Chapter Text
Several loud thumps were heard from above, and then a thud. He tilted his head back. It was a window that quickly shattered into small fragments. Two figures fell through the window and landed on the floor beside him.
"Jim, Spock!" McCoy groaned. They ran to where he was strapped to a table. It had been too dangerous to get into this place, but as long as they moved quickly, getting Leonard out of this damned lab shouldn't be a problem.
"Be careful, Jim," Spock said, guarding the door with a phaser in his hand. They can get us."
"Bones? Shit, do you know what they gave you?" Jim asked, touching his face and lifting his eyelids. His pupils were hugely dilated.The captain began to loosen the belts around McCoy's arms, legs and chest. "All right, let's get you out of here."
"Relax, Leonard," Spock said, trying to take his hand. The Vulcan noticed the doctor was clenching his fists. "Does it hurt?"
"No... " the doctor gasped. His look was sad. "I had a series of hallucinations.They seemed very real.We had a lot of problems,we argued,I felt you didn't love me."
"Close your eyes," Jim said. "We're going to get you out of here, darling."
"Okay," the doctor replied. "That's right, Jim," the doctor said; but the captain headed for the door again, making Bones' heart pound. "Wait for me! Don't leave me here!"
"We're real, Bones, you've been drugged.We're not going to leave you."
"Oh, Jim. This has been horrible!" He began to sob. Spock grabbed his neck, helped him calm down, pulled him against his chest. He grabbed him, squeezing his arms. "Can you get up? I need you to sit up, sweetheart."
Leonard McCoy moved his legs, sticky and clumsy. He patted her arms, limply. "Is that you? Here? Oh Spock!" For a moment, he remembered the sickly smell of sweat. The helpless terror that was still sweeping over him. He felt the memory of the blurred, doped-up nightmare that had lasted more than 24 hours.The anguished delusions. The drugs in his body.
Spock took McCoy in his arms and hugged him tightly. "Yes. We're here."
"Bones, we've got to move," Jim said from the doorway.
McCoy was still dizzy when they carried him to the shuttlecraft, safe behind the double-locked doors, reinforced windows and overhead security system.
He was sitting up in bed, his face pressed against Jim's neck, trying not to vomit.
"Bones," the captain said. Jim was dealing with a lot of psychic charge right now, due to the terror they had both felt during those 24 hours McCoy had been missing. He felt Bones' mind slippery and erratic.
"Help me!" Leonard murmured.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Jim pleaded, "We shouldn't have left you there."
McCoy took smaller, measured sips of salts and water, but couldn't quite clear his brain.
"Nothing to be sorry about, kid," Leonard said, rubbing his neck. "I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at Spock, who keeps touching me to make sure I'm okay." He said with a slight smile.
Jim sighed, raising both hands in apology.
The captain took a deep breath and held out his hand as Spock sat down next to him. "Thank God, he was real, too." They both were. Spock hugged him and was warm, solid and reassuring. Jim was talking to him, but Leonard was too focused on the arms around him to bother processing the language.
"Did you say you were hurt, Bones? Did they hurt you?" Jim asked, stroking him gently.
Leonard was wearing a torn and dirty uniform. But except for the needle marks on his arms, he didn't look hurt .
Pulling Bones out of a secret alien lab on the planet Linus had left Jim shaken.
"Let's check to make sure he's not hurt," Jim said. He grabbed Bones' shirt and threw it on the floor.
"Leave him to me." Spock said, surprising them both with his tenderness as he eased Leonard into his arms so Jim could take Leonard's pants . It seemed that the more they touched him, the better he felt, so they checked him from head to toe.
"Stay," Leonard told Spock, when he seemed to want to check the perimeter again "Let's stay with him until the others arrive." Jim told him.
"P-please,I can't stand to be alone," the doctor said with a shudder, and Jim shifted him into his arms, lifted him against his chest, letting him drink from a bottle of water resting on his belly.
"It's all been a terrible hallucination. I dreamed I lost you. Oh, well," Leonard said.
He felt sick and dizzy still, but safe, anchored.
Soon he would be in Sickbay, to ask him more questions and poke him and run tests, and tomorrow he would feel better. They'd make sure he hadn't been injected with anything more fucked up than sodium pentothal and those alien drugs, but right now, right here, he had everything that mattered, everything that mattered, everything he needed. Jim and Spock's love.