Title: New Light to the Darkness (2/4)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: pre-Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: McCoy’s feelings don’t go unnoticed.
Previous Part: 1

First Officer Spock of the USS Enterprise swivels around in his desk chair to greet an anticipated arrival. Hardly surprising to the Vulcan, the irate Dr. McCoy forgoes returning such pleasantries. When McCoy opts to stand before Spock rather than take a seat as is his usual custom, Spock hypothesizes their conversation will meander from professional conjecture to distinct, personal nuances in a short span of time. Leonard had claimed over the comm that Spock owed him an explanation, and the doctor will undoubtedly push for such.

However, not all information can or should be disclosed at this time.

Spock steeples his fingers, prepared to engage in what one might refer to as a battle of wits. But to him, it is more—a preconceived tactical exercise in an age-old war he has only recently come to realize is of significance to his future.

Feeling gracious, he allows McCoy the first move.

The Vulcan officer looks much too calm for Leonard’s liking, also appearing as though he cannot possibly fathom why Leonard is on the verge of a bonafide fit of temper. Well, that error in judgment is about to be irrevocably corrected!

“I just had a disconcerting conversation with our captain.” He accuses, “You had no right to speak to him about me as you did this morning.”

“I can recall no regulation of Starfleet which prohibits me from offering an opinion, Dr. McCoy.”

If Leonard had been sitting down, he would have thumped a fist against his chair in outrage. “You gave Jim a false impression! I’d say that makes you plenty wrong!”

“Specify.”

“You told Jim I was jealous because of what happened during our last mission. Now he thinks he has to tread carefully in case I’m harboring a grudge against him. You can’t go around spouting that kind of shit without facts!”

Spock stares at the doctor for a moment, then opens a drawer of his desk and removes a PADD. His fingers glide gracefully across it, its screen brightening.

“Mission on Zambar II,” the Vulcan intones without looking up from his PADD. “Observations of Cmdr. Spock: during an effort to retrieve materials left behind by the USS Herrington scouting party, encounter with hostiles led to capture. CMO exhibited an uncharacteristic belligerence when Cpt. Kirk was forced to pair with Lt. Noel in holding cells.”

Leonard’s brows draw together. “Zambar II was six months ago.”

“Exploration of Class M planet 835-2,” Spock continues. “Unstable ion storm forced overnight stay; 6.7 hours spent listening to CMO question Cpt. Kirk’s motives for attending social event two weeks prior without him. Pollux IV. Omnipotent being named Apollo attempted to negotiate the exchange of the Enterprise for a wife. Cpt. Kirk offered himself. CMO sedated the captain, thereby elevating me to Acting Captain to resolve the situation through sensible means. However, CMO then enacted medical protocol, placing Kirk under house arrest and would allow no other crewman to determine Kirk’s status for 48 hours. A most unusual over-reaction.”

“Enough, Spock!” Leonard reaches for the PADD. “What is this?”

Spock promptly deactivates the device and places it aside on the farthest corner of his desk. “In short, Doctor, they are my recordings of unexplained incidents, behaviors, and emotions relating to the crew.”

“Your recordings,” Leonard repeats, still disbelieving. “For what reason?”

“Obviously so that I will not forget.”

“Bullhocky! You’re a Vulcan. Your memory is impeccable.”

Spock inclines his head. “While true, that does not preclude the purpose or necessity of proper documentation.”

Leonard frowns. “And just how many of these crewman… observations do you have?”

“The necessity depends on whom I identify as requiring supplemental monitoring. Consider this activity as an extension of my duties, Doctor.”

In all honesty, Leonard isn’t certain what to consider it. How much of Spock’s work is actually logged within the ship’s computer? Is it subject to Command review?

Spock is still talking. “Regarding the matter which brought you here, I acknowledge your perspective; however, from a purely analytical standpoint one cannot deny the possibility of irregularities in any given data set. Once the scope and frequency of those irregularities becomes significant, it is only logical that I express concern to our ship’s commanding officer.”

“So,” Leonard summarizes, mollified in one respect about Spock’s motives but also much more alarmed in another, “you think I have experienced an ‘irregular’ shift in behavior.” Unfortunately, when he thinks about it like that he cannot dismiss Spock’s concern, not as a doctor or as an officer. Leonard eyes the PADD. “I don’t suppose I could take a peek at your notes for my own analysis?”

“I am afraid that would be a violation of the data-sensitivity clause. I am obligated to maintain a certain confidentiality of all performance reviews in much the same manner you are sworn to uphold doctor-patient confidentiality.”

“Then how do you recommend we proceed, Mr. Spock?” he asks gravely. “Do you believe a psychological evaluation is necessary for the subject of your concern?”

Once again, Spock lapses into a short silence. He surprises Leonard by finally saying, “I am prepared to let the matter resolve itself.”

“But… how?”

“That, Dr. McCoy, falls within your purview.” Spock collects a stylus and a new data padd. “Is there any other matter you wish to speak of? I am due shortly for a conference with the head geneticist.”

“No,” Leonard replies, seeing no reason to refuse Spock’s dismissal. He pauses at the doorway and murmurs awkwardly, “I’ll… see you, Spock.”

If the Vulcan replies, the door cuts that reply off and Leonard doesn’t hear it.

Hours later, Leonard rolls over in bed, moans, and punches his pillow. Damn that green-blooded hobgoblin!

“Lights, fifty percent,” he calls, sitting up with a resigned sigh. No sleep for the weary.

Why did Spock have to unsettle him with all that talk about unusual and concerning behavior? Now Leonard is trying to psychoanalyze himself, and worse yet second-guessing every little thing he does while on duty. Could be it that he really has let his feelings of unhappiness branch into something more toxic like jealousy? Is he going to one day make a bad decision because he no longer feels contentment in the presence of his best friend?

The questions are piling up with the answers, even after serious internal reflection, remaining scarce. As self-aware as Leonard tries to be, he has somehow missed a crucial marker regarding his own behavior.

If, that is, there actually exists something to be concerned about. What are the odds Spock is making a mountain out of a mole hill?

That is the reason Leonard throws back his blanket to swing his legs over the side of his bed; that question is what spurs McCoy to don a black undershirt and the Fleet’s trademark black pants so he can slip out of his cabin into the nearly empty corridor.

Most of the officers on this level of the ship have tucked into their living quarters to welcome a sleep cycle or two. Since Leonard cannot sleep, he tells himself he might as well be productive. The type of productivity he is contemplating leads him to Science, where only a handful of laboratories are lit and in use.

There is a tiny voice in the back of McCoy’s head telling him a recon mission is a bad idea. Leonard shushes it.

As he hones in on the door to Spock’s office, another door leading to an adjacent lab slides open, allowing a pair of voices to float into the silent corridor. Unnerved, Leonard sprints the remaining distance to his destination and flattens himself against the targeted doorway.

The ship’s computer seems inevitably slow in recognizing that Leonard wants inside the office. Sweat pops out on his forehead as he hears the voices in the lab growing louder, imagining the rustling of the attendants’ uniforms as they approach the lab entrance. Panicking now, he jams his thumb against the door’s code panel. The panel gives a soft beep, and the door whooshes open, depositing Leonard in a heap on the other side.

“Son of a bitch,” he breathes, coming to his hands and knees, then shakily to his feet. “That was too close.”

He looks around at the empty office and remarks, “You old fool, you’ve officially lost your mind.”

There is no doubt for Leonard now; this is a bad idea. Spock will not be happy when he finds out the resident senior medical officer has been nosing around in places he shouldn’t be.

The PADD is exactly where Spock had set it down. Leonard hesitates to touch it until he reminds himself that whatever information he gleans he can put to good use in fixing the situation. By that logic he can’t fix anything if he doesn’t understand the problem.

With that tenuous excuse, he spends a couple of minutes toying with the device, employing a few quick search methods to delineate the location of a file with his name in it. The storage of the device is oddly only a few data-bytes full, so Leonard finds the file in short order. With it, he also identifies another file that has him skipping over the one he had been originally been looking for altogether.

The report that comes up is extremely detailed and in meticulous order. It is not unlike the personal medical logs Leonard keeps on each of his patients, filled with information that he wouldn’t necessarily report in an official log but that might be of some use in prescribing future treatments.

Glancing down the report’s length, Leonard decides that if Spock has some concerns over his recent behavior, then the Vulcan must be going out of his mind with worry about Jim’s. Leonard becomes captivated as he starts at the top and reads through the remarks about their captain. Spock has noted trends and habits, charted variances in mood swings, even gone so far as to baseline a set of ‘normal’ reactions for Kirk on regular work days versus critical mission days. And anything that Spock doesn’t appear to understand about his own observations has the statement To research further in bold attached to it.

“My god,” Leonard murmurs, scrolling through a particularly insightful piece of intel about Jim’s interactions with crewmen based on gender, species, height, hair color, and a special category Spock has dubbed ‘Characteristics of Terran Sub-Species Known As Southerners’.

Leonard nearly drops the PADD. That’s HIM!

He clicks on an intra-document link which brings up a whole new and disturbing set of schematics. The sentence underneath a large chunk of data stands out to Leonard immediately, for it says: Remarkable attraction between J. Kirk and L. McCoy is as of yet unresolved. Analysis predicts no deviation in current trend of extreme avoidance of this issue. Long-term effects could include strained relations, decrease in unilateral communication, and inability to focus and/or perform as required of commanding officer. Resolution to be determined.

Leonard finds the nearest chair and eases into it. With an unsteady hand, he locates and opens Spock’s file on him. He reads through it with a different perspective, coming to a brief concluding paragraph at the bottom. Spock has written, Suitability aligns between subjects. In the event L. McCoy can be convinced of emotional standing, a solution becomes feasible. Signs of readiness previously noted as aberrations are nearing proper capacity. Refer to timeline analysis above for details.

Beneath, all on its own is a single, disturbing sentence: To proceed is logical.

Leonard has no idea what this is. It is a study in his behavior but it’s more than that at the same time. He switches back to Jim’s file for clarity but his eyes refuse to look past the word attraction.

In a conversation between two humans, that meaning would be pretty obvious but Spock is a scientist and this… report is basically outlining some experiment. Would Spock mean the term attraction in the most basic sense? If so, how does that correlate to Jim and Leonard, and why would it even be of interest?

These personnel files are strange. Granted, they contain interesting and admittedly—in Jim’s case—useful information, but Leonard cannot parse their specific objective. If Command ever got their hands on this data, they would dump it as garbage.

More confused than ever, Leonard closes the PADD’s apps and replaces the device on the edge of Spock’s pristine desk. It isn’t until he leaves the office that he realizes he had not noticed files other than his and Jim’s. A fluke, perhaps.

Shaking his head, he returns to his quarters and lays on the bed, catching only a few hours of sleep close to the end of gamma shift once his brain falls blissfully silent.

Leonard fares no better the next day. In the Officer’s Mess, he can barely concentrate on his breakfast. He is too busy noticing every little thing Jim says or does. The strange part is that nothing about Kirk seems out of the ordinary. Jim brings his food tray to Leonard’s table right away; he greets the surrounding crew with a pleasant “Good morning.” He doesn’t say a word as Leonard takes the fried potatoes from his plate and replaces it with an apple.

Then Spock arrives to partake of the morning meal in their company, and all actions and conversational remarks sound so normal, they could be considered routine.

Maybe the Vulcan’s observations weren’t meant to shed light on the nuances of the human psyche. To Leonard’s eyes, Jim hardly has the appearance of somebody in the throes of attraction.

“So, Bones, anything exciting going on in Sickbay today?”

“Besides wrapping up the semi-annual physicals? Not really. I might have some time to drop by the Bridge later.”

A flush of color crosses Kirk’s face, there and gone. “At times it can be boring on the Bridge too. We could use the company.” Jim glances sideways at Spock. “Don’t you agree, Mr. Spock?”

“I believe you are aware of my opinion concerning Dr. McCoy’s visits to the Bridge.”

“Well, it’s not like I go up there to visit you,” Leonard retorts.

Spock’s stare is extra-prickly.

Leonard amends, “That is, when you’re in a sour mood.”

“I do not know to what you are referring, Doctor.”

Leonard leans across the table to whisper loudly to Jim, “Looks like somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning!”

Jim chuckles softly and takes a bite out of his apple.

Leonard sits back, and the three of them focus on their meals in comfortable silence. But oddly having lost most of his appetite, Leonard stirs his grits, wondering if he let a misconception lead him astray.

Thinking again of Spock’s reports, he acknowledges that if he plans to fall sleep tonight, he will have to clear his conscience first. Waiting until Jim and Spock have finished eating in concert and Jim has risen from his seat to bid them both farewell to attend his weekly sparring session with the Chief of Security, Leonard puts down his spoon in preparation to address Spock.

He has a difficult time forming the right words.

Oblivious, Spock collects his tray from the table and walks away. Leonard curses himself for delaying the inevitable.

Hurrying to catch up, he abandons his own tray at the trash receptacle and calls ahead through the opening cafeteria doors, “Commander, wait!”

Further along the corridor, Spock has stopped walking. Leonard jogs up to him.

“Dr. McCoy?” the Vulcan questions.

“I, uh…” Damn, thinks Leonard, there is no delicate way to confess a sin. He blurts out, “I broke into your office last night.”

Spock just blinks at him.

“And read those personnel files.” He cringes, expecting the full force of the commander’s disappointment.

But Spock only continues looking at him in an impassive manner before unexpectedly pivoting on the ball of one foot and striding away.

Leonard hurries after him. “Spock, I’m sorry.”

“Delay your apology a moment longer, Lieutenant-Commander.”

Surprised by the request and use of his rank, which effectively makes him feel even more guilty, Leonard keeps his silence. When the pair reaches the end of the corridor, Spock summons the turbolift. He allows Leonard to enter the lift first.

The door slides shut, and Leonard begins again, this time more subdued. “I am truly sorry, sir. I realize I have disappointed you… broken your trust.”

Spock turns to face him. “Why?”

“Why did I do it?” Leonard fills in miserably. “Because I’m a fool.”

“Negative. I meant why do you assume I am disappointed by your actions?” Spock tilts his head ever-so-slightly. “On the contrary, Dr. McCoy, I am relieved.”

Leonard opens his mouth but can think of nothing to say beyond, “…What?”

Spock unlocks his hands from behind his back and folds his arms across his chest. “The PADD had not been removed from the desk. When you activated it, you discovered no security measure to prevent your search for the directory containing your file—a directory which had only one other file in it, that of James T. Kirk.”

“How’d you know that?”

“I assure you, Doctor, if I had intended to keep you from accessing such information, I have would taken the necessary precautions to do so.”

“But you said earlier it would be a violation of…” The words die out as what Spock is claiming finally ripens in Leonard’s brain. “Wait, you wanted me to read those reports?”

“There is benefit to your awareness of my observations.”

Leonard sputters.

Spock states blandly, “You appear upset.”

“Because you lied to me!”

Spock lifts both eyebrows. “I merely enticed you to do what was logical for a human.”

Leonard flings his hands up in a parody of strangling a person. The Vulcan—who is the imaginary victim—studies this posture with interest, seemingly without comprehending its intended message of violence.

The fight vanishes from McCoy as quickly as it had come. He drops his hands to his sides and says, more disgusted with himself than anyone else, “I should have known.”

Spock’s air of amused patience subsides as he neutralizes his expression and lowers his hands as well, after a beat of hesitation locking them once again behind his back.

Leonard promises himself he won’t ever feel guilty about going behind Spock’s back again. The hobgoblin deserves what he gets for being so convoluted and sly! “I ought to report you to the Captain for sharing sensitive information about colleagues.”

“An ironic choice of words, Doctor, since it is you who did not obtain permission to view it.” Spock looks contemplative. “I have also considered approaching the Captain about the existence of my observations using a tactic similar to that which I employed with you. Of course, he would not attempt the old-fashioned method of ‘breaking in’ to my office, so the end result would prove far more educational.”

“Spock, what in hell are you talking about?”

“The new security protocol I designed for personal devices,” Spock insists, as though Leonard is a child with limited understanding. “I seek to know its operating effectiveness.”

Leonard points out, “If you’re thinking Jim can’t hack his way through one of your protocols, don’t forget he already beat your unbeatable test as a cadet.”

“Not alone,” Spock replies cryptically, turning his face from McCoy to study the turbolift door. “Yes, it should be most satisfactory.” The turbolift pings, announcing their arrival, and Spock swiftly exits to the deck.

“I can’t imagine what a file on you would say!” Leonard hollers at the retreating commander’s back.

The Vulcan pauses in the corridor to turn back. “In due time, those contents will be revealed.”

The turbolift closes its door on Leonard’s stunned face.

I could write a thousand and one stories about meddling. It entertains me.

Next Part

Related Posts:

None