Chapter Text
She didn't look how he expected.
Hanging in space outside of the station she should've looked awkward, tall as she was, long-necked like a swan. Instead of awkward, though, she looked strangely handsome.
Poised, maybe. A lady with some dignity.
Len was no engineer and even he thought so, as he leaned on the rail of the station’s observation deck, getting a look at the ship he was newly assigned to. She was nothing like the last ship he had been aboard, anyway, which had reminded him of a pancake with legs.
Given the Enterprise was gonna be his home for at least the next few years, it was probably for the better that he liked the look of her. Serving out his surgical residency in Starfleet hadn't exactly been his plan when he'd gone into med school, but then again, a broken home hadn't been, either.
He'd sworn, when he left home for pre-med, that he wasn't gonna make the same mistakes as his Dad; that he wasn't gonna try to be both a doctor and a family man, 'cause he knew full well that both required deep commitment, and that it was a fool's errand to try to balance those two lives at the same time. At least not early on, anyway.
But then there was Jocelyn. And then there was Joanna, unexpected, nature's most beautiful curveball.
And then, after a couple good years and a couple more less-good ones, there was this.
The Enterprise's reputation preceded her in every possible way, as did the reputations of her captain and crew. She was considered the shining pinnacle of Starfleet; that Len was able to even get a spot aboard her felt like too much good luck at once, especially right out of his abbreviated Basic Training and OCS.
But if a man was gonna run for his life, he couldn't really run much further than as a cutting-edge frontier explorer. He didn't feel dangerously soulsick like he had when he had walked into that recruitment office, but Len couldn't pretend that he wasn't still on the run, either.
The better part of a year had made the heartache bearable, made it so things could get him to smile again, even if he still hadn't made much headway towards anything recognizable as a full recovery. (How could he? Every single day was one day less to watch JoJo grow.)
But maybe if he ran far enough -- learned enough, saved enough lives -- he'd get there eventually.
Right now, future crewmates of his were moving down the transparent corridor on the level below him in waves as they were released for shore leave; for expediency, they were transported from the ship to the station, where there were more platforms to direct them to their requested destinations on the ground below. Most of them were dressed for relaxation; a lot of them were wearing beach wear, light shifts and flowing outfits, though there were others dressed for colder climes. Casperia Prime had a little something for everyone.
Except Len, apparently. Who’d been waiting there for two weeks for this transfer and had the good fortune to attend a conference on frontier medicine while he did, but who otherwise just didn’t have any real reason to go out and enjoy the place. No one he knew attended the conference, and while he made a few good acquaintances, none of them were the types to go out and have drinks and maybe take in the local color with him after.
It made for a pretty boring time. And there was only so much poolside drinking he could justify to himself, and a very fine line to walk without bordering alcoholism like he had been before signing with Starfleet.
So, the idea of getting to go up and settle in on the Enterprise while a good sized chunk of her crew was planetside was actually pretty damn soothing. He could get the lay of the land, get unpacked and get started reviewing records so that he’d be able to hit the ground running when they departed.
Slowly, the waves of Starfleet personnel tapered and then vanished altogether; Len checked the wall clock and nodded to himself. Much as he hated the idea of getting into a transporter, especially when he could see the ship right there, there were no hard-docking facilities at this station for anything bigger than a cargo shuttle. And no one was about to send a shuttle just for him, either; instead, he had to wait his turn to beam over until after everyone else going ashore had finished transporting.
Sighing out, he waited until the last possible minute, then turned to head for the turbolift so he could go get into the transporter queue.
He was hefting his carry-on and mentally reviewing the map of the Enterprise he’d been studying since he’d gotten his assignment, and later on, he would blame those things for his part of the collision that followed.
He stepped out of the turbolift, moving briskly, and ended up slamming into someone coming the other way in a similar hurry.
It knocked Len backwards into a desperate stumble to keep his footing, the arm not weighed down with his carry-on pinwheeling; for a whole ten seconds, he wasn’t sure he’d stay on his feet, but then mercifully found his balance again.
He shook it off, thinking maybe to offer an apology, medical assistance, or -- if the other party turned out to be an asshole -- an ear-chewing, when his mouth went dry.
Real damn dry.
The first thing Len’s mind registered was a bare knee; the second, pleats; the third, red. The rest was more akin to a mental burst of white-noise static as he tried to make those things fall in with the rest to form a cohesive thought, especially since the rest was a kind of compelling he’d never actually contemplated before that very moment, looking up at him from the floor in shock.
He was still trying to grasp that when the other half of the collision scrambled back up to his feet, face flushing; they both gaped at one another for a long moment, then tried to talk at the same time.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t--”
“Are you okay, did I--?” Len started, then held his hand up to stop them both before they could continue to talk over each other. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asked, that hand coming down and out in something of an offer to treat any injury he might have accidentally caused.
The other man -- looking like doe-eyed innocence and surprise while dressed like sex on legs -- gave a hurried shake of his head as he edged around Len. “Nothin’ worse’n my pride, anyway,” he said, in an accent Len couldn’t immediately place, aside ‘probably Celtic’. “Sorry again about that, I shoulda been lookin’-- or maybe slowin’ down--”
“It’s okay,” Len reassured, automatically, trying very damn hard not to let his gaze drift on down from the man’s face. Which was almost as red as the streaks of glitter sparkling in his black hair. “I was in a hurry myself.”
“Aye, and speakin’ of, I have to be--” the man said, gesturing awkwardly down the hall before stepping backwards a few steps; he offered Len an embarrassed little smile, then turned and walked away with no small amount of haste, pleats swaying.
He was just as compelling from the back as he’d been from the front, somewhere between punk and pretty, and Len was looking after him for a good minute after he’d vanished, palms sweating to go right along with a cotton-dry mouth.
It wasn’t often that men caught Len’s attention. The last one, before he ended up with Jocelyn, was his friend Mark in his freshman year in high school, a crush that didn’t and couldn’t go anywhere, given Mark’s attractions were towards female-presenting people. And eventually the crush part faded into genuine affection and maybe a little jealousy, the latter part for just how effortlessly handsome and social Mark was.
Len wasn’t exactly awkward, but he was something of a wallflower, which was why Jocelyn had been such a surprise and delight, and maybe -- in retrospect -- why he broke his own promise to himself that he wasn’t gonna try to be a family man and medschool student at the same time.
A pretty feminine type would turn Len’s head even after he was married, even if he’d never dream of straying, but it was only a rare man who could do the same. Not for any lack of willingness, that just happened to be how he was wired.
His collision partner had driven his mental map of the Enterprise’s corridors right on out of his skull.
Beaming out to the ship had happened during Len’s formidable distraction, and before he knew it, he was wandering around lost and trying not to think too hard about the encounter. Especially since it was the first time he’d felt attraction -- genuine attraction -- towards another person since the separation.
All right, get it together, he told himself, mentally, before stopping and looking around for the lettering on the intersections of corridors that would tell him what section he’d ended up in. Or even what deck he was on.
Which was definitely more important than working out whether that was a skirt or a kilt. Or why the man’s calf-high leather boots were laced with a brilliant red ribbon.
Or why that skirt or kilt or whatever it was had a short span of the same kind of ribbon acting as corset-style lacing between silver eyelets on both sides of it before culminating in a pair of bow-ties, especially since it was riding low enough to rest on the man’s hips. Or why there were silver chains draping artfully from the leather belt over the front panel, to go with a tight black t-shirt that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.
And Len was especially having one hell of a time dragging his mind away from those goddamn pleats, which were also black, except for where they parted to reveal a black-and-white plaid pattern underneath.
Len rubbed his bottom lip with his thumb, eyes unfocused. Almost had to be a kilt, then, right? That would make the plaid more properly tartan, which meant the accent was definitely something Celtic.
Then he groaned quietly and rubbed over his face, tried again to shove those thoughts out of his head, and made a more determined effort to find his quarters before he could go and rewind that memory for the fifty-third time and see what other details he could tease out of it.
Phil Boyce was an old man of the venerable sort -- snow white hair, bushy eyebrows, sharp blue eyes and all -- but it was his ready, lopsided smile that endeared Len to him pretty much from the start. “Doctor McCoy,” Boyce said, greeting him with a handshake. “Welcome aboard.”
“Just barely a doctor, Doctor Boyce,” Len answered, smiling a little sheepishly as he shook the CMO’s hand. “Thanks. I didn’t expect you to be here, figured you would have already beamed down for shore leave.”
Boyce shook his head, taking his hand back only to rest it on the back of Len’s shoulder, guiding him towards where, presumably, his new office would be. “I’ll be down there before the night’s over, but I thought I’d help you get settled in and answer any questions you might have before I go.”
“Much appreciated, sir.” Len glanced around the sickbay; it wasn’t a huge space, but it was bigger than the one he’d seen on the last ship. “I dropped off my carry-on in my quarters, once I found ‘em, then I figured I’d have a look at where I was gonna be working.”
“Not interested in seeing more of Casperia Prime?” Boyce steered Len to the door to the office that already had his name outside of it.
Leonard McCoy, MD. Despite everything complicated that went with that title, it made Len smile as he stepped in and looked around; it wasn’t a very large space, but he did like knowing it was his. “‘Fraid not. I spent two weeks there and the conference was the highlight; I’m fixin’ to get to work, now.”
Boyce didn’t seem to have an opinion on that, which was kind of a relief. He just nodded and leaned on the door frame, keeping it from sliding closed. “Wish we could have gotten here earlier, I was hoping to attend that one myself. But I’ll pick up a recording while I’m down there, and we can talk about it after I’m back.”
“I’d like that,” Len said, drawing his fingers across his desktop, then turning around and resting his rear against the edge of it. “I don’t wanna keep you, if you’ve got better things to do. Thought I’d just get started with the lay of the land and crew records while I waited for the cargo transport to send the rest of my luggage.”
“I don’t mind sticking around for awhile yet. This isn’t my first time at Casperia Prime.” Boyce raised his eyebrows in a shrug. “How about a martini, a tour and a gam?”
“Sounds good,” Len answered, and was pleasantly surprised with how genuinely he meant that.
If nothing else, it would probably keep him from spending too much more time contemplating his be-kilted collision partner.
It was a good thought that absolutely failed to pan out.
“There’s no damn way,” Len said, shaking his head as he looked at the PADD, the words slipping out before he could close his lips on 'em.
Boyce just had one of his eyebrows up now, when Len realized he’d spoken aloud and looked up. “No damn way what?” Boyce asked, curiously.
Len felt his face heating a bit, but he still gestured and cleared his throat to answer, “Oh. He doesn’t look like he’s thirty-one, is all.”
The tour had gone fine; Len not only had all of Sickbay mapped now, but Boyce had also taken him through all of their medical and scientific laboratories, and that after making him a hell of a martini. Then they came back, and Len asked if they could go over the medical files of those aboard who had any ongoing issues or special needs; folks with medical conditions that needed to be monitored or managed, folks who required special treatment for whatever reason. There were only fourteen of those out of the Enterprise’s complement of 206 souls, and he figured that would go quick enough.
It also meant that he ended up looking at the face of his collision partner a lot sooner than he’d anticipated.
Boyce seemed bemused. “How old does he look? Because frankly, Len, all of you look like kids to me.”
“I dunno. My age, if even that.” Len picked up the glass of water he’d gotten himself in lieu of a second martini and took a sip.
While the standard crew portrait was not nearly as eye-catching as red glitter and red ribbon and a kilt, the man looking back at him wasn’t any less attractive in it. Not as punk, maybe, but definitely still kinda pretty. Dressed in the rose-tan uniform of ops, he wore a serious sort of look, but there was a kind of sharpness in his dark eyes that Len found -- unfortunately, he was sure -- appealing.
Lieutenant Montgomery Scott. Engineer and the officer of the watch for the graveyard shift for engineering. Interestingly enough, he also was listed as a bridge officer and had a command rotation every week where he was in charge of the whole ship.
Len shook his head to get himself back on task, trying to shove any even slightly untoward thoughts back into the ether they came from. Nothing good could come of dating co-workers, no matter how comely.
“Artificial left hip?” he asked, glancing up; that seemed to be the main issue, from what he could see.
“A bulkhead landed on him back in ‘48,” Boyce explained, not even bothering to look at his own PADD, clearly answering from memory. “He was assigned to the Denevan cargo-carrier Horizon Sun when she was knocked out of warp by the spatial distortion caused by a skirmish with the Klingons. They ended up caught in the crossfire, lost all propulsion, and Scott managed to pull off some kind of engineering miracle to get them to warp for about two seconds and out of the line of fire. He saved the ship, but before he could save himself, the bulkhead came down on him.”
Len had been on Earth during the war, and therefore partially insulated from it; still, he knew it resulted in a lot of young people with permanent injuries. He grimaced at the explanation, even as he tabbed over to the imaging scans, studying them for a moment; he wasn’t an ortho specialist, but he still knew what he was looking at and for. “More than the standard amount of hardware, but it looks like it’s pretty well healed; do we even need to manage it?” he asked, glancing back up at Boyce.
“For that, I've just had him coming in for updated scans every quarter to make sure there’s no uneven wear on that joint. And even that's not really necessary, but I don't intend to stop.” Boyce drummed his fingers on his desk. "That's the least important reason he's on the special-cases list anyway."
Well, that sounded ominous. Len tabbed to the notes, skimming them; the most interesting thing there was mention of a genetic anomaly and a short list of recommendations about drug synthesis, though. "Do I want to know the most important reason?" he asked, trying to force his eyebrow back down to neutral.
Boyce eyed him thoughtfully, then apparently made a decision, shaking his head. "My reputation as an unrepentant gossip is not only fair, but well-earned, as you'll doubtless find out. But I think I'll hold my cards close this time, Len," he said, not unkindly. "At least for now, when it comes to what I have clearance for and in terms of my own working theories. But I can offer a piece of invaluable advice, if you'll have it."
Phil Boyce didn’t gain his acclaim in medical circles by hiding in private practice somewhere or by chewing up subordinates and spitting them back out; even if Len felt some pique at being reminded of how new he was, not only to the Enterprise , but to Starfleet as a whole, he knew better than to take it personally.
Or to turn down advice from a doctor of Boyce's caliber. "I'll take it," he said, with a nod.
Boyce nodded back. “Handle that one with care,” he said, then held a hand up to keep Len from speaking up and saying -- as he was going to -- that he wouldn’t dream of doing anything else with a patient. “I don’t mean in the standard way of compassion, that’s a given; kindness will go a long way with him, though. But what I mean is: Scott’s not going to respect your hard-earned education or your equally hard-earned title until you’ve gained at least some of his trust. And the only way to do that is to be both direct and patient with him. If you end up having to treat him for anything, take the extra minute -- provided you have it -- and explain what you want to do. Don’t try to butt heads with him, because you’ll probably lose. And if you do win, you’ll certainly lose.”
That was a lot to absorb, especially that last part, but it was good advice. Len was early enough in his career that he couldn’t fathom being impatient, at least not without pretty extraordinary cause, but he knew that people in their profession tended to harden over time. And not everyone responded well to that, though he also had a feeling Boyce was referring to things he didn’t know yet.
“Got it,” Len said, after a moment and a nod, taking one more glance at Scott’s portrait before moving onto the next file. “Lieutenant Spock?” he asked, raising his eyebrows, intrigued all over again, albeit for different reasons.
Boyce nodded, smiling a little in clear and genuine fondness, and moved along with him.
Captain Pike beamed back aboard before the second half of his crew was released for shore leave and the first due back. And the first thing he did once he was back aboard was schedule a meeting with Len.
The man’s reputation walked far ahead of him; Pike was considered one of the finest captains ever to grace Starfleet, not only during wartime, but also in times of peace. He was highly decorated and was known to be hard, insofar as he ran his ship with military discipline in place, but he was also said to be fair and collaborative, and a hell of a teacher.
Just like with Boyce, Len liked Pike right off, though he did feel a little small in the man’s presence.
“Doctor McCoy,” Pike said, offering his hand across the desk, his startlingly ice-blue eyes narrowed a little in obvious good humor, above the subtle smile on the corners of his mouth. “Welcome aboard, though I hear I’m a few days late on that.”
“Captain Pike,” Len answered, shaking the man’s hand before offering a shrug and a smile of his own. “I think, when you’re the captain, you’re always technically on time for that kinda thing.”
Pike’s smile morphed into a grin, and he gestured to the chair across from his desk. “I like that. I’ll have to remember it, though I'm not so sure I can get away with using it. How’ve you been settling in?”
Len sat down. "Fine so far, sir. Gettin' a feel for the ship and crew. I've finished reviewing all of the crew records, though y'all'll have to give me a little more time memorizing names."
“You’ll have it before you know it. We don’t even have enough people to qualify as a village aboard,” Pike said, shaking his head and settling into his own chair, relaxing back into it just to regard Len anew. "I know you're with us for the duration of our five year mission; do you have everything you'll need to work through your surgical residency?"
"Yessir," Len answered, finding himself smiling a little sheepishly. "Don't wanna speculate too hard about what the transporter techs were thinking when they beamed my cadavers into stasis storage, but between those, simulation and live practice, I think I'll do just fine."
"That's what I like to hear.” Pike nodded, shifting his PADD closer and tapping it with his fingertips. “We do have some colony visits scheduled ahead before we're back out into the unknown, and they're often glad for visits from medical personnel, especially when we're bringing new equipment and supplies."
Len had stopped at a couple of colonies while transferring, and he had enjoyed both visits, brief as they were. "I'll be sure to brush up on 'em, then."
"Definitely still in the university mindset, I see. If there's anything myself or my senior staff can do to help you along, Doctor, I hope you'll let us know." Pike grinned again, such a frank and charming look that not grinning back would have been a challenge.
Not that Len felt any desire to be contrary like that, as he tipped an imaginary hat. "Much obliged, Captain."
The rest of the senior staff were all as accommodating as the CMO and Captain were, though Len did have a hard time reading Lieutenant Spock's expression. The half-Vulcan seemed remote and borderline wary of him in a way that Len found almost unnerving, though he'd interacted with enough Vulcans -- and their occasional back-handed criticisms on human scientific endeavors -- that he knew remote didn't necessarily mean unfeeling.
Though he supposed, given Spock was the first -- though not the last -- Vulcan to join Starfleet, the wariness probably made sense.
It couldn't have been easy to be surrounded by humans, even if you were half-human yourself. And Spock was three years younger than Len and already bearing the weight of a whole division on his shoulders, which was no small thing.
Len didn't know what to make of him yet, maybe, but he figured it would shake out with time; in the meantime, he'd err to the side of compassion and keep an open mind.
All in all, Len was happy with this assignment. The crew was well-integrated and not all human -- though mostly so, as yet -- and they seemed to largely get along. He liked everyone he’d been working with in Sickbay, so far. His quarters weren't large, but they were comfortable.
The ship herself had a lived-in feel; as precise as Pike seemed to keep things running, like a well-made clock, Len could all but feel the love the Enterprise’s crew had for her. So many of these people clearly felt this ship was their home, and while he didn’t necessarily think he’d ever be one of ‘em, he did find that a likable quality in his crewmates.
And finally, he'd even managed to put aside his crush on a certain engineer in the past week, which was gonna make his onboard life a lot easier to handle.
"Perfect," he said quietly to himself, as he set his favorite coffee mug in a place of honor on his new desk, with Joanna's baby scrawl proclaiming him the #1 Doctor forever immortalized on the side, beautiful and bittersweet both.
Once again, it was a good thought that absolutely failed to pan out.
Len had been practicing aortic resectioning well into the night; by the time he was done with his cadaver -- for this, anyway -- his eyes were aching and he wanted nothing more than to grump his way through a sonic shower and then sleep. That was all that was on his mind as he came out of the turbolift on his deck--
--and damn near ran into Lieutenant Scott.
Again.
This time they both managed to pull up short with only centimeters between them, avoiding an out and out collision; for a heart-pounding few seconds, Len somehow was able to process the near-miss adrenaline rush and the half-baked thought, he sure smells nice before they took a couple steps away from one another.
"Sorry, I was-- uh--" Scott gestured with the toolkit he was carrying; apparently, even not dressed like sex on legs, he was prone to blushing.
"It's okay. At least it didn't end up in a collision this time," Len offered back, trying very hard to chalk his heart rate up to the surprise and not the company.
There was a moment where it looked like Scott was about to flee, giving Len a distracted-looking nod and even lifting a foot, but then he stopped and seemed to come to some kind of decision before facing Len again and straightening his shoulders. "About that-- I'd appreciate it if ye'd not mention seein' me dressed like that to anyone else," he said, straight-forwardly, even though he remained all flushed.
Damn, he was still pretty. Len wasn’t sure why he kept expecting that to change.
"Not even leavin' a glass slipper for me," Len joked, before he had time to realize how that could be taken. Once he did, though, he gave himself a mental kick in the rear end, cleared his throat and offered the confused engineer a smile, taking Boyce’s advice to heart. "I don't know what you're talking about. I just beamed up here and got lost looking for my quarters. I've never seen you before in my life."
The confused look turned into one of relief, and Scott closed his eyes and blew a breath out before giving Len a more easy expression back, switching his toolkit into his left hand and offering his right to shake. "In that case, I'm glad to meet ye, Lieutenant…?"
"Doctor Leonard McCoy," Len answered, shaking the man’s hand, not failing to catch the surprised blink the gentle correction got him. “Len to my friends, though,” he added, something of an invitation. “And who do I have the pleasure of meeting for the first time--?”
If Scott recognized the invitation as such, he still didn’t miss a beat. “Doctor. Lieutenant Montgomery Scott. I’m sorry again about almost runnin’ into ye; if this weren’t the first time we were meetin’, I’d venture it’s gettin’ to be a habit,” he said, taking his hand back and looking kinda sheepish as he scratched at the back of his head, though the blush had finally faded.
“I could think of worse ones,” Len handed back, with a chuckle, before gesturing over his shoulder. “It’s okay, really. But I should be getting to bed.” Before I accidentally flirt some more.
Scott nodded back, switching his toolkit back over to his right hand, apparently oblivious to the fact that Len’s mouth kept sneaking away from him. “Aye, and I should be gettin’ to work. But-- sleep well, Doctor,” he said, this time flashing a bit of a grin, before heading off in the direction he had been going before their impromptu meeting.
Oh hell, Len thought, as that grin went to work on him, going to try to answer that with something like ‘you too’ and failing, mouth and feet both glued in place, face warm and butterflies nesting in his gut. This is gonna be a long trip.