Not Okay (Part Two)
34 hours later.
"You're lactose intolerant?
"Well, kind of, I just- are you reading my medical file?"
"…no?"
"Jim, put that down right this minute!"
"What does 'Bruxism' mean?"
"It means you are breaking about a thousand different rules right now looking at that."
"Wow, Bones, your blood pressure is really high."
"Oh, gee, I wonder why."
"You should try yoga."
McCoy couldn't help it. He let out a soft chuckle as he brought his hand up to rub at the back of his neck.
"Yoga," he mumbled. "Good idea."
He looked up just as Jim shot him a serious look from the other side of glass.
"We'll get the whole crew to do it. Even Spock," he told McCoy with a determined nod.
"I think I'd rather pull out my own corneas than see that."
Jim snorted.
"That's fair. That's very fair."
McCoy leaned his head back against the wall, returning the grin Jim was giving him now with a tired smile.
"So," McCoy said. "What'd I miss today? Anything good? Is Sulu still planning on the date with that Lieutenant from cartography?"
Jim took a pause before answering, his face dropping into a narrowed-eyed smirk.
"Are you, Leonard H. McCoy, actually asking about ship gossip? Has hell frozen over?"
"More like I'm bored out of my mind. So, yes, please take this as the one and only invitation you will get from me to indulge your obsessive need to know everyone's business," McCoy said with a light wave of his hand.
"How did you even know about Sulu's date?" Jim asked. "I only just found out about it."
"Who do you think dropped this off?" McCoy answered. He reached beside him with his left hand and brought up a small rubber ball for Jim to see. He tossed it expertly, sending it bouncing against the opposite wall and back into his hand. McCoy had bitterly voiced his opinion to the lieutenant about not being some damn puppy who was easily entertained by a thrown ball. But Sulu must have sensed that McCoy's complaints were only half-hearted at best because he merely smiled lightly before leaving for his shift on the Bridge.
Jim tilted his head slightly, looking off into the corner of the room as he replayed the day's events and looked for highlights.
"Well as of 0700, we're en route to a research conference at the Natchua Military Base above Mero II. I know, how do any of the other ships have fun if we get all the cool assignments? Spock broke a couple of fingers helping the labs fix an EQC module when an ensign holding the resonance buffer dropped it without checking if he was clear. He got an earful in several different languages by a certain communications officer. Sulu and Streiger did have lunch together today, so take that as you will. Oh and you missed pecan pie in the caf."
Before McCoy could get the string of curse words he was preparing past his lips, Jim added hastily "Don't worry. I saved you a couple slices. Mainly so I don't have to listen to you bitch for the next month and a half until it's served again."
"My hero," McCoy mumbled, sinking back against the wall with a wince.
"Why are you sitting on the floor, anyways? I know I always complain about the biobeds being shit, but they have to be better than the ground," Jim asked. "Aren't you worried you're going to throw your back out, old man?"
"Ha ha ha," McCoy bit out sarcastically, trying to ignore the twinge that pulled on his spine. "You try lyin' in a bed for three days straight, let's see how much you want to stay there willingly."
Jim nodded his head, conceding to McCoy's point.
"True. How's the hands?" he asked, frowning sympathetically.
McCoy shrugged.
"Went through the first round of regen right before you got here. Stung like a son of a bitch then. Now it's just kind of numb."
McCoy glanced down, surveying the stark white bandages that covered the majority of his right arm from elbow to fingertips. His left one had fared a little better, with only a few cuts that had been shallow enough to fade to thin, pink lines after a pass of the dermal regenerator. He had thought he was going to bite a hole clean through his bottom lip to keep from yelling when the machine reached the particularly nasty slice across his right forearm. He didn't want to worry Christine and Dr. Toll any more than they had already been. Today was the first day that they had felt safe to release him from the bed, seeing as he had gone a full 24 hours without an "incident" (God, he had scoffed when they said that to him. "Incident." It was an unnecessarily beating-around-the-bush way to describe what happened to him when the virus in his bloodstream liked to remind him who was in charge.) They were still dressed to the nines in the biosuits when they'd come in, cautiously tip-toeing around the fallen pieces of equipment in the room and eyeing McCoy like he was some wild animal. He couldn't very well blame them, though. Particularly Christine, who he couldn't even think about without his heart clenching painfully with guilt. He refused to meet her eye the second he had woken up. Actually, truly woken the last time. Even after she released him from the restraint, running her fingers gently over his arms with a softly muttered "oh, Leonard," he'd only shifted his head quickly to stare blankly at the wall. He'd mirrored the action every time she'd come to the window the last few hours to check on him, answering her questions with muttered one syllable words until she'd let him be. Despite Toll and Christine's insistence that they'd have someone else come pick it up after he was discharged, McCoy had spent a good hour and a half picking up the room the best he could. He'd managed to get the cabinet back to its spot in the corner, though the glass was still lying broken in a pile in the corner of the room, where McCoy had pushed it. The chair pieces, too, were stacked neatly. All in all the room looked, to a passing glance, back to normal. It wasn't until you looked deeper that you still saw the tray stand twisted violently, the jagged shards of glass, or the splinter of chair pieces that you realized something was wrong. The room was fixed, yet not quite right.
"Good," Jim said with a smile that looked a little too forced. He let his eyes linger on McCoy for a minute, surveying him with worry.
"What about…you know?" he asked bluntly.
McCoy snorted.
"Just say it, Jim. Ask me if I feel like ripping a whole through the wall with my bare hands. Ask me if I remember that time we got food poisoning after eating that pie from the bake sale at the academy. Ask me if I'm worried that at any second I could slip and lose it again and hurt someone. Like you or Christine or Dr. Toll or-"
"Bones."
McCoy trailed off, leaving his outburst unfinished. He looks back up at Jim, who his staring at him with a deeply worried frown.
"Stop. You're okay. Christine is okay. I'm okay. You're okay," Jim explained to him.
"Then how come I'm still in here?" McCoy asked quietly. "Is it because you're all scared of me?"
Jim's expression was broken and he sat back roughly in the chair, like he'd been kicked in the gut. He didn't answer.
Fixed, yet not quite right.
"I'm a little bit scared of me too," McCoy laughed bitterly.
"We're not scared of you, Bones," Jim said quietly. "We're scared of a virus that killed an entire starship crew."
McCoy nodded, picking up the ball again and tossing it back against the wall.
"You know, I'm perfectly capable of wallowing in self-pity alone," McCoy said after a minute. Jim leaned back in his chair.
"Yeah," he said. "I do know that. That's why I'm here."
"Gee, and here I thought you were here just to flirt with the nurses," McCoy answered, catching the ball again. Jim smirked.
"Can't I do both?"
McCoy tipped his head to Jim.
"Touché."
Jim's face slipped down into a stern frown again as he glanced up the length of McCoy's body again. Apparently, McCoy's topic deflections could only last so long. "Bones. Talk to me. Tell me how you're feeling."
McCoy shrugged. "I'm alive. I suppose that's something."
Jim sighed.
"A serious answer would have been nice."
McCoy tossed the ball again, rougher than before.
"That was a serious answer."
Jim didn't respond, merely waited in silence until McCoy elaborated.
"Fine. I lied. My hand hurts so fucking bad I can barely think straight," he bit out honestly.
"Do you want me to go get Christine?" Jim asked, quickly standing up from his chair. McCoy shook his head.
"No."
Jim stopped, mouth open.
"Why? You're in pain. You are kind of sitting in the best place on this ship to help with that," he asked.
McCoy bit his lip.
"Because…" he stopped himself.
"Bones?"
"Because the pain is the only think that is convincing me this is real," McCoy mumbled quietly. He glanced at Jim, separated by the glass. "You don't know what it's like, Jim. I believed that the crew wasn't dead and we made it off that ship just fine. Everything felt real and still does."
"You-" Jim started, but McCoy cut him off.
"I keep trying to push myself to remember it the way you told me and I get nothing," he paused before adding in barely-there whisper "And now I'm not even sure I can trust myself that this is real."
McCoy distantly heard a chair fall back as Jim jumped up from his seat again, bracing his hands on the ledge of the window.
"Get up."
McCoy frowned.
"What?"
"Get up," Jim repeated tersely. He pointed at the spot directly in front of himself. "And come stand right here."
McCoy debated for a moment before gingerly standing up. He held his wrapped arm pressed tight against his chest to prevent it from moving too much as he walked over to the window. He was forced to look away as Jim looked straight at him, separated only by a few inches of glass, his eyes tearing into McCoy's. McCoy instead shifted his gaze to look at the ground where the hem of the too-long scrubs pants they'd given him to wear touched the floor next to his bare feet.
"Bones."
"What?"
"Look at me."
He allowed his head to tilt up, surprised to see Jim with a small smile on his face.
"This is real," he said. "Okay?"
McCoy nodded.
"Say it."
"This is real," McCoy repeated. He paused before adding "But, Jim, what-"
Jim clenched his fists on the ledge.
"You trust me, right?" he cut in. Slightly taken aback, McCoy paused. When he finally nodded, Jim added "Then believe me I tell you that this is real. Right now. You and me. This is real. I wouldn't lie to you."
McCoy smiled weakly.
"But you do lie to me. Frequently," he said.
"Name one time," Jim said, crossing his arms defensively. McCoy raised an eyebrow.
"Just one?" he tapped his chin. "How about 'no, Bones, this pie doesn't taste funny.'"
Jim's face scrunched up as he paused for a minute, no doubt thinking of a way to talk his way out of that one.
"Alright," he said. "I'll give you that one. But how was I supposed to know we'd get food poisoning from it? I thought you were just complaining to complain. Extraordinary, really, how often you do that."
McCoy scoffed.
"I do not complain just to complain. I complain when you drag me into your foolhardy plans. I hate foolhardy plans, Jim," he explained with a shake of his head. Jim waved a hand dismissively.
"You hate everything. It starts to lose meaning the more you say it," he countered.
"Whatever."
Jim grinned.
"Okay. Now, can I please go get Christine?"
At McCoy's begrudging nod, Jim pushed away from his chair and turned towards the main part of Medbay. If McCoy craned his neck just right, he could see Christine down the hall, talking to a red-shirted crewman on a biobed. She looked up when Jim leaned in to tell her something in her ear, her eyes instantly clouding with worry as they flickered over to McCoy's direction. He quickly stepped back, just out of sight from anyone not directly in front of the glass. He shook his head roughly. No. This was stupid. He knew Christine wouldn't be mad at him for what he had done, especially because he hadn't been at all conscious of doing it. As a nurse who had, at this point in her career, pretty much seen it all, she of all people would understand what can happen when people get sick. That's all it had been. McCoy had been sick and out of his mind- he didn't hurt her, the virus did. As she and Jim walked back towards him, he realized that as long as he kept reminding himself of that fact, it'd okay.
He actually smiled when Christine stopped in front of the window, with her hands on her hips and a disapproving glare just for him.
"Dr. McCoy you should have said something! God forbid you actually let me do my job! And why are you smiling? Are you feeling alright?" she asked suddenly. When he opened his mouth to answer, he realized she didn't really want an answer when she cut him off saying "no, you don't. You're in pain and didn't think your nurse should be privy to that information."
She ignored him, opening the hatch of the small box just to the right of the window. She placed a hypo in it, slammed it closed angrily before hitting the keypad next to it. McCoy stepped up, waiting for the signal that would indicate that it was safe for him to open the door to the box on his side of the isolation lab. When it beeped, he reached in and grabbed the hypo with his left hand. He lifted it to his neck, quickly and efficiently pushing the button to release the medicine. At the tell-tale hiss that sounded, he let his eyes slip close for just a brief moment. Within seconds he could already feel the aching sting radiating up and down his arm lessen.
"Thank you," he breathed, opening his eyes to look at Christine. Her face had softened, just a hair, and she nodded.
"Think you are up for round two with the regenerator?" she asked.
"Yeah, the sooner the better," he mumbled, walking slowly over to sit back on the edge of the biobed, suddenly not sure his legs would hold him. If Chapel or Jim saw the way he wobbled the last few steps, neither said anything.
"Okay, I'll be back in about an hour. I need to check back with Ensign Caldera," Christine told Jim. She turned back to McCoy with a pointed finger. "And you know that I know that the pain reliever I just gave you acts as a mild sedative and you've already began feeling the effects. You should be asleep when I get back. Understood?"
"Yes, Chapel," he said, purposefully adding an exaggerated, irritable sound to his voice. She shot him one last look before turning and heading back to her patient.
McCoy looked back at Jim as soon as she was gone.
"Do you think I should be worried about how quickly the power seems to go to her head when she's in charge?"
Jim smirked.
"You should be more concerned about what she's going to do if you aren't asleep when she gets back here," Jim reasoned.
McCoy nodded, knowing how accurate of a statement that was.
He turned to look at the bed he was seated on, his hands picking at the cotton of the sheets absently. Now that he no longer had the pain to distract him, he knew it wouldn't be hard at all to slip beneath them and sleep for a good while. His eyes traveled farther down the side of the bed, where, only a short time ago, he'd been forcefully tied down to. He jerked his hand up at the memory, back to his chest protectively.
"You know I'm going to be here, right?"
McCoy looked back up, almost having forgotten the other man was there. Jim was sitting in his chair, arms crossed as he stared across the glass. McCoy frowned.
"What?"
"You can go to sleep, Bones," he said gently. "I'm going to be here the whole time."
"I don't need a babysitter, Jim," he grumbled, scowling as he pulled the blankets out of the bed with as much force as his bandaged hands could take.
"Okay," Jim shrugged. "You want me to leave?"
McCoy slid under the blankets, pulling them securely around his shoulders. He sighed heavily as he flipped positions on the bed so that he was facing Jim.
"No," he mumbled.
Jim smiled.
"Alright then. I'll be here when you wake up."
McCoy closed his eyes.
"Okay," he said. He was quiet a second before calling out. "Jim?"
"Yeah, Bones?"
"Promise me you were joking about making me sit through yoga with Spock."
"Would that I could, Bones. Would that I could."
/
Up Next: Not an Issue for Mrs. C