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Dr M’Benga yawned and stretched as he stepped off the turbolift. He was tired, the pleasant tiredness that comes from returning home after a vacation, and he wasn’t due back on shift until tomorrow but he wanted to check in with McCoy before going to bed. M’Benga hadn’t had a true vacation since Pike captained the Enterprise. He had spent a few hours on shore leave here and there but shore leave on Kirk’s Enterprise had a tendency to turn into an emergency that required all medical staff, regardless of regular shift rotations.
Sulu had joined him, claiming that M’Benga needed a pilot for the shuttle, but M’Benga knew that he was also itching for a break. Sulu rarely spoke about his emotions but M’Benga had seen the dark circles under his eyes and had noticed that he was spending more time alone with his plants outside of his duties than normal. The incident involving Matt Decker had drained the entire crew but it was Sulu who needed to put his orders into action and pilot the Enterprise into the maw of the planet destroyer. M’Benga was thankful that Sulu requested the time off, and was willing to leave their duties for a few days unlike many Starfleet officers. The two men went different ways once they were on the planet’s surface but the few hours in the shuttle passed by pleasantly.
M’Benga walked down the familiar hallway to Sickbay. He had no doubt that McCoy was capable of handling the few days he had been gone. McCoy had stepped confidently into the role of CMO and now most of the crew could hardly imagine an Enterprise without the grouchy yet compassionate doctor.
The doors to Sickbay opened with a pleasant hiss and M’Benga turned away from the room with patient beds and entered the office.
McCoy looked up from his Pad.
“Joseph, I hardly recognize you. This might be the first time I have seen you fully relaxed since I joined this infernal ship.”
M’Benga huffed a laugh. “I hardly recognize myself, Leonard. I forgot what it was like to walk on a ground that wasn’t moving beneath myself.” M’Benga took in the dark circles under McCoy’s eyes and the slump of his shoulders. “Were the diplomats that bad?” he asked lightly.
McCoy rolled his eyes. “I don’t know how any decisions are made in Starfleet. From what I witnessed, I would say the Federation is always one mistimed sentence away from full out war.” He rolled his neck, wincing slightly when a twinge shot down his spine. “The crew handled them admirably and of course Jim is at his best when flattering touchy diplomats. Say,” McCoy said with a jolt. “You studied on Vulcan and you served with Spock when Pike was in command. Did that pointy-eared goblin ever talk about his family to you?” M’Benga blinked in surprise. It wasn’t like McCoy to ask for personal information about the crew.
“Not that I can recall,” M’Benga said slowly. “Spock has always enjoyed his privacy. I met his finance once when she came aboard the ship but beyond that; it was an effort to even convince him to share information needed for his medical file.” McCoy snorted.
“Glad to know that it’s doctors in general and not just my bedside manner. Anyway.” McCoy leaned forward, a glint in his eye. “If you can believe this. I’m standing with him and the captain, preparing to greet the Vulcan ambassadors. Jim turns to him and asks if he wants to beam down to visit his parents and this green-blooded fool looks Jim straight in the eyes and says ‘The ambassador and his wife are my parents.’” McCoy nodded righteously at M’Benga’s shocked expression.
“That’s right. Apparently, we’ve been hosting Vulcan royalty aboard the Enterprise this entire time and he never thought to mention it.”
“From what I gathered,” M’Benga said cautiously. “Spock and his father had a falling out when Spock joined Starfleet.
“Yeah, these two hard-headed idiots hadn’t spoken in ten fucking years until Starfleet command ordered us to host the galaxy’s most tense party.” McCoy shook his head. “I’ve seen more relaxed atmospheres in an operating room, Joseph, and that was before Ambassador Sarek decided to have a heart attack during negotiations.”
M’Benga felt his mouth go slack. “I’m sorry, did you say that the Ambassador had a heart attack?”
“Sure did,” said McCoy. “Had the audacity to have one in private and not inform anyone, including his wife. Luckily the second one happened in front of me so I could take action.” McCoy snorted. “I have to give it to him, a heart attack is the best albi he could ask for.”
M’Benga blinked. “Albi for what, Leonard?”
“Oh, the murder of the Tellarite ambassador. Say, we do have a lot to catch you up on.” McCoy reached into his desk for a bottle of some alien alcohol that M’Benga was reasonably certain was illegal. “Sit down, Joseph. I’ll tell you all about the drama you missed, including getting that stubborn mule of a first officer to agree to surgery.”
M’Benga jolted. “Spock also had surgery?” He turned to go back into the medbay proper. McCoy waved him back over.
“Both Spock and the Ambassador are doing fine. Resting, as they should be.” He took a sip of the drink he had just poured himself. “I did a damn good job if I do say so myself.
M’Benga turned back around with a deep breath. “Leonard, why on Earth didn’t you call me? I was not so far away that a shuttle couldn’t have gotten me back within a few hours!” He sat down on the chair in front of McCoy’s desk. “You said the Ambassador had a heart attack, what surgery did he need?”
“I had to replace one of the valves in his heart.”
“You’ve never performed that procedure on a Vulcan before.” M’Benga stated.
McCoy scratched his neck awkwardly. “Yes but I’ve studied enough of Vulcan anatomy since I joined this crew that I knew what I would be dealing with.
M’Benga nodded. One of the qualities he respected the most in his successor was McCoy’s ability to improvise. M’Benga’s own ability had come from the need of being a battlefield medic. McCoy’s seemed innate. “What did you do about the blood loss? Do we need to acquire more Vulcan blood when we reach a starbase?”
“Well if you can believe our luck, Ambassador Sarak decided to have the rarest type of blood, T-negative, if you can believe it.”
M’Benga took a sip of the drink McCoy had poured for him. “I would say that that is rare.”
“Yeah,” said McCoy with a shutter. “Luckily Christine had recently read this study about a new drug that quadrupled blood production in Rigelians. But Sarak being so weak that the strain on his liver would have killed him. But Spock stepped in, saying that he would take the drug and do a live blood transfusion.”
“Wait a moment,” said M’Benga. “I thought you said that Spock was refusing.”
McCoy took another sip. “Yeah well that was before Jim got his ass stabbed.”
M’Benga dropped the glass. “Captain Kirk was stabbed?”
“Wouldn’t be a day on the Enterprise without Jim getting into trouble. Yeah, an Orion disguised as a member of one of the delegations stabbed him in the back. Punctured a lung.” McCoy glared down at his cup. “Damn idiot wouldn’t even stay in sickbay after he woke up. Shook the ship so much he damn near made me lose both patients.”
M’Benga shook his head slightly to clear it. “To summarize Leonard, our sickbay now contains the Captain, with a punctured lung, Spock, who is recovering from an experimental drug never before used on his species, and Ambassor Sarak, recovering from open heart surgery. How many more critical patients were you going to treat before calling me?”
“Well that’s not fair, Joseph. I know that you haven’t had a proper shore leave in almost two years. And if I called you back early, Sulu would have come back too. And we both know what that man’s been through these past four months.”
“I can take another shore leave! You don’t get a second chance at open heart surgery. And half the medical staff is out sick with the Rigelinen flu! Who was assisting during both surgeries? Just Christine?” McCoy glanced away and muttered something under his breath.
“I can’t believe this,” stated M’Benga. “It was just Christine.”
“Well, she’s the best nurse we’ve got.” snapped a sullen McCoy.
“That’s because you only call her help.” M’Benga paused for a second. “I do as well come to think of it. We need to do a better job training the nurses.”
“I don’t even think I could name all of them,” admitted McCoy.
Both men sat in silence for a minute, the door to the medbay swished open and they heard Nurse Dickinson calmly assessing the incoming patient. Broken nose from a loose part in the Jefferies Tubes. All the engineering personnel were regulars, there wasn’t an officer among them who hadn’t had a bone knitted back together or a patch of skin regrown. McCoy tapped his empty glass against his desk.
“I really am sorry for not calling you, Joseph. I was kicking myself about twenty minutes after surgery. But in the moment, I didn’t even remember you were an option.”
“I understand, Leonard. Your friend’s father was in danger and so was your friend. And Spock is your friend,” M’Benga preemptively cut him off. “No matter what either of you say otherwise. It’s hard to think of anything other than what’s in front of you. That being said,” He said, rising from his chair. “I will be taking over Spock and Ambassador Sarak’s care now that I am back on board.” M’Benga reached into the drawers on the side of the room and pulled out a hypo that removed the effects of alcohol. “You just focus on the Captain. Just keeping him in bed takes the work of three men.”
McCoy nodded, yawning and also rising from his chair. “I’ve only managed it this long with the threat of physically chasing him through the hallways. With only one good lung, he knows that he can’t outrun me.”
M’Benga snorted. “I can’t believe you graduated medical school with that bedside manner.”
McCoy laughed. “I give it six hours with your patients and you’ll be threatening them with chemical and physical restraints.” M’Benga rolled his eyes good naturally and headed into the medbay to see his patients. He only hoped that at least one of them had placed himself in a meditative state. He rolled his shoulders, his pre-leave tension was already back and that was without witnessing a ten-year argument between two critical patients.