From her slouch against the back of her cell, Kattel smiles. It's dark down here in the belly of the Franklin and the stained yellow of her teeth only adds to the gloom clinging to her. Some throwback to the brigs of old this is, dim lighting and shadowy corners. None of the openness that they had on the Enterprise, that sparse white room where it was impossible to hide. Here, McCoy wants to squint against the edges of the space, shine a light around to see better.

"You were held by Krall," he tries. Again. His leg is starting to ache from this much standing. And to think that this morning when he woke up, he was almost feeling good. Or an approximation of it, at least - close enough that he could imagine that he remembered what good felt like. Now, he sighs and shifts his weight. "In that cave, just like our crew. And you woke up and escaped. We need you to tell us how you did that."

"Need?" Kattel asks. "I need you to let me out of here."

"Would like," he amends. Slowly, he forces his jaw to relax. "We would like you to tell us how you did that."

He throws a look towards Uhura, but she just lifts a shoulder in a shrug. McCoy sighs. No help she is, with this circled, doubled back on itself conversation. Not that he's all that helpful himself, now is he, a morning of this after Jim had given up. It's a headache, this entire thing is.

"Our crew," McCoy says. "We want to bring them home."

"As you have said."

As he's said. That, at least, they can agree on.

Leaning against the bulkhead behind McCoy, Jim has his arms crossed. He looks like he might also just toss a shrug to McCoy when he looks over. Goddamn useless, all of this.

"What can you tell us about leaving that cave?" McCoy asks. When Kattel doesn't answer, he purses his lips. "Ok. What can you say about when he brought you in there?" She's silent. He wants to groan. He should probably be awarded a medal for the fact that he doesn't. "What about when you arrived on the planet?"

Finally, Kattel pushes away from the wall.

"Arrived?" she asks. "Doctor, I told you, I am home."

He frowns. "What do you mean by that, now? You, what, want to actually stay here?"

"Always," she says. "This is where I live. You understand that, yes?"

It takes him longer than he'd like it too and he's still frowning when he asks, "You're from here?"

"I was born in the mountains," she says and he feels his interest catch, though that might just be for the chance at a new conversation topic after the circles they've gone in. "I do not need your transport."

"And the rest of your people? They're from here too?"

"Some," she says. She steps up to the glow of the field separating them. "We want our planet back."

"Back," McCoy says. Jim is so much better at this. Even with a hot breakfast and hotter cup of coffee, it takes too long for his mind to turn over the words. "Back from Krall?"

"We had peace before him. He comes in your ship, and this is what we have now," she says and wraps her knuckles on the forcefield.

McCoy crosses his arms. Good God she's old then, by most standards he knows.

"Which is why you want Manas," he says slowly.

"Justice," Kattel says. "With your morals, it is important, no?"

"It is. So you can imagine why we don't turn the unarmed and injured over to the likes of you," McCoy says.

"You all come from the skies. Visitors here." Kattel leans in closer. There's a forcefield between them and still, McCoy wants to edge backwards. "Krall comes. Manas comes. Jaylah, and you and so many more. This is our planet. You and your people- you are the ones who need to leave."

McCoy makes himself step closer too. "Tell us how to wake our crew up, and we'll be gone."

"Give us Manas, and we'll tell you."

"That's cruel."

"One life, for all of yours." Katell tips her head to the side. "Is it so hard of a decision?"

"He's my patient," McCoy says. "There's no discussion."

He's through the door before Jim can stop him. The stomp of his boots down the corridor is at least more satisfying on the Franklin than it ever was on the squeaky, polished tile of the Enterprise. Though what he would give for a door to yank open, not the smooth hiss that greets him when he pushes in sickbay.

One of the guards standing over Manas looks up and McCoy used to have an office, didn't he, where he could lock himself inside and groan into his hands, not this shoddy facsimile of privacy in the quiet of sickbay, guards eyeing him and the horrible silence of Chapel laying just there.

McCoy braces his hands on the side of Navares' bed and stiff armed, lets his head hang. Leave Manas to the likes of them. A man who has committed atrocities, he is. But to turn him over to a certain fate. He's a doctor, not a jailer, and he sure as hell didn't sign up for any of this.

McCoy pushes off the bed and walks over to where Manas lays. His electrolytes are down. His blood pressure, too. But McCoy has no hypos to change that, not until the replicators are fixed.

The door whisks open, though McCoy doesn't bother to turn at the sound.

"Is he ok?" Jim asks.

"Do you have a plan?" McCoy runs his tricorder over Manas' forehead. His face is subsiding into a echo of humanness. All of his features are, softening into a recognizable shape. "No, he's not ok. He's knocked out from a head contusion he should have woken up from days ago."

"The same thing that has Chapel out?" Jim asks.

"God dammit Jim, I have no idea." McCoy shakes his head, when he really wants to just shove his entire face into his hand and make Jim, sickbay, and any sight of the Franklin go away. "He's old, Jim. Kattel's older, apparently, but Manas is human. He's not supposed to live this long."

"Hey," Jim says. "Are you doing all right?"

McCoy looks up. "I'm fine."

"How's your leg?"

Across from him, Jim has eyebrows raised. McCoy looks down at his thigh.

"This is annoying as all hell, Jim. Can't you just make her talk?"

"I can't," Jim says.

"You gonna give her Manas?"

"So she can kill him?" Jim asks. "I agree with you, Bones. War criminal or no, that's not exactly how the Federation deals with this type of thing."

"Good on us, I guess," McCoy says. He leans his hip against Manas' biobed and lets the fight drain of himself with the help of a deep breath. What a goddamn day.

Jim is watching him and he doesn't like the itch of it, Jim's careful attention like McCoy is something to be studied, so he reaches out and presses two fingers to Manas' pulse. That at least is the same, the drum of his heart pushing oxygen around, no matter what other physiology that damn contraption of Krall's mixed into his body.

"You know, Kattel has a point," McCoy says slowly. "Not about Manas, but about us all being here. We're on her turf, and Manas was too. And Jaylah."

"Possession is nine tenths of the law?" Jim asks. "That's mighty kind of you, for getting shot in the leg."

"Trust me, that's occurred to me." McCoy sighs. "My leg's fine. Sore."

Weak as all hell and likely going to leave a scar, if he's going to be charitable enough with Jim to be honest about it. He closes his eyes. Getting up this morning was no treat was it, his thigh stiff and the bed warm enough he wanted to just pull the blankets up over his head and lay there in the silence of the empty room, Spock long gone for work while McCoy slept far longer than he likely should have.

"Spock help you out ok?"

McCoy looks over at Jim. Quickly, he nods. Jim is guileless in his question, his eyebrows cocked. Curious and only eager to know that McCoy's all right. Whatever itch it is that Spock's trying to scratch, he hasn't mentioned it to Jim.

McCoy tenses when the door to sickbay slides open. But it's just Scotty and behind him Keenser, both of them loaded down with piles of equipment. From the stack on Scotty's arms, a coil of wire slips to the floor, and he kicks it forward over towards McCoy and Jim.

"It's better in here, aye?" he says and dumps the mess he's holding onto a biobed. "Got that cleaned up right quick, didn't we."

"What the hell is all this?" McCoy asks.

"The air," Scotty says. "Doesn't smell like a firing range anymore, does it." From the clutter, he produces a box. When he pulls it apart, there's a row of filters inside. "We got this for you. Gotta turn down the environmental controls, but this should finish the job."

"Turn them down?" McCoy asks. Scotty bends over his pile. Jim doesn't quite look at him. "What's going on?"

"The ship's power supply," Scotty says without looking up. "It's a wee bit low."

"Low," McCoy repeats. "Were you going to mention this, Jim?"

"You were hurt," Jim says and spreads his hands out.

"Do you need an anatomy class? I got shot in the leg. My ears work just fine."

"I'll just leave this here," Scotty says and clicks the box on with a hum.

"What does low mean?" McCoy asks when Scotty's left again.

"You've got your hands full," Jim says. "Don't worry about it."

"I'm worried." McCoy says sharply. "You let me sleep all night, and now you're telling me the clock is ticking?"

"It's been ticking," Jim says. "Now it's just… going faster." He grimaces, his face pulling into lines so different than the easy smile McCoy was so used to once. "With Kattel awake, I was hoping… well, for something, clearly."

"You're thinking about it," McCoy says. "Handing Manas over."

Jim lets out a breath. McCoy steps closer to him.

"Or leaving the crew here," he says. He knows his mouth is open. "You said - yesterday, you said that we'd figure it out."

"We've got to be realistic," Jim says. "I've got a ship that, as of now, can still get back to Yorktown." He tries for a smile. "I thought you wanted out of here, Bones."

"What about Chapel?" McCoy asks. "What are you going to do, just dump her outside? Tell her that we'll be seeing her around, if we can find a good time to come back?"

"Bones," Jim says. He throws a glance towards the guards. "Keep your voice down, would you?"

"Give Kattel and her people Manas? Let them tear him apart?" McCoy asks. "You and I both know what they'd do to him. Starfleet doesn't exactly condone torture."

Jim breaths out through his nose. His jaw is set. "Bones, we've got a complement of crew here that I'm responsible for. The ship is - it's getting worse. Clearly. And I'm going to bring home as many as we can."

McCoy puts his finger in Jim's face. "We're bringing them all home, Jim, and don't be telling me otherwise."

"I'm trying," Jim calls after him, but McCoy's already heading for the door.

He doesn't even get the pleasure of being able to go for a walk. A limp, more like, and even so as soon as McCoy makes it out of the hatch to the heat of the mine camp, he has to brace a hand on the hull and rest there. He's shaky, dragging his leg after him like this. The sun is too bright coming from inside the ship, and dust hangs thick in the air, stirred up on the breeze that blows through the mine camp. Propping his shoulder against a landing strut, he scrubs at his face with two hands, ring fingers rubbing into the corner of his eyes. He kneads at his temples and for a moment hides his closed eyes behind his palms, grateful for the dark.

"Doctor?" he hears and jerks, dropping his hands.

"Don't sneak up on a guy like that, Spock."

"What happened?" Spock asks, his voice soft.

"I'm fine," he says and sighs out a breath that nearly ends with a groan. He has to fight to keep that thread of annoyance burning through him cause God dammit, it threatens to slip at the gentleness of Spock's voice. He's sure that when it does, nothing will flow into that spot in his chest except an empty sort of ache.

You don't have to be nice to me, he nearly says at the tiny quirk to Spock's head. If Spock would stop and draw that haughtiness around himself that he wears so well, it would be a hell of a lot easier to bear him.

But with the suddenness of a tumbling deluge he can't stop, he blurts out, "Scotty thinks the ship won't be able to take off." And once he's started, Spock's watching him and the rest follows too quickly to staunch. "Jim- Jim has Kattel down there, asking for Manas, and Spock, he'd give him to her, just to get us out of here, while the crew-"

"-Doctor," Spock says and moves closer.

"I don't know what to do," McCoy says and hates that his voice threatens to crack. Go away, he wants to bark but instead what comes out is watery and quiet. God, what he wouldn't give for Spock to snap back at him. As it is, McCoy's pretty sure if he asked for a hug, Spock would give him one. "And don't give me some logical bullshit about how leaving the crew here is our only option. I don't want to hear it, Spock, especially not if you and Jim have already settled on it."

"We have not." Spock's eyes are pinched at the corners, his brows drawn together.

"Manas could die soon," McCoy says. "He's old. And medical supplies or not, I can't string his life out, not against old age. If he goes, then Jim'll have no choice but to-"

"-If," Spock says. He looks so calm, damn him. McCoy can feel the beat of his own pulse singing through his body.

He puts his palm back over his eyes. Into his wrist, he says, "That picture of yours. He- me- whatever, would have figured this out."

He's sure of it. But when he looks again, Spock is just watching him, his head once again cocked.

"You believe you are at fault," he says.

It's not a question and McCoy just nods. "This is my job, to take care of this crew."

"It is all of our responsibilities," Spock says.

"This- their health, Spock? This is mine."

Again, Spock steps towards him.

"Assigning blame solely to yourself is illogical," Spock says. "We are all here."

McCoy waves him off. "You sound like a broken record."

"Dismissing my argument does not invalidate it."

He could shove their old uniforms up over his elbows. This shirt is too stiff. He hooks three fingers into his collar and tugs, his knuckles up against his throat.

"I have work to do," he says but he doesn't move. He just squints out across the camp, those odd yellow structures, the haze of the air and the ring of mountains around them. Over there, towards that peak and through a swath of forest is the Enterprise. It'll be here forever, long past when they fly away. Overgrown eventually with weeds and then trees, animals burrowing into what were their rooms.

Maybe someday, other travelers will come and wonder at the saucer crashed there. Question where the people aboard had gone to, and why they left.

Kattel might be here, still.

But Manas won't. And God willing, they won't either. Their crew too.

McCoy digs the toe of his boot into the dirt. Clears his throat and says, "Thanks."

"It is no matter."

He scrubs at his face again. "Still."

He should go. He should leave Spock the hell alone if he doesn't want anything from him, not linger in the breeze that kicks up, and not let Spock follow him around the ship.

And especially not be so grateful that he's done so.

He crosses his arms over his chest. "I need to get back."

"Of course," Spock says and McCoy tightens his arms around himself. The hatch to the ship is just over there.

The wind is sifting through Spock's bangs. It flattens his shirt against his side over where that new skin is stretching.

"Commander?" Scotty asks, leaning out of the hatch. McCoy jumps in surprise. His thigh pulls and he rubs at it, wincing. "We've got the magnetic dissipation dampener ready if you are."

Behind Scotty, Keenser holds up a wrench and Spock nods.

"The mine," Spock says when McCoy looks between him and Scotty. "We are attempting to take a reading."

"Right," McCoy says. "Well."

"No time like the present to try again now is there," Scotty says and taps what was probably once a tricorder and now looks like just a mess of wires.

"Good luck," McCoy says and lets sarcasm lengthen his words as Scotty and Keenser walk past them. Spock goes with them, his back straight and his head already bent in conversation. It leaves McCoy standing there in the sun, still holding onto himself.

He wipes his palm down his face. His leg hurts.

What that other crew must have seen. Themselves, really, but years on, so many of these missions under their belts, all of them there on the bridge, shoulder to shoulder.

You believe you are at fault. When Spock became the one who he talked to about all this, he has no idea. He used to time when he ate dinner so that he didn't have to suffer through a conversation with the man, back in those early days on the ship when it felt like those tin walls were closing in too tight, and his life had been ripped away from the Academy too soon. It had, really, being thrown into a new job, a new room, no Jim next to him in class, in the other bunk, at hand hour to hour.

Now, Spock is just as ubiquitous. Around every corner, at every meal, every day of McCoy's life over the last years, it's been.

For that other McCoy, it was years to come, too. He certainly never threw in the towel. This must have been what he wanted, then. This life out here, one of these hellish missions after the next.

McCoy finally makes his way back inside, each step a pull at his hip and thigh of tightening, tense muscles. He grabs the tricorder he left on Manas' bed and runs it over Chapel. Maybe his other self could pick something out of the static the readout gives him. What with insane theories of parallel universes, that other crew of themselves is out there now in their own version of this reality. Maybe on Altamid, maybe not. Hopefully, their universe was kicked off course enough that his other self never stood here, staring down at his head nurse, waiting for her to wake up.

"Chapel," he says. He wants to shake her shoulder again. "C'mon. Please."

He should go find Jim. Tell him he let his mouth get away from him, and Jim will give him a grin and a slap on the back. He could find Spock too, maybe. Tell him… something. Thanks. He could say thanks for the talk. For… caring, like he said. He certainly walks the walk, Spock does. McCoy's not sure how he'd react to being so thoroughly turned down, but it probably wouldn't be with that quiet stoicism.

And of course he doesn't know, it's been so long since part of him sang at the thought of someone else. He's not even sure he's capable of that flutter of warmth anymore. That spark at the sight of another.

He squeezes his eyes shut at the thought. When he opens them, the security guards are thankfully ignoring him, their stance an easy and likely bored parade rest, and their attention doesn't even bother to follow him across the room as he manages his way to a console.

He wishes he weren't so grateful for the chair to sink into. With a groan, he leans his bad leg out straight as he uploads Chapel's readings, and Manas' after them. While the computer whirs - ancient, the thing is - he digs his thumb into the knot of muscle that's formed high in his thigh. God is it sore. Maybe he could just stay like this, leg kicked out and the computer humming in front of him in harmony with Scotty's box of filters. Let the ship die around him, like one more patient he couldn't save. Sit here and dream of some other life. Sweet tea and mosquitos, the swampy heat that lingers at sunset, all that he never thought to miss before he was so far gone from it. Those parts of home that fade into the background, the little pieces of the day that stitched together wove into a backdrop of everything that he was used to.

Apparently, there's a version of him that never looked back after trading that for recycled air, scrubbed clean of everything that makes it sweet.

Maybe, then, there's one of him that never left.

He'd be half jealous of that man if he ever met him, the one who stayed home. Though he must have had a path there in Georgia, to live his life on. In all reality - his own reality - he got up, packed up, and scrounged up a new life for himself, when every other door was slammed shut. And met one James Kirk on a shuttle in the middle of a cornfield, though wouldn't that be something, if that was an inevitability in any of his lives. Too cocky for his own good and with a grin that McCoy had waved off, irritated and intrigued all at once. Should have known better, he thought more often than not, and look at him now, too many years and half a galaxy away, Jim still in his life, and now all the rest of them, too.

But it's a universe full of choices, and foretold destinies aside, pictures of him thirty years on and apparently happy, he could decide otherwise. Can. The moment his boots hit Yorktown, if he wants.

Which he can't do until they get off this damn rock. He scrolls through the graphs on the screen in front of him, sorting through the readouts of brain waves and frequency signals. His eyes blur before he's done reading with exhaustion or just the low throb of what feels too much like defeat. He wonders how long Jim will let them stay here. A day, maybe two.

And then McCoy'll get what he wanted. Jim wasn't wrong. A flight off this planet, out of the nebula, and back. Civilization, or the edge of it at least, that glass ball hanging in the dark of space.

Not really what he wants, though. Whatever the hell that might be.

But this isn't it, the sting of a mission that isn't working out. Getting shot in the leg. Spock, who decided to take hold of McCoy's life and turn it upside down with a firm shake that started as a hand fisted in his uniform collar.

It'll all smooth out. It'll have to, cause Spock is not on any list of things McCoy could use, like a stiff drink and some peace and quiet. No, he never was looking for anyone to sweep him off his feet. He's done that once and never again. He wasn't looking for any of this, ever, back in the dry heat of Iowa, just a ride off and away from his past, and he'd found that, strapped into the shuttle with Uhura rolling her eyes across the aisle. He hadn't cared where he went. Just… away, and it had been good enough.

Apathy, he thinks. The word rises to mind in Spock's voice. He wants to shake his head clear of it. That's what it had been, hadn't it, when he had scrawled his name on the commission forms and signed away the next years of his life. He'd been half drunk and more than half hungover and his indifference was heavy enough that even the fact of all the space flights ahead of him hadn't stayed his hand.

Now, the same hysteria rises in him that is normally reserved for the thought of space's vacuum beyond the ship's bulkheads. Not apathy but that too fast beat in his chest. He's panicked, a far off corner of his mind names that drum of his heart. Not apathetic at all. A terror he can recognize, now. Too many options laid out, and that Spock - Spock - is one…

"Jesus," McCoy mutters, only to have one of the guards blink at him. He frowns and stares at the screen in front of him and the readout that's been busily whirring by. Nonsense, all of it is. And made worse by the way his eyes want to glaze over and his mind wants to continue to circle over on itself.

Spock should have had the good sense to leave him alone. What the hell was he getting at, thinking McCoy was fit for anything of the sort of what it was that Spock intended. No, McCoy came to Starfleet to get away from all of that. To start over, and at least attempt to shake off the life he had lived before.

He hears a cough. He twists around, his thigh protesting.

Manas hasn't moved. Chapel is still as a statue.

"Sir?" one of the guards asks.

"Was that you?" McCoy asks, but they both shake their heads.

McCoy stands.

"Chapel?" he asks even though with the guards watching now, he feels stupid saying her name out loud. If only he could scan her. Really scan her, with the tricorders he had on the Enterprise and no interference. He sighs. These rocks are giving him a headache, just thinking of his scanners cycling with no new answers.

Another cough. Half of one, really. Like someone's clearing their throat. He squints at her, edging closer to lay his palm over her forehead.

Then, she coughs again, her stomach hollowing with it.

"Chapel?" he asks, louder this time. Her hand twitches. When he takes it in his own, her fingers curl tight around his. Her eyes blink open and she coughs once more, the motion wracking through her body. But it's followed by a long, pulled in breath, and then another until she's gasping for it.

"Easy," he says. He smooths her hair back. It's still dirty. "You're all right. Can you hear me? You're just fine."

She nods. It's there, between how she's panting and her eyes are blown wide, but it's a nod, and she's focused on him, her eyes tracking when he bends closer.

"I've got you," McCoy says. "It's just me."

Her hand smacks at the bed and her mouth moves before her shoulders curl inward and she hacks out another cough he doesn't know how she has the air for.

"Breathe, Chapel," he says. He squeezes her hand. "You're ok, you hear?"

She keeps coughing, the force of them ripping through her body. He works his arm beneath her shoulder and props her upright.

"C'mere," he says. "You - an oxygen mask. Now!"

One of the security guards detaches from the wall and hurries over. McCoy points with his elbow until the man gets the one he wants. A nurse. He needs a nurse.

"Lavigne," he says as he gently fits the mask over Chapel's mouth. "Get her."

"Sir, I'm not sure where-"

"Go. Now."

He goes, the door rushing open in front of him as he jogs out.

"Chapel," McCoy says. She's shaking. Coughing and trembling and tears squeeze out of her eyes. He brushes them away with his thumb. "You're in sickbay on the Franklin. You've been out for a while. But you're ok now, all right? Sit up, sweetheart- careful there, there's some wires in your neck, neural transmitter links, and they're in there good. Deep breath in, there you go, let it back out. I'll get you some water."

McCoy pins the remaining guard with a stare and jerks his head towards the faucet until the kid gets the hint and fills a cup.

"Comm the Captain," McCoy says. He tugs the mask down enough to hold the cup to Chapel's mouth. Carefully, he tips it so she can sip. "Get him in here, would you?"

Chapel coughs again and water splashes onto McCoy's wrist.

"Easy," he says. Those wires going into her neck look all the worse for her skin to be flushing with color for the first time in days. "Try for a swallow. You got it, careful now."

He pats her shoulder as her throat finally works and ducks down to meet her eyes when she looks up at him.

"Y'alright?" he asks.

"McCoy?" she asks in a shattered wreck of her normal voice.

"Hey." He's smiling. He can feel it dimly, a hard pull on his cheeks. "Welcome back."

"Bones!" he hears and he turns towards the door, grinning.

"Jim, look at- What in the goddamn hell?"

But Jim doesn't answer, coming into the room at a run that brings the stink of blood and a wild-eyed glaze on his face.

"Scotty," he gasps, and there's red splashed wet across his gold shirt. He presses his palms to his thighs and sags over, panting. "It's Scotty and Keenser. The mine it- The back tunnel-"

"-Spock?" McCoy asks.

"Oh God, Bones," Jim says. "Come quick."