Authors Note:

Thank you to all of you devoted and powerful readers, with your kind words and wonderful reviews you have completely inspired me to keep up with this story. I start work Monday night, so sadly the updates will more than likely be towards the end of the week, however if I manage to finish a chapter during the day I will post it!

Still looking for a beta! So any mistakes are my own.

Please keep up with all the lovely positive reviews, they make my day.
I'm not going to lie – writing this chapter was a struggle as I have absolutely NO medical knowledge in this day and age, let alone the future!

Special thank you to Cherie, who managed to motivate me to start this chapter. As I said, I was dreading it due to my lack of medical knowledge.
I hope you enjoy,

Please keep reviewing!


Chapter Seven

McCoy welcomed the tingling from the transporter, along with the wave of transporter nausea he always seemed to suffer every time he was beamed up or down. The second he had finished his beam up, he was at his Captain's side. Jim lay on the transporter pad unaware he had even been beamed aboard his beloved ship.

Nurse Chapel let out a gasp the second she saw the state of the Captain's sunburnt, bruised and bloodied face. She had been called over with an emergency med bag and portable bed for her captain. She had seen him battered and bruised many times but it still didn't help with the shock of seeing someone she cared about in that mess.

"Help me move him to the bed Christine!" McCoy insisted while she just stood there. Soon her medical training kicked in and she scooped up Jim's legs, without touching his heavily bruised and filthy bare foot. McCoy grabbed under his arms and together they lifted him onto the bed.

Scotty and Spock stood behind the transporter controls helpless, as they watched Jim's lifeless body leave the transporter room.

"What happened down there, man?!" Even Scotty had a hard time thinking of how they had treated his Captain.

Spock tucked his hands behind his back and turned to Scotty "The Captain was abducted by a hostile threat on the planet's surface. I was not present with him therefore I cannot tell you what they did to him. I must return to the bridge and inform Starfleet at once."

Scotty, copying Spock, also tucked his hands behind his back. "Well, I don't know about you, but after seeing that, I could do with a large scotch." He said as Spock was leaving the room.


McCoy stepped back and put his hands behind his head as he let out a deep breath. Seeing his friend laying on a biobed was never easy for him. They had finally got Jim stable but he was in a bad way.

"Well at least he's breathing. That's something." He said to Nurse Chapel, who was gently washing the grime off Jim's bare foot.

Nurse Chapel giggled as she saw his ripped golden uniform wrapped tightly round his ankle.

"Well, you can't say he didn't try to help."

"Just clean his foot please Nurse. I shall remove that once the area is clean. I hate to think of all the nasty space bugs I'm going to have to deal with now." McCoy moved back towards Jim, standing next to his head and reading the monitors above him. "He should start waking up soon." He looked back down at Jim's frail face and gently swept his hair back. "You like making my job difficult don't you kid?"


It had taken him a good hour, however Jim was still breathing. He had to have a respirator permanently attached to his burnt face, but it was something. They had to sedate Jim again as they worked on his crushed nose, using the osteogenic stimulator to stimulate the natural repair of the broken bones. He was going to need another few rounds of this stimulator with this type of break but luckily for Bones the Captain could be easily tricked into sedation. In fact, thinking of the amount of pain he was probably in, Jim would probably welcome it.

McCoy had to use the old-fashioned ice treatment on the nasty bump on his temple. Obviously, he had tripped on something after all. He had pumped Jim full of so many painkillers and other drugs to stabilise his breathing and pain that he didn't want to risk any reactions. The cut on the shrinking bump had clotted and already began to scab over itself, so that was one less job for him to worry about.

He let out another sigh as he looked back up to the monitors again, next up was sorting out that foot and God knows what he's done to that. Seeing the monitor levels in average readings was a relief to McCoy. When they first got him onto the biobed there were so many alarms he had to silence it just to be able to concentrate. McCoy turned to check the IVs they had pumping into Jim. A standard antibiotic, he knew Jim wasn't allergic to, mixed with a bit of painkiller and an extra bag to try and rehydrate him, all hung beside him.

Nurse Chapel walked over to her boss and placed a caring hand on the bicep the Breeart had previously swiped at, causing McCoy to flinch "You should take a break. You look tired."

"I need to be here. I don't know if he's reacted to any of the wildlife down there yet."

Nurse Chapel tutted and placed her hands on her hips. "Doctor McCoy. You need a break. Go and take one or I'll call Doctor M'Benga over here to declare you emotionally unfit for duty."

McCoy groaned at her, it wasn't often that Nurse Chapel stood up to her boss, but if she did, it had to be for a damn good reason and deep down, McCoy knew this. "Fine! I'll go take a shower. I won't be longer than 30 minutes."

Nurse Chapel shook her head at him. "No, you'll be longer than that. You need at least a couple of hours sleep."

McCoy let out another groan. He knew she was right, his whole body ached and screamed for a break. "Fine. But I'll be napping in my office. Any change, I want to know, asleep or not."

"Very well, Doctor. Any change I'll be first in to make sure you know."

McCoy turned on his heel as he nodded to her. He head straight for his office which was luckily right next to Jim's bed. He never liked him being too far away from him.

"Oh and Doctor!" Nurse Chapel called to her boss, before he entered the peaceful sanctuary of his office. "Don't think I didn't notice that flinch. When you're awake M'Benga needs to see that arm." She smiled to him.

"Damn it Christine. I'm fine. I'm the doctor, not the patient." He waved his arm as he quickly entered his office and smiled to himself.

She would definitely make a good doctor one day.


McCoy's office was small and stuffy, but that was nothing dropping the temperature wouldn't sort. He was far too tired to think of such things right now. He stared at the piles of PADDs on his desk and shrugged them off, darting towards the leather sofa placed in the corner of the room.

He lay on the sofa and placed his hands behind his head.

How am I supposed to nap at a time like this?!

So many thoughts swirled around in his mind as he closed his eyes, trying to relax.

He thought of Jim and all the pain he must have gone through, feeling alone and scared. Not that he would ever admit to feeling scared, well unless he was dying maybe.

Jim never showed a weakness, which was easily one of his better traits, although McCoy hated it. Jim would never ever come to sickbay voluntarily. The good side about it was that it made him want to leave sickbay, which meant he normally healed faster than the average patient.

McCoy started breathing deeply as he entered his dreamland.

He began dreaming of the nurse on the planet surface. Ahh, Nurse Harriet, now she was a sight for sore eyes… I wonder how she is now…

Thoughts of Isabella, Adam and Charlie also entered his head as he drifted into a deeper sleep.

Then the Breeart entered his mind and panic set in…

Seeing Spock swiped instead of him, Isabella calling out for his help, being too slow to reach her. His arm stinging and aching.

"McCoy…" he heard in his sleep from the young girl.

He tried running towards her, surrounded by unknown plants and leaves. He just couldn't get through the forest quick enough with his arm still aching and stinging as if he had been stung by a bee.

"I'm coming… I'm coming!" he called back.

"Doctor McCoy!" He could feel two arms placed on his, as his eyes snapped open.

He immeditatly sat straight up and panted. He was covered in sweat. His eyes focused on the familiar person holding his arms. "Nurse?" he managed to say to her between breaths.

"Are you okay, Leonard? You're covered in sweat! That must have been some dream. You were calling out to us; we could hear you from outside your office."

McCoy finally caught his breath and wiped the sweat from his brow.

"Just a dream, Nurse. I'm fine now."

That didn't stop Nurse Chapel grabbing the tricorder from his desk and quickly scanning him. She knew that doctors made the worst patients and McCoy had a reputation for being the worst patient on the whole of the Enterprise.

"Hmm…" She said out aloud. "How's the arm now? Do I need to call M'Benga in here?"

"No need Chris" He reassured his caring colleague. "It actually feels better than ever." McCoy lifted his shirt sleeve showing the nurse the green leaf bandage that Nurse Harriet had previously wrapped around his arm. He had forgotten about that.

"Oh really, doctor?" Nurse Chapel had her hands back on her hips. "Then what's this?"

She pointed at the leaf. "I've not seen that before now."

Doctor McCoy let out a sigh. There was no hiding it now. He swung his legs off the sofa onto the floor and rubbed his temple to try and soothe the headache that had started to tease him.

"It's nothing. I was swiped by a bear creature on the planet. The nurse down there tended to it. Honestly I feel much better after my sleep. How's Jim? Is he awake?"

Nurse Chapel switched from "annoyed mother" mode back to professional nurse, after seeing McCoy was, in his words 'fine', although she didn't believe him.

"No Doctor, still sleeping and all pain levels are in the normal range."

McCoy stood up and walked towards the mirror on the wall behind his desk. He still looked awful but he managed to drag a smile out.

"Thank you, Nurse. I think I will take a quick shower then."

Nurse Chapel smiled back at her boss and left his office without speaking.

McCoy took his shirt off first. Luckily, he had his own en-suite with shower joining onto his office so he didn't have to drag himself back to his quarters. He looked at himself in the mirror and rubbed his chin. I really need a shave…

He entered the bathroom and started the sonic shower. He began to remove the leaf bandage that was wrapped around his arm slowly. He expected to see heavy bruising and even deep scratches from the claws.

He couldn't look as he chucked the leaf on the floor. The warmth of the running shower had made the mirror steam up. He took a deep breath, expecting he would need to try and sneak the replicator in his office to treat himself, before anyone noticed and signed him off.

He wiped the mirror clean with his towel and opened his eyes to look at his arm. He saw nothing. Not a break in the skin, a bruise, nothing. As if nothing had even happened.

He raised an eyebrow and assumed he was just overreacting. There's no way the Hummanius had the tools or technology to treat this. Yet, there was no sign of him being swiped at all.

He shrugged his shoulders and entered the shower.


"Nothing beats a fresh clean uniform and a cup of coffee!" McCoy was full of cheer after his nap and shower. He felt much more refreshed. Another reason why he hated being part of the landing party was the dirty feeling he always had when he returned back. He stepped onto sickbay from his office and went straight towards Jim's bed. Nurse Chapel was already there, now cleaning his face. Jim had two huge black eyes from his broken nose, but that was nothing the replicator couldn't fix later. In fact, he probably wouldn't even bother using it. He was going to make sure that Jim stayed under his watchful eyes for at least two weeks with all those injuries. Then there would be check-ups and, depending on how bad his ankle was, possibly physiotherapy. It would be a lot less stressful for Jim's body to heal itself than to speed up the process.

He tucked his hands behind his back as he reached the foot of Jim's biobed.

"And how is my favourite patient?" he asked the nurse sarcastically.

"Filthy, doctor. Although, I do believe he is waking up…"

Jim's head started to roll side to side as he shut his eyes tighter before slowly reopening them.


To Be Continued...