tone.

Jim’s smile was dazed.  “Mmm, kinda.”  His eyes snapped open, but drifted in and out of focus.  “What was that about Autrelia Prime and an admiral?”

“Captain, you should be resting,” Spock interjected, moving forward to stand at the head of the bed on the side opposite Bones.

Jim turned his head in Spock’s direction, exposing his neck for a hypospray Bones couldn’t quite bring himself to administer yet.  He repeated stubbornly, “What admiral?”

Bones shared a quick look with Spock and reconsidered the idea of that hypospray.  “Jim, we’ll discuss it later.”

The look in his eyes sharpened as he fixed Bones with a glare.  “A fucking Klingon nearly killed me.”  Jim was regaining coherence – and recognition of the pain he was in – with every moment he was awake.  “Why can’t I move?”

“Stasis field,” Bones muttered.  He looked up at Spock.  Spock raised both eyebrows.  Bones knitted his brow, frowning slightly.  Spock tilted his head.  Bones sighed.  “I’ll get a mild painkiller.”

“What can you remember of the mission to Traken III, Captain?” Spock asked, looking down at Jim.

Bones returned before Jim answered.  He pulled Jim’s left arm from the restriction of the stasis field, laying it atop the thermal blanket.  He gripped Jim’s hand firmly and asked, “Can you feel that?”

Jim, pain in both his gaze and tone of voice, whispered, “Yes.”

Ruthlessly, Bones said, “Squeeze my hand.”

“Fuck you,” Jim rasped, but squeezed weakly.

Bones administered the hypospray into Jim’s bicep and Jim hissed uncomfortably but didn’t curse.  Bones would have preferred to use Jim’s thigh, where he wouldn’t have felt the injection, but didn’t want to expose that much of Jim to Spock if he had any sort of choice.  After several moments, Jim relaxed, the painkiller taking the worst of the edge off his pain.

“Captain?” Spock murmured in reminder.

Jim reopened his eyes, the blue of them clear but just slightly unfocused.  “We beamed down, saw the shuttle.  It was in bad shape, like blaster fire or some shit.”  Bones’s lips twitched, torn between watching Jim and watching Spock – who was having a difficult time with the informal nature of the report.  “Crisp approached the shuttle.  So did Scotty.  I took recon.  Tricorders showed no lifeforms.”

Bones squeezed Jim’s hand as Jim’s voice hitched.  Jim didn’t have a problem with crew transport shuttles like the ones that had taken them from Iowa to San Francisco, or the ones Starfleet used to take personnel to space dock, but he had a mild fear of the small shuttles.  It had taken most of a bottle of top grade illegal Romulan ale to get Jim to reveal the reason:  the Kelvin shuttle he was born on.  To find a shuttle supposedly devoid of life must have been disturbing.

“Recon showed nothing.  I came back when I heard shouts and a scream.”  Jim closed his eyes.  “’S a blur after that.  Big Klingon with a bat’leth ’n don’ know where the fuck ’e came from.”

Bones glanced up at Spock before deciding he just didn’t give a goddamn what the Vulcan thought.  Releasing Jim’s hand, he brushed a lock of hair off Jim’s forehead before running his fingertips down Jim’s cheek.  Jim turned slightly, nuzzling Bones’s palm and sighing.

“Bones, why was a Klingon there?”  Jim’s words were alternately precise and slurred, a clear sign to Bones that he was pushing the edge of his tolerance levels.  Bones knew he would have re-sedated anyone else already, but wasn’t sure if Jim was the exception because he was Jim or because he was the Captain of the USS Enterprise.

“Captain, how familiar are you with Earth’s history in the twentieth century?” Spock asked, voice low.

Jim opened his eyes, turning his head toward Spock.  Narrowing his gaze, he replied, “Somewhat.”  Bones thought it was probably an understatement.  It was easy to forget Jim was a genius, and not just at getting in trouble.

“Does the name ‘Neville Chamberlain’ mean anything to you?”

Jim stiffened, and then groaned in pain.  The name was vaguely familiar to Bones, but his interest in his history lessons had always taken a backseat to science and medicine.  “It does,” Jim said after recovering.

“Enlighten some of us,” Bones growled.  The color was fading from Jim’s face again, sweat beading on his forehead.  Bones curled his fingers around the back of Jim’s neck, rubbing at the nape.  Jim made a small whimpering sound that went right to Bones’s cock, though he ignored the damned organ and sighed.  He was going to have to step in soon as a doctor and knock Jim out.

“Based upon the information Ensign Chekov liberated from the shuttle’s computers, and your own conversation with Admiral Jellico, Doctor – ” Jim shot Bones a look at this, and Bones sharply shook his head, indicating he didn’t want to discuss it, which just made Jim narrow his eyes in determination “ – I believe I have an idea of what is going on.”  Jim and Bones both stared at Spock, who raised an eyebrow before continuing.  “There is a cabal within Starfleet, most likely just a few admirals and lesser officers, who wish to attempt to make a deal with the Klingon Empire in the hopes of averting war.”

“Peace in our time,” Jim mumbled.

“Quite so,” Spock replied.

“That doesn’t explain Chamberlain,” Bones muttered.  The name was more familiar now, but he still couldn’t piece it together.

Spock turned fully to Bones.  “Neville Chamberlain was the British Prime Minister just before World War II and traveled to Germany in 1938 to make peace with Adolf Hitler.  He returned to England, presumably triumphant, proclaiming ‘peace for our time,’ after securing the Munich Agreement with Hitler, which was partially a non-aggression pact.  Less than a year later, Hitler invaded Poland to start World War II, the bloodiest Earth conflict until the Eugenics Wars.”

Bones ran his free hand down his face.  “And you think that’s what Jellico is trying to do with Starfleet?”

Spock gave a significant look down at Jim before meeting Bones’s eyes again.  “And what better ship to start with than the flagship and its young captain?”

“Bones?”

Bones eyed Jim critically.  “How much pain are you in now?  Don’t try to hide it from me.”

Jim clenched his jaw mutinously.  “It’s worse.”  Fuck, that’s even after the painkiller I gave him.  Jim reached up and grabbed Bones’s arm as Bones started to walk away, his face paling dramatically.  “I’ll let you knock me out, but wait.”

Bones met his flame-blue gaze steadily for a long moment.  He was having a difficult time seeing Jim in such pain when there was no reason for it.  Even though he knew there had been times Jim had been in more pain – hell, after some nights drinking with Jim and a bar fight or two, both had been in what seemed like more pain – but Bones could help.  Bones nodded.

“Captain – Jim, your away mission was sabotaged,” Spock said softly.  Bones knew there wasn’t an easy way to break that, but it could have been done with more tact.  Then he snorted to himself.  Leonard McCoy was in no position to be lecturing someone on tact.

Jim closed his eyes.  “I know.”  He took a ragged breath.  “There was a transmission, unexplained, b’fore we left.”

Spock checked the PADD in his hand, then nodded.  “It appears as if Crisp contacted the shuttle before arriving on Traken III via an encoded message.  I will have Ensign Chekov perform a deeper review of incoming communications logs on the shuttle.”

“I . . . fuck.”  Jim shuddered, then looked over at Bones pleadingly.

Bones took the hypospray in his hand and injected it into Jim’s neck.  Jim only sighed, relaxed, and slipped into unconsciousness.  Knowing Spock, at this point, would say nothing untoward, Bones bent and held his lips to Jim’s forehead.  Jim’s skin was clammy with sweat, but tasted of Jim and that, for now, was reassuring enough.

Backing away, Bones asked Spock, “Do you have a plan?”

Spock was silent.  Bones looked up, mildly disconcerted when he discovered Spock half in shadow.  “For now, we wait.  We can only speculate at Admiral Jellico’s intentions and that the Captain is at the center of them.  We protect the Captain, a job we have done poorly as of late.”

Had he known when he was assigned to the Enterprise that he’d end up conspiring with a Vulcan to protect Jim from himself, Bones would have thought the idea insane.  Now it was perfectly logical.  And that scared the shit out of him.

“Jim Kirk doesn’t always know what’s best for himself,” Bones murmured.

“Indeed,” Spock replied, nodding his dismissal.  “I will leave you to your sickbay and keep you updated with Ensign Chekov’s results of the deeper scan.”  With that, Spock exited sickbay.

Bones gave a final review of Scotty’s chart, including orders to his staff for Scotty’s discharge if he woke while Bones was asleep.  He then placed orders in Jim’s chart regarding pain medications and sedatives – making careful note of Jim’s tolerance for both and what he’d just received – though Bones doubted Jim would wake while Bones caught a few more hours of sleep.  Jim, however, delighted in performing impossible tasks, and Bones didn’t put it past him to wake hours before he should – again.

Bones stripped down to his boxers and lay in the small cot just off his office.  It wasn’t a place he used often, generally only when Jim was deathly injured, or he had a sickbay full of incredibly sick patients, and he didn’t want to be very far away.  He lay on his back and stared up at the ceiling, hands laced behind his head, sheet around his waist.

Thoughts of Admiral Jellico, and her lascivious stare as she eyed Jim, reminded Bones of Directive 563.  This, in turn, reminded him of how he’d frozen when Jim had been brought in.

Could Bones be an effective doctor to Jim?  Just the question made nausea churn in his gut.  He’d asked himself the same question at the Academy, but it was rhetorical then, something he’d asked never expecting that they’d actually end up on the same posting in positions of such authority straight out of the Academy.  Bones brought one hand down and rested it on his stomach, rubbing against the skin, hoping to calm the churning of his stomach.

If he couldn’t be an effective doctor to Jim, did he have the strength to end their relationship?  Would it help?  Would it even matter?  And, if it didn’t matter, would he have to request a transfer?  Would their friendship survive?

“Fuck,” he hissed into the silence, rolling onto his side.

He didn’t want any of that.  He wanted Jim and he wanted his sickbay.  He didn’t want any fucking conspiracies, anyone else with plans for Jim – or his body – or anyone else with plans for the Enterprise.  For now, he’d put his faith in Spock, that hobgoblin, to help them get out of what they’d stumbled into, and rely on Jim’s dumb luck.

And he hoped he wouldn’t have to choose between the ship and Jim.