Scones and Mint Juleps
When Scotty was hurled into sick bay, yelling a blue streak and strapped to the gurney with electrical tape, Leonard Horatio McCoy knew his nice day was over.
It was several tense and bloody hours later before anyone even got the story out of the still slightly burnt Scotsman. Apparently, it had been a normal morning in Engineering, with Scotty and Keenser working diligently on fine tuning a propulsion system for one of the newer transport shuttles. Then, everything changed when the Klingons attacked.
Klaxons screamed as the ship shuddered under the sudden onslaught of photon torpedoes before the shields were fully deployed. McCoy lurched against a bulkhead as the ship tilted during his frenzied run from the Bridge back to sickbay, swearing heatedly the entire way as he rushed past others making their way to their posts. A direct hit to the starboard nacelle brought on another wave of frenzied activity, but come the final shots fired and the negotiation of surrender of the Klingons, not a single crew member of the Enterprise had been brought to sickbay.
Doctor McCoy grinned at Chapel, his earlier veneer of calm and collected ER surgeon melting away into one of his rarer smiles. Not a single person had been hurt, and they'd come out of the encounter with damage that would only take a few hours to repair despite the sudden and unexpected attack. It was a lovely day, all in all, and McCoy figured he would spend the rest of his shift happily filling out supply request sheets to restock the medbay on their next stop at a Federation Station.
A little over an hour had passed with McCoy cheerfully filling out forms and chatting idly with Doctor M'Benga when the door to his office slid open to reveal a terrified ensign in engineering reds.
Before she could even open her mouth, McCoy heard an awful brogueish accent spewing obscenities and inventive threats.
He closed his eyes, "What happened to Scotty?"
The girl stuttered something about her department head trying to upgrade something in the destroyed nacelle's interior at the same time as repairing the damage and then all but evaporated when McCoy dismissed her.
He strode from his office and was greeted by the sight of Montgomery Scott taped down to a makeshift gurney with thick black electrical wrap. The engineer's hands were swaddled in thick white bandages-the only things on him not burnt or covered in grease. A spectacular spray of holes littered the man's shirt from the right side of his waist to the opposite shoulder, looking very much like he'd been sprayed with a supersoaker of battery acid. The hair on the left side of Scotty's head was a single matted and singed mass of slightly smoking black and the smell of burning keratin filled the room alongside some truly inventive threats and swears.
Doctor McCoy only sighed and readied the hypospray of sedative that he kept in his pocket for normally Kirk-related incidents. Making eye contact with Scotty, Bones tried on a reassuring smile but there was no fooling the Head Engineer-Scotty's newest round of swears was cut short by the hiss of the hypo and the indistinct gurgling sounds of him falling unconscious.
Armed with a dermal regenerator and a multiple laser scalpels, McCoy managed to peel away the damaged skin from his crewmate's body, starting with his head and working down across a deceptively muscled torso to end at the top of Scotty's right hip. It was tense work, as much of the man's skin had been charred extensively, and in a few places there was ligament and muscle showing beneath the still bubbling fatty tissue. At one point, Leonard was convinced that this had been a contest to see just how badly Scott had been able to hurt himself. Beside them, Keenser fidgeted unhappily as his friend was repaired.
McCoy finally dismissed the exhausted little alien when all of Scotty's wounds were closed,
"He's fine son, just gonna sleep for a few hours. You look like lizard death warmed over-you need to sleep too,"
Keenser agreed with a weary bob of his head, shook McCoy's hand, and disappeared to… where-ever the little man slept. McCoy was convinced he'd never even used his quarters, as the ensigns tasked with refreshing rooms never mentioned needing to go into Keenser's. Hand idly resting on Scotty's shoulder, Leonard decided that Keenser must sleep in the Jefferies Tubes, much like Scotty did on occasion.
Not that Leonard could comment, he spent so much time in his office in Sickbay, that he could scarcely recall the color of his quarters' walls.
Soon, Scotty moaned and fidgeted, bringing a hand up to paw at his face which jostled his IV and brought the man around instantly.
"Wha am I doin' here?!" Was the first thing out of his mouth. The second was, "Oh Lord! Is she alright?! What did I do ta me baby?!"
"The ship's fine, you idiot," McCoy's gentle hands belied his gruff words as he worked the IV out of the back of Scotty's hand carefully, "Last I knew, Keenser was disobeying my orders to rest and finished the work you two were doing when you exploded,"
"Oh. Good," Scotty sank back against his pillow and sighed in relief while McCoy shook his head in exasperation.
"I could use a drink," Both men chuckled when they said the same thing at the same time, and Leonard motioned for Scotty to follow him into his office where he retrieved a bottle of some Saurian Brandy.
"Tha's the ticket," Scotty accepted his glass graciously, not even commenting that he had better stuff brewing deep in engineering where even Kirk feared to tread.
The two men sighed gratefully at the first sip of burning liquid, then grinned at each other. Bones had always liked the jovial Scotsman. He was the perfect copy of the doctor himself-just happier. And Scotty liked to imagine the Doctor was what his inner temper sounded like. They balanced each other nicely, and the crew had the benefit of choosing which slightly pickled mad old man to bring their problems to. If they wanted fast results and gruff advice, they went to McCoy. For a tender and sympathetic ear, those who wanted to just vent but didn't need nor want advice went to Scotty.
"So what happened?" McCoy looked sideways at Scotty's still pinkish hands, fidgeting for his tricorder to make sure they were healing properly.
Scotty blushed slightly, "It were an honest, green-horned mistake. Ah thought Ah could slip an upgrade in while repairing this circuit relay system, an'…. BOOM," Scotty emphasized the word with his hands and winced for the effort.
"And here I thought I just had ONE full time walking-accident to take care of on this ship," McCoy grumbled.
"Now, tha's not fair Doctor. Ah'm nowhere near as bad as the Captain," Scotty protested as he took another swig of his liquor.
And so went the rest of Leonard's once again peaceful day. Sipping brandy, trading stories of how the Captain, smart though he was, could get into the strangest situations and worst trouble if left to his own devices. Soon the automatic lights dimmed and the two knew 'night' aboard the ship had fallen.
Scotty and Leonard didn't get many peaceful days. And considering one of their most peaceful afternoons in months had happened on the day of a surprise Klingon attack, it wasn't surprising that they cherished the time they had.
The world would talk about the friendship of James T. Kirk and his Doctor, but barely anyone aboard the Enterprise even knew about the friendship built on mutual grousing, drinking, and the trade of colloquialisms that was Leonard McCoy and Montgomery Scott. One patched the Captain up, and the other repaired the Ship. Without either, the very galaxy would crumble.