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McCoy throws his hands under his armpits as he continues to pace circles around the desk in Jim’s room. Spock sits in his usual chair, watching the doctor with a controlled expression. One leg crossed over his lap and fingers pressed together. He’s always so damn calm even when this could be disastrous. McCoy fights the urge to bite down on a nail, and squeezes his arms down tighter on his hands.
Kirk has been offered a promotion.
When McCoy first heard it, he had been proud. Good for him! No one deserves to be recognized for his efforts, and skills more than Jim. Overjoyed and maybe wanting a little comfort in the way of things staying the same he took off to ask Spock why the Dickens he hadn't told him. Only to find out Spock had no idea about the promotion at all. Which set in motion a series of events that led the pair to break three Starfleet laws, invade Kirk's privacy, and finally pull up what promotion exactly, that Kirk had earned himself.
Admiralty!
“I can’t believe he hasn’t even told us! He was offered the promotion a week ago!”
“He may have been on the way, doctor.”
“Oh he was on the way all right. On the way out of here without so much as a ‘so you know’!” McCoy throws his hands up in exasperation. Even now Spock’s so damn cool. Meanwhile he feels like he’s been trapped in a sauna in the middle of a georgia summer.
So damn heated.
The door clicks, and the pair turn their heads. McCoy crosses his arms over his chest. He doesn’t miss the way Spock’s hands move to hold his crossed leg.
Jim lifts his face, and pauses as he registers his guests. The door slides close as Jim’s face passes through surprise, fear, and finally rests on indignant frustration. “I see you two have made yourself at home.” His bitterness is only emphasized as he drops a padd on the desk right in between Spock and McCoy.
McCoy and Spock turn to look at each other. Synchronously they each raise a brow. Since when were they not welcomed? It’s been a long time since Kirk gave Spock the code to his room, and McCoy, well he’s had it since he first stepped foot onto this ship. The pair turn back to him, and that stern captain’s expression folds under their gazes.
“So you know,” Jim starts, and he turns away.
“You know what rear admiralty means!” McCoy steps forward, opening his arms and ready to plea.
Jim still doesn’t look back. He raises his head, and stares forward, unwilling or perhaps unable to face them. “I have a duty to starfleet Bones.”
“I also have a duty Jim.” He starts, placing a hand on Jim’s shoulder. “A duty to you,” he quickly turns Jim around. “and I’m telling you Jim, don’t do this.”
Brown eyes become downcast. A steady whisper shatters McCoy’s world, “I’ve already accepted Bones.”
Spiteful, angry, and not at all interested in controlling himself McCoy practically spats out his next words. “Then you’ve killed yourself.” He lets go of Jim’s shoulder. Tucking his hand against his own chest was all he could do to keep from pushing Jim away.
“On the contrary, he’s very much alive, doctor.”
Damn him! McCoy turns on Spock with such speed, that he’s shocked he didn’t fall.
“I mean his spirit Spock! If Jim does this he’ll never fly a starship again.” He waves a hand back in Jim’s direction. “He’ll be lucky to get out of the office ever with the admiralty position they’re offering him!”
McCoy turns on Kirk. He practically pleads, “You can’t tell me you’ll be happy with that.”
“What would you like me to do McCoy?” Jim asks finally stepping forward again. “Turn it down!”
“Yes!” McCoy throws both of his arms out.
“I can’t!” Jim slams his hand down on his desk. “I can’t Bones.” The captain’s head hangs low as he barely manages to shake it. “If the admiralty believes my skills are best put to use there then I have to trust that they will be.”
“Trust!” McCoy’s voice cracks. How much longer will he be able to argue and fight back like this? His throat has steadily been growing sore from the start. Jim has to see reason. McCoy has to make him see reason before his own physical limitations take him out of this fight.
“What about what you know?” McCoy presses both of his hands into his chest over his heart. “In your gut you know this is the wrong decision.”
“Is it?” Jim finally meets McCoy’s eye. For a brief fleeting moment the doctor was sure his best friend would see that this is a mistake. Then Jim looks away. McCoy watches as he catches Spock’s eye. The vulcan has been eerily silent throughout the majority of this conversation. For a moment McCoy expects Jim to cave. Surely he wouldn’t proceed. Not with both him and Spock against this. Then Jim closes his eyes, and mutters, “I’m not so sure.”
McCoy looks to Spock, then back to Jim. Here they are, the three of them in a single room. Jim’s room. The place where they’ve had some of their biggest blowouts, and softest apologies. What is this, if not yet another fight? They’ll get through this. Jim will see that leaving space would be a mistake. Being trapped behind a desk would kill his soul, slowly for sure, but it would be destroyed absolutely.
“It seems the captain has made his decision Doctor McCoy,” Spock begins as he rises to his feet. “and so have I.”
Jim and Spock’s eyes meet. McCoy’s stomach twists itself into a small tight ball. He could practically see the connection between the two men dying. All of those missions, the unspoken understanding that has been forged by time and trials, was dissipating as neither makes a move to stop it.
“You have, Spock?” Jim asks, his voice still low.
“Indeed.”
McCoy presses his lips together. He hadn’t realized that this had all been so fragile.
If this is where the conversation ends then….
His eyes go wide, as McCoy squeezes his hands tightly closed.
Moments ago he felt so sure and now, now it feels as if his world is falling apart.
Has Spock been thinking this whole time about his time on the Enterprise? McCoy looks to him and sees a dozen small signs of emotions that give tell to the volatile storm raging within him over his usually calm seas.
“Well out with it Spock, what are you going to do?” McCoy orders throwing a hand out as if to wave away reality. Too bad it doesn’t work that way.
“I, too shall leave the Enterprise.” Probably to follow Jim, McCoy thinks bitterly, but if Spock is going too. Then so will he. At least Jim will still have them. Maybe he’ll come to his senses along the way. “As well as resign from Starfleet.”
“What?” Both humans ask at once.
It was everything McCoy never wanted to hear. Jim trapped. Spock gone. No. He takes a step back and runs a hand through his hair. How did it get to this?
“Spock you’re guaranteed command of this ship, along with a promotion.” Jim states as if that alone is reason enough to stay with starfleet.
“I understand captain but I do not wish for command, nor have I ever.”
“Spock you’re leaving too?” Voice shaking, McCoy watches at Spock and Jim stare into each other’s eyes. Almost as if they were glaring each other down. Both raising a challenge neither will back down from. Then Spock is looking away. His head turns slowly and McCoy is startled as he realizes Spock’s eyes are damp. The vulcan says nothing, just stares into McCoy’s gaze with the sadness expression the doctor has ever seen on him.
“Have you made your decision, Spock?” Jim asks a tinge of disappointment, maybe anger tainting his tone.
Spock closes his eyes. “Have you?”
McCoy looks back and forth between the two of them. These two stubborn, militaristic, single-minded fools! Leaving the Enterprise for a desk job is a death sentence of Kirk’s spirit, just as leaving Jim would be for his own. For Spock! Yet here they stand on the precipice of that grand destruction. Desperately Leonard look to Jim. Now, just as so many times before, he has the power to save them or let this go, and Jim has never made the wrong choice.
“Then I wish you good luck, Mr. Spock.”
“Safe journeys, Captain Kirk.”
Everything they were, shatters.
“I can’t believe it!”
Everything they are melts away in this moment.
“Believe what doctor?”
“That you two are going through with this.”
Everything they could be wiped away as if it were nothing.
“We have made plans for our future.” Spock is looking at him again. “Doctor what are yours?”
When faced with that question McCoy finally notices that his arms are shaking. In fact they’re cold. This room is so chilly. How could Spock stand it?
Probably because he knows this is the last time he’ll ever be in it. What’s a moment of discomfort in the face of a life on a planet so warm it’ll surely keep the chill out of his bones forevermore?
McCoy grits his teeth. He clenches his fists turning his knuckles a deathly shade of white. “Oh I’ll tell you what I plan to do!” He snaps. McCoy takes a step forward before glaring at the two. “I plan to contact those admirals of yours!” He throws a finger in Jim’s direction, “And make sure they know exactly what they’re doing by offering you this promotion!”
“Do you believe the admiralty to be unaware?” Spock asks, and McCoy’s never been so tempted to tell him to go shave those eyebrows right off.
Shooting Spock a glare, McCoy continues, “I believe them to be foolish, and if they ignore Jim’s psych evaluations then they’re downright ignorant.”
“Doctor, you are presuming too much. Perhaps the captain wants this promotion.” McCoy throws his head back. Spock has rarely sounded so cold. Now as he fixes a side glance on the captain his voice is filled with ice. “He seems to be welcoming it.”
“Yes, just right Mr. Spock.” Now Jim turns McCoy’s way. “Would you really go out of your way to deny me this, Bones?”
How could he not see what a huge mistake this is? Spock’s voice is downright disparate!
Okay fine. It’s on him. Fine. That’s just dandy.
McCoy takes a deep breath before fixing his sternest look on Jim. “To protect you, yes.”
The hurt on Jim’s face is as plain as day.
McCoy wants to look away, but he stops himself. What about their pain? If Jim is really ready to let all of this go then he doesn’t get to walk away without facing a few realities.
“Bones?”
That’s it. Jim doesn’t get to just end this, and say his name that way. McCoy hunches his shoulders and walks out. The doctor gets halfway to his own room, before he crumples against the wall. Was he the only one who thought they were worth fighting for?
Did he trick himself into believing they were growing into something more than just, just….
His eyes start to water. There’s no stopping his tears. The dam burst as they flow freely, soaking his arms as he holds himself. There’s no stopping any of this.
“Damn it.”
----
Jim looks to Spock.
“I can stop him captain.”
“No, no, no, Mr. Spock. There’s no need.” Jim waves the suggestion away. The admiralty won’t change their mind based on the word of a single CMO. Even if that man is the Leonard McCoy. “If he wasn’t worried he wouldn’t be doing his job.”
“I believe this concern goes beyond his professional duty.”
“Yes, it does.” No point in disagreeing with reality. Jim pulls out his desk chair and takes a seat. It hadn’t been an easy choice. In all honesty, he wanted to turn it down, but the other admirals made one hell of a case. He could do a lot of good as chief of operations.
Jim raises his head and looks back at Spock. There had been a distinct change in his first officer’s demeanor. His behavior, his speech, it was all off. Different. “Is this the end for us?”
The words come out before he really has a chance to consider them at all.
“I am not sure what you mean captain.” Spock straightens his posture and tucks his hands behind his back. Even that familar posture feels different now. As if it were there to put distance between them. Something it had never done before. “We will both go on living our lives with these choices.”
So it is a yes then. Jim looks down at his desk. He spreads both of his arms out, resting his palms on his desk, bracing himself. “Do you agree with Bones?”
“I find his advice sound in matters regarded humans’ health and psych.”
“Do you think he’s right in regards to this matter, Spock?”
“Does it matter what I think?” Yes. It always has. Jim could disregard one of their opinions easily. Especially if the other is voicing agreement with him. However, the two are a pair that have always offered the best of advice. Even when neither agrees with him, they hardly agree with each other. The few times they have, Jim found it difficult to stand against both.
Even in this matter his heart may waver given the word.
“No, I suppose not.”
Spock frowns. For a moment Jim wonders if he has hurt Spock the way Bones has hurt him.
It’s a vicious cycle.
One Spock chooses to remove himself from as he promptly walks out the door.
Jim brings his hands in close to him, and sighs.
For five years he’s served on this ship, devoted his life to the Enterprise and every soul on it, and now he’s leaving. Not only that but Spock is leaving too. Never has he met another man so devoted to Starfleet, and now Spock is turning his back on it. And what of McCoy? The doctor had made his next course of action clear, but what happens after that? Would he stay in Starfleet? Could Jim convince him to take up a position in the office he’ll be assigned to? He had resigned himself to Spock’s absence because he believed the vulcan would become the Enterprise’s captain. No, now Spock will be completely out of reach, and if McCoy goes as well….
Jim clenches his hands into tight fists.
It has to be worth it.
The good he can do for others as an admiral must be worth this loss.
----
Spock pretends not to notice the slight wet smudge on the wall next to his door. Just as he makes a point of ignoring the glances from the two ensigns at the end of the hall, staring at him instead of working on the wiring they are supposed to be redoing. No doubt Mr. Scott will make them go over the whole system again. Good.
May they learn not to be so blatant next time.
He locks the door behind him.
The emotions that have risen up within him over the last day were reaching a new point.
There have been many points during the five year mission where he has struggled with said feelings. Under duress on the platonians’ planet, during that incident with the spores, the virus that had him weeping in a briefing room, and everything that happened during pon farr. Through it all both Jim, and Doctor McCoy had been by his side. Always before, during, and after the chaos the enterprise often found itself in.
Without Kirk and McCoy he would not have enjoyed his time here nearly as much as he has.
Now it is time for it to end.
Spock knew it always would. Foolishly he had, hoped, that when it ended they would move to another ship together. Maybe take a term of service at the academy as professors.
Then again he thought he would not enjoy serving when Pike left the enterprise either and he eventually did. With time he could also enjoy serving under a different captain. Doctor McCoy might even choose to accompany him. Though Spock supposes, it would be more likely that he will choose to follow Jim back to Earth. Even if he despises Jim’s choice, Spock can hardly picture the doctor anywhere but by the captain’s side.
No, leaving Starfleet is the best choice.
Deep down, Spock does not want to be wrong again. He does not wish to get used to serving under yet another captain, or in charge of another ship. Not when it takes him so much time to get used to one crew, a crew that is supposed to be like a family according to the humans around him.
Then again his family has never been particularly skilled at staying by Spock’s side.
As long as he is around humans these emotions will continue to flare up. They will grow stronger, before ebbing away. Time and again until he either grows used to it, and controls it now, or succumbs to them. Perhaps the kolinahr is not just the best alternative.
It is his only one.
If he can not remain amongst humans then he should return to vulcan and fully embrace his people’s ways there.
Spock reaches out. Long fingers gently wrap around a framed photograph. He lifts it from his table, and stares into the smiling face filling it. The bridge crew of this very ship look back at him. In the center to the captain’s right, stands himself, one hand on the back of the captain’s chair. McCoy’s own hand nearly touched his on the back of the chair to the captain’s left. The captain wears the biggest grin of all.
These moments were not lies. They could not be, but just because they were not lies does not mean they are enough.
Tired eyes catch the smile on Spock’s own face within the photograph.
He can no longer indulge his human side.
Carefully he places the photograph down. It is time to start packing. The trip to vulcan will be a long one.
Perhaps now that he’s older he will be able to find his place there.