Title: The Man and the Memory (3/?)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Summary: Sequel to The Boy and the Sea Dragon. McCoy wakes up and finds that his world has been turned upside down.
Previous Part: 1 | 2

Part Two

McCoy passed upset over an hour ago. “What do you expect me to do?!”

“Doctor…”

“For Christ’s sake, Spock, I don’t—I—” McCoy presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. He makes a sound of frustration.

“Leonard, please calm yourself.”

“Easy for you to say. We can’t all be walking on Vulcan Cloud Nine.”

Spock’s eyebrows come down. “To assign a numeral to an atmospheric mass would be most illogical.” Because Spock sounds like he is trying exceptionally hard to determine why any sane being would attempt such a pointless feat, McCoy cannot help but laugh.

“Thanks,” he breathes after a moment. At the questioning tilt of the Vulcan’s head, he explains, “I needed the reminder that I can laugh.” McCoy sighs. “Spock, you have to understand… I’m not sure that I can help you. If Jim is, well, not Jim, I wouldn’t know. I don’t remember him.“

The frustration builds again to bursting. McCoy tries pacing the length of Spock’s room in order to speak with coherence.

“If what you say is true, then it’s my fault!” He interrupts Spock’s protest. “It is. If I hadn’t gotten myself kidnapped, then none of this would have happened.” He gestures pointedly at his head. “I’d still have my brains, the Captain wouldn’t be a creature from God-knows-where, and we’d already have sailed safely out of the quadrant.”

Spock stands, then, as well. “I request that you listen to my words—not merely hear them.”

He bites at his lower lip and nods. “Okay. But I ain’t promising to praise you afterward.”

“You offer no more than I expect.” Spock says this with a twinkle in his eyes. “First, I will address your guilt. It is a wasted emotion, Leonard, on that which you claim to hold responsibility.”

He doesn’t argue, but Leonard does momentarily drop his gaze from Spock’s.

“The blame lies solely with the being who desires to cause strife and grief among us. It wielded our affections like a weapon—”

McCoy is startled at that blatant use of affections from a Vulcan. Secretly, he thinks that he shouldn’t be surprised, at least in Spock’s case.

“—and struck Jim at his weakest point. Captain Kirk is a man loyal to those aboard the Enterprise; he would not hesitate to sacrifice his life for another. In injuring you and preventing our release to the ship, it forced Jim to choose unwisely. This I have been able to piece together.”

“He sounds like a good man,” Leonard mumbles.

Spock answers simply, “Jim is the best of men.”

An almost-shame coats the knowledge that McCoy could easily forget a person who would die for him, someone he must have a great deal of respect and feeling for.

Bones. The word comes to him unbidden. He tests the shape of it on his tongue.

McCoy looks up when Spock utters quietly, “A personal nickname, given to you by Jim.”

His hand grasps the top of a chair for balance. “Jim… calls me Bones?”

“Yes.”

“We must be close,” he half-laughs, “if I allow that.”

“I cannot speak on his behalf but, from my own observations, there is a bond between you, built and nurtured through years of acquaintance.” Spock pauses as a man does when searching for the right words. “Jim thrives under your guidance as you trust in his faith.”

McCoy swallows against the strange swelling of his throat. So, he and Jim are that good for each other, are they? He thinks that he wouldn’t mind being so lucky.

The acceptance comes softly then. “I’ll help you get Jim back. I promise.”

Spock bows his head briefly before locking resolute (and not so unread-ably dark) eyes on Leonard.

“We must circumvent the Captain’s orders. The chances of locating Jim grow less favorable the further we travel from the initial point of attack.”

“I don’t see what we can do, short of the ship losing an engine or two.”

His thoughts rattle and persist for solidity as a child does taking its first steps, not at all sure what they can do, so it is a surprise when Spock agrees. “Doctor, that suggestion is commendable.”

“Huh?”

Spock is already five mental bounds ahead of Leonard, no doubt concocting a devious plan in that pointy-eared head of his. McCoy goggles a minute at the realization of what Spock is implying.

“Spock!”

“Yes, Doctor McCoy?” is the rather mild response.

“You can’t break one of the engines!”

The Vulcan raises an eyebrow. “Indeed?”

“I mean—” he flounders, “what about—” He thinks hard. There is something niggling at him. It comes into an alarming focus. “What about Mr. Scott!”

Mr. Scott. Scotty. The man who calls his engineering deck “precious” and harbors an undying love for the Lady Enterprise. McCoy closes his eyes, thinking of the way Scotty gripes about Starfleet keeping money close to the belt so “that we cannae even find a decent set o’ tools!” Montgomery Scott, he remembers, hates the cold with a passion (a result of his lock-down on Delta Vega years past) and squirrels away in the Jefferies tubes when hypospray-armed nurses are on the hunt.

Leonard is drawn back from the short starburst of memories, as if a door had opened in his brain and Scotty came out to greet McCoy after a long period between friendly visits.

Spock is watching him. “The pace of your healing is remarkable.”

“I told you, Spock, it sorta strikes me out of nowhere. Given the cranial damage and swelling I initially experienced, I’m rather lucky to be here at all.”

“Yes.” Spock’s eyes are steady and surprisingly un-Vulcan. “There was a period in which your recovery was precarious. I was… unsure that we would interact again.”

McCoy tamps down the reflexive need to pat the Vulcan’s shoulder. He engages in mental patting instead.

“All that worrying was moot, Mr. Spock.”

“An obvious conclusion,” says his companion.

Well, they barely escaped that rocky, emotional territory. McCoy doubts that Spock enjoys the tearful hugs of reunion. Leonard shudders at the thought.

“It all worked out. The Enterprise does have a properly trained medical staff, you know.” Why does he want to say something snarky like because the Enterprise cannot function a day without one? He ignores that and continues, “Geoff may specialize in Vulcan physiology but he isn’t hapless in other areas of doctoring. The man’s brilliant; otherwise I wouldn’t have demanded him for Assistant Chief Medical Officer.” If talking with Spock makes his brain wake up and fire off this many bits of information, then McCoy might just have to move in with the First Officer.

That would freak out—and possibly terrify—a good number of crewmen.

“Dr. M’Benga has my gratitude.”

Leonard bites back the urge to follow that trail of conversation and turns his attention to the safer route. “Don’t distract me. Getting between Scotty and the engines will take more brute force than an army of crazy Klingons.”

Spock has that twinkle back in his eyes. Leonard is really beginning to suspect that it foretells of Vulcan mischief-making.

“I will not attempt to convince our Chief Engineer for the need of mechanical sabotage. Rather you, Doctor, will provide a distraction while I implement minor adjustments to the warp-core circuitry.”

Spock smiles with his eyes, McCoy thinks offhandedly.

“I believe the phrase is ‘buy time.'”

He sputters. “Hell no!”

The Vulcan is unswayed by fervent and creatively vulgar protests. Eventually McCoy wears down.

He sighs one last time. “You are damned annoying, do you know that?”

“You have professed the sentiment exactly—”

“Don’t” warns the irate man, “tell me that number.”

Spock tilts his head in acquiescence.

Leonard says, “I’m gonna need a drink if we’re to plan mutiny.”

“The consumption of a strong beverage would not be wise. I also suspect that it is prohibited under Dr. M’Benga’s medical orders.”

He snorts. “It can’t make the headache I’ve got any worse, Spock. And considering what we stand to lose if we fail, I’d say you ought to make yourself a drink too.” He sits down, pulling his fingers in a short tug through his hair. “Doctor’s orders.”

Spock does not disagree with him.

The Vulcan unearths a bottle of finely aged bourbon from a shelf of exotic artifacts; so either Spock is a secret alcoholic or the doctor is somewhat of a regular guest in these quarters. Leonard smiles, watching as the Vulcan pours one glass, and basks in a simple and sweet truth.

Spock is his friend too.

Next Part

Related Posts:

• The Man and the Memory (8/8) – from January 7, 2011
• The Man and the Memory (7/?) – from January 6, 2011
• The Man and the Memory (6/?) – from January 4, 2011
• The Man and the Memory (5/?) – from January 3, 2011
• The Man and the Memory (4/?) – from December 30, 2010