Chapter Text
It was a source of constant irony for Spock that when called upon to save lives, Doctor Leonard McCoy became the perfect Vulcan.
Well, perfect was, in actuality, an exaggeration, Spock admitted. Doctor McCoy did not try to bury his emotions for all time, nor did he do so in pursuit of pure logic. It could not be denied, however, that a certain emotional distancing took place which was shockingly reminiscent of how Vulcans behaved. McCoy became cool, remote, snapping out commands that carried his usual strong vernacular and an even stronger southern burr but completely missed the sense of deeply felt emotion that usually filled his words. It lacked, as a matter of fact, all but the vestiges of emotion; his feelings may have seethed beneath the surface, roiling in the doctor’s heart, but his face didn’t show anything. He would push everything away to concentrate on his patient, to focus on the being that had just become the center of his world.
Occasionally panic surfaced, if the doctor didn’t have the appropriate resources to save the one that needed saving, but even through that his hands would be sure, steady, would never stop moving, never stop working. The panic was strangely…absent, Spock thought, as if it was the panic of someone merely going through the motions, the panic of someone whose care and attention were not completely present.
Spock didn’t believe in spells, didn’t believe in magic of any sort, but watching Doctor McCoy’s transformation from abrasive and overly emotional man to cool and collected doctor seemed almost supernatural to him, and was thus a constant source of fascination. He didn’t understand why in a life and death situation Doctor McCoy reneged on all those principals of emotion that he was so fond of lecturing Spock about in order to provide his patient with optimum care, consciously or not. It was a marked difference from his behavior in more mundane circumstances, certainly; if a patient needed to be inoculated to go down to a planet, or have normal test run, he was perfectly capable of being the same legendarily gruff and caustic doctor, wielding a hypospray without care for any minute pain it may cause his patient, especially if the patient had incurred his ire. When breaking truly bad news, or when a patient was bleeding out on an operating table, or when the captain of the Enterprise was coughing up a blue slime that most certainly didn’t belong in his lungs, however, his features would take on a reserved cast, something remote and untouchable as he worked to save them.
It was a dichotomy that was endlessly fascinating and endlessly confusing, a facet of the doctor’s personality that Spock couldn’t understand when viewed in light of all of Doctor McCoy‘s other interactions. Why only when a person was gravely ill? If he was separating himself from his emotions to become more clear-headed, why did he not always act in this fashion, since he was clearly capable of it? Why make the change at all, considering that he prized his emotions so greatly? Why?
Why?
So Spock studied, and learned, and wondered. A touch of guilt lingered deep beneath the surface occasionally, as Spock sometimes watched the transformations with the notion that he was invading the doctor’s personal boundaries. He sometimes watched believing that he was viewing something intimate, something powerful, something that perhaps shouldn’t be deciphered for fear of what could come of it.
Spock watched anyways.
He watched the blood stain Doctor McCoy’s hands, watched his expression settle, watched the realization that someone was depending on him, and solely on him, to survive the coming seconds, minutes, settle into his bones. He would watch that caustic, rude man disappear, and watch the brilliant doctor emerge, watch as he snapped out sharp- but not heated, as they would be normally- commands to achieve what was needed.
He watched Doctor McCoy save lives.
It was at those times that Spock could see the doctor that Starfleet had assigned to the flagship, where the best of the best would take command. Though Doctor McCoy always performed his job efficiently and fully no matter the circumstances, the doctor that had been praised after surgeries that lasted for fourteen hours, the doctor that had been complimented for his innate understanding of xenobiology, the doctor that had complete command of his team was a myth to Spock in the initial stages of their acquaintance. He’d read the files of every member aboard the ship, of course, as it was his duty as First Officer- first to Captain Pike, now to Captain Kirk- to be fully informed, but to him, it had always been the faults- the scathing opinion of his patient interactions, the formal reprimands of his abrasive and nearly cruel words, and the heated emotions that had troubled his superiors that had stood out when Spock had finally met him. He could not, would not forget the words that Doctor McCoy had responded with, when Spock had informed him that he would be fulfilling the role of CMO with his predecessor’s death.
“Tell me something I don’t know!” the man had exclaimed, that southern accent tracing the words stronger than ever. Spock had thought him flippant, pointlessly sarcastic, and had spent a brief, precious half-second wondering if, after this entire mess was done, he should refuse to uphold Doctor McCoy’s field promotion. Perhaps, if that was his response, he wasn’t prepared for the responsibility, the pressure of being CMO.
However, after, when the details of the Narada incident had been ironed out, when recommendations were being written and courses of action dissected and paths for the future were being plotted with haste, Spock had been inadvertently exposed to the medical team that had been gathered under Doctor McCoy’s wing. It was a meeting, one of the many that followed in the wake of the Narada incident. He’d arrived ten minutes early and expected no one else to be there, but when he’d walked into the conference room, he was startled to find a doctor that Spock did not know being berated by Nurse Chapel, Nurse Jacobson, Doctor Smith and Doctor O’iill for his criticism of Doctor McCoy. They’d stopped, awkwardly, upon his entrance, but the damage had been done. The doctor that Spock didn’t know had left without further prompting, and the remaining medical personnel had spent those ten minutes attempting and failing to make small talk.
Upon musing over the incident later, Spock found himself rather surprised. He’d expected solidarity, of course. It was to be expected, as it is often the case that people who go through times of great stress often bond, when in other situations their fundamental incompatibility would leave them unable to stand the other’s presence. What he had not expected, however, was the downright adoration that every one of McCoy’s doctors and nurses treated him with. He was not the eldest of the doctors that had been on the Enterprise, or even the most experienced for all he was a Senior Medical Officer, but he’d managed to set aside his emotions during the various attacks and get the injured as healed as possible, and fought to save lives- and won, mostly- when others on staff had been troubled over the deaths of crewmates, hampered by being forced to operate on dying friends. Whatever his fellow medical personnel had seen those harried few days had, without a doubt, bound them irrevocably under Doctor McCoy’s command, and they would suffer no one else as a CMO.
The rather legendary nurse Christine Chapel, as a matter of fact, had threatened to leave Starfleet if she was not posted in the same place as Doctor McCoy, no matter where he was assigned. Though this had made the campus buzz with gossip, the buzzing got even worse when it was discovered that when questioned about his less desirable traits, Nurse Chapel had waved a hand dismissively, saying with obvious pride, “He’s just a sweet southern gentleman under all those burs, sir.” It left Spock wondering just what he’d missed then. Her appraisal was nothing like the man he‘d seen and spoken to on the Enterprise. In the face of such illogic, he‘d dismissed her words as nothing more than rampant human emotion, due to the unfortunate circumstances.
Until, of course, he saw the change himself.
It was not long after the Enterprise had returned to Earth. He had been charged with the task of tracking down the doctor, as he was late for a mandatory meeting and he wasn‘t answering his comm. With Doctor McCoy, it was always a guessing game. He didn’t care very much for meetings unless it involved what his future assignment would be and who he would be working with; he‘d rather spend his time doing what he could to help Starfleet rebuild. As a result, there were a multitude of places that he could be found at.
He wasn’t alone in his thinking, of course. Many of people aboard the Enterprise had chosen not to take advantage of the leave time that they had been given, as they felt it was more important to help Starfleet in the wake of the decimation of the graduating class. Hikaru Sulu and Pavel Chekov, for example, were equally bad at attending meetings, as they too went out of their way to help those around them, filling in for missing instructors or helping repair damage to the campus and thus were often distracted, forgetting the time. Nurse Chapel worked in Starfleet’s hospital, helping to take care of the Vulcans they’d managed to save and helping the Vulcan High Council help map the genomes of all living Vulcans to see if the diversity was enough to ensure that there would not be an excess of inbreeding that would be fatal in the long run. Indeed, the entire bridge crew and a majority of the people on the ship were currently working to restore Starfleet in their admittedly limited free time, including Spock himself. On top of this, the majority of the crew, still had to finish their classes in addition to all the extra time that they were putting towards other projects.
Even so, Spock thought with a certain amount of ire that he’d never admit to, though I am as busy as anyone else, I still manage to make my meetings on time. Whenever Doctor McCoy missed a meeting, of course, he said hardly a word of apology, an effort the others at least made. His excuses varied. Sometimes he’d been teaching classes on xenobiology, sometimes he’d been working in the free medical clinic in the city, to help those who had been attacked that day but weren’t Starfleet, or sometimes he was offering an ear to those amongst the cadets that suffered from survivor‘s guilt, amongst other things.
Spock didn’t see any of those things as bad; on the contrary, they were all critical to the continuing existence of Starfleet. However, it rankled Spock, a little, that no formal reprimand was given, as there were plenty of others who were equally busy that managed to attend their meetings.
Then again, Spock could begin dancing to bad twentieth century music at the front of his classroom, and Starfleet Command would turn a blind eye; the men and women of the Enterprise were the golden children, the immortal cadets that could do no wrong in the eyes of the public and thus at Starfleet- for now, at least. The media was simply clamoring for an opportunity to interview those men and women on the Enterprise who had saved Earth, and Starfleet was more than willing to use the cadets to make themselves look good, especially in the face of the fact that Vulcan was no more. They needed something positive to offer; given that the formal inquiry- which, to be fair, had lasted a number of weeks and had inspected every nuance of every person’s decisions onboard- had shown nothing that couldn’t be reasonably brushed under the rug, Starfleet was more than willing to use the heroism to their own advantage to mitigate any PR damage. Even Doctor McCoy’s dubious reasons for bringing the then-cadet Kirk onboard in the first place, or Spock’s own equally dubious decision to retain command of the Enterprise was considered not to be reasons for formal persecution, though they were quietly assured that if such a thing were happen again, they would find themselves exiled to places that made Delta Vega look tame. Even the more public matter of Cadet Kirk’s hearing over the Kobayashi Maru had been spun positively, and his interference was reconsidered to be a sign of the ingenuity that had allowed him to overcome the Narada in the first place. This was an accurate assessment, of course, but Spock felt it set a bad precedent, one that others were sure to take advantage of.
Shaking his head slightly, as though to dislodge his thoughts, Spock had entered Starfleet medical, in hopes that he would find Doctor McCoy there. When Spock finally tracked him down, he had been informed that Doctor McCoy was finishing up a surgery, and wouldn‘t be out for another hour or two. His emotionless exterior in the face of that pronouncement was enough for the nurse on duty to begin stammering, explaining that the doctor had been called in to help deal with a multi vehicle accident that had occurred when one of the magnetic strips in the city had failed. He had informed her that he would wait, as he suspected the doctor would simply pretend that he didn’t get the messages Spock left, as he had done the first two times Spock had been sent on this particular errand. Spock had learned his lesson however, and now whenever he was tasked with tracking down the doctor, he knew to wait in a place there the doctor couldn‘t avoid him. Finally the nurse invited him to observe, as though hoping that proof would prevent Spock from making a mark on her record. Unwilling to disillusion her with the fact that he would do no such thing, as he was interested in seeing the doctor at work (as well as making sure that he attended the meeting) he had agreed, and then sent a message to Captain Pike to that end.
When the nurse took him to the observation room, he had not been expecting to see a cool collected man through the glass. He was hardly recognizable as Doctor McCoy. This man worked with surety, with calm, with absolute conviction that he knew what he was doing. It had been a shock to finally see what others had seen before him, to understand why Doctor McCoy had been placed as a Senior Medical Officer on the Enterprise despite being only a cadet. Spock knew it was unseemly and un-Vulcan to stare, but he couldn’t help it- as it was, he had to concentrate on making sure his jaw didn’t drop in surprise. He wondered how he’d missed it, when they’d all been on the Enterprise, but realized that it was a moot point; Spock had been more concerned with his mother’s death, with getting the Enterprise back home, and working with Kirk to make sure that everyone and everything was accounted for. Doctor McCoy and medical bay had, as cruel as it sounded, been beneath his concern. He looked back on the time with some regret, now, realizing rather belatedly that Doctor McCoy’s work hadn’t ever really stopped; while Spock had been working on getting Acting Captain Kirk off the bridge for some sleep, Doctor McCoy had spent nearly thirty consecutive hours in surgery, seventeen of which had been dedicated to Captain Pike alone.
Since that day in the hospital in San Francisco, he’d been exposed to Doctor McCoy’s personality shift exactly twenty-nine times in the past year on the Enterprise alone, not including the six times that he himself had been laying on Doctor McCoy’s operating table, which Spock could only assume had evoked the same response. The acknowledgement of this aspect of the doctor had opened the door to other nuances as well, such as the little, silent kindnesses that he offered to his patients despite his acerbic exterior- laying a damp cloth against the back of Ensign Chekov’s neck when he’d caught Andorian flu and was vomiting steadily for three days, offering to spend time with Kirk after he’d lost a crew member, touching people under his care to bring them comfort, even Spock.
He’d been unnerved and rather unpleasantly startled, the first time that he‘d been touched as a patient. It was while the Enterprise was still headed home after the death of Nero, and Spock’s mental shields could barely hold against the painful grief and joy and anxiety and fear in the minds of everyone around him, blazing like miniature suns all around him. A direct touch was almost agony for the emotionally battered Spock, and he’d flinched back from the touch. Doctor McCoy had taken it in stride, muttering something unsavory under his breath, involving touch telepaths and hobgoblins and several curses, but had restrained from touching Spock unless absolutely necessary, unwilling to bring a patient true discomfort, even Spock, despite the fact that Spock knew the doctor held little, if any, regard for him outside the medical bay. What brought Spock pain, however, brought his fellow patients no end of comfort; when the doctor had been forced to pick up a few hypos from storage, he’d touched his patients on the way, murmuring a few things under his breath as he did so, making sure that they were all as comfortable as they were going to be. His patients, in turn, had generally responded positively to the touch. Spock had filed away the moment for further examination.
It was because of that moment that he’d asked Jim, once, why Doctor McCoy touched his patients. He’d suspected, of course, but he wanted a confirmation from an actual human. Kirk had thought for a long set of minutes, and it was only the pensive brow that kept Spock from repeating his question. He was rewarded for his patience when Kirk finally said, sounded a little surprised himself, “I guess it’s as simple as letting his patient know he’s there. For a lot of people, aliens, whatever, medicine can be extremely…” Kirk shrugged his shoulders as he searched for the word. “Invasive, I guess is the best term. A lot of doctors see people at their worst, physically, mentally, emotionally. For Humans, as well as a lot of other races, touching can reassure the patient that the doctor is there, that he or she cares, that they aren’t alone in this. It’s an unconscious response, I suppose, that’s been ingrained into our psyche for a millennia. It’s a pretty big deal even outside the medical field, actually. If people don’t get enough of the sensation of touch, from hugs and stuff, it’s been proven that they can get a little…” Kirk’s voice faded, leaving Spock studying his captain in contemplation, “messed up. Unfortunately, not many doctors do it these days; with all the fancy new equipment, a doctor doesn’t even have to physically see a patient to diagnose ninety-eight percent of illnesses, so not many doctors bother to touch their patients. But Bones is just a southern gentleman at heart, and whatever bullshit he feeds you, he genuinely means it when he says something is for your own good. He understands the importance of being touched.”
As Jim had said, the answer was deceptively simple. Spock had suspected the reason, true, but it was a little different to hear it spoken. The words held a different weight spoken aloud than when they were in his head. They felt heavier, more solid, and wormed their way into Spock’s brain, repeating themselves at strange moments, like when he was attempting to meditate.
Captain Kirk’s conclusion was reasonable, even. For a race such as humans, who lacked the ability to mentally connect with another, skin to skin contact would be necessary to ensure the other person is aware of your presence, aware of your feelings. This was a direct contrast to touch telepaths, for whom skin to skin contact was akin to having your deepest darkest secrets pulled out of you without your control. It was one of the reasons that as well as being unwilling to physically contact each other, touch telepaths were careful to avoid physical contact with others as well, so as to preserve a sense of privacy and equality for all races.
And yet the doctor showed no true discomfort in touching him in medical bay. His reserve and lack of touch was for Spock’s sake and comfort, not his own. Though he had to know that when he touched the other man, he was exposing himself to Spock without getting anything in return, he never seemed truly bothered by it. Indeed, when they did brush skin, the only real feeling that Spock received despite his mental shield was a rather concentrated hum of patient-safe-no pain that buzzed in his bones and spread warmth through his body. Outside medical bay, of course, the story was often different, but inside at least, Spock could know that at all times Doctor McCoy would no more purposefully cause a patient discomfort than he would begin telling everyone of his love for space.
And so the state of affairs had been when a mission had gone terribly wrong.