'O…N…S…C…R…E…E…N…onscreen? What does that mean?' Emilia said, half to herself, as she squinted at the flashing console.

'Is that all it says?' Jim rasped, bracing himself upright with a hand on the wall, doing his best not to stare at the flashing lights because he was pretty sure he might throw up.

'Yeah, just 'onscreen'.

'Alright, so are they telling us something about the screen?'

'Maybe….or…wait, maybe they mean we're onscreen? As in, they can see us?'

'Yes! Of course! They're telling us they can see us! They'll be working on getting us help, for sure' Jim exclaimed, pushing up from the wall as adrenaline shot through him. Emilia felt a rush of hope, there was a possibility help would come soon. They knew where they were, so they knew where to send help.

'Let's get into the turbolift, there's extractor fans to get rid of the smoke,' Jim said, slipping into his 'Captain' voice. Emilia nodded and jumped to follow his orders, turning and pressing the console on the wall. Nothing happened. When the same thing happened again, she tried a manual override on the door mechanism. She thought it had worked when the display read that the door was unlocked but there was then a spark and a small puff of smoke that showed otherwise. She looked at her Captain for guidance and could almost see the despair growing in his eyes. He limped over and began pressing keys on the console. After a few unsuccessful minutes, and some more smoke, he let out a noise of frustration and slid down the wall to sit. Unsure of what was proper behaviour in this situation, Emilia nervously lowered herself to sit next to him.

They sat in silence for a few long moments as Emilia tried to think of any training she had that could help in this situation. Back at the Academy, if she'd been unsure of what to do next, she would always ask herself: What would Captain Kirk do? Unfortunately now that question didn't seem to be particularly valid because she could see right in front of her what Captain Kirk would do. Still she thought it, perhaps out of reflex, or perhaps because it was the only thing she could think to do right now.

A cough drew her attention and her head snapped over to look at Kirk. He suddenly looked very small, collapsed against the wall and veiled in smoke and she realised then that this maybe wasn't Captain Kirk- in this brief moment of despair, this was just Jim Kirk. Injured and dirty and trapped with only an Ensign for company. She realised now how young the Captain of the Enterprise really was. Looking at him now, she could hardly believe there had been time in his short life for all the dramatic events she had read about.

She let her eyes wander across the deck, shapes and colours fuzzy in the smoke. Then she spotted a vaguely red square on the wall a few metres away- an emergency hatch. They usually had fire extinguishers, phasers and…communicators. Emilia's heart skipped a beat-had she actually found the answer? She jumped up from the floor, startling Kirk with her sudden movements. She made her way over to the hatch and it was then she realised the flaw in her plan-the hatch was only unlocked when the red alert sounded.

'Captain, do you think you could override the locking mechanism on this emergency hatch?' Emilia asked, hoping there was a quick fix to this setback.

'I'm going to with yes, but I can't get to it myself,' Jim said, sounding slightly strained,

'Oh yeah, right,' Emilia said, rushing over to his side. Wishing the Captain wasn't heavier than he looked, Emilia somehow managed to get him over to open the hatch. Thanking every God in the Universe, Emilia located the standard emergency communicator and wordlessly offered it to Jim, almost singing at the look of admiration on her Captain's face. He took it, flipping it open,

'Captain to the Bridge'. After a few moments, Chekov's voice crackled through the speaker,

'Keptin! You are alive!' he announced brightly, causing Emilia to let out a quiet laugh and shake her head. Jim glanced at her and smiled tiredly,

'Yes I am, Mr Chekov, you can't get rid of me that easily. The doors on the-' before he could finish, he was hit by a vicious bout of coughs. He almost bent double trying to control the quakes that rattled his whole body. He waved the communicator, filled with the concerned babbling of Chekov, at Emilia.

'Mr Chekov? This is Ensign Chaser, the turbolift doors are stuck, we can't get out of here and the whole of engineering is filling with smoke.'

'Hold on, Emilia-um I mean Miss Chaser-I can fix zat,' Chekov said, stumbling over her name. The use of her first name took Emilia by surprise, she wasn't properly sure he knew she existed. She glanced down at Jim's face, black with ash, hoping he hadn't noticed. He wiggled his eyebrows at her and grinned, despite the breathing issues he was having. Emilia felt her ears burning hotter than the heat of the surrounding smoke and prayed the thick grey fog would be enough to cover it up. She frowned at her body's betrayal, she would not have her Captain thinking there was anything inappropriate going on between her and Ensign Chekov-which there most certainly wasn't. A sudden voice made her jump,

'Alright, zat should do it.'

With a beep, the turbolift doors slid open. Emilia almost cried in relief as she helped her Captain into the blinding white space. The doors slid shut and the extractor fans removed the smoke from the air. Both Emilia and Jim collapsed to the floor coughing and gulping in the fresh oxygen and air that had never tasted so good. Emilia lay on the floor, completely breathless even though she suddenly now had something to breathe. She rolled her head and looked over at Kirk, blowing away a wisp of auburn hair that fell into her face and felt immense relief just seeing him there, safe. She did it. He was alright. Somehow this crazy, never-should-have-happened situation seemed to be turning a corner. Maybe she was getting the hand of this adventure thing. Or maybe not-she had dropped a massive chunk of metal on her Captain, after all. In this light, she could now see the truth of his injury. Just above the top of his boot was a deep slash through the fabric and a wound beneath that was sluggishly leaking. Emilia found herself looking away to try and quench the sudden nausea that had arisen in the back of her throat. When she looked back, her nausea was replaced by a deep fear as she saw that Kirk had gone as white as the walls of the turbolift and his blue eyes had fluttered shut.

'We need to tell ze Keptin about his crew,' Chekov said, just loud enough for Sulu to hear from the Captain's chair. Sulu sighed, he knew that his friend was right. Unfortunately he couldn't bring himself to break such bad news. How could the whole crew just have vanished?

'He's right, Sulu, Jim would want to know,' Uhura said,

'Shall I reopen the line?' Sulu sighed and rubbed a hand across his eyes, squeezing them shut,

'Okay, Lieutenant.' He was just mentally preparing himself when an alarm blared across the Bridge, making his eyes fly open. It was coming from the Captain's vitals, which were still displayed on the screen.

'Goddamnit, Jim!' Doctor McCoy said, stepping closer to the display as if it would bring him closer to Jim. The blood loss levels had reached critical and he was going into shock.

'Get me that Ensign, now!' he said, never taking his eyes off the screen.

'There's no need, she's contacting us'

'Chaser to the Bridge, the Captain just passed out, what do I do?' her voice was bordering on panic, but McCoy had no time to be sympathetic,

'Where's he bleeding from?' he asked, waiting not-so-patiently for his answer.

'His leg- lower leg,' came the response.

'Ok, is he at all responsive?'

'I don't think so, he's…he's just mumbling something about…bones? Why is he talking about bones?' McCoy swallowed past the lump that rose in his throat and stoically ignored her question. He had a job to do, dammit!

'Alright, here's what you need to do.' The whole Bridge had their eyes glued to the display as the Doctor talked the Ensign through the triage of their Captain's injuries, looking quite a lot like he could do with a stress ball. Chekov looked over at Emilia's vitals and saw her elevated heart rate matching the thumping of his own-and everyone else's watching, he was sure.

Hey everyone,

I can't thank you enough for all the support I've had for this story, it means the world to me! There's not been a lot of Spock and Scotty so far because I'm sort of stuck on where to take them next so I thought I'd just leave them hanging out somewhere on the Enterprise for a bit… ~Meg