They just keep getting shorter and shorter. I know, I was just thinking the same thing. A super-special thank you to anyone who has reviewed. The more I write the more comfortable I feel, but I'm still on the hunt for a beta reader for reboot and TOS. If anyone is interested, please contact me.
Jim huddled near the entrance, taking turns staring moodily at McCoy's backside, and keeping an eye open for a search party. His stomach spasmed violently, reminding him just how hungry he really was.
The original plan was to get going as soon as they were awake, however, McCoy begged for a delay. Jim couldn't believe what he was hearing. No, no way, absolutely no, it was out of the question, he said; he was a doctor, for crying out loud, didn't he understand that they had to get moving or they'd die? He'd said. Just a little longer, McCoy listlessly pleaded. Twice, Jim tried to move him, and twice McCoy threatened to box his ears off and vaccinate him for every disease known to man if he got his hands on a hypospray. Jim let the matter rest. Along with McCoy.
When he felt that he should be rested enough, he went to rouse the good doctor. McCoy was decidedly unresponsive, rattling a throaty, frustrated sigh.
Jim quickly came to realise that the only way they were going to get moving was if he carried McCoy himself. He would have, too if not for the fact that he knew he didn't have the strength. Instead, he kept watch. Something nagged him, telling him it was pointless, but there wasn't much else to do. Some hours later, he was ill, barely making it out of the shelter without demolishing it. It surprised him he could manage to be sick a second time; his stomach had been empty for over twenty-four hours. What more could his body expel? He wondered.
He took a short walk in either direction, peering with squinted, worried eyes at nothing. Soon after, he returned to the shelter. McCoy hadn't moved an inch, nor was he shivering as violently as before. His captaincy urged him to wake McCoy and demand they get moving before the day was wasted away, but something in him calmed him, told him to stay put. He was beginning to regret that decision.
Jim shifted his body and listened to the snow beneath him crunch, and his knees click together. He attempted to warm his hands with his breath, even he could no longer feel them. His stomach did back flips as he sunk into the snow, his mind struggling to stay alert. His fingers were pale and swollen, useless. His arms still ached, which left him with a sliver of hope, but they too were slowly losing feeling. He stared down at them, angry. Exhaustion began to creep up on him. He blinked, groggily, and wet his lips. The world began to tilt, and he regarded it with a slowed, drunken sensation. He no longer could tell snow from sky, and the harder he tried, the blurrier things became. He thought he saw it snowing. Struggling to keep his mind conscious, to roll over and nudge the doctor awake, everything quickly faded to black.
* * *
The next time he opened his eyes, it was dark. It was cold, too, but not like before. This was different; this was terrifying. He sucked in a lungful of air and gasped. For all he knew, tiny ice crystals had formed in his chest cavity while he was asleep, and with every breath, they were slicing his insides to pieces. Sure as hell felt like, it anyway.
He blinked slowly and looked up, seeing white meshing with the blackest black he'd ever seen. It was then that he realised he hadn't closed off the entrance way, and that the cold had crept in that way. He made an attempt to push a pile of snow towards it, but gave up. All he wanted to do now was sleep. The second his lids closed, it was as if his brain had been jumpstarted, his slate wiped clean.
Where was he? He stiffened, alarmed that the answer did not immediately come to him. He was... he was on a planet. Yes a planet. Why? Why was he on a... His head bobbed and his chin touched his chest. A signal, something about a signal. A signal? What kind of signal? What was wrong with him? Another deep intake of breathe, more stabbing pain in his chest. The floodgates opened and panic surged through his body, and for a moment, he felt warmed.
'Bones,' He weakly gasped.
He needed to talk, he needed to hear that gruff voice tell him that freezing to death really wasn't all that bad, and what you really had to watch out for was solar flares and hull breaches. He needed to treat this as if it was a joke, or he knew it would tear him apart. It took everything he had to contain the panic building up in his chest, and he almost smirked at the realisation that he was the spitting image of Bones when they had first met. Paranoid, jittery, anxious. He nearly laughed, and instead, in a moment of clarity, flung his arm back, intending to wake the hibernating doctor was rudely as he himself had been woken. Maybe McCoy would roll over and tell him off, and they would stare at each other and eventually start laughing, and talk about the first thing they planned to do when they were back aboard the Enterprise.
When Jim's arm struck nothing, the blood drained from his face. He forced himself onto his side, his arms numb and useless, and felt the breath forced out of him like a fist to the gut. McCoy was gone. His eyes flicked around in dismay. He drew his brow together and cursed. The shelter was small, he was clearly alone. He dragged himself to the entryway and, despite the onslaught of what felt like hail the size of golf balls slamming into the side of his face; he forced the upper half of himself out into the open.
'Bones!' He hollered, amazed at how quickly the wind swallowed his voice. 'Bones! Where are you?'
Where the hell had he gone? Had he been taken? If so, by who? And why had he been left behind?
Panic surged through him. It was one of those strange moments where he had to admit to himself: he didn't know what to do. On one hand, he could leave the safety of the shelter and look for his friend. It seemed logical to him, even when he knew that finding his way back would be impossible in the storm, and that the likelihood of finding him at all was slim. On the other hand, the idea of retreating to the snow-dwelling made his gut wrench in guilt, but he knew at least in the shelter he stood a chance.
He unzipped his coat and slapped his hand across his badge. 'Bones. Bones come in! McCoy!' He cried, desperate.
The cold bit at his face and hands. Swallowing back angry tears, he watched helplessly as his body shifted into autopilot and crawled back into the shelter. He hit his comm. badge once, twice, thrice more, and choked back what he couldn't convince himself was a sob.
'Damn it, Bones! Goddamnit!'
He was alone.
