The pristine interior of the Med Bay is shrouded in shadows, pierced by red flashes of the klaxon alert. The sharp pain in his head where the floor met it throbs with the increased pulse of his heart and the frightened screams of patients who lie among the wreckage of the med bay. They are all shouting to be heard, to be helped, but he can't move because his hands are the only things keeping the warm blood from gushing out from a gut wound. He can't even see his hands beyond the ropy cords of the kid's intestines lying on the bed before him. He shouts for a med kit, bandages, anything but everything is drowned out by explosions and yelling.

The kid mumbles something about an attack by the Nerada –or was it the Vengeance- as the ship is falling, dying. Leonard bites down the nausea that surges through him as the world begins to tilt, sending anything not secured clattering across the floor. Something slams into his shoulder; his grip on the abdominal aorta is lost. He shouts curses as the blood once again gushes out as he gropes through the boy's slick innards attempting to staunch the flow. The patient's face is pale and so very young as the blood drenches Leonard's hands.

Then everything falls silent as the floor finally levels out and Chapel is there, placing her hand on his shoulder, telling him he needs to call it.

He looks down and freezes because -Oh God- it's Jim and he's so still.

The boy who jumps out of shuttles, runs laughing from danger, flies ships into the unknown; the man who debates diplomats into peace, outfoxes time traveling and augmented genocidal psychotics, leads men and women towards the future; the friend who sits in the darkness shoulder to shoulder with a grieving, wreck of a man on his darkest days but stubbornly holds onto his own grief like a miser: they are all still.

Jim is lying in a plastic body bag on a silent biobed while the world is crashing towards the ground.

Shrugging Chapel's hand off, Leonard reaches for the med kit and pulls out the tricorder. It whirls for a few seconds, numbers begin to scrawl across the screen, and then it dies with a pathetic whine. Dashing it to the ground, Leonard turns to the biobed panel and slams the power button with the side of his fist but the display remains dark. It takes a painfully long moment to manually confirm that the patient's heart has stopped.

"Doctor McCoy."

Suddenly the screams are back. Leonard casts a glance at Chapel who is picking up another patient off the floor. He knows that he needs to help the living but he can't leave Jim. Not like this. Leonard begins chest compressions, ignoring the shouting, the pain, and the blood all around him.

Finally he reaches the end of the cycle. Placing two sticky, red fingers against the peeled skin of the patient's neck, Leonard waits and hopes for one beat, one twitch to tell him that the man before him is still alive. But all he feels is the shuddering throbs of the heart within his own chest.

Nothing's working. He's gone. Jim's gone.

Leonard's body jerks away from the warm metal table top into an upright position as his eyes snap open. Blinking rapidly in the bright artificial light, he quickly takes in the metallic round tables, plastic black chairs, and pristine edges of a lounge somewhere in the bowels of Star Fleet Medical. His gaze immediately darts to the glowing screen of a PADD displaying the steady patterns of a heart beat and respiratory rate alongside his own hastily written calculations and theoretical projections of how a cockamamie serum will save a dead man. It was just a dream. Jim is still…

Still what? Breathing? Jim's breathing and cardio rhythms are both regulated by machines. Alive? He is technically brain dead. Despite the fact that the serum Leonard had engineered from Khan's blood had done a lot to regenerate the irradiated cells, there were no indications that Jim would ever be able to live without machines supporting his basic biological functions. Even if his body recuperated to the point they could take him off life support there were so many potential complications: cancer, a compromised immune system, paralysis, chronic radiation syndrome, drastic personality changes. There was no telling what the untested cocktail would do to a system damaged by heavy radiation. Hell there was only a happily purring tribble to give a shred of credence to the hypothesis at all.

Leonard leans forward to rest his forehead in the palm of his hand as he unsuccessfully attempts to breath past the heavy weight in his chest. His eyes squeeze shut, forcing even breaths to stave off what a small part of him diagnoses as the precursory stirrings of a panic attack.

The serum wouldn't work. Jim was going to be trapped in some twisted half life for who knew how long because he couldn't let the man die in peace. Unable to communicate, unable to feed himself, unable to even move. Alone in the dark with nothing but his own thoughts to provide any change from the monotony of existence. How long would it take before whatever remained of Jim was driven insane in the prison of his own body? How long would he be forced to continue to live that way? Weeks, months, years, decades?

And it would come to be because Leonard wouldn't- couldn't- let him die.

Dear God, what had he done?

"Doctor McCoy?"

Jerking to an upright position, Leonard wrenches the muscles in his back. Muttering curses at his aging body, Leonard glances over at Spock who is standing at the entrance to the lounge with a single eyebrow slightly raised in surprise. The lieutenant remains still with his hands held behind his back at a perfect parade rest.

"Goddammit, Spock. Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" Leonard asks, passing his hand over his face in hopes that the few seconds of reprieve will give him enough time to pull together a semi composed front.

"I assure you, Doctor, that was not my intent," the stern Vulcan says as he takes a step into the room. "May I join you?"

Leonard just gestures vaguely to the empty lounge as he activates the PADD once more. The steady click of Starfleet issued boots against linoleum becomes louder until they halt somewhere in front of the doctor. Leonard can't quite force his familiar scowl onto his features so Leonard just glares at the black text on the illuminated screen detailing the recovery of a patient who had third degree burns from one of the several fires that had broken out as a result of Khan's landing. The constant hum of the air conditioning is broken only by the creak of the plastic chair as Leonard shifts his weight.

"Might I inquire as to the last time you rested, Doctor?"

Leonard is startled into glancing up. The Vulcan officer is once again standing stiffly as if awaiting the President of the UFP himself with all the dignity and grace ingrained for centuries within his now endangered people. Spock is every bit a vaulted senior officer of the United Federation of Planets with his official grey uniform, impeccable manners, and perfectly maintained bowl haircut.

Leonard huffs out a breath as he slumps back into the chair, stretching out his aching legs in a full out sprawl all the while trying to ignore the fact that despite a relatively clean uniform he must look like some crazed, scruffy hobo instead of a respected medical professional. He has not left the hospital since he arrived a week prior with a dead body frozen in a cryo tube. With the massive casualties that came in following the crash of the Vengeance, any of the medical staff had been lucky be off shift for five hours straight. Leonard had been living on cat naps, ungodly amounts of coffee, and not a few number of stims to keep him going through long hours of triage, surgery, and theorizing Jim's treatments.

"As a matter of fact, I just took a nap."

"I do not believe that collapsing in your seat from exhaustion qualifies as resting," Spock replies, disdainfully eying the rumpled blue scrubs with a minutely quirked eyebrow. Making a noncommittal grunt, Leonard signs off on the next round of antibiotics for the patient's persistent fever.

"You actually need somethin' or are you just here to stare at me like some demented statue," Leonard mumbles, stabbing at the PADD's screen with his finger.

"The CMO is a key component to the smooth operation of any ship. Therefore, it is only logical that I make inquiries concerning your health if there are suspicions that it has dropped below acceptable parameters." Somewhere in that long ass monologue, Leonard's eyebrow has risen at the amount of malarkey that is spewing from the first officer's mouth.

"Right. Well, you can report back to Nyota that I am completely capable of taking care of myself thank you very much."

"Clearly," Spock says in that goddamn infuriating monotone of his.

"If you would leave me alone so that I could get back to attending to my patients that would be just swell," Leonard drawls. There is a beat of silence before there is a hair raising screech of metal on linoleum followed by the rustling of clothing as the Vulcan sits in the chair across from Leonard. Barely suppressing a sigh, the doctor remains steadfast in his attention to the screen of his PADD.

"You were correct in your assessment that my primary reason for joining you was not to make inquiries about your health," Leonard cannot repress the snort that escapes at that rather obvious statement, "rather I was interested in the Captain's prognosis."

The words on the white screen blur into a black mess as Leonard's grip tightens unperceptively on the PADD. He could almost swear that he feels the familiar sensation of something has coagulated into a gunky mess beneath his fingernails. A quick check confirms that his hands are in fact clean of any traces of blood though that does not relieve the phantom sensation. He glances at the lounge's sink almost giving into the urge to wash his hands again.

"Doctor?"

"His prognosis," Leonard repeats with a huff of derision as he gently places the electronic device on the table, pointedly ignoring the sink. "His prognosis is that he is a lucky son of a bitch that his major life systems are functioning at all considering what happened."

Spock remains silently, contemplating his own clasped hands resting on the table with those calm brown Vulcan eyes. Leonard doesn't know if it is sleep deprivation or that his brain has finally short circuited but his mouth keeps talking.

"Despite the incredible regenerative properties of the serum, the only signs of brain activity we have seen are brief flickers in his brain stem. Due to the simplistic nature of the test subject and the limited time and resources available to test the serum, there are several possible complications many of which could be severe."

Spock's gaze snaps up from his folded hands to regard Leonard severely. "It would appear that you do not expect the Captain to recover."

"It's a very good possibility that he won't." Damn that hurts to admit.

The lines around the Vulcan's mouth deepen as he analyzes this new information. "I see."

They sit in silence. Spock almost looks as if he has begun meditating in the flimsy plastic chair which brings a slight sardonic curve to Leonard's mouth. Trying to ignore the bizarre image, Leonard peruses Jim's stats again.

"If you do not believe that the Captain is going to recover then why are you monitoring his vitals?"

Leonard regards the screen for a moment longer before he puts the device in sleep mode. "As Jim's doctor, I would say that he is essentially the first and potentially only patient who will receive this…treatment. As such, he requires extensive monitoring in case there is an unpredicted side effect."

"And what is your unofficial view?"

Leonard sighs.

"Unofficially, I guess it's just a foolhardy hope that the idiot will pull off one more miracle. Just one last miracle…" Leonard's throat closes off the rest. There are too many words to say, too many unspoken regrets, too many unexpressed emotions. He pinches the bridge of his nose, fighting against the urge to do anything to unleash the turmoil roiling within him.

"Jim has shown a remarkable aptitude for 'beating the odds.' It is a most confounding and illogical trait. As such, if there was even a remote possibility that he would recover then I would do whatever was in my power to afford him that chance," Spock says.

"Sometimes death is better than the alternative, Mr. Spock," Leonard whispers, instinctively swallowing against the bitter tang of memories better left forgotten.

For a moment, Leonard thinks that his words have gone unheard but Spock's next words nearly decimate the rest of his control.

"I grieve with thee, Leonard McCoy."

The blunt edge of his fingernails dig into the tender skin protecting the cartilage of his nose as Leonard tries to ignore the stinging behind his eyes.

"Goddammit," Leonard whispers as water escapes from his control. "God fucking dammit."

There is a long silence as he fights to keep the last shreds of his dignity against the onslaught of grief. Surprisingly, Spock does not attempt to break the quiet instead allowing Leonard a moment to try to collect himself. He manages to take one long shaky inhalation, then another as the restrained emotions curl into a lump in his chest.

The soft rustle of cloth is Leonard's only warning before an unusually warm hand rests on his left shoulder. There is a moment where Leonard instinctively tenses under the physical contact before his body slumps beneath the weight. His breaths come out as harsh pants as his control slips further.

Spock softly begins to speak words that float past on the still air in a language that Leonard has only heard a handful of times before. The deep, warm intonation of a proud but struggling people slowly fills the room with the heat of a planet that no longer existed. Slowly, the icy feeling in his chest diminishes under the warm balm of companionship finally allowing the first tear to roll unchecked down his cheek.

Nothing's worked. He's gone. Jim's gone.

Tears begin to fall more rapidly as Leonard attempts to hold in the body wrenching sobs that threaten his last stand of composure. There is the lightest of brushes against his temple and along his jaw. His breathing evens out beneath the warmth of Spock's fingers even as the tears continue to leak from his eyes. A deep breath in time with the deep rumble of words sooths the ragged edges left by the revelation.

It is when the sense of calm begins to seep into the bundle of grief that he is clued into what the Vulcan is attempting to do. Furious at the betrayal, Leonard jerks away from the light touch with a snarl.

"Keep your god damn Vulcan logic out of my head," Leonard says, scrubbing any evidence of emotional weakness from his face.

Faced with such unbridled fury, Spock returns his hands to their clasped position and assumes the facial expression of a patient teacher. "As you are in a state of distress-" Leonard snorts derisively. "-I was merely attempting to-"

Leonard jumps to his feet, knocking the chair back in his haste. "I know exactly what you were trying to do. And you are lucky that I didn't kick your ass for it."

"Leonard, the meditation techniques-" Spock says, rising to his feet.

"Don't you ever call me that again." The Vulcan ceases all movement at the venomous words. There is the briefest flashes of emotion across the First Officer's face before it is locked behind the emotionless façade.

"Very well, Doctor."

Relieved when Spock continues to remain still, Leonard quickly snatches up his PADD. "Now, I'm gonna leave this room and next time you want to know about Jim you can very well read the damn report." With that Leonard storms out of the room, clutching the last connection he had to Jim in sweaty palms.

Author's notes: If there are a lot of requests for it I may add to this. I was thinking either a look into Uhura's attempts to help in relief efforts or Spock struggling to reconcile what transpired not only here but also through the meld with Pike. However, I am notorious for not finishing works so it may be more like a string of one shots put together. Also if anyone would like to beta for this or other works just pm me.

Thanks for reading, favorites and or reviewing.