AFTER THE CREDITS-Dagger of the Mind

A Handful of Smoke

by Ster Julie

for Birgit

Rating: T (for mild slash)

Characters: McCoy, Spock,

Genre: Angst, Slash (S/Mc)

Summary: Leonard McCoy has to help Spock through the guilt of Dr. Adams' death.

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, I just borrow them.

-ooOoo-

Personal log, Stardate 2727.8.

I knew something was wrong. Spock had been, well, edgy, ever since the whole Tantalus thing. He needed to talk this through with somebody, anybody. However, I knew if I pushed Spock to talk before he was ready, he'd clam up, walk away, and stew until he exploded.

At first, I thought that the mind meld with the insane Van Gelder did something to his finely tuned control. Then, I took a good look into Spock's eyes-when he'd let me-and saw that they were a bit haunted. I knew he needed to work this out. I gave him a week to come to me for counseling before I went looking for him.

Two days later I found Spock in the ship's morgue, standing over the body of Tristan Adams. There was a small bowl of burning incense sitting over Adams' heart.

Spock's face was positively bleak. I took a chance and gently placed my hand on his shoulder. I waited.

When Spock finally spoke, I was shocked at what he said.

"Hold me," Spock pleaded quietly.

I didn't ask why. I had a good idea. I just opened my arms to him and he burrowed against my chest.

"I think I killed Doctor Adams," he mumbled.

It took me a long time to respond. Finally, I asked, "What makes you say that?"

Suddenly, I started to see Spock's thoughts, his memories. When he went into the colony's power control room, Spock found the electricity has been turned off. So he turned it on, not knowing that Dr. Adams was caught in the beam of the neural neutralizer, which was set at maximum. I thought I had seen something in Spock's face when we found Adams' body, but with everything that was happening down there, I didn't remember it until now.

"Can you imagine the mind... emptied by that thing?" one of us had said (I don't remember which). "Without even a tormentor for company."

"He was caught by the neural neutralizer's beams," Spock choked, "and he died so horribly, drained, empty, alone."

"You couldn't have known he was in the treatment room, Spock," I soothed.

Spock continued as if I hadn't spoken. "No one was there to enter suggestions through the machine into his mind," he groaned. "He just … died."

"It was an accident, Spock," I said gently as I continued to hold him.

"It was my fault," Spock grated.

"It was no one's fault," I insisted. Spock moaned. "No," I continued, "there is someone to blame." Spock looked up at me and I took his face in my hands. "If you want to blame someone," I ranted, "blame Adams! He created that chamber of horrors in the first place."

Spock pulled back and paced away from me. "He needn't have died, Leonard," Spock said adamantly. "Our people would have eventually stopped Adams."

Spock's agitation made me think. "Spock, how do you handle the guilt when you have to kill another person in battle?"

"Although it goes against Vulcan tenets to indiscriminately take a life, battle casualties are inevitable," he assured me. "However, this death did not fall under that category."

"No," I told him, "Adams' death falls under the category of an accident, or maybe payback, a cruel twist of fate, even a bit of bad karma brought about by his own actions."

"I find your statement vindictive," Spock stated coldly.

"And I think that beating yourself up over Adams' death just isn't logical," I said in a similar tone. "An accident is just an accident."

Spock paused a long moment. He walked over to Adam's body, gathered a handful of smoke from the nearly spent incense and raised it to his forehead to complete the ritual for honoring the memory of the deceased. Then he silently slid the body back into the wall and stood there unmoving.

I chanced placing my hands on his shoulders again and waited.

"Thank you, Leonard," Spock breathed so quietly that I wasn't sure he had spoken.

I turned Spock around to face me. He pressed his forehead against mine and I was awash in his gratitude. I felt Spock's hands go to my hips and pull me close, so I brushed his lips with mine and ground my pelvis against his in invitation.

Spock sighed deeply, something I never saw him do before. He kissed me briefly and said, "Not here. Meet me in my cabin when you are off duty."

I remember nodding, but I don't remember if I actually said anything in reply. I noticed that Spock was standing a bit taller as he left the gloomy morgue, so maybe I did have a small impact on him.

After I was sure that Spock was out of hearing range, I pulled Adams' body back out of the wall slot. As I looked at his features, smug even in death, and I remembered Spock's torment, I found myself getting angrier by the moment.

"You sonofabitch!" I raged. "You were supposed to be a healer! You turned those people into zombies, puppets! Yeah, you died a horrible death, but Spock doesn't need to carry that guilt, your guilt." I snatched the little bowl Spock had left behind. "You're not worth honoring," I hiss.

As I slammed his body back into the wall, I yelled, "You bastard! You got what you deserved!"

END