Work Text:
Southern Comfort
Life in space was not easy. And being part of the medical team aboard a starship, death was no unusual occurrence, not by a long shot. During her eighteen months aboard the Enterprise, Christine had seen death before.
Far too often, in fact, but then every death before time was one too many.
Sometimes it was violent, bloody and gory. Sometimes it came slowly, silently yet no less final or terrifying. Sometimes it hit one of their own, and sometimes it hit strangers. They always fought, for every life that was placed in their hands, but no matter how hard they struggled, no matter how good they were, sometimes it simply wasn't enough.
Every death was bad, but those that were the result of a battle lost were the really bad ones.
The truly horrible ones were those that struck close to home.
This time, it had been a losing battle right from the start. The Enterprise had arrived too late. Even at maximum warp speed, by the time they had reached the small freighter whose emergency signal they had responded to, the Klingons had already been gone. All they had left behind had been a thoroughly devastated and plundered ship, and nineteen dead crewmembers. The ship had been a small transport vessel, running shipments between the different planets of the Varydian solar system. An engine malfunction at warp 2 had driven them out of the borders of the Neutral Zone, and that had been their death verdict.
Nearly all of the crew members had been related to each other. It had been a family-run transport, the likes of which there were many throughout the galaxy and beyond.
The only survivor had been a small boy, maybe eight or nine years old by human standards. Christine had no idea if Varydians aged similar as humans, but the boy had seemed so small, so fragile. And so lifeless.
Every medic learned early on in their career that some battles were lost before they even begun. Each new patient could become a Kobayashi Maru, a no-win scenario for which there was no preparation.
Sometimes, miracles happened. That was the only reason why they tried each and every time, even in cases that were seemingly hopeless to begin with.
The Varydian boy had been a battle that had been lost long before the Enterprise had even dropped out of warp. There had been too many too severe injuries. All they could do was fight against the odds despite better judgment, ease his suffering, and make sure that he didn't just fade away amidst the mass of bodies on the ship that had been his home.
They lost the battle spectacularly. It was after a long and hard fight, but it was a failure all the same.
What Starfleet knew about the Varydians made up for one short entry of two paragraphs in the database. Their knowledge about Varydian physiology and medical treatment was nonexistent.
It scared Christine, going into emergency surgery not knowing the first thing about the patient they were working on. If McCoy felt just a twinge of that same fear, he didn't let it on. He analyzed full body scans with his hands already buried inside the young boy's body, trying to stem the blow of red-violet blood. Christine didn't know what well of knowledge he drew from, but there was never any trace of doubt or hesitation in McCoy's voice when he ordered for one medication to be administered and refused another, or when he cut through flesh and muscle to reveal and treat unknown organs with even more mysterious functions. As soon as one new piece of knowledge about Varydian physiology was revealed, McCoy was already drawing conclusions from it and adapted treatment accordingly.
It would have been fascinating to watch the doctor accept this huge challenge thrown before him immediately. It would have been, had it not been a child's life on the line.
And for a little while, it seemed as if the boy might make it, despite the loss of blood, the injuries, and the trauma. But beating the odds was a rare occurrence, and the boy was fading fast.
McCoy held on with everything he had, with every bit of knowledge he had gathered from years of being a doctor, from Starfleet medical training, from the experience of treating unknown species for unknown illnesses and injuries. For all Christine knew the Doctor was working on blind instinct for most of the time. McCoy gave it all he got, and he didn't give up even after the boy's heart stopped beating for the first time.
McCoy continued to give it all he had even after any other medic, Christine included, would have already called it.
And when he finally admitted defeat and made the call, his voice was just as steady and calm as it had been throughout the entire surgery.
It was what happened after that worried Christine. What scared her, even.
Post-surgery cleanup held nothing of the urgent haste that had been present during the procedure. It never did. Once that was done, McCoy retreated back into his office, and Christine knew better than to disturb him. There was another full shift ahead of them both, and he still needed to write his report about the surgery and inform the bridge. She didn't want to interrupt while he was reliving what Christine simply knew he considered a painful failure.
So she left him alone with that task, one that she admittedly didn't envy him for. Instead, Christine busied herself with the normal everyday business of Sickbay and did her best to keep things running smoothly without the need to interrupt McCoy. It worked fine for a little while. But Christine was only a nurse, and while she was competent enough to treat most injuries and sicknesses on her own, she had no authority to sign off on reports or medical orders. She knew McCoy would support her assessment and agree with her decision to take two members of the science department off duty for a day due to a severe allergic reaction to a fungi they had been experimenting with. McCoy would agree with that assessment, but as CMO he was the one who had to sign off on the order.
Christine hesitated only for a moment. It was part of the job, and that didn't always leave time to consider room for personal feelings. So she picked up the PADD with the reports and resolutely knocked on McCoy's office door. It took a few seconds for McCoy to tell her to enter. There was nothing in his voice indicating that anything was wrong, but when Christine stepped into the small office she immediately knew that things were far from all right.
McCoy was sitting bed his desk, but there was nothing of the usual clutter of PADDs, medical journals and other assorted junk cluttering the surface like it normally did when he was working on something. There was a single PADD lying in front of him, and the second drawer of his desk stood open.
That stopped Christine short for a second.
She knew McCoy well by now, and every nurse knew their superior medical officer well enough to judge the signs of their mental wellbeing. There wasn't much of personal nature that the Doctor kept in his office. McCoy's top drawer contained PADDs, empty data chips and old-fashioned pens, as well as anything else he might need to write his reports and do all the other paperwork his job required. The bottom drawer was reserved for a single bottle of bourbon and a couple of glasses. That bottle never came out when McCoy was on duty, though. At least never that Christine had seen.
The second drawer was the place where McCoy kept the pictures of his daughter. One of her drawings, printed out on old-fashioned paper, hung framed behind his desk. But the drawer contained a PADD with pictures of her, and what Christine guessed were letters and more drawings she had sent him. When Christine approached the desk she caught the glimpse of light brown hair and a dimpled smile before McCoy pulled the PADD away and locked it in the drawer again. But the glimpse had been enough, and Christine wanted to slap herself for how she hadn't seen it before.
McCoy's daughter was nine or ten years old now. About the same age as the Varydian boy they had lost just hours ago. Varyidians were humanoid. Not similar enough to be mistaken for a human even in bad lighting, but humanoid all the same. Especially when all you saw was the broken, fragile body of a child in front of you that not even years of training could help you to repair.
Christine was nobody's mother, she had no children in her close family, she wasn't a godmother and didn't even know many people with children that age. She never considered her maternal streak to be even in the vicinity of well developed, but even she had been shaken to the core by the sight of the small, lifeless body in front of her. She couldn't even imagine how much worse it had to be when part of your heart was taken up by the love for and worry about somebody equally defenseless and equally delicate, especially when the one you cared about was thousands of light-years out of your reach.
Death was always hard, especially the deaths of children. But it was so much worse when it struck this close to home.
"What is it, Nurse Chapel?"
Christine caught herself and took a step forward, placing the PADD in front of the Doctor.
"I need you to sign off on this."
McCoy read through her reports, then nodded as he signed them off.
"Have both of them report here before they return to duty, I want to make sure there's no after effects."
Normally those words would have been followed by a rant about the science officers, and how they were always experimenting first and worrying about the possible outcomes later, as if they were deliberately trying to make his life more difficult. But today the Doctor merely signed the PADD and returned it to the nurse.
"Was there anything else?"
Christine shook her head. "No, that was all."
"Good. Call me if there's an emergency."
"Of course, Doctor."
McCoy nodded and pretended to search for something in the top drawer of his desk. Christine knew that the drawer contained nothing he might need right now, but she recognized the dismissal for what it was. With one last look at the tense set of McCoy's shoulders and the grim lines of his face that still didn't manage to completely hide the anguish in his eyes, Christine turned around and left the office.
She had seen McCoy after the loss of a patient before. Too often. The Doctor never took it easy when he didn't manage to save someone, but in all their time of working together she had never seen him take it this hard. Normally, McCoy buried himself in his work and tried to distract himself from the death by worrying about those he could still safe. Today he hadn't even briefed the Captain yet, otherwise Kirk would be here already.
Christine had never before witnessed the Doctor shut himself off like that, and it worried her more than she cared to admit.
It was one of those platitudes psychologists liked to throw at you, but Christine firmly believed that talking about such an event made it easier to bear, and was in fact the first step to coping with it. And she wasn't deluded enough to believe that McCoy was going to open up to her about something this personal and private. But she couldn't stand the thought of him sitting in that office, contemplating the boy he could not save, and how much he reminded him of the little girl he hadn't seen in far too long.
Christine put the PADD down on her desk and went over to the communications console. It wasn't even a conscious decision, just something she knew needed to be done.
"Chapel to the Bridge."
The answer came nearly immediately.
"Kirk here."
"Captain, if you have a moment, your presence would be required in Medical."
There was a brief hesitation, Kirk's questions obvious but unspoken for the moment.
"I'll be down in a minute. Kirk out."
The Enterprise was a big ship, and so it took the Captain maybe three minutes to reach Sickbay, and even then Kirk seemed hurried. He entered before the automated doors had even fully opened and looked through the room as if searching for something until his eyes finally settled on Christine and he stepped closer to her.
"Are they still in surgery?"
Christine found that words were beyond her, and she merely managed to shake her head. Kirk looked around the room once more, but just like during his first swipe, all the beds were unoccupied. It took a second longer until his blue eyes widened and turned back to Christine.
"What about…"
Christine shook her head again. "He didn't make it. His injuries were too severe."
"Damn." Kirk ran a hand over his face, covering up a deep sigh. "Where's Bones?"
"In his office." Christine unnecessarily nodded her head into the direction of the door. It wasn't as if Kirk didn't know where McCoy's office was.
"I take it he's the reason why you called me down here?"
Christine shrugged. "He's not taking it well."
Kirk ran a hand through his short hair, face creased in thought.
"Did you try talking to him?"
She would have laughed, if it hadn't felt as if laughing was the last thing she'd do in the foreseeable future.
"No. I don't think it's my place to do that."
Kirk nodded again, although it seemed more as the result of a conclusion he had come to than in agreement to her words.
"Okay." He drew another deep breath, and added in a low voice. "How bad was it?"
"Bad."
That simple assessment was all Christine could give. She didn't want to recount the horrors from her perspective when it was McCoy Kirk should be worrying about. Kirk silently accepted that assessment and turned towards McCoy's office. In passing, he put a hand to her shoulder for a second.
"Christine, do me a favor. Hold the fort out here for a while, okay?"
Christine nodded. "Sure, Captain."
"Thanks."
Kirk did that occasionally. Ever since he knew that Christine had figured out what was going on between McCoy and him he was more familiar with her. It wasn't that Christine felt uncomfortable about it, but it was a feeling she wasn't yet sure she could share. This whole thing between Kirk and McCoy and her own feelings on the matter was still one confused mess in her head.
But this wasn't about her. She watched Kirk enter the Doctor's office where she was sure McCoy was staring at the picture of his daughter again, pondering what had gone wrong and what he could have done to save that boy's life. The one person who might tear him out of that dark place was Kirk, Christine knew that. Maybe today was the day when that bottle of bourbon was finally going to be taken out of the desk drawer as liquid comfort. Whatever it took, and Christine didn't doubt that Kirk knew exactly what kind of comfort it was going to take. She wasn't sure she really wanted to know the details.
She was going to do her designated part in this, Christine thought as the doors to Sickbay opened and Mr. Scott led an ensign from engineering into the room who had a hastily tied bandage wrapped around his bleeding arm. She was going to run Sickbay for as long as it was going to take McCoy to start putting this behind him. Christine was confident that she could do that. And if something unexpected came up, she could always call M'Benga down to help out.
Gesturing for Mr. Scott to help the ensign sit down on a biobed, Christine grabbed a tricorder and stepped up to the pair. She had a job to do.
The End