Chapter 3

McCoy was beginning to understand how this bizarre spell worked. As he observed Kirk, now wide awake, in the sickbay, he reflected on the…performances that had occurred so far.

They had all been, as Spock would have said, fairly logical. It made sense that Kirk, the ever-arrogant prick, would feel pretty and tell everyone about it. It also made perfect sense that Chekov would be utterly adorable even while tap-dancing and singing in a Russian accent about how he could "do zat."

The doctor only hoped that his turn, when it came, would be relatively tame.

"It can't be anything too embarrassing," he tried to reassure himself. "Maybe it'll be a serious, non-humiliating, bluesy kind of thing."

Unfortunately for Bones, the plant had its own acute sense of delicious irony.

It didn't hit him until four hours after Chekov's affliction, but the awful memory of it would stay with him forever, since Kirk would never let him forget it.

He turned to call out to one of the nurses when he felt a sudden rush of adrenaline course through his veins. Before he could take any preventative measures, his mouth opened and a burst of music escaped his unwilling lips.

As soon as he heard the first two words of the song racing through his mind, McCoy's heart plummeted in realization that he would soon be singing one of the most annoyingly upbeat songs ever written. In front of his entire staff.

"Dammit!" he cried, closer to frustrated and terrified tears than he would have liked to admit. "I'm a doctor, not a plucky red-headed orphan!"

"The sun'll come out tomorrow!" The words sounded oddly muffled as Bones clamped his jaws together in an attempt to fight the inevitable, but by 'tomorrow,' the song had won.

Nurse Christine Chapel knew she would have to face McCoy's wrath later, but there was no way she was going to just let this happen without milking it for all it was worth. Rushing to the nearest communication station, she swiftly notified the entire Enterprise of the ongoing spectacle in the sickbay.

"Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there'll be sun!"

McCoy did his best to display his trademark scowl in an attempt to negate the cheeriness emanating from his every pore, but his facial muscles had affixed themselves in an unnaturally wide grin.

"Just thinkin' about tomorrow clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow, till there's none!"

Kirk desperately wanted to convulse with laughter, but McCoy was still in arm's reach of several nasty-looking hyposprays, so he managed to resist. Uncharacteristically chipper or not, the doctor was still perfectly capable of administering unpleasant drugs to an uncooperative patient.

"When I'm stuck with a day that's gray and lonely, I just stick up my chin and grin and saaaaaaaay….Oh!"

By this point, McCoy had become more than bubbly. He was verging on downright perky.

Unfortunately for him, most of the engineering and bridge staff had heeded Chapel's alert and rushed into the already crowded medical bay to watch their Chief Medical officer exemplify the term "cheerful."

"The sun'll come out tomorrow! So you gotta hang on till tomorrow! Come what may!"

Even with the forced brightness on his face, McCoy still managed to tinge the words with a slightly bitter undertone. Despite his best efforts, though, this bizarre combination of cheerleader-esque peppiness and classic McCoy-grumpiness just seemed to send more ripples of wild laughter coursing through the crowd.

"Tomorrow!" Was McCoy batting his eyelashes? His fear of hypos totallly forgotten, Kirk was snorting too hard to be certain.

"Tomorrow!" And now he was skipping.

"I love ya!" And…were those jazz hands? The man was practically bouncing.

"Tomorrow! You're always a day…awaaaaaaaayyyyy!!" McCoy spread his arms and gazed up into the heavens (or rather, just up, as they were in space) as he stretched out the last, effervescent note for what seemed like an eternity.

Then, without, warning, his arms snapped back down to his sides and he coughed furiously in an attempt to purge the joy that had overtaken him. As he slowly regained control of his body, the only word coursing through McCoy's mind was "injustice." He looked around the chamber, wincing internally as he saw essentially everyone he knew staring back at him.

Noticing that many of them were still giggling uncontrollably, McCoy realized that his mouth was still stretched wide in a cheesy grin. Fuming, he grabbed the corners of his mouth and pulled them down, flexing his sore facial muscles. Then he turned on them.

"If any of you mention this ever again, I swear to God I will make your next physical exam a living hell!"

And with that, Chief Medical Officer Leonard "Bones" McCoy stormed out of the medical bay.

It was no use. He could hear them laughing all the way to the bridge.

~TBC~

I think I used every possible synonym of the word "cheerful" in this chapter…and now it's time for a little Q&A.

Q: Carynna, why are you giving Bones such a hard knock life?

A: BECAUSE I CAN.

And also, consider this: If you're never fully dressed without a smile, does that mean that Bones (and Spock, for that matter) are always partially unclothed? Yes!! Yes!! Life is good.

So good, in fact, that you should leave a review. =]

Spock+mysterycharacter duet next!