In the early hours of the morning, Spock found himself drifting to the finer levels of consciousness. Strange, he thought, as he didn't really remember falling asleep; in fact, he had been meditating. Well that messed up his internal clock. How long had he been sleeping?
He came to another conclusion. The room was much colder than it should have been. He always kept his quarters about the temperature of his home world, but this fit the milder Earth climate. More specifically, he knew the air was cooler than the rest of the ship, telling him he must have been in Sick Bay - McCoy never seemed to keep the temp. here higher than 16.66 degrees Celsius (62 F) in this part of the ship. But, for whatever reason, he didn't feel bothered by the cold air as he should have been. Actually, it still felt a little warm to him.
Sluggishly, he sat up on the bed and blinked his vision into clarity. With a curious expression, he pulled his hands up to his lap, wondering why they didn't seem as sensitive as they should have been, and right away knew they weren't his. They were wider and peachy - he wasn't peachy. Controlling his shock was much more difficult than it should have been as he flew off the bed and recognized Dr. McCoy's quarters. What was he doing here?
He looked straight to the mirror on the wall only to find only the doctor there, not himself. From there, he forced the panic down and swallowed the lump in his throat. There had to be a reasonable scientific explanation for all this. People don't just body swap. Actually... when did anyone body swap?
If I am in the doctor's body, then what about my own? With that question, he rushed straight out of the room without even throwing a uniform shirt over the black undershirt - or shoes for that matter. He went straight down to his quarters, punched in the passcode, and went in only to be swamped by the heat he was no longer used to.
Sure enough, there his body was; sprawled out on its back and lowly snoring. He tried to raise one of his eyebrows, but after finding it harder to isolate the muscle groups to do so, both went up. Whoever was in his body clearly was in the deeper stages of sleep.
Spock-as-McCoy crossed the room and very hesitantly placed a hand on his body's shoulder to shake him awake. His body being very touch sensitive, that's all it really took and the occupant of his body woke with a start. Dark eyes blinked in groggy confusion and he started to run his hands over his face before the sensitivity seemed to startle him. And for a long moment, he stared with widened eyes at the hands that he must have known weren't his.
"What the hell?" His body murmured and looked over to Spock before seeming even more shocked. Logically, Spock could assume that the occupant of his body was McCoy. "What the hell's going on here?" Even the change in voice scared the doctor, and he momentarily ran his fingers over his ears as the full realization of their situation dawned on him.
Panic in his eyes, McCoy-as-Spock nearly screamed that same question out, but Spock thought quickly and slapped a hand over his mouth. "Your yelling will not help our predicament, doctor."
McCoy nodded and the hand was removed. He let his face fall in his hands. "What the fuck's going on here?" Humorously enough, his southern accent leaked out through the Spock voice. Well, it would have been funny if the situation were not so serious. "How'd this even happen?"
"I am at a loss as to how, but surely there must be an explanation as to what could have caused this switch." Spock replied, clasping his hands behind his back.
To that, McCoy looked up at him between his fingers with a bit of annoyance.
Spock raised his eyebrows. "Doctor?"
The expression faded and he sat back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling with the hexagonal grid that protected its occupants if anything should break off. A short laugh rose out and he grinned. "I'm still dreaming, aren't I? There's no way I could be in your body. It's too much like what I expected it to be."
To this the human-body-bound-Vulcan half sighed. He should have expected him to react in this way. "Doctor, this is no dream, I assure you."
"Then how'd this even happen?" He questioned yet again. "How? It's impossible. How could we-?"
Regrettably, he found his impatience to be something he had less control over than usual. He quickly cut into McCoy's rambling. "Before you can go off on a mantra, doctor, might I remind you that there is a certain state of dreaming called lucid dreaming. It is the point in which you have become aware that you are only dreaming, and you are able to control ever aspect of it. If this were the case, would it not be an easier solution to just will us back to normal?"
That left McCoy seemingly crushed, as if he were hoping it were just a nightmare that he'd wake up from. "I guess you're right... So I don't suppose you got any plans to get us back?"
"Quite the contrary," Spock responded. "As you remember, we were the only two to feel that single impact. Perhaps a shock might reverse our condition."
Skeptically, the CMO stood up from the bed. "Now that's gotta be the dumbest idea I've heard from you yet." The smile returned. "Let's try it."
What better way to generate a shock than to go to opposite sides of the room and charge into each other, right? That's exactly what they planned to do.
McCoy turned to face Spock, who stood just behind his bed. He pressed to the wall and asked, "Ready?"
"I am prepared." Spock replied, getting ready to charge.
"Alright. 1. 2. 3. Go!"
They both rushed at each other just as the door opened. They collided with a loud thud. Of course, Spock's body could withstand the impact better than McCoy's. So the doctor, though momentarily hurt from the impact, was taken off balance only to quickly catch himself. Spock, meanwhile, practically flew backwards and flipped right over the bed. He hit the ground with an extra thud, and his bare feet up in the air over the edge of the bed. A low groan sounded just a moment later. That's when McCoy glanced at the open door.
Kirk blinked with more shock than either of them - which was saying something. After realizing his mouth was hanging open, he shut it and looked to McCoy-as-Spock. "Mr. Spock, is there any reason as to why you're throwing Dr. McCoy across your room?"
McCoy bit the inside of his cheek. "I was... uh..." What should he say? If word got out about this, it might screw up the negotiations. He couldn't afford anyone hearing about it, even - regrettably - his good friend and Captain.
Spock managed to gather his bearings and got off the floor with another groan. Rubbing the back of his neck, he explained, "The good doctor and I were-." Dammit, McCoy realized, Spock's honest to a fault, he'll be first to spill the beans!
"The good doctor and I were trying to test a theory I had, Jim." McCoy put in quickly, and looked to Spock with a firm stare that said to let him handle it.
Kirk looked from one man to the other and back to who he thought was Spock and laughed. They both tensed a moment, and the Captain said. "Bones, did you finally manage to get him to stop calling me Captain?"
To that, Spock swallowed thickly. "I assure you, I had nothing to do with his manor of addressing you." Then he wondered if he would need to attempt to talk like Dr. McCoy in order to make himself seem more convincing. It was a logical step, though easier said than done. He only hoped McCoy would draw the same conclusion, because there was still a hinting drawl to his voice.
"Now I hope you two aren't hiding anything from me." Kirk said with a new frown.
"Ca-" Spock shut his mouth, catching himself, and corrected it. "Jim?"
Kirk smiled again and waved it off. "I'm only joking, Bones. I guess I'll see you on Alpha shift, Mr. Spock." With those words, he left the room. The door slid shut and they both sighed with heavy relief.
"That was too close," McCoy nearly moaned.
"We must hurry in finding a solution," Spock concluded.
"No kidding," the doctor sighed. "We obviously can't tell anyone about this, so that just means we're going to have to do each other's jobs. I've obviously got Alpha shift today, and so do you."
Spock seemed a bit unsure of that idea. "Really, I do not think that is the best idea. For one, I am untrained - nor licensed - as a doctor. Should we have another problem as the last time we were escorting ambassadors, we would not be in a good position. And you are not as experienced in my field of science. Given we cannot assure the likelihood of what problems might come up, we should not compromise the ship by completely filling each other's roles."
McCoy thought about that a moment and realized the truth there. Should something like what they keep running into pop up (Negative Space Wedgie), he'd be useless in helping them figure why or what it is. Likewise, Spock shouldn't even come near cutting anyone open for surgery. "Alright, look, I've got an idea. It won't get us off our shifts, but it'll give us an excuse for needing more help than usual. In my office, I got some spare strains of a virus we had recently dealt with. You should know the one."
"Alborn Fever," Spock clarified, "Doctor, was that not a serious illness? If we are not careful then we both might be confined to bed." After a moment, the Vulcan-mind tried to think of another solution, but thought of none. "It seems it would be best to go ahead with simply pretending to be the other. The scanners should be able to tell you all you need to know."
A bit grateful for the tip, McCoy nodded. "Alright. Ask Nurse Chapel what she might do in any of the problems you end up with, and if there's a surgery or anything needed, ask Dr. M'Benga to preform it instead. You're in no way fit to treat a patient."
That agreed on, another issue came up. "After Alpha shift, doctor, perhaps we should locate the Creolean woman from the night before to see if she might know what happened. I am willing to think that she could be involved in this swap."
"Right, I'll meet you in Sick Bay." McCoy said. "Now go get ready, the shift'll start soon." Just like that, he shooed Spock out and he quickly got to getting dressed.
Thanks for the follows & reviews guys. Anyways, here's another chapter. Hopefully I didn't confuse you guys with specifying who's who. If I did, then I'll try fixing it. I do intend to continue referring to McCoy as McCoy and Spock as Spock, so you guys will usually need to remember that because of the body switch they'd look like the other.
Just to clarify, a Negative Space Wedgie is any situation that presents itself and sends the crew scrambling to fix it. The Naked Time and Where No Man Has Gone Before are two examples of this. Yes, it would be down right bad if some space anomaly came crashing in to screw everything up.