Title: The Man Who Never Was (4/6)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek TOS
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Summary: After a seemingly benign encounter with a new race of beings, the Enterprise is less one member of its crew; and unfortunately getting him back may be impossible, as the man can only be reclaimed if those who wish for his return can prove his value to them. Except there is a catch: no one remembers who he is.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3
Or read at AO3

For the Sake of McCoy

Kirk eyes the man standing opposite him. “Repeat what you said.” Observing from the side, Spock murmurs, “Fascinating.”

The doctor looks between Kirk and Spock as he rocks back on his heels and drawls again, bemused, “I’m …”

Jim winces and puts a hand to his ear, and Spock—alarmingly—almost looks pained.

“What’s the matter?” The doctor reaches for his medical tricorder and waves it in their direction.

“I can’t understand your name,” Jim announces.

The brandishing of the tricorder ceases. “But I just said it!”

“You said ‘I am…’ and then I heard a fizzle-whoosh-pop. No name,” Jim clarifies to the astonished-looking man.

Spock blinks. “That… is an accurate description of the noise, Captain.”

Jim isn’t as amused as he would be under other circumstances. He pivots and paces away, only to rant at the closed door of his guest quarters, “How can they expect us to make progress when they block us at every turn!” Frustrated, Kirk rounds on the doctor to demand, “Are you the Chief Medical Officer of the Enterprise?”

“I was.”

Kirk ignores the use of the past tense. He narrows his eyes. “And why aren’t you on my ship?”

A tense silence builds for a span of several seconds. Then the man breaks it with a stiff reply. “You might want to reconsider your tone, Captain. If you’re looking for a fight, I won’t oblige you.”

Jim is somewhat taken aback.

Spock quickly steps in. “The question is relevant, Doctor, if we are to help you.”

The dark-haired, blue-eyed man crosses his arms, mouth pursed in irritation. “It’s easy to take sides when you always pick the same one, isn’t it, Mr. Spock?”

The Vulcan tilts his head in study of the human. Obviously this is not response the man was attempting to goad from the First Officer, and Kirk watches him roll his eyes.

“At this rate, we’re going to end up talking in circles or punchin’ each other.” The doctor gestures to an arrangement of chairs in a corner of the room. “My bones are older than yours, Captain. Let’s sit down.” Without waiting for either Jim or Spock, he strides away and drops unceremoniously into a vacant chair.

Partly surprised that this man doesn’t seem nervous in Kirk’s presence and partly curious, Jim takes a seat without a word. Spock, however, remains on his feet and flanks the captain’s chair. Those blue eyes are twinkling, Jim thinks, and somehow he knows that the person is more amused than insulted by Spock’s choice to stand.

Jim flexes his hands on the armrests of his chair. “Explain,” he states, still certain that this situation calls for formality instead of the friendly chat which the doctor’s relaxed pose says it could be. He notices immediately how the man is absently twisting the ring on his finger. So, the doctor isn’t entirely at ease after all. Kirk adds, “I won’t interrupt until you are done.”

“Making promises you can’t keep, Jim?” asks the man, smiling as he says this to let Jim know that it’s a bit of teasing and not an accusation. Then the mysterious Chief Medical Officer straightens from his apparent habitual slouch and places his hands on his knees. He begins: “You’ve already deduced that I was part of the original away team—why else would you be here if you hadn’t figured that out? I’ll address this question to Spock, Captain, since you’ve promised to hold your tongue: how did you know?”

Spock replies, “The Talrek were not entirely successful in removing you from our minds, Doctor. After careful thought on this matter, I can only conclude that you, as I believe the phrase goes, left behind a lasting impression, one which could not be erased.”

“Complimenting a human whose name you can’t even process, Spock? You never cease to amaze me.” The doctor gives up his sarcastic humor for a sigh. “So basically somebody did some digging on gut instinct. Hmph, can’t say I’m surprised. We Starfleet officers don’t take well to mind tricks, do we?” His small smile is full of irony (though Jim cannot comprehend the reason behind the irony). “I know you’re anxious, Sir, so I’ll get to my excuse ‘n you can decide on a proper punishment.”

Jim twitches a hand at the man’s flippancy but he has enough control to keep quiet.

The doctor glances away. “The Talrek told me some cockamamie story and I believed it.” Regret is etched into his face when he turns back to Jim. “There’s nothing I can tell you that will make up for my actions, not even when I say that I thought I was doing the right thing by staying behind. For that, I’m sorry.”

An echo surfaces: For that, I’ll never forgive myself. Jim frowns.

“It is far easier to make an error while in haste of doing good than in the careful planning of ill intent,” Mr. Spock remarks from over Kirk’s shoulder.

The man thanks Spock softly, surprised by the unwarranted understanding from the Vulcan. Then he catches Jim’s eyes again. “I didn’t think beyond the decision to stay, and I do not know precisely how the Talrek made my absence go unnoticed, but I can tell you it’s the oduni who did it. You’ve got to watch out for him, Jim. I—I think he’s got the same mentality that Dr. Adams had. He’ll hurt you because he thinks it’s the best thing for you, and it won’t bother him one whit to do it.”

Jim can’t help but say, “The neutralizer on the Tantalus colony? But how could you—?”

He thinks about that time, at first fighting away the horrible sense of emptiness that still lurks at the edges of his dreams. There is a memory, a voice saying I’m required to enter any reasonable doubts into my medical log. That requires you to answer in your log. Then, as if the memory is reluctant to complete itself, a lingering Sorry, Jim.

“The Chief Medical Officer… on the Bridge,” he says slowly, “that was you?”

The doctor nods.

Jim looks at the man, bothered by a recollection of feelings associated with the memory. Disbelief, a burst of annoyance, but later—much later, as he laid awake on his bed in the aftermath of his torture and the bittersweet ruin of Dr. Adams—gratitude. Overwhelming gratitude to the CMO for pushing him to investigate, because Jim wouldn’t wish so inhumane an end on his worst enemy.

An idea suddenly takes root. “Spock,” Jim says, craning his head around to peer at his First Officer, “the report on my PADD… if we cross-reference our memories with each away mission on the list you provided and have Doctor—the doctor help us fill in the gaps, we may figure out a way to beat the Talrek at their own game.”

Spock approves of this idea. Jim looks back at the man seated across from him. “Will you help us?”

“Would you consider leaving me here?” he is asked instantly. “You’ve let an officer go before. It wouldn’t be unprecedented, and no one would think the worst of you, Sir.”

“Lt. Bailey wanted to remain with Balok, and it was an opportunity for both to learn,” Kirk says, quick to catch on to whom—and to what past event—the man refers. Did Kirk discuss that decision with his CMO at some point, if not before he gave Bailey his permission then after? “Is that what you want?”

A short silence.

“No,” the doctor replies at last. “It’s never what I wanted.”

Jim stands up. “Then we’ll get you back.”

The man closes his eyes, saying nothing; Jim doesn’t expect him to. Spock is already pulling out the trunk for Jim to command open. They will find a way to win, not simply because the Talrek are in the wrong and Jim isn’t willing to lose a crewman without a good reason. No, now that he has met the missing officer, Jim discovers his instinct is rather adamant about one particular thing: he needs this man on the Enterprise.

Why, however, is an answer Captain Kirk has yet to figure out.

“I need break,” Leonard announces as he pushes back from the table he was previously slumped over. Several times, Jim has gotten up to pace around the room but Leonard has remained seated throughout their “crash course in the ‘Fleet’s finest CMO” (something he jokingly said, but which had failed to change the serious visages of Kirk and Spock). Yet no amount of humor or soothing thoughts can asssuage Leonard’s feeling surprisingly like a man under interrogation. If he didn’t know it was necessary, this reliving of the past, he would have found a way to back out of the discussion at the start.

It’s difficult.

As things stand, the doctor is worn down but still determined like Jim and Spock to fight the Talrek. Before, he hadn’t wanted to interfere, had been taking precautions to keep away from the Enterprise officers. Then the leader made a show of causing Kirk pain and that drove Leonard McCoy from his isolation and made a change of heart quite easy. Leonard believes that any being with an ounce of decency should not blithely hurt another for the sake of a greater good and feel no remorse for his actions. But the Talrekian obviously cares not what harm he is doing to others. Leonard cannot agree with such insensitivity and, therefore, he cannot turn a blind eye to it.

The Captain of the Enterprise watches the doctor groan to his feet and says as a sharp reminder, “You didn’t answer the question.”

Leonard sneaks a look at the Vulcan transcribing the details of their discussion into Jim’s PADD. Spock meets his look with a measuring one, neither prompting the doctor to answer Kirk’s question nor persuading Kirk to drop the matter.

McCoy sighs. “Everything’s in the report, Captain. I doubt I can add to it.”

“It doesn’t explain the lack of an official reprimand of the CMO for his unorthodox actions. You tested the serum on yourself,” Jim says to him, speaking of the plague planet where the only survivors were children (until, that is, they entered puberty), “without waiting for confirmation from the ship’s computers.”

“We didn’t have enough time to spare,” Leonard argues. Jim hadn’t asked about his actions, not after they returned from Miri’s world, lucky to be alive; his captain hadn’t needed to ask. But Leonard is not talking to the Jim Kirk he is used to, the man who understands him through their shared history and their camaraderie and their mutual understanding of one another.

“What if you had died, Doctor, and the cure had been useless? Mr. Spock doesn’t have the medical expertise you do. Your death could have sentenced the rest of us to death as well. You risked us all.”

Damn it, Jim is like a dog worrying a bone. “I saved us all!” he snaps. “Think about that while you’re sittin’ there judging me! The serum could have been fatal but the disease most assuredly was. Someone had to take the risk, and I was the best candidate.” Not to mention that he would have never consented to test the serum on Kirk or Rand, and especially not the children.

“You were the oldest of the infected,” Spock deduces from what McCoy doesn’t say outright, the Vulcan’s fingers steepled contemplatively over the PADD rather than typing away on the screen.

“Yes,” Leonard agrees. “I would have been the first to succumb to madness. I could have hurt any of you, or forced you to hurt me. Better to be dead,” he finishes, swallowing hard. He turns away. “I’m going on that break now.” Without a backwards glance, the doctor shuffles tiredly to the balcony overlooking one of numerous palace courtyards.

Maybe the fresh air will fortify him. Whether Jim or Spock realize it, Leonard is suffering. He wants to rage you know that answer! you know me! but cannot. Bowing his head, he resolutely ignores the chill of the breeze that raises goosebumps along his bare arms as he thinks. The truth is the two men in the room beyond don’t know him at all—and that hurts worse than any unsympathetic question could.

No one pursues him, not to fight or to comfort him, and after the longest five minutes of his life, Dr. Leonard McCoy heads back inside, somewhat low in spirit. Yet despite all, he is incapable of turning from his friends when they need him most.

If the doctor is surprised that Kirk and Spock use more cautious wording as their work progresses through the remainder of the night, he says nothing of it.

“Any word from Mr. Spock or the Captain?” asks Mr. Scott into the comm unit built into the captain’s chair he is temporarily occupying. The techs on duty in the transporter room respond in the negative. Montgomery looks around him worriedly. Some of the officers on Bridge return his look with equal measure. Without being told to, Uhura tries again to patch through the channel between the ship and the officers on the surface. The result is the same. No one answers.

The Chief Engineer focuses on the Bridge screen’s view of the planet and rubs his forehead, a nervous habit since his early youth. He says to no one in particular, “Oy, what sort o’ trouble are they in now?”

Kirk has missed his latest check-in, and Mr. Spock was slated to be beamed aboard the Enterprise for more research (and possibly to plan security measures) if the petition with the Talrek was not concluded in Captain Kirk’s favor. Montgomery’s stomach is roiling with a queasiness worse than the time he had come under suspicion for the murders of several women.

Have the Talrek taken more of Enterprise’s officers?

Only a select few individuals are privy to what Kirk and Spock are trying to accomplish; Mr. Scott decides that he could use a second—and informed—opinion. He comms Sickbay. “Dr. M’Benga, you’re needed on the Bridge.”

When M’Benga arrives, stepping from the turbolift with obvious diffidence, Montgomery grabs his arm and announces “We need t’talk!” and hauls the man to the Ready Room without further explanation.

M’Benga, startled, wants to know, “What’s wrong?”

“It didn’t work,” says the engineer, aggrieved, who then flings his hands into the air in distress. “All that rootin’ around in the computer banks, and it was all for naught! What do those bastards doun there care if we’re missin’ our CMO?” Mr. Scott bemoans and then shuts up abruptly, flushing. “Sorry, Doctor, I meant…”

“It’s all right, Mr. Scott,” M’Benga interrupts. “No offense taken. In fact, I’m inclined to agree that we need the rightful CMO returned to the Enterprise. I would rather advance on my own merits.”

“Aye,” says the man understandingly. “And someday ye will, lad, I’m certain of it.”

“Thank you. Now, you were saying?”

Montgomery sighs. “We ought to have had communication from the Captain or Mr. Spock by now. I can only assume the Talrek are obstructing them or us, or they’ve done something heinous. Though we’re monitoring everybody’s bio-signals and they seem to be all right.”

“Have you sent anyone down yet?”

“No. But if the Captain misses his next check-in, I’m under orders to transport every officer back to the Enterprise.”

“Ah, that will definitely interfere with what the Talrek are up to.” Then M’Benga folds his arms contemplatively. “Mr. Spock copied me on his report. You’re right, there wasn’t much information to sway the Council to begin with but it’s also all that could be found using both the ship’s local database and our latest upgrade of Starfleet’s remote mainframe.” He breaks off, frowning.

Montgomery crosses his arms, too. “If it’s all we have, then it has to be enough,” the engineer says. “They asked a question. Surely they know they cannae get an answer if we don’t have it somewhere we can find it.”

M’Benga ponders, “Are we looking in the wrong place?”

“Or are we lookin’ at the right information from the wrong angle?” Mr. Scott asks the doctor in turn.

They stare at one another, neither one more certain than the other. At last Montgomery declares, “I’ll be praying Captain Kirk doesn’t make that check-in.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause apparently that blasted answer needs every last one of us scrambling to find it!”

When the moons are high in the darkened sky, Spock places the PADD to the side and says, “The hour is late. Might I suggest we resume this discussion tomorrow?”

Jim stills, caught in the action of massaging his aching temples. He lowers his hands guiltily. “I’m not tired.”

Spock lifts his eyebrow at his Captain. “Perhaps you are not, Sir, but I believe the doctor, however, is.”

Observing their other companion, whose head is pillowed on his arms, Jim has to agree.

Then the man, seeming to sense that eyes are fixed upon his person, looks up and blinks sleepily. “What? Oh, sorry.” He huffs out his next breath and tries to appear like he hadn’t been close to dozing on the table. “Was someone sayin’ something?” he asks Kirk and Spock, drawl thick.

“It’s bedtime apparently,” Kirk states, amused.

The doctor rubs the back of his neck and yawns. “We can keep goin’. Just poke me if I start to snore.”

Spock, having made the decision for them all, stands up. “I will check on Lt. Thompkins and Lt. Harris. Do you wish for one of them to remain outside your quarters, Captain?”

The two security officers who had yet to beam back to the Enterprise before the interference of the Talrek have been posted on guard duty outside Kirk’s chambers, with instructions not to let any Talrekian enter while Kirk, Spock, and the doctor struggled through a long and involved question-and-answer session.

They must be weary by now, Jim thinks. “Tell them to rest, Spock. The Talrek don’t seem interested in us if we aren’t in the Hall.”

Spock nods. “Then I bid you both good evening.” He adds pointedly, “The interim channel between our communicators is still functional.”

Jim reaches for his own discarded communicator and reaffirms that it is set to the proper channel. The Talrek have banded them from contacting the Enterprise, yet let them keep the ability to comm any of the planet-stranded party. He picks up the extra communicator from his opened trunk and pushes it across the table towards the doctor. “In case you need it,” he offers, not expecting an argument.

The doctor silently clips the device onto his belt. Then the man pushes out of his chair, saying to Spock, “You go on ahead. I want to check Jim over first, then make some medicated tea for his migraine.”

Jim is slightly surprised that Spock does not insist on staying to oversee the man’s work and to verify that no harm comes to the captain the Vulcan is duty-bound to protect. Could Spock already trust in the doctor that much?

The CMO makes good on his word. He digs through his medikit, the one item Harris had been sent to retrieve earlier as part of the doctor’s obstinate condition when he was ordered to accompany Kirk and Spock to the guest quarters after the confrontation with the Talrek. Jim listens to the man mutter under his breath as he plucks out various equipment and then a small vial. He tells Kirk absently, “I’ve been playin’ around with the herbal treatments the Talrek use on their own people. I have some regular painkillers in my kit, but there’s this kind of leaf they make tea from which is a natural inhibitor and has less side-effects than a dose of the standard stuff we keep stocked in the med bay. I’ve tried it myself to make sure it’s safe. The taste isn’t bad either.”

Jim can only agree, “Okay.” After the doctor has poured water into a cup and left the leaves to steep, he trudges over to Kirk. Saying nothing, Jim looks straight ahead as the doctor waves the tricorder about and presses fingers gently along Jim’s cranium.

“I noticed that you’ve kept your back to the window, even when you were walking around. You usually aren’t sensitive to light until you are well past the abortive stage of your migraine.”

Jim cuts a sideways glance at him. “You seem to know plenty about me, Doctor.”

“Funny,” quips the man, “my job description says I ought to know those such things, Captain.” Then, wryly, “Not that you make my job easy to do.”

He can’t stop his half-smile. “I’m not… fond of being sick.”

“Nobody is. But,” the doctor concedes, “I’ve learned captains like it even less. Hold still for a second.” He traces his thumb down the side of Kirk’s neck to the edge of the right shoulder muscle. Pressing down, the doctor’s fingers coax the muscle to relax. The process is repeated along the back of Kirk’s left shoulder.

The pain in his head notably recedes. Jim releases a long, relieved breath and asks in wonder, “How did you do that?”

The doctor taps the top of his shoulder, smiling lightly. “You, Jim Kirk, are my best case study of the relationship between stress and health. You and I, we’ve done a lot of trial-and-error treatments for your migraines. Some pressure points work for you; some don’t.” He chuckles. “I’m always busy with you around, that’s for damn sure.”

Jim shifts in his chair gingerly, not wanting to prompt the pain to return full-force, and faces the Enterprise’s missing officer. He studies that face for a long minute. “Doctor,” calls Kirk, unsure of what he wants to say to the man. Then, aggravated, he complains, “I can’t keep calling you Doctor. Spock may be okay with it, but you need a name.”

“I have a name, Jim.”

He ignores that. “You need a name,” Jim repeats, thinking, unaware that he is beginning to acquire a look of mild mischief that sends ensigns running for cover. “Hmm… Laurel?”

The doctor rolls his eyes. “I guess that makes you Hardy.”

Damn. So he knows that joke. The wheels in Jim’s brain spin a little faster, until he is almost grinning. “Jekyll!”

“I’d rather be Hyde, thanks. ‘N you need to stop while you’re ahead.”

“Where’s your sense of humor?”

“It fled the first time we played this game.”

That gives Jim pause. “The first time?”

The other man hesitates before saying, “Never mind.” He makes a show of interest in his tricorder. “The tea ought to be ready…”

It comes to Jim, out of nowhere. He snaps his fingers, surprised and inexplicably pleased to have thought of the perfect nickname. “Bones!”

The name doesn’t have the desired effect. Rather than arguing good-naturedly, the doctor goes very still and loses some of the color in his face. “Don’t call me that,” he says in a strangled voice.

“Why not? You said it yourself—your bones are older than mine. And a long time ago, sawbones was a reference to a doctor, back when…”

Sadly, the doctor does not seem piqued about the ‘sawbones’ comment or interested in hearing a lecture in history from Jim. “No,” he insists to Jim.

Disturbed by that vehemence, Jim wants to know, “Why?”

At first it seems that Kirk won’t be given an answer, but then the doctor slumps a little, explains, “A nickname is not an honor to be bestowed upon me, Jim; it’s an honor I’m willing to grant. And frankly, I already have one friend I let use that particular name.”

Jim has a funny feeling he should know who that friend is. He argues stubbornly instead, because after all he did think up the name and what’s more he likes it, “Aren’t we friends?”

No hesitation this time. “We were.”

Jim’s hand unconsciously grips the edge of the table. “If we were friends before, we are now.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” the man retorts. “You can’t be my friend. You don’t even know who I am.”

“And whose fault is that?” Kirk snaps back. He instantly knows he has gone too far.

Watching the doctor lower his hands and step aside, Jim almost flinches at the doctor’s toneless reply. “Drink the tea. It’ll help ease the pain.” Then he walks away and gathers his medikit.

Without thinking, Jim stops him at the door, planting a hand against it to keep it closed. The doctor doesn’t try to open the door.

“I’m sorry,” Kirk says tersely. Fearing that he might be ignored, he takes the man’s arm in a hard grip. “We can’t be divided like this.”

The dark-haired man only says, “You’re hurting me.”

Jim releases him with an apology, then says quickly, “I’m not an idiot, Doctor. I heard everything you said tonight—and what you didn’t say. I think—no, I know you are an excellent Starfleet officer.” He adds with sincerity, “And a good man, someone I would call a friend. Let’s not break something we can’t fix over a stupid argument.”

The doctor sighs heavily. “You don’t get it. At this point, Captain—beyond a professional acquaintance—there isn’t anything to break.”

He argues, “When we return to the way things were…”

“It’ll be like old times?” Kirk is asked flatly. Then the doctor mimics, a strange look in his eyes, “Don’t worry, Bones, everything’s fine now. How about a drink?”

Jim pulls back, bothered by the hint of melancholy about the other man.

The doctor keeps going. “Maybe you think we’ve always been that sort of friends—the kind you can knock down one day then expect forgiveness from the next, like pals playing on a schoolyard. But for me, we weren’t… and never could be. It’s not that simple when it comes to family.”

Family. The strength of the word stuns Kirk. “Did I know this?”

The man shrugs but his blue eyes are sad and serious. “There were times” comes the slow reply, “when I don’t think you did.” The doctor moves past Kirk and pulls open the door. “It’s late, and I’m sure Spock will wake me earlier than I’d like. Try to get some sleep, Jim.”

Jim lets him go, loathing both the way his mind is floundering with indecision and the awkwardness now separating Kirk and the doctor. Two hours later, alone, Kirk finds himself unable to follow the doctor’s advice. Instead of continuing to lie awake on his bed, the captain returns to the table and picks up the abandoned PADD. Slowly, methodically, he recalls everything they’ve learned so far about the unnamed man, going through the data over and over again until his eyelids are drooping.

It’s only when Jim is drifting fuzzily on the border of sleep that he realizes the doctor had unknowingly revealed who had called him Bones.

Don’t worry, Bones, everything’s fine now…

It was me, Jim thinks. It was me all along.

Leonard wakes up from a short, fitful sleep to sunlight brightening his room and to the realization that it is almost time for the morning meal. Frowning, he sits up and flips open his communicator.

“Captain?” No response. He tries again, turning the dial. “Jim?” Spock’s communicator is next, except Leonard receives the same nonresponse. No static, just eerie silence.

Tossing water on his face and after a quick attempt to straighten his wrinkled uniform, McCoy goes back to Kirk’s room, feeling a strange sense of déjà-vu. He gives the outer door a token knock and enters. It’s empty, save for the items left behind by a messy Jim. He fails to note the set of clothing laid out over a chair, waiting to be worn, and the half-hidden communicator under a towel.

Spock’s quarters prove mystifyingly empty also. Leonard spends the next hour searching for somebody from the Enterprise. He finds no one who is not Talrekian, and the Talrek he does ask of the whereabouts of his friends answer his increasingly sharp questions with shrugs and blank stares. A Council member, whom McCoy happens to catch eating with her family in a dining area, tells the doctor that she no longer senses the officers of the Enterprise on the planet; therefore, they must have returned to their ship.

Leonard says nothing in the wake of this unexpected proclamation, merely swallows down his surprise and hurries from the crowded room. Some minutes later, alone in a wide hallway of the palace, he comes to a standstill. There the man admits, reluctantly, to a conclusion that sears him from the inside-out.

They’ve left him. Again.

A Gentleman, a Scholar, and a McCoy

Related Posts:

• The Man Who Never Was (6/6) – from August 21, 2011
• Mission Impossible: A Vulcan Discussing his Feelings – from August 20, 2011
• The Man Who Never Was (5/6) – from August 18, 2011
• IS NOT PANICKING… – from August 18, 2011
• Fic Deadline: 5pm, Thursday – from August 17, 2011