So once again Dr. Leonard McCoy was left alone with the dying captain.

It's not like this was an uncommon situation. Every time something went wrong on a mission, every time Kirk went off on his own, even every time Kirk discovered something else that he was deadly allergic to, they ended up in this spot.

He was sick of it.

Their shelter under a small overhang in a slightly larger rocky outcropping was not the best place to do an exam of the captain, but the unconsciousness concerned Bones, as did the slow, rough breaths that were only getting slower and more rough. He started by checking Kirk's vitals again, which hadn't changed all that much since he'd last checked, but they were slightly worse. That wasn't a huge cause for concern at the moment; the rate of deterioration there was slow, and wouldn't cause problems for a while. The redness giving his face color wasn't concerning, either: he was running a fever, which wasn't at all surprising. Bones put a hand to Kirk's forehead, attempting to decide if the fever had gotten worse. He couldn't tell. He dragged his hand over the captain's hair as he tried to come up with an answer, and was horrified to find hair sticking to his palm when he pulled it away. And suddenly, he understood what was happening, at least to an extent. Not how, not why, but what.

Khan's blood wasn't doing it's job anymore. Something had counteracted the effect, and the radiation was pouring through Kirk's body once more. It was moving more slowly than it had the first time, which was at least a small miracle, but Bones had no way to stop it. And it wasn't like he'd kept a stash of the Augment's blood on hand. He hadn't anticipated ever seeing a need for it as he had then, not with the side effects he knew Kirk had suffered.

He'd do it again in a heart beat, if it would save his friend's life.

"Damn it Kirk, what's going on with you?" Bones muttered, his eyes tracing the lines of his friend's face as if he'd never see it again. He cursed himself and stopped. Kirk wasn't going to die. He hadn't died before, he wouldn't die this time.

That being said, how could he stop something internal with no tools or equipment?

Spock had better get back quickly. They needed to get back to the Enterprise, asap.

It had been a simple matter to reenter the enemy fortress. If they'd been unprepared for an escape, they were completely unexpecting reentry. After all, what kind of fool would return to the place he'd just escaped?

He crept through the tunnel-like hallways, retracing steps he'd taken earlier. He remembered seeing some sort of control room on his scenic route to the captain and doctor, and that was his first stop. In theory, he would be able to differentiate between the different systems and destroy what was necessary to get communication out. If he couldn't, he would just destroy the whole room and hope something was correct.

No one was around to stop him moving silently through the space. Presumably they'd all gone outside, to search for the escaped prisoners or the cause of the explosion. Perhaps both. He was able to make it to the room with no problems, creeping through the opening in the wall that served as a door. There was no one inside, everything running silently on its own. One look around the room showed this technology was completely different than anything he'd ever worked with, but he managed to pinpoint the section that could only be a communications jammer, by process of elimination. It was a simple matter to disconnect the wires, but just to be sure he also took his phaser from its holster and shot at the console, listening to the satisfying sound of sparks as the console fried.

Immediately a crackle issued from his communicator. He pulled it from his belt and spoke into it. "Spock to Enterprise. Take us out of here."

"Spock!" The voice was Uhura's, relief clear in her voice. It made Spock warm inside, even though he tried desperately to suppress human feelings.

"Spock. Is the captain with you?"

Of course. The lieutenant's words, business as usual, successfully pushed back any emotional words he would give to Uhura.

"They are approximately two miles from my location. The captain is in desperate need of medical attention."

"Get us out of here." That was Bone's, snarling through the communicator. Spock nodded. They must be safe, then, for the doctor to take that tone.

"Beaming you up."

Spock felt a deep relief sink through his body, despite attempts to stop it. They were getting out. Everyone was alive. They would be okay.

He saw the white lights that meant he was about to be transported to the ship, and stood perfectly still as he waited.

A noise by the door. Spock turned just as pain burst through his chest. He caught sight of his attacker just before his knees gave out. He heard a stern "Don't move," from his communicator, but he couldn't listen as he hit the floor, hard.

At least the floor his shoulder hits is the Enterprise. A strange thought, but that's all he could think before his mind went blank with pain.

Uhura couldn't contain herself when she heard Spock's voice, finally making contact.

"Spock!"

As soon as she did it, she knew she shouldn't have. She shouldn't distract him, even if he was close to returning. He needed to keep his head about him, and she knew she was detrimental to that.

She heard Sulu take control, and she let him. She had to try hard to keep herself from running to the transporter room, had to school her features to stop the giddy relief showing in a goofy smile. She managed to keep a businesslike walk when she just wanted to sprint, managed a calm, slightly happy face when she wanted to laugh with joy.

She arrived just as the forms of her friends and Spock appeared, shadows. She knew the two on the ground, close to each other, were Kirk and McCoy. The medical team waited for them, prepared to rush the both of them to the medbay where they would have a complete examination and treatment for whatever might ail them.

That meant the third one was Spock. She smiled at the sight of him, standing tall. But then his whole body jerked, and suddenly he was on his knees. When he fully materialized, he fell to the floor, his eyes staring blankly forward as he curled up his hands fluttering at his chest. She didn't understand immediately what was wrong as she flew to his side, his name falling from her lips in terrified repetition. But as she gently placed a hand on his shoulder, she saw the indent in his shirt where there shouldn't be one, saw the struggle for breath that hadn't been detectable only moments before over the communicator.

"What in the hell happened to him?" Bones snarled as his medical team swarmed him and Kirk, prepared for the injuries that they suffered. "Someone go see what the hell Spock did to himself, dammit."

Uhura let herself be pushed away as two of the team came to the science officer, immediately finding the cause for Spock's collapse. They stripped him of his shirt, cutting it straight up the middle with medical grade scissors, to find the already bruising, broken chest.

Uhura watched numbly as they determined whether he was moveable, watched as they hauled him out of the room on a stretcher, only seconds behind the unconscious Captain. Bones hauled himself to his feet, clearly wobbly and not as well as he'd yelled he was, and hobbled after the two men. Uhura watched them all leave before she shook herself out of the trance she'd fallen into. She had work to do.

She returned to her rooms and filled her mind with the sounds of the native's strange language, losing herself in her quest to translate and trying desperately to keep Spock out of her mind until there was something she could do.

It was days before Starfleet arrived, to discover the captain and doctor both safe and aboard the ship. They demanded to see Spock, who still had not woken up, and when they learned he'd been badly injured in the rescue attempt the fury only increased. Sulu was left to deal with them, and he only fumed when he returned to the ship. So none of the crew were aware of the decision that had been made.

Kirk was very touch and go. There had been moments that his body had given up, only to be violently restarted by whatever means necessary. Sulu had tried to negotiate for more of the blood that had kept the Captain alive in the first place, but was decline over and over. While they were concerned – they argued just as concerned, but everyone aboard the Enterprise knew that was a lie – they couldn't afford to use that blood, for fear that it would do worse things.

Uhura later learned from a colleague that all of the human augments had been destroyed, and Starfleet was keeping it quiet until they could figure out what had happened. Sulu barely kept her from confronting the higherups and demanding an explanation for information she wasn't even supposed to have.

Kirk woke slowly, his whole body pounding with pain. He was uncomfortably familiar with this pain, and a look at McCoy, sleeping in the chair beside the bed with his head in his hands, told him it was exactly what he thought.

A deep sigh escaped him, and that devolved into coughs. His hands came away from his mouth bloody, and he almost sighed again. To be done in by something so boring, in a hospital bed without the blaze of glory. This was not how he'd dreamed of dying.

Bones jerked awake suddenly, almost falling to the floor before righting himself and standing. He met Kirk's eyes, frowned, and nodded.

"So you know, then."

"Yeah." Kirk's voice was a croak, either from days of disuse or from the poison in his body, he couldn't tell which. He felt so weak, just saying the one word was an effort.

Bones took a handkerchief from his pocket and slowly dabbed at Kirk's mouth, wiping away the blood that had settled there.

"No super human blood to pump me full of, huh?"

"Not this time."

"Shit."

And that word was full of regret and fear, and shame for that fear. Bones' eyes were full of compassion and sadness.

"Yeah." They sat in silence for a moment, both reflecting on the lives they'd had together.

"You're not dead yet." Bones muttered, almost to himself, before he sat back down and relaxed into the chair. "It seems all the human augments were mysteriously destroyed. Starfleet has no frickin' clue how it happened. The Enterprise is ordered to stay still until our punishment is decided, anyway, so it's not like we could go steal it."

"Spock would figure it out. Is he going stir crazy? I would be, in his position." Bones' face fell, and Kirk didn't need to ask. But he did. "What happened?"

"He was attacked just before we got you up here. Something hit him really hard, his rib cage is practically shattered. He hasn't woken up." The doctor's voice was so tired, Kirk knew it wasn't looking good for either of them.

"Good thing we've got Sulu, then." It was the only thought Kirk had. Bones nodded, clearly in a similar mindset. Someone had to keep the Enterprise going in the absence of both Captain and first officer.

"You just focus on getting better."

They both knew he wouldn't.

"You just make sure Spock wakes up."

Because there wasn't any point in deluding himself.

They sat together for a while longer, Bones relaying everything that had happened while Kirk had been absent of unconscious. Bones didn't know when Kirk fell asleep, just when the monitors started going crazy. Bones was already at work when the rest of the staff showed up. Somehow, they managed to keep Kirk alive for another few hours.

Bones didn't know how much more of this he could take.