Eternity






























































Title: Eternity Author: ZiKerag (zikerag@yahoo.co.uk) Series: TOS Pairing: S/Mc Rating: U (Nothing naughty at all except a mans friendship for another) Parts: 1 of 1 Date: October 2002 Feedback: All comments are welcome and appreciated! Archive: Feel free if you really feel like it but let me know so I can visit. Disclaimer: The usual. Note: Follows "Final Farewell". McCoy was dead. He knew he was dead. What he did not know was what he was but he knew he was dead. The flicker of an eyelid ago he was on his deathbed waiting for Spock to arrive. Now it was later. He did not know how much later but it was later, nevertheless. In between, he knew he could do so many things now that he could not do before but he had no idea what he was. He could fly through the universe in the blink of an eye. He could travel to any galaxy he wanted. He could visit all of the galaxies in the universe if he wanted and there were so many to visit, there were so many he had visited in his quest to find out what he was. He could also travel through time: In to the past as well as the future. He could see it all, from shortly after the beginning to just before the end. He could never get close enough to the beginning to see the Big Bang and the same for the Gnab Gib. He did not know why but that was minor compared to trying to find out what he was, and to find out what had happened to his soul mate - the part of him that was forever missing. Another thing he did not know: why had he been alone for so long? After he had realized he was whatever it was he was, he had been alone and he could not fathom it. He was not the only person who had ever died. Why was he special? Why had he been given this privilege? It was only after his anger at dying and the missed opportunities he had regretted all his life had slipped away from his mind, did he sense others. He could not see them; he could not feel them, only sense them. He knew they were there and when, finally, he accepted them, they could communicate with him. After a while, with their help, he could communicate with them. This was a new beginning, he discovered, for all involved. And, boy, were there so many involved! It seemed there was every single being why had ever lived was there. He had so many questions but no one seemed any wiser about their fate than he was. It was of little importance anyway, none of the questions were pressing. After all, he had the whole of eternity to sort things out. He had relived his adventures from a little boy to when he was studying to be a doctor to joining Starfleet. His Vulcan physiology teacher had a lot to answer for! McCoy had never met a Vulcan before starting at the academy. He had, of course, heard all the stories about them and all the prejudices some people had, but that had never bothered him. He was always too busy with his studies to pay them much attention. Besides, being a southern boy from some backwater, then Vulcan complex had been far away. Too far away for him to take any notice. (The Vulcans had wished to go more and more south over the years, closer to the equator, when the weather was much more to their liking but the habits of old southerner's die hard. People from other continents were difficult to accept 300 years ago. People from other planets were harder to except. Even now!) And then this physiology teacher had confirmed all the stories, making McCoy wonder how such an insensitive bunch of green-blooded aliens could ever do anything. Even when had first met Spock it had been difficult but Spock had changed his mind about a lot of things over the years, not least of all about what an insensitive bunch of green-blooded aliens could do. He had also relived his adventures on the Enterprise and realized he had loved Spock more than he hated him. It had been such a mess. If only he could have had the courage to say what he wanted before he died! He had revisited that fateful day too. Still, Spock had come as he had asked. Only trouble was he was a day late. *Damn' those insensitive bunch of green blooded aliens! Can't they ever arrive on time?* Only in their own time, or so it seemed. He had also seen Spock die, peacefully as an old man. He loved that image. More times than he could remember he had seen it. Spock, it seemed, had found everything in his life he wanted except a companion. Spock had not had a companion when McCoy was alive and Spock had not even searched for one after McCoy had died. Try as McCoy might he could not sense Spock anywhere in the universe, which really annoyed him. He had sensed more species than there were galaxies, from every galaxy that had or would exist, and he was pretty damn' sure it was not an extensive list. There were always more species to find. It was just this damn' Vulcan he wanted to sense. On one of his trips around his home galaxy, as he called it now, he had been to a small world in the Alpha Quadrant called Bajor. There was a wormhole there where he could manifest himself in to human form once again or any form he chose. The only traffic through the wormhole was the occasional meteor, which got too close and was drawn in by the gravitational pull of the vortex that surrounded the entry points, one in the Gamma Quadrant and the other in the Alpha Quadrant. The Bajorans thought this was the temple of their gods and worshiped it. The Bajorans were served with a magical light show whenever anything got too near that would match anything that happened on earth: The Northern Lights or a total eclipse. (Regardless of seeing numerous "Northern Lights" on diverse planets and placing Enterprise to see total eclipses for hours on end, there was nothing quite like standing in Alaska or parts of Norway and seeing the northern lights for yourself or a total eclipse from anywhere. Being that right place on earth at the right time had meant a lot to him. Thank god for transporters!) This amused McCoy because he knew the truth but it was of little importance. The Federation would not get to Bajor until well after Spock's death and so Spock would never be able to enter in to the wormhole and McCoy would never be able to talk to Spock again, to be able to tell him, face to face, what he had meant to him. In the end, McCoy had decided this was of little importance too. After all, he could see Spock any time he wanted. Despite not being able to talk to him, McCoy just had to be in the same part of the Alpha Quadrant at some place where the Enterprise had passed and in no time at all he would be back on the Enterprise watching himself, Spock, Kirk, Sulu, Chekov and Uhura save the galaxy, yet again. He was just unable to interact with them. But such memories! He would cry out what to do, but only he would hear himself. Then Kirk or Spock would do what he said but he knew it was not him who had influenced their actions as all this had already happened. Or maybe it was. Who was he to know or say? This time travel thing was too difficult to work out or to fathom about which came first: The entity he was or the actions they did? What did it matter anyway? If McCoy grew tired of trying to contact Spock it was not for want of trying. On many occasions he had tried to reach Spock in some sort of manifestation like he could do in the wormhole of Bajor. He found he had more success in the later part of Spock's life, when their friendship had been so much stronger, when they were prepared to travel to any part of the Alpha Quadrant for the other. The best success he had was when Spock was nearing the end of his life and had come to visit his grave one last time. Spock had been open to him then. There he was certain he had sensed Spock and Spock had sensed him. Apart from that he was not sure he had made any impact whatsoever. He had certainly not managed to make Spock take a ship to Bajor, to the wormhole, as he had so much wanted. He no longer knew the date. When, any point in time can be your present, time becomes unimportant. Time is linier, like the existence he once had, but when your existence is not linier, what difference does time make? There is no such thing as time. Regardless, he knew everything he knew now even if he was in a time frame when he did not know it. It was confusing and too much effort was needed to try and find answers. There was never enough time but always too much time to make it worth his while. There was nothing left to do except accept it. Let it be. It was the nature of things and that was that. The same applied to the question about what he was. Nevertheless, time still interested him. On one of his many voyages around the universe he had sensed an entity that had been there a long time, almost since the beginning of time, or so it seemed. This entity was able to answer many of McCoy's questions. However, it was not able to explain what he was but that was second in line to the importance of explaining why he could not sense Spock at any time. It seems that, despite their ability to be at any point in time, their existence was still *linier*, or, sort of. McCoy would not be able to sense Spock until McCoy had been there in his current state for the same about of time as the amount of time between McCoy dying and Spock dying. McCoy could sense all the entities that had died before him but would have to wait for those that died after him to be able to sense those. Unfortunately he had no sense of time anymore. Neither did any of the entities he had encountered. Too much flipping about from one side of the universe to the other and numerous points in time meant that time was a lost thing. He would just have to wait, but one day One day, Spock would join him in this wondrous new universe, where they could explore anything and everything. One day they would be together for eternity. EPILOGUE *How much longer?* A thought that passed his mind numerous times every day. A day? What was a day? How long had he been here? Did it matter? He would still have to wait. *No longer, my friend.* *What's that?* Had the loneliness finally driven him mad? *I am here.* *Who?* He was mad, he was sure. *Spock.* *You're finally here, you green blooded insensitive alien?* *I am. It seems as though I have spent an eternity searching for you.* *Tell me about it!* And so he did for eternity. The end.