Chapter Nine: His Work and Nothing More

I don't want to hurt you...you're an exceptional woman.

It's too late, Leonard. Even if I wanted to stop now, I couldn't. I've got a good feeling that you're in that same position.

Command will have our hides for this if they find out.

Then we won't let them find out. It's only one night...

McCoy shivered almost imperceptibly as he watched Britannia download the accessible files from the computer. The memories of their time together were beginning to fade into excruciating focus through layers of hazy confusion. Despite the climate control in the hospital, Bones found himself starting to perspire – the way he usually did while flying in a shuttle. What frightened him the most, though, more than a court-marshal, more than a dishonorable discharge and most certainly more than Kirk's berating was that under the stark and severe attitude he was desperately clinging on to in order to remain professional...

He had feelings for Britannia. But this time, they weren't going away and he wasn't drunk.

You honestly think she'd ever be able to love you, old man? Bones thought sadly as he watched her work. She's young and has hope, two things you lost a long time ago. Even if, by some goddamn miracle, she saw you the same way, you think it would ever work out? She's on the Arbitory. You're on the Enterprise. Do the math.

"Done," Charlotte breathed, hardly daring to believe their luck, as McCoy snapped back to cold reality. He took the tricorder and tucked it safely into his utility belt.

"We should get going before anyone catches us," he said evenly, moving fluidly away towards the doors of the lift. Britannia sucked a sharp breath in and bit her lower lip. As McCoy halted before the elevator and pressed the button to summon the transportation, she spoke, determined to take the higher ground for once.

"I'm sorry."

Not turning around, Bones trained his eyes on the metal in front of him. "Sorry for what?"

"I'm sorry I made... make you angry. I'm sorry I can't react the way you want me to. I'm sorry for a lot of things I've said and done that has hurt you."

"Hurting me would imply that there was an emotional attachment that doesn't exist here."

At these words, Britannia stormed over to the elder medic, reached up, grabbed his shoulders and swung him around. Her pale eyes blazed with a fury that McCoy had never seen. Despite her diminutive height, she seemed ten feet tall. "You are not some goddamn Vulcan, Leonard McCoy! You are a living, breathing human being, which means – like it or not – there is an emotional attachment here! You ground me out for asking a question! Now either I'm more stupid than I appear, or you have been lying to me for a very long time!"

"I'm a doctor, dammit! What else do you want from me?" The shout echoed around the room and McCoy cringed slightly. Britannia's eyes welled up.

"I want you to tell me that it really was just one night. I want you to tell me that what I'm suffering is really hatred, because it hurts too badly to be... to be..." she couldn't bring herself to say the word, but McCoy understood. In a way, he always had. He cleared his throat, forcing back the emotion in his voice, restraining himself from moving forward because he couldn't trust himself that he wouldn't just wrap her up in his arms and cry in her shoulder. They were doctors, they were on a mission... and this was simply the way things had to be.

"One... night. Just one. We were drunk, Britannia. There's nothing left for us personally and we... we have a job to do," he said hoarsely. Doctor Charlotte wiped at her eyes and gave him a watery smile.

"Thank you," she whispered. A quiet bell sounded and the lift doors slid open. McCoy stepped inside, plastering a mask of neutrality on his face to hide the all-consuming empty feeling he had within him that was slowly destroying what was left of his battered, dry soul

"No problem," he replied deadly.


"Spock to Enterprise."

Enterprise here, Commander.

"Can you get a fix on Doctor McCoy?"

Negative, sir. Doctor McCoy is out of range of our sensors.

"What about Doctor Charlotte of the USS Arbitory?"

Negative. They both appear to be out of range.

Spock leaned back in his chair, thoughtful. Had he been fully human, worry might have flooded through him. He might have gone straight to Kirk with his suspicions and theories. He might have done any number of illogical actions. As it was, he was still in possession of his wits and allowed logic to calm his troubled mind. The Vulcan reasoned that McCoy, as brash as he could be sometimes, was at heart a dedicated doctor. He wouldn't risk his reputation, especially on a mission of such importance. The senator might have identified McCoy's troubled spirit, but given the doctor's natural irascibility, it was nothing that the first officer had known before.

Even so, it was a mildly uneasy Spock who retired for the night.


Breathing in the fresh, cold air in the early evening of Zixaan IV, Britannia slapped her communicator. "Charlotte to Arbitory. Come in."

Reading you loud and clear, Doctor.

"Two to beam from planet surface. No injured."

Standing by. Energising in five seconds.

The familiar swirl of bright energy surrounded the pair and in seconds they had disappeared. Moments later, the doctors reappeared in the transporter bay of the USS Arbitory. Without saying a word, Britannia stepped smartly off the pad and began stalking her way to the medical bay. McCoy followed in silence, unable to think of what to say in the wake of their decision.

The Arbitory's main medical bay was a hive of activity – sterile but busy, but the young physician passed through the bustling horde of techs and medicos without so much as a backward glance. McCoy noted that when they saw her coming, the crew stood aside respectfully. Whatever else she may have been, here she commanded the utmost respect. Here, she was Chief Medical Officer.

"We only have one rule here," the object of his thoughts said abruptly as they turned a corner and entered her personal office. McCoy felt his mouth twist into a half-hearted grin.

"What's that? Rule Britannia?"

Doctor Charlotte rounded the polished steel arch with the flat top that served as her desk. She stared at him coldly. "Actually, yes. This is my medical bay, not yours. You're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy."

McCoy laughed genuinely for the first time in what seemed an eternity. "At least you have an appreciation for the classics," he guffawed. When met with silence, he cleared his throat awkwardly and stood to one side as Britannia accessed her own medical records, observing his surroundings. Unlike his own office aboard the Enterprise, which was usually a total mess and littered with empty bottles of bourbon and whiskey, Britannia's office was clean and neat. The textbooks were all on their shelves, arranged in alphabetical order and size. This intrigued him. "Books?"

Britannia looked up from the monitor in puzzlement. "Huh?"

McCoy pointed at them. "You have proper textbooks."

She returned her eyes to the screen. "I prefer the feel of paper to a blinking cursor and a glowing screen. It feels more... organic."

Leonard felt a rush of new respect for her. Not many doctors appreciated the idea of a printed textbook. They were heavy and inconvenient. His eyes wandered across to her own personal collection of novels. The classics were there – Tolkien, Stevenson, Dickens, Leroux... all tales of horror and death, tinged with hope. He cleared his throat again. "No Austen?"

Britannia kept working. "No."

"Whys that?" Bones asked, turning to face her.

"Austen was a fairytale writer with no basis in reality. Fitzwilliam Darcy was a pompous jackass who took everything for granted."

"You don't believe in Prince Charming?"

She paused in her typing and met his eyes. Her response was measured. "No... no, I don't."

"You say that like a woman who did, once."

"Maybe I did but, like you said, it was once. Not now. In any case, Austen never drew me in. I found her writing quite boring."

"Yet you'll happily read Le Fantome de l'Opera. That says a lot."

The eyes peering at him over the monitor narrowed. "Anyone who knows anything about love knows that the road to happiness is never smooth. In that novel, Erik gave everything to Christine... his whole life was devoted to her. Yet she still walked away."

"So your meaning is?"

The eyes slid back down to the screen. "That love is seldom discerning, is selfish and consuming and can tear people's lives apart."

Recalling the messy divorce he had come through prior to joining Starfleet, McCoy shivered. "Perhaps I should be borrowing reading material from you," he quipped. There was silence, save for a quiet clicking of a touch-screen. McCoy moved around to stand beside her and watched her progress through the linguistic program on the monitor. He spoke softly. "I read the novel. I even watched the classic movies." Still no reply. Bones plunged on. "Without the interference from that viscount, Erik and Christine could have been happy. She did love him."

"She made her choice." The words were curt, but wavered slightly. There, McCoy thought. That tiny hint of emotion.

"She could have loved him."

"He gave her away."

"He didn't want to."

"He still did it."

Bones laid his tricorder on the desk next to the computer, but didn't remove his hand. Grudgingly, Britannia reached out and tried to grab at the device, but McCoy's fingers caught hers. Securing her eye contact, he leaned forward, eyes half-lidded and lips slightly parted. The soft sensation of his warm breath on her own lips was enough for Britannia to claim the remaining distance and press a delicate kiss against his mouth. Just one, though; a nostalgic reminder of the first time he had crushed his lips against hers, the sweet taste of alcohol on his tongue. Bones whispered into her mouth so there would be no way that she could misinterpret his meaning.

"I guarantee you... there is no way I ever wanted to let you go."


Author's Disclaimer: Woo! FINALLY some decent action between those two! Something rather chaste, but still. I apologise if Britannia came across as a little immature last chapter, but she was fighting her own feelings, something that often leads to irrational behaviour.

I would like to thank the following people for reviewing (most of them have reviewed each chapter!) - thebloodrose, Badger, WynonaRose, PhoenixFyre, pmochizuki, Ginger, mhgood, St. Valentine, Fett012000, Hope and love, Steff7, butitsbetterifyoudo, PetiteDiable, hatorisgirl15, Red Tigress, Rita Arabella Black, Krista, bajan-martini and Irina Samuels. Your input has been vital to the details of this production. I'd be nowhere without you and the rest of the 45 of you following the story. Thank you again.

Special mention – Warp Collection Cadet McCoy, my little mascot on my computer desk.

And I still don't own Star Trek: 2009.