Chapter 20- Quid Pro Quo
Thankfully McCoy was at least in a neutral mood when I got in, more than I could have hoped for given the day before. I found him in the office, drinking a black coffee and reading a PADD. On my desk sat a white, steaming cup and I smiled.
"You know, as your doctor I have to tell you that you will develop diabetes if you keep sucking those down every day. Do you know how many calories are in those things?" He mumbled, concentrating on his reading.
"Yeah, but I am working it off, believe me." I replied, blowing on the surface to cool it. For some reason the replicator always made it just short of boiling.
"So I heard." He lilted tossing the PADD on his desk.
"How do you know these things? Are you clairvoyant or a telepath?" I laughed.
"Nope, nothing special. Just a regular time clock puncher with a legion of moles in every department that will feed me information in exchange for mercy." He smirked. "So, I heard you got your ass handed to you by the pointy eared bastard. Bet you didn't think that would happen." He chuckled softly.
"I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but he was rougher than I thought he would be." I admitted. "I was hoping you would have some time to check it out today."
His eyes grew dark and he squinted at me the way he did when he is angry or exceedingly suspicious. "What happened?"
I put my coffee down and answered, "Nothing really, I just tend to bruise easily and I missed a few too many blocks. It is probably nothing to worry about." I waved him off.
"Why don't you let me be the judge of that?" He asked tersely. Oh dear, he seemed to be moving into stage 2 and I simply couldn't handle another day of that.
"McCoy, promise me you will keep a cool head. Remember, professional detachment?" I pleaded. "Just keep in mind that I told you about it, for once you didn't have to find out from someone else, ok?"
His eyes cleared somewhat, but the acid was still in his voice. "What difference does that make?"
I sighed and looked away. "I would just hope that you would offer me the same courtesy, and I have tried to respect your position from submitting to incredibly invasive exams to helping you and your staff in any way I can including sewing people up."
He shrugged noncommittally. "Yeah, can't complain."
"Do you feel I have been fully cooperative with you as my physician?" I asked over my coffee.
He knitted his eyebrows and shifted in his chair. He obviously could not see where this was going. "Yeah, I guess. What's your damn point?" He asked irritated.
I put my coffee down and leaned forward in my chair, looking him directly in the eyes. "Then you need to be cooperative with me. I know you can be cranky when things get stressful, but let's face it- the last day or so has been over the top, even for you. What has changed?"
He looked away quickly and shuffled through a stack of files aimlessly. "Nothing. It's nothing."
Ah denial, the most primitive of defense mechanisms. I tried the soft and soothing approach, hoping he wouldn't take it as patronizing. We had been together long enough that I hoped he would see it for what it really was: concern. "McCoy, I have seen you deal with circumstances that would give the average mortal nightmares. I know you have the wherewithal to handle extreme situations, so whatever this is must be of galactic proportions to shake you like this."
He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and rhetorically asked, "Who said I didn't have nightmares?"
"Fair enough." I conceded with my hands in the air. "Still, you are capable of continuing your job, so you at least have the ability to effectively control it. But lately you have lost that ability and you have been taking it out on others unfairly."
He shot me a look so full of anger I almost flinched. "Do you think I have been treating you unfairly?" He was absolutely seething.
I had to diffuse the situation quickly before he bypassed stage 3 and went straight to 4. "No," I laughed, "you have been very generous to me. But then again, I have learned to distinguish your outbursts between an earthquake and an actual eruption. Still, I left here yesterday exhausted from trying to keep your mood in check. The sustained management of your temper felt like trying to alter the pull of gravity."
"I do not need you to manage me." He growled through his teeth.
"Really?" I asked raising my eyebrows. "It was fortunate Jim had the good sense to leave when he did yesterday or you would have vaulted your desk and murdered him where he stood."
He shook his head and waved me off. "Jim is just…..Jim."
"Jim is your friend, and a good one at that so he will overlook your indiscretion. Not everyone on this ship is, McCoy. All it would take is shooting off your mouth to the wrong person and you could find yourself brought up on charges. Let's face it, McCoy, you haven't done a lot to ingratiate yourself to some people on this ship and they would love nothing more than to take you down. Now, are you going to let them or are you going to give me the ammunition for safe keeping?" I asked quietly.
Come on, McCoy, be reasonable. Trust me.
He fidgeted in his chair and scowled. He was obviously struggling between wanting to tell me, but he also held back as if he wanted to preserve his reputation or something.
Come on, baby. Give it up.
He sighed and looked at me. I held his gaze with a neutral, non threatening expression to let him know that whatever it was I would not judge him for it. He had to believe I would be impartial. I cheered internally when I saw the resistance crumble in his muddy green eyes. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and exhaled, "I got a transmission from my daughter, Jo. She has always been daddy's little girl, but in the message she said she hated me and she never wanted to see me again because her mamma is getting married and she loves her step dad more than me." His heartache was evident and I instantly felt for him. It was clear his daughter meant the world to him although this was the first I had heard of her.
"How old is she?" I inquired.
"She's 10 now. God, I can't believe it. My little girl is growing up so fast." He lamented shaking his head with a sad smile.
"Well, she is at the age where she will start asserting her independence. But sometimes kids say things that they don't really mean in the heat of the moment if you make them angry." I offered. I was no child psychologist, so I was treading water here.
"I know she didn't mean it. It was her goddamn mother that put her up to it." He grumbled getting into a nearby cabinet for a bottle of whiskey. I didn't say anything, but it was only 9:20am, kind of early in the day to tie one on. "The fucking harpy told me last week she was going to remarry. Good riddance I say, but she also told me that she was going to petition to have my parental rights to Jo terminated on the grounds that I am negligent since I am so far away all the damn time."
"Do you think she would succeed?" I asked apprehensively. In my time she wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in Hell as long as he kept up with his child support payments, but I wasn't up on current laws.
He threw back his shot and squinted when the burn kicked in. "Probably not on her own, but if she can get Jo to tell the court that she wants nothing to do with me, that would put the last nail in my coffin. Goddamn her, she took every last damn thing I had and now she wants to take my baby. I am halfway across the known universe and there isn't one fucking thing I can do about it." He decided against using the shot glass again and took a drink directly from the bottle. "And don't think that wasn't planned." He continued. "She waited until I was too far away to defend myself because she sure as hell knew I would fight to the death for my little girl." His voice cracked at the very end and his hands, so steady as a surgeon, began to tremble slightly.
"So what are your options?" I had to get him to see the big picture before he lapsed into absolute hopelessness. Once that happened, I would be up on suicide watch and the ship would be without a CMO; that was a place I did not want to be with him.
He scoffed. "The only thing I can do is challenge the petition once we get back to Earth, but God knows when that will be."
I glanced back at my jar of sand and remembered how he told me the missions were unpredictable and could last for quite some time. It hurt me deeply to see him suffer because although the ship saw him as a menacing figure to be feared, I knew him to be a good man at the core. What was worse, unlike Pavel who was generally a likeable guy, McCoy was not as well loved on the ship and therefore he would probably not find much support outside of Jim, myself, and maybe Scotty. I wasn't even certain Spock could fully comprehend his misery, sadly he would probably find it logical that Jo should have two present parents over one absent one. But if there was anything I learned during my rotations as a student, it was that people could live through the most horrific circumstances as long as they had just one person to hold on to and rely on.
"McCoy, I am sorry to hear about this, but I want you to know that I will always be available to you if you want to talk or just kick back and have a drink. No matter what time it is, you will always be welcome." I had to remind him that he had friends in the event this all did end in tears. "And I think I can safely speak for Jim on this as well."
He smiled faintly, but didn't look at me. "You did your job, now let me do mine." He said leaving to get a tricorder. When he returned, he stated, "Now let's see those bruises." He was where he was most comfortable: in the role as a doctor; confident, in control, and possessing full authority- all things he was currently lacking in his personal life. I removed my shirts and he carefully examined my ribs and forearms before scanning them. "Looks like some capillary damage." He reported reading the screen. "I will have to tell Spock to lighten up a little. His physiology is a little different, he probably didn't realize how hard he was really hitting you. I want you to come back after your next practice so I can better tell if you can keep that pace up or if you will need some time to recover between lessons, and I do mean immediately after- no matter what time it is."
I put my shirts back on and said, "I will. Thank you, Dr. McCoy."
He smirked at me and replied, "And I will too. Thank you, Dr. Collins."