Title: Forget Me Not (6/?)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek TOS
Pairing: Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: When Jim spends time with his First Officer and CMO, he seems sad. Neither Spock nor McCoy can figure out why.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
Or read at AO3

I remember during my Academy years, especially in an exam week, how some of my fellow classmates would swear they felt like the universe was against them at every turn. I never took the sentiment seriously, just shook my head and treated it like the exaggeration it was surely meant to be.

Now, sometimes… I wonder if I shouldn’t have scoffed at the notion. How much heartbreak have I seen since the start of the mission? How many people—good, innocent people, family—have I lost over the years to mistakes, to the cruelty of both Mother Nature and human nature, to my own career and my very existence? If it is possible for destiny to be against a man, I think I am that man.

Yet all I can do, as weak as it seems, is continue to survive: to live as little as possible, and simply…

Survive.

Personal Log, James T. Kirk

The more he thinks about it, the more Leonard knows he can’t sit idle while his captain and his friend (his partner, of all things!) suffers under the weight of terrible despair. Spock doesn’t say much in the interim of Leonard’s fidgeting and unhappy pacing around the room so Leonard has to leave the Vulcan behind.

He goes to Sickbay. Christine kicks him out within an hour for wallowing, telling him it isn’t polite to spread his misery around the department like a nasty disease. He finds Scotty down in Engineering but the man is too busy to share a drink. Uhura would be a good choice for talking out his troubles but he can’t share this particular problem with her without breaking a confidence he feels he is beholden to.

In the end, after much aimless wandering about the ship, restless tossing and turning in his own bed and morose contemplation of a ring he can’t wear, Leonard gives up. He has to find Kirk.

Jim is alone in his quarters; moreover, he does not look surprised to see Leonard, just wary. Ignoring the tension ratcheting between them, Leonard enters the captain’s quarters bearing a tray with two small shot glasses and a bright blue glass bottle of dark liquid. He places the tray on a side table, too aware that Kirk’s eyes never leave him as Leonard pours them each measure of the fragrant liquor from the bottle.

“Brandy?” he offers, walking one of the shot glasses over to Jim, who is seated behind a cluttered desk.

“Why are you here, Bones?”

“I thought you could use a drink,” he says, then adds more hesitantly, “And a friend.”

Jim reaches for the shot glass, much to Leonard’s relief. When the man tosses back the liquor in one gulp, grimacing afterward, Leonard remarks dryly, “Careful now. I didn’t exactly bring the mild stuff.”

“You never do,” Jim replies, setting aside his empty glass and turning his attention back to his computer console.

Leonard settles a hip on the corner of the desk, careful not to jostle a stack of data padds, and takes a small sip of his own drink. “Workin’ on something?”

“Always.”

“Guess being the captain of the fanciest ship in the ‘Fleet still comes with a price.” He winces immediately, silently berating himself for using the word ‘price’.

Jim does not seem to notice, or if he does, he ignores it. “Truer words never spoken. Sometimes I think paperwork multiples faster than Tribbles.”

Leonard laughs without meaning to, because he hasn’t thought of those furry little creatures in a long time. The memory of that adventure floods back with an almost vivid recollection. “I still maintain we shoulda kept one, just for the hobgoblin’s sake. It’s the first and only time I’ve seen Spock get so complacent he didn’t feel the need to work every minute of every hour.”

Jim sneaks a glance at him, the corner of his mouth lifting faintly. “Which is precisely why he refused one, Bones.”

Leonard grins. “‘Cause distraction is illogical!”

Jim makes a soft snort, no longer focused on his computer monitor, and idly shifts the position of a padd in front of him.

Not knowing why, Leonard reaches out and stills Kirk’s hand, curling his fingers over Jim’s. An instant later, he realizes he has made a bad mistake.

Jim jerks back like Leonard burned him and pushes away from the desk.

Heart in his throat, Leonard abandons his brandy on the desk and slides around its side in time to stop Jim’s hurried escape. He doesn’t touch Jim, doesn’t need to, asking, “Where are you gonna go?”

“Bathroom,” the man answers, voice flat, like Leonard had asked an innocuous question.

“No,” Leonard tells him slowly, “I meant where you are gonna go when things get awkward like this? We’re on a space ship, Jim, and… and we work together. Will you be able to avoid us every time?” Following a short silence, he asks more quietly, “Do you want to avoid us?”

“What I want and what I can do are mutually exclusive.”

“Why?”

For a second, Jim looks angry. “I explained why.”

“Well, pretend I’m as dumb as a rock,” Leonard counters, trying hard to keep his tone from coming across as challenging. “If we try to be together, to fight this god-awful curse or whatever it is, what happens?”

Jim draws in a breath, an indication he isn’t as steady as he appears to be. Leonard prompts Jim to answer with the sound of his name.

“You forget.” Another breath is drawn. “Spock will want to enforce the bond, or you will want to—” Jim looks away. “The point is we can try, Bones, but we can’t win.”

Leonard swallows down disappointment. “And you know this because we’ve tried before.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Jim,” he says, feeling his heart break all over again. “Jim, I’m so sorry!”

It surprises Leonard, almost like a physical shock, when Jim takes a hold of his shoulders and gives him a slight shake.

“No, don’t apologize! Just… don’t, Bones.”

“But, damn it, Jim, why the hell would I ever do this to you! Why would I, how could I, knowing it would be like a daily torture session just to—”

He can’t finish because he is in Jim’s arms and Jim is in his, and they are holding onto each other as if the world is ending. He feels a tremor run through Jim, buries his face in the crook of Jim’s shoulder and neck and plants his feet, doing his best to stand against each new tremor as it comes.

Jim is not crying, he realizes gradually, maybe because there are no tears left in Jim to cry, but he is shaking with such intensity, he might very well come apart at the seams. Leonard loosens one arm enough that he can run a hand up and down the length of Kirk’s back, the same way he would for a child in distress.

Eventually the shaking subsides. Leonard waits until Jim’s head lifts a little, dazedly, from his shoulder, and then he pulls back to cup the man’s still down-turned face. “I’m more sorry than I can say, Jim, ‘n even more sorry because it’s hard not to love you. You can make a mind forget, maybe, but not a heart.”

“I know,” the man whispers, sounding so sorrowful Leonard feels close to tears himself.

“I—” He closes his eyes briefly. “I know it’s no good but I still want to fight. For you.”

In response, Jim places his hands over Leonard’s and pulls them away from his face.

Leonard chokes. “Jim.“

Jim looks up at him, then, eyes red from strain. “Sometimes I think I could hate you… both of you.”

The confession is like a knife in McCoy’s heart.

“Spock wants the bond, and you want to fight. What about what I want?” Jim asks. “I want peace, Bones. I want to be able to sleep at night. I want to… forget too.” He drags in air suddenly, sounding out of breath. “God, I never thought I would beg for that!”

And to hear Jim say it scares Leonard to his core. He can only think to deny the words, to deny Jim that very thought of letting them go, of not loving them; pressing his mouth against Jim’s, he tries to deny it all. It’s not a kiss, not quite a plea, just a desperate attempt to connect them before they become lost to each other forever.

And for a long second afterward, the world goes white.

Leonard blinks open his eyes (had he closed them? what happened?) to find a stricken Jim cradling him. He must be on the floor because he can see the ceiling beyond Jim’s head.

His lungs remember then he is supposed to breathe. “Captain?” he gasps out softly.

“Bones,” the man holding him says, sounding properly terrified, “Bones, are you?—do you?—you shouldn’t have!”

Leonard can’t make sense of what Jim is trying to tell him. He struggles to sit up in lieu of his confusion.

Jim releases McCoy, falling silent all of a sudden. The terror in his face slowly dies out, replaced by something more distant—and more frightening.

“What do you remember?” the man asks Leonard.

Leonard puts a hand to his mouth, where it is faintly warm, though he doesn’t know why. “I don’t…” He looks at his surroundings. Captain’s quarters. “Did I faint? How’d I get here?”

Jim stands up, offering him a hand to help him to his feet. “You brought me a drink.”

The evidence is on Jim’s desk, an empty shot glass and a mostly full one, but Leonard sees them and frowns.

“The stuff is strong enough to literally knock a man’s feet out from under him, I guess,” Jim says with a shrug.

“I… did need a drink. Okay. I remember wanting to see you.” He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think really, or do much beyond wanting to ease Jim’s pain.

That’s right. He is the cause of Jim’s pain, he and Spock. They keep forgetting that they love him. The whole thing is awful to consider.

Jim turns away, voice stable though oddly his hands don’t seem steady at all as he runs fingers through his hair. “…Bones, you should go. Sleep, or something.”

“Jim?”

“I mean it,” the man says, twisting at the waist to give McCoy a commanding look.

There is an accusation beneath the words that Leonard can’t ignore. “What do you want us to do?” he asks helplessly.

“Forget about me, Bones. Don’t treat me like a lover; don’t even treat me like a friend. Do whatever you must so we aren’t put in this position again.”

After a moment of watching Kirk and his flat expression, he says, “You’re cold, Jim,” not accusing, just unhappy and resigned to the unpleasant truth. “I get the need to protect yourself, especially since Spock and I clearly haven’t done you any favors in the past, but it still hurts to see you this way.”

The look on Jim’s face never changes, even as he tells Leonard in a matter-of-fact tone, “It hurts me more.”

Then Leonard’s captain nods toward the door, and Leonard obeys the silent dismissal, knowing nothing more can be said between them without cutting into an already deep wound.

His inability to help Jim has left him as gloomy and disappointed as before. He spends the rest of the shift pondering the same question over and over, until he hears it on repeat in his dreams:

What can he do?

The next morning, depressed and simultaneously angry, Leonard locates Spock in the Officer’s Mess and drops into the empty seat next to him. Without preamble, the doctor says, “I didn’t get a darn bit of rest last night. I’m probably going to go crazy before the week is out.”

“Your body requires sleep to function properly. I doubt there will be a complaint if you reschedule your shift today in order to achieve this, Doctor.”

“I slept,” Leonard explains for Spock’s benefit. “I just didn’t rest. There’s a difference.”

Spock looks like he is going to argue with that, and Leonard isn’t in the mood to argue. He promises, “I’ll work half a shift and take off early, try to catch some shut-eye.”

Without another word Spock returns his attention to his plate of colorful nutrition cubes. Leonard has the inexplicable urge pick one cube up and flick it at Spock’s nose. Likely that would not amuse the Vulcan in the least, so he doesn’t.

Besides, they have bigger problems than the childish desire to food-fight like first-year cadets.

“Well,” Leonard asks, feeling impatient, “did you come up with a solution?”

“We could strength the bond.”

This strikes McCoy as a bad idea for some reason. “Wouldn’t we have tried that already?”

“It is highly likely, yes.”

“So let’s think of something different.”

Spock’s voice is marginally disgruntled. “We cannot know if an idea is un-tried, Doctor, when we have no memory of our past efforts.”

“I know, I know. But, Spock, we’re two of the sharpest minds on this floating boat, so that has to count for something. ‘N don’t you dare contradict me!” Leonard adds quickly, recognizing that particular slant of the Vulcan’s dark eyebrows.

“I have no need to do so, Doctor, when you easily accomplish this feat yourself.”

Leonard coughs and rubs a hand over his mouth, but it doesn’t quite erase his smile. “Obviously I’m not attracted to you for your dull wit, Mr. Spock.”

“Indeed?”

“Or to Jim for his modesty.”

Unfortunately, mentioning Jim has the effect of sobering them both.

“Did you speak with the Captain?” Spock wants to know.

Leonard shakes his head. “Sort of, but not really. He’s developed a cold shoulder I’m not used to.”

“You have a knack for finding a way around a ‘cold shoulder’, Doctor, when you are determined to do so. I trust in your ability to reach him.”

Meaning Leonard had gotten past Spock’s Vulcan-fortified armor, which he can see is not a fact that displeases Spock in the least. At this thought, his body instinctively leans toward the Vulcan. “You know, if we didn’t have other things to be worried about right now…”

A burst of laughter has Leonard abandoning his sentence and settling back into his own personal space; he remembers where they are—that is, in public view of fifty or so crewmen.

Spock appears to studying the heightened color of Leonard’s face. “This was another attempt at flirtation.”

Leonard ducks his head. “A poorly timed one. Sorry ’bout that, Commander.”

“Hm” is all Spock says.

To give himself something else to think about besides inching his fingers over towards Spock’s so they are touching, Leonard pinpoints the disruption in the cafeteria, a group of cheerful-faced people lazing about at one of the long tables, and sends them his patented displeased scowl, which no one pays mind to.

“What’re they doing?” he complains. “Just hanging out in here like it’s an after-school club? I tell you, Spock, everybody’s gotten too lax these days. I could swear I see the same three ensigns every day in Sickbay for the same silly problems. What we need is a good mission to shake things up!”

Bizarrely the Vulcan’s fork, balancing a nutrition cube on its four prongs, freezes midway to his mouth.

“Spock?”

“Doctor, what was our last mission?”

Leonard blinks. “…I guess that’d be the dinner with the K’lthery.”

“And what was the purpose of meeting with the K’lthery?”

He looks at Spock askance, lifting a hand to the Vulcan’s forehead even though gaging Spock’s temperature that way is nigh impossible. “You feeling all right?”

Spock removes Leonard’s hand from his forehead but does not immediately let go of it, pressing Leonard’s fingers with an unusual urgency. “Think, Leonard. Who assigned us to a diplomatic engagement with the K’lthery?”

“Starfleet Command?” But Leonard doesn’t recall a specific missive in that regard. “I don’t remember,” he admits.

“You do not. You could not, if we never received an order through the proper channels.”

“Then why’d we take the time to meet them at a spaceport?” His head is starting to hurt, literally, the more he tries to puzzle out what Spock is getting at.

“The dinner was meant to further our good relations with the race.” Spock’s brows furrow. “Yet what it accomplished…”

“Was discomforting us,” Leonard finishes, remembering how he felt once the dinner was over.

Spock’s fingers tighten around his one last time before releasing him. “Affirmative. The K’lthery proposed we were partners with Kirk.”

Leonard puts a hand to his head, because he really does have a proper headache. “What are you sayin?”

“The K’lthery proposed we were partners with Kirk,” Spock repeats.

“I got that part. So what? The dinner was—” He pauses, thinks. “—a trigger of some kind?”

“Perhaps.”

“But why?” That makes absolutely no sense. “If we’re not supposed to remember something, why would someone purposely set out to remind us about it, Spock, if they did not know we had forgotten it?”

But Spock has stood up, is in fact methodically gathering his eating utensils and plate to dispose of them. “Leonard, there is a matter I must investigate. May we meet at a later time?”

“Sure,” Leonard says, confused, rising from his seat also. “But I’d appreciate it if you would give me some idea of what’s going on in that head of yours. Are we close to a truth, or what?”

“Why would you use that phrasing, ‘a truth’?” Spock asks him instead, pausing his movements in order to search Leonard’s gaze with his own.

“I don’t know,” the doctor answers honestly.

“Leonard…” Spock hesitates, then says with care, “I am not certain of what I know, either; thus it is imperative I seek an answer to my question before we resume this conversation.”

Leonard lowers his voice, suddenly feeling like all eyes in the room are on them despite that no one in the Officer’s Mess has looked their way. “Could it be dangerous, what you want to know?”

Spock inclines his head slightly, a clear indication of yes to Leonard, though he answers with “All questions are potentially dangerous and all truths, equally so, Doctor.”

“What can I do to help?”

Spock’s silent regard of him is warm. “You could go to Sickbay to work half of your shift. Then you could rest.”

Irrationally Leonard’s eyes feel wet. He blurts out, “I love you, you stubborn ol’ hobgoblin.”

A great part of Leonard’s headache dissipates, courtesy of the same sentiment which fills Leonard’s mind like a balm. Spock turns and walks away.

It occurs to Leonard later, as it must have occurred to Spock during their discussion at breakfast, that someone would want them in this exact position, questioning how close they are to Jim, if the goal was to hurt Jim, especially in order to hurt him over and over again.

And that thought gives rise to another: what if these ‘aliens’ who gave them a hard choice to make in exchange for freedom never actually let them go?

Next Part

Related Posts:

• Forget Me Not (10/10) – from April 1, 2013
• Forget Me Not (9/10) – from April 1, 2013
• Forget Me Not (8/10) – from March 18, 2013
• Forget Me Not (7/?) – from March 12, 2013
• Forget Me Not (5/?) – from March 1, 2013