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Title: Did you know
Author: ZiKerag (zikerag@yahoo.co.uk)
Series: TOS
Pairing: S/Mc
Rating: PG (I don't think it's too naughty)
Parts: 1 of 1
Date: October 2002
Feedback: All comments are welcome and appreciated!
Archive: Feel free if you really feel like it
Thanks to Janet for the beta. Any mistakes you find are mine and all mine!
Disclaimer: The usual. (Sorry, Nautika, but that just sums it up really well.)
Spock lay motionless in bed in his quarters. His hands were
clasped together, his fingers interlocked. He stared straight
upwards towards the ceiling. He was barely aware that somebody had
entered the room. He was even less aware that he was talking to him,
but he slowly became aware of a panic-stricken voice in the
distance...
"Spock! Spock! SPOCK!"
Spock turned his head towards the voice. It was McCoy. "Hello,
Doctor," Spock said in his usual deadpan, logical voice.
"What do you think you were doing?" the doctor asked. "You
nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought that you were..."
"Dead?" asked Spock back. "I was just meditating, Doctor. Not
only is it good for the mind and soul, but also it helps pass the
time. As for being dead, let us just say that reports of my death
have been greatly exaggerated. The virus has not got the better of
me yet."
"At this juncture in time, it's your body that concerns me the
most. And unless I can find a cure for this virus, reports of your
death won't be exaggerated at all. Now lie still; I need some more
of that green slime you call blood."
For the next couple of minutes, McCoy worked in silence, as he
examined Spock and took the blood sample. Only after he had
finished, did he speak. "I'll call in on you this evening to give
you another checkup." He paused for a second. "You know, I still
can't find the connection that explains why you were the only person
to carry the virus through the transporter bio-filters."
"You think the answer lies in the blood?" asked Spock with
raised eyebrows.
"I do. That's the only place the solution can be, in your
blood."
"If you are unsuccessful at finding a cure, how long will I
have to live?"
The doctor took a deep breath. He hated these moments at the
best of times, but now if was for someone he had come to know very
well over the past few years. The truth. That was all he could tell
him. McCoy cleared his throat and said with a slight tremble in his
voice, "At the current rate to decline, in about two days you will
be very weak and I would expect any normal person to go in to a
coma. After that maybe a day or two before the end." He made a point
of avoiding eye contact with Spock whilst he was saying it.
"So my life is about two days long, at the moment?"
"If I'd have known that getting rid of you was so easy, I'd
have asked Jim to come to Barnicus 4 the day after I joined the
ship!" said McCoy, leaning on the side of the bed and forcing a
smile.
"I do not believe that you mean that, Doctor."
"No, you're quite right." Leonard bowed his head and stared at
the floor in shame.
"Given that my time is short, there is something I have been
meaning to tell you for some time. I have to say it now, because
there might not be a tomorrow." Spock had resumed his position of
clasped hands and stared straight up at the ceiling.
"Are all Vulcans as optimistic as you?" was the Doctor's quip,
a feeble attempt to lighten the situation with humour. He quickly
realized that Spock was not fooling this time. He really did have
something very important to say so the doctor quickly added, "Sorry"
and went back to looking shamefully at the floor.
"Over a long period of time, I have come to know you very
well." Spock completely ignored Leonard's previous comment and
continued with his monologue. "It was not long, before I realized
that just being work colleagues and sharing the occasional campfire
with Jim was not enough for me. I searched my inner self hard and
for a long time, before I came to my conclusion: I love you,
Leonard."
"Well!" said McCoy, who was staring straight at Spock with
wide-eyed shock. He never believed that, if he managed to live to be
a thousand years old, he would hear those words from a Vulcan. Not
sure what to say, he blurted out "I have come to appreciate your
talents too, as time has gone by."
Spock, completely misreading the doctor's comment, moved one
of his hands and grabbed Leonard's hand. "Good. Now kiss me," Spock
ordered.
McCoy was still in shock over what Spock had said. Not only
could he not believe that Spock was capable of having an emotion as
powerful as love, but that Spock's love should be for him. Almost on
autopilot, McCoy bent over and kissed Spock on the cheek. This was
not entirely what Spock had in mind. He could not help looking a
little disappointed, and he let go of McCoy's hand. McCoy gathered
his medical kit and the blood sample and looked around the room
nervously.
"Well, I guess I have everything for the time being. I'll call
back this evening."
McCoy turned and walked to wards the door. Spock tore his gaze
from the ceiling and looked towards Leonard. As the door closed
behind the doctor, a small tear rolled down Spock's face. What had
he done? All he wanted was for the doctor to know exactly how he
felt about him and to spend these last remaining hours together. Now
he was not sure, if he was going to see Leonard again. Or look into
those wondrous eyes and melt inside. Or hear him say another
politically incorrect word about Vulcans. The list went on and any
one of the items was enough to make Spock's heart sing. But now he
had ruined it all, because he wanted that one last pleasure, for his
heart to sing once more. He was only really happy when he was with
Leonard, but he had been so stupid and selfish that he had lost the
lot. His attention returned to the ceiling. He used the hand he had
used to hold Leonard's hand to wipe away the tear and returned to
his meditation.
Once outside Spock's room, McCoy had to stop and take a quick
stock of things. Not only had Spock said he loved him, but he had
kissed Spock. A sudden fear gripped him. Had anybody else heard? The
walls and the bulkheads were supposed to be sound proof but you
could never tell. There was no one in the corridor. That was a good
sign. He headed off towards the turbo-lift to return to sickbay. He
kept close to the wall. On his way, he passed several people. They
all said hello in the usual polite manner that they normally did.
The doctor nodded his hello back to them and then stopped and
watched them, as they passed. He wanted to see if they turned around
and looked at him. Anything that might indicate they knew. Nothing
ever happened.
McCoy entered an empty sickbay. He was happy. He put his
equipment down and rubbed his forehead. "I need a drink!" he said to
himself and went into his office and got out a bottle of whiskey
from a cupboard along with a shot glass and poured himself a drink.
He stopped pouring at the halfway point and looked at it. "Nope, a
large one, I think," and filled the glass completely up. Putting the
bottle down and picking the glass up, he drank the shot in one go.
*Ahh, that felt better.* He sat down at his desk and said to
himself, "What am I going to do?"
The answer was obvious. When he realized what it was, he leant
back in his chair and smiled. It had eventually crossed his mind
that he was worrying over nothing. All this time he had been in
denial. He knew he *liked* being with Spock and enjoyed his company.
Even on shore leave they were always together. He remembered that it
was on one of those shore leaves that he realized that he wanted a
lot more than a platonic, we-are-good-mates-because-we-work-together
type relationship with Spock. All this time he had hidden
everything, because he did not think that Spock felt the same way
about him or Spock was even capable of feeling the same way for him.
He did not think that Spock felt. Period! At last, he could have the
relationship he had always wanted. Jim got all the credit for their
adventures, all the promotions, and all the girls. But that had
never bothered him. All he wanted was Spock, and now he knew that he
was all that Spock wanted. Even the cutting remarks he made about
Vulcans were just to keep himself hating them, so that he would not
rip Spock's clothes off, every time they were in a turbo-lift by
themselves. There was just one cloud in the sky. Spock was going to
be dead in a few days unless he could find a cure. That's what he
had to do now. He got up and went into the lab. He had to cure
Spock.
Spock awoke from his meditation and slowly focused his eyes on
the ceiling. He was confused. It was moving. He slowly looked to the
left and to the right and saw the walls moving. He was not in his
room, he concluded. He looked up and saw Leonard pushing the hover-
bed along. "Doctor, where are we going?" he asked slowly.
"I'm glad you finally managed to come back to us. I thought
you might have been permanently comatose. We're off to sickbay, so I
can watch your recovery more closely."
"Recovery? You found something in the blood?"
"What I found was your blood. The only thing was that the
virus was trying to replace it. Slowly replacing your blood by
itself but looking exactly like your blood. Only when I checked the
DNA sequences were there any differences, and you know the bio-
filters will not work on that kind of detail yet."
"What is it doing to me?"
"It is doing nothing to you. The blood cells, which carry
oxygen and nutrients around the body, are being replaced and used by
the virus to get its food. This leaves nothing for your body, which
is exhausted and starving."
"Surely that is unwise of the virus. If the host dies, the
virus dies too."
"I can only assume that the virus knows when you are at your
limit and does not take any more from you. But it did not get that
far."
"Remarkable, Doctor. You learned all that about the virus
since this morning?"
"This morning! You haven't spoken to me for five days!"
"I have been unconscious all that time?"
"Yes," the doctor confirmed.
They entered sickbay, and the doctor put the hove-bed back in
its place. The doctor bent over to place his head near to the
Spock's head. He took hold of Spock's hand and said in a quiet,
tender voice, "Just give it another day or two, and you'll be back
on your feet. Your body just needs a little time to regain its
strength."
"Thank you, Leonard. I do feel extremely... tired." Spock
said, squeezing McCoy's hand back. Spock closed his eyes and slept.
The doorbell rang. "Enter," called Spock.
McCoy entered and walked right up to Spock.
"Doctor, I do not have time for a medical examination now. I
have to get to the bridge for my first post since returning to
duty."
"I didn't come here to examine you. I just came here to say
thank you."
"Thank you for what?"
"Being honest with me when you thought you were dying."
"It appeared to be the logical thing to do. And, in the event
of my death, it would make you happy."
"Make me happy!" the doctor was starting to get a bit
flustered. "Did you think of the consequences, if you lived?"
"Yes, I did."
"Are you prepared to live with them?"
"Yes, I am."
McCoy grabbed Spocks head with both his hands and kissed his
with a mixture of passion and anger. This time Spock was not
disappointed.
The End
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