John decided to take a air-car, it was faster, arguably, and it had autopilot mode that the hover car did not so both of the men could get some sleep. He could allow himself a few hours of rest, four at best, while the first few were spent guiding the hover car on. It cut down the trip by two hours by the latest between Georgia and Mississippi. Everything was going the way it should be and going all too perfect.

The men were singing 'The devil went down to Georgia' and having fun at it. The most fun that the man had in ages singing along to a different voice that was full of sweetness, the joys, the innocence, and rung like a southern belle. It was all shattered when John looked toward Leonard in the middle of the singing, just for a minute, then they were struck by a unexpected driver slamming into the front of the air-car that made the sound of metal sound excruciating.

The vehicle struck another air-car head on that had crossed their paths spiraling out of control and the console stopped playing the music but John acted quickly paying little attention to his surroundings as the car crashed into another lane hitting the rear in a crushing blow. The crushed rear severely dented the battery at the back end of the vehicle and caused it to plummet to John's horror to the crowded traffic.

The air car landed then spun and spun flipping over vehicles at a time until it crashed into a ditch and it were half tipped in and out of the nearest body of water beneath it. John groaned, his wounds not healing fast as they were stunned and traumatized, shell shocked, the body itself wasn't regenerating. He looked over spotting Leonard-- Leonard's side of the vehicle was gone. John looked toward the mirror that was reflecting fire on the windshield from the background, distantly, among the darkness.

"No."

Leonard was hurt, John was sure of it, the kid was going to come out okay.

"Shit."

His face was coated in blood, bones peeking out, his left eye wasn't in the best condition--and he was ready to lose his current identity and start all over so soon. He looked down toward his hand spotting that it were twisted, curled, demented, and horrifically chopped in a mangled way in the dashboard during the numerous flips. He could see the fire inside of the dashboard arising due to the heat that was building up in the battery.

"Double shit."

"I come to serve," came a calm comment. "Is anyone inside?"

"H-h-h-h-he---heelp." John croaked.

"Remain calm." came the eerily calm comment. "You will be retrieved shortly."

The fire was slowly but surely rising the dashboard as he looked down toward his legs.

"Oh no, not again," John whined in protest. "not olive oil."

John sighed, defeated, but not quite surprised that a good identity was blowing up with him in it, quite literal. He remembered the last time this had happened and he had lost a leg over it, the pain of his leg struggling to regenerate year after year after year against the prosthetic. That grated over his nerves. He heard the sound of the car door ripped open beside him then his good eye looked aside spotting a figure with pointy ears and a beard and slanted eyebrows. A vulcan.

The vulcan smiled at him then applied his fingers to the side of his face as the older man was wrecked with pain circulating through him in a horrific way that was worse than how he had caught on fire being a firefighter twenty years ago and had to be in a burn unit for weeks recovering as his body was shell shocked.

"Share me your pain."

The pain subsided with the touch of the strange vulcan's hand.

"Sybok, return to the car."

"Oh my, so much pain. Beautiful, gorgeous, magnificent pain."

"Sybok, return to the air-car."

"No, father." Sybok declined. "This human doesn't stand a chance without comfort and has little chance of being taken to a hospital."

"That is for the humans to decide. Humans have survived much worse as has your sister in the Vulcan Center bombing."

"You helped her." There was anger at the comment, disbelief, and shock at the bare reminder.
"This does not count." Strange, even to hear a vulcan sound emotional. "This human. . . Father, is, fascinating, and well equipped to deal with certain pain that isn't quite expected of normal humans."

John saw the legendary Ambassador Sarek who he recognized from the news clips. He witnessed Sarek from behind Sybok roll his eyes. He had to be dreaming; a vulcan rolling his eyes. That couldn't be real. He had to be hallucinating--Vulcans rolling their eyes? Something so human that his mind had to be playing tricks with him. He had seen vulcans make a variety of emotions while retaining their emotionless demeanor but rolling their eyes wasn't one of them.

A young woman with a black bowl hair cut joined them in curiosity observing the event that was unfolding, curious, her hands linked behind her back. Another vulcan by the age of fifteen appeared by her side right between the bickering vulcans arguing about providing aid with a mind meld to a individual who wasn't in the correct condition to be speaking. He couldn't complain being in the position where pain wasn't being allowed to be felt; only about a child being traumatized seeing horror that no child should ever see.

John saw himself in that kid but a year younger, fourteen, staring at the excavation with his sister in his arms screaming for their parents. The sound of the rocks crashing upon the excavation with a deafening roar. He can still remember the roar as clearly as it had happened that day ringing in his ears. They were children and he had to be the big boy, staring at the area without a trace of emotion, protecting himself, shielding himself emotionally from the tragic loss.

His blue eyes stared at the young vulcan, unable to feel, just blissfully out of the equation of emotion by choice. The kid was---was it Spock? The first Vulcan-Human hybrid? Sarek adopted so many children that it were hard to be sure if it were Spock at all. It was as if he were the very real living in the flesh Bruce Wayne except much of a jerk to his children. That much was the part that brought pity and made fate itself laugh far off somewhere in the cosmos where it could not be heard by mere mortal or immortal ears.

The vulcan boy was luckier than Mark The Kid. He didn't lose his parents, he didn't lose his parents from a planetary wide infestation by demons because of John. John made sure that kids like Mark the Kid got to live and not fight every day on Earth to survive with phasers as their weapons. He was full of innocence and curiosity. John saw Mark in all the kids in front of him that were around his age. Reminders that John won, that he sent Sarge to Hell, that he came out of it with a trade for immortality to do good and bring hope when called for it. The vulcan had a dysfunctional family that was alive.

John made sure to have a small smile back at the younger man. It's all going to be okay. Something that he didn't have the moment after his parents died, not in words, not in hugs, not in the form of a adult comforting him and his sister. Amanda came over then retrieved the two from the scene. John was sure that he were going to meet Spock again on better circumstance. Vulcans lasted longer than normal on a immortal time scale and always seemed to pop up as familiar faces scattered about his time on Earth since first contact.

"Sybok, if this is where you want to be for your exile then speak the truth."

"My presence is needed here." Sybok said, stressing to his father. "Your kindness--" His words switched with a lift of Sarek's brow then lifted his hand up. "Your service humbles me."

Sarek lowered his brow then gently pressed his hand against Sybok's hand.

"May Surak look upon your success." Sarek said.

"As to you, father." Sybok said.

John could see it was the el'ru'esta, a hand embrace commonly used between Vulcan family members and bondmates. Sarek withdrew from John's field of vision back into the background that was too far enough to be seen. His mind jumped from the family embrace to Leonard, someone who was part of his family, someone who was equally important to him just as Sybok was to Sarek.

"I-i-i-ii--i-i--is . . ." John found it difficult to speak, his throat, his mouth, his lips weren't as strong as they had been before. He could hear and see 2020 but it was a entirely different story for speaking. "Leo--leo--leo--leo--na---"

"You are too weak to speak," Sybok noted. "Rest and let me bear your pain."

He was too weak to shake his head, it was a important question, it was weighing heavily, his concern all but weighing for the mortal kid. He tried, over and over, to say the kid's name as the alluring attempt to fall asleep was becoming appealing minute by minute. Sybok slapped John awake keeping him from falling into the abyss and his cheeks stung.

"Leonard McCoy!" John blurted out in one go. "Is. . . Is. . . Is. . ."

"Don't sleep without medication," Sybok advised. "If you do, you may never wake up."

Sybok was joined by paramedics as his hand remained touched on the immortal's face then withdrew once the hypospray met the side of John's neck.

"His name is Leonard McCoy." Sybok said.

My name is John Grimm! John wanted to say but he couldn't as he fell into the dark.