Uhura waited with him, after the next set of surgeries. Because he'd had to remove so much of the throat area, and the damage to the lungs had been worrying, he'd kept Doe in a coma between each minor surgery here and there.
"How long has she been asleep?"
"Doe's had three days out. No additional surgeries yesterday, I just wanted a good bit of time for the body to heal, make sure air was getting in and out through that new throat okay."
"You made the right choice," Nurse Chapel said from her side of the sickbay. "Doe was having some trouble adjusting after the last time."
"Oh?" Uhura looked up from the PADD she was currently updating with new games.
"Yes. Didn't talk to any of us for a whole day. Just the occasional tap on the glass for the eggs. Felt like we were going back in time with the poor thing."
"My fault too," McCoy grumbled. "Should have thought before showing Doe the photo. Damn you and your blasted Vulcan inspired ideas anyway."
"Leonard?"
He wiped his eyes. "Sorry, Nyota. Just... frustrated. I didn't think. I let myself get comfortable. I didn't think, and I let myself do something truly stupid."
"Well, now we'll just have to keep you from doing anything stupid again this time."
He smiled a little at her optimism.
"Well, at least now Doe has all the mechanics of speech, save lips. Spock is still working on those cosmetic details. I've talked with the Captain, and he's given permission for me to have a communications officer in here twenty-four-seven. I want you to organize it, Uhura. You know your people better than I do. I want someone in here working on that language every moment of the day. If Doe's asleep, they can just sit there and twiddle their thumbs. I don't care. Just... make sure you pick..."
"Sensitive people?"
"No, not that. Tactful? I don't want a pity party in here. Everyone just has to treat Doe like any of the other crew members. If they want to dote and coo and pull the sympathy face, have them do it for the eggs."
"Understood, Doctor."
"So, time to wake Doe up?"
McCoy sighed and nodded. "Yes."
Aaand wait for the screaming match in five, four, three...
McCoy administered the drugs that would pull Doe from the medically induced coma with the slow push of a hypo. The eyelids flickered back and forth before settling down again. McCoy glanced up at the status panel above, watching as heart rate and respiration increased at a steady pace.
A familiar jerk of Doe's torso took over, before the lungs returned to their normal expansion. Eyes snapped open wide. Rasping air dragged through a new, still tender larynx.
"Easy, Doe, easy," McCoy soothed. The status panel beeped and flared as Doe's body pushed itself into hyperventilation.
Uhura approached on the far side, taking Doe's two fingers between her gloved hands. The chittering language that they shared, at least in part, flowing from her lips. She even mimed breathing in slowly through the nose, and out through the mouth.
Shall I suggest a brown paper bag?
"Now that your awake, I want to take some active readings. Uhura, keep up the calm breathing, would you?"
She nodded, chittered, and kept it going.
Thanks to the scanners, McCoy could watch the air traveling through the various air sacks, the main lungs taking in the most oxygenation, but circulation looked good throughout. While they'd connected the ventilator right to Doe's ribcage, the passive air circulation didn't get any movement in the lobes lower in the abdomen, but now, now the blood-oxygen ratio raised to nice healthy levels.
Well, what he assumed were healthy. Certainly better than before.
A croaking little ribbit brought his attention up.
"It's up to you if you feel like talking, Doe. I'd love to hear anything, but you're using nerve clusters that are only a couple days old."
"I hope you know I have no idea how to translate that. This language we're using is centuries old. The only recordings Starfleet has of it are based off of song-snippets picked up from that planet's parrots. The native sentients killed themselves off before we were even in space."
McCoy rolled his eyes. "Great. I'm glad you didn't tell me this until now."
She grinned and turned back to their patient.
"Doe."
McCoy blinked.
"What do you think she wants?"
"Doe. Please repeat that. Please show me a picture of what that word means. Doe."
"I'm sad to say, I think you know what Doe means."
Before he could let his mind get mired in the what-ifs McCoy picked up the PADD and took an image.
"Doe, post second surgery series."
The computer repeated it as he turned the screen around.
The backlash wasn't as bad this time. Eyes widened, narrowed, fingers exploring the new contours. Unlike the eyelids, McCoy kept the whole section wrapped up tight in more gauze, obscuring the view, and offering a little protection, incase Doe decided to claw away at the fresh again.
But, miraculously, Doe seemed intent on exploring. Fingers curving up, then down, long swallows, deep and shallow breaths while testing the dips and way as naked trachea sank within the chest wall on it way to the lungs.
"Once we have some better communication, you can show us where to build up your tissue properly."
"At least we're not looking at Doe's spine anymore," Uhura said with a bit of a pleased smile.
"Yes. It's a start. Now, see if you can get Doe to vocalize a little, hm? The vibrations might hurt a bit, and I want to see if a topical painkiller is needed."
Uhura let out another series of little twills; now that he knew what they came from, he could hear the sounds of parrots chattering back and forth in the vocalizations. Odd that he hadn't worked it out before. Doe eyed her a long moment, then McCoy.
The lipless mouth opened and closed a few times, regenerated tongue testing this and that. Doe's ribcage expanded and sagged several times, breaths coming in long and halting. McCoy kept his crossed fingers hidden behind a tricorder.
"Guh... oh."
"That's it," McCoy encouraged.
Doe's vocal cord visibly dropped, pulling out one rolling, vowel filled sound after another. Eyed closed at the occasional lift of octave.
"Ask if there's pain."
A set of twills from Uhura. The eyes closed again, before the water gathered there had time to bead up enough to fall.
"Here, let me get a hypo-"
The strong, familiar grip caught him.
Doe's throat flexed several more times, before a deep, rough baritone, gasped and uttered, "Doe."
Again, spasmodic undulations of the vocal cords took Doe's frame for a moment.
"Wu... wa... ter."
Uhura and McCoy exchanged a glance.
"Guess your attempts at language lessons went better than planned. I'm sorry, Doe, not quite yet. You'll still be getting intravenous fluids for now. In another couple days we can try water, then broth."
Doe'd head thunked hard against the biobed.
"Easy there, you're making excellent progress. I'm sure I'd be impatient too. Uhura..."
"I'll try, sir, but-"
"I know, I know, limited vocabulary."
McCoy reached for his usual cup of water and sterilized sponge. A peace offering that Doe accepted after a moment.
"I'd like to start working on vocal range, Lieutenant."
Under McCoy's anxious guidance, they urged Doe to explore the vocal limits. Trying notes higher in the range, longer in duration, getting to the point where enunciation was... not impossible anymore. Still difficult enough to cause pained clenches of the fist on the higher range, but possible.
"Do you think Doe's ready to start reverse engineering for the UT?"
"Let's take a break first, Lieutenant. We've taken some big steps today."
Uhura took the hint and asked if she could get anything for the medical staff from the mess hall while she was there.
"And don't say 'nothing,' Doctor. You've got the look of a man who's lost ten pounds the past week."
"Coffee will be enough. Thank you Uhura."
"Anytime, Leonard."
"Len... ard."
McCoy smiled down at his patient.
"That's right." He tapped himself in the chest. "I'm Leonard, your doctor."
In the simple gestural introductions as old as time, Doe tapped McCoy's chest, repeating the guttural deep interpretation of his name. Then, that raw finger turned back to the dip between ribcage and throat.
"Doe."
McCoy's smile tugged off to the side. "I'm sorry about that, my friend. I needed to call you-"
The eyes closed. His patient sighed. "And you still don't understand me, regardless. So, I'm Leonard," McCoy repeated, with a firm tap to his chest. "You are?"
"Doe."
"No, not Doe. You're real name."
"Sss," his patient groaned at the quiet hiss.
"That's going to be a bit hard to pronounce."
"Cyg... nes."
"Cygnus?" MyCoy replicated.
A long, slow blink.
"Close enough, eh? Well, it's about time to rotate again."
The quiet in the sickbay sat loud and heavy on his shoulders as he went through his usual routine.
"You've got to be about ready to hatch, I'd think," he murmured as he worked. "It'll be interesting to see if you start pipping like a chicken, or vibrating in place like those wailing bats I messed with when I was a kid. It'll be nice when your parent can tell me if I'm doing this right, at least. Especially if I need to let you all rest a couple days before hand."
"Leonard."
"Hmm?"
"Sil. Dren."
"Yes, just about finished now. One more burped and fed and the whole nest'll be tucked in bed for their nap."
A plethora of words flowed out of the PADD. McCoy looked up. Doe, erm, Cygnus hadn't done the broad word crawl like that for quite a long time. After a long search, picking up everything from Crowd to Xindi star system, a huff of annoyance followed by the clatter of the plastic being dropped to the floor.
McCoy picked it up, mindful that he'd just contaminated his left glove, and held each away from any surface that he might need to come in contact with.
"Rest until Uhura comes back. She'll start working on this thing so that we can all talk."
He didn't miss the glimmer of moisture on his patient's eyes before he turned to leave, intent on getting the PADD sanitized again before the communications officer returned.