A/N: Here we are. Parting is such sweet sorrow, but every journey has a destination and we have reached ours. Thanks to Aoihand, Hidden Relevance, Greenhemoglobin, The Pyscho Pyro, DamagedBeauty, M'eyari, Zarelle, and the many more of you who both reviewed and followed along on this death march of a FF. Cheers!

Chapter 35- Trust Me

Just as Pavel had done for me, I dropped into McCoy's quarters for dinner. There wasn't any reason he couldn't go down to 10 forward by himself, but ever since returning from the away mission and being stripped of his duties he had been moping and seemed a bit lost. I knew exactly how it felt to lose your identity and purpose, so I thought he might enjoy the company. Then again maybe he wanted to be left alone, but that was just too bad. Some things were just for his own good.

He didn't at all seem surprised to see me. "Dinner time!" I smiled.

He stepped aside to let me in. "So that means what, coffee for you and a gin and strychnine for me?"

I made my way over to his replicator and made pasta. "I'm not angry with you, McCoy." I sighed. "I get it. I wish I would have been given a choice, but ultimately you did what you thought best. I know you had my interests in mind."

"I would have, but I know you don't like taking drugs and there really was no other way." He shrugged. "Sometimes you are so stubborn you remind me of Jim."

"Me?" I scoffed placing a plate of pasta for him on his desk. "That's the pot calling the kettle black."

He picked up his plate and stabbed at the noodles fiercely. "How'd it go?" He asked with his mouth full of food. I thought back to the restaurant in the sky in Chicago when his table manners were perfect and I was amused at how quickly they could devolve when the setting changed.

"He is good." I said vaguely. It was still not lost on me how he really did try more than I gave him credit for and he did have the right to patient confidentiality. It was my job to keep secrets, so his being just a little vulnerable would remain strictly between us. A faint smile crossed his lips as he instantly recognized my response as professional code for 'I really can't say anymore' so he let it drop. "The question is: how are you?" I ventured.

He sighed and swallowed the mouthful of food he had. "I am bored as hell and feel about as useful as a tit on a bull."

"Thought you might." I said a little smugly.

"I hate it." He said aimlessly stabbing his pasta. "I know I am in no shape to operate, my damn ribs hurt too much- it would made my hands shake and that is never a good thing for a surgeon. But being cooped up leaves you with hours with nothing to do but sit up into the early hours of the morning drinking and thinking about how much your life sucks."

"Your daughter?" I guessed.

"Well, that too." He frowned. "Everything. The ex, stress on the job, stress when you can't do the job, how your life is so out of control sometimes…"

"What do you mean?" I asked quietly.

He gestured vaguely to the mark that had been burned into the nape of his neck. His eyes grew dark and I sensed a storm coming. "I kept telling myself that it would all be over soon, that Spock would figure something out and get us the hell out of there before anything major happened. But he didn't. Even when I saw that heshe thing walk up to Jim with the brand, I just kept telling myself it wasn't happening. Then I watched Sulu, and even when it was my turn it didn't seem real."

I silently pushed my plate aside. Suddenly I had lost my appetite. "What did you do?"

"The only thing I know how." He replied in a sad tone. "Just thought of it all in very cold medical terms. Didn't work very well, though."

"It was an extremely hard thing to watch." I admitted. "I couldn't imagine having to suffer through that kind of pain."

"I know." He said glancing at me briefly. "I saw the look on your face. The link to the ship was bidirectional." So that explained Uhura's actions… "The pain wasn't the hard part, though. Don't get me wrong: I wouldn't ever stand in like to get on that ride again, but the worst part was the absolute helplessness of being held down and completely unable to do a damn thing about it. Helpless to stop that or getting the shit kicked out of us, or anything about the whole damn situation. And then you showed up."

I smiled softly. Here it comes…

The look of resigned irritation was written all over his face. "You had no business getting into that mess. You should have stayed on the ship."

"Actually I had all the business in the world tied up in chains. Mess with my friends and I will come down there and fuck you up." I laughed.

He smiled and his eyes brightened. "The ninja queen strikes again."

"And it wasn't even on a man!" I exclaimed. "It is much harder to do to a woman because we recognize the tools of the trade easily, so it takes a whole different level of skill. But I would be lying if I didn't admit to being just a little frightened the whole time."

"You? Scared of something other than eye drops?" He mocked.

"I hate you." I said flatly.

"No you don't." He concluded and put his half-eaten plate on top of mine. "You might hate the things I do, but you don't hate me. It just isn't in you."

"That's what you think." I muttered. He didn't really know anything about who I used to be…

His eyes immediately locked onto me and I knew I made a mistake. "What does that mean?" He asked suspiciously.

"I don't hate you." I clarified. "We have this wonderfully strange…something going and I think it is very comfortable."

"Uh huh…" He drawled squinting at me. "But that was not what you were talking about. Just because I am a surgeon does not mean I am oblivious to cracks in the psyche. I just saw a pretty big one."

I looked down at his desk and the congealing pasta sauce on the plates. "People change, McCoy." I sighed. "You just met me at a very strange time in my life."

He continued to regard me with a sense of disappointed mistrust, but he didn't pursue it any further and I was glad. "Will you at least trust me enough to tell me about these bad dreams you are having?" He asked hopefully. "I can keep giving you sedatives, but you know eventually you have to get this off your chest."

His green eyes became soft and I found that strange connection opening between us again just as it did when he left the photograph on my desk with the words, 'You are not alone.' Within those eyes I felt a soothing, peaceful stillness.

I thought back to all I had endured in the past few months and my soul ached for relief. I considered myself privileged to have been allowed into the lives of those on the crew. As they shared their triumphs and moments of sadness, I grew to appreciate them more as colleagues and friends. It was the nature of the misery business to find yourself steeped in sorrow, but a person could only absorb so much grief before the sponge had to be rung out so the process of mopping up the tragedies of others could start again.

Their secrets would always remain safe with me, but I had to release some of the tension to another professional that would understand what it felt like. For that I needed McCoy.

"Yeah," I barely whispered, "I will trust you."

THE END!!

(Almost)