fic: the doctor is out | mccoy | PG-13, gen | star trek xi
title: the doctor is out
author: malleablyfic
pairing: none
rating: PG-13, gen
summary: Leonard McCoy, between missions. Some ensemble bonding.
a/n: I fell in love with McCoy as soon as he introduced himself as a grumpy doctor with a phobia. Be still, my heart! McCoy's sleeping sickness is a reference to an episode of M*A*S*H where Hawkeye says he wants to "sleep for a year" when he gets back from Korea. I seem to have gone a little funny for ellipses and italicizing. I think the ending sucks.
Leonard McCoy spends the first week home sleeping. Back on the Enterprise, when everything looked like it had gone to shit - Kirk presumed dead on Delta Vega, Pike presumed dead on that Romulan ship, half the Starfleet incinerated and six billion Vulcans also dead - back then, when everyone who wasn't dead yet was nervous and suddenly a lot more religious, a few wise-ass security guards asked McCoy what he would do when - if - they made it alive out of this God-forsaken disaster.
"Sleep, by God, sleep for a week, gentlemen. And then get drunk. Drink myself the Mississippi and then - and then sleep for another week."
Gallows humor - but McCoy sticks to his word. He spends the first week back in his room at the Academy - absurdly - sleeping amid a stack of medical textbooks and dirty laundry. Two weeks ago, he had been studying for his xeno-anatomy exams. Now... well.
Some of the other Enterprise folks leave messages for him, but nothing is urgent. No ceremonies, no obligations. Nothing yet, even for the good doctor. There's three hundred Academy doctors, several thousand private practitioners in the city of San Francisco, and several hundred fresh, well-rested, eager med students just begging to see the latest wounded from their wreck. Hell, Pike and the slug have practically become a traveling vaudeville act. See slug! See mutilated brainstem! See wheelchair! See medal of valor!
"Huh! Valor, my ass."
So McCoy sleeps. And then - he rouses himself, searches through the mess, finds a bottle, drinks straight from the neck - thinking about divorcees and war wounds and sass and the smell of burnt skin on plastic - and finally loses consciousness again.
*
He wakes - truly civilized - at dawn. He doesn't know what day it is, but his left arm is excruciatingly sore from having been slept on for... however long. He also smells.
Some people, when they study medicine, develop a mild form of hypochondria. It's understandable. Suddenly being informed of all the myriad ways you could die - of all the ways the human body can break down - well, it can be a little disconcerting. McCoy never considered himself particularly soft, though there are certain things - flying objects (particularly being in them), snakes, constricted spaces and clowns - that rattle him and do fit the symptomatic bill for being dubbed "phobias". Which is of course ironic given his current situation - working in a small, constrictive flying thing with a bunch of clowns.
Damn space. Damn Starfleet. Damn it all to hell.
*
The Enterprise crew has apparently, since McCoy's drunken coma, been getting all cozy. When McCoy finally descends from his lair - room - not bothering to shave or shower, but changing his underwear and socks (he will give the people that) - he spots the hobgoblin and Kirk's ex canoodling (in that strange, emotionally reserved, Vulcanish way) by the library. When they see him, they go a bit dark with embarrassment, but then they call out to him: earnestly and as friends. It's rattling, like a clown show. McCoy is a gentleman though, and so he waves politely back.
*
The sun's out. The San Francisco waters glitter like - like stars, or his wife's jewelry, or nice, strong liquor. It's so bright McCoy has to shield his eyes. And he walks toward it, wanting to get closer, to feel the spray of old, polluted, urban water, to feel the sweet solid Earth under his shoes and to be reassured that, here, nothing can lurch away from him. Nothing can break down, or run out of gas, or crash into anything. God made the Earth to spin, and, by God, it spins, leisurely and safely.
He steps on the grass - and is quickly greeted by an automated message ("Alert! Please do not walk on the lawn. Courtesy, Maintenance Staff, Starfleet Academy.") which he ignores. He is about to sit his tired, old ass on the sweet solid Earth when he is interrupted:
"Opa! I would not do that if I were you!"
Thick Russian accent - mother of God, it's the Russian kid.
"Eh?" McCoy turns around gruffly.
The kid, with his pile of curls and well-ironed uniform (what the hell's he doing in uniform? they're on vacation, for Christ's sake), looks... like an idiot. McCoy has to constantly remind himself that he is not, in fact, an idiot. That he did amazing things with hyperspace theory, and is apparently able to do integral calculus in his head. That he is nearly twenty years younger than McCoy and no doubt much smarter than him.
Still, being hungover - McCoy is not amused.
"You will be yelled at," Chekov explains.
McCoy says nothing. He just stares.
"I am telling you, Doctor, I have sat in that very same spot and was, first, shocked with low-grade electrical charges and, then, a woman from Maintenance came to escort me away. They are very serious. They do not take it lightly. Please, join me here on the pavement."
Chekov is talking and acting like he's in some sort of hostage crisis and McCoy is the demented terrorist. Too hungover to argue, McCoy just straightens and, okay, fine, joins Chekov back on the pavement.
"So where to, Pavel boy? You seem to have gone through all this before."
"Well," Chekov smiles, "if you are looking for nice relaxing view, I am going there myself. Come. We can catch up!"
So they go to ketch up.
*
"Oh..." McCoy groans and passes the bottle back to Chekov, "Jesus, that's good."
"From my home town, you know. We are very famous for it." Chekov holds the vodka up to the sunlight: it swirls, opaque and clean.
They are sitting on a bench facing the water. The shade of a tree blocks most of the sunlight, and, from here, the city is quiet, the Academy is distant, and everything is threatening to just lilt slowly, peacefully away. McCoy slouches far down into the seat, spreading his long legs before him and leaning his head back. They speak of their backgrounds, they discover a mutual interest in Australian rules football and old P.G. Wodehouse (though that had been a semi-secret for McCoy), and McCoy finds himself feeling all warm and... paternal for the kid. Or maybe it's the vodka. Or maybe it's the death-defying Enterprise mission.
"I tell you something," Chekov says after taking a short sip, "I love space, yes. I love the - the maiesty. It is very romantic. I love how it - just makes sense, no? It's there and I can understand it. Some of what we did up there - the equations, ah, very elegant. Like symphonies! But I tell you, Doctor, sometimes when we were there - I was thinking, 'Ay God, I could not die here.'"
McCoy says nothing, but he slaps Chekov on the shoulder and gives him a rough, fatherly squeeze.
*
When they make their way back to the Academy campus, they are both drunk and laughing. In the twilight, a figure approaches - frantic and excitable physicality - it can only be Jim Kirk. McCoy likes Kirk, but he privately hopes the kid will just calm the hell down one day. Maybe he'll mellow when he ages. Probably not.
"I heard you were out!" Kirk says, smiling broadly and giving McCoy a friendly jostle.
"Hey, what? I'm being tracked?" McCoy slurs.
"Spock and Uhura spotted you - they thought it was the Grizzly Man first. But, buddy, that was hours ago! Where've you two been?"
Chekov snorts like a teenager and breaks down laughing. It makes McCoy laugh too, and he tries to steady the younger kid, but instead they both just wobble like - like - McCoy thinks - pink plastic flamingos ready to topple. The idea makes him laugh harder.
"Would you - would you look at this guy?" he chortles.
*
McCoy doesn't remember much more after that, but he wakes up the next day on the floor of Jim Kirk's room, covered in a sticky brown sauce, re-congealed cheese and reeking of booze. He's surprised to find Chekov on the couch above him, asleep with his mouth open, and that engineering guy - Montgomery Scott - snoring on the table.
There's a knock at the door.
McCoy detaches himself from the floor and reassembles himself into a half-stand, half-crouch hobble. The knocking continues, punctuating itself into Morse code: O.P.E.N. McCoy opens the door.
It's Spock.
"For whatever you've come, you're too early."
With a slight wrinkle of his nose, the Vulcan looks over McCoy's shoulder. "Hmm. I don't think so. I was actually looking for Mr. Kirk, but since you're all here, I can just pass the message along. Admiral Pike has called all of us for a briefing at oh-eight hundred hours. That's in... fifteen minutes. Mr. Kirk assured me yesterday evening that he would, as he said, 'round you all up' in time, but it seems he is a little... delayed."
"More like he was a little premature," McCoy says. "Tell Pike to give us half a minute."
"I really don't see how thirty seconds will - "
The door slams shut.
*
McCoy doesn't trust that Vulcan. He reminds him of that Louisiana lawyer, icy cold and unapologetic when the courtroom was stifling and the sweat was crawling down McCoy's spine in a sticky trail. That damned lawyer had used cold, brute logic to up-end the divorce trial. So much for the house, the car, the water shuttle, the clinic, the building in which the clinic is housed, his alma mater pendant, his alma mater ring, the half-built sail, the fashionable furniture bought in New York, the dog, his darling daughter Jo and... Well, shit, McCoy cusses.
That Vulcan just has that lawyery look about him. Like he's fixing to... make mischief.
*
"Doctor."
"Oh, hi."
It's the Vulcan.
In twenty-four hours, they ship out, and McCoy's bones are already jittery with pre-flight heebie-jeebies. He's left the door to his room open, and he's busy setting up his flasks in a single file on the kitchen counter. Pouring carefully from his bottle of Jim Beam, he funnels the burnt gold bourbon into the small containers. It's a fussy, meticulous task and it has always soothed McCoy. He's even developed a sort of superstition about it. He had done it before the Iowa flight: the Iowa flight was good. He had not been able to do it before the virgin Enterprise voyage: that flight was bad, very bad. Ergo, it must be done.
There are a lot of things he's fixing for this next mission. His clothes are in neat little piles on his bed. He's lined up the insignias of each shirt to the same angle. His socks are bundled and formed into a pyramid. His underwear is folded into little squares. He has geometrically aligned his razors, comb, shoe brush...
Spock stands in the doorway, staring at the bed and McCoy with that characteristically mysterious Spock look. Owl-like.
"Well, don't just stand there and gawk," McCoy grumbles.
Spock comes in, and stands.
"Your current behavior and these objects here seem to indicate obsessive-compulsive tendencies, Doctor McCoy."
"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock."
It takes a minute but, "Oh yes... Holmes."
McCoy rolls his eyes.
"Mr. McCoy, I didn't actually come here to discuss your behavioral oddities. I actually came to say that I hope you're pleased to be joining us again on the Enterprise. I heard you had some misgivings. I had even heard a rumor that you were considering abandoning Starfleet altogether."
"Well, hell, with a first mission like that..." McCoy doesn't remember expressing misgivings or threatening to leave, but he has been drunk or asleep since getting back. So it's possible.
"Yes, it was... perhaps more dramatic than is typical."
Was that a tremor of Spockly emotion right there? McCoy can never tell. But he treads softly.
"Indeed it was," he says, focusing on the flask in front of him. "But, since you ask, yes, I'm okay with coming along for the ride. 'Pleased' might be too strong a word, but you won't have to drag me."
"Good." Spock comes to the counter, standing in front of McCoy. "Mr. Kirk and I lobbied quite aggressively to keep the original team together. There were some doubts - which it wouldn't be fitting to discuss, I'm sure you understand - but, when rumors of your hesitancy came up, this gave our opponents the perfect advantage. I personally argued very strongly in favor of your continued assignment to the U.S.S. Enterprise. I took it upon myself to say that you, uh, very much enjoyed your time on board."
"Well, gee, Spock," McCoy says with a big smile. "Thank you mightily!"
"Your tone is... facetious."
"My tone was sarcastic. Look, I'll be straight with you: I saw what the hell happened up there." You saw it too, for Christ's sake, he thinks but doesn't say. "And it looks like you'll be needing a doctor up there with, let's say, regular frequency. And as a card-carrying humanist and - dammit - a friend to some of these people, I feel I'm obliged."
Spock's eyes twinkle: a smile? "I hope your humanism might include the... alternative species?"
"It can learn to be extended."
*
He's next to Uhura on the shuttle up.
Last time, he had been too busy keeping Kirk still and too awestruck by his first proper look at space. Now - as the glory of the Federation ships and the infinite openness of the starry galaxy extends before his window for a second time - he's rigid and nauseous and -
"Dammit, Leonard, are you going to rearrange those magazines into an art project or what?"
He sits back, letting the magazines go.
"Uhura, I might - "
" - puke on me. I know." She gives his knee a squeeze. "Breathe deeply and count to ten, Bones."
One, two, shit...
"You know, in some languages, the sound of 'om' can be very helpful."
Om, shit, om, shit, om...
*
"Chief Medical Officer! Welcome aboard!" Kirk is a bundle of tightly-wrapped nervous energy. He cracks his jaw against a Granny Smith apple and gives McCoy a friendly punch in the shoulder as he passes him in the corridor. Turning around and walking backwards, all cocky strides and cocky smirks, he raises his voice, "Have a fun ride, Bones!"
In the sickbay, there are a few new faces. They stand at attention when McCoy walks in.
"Oh, for Christ's sake, don't do that," he grumbles.
"Doctor, sir!" The head nurse appears. He's lanky, all elbows and knees and Adam's apple. Barely post-pubescent. Possibly an idiot. "Status report on sickbay equipment - "
"Let's do it later, uh," McCoy peers at the kid's uniform, "Lars."
"Sir!"
"Heaven help us." McCoy wrestles the flask from his back pocket and finds an empty seat by the nurse's station. He squeezes into one of the seats and buckles himself in, tightening the straps. After taking a long pull from the flask, he grips the table and closes his eyes.
All the monitors are suddenly babbling in Chekov's Russian accent: explaining the departure procedures, the warp destination, the goddamn mission.
Someone pokes McCoy in the shoulder. "Doctor McCoy?"
"Unavailable, kid. Just tell me when we get there."
*
author: malleablyfic
pairing: none
rating: PG-13, gen
summary: Leonard McCoy, between missions. Some ensemble bonding.
a/n: I fell in love with McCoy as soon as he introduced himself as a grumpy doctor with a phobia. Be still, my heart! McCoy's sleeping sickness is a reference to an episode of M*A*S*H where Hawkeye says he wants to "sleep for a year" when he gets back from Korea. I seem to have gone a little funny for ellipses and italicizing. I think the ending sucks.
Leonard McCoy spends the first week home sleeping. Back on the Enterprise, when everything looked like it had gone to shit - Kirk presumed dead on Delta Vega, Pike presumed dead on that Romulan ship, half the Starfleet incinerated and six billion Vulcans also dead - back then, when everyone who wasn't dead yet was nervous and suddenly a lot more religious, a few wise-ass security guards asked McCoy what he would do when - if - they made it alive out of this God-forsaken disaster.
"Sleep, by God, sleep for a week, gentlemen. And then get drunk. Drink myself the Mississippi and then - and then sleep for another week."
Gallows humor - but McCoy sticks to his word. He spends the first week back in his room at the Academy - absurdly - sleeping amid a stack of medical textbooks and dirty laundry. Two weeks ago, he had been studying for his xeno-anatomy exams. Now... well.
Some of the other Enterprise folks leave messages for him, but nothing is urgent. No ceremonies, no obligations. Nothing yet, even for the good doctor. There's three hundred Academy doctors, several thousand private practitioners in the city of San Francisco, and several hundred fresh, well-rested, eager med students just begging to see the latest wounded from their wreck. Hell, Pike and the slug have practically become a traveling vaudeville act. See slug! See mutilated brainstem! See wheelchair! See medal of valor!
"Huh! Valor, my ass."
So McCoy sleeps. And then - he rouses himself, searches through the mess, finds a bottle, drinks straight from the neck - thinking about divorcees and war wounds and sass and the smell of burnt skin on plastic - and finally loses consciousness again.
*
He wakes - truly civilized - at dawn. He doesn't know what day it is, but his left arm is excruciatingly sore from having been slept on for... however long. He also smells.
Some people, when they study medicine, develop a mild form of hypochondria. It's understandable. Suddenly being informed of all the myriad ways you could die - of all the ways the human body can break down - well, it can be a little disconcerting. McCoy never considered himself particularly soft, though there are certain things - flying objects (particularly being in them), snakes, constricted spaces and clowns - that rattle him and do fit the symptomatic bill for being dubbed "phobias". Which is of course ironic given his current situation - working in a small, constrictive flying thing with a bunch of clowns.
Damn space. Damn Starfleet. Damn it all to hell.
*
The Enterprise crew has apparently, since McCoy's drunken coma, been getting all cozy. When McCoy finally descends from his lair - room - not bothering to shave or shower, but changing his underwear and socks (he will give the people that) - he spots the hobgoblin and Kirk's ex canoodling (in that strange, emotionally reserved, Vulcanish way) by the library. When they see him, they go a bit dark with embarrassment, but then they call out to him: earnestly and as friends. It's rattling, like a clown show. McCoy is a gentleman though, and so he waves politely back.
*
The sun's out. The San Francisco waters glitter like - like stars, or his wife's jewelry, or nice, strong liquor. It's so bright McCoy has to shield his eyes. And he walks toward it, wanting to get closer, to feel the spray of old, polluted, urban water, to feel the sweet solid Earth under his shoes and to be reassured that, here, nothing can lurch away from him. Nothing can break down, or run out of gas, or crash into anything. God made the Earth to spin, and, by God, it spins, leisurely and safely.
He steps on the grass - and is quickly greeted by an automated message ("Alert! Please do not walk on the lawn. Courtesy, Maintenance Staff, Starfleet Academy.") which he ignores. He is about to sit his tired, old ass on the sweet solid Earth when he is interrupted:
"Opa! I would not do that if I were you!"
Thick Russian accent - mother of God, it's the Russian kid.
"Eh?" McCoy turns around gruffly.
The kid, with his pile of curls and well-ironed uniform (what the hell's he doing in uniform? they're on vacation, for Christ's sake), looks... like an idiot. McCoy has to constantly remind himself that he is not, in fact, an idiot. That he did amazing things with hyperspace theory, and is apparently able to do integral calculus in his head. That he is nearly twenty years younger than McCoy and no doubt much smarter than him.
Still, being hungover - McCoy is not amused.
"You will be yelled at," Chekov explains.
McCoy says nothing. He just stares.
"I am telling you, Doctor, I have sat in that very same spot and was, first, shocked with low-grade electrical charges and, then, a woman from Maintenance came to escort me away. They are very serious. They do not take it lightly. Please, join me here on the pavement."
Chekov is talking and acting like he's in some sort of hostage crisis and McCoy is the demented terrorist. Too hungover to argue, McCoy just straightens and, okay, fine, joins Chekov back on the pavement.
"So where to, Pavel boy? You seem to have gone through all this before."
"Well," Chekov smiles, "if you are looking for nice relaxing view, I am going there myself. Come. We can catch up!"
So they go to ketch up.
*
"Oh..." McCoy groans and passes the bottle back to Chekov, "Jesus, that's good."
"From my home town, you know. We are very famous for it." Chekov holds the vodka up to the sunlight: it swirls, opaque and clean.
They are sitting on a bench facing the water. The shade of a tree blocks most of the sunlight, and, from here, the city is quiet, the Academy is distant, and everything is threatening to just lilt slowly, peacefully away. McCoy slouches far down into the seat, spreading his long legs before him and leaning his head back. They speak of their backgrounds, they discover a mutual interest in Australian rules football and old P.G. Wodehouse (though that had been a semi-secret for McCoy), and McCoy finds himself feeling all warm and... paternal for the kid. Or maybe it's the vodka. Or maybe it's the death-defying Enterprise mission.
"I tell you something," Chekov says after taking a short sip, "I love space, yes. I love the - the maiesty. It is very romantic. I love how it - just makes sense, no? It's there and I can understand it. Some of what we did up there - the equations, ah, very elegant. Like symphonies! But I tell you, Doctor, sometimes when we were there - I was thinking, 'Ay God, I could not die here.'"
McCoy says nothing, but he slaps Chekov on the shoulder and gives him a rough, fatherly squeeze.
*
When they make their way back to the Academy campus, they are both drunk and laughing. In the twilight, a figure approaches - frantic and excitable physicality - it can only be Jim Kirk. McCoy likes Kirk, but he privately hopes the kid will just calm the hell down one day. Maybe he'll mellow when he ages. Probably not.
"I heard you were out!" Kirk says, smiling broadly and giving McCoy a friendly jostle.
"Hey, what? I'm being tracked?" McCoy slurs.
"Spock and Uhura spotted you - they thought it was the Grizzly Man first. But, buddy, that was hours ago! Where've you two been?"
Chekov snorts like a teenager and breaks down laughing. It makes McCoy laugh too, and he tries to steady the younger kid, but instead they both just wobble like - like - McCoy thinks - pink plastic flamingos ready to topple. The idea makes him laugh harder.
"Would you - would you look at this guy?" he chortles.
*
McCoy doesn't remember much more after that, but he wakes up the next day on the floor of Jim Kirk's room, covered in a sticky brown sauce, re-congealed cheese and reeking of booze. He's surprised to find Chekov on the couch above him, asleep with his mouth open, and that engineering guy - Montgomery Scott - snoring on the table.
There's a knock at the door.
McCoy detaches himself from the floor and reassembles himself into a half-stand, half-crouch hobble. The knocking continues, punctuating itself into Morse code: O.P.E.N. McCoy opens the door.
It's Spock.
"For whatever you've come, you're too early."
With a slight wrinkle of his nose, the Vulcan looks over McCoy's shoulder. "Hmm. I don't think so. I was actually looking for Mr. Kirk, but since you're all here, I can just pass the message along. Admiral Pike has called all of us for a briefing at oh-eight hundred hours. That's in... fifteen minutes. Mr. Kirk assured me yesterday evening that he would, as he said, 'round you all up' in time, but it seems he is a little... delayed."
"More like he was a little premature," McCoy says. "Tell Pike to give us half a minute."
"I really don't see how thirty seconds will - "
The door slams shut.
*
McCoy doesn't trust that Vulcan. He reminds him of that Louisiana lawyer, icy cold and unapologetic when the courtroom was stifling and the sweat was crawling down McCoy's spine in a sticky trail. That damned lawyer had used cold, brute logic to up-end the divorce trial. So much for the house, the car, the water shuttle, the clinic, the building in which the clinic is housed, his alma mater pendant, his alma mater ring, the half-built sail, the fashionable furniture bought in New York, the dog, his darling daughter Jo and... Well, shit, McCoy cusses.
That Vulcan just has that lawyery look about him. Like he's fixing to... make mischief.
*
"Doctor."
"Oh, hi."
It's the Vulcan.
In twenty-four hours, they ship out, and McCoy's bones are already jittery with pre-flight heebie-jeebies. He's left the door to his room open, and he's busy setting up his flasks in a single file on the kitchen counter. Pouring carefully from his bottle of Jim Beam, he funnels the burnt gold bourbon into the small containers. It's a fussy, meticulous task and it has always soothed McCoy. He's even developed a sort of superstition about it. He had done it before the Iowa flight: the Iowa flight was good. He had not been able to do it before the virgin Enterprise voyage: that flight was bad, very bad. Ergo, it must be done.
There are a lot of things he's fixing for this next mission. His clothes are in neat little piles on his bed. He's lined up the insignias of each shirt to the same angle. His socks are bundled and formed into a pyramid. His underwear is folded into little squares. He has geometrically aligned his razors, comb, shoe brush...
Spock stands in the doorway, staring at the bed and McCoy with that characteristically mysterious Spock look. Owl-like.
"Well, don't just stand there and gawk," McCoy grumbles.
Spock comes in, and stands.
"Your current behavior and these objects here seem to indicate obsessive-compulsive tendencies, Doctor McCoy."
"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock."
It takes a minute but, "Oh yes... Holmes."
McCoy rolls his eyes.
"Mr. McCoy, I didn't actually come here to discuss your behavioral oddities. I actually came to say that I hope you're pleased to be joining us again on the Enterprise. I heard you had some misgivings. I had even heard a rumor that you were considering abandoning Starfleet altogether."
"Well, hell, with a first mission like that..." McCoy doesn't remember expressing misgivings or threatening to leave, but he has been drunk or asleep since getting back. So it's possible.
"Yes, it was... perhaps more dramatic than is typical."
Was that a tremor of Spockly emotion right there? McCoy can never tell. But he treads softly.
"Indeed it was," he says, focusing on the flask in front of him. "But, since you ask, yes, I'm okay with coming along for the ride. 'Pleased' might be too strong a word, but you won't have to drag me."
"Good." Spock comes to the counter, standing in front of McCoy. "Mr. Kirk and I lobbied quite aggressively to keep the original team together. There were some doubts - which it wouldn't be fitting to discuss, I'm sure you understand - but, when rumors of your hesitancy came up, this gave our opponents the perfect advantage. I personally argued very strongly in favor of your continued assignment to the U.S.S. Enterprise. I took it upon myself to say that you, uh, very much enjoyed your time on board."
"Well, gee, Spock," McCoy says with a big smile. "Thank you mightily!"
"Your tone is... facetious."
"My tone was sarcastic. Look, I'll be straight with you: I saw what the hell happened up there." You saw it too, for Christ's sake, he thinks but doesn't say. "And it looks like you'll be needing a doctor up there with, let's say, regular frequency. And as a card-carrying humanist and - dammit - a friend to some of these people, I feel I'm obliged."
Spock's eyes twinkle: a smile? "I hope your humanism might include the... alternative species?"
"It can learn to be extended."
*
He's next to Uhura on the shuttle up.
Last time, he had been too busy keeping Kirk still and too awestruck by his first proper look at space. Now - as the glory of the Federation ships and the infinite openness of the starry galaxy extends before his window for a second time - he's rigid and nauseous and -
"Dammit, Leonard, are you going to rearrange those magazines into an art project or what?"
He sits back, letting the magazines go.
"Uhura, I might - "
" - puke on me. I know." She gives his knee a squeeze. "Breathe deeply and count to ten, Bones."
One, two, shit...
"You know, in some languages, the sound of 'om' can be very helpful."
Om, shit, om, shit, om...
*
"Chief Medical Officer! Welcome aboard!" Kirk is a bundle of tightly-wrapped nervous energy. He cracks his jaw against a Granny Smith apple and gives McCoy a friendly punch in the shoulder as he passes him in the corridor. Turning around and walking backwards, all cocky strides and cocky smirks, he raises his voice, "Have a fun ride, Bones!"
In the sickbay, there are a few new faces. They stand at attention when McCoy walks in.
"Oh, for Christ's sake, don't do that," he grumbles.
"Doctor, sir!" The head nurse appears. He's lanky, all elbows and knees and Adam's apple. Barely post-pubescent. Possibly an idiot. "Status report on sickbay equipment - "
"Let's do it later, uh," McCoy peers at the kid's uniform, "Lars."
"Sir!"
"Heaven help us." McCoy wrestles the flask from his back pocket and finds an empty seat by the nurse's station. He squeezes into one of the seats and buckles himself in, tightening the straps. After taking a long pull from the flask, he grips the table and closes his eyes.
All the monitors are suddenly babbling in Chekov's Russian accent: explaining the departure procedures, the warp destination, the goddamn mission.
Someone pokes McCoy in the shoulder. "Doctor McCoy?"
"Unavailable, kid. Just tell me when we get there."
*