Title: The White Horse (17/18)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Summary: Jim Kirk was a strange man. A silent man. No one knew much about him or, if they did, were not willing to say what they did know, especially to the town’s newest magical occupant. Not that Leonard McCoy cared. He had an old curse to track down and unravel by the year’s end. Meanwhile a killer was tracking him. AU.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16
or at AO3

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Make certain you’ve read Part Fifteen first!

Part Sixteen

Pavel woke to find that he was on the floor of a room he did not immediately recognize. As he oriented himself, he became aware that the tiny hairs along his arms were standing up, and his breath clouded in front of him.

He blinked, rolled to the side, and came face-to-face with Winona.

“Pavel,” she said, “are you hurt?”

This wasn’t right, this wasn’t… He sat up, realizing he was in the Kirk house.

“How did I get here?” His accent always grew heavy when he was upset.

Winona sat cross-legged next to him, her form thin but still faintly colorful to Pavel’s eyes, like clothes which were faded from too many washings. “Jim brought you home. I don’t know why… he’s never done that before.”

“That’s not—” Pavel stopped himself in time. He didn’t want to upset this poor spirit. She loved her son, and he was a monster. “Where is he?”

“Downstairs. Pavel, he never uses these rooms. He never… I don’t understand what he’s doing. Why would he bring you here?” She flickered in and out for a moment because her growing emotions made her unstable. “Maybe you should leave. My son wouldn’t hurt you but…”

“Okay,” he agreed, and stood up, going to the closed door on somewhat wobbly legs.

When he opened it, Jim was on the other side. Pavel backed into the room, past Winona to the far wall, losing color in his face.

Jim’s vividly blue gaze floated from Pavel to various corners of the room. “Is she here?” he asked.

Winona gasped.

“You need to go,” Pavel told her, suddenly understanding why he had been brought here. “You need to go now.”

But her face showed how happy she was. “He can speak!” she cried. “My boy… I haven’t heard his voice in so long!”

Jim used Pavel’s gaze as a point of reference and spoke to the air. “Hello, Mother.”

She went towards him. Pavel made a strangled noise.

“Jimmy,” Winona said over and over.

The light in the room changed, then. So did Kirk’s eyes.

Winona stopped in the middle of the room, hand lifted to touch him, despite that she was no more than a mere whisper of a being. “Jimmy? Jimmy?”

“Recognize me?” Jim said to the woman. “You should have stayed buried. Pavel, I will forgive you for bringing this nuisance here as long as you take her away again. Refuse, and you can join her in the Void.”

Winona’s expression changed from horror to outrage. “No!” she screamed.

Pavel ducked streaks of angry energy and wrapped his arms over his head. Around him, a supernatural wind rose, shrieking and howling.

Jim simply laughed.

Leonard gave Sulu a measured look and asked, “Got one?”

“Smoking isn’t healthy for you,” Sulu replied in a monotone not unlike Spock’s. When Leonard snorted, the man smirked and fished inside his jacket for the cigarettes he was suspected of having. Tapping one out of the pack, he offered it with the curious inquiry “I don’t smell like the habit, do I?”

“Thanks, and no. You just seem like the kind of guy who lights one up in a tight spot.”

“You would be surprised how the simple act of smoking makes an effective impression on bad guys.”

“Yeah? Like in the movies?”

“Exactly like in the movies,” the man chuckled.

Leonard stuck the cigarette in his mouth. Spock stopped watching Scotty mess about with the laptop in order to shoot him a look that said he would gladly crush more than the cigarette if Leonard started smoking in his vicinity. Rolling his eyes, Leonard scooted to the door and jimmied it open, stepping down to the pavement outside.

“Hey!” called Sulu, who also tossed him a lighter. “Stay close.”

Leonard nodded, rolling the cigarette to the corner of his mouth as he circled around the van. Dappled afternoon light stretched along the length of the sidewalk as he set a quick pace. He flicked a flame into life with the lighter and, as he bent his head to light the cigarette, down the street movement in one of the windows of Kirk’s house caught his eye. He decided it must be the cat. Leonard didn’t think Jim would be stupid enough to come back here.

He shivered, for it seemed like the light of the sun had suddenly gone thin.

At the end of the nearest driveway was a crooked mailbox with its lid ajar. Leonard passed it and paced back a block to come at the house from a less noticeable angle in case Uhura was still on a stake-out. He cast frequent glances around him but saw no other living thing.

Crossing into Kirk’s weed-choked backyard, the sweetness of the summer air dissipated and was replaced by something thick and foul. In a graveyard, it would have been the smell of the dead. That gave Leonard pause, because what was the dead doing here? He considered all that he saw and noticed the odd way that the neighboring trees grew right up to the fence but none of their branches grew over it.

If he asked Spock to touch this ground with his magic, what would the earth say to him? Had they missed some important sign all along?

Leonard abandoned his reverie as the gauzy curtain in the second-story window began to flutter like a fan was blowing on it.

The kitchen door was unlocked when he tested the knob. That too was odd, he thought. Suffering only a moment’s hesitation, Leonard entered the house. The farther inside he went, the air grew thicker, more oppressive with every step, and colder as well. A queer sensation started in Leonard’s chest, like a tickling.

He called out in a quiet voice for Winona Kirk.

There came a crash from the floor above his head. As Leonard climbed the stairs, he heard a muffled howling, like a train passing through. It directed him unerringly down the hall. He reached a door and flung it open.

Jim Kirk was standing right in the center of the room, and Pavel Chekov was crouched in a corner.

Leonard saw an outline of hands, no more solid than mist, around Jim’s throat. Jim was grinning.

Then he turned his head, spied Leonard, and waved his hand languidly in that direction. A force of air rushed right at Leonard then through him. It was so bitingly cold that he gasped and nearly sank to his knees. The door at his back slammed shut by an invisible hand.

“So glad you could make it,” Jim said to him. “I was cleaning house.”

All Leonard could do was gape and say his name stupidly.

The young man across the room uncoiled and started to move in Leonard’s direction.

Jim shook his head in mock sadness. “Such a disappointment, Pavel.” Then he murmured something. Black lines appeared on the walls and snaked across their surfaces, forming a pattern of knobs and whorls that seemed familiar to Leonard. When they reached the floor, they began to transverse it like an army of ants.

Too late Leonard realized they were targeting Pavel, and Pavel began to scream as the dark magic crawled under his skin.

Well, hadn’t that been interesting?

Sulu had gone out to retrieve McCoy from a smoke break on his senior’s orders and come back empty-handed. Spock had vacated the van in the blink of an eye, like losing Leonard was a serious thing. Now both of the agents were supposedly on a manhunt for Kirk and McCoy.

“I guess that makes us chopped liver,” Scotty muttered, then cried out in pain. Pulling his hand back from a sizzling circuit, he blew on his injured fingers. “Blast it, Keenser! Stop mucking about! No, I’m not sorry I left you.”

The van rocked a little.

Scotty slapped its side in irritation. “You daft bastard, we don’t have time for this!”

The back door popped open.

At first Scotty thought the demon was about to give him the boot into the street, but then a woman stuck her head inside.

“Ooh pretty,” he noted.

She climbed in but stayed crouched by the door.

Scotty’s laptop awakened from sleep mode and began to croon “Who’s that lady?/Beautiful lady/Lovely lady/Real fine lady/Hear me calling out to you…“.

“Shut that off.”

Scotty slammed the lid down without needing to be told twice. “Hey, sorry, that wasn’t me!”

Her beautifully shaped eyes narrowed.

Scotty tried to salvage the situation. “Not that sexy women aren’t welcome in my van—I mean it’s nice to meet you!—but, uh,” he winced, “this isn’t the best time for a flirt, lass.”

He had definitely said the wrong thing, he thought, when she pulled out a Beretta and aimed it at his head.

“Say one more insulting thing and I will shut you up permanently. Now, tell me where Jim Kirk is.”

Scotty deflated. “Why’s everyone so fixated on that guy? All right, all right,” he amended when the woman cocked the gun, “I get it! Kirk is… is not in this van obviously. He might be in his house? Have you tried his house? See, the thing about mysterious guys is that they tend to hide in the most—”

“Why are you rambling?”

Scotty, now tracking the motion of one of his tennis shoes which was levitating behind her head, widened his eyes. “No reason!”

She started to turn around, and the shoe struck her. The Beretta went off, a bullet whizzing too closely by Scotty’s head for his liking.

“Jeeesus!” he exclaimed as he ducked. “What have I told you about hitting people with guns in small spaces!”

He felt really bad when the lady flattened herself against the interior of the van and looked around somewhat wildly.

“Sorry,” he apologized, meaning it. “That was my demon.”

He really should have expected it, he would think later, when she lashed out and nailed him in the gut with her boot.

A part of Leonard said to leave Pavel writhing on the ground and run for the hills. Another part of him, which must be the tiny bit of compassion he still possessed, had him at Pavel’s side before he could think better of it. The creepy magical swirls on the floor slid away from him instead of attacking him.

Still in the center of the room, Jim crossed his arms and looked on.

Leonard propped Pavel up and inspected his skin where veins of blackness were pulsing close to the surface. Trying to combat it with his magic made him sick to his stomach, but he pursued the foreign agent as it burrowed down into Pavel’s body.

He was vaguely aware that Pavel was babbling at him. Something about Jim who was not Jim. Well, Leonard understood that easily enough.

“What’d you do?” he accused Kirk.

“Just a little punishment for his misdeeds.”

Somehow it wasn’t surprising to hear Kirk answer.

Pavel’s nose began to bleed.

“Stop it, you sick bastard! He’s just a kid!”

“Is he?” questioned Jim. “Hm.”

Leonard cursed under his breath and grabbed Pavel’s jaw. “This is going to be uncomfortable,” he told the young man, and then gathered what energy he could to fling at the invasive magic, channeling it to rush like a wild river so it would drag what didn’t belong in Pavel along.

Pavel clawed at Leonard’s hand as he began to gurgle. Leonard released him after a moment so the poor kid could double over and vomit, patting his back to help him. The black splatters left burn marks on the floor.

“Impressive,” Jim said. “I knew you could do it.” He smiled like he was truly pleased too.

When Pavel sat up, having finally expelled everything, his eyes were watering. He said something short and sharp in Russian to Jim. It was undoubtedly crude.

Jim’s eyes crinkled at the corners.

Leonard wasn’t a stupid man. He knew he was outnumbered by simply looking into those cool green eyes. He hauled Pavel to his feet and pushed him towards the door, saying, “Get out of here, kid.”

“Don’t leave me,” Jim said. “I want to play.”

“You’re not Jim,” Leonard told him, “and not that I give two fucks about Kirk, but I certainly don’t like you.”

Pavel, the little fool, hadn’t made a run for it while Leonard tried to provide a distraction. “Where is Jim?”

Jim cocked his head. “Oh, somewhere.”

“Give him back.”

“Oh hell, kid,” Leonard said, and physically grabbed Pavel around the waist. “Poking at the bad spirit is not a good idea. C’mon.”

“We must help Jim!”

“Sure, sure, not arguing the point.” Damn it to hell, why was the door knob stuck? He stopped himself from pounding on the door like an idiot and considered their other options. While jumping from the second story was a terrible idea, he bet he could make enough ruckus to bring Spock running.

Pavel didn’t argue when they started inching towards the window.

Jim turned in a circle as he followed their progress but he didn’t stop them.

Leonard moved aside the dusty curtain and peered down into the yard. Sulu glanced up and looked startled to see him at the window.

Pavel nearly pressed his nose to the glass trying to see too. “Who is that? He looks like Government.”

“Where the hell is Spock?” Leonard muttered to himself.

As if the name was a summoning, there came a polite knock on the bedroom door.

Jim’s eyes flashed.

Leonard yelled, “Come in!”

Spock, it seemed, had no trouble opening the door from the other side.

Leonard was immeasurably glad to see him, and he also decided he would die before he ever admitted it.

“Hello, Mr. Kirk,” Spock said with the utmost civility.

“Mr. Spock,” Jim returned with equal measure.

“I would like to ask you a question.”

“Did I kill your father, the tracker?” Jim smiled. “Why yes I did.”

“Thank you for telling me that,” the agent replied, sounding no more perturbed than as if they were discussing the weather.

“Uh-oh,” Leonard said. He made certain he had a firm grip on Pavel. “When I say ‘run’, run.” No sooner had he spoken than the frame of the house began to vibrate with a growing intensity.

Jim let his palms fall open. “You don’t have the Power to take me,” he said to Spock.

“I do not need to destroy you. Trapping you permanently in that body will suffice.”

And the roof came crashing down, literally.

“RUN!” Leonard shouted as he and Pavel dodged a beam.

Sulu had seen some crazy shit in his life. He had, but now he understood there was more crazy shit he had missed out on by simply being blind.

He had felt this vibration from the earth before, just yesterday in fact. The only common denominator was his fellow agent, Mr. Spock. How funny, that the straightest arrow of them all was actually a grenade. He didn’t imagine Spock’s career was going to survive a revelation like this.

In terms of his own ambition, that was not good—unless Spock could be useful to the system like his father.

Hikaru considered the debt he owed Sarek and if that fit into one of the shades of his honor. His father had been the most corrupt of businessmen, and sometimes Sulu saw himself following the same path. It was difficult not to, when it got him what he wanted.

But there was still the sibling Spock’s father had recovered for his family.

Indecisive about his next plan of action, Hikaru watched the spider web of cracks forming at the house’s foundation; they spread out and upwards at an alarming rate.

It would, of course, solve the problem if Spock died on duty.

Remembering what really mattered to him, Sulu sighed, took his gun from his holster, and went for the door.

While Spock could die today, McCoy couldn’t.

There was no point in being delicate on the stairs because the damn steps starting crumbling when they were halfway down. They ended up jumping part of the way to the first floor and hit the ground with a jarring thump.

Leonard spared a second’s thought for Winona in the shaking house but it wasn’t like he could see her anyway.

“Come on!” he yelled to Pavel over the crashing of various furniture and dragged him to the closest door. It was just their luck that that side of the house fell away right before they touched it.

Leonard heard a bellow from the direction of the still-intact kitchen, then another one, this time distinguishable as “MCCOY!”

Sulu appeared in a doorway, then disappeared in a cloud of white dust as a nearby wall cracked in half.

They ran in that direction, and Leonard shoved Pavel straight into Sulu’s chest, shouting, “Get him out!”

Sulu made a face but maybe it was Pavel’s wide-eyed fright which spurred him to obey. The two men went ahead of McCoy for the back door. Leonard felt a moment of relief when the three of them cleared it and practically tumbled down the brick steps.

Sulu had his arm in the next instant and was dragging him, not Pavel, to the safety of the other side of the yard. When the agent’s left hand drew out a pair of handcuffs, Leonard knew he had made a terrible mistake. So he did the only thing he could: he punched the guy in the face.

They would have started a tussle right there in the backyard if the house’s shadow hadn’t made a sudden drastic shift.

“Oh shit,” Sulu said as the remaining walls of the structure started to topple in their direction. He let go of Leonard and ran like hell.

Leonard was on his heels until the backlash of the impact knocked him over.

Then he couldn’t see. The world felt like it was in motion: winds battering, magics fighting, earth screaming. He was suffocating from the very air.

The vortex wasn’t simply physical. Spock had unleashed some kind of unholy hell that couldn’t be satisfied with the mere ripping up of a structure by its foundation. Leonard dug his hands into the soil, looking for roots, anything, to keep him grounded as power rushed under, around and through him. When things no eye could see started nipping at his hands and heels, he didn’t know if he would survive. Maybe all along Spock had intended for him to die beside the real murderer.

Then all at once the attack stopped like the snapping of a chain. Left with a harsh echo in his ears, Leonard forced himself to let go of the earth and rolled onto his back.

“Goddamn,” he said to the dusty sky.

There was a pile of rubble where the Kirk house had stood. The ground of the yard, front as well as back, was black and barren; the trees on every edge of the lot leaned away as if they could not bear contact with the clearing.

Leonard wondered if Spock was alive. He spit out the dirt in his mouth and climbed unsteadily to his feet. Should he look? Part of him didn’t want to. Just be damned grateful you’re alive! it said.

He wiped at his face and started towards the least dangerous-looking side of the ruined house. His mistake, he learned later, was not considering who else might have survived.

The strike came out of nowhere, hitting Leonard from behind. He was air-borne for few seconds and hit the ground with a thud.

A knee planted itself in Leonard’s stomach, belonging to Jim, who leaned down until they were nearly nose-to-nose. The energy surrounding the man spoke with such force and malice that it was a kind of constant shrieking in Leonard’s brain.

Jim’s body looked a little battered and a little broken, but the blaze of his unearthly eyes wasn’t diminished in the least.

One look and that was all Leonard needed to stop thinking of it as Jim.

“Let’s make a deal,” it said.

Leonard coughed as the knee pressed a little deeper into his stomach. “No way.”

“A life for a life.”

Oh crap, that sounded bad. “What, mine for his? I said no.“

“Foolish,” the thing breathed in his face. “So short-sighted.” Then it leaned down and spoke in Leonard’s ear. “Your daughter’s life. Isn’t that worth any price?”

Leonard closed his eyes, his heart suddenly hammering in his chest, unable to stop listening but not able to answer either.

“Yes, you would do anything to save her. In return…”

“No,” he whispered, “I can’t let you take him.”

It pulled back and smiled softly at him—a parody, considering the cruelty in its eyes. “But I can have you, Leonard. That is my price. Your body, to carry me, to feed me, willingly until the end of your days.”

“Why me?”

“Human bodies are fragile, weak. An Other’s power withers them much too quickly. But you have a rare gift. I recognized it the moment we met. If I had not, I would have destroyed you as I did the tracker.” It stroked a finger down Leonard’s cheek. “I will let this one go, and I will give you the power you need to keep your precious child alive. Is that not a fair deal?”

With control of Leonard’s body and his magic, it meant it would make itself stronger. How long would this thing survive by using Leonard’s ability to self-heal? He shuddered to think of the consequences.

He also couldn’t help but think of Joanna.

“I…”

“Why hesitate? Take what you want!” he was urged.

Leonard pressed his mouth flat and thought, God help me but this may be the only way.

Somehow it knew Leonard was on the verge of giving in.

“Jim!“

Leonard squeezed his eyes shut and made a half-laugh, half-whimper. Of course, he thought. Of fuckin’ course!

The man climbing around the wreckage of the Kirk house was none other than Christopher Pike and, by the sound of it, the thing playacting as Jim Kirk was going to have to postpone his plans to steal Leonard until after he was subject to a serious ass-kicking.

For once, Leonard wanted Pike to win.

“Jim,” Pike started, then stopped as he came abreast of them.

Leonard turned his head to look. Aw shit, he thought, seeing the pain in the older man’s face, he really cares about the kid.

Caring about Jim didn’t keep Pike from aiming his firearm at Jim’s head.

“Poor Daddy,” Kirk said in a snide voice. “Wanna talk to him?”

“Jim, I know you’re in there.”

“Then why can’t you reach him?” it taunted. “Go on… try harder.”

Leonard could see that Pike was sweating from the effort, and he felt a pang of pity for the man.

Pike’s voice wavered but his gun hand did not. “Jim, son… don’t make me do this. If you can fight, FIGHT! You’ve done nothing wrong!”

Jim’s body sat back on its haunches and frowned.

Leonard felt a small thrill when he saw that one of the eyes was blue again. He urged Pike, “Whatever you’re doin’, keep doing it! It’s working!”

Pike took a step forward. “I know you’re not gone, Jim, because I can feel you.”

Jim shook his head like a dog, then said, “How touching. Stop it.“

“Listen to me! He’s not all you, and you’re not all him,” the man insisted. “Fight it!” he cried when Jim grabbed his head and keened.

Pike lowered his gun a fraction, then an inch, and dropped to a knee in the soft dirt. “Jimmy?”

The keening ceased so suddenly that Leonard had a moment for the bottom to drop out of his stomach in fear. Then Jim was on Pike with a shrill laughing cry because the man had made a mistake of coming within arm’s reach. Leonard watched in horror as fingers which were more claw-like than human sank into the exposed flesh of Pike’s throat. Pike gave a garbled cry of his own, but somehow still made Jim struggle to pin him.

In the next second Leonard heard the crack of a gun being fired.

At the far edge of the yard stood Uhura, her gun at the ready for a second shot. Jim reeled back, hands bloody, to look at his stomach.

Leonard didn’t think. He grabbed the opportunity and knocked Kirk over. Running on instinct alone, he positioned his hands on either side of Jim’s head and whispered a single word.

Stop.

Everything came to a halt, or perhaps the world around him simply quit registering on his senses. Noise fell away, pain and guilt ceased to matter, there was no such thing as time. As if he had plunged his hands into a well of energy, he felt tendrils rising up his arms, strong but icy cold. Whether it was his own magic or that which festered inside Jim, he did not know.

Stop, he commanded again.

Jim went limp.

Leonard let him go and, shaking, crawled over to Pike. There was too much blood to tell where the wound on the man’s neck began and ended. Leonard touched him with the intention of starting the healing—

—but Pike’s hand stalled him.

Don’t.

What? Leonard replied, incredulous, not caring that they weren’t speaking out loud. You can’t be serious, man! You’re going to die!

If I live… what would I be living for?

Shut it, you maudlin old man, and give up some other day!

Leonard wasn’t given to forcing his magic on anyone but the less yapping he did with this stupid bastard, he figured the better. Pike must have sensed his determination because he gave in with a mental sigh and didn’t push back.

Being somewhat of a bastard in his own right, Leonard ignored the warning signs of expending too much of himself and used a burst of his dwindling energy to knock Pike out for a few minutes. It would make the man ornery as hell, but Leonard decided the arrest would be worth it.

He didn’t realize he had attracted attention until a figure shifted in his peripheral vision. It was a stunned Pavel, looking as dirt-covered as Leonard felt.

Only Pavel was not staring at Leonard. His gaze was fixed near Jim. “I can see it,” he whispered.

Leonard, not understanding, turned back to the first person he had somewhat unwittingly knocked into an unconscious state. He grabbed the back of Jim’s head and tilted it up, laying his palm flat against the pale skin of the throat.

To his surprise, he felt nothing: no pulse, no energy, no monster either. Jim Kirk was dead.

But…

But that wasn’t possible! How could Jim have died? What had happened?

It was panic which scattered his thoughts. He must be babbling out loud because someone knelt beside him, said his name with concern.

Leonard pressed his fingers into the side of Jim’s neck, not realizing how he trembled until he saw his own hand. “What did I do?”

“Mr. McCoy—Leonard—focus.”

Leonard swung his head around to stare at the man in the tattered suit jacket in horror. “Spock… he’s dead.”

“Then save him,” Spock said.

Something snapped in Leonard at seeing that neutral expression. “Damn you,” he yelled, “if I could, don’t you think I would! I couldn’t even save your father!”

Spock pulled Leonard’s hand from the neck and repositioned it above Jim’s heart. Then he looked beyond Leonard, saying, “Mr. Chekov, come here.”

Pavel didn’t move. It was Sulu, who had also reappeared, that took the young man by the elbow and steered him closer to them.

“What do you see?” Spock asked.

Leonard saw the fear in Pavel’s eyes and thought he understood. “No one’s going to hurt you,” he tried to sound reassuring. “In fact, after this is all over, we’re going to forget you exist—aren’t we, Spock?”

Spock cocked an eyebrow.

“Swear it,” Leonard demanded.

“I have no ill intentions towards Mr. Chekov. Contrary to belief, the Agency does not have the resources to investigate every unusual individual. I am at present only authorized to pursue someone who is a danger to the public.”

Authorized, my ass, thought Leonard. He doubted there was anything sanctioned about Spock’s agenda. There was no need to say that in front of the kid, however.

“Pavel, please,” he begged, “help us.”

Pavel’s gaze dropped to Jim’s white face. “There is still time,” he said, if somewhat reluctantly. “I can see it now… the bad thing… but Jim hasn’t departed.”

That was all Leonard needed to hear. He gave his concentration to Kirk, to the heart that had stopped beating and the lungs empty of air. He felt the faintest sparks from the brain, which as Pavel implied had not yet suffered complete death.

But he didn’t know what to do to bring Jim back. He could use magic to give his energy to the body but the body would not have a reaction to it.

“Spock, I can’t help him like this. Can’t you shock him or something?” Shit, where was an ambulance when they needed one?

Spock closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again and shook his head. “Negative. I am nearly drained. But given that he has flatlined shocking him is likely to be ineffectual.”

“Goddamn it!” Leonard cursed and switched his position beside Kirk, placing one hand on top of the other. He started CPR, wishing he had never given up on the idea of medical school. He didn’t even know if he was doing it right.

He must not have been because Spock shouldered him aside and took over with the authority of someone who remembered his medical training. Leonard tried to focus on recognizing a heartbeat.

“I also doubt this will revive him,” Spock said while he continued to pump Kirk’s chest. “We need to consider other options.”

“Well fucking tell me one! I can’t think of any!”

“What did you do to stop his heart?”

“Do? I don’t know, I just… fuck.” He sucked in a breath as a realization hit him. “I told it to stop!” He grabbed Jim’s head in the same way he had before, rambling, “Damn it, kid, that wasn’t what I meant! I wasn’t talking to you!”

He tried to find any shred of Jim that he could, tried to find something so he could undo whatever it was that he had done. What he needed was the memory of life, the subtlest resonance, and he could restore it.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it,” he kept cursing. “Don’t die on me!”

Spock continued a measured alternation between massaging the heart and filling the lungs with air.

Leonard felt pinpricks at the corners of his eyes and thought, If anyone should die, it should be me.

And suddenly he knew the price to be paid to bring Jim Kirk back.

Help me, he thought to that wildness which belonged to no one. The connection to it was sluggish at first but grew stronger as it realized what he meant: it could take everything. Leonard would offer all that he was, all that he had—and the magic of the world was greedy for such a sacrifice.

It took his breath, his bone, his blood. It took every sorrow and joy he had felt since birth. It took his senses and his mind, and kept taking and taking until in one world the body of Leonard Horatio McCoy collapsed beside a blue-eyed man and in another, the faces of those who loved him brightened to welcome him home.

…It was just his luck, of course, that some great big fool came stumbling into his moment of death and screwed it all up.

Epilogue

Related Posts:

• The White Horse (18/18) – from May 12, 2014
• The White Horse (16/18) – from May 10, 2014
• The White Horse (15/16) – from April 4, 2014
• The White Horse (14/16) – from March 7, 2014
• The White Horse (13/16) – from February 3, 2014

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