Title: Asclepius Revisited
Author: Still Waters
Fandom: Star Trek TOS
Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.
Summary: 76 McCoy episodes. 76 McCoy-centric reflections, codas, and missing scenes.
Notes: "Mudd's Women" – oh, this episode. I've always found this one a bit painful to watch – even though it's amusing, the fact that it was an 'early produced, later shown' episode is glaringly obvious and so many of the character actions and interactions just seem….off. I really wasn't sure where I was going to go with this one at first – I've always loved McCoy's sort of plaintive "it's not supposed to do that" when Ruth, one of Mudd's women, walks past his medical scanner, but it wasn't until the very last scene that I finally found something to really use. During the final scene on the Bridge, McCoy responds to Spock's statement that he was glad the whole thing was over by saying that the recent events struck right at the heart – he then proceeds to mark his own heart before pointedly moving his hand to where Spock's would be, teasing him about his different anatomy…and he does it wrong. If you watch the scene, McCoy points to the right side of his chest when talking about the human heart, and then points to the left side under the armpit when talking about Spock's. I couldn't believe it – to the viewer, it would be our left and right respectively, but on McCoy's own body, it was reversed. I couldn't believe that McCoy, physician that he is, would make that mistake. I then thought to Kirk's casual remark to Spock in the episode "The Enemy Within" where he tells Spock that "our good doctor's been putting you on again", which made me wonder if McCoy has sort of messed with Spock, in good, clean fun of course, before. I next recalled the second season episode "A Private Little War", where Spock is shot by a flintlock weapon, and McCoy states, as he's treating Spock in the transporter room, "lucky his heart's where his liver should be, or he'd be dead now," which would place Spock's heart in the upper right part of his abdomen. So, taking all this into account, along with the sort of bizarre amount of smiling Spock did in this episode, I decided that McCoy deliberately misrepresented the heart positions to mess with Spock – and this short piece became a journey into McCoy's playful side. "Mid-axillary" refers to an imaginary line straight down the side of the body from the middle of the armpit. "Tachycardia" refers to a fast heart rate, generally over one hundred beats per minute in humans. "Right upper quadrant" refers to the upper right part of the abdomen. The beginning dialogue between Spock and McCoy is taken directly from the episode. As usual, please excuse any blatant errors. Thank you so much for reading and for your support as I explore this world!
5.
"I'm happy the affair is over. A most annoying emotional episode."
McCoy paused briefly, a wonderfully devious, if quite possibly unprofessional idea popping into his head at Spock's statement.
He couldn't help himself. After a day of drowning in a drugged fog, able to only occasionally struggle to the surface and actually do his damn job…
He needed this.
"Smack right in the ole heart," McCoy grinned in reply, fisting his left hand and bringing it across his body to pound the right side of his chest. "Oh, I'm sorry," he apologized, shifting a touch of seriousness into his expression, "in your case it would be about….here." McCoy shifted his fist back to his left side, marking a spot right along the mid-axillary line.
Spock appeared exceedingly pleased with himself as he delivered his usual rebuttal. "The fact that my internal arrangement differs from yours, Doctor, pleases me no end."
Spock returned to his station as McCoy shared his standard raised eyebrow and eye roll with Kirk – the normal response to their little interspecies teasing game. Kirk went back to overseeing the helm, while McCoy's eyes went back to Spock. Outwardly, he appeared to be simply observing the Vulcan, but inwardly….
…..Inwardly, he was rapidly approaching the point where he would no longer be able to maintain that casual façade. McCoy gave Spock one last thoughtful look before heading for the turbolift, the ship humming contentedly under his feet, Kirk's steady orders in the air and fresh lithium crystals under Scotty's watchful eye. As the doors closed, McCoy broke into a wide grin, eyes sparkling as he bounced high on his toes with the joy inherent in knowing that he just beaten Spock at their little game.
"Hah!" McCoy shouted to the empty lift, reveling in the feel of a real smile. "Non-emotional my Southern ass!" he muttered with a languid eye roll.
While McCoy may have been visibly affected by Mudd's women upon their arrival in the transporter room, he hadn't been so far gone that he hadn't noticed that Spock had been staring at the women as well. The Vulcan may have given Scotty and McCoy's response a bemused look, tinged with scientific curiosity and punctuated by a trademark raised eyebrow, but just as quickly, he went right back to silently staring – not observing, but staring. Spock's heart rate was normally way beyond the human sympathetic response to sexual attraction, but McCoy had still been able to pick up a distinct elevation in that ridiculous baseline tachycardia, even beyond the galloping rhythms of both his own and Scotty's heart. And when Jim had repeatedly called for Scotty to confirm whether the crew had been successfully transported aboard, Spock could have very easily leaned over a distracted Scotty and responded the first time Jim had asked. He usually would have – had he not been distracted himself. Instead, he had continued to watch the women until, several demands for information from the Captain later, Spock had finally looked pointedly at Scotty to respond. For all Spock's Vulcan logic and 'there is no emotion', he was also half-human…..and McCoy had suspected that half had been quite affected by the women today and that Spock had been distinctly distracted…..until he forcibly turned that part of himself off and pushed the focused Vulcan forward again.
But not all the way.
Spock was still slightly distracted.
And McCoy had proof.
Because he had incorrectly demonstrated the cardiac positions – two different ways. When responding to Spock on the Bridge moments earlier, McCoy had illustrated the human heart as being on the right side of the body, and Spock's as being on the left. Not only that, but he had also put Spock's heart at the mid-axillary line, while it was truly in the right upper quadrant of the abdomen.
And Spock hadn't noticed.
Sure, to the outside observer, it looked as if McCoy were putting the human heart on the left and the Vulcan on the right, but from McCoy's perspective, on his own body, he had both reversed them and shifted Spock's significantly from abdomen to chest.
And Spock hadn't said a word.
No comment on McCoy's error. No thinly veiled poke at the physician's medical knowledge and skill. Not even a raised eyebrow at the blatant misrepresentation in lieu of verbal correction.
Nothing.
He hadn't noticed.
And the only way Spock wouldn't have noticed would be because he was distracted.
As he had been earlier in the transporter room.
"Ah, Spock – guess you're only half-human after all," McCoy chuckled to himself.
Yes, his gleeful little victory might be a bit unprofessional but Lord, he had needed that.
The turbolift came to a stop, the doors swishing open to the familiar corridor. McCoy forced himself to reestablish a touch of composure as he headed toward sickbay, toning the wild grin down to a small smile under shining eyes. The bounce never left his step – in fact it increased as he entered sickbay.
With the warmth of his deviousness still lighting his face, the professional edged back into his eyes – but far from dimming them, it only caused them to shine brighter.
A sample of that Venus drug was waiting to be analyzed and McCoy was excited to begin the study….because he still didn't know why his scanner had reacted to Ruth like that.
It wasn't supposed to do that.
And he had a feeling that, even more thrilling than the rare event of besting Spock at his own game, would be breaking down this drug.
The panel wasn't supposed to do that, but it did.
And he couldn't wait to figure out why.