The story's been pretty slow so far, but it picks up after this. Enjoy!


McCoy shook his head as he walked out of Jim's quarters for the second time that day. The kid could be too stubborn sometimes.

His thoughts drifted as he walked back to medical, mostly focused on the surgery he had performed on Ensign Frances Gerals and the summary he had just bothered to read on the mission they had been assigned. Gerals had been stupid enough to crawl around on a catwalk with no shoes on, and had slipped on a wet patch. Apparently she had removed her shoes on a dare earlier that day. She had fallen from the catwalk and punctured a lung. After getting her out of surgery, McCoy had made her promise to wear her frickin' shoes, already.

As for the mission, he had to say it looked more interesting than what they were doing at the moment. At the same time, he wasn't keen on anything that would certainly result in Jim's being hurt in some way. His friend had been stressed enough lately without this added hassle.

But then again, the action of simply going planet side would probably deal with a lot of that stress. Jim was strange that way. Anything that would make a normal man stress out – for example the hostage taking of an entire city by a revolutionary group – forced him to level his head and calmed him down. Tedious amounts of paperwork, on the other hand, would rocket those stress levels to unwanted highs. That's when Jim was his most annoying. Spock too. Even if he didn't want to admit it, the hobgoblin liked his bit of action.

But he had his own paperwork to deal with, no matter how badly he wanted to blow it off. He had to reorganize the distribution of the meds, check up on patients, and sign off on the requests for new procedures. It was gonna be a long day.

McCoy awoke abruptly to a knock on the door. He must have fallen asleep at his desk. He rubbed a hand over his face and groaned. But before he could answer the knock, the door opened and Jim skipped in, a grin on his face.

"Geez, Bones, were you sleeping?" He snorted, but his gaze was soft. "And here you are trying to tell me to take care of myself."

McCoy waved him off. "What doya want?" he slurred, his brain still trying to wake up. He reached for his ever present cup of coffee, but stopped before the mug reached his mouth, grimacing as he realized the drink was ice cold.

"We're a couple hours away from Georgianna. We're gonna send down a landing party to talk to the rebels, and I want you on it." Jim stuck his hands in his pockets and shifted his feet a little. "We can still deliver them the drugs they need. Actually, I've been thinking of using them as some kind of bribe for their cooperation."

McCoy's sleepy brain took a moment to digest that. "You want me down there?"

"Yeah, I just said that."

He sighed. Stopping rebellions wasn't exactly his idea of a good time. But he hadn't gone down anywhere for a while. He needed to stretch his legs, and this seemed like a pretty good opportunity. Plus, if Jim was gonna twist an ankle or something, it would be better if he was there to deal with it.

He nodded. "Alright."

Jim grinned again, his eyes sparkling. He looked surprisingly well rested. "Awesome! I'll see you in the transporter room in a few hours." With that he turned around and left the room.

McCoy sighed and turned back to his desk. He needed some coffee for this.

After getting said coffee and checking up once again on all three patients in sick bay, he heard another announcement over the comms with Jim's voice on the other end. It was time for the landing party. He grabbed his medkit and slung it over his shoulder, stuffing a few extra hypos in as he left medical. You could never be too careful.

Before he knew it he, Jim, Uhura, and two security guards – Unders, and Little – were being beamed down to the planet. As he felt the unnerving sensation of the transport, he strained his hands into fists and fought against a rising nausea.

God, will I ever get over this?

"Okay, the capitol city is right over that ridge," Jim said loudly to the group. "Keep your phasers out but don't harm anyone unless you have to. We don't want to scare them."

The ridge, which turned out to be the top of a hill overlooking the city, spread out in front of them the carnage of the revolution.

It was horrible.

Fires burned at every end of the city. Occasionally a gunshot rang out, or screams. Entire buildings seemed to have collapsed, perhaps from bombs. And surrounding the perimeter of the whole city were hundreds of guards, each armed with a rifle. They were keeping the city hostage.

McCoy felt the breath rush out of his lungs. No matter how much carnage he'd seen in his life, he could never get used to it.

He didn't expect Jim to fall to his knees in front of him.

Little rushed forwards, but Leonard was there first.

He put a hand on Jim's shoulder. The captain was already hoisting himself to his feet, brushing the dirt from his pants.

"I'm fine, Bones. I just – tripped." The party started moving down the hill towards the city.

"Jim," he warned.

Jim swallowed uncomfortably. "It just reminds me… I'm fine," he repeated, his face stony.

McCoy frowned, and looked back down at the city. Then it hit him. Tarsus. He turned back to Jim, but he was already halfway down the hill with the rest of the landing party.

Shaking his head, he followed them down.