Dr. Leonard McCoy

They've been through this goddamn day three times now and each time, neither he nor Spock have been able to get closer to a cure and every single goddamn fucking day he's woken up by his father's bedside and heard the pleas to end his life and he can't take much more of it. Hell, his mind's not even half there as he stares at the scribblings of a formula on the page in front of him.

He shoves his hands over the papers, swiping them off the desk and letting out a sharp curse as he stares at the compounds and chemicals they have. "None of it makes any sense," he says hoarsely, voice nearly shot from the yelling. "Damn it," he hisses.

He can't take another day of waking up to fail. He cannot take another morning of waking up and seeing the despair in his father's eyes and not being able to do anything about it. He's fidgeting relentlessly and desperately, at wit's end, and he can barely think anymore.

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.