Fic: Captain Tiberius and Doctor Horatio's Adventures in Space Travel (2/3)
Author's Notes: As I've stated several times before, I'm Minnesotan. And quite honestly, I'm really stereotypically Minnesotan. Not only do I have Kurt Russell's Herb Brooks accent from Miracle, I love everything a good little Midwesterner is supposed to enjoy (hunting, fishing, camping - basically anything outside). Since Jim is from Iowa, I thought he probably would enjoy much of the same things. This whole story is a result of that one very simple little thought.
Disclaimer: Star Trek is property of Mr. Gene Roddenberry and Paramount. I am simply playing in a great big sandbox. As I make no monetary profit from my work, I would appreciate not being sued.
Chapters | 1 | 2 | 3 |
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Chapter 2
Though he had to give Nyota and Christine credit for trying, their repeated attempts at explaining the complexities of human children were, nicely put, abject failures.
Spock arched a perfectly groomed eyebrow in the girls’ directions. “I still do not understand.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, stop being so dense!” Nyota exclaimed after the third try of elucidation fell on confused, pointed Vulcan ears.
Christine rolled her eyes. “It’s a human custom, Spock,” Chapel admonished with an assured lightness to her tone. “Human kids need a bedtime story. It’s the law when you’re their age, especially the little one. Just…maybe we should watch. That might be easier,” she said as a flicker of movement on the monitor caught her attention.
Wordlessly, Spock simply nodded and turned his head to the screen. Dr. McCoy’s voice floated through the audio feed, his normally commanding, booming projection reduced down to all but a whispered shadow of its factory default setting. The Vulcan found himself transfixed by the way the man’s face seemed to come alive as he spoke. McCoy’s dark eyebrows jumped in just about every single direction, his hands flew in the air and his eyes went wide and excited. The children responded in kind, giggling and ducking as he told the story. It was such a complete change in the doctor that Spock didn’t initially realize McCoy had finished his story. Only when the whining voices of Anna and Max were heard saying, “Noooo! We want more!” did the first officer figure out he’d not processed a word of what McCoy said.
On the video feed, McCoy fixed the two children with a gaze similar to the ones he often gave to Jim, though it was dialed down about a hundred times in intensity and miraculously sans his ever-present profanity. He shoved his hands dramatically in the pouch of his sweatshirt, leaned back in the rocking chair and laid one foot against the side of the bed. He pretended to chew over his options, drawing out a very long, “I don’t know,” as he tilted his head from side to side.
Anna and Max kicked the afghan down as they bounced on their knees in anticipation. “Please?” Max whimpered.
McCoy tapped a finger against his lips before he said, “All right. One more. But this is it,” he scolded, waving a long finger through the air. “Then you two munchkins hit the rack for some sleep. Doctor’s orders.”
High-pitched laughter permeated the feed. “What’s a mun-kin?” Anna asked the doctor, nose crinkled and quite practically cross-eyed.
“You!” he answered loudly, tapping her on the nose with his index finger. “A munchkin is a little squirt, like you.” Sobering, he said with a good bit of mock-seriousness, “Now, if there are little people who want to hear more of Captain Tiberius and Doctor Horatio’s Adventures in Space Travel, they’d better get under that blanket and in bed.”
A flurry of movement accompanied the end of McCoy’s statement as both children settled themselves under the fluffy covers and bright afghan. Once his charges were properly cocooned, the doctor scooted the rocking chair closer and leaned over at his waist, resting his elbows on his knees. He took a breath, bit his lip, and began. “Dr. Horatio always thought someone dropped Captain Tiberius on his head when he was a baby. You want to know why?”
“Why?” Max asked.
“Well, when he and his crew weren’t battling the mean Klingons or the evil Romulans, Captain Tiberius thought that fishing and camping were good ways to relax,” McCoy replied with a twist of his lower lip. “Doctor Horatio was smarter than that, though. He thought that fishing in a canoe on a mosquito-infested lake in Iowa was not a good way to spend shore leave.”
Max shoved his little hand up in the air. Grunting, he said, “But he went, though, right? Dr. Horatio?”
“Yes, he went, but just to make sure Captain Tiberius didn’t fall down and hurt himself too badly, or to make sure that he didn’t eat something he was allergic to. See, for all the fighting and naughty things Captain Tiberius has done, he isn’t very smart when it comes to planning. He’s not a very responsible adult,” McCoy said with a flourish, earing matching snorts from Chapel and Uhura.
“So even though he didn’t want to, Doctor Horatio followed Captain Tiberius over the river and through the woods in big, looping circles all morning long. He wished that his good friend would just pick a place to fish, but Captain Tiberius insisted that it had to be right spot. Doctor Horatio thought his friend was crazy.” McCoy said, barely able to suppress rolling his eyes while he rotated his right index finger in a circle about an inch from his ear. “Captain Tiberius finally announced that he’d found what he was looking for, so they put the canoe in the water and began to paddle. They made it out to the middle of a big lake. It was hot, bright, and there were these evil black bugs that bit Dr. Horatio that made his skin swell up like that!” McCoy said, snapping his fingers through the air while he puffed out his cheeks, imitating the swelling of a mosquito bite.
“Why were they in the lake?” Anna asked.
“That’s a good question,” McCoy replied. “Doctor Horatio spent all afternoon trying to figure it out while Captain Tiberius was having fun doing something he called ‘fishing’. Do you guys know what that is?”
Both children shook their heads to the negative.
“Doctor Horatio thought it was a very stupid, very pointless activity. Since the doctor was so much smarter than the captain, it only took him a few seconds to figure that out. Captain Tiberius ignored his friend’s better judgment, of course. He told his friend that he was supposed to take a pole that had some string attached to a hook, put a worm on the hook, and then stick the hook and worm in the water and wait for a fish to come and eat the worm.”
Max picked that moment to yawn.
“That’s exactly what Doctor Horatio thought. But, because Captain Tiberius didn’t believe in no-win scenarios, he spent the entire day trying to convince Dr. Horatio to try fishing. Eventually, the doctor decided that he was either going to hypo the captain into unconsciousness or he was going to try the godda--” McCoy said, biting off the mild bit of profanity ready to tumble from his tongue. In a rare moment of censorship, he cleared his throat, shifted and continued with, “--Ridiculous activity, just to shut his friend up.”
“Did it work?” Anna asked as she stuck her finger up her nose and gave a wholehearted pick.
McCoy gently reached up and pulled the young girl’s hand down, handing her a tissue from the bedside table to wipe her fingers. He took the soiled cloth and tossed it into the biohazard bin tacked the foot of the bed before returning to his story. “No. It didn’t help that it wasn’t fair, either. See, Captain Tiberius was catching all the fish - big ones, like this,” McCoy said, holding up his hands shoulders’ width apart in the classic angler’s exaggeration of the walleye’s actual size. “And that Dr. Horatio hadn’t had so much as a nibble all day!”
“That’s not fair!” both children shrieked together. Max crossed his little arms over his chest, puffed out his lower lip and announced, “Captain Tiberius should have told the fish to be nice.”
“Well, he might have,” McCoy admitted. “The two friends were just about to pack up for the day, because it was getting dark. Dr. Horatio was tired, hot, sunburned and crabby, and he was just about to pull his bait up when he felt a tug on the bottom of the pole. He looked at Captain Tiberius, not sure if it was a fish, or if his friend was playing a joke on him. That’s what the captain did to the doctor,” he added. “But when the captain just shrugged, Dr. Horatio knew he actually had a fish. He waited - just like Captain Tiberius told him - to feel the fish really clamp down on the bait. Veeery, very carefully, the doctor stood up in the canoe, one leg one either side of the bench. He waited and he waited for just the right moment, and when he felt the fish bite, he jerked the rod back to try and hook the fish!” McCoy exclaimed, holding his hands like he was holding a fishing rod, pulling it straight up and backwards.
The children giggled at the wide-eyed expression on McCoy’s face. “What happened?” Anna squeaked.
“What happened? What happened next was that Dr. Horatio decided that he hated fishing, he hated canoes, and he wanted to put a hurtin’ on his best friend for roping him into the whole thing. See, canoes are long and skinny, and like Captain Tiberius, they don’t make a lot of sense. When the doctor threw his hands back to try and catch his fish, he upset the balance of the boat and started falling. He tried to catch himself, but the boat was already moving too much. Supplies went flying, the boat tipped and rolled, and Doctor Horatio finally fell out. He hit the water on his back and went under, but not before he saw the canoe flip with Captain Tiberius in it,” McCoy finished proudly.
“Captain Tiberius came up from the under the water, sputtering and coughing. He yelled at Doctor Horatio, ‘Hey, Bones? What’s the matter with you? Don’t you know how to sit in a canoe?’” McCoy said, doing a fairly fine imitation of Jim’s slightly higher voice and underlying Midwestern accent.
“What did Doctor Horatio say?” Max asked, falling over while he cackled away like a little hyena.
“Doctor Horatio called Captain Tiberius a lot of bad names and then looked for his portable hypo kit to see what he thought to bring. Luckily for the captain, it sunk to the bottom of the lake when the boat flipped over,” McCoy replied, growling. He softened his expression when he saw matching expressions of fright in the eyes of both kids. “You have to remember that Captain Tiberius’ one and only job was to find new ways to annoy Dr. Horatio. In fact, the doctor thought the captain laid in bed at night, thinking of new and exciting ways to make his friend’s life miserable.”
“Was he miserable? Dr. Horatio?”
“Not all the time. Only when Captain Tiberius was being a pain.”
“That’s a lot!” Anna observed with a happy squeak.
“You’re right, little lady. But this time, just this one time, Dr. Horatio disappointed his friend. While the two friends were bobbing in the water, Captain Tiberius realized that Dr. Horatio actually held on to the fishing pole when the two went flying out of the boat. The captain started yelling in the middle of the lake,” McCoy said in his own voice before he switched to his impression of Kirk’s inflection and speech pattern. “‘Really? Really, man? You hold on to the rod? What’s wrong with you?’”
“He held on to the fishing pole? Why?” Max asked, furrowing his little eyebrows together at the center.
“Well, that was very important to Dr. Horatio. He said that if was stuck in the middle of a lake in Iowa on shore leave because his idiot friend decided that he just had to go fishing, he was going to eat the fish that caused the whole thing in the first place!” McCoy concluded, ticking off each point on his fingers. Shaking his head sadly and dramatically, McCoy finished the story with, “But when he finally reeled it up, Captain Tiberius started laughing at him, because the fish was too small to keep.”
Max, exhausted, fighting sleep but still very interested in the story, was clearly confused. “So that’s the moral? Catch a bigger fish?”
“No, the moral is, ‘Don’t go fishing with Captain Tiberius, even if he asks you really, really nicely’.” Noting the children’s yawns and droopy eyelids, McCoy stood and stretched his legs. He raised his arms over his head, stretching his chest and shoulders towards the ceiling until his back gave a loud pop. McCoy dropped his arms back to his sides, rubbed a sore spot on his neck and activated the side rails. The metal slid into place with a soft ‘thsink’, securing the two children on the bed. For the second time that night, he reached down and pulled the afghan, a gift from Winona, over his charges. He commanded the lights down to ten percent, tucked a little teddy bear into the hands of each child and ran a protective hand over each of their heads.
“Are you leaving?” Anna mumbled through closed eyes when McCoy started moving about the room.
Sliding into doctor mode, McCoy checked off the rounds sheet on the chart clipped to the end of the bed. He replaced the medical information and slid back into the rocker. “No,” he breathed quietly as he reached over the rail. McCoy laid his hand the little girl’s stomach. Anna instantly latched on, her tiny fingers gripping his tightly enough to leave impressions from her fingernails. McCoy never winced, nor did he make any attempt to ease her grip. Instead, he simply assured her, “I’ll stay with you. Now, just close your eyes and go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Satisfied with his answer, Anna closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, joining her bother in dreamland. As he watched from Christine’s office, Spock found himself wishing the kids pleasant dreams, perhaps involving their parents and relatives. The shock of the truth would likely be a bitter pill to swallow.
Clearing his throat, the Enterprise’s second in command stood, straightening a non-existent wrinkle from his perfectly pressed uniform shirt as he moved. Looking both Chapel and Uhura in the eyes, he said, “I thank you for your acceptance of my presence during this viewing. It has proven most educational.”
“Anytime, Spock,” Chapel said with a wave of her hand. “We’ll teach you one of these days.”
“I have no doubt,” he said as he moved smoothly towards the door. “Now, if you will excuse me, this session has given me much to ponder.”
Uhura snorted. “I don’t doubt it.”
“Don’t think too hard!” Christine called to Spock’s back.
Stopping in his tracks, the Vulcan spun on one heel and raised a quizzical eyebrow. With a sure glint in his eyes, he quipped, “I fail to see how that is at all possible.”
Maybe he was starting to understand humans after all.
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Next Up: Spock has an epiphany, and he and McCoy have a heart to heart.
Author's Note Supplemental: I've not the time to post up both parts today. Look for the final (and my personal favorite) chapter tomorrow. Thanks for the patience, guys! Life has been busy lately!