Co-written by SallySorrell
Jim's prognosis struggles past McCoy's lips like a confession. He and Spock may as well be separated by a grille of anonymity to match; both men stare unblinking at the white, clinical wall rather than one another.
What a pity that neither can be saved.
Spock finally organizes his mind into something that can be expressed:
"Doctor, I was under the impression this human ailment had been cured by Earth's physicians centuries ago."
McCoy pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.
"Yeah, that's comfort food. For the most part it's true, but you need to catch it early. Jim never exhibited any signs in any of his examinations, and now..." a stopper plugs up his voice and forces tears to catch in the corners of his eyes.
Spock cannot argue with this explanation. It is logical, if not fair.
"How long?" Spock asks after a pause, as there are no other questions left to him.
Bones straightens and coughs before answering.
"Well, little things have already begun slipping his mind. You've seen that. His deterioration is sudden and rapid; it won't be too long until major players and events simply… fall right out of his memory. He'll forget most everything, Spock, and then...well." His failing eyes crinkle with empathy, "We— You'll have him for a month, Spock. Maybe less."
The prediction haunts him.
Maybe less.
Kirk sits in his bedroom, folded up at the end of the bed. He hears his breath, stumbling blindly over his lips, followed by a slow and labored heartbeat. The pulse is all he is aware of, as Spock enters the room.
They do not look at each other. In months, they have not looked at each other. Not at the same time, and not without effort. Spock sighs, and ensures his steps are quiet.
He offers his hand first, in respect of the silence. Still and flat; ready to accept all of Jim's weight.
"Jim?"
The word sifts slowly through his memories. After a tense and tiring moment, it is exchanged for a smile.
Jim notices Spock's hand, but does not take it.
"Yes," he begins, still focusing on Spock's hand, "What is it?"
"I thought you had overslept."
The hand taunts him like a gun; he is unable to speak until it is returned to Spock's side, tucked away in the holster of his sleeves.
"I didn't sleep at all."
"That was my secondary concern."
Jim nods, after reaching back to rub his neck. He considers his own hand as it passes by him.
"I'll be late," he struggles to say, "for… something. Work."
"You will not be late." Spock's voice is calm, "You will not be going."
The warmth and humor is incapable of leaving Jim's body; Spock can feel it, weaving between his fingers.
"Thanks, Doctor."
And suddenly, the room thaws. Jim's hand traces the pillows, the empty side of the bed, the lighting panels in the wall. He does not know the man standing before him, nor the room which cages him. Spock can sense the troubled thoughts, trying vainly to rekindle the fire of recognition. It will not catch spontaneously. Spock must be the match:
"Forgive me."
Spock finds the gentle indentations on Jim's face and splays out his fingers. He is too aware of Jim's sloping progress, as the man will not shut his eyes unless coaxed. Spock senses only fear, and tries to quiet it as he takes Jim's hand in his.
Together, their eyes shut.
Jim is pacing on the bridge of the Enterprise, recently decommissioned. Although most of the systems have been shut down – Jim is reveling in the air of Earth, creeping in through the vents – several lights continue flashing. Engineer Scott attends to these, followed obediently by the Navigators.
Doctor McCoy leans casually on the back of the Captain's chair, watching him pace. Spock should be overseeing the shutdown, but prefers watching the Captain.
Embarrassment bleeds from Spock's fingers, dyeing its transference to Jim. Spock shakes his head, and tries again.
Jim is on a hospital bed. He knows it.
This is a recent memory. It flows freely between them.
Spock waits, at the other end of the room. It seems much larger because it is so desperately empty, devoid of confidence and color.
The room is defined by the hospital bed, a single medical scanner, and three lives. Even the lives do not fill it, as they fade with each second. All of them.
"Your assistance is appreciated, Doctor."
McCoy turns his head, smiling vaguely. His hands remain over the switches.
"That sounded almost like a 'thank you.' What do you say, Jim?"
Jim leans back in his bed. Spock patrols his mind, but does not contribute to the answer. It is a test, which he fails:
"I'd say so, Doctor."
McCoy's smile escapes him, and Jim hates to see it go. It was something familiar and warm; a beloved dog, slipping through a gap in the fence and into the night. Jim's eyes redden, caught between fear and frustration.
"You are a doctor, aren't you?"
"Last I checked," says McCoy, shrugging at the machine. He gives Spock an empty glance, and a stream of pleading thoughts. The numbers and lines on the device mean nothing. There is one thing left to reassure the doctor, and Jim has forgotten it.
"Bones," Spock explains. Jim nods, grinning at the familiar name.
But he would never use it again.
Spock's hand jolts away from Jim's face. He is startled, but Spock's hands are immediately reassigned to comforting him. He directs Jim to the bed and sets him there.
This time, he understands it is his bed, not one unfolded in a contrived hospital room, buried in a dark corner of the Academy offices. It is a place where Spock sits alongside him. A place the doctor will visit willingly, despite the torturous flight there, and the immediate demand on his waning talents. The bed is, Spock relays to Kirk, artificially friendly.
"You should sleep, Jim."
Again, he gives a weak nod.
At the command of 'sleep', the lights comply automatically, while the floor quietly sighs and offers heat. Regardless, Spock promises to bring an additional blanket.
"Thank you…"
Spock must shield one of the imagined doorways, as Jim's thoughts slide toward it.
Not 'Doctor' he warns. The thought turns and wanders.
"Um, Bo—"
Not 'Bones.'
"Thank you, Spock,"
He knows the correct response. He has rehearsed it, and used it countless times before. Now, he cannot.
"Yes," he says.
He must watch, until Jim is asleep. As his body settles, so does his mind. Spock is relieved to let it go, after the careful and near-constant embrace.
Bones.
Every shared memory of the doctor screams at him, until he is bound to the chair in their office. Doctor McCoy is constructed, pixel by pixel, on the communication screen before him.
"He would like for you to be here," Spock recites, "As would I."
McCoy does not look directly forward. His fading sight is apparent, but Spock does not discuss it. The Vulcan is distracted by the glaze over the doctor's empty eyes, and feels as if he is staring into a mirror. Their eyes have been ravaged by the same storm of worry.
Spock reaffirms himself that 'worry' is best categorized as an emotion. The doctor's breath trembles.
"I'm on my way."
Spock isn't precisely sure how long he has been lying on the bed pressed up against Jim. Based on the magnitude of his hunger and the hoarseness of the doctor's voice, it has certainly been at least a few days. McCoy's desperate attempts to move Spock come in repetitive onslaughts, rubbing his voice raw and burning wild across the plains of his eyes. Perhaps the doctor's most recent attack has finally worn him into the ground,
"Really, Spock, I'm just as worried about Jim as you are, but you don't see me starving myself to death over it. Torturing yourself isn't going to make him better."
Your initial claim is a lie, Spock thinks without response, the truth locked up in iron casements around a dwindling forged mind. As Spock lazily feeds Jim the quiet, sunny memory of their first trip to an alien planet together, he doubts the validity of the doctor's final assurance as well. McCoy sighs, tapping a toe to the carpet in frustration.
"Spock… Please, Spock. Don't you think it might good to just leave him with himself for a while?" A spark of fury bursts somewhere beneath Spock's conscious thought. He grows weary of it before it can even ignite.
"Doctor, I think you should refrain from speaking when your opinions are formed outside the realm of your expertise. At this time...there is no himself. Jim has been left with nothing. No memories, no identity. Separating from him would be akin to dropping a blind man onto a mountain range. He would flounder and struggle for absent footholds to grab onto, and I can't..." For an almost undetectable moment, his voice breaks. Unacceptable, he chastises himself before continuing, "I cannot let him go in such a way. He needs to leave us as himself, as James Tiberius Kirk..." And as mine, he acknowledges privately to the two of them.
Spock's entire speech lilts as levelly and detached as only his voice can. It floats above him, an unnoticed balloon struggling out of a bunch, unimportant to this grounded reality of fingers splayed across aged face. He clutches Jim's skin more closely, refusing to let go just as he refuses to allow a single wisp of poisoned thought across the bridge.
Spock and McCoy both sigh. The doctor turns on his heel and furiously fumbles with a few of his machines, rebuked. And frightened.
At last, Jim falls asleep. This is not so different from his waking state, as Jim hasn't opened his eyes in hours, but Spock is grateful for it. Jim's conscious reactions to the memories are torturous in their childish delight; small smiles dance in and out of the creases of his face, so like that of a boy at the cinema, the novelty of his own past painful to behold. Still, anything is better than Spock's attempts to simply ground Jim in awareness of the present, which had resulted in more confusion and garbled questions than Spock knew how to handle. He resorts now to feeding him sugary drops of pleasantries, rich tastes of their love, and at least that can bring Jim some comfort, if not reality.
In sleep, Jim's mind grows beautiful again. Dreams are a timeless song without need of identity or form, and Spock sinks into the surreal creations of Jim's battered brain, eyes drifting shut.
Bubbles of light grow and burst across a velvety blackness, pulsating through every color in the spectrum. As they expand, a gentle humming escalates, exploding into a tinkling golden dust that reminds Spock of the Enterprise's transporter beams.
This connection forms a small, fluttering hope in Spock's heart; he clutches it to his side despite his better judgment. As the spheres of light pulse in and out of existence, Spock wishes, for one deliciously selfish moment, that his own dreams could be so carefree.
And then.
One source of light is born unto the darkness and grows until naught else remains. The glow becomes overwhelmingly white to the point where Spock wishes he could close his eyes against it. Its intensity becomes truly unbearable, and Spock nearly separates his hand from Jim's face, feeling sick to his stomach at the thought. Suddenly, the bubble bursts open with a torrential rush, carrying them both away. Into another time.
Jim sneaks into the sickbay, a knowing smirk playing across his lips. He listens, and Spock's heart-wrenching affirmations of loyalty warm his cheeks like a mug of hot drink. When he can no longer bear his friend's cluelessness, he speaks up and waltzes across Spock's field of vision, chuckling. Jim's palms tingle with eagerness. He is not disappointed.
"Captain?" A rare, warm Vulcan touch, gripping each of Jim's biceps and spinning his face around to be gazed at. Jim could never have imagined a smile so radiant on his First Officer's face; its warmth pierces his heart and leaves a scar, then and forever.
"Jim!"
Blackness.
Spock's world does not end with a bang, nor even with a whimper. No, his universe collapses into a singularity of silence, more empty and profound than the sudden cessation of the trilling heart monitor. The vacuum Jim's lost spirit leaves in Spock's mind terrifies him, threatening to consume whatever confused trace of self he has been left with.
He almost would have preferred pain; a great, twisted cracking apart of their thoughts as Jim passed would have given Spock some clarity to cling to. But no, he was simply there and then he wasn't, and Spock frantically realizes he cannot even pinpoint the exact moment of his release. Spock claws his fingers deeper into Jim's skin, hoping perhaps the connection has merely been lost, needing one last memory to keep within him, a flower to press between his life's pages. But there is nothing. Only nothing.
In a rushed, jerking motion, Spock stands and moves away from the body. No use in clinging to an empty shell. It is not, his shoulders slump, It is illogical. The emptiness that once belonged to Jim shudders through him like a howling storm, and Spock focuses on this, trying to calm its gale and warm its frigidity with the same memories he so miserably threw to Jim as lifelines only hours ago. He tries to force this space into one of remembering, even as details have already gone cloudy.
Footsteps pat across the carpet, and Spock tries to understand he is not as achingly alone as he feels, without much success. He wraps Jim's space up like a gift, and places it on a shelf inside himself as he turns to face the doctor, determined to spend his life filling the box to overflowing. He vaguely registers McCoy's face, particularly the eyes, which are preternaturally blue with tears.
The doctor attempts to locate words of comfort, but can only conjure, "Spock, I..." before reaching an arm towards him. Spock tries to flinch away, muttering, "No!"
He moves too late. The doctor's hand connects with Spock's shoulder, and a breath of his mind gasps through the touch. Loss, failure, and a unique earthy essence rush into Spock, immediately attracted to Jim's vacuum, calming the whistling void.
Spock stares down at his shoulder, frozen in shock. His lips move of their own accord:
"No. No, no, no!" Spock throws himself across Jim's body, pressing both hands deep into the sides of his face. This frantic scramble shakes Spock apart at his seams, spilling every pain he has ever swallowed down across the uniform grey carpeting. Bones stares in horror at what his mistake has wrought, arm still frozen in mid-air.
"Please, Jim," Spock wheezes, "Please Jim, I need...I just need one...one more moment. Please, please."
McCoy cannot bear it; he turns his head and leaves the room.
Spock falls to the floor and sobs.