Authors Note:

So we are almost at the end. I know I've said that a lot, but I have actually finished the story now. Just my last chapter to upload.
I hope you enjoy Chapter 14.

Thanks again to my beta, Afroz
and if you could drop me a review, I would be most thankful!

Chapter Fourteen

"What does that button do, Spock?" Isabella couldn't stop her eyes from exploring all the buttons on the bridge.

"Do you like ice cream, Spock?" Adam asked as he attempted to climb onto the captain's chair.

"Adam! That's the captain's chair. You're not the captain!" Isabella gasped at her brother. Even she had learnt the boundaries on the ship.

Spock tried his hardest not to roll his eyes or show any emotion of annoyance towards the children. They were supposed to be having a quick ship's tour with Lieutenant Uhura while she was off duty, not messing around on the bridge.

Uhura came and stood next to a motionless Spock.

"A look into the future maybe?"

Spock instantly lifted his eyebrows. "I do not understand."

Uhura giggled to herself. He knew what she meant, he just didn't want to admit it.

"C'mon kids. I think I know where we can get more ice cream."

She ushered the children out to the turbolift just in time to receive Doctor McCoy's message.

Jim was awake.

"Mr Sulu, you have the conn" he spoke with command as he also left for the turbolift.

"Lie still! Dammit Jim. Don't make me sedate you" were the first words Spock was greeted with as he entered Sickbay.

"You try and have these plants stuck to the whole of your body and not scratch them then!"

"Don't be such an infant!"

Their voices grew louder and they soon started to shout at each other so the whole of sickbay could hear. Luckily for them it was only Jim, Nurse Harriet and the nursing staff there.

"Doctor McCoy. Do you need any assistance?"

Spock stood with his hands behind his back at the end of Jim's bed.

"Don't you dare come near me with your pinchy fingers, Spock! That's an order." Jim raised his hands to cover his neck quickly before Spock could make the move on him.

"Covering your neck is illogical Captain. The Vulcan nerve pinch is not administered in the neck."

Jim lowered his hands slowly, keeping a shifty eye on the Vulcan.

"Spock, Nurse Harriet's slow poison has been activated and Captain Itchy here is suffering an allergic reaction to the herbs."

Spock lifted an eyebrow. "I see doctor. I estimate our arrival at Starbase 10 to be 48 hours. They have more medical facilities for the Captain and the Nurse there."

"Damn it Spock! She doesn't have 48 hours!" McCoy's whole face lit red with rage. He hated the thought of losing someone he had just begun to have feelings for, however short lived they would be.

"I see, Doctor. I must attend to other matters."

He turned on his heel and left sickbay, leaving an open mouthed Jim, McCoy and Nurse Chapel in shock.

"I knew Vulcans had no emotions but really? That was a bit harsh." Jim folded his arms and sneakily scratched his bicep, before Nurse Chapel quickly patted his hand away with a frown.

"This is boring. What else can we do?" Adam yawned. It had been a long day for them all. When they had woken up for the day they had been home, in the safety of their cave. Now, they were in a starship.

Uhura just gave a gentle smile to him. She had taken them to the guest quarters in an attempt to get them to sleep. She had noticed, Adam particularly, had begun to show signs of fatigue.

"It's time to sleep. You'll be safe here. When you wake up we can go see Spock again."

Isabella was already lying on the bed getting comfortable. "Where's Nurse Harriet?" She yawned.

Uhura didn't know that her poison was activated, "She is helping to make our Captain better. When she's finished she will come here" she smiled.

Adam climbed into the bed next to his sister. "When can we meet the captain?"

"He does sound very important" Isabella spoke up, "when we saw him earlier, he was just sleeping! He can't be that important."

Uhura's smile soon left her face, thinking of how poorly the captain actually was. The whole bridge crew had no idea, everything was kept very secret when it involved the captain. She made a mental note to try and visit him later.

"The Captain is a very important man. You can see him when he's better, I'm sure. Now, time to rest."

"Can we have a story?" Adam said as his eyes slowly grew heavy.

Uhura couldn't help but smile at his innocence. "Of course."

She went on to tell them about one of the more successful missions she had accompanied the Captain on, making sure it was child-friendly. Slowly they both drifted off into an innocent sleep.

"It's going to hurt, isn't it Bones?" Usually Jim would have easily coped with pain, but when his whole body ached in pain already he wasn't sure if he could take much more.

McCoy rolled his eyes. "Don't be such an infant Jim! No. It's not going to hurt."

He pinched the stem of one of the herbs on Jim's thighs, with his gloved hand.

"You ready?" he teased.

"Seriously Bones, I know those things are basically stuck to my skin like wax paper. I do have body hair. It's going to hurt." Jim had remembered the pain of wax strips during his academy years, he had gotten stupidly drunk at a dorm party and they all thought it would be fun to wax each other as a dare. Even when he was drunk, they hurt.

"One…" teased Bones.

"Just get it over with!" Jim ordered his friend. "Don't you have more important things to be worrying about, like your girlfriend?"

Bones could feel the flush of embarrassment in his cheeks. He frowned before ripping the herb off in one quick motion.

"Oh that wasn't actually that bad." Jim said, before rubbing his leg.

"Next time I'll do it slower." Bones hissed, still annoyed at the girlfriend comment.

"Oh, c'mon don't be like that" Jim's rubbing soon turned into scratching as soon as the doctor had turned his back.

Doctor McCoy ignored Jim, hoping for a miracle as he slowly laid the herb onto Nurse Harriet's forearm.

He watched patiently, as Jim moaned in the background to Nurse Chapel about how now his leg was stinging AND itching.

McCoy rolled his eyes. He grabbed a hypo and quickly pressed it into Jim's neck.

"I think it's time for you to rest. Your temperature is still high and now we are removing the herbs. Your body is going to need the rest to recover on its own."

"Bones…" Jim's eyes rolled back into his head and he drifted off into a sleep as the sedation worked its way through his body.

"That's it, go to sleep." McCoy patted Jim's arms as he fell to sleep.

"Doctor, was that medically necessary?" Nurse Chapel knew better than to question her boss's judgement, but surely the patient awake was much better than asleep?

"It was, Nurse. If you look at his thighs and biceps he's scratched so much that he's beginning to cut the skin. That can lead to infection and more time in sickbay, the one place I know he would rather not be." He said smugly, McCoy loved it when he was right. He placed the empty hypo into Nurse Chapel's hands and turned back to Nurse Harriet.

The herb he had placed onto her skin was dried up and where it had been a healthy emerald green colour before, it was now a dried up brown leaf. He poked at the herb which just caused it to flake into a thousand pieces.

He checked Nurse Harriet's monitor and there was no change, in fact it was easily worse.

McCoy quickly turned around and took another four herbs off Jim's legs, quickly ripping them off his skin. He placed them back onto Nurse Harriet and crossed his fingers. It was no good.

He watched the herb dry up instantly.

"I don't understand! They helped Jim, why won't they help her? Our anatomy is extremely similar. The difference wouldn't be enough to do this." McCoy was stumped.

"Let me try" Nurse Chapel spoke up, still at Jim's side and writing on an electronic clipboard about Jim's current status.

She picked up a leaf and pealed it off Jim's arm, much smoother than McCoy did. She couldn't even reach Nurse Harriet's body before the herb dried up and crunched into pieces in her hand.

"No more. It's not going to work. Jim needs the herbs still." McCoy looked down at his gloved hands and it clicked.

"They must only work on one type of skin at a time once they have already been used at least once. That's why they didn't die when Harri and I first put them on Jim and they do die whenever I place one on her now. The poison wasn't active before."

"But doctor, they didn't die when you took them off the Captain and placed them onto her." Nurse Chapel was confused. She had no idea on plants and herbs like McCoy, although he was quickly learning.

McCoy raised his hands and waved them at Nurse Chapel. "I was wearing gloves this whole time. They never reacted with my skin."

"Won't they work without touching her skin?" Nurse Chapel thought maybe they still had a chance to help her.

"I don't think so, although Jim has one on his forehead over a bandage… but that risks the poison taking over again. I can't risk his life." McCoy snapped his gloves off and threw them on the floor. He had no idea what to do now. He didn't want to lose his best friend or Harriet.

He stormed off into his office, slamming the door behind him.

Doctor Leonard McCoy was pissed. He reached down into the bottom cupboard of his desk and grabbed his bottle of Bourbon and his 'emergency' glass.

Slowly he poured out a small shot, just enough to take the edge of.

He was tired and fed up. Never before had he not been able to just leave a patient to die. Especially one he cared about so much.

He downed his glass in one gulp, enjoying the burning sensation it left down his throat, before placing both hands on his head and sighing.

It's always the ones you care most about.

Even though he had only known Harriet for a short time, well a couple of days, he couldn't help but care about her. The second he laid his eyes on her in the cave, she was there, showing him her caring smile.

He felt his heart beating hard in his chest. He hadn't felt like this in a long time.

Then he remembered Isabella and Adam. She couldn't leave them and he couldn't leave Captain Allergy in this tin bucket out in space. He sighed again. A love that doomed before it started.

He heard his office door open, but refused to look up. He just assumed it was Nurse Chapel checking on him, however he was wrong.

"Doctor, I believe this will help the Captain."

McCoy took his hands away from his head and wearily looked up.

"What are you talking about dammit?"

He couldn't help but snap at the Vulcan. He had been awake for more hours than he would like to admit.

"After investigating the herbs in the lab, I was able to concoct this."

Spock placed the hypo down on the doctor's desk, right next to his glass.

McCoy raised an eyebrow.

"And what makes you think this will work with Jim's over sensitive immune system? He's already fighting one allergic reaction. I can't risk him having another."

Spock placed his hands behind his back. "I have taken the Captain's allergies into account. This will not affect them. I calculate the risk of such an incident as being 0.4%."

McCoy knew when Spock worked something out, he was always right, even though he never admitted it to him. He stood up and slammed his hands onto his desk.

"How many of these have you whipped up?" instantly thinking about Nurse Harriet "I now have two patients suffering from poison effects which I don't have enough medication for."

"I only had enough materials to make one Doctor. For the Captain."

McCoy grabbed the hypo and walked out to his two patients. Jim was still asleep luckily, so he didn't have to listen to him bitching about how itchy he was.

Nurse Harriet on the other hand, was struggling. Her temperature was high and her breathing was low.

He looked between both patients and thought…

What would Jim do?

He had to make a decision. Nurse Harriet was failing quickly, while Jim remained stable.

He thought it over and over in his head.

Jim still has those herbs, they are working. He should recover from the poison and then he will be out of danger. Unless he goes into shock from the allergic reaction… but then we are now only 24 hours away from the Starbase. I can keep him alive till then…

Harri is dying. I can't keep her stable for another 24 hours. The poison is spreading, quickly. I promised Isabella that I would keep them all safe. I can't break that promise. Jim will understand.

He walked over to Nurse Harriet and administered the hypo into her arm. McCoy never took his eyes off the monitor. Slowly the monitor readings all reached normal.

McCoy let out a sigh of relief.

Almost instantly Nurse Harriet began to open her eyes, squinting at first as they adjusted to the light.

Now it was McCoy's turn to greet her with a loving smile, which he easily beamed at her as her vision went into focus.

"What? The poison? But how?" Nurse Harriet whispered.

"Shh, darling. It's all over. Spock found a cure. You're going to be okay. Just rest." McCoy almost whispered back.

She smiled and whispered "Thank You" before falling back to sleep.

McCoy could have easily cried, although he didn't.

He turned to check on his sleeping Captain. The temperature wasn't budging but that was easily something they could control.

He couldn't take the smile off his face as he spoke to Nurse Chapel, who was still rubbing the cream over Jim.

"By golly Chris – I'm beginning to think I can cure a rainy day!"

To Be Continued...