"Why do we always have to split up?" Bones grumbled to himself as he stumbled through the craggy boulder field. "Splitting up never ends well, and yet here we are, splitting up. Again. And now we're lost. Just great." He tried to keep his eyes up and head on a swivel as he walked, but that was nearly impossible to do without spraining an ankle on the rugged terrain. Instead, he settled for stopping every once in a while to look around and shout for Jim.
The landing party had split up to survey different parts of this canyon. Bones and Jim had been assigned to check out this boulder field, which was all well and good until someone decided to further split up, sending Bones to one side of the boulder field and Jim to the other. According to Jim, it would be more efficient. Bones, for reasons he didn't understand, had given in.
" 'It'll be fine, Bones, we have our communicators,' " Bones said in his best impression of Jim— with a well deserved dash of mockery added in for good measure. "Communicators my ass, technology never works when you need it."
Indeed, at some point after their separation, contact between them via communicator had ceased. They were supposed to be heading toward the rendezvous point by now, but Jim hadn't turned up. Without communicators, Bones had to make do the old-fashioned way— shouting at the top of his lungs.
He was grumbling more curses under his breath when he stopped to look around and caught a flash of gold out of the corner of his eye. He felt relief over finding Jim, but only for a second, because Jim was crumpled face down among the boulders.
"Shit," Bones swore, and rushed towards him, tripping on rocks and twisting his ankles, but no longer caring. He knelt between some rocks at Jim's side, and nudged his shoulder. "Jim, what happened to you?" When he got no response, he shook Jim's shoulder gently, trying to rouse him. "Jim, wake up."
Anxiety suddenly gripped him as his mind raced to the worst case scenario, and he hurriedly pressed two fingers to Jim's neck to search for a pulse. It took a panic-inducing amount of time to find a pulse on account of his own heart beating so heavily that he it was hard to determine if the beats he was feeling were Jim's or his own. He calmed down as he established with confidence that Jim at least had a pulse. After further examination, he found that Jim was breathing, too, though shallowly. But as much as he tried, he was unable to wake him.
He wanted desperately to roll Jim over to try and determine what had happened to him— his current position betrayed not a clue —but even a boy scout with a first aid badge knew not to move a victim without being sure they didn't have a back or neck injury. And Bones couldn't be sure. Just from what he could see, there was no obvious spinal trauma, but that didn't mean it wasn't there.
"And of course I don't have my medical tricorder," Bones groaned. Knowing that he didn't have the tools he needed, he took out his communicator to call for beam up. "Enterprise, medical emergency, two to beam up."
He waited, but there was no response. Right. The comms were down. Bones gritted his teeth and tossed the communicator aside, reassessing the situation. He didn't have any of his usual tools to determine what was wrong with Jim. Jim wasn't conscious to provide any insight, either. He couldn't see any sign of trauma. And the comms were down, so he couldn't get the resources he needed to make a diagnoses. Without a diagnoses, he couldn't form a treatment plan. Without a treatment plan, he was stumped.
Bones weighed his options and decided it was worth the risk to turn Jim over. Spinal injury or no, it wouldn't do him any good to leave him as is if he had some life-threatening wound where Bones couldn't see it. So after shoving some rocks out of the way, Bones rolled Jim onto his back, careful not to let him bang into any rocks as he did so.
Aside from a scrape on his face that had already stopped bleeding— likely acquired when he collapsed on the rocks —there was no external sign of trauma on Jim's anterior side either. Normally, this would be a relief, but it made Bones curse. Just from looking at him, Jim was fine. But he was entirely unresponsive, so obviously, something wasn't right. And whatever it was was invisible to Bones. He almost wished there had been something more obvious. A big dent in Jim's skull would have been preferable to this, at least then he would know what he was dealing with.
Taking a few deep breaths, he tried to fight off the anxiety that was flooding his entire being. He wouldn't be any use to Jim if he was panicking. But at the same time, he couldn't be of any use to Jim even if he wasn't panicking. Not without a tricorder or a medical kit. Not without being able to call for help. A looming dread washed over him. He couldn't stand not knowing what was wrong with Jim. Dammit, this was his best friend. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he let him die out here. He could be dying, right now, of something unseen, and Bones wouldn't even know it.
Fishing his communicator from out between the rocks, he tried hailing the Enterprise again, but failed to get a response. He knew all he could do was wait for someone to notice that they hadn't returned, and send a party out to search for them, but he couldn't help but keep trying to hail the Enterprise. Again, and again, and again. He knew it was futile, but dammit, it was better than doing nothing.