"What happened?" Chapel came bustling into the room at the sound of the alarm.
"I encouraged him to remember what happened, he froze, had a panic attack, passed out from lack of oxygen" he informed her, striding up to the side of Jim's bed.
"Pass me the TriOx compound and ventilate him."
Chapel wordlessly obeyed him instantly. He was lucky to have such competent staff.
McCoy grabbed the TriOx from Chapel and administered it into Kirk's arm, while Chapel strapped a mask of oxygen to his face.
"Just a precaution." he added, after realising how much was done to him over a panic attack.
…
Only ten minutes passed before Kirk began waking up again.
His eyes sluggishly moved to the side, to meet McCoy's face. The doctor was sitting next to him. Jim swallowed hard as he remembered what had happened just minutes before, his heart rate increasing again.
"Okay kid," McCoy began, hauling the top of the biobed slightly more into a sitting position.
"Sit up."
Jim slowly obeyed.
He's gonna hypo me again. I can't do this. Not again. Not now.
McCoy turned to the side, rummaging through his bag for a while.
Jim's heart thudded in his chest.
Several hypos. He realised with dread.
He couldn't stop the shakiness that threatened to take over his body. As he waited for his final redemption; McCoy brought out not a hypopray- but a small container, filled to the brim with liquid.
The container touched his lips, followed by "Drink up." The CMO's eyebrows rose as he spoke.
"What's that?" Jim looked at the concoction disgusted.
"It's morphine. But liquid form."
Jim raised his hand to the container, grunting in frustration as his hands wouldn't stop shaking long enough.
McCoy's face relaxed in sympathy.
"It's alright, let me," he soothed, placing a hand behind the Captain's head to hold, tipping the container into his mouth.
Jim grimaced at the taste, his face scrunched up.
"What the hell is in that?"
McCoy rolled his eyes.
"Morphine?" the word dripped with sarcasm.
Jim groaned and rested back into the bed.
"Why?"
"I'm saving you from the hypos. Thought you'd be happy?" he mused, patting him on the shoulder and turning to leave.
Kirk was about to ask him to stay until he realised- the CMO not being in the room would be a perfect chance to escape.
Scotty was chilling around in the engineering room, feeling unfathomable amounts of boredom. He'd been stationed in the room for the past six hours with absolutely nothing to do, apart from the occasional check of each console.
Much to his delight, the door hissed open, revealing McCoy storming in. His delight quickly diminished.
"I want these transported down to Yorktown as soon as we come near the station." he stated, handing over the bag of nightmares to Scotty.
"What's tha' Yorktown doin' with this?"
"Starfleet Command agreed to rendezvous with us there since we're low on power, can't achieve a decent warp speed or something" McCoy glanced around the room, noticing how empty it was. "Where's the small alien kid?"
Scotty stared at him as if offended.
"The wee man is not an alien!"
McCoy gave him the eyebrow.
"..I think he's in the mess hall." Scotty quickly added.
McCoy purched forward and nodded. "Thanks."
The next day, Jim was back to his usual antics.
"For the last time Jim, you are not beaming back down on Tarsus!" The doctor was yelling across to him in the sickbay
Jim sat up angrily in protest.
"I need to be with them! Please Bones, whatever happened yesterday won't happen again."
McCoy's lips drew into a thin line, his eyes narrowing. Jim didn't flinch.
"You haven't even told me why you did it." he deadpanned, and Jim knew what he was talking about.
"I don't wanna talk about it!" he whined, dropping an arm across his face.
"Jim," the CMO's voice suddenly got dark. "You have no idea how serious this is." he strode towards his friend and almost hissed at him; "You beamed yourself down to that planet and tried to kill yourself, Jim. You almost died. Alright? And now you're asking me for clearance to go back?" he slammed an elbow against the wall. "The answer is no."
Jim rolled away from McCoy and folded his arms across his chest.
"You can't order me around." he muttered under his breath.
"Oh yes I can." McCoy replies, somehow managing to hear him.
Kirk tuts in frustration and shuts his eyes.
The CMO glances up at the vitals, taking note of his resps and heartbeat being raised from the anger.
Shaking his head, McCoy picks up a sedative from the tray and purposefully jabs it as hard as he can into Kirk's neck.
The younger man sharply inhaled, following by a quiet "Ffffuck! Fuck you Bones!"
The doctor smiles, satisfied with the vitals stabilising, and leaves the room once again.
Jim hated when Bones was like this. And he most of all hated being told what to do.
…
"Booones!" he yells an hour later.
McCoy came darting into the room and almost on top of Jim before you could say "doctor".
His vitals were fine.
McCoy scanned him with the small medical device, Jim staring at him as it hummed.
"What are you doing?" Jim asked, confused.
McCoy placed the device aside.
"What'd you call me for? Your vitals are fine and you're not in any discomfort."
Jim gave him a huge smile. The CMO dreaded what was next.
"Can I go now?"
McCoy rolled his eyes dramatically and slumped into the empty chair next to his patient.
"No," he sighed, resting his head in his hands.
"Bonesss" Jim tried to think of a good argument. His voice dropped to a serious tone.
"I need to face my fears, y'know? I can't go on being afraid like this all the time, there's bound to be another mission related to Tarsus soon."
McCoy lifted his head and eyed Jim for lies. There were none. He breathed quietly.
"Jim, if I let you go, swear on your Captain's oath that you will tell me if you start to experience anything that you think will lead to what happened yesterday." McCoy explained, shifting himself to another position. "That includes weird thoughts, discomforts, fear, extreme anger, wanting to cry, feeling nauseous or faint, the whole lot."
Jim nodded quickly in excitement, finally he would show his crew that he's not going to crumble.
Jim stood tall and proudly back on Tarsus IV, giving himself reassurance to help him see the mission through.
Chapel and Spock had beamed back down with him, with Spock keeping his eye on him every second of the way.
In fact, keeping his eye on him a little too much.
Jim turned to look at the Vulcan for the 6th time that minute, and he was still watching him.
"Spock!" Kirk breathed in frustration, "I'm not going to collapse! Stop staring at me!"
Spock seemed to consider his words.
"The possibility that you will relapse, is nin-"
"I don't want to know." he hissed back at him.
I'm not going to relapse. He told himself.
I'm not.
McCoy followed Spock to the desk, taking out old scraps of paper. There was nothing so far that showed the captives had used an electronic log.
"This is pointless" McCoy complained, stepping away from the desk, Spock still searching.
Without moving from the desk, Spock said "Have you considered the possibility that the medical log was purposefully hidden?"
McCoy scoffed. "And where would you hide a log with details to all the crimes you commit?"
Spock looked up at him in wonder.
"Doctor, I can assure that there is no crime I have commit."
"Nevermind" The doctor grunted, waving him off. He received a raised eyebrow from Spock in return.
beep beep!
A tricorder alerted the crew. Everyone looked at their tricorders confused until McCoy muttered curses under his breath, storming away to find the Captain.
"Jim! Where are ya?"
The Captain appeared from the bathroom doors; smiling, McCoy rushed over and scanned him.
"'Sup?" he asked, glancing down at the doctor's tricorder.
"Your heart-rate suddenly spiked. All normal now though. You okay?" he took Jim's hand, fingers curling around his wrist to find a pulse.
"A little fast." he read from his tricorder. "Come sit down." McCoy lead him to a biobed, the Captain strangely obliged. He grunted to get onto the bed, which was slightly higher than the biobeds on the Enterprise.
"There we go," McCoy nodded, then turning back to the desk again.
"Doctor, I believe I have found a device." Spock called from under the desk.
McCoy strode up to him, peering under the filthy wood.
"Yeah, looks like a medical log alright. Try play it back, see what's on there."
"The device has significant damage. I require time to repair it."
"Yeah? Take as long as you need, but we don't have all day.
"Of course Doctor." Spock disappeared under the desk again. McCoy rotated around to Jim, catching him swaying with his own two eyes.
"Hey, hey!" he called out to him, "Jim!" A pair of hands were on Jim's face, his eyes opening at the touch.
McCoy fiddled with the tricorder with one hand, grasping the scanner and running it over Jim's body.
His blood ran cold.
"Spock!" Bones yelled, laying the Captain down so he was facing the ceiling. "Get us beamed out, now!" his voice was almost shaky in panic.
"Jim, open your eyes for me," his hands were cradling the man's face. Jim sluggishly opened them, and offered the doctor a smirk.
"What did you do?" McCoy asked him, running the scanner over his head again.
"N'thin" was his reply.
"Yeah you did, you idiot, your chemicals are completely out of whack!"
Jim shrugged, and let his eyes fluttered shut again.
"Damn it!" The doctor complained.
"Doctor, I cannot reach the Enterprise"
McCoy stamped over to Spock and snatched the communicator off him.
"McCoy to Enterprise"
A brief pause.
"McCoy to Enterprise! Answer me!"
Still no response.
"Keep trying, go stand outside or something," the CMO threw the comm back to him and turned his eyes to Jim in time to realise he was about to expel his stomach's contents.
"Right, Chapel help me log roll him," the nurse quickly approached Jim, both rolling him onto his side, rewarded with a shaky moan and a failed gagging sound.
"Nnnn..." Jim moaned again.
"You're okay. Spock is trying to contact the ship. Just hang in there." McCoy scanned over Jim's vulnerable body, and managed to stop himself from gasping. Chapel detected his alarm.
"What is it doctor?" she asked, peering over to the tricorder.
McCoy's face went grim.
"Drugs. A lot of them."
Chapel inhaled quietly, knowing the severity of the situation and how they could do absolutely nothing down here.
"Overdose, on several of them." McCoy passed the tricorder to the nurse, "Look."
Jim was dangerously near to death. His vitals were dropped low, but not before his heart was sent hammering in his chest at inhuman speeds. It was only a matter of minutes before Jim's heart would stop from the strain, and there was nothing here that could be done to fix it.
McCoy shook his head in disbelief.
"I'm sorry Jim" he muttered under his breath, so that Chapel couldn't hear. "I'm so sorry."
There was a raspy inhale, and then "S'ok Bones... I get... to be.. with them now.."
McCoy was almost embarrassed that Jim had heard him like that.
"Jim. I don't understand why you're doing this to yourself. Stabbing yourself, overdosing on drugs- why, kid, why?" Bones shut his eyes, his panic was setting in. "What happened here that made you do this? Kid I'm not just asking as your doctor, I'm asking as your friend. Okay? You're.. you're this close to dyin' right now and Spock can't get into contact with the ship, if it happens there's nothing down here I can do- Jim, why?" McCoy stopped himself from speaking anymore, hating he was showing weakness.
Two pairs of eyes gradually opened, the blue slits sending relief down McCoy's spine.
"I was one.. of the.. survivors.."
McCoy's eyes grew wide.
"..of..Tarsus.."
Bones opened his mouth to speak and closed it again.
What?
"Doctor, the Enterprise can only lock onto your signal if you stand outside." came Spock.
"What?" McCoy repeats to Jim, staring wide eyed at him.
"Doctor."
McCoy snapped back to reality "...Yeah yeah alright, come on Jim."
He spun around to help him but the man's eyes were shut again.
"Dammit," he muttered, kneeling down next to him and slapping two hands onto his face.
"Come on, wake up," he urged, beginning to feel a surge of panic when he didn't respond.
McCoy shook his shoulders a little, waiting for a sign.
"Jim! Don't do this to me, you idiot.." he pushed fingers onto his friend's neck, a pulse was there but very weak.
Before McCoy could encourage the unconscious man further, a blue figure swooped the Captain up into his arms and trodded off outside.
McCoy scowled.
"We must get outside. You cannot help Jim if we are not on board the Enterprise."
Guess that makes sense. Bones allowed Spock to win that argument. The sooner they get back on the ship, the better.
"He's taken something on Tarsus. Can't tell if it's because something contaminated the pill that made him sick or if it was the pill itself. He fell unconscious again 4 minutes ago and hasn't showed signs of awareness. He needs a gastric lavage procedure, get him in the OR. Now!" McCoy shouted the orders, staring worriedly at Jim, who was laying pale and rigid on the biobed while being rushed down from the transporter room to sickbay on a stretcher.
In an attempt to keep the man alive, Bones skillfully jabbed Kirk in the neck with adrenaline. His eyes instantly shot open, but he remained still.
Jim stared curiously at Bones' face above him.
"Wooow" he slurred, lifting a hand to touch the puzzled doctors' face.
McCoy gently lowered it.
"What's wrong?"
Jim smiled.
"Booooones!"
The frown lines in the doctor's face were deepening.
Jim enjoyed the cold breeze of air against his face as he was being rushed down several corridors.
"I think he's getting delirious," Jim heard the doctor say albeit breathlessly. "Whatcha thinkin' about, Jim?"
Kirk rolled his head to the left, where McCoy was running, and licked his lips. He needed water.
"Mmmmm"
He wasn't sure how to tell them he was thirsty.
"In here," McCoy was ordering from next to him. "Jim, do you know what drugs you took?"
Kirk couldn't remember. Heck, he couldn't even remember taking drugs.
"Bones" he says instead, hoping that he'll miraculously know what Kirk wants.
"Get him on the table, keep the lights at 50% percent for now, because of his eyes."
Jim looked around nervously at the large white room. They were using evasive manoeuvres to get his fidgeting body on the bed.
Then Jim's eyes brightened. He remembered the word!
"Water" he rasped, looking desperately at McCoy, who was trying to get his scrubs on.
"I can't do that kid, you're about to have surgery," McCoy informed him, straightening out his shirt and striding over to Jim.
The young Captain frowned.
"Please" he pushed, feeling the dryness of his tongue and lips, feeling like he hadn't had liquid touch him for days.
McCoy sighed.
"Jim, I promise you can have all the water you want, after I'm done."
McCoy pushed a drug into Kirk's neck, watching him instantly fall back unconscious onto the biobed.
"Pathetic" he muttered to himself.
...
"Bones-Bones-Bones-" Jim was awake 2 hours later and scrambling to the other side of the room.
McCoy stormed in.
"Hey. Hey hey, hey! Hey look at me!" McCoy brought Jim's chin up to face him.
"Bones, please help me quickly" Jim cried under his breath.
"Jim, what's going on? Come and sit down, come with me." The good doctor led him to the back room of the sickbay.
"Bones-" Jim was gently pushed down to sit on a biobed. "It felt like my skull was crushing and I couldn't move and I was paralysed and I was looking forward then I started shaking really hard and it was like a seizure and it went black and oh god-"
"Breathe, Jim. In through your nose, out through your mouth."
"B-Bones-"
"In and out. Follow my breathing, okay?"
Jim didn't notice Chapel creep up behind him, a mask to compensate for his breathing helped him relax.
"Tell me again in a minute, you gotta calm down first." McCoy soothed, his eyebrows furrowed, then decided to push the kid back so he was laying down.
Jim exhaled shakily, gripping onto the edge of the biobed.
"Holy fuck"
McCoy waited a few minutes before trying again, Jim's breathing slowing down from rapid gasps to small hiccups.
"Try again, Jim." he placed a supportive hand on the younger man's shoulder, a smile plastered across his face.
Jim gave a small nod, taking a deep breath before saying;
"I woke up paralysed.. I saw everything above me.. some big figure was crushing me.. I started shaking really bad..then everything went..black.." his eyes fluttered shut, an alarm blared from the bed at the same time.
"Dammit, internal bleed." McCoy muttered, rolling up the Captain's shirt. It became obvious to him how rapid the man was breathing. "I need a Dermal regenerator," McCoy called out to the nurse who had barged in.
"What happened?" the nurse gave him the regenerator.
"If what he says is true, his seizure disrupted his wound" McCoy ran the regenerator over the Captain's chest, becoming increasingly concerned over the shallowing of his breathing.
"Seizure?" The nurse asks as if asking for a definition of the word.
"Yeah. I'll have to look into that." he pulled over a set of bandages across Jim's chest to cover the wound. "Hold this here will you? I'm gonna take a blood sample and analyse it."
The nurse nodded, taking over the task of pressing down on the bandaged wound.
Kirk's eyes blinked back open again, rolling around the pillow and eventually focusing on the nurse.
"He's coming around doctor!"
McCoy looked up to Jim's face, and offered a reassuring smile.
"It's alright Jim. You started bleeding again but it's all under control now."
McCoy's words sounded foreign in Jim's ears.
"Wha doin'?" Jim's eyes drifted towards the doctor holding his arm.
"Oh yeah. I'm gonna take a blood sample." he replies, jamming the device into his arm, making Kirk jump.
"AH-! Bones!"
"Don't be such an infant." he removed the device, handing it to the nurse's free hand. "Go take that to Spock. I want to deal with Jim"
The nurse nodded and jaunts off to the comm.
"Waking up paralysed is very rare with sedatives Jim." The doctor was saying, staring at his vitals even though he'd seen it 12 times. "Maybe you're allergic to the hypo. Again."
"Hey Bones?" Jim felt relieved that is mind was clearing, let alone his voice. He felt lucky, even in a situation like this.
"Yeah kid?" The CMO took his attention away from his PADD and turned to his patient.
"I wanna go back to Tarsus. Tell the landing party."
McCoy's face at that moment could have been mistaken for a cop experiencing someone admit to manslaughter.
"You want to what?" he asked in disbelief.
Jim cringed at his friend's expression, but persisted.
"Please! I will only go-"
"Jim. Look at me in the eye. Right now." McCoy's eyes darkened.
Kirk knew that with McCoy's tone, now was a very rare moment where he had to listen to the man. A rare moment in which McCoy spoke with such determined seriousness, it couldn't be ignored or twisted into a joke.
"You. Are. Not. Going. Back. On. That. Planet."
Jim felt himself pale, his heart dropped to his stomach.
"If you so dare as to even mention that planet again, I will not hesitate to hypo your backside into 48 hours of sleep."
Jim hastily nodded, wanting his friend to stop being so annoyed with him. Being a carefree frequently-tripping-up-leader was one thing, but it seems Bones had finally hit his limits what with Jim scaring him half to death with his own stupidity.
"In fact, I'm going to do that now."
That does it.
Jim shot up, dodging the attacks of flying hyposprays from McCoy and leaped from the bed, darting for the door.
His best friend hated him. Finally. Jim's carelessness hit rock bottom.
Run. Get away; were the only things being repeated. He felt sick to his stomach, his eyes wanting to drift shut, the aching behind his eyes increasing.
He lost his best friend.
He lost his best friend.
He lost his-
Bile went everywhere. His stomach suddenly empties it's contents, his eyes getting more and more tired.
Footsteps soon caught up with him. There was silence, likely from the sight of vomit that beheld whoever it was, before a voice.
"Jim, with me."
Of course it'd be Bones.
"Can't" Jim breathed, wobbling on his feet. He noticed he was getting hotter and hotter. And that wasn't just external!
McCoy was advancing at him with a hypospray in hand.
Jim cringed away, blinking rapidly at the tiredness his own mind was feeling.
"Wait!" he commanded, not wanting the repulsive device to go further. McCoy hesitated.
Jim felt a hot flush, a wave of nausea caught him by surprise.
Oh crap.
He felt his vision tunnel, sliding down the wall behind him. Kirk stumbles forward, determined to keep walking. His legs wobbled more, he could feel beams of sweat running down the side of his head. He let out a cry as his legs gave in.
A pair of hands had instinctively latched onto Jim's arms and hauled him to a standing position.
"Jim! Jim calm down man!" was belted out in his ear. Jim turned his head to face the source of the noise, his vision splitting into two with the room blurring. Bones was holding him against the turbolift door. Jim wondered how the hell he got there.
"Bones.." he acknowledged, his vision tunnelling again.
"You need to come with me," he said slowly. Jim ignored everything he said, desperately needing to tell Bones how sick he felt.
He stumbled forward again, McCoy pushed him gently against the wall.
"Gonna faint" he said simply, feeling the heat rise on his skin, breathing getting harder, almost feeling like he had to force every inhale.
"I'm gonna get a stretcher, there's no way I'm makin' you walk now" McCoy grabbed at and threw open his communicator before Jim could get a word in.
Kirk's vision stumbled, his breathing becoming audibly laboured.
I'm-gonna-faint-i'm-gonna-faint-i'm-gonna-faint…
"Bonesss" he murmured, allowing his arms to fall slack from McCoy's shoulders to his sides.
"Stay with me Jim," McCoy warned, opening his med kit and checking the contents of practically everything in every hypospray.
"Booonnes" Jim continued, instantly his eyes fluttered shut, unable to stay awake.
McCoy put a hand against Jim's neck, sighing in relief when he could feel a pulse. He used his other hand to jab the contents of adrenaline into his neck.
Jim's eyes flew open.
"No sleeping," he said, checking behind him for the backup. No such luck.
Just then, the turbolift doors opened, 3 nurses bustling down the corridors.
"Take him down to sickbay. I'm pretty sure he's disrupted the wound on his chest. Again." McCoy handed one of the nurses a hypo, "Look for this in the sickbay. Give him a shot of this every 4 hours for 2 days."
The nurse glanced up at him in confusion. "But sir, this is a sedative..?"
"Yeah, this idiot isn't going to be moving for 2 days. This is the second time he's pounced from his bed and fucked with my handy work." McCoy grumbled, "Hurry up."
The only thing Jim could think about, was Tarsus.
I'll go back there on my own; he thought.
I'm gonna find Kodos.
Then, Jim's eyes rolled to the back of his head, his body going rigid.
McCoy noticed instantly, putting two fingers onto Jim's carotid artery.
Nothing.
"Stop!" McCoy shouted at the nurses, pulling the Captain's eyelids back and offending them with a penlight.
"Not responding. He's in cardiac arrest." The CMO darted his head around and bit his lip in desperation. "Go! Now!"