21. Strained Muscle

Summary: Bones was getting too old for sleeping on the sofa.

Warning: May contain mild profanity.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek or its characters.

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McCoy had been uncomfortable all day. What had started as twinge is back had blown into a full on deep-seated stiffness. The worst thing was that he didn't have anyone to blame for his discomfort but himself.

There had been an explosion in engineering during beta shift, severely injuring several crewmen. As the doctor on call, McCoy had been called back in to help Doctor Styron with the casualties, having only just left after staying late to finish his paper work. One of the crewman had received a severe head injury and needed immediate surgery to stem the bleeding into the Ensign's brain before they could even think about treating the rest of his injuries.

After six hours of surgery, it had been some point into gamma when McCoy had finally emerged from the Operating room. Passing the Ensign's post-operative care off to M'Benga, McCoy had stumbled into his office and collapsed onto the sofa, desperate to catch a few hours of uninterrupted sleep before he was due to be back on duty in less than seven hours.

Long gone were the days when he could complete a double shift on only a few hours sleep. Leonard was no spring chicken and his body was determined to make sure he knew it. Despite trying to hide his pain, McCoy was sure that he'd been hobbling around like an old man all day. His back always gave him grief whenever he spent the night on the sofa. Every time Leonard would vow to stop sleeping there, yet he kept on doing it.

It was the reports that sent McCoy over the edge, in search of a hypospray of muscle relaxant. He would have preferred to be done for the night hours ago but sickbay had been busy all week, resulting in the accumulation of a rather large pile all of which needed reading before deadline for tomorrows transmission.

When he finally found the drugs he was looking for, He silently cursed at whichever idiot had put them on the bottom shelf. Steeling himself, Leonard groaned and started to lean over.

'Back giving you a spot of bother, Bones?'

McCoy startled upright, stifling a cry as his back twinged in protest of the sudden movement. His hand flew instinctively to the source of the pain. 'Dammit, Jim.'

'You coming to dinner?'

Dammit, he'd forgotten about that.

He'd agreed to meet Spock and the Captain for dinner at Lunchtime, or more precisely, Jim had decided and McCoy had been too distracted to argue. Obviously Leonard had made a face because Jim laughed. 'Spock said you'd forgotten.'

Choosing to leave the muscle relaxants where they were, rather than make a fool of himself by attempting to pick them again, McCoy turned to go. The entire way out he kept hoping for an emergency to come in, a reason not to go other than he just wasn't in the mood. Unfortunately, Sickbay was as busy as it had been all day, completely dead. You could practically see the tumble weed drifting across the room.

Apart from the small handful of on duty nurses, milling around the nurses station with nothing better to do than gossip, Doctor Styron was the only one in sight. She'd pulled up a chair to one of the bio beds and had half a dozen PADDs spread out in front of her. He guessed Styron was working on her research project, looking at the effectiveness of the standard decontamination gels against the various space-faring micro-organisms that the ship encountered. She looked up as they neared and smiled, 'Heading off for the night?'

McCoy scowled, not in the mood for chatting, let alone with Alice's unnaturally sunny personality. Jim on the other hand, had other ideas, 'Don't mind him, he's grumpy because his back hurts.'

'I'm not surprised, all that slouching you do in your chair.' Alice said cheerfully. McCoy could swear that the grumpier he got, the more peppy she became, or maybe he just noticed it more because it grated on his nerves then. It was the same with Jim, except Leonard knew that Jim did it to get a rise out of him. 'Want me to take a look?'

'I'm fine.' He grumbled, glaring at Jim. If he didn't know better, he'd say Jim actually liked getting hypoed.

What McCoy wanted was for them to actually leave, so that he could go to his quarters and be alone. It was just a simple muscle strain. All he needed was a hot shower and a nights sleep in a proper bed; the sooner dinner was finished, the sooner Leonard could get those.

…..

McCoy knew it was going to be another long day when he woke and his back ached before he'd done anything. As a doctor, McCoy knew that the best thing for it was to just keep on moving. Trouble was, moving hurt.

It was easy to underestimate how much work your back did. Every time you stood, sat, turned your head, moved an arm or a leg, the muscles in your back were working. The fibres were constantly adjusting, contracting or relaxing to keep you upright and balance. It was only when it went that you realised how much you took it for granted.

McCoy went to sit up. The pain that shot through his back instantly made him think twice about moving.

Ah, hell.

McCoy silently screamed, biting his lip against the spasm. He'd hoped that a night in a proper bed would help but his back was worse.

Leonard looked around the room, assessing his options. The hot shower the previous night had helped immensely. He just about had time, even if it meant missing breakfast. He could do it.

As he went to swing his legs over the edge so that he could sit up, a spasm in his back threw him off to one side. The result was him rolling over, instead of sitting up, landing in a dishevelled heap on the floor.

Leonard found himself staring up at the edge of the bed; it seemed so far away. He didn't think he could get back up if he tried.

With a little manoeuvering and a lot of pain, he managed to get into a crawling position. Deciding that the Comm panel was closer, he set off across the room. A cold sweat broke out across his skin. His back was on fire.

He slowly crawled towards the comm panel, each movement sending waves of agony through his back. McCoy made it halfway across the floor before collapsing, simply in too much pain to continue.

He lay there, panting heavily, unsure if he wanted to cry, puke, pass out or a combination of all three. He looked warily over at the panel, which now seemed miles away. McCoy couldn't move and couldn't call for help; He was stuck.

Even if he did make it over there, the panel was over a meter in the air. Leonard had been so focused on getting to it, he hadn't given thought to how he was actually going to reach it. As if on cue, the panel chirped, no doubt announcing that sickbay was trying to get hold of him. The call eventually stopped ringing when it went unanswered.

Dammit, Dammit, Dammit.

The agony was paralysing. His back was well beyond the realm of hot water. The only thing that was going to get him off of the floor was drugs.

Muscle relaxants? Painkillers? Even good old paracetamol and ibuprofen would be nice. McCoy thought, looking up at the ceiling. Even if he did have a hypospray of something in his quarters, Leonard didn't think he'd be able to reach it. He'd been able to roll onto his back but that was it. McCoy was done.

He didn't know how long he lay there; a while probably. Leonard was pretty sure alpha shift had started a while ago. If he lay there long enough, the pain would lessen slightly, only to reignite when he tried moving. All he managed to succeed in was moving a foot closer to the panel.

After lying on the floor for so long, the door chiming was music to his ears. 'Come in.'

The door swished open but whoever was there didn't identify who they were for several minutes.

'You're an idiot.' Leonard opened his eyes to find Christine standing over him with her hands on her hips. 'I know for a fact you slept on that sofa yesterday.'

He should have known she'd know. Nothing in sickbay ever escaped past Christine. McCoy didn't know why he bothered to try hiding anything, he always seemed to get lectured anyway. He just wished she could save it until after he'd received the muscle relaxant.

He was faintly embarrassed that he was still wearing the Boxers and T-shirt he'd worn to bed but in the grand scheme of things, his clothes weren't on his list of priorities. Right at that point of time his first and foremost priority was that it hurt to move.

Leonard turned his head to get a better look at her, grimacing as the movement reawakened the fire in his back. This halted anything Chapel had been about to say; instantly she was down by his side, scanning him with the tricorder.

'It's just a strain.' She said when the cycle finished. 'I'm going to give you a muscle relaxant.' McCoy could have told her that without a tricorder, although considering she only had the one hypospray with her, she'd expected that.

The hypospray stung but the relief that followed was worth it.

Notes

paracetamol = acetaminophen (British - American translation)