He moved down the corridor at a fast clip, which was usually enough to shake an unwanted extra, but he hadn't counted on the sheer cussedness of Vulcans. "You say one more goddamn derogatory thing about humans, and I swear-"

"Quite often, Doctor."

"I swear." Len halted his stomping in the middle of the walkway to turn his head and glare at Spock. "Don't give me any of that bull about illogical humans and how primitive we are."

"Doctor McCoy, it was not my intent to imply such a thing. I-"

Len rounded on him fully, hands clenched, raising an eyebrow. "I know you didn't imply it. You said it straight out. And it's bullshit, Spock." He took a step closer, getting into the Vulcan's space, knowing how uncomfortable they could be with close proximity to others. Spock's expression didn't change, but it had to stick in his craw, he just wasn't telegraphing it. "Bullshit."

Spock just looked more butter-wouldn't-melt-in-his-mouth stoic, if that were possible, and it pissed him off something fierce. "I may be an asshole, but I'm an educated asshole. I've read all about pre-Surakian Vulcan. What was that about human history again?" He raised his other eyebrow to match the one crawling up Spock's forehead. "Primitive warmongering? Angry primates?"

"This conversation is devolving. I must insist-"

The monotone was as bad as the lack of expression. "Insist all you like. Dress it up all you like, but it's still just lipstick on a pig." He turned and stalked down the corridor again, at an even faster pace than before, but Spock wouldn't take the hint, and continued his pursuit.

"Doctor."

"Fallacious logic, Spock," he called over his shoulder. "Awfully hypocritical too."

"Doctor."

When he reached sickbay he stood in the entrance, one arm thrown across it, palm against the wall to bar entry. There was a pause as he looked down, taking a deep breath, trying to calm.

"If you would-"

"Oh, just blow it out your ass."

He didn't even stop to check out how well Spock was processing that particular human idiom, just walked into his office and sealed the entry with his code.

His back was to the door, and he contemplated the desk and the padd of paperwork briefly. The dead, and everyone who had been injured beyond secondary bay's ability to fix, were being transferred to the Bertrand Russell. 124 people, leaving the ship with a complement of just over 300, all stretched thin, on too little sleep and too little support. He was waiting for the current transfers to get settled into the new ship before sending over the few in stasis. He was leaving Pike till last, since he knew Jim would want a final briefing and a few words with him before their departure.

If this had been an ordinary mission, he'd be overseeing the reconstruction of the primary sickbay, but Scotty couldn't spare the manpower, and this smaller bay covered most of their needs for the remainder of their trip. They'd applied the Pareto principle, making sure that the top 20% of all sickbay services were online. It would have to be enough.

But this wasn't an ordinary mission. And these weren't ordinary casualties, if they could ever be called ordinary. His eyes automatically gravitated to one person at that thought.

The bed in the corner was in full view of his small window, but the divide seemed like too much at the moment. Spock had gone, and Leonard had a mountain of work, but he couldn't help but open the door again.

He leaned against the wall next to his office, arms crossed in a way that said 'keep away' in bold sans-serif. The scowl on his face was deeper than usual, darker. The irritation was subcutaneous. The urge to do something itched at him in an unfamiliar way; not heebie-jeebies or woolen underwear, but something deeper and unsettling that he chose not to examine too closely.

That he was looking at the area that held Pike's bed escaped no one's notice, he was sure of it, but the nurses had been cowed into submission after days of him being a bastard and kept their heads down. They might not like him for his shiny personality, but they respected the hell out of him, and that was enough at the moment. He allowed himself some time to brood before stalking over to the biobed that held the recumbent figure.

He'd had to brood on it for a bit, stew in his own juices.

Pike looked so still. Colorless, bloodless. Broken and gray-scale. Len didn't want to see it. Didn't want to pity him. Didn't want to see the opportunistic bastard as anything other than a bastard. It was easier that way.

When Pike tensed, eyes fluttering open, Leonard couldn't stop himself from pushing forward. His feet took him to the biobed on autopilot, where he went through the usual cycle of readouts. Everything was standard, except for the bile that kept foaming in his gut, acidic and angry.

"How'm I doing?"

Leonard ignored him, but his skin tightened all over, miming the drawn line of his lips. It was for Pike's sake as much as his own that he kept silent. He didn't trust himself, or the moment. Didn't want to raise the bastard's heart rate. He wasn't worried about Pike coding under his care, was well beyond that point, but he wanted the tests done without everything going cattywhumpus.

"McCoy."

Drug reaction was normal. Brain function, typical. Notes for the nurses on the transfer prep, including a remote arterial blood gas before and after onset of medical coma.

"McCoy."

Spine, the same. Make sure the team on the Russell knows not to...

"Leonard."

"It's Doctor McCoy, or acting CMO McCoy, or whatever the 'Fleet is calling me this week."

"I might not be your captain at the moment, but I'm still a captain. Answer me." Pike's face, already heavily lined with exhaustion, deepened its crags as he scowled.

Something in Len's chest twisted, but he answered all the same, knowing deep in his gut that his momma would be ashamed. Just like he knew there wasn't anything he could do about it, either. "Fine. Acute desiccation of discs at C3 and C4. Acute herniation at C4 and C5 affecting the spinal canal and nerve roots. Acute inflammation at C4 and C5 due to toxins. We've replaced the discs, but it's a temporary solution." He kept his voice as clipped and precise as possible.

"Layman speak?"

"Your neck is all fucked up." Though he had a suspicion that Pike knew exactly what he was talking about. The man was as well read as Jim, kept up with Jim, and if that thought didn't put a frown on his face, he didn't know what would.

"A little less layman, please."

"The same as it was before. There's a better fix, but we can't do it here. No improvement, but you aren't losing any ground, either. Same prognosis. And you can thank me for the fact that you still have motor function in your hands." Leonard shifted, uncrossing his arms and leaning forward to get a closer look as Pike flexed his fingers and then his wrists in reaction to his words.

"What was that about the toxins?" Still drumming those fingers, and Len had to look away, because he didn't want to sympathize, didn't want to care for this man as if he was any other patient, more than any other patient.

"It's localized, we were able to contain it with an absorbent polymer that created an elastic fence around the area. The venom is corrosive, but sticky like napalm. The pain that these machines are bypassing for you? Caused by the venom. I don't have the equipment to get rid of it all, it was destroyed at 40 Eridani."

Yet another thing he hated about Starfleet. It was like the north and the south all over again. The rest of the goddamn universe would remember it as the Battle of Vulcan, because they named battles after the closest planet. Starfleet depersonalized it like any other military juggernaut, and named battles after the nearest star. He wondered how long it would be before the star got sucked into the black hole as well. Instead of a bronze plaque, 40 Eridani would get a big black nothing.

"But you could do it?" Pike smoothed his hands down the blanket, but Leonard was pretty good at scenting nervous reactions, and wondered at it for a moment. He was cautious with his reply, but figured Pike had to know the answer already.

"Yes. On Earth, at SFM. If I tried it by hand with what I have now, you'd end up a quadriplegic. There are plenty of good surgeons there that-"

"I want you to perform the surgery."

"No. Not possible." An emphatic hell no.

"I'm not giving you the choice, here."

Leonard pressed close, face hovering over Pike's, voice a hiss to fly under the nurses' radar. "You said it yourself. You aren't my captain at the moment, or for the foreseeable future. I don't have to do jack shit." He needed Pike to back off from this. He needed distance. He needed insulation. He was tired of caring.

"On Earth. You're doing the procedure."

"On Earth, I'm probably going to get tossed in the brig. Or did you forget the scene on the bridge?"

"I'm going to request you, and I'm going to get you. You talked about credit before, when you were threatening me in my apartment. Well I just bought a bunch from the Romulans, and I'm going to cash some of it in for the best medical treatment available to me. That means you."

"Really? You really want me messing around your neck and head with a laser? Shesset and Dilori are just as good and they don't have an axe to grind."

"You once said that Shesset and Dilori would stare at a can of orange juice because it said concentrate."

"I lied."

"You pioneered a neural grafting technique; it's a big noise in some circles."

"Big whoop, you read my paper."

"Your earlier research wasn't on neural grafting, though. It focused a lot on spinal injury."

Leonard froze for a moment before forcing himself to relax, but he knew it was already too late. Pike had seen his reaction. If he knew about that, then he probably knew exactly why he'd pursued the neural grafting research with such focus and determination. Probably knew a lot more than Leonard was comfortable with. He hadn't minded telling Jim. By that point, everything of Jim's past had been spread out for him, whether Jim wanted it or not. So Leonard had shared the pain of his father's death with someone who could really understand it- but that had been his choice, and his spin on it. He didn't know what Pike had gotten out of an impersonal dossier. "What of it?"

"I want the best to give myself the best odds, and that's you. And I know you don't want to end up in the brig."

He should have known. A small softening, a tentative detente, and Pike throws it in his face. "Turn about is fair play? Is that what this is? I blackmail you so you want a little of your own back? Why should I care about ending up in the brig? You and I both know I don't buy into the party line hoo-rah bullshit. I don't need this commission. Gimme a conduct unbecoming and boot me. I'll be in a tidy little practice on Risa before you can say don't let the door hit you in the ass."

"You don't think much of me, do you? I know I haven't shown you my best, but no. No, this isn't about blackmail. I already knew you were too good of a man to follow through on that. On the blackmail, or the threat. But this isn't about the commission either. The commission isn't what you care about at all."

Those words hung in the air between them for a moment, short, but dense and muffling everything else. It seemed to encompass all of sickbay for a hair's breadth before the sound returned to fill the void. Leonard felt his hackles rise, and pulled the curtain around the bed. He had a feeling that this would require privacy. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"If I request you, you're latinum plated. They won't touch you except to ask where you want to be posted."

Oh, the conniving bastard. "And?"

"You're just as fucked up as he is, aren't you?"

Leonard knew exactly who he meant. "Leave Jim out of this."

"I joked about it before, but it's true."

"You can go to hell."

"You're worried, damned worried. Almost coming out of your skin wondering if you'll even get stationed within ten quadrants of him. That's why you're so hell-bent on tearing a strip off me."

"I don't have to listen to this." He wanted to stop listening, start fighting back, but Pike's words rained down on him like cinders, scorching away any useful argument, leaving only schoolyard defenses behind.

"You do this for me and you get to choose. A cozy little planetside...or a flagship carrying a Kirk."

"If they let him-"

"They will."

"You think you can buy me?"

"Everyone can be bought, if you know what kind of capital to offer. And I've got it. Not that it'll make you happy."

Happy? What did he ever know about happy? Happy was a little girl in Georgia, or swinging into the pond on a rope on a summer evening; the flash of blue eyes and a wide grin. It was isolated events, anomalies instead of a steady chain. Happy was a goddamn phantom, ghosts you couldn't grab without bone-chattering cold to show for the effort.

"Don't pretend you know me. And don't pretend you need me to do this. You know there are others that are just as capable, so I don't see what you get out of it other than me owing you a favor. And I'm not quite sure why- you know I'm not going to back off in gratitude."

"You do this, you won't owe me anything. As long as you keep doing your job and keep him alive."

"Ah."

"What's that mean?"

"Sudden clarity of thought. A fucking light bulb. Hallelujah."

"I need someone I can trust to have his back."

"And that's me?" Leonard snorted. They both knew he'd have Jim's back with or without Pike's input, but Leonard couldn't imagine why Pike was trusting him. With his spine...or Jim.

"I'm under no illusions that you'll do it for me. You'll do it for him. But mostly, you'll do it for yourself. It's nice to know you're just as self-centered as the rest of us mortals."

"Now wait just a damn minute!"

"But it won't make you happy." Pike narrowed his eyes, crow's feet fanning out in suspicion. He was calculating and frightening, and too, too perceptive, and goddamn, when would he just shut the fuck up? "I wonder if you have the fortitude. Because you'll be scraping him off of every planet he comes in contact with, and sewing him back together. Think you can handle that, McCoy?"

"That just proves you don't know me at all. You think I'm gonna angst about him getting fucked up on missions all the time; angst enough to leave him?"

And that was the root of the matter wasn't it?

Growing up, Leonard was always the protector; he took everyone under his wing. The uncool kids, stray puppies; it didn't matter. His mother had lived in fear of yet another animal following him home. When he'd met Jocelyn, she'd needed protecting from her big, bad ex, and he'd been more than happy to do it. And when Jo had been born, that feeling had increased to the Nth power.

In one fell swoop, that had all been lost. Taken for granted, then gone.

He'd come to Starfleet, drunk and desperate, completely rudderless. He'd been in no shape to take care of himself, let alone someone else, and then, out of the blue, Jim Kirk had fallen into his lap- bruised and broken and grinning like a madman too stupid to know there was nothing worth grinning over. The fact that there was somebody worse off than Len, more emotionally unavailable, was a revelation.

So he'd taken care of Jim. Patched him up. Told him when he was being a jackass. Made sure he ate a salad with his lunches. Studied with him. Bitched at him. And in return, Jim thought the sun shone out of his ass. He was someone's hero again, and that felt good. Damn good.

Building up Jim had an interesting side effect: it built Len back up too, brick by brick. He drank less. He cared more. His work was interesting and useful again, instead of just habit. A lot of people at 'Fleet Medical might laugh at the idea, but he was less caustic than he'd been since his marriage started to founder.

It was a smack to the back of the head. Apparently, he wasn't anyone without something to nurture.

And now? He was afraid that his sense of self was so tied up in Jim, was Jim, that there was no way to separate the two. It was almost like Stockholm Syndrome, except Leonard didn't know which of them was at fault. Siamese twins sharing too many organs. Mutual parasites- there was no healthy metaphor for it. He was afraid to find out what would happen if there was no Jim; didn't want to return to that pre-Jim purgatory and find out there was no Doctor McCoy either. And that honestly scared him, because he found no clear delineation between what was want and what was need.

He was too proud for this codependent shit.

Angst enough to leave Jim? Ha."Well think again, darlin', because the truth is that I never planned on being happy anyway. So fuck you." Even as he said it, he didn't know if it was true. He'd given up on happy a long time ago, but it seemed like he'd been ignoring its renewed existence for a while, ignored it till it had snuck up behind him and delivered a sucker punch.

"So you'll do it?"

"Do I have a choice?" No. No choice at all.

"You already answered that question, and I'm done being your punching bag. I've made all of the apologies that I'm going to, and I'm not going to wear a hair shirt for the rest of my life over a bad mistake in judgment. This way we all get what we want."

"He's twice the man you'll ever be."

"Perfectly illustrates the difference between you and me. At least I know I'm not good enough for him."

"No. That's not it. If it was, there wouldn't be any difference between us at all. You still aren't getting a second chance with him. Not while I'm still breathing."

"Did you tell him that?"

"I don't think I have to."

"You tried to warn me once, and I was stupid enough not to listen, so I hope you listen to me, now. He's his own man, and I think he deserves to decide what he wants for himself, don't you?"

"Don't be so cliché. Set a bird free- I've heard it before. You still aren't going to come within ten feet of him, you hear me?"

"Struck a nerve?" Pike's crooked smirk deepened at the crease. "I know you won't believe this, but I think a lot of you. A hell of a lot. But I have to ask, for your sake, and his. Are you worried about losing Jim? Or are you worried about losing your crutch?"

"You rotten son of a bitch. What did I tell you about keeping your legs?"

There was a small sound behind him, and a crazy knowing crawled up his spine even before the biobed curtain was pulled aside. Jim stood there, smart and polished in a borrowed uniform, half-healed bruises peeking over the collar. His face shuttered, but not before Leonard could parse the emotions that cycled across his features for a moment. Concern. Disbelief. Anger. Disappointment.

God.

"Bones!"

"What the hell was that?"

Jim had drug him down the hall and into Puri's room- he still hadn't been able to think of it as his room. As soon as the door had shut Jim rounded on him, livid and...

"What?" Leonard honestly didn't know why Jim would look so pained. Mad, yes. But not...hurt.

"You threatened Pike?"

"It wasn't what you think. He-"

"Did you, or did you not, threaten a commanding officer?"

"No! I threatened him as a man. His rank has nothing to do with this."

"Dammit, Bones! It has everything to do with it. It's Pike! You know what he-" Jim cut off abruptly, but rallied. "We're both on thin ice. Delta Vega style thin ice. All he has to do is file a complaint-"

"He won't file a complaint."

"How do you know that?"

"The same way he knew I couldn't blackmail him. He's a good man!"

As soon as the words left his mouth he could feel the color leave his face, his diaphragm buckle in his abdomen. Jim stepped back on his heel, eyes widening beneath a week's worth of furrowed brow. Leonard stared at Jim's face, as Jim watched the horror bloom on Leonard's. It became almost an infinite loop, with Jim's reaction deepening his own, morphing and shaping it into a fist hammering in his gut.

Shit, goddamn and fuck. This is exactly why he hadn't wanted to work on Pike. He'd known the man needed his expertise, but he'd railed against it anyway, because deep down he knew what kind of man Pike was, despite the hard attitude and the stripes and the inglorious fuck up. Leonard had reduced him to two dimensions, a villain on paper, a gold shirt and a predatory nature, even in the face of so much evidence otherwise.

Taking a stand. Apologizing. Doing what was right. Letting Jim be Jim. Bravery- so much bravery and sacrifice and fuck.

Leonard felt sick to his stomach.

"Then how do you justify that?" Jim demanded. "I don't know what you told him, but from what little I heard, it wasn't anything good."

"No. Nothing good." Whenever Len was faced with a growing mountain of hurt, he tended to turn to alcohol. If he couldn't do that, he tried to detach. Even now, he could feel familiar threads lose their tensile strength and slip away.

"He apologized, Bones. A real apology. So you'd better make sure that yours sings like a love letter."

"I know."

"And you owe one to Spock, too."

Leonard starts laughing at that, couldn't help it, because irony on top of irony on top of irony. "Spock was right, you know. He was right. Primitive warmongering, angry primates and all."

"What?"

"You know what's going to happen, Jim? How it'll happen?"

"You gonna tell me?"

"They're going to throw a party for us. A big gala. Return of the victorious heroes."

"Don't."

"You feel like a victorious hero, Jim?"

"Don't do this right now."

"Because I sure don't. Do you know where the word gala comes from? It's from gallows. People would throw a big party and watch the hanging."

Jim obviously didn't know what to make of Leonard's black humor, or the way he was still smiling.

"And Spock was right, because we're still Neanderthals hitting each other with rocks. We just dress it up all genteel now and call it diplomacy. If he's smart, he'll find himself a group of Vulcans, get the hell out of Dodge, and forget he was ever half human."

"Is that what your bickering with him was about?"

"Bicker with him? I don't even want to speak to him." He could only detach so much, and the idea of Jim devoured on a distant moon and never heard from again…it curdled any good intentions he might have had.

"In the other universe-"

"I'm sure the other him never tried to kill you in front of me! You can probably forgive him. Hell, you seem used to people wanting you dead. But I can't stomach him. That's what you get, repressing all the shit that comes with life. I grouch- he sits on it till it explodes and the next thing you know you're shat onto a ball of ice or strangled. You think I won't piss him off to that point if I try to play house with him? Fuck him."

"He is mad with much learning."

"What did I tell you about the Shakespeare?"

"Petronius Arbiter."

"Same damn thing."

"You called him a pusillanimous fuckwit."

"I thought he'd appreciate big words! I've got non-euclidian asshat saved up for next time." Leonard closed his eyes, took deep breaths and attempted to get himself under control. He dialed back his voice from the previous shouting and tried for measured instead. "Look, Jim. It doesn't matter. What's one more rule broken when they're gonna throw the book at me anyway."

"I talked to him. He isn't going to file a complaint. He-" Jim pulled a face at him, and shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest in emotional defense. "He tried to kill himself, Bones."

"Jim, he was rescuing the elders."

"Listen to me. I need you to be Dr. McCoy, physician and psychologist right now, not Bones." Jim's eye's sharpened, catching his and holding him, driving home how serious he was. "Essential causality; you say tohmahtoh. This is some really basic stuff, here."

"What are you trying to say? Don't pussyfoot." And yeah, he was mad. This is the first time he could recall Jim questioning his expertise. Maybe he'd given him reason- he wasn't feeling goddamn professional right now, but he'd been trying to have Jim's back, dammit, and this made him wonder if Jim truly had his.

"He was trying to kill himself. The Narada. He tried to pilot straight into it. The Enterprise was there, but he didn't call for a beam out. He was going to pull a Kelvin."

"Christ." No wonder Jim was…

"Yeah. Fucking ironic. So cut him a little more slack, please. He's hurting, but he's not showing it."

"What's it to you? You were ready to claw his eyes out at the KM hearing. He dumped you on an iceberg full of dinosaurs. He strangled you. So why do you fucking care?" The human brain was an odd machine. Scientists had been studying it for centuries and still weren't completely sure how it functioned; and here Leonard was, with a front row seat to the horrorshow, exposing just how little he knew about his own mind. Staring into that abyss.

Everything was disjointed and fractured; there was a real chasm between what his brain was screaming at him and what his mouth was spouting and yet he could not stop. He cared. Of course he cared, that was what made him Leonard McCoy. But right now he must be the most selfish fuck in the universe, because what he felt about Pike, or Spock, or even Jim paled when compared to what Len was feeling at the moment. And right now, that feeling was hurt. And like a wounded bear, he was lashing back.

"You don't know him, Bones." Jim was stony, as if he knew what was coming and bracing for it.

"And suddenly you do?"

"Yes."

"Well, you're welcome to him."

"Bones!"

"While we're at it, you're welcome to Pike, too." Self-hatred could be the only explanation for why Leonard was doing this, not only fighting with Jim, but offering up his worst rival in his place. Yet he couldn't shut his fat fucking mouth as he dug his own grave, and it was getting less shallow by the minute.

This had been the beginning of the end with Jocelyn too, he thought. Fuck up compounding fuck up. An unwillingness to admit he was wrong wrong wrong. Mouth too sharp. Memory for what hurt most, too good.

"Don't be like this. I need you to stop it."

But Leonard couldn't stop himself. Had never been able to, not even to save his marriage. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Look at me." Jim grabbed Bones by his biceps and turned him to face him. "You need to stop doing this. I'm okay. I'm not going anywhere. You've always been there. You've always defended me."

"I know."

"But I need to defend myself now."

Oh, how that hurt. He'd assumed that this was the sort of thing that would get easier with repetition, that you got used to your purpose being denied, but he'd been wrong about that as well. This hurt was like electrical shock; popular for torture because the human body could not acclimatize to the pain- no matter how much or how often someone was exposed.

His father.

Jocelyn.

Joanna.

Leonard grabbed Jim by the forearms, hard enough to leave bruises that matched the ones from the battle. He shook Jim, hard, shocking himself to the core because for a moment there he wanted Jim to hurt. "Dammit, Jim! I don't want you going off because of a wild hare-"

And Jim must have seen something in his face, because he wrenched away, defensive and angry, looking like all of his trust in Leonard was bleeding away. "I don't need another father! Or another brother!"

I Don't Need You.

Leonard recoiled as if struck.

He was struck. Maybe not physically, but deep down inside- point blank to the heart. Center mass.

Jim averted his eyes, and took another step back, widening the gulf between them, seemingly impervious to the way Leonard had frozen. He dragged one hand through his hair before resting it on his neck, looking anywhere but at Leonard. "I need you with me, I do. Just, please. Let me make my own mistakes."

The room's gravity must have gone wrong. He cracked his eyes open, fighting the tenacious crust that glued his lids together. The room whirled three-quarters and then reset, only to do it again. And again. And again. He slammed his eyes shut and groaned, flailing one arm over towards where he guessed a bedside table might be. He smacked his hand on the corner before spidering his fingers over the edge, feeling around like a truffle pig until he made contact with a familiar cool cylinder. He eyed the cartridge to make sure he wasn't poisoning himself before pressing it into his neck, depressing the mechanism, allowing sweet relief to filter through his bloodstream.

It thrummed through his vascular system with each heartbeat, and he knew from long practice how long it would take to cycle through his body and kick in. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi. Like counting off after a bolt of lightning, even down to the static crawling over the flesh, and the clean, awful smell of ozone in his nostrils. Six Mississippi. Seven Mississippi.

It scrubbed some of the cobwebs away, enough to allow for clear thought. Memory recall.

Oh.

Oh shit.

He collapsed back onto the bed, bringing his palms up to his face, fingers rubbing at his temples.

Goddamnit.

His hand was shaking a bit, which was better than the palsied spasms of before, but now he couldn't blame it on the alcohol. What had happened? Intellectually, he knew how everything had gone down. Hell, he had known it was a traffic accident in the making, but he hadn't been able to stop himself. He'd just been so fucking pissed off. For good reason, too. First Spock. And then Pike. And Jim...

Jim.

Leonard shifted to his back, one arm flung over his eyes. The recessed full-spectrum lights were preset to start brightening half an hour before the alarm sounded, mimicking the light of Sol cresting the horizon of Earth. They were about half-power now.

"Computer. Lights. Ten Percent. Set."

Two hours to beta shift. Two hours to figure out how he was going to get through the next week. Hell, the next few hours. For the first time in a long time, he didn't want to see the inside of a sickbay. And he sure as hell didn't want to see Pike's empty bed.

Things had been so crazy lately; so much had changed. He was the kind of guy that was good in a crisis, when shit needed to get done, but he wasn't an aftermath kind of guy, that much was obvious. He'd never been good with the bedside manner schtick, but he figured that saving someone's life beat making 'em smile in recovery.

Extrapolate the data from that, apply it to the USS Fubar, and this was what you got. He'd fucked up.

There hadn't been any downtime between one crisis and another. He'd gotten in a few hours of sleep, only to hit the ground running the next day. And the next. When he'd made it to the room, he had collapsed in the clothes he was wearing, not even making it under the covers before he passed out in a low-grade fog of antiseptic and blood, the smell that followed him into his dreams.

Everyone was working a shift and a half, or doubles, to make up for the depleted crew, and that barely left time for sleeping and eating, never-mind anything personal. Scotty had pulled some major miracles out of his ass to get them to full impulse, but the repairs they were capable of making were ongoing, and that meant a sickbay chock full of engineers with more balls than brains.

Some people needed alone time to process new data, rewrite their worldview. He hadn't had it. Or sleep. Or much of any simple comfort in god knows how long. That night in bed with Jim was almost a working week ago, and the memory was getting more distant with every hour as they passed in the hallways, barely exchanging greetings, working opposite shifts. Both worn thin, worn raw. Responsibility like sandpaper when what they really needed was a plaster cast. And then last evening- the first time they'd seen each other in what seemed to be forever, Jim had turned away.

Things were changing between him and Jim. And between them and Pike, in a way that scared him. Mapping new territory did that. Jim and Pike were equals now, in every way, and he was just learning that Jim and Leonard might not be as balanced an equation as he first thought.

The change started long before the Narada, though he'd been too mulish and ornery to acknowledge it. Pike had manned up like he still had a pair, no excuses or evasions. And hell, that was something even Leonard couldn't say he sparkled at, not after the divorce.

He managed to make it to the edge of the bed before throwing up. The hypospray helped the symptoms of a hangover, but it didn't always negate every side effect. His stomach wrung itself out, the burn and the scent sharp salt sweet in his sinuses, until he was dry-heaving acid. It'd be easy to blame the bourbon, but he'd drunk more and held on to his dignity before. Had become an old hand at it for the hazy period between officially separated and officially Starfleet.

But he hadn't drunk to forget like that in a long time.

Not since signing on.

Not since Jim.

The bitter irony that he had confiscated a bottle of booze because of Jim...well, it wouldn't be making him laugh anytime soon. Not after recalling the night's drunken epiphany.

Because he couldn't blame Pike, or Jim. Couldn't even blame Spock, no matter how much he'd like to. And that left only one other person.

Leonard stumbled into the bathroom and leaned against the counter because his legs still didn't feel up to supporting his full weight. He gripped the counter until his knuckles paled and looked at himself. Sallow complexion. Bloated bags underneath eyes that he could only suppose were bloodshot, since he couldn't meet them in the mirror. Guilt. Hopelessness. The taste of vomit in his throat as his Adam's apple worked.

He touched the reflective surface with unsteady fingers, tracing lines that seemed to have materialized overnight. He'd been told, more than once, that he was an attractive man, and his brain knew it was true even if something else inside of him scoffed at the notion. But as he took in the creases, and the stubble and the angry downturn of his lips, he had to wonder if he was in yet another alternative universe- one where he was Dorian Grey, because it surely looked like his outsides were catching up with his insides.

Somehow, somewhere, he'd lost his way. He'd confused the role of protector with ownership, which was as dehumanizing as anything he'd known.

Pike had let Jim go and watched him soar. Leonard was still trying to keep Jim locked up tight.

The mirror was a highly polished sheet metal, he found, after punching it with a clenched fist and expecting it to shatter. Instead of fracturing in a web, the metal surface warped, creating a crazy funhouse caricature of his face, making his reflection just as ugly as he felt.

The swollen knuckles and bloody fist? That was just gravy.