True to Form

Only two figures reappeared on the transporter pad where four had left; never a comforting sign.  Of yet more concern was that Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu was supporting the weight of the barely-conscious Captain James T. Kirk against his side.  Both were covered in dark blood. 

Though the two men had only fully rematerialized a handful of seconds before, Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott could see that the transporter deck below the two men was already liberally colored with red drops and rivulets.

Dr. Leonard McCoy and Nurses Christine Chapel and Nicolas Collas leapt into action, having been summoned to wait in the transporter room once the nature of the emergency was made clear.  Had it not been for Lieutenant Nyota Uhura’s sharp ears and equally sharp mind, the Enterprise might never have even heard, let alone been able to understand, the faint and garbled distress signal transmitting from the damaged communicator somewhere on the planet below.

“We lost contact with the rest of the landing party.  We came under fire while searching for them.  The Captain took multiple hits,” said Sulu, voice rough with controlled anger and concern.  “Some sort of projectile weapon.  He saw them first, pushed me down.” 

Sulu assisted in transferring Kirk onto a gurney, shaking his head at the scene replaying before his eyes.  “All their fire was concentrated on him.”

From his position on the gurney, Kirk’s gaze, eyes dilated and pain-filled, met McCoy’s.  “Don’t worry, Bones,” he rasped, barely audibly.  Since he was Jim Kirk, after all, he even attempted a smile at the gruff doctor, managing a shadow of his usual, easy charm before he lapsed into unconsciousness.

“Damnit, Jim.”  Despite the nature of his words, McCoy’s voice was soft as a caress, even as his movements were swift and sure.

The medical staff simultaneously took readings with their tricorders, attempted to place pressure on the multiple bleeding wounds in the captain’s torso, and maneuvered the gurney out of the transporter room in the direction of the nearest medical bay.

~~

It wasn’t the first time that Jim Kirk had a brush with death.

It wasn’t even among the first dozen, a fact registered only by the few crewmembers still bothering to keep a tally.  The Captain did, after all, have what a number of Starfleet reports termed a “hero complex.”

What stood out about this particular occasion was the severity of it, as measured by the peevishness displayed by Dr. McCoy after analyzing the situation.  Or more specifically, in this case, the lack of such a display.

When the good doctor tossed around sarcastic remarks and threats of unnecessary hypospray inoculations, the situation was of a not-terribly-serious nature.  It usually meant a brief stop by medical for an exam and a tongue-lashing from McCoy before continuing about one’s normal tasks.

Loud, rapid-fire directions to the nurses and technicians assisting him interspersed with recriminations directed at the patient for foolhardiness and delusions of immortality were common for incidences of a somewhat more serious, though not life-threatening, nature.  This usually resulted in a slightly longer stint in medical for observation followed by a firm reprimand from McCoy involving a lot of hand-waving, long-suffering sighs, and poorly veiled insinuations of incompetence.

Critical injuries were met with a furrowed brow, barked orders that allowed no delay, and a marked lack of banter.  This, followed by silence was… very bad.  This silence, accompanied by an expression notable only for its stony concentration, caused much concern among all in the vicinity of the medical bay.

~~

Although the med bay could never be truly silent, given the multiple beeping monitors, shrill alarms, and the soft comments from staff relaying status reports and patient needs, it was a close as it could be given the current circumstances.

The trauma surgery team took their cues from their team leader, and maintained a silent focus bordering on desperation.  There was no chatter, no sly remarks, only the most necessary of discussion.

Skilled surgical teams have been known to work together nearly seamlessly, anticipating needs and having instruments ready almost before they were requested.

On a ship the size of the Enterprise, and with its purpose, this team had ample opportunity to practice.

~~

The tense atmosphere was broken only by McCoy’s terse orders delivered in a low, impatient tone and by the soft bleating of the patient monitors set on the lowest volume possible – they did not need a shrieking soundtrack to underscore the severity of the situation.

Nurse Chapel stood by the medical recorder at the head of the surgical gurney, monitoring and assessing the patient’s status.  As the Captain’s estimated blood loss rose, his blood pressure slowly decreased and heart rate crept higher and higher.  She pressed her finger down onto the captain’s pale forehead and counted the seconds needed for the capillaries to refill.  Too long.

She was already preparing the needed hyposprays and infusions as she relayed this information to McCoy and he responded without looking up, calling for volume expanders and more blood replacements.

Chapel noted the dark stain across the back of the doctor’s surgical tunic and the beads of sweat that slipped down the back of his neck to his collar.  The discomfort and worry he must be feeling for his closest friend-turned-patient on the ship was not apparent in the skill of his hands or the sharpness of his mind, however, and Chapel turned her full attention back to her patient.

~~

Outside the medical bay, the vigil had begun.

Sulu was first, standing with slumped shoulders and using the bulkhead as support.  The adrenaline crash had struck hard and his initial rush of panicked energy had ebbed, leaving behind an empty exhaustion.  He no longer wore the bloodstained uniform, having replaced it with the dark medical clothing during his own medical assessment.  There was hardly a scratch on him, a fact which left him feeling strangely sick. 

He still bore signs of the struggle, however, in a slowly darkening bruise on his chin from when it struck the ground, dried blood under his fingernails, and dirt smudging his skin and hair.

Though other crewmembers passed, they averted their eyes and continued on their way without fussing at him.  The entire ship must know the state of the landing party by now.

Sulu had nearly managed the feat of falling asleep standing up when a hand softly brushed against his elbow.

Cracking open his eyes, he saw Ensign Pavel Chekov standing there, undisguised worry across his young face.

“I will take zis watch.” 

Sulu opened his mouth to protest that he was fine, just resting his eyes, but closed it again.  Chekov had turned to stand at near-attention, back to the bulkhead, eyes straight ahead and trained on the entrance to the medical bay.

He could count on Chekov.  “You will notify me if…”  He stumbled and did not finish the sentence.  Pavel’s eyes flicked over and met his gaze for a moment before looking away again.  The young ensign nodded.

~~

McCoy was careful to take even, measured breaths.  It helped him to maintain his calm, his distance.  It was almost funny to think of ‘distance’ when he had Jim’s blood up to his elbows and was working his hardest to keep the young idiot’s insides where they belonged.  His lips didn’t quirk a smile.

Not that funny, he supposed.

McCoy knew his own heart rate was elevated, stress sharpening the edge of his fear.  It made his guts churn and a sour taste take up residence in his mouth. 

He had to stay focused, had to remain in the here and now.  He couldn’t escape with thoughts of his patient’s overabundance of confidence, that cocky grin, or thoughts of Jim’s previous flirts with disaster.

He was so damned thirsty.

He took another breath, imagining he could smell the tang of blood even through the mask he wore.  His fingers didn’t pause their probing, repairing, assessing.

“Urine output has dropped over the past hour, Doctor.”  Chapel’s voice broke into his thoughts.

“His kidneys aren’t being adequately perfused; we need to bring his pressure up.”  McCoy ordered still more fluid, more blood replacements, more medications that he knew the nurse would have already anticipated.

Damnit Jim!  You had better live through this so I can damn well kill you when you wake up.

~~

Outside the medical bay the watch had changed several times.  Ship operations, after all, did not cease simply because the Captain was incapacitated.

Scotty relieved Chekov with a firm clap on the shoulder that nearly knocked the younger man over and the suggestion of checking on Sulu before reclaiming his post on the bridge. 

Scotty was followed by a somber Uhura, who took his place with a few words and a gentle squeeze of his hand before sending him off to inspire fear in the hearts of his underlings down in engineering.

When Commander Spock appeared silently at her side, Uhura met his gaze with a small nod.  Out of site of anyone but themselves, their first and middle fingers met briefly in a caress before Uhura walked briskly back to her station. 

Spock was left to stand at even more stiff attention than had Chekov, though the stance was more natural on his frame.

~~

The surgery concluded several hours after its start.  The Captain was still alive, barely, though no member of the surgical team risked a sigh of relief just yet.

If Chapel noticed the catch in the doctor’s voice as he relayed post-op orders or the fine tremor of his hands as he washed up following the surgery, she made no indication of it, and when McCoy braced himself against his workstation with his elbows locked tight and his eyes squeezed shut, she merely angled her body to block him from the sight of the rest of the medical bay, eyes firmly on the datapad in her hands.

~~

Spock was still at his temporary post when McCoy walked out of the surgery bay.  The Doctor’s countenance appeared so defeated that for a moment Spock believed that he would be the first crewmember outside of the medical team to learn of the Captain’s demise.  His facial expression did not alter, though a part of his analytical brain did note that his pulse and respirations had increased by five percent and eight percent respectively.

Spock entered the medical bay and strode up to McCoy, who apparently did not see him coming and jumped slightly in surprise when he finally noted the Commander’s presence.

“Stop looming like a great, green bat, man.  I’ve had a long-enough day as it is without suffering a damned heart attack!”

“Report, Doctor McCoy?”  Spock’s inflection barely acknowledged that it was a query, rather than an order. 

McCoy scowled.  “Think I’m about to congratulate you on a promotion, Mister Spock?  Sorry to disappoint.  He’s alive, for the moment at least.”  The Doctor took a long, slow breath and visibly redirected himself.  “What was that weapon those savages used on him?”

Spock briefly considered responding the man’s pointed barb, however previous analysis of Doctor McCoy’s behavior had indicated a predilection for angry rhetoric when placed under stress.  Maintaining his composure while performing his duties on the Captain would likely produce an emotionally fragile state within the human. 

Spock decided not to, as the Captain would put it, “take it personally.”

“A security team was sent to the planet for investigation and retrieval of the bodies of the other two crewmembers.  Along with them and four bodies of the planet’s inhabitants that Mister Sulu was able to disable, the team found several of the weapons abandoned on the planet.  It is a primitive style of weapon wherein multiple small projectiles are forced on largely indeterminate paths powered by a small combustion.”

McCoy pressed his hands against his burning eyes, no longer caring that the Vulcan was there to see his weakness.  “Primitive, perhaps, but effective if all you care about is causing as much damage as you can to another humanoid body, Mister Spock.  Some of the projectiles fragmented on impact.  Made a mess of him, and made it a damn sight harder to piece him back together.”

“Indeed.  The Captain was in surgery for approximately-”

“I know how long I was in there, Spock!”  McCoy cut him off swiftly.  Or at least the medical recorder could tell him precisely how long the surgery was if he was so perversely eager to find out, which he was not.

He might make a copy of the disc though, now that he was thinking of it, so that when Jim did wake up McCoy could use it as ‘exhibit A’ for why he was no longer allowed off the ship, ever.  Or better yet, for why he would never again allowed out of his quarters.

All that Jim Kirk had to do now was wake up.

~~

Nearly two days passed before Kirk regained full consciousness.

When he finally returned to awareness, true to form, his first instinct was to grin at Christine Chapel and attempt to flirt.  His attempt was unsuccessful, more due to Chapel’s awareness of the Captain’s tendencies than to the fact that Kirk’s mouth was dryer than a New Vulcan desert and apparently unable to properly form words.

Not that Kirk would admit as much.

After Chapel notified McCoy, hovering nearby if the swiftness of his arrival was any indication, and after a lengthy examination interrupted multiple times by Kirk’s grunts of pain at the doctor’s prodding and mostly indecipherable complaints of thirst, Kirk was finally allowed a small sip of water.

“Only a little bit, Jim, your insides are no doubt still scrambled and would not appreciate being asked to do too much right now,” McCoy admonished.

“Still scrambled?”  He rasped, noting that his voice was only slightly improved.  “You must be slipping, Bones.”

“Har har.”

Apparently nurse Chapel wasn’t completely immune to his charms, or at the very least was susceptible to her patient’s pathetic expression of disappointment, because she allowed him two more tiny sips of water while McCoy’s back was turned.

“How’s Sulu?  And the rest of the team?  Did they make it?”

~~

After several more hours of sleep and two more uncomfortable medical exams, followed by a few more carefully rationed sips of water as a reward, Kirk was allowed to hold a proper debriefing.

“It is a conversation,” scowled McCoy, holding Kirk’s wrist and feeling for his pulse.  “And a short one at that.  Not a debriefing.  Not while you’re in my medical bay.”  He fixed Kirk with a hard stare.  “And no, that was not an invitation for you to leave.  You will be remaining here, where I can keep my eye on you until I deem you stable enough to be moved.  No arguments.”

Kirk briefly considered arguing just for the sake of making McCoy’s right eyelid twitch the way it did when he was really annoyed, but figured he ought to conserve his very limited energy for higher priorities.

Uhura rolled her eyes, no doubt aware of his thoughts from the expression on his face.  Sulu and Chekov had politely averted their eyes from their captain’s dressing down at the hands of the CMO, while Scotty merely grinned.  Spock… continued to be Spock.

Kirk noted all of this, along the fact that McCoy had been checking his pulse going on two minutes now, which seemed somewhat excessive.  Kirk supposed that as long as it kept Bones busy then the good doctor wouldn’t kick his command team out of the medical bay before he could get his answers.

Kirk turned first to his helmsman, “Sulu, you’re alright?”

Sulu looked slightly abashed, “Yes sir, I am well.”  He paused for a moment before continuing, “Sir, I’m sorry, sir.  Your injuries-”

“Are not your fault, Lieutenant.”  Kirk was quick to interrupt him.  “I was the one who didn’t duck fast enough.  Besides, I believe it was your turn to save my ass, if my ledgers are correct?  And I understand that you were able to take out four of the enemy, all while keeping me from bleeding to death down there?”

Sulu offered him a small smile.  “Yes, I believe so, sir.”

“Good work, Lieutenant.”

~~

Further “conversation” covered ship status (fine), planetary investigation status (offending inhabitants in hiding, the others begging forgiveness), and plan for the next course of action (get the hell out of orbit), before McCoy kicked everyone out of the medical bay and administered a sedative to his protesting Captain.

Though he would never admit it, the small yelp the hypospray elicited from Kirk was perhaps more satisfying than it ought to be.

~~

Nearly a week passed before Jim was permitted to leave medical bay to continue his convalescence in his quarters.  Permitted, of course, being the universally recognized euphemism for “kicked out by an increasingly irritated CMO pushed past the limits of his already-meager patience by the Captain’s adept whining”.

Kirk used his newfound freedom to practice extending his endurance further than mere trips to the bathroom (hey, at least he didn’t need to stop for a rest halfway anymore!), procrastinate on writing up his report for Starfleet Command (“They don’t know I’m up and around yet, and you damn well better not tell them, Bones!” “I think ‘up and around’ is a bit of an overstatement, Jim.”), and to contemplate writing condolence letters to Ensigns Jarvis and Ntiri’s next of kin.

The last was the hardest task of all, healing scars and muscles screaming with every movement included.

McCoy stopped by twice a day to break up the monotony and administer various hyposprays of painkillers, antibiotics, and vitamins.

The Doctor did so with rather more glee than was absolutely necessary, if you asked Kirk, though it did help him to feel a bit more like himself when trading jokes and acerbic comments with McCoy.  Being the subject of the doctor’s sarcastic reprimands further convinced Kirk of his progress towards recovery.

Uhura sent him several datapads worth of novels and music to pass the time.  Chekov and Sulu visited when their shift schedules allowed, and he played chess in the evenings with Spock. 

Scotty’s gift consisted of vintage Earth porn and alcohol, delivered to the Captain’s quarters inside of a small crate labeled “Emergency Engineering Supplies.”  Kirk decided it would not be a good idea to conduct any unannounced inspections of the Main Engineering Deck.

~~

Kirk pressed the chime to announce his presence outside McCoy’s quarters before overriding the system and striding in.

McCoy looked up from his messy desk, piled high with data pads and medical texts, and complete with small silver flask, noting the Captain’s presence.

“I received your request to return to active duty.”

Kirk snorted.  He’d framed it more as an order than a request, but he’d call it whatever Bones wanted if it ultimately got him back on his bridge for more than a visit.

“Are you that eager to go out and get yourself killed – or damn close – again so soon, Jim?  I have enough work already without you taking up residence on my gurneys.”

“Come on, Bones.  You can’t keep me confined to quarters forever.”  Kirk drawled.  He walked over to McCoy’s bed and sat down, leaning back on his arms and ignoring the twinge of soreness that remained.

“Maybe, but I’m damn well tempted to try,” McCoy retorted.  He paused and looked away towards a blank bulkhead before continuing in a softer tone.  “You had me scared to death, Jim.  I really wasn’t sure you were going to pull through.”

“I was in good hands, Bones.”  Jim waited until McCoy once again turned towards him and met his gaze.  “Things started to get a bit fuzzy at the end there as we were beamed back aboard the Enterprise, but I do remember feeling relieved when I looked up and saw you standing there.”

McCoy sighed and rolled his eyes.  He stood up and stretched, trying to work out the kinks formed from hunching over a datapad for too long.  He caught Kirk’s assessing gaze on him and flushed slightly before crossing to the viewport and looking out into space.

McCoy had to clear his throat once before he said with no small amount of skepticism, “So, it was my reassuring bedside manner that helped you through, was it?”

Kirk laughed, stood up and threw an arm around McCoy’s shoulder.  “Hell no!  You looked pissed as hell.  I felt better knowing you’d do your damndest to keep me alive so you could have the pleasure of killing me yourself.”

McCoy chuckled, but Kirk noticed that he didn’t deny the truth of the statement.

“The thought did cross my mind.”

~~

“Your medical clearance would mean more than my ability to reclaim command, you know, Bones.”

“Oh?”  McCoy’s eyebrow quirked upwards.

“I could resume all normal activities.”

“And what precisely did you have in mind, Jim?”

~~

McCoy braced his arms against the viewport.  The blackness of space dotted with the brightness of distant stars stretched before him.  As usual, it passed unnoticed and unappreciated by the ship’s doctor, though in this instance McCoy felt he had a reasonable excuse.

Kirk was pressed tightly up against his back, warm and strong against him.  Kirk mouthed at the back of his neck while at the same time one clever hand worked its way down his chest, skirted around his navel, and began unfastening his pants.  Infuriating son-of-a-

Kirk only chuckled.  “Still want to kill me, Bones?”

McCoy gasped before replying, “I can possibly be convinced otherwise, but don’t you dare fucking stop.”

McCoy thought he could feel Kirk’s face stretch into its habitual cocky grin, pressed as it was against the side of his neck, but couldn’t focus on the sensation for long.

“I think this should serve as sufficient proof that I am ready to return to full duty, Doctor.”

~~

A long time later, Kirk was just coming out of the brief haze surrounding his orgasm when he noticed Bones’ fingers on his wrist.

“Really, Bones?  You want to play Doctor?”  Kirk was pleased to see the slight flush that stole across McCoy’s cheeks.  “So do I pass?”

McCoy narrowed his eyes at his friend, his lover, before replying, “I suppose.”

“So does this mean I’m back on active duty?”

McCoy surveyed the rumpled mess they’d made of the bed, considering.  “I think I need to test your endurance a bit more before making a decision like that.”

Jim smiled.  “Sounds like fun.”  He could be very convincing.

~~~