mijan | Fic: "Convergence" (3/4)

Title: "Convergence", (3/4)
Author:

mijan
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Christopher Pike, Jim Kirk, Leonard McCoy
Previous Sections: Part 1, Part 2
Word Count: 4,776 in this section.
Summary: Christopher Pike wasn't supposed to be in Iowa, but there he was, weighing his future against scales that would never balance. Jim Kirk had given up on his future long ago. Leonard McCoy's past had been pulled out from underneath him, and he was ready to let his future go with it. Paths converge in the least likely places as three people realize that their futures are what they make of them.

Notes: This was a partial collaboration with

fiona_fawkes , who brainstormed the details of this with me and beta'd. Also thanks to

nikki4noo and

mintcloud for beta assistance! This fic can be read on its own, but it also ties in directly to the fanfic universe I created in "And All the King's Men."

Also... I added a whole extra section. I'm in the process of writing and editing it. Yeah, I couldn't resist. So, McCoy's point of view here, and tomorrow, we get Jim's perspective, and finally, yes, back to Pike. Full circle.

From the previous installment:
He studied her for a long moment, then narrowed his eyes. "I don't like flying."

She shrugged. "I don't like doctors."

They stared at each other for a long moment, then McCoy stuck his hand out. "I appreciate the conversation," he said simply.

"Thank you for patching up our cadet." She shook his hand briefly, then turned on her heel and walked out the door.

*********

Leonard watched her leave. His stomach felt tight and hollow at once, and he was grateful that his shift was over because there was no way he could handle seeing another patient that night. He was numb and detached, because if he wasn’t, he would seriously be considering the goddamned asinine suggestion that the snippy little Starfleet officer had thrown at him.

That was a lark. Leonard-fucking-McCoy on a Starfleet shuttlecraft. Leonard-aviaphobic-McCoy on a spaceship. Leonard Horatio McCoy in a Starfleet uniform.

He blinked.

Doctor Leonard H. McCoy in the finest medical facility in the solar system, discovering new cures, saving lives, and having a goddamned future again.

He swallowed thickly as he pushed past the curtain of the treatment bay, trying not to think. Doctor Larson, the duty doctor who was taking the next shift, had arrived during Mr. Daniels' appendectomy. She had already been working on the woman with second-degree burns when Leonard had finished up the surgery, so he hadn't had a chance to review the day's charts with her, and now, he just didn't have the energy to do it. She was already standing at the desk in the center of the clinic when Leonard got there, looking over charts from the past fourteen hours. She glanced up at him, and immediately frowned.

“You look like shit, McCoy.”

He looked at her, but had nothing to say, so he just shook his head as he reached behind the desk for his bag.

“Hey. Hey.” She stepped in front of him. “What the hell got into you? Rough shift?”

Leonard laughed drily. “Yeah, something like that.” He swung the strap of his bag over his shoulder.

"Did you really manage an appendectomy with the equipment we've got here?" She sounded quite impressed.

"I'm a surgeon," he grumbled. "What was I gonna do? Let the guy die in front of me?"

"Well, still… nice work."

"Thanks," he said, not really meaning it. “Hey Larson, how many more days until Howard gets back from his family leave?”

She shrugged. “Could be within the next three days, but could be as long as another six. Why? Did the agency contact you with another assignment already? Or something with your family back home?”

He gave her The Look.

“Okay, okay, sorry.” She held her hands up in mock-surrender. “Won’t mention the family. Oh wait – shit! Did the divorce come through?”

“Yeah, it did.” Leonard growled, then reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Listen, Julie…” He hesitated, then shook his head. “What's the status on Mrs. Kenneth's burns?"

"First- and second-degree burns localized to the left thigh and lower abdomen. Healed up nicely," she said clinically. "I told her to consider drinking iced coffee instead. Nurse Peterson is finishing up with some nerve stim and dermagel dressing, and she should be ready to discharge in a little while."

"Sounds good," Leonard said gruffly. "I left some dermal fusion equipment in the sonic sterilizer in bay two. Everything else is normal. I just need to get the hell out of here.”

Doctor Larson nodded. “Sounds good. And Leonard?”

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“You get some rest, okay?”

He pressed his lips into a grimace. “Aye Aye, Captain.”

Leonard stepped out into darkness of the wee hours. A vehicle with Starfleet tags was just pulling out of the parking lot. He watched it shrink as it moved away down the long, empty street that ran through the middle of downtown Riverside. It was hard to call it a downtown. Leonard was quite convinced that the place hadn’t changed since the twenty-first century. At 2:00 AM, the main street was deserted, the lights in the store fronts were off, and if it weren’t for the bright glow of the shipyard in the distance and the outlines of the massive corn silos and residence constructs blocking out parts of the night sky, he could have imagined that he’d stepped into something out of the past. Or maybe just stuck in the past.

The car’s tail lights finally disappeared as it turned onto the side road that would take it towards the shipyards. Shaking his head to himself, Leonard shifted the strap of his bag on his shoulder, turned away from the lights of the shipyard, and began walking towards the seedy apartment that the Rural Doctors program had furnished for him.

There was an unseasonable chill in the air, and he pulled his scrub coat closer around his stomach. It was a short walk of five blocks, then two flights of stairs. He dropped his bag by the door, kicked off his shoes, and went straight to the bathroom, stripping off his scrubs as he walked. The shower did little to ease the chill that had settled into his bones, but he just stood there anyway, letting the hot water pour over him as he did his best to avoid thinking.

When he knew he'd wasted enough hot water, he wrapped a bathrobe around himself and stumbled to the kitchenette. There was just enough food in the fridge to cobble together a turkey sandwich to go with the liquor that was still sitting on the coffee table. In the living room, he put his feet up next to the bottle and took a bite of his dry sandwich, barely tasting it as he blankly looked around the room.

The apartment was small but adequate, and smelled like all the others he’d stayed in since he'd left Georgia just over half a year earlier. Dust, old paint, and musty walls – the smell was becoming nauseatingly familiar. He’d lost count of how many places he'd stayed, but it didn’t matter. They were all the same. A bit too old and a bit too stale – an uncomfortable incongruity of harsh sterility that was never quite clean. Never comfortable, and never home.

He’d never go home again.

He’d been on-shift almost nonstop since he’d received the official heavy hammer of the divorce settlement, and so he’d been able to avoid thinking about it. Not that he’d ever consider going back to his wife – ex-wife, Leonard. She’s your goddamned ex-wife – after what she’d done to him, but to see it spelled out in black and white on the computer screen made it real. Now, he had nothing left to distract him, and the reality of it was like a cold slap across the face. He really had nothing left at all.

The Rural Doctors program was little more than a volunteer program, really. Somewhere between volunteer work and temping, it kept a roof over his head and just enough credits to his name for a mediocre bottle of bourbon once a week. A lot of docs who’d barely gotten their licenses volunteered for Rural Doctors directly out of med school as a way to get more experience and pad their resumes with some heart-warming charity. He was so far beyond this sort of work it wasn't even funny, but it had been something to do until the divorce was final. From there, he'd figured, he could take stock of what remained to him, and try to move forward.

How the hell am I supposed to move forward when my past is gone?

Somehow, he finished eating the sandwich without really noticing, but as he went to take a swig of bourbon directly from the bottle, the idea of drinking in his dingy, dead-end apartment seemed incomprehensible. Even with all the lights on, the place seemed cramped and dark – even darker than the night. At least outdoors, he could see the stars. He'd loved to stargaze as a child; the feel of the solid earth beneath his back as he watched the stars above his head had been comforting. He snorted cynically at the thought that his childhood pastime might be the only luxury he'd have left in life.

The bitch got the whole fucking planet, but I'll damned to hell if she'll take the stars.

He put the plate aside and lurched off the couch. A few minutes later, Leonard had tossed his bathrobe over the back of a chair and had pulled on a pair of jeans and an old, comfortable sweater. Remembering the chill in the air, he grabbed the closest thing to a cold-weather jacket he owned; he didn't plan to be back until dawn. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he vaguely wondered if he planned to be back at all, but he didn't even care to think that far ahead. He was exhausted, but sleep was unfathomable.

He shoved his feet into his boots without untying them. With one awkward swoop, he grabbed the liquor bottle off the coffee table and stuffed it into his messenger bag as slung the bag over his shoulder. If he was going to drink to everything he'd ever lost, he'd need a lot of good booze. Without a glance back, he pushed his way out the door and locked it behind him.

He didn't look up at the sky immediately when he stepped out of the building. No – he wanted to get to the edge of town where he could see the stars unobstructed, without the trappings of society in the way. Society had been yanked away from him, too; he had no place there, either.

He watched his own feet punctuate a line along the sidewalk, each boot falling heavily in front of the other, quick and sure with almost surgical precision. He was going absolutely nowhere, but as long as he watched his feet move, and focused on each step, he could imagine that he still had some sort of sense of purpose. He was moving towards something, not just away from something, he told himself. It was bullshit, he knew, but he didn't much care.

The buildings fell away around him, and the sidewalk came to an abrupt end in a pile of gravel. He reached into his bag, grabbed his bottle, and with a deep breath, he looked up.

"What the… goddammit!"

The stars were there, but paled against the bright splotch of light on the near horizon. The shipyards. The goddamned fucking shipyards! The one thing he had left – his solitude, a bottle of bourbon, and the stars – and he couldn't even have that without…

He blinked. Stared at the bright glow of the shipyards, just five miles outside of town. Tilted his head to the side, considering the light, like some sort of perverse beacon. Slowly, he unscrewed the cap of his bottle, and without looking away from the lights of the shipyard, he took a swig. He tucked the bottle back in his bag, adjusted the shoulder strap more comfortably across his chest, and began walking.

The shipyards seemed so close through the night, but he knew how far they were. It didn't matter. He could walk all night. He had nowhere else to be.

The blackness of the countryside closed in around him as the faint glow of downtown Riverside retreated behind his back. The road was flat and even, leading directly to the shipyard. The wind whistled in his ears, accompanied by the smooth rhythm of his boots crunching the gravel along the side of the road. The waning moon snuck up into the sky – a thin, weak sliver of light that had no hope of challenging the glare of the shipyard lights. Leonard spared it a glance, but kept walking. Too tired to think, too numb to feel, too old to care, but too fucking young to quit. Not yet.

Finally, as the blackness of night showed the first faint hints of grey on the eastern horizon, Leonard stepped off the road and stared up at the massive structure of the half-built ship. He'd seen it when he'd first driven into town three weeks ago, but he hadn't really been paying attention at the time. It wasn't as if it mattered.

Now, for some strange reason, it mattered.

He sat down heavily on the ground, one knee bent and the other sticking straight out, and he stared. His hands found his bottle of bourbon, and he pulled it out of the bag.

I lost my research grant and my career.

He drank.

I lost my home.

He drank again.

I lost my daughter.

He took a deep swig that burned sharply and made his eyes water.

I lost my wife.

Leonard looked at the bottle in his hands, but didn't drink. Slowly, he looked back and forth between the bottle and the ship. Scowling at himself and the universe at large, he said aloud, "What have I got to lose?"

He grabbed his comm from his bag and punched in the number for the clinic. A moment later, a voice that was only slightly familiar answered the phone.

"Riverside Urgent Care, Patricia Donaldson speaking."

"Patty, it's Doctor McCoy."

"Doctor McCoy! Didn't you just get off shift less than five hours ago? Shouldn't you be asleep?"

Leonard had to smile to himself. Patty had made it her business to watch out for the health of all the doctors and nurses who worked at the clinic, because (as she swore) doctors take care of everyone else while running their own health ragged. "Yes, Patty, I should be asleep. But listen… you're going to have to call someone else to take my next shift."

"You're not sick, are you? I keep telling you, you're going to run yourself into an early grave the way you go, and your precious hyposprays can't cure everything."

Chuckling, Leonard shook his head to himself. "No, I'm not sick. But… I'm not coming back. Doctor Howards should be back in a few days, and I'm only scheduled for two more shifts anyway. Can you… can you call the Rural Doctors liaison for the region and… tell them I quit."

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment, before Patty's voice came through, sounding nervous. "Doctor McCoy, are you okay? I heard that your divorce just came through, but… Leonard, you're okay, aren't you?"

His throat tightened a little bit at the worry in her voice. He'd almost forgotten what it sounded like for someone to actually worry over him. "I'm fine, Patty. I'm fine, really. I… I actually got another job."

"Really?" She sounded both hopeful and incredulous at once.

He smiled weakly. "Yes, Patty. Really. Hey, tell everyone thanks for me. Oh, and tell Doctor Martinez that his neurostim technique is good, but he's gotta learn to cycle the magnetic resonance more smoothly with the patient's natural brainwaves."

"Uh… what?"

"Just tell everyone I said thanks."

"Okay, Doctor McCoy. Thanks for helping us out here. Good luck in your new job."

"Thanks, Patty." He closed the comm unit and looked up at the giant ship sitting in front of him. For the first time since he'd started walking towards the distant lights of the shipyards, he suddenly felt nervous. "Thanks," he said again, "I'm gonna need it."

He drank one last swig, capped the bottle, and hauled himself to his feet. The sky was marginally lighter now. Gritting his teeth, and wishing that lightning would strike and stop him from making such an impulsive, reckless, and fucking insane decision, he shouldered his bag and walked along the road towards the front gate of the shipyards. A couple of Starfleet-tagged vehicles drove past him towards the gate. One lone motorcycle zipped by in the other direction. Leonard kept walking, refusing to let himself think, because if he did, he'd turn around and run the other way.

Finally, the security gate was directly in front of him. The guard at the gate held out a hand. "ID, Sir?"

His tone was professional, but Leonard could read faces; the guy wasn't impressed with him – not that Leonard could really blame him. He hadn't shaved in two days, he smelled like bourbon, and he probably looked like shit. However, he might as well start this whole thing on the right foot. "Doctor Leonard H. McCoy, sir," he said as evenly as possible as he handed over his ID chip.

The guard barely spared him a glance as he ran the chip across the scanner. His ID signature instantly came up on the monitor, and the guard cross-referenced it with the shipyard clearance list. He actually looked surprised when a positive match came back. "There you are. Doctor Leonard H. McCoy. Cleared by Lieutenant Commander Toland… and Captain Pike?" He sounded even more surprised by that, not that Leonard had any idea why. When the guy looked up, he had a distinct note of respect in his voice. "Sir, you've been ordered to report to shuttle pad three by 0800 hours for departure. And…" He looked down. "We'll need to clear your bag."

Leonard gritted his teeth and handed the bag over, knowing before the guard had even pulled out the bottle that he was going to have to leave his small-batch, barrel-aged Kentucky bourbon behind.

"Sir, we can't –"

"I know, I know." His fingers itched for just one more swig – a toast to the sanity he was certainly leaving behind, and one last shot of liquid fortitude for the inevitable ride in the fucking lunatic-machine of a goddamned shuttlecraft because he was out of his ever-loving mind for even thinking about letting them put him on a god-forsaken death-trap like that. "Just… give it to someone who will enjoy it."

"Uh… okay, sir." He handed back the almost-empty bag, but Leonard shook his head.

"I've got nothing, so leave it at that." He started to walk through the gate, but stopped short. "Uh… which way to the shuttle pad?"

The guard smiled humourlessly. "Follow that walkway, and where it branches, stay to the left. Another fifty meters to the cooling towers, and take a right. From there, you'll see the shuttlecraft."

Leonard nodded, turned, and began following the path, the word shuttlecraft echoing in his mind. With each step, he could feel his heart pound a bit harder and his chest get a bit tighter. He'd had enough other shit burdening his over-exhausted mind that this hurdle in the ordeal hadn't really sunk in. Actually, none of this had quite sunk in, but that was beside the point. The burn of bourbon in his stomach hadn't reached his brain yet, and the fear of flying… well… it wasn't pleasant. Just not pleasant.

Okay, more than a little unpleasant; the prospect was fucking terrifying. But…

I've got nothing else left. I'm going to do this. I've got nothing else. This will be good for me. I can do this. I can… oh fuck.

There was the shuttlepad, and there was the shuttle. Leonard hadn't been on a shuttle in years, and he'd rather not think about that, thank you very much. Until the past six months, he hadn't needed to travel much, and the high speed trains and ground cars worked just fine as far as he was concerned. But this time, if he wanted his one shot at a future, there would just be no avoiding it.

Swallowing against the sick feeling in his stomach, Leonard pulled his coat tighter to his body and stepped out onto the shuttle pads just as a familiar woman in a gray uniform stepped out of the shuttle and stood in front of the open door. She caught sight of Leonard and gave a solemn nod, but showed no overt signs of recognition until he was standing right in front of her.

"Decided to take the rational choice?"

Leonard took an unsteady breath, trying not to think about what he was about to do. "What choice?" he snorted. "It's either this or… well, I've got nothing else left, and compared to the alternative, this didn't seem like a completely ludicrous suggestion."

She gave him a self-satisfied nod. "Good to know. Welcome to Starfleet, Cadet McCoy."

Somehow, after being called "Doctor" for a few years, the title of "Cadet" didn't sit too easily. He forced a smile which probably looked more like a grimace, then walked past her and ducked through the door of the shuttlecraft.

Immediately, he felt his heart begin to pound frantically in his chest. The shuttle was still on the damned ground, but he could feel the rickety frame of it around him, like a cage that held him in but couldn't offer any protection, not really. Not nearly enough protection from the unforgiving vacuum of space that would suck the life from your body as it made blood vessels burst and body fluids boil. And space. He loved stars, but he'd read the medical journals and their reports on space travel. The diseases out there made Bubonic Plague seem positively pleasant. Human doctors had spent thousands of years trying to fight the onslaught of death and disease on this planet, and now, just when it seemed like they were starting to get the upper hand in the battle, the human race had to go and discover a galaxy full of more disease and death.

Why anyone would do this unless it was an absolute last resort was beyond his comprehension.

There were only a few cadets already in the shuttlecraft, and now that he'd taken a spare moment to notice, they were all giving him curious sideways glances. He glowered at a couple of them, and looked around rapidly for a seat that didn't face any windows. It only took him seconds to realize there weren't any.

Sure, right now, the windows showed the pleasant, early morning view of the shipyard in Iowa, but soon the shuttlecraft would lurch off the ground, would start to shudder in the lower-atmosphere turbulence, and eventually give him a front-row view of the deep indigo-blue of the upper atmosphere and the blackness outer space. He shuddered.

And then he saw the bathroom door.

Not caring what anyone else thought at that moment, he gathered his jacket around him and quickly ensconced himself in the latrine. Thank God I'm not claustrophobic, too, he thought acerbically. The small space felt a tiny bit safer, even though it was just an illusion. As long as nobody needed to piss during the flight, he could just hide in there, and if he needed to panic, at least nobody would see him. Seemed like a good solution.

Minutes passed. He could hear the echoes of boots on metal as more and more people filed into the shuttlecraft. The hollow echoes of the cage around him. This thin metal frame that was the only thing between him and explosive decompression. More minutes ticked by. His hands were shaking, and he could feel himself beginning to break out in a cold sweat. He wished he'd taken a few more swigs of liquor to calm his nerves, but it was too late for that now.

He wrapped his hands tight around his stomach, gripping the folds of his jacket. And then he felt something hard in one of his pockets.

Ever so briefly distracted from his panic, he reached into his jacket pocket, and felt a both a thrill of discovery and a pang of memory when he realized what it was, and why it was there. It had been the morning of his father's funeral, and he'd needed something to get him through the maelstrom. So, he'd taken the small pocket flask that his father had given him when he'd graduated med school and had filled it with his best bourbon. The funeral had been in the middle of December, and it was cold out, so he'd grabbed his warmest jacket and tucked the flask into the jacket pocket. It had been then that Jocelyn had come into the room wearing a black dress and the foul mood that had become her standard accessory. Upon seeing the dingy old jacket, she had told him in no uncertain terms that he would not be wearing that monstrosity to any formal event. She'd then grabbed his comfortable jacket away from him, and had forced him into a suit coat.

And now, almost nine months later, he had the melancholy comfort of the bourbon and the gift his father had given him, as well as the jacket that his wife hated so much. A good deal, he figured. He unscrewed the cap and took a very tiny sip, letting the familiar taste help him more than the actual alcohol content. For what it was worth, he hoped it was some small sign that this might not be as horrible as he'd thought it might be.

And then someone pounded on the door.

In an instant, his eyes went wide and the panic set back in full-force. He scrambled to tuck the small flask back into his pocket and wished he could just disappear at that very moment.

The person pounded the door again, this time speaking through the door. "Cadet McCoy, are you ill?" There wasn't a trace of mercy in Commander Toland's voice; just the flat question, as unyielding as the metal of the bathroom wall behind his back.

"No, I… uh… needed to… uh…" He could feel his face breaking out in a cold sweat again, and a surge of nausea gripped his stomach.

"McCoy, according to Cadet Roper, you've been in the bathroom for almost a half hour. The shuttle is preparing to depart. Open the door immediately."

His heart was pounding, and he cursed himself for ever having thought this was a good idea. He was trapped and cornered in the goddamned bathroom of a goddamned shuttlecraft. Starfleet and space ships and shuttlecrafts and why the hell would I do this to myself and because I've really got nothing else left. For the briefest of instants, an ice-cold realization lanced through his chest – he hadn't planned to join Starfleet when he'd left his apartment, but he'd also never planned to return to his apartment, either. He was here, on the shuttlecraft, because the only other option had been nothing. Absolutely nothing. The realization shocked him and added to the surge of panic that had gripped him.

Toland rapped on the door again. "Cadet, respond immediately or I'll have an engineer override the lock."

"I'm fine in here." He pressed his back harder against the wall, shaking his head desperately to clear it, which only made him more queasy. "I just… I need to… oh goddammit." A surge of nausea twisted his gut and he spun around and leaned over the toilet, breathing rapidly.

"McCoy, if you're ill, we can get assistance for you, but you need to find a seat for departure. Do you need a doctor?"

Leonard swallowed a few times, fighting back the queasiness until it subsided enough to let him speak. He slammed the toilet shut, spun around, and sat on the lid. "I'm not sick, I don't need a doctor, and I'm fine in here."

"McCoy, unlock the door and go back to your seat."

The order was harsh and uncompromising, and Leonard muttered a few choice words for Toland under his breath before gritted his teeth and flipped the locking mechanism.

The door slid to the side. Toland stared down at him critically, then sniffed the air. "Did you drink the whiskey or take a bath in it?" She grabbed him by the arm and hauled him off the toilet, her grip surprisingly strong.

"Yeah, so I had a drink, and you would have, too. I'm nauseous, and the toilet is in here," he said, trying to wrest his arm out of her vice-like grip, "and I don't see why there's a problem with this arrangement."

"Because you need to strap into a safety harness for departure."

"Oh, a safety harness! That makes me feel so much safer."

"You're ill or drunk, and I don't care which, but we don't have time for games. Captain Pike is ready to launch, and you need to sit down."

"I was sitting down. Right here." He tried to get his arm out of her grip again, and stumbled in the process.

Toland glared at him as she tightened her grip and pulled him out of the bathroom. "You need a doctor."

"I told you, I don't need a doctor, dammit, I am a doctor!"

She didn't even look at him as she dragged him back into the main shuttle cabin, ordering him to sit down. As the whole shuttle of neatly uniformed cadets stared at him, Leonard got the sinking feeling that he was so far up shit creek that a paddle was the least of his concerns.

*********

Pike was almost done with his pre-flight diagnostics when he heard Toland's sharp voice cutting through the shuttlecraft, and he allowed himself a small grin. She certainly had a way of doing things, but it worked.