AN: I know this is short and I promise the next one will be longer, but I wanted to get this idea out of my head! I really want to know how McCoyPrime! would feel about being thrown into the nu universe. More of that will come later and somehow this turned into another two parter or maybe even three parter. I'm never sure whether it's right to call him McCoy or Bones though. I get the feeling that I'm not the only one with this problem…
Having a cow: To freak out unnecessarily over certain events.
Wide blue eyes stared at him in disconcerting familiarity from the floor of the transporter pad. Normally those eyes were a dark hazel, the color of freshly tilled earth and not the azure of a summer sky. Jim stepped back a pace, shock at the change evident on his face. The man before him was thin, not emaciated but definitely far from overweight. Gray touched the familiar brown at the temples, and the wry smile cast his direction spoke more clearly than words just exactly who he was.
"Bones?" Jim asked with confusion induced consternation. Next to him, Spock raised an eyebrow in the equivalence of Vulcan shock. The man before them was at least 15 years older than their chief medical officer, yet he was unmistakably similar. The laugh that issued forth from the man was the same hearty, yet sardonic sound and as he pulled himself to his feet, the posture was oh so familiar; a chronic slouch that years of service had not managed to erase.
"I take it Scotty got the wrong co-ordinates then." His voice was a touch hoarser, less deep than their McCoy, and his eyes held emotions that Jim couldn't quite read. How had this happened? It was a routine beam up from just another colony being aided by the Enterpise. There was nothing down there that could possibly have caused this. No mysterious ore, no wild god machines, no tantrum throwing Trelane. Could it really be just the consequence of mistaken co-ordinates? Or was this McCoy theirs and just aged a bit? But then, the eyes…
"You are taking this quite well, Sir, considering your usual dislike of teleporters." Spock's cool voice filtered through Jim's jumbled thoughts. He was staring with veiled curiosity at the man in science blues, blues that were definitely more pastel than the navy color worn by their science personnel. McCoy shrugged and smirked at the two of them.
"You get used to this kind of thing after a while. I may not like my atoms being scattered across space, but if I get to help people in the process, well, maybe it's slightly worth it." He stepped down from the transporter pad. "Well, are ya'll gonna stare at me for an hour or are we actually going to do something. I'd like to get back to my world you know." Spock's other eyebrow flew into his hairline.
"What makes you think this is another world?" Jim asked the unspoken question.
"Besides the fact that you're taller, blonder, and blue eyed Jim? The technology here. I may just be an old country doc, but I know that my Enterprise doesn't have a teleporter room this advanced. Heck, compared to my ship yours is light speed's ahead, and I haven't even seen the bridge or Sickbay yet." The matter of fact tone spoke of too much experience with alternate realities. "So if it's all the same to you, I'd like to get home. My Jim and Spock are probably having a cow over where I've gone. If they've even noticed yet." The smile that accompanied that was slightly sad and Jim wondered what exactly had happened to this McCoy to make him wonder if he was needed.
"Am I to understand that humans where you come from are capable of producing bovines through reproduction?" Spock's voice held that slight note of confusion that made Jim want to giggle madly at his XO. He usually held it in since it wouldn't help their nacent friendship if he gave into hysterical laughter everytime Spock misunderstood some facet of the English language. This Leonard McCoy seemed to have no problem with laughing though. His face split into the widest grin Jim had ever seen and he laughed as Jim wanted to.
"The more things change the more they stay the same." He said through chuckles, almost reaching out to pat Spock on the shoulder and thinking better of it. It seemed that he understood the boundaries that his counterpart did as well. " It means that I don't think they're pitching much of a fit over me being gone if they haven't realized it yet." Spock raised his eyebrow again ready to ask how exactly 'pitching a fit' could be done when Jim intervened for the sake of his first officer's sanity and his own self-control over laughter.
"Nah, I think they'll miss you pretty quickly. Because if you are here, then our Bones is… there." Jim's words slowed as the realization hit him. "Frack!"