From a deep and peaceful place of being, Spock allowed his consciousness to rise, observing the changes within as the colorless layers fell away. No awareness, then his own deep breathing, his heartbeat and the sensation of returning from abstract to form; no time or activity, then an understanding of movement and acknowledgment of the inevitable.
Alone in his quarters, Spock remained just below the surface of his individual reality, allowing streams of unmolded thought and feeling to enter his mind. Thoughts and feelings that he would note but not participate in, observe and let pass. This simple meditation was taught to Vulcan children, a part of the training process that most discarded before reaching physical maturity . . . but because of his mixed parentage, Spock regularly included the meditation as part of his morning study.
In the seventeen hours since Mr. Scott’s announcement of the cloak-specific graviton field around the Sphinx, Spock had reflected on the Enterprise’s mission to obtain the Romulan cloaking device multiple times. The connection of recent past to present was certainly understandable, there being the common element of the cloaking device . . . but his memories of the Romulan commander, and his inability to entirely suppress those memories, was the reason for this morning’s observance meditation. It had been weeks since he’d considered her, but his belief that he had excised her from his deeper self had been in error.
Thought without form, feeling transformed into thought. The sound of her voice. He remembered, recalling the physical sensations when she had whispered her name in his ear. The powerful lilt of promise beneath her words. The internal discord aroused when she’d questioned his betrayal, pain and anger roughening her inflection, pain and anger that he had caused.
Observed and released. The touch of her hand. Inflamed senses, and a creation of conflict by physical contact. The creation of hunger, of wistfulness, her own emanations feeding his—and his private displeasure. Knowing what the immediate future held, the knowledge robbing him of a full connection to her; the displeasure of knowing that he had allowed the erosion of his discipline . . . and the acceptance that at the time, at the shock of her warm fingers against his, he had not cared.
Thoughts moving past him, away from him. The final understanding of the disharmonious duality—that he had achieved success through the manipulation of an officer of the Romulan Empire . . . and had wounded a woman who’d made herself vulnerable to him. The final personal outcome, that both of them had returned to the comforts of individual and cultural identity, finding solace in the self-assigned roles each had chosen long before their meeting. She was probably back with her people by now, presumably having branded their interaction a mistake.
Observed. Excised, surely. To maintain the Vulcan discipline, to truly control oneself as an extension of intellect rather than emotion, it was often necessary to recognize the existence of the alternative. Because of who and what he was, it would likely always take some effort to recognize emotion without yielding to it . . . and judging himself harshly for his failures was an emotional indulgence in and of itself. He must observe and learn, recognize and allow to pass.
The difficulty he encountered when considering the Romulan commander and the theft of the cloaking device was that he could find no rationalization for his emotional or intellectual behavior—nor could he rationalize Starfleet’s involvement in such blatant espionage. As officers of Starfleet, he and the captain had been following orders, orders to deceive and to steal, justified by the promise of an end that would outweigh the means. Their objective had been met, but he couldn’t support Starfleet’s choice to employ such treacherous methods . . . and he couldn’t convince himself that he’d had no options, regardless of his commitments and loyalties. There were always options.
Enough.
He had considered all of the key elements; at present, further contemplation would likely prove ineffectual.
Spock closed the meditation, releasing the thoughts and restating the essence of his discipline before taking the last step back to full awareness. He opened his eyes and was again connected to himself as Spock, a man of science and of strict self-control, first officer of the Enterprise.
His shift began in less than an hour. Spock rose from his knees and went to prepare.
* * *
Although Christine Chapel arrived early for her shift, Dr. McCoy had beaten her there. The doctor was sitting at his desk, a stack of file disks in front of him, staring at the computer screen with a perfectly blank expression. And since he wasn’t scheduled to come on until half an hour after her shift began—and was notoriously grumpy first thing in the morning, besides, which was why he was never early—she immediately assumed the worst.
He found something. One of the physicals.
“Doctor?”
He didn’t seem to hear her. Christine took a few hesitant steps toward him, increasingly disturbed by that blank expression. He seemed pale, too.
“Dr. McCoy,” she said, her voice made strong by concern as she walked quickly to his side. He finally looked up just as she reached him—and she saw that the computer screen wasn’t even turned on.
“Hello, Christine,” he said mildly, unsmiling, his eyes dazed and distant, and her worry escalated into fear. The doctor never looked like that.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
McCoy blinked, his gaze refocusing—and then scowled at her, the familiar expression instantly lifting a weight off her chest.
“What do you mean, what’s wrong?” he grumbled. “It’s morning, that’s what’s wrong.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling in relief, inwardly calling herself all kinds of fool. A real goose, her grandmother would have said. “You just seemed so far away for a moment, and when I saw the files, I thought—well, never mind what I thought.”
The doctor cocked an eyebrow at her. “You saw the files and thought . . .?”
She hesitated, not sure if he actually wanted to know or if he was just looking for something to tease her about. Probably both—except he still seemed pale, his expression strangely unguarded.
“I thought maybe you were upset by something you saw in the physical results from yesterday,” she said uncertainly. “I was planning on looking them over before you came in . . . did you find something wrong, Doctor?”
McCoy stood up as she spoke, answering her over his shoulder as he walked across the room, a laugh in his voice. “Are you kidding? I’m surprised we’re still in business.”
That’s not an answer. Something was wrong, she could feel it, and it wasn’t like him at all to be so evasive with her—
Christine had a sudden and terrible thought, too terrible to keep inside.
“Have you looked at my test results?” she asked, the hollow, carefully neutral sound of her own voice giving her a chill.
McCoy had stopped at the far counter and was digging through a drawer for something. At her question, he looked up—and whatever he saw on her face made him smile and shake his head, his eyes sparkling with good humor.
“Yes, and I’m sorry to tell you this, Nurse, but you’ve lost weight.”
“Oh?” Inside, she jumped up and down, clapping her hands; all those salads were finally paying off. “Well, that’s—that’s fine.”
“I’m sure it is,” he said, smirking, and came up with a couple of food cards before closing the drawer. “And since I don’t officially start work for another half hour, I think I’m going to celebrate with a nice, fat breakfast. Eggs, bacon, the works.”
“If you can afford that, I guess I’m not the only one who’s lost a little weight,” she said jokingly.
“I guess not.” Dr. McCoy’s smirk faded, and she realized that he just looked tired.
Of course he’s tired, he’s not a morning person and he was probably half asleep when I came in . . .
“I’ll be back in time for my shift,” he said. “Miss Eckert is first today, is that right?”
Christine nodded. “Yes, Doctor.”
“Fine. If she comes in early, just . . . just tell her to wait.”
He turned and walked out of sickbay, not looking back. She stared after him for a few seconds and then shook her head, deciding that she was reading too much into his slightly odd behavior. Everyone had an off day, now and again; she really could be a goose sometimes . . .
. . . but not a fat goose, she thought, smiling as she patted her skirt over her hips.
Christine sat down in front of the computer and called up the day’s schedule, humming to herself as she started plugging in file disks and scanning results. She didn’t notice that Dr. McCoy’s file wasn’t in the stack, and by the time he returned from breakfast, he was his old self again.
* * *
Christine had caught him off guard, arriving only moments after he’d read the test results, but McCoy had done the best he could to cover. He didn’t have breakfast, aimlessly walking the corridors until it was time for him to go back, thinking of nothing at all. Shock, he supposed.
The morning went by in a haze, though he put some effort into acting out business as usual—a few jokes told, a few stories passed on to the changing parade of faces. He thought he did very well, considering. He wasn’t sure what to think, what to do, but he’d seen the worry in his nurse’s face and knew absolutely that any more of it—from anyone—would be too painful to bear.
McCoy forced himself to eat a few bites of tasteless chicken at lunch, not because he was hungry but because there was work to be done and he didn’t particularly want to collapse. He had weeks, maybe even months before the symptoms would begin to interfere with his work; he saw no point in announcing it to the world by passing out from malnutrition.
The afternoon went well; he actually managed not to think about the diagnosis for a few hours, and even laughed out loud at one of M’Benga’s stories when the doctor arrived for the evening shift. The denial didn’t last, though; he could feel the truth bearing down on him, seeking acceptance. Not wanting to bother with dinner, McCoy grabbed a handful of meal supplements on his way out and went straight to his quarters.
A few pills washed down with a glass of stale water, sitting on the edge of his bed. Dr. McCoy pulled off his boots and lay down, lacing his fingers over his chest and closing his eyes. Only then, safely alone and without responsibility, did he allow himself to think about the results from his physical.
Xenopolycythemia. Terminal. Over the years he’d learned about hundreds upon hundreds of diseases, so many that often they blurred together, but the rare blood disorder was one of the clear ones. It was the name, xenopolycythemia. It rolled off the tongue, like the name of some exotic flower or faraway place.
The disease process wasn’t nearly so enchanting, though just as memorable. The disorder caused an enlargement of the spleen, along with a serious overproduction of blood cells, red and white. Caught in its earliest stages—for him, about three months ago—the spleen could be removed, with a solid prognosis for full recovery. Once it insinuated itself into the lymphatic system, however, it would spread to the lymph nodes and other more vulnerable organs. And that was the beginning of the end.
Already too late for me, he thought, wondering when the sadness would hit, the fear . . . he felt numb and tired. Maybe sorry the way one felt upon hearing about somebody else’s tragedy, what-a-shame, but nothing more. He didn’t know if that was good or not.
The course of the disease was simple enough. Slowly, very slowly, the increased blood-cell count would take its toll. Pain in the extremities, weakness and fatigue as his heart worked to pump the increasingly viscous blood. In the last few months, he would be bedridden, his every exertion putting strain on the overworked muscle. By then, enlarged mediastinal lymph nodes would be putting serious extrinsic pressure on his heart, making it have to work even harder . . . until it simply gave out. He had a year at most.
What would he leave behind? A few friends, but no family. He hadn’t been serious with a woman since Nancy, and she was long gone; there’d be no one to remember him and weep for a lost love. A good service record, and perhaps a mention in some future medical text for this technique or that—another random old name glossed over by a bright-eyed young med student, who wouldn’t know or care that Leonard McCoy had been a man with a life, a man who had seen many things, who had been in love and been alone, who had died before his forty-second birthday from a terminal disease.
There were no tears, but the ache of his poor heart followed him into sleep, sending him haunted dreams of every patient he’d ever lost, their drawn, mute faces and glassy eyes seeking him out as one of their own.