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It had been a long week.
Leonard sighed and looked around Sickbay. The lights were dimmed and the beds were empty. By all rights he should have gone off duty hours ago, right after the last patient died and he finished the paperwork. But there had been too many mistakes in his department, so he had re-inventoried the shelves and set up a training schedule for the new nurses and junior doctors, and then he’d caught up on the reports he’d been neglecting while caring for patients, and then another thing, and another, and… And now it was 3:27am and Leonard was alone in Sickbay except the overnight nurse, who had hidden away in his office around midnight.
Normally, the quiet of Sickbay calmed Leonard, but right at that moment all he could hear were the machines that weren’t on because there weren’t patients attached to them. The silence echoed in his head.
Turning on his heel, Leonard hurried into his own office, letting the doors slide shut behind him to cut off that awful silence. For a moment it worked, but then the new silence pressed into his ears just the same. He threw the PADD he was holding—god only knew where it had come from or what was recorded on it—into the pile on his desk a little harder than was necessary. There was an ominous sliding noise, then the whole stack went crashing to the ground. The sudden sound sliced through his ears, causing him to flinch and realize he had a headache throbbing in his temples. There were a number of reasons it could hurt so bad, most notably that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten anything or slept in not his office, but he couldn’t do anything about that now because now there were shards of plastic and metal all over the floor; one of the PADDs had shattered and now he had to fill out a damage report, which of course Spock would see and of course he’d comment on it because it was a stupid mistake and--
He cut himself off and took a deep breath. He was overreacting. He needed to calm down.
The silence was settling again, and it was adding a pressure behind his forehead. He needed to do something about his headache. The desk drawer screeched against his ears even as the sound was just a soft whisper. Inside, he found the hypo he kept ready for situations exactly like this—a strong pain killer set to exactly his specifications. He flicked the safety off and set it to auto, then pressed it to his arm.
And paused.
He’d used the hypo before, so it wasn’t a complete factory supply, but it was still more than enough to do fatal damage. He could let it auto dispense and solve the headache for a few hours, or…
He cut off that train of thought. Jim at minimum would never forgive him.
But Jim was already never going to forgive him, right? Leonard had seen the look on his face when he’d told him that Lieutenant Chorvin hadn’t made it, the last name in a long line of officers who succumbed to injuries and diseases over the course of this awful, awful week. Jim had trusted Leonard with his crew, and Leonard had failed him. There were many things that Jim would forgive against all reason, but damage to the crew—even just a minor threat—wasn’t one of them.
Leonard stood frozen in the painful silence. The hypo was still pressed to his arm, still in auto administration mode. The headache still throbbed in his temples.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter, did it? If Leonard died, he wouldn’t be around to find out if Jim forgave him or not. And since he was pretty sure Jim wasn’t going to forgive him for all the deaths that week, well…
But he couldn’t. His Sickbay needed him, if only to make sure those trainings went off without a hitch. It would prevent more loss of life in the future, which was a Good Thing. Jim would understand.
The air conditioning hissed, startling Leonard out of his train of thought. He glanced up at the vent above his head for a brief moment. What had he even been thinking? Even if Jim was furious with him, he wouldn’t want him dead. He didn’t need to justify staying alive. Didn’t he?
Slowly, without really thinking about it, Leonard removed the hypo from his arm, rolling it between his fingers as he examined the casing in detail. There were probably around seventeen full doses in the hypo, enough to kill any single person on the Enterprise at least twice over. If he took a single dose, enough to handle his headache, there would be sixteen full doses still in the hypo. That was still enough to kill any single person on the Enterprise at least twice over. He could get rid of the pain now and then make a new choice later, if he so chose.
But it wasn’t really that simple, was it? Choosing to keep going on now was also choosing to expose himself to more pain. Dealing with the headache and carrying on meant writing up that stupid damage report. And facing Jim’s wrath regarding the deaths that past week. And dealing with the friends and families of the bodies waiting in cold storage. And sweeping all the plastic bits off his office floor.
His vision was blurring. Leonard blinked, cataloging the fact as his headache getting much worse and affecting his eyes before realizing that his eyelids were moving the blur around, and there was something warm sliding down his cheek. Was he crying? That didn’t… seem right. He wasn’t in that much pain.
Were his hands shaking? That didn’t seem right, either. But he couldn’t deny that what he could see of the hypo through the blur across his sight was moving against his will, jittering fast enough to make the serial on the side illegible.
He just wanted it all to stop, is all. He didn’t want to have to deal with the bullshit that was being in space anymore. He didn’t want to have to fill out endless forms explaining what he did with his day and why, or where his materials went and what they were used for, or what he needed more of that they definitely didn’t have to spare. And most of all, he didn’t want to have to watch anyone else slowly fade away under his hands as he desperately tried to do something, anything at all, to save them.
A shock of pain shot through his knee, informing him that he’d dropped to the ground. He glanced down at his hand, now resting in his lap, finding it gripping the hypo so hard his knuckles were turning white. He could make it stop hurting. He could make it so that he never had to hurt again. It was right there, in his grasp, fully within his power--
He couldn’t. He couldn’t do that to Jim. The Captain needed him, at least until he could get to a starbase and pick up a new doctor, one who wasn’t a complete and utter failure.
He screwed his eyes closed against the pain, twisting his mouth into a grimace to keep the cry currently lodged in his throat unexpressed. He bowed his head, his chin resting down against his chest, and began to count.
One, two, three…
If he tried hard enough, he could drown out the whirlwind inside his head.
… Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen…
It wasn’t—fading. It was supposed to stop.
… Twenty nine, thirty, thirty one--
Cool hands pressed against his, gently peeling his fingers off of the hypo and taking it out of his grip. Leonard startled upright, eyes snapping open and raking over the person kneeling in front of him. Blue shirt, black hair, slightly off skin tone. Leonard winced.
“What’re you doing here?” he asked, wincing again at the rasp of his throat.
Spock studied the hypo in his hands for a moment longer before setting it well out of Leonard’s reach. “Your distress was palpable across the ship,” he responded quietly.
Leonard huffed. “Well, I’m sorry I imposed on your precious mental solitude. I’ll try to be more quiet in the future.”
Spock’s eyes flicked across his face. Leonard wrote the furrow in his brow off as a distortion of his vision caused by the tears that weren’t fucking going away he didn’t have time for this--
“Your current state is not an imposition, Doctor. It is in fact quite easy to block out from my mind, especially at the distance previously separating us.”
Leonard’s chest tightened. “I’m glad one of us has that ability!” he snarled. “Maybe you can teach it to me some time!”
“While I would find a discussion of the methods I use to control my telepathic abilities with you quite agreeable, I believe your current state is caused by your own well-honed abilities to ignore your own distress in the face of what you consider to be matters of greater importance, and my contribution to those abilities would run counter to my current purpose.”
It took Leonard a moment to parse through that whole sentence. “Yeah, well, pot meet kettle, Spock.” Without the hypo in his hands anymore he found his fingers tingling as they trembled, and he knotted them together in his lap, digging his fingernails into the backs of his hands as hard as he could.
This time the furrow in Spock’s brow was definitely a reality and not something Leonard was making up. He opened his mouth to speak, but Leonard cut him off.
“I don’t even know why you’d bother, anyway, coming all the way over here just to make fun of me for, what, being human? Isn’t it like four in the morning? You should be getting your rest, getting ready for replacing all the crew that I couldn’t save. That’s gotta be hell with the Admirals, explaining that.”
Spock tilted his head to the side. “Doctor—”
“Or, what, you’re aware I’m awake and in my office, so you might as well get firing me over and done with, eh? For being so completely useless at my job? Let me know I’m getting off at the next starbase and not getting back on?”
“Doctor—”
Leonard was aware he was getting louder, was rambling, wasn’t making very much sense. He couldn’t stop himself.
“That’d be cold, though, even for you. No, you’re here for something else. A reprimand, maybe, for not handling my emotions in the face of duty. A warning to stay away from Jim because he never wants to see my stupid face again. A conversation about how I’ve been abusing my staff or something, I don’t know. I don’t know!”
“Leonard.”
Spock’s voice was just as soft and gentle as it had been when he’d first arrived and spoken. Leonard stopped himself from his next shouted comment, just barely, eyes fixed on Spock’s face as well as he could with the tremble that had enveloped his whole body.
“I do not intend to fire you, or reprimand you, or ‘make fun’ of you at this time, or in fact at any time, for any of the events in recent history. Your performance this past week has been exemplary. Your commitment to your patients has been admirable. Your brilliance has saved lives.”
“Not all of them,” Leonard bit off.
“No,” agreed Spock. “But more than would have been saved without your presence. More than would have been saved had another doctor attempted to do what you have done. I am aware that asking you to take oh-so-human pride in your accomplishments this past week is likely asking for an impossibility, but know that many people—the Captain counted among them—do see them as something worthy of admiration.”
“Too many—”
“The bioweapon used by the Enlotin infected 739,215 people between the planet and the Enterprise. 39,651 of them died from complications due to the disease, including six crew members. That is 5.634% of those infected. Which of course means that 94.366% survived. Do you know how many of those people infected by the Enlotin’s bioweapon have survived in previous encounters?”
“I don’t see—”
“Zero, Doctor. Not a single person has survived the Enlotin’s attentions before your intervention. 699,564 people are still alive who would not otherwise be so without your attentions.”
Some of the fight left Leonard, but he still managed something approaching a snarl. “That’s still 39 thousand whatever people who shouldn’t be dead.”
“And we will honor all 39,651 of them. I also grieve such a senseless loss of thousands of lives, but focusing only on those thousands of lives does a disservice to their sacrifice, and to the efforts of those who worked to save them.”
“I let them die!” Leonard shouted. His voice cracked under the force. “Me! I was tasked with saving them, and I failed!”
“You did not let them die, Doctor,” Spock responded, a new hardness coloring his voice. “You fought for each and every one of them. Death took them in the end, but—if you will excuse the very human metaphor—it most definitely had to work for it.”
Leonard pressed his eyes closed once again, turning his face away from Spock. He tried to take a deep breath, failing when it shuddered against his chest.
“Why are you here, Spock?” he whispered. “I know I’m—it’s hard for you. Why did you come?”
Once again, cool hands brushed against his own, this time pulling his fingernails out of the backs of his hands. Spock wrapped his fingers around Leonard’s forearms, over his shirt sleeves of course, holding him with just enough force to ground him.
“I told you, Doctor,” he murmured, “I felt your distress from across the ship. Of course I came.”
Leonard couldn’t fight anymore. His tears spilled out of his control, the sob he’d been holding finally vocalizing as a soft whimper. He slowly pitched forward until his forehead rested against Spock’s sternum, turning his hands as he did so to grab onto Spock’s wrists, holding him as tightly as he could. Spock’s grip on him tightened in return, and he let his head tip down until his chin rested against the top of Leonard’s head.
Leonard choked on his breath. “Just want it to stop,” he stuttered out. “I just want it all to go away.”
Spock didn’t respond, the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed pulsing against Leonard’s head in a slow wave.
“They just kept dying, no matter what I did, and I just—” Leonard dissolved into a fresh set of soft sobs, tightening his grip on Spock’s forearms even more.
“You did all you could,” Spock whispered, chest buzzing with his voice. Shockingly, it seemed to dim Leonard’s headache, just barely.
“Wasn’t enough,” Leonard bit off between gasps.
“It was,” Spock countered. “Your best was more than anyone had any right to ask of you.”
He didn’t have a response for that.
In the end, Leonard wasn’t sure how long he spent crying against Spock’s chest, clutching his wrists like they were the only thing keeping him above water. He was certain Spock knew, down to the second, but, as his sobs died down to softly hitching breaths, he resolved that he was never, ever going to ask.
“I believe your current state would be best remedied by food and then sleep,” Spock said into the silence—and it was less painful of a silence, now, even if his head had managed to find a new level of hurt to throb at. “Would you be amiable to joining me for an extraordinarily early breakfast?”
“Got things to do,” mumbled Leonard, eyes pressed closed.
“Are any of those things so critical that they cannot wait a few hours?”
Leonard thought for a long moment. There were so many things to do, but the important ones all deserved more attention than he could give them and the unimportant ones could wait.
“No,” he whispered.
Spock squeezed his wrists slightly. “Then join me.”
Leonard sighed slowly, then raised his head up from Spock’s chest. He could see much clearer, now, clear enough to realize that the blue he’d spotted earlier was not the blue of Spock’s uniform but the blue of the sweater he wore on occasion when off duty. Spock didn’t let go of Leonard’s wrists until Leonard let go, but he stood first, offering an arm for Leonard to use to pull himself up after him. Leonard cast a look around the mess in his office and wrote it off as a tomorrow problem, leaning on Spock just a little as the pair walked out of his office and to the nearest mess hall. His mind was rapidly descending into static, meaning that although he was certain he ate something he couldn’t say what it was, only that Spock sat with him the whole time, quietly updating him on the things he’d missed while holed up in Sickbay—not that he retained any of it, but the lack of silence was… deeply appreciated, to be honest. Once he’d finished, Spock walked him to his quarters and helped him peel off his uniform shirt and boots before he collapsed into his bed, unconscious before Spock made it out the door.
14 hours of sleep, another meal, and a few hours of just reading and doing nothing later, Leonard made his way back to his office, dreading what he was going to find. As much as he wanted to ignore it, he knew the shards at minimum needed dealing with before another crisis arose, otherwise they’d become part of his furniture. To his surprise, though, his office was clean. Someone had picked up all the PADDs, organizing them on the shelf beside his desk into piles based on content and priority. They’d also folded the uniforms he’d abandoned across the floor and left them on the guest chair, and removed all the abandoned coffee mugs from their various locations. The shards were all swept away, the data from the PADD recovered onto a very obviously older one, and another one present with the entire damage report completed except his signature. His desk was completely empty—a state Leonard had never seen it in before and likely never would again—except for those two PADDs and one other object. He picked that object up and turned it over in his fingers, examining it closely. It couldn’t have been Spock who’d tidied his office because someone had put a label on his hypo, and that was an absolutely frivolous use of Starfleet supplies, especially considering the content, but who else could have known?
Don’t you dare.
Closing his hand around the hypo, Leonard smiled to himself for a long moment, then opened the drawer and tossed it in. There was work to be done.