Title:  Life . . . Death . . . Life. .  . Love?      Part One

Author:  Shoshana

Summary:   On board the Bounty (The Voyage Home)         

    McCoy asks Spock what it is like to die, prompting

    unexpected memories.  Prose sequel to the fal-tor-pan

    poem Through a Glass, Darkly (Spiced Peaches XXVI).

Rating:  PG-13     

Pairing:  S/Mc    Includes brief mention of McCoy’s

     canonical relationships with various women, and brief

    reference to a possible past male partner of Spock’s.

Word count (Part One):  3900 

Disclaimer:   Brief dialogue quoted/adapted in Part One from

    Star Trek IV:  The Voyage Home, screenplay by Steve

    Meerson, Peter Krikes, Harve Bennett, Nicholas Meyer. 

    I do not own Star Trek.  Not a  molecule, atom, quark or

    vibrating string of it.

Thanks to Stef for consult on part of this, a long time back. 

    Errors are my own.

I must remember that you love me

Remember  . . . .   

          -  Spock

             Through a Glass, Darkly  (Canto II)             

, I’m receiving numerous distress calls.

Leonard McCoy leaned against the bulkhead of the Klingon ship he had named the Bounty.  His brow furrowed with concern as he looked across the bridge at Spock, sitting at his station. 

In opposition to almost everyone else – Jim, his other old crewmates from the Enterprise, even Amanda – McCoy had disapproved of Spock returning to Earth.  Only the Vulcan Healer T’Vroon had echoed McCoy’s objections.    

“Spock is not ready to leave Vulcan,” she had said.  Born in the eastern continent, T’Vroon was as dark-skinned as Uhura, and in her austere way, as lovely.  “The memory recovery treatment is incomplete.  Thirty-seven days is insufficient.”

Thirty-seven days to regain a lifetime’s worth of memories.  Not that anyone, T’Vroon included, knew how long it would really take, if ever.  The fal-tor-pan had not been performed time out of mind.  

Spock had been tutored in Vulcan culture – the ideal of logic, the stern discipline of emotional control, the philosophy of infinite diversity in infinite combinations.  He had been immersed in instruction in numerous fields of knowledge.  He had been given a thorough review of his early life on Vulcan, and (to the frustration of McCoy and Jim) a rather more cursory one of his years in Star Fleet. 

The “new” Spock had readily assimilated lost intellectual knowledge.   Self- knowledge and normal social interaction had evaded him.  McCoy had long since come to realize that some Vulcans, not those who simply repressed their emotions in the Freudian sense of denying their very existence, or who merely became adroit at hiding them, but those who, instead, sought to understand emotion in the ongoing quest to master it, actually

had very high emotional intelligence, albeit manifesting it very

differently than would a human.  Not surprisingly, the best Healers were characterized by high emotional intelligence.  “In war, it is advantageous to understand one’s opponent well,” T’Vroon had told McCoy.  “And when the opponent is defeated, more difficult

to govern perfectly than to annihilate completely.”  The implied criticism of the kolinahr discipline surprised McCoy less than

the militaristic metaphor, coming as it did from a member of a pacifist race.

In recent years, since walking away from (privately, McCoy thought of it as recuperating from) his kolinahr training, Spock had exhibited deep emotional intelligence.  To McCoy’s sorrow, he was no longer certain Spock had an emotional life.  

Yawning gaps remained in Spock’s personal memory.  Beyond the names of his six crewmembers, he remembered next to nothing of his adult life.  Childlike and jarringly literal, he lacked his former subtle sense of humor; his blunted affect alternated between pedantic declarations and bewilderment.  Absent in him was not only the deep if carefully guarded humanity Jim had so memorably eulogized, but also the dignified, self-contained assurance Vulcans wore like a cloak.  Or, thought McCoy, he now wore it tattered and stained and half falling off.  

“I don’t know if you’ve got the whole picture but he isn’t exactly working on all thrusters,” McCoy had told Kirk.

“It’ll come back to him,” Kirk had replied.   

“People ought to listen to doctors,” McCoy muttered to himself. 

Sulu, sitting in the Commander’s chair, asked, “What did you say, Doc?”

“Nothing,” McCoy said.

Less than a minute earlier Jim and Scotty had left the bridge to have a quick meal.  “To fortify myself for our impending confrontation with Star Fleet brass,” the Admiral had said.  “I’d much rather have some Saurian brandy, but I think I ought to be sober when we arrive on Earth.”

Scotty had said “Aye, though I’d have preferred Scotch.   

However, the wee bit o’ food we brought along on this junk heap is better than what we’ll be getting in prison.”

“No doubt,” had been the Admiral’s curt reply.  Turning to leave, he had instructed the bridge crew, “Call me immediately if our escort shows up.  I’m surprised they haven’t sent one out already to collect the miscreants.”

McCoy wasn’t much worried about his own fate at the hands of

Star Fleet’s understandably incensed brass.  In addition to having the presumably valid excuse of having been mentally and emotionally compromised during the commission of their various and sundry crimes, he had been abducted by his former crewmates.  He was, however, worried about his friends, Jim especially.

About Spock’s legal fate, McCoy had no concerns at all.  The Vulcan’s personal and psychological fate was an entirely different matter. 

Well, Spock was along for the ride.  McCoy might as well take advantage of the fact.  He was curious about Spock’s unique experience of life after death.

As a physician, McCoy had occasionally run across resuscitated

or seriously ill patients who claimed to have had near-death

experiences.  A few had experienced the full list of sensations associated with classic NDEs; the majority experienced a limited number of those elements.

McCoy personally believed the experiences to be hallucinations – the result of biochemical processes, the last gasp, so to speak, of oxygen-deprived brain cells.  “Real” or not, the phenomenon was relatively rare.  He had experienced nothing of the sort (or didn’t remember it) while briefly dead on the Shore Leave Planet.

Spock’s experiences, of course, were without precedent.  The Vulcan had been “dead” much longer than anyone else of whom McCoy was aware.  The death of Spock’s body had seemed, at the time, straightforward.  But subsequently it had been discovered

Spock’s katra had been deposited into McCoy’s body, and later, that his body had regenerated on the experimental Genesis planet.  Katra and regenerated body had been reunited five weeks ago, in the fal-tor-pan, a Vulcan ritual which had not been performed for centuries.  What had Spock experienced, in those months between collapsing in the reactor chamber of the Enterprise and rising from a granite slab on a Vulcan mountainside?

McCoy wondered, with trepidation, if Spock had been aware of the thoughts of his katra’s host.  Spock’s voice, unintelligible though it had been “speaking” in his native Vulcan, had been clearly audible to McCoy.  It was going to be damned awkward if Spock ever remembered McCoy’s thoughts during the period McCoy had acted as lesh-t’hul-katrav.  How would he ever be able to face Spock, if the Vulcan knew McCoy was in love with him?  McCoy cringed to think what the reaction of the now socially artless

Spock might be.  He doubted the Vulcan would have the discretion to keep the information to himself.  It was yet another reason McCoy wished Spock had remained on Vulcan until he was back to normal.  Whenever that might be . . . .

McCoy walked over to Spock’s station.  “Hi. Busy?”

“Uhura is busy.”  She was trying, McCoy knew, to make sense of some unusual transmissions that had been picked up a short time ago.  “I am monitoring.”

“Perhaps we could cover a little philosophical ground,” McCoy suggested.  “Life. . . Death . . . Life.  Things of that nature.”

“I did not have time on Vulcan to review the philosophical disciplines.”

“You shouldn’t need a philosophy degree to tell me whether you were able to hear my thoughts while I held your katra!” 

“T’Vroon discouraged me from attempting to retrieve any memories I might have from that period.  She thought it would be detrimental to my retraining as a Vulcan to be exposed so directly to the thought processes of a Human.  Especially one under as much emotional stress as you were during that time.”

“It was unethical of her to discuss my case with a fellow patient,” McCoy said tightly.  He had judged T’Vroon to have better judgment.  “If I ever see her again, I’ll give her a piece of my mind.” 

McCoy had adamantly refused to allow T’Vroon to perform a mind meld on him; he was weary of having his mind invaded, especially by Vulcans.  She had, however, counseled him in the wake of the fal-tor-pan.  

Spock said, “She did not tell me.  I overheard her speaking to Drashaak.”  Drashaak was a senior Healer who had had primary responsibility for structuring Spock’s retraining, and with whom T’Vroon had consulted about both Spock and McCoy.  “She also told Drashaak you had a brilliant medical mind.  She found your mind fascinating and wished she had longer to study it.  However, a mind cannot be divided into pieces. Do you mean you wish to provide her with a sample of your brain matter?”  

McCoy groaned.  Obviously the Vulcan retraining curriculum failed to put a high priority on reviewing Standard idiomatic expressions.  “It’s a figure of speech.  It means voicing displeasure.”  McCoy returned to his original topic.  “C’mon, Spock, it’s me, McCoy.  You really have gone where no man’s gone before.  Can’t you tell me what it felt like to die?”

“It would be impossible to discuss the subject without a common frame of reference.”

“You’re joking!”

“A joke.”  Spock paused, considering.  “Is a story with a humorous climax.”

“You mean I have to die to discuss your insights on death?” McCoy asked, incredulous.  

“It would facilitate matters, assuming you were subsequently revived successfully.”

“Of course only if I was revived!”  A sly, smug expression appeared on the doctor’s face.  “Well, guess what.  I did die.  And was revived.  On the Shore Leave Planet.”

“I do not know to what you are referring.”

“You were there, it was on the five year mission.  I dropped dead on the spot when I was pierced through the heart – the black knight lanced me straight through the chest.  The Caretakers took away my body and revived me in their underground complex.  So, you first – what was it like, playing Lazarus?”  McCoy wasn’t about to reveal up front the dearth of his own insights into the afterlife.

“Pierced through the heart,” Spock repeated, in an abstracted manner.  “The black knight.”

“That’s right.”  The Vulcan looked so distrait that McCoy was concerned.  “Spock, are you OK?”

Spock did not appear to hear the question.  The Vulcan said, under his breath, “I was pierced through the heart. A lance through my wounded heart.”

“Uh, no, Spock.  You died from massive radiation exposure. Yours truly is the one who took a lance in the heart.”

Spock raised his face.  He was looking at the doctor as if he could not get McCoy into focus.  “Mine?  Truly?”

“‘Yours truly’ is a colloquialism, a figure of speech.”  McCoy pointed to the unseen spot on his chest where the black knight’s lance had impaled him years before.  “It means ‘me’.  ‘Myself’.  ‘I’.”   McCoy saw, to his alarm, a sheen of sweat on Spock’s brow.  “Are you all right?” he repeated.

“I . . . My mother told me . . . .  ”   

“What did Amanda tell you?”

“She told me that as her son, I would experience feelings. 

T’Vroon told me as well.  I knew this, but I did not understand.
Spock clutched his head in his hands.  “Feelings are surfacing within me . . . and memories.”   Obviously, the retraining program on Vulcan had failed to equip Spock to handle whatever strong emotion held him in its grasp.  McCoy was torn between elation that Spock was spontaneously recovering memories, and concern for his friend’s evident emotional distress.

“This is upsetting you,” the doctor said, clasping Spock’s shoulder. “Let’s drop it.  We can talk another time.”

“No.  I wish to remember.  I see images . . . flashes seen in blinding light, and things glimpsed briefly in near darkness.  I remember fear . . . and grief.  The sorrow of farewell.”

The plasma injectors, spewing ionized gas.   Spock’s fading vision, afterwards.  Saying goodbye, to Jim.  McCoy said, “It’s perfectly normal for a person – for a human, anyway – to be sad and frightened when facing the imminent prospect of their own death.   And as your mother pointed out, you are half human.”

Spock’s hands dropped from his face.  “The fear and sadness I am experiencing is not at the memory of my own death.”  He looked upwards at McCoy, his face anguished.  “It is your death I am remembering.”

“My death?”  McCoy released Spock’s shoulder.

“Yes, Doctor.  I . . . I think I remember being present at the incident you mentioned.  A woman is weeping, distraught, over your supine body.  Ad – Captain Kirk is there, arguing with her, or chastising her.” 

Tonia, McCoy thought to himself.  Both Jim and Tonia had described to him what had happened following his impalement,

Tonia’s outburst of grief and guilt included. 

“That’s right.  Do you remember anything else?”

Spock concentrated.  “I was mistaken.  I think you are not dead, but instead dying . . . you are injured, or ill.  Both, I believe.  I am supposed to remove something from your body . . . an implant, not a lance.  The woman  . . . she is your wife.”  Spock looked, if possible, even more stricken.  “I did not know you have a wife.”

Implant?  Wife?  Why was Spock recalling events on Yonada?

“Had a wife.  Two, actually.  I’ve been divorced twice.  You’re remembering the artificial world Yonada.  I married its high priestess, Natira, shortly after I learned I was terminally ill with xenopolycythemia.  You found the cure for it among the Fabrini records there.”

“I am glad . . . you did not die,” Spock said.  McCoy thought Spock had been about to say something else.

McCoy was stunned at what had happened.  “It’s a good sign, Spock, that you’ve had some memories come back spontaneously.” 

Still visibly agitated, Spock said, “I am remembering another incident.  The Captain and I were together . . .  in a dimly lit cavern, underground.  Your body was bloodied . . . and lying on a raised platform.”

Minara II, McCoy thought to himself.

“A woman was bending over you weeping.  She was touching you . . . healing you, I think, with her touch.  There were other people present in the cavern.  Are these the Caretakers of whom you spoke?  Is that how they healed you?”

McCoy shook his head.  “You’re remembering an incident on the planet Minara II.  You and Jim and I were held captive there by a pair of Vians.  First they tortured Jim, then they tortured me almost to death.  The woman you remember was an empath who healed some of my injuries.  The Vians healed the rest, in the end.”

For a long moment Spock was silent.  “You went willingly with the Vians, to be tortured in my place.”  His expression was haunted.  “To do so was illogical.”

“Maybe.  But you’re my friend, Spock.”  And I love you.  Which is definitely illogical.  “I did it to save you from insanity.”  Dear

God, I hope this conversation is helping your mental state more than it’s hurting. 

“Yes, you are my friend.  That is why you underwent the fal-tor-pan, rather than agreeing to have my katra placed in the Hall of Ancient Thought.” 

Helpless to ease his friend’s emotional distress, McCoy cursed himself for having precipitated it.  He fervently wished T’Vroon – or almost any Vulcan – were present, to guide Spock in techniques of emotional control   I knew he wasn’t back to normal.  What was I thinking, asking him what it’s like to die?  But McCoy had expected the retraining to have been more effective.  The only times he had known Spock’s emotions to overwhelm him for more than a few seconds had been when the Vulcan was under the influence of some external force.

“Spock, don’t worry about trying to remember anything more right now.  We can continue this another time.”

Spock reached out, clasping McCoy’s arm.  “I wish to continue accessing what memories I can at this time,” he said, insistent.  

“I remember now your death by impalement. 

“The place resembled the temperate zone of Earth, an open field with trees.”  Spock was speaking with greater assurance now.

“The black knight you spoke of was an artificial construct.  He fell from his horse when the Captain shot him.” 

McCoy nodded.  Spock was calmer now; he was no longer sweating. 

“You were lying on the ground.  A woman was kneeling over you, weeping and close to hysteria.  I think she was a crew member.  The Captain ordered her to calm down.  I cannot remember her name.”

“Ensign Tonia Barrows.”

“Ensign Barrows wore unusual clothing, a white gown and a headpiece with netting, similar to that worn by some Terran brides.”  Suddenly tentative once more, he asked, “Was – was she your other wife?”  Spock loosed McCoy’s arm.

McCoy was taken aback by the unexpected question.  “No,” he answered.  “My first wife and I divorced before I entered Star Fleet.”

To head off any awkward questions about his brief relationship with Tonia Barrows, McCoy said quickly, and with a heartiness that was partly forced, “This is a breakthrough for you, Spock!  You must have remembered Yonada and Minara II from a process of association with the Shore Leave Planet.  I didn’t die on either, but in both cases I was in pretty bad shape, from illness or injury.  On all three worlds you and Jim saw me lying prostrate, unconscious or close to it.”  McCoy didn’t point out the other obvious parallel:  and accompanied by a distraught woman. 

Spock’s demeanor had changed.  “I must remember,” the Vulcan murmured, once more abstracted and distant.  “Remember . . . . 

Spock was silent, deep in concentration.

Kirk and Scotty returned to the bridge.  Sulu relinquished his chair to the Admiral and returned to his station.

Kirk asked, “Sulu, how long to our destination?”

“Planet Earth, one point six hours present speed,” the helmsman replied. 

“Continue on course.”  

McCoy watched Spock, calm now, so still and remote that he might have been meditating.  Has he fully regained his control?  Is he accessing more memories?

Kirk was speaking again.  “Chekov, still no signs of Federation escort?”

“No sir.  And no Federation wessels on assigned patrol stations.”

“That’s odd,” the Admiral said. 

Slowly and with great deliberation, Spock spoke to McCoy.  “I am certain now that I remained sentient during the time you carried my katra.”

“I assumed that all along.  I heard your voice often enough in my head, chattering away in Vulcan.”

Sounding startling like his old self, Spock said, “Vulcans do not chatter.”  

Kirk said, “Uhura, what’s on the com channels?”

“Very active, sir,” Uhura replied.  “Multi-phasic transmissions, overlapping.  Almost a gibberish.  I’m trying to sort it out.”

Spock said, “T’Vroon instructed me not to try to remember that period.  It was more important I regain memories of my former life.  I realize now, however, there is something I need to remember from the time when you acted as lesh-t’hul-katrav on my behalf.”

Warily, McCoy asked, “Do you have any idea what?” 

“If I knew what, I would not feel the need to remember it,” Spock said.  “But it is of great importance that I do so.  I must remember

. . . .”   Spock’s voice trailed off.  

On the console a light started to blink.  Spock lifted his earpiece.

“Forgive me, Doctor. I am receiving a number of distress calls.”

“I don't doubt it,” McCoy said.

All hell, it turned out, was breaking out on Earth.

Only later, after they had traveled back in time, collected two humpback whales and a perky cetacean biologist, traveled forward in time back to their own present, saved Earth, stood trial, had their charges dismissed, seen Jim demoted, and been assigned the newly named but as yet unlaunched Enterprise-A, did McCoy have time to analyze his conversation with Spock on the bridge of the Bird of Prey.

However seldom openly acknowledged, he and Spock had been close friends even during that first mission.  When the life of one

was imperiled, the other was deeply upset.  The same had been true of Jim’s relationship with each of them.

McCoy had sensed Spock’s concern for him on Yonada and on Minara II.  It was natural that when memories of McCoy’s near brushes with death had returned to Spock that he would be flooded with strong emotions; understandable, too, that the experience would be disorienting and disturbing to a half Vulcan whose defenses against emotion were unpracticed and half-forgotten.

But what accounted for Spock’s focus on Natira, Gem and Tonia?  Or, even more oddly, on McCoy’s marital status?  It was almost as if Spock had been, well – jealous.

You’re a lovesick old fool for even thinking that, McCoy chided himself.  Crazier, even, than when you had Vulcan marbles rolling around in your head.  Spock, past or present, could not possibly have been jealous on McCoy’s account.  In any case, there would have been no reason for Spock to be jealous of Gem, for whom McCoy had felt only fondness and gratitude mixed with an admiration verging on awe.  It was, as McCoy had asserted on the way to Earth, simply a matter of association.  Tonia had been present when McCoy had died on the Shore Leave Planet; Natira and Gem had been present under similar circumstances.

The conversation on the Bounty had definitely been a breakthrough in Spock’s recovery.  However briefly, McCoy had had a welcome glimpse of the “old” Spock.  For the first time since immediately following the fal-tor-pan, McCoy felt optimistic about Spock’s eventual recovery.  The doctor looked forward to having further conversations with his friend. 

As for the mysteries of the afterlife, they would remain just that, mysteries.  McCoy would not, he had decided, be encouraging Spock to access memory of the seven months his katra had existed in the semi-disembodied limbo of McCoy’s mind.

“Spock’s gone back to Vulcan,” Kirk told McCoy, disbelievingly.

“To work with T’Vroon and possibly Drashaak on recovering his memories.  In his email he said he had recovered some, but there was something important from the time period you held his katra that he couldn’t pin down.”  Kirk shook his head.  “I can’t imagine what would be so important from back then.  Unless it was his having had sex with Saavik?  He doesn’t know about that, right?”

“I don’t think so.  Besides, his consciousness was in me when that happened.”  The doctor mused, “I knew he wanted to remember something specific.  I had no idea it was so urgent he’d head back to Vulcan.”

Kirk looked at McCoy sharply.  “You worked with him on memory retrieval?  When did the two of you have time?”  On Vulcan T’Vroon and the instructors had kept Spock in semi-seclusion, and since leaving for Earth Spock had been in Kirk’s company almost continuously, even rooming with Jim at McCoy’s insistence.  McCoy hadn’t thought it safe for Spock to be alone.

“We had a conversation on the Bounty.  Right before the distress calls started coming in.  I asked him what it was like to die.  He started remembering some stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Just bits and pieces from our first mission.  Nothing to do with when he died.”

Kirk’s eyes narrowed.  To McCoy’s relief, Kirk didn’t press him on his evasive answer.  “You’ve got a lot more training in psychology than I do, Bones.  And you’re the one who carried around Spock’s katra for months.  But do you really think it was a good idea asking him what it was like to die?”

“It got him remembering more of his adult life than T’Vroon managed,” McCoy retorted.  “Maybe he’ll actually be fit for duty when he gets back.”

“He did fine on this last trip.  I just hope, Doctor, that’s he’s back in time for our next one.”

“I hope so, too, Jim.”  But in his heart, McCoy wondered if he really wanted to face a Spock who knew the thoughts of the very human doctor who had secretly been carrying a torch for him long before he had carried his katra.