A/N - This story is written for Shoreleave to compliment her brilliantly written short story VENOM. It is published with her permission. You may want to read VENOM before reading.

McCoy blinked past the dizziness as the transporter released him. There was a brief moment when everything was quiet, when it was as though he were between worlds and neither existed. In that moment, his breath froze, his heart stopped beating and his thoughts gratefully ceased. It was as close to death as he'd ever been. He'd always hated that about the transporter – the uncertainty of not knowing if it would return him from that in-between space. But this time, he wanted to stay in that place of non-feeling, to delay, for a few moments longer, what breathing again would bring.

The familiar scent of Sickbay welcomed him with his first breath even before his vision cleared. Instinctively, he tightened his grip on Jim who lay heavy and still in his arms. The medical staff had been notified of Jim's condition – severe venom poisoning. He had directed the transporter chief to beam them into Sickbay. Now the team of medical personnel waited outside the protective field. As soon as the transporter released them, the staff moved, converging on them all at once.

"Get him on oxygen!" McCoy barked as two nurses knelt beside him. Jim's head lolled against his chest, tipped at an odd angle. "I want full vitals and a wide-scope series of antivenin."

A stretcher appeared out of nowhere.

"Get Wilson in here!"

"I'm here," the young doctor said from behind him.

There were a dozen hands around them, trying to get Jim onto the stretcher and an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.

"Watch that leg!" McCoy tried to stabilize Jim's leg as they put him on the stretcher, his body alarmingly still, his arm hanging over the side until a nurse captured it and rested it safely at his side. The young man had made no sound and that worried McCoy. The hours they had spent on the planet's surface with the venom spreading from Jim's leg to his vital organs had been excruciating for him. Even the slightest touch to his leg had caused him to cry out in agony.

They needed to get Jim onto a biobed and full support. He wasn't certain how far the venom had progressed, but respiratory support was an obvious need and, he feared, so was cardio support. Jim's heart could be affected, and there could be a dozen deadly scenarios playing out. McCoy was helpless to do anything until he had more details. Was Jim even breathing?

They were moving as a single unit to the nearest bed. McCoy stood at the foot of the bed and watched as Jim's limp body was transferred to the bed. The moment his body touched the surface, the sensitive equipment came to life, displaying an array of vitals across the screen at the head of the bed. Alarms sounded loudly from every indicator.

"Respiratory arrest. Respiratory arrest."

Goddamn it.

McCoy pushed to the head of the bed. "Give me an intubation kit!"

He pulled off the mask and positioned Jim's head, opening the airway. He blindly reached out and a nurse put a glidescope in his hand. He focused on the task, disciplining his mind to focus on a procedure he could do in his sleep. Tipping Jim's head back slightly, he used the scope to clear the path for the tube. As soon as he had the scope in place, the intubation tube was placed in his free hand and guided into Jim's trachea with practiced ease. A nurse on the opposite side of the bed quickly hooked the tube to a ventilation machine, delivering fresh oxygen into Jim's lungs. The entire procedure had taken less than ten seconds.

Wilson was beside McCoy, near Jim's swollen leg. The nurses had cut away the remainder of Jim's uniform, covering him with a fresh sheet, but leaving the injured leg exposed. McCoy barely glanced at Jim. His entire concentration was on the medical panel and the display of alarms yet to be addressed. They chimed in a frantic sequence: ventricular tachycardia, low blood pressure, low oxygen saturation levels, blood chemistry warnings, high toxin levels.

"Hang a liter of Ringers and 250mL of Propanol," he ordered. The Propanol should decrease the tachycardia, one of Jim's immediate threats. "Get an analysis of the venom. I want to know what I'm dealing with. Have the lab rush it."

Some venoms attacked neurological functions, some damaged tissues and organs, others have high levels of peptide toxins. He needed to know how to counteract and target the venom to keep it from further damaging Jim.

"This leg is a mess," Wilson said. He'd inserted a drainage tube at the knee, but the leg was a mass of hematomas and blisters and swollen to grotesque proportions.

McCoy glanced at the leg and ground his teeth. "Where's the antivenin?"

"Here, Doctor." A nurse was already hanging the formula, while another inserted a second IV into Jim's left hand.

Nothing could happen fast enough. The venom had been in Jim's system for hours and damage had been done. McCoy was working on stopping the progress of the damage and getting Jim stabilized.

"Get a blood and liver panel," he ordered, studying the medical panel. Jim's heart rate was still too fast and irregular. "Give him 25ccs of Xenin IV."

Jim's nervous system was lit up like a starbase, but the O2 sats were coming up with the ventilation help. As least he has oxygen getting to his lungs. He took a moment to look at his patient. Jim's face was covered with a fine sheen of sweat. Beneath the splotches, his skin was chalk-white. McCoy snatched a penlight from Wilson's pocket and moved to Jim's head. With his thumb, he peeled back one of Jim's lids and shined the light to check pupil reactions. They were sluggish, which wasn't good.

"Mr. Spock is here," Kate, one of the nurses, said softly from her place on the other side of the bed. She was drawing blood from Jim's arterial.

McCoy spared the Vulcan's slim figure a quick glance before moving to stand beside Wilson to examine Jim's leg.

"This entire muscle is necrotic," Wilson said in a low voice. He'd cut a ten centimeter incision at the side of Jim's calf in an effort to relieve the growing edema. The white sheet was soaked with blood and fluids. "We're not going to be able to save it."

McCoy didn't need to touch the leg to see the necrotic tissue. It was evident simply by looking at it. It was what he had expected, given the length of time the venom had been in Jim. "Get a full cellular scan. I want to see how much damage there is and what we can salvage."

"Do you want to do a cell regen?"

Three hours ago they could have done that, but not now. Jim had gone too long without medical care. Had McCoy been able to get Jim to the ship right away…

"No. Let's give the antivenin a chance to work. Have the lab start working on a graft." He let out a soft breath. He didn't want to think about the potential life-changing implications if they couldn't repair the damage. As it was, Jim had a long enough road to recovery. "We're going to have to remove the necrotic muscle tissue soon."

He stepped past Wilson to stand in front of Spock. The Vulcan wore a rigid mask that seemed to convey an intensity that made McCoy nervous.

"The Captain's status?"

"Critical and unstable." He pushed a hand through his hair and realized, for the first time, how filthy he was, sticky with sweat and smudged with dirt and blood.

"He will recover?"

Sometimes the Vulcan could be stunningly dense. McCoy dropped his hand and stared at the impeccably dressed first officer with a look he hoped conveyed utter contempt. "I just told you he's critical and unstable. I don't even know what type of venom this is, much less how to counteract it."

Spock blinked. "Then you have no prognosis?"

He was tired. Bone tired and drained. He'd spent hours on the planet trying to keep Jim alive with nothing but his experience and a few ancient techniques that had done nothing to stop the venom or alleviate Jim's pain, which had grown worse with every passing minute. Hours of watching his friend suffer…. He took a breath and bit back a retort that would have gotten him a reprimand. "It's a wait and see prognosis."

Spock stared at him a moment longer, then moved past him a few steps toward the bed. "You have intubated him."

"He wasn't breathing," he said flatly.

Spock looked at him and that's when McCoy saw it: concern, fear, uncertainty. Spock and Jim weren't exactly the best of friends, but Jim had made every effort to befriend the Vulcan. McCoy suspected it had something to do with what Old Spock had told him or shown him on Delta Vega. Jim didn't speak of it much, but when he did, he became melancholy and withdrawn. So, McCoy had let it alone. Now he felt like something of a third wheel, as if something had passed between the two men and it did not include him.

"It's just for a while," McCoy said quietly. "Until he can breathe on his own."

Spock looked back at Jim. The young man lay still as death, a machine breathing for him, tubes inserted into various places, pale and bruised, helpless before the medical staff. Jim would hate to be seen like this, McCoy knew, but Spock was first office – captain now – and he had every right to be here.

"I want a full report as soon as possible," Spock said, turning away from Jim, the stoic mask now firmly in place. "And hourly updates. The rest of the landing party has been recalled."

McCoy nodded. After Spock left, he studied the panel again, seeing Jim's heart rate begin to slow down, though it was still irregular.

Wilson left Jim's side and came to stand by McCoy. "You should get cleaned up. The lab results will take another hour or so."

McCoy stood in place, staring at the panel. So many things could go wrong so quickly. Jim wasn't stable yet, and while it was unlikely he would regain consciousness anytime soon, McCoy hated the idea of leaving him and not being here if something happened, if Jim needed him.

"We'll look after him, Leonard," Wilson said quietly. "You need to take care of yourself."

Wilson was right. He needed to get cleaned up, to clear his thoughts and get a plan in place. There was nothing more to do right now. Jim would need him in the coming days and he needed to be rested and clear. He nodded once. "I'll use the Sickbay shower. Let me know if anything changes."

It was ten hours later, barely into gamma shift, when an exhausted McCoy stood by Jim's bedside in the isolation unit. They had moved him into the small area after surgery and he lay unmoving, in the same position the nurses had placed him when out of recovery. The utter and unnatural stillness of him made McCoy anxious. McCoy closed his eyes and rolled his neck to ease the stiffness before settling his eyes again on the panel.

Jim had been fighting the mechanical ventilation, agitated by the forced breathing and McCoy was forced to extubate him to keep his stress level down. His respirations were so shallow that they placed him on an oxygen mask just to keep his O2 sats up.

"He's stabilizing," Kate said as she checked the IV lines. "It's better than an hour ago."

He absently nodded to the nurse, studying the overhead panel. Jim's vitals were improving, but still dangerously low and unstable. The venom had attacked his primary organs and even with the steady medication infusing into his veins, he was struggling to function.

McCoy moved to Jim's leg. The clean sheet made a small tent that rose from the injured leg. McCoy peered under it, wincing as he saw the results of the most recent surgery. Despite the sophisticated techniques of modern medicine, removing a large portion of muscle and tissue didn't look good. He had waited as long as he could, but the muscle was dead and needed to be removed along with surrounding tissue. They had just managed to save the skin with an aggressive cell regen series. Still, it looked like something out of an antique horror movie.

"Will his leg heal?" Kate asked apprehensively.

McCoy glanced up without moving. She stood on the opposite side with an expression that he hadn't seen since his lab partner made the first cut in a cadaver and threw up all over it. He forgot sometimes that Jim, even though a patient, was still captain of the Enterprise and the one crew looked up to for their safety and direction.

What was it that Jim had said? "I'm never off duty. I'm the captain."

Jim was not allowed to be fallible in front of the crew, which was ironic, given that McCoy was always telling him the opposite.

"We'll put the graft on tomorrow or the day after." He lowered the sheet. "He's young and should make a full recovery."

He wasn't sure if he fully believed his own words, but it's what doctors said. The alternative was more truthful, but less encouraging. He didn't take the time to wonder why he felt the need to reassure a nurse who probably knew the prognosis of Jim's recovery as well as he.

She nodded, relaxing slightly. "You should get some sleep, Doctor."

He almost laughed at that. Even if he did go to his quarters, there was no way he could sleep with Jim in this uncertain condition. "I'll be fine."

She looked at the side of the bed. "His urine output is still low."

And his temperature was up. "Get a new blood draw and get it down to the lab stat." He moved up to the head of the bed, his legs feeling like dead weights. As Kate drew the blood and left the small room, he took a moment to look at Jim. Not Jim the patient or Jim the captain, but Jim his friend. His shoulders fell as the stress of the day settled on him. It was hard to believe that a short twelve hours ago they were on the planet. He could still smell the decay of the jungle. In the back of his head, the faint pounding of a headache sounded.

"You look like shit," he said softly, lightly touching the strands of sweat-soaked hair and brushing them away from Jim's forehead. Most of the mottling had disappeared, but Jim was still deathly pale. The oxygen mask covered his nose and mouth, hiding colorless lips that parted gently in sleep. "You just can't do anything easy, can you?"

Jim didn't respond. Not so much as a twitch. McCoy looked up at the panel, as if studying it would change the readings. With a sigh, he looked away and pulled a chair up to the edge of the bed. Grabbing his PADD from the side table, he opened

Jim's medical file. He owed Spock a full report.

Two hours into the report, a soft noise drew his attention. He looked up at Jim to see his eyes open. Immediately, McCoy put down the PADD and stood in one smooth move, leaning over him and into his line of sight. Jim's blue eyes were glazed and unfocused, eerily devoid of emotions. Heavily medicated, it was unlikely he was aware of much. His last memory would have been of struggling to breathe and the radiating pain. Did he even remember being rescued?

"You're in Sickbay, Jim. Safe," he said.

For a long time, Jim didn't move. Then he closed his eyes and McCoy wondered if he'd drifted back into unconsciousness. The steady beep of the monitor revealed nothing new. Then Jim opened his eyes and dragged his hand across his chest.

McCoy captured it and squeezed gently. "Try not to move. Everything is okay. You're on Enterprise."

Jim said something that was garbled and faint. McCoy could hear the monitor increase its rhythm.

"The landing party is back on board and everyone is safe." He tried to find words that would comfort and appease, not knowing what was going on his mind. Fear. Pain. "You need to rest."

"I need you, Bones. Don't give up on me yet."

Jim's words suddenly surfaced in his mind just as Jim's fingers curled weakly in his.

"I'm right here," McCoy said. "You're going to be fine. I'm not going anywhere."

With that, Jim closed his eyes and sank back into unconsciousness. A nurse entered just as he released Jim.

"Is everything all right, Doctor?" she asked. She was responding to Jim's change in vitals on the monitor.

"Yes. He just woke up." Jim's vitals slowly fell into an unsteady pattern. He frowned at the panel. "Where are those lab results?"

"I don't know, Doctor. I'll go check on them."

He didn't like the irregular vitals. As the nurse left, he settled back into his chair, grabbed the PADD and pulled up Jim's previous blood work. He had a niggling feeling he'd missed something.

Jim was dreaming about snakes when he woke; snakes and the sweltering air of the planet that smothered him. The web of the dream clung to him as he struggled to focus – bright lights and moving colors all colliding into a twisted image that seemed to attack him all at once.

"Hey, hey." A soft voice penetrated the disorienting world as he struggled to consciousness. Air wheezed into his burning lungs, ribs stiff and sluggish. Everything seemed to hurt, but his leg…his leg was on fire. He tried to move it, but it was heavy and useless.

He drew a gasping breath, moving away from whatever held him. He needed to get to Sulu and Thompson, alert them of danger, get off the planet before it killed them all.

"You're on Enterprise, Jim."

A high-pitched buzzing filled his head. He groaned and batted at whatever held him.

"Settle down now."

Stop holding me! They had to move, get away from danger.

"Jim, listen to me." A cool hand pressed to the side of his face and held him steady. "You have to lie still. You're safe."

It wasn't so much the voice and words that stilled him, but more the fact that his body was exhausted, wrung-out and spent. The muscles loosened beneath his hot skin and surrendered against his will.

"That's good. Just lie still."

Fuck you.

"You're welcome."

He blinked slowly, still not able to see. A thumb caressed rhythmically along his jaw. He immediately recognized the familiar touch. Bones. His eyes slid shut as a soft chime sounded. He heard distant shouts following him into darkness.

When next he opened his eyes, the brightness had dimmed. The first thing he saw was the white blanket that covered him and the faint light reflecting off his IV lines.

Shit.

His head hurt like he'd been drinking too much and he recognized the all too familiar effects of heavy painkillers. Bones had him on the hard stuff, which meant he was worse off than he thought. Bones didn't like to use the heavy duty analgesics because of his allergies. Well, fuck. This wasn't good.

Slowly his vision came into focus and he could see he was in a small isolation room, and that wasn't good either. A patient had to be pretty sick for Bones to keep them out of the main bay. He took a mental inventory of his body which felt as if it'd been pummeled by an angry assailant. Dragging his hand across the blanket took more of an effort than he thought possible. How long had he been on the ship? Hours? Days? He saw a small rise of the blanket around his right leg and vividly recalled the pulsing agony that had ripped through him as he clung to Bones.

Did he still have a leg?

It had looked god-awful the last time he'd seen it, not anything that could belong to a human.

"You're not dying, Jim."

Easy for Bones to say. They had made it back to the ship, obviously, though he didn't remember being rescued. He mentally winced at the thought. He hated that the crew had to rescue him, but he pushed the thought aside and tried to focus on his leg. It felt heavy and tingly. Craning his neck to get a better look, he saw the raised sheet. With every muscle and nerve focused, he moved his toes to reassure himself there was a leg beneath the sheet. His heart began to beat faster and he felt sweat roll off his forehead.

"Captain, are you all right?"

It never ceased to amaze him the depths of stupidity the medical professionals displayed. Not that he blamed the nurse, but did she really expect him to answer that question? His head fell back onto the pillow.

"My leg?" The words were barely audible. He swallowed past the dryness. A cup and straw appeared before him.

"Just a little," she cautioned.

He liked the sound of her voice – soft and comforting without being condescending. He sipped slowly. The water soothed and cooled, but it took so much effort to drink. Then the straw was gone.

"That's all for now."

Trying to catch his breath, he looked at her while she busied herself with his IV lines. Rona. Her name was Rona. She had transferred from the outer frontier only a few months ago. She settled into his line of sight.

"My leg's all right?" he asked again, his voice had only marginally improved, his words still weak.

"Doctor McCoy operated on it. There was some damage from the venom, but you're going to heal. It'll be sore for a while."

"Bones?"

"Your bones? Nothing was broken."

He took another stuttering breath, wondering why his chest felt like someone was sitting on it. "McCoy."

"It's the middle of the night, Captain. He's sleeping. Do you want me to wake him?"

God, he was tired. He couldn't think straight and a gnawing in his middle began to spread deep into his back. He shivered.

She looked closely at him, her features suddenly concerning. "Are you in pain?"

He rolled his head across the pillow, the room tipping with the motion. "No."

She frowned.

That annoyed him. It was bad enough he'd been rescued like a first-year cadet and was flat on his back, too weak to raise his head, but he'd be damned if he'd take consternation from a nurse. He was about to demand that she get Bones, but his eyes were closing, his strength fading.

"Rest, Captain."

McCoy walked into Sickbay well before his scheduled shift, a cup of replicated coffee in one hand and a PADD in the other. He was reviewing the notes from the night nurse and scowling.

"That's not going to end well," Christine said.

He looked up from the PADD, annoyed by her impish expression. "Why the hell wasn't I called last night?"

"Rona said he went back to sleep," she explained rationally. "And she—"

"I don't give a damn if he went back to sleep or rolled over. I left orders that if he wakes up I'm to be notified." He was standing a few steps from her, jabbing the PADD at her to make a point. "It's not complicated."

"And she noted it in the file."

He snorted. "I didn't order to note the file. I ordered to notify me."

She looked at him for a moment, her expression softening. "Leonard, he's fine. He was barely awake five minutes—"

"And showed elevated vitals."

"By the time you'd have gotten here, he would have been asleep."

"That's not the point." Jim had been in Sickbay for four days, in and out of consciousness as they struggled to stabilize his vitals and get the new muscle graft to take. They had tried four different anti-rejection drugs before they found one that Jim's body would accept. His leg was healing now and so was the rest of him, but the procedures had taken a toll on his ravaged body. Any stress could set him back. "I want to see her before she leaves the shift."

Christine took a breath, as if she were going to argue with him, but then seemed to think better of it. "I'll have her in your office when you're ready."

He finished the last of his coffee and set the cup down on the central desk before walking to Jim's room. He stopped just outside the doors to collect himself. He'd deal with Rona later. Now he needed to focus on Jim. With a cleansing breath, he stepped inside.

Jim lay sleeping with his torso slightly inclined. He wore a soft blue gown that covered his chest and contrasted sharply with his pale complexion. Despite his pallor, he looked as youthful as always. That was the mystery of Jim Kirk, he could look boyishly charming and in the next moment lethal. McCoy had seen him make those transformations more than once.A white blanket covered his still form. It had taken two days, but Jim was breathing without assistance. The higher oxygen content in the room helped to keep his levels at acceptable rates and reduced the sensation of oxygen starvation that the venom had caused.

After studying the monitor for a moment, McCoy lifted the blanket around Jim's leg and examined the newly healing flesh. The graft looked good considering, and the regen therapy was helping to heal the surgical wounds. The flesh was slightly flushed from the stimulations, but at least the blisters and hematomas had faded, giving the leg a more natural look. He touched the new muscle for response and the leg trembled weakly.

"Your hands are cold," a voice said faintly.

He looked up to find Jim staring at him with a glazed expression. "My hands are normal temperature. Your leg is hot."

"Tomato. Tomahto." His words were slightly slurred and forced. He took a shuddering breath and winced.

McCoy lowered the blanket to cover his leg and moved to the head of the bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Like shit." He looked at McCoy, suddenly serious. "My leg…?"

"You lost the muscle and I had to do a graft, but…it's healing."

"Hurts." Looking closely at McCoy, eyes shining, he said, "You're losing your touch, Bones."

"Like hell I am. You're lucky our lab can regrow muscles so quickly." McCoy was studying the planes of Jim's face, looking for tension, lines of stress. He saw enough to say, "I thinned out your pain meds."

"I noticed."

McCoy felt a pang of guilt. "We have to be careful." It was an old conversation and a frequent one. Jim's allergies put him at risk for drug-resistance. He only used the strong meds when he absolutely had to, and now Jim was on the mend and he needed to use a more mild analgesic that would only just take the edge off. Regrettably, Jim would still be in considerable pain. Especially once he began putting weight on the leg.

"It's okay," Jim said, offering a tiny smile that seemed to fade too quickly.

"Thirsty?"

Jim nodded once.

McCoy retrieved a cup of water with a straw and let Jim drink a few sips before withdrawing it. It took a full minute for Jim to catch his breath.

"So…we were rescued."

"Obviously. Don't think I'd let you die on some backwater planet. Pike would never let me hear the end of it."

"Maybe he'll give you a medal." Jim winced and shifted uncomfortably. "Like to have seen…Scotty's face when we beamed up."

McCoy shook his head. "Beamed you right into Sickbay. I know how you like to be dramatic."

Jim snorted, his mouth curling into a weak smile. "I'm impressed you found your way back."

"You should be. I failed field survival at the Academy."

"I'm aware."

He was watching his patient for signs of fatigue, noticing that Jim's eyelids were heavy. A frown creased above Jim's bridge and there were tiny lines appearing at the corners of his eyes. McCoy tapped at the IV regulator to increase one of the medications.

Jim was silent for a long moment, then asked, "How long, Bones?"

"How long what?"

"Have I been here?" There was an edge to his voice as he pushed into the pillows with a suppressed groan.

McCoy looked up at the monitor. Jim always got irritable when he was in pain and confined, but he wanted to make sure it wasn't anything else. "Four days."

"Damn." He closed his eyes for a moment. "That's a record."

"I wouldn't go around bragging about it." McCoy put a hand on Jim's shoulder. "You're going to be here for a few more days."

"Mmm."

McCoy frowned. Jim was too quiet. A few more days in Sickbay usually produced an argument or a plea for release. Jim was either really hurting, or something else was going on.

"Feels strange," Jim said.

"What does?" he asked, eyeing Jim closely. His instincts were on alert.

"My leg."

It occurred to McCoy the last time Jim saw his leg it was misshapen and discolored. He hadn't been conscious during the reconstruction and treatment, so he had only the one image haunting him. "Do you want to see it?"

Jim's mouth tightened and McCoy saw apprehension in the blue eyes. He noticed Jim's fingers curling into the blanket.

"It's okay," McCoy said quietly, giving his shoulder a light squeeze before moving to the end of the bed. He drew back the blanket, exposing Jim's leg. "We did an aggressive regen treatment, so the tissues around the bite are healed. The new muscle is attached and the surgical scars are almost completely healed."

Jim looked at it with caution, uncertainty and skepticism playing across his sunken features. "It's tingly."

McCoy nodded. "We've been stimulating the tissue and nerves." He put his hand on Jim's foot to feel the circulation. "You feel that?"

Jim nodded.

"Wiggle your toes."

The toes curled slightly. McCoy shifted his gaze to watch Jim's face. Sweat dotted the pale forehead as Jim concentrated on moving his toes. His face was pinched; his lips tight.

"Good," McCoy said, releasing Jim's foot. "The muscle will be weak and you'll need therapy, but you'll be stomping around another planet in no time."

He covered Jim's leg with the blanket and returned to the head of the bed. Jim was noticeably paler and obviously exhausted. He touched a button on the panel and the bed lowered.

"Thanks," Jim said sleepily, his eyes intent on McCoy.

"It's my job."

"Not for this." Jim took a shallow breath. "For not leaving me."

McCoy put a hand to the side of Jim's warm face. "You're an idiot."

"But irresistible." Jim's eyes were closing.

Shivering and in pain, Jim still was the charmer. That incorrigible wit and feisty spirit that seemed to linger beneath his stubbornness was what drew McCoy to him in the first place. As maddening as Jim could be on any given day – God help McCoy – he was irresistible. McCoy pulled up the blanket to cover Jim's chest. "Get some sleep. Spock's been chomping at the bit to see you. I can only hold him off for so long."

"He's my First," Jim said sleepily.

"I know." He stood by Jim's bed side until long after the man fell asleep. He would be there when Jim woke up.

The End