Being the doctor of a star ship was a highly stressful job as the CMO, Leonard McCoy, would say with a few choice words he would incorporate when describing his job title. After the destruction caused by John Harrison, the state of the ship and its crew was in a disarray, a headache-inducing blur of a mess was left in the good doctor's hand. No soon later after the end of Harrison's reign of terror, was the influx of much needed help from the injured crew.

He was quick to begin aiding those in need, while also tirelessly trying to keep his other partner in crime alive and stable. Running himself into the ground, Leonard worked 24/7 giving orders, administering medicine and healing broken bones. It was an endless cycle, and all he wanted to do was break free from it and take a single break.

To sit next to the one person that has been there for him in the worst of times and the best. The man that held McCoy's heart and never betrayed him. Jim. His Jim. It ripped Leonard apart seeing him strapped to all the machine intent on keeping him alive, he wanted to believe he saved him.
His lips trembled as he stood in front of the eerily still human form in the bed. His hands gripped to the bed frame, squeezing it until his hands were red. He didn't want to let go, he couldn't. He couldn't just walk away nor let Jim go, he was at an impasse. At night, he laid in their bed looking at the bare pillow beside him. It felt cold to the touch and the sheets were not the usual scrunched up mess in the morning.

It felt wrong, having no usual morning conversations nor watching crappy movies and having no Jim. Things that didn't really matter was all that Leonard wanted, he wanted to be back at home with Jim and saving the kitchen from an accidental fire that started thanks to Jim's exemplary cooking skills and gossip idly about the crew and Starfleet. He wanted it all back, Jim's crystallizing blue eyes, his beautiful lips and his loving and warm hands that held Leonard up when he couldn't stand by himself.

They were each other's home, comfort and a stable place for their feelings and love. But he felt that home wisp away into the stars, when he saw a motionless body alone in the chamber. Leonard's hand began to shake uncontrollably, his legs trembled under the swift and irrepressible weight. 

His body gave out to gravity, crumbling harshly on the hard ground. Leonard's vision became incomprehensible and jagged, his breathing hitched in his throat and created what felt like a blockage in his lungs that brought a sharp pain. 

But no broken bone nor cut could conjure up a pain that radiated in his heart, Leonard wanted to scream and cry and fall into a dark abyss of sleep; but he was left in a state of loneliness and fear.

He was alone in a world without the hope of Jim wrapping himself around him and holding him. He was alone in a world that became bleak. 

After Jim was transported to the Med Bay, Leonard stood in front of the incubator that held Jim, whom was still the still form he had seen in the deathly space of the warp core. He stared intently without moving a single muscle, and he couldn't move his eyes away from his golden-haired love.

Leonard felt his body shiver, and his legs go numb. A sensation like a boulder was compressing his chest making it harder to breathe, and wet droplets ran down his cheeks. The doctor had felt this pain before, but back then it had been expected not like this. 

This was something that Leonard wanted to run from, just to curl up on his bed and scream at the universe that made moments unbearable, but his mind went blank and his heart broke.

He wanted to breathe, he wanted a new day, to feel the warmth of the sun of his face that wasn't artificial. To feel the cold and refreshing feeling of the ocean sweeping along his feet, to feel anything. To feel something that was neither numb or broken. 

To hold the soft hands of the blue-eyed man he loved, to feel the electric and splendor of his lips against his. To breathe his air, and to see what he sees, but it was all only possible in a fleeting dream now.

Before he even realized he was led to a chair by Nurse Chapel, her hands gripping his arms as if his legs would fail him. He sat consumed in the cosmic pit of despair and felt something he hadn't felt since the day he signed up for Starfleet. Loneliness.