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S1E5: The Enemy Within, Stardate 1672.1
Jul. 31st, 2010 08:09 amAnother day, another mess to clean up. McCoy is beginning to hate the words 'Routine Geological Survey' - every time they are used, something goes wrong. Kirk has been giving him grief for it, but this time he's going to be prepared, damn it. All medical teams on standby, all of the emergency supplies primed, he is not going to be caught flat-footed.
And nothing happens. Well, a small something - one of the technicians, Fisher, slices his hand open on a pile of rocks, and wanders into the sickbay looking woebegone in his fresh jumper, still damp from the decontamination. He teases the boy as he sets the hand to rights, and is rather proud of himself that he got a laugh in the end. He'd just gotten Fisher back in one functional piece when the captain strolls in. Nothing unusual about that, in itself - for a man who hates physicals, Kirk spends more time in sickbay than any other captain he's met. But it doesn't take a doctor to realize that Kirk is decidedly on edge today.
And then he asks for brandy? In front of a crewmember? Sure, Kirk knows about his stash, but he's never known the man to openly drink in front of the crew - doesn't want to set a bad example. He takes the hint, and sends Fisher on his way... and that's odd as well. Fisher, poor boy, tells Kirk he's better again, and McCoy expects a flash of the vaunted Kirk charm. Even half dead Kirk is more charismatic than most senior officers in Star Fleet. Instead, McCoy worries for a moment that the boy's going to get his head beat in.
All is not well here, and McCoy isn't about to just let it stand.
"What's goin' on, Jim?" He asks, gently, easing up alongside his captain. It's more the shock of Kirk's hand suddenly gripping the back of his neck in a vice-like hold that makes his knees buckle than the actual pain itself. There's another growled demand for brandy, and this time, Bones doesn't try and talk him out of it, opening the liquor cabinet instead and handing over the bottle without a word. Kirk glares at him, a ferocious glare he refuses to let himself shy away from, and releases him with a shake he's fairly sure he'll feel tomorrow.
This, he says to himself as Kirk strides out of the sickbay, is all kinds of not good. He'd better go find Spock.
_________________________________________________________________________
He finds the Vulcan in one of the science labs, hip-deep in some analysis of the planet below.
"Spock, you wouldn't've by chance seen the captain around today?" He asks as he perches on the edge of one of the work tables, and if he's truly honest with himself, he'll admit that he drawled that a little more than necessary. Oh well. He gets a raised eyebrow in return, and a very dry version of 'well of course not, and I'm working here, so buzz off'. But McCoy is made of sterner stuff than that, and starts in on cajoling Spock into going and checking on Kirk. If the captain's in a violent mood for some reason, he trusts Spock to best identify and control it - not only is he very good at picking out details, he's built to take on much stronger foes than one (by now, very) inebriated captain. Once he's made his point clear, he heads back to sickbay with a clearer conscience. Hopefully he won't have Kirk confined there any time soon. The last thing this ship needs is a crisis of faith about her captain.
___________________________________________________________________________
"Doctor McCoy!" There's a particular tone of voice that will, he's sure, rouse him from just about anything including being near-dead, and that's the one right there. He was finishing his case notes for the day when one of the newer Security officers, McKinley if he remember right, stumbles through the door to sickbay with Yeoman Rand, an unconscious Technician Fisher between them. The hell? He multitasks, pinning McKinley down with a slew of questions as he gets Fisher set up on one of the beds, making sure that he's merely unconscious from the blow he took rather than anything more acutely serious. Whoever threw that punch is going to be seriously hurting - Fisher's jaw has been fractured, and requires re-setting. He doesn't get much from McKinley - the boy responded to a security call and had found the Yeoman and Fisher - Fisher unconscious, and Rand...
Rand becomes his next priority, and he has a rough time even getting her to settle down enough to make sure she isn't seriously hurt. The way she flinches every time he gets near enrages him on her behalf. He shoos McKinley out, hoping that with less potential threats she'll relax a bit, and he won't have to resort to drugging her down for her own good. It's a very near thing in the end, but he's damned glad he doesn't have to when he gets the story.
Kirk.
Kirk in her quarters.
Kirk attempting to... no. It's unfathomable. If there's one person he trusts on this ship, it's the captain.
But she's sure as hell not lying - the bruises tell the story clear enough. And while technically it's his job to call the captain out on this, he calls Spock instead, too incandescently furious to reasonably talk to the man accused of nearly raping the poor Yeoman.
____________________________________________________________________
Kirk arrives soon after, Spock a half-step behind him. The captain has the gall to look wounded when McCoy rounds on him with a glare. Thankfully by that point he'd gotten a low dose of sedatives into Rand, which keeps her from running screaming from the room when Kirk appears. He wouldn't have blamed her. Most likely, he would have run interference to keep Kirk from following. But despite everything Kirk is still captain, and if he demands a report, well. He admires Rand for being able to at least somewhat calmly tell them what happened.
But the stories don't match up. She says she scratched him (and she did, there was blood under her nails when she came in) but there isn't a mark on Kirk's face. He hates the doubt that steals over her face, and he's about to throw both of his superior officers out on their ears for upsetting her again when Fisher decides to wake up and accuse the captain to his face. Considering the shock he'd just gotten earlier today at the captain's hands, he hustles to protect his stubborn ass of a patient, shooing Fisher back to bed and out of reach of the captain. By the time he gets back, Spock has settled on his pet theory - there's an impostor on board ship.
There'd better be, or he's neutering Kirk himself. Without analgesics.
____________________________________________________________________
The general alerts have everyone ramped up, twitchy as a herd of long-tailed cats in a rocking chair factory. Everyone wants to catch the fake Kirk, but no one particularly wants to meet him alone, showing a healthy sense of self-preservation that McCoy was beginning to worry was missing from this crew. Spock seems to be sticking close to Kirk, which is for the best - any other reports they get of captainly misbehavior can be put to the impostor, and perhaps the crew can keep some if its faith in its captain.
He ended up having to sedate Yeoman Rand into sleep - the stress of openly confronting her captain, on top of the assault, is playing merry havoc with her mental health. She's going to need therapy, and if he has to transfer out two Yeomen when they next reach base, this ship is going to earn a nasty reputation. His mood is not much improved as he tries to complete the day's paperwork - Yeoman Rand's file is on top of the list, and detailing her injuries and the attack just make him angrier.
And then, just to top it all off, to make his day truly complete, Spock, Kirk, and Kirk walk through the door. To be more precise, Spock and Kirk, supporting a completely unconscious Kirk between them, come through the door - and the unconscious one has scratches on his face, poorly concealed. As he had done to Sulu not too long ago, McCoy backs up Spock's special brand of restraint with a sedative cocktail that would take the starch out of an angry elephant. The beds in sickbay are filling up faster than he'd like, but there's precious little he can do about it now - Fisher, Rand, now the duplicate Kirk - he has to keep them all down until this mess can be sorted out. For now, Sickbay has become Spock and Kirk's unofficial headquarters for working their way out of this mess. McCoy checks on them every once in a while, but neither Kirk nor Spock seem to be needing immediate medical attention.
The fake Kirk (or whatever he's supposed to be, all of his life signs and biometric signals match Kirk, all the way down to the DNA) becomes restless long before he expected him to - not a good sign when the one person you really want unconscious seems to be skilled at not staying there. He suggests restraints to the captain - asking is more of a formality than anything else, really, he does not want that fake Kirk awake and mobile anywhere near Rand and Fisher. He's deeply taken aback, however, by Kirk's... very lackadaisical, confused answer. It's so very unKirklike he momentarily wonders if he has the right captain sedated.
But no. This Kirk, at least, hasn't tried to rape anyone recently. He goes to restrain his patient turned captive, and leaves the job of straightening the free Kirk to Spock. This, however, almost turns into a disaster - Spock is about as nuanced as a phaser set to kill, and can't seem to see that if he's right, if the 'evil' side of a man, under control, is what gives a man his backbone... pointing that out so bluntly is not going to exactly shore up the confidence of the captain who has been separated from that side. He tries to shout Spock down, if only to focus Spock on him instead of nattering on with his theory to an obviously distressed Kirk, but it's only Scotty's thankfully timely call that puts an end to that emotional trainwreak.
Of course, the news it brings could be better. A week before those thrice-damned machines are fixed. He told them it's no good using transporters. There's just something unnatural about the whole business.
And what is he supposed to do with a man who cannot be sedated for a whole week?
______________________________________________________________________________
Rand and Fisher are long gone, but his least pleasant patient seems to be in for the long haul. He's just finishing out Fisher's file when he hears screams from the Sickbay - bloodcurdling, heartwrenching screams. As he races out of his office in a mad scramble, visions of the man who both is and is not the captain wreaking new havoc on the crew flash through his mind, and he wonders how the hell the restrains have failed.
They haven't.
The captain who isn't captain is still tied firmly to the bed, but he is arched as far as he can, screaming in agony. The monitors are fluttering unhappily as well - elevated blood pressure, heart rate, pain is off the charts... and the truth smacks him upside the head. Half of a man cannot function as well as a whole one. That damned transporter didn't just split the personalities, it divvied up the body's response capabilities as well. Even as he's berating himself for being ten kinds of fool he tries to reverse the damage with medication, but to only limited effect.
Kirk is dying. At least half of him is, anyway. He sends an emergency message to the other half, not sure what good that will do but at least then he can properly update the man on his own status.
He's as surprised as anyone that simple touch seems to reconcile the two halves, bringing the 'evil' Kirk down into normal physiological ranges. For a moment the other half seems stronger as well, more assertive than he's seen in the last couple days. After that stress, he's more than ready for a drink, and heads off to break into his stash.
He comes back to find the 'good' side of his friend one step away from a full psychological meltdown. If it isn't one thing, it's some other damned thing, and once again he's vaguely jealous of his fellow CMOs - if he searched, he's fairly sure he's not going to find a case study like this one is going to turn out to be. So he talks fast and sure, making sure he has his friend's full attention.
"Jim. You're no different than anyone else - we all have our darker side, we need it! It's half of what we are. It's not really ugly, it's human!"
"Human?" Kirk's voice is entirely too vague for his liking, but at least the man's talking.
"Yes, human! A lot of what he is makes you the man you are. God forbid I should have to agree with Spock, but he was right. Without the negative side you wouldn't be the captain, you couldn't be, and you know it. Your strength of command lies mostly in him."
"What do I have?" It's plaintive, but at least there's some sort of active processing going on in that head of his.
"You have the goodness."
"Not enough." That's more like it! That has the snap of Kirk in his Captain mode, or at least a shadow of it. "I have a ship to command."
"The intelligence, the logic," he plows on, insistently, persuasively. "It appears your half has most of that... and perhaps that's where man's essential courage comes from. For you see, he was afraid. And you... weren't."
__________________________________________________________________________
Kirk is called away soon afterward, leaving McCoy alone with the half of Kirk who stares at him with wide, fearful eyes. He wishes he could talk down this half too, but all attempts are met with either a blank expression or snarled tirades, and McCoy hasn't the patience for either. Thankfully, Spock sends him a message a few minutes later - they're going to try and re-integrate the Transalian dog, he should get himself up to the Transporter Room to help verify the results of the experiment. Scotty, he decides as he heads out the door, after giving strict orders to the staff to not go near the 'fake' Kirk, is a God-damned genius.
He strides into the Transporter Room, hearing the familiar and hated whine of the horrid machine in use, one of the pads lit up with that eerie glow. Soon, the dog re-appears on the pad, but it's hardly a reassuring sight - his heart lurches when he realizes the creature isn't breathing. Both he and Spock cautiously approach it - who the hell knows what's going to happen, transporters weren't built for putting people back together (though theoretically it isn't built for splitting them apart either). A few seconds later, it's confirmed, and he sits back on his heels to stare solemnly at his troubled captain.
"He's dead, Jim."
______________________________________________________________________
He takes the poor remains of the creature back to sickbay, performing a more through exam there, which turns out to be about as useless as the more perfunctory one back in the Transporter Room. He cannot figure out what killed it - shock is an easy term to use, since most death is the result of shock, though the underlying cause of that can be stupefyingly wide-ranging.
Spock, of course, seems stubbornly clear on what killed the creature - too much emotion McCoy lets himself be goaded into an argument, taking the safe road - they need to know what killed that creature before they subject Kirk to the same treatment! It's heartbreaking when Kirk, the man he knows always has some sort of plan brewing in the back of his mind, looks at the pair of them and begs for them to make the decision for him. Finally, an unsettled truce is called - Spock is going to set up that damn transporter, and he sets to work on the fastest autopsy he's ever performed.
_____________________________________________________________________
Not fast enough. He hears a crash from the other room when he's elbow-deep in dead dog guts, and in the time it takes for him to strip off his gloves and gown, there's evidently time for the number of Kirks staying in his Sickbay to dwindle to one - and it's not the one he'd want stuck in Sickbay, he rapidly discovers. That slightly unfocused gaze is a trait he's not seen in the more animalistic half of the captain.
He has to bully Kirk back to his feet, and debates calling the bridge... but no, that would cause a panic. Better to haul Jim up there first, and enlist Spock's help in person. He has to practically force-march Kirk to the turbolift, the man is so confused. He's glad he's done it once they reach the bridge - there's the other Kirk, glaring at them from the captain's chair. The security crew reacts as they've been taught, and well, but they're good boys, and have learned that sharp rebuke from him is not worth the trouble they'd get in crossing. Watching the two captains confront each other is one of the single most bizarre experiences in his life, and he's already racked up some doozies. There's going to be a need for crew reconciliation after this special trip into lunacy - news of this is going to spread like wildfire, and the crew will need to be reassured before they can fully trust their captain again. They'll do it - if Kirk can be restored to himself, the crew will follow him into hell and back again.
__________________________________________________________________
Two Kirks on the transporter pad, and he wants to protest, wants to drag them off of there and drag them back down to Sickbay until he can be damn sure that dog didn't die of something more complicated than 'too much emotion'. But he knows they've run out of time - if something isn't done fast, it won't matter if they get Kirk back in one piece again. The crew will lose faith if their comrades below die, and Kirk will lose his command, which will kill him just as surely as that transporter beam might. So he stands aside as they go forward, Spock manning (vulcaning?) the controls himself. There's a pause that nearly breaks him between dematerialization and the return, but when Kirk shimmers back into view, there's only one of him. One of him, and he's standing, not screaming, not gasping for air.
For a long moment, he and Spock stare at Kirk, who stares back at them, and not a word is said.
The snap of command and the breezy confidence of Kirk's first order makes him grin like an everloving fool. Well Goddamn if they haven't done it, despite everything. Kirk is, of course, going to be spending the next couple hours in Sickbay, but that isn't a bad thing at all. Not one little bit.
________________________________________________________________
The nearly-abandoned away team is safely pulled back up from the planet's surface, and surprisingly there doesn't appear to be any long-term damage on initial exam - sure, they're half-frozen, and they're not going to have a pleasant time of it while they come back up to normal temperature, but with any luck at all, he will only have to do minor reconstructive surgery on the worst cases. Through the whole process, Kirk seems his old self again - reassuring the crewmates that are awake, having to be shooed away from the unconscious ones - the man seems to think his personal presence will help where medicine is needed... who the hell knows. Maybe he's right. Not that he'll ever tell him so.
Kirk and he head down to Sickbay, following the stretchers, and again he can't help but grin - he has his friend back, and that makes it worth all the trouble that's gone before.
And nothing happens. Well, a small something - one of the technicians, Fisher, slices his hand open on a pile of rocks, and wanders into the sickbay looking woebegone in his fresh jumper, still damp from the decontamination. He teases the boy as he sets the hand to rights, and is rather proud of himself that he got a laugh in the end. He'd just gotten Fisher back in one functional piece when the captain strolls in. Nothing unusual about that, in itself - for a man who hates physicals, Kirk spends more time in sickbay than any other captain he's met. But it doesn't take a doctor to realize that Kirk is decidedly on edge today.
And then he asks for brandy? In front of a crewmember? Sure, Kirk knows about his stash, but he's never known the man to openly drink in front of the crew - doesn't want to set a bad example. He takes the hint, and sends Fisher on his way... and that's odd as well. Fisher, poor boy, tells Kirk he's better again, and McCoy expects a flash of the vaunted Kirk charm. Even half dead Kirk is more charismatic than most senior officers in Star Fleet. Instead, McCoy worries for a moment that the boy's going to get his head beat in.
All is not well here, and McCoy isn't about to just let it stand.
"What's goin' on, Jim?" He asks, gently, easing up alongside his captain. It's more the shock of Kirk's hand suddenly gripping the back of his neck in a vice-like hold that makes his knees buckle than the actual pain itself. There's another growled demand for brandy, and this time, Bones doesn't try and talk him out of it, opening the liquor cabinet instead and handing over the bottle without a word. Kirk glares at him, a ferocious glare he refuses to let himself shy away from, and releases him with a shake he's fairly sure he'll feel tomorrow.
This, he says to himself as Kirk strides out of the sickbay, is all kinds of not good. He'd better go find Spock.
_________________________________________________________________________
He finds the Vulcan in one of the science labs, hip-deep in some analysis of the planet below.
"Spock, you wouldn't've by chance seen the captain around today?" He asks as he perches on the edge of one of the work tables, and if he's truly honest with himself, he'll admit that he drawled that a little more than necessary. Oh well. He gets a raised eyebrow in return, and a very dry version of 'well of course not, and I'm working here, so buzz off'. But McCoy is made of sterner stuff than that, and starts in on cajoling Spock into going and checking on Kirk. If the captain's in a violent mood for some reason, he trusts Spock to best identify and control it - not only is he very good at picking out details, he's built to take on much stronger foes than one (by now, very) inebriated captain. Once he's made his point clear, he heads back to sickbay with a clearer conscience. Hopefully he won't have Kirk confined there any time soon. The last thing this ship needs is a crisis of faith about her captain.
___________________________________________________________________________
"Doctor McCoy!" There's a particular tone of voice that will, he's sure, rouse him from just about anything including being near-dead, and that's the one right there. He was finishing his case notes for the day when one of the newer Security officers, McKinley if he remember right, stumbles through the door to sickbay with Yeoman Rand, an unconscious Technician Fisher between them. The hell? He multitasks, pinning McKinley down with a slew of questions as he gets Fisher set up on one of the beds, making sure that he's merely unconscious from the blow he took rather than anything more acutely serious. Whoever threw that punch is going to be seriously hurting - Fisher's jaw has been fractured, and requires re-setting. He doesn't get much from McKinley - the boy responded to a security call and had found the Yeoman and Fisher - Fisher unconscious, and Rand...
Rand becomes his next priority, and he has a rough time even getting her to settle down enough to make sure she isn't seriously hurt. The way she flinches every time he gets near enrages him on her behalf. He shoos McKinley out, hoping that with less potential threats she'll relax a bit, and he won't have to resort to drugging her down for her own good. It's a very near thing in the end, but he's damned glad he doesn't have to when he gets the story.
Kirk.
Kirk in her quarters.
Kirk attempting to... no. It's unfathomable. If there's one person he trusts on this ship, it's the captain.
But she's sure as hell not lying - the bruises tell the story clear enough. And while technically it's his job to call the captain out on this, he calls Spock instead, too incandescently furious to reasonably talk to the man accused of nearly raping the poor Yeoman.
____________________________________________________________________
Kirk arrives soon after, Spock a half-step behind him. The captain has the gall to look wounded when McCoy rounds on him with a glare. Thankfully by that point he'd gotten a low dose of sedatives into Rand, which keeps her from running screaming from the room when Kirk appears. He wouldn't have blamed her. Most likely, he would have run interference to keep Kirk from following. But despite everything Kirk is still captain, and if he demands a report, well. He admires Rand for being able to at least somewhat calmly tell them what happened.
But the stories don't match up. She says she scratched him (and she did, there was blood under her nails when she came in) but there isn't a mark on Kirk's face. He hates the doubt that steals over her face, and he's about to throw both of his superior officers out on their ears for upsetting her again when Fisher decides to wake up and accuse the captain to his face. Considering the shock he'd just gotten earlier today at the captain's hands, he hustles to protect his stubborn ass of a patient, shooing Fisher back to bed and out of reach of the captain. By the time he gets back, Spock has settled on his pet theory - there's an impostor on board ship.
There'd better be, or he's neutering Kirk himself. Without analgesics.
____________________________________________________________________
The general alerts have everyone ramped up, twitchy as a herd of long-tailed cats in a rocking chair factory. Everyone wants to catch the fake Kirk, but no one particularly wants to meet him alone, showing a healthy sense of self-preservation that McCoy was beginning to worry was missing from this crew. Spock seems to be sticking close to Kirk, which is for the best - any other reports they get of captainly misbehavior can be put to the impostor, and perhaps the crew can keep some if its faith in its captain.
He ended up having to sedate Yeoman Rand into sleep - the stress of openly confronting her captain, on top of the assault, is playing merry havoc with her mental health. She's going to need therapy, and if he has to transfer out two Yeomen when they next reach base, this ship is going to earn a nasty reputation. His mood is not much improved as he tries to complete the day's paperwork - Yeoman Rand's file is on top of the list, and detailing her injuries and the attack just make him angrier.
And then, just to top it all off, to make his day truly complete, Spock, Kirk, and Kirk walk through the door. To be more precise, Spock and Kirk, supporting a completely unconscious Kirk between them, come through the door - and the unconscious one has scratches on his face, poorly concealed. As he had done to Sulu not too long ago, McCoy backs up Spock's special brand of restraint with a sedative cocktail that would take the starch out of an angry elephant. The beds in sickbay are filling up faster than he'd like, but there's precious little he can do about it now - Fisher, Rand, now the duplicate Kirk - he has to keep them all down until this mess can be sorted out. For now, Sickbay has become Spock and Kirk's unofficial headquarters for working their way out of this mess. McCoy checks on them every once in a while, but neither Kirk nor Spock seem to be needing immediate medical attention.
The fake Kirk (or whatever he's supposed to be, all of his life signs and biometric signals match Kirk, all the way down to the DNA) becomes restless long before he expected him to - not a good sign when the one person you really want unconscious seems to be skilled at not staying there. He suggests restraints to the captain - asking is more of a formality than anything else, really, he does not want that fake Kirk awake and mobile anywhere near Rand and Fisher. He's deeply taken aback, however, by Kirk's... very lackadaisical, confused answer. It's so very unKirklike he momentarily wonders if he has the right captain sedated.
But no. This Kirk, at least, hasn't tried to rape anyone recently. He goes to restrain his patient turned captive, and leaves the job of straightening the free Kirk to Spock. This, however, almost turns into a disaster - Spock is about as nuanced as a phaser set to kill, and can't seem to see that if he's right, if the 'evil' side of a man, under control, is what gives a man his backbone... pointing that out so bluntly is not going to exactly shore up the confidence of the captain who has been separated from that side. He tries to shout Spock down, if only to focus Spock on him instead of nattering on with his theory to an obviously distressed Kirk, but it's only Scotty's thankfully timely call that puts an end to that emotional trainwreak.
Of course, the news it brings could be better. A week before those thrice-damned machines are fixed. He told them it's no good using transporters. There's just something unnatural about the whole business.
And what is he supposed to do with a man who cannot be sedated for a whole week?
______________________________________________________________________________
Rand and Fisher are long gone, but his least pleasant patient seems to be in for the long haul. He's just finishing out Fisher's file when he hears screams from the Sickbay - bloodcurdling, heartwrenching screams. As he races out of his office in a mad scramble, visions of the man who both is and is not the captain wreaking new havoc on the crew flash through his mind, and he wonders how the hell the restrains have failed.
They haven't.
The captain who isn't captain is still tied firmly to the bed, but he is arched as far as he can, screaming in agony. The monitors are fluttering unhappily as well - elevated blood pressure, heart rate, pain is off the charts... and the truth smacks him upside the head. Half of a man cannot function as well as a whole one. That damned transporter didn't just split the personalities, it divvied up the body's response capabilities as well. Even as he's berating himself for being ten kinds of fool he tries to reverse the damage with medication, but to only limited effect.
Kirk is dying. At least half of him is, anyway. He sends an emergency message to the other half, not sure what good that will do but at least then he can properly update the man on his own status.
He's as surprised as anyone that simple touch seems to reconcile the two halves, bringing the 'evil' Kirk down into normal physiological ranges. For a moment the other half seems stronger as well, more assertive than he's seen in the last couple days. After that stress, he's more than ready for a drink, and heads off to break into his stash.
He comes back to find the 'good' side of his friend one step away from a full psychological meltdown. If it isn't one thing, it's some other damned thing, and once again he's vaguely jealous of his fellow CMOs - if he searched, he's fairly sure he's not going to find a case study like this one is going to turn out to be. So he talks fast and sure, making sure he has his friend's full attention.
"Jim. You're no different than anyone else - we all have our darker side, we need it! It's half of what we are. It's not really ugly, it's human!"
"Human?" Kirk's voice is entirely too vague for his liking, but at least the man's talking.
"Yes, human! A lot of what he is makes you the man you are. God forbid I should have to agree with Spock, but he was right. Without the negative side you wouldn't be the captain, you couldn't be, and you know it. Your strength of command lies mostly in him."
"What do I have?" It's plaintive, but at least there's some sort of active processing going on in that head of his.
"You have the goodness."
"Not enough." That's more like it! That has the snap of Kirk in his Captain mode, or at least a shadow of it. "I have a ship to command."
"The intelligence, the logic," he plows on, insistently, persuasively. "It appears your half has most of that... and perhaps that's where man's essential courage comes from. For you see, he was afraid. And you... weren't."
__________________________________________________________________________
Kirk is called away soon afterward, leaving McCoy alone with the half of Kirk who stares at him with wide, fearful eyes. He wishes he could talk down this half too, but all attempts are met with either a blank expression or snarled tirades, and McCoy hasn't the patience for either. Thankfully, Spock sends him a message a few minutes later - they're going to try and re-integrate the Transalian dog, he should get himself up to the Transporter Room to help verify the results of the experiment. Scotty, he decides as he heads out the door, after giving strict orders to the staff to not go near the 'fake' Kirk, is a God-damned genius.
He strides into the Transporter Room, hearing the familiar and hated whine of the horrid machine in use, one of the pads lit up with that eerie glow. Soon, the dog re-appears on the pad, but it's hardly a reassuring sight - his heart lurches when he realizes the creature isn't breathing. Both he and Spock cautiously approach it - who the hell knows what's going to happen, transporters weren't built for putting people back together (though theoretically it isn't built for splitting them apart either). A few seconds later, it's confirmed, and he sits back on his heels to stare solemnly at his troubled captain.
"He's dead, Jim."
______________________________________________________________________
He takes the poor remains of the creature back to sickbay, performing a more through exam there, which turns out to be about as useless as the more perfunctory one back in the Transporter Room. He cannot figure out what killed it - shock is an easy term to use, since most death is the result of shock, though the underlying cause of that can be stupefyingly wide-ranging.
Spock, of course, seems stubbornly clear on what killed the creature - too much emotion McCoy lets himself be goaded into an argument, taking the safe road - they need to know what killed that creature before they subject Kirk to the same treatment! It's heartbreaking when Kirk, the man he knows always has some sort of plan brewing in the back of his mind, looks at the pair of them and begs for them to make the decision for him. Finally, an unsettled truce is called - Spock is going to set up that damn transporter, and he sets to work on the fastest autopsy he's ever performed.
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Not fast enough. He hears a crash from the other room when he's elbow-deep in dead dog guts, and in the time it takes for him to strip off his gloves and gown, there's evidently time for the number of Kirks staying in his Sickbay to dwindle to one - and it's not the one he'd want stuck in Sickbay, he rapidly discovers. That slightly unfocused gaze is a trait he's not seen in the more animalistic half of the captain.
He has to bully Kirk back to his feet, and debates calling the bridge... but no, that would cause a panic. Better to haul Jim up there first, and enlist Spock's help in person. He has to practically force-march Kirk to the turbolift, the man is so confused. He's glad he's done it once they reach the bridge - there's the other Kirk, glaring at them from the captain's chair. The security crew reacts as they've been taught, and well, but they're good boys, and have learned that sharp rebuke from him is not worth the trouble they'd get in crossing. Watching the two captains confront each other is one of the single most bizarre experiences in his life, and he's already racked up some doozies. There's going to be a need for crew reconciliation after this special trip into lunacy - news of this is going to spread like wildfire, and the crew will need to be reassured before they can fully trust their captain again. They'll do it - if Kirk can be restored to himself, the crew will follow him into hell and back again.
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Two Kirks on the transporter pad, and he wants to protest, wants to drag them off of there and drag them back down to Sickbay until he can be damn sure that dog didn't die of something more complicated than 'too much emotion'. But he knows they've run out of time - if something isn't done fast, it won't matter if they get Kirk back in one piece again. The crew will lose faith if their comrades below die, and Kirk will lose his command, which will kill him just as surely as that transporter beam might. So he stands aside as they go forward, Spock manning (vulcaning?) the controls himself. There's a pause that nearly breaks him between dematerialization and the return, but when Kirk shimmers back into view, there's only one of him. One of him, and he's standing, not screaming, not gasping for air.
For a long moment, he and Spock stare at Kirk, who stares back at them, and not a word is said.
The snap of command and the breezy confidence of Kirk's first order makes him grin like an everloving fool. Well Goddamn if they haven't done it, despite everything. Kirk is, of course, going to be spending the next couple hours in Sickbay, but that isn't a bad thing at all. Not one little bit.
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The nearly-abandoned away team is safely pulled back up from the planet's surface, and surprisingly there doesn't appear to be any long-term damage on initial exam - sure, they're half-frozen, and they're not going to have a pleasant time of it while they come back up to normal temperature, but with any luck at all, he will only have to do minor reconstructive surgery on the worst cases. Through the whole process, Kirk seems his old self again - reassuring the crewmates that are awake, having to be shooed away from the unconscious ones - the man seems to think his personal presence will help where medicine is needed... who the hell knows. Maybe he's right. Not that he'll ever tell him so.
Kirk and he head down to Sickbay, following the stretchers, and again he can't help but grin - he has his friend back, and that makes it worth all the trouble that's gone before.
