"How's everything coming?"
Leonard McCoy glanced over at his father's question. He was unsure how to answer. David McCoy's question wasn't as innocent as it seemed. Every conversation with David McCoy from casual remarks to a passerby to seemingly innocent questions about his son's life was a intended for one thing: to find out if the person in question measured up to his own impossibly high standards.
Leonard McCoy was well aware he never did. He could tell his father of how he had saved three children in a air skimmer accident and the accomplishment he had felt as he had seen the children a month later leaving the hospital after undergoing extensive neuro regen. But he knew his father would have just countered with a more extensive recount about one of his own success stories.
He could have told his father of how he had made one mistake; one mistake that he was sure had been the difference between life and death. However, David McCoy would have been sure to tell him how in a similar situation he had made a difference choice and saved the patient.
He could have told his father how he had stayed up late staring at the ceiling as Jocelyn lay angrily turned away ignoring him. All he would have got for his troubles was his father's recounts on what he had done wrong and how he should have never married Jocelyn anyway.
Nothing he ever did was good enough.
He had heard the comments that were made to his own sister and mother about how he was a good person but was made to be a follower not a leader. It hurt to know his own father had no confidence in him as a person.
Every choice was always wrong but McCoy was determined to prove him wrong. He turned to the older man and said. "Fine."
His father, David McCoy, raised an eyebrow and asked. "Really? How is Jocelyn?" McCoy stuck his hands in his pockets at his father's question. He couldn't help like feel the question wasn't really a question but an interrogation.
It was always like that…it had always been like that with his father. He was Leonard McCoy, his only son. His pride and joy and also his life's biggest screw-up. He wasn't good enough ever. He had seen it when he finished medical school and chose to work on a volunteer aide crew rather than taking a prestigious position at Emory University Medical Centre in Atlanta like his father had practically planned for him to have since birth. He had seen in when instead of specializing he had chosen general medicine….he had seen it in every goddamn look since he was born.
He was never good enough…He would never be good enough.
His father, David McCoy wasn't asking how Jocelyn was doing; he was asking what else had his son managed to screw up in his marriage. Their late night spats and daytime silences were clear indicators to anybody that could see.
And David McCoy saw all.
And he judged all.
Except himself.
McCoy found it sick irony that while he spent extra time at the hospital saving lives and helping others his own wife thought he was off claiming glory and even more importantly sleeping with the staff. It was a sick contrast to the way his own mother thought her husband was the epitome of a god and his father had been lying through his teeth and sleeping with more people than an Orion whore.
"Jocelyn is fine. We were going through a rough patch but things are a lot better."
His father looked like he wanted to say something else but the words died off as a spasm of pain crossed his face and then abruptly his legs gave out.
McCoy caught his father just before he hit the ground.
"You okay?"
"I'm fine."
McCoy wasn't so sure. His father's face was gray and while the expression of pain was fading it was still there. His father was already trying to get his feet and shaking as he did so. McCoy tried to help him. "I said I'm fine , get your damn hands off me."
McCoy moved back allowing his father to regain his balance slowly, painfully on his own and he catalogued every moment.
They resumed walking and the older McCoy cleared his throat. "It was a muscle spasm, damn old age."
It was a lie and they both knew it. His father continued trying to regain the thread of the conversation. "So about your wife…when's that grandchild of mine coming along? "
He automatically stiffened at that comment. The words were pointed and intentionally mentioned to take the focus off his sudden collapse. McCoy knew his father was well aware of the sore point he had hit. It was no secret to everybody that knew Jocelyn was vehemently against having a child now and at any point in the near future. McCoy also knew that his father was well aware that his son would have liked to start a family and the resulting argument from the differing wants was the cause of many arguments.
McCoy forced himself to respond, but it was with a thin veneer of civility and a thick façade of lies.
McCoy's personal life wasn't fine and his father wasn't either.
But they would never admit it.
McCoy's were made that way, too stubborn for their own good.
XXXX XXXX
McCoy found out a few months later ,just what his father was trying to keep hidden, in what was arguably the worse way possible. He had been getting strange looks from what felt like half the staff at the hospital for the past few weeks and had even gotten a few anonymous condolence holocards.
"Dr. McCoy our prayers are with you and your family."
"Best wishes for a recovery"
It was weird but a first he thought it was a prank. Then he figured that maybe hospital scuttlebutt merely had it wrong and he had become the victim of a rumour of some terminal illness. Assurances that he was fine didn't seem to help and earned him some brief smiles that quickly turned to pitying looks when he wasn't looking.
He was in the cafeteria getting a quick bite to eat before he had to be back to work when Reedus, the head Neuro doctor caught him as he was navigating to a table. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry. I know they're making advances all the time.—"
McCoy had had enough. He set his tray down unnecessarily hard at the cafeteria table and turned back to the man raising his voice. "What are you talking about?"
Reedus coloured a little. "I just wanted to let you know that everybody is–"
"Who the hell are you talking about? Is this some joke everybody's in? Because—"
The cafeteria had fallen silent at his outburst. Some of the staff looked genuinely puzzled but he saw others here and there who were glancing away from him with those same goddamn pitying looks.
Reedus cut in, apologetically now looking like he didn't know what to do. "You—you don't know?"
"Don't know what?"
"I really can't tell you. I thought you would know. I t—"
"You listen to me. Whatever is going on I want an answer now and—"
McCoy broke off as his comm beeped. He tried to continue talking but the noise interrupted again. McCoy snatched the comm up still glaring at Reedus as the man used the opportunity to walk away. He was inwardly swearing as he irritably answered.
"What?"
"Is this Dr. Leonard H. McCoy?"
"Speaking."
"This is Kyle, a nurse the Emergency Department in Atlanta General. You were listed as a emergency contact. I'm calling to let you know…."
The rest of the words seemed to fade in and out as McCoy listened. "…had passed out and nearly stopped breathing...incoherent…critical condition…"
McCoy clicked the comm shut and stared around the cafeteria. He knew what the whispers, the looks, the comments, the goddamn cards were all about.
It made sense really…of course everybody would know before him. Of course his father was ill and he was the last to know.
Because that's what McCoy's did. Because that's what David McCoy did. Everybody was more important and more deserving then his own son until it was time to pick up the pieces. Then whatever messed up situation his father had created would become his fault and his responsibility and like the dutiful son he was he would assume it.
And that what he was going to do now.
XXXX XXXX
McCoy got to the other hospital in record time. The Emergency room was bustling with activity, McCoy sidestepped a Denobulan guard, ignored the indignant tones of a harried triage nurse and walked back through the sliding doors. He found the doctor in charge and it only took him a few seconds to convince her that he was going to see his father right then and right there visiting policies be damned
"He's breathing on his own, that's a great sign and he's talking now. He had a small infarct. We re-vascularised the area as soon as it was found and a regen shot was given so…"
McCoy cut through the technical medicalese with one question. It was really the most important. Everything that was happening now was really just a symptom of the larger issue ."What's the diagnosis?"
"Well obviously the infarct, pneumonia—"
"Cut the crap. Did he tell you not to tell me? " McCoy stared down at the woman and added. "Because if he did I don't give a damn what he wants to keep secret."
The doctor frowned. "Dr. McCoy surely you of all people know that a patient has a right to privacy and—confidentiality is—"
McCoy was practically shaking with anger but he forced his voice to stay steady. "I don't care what he wants to keep confidential. I'm named as his medical secondary…right now he's not capable of making decisions for himself due to his neuro status and the meds you have him which means I'm responsible."
The doctor was looking nervous now but McCoy continued. "That also means I'm the one responsible for picking up the pieces of this fucking shit-storm like always so what he wants to keep secret is the least of my worries."
"You might want to sit down."
"And I might want to stand."
Once again the woman hesitated then began. "The disease is still in its early stages and –"
McCoy swallowed at that. If the early stages were this bad then the later stages…well he wasn't even going to think about that. "Is it Xenopolycythemia?" He knew from their familial gene study that they had a strong likelihood of contracting it in his family…
"No, not that…It's, Pyrroneurits."
She continued talking, about disease course, and treatments and McCoy ignored her. He knew about the disease. It was one of the illnesses that still plagued countless people. Millions of other ailments that had once killed billions had been cure but there was still some that remained.
A long-painful death was in store for his father and there was nothing that he could do about it. His body would shut down, his every nerve would be on fire, taste, sight, smell, every sense would go, his breathing would become difficult and then his heart would stop but only after everything was destroyed. It was a miserable, awful way to die.
The doctor fell silent realizing he didn't want to hear her. McCoy leaned over his father watching as he struggled to breathe. This was just an exacerbation of the disease, it would flare up and die down before it finally left him too weak to do anything but just die
David McCoy's eyes opened as he neared. "They—called—you—" Each word was a strain but McCoy could see him forcing himself to speak "You—know—then?"
"Yeah, dad…I know."
"I don't—want—your mother or—sister to—know." He gasped.
McCoy shook his head; it was bad enough keeping all the secrets he had for his father over the years. But this was one he wasn't going to be complicit in keeping. It was more than his sister and mother deserving to know, telling was something he had to do for himself. The secrets were becoming too much, and when they eventually found out and he hadn't told he would be disgusted with himself. At least more so than he already was.
"Please—" McCoy heard his father plead, but he turned around walking out the room and pretending he hadn't. He could hear the sound of his sister Donna and his mother as they tried to find out what was happening.
"Len, there you are. "
His sister immediately turned to him as he came out. The nurse she had been harassing looked grateful for his interruption and used the opportunity to hurry off before the interrogation could continue.
"Somebody said Dad, had got sent to the hospital, and we called his comm and he didn't answer and—" Donna's words were tumbling over each other.
His mother wasn't speaking but she was watching him with sad eyes and grim lips. He suspected she already knew some of what he was about to tell her.
He cleared his throat trying to get his bearings. "Let's sit down"
The activity of the ER seemed to fade away as they retired to a waiting room and he began to tell them. There was the predictable crying, the questions, the hopes, the expected ramblings . He had seen the same with every fatal diagnosis he had shared with families. The only difference was this was his family.
This was his father.
He wasn't telling somebody who in a few hours he wouldn't have to deal with again. He wasn't telling somebody who would have to go home and figure out how to deal with everything.
He was the one who would have to deal with everything. He was the one that would be in charge.
Because he was the medical expert in the family.
Because he was the oldest.
Because it was his responsibility.