Title: Doctor's Logs 21 Author: Istannor Series: TOS Part: 1/1 Rating: [PG 13] Codes: Ritual cannibalism and violence Summary: McCoy deals with his guilt. Disclaimer: These are the characters of Paramount and Viacom, they own them I only check 'em out from the library. I promise to bring 'em back. Doctor's Logs 21 Stardate 2028 Oh my God, please forgive me. I will shut my mouth; I will never say another word. I will never blow it again. Please forgive me. Self-sacrifice, loyalty, bravery, intelligence, spirituality. We thought they were testing all of us. What fools we were. They were testing Jim because he was the Captain and it was his responsiblity. He had to be loyal enough to save us all. He had to be brave enough to fight our foes. He had to be intelligent enough to rescue us from our mistakes, and have enough faith in us to do the right thing until he succeeded. We thought we were the main act, and the play had already passed us all by. I will make it up to him, I swear. I never thought anything would happen like this. M'Benga has him coated in Nu-Skin. The blood wasn't his, at least not when I found him. That belonged to the beast. They dipped him a chemical peel that they told him would slowly burn through his skin, little by little. They gave him a choice. As the Captain, he was responsible for his entire crew, even me. They told him he could leave and bathe in the counteragent to the chemical without anyone stopping him, and they would take our souls as payment for the wrong done to their culture and their traditions. He was free to return to the ship after that, and all was forgotten, or he could run after the man who would lead him to each and every one of his crew, and any that he saved he could have, but he would be permanently disfigured by the chemical. I think they figured that for a man that looked like Jim, that would be the ultimate sacrifice. Jim ran after the man. Spock is the one who finally took me aside and told me what happened. I think he must have taken pity on me, because he has never been kinder to me in all the time we have known one another. Jim ran, burning over his entire skin, he ran until they found Sulu. The blur Sulu described was Jim. He finished off the last guy Sulu had to fight and then had Sulu transported up to the ship. When he found Glover, she was already sinking down into the freezing water. He pulled her out, and had her beamed out before he took off again. The water made the chemical burn more. It made him feel like he was running through a wall of flames. Spock said Jim was delirious and thought he had no skin left when they beamed him on board. The runner had led Jim to the cave and he beat the creature with the stick he had from Sulu, until he drove it out from the cave and away from Jacks. The creature broke Jim's jaw during the fight. That was the lump I felt on his face. They told him that I was back at the compound, in no danger, and that the run was over. When he heard that, he basically collapsed in the cave from pain and exhaustion. The runner left to get some help and that was when I found Jim and Jacks. When the beast grabbed my leg, Jim somehow found the strength to ram what was left of the stick he had down its throat and kill it. That's when they called Spock and the med team to come and get us. Spock said I was laying to one side of the dead animal, with my leg bleeding, Jim sitting beside me trying to hold something over the wound to stop the blood and begging me to hold on. It turns out the Charon were not as cruel as they could have been. The chemical they used on Jim hurt like hell, but gave him nothing worse than the equivalent of first and second degree burns covering his entire body. Modern medicine is able to fix that without a trace of a scar. But, Jim didn't know that then. Spock says Jim told him not to blame me. He told Spock it wasn't my fault, it was the Captain's responsibility. He should've known better than to put me a situation I couldn't handle. Why the hell should Jim blame himself ? It's Starfleet's frigging fault. Starfleet claims that the ceremony only takes place for the royal family and there has not been a death in the Royal family since the system joined Starfleet, so Starfleet didn't know either. Ensign Glover is feeling racked with guilt because as the anthropologist on site, she thinks she should have been able to find evidence of the ritual eating of flesh in the records she had, so we could've been better briefed before we went down. Spock is very clear that there was no mention of this custom in anything we had available to us on the ship. Starfleet gave Jim a reprimand for the way his crew handled the affair and then they gave the rest of us all a commendation for the way we got ourselves out of the mess I got us into. If that isn't covering your ass, I don't know what is. I read the message Starfleet sent to Jim. Spock showed it to me since he is in command for now. It said that we were inappropriate in our lack of sensitivity to cultural norms on a member world's home planet. It said we were slow to read cultural and religious clues and recommended that we work harder in the future to be less parochial and more accepting of diversity. They assure us that they had no inkling of the practice of ritual consumption of royal flesh, but if they had known, they still would have ordered our participation. I say they are full of shit. They knew and just didn't see fit to tell us and because I was surprised, I blew it. Maybe I am too old and too rigid for this, after all. I need to deal with this. M'Benga is going to use the Kubler- Ross program on me to help me reach acceptance of my actions. It took a while for me to dictate this much. Jim is sleeping peacefully in isolation until the Nu-skin takes completely. Except for his broken jaw, nothing else was damaged. Right now he looks like he has a bad case of sunburn. At least they spared his face. They told him they didn't want to impair his vision so he couldn't run, if that was what he chose. Spock has started to talk to me again. He told me that it was illogical to allow me to suffer more than I already had. Now, I am waiting for Jim to wake up. I watch Spock get in complete isolation gear every day and go into the chamber and sit peacefully at Jim's side to meditate. While Spock is in there, Jim's vitals smooth out and his brainwaves show enhanced relaxation. M'Benga says they will wake Jim up in two more days. Until then, they will keep him under to prevent him from moving and breaking the skin's integrity since there was so much of it to graft. They assure me that he is fine, just asleep for a precaution. M'Benga told me they spoke together before he put Jim to sleep, and Jim even talked to Spock a few days back, so I should stop worrying. He assured me that Jim had taken the whole episode in stride. I start full physical therapy on my leg tomorrow. I should be able to completely bear weight in a week. Not bad considering the damn animal almost bit it off. It looks as good as new and the sensory and motor function is intact. I really want to be mad at the people of Charon. I want to hate them. Somewhere deep inside, in the part of me that has to remain honest with myself, I know it is not their fault, it is mine. I wonder if Jim will ever forgive me. Shit, I wonder if I will ever forgive me.