When the lift doors finally opened again they found McCoy waiting in front of them. He was no engineer, but the doctor did know how to track the lifts. He was glaring at them with barely contained fury.
"Can either of you tell me why this lift just took nearly 10 minutes to get here from the Bridge?"
"You exaggerate. It was only 7.25 minutes," Spock replied. The Vulcan was serene. His skin tone was utterly normal. The dark eyes beneath the sharp slash of slanted brows were clear.
McCoy was waving a scanner over both of them, frowning. Something had happened. He doubted that the two of them had chosen this odd moment, with Spock in questionable physical health, to have a clandestine intimate encounter in a stopped lift. He had a hard time envisioning the Vulcan ever doing such a thing.
"You're going to be bleeding internally again if you don't stop soon," McCoy groused. He turned his fury on Daphne, "You said you would watch him."
Spock shot Daphne a look from under one lifted eyebrow. She ignored him. She was annoyed. To a certain extent she had begun to love this "good ole country doctor." But at times he had the worst beside manner of any doctor she had ever met. His words about Spock had hit her like a hammer blow to the midsection.
"I am watching him, doctor," she said.
Her voice was very low and very soft. Spock, at least, knew that meant she was very, very angry. He remained silent and fixed his gaze on the ceiling for a moment. McCoy was too busy waving the scanner around her and frowning at it to notice her narrowed gaze.
Daphne tolerated the action. Nothing that had just occurred would show up physically. In the same low tone she said, "If you have some idea how to make him stop that doesn't involve another blow to his head, I will consider it."
That made the other eyebrow rise.
McCoy was about to continue flaying them alive with his tongue, giving full vent to his frustration, when Spock's next words jerked him to a halt.
"Since you are here, doctor, perhaps you would accompany us to the crewman's level? Lt. Caras has just informed me that Lt. Madison Ross has been found dead in her quarters."
While going to fetch him personally had been a ploy to get him off the Bridge and with her, Daphne really did have new information in the investigation; and not the kind of information that could be given over an open comm channel. After being alerted that Lt. Ross had not reported for duty or answered any attempts to contact her, Security had forced the door and discovered the young woman lying on her bed, dead of an apparent suicide. The only positive outcome of the discovery was that McCoy started complaining that he had not been notified immediately, which meant that he let Spock alone for a while. Perhaps only Daphne saw the flicker of relief on Spock's face, deep in his eyes, mingled with his frustration at the death of a crew member. That was only because she shared those emotions with him.
They worked side by side in the science lab, with the science and security teams that were trying to reconstruct the pieces of the bomb and track the ingredients. The effort distracted them from the time being taken up by the autopsy, made the waiting bearable.
At last McCoy contacted Spock from sickbay.
"You need to get down here," the doctor said, gruffly. "Bring Lt. Caras."
For the briefest moment Daphne panicked, thinking that something had happened to Jim. Her eyes flew to Spock, begging him silently for reassurance.
Spock seemed unfocused briefly, looking inward, along some secret path only he knew how to find. When he looked back at her, his face was serene and he shook his head slightly. Not Jim. She breathed again for the first time in that long frozen moment of uncertainty. Whatever McCoy wanted, it had nothing to do with Jim.
The doctor was in a state of agitation, shifting from foot to foot and pacing like a demented parrot. Spock responded as he always did – in the exact opposite manner. He was as cool and composed as a glacier lake.
McCoy appeared exhausted, frazzled, worn to the bone by his recovering patients, concern for Jim, brought to just plain helpless surrender by his recalcitrant Vulcan patient. Deep shadows marred the skin under his eyes. His face was pale as carved ivory. His vivid blue eyes were sunken and watery. His mouth was set in a stubborn line, though his hands waving and gesturing almost passionately.
"I'm not sure if this is the original Madison Ross or not," McCoy, as usual began explaining in the middle, his voice gruff, his thoughts running in a million directions at once.
"The original?" Daphne asked. Spock, more familiar with the doctor's erratic style, merely waited patiently for him to get to the point.
"This woman is certainly the one who signed aboard as Madison Ross, human, from Alpha Centauri, but she wasn't born human. She's been surgically altered."
Spock's eyebrows came together in a sharp V. "Surgically altered from what, doctor?" he asked.
"No way of knowing, except it had to be something humanoid. We've seen it before. Hell, we've done it before. That man on K7 during that mess with the tribbles was a surgically altered Klingon. We've altered Jim to appear Romulan, at least externally, when we stole the cloaking device. There isn't any documented proof I could get my hands on, but do either of you doubt we have altered spies passing as Klingon, Romulan and even Orion?"
Their silence confirmed their agreement. McCoy paused, gave a frustrated sigh and ran his fingers through his disheveled hair. Daphne felt a sudden rush of sympathy for the doctor, a strong need to make him lie down and rest. With a sudden shock she realized the feeling was "backwashing" to her across her link with Spock. She glanced at him, but his face betrayed nothing and there was nothing else she could sense along the link. His control seemed as strong as the hull of the Enterprise at the moment.
Which meant he wanted her to know what he was feeling. McCoy may be baffling, often incomprehensible and exasperating, but Spock cared about him deeply. Without asking for permission Daphne moved towards McCoy, took his hand and placed his palm against her forehead.
Brittle shards of anger and frustration exploded across her empathic senses. Beneath those lay bone-weary exhaustion and anxiety. She drew them into herself, only vaguely aware that the intensity was making her collapse, her own legs buckling. She peeled away the layers of maddening emotion until they reached a point of being bearable, acknowledged them while refusing to embrace them; and then released them into the ether with all the power of her natural empathy and Thracian training.
And then beneath those dark emotions she found McCoy – kind, compassionate, with a heart and soul full of coruscating brilliance. The truth of him was like bright sunlight breaking through a thunder cloud, too intense to view with the naked eye.
Daphne stayed there, basking in that light for a moment. Love of life radiated from him and she knew that the creases around his eyes and mouth were from laughing with joy far more often than he frowned at seemingly everything.
She separated from him almost reluctantly, leaving him with as much peace and the greatest sense of renewal and hope that she could.
His hand slipped away from her forehead and she came back into her own awareness to find Spock holding her up. He was tall and solid and secure and she leaned back against him gratefully for the briefest of moments. If the gesture gave away the intimacy of their relationship, she didn't care. The fact that they were lovers was the worst kept secret on the Enterprise, and certainly McCoy already knew.
McCoy put his hand under her elbow and steadied her back to her feet. He met her eyes briefly, looked down and then back up.
"I didn't know that's how that worked," he said, gruffly. "Thank you."
Daphne hesitated before answering. She still didn't know the doctor very well, was still trying to unravel the inner workings of the odd friendship between her brother, this man and the Vulcan to whom she had sworn her heart. But Jim and Spock clearly trusted him, and she had just experienced the kindness hidden behind the gruff exterior.
"Six years ago I discovered my father's family, and found out I had two brothers," she spoke slowly, thoughtfully, "I lost one before I ever got a chance to know him. I took this assignment so that I could get to know the other one before Fate intervened."
McCoy met her tawny gold eyes and for the first time realized how much they were like Jim's. The soot-black lashes may be longer and tipped with more gold, but the courage, brashness and spirit reflected in their depths was the same.
Though right now those same eyes were also filled with shadows and ghosts of a past she had lost and a future that would never hold George Samuel Kirk Jr, her oldest half-brother.
She went on, boldly holding his gaze and letting him see her own emotional scars, "I almost lost Jim and I barely know him. You saved his life. I can't ever repay you for that. I can only try."
Uncertain what to do in the face of such naked honesty, McCoy put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. He glanced at Spock but the Vulcan had evidently discovered something fascinating on the wall across the room and had fixed his gaze on it.
The comm unit interrupted them.
"Security to sickbay."
"What now?" McCoy muttered. He punched the button with the side of his fist, "Sickbay! WHAT?"
There was a pause and an almost audible gulp on the other end. McCoy could do that – scare the wits out of huge, tough, battle-scarred security personnel. Daphne almost smiled. If they only knew the soft soul those harsh words concealed.
"We're looking for Lt. Caras, doctor. We were told she was in sickbay. We've found some things hidden in Lt. Ross's quarters. Anthropology can't identify them and the computer is still scanning for any matches. We're hoping Lt. Caras might be able to ID then faster."
Daphne stepped up beside the comm unit. "This is Caras. I'm on my way." She closed the channel and turned to walk out the door, Spock instantly with her.
As he fell in step beside them, McCoy asked, "Mind if I tag along?"
Spock shot him a narrow look. "Would it matter if we did?"
"Nope," McCoy answered cheerfully.