"You have reached the quarters of Spock. I am either working or I simply do not wish to see anyone at this time. Leave a message and I will attempt to respond promptly. Thank you."
There was a tone, and Dr. McCoy sighed. Truthfully, this was almost better than having to meet Spock face to face – but he still disliked leaving messages. Messages could be lost, skewed, or misinterpreted.
He shook his head and began speaking. "Listen, Spock," he said into the comm. "I'm sorry that I, uh, gave you so much hell when we were trying to rescue the captain and crew from the weird arena planet yesterday. I won't go as far to say you were right but I'm glad that you found them, okay? End message."
"That was a fair apology, Doctor," Spock said, standing behind Bones.
He jumped up in surprise. "Now look at you, scaring a man half to death. How long you been standing there anyway?"
Spock shrugged. "No more than a moment or so."
"Well, fine then," Bones said, making a point of straightening out his shirt. "I'd best get back to sickbay." And off he walked down the hallway – rather quicker than usual, Spock thought.
The Vulcan raised an eyebrow. Dr. McCoy had apologized even though it was somewhat embarrassing and awkward, but still didn't want to have an actual conversation about it. Fascinating.
As Spock entered his quarters, the computer dinged. "You have one new message."
"Save it to personal computer banks."