For Author's Note and Disclaimer, see chapter 1

Chapter 32

"Gentlemen, this may be our last night together," Jim smiled cheerfully as he entered his cabin with Spock. After their bowls of stew he and Spock had gone back to the bridge for a few minutes, and then joined Scotty in engineering. Things really were looking up. Their Chief Engineer was certain he would be able to restore the ships system the next day. As he explained he had waited until he was sure rather than to turn everything on and find out they could not hold it. Something Jim as the captain agreed with. It was bad enough to have the crew bunched together like they had, but to force them to swing back and forth could be even harder on morale.

"Indeed," Spock moved to the chess set with relaxed determination. If the enforced closeness had bothered him he had not really allowed it to show. He seemed quite content either way and Jim wasn't surprised by it. Then again, what had probably bothered him more would have been to be forced out of the labs for such a long time. He was very much like Bones that way, they always had something going on. Some experiment, some test, something they were trying to figure out and usually Jim couldn't even figure out what it was.

Bacteria, subatomic particles and any number of odd things that normal men would stay as far away from as possible and the two of them would leap at a chance to have a crack at it. Never mind they were sometimes handling instantaneously deadly material. He'd seen Bones do it with a plate beside him countless of times. Spock instead would fast for several days so that he could devote his full attention to it and he wasn't sure which was the worse and which was the better but both made him sometimes wonder about their sanity.

One thing to be said for Spock's version though, he never ate something that most of all resembled what was in the petri dish he was studying, as Bones might. Who in their right mind would for any reason combine a chicken sandwich with a sample of Krotonian Fever? It just didn't make sense, at least not to him it didn't.

The older man was still turning halfway away from them to cough into his elbow, reminding Jim that even though things were looking up, and that they were getting back in shape, they were not there yet. Cold viruses were going around, a large number of injuries had occurred and the crew was weary.

It was not ideal, but it was at least under control.

"Bones, a drop celebrating our good fortune?" he nodded towards the bottle standing on the shelf beside his desk.

"Raincheck," Bones shook his head, pulling a hypospray out of his pouch and checking to make sure he had the cartridge he wanted in it. "Alcohol and this doesn't make the best combination." Seemingly unconcerned he injected himself with it before changing the cartridge and giving himself two more injections this way. Neither one something Jim could say what it was with any form of certainty. The good thing about having a doctor for your best friend was that you could trust his skills at all times. The downside was that while he might at least explain some of what he was doing to everyone else, Bones was never very forward with what he was doing to treat himself.

Most of the time all Jim could do was to let him do whatever he wanted and trust he was actually treating himself in the best way, not just the fastest or suppressing the symptoms. Unless he outright questioned him he would never know, and demanding to know if he was in fact treating himself, or injecting coloured water, seemed a bit like picking an argument.

"I take it you have everything under control then?" he queried, because he trusted Bones with his life, his ship and everything he had. Not always though with his own health and he just felt a need to make sure that his friend was doing okay.

"Yeah," Bones put the hypo away again and sat down in the chair behind the computer. "Nurse Chapel is a little inexperienced to be in charge for so long, but she's handled it well enough. I keep an eye on it, and the rest of the staff has been stepping up. They seem to be managing more or less. I had to go down a couple of times, but when they did call me down they did need me, and they never hesitated to do so then."

"Good," he wasn't sure if Bones misunderstood him on purpose or if he just placed his own health so far down the list he didn't realize it was what the captain might be interested in. "And what about 'you'?" he pushed a little and Bones looked up from the screen where he was obviously trying to start something medical or science related.

"What about me?" the doctor gave him a slightly suspicious look. "Everytime I went down there they kicked me out as soon as I was done, which was why I was up in the mess on call as you very well know."

"I don't know a lot about either medicine or the human body," Jim admitted, ignoring the snort of agreement Bones gave him. "But I know that lungs generally are considered important, and that pneumonia is bad for them, which makes me wonder, how are you?"

"Diagnosed pneumonia, confirmed by my head nurse and treating it as you just saw," Bones stated, his voice firm. Not hard or defensive but very calmly firm just the same. Obviously something he did not want Jim to dig deeper into then. "It's not a problem Jim, and it won't be a problem. I'm fully capable of performing my duties."

"Believe it or not, that was not what I was worried about," Jim mused. "Will you just do me a favor? Try not to overwork for a while? Just, well, for the sake of it?"

Bones looked about as confused over that statement as Spock did, so apparently neither one of them thought it was something to worry about. Why Spock was not worried he wasn't sure, but he figured the reason Bones was so unconcerned was because their favorite grouchy doctor didn't have the sense to worry about himself. "Chess Spock?" Whatever the doctor was using the computer for he was obviously more interested in that than in being asked to take care of himself. A glance on the screen barely told Jim anything in spite of sitting next to him. There were drawings and curves and statistics and he had no idea at all of what any of them represented, least of all the colourful diagram.

Finally Bones keyed in certain commands and the colours changed, only to have the doctor frown and engage the diagram into a staring contest that ended when he keyed in new commands and the diagram changed from pink to purple. Staring at it again, it finally submitted defeat, or so Jim assumed as it turned to orange instead, with specks of green.

"What is that?" he wanted to know as Bones started working in commands again.

"Tissue sample, technically," he sighed. "I've got the sample in stasis since I can't work in the lab at the moment, but I'm trying to work out a simulated hypophysis over a more effective treatment."

"So, you're simulating reactions?" Jim asked and was rewarded with a nod. "And then when you can get to the lab?"

"Then I will be able to fabricate the chemical compound and actually test it on the sample." Bones rubbed a hand over his face again. "As much as I would prefer to do it simultaneously this at least gives me a start on the ground work."

"What kind of tissue is it?" Watching the picture Bones displayed on the screen he could not tell at all.

"Lung tissue," the next command he keyed in had the entire thing turn brown and he immediately retracted it to orange with green. "Alright, I won't do that then," he mused.

"Just a regular sample of lung tissue that you just happened to have lying around?" if his questions were annoying Bones they probably annoyed Spock more since he was not focused on the game as he asked them.

"No, a sample with pneumonia," Bones raised one eyebrow expectantly. He really had a knack for doing that, the same as Spock. As if he was just waiting for Jim to figure out what was probably obvious to everyone but him. Spock opposite him across the desk nodded.

"I approve," the Vulcan decided and Bones frowned as if he would rather not work with the Vulcans agreement. "To waste an opportunity would be illogical," Spock finished.

"Wait," Jim frowned. Suddenly he was catching up to the two of them, or he thought he was. With scientists it could be deceptively hard to tell sometimes as they worked in ways that were not so much mysterious as downright frightening sometimes. "You got pneumonia, and the first thing you do is to take a sample of it so you can experiment on it, on yourself?"

"It was not the first thing I did," Bones managed to look almost offended at the thought. "I had already taken a couple as it started setting in. I'm hoping to improve the treatment, now we had to wait for it to set in full before it's treatable. The point is I've been toying with the basic principle but I haven't been able to do a blasted thing without a sample."

"So basically what you're telling me is that you're to an extent happy you got pneumonia so that you can experiment on yourself…." Jim shook his head. "Bones, sometimes you scare me…"

"It is only logical to make use of such an opportunity," Spock injected as he frowned over the chess board. No doubt wanting for Jim to continue.

"Well, I 'thought' it was a good idea," Bones drawled. "But if the blasted hobgoblin agrees with me I'm not so sure anymore."

"Just do me a favor, will you," Jim begged. "I can't really fault you for wanting to improve medical treatments, but please, please never go out of your way to contract something just to have a handy supply of samples, okay?" Did other captains have to wonder if their CMO's did that? Or was he the only one so lucky as to have a very dedicated medical officer.

The look on Bones' face when he considered the request was more akin to someone who had just got a really good idea they liked very much, than someone who thought what their honored Captain said made sense and they intended to obey him. With a barely suppressed shudder he turned back to the board, at least he was confident that Bones was just messing with him. He would never do that, really, he wouldn't would he? He fervently hoped that Bones would never get the idea to do that.

He just wished he could be more certain….

Turning his attention back to the chess game he tried very hard not to pay any attention to what Bones was doing.

He still blamed losing as badly as he did on the doctor, it was his fault for making it so hard to concentrate on his tactic. Sighing as he leaned back in his chair, Spock raising an eyebrow and Bones not even seeming to notice at all as he was engrossed in his simulated treatment. Well, given how one sometimes had to physically drag and threaten him away from the lab to get him to stop working he wasn't surprised.

Reaching over he tapped his shoulder to get his attention.

"Hmm?" McCoy kept his eyes on the screen, not even moving at the gentle prodding.

Not in the slightest bit surprised Jim tapped him again, "come on, bedtime."

"Hmm?" This time he looked up at the insistant tapping and Jim shook his head with something of a fond smile.

"Whatever it is you're doing, I'm sure it can wait until the morning. Come on, bed, you're always nagging me about getting enough rest, time to swallow your own bitter pill."

"Fine," sighing he frowned over the screen again before he shut it down and got up from the chair, stretching in an attempt to get the kinks out of his back. Coughing as the deep breath irritated his lungs. Jim gave him that concerned frown that meant the Captain was going into mother hen mood. He might have appreciated it more if the captain 'ever' listened to him when he told him to rest, eat properly or any such thing. The man simply ignored him as if he didn't know what he was talking about, which was incredibly frustrating when you were responsible for his health and wellbeing.

Sighing he tried to stifle another cough as he stripped and placed the clothes neatly on the side. Moving or exerting himself irritated the lungs, otherwise everything was under control and as soon as he laid down it would likely ease up again.

Provided Jim let him sleep, the man was restless at the best of times. He hardly ever remained still as he slept.

The simulations he had been running was still spinning in his head, making it hard to relax fully but he took a couple of breaths, as deep as his lungs would allow and tried to calm his brain. As per usual it was one part of his body that did not want to listen to reason so he tried to put it on a backburner instead. Allowing it to run as it wanted in the back of his mind somewhere while he focused on his breath.

Beside him Jim glanced at him, gave in to his own worry and made sure part of his own blanket reached over his friend. The room was still chilly after all and Bones might not be concerned over his own wellbeing but that did not mean he wasn't.

He was concerned because Bones hadn't really told him much of anything more than admitting eventually that he was ill. Had he already been confirmed sick when Jim was up in the mess? It seemed likely since he had said he had already been down in sickbay for it. So most likely, knowing Bones, he would have examined himself and just gone down for the drugs he needed before getting back to work.

Good for the crew to have such a determined CMO, bad for said CMO who always put the crew first and never took enough care of himself. He wondered sometimes why it seemed neither one of them ever was able to do that. Why they were just as bad as each other.

McCoy was already asleep, at least as far as he could tell but he found it harder to relax himself. He tried to lie back but he was restless and when he heard a move beside him he woke up again and turned his head. Bones had turned his head, brought his hand up again though at least he was not biting down on it. Obviously not a restful sleep though so Jim reached out to put the back of his hand on his forehead. He was hot, enough he felt sure there was a fever but not so much he thought it was dangerous. Really, his own knowledge was limited to low fever okay, high fever bad, but he really did not know where to draw the line, or how to tell with the medical tricorder.

At least his friend quietened down with the touch and seemed to relax in sleep again. Grateful for the small mercy Jim laid back down again, hoping he wouldn't disturb him too much.

TBC

Thank you all who's read and reviewed, the Cricket is grateful...