A/N: This will be my first and last author's note for this entire story, as I don't want to disrupt the flow. Basically, this story slots into the end of ST:ID, partly in between Kirk's coma and his waking up, and then a couple of months after the end of the movie.
Warnings for entire fic: Swearing, panic attacks, Spirk (Spock/Kirk) pre-slash - You have been warned.
Disclaimer for entire fic: As I am not a reincarnated Gene Roddenberry, I cannot claim that I own Star Trek, or will receive any profit from this.
Chapter 1
Spock is in bad shape by the time he beams up - adrenaline thrumming furious through every bruised line of his body, stiff-limbed over the cradle of Uhura's shoulders, bleeding inside, bleeding out.
Khan is worse.
But McCoy doesn't care, as long as he still has blood. Stretchers careen through battle-worn corridors, into turbolifts, and out into Sickbay. A needle snicks into place just below the four finger-bruises that cage the pale skin of Khan's wrist. Red slides down the clear tubing, rich, dark, life-giving.
"I need the Tribble report. Now!"
McCoy growls the instruction through his teeth, somehow not even topping the list of Things That He Never Thought He'd Say. Someone passes him the report. Someone bustles around Khan's head with a medical tricorder, taking stock of the wounds before they heal (too fast). Someone else pulls Spock away from the cryo-tube, where he is staring, watching, roiling underneath his blank and black-eyed mask.
He wonders if Spock sees the same as he does. If he is watching the frozen swirls of air fractal and snowflake above Jim's face. If the closed and glowless eyes make Spock brittle and liable to break. If the hope is a glorious poison for Spock too.
Of course he doesn't, McCoy inwardly snaps, even as he's directing a thousand demands. Of course he doesn't, even though it damn well looks like it.
The cryo-tube hisses open with a noise like an exasperated sigh. Three medics slip their hands under Jim's prone body, lifting him up, out, and down. McCoy inserts the needle to begin the transfusion, not bothering to match their blood-types - if it worked for a Tribble, it'll work for James T. Kirk. Finally McCoy stems the flow, pressing a cotton-bud into the pinprick wound.
He remembers too late that dead men do not bleed.
People enter the Sickbay. People leave. A woman is crying, and it layers acrid over the smell of seared flesh. It serves to remind McCoy that the entire ship is in medical crisis (not just the crisis lying in front of him in the bed), limping home bent but victorious. And he stands in the middle of it, barking orders and applying hypos and gesturing wildly with both hands. Conducting a miracle.
Orchestrating a resurrection.
Spock is still standing at McCoy's side. A trickle of green blood snakes from the edge of his mouth.
"Get on a biobed, you hobgoblin. You could have damage to your internal organs!"
Spock waits a beat. Two. The logic of it all must catch up to him, because he turns in silence to leave. Then - a shift on the medical panel - a low beep that turns into a slow rhythm. McCoy lets out a small cry, accompanied by something twinging deep in his chest. Spock is already there the instant before McCoy looks up, mouth open as if to sob or curse or thank a God he doesn't believe in.
Torturously, Spock walks to a biobed and lies down. A swarm of Medics cluster to his side. His eyes close, and Uhura touches his shoulder in a fleeting promise. Her eyes, when she looks up, are dark and sheened with tears and understanding. It takes McCoy a moment to tear himself away from the feeling he's just witnessed something raw and private click into place. He snaps back down to Jim's side.
"Put him in an induced coma. Monitor him constantly."
…
Two weeks pass before McCoy gets to properly analyse Khan's medical report. He wasn't intending to - Khan wasn't his patient and wasn't his problem. However, as Chief Medical Officer, he really didn't get a goddamn choice.
In any case, it's still eleven days between the time it lands on his desk and the time he reads it through. Eleven days, during which time he has to write reports, and perform psych evals, and Jim goes into cardiac arrest (and he can still remember the way Spock went black and white and edged when McCoy told him.)
But when he does:
"Spock, listen. There's something I need to talk to you about, so you're going to sit your Vulcan ass down there, and you are going to be quiet."
One eyebrow quirks patronisingly. McCoy scans back down the report.
"I've been reading Khan's medical report. Now as far as I can figure out - and as much as I hate to admit it - you did a fucking brave thing going after him. I have an analysis here that tells me Khan is four times as strong as humans, which is stronger than you."
McCoy flicks down through the PADD, enjoying Spock's wary glare.
"Stamina off-the-charts, perfect physical health, oh and that miraculous super-blood."
The Doctor fixes Spock with an arrogance-sharp glance, reveling in the fact they both know where this is going.
"And yet, as far as I remember, y'only got a couple of cracked ribs and fingers, a bruised skull, and came back bloodied and battered… but still standing."
Nothing in Spock's expression changes - no subtle shift of his eyes or set of his mouth - but McCoy can sense a tangible vulnerability.
"Khan -" He savours, "- Was not."
"I am aware of that. He sustained multiple phaser shots from Lieutenant Uhura."
McCoy lets a smirk slip lazy across his face.
"I believe you. But I have a report here tellin' me he was knocked out by blunt force trauma to the back of the head. That and his fractured jaw leads me to believe that either you or the Lieutenant punched him so hard he blacked out."
The First Officer shifts imperceptibly in his chair.
"And Uhura ain't the one with the broken fingers."
"It was necessary to incapacitate him. Khan would not have co-operated while conscious."
Doctor McCoy takes a long hard look over at the biobed, where Jim's chest rises and falls as constant as the sun. Spock follows his gaze, and when the heart-monitor stutters, he flinches right along with it. McCoy softens his voice.
"Look, Spock, you're right. You're right. But I have a list here, and I'm going to need you to read it out for me. You need to know how far you've gone, and how close that is to too far."
He hands over the PADD with an odd kind of vindictiveness. The Vulcan's eyes scan over it. There is a moment of silence, and then he begins to read.
"Blunt force trauma to the lower half of the Parietal bone. Fractured jaw-bone. Grade 3 concussion. Severe phaser burns."
Spock glances up, as if to say that wasn't me.
"I think we can put that one down to Uhura. Keep going."
"Deep tissue bruising on cheek, back and arms. Scalp laceration - most likely from some form of metal weapon."
McCoy checks them off in his head as Spock reads them out, before holding up a hand. His voice slips into a Southern drawl, slow with anticipation.
"I found out today that they'll give you a medal for this. And if you hit just a little too hard, enjoyed the blood on your hands just a little too much, well, no-one is going to blame you. Hell, I'd do the same thing… perhaps not to the same extent, but God knows I've thought about it enough times."
He leans forward, open body language becoming closed, the Georgian sun of his words turning into a vicious flash-burn.
"But you better fucking stop pretending that any of it was because of your precious logic."
Spock meets his gaze straight-on, with a cracked look in his eyes, split down jaded lines of pain and resolution. There is a final line to the report. Spock opens his mouth and pauses - barely noticeable - but long enough for a broken prophecy to coat the air in venom.
"You can't even break a rule. How can you be expected to break bone?"
"Lower humerus bone, cleanly snapped in half."
