McCoy raced along the corridors with a worried frown plastered to his face, people jumping aside to let him pass, thinking he was on his way to an emergency, when, in fact, he just couldn't get to his quarters fast enough to check on Hope. The whole way, he tried to think of words of comfort and reassurance, anything he could say to ease her pain and confusion at learning that, against all odds, and certainly against all medical and physical evidence, she might actually be a mother. And not just that, but a mother who seemed to have abandoned and forgotten all about her children.
Just the idea was so absurd and farfetched, it would have made him laugh out loud, had it not been so unsettling and downright scary. Hope being a mother, however medically impossible, he could imagine. She had all the warmth, the caring, the love. And, thinking back on the way she'd treated the kids they'd encountered since he'd met her, she'd certainly known what she was doing. He'd thought she was a natural at the time, daydreaming about a life where she was Joanna's mother, but now he wondered if it hadn't been much more than just aptitude.
However, the idea of Hope abandoning her kids, for whatever reason, was inconceivable. She wouldn't – couldn't – do that in a million years. The doctor was one hundred percent sure of that. She'd rather die than let any harm come to the people she loved. Or to anyone, for that matter. She'd proven it time and again. It was one of the things he loved and adored most about her, even though it was, of course, also one of the things that caused him the most worry. No, the only plausible explanation was that this was all just some fabrication of a mind that had spent too much time – centuries – in stasis.
He was probably just getting stressed out over nothing. McCoy really hoped so. But until they managed to find tangible proof either way, he had to help Hope get to terms with all the implications and possibilities. She needed him to keep her sane, and calm, and confident that she hadn't done anything wrong, that she was still the same, decent woman she'd been yesterday. Because she was. Whatever this was about, she was nothing but kind, loyal, and responsible. He didn't have the slightest doubt about that. Even if any of this were actually true, there had to be an explanation that would prove her still to be the woman he loved. Had always loved, and would love forever.
By the time he entered his quarters, the doctor still hadn't come up with anything helpful to say, but, in the end, it didn't matter, because he found Hope fast asleep on the bed, still in her uniform, her boots carelessly discarded on the floor next to her. To McCoy's relief, she looked peaceful and relaxed, and when she didn't react to his tentatively stroking her face, he decided to let her sleep and go back to Spock.
Absentmindedly picking up her boots and putting them neatly to the side, as always fascinated by how small they looked in his hands, the doctor stayed for another couple of minutes, just gazing at his darling Hope. How many times had he watched her sleep? In sickbay, on missions, right here in this bed. Beautiful, enchanting Hope. His heart did the same little flip it always did, when he was reminded of how lucky he was to have her. To be able to take care of her. Marvelling at being the one she'd chosen to give her heart to.
Regarding her now, she looked, more than ever, like this sweet, young girl, barely a woman, triggering every protective instinct in him. Maybe there was a mystery surrounding her, maybe there wasn't. But if there was, McCoy was pretty sure that Starfleet was somehow involved. They'd put incredible strain on Hope once, by burdening her with this unnecessary secrecy about her past. And he wouldn't be surprised, if they'd done it again. If there was something bigger behind it, something that would explain all the secrecy in the first place.
Taking the covers from his side of the bed, the doctor tenderly pulled them up around her shoulders, silently promising that he'd find out the truth, no matter what it took. Then he bent down to softly kiss her forehead and quietly left his quarters, ordering the lights out before he did.
-x-x-x-x-x-
When McCoy returned to his office, Spock briefly glanced up from the computer screen, where he was speed-reading through a whole stack of colourful record tapes.
"How is Lt. Hope?" he asked, removing one tape and replacing it with another.
"She's asleep," the doctor replied, coming to stand next to the Vulcan and trying to figure out what Spock was reading, as the words scrolled by far too quickly for him to make out.
"Good," the first officer said, "a mind-meld, especially when it is the first one, can be a thoroughly exhausting experience."
McCoy decided not to give that information too much thought. He had more urgent matters to worry about.
"All right, Mr. Spock, what have you found so far?" he all but snapped, his impatience once again getting the better of him.
"Well, from the limited historical documentation we have access to on the Enterprise, which, unfortunately, doesn't include any visual material, I can confirm that the Jennifer Hope who went missing for two days in 2016, indeed had two sons named Samuel and Philip.
"So, she came from our own universe, after all," the doctor murmured, for some reason feeling immensely relieved by the fact, even though the realisation that the two boys weren't just a figment of Hope's imagination was rather disturbing.
"Not necessarily, Doctor," the Vulcan corrected him. "I said 'who went missing for two days'. After that, she apparently returned to her family and lived to be 97.8 years old."
McCoy frowned in confusion.
"Do we know why she went missing? Where she spent those two days?"
"Unfortunately not," Spock replied, and he almost sounded frustrated. "According to this news article, it happened during a trip with a friend to New York City, where she failed to return from the ladies' room in a restaurant after dinner, then claimed to simply have woken up in bed in her hotel room, completely unaware that she had missed almost two days. Her friend had gone to the nearest police station and reported her missing immediately, but not a lot of effort was put into the search, as the common procedure at the time seems to have been to wait for 36 hours before taking action. The headline says 'Abducted by aliens?', but Ms. Hope is quoted to 'not believe in such things' and apparently submitted herself to a hospital to check for any health issues or evidence of having been in an accident or subjected to any crime or drugs."
Under different circumstances, the doctor might have been amused by Hope not believing in aliens. But as it was, he turned another shade of pale with every word Spock said, imagining all sorts of horrors that she might have run into before, once again, waking up alone and confused, not in another time, but still in a foreign country far from home. Why did she always have to go through such things? If it had even been her, of course, but after her time in stasis and her bout with amnesia, this sounded suspiciously like something that would happen to Hope. It was a long shot, basing their assumptions on a single article from an ancient newspaper, of course, but something deep down told him that it had been Hope. His Hope. And if his years on the Enterprise had taught him anything, it was that his gut feeling was usually right, and that anything was possible.
"But if she returned after less than two days, and lived out her life in the 21st century, how can she be here?" he wondered out loud, meeting Spock's eyes and looking at him imploringly. "Please tell me that you've come up with a different, logical answer than I just have."
The Vulcan hesitated slightly.
"Well, disregarding all possibilities involving other universes, there is only one explanation I can think of, but which you will not like," he said softly. "I can only assume that she will return to her past at some point in time that is still ahead of us."
"When she's forty-five," McCoy whispered, blindly grabbing for a chair and sitting down, the thought of losing Hope, even twenty years from now, nearly killing him.
Spock looked at him with a very un-Vulcan expression of compassion on his face, and for a brief moment, the doctor almost thought he was going to give him a hug, but in the end the first officer settled on putting a comforting hand on McCoy's shoulder.
"Why can't she remember anything about her life after 1991? And how is she not forty-five years old now, anyway? I mean, just look at her! Nothing fits, nothing adds up, we're missing something big here, Spock, but what?"
"I must agree with you, Doctor," the Vulcan responded, lifting his hand off the doctor's shoulder and pushing back his chair. "But at the moment, I'm afraid I cannot give you any answers. I have already put in a request for more detailed records of the years in question to Earth's historical archives, but they will take a few days to arrive."
"God, what am I supposed to tell Hope when she wakes up?" McCoy buried his face in his hands, feeling terribly helpless. "She's confused enough as it is, and she's counting on us to come up with answers."
"I suggest you tell her about her namesake going missing in 2016, and that we're looking into it," the first officer advised. "Maybe it will trigger some kind of memory. I also recommend we take this to Captain Kirk. Since Admiral Dakunia seems to be somehow involved, I assume that he knows far more about all this than we do."
"Yeah, you're right Spock. Jim needs to know," the doctor nodded his head emphatically. "And we should definitely contact Dakunia and demand that he come clean about this whole sordid affair. I've always felt that Starfleet hasn't given us all the facts and is holding back on the truth. Might they also be responsible for her not remembering?"
"Doctor," the first officer looked thoughtful, "Could any of her special medication cause memory repression?"
McCoy looked appalled.
"Well, there's something she takes for her eyes, and something to strengthen her bones, but they have no psychosomatic components whatsoever. There are also some special food supplements, but no. And then there's..." he hesitated, not even wanting to pursue the thought.
"Yes Doctor?" Spock prompted, instantly picking up on McCoy's reluctance to voice his suspicion.
"Some hormonal stuff she needs to adjust to this time that could have side effects such as depression or mood swings, but luckily, Hope doesn't suffer from either. And even if it did affect her in some minor way, it could never completely block certain parts of her memory."
"Are you sure? Isn't that a medication explicitly designed to her individual needs by Starfleet Medical?" the Vulcan persisted.
"Well, it is, but that would be completely unethical. Totally unacceptable!" the doctor was outraged.
"But possible?"
"I guess so, yes," he conceded, feeling his hackles rise at the mere possibility.
"We are talking about someone in Starfleet wanting to hide something," Spock went on, looking unfazed by what he was implying. "They might not be too concerned about ethics. Could you find out?"
"You bet I could," McCoy growled. "I'm going to the lab this instant. But I'd better not find anything! I've analysed the substance before, of course. I'd never give my patients anything that I haven't verified. But now I wonder if I looked closely enough. I could never forgive myself, if I failed to check for some hidden component that I just wasn't expecting. I'm certainly going to double-check!"
-x-x-x-x-x-
To his great relief, McCoy couldn't find anything untoward with Hope's medication, but he still couldn't shake the feeling that there was something very wrong going on, and that Starfleet – or at least someone in Starfleet – knew exactly what that was.
While Spock went to see the captain to inform him about everything that had transpired during and after the mind-meld, the doctor returned to his quarters. Hope was awake now, jumping up from where she'd been curled up on the couch the moment he stepped through the door, and McCoy's heart sank at the expectant look on her face.
"Leonard!" she exclaimed, eager eyes fixed on his. "I've been waiting here for ages! What have you found?"
"Come on, love," he smiled, stalling for time as he wrapped one arm around her waist and gently steered her back over to the couch. "Let's sit down. It's not much, but we found something interesting."
"Oh tell me already, don't keep me in suspense!" Hope groaned, but obediently sank down into the couch next to him.
"All right," McCoy exhaled deeply and, seeing her eyes tremble with fearful anticipation, couldn't help taking another moment to hug her tight and kiss her hair, which she bore with a rather impatient sigh. "Spock found out that one Jennifer Hope, whose age and other dates conform with yours, had a strange experience on a trip to New York City with her friend Nicole in the year 2016."
"2016?" Hope repeated dazedly, her voice trembling in time with her eyes now. "What kind of experience? I've never been to New York, and I never had a friend called Nicole!"
"Maybe you did then," the doctor softly suggested, gently tracing the frown lines on her forehead with his thumb. "Is there anyone you know by that name? Some acquaintance who might have become a closer friend over the years?"
He'd really hoped that the name would trigger some kind of memory, that there would be some spark of recognition.
"No one I can think of," she shook her head. "Unless you count someone who I went to kindergarten with and never saw or heard from again after that. But anyway, what strange experience were you talking about?"
"Well, apparently this Jennifer Hope took a trip to the restroom in a restaurant during dinner with her friend, and didn't show up again until almost two days later in her hotel room without any recollection of where she'd spent the time she'd been unaccounted for."
"Go on!" Hope's voice was barely more than a whisper, prompting McCoy to protectively gather her in his arms once more.
The need to hold and protect her had always been strong, but now, with the possibility of a time limit to their happiness, he felt like holding on to her and never let go again.
"Then she returned home to her family and lived to be almost a hundred years old," the doctor concluded softly.
"So, what makes you think it might have been me? She was only gone for two days, and I'm not anywhere close to forty-five, am I?"
"No, you're certainly not," McCoy agreed, cupping her sweet, youthful face in his hand, "but this woman had two sons called Samuel and Philip."
Hope's eyes went wide, and she inhaled sharply, but when she opened her mouth, no words came out. So the doctor just silently held her, giving her time to digest all this new and disturbing information.
"But still," she muttered when she'd found her voice again, "what you're basically saying is that I'm forty-five and left my kids behind?"
"All I'm saying is that a woman with your name and date of birth went missing," the doctor replied, his chest tightening at the shock and pain in Hope's eyes. "But no matter how, or if at all, you're connected to her, she never abandoned her children!"
McCoy felt Hope sag against him, sensing her dismay and confusion as clearly as if they were his own, whishing he could make all of this go away just by letting her hide in his arms forever.
"So, you don't remember a friend called Nicole, but do you remember anything else apart from the boys?" the doctor probed gently?
"No, nothing really," Hope sighed. "I feel I might have been a teacher, but I can't actually remember it. Can you tell me more about this woman?"
"I'm sorry, love," McCoy shook his head, "there's not much to go on besides this one article in the Enterprise's computer banks. We'll have to wait for the data Spock requested from Earth's historical archives. But even then, we really shouldn't tell you too much, since, like with your amnesia, it's vital that you remember things by yourself."
They fell silent again, both of them lost in their own thoughts, the doctor tenderly stroking Hope's hair and rubbing her back, as she snuggled ever closer into his embrace.
After a couple of minutes, McCoy decided to bring up something else.
"Spock also mentioned that Admiral Dakunia was there when you came out of stasis in this century. Or at least shortly after. That he helped you with your decision to join Starfleet."
"Oh my God, you're right!" Hope exclaimed, pulling back to look at the doctor in astonishment. "I'd completely forgotten about that. Somehow everyone looked the same when I woke up. He did seem familiar at the Academy, but I never realised where I'd seen him before. To be honest, everything about waking up and the immediate time after is rather hazy. It was a scary time, hard to accept that this was my new reality, and I try not to think back to that time too much."
"I understand," McCoy said softly, pulling her back into his arms, his heart breaking at the thought of her going through all of that on her own.
How he wished he could have been there for her from the start!
"Spock's requested records of the late 20th and early 21st century will shed some light," he murmured against her hair, "and, with Jim's help, we're hoping to finally get the whole truth from Dakunia, so that we can put an end to all this speculation and uncertainty. I'd much rather make wedding plans with you instead."
"You still want to marry me? Even though you don't know who I really am anymore?" Hope asked, and it hurt the doctor to hear the genuine surprise in her voice.
"What kind of question is this?" he shot back a little more forcefully than intended. "Of course I still want to marry you! Listen, Jenny, nothing can change the way I feel about you. Not even the most mysterious of mysteries. And I know exactly who you are. You're the most amazing, wonderful, brilliant, and kind woman I've ever met. And even though I can't for the life of me understand why you agreed to marry this old country doctor, there's nothing I want more than to be your husband. To love you and take care of you for the rest of my life."
Hope gazed at him for a long moment, her eyes filling up at his fervent speech, yet not seeming quite convinced.
"You're aware that I might be an old woman now?" she chuckled, but her attempt at a joke came out as a rather serious question.
"Still younger than me, so that's hardly old," McCoy admonished with a good-natured smile. "But you know that I've always been drawn to your wisdom and maturity."
It was true, he'd always felt her to be much wiser than her young years.
"And it certainly wouldn't surprise me in the least, if you were a mother. You have all the wonderful qualities."
"Perhaps we're really not too far apart in age," Hope mused, sounding more upbeat and confident again. "Maybe that's why our apparent age-difference was never of consequence to us."
"Maybe," the doctor drawled, remembering the many misgivings he'd had about their age-difference for so long, but deciding that now was not the time to bring them up. "And although I'm far from complaining about your perfect, delightfully young body, you know that it's not the reason I fell for you. At least I hope you do."
All of a sudden, McCoy's desire to comfort and reassure Hope turned into a very different, but no less urgent desire. And from the way she pressed against him, her hands starting to worm their way under his shirt, eager to touch skin, it seemed she felt exactly the same way.
"If there is such a thing as soulmates, love," he breathed against her lips, more than happy to let go of all troubling and unsettling thoughts for the moment, "that's us."
