"And then?" McCoy asks again.
"And then I turned around and her mouth moved," Lavigne says.
"How?"
"Like she was-" Lavigne purses her lips. "Sleeping. Dreaming? I don't - I don't know, sir."
McCoy holds a finger up. "But she moved."
Lavigne nods. "And her hand twitched, like I said."
"Like you said."
"I'm afraid that's all, sir," Lavigne says. "I'm sorry, but I came and got you right away."
McCoy presses his fingers to his mouth, staring down at Chapel. He tries to remember how her hand was earlier. Slightly closer to the edge of the bed, where now it's nearer her side. Maybe. Or not. He wonders if he's ever seen her asleep. Not that he can remember. She never came on many away missions, lucky enough to miss the nights they spent huddled on the planet of the week, wishing for their own beds.
"Chapel," McCoy says. Under his hand, her shoulder is slight. He gives her a small shake. "Nurse." She just lays there. "Christine," he tries.
Jim walks through the door, Spock a stride behind him. McCoy squeezes Chapel's shoulder and lets his hand drop.
"Any news?" Jim asks.
"We're not sure what happened, Jim." McCoy points at the readout above Chapel's head. "All of her vitals are unchanged, but Lavigne says she moved."
Jim peers down at Chapel same as McCoy had when he first came in, like if he looked long enough, she'd do it again. Spock takes the padd Lavigne is holding and starts flicking through it, his finger scrolling across the screen as he reads.
"What could have caused this?" Jim asks. "Has it happened with anyone else?"
"Not that we know of, but I sent Sulu and Chekov out to the rest of the crew to see if there's been a change." McCoy shakes his head. "And I don't know. It could be anything."
"Chapel's in here," Jim says. "Could we bring a few more of the crew in and see what happens?"
"Oh, now you want to move everyone?" McCoy asks. "Right after hosting a firefight in the middle of my sickbay?"
"Could it have been the fight?" Jim asks.
"It could be the height the biobed is off the ground, it could be the time of day, it could be what you had for breakfast," McCoy says. He's been at this long enough to know that the answers aren't easy. He shakes his head. "Or a host of pretty much anything else. I have no idea, Jim."
"Lavigne," Jim says. "I'm going to ask you something, ok?" She nods quickly. Jim steps closer, his voice soft. "It's been a long day. Are you sure of what you saw?"
"Yes, sir," she says and her nod is firm this time. "I'm certain. I wouldn't have gotten Doctor McCoy if I wasn't."
"Good." Jim pats her arm. "Now I know you've already told McCoy, but from the top again, exactly what happened."
While Lavigne talks, McCoy limps his way across the room. Giving into the urge to move feels good, even if it's at a slow, stiff hobble that takes him past where Manas is lying, gray and too still.
"Anything?" McCoy asks when Spock looks up from his padd. He hates how he has to half hop over there.
"No," Spock says and McCoy touches two fingers to his own forehead, trying to forestall a sigh. And a headache.
He could take one more step and grab the padd from Spock to scroll through himself. But it's the same data he's already examined backwards and forwards again, and it isn't any more helpful than Chapel laying there, still as a stone. None of this makes sense, though McCoy's sure he should be used to that by now, yet another mystery to tease apart with lives on the line, enemies in their brig, and a hostile planet outside. It's horribly commonplace isn't it, the drag of exhaustion tinged through with adrenaline spiking.
"We'll run those scans again," McCoy finally says. "Now and in an hour. Let's get Chekov to complete another diagnostic on the sensor calibration and make sure we're not losing anything to the planet's interference."
"I'll go get him," Jim says and in a swish of the doors, he's gone.
"I'll start on the Nurse's vitals," Lavigne says.
When she's bent over Chapel, McCoy lets out that sigh. Next to him, Spock's still holding the padd, and he's examining it once more, the blue of it shining on his face. He looks so still. Focused, really, in that way of his. Up until he blinks and catches McCoy watching him.
"The logical conclusion is that our tricorders cannot discern that which has altered in the Nurse's condition," Spock says, which saves McCoy from having to come up with something of his own.
McCoy balances his hip against the nearest biobed. His bad leg is tired from the weight on it. He doesn't want to think of the layers of muscles, barely healed and now strained.
There's another logical conclusion that Spock isn't saying. Jim did though - that Lavigne imagined it all. And McCoy wouldn't blame her, since he's seen a thing or two after too little sleep and a too long surgery. One that went off the rails too. But Spock's not voicing that, and McCoy isn't going to either.
Instead, he just says, "If that's the case, Chekov will catch it."
"Indeed," Spock says.
Someone moved Kierzkowski, which is a small relief. But that's then just one more body in the ship's morgue. McCoy's not certain there won't be more by the time they make it off this godforsaken planet. It's an old thought, to hold in his mind the crew on the ship around him and to be sure enough that some of them might make the trip back in cryovac. Who, he's never taken to guessing, but it sometimes feels like it's one after the other and there's nothing he can do to stop it. First aid doesn't do much in the face of a hostile enemy, and not stuck out here with a poor stash of supplies and an overworked staff that was thin to begin with.
He pinches the bridge of his nose. If there's a hell, he's sure this is it - a crew he's unable to wake up and the rest of them dropping like flies around him while he watches.
He manages his way down the corridor on his own this time, though he's sure he's making a mess of it, one hand propped on the wall with each step. Spock walks a pace behind him. Slow too, to match McCoy's speed. He wonders if Spock's waiting for him to fall. And when he does stop, Spock draws up short, a careful distance that McCoy can feel at his back. Though it's not the shake of his leg that makes him stop shy of their quarters, but the smell of food. His stomach growls and he turns down the hall to the rec room, half dragging his leg with him.
"Heard you were up," Sulu says. He's holding a sandwich. McCoy could order him to hand it over. He's dimly aware that his mouth started watering several ungainly steps ago. "How're you feeling?"
"Did you replicate that?" he asks
"There's more," Sulu says and McCoy could kiss him, but he's too busy dragging himself to the counter Sulu tipped his head towards.
Soft bread, lettuce and a thick slice tomato. Definitely replicated, it has that slight graininess to it, a quality of being too close to perfect. But there's roast beef too, and a healthy slather of mustard, and what has to be cheddar cheese.
McCoy puts half the sandwich in his mouth.
"Scotty got this all together last night," Sulu is saying. He sets his plate down and produces a bowl of chips. "Here. It took Keenser four tries, but they came out all right, I think."
They did. McCoy eats a handful. "Is there coke?" he asks.
"We tried, but all the soda kept coming out purple," Sulu says and McCoy shrugs and takes another bite. With the back of his hand, he wipes mustard off his cheek, chews, swallows, and sticks the rest of the sandwich into his mouth. He takes the bowl from Sulu and makes his way to the couch. With a groan, he sinks onto it and lifts his leg to rest on a packing crate. Replicator parts, he's pretty sure, from the look of them. Well worth it, if this is how everyone spent last night, doing the good work of making some halfway decent food.
"How's your arm?" McCoy asks.
"Fine." Sulu brings his elbow up and down. "Been worse."
"Haven't we all," McCoy says and grabs another handful of chips. He doesn't look up from the bowl until the couch sinks. Spock sits a cushion and a half away. He peers at McCoy like he's a particularly abnormal lab specimen. McCoy wipes at his mouth again with his wrist.
"Are you fan of chips, Spock?" he asks and holds the bowl out.
"I am not."
"Live a little," McCoy says, only to really hear the words once they come out. That was, very precisely, what Spock was angling to do, now wasn't it. McCoy fishes around for an unbroken chip and eats it in two bites, one half and then the next. He doesn't look over at Spock again.
He's finished half the bowl when Uhura comes in and sits on Spock's other side.
"Kattel's people aren't talking," Uhura says.
"They're waiting for her to wake up?" McCoy asks.
Uhura shrugs. "They're not saying one way or another. Is she ok?"
Her question just makes it McCoy's turn to shrug. He sticks his hand back in the bowl. "Spock knocked her out something good. There's not exactly an antidote."
"Well, it at least gives us a break from her negotiating skills," Uhura says.
"Or lack thereof," Sulu says. He balances on the arm of the couch next to her. "Does she really think we're going to just hand over Manas?"
"We're not going to," Jim says from behind them.
"Hey," Uhura says and shifts to the side to make room for him.
"Shove over," Jim says and his tap on Spock's shoulder moves Spock one graceful scoot closer to McCoy. Jim sighs as he settles between Spock and Uhura and kicks his feet up too. "We'll figure something else out."
McCoy will figure something else out. He hears it, even if Jim doesn't say it. He tips the bowl forward onto the crate next to his foot and wipes his hand on his pant leg.
"Give me some," Jim says, leaning across Spock towards the bowl.
"How's the shoulder, Jim?" McCoy asks. He doesn't look down at where Spock's thigh is pressed close to his own.
"Improved by potato chips," Jim says and snags the rim of the bowl.
"You're giving me gray hairs," McCoy says and Jim grins around a mouthful of chips.
"Nah, you're just getting old." Jim cranes himself backwards and twists to call to the door, "Scotty! Your sandwiches are under attack."
"And fine sandwiches they are, sir," Scotty says. He has a wrench in his hand and Jaylah a step behind him. Keenser, too, the three of them looking like the motliest of crews, whatever it was that they were fixing.
Hopefully the backend of the replicators for some more decent food. Or the engines, though McCoy's pretty sure Scotty wouldn't be wandering over here, tapping the wrench idly against his palm if that were the case. No, they'd be scrambling for the bridge if there were any real progress being made.
By Scotty or by McCoy himself. He crosses his arms over his chest.
"The food on Earth is good," Scotty's saying when McCoy looks up again. Jaylah's bent over a control panel on the wall, the cover of it popped open to reveal a mess of wires, but McCoy's sure she's listening. "What's that deli, Jim, near the Academy Hall with the-"
"-Sonny's," Jim says. He grins. "So good. With the chicken?"
"The chicken," Scotty sighs. He circles behind McCoy and comes around to grab a handful of chips. "What I wouldn't give for one of those sandwiches."
"We used to take them down to that park, remember?" Jim asks and Uhura nods when Jim nudges her with an elbow. McCoy remembers that too. Warm days, when the most they could eke out of their schedules was an extra ten minutes on their lunch break. But it was worth it, wasn't it, sitting with the ocean breeze and the view of the bridge over the bay, peeling greasy, sticky paper from their sandwiches. Uhura would never finish hers, would just hand the rest of it to Jim, who could have probably polished off two more of them without slowing down.
"The Commander says that Earth is foggy," Jaylah says. "Why do you eat outside in fog?"
"Don't listen to him," Uhura says. "Earth is lovely."
"Ah, that it is," Scotty says. "It's why the Academy is there, and wasn't built on Andor or Vulcan." His eyes cut over to Spock and there's the pause in the conversation that always follows those off hand mentions. It's shorter now than it once was, and Spock just looks mildly over at Scotty, waiting for him to continue. Once, he would have stood and walked out, or wrapped himself in a silence that would have persisted well through the next day. "It's habitable to the most number of species in Starfleet. Not that different atmospheric conditions to Yorktown, really."
"The Commander says it snows," Jaylah says slowly.
Uhura grins. "The Commander is not particularly enthusiastic about precipitation in general."
"I appreciate its ecological function," Spock says and Uhura rolls her eyes.
"Debbie downer, you are."
"What is that? A Debbie?" Jaylah asks and abandons her panel to walk over to Uhura.
Later, McCoy leaves the lot of them behind for the chance to limp back to his quarters, and waves Jaylah towards his seat. She still lingers at the edge of the group like that. McCoy wonders if it's just how she is, or if they all aren't too loud and too chatty, too many years together amongst them, that familiarity he once thought they'd never strike up.
Even Spock, who hadn't exactly relaxed, but who had stayed at the very least, once brushing crumbs from his lap when Jim gestured too wildly with a handful of chips.
McCoy forgot the mess he left the room. Spock's bed is rumpled, the blanket tossed back and the pillow askew. From the floor, McCoy retrieves his padd and flicks it on. It's not cracked and hums back to life, Kattel's vitals staring up at him. He scrolls through them again, his shoulder against the ladder to his own bed as he reads. She should be awake soon. In the morning, maybe. McCoy's seen enough of Spock's handiwork to know it doesn't last forever. And her vitals look good. If he had enough, he'd give her a hypo to stem off any dehydration. As it is, she'll be fine.
A hell of a lot better than Kierzkowski.
And then McCoy can give her a piece of his mind for shooting him in the leg. He flicks the padd off. He's looking forward to that more than he should be, he's sure.
With a sigh, he drops himself onto the edge of Spock's bed. From there, wincing at the pull on his leg, he works his boots off, dropping one onto the floor and then the next.
Then, he pauses. Bends further forward.
"Dammit," he says, and sticks his fingers under the edge of the bunk after the edge of the gold case he can just make out.
He can't reach it, not from where he's sitting on the bed. Straining for it only nudges it and it skitters away from him. Gingerly, he lowers himself to his knee and grimaces at the tug at his thigh. And even so, an arm beneath the bunk, he's still groping for it, brushing his fingertips against it with no way to grab it.
"What are you doing?"
McCoy smacks his wrist on the bed frame when he jumps. "Ow. Jesus. Knock, would you?"
"This is my room," Spock says.
He rolls his eyes. "Good for you."
His palm flat on the mattress, he tries to press himself upright. Spock's hands are warm on his arms.
McCoy sighs as Spock lifts him. "I can do it."
"Clearly," Spock says and sets him on the edge of the bed. He's so close. It's this room, too damn small, no way to get away from each other.
"Your-" McCoy holds his hands out, his fingers framing the shape of the case. His can still feel Spock's touch on him. "Sorry, I dropped it."
When Spock kneels and slips one long arm under the bunk, his head is level with McCoy's lap. McCoy stares at the wall across from him.
"Is it all right?" McCoy asks. Whatever it is. McCoy probably threw off some precise internal logic of the thing, for all he knows. Spock is still on his knees, his shoulder just at McCoy's thigh. He should apologize again, he's sure, but Spock nods, his thumbs sliding it open.
It's a screen of some sort. Bright, in the dimness of their room. McCoy thinks now he should have turned on more lights. The glow of it plays over Spock's face. Those too long eyelashes of his and those lips. Spock doesn't tip the screen towards him so McCoy can make out what's on it, just snaps it closed again and then rocks to his feet, the case held in one hand.
"Lavigne came in," McCoy says. "I dropped my padd, too."
"And created a quite unfortunate state of my bed."
McCoy looks behind him at that pillow. "Should have seen Jim's at the Academy."
"I am perhaps fortunate to not have borne witness."
"No kidding. You want it back?" McCoy offers and hooks his thumb at the mattress he's sitting on. "I can do a mean hospital corner."
"That is not necessary," Spock says. His hand is still cupped around that case. When McCoy glances up again, he knows Spock's caught him looking.
He levers himself backwards, further onto the bed, and clears his throat. "I'm probably going to try to get some sleep, unless you want to un-nerve pinch Kattel and give me yet another thing to do today."
"That is not possible."
"Figured it'd be a snowball's chance in hell," McCoy says and ignores the look Spock gives him at that.
Though that arched eyebrow is a lot better than any sort of stony silence that Spock could be throwing his way. McCoy's sure he wouldn't blame him. But maybe they can sidle past this. Play pretend at normalcy for long enough that they can leave this mess of theirs here on this planet when they finally fly away.
Which they can do as soon as McCoy figures out what the hell is wrong with the crew. He jerks his socks off, frowning.
"Did you really hate living on Earth?" he asks when the silence stretches on too long. Of course Spock would. He'd probably enjoyed it as much as McCoy would spending years on Vulcan. There's no real substitute for a home planet, though he doesn't need to be the one telling Spock that.
"It was an adjustment," Spock says.
"I'm sure." He can't quite help himself. He nods to the case in Spock's hand. "Mind if I ask what that is?"
Spock does, he's sure. Spock minds a lot of what McCoy does, has since day one. Though maybe pissing the man off can launch them back into an old, well worn ordinary that is so distant now McCoy's not sure he'd recognize it if it drifted back into the room. I find you attractive, Spock had said. McCoy frowns, irritated with himself at the memory.
Spock turns the case over in his hands. McCoy's sure he's going to tuck it away somewhere, in a drawer, under the pillow on McCoy's bunk, somewhere McCoy won't find it again.
"Sorry I asked," he finally offers. Spock's privacy is his own and hell if McCoy needs to go poking around. He's done enough damage already, he's sure of it. The best he can do is leave the man alone.
But Spock opens it again, slowly this time. His head ducked forward, he says, "It was the Ambassador's."
"Oh." Good God. There's something right to say in this moment, but McCoy fumbles for it. "I didn't… open it."
That eyebrow lifts. "I know."
Smug bastard. McCoy shakes his head at Spock, not that he's looking, his eyes on the glow of the screen McCoy can't see.
"I do not believe you would have been able to refrain from commentary if you had," Spock says.
"I can refrain from anything I damn well please," McCoy says, but takes the case when Spock holds it out for him.
For a long time, he cups it in his palms. Then, he raises a fist to his mouth and coughs into it. His chest goes tight and he can't swallow that back down, his throat too thick.
Finally, he manages, "I'll have to tell Jim to lay off those chips." He doesn't miss the twitch at the corner of Spock's mouth. What a goddamn sight this is, all of them there, staring back at him, the years worn into them all. "The Ambassador left this for you? He had it with him?"
"Among other belongings." Spock's looking at it. McCoy starts to hand it back, but thinks better of it and just slides to the side to make room for Spock next to him. It takes him a moment, but Spock finally sits there beside him. "He left it to me. I suppose the… benefit of dying of old age is the ability to set one's affairs in order."
McCoy runs his finger over Scotty's gray hair. He wonders what prompted the mustache. "We should all be so lucky."
"Indeed."
How odd to see himself. Idly, McCoy spins the ring on his pinky finger with his thumb. Out of the corner of his eye, he peers at Spock. The Spock next to him. It's nothing next to being face to face with your own self from the future. But still. He could be holding a picture of his father, nearly. He touches his thumb to the frame again. Jim's too, though nobody in this life will ever know how George might have aged.
And they'll never see Spock as old as the Ambassador was. Spock will outlive all of them, in that life and in this one, God willing.
"Uhura cut her hair," he says. "Have you shown her this?"
"I have not." McCoy can feel Spock lean towards him, just slightly. He tips the picture further towards Spock in answer. "Nor have I shown Jim."
"Did you two ever talk?"
"No."
"You should."
"We have been rather occupied otherwise."
"I'd put money on excuses being illogical," McCoy says. In the picture, Spock stands off to the side, just slightly. Some things likely never change. Not that, not Chekov's grin, not Jim there in the center of them all. McCoy takes a breath and searches for the right words. "Was he - the Ambassador-" You, McCoy thinks, "Alone? When he passed?"
Spock blinks. McCoy's seen that sheen in his eyes before. "My father was with him."
McCoy lets out a breath. "Goddamn. That's something, isn't it."
"I do not believe he had the same opportunity to build interpersonal connections in this timeline as he was afforded in his own."
Too much work to do, Spock doesn't have to say. McCoy's half sure the same fate would have awaited the man next to him, had he really jumped ship. What a hell of a way to go, on a planet that's a poor facsimile of your own, in a universe that doesn't fit quite right.
McCoy's not sure he should touch Spock, but he presses a hand to his forearm anyway.
"He gave you quite a gift," he says. "Making it possible to be here, I mean. He knows it's what you wanted. What he would have wanted."
Spock blinks again, too quickly. "It took me some time to realize that."
"Is that…" McCoy shouldn't ask. And he should pull his hand back. Instead, he squeezes Spock's wrist. The bones are delicate and thin beneath this hand. Leave him alone, he tells himself but the stern words don't help much. "Is that what gave you the idea for, well, you and me? Were we…"
"Involved?" Spock slips his arm from beneath McCoy's hand and touches a finger to his eye. It comes away wet and Spock sniffs, such a human gesture McCoy can't help but stare. "I do not know. But I do not believe so."
Maybe McCoy was still married. Hell, maybe Spock was. Or maybe things shook out there like they did here. A different setting perhaps, or a different time in their lives, but the same gist of the conversation.
Or not at all. Maybe… Maybe Spock, unbeknownst to even himself, was pushing this universe closer to that one.
That's a thought, isn't it. Growing old together.
McCoy keeps himself from laughing at that, but there's a hysteria to the notion that rises up in him all the same. Deranged, that is. The very idea of it leaves him agitated.
"If it makes you feel any better, my ex wife could give you a hundred and one reasons I'm a bad idea." Spock swallows, his throat working. Shut up, he tells himself. Either that or smooth this all over until it's right a loss to do either, he settles somewhere in the middle, a bad idea if there ever was one, and says, "And listen, I don't think you being with me would be fair to you."
"You are oddly compassionate in a very peculiar way," Spock says. Illogical, his voice says, even if the word doesn't come out of his mouth.
"I'd end up hurting you," McCoy says since it's as simple as that, isn't it. "And you- of everyone, you've had enough of that, Spock."
"I believe that is a decision I am capable of making for myself," Spock says. "Though your concern is noted."
With that, he stands. Beneath McCoy, the mattress shifts with the motion, and he's treated to the sight of Spock shutting the 'fresher door between them.
See, McCoy could say. A handful of words in and here he is again, Spock's back to him. Proof's in the pudding, isn't it.
When the sonics kick on, McCoy lays back on Spock's bed. He flicks the picture open, studying it all over again. Chekov's hand on Sulu's shoulder, Spock with his hands tucked behind him, the red of their uniforms. Starfleet always did like to change things up. Though the bridge looks somewhat similar, the shape of it and those blue displays. Maybe their ship didn't crash onto Altamid. Spock wouldn't know, McCoy's sure of it. What a stickler, to not even tell himself any of what had transpired. How typically Spock, that is, in a way that makes McCoy want to smile.
He looks at himself carefully. He used to wear his hair like that, parted and combed. Back at the Academy, before cutting it short right before they shipped out on the Enterprise's maiden voyage.
Spock never changed his haircut, apparently. That does make McCoy smile. He casts a look towards the bathroom door.
To be that much older and all of them still together. To last that long out here. And to be working still.
What it'd have been to talk to… well, himself. He can see the appeal, that's for sure, strange as all hell or not.
Apparently he was happy enough to stick around, living out his life on that ship without giving into the siren lure of home. What he wouldn't trade now for that sticky summer humidity he grew up in, that kick of red dirt beneath his feet. To be out here, away from that, for years more to come. To die out here, like so many of them do, not having had that again.
Though in one life, at least, he lived to a much older age. And spent those years with the crew, apparently without much regret at all.
He knows he's falling asleep before he does. Hell, being horizontal is enough, and a meal did the other part of the trick. Still, he blinks against the drag of his eyes, looking at the group of them there staring back at him.