Ghosts in Attics III, Chapter 6
TITLE: Ghosts in Attics III, Chapter 6
FANDOM: Star Trek TOS
CHARACTERS/PAIRING: Spock/McCoy, M'Benga, Chapel, Kirk, Scotty
TABLE: # 8 - Miscellaneous B
PROMPT: 03. Answers
RATING: PG-13
WORD COUNT: 6335
WARNINGS: Mentions of mind control and 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.
While M’Benga had had doubts about the benefits of Spock’s taking over of the bond with McCoy outweighing the negative consequences, he had to admit that it was probably the best that had happened to his old friend since returning to their side of the universe. For the longest time, whenever he had taken one step forward in his recovery, he had taken two steps back the next time the Vulcan from the other universe pulled him back into his private nightmares. Now that influence was gone, McCoy had a chance to recover and get used to the thought of being home.
It was not perfect. McCoy didn’t make a miraculous recovery overnight and his suffering didn’t stop with the removal of the other’s influence. He was still screaming in his sleep, was still having flashbacks, and he still thought that hurting himself was a good way to keep his mind on the present. But now it was only his own mind torturing him, and that was an improvement. Now if only they managed day fix that mind, broken as it was, Leonard finally had a chance for a return to a normal life. One day.
None the less, the first days after his involuntary bonding with Spock had been hard for McCoy. He had a hard time accepting his friend in his head, and M’Benga suspected that the fact that he was so close to the Vulcan was making this harder rather than easier. His helpless desperation in the face of the knowledge that he would never again be free of this connection, that there would always be someone who could control him and read his mind even if he did not do it were painful to watch. For days, they had to keep him either sedated of tied to the bed. Even after the violent struggle had been replaced by quiet hopelessness, M’Benga and his colleagues kept a very close eye on him.
Spock had not come to see him once in the week that had since passed.
McCoy’s physical recovery continued to be slow - the emotional stress left his body little reserves to deal with his lingering injuries and illness. Still, he recovered, however slowly. Soon, they would be able to transplant the new organs he needed, and once that was done he would be able to leave sickbay, no longer depending on machines to do the work his body was not able to handle. M’Benga wasn’t entire sure how he felt about it. He hoped his friend would find some peace and safety in the familiar privacy of his own quarters; at the same time he knew they couldn’t leave Leonard all on his own. As before, someone had to be with him, and so far the doctor had no idea who that should be. The captain was not a good candidate, not only because he had a ship to run, and despite their newly formed bond, M’Benga was willing to rule out Spock as well.
Actually, there were precious few people he could ask. The other Spock’s influence may have been gone, but the memories he had given Leonard, of his counterpart’s life, remained. There was hardly anyone McCoy didn’t associate with any kind of crime or cruelty. M’Benga knew from a particularly bad day that his own counterpart was not exactly a saint either.
But that was a problem they would have to solve when the time came. For the moment, the acting CMO saw himself confronted with a problem of another kind: once again, Leonard McCoy was not in his bed, where he belonged.
M’Benga sighed. “Belle,” he addressed Nurse Deleroi, who was taking inventory in the main room. “Where did McCoy go?”
She frowned, puzzled. “You mean, he isn’t in bed?”
“You mean you didn’t see him leave? There is only the one exit from his room, and it leads to this one. So unless he suddenly vanished into thin air, he must have come through here.”
She blushed slightly. “I haven’t seen him. Earlier, when I checked on him, he snapped at me, so I thought I’d leave him alone for a while. My back was mostly to the room. I’m sorry. He must have snuck out.”
“Oh, so he’s only taking a walk, then.” M’Benga snorted in irritation, still looking around as if expecting to find McCoy lurking behind a bed somewhere. He was actually pretty sure that Leonard was not taking a walk, since taking a walk would require leaving sickbay and being presented to the attention of the rest of the crew. In his pyjamas. Highly unlikely.
His gaze fell on the door to McCoy’s office, innocently closed as always. Trying it, M’Benga found it locked. Which was not at all unusual, except this time it was locked from the inside. His authorisation as CMO allowed him to override any lock on any door, but it took seconds that seemed far too long. Leonard was remotely stable these days, yet he was still damaged enough that leaving him alone was a bad idea, and letting him lock himself in was even worse.
In his mind M’Benga imagined all the things he’d do with Nurse Deleroi should it turn out that her turning her back to the room had resulted in Leonard hurting himself, or worse. But the door slit open and all it revealed was the sight of Doctor Leonard McCoy sitting at his desk and working at his computer.
M’Benga had entered the room to this sight so often the familiarity was painful. But in his memory, Leonard was wearing his black and blue uniform instead of the blue and black clothes of a patient, he weighed more and there were no bandages anywhere on his body.
And he didn’t jump in shock at the sound of the door opening. For a second, the doctor saw the familiar fear in his friend’s eyes, then it was replaced by recognition and McCoy turned back to his computer screen, apparently deciding that if only he ignored his visitor, he would go away.
M’Benga did not go away. He stepped closer, looking over McCoy’s shoulder. The screen showed a medical article about a new treatment for cerebral damage that had first been successfully tested half a year ago. Every now and then, Leonard stopped to enter a few notes into the PADD he had lying on the desk.
Sighing, M’Benga crossed his arms. “I have a professional question, Leonard,” he said. “It’s quite important.”
That got him the attention he wanted. Leonard stopped reading and turned to him, in his eyes a mix of wariness and hope that nearly shut the doctor up. Nearly, but not quite.
“If you had a patient who should be in bed running around and working before you released them, what would you do?”
Leonard turned back to his screen and refused to look at him again. “It would depend on the situation. If the patient is well enough, I’d let him work if he wants to.”
“As far as I recall, you’re the one who decides if he’s well enough, not the patient.”
“I am making that decision.”
“No, you’re not.” Activating his scanner, M’Benga ran it over the other’s body. McCoy’s temperature was up again - not enough to worry him but higher than it should be. His pulse was too fast, his blood sugar too low, his breathing slightly irregular. “I am the doctor here, and you should be in bed.”
“I’ve been in bed for ages.” McCoy shrugged. “It’s not like I’m overexerting myself here. What does it matter whether I sit on a bed or at my desk?”
“You don’t really expect me to grace that with an answer, do you?”
Instead of replaying, or even so much as paying attention to his words, Leonard started copying files from one place to another. M’Benga made a mental note to have this computer’s access to the medical files blocked until McCoy was well enough to do any kind of work. He let his irritation show in his voice when he said, “There are two alternatives: Either you go back to your room on your own, or you’ll be carried there after I sedated you.”
“How about option number three: You leave me alone and bother someone who actually needs you?” McCoy growled.
He was in a royal mood, but that was fine with M’Benga. It was a thousand times better than him being depressed, suicidal, or losing his mind.
“If our roles were reverted, you’d hypo me and drag me back to tie me to the bed for a week, just so I’d get the message,” he said lightly. “Knowing this, I won’t feel bad at all when I do exactly the same.”
McCoy glared at him, but then, miracle of miracles, turned off the computer and got up. M’Benga was about to marvel on how this had been easier than he had expected when Leonard took the PADD he had copied all the files on and took it along.
The doctor could have taken it away and started a discussion that would have kept them busy for the rest of the day. Instead, he just rolled his eyes and followed McCoy out of the room. He could always take the thing and hide it once Leonard had fallen asleep over it.
-
When Chris Chapel entered McCoy’s room two hours later, she found him sitting on the edge of his bed, reading something on a PADD. He only looked up for a brief glance in her direction.
“Lieutenant Tersy died,” he said tonelessly.
For a moment, Chris didn’t know what he was talking about. She remembered Nomi Tersy, a young officer who had been infected with a rare disease during a mission to a planet that seemed to consist entirely of swamps, but she had been dead for such a long time that the nurse didn’t quite get what McCoy was talking about, or why it upset him so much.
Then she remembered that it had happened during Leonard’s absence, so he had only just learned about it.
And then she thought that they were all idiots for not blocking his access to the medical files of the crew.
“It happened about a month after we lost you. She was doing fine, and then, suddenly, she died. No one saw it coming.” But of course he already knew that. It was in the report written after they had found her dead in her quarters. “The complications were caused by a substance she came in contact with made the infection flare up again. There was nothing wrong with your treatment.” That was what he really needed to hear, but Chris saw at once that he didn’t believe her. From the beginning he had been taking extra good care of the lieutenant, because the illness was completely alien and she was allergic to the usual medication for her symptoms. In the end he had found a treatment that kept the symptoms at bay and slowly brought her body back to normal.
She had been his patient, and Chris knew he took her death personally.
It didn’t help that when the captain had wanted to drop Tersy off at a medical facility, McCoy had made sure she could stay. Chris knew the lieutenant had begged him to help her stay; her life had been on this ship, and the moment she was gone, her place would have been taken by someone else. She just wasn’t important enough to be sure she could return after recovering.
McCoy’s argument had been that with the right treatment her disease was neither life-threatening nor limiting her abilities, and that he was the only doctor who had any experience with it so far, so it made sense for her to stay with him.
He had been right about that. Anywhere else she might have died long before, and by the time the unfortunate circumstances resulting in her death occurred, she had been almost back to full health. Yes Christine knew that this didn’t matter to McCoy at the moment. He only knew that he had arranged for her to remain here, and here she had died.
He would have blamed himself for it even if he hadn’t been so sick and emotionally damaged. The current circumstances didn’t help at all. But no matter how much she wanted to make him understand, Chris knew that he wouldn’t listen to anything she had to say - not yet, at least. So she just took the PADD from his almost limp fingers and set it aside. He let it happen without showing any kind of reaction.
Afterwards, the nurse removed the bandages around his wrists and threw them away. The wounds had closed, but left ugly scars there was no point in removing as long as they had to open them again away. The skin was hot to the touch. After hours of working with the PADD, Chris could only imagine how much his hands and arms were hurting.
She didn’t ask him if he was in pain, because she knew he was. Also, he would have lied.
Chris took care of his wrists. Even ten days before that had been something that was nearly impossible to accomplish while he was awake. Now he didn’t even blink. He’d become calmer, overall, and while Christine didn’t know exactly what circumstances she had to thank for that, she knew it had something to do with Mr. Spock. She would have loved to know more, but M’Benga said it was too private to discuss, and he’d warned her not to ask, or even mention Spock in Leonard’s presence.
Chris hated not knowing, but she accepted that things were complicated. If one day, Leonard would tell her on his own, she would be happy, but she would not pester him in a time like this.
And asking Spock was out of the question anyway. Especially since he stayed away from sickbay as if it was mined. She hadn’t seen him in a week.
She missed him. But not as much as she might have, long ago.
When she was done taking care of Leonard and applied new bandages, he looked at her, tired but with a look in his eyes she hadn’t seen in a while, but knew very well: It was a look that said he had made a decision and nothing would change his mind.
“Chris,” he said. “Let me do something useful.”
She had rather thought about scolding him for doing any kind of work, even if it was just catching up with his reading. But he looked at her as if his life would depend on being allowed to work (and perhaps it did) and, damn it, he shouldn’t have to beg for being allowed to work in this place, and every step away from these circumstances back toward how things had once been was a step in the right direction to her.
She was about to promise him she’d talk to M’Benga about it but knew at once that wouldn’t be good enough. Leonard knew her too well, and he knew how much influence she had. This was her sickbay almost as much as it had been his.
“Well,” she finally said. “In a couple of days we’re going to fix your wrists, and then we’ll replace the organs you’ve lost. If all goes well, I’ll let you do some light duty here.”
He granted her a tired, grateful smile. “Don’t worry, I don’t want my old position back. At this point I’ll be happy if you let me sweep the floor.”
Chris didn’t show how much her heart was breaking at this. Instead, she put on a stern expression and said, “Be good, then. Stay in bed, rest, and preserve your strength so we won’t have to postpone the operation because you got sick again.”
He nodded without protest and promptly settled back in bed. Christine thought he just wanted to prove his cooperation, but by the time she had gathered her things and was ready to leave, he was fast asleep.
Chris sighed. Now she only had to convince the doctors that this was a good idea.
It helped that she actually thought it might be.
-
“No way in hell,” M’Benga said.
“I gave him a promise, and I will keep that promise.” Christine crossed her arms, a hard line around her mouth. “It’s not like I’m going to let him perform surgery or conduct important experiments without checking the results. But let him do something, Doctor! He needs something to justify his existence.”
M’Benga understood that. He really did - Leonard felt useless and like a burden to everyone without doing anything to be worth their effort. It wasn’t that hard to see. But there were problems they couldn’t simply ignore.
“I know he’s seeming to be a lot better these days. But he isn’t. The smallest thing can set him off. Today, before your shift started, he had a nightmare, and the captain decided to wake him from it. Unfortunately that didn’t help at all, because that dream apparently featured Kirk’s damn counterpart, and half an hour later McCoy was full of tranquilizers and still screaming. Something like that can happen anytime. Anytime, Chris. We can’t prevent it.”
“I’m not asking you to let him come in contact with patients, and neither is he. He told me he’d be fine with sweeping the floor if it meant he could do something useful, though if you even think about considering that, I’m going to quit.” And she didn’t look like she was joking either. But then, M’Benga didn’t think about considering that for a second.
“I know where you’re coming from,” he said, “but it’s not going to happen. It can’t. We’re a medical facility - it would be irresponsible to let anyone work here who by all rights should be a patient himself - and he still is, as you well know. That he’s no longer residing here doesn’t mean his treatment is over. Not to mention someone he’s mentally unstable. Lives depend on us not messing up, and with all those memories of another crew stuck in his head, if anything goes wrong…”
“Didn’t you listen to a word I said? I won’t trust him with patients. He doesn’t trust himself with patients. He probably wouldn’t trust any diagnosis he made without having us double check everything, and then he still wouldn’t trust it. But I promised I’d let him work, and I didn’t make that promise because he promised to be good and stay in bed in return, but because I get it.” She took a deep breath. “Think about it, Doctor. Work distracts him and keeps him focused. The time he spend going through the files, he didn’t have more than an annoyed glare for me when I disturbed him, instead of looking like he might hide under the bed any moment. And I don’t know about you, but I think doing something useful is a better way for him to distract himself than cutting his flesh open. But if you disagree…”
She left the sentence incomplete, probably because she knew he didn’t disagree. Still, M’Benga couldn’t simply agree either. He had considered before to at least let Leonard work in one of the labs, let him with some of the theories and experiments he was so good at, but he had accepted that it just wouldn’t work. Not only because it was a bad idea to let a man who suffered from reality disassociation and suicidal episodes work in a lab.
Christine took a step towards him and gently touched his arm. “You told me that you wished for Leonard to someday get his life back. His work is his life. His work and this ship -there’s no one and nothing else. So why don’t we just give it back to him?” It sounded temptingly simple.
“Did you approach Sanchez and Burke with this?” M’Benga asked, because he could imagine his colleagues had something to say about it as well.
There was a hint of mirth in Christine’s smile. “You are the CMO. It’s your decision.”
Technically, that was correct. Practically, the other doctors, as well as the captain, wouldn’t see it quite the same way.
-
They fixed McCoy’s wrists three days later; he got his organs back three days after that. Because of his weakened state, his recovery from the surgery took longer than usual. It was, surprisingly, Spock who after staying away from sickbay for two weeks came to M’Benga and insisted that it was time to let him move back to his old quarters. Technically, it was no problem, as they had never given the rooms to anyone else, but it was also Spock who insisted - as he had before - on not leaving McCoy alone there.
Unfortunately, he kept insisting on not being the one to stay with him. Unfortunately, Kirk could see why. On the one hand he would have liked both his friends to be able to be in the same room again. They were stuck in this situation, and it was about time they learned to live with it. On the other hand he had seen all too clearly recently that even now Bones could lose it by seeing Kirk in a bad moment, so he didn’t want to imagine what Spock’s presence might do to him.
Bones couldn’t get used to the thought. The only way he was able to deal with Spock being in his head was by distracting himself from thinking about it. And that would be damn hard to accomplish if Spock was around.
Kirk hoped they would find a solution to this eventually. Spock and Bones couldn’t go on avoiding each other forever.
Well, technically they could, but he didn’t want them to.
For the current problem of who would keep an eye on Bones, they did have a solution, and once again it was offered by Spock. Unfortunately, their solution wasn’t half as convinced that he was the solution to anything.
The biggest problem they were facing was that Bones still was unable to keep his own memories and those of his deceased counterpart apart at all times. And since most of the people he was close to were a little less than likable in the other world, any of them could cause another breakdown. Kirk and Spock were the worst, due to his personal experiences as well as the manner of his counterpart’s demise, but there were days when he reacted badly even to Nurse Chapel or Uhura. Under these circumstances, the only person Spock considered a good choice was Scotty.
According to what Spock had seen in McCoy’s mind, the engineer was pretty much the only person the other McCoy had considered a friend, to a certain extent. He had known better that to trust him, but within the parameters of their world it was as close a friendship as there could be. Scotty was the only one he did not outright associate with anything negative.
But while Kirk, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov and initially Spock too had often visited Bones in sickbay, Scotty had hardly ever been seen around. And when Kirk asked him to take care of their friend for a while, he outright refused.
“I can’t do that,” he said. “It wouldn’t be right.” And then he refused to give an explanation to that until Kirk was just about to threaten him with court martial.
“You are the only one he trusts,” the captain said in frustration, just in case Scotty had somehow missed that point. But Scotty shook his head.
“He trusts all of you no less than me. It’s my counterpart that makes the difference.”
“It’s our counterparts that are the problem!”
“But my damn counterpart doesn’t deserve his trust!” Scotty finally bust out. “The other McCoy - the man whose memories Len’s stuck with, considered him a friend, and the bastard sold him out the moment it served him.”
So that was the problem. Kirk couldn’t even claim he didn’t understand it, having his own issues with his own counterpart. Actually, compared to the monster he would have been in another life, he thought that Scotty had come off pretty damn well.
“So he trusts you and that is wrong,” he summed it up. “Does it make you feel guilty?”
“No.” Scotty shook his head, his face grim. “It makes me angry. I want to shake him and tell him his trust is misplaced, but it’s not his trust in the first place, and telling him would only make things worse.”
No matter how much Kirk understood the engineer’s frustration, he couldn’t accept it now. “In sickbay he’s constantly surrounded by others. Even though he has his own room, there’s no privacy to speak of, and that would have made him nervous even in better days. In his own quarters he would feel safer, I hope, but we’re not going to leave him alone. And you are the only one who can stay with him. If you don’t do it, he’ll have to remain in sickbay, where he’s already going crazy.”
The look Scotty threw him was almost a glare. “That’s called moral blackmailing, Sir.”
“It’s called ‘It’s up to you, Scotty’.”
So in the end Scotty agreed. Because he had no other choice. He loved Bones just as much as they all did.
And even though he never mentioned it, Kirk knew that Bones was well aware of how much they all put his feelings before their own at this time. He knew also that this was hard for his friend to bear, who already felt like a useless burden anyway.
But, well, he would have to live with it. In all the years they were friends, Bone shad always supported Jim with his troubles and never mentioned his own. Even when he was dying of xenopolycythemia he would have liked to keep it a secret, had that been possible. It was about time he accepted their help for a change, without feeling he had to do something in return.
-
There was a planet interested in joining the Federation that had been at war with one of its colonies for twenty years. Now peace negotiations were about to happen, and the Enterprise was on its way to escort the ambassador of one world to the other and protect him during his stay. McCoy knew this because Jim had told him. It was both terrifying and consoling to see that despite everything that had happened in his own life, the universe just kept moving on and didn’t care.
He was glad that Jim and everyone else would have something other than him to care about for once. He would be perfectly happy if for the duration of this mission everyone simply forgot he existed.
Yet there was a not at all irrational fear that he would somehow managed to screw things up for them - scenarios along the lines of him losing his mind at the wrong moment, running into the mess hall naked and trying to kill the ambassador kept playing in his mind. The mental image would have been amusing under different circumstances. It wasn’t, because it was all too possible.
He had even considered telling the others to lock him in until the mission was over, so he wouldn’t be able to mess things up, but hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it.
These days, McCoy was as scared of himself as he was of everyone else. He didn’t want to be; he wanted to get better, get back to normal, but something always kept him down. Sometimes he felt that Jim was irritated with his refusal to leave this behind, and he wished there was any way to make his friend understand that he tried.
“Are you ready?” Scotty was standing in the doorway, looking expectantly. McCoy hadn’t been allowed to leave sickbay before his friend showed up to accompany him, and he might have snapped a little at various people for it, because, damn, he could understand why they insisted on a babysitter even if he didn’t like it, but he should be able to walk to his quarters on his own, at least.
On the other hand, considering his worries concerning the possible naked murder of ambassadors, he had to admit that they might be right not to leave him alone at any time while he was running free and unguarded.
The thought would be enough to depress him if he continued down that road, so he hurried to focus on something else. He had become very good at focusing on something else. It just didn’t always work.
“More ready than you can imagine.” The words were meant to come out as an impatient growl, and he hoped Scotty didn’t notice the trembling of his voice.
For the first time in a year, McCoy was wearing normal clothes again. Someone had gotten them from his quarters for him - it were civilian clothes he had brought from home and had only gotten to wear on rare days after shift, and they didn’t fit him anymore. Only now, in his own clothes, did he really realise how much weight he had lost. Before… before he had already been close to underweight, and these clothes had been close-fitting. Now they hung loosely off his frame, making him look like a child playing dress-up.
Scotty seemed to think so too. McCoy caught him staring at him with a pained expression on his face, before he hastily looked away.
“Sorry,” McCoy said, meaning not the way he looked but the fact that his friend had to go through all this trouble for him. “For the inconvenience.”
The engineer brushed his apology off with a generous wave of his hand. “It’s not that inconvenient. Doesn’t really matter where I sleep. One room’s as good as another.” It was a very obvious attempt to make him feel better. McCoy didn’t question it but accepted it with as much of a smile as he could manage.
When he left the room he had resided in for the past weeks, he only had his PADD to take along. Chris had warned him not to work too hard or too long, to listen to his body’s signals and stop when he grew tired, and when he had promised just that they’d both known he was lying. There was just too much to catch up on.
But that was something he could worry about when he was home. First he had to get there, and right now he hoped Scotty didn’t notice how nervous he was about the walk back. Just the thought of being exposed to the attention of all the people they would pass in the corridors made him feel physically ill.
Mercifully, the corridors were rather deserted. Unusually so; McCoy suspected that Jim had something to do with that. Still, his heart pounded hard in his chest and his palms were sweating and he kept his eyes fixed firmly on the floor, refusing to look left or right - or to turn around to whoever he was convinced was following him.
Scotty’s was a strangely reassuring presence beside him; still he wanted to run, just so this would be over. But his legs wouldn’t carry him any faster. Instead, it got harder to keep walking at all. McCoy felt dizzy, and his harsh breathing was not only caused by his fear. At some point he was overcome by the realisation how messed up he was and nearly started crying in shame and desperation.
Suddenly someone grabbed his arm and it was all McCoy could do to keep from screaming. But it was only Scotty, steadying him, and only now did he realise that he was about to fall over.
“Nearly made it,” the Scotsman mumbled in his familiar accent. Unable to react, McCoy let himself be led until doors parted before them, and then they closed and it was over. He was home.
It had been a year since he had last entered his quarters. He’d lived in here for four years, but only now did he recognize it as home. He had often thought about these rooms when all he’d had was a piece of somebody else’s floor.
It looked unchanged, except someone had cleaned the place, and there was some equipment placed around his bed he didn’t really want to think about. And there was another bed now, for Scotty. They had put it behind the half-wall that divided the room, granting them both a minimum of privacy. McCoy hardly registered it. For the first time in far too long, he felt almost save. Hidden from view. He only wanted to be left alone.
Gentle hands helped him over to the bed, and as soon as they reached it, McCoy lay down, turned his face to the wall, curled up and tried to pretend he wasn’t crying.
-
Three hours after he had picked Len up from sickbay, Scotty shut off his PADD and suppressed a yawn. It was time to sleep. The day had been long enough, and tomorrow would be another long day. Also, they were on a mission, and even though it was a diplomatic mission, the probability that in three hours an alarm would call him down to engineering so he could save the ship from dying of an imploding warp core was higher than usual.
After getting ready for bed in the small bathroom, he had a look at Leonard. His friend lay still on the bed, finally fully asleep. Scotty could make out the line of his spine through the fabric of his shirt.
Len was still wearing his clothes and lying on top of the covers, but Scotty would let him sleep like this because he didn’t want to disturb him. He had been worried for a moment, on the way here, that his friend would collapse, but in the end he was glad that he had brought Len here instead of alerting the medics so they’d take him back. It was obvious that despite looking like a child hiding from monsters, his friend actually found some peace here.
That peace was mostly granted by the privacy he didn’t have anywhere else, and Scotty had tried to leave him alone as much as possible. Once they had reached this room, Leonard had pretty much pretended the engineer didn’t exist, and Scotty could understand that. He understood it very well. Still, he had felt pretty awkward and useless when his friend had turned his back to him and soundlessly cried into the pillow.
Respecting his friend’s need to be alone, Scotty had kept to the other side of the room and read a mechanical journal. On another day he might have gone to the rec room, but for the near future things like that had to wait until Len was somewhere else, or someone else was wit him.
That was okay, though. Scotty wouldn’t complain, least of all to Leonard. His reasons for not wanting to be here were of a different nature.
They had removed all things sharp or pointed enough to beak skin from the room, which in a wider sense included all things that could be broken. Of course that wouldn’t stop Len from hurting himself if he really wanted to, but at least he would have trouble finding a good way to kill himself if he had one of his moments. Still, being responsible for his life wasn’t an easy burden to carry.
Despite being tired, Scotty couldn’t fall asleep. He kept staring at the ceiling in the dim, bluish light of the monitor, listening for any noise. The light bothered him, but he wouldn’t complain. The silence bothered him more, or the fact that he had to be listening to it. This was all a bad idea. He was here for all the wrong reasons. He couldn’t forgive his other self for what he’d done, and he couldn’t get over the fact that Len trusted him more than anyone else because of that guy.
He was frustrated, angry, and at the same time too worried to sleep. Leonard was sick and unstable. He should be in the care of a doctor, not an engineer.
But then he knew that the doctors wouldn’t have let him go if it wasn’t alright, and that being here was doing his friend good. He sighed, feeling conflicted. But internal conflict was pointless when he knew that he would do this as long as his friend needed him.
And perhaps doing this would help him to finally convince the part of him that still didn’t believe that this was all true, that Leonard had truly returned to them after so long. Alive, if not at all well.
Ironically, all the time Len was gone, Scotty hadn’t been able to believe he was dead. Now he could hardly believe he was not.
Sighing again, Scotty turned to his side and closed his eyes, trying to relax. It wasn’t his job to watch over his friend all night - that task went to the machines around his bed which would alert the doctor on duty should anything be wrong. There was no reason for him to stay awake all the time.
Still, he couldn’t sleep, and there was very little to be done about that. He didn’t dare take a pill for fear it would make him sleep too deeply to wake up should he be needed after all.
In the end he must have fallen asleep anyway, because when the alarm clock want off, there were hours missing from his memory and he had no idea where they went. He was still tired.
Len was already awake, dressed in a uniform that was far too wide and ready to leave for work.
March 23, 2010
Chapter 7
FANDOM: Star Trek TOS
CHARACTERS/PAIRING: Spock/McCoy, M'Benga, Chapel, Kirk, Scotty
TABLE: # 8 - Miscellaneous B
PROMPT: 03. Answers
RATING: PG-13
WORD COUNT: 6335
WARNINGS: Mentions of mind control and 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.
While M’Benga had had doubts about the benefits of Spock’s taking over of the bond with McCoy outweighing the negative consequences, he had to admit that it was probably the best that had happened to his old friend since returning to their side of the universe. For the longest time, whenever he had taken one step forward in his recovery, he had taken two steps back the next time the Vulcan from the other universe pulled him back into his private nightmares. Now that influence was gone, McCoy had a chance to recover and get used to the thought of being home.
It was not perfect. McCoy didn’t make a miraculous recovery overnight and his suffering didn’t stop with the removal of the other’s influence. He was still screaming in his sleep, was still having flashbacks, and he still thought that hurting himself was a good way to keep his mind on the present. But now it was only his own mind torturing him, and that was an improvement. Now if only they managed day fix that mind, broken as it was, Leonard finally had a chance for a return to a normal life. One day.
None the less, the first days after his involuntary bonding with Spock had been hard for McCoy. He had a hard time accepting his friend in his head, and M’Benga suspected that the fact that he was so close to the Vulcan was making this harder rather than easier. His helpless desperation in the face of the knowledge that he would never again be free of this connection, that there would always be someone who could control him and read his mind even if he did not do it were painful to watch. For days, they had to keep him either sedated of tied to the bed. Even after the violent struggle had been replaced by quiet hopelessness, M’Benga and his colleagues kept a very close eye on him.
Spock had not come to see him once in the week that had since passed.
McCoy’s physical recovery continued to be slow - the emotional stress left his body little reserves to deal with his lingering injuries and illness. Still, he recovered, however slowly. Soon, they would be able to transplant the new organs he needed, and once that was done he would be able to leave sickbay, no longer depending on machines to do the work his body was not able to handle. M’Benga wasn’t entire sure how he felt about it. He hoped his friend would find some peace and safety in the familiar privacy of his own quarters; at the same time he knew they couldn’t leave Leonard all on his own. As before, someone had to be with him, and so far the doctor had no idea who that should be. The captain was not a good candidate, not only because he had a ship to run, and despite their newly formed bond, M’Benga was willing to rule out Spock as well.
Actually, there were precious few people he could ask. The other Spock’s influence may have been gone, but the memories he had given Leonard, of his counterpart’s life, remained. There was hardly anyone McCoy didn’t associate with any kind of crime or cruelty. M’Benga knew from a particularly bad day that his own counterpart was not exactly a saint either.
But that was a problem they would have to solve when the time came. For the moment, the acting CMO saw himself confronted with a problem of another kind: once again, Leonard McCoy was not in his bed, where he belonged.
M’Benga sighed. “Belle,” he addressed Nurse Deleroi, who was taking inventory in the main room. “Where did McCoy go?”
She frowned, puzzled. “You mean, he isn’t in bed?”
“You mean you didn’t see him leave? There is only the one exit from his room, and it leads to this one. So unless he suddenly vanished into thin air, he must have come through here.”
She blushed slightly. “I haven’t seen him. Earlier, when I checked on him, he snapped at me, so I thought I’d leave him alone for a while. My back was mostly to the room. I’m sorry. He must have snuck out.”
“Oh, so he’s only taking a walk, then.” M’Benga snorted in irritation, still looking around as if expecting to find McCoy lurking behind a bed somewhere. He was actually pretty sure that Leonard was not taking a walk, since taking a walk would require leaving sickbay and being presented to the attention of the rest of the crew. In his pyjamas. Highly unlikely.
His gaze fell on the door to McCoy’s office, innocently closed as always. Trying it, M’Benga found it locked. Which was not at all unusual, except this time it was locked from the inside. His authorisation as CMO allowed him to override any lock on any door, but it took seconds that seemed far too long. Leonard was remotely stable these days, yet he was still damaged enough that leaving him alone was a bad idea, and letting him lock himself in was even worse.
In his mind M’Benga imagined all the things he’d do with Nurse Deleroi should it turn out that her turning her back to the room had resulted in Leonard hurting himself, or worse. But the door slit open and all it revealed was the sight of Doctor Leonard McCoy sitting at his desk and working at his computer.
M’Benga had entered the room to this sight so often the familiarity was painful. But in his memory, Leonard was wearing his black and blue uniform instead of the blue and black clothes of a patient, he weighed more and there were no bandages anywhere on his body.
And he didn’t jump in shock at the sound of the door opening. For a second, the doctor saw the familiar fear in his friend’s eyes, then it was replaced by recognition and McCoy turned back to his computer screen, apparently deciding that if only he ignored his visitor, he would go away.
M’Benga did not go away. He stepped closer, looking over McCoy’s shoulder. The screen showed a medical article about a new treatment for cerebral damage that had first been successfully tested half a year ago. Every now and then, Leonard stopped to enter a few notes into the PADD he had lying on the desk.
Sighing, M’Benga crossed his arms. “I have a professional question, Leonard,” he said. “It’s quite important.”
That got him the attention he wanted. Leonard stopped reading and turned to him, in his eyes a mix of wariness and hope that nearly shut the doctor up. Nearly, but not quite.
“If you had a patient who should be in bed running around and working before you released them, what would you do?”
Leonard turned back to his screen and refused to look at him again. “It would depend on the situation. If the patient is well enough, I’d let him work if he wants to.”
“As far as I recall, you’re the one who decides if he’s well enough, not the patient.”
“I am making that decision.”
“No, you’re not.” Activating his scanner, M’Benga ran it over the other’s body. McCoy’s temperature was up again - not enough to worry him but higher than it should be. His pulse was too fast, his blood sugar too low, his breathing slightly irregular. “I am the doctor here, and you should be in bed.”
“I’ve been in bed for ages.” McCoy shrugged. “It’s not like I’m overexerting myself here. What does it matter whether I sit on a bed or at my desk?”
“You don’t really expect me to grace that with an answer, do you?”
Instead of replaying, or even so much as paying attention to his words, Leonard started copying files from one place to another. M’Benga made a mental note to have this computer’s access to the medical files blocked until McCoy was well enough to do any kind of work. He let his irritation show in his voice when he said, “There are two alternatives: Either you go back to your room on your own, or you’ll be carried there after I sedated you.”
“How about option number three: You leave me alone and bother someone who actually needs you?” McCoy growled.
He was in a royal mood, but that was fine with M’Benga. It was a thousand times better than him being depressed, suicidal, or losing his mind.
“If our roles were reverted, you’d hypo me and drag me back to tie me to the bed for a week, just so I’d get the message,” he said lightly. “Knowing this, I won’t feel bad at all when I do exactly the same.”
McCoy glared at him, but then, miracle of miracles, turned off the computer and got up. M’Benga was about to marvel on how this had been easier than he had expected when Leonard took the PADD he had copied all the files on and took it along.
The doctor could have taken it away and started a discussion that would have kept them busy for the rest of the day. Instead, he just rolled his eyes and followed McCoy out of the room. He could always take the thing and hide it once Leonard had fallen asleep over it.
-
When Chris Chapel entered McCoy’s room two hours later, she found him sitting on the edge of his bed, reading something on a PADD. He only looked up for a brief glance in her direction.
“Lieutenant Tersy died,” he said tonelessly.
For a moment, Chris didn’t know what he was talking about. She remembered Nomi Tersy, a young officer who had been infected with a rare disease during a mission to a planet that seemed to consist entirely of swamps, but she had been dead for such a long time that the nurse didn’t quite get what McCoy was talking about, or why it upset him so much.
Then she remembered that it had happened during Leonard’s absence, so he had only just learned about it.
And then she thought that they were all idiots for not blocking his access to the medical files of the crew.
“It happened about a month after we lost you. She was doing fine, and then, suddenly, she died. No one saw it coming.” But of course he already knew that. It was in the report written after they had found her dead in her quarters. “The complications were caused by a substance she came in contact with made the infection flare up again. There was nothing wrong with your treatment.” That was what he really needed to hear, but Chris saw at once that he didn’t believe her. From the beginning he had been taking extra good care of the lieutenant, because the illness was completely alien and she was allergic to the usual medication for her symptoms. In the end he had found a treatment that kept the symptoms at bay and slowly brought her body back to normal.
She had been his patient, and Chris knew he took her death personally.
It didn’t help that when the captain had wanted to drop Tersy off at a medical facility, McCoy had made sure she could stay. Chris knew the lieutenant had begged him to help her stay; her life had been on this ship, and the moment she was gone, her place would have been taken by someone else. She just wasn’t important enough to be sure she could return after recovering.
McCoy’s argument had been that with the right treatment her disease was neither life-threatening nor limiting her abilities, and that he was the only doctor who had any experience with it so far, so it made sense for her to stay with him.
He had been right about that. Anywhere else she might have died long before, and by the time the unfortunate circumstances resulting in her death occurred, she had been almost back to full health. Yes Christine knew that this didn’t matter to McCoy at the moment. He only knew that he had arranged for her to remain here, and here she had died.
He would have blamed himself for it even if he hadn’t been so sick and emotionally damaged. The current circumstances didn’t help at all. But no matter how much she wanted to make him understand, Chris knew that he wouldn’t listen to anything she had to say - not yet, at least. So she just took the PADD from his almost limp fingers and set it aside. He let it happen without showing any kind of reaction.
Afterwards, the nurse removed the bandages around his wrists and threw them away. The wounds had closed, but left ugly scars there was no point in removing as long as they had to open them again away. The skin was hot to the touch. After hours of working with the PADD, Chris could only imagine how much his hands and arms were hurting.
She didn’t ask him if he was in pain, because she knew he was. Also, he would have lied.
Chris took care of his wrists. Even ten days before that had been something that was nearly impossible to accomplish while he was awake. Now he didn’t even blink. He’d become calmer, overall, and while Christine didn’t know exactly what circumstances she had to thank for that, she knew it had something to do with Mr. Spock. She would have loved to know more, but M’Benga said it was too private to discuss, and he’d warned her not to ask, or even mention Spock in Leonard’s presence.
Chris hated not knowing, but she accepted that things were complicated. If one day, Leonard would tell her on his own, she would be happy, but she would not pester him in a time like this.
And asking Spock was out of the question anyway. Especially since he stayed away from sickbay as if it was mined. She hadn’t seen him in a week.
She missed him. But not as much as she might have, long ago.
When she was done taking care of Leonard and applied new bandages, he looked at her, tired but with a look in his eyes she hadn’t seen in a while, but knew very well: It was a look that said he had made a decision and nothing would change his mind.
“Chris,” he said. “Let me do something useful.”
She had rather thought about scolding him for doing any kind of work, even if it was just catching up with his reading. But he looked at her as if his life would depend on being allowed to work (and perhaps it did) and, damn it, he shouldn’t have to beg for being allowed to work in this place, and every step away from these circumstances back toward how things had once been was a step in the right direction to her.
She was about to promise him she’d talk to M’Benga about it but knew at once that wouldn’t be good enough. Leonard knew her too well, and he knew how much influence she had. This was her sickbay almost as much as it had been his.
“Well,” she finally said. “In a couple of days we’re going to fix your wrists, and then we’ll replace the organs you’ve lost. If all goes well, I’ll let you do some light duty here.”
He granted her a tired, grateful smile. “Don’t worry, I don’t want my old position back. At this point I’ll be happy if you let me sweep the floor.”
Chris didn’t show how much her heart was breaking at this. Instead, she put on a stern expression and said, “Be good, then. Stay in bed, rest, and preserve your strength so we won’t have to postpone the operation because you got sick again.”
He nodded without protest and promptly settled back in bed. Christine thought he just wanted to prove his cooperation, but by the time she had gathered her things and was ready to leave, he was fast asleep.
Chris sighed. Now she only had to convince the doctors that this was a good idea.
It helped that she actually thought it might be.
-
“No way in hell,” M’Benga said.
“I gave him a promise, and I will keep that promise.” Christine crossed her arms, a hard line around her mouth. “It’s not like I’m going to let him perform surgery or conduct important experiments without checking the results. But let him do something, Doctor! He needs something to justify his existence.”
M’Benga understood that. He really did - Leonard felt useless and like a burden to everyone without doing anything to be worth their effort. It wasn’t that hard to see. But there were problems they couldn’t simply ignore.
“I know he’s seeming to be a lot better these days. But he isn’t. The smallest thing can set him off. Today, before your shift started, he had a nightmare, and the captain decided to wake him from it. Unfortunately that didn’t help at all, because that dream apparently featured Kirk’s damn counterpart, and half an hour later McCoy was full of tranquilizers and still screaming. Something like that can happen anytime. Anytime, Chris. We can’t prevent it.”
“I’m not asking you to let him come in contact with patients, and neither is he. He told me he’d be fine with sweeping the floor if it meant he could do something useful, though if you even think about considering that, I’m going to quit.” And she didn’t look like she was joking either. But then, M’Benga didn’t think about considering that for a second.
“I know where you’re coming from,” he said, “but it’s not going to happen. It can’t. We’re a medical facility - it would be irresponsible to let anyone work here who by all rights should be a patient himself - and he still is, as you well know. That he’s no longer residing here doesn’t mean his treatment is over. Not to mention someone he’s mentally unstable. Lives depend on us not messing up, and with all those memories of another crew stuck in his head, if anything goes wrong…”
“Didn’t you listen to a word I said? I won’t trust him with patients. He doesn’t trust himself with patients. He probably wouldn’t trust any diagnosis he made without having us double check everything, and then he still wouldn’t trust it. But I promised I’d let him work, and I didn’t make that promise because he promised to be good and stay in bed in return, but because I get it.” She took a deep breath. “Think about it, Doctor. Work distracts him and keeps him focused. The time he spend going through the files, he didn’t have more than an annoyed glare for me when I disturbed him, instead of looking like he might hide under the bed any moment. And I don’t know about you, but I think doing something useful is a better way for him to distract himself than cutting his flesh open. But if you disagree…”
She left the sentence incomplete, probably because she knew he didn’t disagree. Still, M’Benga couldn’t simply agree either. He had considered before to at least let Leonard work in one of the labs, let him with some of the theories and experiments he was so good at, but he had accepted that it just wouldn’t work. Not only because it was a bad idea to let a man who suffered from reality disassociation and suicidal episodes work in a lab.
Christine took a step towards him and gently touched his arm. “You told me that you wished for Leonard to someday get his life back. His work is his life. His work and this ship -there’s no one and nothing else. So why don’t we just give it back to him?” It sounded temptingly simple.
“Did you approach Sanchez and Burke with this?” M’Benga asked, because he could imagine his colleagues had something to say about it as well.
There was a hint of mirth in Christine’s smile. “You are the CMO. It’s your decision.”
Technically, that was correct. Practically, the other doctors, as well as the captain, wouldn’t see it quite the same way.
-
They fixed McCoy’s wrists three days later; he got his organs back three days after that. Because of his weakened state, his recovery from the surgery took longer than usual. It was, surprisingly, Spock who after staying away from sickbay for two weeks came to M’Benga and insisted that it was time to let him move back to his old quarters. Technically, it was no problem, as they had never given the rooms to anyone else, but it was also Spock who insisted - as he had before - on not leaving McCoy alone there.
Unfortunately, he kept insisting on not being the one to stay with him. Unfortunately, Kirk could see why. On the one hand he would have liked both his friends to be able to be in the same room again. They were stuck in this situation, and it was about time they learned to live with it. On the other hand he had seen all too clearly recently that even now Bones could lose it by seeing Kirk in a bad moment, so he didn’t want to imagine what Spock’s presence might do to him.
Bones couldn’t get used to the thought. The only way he was able to deal with Spock being in his head was by distracting himself from thinking about it. And that would be damn hard to accomplish if Spock was around.
Kirk hoped they would find a solution to this eventually. Spock and Bones couldn’t go on avoiding each other forever.
Well, technically they could, but he didn’t want them to.
For the current problem of who would keep an eye on Bones, they did have a solution, and once again it was offered by Spock. Unfortunately, their solution wasn’t half as convinced that he was the solution to anything.
The biggest problem they were facing was that Bones still was unable to keep his own memories and those of his deceased counterpart apart at all times. And since most of the people he was close to were a little less than likable in the other world, any of them could cause another breakdown. Kirk and Spock were the worst, due to his personal experiences as well as the manner of his counterpart’s demise, but there were days when he reacted badly even to Nurse Chapel or Uhura. Under these circumstances, the only person Spock considered a good choice was Scotty.
According to what Spock had seen in McCoy’s mind, the engineer was pretty much the only person the other McCoy had considered a friend, to a certain extent. He had known better that to trust him, but within the parameters of their world it was as close a friendship as there could be. Scotty was the only one he did not outright associate with anything negative.
But while Kirk, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov and initially Spock too had often visited Bones in sickbay, Scotty had hardly ever been seen around. And when Kirk asked him to take care of their friend for a while, he outright refused.
“I can’t do that,” he said. “It wouldn’t be right.” And then he refused to give an explanation to that until Kirk was just about to threaten him with court martial.
“You are the only one he trusts,” the captain said in frustration, just in case Scotty had somehow missed that point. But Scotty shook his head.
“He trusts all of you no less than me. It’s my counterpart that makes the difference.”
“It’s our counterparts that are the problem!”
“But my damn counterpart doesn’t deserve his trust!” Scotty finally bust out. “The other McCoy - the man whose memories Len’s stuck with, considered him a friend, and the bastard sold him out the moment it served him.”
So that was the problem. Kirk couldn’t even claim he didn’t understand it, having his own issues with his own counterpart. Actually, compared to the monster he would have been in another life, he thought that Scotty had come off pretty damn well.
“So he trusts you and that is wrong,” he summed it up. “Does it make you feel guilty?”
“No.” Scotty shook his head, his face grim. “It makes me angry. I want to shake him and tell him his trust is misplaced, but it’s not his trust in the first place, and telling him would only make things worse.”
No matter how much Kirk understood the engineer’s frustration, he couldn’t accept it now. “In sickbay he’s constantly surrounded by others. Even though he has his own room, there’s no privacy to speak of, and that would have made him nervous even in better days. In his own quarters he would feel safer, I hope, but we’re not going to leave him alone. And you are the only one who can stay with him. If you don’t do it, he’ll have to remain in sickbay, where he’s already going crazy.”
The look Scotty threw him was almost a glare. “That’s called moral blackmailing, Sir.”
“It’s called ‘It’s up to you, Scotty’.”
So in the end Scotty agreed. Because he had no other choice. He loved Bones just as much as they all did.
And even though he never mentioned it, Kirk knew that Bones was well aware of how much they all put his feelings before their own at this time. He knew also that this was hard for his friend to bear, who already felt like a useless burden anyway.
But, well, he would have to live with it. In all the years they were friends, Bone shad always supported Jim with his troubles and never mentioned his own. Even when he was dying of xenopolycythemia he would have liked to keep it a secret, had that been possible. It was about time he accepted their help for a change, without feeling he had to do something in return.
-
There was a planet interested in joining the Federation that had been at war with one of its colonies for twenty years. Now peace negotiations were about to happen, and the Enterprise was on its way to escort the ambassador of one world to the other and protect him during his stay. McCoy knew this because Jim had told him. It was both terrifying and consoling to see that despite everything that had happened in his own life, the universe just kept moving on and didn’t care.
He was glad that Jim and everyone else would have something other than him to care about for once. He would be perfectly happy if for the duration of this mission everyone simply forgot he existed.
Yet there was a not at all irrational fear that he would somehow managed to screw things up for them - scenarios along the lines of him losing his mind at the wrong moment, running into the mess hall naked and trying to kill the ambassador kept playing in his mind. The mental image would have been amusing under different circumstances. It wasn’t, because it was all too possible.
He had even considered telling the others to lock him in until the mission was over, so he wouldn’t be able to mess things up, but hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it.
These days, McCoy was as scared of himself as he was of everyone else. He didn’t want to be; he wanted to get better, get back to normal, but something always kept him down. Sometimes he felt that Jim was irritated with his refusal to leave this behind, and he wished there was any way to make his friend understand that he tried.
“Are you ready?” Scotty was standing in the doorway, looking expectantly. McCoy hadn’t been allowed to leave sickbay before his friend showed up to accompany him, and he might have snapped a little at various people for it, because, damn, he could understand why they insisted on a babysitter even if he didn’t like it, but he should be able to walk to his quarters on his own, at least.
On the other hand, considering his worries concerning the possible naked murder of ambassadors, he had to admit that they might be right not to leave him alone at any time while he was running free and unguarded.
The thought would be enough to depress him if he continued down that road, so he hurried to focus on something else. He had become very good at focusing on something else. It just didn’t always work.
“More ready than you can imagine.” The words were meant to come out as an impatient growl, and he hoped Scotty didn’t notice the trembling of his voice.
For the first time in a year, McCoy was wearing normal clothes again. Someone had gotten them from his quarters for him - it were civilian clothes he had brought from home and had only gotten to wear on rare days after shift, and they didn’t fit him anymore. Only now, in his own clothes, did he really realise how much weight he had lost. Before… before he had already been close to underweight, and these clothes had been close-fitting. Now they hung loosely off his frame, making him look like a child playing dress-up.
Scotty seemed to think so too. McCoy caught him staring at him with a pained expression on his face, before he hastily looked away.
“Sorry,” McCoy said, meaning not the way he looked but the fact that his friend had to go through all this trouble for him. “For the inconvenience.”
The engineer brushed his apology off with a generous wave of his hand. “It’s not that inconvenient. Doesn’t really matter where I sleep. One room’s as good as another.” It was a very obvious attempt to make him feel better. McCoy didn’t question it but accepted it with as much of a smile as he could manage.
When he left the room he had resided in for the past weeks, he only had his PADD to take along. Chris had warned him not to work too hard or too long, to listen to his body’s signals and stop when he grew tired, and when he had promised just that they’d both known he was lying. There was just too much to catch up on.
But that was something he could worry about when he was home. First he had to get there, and right now he hoped Scotty didn’t notice how nervous he was about the walk back. Just the thought of being exposed to the attention of all the people they would pass in the corridors made him feel physically ill.
Mercifully, the corridors were rather deserted. Unusually so; McCoy suspected that Jim had something to do with that. Still, his heart pounded hard in his chest and his palms were sweating and he kept his eyes fixed firmly on the floor, refusing to look left or right - or to turn around to whoever he was convinced was following him.
Scotty’s was a strangely reassuring presence beside him; still he wanted to run, just so this would be over. But his legs wouldn’t carry him any faster. Instead, it got harder to keep walking at all. McCoy felt dizzy, and his harsh breathing was not only caused by his fear. At some point he was overcome by the realisation how messed up he was and nearly started crying in shame and desperation.
Suddenly someone grabbed his arm and it was all McCoy could do to keep from screaming. But it was only Scotty, steadying him, and only now did he realise that he was about to fall over.
“Nearly made it,” the Scotsman mumbled in his familiar accent. Unable to react, McCoy let himself be led until doors parted before them, and then they closed and it was over. He was home.
It had been a year since he had last entered his quarters. He’d lived in here for four years, but only now did he recognize it as home. He had often thought about these rooms when all he’d had was a piece of somebody else’s floor.
It looked unchanged, except someone had cleaned the place, and there was some equipment placed around his bed he didn’t really want to think about. And there was another bed now, for Scotty. They had put it behind the half-wall that divided the room, granting them both a minimum of privacy. McCoy hardly registered it. For the first time in far too long, he felt almost save. Hidden from view. He only wanted to be left alone.
Gentle hands helped him over to the bed, and as soon as they reached it, McCoy lay down, turned his face to the wall, curled up and tried to pretend he wasn’t crying.
-
Three hours after he had picked Len up from sickbay, Scotty shut off his PADD and suppressed a yawn. It was time to sleep. The day had been long enough, and tomorrow would be another long day. Also, they were on a mission, and even though it was a diplomatic mission, the probability that in three hours an alarm would call him down to engineering so he could save the ship from dying of an imploding warp core was higher than usual.
After getting ready for bed in the small bathroom, he had a look at Leonard. His friend lay still on the bed, finally fully asleep. Scotty could make out the line of his spine through the fabric of his shirt.
Len was still wearing his clothes and lying on top of the covers, but Scotty would let him sleep like this because he didn’t want to disturb him. He had been worried for a moment, on the way here, that his friend would collapse, but in the end he was glad that he had brought Len here instead of alerting the medics so they’d take him back. It was obvious that despite looking like a child hiding from monsters, his friend actually found some peace here.
That peace was mostly granted by the privacy he didn’t have anywhere else, and Scotty had tried to leave him alone as much as possible. Once they had reached this room, Leonard had pretty much pretended the engineer didn’t exist, and Scotty could understand that. He understood it very well. Still, he had felt pretty awkward and useless when his friend had turned his back to him and soundlessly cried into the pillow.
Respecting his friend’s need to be alone, Scotty had kept to the other side of the room and read a mechanical journal. On another day he might have gone to the rec room, but for the near future things like that had to wait until Len was somewhere else, or someone else was wit him.
That was okay, though. Scotty wouldn’t complain, least of all to Leonard. His reasons for not wanting to be here were of a different nature.
They had removed all things sharp or pointed enough to beak skin from the room, which in a wider sense included all things that could be broken. Of course that wouldn’t stop Len from hurting himself if he really wanted to, but at least he would have trouble finding a good way to kill himself if he had one of his moments. Still, being responsible for his life wasn’t an easy burden to carry.
Despite being tired, Scotty couldn’t fall asleep. He kept staring at the ceiling in the dim, bluish light of the monitor, listening for any noise. The light bothered him, but he wouldn’t complain. The silence bothered him more, or the fact that he had to be listening to it. This was all a bad idea. He was here for all the wrong reasons. He couldn’t forgive his other self for what he’d done, and he couldn’t get over the fact that Len trusted him more than anyone else because of that guy.
He was frustrated, angry, and at the same time too worried to sleep. Leonard was sick and unstable. He should be in the care of a doctor, not an engineer.
But then he knew that the doctors wouldn’t have let him go if it wasn’t alright, and that being here was doing his friend good. He sighed, feeling conflicted. But internal conflict was pointless when he knew that he would do this as long as his friend needed him.
And perhaps doing this would help him to finally convince the part of him that still didn’t believe that this was all true, that Leonard had truly returned to them after so long. Alive, if not at all well.
Ironically, all the time Len was gone, Scotty hadn’t been able to believe he was dead. Now he could hardly believe he was not.
Sighing again, Scotty turned to his side and closed his eyes, trying to relax. It wasn’t his job to watch over his friend all night - that task went to the machines around his bed which would alert the doctor on duty should anything be wrong. There was no reason for him to stay awake all the time.
Still, he couldn’t sleep, and there was very little to be done about that. He didn’t dare take a pill for fear it would make him sleep too deeply to wake up should he be needed after all.
In the end he must have fallen asleep anyway, because when the alarm clock want off, there were hours missing from his memory and he had no idea where they went. He was still tired.
Len was already awake, dressed in a uniform that was far too wide and ready to leave for work.
March 23, 2010
Chapter 7