Beyond Darkness (3/?)
Title: Beyond the Darkness (3/?)
Rating: PG-13 (this chapter - may go up)
Characters/Pairing: Ensemble
Disclaimer: Characters and canon belong to Paramount, Roddenberry, Abrams and many others but not me. All rights reserved. No copyright infringement intended and no profit is made by the author.
A collection of vignettes centered in, around and after the events of Star Trek Into Darkness told in no particular order.
O LORD, my God, let the life breath return to the body of this child.
1 Kings 17:17-24
So engrossed was he in his work, Leonard McCoy was unaware that another person had entered the small office he had commandeered at Starfleet Medical. When a shadow fell across his work, his head snapped up and his hand flew to cover the spot where his heart thundered behind the wall of his chest.
“I do beg your pardon, Doctor.” Carol Marcus’s posh British boarding school tone was filled with apology and concern. “I did not mean to startle you. I called your name several times but you were quite intent on your work.”
McCoy blinked, struggling to drag his focus from the formulas scrolled on the computer screen to the woman standing before him.
“I uh…” He cleared his throat, regaining his composure. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
It had been a little over a week since the crippled Enterprise had been swarmed by Starfleet security forces as well as the admiralty and remaining brass who had survived the attack on Starfleet headquarters.
“Yes, well.” A frown wrinkled the smooth plane of her forehead. “It seems that Starfleet Intelligence had a great many questions to ask of me.”
McCoy gazed up at her, thoughtfully studying the strain dimming the brilliant blue of her eyes.
“Thought ya were in cahoots with your father, huh?” Though his words were gruff, his tone was kind.
Carol’s lips quirked at the quaint turn of phrase then quivered as the ever present tears of the last few days lodged in her throat. She lifted one hand to hide the wobbling of her chin as she fought for control.
“There, now.” McCoy took her free hand between his and gave it an awkward pat. “Why don’t you sit down for a minute?”
He kicked an empty chair back from the desk and she sank into it gratefully.
“I’m sorry about your father.”
The hand covering her chin rose to conceal her mouth. A near hysterical laugh threatened to tremble past her lips as she wondered just what the doctor was sorry for. Her father’s death? Or the fact that the man she had revered and loved had turned out to be a monster responsible for the deaths of thousands. She closed her eyes as images of the destruction to the Enterprise flashed into her memory along with the decimation of the city outside this very building as well as the smaller scale damage done to her beloved London. Kahn may well have plotted the course that sent the Vengeance plunging into the heart of San Francisco, but it had been her father’s actions which had set the entire sequence of events into motion.
Head bowed, tears swam into her eyes but she resolutely refused to allow them to fall. Her chest rose and fell unsteadily for a long moment and then she nodded her head once and blew out a long, calming breath.
“Thank you.”
He nodded and gave her hand a final, reassuring pat.
“Have you come to see our boy?” McCoy asked.
She saw the fear and sadness in his eyes and followed his gaze as it tracked toward a windowed door behind which she could see the cryotube containing the body of his friend. She shuddered at the resemblance the unit bore to a coffin and reminded herself that it was preserving Jim Kirk’s life and not serving as the vessel of his final repose.
“Actually, I’ve come to offer my help.”
McCoy’s brows rose in surprise.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate the offer, and you’ll pardon me for saying so, but I’m not quite sure how a weapons specialist can help with this.” He waved a hand over the PADDs, printouts and other detritus of the research scattered over his desk.
Her lips quirked again and this time the smile reached her eyes.
“Well, you see, as it turns out, I hold a double degree.”
McCoy leaned back and hooked an arm over the back of his chair.
“Is that right?”
Her smile growing wider, Carol nodded.
“You really gonna make me ask?” he drawled.
She took pity on him.
“I also have a degree in molecular biology.”
The smile fell away from her face and she folded her hands beneath her chin as if in prayer.
“I’ve had enough of weaponry and the carnage they create.” She stared toward the only window in the small office as if seeing the destruction that lay beyond the tempered glass. “I want to be a part of creating life - not an expert in the tools by which life is destroyed.”
Tears swam into her eyes again, this time spilling over her lashes.
“And I want, very much, to do something to make up for what my father has done.”
McCoy recognized in her a kindred spirit. He recognized her need to keep busy and to find something to put her back against as a way of coping with grief and stress. He gave her a moment to regain her composure then pushed a pile of PADDs in her direction.
“In that case, we should probably get started.”
////
McCoy shoved away from his desk and paced his small office in tight, frustrated circles.
“I don’t know,” he growled. “I just don’t know if it’s right.”
Carol Marcus raked a hand through her hair and jammed pins haphazardly into the tangled mass to hold the limp, blonde locks away from her face. Lines of fatigue marred the cool beauty of her features as she wearily watched him prowl about the confined space.
“It’s okay. We’ll try again.”
He collapsed back into his seat and dropped his face into the folded curve of his arms.
“I don’t know how much more time we have.”
“The cryotube should keep him -”
“That damn tube is hundreds of years old.” His voice was muffled against the debris scattered across his desk. “God knows it could give out any minute now.”
“And it could last another hundred years,” she countered wearily.
“It’s not just that.” He turned his head, resting his cheek against his folded arms and stared at her. “Why do I feel like Dr. Frankenstein?”
“Oh, Leonard.”
“How will we even know if we have it right?” he fretted. “I mean… this has never been done before. Maybe it shouldn’t be done.” He buried his face again.
“Bringing a dead tribble back to life is one thing,” he murmured from behind the protective shield of his arms. “Doing that to a human being...”
He clasped his hands over the back of his head and rocked in his seat. “If that’s not playing God, I don’t know what is! How can we know what this will do to him?” he whispered fearfully. “Who will he be? Will he thank us? Or will he hate us?”
Carol laid a supportive hand on his shoulder.
“Listen to me,” she demanded. “You’re absolutely correct. It isn’t the same as with the tribble.” She gave his shoulder a bolstering squeeze.
“That tribble was dead. Jim is not.”
“Oh, Carol.” Knowledge of what exposure to those levels of radiation could and did do to the human body swam through his brain. “For all intents and purposes…”
“But he’s not,” she insisted. “There is life there. Perhaps only a tiny flicker, but where there is life, there is hope.”
She leaned close.
“I told Jim once that his reputation preceded him.” Her lips curved into a quiet smile of remembrance at the lighthearted exchange she had shared with the young captain. “I meant something entirely different at the time, but part of that reputation is his refusal to ever give up.”
McCoy turned his head to face her and in his eyes she could see a silent plea for encouragement and reassurance that he was leading them down the right path.
“Don’t give up on him now, Leonard.”
/////
Two days later they entered an equipment-filled trauma room. In the corridor just outside, Spock, Uhura and other concerned crew members congregated anxiously.
McCoy and Carol paused as the pneumatic doors hissed closed, warily eyeing the cryotube awaiting them. Leonard moved first. Approaching the tube, he laid a hand on the cool glass and studied the still figure of his friend. Jim’s shock of blonde hair was tousled and though his face had been leeched of color, tiny broken capillaries beneath the skin gave his cheeks a rosy glow.
“Our own Jack Frost,” he mused. His affection and fear for his friend were palpable companions in the small room.
“I don’t know.” Carol tilted her head and gazed at the man lying so still and quiet behind the frosted glass, noting the full lips and the dark luxurious crescents of his lashes against his pallid cheeks.
“I always think of Sleeping Beauty,” she confessed.
McCoy obligingly huffed out an appreciate laugh. “He’d like that,” he chuckled.
He drew in a deep breath and released it on a long, shuddering sigh.
“Are you ready?”
Wide-eyed, she nodded.
“Open it.”
Her fingers danced over the controls of the tube and some distant part of her mind took note of the ragged state of her nails. Unable to stand up to her anxious nibbling, they had been gnawed practically down to the quick over the last week; the polish chipped and peeling beneath the onslaught of her nerves.
Stale, cold air wafted toward them as the glass lid slid back with a hiss of vapor.
They worked quickly, inserting an IV line into the back of Jim’s hand and affixing electrodes to his torso and temples and all the while determinedly ignored the ominous silence of the monitors to which they were attached.
“If he’s Sleeping Beauty, I guess that makes this true love’s kiss, huh?” McCoy held up the first of two test tubes filled with the serum they had labored over.
Carol smiled and rising onto the tips of her toes, brushed her lips across the doctor’s bristled cheek.
“For luck.”
Sinking back onto her heels, she bent low over the still form lying in the cryotube and pressed her mouth to his in a lingering kiss, willing the cold lips to warm with life. Lifting her head, she curled her fingers around the edges of the tube and nodded toward the other man.
“Don’t think about it anymore,” she instructed. “Just do it.”
Still he hesitated and offered up an entreaty.
“O Lord, let the life return to the body of this child.”
“What is that from?” Carol asked curiously.
“Just something I learned as a child.” Fatigue had thickened his accent into a heavy drawl.
Sucking in another deep breath, McCoy inverted the first tube, snapping it into place. His eyes tracked the progress of the serum as it drained into the IV solution and began flowing through the plastic tubing into Jim’s veins. His gaze glued to the monitors hanging on the wall, he wrapped his hand around his friend’s wrist, his fingers desperately searching for some sign of life.
Her gaze intent on Jim’s face, Carol was bent so far over the cryotube; she was in danger of falling on top of the still form encased within. Seconds bled into a minute, which felt like an hour and then…
“There!”
At the sound of her excited cry, McCoy tore his gaze away the numbers which had begun to scroll with increasing rapidity across the monitor.
“He moved,” she said excitedly, pointing a trembling finger toward Jim’s face. “Oh my God, Leonard…”
And then it happened again. Just the faintest twitch of a thick brow, but almost as welcome to them as if he had sat up and said hello.
Beneath McCoy’s searching fingers, a thready pulse flickered and though far from stable or normal, the numbers on the equipment monitoring blood pressure, brain activity, temperature and pulse continued to rise.
Tears brimming over her lashes and streaming down her cheeks, Carol curved a hand over Jim’s cheek. Though the skin was still unnaturally cool to the touch, she knew that it was warming with every beat of the blood beginning to flow again through his veins.
“You did it.”
She reached out with her free hand and Leonard clasped it in his own, linking the three of them in this struggle of life over death.
“We did it,” he corrected, squeezing her hand. “I could not have done this without you.” His chest rose and fell on a trembling sigh and he felt as though he could breathe for the first time in days. He stared down at his friend, wondering if it was just wishful thinking on his part to believe that Jim looked like he was merely sleeping now, then he raised his gaze to the woman standing on the other side of the cryotube.
He wracked his brain, searching for the right words but in the end could think of only one thing to say to her.
“Thank you.”
Rating: PG-13 (this chapter - may go up)
Characters/Pairing: Ensemble
Disclaimer: Characters and canon belong to Paramount, Roddenberry, Abrams and many others but not me. All rights reserved. No copyright infringement intended and no profit is made by the author.
A collection of vignettes centered in, around and after the events of Star Trek Into Darkness told in no particular order.
O LORD, my God, let the life breath return to the body of this child.
1 Kings 17:17-24
So engrossed was he in his work, Leonard McCoy was unaware that another person had entered the small office he had commandeered at Starfleet Medical. When a shadow fell across his work, his head snapped up and his hand flew to cover the spot where his heart thundered behind the wall of his chest.
“I do beg your pardon, Doctor.” Carol Marcus’s posh British boarding school tone was filled with apology and concern. “I did not mean to startle you. I called your name several times but you were quite intent on your work.”
McCoy blinked, struggling to drag his focus from the formulas scrolled on the computer screen to the woman standing before him.
“I uh…” He cleared his throat, regaining his composure. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
It had been a little over a week since the crippled Enterprise had been swarmed by Starfleet security forces as well as the admiralty and remaining brass who had survived the attack on Starfleet headquarters.
“Yes, well.” A frown wrinkled the smooth plane of her forehead. “It seems that Starfleet Intelligence had a great many questions to ask of me.”
McCoy gazed up at her, thoughtfully studying the strain dimming the brilliant blue of her eyes.
“Thought ya were in cahoots with your father, huh?” Though his words were gruff, his tone was kind.
Carol’s lips quirked at the quaint turn of phrase then quivered as the ever present tears of the last few days lodged in her throat. She lifted one hand to hide the wobbling of her chin as she fought for control.
“There, now.” McCoy took her free hand between his and gave it an awkward pat. “Why don’t you sit down for a minute?”
He kicked an empty chair back from the desk and she sank into it gratefully.
“I’m sorry about your father.”
The hand covering her chin rose to conceal her mouth. A near hysterical laugh threatened to tremble past her lips as she wondered just what the doctor was sorry for. Her father’s death? Or the fact that the man she had revered and loved had turned out to be a monster responsible for the deaths of thousands. She closed her eyes as images of the destruction to the Enterprise flashed into her memory along with the decimation of the city outside this very building as well as the smaller scale damage done to her beloved London. Kahn may well have plotted the course that sent the Vengeance plunging into the heart of San Francisco, but it had been her father’s actions which had set the entire sequence of events into motion.
Head bowed, tears swam into her eyes but she resolutely refused to allow them to fall. Her chest rose and fell unsteadily for a long moment and then she nodded her head once and blew out a long, calming breath.
“Thank you.”
He nodded and gave her hand a final, reassuring pat.
“Have you come to see our boy?” McCoy asked.
She saw the fear and sadness in his eyes and followed his gaze as it tracked toward a windowed door behind which she could see the cryotube containing the body of his friend. She shuddered at the resemblance the unit bore to a coffin and reminded herself that it was preserving Jim Kirk’s life and not serving as the vessel of his final repose.
“Actually, I’ve come to offer my help.”
McCoy’s brows rose in surprise.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate the offer, and you’ll pardon me for saying so, but I’m not quite sure how a weapons specialist can help with this.” He waved a hand over the PADDs, printouts and other detritus of the research scattered over his desk.
Her lips quirked again and this time the smile reached her eyes.
“Well, you see, as it turns out, I hold a double degree.”
McCoy leaned back and hooked an arm over the back of his chair.
“Is that right?”
Her smile growing wider, Carol nodded.
“You really gonna make me ask?” he drawled.
She took pity on him.
“I also have a degree in molecular biology.”
The smile fell away from her face and she folded her hands beneath her chin as if in prayer.
“I’ve had enough of weaponry and the carnage they create.” She stared toward the only window in the small office as if seeing the destruction that lay beyond the tempered glass. “I want to be a part of creating life - not an expert in the tools by which life is destroyed.”
Tears swam into her eyes again, this time spilling over her lashes.
“And I want, very much, to do something to make up for what my father has done.”
McCoy recognized in her a kindred spirit. He recognized her need to keep busy and to find something to put her back against as a way of coping with grief and stress. He gave her a moment to regain her composure then pushed a pile of PADDs in her direction.
“In that case, we should probably get started.”
////
McCoy shoved away from his desk and paced his small office in tight, frustrated circles.
“I don’t know,” he growled. “I just don’t know if it’s right.”
Carol Marcus raked a hand through her hair and jammed pins haphazardly into the tangled mass to hold the limp, blonde locks away from her face. Lines of fatigue marred the cool beauty of her features as she wearily watched him prowl about the confined space.
“It’s okay. We’ll try again.”
He collapsed back into his seat and dropped his face into the folded curve of his arms.
“I don’t know how much more time we have.”
“The cryotube should keep him -”
“That damn tube is hundreds of years old.” His voice was muffled against the debris scattered across his desk. “God knows it could give out any minute now.”
“And it could last another hundred years,” she countered wearily.
“It’s not just that.” He turned his head, resting his cheek against his folded arms and stared at her. “Why do I feel like Dr. Frankenstein?”
“Oh, Leonard.”
“How will we even know if we have it right?” he fretted. “I mean… this has never been done before. Maybe it shouldn’t be done.” He buried his face again.
“Bringing a dead tribble back to life is one thing,” he murmured from behind the protective shield of his arms. “Doing that to a human being...”
He clasped his hands over the back of his head and rocked in his seat. “If that’s not playing God, I don’t know what is! How can we know what this will do to him?” he whispered fearfully. “Who will he be? Will he thank us? Or will he hate us?”
Carol laid a supportive hand on his shoulder.
“Listen to me,” she demanded. “You’re absolutely correct. It isn’t the same as with the tribble.” She gave his shoulder a bolstering squeeze.
“That tribble was dead. Jim is not.”
“Oh, Carol.” Knowledge of what exposure to those levels of radiation could and did do to the human body swam through his brain. “For all intents and purposes…”
“But he’s not,” she insisted. “There is life there. Perhaps only a tiny flicker, but where there is life, there is hope.”
She leaned close.
“I told Jim once that his reputation preceded him.” Her lips curved into a quiet smile of remembrance at the lighthearted exchange she had shared with the young captain. “I meant something entirely different at the time, but part of that reputation is his refusal to ever give up.”
McCoy turned his head to face her and in his eyes she could see a silent plea for encouragement and reassurance that he was leading them down the right path.
“Don’t give up on him now, Leonard.”
/////
Two days later they entered an equipment-filled trauma room. In the corridor just outside, Spock, Uhura and other concerned crew members congregated anxiously.
McCoy and Carol paused as the pneumatic doors hissed closed, warily eyeing the cryotube awaiting them. Leonard moved first. Approaching the tube, he laid a hand on the cool glass and studied the still figure of his friend. Jim’s shock of blonde hair was tousled and though his face had been leeched of color, tiny broken capillaries beneath the skin gave his cheeks a rosy glow.
“Our own Jack Frost,” he mused. His affection and fear for his friend were palpable companions in the small room.
“I don’t know.” Carol tilted her head and gazed at the man lying so still and quiet behind the frosted glass, noting the full lips and the dark luxurious crescents of his lashes against his pallid cheeks.
“I always think of Sleeping Beauty,” she confessed.
McCoy obligingly huffed out an appreciate laugh. “He’d like that,” he chuckled.
He drew in a deep breath and released it on a long, shuddering sigh.
“Are you ready?”
Wide-eyed, she nodded.
“Open it.”
Her fingers danced over the controls of the tube and some distant part of her mind took note of the ragged state of her nails. Unable to stand up to her anxious nibbling, they had been gnawed practically down to the quick over the last week; the polish chipped and peeling beneath the onslaught of her nerves.
Stale, cold air wafted toward them as the glass lid slid back with a hiss of vapor.
They worked quickly, inserting an IV line into the back of Jim’s hand and affixing electrodes to his torso and temples and all the while determinedly ignored the ominous silence of the monitors to which they were attached.
“If he’s Sleeping Beauty, I guess that makes this true love’s kiss, huh?” McCoy held up the first of two test tubes filled with the serum they had labored over.
Carol smiled and rising onto the tips of her toes, brushed her lips across the doctor’s bristled cheek.
“For luck.”
Sinking back onto her heels, she bent low over the still form lying in the cryotube and pressed her mouth to his in a lingering kiss, willing the cold lips to warm with life. Lifting her head, she curled her fingers around the edges of the tube and nodded toward the other man.
“Don’t think about it anymore,” she instructed. “Just do it.”
Still he hesitated and offered up an entreaty.
“O Lord, let the life return to the body of this child.”
“What is that from?” Carol asked curiously.
“Just something I learned as a child.” Fatigue had thickened his accent into a heavy drawl.
Sucking in another deep breath, McCoy inverted the first tube, snapping it into place. His eyes tracked the progress of the serum as it drained into the IV solution and began flowing through the plastic tubing into Jim’s veins. His gaze glued to the monitors hanging on the wall, he wrapped his hand around his friend’s wrist, his fingers desperately searching for some sign of life.
Her gaze intent on Jim’s face, Carol was bent so far over the cryotube; she was in danger of falling on top of the still form encased within. Seconds bled into a minute, which felt like an hour and then…
“There!”
At the sound of her excited cry, McCoy tore his gaze away the numbers which had begun to scroll with increasing rapidity across the monitor.
“He moved,” she said excitedly, pointing a trembling finger toward Jim’s face. “Oh my God, Leonard…”
And then it happened again. Just the faintest twitch of a thick brow, but almost as welcome to them as if he had sat up and said hello.
Beneath McCoy’s searching fingers, a thready pulse flickered and though far from stable or normal, the numbers on the equipment monitoring blood pressure, brain activity, temperature and pulse continued to rise.
Tears brimming over her lashes and streaming down her cheeks, Carol curved a hand over Jim’s cheek. Though the skin was still unnaturally cool to the touch, she knew that it was warming with every beat of the blood beginning to flow again through his veins.
“You did it.”
She reached out with her free hand and Leonard clasped it in his own, linking the three of them in this struggle of life over death.
“We did it,” he corrected, squeezing her hand. “I could not have done this without you.” His chest rose and fell on a trembling sigh and he felt as though he could breathe for the first time in days. He stared down at his friend, wondering if it was just wishful thinking on his part to believe that Jim looked like he was merely sleeping now, then he raised his gaze to the woman standing on the other side of the cryotube.
He wracked his brain, searching for the right words but in the end could think of only one thing to say to her.
“Thank you.”