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He knew the signs.
They may not have turned into flesh-eating monsters. They may have looked deceptively human, but he knew the signs.
When Bones joked with Jim about homicidal tendencies he smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. No one knew the real possibilities behind his gamble. If he was wrong, if the numbers were off by even a little, he could have turned his friend into a nightmare. At the very least made him completely unfit for command. Jim Kirk chasing everything in a skirt he could deal with. Jim Kirk trying to tear flesh and rend limbs was another matter entirely.
When Leonard saw the first readouts on Khan’s genome he froze, his fingers clenched hard enough to break the plasti-glass screen on his desk. Someone (not Samantha, he hoped to God it wasn’t her) found some shred of the information from Olduvai and played with it, refined it over years so it created monsters, but only on the inside. The image of his friend mutated into a horror was almost enough to keep him from risking the process. The first twenty four hours after he injected the serum he stayed in Kirk’s room, the phaser in his hand turned to lethal while new fears mingled with others old and well worn. Centuries later and he still had nightmares about it. About things he didn’t want to remember but seemed unable to forget. About Mars and Olduvai; the place that took his parents and in the end, his humanity.
Judging from Khan and his crew the serum was perfected sometime in the ten years between Olduvai and the Eugenic Wars. Seeing it in action, knowing that the knowledge (knowledge he killed for, knowledge that cost so many innocents their lives) got out made hatred, sour and old, rumble deep in his chest. He should have known, should have guessed all those centuries ago, but he didn’t. Didn’t want to think about it, to add more nightmares to the one he was already living. More than one lab in those days was Hell-bent on improving humanity and there no way to guess someone would use information gleaned from the old research station to push humanity to its limits.
Even now he had no way to explain to people who didn’t live through the Eugenics Wars what it was like. The terror of not knowing if the strangers passing through were really strangers, or Augments hell-bent on tearing apart any small sense of order you managed to gather around yourself to impose their own. The carnage was on the scale never seen again on Earth: millions dead in the first waves, hundreds of millions in the following years. Cities vaporized while governments strained to the breaking point cared only about retaining their tattered power. There was no help for the refugees who fled the cities, no supplies except what you could carry on your back and no security other than what hastily scavenged weapons provided.
Khan and his group were young, none of them chronologically older than 270 years. Children when the wars started, most likely orphans rounded up by arrogant governments: trained, brainwashed and injected with something that made them more than human. Little wonder that they turned on those who trained them in the end. Who showed loyalty to those who threw you into battle with little chance of survival? What were humans to beings who were better in every way? The Augments had faster reflexes, faster thought processes, increased speed, strength, and agility. After Mars he chose to vanish; left his life behind to keep the secret in his DNA from falling into the wrong hands. Khan chose to burn away any hands but his own.
In a small part of his mind, the part that reveled in his former codename and every connotation it held, he could respect that.
Bones ran the latest results for Jim’s labs again, searching for any sign of genetic degradation or uncontrolled mutation. So far the serum did its work without any unexpected complications and in weeks, once he introduced a retro-virus, the kid would be free of any lingering effects. Once his metabolism evened out he should live the rest of his life as close to human as possible. Reflexes slightly elevated, with more strength than his frame should be able to retain and his mind that much faster (and Christ on a cracker, how the hell would that work when the kid was already a genius by Starfleet standards?) but human. He wouldn’t be burdened with watching his loved ones die of old age while he remained stuck in time.
Leonard picked up a small vial and held it. The clear glass contained a simple liquid; slightly yellow in color, viscous like most medicines, completely unassuming. It was the modified version of the serum he gave Jim. No forcible insertion of another chromosome into the genetic code, this. A few tweaks to the right portion of the genome was all it took in the end, with spectacular results; an increase in white blood cells, the speed of transcription and translation, the rate at which the mitochondria produced ATP among a few other things. Using Jim’s DNA as a base template he could, in theory, reverse his own infection.
Theoretically, the serum could return him to a state of nearer-humanity. They small traces of grey in his hair could be real in time, not artfully applied in well-hidden trips to salons. The lines in his face carved there by time instead of hours of careful preparation. He could be Leonard McCoy, husband and father with no secrets that, in the end, drove away everyone he tried to love.
“Dr. McCoy.”
He slipped the vial into a padded slot on his desk, completely nonchalant. It could have been one of a thousand vials of Jim’s normal antihistamine injections (and the kid would thank him for the serum taking care of that particular pain in the ass). “Commander Spock.”
The first officer hesitated at the threshold of his temporary office, just for a moment, before walking in. “Earlier this afternoon you voiced some concern over the Captain’s mental stability.”
Oh, for… “It was a joke.”
Spock looked..well…like a Vulcan.“It is well documented that Augmented humans display increased aggression as well as borderline psychotic tendencies. If you feel the Captain is in any danger-”
“Jim’s psyche-chem profile barely flickered.”
“And yet you are not known for frivolity when Jim’s health is of concern.”
Damn all pointy-eared Vulcans and their ability to latch onto small but important details. “The man just came back from the dead, Spock,” he covered. “And since when is it ‘Jim’?” He gave Spock the side-eye and reached into his desk. His bottle of Kentucky Blue was there, as always. He pulled out two etched crystal glasses. It was generally his unspoken ‘get the hell out of my office’ move, and Spock was nothing if not adept at reading unspoken commands.
The commander side-stepped his question and gave his bottle a look that said more than a three hour lecture, but he stayed. “I also understand the Captain’s health is improving faster than originally anticipated.”
“Can’t keep a good bitch down.” Bones poured a generous finger into his glass, thought about it, and poured a second into the spare before nudging it towards the half-Vulcan. Three hundred years gone or not, his Mama raised him right. He took a swallow of the amber liquid. It warmed his chest with familiar prickles before pooling low and hot in his stomach. Shit, he forgot to eat lunch. “If you want to know about Jim’s overall condition-“
“I do.”
“-then,” he continued. “I would tell you that, as Chief Medical Officer aboard the Enterprise it is my medical opinion that Jim will remain bedridden for up to another week. Once his body has completed repairing the radiation damage I will introduce the retrovirus containing his original genome. He will have to go through an additional two weeks of close medical observation as his body begins to revert from its altered state. On the outside he will spend a month planet-side, longer if there are complications.”
Spock gave one of his curt, barely-there nods. “Thank you, Doctor. That was an adequate assessment. I will share it, less some details, with concerned members of the crew.”
Bones couldn’t help it; he rolled his eyes. Hard. “’Concerned members of the crew?’ Is it that hard to admit you went halfway out of your Vulcan mind with worry for the past two weeks?” He wouldn’t have thought it possible if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. The only thing more maddening than Spock was Spock doing the Vulcan equivalent of fretting all over his patient.
The commander’s shoulder stiffened, not as much as they would a year ago, but enough for Bones to know he hit a nerve. “Vulcan’s do not-“
“I know, I know.” He softened his voice. “Jim’s fine, Spock. He’ll wipe the floor with anyone he spars with for a while, but he’s as fine as he ever gets.” He reached for his other glass. If the Vulcan wasn’t drinking, he damn sure would.
Before he could grab it Spock was there, picking up the glass and examining the liquid within with vague interest. “As far as I am aware this is Kentucky bourbon, 80 proof by most standard measures.”
“Yeah?”
Spock downed the liquor without making a face. “I have witnessed you imbibing this particular liquor several times, even to excess, but have yet to witness you intoxicated. Curious.”
Spock could say ‘curious’ in a way that made you feel five seconds from being pegged out on an operating table to be dissected. “Unlike Jim, I can handle my liquor.” He stashed the bottle and now empty glasses back in his bottom drawer.
“Of that I have no doubt.” Spock’s stance relaxed. “You also showed exemplary command of Augmented human genetics. Your creation of a viable serum in such a short amount of time from a relatively unknown sample is worthy of commendation.”
“I’ll be sure to let the brass know.” Bones pushed away from his desk. It was almost time to do his rounds. If it wasn’t, it was sure as hell time to get away from curious Vulcans. “If there’s nothing else, Commander…?” Spock was digging. Somehow he’d given part of the game away.
There was something else, he could see it in the Commander’s eyes, but Spock relented. “Nothing at this time, Dr. McCoy,” Spock said, and damn him if that eyebrow didn’t twitch, just a little.
“Then would you mind getting out of my office? I’ve got patients that need looking after.”
Spock didn’t try to hinder him when he left his office, just moved to the side so he could exit.