Disclaimer: I love them. I don't own them, I just abuse them.

Notes: This was written for moogsthewriter over at trek_exchange. The prompts were "a member of the away team is injured and they're having trouble getting beamed aboard" and "Kirk reacts badly to a medication". I'm still working on the next two segments of "The People He Sees", as well as some other pieces. Work has just been devouring my life for the past month, but it should hopefully be slowing down now. Hopefully some of you can enjoy this in the meantime!

In Us We Trust

"God-damned savages."

"Doc, y'seem to be overlooking a key component o' hiding." Scotty's voice is a barely-heard whisper, dying out before it can echo off the unseen rock surrounding them.

"It's been almost a half hour. They're as gone as they're going to get." McCoy pokes gingerly at the bloody fabric surrounding a three-inch-long gash in his bicep. "And a half hour is a hell of a long time to wait to curse after someone's damned well shot you."

Only silence greets his statement, which isn't right. Jim's voice should have come in by now. Jim should be worrying about him. Jim should be telling him to shut up or giving the all clear to start crawling out of this damn tomb.

The silence turns to dread, settling like a rock in his stomach. Jim had made it in with them, right? He'd been right behind them…

Scotty starts moving at the same time he does, a hushed whisper of fabric against rock that echoes eerily in the cavern.

Bones can't tell how big the space they've found is. Sometimes his mind pictures a huge grotto, empty, never-ending, a mausoleum he'll wander through forever if he loses track of the faint rustling and low breathing that indicates his shipmates. At other times the walls seem too close, the ceiling too low, the air too stale. Their sanctuary becomes a coffin, swallowing the three of them, and they'll drown in darkness and dirt and—

His foot fetches up hard against something soft and yielding, earning a groggy, slurred protest.

"Jim?"

"Righ' here, Bones. Don' need to yell." Jim's voice is rough, thready.

"Scotty! He's here—"

"I heard." Scotty's voice comes from right beside him.

McCoy is grateful to the darkness for only two things—hiding them, and keeping Scotty from seeing just how high he jumped. "All right. Good. We need to get him somewhere with light. Help me get him to his feet. Can you walk, Jim?"

"If you can point me in the right direction, I can get there."

Bones can picture Jim's smile as he answers, weary but determined. An answering smile flickers across his own face as he helps his captain to his feet. "Come on. Let's go."

It's an arduous trek back along their trail. McCoy's feet seem to catch on every bump, every groove, every dip, every loose rock in the path. It had seemed an easier trip coming in, but then terror had been dogging their steps. He hadn't noticed any of the scrapes he acquired until later, sitting in the dark, heart pounding so hard that despite all his medical knowledge he was sure their enemies could hear it.

Light appears, faint but growing brighter, and McCoy slows his steps. As much as he wants to see how badly Jim's hurt, getting them shot—again—while doing so won't help anyone.

He slips his arm from beneath Jim's shoulder, waiting long enough to ensure the captain's steadiness on his feet before creeping forward. No shouts greet him as he crawls toward the opening of the cavern. No small, quick forms dart across his field of vision, weapons clasped firmly in all four hands.

For the moment, at least, it looks like they're safe.

Scotty and Jim come forward at his gesture, and he gets his first real glimpse of the damage. Blood has soaked through the entire bottom half of Jim's shirt, and the hand he's got pressed over the injury bears a hideous glove of fresh red blood and clotted black blood.

"Jesus, Jim." McCoy keeps his voice down, because even though they're still inside their rock prison, the light makes him feel far too exposed. "Why didn't you say something, you idiot."

"Because we were being quiet." Jim moves his left hand gingerly away from the injury with a wince. "Because I couldn't tell it was this bad. And because I think I might have passed out for a few minutes."

"Yeah, well, how about we sit you down before you do that again."

Bones helps Scotty lower Jim to the ground, gingerly moving Jim's hand away from the injury. It doesn't really help him see anything, though. There's too much bloodstained fabric sticking to the wound, sticking to itself, sticking to Jim, and these are just about the worst medical facilities he can imagine.

"So, Bones? Medical opinion?"

"You were shot. With some kind of barbaric projectile weapon. What do you think my medical opinion is?"

"You were shot, too. How bad is it?"

"I'm fine, Jim. Just a graze." He keeps his head down, not meeting Jim's eyes for a moment, because it's stupid that there're tears in his own. "Scotty, we need—"

"I'm tryin', doc." Scotty has his communicator out and is kneeling a few feet away, almost at the entrance to their cave system, red shirt far too bright against the grayness of the rock. Bones bites down the urge to call him back closer to them. "Somethin' in the damn rocks's interferin' with the signal. Even out in the open it'll be hard to call the ship. Up here…"

Jim uses his good right hand to pull his own communicator out, fiddling with the settings for a moment before tossing it to the side with a growl of dismay. "Can you do anything to boost the signal? Maybe scavenge parts from other communicators? Or our phasers?"

"Cap'n, I can try, but really, cobblin' together a high-tech signaling system with three communicators and three broken phasers…"

Jim simply stares at the engineer. It's an expression Bones knows, one he's had turned on himself. Not anger, not resentment, not even pleading. Just… expectation. Quiet, determined expectation that they'll do the impossible.

Scotty sighs. "I'll get righ' on it, cap'n. Assumin' you don' need my help, doc?"

"No. There's not much I can do here. We need to get back to the Enterprise." Rifling through the small pack of medical supplies he always carries on his belt, Bones can feel the tension mount as Scotty nods and sets about disassembling one of their communicators.

He doesn't have what he needs here. Jim's lost a lot of blood, though the bullet obviously managed to miss any major arteries. If it hadn't, they wouldn't be sitting here now. He'd be kneeling in a pool of invisible blood in the darkness, trying to perform miracles by touch. A shiver runs down his spine, though his hands, as always, are perfectly steady.

"So, Jim, you're still the luckiest bastard in existence, given you're still alive. We'll need to operate as soon as we get up to the ship, since disgusting caves on primitive worlds make for horrible aseptic technique. For now I'm just going to give you a few things to try to stabilize your blood pressure, help you fight off whatever infection's setting in, and hopefully slow down any tissue necrosis you've got going on." Plus a little something for pain, but what Jim didn't know about he couldn't argue against.

The glare Jim turns on him is almost enough to make McCoy smile. "Standard, Bones. Informed consent involves you speaking in Standard."

"I'm a Starfleet surgeon. They give me all the consent I need." Gently pressing the hypo against the side of Jim's neck earns a reflexive tightening of the captain's muscles. "You know, it would hurt less if you wouldn't do that."

"It would hurt less if you wouldn't—ah!" Jim raises his dirty left hand to rub at the injection site before obviously thinking better of it. "Damn it, Bones. I hate hypos."

"I know you hate hypos. You hate hypos, and you hate physicals, and you hate doctors, and yet you're always ending up in sick bay. If you're not careful I'm going to have to make a medical log that my captain's possibly masochistic."

"Masochism is allowed." Slumping back against the rock, Jim's eyes half-close. "Jus' so long as it doesn't affect my performance. Not that I am masochistic. And you put teraphine in that mix. I can feel it."

"Yeah, well, figured you had to hurt like hell with a hole that size in you." The shot was a through-and-through, at least, so he shouldn't have to worry about digging anything out of Jim's body. Just about the fact that he's leaking from both sides, and Bones wishes he had something, anything, other than his hypo and his handful of standard medications. Even a role of gauze would be a blessing. At least then he could pick at the fabric over the wound and know he had something better to use to staunch the bleeding and cover whatever was underneath it. "All right. You just sit tight, try not to move too much, and tell me if you start feeling any worse. No being macho."

"No macho." Jim's right hand raises in a limp wave. "Got it. Scotty, how're the communicators coming along?"

"Slowly, sir. Very slowly." The engineer doesn't glance up from his work as he responds, kneeling in the center of a technological minefield that had been a communicator last time Bones looked over at him. 'Slowly' is obviously a relative term.

Reaching up with his clean hand, Jim pats McCoy on the shoulder. "Go help him. It'll do more good for us than you sitting here watching me sit here."

He almost argues, but Jim's looking all right—not great, he's still far too pale and shaky, but all right—and he wants out of here. Badly. Nodding, McCoy places a hand on Jim's shoulder for just a moment before heading over to just outside the mechanical disaster radius surrounding Scotty. "What can I do to help?"

"Well, if you've got steady hands, I could use a pair. Why don't you pick up that—" Scotty looks up, a faint smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. "Right. No technical jargon. That little square pointy thing, the one with the blue prongs. Hold it at a sixty degree angle to the little red circle there, righ', that one. Now, don't move."

McCoy can feel his brain shutting down as the engineer doles out instructions in a combination of impossible-to-comprehend technological babble and almost-insultingly-simplified translations. It gives him a slightly better appreciation for all those medical-to-Standard exercises they made him do in med school.

Only slightly, though. The extra hours of sleep would have been more appreciated, and Scotty's at least managing to get the main point across to him even if the eloquence is a bit lacking.

"Bones."

McCoy can feel his heart-rate skyrocket, adrenaline dumping into his system at Jim's soft word. Too soft, too much obvious pain in it, and he knows even before he looks up that there's something very wrong.

Jim's curled on his side, bloody hand pressed against the exit wound again, clean hand pressed firmly against his eyes. He's pale, deathly so, and sweat coats his body.

"Jim?" He wants to drop the pieces he's helping to hold together, but he waits the few seconds for Scotty to solder them into place with his improvised tools before darting to his captain's side. If he's going to treat anything serious, they need to get out of here. "Jim, what's wrong?"

McCoy's fingers brush gently against Jim's arm.

"Don't touch me." Jim flinches back, but there's something swift and vicious in the move that makes it just as much a threat as a sign of fear. "What did you do?"

"Easy there. I think you're having a reaction to one of the medications." Moving slowly, he tries putting a comforting hand on his captain's shoulder.

Jim's hands move, fast, locking with brutal force around both of McCoy's wrists. The right hand is sweat-slicked, fever hot, but it's the left hand that makes Bones want to flinch, blood sticking and sliding against his flesh.

Bones can't actually say how Jim ended up on his knees, but he's suddenly eye-to-eye with the man. Jim's pupils are wide, far too wide even for the dim lighting they're in, and his breathing too fast.

"Doc?" The concern in Scotty's voice is crystal clear. "Need some help?"

"I need you to get us back on the ship. ASAP. Got it?" McCoy doesn't take his eyes from Jim's wild ones, doesn't move or blink. "Jim. You're fine."

"No. Not fine." Jim's hands flex almost convulsively, a shiver running through his frame. "What did you do to me?"

The accusation hurts, because he's not sure exactly what's going on and it is quite possibly his fault. Anger is safer, though, and there's plenty of that in his system, too, because this just isn't fair. "I think you're having a bad reaction to a medication. You need to sit still and let me look at you. All right?"

"No." Jim shakes his head, teeth partially bared. "No more hypos. No more scans. No more."

Another shiver runs through Jim's frame, his teeth chattering against each other.

"Jim. Come on. You know—"

He doesn't get a chance to finish the statement because Jim's up and running, faster than should be possible, back into the black caverns.

"Jim!" Bones follows as quickly as he can, pausing only to point a finger at Scotty. "Stay here and finish that damn thing!"

He doesn't wait for a reply. There isn't time. Jim's hurt and quite possibly doing more damage to himself, and it's probably his fault.

Almost certainly his fault.

He runs through the medications in his head as he follows the echoes of skittering footsteps into the blackness of the cavern. None of them should have done this. Unless it's another allergic reaction, which isn't likely, but hell, the way their luck has been this trip…

The darkness is absolute, and McCoy slows, treading more carefully. "Jim?"

No answer. Only silence, now, and it's childish to think there's anything in it but him and the captain.

"Jim, come on. It's me. It's Bones. Your friend." His hand finds the back wall of the corridor and follows it, the cool rock comforting, a solid place in the disconcerting blackness. He wonders, belatedly, if he's missed a turn, if they're now both lost in the labyrinth of the mountain.

Somehow, the thought isn't as terrifying as the thought of losing Jim.

"Bones…" The word is a soft whisper, echoing faintly.

"That's right. Bones. An old sawbones with nothing but his bones left. You thought it was terribly clever." Jim thought a lot of what he did and said was terribly clever, especially when he was drunk, and he'd been drunk for a good bit of their first semester at the Academy.

"I can't… think." Jim's voice is still soft, still infuriatingly hard to pinpoint in the darkness. "Hurts."

"I know. I want to help."

"No more hypos. Hurts. Bad things…"

"Jim, I know. I'm sorry. You've just got really lousy luck when it comes to medical reactions. What we need to do is get you back to the Enterprise."

The sound is the darkness is half-whimper, half-sob, and absolutely heartbreaking.

"Your ship, right? Your Enterprise."

"We need to warn them."

He can hear Jim's shuddering breath in the darkness, close, possibly close enough that he could reach out and grab him. Making Jim run again is the last thing he wants to do, though.

Jim draws a deep breath. "We need to… need to…"

"We'll warn them. We'll let everyone know what happened, that it isn't safe on this planet. Your ship will be safe. Your crew will be safe." The darkness presses around them, between them. Bones finds himself reaching out into the blackness with his left hand, his right firmly against the wall, keeping him anchored in place. "That's what you want, right?"

"My ship safe. My crew safe." Fingers brush against McCoy's hand, tentative. "Everyone safe. Not hurt."

"No one hurting. Not even you." Bones takes a deep breath. "Jim, you've got to trust me."

"I do." Jim's hand is suddenly in his, still far too warm, sweat-slicked, but his grip is firm. "Always trust you, Bones. Just not doctors. Or hypos."

He closes his hand around Jim's, gently pulling his captain toward him. "I hate to break this to you, but I'm a doctor. And we have to use hypos."

"You're not a doctor. Magician. Miracle-worker." Jim's words are slurred, and he sways against Bones. "Like Scotty. Miracle workers. He fixes the Enterprise. You fix the crew."

"Yeah?" McCoy swallows, trying to keep his voice steady despite the ridiculous lump that's suddenly lodged in his throat. "We try, at any rate. Come on."

Bones slips his arm under Jim's shoulder and leads the way out for a second time. Only this time he really isn't certain he's heading out, and Jim's leaning on him more and more with each passing second, and—

"Doctor McCoy!"

"Doc!"

"Sir!"

He recognizes two out of the three voices calling his name, and relief never tasted so sweet. Jim chooses that moment to collapse entirely, suddenly turning into a dead weight in McCoy's arms.

"Christine! Scotty! Over here!"

The landing party is small, two security guards and his head nurse. They carry light with them, though, and they're the second best sight McCoy has ever seen.

The award for best sight for sore eyes has to go to the fully stocked medical kit Christine carries at her side.

"Chris, I need two ccs of benphedrine. And if we could get beamed off this forsaken hunk of cursed rock, I will kiss whoever's at the controls."

"Not sure Lieutenant Kyle would appreciate that, doc." Scotty's grinning from ear to ear, his Frankenstein communicator cupped gingerly in both hands, parts sticking out at odd angles. "Might be interestin' to try, though."

Christine's brought a portable stretcher, making it blessedly easy to get Jim back to the cave mouth. Phasers don't last long in the magnetic anomaly the rocks around them create, but they last long enough that Bones feels safe standing at the opening of their cave for the few seconds it takes the transporter to lock on.

As safe as he ever feels when his molecules are about to be split apart and then sewn back together, anyway.

It doesn't take long to stabilize Jim, after which he finally lets Raya take a look at his own arm. By the time she's got him patched up, Jim's awake and trying to fast-talk his way out of medical and on to the bridge.

"No."

Jim looks up at him, startled, mouth opening automatically to protest.

"No, no and no. You are staying here. You are resting. Tomorrow I am running a full, broad-spectrum allergy test on you to see what the hell caused that reaction." He glares down at Jim, resisting the urge to rub at his own injured arm. "Understand?"

"Bones…"

McCoy isn't about to let Jim work himself up into a full rant about why he should be released. "The miracle worker is tired of working miracles, Jim. So sit still and let me enjoy the fact that you're alive and safe for at least a few hours. All right?"

Jim sighs as he settles back down, but all he says is, "All right, Bones."

Bones sleeps in medical that night, with the light on in his office, because even though for once no one died he almost lost Jim in the darkness due to his own ineptness (because he isn't the miracle worker Jim thinks he is).

It's Scotty who wakes him the next morning, knocking softly on the door despite the perfectly good call button. A bottle of Scotch is cradled against the engineer's chest, and he smiles tentatively. "Thought you might need a little something."

"Can't drink." McCoy shakes his head. "I have a shift in a few hours."

"Last I heard, you were on medical leave."

"Says who? I'm perfectly fine to—"

"Oh, just says Raya and Sanri and Christine." Scotty sets the bottle down on his desk and grabs two glasses from Bones' desk. "Though I suppose, if you're fine, I'll just have to take care o' this all by myself."

"You could always try sharing it with Jim."

Scotty just looks at him, already pouring. "You really think the captain's goin' t' stay off active duty if you're not?"

"The captain was hurt worse than I was. And if I order him to stay—" He takes the glass Scotty offers him, downing half of it in one fiery gulp. "He'll damn well stay. And Holy Mary, Scotty, where did you pull this from?"

"I was saving it for a special occasion. I figure being shot at, navigating alien landscapes, making an incredibly impressive engineering feat with that communicator and getting back to tell the tale is a special occasion."

Bones smiles, raising his miraculously refilled glass to the engineer. "I don't think I thanked you. Don't think we ever really do. Without those miracles of yours, we'd be up a creek without a paddle."

"Aye, y' would." There's a trace of melancholy to Scotty's voice as he gazes down at his glass. "Though it's not really miracles. If it were, don't y'think you'd see less of my boys?"

"You do the best you can, man. And that's a damn sight better than most people could do."

"Aye." Scotty drains his glass. "I suppose it is. Could say the same for you, doc."

"I…" He doesn't know how to respond, can't quite sort out the tangle of emotions the engineer's quiet vote of confidence brings. So he just smiles, shrugs his shoulders, and grabs the bottle off the table. "I think Jim could use a little bit of this prescription. What do you think?"

"I think that's a very fine idea."

They don't get drunk. Despite the temptation, it's far too early in the morning, and they're in a far too well-trafficked area to really make it acceptable for three officers to indulge themselves.

But they do drink, and they talk about unimportant things mixed in with the important things, and somewhere along the line the tight knot that had been sitting in Bones' gut since he chased Jim through the darkness releases.

He still sleeps with the light on for a few nights, but he sleeps in his own bed, satisfied with his own work.

And when Jim inevitably gets them into more trouble Bones doesn't have any qualms about shouting orders in the center of sick bay as chaos wheels around him.

Because he's not a miracle worker.

He's something a great deal harder, a great deal more stressful, and, in his eyes, a great deal more rewarding.

He's a doctor.