The wind that whipped his face died down so suddenly, Leonard hardly noticed its absence. Arms wrapped around his chest, his only thoughts centered around Joanna, Jim, Spock, and all he'd lost.

Everything.

You lost everything.

"Hey! I found him!"

A bolt of lightning struck his core.

They're here.

It was over, but damned if he wasn't going to go down without a fight.

Launching to his feet made him dizzier than he cared to admit—or acknowledge.

If you don't think about it, it'll go away. A sound piece of logic if he'd ever heard one.

Fist still aching from his last confrontation with the security guards, Leonard set it at the ready, determined to break every knuckle if it meant getting away.

Away from what?

And to where?

You lost everything.

Remember?

Face it, you have nowhere to go.

Somehow, that didn't matter. Not when the adrenaline began to pump through his veins, shouting at him to fight, fight!

"Thank goodness!" one of the guards exclaimed. "Are you all right?"

Too close.

They were all too close. Red shirts everywhere, closing in on all sides…

He wasn't crazy—even though it felt like he had been rapidly losing his mind all night. He wasn't going to some hospital where doctors who thought they knew everything would poke and prod at his mind, trying in vain to straighten out his psyche.

I'm not crazy.

I'm not crazy.

I'm not—

Leonard clenched his fists tighter, raising them in the best defensive position he could manage. "Back away if you know what's good for you!"

"What's the matter?" another guard asked, her voice soft.

"Now, you just get out of here," Leonard snarled, ignoring the burning in his lungs, "or I'll hit you again! Get out!"

"What the hell are you yelling for, McCoy?"

That voice…

He… He knew that voice. Somehow…

Leonard blinked, fists faltering. "Wait… McCoy…?"

Reaching out, he pressed a trembling hand to the man's shoulder. "Hendorff," he breathed. "Hendorff, do… do you know me…?"

The Enterprise security officer shook his head, his expression floating somewhere between relieved and annoyed. "Know you? Are you kidding? I've been looking all over town trying to find you! Do you have any idea how long you've been gone? You scared everyone half to death, do you know that? Mr. Scott said you might be down here, but the bar was empty last time we checked, so we—Hey, your mouth's bleeding… Are you sure you're all right?"

Leonard's hand flew to his lip—to his beautiful, busted up, bleeding lip. The laugh that bubbled in his throat was borderline hysterical, but he couldn't have cared any less. "My mouth… My mouth's bleeding! Well, what do you know about that! My mouth's—Wait, wait! The hypo! It's—" Fumbling in his coat pocket, he could've cried all over again when his fingers closed around the tool. With a gasp, he held out the hypospray for all to see, a triumphant grin on his face. "There is it! It's back, I'm back!"

In a rush of emotion, Leonard threw his arms around Hendorff, soaking in the human contact—the friendly human contact. Someone he knew; someone who knew him.

"Doctor," the soft voice Leonard now recognized as Lieutenant Tosha filtered through the air, "are you all right? What happened?"

Pulling away from Hendorff, Leonard smiled so hard, his cheeks began to despise him. "Am I all right? Darling, I've never been better! Let me guess, y'all are here to take me into custody? Everyone knows what I did and now I'm being court-martialed?"

A prospect that once scared him witless now proved that things were back to normal, that he was alive.

The small security team shared a glance Leonard couldn't quite decipher. "Well, actually we—"

"If that isn't the most wonderful news I've ever heard, I don't know what is! It's been such a pleasure working with all of you! Look, I'll come quietly and make it easy for you, I just have to do one thing first! I have to see for myself that… Well, never you mind about that! I'll be right back, I promise." Making quick work of shaking his crewmates' hands and laughing at their confused faces—or perhaps the laughter stemmed from the insurmountable joy building up inside him—Leonard snatched his communicator, his blessed communicator, off his belt and flipped it open. "Scotty? Scotty, it's me! It's Leonard McCoy! One to beam up!"

"But, Doctor McCoy! Doctor, what happened—?"

Before he could even think about answering Tosha's question, Leonard disappeared in a flurry of crystal light.

The Enterprise had never seemed so glorious. Leonard felt his breath escape his lungs as he took in the gorgeous sight of the Transporter Room. Part of him still hated the method of transportation, but the other part reveled in all its instant, innovative glory.

The second his eyes landed on Scotty, he leaped off the Pad.

"Doctor McCoy!" that blessedly familiar Scottish accent exclaimed, eyes wide. "Where on God's sweet earth have you been?"

"Oh, it would take forever and a day to explain," Leonard gushed, taking hold of Scotty's shoulders. "The important part is I'm back!"

"Yes," the baffled engineer said, "I can see that! But I'm still not quite sure where you went."

"It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter! All that matters is that you know me! Where's Uhura and Sulu?" he continued before Scotty could get a word in edgewise.

"Last I checked, they were looking for you, laddie."

"Then they're all right? Oh, dear God, they're all right. What about Christine? Spock? Chekov? Jim? Where are they? Where—Never mind, never mind! I'm sure I'll find them!"

Giving Scotty one last clap on the shoulder, Leonard raced out of the room and to the nearest lift. Medbay. He had to get to medbay. Christine.

He had to apologize to her. He had to—

Nearly tripping as he ran, Leonard skidded to a stop in the middle of his medbay. His medbay. Though horrible memories still lingered on every wall and every biobed, his heart was too full to be brought down again by the past.

"Christine? Christine!" He caught her gaze and held it, dashing forward like a madman. "Christine, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, you didn't deserve any of that and I'm… Everything I said to you, I didn't mean any of it. You're the best nurse in the whole damn 'Fleet and I can't imagine working without—"

This time, Leonard found himself on the receiving end of a bone-crushing hug as his head nurse wrapped her arms around him.

"Don't…" A choked sob sounded soft in his ear; Christine hugged tighter. "Don't do that again, Leonard. You can't… You scared me so bad. Don't do that again."

"I won't, I… I promise. I'm sorry," he whispered, returning her embrace. "I'm so sorry."

When she finally pulled away, she gave her eyes a few quick swipes. "We didn't know where you went, and then when Scotty said you'd beamed down and we didn't hear from you… And then I found one of the hypos missing, I—" She swallowed down another sob. "I thought… I thought—"

"Shh, Christine, it's all right. Here." With the utmost care, he handed her the hypo, the thought of its lethal contents sending shivers down his spine. "Take it. Empty it. Get rid of it. I never want to see it again."

Clutching it in her palm, she nodded, all the while mumbling something Leonard couldn't entirely make out, though it sounded an awful lot like thank God.

The sense of dread that should've been shaking his frame couldn't compete with the sheer relief of being alive again. Because he had been dead, hadn't he?

Another shiver threatened his spine, but Leonard banished it to the depths.

Because he was back.

He was alive.

"Doctor McCoy." The normally controlled, clipped voice behind him held the slightest trace of emotion—of relief. Had Leonard not known the Vulcan for so long; had he not worked so closely with the First Officer, the smidge of emotion would've gone entirely unnoticed.

He spun around, beaming. "Spock!"

"The Captain… He thought…" Clearing his throat, Spock seemed to do a total reset, replacing that relieved, concerned expression with his usual controlled features. "You have been missing for eleven point fourteen hours and, as I believe humans are so fond of saying, you scared the majority of your staff and the bridge crew 'half to death.' The Captain in particular—"

"Eleven…" Leonard shook his head, trying to ignore the gathering cloud of nausea. "How has it been that long…?" The experience felt like it had lasted an eternity, and at the same time, mere moments. Honestly, he'd assumed all that walking, all that running, all that madness that had lasted a lifetime, took place in some sort of time pocket. What he'd thought had been seconds had actually been hours?

Approaching Spock, Leonard made the executive decision not to give the Vulcan a hug—especially in the middle of medbay for all to see—but he had to do something; had to reassure his frazzled mind that Spock was, indeed, real. A hesitant yet firm hand clutched the Vulcan's shoulder.

To his immense surprise and delight, Spock returned the gesture, clasping both hands on the doctor's shoulders. His quick, too-tight squeeze once again betrayed the emotion Leonard knew he was no-doubt fighting.

"Leonard," Spock began, voice low, "what happened?"

Opening his mouth only to close it again, Leonard found he couldn't explain the experience to himself, let alone put it into words for someone else.

"I…" Leonard cracked a grin. "I'd tell you about it, Spock, but I don't think you'd believe me. It was way too… illogical."

Spock merely rose a brow at this. "As Jim would say, Doctor: I dare you to try me."

This brought a chuckle to Leonard's lips before his mind traveled to—

"Jim," he said, failing to keep the quiver out of his voice. "Spock, where is he? Is he…?"

By some weird Vulcan mind trick—or by plain old human intuition—Spock picked up on his unspoken question. "The Captain has been in an increasing state of distress since Nurse Chapel alluded to the fact that you might possibly—"

"Bones!" The breathless exclamation bounced off the walls as Jim exploded into the room, stumbling to a stop a few feet away from where Leonard still clung to Spock like his last lifeline. "Bones…"

And just like that, all the memories came rushing back. The operating table. Failure. Christine, Jim. Sam… Crack! The hypo and the sparkling gold cluster of the transporter.

Jim…

Leonard wet his lips, missing the warmth of Spock's hold more than he cared to admit as the Vulcan took a step out of the way.

"Jim, I—"

"Where were you?" It sounded as if, try as he might, Jim couldn't get his voice to rise above a hoarse whisper.

"Jim, I can explain, I promise, I can—"

"You just disappeared and I thought… Well, I thought it was… We all needed space, but then Chapel said that you… That the hypo you took, it…" Jim took a pause in his ramblings to suck in a harsh breath, his eyelids fluttering a mile a minute. "And then when we couldn't find you—No one had even seen you since… I couldn't call you—No one could get ahold of you… And Scotty said you'd beamed down to… Bones, I—" He shook his head, lips pursed, breathing bordering on ragged. "I… I can't lose anyone else. I can't—"

Leonard found himself blinking just a fiercely back at Jim. Cut it out. Enough tears had already been shed that evening—too many lost, desperate, bitter tears…

"I can't, Bones, I…"

"I'm sorry," Leonard breathed. "I didn't mean—"

Only when Jim's arms were around him, clutching at the back of Leonard's shirt as if it were the only thing keeping him alive, did the dam break. Those once-loathed tears now felt like a sweet release.

"It wasn't your fault." The confession was so quiet, Leonard thought he'd imagined it at first. However, the shock rolling through his veins felt anything but imaginary.

"Jim…"

"Sam, he…" Jim choked back a sob. "We barely kept in touch over the years. He… He had this condition he never… I never knew about it, something with his heart, I… I'm sorry, Bones. It wasn't anything you did and I'm so sorry."

If Leonard squeezed any tighter, he knew he'd shatter his friend into a dozen pieces. He didn't know how to feel about this new development. His relief was palpable, but a renewed sense of guilt began trickling into his mind. Some part of him chided that he should've caught it, should've noticed something that crucial.

Everything had happened so fast.

You can't catch everything.

But I'm a doctor—a surgeon.It's my job.

Even the best physicians make mistakes.

"It wasn't your fault, Bones."

It wasn't…

"I never should've…" Jim went on. "I was so horrible and—"

"Jim, stop. It's all right, do you hear?" He tightened the embrace, squeezing his eyes shut as fresh tears trailed down his cheeks. "It's all right."

In response, Jim let out a shuddering breath, burying his face in Leonard's shoulder.

Life had never felt so sweet, so precious, so… wonderful.

"So…" Leonard said after a few moments. After his hammering heart had returned to normal and the tear-tracks were no more than faded stains on his cheeks. "... Does this mean I'm not getting a court-martial?"

The laugh that burst from Jim's throat sounded more like a residual sob, but Leonard could practically see the smile spreading across Jim's face.

"The hell, you aren't," came the soft yet intense reply. "I've already sentenced you to serve on this starship for another five-year mission after this one, and maybe then some."

The snarky comeback on his tongue perished in a thick wave of relief.

Instead, a light chuckle floated out on a deep sigh.

Home.

He had returned to the Enterprise countless times after countless tiring missions and missions-gone-wrong, but never had any return ever felt so much like coming home as this one.

"You have such a wonderful life, Leonard…"

The angel's words echoed throughout his mind and heart.

And for the very first time in his life, Leonard McCoy truly believed them.

The End