Series: Moments in Time
Characters: Spock, McCoy, Kirk
Word Count: 2800
Rating: K+

Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for The Immunity Syndrome. Brief mention of off-screen minor character death, ie. the Intrepid.

Summary: Captain Kirk has been abruptly awakened by many things over his captaincy, but this is the first time he's woken up to these particular two department heads simultaneously eating breakfast and biffling over a pet science project in his cabin.

A/N: I think even the best of Triumvirate fans forgets at times, just how smart McCoy really has to be, to hold the position he does – not just across the board medically, but scientifically. If he were not, I doubt that Spock would actually tolerate his presence, much less welcome it. This episode has always been a favorite of mine because it highlights both of them as equals in the scientific field – both with an equal love of the unknown, both with equal knowledge needed to complete a very science-based mission, and neither perfect but rather relying on experimentation like any scientist would.

Totally unrelated: This was the first time I've seen this episode remastered, and it's worth a rewatch for that alone; the remastered space shots are actually very cool.

Captain James T. Kirk, like most starship captains, sleeps very lightly as a general rule. One must, if one is to be alert at a moment's notice for anything which the depths of space may throw at the ship and its crew. He has rolled out of bed and into uniform in record time for everything from hull ruptures to false sensor readings, and has directed space battles in his 'Fleet-issue robe and slippers on one momentous occasion when overeager Romulans decided they would try to take the Enterprise by storm. This is the primary reason he so despises being kept in Sickbay; every slight noise, every beep and chirp of med-scanners, every sigh of fellow patients, is sufficient to wake him, unless he is being kept unconscious by artificial or chemical means.

All that to say, he has been awakened to any manner of things, over his tenure as captain – his entire tenure in space, in fact, as the habit began as a hard-working lieutenant aboard his first deep-space posting. But in all his time on the Enterprise, among all the boring and frightening and everything in-between scenarios which have brought him out of his slumber, he has never awakened to this particular, somewhat disturbing scene.

Given that his last recollection is feeling suddenly cold and dizzy, then passing out in the turbolift right before it opened on Deck Five, he could very well be hallucinating; but if so, he really doesn't want to dwell on why exactly his brain is conjuring up this bizarre version of Wonderland.

He squints up at the ceiling for a moment, blinking to clear both his vision and his head, because the latter is pounding mercilessly, and then raises a hand to his eyes with a faint groan as the lights rise automatically. It must be well into ship's morning, for them to be triggered into daylight percentages by the motion of his regrettable roll to the side.

"Lights, twenty percent," he mumbles from behind his hand, and they dim obediently. He lies there for a moment, then sighs and struggles to a sitting position, trying not to panic at the idea that he's been out for far longer than he should have been – who knows what condition the ship is in, much less her crew. It is inexcusable, his crashing before the official reports were made, before the damage had been assessed, before Spock was even back on board…

Speaking of.

He blinks owlishly back at the two pairs of eyes which are currently peering at him over top of what is a truly impressive number of data-padds and scientific apparatus strewn across his desk and at least four cubic meters of the surrounding floor.

"Don't you two have something better to do than sit there staring like a couple of…gargoyles, or something?" he mutters, slumping back on the pillows and folding his arms, glaring. If they're both in here, then obviously the ship is fine; Spock knows better than to be playing science lab when the captain is out. There would be hell to pay, if the ship needed one of them and they could not be found on the Bridge.

"Mornin' to you too, sunshine. I told you not to take that last stimulant."

"I hate you, so much."

"No you don't." Blue eyes twinkle at him over top of a cup of coffee. "But you probably hate the smell of that Vulcan oatmeal or whatever it is Spock's eatin', don't you?"

So that's the odor which is turning his stomach: that awful Vulcan breakfast cereal, a warm grain mix topped with replicated fruit that smells vaguely like strawberry-flavored wet socks. His stomach lurches again, and he can fairly feel the blood draining from his face.

Spock looks adorably concerned. "I was unaware of nausea being a side effect of that particular stimulant withdrawal, Captain. None of the other crewmen reported such a result."

He waves a hand to stop his First from chucking his breakfast down the recycling chute, managing a genuine smile. "It's fine, Spock. And probably none of the crew went overboard with them. Yes, Doctor, I admit it. Happy?"

"Ehh." McCoy shrugs easily, finishes off his eggs and what looks like a passable replication of grits – Scotty must have finally got the script tweaked to his satisfaction – and shoves the plate out of sight under the desk. A small stack of padds goes skittering after it in a cascade of rattling plasticene. "You just go back to sleep and let me know when you feel like drinkin' some fluids to flush out the rest of that chemical cocktail in your system, Jim. Now where were we, Spock?"

"You were postulating the theory that attacking the organism's outer membrane with a synthesized negative anti-toxin, designed to target the enzyme of acetylcholinesterase, might have been a much more sophisticated method than our somewhat crude usage of antimatter to destroy it."

"And?"

"While your theory has merit, the fact remains that the enzyme found in this organism's membrane only resembles acetylcholinesterase; to synthesize such an antitoxin would require much experimentation as well as time needed to break down the enzyme. And time was the one element which we did not have in abundance during this mission."

The captain stares at the two of them as Spock actually drops a padd carelessly on the floor and shuffles through the pile on the desk for another, clicking rapidly through it and then handing it across the desk.

"That would be why my calibrations were off in the first test, as you so eloquently pointed out to the entire bridge crew, Doctor."

McCoy's grin is entirely void of any malice. "That, and the fact that we could really only test based on what we know of single-celled organisms. But just the fact that it has its own central and peripheral nervous system tosses what we know about eukaryotes out the airlock right off the bat, we have to recalibrate everything we think we know and basically start from scratch under a new sub-categorization."

"I concur, Doctor. Besides that crucial difference, we must also explain the organism's ability to drain energy of all kinds from the environment around it; no known scientific force is able to do so by means either artificial or natural."

"So you're saying it's an energy-parasite-amoeba-thing."

Spock's sigh is audible even in the sleeping alcove. "I said no such thing, Doctor. And the Vulcan Scientific Council will certainly require a more scientifically accurate name than energy-parasite-amoeba-thing."

The physician rolls his eyes and hands the data-padd back across the desk, pointing at a line of coding with his stylus. "Y'see this here, though? That's what's throwing me, all this extra genetic coding here. This is all extraneous, according to our current knowledge of eukaryotes and their biological makeup, and I don't know without running sims on it what exactly it's supposed to do for a living organism. It could be the code for how it generates its energy draining field, or…hmm. Wait, you think it could be the coding for how it makes everything run negatively?"

"A biological anti-code?" Spock looks intrigued. "It is possible, Doctor. We would need to run simulations to test that hypothesis."

"I think Jim's computer can handle those, if you splice it into the Medical mainframe."

"Hey!" he finally manages to get a word in edgewise, because this whole thing is just ridiculous. They've trashed his desk – he can't even see the floor for several meters in each direction – and why the devil are they working in here instead of in the labs anyway?

"What, Jim?" Two sets of eyes blink almost weirdly in sync at him and he suspects not really listening to him. Spock is still even working on his padd, typing notes without looking down.

"This is my cabin!"

"And?"

He gestures vaguely at the, well, entire rest of the ship.

Spock raises an eyebrow. "Are we to interpret from that informative gesture, Captain, that you would have preferred Doctor McCoy leave you without surveillance last night, given that you were in serious danger of respiratory failure and cardiac irregularity from stimulant abuse and withdrawal?"

Oh.

"After you scared the holy hell out of Lieutenant Danvers when he tried to get into the turbolift only to find you out cold on the floor, I had to make sure you were going to keep breathing all night, Captain," the doctor adds sourly, fixing him with a glare that makes him slide down slightly in the bed, partially hiding behind the blanket as if that will cover his guilt as well. "So yeah, when Spock asked if I wanted to pass the time goin' over his findings I jumped at the chance to listen to something other than a respirator for a few hours."

He fidgets with a corner of the blanket.

"Course, he wasn't about to say he was worried, and was gonna stay anyway even if I'd said get lost…"

"A decision I am rapidly beginning to regret, Doctor."

"Not talkin' to you, Mr. Spock. So anyway, Jim, you get no say here. Just go back to sleep like a good little starship captain and when you wake up, it'll all be better."

He squints at the physician with incredulity. "Does that shtick actually ever work on your patients, Bones?"

McCoy rolls his eyes, stabs a bony finger his direction. "Shut it, you. Sleep. Now. Believe me, you do not want to be awake when you really start feelin' the worst of the withdrawal symptoms, and the last thing you need is me knocking you out by artificial methods."

The man has a point; the horrible, full-body jittery feeling which has been lurking behind the pounding headache has only grown worse throughout this conversation, and sleep sounds exceptionally good right now.

He manages, barely, to repress a yawn as he slides down a little further in the bed. "Ship's status?"

"Repairs are proceeding ahead of schedule, Captain, according to Mr. Scott's last estimate. Shielded in Engineering as they were, the Engineering staff were the least affected by the negative energy drain, and as such were the first back on duty rotation when recovered and cleared by Medical." Spock's voice is calm, soothing, almost hypnotically so. "Starfleet Command has been apprised of the full situation and is withholding comment on the reports until a final conference with you at your convenience, some undetermined time in the next forty-eight hours. By that time we will be in orbit around Starbase Six, whereupon shore leave has been approved for the crew for a period of at least eight days."

He raises a drowsy eyebrow. "Who did you have to blackmail to swing that? We were only scheduled for five."

"Medical recommendation, Captain." McCoy nodded companionably over the top of the padd he was studying. "The crew deserves it, needs it, and my logs can prove that. If they go against a medical recommendation by the CMO of a starship, it makes 'em look pretty heartless, and it's against regulation unless there's a Class Two or higher emergency in the sector."

He smiles, some of the stress seeping away at the knowledge his crew will be well cared for. He leans back for a moment with a relieved sigh.

"As to the crew themselves, while some are still on light duty and a few remain in Sickbay, the majority of the crew complement have been restored to their full life-signatures, with the aid of Doctor McCoy's staff and the proper rest and nutrition."

"And yes, I know he was closer than any of us to the amoeba-thing, I made him take a half-shift off too, Jim," the doctor interjects without looking up, and pokes the Vulcan in the arm with a stylus.

Spock withdraws his arm from the line of fire without a word, and the captain stifles a laugh, watching through increasingly heavy eyelids as his two subordinates pull up a report and exchange a few words about its contents.

"If our first thought is right, and this is genetic coding for what enables the energy drain, d'you suppose that means in theory that could be added to any genetically engineered organism to create a similar effect?"

"A disquieting thought, Doctor, but one which we must ask ourselves. Lieutenant Thu's'at in my Bio-engineering Lab would be of more specialized assistance in that area than I, as her area of expertise is in the genetic engineering of unicellular organisms, primarily bacteria."

"You're saying if this is an adaptable genetic coding for an energy drain, it could be adapted as a bioweapon."

"It is a possibility, Doctor. Which is why these experiments and the information we derive from them are so vital to our understanding of the organism and the possibilities extrapolations from that data mean to Starfleet Command and the Federation. Much as I am loathe to admit the fact, your expertise and partnership in this process is quite necessary."

"Why, Mr. Spock, I think that's the nicest compliment you've paid me yet."

He smiles into the pillow, because if he is hallucinating, it's good entertainment at least.

"You got that computer spliced into the Medical mainframe yet?"

"Nearly, Doctor. I would have been in five-point-two minutes ago had I been able to work in silence."

A snort. "Don't blame your inability to multi-task on the poor human, Mr. Spock. We're pretty good at doin' two things at once."

"A claim for which I can see no current evidence."

"Uh-huh. Hold this a second." A clatter and a small noise of protest, followed by the hiss of a storage compartment opening.

"Doctor, I hardly think working in this cabin accedes us the right to invade the captain's private –"

"I'm gettin' him a blanket, genius."

"Ah." A brief pause. "Would it not be more efficient to simply utilize the computer to raise the temperature of the room a sufficient number of degrees?"

"Maybe. But it's a human thing, Mr. Spock, you wouldn't understand. Blankets don't just mean warmth, they can also symbolize comfort. That's why we use them in Sickbay, not just a thermal force-field."

"I see."

"Do you?"

"While I do not comprehend the human attachment to a material object, if that attachment is what eases the mind of a human then it would be illogical, and quite heartless, to discount that fact, Doctor."

"Hmm, we may make a decent human out of you yet, Spock."

"Really, Doctor."

Warmth seeps in around him, banishing the chill which has taken up residence in his bones, no doubt another symptom of the withdrawal. He shifts slightly, curling up tighter under the welcome addition, and sighs softly.

"Yeah, he's out for the count I think," McCoy's voice drifts through what seems like a distant haze.

"Are you quite certain –"

"Yes, quite certain, Mr. Spock. He's gonna feel mighty sick for another twelve hours or so probably, but he's in no danger now. Last time I let him talk me into giving him that much of any stimulant, though, not with a metabolism as fast as his and as exhausted as he already was. I should've taken him off duty right after we hit that dark zone."

"Unfortunately, we did not have that option, Doctor. Had you done so, the Enterprise would have met the same fate as the Intrepid."

"Which, we never did tell you, did we Spock? We humans use the phrase, we're sorry for your loss. The words don't really sound like much when you think about it logically, but…that doesn't mean it's any less sincere."

"Your sentiment is…appreciated, Doctor."

"Well, let's get to work on this so nobody else is ever put in that position, what do you say?"

"I say, Doctor, that I am unaccustomed to pacing myself due to another's abilities, or lack thereof. You will need to keep up."

"Is that a challenge, Mr. Spock?"

"Call it what you like, Doctor."

All he can say is, he'd better still have a cabin and a working computer when he wakes up, he thinks fuzzily as he finally drifts to sleep, secure in the knowledge that once again, all is right with the world.