Fic: Challenging History, Chapter 2
Author's Note: I hope this story isn't coming off as too fractured to make any sense. It was hard balancing act, figuring out how to blend the necessary exposition with the requisite pacing. This story, for all intents and purposes, is really a teeny story pulled from a much larger story, almost like a deleted scene for a DVD. It's been tough figuring it out, but I think I have a handle on it now. So, without further adieu, here is that rip-roaring McCoy vs. McCoy fight. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek, but I did own quite a few fights like this with my own father. Like Spacie's characterizations of Len and Jo, my dad and me are way too similar in personality for the world's good. Like, seriously.
Chapter | 1 | 2 | 3 |
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Chapter 2
"Are you out of your goddamned mind?!" Leonard McCoy shouted at his daughter.
"What do you think, Dad? I have the misfortune of sharing thirteen chromosomes with you! That, according to just about everyone in Starfleet, absolutely makes me crazy!" Joanna McCoy roared at the man sitting behind the massive desk.
"No, the only thing that's crazy is you beaming to a hostile station full of Klingons. What did you expect? That you'd be able to waltz right up to them, tap one on the shoulder, and ask them to play nice with us?" he yelled, bringing both hands up, palms up, in a gesture of total exasperation.
Joanna scoffed. "Don't patronize me, or what I did. I knew what I was doing."
McCoy's eyebrows shot up to his hairline while his hands gestured wildly in front of his face. "Oh, you do now? You're fresh from the Academy, but you're now an expert negotiator after a few weeks in the black? Well, why don't we call Admiral Pike and send you right back to Earth? You can chair the Intergalactic Relations committee he's been trying so hard to pull together."
Joanna bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. She felt the nerve in her left eye twitch as her blood pressure spiked. "Subtlety is not your thing. Why don't you stop your pathetic attempts at sugarcoating the subject and just tell me what's on your mind."
"Oh, do you? Great. You're absolutely insane, Joanna!" he yelled.
The young lady shifted her weight and rolled her eyes, rocking from foot to foot while she stared down her nose. "You've been on this ship, with all these people for all these years, and I'm the crazy one? Let me tell you something: there is no possible way I can be the same level of 'crazy bitch' as you are 'irresponsible asshole'!"
"You have no right to lecture me about responsibility when you're incapable of following one simple order from your direct superior!" McCoy shouted right back, heedless of the fact that his voice matched his daughter's intensity, tone and volume level tit for tat. "What you did could have gotten you killed!"
"And if I hadn't done anything, we sure as shit would be dead right now! It was my fault. I screwed up, and I'll be damned if I let someone else fix it," she insisted.
Growling under his breath, McCoy simply cocked his head to one side. "Stop playing the martyr and acting like you're invincible! You're not! You and Jim - neither of you have any concept of that little thing called listening!"
Joanna slapped both palms against the hard surface of her father's desk. "Just what the hell would you know about listening? You're incapable of that! You've proven that, time and time again!" she screamed, though it was clear to both that she wasn't talking about her last failed mission in the slightest bit.
"I know plenty about it!"
"Really now? We're talking about the same man who yells and swears any time anyone challenges his authority, the same man who told off Spock the first time you two met for no other reason that you disagreed with him? Come on, dad! Keep talking and show me what a raging hypocrite you are!"
The doctor vaulted himself out of his chair and around to the front of his desk. He came to a halt inches from the space where Jo was leaning. Waving his hand through the air, a fringe of still mostly brown hair flopped over Len's face with each accentuated gesture of his body. "Joanna, you are the most unreasonable person I've ever met!"
"Well, I guess I know where I get it from, Leonard," Joanna sniped as she emphasized the use of his given first name, something even those who knew him best rarely did.
The doctor snorted out loud. "I may not be perfect, but at least I know when I'm wrong."
Joanna actually laughed. The sarcastic, disbelieving sound caught in her throat and died on her lips. Shaking her head while she waved one hand through the air, she stared at him incredulously. "You know when you're wrong? Oh, that's rich. Like you admitted you were wrong all those years ago when you ditched me, or when you had the chance to come clean about having me in the first place!"
"You want to keep dragging this up, Jo? Fine! Let's do it again. What is it going to be this time? How you hated Clay? How I deserted you? What?" McCoy replied, crossing his arms over his chest while he glared at his only child.
"Wow," she began, eyes wide. Unable to fully keep the warble of shock from filtering across her face, she added flatly, "You know what? Everyone on this ship is right about you. You really are a dick."
Joanna's face flinched, and in that instant, McCoy knew he went too far. He saw the hurt flash through her eyes that she just as quickly covered by replacing it with boiling, white-hot rage. Kicking himself, he bit his lip and opened his mouth to attempt some sort of apology.
Closing her eyes, the young lady held up a hand. "You know what, Dad? Forget it. Forget I asked. It was stupid of me to think you'd understand why I did what I did in the first place."
McCoy relented, the muscles in his face clenching and unclenching. Feeling all the anger seep from his body, he reached out and tried to lay a comforting, fatherly hand on his daughter's arm. "Jo, wait. I didn't-"
Joanna jerked her arm away from her dad's hold as if his touch physically burned her. "Don't," she warned lowly, glaring at him with a steely intensity that was assuredly an inherited McCoy trait.
"I didn't mean to-," he started, only to have his daughter turn her back.
Ignoring her father, Jo hastily grabbed her things and began angrily stuffing her belongings into the workout bag. She jabbed ineffectually at her sweatshirt when it caught on the zipper. Mumbling, she bit out, "Maybe mom was right about you." He voice shook; whether it was from anger or sadness, Joanna wasn't even sure herself. All she knew was that she was not about to give her father the pleasure of seeing her panic.
Making one last failed attempt to stuff all her belongings back in her bag, Joanna slung it haphazardly across her body and nearly stomped toward the door. She shot one last glare over her shoulder, fully expecting to see her dad's harsh eyes staring back at her. Instead, Joanna was caught off guard. In the place of the steely glare and rigid posture she expected, her father was slumped in his chair, head in his hands. Fingering the strap of the duffel, Jo shook her head and resolutely took one more step toward the room's exit. She was about a half a foot from the sensor of the door when a voice stopped her.
"Joanna, please."
Tipping her head back until she was looking straight at the ceiling, Joanna cursed herself blue under her breath, sighed dramatically and then came to a reluctant halt. "What?" she asked, her voice taking on a steely edge.
"How many times are we going to do this?" Though the question itself was identical to the one he posed a few minutes prior, the tone and the context spoke volumes about the query's intentions. His voice was quiet, lower than his regular conversational volume. It held no hostility, no sarcasm, and no edge. If McCoy's tone had to be classified, it might be stuck into the category of 'weary.' Coming from him, it was certainly strange.
A childish part of Joanna, one she kept tucked safely away in the recesses of her mind, hoped there was a ring of truth to the statement her father uttered. But her adult mind, the one cynical toward anyone with a pulse, wouldn't allow her to believe anything her old man said, even if his tongue came notarized. 'Thanks for another great personality trait, Dad,' she thought bitterly. Snorting, Jo whirled around and replied sarcastically, "Well, let's see. I think we have some lost time to make up for. The four months I've been on this ship is not nearly enough time for you to cram in the fifteen years of berating you missed when you took off and ditched me."
Len's head snapped up. Vehemently, he insisted, "I didn't ditch you!"
"Oh really? Then tell me what exactly it was you did, because it sure as hell felt like it! I bounced around all over the planet and then the universe with her and Clay, and you never bothered to check. Hell, I was the goddamned Academy, and you didn't even know I was there! That's your problem! You don't care I exist!"
McCoy slapped his closed fist down on the desktop so hard it rattled the various holos and PADDs on the surface. "Bullshit, Joanna!"
When her father finally looked up, Jo had to fight to stay her ground. Never in her life had she ever seen the level of intensity in his eyes as she did in that second. As a child, she harbored memories of his expressive face. She thought she'd seen him in every facet of life; whether he was angry, happy, embarrassed, sad, defiant, proud, or exasperated, his face always told the story everyone else could read. But when his eyes met hers, there, in the middle of his office, Joanna saw something different - she finally saw pure and unadulterated pain.
Jo chewed on her lip. The silence that rocketed through the room was deafening. Her hands hung insipidly at her sides while her heart warred with her mind. Hesitantly, she walked forward and stopped a few feet in front of his desk. "Do you mean that? All of this?" she began, moving her hand in a circle on front of her chest. Raising her chin and steeling her resolve, she took a shaky breath and added, "Because I don't have time for games."
"It's not a game," McCoy insisted.
Joanna swallowed hard and pulled the chair stationed in front of her father's desk, hesitant to sit. Instead, she used it as a physical and metaphorical barrier between her and her father. "It better not be. I've had enough of those," she said flatly, leaning all her weight on the backrest of the chair. "I'm a big girl. I can handle the truth."
Leonard sat, noiselessly rolling a PADD over from edge to edge on the top of his desk. He looked like the fate of the universe was resting on the decision he was about to make. Finally, he looked back up at Joanna and said, "I hope so, because it's long overdue."
"What are you talking about?" Joanna asked, narrowing her eyes. Shoving her hands in the pockets of her track pants, she searched his face. "What is this about?"
"It's about honesty." McCoy motioned with his hand to the chair Jo was using as a support. He exhaled, long and drawn out. "Sit down, please. I should have done this years ago, but I didn't know how."
The small red bag Joanna was holding deflated in her lap, mirroring the sinking feeling that was forming in the pit of her stomach. Her mind spun at 20,000 RPMs, wondering just what was so shocking that it elicited this kind of reaction. Her dad never said 'please' and he wasn't polite. He barked orders, raised eyebrows and hypoed his patients into submission just because he felt like it. The new vibe of sudden uncertainty she got from him was like the clammy feeling she got when she was sick. It just felt…gross. "Should have done what? I don't get it, Dad."
Len rubbed his eyes. Well, at least she wasn't calling him Leonard this time. Sighing, he ran one hand through his already impressively messy hair. More civilly, he said, "I didn't abandon you, Jo. I never wanted to. If I had my way, I wouldn't have left you."
The fire that was Jo's temper flashed again. "But you did. And then I never saw you again until I stepped onto this ship," she bit out, tapping her right index finger on the arm of the chair in time with the last four words of her sentence.
McCoy nodded. He had his reasons for his actions, and while he wasn't sure Joanna would ever truly understand, he owed it her to at least try to explain himself. "What did your mother tell you about why we split up? What do you remember?" he asked after a pause. When Joanna's face began to contort with rage, McCoy clarified, "I promise I'm not going to badmouth her. I just need to know where I should start."
She shook her head, the anger fading into wariness mixed with cynicism. Her curiosity over the early years of her life warred with the ingrained need to project her rage at someone or something, lest it swallow her whole. Taking a deep breath, Jo shrugged. "Not much, actually. You guys fought a lot, and I felt like I couldn't do anything right. Then I think I started a fire in the kitchen, but I don't remember all of it. I dunno."
"Oh, Joanna. It was never your fault. It was us, your mom and me. We just didn't work as a couple, and I guess we couldn't be good parents together, either. Your mom - she's your mother and at one point I loved her. But we had different goals and different priorities."
The young engineer cocked her head to the side. "But you married her."
McCoy nodded, reaching for the bottom drawer of his desk. He pulled out two tumblers and the bottle of bourbon Jim got him for his birthday the year previous. He poured two fingers in one glass and four in the other, handing Joanna the less full of the pair. Taking a sip from his own, Leonard said, "I did. I thought that maybe she'd outgrow some of the childishness I saw in her when we first married. We were young; kids and a house doesn't seem like something fun to think about when you're twenty," he finished with a shrug.
"So that's not a lie? She never wanted kids?" Joanna asked, spinning the glass in an oblong circle on her dad's desk. Her heart thundered in her chest as she waited for her father to respond. That, among a small handful of others, comprised her handful of million-credit questions, ones she always wanted to ask but never had the guts. And now, here was the opportunity, staring her straight in the face.
Smiling sadly, Len replied, "No, it's not a lie, Jo. I wanted a family, and she didn't. I think she was just scared. When she told me she was pregnant with you, we were both excited. I couldn't wait to spoil you rotten. And when you were born, I did. I did everything I thought I should have done to make your mother happy. I just did it in the wrong way."
"How?"
McCoy took another sip of his drink. "I thought that if I worked every spare shift I the hospital would give me, the extra money and status would make your mother happy. But I was too wrapped up in myself to see that's not what she really wanted."
"So what happened?" Joanna asked succinctly.
"Hell if I know," he snorted. "One day, I woke up and I realized that our house wasn't a home. Your mom knew it just as well, but we were both too stubborn and proud to admit defeat and get the divorce. Looks like you got that trait, too," he said with a resigned sigh. "It got to the point that all either of us had left was you. And it was enough, for both of us."
"So then what changed? I don't understand. You left me with mom with Clay. I'm not really a fan of his, I won't lie," she said coyly with a grimace.
Taking a deep breath, McCoy hoped that the next sentence that came out of his mouth didn't sound like an excuse, like an attempt at placation. "I made mistakes, ones that don't make me very proud. I had-I have a problem."
"You drink too much. That's hardly a revelation, and it's also common knowledge, Dad," Joanna said casually, crossing her arms over her chest and locking gazes with her father's. His flickered, and then relocated to a random point against the far wall. "You also have a temper and you work too hard. I know your head nurse and your captain, and Captain Kirk's mentor was my advisor at the Academy, remember? I hear it all about you."
Len liked to think that, in the years since he boarded that rickety shuttle in Riverside with nothing but his Bones, he'd grown up enough to take responsibility for himself. That included his actions, both good and bad. Nodding, he started talking before the logical part of his brain caught up with heart. "This," he started, holding up his glass, "isn't a big deal, at least not now. I promise you it's gotten better. But when you were little, when your mom and I split, it was different."
"How much different?"
"I was drinkin' myself into an early grave. That's how," McCoy admitted in his usual blunt, no-holds-barred fashion. Though the confession was made with a smile and a self-deprecating shrug of his broad shoulders, the slight tremor in his voice underscored the gravity of his admission. Smirking in the way only the doctor could, he shrugged and added, "It was easier to drink and be numb than it was to deal with my life, the mess it became."
Staring at her father with a mixture of pity and disbelief on her face, she growled, "So you drank. Is there a point? A lot of people have problems, most of them worse than yours. What's your excuse?"
"I don't have any good excuse because this is none, Jo. There never will be. It got out of control, and I wasn't strong enough to ask for help." He polished off the dregs of his glass in one gulp and placed the tumbler back in his desk.
Joanna sat, content to let her silence do the talking for her. The steely gaze she leveled at her father could have melted ice. She exhaled and smoothed one strand of her hair from her face, popping it behind her ear while she waited for the man opposite the desk to continue.
Until Joanna quite literally turned up in front of him, Len resigned himself to having zero relationship with his daughter for the rest of his life. It didn't hurt as badly when the constant reminder of his failure wasn't even in the same galaxy, but he sure as hell felt the sting every time he saw Jo in the hallways or in the mess once she boarded the ship. In his heart, he always thought he'd tell her the truth one day about his relationship with Jocelyn. This just wasn't the way he thought the script was going to play out.
McCoy rolled his eyes inwardly at the irony of it all before he confessed, "You know that night you started that little fire in the kitchen? It was my fault. I wasn't watching you because I was passed out in the next room. That was what really ended our marriage, because she knew I couldn't handle it. Your mom took you, divorced me, and ran. Not that I can blame her."
Joanna felt some of the ice begin to melt. "What? Wait, back up, Dad. I'm confused."
"Your mom went out of town to see some friends," McCoy said, omitting that it was Clay she was visiting. "She left me in charge of you, and instead of doing the responsible thing and staying sober, I had a drink. I told myself that it was only going to be one. And then one turned into two, and then three, four, and five. I woke up to a cop shaking me and to a living room full of fire fighters. They took you away and called your mother. She drove back from Alpharetta, and when she got there, I got the ass chewing of a lifetime. And I deserved it, every damned word."
"What do you mean by that? What happened?" she asked, confused.
"You never got the full story, did you?" When Jo shook her head to the negative, McCoy clenched his jaw, cursing his own stubborn pride and all the avoidable damage it caused. "I knew I couldn't be a parent to you like that. You deserved something better, something with stability. You don't need all the sordid details, but I wasn't in good shape then. I couldn't take care of myself, let alone another person. So I did the best thing I could: I walked away."
"How is that the best for me? How did you know?" Joanna bit out, tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. She willed them back, instead focusing her energy on the anger. "They did okay, but I needed my father - my real father. Not a substitute my mom had to find because you couldn't hack it."
McCoy sighed again. "Your mother did right by you, Jo. You may not agree with it and you may not see it now, but you will. I told you - we both made mistakes, me more than her. When it came down to it, she did what she had to do because she loves you. When I sobered up, I realized that it was the most decent thing she could have done. She was trying to save you from me, and as the responsible parent, that was her job."
"Even if it made me miserable?" she asked meekly.
"Even then," the doctor answered honestly. A rare smile tugged at the corners of his lips and he stood, walking around the desk. He stopped in front of Jo, and without words, coaxed her to her feet and simply hugged her. He tilted his head down and pulled her close, tucking his chin against the top of her head. McCoy dropped a kiss on the crown of her head and wrapped his long arms around her much slighter torso, holding her as if he planned to never let go. "I'm so, so sorry, Joanna. For everything," he whispered in her ear.
Jo stiffened instantly, but then relaxed into his arms and returned the embrace. She felt some of the tension and the stress of their relationship bleed out with the motion, and she was sure the sentiment was mutual. The little girl that still lived in the back corner of her mind relished feeling of safety and closeness she got from the simple gesture. The clean smell of his aftershave, the warmth of his body, the steady, strong beat of his heart - it all just felt right. She used his uniform shirt as a makeshift Kleenex as she squeezed her eyes shut, feeling a couple of warm tears bleed out across the blue fabric. "I know. I'm sorry, too," she answered honestly with a loud sniffle.
McCoy stepped back and leaned on his desk. "I have not been the father I should have been, but I want you to know that I have always been proud of you," he said, his own eyes shining just as brightly as hers. The doctor's eyes flicked up and to the right, and with a shake of his head, he added a snarky, "Despite the fact you're a pain in my ass," for good measure.
"I learned from the best," Joanna answered with a watery smile.
"Taking lessons from Jim again? I'll have to talk to him about that," Len replied with a laugh as he cupped Jo's face in the palm of his right hand and swiped a gentle thumb under her eyes. Wiping her tears on his pants, he wrapped one arm around her shoulders. "Come on. Let's get out of here. It's been a long day, and I know I need some food."
Jo swallowed the lump in her throat and cleared her throat. "As long as it's pizza, I'm all for it. You buying?" she asked, resituating her red bag on her shoulder while trying to look like she hadn't just been crying.
Len rolled his eyes, but nodded. "For you, I guess I could. Let me get cleaned up here and I'll meet you in the mess in fifteen minutes."
Joanna bobbed her head once quickly and walked out the door, leaving her alone in the deserted corner of sickbay with nothing but her own thoughts. She was never was a believer in fate, but the utter irony of the situation was too strong to be ignored. Her father's drinking cost him his marriage as well as his chance with Joanna through her childhood, but yet, it attracted a recruiter in Chris Pike and a new friend in Jim Kirk. And with that help, he pulled himself together, got his career back on track and wound up as CMO of the Federation's flagship. She was sure it wasn't where he thought he'd wind up, just as she never imagined herself as a Starfleet engineer.
Not bad for the old guy. In fact, Joanna thought with a smirk, she was proud of him, just as she was proud of herself.
Yes, preordained fate could kiss her ass, thanks very much.
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Next Up: Chapel makes a confession that actually shocks Kirk.