A single shaft of light shot into the stone room, and McCoy gazed absently at the dust motes floating languidly in its golden path. Sunrise, sunset. That was how he measured time, anymore. When Vulcan's sun rose, the light poured in through the window behind him, and when it set, the light poured in through the window in front of him. In between, at night and at noon, he slept. The noon heat made him dream of burning alive, and in the crushing cold of night he dreamt not at all, for he slept fitfully and was not able to enter the REM state.

Once in a great while he roused himself to eat something that was brought to him, but otherwise he lay all the while in his bed, in this room provided for him. His Vulcan hosts were generous, and expressed as much sympathy as they could allow themselves to. Lately, though, McCoy sensed that the Vulcans were suppressing their puzzlement and frustration. To carry someone's katra was a trial indeed, and required recuperation. But weeks had gone by and the doctor had remained abed, refusing to help his industrious friends ready the Klingon ship for departure.

McCoy had a hypospray in his hand now. He lay on his back, his head tilted so he could gaze at it resting in his palm. It was the tri-ox compound, which Jim and the crew had been taking at regular intervals so they might thrive in Vulcan's oppressive atmosphere. McCoy ought to have been using it as well, but he just couldn't be bothered. He gripped the hypospray, examined the dull gray fingerprints he left on its silver surface. He dragged his thumb along the side, just to see the long matte streak it left behind. All he had to do was lift his hand to inject it. But he didn't want to. He didn't want to feel better. He didn't want to get up and be energized. He wanted to stay depressed and lonely, to lie here forever and watch the sun as it went by, until he wasted away, each breath more shallow than the last, until they ceased entirely.

His friends visited once in a while. They held his hand and asked how he was doing, as they would do for any invalid. Each was too polite to suggest that he ought to be up and around. When they came, he hid the hypospray, so they would not be tempted to force it upon him.

Spock did not visit him.

The others would give him little updates on Spock's progress; how he was being retrained in the Vulcan manner. Uhura smiled as she described to McCoy how Kirk could not get Spock to call him "Jim." He'd tried to trick Spock, he'd tried to order him to say "Jim," but nothing could be done.

"What about the first time? Spock said 'Your name is Jim,' didn't he?" And saying that, a fresh wave of sorrow washed over him. Spock had recognized only Jim. No one else. Not even so much as a glimmer of recognition did McCoy see in those dark, blank eyes, that night. He burned with jealousy.

Uhura started to explain that the formality was part of Spock's Vulcan re-education. But she could see that McCoy's question was rhetorical, that the answer made no difference to him, so she trailed off, and just squeezed his hand. His eyes were closed. Even when they were open, Uhura sometimes wondered whether he was awake or asleep.

McCoy wasn't sure anymore which higher power or powers he believed in, but during his more lucid moments he wished they would make up their minds: did they want him to have Spock, or didn't they? Boy, all those times he had thought he was being tested…But most of the time, he felt so hollow inside, there was nothing in his brain for him to think about. His eyes would fix for hours on one corner of the room, draped with a dark, geometric tapestry, until he could see it on the backs of his eyelids when he began to doze. His arm would slide off the bed, and his hand touched the stone floor, and he would brush the surface with his fingertips, warm all day and cold at night, the sparse grains of sand causing a little friction here and there. And he slept, and slept.

One day, Amanda came to visit him. For some reason McCoy was comforted to see another pair of blue eyes. He did not know if Amanda was aware of what kind of relationship he'd had with her son. But then, a mother knows, a mother always knows the truth about her children. So he was not shy with her.

"How did you manage it?" he asked.

Amanda's eyebrows drew together, the standard human method of conveying that one did not understand, and was sorry about it.

He tried again. "How did you let Spock go?"

Amanda sighed, and relaxed visibly. She could tire so, of being a woman on Vulcan, of being a diplomat's wife. McCoy's question gave her the sort of excuse she was always hoping for, to be a human female for a little while.

But her answer was no comfort to McCoy, as it had been no comfort to her.

"I didn't have a choice, either."

Hearing these words, the hollow feeling inside him swelled to a vast, crippling emptiness, like a fire which would burn and burn and never consume itself. He was too dehydrated to cry.

"I came here," said Amanda, "to tell you that your friends are almost ready to depart. The ship is repaired. They were working all night to finish. Everyone is anxious to get back to Earth."

Earth. McCoy seemed to recall such a planet.

"Is Spock going, too?" he rasped.

"Yes. He wishes to offer testimony at Admiral Kirk's trial."

"How will I face him, Amanda? How can I be on that ship with him?"

Amanda put her hand to McCoy's forehead, brushing strands of unwashed hair back into their proper arrangement. "You can do what I have done," she said. "You can look at him, and try to remember fondly what you used to have."

The sun was rising.