"Someone's out to get you, Spock?"
McCoy could not recognize the voice--comcold,
Skeptical,
ugly--and turned around to see who spoke.
Emma Saenz stood in the doorway. "He's
generalizing
his paranoia, Doctor," she said loudly.
"He's
managed to convince himself that someone else has
done this to him."
McCoy could not believe that Emma was saying
these things, nor could he keep from losing his temper.
"For God's sake, if you have something to say, say
it
to him. Don't talk about him as if he can't
understand
you!"
Her anger matched his. "I know he understands
me.
And I won't let him deny the truth." She
moved to the
side of Spock's bed. "You attempted
suicide, Spock.
MINDSHADOW
Face it. You're depressed and it must be dealt
with if
you are to get better. Lying about it won't
help."
Spock's eyes flamed. "No," he said
explosively. "I
do not lie."
Emma leaned toward him fiercely. "If you
didn't do
it, Spock, then tell us who did."
"I... don't remember." Spock turned
away from
her.
"I thought so." Her manner became calm.
"Spock,
if you're going to deny the truth, I can't do
anything to
help you. I suggest you think about that, because your
captain and this ship need you to get better," She
turned abruptly to leave, but paused in the
doorway
without turning around. "I suggest you put the
restraints
back on him, Doctor."
The door closed behind her a split second before
the
harp struck it with an angry twang, Spock
slumped
back in the bed, breathing rapidly.
McCoy picked up the instrument gently and
examined
it. One of the strings had snapped, and there was
a small crack in the body. He returned it
to Spock's
bedside without comment, but the Vulcan did
not look
at it--comSpock was fighting an internal battle
now, and
the enemy was his own rage: rage at Emma
Saenz
because she did not believe, rage at himself because he
could not remember, rage at the unspeakably
irrational,
destructive act he had just committed.
A moment passed before Spock replaced his anger
with the cool expression McCoy knew so well,
an
expression the vehemence of his words belied.
"I can no longer remain here. I must go
to Vulcan."
McCoy could not pretend that he did not understand;
Spock, of course, feared the loss of emotional
control far worse than the other infirmities he
faced.
Still, McCoy tried to soothe him.
"Let me discuss it with Dr. Saenz,
Spock."
For a moment he thought Spock's anger might
erupt
again, but the Vulcan contained himself and
faced the
doctor calmly. Vulcans do not beg,
McCoy had to
remind himself, but the look in Spock's eyes was
the
closest thing to a plea that McCoy had ever seen.
"I must go now." Hoarse with desperation, Spock
resorted to a word McCoy could not remember
hearing
him use before. "Please."
McCoy closed the lab door behind him. He was
furious with Emma, so furious that he shouted.
"You'd better have a damn good excuse for what
you did in there. You just called a Vulcan a
liar, and
you, of all people, should know what an insult that is!"
"I know," Emma said quietly. She sat with
her
elbows on the lab counter, her chin resting on one
fist;
the ugliness that she had shown to Spock was gone,
and the anger, too, as though it had been a role
she'd
assumed for a few moments and discarded the instant
she left intensive care.
She was once again the person with whom McCoy
was falling in love.
He scarcely heard her, though, and went back
to
venting his anger while she sat patiently and
waited for
it to subside.
"And how dare you treat him as though he doesn't
exist, talking about him in the third person!
Dammit,
how can you be so insensitive to all he's gone
through?"
"Do you believe it?" Emma asked, watching
intently.
"Do you honestly believe that someone tried to
kill Spock?"
McCoy faltered, losing some of his steam.
"Well"
"If you had believed it, Leonard, you would have
called SecUrity, and reported it. But you
didn't."
MINDSHADOW
"Well, I believe him when he says he
doesn't remember
doing it."
Emma sighed. "I do, too. But that wasn't
all he
said. He's trying to blame someone else for it, and
I
refuse to coddle him by pretending I believe
it."
"Coddle him--" McCoy sputtered. "You were
downright insulting! You called him a liar, the
worst
thing you could call a--"
She lifted up her chin and sat up straight on
the
stool. "Leonard, you are too emotionally
involved
with this patient to do either one of you any good."
"Yes, of course I'm emotionally involved!"
McCoy
exploded. "But that doesn't mean I'm incapable
of
helping Spock. You, on the other hand, seem
to be
totally insensitive to his situation. If you ask
me, you
have something against Vulcans!"
Emma gasped and stood up so quickly that the stool
almost tipped over. "That's the most irrational thing
I've ever heard you say--"
McCoy thrust out his jaw. "Maybe you'd
better
send me to Ebla Two with Spock."
She drew a quick breath as if to reply heatedly,
then
suddenly stopped and sat back down on the stool.
She
closed her eyes and seemed to gather herself; when
she finally spoke, her tone was infinitely
patient.
"Please, Leonard, I can't bear to fight with you
on
this. We're both trying to help Spock. It's
just that we
have different ideas of how to go about it. Let's not
argue."
"Fine." He stood, arms folded tightly, his
eyes still
flashing with anger. He was not about to capitulate.
"Let's discuss it calmly, then."
Emma did not let herself hear the sarcasm in his
voice, but leaned heavily against the
polished black
countertop and sighed.
GO-DO, she looked
lovely, McCoy
thought in spite of his anger, and so very sad.
She spoke in such a soft murmur that he had
to lean
very close to hear her. "I truly wish that I could
believe Spock's story. I know you feel the
same way.
Spock's subconscious has invented a way out
of accepting
responsibility for his desperate action. If
we go
along with it, he'll begin to truly believe it, and
Spock
will never deal with the problem. I've always believed
that you don't solve problems by pretending they
don't exist. I was trying to shock him,
Leonard--by
being cruel, I was trying to show him that he can't
run
away from what he has done."
McCoy did not pull his hand away when she
reached
for it; her touch was strangely hot, as
though she burned with fever. His anger melted.
"I'm sorry I upset you," Emma continued,
leaning
still closer. "But I've never been very
diplomatic. I
want to help Spock, but I will not encourage his
fantasies."
"I'm sorry I yelled... but I'm very
worried about
him. I still think you were too hard on him."
She smiled up at him, still holding his hand.
"Maybe I was."
McCoy was close enough for the first time to notice
her disperfume, a strangely familiar sweetness
that he
could not place, until he remembered the
wildflowers
on the planet below.
Clearly, the only logical thing to do was to bend
down and kiss her.
Some time later, Kirk stood indecisively in
front of
McCoy's quarters in the dimly lit
corridor. As much as
he hated resorting to McCoy's
concoctions, he hadn't
had much sleep in the last forty-eight hours and had
long ago finished the last of his brandy supply.
These
days he was becoming too tired even for his workouts
in the gym, and they were his only release of tension.
.96
MINDSHADOW
And he was looking forward to seeing Emma Saenz
again.
Kirk pressed the buzzer with reluctance. It
took
such an uncomfortably long time for McCoy
to respond
that he was convinced the doctor was sleeping
too soundly to hear, and he turned to leave.
He stopped as the door slid open. McCoy
wore a
short robe, and Kirk managed to repress a
sarcastic
whistle as he studied McCoy's pitifully
pale legs ending
in two bare bony feet. He'd never known the
prudish doctor to sleep in the nude before; perhaps
he'd been in the sonic shower. But the
room behind
McCoy was dark.
"Sorry to wake you," Kirk apologized, but
McCoy's
face was not sodden with sleep, nor was his
voice groggy. If anything, he seemed alert
--perhaps
even a little anxious.
"No problem," he said quickly. "What can I do
for
you, Captain?"
",ationo sleep in two days. I give up,
Doctor. Give me
something."
"Okay, Jim--just give me a second.
I'll call sick bay
and tell whoever's on duty what to give you."
He
disappeared into the darkened room, and Kirk began
to follow, but the door slid shut in his face.
He pulled
back, surprised and a little insulted.
He excused the doctor's rude behavior
by deciding
that McCoy was probably suffering from the
cumulative
effects of exhaustion himself when McCoy
appeared
in the doorway again.
"M'Benga's there. He'll give you what you
need,
Jim."
Kirk smiled wanly. "I really appreciate
this, Bones.
You'll never knoww"
A sound emerged from the darkness behind McCoy,
a sound that Kirk recognized as a feminine
yawn. His
first reaction was amusement; his second, as he
placed
the owner of the voice, was a far darker emotion.
It must have shown on his face, for McCoy faced
him with glittering eyes. You have no right, they said.
They were right; Kirk cast his eyes downward.
"Thanks again, Doctor."
"Don't mention it," said McCoy.
Christine Chapel was on duty in the main ward the
next day when McCoy entered, whistling loudly and
tunelessly.
"Whoever told you you could whistle?"
Mercifully, he stopped, but her affectionate
sarcasm
did not dampen his decidedly good spirits. "How are
you this morning, beautiful?" McCoy inspected
her
with paternal solicitousness. "You're looking a
little
tired."
"I am tired," she answered, immediately
suspicious
at his unusually complimentary appellation for her.
Beautiful was somewhat less than accurate; she'd
just
finished an eight-hour shift and knew with bedrock
certainty that she resembled something the cat
dragged in. "More than a little. I was just on my
way out--was
"Have a good rest," McCoy said warmly. "God
knows you deserve it after all the double shifts you've
pulled these past few weeks."
"We've all pulled double shifts the past few
weeks."
Her suspicion deepened; she folded her arms
and
assumed a no-nonsense stance. "All
right, Doctor,
what gives?"
McCoy's watery blue eyes regarded her
innocently.
"Whatever do you mean?"
"Ever since Spock's injury and then the pirate
attack, you've been coming in here with a sour expression
on your face, complaining to the heavens like Job
about the unfairness of it all. Not to mention being so
dead on your feet that you hardly knew which end of
the patient you were working on. Now, today, suddenly,
you are filled with a limitless abundance of joie
de vivre--"
"We released the last burn victim yesterday,
and I
got a good night's sleep," he protested, but
he could
not keep from grinning. Chris knew him too
well. They
were comfortable around each other after so many
years, and had built up a trust--enough for her
to tell
him about her feelings for Spock, enough for him to
scold her into admitting the hopelessness of
them, and
enough for her to scold him for the protective barrier
he had kept between himself and the female sex since
his divorce.
He decided to keep her guessing at least a little
while
longer. That is, if she hadn't figured
it all
out already.
"Who is she?" Chris asked.
McCoy attempted and failed to keep his grin from
growing ever wider and stupider. "I really don't
know
what you're talking about, Chris." He tried
to sound
briskly professional. "Is Dr. Saenz
on duty yet?"
Chapel smirked. She knew, all right. "In
there."
She directed a thumb at the door of the lab.
McCoy started toward it, muttering loudly so that
Chris could hear. "Man gets a good night's
sleep, and
suddenly his staff starts accusing him of all
sorts of
things..."
Chris called to him on her way out without turning
around. "Whatever you may have gotten last night,
Doctor, it wasn't a good night's sleep."
She disappeared through the door and he laughed
softly, feeling lighter and younger than he had in
years.
He walked into the lab just in time to see Emma
put
two capsules in her mouth and swallow. His grin
faded
instantly. "What's that you're taking?"
She turned around, startled. Her hand moved
instinctively toward the lone bottle on the counter as
if
to hide it. "It's nothing, Leonard. How are you
this
morning?" Her eyes were very bright.
McCoy picked up the bottle and read it.
"Levirol!
My God, do you have any idea what this stuff
does to
you?"
"Do you think I'd take it if I didn't?"
"This stuff can dangerously elevate your blood
pressure,
Emma--"
Her voice was that of a mother's calming an excitable
child. "Leonard. I have chronic pathologically
low blood pressure, and I have been taking
Levirol for
years. I monitor my blood pressure every
day, but
you're free to check it, if you're concerned."
"I am concerned," he said in a way that made her
smile. "You'd better be taking good care of
yourself."
"I am. Now what is it you've come to see me
about?"
"Spock."
"It's still too early to judge his response to the
neodopazine--"
"That's not what I need to talk to you about."
McCoy hesitated, looking for the right words.
"Spock
has asked me to send him to Vulcan."
"Eventually, perhaps---"
"He wants to go immediately. I can tell he
feels very
strongly about it."
"I hope you told him it was
impossible."
"I promised to send him."
"You didn't!" Emma confronted him, hands on
narrow hips, suddenly all sharp angles.
McCoy was
not surprised at the quick display of temper: he
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