Title: Watching the Watchman (6/6)
Characters: McCoy, Spock, Kirk
Ratings: overall, T; this chapter, K+
Word Count: (final chapter) 5139
Warnings/Spoilers: general TOS spoilers, including movie-era spoilers. This chapter, lots of Trek canon spoilers but all footnoted so anyone non-familiar with the entire canon will be able to understand everything
Summary: Five times Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock went all protective on Dr. McCoy, and one time McCoy showed them that he doesn't need y'all's coddling and can darn well take care of himself, thanks very much

Chapter One, in which Spock finds out about his Mirror counterpart's actions
Chapter Two, in which there is a prison break, and Spock decides a massive phaser rifle is logical
Chapter Three, in which there is whumpage of the xenopolycythymic kind, and also awkward cuddling
Chapter Four, in which there is the obligatory Kirk!whumping, and threats are made
Chapter Five, in which Spock parks his katra in McCoy's brain, and the good doctor is Not Happy

I.

He wakes up feeling, for what seems like the first time in years, actually well-rested and free of the general aches and pains which accompany the stress of life aboard ship. It's a rare thing, and a pleasant one, to start the day off feeling ready for anything; it feels like decades since he's slept the night through without being woken by something in Medical or otherwise, and it's an additional treat to even be able to sleep in this morning.

What the occasion is, or what gods are smiling on him today, escapes his memory, but he knows better than to argue with a Good Thing and so he just sets off about his day, a cheerfully-hummed tune on his mind and a spring in his step. All appears calm in Sickbay; his staff report no injuries or illnesses to speak of (though they've had a remarkably long stint of nothing serious wrong with anyone, he thinks, and mentally knocks on wood), and everything in Sciences appears to be proceeding with almost boring normality.

He spends most of his morning in Sickbay, getting filing done on the hundred or so new crewmen they've just taken on at the last two Starbases, and by mid-day mess he's thoroughly tired of looking over boring medical files and almost hoping that somebody, anybody, has a pre-existing medical condition which might make his life a bit more interesting. The paperwork is never-ending, as if every time he looks back at the stack there's another addition to this already ridiculously huge crew (he really has no idea where they're packing everyone in, though the corridors strangely never seem crowded).

Finally, out of sheer boredom and nothing else, he meanders through the corridors, into the turbolift and finally onto the Bridge, absently nodding to the young Security lieutenant who hastily snaps off a salute when he enters.

"Sir!" The young lieutenant-commander sitting in the center chair scrambles comically to his feet, eyes wide. "We weren't expecting you up here on your off day, sir!"

"Relax, Decker," he responds, grinning – because was he ever that green or that young? "Just here to take a look around. Anything interesting going on?"

"Not a thing, sir," the ensign at the science station says dismally. "Just your regulation nebula and the surrounding ionic activity."

"Well, in that case carry on." He gives the incredulous young man a nod and returns to the turbolift, not missing the subtle relaxation of everyone on the gamma shift crew.

He cracks another jaw-wrenching yawn, more boredom than fatigue, and his eyes water as the door closes behind him. And, for just a strange little instant as he grips the control handle inside the lift, he could swear his sleeve is blue.

The weeks pass in an equally monotonous fashion, actually rather boring more than anything else. Oddly enough, this does not appear to alarm any of the crew, and he can hardly blame them, used as they are to chaos and death and destruction out on this contraption, flying through uncharted space under such a volatile young commander. The quietude is reassuring, a pleasant change, to most of them, or so he gathers from the conversations and psych evals he has with various crewmen.

No, apparently only he is the only one who thinks the stint of quiet uneventfulness is at all odd, or even slightly disturbing. Even his head nurse only stares at him incredulously when he mentions how strange it is not to have every Sickbay bio-bed occupied, at this point in the mission. But then again, Tanya Bodine has always been a quiet young woman, a bit too much so to be in the medical profession, McCoy privately thinks. How they don't butt heads he has no idea, what with his stubborn tendency to yell a problem into submission, and her inability to push back at him. But obviously their symbiosis works, because she's been working for him since she was placed aboard. (1)

Three months later, he's actually wishing they would pilot themselves too close to an asteroid belt or get attacked by a stupidly brave pirate frigate, just so he could treat a casualty that's more serious than a scrape on the hand because some kid didn't wear protective gloves when dealing with Engineering equipment. He doesn't see why he bothered to get a degree in xenobiology if he's never going to have to use it.

His crew doesn't seem to share his opinion; the rest of his alpha shift command chain looks askance at him when he mentions his own unease, and the young lieutenant at the helm mutters to his seat-mate that he suspects McCoy will soon start injuring people himself just to have patients.

This ticks him off, and he cheerfully scrawls his signature across a requisition that will see the kid on two weeks' straight gamma shift in Waste Recycling.

After all, what's the use of being captain of a starship if you can't abuse a little power now and then, he thinks with glee.

They're charting through familiar space now, sailing merrily along without a care in the world, when his entire alpha shift crew turns to stare at him, as one.

"What?" He scowls, and folds his arms over his chest. "What're you lookin' at?"

"Doctor McCoy, are you feeling well?" Ensign Hendorff asks hesitantly.

"Last I checked, I was capable of diagnosin' myself if need be," he drawls, glaring at the young upstarts who are still gawking at him. "If you've got somethin' to say, better get it out before it sits in there and rots, Mr. Hendorff."

"But sir!" The library sciences lieutenant protests, eyes wide.

"What'd I say?" He's really puzzled by this point, because they were just discussing the geography of their current location in relation to known territory and uncharted space, and he really has no idea what he said…

"Sir." Hendorff clears his throat, and obviously makes an attempt at sounding lighthearted. "You just said we would be passing within four hundred parsecs of where Romulus used to be."

"…And?" Honestly, did no one ever teach these kids anything?

"Sir, um. Well, sir…Romulus is still there…nothing's ever been reported to have happened to the planet or surrounding area..."

He blinks, because that's correct, of course; why had he said otherwise?

"Just checking to see if your navigation can hold up to an old man's rambling instruction, Mr. Hendorff," he responds, bland confidence that he doesn't feel infusing the tone with a captainly warmth. "Carry on, and don't mind me, gentlemen."

Like a switch has been flipped, the disturbed looks on the faces of his crew suddenly vanish like a sponge has erased the puzzled features – a change so complete and so rapid it's a little strange.

He shivers, not really knowing why. (2)

After what feels like decades but probably isn't, he is in Sickbay restocking supply cupboards (even though they don't really go through much by way of requisitions, he still seems to have to do this more often than should be necessary) when the red alert siren goes off for the first time in ages. The ship lurches under an invisible attack, and a moment later Sickbay explodes into chaos, as several antigrav gurneys are wheeled in carrying patients fighting for their lives.

It's the most adrenaline-fueled six hours he's had in a very long time, and when it's all over and the ship is put to rights, the patients are seen to, and he has time to sit down. He slumps back in his chair and mops his brow, wondering why he ever missed that terrible, gut-wrenching fight to wrest a young life from the clutches of Death itself.

He drags as he goes about the remainder of his day, still strangely exhausted from the previous night, a sleep dotted with strange dreams and hazy visions, scraps and bits and pieces and snatches that he can't make sense of and which are actually very annoying, because they upset his calm and thoroughly under control life. He's got everything he needs, and anything he wants; a rewarding career, a position of power, a life that is free of worry and fear – what else could a man wish for?

He yawns, actually annoyed with himself and his world for the first time in many weeks, and begins to fill out the requisite paperwork for crewmen who have now vanished from his Sickbay like spirits in smoke.

He wakes up with a strangled shout of terror, flinging himself back into that twilight world between the living and the strange spirit-world of dreams with a force that is actually alarming, because he feels fear – stark, terrible, gut-wrenching fear – for the first time in what he suddenly realizes is a very, very long time.

As in…he can't even remember (before now, before that nightmare to end all nightmares) what it feels like to be afraid, to even be uneasy – much less terrified as he had been in that sickening world that intruded on his normally well-ordered slumber. He can't ever remember being so afraid, or so angry, or so…

…so anything.

And that one cold realization floods his mind with an acuity he's never felt before in this strange, half-distorted world.

He cannot remember ever feeling anything except a dull sort of peaceful contentment, here.

Wherever here is, he suddenly realizes, and for the second time in as many minutes he feels very, very afraid.

"Computer, who is the captain of this vessel." If nothing else, computers at least cannot lie, or so he hopes; surely he will get some answers.

"Working. Current captain of U.S.S. Enterprise is Lieutenant-Commander Leonard McCoy."

He squints at the cheerfully-blinking light, wondering for the first time why that lack of rank never bothered him before now?

"Computer, who is the ranking officer aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise?"

"Working. Current ranking officer of U.S.S. Enterprise is Lieutenant-Commander Leonard McCoy."

"Computer, describe past command training of Lieutenant-Commander Leonard McCoy."

A blip of silence, then the stuttering whirr of a computer trying to find an answer. Finally, the computer responds, sounding almost unhappy. "Lieutenant-Commander McCoy has no recorded command training."

He raises an eyebrow, the habit feeling odd against his usually expressionless face. "State reason for Lieutenant-Commander McCoy being remanded captaincy of this vessel, then."

"Working."

He waits, patiently.

"Working."

Still waits.

"Lieutenant-Commander McCoy is current ranking officer of U.S.S. Enterprise."

He scowls, and finally gives the uncooperative machine a gentle thump to the nearest console. "Computer, who is the Starfleet-appointed captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise?"

"Insufficient data."

"What the – computer, what rank should Lieutenant-Commander McCoy hold aboard this vessel?"

"Lieutenant-Commander McCoy is Chief Medical Officer aboard U.S.S. Enterprise."

"I thought you just said he was the captain?"

"Lieutenant-Commander McCoy is the current ranking officer aboard the –"

"Oh, shut up, you stupid hunk of junk," he snarls, and aims a grumpy kick at the console. "Blasted things can't be trusted over a human brain anyhow."

Why has it never occurred to him before, that he can't hold two ranks at once, both captain and chief medical officer? The only time in Starfleet history that a crewman has held two command-capable positions simultaneously was when –

When –

He stops, stares into space in genuine alarm.

He should know this. (3)

He holes up in his cabin under pretext of a headache for the next two days, which is incongruous in itself because he now can see that in the months – years? Decades? – he's been in this place, he's never had an ache or a pain, not so much as a twinge of discomfort. His medical staff just coddles him with smiling, vacant expressions of sympathy and reassurance that he isn't needed just now and to take care of himself, etc., etc., etc.

It's disgusting, and he can't understand why he didn't see through the vacuous platitudes before now.

Has he been conditioned? Brainwashed? The Klingons have that capability according to rumors of their mind-sifter (though he honestly can't tell where that thought comes from, actually), but why would they bother wiping his memory selectively and dumping him on board a ship that for all intents and purposes looks like the old Enterprise? And how would they get so many people to play along? The entire crew complement of over 900 people, all of whom seem to know him intimately – how could so many be equally delusional? How can he have such selective amnesia, along with the whole crew? And why does this Enterprise seem so beautifully, wonderfully familiar, and yet jar harshly against the last memory he has of it, all greys and maroons and dark greens instead of almost garish visions of scarlet and blue and sunshiny gold? Why has he been made to forget –

And, more importantly, who has he been made to forget? (4)

In the end, it's so simple, so anticlimactic. Just a suggestion, a precious hint of a connection that still lingers despite decades – even a century – of disconnect. One tiny little link, accidentally formed and innocently preserved, that has lain dormant for so many years; a bond strong enough to transcend the power of the grave in order to resurrect Memory. He laughs a little bitterly, because his life reads like a poorly-written novel; something about the power of love being able to reach past the barriers of universes and defeat Death itself, able to break down walls and shine the gentle light of Truth into a mind searching desperately to orient itself.

For a single, calm moment he has no idea the block over that portion of his mind has been broken – and then, he remembers everything.

Everything.

Decades of growing older, wiser, sadder – becoming admiral, an honor he laughed at and got drunk over with friends old and new. Years of teaching at Starfleet Academy, watching more cocky young cadets race through their young lives starry eyed, waiting for a ship of their own in the treacherously alluring cosmos of space exploration. Finally, well past his centennial, retiring to work as an honorary member of the Vulcan Scientific Council, consulting with the most brilliant minds in the world over things that would have made his poor country doctor's head spin had it happened eighty years earlier, before his life became inextricably intertwined with a very peculiar half-Vulcan. (5)

Jim Kirk, aging gracefully but somewhat irritably, agreeing to one last public appearance on the Enterprise-B's maiden voyage, just to keep up appearances and to encourage the petrified young man who was stepping into some mighty big shoes. Sitting in his quarters off Sarek's massive ancestral estate, and receiving the news that the Enterprise-B had met with minor tragedy in the form of an energy storm. Very few casualties, but one very notable one that had the holonets afire with the biggest news story to break in decades. (6)

It had been fitting, he had thought even through his tears at the time, that Jim should go out saving his ship; and yet, McCoy knew Kirk's worst fear had been that he would die alone, and alone he did.

Standing outside the massive non-denominational chapel that Starfleet used for high-profile memorial services, watching as a proud figure bowed his head and admitted reluctance to enter the building, through a voice more brittle with grief than any full Vulcan would ever dream of showing to anyone. For the last time, patting the thin shoulder underneath a coal-black Vulcan mourning robe, and trying to find the words to comfort that he hadn't been able to offer Jim when it had been Spock's funeral decades before. (7)

It had been the last time he saw Spock; the Vulcan buried himself in his ambassadorial work soon after, and within two years disappeared on Romulus, though that last was known only to a select few within Starfleet Command due to the covert nature of his unification work. He was left alone, and alone he remained for many more years. (8)

He remembers seeing, without any real enthusiasm, the launch of the Enterprise-C on galactic holo-net, and then actually visiting the Enterprise-D toward the beginning of her maiden voyage into uncharted space. He shuddered, remembering how very old he had been – the gracelessness of being so old that it was just flat wrong to God's creation, to look and act like a cranky old man with one foot in the grave. (9)

And then, twenty years later…

Twenty years later he had been edging closer and closer to his deathbed; medical technology in those days could make a man live well past one hundred fifty, the oldest recorded case being one hundred ninety-three, but he really had no desire to live that long. There was just something wrong with being that old, when no man was meant to see that much, live that many decades and centuries all alone.

And then, in 2387, he remembers…watching the holovids through an old man's vision as the Romulan sun begins to go nova, threatening to destroy the Romulan Star Empire. The rumors that some unnamed scientist on Romulus had a plan to save the planet through an ingenious invention which would create a temporary black hole in space, one which would absorb the imploding star and then implode upon itself soon after, saving all around from destruction.

The Vulcan grapevine, two days later, saying that that the Romulan Star Empire is gone – and with it, Starfleet's undercover ambassador, Spock of Vulcan – missing in action, presumed dead. (10)

Missing in action, presumed dead, just as Jim had been almost ninety years before.

Was it any wonder, that he rather thought he was entitled to stop existing in a frail, crotchety shell for much longer after that?

He comes back to himself with a gasp and a shudder, Memory slotting into place neatly and cleanly and with such blazing clarity that he wonders anew how he could have existed in such a torpid reality for so long without realizing that something huge was missing from his life?

Is this truly Paradise, Valhalla, the afterlife, whatever you want to call it, a kindly erasing of memory of all that might possibly be painful to recall? Is this some deity's inhuman – literally, not human – idea of a utopia, a world involving an entire lack of that emotion which is the best and worst about being human?

If so, does he truly want to live in such an afterlife?

More importantly, where the heck are Jim and Spock, if he's dead and stuck on this ship for the second time in his life – lives – whatever?

Where are they?

It takes him a good two months to find Jim.

In that interim, he spends the majority of his time (when he's not trying to fuddle through his duties as captain, and what a sick sense of humor the gods have to drop him into this for his afterlife) discovering the boundaries and limitations of this bizarre new existence. He finds that while they are capable of being hurt in this universe (nothing so drastic as self-harm, but he thinks he can be forgiven stunning himself with a phaser blast in the interests of science), the pain lasts only for a moment, and healing is nearly instantaneous.

It's simultaneously fascinating and creepy, as if a sci-fi flick has just come to life in front of him and he's playing god with human lives and physiology. He has no idea why medical doctors even exist in this strange universe, if this is true; their primary purpose must be to comfort rather than to heal.

He also discovers that there are very few emotions in this world. He seems to now have his head on straight thanks to a Vulcan mind-dump a century before helping him make sense of things; but everyone else seems to be just vacantly content, pleased with their surroundings and lives and personal affairs. While it's not quite stagnation, it's also not quite healthy growth and development for any species – but any efforts on his part to disrupt this balance of peace in paradise is met only with incredulity and utter failure to elicit some kind of response.

Well, then. There's nothing for it but to take control of what he knows and go from there.

He does a pretty darn good job as captain of this ship, more because he knows what's going on as opposed to having actual command training; but he's known Jim Kirk for decades, and you can't be around the man but pick up some habits and pointers from his uniquely successful command style. He weaves through the galaxy on milk runs for the most part, easily navigating what appears to be a pointless rat-race of pleasant missions that makes their original five-year mission seem like Armageddon.

He discovers through the galactic net's database that everyone he suspects of being dead in his universe is here, in this one, with the odd exception of Spock and, weirdly enough, Scotty. (11) After some maneuvering around the computer's stubborn programming, he does finally discover that Jim Kirk is alive in this universe, and apparently living on Deneva with his brother and family.

He doesn't really look forward to disillusioning the poor man about his paradise, but McCoy's his first and best destiny is to stand behind Jim and poke fun at the hobgoblin, not captain a starship. If he doesn't get Kirk to understand and realize what has happened to them, he's abandoning his friend and his superior officer to a life of stagnation and disadvantaged consciousness, paradise or not. And so he sets course for Deneva, getting him some weird looks from his crew but no real resistance; their utopian mindsets apparently don't encourage opposition. (12)

Lucky for him, Jim Kirk is just this shade of stubborn-enough-to-be-dangerous, and that is what will help him convince the man that there's something wrong in their Eden.

He can see the moment the light dawns, and he thanks every deity in the universe that Spock had made such an indelible impression on them through the decades that it's that power of logic and deep-rooted emotion (yes, he knows doggone well Spock feels, and that's not just due to storing his soul for a few weird weeks) which enable them to break through the mental blocks that apparently are there for their protection in this strangely benign utopia.

The next minute he's hugging a newly-awakened James T. Kirk, who is not quite crying into his shoulder, murmuring something about him looking so much better than when they met for the last time (he'd been very ill with a minor stroke just before the Enterprise-B's maiden voyage, one reason he had declined the offer to attend the ceremonies), and the next minute Jim's stepped back and is staring at him, hands fisted on his hips and looking every inch the annoyed captain he is.

"Why in the name of all that's logical are you wearing my shirt?" the man demands, his now-boyish face scowling like a cranky toddler before bedtime.

"I'm glad to hand it back to you, Captain," he retorts, plucking disgustedly at the triple braid on his sleeves. "Even my half-blind grandmamma knows this isn't a color for a blue-eyed boy."

Jim grins then, a blindingly and breathtakingly familiar gesture that makes him look so young that it's a little sad, a little happy, and a whole lot wonderful. "We've got so much to talk about, don't we?" the captain asks, running a hand tenderly along the gleaming durasteel wall of his beloved ship's corridor.

He returns the smile, and feels the world shift another fraction closer to rightness. Things have changed, their worlds have changed; but he now feels like possibly, just possibly, they may eventually adjust to this strange new frontier.

"Hey, do you think in so-called Valhalla I can eat whatever I want without you putting me on a diet, Bones?"

Annnnd some things never do change…

It's a good six months, before it happens.

Jim's on the Bridge (no one even blinked at the shift in command when he arrived on board, which makes the whole thing that much weirder), trying to make sense of the altered history they can remember but not find in the books anywhere, and he's standing close by trying to correlate medical paperwork (now that he knows what's going on, he realizes that the crewmen who remain behind after he treats them means they've died in their own world; weirdly enough then, the ones who disappear mean they've won the fight against death and returned to their lives).

The alarm goes off to signal an incoming transport from Transporter Room One.

"We're at warp, you can't transport onto a ship traveling at warp," Kirk says, eyebrows raised at the alert.

"Well, you can in 2387, at least according to the Vulcan Science Academy's last calculations –"

"Bones." A hand waves carelessly in his direction, clearly dismissing his for-once superior knowledge. The captain steps easily from his chair, giving it a smile and a soft pat of affection, which should be weird but actually isn't, all things considered and compared. "Let's go see who it is, then!"

"It had better not be some old girlfriend of yours, is all I'm sayin'," he mutters, but follows the man willingly enough into the turbolift.

There's no one manning the transporter when they arrive, which should be strange but it's by far not the weirdest thing to happen here, and so Jim takes a station at the controls while they both watch the coalescing particles flow into a structured column and begin to take shape. A body slowly materializes on the transporter pad's stabilization plate, gradually becoming more solid as they watch a flawless transport take place.

And finally, his breath catches in his throat, because there's no mistaking the tall, elegant figure that steps uncertainly down from the transporter, looking openly surprised and puzzled for the first time in his very long life.

McCoy hasn't seen Spock since Jim's memorial service, and even then he knew Spock was aging beyond his years due to his half-human heritage. He would have been nearly a hundred and fifty when Romulus imploded, elderly even by Vulcan standards.

But now – now Spock looks like he just stepped off the transporter returning from an early away mission; there is no grey in his immaculate hair, no wrinkles marring the austere lack of expression on his face. Only his eyes, warm and sparkling with scientific curiosity and utter surprise, betray his feelings for the moment – that of complete mystification, and inability to comprehend where and when and why and how.

Jim, the reckless idiot, pushes past him with a whoop of greeting and further startles the poor Vulcan by flinging his arms around him in an enormous clinging hug that makes him seem even younger than he is, in this strangely innocent universe.

Spock meets his gaze over Jim's shoulder, eyes wide and pleading for assistance with this most illogical of human behavior.

McCoy grins evilly.

Some things remain universal constants, apparently; even without knowing quite what is happening, Spock manages to make it very, very clear by both vocalization and squirming that he does not appreciate being the filling in a Vulcan-human sandwich.

Well to heck with Vulcan personal space, he thinks obstinately, and only hangs on tighter as their newly-returned First Officer tries futilely to extricate himself – because if this really is their afterlife, then it's not like Spock can kill them for this, now is it?

And the idea of having forever to think up new ways to torment his arrogant young captain and that green-blooded katra-dumper suddenly makes this strange little paradise seem just that much brighter.

That much more like home.

(1) This was a clue to those who are familiar with some of my personal written canon; Nurse Tanya Bodine was killed three months after boarding the Enterprise, trying to save the life of a crewman during a fire in Engineering in A Celebration in Infinite Combinations.

(2) For those uninformed of the ST complete timeline, the time which we see in STXI regarding the destruction of Romulus could conceivably been while McCoy was still alive. He would have been very, very old, but it is possible, and I'm twisting a bit of time and space to make that happen here; there's no set canon to say when McCoy actually died.

(3) Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the only recorded instant in Trek canon of an officer holding two ranking positions was when Spock was both First Officer and Chief Science Officer on the original Enterprise.

(4) Non-TNG fans won't know that McCoy visited the TNG Enterprise as an admiral during the episode Encounter at Farpoint; he was an adorably cranky old man who gave the android Data a hard time about not having "points on his ears."

(5) This is speculation on my part, not canon.

(6) Again, non-TNG fans may or may not have watched the movie Generations; basically, you need to know that in that movie, Captain Kirk guest starred as a guest on the maiden voyage of a not-fully-functional Enterprise-B. The ship encountered an energy field called the Nexus, which threatened to destroy the ship, and bottom line, Kirk disappeared when the part of the ship he was working in was ripped away and exposed to space. He was presumed dead, though later in the movie we find that he was instead absorbed into the pseudo-paradise world of the Nexus.

(7) This was a supposedly planned scene from Generations that was deleted, due to the fact that DeForrest Kelley was too ill at the time to star in the movie.

(8) Timelines are a bit confusing during the TNG era, but it's standard fanon that at some point before the events of Generations, Spock disappeared undercover on Romulus, working toward a unification between Vulcan and Romulus. I've twisted this just a tad, to include the deleted scene from Generations, as that doesn't agree with the TNG Unification episodes, in which we see Spock again for the first time since The Undiscovered Country.

(9) Again, McCoy visits the Enterprise-D in Encounter at Farpoint, making a point to refuse the transporter in favor of a shuttlecraft, with Data as escort. This was his last appearance in the Star Trek screen canon.

(10) McCoy would be pretty much ancient by this point in the timeline, but with futuristic technology it is conceivable that he was still alive, kept so by medical devices and so on. I've stretched this point just a tad to make it fit into this storyline.

(11) Scotty is trapped in a transporter beam for decades and is released onto the TNG Enterprise in the episode Relics; he would most likely still be alive at that point in time, as he would have been in middle-aged stasis for so many years.

(12) Kirk does die at the end of Generations, which occurs before the events of STXI. However, since he was buried on Veridian III by Captain Picard, I doubt Starfleet would make a big hoopla over his 'return' when they had much bigger problems, such as the Enterprise saucer section just crash landing nearby on Veridian IV. I'm going with the theory that Kirk's return was pretty much hushed up to avoid publicity, since he'd already been given a hero's memorial.