Chapter Text
The Enterprise was three days out from Starbase 12 when the distress call reached them.
They had been running routine long-range surveys along the Archanis sector’s outer boundary — quiet space, sparse traffic, nothing that required more than standard yellow alert readiness. The bridge was steady, almost calm, when communications flagged the transmission as delayed emergency priority, origin: K-742 Colony, fourth moon of an unremarkable gas giant.
“On screen,” Jim ordered.
Static fractured across the viewscreen before resolving into the face of a woman in medical whites, exhaustion carved deep into her expression, eyes rimmed red as if she had not slept in days.
“This is Dr. Avari, Colony Medical. If anyone is receiving this, please—” Her voice faltered, then steadied by force. “We have lost seventy percent of our population in under two weeks. It spreads faster each day. We don’t understand it. It’s reactive — pressure-sensitive. Every attempt to alter atmospheric conditions accelerates mutation of the unknown pathogen. Transport trials made it worse.” A harsh cough interrupted her; she pressed a shaking hand to her mouth before continuing. “It has moved into the upper atmosphere. We can’t contain it. If someone doesn’t reach us soon, this colony will cease to exist.”
Her breathing grew shallow.
“If you come… do not bring it aboard your ship. It adapts. It learns. Do not—”
The transmission degraded into distortion.
__
For a moment, no one spoke. Jim didn’t order the channel closed.
“Route it shipwide,” he said.
There was the briefest flicker of surprise from Uhura — then a sharp nod. The recording was patched into the Enterprise’s internal speakers, Dr. Avari’s strained voice carrying through corridors, labs, engineering decks, crew quarters. Every officer. Every department head.
So everyone could think of an option. They needed to be informed right away of what they were getting into.
By the time the Enterprise altered course, seventy-three thousand colonists were already dead.
And the pathogen that killed them was still alive.
*-*
Jim understood the implications before anyone voiced them, and he hated that the senior bridge crew had come to the same conclusion.
The only viable option was manual collection from the exosphere, using two shuttlecraft positioned at separate orbital vectors to triangulate its bioelectric signature. Minimal power. Minimal emissions. One occupant per shuttle to reduce interference — and potential loss.
And the worst part—
A physician had to be in one of them.
Close enough to the sample to make a real-time call: stabilize it… or destroy it before it ever had the chance to reach another inhabited world.
Jim didn’t need anyone to look at him. He felt that conclusion settle into his chest like added gravity.
He opened his mouth — to forbid it, to demand an alternative —
But then the bridge doors slid open with a sharp hiss.
Leonard stepped inside, tugging off a pair of medical gloves. He crossed the distance like the decision had already been made somewhere deeper, long before this room caught up. His hazel-green eyes were clear and set with something with a certainty impossible to ignore.
“I’ll pilot one shuttle,” he said.
Something small and silent cracked beneath Jim’s sternum.
“Bones—”
But Leonard was already moving into explanation, voice steady in that clinical cadence he used when chaos needed structure. Mutation rates. Containment probabilities. The impossibility of trusting remote analysis at that proximity. The margin for error measured in seconds.
No one else aboard had his combination of medical judgment and experience under extreme biohazard conditions.
Jim hated it. Hated the image forming unbidden in his mind — Bones alone in a sealed cockpit, skimming the edge of something that had erased seventy-three thousand lives in days. Hated that the logic was airtight. Hated that Bones was right.
Because in the quiet place he never let the bridge see, he knew he wouldn’t trust that decision to anyone else.
They could call it a scientific operation, dress it up in data projections and containment protocols, but the truth was harsher: they were not going to save the colony — that moon was already dead — and all they could do, all they were morally allowed to do, was make sure no other world joined it.
Jim felt the panic settle in then, slowly curling claws beneath his ribs. It wasn’t the abstract fear of a captain facing a threat. It was the very specific terror of sending someone he loved into the radius of something that had already proven it knew how to kill.
He hesitated.
Only a second that felt like an eternity.
But then Spock’s voice, clear and controlled, brought him back to reality. “Dr. McCoy’s take is only logical.”
Jim closed his eyes. He tried to object but the decision was already made. So he forced his voice steady. “Then I’ll pilot the other.”
The bridge surged back to life — orders, confirmations, status updates — but the sound felt distant, muffled.
Because he had just authorized Leonard McCoy to fly one of those shuttles alone into the shadow of an extinction event.
And there was nothing — absolutely nothing — he could do to protect him once he did.
*-*
The shuttle bay felt larger than usual, the high ceiling swallowing sound until even the smallest movement seemed distant, unreal. Beyond the force field, space stretched in a silent sheet of black, vast and patient, and for a fleeting second Jim had the uneasy sense that it was watching them back.
He pulled the shuttle suit from its rack and stepped into it.
“Bones, I’m taking Shuttle One,” he said, trying to sound casual despite how utterly terrified he felt about his dear friend going out there too. “I’ll establish the lead vector. Your shuttle will synchronize with mine and mirror my trajectory automatically. If I adjust altitude, speed, rotation — your systems compensate in real time. No delay,” he added as he drew the lower half up over his legs.
Leonard was already unfastening his own suit. “You’ve got pilots trained for that, Jim, you didn’t need to do it yourself” he said, though there was less edge in it than usual.
“Spock maintains sensor coordination from the Enterprise,” Jim replied, fitting his arms into the sleeves. “But the triangulation field needs a stable physical origin point. It’s more accurate if I generate it from the lead craft.”
Logical. Clean. Impossible to fault.
But the real reason was simpler: if containment faltered or something went wrong, Jim needed to be there. He refused to be a distant voice over comms while Leonard faced it alone.
Leonard stepped into his suit, unconvinced, and pulled it up, movements controlled — though every few seconds he had to force down the acid twisting in his stomach.
He had flown shuttlecraft before. Many times. Enough to function through it. But the feeling never settled in his chest. The lift. The hum under his boots. The thin awareness of vacuum pressing against hull plating. It always made something inside him tighten.
Nothing will happen, he ordered himself as he locked the collar ring into place.
Jim saw it anyway.
The slight stiffness in Leonard’s shoulders. The way he checked each seal twice. The controlled breathing that was just a fraction too measured.
They both knew about his aviaphobia. They both knew how much he hated small craft.
And he was going anyway.
“Bones,” Jim said quietly.
Leonard looked up.
For a moment the command tone was gone. What remained was simply Jim — unfiltered.
“You don’t have to pretend with me.”
Leonard held his gaze. “I’m fine,” he said automatically.
Jim stepped closer, closing the distance between them, and reached up to secure the shoulder seal Leonard had just fastened. His gloved fingers lingered there, firm and grounding.
“No need to lie, Bones,” Jim murmured. “If something happens… I’ve got you.”
The words weren’t dramatic. They weren’t grand.
They were absolute.
Leonard’s breath caught before he could stop it.
Because Jim always did this — always looked straight through whatever mask he tried to put on. Just like Leonard could see the fear Jim buried under posture, under command, under reckless confidence.
They had been doing this for years — reading the micro-shifts, the tells, the pauses. Knowing when the other was bluffing. Knowing when the other was afraid.
And knowing neither of them would ever walk away.
Leonard’s gloved hand rose and wrapped around Jim’s wrist, holding it there instead of pushing it aside.
“You’re scared too,” he said quietly.
Jim met his eyes. “I don’t deny it, Bones. I’m terrified.”
The admission hung between them — honest, unvarnished.
“We’re going to be alright, Jim,” Leonard said softly. “You lead. I follow your vector. If something shifts, we adjust. Together.”
Jim swallowed once.
“Promise me we’re not losing each other out there.”
Leonard squeezed his wrist, firm and deliberate.
“Promise.”
They let go slowly and finished sealing their gloves in silence, the soft clicks echoing through the vast hangar.
*-*
The first sweep around the upper exosphere was almost anticlimactic.
Shuttle One held steady at the lead vector while Shuttle Two mirrored perfectly behind it, offset just enough to maintain triangulation symmetry. The pathogen signature shimmered faintly across Jim’s display — unstable but contained within the projected grid.
“Field integrity at ninety-eight percent,” Jim reported, adjusting two degrees starboard. “Try to keep up back there, Bones.”
Leonard snorted softly over comms. “I’m mirroring you automatically, genius. If I’m slow, it’s because you’re slow.”
Jim smiled despite himself. “Watch it.”
“Just focus on flying straight for once.”
The data streamed cleanly to the Enterprise.
No anomalies. No turbulence.
Second pass.
They widened the arc, dipping slightly lower into the moon’s upper atmosphere. The hull vibrated faintly, a low mechanical hum through Jim’s boots.
“Signal density increasing,” Jim said, eyes scanning the readouts.
“I see it,” Leonard replied. “Extending the sampling arm now.”
The articulated drone extended from Shuttle Two with smooth precision. The containment chamber lit amber — then green.
“Sample stable,” Leonard confirmed. “No reactive mutation on initial exposure. Transferring data to the Enterprise.”
“See?” Jim said lightly. “Told you it’d behave.”
“Pathogens don’t ‘behave,’ Jim. They mutate and ruin your day.”
“Optimism, Bones. It’s good for morale.”
“You’ve got enough optimism for both of us,” Leonard huffed, rolling his eyes.
Third pass.
By now the tension had thinned into something almost manageable. The rhythm of flight settled into muscle memory. Adjust, compensate, stabilize.
“Alright,” Jim said. “Final sweep at current altitude. After this we pull back and analyze.”
“Copy that,” Leonard replied.
There was a faint shift in his tone — fatigue, maybe, or just the strain of sustained focus. Jim filed it away but didn’t press.
They began the arc, smooth and precise.
“All data already transferred to the Enterprise,” Leonard announced after a few seconds.
“We did it, Bo..,” Jim was midway exclaiming when a sudden violent electromagnetic shockwave tore outward from the moon’s atmosphere without warning, and slammed into Shuttle Two in a blinding burst of white static.
Jim’s console exploded with interference.
“Bones!,” he screamed.
Shuttle Two jolted hard off-axis. Artificial gravity inside it flickered violently — and in Leonard’s cockpit, a side console tore free, slamming into his ribs as the gravity field reasserted itself at the wrong angle.
The impact drove the air from his lungs in a broken, ragged sound.
“Bones!”
Static.
For half a second — nothing.
Then—
“I’m here,” Leonard forced out. “EM surge fried my primary stabilizers. Gravity’s all over the place,” he blurted out, pain flaring along his side — hot, deep, wrong. Every breath scraped.
He paused.
And Jim heard it.
That tiny hitch.
“Bones. Tell me you’re alright,” Jim demanded, his heart hammering hard, already trying to reassert remote control protocols from Shuttle One.
“Console came loose,” Leonard said tightly. “Think I cracked something.”
He inhaled, too sharp, too shallow.
“Bones, your respiration just spiked.”
“’m aware,” Leonard muttered, fighting for control of the spinning craft. “Focus on the damn shuttle.”
Jim’s display flashed red.
REMOTE LINK FAILURE.
“Shit,” Jim breathed. “Bones, I just lost remote control over your shuttle.”
The USS Enterprise cut in over a secondary channel.
“Captain, we are unable to reestablish control,” Spock reported, voice controlled but urgent. “The electromagnetic interference has severed our command pathway.”
Jim’s heart slammed.
“Bones, you need to take manual control. Right now. Try to stabilize it, I’m coming for you.”
The shuttle lurched again, beginning a slow, sickening rotation.
Leonard’s breath came in through clenched teeth as he reached for the manual override. Every twist of his torso sent a spike of agony through fractured ribs and into a lung that no longer felt entirely reliable.
“Manual control engaged,” he said, voice tight.
“Okay. Okay,” Jim said quickly, forcing his own breathing to slow. “Listen to me. Your nose is pitching down five degrees. You’re rolling starboard. Counter with port thrusters — short bursts. Don’t overcorrect.”
Leonard tried.
The first correction was too strong. The shuttle jerked violently.
A strangled exhale escaped him — half pain, half effort.
Jim froze.
“Bones?”
“‘m here,” Leonard rasped.
He wasn’t joking. He wasn’t snapping. He was working too hard just to speak.
“Easy,” Jim said, his voice dropping lower, more focused. “Small bursts. Follow my count. Three… two… now.”
Thrusters fired.
The rotation slowed.
But Leonard’s breathing was getting worse.
“Bones,” Jim said, alarmed. “What’s your injury?”
“Probably fractured ribs,” Leonard admitted between breaths. “Maybe a minor pulmonary contusion.”
“Maybe?” Jim snapped.
“I didn’t exactly have time for tricording it, Jim” Leonard breathed.
The attempt at bite fell flat — thin and strained.
Jim swallowed hard and kept guiding him.
“Left thruster, minimal. Good. Now stabilize pitch.”
The shuttle wobbled but held.
For a moment — just a moment — control returned.
Then another warning blared across Jim’s display.
PRESSURE VARIANCE DETECTED — SHUTTLE TWO.
Jim couldn’t feel his hands anymore.
“Bones,” he said, his voice already thinner than he wanted it to be. “You’ve got a pressure drop.”
On his forward screen, Leonard glanced down at his console. The shuttle continued its slow, nauseating roll against the stars.
“…Yeah.” He rasped it like he was commenting on the weather, but Jim heard the panic there.
The numbers kept falling, not freefalling or catastrophic but just steady in a way that gave you time to understand what was happening.
Jim adjusted his shuttle thrusters, carefully sliding closer to Bones’, matching the rotation degree by degree. He should have been able to lock onto him. He should have been able to grab him.
He reached for tractor control.
But static flared. The system rejected the command.
“Captain,” Scotty’s voice broke, “the interference is scrambling every targeting matrix we’ve got. I cannae get a lock on either of ye. You’ll have to bring him in manually. I’m workin’ it.”
Jim swallowed hard. All he had was proximity.
“Stay with me, Bones,” Jim said quietly.
“’m here.” But Leonard’s breathing betrayed him.
Jim shoved his shuttle forward, thrusters flaring as he closed the distance. He matched the rotation carefully, lining up hull to hull, so close that proximity alarms began to chirp.
He reached for manual tractor control.
But the interference surged once again.
System rejection.
“Shit,” Jim exclaimed.
Behind him, the USS Enterprise attempted another failed lock.
“Still no stable beam,” Scotty’s voice cut through. “The electromagnetic field is scrambling targeting.”
Jim exhaled through his teeth. Damn.
He had to try it again and again. He wasn’t letting go of Bones like that.
“Bones,” he called, “You’ll need to put into your evacuation suit, now!" he added sharper.
Silence.
“It’s across the cabin,” Leonard’s pained voice came after a while, and Jim felt the air leave his lungs.
“Go, Bones, please. I’ve got you,” he tried to say reassuringly.
Leonard unstrapped.
The motion pulled a sharp, broken breath from him — the kind someone didn’t mean to make.
Jim’s stomach twisted.
The hiss over comms deepened, and the pressure kept dropping.
Leonard stood up, but his breathing entered a different pattern. Like every inhale had to negotiate with pain first.
“Slow,” Jim said quietly. “Don’t spike your oxygen.”
“’m trying,” Leonard mumbled — the edge in his voice completely gone, and that alone sent Jim on the edge of a panic attack.
Leonard managed to reach the EVA suit locker, but the shuttle rolled again and he had to catch himself against the bulkhead. He bent. And the pain hit. It folded him in half this time.
The sound that escaped him was raw and involuntary — dragged straight out of his chest.
Jim felt it like a physical blow.
“Bones!”
Leonard’s reply was thinner now. “I think I’m bleeding, Jim.”
He tried to inhale deeply, but it didn’t work. Instead, the next breath ended in a wet cough.
Jim’s vision blurred for half a second. He forced down his unraveling panic. He hated the sound of his best friend struggling for air.
“H-hey, stay with me, Bones,” Jim said, forcing his voice steady, anchoring it. “Suit on. Sit if you need to. One step at a time.”
Leonard lowered himself to the deck carefully, one hand pressed to his ribs. His breathing was audible now — too laboured, each inhale catching like it didn’t quite reach.
“’m not panicking,” Leonard said, quieter.
Jim closed his eyes briefly.
“I know,” he answered softly. “I know. Just keep breathing. I’m right here.”
He kept Shuttle One aligned with the spin, impossibly close, close enough to see Leonard through the glass — pale, sweat beading at his temples as he dragged the suit over his legs, then his torso.
Every movement made him gasp.
Jim forced down the burn in his stomach and locked his jaw, bracing against the nausea clawing its way up.
He took a deep breath focused — he adjusted vector, compensated rotation, timed the drift — and with one precise final thrust, he finally managed to clamp the emergency docking grapples onto Shuttle Two’s dorsal frame.
The impact shuddered through both vessels and for some seconds everything groaned.
Then the spin slowed and stabilized.
Jim sagged forward over his console, his hands shaking.
“I’ve got you, Bones. I’ve got you,” he breathed, his vision clouding for a few seconds.
On the other side, Leonard exhaled something that almost sounded like relief.
“Now listen to me,” Jim continued, forcing control back into his voice. “I’m coming over. We’ll transfer you to my shuttle. Hold on a little longer.”
“…’Kay, Jim,” Leonard breathed. The word frayed at the edges.
Jim sealed his shuttle into external transfer mode. Because the grapples had created a hard mechanical latch, the emergency collars between the two shuttles inflated automatically, forming a narrow pressurized bridge — a temporary tunnel. It wouldn’t hold long. The pressure differential was already unstable.
He pulled on his EVA suit in one swift motion and clipped its emergency tether to the shuttle.
Then he locked the shuttle and secured the internal pressure before cycling the micro-transfer chamber.
“Bones, we open together on three. You with me?”
“Copy,” came the strained reply.
“Alright. On three… One. Two. Three.”
Both hatches slid apart.
The emergency bridge shuddered but held.
Jim crossed immediately.
The air inside Shuttle Two felt thinner, colder.
Leonard was half upright, swaying despite the suit.
Jim reached him in two strides and clipped Bones’ emergency tether to his own suit.
“C’mere.”
He eased an arm around Leonard’s torso, careful not to put pressure on his ribs, and lifted him slowly to guide him out. Leonard leaned into him — too heavily.
Jim felt how little strength was left.
“Easy, I’ve got you,” Jim murmured. “One step at a time.”
They made it halfway across the bridge.
Then the interference spiked again violently.
Both shuttles lurched in opposite vectors as the unstable magnetic field slammed through them.
The emergency grapples sheared.
The bridge tore with a metallic scream as pressure equalization failed instantly and the tunnel ripped apart between them.
Vacuum exploded inward.
Jim reacted on instinct. He clung to Bones with all his might and launched them outward as the remaining structure disintegrated.
Shuttle Two spun violently away into the open dark.
Shuttle One jerked, but its primary thrusters kicked in and auto-stabilized.
For one terrifying second, they hung suspended between both vessels.
Then the tether on Jim’s suit snapped taut — he had anchored himself before making the crossing.
The recoil slammed him hard against his shuttle’s hull, only to wrench him forward again with brutal force.
Leonard nearly tore free. Even tethered, the violent momentum tried to wrench him away. Jim refused to let him spin off into the void. He wrapped himself around Bones — arms, legs, everything — and held on.
They spun.
End over end.
Stars smeared into white arcs.
Leonard’s breathing went ragged in Jim’s helmet comm.
“I can’t—” Leonard gasped as they spun. “Jim—”
“I’ve got you!” Jim shouted. “I’ve got you, don’t fight me!”
Gradually, the wild tumble began to slow — the tether pulling them into a tighter arc instead of a helpless spiral. The stars stopped streaking. Their rotation steadied into something manageable.
Leonard was shaking now. The darkness around them was endless. No hull beneath his boots. No orientation.
His breaths spiked fast and shallow, verging on hyperventilation.
The suit alarms chirped — oxygen consumption increasing.
“Bones, look at me,” Jim ordered, pressing their helmets close so their visors touched. “You’re in your suit. You’re sealed. You’re not going anywhere.”
“Can’t breathe—”
“Yes, you can! Slow it down. With me. Come on, Bones!”
Leonard tried but his next inhale broke halfway. A wet, choking cough erupted instead.
Then Jim saw it. A thin, bright red line blooming inside Leonard’s helmet. Suspended, delicate, horrifying. It hovered for a heartbeat before the micro-vent system drew it downward, but Jim’s gaze wouldn’t leave it.
“Bones—oh God” His voice trembled, then sharpened. “Slow your breathing. Come on. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
Leonard coughed again — and this time blood sprayed across the visor, trembling in suspended droplets. Jim pressed their helmets together, trying to shield him, to reassure him, to control the panic clawing at his own chest.
“Stay with me, Bones. You can do this. Focus on my voice!” Jim barked, voice tight. “Slow it—slow it—inhale, exhale, come on!”
The micro-vent system drew the droplets down in thin streaks, but Jim barely registered it. Every flash of red made his stomach lurch. The contusion, the decompression stress — it had pushed Leonard too far.
Leonard’s movements slowed. His grip on Jim’s suit slackened.
“Hey. Bones. Stay with me,” Jim urged. “Stay with me.”
Leonard tried to focus, but his eyes began to drift closed, rolling slightly out of alignment.
Jim’s gloved hands closed around the sides of Bones’ helmet, his heart slamming. “Hey. Look at me. Look at me, Bones.”
But Bones went slack in his hold, weightless and unresponsive.
“Hey— hey, wake up, Bones! Wake up!” Jim shook him harder this time.
Nothing.
“Don’t you dare going like this! Not here.”
White-hot panic hit Jim so hard it nearly stole his breath. His vision narrowed to a thin, trembling ring of light. Not now. He dragged in a slow breath, then another, forcing his hands to steady. If he fell apart, Leonard didn’t stand a chance.
Shuttle Two was tumbling away into the dark, slowly shrinking until it became just another piece of debris among the stars. Gone.
“Captain,” Spock’s voice came through the comm. “We have established a stable lock on your shuttle. It would be advisable to return to it without delay.” Though steady, a faint strain threaded beneath the composure.
“Thank God,” Jim breathed, regaining a little of his self control.
He sucked in a breath, forcing the panic down.
He was still trembling, still gasping for air — but he wasn’t letting go. He fired the suit thrusters manually, compensating against the tether’s pull and dragging them toward Shuttle One’s airlock.
“Aye, Captain, you’ve got it — just like that,” Scotty’s voice came through, firm and brimming with stubborn confidence.
There were the longest, most unbearable seconds of Jim’s life. Every fiber of him screamed as he concentrated on dragging Leonard close without losing control of their trajectory. Slow. Messy. Imperfect. He overshot once, his stomach lurching in agony.
Finally, the tether reeled them in.
Jim slammed a gloved hand onto the external access panel, triggering emergency intake.
“That’s it, Captain — aye, you’ve done it!” Scotty’s relief broke clean through the comm.
The outer hatch opened just long enough to pull them into the micro-chamber. It sealed instantly behind them as vacuum gave way to automated repressurization. Air flooded in gradually.
Jim didn’t wait. He took Leonard’s helmet free, carefully but precisely. He caught his limp, fragile body in his arms, cradling him.
“Bones! Hey, hey!” Jim called, shaking him gently, automatically brushing the thin thread of blood from his mouth and chin.
No response. Jim’s chest tightened as he felt Leonard’s shallow, uneven breathing. But he was still breathing, and that alone ripped a ragged relief sigh from Jim’s lungs.
He half-carried, half-dragged Leonard into the main cabin, sealing the inner hatch and locking Shuttle One into full pressure integrity. Internal systems stabilized. Hull steady. Life support solid.
Jim grabbed the cabin supplementary oxygen mask, pressing it firmly over Leonard’s mouth.
“Aye, Captain — I’ve got ye,” Scotty said, his voice steady through the comm despite the strain tightening it.
“Thanks. I need medical standing by. Bones is out — he’s coughing blood and struggling to breathe.”
He leaned closer and carefully peeled back the damaged outer layer of Leonard’s suit. The fabric had held — no breach, no loss of pressure. Thank God for that.
But beneath it, the skin told a different story.
A deep, jagged laceration tore across Leonard’s side, the flesh bruised and mangled beneath it. Jim’s gaze traced the unnatural contour of his ribcage — at least four ribs broken, each breath lifting his chest in a sharp, uneven rhythm. Bones could even have a punctured lung.
A tight knot coiled in Jim’s chest, suffocating him with the thought of losing Leonard here, in the emptiness.
Shit.
“Hey… wake up, Bones,” Jim whispered, voice cracking, caressing his face with trembling hands. “You don’t get to do this. Open your eyes.”
He tapped lightly.
Then firmer.
“Bones!” he called.
“Bones c’mon!”
A beat.
A shallow inhale.
Leonard’s eyelids fluttered open. Eyes unfocused, distant. Jim held his face between his hands, his own tears threatening to spill. “Bones!” he said again, desperate. “Look at me. I’ve got you. We’re safe. The Enterprise will have us soon.”
Leonard’s lips twitched in confusion, his pale skin damp with sweat. His breath hitched, and another coughing fit shook his frail body, droplets of blood smearing across the oxygen mask.
“Bones— stay with me. They’re coming, okay? Just… just hold on.”
With trembling hands, Jim maneuvered them both into the pilot’s chair, easing Leonard down and settling him carefully in his lap. He shifted, adjusting Leonard’s weight against his own. Leonard’s head fell against his shoulder, close and warm through the suit.
Jim wrapped one hand around the controls, the other anchoring Leonard against him, his fingers pressed to the fragile pulse at his wrist. “Stay with me,” he urged, tightening his hold as the beat fluttered weakly beneath his touch. “Talk to me, Bones. Yell at me. Insult my flying.”
Leonard could only gasp and wheeze, his face pale, his eyes glassy. Jim’s chest ached. Every shallow breath was a punch to his heart.
Ahead, the Enterprise’s bay doors began to open.
Jim didn’t let go. Not of the controls. Not of Bones. Not for a single heartbeat.
“Hang on,” he whispered — to Bones, to himself — as the hangar lights washed over them and home closed in.