III
Bones has never been good with kids. It was different with Joanna, she was his own flesh and blood, but he's been out of practice with toddlers for too many years to cope with anyone else's sprogs
So when an alien device decided to regress Chekov into a four-year-old toddler, Bones is ill equipped to deal with him. He's a doctor not a playschool teacher, he firmly tells Jim, and so trying to perform tests on a fidgety four years old, who's fascinated with every bit of machinery he sees, and so far has tried to grab at every scanner and hypo Bones is trying to use, is proving harder then expected.
It's even worse that the kid barely speaks any English, preferring to chatter quite happily in Russian, a language which Bones freely admits to being unable to speak, not to mention the kids seemingly endless curiosity and enthusiasm for practically everything. Bones doesn't even want to start on how the kid tried to reprogramme the main replicator system to give only chocolate ice cream and strawberries.
So far, little Chekov's managed to drag McCoy down several lengths of Jeffries tubes that he's been exploring, and Bones is constantly bringing the kid back from when he goes off to find Uhura which- although the women is the only one who can understand what Chekov's saying and has seemingly inexhaustible patience around a toddler who constantly wants to play hide-and-seek- is not helpful when McCoy is trying to work out how to get the older, and slightly more mature Chekov back.
All this is why Bones is finally at his wits end, so when Chekov tries to grab his PADD with ice-cream sticky fingers from the doctor, he snaps.
"Stop it. Now!" he says harshly and he's surprised when the kid does exactly that, freezing still, his eyes widening and his lip trembling. He focuses his big frightened eyes on McCoy and before the doctor knows it, tears are running down the infants face.
It's probably good timing when Sulu comes into the med-bay to check on how the toddler is doing, and when Chekov catches sight of the helmsman, he practically runs into Sulu's arms, sobbing "Hik-aroo" into the helmsman's shoulders as Sulu tries to comfort him.
Bones feels a glimmer of regret, after all, it isn't the toddlers fault, he's a child and doesn't know any better, but Sulu's looking at him as though Bones had just threatened his own son, and McCoy can't help but act defensive.
"Just get that kid outta here…and don't come back till I've found a bloody cure!"
"