This story is in the same universe as my story 'As It Should Be' and occurs about 1 year into the five year mission they set off on at the end of Into Darkness.

I hope you enjoy the story, and feel free to review.

This morning Pavel had woken up with the biggest headache in the whole universe. He'd never really been drunk before, so he was not ready for a hangover this big. But, as far as he could remember, and he remembered coming back to the ship at the end of the night, he'd only had one beer, so it couldn't be a hangover…

Then he sneezed, which was just peachy. He didn't want to call in sick, because that would mean going to sickbay and possibly running into Dr McCoy which he didn't want to risk under any circumstances. There was no way to explain it, but every time he saw the older doctor he felt his heart flutter and his knees weaken, and just…

So, he took some pain relief meds and went about getting ready to head to the bridge for his shift. As he was walking along the corridor though, everything he heard felt like it had been magnified times ten so, by the time he had reached the bridge, sniffling and sneezing all the way there which certainly didn't help, he was in a somewhat bad mood and his headache had gotten a lot worse.

Slowly, as he sat down and looked around, he realised that Alice, a friend of his he'd been out with last night, hadn't shown up for her shift this morning. But he just shrugged off whilst sneezing again, assuming she just had a hangover, and tried his best to concentrate on his work station through bleary eyes.

XxX

Jim's patience was running thin. He loved his crew, he really did, but even he had his limits. The fact that he hadn't had sex in over a week may or may not have anything to do with his current frustration.

He knew the kid wasn't doing it on purpose, they had just come back from shore leave so he'd probably caught this cold/flu thing while he was away from the ship, but the sneezing was becoming too much. They were only about 10 minutes into alpha shift (and Jim was quite proud that he hadn't snapped sooner because SERIOUSLY!) when he, rather unintentionally rudely, said,

"Mr Chekov, although I'm sure your work is still as outstanding as ever, it may serve the needs of the crew better if you went to the med bay instead of staying here and spreading your germs" and as soon as it had left his mouth he knew he shouldn't have said it, could feel the disapproval of everyone else, but he was really stressed out, he couldn't help what came out of his mouth.

He could feel Spock's stare burning through the back of his head as Chekov, between sneezes, got out of his seat and shuffled over to the turbo lift doors, all the while saying,

"Yes keptin, sorry about this keptin" as he looked down at the floor. As soon as the turbo lift doors closed Jim sunk down into his chair, still feeling Spock looking straight at him. He wouldn't be getting any sex tonight either by the looks of it.

XxX

Chekov stumbled slightly as he was nearing the medical bay. The headache was getting progressively worse, and as well as not wanting to see McCoy, his morning was absolutely terrible. The only solace, oddly, would be seeing McCoy. It was a vicious cycle, but it may make him feel slightly better.

Luckily, there was nobody else in the corridor to see him almost fall over on his face as his vision began to blur, and he was starting to think that maybe he should have gone straight to med bay this morning, instead of going to the bridge and pretending to be fine.

The doors to med bay opened and he got a glimpse of Dr McCoy walking out of his office, making him smile slightly as he saw McCoy rush forward towards him as he felt himself fall forward, his vision going black.

XxX

McCoy had been treating patients all day. A rather rare form of the flu had managed to spread itself around a lot of the crew who had gone down to the nearby planet for shore leave. It shouldn't seriously harm anyone, but it would leave his patients bedridden and feeling like hell for a couple of days. 17 people now had to take the next two days off to recover, and for the younger crew members it was more like 3 or 4. For some reason, the younger crew members were even more susceptible to this thing, and it would leave them a lot weaker. One girl, Yeoman Morris who was only 24, would need extra care as the disease worked its way into her system. God damned foreign planets.

Just as he was considering how lucky he was that he didn't catch it himself, even though he was an 'old man' as Jim put it, he heard the ping of his communicator signalling a message from Jim. Think of the devil and he shall appear. Then the unmistakable sneezing of another patient filled his ears as he read Jim's message to find out that he had had to send Mr Chekov down to see him because he had the sniffles.

He hastily left his office and stopped in his tracks when he saw a very pale and unsteady looking Pavel Chekov look up at him, give a faint smile, then collapse onto the floor as McCoy rushed forward to grab him.

"Jesus Christ" McCoy sighed as he reached the boy's side, realising he was unconscious, "Chapel, somebody, anybody come and give me a hand" McCoy yelled as he crouched down next to Chekov to make sure he was still breathing. Christine rushed forward, helping him to lift the young boy up onto the nearest bed as gently as they could.

"What happened?" asked Christine as McCoy ran his tricorder over the young ensigns body, feeling slightly relieved as he realised nothing was seriously wrong, but muttering all the while,

"It must have affected him worse than the others, but why? He is 4 years younger than anyone else I suppose…" McCoy trailed off as he realised that firstly, he needed an action plan and secondly, he'd been asked a question.

"I think he's ill with the same virus that those others who called in sick have. Must be worse for him because he's much younger than the others." McCoy sighed, looking round the medical bay as if it would give him some form of inspiration as to what to do next. But before he could make a decision, Chapel started moving round the bed,

"Okay, so we've got to start him up on a strong dose of the medication we gave the others, and we can both keep monitoring him while he has to stay here, and…" but she trailed off as McCoy just stared at her in awe. She was totally calm, had a battle strategy, and knew what to do, and he'd panicked? Maybe he was losing his touch, "Are you alright Doctor McCoy?"

At that question Leonard realised he was still staring and shook his head, answering in a slightly gruff tone,

"I'm fine, just didn't get much sleep last night." He cleared his throat before continuing, "That sounds like a plan, I'll just go and message Jim" and McCoy went back to his office, sitting down and wondering why he had just panicked seeing Chekov collapse on the floor.

XxX

It was just over two hours before McCoy started to think about finding out exactly what this virus was so that he could further examine it and find a quick cure. He'd been worrying over Chekov's bed for over an hour, hoping he would wake up. But it didn't matter anyway, the ship was already at warp, pulling away from the planet they had been on, so all he would be able to do was study a subject who had been infected, and the easiest solution was lying outside the door, passed out from the strength of said virus.

He had decided that they only needed to start worrying about the boy if he didn't wake up in the next 6 hours. After that, there may be a problem, but for now he was sleeping off the tiring effects of day 1 of the disease. So it couldn't hurt to run some extra tests, right? Chekov wasn't even awake yet anyway, so he wouldn't be hurting anyone by just running a few extra tests.

He left his office, walking over to Chekov's bed, looking down at the young boy sleeping peacefully. He took a moment just to look down at him sleeping, wondering how someone so innocent could be lying in one of his beds now, completely unconscious.

He picked up the tricorder, running it over Chekov very slowly, trying to find the source of whatever was happening to all the people on the ship.

As the tricorder was beeping away, McCoy found his eyes wandering over Chekov's face, staring at his closed eyes and being drawn to looking at his lips. As soon as he realised what he was doing he quickly looked away and couldn't stop the slight blush that rose on his cheeks. But it wasn't a blush because he was Doctor Leonard McCoy and he did not blush.

As he looked away, trying to will the blush away from his face, he didn't immediately notice the movement coming from the bed next to him, but quickly turned as he heard a sound coming from Pavel,

"Doktor?" he croaked, slowly opening his eyes to look up at McCoy.

So, hope you liked it. I would like to know people's thoughts on whether you think I should make McCoy a little younger than canon (43), because I can't decide, so let me know your thoughts in a review.