[Timeloop]

[leftwithmybones]

In his life, McCoy is never going to forget. His wedding day, for one. The way that band of gold slid onto his finger and felt right. The first day of his internship and the damn IV that just wouldn't go in. The day Joanna was born and the way he'd prayed over that little bed for her to just cry. And a chair. A hard-backed blue chair with frayed padding on the seat digging into his lower back.

The same chair that he's just started awake in. The same chair he hasn't sat in for over four years. The same goddamn chair he slept in for weeks while his marriage started to dwindle around a drain.

At first, he swears it's just a nightmare. There's no way any of this is possible or real. He'd gone to sleep with Plum purring away, tail idly whacking at his shoulder and he's woken up to a nightmare, the sound of a heartbeat constant at his side. Shit, is all he can think as he wakes and sees the body in the hospital bed, sees all the medical equipment, sees the time, and (worst of all), sees the date.

"Fuck," he says, scrubbing his hands over his face. Going home had always been a low-lying hope, but traveling back in time...well, he's no goddamn physicist and while it might be possible, he really hadn't been keeping red matter lying around his bedroom. He slides out of the chair, trying to prevent it from creaking and waking his father up, trying to just get out.

He knows the events of the day. He knows it like it's been burned into his brain. He'll be begged three times -- come morning, noon, and evening. Joce stops by at lunch with Jo and berates him for not coming home and he takes one quick respite in Joanna's presence before he returns to his father and finally, finally caves.

Gives in only for a cure to show up three months later. He stands and inches to the edge of the bed to check the chart, as if something will be different and it'll prove that it's all just a nightmare after all.

Comments

[leftwithmybones]

"Won't be hard this time," McCoy says with great surety. "The machine's doing the heavy lifting." He neglects to add how much pain his father is in. He just has to hold the hell on while the cure gets there a bit faster, that's all. He glances to Jim, grateful that he's there, because he can see Jocelyn entering the hall and he ducks inside the room, gesturing for Uhura and Spock to join so that he doesn't spend the next hour in a bickering match about who's failing who.

He glances over his shoulder at his father in that bed, taking a deep breath to try and settle his nerves. "He just needs to be alive come tomorrow morning. That's it. I just have to keep him alive." Ignore his wishes, ignore his pleading demands, ignore what he did.

[fear-no-words.livejournal.com]

Being back in the room hardly seemed an improvement to Uhura. Although out of sight of McCoy's wife, who she had no particular urge to meet at the moment, the situation and his talk of her driving all curiosity from her in that respect, this brought them within range of McCoy's father again and the urge to comfort him was strong. Pursing her lips, she listened to McCoy, but found herself shaking her head.

"What happens tomorrow morning?" she asked, keeping her voice hushed. "If your father's dying, delaying one day can't change that much, can it?"

[and-prosper.livejournal.com]

"Presumably you have acquired skills to apply to this situation since you were last in it," Spock says, a sort of half-answer for McCoy. "You're certain that you might accomplish a significant change in less than 24 hours?"

Certainly it's possible, but with illness this far progressed, such an easy solution seems highly unlikely.

[leftwithmybones]

"Yeah," McCoy agrees, though he refuses to meet Spock's gaze, refuses to act like a crap liar when he knows that he just needs to not kill his own damn father. "Yeah, I figured out a couple of new skills." He shifts uncomfortably, trying to keep away from the hall, avoiding his sleeping father and feeling like he's stuck between a rock and a hard place. "I just need the two of you out of this room come around this evening. That's all."

[fear-no-words.livejournal.com]

She raised a disbelieving brow at Spock which remained raised through McCoy's confirmation of the half-Vulcan's presumption. Uhura didn't buy that shit for a second. New skills, maybe. But unless there was a surgery planned in the next 24 hours, she didn't see that assurance being anything but a load of hot air.

Her hands settled on her hips as she glanced between the two men, annoyed by this secret masculine agreement not to talk about the real issue and just a little too out of her depth to fight it. This wasn't her dimension. She didn't know McCoy's father from Adam, or McCoy all that well either.

"Fine," she said finally, her hands dropping from her hips, nearly spitting the word out but restraining herself. "Fine. I'll go along with whatever game you're playing."

[and-prosper.livejournal.com]

That Uhura is displeased is easy enough determined; that McCoy is not being entirely truthful not so much. Spock takes the assessment at face value, although he remains concerned over the limited time line. McCoy, however, seems confident, and ultimately there is little to be done but defer—It is a private matter, after all.

[leftwithmybones]

McCoy holds both their gazes for a singular moment, almost like he's about to challenge them on this, but he just gives a nod. "The cafeteria isn't half bad. And there's a couple shops. Just give me until morning. That's all I need." Maybe he's back here for good, ready to start his life over, ready to do it right. Hell, maybe he can even patch things up with Joce, be a proper father and husband.

Maybe he can make this better.