The Vigil

Someone new came into the room. He turned around. McCoy stood over him. The doctor smiled, too, but the expression did not extend to his eyes. "How's it going?"

He shrugged. What else could he say? "Okay."

McCoy sat at the chair by his side. The bed was flanked with chairs. Everyone had been here at one time or another; Chekov, Scotty, Sulu. Uhura. Kirk closed his eyes. She'd cried the last time she'd come. They were close in an odd sort of way, she and Spock, and she'd cried yesterday when she'd sat here. Seeing him like this; it was difficult for them all.

God. Kirk wanted to stand up, pound his fist through a wall. Kill somebody. Anybody. He didn't, of course; knew that helplessness and inactivity were fueling his rage. But knowing didn't make it any easier to bear.

Something touched him on the shoulder. He opened his eyes. McCoy was watching him intently, that ghost of a smile faded to nothingness. The doctor opened his mouth but found that there was nothing he could say. The hand came down. McCoy folded his arms across his chest, studied the monitors blinking overhead.

"Ship's gone now."

Kirk nodded. He knew. The Enterprise had an assignment to keep. Starfleet had let he and McCoy stay, but the ship had left seven hours ago. They'd brought Spock down two days earlier, disconnecting him from the life supports, putting him on portable ones. McCoy didn't like it much, but local laws required they stay until the case was settled and Starfleet was always careful to conform to local laws. The hospital planetside was acceptable. The doctor had scoured it from top to bottom before he'd even considered bringing Spock down, to hell with local customs. But it was all right. He gave his grudging approval.

Silence fell between them. Finally McCoy spoke. "Stager said they've set a trial date."

The captain looked up. McCoy continued to stare at the flashing lights; oxygen, plasma, heart rate, blood pressure rate. Lord, there were so many lights. "It'll be pretty short," he continued. "The preliminaries show Watson's mentally unstable."

Kirk said nothing. He was stable enough to find that weapon, to track them through the marketplace, to blow a hole in Spock's chest the size of a grapefruit.

McCoy seemed to read his thoughts. "He's ranting and raving about demons. Said God told him to do it."

God. Kirk turned away. It would hardly be the first time. The thought made him sick.

McCoy cleared his throat. For years he'd teased Spock about looking like Satan. Good natured teasing. Spock had enjoyed it in his own cryptic way. Who'd ever have thought it'd come to this? All those years and all those jokes. Who'd ever have thought?

Kirk was watching him. McCoy's eyes became very dark. "They're pretty advanced here. Have good psychiatric facilities. If he's shown to be unbalanced, he'll be well cared for."

The doctor's face flushed. Kirk watched his hands clasp together, then release. "I don't want that for him, Jim. So help me, I wish they'd throw him into a pit somewhere and leave him there for twenty years."

Kirk knew what he meant. He'd wished the same thing, too, during the past week. Many times.

McCoy rose to his feet. The admission had unsettled him profoundly. "Watson's certifiable. God speaks to him, for God's sake." If his mood hadn't been so black, he might have smiled at his choice of words, but McCoy scarcely noticed them now. "How can I possibly feel this way?"

"You're human."

McCoy stopped. Kirk was right. Human. It was a two-edged sword. The same thing that made him lust for vengeance, in a more twisted form, had sent Emil Watson out on his mission of murder, too.

"Bones?"

McCoy looked down. Kirk was staring at Spock now. His left arm rested on the bed, the fingers of his hand stretched out until they were scarcely an inch from the Vulcan's face. After a moment, he glanced up. There was such vulnerability in his eyes that it nearly broke the doctor's heart.

"Will he ever come back to us?"

For a moment, McCoy said nothing. They'd been dancing around the question for a week, but in all that time, the captain hadn't asked it; not directly. In the beginning, it had all been a frenzy of just keeping Spock alive from one minute to the next. Then he'd stabilized and the reports began to roll in. Kirk understood what they meant. After all, he'd been in the sickbay when Spock's heart stopped again and again, saw their frantic efforts to get it beating again. Knew that it had been silent too long, too many times.

And yet knowing wasn't the same thing as hearing it from McCoy himself. The doctor had been preparing himself for the question for days, had mentally rehearsed it a dozen times, a hundred times.

But now, looking at that face, a man's face that seemed so incredibly young right now, he found himself unable to speak. He would have given a year of his life to be able to say something different, spent an endless thirty seconds plowing through his mind to find some way to soften the blow.

But there was no way to soften it. And, much as he loved the man sitting beside him, he owed him the truth. That if nothing else.

"No." At last, he looked away, unable to bear the sorrow that came over that face. "No, I don't think so."

Kirk's lips pressed together and for a moment his breathing stopped, but other than that he made no reaction. Such control. McCoy watched him in amazement. Kirk had it mastered in a way that would have done a Vulcan proud. He stared fixedly at the rug, the only sign of his distress the veins in his neck that seemed to swell and pulse with every beat of his heart.

One minute stretched out into two. The room became so quiet McCoy could hear the blood roaring past his eardrums.

"So what happens now?"

McCoy glanced over. The captain's voice seemed loud in the deadly silence. And unexpected. Kirk had spoken very little during the past week; mundane, superficial things mostly; nothing touching on the searing pain McCoy knew burned just beneath the surface. He'd tried to draw him out, using every tactic he knew to open that internal door, but Kirk had cut him off every time. Strange, he'd thought more than once. For a man as gregarious and outgoing as James Kirk was supposed to be, in reality he was one of the most tight-lipped people McCoy had ever known.

He moved his chair an inch closer. Kirk wanted to talk now. McCoy could see that clearly in his eyes. There was an openness there that had been missing before. What do they do now? How do they pick up the pieces and go on. Leonard McCoy dearly wished that the words he was about to say held a ray of hope, promised some kind of a happy ending.

But there was to be no happiness here and both men knew it. "I've already contacted Medical Rehabilitation," McCoy said softly. "When we're ready, they'll send a transport out to pick him up."

Kirk did not look up. For a moment McCoy thought he was about to say something, but he didn't. His eyes seemed to unfocus, staring at something the doctor couldn't begin to understand. Finally, McCoy couldn't bear it anymore. He spoke again. "They'll take him back. To Earth probably; maybe to Vulcan. We haven't figured that part out yet. And with work," McCoy hesitated as Kirk finally glanced back. "Who knows. If he comes out of the coma, who knows."

Kirk said nothing. With work, with endless work, he might be able to say his own name again, recognize a word written on a piece of paper. With work.

God. He turned away again. Spock would rather be dead.

Silence fell between them again; a long somber silence. Kirk's hand still rested on the Vulcan's pillow. McCoy watched as his fingers stretched a bit more, as if he wanted to touch Spock's face but was afraid to. And he was suddenly gripped with the urge to grab his hand and shove it forward, screaming, Go ahead! Touch him! What in the hell difference will it make now? Lord Almighty, you're as bad as he ever was!

But he didn't. He sat and said nothing.

Another endless minute passed. the hush broken only by the gentle whir of the machines, the weak, shallow sound of the Vulcan's breathing.

McCoy was the first to speak. The silence was their enemy now. He should never have let it come between them again. "I expect we'll get a message from Sarek soon. He's heard by now, I'm sure."

Kirk made no reaction. Sarek. Vulcan. Sterile old men fluttering around Spock like monks over a corpse. Even if they brought him back to consciousness, they'd pick his brain so clean he'd be about as human as a marble statue.

Silence again. The captain, surprisingly, was the first one to break it.

"You know the last thing I remember him doing?"

And again, his words startled the doctor. McCoy turned his head, opened his mouth to reply, then realized Kirk wasn't waiting for one, was hardly even aware of his presence right now. His mind was far away, his gaze fixed on the black hair barely brushing against his fingers. Blue-black. Like spun satin. Like a baby's hair.

"Smiling." Kirk shook himself, almost stopped speaking. The image had played through his mind a thousand times during the past eight days, but he'd kept it to himself, had somehow been unable to say any of it aloud.

"Go on."

He looked over. McCoy was leaning forward. He encouraged him again. "Go on."

Go on. Two simple words, but the floodgates lay behind them and he didn't know if he had the strength to deal with that yet.

"I heard about the crowd." McCoy tried again. "That it was a real mob scene down here."

It worked. Kirk smiled faintly. The crowd. Cheerful and boisterous, but the Androsians were a happy people anyway and their solstice market was a big event. People came from everywhere. The colors, the different accents and languages. It had been friendly chaos.

"I was teasing him." He began to speak again, his voice so low the doctor had to strain to hear. "We stopped at one of those jewelry stands and they had a headband, a gaudy feathered thing. And I was teasing him - that I'd buy it and give it to him as a present. I remember I was standing there holding this thing in my hand. He gave me that aloof look of his. You know that look he had?"

Kirk glanced up. McCoy nodded. He knew. He'd seen it a thousand times. And usually directed at himself.

The captain shook his head. "And then he smiled. Right there in the middle of that crowd, he smiled."

Kirk closed his eyes. McCoy watched his hands clench until the knuckles were white. Thirty seconds later, Spock was on the ground, his blood arching into the air like a grotesque fountain, his shirt blown away. Emil Watson, a local eccentric whom the people laughed at for communing with demons and gods, stood scarcely five feet away. He'd spied Spock in the crowd earlier in the day, Kirk had found out later, and had tracked them through the marketplace for nearly an hour, his gun concealed in his coat, his eyes filled with the zeal of insanity.

The captain turned away, caught up in a memory the doctor could scarcely imagine. Watson had leveled his gun again just as he'd lunged forward, knocking the weapon away and sending it skidding across the pavement. It had been a large shore party that came down that day. They had, after all, been in space for weeks. Sulu and three security men had been nearby. They brought the madman under control, hustled him away in a circle of yellow and red, the crowd, dazed and silent, parting to let them through.

And Spock. Kirk could hardly draw a breath. Spock had been conscious for nearly a minute. He'd heard the frantic calls to sickbay, watched Kirk's fumbling attempts to stop the bleeding. The captain had seen the look in the Vulcan's eyes as he lay sprawled on that blood-soaked pavement. For days it had haunted him. It flashed through his mind's eye again and again; that terrible, agonized look, but he had never been able to pinpoint just what it was.

Until yesterday. Then he realized. Strange that he hadn't seen it at once.

Sorrow. Lord help him, that's what it was; bitter, heartbreaking sorrow. And with the clarity of crystal, he knew exactly what it meant.

The captain bent forward, wrapping his arms around his waist. This fear that boiled within him; it was a terrible thing, stripping him of his courage, taking his Starfleet training and discipline and turning it all to ashes. McCoy was wrong when he thought he was maintaining control. His facade rested on smoke and the slightest wind would scatter it forever. Spock knew that, knew how fragile his emotional control could be. Knew how important their friendship was to his own inner strength.

"Bones?" McCoy was at his side, but the doctor did not touch him. "God, Bones, I'm so afraid."

Such anguish. McCoy could hardly bear to listen. "I know. So am I."

Kirk raised his head and McCoy recognized the look in his eyes. He didn't know, not really. Spock was different. From the very first, he had been different. McCoy had known Kirk longer, but he'd recognized that fact a long time ago. In the closest circle, there was room for only two.

Silence. Kirk took a deep breath. "I've lost friends before. And I've thought about the possibility of losing Spock. I thought I could keep it all in perspective. But..." At this point his voice began to break. "I don't know. I feel..." He looked up, his hands clenched into fists before him. "I feel like I'm suffocating, like I'm being sucked down a wind tunnel. I've never felt this way before. And I don't know how to deal with it."

Deal with it? McCoy thought grimly. You cry, shriek, pound the walls. A large chunk of your life is slipping away here. You have to understand that.

Abruptly Kirk rose, walked to the window and stared out. It was light outside, despite the hour. Andros had a trinary moon. The nights were not like those at home. Right now he couldn't even see the stars. "I wish I could have told him," he said at last.

McCoy understood what he meant. They all thought they had years. Time to talk later. Always time to talk later. "He knew."

Kirk turned back. "I should have told him. He needed to hear it. You know that, too."

McCoy just looked at him. It was true. In a strange way, Spock was more human than either of them.

Kirk laid an open hand on the glass, stared out into the emptiness. McCoy could see his fingers shake. "I remember the first time I saw him." His voice, however, was calmer now, more level. "I'd heard of him, of course. Pike thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread." Kirk smiled although the doctor could not see it. "When I first stepped off that transporter pad and saw him standing there, I was as intimidated as hell." He turned back. "Half the people on the ship were scared to death of him. Did you know that?"

McCoy nodded. He knew. Half the people on the ship were still afraid of him. But they were mostly the young ones, who didn't know him very well.

Kirk smiled again, but the expression faded as he glanced back at the bed. He seemed about to say something, then changed his mind. The words weren't there, anyway; not really. Not the ones he wanted to say. Not the ones that in all probability he would never have the chance to say. He closed his eyes, turned his back to the room.

McCoy had never felt so helpless. All those years of training; he should be able to handle this better. Kirk was finally talking. After a week's worth of evasions, Kirk was finally talking. McCoy had read all the manuals. He knew how to deal with grief.

But sitting here staring at that rigid back, he knew that he had no idea at all. The emotional tie between these two men was like nothing he'd ever seen before. From the very beginning he'd sensed it, like a surge of electricity in the air. They were so different and yet when they were together, it was as if they were two halves of the same coin, totally different and yet completely identical. Many times he'd stood to one side, watching the unspoken communication flash back and forth between them, envying them their friendship.

But he didn't envy it tonight.

Silence came between them again. Kirk remained by the window, staring out into the emptiness. McCoy sat, ran thought his mind all the things he could say; things like, `it will get better. Give it time. You'll get over it.'

But he didn't say them. The words were meaningless. Worse than meaningless; they were outright hypocrisy. Things wouldn't get better. Kirk might get used to the pain, the loneliness, but it would never go away. The grief and sorrow he felt now would be with him until the very last day of his life.

McCoy rose to his feet, walked slowly to stand at Kirk's side. Together, they gazed out into the night sky. The silence was like a wall now, driving them apart, sealing Kirk into a black hole somewhere with no one but ghosts for company.

"He never spoke about himself much." McCoy couldn't think of anything else to say and even this was better than the silence.

Kirk looked over. McCoy watched that barrier ram solidly into place, shutting up the pain behind it like a prison cell, and he realized that the tie binding these two together was not so difficult a thing to understand, after all. They were, at heart, not so different from one another.

The doctor shrugged, kept trying. They had to keep talking. As long as the words kept coming, the gates wouldn't close completely. "Guess he figured it was none of my business."

For a long moment Kirk didn't respond and McCoy thought his attempt had been futile. "No," he said at last. "That wasn't it."

McCoy glanced to one side. Kirk's face seemed so young silhouetted in the night sky; too young to be weighted down with such sorrow. "He didn't have a very happy life - when he was younger," Kirk continued. "He didn't speak to me about it much, either."

Kirk stopped, watched as the second moon, Andioche, cracked the horizon. "It was after the T'Pring fiasco. He spoke about it a little after that. Not much."

Not much. It was volumes more than Spock had ever spoken to him. "What'd he say?"

Kirk hesitated. He wanted to speak of it. The words were burning through his chest like lye but somehow it didn't seem right.

"I don't think he'd mind." Again, McCoy encouraged him.

Kirk glanced back. No. The doctor was right. He wouldn't mind.

"There was one story I remember," he began. "It was a family gathering of some sort, in the summer, although lord knows, it's hard to tell on Vulcan. Amanda had brought two cats with her when she came from Earth." At this, the captain smiled. Somehow it seemed very characteristic.

"And there was this kitten playing in the garden, lying on its back and tossing a flower head with its feet. Spock described it so vividly I can almost see it now."

Kirk paused and McCoy swore he could almost see it, too. A tiger cat, although the captain hadn't mentioned any color at all.

"He was out there alone, watching this cat. It was a beautiful day, the sky was clear, there was a bird singing in the tree overhead and here was this cat, playing football with this flower head."

Kirk stopped speaking for nearly a minute. "And?"

"And," Kirk glanced back. "He laughed."

He laughed. Such a simple thing. Of course he laughed. What child wouldn't?

Kirk's face was grim, the words he spoke now harsh and bitter. "T'Pau was there, standing ten feet behind him. She heard."

Oh god. Even after the space of forty years, McCoy could sense the terror. He'd met the Vulcan matriarch only once, but her loathing of humans was apparent in every line of her body.

"What happened?"

Kirk looked up. "She called in the Healers. Spock said they stayed with him for nearly two days, trying to `exorcise the demon of humanity,' as he put it. Sarek didn't like it much, but T'Pau's word was law. And Amanda. Spock said he could hear her crying from the other end of the house. During that first day, he could hear her crying for hours. Then it stopped. I remember he said that frightened him more than her crying had."

His eyes were hard now, almost seemed to grow darker. McCoy had only seen them do that a few times, but the emotion reflected there was unmistakable. Hatred, pure and simple.

"After that, he said she was different; distant, almost cold. And the cats, the cats disappeared. All of them."

He glanced at McCoy, his expression filled with the bitterness of waste. "He was six years old. Jesus, Bones, he was only six years old."

The doctor said nothing. On Earth, the old witch would have been locked up for child abuse. On Vulcan she was probably hailed as his savior.

"Can you imagine what it must have been like for him growing up there?" Kirk asked into the silence.

McCoy said no, although in truth, he could imagine. He'd read those manuals, too.

Kirk shook his head. "He had such a hard life. Amanda, she even said that to me when she and Sarek came to the ship. And I did my share, too." Kirk's voice changed now, became huskier. "God, Bones, there were times when I hurt him more than any of them ever did. And patted myself on the back for it, too."

The captain's statement, coming so quickly on the heels of the other, astonished the doctor. "What do you mean?"

Kirk couldn't look at him. Spock had forgiven him. For all of them; acted like it was nothing out of the ordinary. A slap in the face. A string of insults. No difference. Good old Spock. You could run over him with a steamroller and he'd still come back for more.

McCoy, he realized, was still waiting for a reply. He turned away, wishing he'd never brought it up. His own grief and sorrow had weakened him, brought all the ghosts to the fore he had thought were safely buried away. Until now.

"Jim?"

Kirk looked back. "I could be a real bastard to him when I needed to be. A real bastard." The words seemed to come out with a will of their own.

McCoy had no idea what he was talking about. Kirk almost smiled. Of course he didn't. Who would have believed he was capable of such a thing, even to save the ship. Always the ship. The damned ship.

Kirk closed his eyes. In his old age, that would be all he'd have left, shuffling through the empty corridors. A chest full of medals, a chapter in a history book. Famous. All for nothing. He'd give it all up to be in that transporter room eight days ago, to be able to turn to Spock and suggest they stay on board. To have him back again. God, he'd give it up in a second.

But it was too late for that, too late for so many things. "Bones." Kirk seemed to slump forward, his body radiating such sadness that McCoy swore he could feel the heat of it on his face. "I wish we'd had more time."

Time. There was never enough time, no matter how much you had. Missed chances, minor cruelties. Life was filled with them.

"Spock loved you, Jim. And whatever happened, he forgave you for it a long time ago."

Kirk looked up. In all the years he'd known him, McCoy had never seen tears in James Kirk's eyes. But he saw them now.

"I know," Kirk whispered. "And god help me, that only makes it worse."

McCoy put his arm on Kirk's shoulder. The captain turned back to him. They were right on the edge of a pinnacle now, a memory that had been tearing Kirk apart for years. The self-recriminations and regrets that lay beneath it were almost beyond belief.

"Jim, I could be cruel to him sometimes, too, but he understood..."

Kirk would not be placated. McCoy's barbs had rolled right off Spock's back. But Kirk's attack, when Spock had been so happy, standing before him as open and unguarded as a child, was a betrayal, pure and simple. He'd seen it in the Vulcan's eyes the instant the spores had vanished, a look of such utter misery that it had cut straight through to his heart.

The image was too much; that and a week without a single decent nights sleep, a stomach that hadn't eaten a full meal yet, a soul that was a wrecked shell of its former self. Kirk staggered to one side, McCoy's arms coming up to steady him. The captain's head came to rest on his shoulder, his body as rigid as a steel rod. McCoy had gotten what he wanted. The doors were open now, but there were skeletons back there that he hadn't expected. And he didn't have a clue on how to handle it.

At that moment, nurse came into the room. Seeing them standing together like this, she paused. McCoy waved her out. Kirk, seeing the medical chart in her hand, pulled away. McCoy could actually see him regain his composure, almost as if he were pulling a tightly fitting garment down over his head. The captain called her back. "It's okay. Come on in."

She stepped inside. "I'm sorry, sir." She glanced at McCoy. "It's time for his arthymisol."

The doctor nodded, anxious to get her out. "Leave it there. I'll do it."

She hesitated. McCoy frowned. Hospital regulations. He would have staffed the whole building with his own people if he'd been able to get away with it. But that, too, would have been stepping on local toes and Starfleet was always careful not to do that either. "Okay," he said. "Go ahead. I keep forgetting where I am."

The young nurse seemed relieved. She'd never been off Andros, but Leonard McCoy's expertise was obvious even to her. "Thank you, sir."

With a nod, she moved to the bed, stood over it for a moment scribbling on a pad, then gave Spock the injection and quietly left. As soon as she'd gone, McCoy walked back and read what she had written. Whatever it was it didn't surprise him and, running his fingers through his hair, he came back to stand by the window.

A moment passed, but the mood was broken now. Both men could sense it. The words had been so close to the surface two minutes before, but Kirk had cloaked himself in his captain's demeanor now. The door had closed. McCoy didn't know whether to be angered or relieved.

"Why don't you go get some sleep," Kirk said into the silence.

McCoy spent a few seconds in thought. Should he push it? Kirk was facing the window again, his face pale as death, his eyes half-closed, and McCoy knew he didn't have the heart to start it all again. His compassion may have been misplaced, but he went by his instincts and let it go. For now anyway.

The doctor faked a yawn. "Yeah, sure. How about you? You coming?"

"No." Kirk pushed the thought away. Sleep was his enemy now, filling his dreams with ghastly images, terrible fears. Two nights ago he'd dreamed he was in a long corridor filled with doors. The sound of mournful weeping came from behind one of them; a dreadful sound of desolation the likes of which he'd never heard before. He'd tried to find it, his search turning into a running frenzy, but the sound kept fading away the nearer he came. He'd woken in a cold sweat, his heart beating like a sledgehammer. He hadn't slept since.

"I can give you something if you need it."

Kirk glanced to one side. The doctor wasn't blind. He knew Kirk wasn't sleeping. He'd given him a sedative last night without being asked. It didn't help. Nothing helped.

The doctor waited for another moment, then tried again. "How about...."

Kirk's look stopped him. "Bones, I'm all right. I'd just like to be alone here for a while."

Alone. Kirk was alone here now matter how many people filled the room. The thought ran through the doctor's mind, but he didn't say it aloud. Instead, he decided to leave. There was just so much he could do. The captain had to at least meet him half way. "Okay."

Kirk was silent, had turned his face away again. "Then I'll see you in a bit," McCoy added. "I won't be gone more than a few hours. You can buzz me if you need to."

"Sure."

The doctor laid a sympathetic hand on one shoulder, then walked slowly to the door. At the doorway, he glanced back. Kirk was sitting now, facing the bed, his back bent forward. Everything about him was a reflection of grief. Utter, overwhelming grief. And guilt. In a way, the guilt was even worse. The doctor had never seen anything quite like it.

His hand was on the door handle, but he did not push it. He came back. Kirk raised his head when McCoy sat next to him. And again, the doctor could see the tears in his eyes.

He smiled. "Mind if I stay."

For a moment, he thought Kirk was going to order him away. A full minute passed. To McCoy, it seemed like hours.

But Kirk didn't order him away. He smiled faintly. And spoke. "Sure. I'd like you to stay."

McCoy sat, folded his hands before him. Leaning forward, he unconsciously imitated the captain's pose.

And together, sitting like this, they passed the night.