This is for Saphura, who requested something longer than the drabbles I have been writing lately. Be warned-this is severely angsty and has no crack whatsoever in it. I originally wrote this to be a part of a story I was eventually going to write, but a lot of time has passed since then and so I forgot the original plot.
I am going to try my hardest to make the next couple of things a little less depressing and a little more Star Trek-esque because the only things I have managed to write lately are depressing drabbles and while you all might like some beat up on Jim time, that's really not the point of this fic. I'll save the ones I've written for when you all are in the mood for something less depressing... but for the most part, I am trying to keep this fic light-hearted.
On a side note, I AM going to respond to your reviews, just not tonight. I have to go babysit and probably won't be back until extremely late. But please continue to do so! I really love hearing from you!
The Quirks of Jim Kirk
Chapter 38
Red and Green
In which there is a serious accident and Jim takes the injury of a fellow crewmate rather hard.
The golden light from the transporter had barely faded before Jim was all but jumping off the pad, stumbling slightly underneath the great weight he was carrying.
"Oh my god!"
"What happened?"
Jim ignored the frightened calls of his gathered crewmembers, scanning the crowd for the one face he trusted to make this all better.
"Everyone get out of the way!"
Doctor McCoy was already halfway to Jim, a stretcher and three nurses trailing behind him like a parade. Under any other circumstances, Jim might have cracked a smile at the thought.
"Jim?"
"I'm all right," Jim whispered as his knees gave way. He collapsed to the ground, placing the limp body he had been carrying on the ground as gently as he could. He realized how awful he must appear—covered in blood and dirt and carrying the limp body. "It's not my blood. It's not mine."
"I know," McCoy said softly, crouching down beside him. "You don't have green blood."
Jim paced the floor outside of the sick bay, not caring about the concerned looks he was receiving from the nurses in sick bay or the blood that was seeping continuously out of the wound on his side. He flat out refused to let anyone near him until he knew Spock was all right.
The doors to sick bay slid open as Jim's violently shaking legs finally gave out. Doctor McCoy, still dressed in his emerald stained surgical scrubs was by Jim's side as he hit the floor.
"Spock is going to be all right," he said, still speaking in the same soft voice he had been using in the transporter room. "He lost a lot of blood, but he's in a healing trance right now. He'll be okay."
Jim nodded, feeling guilt his guilt threaten to overwhelm him. He could hardly control the tremors that shot up and down his body. The world was spinning around him.
"Good," he said, hating how his voice shook and cracked in that one simple word. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling momentary relief as everything stopped moving.
"Jim?"
"I'm okay," Jim whispered.
"Bullshit," McCoy muttered. "You need to get that knife wound looked at."
"Who said it was a knife?" Jim retorted, peeling his eyes open. He wished he hadn't when the world spun violently around him.
"It's always a knife with you," McCoy growled. "A phaser wound would be too easy."
"Spock is really going to be okay?" Jim whispered.
McCoy nodded once. "Yeah," he said. He stood up. "Can you walk or do you want me to get a stretcher?"
"I can walk," Jim mumbled.
McCoy stood there, waiting for Jim to stand up.
"I might need some help," Jim added meekly.
Had it been any other circumstances, McCoy might have muttered something about goddamn idiotic child-like Starfleet captains and called for a stretcher, but this was not any other circumstance.
"C'mon," McCoy whispered, wrapping a gentle arm around Jim's shaking form. "Lean on me. You'll be okay."
They barely made it to the bed in sick bay before Jim collapsed again from blood loss and exhaustion, both physical and emotional.
McCoy murmured something about going to get a dermal regenerator and some pain killers, leaving briefly and very, very reluctantly. He returned a few seconds later, to find Jim out for the count.
"Damn it, Jim," he whispered as he noted the growing pool of blood on his friend's side. "It's never easy with you."
The physical wounds would heal with enough time and hypos. The emotional ones, however, would never heal. McCoy would know—he remembered the first time Jim had ever come close to dying. He still had nightmares about it, to this day. And it wouldn't get easier.
But it was the life Jim had chosen as a Starfleet captain. And sooner or later, he was going to lose someone close to him.
McCoy just hoped that when that inevitability did happen, he would be able to save Jim from himself.
Coming soon: The Babysitter, in which Jim meets Joanna for the first time. Stay tuned for crack!