Chapter Text
Lenorax II was an uninhabited class M world, rich in mineral deposits. It was also a tropical paradise. Plants were plentiful and bloomed lushly over the mountainous landscape in a dazzling plethora of colors, shapes, sizes, and fragrances. It was, in other words, a pleasant location for a leisurely biological survey. Or at least...it would have been.
The Klingons were a nasty surprise.
“Leave it to the Klingons to spoil a perfectly good picnic,” McCoy panted as he ran.
He ducked under a large, thorny branch, only to get smacked squarely in the face by a neighboring twig. He pushed it irritably out of his way and kept moving. He had no choice; he could hear the Klingons gaining ground behind them.
“There was no picnic, Doctor,” Spock corrected, his breathing even and regular even as he sprinted at full throttle through the thick brush. “We were conducting a biological survey.”
McCoy was out of breath, but Spock didn’t even have the good graces to break a sweat…never mind that Vulcans were biologically incapable of sweating. It irked McCoy something awful.
“It’s an expression, you green-blooded, literal-minded, leisure-hating—"
“Gentlemen,” Kirk interjected. “This is neither the time, nor the place.”
Jim was even more out of breath than McCoy felt. McCoy made a mental note to reinstate the changes to his dietary card.
“We will not be able to evade them indefinitely,” Spock concluded. “We should—”
He was unceremoniously interrupted by a stray phaser blast to the back of his shoulder. The momentum spun Spock around and sent him sprawling toward the edge of the rocky cliff face. He was unconscious even before he began his descent.
“Spock!” Jim shouted, whirling around and reaching for him instinctively.
It was too late. Jim could only scrabble on his hands and knees to the place where Spock had just been. Helplessly, Jim watched Spock’s unresisting body tumble over the side of the cliff… and into the churning waters of the lake below. The splash was deafening.
“Spock!” Jim screamed.
Another phaser blast struck the side of the cliff above them, sending rocks tumbling over them. McCoy crouched next to Jim and covered both of their heads. When the landslide settled, Kirk was pointing down at a point part-way down the face of the cliff.
“There’s an alcove, there…we can use that ledge to—”
“Go!” McCoy shouted, giving Jim a nudge in the right direction.
McCoy didn’t like it, but he could hear the Klingons' footsteps growing louder behind them. He didn’t know much about Klingon torture methods, and he preferred it stayed that way. He’d rather take his chances climbing down the mountain, even at the risk of falling to his death.
Jim climbed with a comfortable ease that suggested he was part mountain goat. McCoy followed as best he could, scrambling and almost falling a few times when he fumbled his grip. Jim reached out a hand and helped him into the alcove below from where he dangled under the ledge. By the time McCoy’s feet made solid purchase on the rock, Jim was already scooting over the edge to continue his descent.
“I’m going to get Spock,” Jim informed him.
“Be careful, Jim,” McCoy urged him.
Ideally, McCoy would go with him. Of course, nothing about the way this damned expedition had gone was ideal. The thing was— McCoy was far from an expert climber. That was Jim’s territory. McCoy’d had a few choice things to say about Jim’s reckless mountain climbing hobby when he’d first taken it up, but he had to admit it was coming in handy today.
And so—McCoy remained behind, crouched in the alcove with the Klingon’s boots crunching on the cliff above him, while Jim descended toward the rocky shore beneath them. He could only hope the Klingons were planning on torturing them for information. Not that McCoy WANTED to be tortured, mind you—but if torture was their prerogative, it meant they would try to bring them in alive, which meant their phasers would be set on stun.
The alternative was that their phasers were set to kill. If that were the case…Spock would have been dead before he hit the water.
Below, Jim was diving into the lake, vanishing below the choppy waves in search of Spock—or Spock’s body. The first few attempts, he came up empty-handed. And then—McCoy saw the dark crown of hair breaking the surface, glinting in the sunlight and contrasting with Jim’s blonde. Spock’s head lolled against Jim’s shoulder as Jim paddled toward a rocky outcropping. Jim was struggling mightily to keep Spock’s head above the surface; McCoy could only imagine how heavy Spock was. He was damned heavy at the best of times with those dense bones of his, but now he was over 200 pounds of waterlogged dead weight. McCoy held his breath and hoped Jim wouldn’t drown himself trying to save their friend.
Jim hooked an arm around Spock’s chest and painstakingly hoisted Spock above him onto a large boulder. He was able to prop Spock’s upper body against the rock, his lower body still submerged in the water, which allowed Jim to scramble onto the rock above him and drag Spock the rest of the way out of the water. From his vantage point, McCoy could see Jim crouching over Spock’s limp body, whispering his name. Jim tilted Spock’s head back and splayed his hand over Spock’s unmoving chest—his CHEST.
Damn it.
McCoy opened his mouth to scream at Jim—“You’re doing it wrong!”—but sound would echo in the canyon, telegraphing their location to the Klingons. McCoy pushed aside his fear of falling and scooted to the edge of the alcove. He began scrambling down the rock face before he could think better of it. McCoy was in good shape—he had to be, to pass the strenuous physical exams required for active-duty Starfleet officers—but he was not a climber, and he didn’t possess the arm strength Jim did. McCoy’s arms shook and trembled, but ultimately supported his weight as he climbed down to the boulder, landing beside Jim.
Jim did not look over at him. All of his unwavering focus was on Spock’s unmoving form. Jim counted under his breath and leaned his full weight into chest compressions.
“Jim,” McCoy said urgently, trying to pry him away from Spock.
“No,” Jim snapped at him, pushing him off.
Jim leaned over Spock further, as if to shield him from McCoy’s interference, and began giving rescue breaths into Spock’s slack mouth. McCoy pushed Jim away again, harder.
“Jim, that’s not where his heart is. You’re doing it wrong,” McCoy whispered, harshly.
McCoy reached desperately for Spock, and this time Jim reared back as if slapped. “What?” Jim asked.
McCoy was already taking over. He placed his palm low on Spock’s right side, over his heart, and angled his thrusts upward to get underneath Spock’s ribcage, which was denser and longer than that of a human. Vulcan hearts beat over 240 times per minute, meaning cardiac massage needed to be increased accordingly. Jim sat back, mouth open in horror, and McCoy continued his efforts to revive Spock.
“You…do the breaths,” McCoy panted, still applying rhythmic compressions as rapidly as he could manage with his (as Spock would say) inferior human strength.
Jim complied. It would help—the rescue breaths, but also giving Jim a task to do. It would keep him occupied and out of McCoy’s way while he did what he had to do to revive Spock…if he could be revived at all. They’d gotten to him as fast as they could, but Spock had been in the water an awful long time, and he’d already been unconscious when he’d gone under. He wouldn’t have been holding his breath.
McCoy was painfully, indescribably relieved when Spock jerked and cough. He wasn’t sure they’d be able to revive him, and even with the adrenaline, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep up the attempt. His arms felt weaker than a couple of wet noodles.
“Get him up, Jim,” McCoy instructed, already reaching for Spock’s shoulders. Jim did not immediately respond. “Jim,” McCoy repeated, as loud as he dared.
Jim jolted and reached for Spock. He helped McCoy hoist Spock’s shoulders off the ground so Spock wouldn’t choke as he convulsively ejected the fluid that had taken up residence in his lungs. Jim pulled Spock’s upper abdomen into his lap and cradled his head while Spock coughed up a truly astounding amount of muddy lake water. Eventually, the painful, wracking coughs ceased and Spock was still—but still breathing.
“Christ,” McCoy breathed, letting himself sit back on his feet in relief.
Jim was frowning down at Spock’s face. Spock’s eyelids fluttered and a sliver of white showed through his cracked eyelids before they closed—and stayed that way. “Spock,” Jim whispered, shaking him gently at the shoulder. Spock did not wake. Jim turned to McCoy. “Why isn’t he waking up?” he asked with barely contained panic.
“Give him a moment, would you? The man almost drowned, and he’s probably still experiencing the effects of the stun. It doesn’t wear off right away,” McCoy said, but he was already whipping out his trusty medical tricorder, which had been attached to his belt.
“Will he be alright?” Jim asked, staring solemnly down at Spock’s pale, upturned face.
McCoy studied the readouts on his tricorder. When he didn’t respond fast enough, Jim prompted him with a plaintive— “Bones?”
There was still water in Spock’s lungs, but he was breathing on his own— wet-sounding rasps that would have worried McCoy if he wasn’t busy being relieved that Spock was breathing at all. He’d have to monitor him for complications—pulmonary edema, pneumonia, after effects of hypoxia— but all that would have to wait.
“He got banged up pretty good against the rocks on his way down, but nothing’s broken. Looks like he’ll have a nice, big goose egg on his head, probably a mild concussion to go with it, but that’s the worst of it. He should be fine, barring any further intervention from our Klingon friends,” McCoy concluded.
Jim nodded once, jerkily. He seemed calmer, but his mouth was set in a tight, thin line. He gestured somewhere behind McCoy and said—“There, there’s a shallow recess in the rock. It should be out of sight from above. We can hide out there until the Enterprise is back in communication range.”
McCoy nodded and helped Jim hoist Spock into his arms. He spotted Jim, helping him maneuver Spock carefully into the damp nook. “Watch his head,” McCoy warned, shielding Spock’s head with his hands and narrowly protecting it from banging against rock for the second time that day when it dangled too close to the wall.
Jim carefully slid down the wall into a seated position with Spock’s limp body held in his arms. Spock’s head fell against Jim’s collarbone and his long legs crumpled in a boneless sprawl, boots still dangling in the water. McCoy bent Spock’s legs at the knees and maneuvered them closer to his body so they wouldn’t be visible from the clifftop. Then, he huddled next to his friends and focused on catching his breath.
They were silent for a long moment before Jim spoke. “You know, Spock and I have grown…close. Over the years, he’s become as familiar to me as my own shadow.”
McCoy nodded patiently and waited for Jim to finish.
“I know he’s an alien, Bones. I’m not an idiot. I know he was born on another world, and that he’s different from me in ways I may never fully understand. It’s just…with familiarity, I’d almost forgotten that. I’d come to think of the differences as being…meaningless, almost cosmetic…as if he were just a logical, pointy-eared human whose blood happens to be green.”
McCoy nodded in understanding. “Don’t beat yourself up about it too much, Jim. In a crisis, we respond on autopilot. You didn’t have time to think. You had to act fast, and you acted the way you learned how to act in situations like this. The problem is…your training was completely human-centric. You don’t have any instinct for doing CPR on a Vulcan. That’s not your fault.”
Jim’s jaw tightened. “It doesn’t matter if it was my fault or not. A mistake like that could’ve killed him.”
“Well, it didn’t,” McCoy reminded him. “And now you’ve gotten that mistake out of the way, I doubt it’ll happen again.”
“I never realized how much of a danger our inexperience with alien anatomy might pose to Spock…or any of the other non-human crewmembers on the Enterprise in the event of a medical emergency. We’ll all need to do remedial trainings and practice until it’s automatic.”
“Sure, Jim,” McCoy agreed.
Personally, he’d been advocating for ages about the need to include non-Terrans in Starfleet’s basic medical training. Jim hardly needed to twist his arm to agree to his plan to remedy this massive oversight…at least on the Enterprise.
“Of course, YOU knew what to do right away. If you hadn’t been there…” Jim trailed off.
“This wasn’t my first rodeo, Jim. I’ve been caught with my pants down more than once on account of all the reckless hijinks Spock gets up to on a regular basis. I had to figure out how to adapt to his physiology on the fly to save his damn fool life on more than one occasion. By now, I’ve had plenty of practice,” McCoy concluded.
“Thank you,” Jim whispered, leaning his head back against the wall and closing his eyes.
“Don’t mention it,” McCoy responded, and he meant it.