So True a Fool is Love

by Swiss

Prompt: What would have happened if Kirk and Spock had been forced to leave McCoy behind with the godlike psychopaths in "Plato's Stepchildren"?

"Being your slave what should I do but tend / Upon the hours, and times of your desire?/ I have no precious time at all to spend; / Nor services to do, till you require. / Nor dare I chide the world without end hour, / Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,/ When you have bid your servant once adieu; / Nor dare I question with my jealous thought/ Where you may be, or your affairs suppose, / But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought / Save, where you are, how happy you make those. / So true a fool is love, that in your will, / Though you do anything, he thinks no ill."

(Shakespeare, Sonnet 57)

He had known that they would leave him.

They hadn't been given much choice, after that first demonstration. McCoy himself would have begged them to go, even if it hadn't been painfully evident that staying would serve no purpose except to deprive them all of their lives.

It hadn't stopped his insides from clinching when Jim, drooping with exhaustion, stood beside the taut shoulders of his blankly distraught First Officer and raised devastated eyes to just look at him. Because McCoy had realized in that instant that Parmen could have asked for anything and Spock would still have been aboard the Enterprise, safe with his captain, by the evening's end. Jim simply loved him too much to let him suffer again before that laughing stock of a court.

"We're coming back for you, Bones."

It had been promised in an undertone as they faced each other for the last time, standing near enough that McCoy could have reached out and clung to his arms. He didn't. By God, he didn't, even if it did take everything in him to resist pleading – don't leave me, don't leave me, don't leave me behind. Parmen's eyes were hot against his back; he could feel the possessiveness, the satisfaction.

It was a supreme effort to keep himself from starting to tremble, but he didn't want to seem like a coward on this, the final moment that they were together. Instead, he tried to meet his captain's eyes. "Sure, Jim. I'll be right here."

The communicator burbled to life with a practiced flick of the wrist. "Kirk to Enterprise," the man said, his determined but remorseful eyes still on McCoy.

Spock entered the chamber then, his sharp gaze unusually bemused as he took in the entire scene, from the Platonian's triumphant aspect to Kirk's averted, stiff back. Then he took in McCoy's limp hands, dangling, and the resignation written in the lines of his whole body. The doctor met the eyes of his friend-adversary, transferring in that one exchange all the hoarded affection built up during years of fond bickering, professional understanding, begrudged intimacies, and shared experience – their commune of implausibly compatible spirits. Goodbye, he thought. Be well.

The Vulcan's eyes widened in alarm.

Jim did not give him time to intercede. It was his decision alone. "Scotty – two to beam up."

It was only when they were gone and McCoy was staring into the empty spaces that the sparkle of the transporter had left that he dared to ask, "You'll let them go, won't you? They'll be safe."

"Totally unharmed and unhindered, Doctor. As promised," the ruler answered, his dulcet voice simmering with its usual smarmy assurance. A broad hand curled around McCoy's shoulder. McCoy turned in time to see his smile, his mouth turned upward like the edges of a scroll. Paternal, predatory. The man clarified, "We have what we want, after all."

Serving the Platonians was everything McCoy expected it to be.

There was a unique lack of dignity which he had not known until the first time he struck his own face. The first time he found himself bleeding through his bangs at the base of a pillar. The first week he had not been permitted to speak, even in private, because his vocal cords has been frozen as punishment.

And then there was the first time his body had betrayed him, taking him places he did not want to go. Putting him under the hands of someone who he did not want to serve.

He was a novelty to them in his helplessness, well picked for their game. As a physician he possessed the power of the serpent of Asclepius, but through the same oath of that original healer, he was bound. No harm. No harm, not even to these people, who were so insensitive to his own pain. No harm, regardless of any humiliation.

He didn't know how Alexander had survived so long.

For two months, Spock did not speak to his captain outside of ship's business, months in which the Vulcan spent every moment he was not on the bridge in the lab, seeking a rational for the Platonian mental aptitudes. Kirk himself worked the Federation channels, exerting every not-inconsiderable ounce of influence, calling in every favor, orating and arguing before endless meetings of powerful admirals and heads of state on the various worlds of the Federation.

'You thought us so weak, Parmen,' he often thought in the midst of these machinations. 'But we'll see how far your power extends under the combined weight of our united worlds.'

The wait was maddening, and it wasn't lessened by the continued tension between Kirk and his first officer.

"Spock," he had tried on the one night they attempted to speak of it. He had cornered the Vulcan in the glass confines of McCoy's personal medical lab and spoke into the stony cobalt which had overtaken the usually lively eyes of the person for whom he would – and had – sacrificed everything. "Spock –"

"Captain," the Vulcan enunciated clearly, his words as rigid as crystals of ice. "I am very busy."

But Kirk had not gotten very far without being determined. Without the guidance of a medical hand, he drove in a lance on his own, seeking the infirmity. "I made the choice I had to. Bones is tough, smart. He's more flexible than you or me. He'll be fine."

It would have been difficult to tell if he were seeking absolution or trying to reassure himself. One way or another, it did not have the desired effect. Spock's gaze pierced him.

"And if he is not fine, Captain?"

The cold usage of the title hurt more than Kirk expected. Reflexively, he palmed the gold fabric over his heart, unable to respond.

It wasn't McCoy's absence that eventually convinced them. Politics ultimately had little interest in the fate of one misplaced starship doctor. It was, however, a convenient addition to the report which finally agreed that, in this case, the Prime Directive did not protect the Platonians from Starfleet intervention.

It went without saying that Kirk lead the issued task force. He was one of only two officers – two officers on active duty – with direct experience in the current situation, and Spock had some interesting theories about a mineral abundant on the planet. They'd reentered the planet's orbit with a plan this time, and a steely resolution that this trip be nothing like the last one.

Ostentatiously, it was a mission tasked with the security of the Federation. Yet it was evident to anyone on the Enterprise that the only thing on the minds of it's two most senior officers was the rescue of a single man.

It had been seven months.

"Captain Kirk, what a surprise. We did not expect to see you again." Philana's musical voice had not changed anymore than her body had in the long years of her existence. She pursed her lips in a self-satisfied parody of a grin. "Is this a social visit, or should we deem it official?"

Kirk waited for Spock to supply the answer that they were there pertaining to Starfleet Command Order 38702, Section 32b, Paragraph 4, but the Vulcan was oddly silent, standing at his shoulder with eyes as whetted as a blade.

From his place at the periphery of the confrontation, small hands wrapping the edge of an intricately carved pillar, Alexander watched them with sad, wounded eyes.

"We're here by order of the United Federation of Planets." Kirk's eyes narrowed. "You are required to turn over the federation citizen that you are holding hostage."

"Hostage?" Parmen spoke for the first time since the beginning of the audience. He leaned forward, elbow resting against his knee in a gesture of supreme confidence. The astral array of leaves against the crown of his head fairly gleamed against the luster of his silver hair. "I don't understand what you mean. We have no hostages on Platonius."

It was an effort to keep his teeth from clinching past the ability to speak. "McCoy."

"Ah, the doctor. Surely you remember as well as I do that it was the good doctor's decision to stay here and serve us as our physician. A true healer, worthy of bearing the legacy of Hippocrates. He's been very...accommodating."

The sequestered avarice in Parmen's tone made the bile that had soured the back of Kirk's throat burn, stinging him with acidic fear. He demanded, "Where is he?"

"Of course, I'm sure that you would like this opportunity to visit with an old friend." His fingers splayed whimsically, a beckoning gesture.

There was a short wait, followed by the rustling of the draperies near the back wall. The tunic was unfamiliar, though the faint blue of its hue seemed like a mockery. He did not look up as he moved stiffly nearer. Stooped. Transparently thin, in the way of those who had come through desperately hard times. Stumbling to the dais, he fell, bonelessly, onto his hands by Parmen's knees.

"Bones," Kirk breathed the word hollowly. He could barely recognize his friend.

Parmen had relaxed against his seat when McCoy entered. He smiled as though he held all the cards, his gaze almost fond as he took in the perversity beside him, of another man coiled at his feet as though supplicating before a god. "Ah, doctor. It seems you've been over hasty and given yourself a fall."

It was only then that Kirk noticed the flush of crimson streaking the side of McCoy's jaw. It was busily crammed in amidst more established companions, the bruised curve of an eye, the mottled skin at one temple.

Parmen tsked. "Always so reckless to obey. It's rare to find such a committed adherent, isn't' it, Captain?" This last remark, directed at Kirk, almost drove him to the point of violence. But the pitiless grey eyes had turned away, once more on McCoy.

Philana cajoled him, "Say hello to your friends, pet. They've come such a long way to see you."

It was a command. There was a tremor of resistance, the barest tautness of fight, but it was given up with a tangible slump of McCoy's shoulders. His chin inching up, Kirk was favored by the faintest, most distant flash of blue eyes, but even just the flicker of them left Kirk stricken. They were eyes that had been fragmented and left in pieces.

Spock was a shaft of unmoving shadow at his shoulder. It was uncertain if he even breathed.

"You mustn't be too disappointed if he does not seem ecstatic to see you, gentlemen. Life on Platonius can do that to a person, make all other places and companions dim in comparison," Parmen said. The words were cruel, twisted. "As to any requests of your Federation, I'm afraid that we will have to decline. We haven't the time or the inclination to mix with the baser elements of the galaxy. The inferior minds."

As he spoke, his hand fell idly to rest against the crown of McCoy's head, his fingers flexing, shifting proprietarily in the brown hair.

It was the absolute wrong thing to do.

The captain and first officer stepped forward as one, beyond the pale of restraint. Driven by the same fear and pain and need for revenge that had first motivated them to leave. Far past waiting. And enforced by the psychic force of kironide and a will unlike anything the Platonians could ever have conceptualized.

Parmen did not know what hit him.

At the edge of the chamber room where so much had started and ended, Kirk approached his old friend, reaching for him. McCoy didn't resist when his captain pulled him into a tight, relieved embrace. Instead he felt limp, unsubstantial. He didn't act like someone with any agency at all.

"Bones?" Kirk wondered, drawing him back. He had been prepared for almost anything – anger, recriminations, even tears – anything but this blank stare, this non-response.

It was Spock who finally drew the traumatized surgeon from Kirk and guided him carefully toward a clear surface where beam up would be possible. Spock who accompanied him to sickbay and stayed there while the Enterprise's new CMO completed an examination with all the tenderness and boundless respect of a accolade turned peer. It was also Spock who reported to the bridge hours later, his voice teeny but uninflected over the private com.

"He is resting now, Captain. M'Benga does not believe their has been any lasting damage."

"He's alright?"

Kirk didn't know what he expected to hear, but maybe some of the senseless hope was reflected in his question, because there was a long pause before Spock's voice returned. "No, Captain. But there is physically no reason to fear for his life."

The call ended abruptly, and afterward Kirk lowered his forehead onto upraised hands, wondering what he had done and not really knowing the answer.

"You were right not to have stayed, you know."

His friend, Admiral Davis, had told him this one night as he sat by his com, sipping a smolderingly undiluted tumbler of real earth brandy. The blue of the Saurian put him too much in mind of someone's eyes.

"Imagine what might have happened if you had stayed."

He imagined. He imagined far too much, every night in his dreams. Because McCoy still staggered around, half in a daze, and he still responded to a beckoning gesture with an almost crippling nausea that bent him double.

"I left him."

"You made a command decision. One of many you'll make in your career." The older officer leaned forward, eyes serious and concerned for his fellow. "I know he was more than just your officer. But we aren't able to flawlessly protect everyone, Jim. Logically we have to make choices, sometimes."

Jim thought about the way McCoy didn't always respond to his own name and threw back the last of his brandy, enjoying the burn down the back of his esophagus. "Logic doesn't come into it, Davis."

"Doc?"

"I'm in here, Jim."

It had been a long time since Kirk had dared to place himself near McCoy's domain. During the man's absence, he had always arranged for briefings with his acting CMO to take place in his quarters, a conference room, the bridge…

"It's good to see you back in your office. There was a hollowness before," he trailed off uselessly, unable to continue. But McCoy was as forgiving as he'd always been, offering to pardon, dismiss, forget. He waved his hand.

"Yeah, it's good to be back here. I thought that hobgoblin was going to smother me. It's nice to have a place he can't get into without using his damned override, and you know how prickly he is about doing it."

"Paperwork," the captain smiled knowingly, though that would hardly stop Spock if he really wanted to enter. He reflected on the recent attitude of his first officer. He had been keeping, as McCoy put it, an annoyingly close watch over the recently reinstated doctor, just as he had throughout his psych re-evals and the hours of logged psychiatric counseling. It had taken another two months off-duty before the Enterprise had, finally, gotten back her true CMO.

And they still did not have him completely.

"He's being affectionate, after his own fashion," Kirk defended Spock, trying to reclaim the smile he'd felt before. "Protective."

"Well, he can damn well do it without sending back every report I issue with comments for review. I've rewritten that Reactionary-Adrenaline article five times and he can still find fault with some nitpicky thing."

The words sounded okay, but Kirk could sometimes still hear the hollowness lingering behind them. He still shuddered to remember a time not so very long ago when McCoy had to be all but commanded to blink.

"Bones?"

He'd been fighting the inevitability of this conversation for weeks, but his own therapist – and how strange that it wasn't McCoy! – had finally drawn the line. Catharsis; the word lingered in his mind. He and Bones both needed it. There was too much unsaid wedged between them, ready to erode and torture them both. He'd allowed Bones to suffer enough already.

"Are we okay, Bones?" he asked. Are you okay?

The doctor's shoulders settled. They were still thinner than they used to be. McCoy had never really gotten back his appetite, though he refused to speak about exactly why. He had a lot of idiosyncrasies these days, most reinforced by a hidden story, some unspeakable something. McCoy wasn't very good at sharing confidences when they were his own.

But Kirk and Spock could wait him out.

As though divining his thoughts, the doctor asked, "Has he forgiven you yet?"

Kirk blew out his breath. "For leaving you? Or not telling him?"

The doctor only gazed at him steadily.

"No. He hasn't. And I don't think he will," Kirk finally answered, sharing a knowing look with McCoy that made him feel despicable. Because he knew that he would do what he had again, in spite of everything – that he would still take Spock off that planet. And Bones knew it too. He knew.

But there were a lot of things his old friend knew, and, though it hurt him – and the hurt was right there, so acute, in his eyes – he accepted Jim, accepted the reality of their triumvirate.

And suddenly Kirk was moved by such attachment to this man who acted as no one else he knew could, that just as he had once before, he reached out, drawing his friend under his chin. Bones stiffened; he didn't like to be enfolded anymore, was wary even of unexpected advances. Kirk waited him out, fierce in his unwillingness to leave this unresolved. He was rewarded when, slowly, the tension fell away and Bones finally sighed against his shoulder. Kirk felt the press of a cheek against the side of his neck.

"I'm so sorry, Bones," he whispered throatily. "So, so sorry –"

McCoy patted his back. It's okay. I'm here, he was saying. And how was it that he was always the comforter?

"It's alright, Jim-boy," he said aloud. "Another day, another adventure. We won't remember this in a year."

He said it, but Kirk could still see the causal lines that the will of others had drawn down McCoy's soul. The branded look of someone who'd lived on their knees.

But he didn't know, Kirk told himself. He wasn't a doctor. Maybe, eventually, things really would be okay. It was what he wanted to believe.

Author's Note: Plato's Stepchildren is, in my opinion, the most cringe-worthy episode in the Star Trek series. The concept appealed to me, since I had always mused over what might happen if the Enterprise ever ran across someone who wanted to keep a certain brilliant Starfleet surgeon. However, the humiliation weaved throughout the story makes it almost impossible for me to rewatch, and I think I always wondered about how else it might have ended. As a side note, the quotation is the sonnet that Parmen forces Kirk to recite in the original episode. It was ironically relevant to this story.