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Title:This is our legacy
Series: ST:XI
Characters/Pairings: Pike, McCoy, with a dabbling of Kirk. Kirk/McCoy if you squint.
Rating: PG.
Warnings: none that I’m concerned about, unless you still haven’t seen the movie and would be spoiled.
Wordcount: 3,048
Summary: For trek_exchange. Funerals are generally pretty bleak affairs. Funerals for an entire planet, well, that's damn well depressing.
When Starfleet command finally dug its way through the mess of paperwork and delegations and other necessary bureaucratic red tape surrounding the Narada, they played host to a formal funeral for the cadets and officers lost. Most attendees were either crew of the Enterprise coming back from their own private funerals, or wide eyed newbies with very little clue as to just how close they came to getting sucked into a black hole. McCoy stood next to Kirk, all stiff-backed and bleak expression throughout the entire thing, partly out of respect for his colleagues and partly because it was all he can do not to just break down and weep.
The whole deal was a bit too depressing so he and Jim and most of the bridge crew held a more private mourning session apart from the official proceedings, one with a healthy dose of hard liquor to take the edge of the ache in all of them. And though Chekov was not yet legal to be drinking, no one stopped him.
There really wasn't talking, mostly because there just wasn't much to say, especially not something like this.
Scotty seemed to be the only one holding up marginally well. He'd been the most removed from everything because he'd been stationed on Delta Vega for so long, and wound up spending most of the time with someone else's head on his shoulder.
They were a sight to behold, the rest of them. Cadets and instructors and officers alike, all wallowed in their guilt for having survived when so many others didn't.
At some odd hour in the morning when the sky was still pitch black but dawn is still hours away, McCoy sat hunched over a small glass of some kind of liquor (he has yet to read the label), while indirectly staring at the flickering of a dying light bulb somewhere off to his left. It distracted him from a flurry of depressing thoughts far better than the half-full bottle in his hand, much more than he'd like to admit. The silence was what really keeps him up, though.
It reminded him too much of the cold coffin of space during those horrible few days.
It was the quiet ones that stuck. The patients who died with silently, unblinking eyes staring at nothing, laying slack on the biobed. No chest movement, clammy skin, and blue lips contradicted the screaming machines and flatline beep that he still heard in his nightmares. The nurses and other doctors were yelling at each other uselessly in the background, fumbling with hyposprays of epinephrine to try to pull back someone who's too far gone for even a miracle. Those patients were always the most unnerving, because despite the flurry of chaos and desperation, there was always an odd sort of silent bubble surrounding them that marked them as dead and never coming back.
All the Vulcan refugees had that same silence, even when they were cleared with a clean bill of health. It was as if the entire surviving population had resigned itself to its own demise.
McCoy took another swig and savored the liquid flame as it burned down the back of his throat. He spared a glance at the only other person left in the room.
Everyone else left at some point in the night. They were all out to sleep off their grief in the privacy of their own rooms.
Jim was in a full-fledged sprawl across the couch in what appeared to be a very uncomfortable position and completely passed out. He had one arm slung over his face and his right leg hung off of the seat cushion at an odd angle that would surely leave his knee protesting for hours. McCoy would have moved him, but that would require actually making it across the room with a very high blood alcohol content chewing at his coordination skills.
No, it was most likely safer for both of them this way.
McCoy knows he should be calling it quits and retire for the night. He's exhausted down to his bones, but he's still too restless to settle down.
The night draws on, still blanketing the city in dark shadows while the empty bottles get piled ever higher into a haphazard tower but that hollowed-shell, empty feeling still remained.
---
McCoy has seen a lot of bizarre things during his service aboard the Enterprise so nothing much fazed him anymore. If his career choice didn't divulge him of all his sensitivities, being the best friend of Jim pretty much ripped away anything Starfleet didn't manage to cover.
Between humanity and James T. Kirk, he's got all the adventure and chaos he needs for the rest of his life.
But once every so often, something came along so out of the ordinary, so odd that it made him pause and openly stare in a way that makes him look somewhat slow.
When Captain-, no it's Admiral now, Christopher Pike wheeled up on his doorstep with a bottle of aspirin in one hand and a blueberry pie in the other, McCoy wasn't quite sure what to make of this image. Of course, the alcohol still sloshing around in his brain didn't help his higher processes, but that's a story for another day.
There's a fleeting moment when he felt the need, courtesy his mother, to check his breath, which he knew was nothing short of atrocious. But then Pike pulled this, half head tilt half shrug with such a blank expression that McCoy couldn’t quite gauge as positive or negative.
"I hope you don't make a habit of this every time there's a crisis."
McCoy couldn’t decide whether that had been a reprimand or a joke. The straight face indicated some level of disapproval. But the pie, it just sat there innocently in Pike’s hand and stuck out like a sore thumb in a ‘which of these doesn’t belong with the others’ kind of way.
He made a point to stare at the pie to signal his inability to get over this mental block in logic flow.
When it became clear that nothing intelligible was forthcoming, Pike sighed and tossed McCoy’s brain a bone, “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
McCoy meant to say something civil, something more intelligent or even relevant to the conversation, but his brain-mouth filter had been gone somewhere between the second and the tenth shot (not that there was much of one to begin with) so he wasn't exactly in the right state of mind to care. "You can't tell me what to do." McCoy grumbled defiantly. That was Kirk’s horrendously bad influence rearing it’s ugly head right there. He’ll regret this soon enough when tossed out on his ass for idiotic insubordination or something, but for now it made him feel a bit better, at least emotionally. His stomach rolled in earnest, harshly informing him of its displeasure.
“Actually, I can.” Pike smirked at the doctor, "But I was hoping this would be a more informal gathering."
Which meant the initial greeting had been a joke then.
McCoy stared straight at that unwavering gaze, mostly because getting the door had been a bad idea and he's about to hurl, any movement now would just set off the first round. "I may throw up on you." he warned, since it was the god-honest truth. He experienced a sense of déjà vu speaking those words, considering the fact that he had been similarly buzzed the first time he met Kirk and had the same queasy feeling hanging in the pit of his gut.
Pike just chuckled in amusement, "I don't think I've heard that counterargument used before," he mused, "I'll give you points for originality."
Kirk, with his face is still hidden by his arm and he made no move, chose that moment to make a noncommittal sound from his spot on the couch that got both men turning around.
“You know, the first time I meet Jim, he was flat on his back, nose bloodied, halfway drunk and probably suffering from some minor head trauma," Pike mused, "I seem to have a habit of catching him at his low points."
"Well aren't you a ray of sunshine on this fine day."
"It's morning, actually," Pike corrected, matter-of-fact, "Though I suppose it's day somewhere on the planet."
Smart ass. McCoy seriously weighed the cost-benefits of shutting the door on the smug bastard's face right then and there. He could always come up with an excuse later.
“Pie?" Pike offered the pie in his hand. His expression shifted into a relaxed smile.
McCoy's stared blankly at the offerings as stomach betrayed him. It growled loudly and eagerly in anticipation of something more nutritional than pure ethanol. That pie did smell quite welcoming though. The only benefit to come out of this was that he doesn't feel like he might throw up on an admiral anymore, which was a great improvement from moments before.
“I'll take that as a yes," Pike glanced down at McCoy's treacherous stomach.
Kirk interrupted with a pitiful moan from his place on the couch. Both men at the door turned to the sound in unison. Kirk side-winded his legs off the couch without moving his torso and kicked out randomly for a moment before getting his footing. He then slithered down to the floor from his knees up, and planted his face into the ground, unmoving for a few moments.
"Is he going to be alright?" Pike asked, not taking his eyes away from the slumped figure as McCoy moved away from the doorway.
“You okay, Jim?” McCoy wasn't really concerned, he had a good estimate of how much Kirk had consumed, and it wasn't nearly enough for major concern. A stabbing hangover, however, may not be out of the question. But McCoy wouldn't be a decent doctor if he didn't check anyway. He knelt down next to the younger man and gave the man a quick once over to rule out any obvious problems. and reflexively reached for his tricoder, but realized belatedly that he was off-duty and did not have one on hand. He settled for feeling Kirk's forehead with the back of his hand.
Kirk stirred from the cool hand on his brow and opened his eyes.
“Bones likes girly drinks,” Kirk cracked a lopsided grin, “They’re fruity.” He cracked a grin and pitched off the side of the couch into a human puddle onto the floor. “Hello ground,” he spoke into the carpet because he just so happened to land that way, “D’ya wanna be my friend?”
“Figures,” McCoy muttered, “Bastard woke up drunk.”
"That tends to happen when you guzzle down..." Pike rolled up next to McCoy and looked over the doctor's shoulder, then paused to glance at the mess of empty bottles, "Okay, I can't even estimate how much he consumed."
"m'not drunk," Kirk protested unconvincingly. He was dutifully ignored.
"Despite appearances, Jim's a lightweight," McCoy provided."The kid's brash, impulsive, rude, delinquent. You name it, he's the worst case scenario," he shook his head in exasperation, "But he still cares too damn much. He's been taking it harder than he should." he turns back to watch Kirk make abortive attempts to right himself.
"And you?" Pike inquired.
McCoy turned back to the admiral in confusion, "Me?--Jim!" Kirk had latched on to McCoy's left ankle and unhinged it from it's position on the floor.
With alcohol loosened limbs, McCoy pitched backwards and landed in a sprawl on the couch Jim had vacated not long before. Kirk still held a steel grip on his ankle as McCoy tried to push himself up.
Pike reached over and fisted the back of McCoy's shirt in one hand and pulled him into a presentable sitting position on the couch. McCoy opened his mouth to thank the man while wondering how he managed that motion.
"He's like a child, isn't he?" Pike mused.
Kirk snored in response. He was still latched onto McCoy's ankle.
"You should see me try to get him to eat his vegetables." McCoy griped.
"I'm quite sure I don't want to know," then his expression turned serious, "Look. I may not be medical, but I know you're on the front lines of the aftermath," Pike gave McCoy a pointed look, "It's not easy."
The stiff posture, the uncanny silence, and the dead air surrounding the hundreds of Vulcan survivors flashed across McCoy's vision. Between the first wave of torpedoes that wiped out most of Deck 6 and the hundreds of Vulcan refugees who boarded not long after, there wasn't much time to mourn when the sickbay had been swarming. Not only did he have his own crew members to deal with but he had an endless stream of flat expressions and monotone voices that pulled on his already frayed nerves.
There had been moments he wanted to shake them, scream at them, something to get rid of the blank stares one after the other.
He knew on an intellectual level that they were all devastated by their planet's destruction, Spock's outburst had been proof enough of that. But no matter how much he empathized with their pain, he still expected a reaction- trembling hands, inconsolable tears, wailing, something. He would've been able to deal with that better. When the pressure had reached breaking point and he was two seconds away from punching something, he used the crisis as a thinly veiled excuse to escape to the bridge. There was sanctuary in the bleak faces there, a comfort in the familiarity of emotion.
Then, after Kirk managed to beam himself back on the ship, he had even more reason to go there, to be close, to make sure the idiot was alright and didn't somehow get himself thrown out of the airlock again.
Pike's voice pierced through the haze of his reflections, "You're his chief medical officer," he held his hand up before the doctor can begin to protest, "You will be," he said firmly, "I don't think he'll accept anyone else. And a few months from now, when the Enterprise goes out in space on her commissioned voyage, he's going to need you there."
McCoy didn't know what to say to that. He should be excited, happy, thankful, something else besides this sense of dread that tugged at his heart.
There's a small part of him that still saw the broken remains of the corpses on Deck 6, most of them bright eyed cadets still thinking about their next exam or the next mixer before the torpedoes ripped shreds through their shields and spilled metal and wire and flesh into the cold breaches of space. He took a few deep breaths and then allowed himself a sigh, which came out much more shaky than he would've liked. "Dr. Puri had two kids, two little girls." he started. He didn't know why he said it, but it was too late to take it back, "I talked to his wife yesterday..." his voice cracked.
"It's not your fault." Pike interrupted. "You said that Jim shouldn't feel responsible for any of this. The same goes for you."
"You didn't call the time of death." McCoy muttered bitterly. He felt the sting of tears in the corner of his eyes and took a deep breath and looked away to hide it.
Pike was quiet for a moment, "This isn't about Dr. Puri, is it?"
And that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. McCoy was afraid. Not for himself, never for himself, because he knew how to take care of himself, he knew his limits. But Jim, who laughed in the face of insurmountable odds, who started bar fights to blow off steam, who broke boundaries and tradition and regulations, who did stupid shit just because he was Jim Tiberius Kirk.
Despite all of the pomp and prestige of being a Starfleet captain, there's still an inherent risk in exploring uncharted territory and dealing with hostile natives, never mind doing it with Kirk's current brand of diplomacy. McCoy knew that Kirk had been his Achilles heel about six months into their friendship. It had been a sobering realization of how much he actually cared. Almost three years later and the feelings has only intensified. If anything were to happen to him that medicine or science couldn't solve, couldn't fix...
He couldn't even think beyond that.
"I'm not claiming to understand." Pike said softly, he placed a firm hand on the doctor's shoulder. "I just know that no one will take care of him better than you will."
McCoy snorted. "I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker."
"Some of your patients would beg to differ," Pike replied, "Jim would testify it to himself if he weren't drooling on the floor right now," they both looked down at the sleeping man still hanging precariously onto McCoy's ankle, "Jim's a good kid. He told me he would go through the academy in three years, and he did. The little punk actually did." Pike's face softened as he turned back to regard McCoy, "He won't let you down."
"But he's so goddamn young."
Pike squeezed McCoy's shoulder in reassurance, "He's young, but he'll grow into his post."
It's not the best assurance anyone could give, and it's far from enough to quell the fear, but for now it's all he could hold onto. Kirk isn't going to give up his post just because his best friend had doubts about the continuity of his unflappable luck, and McCoy wouldn't hold him back like that.
"So you'll stay with him?" PIke asked.
"I'm already here, aren't I?" McCoy answered jokingly, "I won't be leaving anytime soon." he meant it too, and because his tongue is still a bit loose from the alcohol, "Besides, somebody's got to make sure he eats his goddamn peas every once in a while."
Pike chucked, "That you will."
McCoy's stomach decided to remind him of its existence, "Now you offered some pie, and I heard somewhere that you were a man of your word."
Kirk is still drooling on the floor by the time McCoy finished his slice of pie. The bottle of aspirin came in handy later when Kirk finally woke up after his share of alcohol wore off.
end.
Series: ST:XI
Characters/Pairings: Pike, McCoy, with a dabbling of Kirk. Kirk/McCoy if you squint.
Rating: PG.
Warnings: none that I’m concerned about, unless you still haven’t seen the movie and would be spoiled.
Wordcount: 3,048
Summary: For trek_exchange. Funerals are generally pretty bleak affairs. Funerals for an entire planet, well, that's damn well depressing.
When Starfleet command finally dug its way through the mess of paperwork and delegations and other necessary bureaucratic red tape surrounding the Narada, they played host to a formal funeral for the cadets and officers lost. Most attendees were either crew of the Enterprise coming back from their own private funerals, or wide eyed newbies with very little clue as to just how close they came to getting sucked into a black hole. McCoy stood next to Kirk, all stiff-backed and bleak expression throughout the entire thing, partly out of respect for his colleagues and partly because it was all he can do not to just break down and weep.
The whole deal was a bit too depressing so he and Jim and most of the bridge crew held a more private mourning session apart from the official proceedings, one with a healthy dose of hard liquor to take the edge of the ache in all of them. And though Chekov was not yet legal to be drinking, no one stopped him.
There really wasn't talking, mostly because there just wasn't much to say, especially not something like this.
Scotty seemed to be the only one holding up marginally well. He'd been the most removed from everything because he'd been stationed on Delta Vega for so long, and wound up spending most of the time with someone else's head on his shoulder.
They were a sight to behold, the rest of them. Cadets and instructors and officers alike, all wallowed in their guilt for having survived when so many others didn't.
At some odd hour in the morning when the sky was still pitch black but dawn is still hours away, McCoy sat hunched over a small glass of some kind of liquor (he has yet to read the label), while indirectly staring at the flickering of a dying light bulb somewhere off to his left. It distracted him from a flurry of depressing thoughts far better than the half-full bottle in his hand, much more than he'd like to admit. The silence was what really keeps him up, though.
It reminded him too much of the cold coffin of space during those horrible few days.
It was the quiet ones that stuck. The patients who died with silently, unblinking eyes staring at nothing, laying slack on the biobed. No chest movement, clammy skin, and blue lips contradicted the screaming machines and flatline beep that he still heard in his nightmares. The nurses and other doctors were yelling at each other uselessly in the background, fumbling with hyposprays of epinephrine to try to pull back someone who's too far gone for even a miracle. Those patients were always the most unnerving, because despite the flurry of chaos and desperation, there was always an odd sort of silent bubble surrounding them that marked them as dead and never coming back.
All the Vulcan refugees had that same silence, even when they were cleared with a clean bill of health. It was as if the entire surviving population had resigned itself to its own demise.
McCoy took another swig and savored the liquid flame as it burned down the back of his throat. He spared a glance at the only other person left in the room.
Everyone else left at some point in the night. They were all out to sleep off their grief in the privacy of their own rooms.
Jim was in a full-fledged sprawl across the couch in what appeared to be a very uncomfortable position and completely passed out. He had one arm slung over his face and his right leg hung off of the seat cushion at an odd angle that would surely leave his knee protesting for hours. McCoy would have moved him, but that would require actually making it across the room with a very high blood alcohol content chewing at his coordination skills.
No, it was most likely safer for both of them this way.
McCoy knows he should be calling it quits and retire for the night. He's exhausted down to his bones, but he's still too restless to settle down.
The night draws on, still blanketing the city in dark shadows while the empty bottles get piled ever higher into a haphazard tower but that hollowed-shell, empty feeling still remained.
McCoy has seen a lot of bizarre things during his service aboard the Enterprise so nothing much fazed him anymore. If his career choice didn't divulge him of all his sensitivities, being the best friend of Jim pretty much ripped away anything Starfleet didn't manage to cover.
Between humanity and James T. Kirk, he's got all the adventure and chaos he needs for the rest of his life.
But once every so often, something came along so out of the ordinary, so odd that it made him pause and openly stare in a way that makes him look somewhat slow.
When Captain-, no it's Admiral now, Christopher Pike wheeled up on his doorstep with a bottle of aspirin in one hand and a blueberry pie in the other, McCoy wasn't quite sure what to make of this image. Of course, the alcohol still sloshing around in his brain didn't help his higher processes, but that's a story for another day.
There's a fleeting moment when he felt the need, courtesy his mother, to check his breath, which he knew was nothing short of atrocious. But then Pike pulled this, half head tilt half shrug with such a blank expression that McCoy couldn’t quite gauge as positive or negative.
"I hope you don't make a habit of this every time there's a crisis."
McCoy couldn’t decide whether that had been a reprimand or a joke. The straight face indicated some level of disapproval. But the pie, it just sat there innocently in Pike’s hand and stuck out like a sore thumb in a ‘which of these doesn’t belong with the others’ kind of way.
He made a point to stare at the pie to signal his inability to get over this mental block in logic flow.
When it became clear that nothing intelligible was forthcoming, Pike sighed and tossed McCoy’s brain a bone, “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
McCoy meant to say something civil, something more intelligent or even relevant to the conversation, but his brain-mouth filter had been gone somewhere between the second and the tenth shot (not that there was much of one to begin with) so he wasn't exactly in the right state of mind to care. "You can't tell me what to do." McCoy grumbled defiantly. That was Kirk’s horrendously bad influence rearing it’s ugly head right there. He’ll regret this soon enough when tossed out on his ass for idiotic insubordination or something, but for now it made him feel a bit better, at least emotionally. His stomach rolled in earnest, harshly informing him of its displeasure.
“Actually, I can.” Pike smirked at the doctor, "But I was hoping this would be a more informal gathering."
Which meant the initial greeting had been a joke then.
McCoy stared straight at that unwavering gaze, mostly because getting the door had been a bad idea and he's about to hurl, any movement now would just set off the first round. "I may throw up on you." he warned, since it was the god-honest truth. He experienced a sense of déjà vu speaking those words, considering the fact that he had been similarly buzzed the first time he met Kirk and had the same queasy feeling hanging in the pit of his gut.
Pike just chuckled in amusement, "I don't think I've heard that counterargument used before," he mused, "I'll give you points for originality."
Kirk, with his face is still hidden by his arm and he made no move, chose that moment to make a noncommittal sound from his spot on the couch that got both men turning around.
“You know, the first time I meet Jim, he was flat on his back, nose bloodied, halfway drunk and probably suffering from some minor head trauma," Pike mused, "I seem to have a habit of catching him at his low points."
"Well aren't you a ray of sunshine on this fine day."
"It's morning, actually," Pike corrected, matter-of-fact, "Though I suppose it's day somewhere on the planet."
Smart ass. McCoy seriously weighed the cost-benefits of shutting the door on the smug bastard's face right then and there. He could always come up with an excuse later.
“Pie?" Pike offered the pie in his hand. His expression shifted into a relaxed smile.
McCoy's stared blankly at the offerings as stomach betrayed him. It growled loudly and eagerly in anticipation of something more nutritional than pure ethanol. That pie did smell quite welcoming though. The only benefit to come out of this was that he doesn't feel like he might throw up on an admiral anymore, which was a great improvement from moments before.
“I'll take that as a yes," Pike glanced down at McCoy's treacherous stomach.
Kirk interrupted with a pitiful moan from his place on the couch. Both men at the door turned to the sound in unison. Kirk side-winded his legs off the couch without moving his torso and kicked out randomly for a moment before getting his footing. He then slithered down to the floor from his knees up, and planted his face into the ground, unmoving for a few moments.
"Is he going to be alright?" Pike asked, not taking his eyes away from the slumped figure as McCoy moved away from the doorway.
“You okay, Jim?” McCoy wasn't really concerned, he had a good estimate of how much Kirk had consumed, and it wasn't nearly enough for major concern. A stabbing hangover, however, may not be out of the question. But McCoy wouldn't be a decent doctor if he didn't check anyway. He knelt down next to the younger man and gave the man a quick once over to rule out any obvious problems. and reflexively reached for his tricoder, but realized belatedly that he was off-duty and did not have one on hand. He settled for feeling Kirk's forehead with the back of his hand.
Kirk stirred from the cool hand on his brow and opened his eyes.
“Bones likes girly drinks,” Kirk cracked a lopsided grin, “They’re fruity.” He cracked a grin and pitched off the side of the couch into a human puddle onto the floor. “Hello ground,” he spoke into the carpet because he just so happened to land that way, “D’ya wanna be my friend?”
“Figures,” McCoy muttered, “Bastard woke up drunk.”
"That tends to happen when you guzzle down..." Pike rolled up next to McCoy and looked over the doctor's shoulder, then paused to glance at the mess of empty bottles, "Okay, I can't even estimate how much he consumed."
"m'not drunk," Kirk protested unconvincingly. He was dutifully ignored.
"Despite appearances, Jim's a lightweight," McCoy provided."The kid's brash, impulsive, rude, delinquent. You name it, he's the worst case scenario," he shook his head in exasperation, "But he still cares too damn much. He's been taking it harder than he should." he turns back to watch Kirk make abortive attempts to right himself.
"And you?" Pike inquired.
McCoy turned back to the admiral in confusion, "Me?--Jim!" Kirk had latched on to McCoy's left ankle and unhinged it from it's position on the floor.
With alcohol loosened limbs, McCoy pitched backwards and landed in a sprawl on the couch Jim had vacated not long before. Kirk still held a steel grip on his ankle as McCoy tried to push himself up.
Pike reached over and fisted the back of McCoy's shirt in one hand and pulled him into a presentable sitting position on the couch. McCoy opened his mouth to thank the man while wondering how he managed that motion.
"He's like a child, isn't he?" Pike mused.
Kirk snored in response. He was still latched onto McCoy's ankle.
"You should see me try to get him to eat his vegetables." McCoy griped.
"I'm quite sure I don't want to know," then his expression turned serious, "Look. I may not be medical, but I know you're on the front lines of the aftermath," Pike gave McCoy a pointed look, "It's not easy."
The stiff posture, the uncanny silence, and the dead air surrounding the hundreds of Vulcan survivors flashed across McCoy's vision. Between the first wave of torpedoes that wiped out most of Deck 6 and the hundreds of Vulcan refugees who boarded not long after, there wasn't much time to mourn when the sickbay had been swarming. Not only did he have his own crew members to deal with but he had an endless stream of flat expressions and monotone voices that pulled on his already frayed nerves.
There had been moments he wanted to shake them, scream at them, something to get rid of the blank stares one after the other.
He knew on an intellectual level that they were all devastated by their planet's destruction, Spock's outburst had been proof enough of that. But no matter how much he empathized with their pain, he still expected a reaction- trembling hands, inconsolable tears, wailing, something. He would've been able to deal with that better. When the pressure had reached breaking point and he was two seconds away from punching something, he used the crisis as a thinly veiled excuse to escape to the bridge. There was sanctuary in the bleak faces there, a comfort in the familiarity of emotion.
Then, after Kirk managed to beam himself back on the ship, he had even more reason to go there, to be close, to make sure the idiot was alright and didn't somehow get himself thrown out of the airlock again.
Pike's voice pierced through the haze of his reflections, "You're his chief medical officer," he held his hand up before the doctor can begin to protest, "You will be," he said firmly, "I don't think he'll accept anyone else. And a few months from now, when the Enterprise goes out in space on her commissioned voyage, he's going to need you there."
McCoy didn't know what to say to that. He should be excited, happy, thankful, something else besides this sense of dread that tugged at his heart.
There's a small part of him that still saw the broken remains of the corpses on Deck 6, most of them bright eyed cadets still thinking about their next exam or the next mixer before the torpedoes ripped shreds through their shields and spilled metal and wire and flesh into the cold breaches of space. He took a few deep breaths and then allowed himself a sigh, which came out much more shaky than he would've liked. "Dr. Puri had two kids, two little girls." he started. He didn't know why he said it, but it was too late to take it back, "I talked to his wife yesterday..." his voice cracked.
"It's not your fault." Pike interrupted. "You said that Jim shouldn't feel responsible for any of this. The same goes for you."
"You didn't call the time of death." McCoy muttered bitterly. He felt the sting of tears in the corner of his eyes and took a deep breath and looked away to hide it.
Pike was quiet for a moment, "This isn't about Dr. Puri, is it?"
And that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. McCoy was afraid. Not for himself, never for himself, because he knew how to take care of himself, he knew his limits. But Jim, who laughed in the face of insurmountable odds, who started bar fights to blow off steam, who broke boundaries and tradition and regulations, who did stupid shit just because he was Jim Tiberius Kirk.
Despite all of the pomp and prestige of being a Starfleet captain, there's still an inherent risk in exploring uncharted territory and dealing with hostile natives, never mind doing it with Kirk's current brand of diplomacy. McCoy knew that Kirk had been his Achilles heel about six months into their friendship. It had been a sobering realization of how much he actually cared. Almost three years later and the feelings has only intensified. If anything were to happen to him that medicine or science couldn't solve, couldn't fix...
He couldn't even think beyond that.
"I'm not claiming to understand." Pike said softly, he placed a firm hand on the doctor's shoulder. "I just know that no one will take care of him better than you will."
McCoy snorted. "I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker."
"Some of your patients would beg to differ," Pike replied, "Jim would testify it to himself if he weren't drooling on the floor right now," they both looked down at the sleeping man still hanging precariously onto McCoy's ankle, "Jim's a good kid. He told me he would go through the academy in three years, and he did. The little punk actually did." Pike's face softened as he turned back to regard McCoy, "He won't let you down."
"But he's so goddamn young."
Pike squeezed McCoy's shoulder in reassurance, "He's young, but he'll grow into his post."
It's not the best assurance anyone could give, and it's far from enough to quell the fear, but for now it's all he could hold onto. Kirk isn't going to give up his post just because his best friend had doubts about the continuity of his unflappable luck, and McCoy wouldn't hold him back like that.
"So you'll stay with him?" PIke asked.
"I'm already here, aren't I?" McCoy answered jokingly, "I won't be leaving anytime soon." he meant it too, and because his tongue is still a bit loose from the alcohol, "Besides, somebody's got to make sure he eats his goddamn peas every once in a while."
Pike chucked, "That you will."
McCoy's stomach decided to remind him of its existence, "Now you offered some pie, and I heard somewhere that you were a man of your word."
Kirk is still drooling on the floor by the time McCoy finished his slice of pie. The bottle of aspirin came in handy later when Kirk finally woke up after his share of alcohol wore off.
end.