Saving Jim Kirk
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, except my own ideas.
Author's Note: McCoy's role in ST:ID has always bothered me. He's part of the triumvirate, dammit, and he couldn't have been so calm all the while while trying to resurrect Jim. The broken look in his eyes as he saw Jim's body also gave me lots of feels. And so this story was born. Made some changes along the way to fit my ideas better.
(Also come on, Chapel's a nurse on the Enterprise!)
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Saving Jim Kirk
Khan was caught, the tribble was alive, and Leonard McCoy had the recipe for a transfusion that could save the captain's life.
Except that the transfusion was for a tribble, a living thing so alien to humans that there was no way to know if the recipe would work on a human.
McCoy worked on the serum day and night, adding elements which his experience told him would be necessary, as well as some elements which were purely guesswork and based on theory. He worked for three days without much sleep before he was drugged by Chapel, and after he woke from this unnatural sleep he heard that Starfleet had demanded to see both Kirk and himself, but Spock had fended them off by saying that the Captain was gravely injured/poisoned/tortured (McCoy really couldn't care) and McCoy was desperately seeking a cure to save Kirk. Later, when he was trying and failing for the fifth time to 'resurrect' irradiated plates of human cell lines, Starfleet medical had appeared on the bridge's screen and suggested transferring Kirk to a hospital, during which McCoy had appeared on the bridge, haggard and worn, told Starfleet in all politeness that Kirk was too fragile to be moved and walked off the bridge in silence, ignoring the worried looks from those on the bridge.
He didn't care anymore. He had a job to do and he would bloody do it, even if it cost him his life.
Almost a week later, he succeeded in changing the serum to resurrect human cell lines. He would have wanted to try it on more things but realised that Kirk had been in stasis for a week, and there was no promise even in theory that a normal human being could even be resurrected after more than a week in stasis.
They would lose Jim both ways, and there was nothing left to lose.
With that, he instructed the medical team to take Kirk out of stasis and injected the modified serum into Kirk's body, strangely taking strength from Spock's presence. As the last drop entered Kirk's body, he collapsed into the nearby chair and monitored Jim's condition as the rest of the medical team cleared up. He shook off the darkness that was creeping from the corners of his sight and stared resolutely at the prone body on the bed.
All they could do now was wait.
Christine Chapel was used to a lot of things—you have to, when you work for a highly reckless captain with almost no regard for his life.
She's seen Kirk suffering from random allergy reactions, Kirk being injured in fights and Kirk taking an injury meant for another crewman.
She's seen James Kirk in all forms, but there's always one constant—a southern accent, thick with worry, directing all medical personnel effectively as the steadiest hands on the ship sterilised all equipment, scrubbed up and prepared for surgery.
This time though, as she entered the ICU, she didn't see Dr Leonard McCoy, Enterprise's miracle worker.
She saw a broken man.
The man didn't move from his seat, and there was no indication that he'd heard her as she came in to check Kirk's vitals. She wanted to comfort him, but knew that no words would be salve to his wound.
She placed a hand on his shoulder. He remained still as stone, eyes unseeing.
Together, they watched the far too still body on the medical bed with barely a heartbeat maintained by a pacemaker (a huge improvement already), being kept alive by whatever machines they had in the MedBay. There was silence for a while, until it was broken for the first time in many days with a gruff whisper.
"I wasn't there," the voice was soft and emotionless, totally unlike the McCoy she knew.
"Leonard…" she began, hoping to offer some comfort.
He cut her short. "I was his best friend, but I wasn't there. Spock was there, Scotty was there, Uhura was there, but I…"
McCoy gave a cold laugh.
"I wasn't. I was celebrating that the ship was out of danger."
"You didn't know."
McCoy ignored her and went on. "The Captain was dying, and the CMO wasn't there. The CMO, the captain's BEST FRIEND," he almost spat at those words, "only knew when the captain arrived in a bloody body bag."
"Leonard, stop this. It's not your fault."
McCoy gave a brittle laugh, giving no indication that he heard her. Her heart broke at the scene before her and she wished that there was something she could do. She saw him bury his face in his hands, and for the first time, she saw that his hands were trembling.
She had never seen those hands tremble—even as Kirk carded out on the table in an operation to save his life, those hands remained steady and swift, bringing Kirk back to life. But now, as Leonard McCoy sat next to his best friend who was dead in all medical terms, his hands were trembling.
"Get out," came a muffled voice, clearly struggling to control himself.
She nodded and gave a soothing pat on his shoulders before leaving. For too long had the man kept to himself, channeling all his energy into his work. He needed space to grieve and heal now, and it would not be fair for him if she were to intrude.
As the ICU door closed behind her, she heard a choking sob escape the trembling hands and struggled to contain tears of her own.
Oh, James T. Kirk, what have you done?
For many days afterwards, McCoy effectively lived in the ICU, monitoring Jim's vitals 24 hours a day, only leaving the ICU for a short shower and an even shorter meal. He listened to Jim's every heartbeat every moment until he could memorise the rhythm, and once Jim began to show some brain activity, he scrutinised every single sign until he could draw the complex but constant pattern out without a moment's hesitation.
When he closed his eyes, however, all he could see was Jim in a body bag. At first, the scene only appeared at the end of a nightmare when he had dozed off, but it soon became so frequent that he couldn't even fall asleep. But clearly he wasn't the only one, as Spock came and sat opposite him every day once the bell chimed to signify the end of the alpha shift, and only left when the bell chimed again to signify the start of the next alpha shift.
"It's not your fault, y'know" he had said to Spock one day over dinner and bourbon just outside the ICU as his trained eyes saw the worrying signs of the Vulcan's health.
"It should have been me, doctor."
"Don't be a fool. Jim would never have allowed that. He's a self sacrificing idiot."
They had clinked glasses after that.
We are both broken, McCoy had reflected later that day, broken by this idiot's death.
And that was that, because how could McCoy free Spock of guilt when he felt the same guilt as well?
After that day, things slowly became routine: at 5pm sharp, Spock would appear at the sickbay and greet McCoy with a nod and a curt "doctor". He would then sit down in the opposite chair and ask about the captain's status, to which McCoy would say that nothing has changed. They would then both stare at Jim and argue about trivial things for the sake of normalcy until 9am the next day, when Spock would leave and McCoy would wave him to the door.
However, as each day passed, McCoy became increasingly haunted at the idea of Jim being kept alive solely by machines, of Jim suffering more from being kept alive than being allowed to die and leave this world in peace. At the same time, he was haunted by the possibility that he might be saved if he had just waited.
Just like his father.
Finally, there came a day when McCoy could stand it no longer. He closed his eyes and unplugged the life support machines before he lost all courage, all the while screaming at himself. He did not tell Spock; Spock should not have the burden of Kirk's death on him. Give the burden to someone who has sinned already.
He waited with bated breath to see what Kirk's body would do with the lack of support. When Kirk's brain activity suddenly spiked and he started taking deep breaths, McCoy's heart leapt. He watched Kirk's every change, hopeful that he was getting better and also worried that all this was merely the body's final futile struggle against death.
When Kirk's eyes began to open however, McCoy knew that he had succeeded. He almost cried as he commed the bridge and demanded Spock's presence as coherently as possible. He heard Spock's footsteps within a time period that shouldn't have been physically possible even for a Vulcan and could hardly contain a quip about the Vulcan's emotions. However, as Jim's eyes roved towards him, he wiped his tears away, hid all signs of worry behind the mask of normalcy and snapped,
"Don't be so melodramatic, you were barely dead."
-To be continued-
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