You Can't Be Too Careful [Star Trek/Leonard "Bones" McCoy Love Story]

[10.] The Black Blanket

[10] The Black Blanket

The walk back to sickbay was a blur. There were a few details that I could make out- the cold breeze on my exposed arms, neck and cheeks, the warmth that Bones’s arm around my shoulders gave me in the frigid air, the grey cement that we walked along-but even those details were hazy. The only thing that stood out to me was that I couldn’t stop shaking. My teeth were chattering, my hands were trembling, and my knees were practically knocking together. I tried to tell myself that it was from the cold, but I knew that it was leftover adrenaline from my encounter with Jordan.

I looked up at Bones and noted the details of his face: his stern hazel eyes were fixed forward, his brows furrowed as usual, and his mouth turned downward in an anxious frown. Rather than feeling discomforted by his silence and solemn expression, I felt appreciative. His calm and quiet demeanor helped me to not completely loose it, which I was rather close to doing at that point.

Once we reached the sickbay, Bones removed his arm from around my shoulders and set me on one of the tables. I hugged my arms to my chest and shivered as he began digging around in a nearby cabinet. When he returned to my side, he held up a small, white device and began hovering it over my face, listening intently to the beeping sounds that it made.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Trying to figure out what he drugged you with,” he answered.

“How did you know I was drugged?”

He looked up at me. “You were staggering the entire way here.”

I blinked. “I was?”

“Yeah. I’m not surprised that you don’t remember, though.”

“The fact that I don’t remember scares me a little,” I murmured quietly.

He gave me a look of pity before returning his attention to the beeping device. I shifted my focus to my hands, which I realized appeared even shakier because of my unsteady vision.

“Good God,” he breathed.

“What is it?” I asked weakly.

“He drugged you with an anticholinergic…not sure which one, but it’s a pretty large dosage.”

“What’s an anticholinergic?”

“They’re used to induce fear and confusion…I’m surprised you were still able to reason with him like you did.”

“My reasoning didn’t quiet help my situation,” I sighed.

“Hey,” he said seriously, “at least you’re still alive.”

I pursed my lips and nodded. “True.”

He pulled the device away from my cheek and gingerly placed a hand on top of mine.

“Will you be okay here for a minute?” he asked.

I nodded, not really wanting to talk anymore.

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

I nodded again. He gave my hand a gentle squeeze before disappearing down an adjacent hallway. I pulled my knees up to my chest and hid my face so that I didn’t have to look at anything anymore. I ran over everything in my head again, not wanting to relive the awful experience but knowing that I needed to at least try to remember as much as I could. I squeezed my eyes shut and turned far into the recesses of my mind. I saw everything in black and white, with a few splashes of color here and there. I rubbed my eyes, hoping that it was the drug doing this to my mind, rather than me actually losing my sense of color in my memories. I saw the note, the red handwriting blurring and sharpening periodically. Next, I saw darkness, felt burlap over my face, and sensed Jordan’s hot breath on my neck. I saw a burst of green as the sack was removed from my head: Jordan’s eyes. I could hear the whistling wind as I dangled from his fingertips, see the city lights twinkling in the background, could literally smell the adrenaline in the air. I felt myself falling. I shook harder.