Chapter Four – Remembering that you're not alone

-x-

Thinking about the technician caused Jim to slow down and start to re-check his work. He really didn't want to blow the Enterprise up through sheer stupidity because he was tired. He may not have managed to keep his promise to Captain Pike (he suspected that missing warp cores would count as more than a 'scratch'), but at least the rest of the Enterprise was... relatively... unscathed. She was certainly still in one piece... kind of.

And so he continued like this for the next couple of hours. Desperate to not make a mistake, he considered every decision twice and asked for opinions from every source he could. He had wanted to project the image of an all-knowing Captain, but he was also sensible enough to realise that if he didn't want to make a stupid mistake then he should probably double-check things with people who had actually had some sleep in the past twenty four hours.

-x-

Bones shuffled himself deeper under his covers, happy to stay cocooned in the warmth of his bedclothes for just a little while longer. For once, he was content to let his juniors take the strain. After all, hadn't he earned it?

He probably would have managed to continue in this way for a few hours more, if one of the half-awake environmental technicians hadn't staggered back from the toilets without waking up properly and taken the third door on the right instead of the second door on the left. Trying to navigate across what he thought was his cabin without needing to open his eyes; he unfortunately walked right into the chief medical officer's table and knocked its contents to the floor. The resulting clatter would have been enough to wake the dead, let alone a doctor used to being awakened suddenly by various emergencies. Years of catching sleep in various odd places had left Bones with an instinctive knowledge of where the nearest exit was; a useful fact when the crash bleep went off at five am. Unfortunately for the technician, the table he was currently entangled with was directly between the bed and the cabin door. Before Bones even realised he was awake and that he was upright, he was entangled in a very confused, half-asleep... someone.

After a few seconds of them trying to escape from each other, one of them managed to flick the lights on. Once there was light, Bones was confronted with a bemused, half-asleep crew-member, blinking sleepily and looking confused. He quickly guided the technician back out into the corridor. Thankfully, the man made straight for one of the other doors and quickly disappeared inside without returning. Bones hoped that was his cabin, and waited around for a few seconds. He could always go back and search the cabin assignments if the man reappeared. After five minutes Bones decided that he'd either made it to the right cabin this time, or whoever was occupying it was too tired to notice they had acquired a bunk-mate!

It wasn't every day that a complete stranger wandered into his room, but why couldn't they have been young and female instead of middle aged and podgy?

One of the down-sides about managing to wake up suddenly and completely; was that once Bones was awake, he didn't have a hope of getting back to sleep again. Shrugging, he decided to at least do something productive with his time. Turning on his bedside console, he checked on the status of his patients in the sickbay and then sent out a query as to the current location of his Captain. He had a vague memory of Spock stating that he would be relieving the Captain in an hour – and, looking at his watch, that had been over five hours ago. Bones had too much experience of all the various tricks Jim could play when he didn't want to do something. He knew better than to believe that Spock was on the bridge and his Captain was tucked up in bed – sometimes the man was like a small child, trying to trick everyone into believing that it wasn't his bedtime yet.

The console chimed and he looked at it with narrowed eyes before cursing and heading into the shower to get cleaned up. The stubborn man was still on the bridge! Why hadn't he come to wake anyone else? Well, he could actually answer that one himself he mused as he stood under the hot shower and let it wash away the fear-sweat and grime from the day before. His friend had always thought of others before himself, and had obviously just not wanted to wake anyone up. Bones' wasn't going to stand for this now; it was high time his friend headed off to get some rest of his own. He was sure that there were enough senior officers now awake who could take over from the Captain. His mind made up, he headed out of the shower and hastily towelled himself dry before rummaging in his locker for a clean uniform that didn't look like something that the dog had bought in. The fight with Nero's ship and escape from the subsequent black hole had thrown things around in his cabin, and his orderly pile of uniforms had become mixed in with the rest of his lockers contents. It was all a bit of a mess really, but it was definitely something that could be tackled another day – after he'd made sure that everyone had managed to get enough sleep. He was sure that Jim would claim that his spell in the infirmary counted and that he didn't need any extra sleep. He finally found something that didn't look too disgusting and pulled it on; he paused in front of the mirror in his cabin, trying to make sure he hadn't put his trousers on backwards or something, before heading out of the door.

-x-

Bones quietly stepped onto the bridge from the turbo-lift, nodding at the various personnel he recognised before his gaze came to rest on the Captain. His friend was sitting slumped in his chair looking at the screen of his computer as if the report written on it was in a foreign language. The angry rant that had formed in his mind died away as he watched his friend. His eyes appeared to have sunken into his head, drowning in the black bags forming beneath them. Bones was sure that he was only awake out of stubbornness, refusing to admit that it was time to leave, like a child who had stayed up past their bedtime. Casually he walked up behind his Captain, careful to make enough noise so that he wouldn't startle him – he didn't want a repeat of the episode in the infirmary thank you very much.

"Jim?" The voice was quiet and compassionate and pitched just right so that it didn't carry to the crew working at their stations.

Despite all of Bones' precautions, the gentle question still startled the Captain and he swung around, suddenly awake with his heart pounding.

"Bones, what are you doing here?" He glanced at the clock at the corner of the forward screen and frowned, "surely you haven't had enough sleep? What are you doing out of bed?"

"Do you even have to ask that Jim" Bones muttered, trying to keep his voice down so that the crew wouldn't have to hear the exchange. He had a pretty good idea that it was going to turn into a spectacular argument and wanted to spare them from having to listen to as much of it as possible.

"I was going to find somewhere to rest, honest!" Jim protested, hoping to get his excuses in before the doctor got the bit between his teeth and went off on another one of his rants.

"U-Huh," Bones said gently, trying to keep his Captain as calm as possible. Unfortunately, Jim didn't seem to take this in.

"I know you're going to start yelling at me, but I really didn't have any choice. Someone had to stay and run the ship and I'm the acting Captain, what if I left my post and something happened? What if someone died? All because I needed a little 'snooze'!" His voice started to rise and without seeming to realise it, he had stood and started to pace up and down.

He rounded on Bones and aggressively moved into his personal space, his anger replacing the adrenaline that had been keeping him going up until now.

"Who do you think I am?" He continued as he rounded on Bones and aggressively moved into his personal space, his anger replacing the adrenaline that had been keeping him going until now. "Do you honestly think I'd be able to live with myself? Besides, Starfleet wouldn't let me near anything bigger than a handglider ever again!"

The rest of the bridge crew had by now started to watch them unobtrusively from beneath lowered eyelashes. Bones sighed, he really hadn't wanted to make a scene, but he was starting to think that it was going to be unavoidable.

"Besides" Jim added "It's not like I've actually got anywhere to sleep, let alone anything to change into"

Bones winced and cursed himself for being an idiot. He'd forgotten this rather important point in all of the commotion that had followed. Cadet James Kirk wouldn't have had any quarters assigned to him because he wasn't even supposed to be on the ship, he was supposed to have remained in the Academy, awaiting disciplinary action.

Leonard took a long look at Jim and decided to try a slightly different tactic. Instead of trying to defend himself, Bones just nodded and then added casually.

"I went via the mess hall on my way over here, the cooks are all back and there's hot food available again. Fancy going to get some and then we can go and have a bite to eat in my cabin?"

Jim paused, he had been expecting a long rant from the doctor about being sensible and taking time out to sleep – he hadn't been expecting an offer of lunch. It was enough to make him pause for a moment, and his stomach, which up until now had just been supplying him with an endless taste of acid in the back of his throat, chose that moment to let out a loud gurgle and remind him that he hadn't eaten anything in a very long time.

"Chekhov & Sulu are on their way up" added Bones persuasively, "they are both more than competent to handle the enterprise for the half hour it takes to get some food" and the next twelve hours whilst you get some sleep he added on silently in his head.

Jim looked at him for a second, concentrating on his face; obviously trying to work out if he was telling the truth or if he was just trying to con him into leaving the bridge to get some sleep.

Bones raised his eyebrows inquisitively – "How about it? I hear they have freshly made coffee and desert as well."

Jim sat up straighter before hoisting himself out of his chair. "Enough! You win! I'm coming!"

Bones lay a friendly arm across his back and steered him towards the turbolift. Yes they would stop for coffee but there certainly wasn't going to be any caffeine in it. Besides, his cabin only had one chair in it, he was sure that Jim wouldn't mind sitting on the bed. After all, it was a very comfortable bed (despite being Starfleet issue) and he had a pretty good idea that once Jim sat down, he wouldn't be able to resist lying down and getting some sleep. And once he got some sleep? He doubted his friend would stir for the next twelve hours or so, and then? Well, they'd just have to deal with whatever came their way.

Finis.

Wow! Finally finished, I really can't believe it. I'm sorry it took me longer than anticipated to upload; I'm doing a lot of locum work to fill a vacant post on our rota, so pretty much have no time to write. This is certainly not one of my better efforts and I'm sorry for that but I did want to get this story finished so please just ignore the English spellings and lack of punctuation! Thanks to everyone who reviewed, it really kept me going when I didn't know where I was going to go with this. Next time I'll try and write the whole thing BEFORE posting!

Bx