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Title: Now You're Gone
Author: Jazz Man
Rating: PG
Diclaimer: I'm disclaiming already.
Summary: Set after ST:II The Wrath of Kahn. Yep, another one. A
while ago I decided to write a reaction story for the films. So,
this is in the same series as 'Conclusions and Proposals'. McCoy's
POV.
Without much further ado:
Now You're Gone
Jazz Man
You tried to spare me at the end. Pity it didn't work. I had to
stand and watch you die when, like Jim, all I wanted to do was go
into the chamber and hold you. Your last words were to him, but I
know your last thoughts were of me. I always thought that if you
died before me I'd know about it. As a doctor I could see you were
dead, as a lover I couldn't feel it. I was numb to everything but
Scotty's hand on my arm. He led me out of engineering and sat with
me while I got drunk enough to forget what had just happened. I know
you don't approve, but what else could I do? It wouldn't be safe to
take your body to sickbay for hours.
When that finally happened, I was allowed to see you. I cleaned you
up as best I could, trying to remove all traces of the radiation
burns. I couldn't touch you, it wasn't safe. Gloved hands on cold
skin were all that I could have. Your skin was always warmer than
mine, you were like a Vulcan blanket. Now you where cold, colder
than ever my skin was. I still couldn't feel it though, not even
then. Somehow you were still with me. A voice in the back of my
mind telling me not to grieve. My subconscious telling me what I
wanted to hear, that somehow you weren't dead. I wanted to believe,
but your dead body was laid out before me.
No one questioned my right to arrange the funeral. Funny that, they
didn't know about us, but no one thought to take my place. Jim . . .
Jim was glad to give me the responsibility. The day after you died I
went to his quarters with a bottle, I know, I know, but it was the
one thing I had left. You know what he told me? Well, if there's a
heaven maybe you do. He told me that he thought he loved you.
Imagine. I held him as he cried, but I was the one who'd lost you.
It was my heart that had been torn in two. I didn't have the heart
to tell him, he didn't need to know.
I didn't think you'd want to be buried. I don't thing you would have
wanted to lie in Earth's dark soil or Vulcan's dry sand. I suppose I
should have asked your parents, but it was Jim who had told Amanda,
and I didn't want to intrude. Hello, I was your son's lover, how do
you want to dispose of the body? No, I don't think that would have
gone down well.
Burial in space was the only way. Space was your home, it was where
you were accepted. I dressed you in my meditation robe, I wanted to
keep yours. I remember when we got them. You said it was something
bonded couples did, and that even though we couldn't have that we
could have this. The funny old man who made them knew what was going
on. I think he approved though, I could have sworn he winked at me
as we left. You never believed that. I dressed you in my robe and
sat up with you. Most of the others joined me at some point. Only
Scotty knew what it meant to me. Oh, I'm sure Uhura guessed, and
neither Chekov nor Sulu are blind, but we'd managed to keep it
quiet. I don't know why anymore. Secrecy became habit over the
years. We should have told them, Spock, they would have wanted to
know.
Scotty played at the funeral, and Jim spoke. The rest of us stood
frozen. Saavik was there, struggling to keep up her Vulcan shields.
It was all rather surreal. We shot the torpedo tube out into space
and went to watch genesis. It was amazing, even I have to admit
that. Life from lifelessness. It fit our mood. Even in the midst
of death there is life, or should be the other way round?
It was there, watching the birth a new planet, that it came back to
me. 'Remember' you had said, before using the damn neck pinch of
yours and causing me to forget the incident until a few days later.
Remember? Every thing we had ever done together had been burned into
my memory. Every argument a lance to my heart. Every tender moment
sweet torture. Remember? How the hell could I forget?
End
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