A/N: I'll be honest; I really struggled with this one. But hey it's submitted and not abandoned. I just need to get my mojo back.

"Now you must simply destroy the remaining toxins to heal Jim's body."

"Yeah…" the doctor then hurriedly walked out of the room, without saying another word.

Swiftly, Spock approached the worried looking humanoid. "We appreciate your compliance. You may have saved Jim's life, despite being part of a cause that almost ended it."

Spock walked away, marching quickly to catch up with McCoy.

He only hoped they would be able to cure Jim in time.

"You made it sound so easy," McCoy grumbled, watching Kirk from across sickbay and wondering just how the hell he was going to approach him about this, "Simply destroy the toxins you said. Simply my ass. You think he's jus' gonna accept this?"

He knew Spock was staring at him out the corner of his eye.

"I am open to suggestions."

McCoy scoffed, "No, I'm open to suggestions, Spock. You're just gonna stand there and watch. Or go to the bridge. Whatever it is you do."

Spock considered this for a moment and craned his head, "I will have to report to the bridge, as there is no legitimate reason to be absent from duty."

McCoy rolled his eyes, "Of course you will. Do remember to think of him lying here suffering while you're slouching nice n' contented on the bridge."

"I do not slouch."

"Yeah, whatever."

He looked back over to Jim again.

How was he going to explain to him that this man who he apparently didn't recognise, that he seemed to be scared of, was going to stuff a tube down his throat and fill his lungs with liquid and leave him on the edge of brain damage?

Not easily- not to anyone.

Either the Vulcan was hiding his concern or generally didn't care. Probably the latter.

"I will report to duty now. Keep me informed on the Captain's condition."

McCoy didn't even make eye-contact with the bastard and stormed over to Jim—slowing down to a small jog when he remembered he needed to be gentle.

The kid seemed to be awake, at least—whether that was a good or bad thing he couldn't decide.

He dragged a stool up beside his biobed, still trying to fathom the words that could somehow lay this on him gently.

McCoy took a deep breath and forced a smile.

"Hey, Jim. How you feelin'?"

Stupid question, especially considering he can't even talk with the ventilator stuck down his throat.

The man gazing back at McCoy frowned, then rattled the restraints on his arms as if to convey a message. A very obvious one at that—he wanted out of the restraints.

He smiled sadly, "You know I can't do that yet, Jim. Don't trust ya to try yanking the damn ventilator out your throat and suffocate yourself." Glancing at Jim's disappointed expression, he sighed, "But getting that thing out is what I wanted to talk to ya about."

Cautious blue eyes flicked up to meet his, looking hopeful but weary.

"There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just gonna come out with it…yeah." He paused, watching Jim's eyes trained onto his, dreading the moment when fear will likely fill them, "I have some uh…some medicine to make your lungs better. 'Cause they're…not working properly, you see, and I, uh, I need to take the ventilator out for that."

Jim's eyes were still watching him, interested.

"I have this…uh," he twisted to the side and reached for the tubing matching Ruri's specifications, "This longass tube here, and this needs to reach your lungs."

Jim's face was beginning to drop now, worry beginning to pile in.

McCoy sighed, deciding there was no use trying to sugarcoat something like this and just came out with it.

"Instead of the ventilator being down your throat, there will be this tube. And it'll go all the way down to your lungs. It's really thin, see, so it can fit into your bronchial tubes," he wiggled it a bit, trying to be as light hearted as possible.

Jim's eyes gazed at the tube, watching it sway from the movement a bit before glancing back up to McCoy, anxiety in his entire face.

"Then we'll put the medicine down it. Now, because you won't be on the ventilator your lungs will already be frozen so that's…alright."

It's not alright dammit, but it's what we need to happen.

"Your lungs will fill up with the liquid, and I won't lie; it'll be very uncomfortable while we give it time to do it's thing. Then we'll drain the liquid, remove the tube, and depending on how strong your lungs are, ya might be able to breath on your own or temporarily be back on the ventilator…"

He paused when he heard the tugging scratching noises from the restraints, Jim trying to escape as if trapped here like a wild animal.

"But you'll be under conscious sedation, so you won't know what's going on anyway," he rest a hand on Jim's forehead for alleged comfort, but knew it was futile when the struggling continued, "I promise you won't feel a thing, no pain at all. Just uncomfortable. Okay?"

His words fell on deaf ears when Jim's struggling became more violent, the beep-beep-beep of the monitor increasing with urgency as his panic became known.

McCoy sighed, completely expecting this and unsure with how to proceed.

Do it now, he told himself, do it now and get it over with.

"Okay…"

He was sure a sentence was supposed to follow that, but he froze, rubbing his hand over his face, distressed.

When he glanced back up, Jim, was restlessly watching him.

Pursing his lips, McCoy reached into his pocket and pulled out the communicator, deciding he wasn't going to move away from Jim until he was sedated, at the very least.

It sounded ridiculous calling the main medbay when it was only through the door behind him, but Jim couldn't be left alone in his private ward after what he'd been told and god knows what was going through his head.

"McCoy to medbay."

A pause, Jim's eyes still locked onto his gaze.

"Chapel here, doctor. Do you need assistance?"

Someone competent was on duty. Good.

"Yeah. He's not in trouble, but I need to start that procedure I was tellin' you about. I might need more help on standby, so bring another nurse just in case."

She must have been busy, because it took another few seconds for her to reply, "I'll be with you in two minutes doctor."

McCoy grunted a quiet yeah and flipped the communicator shut, stuffing it away in his pocket and slowly making eye-contact with Jim, who's face still resembled someone that had been shut in a slaughter house.

He sighed, not sure how to comfort him at this stage. Bedside manner was never really his strong point. He was a doctor, and he was going to do everything he could to fix Jim, and that's all that mattered.

Ten minutes, one tube-in-throat and one drugged Jim later, McCoy and Chapel stood around their patient's bed, waiting for some kind of reaction to the fluid filling his lungs.

But instead, as the sky-blue liquid was pouring in, Jim's eyes just bounced around the room, frequently making strange noises through the invasion in his throat.

McCoy watched Jim's curious face for a second longer before turning his head back to the monitor.

"Seems alright so far. I think the oxygen going through the nasal mask is helping," he glanced back down to Jim, eying the small rubber mask over Jim's nose, feeding in a mix of oxygen and nitrous, despite the fact his lungs weren't working. He was bound to start struggling soon.

"Can he feel it going in?" Chapel asked, herself too watching Jim's face for any sign of distress, but there didn't seem to be any, to both of their surprise.

"Apparently not, but he's drugged to the damn high heavens on nitrous."

The only saving grace in this entire procedure was the fact that Jim seemed completely out of it.

Every now and then the kid's eyes would flick to either side of his head as if suddenly hearing something, but other than that he was strangely calm.

Biobed monitors were beeping calm and steadily, giving the illusion that there was nothing wrong with him at all.

After another minute, the solution had finished emptying into Jim's lungs, and the only sign of a reaction from Jim was a hitch in a single halted breath, and then nothing.

McCoy frowned, realising how badly the kid's vitals was fluctuating all over the place, waiting for something to go wrong.

Because something always went wrong with Jim.

"When do we start draining it?" one of his nurses asked him, and he flicked his eyes up to glance at her.

"When his vitals have finished fluctuating."

It was odd to think that Jim's lungs were currently full of blue fluid right now. Just sitting there…swishing around.

"Is there any danger to keeping him down that long?"

He huffed, "Don't really have a choice. Keep up the oxygen flow and wait for the meds to finish the job."

The blue fluid was going to, apparently, according to Ruri of all people, kill the rest of the toxins that had made themselves at home in Jim's lungs. Hopefully then they'll be able to start on their own; and he can get off the damn ventilator.

Why McCoy was trusting someone that was associated with the bastard that tortured the broken man currently lying on his table, he had no idea.

A radiant green light caught the corner of his eye before the alarms even began screeching, and suddenly the red warning signs that were causing anxiety across the room dimmed out to nothing.

Turning his head slightly, McCoy watched the single green light pulse once a second, before multiple green orbs began lighting up the biobed monitor.

Almost instantaneously, among the screeching noises of the alarms, Jim began writhing on the bed, making awful choking sounds that would have made the doctor panic if it wasn't for the green lights of reassurance plastered all over the monitors.

Still, those green lights will soon turn red if they didn't get that tube out of his throat.

"It's worked, he's started breathin' again," McCoy announced, quickly stepping to Jim's bedside again and pressing multiple buttons to begin draining the liquid.

Shouldn't have even started again until the damn liquid was drained.

Only you, Jim.

"He's not ready yet!" a nurse shouted in alarm, darting to the head of the biobed and grabbing a selection of hypos that she probably didn't even check the name of.

"Don't give him anything," McCoy ordered, making sure Jim would be left alone to recover in his own way, "His vitals are stable, but the tube needs to come out."

"There's still fluid in his lungs, sir,"

McCoy grunted, "I know that!" it wasn't draining fast enough.

Still, Jim was kicking around on the table like a toddler in a playpen, beginning to rattle the restraints loudly and causing more unrest among McCoy's medical team.

It must feel like suffocating, with this contraption stuck in his throat.

McCoy bit his lip, unable to do anything at all except wait for the liquid to finish draining.

He took Jim's flailing hand, "It's alright, Jim, just a couple more minutes and you'll be fine."

To his surprise, Jim's head turned to face him, eyes lit up in recognition, surprised he was actually understanding him through all the drugs he was on.

Perhaps the whole ordeal was making him power through it.

"It's clear, taking the device out now."

Thank god, he thought to himself, quickly wrapping hands around the end of the long tube and giving it a light tug.

The action caused a trigger to set off, the expanded device shortening from the other end, shrinking back into the front of the tube until the end of it slipped out from his throat, sending him coughing and spluttering over himself.

While the other nurses busied themselves with locking the tube back into its original packed cube-like form, McCoy kept his eye on the monitor for any downfalls, not ignoring the quiet moans he could hear from the blonde in front of him.

"You're alright," he murmured to Jim, not taking his eye off the biobed monitor. He didn't trust it. "You're alright."

Despite the fact the tube had been removed, McCoy could still hear him straining and grunting. He glanced down to Jim, frowning when he noticed the red marks cutting into Jim's wrists from straining against the restraint material too much.

"Christ, Jim," he murmured, leaning over him and ripping the restraints off, "Just don't get out of bed, okay?"

It was odd that the kid was so aware considering how dosed up he was on nitrous. It was probably something to do with the lingering effects of the liquid.

Immediately upon his newfound freedom, Jim reached for the mask over his nose, and McCoy nearly jumped out of his skin, "Don't-!"

Jim froze and glanced up at him.

"Don't touch that, god damn it," he stalked to the back of the bed and shut the gas off, "You'll make everyone else in the room pass out."

Jim apparently realised that the high-pitched hiss of the gas had stopped as he started tugging for it again.

Now that it was much safer, McCoy let him do so.

He could let him stay awake for a few minutes at least. But his body needed the rest after what it had just been through.

"…'ones?"

He breathed a sigh of relief, "Yeah?" his vitals were perfectly stable.

Jim was blinking sluggishly at him, as if trying to pool some words together but getting stuck. His eyes drifted off to stare at the floor again, looking lost for words.

"…What 'appened?" he just about managed to hear Jim slur, still staring at the mattress as if it was the finest craftsmanship ever made.

McCoy gazed at Jim for a while, before deciding to pull up a stool and sit beside him to talk.

"We rescued your dumb ass from Cadel, to put it shortly."

Jim gazed up at him tiredly, before his head dropped back down to the pillow again in exhaustion. Clearly he was in no mood to talk.

"M'tired," the blonde muffled into the pillow, eyes drooping shut already.

Natural instinct told McCoy that something was seriously wrong, something at the back of his mind shouting he's going into cardiac arrest! But yet, the monitors were still beeping at a steady pace and nothing seemed off.

"Hey, you need a break?"

McCoy shot around, not expecting to find M'Benga standing behind him.

"Uh…no, I'm good," he replied, turning back to Jim again, "I need to stay with him."

There was an awkward silence, and McCoy knew M'Benga hadn't moved, probably planning to say something else to get him out the room.

"You've been in surgery for hours and he's breathing on his own now, give it a rest."

McCoy frowned at Jim, not particularly because of him but because of the stubborn doctor behind him, trying to get him to leave.

He wasn't going to take a break until Jim woke up again. In perfect health. If that were even possible.

"I need to make sure he doesn't relapse," McCoy defended himself, as if every other doctor and nurse in the facility was unqualified to notice Jim's vitals dropping.

"I can do that. I'll take over until you get back."

McCoy pursed his lips, not looking away from Jim's sleeping form.

He's pushing me to leave but damn it, I don't want to.

"Doctor…" M'Benga warned, "If something happens and he needs you, you're not going to be much help barely functional."

True, but he needed to be here in case Jim woke up. And besides, he had work to do with him.

That settled it.

"He needs a full invasive body scan to ensure there are no toxins remaining," McCoy decided, turning around and purposefully avoiding eye-contact with M'Benga, looking straight towards a series of doors.

"You know I can do that myself."

M'Benga was starting to get on his nerves.

He bit his tongue, "Thanks for the concern, M'Benga, but I can do this on my own. Once he's awake, I'll go take a nap. Alright?"

Some part of his body was screaming at him to accept the offer and actually get some sleep, and the logical side of his brain was joining in on the request too.

But his gut told him to stay with Jim; anxiety would probably keep him awake anyway.

M'Benga groaned and threw his hands up, "Fine. Okay. But if you need a break, you know where to find me."

McCoy grunted his acknowledgement and turned back to Jim, beginning to unlock the gravity stabilisers so the biobed could be used as a hoverbed.

He shouted over to M'Benga before he could leave, "I'm gonna need some help getting him in there, though!"

There was a heavy sigh, and even with his back turned against him McCoy could tell M'Benga was rolling his eyes.

As the other doctor approached the end of the bed, McCoy gently pressed a hypo into Jim's neck.

"Should keep him asleep," he explained, grabbing the other side of the bed and nodding at the other man to begin walking.

Going to sleep was like a vivid dream. He remembered Bones and a couple of other white-clad doctors crowding around his bed, but he wasn't sure if that was a dream.

Upon waking up, everything was still very fuzzy, and for a moment he was sure he was still dreaming.

He was laying on something much more comfortable than he was last time for sure. He was probably lying in his real bed, his proper bed, so perhaps he wasn't dreaming.

Perhaps the last dream was actually a nightmare, as whatever he was laying on last time was very rock hard and he couldn't move.

Oh, right, he couldn't move.

In some dulled panic, he tried to move his arm, expecting it to still be paralysed but was pleasantly surprised when it moved freely.

Maybe it was a nightmare after all, and he was only just waking up.

"Hey, buddy," a voice called out to him, echoing across the room. His mind pieced together that this meant the room had to be large somewhat, without any carpeting, and certainly not his quarters to cause the words to echo.

Another few moments later, and his mind finally registered the voice belonged to Bones.

Sighing quietly, he shuffled around whatever he was laying on—it certainly didn't feel like a bed, but it was very comfortable.

"Try not to move around too much, we're still scanning."

Scanning? For what?

"So far so good, but we need to complete it, just to be on the safe side."

Jim swallowed hard, forcing his fingers to move, then hauled his heavy arm from his side onto his chest. He weakly clawed at the material he was covered with, realising it was definitely not a Captain's shirt.

Perhaps he was on shore leave? It could explain the comfortable 'bed', too.

"Did-ja renovate my hotel room?" Jim mumbled, sure as hell that he was probably on vacation somewhere nice with Bones and Spock. Wherever Spock was. Probably doing Spock things.

He heard the accompanying man scoff, "Did I renovate the hotel room? Dammit, Jim, of all the things you could've asked me."

His friend was talking in a joking tone, although there was a hint of tightness to it, as if anxious about something. Probably that Bones preferred to be on a spaceship…

…No that's not right.

He preferred to be with patients.

Yes.

He had an ill patient and was with Jim instead, so he was rightfully worried about them. Of course.

"How did it go? You could've asked me. Where am I? You could've asked me. Why am I here? What are you doing? Why is there a scan—"

"But it's comfy!" Jim interrupted, shuffling around on the luxurious object in which he was seated.

"Uh-huh. Jim, it's a damn exam chair. You're not in a bed."

Jim blinked his eyes open at that.

The ceiling was white. The walls were white.

Bones' uniform was white.

The floor was white.

And the chair he was reclined on was yellow.

"M' not on vacation?"

Obviously not, going by the look on Bones' face.

"God, I wish, Jim. No, you're getting a scan. Why would I be scanning you in a hotel room?"

Jim paused for a second, then frowned, "In case I was allergic to the paint?"

"Why the hell would I paint a hotel room?"

"You renovated it, right?"

"No!" Bones shouted in exasperation, throwing his hands up, "We're on the Enterprise! We've not been on shore leave for three months!"

Jim turned his head to the side, trying to get a good look at his seat.

It might just be a medical chair, but it sure as hell was comfier than any other padded object he had ever sat on in his life.

"But I thought we were in a hotel…"

Bones voice almost made him jump, "We're not in a damn hotel! Christ, Jim. And stop moving."

Jim considered how the chair's colour matched the colour of his captain's shirt. So…yellow.

"You're probably still out of it because of the nitrous," Bones was explaining from the other side of the chair, "Should have gotten over it by now, but this doesn't surprise me."

Jim narrowed his eyes as he tried to remember what had happened earlier. If he wasn't on shore leave, why did he end up here?

He began to sit up, but immediately fell back down again.

That seat was very plush. And bouncy.

Jim leaned forward slightly, then let himself fall onto it.

Bouncy.

"Good god, man, are you deaf? Stop moving!"

He ignored the ranting man, and continued on his crusade to see how bouncy this chair was.

Interested, he leaned forward, then climbed from his back onto his hands and knees, regardless of hearing Bones yelling at him in the distance. He drowned that noise out, this was much more interesting.

Bones began practically yelling into his ear, "You don't wanna ignore me, Jim. My mama taught me how to truss a turkey, and believe me you're gonna be turkey trussing practice if you don't sit your fuckin' flyin' legs still!"

Jim ignored him and pressed his fingers over the yellow material, then gazed up at McCoy.

"Wha'sis made of?"

McCoy looked gobsmacked for a second, stuttering on words before scoffing, "What's this made…Jim, why the hell would I know the ins and outs of a chair? I'm a doctor!"

He rolled onto his side and patted the seat happily. "But you use it a lot. Maybe I'm allergic to it."

"You might as well be considering the way you're behaving."

He wanted to know what it was made of, so he could request a replacement for his quarters. And the mess hall. And the captain chair. And everything that required him to sit on it.

"But I wanna know what's in it," he mumbled comfortably laying on his side and letting his eyes droop.

"You're not even supposed to move your hand, and you've climbed all over the damn thing like it's a monkey frame!"

"But wha's'innit?"

Light footsteps tapped over in front of him, a pair of large warm hands grabbing his head and forcing it upright, while Jim continued trying to twist back onto his side.

"Move…your damned…head…"

Jim shook his head out of the doctor's hands and remained on his side. "No,"

"I can't do this until you're absolutely still!"

"I am still!"

"I can't scan you on your damned side!"

"Find a way! I'm staying here."

He heard a sharp inhale and a curse.

"Dammit, Jim."

A door hissed open and shut.

"What'd you want?" his irritable friend asked the intruder.

"Sir, there's a request from the brig to speak to you. They say it's from Cadel," a pause, and silence from both men.

"They say it's about Jim."

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