Authors Note: Same story as before, just a few minor alterations, unnoticeable to most, but I'm a perfectionist.

Disclaimer: First things first: as with all things fanfiction there are a whole load of people who can take credit for these characters and the world they live in. I've just borrowed them for a bit and am making no money from this.

I hope you enjoy my first offering to this fandom, it's set some time after Into Darkness but before Beyond. The crew of the Enterprise are about a year into their five year mission. There will be hurt/comfort, drama and a bit of bromance. But there will not be slash.

Chapter 1

When Doctor Leonard McCoy had been summoned to the bridge by his Captain he had responded with a string of expletives harsh enough to make a cross-galaxy trucker blush. As his tirade had been broadcasted over the intercom for the whole bridge to hear he guessed he shouldn't be surprised to see James Kirk waiting for him when he stormed out of surgery an hour later.

His mood hadn't improved either, wishing he had doors to slam as they whooshed open as he strode through them, tearing off his disposable surgical gown as he did. He stopped in his tracks when he saw two men sat waiting for him. Scotty was hunched over in McCoy's chair, his elbows resting on his thighs, staring at his bandaged hands, Kirk was sat on McCoy's desk, swinging his legs back and forth like an impatient child. They both looked up as the doctor as he came in, with two completely different expressions on their face, Scotty looked like someone had kicked his puppy, while Kirk looked relaxed and smiling. McCoy was thrown at first, surely Scotty would have told their captain what had happened, but then he realised with a sinking feeling that Kirk did know but his utmost faith in his Chief Medical Officer gave him the belief that there was nothing to worry about. After all, he'd brought him back from the dead so a few burns shouldn't be a problem should it?

Kirk had started talking before he'd even properly taken in the sight before him, "Bones, I couldn't care less what you call me to my face but in front of everyone on the bridge it's… holy shit that's a lot of blood!" He changed his sentence as his brain processed what he was seeing. The smile left his lips and he stopped swinging his legs.

McCoy looked down at himself, the gown caught in his gloved fist where he'd frozen in the process of ripping it off. The white fabric was drenched in deep red, from his chest down, his gloves and arms were similarly soaked. Scotty looked like he was going to be sick. He felt a surge of guilt, he should have known the engineer would have been waiting for news and should never have left the theatre in such a morbid state. He finished pulling the gown off along with his gloves and facemask, balled them up and tossed them in the medical waste chute for incineration.

"Scotty, I'm sorry." He said, his voice strained, ignoring the captain for the moment. "I tried everything I could, the burns and the damage to her brain were too extensive."

"Aye lad," Scotty said, with a grim smile that was meant to be comforting. "I know you did." McCoy shook his head in disbelief, that was supposed to be his job wasn't it?

"She would have made a great engineer." He said sorrowfully. Kirk reached out and gripped the Scot's shoulder, giving it a squeeze of solidarity. It had been a tragic accident, made worse by the fact it had happened to someone so young. Scotty and the new engineering student, Ensign Ayrie had been trying to fix the warp core when something blew up. They'd both been blasted backwards, sliding at speed across the floor of the engineering room. Scotty had received substantial burns to his hands and forearms but Ayrie had taken the brunt of the blast. It had sent her flying backwards and by a stroke of bad luck had only come to a stop when her head struck the corner of a metal unit. Even without the head injury, her wounds would likely have been too extensive, her face, arms and chest had severe third degree burns and she'd also inhaled the flames, which had caused intensive burns in her trachea and lungs. McCoy had spent hours fighting for her life but in the end it had all been in vain. Ten hours it had taken him, and for ten hours Scotty had sat waiting for news of his charge.

McCoy was exhausted, he wanted a hot shower and then to collapse into bed with a bottle of bourbon but he wasn't done yet. Scotty had severe burns and so far he hadn't had the time to take a look at them. He'd left a nurse to wrap them in cooling gel bandages as a temporary fix while he was in surgery but now he could take a proper look. "Come on, let's get you into a bed and let me take a look at those hands." He offered. Scotty nodded and stood up but the blood rushed to his head all at one and he staggered. McCoy leapt forward and slung an arm around his waist to steady him. "You get any pain meds?"

Scotty nodded lamely, "Yeah, but they wore off."

McCoy cursed again, of course they had, he'd been given them ten hours ago, but when Ayrie's vitals had taken a turn for the worse it had been all hands on deck and the poor man had been abandoned. Together they shuffled slowly to the bio-bed and McCoy helped the engineer onto it. He filled a hypospray with painkiller and injected it into Scotty's neck. He could see the almost instant relief it gave as Scotty settled back into the bed, his frown just a little less than it had been.

"Better?" McCoy asked, perching himself on a stool and taking the engineer's right hand gently and starting to unwrap it.

"Mm," Scotty nodded the affirmative, the hypo causing him to feel sleepy.

McCoy finished unwrapping the bandage and inspected the hand and arm carefully, second degree burn over the palm and forearm, not much better on the back. The skin was cracked and blistered and the fabric of his uniform had melted into his skin in places. He undid the dressings on the left arm to compare then dressed it back up again while he worked on the right, having deemed it was the slightly worse of the two and required his attention first.

"They're gonna take a while to clean out and then they'll need a few sessions with the dermal regenerator. It will be a bit unpleasant but we can keep you comfortably numb for most of it, we'll have you as good as new in no time." McCoy reassured him.

Scotty nodded so McCoy got to work, beginning to tweeze out the pieces of burnt fabric as gently as he could. Scotty kept his eyes shut and McCoy ignored the stray tear that leaked out passed his eyelashes. He realised as he worked that there was a presence hovering behind him that was incredibly off-putting.

"Can I help you Captain?" He asked, somewhat harshly. He knew his temper was irrational, but he was upset and exhausted and had to take it out on someone. As usual, his friend Jim was posing as the perfect target. He was angry at him and it took him a moment to work out why, the interruption during surgery hadn't really been an issue, although it had irked him that as usual Kirk had been oblivious to the seriousness of the situation. No, what really upset him had been Jim's casual reaction when he had come out of the theatre. The captain had just been so sure that his doctor could fix everything, but dammit Jim, he was a doctor not God.

"Erm, yeah." Kirk began, knowing the doctor was pissed at him but clearly not quite sure why. "We got a distress call from a nearby colony. Apparently a shuttle crashed there a few months ago. They were taken in by the locals and nursed back to health but unfortunately they seem to have passed on the flu virus and started an epidemic. The colony is human but haven't had much contact with the outside in a century or more so haven't had anything like it before and don't have the immunity."

McCoy nodded wearily. "The next shift comes on in just under an hour. I'll get them prepped and they can be your away team."

"Okay, they're kinda in a hurry but…"

McCoy turned and scowled at him. "Dammit Jim! My team have just spent ten hours trying to save a dying girl! They're spent. I'm not sending them planetside now and I'm not dragging the next team in early. They'll just have to wait."

James Kirk could see he wasn't going to get a better offer with his surly friend. "I'll let them know, send the team to the bridge when they're ready to go. Get well soon Scotty." He offered as he left. Neither doctor nor engineer responded.

Eventually his team of nurses came out of the operating theatre, having cleaned it in preparation for its next use. They looked as exhausted as McCoy felt. He looked up from where he was still cleaning Scotty's wounds and gave them a smile. "Get some rest." He ordered. "I can manage on my own until the next shift comes in." He purposefully neglected to tell them that the next shift would be heading down to the planet. Nurse Chapel looked like she was about to argue with him but he cut her off, "I mean it, I'll be fine."

"You did all you could Doctor," she offered solemnly as she followed the others out. "Don't beat yourself up about it."

"Mmm, I'll try." McCoy muttered under his breath as he turned his concentration back to his patient.

It took him a further three hours to clean out Scotty's wounds and use the dermal regenerator on them. The burns were deep so they would need multiple sessions before they fully healed, but this was all he could manage now. He glanced down at his work, the skin all red and puckered from the fire, but they were looking a lot better. The next team had come in and had been sent down to the planet so apart from Scotty, his only patient, he was all alone in the Med Bay.

Scotty was sleeping, McCoy was desperate to sleep too but as the only one on duty he couldn't even risk a few minutes on the old sofa he'd had installed in his office. Instead he made a quick call to the team on the ground to confirm diagnosis and then set about making more batches of antivirus.

Eight hours later Christine Chapel found him striding between the Med Bay and the lab, cup of thick black coffee in his hand and deep in thought. Scotty was fast asleep in his bio-bed, curled round his damaged arms protectively, still under the effects of the sedative he'd been dosed with.

"Leonard, how did I know I would find you here?"

"Mm," McCoy looked up at her as though he hadn't expected to see her. "Could say the same to you, shift doesn't start for another four hours."

She smiled softly, "Yes, but as I was going to my room I heard that you were sending the gamma team planetside so I knew you were going to be in here on your own. You must be exhausted."

He had the good grace not to deny it but just shrugged instead. Truth was he was exhausted and all the coffee in the world was unlikely to help at this point. He caught a glance at his reflection in the glass of one of the medicine cabinets and could see dishevelled hair, five o'clock shadow and the lines on his face were more prominent than usual.

"We had a request for assistance. Outbreak of flu that's proving to be lethal to the local people. M'Benga and his team went down there to help." He explained, running a hand over his tired face. "Someone had to stay here and keep an eye on Scotty."

Chapel nodded, "Which I am more than capable of doing. I'll be looking after you too if you don't get some sleep."

McCoy was about to protest but then thought better of it. "I'll be in my office. Wake me if anything changes." He shuffled off towards his office, now that sleep was a prospect, he found himself unable to keep his eyes open. "Thank you Christine."

"You can thank me by looking after yourself." She replied as he shut the door.

McCoy barely glanced at the sofa in his small office before collapsing down on it, head on the armrest and long legs pulled up so they were no longer hanging off the edge. There was already a blanket and a pillow on it that one of the nursing staff had laundered and left for him after the last time. For the last few months he seemed to spend more time sleeping on this couch than in his own bed. Idly he promised himself that next time he was on a suitably civilised planet he would buy himself a couch that was at least a bit comfier. But it was a promise he made to himself on regular occasions and he just never got round to it. He lay in the dark and shifted round to get comfortable, listening to Christine pottering around the Med Bay just outside the door. She was singing an unrecognisable tune as she worked and although she was slightly off-key it worked as a lullaby for the exhausted doctor.

It was barely two hours later when there was a tentative knock at the door. McCoy still in the fog of sleep barely had time to consider telling the knocker to go away before the door was opened. He rolled away from where his face was smushed into the back of the sofa and stared at the intruders. It was Nurse Chapel and Captain Kirk and the only logical explanation for why they'd be waking him up together was 'trouble'.

"Sleeping on the job are we Bones?" Kirk grinned at the disgruntled doctor.

Chapel glared at their Captain but he didn't notice.

"What's wrong?" McCoy scrubbed a hand over his face and sat up, flinging the blanket aside.

"We've got a problem." Kirk answered. "Doctor M'Benga has spoken to us from down on the planet. It turns out the sickness isn't what they first thought. They've become ill with it."

McCoy cursed under his breath.

"It is flu." Chapel explained, "But it appears to have mutated beyond the conventional virus. The team's inoculations haven't worked and they've come down with it really fast. Nurse Tura is already in a really bad way."

"I'm getting the team ready to beam back up and…"

"No Jim, don't do that." McCoy interrupted. "If we do that we run the risk of infecting the entire crew. I'll go down to them."

"I'll go with you." Chapel volunteered immediately.

"No. I'm going to need you in the lab. We're going to have to synthesise a new treatment. Jim can we get Spock in here to help?"

"Of course. Whatever you need Bones." Kirk agreed and immediately used his comm device to start throwing orders around.