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Jim paced the corridor outside of sickbay, anxiously waiting for news. With each passing moment, he expected Bones to come out with worse and worse news.
Oh stars, he thought. Did I kill Chekov?
Chekov had been with him as part of the landing party, doing an archaeological survey on an uncharted planet. The ruins of a massive civilization of some ancient era lay in the vast cave network running though the mountains. Time, of course, has a funny way of things, and the hundreds of thousands of years of erosion had vanished away most of the entrances. Which meant they needed to make their own.
It was a primitive technique, but an effective one. When their scans revealed the presence of an open cavity on the other side of a few metres of rock, they set up carefully measured explosive charges to make an opening.
Jim hadn't visually checked to make sure everyone was out of range of the charges. Chekov had said that he was clear over the comms, but Jim should have double checked, and he didn't. Chekov was caught on the edge of the blast.
And now he was in sickbay, in critical condition and undergoing any number of lifesaving procedures. Bones was one hell of a doctor, but even he couldn't save everyone. So Jim paced the hall, waiting for news, and desperately hoping that his careless oversight didn't kill his bright navigator. Stars, Chekov was just a kid. Literally.
Jim nearly leapt out of his skin when the doors to sickbay whooshed open.
"What happened?" Jim asked, just about jumping Bones for answers. "Is he—" He couldn't say it. Bones looked tired, and Jim's heart sunk when it took him a long moment to answer.
"Well, he's not dead," Bones sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "But he's not very lively, either. We've got him stabilized, at least for now. Consensus is that if he lives until morning he's got a near perfect chance of survival."
Knowing Chekov was alive was a relief, but Jim didn't feel any better. Chekov's battle wasn't over, not yet. "Can I see him?"
Bones grunted. "He's not conscious, and won't be for a while," he said. But when he saw the pleading look on Jim's face, he sighed. "But yeah, you can see him."
Grateful, Jim followed Bones back into sickbay, and was lead to where Chekov lay on a bio-bed, closed off from the rest of the room by a partition. Jim sucked in a breath when he saw Chekov laying there, unconscious and covered in bandages with an obscene number of tubes snaking out of him. A machine beside him rose and fell in time with the movement of Chekov's chest. He had multiple IV drips going.
"He has pretty extensive burns," Bones said quietly. "That's the most dangerous part." He put a comforting hand on Jim's shoulder. "I'll be in my office is you need me."
Jim nodded, not taking his eyes from Chekov's prone form. Biting his lip, he walked into the little partitioned room and sat in the chair at Chekov's bedside. He watched Chekov's chest rise and fall, listened to the hiss of the machine that breathed for him. Up close, he couldn't bear to look at Chekov. But he forced himself to look at his face, burned and bandaged, intubated. He made himself look at the cost of his oversight.
"Stars, I'm so sorry, Pavel," he said quietly. "This shouldn't have happened. You weren't supposed to get hurt. It's my fault for not checking to make sure you were clear. I'm so, so sorry. You don't have to forgive me— you shouldn't forgive me —but please... please live."
Being unconscious, Chekov didn't respond. All Jim could do was listen to the breathing machine and blink back tears of fear, guilt, and shame.