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Of all the ways to die. Leonard stares at the now dark vidcomm, not actually seeing it. Not actually seeing anything. He's too busy replaying the call from Scotty that just ended, the call where Scotty told him that Jim was gone. Dead.
He just can't believe it. After all their years together on the Enterprise, on alien planets, on Earth. All the times he found himself elbow deep in his best friend's insides, putting him back together, hauling Jim back from the brink of death. Strange new diseases, unnatural aging, Jim's consciousness being stuffed into inanimate objects, hell, they survived Rura Penthe together.
Jim was supposed to be okay. McCoy sits down on his couch heavily, wanting a drink. Any kind of alcohol. He was retired, he was shacked up with Spock in their little love nest, occasionally teaching cadets at the academy, McCoy had just seen him last week. He'd gone to bring Jim a bottle of Saurian brandy (almost against his better judgment, damn it if Jim didn't need that kind of thing, but hell, a glass every now and then...) and Jim had answered the door wearing one of Spock's sweaters, looking so happy and in love with life and Spock that he was almost glowing.
That's the kind of life they live now. Safe. They're all supposed to be safe now, goddamn it! With the exception of Sulu, maybe, who is still out there captaining. But the rest of them... McCoy himself is retired, too, and he doesn't lead a very exciting life. He spends time with his daughter, when she's on Earth, he occasionally goes to a medical convention, he visits Jim and Spock (used to, it's just Spock now, they're not a unit anymore and how wrong is that? How many years has it been since Spock has been just Spock, and not SpockandJim?)
Spock. Swearing, Leonard lurches up and goes back to his comm unit, calling Spock and Jim's apartment. Why the hell hasn't Spock contacted him? What kind of state is he in? A broken bond, what that can do to a Vulcan... Leonard has never personally witnessed it, but he's heard about the potential effects. A Vulcan will follow their bondmate into death if they're allowed to, if another Vulcan doesn't step in and meld with them, convince them not to. Christ, Spock is already going to be gone, it's too late, he's not answering the comm.
Leonard bolts out of his apartment, not even bothering to put shoes on. All he can think about as he rushes to the transport station is how stupid it is that Jim died like this. On a goddamn ceremonial first cruise of the Enterprise B. He shouldn't even have gone; they were all invited, but hardly any of them had the time or wanted to. Only Chekov and Scotty had bothered to go, and Jim was supposed to be the guest speaker for the command track Academy students, but that was canceled at the last minute and he went, and...
And that's it. Sucked out into space, seemingly. An absolutely horrific way to die, one that Leonard had nightmares about when he was still serving in space. Jim deserved so much better. If he was going to die, it should have been in some stupidly heroic fashion, saving everyone.
But he did. He did save everyone. Jim volunteered to be the one to go down to engineering and fix the problem, of course he did, he always had put himself in danger ahead of everyone else. And he saved them, and died in the process.
Leonard is on the opposite side of the city from where Jim and Spock live...lived, but the distance means nothing when you're taking the transporter. Normally, he'd avoid it in favor of every other method of transportation, but this is different. Spock.
Mere minutes pass before he's beating on the door to their apartment, but for a Vulcan suffering from a broken bond, minutes might as well be days, months. This is a useless trip, he can't do anything for Spock by himself, it's too late anyway for anyone to do anything... Why didn't someone send a Vulcan healer the moment the news about Jim got out—
Useless brass, useless city, they're all too busy mourning the loss of a national hero to remember his bondmate and how he must be suffering.
Leonard has enough and unlocks the door with the security code, throws it open, terrified of what he's going to find. Spock's lifeless body laying on the floor. Something worse (what could be worse?)
He finds Spock sitting in the middle of his and Jim's bed, in some kind of trance. He doesn't react when Leonard grabs one thin shoulder roughly.
“Spock!” He snaps his name out, shaking him. Spock is alive, he's breathing, but he's unresponsive. Thinking of what's needed to get him out of healing trances, Leonard slaps him, over and over, but there's no movement or sign that Spock even felt the pain.
His eyes are open but that means nothing. Vulcans sleep with their eyes open sometimes. Spock is too deep in his mind to be dragged back up to the surface by anything Leonard can do.
Cursing, Leonard abruptly lets go of Spock (he falls back against the mattress, his body limp, not registering the sensation at all) and runs to the comm unit in the apartment to contact the Vulcan embassy. Spock is alive, and there's time. God knows what the inside of his head looks like, but at least there's a chance.
Jim... Leonard hasn't had the chance to come to terms with Jim being gone, and he doesn't know if he can, but he does know that he's not going to lose Spock, too. He won't let it happen. He can't.
Jim would never forgive him if he let Spock slip away.
Leonard would never forgive himself if that happened.
A Vulcan woman appears on the comm, as stoic and cool as all of them. “Greetings. What do you require?”
He must look like a madman, sweating, redfaced. He's got that feeling where he knows he wants to cry but he learned how to fight back the actual tears themselves a long time ago, about the time he saw his first body. The emotion, however, that feeling like someone just rammed a blunt knife into his heart, there's no erasing that.
“I need Vulcan healers, I've got a Vulcan here whose bondmate just died. Captain Spock, Admiral Kirk is his—“
“I am aware of Captain Spock's bondmate,” the Vulcan woman says, sharper than before, feeling the urgency of the situation. Of course. She knows the danger of a Vulcan with a broken bond. “I will summon healers to go to you at once. Where does he reside?”
Leonard gives her Jim and Spock's address, and once she cuts the connection he goes back to Spock. He's still laying there, far away from everything. What's going on in there? What is he feeling, in his mind? Is he reaching out for Jim?
What does he find, when he reaches for Jim? Blackness? An open, bleeding wound? Leonard sits beside Spock, grabbing his hand and holding it. Once upon a time he would have shied away from touching Spock in a way he knows is so intimate and personal for a Vulcan, but. But he remembers Spock, reaching out to him and holding onto him when he learned of Leonard's terminal illness. He remembers the sensation of Spock's katra nestled against his mind, the way memories leaked over into him, words, snatches of conversations it felt like he was half remembering.
He remembers the way that strange, bearded Spock forced his way into his head, so long ago. That had scared him off from even the thought of melding with a Vulcan. Then Spock had to meld with him to save his life in that damned crazy illusion of the Earth Old West. Spock's confidence and calmness had flowed into him, convincing him that it really was all an illusion.
Leonard thinks again of Spock's consciousness, cradled safely inside him, protected even though Spock's body had died. It had forged a connection between them that he'd never expected, that they never lost, and though he'd been more than relieved to be alone in his brain again, he was relieved that it didn't vanish. If he was honest, he treasured it.
He would meld with Spock in an instant if he had the ability, if it would save him.
“I won't let him go, Jim,” Leonard says out loud, a moment of weakness as the raw pain he's feeling over the loss of his best friend shows in his voice. He's a doctor, he can't reveal his feelings like that, so many times his patients have only survived because he was able to lock down his pain until after the danger was past. That was the case every time it was Jim or Spock laying on the operating table.
But he isn't a doctor, not anymore. He's an old man, and he's lost the man who might as well have been his brother, and he's scared, scared he's going to lose the other, lose Spock.
The words he spoke once to Spock (I don't think I can stand to lose you again) ring in his head and he repeats them, squeezing Spock's hand, promising Jim silently again that if he can help it he won't let Spock go, he won't. He'll take care of him.
If he can.
The Vulcan healers arrive then, materializing right into the damn room and it would have made him jump if he didn't have bigger concerns.
They lift Spock, showing more gentleness than Leonard would have thought a Vulcan capable of showing, if he hadn't seen Spock with Jim, cupping his face in both hands and lifting his chin for a kiss, carrying Jim to sickbay after a mission gone wrong, dancing with Jim in their quarters when they thought no one was watching.
Leonard lets them take Spock, but he goes too, holding Spock's hand tightly the whole way.