leftwithmybones | [Timeloop Day 2]

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[Timeloop Day 2]

When he wakes, the sun is familiar, the chair is familiar, and his father is still alive. At first, McCoy feels nothing but relief at the situation because he thinks that it's solved, that he's done it. He thinks that right up until the minute that his chronometer beeps at him. He only glances at it momentarily to get the time, but it's the date that strikes him as more pertinent.

"Goddammit," he mutters. It has to be broken. He yanks it off his wrist, trying to fix it, trying to get the right date on. He'd gotten through the day, he'd let his father live, things should be different as they move on. He looks around, sees his father, sees Spock and Uhura and Jim and they're all in the damn same positions as they were yesterday.

Goddammit, he thinks as cold dread begins to permeate his whole body.

It's not the next day. It's the same as before and any minute now, the pleading is going to begin again. He can't do this, not again. Why the hell is he back here when he changed things, when he made it better?

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"I'm getting pretty tired of him pushing us around period," says Jim, trooping out into the hall after Uhura and rounding almost immediately. He'd spent most of the day out of the room yesterday, which doesn't detract from the fact that they're back here, again, and, clearly, nothing much has changed.

"Clearly, something needs to happen here, Bones," says Jim, his voice low, eyebrows up. "Spock's right - are we sure that...you know...we're gunning for the right thing here?"

"It would be logical to attempt an alternative result under the circumstances," Spock agrees, stolid in his place beside the chair Nyota has just vacated. "Given that your choices appear to be directly affecting the rest of us, it would also be appropriate to allow collaborative input." Rather than shunting them back out into the hall.

McCoy can feel his ire raising, choking him in his throat. He didn't ask for any of them to be there and now that they are, it's a goddamn nightmare. He breathes in and out sharply, ignoring how shallow they are, how he can feel a white hot weight in his chest that makes him want to spit out every last word of vitriol he can muster. "Look, it's just three months, okay? I just...he has to stay on the machines for three months, I am not," he snaps, that burning sensation now in his throat, eyes clouded with tears of rage and grief, "I am not killing my father again when he has to live for three goddamn months and that's all."

"What is three months?" Uhura snapped, carefully controlled frustration coming out in a demand. "You keep saying half of what is going on here."

She didn't just mean whatever was happening to his father, but what was happening to McCoy as well. She felt for him even as she snapped at him. But they were Starfleet officers in a potentially threatening situation. (Living out months, years, God only knew how long in an ever-repeating loop was a life-threatening situation in Uhura's book, for damn sure.) McCoy had every right to fall apart after he made sure his crewmates were able to carry him through.

"It isn't ever going to be three months if we keep ending up back at the same damn point," says Jim, his head tilted on one side. "Look, Bones - I think it's pretty obvious that all three of us don't want to make this any harder on you that it's got to be, but we're clearly here for a reason and you've got to..."

He clams up, looking up at the ceiling.

"I'm not going to keep being sent to stand in the goddamn hall, Bones."

"Should you repeat your actions and time resets itself once more, it would be sufficient to prove the theory," Spock offers, hands clasped behind his back as he cants his head in thought. "It would then be a matter of determining what combination of events allow time to naturally progress."

"It's three months until the damn cure, okay?" he snaps, feeling at the edge of a frayed rope. He can barely keep himself together, but he's got three people to answer to and no one understands because he's never told anyone this. Jocelyn knows and it had been the last nail in the coffin. There's no reason to actually go around talking about it. "You think I really want you three watching my father beg me to end his life? You think I want you to watch me do it over and over again? That cannot be why I'm back here, I goddamn refuse to let that be the reason."

She blinked and rocked back on her heels fractionally, not exactly surprised by the revelation or the manner of it but by McCoy's actions in trying to 'fix' it. Three months. Three months of pain and suffering for his father, already an old man, already at peace, aware of his own wishes. And McCoy so wrapped up in his own wishes that he couldn't see what was right in front of him.

Not that she could blame him. Given the choice between holding on to her own father and letting him go, Uhura probably would have chosen to hold on tooth and nail. But then, hers had been very different circumstances.

She shook her head, just a slight movement, in lieu of an immediate answer. "You think we want to watch you?" Uhura countered quietly. "We don't have.. any proof that this is reality. No proof that what we do here will change anything." If anything they had proof that the opposite was true, but she didn't want him to feel stupid for even trying. "We're not arguing with you to make you suffer more. We're doing it to stop the suffering."

Jim had never had a chance to hold onto his father, but he can appreciate what's happening here. He listens carefully to what Uhura and Spock have to say, but his eyes never waver from his friend's face.

"We want to help, Bones," he says. "And we can't help if we just keep dumbly going through the same damn day."

"You seem to be missing the point of our advice, Doctor," Spock calmly corrects, the corners of his mouth twitching faintly down. It would be no great surprise to him should he discover McCoy had not been listening at all. "Reliving the same events over and over is precisely the opposite of what is being suggested."

"So what do I do?" he asks, helpless and acknowledging that just maybe he isn't the sanest man in the room, nor the most objective. He presses two fingers to the bridge of his nose and presses tight, blood collecting and throbbing for just a single moment. "What the hell am I supposed to do?" he asks raggedly. "I'm not killing my father. Not again. So I didn't. I didn't and we're right back here. How do I stop that?"

"Well, maybe we try something more active," Uhura suggested, eager now to find a solution while they had the doctor's attention.

"You said they found a curse. Do you remember what it is? What it involved? Maybe we can start your father in the right direction towards healing rather than just keeping him alive."

That, at least, gives them something to latch onto. Jim is hardly in his element here - he's always been a man of action and it's so hard to know what to do for the best here. He'd do anything to help Bones.

"We have to look at the variables, right?" he says. "Change things a little at a time and see what sticks. What's going to make things...change."

"Such pointed recurrence of a specific event might suggest a moral resolution," offers Spock, but just as everything else, it is merely theory. "Has it occurred to you, Leonard, that obeying your father's wishes is the desired outcome?"

McCoy glares at Spock, mostly because it feels normal and safe and to do so makes him feel like nothing's out of the ordinary, like this is just one of their par for their course arguments about logic versus emotion and all that claptrap. "Then one of you does it," he insists, voice rough and hoarse. "One of you injects the overdose."

"Oh just stop--" she snapped, physically biting her tongue before she called McCoy a baby. Because that was what he was being: childish. Three suggestions had be made to him, and he picked the one he liked least and gave the most sullen, melodramatic answer. The most unhelpful. Like he didn't even want to try. One plan shot and no other solution would do. It was infuriating beyond all measure, knowing the lengths Uhura would have gone to herself if it were her father in that bed.

"You don't like the suggestion he made," she said, her voice low, her gaze sharp. "Fine. Pick another option. Work towards a solution. You've done it before, then you can do it again. Otherwise why are we even trying if you're not going to?"

"Uhura's got a point, Bones," says Jim, voice level and low. "Every one of us has lost a parent - I figure I'm the lucky one because I don't remember, but it looks like we're going to have to keep living this until..."

He scowls. He doesn't know until what, which is frustating and put s knot in his chest that's hard to shift.

"It's clearly about you, Bones."

On occasion, Jim Kirk proves to be much more apt than Spock generally gives him credit for. Spock has little to say regarding the highly personal nature of the events they find themselves entrenched in and no desire to bond with McCoy or anyone else over parental death, but the fact remains that none of them are unaware.

Having offered several options and therefore said his peace, he simply fastens his hands at the small of his back and regards McCoy with an expectantly arched eyebrow.

McCoy takes a deep breath and looks at the three of them in turns, but it's at Spock that his gaze lingers, a thought finally taking residence and he latched onto it, giving a nod. "Spock," he says, as if it's more of a conversation starter and less of anything else. "Spock can help with the cure. I only know bits and pieces, I avoided the thing like a goddamn plague. It taunted me, what with showing up so closely after I ended things."

"Good!" Uhura said, jumping on the first positive opportunity they had. It wouldn't have been her first choice, having this McCoy and Spock work together on something like this, but it was the most logical. You had to give it that.

"Maybe if you two work together, we can figure this thing out." She didn't bother asking what she was supposed to do in the meanwhile, or even Kirk. For one, she didn't especially want to give McCoy an opportunity to order her around again. For another, the suspicion still lingered that this wasn't something McCoy could fix; Uhura wanted to spend some time with the elder McCoy, if she could and he didn't mind the company.

"Exactly."

Jim folds his arms, nodding; it feels like they're making some progress, which isn't easy in this situation, but he'll take anything that he can get. It's intensely frustrating to not be able to see the way to fix this for everybody involved. He's not unaware of the amount of hubris in that.

"You and Spock work on the cure. Me and Uhura. We can stay with your Dad. Keep him company."

The corners of Spock's mouth twitch almost imperceptibly down, and he affords Jim a stony look before sliding his gaze smoothly back to McCoy. "I will certainly assist you in whatever manner is within my power," he calmly answers. Logical or not, he doesn't particularly relish the idea of being solely responsible for a Leonard McCoy proving himself to be even less sensible than normal.

"I'm going to need to try and pull it all from memory," McCoy admits, though he's left with the uneasy thought of staring at Jim and Uhura, not knowing how he feels about the two of them staying with his father. "Just..." he takes a deep breath and calms himself down. "Whatever he says," he finally gets out. "Please take it with a grain of salt."

An eyebrow twitched upwards, but she pursed her lips and held back whatever comment she might have been thinking of. They had McCoy on task; they were taking productive steps. She wasn't going to ruin that by riling him.

"We'll just sit with him a while," she reassured him after recovering herself in two seconds. "Keep him company, that's all."

If a dying man couldn't have his wish, he could at least spend his hours pleasantly. And that's what Uhura and Jim were: pleasant company.

He reaches out and claps Bones on the shoulder, eyes fixed on his face for a long moment.

"We'll keep him company," he says, squeezing Bones shoulder. "In a while, I'll come take over from Spock. We can do this, Bones. Between us."

That has to be why it's all four of them.
That has to be why it's not Bones on his own against this.

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[Timeloop Day 2]

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