After a day stock full of one-on-one interviews with the crew of the most recently failed mission, Nyla Harlow finally escaped the confines of her office and strolled through the open air hallways of the Enterprise. She dipped respectful nods to her colleagues, full head of unruly curls bobbing along with the motion. She toyed with the two silver rings around the ends of her blue uniform sleeves, pulling them down over dark tan hands to ward off the chill to the air that the ship could not seem to shake since they departed from Epsilon IV hours ago.
Her meeting with Lieutenant Roy had been so constructive, she decided to call in the rest of the away team for thorough analysis. The tactician present had hobbled in first with a fresh order of discharge from Bones' care. He talked for hours on end, lodging complaints about every facet of the mission save any that would gain him additional medication besides those required to treat his injuries. Kirk had surfaced a while after that, all sleepy eyes and a satisfied smile that Nyla could not pry her way past. Sulu had been her last subject, quick and efficient before ducking back into the swing of his responsibilities.
It took the remainder of the day to sort through her conclusions and organize all the documents into suitable folders. But now that she was released from active duty, and with no message on her communicator from the Doctor she waited to confer with, she sought out her most recent visitor and closest friend.
"There's my foxy little space fencer."
Sulu glanced up from his desk screen, offering a roll of his eyes toward the approaching Doctor. "You done psychoanalyzing my team already, Egyptian valley squirrel?" he inquired. His yellow shirt was pushed up to his elbows and there was an indention on his cheek from where he had been leaning against his fist.
"Oh, honey, leave the affectionate names to me. But yes I have. Your charts are clean, Hikaru. Like, if I were to ever construct a class about the ideal human mind, it would be yours. It's a little alarming how well you handle stress."
"Are you trying to make me feel bad for being a stable human being?" he spun in his chair to raise both eyebrows at her.
"No, I love you for it. Where's the Beta shift?" Nyla seated herself in the navigator's chair to his right.
"I'm waiting to be relieved by them. The captain retired early and I dismissed everyone else because it's a slow night and everyone needs to recover from the mayhem of today."
Nyla hummed, twirling back and forth in Ensign Chekov's seat, letting her eyes dance over the colorful array of buttons lining the control room. The white walls were meant to make it seem more spacious than it actually was, but usually more than a dozen people were crammed into the tight space, practically crawling over each other to fulfill their jobs.
Her infrequent visits to this level reminded her just how much she appreciated her separate office and sleep space. As the only Psychologist on board, and therefore the Chief, she was the sole occupant of a room that was designed to sleep two. One would think being out in the great frontier of space offered plenty of spare room, but the ships were built to be compact and efficient, offering no excesses of anything.
The faint rasp to his breathing told of the few dozen gallons of water he'd swallowed earlier. The report Sulu brought up to his psych session from the Senior Medical Officer after his release contained a personal note from Bones to Nyla in illegible writing complaining of the unnecessary injuries. He was always so concerned with every minor cut his patients brought to him. Something larger, like the mishap on the Epsilon IV, turned the entire med bay into a storm cloud of his irritable cursing.
"You don't have to stay up with me. I know you've got an early shift tomorrow," Sulu said, glancing over from his work.
"Oh, I'm waiting for Leonard. We're supposed to compare notes from our patients today, make sure no one is about to keel over. He's late." She smiled sweetly at him and an endeared smile pressed his lips up in return.
"Bones, eh?" He latched on to the one bit of her statement that she knew he would.
"You might know him. He's the medical doctor on board. My counterpart for this voyage. Blue shirt, big brown eyes, cynicism you can feel from a separate solar system. We've only been working alongside each other for a few months. Though after trauma like yours, some block out recent events to keep from letting the stress of the events overwhelm them. Maybe that's what's happening here. Maybe this is how you are coping with that horrible excuse for a mission." Nyla leaned closer to inspect him, only half kidding around.
Sulu began swiping open documents into a file on his desk screen. He crossed his legs and shook his head in exasperation. "I hate it when you mix medical speak with sarcasm. I can't ever tell if I'm about to be diagnosed with something deadly or if I just need to stop being your friend."
Nyla grinned, laugh bubbling up to fill the empty space of the room. A chime came from her comm, flashing Bones' name across the transparent screen. Nyla got up, bouncing on her toes as she waved goodbye. "Tell Ben I said hi."
"Tell Bones I said to make his damn move already," Sulu called back.
"There are no moves to be made. Stop projecting your happy relationship into my functional workplace."
Sulu screwed up his face and spun back around dramatically.
The walk to the agreed upon meeting place was long enough to let her thoughts wander ahead to the man she would be consulting with. His tongue was as sharp as his mind and Nyla like the reeling feeling he left her with, always racing to keep up with his train of thought. Their biweekly conferences always left her feeling better about the work she did on the ship. She admired the man, sure. She enjoyed hearing his well-qualified opinion, but she was not about to jump his bones as Sulu so often suggested.
The bar was the one area of the ship that was always quiet. Free time was a luxury and drinking was not something strictly encouraged. The dark room was cut only by the light of the stars that leaked in through the window. The heavy atmosphere was meant to discourage people and steer them back to their jobs, but Nyla and Bones always found it a relaxing setting to discuss otherwise tedious work subjects.
It was a Wednesday night and the couch in the corner of the bar room housed two women just trying to encourage themselves through the rest of the week. Bones was seated at the island positioned against the far wall, tracing his fingers around an empty shot glass. His broad shoulder hunkered in slightly, his head heavy on his neck.
She maneuvered through still atmosphere, kicking aside an empty beer bottle before plopping down beside Bones with one stool between them to serve as a professional buffer.
"Hello, Leonard," she said, as her usual order of red wine was placed wordlessly in front of her by the barista. He only worked the busiest hours, 1700-2100. The rest of the time, the crew had to fend for themselves when it came to liquor.
"Thank you, Tex."
"This isn't your usual day," he replied, tugging at the ends of his mid drift revealing grey shirt to cover the roll of fat that peaked out from beneath. "Suppose with the mishaps lately an extra meeting couldn't hurt though. Say, Dr. McCoy, that quick take off put this crick in my neck that I can't seem to shake," Tax turned to address Bones.
The man at Nyla's side shook himself into reality and raised a hand to touch where Tex indicated. "I think that's just acne," Bones told him.
"Gross," Tex swung his cleaning rag over his shoulder. "Thanks, though." He set about his usual work.
Bones massaged the back of his own neck as he turned to face Nyla. "Sorry I took so long. I've been running all over hell's half acre. With all the extra patients today there was a shit ton of paperwork I had to sort out. I'm still not done. I'll be doing that tonight instead of actually sleeping, apparently."
"I understand. I heard so many different accounts, I'm beginning to think they were all on separate missions. I had seven whole patients today instead of the usual three."
"Hey, quit that. You're the Hoover Dam to those three regulars, keeping them from spilling their crazy onto the rest of us. And I'm sure you were great today. You damn well always are." His words came out as a growl but there was a tenderness underlying them.
"One of them is James. He mostly just shows up to gossip with me and complain where no one can hear him. The crew that went down today seems stable though, stressed and frazzled maybe but no one is going to start disassociating or switch personalities on us. They're a good crew. They know how to cope when things like this happen."
Nyla sipped at her wine, letting it warm her belly and wind down her overanalyzing mind. Bones' brown eyes reminded her of melted chocolate tonight, sweet and able to cure even the worst of symptoms for both the ailing crew and herself.
"Even the tactician? He took the worst of the injuries. And what about Lieutenant Roy? She blames herself."
"They all checked out. I have to say, this is the most boring crew I've ever traveled with. Spock would be fascinating if I could only get him into therapy. And while I enjoy my chats with James, he never really opens up. They're a tad frustrating in truth."
"If you're gonna vent this much maybe I should find you a couch to recline on, Ny." The edges of his perpetually hard mouth crinkled against his skin, a smile threatening to break free. "Though, I understand the frustration at Jim. He can be a little shit, well, most days."
Nyla beamed up at him, watching the hues of his eyes melt all over again. They were good outlets for each other.
"How are you, Leonard? How are you handling yet another day spent in space? It's quite admirable for you to continue facing your fear like this," she turned the conversation on its head without an effort.
"I don't have a goddamn choice at this point. I'll stay on the big safe ship a few more days before running home in some wimp ass little shuttle. You don't congratulate a pig walking around his pen waiting to be slaughtered."
"That was weirdly graphic. You'd make some good bacon, though, so I won't disagree." Nyla grimaced and took a long sip of her wine to keep from saying even more suggestive things. The last thing she needed was for him to misinterpret something and start severing their colleagueship.
Aside from the tilt of his head and the quirk of an eyebrow, Bones let it slide. Probably because another whiskey was set before him.
"No beer tonight?" Nyla asked.
"Needed something stronger," he replied.
"I'll try one. Tex?"
"That's the last of it, Dr. Harlow. Apologies. We're running out of stock since we're nearing the end of this voyage," Tex said.
Bones pushed the glass over and Nyla slid into the seat closest to him to accept it. His forearm was pressed against hers at this proximity, but she paid it no mind as the alcohol sang down her esophagus, leaving little flames burning in its wake.
"Jesus Christ, that's…" she cleared her throat. "That's weak sauce. I literally felt nothing. If I ever wanted to drink to not get drunk, I would do it with this stuff." She hid a cough in the crook of her elbow.
The fact that her voice came out as nothing more than a strained rasp drew a laugh from Bones. He barked with it, whole body opening up to let the welcome change in emotions wash over him. His hand fell between her shoulder blades, pressing like a hot fire poker straight through her uniform shirt. She shifted to get him to remove his hand and Bones let it fall to his thigh, squeezing slightly while he regained control of himself.
"I guess, um, I guess this was relatively easy then. Not like that one time Chekov swore he was seeing the ghost of Julius Caesar following him around. That took us days to resolve." Bones said.
"I seriously thought we would have to send him home. He would show up in my room in the dead of night babbling about the Roman Empire. I didn't like history class the first time around."
"And that's why we don't let him eat strange berries from new planets ever again."
Bones reached for one of the water glasses Tex dutifully set before him and Nyla seized her own. She traced a finger up the sides, catching the condensation against her fingertips. Bones glanced over, mouth chewing over words in his mouth. He said nothing, though and downed the water.
"I guess I should dive into that paperwork before it tries to take a piece out of my ass." He stood, stretching out his legs slowly and offering out his hand to help her down, ever the gentleman.
"Thanks, Leonard." Nyla left her water untouched and let her hand slide into his as she hopped down from the tall stools.
They stood for a moment like that, connected by the lightest of touches, his thumb tracing slowly over the inside of her wrist. Coworkers did that. Coworkers gazed at each other platonically. Nyla could convince herself of these things if she tried hard enough, but knew better. She knew the warnings signs of someone becoming attached and still she opened her big mouth.
"Need some help?" Maybe she was reading him wrong or it was just Sulu's teasing getting to her. She should not send her friend to drown in mountains of paper just because she was over thinking something, right?
"You want to help me with paperwork?" he asked, scoffing at the idea.
"I once stayed up with Yasmine, you know Yasmine Roy, my college roommate, anyway I stayed up with her all night to help her finish a last minute presentation that she forgot about. Let me just tell you how many notes we had to sort through in order to make her bullshit seem like she knew she was talking about. Now, she's a smart girl, a little overly blunt, but a brilliant engineer, but that was just one of her off nights. Now…I swear that story started out with a point." Nyla reclaimed her hand and stuffed it into the pocket of her pants.
"You love people. You just want to be nosy." Bones summarized. Still, he waved her after him as he started down the hallways.
After three turns, Nyla realized the gravity of her error—they were not headed in the direction of his office as she had tragically assumed, but his sleeping compartment. She was a moment away from making up an excuse to bail when he keyed into his room and the door slid back. Her imagination of mounds of papers was not an exaggeration. There at least seemed to be some sort of organizational system in place, but Bones would not be finishing this by himself in the next millennium.
"This is all from today?" she asked.
Bones scratched at the back of his neck. "To be fair, I didn't know there had to be hard copies of all my files for the archive back on earth until last month. It's a damned pain and I've been putting it off since then."
Nyla sighed and pushed up her long sleeves to her elbows. "This makes me appreciate my limited patients now. Alright, let's get to it then."
"You're a saint," he breathed following her inside and letting the door slide shut behind them.
Somehow, as the night wore on and the papers dwindled to a few remaining, they ended up sitting side by side, scribbling in handwriting that no longer appeared English. Her boots were discarded in the corner and her black pants rolled up to her knees. Her glassed were lost in the mess of her hair, holding the beast at bay so she could squint at the tiny print on the pages.
Bones had discarded his blue shirt, leaving him in the simple black one he wore beneath. His hair, always neatly combed into submission, now jutted in every direction from the multitude of times his hand passed through it. Nyla thought he wore under eye bags better than she did and quickly shook herself back into focus. She blinked sleep from her eyes, ignoring the persistent time on her watch as she passed Bones the last page requiring his signature. He yawned, pen fumbling over the loops in his name.
When he finished, she swept it up along with the file he had been staring at the past half hour and stood to go add them to their respective piles: non-threatening foreign diseases and postmortem.
"You don't have to do that, Ny," Bones spoke through another yawn.
She turned, unruly curls falling into her face as her glasses tumbled to find freedom on his floor, and found him very much in her bubble space. Her hands splayed over his chest in a startled attempt to keep respectable distance between them. His eyes glinted with a newfound alertness, his breath coming and going just as quickly as his usual sharp repartee.
Goodnight was on her lips, a civil farewell meant to set them both straight in their veering paths. But it was too late, she was crashing into him and could not seem to detangle herself from the wreckage this night had become. All she could do now was deal with the damage of letting him too close, of not watching her actions close enough. He was a friend, a colleague, and a contained ship was the last place she needed to lose track of her emotions.
But then his mouth curved up in a smile she had seen directed at many an unsuspecting woman and she found herself helpless in the grip of the ornery man's charisma. "Don't suppose we'll get a break today from the usual mishaps and emergencies to get in a goddamn nap," he said.
"Probably not," Nyla murmured, unable to rip her gaze away from. She was not a fly caught in his web. She was merely dazzled in the realization that he was turning the full force of his ability to woo a woman with just the gravel in his accent and five o'clock shadow on her.
"Do you want to grab some coffee before we head back out there?" Bones asked. This was no longer casual; this was him treading past the coworker line with a pointed question.
Her hand jutted out between them, a painfully evident gesture. Bones shook it slowly, face a wash of emotions that Nyla was too tired to decipher. She ducked to claim her glasses and set them on her nose to allow herself composition time. "I need to shower first. But I'll see you around, Dr. McCoy." She told herself the use of his title and last name was enough to chase the images of her in a shower she had no doubt planted.
"Right," he cleared his throat, rubbing his knuckles over the palm of his other hand. "Well thanks for all the help." His jaw slammed shut abruptly, severing whatever words had been on the heels of those.
Nyla took her leave hastily, forcing him from her mind just as swiftly.