FIC: untitled McCoy/girl!Kirk (WIP)
‘You need this.’ He said, softer than he would in other circumstances.
The woman on the bio-bed turned to him and stared at him, ‘No.’ The woman said, annoyed. ‘Just - no, I had one just last week and-’ Her expression froze, before her eyes widened, ‘You think I’m going to-? You think-!’ Her face swiftly changed to anger, ‘You know if I wasn’t sure of how affective it would be I would punch you right now - in the balls.’
He cleared his throat awkwardly and looked down, ‘Look, I know you had your shot last week, but that was for human males, and we can’t be…’ He glanced up but quickly looked away from the accusing stare. Shit. He swallowed. Right, Leonard, don’t aggravated the emotionally unstable patient.
‘This,’ He said quietly, holding up the hypo-spray, ‘This is for human females. And it is,’ He gave what he hoped with an apologetic look, lowering his voice so the nurses in the background couldn’t overhear, ‘Mandatory, Jim, it’s the law - you know that you have to take it.’
‘Oh yeah,’ She said sarcastically, crossing her arms and glaring at the ceiling, ‘Because I’m going to walk out of here, get myself knocked up and then discharged to the nearest planetary Starbase until further notice as a slap on the wrist for having a kid without Starfleet approval - aka, married.’ She gave him a baleful look, ’Bedside manners, Doctor McCoy, use them.’
Swallowing down his automatic comeback, Leonard McCoy crossed his arms and gave his currently unwell Captain a hard stare. ‘You know I could pull you off active duty.’
There was a startled look, followed by an obvious paling in the face. Dammit.
Uncrossing his arms, he leaned forwards, trying to gentle, well, gentler. ‘Jim, you’re a woman. And until the stars are in alignment or however the hell those Eliaerians decide when to do their little sex chromosome swapping festival, you’re going to be stuck like that.’ He gestured vaguely and looked away, trying to hide just how out of his depth he felt right now; he had a feeling that wouldn’t make this patient any calmer, and may in fact end up causing a public breakdown.
‘I don’t have a hypospray to cure this.’ He whispered, holding the woman’s gaze. ‘So Jim, just hold out your damn arm and let me be your doctor.’
Reluctantly, the young woman held out her left arm, staring at him all the while. Silently, he injected her with every damn thing he had - multivitamins, contraceptives, minerals, antioxidants…
‘Ow!’ She snapped, pulling her arm away and stroking her upper arm with an irritated frown.
He hurriedly packed away the hypo-spray kit. ‘Stop being such a baby.’
‘That freaking hurt!’ She cried, the tone, expression and even the damn word-emphasis exactly like Jim’s. Damn freaky, he thought, taking a deep breath and picking up the data pad to start a new patient chart. There was a grunt and then she was sitting up and throwing her legs over the side of the bed.
Spinning around, he pointed his finger at her, his feelings of sympathy evaporating to a more familiar emotion - irritation. ‘You get back on that bed, Mister! I don’t know how their damn machine did it! And I damn well don’t have a clue what kind of other changes it might have made! That device may have been in use “for eons” but they never had a damn human go through it and so you can get your pretty little ass back in there until I say so!’
‘I agree, Captain.’
Her wide blue eyes flicked to something just over his right shoulder.
McCoy glanced back, a little startled that he had an audience. He took a deep breath and fought down the urge to kick the guy in the knee. Oh he’ll deal with that damn joker later, for enabling this entire screwed up situation!
‘Thank you, Commander,’ He grumbled, picking up his medical tricorder and feeding the information into the data pad. ‘First damn thing you’ve said today that made sense.’
He watched out of the corner of his eye as the Vulcan approached the bed slowly, almost reluctant and shook his head to himself, not sure if he was amused or still pissed off. It was about time that Spock felt confused and didn’t know what he was doing - now the pointy-eared bastard would know how he felt every time they came scrambling into Sickbay with problems he’d never dreamed of in his wildest imagination.
‘So… how’s the ship?’
There was anger behind that simple question.
‘We are currently en route to Starbase 3…’ There was an uncomfortable pause, ‘And Lieutenant Uhura is currently reading through the Eliaerian historical databases for… leads.’
‘Great. Tell her I want updates - on the hour, every hour, and that she is relieved from comm. duty until further notice.’
‘Of course.’
There was a short silence. Wondering if somehow Jim had successfully stared the Vulcan to death, he turned around. They were staring at each other and Jim looked like he could - well, she could kill something.
‘You said it was safe.’ The words were cold.
Spock tilted his head, a gentle nod as he shifted his gaze to the floor. ‘It was perfectly safe, Captain.’
Jim closed her eyes and slapped a hand to her forehead. Sensing that this wasn’t going well, he put the data pad down and quickly approached with his medical tricorder, catching Chapel’s concerned look and gesturing covertly for her to do something. The woman gave him a nod and quickly rushed to the liquids dispenser. Good idea. That’s what Jim needed; a cold drink.
‘Okay, if you don’t mind, I’d like some privacy - you can cuss each other out later.’ Reaching for the privacy drapes, he quickly started to close off the area around the bio-bed. With a nod, the Vulcan turned on his heel and exited the Sickbay.
‘Doctor,’ Nurse Chapel said quietly.
‘Come on then,’ He grumbled, waving her in and closing the drapes behind her.
Jim had his face in his hands. Cautiously, Chapel approached, drink held out.
‘Um, sir?’
The young woman looked at the glass of juice being offered, ‘Lieutenant Chapel, please go to my quarters and look in the bottom left of my closet. I have three bottles of Jameson whisky and two bottles of vodka. The safe code is “captainawesome” - no spaces.’
He gave an almost imperceptible nod when she turned to him, eyes wide. Straightening she put the cup of juice down on the nearby bedside and took off her Sterilite gloves. Touching her shoulder as she went past, he glanced at her and swallowed. ‘Nurse, there’s something in my quarters I want you to bring me. It’s in my lowest desk drawer - you won’t miss it: Saurian brandy.’
With a searching look, Chapel nodded and silently left.
He turned back to his patient. The young woman was eyeing him, as if she couldn’t figure something out. Finally she gave him a slight smile, making an sound of amusement in the back of her throat. ‘Thanks Bones.’
‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Tell me that later when you’re hugging the toilet.’