Fic: Eternity Waits for No One (Star Trek AOS, Kirk/McCoy, PG-13, 1/4)
Title: Eternity Waits for No One
Author: sail_aweigh
Fandom Star Trek AOS
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Kirk/McCoy, Spock, Chapel
Rating: PG-13 for now, cussing, explicit surgery with gore in later chapters, could be some sexteims in the last (unwritten) chapter. Don't worry, this fic will be finished.
Word count: First chapter - 6569. Current total sits at 16k. Anticipate completed between 22-25k.
Summary: Leonard McCoy doesn't like revolving doors, but The Doorman doesn't give him any choice. Or does he?
Author's note: based on following prompt for space_wrapped: McCoy has recently relocated to the Big Apple, and even surrounded by millions of people the breathtaking skyline view from his penthouse apartment leaves him feeling empty and alone. Fortunately the apartment's doorman, Jim Kirk, is a chatty sunovabitch and does his part to make McCoy's first big city Christmas a little more homey. Oh, and I don't own any of the characters, just borrowing them to torture play with them. Many thanks for the beta on this chapter to circ_bamboo.
Chapter One
Jim stood in front of the wet bar in the penthouse suite and poured a (very) large shot of scotch into one of a row of heavy tumblers lined up against the backsplash. It was time to start a new project, something he used to look forward to, but these days he found it brought him more and more stress. The job had been interesting when he'd first been offered it, even if he hadn't had much choice in accepting the position. He'd fucked up and he knew he owed it to others to fix things. If he could. Once, he thought he was so good that all it would take was a snap of the fingers to set things right. He knocked back a large swallow of the scotch, barely tasting it. That had been so, so long ago.
Carrying the drink with him, he slowly worked his way to the overstuffed, mahogany-colored leather sofa (the only thing of color in the room) that backed along one wall. It faced the floor to ceiling windows that looked out over Central Park. Right now, it was a snowy wonderland, sparkling white and crystalline in the pale winter light. Gorgeous view, if you could afford it. Jim couldn't (he didn't get paid with anything so mundane as money), but with his talents, he could be anywhere he wanted to be, authorized or not. This particular penthouse was soon to be the residence of someone else. Jim was just...preparing it for occupancy.
Running his hands along the bare walls, he wondered what the space would look like after he completed his job. The white carpet, white walls, glass and chrome accents made the space appear aloof and cheerless. No plants, no pictures, yet. There was no personality to the place, just the bare bones laid out by the architects. He supposed it had something to say of his next client: spare, no frills, driftless. Would it remain that way when he was done?
Sitting down on the sofa, Jim fanned out the contents of the half dozen dossiers that littered the glass and chrome coffee table like fallen leaves after the first cold snap of fall. The pictures of three men and three women, all potential tenants of the Enterprise Residential Tower, stared up at him. Jim leaned over them and studied their photos carefully, looking for all the signs that said a particular person was in the most need of the more esoteric of his specialized talents.
Most people were happy for his assistance. They led fulfilling lives that included family, hobbies, the rewards of a job well done. Their lives were self-directed and ended surrounded with loved ones, passing on to the next stage knowing they'd left everything in order and ready for further adventures. But some...some rejected their natural path, clung to a solitary existence that led them nowhere: nowhere but the endless dark.
There were some few people who found contentment in their solitude. They actively sought it, but still interacted with their environment as an organic component; not as a rejection of the world around them, and its interconnectedness, but an understanding that they were a part of a larger whole that required no individual acknowledgement. Like an electron around the nucleus of an atom, they never touched another part of it, didn't need anyone to tell them what their job is, they just knew that they had an essential role in the existence of the whole. This was their fulfillment. They welcomed him with the innate knowledge that they woulld still be part of something majestic and were integral to its continuance.
The system gave up nothing without willingly welcoming it back. Even in these matters the law of conservation of energy held true. If only everyone understood that, it would make Jim's job a lot easier. Wrestling with those who tried to circumvent entropy was exhausting. And so far, fruitless. Oblivion mocked him with his lack of success, binding him to his condition endlessly until he finally wrenched one of his hopeless cases back into the system; then he could achieve equilibrium, too.
Maybe there was someone in this batch, one who would break the cycle for him (with him? a surprising thought.) He immediately discounted five out of the six dossiers for those exact reasons. Their time would come and he would be the one to ferry them over, joyfully and with fanfare. Reunions were something to be celebrated in every way possible.
Then there were those--like the man with dark spiky hair and the deep hazel eyes--whose faces were devoid of any joy, or even contentment. The profile in the dossier of one Leonard McCoy, otherwise known as the Decryption Doctor, the moniker endowed on him for his skills in network security for some of the largest Fortune 500 companies, listed him as single, an amazing number of failed relationships, no children, no pets, both parents deceased along with a sister in a car accident when he was seventeen years old, and estranged from the aunt and uncle that took him in after his parents' deaths. Other pictures of Leonard showed a man of solitary pursuits: reading a newspaper outside of a coffee shop - alone, running along the Embarcadero - alone, buying a theatre ticket - for one, carrying a bottle of whiskey out of the local liquor store and taking it home to drink - alone.
Jim ghosted his fingers over the photo, feeling a wistfulness at the loneliness in the eyes that stared out at him. For some reason, this man has caught his attention. In every picture McCoy's face was shuttered, closed away from the world and uninviting. Far from having an understanding of where he fit in the world, he strained to escape the bonds of community as if it were the only thing that would finally give him peace. Yet, there was a hint of vulnerability, a pinched look around the eyes. Perhaps it was more that the bond had been weakening over time and no matter how hard he tried in the past, the tether just kept slipping out of his hands. At every turn he's thwarted himself somehow. Took the wrong road, walked the wrong path, sat down when he should have stood up. It's a sense of resignation and futility Jim saw in him.
Oblivion was coming for Leonard McCoy and Jim was the only one who can direct him toward the correct threshold before it's too late. Again, something indecipherable wormed its way into his conscious, telling him this man would be personally very important to him. Maybe that was what had been lacking in his previous attempts, a more personal connection with the doomed person. The thought seemed to fill a void in his chest.
Jim held up the photo and looked the subject in the eye. He spoke to it as if the man was sitting right there with him. "This is going to be painful, but my mother always said a little suffering is good for the soul. You'll thank me in the long run."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
December 22nd
Leonard stepped out of the airport limousine, tugging on his scarf to draw it closer around his throat when a gust of cold air insinuated itself down the back of his coat. After the warmth of the car, the winter air was chill on his face and gloveless fingers. The weather was a huge difference from southern California. At least the Christmas decorations lining the streets and plastered all over the surrounding buildings didn't look as out of place as colored lights on palm trees. Even then, he could do without them, thank you very much. Season of overblown commercialism that did no one any damn good anyway. (The 'bah, humbug' was totally understood, even if he didn't say it aloud.)
Taking the opportunity to get his feet under him, the travel having left him feeling a little unbalanced (he fucking hated flying, godawful invention), he stopped in amazement when confronted by the towering structure in front of him. The building was even more magnificent than it had appeared in the brochures and the photos he'd perused online.
Tipping his head back, he took in the fantastical view in front of him. The street noises around him faded from his notice as the sheer magnificence of its gleaming silver sides overwhelmed him. The pale white glare off its surface in the frigid December day made his eyes water more than the cold itself. It shone so brightly, he couldn't tell if it was glass or metal or something in between. Improbably tall, the building soared endlessly until its convergence point faded out of sight at the extreme angle he was viewing it at. Scanning down the sides, he saw that the lower one-third of the building shimmered a flickering red--a flowing, constant surge of color that the marketing material said was intended to make the tower, from a distance, look like a rocket ready to blast off from its gantry. This was the Enterprise, his new home in the Big Apple.
When Leonard's gaze eventually descended back to the solid ground (thank all the little gods) under his feet, he found himself confronted on the other side of the car door by a person dressed in a gold frock coat and sharply creased black pants. The coat was replete with gold braid around the sleeves and on the shoulders, its gold buttons were embossed with a triangular insignia that was also found on a badge on the coat breast. His black top hat was banded with gold and tipped forward at a jaunty angle, leaving his face mostly in shadow. Around his neck hung a thick black lanyard from which a large golden key depended.
"Welcome to the Enterprise, Mr. McCoy. I am The Doorman." The figure tipped his hat with a black-gloved hand to expose burnished blonde hair, magnetic baby blue eyes and an inviting smile that only dimpled on one side. The cheeky grin practically begged for one in return. Leonard felt his face twitch, caught between an instinctive grimace of repudiation at the (overblown) cheeriness and a contrary urge to respond with a smile in kind. No one should be this exuberant in this kind of weather. Or that damn attractive.
"Stating the obvious, aren't you? Look like a doorman to me." Leonard gave him a scathing up-down.
"Oh, I'm not just any doorman, Mr. McCoy, I am The Doorman. Like The Doctor," he offered.
"Doctor Who? What's so special about a doctor? Find them in the yellow pages, dime a dozen." Leonard gave an exasperated sigh. "Are you going to get my bags or are we going to stand here arguing semantics until I call my agent and tell him to sell my brand new penthouse?"
Looking completely unchastened, the doorman flourished a hand at Leonard, gesturing toward the steps that led up to the facade of the building. "If you would be so kind, Mr. McCoy. I'll have a bell hop deliver your bags immediately."
The doorman tapped twice on the insignia fastened to the breast of his coat and by the time his hand dropped back down by his side, there were two young men, one dressed in gold and one in red, running towards the trunk of the limousine. "They'll be ready by the time you reach your floor," he assured Leonard.
Once Leonard had cleared the door of the limousine, the doorman shut it smartly behind him and then bounded (like a fucking deer, thought Leonard) up the steps to what was ostensibly the front of the building judging by the way the shallow flight of stairs narrowed toward one point.
Leonard started to mount the steps and stopped dead halfway up. "There's no door. Is this some kind of joke?"
"There always a door, you just have to make the choice of which door you want," the doorman said. His hand reached out toward the skin of the building and a golden glow spread across the building material, creating an opaque oblong figure on the surface.
"That's still not a door. It's some kind of projection. I'm going to ram my nose right into the wall, aren't I?" Leonard scoffed at the image in front of him.
The doorman shook his head. "You're a real pessimist, aren't you? And conservative."
Leonard turned and glared at the doorman. Who did this jerk think he was, making such a snap judgment about him? "Hell, no. I wouldn't have bought property in New York City if I were a timid man. One of these days something will cause property values to tank and I'll be stuck holding a piece of junk. Global warming practically ensures it. When this city floods, I want to be in the highest structure possible. Which is why I vote Democrat: green energy, reduce global warming, all that shit."
The doorman coughed into his gloved fist, "Pessimist."
No tip. No way, no how was this ass getting a tip from him.
"Please. Just trust me. If you want to get to where you need to go, you have to choose a door." The doorman looked at him, his eyes widened in pleading.
"But there's nothing there!" said Leonard. He scrubbed his face with both hands in frustration. What was wrong with this imbecile?
The doorman took his wrist in one hand and all but dragged him toward the gold portal. "Touch it. Think happy thoughts."
"And then what? I fly off to Never-never Land?" Leonard demanded.
"Eureka, a pop-culture reference he understands at last." muttered the doorman.
"I heard that! I am so having you fired," Leonard fumed.
The doorman dropped Leonard's wrist to pull on the brim of his hat with both hands. "Touch the damn door!"
"IT'S NOT A DOOR!" Leonard shrieked, the words barely having time to come out of his mouth when Leonard felt a push on his back.
He flew…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
...and found himself stumbling through the front door of his aunt's house in Savannah. He shook his head, feeling a little dizzy. This was an extremely strange location to find himself as she didn't even live there anymore. She'd sold the house more than five years before and moved in with a cousin in Asheville, North Carolina after his uncle passed away. The house looked just the same as it had when he was seventeen years old and his parents, David and Eleanora McCoy, along with his sister, Donna, had died in that horrific accident on I-85 outside Atlanta. He ventured down the hallway toward the guest bedroom that had become his after the accident. Sidling in carefully, he could see that the bed even had the same wedding ring quilt on it that he had taken with him from his parents' house, the one that had always been folded over the end of their bed neatly every morning along with sheets and blankets tucked in with precise hospital corners.
"What the ever-loving fuck?" he muttered to the quiet room.
"I heard that, Leonard Horatio McCoy!" came a voice from behind him.
Leonard spun around and saw his Aunt May standing in the doorway. His mouth gaped open in disbelief. "Aunt May? What are you doing here?" It was only then that he noticed the subdued sound of the small TV she kept in the kitchen to entertain herself while she was cooking. It was tuned to her favorite pre-dinner show: the CBS evening news.
"Well, where else would I be, you daft boy?" It was definitely his Aunt May: her light brown hair was neatly tucked up in a roll at the back of her head, her make-up tastefully applied as usual, and she wore the pearl earrings she never seemed to be without. Over her dress, she had on the white lace apron she wore like a uniform when cooking. Aunt May clung to some southern stereotypes like a barnacle did to the keel of a ship. "And you know I don't hold with cursing, young man. It's so crass." She shook out her apron and smoothed it down with her hands. "Come to dinner, now. Your Uncle Bob is washing up, you should do the same. We're very excited by what came in the mail, today; it looks like your last two acceptance letters have arrived." Aunt May gave him an encouraging smile before she turned to head back to the dining room.
"Yeah. Yeah, I will, Aunt May. Be there in a tick." Leonard called after her. Still reeling a little, he raised a hand and scrubbed it over his hair in confusion. This didn't make any sense! How had it happened? That doorman had shoved him in the back, maybe he'd slipped him a mickey somehow, a drugged needle or something, and now he was hallucinating. He'd fucking sue when he got back, woke up, whatever. For now, all he could do was ride it out.
Leonard felt a wave of guilt roll through him. He hadn't spent any time with Aunt May in years. Maybe that was why his mind chose this particular time and place to fixate on. When he snapped out of whatever this was, he'd give her a call and see if she wanted to come up for a visit. Feeling satisfied with that particular decision he stopped in the bathroom and washed his hands for dinner. He didn't let the sight of a much younger face staring back at him from the mirror knock him off kilter. This was all in his imagination, right? Who wouldn't want to look a little younger than they really were?
With only a little trepidation about speaking with a man he'd thought dead for five years, Leonard walked into the kitchen and seated himself at the table. Uncle Bob looked just as he remembered him, too: slim and fit, like his wife, but a little more informally dressed in a polo shirt and khakis. Leonard felt himself choke up unexpectedly at the sight. So familiar and comforting, like the quilt on his bed. How had he let them drift so far out of his life? All he could do in reply to his uncle's greeting as he sat down was to nod his head in acknowledgement.
He got himself under control while Aunt May seated herself, gratefully finding it no problem to make his response at the end of the customary grace that Uncle Bob offered before they ate. The evening ritual calmed his mind and he found himself giving heartfelt thanks for having this chance to spend a little (more) time with his family than he felt he could rightfully expect. Strange to think he had an hallucination to thank for that.
Grace having been said, Uncle Bob looked at him over a bowl of peas as he passed them around. "Well, Leonard, ready for the big unveiling?"
"It's not that big a deal, Uncle Bob. Either I got in or I didn't. Besides, I've already been accepted by three other schools." The older (the real?) Leonard already knew that he'd chosen one out of these last two schools, even if he couldn't say so yet. They wouldn't know if he'd been accepted by either, or both of them, until he opened the envelopes. That knowledge weighed heavily on his stomach, now, making the mashed potatoes sit like cement in his stomach. Choosing Cal Poly over Ole Miss, or even Emory, had shocked his aunt and uncle back then. Everyone had expected him to become a doctor like his father and grandfather before him. He'd eschewed the legacy, so hurt that he wouldn't be able to work side-by-side with his father. All his careful plans, struck down by a drunk driver. What was the point, why shouldn't he just start over? Computer engineering in the '90s was a burgeoning field and he'd always been good in math and physics as much as he'd excelled in biology and chemistry.
Like a light bulb coming on over his head, he realized he didn't have to disappoint his family completely this time around. He'd gone to school clear across the country, visits had been far and few between. Contact had ultimately tapered off to a Christmas card every year until even that had stopped once he started his own business, working through holidays and weekends to fill his time and staunch his self-imposed loneliness.
He could change that, keep the relationship close that for one brief year had sustained him through his grief and loneliness, keep it from dwindling to nothing. They'd done so much for him, this was one way he could acknowledge it. And maybe that was one of the reasons he was going through this. He could finally take responsibility for the way he'd hurt these good people. Even if the amends were only in his head, it eased an ache in his heart that he'd repudiated for so many years.
Leonard couldn't stop himself from blurting out, "I'm going to Ole Miss."
"But you haven't even opened the letter from them, yet. It just arrived!" his aunt exclaimed, putting her fork down in shock.
Leonard shrugged. "I've been accepted everywhere else; it's a reasonable extrapolation that I've been accepted there, too." He played with his potatoes, mashing them down with his fork and then pushing them into a round cylindrical shape, back and forth.
"Quit playing with your food, Lenny." His aunt chided. Lord, that made him feel so young; nobody had called him Lenny since he left his aunt and uncle's house.
"Yes, ma'am." Leonard put his fork down. He didn't think he could eat another bite, anyway. His decision left him energized and eager to start making plans.
And confused. Hallucination, time travel, alternate reality, he had no idea what was happening to him and how much longer it was going to last. But, now that he had made his decision, he was ready to throw himself into the illusion wholeheartedly. Not looking forward to reliving so many years, the uncertainty of his undergraduate years, the slog of graduate school, the terrifying leap into starting his own company, but he'd deal. And who's to say, this time around it could all turn out so different.
His uncle pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair. "Why Ole Miss, Leonard? If you're looking at pre-med, wouldn't Emory do just as well, and it's still in-state."
Leonard nodded. "I know, and I considered that. Dad went to Emory and it would be easy to go that route. But I don't want any of the professors there to do me any favors because they knew him. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't, but I want to stand on my own. Ole Miss is close enough that I can visit every holiday, I'll be home for the summers, it's a good compromise."
Uncle Bob studied his face carefully. "You've obviously spent some time thinking about that, and I have to respect that. I'm not so sure you're reasoning about the faculty at Emory is correct, but I understand the feeling of wanting to prove yourself on your own merits."
"Well, I think this planning is all well and good, but let's find out if he's been accepted before we count our chickens, you two." Aunt May stood up and went to the counter where the day's mail was resting. She picked up the two heavy-weight envelopes with their school crests in the corner. His aunt fiddled with the envelopes a little, looking nervous, then walked over and handed them to Leonard.
He took the letters, studying them carefully. It was the last two he'd received all those years ago: Cal Poly and Ole Miss. He had barely bothered to look at the one from Ole Miss, his single-minded concentration and hopes had been solely focused on the letter from Cal Poly. Now, he could care less. This was the right decision, he knew it.
Leonard looked at the two letters and then picked out the one from Ole Miss. He handed it back to his aunt. "Why don't you do the honors, Aunt May?"
She took the envelope, turning it over in her hands. "Are you sure, Lenny? I know this a big deal to you, you've been haunting that mailbox for weeks, now."
"I'm sure. I want you to be the one to tell me I've been accepted. It would mean a lot to me." Leonard tipped his chin towards her. "Please."
Aunt May drew in a deep breath, then slipped her finger under the flap of the envelope, ripping it open. Her hands shook a little as she pulled the creamy paper out of the envelope and shook it out flat. She let out her breath slowly as she read over the first few paragraphs of the letter. A huge smile took over her face.
"You've been accepted! How wonderful!" She fluttered the letter in front of Leonard. "Read it, read it," she urged.
Leonard laughed. "It's alright, I trust that you know how to read. Well, that's it, then. I'm off to Ole Miss next fall."
"Are you sure you don't want to look at the other one? It's not too late to change your mind," Uncle Bob offered, although Leonard could see the trepidation in his face. His uncle had never let on the first time that Leonard's decision had given him so much pause. He and Aunt May had just accepted his decision stoically, inured to the thought that Cal Poly and nowhere else was where Leonard wanted to go; it had been all he talked about. He saw now just how badly he'd hurt them with his first decision.
Leonard picked up the other letter and studied it, rubbing his fingers over the smooth paper. He shook his head. Looking at his uncle, he tore the envelope in half without even opening it.
Before he had a chance to realize what was happening a golden light spread out around him. The kitchen, his aunt and uncle, all faded from view as his vision whited out and he fell…
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...and found himself tripping over his own feet into the arms of that GODDAMN DOORMAN THAT HAD PUSHED HIM, DRUGGED HIM OR WHATEVER.
"You! You nutjob! What did you do to me, drug me, spray me with a hallucinogen, stick me with a needle?" Leonard yanked himself out of the doorman's embrace, looking down at his coat as he dusted himself off and set everything to rights. "I am going to sue, I swear to God."
"Sir, I have no idea what you're talking about." The voice was deep, but it didn't have the rasp to it that the gold bedecked joker from earlier had. Leonard looked up from his fussing and saw that the young man who stood in front of him, while also dressed in gold (much less ornate, not as much bling), had straight black hair cut short around his ears, with bangs so straight they must have been measured with a T-square. He wore a flat pillbox of a hat square on his head; it looked as if it wouldn't dare to do anything so jaunty as tip to either side.
Leonard turned his head, checking all around for the troublemaker, but didn't see any sign of him. He turned back to stare suspiciously at the new doorman.
"What happened to the other dooman?" he demanded.
"I have been on duty here for the past seven hours, sir. I am not sure to whom you are referring, unless you mean the night doorman." The young man drew himself up even straighter than he was already standing, his arms moving from a position of parade rest to attention. Leonard could see that his words were starting to antagonize him.
"Seven hours! But I couldn't have been gone more than 45 minutes." Leonard looked around frantically; he could see that the quality of the light had changed, taken on a darker, deeper golden hue tinging toward pink. The limousine he'd arrived in had vacated the sweeping drive in front of the hotel. When he'd left, the bell hops had been retrieving his luggage from its trunk. He pulled his cuff back and looked at his watch, sure enough, it said 4:25 pm. His flight had landed at 1:37 pm, then the ride to the Enterprise had taken about an hour. Shit, if he'd missed that much time, was it even the same day?
"What day is it?" Leonard demanded of the new doorman.
If it was possible, the doorman had found a way to look down his nose at him without tipping his head back. "It is Sunday, December 22nd, 2013, Dr. McCoy."
"Would you quit callin' me Dr. McCoy? Turned down med school...for...Cal Poly," Leonard tapered off into a whisper, a sudden feeling of vertigo coming over him. Shit. SHIT. That damn doorman! How could he believe this? Had he changed something, in that dream, that hallucination? Was he suddenly suffering from dissociative personality disorder?
Leonard put a hand to his head. What did he remember of school? He remembered the campus at...Oxford, Mississippi, the medical center there. His hands shaking, he pulled out his wallet. The address listed was in Atlanta, Georgia. Yes, he'd moved back there after med school. His current condominium there had been snapped up quickly when he'd put it on the market to move to New York and was scheduled to close the 15th of January. He'd sold his share of the private practice to his partners. When Aunt May had moved to Asheville, he'd decided he needed a change of pace. Leonard had made more than enough money in vanity cosmetic surgery, his deft skills with the needle had made his hands a legend in the field; however, the level of satisfaction he'd received from the practice had fallen more and more with every year. New York was just as good a place to start over, especially with a generous grant to pursue skin graft techniques for extreme burn victims at Lenox Hill Hospital.
But what about Cal Poly and engineering school? He had fading memories of watching others play sand volleyball on Pismo Beach, while he worked in a hamburger shack to make money for school. There were long nights spent alone in the engineering library. But those memories were losing the fight with the new memories of Ole Miss and Atlanta. The kaleidoscope of images in his head made him dizzy. How could he remember all this? Two lives, so very different, but so very real in his head.
It was becoming all too much to believe and Leonard felt himself listing to one side. He wanted to sit down on the stairs, but that would be undignified and dirty his overcoat.
"Help me inside, dammit. Can't you see I'm in shock?" Leonard castigated the stuffed-shirt doorman, wavering where he stood.
The doorman placed one hand under Leonard's elbow, undoubtedly afraid of a legal suit more than out of compassion, leading him toward the revolving door that opened onto a spacious lobby. The floor was paved in a reddish-orange marble, while the walls looked transparent from one aspect but alternatively took on a silvery sheen at other angles that reflected the hues found in the marble. The lower half of the lobby looked almost as if it were on fire. Maybe Leonard had fallen afoul of Lucifer and he was being led to Hell.
Leonard stopped dead. He turned his head and glared at the doorman. "Where'd that door come from? It wasn't there before. Is this another trick?"
One of the doorman's eyebrows flew up at Leonard's accusation. "This is the front entrance to the Enterprise. It has been there since the building's completion."
"It wasn't there two hours ago," Leonard protested.
"I assure you, Dr. McCoy, that the building plans will indeed indicate this door has been here since the design implementation." If anything, the doorman's back grew even stiffer. Any stiffer and he'd fall over backward and take Leonard with him.
Leonard gave in and took a step forward, practically dragging the doorman with him. "Where now, then?"
"This way, Dr. McCoy. We have a physician's assistant on staff for emergencies." The doorman accelerated his pace to keep up with Leonard and directed him toward a small office down a hallway to one side of the concierge's desk.
"I know that," Leonard pointed out acerbically. "It was in the marketing materials. One of the reasons I chose this place; can't have too many medical professionals around. Hangnail could go gangrene if not treated right; pigeon land on your head and the next thing you know--West Nile virus."
Leonard finished up his rant just as they arrived at the door of the PA's office. The doorman knocked and after a brief wait, the door was answered by a middle-aged woman wearing tan slacks with a matching brown and cream sweater set, her reading glasses perched on her graying, blonde hair.
"What have we got here, Mr. Spock?" she queried the doorman. "Another fainter?"
"It appears so, Dr. Chapel. This is Dr. Leonard McCoy. He seems to have had an encounter with The Doorman." Mr. Spock steered Leonard toward a chair stationed along the wall, next to a desk holding a monitor and keyboard. Leonard could see the entry form for patient information displayed on the screen. A sphygmomanometer cuff lay on the counter next to the monitor.
Leonard resisted sitting down, when he understood the gist of the exchange between Dr. Chapel and Mr. Spock. "Wait. Another fainter? You get those a lot? And it's got to do with that creepy doorman with the top hat and the whistle?" Leonard spoke so fast, he forgot to breathe. He felt himself swaying on his feet, chills sweeping up and down his body leaving sweat behind, while his vision started to gray out. "How, how--"
"Dr. McCoy, sit down or I will make you sit down." Chapel stood right in front of him, looking up at him with her lips thinned and face set in a determined expression. He looked at her, feeling helpless to understand anything. It was useless.
He collapsed into the chair behind him. Dimly, he heard Dr. Chapel tell Mr. Spock that he could go back to his post, she'd take care of 'the fainter' the way they always did. He wondered vaguely what way that was.
Leonard found out quickly, when a paper cup was thrust into his hand, someone else's hand supporting his while the cup was raised to his lips and tilted. He would have taken a huge swallow, if the smell hadn't reached his nose before the liquid actually touched his lips. So instead of choking and coughing when he tried to gulp it, he sipped the whiskey instead, the alcohol igniting a nice glow in his stomach.
"Is this the way you treat all your fainters?" he asked, letting out a huge sigh after the whiskey had settled in his stomach. Becoming a little more alert, he took in the fact that Dr. Chapel had seated herself on a short wheeled stool that she had rolled to a point just to the side of him and in front of the monitor. She was entering some information into the patient information form.
Dr. Chapel chuckled. "We've found that a little jolt often resets the system, yes. It's usually required after the first time a tenant meets The Doorman."
"Why are you talking like you only have one doorman? Clearly you don't as Mr. Spock is one of them," Leonard complained, his mouth turning down at both sides.
"Ah, that is because there is only one Doorman who matters. A little like there is only one Doctor." She took back the paper cup that Leonard had completely forgotten he was holding. He kind of wanted it back, but Dr. Chapel can be a little frightening.
"And who is this Doctor everyone seems to be carping on about?" Leonard shook his head in frustration.
"Exactly, Doctor Who," Dr. Chapel said, nodding, as if they were both in agreement.
"Which doctor?" Leonard wanted to shout, but grit his teeth and forced himself to speak the words in a level tone of voice. This was rapidly becoming the 21st century version of Abbott and Costello's "Who's on first" routine.
Dr. Chapel finally started to realize they weren't on the same page at all. "Ah, you've been culturally deprived, I see. No children, I'd guess. Doctor Who is a children's show on the BBC. The Doctor is a time-traveler from another planet, a Time Lord, and he is the only one left. Leaving him as the singular: The Doctor."
Leonard looked down at his feet, swallowing hard. "Oh. My wife and had didn't have children before she passed away." Leonard pondered Dr. Chapel's explanation, pushing down the lingering pain of Jocelyn's loss. He paused as the words exited his mouth. Those words both felt wrong but very right, even if painful, at the same time. He was so tired of remembering. "So, there is a singular doorman: The Doorman."
Silence reigned for a short bit while Leonard digested the idea.
"But who the hell is he?" Leonard finally blurted out. "How does he do what he does?"
Dr. Chapel shrugged. "Nobody knows either of those things. We only know of him from the reports of people who have had the same experiences as you."
Leonard rubbed his forehead with his hand. He just couldn't wrap his mind around this right now. Maybe a good night's sleep would straighten everything out in his head and he'd know just who he was when he woke up. Was he the Leonard McCoy that owned his own computer security business or was he a well-known plastic surgeon with more money than time on his hands?
"Dr. Chapel, I think it's time for me to call it a night. Could you have someone show me to my suite?" He could hear the lingering bewilderment in his voice. All he wanted at this point was to go up to his rooms, call his Aunt May to confirm her flight reservations for Tuesday, and go to bed. Oh, his aunt. When did he arrange this trip? He took a deep breath before he had a chance to get dizzy and start hyperventilating. "And could you find me a bottle of aspirin? The whole thing might be enough to get rid of the headache this is all giving me."
"I've got some Tylenol PM, if you'd prefer? I'm guessing you might appreciate a little help getting to sleep tonight." After Leonard had nodded his assent, Dr. Chapel opened up a drawer and took out a bottle, shook two tabs out and gave them to him to hold. Scooting her wheeled stool over to a water cooler in one corner of the room, she filled a new paper cup with water and presented it to him.
Leonard stared at the pills in his hand, wondering if this would all seem like a dream in the morning, then knocked back the pills. Oblivion, he thought, could not come quickly enough.
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Also at AO3.
Author: sail_aweigh
Fandom Star Trek AOS
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Kirk/McCoy, Spock, Chapel
Rating: PG-13 for now, cussing, explicit surgery with gore in later chapters, could be some sexteims in the last (unwritten) chapter. Don't worry, this fic will be finished.
Word count: First chapter - 6569. Current total sits at 16k. Anticipate completed between 22-25k.
Summary: Leonard McCoy doesn't like revolving doors, but The Doorman doesn't give him any choice. Or does he?
Author's note: based on following prompt for space_wrapped: McCoy has recently relocated to the Big Apple, and even surrounded by millions of people the breathtaking skyline view from his penthouse apartment leaves him feeling empty and alone. Fortunately the apartment's doorman, Jim Kirk, is a chatty sunovabitch and does his part to make McCoy's first big city Christmas a little more homey. Oh, and I don't own any of the characters, just borrowing them to torture play with them. Many thanks for the beta on this chapter to circ_bamboo.
Chapter One
Jim stood in front of the wet bar in the penthouse suite and poured a (very) large shot of scotch into one of a row of heavy tumblers lined up against the backsplash. It was time to start a new project, something he used to look forward to, but these days he found it brought him more and more stress. The job had been interesting when he'd first been offered it, even if he hadn't had much choice in accepting the position. He'd fucked up and he knew he owed it to others to fix things. If he could. Once, he thought he was so good that all it would take was a snap of the fingers to set things right. He knocked back a large swallow of the scotch, barely tasting it. That had been so, so long ago.
Carrying the drink with him, he slowly worked his way to the overstuffed, mahogany-colored leather sofa (the only thing of color in the room) that backed along one wall. It faced the floor to ceiling windows that looked out over Central Park. Right now, it was a snowy wonderland, sparkling white and crystalline in the pale winter light. Gorgeous view, if you could afford it. Jim couldn't (he didn't get paid with anything so mundane as money), but with his talents, he could be anywhere he wanted to be, authorized or not. This particular penthouse was soon to be the residence of someone else. Jim was just...preparing it for occupancy.
Running his hands along the bare walls, he wondered what the space would look like after he completed his job. The white carpet, white walls, glass and chrome accents made the space appear aloof and cheerless. No plants, no pictures, yet. There was no personality to the place, just the bare bones laid out by the architects. He supposed it had something to say of his next client: spare, no frills, driftless. Would it remain that way when he was done?
Sitting down on the sofa, Jim fanned out the contents of the half dozen dossiers that littered the glass and chrome coffee table like fallen leaves after the first cold snap of fall. The pictures of three men and three women, all potential tenants of the Enterprise Residential Tower, stared up at him. Jim leaned over them and studied their photos carefully, looking for all the signs that said a particular person was in the most need of the more esoteric of his specialized talents.
Most people were happy for his assistance. They led fulfilling lives that included family, hobbies, the rewards of a job well done. Their lives were self-directed and ended surrounded with loved ones, passing on to the next stage knowing they'd left everything in order and ready for further adventures. But some...some rejected their natural path, clung to a solitary existence that led them nowhere: nowhere but the endless dark.
There were some few people who found contentment in their solitude. They actively sought it, but still interacted with their environment as an organic component; not as a rejection of the world around them, and its interconnectedness, but an understanding that they were a part of a larger whole that required no individual acknowledgement. Like an electron around the nucleus of an atom, they never touched another part of it, didn't need anyone to tell them what their job is, they just knew that they had an essential role in the existence of the whole. This was their fulfillment. They welcomed him with the innate knowledge that they woulld still be part of something majestic and were integral to its continuance.
The system gave up nothing without willingly welcoming it back. Even in these matters the law of conservation of energy held true. If only everyone understood that, it would make Jim's job a lot easier. Wrestling with those who tried to circumvent entropy was exhausting. And so far, fruitless. Oblivion mocked him with his lack of success, binding him to his condition endlessly until he finally wrenched one of his hopeless cases back into the system; then he could achieve equilibrium, too.
Maybe there was someone in this batch, one who would break the cycle for him (with him? a surprising thought.) He immediately discounted five out of the six dossiers for those exact reasons. Their time would come and he would be the one to ferry them over, joyfully and with fanfare. Reunions were something to be celebrated in every way possible.
Then there were those--like the man with dark spiky hair and the deep hazel eyes--whose faces were devoid of any joy, or even contentment. The profile in the dossier of one Leonard McCoy, otherwise known as the Decryption Doctor, the moniker endowed on him for his skills in network security for some of the largest Fortune 500 companies, listed him as single, an amazing number of failed relationships, no children, no pets, both parents deceased along with a sister in a car accident when he was seventeen years old, and estranged from the aunt and uncle that took him in after his parents' deaths. Other pictures of Leonard showed a man of solitary pursuits: reading a newspaper outside of a coffee shop - alone, running along the Embarcadero - alone, buying a theatre ticket - for one, carrying a bottle of whiskey out of the local liquor store and taking it home to drink - alone.
Jim ghosted his fingers over the photo, feeling a wistfulness at the loneliness in the eyes that stared out at him. For some reason, this man has caught his attention. In every picture McCoy's face was shuttered, closed away from the world and uninviting. Far from having an understanding of where he fit in the world, he strained to escape the bonds of community as if it were the only thing that would finally give him peace. Yet, there was a hint of vulnerability, a pinched look around the eyes. Perhaps it was more that the bond had been weakening over time and no matter how hard he tried in the past, the tether just kept slipping out of his hands. At every turn he's thwarted himself somehow. Took the wrong road, walked the wrong path, sat down when he should have stood up. It's a sense of resignation and futility Jim saw in him.
Oblivion was coming for Leonard McCoy and Jim was the only one who can direct him toward the correct threshold before it's too late. Again, something indecipherable wormed its way into his conscious, telling him this man would be personally very important to him. Maybe that was what had been lacking in his previous attempts, a more personal connection with the doomed person. The thought seemed to fill a void in his chest.
Jim held up the photo and looked the subject in the eye. He spoke to it as if the man was sitting right there with him. "This is going to be painful, but my mother always said a little suffering is good for the soul. You'll thank me in the long run."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
December 22nd
Leonard stepped out of the airport limousine, tugging on his scarf to draw it closer around his throat when a gust of cold air insinuated itself down the back of his coat. After the warmth of the car, the winter air was chill on his face and gloveless fingers. The weather was a huge difference from southern California. At least the Christmas decorations lining the streets and plastered all over the surrounding buildings didn't look as out of place as colored lights on palm trees. Even then, he could do without them, thank you very much. Season of overblown commercialism that did no one any damn good anyway. (The 'bah, humbug' was totally understood, even if he didn't say it aloud.)
Taking the opportunity to get his feet under him, the travel having left him feeling a little unbalanced (he fucking hated flying, godawful invention), he stopped in amazement when confronted by the towering structure in front of him. The building was even more magnificent than it had appeared in the brochures and the photos he'd perused online.
Tipping his head back, he took in the fantastical view in front of him. The street noises around him faded from his notice as the sheer magnificence of its gleaming silver sides overwhelmed him. The pale white glare off its surface in the frigid December day made his eyes water more than the cold itself. It shone so brightly, he couldn't tell if it was glass or metal or something in between. Improbably tall, the building soared endlessly until its convergence point faded out of sight at the extreme angle he was viewing it at. Scanning down the sides, he saw that the lower one-third of the building shimmered a flickering red--a flowing, constant surge of color that the marketing material said was intended to make the tower, from a distance, look like a rocket ready to blast off from its gantry. This was the Enterprise, his new home in the Big Apple.
When Leonard's gaze eventually descended back to the solid ground (thank all the little gods) under his feet, he found himself confronted on the other side of the car door by a person dressed in a gold frock coat and sharply creased black pants. The coat was replete with gold braid around the sleeves and on the shoulders, its gold buttons were embossed with a triangular insignia that was also found on a badge on the coat breast. His black top hat was banded with gold and tipped forward at a jaunty angle, leaving his face mostly in shadow. Around his neck hung a thick black lanyard from which a large golden key depended.
"Welcome to the Enterprise, Mr. McCoy. I am The Doorman." The figure tipped his hat with a black-gloved hand to expose burnished blonde hair, magnetic baby blue eyes and an inviting smile that only dimpled on one side. The cheeky grin practically begged for one in return. Leonard felt his face twitch, caught between an instinctive grimace of repudiation at the (overblown) cheeriness and a contrary urge to respond with a smile in kind. No one should be this exuberant in this kind of weather. Or that damn attractive.
"Stating the obvious, aren't you? Look like a doorman to me." Leonard gave him a scathing up-down.
"Oh, I'm not just any doorman, Mr. McCoy, I am The Doorman. Like The Doctor," he offered.
"Doctor Who? What's so special about a doctor? Find them in the yellow pages, dime a dozen." Leonard gave an exasperated sigh. "Are you going to get my bags or are we going to stand here arguing semantics until I call my agent and tell him to sell my brand new penthouse?"
Looking completely unchastened, the doorman flourished a hand at Leonard, gesturing toward the steps that led up to the facade of the building. "If you would be so kind, Mr. McCoy. I'll have a bell hop deliver your bags immediately."
The doorman tapped twice on the insignia fastened to the breast of his coat and by the time his hand dropped back down by his side, there were two young men, one dressed in gold and one in red, running towards the trunk of the limousine. "They'll be ready by the time you reach your floor," he assured Leonard.
Once Leonard had cleared the door of the limousine, the doorman shut it smartly behind him and then bounded (like a fucking deer, thought Leonard) up the steps to what was ostensibly the front of the building judging by the way the shallow flight of stairs narrowed toward one point.
Leonard started to mount the steps and stopped dead halfway up. "There's no door. Is this some kind of joke?"
"There always a door, you just have to make the choice of which door you want," the doorman said. His hand reached out toward the skin of the building and a golden glow spread across the building material, creating an opaque oblong figure on the surface.
"That's still not a door. It's some kind of projection. I'm going to ram my nose right into the wall, aren't I?" Leonard scoffed at the image in front of him.
The doorman shook his head. "You're a real pessimist, aren't you? And conservative."
Leonard turned and glared at the doorman. Who did this jerk think he was, making such a snap judgment about him? "Hell, no. I wouldn't have bought property in New York City if I were a timid man. One of these days something will cause property values to tank and I'll be stuck holding a piece of junk. Global warming practically ensures it. When this city floods, I want to be in the highest structure possible. Which is why I vote Democrat: green energy, reduce global warming, all that shit."
The doorman coughed into his gloved fist, "Pessimist."
No tip. No way, no how was this ass getting a tip from him.
"Please. Just trust me. If you want to get to where you need to go, you have to choose a door." The doorman looked at him, his eyes widened in pleading.
"But there's nothing there!" said Leonard. He scrubbed his face with both hands in frustration. What was wrong with this imbecile?
The doorman took his wrist in one hand and all but dragged him toward the gold portal. "Touch it. Think happy thoughts."
"And then what? I fly off to Never-never Land?" Leonard demanded.
"Eureka, a pop-culture reference he understands at last." muttered the doorman.
"I heard that! I am so having you fired," Leonard fumed.
The doorman dropped Leonard's wrist to pull on the brim of his hat with both hands. "Touch the damn door!"
"IT'S NOT A DOOR!" Leonard shrieked, the words barely having time to come out of his mouth when Leonard felt a push on his back.
He flew…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
...and found himself stumbling through the front door of his aunt's house in Savannah. He shook his head, feeling a little dizzy. This was an extremely strange location to find himself as she didn't even live there anymore. She'd sold the house more than five years before and moved in with a cousin in Asheville, North Carolina after his uncle passed away. The house looked just the same as it had when he was seventeen years old and his parents, David and Eleanora McCoy, along with his sister, Donna, had died in that horrific accident on I-85 outside Atlanta. He ventured down the hallway toward the guest bedroom that had become his after the accident. Sidling in carefully, he could see that the bed even had the same wedding ring quilt on it that he had taken with him from his parents' house, the one that had always been folded over the end of their bed neatly every morning along with sheets and blankets tucked in with precise hospital corners.
"What the ever-loving fuck?" he muttered to the quiet room.
"I heard that, Leonard Horatio McCoy!" came a voice from behind him.
Leonard spun around and saw his Aunt May standing in the doorway. His mouth gaped open in disbelief. "Aunt May? What are you doing here?" It was only then that he noticed the subdued sound of the small TV she kept in the kitchen to entertain herself while she was cooking. It was tuned to her favorite pre-dinner show: the CBS evening news.
"Well, where else would I be, you daft boy?" It was definitely his Aunt May: her light brown hair was neatly tucked up in a roll at the back of her head, her make-up tastefully applied as usual, and she wore the pearl earrings she never seemed to be without. Over her dress, she had on the white lace apron she wore like a uniform when cooking. Aunt May clung to some southern stereotypes like a barnacle did to the keel of a ship. "And you know I don't hold with cursing, young man. It's so crass." She shook out her apron and smoothed it down with her hands. "Come to dinner, now. Your Uncle Bob is washing up, you should do the same. We're very excited by what came in the mail, today; it looks like your last two acceptance letters have arrived." Aunt May gave him an encouraging smile before she turned to head back to the dining room.
"Yeah. Yeah, I will, Aunt May. Be there in a tick." Leonard called after her. Still reeling a little, he raised a hand and scrubbed it over his hair in confusion. This didn't make any sense! How had it happened? That doorman had shoved him in the back, maybe he'd slipped him a mickey somehow, a drugged needle or something, and now he was hallucinating. He'd fucking sue when he got back, woke up, whatever. For now, all he could do was ride it out.
Leonard felt a wave of guilt roll through him. He hadn't spent any time with Aunt May in years. Maybe that was why his mind chose this particular time and place to fixate on. When he snapped out of whatever this was, he'd give her a call and see if she wanted to come up for a visit. Feeling satisfied with that particular decision he stopped in the bathroom and washed his hands for dinner. He didn't let the sight of a much younger face staring back at him from the mirror knock him off kilter. This was all in his imagination, right? Who wouldn't want to look a little younger than they really were?
With only a little trepidation about speaking with a man he'd thought dead for five years, Leonard walked into the kitchen and seated himself at the table. Uncle Bob looked just as he remembered him, too: slim and fit, like his wife, but a little more informally dressed in a polo shirt and khakis. Leonard felt himself choke up unexpectedly at the sight. So familiar and comforting, like the quilt on his bed. How had he let them drift so far out of his life? All he could do in reply to his uncle's greeting as he sat down was to nod his head in acknowledgement.
He got himself under control while Aunt May seated herself, gratefully finding it no problem to make his response at the end of the customary grace that Uncle Bob offered before they ate. The evening ritual calmed his mind and he found himself giving heartfelt thanks for having this chance to spend a little (more) time with his family than he felt he could rightfully expect. Strange to think he had an hallucination to thank for that.
Grace having been said, Uncle Bob looked at him over a bowl of peas as he passed them around. "Well, Leonard, ready for the big unveiling?"
"It's not that big a deal, Uncle Bob. Either I got in or I didn't. Besides, I've already been accepted by three other schools." The older (the real?) Leonard already knew that he'd chosen one out of these last two schools, even if he couldn't say so yet. They wouldn't know if he'd been accepted by either, or both of them, until he opened the envelopes. That knowledge weighed heavily on his stomach, now, making the mashed potatoes sit like cement in his stomach. Choosing Cal Poly over Ole Miss, or even Emory, had shocked his aunt and uncle back then. Everyone had expected him to become a doctor like his father and grandfather before him. He'd eschewed the legacy, so hurt that he wouldn't be able to work side-by-side with his father. All his careful plans, struck down by a drunk driver. What was the point, why shouldn't he just start over? Computer engineering in the '90s was a burgeoning field and he'd always been good in math and physics as much as he'd excelled in biology and chemistry.
Like a light bulb coming on over his head, he realized he didn't have to disappoint his family completely this time around. He'd gone to school clear across the country, visits had been far and few between. Contact had ultimately tapered off to a Christmas card every year until even that had stopped once he started his own business, working through holidays and weekends to fill his time and staunch his self-imposed loneliness.
He could change that, keep the relationship close that for one brief year had sustained him through his grief and loneliness, keep it from dwindling to nothing. They'd done so much for him, this was one way he could acknowledge it. And maybe that was one of the reasons he was going through this. He could finally take responsibility for the way he'd hurt these good people. Even if the amends were only in his head, it eased an ache in his heart that he'd repudiated for so many years.
Leonard couldn't stop himself from blurting out, "I'm going to Ole Miss."
"But you haven't even opened the letter from them, yet. It just arrived!" his aunt exclaimed, putting her fork down in shock.
Leonard shrugged. "I've been accepted everywhere else; it's a reasonable extrapolation that I've been accepted there, too." He played with his potatoes, mashing them down with his fork and then pushing them into a round cylindrical shape, back and forth.
"Quit playing with your food, Lenny." His aunt chided. Lord, that made him feel so young; nobody had called him Lenny since he left his aunt and uncle's house.
"Yes, ma'am." Leonard put his fork down. He didn't think he could eat another bite, anyway. His decision left him energized and eager to start making plans.
And confused. Hallucination, time travel, alternate reality, he had no idea what was happening to him and how much longer it was going to last. But, now that he had made his decision, he was ready to throw himself into the illusion wholeheartedly. Not looking forward to reliving so many years, the uncertainty of his undergraduate years, the slog of graduate school, the terrifying leap into starting his own company, but he'd deal. And who's to say, this time around it could all turn out so different.
His uncle pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair. "Why Ole Miss, Leonard? If you're looking at pre-med, wouldn't Emory do just as well, and it's still in-state."
Leonard nodded. "I know, and I considered that. Dad went to Emory and it would be easy to go that route. But I don't want any of the professors there to do me any favors because they knew him. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't, but I want to stand on my own. Ole Miss is close enough that I can visit every holiday, I'll be home for the summers, it's a good compromise."
Uncle Bob studied his face carefully. "You've obviously spent some time thinking about that, and I have to respect that. I'm not so sure you're reasoning about the faculty at Emory is correct, but I understand the feeling of wanting to prove yourself on your own merits."
"Well, I think this planning is all well and good, but let's find out if he's been accepted before we count our chickens, you two." Aunt May stood up and went to the counter where the day's mail was resting. She picked up the two heavy-weight envelopes with their school crests in the corner. His aunt fiddled with the envelopes a little, looking nervous, then walked over and handed them to Leonard.
He took the letters, studying them carefully. It was the last two he'd received all those years ago: Cal Poly and Ole Miss. He had barely bothered to look at the one from Ole Miss, his single-minded concentration and hopes had been solely focused on the letter from Cal Poly. Now, he could care less. This was the right decision, he knew it.
Leonard looked at the two letters and then picked out the one from Ole Miss. He handed it back to his aunt. "Why don't you do the honors, Aunt May?"
She took the envelope, turning it over in her hands. "Are you sure, Lenny? I know this a big deal to you, you've been haunting that mailbox for weeks, now."
"I'm sure. I want you to be the one to tell me I've been accepted. It would mean a lot to me." Leonard tipped his chin towards her. "Please."
Aunt May drew in a deep breath, then slipped her finger under the flap of the envelope, ripping it open. Her hands shook a little as she pulled the creamy paper out of the envelope and shook it out flat. She let out her breath slowly as she read over the first few paragraphs of the letter. A huge smile took over her face.
"You've been accepted! How wonderful!" She fluttered the letter in front of Leonard. "Read it, read it," she urged.
Leonard laughed. "It's alright, I trust that you know how to read. Well, that's it, then. I'm off to Ole Miss next fall."
"Are you sure you don't want to look at the other one? It's not too late to change your mind," Uncle Bob offered, although Leonard could see the trepidation in his face. His uncle had never let on the first time that Leonard's decision had given him so much pause. He and Aunt May had just accepted his decision stoically, inured to the thought that Cal Poly and nowhere else was where Leonard wanted to go; it had been all he talked about. He saw now just how badly he'd hurt them with his first decision.
Leonard picked up the other letter and studied it, rubbing his fingers over the smooth paper. He shook his head. Looking at his uncle, he tore the envelope in half without even opening it.
Before he had a chance to realize what was happening a golden light spread out around him. The kitchen, his aunt and uncle, all faded from view as his vision whited out and he fell…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
...and found himself tripping over his own feet into the arms of that GODDAMN DOORMAN THAT HAD PUSHED HIM, DRUGGED HIM OR WHATEVER.
"You! You nutjob! What did you do to me, drug me, spray me with a hallucinogen, stick me with a needle?" Leonard yanked himself out of the doorman's embrace, looking down at his coat as he dusted himself off and set everything to rights. "I am going to sue, I swear to God."
"Sir, I have no idea what you're talking about." The voice was deep, but it didn't have the rasp to it that the gold bedecked joker from earlier had. Leonard looked up from his fussing and saw that the young man who stood in front of him, while also dressed in gold (much less ornate, not as much bling), had straight black hair cut short around his ears, with bangs so straight they must have been measured with a T-square. He wore a flat pillbox of a hat square on his head; it looked as if it wouldn't dare to do anything so jaunty as tip to either side.
Leonard turned his head, checking all around for the troublemaker, but didn't see any sign of him. He turned back to stare suspiciously at the new doorman.
"What happened to the other dooman?" he demanded.
"I have been on duty here for the past seven hours, sir. I am not sure to whom you are referring, unless you mean the night doorman." The young man drew himself up even straighter than he was already standing, his arms moving from a position of parade rest to attention. Leonard could see that his words were starting to antagonize him.
"Seven hours! But I couldn't have been gone more than 45 minutes." Leonard looked around frantically; he could see that the quality of the light had changed, taken on a darker, deeper golden hue tinging toward pink. The limousine he'd arrived in had vacated the sweeping drive in front of the hotel. When he'd left, the bell hops had been retrieving his luggage from its trunk. He pulled his cuff back and looked at his watch, sure enough, it said 4:25 pm. His flight had landed at 1:37 pm, then the ride to the Enterprise had taken about an hour. Shit, if he'd missed that much time, was it even the same day?
"What day is it?" Leonard demanded of the new doorman.
If it was possible, the doorman had found a way to look down his nose at him without tipping his head back. "It is Sunday, December 22nd, 2013, Dr. McCoy."
"Would you quit callin' me Dr. McCoy? Turned down med school...for...Cal Poly," Leonard tapered off into a whisper, a sudden feeling of vertigo coming over him. Shit. SHIT. That damn doorman! How could he believe this? Had he changed something, in that dream, that hallucination? Was he suddenly suffering from dissociative personality disorder?
Leonard put a hand to his head. What did he remember of school? He remembered the campus at...Oxford, Mississippi, the medical center there. His hands shaking, he pulled out his wallet. The address listed was in Atlanta, Georgia. Yes, he'd moved back there after med school. His current condominium there had been snapped up quickly when he'd put it on the market to move to New York and was scheduled to close the 15th of January. He'd sold his share of the private practice to his partners. When Aunt May had moved to Asheville, he'd decided he needed a change of pace. Leonard had made more than enough money in vanity cosmetic surgery, his deft skills with the needle had made his hands a legend in the field; however, the level of satisfaction he'd received from the practice had fallen more and more with every year. New York was just as good a place to start over, especially with a generous grant to pursue skin graft techniques for extreme burn victims at Lenox Hill Hospital.
But what about Cal Poly and engineering school? He had fading memories of watching others play sand volleyball on Pismo Beach, while he worked in a hamburger shack to make money for school. There were long nights spent alone in the engineering library. But those memories were losing the fight with the new memories of Ole Miss and Atlanta. The kaleidoscope of images in his head made him dizzy. How could he remember all this? Two lives, so very different, but so very real in his head.
It was becoming all too much to believe and Leonard felt himself listing to one side. He wanted to sit down on the stairs, but that would be undignified and dirty his overcoat.
"Help me inside, dammit. Can't you see I'm in shock?" Leonard castigated the stuffed-shirt doorman, wavering where he stood.
The doorman placed one hand under Leonard's elbow, undoubtedly afraid of a legal suit more than out of compassion, leading him toward the revolving door that opened onto a spacious lobby. The floor was paved in a reddish-orange marble, while the walls looked transparent from one aspect but alternatively took on a silvery sheen at other angles that reflected the hues found in the marble. The lower half of the lobby looked almost as if it were on fire. Maybe Leonard had fallen afoul of Lucifer and he was being led to Hell.
Leonard stopped dead. He turned his head and glared at the doorman. "Where'd that door come from? It wasn't there before. Is this another trick?"
One of the doorman's eyebrows flew up at Leonard's accusation. "This is the front entrance to the Enterprise. It has been there since the building's completion."
"It wasn't there two hours ago," Leonard protested.
"I assure you, Dr. McCoy, that the building plans will indeed indicate this door has been here since the design implementation." If anything, the doorman's back grew even stiffer. Any stiffer and he'd fall over backward and take Leonard with him.
Leonard gave in and took a step forward, practically dragging the doorman with him. "Where now, then?"
"This way, Dr. McCoy. We have a physician's assistant on staff for emergencies." The doorman accelerated his pace to keep up with Leonard and directed him toward a small office down a hallway to one side of the concierge's desk.
"I know that," Leonard pointed out acerbically. "It was in the marketing materials. One of the reasons I chose this place; can't have too many medical professionals around. Hangnail could go gangrene if not treated right; pigeon land on your head and the next thing you know--West Nile virus."
Leonard finished up his rant just as they arrived at the door of the PA's office. The doorman knocked and after a brief wait, the door was answered by a middle-aged woman wearing tan slacks with a matching brown and cream sweater set, her reading glasses perched on her graying, blonde hair.
"What have we got here, Mr. Spock?" she queried the doorman. "Another fainter?"
"It appears so, Dr. Chapel. This is Dr. Leonard McCoy. He seems to have had an encounter with The Doorman." Mr. Spock steered Leonard toward a chair stationed along the wall, next to a desk holding a monitor and keyboard. Leonard could see the entry form for patient information displayed on the screen. A sphygmomanometer cuff lay on the counter next to the monitor.
Leonard resisted sitting down, when he understood the gist of the exchange between Dr. Chapel and Mr. Spock. "Wait. Another fainter? You get those a lot? And it's got to do with that creepy doorman with the top hat and the whistle?" Leonard spoke so fast, he forgot to breathe. He felt himself swaying on his feet, chills sweeping up and down his body leaving sweat behind, while his vision started to gray out. "How, how--"
"Dr. McCoy, sit down or I will make you sit down." Chapel stood right in front of him, looking up at him with her lips thinned and face set in a determined expression. He looked at her, feeling helpless to understand anything. It was useless.
He collapsed into the chair behind him. Dimly, he heard Dr. Chapel tell Mr. Spock that he could go back to his post, she'd take care of 'the fainter' the way they always did. He wondered vaguely what way that was.
Leonard found out quickly, when a paper cup was thrust into his hand, someone else's hand supporting his while the cup was raised to his lips and tilted. He would have taken a huge swallow, if the smell hadn't reached his nose before the liquid actually touched his lips. So instead of choking and coughing when he tried to gulp it, he sipped the whiskey instead, the alcohol igniting a nice glow in his stomach.
"Is this the way you treat all your fainters?" he asked, letting out a huge sigh after the whiskey had settled in his stomach. Becoming a little more alert, he took in the fact that Dr. Chapel had seated herself on a short wheeled stool that she had rolled to a point just to the side of him and in front of the monitor. She was entering some information into the patient information form.
Dr. Chapel chuckled. "We've found that a little jolt often resets the system, yes. It's usually required after the first time a tenant meets The Doorman."
"Why are you talking like you only have one doorman? Clearly you don't as Mr. Spock is one of them," Leonard complained, his mouth turning down at both sides.
"Ah, that is because there is only one Doorman who matters. A little like there is only one Doctor." She took back the paper cup that Leonard had completely forgotten he was holding. He kind of wanted it back, but Dr. Chapel can be a little frightening.
"And who is this Doctor everyone seems to be carping on about?" Leonard shook his head in frustration.
"Exactly, Doctor Who," Dr. Chapel said, nodding, as if they were both in agreement.
"Which doctor?" Leonard wanted to shout, but grit his teeth and forced himself to speak the words in a level tone of voice. This was rapidly becoming the 21st century version of Abbott and Costello's "Who's on first" routine.
Dr. Chapel finally started to realize they weren't on the same page at all. "Ah, you've been culturally deprived, I see. No children, I'd guess. Doctor Who is a children's show on the BBC. The Doctor is a time-traveler from another planet, a Time Lord, and he is the only one left. Leaving him as the singular: The Doctor."
Leonard looked down at his feet, swallowing hard. "Oh. My wife and had didn't have children before she passed away." Leonard pondered Dr. Chapel's explanation, pushing down the lingering pain of Jocelyn's loss. He paused as the words exited his mouth. Those words both felt wrong but very right, even if painful, at the same time. He was so tired of remembering. "So, there is a singular doorman: The Doorman."
Silence reigned for a short bit while Leonard digested the idea.
"But who the hell is he?" Leonard finally blurted out. "How does he do what he does?"
Dr. Chapel shrugged. "Nobody knows either of those things. We only know of him from the reports of people who have had the same experiences as you."
Leonard rubbed his forehead with his hand. He just couldn't wrap his mind around this right now. Maybe a good night's sleep would straighten everything out in his head and he'd know just who he was when he woke up. Was he the Leonard McCoy that owned his own computer security business or was he a well-known plastic surgeon with more money than time on his hands?
"Dr. Chapel, I think it's time for me to call it a night. Could you have someone show me to my suite?" He could hear the lingering bewilderment in his voice. All he wanted at this point was to go up to his rooms, call his Aunt May to confirm her flight reservations for Tuesday, and go to bed. Oh, his aunt. When did he arrange this trip? He took a deep breath before he had a chance to get dizzy and start hyperventilating. "And could you find me a bottle of aspirin? The whole thing might be enough to get rid of the headache this is all giving me."
"I've got some Tylenol PM, if you'd prefer? I'm guessing you might appreciate a little help getting to sleep tonight." After Leonard had nodded his assent, Dr. Chapel opened up a drawer and took out a bottle, shook two tabs out and gave them to him to hold. Scooting her wheeled stool over to a water cooler in one corner of the room, she filled a new paper cup with water and presented it to him.
Leonard stared at the pills in his hand, wondering if this would all seem like a dream in the morning, then knocked back the pills. Oblivion, he thought, could not come quickly enough.
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Also at AO3.