Authors Note -

Hey, this is actually my second fanfic, however I deleted my first story due to not having the confidence to continue it. Anyway, this is my newest try! I hope you enjoy it, it would mean so so much to me if you could leave me a review, just to boost the confidence up a bit, I have no idea if what I am writing is any good or not!

I'm also REALLY struggling with Spock, so any pm's about how to make him better would be appreciated so much too.

I'm hoping to write chapter 2 tomorrow night, so please! let me know what you think :D

Updated 31/05/2014 - Now beta'ed for easy reading! ;)

Disclaimer - I DO NOT Own Star Trek, or its Characters.

Chapter One

Leonard McCoy counted up the preloaded hypos as he placed them in his bag. Normally he wouldn't have felt the need to bring so many, but going to a new planet filled with new types of plants and flowers, he knew straight up that he would need a few, what with Captain Allergy insisting he join the landing party. Even if the purpose of the mission was to examine the plants and what medical properties they may contain, he still didn't want to go. Damn space, filled with nothing but disease and darkness. Damn it, he was a doctor, not a botanist.

He heard the familiar voice of Uhura across the com as he finished putting the last of the hypos in his satchel and grabbed his trusty tricorder.

"Doctor McCoy to the transporter room".

He gave Nurse Chapel a nod as he left sickbay. "Here's hoping when I come back, I'm on my own".

Nurse Chapel grinned as he walked through the doors and they whooshed shut.

"Cheer up Bones! It'll be fun, space explorers remember?" Kirk was surprisingly upbeat, probably down to the fact he hadn't been able to explore a new planet for a while and what it had to offer before. That, and nobody really knew much of what was down there or what to expect. At least the atmosphere was safe enough not to require those claustrophobic space suits he hated so much. McCoy just gave him one of his famous "Really Jim? You're using that line on me again?" looks, with his eyebrow raised and he shook his head. Jim knew that look well. After all he had seen it many times since the whole Khan incident. It's like Bones just wanted to wrap his captain up in cotton wool and protect him, but Jim hated that thought – it was HIS job to protect his ship and his crew after all.

Now the whole landing party had finally made it into the room. They stepped onto the transporter. "Energise Mr Scott" Kirk requested as he spun on his heel to face him.

"Aye Captain."

McCoy felt the usual transporter tingle as they all beamed down onto the planet. As his vision came back into focus and the wave of transporter nausea left him, he turned around to check on the rest of the landing party; Captain Kirk, Spock and a couple of red shirts. He didn't know why he always felt the need to do that. Probably just his medical training kicking in; and he didn't trust the transporter. A machine that converted a person into energy patterns and then rematerialized the cells? That just can't be safe.

The planet looked like something out of a story book he had read to his daughter, Joanna, when she was younger. She always loved a story at bedtime and even though he was normally too busy, he always tried his hardest to read to her.

They were beamed down into a small clearing in thick humid forest, surrounded by the tallest trees he had even seen. The trunks were so solid it would take more than a phaser to cut through them. He looked down at his feet, being careful to watch his step, not knowing what could be hidden on the forest floor under the biggest leaves he had ever seen and thick overgrowing roots from the trees surrounding them.

Spock had already got his tricorder out and began taking small samples from the hot air that surrounded them. It wasn't a temperature that they were used to and sweat had already made its way onto their foreheads giving them all a shine. Well, everyone but Spock. This was easily tolerable for him as the Vulcan sun was much warmer.

"A class M planet captain, capable of withholding life forms" – confirming what The Enterprise's scanners had picked up.

Jim, who still hadn't moved much from where he had been beamed down, looked around hoping to see something more interesting than trees, but was unsuccessful. He spoke to his landing party "The scanners showed only animal life forms on the planet. Fan out and see what you can find. Report back here with your findings."

But I wouldn't expect much… he thought to himself. He missed the sense of adventure of meeting new alien species and he was determined more than ever to find it on this planet. He had a tingling feeling in his gut ever since they beamed down. Usually his gut knew best. Either that or he was hungry.

The landing party went in separate directions in an attempt to find new plants to take samples of. Jim, however, wasn't interested in plants, and he just wanted to see what else was on this planet.

He started moving north, having to beat the plants and leaves out of his way to make a path. He must have walked miles before his ears pricked up to the sound of running water. He stopped in his tracks to try and hear it better. Yes! That was clearly a stream of some sort. He started moving closer to the sound. If there was going to be anything exciting on this damn planet, surely it was going to be close to the water he heard.

Starting to see a new type of light in the trees ahead, he turned his strides into a light jog and focused on the light ahead of him. The ground below him started turning into a small decline, but the excitement had overtaken his mind, distracting him from the ground. The next thing he knew, his right foot had caught an uprooted tree root, sending him crashing to the ground with a thump. Jim hit his head hard on a perfectly placed rock, sending him straight into the darkness of unconsciousness. His limp body kept rolling down the incline he had been running down. Jim was in trouble here, not that he knew it at the time. His body finally came to a stop, thanks to the ground levelling out before the stream of water that Jim had heard prior to his fall. He must have rolled a good few meters.

He lay down on the bank, his golden shirt torn from the roots and rocks he had just rolled over, his whole body covered in cuts. Bones was going to be pissed when he found him, if he found him.

A few hours had passed and the landing party had already reassembled in the small clearing where they had originally beamed down. Small samples of different planets were already collected in glass beakers for testing aboard the ship and stacked together in a bag that Spock had brought down with him earlier.

McCoy was pacing in the clearing. He had been trying to communicate with Jim for the last 30 minutes and had no luck. Due to the magnetism under the planet's surface all McCoy could hear was mostly static. "I'm going to search for Jim" he declared to the landing party, "even you have to admit that this is out of character for him Spock".

Spock looked up from his tricorder. He had been registering the plants they had collected, naming each species and giving a small description. "Then let me assist you." He stood up and began to follow the doctor. Before they left the clearing, he turned to the two red shirts "Beam aboard with the samples, if they are not correctly stored then they will die. We will attempt to update the ship on the Captain's whereabouts in one hour. However, our communications may be compromised due to the nature of the planet's core."

The Doctor and Spock left through the clearing that Jim had already created earlier, luckily for them. Finding him shouldn't be a problem. McCoy's head started filling with all sorts of crazy situations Kirk could have got himself into. Heck, he knew it wasn't the first time after all.

To Be Continued...