I'm Sorry
by Starsinger
Okay, this is it. After much debate, and head-butting damn Klingons!, someone else will die. Leaving behind at least one kid, and a lot of heartbreak. And, no, haven't forgotten about that tribble. Don't own them.
He killed his best friend. That was all he could think of. He looked up to find several nurses and Dr. Marcus hurrying working in Sickbay. Their activity seemed to surround him, his best friend. They and the Doctor were holding hurried conversation before the doctor hurried over to a console, "Sickbay to Bridge. I can't get a hold of Spock. I need Khan alive. You get that son-of-a bitch back on board. I think he can save…"
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"Put your arm through the hole," Jim told John Harrison. The man willingly complied. Bones watched as Jim pressed the blood collector against Harrison's skin. The man's piercing blue eyes met his own. Jim almost shivered at the power behind the eyes. "Thank you," he murmured as he finished. Jim pulled McCoy aside. "Are you sure this is a good idea? Chekov resigned, you have Sulu trying to fix the engines. He has no experience…"
"Jim, I can't put you in charge of Engineering and run Sickbay," McCoy said.
"Bones…" Jim's voice trailed off. "I'll see what I can find out about this blood. An hour later McCoy received another call from Jim, "Bones, this blood has regenerative powers I've never seen. I'm injecting it into Chekov's tribble, not that he's here to appreciate it."
Bones sighed, they were here on the edge of Klingon space, unable to go anywhere. They had seventy-two torpedoes, and had captured John Harrison. Uhura was currently in command of the bridge, and McCoy had coordinates that he had no idea what to do with. And a challenge to open up a torpedo. Bones flipped open his communicator and prayed that it would be answered.
"Chekov here," came the reply.
"Pavel, thank god you answered. I need you to check out some coordinates," he said.
"Now, vhy vould I do that for you, Captain Perfect Hair McCoy. See, I called him Perfect Hair," McCoy heard Chekov say to someone, probably Keenser."
"Please, Pavel, it's urgent," McCoy said reading out the coordinates. "Do you have it?"
"Please, like I cannot remember four numbers! Vhat vas the third number again?" McCoy rolled his eyes as he repeated them. His next job was to accompany Carol into a shuttle where he discovered that she had a tight little body. Then he sent Jim down to an asteroid with Dr. Marcus to open up a torpedo.
"You know, when I pictured myself getting away with a beautiful woman, it wasn't with a torpedo between us," Jim joked.
"Jim, stop flirting or I'll tell Christine," Bones growled over the comm. He immediately regretted it when Jim's arm got stuck in the arming mechanism of the torpedo. Carol disarmed it as Bones' fear spiked. He heard both of them gasp.
"Bones, you're not going to believe this…" Jim said. When they got back to the Enterprise, Bones was flabbergasted. "This technology is actually primitive," Jim said. "We haven't needed cryotubes since Zephram Cochrane invented Warp Drive."
"So, how old is he?" McCoy asked.
"Roughly three hundred years old," Carol answered.
McCoy turned on his heel as Jim looked at Carol and continued working. Soon, he found John Harrison, now Khan, in his Sickbay under heavy guard.
"I don't understand, Doctor," Khan said.
"Excuse me?" Kirk replied.
"You have a genius intellect. Analytical skills that would make most Admirals envious, and a physique the envy of many, why are you just a doctor?"
"Childhood experiences, I guess," Jim replied. "I wanted to help people heal."
"That's what you're doing with an engineering degree and a computer science degree?" he was relieved that they were finally back at warp. Jim looked up as Bones reentered Sickbay. He was asking for Khan's help. The only problem was that he was afraid of the only way to get over to the Vengeance, he was going to have to fly in space. "You can do it, Bones." Jim said with a grin.
Bones did, and Jim found himself in the shuttle bay, disarming more torpedoes with his medical staff and Engineering crew. They managed to get all of Khan's crew out of the torpedoes and shipped them back to Sickbay, "Kirk to Spock, mission accomplished."
"Thank you, Doctor," Spock responded.
Even in Sickbay Jim felt the impact of the torpedoes on the Enterprise's hull. He looked up to find Bones and Chekov running into Sickbay. "Jim!" Bones cried handing Carol over to the staff. "Did Spock just kill Khan's crew?!"
"Spock may be green blooded, but he's not cold-blooded, I've got Khan's crew right here. Seventy-two human popsicles, right over there," Jim pointed to the cryotubes taking up space in Sickbay.
Chekov looked at them, "I need to get to Engineering."
Bones looked at Jim helplessly, Jim sighed, "I'm going, Bones, I'm going. On one condition, you let Geoffrey check you out." He was suddenly discovering the downside to having that Engineering degree.
Bones watched as the two men raced out of Sickbay and settled down on a biobed as Geoffrey strapped Carol to another biobed. In fact when the ship started spinning and tipping out of control, Bones found himself strapped to a chair with most of Sickbay. Bones feared what was happening out in the rest of the ship. Bones hated this, it was why he initially didn't want to go into space. Then, he was handed the Enterprise and given everything he could possibly want, almost anything, anyway. Suddenly, the spinning and tipping stopped. Bones sighed in relief as M'Benga hauled him over to a biobed, stopping to pick up the dead tribble off the floor and putting it back on the monitor that it had been thrown from.
"Engineering to Sickbay, we need a body bag," Chekov's voice sounded over the comm. M'Benga and McCoy looked up. M'Benga sent a team with a body bag in tow. Neither thought anything about it until the team came back, Chekov with them. McCoy watched as Chekov struggled to contain his tears. M'Benga approached the body bag they laid out on the gurney. McCoy didn't want him to open that bag, and he when he did, McCoy collapsed back into the chair as Jim's face was revealed.
"What…what happened," Bones asked. His mind kept going over what he would say to Penny, Peter and Frank at that planned rendezvous in Zurich.
"He vent into the varp core to realign it. The radiation vas too much, he knew it vhen he vent in. I think Spock vent down to take care of Khan," Chekov choked out.
M'Benga turned away from the sight in the bag. It wasn't right, Jim was so young. McCoy buried his head in his hands, barely hearing M'Benga calling for a cryotube. He had killed his best friend.