McCoy let out a muffled groan, his hand raising to his temple as the feeling of a pounding headache resonated through his head. One eye cracked opened warily, bracing for the sharp stab of pain that would come from the bright overhead lights of the Sickbay, but instead of the piercing shine of artificial light, only complete darkness greeted him. It was like he hadn't even opened his eyes at all. Blinking and rubbing at his eyes, as if something could be preventing him from seeing anything, McCoy raised himself up on his elbows and tried to peer through the dark expanse around him. A few minutes passed and the solid wall of black in front of him didn't change, his eyes failing to pick up a single source of light in the room.
"You know, I'm really gettin' tired of wakin' up to the lights not workin'. How is anyone supposed to get anythin' done when they can't even see two feet in front of 'em?"
His grumbling turned into a pained grunt as he shifted into a sitting position, his movement setting off another burst of pain in his mind. His fingers kneaded slow circles against the sides of his head and he let out a relieved sigh when the headache started to subside. Sitting up and staring into nothing, McCoy redirected his focus, trying to recall what had happened before he woke up.
He remembered being with Spock, and the mind meld the Vulcan had initiated, though the events during the meld were a bit blurred when he tried to concentrate on them. There might have been some yelling on Spock's part, and he may or may not have been acting like some kind of demented robot himself, but McCoy quickly pushed those thoughts away to consider later. He remembered there being a rush of emotion after the meld, which Spock, of all people, had tried to help him deal with. McCoy scoffed at the irony behind the Vulcan's actions, though there was no real humor behind it. They had been interrupted though, by someone... or rather someones. He was pretty sure there had been more than one in the room. There had been fighting and McCoy recalled one of the attackers getting him with something.
One of his hands drifted to the left side of his neck and a small burst of phantom pain made him wince as he remembered the feel of a needle puncturing his skin. The fact that they had drugged him with something was disquieting. There was no telling what the substance may have been, or even what effects it could have on the human body.
McCoy let out a grumbled breath and fisted the blanket covering his legs. He really should have paid more attention to his surroundings. He couldn't believe he let himself be caught off guard like that, especially when Spock had put up a much bigger fight.
'Wait a second. Where is Spock?'
The doctor perked his head up, looking around the room as if he would suddenly be able to see through the dark and find the Vulcan laid out somewhere nearby.
"Spock? You there?"
His harsh whisper received no answer, but the doctor couldn't really say he expected one. He listened for any sound through the encompassing silence around him, his ears tuned for any kind of rustling of cloth or exhalation of breath that might suggest movement and that there was somebody near him. All he got though was continued silence and the sound of his own heartbeat, the rush of blood through his veins seeming to pound against his ears. The quiet was enough to make one go crazy.
McCoy shook his head and stubbornly tried to focus on listening more to his surroundings. As he did so, he became aware of a low, thrumming pulse that he thought for a moment might be his heart again, but the sound seemed to come from somewhere far away, and yet all around him at the same time. The closest thing he could liken it to was the Enterprise's warp engines and the sound they made as the ship travelled. McCoy could only guess that the comparison meant he was on some other warp capable ship, but it was definitely not the one he should have been on. The background noise was different from the Enterprise engines that he had spent years getting used to.
McCoy swung his legs over the edge of the bed, tired of sitting still, and placed his bare feet on the floor. His breath caught in surprise when lights spaced along the perimeter of the floor and ceiling sparked to life and began to glow. The light, slowly growing in intensity and spreading, illuminated the room around him.
Getting his first really good look at where he was, the doctor found the room to be quite dull. It was a rectangular shaped space, similar in size to his own quarters back on the Enterprise, although it held a much more closed in feeling since there was a clear absence of windows. As he looked around, McCoy's eyes were drawn to what looked like a tall piece of bluish metal set into the wall opposite from him. It looked like it had been suffused to the wall, and though there were no buttons or switches near it, the thing had to be a door just from its shape and placement in the room. It easily stood out from the surrounding walls, which were all colored an off-white. Looking it over, McCoy chose to take the time and check it out more closely later as he turned to take in the rest of the room.
On the wall to his left was a set of utilities, all of a light gray color. A sink sticking out of the wall at about waist height sat parallel to the foot of his bed, which was itself perpendicular to the wall behind it. An enclosed shower, that was so small it looked like the only thing he'd be able to do in it was stand there, was placed next to the sink and a toilet sat on its other side. There was no mirror above the sink, though there was a floor-to-ceiling curtain hanging between it and the shower. Looking to the ceiling, he could see that the curtain could be pulled out in a semi-circle so that it enclosed both the shower and the toilet, providing some illusion of privacy.
To the right, set into the middle of the wall, were four drawers. They were situated on top of each other and spanned almost five feet along the wall, each drawer about four inches tall. A piece of curved glass was attached to the centers, acting as a handle so the drawers could be pulled open one handedly. The two-dimensional look to the drawers, along with the absence of other furniture in the room, made the room look incredibly spartan and a bit depressing.
McCoy removed the gray blanket from around his waist and stood up completely from the bed, stretching out the kinks and tension in his muscles with a small groan. The clothes on his body shifted and McCoy frowned as he looked down at them, fingering the edge of the material softly. These were not the same clothes he had been wearing aboard the Enterprise. Instead of his regulation uniform, the outfit he now wore was much more casual. The top was a dark green, long sleeves with a low v-neck that hung loose around his thin frame. The pants were a dark brown and had a soft denim texture to them, the material hugging his form in a way that was neither too loose or too tight. McCoy felt a blush burn across his face when he realized he was wearing nothing else underneath them.
His captors had obviously changed him while he was out and McCoy wasn't sure if he should feel some sense of violation or not. It annoyed him that someone had taken the initiative, but with no one to really confront about it, there wasn't much he could do. The sense of powerlessness over the state of his own person was not a feeling the doctor appreciated. He wanted his medical uniform back just so he could feel a bit like himself and maybe hold onto some sense of familiarity and comfort that was lost in this zone of strangeness he had wound up in.
As he walked around the room, surveying the things around him a bit more closely, McCoy's thoughts drifted back to Spock . He knew he had been knocked out mid-fight, but the last thing he could recall of seeing the Vulcan was of him being strangled by someone in the Medbay.
'What if that person had managed to kill Spock?' There had been three attackers in the room and it was clear that at least one had been strong enough to manhandle the Science Officer into submission, which considering the strength of Vulcans, wasn't always an easy thing to accomplish. 'Who's to say that once he had been knocked out the three attackers hadn't decided to just finish off Spock?' Agitated by his thoughts, McCoy restlessly crossed him arms, his eyebrows furrowing as he tried to turn his thoughts to something less pessimistic.
There was the always the possibility that Spock had lived through the encounter. If McCoy had been taken from the Enterprise, which had clearly happened, then the doctor doubted the Vulcan would have let them simply walk away without issue. 'Then again, you two didn't always get along with each other. With the many times you picked on him, maybe he was glad to see you gone.' McCoy hastily shoved the negative and somewhat depressive thought away with a shake of his head. The doctor refused to think like that and besides, Spock might have been taken just like McCoy had. There were probably hundreds of rooms like this one on the ship and Spock could very well be in one of them. If that was the case then they'd have to find each other somehow and figure out how to get back to the Enterprise in one piece. Then there was also the question of why they had been taken in the first place. McCoy didn't get captured often. That sort of thing normally fell under Jim and Spock's experiences with other beings, with him sometimes just being pulled along for the ride.
'Oh, maybe that's it.' McCoy began to fume at this new revelation as he continued to internally rant. 'I wouldn't be surprised if this was all Spock's fault. If it's not Jim getting into some kind of trouble, it's that damn, green-blooded First Officer of his. I'd probably drop dead of an aneurysm if they ever managed to get through a month without getting involved in some interstellar scandal or fire-fight. Leave it to one of them to drag me into another situation. I'm supposed to be a doctor, curing the illnesses and ailments of the crew when needed, not gallivanting off on some thrill-seeking adventure like some kind of hero. And yet, here I am again, stuck in some unknown situation for who knows what reason. Damn, stupid, pointy-eared computer. When I get my hands on him I'm gonna-'
McCoy's thoughts came to a stuttered halt, the doctor staring at the blank wall in front of him in shock. He hadn't realized he had been pacing the length of the room in quick strides, but standing inches from the white wall, his emotions spiraled downwards in distress as he reviewed the turn his thoughts had taken. 'No...no, that's not right! I'm a doctor. I heal pain, I don't cause it. Fix, don't break. Spock is my friend. No matter how annoying or bull-headed he's managed to be in the past, I've never seriously considered inflicting harm on him before. I won't start now. It's wrong, he's my friend. My friend. I trust him. I trust him.' Tears dropped from his closed eyes as his head repeatedly thumped against the wall, willing the mantra to cement itself in his mind. The strong vindictiveness he had felt at the thought of hurting Spock, that he had even contemplated doing any kind of harm to someone at all, scared him and seemed to pierce his heart like a knife. He took a shuddering breath as he scanned the room, wanting, no needing something to distract him and redirect his attention from his confused turmoil of emotions. His eyes landed on the yet unexplored drawers and he walked hastily over to them, using his sleeve to roughly wipe away the tear tracks left on his face. He shoved his bothered thoughts aside and with a determined air he grabbed the handle on the top drawer and tugged it open.
The compartment slid out of the wall with ease and its contents proved enough to make McCoy momentarily forget his previous thoughts for awhile, though they still managed to linger and drift at the back of his mind as he tried to focus completely on inspecting the revealed interior instead. Inside the drawer was a shocking number of shirts that seemed to encompass every color and cut he could possibly think of. There looked to be well over a hundred of them, all folded and stacked neatly on top of each other in such a way that they took advantage of every amount of free space available. As he rifled through a few of the stacks, touching and noting the different textures of the fabrics, McCoy was pretty sure he'd never had or even needed this much variety in his own clothes.
Feeling a bit confused by the contents, he slid the drawer closed and proceeded to open the one below it. This one held pants, stacked and placed much the same way the shirts had been, but in much more neutral colors. Reaching a hand into the drawer, McCoy brushed his fingers over a few of the pairs and decided to pull out a random pair from the middle of a stack. Unfolding it, he found the pants to be incredibly similar to the ones he wore with his uniform, the only difference being that they were a light tan color instead of black. Draping the pair over his arm, he reached back in and grabbed another, these ones located further towards the back. They were a gray color and when he held them against his lower body the pants seemed to be slightly baggy and long enough to fall past his ankles, giving a much more casual and lazy look than the other pair did.
McCoy stuffed both pairs back into the drawer again and pushed it closed, ignoring the other two below it as his sense of confusion grew stronger than before. This wasn't normal. He didn't think he should be receiving clothes like this, especially in such a large variety. He was a prisoner wasn't he?
Looking around the room again, he noted the well padded, though rumpled bed against the back wall, the shower and toilet with the division curtain, and finally the two drawers behind him that were full of brand new clean clothes. He'd admit that if this was a cell, it was the nicest one he'd ever been in. McCoy didn't even think the Federation gave out prison cells this well provisioned, much less on one of their ships. A room such as this on the Enterprise would be given to someone they had to escort or house for a short period of time, to make sure they were comfortable during their stay...
The realization hit McCoy like a ton of bricks. Whoever had him expected him to actually stay here. They had provided him with living quarters, not a holding cell. He didn't know why they seemed to expect him to stay, but the purpose of the room seemed so obvious now that he thought about it.
Whatever they intended for him or for this room didn't matter to McCoy though. As far as he was concerned this didn't change anything. He was still a captive. He had been unwillingly brought here and he couldn't even leave if he wanted to since there didn't seem to be a way to open the door from this side. The very thought of the presumptuous actions of those that held him was enough to send a spike of anger through his body.
'They probably didn't even think to ask first.'
He focused on the sealed door, the only means of leaving the room he was in. McCoy was going to get somebody to listen to him and understand that he was not going to remain some kept prize. Glaring at the door, he marched over and began pounding a closed fist against it, shouting loudly so he could be heard through the metal.
"Open this damn door! I want to know what in the hell you lot think you're doin'. You can't just take a man from where he belongs and not expect to hear somethin' about it."
The doctor had barely finished yelling before the door slid upwards into the ceiling. McCoy blinked in surprise for a moment, not expecting someone to respond so fast, before taking in the tall man that now stood in front of him.
He was a good two feet taller than the doctor and had a lean physique, but McCoy could easily discern the muscles that made up the man's form. He wore a pair of plain black pants with a matching short sleeved shirt covering his torso. The clothing hugged the man's body while a large brown belt hung around his waist, two sheathed, medium-sized daggers firmly attached to the leather by cords . The man's arms were crossed over his chest in a relaxed manner, showcasing the white that slashed through the dark brown skin on his forearm in a crisscrossing pattern, the contrast fading the farther up the arm one looked.
McCoy took note of all of this in a matter of seconds, but his gaze was riveted on the face of the man before him. Dark skin framed a pair of eyes, the color being the lightest of purple, as they gazed down on the doctor in silence. McCoy bristled under the unblinking stare, his anger switching course and rising as he began making connections. He was on a Covilli ship. They were the ones that attacked him and Spock, maybe even the rest of the ship and crew. They were supposed to be a nonviolent race and yet the memory of one of them forcefully pressing against Spock's throat as he tried in vain to push the arm away flashed through his mind.
McCoy struck out with his fist before he even considered whether it was a good idea.