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Title: Final Farewell
Author: ZiKerag (zikerag@yahoo.co.uk)
Series: TOS
Pairing: S/Mc
Rating: U (Nothing naughty at all)
Parts: 1 of 1
Date: October 2002
Feedback: All comments are welcome and appreciated!
Archive: Feel free if you really feel like it. Just let me know so I can visit.
Disclaimer: The usual.
Note: This follows on from Jazz Mans Tragedy. McCoy is dead. Now its
Spocks turn to die.
Spock stood at the foot of McCoy's grave. His body was old and his arms lied
limp at the sides
of his body. His back slightly arched forward. It was time; he knew it. He took
a deep breath
and then began:
"I am sorry, Leonard. I have not been here in awhile. I cannot blame work, as I
have not worked
for many years, as I have told you. I cannot blame my health, even if it is
getting worse by the
day. I cannot find anything to blame really. Time just seems to have passed me
by, and I
suddenly found it was almost ten years since I last visited you. The only thing
that has taken
my time is meditating and doctors." He stopped, realizing what he said. A
slight smile
appeared on his face and a short, little laugh escaped. "It is funny," he
continued "that part of
my excuse of coming to Earth was to get away from them. The first thing I do
upon arriving is
to go and see another doctor. Not that the doctors on Vulcan would let me come
all this way
on my own. I have to have a nurse with me all the time." He turned his head and
upper part of
his body to look at the nurse who was standing about 20 meters away behind him.
She was
erect with her hands clasped behind her back. Next to her was a wheelchair.
"That is her over
there. She is very nice but young. She is too much in command of her emotions
to even
understand a joke, let alone laugh. 'Jokes are illogical' she tells me all the
time and 'laughing is
the result of an irrational human emotion'. I just tell her she should try it
first."
Spock sighed and turned back to look at the gravestone again. "I always need a
wheelchair
these days too," he said with a resigned voice that did not cover his
embarrassment at being
dependent on others all the time every day. "It is not that I can not walk. I
walked from Nurse
T'Pie to here with no problems but that is just about the limit of it. Even
getting her to let me do
that, so I could talk to you privately, took a lot of effort. I have something
to say, if you have not
guessed already, Leonard, I am dying. It is slow, not painful, and its work is
nearly over. I
came here today to say one final goodbye, before it was too late."
"What else was there, besides my loss of memory? Ah, yes, I checked on your
great
grandchildren and they are doing fine. I have not spoken to any of your family
since you were
buried. I was too busy afterwards and when I had the time it was too late. I
had lost contact
with them and could not find any traces trough official channels. It was only a
month or so ago
that one of Chekov's decedents, I forget which one - there are so many these
days, came to
visit me. He wanted to talk about life on the Enterprise. He was an Admiral but
he looked
younger than us when we started at the academy." Another slight smile and a
little laugh that
turned in to a cough. Spock's mind was filled with memories of the Enterprise
and his and
McCoy's constant bickering. He did not know where all these thoughts had come
from. Spock
regained his composure and continued. "Anyway, he was very impressed with the
amount of
information I could give him and took extensive notes and numerous holographic
images of
myself and my house. In return he said he would do his best to track down as
many members
of your family as possible for me. I thanked him and a couple of weeks later he
contacted me
with the results of his investigations. It seems you are about to become a
great-great-
grandfather."
Spock suddenly took in a sharp breath and stood bolt upright. His hands shot to
his head and
held his temples. Nurse T'Pie took a few steps forward to come to Spock's aid
but withdrew as
Spock relaxed and his hands moved slowly back to his sides.
Spock did not understand what had happened. He had never had an incident like
that before. It
was nothing to do with his illness. That did not happen. Nothing ever happened
with this
illness. That's what made it so nasty, he would just fade away. He felt as if
something had
been inside him. For a split second he had sensed Doctor McCoy but it was not
the angry
Doctor McCoy he had known and loved. This Doctor McCoy was happy, at peace with
everything and *still* loved Spock. He had sensed it.
Perhaps it had just been because of the intense feelings he was having, like
those from the
Enterprise, but this was by far much stronger. Much stronger than anything he
had ever
experienced, stronger than any mind meld. It was as if McCoy had been inside
him, more a
soul meld than mind meld. It's strange the tricks the mind plays on you when
you are near the
end of your life. He *knew* what had happened now. It was difficult to believe,
even harder to
understand and impossible to explain. Spock's heart filled with happiness. All
this time he
believed he was alone and Len had left him years ago but it was not true. He
had never really
believed in the afterlife. There was no proof that there was anything after
death. There again,
there was no proof that there was nothing after death.
Spock's head filled with questions, synopsis, probabilities and theories. He
could find no
convincing answers or arguments to resolve anything. There was no point anyway.
All would be
revealed to him in a short while when he was dead. *That* word again. He knew
on Vulcan that
preparations were well underway for him to have a hero's burial because of his
work over the
centuries. They could keep it, as far as he was concerned. "What is the point?"
he would
always say when asked about it. He would be dead and not there to appreciate it.
"Nurse T'Pie, would you come here please?" he called to the nurse. She always
arrived far too
quickly for Spock's liking. He did not know if it was him or if she had some
sort of personal
site-to-site transporter.
"How can I help you, Ambassador?" she inquired politely.
"Help me kneel down for a moment, would you?" He hated being called
"Ambassador" these
days. Being an ambassador was something he had not been in many years but he
also knew
Nurse T'Pie was too inflexible to change so there was no point in having an
argument over what
she should call him.
The nurse helped him down by steadying him by holding on to his left arm. Once
on one knee
he kissed the tips of his fingers on his right hand and placed his hand next to
Len's name on
the stone. "Goodbye from this life, old friend. We go back a long way. I hope
we will go forward
even more."
The nurse helped him stand up again and he turned to walk back to his
wheelchair. "I know we
planned to stay here six days. Could we change it to be two weeks?" he asked
the nurse.
"I will ask that of the doctors on Vulcan. I do not believe they will allow
it." She replied.
Spock said nothing. It would be two weeks. He might be old and time might be
short but he
still had some tricks left, a few last favours to call in. Two weeks would be
long enough. He
was not going back to Vulcan and some pompous funeral. Two weeks was enough for
him to
die and be buried here next to Leonard. There would be no need for a final
farewell.
The end.
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