Ghosts in Attics III, Chapter 4
TITLE: Ghosts in Attics III, Chapter 4
FANDOM: Star Trek TOS
CHARACTERS/PAIRING: Spock/McCoy, Mirror!Spock/Mirror!Kirk/McCoy
TABLE: # 8 - Miscellaneous B
PROMPT: 03. Answers
RATING: NC-17
WORD COUNT: 6142
WARNINGS: Rape, mentions of torture, self-harm
SUMMARY: Taking McCoy back from the mirror universe was the first step. Kirk, Spock and the others find out that it was also the easiest step.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. I'm writing for fun, not for profit.
NOTE: Unbetaed. If you find mistakes (which I’m sure you will), feel free to point them out to me.
The day had started so well, only to descent into utter shit in a matter of minutes.
Doctor M’Benga had started his shift in sickbay and found his most precious and fragile patient deeply asleep in his bed. He had gone through his morning routine, dealt with the morning rush, and found McCoy still sleeping afterwards. The fever that had plagued him a day before had broken and all his vital signs were stable. He did not appear to be in any pain for once, and most important of all, his sleep was peaceful, letting him get some actual rest for once. Slowly, gradually, he was getting better.
Physically, at least.
M’Benga let him sleep and returned to his office for some paperwork. Half an hour later an ensign came in to have this knee treated for an injury he inflicted upon himself by carelessly climbing trees for no purpose during the last landing mission. When he checked on McCoy again, he found him awake and sitting on his bed, his legs dangling over the edge. He flinched when the door opened but relaxed when he recognized the acting CMO.
“Where do you think you’re going?” M’Benga asked, keeping his voice gentle and soft. McCoy was supposed to call if he needed anything and stay in bed unless someone was around to help him, but he wasn’t really surprised that Leonard ignored his orders. That he hadn’t escaped from his room yet could only be contributed to his weakness.
“I need some movement,” McCoy explained. “Otherwise I’ll go crazy.” His voice sounded strangely strained, making M’Benga fear the last statement might be true. Still, Leonard’s eyes were clear as they looked at him, and M’Benga refrained from stopping him as he slid from the bed, nor did he move to support him as he swayed, seeing that Leonard was able to regain balance on his own.
“How long have you been awake?” he asked, moving closer slowly. Usually someone was always with McCoy, but he had been calmer the last couple of days, so they dared to leave him alone occasionally, when he was asleep, relying on the technical equipment to alert them of any problems.
They still left the door open all the time and had removed everything from his room he could use to hurt himself. McCoy, of course, had noticed that but never commented on it. Instead of complaining about being treated as if he could break any moment, he didn’t seem to care, and that worried M’Benga a lot.
“Don’t know. An hour?” McCoy took a few steps towards the door and M’Benga followed him warily.
“You haven’t told me where you’re going yet.”
“Just out of this room. It’s the only walls I have seen in days.” McCoy’s steps were slightly unsteady, but he didn’t seem about to fall over so the doctor let him go on. “There’s no one here anyway. I won’t be in the way.”
M’Benga’s heart broke a little for him at the off hand comment. Leonard McCoy shouldn’t feel ‘in the way’ in his own sickbay. “I have reports to finish. I can’t stay with you.”
“Good. I don’t need a babysitter.” There was a hint of irritation in his voice that sounded a little like the old McCoy and put M’Benga’s mind at rest better than anything else could have done.
“I’ll leave the door open, and you promise not to overdo it.”
“I won’t take any walks around the ship,” McCoy promised. “Not in my pyjamas.”
“Actually, they’re the Fleet’s pyjamas,” M’Benga pointed out, earning a soft snort in reply.
“I don’t see you wearing them. But if you want to trade…”
“Thanks, I’m good.” Shaking his head, the doctor watched for a moment as his patient wandered down the room. His steps were lacking the strength and easy grace he remembered, and the ‘Fleet-owned pyjamas hung off a frame that would have fit into them twice. He also wondered who had decided on a dark colour for the clothes to make someone who was pale look even paler.
But Leonard was up and walking, and that was something. The exercise would probably do him good, psychologically, even if M’Benga didn’t give him more than ten minutes before he would run out of strength. He could only hope his friend had the sense to get back to bed before that.
Well. Probably not.
Reluctant to leave him alone yet acknowledging that Leonard needed a little space, M’Benga returned to his office and his reports, fighting the urge to get up and check on his friend every two minutes. Distracted as he was, it actually took him longer than usual to get his work done. When the ten minutes he had given McCoy were over, he took a break and went to the main room, to check if his patient needed to get dragged back yet.
The room was empty.
“Leonard?” M’Benga called, alarmed. There was no reply. Cursing himself for letting the man out of his sight, M’Benga hurried down to the exit - and noticed that the door to McCoy’s office was open.
Okay, that was actually understandable. Leonard probably wanted to seek some privacy where there was no risk of any nurse or patient unexpectedly running into him. M’Benga only hoped his dear friend had been able to refrain from turning on his computer and doing some catching up with their work. He would get back to work when his doctors allowed it and not a minute sooner.
Entering the room was strange. For nearly a year the door had always been closed and no one had come in here unless they absolutely had to. Only the captain had sometimes come, but even he had never touched anything, as if feeling like he was violating a crypt.
Strangely enough, it still felt that way now.
“Le-“ M’Benga stopped himself, thinking at first this room was empty too. Only after a second he spotted Leonard behind the desk, leaning against it while sitting on the floor. He had probably run out of strength right there, or simply decided to take a break. Scolding himself for not having forced him to return to be before he had exhausted all of his meagre strength, M’Benga walked around the desk to check him over and assist him back to his room.
And stopped dead. For about one second.
Then he rushed over and snatched the laser scalpel from Leonard’s hands. He had been right in one point: Leonard was indeed exhausted - too exhausted to notice him enter the room. Or he had simply been too absorbed in his task of slicing his own arm to notice his presence.
He was too surprised to offer any resistance when M’Benga took the tool from him. Instead he flinched from the sudden contact and nearly fell. Large eyes stared up at the doctor, full of shame and guilt and fear, and unshed tears.
“What the hell are you doing?” M’Benga yelled. He reached for Leonard’s injured arm but this time the man did resist and M’Benga retreated for the moment, knowing he wouldn’t help by frightening him even more. Due to the nature of the scalpel, the wounds weren’t bleeding, but they had to hurt a great deal. Leonard was pale and trembling in pain, but managed to get to his feet, immediately taking a few steps away until his back pressed against the wall.
For a moment the doctor thought he was lost in his memories again, but the panic that accompanied those moments didn’t come. Instead Leonard just whispered, “Leave me alone, please.”
He rubbed his now empty hand over his injured arm and then dug his fingers into the wounds, and that did it for M’Benga. With three long strides he reached his friend and took hold of his arms. McCoy was so weak and his wrists so thin, M’Benga could pin both of them against the wall with one hand while he fumbled for a hypo with the other.
Leonard fought him, but still he did not panic at the rough contact when usually a hard stare was enough to send him over the edge. “No,” he said, pleaded. “Don’t. Please, don’t take it from me! I need to… I can…”
M’Benga found the hypo, but he also realised that he might actually get some explanations out of the other man if he gave him a chance to speak. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to let you go now, as long as you promise not to harm yourself anymore. The moment your hand comes even close to those wounds you’ll be so full of sedatives you won’t move for a week. Understood?”
For a moment, it seemed as if his patient hadn’t even heard him, but then he nodded weakly. M’Benga let go of his wrists but kept a hand on his arm and gently pulled him out of the office. Leonard followed willingly - or rather, as if he had no will at all. He moved slowly and M’Benga had to support him more and more, but he never resisted, sat down on one of the beds in the main room when the doctor told him to and let him examine the wounds on his arm without protest.
There were five deep cuts, clean but nasty. One of them was deep enough to damage the bone. M’Benga had seen far worse wounds since first becoming a doctor, but the thought of his friend doing this to himself made him feel sick.
The lowest cut was right above the bandage still hiding the wounds on Leonard’s wrists. Even though the other Spock had obviously known what he was doing when he pierced them, the damage was too extensive to be healed by a simple treatment with a dermal regenerator. M’Benga feared that surgery would be necessary eventually, but he agreed with Sanchez that it would be best if they waited until McCoy was stronger.
He had a lot of medical procedures still waiting for him. First of all they needed to replace the organs he had lost in the other universe. Replacements were being cloned this moment, but it would be another few days before they were ready.
They were feeding McCoy as many painkillers as they dared, still his hands had to hurt, especially if he moved them too much, and were nearly useless. M’Benga would admire him for being able to even handle the tool if he were not so angry at both McCoy and himself.
“What did you do that for?” he asked, keeping his voice soft. Leonard didn’t answer. He was white as a sheet by now, his face covered in sweat. His breathing was increasingly harsh. M’Benga had to give him something, else he would pass out. But when he prepared the hypo, Leonard’s skeletal fingers closed around his arm.
“Don’t,” he pleaded.
“It’s just something for the pain.”
“Don’t,” Leonard repeated. “Please. Don’t take it away.”
“The pain? You want to be in pain?”
Leonard nodded. The simple movement looked like it was demanding all his strength. “I need… need…” His voice died in a strangled sound. After a few deep breaths, he tried again. “It helps me to focus,” he managed to say. “Keeps my mind off… things…”
Things. M’Benga understood; still he shook his head. “Not like this, Len. I’m sorry.” He was a doctor before anything else. If someone was suffering, he had to help. Even if he had a vague idea that in this case he wasn’t doing his friend a favour as he pressed the hypo against his neck.
Leonard cried out and slumped forward. His breaths were hard and strangled, almost like sobs. M’Benga grabbed his shaking shoulders, alarmed, when he started to retch, though nothing came up. This wasn’t a normal reaction. Sweat was running down Leonard’s body and drenching his clothes. With weak, uncoordinated movements he tried to push the doctor away.
When he calmed down, less than a minute had passed. It seemed much longer. He took a deep, shuddering breath and then fell silent. For a moment, M’Benga was convinced he had passed out, but he remained upright, even when the doctor removed his supporting hands, and his eyes were open, staring at nothing.
When M’Benga finished treating the cuts on his arm, he noticed that Leonard’s hands were balled to fists and shaking. He didn’t react to any questions.
M’Benga was more than a little worried. He should never have let Leonard get out of bed, should never have let him out of his sight, and he goddamn should have kept him from further harm.
And here he had been thinking his friend was finally getting better. The thought struck him that perhaps Leonard had been so calm and stable the past few days because he had been hurting himself all the time and they had not noticed.
But if it really helped… if causing himself pain really kept Leonard from being pulled back into the hell he came from, then M’Benga didn’t know what they should do. He understood that even the memory of what McCoy had been through was a thousand times worse than any physical pain, but there had to be a better way than letting him deliberately injure himself.
As easily as Leonard’s memories, always ready to swallow him up, were triggered, they hadn’t even begun to deal with his mental condition by any kind of psychological therapy. M’Benga wasn’t even sure if there was any point to it. They might be able to help him get over the trauma, but in the end he knew that the damage done by a telepath couldn’t be undone without one.
Until now they had all assumed that Leonard’s suicidal tendencies were directly related to the flashbacks he suffered, or even to the lingering influence of Spock’s goddamn other self. But today Leonard had been clear and awake and here, and mutilated his own arm like someone else would go about buttering a toast.
“I’m fine,” Leonard suddenly said. His voice was no longer shaking. Except from being a little hoarse, he sounded perfectly normal. M’Benga looked into his face, alarmed by the sudden change in his behaviour, but McCoy was gazing right though him. When M’Benga reached for his arm again to apply a bandage that would protect it until the wounds were fully healed in a day, Leonard pushed him aside with more strength than he should have. Without another word he got off the bed, took two steps forward and collapsed without a sound. M’Benga, having almost expected this to happen, was able to catch him before he hit the floor.
Despite the care he had been receiving since his return weeks ago, the lightness of McCoy’s body was still shocking when M’Benga lifted him into his arms to carry him back to his room. “Don’t worry,” he muttered with bitter humour. “At this rate, we’ll have you up to a hundred pounds in no time at all.”
Once Leonard was taken care of, the doctor called Chris Chapel back from her break. After a second of contemplation, he also called Spock and asked him to come to his office as soon as he had a moment to spare.
-
McCoy opened his eyes to see Spock enter the room. The Vulcan stopped in the door, stared at him, and McCoy stared back. Stared at the cold, contemplating eyes, the golden sash around his waist, the neatly trimmed beard. He couldn’t move.
He couldn’t move.
Spock took a step into the room, another one, and still McCoy couldn’t move. His throat was closed. He was suffocating, wished it would happed quicker, that he would die before Spock could reach him.
He was paralyzed, couldn’t even close his eyes. Only his heart was pounding wildly in his chest. Then Spock was there, close enough for McCoy to hear his breath, and the Vulcan’s hot fingers touched his face and burned into his mind, and McCoy screamed.
He blinked, and Spock was gone. Instead, there was a woman standing beside him, looming over him. McCoy tried to move away, and unexpectedly he could move. The woman followed his movements, stepped closer when McCoy got off the bed. He didn’t know her. He’d seen her before but her face meant nothing to him. McCoy backed away, even as she started to talk to him in a soothing voice. Kirk was talking to him like that sometimes. He’d be a fool to trust her.
“Calm down,” she said. “No one will hurt you. You’ll feel better soon.” In her hand she was holding a hypo. McCoy didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t good. Nothing he had been injected with had ever been good.
Spock was still nearby. He wasn’t visible, but he was always there. McCoy could feel him.
“Hold him,” the woman said, and for a moment McCoy was confused, didn’t know who she was talking to. Then strong arms closed around his body from behind, and she neared with her poison while he struggled desperately to get away.
The hold wasn’t too strong, not to be compared with Spock’s crushing grip around his arms or Kirk’s weight pressing down on him. In his panic, a few rational thoughts still found their way into McCoy’s mind. He knew how to get out of a hold this careless. He could guess from the way he pressed against him the height of the man standing behind him, knew where to aim his kicks so they would hurt.
The man yelped and loosened his grip even further as McCoy hit his knee in a way that was painful and damaging. He had no time for regret or shame. It could be fixed. What these people would do to McCoy if he let them could not.
Before any of them could react he was out of the door and running through the main room, pushing aside a startled nurse. Only seconds later he was running down the corridor, not feeling the pain in his body, or the exhaustion; adrenalin was pushing him forward, and he knew that he had to run faster, because they were right behind him and so was Spock.
He knew this ship, had spend years on one just like this, and knew that short of throwing himself down a deactivated turbo-shaft there was no way for him to escape them with so little of a head start.
Luck was not with him: the first turbo shaft he came across was fully functional. The cabin was present, waiting for the next user, and McCoy ran inside, the doors closing just before the woman could reach him. She was followed by a limping man in the uniform of an orderly. McCoy knew the man’s name, but he did not know who he was, in this world. He only knew that he shouldn’t run with the damage McCoy had done to his leg.
They called his name, and cursed when the door closed.
This would buy him at least a little time. He couldn’t outrun them, not here, and he couldn’t hide in a ship this full of people, but perhaps he could find a weapon; anything to defend himself with.
He sent the lift to engineering, judging his chances best in that place. Tools would be found there.
They were, but most of them were in the hands of engineers and their assistants that filled this section. The doctor left the lift anyway, and could no longer ignore the trembling of his legs or his shortness of breath.
Everyone stopped to stare at him when he ran through the room, but no one made a move to stop him. He passed another door and suddenly spotted Montgomery Scott standing on the other end of then room, in front of a terminal. The chief engineer looked up in surprise when he entered, walking a few steps towards McCoy and caught him when he stumbled into his arms.
“Scotty,” McCoy gasped, not quite sure where the nickname came from. “You’ve got to help me.” Scott was the only one who might. McCoy knew better than to rely on him - once the engineer’s own interests were threatened, he would betray him in a heartbeat, but if there was nothing else at stake, McCoy knew he could count on his assistance. In this society, Scott was the closets thing to a friend he could ever have.
And what he was carrying with him was all the doctor could wish for. The knife was missing from his belt (Risky!) and his phaser nowhere to be found, but the tools he carried with him all the time would suffice. McCoy pushed the engineer away from him even as Scott asked him what was wrong, and snatched the cutter from his belt at the same time.
He hoped Scotty wouldn’t get in trouble because of this. Spock was unlikely to be amused.
When he heard the voices calling his name behind him, he knew he was out of time, and there was nowhere else to run. This room was a dead end. But he had everything he needed.
Almost against his will, he turned to face them.
-
McCoy was white as paper and clearly about to fall over, but Doctor Burke saw nothing but desperate determination in his wide eyes as he turned to them, a harmless looking tool clasped in his hands.
Commander Scott stood behind him, looking confused, worried, and increasingly alarmed as he saw the doctor run towards them. His attention returned to McCoy just in time to see him raise the tool to his throat, and now Burke could see that it wasn’t harmless at all. A small blade had emerged from it, formerly hidden inside for the safety of the one carrying it on their belt and without doubt sharp enough to effortlessly cut through hard plastic or even thin metal. In any case, it would be sharp enough for human skin.
Burke’s yelled warning wasn’t necessary. Scott had already reacted; wrapping his arms about McCoy from behind, he fought to get the cutter out of his hands. Thanks to him, McCoy missed his carotid artery, but he still managed to inflict an injury to his throat before Scott wrenched the blade away and wrestled him to the ground. The latter didn’t take a lot of effort.
Altogether it took mere seconds, then it was over. By the time Burke arrived, McCoy was lying on the ground and Scott was pressing his hands to the wound in his throat. Burke only hoped he wouldn’t accidentally strangle him in his attempt to stop the bleeding.
There was a lot of blood, but not as much as there would have been without the engineer’s interference. McCoy wasn’t moving anymore, but Burke was confident that he was only unconscious, and that this was to blame on the stress and exertion of running from her rather than the blood loss. She fumbled for her own tools and chased Scott away to repair as much of the damage as she could on the spot. The cut McCoy had inflicted upon himself was short, but deep. He had missed the carotid artery by millimetres and damaged the windpipe. Burke managed to end any danger to his life in seconds.
This should not have happened. She would have to talk to M’Benga. If the doctor had finally seen reason and restrained McCoy, he would never have had a chance to run off. Of course, M’Benga would argue that it also wouldn’t have happened if she had been cautious enough, especially when it was obvious that McCoy was lost in his own world again - and of course, he would be right, too.
When Erricson limped into the room, Burke’s work was done. Someone had had the sense of calling for a gurney, so they could get McCoy back to sickbay and finish patching him up. Apparently someone - most likely Commander Scott - had also called the captain to inform him of what was going on. Burke hoped to be gone from here by the time any of the commando crew arrived.
“What are you doing here?” she snapped at the orderly, when he finally reached them. She hadn’t even noticed him running after her, most likely because running was hardly the appropriate word in his case. “Do you know how much damage you do to your leg by this? Sit down!” She had one of the engineers call for another gurney so Erricson wouldn’t have to limp all the way back and gave the man a hypo for the pain.
Erricson didn’t even seem to notice. His attention was on McCoy. Like everyone else she was working with, the not-that-young orderly seemed to hero-worship the man. He seemed genuinely upset about what had happened.
So did Scott. Burke needn’t have worried about being reprimanded by Kirk, because the engineer gave both her and Erricson an enraged speech about properly taking care of their patient, even before anyone else could show up. Burke took it with as good grace as she could muster.
-
When M’Benga arrived in sickbay, Burke had tied McCoy to the bed with softly padded restraints around his wrists and ankles, and no protest on his part could convince her to take them off. He outranked her so in the end it remained his decision, but for the moment he gave in. Recent events proved that she was right about this.
Convincing Captain Kirk wasn’t quite as easy. Half an hour later, Kirk was still fuming, pacing up and down the examination room, while M’Benga stood in McCoy’s room, waiting with apprehension for Spock to finish his work.
Within twenty-four hours, he had allowed Leonard to cut his arm and Burke had allowed him to cut his throat. Of the three residing doctors, only Sanchez hadn’t messed things up yet - probably because so far he didn’t have a chance.
Kirk was understandably pissed at them. What Spock was thinking, M’Benga couldn’t tell. The Vulcan had said very little since coming to sickbay. For minutes already he was deep in a mind meld with McCoy, and there was no way of telling how much longer he would be.
Watching him silently, M’Benga couldn’t help but feel nervous. Spock had informed him about everything going on in McCoy’s mind, as far as the Vulcan had been able to express it. Besides him, probably only Kirk knew this much.
What was going on between Spock and McCoy this moment, M’Benga couldn’t even guess. Spock stood perfectly still, his face perfectly blank, but when M’Benga looked closely, he saw the fine layer of sweat on his face, noticed how pale he was. Something wasn’t well.
But then, nothing had been even remotely well with Leonard for a long time. Keeping a close eye on both of them, M’Benga kept waiting. If anything went wrong, it was up to him to separate them.
-
Entering Leonard’s mind was harder than before. There were new barriers, new defences, but they did not come from his friend but from an outside force. Spock knew who this was, and the other Spock knew he was here now, their minds occupying the same space even while their bodies were universes apart.
Leonard did not want either of them here but was helpless to defend himself against the onslaught. Spock did his best to shield his friend from the influence of the other’s mind, but his mirror self had the advantage of an established bond allowing him entrance into parts of the human’s mind Spock would not even think of invading.
His attempts to push the other out remained futile. The bond protected the invader and remained settled in Leonard’s mind like a cancer. Still Spock was able to observe, keeping up his own shields so the impressions would not overwhelm him as they had the first time. He began to understand the hell his friend was trapped in, and what made him behave as he did. From the view of an unconcerned observer, he understood better than Leonard what was going on, and as a telepath he could see exactly what the other Spock had done and was still doing.
Had he killed his mirror self when they met, he would have spared Leonard much suffering. Spock knew now that making his choice based on morals had not been the right decision. He regretted letting the other live and let him know it.
The other let him know how much this amused him. And suddenly he opened himself and let Spock know so much more. Suddenly Spock was sitting on his bed, his naked legs parted, his penis shoved deep down his human’s throat and his hand locked behind the human’s head to keep him from pulling away as instinct fought against his need to obey Spock’s wishes. Spock received pleasure from the tightness and the friction as McCoy’s windpipe constricted around him in a vain struggle for air, as well as from the creature’s desperate need for oxygen and the pain of being roughly penetrated by Captain Kirk, who shoved McCoy against Spock’s body with every rough trust -
Spock withdrew from Leonard’s mind as if he had been burned. His fingers tore from the human’s face and he stumbled back, never hearing M’Benga call his name in alarm. The contact to the other Spock’s mind had lasted barely a second, but it had been enough to plant the information in his mind and there it remained, like a memory of his own. He remembered the scene as if he had participated in it himself, all thoughts and emotion of the other one not detached like a strangers but becoming his own.
He remembered taking pleasure in Leonard’s pain, the humiliation he felt at being trapped between them like that and unable to fight back, his resigned desperation. He had found satisfaction in Leonard’s emotional suffering as well as the physical.
Spock felt nauseated. For a moment he feared he would lose the contents of his stomach.
But now he understood everything.
“I must speak with the captain,” Spock said with effort. He straightened and with surprise took notice of the fact that M’Benga was holding him, and that without the doctor’s support he would have fallen over. Regaining his balance, he took a step aside. “And with you. We will need a private room.”
-
Spock refused to remain in McCoy’s room, so they agreed to move to M’Benga’s office. The doctor waited a moment before following the Vulcan scientist out of the room. During the meld, McCoy had buckled in his restraints without waking up, and even now he seemed distressed. His readings indicated that he would remain unconscious for at least another hour, but M’Benga still didn’t want to leave him unobserved, so he called Christine. The head nurse agreed to stay with their friend without questions.
Then the office door closed behind him and Spock explained how even if they kept anyone from using them to cross between universes, they couldn’t keep those on the other side to use elements like the Rabbeas stones to form some sort of connection. It was irrelevant except for the still existing bond between that other Spock and McCoy - apparently right now the bearded Vulcan had strengthened the connection, causing Leonard’s most recent breakdown. M’Benga pressed his lips together and listened in silence. Spock had told him he was unable to break the bond, and if that was true, there was no relief for their friend. The damn bastard could torture him like this whenever he felt like it, and Leonard would never recover.
Spock also had an explanation to offer for Leonard’s newly strengthened desire to hurt himself: “The other one is receiving metal stimulus from any kind of suffering his bonded partner experiences. He literally takes pleasure from McCoy’s pain.”
“So he forces Bones to injure himself?” Kirk asked, clearly appalled, but very interested.
“Not as such. Hurting himself pleases that Spock, which takes some pressure off the doctor’s mind. He is doing it because it brings him relief, but also independent of my counterpart because the pain distracts him and helps him to focus on the present.”
“Taking away the bond won’t stop him then,” M’Benga observed.
“No, but it will help and allow progress. There is, however, a third reason.”
“And that would be?” Kirk asked impatiently when Spock didn’t continue right away.
Spock still hesitated. He was no longer as pale as he had been right after the meld, yet he did not look well, and for a moment seemed to consider not saying anything further.
“It seems”, he finally began, stopped again, and finally continued, “The other Spock has manipulated McCoy’s mind such that he is convinced he deserves to suffer. He has therefore set his mind on causing himself as much pain as he can.”
“That is ridiculous,” Kirk declared passionately. “Why would he believe something like that?”
“Because the other forces him to,” Spock explained calmly. “It is my impression that this wasn’t even very hard to accomplish, as McCoy is feeling a lot of resentment for himself. The point is,” he added quickly before anyone could speak, “that my counterpart still has great influence on him, and will remain in control as long as the bond remains intact.”
M’benga felt slightly sick. He wasn’t sure he understood what Spock had tried to tell them, but he did know that there was no recovery for Leonard under these circumstances. No future.
“You said you couldn’t break the bond,” he reminded the Vulcan with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
“That is correct.” Spock nodded, seeming a lot more composed that a minute before. “I could, however, overwrite it, thus erasing the other one’s influence on the doctor.”
“What?” Kirk straightened; for a moment M’Benga even thought he would jump at his first officer. “Why the hell didn’t you say that before? You could have spared him this!”
“I did not mention it because I do no consider it a desirable course of action,” Spock answered calmly, unimpressed by the captain’s fury. “Now it seems there is no way around it as the alternative is even worse.”
“How could you think anything would be worse than what Bones is already going through?” Kirk asked, still disbelieving and angry. “You should at least have mentioned the possibility!”
“What exactly would happen if you did that?” M’Benga asked. “Please explain what we’re discussing here.” He knew a bit about Vulcan mind arts, and he knew Spock. If the Vulcan had not mentioned this before, there had to be a reason.
“As I mentioned, the bond cannot be removed. It is rooted deep in McCoy’s conscious - taking it out, even carefully, would destroy his mind.”
M’Benga knew this much. “But you can overwrite it…?”
“I might be able to. Only me,” Spock said slowly. “Every person has a certain telepathic signature. I can only do this because mine and that of my counterpart are exactly the same. I would thereby transfer the bond from him to me.”
“But the bond, in its nature, would remain the same?” Kirk asked. He seemed thoughtful now, rather than angry, began to understand.
“Yes.” Spock nodded solemnly. “I cannot change that. If I do this and succeed, I will be able to exercise the same control over McCoy as my counterpart is now.”
“But you will not do it,” M’Benga said.
“Of course not. But I would be able to if I so wished, and Leonard will know it.”
M’Benga nodded slowly, understanding Spock’s dilemma. The Vulcan looked at Kirk. “I assume you now see why I would rather not do this.”
“No, I don’t.” Kirk’s voice was hard. “You would never make use of that bond, yet you rather left him to someone who does and is constantly out to hurt him. I absolutely don’t get that.”
“McCoy will,” Spock prophesised. “In fact, I believe were he able to choose he would ask me not to do it.”
“I don’t care. We will not leave him at the mercy of that psychopath. I order you to do it.”
“You cannot order me on this matter,” Spock said mildly. “But by now I have to agree with you. Since the other Spock will not give up his hold on McCoy, I see no alternative to doing it.”
“Are you absolutely sure?” M’Benga couldn’t help but ask. “If you do it, there’ll be no way back. You’ll be stuck with it for the rest of his life.”
“It is acceptable,” Spock said. And so it was decided.
M’Benga could only hope that Spock knew what he was getting into.
Februart 19, 2010
Chapter 5
FANDOM: Star Trek TOS
CHARACTERS/PAIRING: Spock/McCoy, Mirror!Spock/Mirror!Kirk/McCoy
TABLE: # 8 - Miscellaneous B
PROMPT: 03. Answers
RATING: NC-17
WORD COUNT: 6142
WARNINGS: Rape, mentions of torture, self-harm
SUMMARY: Taking McCoy back from the mirror universe was the first step. Kirk, Spock and the others find out that it was also the easiest step.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. I'm writing for fun, not for profit.
NOTE: Unbetaed. If you find mistakes (which I’m sure you will), feel free to point them out to me.
The day had started so well, only to descent into utter shit in a matter of minutes.
Doctor M’Benga had started his shift in sickbay and found his most precious and fragile patient deeply asleep in his bed. He had gone through his morning routine, dealt with the morning rush, and found McCoy still sleeping afterwards. The fever that had plagued him a day before had broken and all his vital signs were stable. He did not appear to be in any pain for once, and most important of all, his sleep was peaceful, letting him get some actual rest for once. Slowly, gradually, he was getting better.
Physically, at least.
M’Benga let him sleep and returned to his office for some paperwork. Half an hour later an ensign came in to have this knee treated for an injury he inflicted upon himself by carelessly climbing trees for no purpose during the last landing mission. When he checked on McCoy again, he found him awake and sitting on his bed, his legs dangling over the edge. He flinched when the door opened but relaxed when he recognized the acting CMO.
“Where do you think you’re going?” M’Benga asked, keeping his voice gentle and soft. McCoy was supposed to call if he needed anything and stay in bed unless someone was around to help him, but he wasn’t really surprised that Leonard ignored his orders. That he hadn’t escaped from his room yet could only be contributed to his weakness.
“I need some movement,” McCoy explained. “Otherwise I’ll go crazy.” His voice sounded strangely strained, making M’Benga fear the last statement might be true. Still, Leonard’s eyes were clear as they looked at him, and M’Benga refrained from stopping him as he slid from the bed, nor did he move to support him as he swayed, seeing that Leonard was able to regain balance on his own.
“How long have you been awake?” he asked, moving closer slowly. Usually someone was always with McCoy, but he had been calmer the last couple of days, so they dared to leave him alone occasionally, when he was asleep, relying on the technical equipment to alert them of any problems.
They still left the door open all the time and had removed everything from his room he could use to hurt himself. McCoy, of course, had noticed that but never commented on it. Instead of complaining about being treated as if he could break any moment, he didn’t seem to care, and that worried M’Benga a lot.
“Don’t know. An hour?” McCoy took a few steps towards the door and M’Benga followed him warily.
“You haven’t told me where you’re going yet.”
“Just out of this room. It’s the only walls I have seen in days.” McCoy’s steps were slightly unsteady, but he didn’t seem about to fall over so the doctor let him go on. “There’s no one here anyway. I won’t be in the way.”
M’Benga’s heart broke a little for him at the off hand comment. Leonard McCoy shouldn’t feel ‘in the way’ in his own sickbay. “I have reports to finish. I can’t stay with you.”
“Good. I don’t need a babysitter.” There was a hint of irritation in his voice that sounded a little like the old McCoy and put M’Benga’s mind at rest better than anything else could have done.
“I’ll leave the door open, and you promise not to overdo it.”
“I won’t take any walks around the ship,” McCoy promised. “Not in my pyjamas.”
“Actually, they’re the Fleet’s pyjamas,” M’Benga pointed out, earning a soft snort in reply.
“I don’t see you wearing them. But if you want to trade…”
“Thanks, I’m good.” Shaking his head, the doctor watched for a moment as his patient wandered down the room. His steps were lacking the strength and easy grace he remembered, and the ‘Fleet-owned pyjamas hung off a frame that would have fit into them twice. He also wondered who had decided on a dark colour for the clothes to make someone who was pale look even paler.
But Leonard was up and walking, and that was something. The exercise would probably do him good, psychologically, even if M’Benga didn’t give him more than ten minutes before he would run out of strength. He could only hope his friend had the sense to get back to bed before that.
Well. Probably not.
Reluctant to leave him alone yet acknowledging that Leonard needed a little space, M’Benga returned to his office and his reports, fighting the urge to get up and check on his friend every two minutes. Distracted as he was, it actually took him longer than usual to get his work done. When the ten minutes he had given McCoy were over, he took a break and went to the main room, to check if his patient needed to get dragged back yet.
The room was empty.
“Leonard?” M’Benga called, alarmed. There was no reply. Cursing himself for letting the man out of his sight, M’Benga hurried down to the exit - and noticed that the door to McCoy’s office was open.
Okay, that was actually understandable. Leonard probably wanted to seek some privacy where there was no risk of any nurse or patient unexpectedly running into him. M’Benga only hoped his dear friend had been able to refrain from turning on his computer and doing some catching up with their work. He would get back to work when his doctors allowed it and not a minute sooner.
Entering the room was strange. For nearly a year the door had always been closed and no one had come in here unless they absolutely had to. Only the captain had sometimes come, but even he had never touched anything, as if feeling like he was violating a crypt.
Strangely enough, it still felt that way now.
“Le-“ M’Benga stopped himself, thinking at first this room was empty too. Only after a second he spotted Leonard behind the desk, leaning against it while sitting on the floor. He had probably run out of strength right there, or simply decided to take a break. Scolding himself for not having forced him to return to be before he had exhausted all of his meagre strength, M’Benga walked around the desk to check him over and assist him back to his room.
And stopped dead. For about one second.
Then he rushed over and snatched the laser scalpel from Leonard’s hands. He had been right in one point: Leonard was indeed exhausted - too exhausted to notice him enter the room. Or he had simply been too absorbed in his task of slicing his own arm to notice his presence.
He was too surprised to offer any resistance when M’Benga took the tool from him. Instead he flinched from the sudden contact and nearly fell. Large eyes stared up at the doctor, full of shame and guilt and fear, and unshed tears.
“What the hell are you doing?” M’Benga yelled. He reached for Leonard’s injured arm but this time the man did resist and M’Benga retreated for the moment, knowing he wouldn’t help by frightening him even more. Due to the nature of the scalpel, the wounds weren’t bleeding, but they had to hurt a great deal. Leonard was pale and trembling in pain, but managed to get to his feet, immediately taking a few steps away until his back pressed against the wall.
For a moment the doctor thought he was lost in his memories again, but the panic that accompanied those moments didn’t come. Instead Leonard just whispered, “Leave me alone, please.”
He rubbed his now empty hand over his injured arm and then dug his fingers into the wounds, and that did it for M’Benga. With three long strides he reached his friend and took hold of his arms. McCoy was so weak and his wrists so thin, M’Benga could pin both of them against the wall with one hand while he fumbled for a hypo with the other.
Leonard fought him, but still he did not panic at the rough contact when usually a hard stare was enough to send him over the edge. “No,” he said, pleaded. “Don’t. Please, don’t take it from me! I need to… I can…”
M’Benga found the hypo, but he also realised that he might actually get some explanations out of the other man if he gave him a chance to speak. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to let you go now, as long as you promise not to harm yourself anymore. The moment your hand comes even close to those wounds you’ll be so full of sedatives you won’t move for a week. Understood?”
For a moment, it seemed as if his patient hadn’t even heard him, but then he nodded weakly. M’Benga let go of his wrists but kept a hand on his arm and gently pulled him out of the office. Leonard followed willingly - or rather, as if he had no will at all. He moved slowly and M’Benga had to support him more and more, but he never resisted, sat down on one of the beds in the main room when the doctor told him to and let him examine the wounds on his arm without protest.
There were five deep cuts, clean but nasty. One of them was deep enough to damage the bone. M’Benga had seen far worse wounds since first becoming a doctor, but the thought of his friend doing this to himself made him feel sick.
The lowest cut was right above the bandage still hiding the wounds on Leonard’s wrists. Even though the other Spock had obviously known what he was doing when he pierced them, the damage was too extensive to be healed by a simple treatment with a dermal regenerator. M’Benga feared that surgery would be necessary eventually, but he agreed with Sanchez that it would be best if they waited until McCoy was stronger.
He had a lot of medical procedures still waiting for him. First of all they needed to replace the organs he had lost in the other universe. Replacements were being cloned this moment, but it would be another few days before they were ready.
They were feeding McCoy as many painkillers as they dared, still his hands had to hurt, especially if he moved them too much, and were nearly useless. M’Benga would admire him for being able to even handle the tool if he were not so angry at both McCoy and himself.
“What did you do that for?” he asked, keeping his voice soft. Leonard didn’t answer. He was white as a sheet by now, his face covered in sweat. His breathing was increasingly harsh. M’Benga had to give him something, else he would pass out. But when he prepared the hypo, Leonard’s skeletal fingers closed around his arm.
“Don’t,” he pleaded.
“It’s just something for the pain.”
“Don’t,” Leonard repeated. “Please. Don’t take it away.”
“The pain? You want to be in pain?”
Leonard nodded. The simple movement looked like it was demanding all his strength. “I need… need…” His voice died in a strangled sound. After a few deep breaths, he tried again. “It helps me to focus,” he managed to say. “Keeps my mind off… things…”
Things. M’Benga understood; still he shook his head. “Not like this, Len. I’m sorry.” He was a doctor before anything else. If someone was suffering, he had to help. Even if he had a vague idea that in this case he wasn’t doing his friend a favour as he pressed the hypo against his neck.
Leonard cried out and slumped forward. His breaths were hard and strangled, almost like sobs. M’Benga grabbed his shaking shoulders, alarmed, when he started to retch, though nothing came up. This wasn’t a normal reaction. Sweat was running down Leonard’s body and drenching his clothes. With weak, uncoordinated movements he tried to push the doctor away.
When he calmed down, less than a minute had passed. It seemed much longer. He took a deep, shuddering breath and then fell silent. For a moment, M’Benga was convinced he had passed out, but he remained upright, even when the doctor removed his supporting hands, and his eyes were open, staring at nothing.
When M’Benga finished treating the cuts on his arm, he noticed that Leonard’s hands were balled to fists and shaking. He didn’t react to any questions.
M’Benga was more than a little worried. He should never have let Leonard get out of bed, should never have let him out of his sight, and he goddamn should have kept him from further harm.
And here he had been thinking his friend was finally getting better. The thought struck him that perhaps Leonard had been so calm and stable the past few days because he had been hurting himself all the time and they had not noticed.
But if it really helped… if causing himself pain really kept Leonard from being pulled back into the hell he came from, then M’Benga didn’t know what they should do. He understood that even the memory of what McCoy had been through was a thousand times worse than any physical pain, but there had to be a better way than letting him deliberately injure himself.
As easily as Leonard’s memories, always ready to swallow him up, were triggered, they hadn’t even begun to deal with his mental condition by any kind of psychological therapy. M’Benga wasn’t even sure if there was any point to it. They might be able to help him get over the trauma, but in the end he knew that the damage done by a telepath couldn’t be undone without one.
Until now they had all assumed that Leonard’s suicidal tendencies were directly related to the flashbacks he suffered, or even to the lingering influence of Spock’s goddamn other self. But today Leonard had been clear and awake and here, and mutilated his own arm like someone else would go about buttering a toast.
“I’m fine,” Leonard suddenly said. His voice was no longer shaking. Except from being a little hoarse, he sounded perfectly normal. M’Benga looked into his face, alarmed by the sudden change in his behaviour, but McCoy was gazing right though him. When M’Benga reached for his arm again to apply a bandage that would protect it until the wounds were fully healed in a day, Leonard pushed him aside with more strength than he should have. Without another word he got off the bed, took two steps forward and collapsed without a sound. M’Benga, having almost expected this to happen, was able to catch him before he hit the floor.
Despite the care he had been receiving since his return weeks ago, the lightness of McCoy’s body was still shocking when M’Benga lifted him into his arms to carry him back to his room. “Don’t worry,” he muttered with bitter humour. “At this rate, we’ll have you up to a hundred pounds in no time at all.”
Once Leonard was taken care of, the doctor called Chris Chapel back from her break. After a second of contemplation, he also called Spock and asked him to come to his office as soon as he had a moment to spare.
-
McCoy opened his eyes to see Spock enter the room. The Vulcan stopped in the door, stared at him, and McCoy stared back. Stared at the cold, contemplating eyes, the golden sash around his waist, the neatly trimmed beard. He couldn’t move.
He couldn’t move.
Spock took a step into the room, another one, and still McCoy couldn’t move. His throat was closed. He was suffocating, wished it would happed quicker, that he would die before Spock could reach him.
He was paralyzed, couldn’t even close his eyes. Only his heart was pounding wildly in his chest. Then Spock was there, close enough for McCoy to hear his breath, and the Vulcan’s hot fingers touched his face and burned into his mind, and McCoy screamed.
He blinked, and Spock was gone. Instead, there was a woman standing beside him, looming over him. McCoy tried to move away, and unexpectedly he could move. The woman followed his movements, stepped closer when McCoy got off the bed. He didn’t know her. He’d seen her before but her face meant nothing to him. McCoy backed away, even as she started to talk to him in a soothing voice. Kirk was talking to him like that sometimes. He’d be a fool to trust her.
“Calm down,” she said. “No one will hurt you. You’ll feel better soon.” In her hand she was holding a hypo. McCoy didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t good. Nothing he had been injected with had ever been good.
Spock was still nearby. He wasn’t visible, but he was always there. McCoy could feel him.
“Hold him,” the woman said, and for a moment McCoy was confused, didn’t know who she was talking to. Then strong arms closed around his body from behind, and she neared with her poison while he struggled desperately to get away.
The hold wasn’t too strong, not to be compared with Spock’s crushing grip around his arms or Kirk’s weight pressing down on him. In his panic, a few rational thoughts still found their way into McCoy’s mind. He knew how to get out of a hold this careless. He could guess from the way he pressed against him the height of the man standing behind him, knew where to aim his kicks so they would hurt.
The man yelped and loosened his grip even further as McCoy hit his knee in a way that was painful and damaging. He had no time for regret or shame. It could be fixed. What these people would do to McCoy if he let them could not.
Before any of them could react he was out of the door and running through the main room, pushing aside a startled nurse. Only seconds later he was running down the corridor, not feeling the pain in his body, or the exhaustion; adrenalin was pushing him forward, and he knew that he had to run faster, because they were right behind him and so was Spock.
He knew this ship, had spend years on one just like this, and knew that short of throwing himself down a deactivated turbo-shaft there was no way for him to escape them with so little of a head start.
Luck was not with him: the first turbo shaft he came across was fully functional. The cabin was present, waiting for the next user, and McCoy ran inside, the doors closing just before the woman could reach him. She was followed by a limping man in the uniform of an orderly. McCoy knew the man’s name, but he did not know who he was, in this world. He only knew that he shouldn’t run with the damage McCoy had done to his leg.
They called his name, and cursed when the door closed.
This would buy him at least a little time. He couldn’t outrun them, not here, and he couldn’t hide in a ship this full of people, but perhaps he could find a weapon; anything to defend himself with.
He sent the lift to engineering, judging his chances best in that place. Tools would be found there.
They were, but most of them were in the hands of engineers and their assistants that filled this section. The doctor left the lift anyway, and could no longer ignore the trembling of his legs or his shortness of breath.
Everyone stopped to stare at him when he ran through the room, but no one made a move to stop him. He passed another door and suddenly spotted Montgomery Scott standing on the other end of then room, in front of a terminal. The chief engineer looked up in surprise when he entered, walking a few steps towards McCoy and caught him when he stumbled into his arms.
“Scotty,” McCoy gasped, not quite sure where the nickname came from. “You’ve got to help me.” Scott was the only one who might. McCoy knew better than to rely on him - once the engineer’s own interests were threatened, he would betray him in a heartbeat, but if there was nothing else at stake, McCoy knew he could count on his assistance. In this society, Scott was the closets thing to a friend he could ever have.
And what he was carrying with him was all the doctor could wish for. The knife was missing from his belt (Risky!) and his phaser nowhere to be found, but the tools he carried with him all the time would suffice. McCoy pushed the engineer away from him even as Scott asked him what was wrong, and snatched the cutter from his belt at the same time.
He hoped Scotty wouldn’t get in trouble because of this. Spock was unlikely to be amused.
When he heard the voices calling his name behind him, he knew he was out of time, and there was nowhere else to run. This room was a dead end. But he had everything he needed.
Almost against his will, he turned to face them.
-
McCoy was white as paper and clearly about to fall over, but Doctor Burke saw nothing but desperate determination in his wide eyes as he turned to them, a harmless looking tool clasped in his hands.
Commander Scott stood behind him, looking confused, worried, and increasingly alarmed as he saw the doctor run towards them. His attention returned to McCoy just in time to see him raise the tool to his throat, and now Burke could see that it wasn’t harmless at all. A small blade had emerged from it, formerly hidden inside for the safety of the one carrying it on their belt and without doubt sharp enough to effortlessly cut through hard plastic or even thin metal. In any case, it would be sharp enough for human skin.
Burke’s yelled warning wasn’t necessary. Scott had already reacted; wrapping his arms about McCoy from behind, he fought to get the cutter out of his hands. Thanks to him, McCoy missed his carotid artery, but he still managed to inflict an injury to his throat before Scott wrenched the blade away and wrestled him to the ground. The latter didn’t take a lot of effort.
Altogether it took mere seconds, then it was over. By the time Burke arrived, McCoy was lying on the ground and Scott was pressing his hands to the wound in his throat. Burke only hoped he wouldn’t accidentally strangle him in his attempt to stop the bleeding.
There was a lot of blood, but not as much as there would have been without the engineer’s interference. McCoy wasn’t moving anymore, but Burke was confident that he was only unconscious, and that this was to blame on the stress and exertion of running from her rather than the blood loss. She fumbled for her own tools and chased Scott away to repair as much of the damage as she could on the spot. The cut McCoy had inflicted upon himself was short, but deep. He had missed the carotid artery by millimetres and damaged the windpipe. Burke managed to end any danger to his life in seconds.
This should not have happened. She would have to talk to M’Benga. If the doctor had finally seen reason and restrained McCoy, he would never have had a chance to run off. Of course, M’Benga would argue that it also wouldn’t have happened if she had been cautious enough, especially when it was obvious that McCoy was lost in his own world again - and of course, he would be right, too.
When Erricson limped into the room, Burke’s work was done. Someone had had the sense of calling for a gurney, so they could get McCoy back to sickbay and finish patching him up. Apparently someone - most likely Commander Scott - had also called the captain to inform him of what was going on. Burke hoped to be gone from here by the time any of the commando crew arrived.
“What are you doing here?” she snapped at the orderly, when he finally reached them. She hadn’t even noticed him running after her, most likely because running was hardly the appropriate word in his case. “Do you know how much damage you do to your leg by this? Sit down!” She had one of the engineers call for another gurney so Erricson wouldn’t have to limp all the way back and gave the man a hypo for the pain.
Erricson didn’t even seem to notice. His attention was on McCoy. Like everyone else she was working with, the not-that-young orderly seemed to hero-worship the man. He seemed genuinely upset about what had happened.
So did Scott. Burke needn’t have worried about being reprimanded by Kirk, because the engineer gave both her and Erricson an enraged speech about properly taking care of their patient, even before anyone else could show up. Burke took it with as good grace as she could muster.
-
When M’Benga arrived in sickbay, Burke had tied McCoy to the bed with softly padded restraints around his wrists and ankles, and no protest on his part could convince her to take them off. He outranked her so in the end it remained his decision, but for the moment he gave in. Recent events proved that she was right about this.
Convincing Captain Kirk wasn’t quite as easy. Half an hour later, Kirk was still fuming, pacing up and down the examination room, while M’Benga stood in McCoy’s room, waiting with apprehension for Spock to finish his work.
Within twenty-four hours, he had allowed Leonard to cut his arm and Burke had allowed him to cut his throat. Of the three residing doctors, only Sanchez hadn’t messed things up yet - probably because so far he didn’t have a chance.
Kirk was understandably pissed at them. What Spock was thinking, M’Benga couldn’t tell. The Vulcan had said very little since coming to sickbay. For minutes already he was deep in a mind meld with McCoy, and there was no way of telling how much longer he would be.
Watching him silently, M’Benga couldn’t help but feel nervous. Spock had informed him about everything going on in McCoy’s mind, as far as the Vulcan had been able to express it. Besides him, probably only Kirk knew this much.
What was going on between Spock and McCoy this moment, M’Benga couldn’t even guess. Spock stood perfectly still, his face perfectly blank, but when M’Benga looked closely, he saw the fine layer of sweat on his face, noticed how pale he was. Something wasn’t well.
But then, nothing had been even remotely well with Leonard for a long time. Keeping a close eye on both of them, M’Benga kept waiting. If anything went wrong, it was up to him to separate them.
-
Entering Leonard’s mind was harder than before. There were new barriers, new defences, but they did not come from his friend but from an outside force. Spock knew who this was, and the other Spock knew he was here now, their minds occupying the same space even while their bodies were universes apart.
Leonard did not want either of them here but was helpless to defend himself against the onslaught. Spock did his best to shield his friend from the influence of the other’s mind, but his mirror self had the advantage of an established bond allowing him entrance into parts of the human’s mind Spock would not even think of invading.
His attempts to push the other out remained futile. The bond protected the invader and remained settled in Leonard’s mind like a cancer. Still Spock was able to observe, keeping up his own shields so the impressions would not overwhelm him as they had the first time. He began to understand the hell his friend was trapped in, and what made him behave as he did. From the view of an unconcerned observer, he understood better than Leonard what was going on, and as a telepath he could see exactly what the other Spock had done and was still doing.
Had he killed his mirror self when they met, he would have spared Leonard much suffering. Spock knew now that making his choice based on morals had not been the right decision. He regretted letting the other live and let him know it.
The other let him know how much this amused him. And suddenly he opened himself and let Spock know so much more. Suddenly Spock was sitting on his bed, his naked legs parted, his penis shoved deep down his human’s throat and his hand locked behind the human’s head to keep him from pulling away as instinct fought against his need to obey Spock’s wishes. Spock received pleasure from the tightness and the friction as McCoy’s windpipe constricted around him in a vain struggle for air, as well as from the creature’s desperate need for oxygen and the pain of being roughly penetrated by Captain Kirk, who shoved McCoy against Spock’s body with every rough trust -
Spock withdrew from Leonard’s mind as if he had been burned. His fingers tore from the human’s face and he stumbled back, never hearing M’Benga call his name in alarm. The contact to the other Spock’s mind had lasted barely a second, but it had been enough to plant the information in his mind and there it remained, like a memory of his own. He remembered the scene as if he had participated in it himself, all thoughts and emotion of the other one not detached like a strangers but becoming his own.
He remembered taking pleasure in Leonard’s pain, the humiliation he felt at being trapped between them like that and unable to fight back, his resigned desperation. He had found satisfaction in Leonard’s emotional suffering as well as the physical.
Spock felt nauseated. For a moment he feared he would lose the contents of his stomach.
But now he understood everything.
“I must speak with the captain,” Spock said with effort. He straightened and with surprise took notice of the fact that M’Benga was holding him, and that without the doctor’s support he would have fallen over. Regaining his balance, he took a step aside. “And with you. We will need a private room.”
-
Spock refused to remain in McCoy’s room, so they agreed to move to M’Benga’s office. The doctor waited a moment before following the Vulcan scientist out of the room. During the meld, McCoy had buckled in his restraints without waking up, and even now he seemed distressed. His readings indicated that he would remain unconscious for at least another hour, but M’Benga still didn’t want to leave him unobserved, so he called Christine. The head nurse agreed to stay with their friend without questions.
Then the office door closed behind him and Spock explained how even if they kept anyone from using them to cross between universes, they couldn’t keep those on the other side to use elements like the Rabbeas stones to form some sort of connection. It was irrelevant except for the still existing bond between that other Spock and McCoy - apparently right now the bearded Vulcan had strengthened the connection, causing Leonard’s most recent breakdown. M’Benga pressed his lips together and listened in silence. Spock had told him he was unable to break the bond, and if that was true, there was no relief for their friend. The damn bastard could torture him like this whenever he felt like it, and Leonard would never recover.
Spock also had an explanation to offer for Leonard’s newly strengthened desire to hurt himself: “The other one is receiving metal stimulus from any kind of suffering his bonded partner experiences. He literally takes pleasure from McCoy’s pain.”
“So he forces Bones to injure himself?” Kirk asked, clearly appalled, but very interested.
“Not as such. Hurting himself pleases that Spock, which takes some pressure off the doctor’s mind. He is doing it because it brings him relief, but also independent of my counterpart because the pain distracts him and helps him to focus on the present.”
“Taking away the bond won’t stop him then,” M’Benga observed.
“No, but it will help and allow progress. There is, however, a third reason.”
“And that would be?” Kirk asked impatiently when Spock didn’t continue right away.
Spock still hesitated. He was no longer as pale as he had been right after the meld, yet he did not look well, and for a moment seemed to consider not saying anything further.
“It seems”, he finally began, stopped again, and finally continued, “The other Spock has manipulated McCoy’s mind such that he is convinced he deserves to suffer. He has therefore set his mind on causing himself as much pain as he can.”
“That is ridiculous,” Kirk declared passionately. “Why would he believe something like that?”
“Because the other forces him to,” Spock explained calmly. “It is my impression that this wasn’t even very hard to accomplish, as McCoy is feeling a lot of resentment for himself. The point is,” he added quickly before anyone could speak, “that my counterpart still has great influence on him, and will remain in control as long as the bond remains intact.”
M’benga felt slightly sick. He wasn’t sure he understood what Spock had tried to tell them, but he did know that there was no recovery for Leonard under these circumstances. No future.
“You said you couldn’t break the bond,” he reminded the Vulcan with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
“That is correct.” Spock nodded, seeming a lot more composed that a minute before. “I could, however, overwrite it, thus erasing the other one’s influence on the doctor.”
“What?” Kirk straightened; for a moment M’Benga even thought he would jump at his first officer. “Why the hell didn’t you say that before? You could have spared him this!”
“I did not mention it because I do no consider it a desirable course of action,” Spock answered calmly, unimpressed by the captain’s fury. “Now it seems there is no way around it as the alternative is even worse.”
“How could you think anything would be worse than what Bones is already going through?” Kirk asked, still disbelieving and angry. “You should at least have mentioned the possibility!”
“What exactly would happen if you did that?” M’Benga asked. “Please explain what we’re discussing here.” He knew a bit about Vulcan mind arts, and he knew Spock. If the Vulcan had not mentioned this before, there had to be a reason.
“As I mentioned, the bond cannot be removed. It is rooted deep in McCoy’s conscious - taking it out, even carefully, would destroy his mind.”
M’Benga knew this much. “But you can overwrite it…?”
“I might be able to. Only me,” Spock said slowly. “Every person has a certain telepathic signature. I can only do this because mine and that of my counterpart are exactly the same. I would thereby transfer the bond from him to me.”
“But the bond, in its nature, would remain the same?” Kirk asked. He seemed thoughtful now, rather than angry, began to understand.
“Yes.” Spock nodded solemnly. “I cannot change that. If I do this and succeed, I will be able to exercise the same control over McCoy as my counterpart is now.”
“But you will not do it,” M’Benga said.
“Of course not. But I would be able to if I so wished, and Leonard will know it.”
M’Benga nodded slowly, understanding Spock’s dilemma. The Vulcan looked at Kirk. “I assume you now see why I would rather not do this.”
“No, I don’t.” Kirk’s voice was hard. “You would never make use of that bond, yet you rather left him to someone who does and is constantly out to hurt him. I absolutely don’t get that.”
“McCoy will,” Spock prophesised. “In fact, I believe were he able to choose he would ask me not to do it.”
“I don’t care. We will not leave him at the mercy of that psychopath. I order you to do it.”
“You cannot order me on this matter,” Spock said mildly. “But by now I have to agree with you. Since the other Spock will not give up his hold on McCoy, I see no alternative to doing it.”
“Are you absolutely sure?” M’Benga couldn’t help but ask. “If you do it, there’ll be no way back. You’ll be stuck with it for the rest of his life.”
“It is acceptable,” Spock said. And so it was decided.
M’Benga could only hope that Spock knew what he was getting into.
Februart 19, 2010
Chapter 5