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Dead Man Walking
Missions just never could be simple and clear cut. What should have been a routine and safe diplomatic trip and had ended with an explosion, caused by some rebel faction on the planet that had opposed the Federation’s presence. Jim didn’t know if he just had bad luck or if he was as arrogant as Pike once accused him of being, but right now, none of it mattered.
Bones was dead.
The doctor lay still, partially zipped up in a body bag on an examination table in the Enterprise’s medbay. A large chunk of metal shrapnel was embedded deep in his chest, just below his heart, the vibrant blue fabric of the medical uniform almost black from the blood that saturated it.
Emotions raged within Jim, a stormy sea. Grief, anger, guilt… They ripped at his heart, threatening to overwhelm him, to break him into a million pieces. It was something he couldn’t afford. Not right now. As Captain, he still had a job to do, people to protect. He turned away, struggling to keep his tears contained. “I’ll be on the bridge.”
“Captain,” both Geoffrey M’Benga and Spock said simultaneously. The doctor gave the first officer a concerned look and inclined his head.
“Captain,” Spock repeated. “I must protest. You are emotionally compromised and to return to duty immediately after the incident on Ralus II is ill advised. You need time to—”
“Time for what, Spock?” Jim snapped at him, then cast his gaze downwards regretfully. “Time isn’t going to bring him back. Nothing will. What I need to do right now is focus on carrying out my duties as captain of this vessel and follow the orders we’ve been given by Starfleet.” His reddened eyes met the Vulcan’s, pleading. “Please. Let me do my job. I just need...to focus on something...anything...except this.” He swallowed hard. “Give me some time. If you still decide I’m unable to make rational decisions, then by all means feel free to relieve me.”
Spock frowned slightly, disapproving of Jim’s choice, but after a moment’s hesitation replied, “As you wish, Captain.”
Jim gave a small, but sad smile. “Doctor M’Benga, I’ll be back later to...to…” He gave a small wave towards the table, unable to bring himself to look again at the body of his friend.
M’Benga understood. “Of course, sir.”
Jim resisted the urge to flee the room, his pace brisk as he headed out and towards the lift, Spock following close behind.
He swore he could almost hear Bone’s voice right behind him, accusatory.
Geoffrey looked down sadly at the body of his superior. While the man had been short tempered, even downright antagonistic at times, he had respected him greatly. McCoy had been a brilliant doctor, and loyal to a fault to those he cared about. The Enterprise, no, the Federation as a whole, would be feeling the loss of the man for a long time.
“Here.” Nurse Chapel slid a medical cart over to him. Her cheeks had dried tears on them.
“You okay doing this, Christine?” he asked her softly.
She nodded. “I...yes. I will be. It has to be done.”
Slipping on a pair of gloves, Geoffrey picked up a pair of scissors and cut away the blood soaked shirt. With the nurse’s help, he carefully turned the body to the side, cutting around, and with a tug, tossed the ruined material aside.
She handed him a pair of forceps, and he clamped down on a corner of the chunk of metal. It took a few attempts, the object stuck deep in the tissue. Finally, with a sickening squelch, it came loose, another four inches to add on top of the already large piece. He grasped it with his free hand, setting down the tool with the other, careful to not slice his hand open along it’s sharp edges. Examining it, he realized it would have caused a devastating injury regardless of where it had struck. He sighed, hoping that at the very least that Doctor McCoy had not suffered.
There was a loud clunk sound as he laid it down on the medical cart and he looked back down at the man on the table. Something moved out of the corner of his eye. He leaned closer. Was the skin...moving?
No. Couldn’t be. Geoffrey gave a small shake of his head. He was tired and upset. That’s all it was. He turned towards Chapel, who was disposing of the shirt remnants in the waste bin by the wall.
“Christine, grab me some of the sanitizing wipes, please.”
“Yes, sir.” She reached up into an overhead cabinet and pulled a few packages out, and turned back towards him. A sudden look of shock spread over her face. Dropping the items, she let out a shrill scream.
Geoffrey nearly jumped out of his skin, “Christine, what-” A soft rustle behind him reached his ears, and he spun around. He almost fell over at the sight before him, barely catching himself on the medical cart. There was a loud clatter as multiple instruments were knocked onto the tile floor. “Oh my God!”
Sitting upright on the table, was a very not-dead man.
Wide hazel-green eyes looked around, taking in the surroundings and the implications of the situation, before finally settling on Geoffrey and the pale Chapel behind him.
“Well, shit,” McCoy said.
The bridge of the Enterprise was unusually quiet, the only noise the taps on the screens and the beeps of the electronics over the low hums of the ship.
Jim wasn’t sure if it was good or not that the crew was trying to give him space. The silence was almost stifling. He was relieved though that the crew managed to maintain their composure. While he had been one of the closest to the ship’s CMO, having been friends with the other man throughout their time at the Academy, he knew he wasn’t the only one hurting. He expected a lot of breakdowns to occur once the service was held, his own included.
The comm suddenly crackled to life, a breathless voice coming over the line. “M’Benga to bridge. Captain Kirk, you need to come down to medbay. Now.”
“I was just there, M’Benga.” Jim’s own voice was strained. “What do you need?”
“There’s been a-” There was a crash in the background, along with a muffled but familiar ‘give me that!’, and Jim sat up straighter in his seat, where he admittedly had been slouching a bit. The doctor’s voice came through again. “It’s...it’s about Doctor McCoy, sir.” Another crash.
“Doctor, please!” Nurse Chapel’s voice could be heard.
“What the hell is going on down there?” Jim demanded. “What about Bo—Doctor McCoy?”
Someone was cursing in the background. M’Benga spoke up again. “I...he’s alive, sir.”
“What?” Before Jim could say anything about the absurdly of it all, about how it was a horrible thing to joke about the death of a dear friend (or anyone for that matter), the rough southern accent that was undeniably that of the Enterprise’s Chief Medical Officer came through the channel.
“Would someone get me a goddamn shirt?”
He didn’t know how. Or why. Only that it was. Jim bolted off the bridge, forgetting everything else.
“Sulu, you have the conn.” Spock could not hide his own feelings of shock as he rushed to join his captain in the lift.
It felt like an eternity for the lift to reach their destination.
“How, just...how? He was dead… How?” Jim was rambling.
“I am curious as to the same, Captain,” the Vulcan admitted. “While I am...grateful that the good doctor is alive...it should not be possible given the injuries he sustained.”
“I...I know, Spock.”
The lift doors opened, and Jim darted down the corridor, barely avoiding knocking over a few crew members along the way. He nearly slid past sickbay’s doors in his rush. “Where is he?” Jim asked M’Benga, as he ran in, panting.
The dark-skinned man pointed a slightly trembling hand at the CMO’s office across the room. He still seemed quite shaken by what he’d witnessed. Jim swallowed hard, trying to still his racing heart. Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the office.
McCoy looked up. From the pile of bloodied cloths on his desk, it appeared he’d been trying to wipe himself clean. In a single stride, Jim was in front of him, shoving him back and running his fingers over the other man’s bare skin, investigating where the shrapnel had been. Other than pale thin streaks of blood, there was no sign of there ever having been an injury. Jim met the other man’s gaze, his eyes filled with both pain and shock. He then grabbed the doctor into a tight hug.
“Just...how, Bones?” He mumbled the question into the other’s shoulder, a few tears finally breaking free from his control. “How?”
The other man let out a heavy breath, tentatively returning the hug before stepping away. “That’s...a long story.”
“We are more than willing to hear it, Doctor,” Spock said from the doorway behind Jim.
“Ugh.” McCoy pinched the bridge of his nose as if to stem off an incoming headache. “I was really hoping you’d never find out. It’s been a while since I got this careless with my surroundings.”
Jim blinked. “A while?” he sputtered. “What- is dying and coming back to a life a normal thing for you?”
“Uh…” McCoy looked a bit sheepish, but didn’t deny it.
Spock tilted his head. “Fascinating.”
There was a groan from the doctor as he plopped into his chair. “Of course you would think so.” Reaching down, McCoy opened up the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a bottle of Aldebaran whiskey. “Well, if we’re going to have this conversation, I’m gonna need this.”
“Yeah,” M’Benga stuck his head into the office, eyes still wide. “I would say so. It’s not every day I get to see a man I was preparing for his funeral just get up and walk away.”
The man in question winced. “Sorry ‘bout that.”
And so began the story of Leonard McCoy and the man behind him.
The truth of one John Grimm.