McCoy looked out at the ship, sitting battered and tethered in Spacedock, and reflected. It wasn't the most kind of reflections -- his own image also looked back from the glass, reminding him of his age. A stay on Rura Penthe hadn't exactly helped him feel young and spry, either.
The end of the road. He knew damn well that he was indulging in melancholy, but it was impossible not to. The Enterprise-A hadn't really even had all that much of chance before the B was coming up on completion.
He wasn't the only one who was feeling morose. Jim had retreated from all of them, putting on a brave front. The last mission hadn't done him any good, either; facing his own demons might have left him wiser and more hopeful for the future, but it had also left him older and realizing how little place he had in it.
When Jim was messed up, Spock almost inevitably followed. He buried himself in the new treaties that were being drawn up with the Klingons, often conferring heavily with his father. Regardless, he seemed adrift even then.
Scotty worked on repairing the Enterprise all the way back until she was in Spacedock, and he might have even continued, except even he must have known that there would be no more 'last hurrah's'. McCoy thought about tracking him down and getting hammered, but he doubted it would do either of them any good.
Uhura was in slightly better shape -- worried for her friends, but getting back into teaching at the Academy. Word was through the wire that Starfleet Intelligence wanted her to work with them. McCoy tried to imagine it and then realized that he could; she would likely be the best thing that happened to that organization, for that matter. She'd brook no thuggish tactics, for one.
Chekov was chewing his nails over his next assignment. It was a foregone conclusion that Sulu had asked Chekov to be his XO, but the navigator was still holding out for his own command. McCoy wanted him to get it.
That left him, and the reflection. His own, against the glass. His thoughts on the ship out there, illuminated only now with the standard lights used to show her presence. Nothing glowing inside.
He wondered where he would go, if he could turn back time. To the first five year mission? Back to when they were explorers; when they were relevant? When they mattered most?
Before that, when he was assigned from ship to ship, one long sprint to get away from his divorce?
Back to his wife and daughter?
He didn't know. All he did know was a basic, immutable fact:
You couldn't turn back time.
McCoy rested a palm on the glass for a moment, then turned around and headed out.