A Study In Red(ding) - Amen
Title: Amen
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~1200
Summary: Where one is lifeless and the other is helpless.
Disclaimer: Well, of course I don't own the characters of Star Trek....or Otis Redding.
Related Stories: ** Masterpost**
Notes: Another Bones POV, it's weird how I keep settling for them, Jim's feels a lot easier. Today's second is inspired by 'Amen' and features a mild crisis that doesn't feel quite so mild to Bones. Unfortunately there isn't a youtube video for Otis' version of this song, which sucks, but here is an interpretation which gives you the gist of it for those interested. The fic didn't quite turn out the way that I had intended to start it and I don't know how I feel about that right now. But never mind :)
The barely noticeable hum of the Enterprise isn’t bringing Leonard the same comfort that it usually does. After all, what is the Enterprise without her bright-eyed Captain? He tosses and turns in their bed, which is pretty big when accommodating just one.
It’s been three hours since he left sickbay for a few fingers of bourbon and the chance to catch a good six hours of sleep. Not that there’s much promise of the latter.
Three hours since he left Jim’s bedside.
Spock had carried him back from the last away mission, where Jim had been kidnapped by the Xolkthians, a sentient race that Starfleet had ordered them to forge a peace treaty with. It had taken the crew five terrible hours to pinpoint his location and launch a rescue mission, with Spock leading the charge. Jim had been discovered in a cell, alone and unconscious.
They had made countless attempts to bring him around, including a mind-meld from his first officer, which Leonard had been initially unwilling to allow, but desperation had soon started to shoulder its way forward and he had relented. However, it was to no avail, Spock had reported no damage that he could find and that Jim was mentally present, but unable to reach a conscious state.
Leonard had taken his paperwork to Jim’s bedside when his shift ended, one hand holding Jim’s as he worked, doing his best to ignore Chapel’s sympathetic gaze. There was no need for sympathy, Jim was going to come back to them. He had to.
He had stayed for as long as he could, until his nurses had shooed him away at the change over from beta to gamma shift. They needed a CMO who was well rested and capable of doing his job efficiently.
Coming to their shared quarters to sleep was a mistake though. Perhaps it would have been better if he’d slept on the fold out cot in his office; the certainty that Jim was only in the next room would have soothed him a little bit.
As it is, there doesn’t seem to be any hope of a decent rest heading his way any time soon, so he gives up, slowly throws on some casual clothing and heads back to Jim’s bedside.
The gamma staff greet him with nods and Nurse Temple brings hims a hot drink just after he sits down. He is incredibly grateful and tells her so, though she simply brushes it off with a small smile and goes back to work.
Jim looks exactly the same as he did when Leonard left, he notes, somewhat stupidly.
He shifts his chair as close to the bio-bed as he can get it, lifts the hand that he was holding earlier and bows his head into it, cradling his cheek against Jim’s warm but lifeless palm.
They had run every available test and all had come back with nothing to report. Jim was fine, he just wasn’t waking up.
Spock’s best suggestion was that the aliens had attempted to sedate the Captain using a method (either technological or telepathic) that was designed for their species, he had theorised that Jim’s body had reacted badly, thus placing him in an unresponsive state.
It made sense, as far as theories go, and Uhura had contacted the Xolkthians, demanding information and a possible cure, to which they had responded, eventually admitting to their mistake but explaining that it should be temporary and that the best thing to do would be to simply wait until Jim showed signs of awareness.
Not something that Leonard has been finding easy at all.
With nothing for him to fix, he feels helpless and frustrated, and what scares him the most is the knowledge that this is more than likely to happen again in the future. The difference being that next time Jim may not come back at all. If he does from this, that is.
No.
When he does.
Leonard sighs loudly, drops his head onto the bed next to Jim’s hip moving Jim’s hand to the back of his neck, where it rests, a gentle weight.
He had always wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor, but it was when David had fallen ill with pyrrhoneuritis that Leonard truly realised that he was made for the profession. It was terminal, so he had spent a lot of time with his father at the hospital where he had taken the opportunity to observe the other doctors at work and get to know them a little when they came in for check ups.
His father’s primary physician, Doctor Barrows had shown great reluctance to settle back on the idea that there was nothing that could be done about the disease, continually running tests and researching previous cases in his spare time. Leonard had frantically been doing the same, as though he could turn up some hidden key that countless professionals had been unable to find, and together they had entered a race against time that they ultimately lost. But Leonard had seen something of himself in Barrows; the urge to continue helping when others had given up, the inability to let someone suffer when it was in his power to do something about it, even if he didn’t know what exactly he could do.
He had vowed, the night that his father had finally let go of his pain and passed on, a mere third of the strong man that he had once been, that he would study medicine and save as many others as he could, in place of David.
Just waiting for Jim felt a lot like giving up, like he wasn’t working hard enough. There had to be something that he could do to speed up the process. He had gone so far as to demand that they kidnap a Xolkthian in return and force them to find some way to reverse the effect.
Spock had dismissed him from the Officers’ meeting after that outburst. Which was probably justified, but Leonard still felt very bitter about the whole ordeal.
He had a feeling that Spock was a small step away from relieving him of his duties, and he was letting his emotions affect his ability to make rational decisions. So he had stepped down, returning to Sickbay quietly and trying to distract himself with other patients.
.
.
Fingers are scratching lightly at the nape of his neck and he stirs, confused and dopey.
“What happened? How did the peace treaty go?”
Jim’s soft, sleepy voice is like an electric current, causing him to jolt upright and come face to face with his awake Captain.
“Jim.”
He doesn’t care about answering Jim’s questions, none of that seems important at this very moment in time. Instead he clambers onto the bio-bed and presses his lips insistently to Jim’s.
The bio-bed begins wailing in alarm and a nurse comes running, overrides the sensors and leaves without saying a word. Not that he really notices.
Jim came back to him.
It seems ridiculous that, in the face of all of the assurances that Jim would come around, it will just take time, he was still so scared. But every moment that those blue eyes stayed closed added to Leonard’s breathless uncertainty.
“Why does it always have to be you?” He grumbles into Jim’s cheek, trying not to nuzzle him but kind of failing.
Jim’s muscles shift up into a grin and he rubs his fingers into Leonard’s nape again. “Because I’m the Captain, Bones.”