Leonard listened as the other department heads droned on about their roles during the mission. Lieutenant Uhura would keep communications open, Commander Scott would be standing by with transporters and so on. It was odd that the first officer wasn't present, but it wasn't like the fastidious Vulcan to skip out on a mission brief, so Leonard figured wherever he was, it was important.

They'd done lots of missions together over the years and this one was pretty routine – beam down to the surface and deliver medical supplies and assistance. It was also routine in that it came with some serious complications.

The Suliban home world had become uninhabitable due to seismic activity and atmospheric depletion more than three centuries ago, and all modern Suliban descended from the nomads who had fled. Eventually scientists discovered a method of stabilizing the planet's core and stripping away the excess carbon dioxide and methane from the atmosphere, and the Suliban started trickling back home.

It was still very much a frontier civilization and the social and political climate was a powder keg. The Suliban had been through an incredible ordeal as a species and had become very culturally diverse due to assimilation into a wide number of neighboring cultures over the past 300 years. The end result was that their great homecoming wasn't as rosy as it could have been. In less than sixty years, the planet had experienced five military coups, three civil wars, and one world war.

In the past decade they'd wisely asked for the Federation's help in mediating the conflict rather than continue down the path of self-destruction, and things seemed to be progressing, even if the situation was tenuous. Then a major earthquake two weeks ago had devastated the Southern continent, and now a series of particularly violent ion storms from a nearby nebula had stripped away much of the atmosphere, putting the entire population of 200,000 Suliban at risk.

He heard the rush of the door and saw Spock slipping into the back of the ready room. Everyone's eyes darted in his direction. Apparently Leonard wasn't the only one who thought it was weird that the strict Vulcan would miss such an important briefing.

"As I was saying," said Lieutenant Palmer, the ship's xenoanthropoligist, "about half of the population has been evacuated to the Xarantine home world, but there are many Suliban who are refusing to leave."

"And what can we expect from the people?" Captain Kirk asked.

"As has already been said several times, the Suliban are a very diverse population," Lieutenant Palmer explained. "Since we're going to the Southern continent to help the earthquake survivors, most of my brief has been targeted to populations found in this region, though I can give you a more comprehensive report by tomorrow, if-"

"That's not necessary, lieutenant," the captain interrupted. "This was all very short notice and you're doing great. Just give us the pertinent information."

"Right," Palmer said, blushing. "Well, many of the Suliban in the Southern region are descendants of what was formerly known as the Suliban Cabal, which was an interstellar terrorist organization active in the middle of the previous century. The people we're going to treat are not terrorists and haven't been for generations according to all reliable reports, but there still seems to be a lot of bad blood between them and the rest of the Suliban."

"Have they agreed to be evacuated?" Kirk asked.

"No, and I have the feeling they would refuse all offers of evacuation," Palmer added. "They're very patriotic and have formed strong ties to their planet. They've spent more than a century trying to re-assimilate back into Suliban society, and I don't think they're going to be willing to give it up their homes so easily. On a similar note, they tend to be mistrustful of government, particularly their own, because twelve years ago the Suliban parliament voted to place them in internment camps following several terrorist incidents. There were some riots and the internment camps never actually stood up, but it's still a pretty sensitive issue for them."

"Thank you, lieutenant," Kirk said.

"There's one more thing, sir," Palmer said, rising on her toes. "Many members of the Suliban Cabal underwent genetic enhancements, which I would think are probably still present in their descendants and might complicate their medical treatment."

"You're right," Leonard interjected. "And I'm aware of the situation. I intend to do some research and brief the medical staff, but thank you for your attention to detail."

Lieutenant Palmer took her seat and Lieutenant Halax, the cultural affairs strategist, rose to his feet to his feet to give his recommendations for interacting with the Suliban populace.

"As Lieutenant Palmer explained, these people are wary of government, so I wouldn't advise mentioning Starfleet or the Federation when speaking with them, unless directly asked. We want to put forth the idea we're here as humanitarians first, not as a government entity in any kind of way. Furthermore, they tend to be very sensitive about every aspect of their ancestors' involvement with the Cabal, so I would avoid talking about genetic enhancements, terrorism, and time travel…"

He spoke for another hour and Leonard took copious notes. The Denobulan was pretty long-winded, but Leonard appreciated the advice – he could be a better doctor if he wasn't offending his patients. When the brief was finally over, they rose to their feet out of respect as the captain departed first, and then all trailed out of the situation room.

He wandered into the corridor, his brain littered with all kinds of facts about the Suliban Cabal and all kinds of emotions about Jim and Christine. He sighed, frustrated that his life could never seem to manage to be quiet and simple.

He saw Jim and Spock speaking quietly by the turbolift and wondered why they weren't heading toward the bridge with the rest of the bridge officers. The captain's face was dark and when he caught sight of Leonard, he motioned for him to join them.

"What's going on?" Leonard asked.

"Nurse Chapel had some kind of emotional breakdown," Jim said, shooting him a nervous look.

"What?"

"Me and Spock were in the turbolift with her right before the briefing and it stalled for a second and she… it looked like she had an anxiety attack. She damn near took Spock's eye out."

"The captain exaggerates my injury," Spock replied, glancing at Jim. Leonard peered closer and noticed the faintest green line trailing from Spock's forehead to his cheek, a lingering side effect from repair with a dermal regenerator that would probably be gone in a few hours.

"Dr. M'Benga is with her in sickbay, but I wanted to check in with you. I need to know if she's fit for duty."

Leonard glanced from Spock to the captain, feeling torn between his duty to protect Christine's secrets and his duty as a medical officer.

"Any chance I could speak with you in private, Jim?" he asked, giving Spock a regretful look.

The captain and first officer studied each other and Spock said, "I believe I am needed on the bridge, excuse me."

Leonard stepped into the turbolift with Jim and said, "Have you read her file?"

"No," Jim admitted. "I've been pretty busy the last couple of weeks. I mean, I obviously recognized her name when I saw her on the incoming personnel roster and that's when I came to talk to you, but I didn't think to actually read her personnel file."

"She was one of only about a dozen survivors on the Constellation," Leonard explained.

Jim's expression fell. "I had no idea."

"Yeah, they all survived because a turn of bad luck ended up being a blessing in disguise. They were locked in an engineering locker for days while the rest of the crew died. If I were a betting man, I'd put money that incident probably aggravated some underlying claustrophobia, hence her reaction in the turbolift."

"I wonder why personnel resources put her on a new assignment so soon," Jim mused.

"Have you met personnel resources? Idiots, all of 'em."

The captain rolled his eyes and scoffed. "Do you think she's fit for duty?"

"I don't know," Leonard admitted. "Probably? She's not really that different from the rest of the original crew of Enterprise. She's been through hell and back, the only difference is she didn't have nearly as much time to get better as we did."

"Can you help her?"

Leonard sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. "Given the situation, I don't think she's going to want my help. I don't think it would be ethical for me to treat her."

The turbolift buzzed, indicating someone on another level was waiting to use it. Jim opened the door to step out and said, "Keep me posted."

Leonard moaned, leaned against the wall, and descended to sickbay on Deck 5. His staff greeting him when he arrived – many new faces but a lot of seasoned ones too – and he resisted the urge to fall immediately into the grind and decided to track down M'Benga. He found him sitting in the office designated for the deputy chief medical officer, his eyes scrolling quickly across a screen.

"Anything interesting?" Leonard asked.

"Never a dull moment. Two already from engineering with minor plasma burns," M'Benga sighed. "The new head nurse also suffered a panic attack in a turbolift and scratched Commander Spock's face. A relatively minor laceration."

Leonard shut the door to M'Benga's office and took a seat. "Does anyone else know what happened with Nurse Chapel?"

"Aside from myself, the captain, Commander Spock, Nurse Heikkinen, and now you, I don't believe so. Nurse Heikkinen tended Commander Spock's injury, and they were both transported into the exam room from the turbolift, so I would say it's safe to say no, no one else knows."

"Think we can try to keep it quiet?"

Dr. M'Benga shot him a wry look. "Come now, Leonard. I hate gossip as much as the next person."

"I know, Joe," he sighed, massaging his temples. "Where is she now?"

"Exam Room 3. Nurse Heikkinen is with her. Apparently they're old friends."

"How is she doing?"

"Commander Spock rendered her unconscious with a Vulcan nerve pinch, but she's awake and talking now."

Leonard groaned inwardly. Damn Vulcan tricks. But given Christine had clawed the man's face, he didn't suppose he could really blame Spock.

"There's no mention of a panic disorder or claustrophobia in her medical records," M'Benga continued. "It seems she was treated at Yorktown for mild psychological trauma and cleared for duty last week."

"It's a little more complicated than that," Bones admitted, and proceeded to explain Christine's unique situation.

"Post traumatic stress would explain a lot," M'Benga nodded. "She's already been through a two-week course of neural reconfiguration on Yorktown, but they didn't prescribe any continuing therapy or medication."

"We could try proazium," Leonard suggested.

"I was thinking the same thing, along with counseling," M'Benga agreed.

Leonard stiffened. He agreed with his deputy's assessment, but there was no way he should act as Christine's psychologist after sleeping with her. It had been hard enough disclosing the situation to Jim; he could never tell M'Benga about that. M'Benga added, "Would you like to speak with her? You are the ship's psychologist."

"Uh, well-"

"Nurse Riley to Dr. McCoy!" called a shrill voice on the comm by the wall.

He stopped midsentence and went to answer it. "McCoy here."

"We just got a patient – twenty year old human male whose hand was crushed in a turbolift malfunction. He's stable and being prepped in surgical theater 1."

"Acknowledged. McCoy out." He exhaled slowly. "Offer Nurse Chapel the proazium and counseling. I'm going to leave the fit for duty recommendation to you. I trust your judgment."

"Understood," M'Benga smiled. "Good to be back, huh?"

"Yeah," Leonard grumbled, rolling his eyes. "Another wonderful day in sickbay."

He left M'Benga's office and headed to surgery, but passed Exam Room 3 on his way there. He hesitated. Christine was propped up in a biobed, talking to Maria Heikkinen, her face red and swollen from what looked like a rather intense bout of crying. The privacy shield was up so he couldn't hear their discussion, but she looked so… raw.

He remembered the drunken game they'd played in her bed that had reduced her to tears and he wanted to kick himself for asking such a stupid question like, "Which is worse: no one showing up to your funeral or your wedding?"

Her eyes darted in his direction and he felt a strange emotion simmering in his gut. She was so beautiful, even when she wasn't. Nurse Heikkinen turned in her chair and Leonard could see she'd been crying too, but she also wore a welcoming smile. Leonard nodded and offered a little wave, but Christine had shut her eyes.

Why hadn't they turned on the two-way screen? Not a lot of the staff had a reason to come by the exam rooms but he figured they deserved a little more privacy. He hit the release for the two-way shield and the wall went white. They would still be able to see outside, but no one outside could look in.

Leonard made his way to surgery and discovered Crewman Dominguez, a new addition that had joined Enterprise at Yorktown, with a very mangled right hand. He'd been fixing the malfunctioning turbolift and something went wrong and now Crewman Dominguez was missing roughly half his hand. Great.

He'd never really liked turbolifts much and now he liked them even less. Looking at Dominguez's injuries, he almost couldn't blame Christine for having a panic attack.

It took four hours to gently cut away the damaged tissue and cultivate the necessary stem cells to begin the process of re-growing the young man's hand. It was nearly suppertime when Leonard set his hand in the tissue regenerator for the first twelve-hour cycle. It would take that long just to regrow the bone; it would take an additional twenty-four hours to generate the tendons, muscles, and skin. In short, Dominguez wasn't going anywhere any time soon.

When Leonard was done, he trudged back to his office to work on the post-op report, but first he checked his messages. There were three messages from Commander Spock – the first asking for an inventory of the medical supplies by the start of Alpha shift in the morning, the second asking about the plan to rotate personnel through sickbay to receive the necessary immunizations for this mission, and the third asking for the daily status report.

There was one from Lieutenant Halax wanting to schedule time to meet with the medical staff to give them the same cultural training he'd sat through that afternoon, and another from Dr. M'Benga, indicating he'd already sent the daily status report to Spock and notes about the minor burn patients from earlier that morning. M'Benga had sent a separate message about Christine, indicating he'd prescribed the proazium and sent her back to her quarters until 0800 hours the following morning.

"Back into the fire," he sighed aloud, rushing to dictate his post-op report while it was still fresh in his mind.

He was halfway through when he got another message from Nurse Riley, the intake nurse on duty.

"What is it, Ensign?" he sighed.

"We have five more coming in from engineering with plasma burns; none of them are severe, but one of the patients is Roylan."

He clenched his jaw and nodded to himself. Ensign Keenser. Due to Keenser's caustic physiology, anyone who could be exposed to his saliva or blood was required to take certain precautionary measures. Rather than let one of the newer nurses tend to him, he figured it would be best to do it himself.

"Any chance you could tell Scotty to stop lighting his people on fire?" he grumbled.

"I- um- who is Scotty?"

Leonard took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He didn't know who Nurse Riley was, so it was safe to assume she was new. "Don't worry about it. Have one of the duty nurses treat the other four – I'll take care of Ensign Keenser. McCoy out."

He stood and grabbed his medical tricorder from the desk and nearly ran into Jim on his way out of the office.

"Hey Bones, got a minute?"

"No," Leonard growled, breezing past the captain into the narrow rear corridor of sickbay. "Your damn chief engineer must be practicing for the science fair down there."

"Do you have everything together for this mission?" Jim asked, following him.

"No," he admitted with a shrug. "Look, I've spent the last five hours trying to regrow a hand. Now I have five patients with plasma burns and a post-op that's not getting drafted, not to mention-"

"No one ever said you didn't stay busy," Jim interrupted with a weak smile.

Leonard sighed and stopped in his tracks. "What's up, Jim?"

The captain shuffled his feet and stared at the wall, and then Leonard understood. Jim didn't actually need anything; he just wanted to talk. "Look, I'm uh, I'm kinda up to my elbows in suffering right now, but if I get done here before 2200 hours, I'll drop by your quarters. You owe me a drink anyway."

"I thought you quit drinking?" Jim laughed.

Oh right. Leonard rolled his eyes and replied, "No one likes a quitter, right?"

"See you then, Bones," Jim said, giving him a smug look before turning down the corridor.

Only they never got the chance to have that drink; it was well past midnight when he made it back to his quarters. Ensign Keenser's burns had taken longer to treat than he expected and when he was done, he'd had to tend to Dominguez who'd woken from a violent nightmare and caused further injury to his mangled hand. He'd had to reinitiate the bone regeneration process, and when he was done with that, he'd had to stop and help one of the lab techs with the new chemical synthesizer.

Leonard hated to admit it, but between the two of them, it took nearly an hour to get it working. Damn evolving technology. What had been so wrong with the old model?

Several more hours of reports and planning for the upcoming mission and Leonard was officially exhausted. He hadn't slept well for the past couple days, but he figured that was unsurprising, all things considered.

He entered his quarters and flopped facedown on his bed, too tired to even take off his boots. He woke up what felt like a few minutes later, horrified to find out it was actually a few hours later and he was due in sickbay in twenty minutes. He quickly showered and shaved, trying to ignore the persistent hunger pains grinding away in his belly. When was the last time he'd eaten? Yesterday? Maybe?He left his quarters precisely at 0755 hours and was stunned to see Christine leaving the room adjacent to his.

"Good morning, doctor," she said, not making eye contact.

"Nurse Chapel." She looked the picture of immaculate professionalism – her hair was pulled into a neat and stylish bun, her blue uniform smock was perfectly pressed and she smelled of a very mild but pleasing scent that he couldn't quite put a finger on. Fresh laundry, maybe? A light spring rain? She was a world away from the wounded woman that had been sobbing so bitterly yesterday in Exam Room 3.

They rode together in the turbolift to Deck 5 in complete silence – aside from his growling stomach – and walked into sickbay together. She went immediately to the nurse's station and he could hear her introducing herself to the rest of the staff.

It took him a few moments to realize he was staring at her. Was she really going to act like the past few days hadn't happened? He felt his heart sink a little, but then his communicator chirped. He groaned, pulled the device from his belt, and drawled, "McCoy."

"Commander Spock here. Do you have the reports I requested yesterday?"

"I sent you the status on the inventory report," McCoy replied. "I'm still waiting to hear back from the department heads about a convenient time for inoculations."

Granted, he'd sent the memo sometime around 2345 the night before, so he wasn't exactly shocked when no one had replied right away.

"Please see to it and have it to me by 1100 hours. Spock out."

Leonard's fists involuntarily clenched. He respected the hell out of Spock and somewhere deep down, he even liked the ascetic bastard, but it wouldn't be a typical morning in sickbay without the first officer shoving his nose ever harder into the grindstone.

He needed to coordinate patient care for the day and get a work schedule set up, but it could wait a few minutes while he checked his messages. He lied to himself and said it had nothing to do with avoiding Christine: he just wanted to get the vaccination schedule together for the departments.

No sooner did he slump down in his chair than Christine strolled in, brandishing a coffee and a blueberry scone. She set them down on his desk and said, "Nurse St. Claire is with Crewman Dominguez and he's doing well. He's not due for the second stage of tissue regeneration for another three hours. There's nothing else to report."

He stared at the scone, wondering just how the hell she knew blueberry pastries were his favorite. Probably a lucky guess.

"Uh, right," he replied, also wondering how long he was supposed to keep up the charade that they were only vague acquaintances and she hadn't had a mental breakdown in a turbolift the morning before and attacked the first officer.

"I'm going to need your help pulling together this upcoming mission to Sulibaa," he said, grasping at anything to keep the conversation going.

"I already sent Nurse Riley to help the logistics officers with the inventory, and if it's alright with you, I'd like to put Nurse Heikkinen in charge of a team of medics to vaccinate the crew."

"Don't jump the gun just yet," he replied. "I haven't even pulled endemic diseases-"

"There are four recommended vaccines, according to the Starfleet medical database. I've already notified the lab to standby to process them. I hope I didn't overstep my bounds."

Leonard blinked. "Well, normally I'm the one who gives orders to the lab."

"I apologize, doctor. It's going to take me a while to get used to this crew and how it operates. On the Constellation, Nurse Drury often requisitioned medical supplies from the lab with the doctor's consent. I'm new to this whole chief nurse thing, so I imagine it's going to take some time to get a rapport going."

A rapport? Not that long ago, they'd had a pretty amazing rapport. Then life, history, and the real world had gotten in the way.

"I was only trying to show initiative," she added.

Leonard's eyebrow arched. There wasn't a day that went by in his sickbay that he didn't feel overwhelmed, and he wouldn't mind a few more people with a can-do, proactive attitude. "Uh, right. If Nurse Riley is down in the cargo bay with the logistics folks, then who-"

"I intended to run the intake desk myself and kill several birds with one stone. It will let me get familiar with this sickbay's operations, I'll be nearby should Crewman Dominguez need anything, and it will give me the chance to research special medical considerations for Suliban with genetic enhancements, unless of course you wanted to do it. I assumed you would have your hands full."

His mouth started to fall open. He'd forgotten all about that. "Sounds good. Meanwhile, I need to get back to coming up with a vaccine schedule. We need to get the entire crew rotated in here in the next forty-eight hours-"

"Why would we rotate the crew through sickbay?" she asked.

"For their vaccinations?" he reminded her, trying not to sneer.

"Wouldn't it make more sense to dispatch teams of medics to each individual department rather than make everyone come here? It's a lot more efficient that way."

Leonard blinked. That did sound a lot easier. "Well, I still need to get with the department heads and get a by-name roster of each landing party."

"Certainly, doctor. Would you like me to work on that?"

Her face was calm and expressionless, pretty and composed. Frustration nibbled at him. Why was she trying so hard to pretend like everything was normal?

"Can we have a private word?" he asked.

Her face fell slightly but she nodded and hit the door release. The moment it slid shut behind her, he leaned back in his chair, waved his arms around his office and said, "What is this?"

She glanced at his desk and said, "Black coffee and a blueberry scone. Can I get you something else?"

He scoffed, staring down at the meal she'd brought him. "You know what I mean. I mean, thank you for the breakfast, but come on, Chris- Nurse Chapel, yesterday you had a panic attack in a turbolift and today you're acting like it's business as usual."

"I'm fine," she said, her voice low but free of hostility.

"Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining," he snapped.

A defensive sneer sneaked across her face and she squared her shoulders. "Look, I'm doing my best to fit in with this crew and do my job. If you have any complaints about my performance, let me know. But otherwise, leave my personal life out of it. Dr. M'Benga has prescribed me a weekly treatment of proazium, and so far, and I have to say, I'm feeling pretty ok. Now unless you have anything else, I'd like to get back to work."

He narrowed his eyes and stared at her, but her face was smooth as glass. He sighed heavily, and without taking his eyes off of her said, "I used to do a shift brief before and after with Nurse Yamashita, the old Head Nurse. I'd like to keep that going. Otherwise, thanks for breakfast."

He didn't intend for his tone to grow so dark and almost threatening, but the moment he was finished speaking, she cocked her head and said, "Certainly, doctor."

She raised her hand to hit the switch and open the door and he added, "And you know, Nurse Chapel, you're always welcome to come talk to me."

She gave a slight nod without saying anything else and was gone. He lowered his head to the short desk and closed his eyes. His communicator chirped, and without raising his forehead from the smooth glass, he extracted the device and mumbled, "McCoy."

"Commander Spock here. I have enacted a change to the protocols for submitting logs…"

He set the communicator on the desk and listened to Spock drone. He took a sip of the coffee and was pleasantly surprised. It was hot but not too hot, black, but a very smooth blend.

Christine had brought him coffee. He felt helplessly wistful. She was caring, thoughtful, funny, and gorgeous. She was also hardheaded, temperamental, addicted to her work, and emotionally damaged. How could a woman be so perfect, flaws and all?

"Doctor McCoy?" Spock said through the communicator.

He hit the button on his communicator and groaned, "What?"

"Did you receive my last instructions?"

He massaged his forehead with his fingertips. He could already tell it was going to be that kind of day.