Leonard's eyes snap open. The artificial light of morning is filling the room and his limbs have the weight of exhaustion holding them down. His heart is beating fast and he's sharply alert for having just escaped the confines of sleep. He lies there, perfectly still, waiting. Waiting for what, he isn't sure, but he feels like the field mouse about to have the snake's jaws close around him. His memories have an ethereal quality to them and most lurk just out of his grasp. There's one of Jim, hands covered in green blood as he lets the go of the knife in Spock's gut, yet another of Jim offering him water and promising he's safe. He has one of Spock insisting he's home but also promising unimaginable horror should he find himself back on Enterprise. They dance around his consciousness like an itch that needs to be scratched. He's not sure which are real or if any of them are. There's a storm brewing and all his thoughts and memories feel tainted somehow. What does he have if he can't trust his own memories?

There's an echo of a conversation with Jim. Jim, ever the hero, brought Leonard's sorry ass home, no doubt at great risk to Jim himself and the away team. Hell, the kid even seemed enthusiastic to let Leonard rant and rave. But was is real? He had that same dream many times over the last few weeks, especially while Sulu was intent on carving up every square inch of his flesh like a Thanksgiving Day turkey.

"Are you alright?" asks Jim, hesitant like McCoy might bite him or something and that's not like Jim at all. It's certainly not how Leonard would imagine his friend.

The question startles Leonard. He hadn't realized he wasn't alone. That question is far more complex than it has any right to be. He's in medical, somewhere, and his right hand is bandaged up pretty good, to the point where his skills as a doctor tell him he doesn't want to know what's lurking underneath. Jim's sitting with him, not killing him, but looking like someone kicked his dog and Leonard's the only on that can save it. And somehow that's equally as terrifying as the bloody psychopath Spock promised. The whole situation's too depressing to be anything other than real but if it is some wild flight of fancy to escape whatever McCoy's frail body is withstanding, then he'll t grip it tightly with both hands and pretend for as long as possible, or at least until Spock pops up to drag him back to hell.

It's a simple question with an equally simple answer but McCoy's wracking his brain to come up with something tangible and can't. He has medical school and Starfleet under his belt and he can't formulate a yes or no to 'is he alright.' Is he alright? Clearly not. Being in medbay is usually a red flag for no but he's sixty percent sure he's no longer in a fucked up word where his friends are deranged killers so that swings the pendulum into yes. No: he's spent how long being tortured, for people's entertainment no less. Yes: he's alive and that wasn't a given a few days (weeks?) ago. Is he alright in this moment? Overall? Holy shit, is he having an existential crisis because someone asked him if he was ok? That sounds like a mental breakdown waiting to happen. Perhaps Spock really broke him after all.

"Bones?" asks Jim hesitantly. McCoy has that look in his eye like he's about to lose his shit.

Jim's looking at him expectantly, like he might live or die at Leonard's next words and he still can't come up with a yes or no. He's wandered into pathetic territory and gotten so lost he can never hope to be found.

"Stupid question, I know. Of course you're not alright," says Jim in his smooth apologetic diplomat voice, filling in the silence that's washed over them. "I guess, I mean, do you need anything?"

McCoy shakes his head because he can manage that. The list of things he wants is endless. He wants the last look Chekov gave him to fade from memory, the way the light faded from the kid's eyes. He wants Chapel's accusations to melt away and Spock's presence, that seems to feel like it slithers and clings to his skin, to vanish. He wants these to not be memories that stand out bright and shiny against the darkness that has become his mind. He wants his sanity, god damn it!

"Did it really happen?" McCoy asks, small and broken, but so much hope rides on those words. If it was all just a dream, some wizard of Oz bullshit, he might be able to pull the pieces together and rebuild. If it was real though, those cracks and jagged edges are going to be impossible to smooth over.

Jim looks pained, like McCoy's a piece of glass that will shatter under his words. McCoy's pretty sure there aren't any pieces left big enough to break.

"Yeah, it happened."

Silence hangs in the air reeking of death and mourning. It's oppressive and loud and threatens to wash away the sandy remains of Leonard's being like a tide returning to the sea.

"But important thing is we got you back. We brought you home."

Is that the important thing? McCoy knows Jim means for it to be reassuring and a beacon of light to guide and warm him after the storm he just weathered, but it feels hollow and empty. All he wanted was to survive and return home and now that he's here, he feels like maybe he would be better off if they'd just left him there.

Jim's talking, explaining what happened after they realized he was gone, but McCoy isn't listening, not really. He's too busy concentrating on the bottomless pit that's formed in the center of his soul, threatening to swallow him whole. It howls like a tornado, beating against every defense Leonard has left. It's a wonder Jim can't hear it.

"Bones?" Jim waves his hand in front of McCoy's face, trying to break the hundred yard stare that isn't seeing anything in the room. "Where'd you go?"

"Hell. I went to hell because of you." Leonard can picture himself saying the words, hear them spilling over his tongue and feel them burying themselves in Jim like all the blades that took down the mighty Caesar, but he knows none of them make it past his lips. He doesn't have it in him to hurt Jim, especially with lies.

Jim looks hesitant, unsure when he asks, "Why don't you tell me what you remember?" And for some reason that's funny to Leonard. Jim's cocksure, impulsive, fearless and a god damn tyrant. Asking something of McCoy shouldn't make him nervous. "Straight to the debrief then, Captain."

Jim looks slightly ashamed but maybe a little disappointed. "It's not like that, Leonard. This isn't anything official. I just want to know what happened."

'If you'd bothered to show that night, you'd know,' echoes through McCoy's head.

What happened? Leonard doesn't know how to answer that. He remembers nothing but feels all of it. There's terrible images rolling around in his head and a few memories that are so clear they rival the world he sees now, yet there are more, hiding in the dark recesses of his mind like the monster under the bed he used to check for at Joanna's request, waiting to pop out and revisit themselves on his mind. The last thing he wants to do is poke the hibernating bear and unleash a wrath that is mercifully dormant at the moment.

He knows what Spock did; that wound is so deep it threatens to fracture the whole universe but how does he begin to put that into words? Swallowing, Leonard bites his lip like he can lock the information away for eternity and then he might be able to forget completely. His captain just sits at his bedside, patiently waiting for any crumb the doctor sees fit to offer to help him navigate the treacherous trail. Something evil always lurks at the end of the path, disguised as something hopeful to lure them all into a false sense of security.

There's no escaping this conversation. Jim's trying very hard to hide an official inquiry made by a captain to his officer returning from an away mission; official channels demanding some sort of debrief before a more formal report can be written. Even if Jim wasn't his captain, he's Leonard's friend and eventually Jim would ask just so he could begin to understand how to ease the doctor's burden.

"I was waiting," starts McCoy and it's like he's sitting in his apartment that fateful night all this started, all over again. "I thought it was you at the door but it was Spock."

It takes everything Jim has to keep his mouth shut as Leonard starts his story. Apologies want to profusely fall from his lips that he wasn't there when it mattered most. Honestly, he can't remember what or who had been more important in that moment than meeting with McCoy as promised. 'I'm sorry' isn't some magic bandage that fixes everything; it might not fix anything in this case. The words seem so grievously inadequate but Jim has nothing more to offer at the moment. Unfortunately there are so many blanks in what happened. He has to know what kind of animal they're dealing with and the only one with the answers at the moment is the one person that should be protected from all of it.

"We struggled." McCoy shakes his head. There wasn't much of a struggle; he wasn't yet aware of his role as the sheep about to be blindsided by the wolf. "It was over quick. The damn hobgoblin nerve pinched me. Don't know what happened after that."

Kirk's quiet and reserved as he asks, "What about in the other universe?"

The corner of the blanket covering McCoy suddenly becomes fascinating. He picks at it with his thumb and forefinger like he can somehow beat the un-frayable fabric. "Woke up in their sickbay on their Enterprise. Apparently you're a pain in the ass there too, cause Captain Spock has a special hatred burning for you. Pike had killed me so Spock came lookin' for a new McCoy he could trade to Kirk. The people over there... they're animals. Soulless killers and power hungry maniacs, the lot of 'em." Moisture gathers at the corners of his eyes as he finally looks up and locks eyes with his friend. "The things those people are capable of..." The words catch in his throat. No matter how hard he tries he can't force them out. He can feel Spock's hand on the side of his face and see every threat Spock promised play out before him.

"Captain," comes from the doorway and Leonard knows that voice as surely and as intimately as he knows his own. His eyes dart towards the door and oh god it can't be. Jim promised he put a whole universe between them, but Spock's here! He's here and ...

McCoy's volatile protest comes to a crashing halt as pain fierce as a white hot poker being run through his body brings him to his knees. The epicenter of his agony is the device lodged underneath his collarbone, too deep for him to claw it free from his body but he tries anyways. It feels like he's drowning in a sea of pure agony and he can't break the surface to catch his breath, not matter how hard he tries. He screams himself hoarse in a matter of seconds and just as he prays for merciful death, it stops. The pain is gone but he's still a writhing mess on the floor.

"You will cease making noise," says Spock casually, stepping towards the pile of Leonard on the floor. He kicks McCoy over on to his back. "It appears your insistent chatter is universal. If you're not careful doctor, your mouth will get you killed again."

"What the hell did you do to me!"

Spock raises a stern finger in warning. "You will address me as Captain. If you fail to do so or follow any other command I give, you will suffer the agonizer I've had Nurse Chapel insert. Should you try and tamper with it, it will turn on and stay on until I arrive to disarm it. Is any of this in anyway unclear?"

"No," snarls Leonard. This time when the agonizer unleashes its ungodly pain upon him it lasts for only a second. It's enough, coupled with the expectant eyebrow of Spock's, to remind Leonard just how limited his options and recourse are. "No Captain."

The Enterprise fades away but Spock does not. The room is dark and barren. Like a huge cavern, McCoy's breaths echo off the distant walls which are so far away, they're obscured by the darkness. He's on his knees, like a dog before its master, unable and unwilling to summon the energy to move. Spock towers over him like a monument to be worshipped, stone faced and impassive. It's just the two of them in all of creation and yet it feels too crowded; existence clearly isn't big enough for the both of them.

"Did you really think you could run from me?" demands Spock and his voice is so loud and consuming it shakes the universe and reverberates along every bone in McCoy's body until it rattles around his skull like a pinball.

Spock raises his hand; McCoy's stomach drops. Not again. Anything but that. He tries to move, to crawl away, but Spock's god like tone has shattered his bones, leaving them useless piles of dust weighing McCoy down. He tries to cry out for help or even to beg for a merciful end from Spock, just not this. No sound escapes him as the Vulcan's hand comes closer.

And closer.

And closer, until he can feel the heat of Spock's hand as it hovers just over the side of McCoy's face. So close it barely brushes against his skin like the caress of a ghost. Spock's hand presses against him an it's like getting hit in the face with a shuttle as McCoy's world explodes in a Technicolor kaleidoscope of pain and agony from which there is no escape.

"Bones?"

Leonard can hear the squeal of Jim's chair as it scrapes across the floor. The sound fills the void that his ragged breaths normally would, except his traitorous lungs seem to have forgotten how to pull air in.

"Bones, breathe!" Jim puts his hands on Leonard's face so he has no choice but to look Jim in the eyes. It's worked before, when McCoy's aviophobia was still so bad, just stepping onto the flight deck caused McCoy to freeze up and hyperventilate. Today it seems to have the opposite effect, pushing McCoy over the edge into a full blown panic attack. "Bones!"

M'Benga appears out of thin air, pulling Jim back by the shoulder. "Captain, I need you to step out."

Jim licks his lip and takes a second to get his bearings. He's calm under pressure when he's on the bridge of his ship, here though, he's almost as panicked as McCoy. The best doctor he knows is Leonard McCoy. Since the best is the one in need of care, Jim's glad M'Benga is here. McCoy trusts him, so he has to be good. He looks from M'Benga to the med team working on calming Leonard down.

"Alright," snaps Kirk, throwing his hands up in surrender. He turns on his heels and storms out of the room, Spock trailing behind him like a faithful shadow the second Jim crosses the threshold.

Jim's a snowball of pent up frustration and anger, just rolling down hill and getting larger by the second until it's so huge it threatens to crush someone. He rubs his hands up his face, through his hair and then down his neck.

"What the hell happened in there?" asks Jim. It's rhetorical; he's seen episodes like that before. They were talking and it had been going well, but then the bottom fell out of the world.

Jim glances through the window into McCoy's room. There's a war being waged in there and he's stuck on the sidelines, useless and helpless.

"It would appear my presence has caused the doctor a great deal of discomfort," says Spock blandly. It's a crude hypothesis; his time to collect data was limited and his mediation on the images he saw from the doctor's mind still require analysing but it seems the most logical conclusion.

Jim stares at his first officer bewildered and equal parts pissed off before he remembers that rhetorical is usually lost on his Vulcan friend. He kicks a cart that's been left in the corridor and looks on with satisfaction as its contents go clanging down the corridor. His foot hurts, enough that he can't rule out having fractured one of the bones, but this pain feels too good to care. The cart is a helpless victim because he can't punish his crew and those responsible are too far away.

Spock opens his mouth to comment but Jim turns on him like a pissed off bear so he settles for raising an eyebrow.

With nothing else in the corridor, Jim goes on a search for something else to break. He makes it a couple of meters to the waiting room and stops when he sees Uhura standing there. She looks fragile and broken with bad news written all over her.

She looks away from her captain towards Spock. "Did you tell him?"

Jim doesn't wait for Spock to answer. "Tell me what?" he snaps. He's tired of people walking on eggshells around him, trying to protect him when their efforts should be directed solely towards fixing McCoy; especially when it can't get any worse.