Seems like we can't decide who is going to get more of an ass-kicking when Spock and McCoy get hold of them! The answer to that question is on its way soon. For now though have a bit of a calm before the storm in which Bones is tormented, Joanna is totally a McCoy, and Riley is a foreshadowing cloud of doom.

Congrats though! We are a third (kinda) of the way through. And technically I have yet to properly whump Jim, so do I get a prize? Someone asked me if I can't give the boy a break... of course not! That's the whole point of these things. Plot, character development...sure, I mean, they are fun and all, but I I know I'm here for the whump! :p

McCoy was torn. Now that Jo was safe in his arms again, just the thought of leaving her made him dizzy with nausea.

Likewise, the thought of Jim out there alone, taking who knew what kind of trauma to an already compromised system was equally distressing.

And since he wasn't about to take his traumatized daughter right back into danger, and he couldn't imagine letting anyone look after Jim instead of him, he felt for all the world like he was being asked to choose between his daughter and his best friend.

How could he do that?

Jim's absence wasn't just distressing him, either. Jo hadn't stopped crying since she'd crawled into his arms, and his heart was raw with the knowledge that nothing he could do would erase the last few days from her memory.

She was underweight, but not malnourished, and not as dehydrated as he might have expected since she spent a day hiding in the forest. There were shallow scrapes on his hands and knees and a few dotted bruises on her shins where she'd clearly run into something solid, but she was, remarkably, otherwise unharmed. Just as Jim had promised she would be.

McCoy was only half paying attention to the plans being discussed around him. His focus was on Jo and the constant stream of tears. She wanted Uncle Jim and couldn't understand why her daddy, who had never before failed to provide her with anything she'd ever wanted, wasn't working one of his usual miracles.

He'd long ago gotten over the spark of jealousy that had flared when Jim and Joanna were together. They could both quite easily forget that he was even in the same room with them sometimes. Jim was Joanna's friend, confidant, co-conspirator, dress up doll, big brother and amazingly cool uncle, all rolled into one. Joanna, McCoy suspected sadly, was Jim's way of ensuring that come hell or high water someone got the childhood he'd never been allowed: one filled with love and safety. And god help him, all either of them had to do to turn McCoy to mush was turn those big eyes on him pleadingly – done in tandem it had a hundred percent success rate.

"Shhhs, sweetheart. It's going to be okay baby, I promise." McCoy soothed, stroking Jo's hair as best he could amidst the tangles.

"Doctor McCoy," McCoy looked up, still holding Joanna close, and was surprised by the unexpected compassion he saw in Spock's unfathomable eyes. "Ensign Riley will be escorting you and your daughter back to the shuttle and overseeing your safety while we attempt to rescue the captain."

Usually, Spock's formal, impersonal way of speaking was a great source of irritation to McCoy. For some odd reason, he found it reassuring in that moment. When Spock set out to do something, he would inevitably find a way to do it - whether that was to accept the blame for his actions and in doing so throw Jim under the bus, or hunt down the man who had murdered his first real friend.

But once again, McCoy was torn. "I should-"

"You should take care of your daughter." Spock said kindly. "Jim would want that. He sacrificed himself to ensure her safety: do not make that effort be in vain."

McCoy couldn't help the way he was thrown back into those hellish moments when they had brought Jim's body to him. Jim had sacrificed himself then as well.

"Just bring him back to me." McCoy said roughly. "I'll patch him back up and we can take it in turns to wring his scrawny neck."

Spock nodded very seriously then crouched down so he was Joanna's height. "I am pleased to see you safely returned to your father."

Joanna's lip trembled but the stubborn tilt to her jaw was an expression McCoy had seen on Jim far too often. Jim might have been the best person McCoy knew, but he sure as hell did not want his daughter growing up to be like him – he wanted her to be safe and happy and innocent: things Jim Kirk never would be.

"You promised you'd look after him for me." Joanna accused Spock, brutally honest as only children could be when they sensed a shortcoming in the adults around them.

McCoy could have sworn Spock's shoulders damn near drooped. "Forgive me." He spoke to Joanna, but McCoy was worried the damn Vulcan was taking this far more personally than he had the right to. "I will endeavor to rectify my failures and return him to your care."

Joanna nodded her acceptance and Spock stood, nodding to McCoy and returning to the other officers.

She had been very protective of Jim while he'd been in hospital, to the point where she'd questioned McCoy on every single thing that he did, refused to let anyone be alone with Jim, and had easily managed to cajole him into things that usually took McCoy hours and a great deal of shouting.

She handled the upset of seeing Jim so ill by doing exactly what her father did – bossing Jim around and fretting. It was how McCoy had always coped with things when he was upset or worried and it was one of the many reasons why he and Jim worked so well: McCoy needed to fuss, and Jim needed an excuse to be taken care of that he could justify internally.

He was startled out of his thoughts by the arrival of Kevin Riley by his side. He forced himself to meet the kid's gaze, an apology on his tongue for the last time they had spoken. Riley smiled sympathetically and shook his head before adopting the same position Spock had taken. "Hi," he said, his voice friendly and soft, "I'm Kevin. You must be Joanna; Jim's told me all about you."

It occurred to McCoy then that there were a few people there that Jo had not met before, Riley included. He scolded himself for not remembering, but Joanna didn't seem all that concerned. She pressed her cheek against McCoy's leg, still clinging to him tightly, and muttered a very quiet hello.

Riley beamed at her, his young face open and nonthreatening. "So I hear you've had a pretty rough couple of days." He said sympathetically. "You must be really brave." Jo shook her head against McCoy's leg and his fists clenched at his side. "I dunno, I'm not sure I'd have been as brave as you."

McCoy was about to tell him to give it up as a lost cause. Sometimes she could be shy, especially when she was tired or upset. Trying to draw her out took effort.

But his little girl was brave, and far bolder than she had ever been before. She raised her head and looked at Riley very seriously. "I had to be," she said, sounding so much older than her tender years, "Uncle Jim told me so."

McCoy saw something very fond and very warm spark in Riley's eyes. "He told me that too, once." Riley informed her quietly. "When I was no bigger than you."

"Were you?"

"Not as much as I wish I'd been," Riley said regretfully. "But it was okay, because Jim took care of me and he was very brave."

Joanna nodded. "He's captain of a starship." She announced proudly. "He and my daddy saved the planet, even though daddy has av-i-o-pho-bia." She sounded the word out phonetically and McCoy made himself a mental note to smack Jim around the head the next time he saw the brat.

Riley did an admirable job of not laughing. "That's pretty impressive. How about you and your daddy come with me to your Uncle Jim's new shuttle and I can tell you some funny stories?"

"About when he was little like me?" Jo asked curiously. Sometimes McCoy wondered if she'd inherited anything from her mother besides a withering glare and her love of pretty things. Cursing himself, he fished out his comm and sent Joce a message, telling her that Jo was safe and they would call as soon as they could.

"Yep." Riley said. McCoy glared at him, not wanting Jo to hear any stories about Tarsus. Riley actually had the nerve to roll his eyes. "I'll tell you some of the stories he used to tell me and my friends. We thought he was a superhero." Riley whispered conspiratorially.

Jo surprised him by leaning closer to Riley and whispering back. "He told me my daddy actually is a superhero and that he only wears his costume on special occasions." She glanced up at McCoy as if still trying to decide if she believed it or not.

Riley did laugh that time and McCoy's eyes burned.

He forgot, sometimes, that while Jim might have been his best friend, for the longest time, McCoy had been Jim's only friend. Jim was so quick to throw himself into harms way that the little things he did sometimes got lost in the middle. Drugging himself to pass his physicals was such a Jim thing to do that the actual reality - Jim drugged himself to take a test he had been banned from taking for damned good reasons, then blackmailed an Admiral and did who knows what to secure a Presidential shuttle – never quite sunk in. There had never been anyone in McCoy's life that had shown him the kind of devotion Jim did, and he knew without a shadow of doubt that Jim held him on a pedestal that had only ever been shared by Christopher Pike.

He thought back to the moment Jim had found him after his disastrous attempts at opening a torpedo with Carol Marcus. He'd never seen Jim so openly distressed, and all at the thought of losing McCoy.

He let Joanna lead him back towards the shuttle as she followed Riley, her fear and her trauma set aside for the time being in favor of her curiosity. McCoy recognized it for what it was – the sweet innocence in his daughter that hadn't left her, despite his fears, and he swore to himself that when they got Jim back, he was sitting the damn fool down and telling him what he should have been saying right from the very start.

Joanna made it only half way through the story of how Jim wrestled a bear – it wasn't a bear, Riley later told him – before she fell asleep on McCoy's knee, clean and healed and wrapped in soft pajamas with piles of blankets covering them both. He kept his fingers running through her tangle free hair, having to remind himself over and over again that she was safe.

Riley handed him a steaming mug of coffee. "Figured you'd want to stay awake until we hear something." He said softly.

McCoy accepted with a grateful nod of thanks. He had his PADD resting on the arm of the couch he and Jo were curled up on and would glance at it occasionally. It told him that Jim was alive, and unconscious, his body reacting to what he deduced was acute trauma from the stun of a phaser. Anything else was just guessing.

"You should stop torturing yourself." Riley said, glancing over at the PADD and taking a seat opposite.

McCoy shrugged. "Might as well know what I'm going to be dealing with."

"That's not what you're doing though, is it?" Riley asked, his gaze sharper and more knowing than McCoy cared for. "You're not looking because you want to be prepared, you're looking to punish yourself for not stopping it. Just like you were when you asked me those questions earlier."

"I was outta line," McCoy said gruffly.

"You were." Riley agreed. "But I get it. Jim does too."

"You didn't hear what I said to him." McCoy said bitterly.

Riley shrugged. "He'll forgive you. I'm sure he'd forgive you pretty much anything."

"That's half the problem." McCoy muttered.

"Still though," Riley pointed again at the PADD. "Nanotech?" He nodded as Riley postulated. "And they weren't destroyed by either the radiation, or Khan's blood…" McCoy had suffered the same terrifying thought when Jim had first dropped into a coma following the transfusion. He'd never had the results either confirmed or denied by tests, but just the possibility that the trackers he'd injected Jim with were playing a part in his violent reaction to the treatment had damn near crippled McCoy with guilt. "So I'm guessing they're there for good then."

"Five year minimum." McCoy nodded.

Riley frowned. "He doesn't know about it?"

"No."

"I'd keep it that way." He advised.

"Why's that?" He already knew that Jim would be pissed when he found out. He'd resigned himself to that before he'd even done it.

Riley stood and lifted McCoy's empty mug. "Because when I said he'd forgive you pretty much anything? I think that could prove to be the exception."