Warning: Non-Consentual mind meld. Mild profanity. Implied Violence.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek or its characters. This is purely for personal enjoyment, not profit.

Sorry for the slow update. Hope you enjoy & review!

Update 23/6/15 - Apologies for the no update in a while. My writers block decided to conspire with my exams resulting in one unfinished chapter. I haven't abandoned this, but I'm going to write and create some different stuff for a while until my block agrees to a truce.

Our minds are one

They'd re-materialised on the transporter pad and as far as McCoy could see, they were back on their own Enterprise. Spock, clean shaven, had been there waiting and everything had been where it should be, just as McCoy remembered it. If it wasn't their Enterprise, dammit, it was damn near close.

Relieved to be home, it was easy to throw himself back into his work.

Many of the nurses skittered around him, treating him as if he was a rabid dog but his disgust at his counterpart's barbarianism had kept him focused. Leonard had been too busy with post-mission physicals on each of the away team, to check that there had been no ill-effects arising from their misadventure, and fixing the mess that his counterpart had created in his absence.

It wasn't as bad a Leonard had originally expected but Ensign Evans who wouldn't let the Doctor near her, no matter how much anyone tried to convince her. He didn't know what the other McCoy had done to Evans but Chapel had muttered something about inadequate pain management and his counterpart having a bedside manner that was non existent. Time and councelling would help but in the mean time, McCoy had handed the traumatised Ensign's care over to M'Benga.

Eventually McCoy had settled in his comfortingly familiar office and completed his report. He'd kept things short and brief, glossing over the attack, simply writing that the other Spock had worked out that they were from another universe and decided to help return them to their own ship. Nobody would question it; Jim rarely gave reports a second glance before signing off on them and Starfleet received thousands of reports every week. They didn't have time to check every little discrepancy.

When he'd handed the report in, he had laughed and joked with Jim and Spock on the bridge. It was instinctive to smile, to laugh at Spock's unintentional humour and compare experiences of the two encounters. Easier to pretend that nothing had happened.

It was later, when the relief of being home had worn off, he'd lain alone in his quarters without company or work to keep unwelcome thoughts away. The other enterprise seemed like a dream, or a nightmare, then. It was like it had never happened, except it had, and now McCoy wasn't sure if he was waking or dreaming. It didn't seem real, Dammit, Nothing did. He kept waiting for the ball to drop, to find that none of it was true, that they hadn't made it back and he was back in that hell hole.

For a while, sleep proved evasive. Every time he closed his eyes, he could feel the Vulcan inside his head. Invisible tentacles, clawing their way through his thoughts. Spock's words echoing in his head. Feelings, thoughts and memories that weren't his own cluttering up his mind every time he tried to clear it.

…..

Jim was dead.

Murderer.

Unmoving and not breathing. Eyes staring and unfocused. Dead by all terms and definitions. He wasn't coming back.

You killed him.

For the first time in days he could finally think clearly. He could see through the madness that had clouded his mind and poisoned his every thought. All that remained now was a single question.

Why?

He'd challenged her afterwards, ordered her to explain.

Afterwards, he could not find fault in her logic but there was nothing logical about the emotional imbalances still running thickly through his veins. He had thought he had wanted to know the answer but now that he knew, he wished that he did not.

Having is not so pleasing thing after all as wanting. It was not logical, but it was true.

She had played him and he had lost. She had him right where she had wanted him, where he could not win. They had arrived at a stalemate. He had killed his Captain for her and still she had had the audacity to defy him.

With that realisation, A cold fury had consumed him.

The only person he had ever found worthy enough of his loyalty was dead, by his hands, because of her. He could force her to be by his side. He had won the battle and by the rules, it was his right to her hand in marriage, but he would not.

Logic dictated that he should keep her close to him where he could keep an eye on her but she had been right that his debt to the Empire, it was unwise to keep her by his side if he could not trust her. She undoubtedly would betray him in a heartbeat.

He had won the battle but he could never win the girl. Besides, he did not want her now. She was spoiled, that scum had ruined her. She was no longer worthy of him.

While logic dictated that he not take her as his bride, the pair of them had made a fool out of him. She had rejected him, laughed in his face as she insulted both his manhood and his heritage. He could not let that slide.

His own people had made it abundantly clear long ago that he was not welcome among them, not with his heritage mixed with that of their oppressors. Now he had lost his place amongst the Empire too. He dared not to return to the ship lest the crew mutiny against his killing of their captain. He would undoubtedly not live to see his trial; there were many onboard who kill him the moment he started to re-materialise.

Instead, he followed them, hidden in the shadows. This was what he was good at, what he was trained to do. He watched and he waited, biding his time until eventually the opportunity was right.

As he raised the weapon, he looked down upon the sleeping couple, locked in their embrace. It was the same weapon that he had used to kill his friend. The irony had appealed to him on a deep level.

This was not the first time he had killed someone. He had killed hundreds by his hand, both directly and indirectly. Those had been orders though; this time was different. This time he was killing them because he wanted to.

Jealousy, anger and rage; all emotions unbecoming of a Vulcan. Afterwards, he would blame it on insanity, the madness of the Plak tow still poisoning his once flawless logic. He'd been delirious from the fever.

Truth was, his mind was clear. His actions did have logic deep inside them. For the first time in days, he was calm. He had a purpose.

He knew what he had to do.

The pair of them had wanted so badly to be together, then they could die together. His human companions would have called it poetic justice. He was already a murdered, what difference would one, or even two, make?

If he could not have her, then no-one else could.

…..

Leonard startled awake. Rapid respiration, heart pounding in his chest.

Bile was already rising at the back of his throat. He bolted into the bathroom, barely making it over the toilet bowl before he started heaving. McCoy slumped back against the wall and shivered, cold from the sweat drenching his skin, tears streaming down his face.

It wasn't you, Dammit, it wasn't you. Leonard reminded himself over and over to little avail. He could still see the blood staining his hands. He could feel the emotions that the other Spock had felt upon killing the lovers. The jealousy, the anger, the betrayal, the satisfaction. It was a common misconception that Vulcan's didn't, even couldn't, feel; they did, stronger than any human ever born, just suppressed and hidden under layers of logic and repression.

Despite there being nothing left, he felt sick to his stomach.

I know what you know.

Emotional transference was an effect of the meld but the knowledge didn't make McCoy feel any better though. Neither did the knowledge of the emotion and logic behind the actions. Emotions that had been strong, still recent in Spock's counterpart's memories. Overwhelming emotions he hadn't wanted.

McCoy crawled under the shower fully clothed, desperately scrubbing away at the blood that wasn't there. The scalding water burnt at his skin but still he could feel it, sticking to his hands and clothes.

I feel what you feel.

Emotions he hadn't wanted. Knowledge he'd have been better off not knowing.

Jim laying on the dusty ground dead. Two Vulcans slain in anger. In his mind, it feel like he'd been the one to kill them.

He scrubbed until his skin was raw, until the water burnt his skin, and still it wasnt enough. Those images and feeling were branded onto his brain, like cattle for the market. No amount of hot water could wash those images away.

Spock forcing his way inside his head.

Leonard had thought that coming back to the enterprise would be the end of it all, that he could just put it away in the corner and forget that it ever happened. That if ignored it, it would just roll over and go away.

He'd been wrong.