"Captain, you will join me in sickbay. It isn't up for debate. If you try to try to defy me one more time I swear on Fanna's upper bicuspid I will certify you unfit for duty!"
"'Fanna's upper bicuspid,' Doctor? You have become more creative with your seemingly endless repertoire."
They paced down the long corridors of the Enterprise. Every step farther away from the transporter felt like coming home, all over again.
Even the emotionless ribbing brought a certain measure of comfort.
"If you're craving a brand new insult, Mr. Spock, I will be more than happy to supply one, the moment I get a decent night's rest."
"Ah, of course. The inflated human need for sleep, rest, and rejuvenation. You know, Captain, if we replaced some of the crew, at least the members in key positions, with more efficient species, for example Vulcans, I estimate an increased efficiency of at least twenty-seven point four eight five percent for every solar day."
"Right. That's it. You know what, Mr. Spock? I believe you were scratched by one of those weed eaters down on the planet. Yup, I see it right there. With the chance of infection from a wound like that, I think you're going to need a full work up. What with you're being such an essential member of the senior staff and all."
"And one for the Doctor. Nothing like the threat of hyposprays, eh, Spock?"
"Quite."
"Right. Sickbay. Now. Both of you."
McCoy pointed dramatically.
Nurse Chapel caught his attention as they walked in.
"Doctor, a moment."
He waved his friends off towards the biobeds on the non-critical side of the bay. "Uniforms off, paper gowns on. I'll be over in a minute."
"He was serious?"
"Apparently."
"Damn straight I was," he grumbled, before turning back to Chapel. "Nurse?"
"Any luck, Leonard?"
He sighed and led her into his office. "No. Far from it, in fact. Did Scotty at least give you a heads up?"
"Just sent a comm that you'd be delayed."
"What about our patient?" No need to clarify which one.
"Stable and sleeping, when I checked half an hour ago. Uhura took care of the eggs, so you're free to go ahead and take care of the boys."
"Thank you, Christine."
"Always, Leonard."
McCoy puffed himself up a moment and headed back to deal with his annoyingly reactive Captain and simply annoying First Officer.
Spock's scratches weren't all that bad, so he got to sit and wait in his medical blue one piece while McCoy ran his scanners over Jim.
"At least you don't really have paper gowns anymore," Jim ventured.
"It would be a waste of the tree pulp," McCoy answered with a grumble. "And I wouldn't want to see your bare backside wiggling around here anyway. I'd be getting requests for a Section Eight from the entire crew. Actually no, all the women'd be coming down with a case of the flu, or a headache, or Andorian shingles, or some rot, and find themselves in need of coming to their good doctor for treatment. It'd be Spock's green keister that would make me order a few rubber rooms!"
"Are you implying that my bare skin would lead to insanity, Doctor?"
"I think he's saying you'd drive the girls crazy, Spock."
"The way humans compliment one another confuses me greatly, Captain."
"It's not a compliment, and you damn well know it, you green-blooded hobgoblin. Strip down to the waist," McCoy grumbled, turning back to Jim. "I'm just going to wrap up your ribs for now. Not much I can do for them, past a light bone knit, unless you want some spectacularly debilitative painkillers. Guaranteed to knock you on your ass for a couple days to get those ribs healing off right."
"No, thanks Bones. Knowing my luck, my face'd swell up. Again. Wrapping them will be fine."
McCoy retrieved the necessary bandages while Jim peeled back the one-piece to the fabric belt. The wrap wouldn't do much for healing, other than restricting Jim's movements a bit for a few days while the bones mended. Ribs, even with modern technology, were finicky. All that moving they needed to do meant he couldn't just do a full graft, otherwise that particular bone'd get completely frozen, leaving their captain with a permanent hitch in his breath. Even with the wrap, though, knowing his Captain like he did, Jim would do something to aggravate it. McCoy tucked the fabric a little tight to remind the man to take it easy for a while.
Once he was mummified, belly button to armpits, McCoy scanned again and ran the regenerators over him.
"Hm. That should just about do it. When they get loose, come in again. Any of the staff can redo it. I'm going to adjust your meal card," he commented while reading his tricorder again. "Dark, leafy greens for a while."
"Salads? Why!"
"You need additional calcium. And you could stand to lose a pound or two."
"Meat has calcium. So does ice cream!"
"Shredded cheese and tofu," McCoy countered. "And some chopped nuts for additional protein. No arguments."
"See if I invite you to dinner ever again."
McCoy smiled. "You can always dine in here with me. I'm planning on a cobb salad myself, light on the dressing."
"I'm going to throw up."
McCoy grinned while he worked over the cuts and scrapes the captain'd picked up during their day.
"Alright. You're about done. Follow your meal card. If I find you trading with Scotty again, I'm putting you both on emergency rations. Spock? It's your turn."
The Vulcan sat placidly while McCoy tended to the cuts and scrapes. The tricorder did detect trace amounts of infectious materials, which the doctor couldn't help but tut tut over with his usual smile.
"Antibiotics for you," McCoy declared, hypospray already charged and ready for the task.
"Thank you, Doctor McCoy," Spock said without even a blink at the prick. "As always, your rattles and snake oil have done their trick."
He hopped off the bed with little more ceremony, stood to the side while Jim eased down from his table, and off the two of them went. Back to their busy lives on the bridge and all that it entailed.
Parson, Chekov, Smith, and Blythe, of course, were in his bay for much longer. With Jim and Spock taken care of, McCoy went around to the surgical bay.
M'Benga bent over the young Russian with a couple of the other doctors. Two of the younger nurses hovered around Parson. From here, McCoy could see the main readouts on the screen above his biobed. All the readings looked good, considering.
"Already done with our security officer?" McCoy asked from the doorway.
"Mm. He's stable. What did you guys run into down there?"
"Centaurs, for lack of a better word. I got a few scans in. You might find them interesting."
"It'd be nice to at least see what made these cuts."
"Those? Scythe-shaped claws on giant, writhing masses of tentacles. These?" McCoy pointed to where the other doctors worked on Blythe, a victim of friendly fire. "Arrows the size of spears. Last stone age culture I want to deal with for a while. Do you need any help?"
"Oh no, I think we've got more hands than intestines right now. Go on and have a good night."
McCoy made a noncommittal noise. "I've got my reports to take care of. I'll be in my office if you need me."
Hidden in his office, McCoy set the lights to fifty percent and pulled out his dermal regenerator and a mirror. The goose egg bump, along with its accompanying headache, looked as bad as he'd guessed. A quick dose of modern medicine got the swelling down to something manageable.
He took a few blood samples, curious about the neurotoxin in those bog-creature's needles. He had a feeling it was similar to the stunning poison found in some snails back in Earth's oceans. Couldn't remember the damn name at the moment, so searching the database was a tad out of the question, since popping in keywords like snail, tentacles, unconscious, and can't remember being abducted meant he'd probably hit Starfleet's work-safe search parameters.
Still, his organs were having trouble processing it out. It didn't go to his lungs, like it did for the children back on that blasted planet, but his liver had seen better days. At the very least, going easy on the booze, drinking a lot of clear fluids, and watching his own diet might help. If, after twenty-four hours or so, his blood work wasn't rebounding, he'd buckle and filter his blood mechanically.
Should ask Christine if the bodies Spock sent up were autopsied yet. Tired as I am, I'd like to see how one of those things works. And then there's poor Ensign Kelly. His fingers hovered over the comm on his desk when Nurse Chapel came in with a tray.
"I thought you might like some coffee. And an ice pack."
"Christine, you are a gem."
He groaned at the press of the chemically generated cold. Not as good at real ice, but it did help.
"Would you like me to take care of your reports? I don't mind playing secretary on occasion."
"No, no. I'll take care of it. I took too many scans to just foist them on a nu... well."
"I understand. Let me know if you need any more coffee."
"Thank you. Oh, before you go." She paused at the door, looking back over her shoulder. "Ensign Kelly-"
"Has already been taken care of. Cause of death was the neurotoxin in that creature. It jabbed him in the carotid artery. It went straight into his brain. Death was near instantaneous."
Perhaps that's why I didn't get the full effect, he mused. Most of the dose was already gone by the time it got to me and Fanna.
"Thank you."
She nodded. "Doctor Youseff took care of all of his paperwork, while they were still looking for you. The creatures Spock transported up were put in stasis, so there's no rush."
He smiled gratefully, dismissing her.
He eyed the woman as she tottered back out. Sometimes... sometimes its nice being nursed.
And then there's the inevitable divorce that goes along with a man letting himself be nursed by a beautiful woman.
He sucked down half of the scalding coffee before he could taste it, and turned to start pulling data from his medical tricorder.
Work. Work is the best way to avoid all those complicated thoughts.
A couple hours later, he found his mind wandering and the files half completed. Well, his regular reports half completed. The Away Mission report still sat at On Stardate... with a blinking cursor after it.
The remaining coffee sat cold at the corner of his desk.
You need to walk a bit. Get some of the lactic acid out of the muscles.
He got up and stretched on the advice of his inner self.
Might as well check on the ensigns.
He passed by Cygnus' tent to do just that. Parsons slept on calmly. McCoy looked up M'Benga's records, checked the current readings, and made note of the current readings automatically.
Chekov slept as well, but fitfully. McCoy glanced up at the read out screens and frowned at the fever. Thirty-nine degrees Celsius wasn't too high, but enough to make him worried. Some bacteria to be concerned about in those claws.
As he was contemplating which course of antibiotic would work best, a quiet, deep voice pulled his attention away.
"Doctor McCoy?"
"Yes, it's me, Cygnus. Was I not being quiet enough?"
"I have been awake for a while. There has been a significant amount of activity out there. May I ask what is going on?"
McCoy blinked a bit.
"You sound a lot clearer. Uhura must have worked a lot with you and the UT while I was planetside."
"Perhaps," he said, after a long pause.
"Let me finish administering some medication for Chekov here, and I'll be right in."
"Thank you, Doctor."
McCoy made quick work about it, washed and put on the familiar surgical scrubs and respirator.
"It is good to see you, Doctor."
"Please, call me Leonard. There isn't much point in formality between us, is there?"
"No. I suppose not."
McCoy picked up the scanner that stayed in Cygnus' tent and took some readings.
"Are you feeling okay? You sound... very formal now. I'd hate to think Uhura turned you prim and proper in a few hours."
"Perhaps I was worried. I haven't seen many people here, and spoken to fewer. That made any sense. My doctor disappeared without a word, missed three egg rotations, and no one would tell me what happened."
"How long have you been awake?"
"I heard you come in with two men. One of them the ah... Mr. Spock."
McCoy felt his smile come back. "Keep calling him 'egg stealer,' please. It's nice to hear someone else trying to get a dig in."
"Why do you... 'dig in' to each other so much?"
"Habit, I suppose. We share a very good friend, the captain of this vessel, and we both have to look out after him. He serves as the cold, logical side. I am the warm, caring, devoted side. It means we're often butting heads, when he asks for advice or during a stressful situation."
"A strange friendship."
"It works," McCoy closed the tricorder and set it aside. "Back to your first question. We're trying to find your home planet. While you were unable to communicate, we had to extrapolate where you might have come from. Actually, Mr. Spock is the one to blame."
"You went to my home? How did your people get so hurt?"
"No, we didn't," McCoy responded, laying a gentle hand against a bare shoulder to ease his patient back down to the bed. "We found a planet that showed life signs along the possible trail that Mr. Spock worked out. It was not your home planet. Maybe now that you're awake, and we can talk, we could bring some starcharts in?"
Cygnus turned his gaze away for a long while.
"Why didn't you get them from the ship?"
"The computers were too damaged to retrieve anything, and the ship too hot to send engineers in to try to recover any data."
"Did... did you find any of my shipmates?"
"No. I'm sorry, my friend, but we only found you."
Those expressive eyes closed for a long moment, hiding any moisture that may, or may not, be building up in the corners.
"I thought... I hoped that someone else might have hidden away somewhere."
Silence stretched between in for a time. With anyone else, it might feel uncomfortable, but they'd spent so long without a common language it felt more natural than Cygnus' suddenly eloquent sentences.
"Seven others," Cygnus stated to McCoy's non-question. "Seven good, honorable men."
"Can I ask what you were doing?"
His patient's head tilted a little.
"You are sworn to secrecy, yes?"
"Yes, I am. I'm interested in your wellbeing, my friend. That counts for the heart, along with the body."
"The heart?"
"Human colloquialism. The metaphoric seat of all of our emotions."
His eyes tightened in the way McCoy'd begun to read as his smile. "We carry our 'heart' here," he tapped his bare nose. "Even if our doctors have determined that they are here." A tap to his skull.
The eyes softened again, as that bare, two fingered hand fell out of sight at his side.
"The ship was […]."
"The computer doesn't know that word."
This patient looked up, jaw working a bit before he tried several other words. "Experimental?"
"That one worked."
A nod. "An experimental ship. New engine. New shielding. We determined that there was no way our hulls could take the speeds that the new engine could give. Theoretically give." He sighed. "We had a failure. With the computer destroyed, we will not know what gave way first. Even if I do get back, the science academy won't listen to the word of a lowly engineer. They're bound to make another one and we're going to have the same thing happen. Or worse, they'll cut the program."
MCCoy couldn't help but smile. Of course he's an engineer. Murphy's Law. If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. To an engineer.
"We will get you back home. It might take a little bit, but with James T. Kirk at the helm, you can count on it. And we got plenty of external readings. When you're feeling a little better, I'll get Mr. Scott up to visit with his recordings. He'll be able to explain it to you. All that engineering crap is Greek to me."
Cygnus' eyes tightened again. "Thank you. I would find those more distracting than the vids and games Uhura has supplied me with.
"There is..." he continued, after a long pause. "Another thing, I would like to ask. Something more private."
"If I can answer, I will."
"Two... of my children," his teeth gnashed together. His mouth fighting the words that wanted to come out. "Their shells... cracked."
McCoy nodded. "The first patch we applied didn't adhere well, but the second treatment seems to be much more effective. They will need assistance hatching, when it's time. Their shells are very thick where we worked. But they are just as healthy as the rest."
"It eases my nose to hear that," Cygnus said, voice quiet and eyes tight in a little smile. "I was very worried. Our people... my people... we don't have any treatment for the eggs. Not like that."
"You don't? Whyever not?"
Cygnus' stumped wrist flicked this way and that.
"Religion. Tradition. I never even thought to question until I saw you cupping them in your hands with such... care. Until the egg hatches, we care for them as we can, but if something happens to the egg, they are dead.
"Perhaps it is easier. So many die in the egg. Most will never hatch. It is expected. Especially for the first nest. It is rare for any to hatch from a first nest."
"You said this was your first earlier, didn't you?"
He nodded slowly.
"We keep our eggs warm, and rotate them as you do for me. When the time comes, we moisten their surface and keep them in shade, and sing the children from their shells. But we do not interfere. Perhaps remove ones that are obviously dead, but little more. We do not attempt to even find out which are alive. We never look inside."
McCoy looked up into his hard, wide eyes.
"I am sorry, Cygnus. Without being able to ask, I did my very best to-"
That surprising strong grip took his wrist.
"There is nothing to be sorry for. Without you, without Mr. Spock, I would have no children. No chance. The reason I tell you is not to shame you, but to ask you a forbidden favor."
"A forbidden favor?" McCoy parroted dumbly, the concept of Farra's forbidden far too recent in his mind.
"You saw inside the shell. Leonard, this is forbidden. The concept so alien that... I wanted to tear out your throat when I saw you speak to my child. You saw inside a private place... and I want... I need... for you to tell me what you saw."
Tears flowed down Cygnus' sunken, raw cheeks.
McCoy wanted to pull that ruined body into a hug, comfort the emotional trauma as he soothed the physical, but... he closed a hand over the one still gripping his arm.
"For one moment, I saw a small eye peering up at me through the crack. The exact same color as your own. ...I know it's forbidden, but would you like to take a look for yourself?"
The fingers dug into the flesh of his arm rather painfully. The muscles in his jaw ground his teeth.
"I... can not."
"Well, as your doctor, it is my duty to check on both you and your children." He patted Cygnus' hand, gently prying the fingers away as he did. "I believe it is a bit early to rotate them, but it has a been a long day, and it would be nice to get to my own rest. If you don't object."
"No. I do not."
"Good. Hmm. Do you mind if I turn down the lights? I took a good hit to the head today. Quite the headache."
McCoy turned the lights to ten percent as Cygnus attempted to get out another simple no.
With a little smirk, the doctor dug around in the shelf under the incubator case, pulling out the box that he'd had Scotty put together for him.
An opaque cube, about six inches to a side, with a little hole cut out of the top. Inside, a bright light that generated no heat.
He'd had vague notion to candle the eggs on a regular basis, until they could get a language between them and he followed through with more invasive imaging procedures. Now he was glad he'd never seemed to find the time to work with it.
"What... is that?"
"A highly technical diagnostic device. You'll have to pardon that I erm... scan your children before you, but with sick humans on the other side of the curtain, this area offers more privacy."
He lifted the lid on the incubator and selected the very one he'd looked into before. If Cygnus is gonna throttle me, might as well be for someone I've already trespassed upon.
Cygnus' breath came in sharp, hard bursts as McCoy lifted the egg to the pool of light in the darkness. One moment, the shell just as opaque and impenetrable as the box he'd pulled out, the next it glowed from the light beamed into it.
He turned the egg, his medical mind turning from his childlike excitement in a moment. This would be a useful diagnostic tool after all! The way the candling box worked, just like the candler he'd used as a boy, turned the egg into the sole source of illumination in the room. Empty space within the shell glowed brightly, while the body, being solid, cast a shadow. Blood vessels tangling throughout the albumen, going from the air sack to the child, glowed red; somewhere between striking a shadow on the surface of the shell and coloring the light that passed through.
All of the cracks, with their thick sutured repairs, spiderwebbed across the surface in black lines. If any new cracks formed, they would appear to be shards of light.
"It looks like the sutures are holding well," McCoy stated, as though he were recording an audio log on his tricorder, like he often did while checking one thing or another. "No signs of infection. Blood vessel structure is still recovering from the trauma of the crack, but I believe I see new ones growing to replace damaged ones. Ah! There's a bit of movement there."
He stopped his rotation, the cracks pointed to him, rather than his patient. He could just make out the shadow of the child repositioning inside. Cygnus got the better view.
"Someone doesn't like all this moving about, and I can't blame her. But that much motion shows a strong body. Good constitution. Best to get her back into the heat, before she gets too uncomfortable."
McCoy tucked her back in her place and reached for the next one.
"Leonard."
"Hmm?"
The second one he'd sutured up looked quite a bit better.
"You said, 'she.'"
"Hmm. This one is also clear of bacteria. Blood vessels are in better shape, as the membrane sack was not damaged to the same extent. Movement a little sluggish, but within expectations."
He turned this way and that, looking for the best angle to see this one, before surreptitiously rotating said angle for his patient's benefit.
"Uhura said you were... adamant about me with your people. Not calling me he, or she."
"I didn't want to offend you. Back you go, young man. We've got to check everyone before the incubator gets cool, you know."
"But you said 'she'... for that one."
"Hmm. Did I? Well, I suppose I did have to take many scans while I was making sure the radiation and heat hadn't effected them too badly. It's a shame my head hurts too much to use those scanners, but the light. You understand. And they do have that inconvenient whining sound, don't they? Your turn, little boy. You've been acting a little sluggish yourself, haven't you?"
Cygnus fell silent as McCoy worked through the remaining eggs. He didn't exactly rush the remaining, healthy eggs, but the fact that repeatedly opening and closing the lid did cool them down a little sat on his shoulders.
But it didn't stop little comments on each of them. How this little girl always seemed to sit upside down, wasn't that interesting? Or this little boy looked a bit bigger than the rest, his albumen levels lower too, he'll be a healthy eater.
He halfway expected Cygnus to reach out for one, or all of them, to touch and coo as he would on occasion, but he stayed quiet for the rest of the time. Just watching.
McCoy set the last one back down with its siblings and closed the lid tight. He turned off the candler and hid it away again.
"Don't," came Cyngus' choked voice in the dark, as McCoy reached over him to bring the lights up again. "I'm... not ready."
"Hm. Well, my headache is worse anyway. Must be all the lack of sleep lately. I'm not sure my head could take any more light anyway."
"Thank you."
McCoy awkwardly patted the back of Cygnus' hand.
"Nothing to thank me for, my friend. I was doing one of my routine scans. It is I who should apologize for having to do such a ah..."
"Invasive?"
"Invasive thing in your presence."
"Did... did I count right? Seven girls?"
"Mmhmm. Seven. I wasn't sure at first, to be honest, but now I am. As you might have guessed, I wasn't sure of your gender until Uhura asked you. But, with..." His voice trailed off. Cygnus had his eyes covered with his hands. Well, hand and stump. Little hiccups shook his frame.
McCoy leaned over with a sigh and put his hands on Cygnus' shoulders.
"Easy... easy. It's okay. It's going to be okay. You need to take a couple deep breaths."
Hiccups turned into a funny little coughs as an obvious attempt at holding in the sobs started spasmodic muscle activity in his new throat.
"You need to give me some slow breaths. In and out. With me, hm? If you can't even out that spasm, I'm going to have to give you a muscle relaxant and you won't be able to talk for a whole day. Maybe longer."
Gentle hands rotated his patient onto his side. Cygnus groaned in pain, but breath came a little easier as he fought to control the uncontrollable.
"In. And out. Make that out breath as long as you can. In. Out."
Even mid-spasm, Cygnus' breath duration was a great deal longer than McCoy's. Not much he could do about it.
"It is pretty common, among a lot of species, not just humans, that when burns covering a large area will have far reaching effects." He kept his voice calm, even. For some, describing possible symptoms and long term effects would bring on a panic attack. McCoy had a feeling Cygnus was more the type to draw comfort from the expected. Perhaps it was all that time spent with Scotty and the other engineers.
If you touch a plasma coil, it's going to burn. It will burn for x amount of time based on y surface area. This time will be reduced by z factor, based on y surface area, mitigated by treatment a and b. If treatment a (at the sickbay) is not utilized, and treatment b (regimen of cleanliness and healing salves) ignored, then healing time x will be increased, meaning additional time stuck doing paper work, and not getting back into the thick of it, where said burn was caught in the first place.
"With as much of your skin damaged and removed, thermal regulation will be difficult, if not impossible. Hormonal shifts are possible, sometimes quick and unpredictable, which can cause panic attacks, depression. Trying to bottle it all up will make the emotional healing more difficult. Or impossible. Talking about it may help, if it doesn't, I have some drugs we can try, but I'd like to save that for later. As uncomfortable as it is to feel the swings, it's a symptom that I need to keep an eye out for. If I minimize the emotional turmoil, then I won't have an accurate idea of how your body is being effected."
"I... I understand."
While McCoy had talked, he felt the gradual slowing of Cygnus' breath through his hands. A lump curled up in his own throat.
"It hurts."
"Ah, I'm sorry. Let me roll you back."
With one hand under his shoulder, and another under his hip, McCoy settled his patient back on his back.
"I am an egg now," Cygnus all but whimpered.
"Actually, your children are a bit tougher than you are. Technically, I can touch them without gloves right now. Are you feeling better?"
"A bit. Thank you."
"Is there anything I can do? Darkness? Light? Music? Silence? Company? Solitude?"
"I crave water. Real water."
McCoy laughed. "If you are careful, very careful, you can have some. It might help your throat feel better too."
With a complicated bit of acrobatics so he wouldn't touch anything that would need resanitizing, he hit a call button to get the attention of a night-shift nurse, who retrieved a glass of distilled water.
"Cold, bland, but sterile," McCoy said when he brought the glass back.
With an arm around Cygnus' shoulders to lift him up, he offered the water, expecting that strong hand to lift the glass up to his lipless mouth to pour in.
Instead, a long tongue darted in and out of that snout, dipping into the glass like a dog with a jar of peanut butter.
"More, please."
"Nurse?"
Another glass appeared.
"Slower, this time, hm? If you aspirate, I'm going to have to perform a tracheotomy."
This glass went down at a saner pace.
"Thank you."
"No more for now, I'm sorry to say. Let's see how your system handles this. You've been on intravenous fluids and sustenance for two weeks now."
"You sound like the egg stealer."
"I- hm. You're right. Sorry."
Cygnus sighed and relaxed onto the padding of the biobed.
"Seven girls."
And right back to what caused the freak out in the first place. "Is that good, or bad?"
"I will count myself blessed if I get to raise one daughter in my lifetime."
McCoy felt an eyebrow lift up. That raises a lot of questions.
"Out of so many?" Almost half-and-half, and he might not raise any?
"For every five males that hatch out of the egg, one female does."
"Why is that?"
"I am not a doctor. I just know that is how it is."
"So... there are five adult men to every woman?"
Cygnus took a moment to think about it. "Closer to ten, I think. I have not thought about it. But I am an engineer. It is a dangerous caste, so there are not many women who work in our sector. None in my department."
"Who was your princess, then? And why did you bring your eggs with you on an experimental flight?"
"She was... she is a..." He trailed off a moment, then heaved a sigh.
"If it's too painful, you don't have to tell me. I'm damn curious, I'm man enough to admit that, but its not medically necessary that I know."
"It would be nice to talk about her." But, instead he clammed up again.
"We've covered a lot tonight, and I've had a long day. How about we pick up again tomorrow? Or the next day. We have plenty enough to talk about, now that we can talk."
"Thank you, Leonard. You are a good friend."
McCoy gave him a gentle pat on the back of his hand.
"Do you want the lights up? All the way off?"
"They are fine. Good night."
"Good night."
McCoy slipped out, kicked off all the layers of scrubs, and headed for the mess hall for a quick meal before crashing.