Chapter Text
Leonard walked with a slight skip in his step as he made his way to the medical testing lab. His light gait and bright expression seemed almost inappropriate, if only because of the small test tube of blood that he was tossing from hand to hand. But there was a good reason that he, the CMO, was running a blood sample to the lab himself, rather than having a nurse do it. The reason was you.
Several weeks ago, he had had to run a whole tray of samples for testing to the lab when the medbay had been short staffed near the end of a beta shift. At the time, he had been rather irritated with the inconvenience as he tried to walk with purpose without getting lost, trying to find the medical testing lab in the labyrinth—no pun intended—of halls in the biochem department. That irritation, however, had faded somewhat when he met you. In his mind, the people who ran his various medical tests had been faceless and probably bored and inattentive lab techs. It’s not that he didn’t value the lab’s work, but you know what they say: out of sight, out of mind. The latter bit had been mostly true, there was nothing particularly riveting about routine lab work, but you were no longer faceless. And Dr. McCoy, the captain’s cantankerous friend and CMO, who always had some quip or another, found himself uncharacteristically at a loss for words when he came face to face with you.
“Ah, Dr. McCoy, welcome to salt mines.” You looked up at your CMO, your tone only slightly sarcastic. You’d only briefly met him about a year ago during intake and orientation for the five-year mission when he went over the standard procedures for the Enterprise and how he tended to run the medbay. You had paid little heed to what had been said and done in that meeting because you, like everyone on the Enterprise, were not only qualified for this, but also had been rushed, stressed, and desperately trying to make final preparations for this unprecedented mission when he decided that a staff meeting was warranted. Other than that initial meeting, you’d hadn’t interacted with him, but you did see him about the ship.
“Uh, Ensign, Y/LN, right?” Leonard was taken aback by the sight of you. Sure you’d sassed him a bit, but what took him by surprise was the way the light hit your hair, the way you walked over to him and took the tray, the way you smiled at him in spite of yet another tray of test tubes to add to your ever growing pile.
“Yes, sir. What tests would you like run on these samples?” You asked him as you began recording the test tube labels in a spreadsheet on your PADD. You noticed that he was staring at you just ever so slightly.
“What? Oh, um, you’ll just need to run the standard panel on the lot.” He said, still looking at you and furrowing his brows in concentration, or was it something else?
“Yes, sir. Will do.” You replied simply. You returned to your spreadsheet. You had only input one test tube label into the PADD before slowly looking up, suspecting that your CMO had still not left. And yep, sure enough, he was still standing in front of you, looking at you and then looking away.
“Sir? Did you need me to run more tests, or…” You looked up at him expectantly. He seemed to snap out of it.
“Uh, yeah, the uh, the tests. Make sure that you add these samples to next spot in the queue.” He said this in a rather forced manner.
“Of course, sir. It’s standard protocol.” You looked at him as if still expecting further instruction.
“Right, well, carry on then, Ensign.” He said as he quickly turned and practically fled the lab.
“Hey, Y/N, what the hell did you do to McCoy?” One of your lab mates, Kara, asked teasingly as she walked past you.
“I have no idea.” You muttered, puzzled by the entire interaction.
Meanwhile in the hall, Leonard was internally berating himself for acting like a fool and letting a pretty face get under his skin like that. Ever since his divorce, he had married himself to his job. While his best friend Jim still enjoyed casual but respectful flings with the many women he met, McCoy couldn’t do it. Sex without romance was not something that particularly appealed to him, but neither was opening up his heart to someone else again. But you, something about you was making him question both of these closely held convictions, which was of course ridiculous as he’d only just met you and had barely eked out ten coherently strung together words.
“Pull yourself together McCoy…damn fool.” He muttered softly to himself, running a hand through his hair and straightening out his shirt before making his way back to the medbay. He was not going to let a pretty face upset the routines and habits he’d fallen into in the years since his divorce, or at least, that was what he told himself.
Back in the present, Leonard rounded the corner and into your lab as if he’d done so a hundred times before. What had transpired in the intervening weeks? What had made him go from reluctantly admitting that you were beautiful, but a distraction, to wanting to pursue you? The hell if he knew. All he knew was that you weren’t going anywhere, and neither it seemed were his growing feelings for you, so he might as well just lean into it.
“Hey there, Y/LN,” he called, a slight smile gracing his face, “I’ve got a test sample for you to run.”
“Ooh, Christmas has come early I see.” You said taking the vial. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say you want the standard Vulcan panel on this sample,” you added seeing the dark green hue of the blood.
“That would be correct,” McCoy smirked at you. You smiled back, hesitantly.
“So, Dr. McCoy,” you started with some trepidation, “I’ve got to ask. Why have you been running your samples down here yourself? You know you can send a nurse if it’s urgent or comm one of us up the medbay to collect them. You know, standard procedures and all.” You weren’t intending to be rude or anything; it was just puzzling to you that the CMO was running such menial errands when there was no need for him to do so. Didn’t he have more pressing concerns to attend? Or was there a specific reason for these visits? You?
“Oh, well, I don’t mind.” He felt his face warm slightly and couldn’t help but look a little deflated at your words, “Besides it gives me a chance to stretch my legs and get out of the medbay, I suppose…” He trailed off and looked at you through his eyelashes, inching away from you ever so slightly. You just nodded in understanding, inputting some info into your PADD.
“I guess that makes sense. I didn’t mean to sound like you didn’t know protocol, I just didn’t want you wasting time with these little errands.” You were trying to backpedal from your previous questions. “Feel free to− uh, jog on down here whenever you need.”
“Of course,” he replied, looking at you expectantly. The intensity of his stare stole your breath away for a fleeting moment and much to your chagrin, your heart fluttered slightly. “Well, I’ll uh, let you get to it.” He said, giving you a small smile and turning to leave.
You watched him as he somewhat hesitantly started to walk out of the lab, a sharp contrast to that jarring first visit those few weeks ago. At first, he had resolved himself to brush the whole thing off and return to business as usual, staying married to his job. But then he started seeing you everywhere. Had you always sat at that table with your friends during evening mess? How could he have not noticed you on the treadmill in the corner of the exercise room in the evenings? How many times had he passed you in some hall without noticing? And the more times he saw you going about your business, oblivious to him, the harder it got to ignore you. To say that he had been unable to get you out if his mind was an understatement.
He had finally cracked and had begun coming to the lab to drop off samples or collect the results of tests, which were sent directly to his PADD anyway, claiming that he wanted a verbal report. It had almost become a new habit for him. And he couldn’t but feel that you weren’t completely unaware of the reason for his increasing visits. He of course did not want to impose on you or come on too strongly. He was after all your commanding officer, and the last thing he wanted to do was to make you feel uncomfortable or pressured into something because of that power difference. So, he had been playing it close to the cuff, or at least making an attempt to.
These were the thoughts that had occupied his mind as he shuffled slowly down the endless circular hall to the medbay.
Meanwhile, back in the lab, you began the intake paperwork on your PADD for the Vulcan blood sample, which most likely belonged to Commander Spock. Kara came over and began pipetting the sample into several smaller vials for the tests in the standard Vulcan panel.
“So, did he say anything to you or just stare at you this time?” Kara asked with a light chuckle.
“He just stared at me, muttered a few things.” You said as you continued the paperwork. “I don’t get it. I feel like he’s trying to ask me out, but then whenever he talks to me it just ‘uh, um, hey just stretching my legs.’”
Shaking her head, Kara replied, “Don’t be too hard on him. I heard what you said about the samples. Stop scaring men off with your talk about procedures and protocol.”
“Hey, protocol is important. Besides, I was trying find out if he is always coming down here to see me or if he’s just micromanaging.” You grumbled out.
“Well, most micromanaging superiors don’t get tongue-tied and blush.” She just rolled her eyes at you as she walked the vials over to another bench to add in the reagents, prepping them for the centrifuge. “You got the rest? I’m going to go finish the tests from yesterday.” She asked, smugly adding, “You can run the results up to medbay.”
You just shook your head with a laugh. But maybe she was onto something there. You had started noticing him noticing you. You had always noticed your CO around the ship; he was your CO, so why wouldn’t you? But before that evening when he huffed into the medical lab, he had never taken notice of you. But then again, why would he? You were a lab grunt, an ensign. While you were not insignificant—what you and your colleagues did in the lab was vital for the operations of the medbay and people knew it—you weren’t necessarily, well, significant. Or at least you hadn’t been until recently.
And as you noticed his change in behavior, you felt yourself, against your better judgment, becoming interested. You knew that workplace crushes and romances were not a good idea, especially when he was your CO. But you were only human. He was so handsome. And sure he was a bit of a curmudgeon, but you’d be lying if said that wasn’t somehow an endearing quality.
You were so occupied by your thoughts that you hadn’t realized you’d forgotten to counter balance the samples with water vials. Within moments you were abruptly thrown from your reverie as the centrifuge began jumping and hopping across the lab bench. Panicking slightly, you reached for the out-of-control machine to turn it off, but in your rush you accidentally pressed the button to open the lid rather than the power. The internal breaking system reacted immediately, flinging the vials out of the machine and directly at your face. Everything happened so fast you could not react or even register what was happening.
All you could feel was pain. Your neck, your face, your hands. A throbbing, stinging, pain. The last thing you remembered was the blurry form of Kara standing over you faintly calling your name, barely audible over the loud roaring and ringing in your ears.