The beginning of gamma shift found McCoy in his quarters, drinking red liquid which Scotty considered alcohol but tasted like a blend of ship fuel and cheap cognac.

He was drinking for a couple of hours now, but the mix of rage, betrayal, and self-loathing had yet to go away. It wasn't even Lee's behavior that inspired the emotions. She was an evil, cruel bitch, but he made his peace with that.

It was the memories she awoke that got him in such a state.

Everyone had things they didn't talk about. For Jim, it was Tarsus. It was Vulcan for Spock, and Gaila for Uhura. For McCoy, the forbidden topic was his father.

The disease that David McCoy had suffered from had been incurable; the death had been inevitable. They had been keeping him alive for months on life support, being full and well aware of his constant and unbearable pain.

There had been no cure and no hope.

David McCoy, a doctor himself, had known that. And once, he had asked his son for a favor that had been refused. That it had been refused again.

But one day, one hellish, exceptionally shitty day, McCoy had given in. One wrong dosage of his father's painkillers had been all it had taken to end that once and for all. David McCoy had finally found his peace to take it away from his son.

McCoy had known enough to get away with his little help to his father, but he had lost his job, his wife, and his daughter to find out five weeks later that the cure had been finally found. The result of it had been a several-month-long drinking bout and him enlisting in Starfleet.

And now, almost nine years later, Lee kindly reminded him he had killed his own father for nothing. He didn't even question how she knew. She knew a lot of things, there was no reason she shouldn't have known the information which was clearly in his profile. It wasn't important how she knew. The important thing was what she said about it.

She was right, of course. He hadn't been able to save his good old dad, and he was right too, when he compared her to Kodos, because damn, she did act like a mass murderer.

Unfortunately, their mutual accuracy brought nothing but pain.

And yes, it hurt. Even nine years later, it hurt like hell.

He was half a bottle down when someone buzzed at the door. He ignored it. Jim usually didn't bother to ring, and all the rest could go get fucked.

The irritating sound stopped, and McCoy sighed in relief. His unwanted guest, whoever it was, took the hint and left.

But he should have known better.

A moment later, the door slid open, and in stepped Lee.

McCoy cursed.

He was in no mood to see her, especially in this pathetic state. To be fair, she, too, looked like death warmed up, exhaustion clear in every fiber of her body, so he wasn't the only one looking like shit.

His personal red-headed devil eyed the almost empty bottle rather wistfully and then met his gaze. He shot her a defiant glare.

She gave him an unreadable look in return.

"What the hell d'you want?" he growled.

There was no point in telling her to get lost. If she intended to do something, she would go for it no matter what. He decided to let her do it so she would leave faster.

She came closer, took the bottle, and gave it a suspicious sniff.

"How drunk are you?" she put the bottle back in front of him with a sigh.

"I'm sober enough to tell you to fuck off," he said. It was always worth a try to avoid the interaction altogether.

But of course, she didn't care what other people said.

"I'll fuck off in ten minutes if you don't mind," she answered, studying the bottle intently.

"I do."

"I just want you to give me a chance to explain myself," she went on, ignoring his words, "And I'd like you to remember my explanation tomorrow."

He bristled. So she wanted to talk.

Wonderful.

"I'm not that drunk. I'll remember your words. Say whatever you have to and go away. "

She nodded and took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry I brought up your father," she said in a steady voice, "I shouldn't have brought him into this, and I shouldn't have implied it was your fault he died. I'm sorry."

She looked earnest as if she really regretted her words. He took in her sad eyes and her slightly slouching shoulders and wondered how much of it was an act.

"Is that all?" he asked coldly.

She sighed, then took a seat, clasped her hands in front of her, and stared at the glossy surface of the countertop.

Well, obviously not, he thought.

"You don't drink because I said you couldn't save your father," she muttered, "You drink because you believe it was your fault he died."

She glanced at him, and he met her gaze with a cold glare. What was she even getting at? Of course it was his fault. He was the one to deliver the fatal dose, for fuck's sake.

"Your point being?"

She lowered her eyes again.

"You don't know pain," she said quietly, "I mean, you don't know real, prolonged, severe pain, you don't know how it feels to bear the unbearable hours after hours after hours, to know that there is no way you can break free," her voice turned into a whisper, "But I know," her hands twitched, "And I can hazard a guess your father knew it too."

A shudder from the inside out seized McCoy's body.

"Get out," he wheezed.

"When one is being tortured," Lee continued as if she didn't hear him, "the first pleas are always to stop it. 'Please,' and 'I'll tell you everything,' and 'Let me go,' and the likes. But then," she sucked in a breath, "Then, when the person understands they won't be released, the tune changes. It becomes 'Kill me, kill me, please.'"

She looked at him. Her eyes were dead.

"Everybody says that, no exceptions. Death becomes a blessing. And you'll do anything to get it."

"Stop," he whispered.

She didn't.

"Your father was suffering for months," she looked him straight in the eye this time, "With no other way of escaping but one."

He hid his face in his hands to avoid these eyes that had seen too much.

"You didn't kill him," her voice never trembled, washing over him like a wave, "You freed him."

With a scream, he snatched the bottle from the table and sent it flying to the wall. The sound of shattered glass ricocheted around the silent room.

He abandoned his seat and turned away, unable to be close to her.

"They found the cure five weeks after I killed him," he choked, "He could have lived," a silent sob shook his body, "He could have, but I killed him."

His eyes landed on the shards.

They were like tears, he decided, and the red liquid was like blood. How fitting, McCoy thought, just like his life right now. Tears and blood.

"You couldn't have known the future," Lee said behind his back, "Besides, the cure didn't work on everybody, did it? It could have not worked on your father. And even if it would have, he'd faced a long way to recovery with shitty odds to come back to normal life. Even if you HAD waited, he wouldn't have been the same. He'd been a shade of himself."

The red liquid was spreading on the floor, inching closer to his feet. Just like Lee, he thought. She was drenched in blood, and she was steadily reaching him.

Once she consumed him, they both would be red.

"Sometimes it's better to go when everyone remembers you at your peak," she carried on, but he was barely registering her words now, "No one wants people to remember them being pathetic and weak. I believe he didn't want that. And I'm sure he was grateful for what you did for him."

His eyes burned.

"I lost everything," he muttered, watching how the red substance licked his boots, "I lost my job, my family, my whole life because of this. I lost Jo…"

Something appeared in the midst of the red, making the color slightly less bright. It took him several heartbeats to realize it was his tears dropping down on the floor.

He heard her standing and coming closer. She tentatively laid her hand on his shoulder, and when he didn't shrug it off, left it there.

"You did. But it led you here."

Her grip tightened, and he squeezed his eyes shut, choking on silent tears.

"Maybe it was fate, don't you think?" she continued, enveloping him in her words like the red substance enveloped his feet, "To bring you to Starfleet so one day you would sneak Jim Kirk on board so he could save the world. Maybe it was a good thing it happened because now you can save lives on a much bigger scale."

This made him whirl around and glare at her.

"I lost my daughter!" he snarled in her face. She didn't flinch back, "I'm not allowed to raise her, I can't even see her every time I want. To hell with the world, it wasn't worth it."

He knocked her hand away from his shoulder and made for the couch, dropped on it with a growl, and covered his face with his hands.

He heard her footsteps nearing him, and thought of fucking course. Of course she couldn't leave him very well alone.

"Maybe," the couch dipped a bit as she lowered herself next to him, "But if you hadn't helped Kirk, Joanna would have probably not been alive now. Neither would you. Neither would the whole Earth population."

He shook his head. All his strength suddenly abandoned him, leaving only void and exhaustion.

"I'm a doctor," he muttered into his palms, "I'm supposed to fight death, not help it."

"And you do it, and do it excellently," her hand was on his shoulder again, "You do what nobody can. You brought back you Capitan, for fuck's sake, and yes, I read this file too."

Her hand moved, rubbing his back.

"But sometimes… People just die, and you can't help it," she said with a finality in her voice.

He didn't respond.

She dropped her hand and stood.

"I'll be leaving now. Think about what I said, okay? I'm not always right, but this time… I am right."

Through his fingers, he saw his boots covered in this red substance that resembled blood. There was no way to get rid of it now. As there was no way to get rid of HER.

"Wait," the word left his mouth before he could think better of it.

She halted her steps.

McCoy looked up.

"Don't go."

There was a moment that seemed to stretch forever when he thought she would leave anyway. But she nodded, and for the first time this evening, he felt something other than despair.

She approached him again, standing in front of him. One more breath, and her hand was on his head, stroking it gently.

She was a murderer, a torturer, a liar, and he still loved her.

He grabbed her by her waist and pulled her to him, burying his face into her stomach. He slid his hands under her shirt and dug his fingers into her skin. She pulled his head closer, deeper, stroking him, holding him as he shook from dry sobs. Alcohol really didn't help to fight it back, so he gave up trying.

He cried for his father, and for the life he had lost after his father's death. He cried for Joanna, because fucking hell, he missed her so fucking much. And he cried for Lee, for a bright, ingenious girl who could have been anyone but became a person able to take over a ship with only a dagger as her aid and to skin a living being alive.

Life was really so not fucking fair.

Minutes, or maybe centuries later, she took his hand and pulled him up.

"You need rest," she said, guiding him to his bed.

He let her sit him down and take his shirt off. He watched her as she kneeled in front of him and pulled off his red-strained boots. He was still staring at them when she stood, looking uncertainly at his pants. She reached for his belt, but he gently took her hand away and freed himself from this piece of clothing without her help.

She made him lay down and cover him with a blanket.

"Do you want me to stay?" she asked quietly.

"Yes," he said without thinking.

She nodded.

"Lights off."

The darkness fell. He followed her movements as she undressed, illuminated by the glow from the kitchen lights. She chose one of his T-shirts to be her nightgown, put it on, then slid under the blanket too.

He lifted his arm for her, and she crawled next to him. When she rested her head on his chest, he felt how the storm raging inside him calmed down.

Her hand was tracing invisible patterns on his chest as she murmured a song in a language he didn't know, and he felt peace.

She sang him to sleep, and gradually, the exhaustion claimed him, and his eyes drifted close.

"Sleep tight, love," he heard her whisper.

Then, he slept.