Chapter Text
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1.
The body - for it was no more than that – had died before Leonard could even get it to sickbay. He had heard the last breath that rattled in the lungs and no amount of effort could get the heart beating again. Instead, he'd sat on the cold metal floor of the corridor and held a body that looked remarkably like the one he'd seen on the floor of the Enterprise engine room. Leonard had smoothed back the black hair from the same brow he'd known before - the slanted eyebrows and olive-tinted skin were the same as he remembered. The hair was longer and the face was less lined, whether it was a few years younger or a lack of life experience he couldn't say. The body was slimmer and far less muscled. It was Spock and it wasn't.
It wasn't the man he'd loved. The infuriating pointy-eared devil who had verbally sparred with him on the deck of the Enterprise. The coolly logical and utterly irritating bastard that believed he'd won every single one of those debates. The low voice and slim fingers that traced his features with a burning hot touch. The one person in the universe that could melt an old Southern gentleman to a puddle with a finely arched eyebrow. The only person he'd ever felt truly comfortable with and shared himself fully with - warts and all. Spock had been the one to make him whole.
And now the only chance they might have had was gone. Well and truly dead, sealed in a container in the Klingon sickbay to be taken back to Vulcan at the earliest opportunity.
Starfleet has sent two ships to escort them back to Earth. The Federation can’t wait to get their hands on the Klingon technology suddenly available to them, but even more urgent is the chance to convict the Enterprise crew that resides within it. They want to make an example of Jim Kirk - to punish him for his crimes.
They needn't bother. The last time Leonard checked in with Jim Kirk he saw a broken man. The loss of his ship and his son he might have recovered from, but Bones saw the light in those hazel eyes die with the sight of Spock dead again on that cold floor. At one time McCoy might have tried to comfort his friend, but he has no words now. No hope. It died a second time and there is no reviving it.
Leonard sighs and closes his eyes - alone in the quarters he's chosen for himself. The faint smell of alien sweat and blood coupled with a rock hard bed make sleep impossible. He tosses and turns, staring at the walls, trying not to think of his quarters back on the Enterprise. Trying not to imagine Spock might enter at any moment and lie down next to him.
It’s going to be a long voyage home.