AN—Why does this always happen? I was planning on putting up this portion like a week ago. Two weeks ago, even, but then real life got the better of me. Yikes. From now on, I'm gonna try and stick to a schedule of updating once or twice a week, but sorry if I fall behind! Also-I changed the composition of this piece so it'll be in 7 bits now—at first I was planning on lumping a few portions together, but I think it'll flow better as a longer story. Thanks y'all for reading, reviewing, alerting, favorite-ing, and generally being awesome. I hope you continue to enjoy this story and—as always—please review! Dankeschön!

Disclaimer—Not mine!

1. Bones

The shuttlecraft was old—that was for certain—and Kirk only had a vague idea of how the alien technology actually worked, not to mention he could tell that it hadn't been used in a long time—not for years perhaps. But that also meant it would be easier and faster to break into, and that was exactly what they needed at the moment.

"There's nothing for it, Bones," Kirk said, staring down at it in tired resignation, "We're gonna have to take it."

"What?" He felt Bones shift his hold around his shoulders in order to see him better. "No. No way in hell, Jim."

"Well," Kirk replied reasonably, fighting back the bile in his throat, "D'you have any better ideas?"

"Oh I don't know," McCoy shot back. "How about not getting captured in the first place? How about never having to escape because we made the smart decision and resolved things straight from the Enterprise? How about leaving things well enough alone?"

"Sorry," Kirk said, shooting McCoy an all-too-innocent grin, "But it's a little too late for all those things, so it looks like the shuttle's our only option. You good?" He winced, the pain in his stomach giving him a particularly unpleasant stab at that exact moment. He ignored it and looked questioningly back at McCoy.

McCoy stared at him for a full five seconds. "No!" he said, and Kirk saw a flash of real panic steal across the doctor's face before it was replaced with anger. "No, I am not 'good'! You know damn well I'm no pilot, and you—you can't even stand up straight, let alone fly a shuttle! I can't let you do that—we'll find some other way. There's gotta be another way."

Kirk opened his mouth, prepared to tell McCoy that he was absolutely fine, but before he could, a shudder ran up his spine and he began to cough raggedly. Red flecks splattered his hand and sweat ran down his face, and though he couldn't feel them at the moment, he could tell that his and legs were shaking with exertion. Their captors had hit him with something strong, that was for certain, but if he and McCoy didn't move quickly, those same captors would find them again and they would both be in for far worse than what they had endured so far. They needed that shuttle.

But Kirk's moment of weakness was all McCoy needed to seal his fear and before Kirk could speak, he said with determination, "We are not taking that thing. You can't—"

Kirk didn't let his friend get any farther. "Look," he said through another racking cough. He wiped the blood from his mouth impatiently with a dirtied sleeve and continued, "All we have to do is fly that thing up into the atmosphere, hack the communications and let the Enterprise know where we are. They'll see us, beam us out, and that'll be the end of it. Five minutes. That's all it'll take. Just five minutes."

McCoy shifted on his feet, still uneasily eyeing the foreign contraption. "You do know how many things could go wrong, don't you? One tiny crack in the hull means we'll be dead within fifteen seconds of entering space. One damaged engine means we'll hurtle back down to the atmosphere and burn because of it."

"Yeah, but on the other hand, it might actually work. Bones, we gotta take a chance on this."

The two friends stared at each other, Kirk determined, McCoy apprehensive.

McCoy paused. Kirk knew from the assessing glance his friend gave him that McCoy was worried about Kirk's rapidly deteriorating condition. But after a moment something seemed to resolve in McCoy's eyes and he shifted Kirk's arm more solidly around his shoulders. "Five minutes?" he asked grimly.

"Not a second more," Kirk replied, nodding slightly.

"Then let's do this," McCoy said and heaved Kirk forward into the suffocating confines of the alien shuttle.

It was dark inside, and musty, and they had to do a weird sort of do-si-do to get them both in at the same time, McCoy supporting Kirk, and Kirk listing oddly to the side. Finally McCoy succeeded in depositing Kirk into one of the rickety chairs in front of the dashboard and he took the seat next to it somewhat reluctantly. Kirk watched as the doctor strapped himself in, and he didn't miss it, despite his own less than coherent condition, when McCoy's eyes darted ever so quickly around the shuttle's interior as if categorizing everything about it that was unsafe or in danger of complete and utter failure.

"You gonna be okay?" he asked McCoy with a half smile, eyeing the tense doctor askance through half-closed lids.

"Just get us the hell out of here," McCoy said gruffly through his teeth, turning to Kirk and pulling the straps tight around his friend's shoulders.

"You got it," Kirk replied, and he sat up straighter, flipping a switch and punching the ignition. The shuttle groaned into life. Kirk shook his head, irritated, trying to shrug off the feeling of fever burning behind his eyelids, and steeled himself to the thought of piloting the shuttle. It wouldn't take long, he reasoned. It would just be a quick trip. Just like a flying exercise back at the Academy. His vision seemed to be tipping ominously, but he took a deep, calming breath and gripped the controls steadily. He was on the point of detaching from the dock when McCoy suddenly spoke up after an oddly long silence.

"What happens," McCoy asked abruptly, "when they see us take off in their shuttle? I mean, their sensors can't be that bad. They may not be the smartest, Jim, but they can put two and two together…"

"I'll fly us low for a while—that should keep them in the dark for a while at least. We only have to keep going long enough to contact the Enterprise," Kirk said while he worked, taking the shuttle, groaning and clanking off the ground. He wiped a bit of sweat off his forehead with a quivering hand.

"It won't take long for them to see us, Jim," McCoy pointed out in a low growl.

"Well, we're just gonna have to be fast, Bones," Kirk answered, avoiding McCoy's eyes as he piloted the shuttle slowly out of the hangar. It jolted and pitched ever so slightly as it protested at the movement after so long being dormant.

McCoy didn't answer him, apparently too angry or too afraid for words, but Kirk took no notice, flying the shuttle out into the shocking daylight slowly and carefully, checking the sensors once every few seconds, sure that the enemies would see them and their little venture would end far more abruptly than it had started.

He flew the shuttle this way and that, careful, wary—slow and steady was the trick, slow and steady. But as the minutes and the silence between the two occupants of the shuttle stretched, Kirk could feel a shiver pass down his spine, and his vision sparked with white lights. His mouth tickled with vomit and the tang of bloody acid. He clamped his jaw shut. He knew he couldn't hold this sickness at bay for much longer—he had to make a move before he lost control completely. His hands twitched on the controls and they shot rapidly upward, and McCoy gave a yell of shock.

"Jim, what are you doing?" came his panicked cry.

They broke through the first layer of low hanging clouds with a rush and a whirr, and for one glorious moment, Kirk thought they were in the clear—that it would really be that easy, but it was then that a single flashing light in the corner of the console caught his attention and his already heaving stomach pitched clear into his throat.

"Shit."

"What?" McCoy asked tensely, not taking his eyes from the viewscreen, "What happened?"

Kirk barely even heard him as the shuttle began to shake with speed and he feverishly tried to blink away the effects of whatever the aliens had hit him with, trying determinedly to correct his error. But his fingers were slow, far too slow to fix what had gone so horribly wrong.

"Jim!" McCoy's voice snapped next to him, and he could hear the dread rising in his friend's voice. "What happened?"

"I…" Kirk said, glancing up at McCoy and then back to the console. His vision was refusing to behave properly. White spots popped before him and the lights of the console suddenly seemed blurred and over bright. "I…" He tried again, swallowing, but something huge and monstrous felt like it was clawing its way up Kirk's throat and he could do nothing to fight it off any longer. The world pitched suddenly and he lost track of everything—the console, McCoy, the shuttle—as his body emptied itself of what felt like every vital substance within it. It stopped as suddenly as it had started, but his stomach remained tense, and Kirk lapsed into dry heaves until he felt McCoy's soft hands supporting his shoulders.

He reeled dazedly. Brushing McCoy's hands off with an obstinate shake, he blinked to clear his vision. A dark red substance splattered the keypad in front of him, the front of his uniform, and bits of the floor, but he only gave them a passing glance. He had other things to worry about.

"I tripped the base's sensors," he said to McCoy, heaving. Their eyes locked. "They've seen us."

No sooner had he said it then the shuttlecraft gave an almighty jolt and they both pitched forward, alarms blaring simultaneously as all turned to absolute chaos. Kirk lurched onto the console and attempted to gain control of the shuttle once more, but a second blast caught the opposite side of the ship and further alarms sounded. Cold sweat slicked Kirk's face and hands and he swayed unsteadily, hands feverishly flying across the controls, but the shuttle was lagging, spinning out of control, and he knew that they were going to crash—that much couldn't be avoided—but if he could just break into the communications barrier…

"Jim! Jim!" McCoy's whitened face swam out of the air beside him. He felt McCoy's grip on his arm, but he didn't stop moving his hands across the dashboard. "Tell me what to do. You have to tell me what to do!"

Alarms shouted and confused him, the shuttle shook uncontrollably, McCoy was yelling, and Kirk knew that he had to focus; he had to save them both, but the white lights were back, and the monster inside his throat had clawed its way up once again. Sounds had become blurred and the world outside seemed to slow down. With the breath he had remaining, he gasped out to McCoy beside him, "Take them… take the controls… Jus'… just hold on… I can… I can do it…"

A keening pain shot through his abdomen, and he doubled over, retching. Bile rose up his throat once more and he involuntarily spat a mouthful of dark vomit over the console. He knew more was coming, threatening to overpower him, but he swallowed it back long enough to enter three more keystrokes with shaking hands. Communications crackled and he gave a short bark of triumphant laughter, but no sooner had he opened a channel then the sickness mastered him completely.

Vomit spilled out of his mouth with such force that it splattered all over the floor, and he was sure, though he couldn't quite see anything, that he had gotten it all over McCoy's uniform. He could not stop the flow, however, and he shook violently as his body expelled whatever there was left of his stomach onto the interior of the shuttle. It only subsided when he felt he had expelled his own vital organs and he slumped shivering in his chair, no longer able to move any of his muscles. They twitched involuntarily and he had confused views of a rapidly approaching forest, hurtling toward them with such speed that he was sure he was dreaming.

Something seemed to be wrong with his hearing as well. It kept going in and out, mixing muffled shouts of his name with the too-loud bangs and cracks of the failing shuttle. His head flopped to the side and he had a blurred view of McCoy grabbing onto the controls for dear life, yelling the whole way.

His hearing came back long enough to hear McCoy shout, "IF YOU DIE, I'LL KILL YOU, JIM!"

And then he was gone, sinking into a field of dark, simply unable to remain conscious any longer…

…

He awoke to the sound of an odd mechanical beeping and whirring, but he kept his eyes shut, too tired to open them just yet. He clenched his hands on something gloriously soft beneath him and sniffed the air just barely, testing. It smelled wrong to his nose; sterile and far too clean. Sickbay—it had to be. He groaned and shifted, trying to remember exactly what had happened that would land him here in such a state.

"You back with the living, Jim?" a rough voice said above him.

Kirk groaned again. "Wha—? What happened?" he mumbled, coughing feebly. His head throbbed achingly and when he attempted to open his eyes, a stabbing light from above made him move to shield himself from it, but someone grabbed his arms and after a moment the light dimmed.

"What happened?" repeated the voice of McCoy from somewhere above him, "I'll tell you what happened. You passed out after hacking communications and then vomiting all over the keypad. Chose the perfect time to go unconscious, by the way. Engines down, aliens attacking, and pilot out for the count… I managed to hail the Enterprise but it wasn't until after we crashed and those aliens started circling around that they beamed us out. You should really talk to Engineering about cutting out this beaming-out-just-in-the-nick-of-time crap. It would keep everyone's blood pressure a lot lower if they would just speed it all up."

"Oh. S-sorry," Kirk slurred.

"Sorry?" McCoy repeated testily, "What for—the part where you said it'd only take five minutes or the part where you passed out and made me crash land the goddamned shuttle?"

"No," said Kirk hazily, screwing up his face in an attempt to remember, "I think I threw up on you. 'S gross. 'M sorry."

McCoy's voice sounded exasperated. "I definitely have you on the good stuff, don't I?" Kirk saw his vague form pause to check something on the console by the bed. McCoy sighed and turned back to Kirk. "Eh, don't worry about it anyway," he said, "You can throw up on me as much as you like, so long as you don't ask me to fly again soon."

Kirk tried to chuckle, but it only came out as a weak sort of gurgle.

"Hey, Bones?" he asked suddenly. Kirk could feel the unconsciousness looming, ready to take him, but he wanted to voice this one last thought before he gave in. Somehow it felt very important.

"Yes, Jim?" McCoy answered back, his voice somehow distant.

Kirk's eyes slid closed and he let himself float for a moment in between sleeping and waking. "Thanks… for the whole flying thing… I'm glad we're not… you know… dead."

"Yeah, well…" McCoy said from a long way off, "I wasn't gonna let that happen, now was I?"

Kirk gave one last grateful snort of laughter before sleep claimed him for good, and he sunk down into the warmth of the bed around him, thoughts scattering into the calm of a deep black…

...

"Wow," said Cal at the end of Kirk's story.

"Yeah," Kirk said, "Wow about does it."

"Jim?" she asked quietly after a pause.

"Yeah?"

"He's a really good friend, isn't he?"

"Yeah. Bones'll do just about anything to protect his pack. He's sort of like a big mama bear that way." Kirk paused. "I'm really lucky to have him."

They sat like that in silence for a few moments; Kirk pensive, Cal snuggled up against his arm.

"Jim?" she asked again.

"Yeah?"

She scooted a bit closer. "He was really brave, wasn't he?"

"Yeah, he was."

Pause.

"Do you think I can be that brave?"

Kirk looked down at her. "Are you kidding? Of course you can! You're every bit as brave as Bones."

She only shook her head.

"Look," he said, "Would it make you feel better if I told another story?"

"Yeah," she whispered.

"You'll like this one," he assured her. "It's about how a singular woman faced down an entire alien army and saved a friend and me with only one Christmas Clementine."

Cal looked at him through narrowed eyes. "You're making that up," she accused him.

"Maybe I am," Kirk said as mysteriously as he could, "and maybe I'm not. You'll just have to listen and see."

"Okay, but I'm not saying I believe you yet…"

"To tell the truth, I wouldn't believe me either. But it does make a really great story. Let me just say that it's a really good thing Uhura played baseball so much with her brothers when she was a kid…"

To be continued…