Title: Reassurance
Characters: Spock, McCoy
Rating: K+
Word Count: 1249
Summary/Warning: In the aftermath of Operation Annihilate, many issues were left unresolved by the episode script; this deals with one of them. May turn into a oneshot series if there is interest.

He had only just collapsed into his desk chair, intent on the first relaxation he'd had since this nightmare began, when his office door opened again. Repressing a moan of pure exhaustion, he was about to stand, expecting a nurse or the Captain, but to his relief found that it was the First Officer, and that he was waving the physician back to his seat.

"Doctor, please," Spock said quietly, allowing the doors to close. "I am certain you are more exhausted than you appear to be. You require rest, and I have no intention of disturbing you for more than a moment."

He was too tired to look for an ulterior motive in the unusually gentle tone or to respond with a biting comment, and it showed. "You're fine…siddown, will you?" His neck was beginning to ache, looking up at the taller man.

At least, thank the gods of this and every universe, Spock could look back at him.

The Vulcan sat in a graceful, swift motion, and characteristically came straight to the point. "The young man…Peter. What of him?"

McCoy nodded reassuringly. "He'll be fine, just like the others. Jim was just in here to see him. They talked…" his voice trailed off, wincing at the remembrance of the Captain's blank face as he explained to a mere child that his parents were dead, had died in terrible pain just hours before a cure was found.

"And?" Spock was prompting him gently.

"And then he left." Blue eyes looked up suddenly into darker ones. "Spock, I'm worried about him. The boy'll be fine; youth is resilient and he'll eventually be okay. But…I've not seen Jim even shed one tear or even look like he was goin' to since the whole mess began, other than that one second when he almost did – right after you said you were managing the pain and that indicator shot halfway to the ceiling…"

Spock winced internally at the shiver of memory; the pain had been…indescribable. The Captain's presence, felt through a haze but unmistakable nonetheless, had done much to reassure him in the darkness of the agony, but Jim had been required elsewhere for much of the time the Vulcan had spent in Sickbay.

However, that train of thought was neither productive nor informative. "That is, actually, the reason I came to see you, Doctor," he finally stated.

"Good," the physician sighed, leaning back in his chair and resting his aching head on the cushion. "Because Jim needs you right now. No, not me," he whispered, looking down at his hands. "He still sees me as the man who nearly blinded you, and Lord knows he's right enough…"

"Doctor, you will cease to reiterate that fallacy!"

The suppressed tinge of anger startled McCoy, and his head jerked up suddenly.

"Doctor." Spock's eyes, dark with indignation that he would never have shown had he known how obvious it was, flashed. "If you will remember, the Captain was the one who insisted upon – and overruled your objections to – the full-spectrum test. You were in no way to blame, McCoy," he continued, more calmly, and dropping the title in his apparent earnestness.

The gesture further surprised the physician, who had harbored a sickening suspicion that the Vulcan might still blame him as well. "I'd like to believe that," he muttered sadly. Good grief, he was so tired…

"You must believe it, for it is the truth," Spock answered earnestly, briefly reaching out to touch the CMO's arm with the lightest of fingers. "And once the Captain has…grieved properly, and had time to absorb the shock of recent events, he will certainly know that as well – if he does not already."

McCoy relaxed slightly under the strong hand, and nodded. "I guess I know that, which is the only reason I'm not cryin' drunk right now," he growled good-naturedly, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand. "But that still doesn't take care of our real problem, does it?"

"It does not," the First Officer agreed, releasing the sleeve he held. "Doctor, I wan– I desire to be of some help to the Captain in this time." McCoy graciously (for once) ignored the slip and waved for him to continue, which he did. "I am not entirely certain how to accomplish that, however. I have given the matter several hours of thought, and –"

"That's your problem right there, Spock," McCoy answered quietly.

"I do not understand."

"You're thinking about it, like you would about solving an equation," the physician responded. He made a special effort not to smirk at the Vulcan's helpless eyebrow-shrug, and only smiled slightly. "You can't control emotions, and definitely you can't classify them just like that," here he snapped his fingers for emphasis, "specially those of grief and anger."

Dark eyes gleamed in mild mischief. "I trust, Doctor, that even your limited intelligence can conceive of a more acceptable explanation than that."

"My limited intelligence when it comes to human emotion can kick your logic's backside from here to Martus III, thank you," he retorted, feeling much the better for the return to normality.

Had he not known better, he would have sworn a tiny smirk hovered near the corner of the Vulcan's thin lips. At any rate, it was soon gone, and Spock was only blinking placidly at him. "Well?"

McCoy sighed, leaned his chin in his cupped hand in bone-weariness. "Go find him, Spock," he said simply, and waved a hand toward the doors. "That's my advice. Go find him, and whatever you do, don't think about what you should do to help – just do what you feel is right."

"Doctor, I am a Vulcan. Vulcans do not –"

"Shuddup," the physician barked, and his companion blinked, startled. "First of all, you're a touch telepath – sayin' you don't feel anything isn't just illogical, it's ridiculous. Plus I saw that pain indicator, and don't think I didn't see you twitching like a jumpy jackrabbit every three seconds because of that blasted parasite of Hell chewing away your synapses! Jim might have been too overwhelmed with duty and grief at seeing the few people he loved being taken from him right before his eyes to see it, but I wasn't. You do feel," he finished in a spurt of vehemence that surprised even himself, "and don't give me any of that bull that says you don't!"

"To deny the truth would be illogical, Doctor," the Vulcan replied after a this-is-exceedingly-awkward pause, all cool serenity to soothe his irritation. "I had intended to say, that Vulcans do not usually enter a situation and act based upon feeling rather than upon logical, rational pre-planning."

"Well try, this time," McCoy persisted earnestly. "I don't know what to do with the Captain, Spock…he won't even talk to me, won't do anything but sit in his cabin or in that ward with his nephew and brood."

"Or work seventeen hours straight shift on the Bridge, three days in succession, and sleep only three hours a night for nearly twice that?" the Vulcan countered quietly, unconsciously betraying the reason he had come in the first place.

"Exactly. Try to reach him, to start him on the grieving process – for both of us?"

Spock rose to his feet, and briefly looked down at the exhausted physician. "I shall try. And, for your sake, I will succeed, Doctor," he vowed, and McCoy believed wholeheartedly that the Vulcan meant it with all his heart…wherever it was in that crazy anatomy of his...