Do No Harm

By: Lauren Freeman

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek, I am not making any money from this story at all.

Quick Note: If you are a Thunderbirds fan, and have read my stories from that fandom you will notice some very slight similarities. I love dealing with allergies and since I used to have so many migraines I can write about them too. Poor Alan has had both happen to him in my TB stories and I may have put it all together for our poor captain in this short fic. :) On with the story...

James T. Kirk, youngest Captain in the Federation; was having a great difficulty breathing. It wasn't enough that he had the migraine of all migraines waging a war in his skull. No, he had to also stumble almost blindly into the sickbay, only to find their newest doctor, a cadet that was still so green, that she thought she knew it all already. Jim knew that after a few months on board his space ship, and once she had experienced a few emergencies of literal intergalactic proportions; her perspective would very most likely change. He had not planned that HE himself might be the emergency that would start that process a mere day into her first rotation on a ship.

Jim had looked for Bones immediately upon entering the one area of the ship he loathed beyond any other. Upon not seeing his best friend, he painfully glanced around for ANY other doctor, someone who knew his many allergies. (Even he could no longer remember what all he could not take, so he relayed heavily on the computer keeping that knowledge and his doctor remembering it all for him.)

Dr. Patel, not to gently helped her captain to a biobed, before asking what was hurting. Jim thought this should just be obvious. He was holding his brains in with his hands (Or at least that's what it felt like. He knew his skull was fully intact.) He managed to whisper 'Migraine' back to the doctor whom was talking way to loud next to his ear. She rolled her eyes, as if this was too simple of a problem for her to be wasting her time with before grabbing a dreaded hypo and pressing it into his neck. There was a prick, a whoosh and immediately Jim knew he should have found Bones. The bio alarms over his bed went red less then thirty seconds later, the loud beeps and other alarms going off above him drilled new holes into his somehow becoming worse head. But the thing that managed to drown even that out was that he could feel his chest growing rapidly tighter. Every breath became harder and harder to take.

"For the love of God!" That was Bones voice. Jim could not help but feel just the tiniest bit relaxed at just his voice. He would be okay now that Bones was here to save him. He opened his eyes slightly but shut them immediately against the suddenly very, very bright light above him. They were like laser beams shooting straight through his eye sockets, burning his retinas, beaming into his brain before exploded into billions of pieces. He stopped breathing, his chest had locked completely down. The alarms seemed to sound like they were growing quieter or being moved far away. Good they were killing his brain too. The light he could see even with his eyes closed seemed to be fading. He wondered if he should be panicking about not being able to breath, but that required to much effort; he was already so tired now. He vaguely heard Bones voice yelling things, felt the far away pinch of hypos in his neck, but it didn't bother him anymore.

As the Captain slowly faded back into awareness, he could tell that he had been out a long time. There was the feeling of cotton in his head, slowing his thought processes to a remedial speed. It was better then the pain, so he didn't mind it to much. The next thing he found was that there was something wrong with his mouth. It was being held open and was full of something soft and almost rubbery. A tough gel? He could feel his chest raising up and down so he knew he was breathing... The answer came to him after a moment. He had only ever seen two people with it, as now days there were medicines for almost everything. But every once in awhile someone will stop breathing and not respond to the medications meant to make them start again; then unusual action had to be taken. The doctor was given one of two choices, old fashion intubation or breathing gel, well that was the name Jim had given it as it's real name was way to long to remember by someone who did not care. He had been intubated twice in his life due to sever allergies, but this was a first for the breathing gel. It was discovered on a planet in the Federations early days. Said planet had a bad atmosphere and a lot of sick humanoid creatures. The sickest, the ones who could no longer breath on there own were given the gel until their lungs grew strength enough to breath on their own again. The planet and it's people became a part of the federation and the gel had become a rarely used standard equipment in every federation medical facility.

Jim knew that if he was right and he had been given the gel, then his lungs were currently full of the stuff as well as his wind pipe and his mouth. It would be doing his lungs job for them. He did not want to dwell on this thought however, so he opened his eyes. He was slightly confused by what he found, however. He was not in the standard part of the sickbay, that was for sure. He had never explored that small hospital part of the ship beyond the main sickbay area where everyone went when anything was wrong with them. A round, white room with many beds sticking out of them, a round desk in the middle with lots and lots of monitors and cabinets everywhere. This, was not that familiar room, but he was sure he was still in the hospital area. For one, he was on a slightly bigger biobed then what is standard in sickbay. But it was definitely a sick bed, it was far too uncomfortably hard to be any other kind of bed. It was the only bed in the small room however. Behind him were more monitors then the standard sickbay beds had and above him were large movable lights. Against the walls were instruments, tubing, vials and other medical things he was far too uncomfortable with.

A whooshing sound caught his attention, the kind that automatic doors made when they were opening or closing. He glanced towards the door on his right and relaxed upon seeing Bones.

"Good, your awake." Bones stepped up to the bed looking annoyed, angry and very, very tired. Jim could only stare, the gel breathing for him would not also let him talk. So he just looked over to his friend in what he hoped was a questioning look. Bones understood, he always understood.

"Doctor Patel is currently being disciplined for failing to read your chart before giving you what would have been for a normal person a heavy pain reliever. As you know, however; your body is insane and treats a lot of the common pain relievers as well as quite a few other standard drugs as enemies that need to be attacked rather then used to help. Had the new doctor even glanced at your file, she would have caught the damn giant allergy warning first thing. Because for you, I made it an evil pop feature so that you have to physically close the warning in order to see your file.

Jim could not talk but he could kind of smile and he did as he always would when Bones was yelling about the stupidity of someone who was not himself. Bones caught the smile and rolled his eyes before making the enormous attempt to calm himself down enough to let Jim know what was happening.

"The pain reliever Patel gave you was one of the number one items on your highly allergic list. You stopped breathing. She then gave you the second item on that list, to stop the allergic reaction. Your heart stopped and your lungs froze." Bones had to stop again to calm his anger. Finally he nodded and continued. "A nurse had called me and was yelling at Patel about allergies and killing the captain while Patel argued back that Nurse Keeter was not a doctor and had no rights telling her how to do her job. Then she hypoed you with the one and only adrenalin drug on your list... I got you back but it was a very real close call. I had the nurse start CPR while I began to try and reverse the effects of the drugs that had put you in the position you were in. I... I really didn't think I was going to be able to save you." It was odd to see Bones this shaken up. Even though Jim knew Bones cared about him a lot, it still felt good to see it too. The Captain would never admit this of course.

"When I got the drugs muted in your system we began more advanced procedures to get your heart started. We quickly found that your lungs were still not working properly so for the first time since med school I found myself using the Respiragel. In case you were wondering, that's what is in your system now. It was a risk, I half expected to find out you're allergic to that too! I didn't want to intubate you, It wouldn't have be as effective as the gel. It will work for your respiratory system until your lungs are able to do the work again themselves. Then it will dissolve into your system like anything else... Once the gel was in we were able to get your heart working on it's own as well. A scan found brain cell death from the long period of lack of oxygen." Had Jim not been strapped down (a fact he didn't know about until he tried to move) he would have sat straight up. As it was, all he did was jerk against the straps eyes wide. An alarm above him started blaring and Bones pulled out a hypo with a threatening look.

"If you don't calm the hell down right now, I will sedate you and not let you wake again until your lungs work." Bones growled. It took everything in Jim to stop the panic attack before it could go far. The gel kept his oxygen rate at a steady pace despite the panic so now he felt light headed from lack of oxygen. Finally a minute or so later the alarm quieted and Bones set the hypo down beside him.

"If you will stay calm and let me finish... You have to stay calm, the Respiragel is not designed to speed up breathing when needed. You have to remain still while it's in, that's why your tied down. Now back to your brain, there was cell death, not a lot but it was there. I was able to reverse the damage however, so you are now back to full function. My scanners show that nothing was lost, as we got to the problem in time. Said scanners also showed that the reason for the migraine that brought you in was because of a new found allergy to a pollen found on the planet you were on earlier that day. The team is forming a allergy spray for everyone, as you were not the only one on the away team to come in with a migraine. No one it allowed back on the planet until that bit of spray is ready.

Bones sighed and pulled up a stool. "Don't ever do that to me again, Jim. Walking in on that... I'll have damn nightmares for months now, thank you very much." Kirk could only stare but he did feel bad about that. "Spock is in command until your well enough to retake the ship. Nothing seems to have happened since you came in, so there isn't anything to report. Doctor Patel is off duty awaiting a disciplinary hearing... finally get another damn doctor on this ship and she's a moron." Bones shakes his head at the clear amusement on Jim's face. "You've been in a medically induced coma for three days, I'm going to have to sedate you until your lungs clear which should be in the next day or two. I just wanted to keep you up to date..." Jim could tell that the only reason he was awake now was not because Bone's wanted to update him. Bones just wanted to talk to him. Since they met that fateful day on the transport shuttle from IOWA to San Fransisco, they had rarely gone a single day without talking to each other. Even when they were fighting, they had become roommates so they had to at least see each other. Jim was glad Bones had woken him, even for just the fifteen minutes. Jim gave a slight nod and Bones sighed. And for the first time since they had met, Bones seemed reluctant to hit him with a hypo, but he did anyways.