Chapter 5

Sick bay, CMO's office, during the alpha shift

Leonard McCoy, MD and CMO of the USS Enterprise, was not the only one of her high-ranking officers with a number of not-so-healthy habits. It's always good to be not alone.

The universally shared habit was, of course, the recreational social drinking. It was shared by the whole ship's crew, not only her top officers. "That Russian boy Chekov and his vodka! Sulu and his sake, on top of other stuff! Uhura and her drunken dancing! Well, that's at least more pleasing to the eye... That Irish boy Riley acting all Irish! They are all bridge crew, by the way. And don't even get me started on the lower decks… Guess who cures their idiot-ball hangovers all the time?"

There was no lack of partying aboard the Enterprise, when schedules and circumstances allowed, and even more so on shore leaves. This was more for the good than for the bad, in the doctor's humble opinion, with all of them facing the dangers of outer space daily. This was fun.

But the comfort drinking, performed alone in a state of distress and confusion and often seen as the last resort in difficult situations, was definitely not something to brag about. Especially not for the top Starfleet officers to brag about.

Yet Doctor Mc Coy knew very well that Chief Engineer Scott was also an expert in that field. In every way as reliable as the doctor himself to always have a quality stash of strong spirits at hand any time, both in his CE office and in his quarters. Doctor McCoy has learned to rely on the Chief Engineer in that matter, when his own stash ran out. And the worthy descendant of the brave-hearted Highlanders always displayed a remarkable generosity, together with a great ability to commiserate. Surely, the doctor did his best to return that generosity when he could. He and Mr. Scott had much to share, both in their tastes in liquors and in their troubled past. And they were almost the same age and so much wiser than most on this foolhardy ship of fools. And who did the entire fixing job anyway, when those fools went and damaged the ship and themselves? They, McCoy and Scotty, were the Guardians of this ship.

But high words aside, McCoy was well aware of the only real reason both of them still managed to balance in a civilized manner on the brink of alcoholism and to do their respective jobs well… Jim said that this was because they were both men of honor – very generous of him, but McCoy knew better. The only real reason was that they simply put their chosen vocations above everything else in the world.

And so did Captain Kirk - who, in his turn, never hesitated to plunder their respective spirit-stashes whenever he felt like it. They both couldn't resist him, could they? McCoy even offered Jim spirits as a remedy from time to time – not on shift time, sure. McCoy even issued a strict medical warning to the Captain about that, early in their grand voyage. A rule he didn't always exactly follow himself ("You really should practice what you preach, Doctor!" – "Oh, shut up, Spock!").

The Captain was often a reckless idiot, in the doctor's humble opinion. But he wasn't such an idiot as to jeopardize his beloved ship by indulging on the bridge, of course. What was he, a Klingon? Jim knew better that that. The Flagship of the Federation had to fly straight, no fooling around here. Jim also knew what he could perfectly legally indulge in on the bridge – coffee. And, man, did he exercise that right to the fullest! Bathroom break, refill, repeat… Doctor McCoy sometimes suspected that a lot of Jim's trademark reckless idiot behavior was simply due to being high on caffeine. As if that inborn constant sky-high level of dopamine in his brain was not enough…

And of course there was the Walking Exception, the Statue of Sobriety, Mister Never, the Chrystal Clear – the fourth member of the ship's chain of command. The second-in-command on the ship, actually, but always the last one to join the party. Not so long ago Spock tended to avoid parties completely. That arrogant alien kill-joy had only recently started to mellow under Jim's corrupting influence (and maybe after that whole story with the happy spores, and maybe after that whole story with the early 20th century too…). He mellowed enough at least to hold back from being a kill-joy at the party, even if still not joining in the cheers. With his stubborn pride, his vegetarianism, his Vulcan Zen meditation stuff and his repeated "My people do not believe in the dubious benefits of alcohol". McCoy hadn't yet visited the planet Vulcan and dreaded the hypothetic day when the voyages of the starship Enterprise would inevitably bring him near Vulcan – he was very suspicious of that planet. But even McCoy knew enough of the Vulcan culture to be sure that they in fact did produce wine, even if mostly for ceremonial uses nowadays. So what did Spock think of himself really? That stubborn pride, trying to out-Vulcan the full-blooded Vulcans... Suit him fine. Maybe one day the doctor will get a chance to break through that ice and actually enjoy the sight of a tipsy half-Vulcan at a friendly gathering…

No, you won't. No chance. It's all over now.

Damn… Trying to distract his mind with these thoughts proved to be a failure. They used to come across more humorous and light-hearted before. They were among his go-to jokes at friendly meetings. And now they leaned menacingly on the side of gallows humor and only succeeded in reminding him of his rude awakening this morning. Also reminding him of his, thankfully fleeting, wish to drink himself to death. Fleeting, huh? The doctor knew exactly what he would be doing this evening, after the mandatory health check on Spock. And he was going to lock the door on the highest privacy code.

Spock is annoying, Spock is unbearable, and Spock is stubborn… Spock is many things, but to watch him suffer like that and to not be able to do anything – except to do even more harm – hell no! Nobody deserves to suffer like that. Neither any unbearable stubborn half-Vulcans, nor any little red-haired Kirk boys, nor any of the innocent colonists on Deneva… And then Spock, of course, grew ashamed of all that undignified suffering and so he tapped deep into some Vulcan voodoo to quench the pain. The way the stubborn elf then walked around upright and deadpan - while on the medical tricorder screen his whole nervous system was falling apart… To the doctor it looked like defying the laws of nature out of sheer pride.

But all of Spock's – admittedly impressive – stoicism in the face of agony would have been in vain without a proper and immediately applied cure. He couldn't have lasted long.

And then you, idiot country doctor, step in to ease his suffering – and cripple him with your good intentions! Thank God he is just way too stubborn for you - and so he went further with his Vulcan voodoo and pulled a miracle recovery on his own… But only after stoically sacrificing himself for your science experiment and the needs of the many, damn them and him too...

Spock's sudden and reckless acts – oh, Surak forgive me, perfectly logical and well-timed acts, of course! – of jumping right in the harm's way and into the sacrificial site… How is it all in any way worse, Leonard McCoy, than your own slow and painfully persistent self-sabotage?

Pull yourself together, Leonard! Aren't you supposed to be a doctor of all trades, including psychology? You are a doctor, not an emo junkie! And Spock is FINE! He did you a favor, he used his Vulcan mojo, and now he is damn fine! So what's wrong with you?!

"Medice, cura te ipsum!" Heal yourself, Doctor McCoy… Practice what you freaking preach… Be a man and admit your own flaws… Stand up to them and become a better version of yourself… Take care of your own self-destructive tendencies before they render you unfit for duty and endanger this ship and all the young fools on it… They are your responsibility…

If only the higher-ups let me stay here after what I've done. And they won't . I won't let myself.

You are a failure, Doctor McCoy, and all your motivational slogans are NOT HELPING! Don't even try to counsel Jim on his loss when you are unable to counsel yourself.

McCoy was tired, so very tired. On so many levels… He needed space and time before he could even start to face the prospect of what to do next with his life after the end of his ruined medical career. (At least now it was only his career that was ruined, instead of two). He had to do something, because drinking himself to death for real was not really an option. He had to be alright for his daughter's sake, if nothing else. But he had to do something about it, about himself. But not now. Later…

"I'll think about it tomorrow…" The Southern States of America's Way of Illogic that no Vulcan will ever comprehend.

Well, to be completely fair, maybe McCoy felt just a little better today than yesterday. Yesterday, somewhere during his hiding in the dark, he cut off Jim's call from the bridge because he was way too depressed to argue with Jim's remorseful "Bones!.. It's not your fault!.. Bones…" It was his fault. It was. No need to offer consolation. Jim had every right to be angry with him. And so did Spock.

Sick bay, CMO's office, closer to the end of alpha shift

That would have been much easier for McCoy, if Spock had just let all that damn control go and unleashed his anger on him – hell, he had a valid reason to! A much greater reason than when he snapped and kicked Jim's ass up to high heaven after all those ridiculous manipulative insults – the mission on that planet with mind-control spore plants.

It was only much later though that the doctor learned the true reason of that altercation – from Jim himself, in a drunken confession. Spock never talked about it. Even though later that day, after returning from the flower paradise to the ship, shaking away the high of the spores, settling (with some difficulty) back into his sickbay routine and having taken care of Jim's bruises and fractions, Doctor McCoy summoned Spock and subjected the reluctant Vulcan to a face-to-face interrogation about why exactly he had lost his Vulcan mind that way. Spock just pulled one of his "I accept the responsibility" stances and blamed it all on the influence of spores. "Oh yeah, except that all of the others influenced by them became euphoric and decidedly non-violent. And Spock was half-human after all... And he even had gone euphoric alright, running away into the fields with that girl and talking happy nonsense to Jim on the communicator. So what happened in the transporter room then?"

The doctor had no choice but to write it off to the bizarre hybrid biology and put it into Spock's health file under a limited access code. And later Jim got drunk one night and told McCoy that biology had nothing to do with it… So Jim was the one who started it all intentionally, even if it was a verbal assault on his part, not physical. It was a blatantly deliberate manipulation. And so Spock's violent actions were actually reaction and self-defense, not an attack. Jim must really have gotten under his thick green Vulcan skin with those insults – with the sheer absurdity of them, probably. But later, talking to the doctor, Spock was covering Jim as usual. And he was looking concerned about only Jim, nothing else.

And here, now - here and now the doctor would have tolerated any kind of negativity, including violence. (He didn't welcome it, no way, but he definitely deserved it… He had not only crippled the man – he had crippled him for nothing! Absolutely no medical or scientific justification for that overload of blinding light, as it turned out only a minute after Spock exited the experimental chamber). But Spock took the responsibility on himself right away after he heard about the doctor's mistake, not even letting the mortified McCoy fully apologize. (The proud hard-headed fool with a martyr complex!.. Or was he… Or was it something else?). Later in the day the doctor understood that Spock wasn't even remotely angry with him, secretly or openly. And that scared the hell out of him more than any violence would.

Well, Jim's anger naturally came out on the spot right after the bad news, as it normally should. And it was deadly enough to compensate for Spock's incomprehensible lack of anger (when he had one hell of a reason to throw all that Vulcan reserve to the winds!). Even if Jim's version of anger this time came out in only a few words and a death stare, weirdly resembling Spock's. Fair enough. But Jim preferred not to dwell on it, though, storming out of the lab the next minute. Storming out was a habit McCoy understood and shared. But at that moment McCoy would really, really have preferred Jim to stay and yell at him.

But of course, Jim had to go and do his captain thing, to save the poor colonists and command those satellites in orbit, to take it all out on the creepy creatures that killed his brother and caused all this mess. At least he knew what to do with all those things. But Jim had totally no idea what to do with either Spock or McCoy at that moment, and the doctor understood it well enough.

And soon enough Jim's anger gave way to the elation at the victorious advance of their forces against the mind parasites on Deneva. And next – to remorse when he called CMO's office to share that victory - and hardly even recognized the flat lifeless voice on the other end of the intercom. McCoy sounded dead. He never had before. He had never broken like that before, whatever happened. (Well, at least never on Jim's watch. McCoy could recall at least two such times before they met…*). And he cut off the call at Jim's shocked attempt to apologize. And they didn't speak again until this morning.

Well, today's magical morning and its miracles had surely shaken McCoy, in a good sense of the word, up enough to feel a little better. But just as surely it hadn't fixed what was broken inside him. Because such things just never get fixed in a moment – the doctor knew it both from his psychology training and his life experience. The physical traumas are always much easier to heal than those of the psyche. Now the main protagonists of this drama would have a long way to go, mentally healing from this whole damn mission from hell, all three of them… While there'll be hell of other work to do. He understood it well enough.

The ships Chief Medical Officer also knew the Starfleet regulations well. And he had some damn solid life principles too, as a medical man and as a man. Yesterday in the medical lab, making his medical decision, he was in his right mind and under no influence, either of alien mind, illness or substance. So this was a court martial situation. There was no excuse for what he had done.

Sick bay, CMO's office, 15.29 ship time

The alpha shift is coming to an end, which means the doctor has to come out of his broodings and do one important thing, before the person who is the reason of those broodings arrives here for his medical checkup. And you bet he will arrive at 16.15 sharp, so the doctor better finish his task before that time. He has been stalling all day, though he knows he has to do it. Do it to at least appear as a man of honor to his comrades. He also has to compensate to God for his unforgivable breach of the Hippocrates's oath ("Do no harm!"), even before any trial starts.

Thankfully today the sickbay has been almost empty all day, the ship being safely on the course away from Deneva. The Deneva affairs are now getting right, the colonists will get Federation help soon, so the flagship of Federation Starfleet can proudly and victoriously sail away into the sunset. And Jim's nephew is recovering well too. So today there were few distractions from McCoy's broodings. But the alpha shift is ending, and now he can stall no longer.

Doctor Leonard McCoy, Chief Medical Officer of the USS Enterprise, finds the necessary official form in his computer files and begins to file his resignation from his current high position.

*This is a reference to Doctor McCoy's biggest life crises before he joined the Enterprise: the devastating divorce with his wife Jocelyn and the death of his father from a terminal illness (McCoy had to euthanize him – and soon after that the cure to that illness was found, as shown in "ST: The Final Frontier").

To be continued… it is a story about friendship,after all.