Maxilla

It's finally quiet in sickbay. The last few days have been a plague of turmoil – the plague they've come to expect from their missions, but this time the plague comes aboard, wounding multiple members of the crew – including Uhura, when the subsonic attacks fries her comms and explodes in her face. She's still recovering from her electrical burns, collapsed eardrum, and other small bits of trauma in one of the biobeds, the white of her hospital gown strange after so long in red.

McCoy's making his last rounds before going off shift, checking the vitals of those still bedridden. As he fiddles with Uhura's bedding, she stirs and blinks half-awake slowly.

"Hey, Leo. How is it?"

A mild start – Uhura insists on calling him Leo, saying she always wanted a lion in her life, but no one has ever used that particular nickname on him before. (Not to mention the fact that he's long given up making people call him by his first name at all on this ship.) He glances down at the readings on his PADD.

"Well, if we're talking about you, then you're recovering nicely." He taps his stylus gently on the pillow next to her damaged ear. "A night's rest and y'all'll be right as rain in no time."

She smiles hazily. "Leo, 'y'all' is a plural pronoun. Unless there's more than one of me, it's 'you' and only 'you'."

McCoy's mouth twitches, and he sets the PADD down on the table next to her bed and finishes straightening out her linens. "Sweetheart, you might be able to distinguish between twenty different dialects of an alien language, but you don't know nothin' about Southern vocabulary."

She hums and settles herself better in her sheets. "Maybe you should teach me, then."

"Some other time. Promise." She sighs, and her eyes fall closed. "G'night, sweetheart."

"I've told you, call me Nyota." She's asleep before he can answer.