A/N Title translates to "In his memory." Spoilers for the first ten or so minutes of Generations, if you haven't seen that.
Doctor McCoy had been to a lot of funerals. A lot of memorial services too, for young crew members and old friends alike. This, though...he thought, blinking back tears, this was the hardest.
It wasn't even really a funeral. Jim Kirk's body had never been recovered from the Enterprise B. Just a memorial service. That didn't stop everyone from coming though. Officers who had started out as ensigns on the Enterprise, now with commands of their own. The entire crew of the Enterprise B. Admirals, ambassadors; McCoy saw Sarek off to the side, Saavik next to him. And, of course, Kirk's own crew.
There was Nurse – no, Doctor, now – Chapel, in the back with her new husband, blinking back tears. Sulu, holding his daughter's hand, looking lost. Chekov had his face in his hands, Uhura next to him with her arm around his shoulder. Scotty was on his other side, tears coursing down his cheeks. They had been there, Chekov and Scotty, and McCoy wished he had been. Maybe he could have done something. Jim had asked him, and he'd refused. Refused! To appear at a "useless ceremony." McCoy shook his head. There was no use in wishing.
McCoy remembered how Scotty and Chekov showed up at his door, looking so much worse than they did today. How he'd broken down and simply cried for an hour before pulling himself together and asking if anyone had told Spock yet. He remembered Scotty's uncertain murmur that they thought McCoy should do that himself. And he remembered the instant he'd seen Spock, seen the hidden grief in his eyes, he'd known that Spock knew without being told.
McCoy glanced at Spock now, standing next to him. To anyone else, the Vulcan looked the same as ever; calm, controlled. To anyone who knew him well, like McCoy, they could see the slight slump in his shoulders, the absence of the usual light in his eyes, the utter exhaustion, as if he hadn't slept since the accident. McCoy couldn't imagine the level of grief Spock must have been hiding, or the control required to do so. But then, Jim and Spock were two of a kind; they always had a sort of connection and McCoy was terrified of what might happen now. He wondered if this might be the breaking point, somehow neither of them had ever pictured this; the two of them left behind without Jim.
The admiral speaking about Jim annoyed McCoy, interrupting his thoughts. This admiral hadn't really known Jim, and everything he was saying was so impersonal. They'd asked McCoy to do it, and he'd refused. They had even, in a remarkable display of callousness, asked Spock to do it. As if Spock could get up in front of a crowd and discuss his closest friend's death. So now they were stuck with this pompous windbag. He concentrated instead on the picture of Jim set up at the front, with a wreath around it. In the picture, Jim was smiling, he looked young, at heart at least, and happy, the way he'd been when McCoy had last seen him. It was almost impossible to believe he'd never see Jim again. The tears threatened to start again, and McCoy quickly wiped his eyes.
As the admiral finally finished, Spock stood up, pulling off his Starfleet badge. McCoy watched, along with everyone else, as Spock went up to the wreathed picture and laid the badge down in front of it before coming back. The hush deepened, and McCoy was shocked, although he shouldn't be. Without Jim, he'd considered resigning himself, and given how close Jim and Spock had been, it was not unexpected that Spock wouldn't want to remain in the service alone. As Spock sat down next to him, McCoy was sure he was the only person who noticed the single tear track on Spock's cheek.
If the memorial service was almost unbearable, the mingling afterward was worse. McCoy listened to more people tell him how sorry they were, until he wanted to shake them and ask if any of them had really known Jim at all, or would care about him if he hadn't died. He saw Spock across the room, trying to fend off anxious enquiries about leaving the fleet, and McCoy got even more annoyed. Can't they leave us alone for five minutes? he thought. The rest of Kirk's crew – not Kirk's crew anymore, but McCoy would always think of them that way – were in similar situations. After about an hour, McCoy saw Spock shake off some admiral and slip out, unnoticed by anyone else.
"Doctor, I think – Doctor?" the self-important Commander who had McCoy's ear at the moment looked annoyed as McCoy started to walk away.
"What? Sorry, I have to go take care of something," McCoy said quickly, and then followed Spock out. He was damned if he was going to leave Spock alone today.
He found Spock sitting on his own on a bench in the lobby, looking so utterly lost for a Vulcan that McCoy felt the grief anew. He didn't think there was anything he could even try to do to help, but he couldn't do nothing.
"Mind if I sit?" McCoy asked. Spock barely nodded and McCoy sat. "Spock – I grieve with thee." He said the Vulcan words uncertainly; he'd only learned them last night, but it got a reaction at least.
"I know, Doctor," Spock said. McCoy cursed himself. Jim was the one who could always reach Spock, not him, but…
"Spock, I know we've had our differences, and I know I wasn't as close to Jim as you were, nobody was. But…" he paused, took a shaky breath and continued. "if there's anything I can do to help, I'm here, you know that right?" It didn't seem like enough, not nearly, and Spock simply stared back at him.
"I mean, I remember what Jim was like after you…in the Mutara Nebula. His grief was just as bad and I thought, well, I didn't know what he would have done if the fal-tor-pan hadn't worked."
"You are incorrect, Doctor," Spock said, the unspoken words as usual hanging between them. McCoy bristled. Damn it, he was trying to help, why did Spock have to be so difficult?
"What do you mean, incorrect? I was there, even if I did have your brain in my head. Or is it that you think I don't miss him too?"
Spock looked back at him and McCoy regretted his sharp words. What Spock said next, though, was completely unexpected.
"I meant, Doctor, that in that situation, Jim not only believed I was dead, he believed he would lose you as well. Therefore, his grief was correspondingly greater."
McCoy stared at his Vulcan antagonist/friend in shock. That was the most emotional thing Spock had ever said about him since asking him to be in his ill-fated wedding.
"Well, I guess you're right, Spock," McCoy answered quietly. They still had each other, even if Jim was gone. Spock bowed his head in assent, and McCoy thought he looked grateful for the doctor's presence.
They sat there in silence for the rest of the afternoon, ignoring everyone who passed by. And for the first time in more years than McCoy cared to remember, they never once argued.