Characters: Spock, McCoy
Word Count: (this chapter) 3800
Rating: T
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Spock's Brain. This chapter, fair warning for discussion of power of attorney issues, discussion of life and choice, etc. - that kind of discussion. So if you come down on one side or other of the equation, understand this is not an endorsement, judgment, or even screen canon, this is what I've chosen to write to fit into the storyline I saw on screen in this episode, ok? Ok.
Summary: Tag scenes for the end of Spock's Brain. Yes, that episode. Serious treatment of that not-so-serious episode.
A/N: Have a little TOS while I sort out my next foray into AOS-land, peeps. Also, random little plug - if you haven't seen the new show The Orville, take a peek at it on Fox - it's delightfully watchable, actually, and a little reminiscent of TOS (sadly nowhere near as well-written, obviously, but it has some good themes). Given the chance to find its footing and tone down the bad humor, it might actually end up being a decent show, and it reminds me of what TOS could have been with today's special effects and budget.
Given past experiences after similarly trying missions, Spock is fully prepared for any and all emotional reactions as he enters the office of the Enterprise's Chief Medical Officer and Ship's Counselor: one Leonard H. McCoy, possessor of three doctorates and the most trying combination of human character traits ever to grace a starship and its few non-human passengers.
Spock of Vulcan has, over the past three years, proceeded from loathing this particular human to brokering a very strange sort of almost-kinship with the man, exceedingly different from his relationship with James Kirk and yet just as surprisingly crucial to his state of being. Doctor McCoy is now as much a part of his life aboard the Enterprise as are his Science laboratories, and not simply because they are the two department heads who work closest together on exploratory missions. (The logistics of when and how this particular human managed to slip past his carefully-erected barriers and somehow insert himself neatly into Spock's well-ordered private life is an entirely different, and rather alarming, matter.)
These musings aside, McCoy is not the most peaceful of humans even at his calmest, and on a day such as this, can be a veritable tempest in a teapot, as he heard his mother quote a piece of old Earth literature once. Given the shattered cryo-storage unit on the floor and the stormy expression which greet him upon his entrance to the office, the metaphor is most apposite.
It is also most unfortunate for Spock's own current state of mind, that being an experience which he believes humans term a "headache," likely due to improper procedural techniques during his surgery this afternoon. A few hours in a healing trance is obviously in order, but that must be postponed until after matters are cared for aboard the ship, this one included. For all his being the one species aboard who is not troubled with outbursts of emotional distress, it for some reason seems to fall to him to dispel those metaphorical storm clouds with ironic regularity, a situation which will bear further examination during a meditation session at an undetermined later date.
However, due to this state of affairs not being atypical and the events of this mission being slightly beyond what is considered typical stress levels for a human, he is well-bolstered against the possibility of an outburst of epic proportions, when he enters the inner sanctum of their Chief Medical Officer.
And yet, he is met with nothing more than an exceedingly uncomfortable silence.
This, he has no idea how to deal with. His and the Captain's most intense of arguments are like fire and water, canceling each other out within moments; whereas his and Doctor McCoy's interactions tend to be nothing less than explosive, more like fire and shuttle fuel – so this unusual lack of reaction, is both disconcerting and alarming.
"Doctor?"
His inquiry is met with a sour look over the computer monitor, but it is at least a reaction.
"Someday I'm gonna learn to lock that door. What does Nurse Roberts not understand about a full neural workup, Mr. Spock?"
He raises an eyebrow. "Given that said neural workup was interrupted by your unprofessional re-entry into Sickbay, I daresay the procedure was best left unfinished."
A half-filled glass of amber liquid is tossed back without reply or ceremony, despite the fact that the man is clearly still on duty. Spock wisely refrains from comment; after all, the cause is likely sufficient.
McCoy sighs, and shoves the empty glass to one side with a clink. "Fine, just don't blame me if something comes loose up in that brain of yours later." Blue eyes squint suspiciously as Spock takes the consulting seat beside the desk rather than across from it. "What are you doing."
"At present, attempting to ascertain the facts of the previous twenty-four hours, Doctor."
"Go ask Jim. I'm busy."
"That appears to be debatable, and in any case I would prefer an unbiased medical report."
"And I'd prefer you leave, Mr. Spock," is the icy response, delivered with very real venom – a rare thing to hear, after so many years. Spock spares a moment for consideration of the irony that he can now, after these years, tell the difference. "Or is your brain still so scrambled you can't tell when someone wants to be alone?"
"I believe that would be a question better answered by the man responsible for its reassembly, Doctor." McCoy's face turns a peculiarly ashen shade at the words. Interesting. "And as the test subject in question as well as the Chief Science Officer, the receipt of your report does fall to me. However, should you prefer this to be made to the captain instead, I shall defer my debriefing until such time as it may become necessary for my own reports' completion."
A muffled sound of exasperation from under the hand that scrubs down tired features. "Pretty sure Jim's had enough of this whole thing to last him a good long while, Spock," is the reply, slow to come and accompanied by a sigh. "Debrief away, for all the good it'll do either of us."
His blinks, taken aback slightly at the defensiveness. "As a medical man, Doctor, surely you see the value in eliminating the unknown and the uncertain, both physical and mental, in such an unusual situation as this mission."
"That's what I have a nursing staff for, Commander. One you bypassed in order to poke your Vulcan nose into things which don't concern you."
His eyebrow inclines slightly at the sheer illogic of that particular statement, all things considered, and after a moment McCoy snorts in fleeting, mutual amusement before relapsing into silence with a dismissive wave.
"The irrationality of that statement aside, Doctor, given that the other two ranking officers of this vessel are currently otherwise engaged, the matter does indeed, as you say, concern me. In addition to the technical details of the events, the mental health of the ship's Chief Medical Officer is of more importance even than that of the Captain, since upon that rests the fate of the remaining crew complement."
McCoy regards him for a moment with that particular shrewdness that so enables him to remain on an equal footing with superior Vulcan intelligence on a daily basis. "Uh-huh." The man pulls the discarded glass back toward him with a shake of the head and begins to pour another drink, thankfully in a moderate amount, then raises the glass in what Spock has come to recognize as a human gesture of camaraderie; the animosity has mellowed into a more amicable exasperation. "Now I know I left a few loose ends up in there. Full brain scan, Spock. Now."
"Your attempts at circumventing my inquiries are even less effective than usual, Doctor. And while some mild discomfort due to slight neural degeneration is only to be expected, a brief healing trance will be sufficient to restore any residual damage caused by your human clumsiness after being deprived of the planet's store of knowledge."
Not, apparently, the best thing to say, because the doctor goes pale as his office walls, and the glass rattles loudly in the silence as it is released onto the table.
"Well, at least we know that Vulcan lack of sensitivity is still alive and well."
"I was not aware that the matter required sensitive handling, Doctor." A pointed look, and the man's eyes skip almost nervously away from him, across the desk and barely-organized chaos it contains. "Perhaps you should enlighten me."
"Nothing to enlighten you about, Commander. It's been a long day, for all of us." The words are calm, almost pleasant, and delivered with a half-smile that is more disturbing than anything else in its patent falsity. "Now, I'm a busy man, so either get on with your debriefing or get back out there and complete your neural workup, but you better make up your mind and pick one or the other."
This is an exercise in foolishness, and Spock too is a busy man. He has not the time, nor today the brain-energy, to waste in such fruitless pursuits.
"As you wish, Doctor." He stands, somewhat stiffly, and makes his way toward the office doors. Behind him, the sharp snap-click of keys betrays the unnatural vehemence with which the doctor is typing his report.
Just before tripping the door's motion sensors, he pauses, and half-turns on one heel.
"What." McCoy doesn't even look up, stabbing at another data-padd with a stylus and squinting at his monitor while pulling up a report with his free hand.
"If I am to attempt this same conversational exercise in futility with the captain, it would be of some assistance to know why, precisely, you are so angry with him."
The stylus fumbles to the desk for a moment before being brought back up to point at him. "And who says I'm not mad at you, Spock? Hmm?"
He raises an eyebrow. "Really, Doctor. Subtlety is not one of your strongest characteristics. Were I the target of your emotion, it would not require Vulcan intelligence to perceive that fact."
A half-amused snort drifts over the monitor towards him.
"What I am unable to ascertain, however, is what precisely could have happened in the intervening hours since my disappearance to have created such a rift between you."
"It's got nothing to do with you, Spock."
"I daresay that is likely not the case, recent events considered," he replies dryly.
A laugh, genuine this time, and the doctor leans back, shaking his head in a fit of dark humor. "Well, that's true, I suppose. It's got everything to do with you, but not how you're thinking."
"Again, Doctor, I ask that you enlighten me."
McCoy regards him for a moment in silence, and then points at the vacant chair with the stylus. Barely has Spock regained the seat when the doctor taps the instrument absently on the desk, an almost nervous drumming. "You know he's in serious hot water with the powers that be over this little detour of ours, right?" he asks, inapropos of nothing.
Spock inclines his head a fraction. "I gathered as much, Doctor."
"He insisted we come after you, regulations be hanged. And nothing anyone said or did was going to change his mind."
"That was, while an unwise command decision, an unsurprising outcome of an emotional human's choices, Doctor. I fail to see why this should be cause for dissention between you, given you are a member of the same species and prone to the same type of reaction upon occasion."
"No, you wouldn't see it, would you." The stylus drops to the table with a clink, as its owner slowly presses his fingers against his eyelids in a gesture of painful uncertainty. "God knows I'm glad we did, Spock, don't get me wrong. I'd just as soon never have to see you on one of my operating tables again for the rest of my life. But…"
"But what, Doctor?"
"But…you know what, forget it. It's been a long day, Mr. Spock. I'm sure I'm just an over-reacting fool."
Spock's hand stills the retreat from the desk, and the Doctor freezes under his grip, wide-eyed with surprise. "I have seen you, as you put it, over-react, Doctor," he says pointedly. "I do not see that now, nor would I characterize your concerns as foolish if they are producing a broken link in the chain of command for this ship."
"You would put it like that wouldn't you. It's no wonder Jim avoids you when he's sulking," McCoy mutters testily, pulling away. He does not, however, leave the desk, but settles back with a sigh, looking very much like the captain does when he is battling an oncoming migraine. It is likely a state of mind they are all sharing at the moment.
"Doctor, from your statements, I can only surmise that you were not in favor of journeying to the Sigma Draconis system in search of my misappropriated brain." That the previous statement can be said without a blink of incredulity, is testament itself to the ridiculous nature of their last few missions, and it is a point worth noting.
McCoy shakes his head, waving a dismissive hand between them. "That's not – well, it sort of is, I guess…" He sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose. "Spock, I just…this thing just, well, I can't rest easy about it."
"Specify."
"You mean besides the fact that I performed brain surgery on you with you directin' me out loud for the last thirty minutes?"
"Precisely." He meets the physician's dark humor with the ghost of amusement lurking in his own eyes.
McCoy grows serious a moment later, however. "Look, Spock. In the medical world, we believe life ceases to exist when there is no brain function. I violated a half a dozen medical codes keeping your body alive down here with no real medical reason to think you had any hope of being restored to full functionality."
That is a fair point, and he had not considered it until now, nor its medico-ethical ramifications.
"When I think about the ten million things that could have gone wrong…none of us had the right to make those decisions for you. But Jim wouldn't even consider listening to me, and I didn't fight him on it. I mean…I don't even know what I mean, Spock. It just doesn't sit well with me, that's all. I should be on the side of the patient, not the family – dear Lord, we didn't even talk about callin' your family, that's just –" The doctor waves a hand, helplessly.
Spock remains silent, sensing the need to complete the thought.
"I don't even know, Spock. But in this case, I'm darn glad I didn't pull the plug, so to speak. But Jim doesn't agree with me on the medical aspect, and he's pretty angry that I called him on it."
Surak save him from these ridiculously emotional humans and their endearing but equally ridiculous ways of showing that emotion in the most harmful of fashions.
"Allow me to first, alleviate your concerns regarding the ethics of your actions, Doctor," he begins directly, and sees curiosity spark in the human's eyes. "And perhaps this knowledge will also mitigate some of your anger toward Captain Kirk as well."
"I'm listenin'."
"Your medical expertise and therefore medical ethics are, while the foremost in their field, based primarily on a humanoid-biased medical system. While you may regard life function as having ceased with brainwave-activity, there are species across the galaxy where this is not the case."
McCoy blinks at him for a moment, processing this. "I suppose that could be true, but – are you saying Vulcans are one of those species?"
"I am. The Vulcan culture is a complicated one in regards to the afterlife and its concepts. To a Vulcan, the mind is the whole. We are the katra – the collective, mind and spirit and all that one is. Your closest Terran translation of the word might be the soul. The physical body is merely a corporeal vessel to house one's personal contribution to the collective katra and all it contains, past and present and future."
The doctor sits up straight in fascination. "That's a different approach than I'd think out of a logical people. But surely you do still believe when brain activity ceases, life ceases as well?"
"We do. However, the captain was aware that this situation might be slightly different than the usual one which you are likely referencing in your medical cases; in this case, the brain had not technically ceased – therefore, the soul, or all that truly was Spock, had not yet ceased to exist; rather, it had only changed vessels. No human brain would be capable of such a feat; in a human's case, the brain removed would indeed mean a human would cease to exist."
"All respect to your culture, Spock, I still disagree with you; he had no way of knowing your brain hadn't just been taken out and stuck in cryostorage for research or something." McCoy shakes his head. "No way of knowing you were still alive, even according to your Vulcan voodoo rules."
"I cannot fully explain the Vulcan Way to you, Doctor." He hesitates, but as this is clearly going to remain a point of contention, perhaps the cause is sufficient to permit an outworlder some slight knowledge others might never know. "Would it surprise you to learn that Vulcan telepathic abilities originate and are centered in the katra?"
"Interesting." As Spock is not typically forthcoming with cultural information – like all his Vulcan kinsmen – McCoy always jumps at the chance to learn anything which could be useful, medically or otherwise (up to and including what is known as blackmail in human circles). "But what's that got to do with any of this?"
"Simply that there is a sort of resonance within the Vulcan katra, Doctor, that can form over time between certain beings. It is an exceedingly rare occurrence between species, but it has been known to occur."
"And?"
"And if something were to happen to the Captain, if he were to be killed, I have no doubt that I would at least sense that; not in a telepathic manner, as when the Intrepid was destroyed, but I would know, Doctor. I cannot explain that to you, but I would know." McCoy's eyes are narrowed at him, as if trying to judge his sincerity, but he is quite truthful; it is that fact which has been the cause of his illogical actions more than once when Starfleet has believed Kirk to be dead as in their mirror universe encounter. "While it is rarer in psi-null species, it is not impossible for that…sense, if you will, to develop in another being. Before completely discounting the captain's actions, I would simply ask you to consider the fact that, consciously or unconsciously, he may very well have been responding to the fact that he was aware I had not yet died, in clinical terms."
McCoy appears to be contemplating this with the open-minded curiosity that is the human's saving grace against an otherwise frustratingly stubborn personality which grates against Spock's logical Vulcan methods at times. "That sounds like the biggest load of hokey this side of Alpha Centauri, but I've seen stranger things today. It still bothers me, though."
"You are referring to the medical procedure of keeping one's body alive by machinery only?"
"The lack of patient consent in doing that, more than anything. Your medical file is ridiculously incomplete, Spock, we've had this argument before. And don't get me wrong, I don't think Jim would ever do anything I'd have to fight him on, where you're concerned – and anyway, that's your business and none of mine. But…I just don't like it, is all."
This, surprises him, as it does make a sort of logical sense, though obviously only from the doctor's mistaken point of view.
"You believe my legal specification of Captain Kirk as decision-making contact in medical emergencies to be unwise, then, Doctor?"
"No, I didn't say that." A sigh. "Okay, I did say that, but that's not what I meant! I just – I don't know, Spock. This whole thing has turned us all upside down."
"Doctor, as my family is more often than not outside the reaches of Federation communication channels, someone aboard must be placed in that position. There are few logical choices for that candidacy, you will agree."
"Yes, yes, I agree. I just…I should've disagreed with him about this, medically and ethically. That's the problem, really." The doctor leans back in his chair, eyes weary. "I should have disagreed with him. And I didn't."
"Doctor, you obviously see this as a flaw, when in fact you precisely prove the reason why I made that choice."
The man's eyes narrow. "What."
He permits a slight quirk of the lips to show his words are meant in sincere amicability, not in any way mockery. "Doctor McCoy, as Chief Medical Officer of this ship, you are the one individual who holds the final authority to override any orders, personal or professional, given by the captain or any other crew member, provided you are able to prove they are given under emotional compromise or other medical instability."
The doctor blinks.
"Admittedly against much evidence to the contrary, I find that I do to some extent trust your judgment, enough to place that decision-making capability in your hands."
"Huh."
"Therefore, in this instance, the fact that you did not, as you say, disagree with the captain's decision may cause you unease by your Starfleet code. However, you were abiding by my personal wishes as outlined in my own medical file; namely, using your best judgment in the situation."
"So you trust me to re-wire your brain from scratch and keep Jim Kirk under control when he's on a rescue mission? Are you insane?"
"If so, I believe the culpability for that now rests solely upon you, Doctor."
"Oh, I am not takin' the blame for –" McCoy trails off with a pause, squints at his computer screen, and rolls his eyes. Leaning over, he punches the inter-comms button for the outer ward. "Jim, stop terrorizing my staff and get in here, the door's unlocked. Uh-uh, you stay," he adds, pointing with a bony finger, and Spock's eyebrow slides up a fraction as the door opens.
"I was not terrorizing anyone, Doctor, I was simply asking where my Chief Medical Officer was since he was supposed to be examining a brain surgery patient, and furthermore – oh." Kirk clears his throat, and steps inside so the door can shut as it chimes impatiently at him. "I'll come back, Bones."
McCoy jabs a button with one finger, and the orange lockdown light over the door begins flashing.
"Try it. Now, where were we?"