Leonard McCoy might have hated space, but he sure as hell loved his staff. His appointment as the CMO was a questionable thing, as was Jim's as the Captain. They both had been fresh out of the Academy and both hadn't had experience in operating in their positions. But Starfleet was so understaffed after Nero's attack that their assignments were the only option.
When McCoy had only started, he'd had no idea what he actually should do as the Chief Medical Officer on the big, shiny, scary Federation starship. Neither did any of his staff. Almost all Medical senior cadets were killed that fateful day on the Vulcan's orbit, so when the Enterprise had departed with McCoy as her CMO for the first time, sickbay under his command was full of mostly inexperienced people. His only consolations were M'Benga and Chapel who had known for sure what they had been doing. Together, the three of them had built the strongest, the most experienced and fearless Medical department. Together, they saved people after the fight with Marcus, they saved people after the fight with Krall, and every loss his department had hit McCoy hard. They were family, and no matter how loudly he sometimes shouted at them, he would die for them in a heartbeat. So when Lee told him about the pirates in his sickbay, he promised himself to avenge every single bruise on his people.
The first thing he saw after entering the room was all medics standing in the middle of the room. All seemed to be perfectly well, calm and composed. They were following the regs: do not panic, do not show your fear or doubt. But he could see the dread in their eyes which was replaced with pure horror when they saw their former patient holding a gun and greeting the criminals.
The pirates were here too, three Humans and two Klingons, all confidence and control.
"T'ro, Findu, I need you to go to this office with this man. He'll take some meds from there. Make sure he doesn't do anything except that," Lee ordered, and the Klingons pointed their weapons at McCoy. He shrugged and left the main room.
Truth be told, he was scared to death, but not because two assholes of the Klingon Empire were looking at him menacingly. He feared what would happen to Lee if she wouldn't be able to handle this situation. He feared for Jim, and Spock, and Uhura, and for the rest of the crew who were his friends.
He didn't reach the shelf he'd been heading for. The sounds of shots made the three of them turn back. Both Klingons forgot about him in an instant and stormed out of the office to find their fellow criminals lying on the floor. Lee took them down with clear shots in their heads.
"Well, that was easy," she said, coming out from her hiding position behind them.
"Sir, what's going on?" M'Benga stepped forward.
McCoy gave the other Doctor and the rest of his subordinates another closer look. Yes, they were alright. McCoy fought back a sigh of relief. At least his department came out of it uninjured.
"You've heard the Captain," he replied, "We've been attacked. Pirates took hostages on the bridge. Lee's going to help us with this problem."
"But she's…" the other Doctor looked at Lee disarming the pirates.
"She's with us," McCoy said firmly and glanced down at her too, "Are you done?"
"Yeah, but you need to tie them up or something," she instructed.
"Do it," he ordered the medics.
"Aye, Sir," his people muttered, and he was proud of them once again. They were probably all confused, but they trusted him to make the right decisions. If only he'd trusted his ability to make these decisions too.
McCoy sighed and turned to Lee.
"Let's fix you up."
He took the tricorder, scanned her, and inwardly winced. Her sugar level and blood pressure were far lower than normal, and arrhythmia was there too. In fact, she was on the verge of collapsing, and he had no idea how she was still walking.
"Is it that bad?" she asked apprehensively, and he nodded.
"I knew it was too soon to let you out."
She gave him an apologetic smile.
"In my defense, I'd felt perfectly fine before this scum started shooting at me."
McCoy remembered how she'd come out of this shooting on the bridge unscratched and frowned.
"Is that how you always deal with such situations?"
She shrugged.
"There's math in everything around us, shots trajectories including. If you want not to get shot, you have to do the math. I can do that math."
"So you can stand in front of people firing at you and still not get shot?" he concluded.
"Not stand. Move. But yes. You just have to be fast."
He looked at her warily. Her set of skills was too wide to be just outstanding. She had a highly trained body, a mind of a genius, a ruthless character, and it was disturbing. She was a pirate, for fuck's sake. What is more, she was a leader of pirates, and only God knew who else she was too. At this moment he understood perfectly clear how simple it had been for her to arrange everything, and how easily she could manipulate him.
He still didn't know whether she was indeed helping or just using him for getting rid of her buddies and running for the hills.
He could knock her out, call security, and let them deal with the situation. It was the easiest option, and it was the safest one, even though it could, and probably would, result in someone's getting hurt or killed.
She met his eyes, and he saw understanding. She knew what he was thinking, and she knew that now he had all the power to eliminate her from the game.
Why on earth was it him to make this decision? He couldn't distinguish the right from the wrong anymore. He couldn't separate lies from the truth, so why was it him to decide to trust her or not?
Damn it all to hell.
"Just do what feels right," Lee quietly said, looking him straight into the eyes.
And this was his Lee again, the one and the only. He just wasn't capable of hurting her.
McCoy put the tricorder away and took the medication that would give her enough strength for an hour or so.
As always, she didn't flinch when he pressed the hypo to her neck.
Won't let you fall.
If she could let him down, fine. He couldn't do this to her.
She took a shattered breath.
"I'm not lying. I swear on my life, Leo, I'm not lying to you."
He shook his head.
"We'll see."
Her comm. chimed and broke the uncomfortable silence that fell between them. After the every-five-minute check, she tucked another phaser on her belt and turned to the medics.
"Stay here," and to him, "Are you ready?"
"Hell, no," he growled but followed her to the turbo lift.
"I can't believe you forgot what I told you last night," she muttered once the door closed.
His memory obligingly presented him with Lee's words from yesterday.
This person who I am with you… This person is real. This person doesn't lie, this person won't ever harm you. Promise me you know that.
Oh hell, he did remember. And at the thought of it, all emotions of this day had finally hit him in their full force. He stopped the lift.
"You'd already known about the attack when you told me this, hadn't you?"
She looked away and nodded.
McCoy closed his eyes and exhaled sharply.
"I hoped you'd have more faith in us," she said with a plea in her voice.
It was the last straw that destroyed his self-control completely.
"Faith?" he yelled, not bothering to hide the pain in his voice anymore, "Faith?! You threatened to kill Uhura, you threatened to kill me! You almost killed your goddamn pirate fellow. I'm sorry I decided you're just a little bitch playing with other people like they're toys, not living beings with all these shitty emotional responses."
Lee shrunk under his gaze.
"I shouldn't have said that," she whispered.
"Yes, you really really shouldn't have. It would have spared me a healthy dose of an emotional breakdown after knowing that someone you hold dear betrays you so easily."
"I didn't betray you. I never would," was an almost inaudible answer.
"Bullshit. How am I supposed to know that? I don't even know your fucking name," he snarled and started the lift again, "Let's just get it over with."
He saw pain in her eyes, but she wiped it out quickly and put her indifferent mask on again. God, he hated this mask. Was it even possible to trust a person who changes their skin so easily?
The door whooshed, and they saw the bridge again.
"Is everything alright?" she asked and received a positive reply.
She marched to the console where the downloading process was still in progress. McCoy studied her carefully, and when she stumbled and almost fell, hurried to her. He was stopped, of course he was stopped.
"Stay away," a Klingon growled at him.
"I'm a doctor. I have to check on her," he snapped.
"Let him come," Lee weakly said.
The Klingon bristled but stepped aside, and McCoy was by her side in a second.
She was leaning heavily on the console, on arm at the edge of it, another holding the phaser. He stood right in front of her, lifting her head.
"Are you ready?" he mouthed, and she curtly nodded.
He took a deep breath, snatched the phaser attached to her belt, and with all the speed he could muster he turned around and fired at the pirates to his right.
'...We'll have approximately two seconds before they realize what's going on. Try to shoot down as many of them as possible, but after you count one-two, duck. There will be a cover two steps on your right...'
McCoy counted to two and rolled to the right, two blasts landing on the place where his head had been a moment ago.
'...There are fifteen of them on the bridge. We'd shoot down six, maybe seven in our initial attack, but the others would be alive and kicking. They wouldn't have cover for four more seconds, so you need to count to one and fire at the guys at your right. I'll do the same at the left. Then we'll hide again...'
Their first attack left eight lifeless bodies lying on the floor, but their success pretty much ended here. When McCoy popped out of the science officer's desk he was hiding behind and fired, his intended victim ducked. Lee also took down only two of them.
So five more left, Utrar including.
'...Now the hardest part. We'll need a distraction so that we could keep shooting. I'll be that distraction...'
True to her words, she jumped out of her cover and ran into the enemy. Blasts were flying at her, but she by some miracle dodged them all, ducking, jumping and somersaulting while moving towards them.
McCoy used her move to take down two Klingons. Just three more, and they were good.
'...I won't have time to aim once I reach them, so I'll try to disarm them. And you should keep firing...'
She did just that, and all the pirates left were weaponless now.
It still wasn't over. Hand-to-hand combat started, and he ceased fire, not risking hitting Lee instead of their opponents. She'd lost her phaser too and now was swinging her dagger like a flag. He hurried to help her, but one of the Klingons suddenly ducked and knocked the phaser out of his hands too. Two other pirates continue fighting Lee and left their fellow to take care of McCoy.
Not damn likely.
A flawless right hook was usually enough to knock out any miserable bastard who happened to be at the receiving end of the said hook, but these were Klingons, and Klingons were tough.
The one that McCoy had hit seemed just startled, but when confusion was gone, snarled and attacked. And now the Doctor was going to have the pleasure of standing against a thoroughly pissed off Klingon.
With his peripheral vision, McCoy saw that Lee produced a miracle, as one Klingon was now laying on the floor in a pool of blood. That left them with Utrar and the huge killing machine attacking McCoy now. Time to put all the stuff they'd taught him at the Academy to practice. The knowledge of Klingon physiology would help him too.
McCoy barely evaded a hit and bounced back, breathing heavily. He was too old for this shit. His opponent was a combination of fists, hits, and fury that didn't allow McCoy to make a single hit. He had to win this fast, or the infamous Klingon endurance would take over.
But he'd be damned if he left Lee to face these bastards alone. So he dodged a powerful swing and rolled to the side, where a phaser was waiting for him. The Klingon was a few feet away, so missing was impossible. His opponent fell down, and McCoy jumped at his feet, ready to run and help Lee. He was surprised to see her not in a fight, but in a position that suggested she'd just thrown something.
Then time froze. McCoy noted absent-mindedly that she didn't have her dagger, so it must be the weapon she'd thrown. She was looking somewhere behind McCoy's back and didn't see a heavy boot collide with her stomach.
She cried in pain and flew backward, landing on a desk and breaking the desk's screen in the process. She didn't move again.
He stared at her still body, and it cost him his phaser that Utrar knocked out of his hands.
"Fight like a man," the Klingon snarled, "Fight like you have honor even though you obviously don't."
McCoy avoided a flying fist and considered his chances. There were only two of them now, and he didn't like these odds at all. Utrar was a better fighter than McCoy's previous adversary and the Doctor had no idea how Lee'd managed to last for so long against this bastard. Personally, McCoy thought he was fighting a losing battle.
"Bones, duck!" he heard Jim's cry and obeyed without a second thought.
A blast rang through the bridge. Utrar went down, and McCoy turned around to see Lee, lying on her stomach in the midsts of shattered glass and Klingons' and her own blood, holding a phaser.
He covered the distance between them in two big strides and dropped on his knees in front of her.
She rolled on her back, hissing in pain.
"Barrier," she wheezed, "Password three-eight-seven."
He frantically looked around.
"What's she talking about?" he shouted to Jim.
"You can turn it off on my console. Enter the code one-five-nine and then the one she's told you."
He raced to the chair and did just that. The cage disappeared.
McCoy didn't look at the freed crew, he was by Lee's side again. Jim was kneeling beside her too.
"I faked it," she whispered to the Captain, and Jim nodded.
"I got it when you told this Orion asshole to fuck off. Nicely done."
"Thanks."
And when McCoy thought that it was finally over, she went absolutely white and shrieked, curling into a ball and clutching at her stomach.
His heart skipped a beat, but he composed himself immediately. As always in such situations, experience and training kicked in, removing raw fear for her life from the scene for a while.
"Alert medical to get the emergency team up here," McCoy barked at Uhura's direction and tried to push Lee's hands away.
"Hold her," he said to Jim, and with a force too strong for his liking he removed her hands and lifted her shirt. The view blew all his professionalism out of the window and made him sick. Right in the middle of her stomach, he saw a huge red spot that was growing bigger with every second, indicating the spread of the internal bleeding. His staff arrived with a stretcher, and they lifted her thrashing form on it.
"Tell them to prepare the OR," he shouted again, knowing that Uhura would hear and comply, and raced to the place where he could at least try to save her. From all he had seen, her chances weren't big.