Day 48: Intercom, Evening

[damned_intercom]

"AACHOO! Ahem!" The Head Doctor's slightly-better-but-still-congested voice came on clearly over the intercom. The sound of Nurse Lydia sighing and pulling out a tissue from somewhere in the background was also audible

Comments

M41

[hes_deadjim]

The shower only provided a temporary relief, then the headache was back growing to full force the moment he stepped out of the hot water and steam. The salmon smelled decent enough, but at the same time, the headiness made his stomach flip flop. His appetite hadn't quite recovered just yet, and since there wasn't any Jim or Nurse Chapel to see him skip out on some of his own advice, McCoy decided to forgo it for the moment. A meal here and there wasn't too big a deal, as long as he caught up later.

First things first: he had catching up on the personal logs from last night and today, then he'd see if he was hungry. McCoy sat down slowly in the chair, rested his head in a hand and pulled the notebook open. The doctor picked up a pen then looked down, somewhat drearily, at the blank pages. Nothing was springing to mind, not even any dry, clinical observations about his day so far. Just an ominously blank white page that also wasn't going to fill itself out no matter how much he willed it to either.

What he really wanted to do was lie down and get some shut-eye before night fell. At the very least, a few hours break from the pulsing in his skull.

McCoy stared at the pages for few more minutes. He managed to jot down a total of two sentences within that time before he gave up. At the rate this was going, it'd take an entire night to get anything worthwhile down. Better to just wait and come at it from another angle later. The doctor got up and lay down instead.

[cmdr_exposition]

If he never saw Stein again, it would be too soon. That was a bit of a cliche, but Hayes was just too rattled to come up with an original way of expressing the disturbing presence of that person. And nothing had really even been done to him... not like ZEX, whose disfiguring wounds were still in the front of his mind.

Not the Captain's, though, because Hayes hadn't mentioned any of that to him when he'd had the opportunity, or even arranged a future meeting, or found out what the Institute was calling him so that he could ask the nurse. He'd tried anyway with "Zelnick", of course, but just as predictably she'd insisted there was no one of that name around. He found he wasn't even annoyed about that, or about the patronizing announcement. He was just too relieved to be out of therapy intact.

The cell, when he got there, was downright comforting in its plainness and its containing someone who had never threatened to stab him. As the door shut behind him, he just... stood for a moment, trying to collect enough of his thoughts to actually do something.

[hes_deadjim]

The door opening and closing, signaling Mr. Hayes' arrival, rang through his head like a red alert. McCoy swore quietly under his breath and covered his eyes with a hand.

"You mind keeping it down, commander?" the doctor asked quietly, his voice muffled. He probably wasn't even being that loud, but it felt as loud as standing right in the thick of the engine room. It'd hopefully go away once he got some sleep, but now that he was lying down, he was finding it hard to fall asleep. His mind was working rapidly, going over today's events, that shift Venkman, the previous night, what happened to his Enterprise, where they even looking for him(?), their assignment this night. Everything that wasn't conducive to falling asleep.

[cmdr_exposition]

What, should I breathe quieter? It was the nurse that had handled the door, and Hayes didn't think he even had the energy to do anything actually noisy. But that included sarcastic rejoinders, so he just mumbled a "Sure" and sank into his chair.

The smell of the fish hung heavily in the air, and at any other time would have been downright alluring, but with Hayes' stomach already twisting with dread, it was just further sickening. Still, he knew he needed to eat, so he picked up the fork and speared a chunk of fish. Then he regarded it sadly for a while. Then he put it in his mouth and forced himself to swallow it.

There was still a lot left, and he wasn't going to get through it all that way, so he pushed the plate aside and tried not to think about what he'd do if asked to go back there.

[hes_deadjim]

Thankful that Hayes didn't argue the matter (then again, the commander didn't seem the argumentative sort in the first place, so why would he?), McCoy rolled on his side to face the wall. He closed his eyes. Moving probably wasn't the best idea, it sent a sharp twinge through his head, but it was too late to take it back now.

He could smell the fish in the air as Hayes set in behind him, hear the tiny scrape of the chair as he sat down. McCoy lay there listening as he waited to fall asleep. Was it him, he thought, or was the commander not digging in as much as he usually did?

[cmdr_exposition]

Trying not to think about something specific rarely works. This was not an exception, and none of the scenarios Hayes could imagine ended well. Even miraculous-rescue-out-of-nowhere was seeming dimmer than usual, now that Zelnick was trapped right along with the rest of them.

Being left with no way out was not exactly an unfamiliar feeling, but it was leaving Hayes with the same problems he'd had the first time it was sinking in: dread, self-loathing, and the frustrated desire for something to shoot at and something to do it with. Somehow he felt he should have some better idea what to do about it this time around, but nothing came to mind.

Maybe the doctor had the right idea, he thought wearily. He'd try for some sleep himself, as soon as he could scrape together the motivation to get out of this damn chair.