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They weren't sure what happened to him, but ultimately, it didn't matter. Doctor McCoy had pronounced Jim dead at 23:14.
It was 23:32 when Spock returned to his quarters. When the doors shut behind him, sealing himself off from the rest of the ship, he took several deep breaths, and allowed himself to feel. His mother— along with everyone else with human heritage —insisted that it was acceptable for him to experience feelings instead of repressing them. While he disagreed with the idea at the time, he decided that if he was going to experience feelings, this would be an appropriate time to do so.
He wasn't sure what he was feeling, but it wasn't what he had expected. He thought he would feel a horrible tearing sensation, some physical manifestation of unbridled grief. Instead he just felt hollow, and fragile. He felt that at any moment he might just shatter. He realized that perhaps he was in denial. Logically, he knew Jim was dead. But emotionally, it had yet to sink in.
He tried not to look at the bloodstains, bright against the dull grey of the floor tiles, but he couldn't look away. This was where it happened. This is where Jim had last been alive.
There was a lot of blood. It wasn't a pool, but a collection of splatters and clots, as all the blood been coughed up. It had happened so suddenly. One moment he was fine. The next he was coughing up alarming amounts of blood. Another moment and he was gone.
Spock took a shaky breath. Experiencing emotions or not, he knew the blood needed to be cleaned up before it dried. He moved past the unfinished chess game— pushing away the realization that it would never be finished —and gathered some cleaning supplies. A coarse scrubbing cloth, two buckets of water, one soapy, both hot, and disinfectant spray. He donned gloves, despite feeling that it was somehow an insult to Jim, insinuating that he was dirty in some way. But they didn't know what had killed him, and it would not be wise to come into contact with the blood. Or at least anymore than he had when he carried Jim to sickbay.
The soapy water in the bucket turned a pale red as he worked at scrubbing the floor. The soap left a sudsy smear across the tile, and when he wiped it away with clean water, he noticed a rust coloured stain remained on the floor in bloom-like patches. Reaching for the soapy water again, he scrubbed at the floor a second time, more vigorously, but he didn't achieve any better results. No matter what he did, he couldn't rid the tiles of the stain. In the end, he mopped up the excess water, sprayed the area with disinfectant, and accepted that nothing could be done about the stain.
It was a faint stain. It looked like the metal tiles were merely starting to rust. But Spock would never be able to pretend that it was anything other than what it was. Unlike the unfinished chess game— which he would put away in time —the stain was permanent, along with it the memory of his last moments with Jim. Those last moments of peace.