And All the King's Men

by Mijan

When a training simulation uncovers something that Cadet Kirk was never meant to remember, it breaks him. McCoy can't sit by and watch Jim crumble. When asked what he's willing to do to get the old Jim back, Leonard has only one answer. "Anything."

6. Chapter 6

"Happy Thanksgiving, kid," Leonard said lightly, raising his beer in a lazy toast.

"Thanks, Bones." Jim's mouth quirked into a half-smile as he clinked his own bottle against Leonard's. "But you didn't have to go to all this trouble."

Leonard snorted in amusement. "Trouble? I got the mess to pack up a couple of meals to go, grabbed a six pack of beers, and got the hell away from the mopey crowd that can't or won't go home for the holiday."

"Heh, yeah," Jim mumbled. "I didn't really want to deal with them either. And the turkey isn't half bad. Thanks for picking a spot out here. I like these trails."

Leonard took a sip of beer, leaned back against the tree, and looked around. It was fairly cold that evening, but he was warm enough in his old civilian jacket from home, and Jim seemed comfortable in the leather jacket he'd layered over a sweatshirt. There wasn't too much wind, and aside from the chill, it was a pretty nice evening. Other than themselves, the trails were deserted, and there was something peaceful about the place. "I know. I can see why you like escaping back here," he said appreciatively. "It's quiet."

"It is." Jim put down his own bottle, broke off a piece of the pumpkin pie crust, and nibbled it thoughtfully. "It smells good out there, too. You notice that? It's those trees with the funny leaves. They're blue gum eucalyptus. Invasive exotic species from Australia. The city has been trying for two centuries to get rid of them, but they keep coming back, and I'm kinda glad they do."

Leonard raised an eyebrow. "Oh, so are you a botanist now, too?"

Jim shook his head. "We didn't have trees like that in Iowa, so I wanted to know what they were. I like 'em." He picked up another bit of pie and popped it in his mouth.

"You never cease to amaze me, kid." He grinned, but the grin faded when Jim heaved a sigh and looked away. "Jim, hey, are you -"

"I'm fine, Bones." He spun around and let his feet dangle over the edge of the slope so he could look out at the bridge. The sun was setting, and just enough of it cut through the patchy clouds to leave bright golden blotches of light on the cables and towers. "I'm always fine."

"You're not -"

But Jim talked right over him. "I've had a good meal, I've got great company, and this is the first Thanksgiving I've had in years where I actually spent a good meal in great company. I've got no complaints."

"Then where's Jim?" Leonard blurted out before he could stop himself or at least put his thoughts into something more coherent.

Jim's head snapped sideways, and he caught Leonard with a look of startled confusion. "What the hell is that supposed to mean, Bones?"

Leonard bit his tongue. Hard. He hadn't meant to go there, not now, but there was no avoiding the can of worms he'd just opened. He took a sideways glance down at his chrono; the sim could start any time within the next half hour. If he was going to broach this subject, he had just minutes to do it. He shouldn't have said it at all, but now that he'd started, he had no choice.

"Listen, Jim… I know the past week has been rough on you -"

"Shit, Bones, it's Thanksgiving. Don't start this now." He put his head into his hands and hunched forward, but there wasn't time for that. Leonard scrambled around the picnic spread and knelt next to Jim, pulling Jim's hands down from his face and making him to look up by sheer force of will.

"It's gotta be now. Look at me." He waited until Jim's eyes had settled on his. "Where's Jim? This ain't you, kid. You know that and I know that."

"How do you know this isn't me?" Jim asked quietly, in that subdued tone that made Leonard want to punch something because it was so wrong. "What if this is what's been sitting underneath the façade the whole time, and all the other bullshit was just that - bullshit?"

Leonard shook his head adamantly. "Dammit, Jim, listen to yourself! It's not bullshit. It's all been you. Every last scrap of it, and I don't know about anyone else, but I think it suits you just fine. I've gotten to know more about you in the past week than I've let myself know anyone in years."

"I'm sorry."

"What?" Leonard bit out in disbelief.

"I'm sorry that I put that on you."

"Are you crazy? Don't apologize for that."

"Why not?" Jim asked, and the question sounded earnest. "I've dumped this burden on you, Bones. I don't even know how to carry it myself. I can't let it fall on you, too."

"You didn't let it fall on me, kid," Leonard said, shaking his head and trying to rein himself in a bit. "I found it and decided it was something worth keeping, and you're not gonna take that away from me." He reached out, and almost let himself brush his thumb across Jim's cheek, but instead he clapped his hand down softly on Jim's shoulder. "And don't take it away from yourself, either."

"Bones -"

"Jim, listen - when I was a kid, we always went around the table at Thanksgiving and said what we were thankful for. I didn't think I'd have anything to be thankful for this year. I might've lost everything else, but I've got you. I have no idea what the hell that means, but it means something, and I'm thankful."

"Bones, do you -"

"Wait. Jim, I need you to understand this right now. A bullshit façade couldn't blow the bell curve on every freshman cadet assessment Starfleet Academy can dole out. You can't bullshit your way into becoming one of the Commandant's shining stars - and yes, it might have started with your name, but it stuck because it's you, kid. And it's not bullshit I'm seeing when I watch you show just how fucking brilliant you are over and over again, even when you don't realize you're doing it." He tilted his head down an inch to look Jim squarely in the eyes. "I just wish you could see that for yourself right now."

"Bones… do you hear something?"

Leonard realized just a split second too late that he was out of time as four tall figures clothed in black suits and masks had suddenly surrounded them. Four phaser rifles were aimed at their heads.

In an instant, both Jim and Leonard were on their feet, back to back, in a defensive stance that would be absolutely useless against four armed men. It didn't matter that Leonard knew they were coming; it was fucking terrifying, because he knew that this was as real of a simulation as he'd ever see. The only thing that was off-limits was that neither one of them would be killed… intentionally. Anything and everything else was fair game, and for the sake of all of it - for Jim's sake - Leonard knew he had to play along, without reservation.

"Friends of yours, Jim?" Leonard asked, his voice barely holding steady.

"Not likely," Jim whispered back before shouting out, "Who the fuck are you people?"

One of them laughed harshly behind his mask. "What do you think, boys?" He was clearly addressing his companions. "Think they'd be more valuable to Starfleet than Cochrane Hall?"

"They're just a couple of fucking cadets, Pedro," another one said. "Not enough leverage. Not worth changing the plan."

"Dunno, Tom," said the first one, gesturing with his rifle. "Starfleet seems to have a thing about life over property. Of course, those fuckers seem to care more about alien life than real human beings, so I don't know what these little drones are worth to them."

Jim clearly didn't like being ignored, even by thugs with guns, and he took a step forward. "I said, 'Who the fuck are you people?'"

The first man who spoke laughed again, and it was a cruel, biting sound. "This one is pretty mouthy for a cadet. I'd say not worth it. We've gotta get down there and plant the charges so Bill can issue the terms. Let's just shoot them and get it over with." With that, he hefted his rifle and leveled it directly at Jim's chest.

Leonard might've been able to tell himself that it wasn't real, but that didn't stop his breath from catching in his throat, or his heart from thudding furiously in his chest. He braced himself - it was his turn to act. Stepping around quickly, he put his arm between Jim and the guy who was aiming the rifle. "Hey, hey! There's no need to -"

Knowing it was coming didn't help.

The butt end of the phaser rifle collided with the side of his head and his vision exploded with flashes of light and sound. He was distantly aware of his face grinding into the dirt and the sounds of a fight in the background. Jim's voice, Jim's shouts… pain… fear. Bones! Get up - AAGH! Get away from him! Let me go!

Rough hands flipped Leonard over, but all he could do was groan.

"Smash his communicator. If we're gonna do this, we can't let them track us." Hands groped over his uniform, and he heard the sound of cracking polymers and sparking electronics.

To the side, there was more struggling and muffled shouting. Somewhere in the back of Leonard's pain-addled mind, he could almost remember this was supposed to be happening, and that this was make-or-break time for Jim. On another level, something much more real and immediate, Leonard couldn't remember that this was a simulation. It didn't feel like a simulation because he was the one on the ground and blood was running across his eyes and there was no contact with the observation deck and Jim was trying to shout his name around the gag being forced into his mouth.

With one desperate heave, Leonard tried to scramble to his feet, to reach Jim, to save him. Through the deepening shadows and the blur of his blood-tinted vision, he managed to see just two things: Jim's wild eyes and straining neck muscles as he desperately tried to free himself, and the black-clad thug who was swinging a phaser rifle at him like a baseball bat. His leg exploded in pain and he crumbled to the ground.

Beyond the roar of blood in his ears, he could hear the continued scuffle; less distantly, he was aware that a blindfold and gag were being tightened over his own face. There was a phaser discharge and the distant sounds of struggling went silent only seconds before he was swallowed by darkness.

.&.

The ground was moving and shaking. No, it wasn't the ground, it was the floor. Cold metal, the back of a vehicle, bouncing along a road. Every bump sent waves of pain through Leonard - his leg, his head, his back. He couldn't see a thing, vaguely remembering the blindfold. He tried to talk, only to remember the gag as well. He managed a weak groan.

A muffled voice made a sound not to far from him, and over the noise of the rickety vehicle, Leonard heard someone scrambling closer. A few thuds and a flop, and there was a warm presence brushing against his face.

Jim.

Jim was there, his forehead pressing against Leonard's, letting him know that he wasn't alone. Reassuring sounds, and Leonard imagined he was saying, I'm here, Bones. I'll get us out of this. Hang in there. If he knew Jim, and he did, then that's what Jim would say.

They hit another large bump, and Leonard's head smacked into the unforgiving metal floor of the vehicle again, sending a searing flash of pain through his skull. Nausea and agony blended together, and a few seconds later, merciful blackness took him again.

.&.

"… Bones… come on, Bones, wake up!"

Leonard groaned. Why the hell should he get up? Wasn't it a holiday or some shit like that? He didn't think he had a shift in the infirmary until later. If he had, he would have set his alarm. Besides, he had a goddamned headache. No, he had no intention of waking up.

"Bones, listen to me. You have to wake up!"

No… too tired… leave me alone.

"Bones, I will not leave you alone! Didn't you just tell me about head injuries and comas? I'm not a doctor and I don't have a first aid kit or a tricorder but you're hurt and I need you to wake up. Come on, Bones! Open your eyes!"

There was panic in that voice. Tightly controlled, reined in, but ready to burst at any second. It was that sharp splinter of fear lodged in Jim's voice that reached through to Leonard and told him that something was wrong. Forcing his eyes open was one of the hardest things he thought he'd ever done, but the reward of seeing Jim's face helped.

"Jim?"

Jim let out a gasp of relief. "Thank God. Bones, look at me, and try to focus. No, don't move your head. Follow my finger." Jim held up an index finger over Leonard's face and slowly moved it back and forth. Leonard automatically tried to follow it with his eyes, but the floor rocked beneath him and his stomach churned and all he could do was moan and close his eyes again.

"Okay, okay, we won't do that. Sorry, I had to check. Come on, keep your eyes open. Stay with me."

There was a gentle hand against his cheek, and slowly, Leonard forced his eyes open again. He tried to take stock of his situation, but it was hard to think straight. The floor was hard beneath his back, but there was something soft under his head. Everything else seemed numb and hazy. There was some sort of danger, but he had the strange sense that he was where he was supposed to be. And still deeper than that, there was the frantic feeling that something was horribly, dreadfully wrong. "Wha… what happened?"

"In a minute, Bones. You first. Can you feel my fingers?"

It took a moment for the tingling and numbness to make way for real sensation, but there was Jim's hand, squeezing each of Leonard's fingers in turn. "Yeah. Yeah, I can feel that."

Another wave of relief on Jim's face. "That's good. What about this?"

As Jim worked his way around Leonard's body, checking for breaks and nerve damage, Leonard felt his senses slowly return and his eyesight begin to clear a bit. And that's when he got a good look at Jim's face, which was a mess of bruises. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth,

"Goddammit, Jim, get over here," he croaked. "Stop fussing over me and take care of yourself."

If anything, Jim actually looked amused by that. "For once, I'd love to, Bones, but this time, you're the one who needs help. And that's not going to happen anytime soon, either. Not here."

"Where's here?"

Jim looked around uneasily, then leaned in closer to whisper in Leonard's ear. "This is apparently some sort of hideout or bunker for Terra Prime."

"Terra Prime?" Leonard asked, frowning. "Aren't they some sort of… terrorist group or something?"

"Yeah." Jim clenched his jaw. "Starfleet History class, Bones."

Leonard blinked a couple of times, knowing he'd seen the name somewhere, but the details weren't coming. "I'm a bit fuzzy on class work right now, Jim," Leonard said, "so fill me in."

Despite the obvious worry hiding just behind Jim's eyes, he obliged. "They're xenophobic. They want humans out of space and aliens away from Earth. They almost fizzled out of existence after the Federation was established, but after… after the Kelvin incident…" He shook his head and growled. "They used that fiasco as a recruiting tool and got people riled up again. I guess bigotry never quite goes out of style. They've targeted Federation locations throughout the world over a dozen times in the past few years - the Sydney Xenobiology Institute, the Federation Embassy in Paris - and they've been getting more active."

There was something that Leonard felt he should remember, but when he tried to concentrate, a surge of pain through his head forced him to shut his eyes, and he couldn't suppress a groan as the room spun around him. Almost instantly, one of Jim's hands was cradling his cheek and the other was grasping Leonard's hand. "Breathe, Bones. Come on, hang in there."

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Leonard managed to say as he opened his eyes blearily.

"Bullshit, but I'll let you believe that for now." The words were calloused, but the tone was tight with worry.

Leonard knew full well that he was in bad shape. He couldn't see straight, his leg was throbbing fiercely, and he was pretty sure the splitting headache had nothing to do with emotional stress. He couldn't worry about that now, though. "So… Terra Prime… what are they up to now?"

Jim pressed his lips together. "Yeah. That. From what I managed to hear, they're not too pleased with the Deltan settlement being planned in northern California. They were going to target Cochrane Hall while the campus was almost vacant over the holiday weekend. They hadn't planned to take us, but…"

"Wrong place at the wrong time?" Leonard mused aloud.

Jim grumbled. "Something like that. And even worse… they still planted the bombs."

Leonard felt his stomach jump, and not because of the head injury. Was that right? He wasn't sure. "How do you know all this? Are you sure about the bombs?"

Jim cast an uneasy glance around the austere grey room where they were apparently being held captive. "Yeah, Bones. I'm sure. They stunned me with the phaser rifle, but I think they didn't realize that I came to before they threw us in the back of the truck. I've been listening to them the whole time. They're going to use us for negotiations, and if that fails, they'll blow the building."

That really didn't sound right, but… hell, he couldn't think straight anyway. He wasn't privy to the whole scenario, so this must be one of the unexpected twists. "Fuck."

"Yeah." Jim looked around the room at the blank walls one more time, as if a way out might suddenly appear for him. "Also… I kept track of how far we travelled, and if we were going at an average of a hundred kilometers per hour, we're about 130 kilometers outside of San Francisco. I know we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, so we're somewhere to the north of the city, in the hills. It'll give Starfleet a general search zone if we can get a message out."

"How are we gonna do that, Jim?"

"I'll think of something," he said evenly, and Leonard had no doubt that he would. "We have to get a message to Starfleet." He glanced back down at Leonard. "And then… we have to figure out how to get you out of here safely."

Realization dawned on Leonard. "Jim, you'll have to leave me."

Jim's eyes went wide. "No fucking way. Not gonna happen."

"You don't have much of a choice, kid. My leg is a mess, and you can't carry me."

"I will if I have to."

Leonard reached up and gripped Jim's arm as firmly as he could. "What you have to do is warn Starfleet about the bombs, get your ass out of here, and send a rescue party."

Jim leaned over Leonard and faced him eye to eye. "Bones, if I leave without you, they'll kill you. I am not. Letting. That. Happen. Do you understand me?" His eyes were wide with desperation, and his shoulders were tense with emotional strain. "I'm not leaving without you."

"What about Cochrane Hall?" Leonard challenged. "What if they blow the building with people still in it? You need to warn Starfleet Headquarters before you make any sort of attempt to get out of here. They have to disarm the bombs… evacuate people. That's got to be the first priority, Jim. Not me. And you have a better chance of doing that if you just accept the fact that I'm not getting out of here. How many people might -" He was cut off as another surge of pain ripped through his head. When he managed to open his eyes, the room seemed darker, and the light wavered unsteadily. The only constant thing was Jim's anxious expression.

"Bones? Can you hear me?"

He could, but the voice seemed far away, like it was echoing down a long corridor. The floor was rocking beneath him and the lights faded in and out. Jim, it's okay. I'll be okay, he tried to say, and maybe he did, but he couldn't be sure. The last thing he knew was Jim's hand squeezing his, something warm pressing against his chest, and the sound of sobbing.

.&.

The sound of a beeping tricorder slowly lulled Bones back to consciousness. His neck tingled with the familiar itch of a recently applied hypospray, but the hard surface beneath his back wasn't a biobed. He groaned when he remembered where he was.

"Bones!" There was a clattering sound - the tricorder fell silent - and a hand grasped his own. "Bones, talk to me."

"How long have I been out?" he croaked, opening his eyes.

"Almost forty-five minutes. Shit, Bones, you scared the living daylights out of me."

"I know I'm ugly when I wake up, but you don't need to be melodramatic."

Jim blinked. "Am I that obnoxious when I'm injured?"

"Turnabout is fair play." He blinked a couple of times, surprised to realize that his headache had faded. He rubbed his neck where the tingling sensation was beginning to fade, trying to ignore the odd buzzing sound in his ear. "Wha… how did you get medical supplies?"

"He cooperated," came a neutral voice from the far corner of the room.

Jim looked up with narrowed eyes. "I recited our names, ranks, and serial numbers for a holovid." He looked back down at Leonard. "I needed to treat you, Bones. Not that their supplies are really up to snuff."

"I can take them back," said the voice again.

"Over my dead body," Jim grumbled.

"That can be arranged."

Leonard risked raising his head, squinting against the bright lights so he could get a clear look at their captor. "Easy man, easy!" Just as quickly, the room rocked beneath him and he lowered his head back down; he shouldn't move too much unless he had to. The painkiller helped, but he couldn't let himself believe that the injury was gone. "Jim, just leave it alone."

"You ought to listen to your friend," the man said flatly. "Even fucked up, he's got more common sense than you do. You're kinda feisty for a medic."

"Well, what do you expect from a medic who hasn't been allowed to treat a patient?" Jim snapped.

Surprised, Leonard raised an eyebrow, and Jim gave him a look that told him quite clearly to just play along with it.

"Listen, Starfleet," their captor started, as the scraping sounds of boots on the floor told Leonard that the guy had moved a few steps closer. Jim narrowed his eyes angrily, and the footsteps stopped. "Hey, I've got no personal problem with the two of you," He almost sounded exasperated. "I've got problems with your organization and what it's doing to our planet and culture, but I don't have any reason to kill either of you. Just… behave yourselves, and if Federation brass agrees to our terms, we'll let you go."

Leonard watched Jim's expression go hard. It was the look he got on his face just before he'd make a move playing 3-D chess… usually before calling "check." He gave Leonard the briefest of nods before turning to their captor. "Okay." He held up the tricorder. "But I keep these."

"Oh? Demands now?" Exasperation had been replaced by caustic disdain. "Why should we leave you with a pile of equipment, Starfleet? What are you planning to do with it?"

"What do you think I'm going to do with it?" Jim blurted, exasperation dripping from his voice. Leonard recognized that tone - it was his. "It's a medical tricorder, and I'm a goddamned field medic! I'm going to try to keep my friend alive while you play politics with Federation brass. I don't care about that shit. Hell, this is only our first year at the Academy - I just needed a job. You want me to behave myself, then let me make sure my buddy has a fighting chance. Seeing as you came up and practically bashed his skull in while we were trying to have a Thanksgiving picnic, it's the least you can do!"

There was dead silence for a moment, but then the guy actually chuckled. "I'll give you credit, Starfleet. You've got spunk. My aunt was a doctor, and she was the same way about her patients." He paused. "Okay, you can keep your toys. You're no good to us dead. Not yet, anyway. Your Starfleet Headquarters has another forty-seven minutes to respond to your message. I'd love to stay and chat, but my team needs those minutes to prepare. I'll see you when the time is up."

The door creaked open and clicked shut, and in a heartbeat, Jim whirled into a flurry of activity.

"Jim, what's happening? Field medic? Holovid? What's going on?"

"They made me record a hostage holovid," he said, rapidly fiddling with the controls on the tricorder. He pushed buttons and made adjustments for a minute, scanning the room and checking the readout, then finally breathed a sigh of relief. "I've managed to modify this ancient piece of shit enough to get started. They really weren't planning on taking hostages. If they were, the room would be bugged. It isn't; we can talk." He looked squarely at Leonard. "First, I'm a medic, and that's it. You're not a doctor, you're into stellar cartography. Those are the two jobs I could think of that they would find the least valuable and still get me access to a med kit."

Leonard felt his eyebrows going up as he took this all in. "Okay…"

"Second… we need to get out of here before the hour is up." Something like raw terror flashed in Jim's eyes. "No other option, Bones. We need to get out, because if Starfleet doesn't cooperate, you're first. I can't let that happen."

He didn't have to spell out exactly what he meant; Leonard knew what happened to hostages when the negotiations didn't go well. "I understand," he said roughly.

Jim nodded. "Also," he lowered his voice even more, "I'm Jim Robertson. If they come back and we're still here, and you so much as breathe my last name, we'll never get out of here alive."

Leonard's mouth fell open. He'd never thought of that - what a valuable hostage the son of Starfleet's famous hero would be. "Shit, Jim. I… okay."

"I'm just glad I managed to ditch our ID's out a back slot in the truck before we got here."

He felt a surge of admiration. "That's… that's pretty good. I wouldn't have thought of that."

Jim shrugged. "We were in the truck for over an hour. I had time to think." He took a deep breath. "We'll get out of here, Bones. I'm working on it. I managed to encode some information into the holovid we sent out. The emergency evacuation code in my serial number, and the code for a bomb threat and the building number for Cochrane Hall in yours. That's all I could do without raising suspicion."

"That's quite a bit."

Then Leonard noticed something new, frowned, and held his hand up, running a tentative finger along Jim's cheek where a new bruise seemed to be forming, and along his lower lip, which was now split and crusted with a dry ooze of blood. "They hit you again."

It was an illusion or a falter, but Leonard felt Jim lean into his hand, eyes flickering closed for the barest of instants, before Jim's hand snapped up and grabbed Leonard's, squeezing it tightly. "Thanks for the diagnosis. I'll let you know when I think it matters."

"It matters," Leonard said with a weak grunt, wishing it didn't make his blood boil so hot to see Jim injured.

Jim only shook his head. "Not if we don't get out of here. Not compared to what they did to you," he said tersely. "They were going to drag you to the room where they wanted to record the holovid, and you weren't stable enough. You think I was going to let them do that without a fight?"

Leonard made a noise of acceptance, not that he really accepted it. Then he raised an eyebrow when he noticed that Jim was scanning him with the tricorder and scowling. "What's it say?"

Instead of looking up, Jim actually looked away.

"That bad, huh?"

After a moment, Jim looked up and rested a warm hand on Leonard's chest. "Just don't fall asleep, okay?"

That bad.

Somewhere in the back of Leonard's mind, he remembered that he'd been fitted with a sensor to track his vital signs, set to transmit on a narrow band back to Toland's sim team. They wouldn't let him slip too far. They wouldn't. But still, something didn't quite feel right, and in Leonard's hazy mind, he couldn't figure out for the life of him why.

"So what's the plan?" Leonard finally asked as Jim began fishing around in the first aid kit.

"The plan is that first, I stabilize your leg. I already…" His voice trailed off, and he shook his head. "The kit is old, but it's got all the basics. Osteostabilizers, vas… vascular stabilizers. The only regenerator we have is dermal, so I can't fix your leg, but we can get it to the point where you can put weight on it."

Leonard frowned at the way Jim had hesitated. Vascular stabilizers? He realized that the buzzing he'd noticed in his ear hadn't faded, and the sound was artificial and familiar. Tentatively, he reached up to feel the spot above his temple, but Jim caught his hand.

"Don't touch it, Bones. The only reason I know how to use those things like that is because I read ahead in the course lessons to the advanced section. Two days ago, actually, after you told me about head injuries and all that." He took a deep, unsteady breath. "The bleeding has stopped, for now. You just need to hold still."

Leonard did his best to hold still and not panic while Jim worked on his leg. It's true, he thought grimly, that doctors make the worst patients. This sucks. Occasionally, Jim would ask him if he was in pain, but otherwise, he worked in silence. Finally, Jim leaned back on his haunches and wiped his sleeve across his forehead.

"It's not great, but it'll have to do." He glanced down at his chrono. "Thirty-two minutes until they come back." For a moment, he stared at the tricorder and the various stabilizers laid out on the floor in front of him. He ran his fingers over each one, as if considering them, cataloguing their capabilities, and putting them together as pieces of a strange puzzle. He reached to the side and grabbed something - the hypospray - and held it up in front of his face, looking at it critically.

"Jim?"

"You know," he said, "I really hate these things. However -" He reached into the med kit, retrieved a vial full of a light blue fluid, and confidently snapped it into place. "- these assholes are going to hate 'em even more by the time I'm done with them."

.&.

For the next twenty-five minutes, Jim kept up a constant stream of chatter, describing what he was doing, and insisting that Leonard ask questions and repeat back information. "I've got to make sure you're not fading, Bones," he'd said, "so keep talking to me." As the clock ticked down, Jim's motions became faster and more desperate, but no less controlled. He had absolute focus, absolute determination, and Leonard found that he had absolute confidence that Jim could solve anything.

"… so when they come back, there will probably be a few of them. We'll need to move you out of the center of the room so that they can't target you immediately. I'll take 'em out, sedate the bunch of them, and then we move." He clipped the hypospray to the tool belt he'd found folded in the bottom of the med kit.

Leonard tried to process that. "What if there's more than one of them? How many of them can you take yourself?"

Jim actually snorted. "As many as I have to. Besides, they won't be expecting me to jump them, so I have the advantage."

Although he wanted to argue against those odds, Leonard held his tongue. They had only two choices - to try or not - and if they didn't play the game, they'd automatically lose.

Next, Jim held up the tricorder, which was displaying a building schematic on the readout screen. "I've managed to get a pretty good layout of the place. We're underground by about twenty feet, so we've got to get to a turbolift. There are three, and I'm aiming for this one. The route with the fewest branching hallways is out of this door to the right. That'll give them the fewest ways to ambush us if they catch up."

"What about their internal sensors, Jim? I'm sure they'll be able to track us. And once they realize we're on the move, they might detonate the bombs in Cochrane Hall."

"That's where these come in," he said, holding up the spare osteostabilizer units and grinning like the cat who'd caught the canary. "They're just transmitters, Bones, and any transmitter can be modified. If I've done this right, I'll be able to stick them to any computer port and scramble the sensor relays for a distance of at least thirty junctions."

Leonard frowned. "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not an engineer. What's that mean?"

Jim had the good graces to look sheepish. "Sorry, Bones. Approximately one junction every one-hundred and thirty-five centimeters in most systems. About forty meters per transmitter, which, according to my map, will give us just enough of these babies -" He shook the osteostabilizer for emphasis. "- to clear the way to the exit I want to use."

"And if they do follow us…?"

"As we move, I'll vaporize vials of sedative into the air." He reached out and grabbed the small row of vials he'd lined up, counting them as he put them into the pouch on his belt. "We won't be able to go backwards, but we don't want to do that anyway, and if they try to follow us, they'll have to go right through the vapor. It might not knock them out, but it'll slow them down, make them easier to fight."

Somewhere, in the back of Leonard's foggy mind, something he said came back to him. I think that if he was a medic, he'd find a way to save the universe with a roll of gauze, a tricorder, and a hypospray. He felt a hot wave of tears well up in his eyes, and he blinked a few times to push them back.

"Bones, you okay?" The concern in Jim's voice was palpable.

"Yeah, kid," he rasped. "You got a plan for the roll of gauze, too?"

A sad half-smile tugged at Jim's mouth. "Of course. I'll put a small piece of it on the gaping hole I'll leave in their ringleader's chest for what he did to you." He coughed once and turned away, grabbing the gauze and putting it in another pouch on his belt. "And actually, this roll is adhesive. Maybe I'll use it to gag these fuckers as we go."

Yep, and the gauze, too. "Is that everything?" Leonard asked, still somewhat overwhelmed by the amount of work that Jim had managed to do in such a short period of time with so little.

"Almost." Jim finished securing the stabilizer units on his belt, then picked up the tricorder. "We still need to get Starfleet to find us… and I still need my revenge. I've programmed two subroutines into the tricorder, and if I don't miss my guess, there should be a computer port by the exit. I wire this thing into the computer terminal, and it initiates a general shutdown of the whole facility."

Leonard's mouth fell open. "You've got to be kidding me. You can do that with a goddamned tricorder?"

"On a computer system as out of date as the one they've got? You bet. My guess is that they're relying on low-tech resources to avoid detection." He nodded slowly. "They'll be able to override it, but not before we've been able to slow them down, put some distance between us and them, and let the other subroutine I've programmed take over their transmitters and signal our exact location to Starfleet Headquarters."

At a loss of anything else he could possibly say to something like that, Leonard breathed a low, "Wow."

Jim quirked a half smile. "I try." Then he fell silent, staring at the readout screen on the tricorder as if he could see right through it.

"Jim," Leonard said softly.

Jim blinked a couple of times and looked up, his eyes still distant. "Sorry, Bones, I was just checking on you one more time. We're going to have to move you, but try to hold as steady as you can. Just don't knock off that vascular stabilizer, okay?"

Leonard nodded, still amazed at the myriad of different skills and abilities Jim had been able to call on during a crisis. "I'll be careful."

"We can't be too careful." For the first time since he'd begun fervently working on the modified equipment, a crack broke through the shell of his confidence. "Fuck, Bones, what if this is all wrong? I mean, I've only taken part of a First Responder course - what if I've set those stabilizers wrong? And I've read some manuals and learned a few tricks with tricorders from a couple of the engineering students, but… what if this doesn't work?"

"It'll work, Jim." He tried to smile, but only managed a hopeful grimace. "Come on, if I know you, you'll be having a picnic on the lawn by the time this is over."

Jim shook his head dismissively. "Bones, you really did hit your head if you're talking like that. This isn't a fucking simulation. I can't mess around with this, and I can't let myself get too confident. It's my arrogance that's gonna get me and everyone killed someday." Jim's gaze dropped, and he laughed softly, almost-bitterly. "At least, that's what I've been told."

"It's not arrogance if you can back it up, Jim, and you can. I've watched you work your way through things so easily - things that could be life or death. You can do that now."

"No, this is different. I can't afford to make a mistake. I'm not just gambling with myself this time. There's too much riding on this."

"There's shit riding on what we all do every day. Do you think I haven't lost people on the operating table? Do you think that you won't lose people once you become captain of that ship you keep daydreaming about? People die. It happens, Jim. But you're capable enough to work through that."

"Not when it's you on the line!" he burst out, then bit down on his tongue.

Leonard felt something in his chest ache, and it wasn't from the beating he'd taken. "Jim… "

Jim suddenly clenched his jaw and looked away, but Leonard couldn't let it go that easily. Couldn't let Jim go that easily. He grabbed Jim's wrist and waited until the kid met his gaze.

"I understand, Jim. I almost completely lost my bearing last week when you collapsed during that training sim. And I learned a hard lesson. If I want to keep my friends and colleagues alive out there - and that includes you, kid - I've got to keep a level head… and let them do their jobs… so I can do mine."

"I used to think I could do that, Bones. I don't know anymore."

"Well, I know, even if you don't. Listen, when this is all over, and we get back, you need to look at yourself in the mirror and know that you… you… you're one in a million, kid. One in all the galaxy… the universe… and maybe more." He felt another hot flush behind his eyes, and didn't bother to blink it away. "I'm glad I've gotten to know you, Jim, no matter what bullshit comes with that."

Jim looked at him sideways, his expression unreadable. "Bones, that's the worst 'if we don't get out of here alive' speech I've ever heard."

"You think that's what this is?" Leonard stammered.

"What else would it be right now?"

He blew out a tight breath. "Call it a pep-talk. You're at your best when you're confident, even if you do tend to ruffle feathers that way. But you've got to let yourself have that right now. You need it." A wave of pain caught him and he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment until it passed, then let one eye pop back open to appraise Jim. "I need it."

"Bones, I don't deserve to be that confident. We might not make it. I'm not perfect. Hell, I'm so far from perfect, it's sick."

"Dammit, Jim, I don't give a shit about perfect! I'll bet you anything that perfect would follow protocols right now and we'd end up dead. We're getting out of here, and I trust you to do it! Don't you get that? I don't think I'd trust anyone else." With anything.

Something in Jim's eyes shifted and broke, and for a moment, everything else fell away. "I love you, too, Bones." And in a heartbeat, the focused mask of determination was back. "Okay, we've got three minutes before we can reasonably expect them to come back in, so we've got to get you moved. Here, give me your hand."

With some careful maneuvering and an extra dose of painkillers, Leonard was on his feet and wedged into the corner of the room out of the line-of-sight from the door. His vision was fuzzy and the light faded in and out a bit, but it would be okay. Really, as much as he hated violence, he wanted to jump in and fight instead of leaving Jim to face these guys alone. However, he knew that if he jarred the head injury the wrong way, he'd be less than useless - deadweight, really. Literally.

No, the best thing he could do was to let Jim do this. It was the fight the kid needed, and if the deadly look of determination on his face was anything to go by, he was going to win.

Jim had his back pressed to the wall right next to the door, hypospray in hand. Every muscle was tensed and taut, like steel bands ready to snap, lash, and recoil, but absolutely still for now. The only hints of movement Leonard could see were the steady rise and fall of Jim's chest as he breathed, the frantic flutter of his pulse in his neck, and twitching of his fingers as he shifted his grip on the hypospray. Jim's eyes glanced sideways, meeting Leonard's. "Ready?"

Leonard nodded, just as he heard the faint scraping and shuffling of human movement on the other side of the door. The magnetic seals triggered, there was a huff of air as the door slid sideways, an exclamation of "Where the hell-?" from the man stepping into the room, and then Jim exploded.

Jim spun and charged, slamming his shoulder into the guy's chest and driving him backwards into the hallway. Leonard wanted to rush in and help, but he stayed in his corner and listened nervously to the sounds of bodies slamming, fists colliding, and heads cracking, all punctuated with occasional shouts of effort and pain. After what seemed like forever but couldn't have been more than fifteen seconds, it all went quiet. Then, there was the scraping of shoes and staggering footsteps, a hand wrapping around edge of the doorframe, and Jim's head popping around the corner. He looked a bit roughed up, but he was grinning.

"That was fun." He hurried over and helped Leonard sling his arm over his shoulder. "Go ahead and put your weight on me as much as you need to. They didn't have time to sound an alarm, so that helps, but we've got to move."

They had just gone through the door into the hallway when Jim paused and looked down at the three guys who'd been left in a heap on the floor. With a nod to himself, he reached down and pulled a phaser from one of the guy's belts and handed it to Leonard. "Shoot first, ask questions later." He reached down and secured a phaser for himself, too.

"Set it to stun, Jim."

Jim glared at him. "They don't deserve that."

"Maybe not," Leonard growled, "But you can be better than them."

Jim looked at him narrowly for a moment, then nodded and flicked the selector knob. Then, he reached into his pouch and slammed the first modified stabilizer unit against the computer console and activated it. "Now we move."

The hall was poorly lit, and otherwise deserted. They were in what looked like the storage area of the facility. Definitely not designed for holding prisoners, and... something wasn't right. With the amount of shit lying around - dusty equipment, crates, weapons lockers with out-of-date armaments - it looked so realistic, like this was a real terrorist hideout or something crazy like that. Leonard just reminded himself that when Starfleet does something, it doesn't work in half-measures. Either way, with his leg throbbing with every step and his head starting to ache again despite the painkillers, he couldn't spare any effort to focus on that.

They made it to the first turn without incident, but as they were about to round the corner, they heard voices. Jim looked sideways at Leonard and held a finger over his lips - Quiet - then pushed Leonard against the wall and indicated for him to stay out of sight. First, he took another stabilizer unit and activated it against the computer console, then ducked down and glanced around the edge of the wall. He appraised the situation for a moment, and then with cat-like stealth, he slunk forward in the shadows.

Leonard found himself fingering the trigger of the phaser that Jim had given him, and realized that if he heard Jim yell once in any sort of pain or distress, shoot first would be an easy task. Instead, all he heard was a sudden and soft exclamation of surprise, a thud of a body hitting the floor, a brief scuffle, and then a second thud. A moment later, Jim darted back around the corner of the hallway, his face grim.

"There were only two of them," he whispered as he resettled Leonard's arm across his shoulders, "but they were communicating with another part of the base. They're going to find us soon."

They hurried through the corridor, past the two comatose bodies on the ground. Jim paused. "Hold your breath," he said, as he loaded a vial of sedative into hypospray, adjusted the settings, and released the entire contents into the air as a vapor. Leonard nodded his approval, and they pushed onwards.

The painkillers in Leonard's system were good, but even modern medicine had limits, and as they moved, the pain from both his leg and his head kept getting stronger and stronger. He barely even noticed that they'd stopped again and Jim had propped him against the wall and was scanning him with a tricorder.

"Bones, you've gotta hang in there. We're got another thirty meters to the 'lift. Try to focus on breathing evenly."

Leonard blinked a few times, then squinted. His vision was blurring in and out. "Jim, I can't do this. I'm slowing you down. I can barely see you right now."

Jim leaned in closer, coming just barely into Leonard's focus. "If you stop here, then I stop here."

"No, kid." He blinked again. "You can't win everything. Sometimes, you've got to take good enough."

"Losing this part of the game is not a fucking option."

Leonard was going to argue again, but a shout and a phaser blast cut him off.

"Shit!" Jim hissed. "Get down!"

Ducking behind a pallet of crates, Jim popped up and returned fire. Leonard slid to the ground clumsily and clutched his own phaser, knowing that if he had to use it, he'd be hard-pressed to see his target. Flashes of light ricocheted off surfaces as phaser fire and shouting blended into a cacophony that assaulted his ears and made his head spin. Suddenly, there was one final shout of pain and a closer cry of short-lived victory. Then Jim was hauling him to his feet.

"Come on, Bones. Hold on!" Jim practically dragged him across the hallway to a set of reinforced doors. He was braced bodily against the wall again as Jim worked furiously at a control panel. Jim got the panel loose, yanked it away, and began fiddling with the wires. "Come on, come on… Kathy better have been right about - OUCH! - better have been right about this… come on - yes."

The doors came slamming down, sealing off the passageway behind them, and Jim breathed a deep sigh of relief. "Remind me that I owe Kathy Van Dross a drink when we get back," he said breathily. "That should have just sealed every airlock on this floor. It's the main level… maybe we trapped a few more of them." He turned and wrapped a hand around Leonard's waist. It was more automatic response than conscious thought that allowed Leonard to drop his arm around Jim's shoulder. A few more meters to the turbolift… a few more meters…

And then primary power died.

Jim stopped cold. "Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me!"

In the dim glow of auxiliary lighting, Jim dragged Leonard the rest of the way to the turbolift panel and punched a few buttons. Nothing happened. He tried it again. Then he just punched the panel. "FUCK." The sound was sharp against Leonard's ears, but it was the least of his complaints just then. Jim was shaking his head, breathing heavily. "Okay, okay," he said, more to himself than to Leonard. "Plan B."

They crossed the small cut-off section of the corridor to a smaller doorway as Jim grumbled to himself. "With you like this, I'm sure they think they've got us trapped in here, Bones, but we can do this."

"Do what?" Leonard slurred. And that's when he looked and saw the access shaft and the ladder. "Jim," he choked, "I can't climb that. I can almost put weight on my leg, but I can't bend it, and I definitely can't climb that thing!"

"Not alone, you can't." Jim maneuvered him to the base of the ladder and placed his hands on the rungs in front of him. "Trust me, Bones. You said you trust me."

"I do! I just -" He paused as a wave of dizziness swayed him, then took a slow, deliberate breath. "You can't win this, Jim."

Jim leaned in close enough that Leonard could feel his breath on his cheek. "I've just decided something, Bones. Maybe I really am a Kirk, because I don't believe in no-win scenarios, either." With that, he ducked down, and suddenly he was crouched beneath Leonard's knees, hands wrapped around his shins, steadying him. "You start climbing with your hands, and I'll take your weight on my shoulders."

"Jim, you're fucking crazy!"

"I know! Start climbing!"

It was an awkward start, but once they were both on the ladder, Leonard had to admit that it worked. He couldn't imagine how heavy it must be for Jim, even though he was pulling with his arms as much as he could, and he swore to himself that he'd never underestimate the kid again. And he was going to have to stop thinking of Jim Kirk as a kid.

They were almost at the top when there was a sound like rushing water in his ears, his vision faded out, and a wave of dizziness left him clinging blindly to the ladder for dear life. The whole world dissolved in darkness and vertigo and unintelligible shouting, and the only solid thing was the rung of the ladder clenched in his hands and Jim's shoulders supporting his weight.

"… Bones! Bones! Talk to me! Are you okay up there?"

He blinked a few times as his vision started to clear again. "Yeah. I'm okay, Jim. Come on, five more feet."

"You sure?"

"We can't exactly stop now."

A moment later, Leonard cleared the top of the access ladder and rolled out onto the floor. His eyes closed as the room rocked around him.

And then he heard the whine of a phaser charging up.

He opened his eyes to see a large man looming over him, but the guy's eyes and phaser were aimed at the top of the ladder, where Jim was frozen, wide-eyed.

"You little Starfleet punks are more trouble than you're worth," he snarled. "The team should have killed you and left you there as a warning."

For the briefest of instants, Jim's eyes flashed to Leonard - do something - then fixed back on their opponent, glaring fiercely. "So is that what you're gonna do now? Kill us and drop our bodies on the Academy quad as a lovely holiday centerpiece? Happy fucking Thanksgiving, kids!"

The man's finger twitched on his phaser. Phaser.

Leonard felt where he'd tucked the type-I phaser in his pocket. Small enough to barely be seen. If he could move carefully enough… if Jim could keep this guy distracted…

"Don't talk about great traditions like Thanksgiving, Starfleet. We've got aliens living in our cities and towns. Tradition is gone, destroyed by your Federation and Starfleet." He spat the word.

"Starfleet is gonna stop you," Jim said confidently. "They're coming."

Nice bluff, Jim, Leonard thought as he wiggled the phaser from his pocket and palmed it carefully.

The man only scoffed. "Nice try, kid. They don't know where you are. We've been operating here for twenty years, and they haven't found us. You're not about to change that."

At that, Jim actually smiled. A malicious, victorious smile. "I change everything. Too bad you people can't handle a first-year medic and a glorified map-maker with a concussion."

"Ha! A medic. That's really funny, kid. If you're nothing but a field medic, then I'm the fucking Lone Ranger."

Leonard squeezed off a shot from his phaser, and the guy's face barely registered the surprise of it before he toppled over, unconscious. Leonard grimaced. "Hi-ho, Silver."

With a grunt, Jim heaved himself the rest of the way off the ladder and hurried over to the man's prone form, hitting him in the neck with the hypospray. "For good measure," he said. Then, reconsidering, he kicked the guy in the gut. "That too."

Leonard felt the light tug of a smile on Jim's behalf as he pushed himself upright with a groan. "How much further, Jim?"

Jim didn't reply, still staring at the man on the ground. "I recognize that guy."

Leonard's gut froze. "What?" If Jim had recognized a faculty member from the Academy…

Jim was nodding to himself, a cloud of anger slowly descending over his features. "I saw his face on a newscast last year. He was involved in the bombing of the Federation Embassy in Paris. They never caught him." His eyes flashed something murderous. "Almost seven hundred people died."

With a cry of rage, Jim kicked the guy again, so hard that his body actually flipped over.

Still sitting on the floor, Leonard was finding himself in another type of shock. The odd feelings he'd been having… that something was wrong… "Jim," he whispered, then louder, "JIM."

"What, Bones?"

Heart pounding, breath tight in his throat, he barely managed to choke out, "We need to get out of here."

Jim's eyes locked with his, still blazing with fury, but he quickly schooled the rage into something colder, more controlled. "Yeah. We do."

Spurred by a new sort of desperation, Leonard almost didn't need Jim's help pulling himself up, but accepted the support as they hurried out of the access room, past the dead turbolift, and to the exit hatch. They were unchallenged.

Leonard let himself be propped against the side of the door as Jim dislodged the computer control panel, took out the tricorder, and hacked into the circuits. He could barely focus on what Jim was doing. His head was spinning and throbbing, but he was far more distracted by the new reality of the situation. Maybe Jim is wrong. Maybe he's misplacing the guy's face. Maybe… maybe… But he knew, with sobering clarity that had lodged itself in his gut like a frozen knife, that they'd been playing with something far bigger the whole time.

They were going to kill us. They were going to kill Jim. They were going to blow up Cochrane Hall…

"… Bones! We've got sixty seconds to get out of here!"

"Wha…what?"

"The shutdown routine I programmed into the tricorder triggered an auto-destruct. We need to move!"

In a blur of motion, they rushed out the door into the moonlit landscape, running and stumbling across the dry hillside, desperately trying to put distance between themselves and the doomed facility. Leonard was beyond the point of feeling pain as he was half-dragged, half-carried by a furious and determined Jim Kirk. There was a line of trees and a rock outcropping ahead, and somewhere above the trees, Leonard thought he could see the distant lights of a shuttlecraft. He'd never wanted to be on a shuttlecraft more desperately in his life.

And then a phaser blast whizzed by his head and struck one of the trees in front of him, leaving a scorched, fiery scar on its side. He looked back over his shoulder - ouch! Fuck, bad idea - and saw one dark shadow running after them, yelling. Without letting up his hold on Leonard, Jim pulled his own phaser and fired back, but the guy ducked and rolled, narrowly missing Jim's shot. Then, so fast it was hard to follow, he was up on one knee, phaser aimed, and a white-hot streak cut through the air.

Leonard felt Jim's body jolt next to him, and suddenly he was falling and slamming into the ground. He thought he felt something come loose, but he couldn't think about that because Jim had dropped to the ground next to him, clutching his right shoulder, face screwed up in pain.

"Jim! Did he get you?" He tried to move, but another phaser blast flew over their heads, and he ducked instinctively. "Jim, are you -"

Grunting, Jim flipped over to face him. "Bones," he bit out, clearly in physical distress, but too goddamned enraged to let it stop him, "whatever you hear, whatever happens -" He stopped cold and his mouth fell open. His left hand came away from his shoulder - there was a dark smear of blood on his fingers - and he reached up to the point on Leonard's temple where the vascular stabilizer had been set. "Fuck…" He clenched his jaw and fixed his face with steely determination, but couldn't quite cover the dread that had settled there. "Bones, don't move."

With that, he rolled to his knees and perched on his toes like a sprinter just about to start a race. His hand went to his phaser as he looked up at their oncoming attacker, and without a glance back, he launched himself into the night.

There was shouting and more phaser fire, and the desperate cry of a man fighting for his life and determined not to lose it because life was precious… so goddamned precious. Somewhere in the distance, there was the deafening thud of an explosion that sent a rush of hot air over him as the ground shook beneath his back.

And then silence.

The stars in the sky twinkled above him. No, they weren't twinkling. They were blinking. Fading in and out. The distant hum of a shuttlecraft's engines buzzed inside his head, but his own head was buzzing, too. And the stars… so many stars…

"Bones!" The voice was strained and harsh. There was a thud and a grunt of pain as a body collapsed to the ground next to him. "Bones, talk to me! Can you hear me?"

"Jim… I… I'm okay."

"There's a shuttlecraft… it's almost here. Hang in there. Look at me, Bones."

"I can't see you, Jim."

There was a choked sob. "Open your eyes, genius."

He did, but it didn't matter. Everything was a blur, and it was a dark blur at that, with tiny pinpricks of light swirling overhead. "It's okay, Jim. I can see the stars."

Strained, rapid breathing, and Jim Kirk was not going to cry, except that he was. "You'll see all of them, Bones. You're coming with me." A warm hand grasped his own.

"I know, Jim. I know."

The buzz of the shuttlecraft engine was louder, but the rushing in Leonard's ears was overtaking it. The stars blinked out one by one, and soon, too soon, Leonard's grip on Jim's hand and consciousness faded together.

.&.

(To Be Continued...)