Authors Note: Thank you so much for all the kind reviews and private messages, it really encourages me to continue with the story more, I've been waiting near enough all day to start typing this! I hope you enjoy, please drop me a review as I said, it fills me with more and more confidence. Any mistakes are my own and I am still struggling with Spock, so any advice is welcomed again.

31/05/2015 - Now Beta'ed for easy reading ;)

Chapter Two

Jim bolted straight up from the now damp floor, panting heavily for breaths. His eyes slowly came into focus and he noticed that it was a lot darker than before. How long have I been out? Oh shit. His head hurt. He let out a groan and rubbed the front of his head instinctively, feeling a rather large raised bump. He moved his hand back down and checked for blood. Yep, blood too. Bones was going to be more than pissed. He let go of another groan and looked ahead. Well, at least he had found the source of the sound he had been following.

He very feebly attempted to stand and failed. The second he tried to put weight onto the foot, he tripped and he was on his backside. Great, he thought, just great. Jim reached for his communicator attached to his belt to realise it was no longer there. He assumed it had come unattached from him during his fall, along with his phaser. Even better!

He let out a huge sigh. Okay, time for a "self-diagnosis" as Bones would call it. First up was his head. He reached to check the bump and drew in a gasp. Yep, that's still there, but at least the blood had dried now. The salty sweat from the forest's humid temperature made the cut sting but it wasn't anything he couldn't cope with.

Next, he checked his arms by flapping them like a bird. Other than the odd graze, they were fine. His thighs were just the same, however as he bent his knee and his right ankle moved he felt a huge wave of pain. He felt his boot getting tighter around his foot. He had to get his boot off before his foot swelled too much. Luckily, Jim was easily able to carefully lift his foot and take his boot off without a problem. He didn't think it was broken, just a sprain, but then again his medical knowledge hasn't done him that much good in the past.

He thought back to the time he had ignored a gash in his back caused by an unknown creature on one of those "straight-forward missions" they had been on. He had failed to mention to the doctor that it had even occurred, as he had been feeling fine. Until one week later, he woke up in sickbay after suffering a severe infection that resulted in thirty stitches and a blood transfusion.

He shook his head to himself. Nope, I'm pretty sure this is just a sprain, positive thinking and all that. I just need to get the swelling down a bit. He looked around at the darkening forest. He was pretty sure he wasn't going to find ice, but it didn't hurt to look. They were on a strange planet after all. He let out yet another sigh and bowed his head, letting the sweat drops slide down his face and drip from the tip of his nose. He closed his eyes trying to soothe the pounding in his head and listened out for any calls of his name. Surely someone was looking for him by now? But rather than hearing the voices of his crew calling out to him, he was distracted by a rustling sound in the overgrown bushes in front of him. He opened his eyes and looked ahead. The whole green leafy bush rustled. There was something in there. Luckily, there was that river in front of him. He just prayed whatever it was, couldn't swim.

Jim quickly took off what was left of his gold shirt and began to tear it so that it made one long strip. Trying not to take his eyes off the moving bush,( please be friendly, please be friendly, please be friendly he chanted to himself), his breathing turned into a panicked pant as he started to wrap his bare ankle in his shirt to support it. If there was anything he had remembered from Basic Interplanet First Aid classes in the Starfleet Academy, it had to be this. He started to feel thankful about how every single cadet was made to pass the class before they could graduate, even if he did pass by the skin of his teeth. Thanks to Bones who had given him a few pointers just hours before the exam.

He tied a knot with his shirt and gritted his teeth as he tightened it. He had to move and quickly but before he had the chance, a giant bear like creature backed out of the bush. Jim froze. This bear-like creature was easily the biggest he had ever seen, with massive powerful looking paws, it was covered in thick black fur. Why it would need such a coat on this planet with this temperature, crossed Jim's mind, as he sat there frozen solid trying not to make a sound. Hopefully if it didn't hear him, it wouldn't feel the need to turn around.

But, he was wrong. Sweat continued to drip down the side of his face. He wasn't sure if it was the humid heat of the forest or the fact that he wasn't sure how to escape this monster if it could swim.

The creature turned and Jim took a breath of air in quickly. He felt the colour of his face drain. The bear was now facing him. However it acted as if it hadn't seen him. Jim had a puzzled look on his face that made him frown and he was reminded of his bump on the head as it let out a throb of pain. He moved his head to the side out of curiosity and waved his arms around, not that he was expecting it to wave back (although that would be quite amusing). Not a single reaction from the bear. Jim squinted his eyes to try and get a better look at the creatures face. It was then that he noticed the long thick wire-like whiskers surrounding its nose and the lack of eyes. He took one huge sigh of relief. Finally some luck! It was blind! Well thank fuck for that.

Jim let the bear-like monster continue to graze on the leaves of the huge shrub it had come out of, the last thing he wanted to do was make it mad.

His ankle continued to swell and throb in sequence with his head. His ripped, golden shirt was still tightly holding his ankle in place. He picked his leg up, off the damp floor and scooted closer to the stream. Every move he made, his body shuddered with pain from somewhere or the other, everything hurt. He moved so that his whole right leg hovered over the stream. This has got to be better than nothing. He slowly put his foot into the stream. The water was cool, soothing and luckily there wasn't a current that he had to fight. Jim lay back on the bank of the stream. Now this was pain relief. He soon forgot about the pain in most parts of his body and placed his hands behind his head.

I'll just lay here for a while. He looked up at the clear sky. The planet's sun was still slowly setting and the air around him was settling into a more comfortable temperature. He took a deep breath and shut his eyes, listening to the peaceful noises of the bear across the stream, still grazing, and hoping to hear from his friends soon. He was so comfortable, he didn't want to move. Even though he was in pain and away from his ship, he hadn't felt this relaxed in a while. He let out a yawn and the bump on his head started throbbing again. Just five minutes wouldn't hurt, would it? And with that final thought, he let the darkness of unconsciousness swallow him up again.

Leonard McCoy thought it was the "logical" thing to let Spock lead the way, seeing as he was a much better tracker than himself. He was a doctor, not a damn hunter. Even though he had lost count of the amount of times he had been sent on a giant goose chase for his friend.

An hour had almost passed and his feet ached. Spock walked much faster than him. "Hold up Spock" McCoy leant against one of the giant tree trunks and wiped his sweaty brow with his sleeve. Spock turned to McCoy and raised an eyebrow and placed his hands behind his back. "I do not see how leaning against trees will help us locate the Captain, Doctor. However, I will attempt to make contact with the ship." He pulled his communicator off his belt and opened it.

McCoy slumped against the tree trunk to rest his feet. Usually, walking for an hour wouldn't have bothered him, if it had been at a manageable pace and he didn't have to concentrate so hard on not tripping on uplifted roots. The sun had started to set making it even harder to see without squinting his eyes.

"Spock to Enterprise, Spock to Enterprise, do you read me?"

He tried different channels but only got the same annoying sound of static. However, that didn't stop Spock trying to reach them.

McCoy stood back up on his tired feet. While Spock was engaged in making contact with the ship, he thought he would give this "tracking" thing a better go. He squinted his tired eyes together to try and get a better view of what was around them - nothing but thick trees and overgrown roots.

He can't have gone much further… McCoy walked over to a larger root and stood on top of it, hoping that a higher view would be a better one. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called out to his missing friend "Jim! Can you hear me? Jim!" No response.

Spock stood at the bottom of the root with his hands behind his back again.

"Communications have been compromised as suspected Doctor. I cannot make contact with the ship in our current situation."

McCoy looked down at Spock and raised his eyebrow, as if to give his "really?" look, the very same look he found himself giving Jim earlier in the transporter room. He looked back up one last time and something caught his eye. "Spock! Over there!" he pointed a little further north, where the ground started to drop. Spock started running, not even having to look at the floor to mind the roots, while McCoy carefully climbed down and moved towards Spock at a slower pace.

Spock stopped in his tracks and bent down, examining the floor. When McCoy had finally caught up he looked up to him, after examining the floor for the slightest indentation in a leaf or the dirt, "the Captain was indeed here." He stood up and continued walking forward, down the slight decline of the hill. McCoy was sure he had spotted something around here from the raised root he had just been on. As Spock continued moving forwards, he waited and looked around with his strained eyes. Suddenly, he spotted it.

McCoy went over to the perfectly placed rock and knelt next to it, "Spock over here!" he called out to the First Officer. "Do you see what I see?" he said pointing to the dark red patch on the rock.

"Yes, Doctor" Spock reached forward with his outstretched hand to touch the red substance, but he stopped himself and pulled his tricorder out, running it over the red patch. "Blood, containing some properties the scanner cannot determine."

They both knew exactly what that meant. McCoy stood up like a rocket and started looking around in hope to find his friend. "Its Jim, it has to be Jim's new super blood!"

"It is logical to say that the captain could have tripped and fallen on this rock, injuring himself in some way. However Doctor, this does not explain why the Captain isn't here."

McCoy really wasn't listening to Spock. The fact they had found a rock with Jim's blood on was enough to send him into 'CMO mode'. They needed to find Jim and they needed to find him quickly. An open wound meant dirt, disease, infection and most likely allergic reactions for his friend.

They started heading down the incline. "It could be possible that the Captain may have tripped and rolled down towards that stream's bank". McCoy looked at the back of Spock's head, who was leading again, still not really listening to him. Right now he didn't care how the Captain got hurt, he just needed to find him.

They reached the bank of a stream and saw a patch of squashed down bushes and leaves.

McCoy moved closer to the river bank and found a Starfleet issue black boot on the floor. "Jim's, it has to be" he said to Spock as he picked the boot up off the floor.

"I agree Doctor. However the Captain is not here now."

They had a clear view of the stream bank and there was nothing except for just an imprint on the bank where Jim had once been. "So where is he now?" McCoy could feel his heart beating and the hairs at the back of his neck rising. This can't be good.

To Be Continued...