Chapter Text
Prologue
Stardate 2261.204 (July 22nd, 2261)
Leonard surveyed the odd assembly of people in the Medical Bay with a sinking feeling in his chest. Fifteen patients, three of them in critical condition and another four headed straight that way if they weren't transported to a facility with better equipment soon. Two nurses, both of them injured as well, though not as severely as the other patients, and a young ensign who had just happened to be in Medical at the wrong time and was scared out of his wits by everything that had happened during the past hours.
Oh, and of course there was Admiral Marlow and his two personal administrative officers. He couldn't forget about them, because his day wouldn't be the absolute shitfest it had turned into if it weren't for the damn Admiral to begin with.
None of his patients was in any condition to sit up, much less walk, and he needed his nurses to look after them. The young ensign – what was his name? Wilkes? Wilkins? Something like that – was putting up a brave front, but Leonard knew that he wouldn't be able to hold that up if he went out there, and the Admiral…well, he was an Admiral. One of the worst kind, of course, because it was just Leonard's luck to be stuck with a pompous asshole who had given orders from behind the safety of his desk for the past twenty years and probably no longer remembered how to hold a phaser the right way around.
Of course there were the two administrative officers, but Leonard had seen firsthand what their idea to get out of this mess looked like, and he'd rather live to see another day, thank you very much.
Which left exactly one person – him.
Just great. Just fucking awesome.
Because stunts like that were just the thing he lived for. Why would he want a boring day with nothing worse but a case of the sniffles to treat when he could crawl through the maintenance shafts of a space station filled with Klingons instead? Right, this was going to be so much more fun.
A choked gasp from one of the biobeds tore him out of his musings, and immediately Leonard went over to check the readouts above the bed. Lieutenant Phrax' was wheezing softly, her skin even more pale and clammy than the last time Leonard had checked up on her just a few minutes ago.
"Doctor?"
Nurse Harper immediately stepped up beside him, her injured arm held tightly against her chest.
"Her O2 saturation is still going down. Her lungs are closing up. She needed those injections hours ago, damn it."
Leonard had no other choice. He picked up the hypospray from the tray beside the bed and adjusted the dosage, then released the medication into the young Denobulan's neck. The hypospray hissed as the serum was released, and after a few seconds Leonard watched as the readouts on the monitor above Phrax' bed began to change. They were still a long shot from normal, though, and it drove the message home that they were running out of time pretty damn fast.
The distant sound of yet another explosion rumbled through the walls, its faint tremors ratting the instruments on the tray beside Phrax' bed slightly. Someone was still alive somewhere in the station, at least.
Turning around, Leonard pressed the hypospray into Harper's hand. The nurse's eyes widened slightly at the sudden urgency of Leonard's movement.
"Doctor McCoy, what…?"
"She's good to go for another two dosages of 30cc, but she'll start showing first symptoms of overdosage soon. So wait for as long as you think you can justify before you give her the next shot. I'd rather save her liver if there's a chance."
Harper took the offered hypospray, but she was still clearly confused. Leonard had no time to explain, though. Phrax would probably last for an hour until the next dosage, and maybe half an hour until the next – and last – they could safely give her. He had an hour and a half at the most.
"Ensign…Wilkes!"
The young man spun around, eyes wide and a flush on his pale cheeks, looking every bit as if he expected a thorough dressing down any moment now.
"Wilcox, Sir."
Close enough then. Leonard was going to try and remember it this time.
"Ensign Wilcox, whatever you did to the doors, how long is that going to hold up?"
The young man shifted from one foot to the other nervously. "Sir, I…I can't say, sir. Sorry, sir."
Leonard barely suppressed a sigh and a monumental eye-roll. "Make an educated guess, Ensign. You locked those damn doors, you should know how long it's going to take to open them again."
"I…I don't…," the young man bit his lips as if to stop himself from saying that he didn't know. Then he drew a deep breath. "Someone who knows their way around these systems might need an hour, maybe a little less. I don't know how much Klingons know about systems like this one. And I can't say what'll happen if they use brute force." He looked at Leonard and, almost as an afterthought, added an emphatic "Sir!"
Leonard nodded as he stepped up to one of the computer consoles that were still working and started typing in a string of commands. One hour, provided that the Klingons hadn't already figured out that they were looking in the wrong place. If they had already started trying to crack the blocks on the doors to Medical, all bets were off.
Just how good at overriding computer systems was the average Klingon?
The console beeped softly as Leonard finished typing in his personal identification codes, and a soft click announced the release of a drawer beneath the console. Leonard was never going to grumble about unnecessary emergency protocols again, ever. He promised.
"All right Wilcox, here's what I want you to do. What do you know about Security Clearance Codes?"
Wilcox seemed startled at the question, but answered almost automatically.
"A nine-digit code assigned to every officer in Starfleet. They're required to activate certain protocols like emergency procedures or self-destruct mechanisms."
Leonard nodded approvingly. "Right. And according to Starfleet emergency protocols, in a crisis situation Security Clearance Codes can be used as a means of identification. You're going to guard this door, Ensign, and if anybody makes contact and asks to be let in, you ask them for their Security Clearance Code. If they refuse to give it, or hesitate for just one moment, you will not open this door, is that understood? Even if they claim to be Starfleet personnel coming to the rescue. Clear?"
Wilcox nodded hesitantly. "Yes, Sir. But…"
"You watch whatever it is you did to those doors," Leonard interrupted. "If you think anyone is getting close to overriding your locks, or if the Klingons try to break down the door, you trigger the biohazard alert and seal off the entire Medical Bay."
If Wilcox' eyes were going to get any bigger, his eyeballs might just drop out of his head. "But won't that cut off the air supply?"
Leonard nodded. It was the purpose of a biohazard alert to seal off the Medical Bay completely to prevent any released pathogens from spreading through the ventilation system. It was a last resort, but they were running out of options pretty fast.
"What would you prefer, Ensign – being locked into Medical with the Klingons on the outside, or being in this very room when they break through the door? The air in here is going to last about seven hours, that's seven hours more than what you'd have if you open the doors and let those Klingons in. So you will seal off this room if you only so much as suspect that someone's close to breaking through, and that's an order."
"Yes, sir."
"Good." Leonard reached into the drawer he had unlocked a minute ago. "And take this, in case anything unforeseen happens."
He took the phaser out of its cabinet and handed it to the young ensign, who looked at the weapon as if he had never seen such a thing.
"Doctor?"
"Emergency protocols, Ensign, gotta love them. Unfortunately, Starfleet thinks it's enough to issue one emergency weapon for medical personnel, so it's gotta do. Think you're up to this?"
Not that they had any other choice. If Wilcox wasn't up to this, he'd have to hand the phaser to one of the nurses and repeat his instructions to her, and he'd much rather have them make sure that the patients were going to survive until help arrived. Wilcox might not have any real battle experience, but if things went according to plan at least for once, all he'd have to do was stand there and guard a door that was hopefully going to stay closed until Leonard returned.
The young ensign nodded, albeit hesitantly. "Yes, Sir."
"Good."
Patting the man's shoulder once, Leonard went and grabbed one of the medical containers from the supply closet and put it in a transport bag.
"And just what the hell do you think you're doing?"
Great. Of course Admiral Marlow had to chose now of all times to make his opinion known. It had been nearly half an hour since the last time he had tried to take charge, after all. Furiously, Leonard pointed over towards Lieutenant Phrax' bed.
"The Lieutenant needs medication. Medication which should have been delivered here, but which ended up in the cargo hold thanks to you and your little game of hide the latinum. We have had no contact with Ops for over forty minutes, the station is crawling with Klingon raiders, and thanks to your ingenious plan they're trying to raid a cargo hold filled not only with the medical supplies we desperately need here, but also with a shipment of a deadly virus that is going to kill everyone aboard this station within hours if they're dumb or clumsy enough to release it! So don't you dare to open your mouth now and try to tell anyone what to do! I think you screwed up enough for one day."
Marlow bristled, building himself up to his full height as he took a step closer to Leonard. His two lackeys in the background were standing to attention, but Leonard could have cared less about those two idiots right now.
"Even if the Klingons get their hands on the virus, you have a whole freezer of the antiviral serum right here. Enough to treat everyone on this station if it's needed."
Leonard really wanted to punch the man. Maybe burying his fist in the Admiral's nose would finally be enough to shut him up.
"It's an experimental antiviral, for crying out loud. It hasn't been tested yet. It might work, or it might kill whoever is injected with it faster than the original virus would. That's what we needed a shipment of the living virus for in the first place, to test the antiviral on, you stupid fuck!"
"You will not take that tone with me, Lieutenant Commander!" Marlow bellowed, but frankly, Leonard didn't give a damn.
"I will take whatever tone with you that I want. This is my Medical Bay, the station is on red alert, and that means right now your word isn't worth shit, Admiral. I'm in charge here, and you will do what I say if you want everyone in this room to survive until reinforcements arrive. And until they do, I'm going to go to the cargo hold and get Lieutenant Phrax' medication, and the case with the virus if I can, and you're going to stay here and try not to screw up anything else while I'm gone."
Marlow gaped open-mouthed, spluttering slightly before he regained his composure.
"And of course it has to be you who goes out, the only capable doctor we have left. But from everything I've heard, a tendency for unwarranted heroics is common aboard the Enterprise, a principle her own Captain practices as well as preaches."
Anger flared up inside of Leonard at the Admiral's mentioning of Jim's name, a fierce fury that only reinforced his desire to pummel the man until he finally shut up. He forced himself to not let any of his anger show and kept his voice icily neutral as he looked Marlow straight in the eye for his reply.
"I'm trying to survive this day, Admiral, and I'm trying to make sure the people I'm responsible for do, too. I'm the one who has to go because it takes medical knowledge to find the medication Lieutenant Phrax needs in the containers. Nurse Harper and Nurse Orton are injured and in no condition to crawl through the maintenance shafts, and the container containing the virus can only be opened by someone with a medical clearance like mine, so even if they were uninjured neither of the nurses could go. The container is too big to carry, so I will have to open it myself in order to take the virus back here."
Marlow opened his mouth to reply something, but Leonard cut him off.
"The Lieutenant doesn't have any time to spare. She's dying, which means I'm done talking. I will leave now, and you will do just as I said and stay here. You won't interfere, you will not try to get out of this room, and you will keep your two men in check until I come back."
"That's insubordination, Lieutenant Commander," Marlow snarled, his tone flat and threatening. "You'll be demoted so fast once this whole thing is done, you'll be lucky if you're still scrubbing hospital floors in the future."
Leonard wanted to roll his eyes at the unnecessary dramatics. "Demote me, then. Hell, court-martial me if you like, but don't keep me from doing my damn job for any longer."
Leonard turned around without waiting for the Admiral's reply. With one last look at the station's schematics that had been pulled up on a computer console, he shouldered the transport satchel and stepped over towards the access panel through which he'd get into the maintenance shafts that would hopefully get him to the cargo hold without being seen.
Wilcox helped him slide the panel open, and before he could even think about what a stupid and hare-brained idea this whole thing was, he was on his hands and knees and crawling into the bowels of Starfleet Outpost Braga IV. Behind him, the panel slid shut with an ominous sound. At least the maintenance shafts were lit. Sparsely, but it was better than nothing.
Leonard started to crawl forward, trying to be as silent as possible. The transport satchel was shifting around on his back and he had to look out so that he wouldn't hit his head on the low ceiling. Ten minutes to the cargo hold if everything went right. Fifteen if he continued to sacrifice speed for stealth. And he already knew that it was going to feel much longer than that.
As he placed his left hand forward the next time, a reflection of light from his hand caught his eye. Looking down on the silver band on his ring finger, he stopped moving for a second and breathed a barely audible sigh.
"Any time now, Jim." Leonard mumbled under his breath as he started crawling again, counting down the distance until the next turn he had to take. "I know you love to have a dramatic entrance, but any time now would be good."
How many hours since they sent the distress signal? Enterprise was how many light years away? He couldn't remember. Hopefully close enough to reach them in time. If they had even received the emergency transmission.
"Damn it, Jim, you better be on your way."
The only answer he got was the sound of yet another loud blast rocking the space station somewhere in the distance.
Stardate 2261.149 (May 28th, 2261) – Two Months Earlier
"They can't order you to go."
Leonard rolled his eyes. He had known Jim wasn't going to take this without a fight. Or a whine. Or maybe both.
"They're not ordering me to go, Jim, they're requesting me."
"Which is Starfleet's way of ordering a married officer to a posting away from their spouse, and you know it."
Leonard raised an eyebrow.
"But what if I want to go no matter if my spouse thinks Starfleet is well within their rights to make this request or not?"
Jim rolled over on the bed, glaring at Leonard. God, he really didn't want for this to turn into a fight. With a sigh, he put down the PADD he had been holding and went over towards the bed, sitting down on the edge so that he was facing Jim.
"Listen, you know just as well as I do that I wouldn't consider going if it wasn't important. That outpost is going to turn into one of the busiest trading stations and the system is going to profit from that, but those trade routes are not going to happen if they can't get those outbreaks under control. That virus is killing thousands of people in that system each year, and I've done research on a similar strain during my residency. I'm the most qualified doctor for this job. Besides, this asteroid field we're currently mapping isn't getting any smaller, and the only people who really get a kick out of this are the guys down in stellar cartography. I think you can all manage without me for three months while most of the crew is busy doing absolutely nothing."
"But what if I don't want to bore myself to death for the next three months while you're light years away?"
Leonard sighed, tiredly rubbing at his eyes. He could feel a headache starting to form at his temples, and if he was really going to leave Enterprise in two days, there were much more interesting things he could think of to spend their remaining time together.
"Listen Jim, do you seriously not want me to go on that assignment? Because if you don't, we'll have to talk about this."
Jim sat up with a sigh, eyes averted.
"I don't want you to go. But I know that you want to go, and I'm not stupid enough to try and tell you what to do. I guess me and my right hand are going to make a renewed acquaintance over the next three months."
Leonard snorted. "I should have known that you'd worry about the sex."
With a predatory smile, Jim started to crawl across the bed towards Leonard.
"Don't tell me you're not going to miss the sex, Bones."
Leonard just raised his eyebrow again, crossing his arms over his chest. And of course Jim took that as an invitation to pounce, pressing him back into the mattress with his full body weight. And yeah, of course he was going to miss the sex – not that he'd admit that outright without making Jim work for it a little – but he was probably going to miss this a lot more, having Jim close like this, his blue eyes sparkling with mischief just inches away from Leonard's own.
Jim suddenly cocked his head to the side, a pensive look settling on his face.
"We've never been apart for more than two weeks. I never realized, but it's true. Ever since we started at the Academy, it's never been longer than two weeks."
Leonard rolled his eyes at the dramatic tone, but he felt a small stab thinking about it, too. It was true, he and Jim had never been separated this long before. Not while at the Academy, and neither since boarding the Enterprise three years ago. Definitely not since they had gotten married.
"You know what they say, Jim. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that." He had to smile at the pout that started to appear on Jim's face, and he pulled him down for a lingering kiss.
"Just imagine all the catching up we can do once I'm back. You can take yourself off duty for a week and we won't leave this bed."
Jim chuckled and snuck his hands under the hem of Leonard's shirt.
"If you leave me alone for three months, you better use the remaining forty-eight hours you're here to give me something to tide me over until you come back."
Leonard smiled. "Oh, I'm sure I can think of something. Forty-eight hours is a long time, after all."
In the end, it wasn't nearly enough to make the fact that Leonard was leaving any easier on either of them. But Leonard kept telling himself that it was only for three months, after all. How much could go wrong in three months? Oh, he was going to miss Jim, that much he was sure of. But in the end, the three months would be over far more quickly than he expected them to, and he'd be home again.
He'd be home again in no time.