Fic: Contra Spem Spero, 1/2. Kirk/McCoy.
Jun. 24th, 2009 06:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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cjs_owndisclaimer. Not mine. Never have been and I'll only ever be playing in the sandbox.
title. Contra Spem Spero
rating. Teen
pairing. Kirk/McCoy
summary. Hope against hope.
warnings. NOT a death fic.
notes. Sequel to Inter Spem et Metum.
It had been labeled a peaceful mission – go down to a planet populated by calm farmers and gentle herders, record some information, talk with the leaders.
At least that was what was supposed to happen, but as always, something was bound to go wrong especially when Jim hadn't been able to keep his tongue in his own mouth that evening. And in a society built on rigid social structure, the leader of a Starship stealing a moment to kiss his CMO hadn't been accepted well – not only was Bones beneath him in status (entirely their opinion, Jim would later assure him), he was male and therefore unfit to be Jim's partner.
No one had seen the rocks until Bones was on the ground, a little stunned and a little frantic, trying desperately to curl in on himself.
Jim had felt the roar of the rage in his blood, heard a yell ring in his ears; he and Sulu wouldn't have stood a chance against the men who were stoning Bones savagely, but that didn't stop the two of them from trying. The first punch had been thrown, but no return came as Scotty's transporter lock had their molecules flying apart, flying upwards, flying back to Enterprise, leaving angry cries in their wake.
Bones was still a tight ball when they re-integrated into flesh, despite being barely conscious.
“What the fuck happened down there?” Scott yelled as he leapt from his seat. “Medical team to transporter room!”
Jim shook his head, as he fell to Bones' side, and admitted, “I don't know,” before manhandling McCoy until he was flat on his back and Kirk could lean over him. “Come on, old man,” he breathed, “Come on.” He stared down at the half-lidded eyes, wishing he'd paid better attention to his Emergency Medical Procedures instructor instead of the blonde two rows down.
He tapped the side of Bones' face, careful of the bleeding wounds, and called out the man's name again. No response and he snapped, pinching down on a forming bruise, as his voice grew in intensity. “Leonard McCoy!”
The groan that emanated from his mouth was somewhere between agony and confusion; Jim was grateful when the Medical Team finally arrived, whisking Bones away with efficiency borne from too much practice and Jim ran after them without hesitation as they made their way through the corridors. Whomever had designed Enterprise clearly had assumed there would be a need for the transporter to be as close to the sickbay as possible and Jim thanked his lucky stars for that as McCoy's weak movements ceased and he fell back into unconsciousness.
Yanked back by the hands of Bones' own nursing staff at the entrance to Medical Bay, Jim could only watch as his lover was raced into surgery and then the suite's doors hid the medical team from view.
“He's critical,” were the first words out of Doctor Beckett's mouth, her surgical outfit bloody and nauseating. She hadn't been able to explain to Jim why Bones, who (as horrible as it sounded) had only been stoned, had been taken directly into surgery, and as she stood before him, she knew the man was wavering on his feet and decided to quickly tell him the list of injuries McCoy now had to recover from.
Internal bleeding, broken ribs, cracked vertebrae, head injury caused by concussive force, broken wrist, fractured elbow... Every time Jim prayed she'd reached the end, there was something else and when she stopped he had to force himself to swallow around the lump in his throat. He had the vaguest urge to vomit, but held it back and asked, “Will he recover?”
“I can't say right now, Captain,” she admitted, eyes trained on him and assessing. He'd escaped the pound of the rocks, but he still looked worn down and painful; she could see the purpling bags under his eyes, the droop of his shoulders, and her mind called up, unbidden, the image of the widower she'd grown up next door to.
“If he makes it through the night, chances are higher, but there's a thousand possible complications, so I need you to be prepared for the worst, sir,” Beckett added, “You can see him for a few minutes, but we need to keep him to a low bacteria exposure so...”
Jim cut her off with a wave of his hand. “It's not the first time we've had to deal with the isolation protocols, Doctor,” he said, recalling nearly every failed away mission their eighteen months, right before Starfleet had sent them Beckett as relief for the overworked McCoy, and how often Bones would have to lock one of the bridge crew up in a sterile room for the sake of their health. How he'd bitched and complained from the other side of the thick glass at his patient once they were stable and recovering about recklessness, having better value for their life, and acting like self-sacrificing martyrs – though that last part tended to be aimed at Jim.
God, but Jim never expected Bones to be the one inside a sterile white room, barriers of glass, vinyl, and disposable cloth between them. It hurt to think he could lose the man over one culture's homophobia and lose him without being able to touch that pale, freckled skin one last time.
“Captain?” Beckett called, interrupting his reverie. “Do you want to see him?”
He nodded, unable to trust his voice and let her lead him toward a supply closet near the isolation room where she gathered the items needed and then pushed him into one of the decontamination showers, watching as he stripped down and nearly scrubbed himself raw with the provided soap. Normally, it wasn't required to bathe prior to entry, but Kirk had a way of getting sick at the drop of a hat, usually following an injury, and she was taking no chances on him carrying in any bacteria that could cause McCoy potential problems.
He pulled on the annoying blue scrubs, then the isolation gown, vinyl gloves, cap and mask without complaint and waited for her to input the unlock code. She hesitated, however, and sighed, telling him, “Just be prepared – regenerators can only do so much,” before opening the door.
Jim slipped inside, moving to Bones' side and wincing at the sight of his lover. He looked like seven kinds of hell, his body a mass of bruises and superficial scratches surrounding the beginning of the thinly healed incision. She was right, of course, that dermal and osteogenic regenerators worked within a range for injuries like the ones inflicted on Bones: they were programmed to take into account physical health and provide the optimal amount of repair though that did not necessarily mean complete healing. Bones had explained why to him so many times before, forgetting the lecture minutes later if only because he knew he'd hear it again.
Now, however, it seemed he should have listened better, committed to memory the way Bones' voice grew in intensity when he tried to get medical facts through Jim's otherwise stubbornly thick skull.
He picked up McCoy's limp hand, the one that hadn't been exposed to the pelting, and brought it up to his covered mouth. “I'm sorry, baby,” he murmured, glad for the solitude he'd been offered when Beckett chose to remain outside the room; he didn't know if he'd have been able to keep his composure as the Captain intact in front of her with his lover laying on a bio-bed like a tenderized piece of meat. Even his face was shadowed in bruises and welts, one eye still slightly swollen despite the medications being pumped into his body by the computer.
Jim pressed a kiss against the hand and nuzzled it gently, hearing the knock on the glass that signaled the end of his visit; he leaned down to lean his forehead on McCoy's and whispered, “Love you,” then set the hand back down, took a step back, and left without a glance back.
He couldn't sleep that night, not when he was surrounded by the material pieces of their life together. Pictures of Joanna, god rest her soul, stared down at him from the dresser top, open books taunted him from the side table, and the dim light of their quarters seem to glint extra brightly off belt buckles, shined shoes, and uniform tunic command stripes.
The living area gave no respite when Jim finally gave up pretending to rest and rose from the bed. There on the couch, he was assaulted with blinking PADDs and a brand new computer unit to replace the one Bones had destroyed two weeks earlier, a casualty of his wicked temper when the man had thrown it across the shuttle bay at Scotty. His still-damp towel from their morning shower sat near the laundry chute, having been forgotten in the frenzy to make it to their shifts on time; Jim had been unable to turn down the offer of sex even though they were due to their stations an hour earlier than normal to prepare for the mission.
His head thunked against the back of the couch and he closed his eyes when his gaze unerringly found the black marker circle on the ceiling, put there during a drunken bet. His throat grew tight, his chest painful, and Jim wished like hell that he could rewind the day and tell them to skip the fucking mission, to stay in bed where it was safe.
“I can't do this again,” Jim murmured, one tear escaping his control and sliding down his cheek.
A year ago tomorrow would mark the one year anniversary of Joanna McCoy's death. Barely eight years old, she and her mother had set out from Earth to Risa, intending to meet the Enterprise for a week's leave, when they were attacked and the transport vessel destroyed. Both she and Jocelyn had perished in the tragedy; Bones had been rushed back to Earth to attend her funeral, Jim and the crew appearing only after a majority agreement to cut leave short.
Jim had never been prouder of his crew than he had when the idea was put forth to join their CMO on Earth, to stand with him in his grief. He was damn sure no other ship in the fleet was as tight-knit and loyal as his was and he'd appreciated it in the days after the burial, after the Admirals called him before them to explain his actions. Bereavement was a fickle thing and they had stood by McCoy on his bad days as well as his good ones, until a few months afterwards when the little girl's name could be spoken without him going silent.
Now it seemed he might become the recipient of their care, something that made Jim want to vomit. He didn't want to know what life would be like sans his lover, he didn't want his crew to comfort him and try to cheer him up with jokes, stories, and movies when his spirits were low. He may have approved of that kind of care for Bones, but not for himself.
He stood and began to pace, his eyes trained on his feet as he rubbed his temples to try and soothe the oncoming headache. Sharp between his eyes, the pain came anyway; he shoved his feet into a pair of non-regulation shoes – black sandals his mother had given him with the remark that in a crisis, they were faster then boots and better than being barefoot – and took off for, well, someplace else.
Which turned out to be Medical Bay. There Chapel supplied him with aspirin (pill form at his request) and asked if wanted a few minutes with Bones, only his heart ached at the thought of being alone with his dying lover and he shook his head, fleeing a moment later while his stomach roiled with a feeling of cowardice.
For all that he had seen and accomplished, for all the risks he had ever taken that had endangered his own life, Jim had had the epiphany moment of now knowing how Bones had felt every time he'd come back to Enterprise bleeding and unconscious. He both loathed and regretted it, the realization that his lover had been forced to stand idly by without the assurance he would wake the next morning to Jim still breathing, still living. He hated the feeling of terror that had formed in the pit of his belly at that and it only grew when he reached one of the starboard observation decks, looking out at the starlight as they passed by; so many nights he and Bones had had huddled down on the floor by a window just like this, a blanket over their shoulders while either one of them talked through their guilt over the latest casualty.
Such an intimate moment may never happen again.
For the first time in his life, James T. Kirk well and truly needed the guidance of a father, not the loving acceptance of his mother. She'd be quite content to lend an ear and offer womanly advice, yet what he needed were the stern words of an older man, someone who had might have stood in this spot before or had not but could still tell him to calm down. Someone who could remind him that life was not a rule to be bent under his will, just a force of nature that he had to accept.
The closest one he had was in Christopher Pike; Frank counted little in his memories as nothing more than a neglectful, domineering nuisance, not to mention the fact that the last time Jim had seen the man, Winona had kneed him in the balls in front of no less than six Admirals and three Captains for causing a scene at Sam's funeral. Calling Pike at this hour, however, would likely have been met with annoyance, or so Jim believed and he had to weigh the childish need for a parent against the heady expectations of being the one in charge – he had to at least appear capable of handling Bones' possible fate while Captaining the the ship.
Except he was failing to take into account the status change he had made when Joanna died. Under one of Starfleet's later addendums to the original regulations, Partners could serve aboard a vessel together though when they were the partner of the Captain, there were certain rules. One of which Jim had no way of knowing was about to smack him in the face and take away the one thing he needed to put his back against, to keep him from falling apart.
His communicator beeped then, Sulu alerting him to a recently arrived message from command.
Attn: Kirk, James Tiberius, Captain. U.S.S. Enterprise.
Under Regulation 261, Section 9, Paragraph 1, you are hereby placed on temporary leave until such time as Doctor Alyson Beckett, Acting CMO, has cleared you for duty. Commander Spock is thus elevated to Acting Captain.
Archer's words, politely firm and proper, were a stark contrast to Pike's own missive which had followed about eleven seconds later.
Jim -
Listen, I figure Archer's faster at writing than I am since he's just going to give you the rote spiel so you already know that you're on standdown – don't fucking fight it. Regs were put there because we all know what's like to try and command the crew while our other half is bleeding to death six decks down; take advantage of the fact that they're giving Spock orders to head to the nearest station and do something stupid.
- Pike
Jim woke on the floor, the observation deck's window displaying the side arm of the station's spacedock in monochromatic gray, with his hand wrapped around a bottle of replicated booze that tasted like piss. He wasn't entirely sure it wasn't, but he'd managed to drink himself into unconsciousness and that had been the goal.
The chrono's eye-searingly bright display made him groan and he rose to his feet – three hours, all he'd gotten was three hours of rest – knowing that the hour was late enough to meet Beckett in Medical Bay for an update on Bones. His heart leapt at the word, traitorous organ, while his brain chanted be prepared for the worst over and over as he escaped the deafening quiet of the closed area and made his way toward where his lover lay isolated.
With each heavy step, his chest tightened and his stomach threatened to return his liquid dinner, but he managed to make it to sickbay before rushing to the nearest garbage receptacle, emptying his system in as stoically a way as he could. A hypo pressed to his neck when he started dry heaving, the delicate hand holding it giving his shoulder a pat before it was pulled back and Jim took a minute to regain his composure when she stepped away.
He set his hands on either side of the receptacle, taking in a long breath, and said, “Thanks.”
Beckett waved a hand at him in a way that made his heart ache for McCoy, telling him, “It's in the job description. Right between 'must be able to preform duty on virtually no sleep' and 'must be able to keep CMO in line', it says 'must be able to keep Captain from falling on his face'.”
The smirk was involuntary, inappropriate, and exactly the thing he needed to ebb away the sick feeling in his gut; he turned to face both her and whatever it was she would say, glimpsing the clear window of the iso room when he did. It gave him a moment's solace to realize that there, still laying on the bio-bed unconscious, was Bones, breathing and living. Jim sighed out with relief and remarked, “He made it through the night.”
Her face did not reflect his own happiness at the comment, rubbing her face with the fingers of one hand and clenching the other around the used hypo. “By a thread, sir. He made it through and I've been running regenerators over him every time they recharge to speed the process, but he could still go either way,” she reported, voice level and professional. “You have to understand that the assault itself, while horrifically traumatic for his body, is not the only contributing factor to my concern.”
“Enlighten me as to the others,” Jim ordered with a gesture toward McCoy's office, a far more private venue in his mind even though the main treatment area was deserted but for two nurses and an orderly.
Once safely ensconced in the room, Beckett continued, standing against the door with her hands clasped behind her back, “Prior to this event, he apparently was treating himself for a case of the Andorian Flu, which was mild enough to not incapacitate him but moderate enough that his immune response was lowered and still is. So any germ – just one – at the moment can get bad quick if he's exposed.
“And due to the nature of what happened on the mission before this one, he was walking the line between overtired and exhausted, which I surmise you still are, and it's left him running on what few resources he's got. He's already lost a half a pound in six hours and that's with every supplement and medication I can give him without blowing out his kidneys or liver or causing a drug interaction.”
“Half a pound? Fuck,” Jim murmured to himself, well aware of the significance after one particular mission where he'd faced down some bulky goon, lost, and woke up six days and seven pounds later to Bones' bitching about his personal habits. It was after that incident that Bones began keeping small amounts of sedatives, NSAIDs, and vitamins in their quarters, taking care of him when he was too stubborn to do it himself.
It seemed Jim's reciprocation, though less than equal due to his lover's obstinance, in the days previous had been severely lacking. Bones had gone without sleep and proper nutrition for days; he'd been sick and Jim hadn't even realized, hadn't noticed the low grade fever that everyone with the flu had, medicated or not. He kicked himself with the notion that if he'd paid attention and forced the issue of something as simple as a bowl of soup or a nap, McCoy would have been in better shape and could recover far more easily from the injuries he'd sustained.
But hindsight was twenty-twenty and Jim knew he could not change what had already come to pass, he could only move forward, and, with any luck, fate would allow that to be with Bones at his side. Where he belonged.
“What happened during the night?” he finally asked when too many minutes of raw silence had lapsed between them; he knew something had transpired, given how the woman looked like she was ready for collapse herself, with face drawn, eyes weary, and hair mussed though appearing to have been tamed with fingers.
She closed her eyes and shoved her head against the door, reluctance filling every pore because she knew to admit how poorly the hours had gone would cut down some of his hope. McCoy's prognosis had dimmed since the first time he'd asked, his condition growing more critical as she and Chapel raced to keep one step ahead of the arising complications.
“He crashed,” Beckett finally admitted, thumping her head against the door again. “He didn't tell me he'd been self-medicating for the illness and since that's something we're not legally supposed to do, he didn't write it in his chart himself. And his white cell count was through the roof indicating infection so I elected to put him on a strong antibiotic in the hopes I could nip whatever it was in the bud while the computer ran analysis.” She sighed, “And he had an interaction. The drug cocktail I inadvertantly put him on cannot be given together with the painkiller I was dosing him with and his heart stopped.”
Jim felt a thousand years old in that instance, older than he could possibly imagine and he looked across the small room at her, a question dying on his lips with the knowledge that for a short time that night, as Jim paced his ship in a fruitless search for rest, Bones had been clinically dead. His heart had stopped which meant his breathing had stopped, and where had he been? Hiding in quarters, laden in his selfish grief or drunk on the floor of an observation deck on the other side of the ship?
He felt pure disgust with himself, fully aware that his partner could have truly died, Beckett unable to revive him, and he might not have been cognizant enough to even say goodbye. What kind of man was he if he could not control his emotions well enough to appear strong and reassuring to his staff and crew; he'd done it several times before – with Sam, his grandparents, and Joanna – and he could do it again.
Jim Kirk could certainly be the socially acceptable impassive man until the grave was dug, then he'd quietly go off some place to get the life pounded out of him by a guy twice his size and drink himself into a stupor. That much he was owed by the galaxy that had deemed him unworthy of love since the moment of his birth.
Christopher Pike hadn't been sleeping, not in the last forty-eight hours as he'd scoured the incoming reports for news on Leonard McCoy, so he was a bit punchdrunk when a subspace transmission arrived for him. A hail from the Enterprise right at the edge of the Federation's control with James Kirk on the other end, his head hung between his shoulders, obscuring his eyes.
Whether he was building up his courage to speak or trying to hide tears, Pike couldn't be sure, though either way he could wait – he knew, having married young and then watched his beloved wife die on their very first off-world assignment, what it was like facing the idea of a life vastly different than the one dreamed.
“I'm watching him die,” Jim finally murmured, refusing to look at the screen. “He's lost three pounds in two days, he's spiking a fever, and there's nothing I can do – he's not fucking awake for me to tell him... I don't even know what I'd tell him!”
Pike let out the breath he'd been holding, trying to decide the appropriate response; the right thing to tell a man who was so used to leading and ordering his people, to fixing a problem through whatever means necessary even when the Admirals were screaming their dissent from the other side of space. Jim was balanced by McCoy, was balanced by him starting when they were both cadets on separate educational tracks and should never have (by all rights) crossed paths other than at meal times.
Having roomed together, their friendship had become legendary among the cadets and then blossomed into the relationship they now shared. So many years at one another's side and now he had to make peace with the fact that Bones might become a past tense, a had been, a lost love. Pike sighed at that depressing thought – even he felt a sting of unfairness for Jim who had already lost so many in his scant twenty-seven years.
“Sometimes, Jim, the last act of love you can give someone is watching them die, so they're not alone when the time comes,” he said after a beat. “He may not know for sure that you're there but you'll have the peace of knowing he had you.”
“That's not enough.” Jim lifted his head, bloodshot eyes taking him in as he spoke, “I'm not ready to let him go and my crew is suffering for it,” and he rubbed at his mouth.
Ah. Suddenly it became clear why Kirk had hailed him, why he'd come looking for comfort from Pike instead of from his mother; he stated, “I can't tell you to stop fighting for him. He's a stubborn son of a bitch who's put up with you for five years – if that doesn't say something about his will to survive, I don't know what is – and I think that as long as Beckett keeps telling us there's hope, slim as it is, you should believe it too.” Pike stopped and ran his tongue over his lips, turning his next words over in his head before continuing, “That said, you can't stop people from fearing the worst, especially yourself, and you can't stop people from starting to mourn what they think is inevitable.”
Jim swallowed thickly, swaying from side to side until he slid into the waiting chair and Pike realized Jim was in McCoy's Medical Bay office, and though the screen offered him no view other than Kirk, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that Jim had taken up residence in the room given the state of the clothing he wore and his unshaven chin.
“Don't give up on him yet,” Pike added when Jim had turned his attention back to the transmission. “I don't think he's done, Jim, and I think you need to remember that your crew may be following Spock's orders for the time being, but he's not their Captain – you are. If you're going to live in his office and walk around the ship like a ghost, they're going to notice.”
“This from the man who told me to go do something stupid,” Jim snapped, then winced a moment later when he remembered that he had mouthed off to an Admiral. “I apologize, sir.”
“Screw the apology, Jim. I'm talking to you as a friend and yes, I said go out and do something stupid but I didn't think you would.” Pike leaned back in his wheelchair, scratching absentmindedly at one unfeeling thigh, unsure how to appropriately convey that he'd been trying to give tacit approval to Jim to use one of the vices of old to cope. Everyone had a breaking point, a moment in their life where they took two steps back, and he had wanted to ensure that Jim would not be disciplined for trying do deal with McCoy's condition in whatever way he chose.
Kirk rubbed a hand through his hair for a moment, blinking rapidly against the rising tears Pike knew were threatening, and thanked the man for his counsel then flicked off the screen, ending their transmission thus leaving Christopher mildly confused. It had been clear to him that Jim had more to say, more to ask; his abrupt ending of the conversation had been somewhat startling.
From the other side of his night-darkened office, Winona bit her tongue to keep from sobbing, hating that her child was hurting and there was nothing she could do. Too far away to reach the Enterprise in any sort of timely manner and the ship unable to return to Earth without compromising the remaining three years of their mission, he was on his own, asking to speak with the man who had been more of a father to him than any male previously.
She rose to her feet and moved to the open window, the breeze from the bay filling the air with the salt tang of the ocean. “Optimism isn't a family virtue,” she remarked into the darkness, “Not for a long time.”
Pike just looked at her with a glint of compassion in his eyes. “Time to learn.”
title. Contra Spem Spero
rating. Teen
pairing. Kirk/McCoy
summary. Hope against hope.
warnings. NOT a death fic.
notes. Sequel to Inter Spem et Metum.
contra spem spero
one.
It had been labeled a peaceful mission – go down to a planet populated by calm farmers and gentle herders, record some information, talk with the leaders.
At least that was what was supposed to happen, but as always, something was bound to go wrong especially when Jim hadn't been able to keep his tongue in his own mouth that evening. And in a society built on rigid social structure, the leader of a Starship stealing a moment to kiss his CMO hadn't been accepted well – not only was Bones beneath him in status (entirely their opinion, Jim would later assure him), he was male and therefore unfit to be Jim's partner.
No one had seen the rocks until Bones was on the ground, a little stunned and a little frantic, trying desperately to curl in on himself.
Jim had felt the roar of the rage in his blood, heard a yell ring in his ears; he and Sulu wouldn't have stood a chance against the men who were stoning Bones savagely, but that didn't stop the two of them from trying. The first punch had been thrown, but no return came as Scotty's transporter lock had their molecules flying apart, flying upwards, flying back to Enterprise, leaving angry cries in their wake.
Bones was still a tight ball when they re-integrated into flesh, despite being barely conscious.
“What the fuck happened down there?” Scott yelled as he leapt from his seat. “Medical team to transporter room!”
Jim shook his head, as he fell to Bones' side, and admitted, “I don't know,” before manhandling McCoy until he was flat on his back and Kirk could lean over him. “Come on, old man,” he breathed, “Come on.” He stared down at the half-lidded eyes, wishing he'd paid better attention to his Emergency Medical Procedures instructor instead of the blonde two rows down.
He tapped the side of Bones' face, careful of the bleeding wounds, and called out the man's name again. No response and he snapped, pinching down on a forming bruise, as his voice grew in intensity. “Leonard McCoy!”
The groan that emanated from his mouth was somewhere between agony and confusion; Jim was grateful when the Medical Team finally arrived, whisking Bones away with efficiency borne from too much practice and Jim ran after them without hesitation as they made their way through the corridors. Whomever had designed Enterprise clearly had assumed there would be a need for the transporter to be as close to the sickbay as possible and Jim thanked his lucky stars for that as McCoy's weak movements ceased and he fell back into unconsciousness.
Yanked back by the hands of Bones' own nursing staff at the entrance to Medical Bay, Jim could only watch as his lover was raced into surgery and then the suite's doors hid the medical team from view.
two.
“He's critical,” were the first words out of Doctor Beckett's mouth, her surgical outfit bloody and nauseating. She hadn't been able to explain to Jim why Bones, who (as horrible as it sounded) had only been stoned, had been taken directly into surgery, and as she stood before him, she knew the man was wavering on his feet and decided to quickly tell him the list of injuries McCoy now had to recover from.
Internal bleeding, broken ribs, cracked vertebrae, head injury caused by concussive force, broken wrist, fractured elbow... Every time Jim prayed she'd reached the end, there was something else and when she stopped he had to force himself to swallow around the lump in his throat. He had the vaguest urge to vomit, but held it back and asked, “Will he recover?”
“I can't say right now, Captain,” she admitted, eyes trained on him and assessing. He'd escaped the pound of the rocks, but he still looked worn down and painful; she could see the purpling bags under his eyes, the droop of his shoulders, and her mind called up, unbidden, the image of the widower she'd grown up next door to.
“If he makes it through the night, chances are higher, but there's a thousand possible complications, so I need you to be prepared for the worst, sir,” Beckett added, “You can see him for a few minutes, but we need to keep him to a low bacteria exposure so...”
Jim cut her off with a wave of his hand. “It's not the first time we've had to deal with the isolation protocols, Doctor,” he said, recalling nearly every failed away mission their eighteen months, right before Starfleet had sent them Beckett as relief for the overworked McCoy, and how often Bones would have to lock one of the bridge crew up in a sterile room for the sake of their health. How he'd bitched and complained from the other side of the thick glass at his patient once they were stable and recovering about recklessness, having better value for their life, and acting like self-sacrificing martyrs – though that last part tended to be aimed at Jim.
God, but Jim never expected Bones to be the one inside a sterile white room, barriers of glass, vinyl, and disposable cloth between them. It hurt to think he could lose the man over one culture's homophobia and lose him without being able to touch that pale, freckled skin one last time.
“Captain?” Beckett called, interrupting his reverie. “Do you want to see him?”
He nodded, unable to trust his voice and let her lead him toward a supply closet near the isolation room where she gathered the items needed and then pushed him into one of the decontamination showers, watching as he stripped down and nearly scrubbed himself raw with the provided soap. Normally, it wasn't required to bathe prior to entry, but Kirk had a way of getting sick at the drop of a hat, usually following an injury, and she was taking no chances on him carrying in any bacteria that could cause McCoy potential problems.
He pulled on the annoying blue scrubs, then the isolation gown, vinyl gloves, cap and mask without complaint and waited for her to input the unlock code. She hesitated, however, and sighed, telling him, “Just be prepared – regenerators can only do so much,” before opening the door.
Jim slipped inside, moving to Bones' side and wincing at the sight of his lover. He looked like seven kinds of hell, his body a mass of bruises and superficial scratches surrounding the beginning of the thinly healed incision. She was right, of course, that dermal and osteogenic regenerators worked within a range for injuries like the ones inflicted on Bones: they were programmed to take into account physical health and provide the optimal amount of repair though that did not necessarily mean complete healing. Bones had explained why to him so many times before, forgetting the lecture minutes later if only because he knew he'd hear it again.
Now, however, it seemed he should have listened better, committed to memory the way Bones' voice grew in intensity when he tried to get medical facts through Jim's otherwise stubbornly thick skull.
He picked up McCoy's limp hand, the one that hadn't been exposed to the pelting, and brought it up to his covered mouth. “I'm sorry, baby,” he murmured, glad for the solitude he'd been offered when Beckett chose to remain outside the room; he didn't know if he'd have been able to keep his composure as the Captain intact in front of her with his lover laying on a bio-bed like a tenderized piece of meat. Even his face was shadowed in bruises and welts, one eye still slightly swollen despite the medications being pumped into his body by the computer.
Jim pressed a kiss against the hand and nuzzled it gently, hearing the knock on the glass that signaled the end of his visit; he leaned down to lean his forehead on McCoy's and whispered, “Love you,” then set the hand back down, took a step back, and left without a glance back.
three.
He couldn't sleep that night, not when he was surrounded by the material pieces of their life together. Pictures of Joanna, god rest her soul, stared down at him from the dresser top, open books taunted him from the side table, and the dim light of their quarters seem to glint extra brightly off belt buckles, shined shoes, and uniform tunic command stripes.
The living area gave no respite when Jim finally gave up pretending to rest and rose from the bed. There on the couch, he was assaulted with blinking PADDs and a brand new computer unit to replace the one Bones had destroyed two weeks earlier, a casualty of his wicked temper when the man had thrown it across the shuttle bay at Scotty. His still-damp towel from their morning shower sat near the laundry chute, having been forgotten in the frenzy to make it to their shifts on time; Jim had been unable to turn down the offer of sex even though they were due to their stations an hour earlier than normal to prepare for the mission.
His head thunked against the back of the couch and he closed his eyes when his gaze unerringly found the black marker circle on the ceiling, put there during a drunken bet. His throat grew tight, his chest painful, and Jim wished like hell that he could rewind the day and tell them to skip the fucking mission, to stay in bed where it was safe.
“I can't do this again,” Jim murmured, one tear escaping his control and sliding down his cheek.
A year ago tomorrow would mark the one year anniversary of Joanna McCoy's death. Barely eight years old, she and her mother had set out from Earth to Risa, intending to meet the Enterprise for a week's leave, when they were attacked and the transport vessel destroyed. Both she and Jocelyn had perished in the tragedy; Bones had been rushed back to Earth to attend her funeral, Jim and the crew appearing only after a majority agreement to cut leave short.
Jim had never been prouder of his crew than he had when the idea was put forth to join their CMO on Earth, to stand with him in his grief. He was damn sure no other ship in the fleet was as tight-knit and loyal as his was and he'd appreciated it in the days after the burial, after the Admirals called him before them to explain his actions. Bereavement was a fickle thing and they had stood by McCoy on his bad days as well as his good ones, until a few months afterwards when the little girl's name could be spoken without him going silent.
Now it seemed he might become the recipient of their care, something that made Jim want to vomit. He didn't want to know what life would be like sans his lover, he didn't want his crew to comfort him and try to cheer him up with jokes, stories, and movies when his spirits were low. He may have approved of that kind of care for Bones, but not for himself.
He stood and began to pace, his eyes trained on his feet as he rubbed his temples to try and soothe the oncoming headache. Sharp between his eyes, the pain came anyway; he shoved his feet into a pair of non-regulation shoes – black sandals his mother had given him with the remark that in a crisis, they were faster then boots and better than being barefoot – and took off for, well, someplace else.
Which turned out to be Medical Bay. There Chapel supplied him with aspirin (pill form at his request) and asked if wanted a few minutes with Bones, only his heart ached at the thought of being alone with his dying lover and he shook his head, fleeing a moment later while his stomach roiled with a feeling of cowardice.
For all that he had seen and accomplished, for all the risks he had ever taken that had endangered his own life, Jim had had the epiphany moment of now knowing how Bones had felt every time he'd come back to Enterprise bleeding and unconscious. He both loathed and regretted it, the realization that his lover had been forced to stand idly by without the assurance he would wake the next morning to Jim still breathing, still living. He hated the feeling of terror that had formed in the pit of his belly at that and it only grew when he reached one of the starboard observation decks, looking out at the starlight as they passed by; so many nights he and Bones had had huddled down on the floor by a window just like this, a blanket over their shoulders while either one of them talked through their guilt over the latest casualty.
Such an intimate moment may never happen again.
For the first time in his life, James T. Kirk well and truly needed the guidance of a father, not the loving acceptance of his mother. She'd be quite content to lend an ear and offer womanly advice, yet what he needed were the stern words of an older man, someone who had might have stood in this spot before or had not but could still tell him to calm down. Someone who could remind him that life was not a rule to be bent under his will, just a force of nature that he had to accept.
The closest one he had was in Christopher Pike; Frank counted little in his memories as nothing more than a neglectful, domineering nuisance, not to mention the fact that the last time Jim had seen the man, Winona had kneed him in the balls in front of no less than six Admirals and three Captains for causing a scene at Sam's funeral. Calling Pike at this hour, however, would likely have been met with annoyance, or so Jim believed and he had to weigh the childish need for a parent against the heady expectations of being the one in charge – he had to at least appear capable of handling Bones' possible fate while Captaining the the ship.
Except he was failing to take into account the status change he had made when Joanna died. Under one of Starfleet's later addendums to the original regulations, Partners could serve aboard a vessel together though when they were the partner of the Captain, there were certain rules. One of which Jim had no way of knowing was about to smack him in the face and take away the one thing he needed to put his back against, to keep him from falling apart.
His communicator beeped then, Sulu alerting him to a recently arrived message from command.
four.
Attn: Kirk, James Tiberius, Captain. U.S.S. Enterprise.
Under Regulation 261, Section 9, Paragraph 1, you are hereby placed on temporary leave until such time as Doctor Alyson Beckett, Acting CMO, has cleared you for duty. Commander Spock is thus elevated to Acting Captain.
Archer's words, politely firm and proper, were a stark contrast to Pike's own missive which had followed about eleven seconds later.
Jim -
Listen, I figure Archer's faster at writing than I am since he's just going to give you the rote spiel so you already know that you're on standdown – don't fucking fight it. Regs were put there because we all know what's like to try and command the crew while our other half is bleeding to death six decks down; take advantage of the fact that they're giving Spock orders to head to the nearest station and do something stupid.
- Pike
five.
Jim woke on the floor, the observation deck's window displaying the side arm of the station's spacedock in monochromatic gray, with his hand wrapped around a bottle of replicated booze that tasted like piss. He wasn't entirely sure it wasn't, but he'd managed to drink himself into unconsciousness and that had been the goal.
The chrono's eye-searingly bright display made him groan and he rose to his feet – three hours, all he'd gotten was three hours of rest – knowing that the hour was late enough to meet Beckett in Medical Bay for an update on Bones. His heart leapt at the word, traitorous organ, while his brain chanted be prepared for the worst over and over as he escaped the deafening quiet of the closed area and made his way toward where his lover lay isolated.
With each heavy step, his chest tightened and his stomach threatened to return his liquid dinner, but he managed to make it to sickbay before rushing to the nearest garbage receptacle, emptying his system in as stoically a way as he could. A hypo pressed to his neck when he started dry heaving, the delicate hand holding it giving his shoulder a pat before it was pulled back and Jim took a minute to regain his composure when she stepped away.
He set his hands on either side of the receptacle, taking in a long breath, and said, “Thanks.”
Beckett waved a hand at him in a way that made his heart ache for McCoy, telling him, “It's in the job description. Right between 'must be able to preform duty on virtually no sleep' and 'must be able to keep CMO in line', it says 'must be able to keep Captain from falling on his face'.”
The smirk was involuntary, inappropriate, and exactly the thing he needed to ebb away the sick feeling in his gut; he turned to face both her and whatever it was she would say, glimpsing the clear window of the iso room when he did. It gave him a moment's solace to realize that there, still laying on the bio-bed unconscious, was Bones, breathing and living. Jim sighed out with relief and remarked, “He made it through the night.”
Her face did not reflect his own happiness at the comment, rubbing her face with the fingers of one hand and clenching the other around the used hypo. “By a thread, sir. He made it through and I've been running regenerators over him every time they recharge to speed the process, but he could still go either way,” she reported, voice level and professional. “You have to understand that the assault itself, while horrifically traumatic for his body, is not the only contributing factor to my concern.”
“Enlighten me as to the others,” Jim ordered with a gesture toward McCoy's office, a far more private venue in his mind even though the main treatment area was deserted but for two nurses and an orderly.
Once safely ensconced in the room, Beckett continued, standing against the door with her hands clasped behind her back, “Prior to this event, he apparently was treating himself for a case of the Andorian Flu, which was mild enough to not incapacitate him but moderate enough that his immune response was lowered and still is. So any germ – just one – at the moment can get bad quick if he's exposed.
“And due to the nature of what happened on the mission before this one, he was walking the line between overtired and exhausted, which I surmise you still are, and it's left him running on what few resources he's got. He's already lost a half a pound in six hours and that's with every supplement and medication I can give him without blowing out his kidneys or liver or causing a drug interaction.”
“Half a pound? Fuck,” Jim murmured to himself, well aware of the significance after one particular mission where he'd faced down some bulky goon, lost, and woke up six days and seven pounds later to Bones' bitching about his personal habits. It was after that incident that Bones began keeping small amounts of sedatives, NSAIDs, and vitamins in their quarters, taking care of him when he was too stubborn to do it himself.
It seemed Jim's reciprocation, though less than equal due to his lover's obstinance, in the days previous had been severely lacking. Bones had gone without sleep and proper nutrition for days; he'd been sick and Jim hadn't even realized, hadn't noticed the low grade fever that everyone with the flu had, medicated or not. He kicked himself with the notion that if he'd paid attention and forced the issue of something as simple as a bowl of soup or a nap, McCoy would have been in better shape and could recover far more easily from the injuries he'd sustained.
But hindsight was twenty-twenty and Jim knew he could not change what had already come to pass, he could only move forward, and, with any luck, fate would allow that to be with Bones at his side. Where he belonged.
“What happened during the night?” he finally asked when too many minutes of raw silence had lapsed between them; he knew something had transpired, given how the woman looked like she was ready for collapse herself, with face drawn, eyes weary, and hair mussed though appearing to have been tamed with fingers.
She closed her eyes and shoved her head against the door, reluctance filling every pore because she knew to admit how poorly the hours had gone would cut down some of his hope. McCoy's prognosis had dimmed since the first time he'd asked, his condition growing more critical as she and Chapel raced to keep one step ahead of the arising complications.
“He crashed,” Beckett finally admitted, thumping her head against the door again. “He didn't tell me he'd been self-medicating for the illness and since that's something we're not legally supposed to do, he didn't write it in his chart himself. And his white cell count was through the roof indicating infection so I elected to put him on a strong antibiotic in the hopes I could nip whatever it was in the bud while the computer ran analysis.” She sighed, “And he had an interaction. The drug cocktail I inadvertantly put him on cannot be given together with the painkiller I was dosing him with and his heart stopped.”
Jim felt a thousand years old in that instance, older than he could possibly imagine and he looked across the small room at her, a question dying on his lips with the knowledge that for a short time that night, as Jim paced his ship in a fruitless search for rest, Bones had been clinically dead. His heart had stopped which meant his breathing had stopped, and where had he been? Hiding in quarters, laden in his selfish grief or drunk on the floor of an observation deck on the other side of the ship?
He felt pure disgust with himself, fully aware that his partner could have truly died, Beckett unable to revive him, and he might not have been cognizant enough to even say goodbye. What kind of man was he if he could not control his emotions well enough to appear strong and reassuring to his staff and crew; he'd done it several times before – with Sam, his grandparents, and Joanna – and he could do it again.
Jim Kirk could certainly be the socially acceptable impassive man until the grave was dug, then he'd quietly go off some place to get the life pounded out of him by a guy twice his size and drink himself into a stupor. That much he was owed by the galaxy that had deemed him unworthy of love since the moment of his birth.
six.
Christopher Pike hadn't been sleeping, not in the last forty-eight hours as he'd scoured the incoming reports for news on Leonard McCoy, so he was a bit punchdrunk when a subspace transmission arrived for him. A hail from the Enterprise right at the edge of the Federation's control with James Kirk on the other end, his head hung between his shoulders, obscuring his eyes.
Whether he was building up his courage to speak or trying to hide tears, Pike couldn't be sure, though either way he could wait – he knew, having married young and then watched his beloved wife die on their very first off-world assignment, what it was like facing the idea of a life vastly different than the one dreamed.
“I'm watching him die,” Jim finally murmured, refusing to look at the screen. “He's lost three pounds in two days, he's spiking a fever, and there's nothing I can do – he's not fucking awake for me to tell him... I don't even know what I'd tell him!”
Pike let out the breath he'd been holding, trying to decide the appropriate response; the right thing to tell a man who was so used to leading and ordering his people, to fixing a problem through whatever means necessary even when the Admirals were screaming their dissent from the other side of space. Jim was balanced by McCoy, was balanced by him starting when they were both cadets on separate educational tracks and should never have (by all rights) crossed paths other than at meal times.
Having roomed together, their friendship had become legendary among the cadets and then blossomed into the relationship they now shared. So many years at one another's side and now he had to make peace with the fact that Bones might become a past tense, a had been, a lost love. Pike sighed at that depressing thought – even he felt a sting of unfairness for Jim who had already lost so many in his scant twenty-seven years.
“Sometimes, Jim, the last act of love you can give someone is watching them die, so they're not alone when the time comes,” he said after a beat. “He may not know for sure that you're there but you'll have the peace of knowing he had you.”
“That's not enough.” Jim lifted his head, bloodshot eyes taking him in as he spoke, “I'm not ready to let him go and my crew is suffering for it,” and he rubbed at his mouth.
Ah. Suddenly it became clear why Kirk had hailed him, why he'd come looking for comfort from Pike instead of from his mother; he stated, “I can't tell you to stop fighting for him. He's a stubborn son of a bitch who's put up with you for five years – if that doesn't say something about his will to survive, I don't know what is – and I think that as long as Beckett keeps telling us there's hope, slim as it is, you should believe it too.” Pike stopped and ran his tongue over his lips, turning his next words over in his head before continuing, “That said, you can't stop people from fearing the worst, especially yourself, and you can't stop people from starting to mourn what they think is inevitable.”
Jim swallowed thickly, swaying from side to side until he slid into the waiting chair and Pike realized Jim was in McCoy's Medical Bay office, and though the screen offered him no view other than Kirk, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that Jim had taken up residence in the room given the state of the clothing he wore and his unshaven chin.
“Don't give up on him yet,” Pike added when Jim had turned his attention back to the transmission. “I don't think he's done, Jim, and I think you need to remember that your crew may be following Spock's orders for the time being, but he's not their Captain – you are. If you're going to live in his office and walk around the ship like a ghost, they're going to notice.”
“This from the man who told me to go do something stupid,” Jim snapped, then winced a moment later when he remembered that he had mouthed off to an Admiral. “I apologize, sir.”
“Screw the apology, Jim. I'm talking to you as a friend and yes, I said go out and do something stupid but I didn't think you would.” Pike leaned back in his wheelchair, scratching absentmindedly at one unfeeling thigh, unsure how to appropriately convey that he'd been trying to give tacit approval to Jim to use one of the vices of old to cope. Everyone had a breaking point, a moment in their life where they took two steps back, and he had wanted to ensure that Jim would not be disciplined for trying do deal with McCoy's condition in whatever way he chose.
Kirk rubbed a hand through his hair for a moment, blinking rapidly against the rising tears Pike knew were threatening, and thanked the man for his counsel then flicked off the screen, ending their transmission thus leaving Christopher mildly confused. It had been clear to him that Jim had more to say, more to ask; his abrupt ending of the conversation had been somewhat startling.
From the other side of his night-darkened office, Winona bit her tongue to keep from sobbing, hating that her child was hurting and there was nothing she could do. Too far away to reach the Enterprise in any sort of timely manner and the ship unable to return to Earth without compromising the remaining three years of their mission, he was on his own, asking to speak with the man who had been more of a father to him than any male previously.
She rose to her feet and moved to the open window, the breeze from the bay filling the air with the salt tang of the ocean. “Optimism isn't a family virtue,” she remarked into the darkness, “Not for a long time.”
Pike just looked at her with a glint of compassion in his eyes. “Time to learn.”
