Title: Chasing Shadows - Part 3
Rating: R
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Word Count: 4,675 (15,512 overall)
Warnings: political intrigue, angst, hurt/comfort
Summary: When a planet's leader is murdered and Jim and Bones are blamed, they end up stranded on the planet injured and not knowing when they'll be rescued.

Part 1 - Part 2

Time was simultaneously passing too slowly without going slowly enough.

The sentiment at least made perfect sense in Jim's head as killing time meant checking on Bones and wracking his brain in the hopes of a genius plan coming from somewhere as the second dosage was given and then it was nearly time for the third. Surrender started to seem like the best option as he did calculations in the dust on the cave floor, trying to figure out how far from the city they were based on the speed and subsequent downward trajectory of the shuttle and if he would be able to get there and back with help in less than six hours.

His heart had leapt to his throat after the second dose of antimicrobials when Bones had let out a groggy, "Jim," but it had been in response to whatever fevered dreams the doctor was being subjected to. If the pain in his tone was from the infection or from whatever was playing out in Bones' head, Jim had no idea, but he stuck tight at Bones' side, keeping at least one point of pressure between them. Jim told himself that it seemed to calm Bones down, ignoring his own relief at being able to feel Bones breathing.

It was four hours after the second dose when Jim's gaze landed on the sesslaaa that the majordomo had given him back when they were escaping the palace, the weapon he'd used and then forgotten about, but it was still in the cave near the broken medical supplies that Bones had segregated from the functioning ones and put in their own medkit except for the tricorders. He left Bones' side for a moment to retrieve it, studying the weapon and noting the dial that seemed to adjust the strength of its energy output. It was still set to the lowest setting, which Jim supposed to be stun, but then the dial had more settings - twice as many as the standard type-2, which Jim found interesting. How many different levels of stun and kill could there possibly be?

He turned the dial up to the maximum setting and went outside, aiming the sesslaaa at the peak of a distant mountain and squeezed the trigger, seeing flashes of light as the kick from the weapon sent him flying to the ground, catching most of his weight in his shoulder but still hitting the back of his head as he watched the shot go kilometers wide and get lost arching up into the atmosphere.

"Holy shit," he said out loud, touching the back of his head to make sure his fingers didn't come away covered in blood since that would just make a really bad situation worse and if they got through this, he knew he'd never hear the end of it from Bones. He dialed the weapon back down to its lowest setting on the off chance that he would trip on a rock or his own foot and end up getting half his leg blown off. He ended up just leaving the sesslaaa outside as he returned to Bones' side, carefully pulling the doctor upright to force him to drink some water.

It was twelve hours later and the final dose had been given when Jim started talking to himself under the guise of talking to Bones. It was partly out of boredom but also, he readily admitted, loneliness and desperation and sheer exhaustion. "Looks like I've bit off more than I could chew this time, huh, Bones?" He bit at his bottom lip, worrying it between his teeth, and decided that he could only be considered crazy when he thought Bones was talking back to him. He was holding tight to Bones' wrist, feeling his pulse too slow but at least steady and there, under the tips of his fingers. "Bet there's lots of people who'd like to see me now, all run out of luck with no clever way to get out of this situation. And what really gets me the most about this entire clusterfuck of a mission was that I'll probably survive this, but if no one shows up in the next five hours now, you won't."

Jim stopped talking, unable to tolerate the sound of his own voice, another hour passing before he couldn't contain the thoughts that were flying through his head at warp eight. "Not like we could've known this was going to happen. Orders were orders and I was just so happy to be given something other than a damn milk run instead of Starfleet treating me like they think I'm too young to be a captain even though they're the ones who promoted me to begin with. It's like they've been letting me play captain because of who my father was and that whole thing with saving Earth from genocidal Romulans from the future." Jim paused to brush Bones' hair away from his face.

"If there's an alternate universe where my father lived, do you think there's one or, hell, hundreds right now where we're hiding in the Yaeeaarian mountains waiting for the Enterprise to find us? Maybe in one of them I'm the one that's hurt and you're taking care of me while grouching on about how I seem to have a death wish or a penchant for attracting trouble. Maybe there's a universe where King Ad'Hieh wasn't murdered and the mission went off without a hitch." Swallowing heavily, Jim voiced the thought that was troubling him the most. "There's probably a universe where you live, Bones, and one where you die. Which one do you think we're in? Would it make me selfish to want you to live in this one or would it not matter since somewhere else I'll lose you?"

Not knowing what else to do, Jim laid himself down, holding tight to Bones like he could will his strength into the doctor's body. He remained vaguely aware of the passage of time, hating himself for giving up. After high school he'd given up and all that had given him was one night stands, a near-permanent drunkenness, lots of trips to the emergency room, and plenty of times walking up in someone's yard or a park bench or even a jail cell. Giving up had made life boring, stagnant, depressing, and if Jim had thought those few years until he met Pike at the Shipyard Bar were bad, they would be a cakewalk compared to life without Bones.

Forcing himself to his feet, Jim found the working laser scalpel and grabbed one of the canteens, filling it with water. The nagging voice in the back of his mind was telling Jim that there was no way he'd relocated the downed shuttlecraft and manage to fix the communications system or at least the emergency power to get out a signal in the next two hours…actually, he had a bit less than that. It was more like an hour and a half at this point, and Jim was struggling with the fact that he hadn't attempted this earlier, when there was more time, but he remembered his stubborn refusal to leave Bones alone. Hell, he didn't want to do it now, either, but he had to at least try.

When Jim exited the cave, he immediately fell to his knees. He heard it before he saw it - a Starfleet shuttle coming down through the atmosphere and heading directly for the mountain. His head dropped into his hands, letting out the sob of relief as his body wracked with something on the verge of both tears and laughter, letting it out of his system before the shuttle got too close, before his crew could see how undone he'd become. Jim stood when the shuttle got close enough that they had to have spotted him visually instead of just picking up his signature on the scanners. He motioned towards a ledge west and about one hundred meters downhill from where he was that the shuttle would be able to land on safely. The shuttle alit so gracefully despite its unwieldy appearance, and Jim joyously yelled out the lieutenant's name when he saw Sulu exit moments later with M'Benga, Chapel, and a handful of security personnel with phasers at the ready.

Jim ran down the side of the mountain, pointing at the cave and relaying Bones' condition and the treatments that had been given to M'Benga as Chapel made her way to the cave with two of the security team and a stretcher. Jim turned to Sulu. "Now explain how you managed to find us."

"We thought the Yaeeaarians had sent out a warning shot but no message came after." The sesslaaa, Jim realized, his mouth dry, as he listened to his pilot's explanation. "Pavel was able to calculate a point of origin based on the trajectory and atmospheric distortion that would've been experienced by the blast, and when we passed over the area we were able to pick up an extremely faint electronic signature."

"The tricorder," Jim supplied, remembering how the wind had shifted and in their haste, he and Bones had left them outside. He looked up to see Bones being carefully carried as Chapel hovered at his side, scanning him over with her own tricorder. Jim wondered, now, if the tricorder had actually been forgotten or if Bones had done it on purpose, thinking it might work but not wanting to tell Jim in case it didn't. He followed Bones into the shuttle, sitting at Bones side and holding his hand as M'Benga and Chapel worked, neither of them daring to tell Jim that he needed to go sit somewhere else.

He vaguely registered the take off sequence with Sulu's calm voice carrying through the shuttle as he spoke to Uhura. Jim leaned down, exhausted, resting his head on the stretcher at the juncture of Bones' neck and shoulder. "We're going home, now, Bones," he whispered. "Just hold on."

+

As much as Jim wanted to go to sickbay, Spock was waiting in the shuttle bay and wasted no time in telling Jim that his presence was required on the bridge if he didn't need immediate medical treatment. Chapel, who Jim had noticed trying to be sneaky in scanning him on the shuttle, declared Jim capable of duty but still wanted to see him in sickbay when Jim had a moment, which Jim wasn't going to avoid since that's where Bones would be.

Jim thought maybe he should've stopped by his quarters first for a uniform that wasn't saturated in sweat, sand, and blood or torn in myriad places. Standing in the sonic shower for a bit would've gotten all the grime off his skin and out of his hair, but he wanted whoever responded when they hailed to see his condition as it was, and hopefully sitting in his chair would keep Jim from falling over from exhaustion. Maybe, Jim thought, he should've asked Chapel for a stimulant before he headed up to the bridge. Starfleet had probably sent their golden boy for a reason, but at the moment, Jim was feeling anything but golden.

The bridge was startlingly empty, and it didn't take long to figure out why when Spock and Sulu headed straight for the ready room with Jim trailing behind them. The surprises weren't over, it seemed, as the ready room was occupied by his senior officers - minus Bones, of course, as Jim's gaze went straight for his CMO's empty seat - but they were joined by Crowned Prince Og'Hieh, who was sort of leaning against the seat like someone sitting side saddle on a horse as the chairs accommodated more for bipeds than the Yaeeaarian serpentine form. He didn't seem uncomfortable, though, and Jim couldn't recall the chairs on the planet being much different except for instead of legs having a central post like a tree trunk for the Yaeeaarians to wrap their tails around. With what he and Bones had gone through in the last few days, though, Jim had no idea why he gave a damn about how comfortable the crowned prince was.

"Pardon me for asking, your majesty, but why the hell are you here?" Jim asked, taking his seat as Spock sat to his left and Jim tried to ignore the empty chair to his right.

"Prince Og'Hieh has requested political asylum," Spock supplied.

"With my father murdered and you and the doctor reported dead, I feared that whoever was responsible would be after me next." The prince paused with a flick of his tongue that made Jim wonder if he was trying to sense the mood in the room or just how Jim himself was feeling. "I knew you couldn't have been guilty after you shot at the palace guards. You'd left the sesslaaa at a setting that wasn't high enough to kill a Yaeeaarian, which you would've known had you killed my father. It also wouldn't have made sense for you to try and leave the guards alive had you been guilty."

Any hesitance Jim had about the prince's presence was instantly gone with his surefire logic that cleared Jim and Bones of blame. He couldn't get past one of the first things Og'Hieh had said, though, and Jim returned to it, staring at Spock. "We were reported dead?"

It was Uhura who answered instead. "I picked up audio signals from the planet that were being broadcast in Yaeeaarian. The translator transcribed a phrase as 'dead,' but when I ran it by Prince Og'Hieh, he said that 'lost to the desert' was the literal translation and the Yaeeaarian term for death."

"The desert is certain death for my kind," Og'Hieh clarified. "If we make it to the mountains we'll be safe, but the nights are too cold, the days too hot, and the time in between is too short to cross in. When someone is found guilty of the highest crimes, we send them to the desert. It is what our children have nightmares about and why our miners are treated like heroes." The prince looked at Jim. "It is remarkable you survived, and I'm pleased that you did. If you'd died, I'm afraid of what that would've done to the Federation's view of my planet and all because of a few political meddlers."

Jim took the opening to relay everything that had happened since being awoken by the majordomo until being found by the shuttle. He didn't mention the moment his confidence shattered when Bones had been instructing Jim on what he needed to do. He also didn't mention how he'd been talking to himself and that it was purely accidental that curiosity and boredom drove him to playing with the sesslaaa in the moment that undeniably led to their rescue in the nick of time for Bones (at which point Jim smiled gratefully at Chekov and his navigator's knack for saving his ass just in time). He told them what he'd told Bones about his suspicions about the princess since it was her doing that they'd been on planet to be set up to begin with.

The scales on Prince Og'Hieh's arms raised as Jim elaborated on his thoughts behind the princess's guilt, and while Og'Hieh seemed disturbed by the news, he didn't try to deny it, either. "You will need to speak to my mother. The queen serves as judge in the king's absence, and I will not get crowned until after my father's funeral, which is on hold until those guilty are charged as such so he can rest in peace."

"However I can help," Jim replied. He hoped the queen's judgment would not be compromised by her grief, and while their argument seemed valid since even Spock couldn't find any holes in the logic, Jim didn't know if the queen would be willing to believe the guilt of the princess who was likely at the queen's side, consoling her through all of this, instead of the representatives from Starfleet who had seemingly run away at the first sign of trouble. "I think we're all set here for the moment, and if you'll excuse me, everyone, I think I need to get cleaned up before I testify to a queen."

Jim left without another word, feeling vaguely uncomfortable with the sympathetic look he was getting from Uhura. For a moment he wished that she would say something scathing to him like she would at the academy, just because that was still what he was more used to from her, but he just opted to leave quickly instead of hesitating long enough for her to ask if he was all right and, even worse, the possibility that she might give him a hug. Jim was still barely holding it together since he'd allowed that brief breakdown at the sight of the shuttle, and he didn't need his facade to crack in front of his senior officers and the crowned prince.

He cleaned and changed efficiently, pulling at the cuffs of the sleeves on his gold tunic when he caught his reflection in a mirror when he went to shave. Jim frowned at himself, at the shadows under his eyes, the scabbed over gash running from his hairline at the middle of his forehead to the corner of his left eye, and at the mottled bruising on the left side of his face that had clearly hit the console on impact.

Instead of heading back to the bridge, Jim went to sickbay. Chapel would only talk to him about Bones if Jim sat down and let her give him a hypospray of broad spectrum antibiotics just in case, a mild pain reliever, and a round with the dermal regenerator. He conceded without argument, pulling himself up on the biobed next to the one Bones was stretched out on with an osteogenic stimulator set up on his leg. Bones was hooked up to an IV with presumably the same cocktail that Chapel dosed Jim with and possibly another drug that was keeping Bones sedated.

"You took good care of him," Chapel began with a soft smile. "He was only mildly dehydrated, and with how arid the air was, it's expected." She carefully held the side of Jim's face with one hand as she worked the regenerator with the other. "The antimicrobials weren't strong enough to help him fight the infection, but they did keep it from getting any worse. He'll be sedated until the osteogenic stimulator has done its job, but he'll probably be in and out of sleep until the infection clears significantly, but he'll be okay. You could do with some sleep yourself, Captain."

Jim smiled. The nurse always did that - gave him a medical order while addressing him by his rank to not seem disrespectful or out of line. "Once we're at warp getting away from this planet, Christine, I'll let you override my quarters so I'm locked in until you think I've rested enough."

She laughed lightly. "Don't tempt me, sir; I might actually do it."

+

Princess La'Kiu was convicted of high treason by the queen and sentenced to death along with the majordomo who La'Kiu had outed as an accomplice in a last-ditch effort to make it seem like the majordomo had coerced her and not a mutual plan born of late-night conspiracies. Jim felt like his new dress uniform was suffocating him as he stood with Spock, Uhura, the queen, and the prince, watching as the palace guards forced the guilty out into the desert in an open-topped hover-car, driving them to a spot too far from the palace and the mountains for them to make it to either safely, where they would certainly die.

Once the hover-car was out of sight, they preceded on with the funeral followed by the crowning of the prince. The ceremony, Jim thought, was hopeful in light of the grief as King Og'Hieh spoke of his desire to see Yaeeaari join the Federation. Afterwards he pulled Jim aside, asking if there was anyway that Og'Hieh could personally atone for his ordeal. Jim didn't think it would be tactful for him to explain how a means of apology was what started the mess, instead saying that Yaeeaari's membership in the Federation was all the atonement necessary.

Jim had Spock fly the shuttle back to the Enterprise and let Uhura ride in the co-pilot's seat, taking himself off duty until he caught up on sleep and put Spock in charge in the meantime. He thought that Bones might see it as a sign of personal growth, but really Jim just knew that it wouldn't be Bones ordering him off duty when he returned to the ship, and Jim really didn't want to take the order from anyone else.

He felt half-dead when Jim got to his quarters, trading his dress uniform for a white tank and Starfleet Academy sweatpants. Jim threw himself at the bed, closing his eyes, embracing the idea of sleeping the next twenty four hours away, but now that he had the opportunity, it seemed, it wouldn't come.

"Figures," Jim muttered, pulling himself up to sit with his legs hanging off the side of the bed. He stood, pacing his quarters, contemplating doing pushups until his body had nothing left, when Jim caught sight of the Starfleet Medical mug on his desk with the last sip of nearly week-old coffee still sitting at the bottom. Before it had been a rare occasion that they woke up together, so it wasn't that Jim needed to be latched onto Bones' side to get some sleep, but it seemed that the concern haunting his thoughts combined with all the time they'd spent huddled together in the last few days, it was no wonder that Jim wasn't satisfied with being alone.

Jim went to sickbay, not bothering to change because he was off duty and it wasn't like he was roaming the halls in his underwear. It was empty as, Jim recalled, it was gamma shift, but he could hear Chapel and M'Benga's voices filtering out of an office whose door was only partially open. The privacy curtain had been drawn around Bones' biobed at some point, and Jim slipped through it carefully, startling when he looked at Bones to see that the doctor was awake and watching him groggily. "Hey," Jim said lamely, wondering how long Bones had been awake for and bet that Bones was wondering the same about him.

"Hey," Bones replied, his voice rough and slightly strained. His gaze seemed unfocused, but his skin was a much healthier color and at some point since Jim had last seen him, the osteogenic stimulator had been removed to let Bones' body rest before the next round of treatment. He'd gotten cleaned up - even his face was smooth.

"So the princess was found guilty, the prince is now the king, and Yaeeaari is going to be a Federation planet once all the documents and signatures go through." Jim was talking to fill the silence and hoped Bones didn't say anything if he noticed.

"The Federation has been trying for so long to get them to join. Maybe those in doubt of this crew will finally come around."

"You mean those in doubt of me." Bones' silence was all the answer Jim needed. "How are you feeling?" he asked, needing to change the subject. It had been Yaeeaarian and Federation politics since he first got back to the ship, and Jim needed to think about something else.

"Better than the last time I was conscious. That's mostly because of the drugs, though. They won't let me look at my own diagnosis." Bones leaned his head back further into the pillow, eyes narrowing. "Do you know why doctors make the worst patients?"

"Because you're all control freaks?" Jim ventured a guess, slightly teasing to cover up how uncomfortable he was with their distance but he didn't know what Bones wanted, so he remained standing just inside the curtain at the foot of the biobed.

"Because we don't know how to do nothing." Bones seemed to be talking about something else, holding a parallel conversation where the answers were the same but the meanings were different. "We were stuck on that planet and there was nothing I could do about it. Being a doctor's not much use if the doctor's the one that's hurt."

Jim felt his hackles raise at Bones' self-deprecation. "You fixed the tricorder. Well, not fixed it, but got the power in it working again, at least. Sulu was able to pick that up once the shuttle was in atmosphere to pinpoint our location. You had less than an hour before you needed another dose when we got back to the ship. I thought I was going to lose my best friend on our first mission that wasn't making deliveries, so don't talk to me about how you don't think you did your best because how the hell do you think I felt thinking I was going to lose you? Hell you probably wouldn't even be here right now if you hadn't taught me how to take care of you to begin with. You were so damn calm the whole time even though it was like your worst fears realized. I…" Jim's voice broke. "I'm proud of you, Bones."

The way Bones lifted an eyebrow in Jim's direction was so familiar that Jim felt almost like the last few days hadn't happened at all. "Then why are you standing all the way over there?"

He didn't need to be asked twice as Jim was instantly at Bones' side, grabbing his arm, following it down until he had Bones' hand in his, but it wasn't enough. He ignored the surprised "Damn it, Jim!" from Bones as he climbed up onto the biobed, activating the energy field that would keep him from falling off as they weren't built to hold two grown men, even with Jim lying on his side as tight to Bones as physics would allow.

The biobed started to let out some sort of alarm, which immediately stopped when Bones vocalized his override code to the computer and the nearby screen blinked off entirely. Bones turned his head to the side to glare at Jim, an expression that was lost as he couldn't quite focus with the close proximity. "The beds weren't meant for sharing, Jim; they can't interpret-"

Jim interrupted the tirade with a brief, close-mouthed kiss. He pulled back, smiling wryly, and kissed Bones again, feeling the sleep that had been teasing him earlier finally sink into his body. Jim pulled away again, blinking heavily.

Bones sighed, his arm wrapping around Jim's waist, holding him tight. "When's the last time you slept?"

"Mm, I don't remember. But I've taken myself off duty until I don't feel like warmed over shit anymore." Jim pressed his face into the nape of Bones' neck. "The curtain wasn't drawn when I came down here earlier."

"An ensign from engineering came down with a second degree burn running the length of her arm, and M'Benga didn't appreciate what he called my 'backseat doctoring.' Like I said, doctors don't know how to do nothing."

Jim smiled sleepily, his mind already too far into the floaty feeling of being only partially awake to mumble a reply. Jim had a fleeting thought about what Bones' had said to him before he'd succumbed to unconsciousness, about how Jim couldn't live his life chasing the shadow of someone who was him but not, wondering if that other Captain Kirk had ever had such a straight-forward mission go as spectacularly wrong as this one had.

Well fuck him, Jim thought, because Bones was right. Bones, who adjusted himself in Jim's embrace so his shoulder wouldn't go numb where Jim's chin pressed into it, acting irritated but not letting go, either. He could feel Bones' fingers in his hair, heard him sigh and then say, before Jim fell completely asleep, "I'm proud of you, too, Jim."