McCoy hated a lot of things. Naturally, he hated space. He hated losing his patients. He hated Jim's 'Come on, Bones, it's gonna be so much fun!' bad spell. Also, among all these most-hated things, there stood waiting. Waiting for Jim to wake up after his death. Waiting for his friends' answer on this god-forsaken Krall's planet without knowing if anyone ever made it out of the ship. And now, waiting for any word to come out of room four.

Ten grim-looking Section 31 officers were standing guard at the door there, blocking all attempts from the outside to get in. They ignored McCoy's claims to get to his patient; both Jim and Archer's requests to participate in the interrogation were denied too.

Nobody was getting in, nobody was getting out. There was nothing any of them could do except waiting.

And fucking hell, McCoy absolutely loathed this.

It had been almost an hour since the two women had locked themselves in. McCoy spent this hour in his office, working himself into different stages of panic.

There were so many things Jim's mother could do to Lee in that room. It wasn't exactly a torture chamber, and Winona Kirk was no torturer, but he didn't believe she had peaceful intentions. One didn't just go transwarp beaming for an idle chat with one of the most wanted criminals of their time. Especially such an influential person as Commander Kirk.

McCoy had started pacing the room a while ago, too agitated to sit still. Back and forth, he measured space with his feet, clenching and unclenching his fists, his mind supplying him with possible scenes occurring in that fucking room. His body was going from cold to hot and back over and over again, and he briefly considered giving himself a mild sedative before dismissing the thought. The medicine dampened perception, and he wanted his senses good and sharp.

He ran his hand through his hair in what seemed like a thousand times, wondering when the insanity would take him at last and he would stop giving a fuck about everything happening around him.

When finally, FINALLY, Jim's ID flashed on his comm's screen, he almost dropped the device, trying to open it as fast as possible.

"Jim!"

"They asked me to join them," his friend's voice sounded both disturbed and relieved, "I'll let you know what's happening when I'm out of there."

McCoy released a shuddered breath.

"Good," to his surprise, he actually managed to keep a tremor out of his voice, "Thanks for telling me."

"Yeah," Jim said, "Stop freaking out, everything's gonna be okay. Kirk out."

McCoy shut the comm close and growled.

Okay his ass.

Nothing was going to be okay, and he knew that full well.

He threw the comm on the couch and resumed pacing.

Jim called again ten minutes later.

"Doctor, you are needed in room four," his Captain ordered him impassively, and McCoy knew hell had just broken loose.

He swallowed, pushed his panic to the back of his mind. What did they need him for? Did they hurt her so much she needed medical help?

"On my way," he barked, ignoring all protocols demanding saying something like 'Yes, sir,' grabbed his medkit and ran to the damn room.

The scene he witnessed there made him shudder in relief.

Lee seemed to be unharmed, thank God. If she was injured, there were no traces of it.

Apparently, a slaughter was not on Winona's to-do list this time. The woman wore a perfectly composed poker face that was almost identical to Lee and Jim's facial expressions. Archer was the only one showing any emotions which, of course, weren't pleasant at all.

McCoy collected himself enough to salute, because, hell, all three officers here outranked him, and maybe, if he was polite and good, they wouldn't throw him and his girl out of the airlock.

"At ease," Winona waved his greeting away dismissively, "We have one important question to you, and we need you to think carefully before giving the answer. We need to know if it's possible to get Lee to her peak condition in one week."

He fought back an urge to roll his eyes. He didn't need time to think that over to reply.

The answer was definitely a no. Lee had just awoken from her very literal death and would have trouble staying awake for a long time, let alone being in top shape. Medicine of the twenty-third century could do wonders, but even it had its limits. And bringing Lee to perfect health in one week was definitely out of it.

McCoy was looking straight at Winona, formulating his words when he caught Lee's slightest, barely-there nod with his peripheral vision.

He frowned, considering it. She knew better than anyone in this room she was in a shit state. She knew she wasn't fit for anything but laying on her ass and accepting as much medicine into her body as possible. She most likely FELT her health was as fucked as her life.

And she still wanted him to lie.

He sighed, his mind made.

Doing this wouldn't be the first on the list of his sins, and it wouldn't be the last. It would be a violation of his oath, AGAIN, but he was past worrying about that. She probably had a plan, and if she did, he had no choice but to act accordingly.

"It would be a hell of a lot of work, but yes, it is possible" he lied easily.

Archer groaned.

Winona nodded.

Lee and Jim didn't move.

"Thank you, Doctor. You can go now. Dismissed," Commander Kirk said.

McCoy stole one last glance at Lee, hoping for at least some reassurance and receiving none. His damn woman was as transparent as a rock now, and for a brief moment, he hated her for being so calm when he was practically shaking with anxiety.

But then again, he wasn't an outlaw with a ten pages-long list of wrongdoings.

The door closed behind him, and he was on his own again.

Half an hour later, Jim was rummaging through drawers in McCoy's office and ignoring its owner's piercing glare.

With a quiet 'Aha!', the Captain of the Federation's shiny flagship retrieved a bottle of whiskey from the bottom drawer. He poured himself a generous dose and drank it fast. Then he refilled the glass, lowered himself on a chair, and stared into space, still without any explanation of what the fuck was happening.

McCoy's patience lasted for about five more seconds.

"Are you going to just sit here, man? What's going on?" he growled impatiently.

Jim groaned in response, looking at his glass as if he wanted to drown in the booze.

"Do you want good or bad news first?"

McCoy snorted. There was too much bad news in his life lately.

"Start with the good one."

Jim took a moment to reply.

"She's gotten herself a full pardon," he said finally, meeting McCoy's eyes, "Lee. From now on, she's a free woman, allowed to enlist if she so desires and given an opportunity to serve on a starship of her choice."

McCoy blinked. Then he blinked again.

It didn't make sense. She was a ruthless outlaw. A VERY prominent Admiral had a special interest in her demise. The fact that she could get out of this alive AND free was ridiculous in its impossibility. Unless…

Cold dread spread through all his being.

"What's she promised to do in exchange for that?" he asked quietly.

Jim barked a laugh and drank.

"And this," he said, "Is the bad news."

McCoy closed his eyes briefly, lowering on his chair and bracing himself for an unavoidable disaster he didn't doubt would follow.

"First, you need to know the context," Jim continued, helping himself to more alcohol, "Fifteen hours ago, a Federation data center was broken in. The intruders took a computer chip which basically contains all Federation's strategical information. The layout of our starbases, weapon specifications, the list of spies in other worlds, all that shit."

"Five hours later, it ended up in the hands of the Romulan Empire. They are not Klingons, but they've never been the guys who turn out an easy war. If they use this information, they'll bring the Federation to its knees relatively easy."

"The only silver lining is that the chip belongs to their Emperor now, and he is busy negotiating with the Andorians. He really doesn't want to screw that up. At the same time, he won't allow anyone to look at the info, and it gives us a window of opportunity. He'll be out of the Empire for another week. Until then, they won't use the chip. The bad news is, it is locked in one of the most impregnable fortresses any race has ever built. And we have only seven days to steal the chip back and to prevent an intergalactic war."

Jim paused to take a sip. McCoy stared at him.

A week. They had asked him if he'd be able to get her back on her feet in one week.

The picture had suddenly become very clear.

"Goodness," he muttered.

"Oh yes," Jim smiled humorlessly, "We need to break in, therefore, we need a person trained for this kind of job. There are a few specialists who can do it, but most of them are out of our reach. Fortunately for us," and there was a mirthless snort at the words, "It so happened we acquired one of the best thieves on this side of the Universe just recently. And this thief agreed to help us."

"This is why your mother came," McCoy said blankly, "To get Lee to work for us."

Jim grunted in reply.

"Mum's been working with the Romulans since dad's death. She knows what is happening in their world, and it is a stroke of sheer luck the news got to her in such short notice. Once she knew, she didn't have a choice, not really. We don't have time to find someone else. Mum had to turn to Lee."

McCoy ran a hand through his hair in agitation.

"It's insane. Why did they agree to free her? Why didn't they use me against her again?"

"Archer tried. She laughed in his face and said it would be very fortunate if in time of war they removed you from danger. She also reminded him he promised not to harm you. When he started to argue, she told him the deal was like that: she signs the paper, he lets you be. She said she'd never agreed to actually die. Smart little bitch, she is."

McCoy rubbed his eyes, feeling too old for this circus.

"She's not fit to do anything more physically demanding than going to a bathroom. She won't be ready in a week. She'll die on this mission."

Jim shrugged, looking unimpressed.

"Well, you have to make sure she won't."

McCoy shook his head.

"How difficult is it to break in?" he asked tiredly.

"Spock says it's impossible. I have faith in our little demon, but I don't know how to do it. No idea. It would be one hell of a case. The crowning achievement of her entire life. She does this, she's a legend. If she does this."

Jim finished his drink and reached for the bottle again.

"The truth is," he said after the amount of liquid got to the satisfactory level, "I don't know if I want to snap her scrawny neck or stand up and applaud. What she's done is fucking brilliant, though I admit I'm pissed as hell she put so much at stake."

McCoy frowned.

"What are you talking about? What's she done?"

Jim's lips twitched in a bitter smile.

"Plot all of this, of course. She saw the stolen information when she hacked that database on the bridge. She probably found out how one can enter the data center physically. She knew it all, and when the situation went fishy, called someone who could do the breaking in and gave them instructions. I think it happened when you left her after I called you. Remember? When Archer contacted us for the first time. It might have looked suspicious, so she checked what was it about. She looked, understood shit hit the fan and took action. She'd done it before, and even if they changed some protocols, it shouldn't have been hard to hack the database again. So she came in, took what she needed, and sent instructions. For someone like her, it must've been a milk run."

McCoy grabbed the arms of his chair so tight it hurt.

"Did she admit doing that?"

Jim rolled his eyes.

"Of course not. But it's so obvious it doesn't need to be said. Yet I do want to know how Spok missed this piece of information while poking in her brain."

"I can't believe it," McCoy whispered.

He didn't want to think she could do that. He refused to think she was that selfish. Nobody in their right mind would risk launching a war to escape justice.

Especially when there were other options.

Then again, she didn't think there were other options. And McCoy knew better than anyone how crazy her plans could be.

He rubbed his eyes, trying to convince himself she wouldn't have done that. He failed.

In the meantime, Jim was already half a bottle down and didn't look like he planned to stop.

"She had obtained information which was later used during the heist," the kid was reasoning, sipping his whiskey, "It can't be a coincidence. No one can be that lucky; to get an opportunity to trade her help for freedom just when she needed it the most," he eyed the bottle critically before refilling his glass, "She has a style, though, you have to give her that."

"What do you mean?" McCoy rasped, his mind still processing his friend's revelations.

"Remember how she beat us in 3D chess?"

McCoy nodded slowly.

"Lured both you and Spock into the places she wanted you to be."

"Yes. It was more evident in the game with Spock. She sacrificed most of her pieces to lead him to the place she needed."

"A gambit," McCoy muttered. There was an emptiness inside him that he knew would be filled with some horrible feelings soon.

"Exactly," Jim saluted him with his glass, "She's a master of those. She did it when she found out about the slave traders, and she did it countless times with you. Give up a little to win it all. It's brilliant."

"Unbelievable," McCoy whispered, mostly to himself.

Jim barked a laugh.

"Oh yeah. She sacrifices a pawn, read, an intergalactic war, to get the king, read, you. Do you feel important?"

McCoy closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The logic in Jim's words was hard to ignore. And it did look like something Lee could have pulled. It was insane, meaning it was her proficiency.

So he finally stumbled upon one profound difference between Lee and Jim. He didn't know how he missed it before, but now everything was as clear as day to him.

Both Lee and Jim used the same tactics, but their goals were different. The latter manipulated people and lied to them on a daily basis to save lives, to prevent trouble, and mitigate it if it was unavoidable. The former screw up with people because it gave her whatever the hell she wanted at a given moment in her life.

McCoy opened his eyes and looked at his friend.

"So she's risking starting a war to get a chance to enlist?"

"That's correct."

If it was true, then she had known.

All this time after the interrogation, while he had been planning their escape, when he had been looking at her, tormented by the danger she was in, she had known she would get out of it unharmed.

"Oh my fucking God," he mumbled, his voice scratchy, his vision slightly blurred.

That lying, manipulative bitch. She tricked them all again.

McCoy felt sick.

When she had gone over his head to meld with Spock, he had decided it was the bottom, the deepest point she could lower to in her schemes.

Now he discovered the depths of her lies had an underground garage.

"They let her go," Jim informed, "She's free to move around and to use the labs' computers to design the plan to get the chip. She also promised to follow all your instructions. She's finishing with mom, and then she'll be here soon, I think. Get ready."

The kid knocked his drink back and sauntered off, leaving McCoy staring at the closed door in shock.

It wasn't long before he was watching the bane of his existence again. She appeared at his office doorway maybe five minutes after Jim's departure, looking all lost and unsure.

He wasn't going to buy this bullshit anymore.

She played her role in cold blood, let him think she would allow them to kill her, and risked billions of lives to get thrown into a war.

She conned him into believing she would die because of him and didn't bother to fill him in on her plans.

"Hi," she said with a shy smile.

He studied her, wondering how many times should she betray him before he would finally see her for what she really was.

He had always thought of her as of a sweet, gentle girl. Now, when he was getting to know her better, he could clearly see there was nothing gentle about her. Everything she did was ruthless and selfish, disregarding everybody's interests except for her own. She wanted him, so she did everything she could to get him. Her words could be sweet, but it was a poisonous sweetness, created to hide mortal danger.

And what a wonderful actress she was. All the time she had talked to him before Archer's arrival, during her interrogation, and later, when he had thought he had lost her, she'd known she would get away with it. It was a betrayal, but he supposed he should be getting used to it if he wanted to be with her.

Which, he started to think, was not the best idea he had ever had.

"I'd ask if you're out of your mind, but we all know the answer," he told her, his voice flat, "So I'll just ask: why? Why are you doing this?"

She frowned and made two steps to take a seat in front of him.

So she couldn't even stand, he thought absent-mindedly. When they argued, she was always on her feet, ready to fight or flight, depending on the situation. Now, she couldn't do even that. How was he supposed to make her a killing machine she had used to be in one measly week?

"What are you talking about?" she asked nonchalantly.

And it was this unconcerned tone that convinced him fully of her guilt. She was predictable in her defensive tactics, and since she felt she needed her shields, there WAS something to hide.

"This fucking war. It's all your making," surprisingly, he still wasn't yelling at her.

She arched an eyebrow in a perfect impression of genuine confusion.

"Are you suggesting I did this? I was in the brig the whole damn time!"

"But you had an opportunity to contact your buddies before that, didn't you?" he retorted calmly, marveling at himself for not exploding just yet. "That's what you did when I left you back then?"

She portrayed a mild annoyance on her pretty face. Perfect, perfect player.

"You don't make any sense."

He fought back an urge to strangle her.

"Oh, I make perfect sense. It all makes perfect sense now. You lied to me, you made me think you'd die because of me, and all this time you knew they'd eventually let you out. You played me, but I suppose it's how our relationships work now."

She bit her lip.

"It's not true."

He really deserved a medal for not committing murder just yet.

"Is it?"

She bristled at him.

"Yes!"

He sighed. It would be impossible to prove her lying if she was insisting on denying everything.

Fucking Klingon spy.

Wait a minute, he thought, this was it.

"Swear on your honor then," he demanded, holding his breath.

If she had been raised among Klingons, she should have valued this kind of stuff. The damn race was extremely sensitive when the word 'honor' was uttered, so maybe they had passed these ethics to her.

He wouldn't put it past her to lie now too though, and decided to end everything between them should she do that. He loved her, God knew he did, but he couldn't be with a woman capable of this level of deceit.

For a second he thought she WOULD lie and panicked because damn it all, he LONGED to be with her. He started to regret making this silent vow when her face turned from sheepish to indignant.

"Okay fine!" she stood so fast the chair she'd been sitting on fell backward, and McCoy felt himself shuddering in relief, "Tell me then, what choice did I have? I could run and leave you to deal with it all by yourself or stay and let them kill me, and about ten minutes to figure out which option I like most. I chose neither, and this is bad how?"

He blinked at her, not quite believing his ears.

She didn't even see the evil in her actions.

This realization broke the dam, and he sprang to his feet too.

"You put lives of billions of innocent people on line!" he howled, "How does it make you better than Kodos?"

He regretted saying it the next nanosecond the words left his mouth. THIS is why he was so bad at dealing with women, and hell, with people in general. Comparing a woman he loved to a homicidal psychopath who had once authorized her execution was very much his thing to do.

Still, he wasn't going to apologize.

He actually meant what he said, and he wouldn't pretend he liked the way she solved her problems. She tended to make wrong choices and deserved to be told so to her face.

Her first reaction was surprise that was clearly genuine, but the sentiment didn't last long. A heartbeat later the confusion was gone, and her eyes narrowed, turning from warm grass-green to familiar furious black.

She adopted her battle stance.

Revealing her true self.

Showing her true color.

"So I just needed to let them nail me to the cross without a complaint?" she asked, her voice deceptively soft.

"You needed to give us a chance to save you, not to risk other people to be killed!" he shouted.

She sneered, all pretense abandoned.

"A chance to save…" a dark laugh escaped her as she stepped into his personal space, looking every bit as deadly as her reputation suggested, "You couldn't even save your own father. What makes you think you'd have been able to save me?"

Well, he thought, as a wave of rage and pain swept over him, he shouldn't have hit low and not expect a payback, even nastier and crueler. He showed he was playing dirty; she showed she was better at it.

It was a new low, but perhaps he should have stopped counting her lows some time around her stunt with a mind-meld. She was capable of every nasty thing one could come up with and then some. He really should stop being surprised by it.

He opened his mouth and closed it, all words suddenly forgotten. Probably, they didn't need out loud confessions now, anyway.

Not anymore.

Lee seemed to come to the same conclusion.

Without another sound, she turned on her heels and vacated the room.

Pneumatic doors didn't let people slam it dramatically, but McCoy had an impression this door was shut with a bang loud enough to echo through the entire ship.

And just like that, she was gone, taking his heart with her, leaving him to bleed from the loss in her wake.