Work Text:
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To: McCoy, Leonard H/LTC/MedicalCorps/Yorktown
From: Dehner, Elizabeth/COM/MedicalCorps/Yorktown
Subject: Meeting at Earliest Convenience
Message: [Confidential - Medical] Hi Doctor McCoy, would you mind dropping by when you have a moment? I’m finishing up my after incident evaluations of the Enterprise crew and I have a few questions.
“Bones, what is it?” Jim looked up from his breakfast plate to see McCoy’s nose buried in his data pad.
McCoy looked at the note in his inbox, “Nothing, more Fleet meeting bullshit.”
“I thought you were done?”
“Yeah, I did too.”
“Do you need me to ask the Commodore’s office?”
“Nah, it sounds like it’s just Psych wrapping up loose ends for their part of the report.”
“When is it?”
“At my convenience so it’s probably not anything serious. Finish your breakfast. I can go see what’s up while you have your follow up,” McCoy pointed to Jim’s still immobilized arm for emphasis.
Jim scowled at his arm. He was past ready to have usage of his shoulder again. Once he’d gone shopping for buttoned shirts he told McCoy he was fine to be released from the doctor’s all seeing eye and moved into his issued apartment a few floors above. Despite the change in official residence, Jim found himself in McCoy’s apartment more often than not. The silence of his own empty space so soon after the events on Altamid was deafening.
“I’m done,” Jim said with only half of his food eaten.
McCoy looked down at the remaining food; Jim’s appetite was usually his first clue if anything was wrong with the kid.
“What?” Jim didn’t want to deal with a mother hen.
“Stomach bothering you?” McCoy took both their plates to the reprocessor.
Jim rolled his eyes, “Why don’t you go peck Spock to death?”
“Says the brat who comes here to make me cook for him,” McCoy helped Jim into the sleeves of his jacket that had been on the back of the chair.
“What’s crawled up your ass all of a sudden, Bones?”
“Liz Dehner,” McCoy huffed.
“Is that the ‘Liz’ from our second year?”
“Yeah, apparently she’s here.”
“And she’s the Fleet shrink you have to go see?”
“She’s a Commander Dehner these days.”
Jim chuckled, “Oh she outranks you, Bones.”
McCoy grumbled as he shrugged on his own jacket, “Chief Medical Officer of the flagship and I’m junior to my ex. You know, I have a psych degree too. I don’t see why she’s so special.”
“Is that jealousy I hear, Mister Sensitive?” Jim continued teasing McCoy all the way to the medical center.
###
“I bet it’s your fault you brat,” McCoy said as they entered the skyscraper that held Starfleet Medical’s hospital and supporting offices.
“What do you mean?” Jim punched the turbolift screen for the clinic he was supposed to go to.
McCoy hit the icon for his stop, “It’s probably some long form of payback for sneaking you into the Enterprise .”
Jim barked out a laugh, “Bones, you can’t blame everything on that.”
“Of course I can. I got ripped a new asshole for that despite you having saved the planet and all that.”
“Whatever you say,” Jim slapped McCoy on the back as the car stopped at his floor.
“Do I need to wait for you?”
“No, mom,” Jim disappeared behind the closing doors.
McCoy grumbled to himself the rest of the way up to his stop. The first thing he noticed was that the decor was dark and warm compared to the standard medical utilitarian decor he saw everywhere else in the building.
How come the damn psychs get the cozy offices?
“Do you have an appointment?” a receptionist asked when he approached.
“Not really, Liz Dehner said to stop by.”
“Would you like to make an appointment?”
“What? No ma’am, I’m not a patient. I’m Leonard McCoy, CMO to the Enterprise. She’s working of the after action report and had questions.”
The receptionist didn’t judge either way, she’d seen plenty of reluctant patients, “ One moment.”
McCoy was left to stare at the abstract art that decorated the walls before a middle aged woman in civilian clothes came out.
“Look at Leonard McCoy all the way on this side of the galaxy,” she held her arms out.
“Great to see ya, Liz,” he went in for the hug she clearly wanted. “How come you guys get out of uniform recs?”
Dehner pulled back still smiling, “Oh we don’t. I don’t have any patients scheduled while I’m working on the report. No use trying to fight those collars if I’m just typing all day in my office.”
“Is now a good time? I was here dropping Jim off at the clinic—“
“Now’s perfect, Leonard. Let’s go back to my office.”
McCoy followed Dehner through the maze of offices and hallways to an interior office full of lamps and leather furniture.
“I see folks get the full psych experience here.”
“It’s a bit cliche, I know, but those chairs are to die for,” Dehner gestured to two plush dark brown leather chairs that faced each other.
“Are you sure you’re just finishin’ a report,” McCoy felt like he was suddenly her subject.
“I promise,” she took her seat and grabbed a data pad from a low table.
McCoy thought that this wasn’t helping convince him otherwise.
“Is this the part where you ask me about my childhood and scribble notes?”
Dehner laughed, “Oh please, I’d be way more subtle to a fellow counselor.”
“So you’ve been reading my file?”
“Yeah, I did a little snooping. When I saw you actually finished your degree I wanted to ask you my questions. Colleague to colleague since you’d know what I’m looking for.”
“Well, fire away, darlin’.”
“I’m going to preface that based on the part of the report that was finished before mine, it does look like everyone did everything as they should have. The, uh, Kalara person, clearly came to Yorktown with the intentions to draw Starfleet into a trap. More specially they wanted a relic stored in your ship’s vault.”
“The doo-dad from the tiny critters?”
Dehner flipped through the notes on her screen, “Uh, yeah.”
McCoy nodded and let her continue.
“Part of my role is to make sure everyone was in good shape going into the mission, during the mission, and afterwards. Mentally that is. I’m sure you’re more aware than I, but this is Starfleet’s first long duration mission like this and they want me to take a look and see how everyone’s doing.”
“Right, is there a problem with the quarterly reports I file for them?”
“Not really, certainly fatigue from the stress is to be expected, but they gave me access to Captain Kirk’s log.”
McCoy did not like where this was headed.
“The captain’s?”
“Yeah, they’d actually given them to me before the mission as part of his application review—“
“Application?”
Dehner looked up from her data pad, her senses on alert, “You didn’t know?”
“Well clearly not. What’s it an application for?”
“Captain Kirk was being considered for a vice admiral posting here.”
It took every ounce of energy for McCoy not to show how close he was to erupting in fury. Jim had been wanting to leave the ship. He tried to control his breathing in front of the counselor and keep her from picking up on his emotion.
Dehner watched the doctor try to control his emotion in front of her. She knew from the Academy they were close friends and McCoy clearly had no idea.
“Are you still good friends with Captain Kirk?”
“Of course,” McCoy said without hesitating.
Apparently fucking not.
Dehner nodded, “He’d actually made it to the final round so I was doing psych reviews on the final candidates.”
“What did you find?” McCoy asked a little too eagerly.
“As the CMO, did you ever notice any signs of a burnout or exhaustion.”
McCoy felt blindsided by a shuttle.
“What?”
“I’m not saying there’s anything unusual. Job burnout is incredibly common and it’s not like your mission is one of low stress.”
McCoy ground his teeth, “I’d like to think that as Jim’s friend and Captain Kirk’s CMO he would’ve told me if there was an issue.”
“I’m sure you both know that you’re really the only person that can relieve a captain of command.”
“Do you think he was compromised?”
“Not enough to where we’d consider flagging him for removal. But if he’s showing signs of stress, we need to know. We’d rather find out before one of our captain’s snaps and does something drastic.”
“Jim would never hurt the crew.”
“Sorry, poor choice of words. We want this mission and her captain to succeed. We want to make sure he has access to whatever resources we can offer if he’s having a rough patch. Are we not supplying the right kind of facilities for morale, those kinds of things.”
“So why do you think Jim is burning out?”
“Despite the fact that he’s been marking ‘normal’ on every one of his emotional health surveys for the last three years?”
McCoy wasn’t going to admit that Jim never filled those out like he was supposed to so he ended up marking them to prevent getting nasty grams from Medical.
“There’s a noticeable decline, in content and tone of voice, in his logs. It’s more apparent after his twenty ninth birthday, but I get hints of it around Terran Thanksgiving and Christmas. I understand the circumstances of his birth so it’s probably not his favorite part of the year, but I can’t detect any kind of emotional rebound. There are frequent mentions of him not feeling grounded or being in a rut in his later entries. He sounds tired in a lot of them. Does he have a history of depression?”
McCoy thought back to those times. Jim had seemed down after a string of missions that went sideways, but he seemed to have recovered. They continued to meet for meals, drinks, shoreleave excursions, and the usual. There were days where he seemed tired and the spark in his eyes wasn’t as bright, but nothing that even remotely suggested something worse simmered. McCoy felt sick to his stomach that Jim needed help and he had been oblivious.
The doctor felt the comm in his pocket buzz. He was grateful for the distraction and quickly read the message from Jim.
“They’re behind schedule. Change lunch to dinner?”
McCoy pecked out a reply before shoving the device back in his pocket.
“The captain?”
“Yeah, he’s downstairs at the clinic and they’re behind schedule.”
“His ears must’ve been burning. Back to the question, I know it’s not in his file, but does Captain Kirk have a history of depression?”
“No ma’am. He’s certainly had a tough life, but he’s always charged head first into everything.”
“Would you say he’s been taking more risks? I saw a lot of sickbay reports for injuries in his file.”
“No more than usual. Jim’s always been very protective of his crew from the beginning. He does have a very annoying habit of leaping before he looks. It’s almost a point of pride with him.”
Dehner looked at the CMO.
“Not to say that he was intentionally reckless.”
“Of course not,” Dehner smiled. “Now something else I noticed is that Captain Kirk remained on the bridge for just under two minutes alone before getting to an escape pod.”
“I’m not sure how that’s a problem?”
“I asked an engineer for help, and there weren’t any commands given during that time. No buttons pushed or what not.”
“You think Jim just stood there and watched the ship crash?”
“The only way I’ll know is to ask Captain Kirk and he seems like a professional psych dodger.”
The thought of Jim standing at the view screen as the planet surfaced neared made him very uneasy. That coupled with their conversation about George Kirk only a day earlier painted a worrisome picture.
Did Jim want to crash?
“If he was hoping for a promotion why would he watch the ship crash from inside the ship?”
“You’re probably right, Leonard. Just thinking out loud.”
He wondered if Dehner planting that worm inside his brain had been intentional. McCoy wanted to leave so he could go murder the little shit himself.
Dehner put her data pad on the table, “So, Leonard. What do you think about Jim applying for a posting off the ship?”
The use of both of their personal names sans rank didn’t escape McCoy.
“It’s certainly within Captain Kirk’s right to advance his career.”
McCoy thought Dehner looked almost disappointed with that answer. Him being upset with Jim would be dealt with later with the subject himself.
Dehner knew she struck a nerve. Clearly McCoy had no idea and was doing his best not to be livid in front of her. She’d briefly skimmed Jim’s file after the Khan incident and knew McCoy had pulled some kind of medical miracle out of his ass to save him.
“Are you going to clear him?”
“Yes, of course. I know as his friend it’s hard to listen to me pick him apart, but being stuck in a job rut is hardly reason enough to ground someone. Actually I had hoped to start in a week or so checking in with the crew that survived to see how everything is going and to make sure they’re processing the trauma normally.”
“I’m more than capable of seeing to the crew’s mental health as well as their physical health.”
“Oh I don’t doubt that, Leonard. Doctor to doctor, I’m also going to be recommending regular check-ins for all line officers in what remains of the mission if they decide to continue. That includes you so you would be participating in them as well. Medical ethics typically dictate that a physician doesn’t treat their close...friends, and given the nature of the extended mission and the frequency at which injuries on the ship occur, we’re going to make sure you have what you need to succeed.”
Now McCoy really was going to murder Jim, “I see. Is there anything else you need?”
“No, Leonard. I should have my report finished by tomorrow. I think I’m the last person holding it up.”
“If you need anything else just holler,” McCoy pushed to his feet.
“Sure thing, Leonard.”
McCoy walked out in a dazed stupor. He punched the screen at the turbolift angrily. The car made it all the way to the bottom when he punched the screen to take him up to the floor that held the surgical ward. He remembered there being a computer terminal in the doctor’s lounge.
Now let’s see who’s the asshole.
###
McCoy was sure Jim would’ve ripped the door from its hinges if it had hinges. Instead it closed with a soft woosh but Jim’s anger radiated through the apartment.
Serves the bastard right.
“You were there a while, everything alright, darlin’?” McCoy knocked back his drink.
“Don’t be all innocent. You know damn well why it took so long.”
McCoy poured himself another drink, “Not sure what you’re implying, but a good doctor is always thorough.”
“Oh I’m sure. Imagine my surprise that after they do all this shit to my shoulder and free me from the brace I get told to strip for a level four physical. ‘Starfleet Medical orders’ apparently.”
“I’m sure they just want to make sure you’re healthy as a horse.”
“Cut the shit, Bones. The poor intern they sent to do it left the data pad on the biobed while I had to bend over. I saw your name right there at the top of the form while he was two knuckles deep in my ass.”
McCoy laughed at the image, “Welcome to your thirties.”
“Uh huh, I know you’ve got a mean streak, but cruelty isn’t your style.”
“And just how does ensuring one’s captain is in pristine health qualify as cruelty?”
“You know damn well how a level four is different from the normal ones.”
McCoy delighted in Jim’s anger, “A little turn and cough never hurt anyone, darlin’.”
“Do I at least get to know what I’ve done to have earned my balls being rolled around?”
“Just wanted to be sure you’re in tip top shape for the remainder of the tour.”
“Try again, Bones. Lying’s never been one of your talents.”
McCoy took a sip from his tumbler, letting the ice hit his teeth, “Liz and I had an interesting chat.”
Jim knew whatever the shrink had to say wasn’t going to be good and it was going to take a while. He ripped off his jacket and tossed it on a chair.
There was no way McCoy could miss the florid bruising on the inside of Jim’s elbow, “What the hell happened to you?”
“Oh so you care now?” Jim snapped.
McCoy’s look could’ve sliced Jim in half.
“Well thanks to you and your orders, they needed more blood than those regular auto things so I got some starstruck tech with a real needle who kept missing. I gave her three tries before I made them find someone else.”
McCoy actually felt bad about that part, “Did they even offer to run a regen?”
“They were profusely apologetic and kept offering, but I wanted to make sure you saw it.”
“Dammit, Jim.”
“I hope you got what you wanted then,” fire flashed in Jim’s blue eyes.
“Now, Jim, don’t blame that shit on me.”
“Oh I will. I was only there because of you.”
“Yes I’ll admit to ordering the physical to piss you off, but some rookie blowing your vein is not my fault.”
“I’ll ask again, do I get to know what I did to piss you off?”
McCoy steeled himself with liquid courage, “Were you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what, Bones?” what little patience Jim had left was gone.
“You were going to leave the Enterprise. ”
“Leave?”
“Yes, leave. Liz Dehner was the Fleet psych who had been assigned to clear you for the after action report. Imagine my surprise when she asked me what I thought about you applying for a vice admiral posting here.”
“Bones—“
“That’s not even the good part, darlin’. She had months of your logs and was concerned about your, how did she say it? It was something about your ‘questionable state of mind’ going into the mission. There was another good part where I’m pretty sure she insinuated you had some kind of death wish because you stood there and watched the ship crash before deciding to hop into a pod.”
Jim felt the oxygen escape from the room. He’d never told the one person he should have anything at all. Nothing about the tiredness and burnout he’d been feeling since sometime around the halfway mark. Nothing about browsing the open posting one day after losing three crewmen when yet another first contact went to shit. Nothing about how he spent several evenings after they’d met for drinks working on his application. Nothing to the man who quite literally drug his ass back to life. Jim had no idea where to start now that he’d dug such a deep hole with the man who’d been with him from the beginning, who’d snuck him onto the Enterprise in the first place, who’d followed him through the galaxy as he lived out his dream. He knew deep down that McCoy had deserved better from him.
“I didn’t take it, Bones,” Jim said quietly.
“Well doesn’t that just make everything okay then?”
Jim fell heavily into the armchair across from the friend he’d wronged. He knew as furious he’d been at the clinic, he felt like he was the one who got off easy. His friend had every right to have done worse to him.
“I’m sorry, Bones.”
“‘Sorry’ is for when you forget to meet me for lunch. ‘Sorry’ isn’t for ‘hey I’ve been having a tough time and wanted to leave so I applied for a different job and got it’.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want to know why I had to hear it from some shrink nosing around instead of my best friend. Were you ever going to tell me? Or was I supposed to find out when Sulu sealed me into the ship as you waved from a window with your new stripes?”
“Of course I would’ve told you, Bones,” Jim felt that low blow.
“Then why, Jim? I could’ve helped you. If you were that burnt out, we could’ve worked to fix it before you got to the point where you felt you had to leave.”
“I don’t know. It didn’t happen all at once in some great ‘aha’ moment. It was the adventure of a lifetime there for a while, but…”
“But what, Jim?”
“Things became too...episodic. It was always the same thing. We come across a planet, we make contact, there’s some angry faction or we fuck something up, everything goes to shit, and people get hurt or die. You should know, you always bitch and moan about cleaning up the collateral damage of the missions.”
McCoy rolled Jim’s words around in his head. Jim had been sliding down the slippery slope for almost a year and he’d never even noticed. How had he missed it getting so bad?
“I hadn’t even intended to look for open postings. I saw it in some general captains’ bulletin from Command. I honestly didn’t think I had a chance. There was no way they’d make me a vice admiral at thirty.”
“But you still applied. I’m sure it wasn’t just filling out a form or two.”
“I did because it helped me to do something. They kept asking for more and more each time they whittled down the candidates. I didn’t find out I'd been selected until after we docked here for shore leave.”
“Did you seriously consider taking it?”
Jim squared his blue eyes on hazel ones, “Yes.”
McCoy blew out a breath, “When we spoke before we docked I chalked up your mood to how shitty your birthday usually is.”
“So sensitive, Bones.”
“You never said a word about how you’d been feeling.”
Jim knew that was the part that hurt his friend the most, “You should know by now that I’m not the touchy feely type.”
“Jim, I thought we were friends.”
Jim hung his head; he couldn’t face McCoy. McCoy’s disappointment in him stung worse than all the dressing downs he’d ever received combined.
McCoy couldn’t believe Jim, especially everything he’d done for him. Space was Jim’s dream and he followed, picking up the pieces and putting him back together after the galaxy chewed him up and spit him back out. He’d broken his Hippocratic oath for Jim because he couldn’t face a galaxy without James T Kirk in it. It took all of his willpower not to spill his heart’s deepest secret.
“We are, Bones. You have every right to be angry. I was selfish and I failed you. You’ve been there with me through this whole journey and I didn’t think to turn to the one person I should’ve. Christ, you saved my life on a damn near weekly basis.”
McCoy watched Jim’s blue eyes fill with water, “You know what scares me the most, Jim?”
Jim wisely stayed silent.
“I’m scared of the week where I finally fail. I apparently almost failed this time. I somehow missed months of you needing help and I wasn’t there. I didn’t know I needed to be there.”
“Bones, I didn’t mean to.”
“Well thanks to you we’re all going to be getting regular psych evals throughout the remainder of the tour if we’re allowed to continue.”
“Fuck.”
“If you hadn’t of bottled it all up—“
“Bones, what do you want me to say?”
McCoy had to take a few moments to breathe, “I guess it doesn’t really matter now does it?”
“Did you know Spock was considering leaving?”
“Actually I did.”
Jim’s head snapped, “Wait he told you?”
“I know right. That green blooded hobgoblin spilled his soul to me before you did.”
Jim wondered if it was possible to feel any lower than what he felt now. He knew it was on him to start clawing his way up and out of the hole he dug himself into. There was no way he could live in a galaxy where McCoy was thus angry with him.
“So what happens now?”
“I don’t know, Jim.”
“I was going to ask you to come on the salvage excursion to the ship next week with me, but if you want to stay here I’ll understand.”
McCoy looked at the man in front of him. He couldn’t live with Jim, but he couldn’t live without him.
“That’s probably a good idea. It sounds like you need time to decide what you want.”
Jim understood he’d overstayed his welcome. The man needed time away from him and it hurt more than he wanted to admit. He’d pushed away the one person who kept him grounded.
“Put an ice pack on your arm,” McCoy said as Jim pushed to his feet.
“Later, Bones.”
###
Jim used the sleeve of his coveralls to wipe his forehead before entering what was left of sickbay. They were four days into the salvage efforts and it had been every bit as painful as he imagined it would be. Every piece of twisted metal broke his heart. The ship that has been his home deserved a better end than crews picking apart her carcass.
He looked around at the team already dismantling and boxing up anything worth taking. McCoy wouldn’t have wanted to see his realm in such ruin. Jim found himself thinking of the man a lot and how he’d really fucked things up between the two of them.
“I can do the CMO’s office,” Jim grabbed an empty tote from the pile.
No one seemed to care either way. He ripped the upside down placard with McCoy’s name off the wall and put it in the plastic pouch on the side of the tote. When he walked in he wanted to bust out laughing. The couch McCoy had pitched such an epic fit over sat there, tipped over and resting on the ceiling that was now the floor, but largely undamaged. Out of everything that had been ruined, the damn couch had survived.
He pulled out a data pad and took a picture of the apparently well made furniture. Jim attached the message ‘You’ll never guess what survived’ before sending it to McCoy. It was his first comm to man since leaving after being confronted with everything. Jim hoped it was enough time for McCoy to have cooled down. He’d seen other members of the crew before leaving with the salvage teams, but McCoy had always found some reason to not be there. Jim knew from Uhura that McCoy had picked up a temporary posting with the Starfleet hospital as a surgical attending. If McCoy needed to work and to be away from him then that was the only thing he could do to help.
It was later in the day after Jim had moved onto picking through the senior crew cabins when his comm buzzed for a text message.
That better be coming back.
PS - saw your bloodwork, you better be eating some vegetables.
“Missed you too, Bones.”