Title: Never Had It Right
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek TOS
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Summary: Five instances in which Kirk, Spock, and McCoy weren’t friends, and one time their friendship saved them.
A/N: I’m ridiculously excited about seeing STXII in theaters this Saturday, and I have been trying to channel that excitement into productive behavior. Hence the fic-writing. This five-and-one was actually painful to do because the scenarios go against the very grain of a Triumvirate-lover. I had to keep telling myself it was all right that he/they wouldn’t do or say such things. That’s the point of the premise! You can consider the first “five” as alternative looks at the trio, which may or may not have happened.
Of course, now I am going to have to plot some shameless fluff for my next story.

5.

“Hey,” Dr. Leonard McCoy said, coming to stand just behind and to the right of the captain’s chair.

The man in the chair didn’t acknowledge him. “Mr. Chekov, where’s that report on our trajectory?”

“Coming, sir,” answered the navigator in a single nervous breath. Next to him the on-duty pilot’s hands twitched over the helm’s controls.

James Kirk drummed his fingers against one of his chair’s arms in impatience.

Leonard shifted to lean into the periphery of Kirk’s vision. “Jim…”

“Spock!” barked Kirk suddenly, twisting around to look at his First Officer. “I needed that report yesterday.” The accusation in his voice was sharp, and it was clear enough that because Spock considered Chekov a protégé why Kirk’s ire made a target of him.

The protégé in question visibly sank into his seat.

“Understood, sir,” replied the Vulcan, only the slow dip of his chin indicating that he might have felt ruffled. “The report has just been forwarded to you, I believe.”

Kirk snatched up a data padd from his lap and inspected it.

Leonard placed an uncertain hand on the back of the captain’s chair and tugged indecisively at his bottom lip with his teeth.

“Doctor,” a voice said from above him, not loudly but its tone still unyielding, “you are not authorized to be here. You must leave.”

Leonard turned to consider the Vulcan’s flat expression. “Should I?”

“It was not a suggestion.”

Drawing his shoulders inward, Leonard wordlessly took himself away from the Bridge and down to Sickbay. There he was less unseen than anywhere else on the ship, given that the department was his responsibility, and he busied himself with work which had an acknowledged, if barely respected, purpose. He tried not to think too hard on why, among the senior commanders and his peers, he had been dismissed so readily; he tried harder not to think about how stupid he had been to hope this new commission aboard the Fleet’s flagship was the break from his past he needed to be who he was meant to be.

Would he ever find his place in this godforsaken galaxy?

4.

“That,” Commander Spock said with a faint expression which was the equivalent of a human grimace, “was nearly unpalatable, Doctor.”

“Oh, shut up,” the CMO tossed over his shoulder at the Vulcan. “Like I’ve got nothing better to do than coddle an overgrown house elf.”

“If you did not seek to force your unorthodox concoctions upon my person, I would have no reason to complain.”

McCoy pivoted around to poke a finger in Spock’s direction. “It’s not my fault we’re so ill-equipped to handle your species, Mr. Spock! Why don’t you take that up with your precious captain?”

Spock folded his hands behind his back. “Perhaps I will.”

The doctor snorted in disgust. “You do that. And once you’re done kissing his ass, remind that son of a bitch, command stripes or not, he’d better show up for his appointment tomorrow morning or else.”

“You should not threaten a superior officer.”

McCoy snorted at the way Spock’s mouth had tightened in disapproval. “Yeah, like I shouldn’t waste my time arguing with a cold-blooded Vulcan. How illogical. Now… Get the hell outta my Sickbay.”

Spock left without another word, his silence made more impenetrable by his disdain.

3.

“Finally!” cried Dr. McCoy as he came into the transporter room, startling more than a few people who had gathered there. “I’ve sent you god knows how many requests for shore leave in the past six months, Jim!”

“All in good time, Bones,” replied Jim Kirk, pausing in his conversation with the dark-eyed beauty behind the transporter console. He saw the bag over McCoy’s shoulder. “Planning for a long trip?”

“Just glad to get off this tin can and get my feet on solid ground,” the doctor retorted. He started to bounce on the balls of his feet but stopped, having spotted a particular person he had not expected to see. “Hey, is he coming with us?”

Jim winked at the woman before he abandoned her and came to stand beside McCoy. “I don’t know. Spock!”

The Vulcan turned around at the sound of his name. “Captain?”

McCoy pursed his mouth. “Is that all you’re going down with for a week? Just the clothes on your back? My god, Jim, he’s lost his Vulcan mind.”

“I am not,” Spock explained with an exaggerated patience that had the doctor narrowing his eyes, “joining you on the planet. I will remain aboard the Enterprise.”

“Didn’t anybody share the memo with you, Mr. Spock? Shore leave is a medical mandate for all crewmen!”

“Work does not cease to exist, Doctor, just because you have left it behind.”

“Y-You—” started McCoy, sputtering.

Jim turned away from the conversation as if he was bored with it. “If he wants to stay, he can stay. I don’t care.”

“Well, I don’t care either,” snapped the older man in response, “except when my job makes it my business to care.”

Jim just shook his head, saying, “Then by all means stay and try to convince him,” and headed for the transporter pad.

McCoy cast a quick glance at Spock, hmphed that he had to concede the battle, and trailed after his commanding officer. When Kirk and McCoy were gone, whisked away as tiny clouds of molecules to their destination far, far below the ship’s orbit, Spock turned on his heel and left the transporter room, his duty to see his captain safely off ship done. He gave no more thought of the two officers than they of him.

2.

Christine held her breath, loosed it nosily.

They were arguing. Again.

This time the explosion of tempers happened outside the entrance of the medical bay and none of them seemed to remember they were, for all intents and purposes, having a fight in a very well-traveled corridor. Normally Mr. Spock herded the disagreeing party, himself included, into less public quarters.

But even the Vulcan wasn’t paying attention today—or was too beyond pissed to care.

“I warned you what would happen!” she heard McCoy’s voice ring out, at a pitch that it could easily penetrate the layers of steel between the corridor and the waiting area of the bay.

“I had my orders, Dr. McCoy.”

“Of all the blasted times to decide to play by the book, Jim—people died down there!”

“Doctor, the fault is no—”

“I know that!” came the furious remark, and Kirk sounded as hurt as he did upset. “I was with them, so I know better than you exactly what happened on that planet. There…” The captain’s voice became strained. “…was nothing we could have done differently.”

“Bullshit!”

“Doctor, you will desist.”

“Bullshit,” the word was spat again. “When’d you get so cold, Jim? I’d have expected an excuse like that from Spock but from you—never from you.”

“I had no choice. Bones, I—”

McCoy’s response came after a pause, strangled. “I—I can’t hear this right now.”

“You mean you do not desire to hear what is a matter of course, Doctor—and that is the tenet by which Starfleet adheres to, by which we all must comply.”

“Don’t you spout about the Prime Directive to me, you green-blooded hobgoblin! What did you do, except to agree to go ahead and let them die! Does death even register with you, or is it too emotional a transgression for you to care about?”

“McCoy,” the Captain snapped, and the name was staccato enough to make every eavesdropper flinch.

The ensuing silence was too brief, followed by a terse “Outta my way.”

Someone sighed in dismay. “No, Spock—let him go.”

The Sickbay doors swept open. Christine hastily turned her back, catching only a glimpse of her boss from the corner of her eye. What she did see of him made her stomach sink. She prayed this was the last time Kirk, Spock, and McCoy lashed out at each other; but in her heart, Christine knew it wouldn’t be. They simply did not see that one man’s weakness could be another man’s strength and that, when working together as opposed to apart, their differences made them better. But it wouldn’t happen and she had to wonder after a while if she hadn’t convinced herself of a lie.

1.

The odd thing about people who had many books was that they always wanted more. The last time Spock had been in the Captain’s quarters, there were fourteen books arranged alphabetically by title along the wall’s built-in bookshelf. Now there were thirty-two, three of which were in danger of spilling off the shelf and onto the floor of the cabin.

He removed his attention from his perusal of Kirk’s personal effects to the man himself as the Captain came through his bathroom door, rubbing a towel over his hair as if he had bathed despite that he was fully clothed.

“Stopped by the gym earlier,” Kirk said by way of explanation, though Spock had not questioned him. “I’m glad you could make it.”

There was no animosity in that voice, no hint of wariness or indication of discomfort as in so many other humans’ voices when they addressed Spock.

Spock might have found this interesting when he was younger. Now he merely felt relieved he did not have to carry on a pretense to soothe a human’s nerves.

“If you were not prepared for a meeting, Captain, you should not have invited me.”

“I didn’t call you here on ship’s business, Spock.” The man gave him a brief smile as he discarded the small white towel and strode for a cabinet with two doors. “Drink?”

“Negative.”

Kirk lifted a bottle of blue liquid for Spock to see. “Are you sure?”

“Quite, sir.”

The human replaced the bottle after pouring himself a glass of the liquid. “I thought since I’m new to my post and you are fairly new to yours—”

“I served as Science Officer under Captain Pike as well.”

“—as First Officer, then,” Kirk corrected genially, “we have something in common and that might make it easier for us to learn of other similarities between ourselves.” He took a sip of his drink and set it aside. “I want us to get along, Spock.”

Spock raised an eyebrow. “I had no intention of doing otherwise, Captain.”

Kirk waved a hand at a chair. “Have a seat.”

Spock figured if his captain wished to know of him, now was a perfectly logical time to begin the process. “I prefer to stand.”

The human nodded, taking a seat himself. “I’ve found lately I prefer to stand, too. Or maybe it’s better to say I feel I can’t sit when I could be on my feet. I suppose I am not used to being in a captain’s chair for long periods of time.”

Kirk made the last statement in a particular tone and smiled slowly, but Spock could not delineate why he would do so. Because he could not, he remained silent.

The smile faded from the man’s face. He cleared his throat, momentarily looking uncertain, and reached around the table to tug at a drawer of one of the lower cabinets along the wall. “Do you play chess?” he asked the Vulcan.

“I do.”

“Great! I haven’t played in a few years but—”

“Captain.”

“Jim,” Kirk said, earnest, as he opened a wooden box. “Black or white?”

Spock eased his hands from behind his back and said, “Jim,” feeling this name might be more successful in drawing his captain’s attention. “I allotted twenty minutes for this meeting, but I must return to my duties as soon as I am able.”

Kirk’s hand paused over a white rook. “Oh,” he murmured, then oddly, “…this meeting. I see.” He drew his hands to his sides and stood. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Spock.”

“You are welcome, Captain.” Spock inclined his head and turned toward the exit to the cabin, but paused as a thought occurred to him. He added politely, “The ship’s computer will locate me should you have need of me, sir.”

Jim Kirk said nothing, just briefly quirked the side of his mouth. An unusual sign of dismissal, it was, but Spock accepted it without question and left.

1+

The night was calm and clear, the sky a deep indigo, and the tree outside his window ever so often betrayed the wind creeping up from the south. Jim stood and closed the curtain. He left the room on bare feet.

The farmhouse was empty, save the pitter-patter of the field mouse nesting in the attic and the cat who sometimes haunted the hallway searching for it. Jim went to the kitchen and made himself a glass of water, which he abandoned on the counter after a single sip.

He stopped in the archway of the living room, struck by the way the red light blinking on the side of a small computer console in the darkness made a stark relief of the lines of the hand-me-down furniture. For a moment, he thought of his ship and how the red alert klaxons cast everything in a similar glow. The lack of sound shook him from the surreal moment, and the sense of the house, of the land under him, was achingly different by contrast. He drew a quiet breath, waiting for the stinging of his eyes to subside.

Of course this wasn’t his ship. He’d given her up.

The console’s blinking light meant he had an unread message. As Jim eased into a wooden chair crafted by his great-grandfather and leaned forward to wake the computer, the chair complained.

The message was from Starfleet Headquarters. Should it matter that he was on two weeks’ vacation? No. It wouldn’t.

Then again, that they hadn’t forgotten him, even in this small way, meant he was still needed by someone.

But not like before. An Admiral’s stripes had a price.

As he read through the message the first time, his fingers unconsciously curled around the edge of the desk. When he read it the second time, he remembered to breathe.

They were giving…

It couldn’t be!

A sound rose in his throat, a laugh, or maybe a sob.

A ship.

…reinstated to temporary captaincy of the Enterprise…

His ship.

The mission was urgent, the crew roster barely assembled. Jim called up the draft of proposed officers and stations, skimmed the list—and hesitated. Two names were not there, two very important names. And they couldn’t be there because…

No, he thought, throat tight, suddenly resolute. If he could have this chance to fix a regret, he had to fix it completely. But with the things time and distance could do to friendship, he did not know if his plea would be heeded.

Yet Jim had to hope, had to try. He began the first of a long series of requests to Command (a few called-in favors too) and also replied to the message carrying his orders. Afterward, though he knew it was too soon, his fingers itched to send a private missive to either Spock or McCoy.

Jim sat back in his chair, unaware the darkness surrounding the house had begun to give way to the morning sun.

Happiness was to be shared; otherwise it was pointless.

Come back, he thought fiercely, squeezing his eyes shut. Bones. Spock. Come back and help me remember what it means to be happy.

In the end, they did come. The friendship had frayed to nearly nothing but there was enough left to help them build again, and Jim had never been more grateful for a second chance.

-Fini

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