Sooo here is part three, otherwise known as the last part of this tiny fic. I hope you guys think this is a good finish to the story!
Enjoy and review!
Bones avoids, or tries to avoid, the stares from the other medical personnel as he silently reenters the medical bay. He tries not to think about how the body of his dearest friend is zipped inside of the black bag that the crewmembers place on the examination table before him. The sickbay is filled with people since word travels quickly around the ship and everyone is flocking there in order to see if it's actually true and if Amelia T. Kirk is actually dead. The doctor doesn't even have the energy in him to command anyone back to their stations in order for him to have his space.
The zipper comes down and the flaps are pulled back and Doctor McCoy can barely manage to stare down at the blank face of the Captain. There are soft gasps and quiet sobs that appear throughout the room as everyone begins to come to terms with the fact that they are all alive because of Captain Kirk. and now their very own savior is dead. Bones blinks a few times before staggering back and into the closest chair, placing his head in his hands as soon as he's seated. That chair happens to be directly beside the specific desk which he had used to inject a dead Tribble with the regenerative cell filled blood of Khan.
As if on cue, the creature makes a low purring noise that has Bones slowly looking up through teary eyes. He sees the noticeable up and down movement on the Tribble which can mean nothing other than successful breathing. After that he springs into action very quickly, demanding a cryopod and contacting Spock as quickly as possible. He's aware that the half-Vulcan went after Khan and is almost positive that he was on a mission to kill after seeing the Commander's reaction to Amelia's death. Bones is speaking rapidly because he needs to have Khan alive in order to get some of his blood and have any chance at saving the demised Kirk. McCoy can't help but feel the utter irony in the fact that the individual who led to Amelia's death could be the only chance at saving her life.
People can't help but praise Bones as a medical miracle worker when the multiple blood transfusions seem to work and put Amelia into a coma-induced state. He brushes off every compliment with a nod or shrug because he refuses to be satisfied until the Captain is opening her eyes and talking and standing and remembering the people around her. McCoy even shares thanks with Spock, who was able to successfully capture Khan and bring him back on the Enterprise in order to provide blood for Amelia's recovery. It's a brief exchange of words between the two science officers in which Spock nods and Bones awkwardly avoids direct eye contact, but meaningful nonetheless.
The agonizing two weeks are filled with a whole lot of sitting and pacing and analyzing vitals and staying up late for the loyal Doctor McCoy, who can't seem to find any peace away from the Academy's quaint medical bay room where Amelia is recovering. Spock visits a lot, sometimes with Uhura and sometimes not, usually picking a spot to sit and stare in his usual calculating way. Basically all members of the Enterprise crew visit at one point in time, bringing flowers and other trivial 'get-well' gifts that Bones just knows Lea is going to scoff (appreciatively) at when she wakes up.
When.
It's a word that Bones drills into his head as an absolute truth, because he just has to hope and wish and rely on the outcome that she is going to wake up after all the hell that she's been through. He completely avoids Spock's statistical way of looking at her chances and tries to shut his ears off whenever he hears the half-Vulcan explaining to someone about something to do with stupid percentages.
Bones eventually stops counting the number of times his friends ask him to take a break and get some sleep, because after the total has reached twelve, he decides he just doesn't have time for adding it up anymore. He's devoting all of his effort and all of his medically-trained brainpower to making sure that Amelia stays on track and that her conditions are prime for optimum recovery, a term he just knows that Spock would appreciate.
The nights are spent with a lot of sneaking into her hospital room, because even Chief Medical Officers aren't supposed to have access to everything at every given time. This is the time when Bones actually sits and gives himself a much needed break, though he is constantly stealing glances over at the continuously beeping monitors and screens. It's often that his thoughts drift towards his 'final' moments with Amelia Kirk, always focusing in on the last few words that she had murmured through difficult breaths. He even talks to her occasionally, though the doctor would never discuss that or his not-so-rare tears with another soul. Well, except maybe her.
While the first blinks out of sleep are challenging, the first blinks out of a two week long medically induced coma after dying of radiation poisoning are even more challenging, as Amelia soon discovers. Only a fraction of her first thoughts are spent on wondering why she's here and breathing and really alive because a turn of the head helps her to notice her dear Doctor McCoy. He's smirking down at her while her eyes are widening at the same time her cheeks are flushing to a healthy pink because she's actually here with him, and he happens to look very good while outfitted in all white. She doesn't realize that he's trying to act nonchalant in order to avoid jumping for joy or tearing up, because he's done enough of the latter in the past two weeks.
Spock comes in a few moments later and happily welcomes her back to the world of the living. She marvels when he calls her Amelia instead of Captain because that literally never happens. She decides that his using of her name must only be saved for very special occasions such as her improbable and basically illogical return from the dead.
The remainder of the day includes a lot more visits from crew members and a lot of tears and a lot of smiles and a lot of hugs. Bones remains in the room for most of the day, often listening in as he checks her vitals or joining in the conversation as he sits in a chair near her bedside. His mind frequently wonders about their last conversation, and whether or not she remembers what she told him. He comes to the ultimate decision that he'll hold off on asking unless she brings it up, because it's more important for her to recover than to address all of his nagging questions about feelings.
The conversation doesn't come until around a week later, more specifically the night she's been cleared to leave the hospital. By then Bones has lessened his visits because she's doing a lot better and because he's being forced to tend to other patients with more severe cases. So Amelia is able to return to her quarters around nine o'clock at night, strolling through the mainly empty campus. She doesn't really mind because she doesn't feel like being confronted by people and asked about death and how she's doing. When she reaches her room, it looks exactly how she'd left it, which is a relief as she eagerly climbs onto the bed without bothering to turn on any lights in the first place.
Sleep doesn't come easily and she's tossing and turning and noticing the eerie silence at the absence of all of the beeping and whirring hospital instruments. Every shut of her eyelids brings unsettling images of the warp core and the glass door and her friends staring helplessly back at her as she wheezes and coughs. She goes over each and every word she'd said, wondering why she picked those things as her last words. That sends her mind onto a different tangent that includes wondering why Bones has been acting a little distant and wondering why he hasn't mentioned anything whatsoever about what she said to him before she died. She sighs in exasperation and turns to see that the clock has already struck ten. She wants to sleep, but now her thoughts have her wanting to move and go and act on something, so before she can stop herself she's jumping out of bed and dashing into the hallways of the dorm building.
Bones has trained himself to be worried every time someone comes knocking on his door in the middle of the night, so he's absolutely freaked to see Amelia standing before him and automatically begins to ask what's wrong and think of all the different worst case scenarios that can occur based on her treatment. She quells his worries momentarily by informing him that nothing is actually wrong, but sends his heart pounding again once she says 'I need to talk to you'. He briefly opens his mouth to say something, but opts for a nod and to stay silent until he sees where she's going with this.
She's at a rare loss for words and feels generally frazzled because she's confronting her best friend about her innermost feelings and he's standing there waiting, looking effortlessly attractive in Starfleet uniform pajamas and with ruffled dark hair that could've only been achieved through sleep. Amelia has no way of knowing that Bones is desperately concealing his nervousness because he has a feeling that his is going to be the conversation and he doesn't think he'll ever be fully ready for what she's going to say to him.
There's a brief stretch of silence in which McCoy is waiting to listen and Amelia is deciding that something else would be a much better alternative to talking. So she takes a leap by stepping forward and placing her hands on his shoulders and pressing her lips against his in a real, albeit short, kiss. Despite the fact that it feels right and good and perfect, she pulls back to examine his face and lets her palms linger in their spot on his shoulders. Amelia is only able to utter 'I-' before she's being tugged forward and Bones is kissing her again like no one ever has before.
There's a lot more kissing after that, followed by staggering into dorms and pressing backs against walls and wrapping legs around waists and falling softly down onto beds. When she finally confirms her declaration of love through a near breathless voice, McCoy is able to do what he's longed to do since her sort-of death, and whispers that he loves her and that he plans on doing just that for the rest of his life. There's a radiant grin that makes its way onto Amelia's face which Bones can't help but cover with his own lips as the two tumble back into a night filled with pure bliss.
Amelia Timothea Kirk smirks over at her blue shirted Chief Medical Officer of the Enterprise as she steps onto the main bridge. Bones rolls his eyes, but sends her back a warm smile as the rest of the crew scurries around to prepare the ship for her five year mission into space. After eleven months of pitching her case and readying her crew and settling into a relationship with her dear doctor, Amelia grins at the fact that she and her crew have finally made it. She struts forward, containing herself to merely running her fingers over his bicep as she passes because McCoy made her promise to be as professional as possible while on duty. Her ears catch him mutter something about five years in space and she quirks a smile.
The Captain's chair eagerly awaits her as she finally takes a seat to examine all of the stations around the bridge. She rattles off the usual questions to Sulu, Chekov, and Spock and receives pleasing answers across the board that indicate the readiness of her ship for their mission. As Sulu prepares to put the Enterprise into warp, her favorite half-Vulcan and doctor come to stand on either side of her chair. When Spock questions where they should go, she hesitates as her ship bursts out into the vast expanse of space.
There is a hopeful smile on Amelia T. Kirk's face as she cheerily responds 'Where no one has gone before'.
The end!
I hoped you guys liked this and I also hope there were not too many mistakes.
Please please review with your thoughts, or if you would like any further continuation, such as more one shots, because I have sooooo many ideas when it comes to these two characters.
xo, liz