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It feels like night is settling. But words like that are all meaningless on a spaceship, especially out here in one of the corridors where you can really get a look at the stars. Despite the UV lights, it feels like nighttime. Night after a long, long day.
And Scotty misses his old engine.
It's a stupid thing to be thinking about in the middle of all this, but he does.
Back in their hay day, the old Enterprise engine had been separated from him by a metal grate, and not much more. It had glowed warm, red and orange and yellow, like fire, like sunlight, and it had radiated warmth that you could feel all throughout the room. It had been temperamental. Almost volatile. He had imagined it was alive. Not like this one; this one's light is cold, and blinding, and it hurts to look at. It's a marvel of scientific engineering. It's much better than it was, and it is his. He does care for it. But he misses standing there in that warm glow and imagining that it felt almost like sunlight after all, he misses the physical there-ness it brought. The comfort.
He had taken comfort in that place even when things had gone so horribly wrong that there was no forgetting them, no running. He had imagined that maybe it was possible to leave all the blood behind you when you stepped into the engine rooms; that you couldn't track the violence in. And it had been a stupid way to think, he knows. But never, never have they had something go this wrong.
Just about half the crew is dead.
Dead. And his own section had been hit the hardest by far.
Dead. And the engine room — this engine room, that is — is now half radioactive fallout, and half covered in blood. And nobody had needed to track it in, leave bootprints of it against the floor, because Khan's phasers had been aimed right at them. Towards the heart of the Enterprise.
He knows, without having to be told, that killing the Enterprise was something Khan only did because he couldn't personally get his hands round Kirk's own neck. As if he thought, in his apparent madness, that he was hurting him physically. Him, and him only. No one else would target the engines directly, cause so much destruction, and risk releasing radioactive fallout that'd last for years. Only a madman, or a sadist would think of that.
And somehow the worst part isn't even that he hasn't seen Kirk for hours, or that Spock is gone. Those are bad, yes. Especially since Spock had gone before their very eyes. But that had only been the end of it. Scotty is still bloody from everything that happened before, and he has been for hours. When the first proper attack had set in, hours on hours ago, part of the service tunnels round the engines had buckled, breached, and sealed accordingly. The ship had worked the way it should. But it had killed fourteen of his men. His men. Those engineers that worked directly under him, that he was responsible for. And it had just gotten worse after that.
Delirious with fear and shock and God knows what else, he had carried one of the younger ensigns up into the ship on his own, in the hope that they could help him. He had still died. And so had many more. He remembers Kirk's face shut down as that hand went limp in his own. He remembers McCoy looking him in the eye, mouthing I'm so sorry. And ever since then it's just been blood and anxiety, all of it. He hasn't had time to wash it out. And it'd kept getting worse, and worse, and worse.
Eventually his memory slows, and stops there. Blank spots interrupted only by the moments of chaos. And he knows he must've spent the rest of that time sitting still or staring blindly at nothing, seeing nothing, hearing even less. He must've been in shock. That's just it.
Shock. And brief bursts of adrenaline to pull him into action despite that. He's done more than scrape the bottom of the barrel for energy. So have they all.
Someone, God knows who, had given him a blue and white handkerchief at some point. He hadn't had the strength to actually get the blood out from under his fingernails for ages; just sat there, staring at it. He remembers that moment as being forever ago. He doesn't remember the time passing inbetween. He's been sitting here for hours, too. Losing track of time under the stars, and the black sky behind them.
He just hasn't been able to bring himself to move.
Sometimes, someone walks by, back and forth. Quiet and quick through the corridors. The other crew members. He glances after them as they pass.
None of them look at him. And maybe that's on purpose. Maybe he looks too miserable for them to dare to bother him, maybe they're holding onto their composure with their teeth the way he's often seen them do, when they just need to keep functioning, keep everyone alive. Stay calm. Maybe they all feel sorry for the poor old chief engineer, who was only trying to help and saw so, so much. And some part of him feels useless, for just sitting there. But there's an even louder voice in him, that says that anything less than shock and horror, in a situation like this, would be an insult. A sin.
He wants to help.
He's not sure he would be of any use like this, though. He can barely think.
Besides, there's a very stern third voice in the back of his head, that he's sure isn't his own but rather just a memory, telling him to sit back down. Stay still, take it easy, and don't move. You've taken a few bad falls yourself. You're in no condition to start running around.
It's hard to shake the feeling that he hadn't failed them all down there. As much as he knows no man is perfect, and that he did the best he could, he still feels... But, no, someone had given him some kind of order, there. Probably safest to just trust it.
He blinks, slowly. Looks around even more carefully.
It's very quiet now. As the ship limps home.
As he catches sound of footsteps, quick and harsh, he lowers his head again. Wanting to avoid eye contact with yet another someone who's been sent down to do his job in place of him, another someone who had lost someone in the attack. But those footsteps slow to a stop when they've just passed him, and then turn around.
Scotty barely glances up as someone quietly sits down next to him on the bench by the window. Quite close. And at this point, after a good ten years on the same ship he knows it's McCoy by his breathing alone, by the little body language he can hear.
For a few seconds, or maybe they're whole minutes, as nothing seems to change or move or happen under the stars, they don't even look at each other. Scotty thinks of doing it, and thinks and thinks until he finally can. But he gets nothing back. The doctor sits with one leg pulled up under him, shoulders tense and eyes locked in the middle distance; the empty wall opposite. Unlike Scotty though, he looks anything but empty. Those eyes dart from point to invisible point, watching something he can't see. And his hands are knitted together tight in his lap, shoulders pulled up and tense. He can hear his breathing, uneven, shallow. And he isn't there, exactly, lost outside of space and time just like he'd been... But he's somewhere else instead. Somewhere bad.
As if he has only just managed to get here.
God, he thinks. Because McCoy must've been working for hours. Out of those few scattered memories he's got, he can't remember him sitting down to rest even once, not once. Only pass out, that one time, when... Spock...
No, he can't remember.
Bones is still in scrubs. And it's bad day indeed when he doesn't get out of those as quickly as possible. He hates the feeling of paper, and he doesn't like to track the blood around. There's blood flecking over the sleeves, now. His hair's untidy, hanging down and casting his face in tiny spidery shadows. Maybe someone had finally convinced him that he needed to stop; maybe he himself had realized that you can only go so long without sleep or food or thought before your hands are too unsteady for careful work like surgery. Scotty knows the feeling... But not like this. His eyes wander down to those hands, locked together so tight they're whitening, wringing. He watches him run his fingertips over every knuckle, as if trying to pull the bones out of their sockets, take them apart one by one. And do everything he can to stay calm.
He looks up at him again. Back to the blue eyes, moving, but dull in the light. Jaw set tight.
"...doc."
He hears his own voice. It sounds raspy, and taunt. He hasn't been crying exactly. Not since the first attack, when it'd all come at once and then run out. But he sounds like he's been screaming his head off for hours. It hurts to raise it, so it has to stay a near-whisper, just loud enough to be heard.
He gets no answer. But he does get a glance, quick as a flash, a complicated emotion flitting across McCoy's face. And he knows that he must be aware that he's there.
He had sat down here on purpose, after all.
He'd come here, after losing a friend and handling the body himself, and steering Kirk away from it; Kirk who had been too shocked to speak and who hadn't wanted to move. Oh, Khan had hurt their captain, alright. In more ways than they could fathom. McCoy had handled all of it, and then gone back to work. And he had come here, to this corridor with nothing in it and nothing going on, as if he'd been running from something.
And, he thinks, he had stopped.
He's digging his nails into his fingers, he notices. And he's holding his breath like he's waiting for him to say something.
Scotty stares a bit more, and realizes that he's trying to stop them shaking. When he glances back up, he actually catches his eye for a moment, watches without being able to find the words as the doctor nods bitterly at his own hands, and scoffs. It's a hopeless little sound.
"...look at me," he mutters, breath wavering on the inhale. "If only these... Blasted hands would start working."
"Do they hurt?"
He surprises himself by asking it. By being able to ask. His own voice is still quiet, careful like it might break something.
He gets a moment of blank silence in return. A brighter glint in his eye, something less like bitterness and more like just surprise. And then, slowly, a nod.
"Yes," he confirms. And his tone tells him plainly that Bones has no idea how he had been able to tell.
They don't need to talk about what's happened. They both saw the same things. The bodies, the blood. The light leaving that ensign's eyes as his captain told him to rest easy. They had done what they could, both in their own ways. And both had grabbed Kirk by one shoulder to stop him killing himself just to get to the Vulcan, watched him sink to the floor and cry for him, beg the universe to undo what'd happened, to wake up. Him, their captain, who never as much as shed a tear in front of his crew. Nothing had made sense after that, and they both know it. They know.
But that McCoy should have to sit here alone and stare at nothing and ache, after everything he had done for the ship and its crew and its captain and for him, for Scotty himself, is unacceptable. It's an unbearable thought. Working until his hands shake, trying to save the life of every person who comes onto he table. Seeing every wound. Every failed attempt. Having to keep going afterwards, despite it. Scotty knows how the doctor thinks. To him, it's all his fault. To him, every single death hits as hard as the first, and they're all his fault in the end, every person he couldn't save. Despite being a surgeon in the army, on a starship. Despite seeing it happen a hundred times. He never grew resistant to it. He only pretended he did. Here he sits, digging his nails into his knuckles until they form marks. He looks so small, all of a sudden.
And the way he's looking at him now suggests that sitting down had been a cry for help from the start.
Without a word, Scotty reaches over and resolutely pushes a hand in between both of his, stopping him from digging his nails in like that. He hears him breathe in, hold that breath and hesitate, as he pulls it back over into his own lap, pressing his fingers between both his palms. They're cold. And very, very still in his for the first second or so.
He doesn't know if he's doing the right thing. Doctor McCoy has never liked being worried about. He's responded to genuine inquiries about his own wellbeing in the same way for as long as he's known him; insisting that he's fine, swatting away any helping hands as if annoyed with his own inability to just walk it all off. Walk everything off.
Because he's supposed to take care of others, isn't he. Being taken care of, on the other hand, is just embarrassing.
But that usual anger cannot be found in his face now.
He just looks scared.
Finally, a breath in. Bones doesn't say anything, either. But he swallows and breathes like he might, like he's trying. He sees him glance away out of the corner of his eye, back to the wall, back to the place he had been just a moment ago. Whatever he'd been seeing there. He sees nothing now.
His fingers close on Scotty's own. Tight. And he closes his eyes.
Scotty has no clue what lets him speak up. He doesn't know where he gets the courage, either. Normally the doctor might kill him for even trying this one... But he can see the relief in him, even as he turns away.
"Easy..."
These aren't normal circumstances.
"It's alright, doc..."
Even someone like him is allowed to need help, now.
Bones scoffs, suddenly, harshly in-between holding his breath. It comes out shaky. Scotty's never seen him this bad in his life. He always tends to... Hide instead. Slip out of the room and disappear when things go wrong. He's never there in the aftermath. Never truly shows up to comfort or be comforted after things have gone wrong.
Scotty can't help but wonder if he's always just hid and sat and stared at the wall and ached. And at this point, in this state, the rush of empathy is enough to make him dizzy. His grip tightens.
"Out of all the..." Bones manages between his teeth, shaking his head. "Stupid things he could think of..."
Scotty feels his hand still, and tense for a moment.
"Yes, they hurt," he admits, more levelly, "always... 'Specially after long days."
He tries to nod, to carry on, still with both hands round his.
"D'you know why?"
McCoy shrugs. It strikes him as an odd thing for a doctor not to know.
Scotty nods again, for want of a better thing to do.
"Well I'm sorry either way," he says carefully.
He gets another shrug back, although this one feels more honest.
"Its just my luck."
His tone of voice alone hurts Scotty's heart.
Absent-mindedly, his thumb starts running in careful circles over Bones' fingers. It's an instinctual motion, picked up from a parent, maybe. A loving, absent-minded thing from home.
He doesn't know how instinctual it is that McCoy makes a hopeless little sigh and angles his hand slightly to let him do the same to his palm. He obliges, quickly. Anything to stop feeling like his heart is going to fall out of his chest. He does glance at the doctor again, but by now he's avoiding his eye on purpose, looking off into the corridor.
"This is awful, Scotty," he tells him.
"It is." He nods. "But ye shouldn't be sittin' here thinking it's all on you. I know you... You did the best ye could."
He gets another slightly confused glance in return. Bones eyes jump around for a moment the way they do when he's thinking, and it really is possible to watch the cogs turn in there.
"Well..." he shrugs, shifting. And if he had wanted to say anything else after that, he must've run short of words. He seems to give up, for the moment. But his eyes stay clear this time, and calm.
After the next person to pass through the corridor has come and gone without much of a look in their direction, Bones quietly offers him his other hand too. Still freezing cold. Scotty takes them both between his palms, and is still surprised when he lets them lock their fingers together, securely. Bones still doesn't look in his direction. Scotty thinks he understands. He's grateful for the offer; for being allowed to help him openly, even if it's small.
Two passer-bys later the doctor has relaxed his shoulder against his to let him reach better, and occasionally mutters some complaint after the disappearing boots; a short comment about how the security people won't stop getting in the way of the nurses or how the heating systems on the lower levels aren't working as they should. All in the same tone of voice; small, exhausted, but unceremonious. Regular. Those insults mean nothing. It's the same kind of complaint he would've made on any other day, and maybe he would've meant them all then, felt them, but not now. He's talking just to talk. To distract. Their knees just barely touch.
"You know, I don't think I've seen the crew so eager to get where they're supposed to be in my life," he mutters, as the next couple of people hurry past.
Scotty looks after them, worriedly.
"I hope they'll be alright in there," he says. "I don't want any of 'em trying to solve that radiation issue before we can dock."
"And you'd be thinking of following them down there, I bet."
The doctor's tone of voice there was searching. Careful.
"Of course I am," he sighs. "Aren't we all. But I'd be of no use down there, I know that. And our men are competent enough to handle this, too." He returns his attention to McCoy's hands, carefully running his fingers parallel to his, a more careful approach to massaging out the stiffness. "I reckon we're of more use here."
He mutters, "What use is the ship getting out of us sitting here sulking-?"
"You're getting use out of it," he snaps. It's not sharp enough to sting.
Truth be told, what he would really like to do is drag the doctor off to his quarters and force him to go to bed, tuck him in and kiss him goodnight and hope and pray he gets to sleep for a solid three days. Actually, he would like to go to sleep along with him. Sleep and sleep and sleep until he forgets everything he's seen today, with his hands in his own, to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid. But he'd never let him do any of that. And Scotty doesn't trust either of their ability to walk in a straight line right now either, so they're stuck here. And he'll be damned if he's going to let him go.
He looks down at their hands, now linked together, firmly.
He still has blood under his fingernails. So does Bones. His nails did leave marks over his knuckles, but they're fading now. No bleeding.
McCoy follows his eye.
"Needs of the many, eh?" He mutters, bitterly.
Scott shivers, and closes his eyes for a moment.
"Not right this moment." He shakes his head. "Not right now."