A/N: Massive spoilers for Star Trek: 2009.

I've only seen the movie once, so much of this is gleaned from my memory and the Wikipedia and Memory Alpha's pages for the movie. This is also my very first Star Trek story, as well as my first non-Harry Potter story, and I can't believe I wrote about Bones McCoy, but Karl Urban owns me now. Thanks to a few eagle eyed reviewers here and on LJ, I think I've corrected some errors that I made here that didn't gel with the movie or with some of the stuff from canon.

Rated T for language. This is basically the Star Trek movie from Bones' POV in a series of little drabbles and ficlets.

The Things He Sees

I.

His bones are the only things he has left.

But his eyes feel older than even his body.

He sees so much in his time as a doctor at Mississippi General — pain, suffering. Wound after wound. Sickness. Debilitating disease. At one point, he swears if he sees another case of Romulan Fever or that horrible strand of equine influenza (the one that nearly shut down Biloxi) he'll quit. He'll give all this up because no matter how hard he works, or how hard he tries to save them, he can't save them all.

He takes a swig of his whiskey and he goes to sleep. On the couch, of course, because Jocelyn's pissed at him again for coming home late without a call.

"But I was in surgery all night!"

"You're always in surgery, Leonard. You're always this and that and I'm the one left here! You don't even call to tell me you're not coming home for dinner or you're going to be late!"

"I – FORGOT!" He yells at her and almost instantly wishes he could take it back because it is late and surely young Joanna is in bed. It's a school day tomorrow after all.

So he whispers to his wife. "Dammit, Jocelyn. I'm a doctor—"

"More than you are a husband."

He fumes. His eyes look down at the floor; his foot taps to the furious beat of his heart. Briefly, he wonders if he could make himself so angry he'd have an infarction… a stroke… an aneurysm… any ailment in which stress can be a factor.

He knows what he said was a mistake. But he lacks grace with words and demeanor. Fortunately, for his patients, he possesses far more grace in their treatment, handling their bodies deftly while talking to them with all the delicacy of two pieces of sandpaper scraping against each other.

And when he comes home, his voice does not change. He does not modulate his personality to be the sensitive man around his wife and daughter. He can't; it's not in his nature.

His eyes flicker to the monitor as it plays the latest news transmission. There is no sound as he doesn't want to risk more of Jocelyn's wrath. It's the last thing he thinks as he lets the last drop of the hard liquor pass into his throat.

It's a month later and he sees Jocelyn naked, entangled with another man on their bed. He's so tempted to storm into his own home and punch that bastard's head in until he gets off of his wife.

With a hole in his heart, he realizes there are still a thousand things his old, weary eyes still have not seen. And that he wishes they didn't have to.

II.

His eyes are a year older, but he feels like they have seen forever.

Marriage, the birth of his daughter, and divorce.

Now, he's on the cusp of flying into the sky, of seeing the most unbelievable things. Of touching the void, the very face of God.

It scares the bejesus out of him. And although he curses and rails against alien diseases and bacteria, he stays here at Starfleet Academy. Partly because there is nothing else for him in Mississippi.

Mostly because he searches for something more.

For now though, he keeps his feet on the ground, sharing a drink with his new friend, bemoaning his current status as Starfleet peon.

"They're idiots, Jim. All a bunch of incompetents!" He takes a swig of his whiskey from his own personal flask.

"You know, if your colleagues—"

"Toddlers!"

"Toddlers, idiots — if your whatevers heard what you were calling them behind their back, they'd find the nearest internal probes and shove them right up your ass."

He snorts. "That would imply they could find my ass. Jim, you're overestimating their collective intelligence."

Jim Kirk laughs as he takes another swig of his Romulan ale, promptly coughing as the pungent liquid enters his mouth. "Sweet Jesus, that stings."

He holds up his flask. "If I didn't know what you were up to with that Andorian girl last night, I'd let you have some of my whiskey."

"Andorian shingles?"

"Among other things. You've probably got a million different kinds of space germs and other crap floating around inside of you and I don't want to be infected." He takes a drink as he jabs his finger insistently at his friend. "And, by the way, you're due for a physical."

Jim flings his arms out. "Take a look, McCoy." He turns from left to right. "Do I look ill or like I'm prone to sickness? What's that — I don't? Great! You owe me another ale."

"Diagnosis: you clearly suffer from a case of chronic assholism, coupled with an addiction to getting punched, often and repeatedly."

His friend smiles crookedly and drawls in that languorous Midwestern way he has about him. "What can I say? Chicks dig the scars." For good measure, Jim winks.

He grumbles as he takes another drink, but he grins because he has Jim, who is as carefree and reckless as he is cautious, guarded and gruff. James Kirk is a whirlwind, a vortex of a man. If he was any younger he'd get sucked right into the black hole of his friend's debaucherous ways.

As it is, he sits back and observes the man opposite from him. He admires and respects the brain that lays inside that hot head of Jim's, the infinite potential dancing on the tip of a dynamite stick. But he also recognizes the need for a cooler something, someone to keep Kirk from exploding, to keep him down to earth even when he goes up into the stars.

No son of George Kirk can stay down for long, after all.

As exasperating as James Kirk is, this friendship is definitely a start to rebuilding himself in this new life.

III.

The Romulan attacks. There is a helluva lot of damage to the ship.

He sees things blowing up, left and right, and it's different from working in a hospital, where the ground doesn't move beneath his feet and they're not inside some insane flying deathtrap and why the hell did he sign up for this again?

Oh, that's right — he has nothing else in his life except the bones in his body.

Which is appropriate. Now he's an old sawbones, a doctor on a starship that's now in the middle of a battle. It's all he has left, being a doctor; he supposes he'll die here in this metal bucket, with his hands wrapped around a patient, trying to stop them from bleeding to death.

He weaves around contained fires and smoke and bodies… dammit! The Enterprise's just lost her Chief Medical Officer. Which makes him the new Chief Medical Officer.

He'll celebrate later from his flask, but first, there are people here that need his help.

"For chrissakes! Medic, get over here. Put your hand here, on this man's thigh."

"I-I… uh, I've n-never—" The medic's clearly turning green; he wonders if this youngster's even seen blood in the sterilized training facility that is Starfleet's Medical Center.

"Well, son, now's your chance. Hand now!" He slams the medic's hand on the patient's leg and the patient lets out a howl. He's about to check on a woman on the other side of the room, when the intercom buzzes.

"This is Cadet McCoy!" And there's some useless spiel from Captain Spock about how he's now the CMO — yeah, tell him something he doesn't already know.

His frustration mounts with the entire blasted affair. Captain Pike he respects, moreso than most senior officers. But Spock? The only redeeming quality in his eyes was giving Jim hell for cheating on the Kobayashi Maru. Otherwise, he's an emotionless, passionless ass.

But he replies dutifully, because Captain Spock has to log in information for headquarters, and much of all this talking is just that, getting it on the record.

At least Captain Spock knows to keep it short, which the Vulcan does. In twenty seconds, he's already off to celebrate his promotion with about five more patients needing medical attention.

IV.

"Lieutenant Sulu, you need to calm down and let me finish the damn scan!"

It is nice to not hold back the attitude now that he's the Chief Medical Officer. He usually finds a well placed swear or barked order can get patients to do what he wants.

Except for this guy who's all hopped up on adrenaline. The lieutenant's hand shakes on the hilt of his retracted steel sword.

"I need to get back to the bridge, Doctor. The captain already hates me."

"Well that was Captain Pike, and he's not here right, now. That Vulc-, er, Captain Spock's in charge and, if I know him, he'd want to make sure the crewmembers were checked out before reporting for duty."

"I'm – fine!"

"You will be when I say so."

The lieutenant mutters something vulgar under his breath.

He smiles; he knows he is doing his job and doing it well. There is something satisfactory about telling these people what they need and shoving it down their stubborn throats. Jim tells him all the time that he needs to work on his bedside manner. But he objects; this way, he maintains authority and control and not one of these snot-nosed runts will dare take advantage of him.

He is their doctor now, and he is a damn good one. The crew needs to realize that sooner rather than later. They need to shut up and let him do his goddamn job.

There will be far more days like this. There will be fights and deaths and idiotic space dives off the ship onto machines that can drill through a planet's core. And he's damn well certain that Jim the Reckless Idiot, his best friend and someone he has come to think of as a younger brother, will end up in sickbay yet again. He knows it because that's James Kirk; he'll volunteer for some such nonsense that'll make him Romulan or Klingon fodder—

Why the hell did he sign up for this crap?

He clicks off the scanner. "You're free to go, Lieutenant Sulu."

"About time," the young officer says, glaring at him as he jumps up and bolts towards the bridge.

V.

"Dammit Jim!"

It's his fault. Hell, he should've seen it happening a light year away, back at Starfleet Headquarters, when he plied Jim's body with enough vaccines and other fluids to make him look like a victim of a shellfish allergy attack.

Sure, that green-blooded, pointy-eared, repressed jackass of an alien was technically right — Jim was being insubordinate. Jim needed to be restrained. But in a brig, not on a practically lifeless planet, Starfleet outpost nearby or not.

He wants to rail on Captain Spock, but he has a job to do, and getting his own ass ejected onto Delta Vega would neither do him, the ship, nor Jim any good. Jim is a survivor; he has seen him torn up after bar fights with cadets and critters five times his size and still walk away with all his extremities intact. And always, Jim has a grin and bottle of beer attached to his face, blood pouring from his cuts.

"No wonder you found me. Befriending a doctor's a necessity for you," he says after a particularly nasty run-in with a bulky student they both call "Mace". For obvious reasons.

But even today, that inscrutable aspect of James T. Kirk was full-on display. He gets Pike to listen to him, for Pete's sake! That's no small feat; Pike has a filter for bullshit.

The kid's meant for greatness; he could tell after getting to know him that first week at the academy. There is something in his heart that tells him he'll see Jim again, and soon. Greatness has a way of defining destiny and keeping it right on its unknowable course.

There's also the main practical consideration. Looking at the crap that he has for a medical team — "All book smarts and to hell with real-world experience!" — the ship in her current state needs him. There are far too many injured officers and crewpersons; he is the only man on board with the right professional qualifications and medical training and the ability to keep these bedwetters focused on their tasks.

VI.

He walks towards the bridge, and he sees a curly-haired teenager muttering to himself, his accent obscuring his words. The teen's hands press against the metal walls of the ship, ticking off things like a mental list that he's going over and over again. The closer he gets, he sees the boy's face. He recognizes him from the navigation helm.

"Er… you're Ensign—?"

The kid's head snaps up. "Oh! Y-yes, um… En-Ensign, er… Pavel Chekov, sir."

"Yeah. Thought I saw you on the bridge there."

"And you are a doctor, correct, sir?"

The kid's accent is thick, but he speaks slowly.

He has no problems understanding the young officer. He can't help but think he's just a nice boy who looks immensely troubled. "I'm Doctor McCoy, yeah. Are you on a break out here?"

"W-well, I was on a break, sir—"

He waves his hand. "Can the 'sir' nonsense. I'm just a doctor."

"All right, Doctor McCoy," Chekov replies, his rolling his r's, his tone as polite and calm as could be, despite his apprehension. "I would appreciate it if no one knew I was out here in this condition."

"Condition? You feeling all right, son?"

"Y-yes. I feel fine, no injuries, Doctor. But I am going over and over in my head the two transporter scenarios that happened today. A-and… what happened with the captain's mother."

Suddenly, he understands. "Look, kid. You did an outstanding job. Kickass by all accounts."

Chekov smiles, but it quickly falls. "Most of my comrades… um, peers at Starfleet said a lot of what I could do with transporter theory and theoretical physics was 'kickass'." He shrugs. "I take it that is a good thing, according to your terminology?"

"It absolutely is. Means you're aces at what you can do here." He grins. "No one else would've been able to figure out how to lock onto Jim's and the lieutenant's coordinates like you did. While they were in free fall." He pats the young man on the shoulders. "And, on a personal note, I have to thank you for saving my best friend's life."

This time, a broader smile broke across the ensign's face. "I saved your best friend?"

"You did. Jim's still alive today and that's all because of you. But lemme ask you, Ensign Chekov — did you do absolutely everything in your power to save the party on Vulcan? Captain Spock and the Vulcan elders?"

The boy looks away, "I… think so."

"Not think. Do you know you did everything you could to save the party?"

The kid turns his eyes back up to him. He swallows, nervous about what his reply will elicit. "Y-yes. I did do everything in my power to save them. All of them. And yet, I let the captain's mother die."

He shakes his head. "No you didn't, son. Take it from someone who knows about having people's lives in his hands, who's seen life slip away in front of him. There are times you will face no-win scenarios. There are times when, despite all your best efforts, it still might not be enough. But you saved the captain. You helped bring those elders on board. And they'll continue their Vulcan way of life because you helped bring them on board."

"You believe that?"

He suppresses a sneer. He feels for Spock because of what happened to Vulcan. He can't even imagine what he's going through.

But... dammit! That pointy-eared asshole needs a damn break. He needs to grieve. He's got way too much Vulcan in him to command a crew of humans, of people and other beings who can think and feel. His adherence to logic is cracked, particularly when it's apparent that to fight this crazy Romulan you need guts and instinct. And that bastard just jettisoned guts and instinct onto Delta Vega.

Idiot.

More human connection could do Spock some good. That A plus B does not always equal C. That there are roles for impulse and emotion when being a leader. Not to mention empathy.

He does not make this personal. Right now, he needs to make sure this boy's head is in a good space. The ship clearly needs this prodigy. This is also his own way to show Chekov his gratitude for saving Jim without spiraling down into schmaltz and sentiment.

"I believe it, all the way to the marrow of my bones. Trust me… they've been through a lot. Too much."

The boy nods slowly. "I am glad that I was able to save the elders. And I am glad I was able to save your friend, er… First Officer Kirk."

He laughs, hearing Jim being referred to as a First Officer. "Well, he was First Officer before he got his ass booted." The young ensign chortles, although he tries desperately not to.

"So, Chekov, you ready to get back to your post?"

"I am. Thank you, Doctor."

He can't stop smiling, thinking that perhaps there was something to Jim's advice about being able to help others by not yelling all the damn time.

VII.

That bastard!

Of course Jim lives and manages to find a way to beam aboard the ship. He's the only person that can come back from being marooned on another planet and actually wrestle the captainship away from an older officer.

And he gets the Vulcan to admit he was "emotionally compromised". It's a good thing; Spock should let himself grieve.

He can hardly believe it, though. And crazier still, Jim brings with him a new Starfleet engineer, and just in the nick of time too. One shouldn't go after crazed Romulan commanders who can turn planets into black holes with no one manning the dilithium crystal cells. That would just be stupid.

But this new guy? He's a loon.

"Montgomery Scott! But I prefer Scotty."

"Eh," he mutters, hesitantly shaking the man's hand. "Leonard McCoy. Chief Medical Officer, Enterprise."

"Well… duh!" In his Scottish accent, the Americanism is jarring. "I don't suppose you know of any entertainment on this ship, eh?"

"Excuse me?"

"Entertainment, Doc. Y'know what I mean?" The Scotsman elbows him in the side. Rather sharply. "A little—" He moves his hands in front of him, clearly mimicking the shape of a woman. "Or a little—" He cups his hand and tips it in front of his mouth.

He blinks and crosses his arms indignantly. "For your information, I'm a doctor. And this is the Enterprise, not a red-light district."

Scotty's hands fly up. "Hey. I meant no offense. Just wanted to know about the fun stuff on here. Been stuck at that outpost for a millennium-and-a-half, and the only beauties down there were all up here." He points at his head. "When you start describing parts of a ship as being 'ample', well, it's been far too long."

"Mister Scott—"

"Scotty, Doc. Call me Scotty."

He leans towards the guy, wondering briefly if crazy is contagious. "We've been a bit busy. Chasing this Nero madman, trying to not die. And as this is my first time aboard this tin can—"

"Shhh! She can hear you."

He rolls his eyes. "I haven't had much time to explore all the fun stuff. Had my hands full today. Not to mention in a woman's chest, trying to restart her heart."

"Ah," Scotty's voice is shaky and awkward. "Well, I'll just start heading down to Engineering."

He nods and continues to stare. "Best idea I've heard in a long time." He shakes his head watching the engineer leave, wondering where the hell Jim finds these bozos.

He has to admit though, when worse comes to worse, and the Enterprise is on the verge of being sucked into a vast black hole, it is Scotty who saves the ship.

For his role in keeping all of them alive, he asks Scotty to join him for a drink later. Whether it be on the ship or it be back down on earth it doesn't matter. That man deserves it, that much he can see.

VIII.

It is over. Damage to the ship was minimal and this time, no lives were lost.

However, he still needs to examine the smug Starfleet maverick that he's come to think of as a brother… and Jim's partner-in-crime today.

Spock. The pointy-eared hobgoblin himself.

"Easy, Bones," Kirk says, punching him in the arm. "A bit more of a light touch, 'kay? Remember, I was in a major fist fight."

He glares at his friend. "You take on a whole army of Romulans like you're a common 20th century pugilist and I'm hurting you? For the love of—"

Jim winces as he finished up sealing the wounds.

"Take it like a man, Jim. This would be far less painful if you weren't so damn allergic to modern suturing medicines, you know."

"Shut it."

"Doctor McCoy."

Spock's voice causes both men to turn around and look at him, standing up from the examination table. "Correct me if I am mistaken, but are there not more advanced suturing techniques available?" He quirked an eyebrow at Jim. "If the more primitive manner of sealing his wounds is too much for him."

He snorts at the droll delivery and, for a brief second, he forgets Vulcans can't joke (or maybe that is his misconception of the entire species). But then he remembers that Spock is half-human, so maybe he can actually feel. Maybe he can laugh. Not much, but more than others like him.

He looks at Jim, smirking. "Well, that's surprising. I think he just ragged on you."

"Yeah, I think he did." Kirk glowers at Spock, but he sees just a hint of a grin.

"The concepts of humor — irony, misdirection, wit, metaphor — these are not lost on Vulcans. However, my…" Spock halts. He blinks, but his face registers no other reaction. "My people are fascinated by the intricacies of human words and actions and how these concepts can intersect—"

He holds his hand up, cutting off his dissection of Earth-based humor. "Stop while you're ahead, Spock. I'll just take it you meant it as a joke." He turns back to Jim to whisper. "You think he's capable of being human, and then it gets all smothered under the sheer weight of his Vulcanness."

"Simply because I am over here does not mean I cannot hear you."

He looks at Spock, who is glowering at him.

Kirk, though, grins. "It's the ears, right?"

The door to the sickbay opens. He turns around and sees a woman, the communications officer from the bridge. She is beautiful, but there is an air about her, intimidating and formidable. He has known, for now a couple of years, that she is quite intelligent and capable in her field; after all, her knowledge in the field of xenolinguistics was a key to figuring out what was really happening on Vulcan.

"Lieutenant Uhura," he says, greeting her with a small head bow. "What brings you to the sickbay? You're not injured, I hope?"

She breaks out into a smile. "Just visiting, if that's all right, Doctor."

"Of course. You'd make far better company than Tweedledum and Tweedledee over here." He gestures to Jim and Spock, whose only reaction is to glare in that stone-like Vulcan way of his.

She laughs, and — damn! — it sounds so pretty, so musical. It reminds him of his ex-wife's laughter, which he heard so often when he courted her.

"Captain Kirk," she begins in a more professional voice. "I'm glad that you managed to come back in one piece."

"Was there ever any doubt?" he asks, his hands spread out wide.

"Good to see your personality's still intact," she says, her eyebrow arching. She turns away from them and seeks the bed just behind her, to her right.

With a soft smile on her face, she approaches Spock, something resembling a smile spreading across his own.

"I didn't know Spock and Uhura were friends," he whispers to Jim.

Jim snorts. "Yep. They're actually what you and I would call 'dating'." He crooks his fingers like quotation marks.

Just as he looks at Jim with incredulity, he sees something that will burn in his memory and change the way he thinks about the ship's first officer forever.

Spock reaches out and pulls Uhura close to him. His hands, his arms embrace her and she arches towards him, kissing the Vulcan tenderly on his lips.

Next to Jim, watching the whole thing unfold, his jaw drops. "Them?" It's the only thing he can say in his shocked state.

Jim's eyes are squeezed shut and he nods slowly, resigned to the outcome. "Yeah. Them."

"But didn't you… back at the bar before you joined Starfleet…?"

"Yeah – I – did, Bones. I tried and I failed." The words barely make it out from between Jim's gritted teeth and he's clearly annoyed that he brings that up now, of all times. "As you can see," he held his hand out. "I'm clearly not her type."

"Well, maybe deep down, beneath all that green blood and hard-boiled logic, there's an actual red-blooded man. " He shakes his head, unable to look away to give the surprising couple a moment to themselves. "It'll do him good to have some human connection."

"Bones, I thought you didn't like the hobgoblin."

He shrugs. "I think I do like him. The man has taste. She's one of the brightest recruits in Starfleet. One of the most skilled xenolinguists in the fleet—"

Jim sighs. "And she's hot."

"You need to watch that damn mouth of yours now that you're captain. You don't want to be sanctioned under Regulation 30.34."

"I'm still waiting to find out what's going to happen with the Kobayashi Maru."

"Jim, something tells me you're going to be all right there. Might even come out of the hearing better than you were before."

Once they dock the Enterprise and return back to Earth, he is able to sleep, to shut his weary, already worn-beyond-his-years eyes. He thinks of everything he has seen—

Kissing, making love to Jocelyn.

Holding his newborn daughter, Joanna.

Watching Jocelyn walk away from the courthouse, their divorce finalized.

Seeing James Kirk laugh and sharing a drink with the man.

Mending his first patients aboard the Enterprise.

Staring at the planet Vulcan as a black hole consumes it.

Realizing every preconceived notion that he had about Spock is wrong… well, at least eighty-percent of what he thought.

He can rest, knowing that he has seen so much, knowing that there are a billion more things ahead of him.

Fin.