Path: newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!elnk-atl-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!atl-c03.usenetserver.com!news.usenetserver.com!wn11feed!worldnet.att.net!216.196.98.144!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newsread.com!newsstand.newsread.com!POSTED.monger.newsread.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated Approved: ascem@earthlink.net Organization: Better Living Thru TrekSmut Sender: ascem@earthlink.net Message-ID: <20041019205909.33359.qmail@web41902.mail.yahoo.com> From: Marcia Wilson-Cales MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list ASCEML@yahoogroups.com; contact ASCEML-owner@yahoogroups.com Subject: "Great Sorrows" pt 1 TOS MU; Mc, Kirk, Barrows Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Lines: 401 Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 22:55:07 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.198.142.218 X-Complaints-To: Abuse Role , We Care X-Trace: monger.newsread.com 1098226507 209.198.142.218 (Tue, 19 Oct 2004 18:55:07 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 18:55:07 EDT Xref: news.earthlink.net alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated:85137 X-Received-Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 15:55:09 PDT (newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net) The prequel to By The Firepot Beast, which was posted in the BonesLives and= Kirkmccoyfest List earlier... =20 Title: Great Sorrows Author: Kelthammer Series: MU; AU Rating: PG-13 (More tension than actual sex) =20 Character Code: McCoy's POV; Mc/f; (Barrows) Kirk Summary: Leading to the events of By the Firepot Beast. An old relationsh= Great sorrows do not speak. --John Donne =20 The first time he sees her, she's terrified. =20 Naturally. =20 All the newcomers have to submit to a new physical aboard ship--insurance a= gainst their previous physician not doing his or her job--and she's the thi= rd one. He knows the look in her eyes. Even if you're clean as the driven= snow, there are a million ways to mess up someone's readings, make it look= like they have an unsavory drug habit, ruin their lives and careers. =20 Then of course, there's the fact that CMOs are almost an impolite euphemism= for manipulation. =20 He ignores the wary side-glances she slips him as he writes on the stylus. = She's expecting him to do something--feel her up or make a coy threat. Li= ttle does she know, how god-damn tired he is of those games. He's no white= crow, but in an ethically dangerous atmosphere one either collapses and jo= ins the crowd, or they stand apart, bitter and alone.=20=20 =20 He wavers between the two, truth to tell. He's nearly always alone, except= for his friendship with the captain. And while he doesn't collapse into c= orruption, his Sickbay is barely controllable. The medics come and go fast= er than pantry flies. Each new member has to be forcibly put in the proper= pecking order. Just demanding respect as the commander of the department = is a struggle more often than not. Anymore, he just slumps into a halfway-= apathetic attitude. So long as they do their job, he hopes they do it good= enough that he won't have to comment.=20 =20 His medics might plot behind his back; his Head Nurse is promoting out in a= few years, and his AMO barely leaves the lab. But at least he takes the t= ime to know the patients the way doctors used to know about them, back in t= he day when that kind of attention was taken for granted. What can he say?= He was trained a civilian physician before he became 'Fleet. Hippocrites= himself said that if one needs to know surgery, then go to war. He did. = Albeit not for any altruistic desire to polish his surgical skills. He was= running away. He's still running away, truth to tell. Bad as the ISS ENT= ERPRISE can be, its still preferable to the demons waiting for him back hom= e. =20 No doubt a flaw in his breeding, as Spock has dryly commented so often in t= he past. But the inability of the Empire to think along his lines is not h= is problem. =20 "Your next appointment will be exactly on the second day of the following S= tandard Month, first Beta shift. Of course, if you follow our captain down= to any strange planets, I'll probably see you a lot sooner than that." =20 She isn't such a newcomer that she doesn't get that gallows-joke. Still, s= he blanches slightly, and leaves with indecent haste. =20 Chapel shakes her head at him. "You've got to stop scaring the patients." =20 "Just being factual." =20 "Don't I know it. But what's that thing the recruiter tells you--oh, yes. = Something about 'never volunteering?' =20 He chuckles at her rare joke. The sound unnerves the patients left in line= . =20 *** =20 She's considered safe. A Yeoman. The yeoman. A person of some rank--mean= ing, an appropriate family--worthy enough to wait upon the officer. She'll= hit thirty in a month, but she looks older. Half her life was spent on th= e Arcturian colony and their divergant solar rotation. If you wanted to be= medical about it, she was really about six years younger than he was. =20 Her true age means she's more mature than she looks. Not that she's partic= ularly experienced. Arcturians are a peaceful lot. It takes nothing less = than a volcanic calamity to uproot them enough to send them off-planet. He= has a feeling it wasn't that long ago that her classmates sent her all ove= r the docks looking for a left-handed computer, or a "circular filing progr= am." =20 Her position means she has some slight immunity against the lowest-ranking = parasites on ship. =20 If she wants immunity from the higher ones, she has to earn it. =20 He watched her, of course. It was survival to pay attention to who was who= on the ship. She'd gone through an entire regime of qualifications that m= eant she was loyal to the captain, but too bad that branded her as potentia= l snitch, rat, and someone no one else could trust. She was young but ther= e was a tough demeanor to her outlook on life. She ate alone, but most peo= ple did. She could handle herself; he'd never seen her in Sickbay needing = a patchup from a fight or 'debate.' She studied a lot. She and Angela Mar= tine had projects they researched together. Historically-inclined research= so they were safe from modern intrigue. =20 But the isolation is wearing on her, that, and the automatic assumption tha= t she can't be trusted simply because she's the captain's yeoman. That tou= gh edge begins to get rigid. Brittle. =20 Uhura once showed him a paper she was working on with Angela and Tonia. Th= e Use of Phonic Waves in Modern Technology. They needed a medical viewpoin= t to check their research on the effects of frequencies on the humanoid bod= y. He looked it over, and agreed with Uhura's assessment: these two women = will go far. =20 She was smart. Extremely so. Her work was exemplery. She hadn't learned = to tone down on her accomplishments just yet. He caught on that she was ge= tting wrapped up in a self-absorbed isolation of work. Bookworm. Mole. M= ouse. Other names to label her. He was clinically glad of it. Even a hur= tful label was better than none. People who didn't fit into others' notion= s got killed quick. Nobody liked a mystery, and when it was decided she li= ved only for study and research, people left her alone with a kind of conte= mpt. =20 Nice and safe, he realized. =20 Of course, she acted so young. =20 *** =20 Her hand was hurt soldering her computer. Slow day in Sickbay, of course--= nobody really wanted to go there unless they had to. He looked up from the= desk to see her standing there, looking like she wasn't going to cry even = if the effort made her faint dead away. She wasn't going to faint either. = No options. =20 "Looks ugly," he commented, rising from the desk. Chapel passed by, arms l= oaded with her latest project. She snorted at him; an unspoken comment abo= ut his unswerving gift for understatement. "Bring it over here. Anything = else injured?" =20 "No." She thinks she says it, but no words come out. She shakes her head. =20 "Let's see..." He gives her a clinical once-over, sends the salt shaker up= and over, shakes his head at the change in harmonics. "No painkillers jus= t yet. I need to find which nerves are still functioning." =20 He mentally smiled. No protest at how much it hurt. Grown men, full of th= eir macho image, are famous for their complaints in his office His reputat= ion as the reigning sadist actually began with those whiners who couldn't u= nderstand why a hangnail didn't mean prescribed painkillers. Women tend no= t to whine as much. Odd, if you believed the bigoted medical texts, but he= doesn't. =20 "Was that all?" Barrows is puzzled as he turns away, putting the sprays on= the shelf. =20 "That's all." He tells her. "Unless there's a medical problem you need ad= dressed now." =20 The silence lengthens slightly, and it's his turn to be puzzled when she tu= rns beet red. "No." She mumbles, looks down at her healing hand. "No, sir, that's all." =20 "Doctor." =20 "Sir?" =20 "I was a doctor before I made the stripes. That's still the only rank." H= e speaks just gently enough that she understands that the matter is importa= nt to him. She nods uncertainly. "I'm logging you off for the rest of the= day. Don't use that hand unless you can avoid it; give the cells a chance= to re-grow. Whatever you do, don't touch anything warmer than your blood = temperature. That'll just confuse your nerves right now." =20 "Yes s-doctor." =20 He watches her go, wondering what he said to make her so nervous in such an= odd way. It wasn't fear, but it certainly was uncertainty. =20 He has that effect on people. If he wasn't so tight with the captain, thin= gs on ship would be a lot clearer. On the other hand, his friendship with = the captain makes people think he'd betray his medical oath and give Kirk c= onfidential information. =20 Who could blame them that mistaken assumption? He shakes his head as he cl= eans up. Naivity killed you. Nobody wants to die, but more than anything,= they don't want to be killed for stupidity. And the medical field is famo= us for its level of self-serving corruption. =20 Things didn't used to be this way, he reminds himself. Its no comfort. Th= e Empire had once been a lot...calmer. People had joined the military beca= use they wanted to, not because they were in it for the mandatory 25-year d= raft. There had been a time, back in his father's day, that one didn't hav= e to rely on rations to survive part of the year. Of course that had been = before the colony worlds had fallen. Before plague swept through an estima= ted 30% of all three empires--Klingon, Vulcan, and Terran... =20 There had been a time when merit sent a man through the ranks more than his= skill with the dagger. =20 The tragedy is, he remembers it.=20=20 =20 He and Scotty and Spock are old enough to recall those better days. But th= e younger officers, the rising stars, have no memory of anything more than = want and desperation. James Kirk most of all. =20 Against his will, McCoy conjures the memory of himself on the Pegasus, in t= he wake of Kodos' Execution. A medic bringing in the civilians. A small, = filth-crusted boy with eyes glaring full of hot anger and hate, so bright t= hey gave off light like two lamps. =20 "You have to learn to feel again," He told the angry young boy. =20 "Why?=94 The angry young boy asked. =20 He had not been much older than the furious child. Looking back, he had be= en just as young in lack of experience.=20=20 =20 He had saved that boy's life.=20=20 =20 And what would be the full consequence of that act of mercy? James Tiberiu= s, the survivor of uncounted disasters--cloud vampires, mad genetic counsel= ors, insane commanders...someone who seems to live to survive no matter wha= t the cost to his own sense of identity. So far that boy has grown up to a= ssassinate his way to the captaincy, and 8,000 Vegan revolutionaries. Let'= s not count the number of his enemies that just up and vanish into thin air= , although chances are slim he's stranded them on tropical islands. =20 Feeling flat and weary, he shuts his office door. Paperwork has to be done= . Files need signing. Work work and always work.=20=20 =20 And always sequestered in the cloister of the office. No more Pegasus, no = more cutting-edge missions searching for plague and invading germs. Like J= ames Kirk, he had risen too high to allow that privilege anymore. =20 No wonder Kirk's eyes burned. He did not know his eyes burned as hot as his captain's, nor would he have = believed the person who would say so. =20 He answers Jim's invitation to dinner in Captain's Quarters. The guards pa= rt. Farrell, who he just patched up, gives a polite nod. He nods back and= steps through the closing doors. Jim Kirk is rising, coolly putting away = a plethora of odd-looking tools in a warped trapezoid-shaped box by the wal= l. A painting hangs facing the captain's bed. Something new. Jim Kirk is= not an art lover. If it's not a potential weapon, he usually won't have i= t in his quarters. =20 "Right on time, Bones." Jim smiles, and for a moment the fires are banked = behind those eyes. =20 "Did I interrupt anything?" =20 "No, nothing important." =20 A slide. McCoy realizes he made a mistake by noticing whatever it was Jim = had been working on. He looks around, trying to salvage something. "Just = the two of us tonight?" =20 "Marlena...is working." Just a slight, cool hesitation in words. There'd = been rumors that the relationship was on the outs. =20 Inwardly, McCoy feels badly for the captain. Jim Kirk needs a confiaza; so= meone he can trust and speak freely with. Somebody, he thinks, besides his= ship's surgeon who has a dauncy reputation at best. =20 "But," Kirk brushes his hands on his pants, "I have a more than capable ser= ver tonight." =20 "Oh?" McCoy sits at his captain's direction, but thinks back to a time whe= n "dinner" meant the two of them getting drunk in a filthy bar and singing = off-tune songs about mermaids in front of bewildered Andorians. =20 "Yes." The captain smiles, proudly. The side door opens, and Yeoman Barro= ws arrives bearing a tray. All profession, there isn't even a clue that sh= e would ever show fear in his office. =20 This has to be the first time he's had dinner in the captain's quarters wit= hout Marlena since she became the Captain's Woman. McCoy does his best to = hide his thoughts as they speak about the food, the lack of quality in rati= ons, and the hopes of Marchen shore leave.=20 =20 He'd known when Jim was seeing Marlena. His demeanor had improved, and the= re'd been a youth returned to his step He'd displayed a gentleness nearly = dead and buried. But that had been a year ago, and now Jim is returning to= that hard outer shell. =20 Marlena had been good for Jim. Why were things going so sour, so abruptly? =20 He knows why Jim invited him over. Jim is aiming to prove that he doesn't n= eed Marlena in his life, that he isn't keeping her in any plans. All thing= s are normal, all things are fine. =20 Too bad McCoy can't believe it. The qualities that makes Kirk a perfect ca= ptain also make him a perfect bear outside of the battlefield. Inwardly he= regrets the rift that will leave his captain harder and older before his t= ime--another layer of shell over his heart. The harder Jim Kirk gets, the = harder it is for his doctor to do his job and look out for his emotional we= llbeing. =20 "Oh, I finally got a report from Ebla," McCoy lifts his hand in sudden reco= llection. "They've expressed the deepest regrets for what they call that "= little misunderstanding." He lifts his eyebrow slowly, conveying heavy iro= ny. =20 Kirk snorts, just as contemptuous. "You wonder what they'd call a nova--a = cartographic inconvenience?" =20 "That's what Vulcans call them, isn't it?" McCoy winces slightly at bad me= mories. "I still find it hard to believe." =20 "What?" =20 "That a man could die of loneliness." =20 The captain's face changes. Silently. Terribly. "I don't find that hard = to believe at all, Bones." Kirk tells him softly. "But first, he has to g= o mad." =20 McCoy stares at him. =20 "Just a moment," Kirk rises to go to the back room. The moment drags. McC= oy feels awkward in the same room with Barrows. He's never been around her= in a non-medical capacity. His turn to feel uneasy. Trying to mask it, h= e rises and programs a cup of coffee out of the wall dispenser. He coughs = at the first taste; the coffee is strong enough for a Tellarite. Even more= embarassed, he dumps the cup into the waste dispenser with a weak smile to= Barrows. By God, no wonder Jim Kirk is like the way he is, if this is the= stuff he drinks. =20 "Are you all right?" She asks innocently. "You look like it went down the= wrong way." =20 "M'fine," he strangles out, getting more flustered by the second. =20 The captain emerges, cradling a slender bottle in his hands. "Marlena does= n't know what she's missing," he says with a mean kind of satisfaction; Ton= ia pretends she didn't hear. McCoy feels like an intruder to be caught wit= nessing unpleasantries between Jim Kirk and his latest romance. =20 He pours; the air smells of licorice. Strong licorice. Two fingers' worth= , and the tiny amount does nothing for the burning in his stomach. It cros= ses his mind to ask his captain what the hell he's been programming into hi= s personal food allots--no wonder his diet never seems to go anywhere. All= right, he'll broach the topic tomorrow. When they're out of the umbrella = of polite hospitality.=20=20 =20 Tonia Barrows leans over to clear the table; the low, random-placed lights = in the Captain's Berth catches faint hues in the low scoop of her breasts. =20 He walks to his cabin. A weird euphoria buzzes his head. Probably the dri= nk, he decides. That and the Captain's odd choice of apertif. He feels co= mpletely ridiculous. On-ship carnal thoughts were such an impossibly bad i= dea. They weren't good for your health. They were bad for your health. T= hey epitomized stupidity. Only the captain was somewhat safe from the intr= igues of romance. And right now, it didn't look like things were good betw= een him and Moreau anymore. =20 Stupid...Moreau was the kind of woman who would fight with her man, yes, bu= t she'd also fight for her man. That hot Latin temper she joked about wasn= 't just her reputation. Moreau was dangerous and you didn't want to be on = the wrong side of the dagger with her. Or the wrong side of the test tube = for that matter... =20 He pauses in the hallway, realizing the tangle of his thoughts were getting= a little dangerous. He shouldn't be thinking of Jim Kirk's bad relationsh= ip, as opposed to his complete lack of one. And why think of Tonia Barrows= ? Because she got to see him choke over a vile cup of Captain's Caffeine? =20 He spins on his heels, knowing its useless to go to his cabin. Crazy energ= y simmering in his blood now. He needs to work it off. =20 Two of his medics are back to their old tricks, passing bets on another inj= ured crewman. He doesn't break stride on his way to his office. Both men = yelp and collapse as their superior's agonizer rakes across the delicate sp= inal nerves. =20 McCoy realizes he feels pretty good for such a behind-the-back maneuver. =20 "Next time it won't be a light dose," he snarls. They gape at him from the= floor, unable to believe what they're seeing. "You're off-duty for the re= st of the shift. And kiss your day's pay good-bye." =20 A shame, he thinks, that these ship-doors can't slam. They would end his l= ecture on a fitting note. =20 TBC... =09=09 --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ASCEM messages are copied to a mailing list. Most recent messages can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCEML. NewMessage: