Fic: The Soul Lottery
The Soul Lottery
He will ask him what they should do from here.
There is no right way, the other shall say and they will sit there in silence, unable to move forward, unable to move back. The definition of love has been tainted by good intentions and now there is nothing. All they can do now is sit in front of his grave and hope for a sign.
“Good to be back, Scotty!” Jim cheerfully said as he quickly stepped off of the transporter pad to pat the engineer on the shoulder.
Scotty happily replied with a ‘Good ta see you too Capt’n’, before resuming his tinkering on the transporter module in front of him.
On the other side of the room Bones stood by the door with this arms folded, not bothering to move as Jim walked up to him and said in a sultry tone, “A welcoming committee too, huh?”
McCoy quirked his mouth slightly before settling back to his stoic demeanor, “Drop by sickbay for your routine checkup later, will ya?”
“I just had mine a few weeks ago,” Jim complained, but Bones raised a brow and rolled his eyes before heading out of the transporter room and back to sickbay.
Sighing in mild annoyance, Jim reflected that Bones has been distant for the last couple of months, barely ever leaving sickbay, even to head back to their room to sleep. It’s been months since Jim has had sex and the lack of release has been driving him up the wall. Bones almost always obliged before this ‘dry spell’, happily, eagerly. Jim closed his eyes and adjusted himself slightly at the thought of it, of a deep perfect thrust pushing him into the mattress.
A cool wind from the air duct above suddenly reminded Jim that he was standing in the middle of the hall. Self consciously, Jim cleared his throat and quickly composed himself.
He pondered if Bones was also dealing with the same problem, but through other means. The idea that Bones was having an affair crossed his mind before, but he didn’t pay any heed until now, considering how long it’s been since they’ve shared the same room together. It probably didn’t help that Spock Prime had relayed that in his world Bones had a sort of co-worker with benefits relationship with Chapel. Not to mention Bones in both realities had been married … maybe there was something the doctor found in the fairer sex that he couldn’t get from Jim.
Unfortunately, this thought led him down into a bit of a sullen mood. Jim rubbed his fingers along the bridge of his nose and sighed. And to think, he was the one pining over the possibility of Bones’ infidelity, five years ago he would have never believed he could put himself into this sort of situation.
Maybe they’ve all just been a bit overworked lately. The project load had certainly increased since they were nearing the end of their fourth year. Jim made a note to schedule a bit of shore leave soon, he certainly needed the break and probably so did the rest of the ship.
“Hey Bones” Jim said, walking into sickbay, “I’m here to do my checkup and I’ve brought you lunch.”
Bones glanced up and then at the food Jim was holding out before shrugging apologetically, “Sorry Jim, I already ate.”
“What?” Jim protested as he glanced at the clock before looking down at his tray, disappointed, “It’s only 11:30.”
“I have a time sensitive lab experiment after this.” Bones explained, as he gestured for Jim to hop onto the bio-bed. Jim did so, and anticipated the feel of Bone’s hands on his face. However, after a minute of watching Bones run the tricorder up and down, he realized that his CMO wasn’t going to lay a finger on him. Jim scowled at this, Bones always touched before, maybe it was unnecessary for a checkup, but it was one of those small things they could subtly do while on duty.
“You’re fine.” Bones informed him before retreating quickly.
Jim blanched as he watched Bones try to increase the distance between them and wondered why until…
“Doctor McCoy.” Chapel’s dulcet voice drifted from behind. Jim jumped in surprise, not realizing that she had snuck up behind him, “Where do I put the regenerator cartridges?”
Bones held out a hand and tapped the cabinet to the left side of him.
Chapel said a warm ‘thank you’ before walking over, easily moving into Bone’s personal space to put away the cartridges without him trying to move away. After she was done, she leaned in close put a hand on Bones’ shoulder and whispered something in his ear. Bones shook his head and murmured, "It's fine."
Jim wanted to protest loudly at Chapel’s intimate behavior with his CMO, but found the moment terribly awkward. Instead he could only glare daggers at both of them until Chapel left to resume sorting the inventory.
Once the door closed with an air de-pressuring sound, Bones resumed handling the information on the tricorder.
“So… you and Chapel seem pretty friendly.” Jim intoned uneasily, not really wanting this to turn into one of those ‘we need to talk’ conversations.
Bones jumped, “What are you still doing here?”
Jim blinked before shaking his head, trying not to look hurt as he got off the bio-bed, “Nevermind. See you later.”
“Wait Jim, sor-“ Bones started, but the sliding door cut him off.
Bones didn't come after him later, as Jim had expected, in fact, there was no sign of him attempting to apologize at all. Falling into a darker mood, Jim gloomily resumed the rest of his day on the bridge, offering to take over Spock's delta shift so that he wouldn't have to think about his rapidly declining relationship.
"Captain, you will over exert yourself." Spock protested, refusing to leave Jim alone as they crossed into the delta shift.
"I'm fine. I can go another couple of shifts actually." Jim insisted, hoping not to sound too desperate, but forcefully enough that Spock would give in.
'You've been irritable all day, perhaps some rest will help." Spock suggested rather heavy handedly. Trying to hint that Jim’s presence was reducing the productivity of the bridge crew.
"What are you, my mom?"
Spock sighed at the petulant tone, "Jim, please.'
Jim got out of the captain’s chair quickly and muttered, "It sounds like no one wants me around lately."
Spock frowned, "What makes you say that?"
"Little things, I guess." Jim shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant.
"He’s been under some stress." Spock said rather insightfully, guessing that Jim was having problems with the acerbic doctor. Jim glanced at the Vulcan warily, not quite believing that Spock was defending Bones.
Not wanting to continue down this possibly tortuous conversation, Jim swiftly changed topics.
"Before I forget, I was thinking about having us take a bit of shore leave at the end of this week, I think the crew deserves a bit of a break, don’t you?" Jim suggested.
Spock nodded, agreeing that it was a good idea, "I will put it on the ship-wide schedule.”
That night, unable to sleep, Jim woke up and strolled down the dim hall aimlessly, he figured maybe a quick visit to the mess hall for some soup would help him sleep. However, as he started down the main corridor, he found both Bones and Spock conspiring like thieves. Quickly jumping out of view, Jim managed to hide himself before either man noticed him.
"Or, I could tell him." Bones whispered sharply at Spock.
The Vulcan frowned, "I would not recommend such a course of action. It would be extremely hurtful..."
"And it won't be if he finds out on his own?"
Silence fell between the two of them.
"You're not the only one who has a stake in this doctor."
"I didn't even want to continue with this farce. But you, you and Scotty and..." Bones started in on a rant.
"Enough." Spock commanded with a frigid tone that Jim had never heard from his first in command. Jim cursed him for stopping Bones from revealing more of what was going on. Bones leaned forward a bit, probably to glower at Spock, before turning sharply to leave.
"The Captain wants to take shore leave at the end of this week." Spock quickly added before the other man could get very far.
"Fine." Bones tossed over his shoulder.
"He has us scheduled for Risa."
Bones stopped.
"You should spend more time with him."
"I think not." Bones' cold retort made Jim feel like his heart was slowly being squeezed in a crushing fist.
"Has your love for him whittled down to such a state that you cannot even be civil to him?" Spock asked.
"How dare you?" Bones snarled, while shoving Spock back until they were out of view, "You knew what he was to me! We had plans! We were going buy a house in San Francisco, I was going to get Joanna back, we were going to be together for forever until he... he...."
Spock responded with silence, as he always did now when he saw that the conversation was turning physical.
Jim couldn't see what transpired between his CMO and First Officer after that, but no more than a minute later, the two men walked away and headed back to their respective quarters.
At that point Jim realized that something bad had happened, something he couldn’t remember. It was possible that Bones induced amnesia or Spock used a mind meld to remove the memory, whatever it was, it was something terrible enough that Bones couldn't forgive him. For the next week Jim walked on eggshells around the crew, all the while trying to hack into the Enterprises’ record system to figure out if there was some sort of log or recording to give him a clue regarding the incident.
Unfortunately, Spock's meticulous handiwork was everywhere and the logs were faked frighteningly well. Jim could barely figure out the time period of when it happened, but it was all within the last one to two months. He only eventually figured this out because he saw a video feed of the bridge that he knew was looped from logs that had been taken a year ago.
There were no Captain's logs within that time either and no medical logs to indicate anything was out of place. From the pristine condition of the write memory format, it looked like Bones was withholding writing anything down altogether. One day, Jim had casually hinted that CMOs should keep their records up to date in case an admiral dropped by for a surprise inspection, but all he got from Bones was a gruff retort that he would upload his stack of PADDs once he had the time.
Upon being given this clue, Jim broke into Bone’s office and picked all of the drawers -while the doctor was away, of course- but never found any trace of these PADDs. Perturbed that Bones could so easily lie to him, Jim found petty ways to harass his CMO for the rest of the week.
Unfortunately, Bones never really reacted, most of the time he would just let out a sigh before paging M’Benga to help him clean up Jim’s mess or mutter ‘infant’ before continuing his work. There was only one time Jim managed a reaction that wasn’t indifference and it was after a particularly brutal boxing session with ‘Cupcake’. There was no fussing or nagging, just this sort of long sad look where Jim felt like Bones wasn’t even seeing him, just looking straight through him. After that, Jim just gave up and resumed trying to take more shifts from Spock so he could drown himself in busywork.
He was hitting too many dead ends. Everything was too well hidden, too tightly sealed up for him to figure out whatever the hell he had done wrong to piss off the people closest to him.
Before he knew it, the end of the week had come and they were getting ready to go on shore leave. Bones had mentioned that he wanted to spend shore leave alone to get some proper sleep, whereas the rest of the group made plans to enjoy Risa's nightlife. Jim went along with the boisterous crew and cheerfully made plans with them, all the while knowing that he wasn’t going to attend. Instead he felt that he needed to tail Bones to see what was going on. This felt important, like there was something on Risa that had to do with all of this, he had seen fragmented mentions of the planet while trying to sift through the destroyed memory logs. It was time to find out what they were hiding from him.
Trailing behind Bones was rather easy. It wasn't like the doctor knew he was going to be followed. The only detour he made was to a florist, where he purchased red roses and Risan Osmanthus. Upon seeing this Jim realized he had been right all this time, Bones was seeing someone. Perhaps as a result of what Jim had done? Did he sleep with some Ambassador’s daughter and knock her up or something? Although it wasn’t like Jim hadn’t done something similar in his first year on the Enterprise and the crew never reacted this badly.
While Jim continued to shadow Bones -making sure to always keep the brunette mop within his sights- he quietly seethed as he considered the woman that Bones could be seeing. At some point during the week, Jim had figured out that it wasn't Chapel, but now that they weren't on the ship, this could mean that Bones was meeting anyone.
When McCoy finally left the crowd at the end of the market street, Jim saw him stroll up to a pair of metal gates. Upon reading the labeling on the gate, Jim paused, suddenly reconsidering his assumptions about Bones’ rendezvous. This could only mean two things: Bones’ date was someone with a dark sense of humor or the flowers were meant for someone that had died. Suddenly, Bones’s conversation regarding something that Jim had done flooded back to him and his breath caught short. A creeping fear began to grow from the pit of his stomach.
‘Did I kill someone?’
He paused at the gates of the cemetery, no longer sure whether he wanted to follow Bones all the way.
However, the sight of Bones disappearing around the corner of the large mausoleum decided for him and he quickly picked up his pace to follow behind. He was going to see this through to the end.
Bones turned his head slightly at the soft crunch of smooth gravel behind him. He had suspected Jim had followed him here. A part of him wanted Jim to see, a part of him didn't. In the end, he left the choice up to the younger man, if he was determined enough to come all this way, then perhaps he deserved to know.
"Waiting for someone?" Jim called, still a few feet behind.
"Nope, just visiting." Bones answered, still staring at the headstone until he could practically feel Jim only inches away from his right side.
A moment of uneasy silence fell upon them until Jim finally asked, "Is this some kind of joke?"
"No..." Bones sighed, gazing at Jim sadly. The same way he did on the ship, that sort of long distant look that Jim finally realized was one he had seen in his own mother whenever they visited his father’s grave marker.
Jim stepped back quickly, as if burned. Breathing erratically, he made half gestures and several attempts at speaking before giving up and staring at his own tombstone.
James Tiberius Kirk
Stardate: 2233-0-4 to 2261-2-5
"I'm re...." Jim started but stopped once he realized that he didn’t know what was true anymore, “I feel real.”
"You're not an android, if that's what you’re thinking," Bones informed him, dully, never quite meeting his eyes, just like how he wouldn’t touch Jim, and how he avoided any association with him while they were on the Enterprise.
"What am I then? What did you do to me?" Jim asked, even though he was fearful of the answer.
"I... didn't ‘do’ anything to you. I wasn’t involved this time, anyways."
"Not this time?" Jim asked slowly, suddenly becoming conscious of the fact that he didn’t know this man, this Leonard McCoy who probably played god. Who created this paradox so that he was standing here while there was a Jim Kirk buried in the dirt right in front of them. Now he regretted following Bones, this was some sort of terrible nightmare where everything was wrong… where his existence was wrong.
"How many copies?" Jim asked in a harsh whisper, the cold reality settling in into skin.
"You're the second one, it was easier to do it the second time. The crew already knew the procedure and they had already dealt with it once before, the lies came easier this time. I guess I'm not the only one that can't let go."
"What happened to the first copy?" Jim asked numbly.
"Jimmy.” Bones paused and then corrected himself, revealing he had mentally named them differently. “The first Jim was injured pretty badly on one of the missions, they brought him back for surgery, but a piece of bone fragment had already broken away and traveled to his heart. He died before we could open him up."
"What did you do with the body?" Jim asked, since it was obvious that there was no second gravesite here.
"Incinerated. We weren't near any planets where we could bury him on." Bone choked up, the memory still fresh and burned into his mind.
Jim shivered and regarded Bones with a look of betrayal, "Wow... sucks to be clone then, huh?
Bones shook his head, "If there was a planet nearby instead of a giant asteroid belt, we would have found a place for him too."
Jim sighed, feeling brittle, "Sure, I guess... so, how did you do it? I didn't think Starfleet had the resources for you to clone someone."
Bones shook his head, stuttering slightly, his usual blunt confidence nowhere to be found, "I-It's not biogenetics. I didn't... I didn't do it."
"I don't understand." Jim frowned, but as he looked over he saw that Bones was shaking too much to respond, so he led Bones over to one of the wooden benches and rubbed slow circles into his back to help him calm down. It would do neither of them any good for Bones to have a breakdown right now. Jim wanted -no- needed to know how he came to be.
"A-A few years ago, before all of this, I sort of had an epiphany while Scotty was explaining to me how transporters work; they make complete copies of you before having your data transported to another location, then at the new location, your data is reassembled with the available molecular soup. When the original Jim died during a Klingon attack, I was desperate... and the idea came up again. Everyone on the ship was lost without you and when I proposed my insane scheme, no one... no one said a word against it, not even Spock. So, we short-circuited the transporter machine, made it think that it was in the middle of transporting you and in the next moment, there you were, chattering and gesticulating as if nothing had happened and you had just gotten back from your successful mission on Telus Dolesa the day before."
There was a long pause where Jim pondered what Bones had just told him. After registering the revelation of what the transporter truly did, Jim let out a bitter laugh, "You hypocrite."
Bones looked up at Jim sharply.
"If what you're saying is true, you're not the original either." Jim replied coolly. "None of us are, not Uhura, Spock, Chekov... not you! Hell, maybe you'll find the molecular pieces of the real original Jim Kirk on Delta Vega. But the Jim that you hold so dear, that you only hold as the true one is no more original than I am. What gives you the right to think of me as inferior to whoever is buried there?"
"…he died!" Bones shouted, growing increasingly agitated and daring Jim to say anything that would give him an excuse to throw a punch
"So what!” Jim shouted.
Bones answered with a fist, but Jim caught it easily and then had Bones pinned against the bench.
“So ... if I die, I'll be real too?" Jim shouted at him, shaking him slightly. “Is that what you want?!”
Jim let go of Bones and pulled out his usual phaser, turned off the stun setting, and handed it to his CMO, “End it. I’m an abomination. I’m not supposed to be here anyways. Come on, I’m just a copy. It wasn’t so hard to make me again this time, so it shouldn’t be too hard to kill me either.”
Bones stared at Jim horrified. “How dare you think I would ever…?”
“Do it! I’m not ‘him’, right? I’m just some impostor wearing his face!”
Bones dropped the phaser onto the gravel and hurriedly moved away from it. Jim mutely picked up the weapon and looked up at Bones.
“I won’t be your executioner.” Bones said hoarsely.
The two of them remained unmoving and hushed; the distant sound of the ocean was the only thing to interrupt the growing silence in between them. Eventually, Jim clutched the gun and bowed his head down.
"Tell me what to do, Bones. Should I just go back to the dust? Should I go on like nothing has happened until I go insane? Should I leave? Disappear into the crowd and hope we never meet again?" Jim whispered.
"I don't know," the older man shuddered, his eyes like glass, unable to see anything other than this tragic moment, "I don't know. I brought you back because I was so in love with you that I couldn't let go. I thought this was the right thing to do. I didn't think it would taint everything we were…”
Jim let out a disappointed sigh at the non-answer, but he supposed Bones was right, they were at an impasse. It would be nightfall soon -so either way- the decision would eventually have to be made. From there they could move on.
But in the meantime Jim would savor this moment, as painful as it was, because even if Bones were to eventually concede and if they were to return to the Enterprise, there was still the possibility that he would not be the Jim Kirk to show up on the other side.