Chapter Text
And McCoy...is the random element.
In his condition, what does he do? Does he kill her?
Or perhaps he prevents her from being killed. We don't know which.
It was three days after New York.
Per Spock's quiet recommendation and a touch of string-pulling here and there, the Enterprise was now headed towards a spell of planet-side shore leave, while a specialized science vessel came to investigate the Guardian more thoroughly under some strict cautions. Rather extreme, some might say, to request shore leave because of an incident which only significantly involved three out of four hundred crewmen. But when one of those involved was the captain, and he wore the effects of it with painful clarity despite his best efforts to carry on, then in a sense the whole crew was affected.
Three people knew exactly what had happened beyond the time portal. Seven had stood on the surface of a cold, barren planet and looked up at the sky to find themselves suddenly abandoned by their own history. The rest had been aware only of a few scraps of the story: a sudden dramatic scene witnessed on the bridge, a security alert overheard, a request for information from a grim-faced captain, a sharp blow to the ribs followed by a fleeting half-conscious glance of a blue-shirted figure making for the transporter pad. Little else. But word spread, and rumors flourished, and in any case the crew caught their mood from the captain. Kirk did his best to pretend nothing was wrong, doing all his normal duties, smiling tiredly when an ensign handed him a pad to be signed or Sulu quietly requested a course, but his usual drive and animation and sheer energetic love for the job were all too obviously absent. The effects rippled outward, and before long the whole ship was unsettled without knowing exactly why. Some of the rumors grew ugly or anxious; Ensign Davids went so far as to perform an over-the-top mockery of McCoy's frantic escape from the bridge to scattered laughs but far more cold glares from the mess hall, a choice he in any case regretted very much when the first officer found him.
The captain needed time to recover; the crew needed time to forget the incident and to find other things to talk about. That much Spock could arrange; otherwise, he was forced to admit that this was one problem that lay rather far outside his area of expertise. His attempts to reason the captain out of blaming himself fell flat, and even Vulcans recognized the futility of logic in the face of grief; ordinarily he might have steeled himself and gone to McCoy for aid in such a matter, but in this case that hardly seemed wise.
So he occupied himself with shouldering the captain's duties as much as possible and keeping him company over quiet chess games during their off shifts. He spent any remaining time writing reports or engrossed in research. It had begun as an attempt to discern more about the Guardian and its strange capabilities, but as his efforts were frustrated again and again he found himself increasingly focused on the historical era he and Kirk had so abruptly found themselves in. The sociopolitical events that had led up to it, and those that had developed from it, the changing social mores, technological advances of the time, the customs, clothing, vehicles, entertainment, answers to a thousand questions that had arisen during his time there, all of which had been placed neatly to one side to better focus on the task at hand. As he pored over the details of the ensuing war he sometimes idly theorized as to where, in some phantom history that was now nothing more than a snatch of memory, Edith Keeler's presence would have been felt.
Three days in; they would reach their destination sometime tomorrow, if all went as scheduled. He had left his shift and was musing over the writings of Niels Bohr on the way back to his quarters when Nurse Chapel stopped him in the corridor.
“Please, Mr. Spock,” she said, very nearly running to catch up to him, “I need to talk to you.”
He drew up and turned to face her with a mild blink of surprise. Though he knew Chapel to be professional, competent at her job and presumably not usually socially impaired, around him she was usually somewhat shy. He knew she had feelings for him which he could hardly reciprocate, though he did his best not to cause her undue pain-and not only because of the time McCoy had given him a rather extended and vivid threat involving every medical exam for the rest of his service career “if you make Christine cry, I swear to God”.
At the moment, however, Nurse Chapel did not seem the least bit shy. She seemed like a woman on a mission.
“Certainly, Nurse,” he said, curious as to what could have affected the change in her demeanor. “What can I assist you with?”
“Dr. McCoy,” she said.
This time, Spock allowed an entire eyebrow to go up in surprise.
Chapel seemed to chew on her words for a moment. “I...don't really understand what happened, when he went down to the planet,” she began.
Ah. “If that is the information you desire, Nurse, I am afraid I cannot give it to you,” he said. “The matter is confidential.”
“No, that's not what I mean,” she said impatiently. “I mean he needs help, and I don't know how to give it to him when I don't even know what he went through. He won't talk to me, but he might talk to someone who was there.”
Spock frowned. “What kind of assistance does Dr. McCoy require?”
“I don't know!” Chapel exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. “I don't know, I don't know what to do with him, I just know he's not...well, since he came back. He's not sleeping, he barely eats, he snaps at me...and, Mr. Spock,” she added, in response to the silent comment forming on Spock's face, “Leonard...Dr. McCoy might grouse and complain and yell, but he doesn't snap. Not like this.”
“I see,” Spock said, although he wasn't entirely sure that was a truthful claim. This seemed to be one of those facets of human behavior he had never quite been able to get a grasp on. In his experience, Dr. McCoy snapped at everything all the time. “And you would like to me correct this harassment?”
She glared at him. Christine Chapel actually glared at him. Spock almost took a step back. “I did not come to complain to you because my feelings were hurt, if that's what you're trying to say,” she said coldly. “Someone I care about needs help. Someone I rather thought you cared about too. That's all.”
Spock had to revise his assessment of the situation. Her description didn't sound especially different from McCoy's usual habits to him, but such a dramatic change in the nurse's usual behavior patterns was unlikely to have been prompted except by something she perceived as significant. And she really was glaring at him quite fiercely. “Perhaps I spoke hastily. My apologies. I will speak to Dr. McCoy, if you think it would help the situation.”
Chapel broke into a relieved smile. “I really think it would.”
“Very well.” Spock turned back toward the turbolift. “Is he in Sickbay now?”
“Oh-yes, yes he is,” she said, hastening after him. “He's barely left the past few days.”
Spock considered the problem as they made their way to Sickbay. He had not given McCoy a great deal of thought lately, being preoccupied with the immediate concerns of the captain, the restless crew, and Starfleet's anxious probing into their discoveries. The doctor had conducted his own examination upon their return and given himself treatment to help remove the remaining cordrazine from his system. He had told them that he remembered almost nothing between accidentally injecting himself and waking up in Edith Keeler's back room, and apologized for causing so much trouble.
Kirk had smiled tightly. “Well, never mind, doctor. At least now you have some fantastic material for a paper.”
“Oh, yes,” McCoy replied archly. “Treatment of cordrazine overdose in the early 20th century-I could write the most useless paper in the history of humankind.”
And that had, more or less, been that. Spock had not seen the doctor since, but he had not thought much about it; one rare point of common ground he shared with McCoy was a tendency for them both to get absorbed in their work and forget the passage of time. Despite the doctor's sarcasm, he did have considerable new medical knowledge to document, and Spock had presumed him to be thus preoccupied.
Perhaps it was nothing more than an extended research spree that had worried Chapel...except this would hardly be the first time for such a thing. Anyone working closely with McCoy should be used to it by now. Yet he could not think what else would be bothering the doctor. McCoy's strange moods had always been a mystery to him.
“He'll be in his office,” Chapel said when they reached Sickbay, and with a brief, worried smile she hurried off, leaving Spock to approach McCoy's office in privacy. He pressed the door alarm and, after a long moment, received a tired “C'mon in” in response.
The office was dimly lit, more so than was usually McCoy's wont. The doctor was slumped in his chair with his chin on one hand, staring at the terminal on his desk. Spock took in the unusual amount of clutter spilling across the desk and the cluster of coffee mugs which represented-he did a brief calculation-a considerably higher rate of caffeine consumption than was healthy for the average adult human.
McCoy glanced up at him briefly. “Oh. Spock.”
With increasing concern Spock scanned the office and was relieved to at least find no apparent presence of opened alcohol, although it did look as though a few things had been thrown around the room. In the light from the doorway the doctor looked pale and drawn, with moist shadows under his eyes. The stylus he was toying with in his free hand quivered slightly. When Spock did not speak for a long moment, he glanced up again and growled, “Can I help you with something?”
Spock raised an eyebrow. “Nurse Chapel expressed some concern to me regarding your health.”
McCoy's bloodshot eyes widened and he half rose, slamming the stylus onto the desk. “CHRISTINE!”
“I'm not apologizing!” Chapel called from the other room. “You need help and you know it!”
“I do not need help!” McCoy snarled. To Spock he said, “I'm sorry she bothered you-”
“I rather find myself agreeing with her.”
“So you're a doctor now, huh?” McCoy dropped back into his chair and glowered in Spock's general direction. His Southern drawl had thickened rather noticeably, something Spock had previously noticed occurring when the doctor was especially fatigued. Or intoxicated.
“I defer that noble calling to you,” Spock said gravely. “But for some cases I believe basic sense may suffice. Doctor, when was the last time you slept?”
“What's it to you?” McCoy said, still sounding betrayed by Spock's foray into the medical field. “Why should you care how much I sleep?”
That one warranted both eyebrows. “Of course it is my concern if the chief medical officer is too ill to perform his duties efficiently,” Spock said. “It hardly bodes well for the rest of the ship.”
“Oh, so it's my efficiency you're worried about.” He made that sound like a bad thing. Honestly, dealing with the doctor could be so incomprehensible sometimes. “Well, I'm performing my duties just as fine as ever, so you can clear off, Spock.”
Rather than lower himself to counter such an obvious falsehood, Spock stepped forward and examined one of the mugs. As he had suspected it contained coffee residue, but-he sniffed it cautiously-he could detect no lingering traces of ethanol. He placed it back down carefully. “I understand that you have a predilection toward this...substance...but consuming so much of it so soon after an overdose of a strong stimulant hardly seems wise.”
He was treading on dangerous ground here. Even Spock was wary of coming between McCoy and his coffee. But he had an advantage, which was clear in the half-hearted glare he received: the doctor knew Spock was right.
Spock waited patiently. McCoy looked away, fidgeted with his stylus, shoved the mugs into a new arrangement. Eventually he muttered, “Can't sleep anyhow.”
One eyebrow. “I was under the impression the cordrazine-”
“Oh, yeah, it's just about gone.” McCoy began tapping one of the mugs with the stylus. Clink. Clink. Clink. “The horror of the medical community and it turns out it can be all but cured by a stay in a 1930s soup kitchen. Who'd've thought? Maybe I can patent the cure...”
Spock prompted him with a look.
Clink. “Thing about cordrazine is, it gives the body a good kick. Makes everything work a little harder.” Clink. “Part of why it's so dangerous. Workin' harder might be a good thing when a man's unconscious and his heart's beating a bit lazy. Not so good when you're where you should be and everything starts working harder than it should.” Clink. “That's why you gotta be careful with how much you give, cause it likes to stick around and keep doing its thing even when the situation doesn't call for it anymore.” Clink. “And once the body gets used to workin' overtime, sometimes it keeps doing that even when the drug's gone.”
Clink.
“Doctor,” Spock said slowly, watching McCoy's hand shake around the stylus. “You falsified your report to the captain and I-”
“I did no such thing,” McCoy protested. “I told you the drug was mostly gone, and it is. Anyway, Mr. Spock, you can't blame me for not making you aware of all the side effects when even I don't know 'em. No one does. We don't have a precedent for this.” He managed to produce a lopsided grin. “I'm a medical marvel.”
“There are case studies of cordrazine overdoses,” Spock said. He thought back to the information he had called up during the initial crisis. At the time, they had been mostly concerned with the more immediate effects, but he could recall some information about the later developments.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” McCoy said. “But no one's ever been stupid enough to put an entire hypo of it in his guts.”
Spock had to take a moment to figure that one out. He hadn't seen the exact moment, being more concerned with observing the Guardian's time distortions, but he was fairly sure the doctor's overdose had not been prompted by any reasoned decision.
“Unless I am gravely mistaken, what happened was an accident,” he said. “Hardly a matter of intelligence.”
“Damn amateur accident,” McCoy said. “If I pulled a stunt like that in the Academy I'd be a laughingstock for the rest of my days.”
Spock thought of the captain's startled cry and the flurry of activity as hands from all over the bridge came forward to catch the doctor as he stumbled back. He recalled no laughter. “Doctor, as you yourself have so frequently complained, space travel is dangerous. We were experiencing extreme turbulence. It is no more logical to blame yourself for being injured by it than it would be to blame Mr. Sulu for being injured by his console.” McCoy didn't seem convinced. He tried another tack. “I can assure you that at no point during our time in the past did the captain express any resentment or blame toward you. Only concern. As did I.”
Clink. Clink. “If it wasn't for me you would never have been there in the first place. Jumpin' in that damn thing...and you know, the hell of it is, if I'd been sober, you wouldn't have gotten me in a thing like that with a cattle prod.”
In fact that irony had occurred to Spock, although he would not have thought to express it in precisely that way. “Doctor...”
Clinkclinkclinkclink. “You think I didn't see the look on Jim's face when she...when she was hit? The way he looked afterward? That was me. And I had the nerve to blame him for it. To ask him if he knew what he had done.”
“You could not have known.”
“I might have hurt him if you hadn't said something, Spock. When he stopped me...I thought it was part of the trick. The hallucination. Because Jim...Jim wouldn't do something like that.”
Spock was thrown. “I was not aware that you were hallucinating at the time-”
“I wasn't. But I thought I was. Spock, I woke up alone in 1930, I didn't know how I got there. I'd been out of my mind on cordrazine, I was still shaking...some kind of delusion was the only reasonable explanation I could think of.”
A surprisingly logical conclusion given the available evidence, Spock had to admit. A pity that logic seemed to have fallen off somewhat since the doctor's return. “Regardless of what you might have done, doctor, you did not do it. It would be illogical to blame-”
“DAMN YOUR LOGIC!”
The stylus clattered off the far wall.
Spock stared at McCoy as the doctor buried his head in his hands. Their discussions had often turned heated-more often than not, truthfully-but the doctor had never screamed at him, or thrown anything.
He was beginning to think this particular problem might be beyond him.
Yet there was no one else to address it. As Nurse Chapel had pointed out, only he, McCoy and Kirk knew what had occurred beyond the portal. The captain was deep in his own struggles and unlikely to be able to objectively address the situation with his usual ingenuity. Even if secondhand knowledge would suffice-which in this case, he rather doubted-he knew neither he nor Kirk were inclined to divulge the details. He very much doubted the doctor was either.
He steepled his hands before him and considered the data. McCoy seemed determined to blame himself for the entire incident, which was highly irrational. Of course, 'highly irrational' was hardly unusual for the doctor, and past experience indicated a low probability of convincing him away from such positions, but...
He had witnessed two previous occasions on which McCoy had been severely incapacitated mentally: when he had been taken under control by the computer which called itself Landru, and when they had both been affected by the spores on Omicron Ceti III. In those instances as well the doctor had later illogically apologized for actions beyond his control, but without anything like as extreme a reaction as this. In fact he had personally spoken to McCoy after both events. In the first case the doctor's feelings had been of violation; in the latter case he had mostly seemed annoyed. He had not expressed such a severe reaction in either instance.
So there was some other contributing factor. Spock considered variables. First and foremost of course was the cordrazine, which clearly was still having some kind of impact. It was tempting to attribute the doctor's distress entirely to the potent effects of the drug, but he would be a poor scientist to not consider all possible angles.
Consequences. Previously whatever the doctor had done had had little impact on the mission or caused any notable harm to any of the crew. In that regard the situations were not comparable. Initiation. McCoy seemed to see a difference between the events being caused by the outside forces of artificial intelligence or native flora and being caused in some sense by his own hand, even if only in the most literal possible interpretation.
Was that all?
Spock considered McCoy's reactions as he had been informed of what had happened. Confusion. Embarrassment. Shock. Sympathy. Horror...
He did not have all the data.
Carefully, quietly, he removed a couple of books and a uniform shirt from the office's other chair, moved it over to the side of the desk, and sat down. McCoy did not look up.
“Doctor,” Spock said softly. “Is there something else bothering you?”
The doctor did not reply for so long that Spock began to think he had not heard, or else was deliberately ignoring him. But at last McCoy lifted his head and began to slowly twist his hands together. Some of the tense artificial energy seemed to have gone out of him. He looked extremely tired.
“Primum non nocere,” he said.
Spock raised an eyebrow. “First, do no harm?”
“Mm.” McCoy leaned back in his chair. “People think it's in the Hippocratic Oath, but it isn't, not specifically. You could call it a summary of the Oath, if you like. What it's all about, when you get down to it. Funny thing is, no one really knows where the phrase comes from. We just all sort of...know it.” His fingers locked and unlocked like an intricate puzzle. “One thing the Oath does say is, 'Above all, I must not play at God.'”
Spock frowned. “If you are referring to the captain's decision, the alternative was demonstrably more destructive-”
“No, Mr. Spock, that's not what I mean.” He sighed and stared out into space. “I took an oath...I don't know if that means anything to you, but it means quite a bit to me.”
“I would consider the modern Hippocratic Oath to be a highly respectable and well written code,” Spock said. “And as far as I am aware, you have violated none of its tenets, if that is what concerns you-”
“No, that's not quite what I mean either. I mean...”
Spock waited.
“I'm in the business of preserving life. That's what I swore to. That's what I do. I wouldn't ask you to follow my oath, Spock, you or Jim, I know you've got different roles. I hate what you have to do sometimes, but I know if you didn't do it there'd be a lot more pain and death out there. But this is what I am.” He looked down at his hands. “Except now you're tellin' me that by doing that, by saving a life...I wiped out a whole future. Our future.” He drew a deep, shaking breath and looked at Spock with a bitter smile. “You can see how that might make a man question himself.”
For a long moment Spock could think of nothing to say at all.
“I mean,” McCoy said into the silence, “I don't make calls, who's worthy to save and who's not. I don't play at God. You start going down that road, you don't tend to come back up it...but if anyone was worthy, Spock...! She was good, and kind, and innocent, and I saved her, and just because she was in the wrong place, the wrong time...”
He ran a hand through his already disordered hair. “What if the next person on my table is meant to die? I never believed in that! Fate, and destiny, and what's meant to happen and what's not...you do what's right in the moment, that's all you can be sure of. Except now I...I can't be sure even of that.”
“Such thinking is highly unsustainable,” Spock pointed out. “It is impossible to predict the potential effects of every possible action. If you had risen to replace your hypospray a few seconds later-”
McCoy flinched, and Spock realized his error. “Or, if Mr. Sulu had been leaning slightly farther back when his console shorted out,” he added quickly. “If a minor delay had caused the ship to enter turbulence a few moments later, or earlier-Doctor, if you attempt to plot the entire course of everything you do, you will never do anything at all.”
“I know that. In theory, I know that.” McCoy shook his head. “But it's one thing to know that and another to get told pointblank that you're to blame for the death of...God, of billions...just because of one thing, one decision...because you were doing what you thought was your job in this life.”
They had both assumed that the change in the timeline had come about because of McCoy's madness: some wild, confused act, maybe nothing more than pushing someone aside at precisely the wrong moment. Except in the end his condition had had nothing to do with it. It had not been a random act but an intentional one. Until now Spock had not considered the distinction worth noting; the effects, after all, had been the same.
Maybe it was instinct, spur-of-the-moment, barely intentional at all: a shout to get clear, or a shove out of the way. Or maybe he had knelt in the street, sick and stranded but a doctor to the last, and had worked to save her life.
They would never know.
“Respectfully, Dr. McCoy,” Spock said, “I must disagree.”
McCoy blinked at him. “Disagree with what? You said-”
“It is true that the life or death of Edith Keeler formed a focal point in time,” Spock said. “This much we found to be true, within our limited knowledge of the complexities of causality. And it is true that alteration of that focal point-in this case by you, but potentially by anybody-drastically affected the ensuing events. These are the facts as we know them, and as far as I am aware they cannot be disputed.”
McCoy gave him a do you really think you're helping look.
“However,” Spock went on, ignoring this, “If we are speaking in terms of blame, then I submit that you place far too much of it on yourself and spare too little for anyone else. Every person in the timeline that ensued made their own decisions. Many of them chose, for whatever reason, to cause harm to others. You were not responsible for those decisions. You are not responsible for their outcomes.”
McCoy shifted in his seat. “Yes, but most of those decisions were the same in both timelines. The deciding factor was a choice towards peace-”
“Doctor, if you wish to debate the merits of the philosophy of pacifism, I am afraid we will be here for a very long time,” Spock said. “Although I might make the comment that, having seen you at your work, peace and the preservation of life are not necessarily synonymous.”
Even in his present mood, McCoy had to laugh a little at that one. “Yes, but still-”
“Again you are placing another man's decision upon your shoulders. Throughout history there have been many instances where a choice towards peace had violent consequences. We may debate the merits of each and every one of them, if you wish, though eventually I shall have to return to my next shift-but you had no more to do with any given one of them than you had to do with this one. You did not make the decision. You merely enabled it to be made-as you do every time you work to preserve life. For after all, without life there can be no choices.
You are thinking that perhaps what happened in that timeline happened because you value life. But I put it to you that it happened because others did not. Such is an unfortunate truth of the universe which we are forced to contend with, and sometimes we must make hard choices because of it. But that does not mean you are wrong to value it, and to act according to that value. You yourself have said: I must not play at God. You cannot, you did not force the lives of others to go down the right path or the wrong one. You can only allow them to live.”
McCoy was silent. His shoulders shook.
“We disagree on many things, Doctor,” Spock said. “But I would find it to be a great and terrible shame if you allowed your passion for what you know is right to be swayed by these events.”
There was quiet for a while. Noises drifted in from Sickbay: the beeping of a monitor, Nurse Chapel speaking to a patient. Finally McCoy looked up.
“Thank you,” he said, hoarse and very quiet.
Spock looked at him archly. “For what?”
McCoy smiled slightly and toyed with the braid on his sleeves. Then he yawned so hard his teeth clacked.
“Regarding the medical arts,” Spock said gently, “I lack your esteemed prowess in that area and I am unfamiliar with the most effective treatment for cordrazine overdose. But I rather suspect that this-” he gestured at the assembled mugs and overused desk “-is not it.”
“No, probably not,” McCoy admitted. “But it's better than sleepin', at the moment. Third or fourth time I woke up with my heart going a mile a minute it started feeling a bit pointless to keep tryin'.”
“Well,” Spock said, “I believe there is a human idiom applicable to the situation. 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.'”
McCoy looked him in utter shock, then began to laugh. He kept going and going, falling back in his chair with one hand weakly smacking the desk, until Spock began to grow concerned. He was about to call for Nurse Chapel when, with surprising prescience, she stuck her head in the door.
“What-” She stared at McCoy for a moment in total confusion, then shook her head and smiled. “Feeling better, are we?”
McCoy wiped his eyes, still snickering. “Well, if I'm not, at least I lived long enough to hear Spock say-say-” He broke out laughing again.
Deciding his usefulness in this situation had come to an end, Spock rose from his chair and tucked it neatly back under the desk. “Nurse, if I may make a suggestion, I believe the good doctor would benefit from some sleep.”
“Finally someone agrees with me.” Chapel crossed the room and gently but firmly drew McCoy out of his chair. “Come on, Len. You're overdue for a nap.”
“'M alright,” McCoy muttered as Chapel half led, half pushed him out of the room, but his protests were undercut by another yawn.
“Uh huh,” Chapel said. “And I'm the Surgeon General.”
McCoy caught the doorframe as they left, ignoring Chapel's attempts to move him through it, and looked back. “Spock. Do me one more favor?”
“Of course, Doctor.”
“Something I've been wondering...perhaps you can apply your, uh, analytical talent towards it.”
Spock carefully logged that rare comment for future reference.
“If I've got this whole thing right...when things went, went wrong, that was a timeline where you never went through the gate. So I never got back.”
Chapel stopped attempting to pry McCoy's fingers off the doorframe, looking curious and slightly abashed. Spock hesitated, but evidently McCoy felt more or less comfortable discussing the matter in front of her. Either that, or he was too sleep-deprived to notice. “Correct, Doctor. In the altered timeline which we traveled back to prevent, you would never have returned to the present. Evidently the Guardian only brings its travelers back when time has been 'fixed', although the mechanisms for this...”
McCoy waved that aside. “Never mind the mechanisms. I just...what do you think happened to me, Spock? Stranded in the 20th century for the rest of my days? I keep trying to think what I would do, what I did, I suppose, but...”
Spock considered the problem. It was an interesting one. “It is impossible to say with any certainty. We do not even know exactly what you did to effect the change. It is entirely possible you may have been hit by the car instead of Ms. Keeler, in which case your involvement in that timeline would of course have ended very quickly.”
“I might prefer that,” McCoy muttered.
“Aside from that possibility...Doctor, the only conclusion I can draw with any higher probability than not is that you would have found a way to carry on fulfilling your oath. Healing, that is to say, as much as you possibly could. And no doubt complaining a great deal along the way.”
McCoy laughed. “Yeah. I could live with that. Alright, alright, Chris, I'm coming.”
Spock listened to them leave Sickbay, McCoy still arguing faintly, then carefully gathered up the mugs and took them to the dish drop on his way out.