A/N: Hey guys. I'm gonna try to make this a proper, long, multi-chapter fic, for full effect and continuation and stuffs. I hope you enjoy!
The landing party had been waiting to beam up for over an hour. The transporter was apparently...functional. Apparently.
"Well then, anyone got any suggestions as to why this thing is shut down, if we don't get 'em up here soon, we gonna get our arses handed to us!" Scotty's accent was thicker than everyone was used to.
McCoy stared at the man. His eyes narrowed.
"Scotty, you're supposed to be the one performing the miracles here!"
The engineer's jaw clenched. "I've tried everything sir, I cannae find a way!"
"So we just leave them stuck down there, yeah Scotty?" sarcasm dripped from his voice.
"Why don't ye' come up here and try fix it yourself?" he yelled in the doctor's ear.
A tall figure stepped in between them and slightly bowed towards Scotty.
"Mister Spo—"
"I believe you might find it useful to know that it appears the machine, simply has a disengaged wire." His gaze was not towards the engineer, but at the wall.
"Mister Spock, I don't need your.." he trailed off and watched the Vulcan's eyebrow rise.
"He's telling the truth" McCoy stated, on his knees under the control panel, holding up the wire and looking up towards Scotty. "Though I got no idea how this works, do I just push.." he began to fiddle with a socket before the engineer kicked him aside.
"Don't touch that!" he bellowed, grabbing the wire and shoving it in the precise area for himself. McCoy threw his hands up innocently.
"What do I tell 'em, that they got transported a whole hour late cos I missed a disconnected cable?" Scotty stood up, leaning on the console to help him.
"That's your fault, it's your job"
Scotty frowned at the doctor and shook his head, inputting some information into the console. Grabbing his communicator with one hand and working with the other, he called the team.
"Sorry 'bout the delay sir, beaming you up now"
There was no reply, Scotty turned to Spock and McCoy, who weren't taking any notice.
"Well now you've done pissing me around on a job that I wasn't trained for, I'll be going back to sickbay" McCoy snarled, spinning on his heel to the door and making his way out. "And god help you if I can even smell you coming"
As the doors hissed shut, the transporter began materialising. A smile plastered onto Scotty's face at his finally working apparatus and stepped over to greet the landing party that will soon appear.
Captain Kirk turned up, along with Chekov and Uhura.
Uhura stumbled forward slightly, her forehead creased. Scotty looked up at her, concerned, but Uhura simply shook her head and nodded towards the Captain, who's face didn't look like the Captain. More like a terrified by-stander who accidently was brought on board.
Chekov stayed silent.
"What happened?" Scotty simply asked, his smile fading, studying his Captain's frail expression. Uhura shrugged.
"I don't know." She bit her lip at Scotty's hardened gaze on her. "Really, I don't know, we were fine, he's just been getting worse."
Chekov piped in suddenly. "Ve vere not troubled at all, nothing vrong, the Kiptin vas acting veird so ve decided to come back!"
Spock lightly brushed past Scotty and stepped in front of the transporter, ushering the two crew members off the platform. They hastily obeyed him and stood behind.
"Captain?" the Vulcan's eyes were darting over him, his voice monotonous but quavering. Kirk didn't move from the platform. He looked towards Spock, his eyes widening.
Abruptly, Kirk gave one heaving breathe and collapsed onto the transporter pad. Alarmed, Uhura shot a look towards Scotty, who was already onto it.
"Scotty to McCoy, McCoy, get up to the transporter room, please" he demanded urgently, watching as the Captain sprawled out across the floor. "Now!" he shouted for effect, letting go of the button and racing up to him.
Kirk released a long groan and shifted onto his side, scrunching his eyes shut.
"Get him off the transporter pad and onto the floor" Scotty's voice was small.
"I don't advise that" the Vulcan said in a matter-of-fact tone, stepping in and pulling them away.
"You want us to just leave him there?" Scotty scowled, rubbing his neck.
"The doctor will deal with the Captain, I advise that you just leave him" he lowered his neck towards both Uhura and Scotty and stood blankly against the wall.
The transporter room doors hissed open, revealing McCoy gripping a med kit, his eyes giving Jim the once-over as soon as he spotted him.
"I've been gone for 5 minutes, dammit!" he complained.
Everyone else apart from Jim stayed silent. Jim was still groaning and rolling around the transporter pad.
McCoy knelt down, placing his kit to the side and reaching to hold the Captain still.
As soon as the slightest touch were upon him, Jim twitched violently and scuttled away, gazing at him wide-eyed.
McCoy's eyes narrowed.
"Jim, damn it, hold still you idiot" he muttered, making another attempt to grab the wild animal that was the Captain.
"Get the hell away from me." Jim spluttered, his voice hoarse. McCoy's eyebrows shot up, the annoyed expression on his face replaced with concern.
"I said, get away from me, whoever you are!" Jim was almost shouting at this point, looking absolutely nothing like the Captain that everyone knew.
"Jim, kid, it's me!" Red flags started rising in McCoy's head.
"I don't know who you are or why.. you kidnapped me. But-"
"Captain, do you not recognise us?" Spock's voice was laced with emotion, much to everyone's surprise.
"Captain? I.. what? No! Take me back to..." Jim paused and tried to remember where he lived.
"Back to... oh my god.." he whimpered quietly, standing up and backing away from the startled crew.
"Jim.." McCoy slowly walked towards him, med kit in tow.
"No. Stay away."
"Uhura? What the hell happened on that planet?" McCoy snapped at the lieutenant.
"Nothing! We were walking and we were just fine and he just.. got worse."
McCoy pursed his lips together and turned back to Jim, carefully opening his med kit.
Jim's gaze never left him, watching him take out a device he didn't recognise.
"Okay.." McCoy began carefully, taking out his favourite device that he recognised, a hypospray. "This is gonna help you relax, okay kid?"
Not much to his surprise, Jim backed off even more. He never did like hypos anyway. Who does?
"Don't come near me with that...thing" Jim spat, cornered against the edge of one wall.
"S'alright, I'll do it gently."
The supposed Captain had reached his limit.
"I said NO!" Jim screamed, kicking past McCoy and falling over his feet. McCoy scrambled closer to him, grabbing his arm firmly this time.
"You didn't get past me then, you're not getting past me now" he said determinedly.
Jim tried to pull away, but from the sudden panic rising in him, he wrenched himself sideways and threw up.
McCoy considered telling him to stop being such an infant, but something told him that this was more than his usual typical attempt to escape from vaccinations.
"The crew are used to seeing the Captain bold and disgustingly happy, not huddled up shitting himself over a jab." McCoy teased, smirking slightly.
"I don't caaare" Jim moaned, his legs wobbling trying to keep him upright.
McCoy put a hand on his neck to deliver a surprise jab when Jim slapped it away and pulled himself backwards, tumbling down the transporter steps.
"Don't come near me!" Jim half wailed from the floor.
McCoy knelt down beside him and threw the hypo aside. Wrapping an arm around his waist, he tried to hold him still.
"Jim." he said as softly as was possible for the man.
"Don't-" Jim gasped for oxygen and lurched forward. "-Please, don't h-h..hurt.. me"
McCoy's face paled and turned to look at Spock, who was already stepping onto the platform.
"What the hell happened down there?" he quietly hissed at the Vulcan. Spock was attempting to make mind-meld contact with the Captain but seemed more like trying to make contact with thin air.
"Stop it" Jim coughed, ducking his head under his arms.
"He appears.. disturbed"
"Yeah I don't need a fucking tricorder to see that" McCoy angrily spit at the Vulcan. He received only a rising eyebrow in return, but the moment was cut off from Jim throwing up again.
McCoy inhaled sharply and turned to the two other crew mates.
"Go back to the bridge, and someone get me Chapel on the way. Tell her I'm gonna need support for oxygen"
They both only continued staring at their hyperventilating Captain.
"Now, dammit!" he barked at them.
McCoy turned back to Jim, his eyebrows furrowed at his increasingly anxious state.
The Captain was leaned up against McCoy, muttering words like "Leave me alone", "Don't hurt me" and "Stay away" constantly. Something clearly had happened wherever they had just been.
Suddenly, Jim pulled away from the doctor, a frantic look in his eye.
"No, no, no-"
"Jim," the doctor grabbed his friend's jaw and turned his head towards him. "You need to calm down"
The Captain only planted his head face down onto the surface in reply, whimpering. Was he...crying?
"Jim, you need to tell me what's wrong."
As per usual, there was no reply.
"Damn it man, I can't help you if you don't let me!"
"I don't want your help"
McCoy's eyebrows furrowed in concern, staring straight at the blonde man, before reaching for a phaser on his belt.
"Do you remember thi—"
Jim instantly stood up and backed away, falling down and continuing to back off from him. "I-I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong!"
"Hey.." McCoy threw the phaser aside, meeting the hypospray. "I'm not gonna shoot you with it, stupid, I wanted to know if you remember it"
"I don't!" the Captain bellowed, shoving himself back into a corner of the platform and completely losing his grip on the world… if he hadn't already.
"Taking a phaser out on someone who is already confused, was an illogical action, doctor" Spock piped in in a matter-of-fact tone.
McCoy sighed softly, putting a supportive hand onto Jim's shoulder and standing up, giving a small glance at him before turning and walking to Spock.
"Doctor." He acknowledged.
"You can use that nerve pinch on humans right?" McCoy whispered.
"You would have me nerve pinch my Captain?"
"Well that didn't stop you before, did it?"
All of a sudden, a loud clonk let the two friends know that Jim was back on the floor again, sprawled out.
McCoy hightailed it over to Jim, signalling Spock over.
"Did you do it from a distance?" McCoy asked Spock, running his tricorder over him.
"No, that is not a feature of the nerve pinch, we must be within the range of-"
"Save it, just hold him still while I get the hypo"
Spock gently put pressure on Jim's arms, keeping him pinned to the floor if he were to awaken.
"Doctor, do you not think that we are being too rough on the Captain, and-or expressing unnecessary force to make him comply with our- or rather, your, wishes?"
McCoy blinked the information in and rolled his eyes.
"Nope," he crawled back over, hypo in hand. "Just doing what's necessary. I'm gonna find out what's wrong with the idiot, even if I have to pin him to the floor with nails and a stapler"
Spock's eyebrow took a journey to mars.
"Doctor, don't you think that's a bit extreme?"
McCoy tutted and stared Spock in the eyes.
"Spock, it was a joke."
Spock merely raised his other eyebrow to meet the other one.
Unfortunately for them, at that, Jim started to come around. And the first thing he saw was McCoy with his supposedly torturous device.
"Don't—" his face went from confusion to panic in a matter of seconds, he started to attempt to get up, but McCoy shoved him back down.
"This is gettin' stupid now, kid. I'm gonna take your scared backside to sickbay and so god help me if you try to fight me"
"Please don't, I don't know why I'm here or how I got here, but I'll go, you just gotta tell me how, just.. don't, don't please, don't use—no, DON'T"
Jim threw himself sideways at McCoy's moving arm and got out of the man's grip.
"Jim, for god sake let me help you" McCoy's forehead creased. "Damn it, where the hell is Chapel at?"
The Captain ignored him and stumbled off the transporter pad, jumping over to the controls and trying to take in the unknown information on the console. Eventually he decided to just sabotage it.
"Jim Kirk what the hell are you doing?" McCoy yelled at him from 5cm away. Jim pulled out a wire and stuck it up to McCoy's face.
"Come any closer and you—you'll be the one asking yourself for help"
"Jim, you're the Captain of this ship. We're your friends. You belong here. God bloody knows what happened to you but for the love of the different variations of the word 'dammit', you have got to let me help you!"
"I don't even know who you are!" Jim's voice cracked, obviously beginning to fail keeping his walls up.
"I'm your friend Jim, and the CMO of this god damned ship!" then he pointed to Spock who was still standing unhelpfully on the transporter pad. "And that's pointy, he's useless and annoying"
"Doctor?"
"I'm joking, try looking up the word 'joke' in the ship databanks when you have the time" McCoy scowled.
Finally, Jim couldn't take it anymore and gave up. He allowed his legs to drop him down, hitting the side of his head on the transporter console, forming a nice gash on the side of his cheek. His eyes were scrunched up, face lethal with pain, only emitting quiet groans, pale as a sheet of paper. He actively allowed himself to hyperventilate. He just didn't care anymore.
McCoy dropped down next to him and gave him a quick inspection. He forced a smile to Jim, placing a hand on his arm and gently gripping it. "Relax, Christine will be here soon"
Jim took in a gulp of air and stared at the doctor, but ultimately ignored him.
Slowly, all of the Captain's thought started to overwhelm him. He didn't know where he was, who he was, who anyone was, and quite frankly he was terrified, but somehow felt like he wasn't allowed to show it. He obviously had a home, a family, maybe he'll never see them again. He was trapped here. And seemingly had no intention to let him go.
Terror overtook his face, and there was only seconds for the two other men to prepare for Jim's panic-induced screaming.
"Jim, hey, hey, no—it's okay, quieten down—Shhh.. Be.. quiet.. just.. Jim! Ugh, it's okay! Spock?"
Spock pressed the Captain firmly down, the Vulcan's eyes was unmistakably glassy. McCoy nodded towards Jim, and Spock took a moment to decide, then manoeuvred one of his hands to Jim's shoulder. Jim thrashed and pulled him off before he could do anything. McCoy quietly muttered "dammit" when he realised Spock's emotions were actually getting the better of him—he was too upset to do a nerve pinch right now.
As if on cue, Chapel finally came frolicking into the room with numerous aids of oxygen, accompanied by several men pulling in a gurney. McCoy sighed in relief, which quickly changed his face to scrutiny.
"What the hell took you so long? He's freakin' lost it!"
"Sorry doctor, the sickbay was practically packed, there was no-one free who could help me!"
"I'll argue with you later, help me over here."
Jim gazed over Chapel, feeling like he had seen her somewhere before. His stomach churned when he saw what else was in store for him entering his line of sight. McCoy positioned his left hand over his chest in attempt to help him steady his breathing.
"S'lright kid, I'm gonna find out what's wrong with you, and then, I'm gonna fix it" he promised the kid.
Jim took in another gulp of air and listened nervously to a hissing noise that had started up, clenching his fists as he, for some reason, allowed the mask to be placed on him. He soon understood why when he realised he could breathe easier without stealing half the Earth's oxygen. If he was even on Earth. His eyes made the world spin around in circles.
He then focused on the nurse that McCoy called Christine, or Chapel. She seemed to be speaking to McCoy about something while staring at the device holding the oxygen. He couldn't hear properly, probably a result of his panicking that he seemed to be unable to keep under control. He caught McCoy nodding slightly, who then turned to give Jim a half-smile.
Almost immediately after, he noticed he was getting tired as hell. Really tired, actually. It didn't take Jim long to realise why. His eyesight faltered.
"This is gonna help, trust me" McCoy said, almost jokingly, as if he were proud of himself. "Keep taking deep breathes kid, you're gonna be okay"
He watched black fog dance around the outline of his eyesight. They clouded the corners, beginning to seep in. Black dots began helping the black clouds, covering what was left of his vision.
"No way in hell I'm losing you for a second time. Done that before. You probably don't remember, but believe me when I say I am not doing that again" McCoy's distant voice said to him. Jim was beginning to feel extremely calm now.
Spock's face came into view briefly, his lips were pursed together, his eyes were watery—it looked unnatural. There was a sting and a hiss in Jim's neck, then he completely fell limp and ended up in absolute darkness.
To Be Continued..
