"NO!" Bones had stumbled to his feet in a terrible feeling of deja vu. But this time, he was standing by the time the guards reached the door, not after. He hit the Ixionan that gripped Chekov, but with the native's incredibly thick, rough skin, Bones might as well have been hitting the walls of their cell. The second guard reached around his cohort and swatted Bones away like he was a fruit fly. He slammed into the nearest wall, actually losing consciousness for a few seconds.

Bones felt a throbbing behind his eyes as the rest of his senses kicked in once he blinked himself back into awareness. There was definitely blood; something warm was oozing down his scalp. He turned his blurry vision to the door to see it shut, once again locking them away into their stone prison. "Damm-mmit," was the slurred response.

"Bones!"

The doctor waited a moment, allowing his body to play catch-up with his brain before he finally felt well enough to turn his head to his friends. Jim looked stricken and Spock, though Bones wasn't entirely sure he was yet seeing clearly, looked pale. Well, pale-er.

"Bones, are you alright?"

The doctor sighed, closing his eyes and pinching the very bridge of his nose as he did. "I'll live. I probably have a mild concussion, but I'll live."

"The back of your head is bleeding, doctor."

The quiet and lack of disassociated realism in Spock's tone took the sarcasm right out of Bones. He inclined his head towards the Vulcan as he tenderly touched the wound. Warm and wet. Great. Bones fought against the irritation; head injuries bleeding more than anyone thought was necessary was lower on the list of problems they were currently facing. Slowly he climbed to his feet, allotting time for his head to spin once he was standing. That hurt like a mother-

The worst kind of scream they had yet heard echoed down to their cell. Bones looked, horror-struck, at Jim. The captain instantly went pale and his entire body tensed. Spock had the decency to stay pale.

"He's just a kid," Bones whispered. "He's just a KID."

No one had a response to that.

Bones stood up and ran to the door, kicking it with his foot. Of course it did nothing but cause his toes to pound on beat with his head, but emotionally he felt marginally better. He leaned his head against the door and exhaled through his nose as the cool of the metal chilled the ache.

And once again, they were subjected to the awful screams of torture. And once again they had nothing to do and nothing to use to fight their way out. Though that didn't stop the three men from trying. They talked in circles, faltering every few seconds as screams penetrated their ear drums.

Then, far sooner than they had expected, the door to their cell opened. Bones stood too fast and nearly fell over, yet he still attempted to charge at the giant blue alien blocking his way.

"He's just a kid!" Unsurprisingly, the Ixionian simply held out a hand and stopped Bones in his tracks.

Surprisingly, he spoke to the men in a non-confrontational voice, something they hadn't heard since their initial arrival on the planet.

"We are in need of the spy doctor."

Kirk felt his face scrunch in confusion before he masked it into a neutral look. "Why?"

"We believe there was an- error."

The guard honestly could not have said anything worse.

"An error?" To Bones' surprise, it was Spock who spoke, using a terribly cold tone Bones had never heard and Kirk had only heard once on their first ever trip on the Enterprise.

"Yes. An error. We need the spy doctor." The guard looked down at Bones, still pushed against his hand, almost like he were leaning on it for support. The guard frowned slightly, noticing the red on the back of the doctor's head.

"His name is McCoy and he is no spy," Spock spoke, using the same cold tone.

The guard paid no attention. "You have the red liquid on your neck, like the zexask."

Bones, fighting the headache he'd had since he'd been swatted, squinted against the pain as he tried to glare at the giant Ixionian. "Yes, it's blood. You know, the life-force of most humanoids? Bad when it's outside of the body? And what did you call Chekov? What's a zeskax?"

"Zexask, Doctor." Spock's voice was probably broken because he continued to use the same tone that was slightly giving Kirk and Bones both anxiety. "There is no real literal translation, but from what I've come to understand of the talk of war before we were incorrectly attacked and unjustly kidnapped, a zexask is a captured spy and subsequent torturee."

Bones felt the blood in his face (or whatever was left that wasn't on his neck) drain from his face. "Chekov is not a spy," he managed to ground out through the pain in his head.

"Why," Kirk finally interrupted, a horrible feeling in his gut, "are you confused about the blood? And why do you need Bones? Surely you have doctors that can help you." He felt terrible saying that, but it seemed the guard was in no hurry and Spock was too angry to help. And Bones- well, Bones definitely had a concussion, but Kirk suspected it was worse than they initially thought.

The guard turned to Kirk. "We do not have "blood" as you called it. We have had no outsiders on our planet in many millennia, so all biology not our own is new." The guard said nothing else, as though those two sentences answered all three of Kirk's questions.

And to his horror, they did.

"Bones," Kirk snapped, not unkindly, "You need to go with him, now."

The doctor, despite his excruciating migraine, managed to understand the guard and Kirk's tone.

"Right." He swallowed and managed to grab his hypo without vomiting at the up and down motions of picking something up off the ground.

The guard handed Bones his bag wordlessly. Bones hadn't even noticed he had it.

"Bones," the doctor slowly looked at his captain and friend. The man looked ragged and exhausted. He was fairly certain Jim was trying to tell him something, and he thought he knew what it was, but neither man wanted to speak aloud.

Spock gave Bones a very slight nod and coming from the Vulcan, that was the equivalent to a "Good luck." Bones returned the gesture and allowed the guard to steer him out of the room.

He hadn't even noticed until they were in the hallway, but Chekov's voice was absent. And had been for several minutes. Bones' gut flipped.

The companions got to a single metal door that marked the end of the hallway. As the guard opened the door, McCoy took in a deep breath and closed his eyes against his headache. And dreaded the second he would have to open his eyes.

A/N Hello! Hope you are all well. Just a brief thing: I promised I would finish this story, and by golly I am going to keep it. It's just (apparently) going to take me a hot second. Thanks for reading and following/favoriting! Honestly, I am SO honored that y'all would take time out of your days to invest in my story. Stay safe and healthy!

I Am a Difference Maker (and so are you)