Title: To Hold a Life

Summary: It's not really his first time, there's been other's patient's he just wasn't fast enough, or smart enough to save. Sometimes there was just nothing else he could do. But the first time he intentionally kills...it's not from anger or hatred...instead it's an act of mercy. Only why does it leave him with such lingering guilt...why does it rip apart his very soul.

McCoy

He had done it several times. Once he was caught up in the heat of the moment and made a mistake. Sometimes he just didn't know what else to do. Sometimes it was a second to slow or too fast…small errors that humans make. But the first time he did it intentionally it was different. It was indescribable. To hold life and death in one's hand makes a person feel like God and…the devil.

It was a dim hospital room. Rain was spattering outside; the night sky was illuminated intermittently by lighting. And a storm was brewing inside a soul. It was a maelstrom of anger, duty, sadness, grief, desperation and a promise that begged to be kept.

He forced himself to walk past the nurse exiting the room without speaking. He ached with the effort of holding himself still and moving forward. He desperately wanted to stop….he wanted to fall to his knees and beg someone. anyone to stop him. Instead he continued unhampered.

He arrived at the bedside and saw the wasted body with sunken eyes that stared out almost vacantly at him. He said something maybe an explanation of what he was about to do or an apology. The eyes seemed to stare at him with understanding; maybe the almost-corpse even spoke. But the words were unimportant, all that was left was action.

The hypo was in his pocket. He slowly pulled it out and prepared it with trembling fingers. The same hands which had held Joanna, caressed his wife, saved lives, would now be the bringers of death.

As he raised it and began the short journey to the waiting side of his father's neck he thought of anything else but what he was doing. He imagined the action time for each medication in the cocktail he had mixed. He stared at the colours swirling around in the transparent cartridge. He smelled the faint chemical odour of the medicines—now poisons he had created. He felt the cold cylinder of the hypo as he held it in his hands. He tasted a sour taste in his mouth as he imagined what the after effects of the drugs would be.

He finally made the end of the journey. The hypo was firmly placed against the neck. He barely felt the discharge as the medications hissed into the tissues and veins. He heard the almost silently whispered thanks, glide from his father lips like a dying breath. The hypo dropped from his hands and McCoy reached for his father hand and held the papery weak grasp in his own. He watched as the eyes widened as they met his. He listened as the breath thinned and stopped. He saw the body spasm as it gave a death throe. McCoy listened as the staff rushed into the room when they noticed what had happened. He had just enough time to stow the hypo back in his pocket.

He didn't do so to avoid punishment, he wanted somebody to find out what had happened. He wanted to get the punishment he felt he deserved. He wanted absolution for the sin he had just committed, but he couldn't get it. He had responsibilities, a wife to be with, a little daughter, a mother to comfort from the loss of her mate, a sister to console who had lost a father. He had responsibilities and he couldn't negate them.

He held his father hands and watched the now still face and blankly staring eyes. He continued holding the hand as tears coursed down his cheeks. He had done his responsibility; he had done what was asked of him and he had paid the price.

The price was one dead father.

Two weeping women, a mother and a sister.

And a slow spiral into work , mind-numbing alcohol, and an inevitable divorce.

He lost everything but his bones…because he had a responsibility and he had done his duty.

He paid with the taking of another life with his own and guilt that was all encompassing.

This was set when McCoy is in his late twenties. I imagined he got divorced awhile after. I think the guilt of what he did knocked him off the rails. For any that don't know this is canon, at least TOS canon. McCoy is known to have killed his father, at his father's request because he was suffering from a terminal illness. McCoy didn't want to do it but when he did a short while later the cure for the disease is found that would have allowed his father to completely recover. Now if that's not guilt-inducing I don't know what is.

Also while we're at it...if you're still reading. This is in relation to the complex issues involving terminal diseases and assisted .