Chapter Text
When Bones was released out of the mind meld, his thoughts were totally scrambled and he felt deeply disoriented and lost. What exactly had just happened? It gave him a headache just trying to think about that, trying to think about anything, really, so he let go of the thought and concentrated on the present.
He looked around and found that Spock, who had a beard for some reason, was grabbing his arm tightly, as if to keep him from falling. And yes, he felt very wobbly indeed, so it was probably a good idea to steady him. He peeked up at Spock and found him staring back coldly.
“We will now go back to your people, to the transporter room, and you will behave like you always do and follow their instructions, especially your captains’. This never happened, we just had a friendly talk about who you are and why you are here and you answered my questions. Is that clear?” Spock asked with sharpness in his voice.
Bones stared into his cold and calculating eyes and said “yes, very clear,” the answer coming to him almost automatically. Somehow, his brain screamed at him to please the Vulcan, to do everything he, THE OTHER, would say, to follow his instructions to the letter. If he did not, pain would follow, he thought with a light shudder, letting himself get dragged along as the Vulcan started to walk. He wasn´t quite sure how he knew that, he just did.
Turning around the last curve, the transporter room came in sight and Bones stared blankly at the group of people, his people, as THE OTHER had called them. The Vulcan had told him to do what they said, so Bones looked at the captain, waiting for instructions, while Spock said something about cutting the transporter power.
While Bones still stared at the captain, wondering how a person can appear alien and familiar at the same time, he felt THE OTHER give him a slight nudge and heard him say “take him” to the dark haired red-shirt in front of him. Scotty, his memory belatedly added after some painful searching, and he let himself be led away from Spock, further into the room, feeling strangely relieved for the growing distance between himself and the Vulcan.
“You´re a man of integrity in both universes, Mr. Spock,” Bones now heard the captain say, and somehow it felt hollow, wrong. But no, how could it? Spock was THE OTHER, everything he said must be true.
Shaking his head against the growing headache, Bones felt so confused. He let Scotty position him on a transporter pad, still holding on to his arm, and watched passively as THE OTHER discussed something about the Halkans with his captain, the words sounded like they came from far away to Bones – meaningless, hollow.
“Captain, get in the chamber!” Scotty exclaimed urgently. The captain took a step towards the woman with long, glossy brown hair, while still talking to Spock.
“In my chamber is a devise that will make you invincible,” he now said, and somehow it made the hairs rise on Bones’ arms, but he just kept on listening passively. Who was he to interrupt the captain speaking with THE OTHER, after all? No, he didn´t dare to protest or even join in their talking.
Then, after some more words, the captain finally walked into the chamber and Scotty wordlessly told him to keep standing there, letting go of his arm and moving onto another pad somewhere behind him. Somehow, Bones managed to not collapse, despite the bone-deep exhaustion he was feeling. It was all he could do to just keep standing there, waiting until the tingle of the beam engulfed their group, scrambling their atoms and letting them manifest in a slightly different looking transporter room half a second later.
Now the group walked towards Spock-without-beard and Bones followed them automatically, copying their lead.
BEHAVE LIKE YOU NORMALLY WOULD, Spock-with-beard had told him. So, he smiled along with the others, listening as Spock welcomed them home. When the group went on to the bridge, he trudged behind, trying to act normally.
Spock and the captain, whom he only now remembered to be called Jim, speculated happily about what they thought happened to the alternate versions of the away team, assuming that they had reappeared on their Enterprise at the same time their group appeared back on the USS Enterprise. Bones had some trouble following their fast discussion and mostly remained quiet, only perking up when Jim said, “I´m not sure, but I think we´ve been insulted!” to him.
“I´m sure,” he answered, positive that everything Spock said about humans must be derogative from his superior Vulcan view.
The mind meld THE OTHER Vulcan had forced him into only strengthened this feeling: from the thoughts he had received of the green-blooded opposer, he was not only thinking of himself as way cleverer than any human could ever be, he even had some strong repulsive thoughts about humans and was thinking especially badly about the “irrational, overemotional and weak” behaviours of Bones’ own counterpart, Dr. McCoy of the ISS Enterprise. Spock’s strong aversion towards him had spilled all over Bones like a bucked of cold water, all while Spock had carelessly shuffled through the doctors’ memories, personal and work-related, leaving him feeling like it would take years to get everything back together in the right order, if that was possible at all.
Some memories, like many he had about Spock, Jim and other members of the Enterprise, felt like they had been ripped apart: he would remember the beginning of a discussion he’d had with Spock two days ago, but couldn´t recall the ending of it. Or the training session in the gym he’d had with Jim the other day: he remembered coming out of the changing room and sharing a joke with the captain, but not much else. It was like he had to fight to get a grip on all of his memories since he started his work as the Enterprise’s CMO (which felt like a lifetime ago). Only the memories unrelated to the ship or entirely work-related and not including any of the senior officers felt more or less untouched.
And even worse, the more he struggled and tried to remember, the worse his headache and feelings of confusion and being lost in his own mind would get.
The rest of the day, Bones wandered around in a half daze, his steps robotic and his movements propelled by muscle memory, talking as little as he could get away with.
A far away part of his mind, the one where his doctor instincts were embedded, were screaming at him that he was very much not alright, that he needed to do something, tell someone, but the dominant part of his thinking quickly pushed that away, countering with “just do what THE OTHER told you”, “behave like you always do” or “follow their instructions”, not letting him follow any other thoughts for long. At least not long enough for him to get anything done about it. He’d only stand around hesitatingly for a few seconds here and there, feeling lost, and hurrying on when he caught anyone looking at him strangely.