The Man and the Memory (7/?)

Date:

2

Title: The Man and the Memory (7/?)
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 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6


Part Six

Leonard falls asleep, only to be rattled awake by another terrifying dream. This time, it is more solid than the flash of too dark eyes and chilling words; the dream is an omen and a memory too jumbled for McCoy to separate. Ignoring the beads of sweat gathering along his skin, he closes his eyes and tries to recall what it was that scared him so badly.

Someone is whispering, “I always thought that we would have more time…”

Leonard opens his eyes and finds himself in a dark room. There is a golden-haired man with his back to McCoy. When Leonard calls “Jim!” the man glances over his shoulder and says, rather sadly, “Hey, Bones.”

It seems completely natural to plead, “Jim, tell me what’s bothering you.”

“Your death.”

His heart pounds loudly in the darkness. “I’m not dead, kid.”

“Bones, how can you leave me?”

“I’m not—”

“You promised!”

Jim spins around with a ferocity, reaching out, which should scare Leonard. Somehow, it does not.

(He knows this man. Knows him well.)

Jim draws the man in close until their chests are almost touching and drops his head onto Leonard’s shoulder. McCoy runs his fingers through that short hair, feels a trembling under his fingers.

He thinks, This is a dream. I’m dreaming of Jim. Then, Jimmy.

“You’re gonna be alright,” he says, pressing his cheek against that bowed head. “I’m sorry I lied.”

Jim mumbles into the fabric of Leonard’s uniform (surgical wear, he realizes with a jolt), “I’m sorry sorry sorrysorrysorry…” until the words become a chant.

He doesn’t mean to say so harshly, “Stop it.”

Jim lifts his head. It’s then that McCoy finally feels fear. Kirk’s eyes are beyond dilated, the irises completely gone.

“McCoy,” calls the not-Jim in a stilted voice.

Arms tighten around him. He can’t move, can’t fight. Can’t— “Let go!”

“We are linked now,” it says.

Its mouth no longer contains blunt human teeth; they are sharp, frightening. He struggles twice as hard, crying out as it leans in and sinks fangs into the skin of his shoulder. It lets him go, then, and McCoy stumbles back, a hand pressed against the sickly wet patch of the new wound.

The thing with Jim’s face licks its bloody bottom lip and grins. “McCoy’s destiny tastes better.”

He says without thinking, “I thought it was piss poor.”

“Not anymore,” croons the monster. “I taste cure for McCoy. Cure soon.”

Leonard turns on his side, unwilling to let sleep call him back into an oblivion with a monster. He presses a hand against his face, needing his treacherous lax body to wake up. In a voice is still choked with sleep, he croaks, “Lights 50%. Time.”

The bedroom brightens. 0632, stardate…

He doesn’t listen to the rest, doesn’t care, because it’s early morning and the deadline is in less than two and a half hours.

Shit shit shit.

Dressing in what must be record-time, McCoy is out of his room and on his way to Spock’s quarters. He ignores the random greetings of the few people bustling about the halls, preparing for alpha shift.

Spock doesn’t answer his door, and McCoy is pissed at himself for having forgotten something as important as the Vulcan’s passcode. It seems right that he should know it. Sickbay is no help either, though M’Benga is finishing up gamma shift. The younger doctor has no answers for McCoy’s sharp questions.

It seems that no one has been arrested, at least no one needing medical attention, and M’Benga protests that that sort of news simply does not speed its way to the medical bay.

Leonard lacks the patience of a saint and tells him, “If anything, Sickbay is the type of place for gossip. Damn it, Geoff, time’s running out. What if…” He bites his tongue at that point and shuts his mouth, remembering not to give too much away.

M’Benga organizes a set of PADDs from an in-box and tries to calm his stressed colleague. “I’m not sure I understand why you are frustrated, but you can always ask the Captain for Mr. Spock’s whereabouts. He usually has some idea.”

Kirk is the last person I would— Leonard’s thought break off as an idea strikes him.

“Nevermind,” he tells M’Benga. “I’ll figure something out.”

“Are you sure—”

“Always. If you see Christine on your way, tell her—” He pauses. “—tell her I’ll be running late.”

It’s best not to wait for Geoff’s questions.

Out in the corridor again, he thinks, This is a bad plan, you idiot.

But it is a plan nonetheless. So Leonard steels his spine and decides to pull Spock’s ass out of the fire.

If Kirk is surprised to find Leonard McCoy banging on his door, then the man is a fantastic actor. Leonard shoulders his way into the Captain’s quarters.

Formalities be damned. “It was me.”

Nor does Kirk pretend to misunderstand him. “Do not lie to me, McCoy.”

“I’m not,” insists Leonard. “I’m the one you want. I stalled the engine.” He squares his shoulders and lets his voice drop to a rougher pitch. “You think I don’t know who you are? That I could ever forget what you tried to do to me?”

There is a strangeness in those blue eyes now, pupils dilated too wide. Just like in my dream, realizes McCoy. A shudder has to be forced down. He wonders how anyone—knowing the real Jim or not—could possibly take this thing for a human.

“So toss me in the brig, you demon. But I swear, people are gonna start wondering why the Chief Medical Officer is a mutineer.”

“You are broken,” the Captain says. “It will be simple to have you tried and executed.”

He stares. “We don’t condone execution.”

Kirk smiles. “On my Enterprise, we do.”

He is taken aback, wondering if in any universe there could be a James T. Kirk so callous. It is a sincere hope that he will never meet that counterpart.

“It doesn’t matter what you think. Call off your man-hunt.”

“You are needed, McCoy. Give me the name of the one I seek and you are safe.”

His disbelief is palpable. “Needed? You don’t need or want any of us humans, except maybe for feedin’ time!”

He never sees the move. One second Kirk is standing by the door, amused like the bastard that he is, and in the next second, he has McCoy’s arm in a tight, familiar grip. Leonard immediately resists and swings a fist at that smiling face.

Kirk easily catches his hand and twists it behind Leonard’s back. “What the fuck—!” He is summarily hoisted away from the only exit and dragged into the bedroom. Struggling against the arm pressing in on his neck, McCoy thinks belatedly that he was foolish to enter the lair of a beast without backup.

So stupid and paying for it he can’t breathe fuck he can’tbreathe…

There is a laugh in to his ear and a voice in his mind. Cease your struggle and I promise no pain.

“N-no! S-stop, please—!”

Hush. Hush and open—

A loud beep interrupts. “Communications to Captain Kirk. Captain?”

Kirk jerks them both around at the sound of the voice. He hisses and releases McCoy, who drops to the floor coughing.

The Captain is clearly not pleased when he answers the call. “Kirk here.”

“Captain, I have a message marked urgent from New Vulcan. Should I—”

“Reject it, Lieutenant.”

There is a pause as the person on the other end probably boggles at that order. “Excuse me?”

Reject it!

The fog in McCoy’s brain clears somewhat and his legs decide to work again. With a hasty, stumbling scramble, he tries to run. He doesn’t get far, because someone—something—flings him against a wall like a child tossing a doll.

Kirk cuts the call, looks over at his crumpled body, and says without preamble, “You may not leave until I am finished.”

That is the last thing Leonard hears through the buzzing in his head.

M’Benga is tired by the time he walks into the turbolift. Finishing out a shift is never as easy as dropping your work when the clock strikes time. He completed some lingering paperwork, chatted with Christine who looks more refreshed than she has in days. It was an hour after McCoy came and left that Geoff finally managed to call his day done and leave Sickbay.

“Dr. M’Benga.”

“What—oh,” he says disjointedly, jerking his eyes open in surprise. The greeting comes from a Vulcan hither-to quietly occupying the other half of the lift.

At Spock’s look of inquiry, he adds, “Sorry, I’m—not really here right now. You could have been a Klingon and I’d probably wouldn’t have noticed.” He rubs at his eyes and sighs.

“Then it is most fortunate that I am not a Klingon,” replies in Spock in his dry Vulcan way.

Geoff chuckles and settles against the wall. “Well, I’m glad that I ran into you. Leonard came tearing through Sickbay wondering what you were up to.”

“Fascinating.”

He snorts. “I doubt he was expecting to find you there but, with the memory loss, I imagine there aren’t many familiar places where Leonard feels he can go and be comfortable asking questions.”

“Understandable. Did the doctor clarify his need of me?”

“Not really.” Geoff looks at the Vulcan with interest. “However, he seems to believe that you are on a mission of some sort.”

Spock neither confirms nor denies the idea, much to M’Benga’s disappointment. Instead the First Officer gives a simple answer. “There was an incomplete audit which required my immediate attention.”

“Ah.” M’Benga asks, somewhat helpless at small talk, “Did you finish it?”

Mr. Spock blinks at him. “I did not. The Communications Officer routed a message to my office intended for the Captain. It… takes precedence.”

Is Captain Kirk not answering his messages now? Well, that’s just another notation in a long list of strange behavior.

The lift informs Geoff that his intended destination has been reached, and so Geoff has no more time for prying. He nods goodbye to the Vulcan and exits. It does not occur to him until much later, as he rests his head on a pillow, that Mr. Spock did not express concern for either McCoy or Kirk.

… Which only means that the “precedence” must be very serious, indeed, to command most of Spock’s attention.

Next Part

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About KLMeri

Owner of SpaceTrio. Co-mod of McSpirk Holiday Fest. Fanfiction author of stories about Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

2 Comments

  1. weepingnaiad

    Glad that Spock has learned of the cure for Bones (right?)! But, what of the monster? How is he going to explain such behavior? The crew will not allow him to execute anyone, let alone Dr. McCoy or Spock. Oh, so interesting!

  2. dark_kaomi

    Some how I read this one before the last one. This is getting frustrating. Oh the intensity, the passion. Their friendship is full of heavy emotion. Aaaaaand Bones does the impulsive thing. Of course. What is Spock up to that he doesn’t even notice McCoy’s missing?

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