Between Uhura and Spock visiting on a daily basis, McCoy nearly called down to Scotty to put a secondary control room right in his critical ward.
Everyone but Chekov returned to their duties. The young Russian woke with his usual energetic rebound, raring to get right back into the bridge, and no where near ready.
Just as Spock assumed, Cygnus saw nothing familiar in the starcharts. He did, however, spend hours every day talking with Uhura, or one of her communications officers. He described the moons, the sister planet that had been terraformed. The yellow giant with rings that they'd used for a gravity slingshot on the way out of the solar system.
Spock narrowed the search field. Omitting all systems with fewer than three visible planets, removed a handful of systems. On description of their sun, the list halved. Apparently B-class stars, with livable planets in their orbit, were few and far between in this area.
Spock, of course, had to point out that such a large, reactive star was quite logical, considering Cygnus' apparent resistance to radiation poisoning and was happy to specify that Doctor McCoy should have deduced this the first day.
McCoy, of course, told him to stick it where the sun didn't shine.
With Cygnus' ability for clear communication, he grew restless. Uhura, and her team, offered mental stimulation in shifts.
"I grow tired of games and stories," he admitted to McCoy, late one night while the doctor was rotating the eggs.
"It's understandable. Your body is recovering, your mind has been active this whole time. There's only so much bed rest and books I can take too."
Cygnus lifted his arms, staring at the termination of each. "I have a feeling I will have to get used to a life without my tools."
McCoy frowned.
"I'm sensing some negative energy here. Are we going to have to bring in Nurse Chapel to cheer you up?"
His patient's eyes tightened in a strained smile. His arms dropping to his sides. "A familiar threat, Doctor. It passes. It always does."
"If you stay on this ship much longer, I'm going to have Spock come in and start trying some meditation techniques with you. If anyone is going to have some ideas on how to deal with swinging emotions, it'll be him."
Cygnus hummed a noncommittal answer. They'd discussed meditation a time or too. His patient didn't seem too fond of the idea. Probably had more than enough time in private with just his mind to occupy him as it was.
"I wanted to talk to you about your hands, I guess now is as good a time as any. The last surgery has taken so well, I think its about time for the next one."
Bright eyes flicked up at him.
"There are no guarantees, my friend. There is a strong chance of rejection. I'm going to have to cut away some of the healed tissue, in order to be able to separate the living nerve endings from the damaged sections, before I can seal the nerves with the regrown ones.
"I know like is not fun for you right now, but you are stable. You can remain like this until we do find your planet. Until your doctors can do the necessary work."
This remaining fingers clenched. "I request more details, please, Leonard."
McCoy felt a little smile tug at his lips. Definitely an engineer.
"We've grown three hands for you, one for the right and two for the left. The replacement for the right one, the one I amputated, should be a straightforward surgery. M'Benga suggested generating replacement fingers, and an entire hand for the other. It is possible your body will reject some, or all, of the tissue. On the amputated hand, it would mean that I would have to remove the new tissue, and a portion of your wrist. The amount dependent on how badly your body rejects my work."
"And, on this one?" he asked, holding up the two remaining fingers. Bone visible through the loose weave of the sterile gauze.
"There is more surface area. Higher risk of infection. Getting all the nerve endings routed will be more complicated. Higher probability you're not going to have proper use of it. M'Benga's idea was to attempt replacement of individual fingers first, expecting rejection, eventual amputation at the wrist, like the other, and replacement of the whole unit."
Cygnus' eyes closed for a long time.
"If everything works well?"
"A long recovery period. Difficult physical therapy."
"Painful?"
"I will be aggravating what nerve centers you have left, adding new ones."
The fingertips tapped together with an audible little click.
"Even pain would be preferable. I can feel nothing, anywhere."
"It's the one blessing of a severe burn wound," McCoy said, closing the lid of the incubator and leaning over his patient. "All your pain centers are deadened right now. The moment I start tinkering, that will change."
His fingers reached up and stroked his gauze covered throat. "This did not hurt so much."
"I still haven't applied your skin grafts. Those will be last. Among the last. I've got a couple lab techs working on how to grow blood feathers. Got one doctor who's keen on modifying snake scales, since that's how feathers developed back on my planet, and another who insists on modifying hair follicles, since we have the tech to do that already."
"You will... apply skin without my feathers?"
"We started growing it before we knew you had feathers, and to be honest, I don't even know how I would have grown them in place as it is."
"I am torn, Doctor."
"How so?"
"The rest... my hands, the muscles I know you're planning to replace in my legs, my feet, those I will defer to your expertise. My feathers... it will be strange, to return home with bare skin, like you have. No one would recognize me," he let out a sad chuckle. "With my voice as it is, no one will recognize me anyway. On the other hand, perhaps it would be better for you to wait until you have a living template to work from. My princess did find me quite handsome, after all."
McCoy gave Cygnus' shoulder a gentle squeeze. The doctor didn't like the self-deprecating comments about his looks. Knew well enough that all he had to offer right now was a friendly presence. What his patient really needed was his own people. His own doctors. His own therapists.
Cygnus sighed into the silence that stretched in between them again.
"You have taken my hands, and my voice. In return, you have given me new life, and given my children a chance. I have never heard of a doctor on my world capable of doing what you have done. Please, do not delay any longer. If you can, give me my hands back, so that I may hold them. Their pipping time is soon; it would break my heart to have another take care of them during that time."
"I will schedule the first surgery first thing tomorrow then," McCoy said. "We'll try your right hand first. If it takes well, we can schedule your left hand in a week or two."
His eyes flared open. "No. Both of them, tomorrow. I can not wait a week, just to try it. If the chance of rejection is so great, take it all now."
"Cygnus-"
"No. Nine days left. I think. I have nine days. I will not let my children see these hands."
"Alright. It's your decision. Both it is."
The rest of the day they spent in their own, separate worlds. McCoy unwrapping, cleaning, and rewrapping every inch of flesh. His mind cataloging the status of each exposed nerve, every prematurely terminated muscle and tendon. Cygnus stared at the ceiling.
McCoy even sent away a few well-wishers intent on keeping Cygnus occupied.
"Too busy," McCoy grumbled. "Too much to prepare."
Nurse Chapel had to remind him of the next rotation, and not-so-gently suggested he stop and get a meal afterward.
"You have taken enough readings to last my lifetime."
"I'm not sure I could ever have enough," McCoy replied with a weak smile. "Let me get the kids put to bed, hm? Then I'll leave you to rest."
McCoy did his usual rotation, lowered the lights, and headed to his office. A hot cup of joe, a few messages to choice doctors around the ship, a quick meal in the relative privacy while he got his daily reports finished, and he counted himself ready for a little bit of shut-eye.
In the privacy of his own room, he glowered at his alcohol cabinet while he drank orange juice and flicked through the somewhat long queue of subspace messages that'd been piling up, thanks to Cygnus' curious case.
He flagged a handful to read later, mostly requests to be kept informed on his progress, but one letter from a certain extremely helpful Vulcan Ambassador drew his attention, urging him to read the hundred plus pages of documentation well past when he thought he'd be going to bed.
"McCoy to Spock," he called, with a thoughtless flick of the intercom.
"Yes, Doctor?" a mumbled voice responded half a minute later.
McCoy stared at the speaker, then at his chronometer.
"Shit, Spock, I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was half past three in the morning."
"No need to apologize. I would have awaken for Alpha shift in twenty-eight minutes regardless. I assume there is an emergency?"
"Yes and no," McCoy replied with a sigh. "I received a communique that might effect Cygnus' surgery tomorrow – today – from one of my Vulcan contacts. Would you be willing to go over the findings with me?"
If he expected, "Do you need me to read it to you?" instead he got a moment of quiet.
"Shall we meet in your office?"
"No, um... how about the mess. I need coffee urgently. It'll be quieter there at this hour anyway."
"Indeed."
"Alright. See you in a few."
McCoy scrubbed his face, trying to force his mind into something higher than first gear. Trying to ignore the intense embarrassment he already felt heating his throat at the favor he might have to ask the First Officer.
When McCoy made it down to the mess hall, arms full of various PADDs and readouts, he felt the tension release from his shoulders. Empty, other than the ever-impeccable Vulcan sitting off against the far wall, where he could watch the doors with a quick glance up from his own tablet.
He plopped down his armload before going to the replicators for his much-needed red eye.
"What is a red eye," Spock asked, eyeing the dark liquid as McCoy blew on it to get it to a drinkable temperature. "I have seen many individuals order it, but it looks, and smells, the same as your regular coffee."
McCoy resisted the urge to life an eyebrow. Odd that he's asking, rather than just looking it up on the computer. An olive branch, maybe?
"A real red eye is a cup of coffee with a shot, or two, of espresso in it. A lot of folks order it thinking it has more caffeine than a regular coffee, which is both true and false."
"Indeed?"
"Espresso has more caffeine by volume, but its served one ounce at a time. Adding a single ounce of espresso containing thirty milligrams of caffeine to a cup o' joe that already has two hundred isn't going to make that much of a difference, considering it's displacing a good fifteen or twenty mg's of caff from the regular stuff. Espresso, however, also gets bitter fast. Less than forty seconds. So, for me, it just the additional flavor to help me wake up. You should try it some time."
"I find the minimal amount of caffeine in green tea stimulating enough for my needs, thank you Doctor." With that, he picked up his own mug and took a sip.
"Hmph," McCoy grumbled and did the same. Ah, blessed caffeine. Maybe next stop off at a starbase I'll look into getting a real espresso maker. The artificial stuff doesn't get the right bite.
"Your findings, Doctor?"
"Mm. Yes, sorry. Not mine, of course, but here." McCoy started flipping screens around to start showing Spock what he'd been sent. "Ambassador Selek sent me the majority of this. He had some experience with a similar creature when he was younger, but doesn't have the records. Amazing man, that Selek. Wrote down everything he remembers from the case; it's over a hundred and twenty pages. Did a job on going through the archives for us too. Got in contact with my Denobulan colleagues at Starfleet medical to piece other bits together. Here, oh shit where did it go... ah. Another couple reports, showing similar wound care on the Tisxk water bison. Don't ask me, apparently the bio readings were similar enough someone put two-and-two together."
McCoy vibrated in his seat while Spock read through the findings.
"There is a great deal of speculation here, Doctor. And no definite answers."
"Yes, yes, I know Spock. That's part of the problem."
"Do you have the results from your previous surgical attempts?"
"Yes. Here. As you can see, I was working on a different scale and the nerves hadn't had time to go dry by then. Hell, from what these scans are showing us, Cygnus' vocal cords aren't hooked up right. I'm a damn fool, and lucky I didn't let him eat anything. I would have suffocated him."
"Your patient is stable," Spock mumbled while reading. "I would recommend postponing further reconstructive procedures until we have confirmed some of Selek's findings."
"According to... here, let me have that." McCoy flipped through several files. "Here. Yes, he's stable, but the longer we allow his nerve endings to remain 'dry,' the higher the likelihood that we will see total synaptic failure."
Spock took the PADD back and read further. "Probability for success is..."
"I know, Spock, I know. And that was when he compiled this data several days ago. It's now or never."
After several tense minutes, Spock sighed and put down the tablets. "Yes, it seems that is the correct solution. However, it does not explain why you felt the need to awaken me to determine this. Surely your surgical team and nurses should be prepping the additional measures presented by Selek, not I."
"I called everyone before I'd finished reading. Once mt teams come in for shift I'll get everyone set for... everything. The big question I have for you... well... damn. Just read all of Selek's reports, he states it far clearer than I would."
Spock lifted one of the PADDs from the pile, not looking at it.
"Summarize, Leonard. I will help if I can."
McCoy passed the first officer a tight smirk. No jokes, and even dropped the half-sarcastic honorific. I must look like shit for him to treat me like a human being.
"It was suggested... damn, a couple of the doctors suggested it, not just Selek, but I can't ask you-"
"Doctor. You are miring yourself in emotionalism."
Aaah, there's the cold-blooded Vulcan I'm used to.
"Right. Well, part of the reason I'm hesitating the way I am is because I've seen Jim ask you to do it, on several occasions, and we both know it is, or can be, pretty... intimate. You know, for a Vulcan."
"You are requesting a mind meld?"
McCoy blew out a puff of air. "Yes. Maybe. If it's necessary. We have artificial life support and it is possible we might not risk neural collapse at all."
Spock thought it over for precisely one second. "Your request is a logical one, Doctor. Regardless my discomfort, if my presence at the surgery is the variable that could mean the survival of your patient, I will be there-"
"Thank you, Spock, I-"
"Because," he continued, holding up a hand to stop the doctor's platitudes. "While it is an intimate act, and any meld with an alien creature holds its own risks, it is done for the good of more than you, or your patient."
"Of course, Mr. Spock. We must keep good relations between the Federation and a potential new ally in mind."
"Indeed," Spock replied. Either ignoring or not catching the sarcasm in McCoy's voice. "When is surgery scheduled to be performed?"
"In ah..." he checked the nearest chronometer. "About five hours."
"May I borrow these? I wish to read through them thoroughly and meditate in preparation."
"Yeah, sure. Do you want me to call Jim and let him know you're going to be in sickbay today?"
"I will inform him. Good morning, Doctor."
With a slight inclination of his head, he gathered the scattered data into a neat stack and left.
McCoy stared at his empty mug until the entrance of the first of Alpha shift ensigns urged him to at least look busy. Breakfast. Most important meal of the day. More coffee. You're going to need to supplement where lack of sleep is wearing at ya.
He grumbled at his inner voice, bastard always had to make sense, and headed for a big breakfast packed full for protein for long-term energy and tasty b-vitamins to help kicks his brain into gear. And more caffeine.