"Good morning, Christine. Is he inside?" James Kirk went into de sickbay of the Enterprise and greeted the head nurse, Christine Chapel, with a nod, waving to the closed door of the CMO's office. Beta shift had finished a long while ago and his friend was not in his cabin nor in the gym. That usually meant that he was working on paperwork or had sunk his teeth into some new and exciting project and had still not left his office.
"No. I'm sorry captain but doctor McCoy left at the end of his shift. I think he is in the holodeck." The woman answered so coldly that Jim had to fight a grimace. He didn't know how Bones had convinced her to come back to the Enterprise, but it was clear as water than she wasn't going to allow Jim any familiarity. And if that was what she needed to stay, Jim had not problem with it. He wasn't going to piss Bones off bothering her.
"In the holodeck? All right. In that case I'll see him later."
Jim turned and left the room without looking back. The entry to the holodeck facilities was between sickbay and the nearer lift and when Jim passed by the door he noticed that there was someone inside. For a moment, he felt tempted to stop and take a look. He was the right to do it, after all. He was the captain. It was his duty to supervise his crew's work, Bones included. Although his friend was not going to be happy with him if he went into the room and interrupted him in a bad moment.
He could wait for an update until Bones'd appear in the mess for dinner, he decided, and continued his way to the lift. Besides that, it was Thursday, movie night in the rec room three, and Bones didn't miss that unless they were on the middle of some kind of medical emergency. Almost two hours later, however, the lights in the rec room were about to be turned off and Bones had not appeared.
Now that he thought about it, in the last three weeks it had been difficult to see his friend. They had met mostly when they were on duty, in his meetings with the departments heads or when Bones went up to the bridge to give him his daily report. They had spent some time together in the mess and of course Bones had been there for the chess night, but there had always been more people around, so Jim had not found the moment to ask him if everything was right.
Jim knew that the doctor had got problems with the holodeck project, but after that chat with Spock he had not spoken about the matter again, so Jim presumed that his friend had found a way to solve it. If not, he'd have told him, wouldn't he?
Maybe he couldn't find him more staff, but Jim was sure that they both working together could have found a solution. At least he'd have allowed Bones to rant as much as he wanted and complain to a friendly ear. Jim knew how to make his friend relax. And he had a bottle of romulan ale carefully stored in his cabin, perfect for that kind of shitty situations.
Allowing himself to be carried away for a sudden urge, he jumped to his feet and left the room. A fast check with the computer placed his friend in his cabin. A surprise visit could be a good idea, but it would be even better to wait until he had all the relevant information.
For second time that afternoon Jim went down to the medical deck. The door to the holodeck was closed, just how regulations stipulated. He didn't believe that any member of his crew would sneak inside unauthorized, but avoiding temptation was always a good idea. The lock on the door, however, didn't resist the captain override.
The control room was on the right side of the facilities. From inside, it was not possible to look at what was happening in the deck, strictly speaking, but a giant screen covered one of the walls. In the opposite side of the room there were several smaller screens, three terminals of the computer and a pair of comfy swivelling chairs.
Good, he thought dropping himself on one of the chairs, let's see what has Bones been doing. He needed some minutes to poke into the several files in the computer and find that there was a record of all the simulations that had been recreated in the deck. As soon as he found it, he could see what Bones had been doing in the last weeks. He had been busy.
The record showed dates and first initials. Those previous to the night of the talk with Spock belonged to the three crewmen that Jim knew were going to join the medical project, but just after that night there was a period of ten days where the only initials present were L.H.M., Leonard Horatio McCoy. Later, the other three crewmen reappeared and Bones' were only in the last session of every day.
That looked promising, Jim decided. He tipped the instructions to make the computer play on the screen the last session of the day. He wasn't going to feel guilty about it. He was not violating Bones' intimacy. Not with bad intentions, in any case. He only intended to help.
The first image took some seconds in appear but, when it did, Jim couldn't avoid whistling in admiration. He knew the place, had been there often. Bones and him had spent a lot of Friday nights there in their three years at the Academy. Brennon's Corner. They had found the old fashioned pub by pure chance when they were still exploring the city, their second month in San Francisco. It was too far from campus for them being able to go there every day, but it had an important advantage, they had never found another cadet there. They had gone there together the night before starting the mission and, if what Jim was seeing was what Bones was now able to do, then Spock was right and his friend's ability had improved spectacularly.
Every detail was there, the room in shadows and the smoky atmosphere, although Jim was sure that nobody had smoked inside a bar in San Francisco at least since XXII century. The bar was the same copy of an old English pub that had drew Bones there when they had seen it the first time and the stools, tables and benches made of old, dark wood, didn't differ at all from the real ones.
If he looked through the windows, Jim could see the harbour, exactly the same sight that they enjoyed from their usual table. Even the patrons were the same people who used to frequent the place. Jim leant forward to have a better sight of the faces. All of them had shared a beer with him and Bones at least once. All and everyone.
The door opened and Jim looked at it just in time to see Bones coming into the place He had changed and was wearing civvies, tight jeans and the black shirt that he wore the few nights that he didn't want to sleep alone.
Some of the presents greeted Bones, who greeted them back on his way to his usual stool in the back of the bar. When they didn't arrived together, Bones usually waited at the bar until Jim appeared. Then they moved together to their favourite table by the window while Bones ranted about Jim's lack of punctuality. There was a beer waiting for him even before he sat.
Jim's smile widened when he recognised the waitress. She had got a very sharp tongue and didn't doubt in using it when one of the patrons behaved as a smart ass. Jim had got a brief fling with her on their second year, although it was Bones whom she was interested in. It had only lasted a few weeks but they had kept being friends after that. He'd have not mind to spent a while with her. Even if it was only a virtual her.
Maybe he could convince Bones to have a drink there together in their next free day. After that, his friend had never liked to drink alone. He'd sure be happy to have some company. Jim leant back in his chair, ready to enjoy the familiar scene for a few more minutes. Then the door opened again and Jim jumped to his feet.
"Fuck!" Jim swore, his eyes fixed in the door.
Who had just gone into the place was a perfect copy of James Tiberius Kirk,
"Fuck!" he mumbled again watching his double walk to Bones and pat him in the shoulder with a smile. What the hell was happening there? Bones had created a perfect copy of Brennon's and, instead of inviting him, had created a copy of Jim too? He had to be kidding.
Astonished, he watched Bones and the fake Jim sit with their beers at their usual table. The simulation lasted almost two hours and Jim made it advance fast. It was weird to be able to look at himself like that, hanging out with Bones, chatting and laughing until they both left the place together. McCoy with a relaxed smile in his face that Jim had not seen in a long time.
It was interesting that, from all the things that Bones could have done with the deck, he had chosen that one. After a quick review to some of the records with McCoy initials, it soon became obvious that his friend had known right from the beginning what he wanted to do. He had started working only in the place, without people, and although the first attempts had been terrible, he had improved real fast. Then he had started adding people, one by one or in small groups. Obviously, that had been a lot harder. Jim laughed out loud watching some of the distorted images of all that well known faces. His double didn't seem to appear until Bones had perfected all the rest and he had nailed it at the first try.
Apparently, the last four nights Bones had finished his day having a drink with Jim at Brennon's. And where had he been while his best friend hung out with a bad copy of himself? The night before in the gym with Sulu. They had worked out for a while and then went for a drink to one of the rec rooms. The previous night engineering had celebrated a big secret party to celebrate that not one, nor two, but three people in the department celebrated their birthday the same week. When Scotty had invited him it had not been possible to say not.
One night before that he should have dinned with Bones in his cabin, but he had received an unexpected call from admiral Komack that had made him stay in his office until it had been too late for dinner. Wednesday night Bones had been there for his chess game with Spock, but he had left early claiming that he was tired. Not so tired to not stop and have a last drink with his fake best friend, Jim thought bitterly checking the time of the record from Wednesday.
Before that, there had been all those nights when they had shared table and after dinner conversation with the delegation from Delos IV and before that... He had to admit that he hadn't spent too much time with Bones lately. It was not that he didn't want to. Of course he did. Bones was his best friend, he was always ready to hang out with him. Even the nights they spent laying on the couch, watching a recorded game drinking replicated beer were fun with him.
The real problem was that being captain was a full time job. In the Academy he had learnt about exploration and diplomacy, about skirmish with klingons and romulans, he had learn how to do a lot of things that were all very good and were real useful, but nobody had told him about the endless paperwork. Even with a first officer as Spock, who was prone to take care voluntarily of more than he was responsible. It was impossible to keep up to day working only the eight hours that his shift officially lasted. Most days he worked between nine and eleven hours. It was a good thing that he didn't need to sleep too much.
Then, there was all the people who requested his time when he wasn't on duty. Since the Enterprise had left Earth, her crew had created an outstanding number of clubs and associations. There were sports teams, reading clubs, groups to learn to cook, botany, photography... even a choir and a theatre group. Bones said they were good to keep the crew sane and focused and Jim agreed, but in one moment or another all those groups required part of the free time of the captain. And he couldn't say no. He couldn't accept to go to one of the monthly dinners of the photography club and then say no to join the jury in the cooking contest of the cartography department.
The same Bones, as CMO, had loads of similar commitments to attend, so Jim had always thought that he understood the situation. But maybe one thing was tounderstand it and a very different one to accept it easily.
Jim felt a little guilty watching Bones laugh with the fake Jim. He didn't like how things were, either, but he knew that Bones was his best friend and he knew that his best friend would be there for him whenever he'd need it. He was sure that wasn't going to change only because they couldn't spend so much time together as when they were still cadets. But if Bones had needed to create a fake Jim in order to spend more time with him, then it was obvious that something had to change.