He regained consciousness in his own damn sickbay. The antiseptic smell announced it before he opened his eyes. "Nurse, he croaked through a dry throat. Al-Hamid moved into his point of view and he decided that since he could appreciate the view as she leaned over, he probably wasn't going to die. "Report," he said, drinking down the cup of offered water.
"All crew accounted for. The danger is over and I've had you placed in your room." She meant the bed at the far end of the sick bay with accompanying privacy panels. He made sure to sleep in it often enough when he had a late night that no one thought it was unusual for him to be here. "I used your code to issue an order to Captains Kirk and Spock to report to sickbay for a full examination. Captain Kirk hasn't been here since. Captain Spock visited for long enough to drop off Dr Taylor and said he will be back as soon as his schedule allows." He could hear the smile in her voice as she spoke. "I chased him around sickbay with a hypo of painkiller just in case." It took more than good grades to get the position of Head Nurse on a ship where McCoy was CMO. "All crewmembers accounted for. No further casualties other than the one the retrieval team tagged." She held up the hypos for his inspection before injecting them into his arm and he felt the pain ease leaving a dull throb and a sensation of weakness in its wake. "I'll be with you soon," he promised. There should be a full uniform in the drawer beside the bed. The uniform undershirt and shorts he had on were probably the one he's come in wearing. One indignity avoided for the day anyway.
"There's no rush, everyone's settled," Padma said as she headed for the door. His hand was on the top edge of the sheet to flip it back when Gillian stuck her head around the panel. Scrubbed clean and wearing a hospital shift and pants but no shoes, an outfit that made her look even younger and more vulnerable than usual. "Hiya Bones," she said, smiling at the Nurse as they passed and pulling up a chair. "Want some company?"
"Why are you still here? Were your injuries severe?" McCoy grumped at her. She rolled her eyes in response. "No, I had a couple of burns and scrapes and a concussion which is gone. Spock insisted I stay here. He and Jim are back on the bridge sorting out the mess. I thought I might as well stay until he's off shift at least. Seeing as someone destroyed my lab." Leaving Gillian all alone with no one to talk to and nothing to do but hang around waiting for him to regain consciousness. He settled back in his pillows.
"Although I might have to sue Starfleet for mental distress and suffering," she joked.
"Come on. They attacked us first," he responded.
"Not for that, for the food. The egg flavoured jello which someone called scrambled eggs for breakfast was bad enough. Hikaru tells me you grow fruit in the greenhouse so I ordered some watermelon. Ugh." She shuddered.
He laughed, "You forgot to specify organic?" It was nice to know someone had had a worse day than he had.
"Yes. I mean, it looked like watermelon and it smelled like watermelon but the taste and texture." Another shudder ran through her.
"And I have to say sorry," she continued. His expression must have been puzzled, because she explained further. "You have that headache because of me."
"You did this?" he asked unsurprised. At least half the phaser blasts he'd taken in his life were from overenthusiastic newbies. He wasn't sure how Klingon medics survived combat with the lack of a stun setting on disruptors. Maybe they didn't.
"Well, I got the soldiers too," she said in apology. "I had it set wide since I haven't had a chance to practice with it and you stepped into my field of fire. I had used the computer to lure them where I wanted them."
"Used the computer?' he asked, puzzled.
"Yeah, I told the computer to play short bursts of random music from the resident's music collection then move on to a room 5-10 numbers away. You don't have to talk loud to the computer you know. Most people do out of habit but it will obey you if you whisper. I thought that would be a sensible precaution since there were enemy soldiers on board." She tucked one foot up under her, leaving the other one to dangle in the air.
"You told the computer all that with soldiers outside the door of the room you were hiding in?" he asked, trying to visualise it. He thought Klingon hearing was more sensitive than humans, especially at higher pitch. Tribbles annoyed them so much because the crooning was piercing to their ears.
She shook her head "Of course not, I did all that earlier. I thought up a lot of things that might help and told the computer what they were. I whispered 'Computer Delta' and off it went while I hid under the bed. I instituted a few others, like a random delay before the computer answered or obeyed commands. And I made stuff flash on and off so it looked like a computer malfunction. Anyone who ranked me could countermand the orders, which is easy if they know it's there, but they have to work out what the problem is first. Which would be difficult because I told the computer to answer any questions about its performance at a volume below Vulcan hearing." She snickered, "So they wouldn't get any answers, but the diagnostics would all be fine. Unless whoever attacked us had better hearing than Vulcans, but Spock says that's rare."
"What were you doing in a combat zone anyway?" she asked. "I thought you had more sense."
He laughed, and shifted into a more upright position "No, I used to but those two idiots have been a bad influence on me. Someone's got to save them from themselves." And the rest of the crew needed him too.
"So, you won't be joining us then?" he asked the question everyone wanted to know the answer to. Jim had only just got into space again and wanted his two best friends with him, but it was traditional for Vulcans to live together at least for the first year after marriage. There had been a Spock shaped hole in the bridge crew for a year after he married T'Para. Jim had already sent her an employment offer, although she wasn't really qualified and Spock would have to resign from his position as Science Officer, or drop back at least to Assistant Science Officer since Gillian would be in Science Division.
She shook her head. "No, I came forward to work with George and Gracie and that's what I want to do. I might do a week here and there if you're going somewhere safe, like Andoria. You do diplomatic missions too, don't you?"
"Yes. Will Spock stay on here?" Jim would have told him if Spock had announced his resignation.
Her head dipped forward. "Yes. He only has to have the year off for an official marriage." T'Pau had not sent an official response to Gillian's confirmation of her Kahs Wan. The marriage application was still pending.
"Have you asked him to quit?" She shook her head. "I would hate it so much if he asked me to give up my career, so I can't do it to him." And Spock hadn't offered, if her wistful look was any indication. He sighed and made a note to mention it to Spock, not that it would do any good. "Would you like a Federation marriage? I can suggest it to Spock." He knew Spock wanted official Vulcan recognition due to his non-existent pride but maybe Gillian wanted a nice ceremony.
She shook her head again. "No, really. I don't mind. Marriage is a complicated subject for me. My whole life, everyone pushed me towards it. It was the ultimate goal for a woman and what was important to me, travel, education, was a lesser thing. I worked damn hard to be called Dr Taylor and I'm in no hurry to give it up. " He gave her a doubtful look and received a frown in return. "I wanted to buy a house. I had savings, no student loans, had paid off my truck and had a steady job. The bank wouldn't lend my any money unless I had a man's signature. I ended up having to get my Dad to sign the paperwork before they'd give me a loan, even though I made more than him. It was humiliating. I'm in no hurry to sign up for a traditional Vulcan marriage. I mean, you've seen his parents." He had, and though it was obvious to a casual observer that Sarek adored his wife, she walked three paces behind him and danced on his attendance. Spock, too, had observed a number of Vulcan customs even in the absence of his wife. He avoided being alone with female crew on shift whenever possible and totally in social circumstances. He routed correspondence to women through Uhura to be encoded and was even more standoffish with women than normal. Subtle differences, which not many people noticed since Spock wasn't gregarious to start with.
She held up a deck of cards with a hopeful smile. "You game?" He nodded and watched as she flipped down the dinner tray and dealt out the cards on top of it. "So, extra special treatment from the Head Nurse, should I make myself scarce after shift change?"
He laughed. "I wish, but no, she's married. " He waggled his eyebrows suggestively as he picked up the cards. "All the best ones are these days." He didn't know which one was more surprising, Scotty finally getting around to asking Nyota out or Spock snatching Gillian from under Jim's nose. Bet that last one hurt. Unlike Jim, he thought they were well suited. Both were brilliant but lonely people who never really fit in to the society in which they'd been born. He hoped they would make each other happy, they both deserved it.
"Well, you're not," she pointed out. "Aren't you going to stop playing the field and let some woman have the honour and glory."
He hmpfed at her and threw down a card. "I'm too old for all that fuss," he said, hoping she would object and make him feel better.
She placed several cards in order, a nice play but not good enough. One by one, he placed the rest of his cards, leaving his hand empty. She pouted but picked up the cards and dealt again.
"I met one of your old girlfriends the other day, Tonia Barrows. I recognised her from the show. Hey, did I ever tell you I met that Roberta Lincoln Kirk and Spock met. The one who was a Time Agent? It was at the International Conference on Genetic Research and Experimentation in Rome. My thesis advisor was a Keynote Speaker. They had a whole section on genetics as a means of preserving endangered species. It wasn't all about human augmentation, although that was interesting, too. Anyway, she was calling herself Dr Veronica Neary and posing as a geneticist. She didn't say much but she was nice. She was older then but I recognised her. I guess she was doing something about the Eugenics War."
"She must have been afraid too much conversation would blow her cover," McCoy replied. And, before he could stop himself "How is Tonia these days?" He heard things from time to time but never asked. There was no point. Once he'd diagnosed himself with xenopolycythemia, he'd broken things off with her and left the ship. He'd thought it would be better for everyone. Tonia would suffer less on the death of an ex than if they were still together. The bond stretched thinner in the vast distances of space and his death would have hurt Jim and Spock less.
The Fabrini medicine had cured him and Spock and Kirk had taken him back without rancour. But then, he hadn't gotten new friends while he was away and he had married another woman. Tonia had transferred onto the nearest available ship, the Defiant. At least she'd been promoted off it before it vanished into whatever inter dimensional hell hole it fell into.
"She's fine," Gillian said. "Asked all about you, so I told her what I knew. And since she's your ex, I told her we have to schedule time to see you between all the young beautiful groupies who take up so much of your time." She was joking, he hoped. Her eyes were twinkling and she wouldn't look straight at him. Definitely, she was joking. She hadn't said that.
Gillian curled into the armchair, tucking her feet under for warmth and dealt the cards, explaining the archaic rules of games which had faded into obscurity before he was born. Did she regret her decision? Not all the time, but maybe sometimes? Had the choices she made, so obvious at the time led her to a life of much greater loneliness than she had anticipated?
The precise rapping of Spock's knuckles on the door before he entered followed by Padma alerted him to the truth. They'd tricked him. It couldn't be end of shift already. The attack had occurred before lunch and a Level 4 phaser blast would leave him unconscious for two hours, give or take. Even assuming that Spock would leave the bridge in a mess just because his shift ended, it was still hours away. Unless…that traitorous nurse had drugged him and gotten Gillian to distract him for several hours so he stayed in bed. No commendation for her. Not until his temper cooled anyway. He scowled at everyone, receiving a cheeky grin, a calm stare and a 'who me, I'm innocent' look in return.
Spock reached out his hand, two fingers extended and Gillian scrambled to her feet to complete the touch. He would never understand women.
Author's note: Sorry for the delay. Life has been happening at great speed. My son's getting his tonsils out next week so I'll either get nothing done while I tend to him or I'll have a week of uninterrupted writing. I thought editing would go a lot faster than this but entire scenes keep arising out of single sentences. I've also updated Chapter 26 to fix the egregious error pointed out by my lovely reviewer lacroix. And I found how to enable anonymous reviews so if that's been holding you back, you may now comment.
