Jun 26, 2011 03:01
Edgar's charming company had raised Anise's spirits enough that not even the Head Doctor's voice could bring them back down. Besides, she was feeling pretty sure that Landel wasn't actually around. To begin with, it wouldn't make sense, and secondly, his announcements sounded suspiciously like ones she'd already heard before. While Anise wasn't
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sonia,
kirk,
carter,
japan,
bella,
scott pilgrim,
anise,
izaya,
claire littleton,
the doctor,
sora,
england,
prussia,
firo,
utena,
renamon,
claude,
guybrush,
ted logan,
elena gilbert,
edgeworth,
peter parker,
tolten,
kurogane,
dean winchester,
seishin,
grell,
byrne,
albedo,
guy,
stefan,
peter petrelli,
nigredo,
tear,
rose (tvd),
lightning,
damon,
rita,
ritsuka,
two-face,
rapunzel,
castiel,
erika,
edgar,
allelujah,
tifa,
the scarecrow,
mikado,
trickster,
chise,
ippo,
alaric,
okita,
meekins,
claire stanfield,
edward cullen,
battler,
zack,
mccoy,
wichita,
l,
harry lockhart
His hunch made the few patients being allowed to load their trays with pancakes far less the enviable sight it had been before. If two weeks of being trapped here meant he still wasn't good enough to eat anything other than slop, he didn't want to know how long it took to "earn" the privilege of sausage and tater tots. As unappetizing as it was (and as much as it went against the very core of his carbohydrate-loving being), Kirk found an empty table and ate his gruel without complaint. If the military sought to sow resentment among the prisoners with their bullshit privileges and ranking system, he wasn't playing along. Besides, he needed to keep up his strength if they were headed into the basement soon.
The basement... Kirk rolled the idea around his head as he ate. It was a bad idea. He knew it; he'd admitted as much last night. But whatever lurked down there was important - it would have to be, if they'd gone to the trouble of putting some kind of mental block into place to prevent others from speaking about it. (How their captors had managed this, he didn't know, but Kirk had long gone past the point of needing to know how anything worked in Landel's Institute. Science could worry about that.) It wasn't a question of whether or not they'd go down there - his crew knew him well enough by now to not wonder at his recklessness - but when.
They were down one man, and their medic to boot. To wait out Bones' stubbornness, or go on ahead without him? There was a third option, he knew, to get to the bottom of whatever afflicted their CMO, no waiting involved. If Kirk made it an order, Spock would agree to force a mind meld - but then what kind of captain would that make him? Who would that make him?
He couldn't do it. Not to Bones, and not to Spock either. But... if it was only a matter of time before it got worse, if the hardest course of action was in fact the best course of action... Kirk didn't know.
[bones]
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No Spock watching him sleep. Lord above, if McCoy hadn't been half asleep at the time, he might have had a heart attack. The doctor lay there for a moment, wondering if last night had really happened. Parts of it seemed like a dream. Spock just staring at him, waiting for him to wake up felt so surreal that it couldn't have happened. So did Jim going cold like that. He'd seen his own Captain go into command mode, shoot him down or tell him off. But ignore him like that? McCoy could still remember feeling distinctly thrown off by being dismissed. He was already off balance from being angry, betrayed at the Captain possibly lying and then having him apologize the same night. Unless he'd lied about the soldiers. It could be. He wasn't sure what to think now. Maybe last night had been a dream. Maybe the first one he actually remembered that didn't involve a lot of sand and heat.
He slowly rolled out of bed, wincing. It hurt, his equilibrium thrown off, but at least he didn't feel like his head was already split in two. McCoy held onto the side of the bed until the world stopped spinning. As tempted as he was, he couldn't lie here all day. Since the migraine had apparently downgraded itself to a headache, he could prove to Kirk that he was feeling better, get back to work.
The doctor finally made his way out to the cafeteria. He finally hesitated. Jim was already there, and McCoy felt both a strange relief and disappointment at finding him there. He looked fine, safe, but now it meant he had to face him. Suddenly he wasn't certain that last night had been fake. The look on Jim's face was sayin' otherwise. Maybe he should put this off.
He wasn't going to get back on duty if he avoided the Captain. It had to start somewhere. McCoy made his way over and carefully sat down, trying not to jar his head. The lights felt overly bright, feeding into the pressure behind his eyes.
"So you guys go?" he asked. Seemed a safe enough question.
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He pushed it aside again (not far), but his gaze was a shade more serious as he looked McCoy over, looking for an outward indicator of his mental state. "No," Kirk answered, giving a slight shrug. "The night ended before we could make it too far." One week ago, his annoyance over this would've driven him to distraction for the entirety of breakfast, but he just dealt with it now. Plus, it wasn't as if his conversation with Spock had been unproductive.
His spoon tapped the lip of his half-finished bowl of gruel. Still, there had to be some faster way of getting them assembled and down there... "Hey... you still have your portal ring, right? The silver one with the red stone." As far as Kirk had learned, breaking the stone of the ring would transport the wearer (and probably his companions too) to another location. Beyond that, he wasn't quite sure of the other details. "Do you have any idea where it leads?"
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McCoy paused for a moment, surprised.It slipped out of his mouth before he'd realized it, and by then, it wasn't as if he could take it back. It embarrassed him to admit it, but he'd have thought it before. Just very privately. It wasn't like he'd ever blurt it out like that though. He'd been so distracted by having Jim actually smile, welcomingly, that McCoy was taken off guard. After the coldness last night, and how Jim was just now, he was damned if he knew where he stood right now.
How did he even slip up? It wasn't like he wanted them to stay in their rooms, like he wanted them not to get anything done, but the doctor in him, the part that wasn't just a crew member, wanted them desperately to stay out of harm's way.
Awkwardly, McCoy looked at the gruel Jim was trying to swallow down, and then at his own bowl, which was untouched. So much for proving that he could be relied on, he thought, both irritated and bewildered at himself. "No, can't say I do." Actually, he'd forgotten all about it until now. The ring was still lying in some corner of his primary kit. It looked like Jim wasn't going to give up on the basement just because of one setback, which didn't surprise McCoy at all.
"You wanted it?" he asked reluctantly after a second.
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The one thing you could rely on when it came to Bones was his dedication and compassion as a doctor. Even his tirade two nights ago had happened because he cared, because he was as angry and frustrated over their failure to help as Kirk was. Not just that, of course - Kirk knew his friend well enough to know that he was more disciplined than most people assumed from his bedside manner, and a hell of a lot more disciplined than he'd been that night.
Still, if anything had been normal, he could've just brushed off the little slip. He could've just smiled to think that this was Bones' grouchy way of expressing relief that both of them had stayed out of trouble last night. But if Kirk took it as some other thing... resentment, or even spite... That McCoy looked as though he immediately regretted saying it worried him.
More than that, it made him want to hit his head against the table, because he was sick of having to suspect double meanings from the one of the men he should be trusting the most in here. So much for trying to avoid the mind games of this place. Instead of trying to cause himself a brain injury, Kirk swallowed down another mouthful of gruel, which was really another kind of punishment in itself.
"Mmhm. Even if it doesn't lead us somewhere useful, we're long overdue for taking it out for a test drive." If Landel was going to claim that a gift awaited in the basement, then they needed to get some idea of the catches behind his gifts. "I'll come by first thing tonight. Alone," he added casually, as if he hadn't accidentally sent Spock to M41 last night when he knew perfectly well Spock was the last person Bones had wanted to see. "Unless... getting some rest helped?"
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Maybe he was secretly a Vulcan all along. What the hell was he thinking, of course he noticed. Jim was Captain for a reason. Kirk had to be sharp if he was going to command the Enterprise, not to mention watching over three hundred some odd number of people. Little things could be indicators of something to come, and the Jim he knew noticed everything. Had to. Otherwise he'd have been some bloody streak in a corridor by now.
McCoy picked at his food. It looked almost like brain matter if you squinted hard at it. Not the same consistency though. Maybe if it had been ground up beyond all recognition through a starship turbine. What appetite he had plummeted. He hadn't been eating much the last few days and it was probably going to get to him soon. The new change in diet hadn't helped either.
When Kirk said, pointedly, the doctor thought, that he'd come alone this time, McCoy looked up sharply. Spock's visit last night was fresh on his mind, and so was the sense of danger that came off the man, how trapped McCoy felt when he was sitting a few feet away.
Should he believe him this time? He wanted to. Last night it had sounded like a mistake, if Kirk actually ever made any. He didn't sound like it now.
McCoy made no indication that he heard Jim immediately. He resisted the urge to grind the silverware into the bowl. That damn ring and that damn basement. The sudden elation at finding that they were in one piece because they hadn't gone was snuffed out, replaced by intense worry, disappointment, annoyance at Kirk for being himself. Goddamit, why couldn't Jim drop it? He knew the answer already. It might be a way out, and even if it wasn't, Jim was curious as a magpie. What if the ring didn't work that way? What if it vaporized them? They'd be gone and he'd be alone. For one long, cold moment, the doctor considered saying he didn't have it. That he lost it. He could easily lose it before Jim got there and then it might delay them at least. It was only logical; delay them until he got better, then they could have backup.
"I'll look for it. Shouldn't take long," he said. Lying about it, it wasn't him. Maybe he could bluff T'pau, but that was different. That was saving Jim's life when it was clearly in danger.
There it was. Jim was offering him an opening, almost hopefully. McCoy took stock of himself. He could stand to actually eat this gruel. No migraines. Just a gradual headache, but it was like sleep had dulled it back to what it was a few days ago. Not gone. Getting a grade by grade worse, but, in his opinion, something he could manage for a few hours just fine if it kept to that growth and didn't jump. He never would have settled for a diagnosis of 'good enough, it'll do' before. McCoy jumped at the chance. "I'm feeling better."
Not cured, not great, just better than the day before.
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He couldn't not think of Bones as his best friend, and that was the part which kept tripping him up. How did his other self do it? How did he go from being a man's friend to being his captain, and vice versa? Did he always have to choose one or the other? Was it easier to distance yourself when you had four hundred other lives to worry about? The balance had seemed easier before, when he'd first stepped into the role. Friend or captain. Kirk set his spoon down.
"How much better? Was it a false alarm, like you said? Are the symptoms gone, or just lessened? Should we expect another incident or not?" There was nothing but steel in Kirk's voice as he fired off questions, staring Bones down as coolly and relentlessly as when he'd faced Spock on the bridge and tried to emotionally compromise him. That time, he'd aimed to hurt, each word primed for a lost son's grief and anger. It hadn't been subtle. This almost was. He didn't need to say it this time - it was there behind the steel, each unspoken implication casting doubt on McCoy's claim. Not for a second did Kirk believe that this was something which could be solved with a good night's sleep. Not for a second did he wonder if he'd been rash in pulling McCoy off duty.
And that was the most pointed implication of all, the one Kirk knew would sting: not simply doubt over Bones' self-assessment, but doubt over his very medical ability. Yesterday's order should've been enough; anything more now was adding salt to the wound. But if Kirk was already going this route of antagonizing a recalcitrant crew member instead of coddling him, then he might as well go for the whole nine yards.
"You might not be serving as CMO right now, but you're still a doctor. I require a more thorough diagnosis than that."
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It didn't surprise him that Kirk would have asked for something more. It pissed him off to high heaven that he did, because McCoy had been sincerely hoping to drop it at that. What did it matter? The symptoms were lessened and wasn't like they had other options when it came to first aid. And he didn't have a clue what triggered this to begin with, and frankly, the closer he got to it, the more certain he was that he'd rather keep it buried.
McCoy fought to keep his temper. He couldn't predict another incident. Wait, maybe he could, because every time it seemed to involve Spock or Kirk, and Kirk being himself, and why was he fighting to get back on the active roster again?
"Hard to be thorough when I don't have the equipment, Captain. I'm a doctor, not a damn crystal ball!" he said through a clenched jaw. How was he expected to make a thorough diagnosis without a single test?
"Course if I had to make a 'diagnosis', I'd say a temporary idiopathic intracranial hypertension," he let that hang for a beat. Chances were Kirk didn't have a clue what any of those words meant, and part of McCoy was damned smug he didn't. It wasn't like he'd sat through years of medical school, and out of the courses they did teach to the command track, Jim probably didn't take anything advanced. "That's short for 'I don't know'."
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He'd been ready for an argument. He'd been ready for Bones' righteous indignation and raised voice, heedless of their surrounding wardens. He'd been ready to snap right back at him, at least until Bones suddenly pulled out a bunch of long-winded jargon and Kirk paused, brow furrowing as he tried to sort past Latin and heavy sarcasm, and then... just as suddenly, he laughed. That was- well, that was basically how Kirk would've expected Bones to react if he was normal. Not that it meant much, given that he was still looking a little under the weather, but Kirk was willing to accept that he was better, if not in prime condition. To the least, he couldn't be too off if he was feeling energetic enough to colourfully inform Jim of his profession.
"Thanks for that. All I got was 'temporary'." He grinned without shame, letting the brunt of McCoy's ire roll off of him. Another thing about their arguments was that they always blew over quick. "Unfortunately, if you don't know what's happening to you, that's still too much of a risk I'm not willing to take." He held up a hand before the doctor could express his opinion on Kirk and risk-taking (or Kirk and any other of his contradictory habits, of which there were many). "I'm sorry, Bones. If it really is temporary, I'll be glad, but for now I'd rather wait and see."
Kirk hesitated a second before deciding that he'd already talked more than enough, so it wasn't as if a bit more could make things any worse.
"You look like you barely slept. Anything bother you last night? After we left, I mean."
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He was laughing. For one disconcerting second, McCoy was at a complete loss of what to do. It stunned him out of the indignation. Was it because the Captain found it actually funny, was laughing at the argument brewing, or was he laughing at him? Or it could be that Jim knew something he didn't? Kirk didn't laugh, not usually, not unless he was about to completely screw some poor son of a bitch over so badly that he wouldn't be able to tell his head from his ass. McCoy remained very still, trying to pick out which was which. It felt like it mattered.
It reminded him of when one of their arguments, the bad ones, came to a crest and blew over. They didn't happen that often at all, but when they did, they got nasty. Personal. The only good thing was that Kirk had the control never to pull rank during these arguments. They'd get so tense that it was either laugh or get at each others' throats. It was bound to happen, despite how close they were. They both had strong personalities. They had to clash. McCoy knew he could be abrasive, blunt, pushy but Kirk was also completely insufferable, arrogant, and intolerable at times, and they were both too pigheaded for their own good. Sometimes he was surprised they were still friends, but it did work out for the best. Laughing was the best medicine, and it only took one of them to realize how idiotic they looked or sounded to ruin the argument.
Except this Jim wasn't his Jim. This was That Other Jim. The one that repeatedly undercut him, questioned his judgement, his medical expertise, which had rankled, a lot, his sanity, and seemed determined to risk the safety of himself, Spock and Uhura just to prove his point. He was certain of it at the moment, this was the Kirk who liked to play at being captain, too young and inexperienced.
"I'll use smaller words next time," said McCoy sourly. He made no attempt to smile or soften the blow, just let the scorn seep in so that even this Jim might get the picture. He wanted it to hurt, a way to retaliate at Jim questioning his ability as a doctor in the first place. "So the risk you take instead is you go off into a trap without a medic. That makes a lotta sense."
The doctor regarded the gruel and eventually pushed it away. Waste of food, if you could even call that stuff food, but he definitely wasn't hungry. He forced himself to put the fork down before it found another target. This hadn't helped, he was still off-duty. They didn't have the luxury to wait around. Sooner or later someone was going to get into trouble and they'd need to patch up. It wasn't like people waited to get injured just because it might be inconvenient for him.
So he didn't look his best. What else was new? "Other than having Spock staring at me, I slept the entire time."
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"Yeah, well, I'd rather not, but my medic is currently indisposed, and I can't have the crew wait around for him to deal with it," Kirk answered, as mildly as he could manage. "We all have to do make do. But I don't think their goal is to maim us or kill us off... I mean, twice they've fixed me up after I almost died." He'd been tempted to sugarcoat that fact, for Bones' sake, but why bother? He'd almost died twice. Spock had actually died once. And all these times had occurred when they were more or less minding their own business, not heading straight into a trap.
This would be worse. Kirk knew very well the risk he was taking. And he knew too what blame he was laying on Bones - if you got over yourself and let Spock figure out what's wrong with your head, then we wouldn't be walking into this without your help - and that it wasn't fair. But in spite of what McCoy might have thought of him right now, in spite of all he'd said that night (which he'd never taken back, really)... Kirk wasn't an idiot, and he wasn't suicidal. He wouldn't choose a path which spelled certain death for Spock or Uhura.
They were all held here for some reason more than a sadistic game. He believed that. He had to, to make this call. "If the point was to die here, I'd be dead already. Whatever we're here for, we're valuable. Even when they do rid of us, it's just by wiping our memories and... sending us out there." Like Chekov, and like... Kirk dropped his gaze and pushed his bowl away too, suddenly not in the mood to eat either. At least he'd finished most of his share. Bones had barely touched his.
Had he really slept? He must have; Kirk couldn't think of a reason why he'd lie about it at this point. And he still looked like hell, and was skipping meals on top of it. McCoy would've immediately nagged him if he'd caught Kirk doing the same. Bones, when was the last time you ate? was on the tip of his tongue, but this whole line of inquiry already was too much like the questions a doctor should be asking, and Kirk knew when he was pushing it.
"Anyway." He looked away from their unfinished meals. "People have apparently gone through this already and survived. We'll be okay."
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Kirk couldn't have laid it out any more clearly than that. Then again he was never a man to mince words. With whatever was happening to him showing no signs of clearing up, the bottom line was that he as good as dead weight on the crew, and it was his fault they were dragged down as it was. And if McCoy wanted to be useful, not just to Kirk, but to everyone else, he had to get his act together. But he was right, wasn't he? The world didn't stop just because he couldn't keep up, and neither did the ship Kirk ran. Even without a ship or the rest of the crew, Kirk would have done the same thing. Other than actually tell him to his face he was at fault, none of the Jim wouldn't have done a thing differently.
Could he do it? It was on him to take charge, to want to get better. McCoy desperately wanted to. It wasn't like he liked living like this. Spock just happened to be the only person uniquely qualified to have a look short of brain surgery. At least talking to Spock about it might prove to Kirk that he was serious. Just talking couldn't hurt.
He found himself mentally flinching back at just the thought. Like an old horse being forced towards a fence it didn't want to jump and balking at the last minute.
McCoy sagged in the chair, the anger seeping out. Kirk was... right.
"Do you even have actual proof that these people survived? That people are 'just' gettin' mind wiped," he asked. He still wasn't anywhere near confident that the basement was a good idea. Kirk's argument for why it wasn't any less dangerous wasn't doing him any favors, which had basically come down to a variation of 'we're in danger all the time anyway'.
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A wordy justification for what Pike had deemed a Kirk family trait after seeing Jim laid out on the sticky floor of a bar. That instinct to leap without looking. This was a leap. He knew it. He didn't trust Martin Landel for a second, but he felt that this was all leading somewhere. Maybe he was searching for answers where there weren't any, maybe he was desperate to make sense of their circumstances, maybe he was just... being impulsive as usual. But what would they gain by shying around this? Fine, if Kirk listened to instinct, he couldn't honestly say that he thought it was a good idea. However, it was their only idea, and even a scientist couldn't rightly rule out this avenue without first exploring it for himself.
But that wasn't what Bones was asking for. He sighed. "I've read bulletin notes from people who've apparently gone through whatever's down there, or are working on it now. From the sound of things, the basement's pretty difficult to get through, but I haven't yet heard of anyone dying."
Never mind that the people who'd experienced the whole thing for themselves were unable to speak of it except to imply that everything was rigged and everyone should stay away. As if staying out of danger was even a possibility in this place. Kirk's breezy tone hinted at none of these misgivings.
"As for the other part..." He shrugged. "I talked to someone who said he was a former 'patient' of Landel's. He said he'd gotten 'better' and returned to... a normal life. Obviously, they could've just brainwashed him to believe that, same as they brainwashed him to believe his name was... something else, but... Is it impossible that when the nurses talk about people getting released, they're actually getting released?" What was the risk in it, considering how total the Institute's control over them appeared? Jim had experienced for himself the thoroughness of the brainwashing, how utterly convinced he was that James T. Kirk was a lie. Maybe this was just a different stage of the experiment - still prisoners, but prisoners of a different kind.
Kirk couldn't hide the hope in his voice. He knew himself too well to deny that he was clinging hard to this possibility because it made losing Chekov easier to bear. To believe that the young ensign was still out there somewhere, that he could be saved after they dealt with Landel's... "It's not hard proof, but it's somewhere to start."
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It wasn't like Kirk was the only one that did it. Acted on gut feelings. McCoy had too before. But he'd usually kept the wild leaps and actions to himself. He hadn't gone injecting patients with an untested vaccine, he'd used it on himself first.
And why the hell was Kirk even asking him his opinion, as if he were part of the crew still? Curiosity had McCoy resist pointing it out for now. The doctor wondered just where he was going with it before he finally remembered, and part of him hoped that he didn't for this shift at least, because he preferred not to have Jim blow him off again. He kept his mouth shut on the matter.
"I guess," he grumbled. He wasn't anywhere near reassured, despite what Kirk thought about the bulletin notes. Maybe no one dying yet and being publicly announced was a good sign, but there was a first time for everything. "It's not impossible, I suppose. When did you meet this patient?"
He was just thinking to bring it up now? McCoy frowned, instantly suspicious. Maybe he did meet someone. Maybe he didn't, maybe he was just feeding him a load of bull in the hopes that it would reassure him. Although come to think of it, it sounded a lot like Joanna thinking she was Leanne, but she couldn't have been a former patient. There was no news she'd been missing. She had to have been kidnapped at the same time or after.
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