Title: Who Wants to be a Doctor? (#25, The Drabble Bin)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Summary: Special visitors arrive aboard the Enterprise. Someone has to take charge of them.
Previous Drabbles: The Old Four | Those Neighborhood Hoodlums | Trapped | A Cage of His Own | Of Perky Starfleet Bottoms | An Hour Past | War of the Bots | The Best Substitute | Surprise Meeting | Little Help | Dreaming | The Tower | Brother | It’s Complicated | With Close Friends | Not As It Seems | Vulcans Can Be Grumpy Too | Upsetting the CMO | A Romantic Venture | When Your Blues Have a Gold | Show Me the Money (or Not) | Feed the Flame | Shift Change | A Tale of Some Debate

Dr. Leonard McCoy walks into Sickbay, takes a look around, then walks right back out. Finding the nearest wall comm, he activates it with some urgency. “McCoy to Bridge!”

“Bones,” his captain, James T. Kirk, answers immediately, already seeming tickled about something. “How’s life?”

“Jim, I must be hallucinating.”

“Oh?” Kirk sounds delighted.

“There’s a gaggle of children in my sickbay.”

“On a field trip,” the captain explains, smothering a laugh. “Our most esteemed guests are touring the ship today.”

McCoy demands, “Then why in the hell wasn’t I notified before they showed up?”

His captain counters lightly, “It was in the ship’s newsletter.”

McCoy bites off his next complaint with a barely discernable wince. Eventually all he mutters is, “Damn it,” mainly to himself. After all, it’s an ill-kept secret that McCoy never opens the newsletters in circulation, much less reads them.

“It’s just for an hour,” Kirk says soothingly, apparently done having a laugh at his CMO’s expense. “Scotty will swing by to fetch them before you know it.”

“Jim,” the doctor begins, sounding pained.

“Bones, c’mon, they’re kids.”

“With pointed ears. What am I supposed to do?”

“Relax, it won’t be so bad!”

“Uh-huh. What do you get when you mix a bay full of dangerous medical equipment and a dozen baby Vulcans? Oh wait, I guess we’re aiming to find out!” McCoy says sarcastically before leaning away from the comm unit with a huff of defeat. “Fine, whatever. I’ll handle it.”

On the bridge, hearing the tell-tale click of the channel closing, Jim chuckles. He rubs a hand across his mouth but that doesn’t quite remove the man’s grin.

He swivels around in the captain’s chair to look at his second-in-command. “Mr. Spock, perhaps you could spare time to visit Sickbay today.”

Spock turns toward him, one eyebrow lifting at the gentle suggestion.

“Dr. McCoy may need your assistance,” Jim continues, a twinkle in his blue eyes. “He sounded… distressed.”

“If you believe it would be appropriate, Captain.”

Jim’s grin comes back full-force, then. “Oh, it would be so appropriate.”

“Very well.” Spock inquires after a beat, “Shall I leave now?”

“Give it fifteen minutes,” the captain murmurs, relaxing in his chair with a satisfied air and crossing one leg over the other. “By then Bones will be very much settled in.”

The officers manning the various stations trade winks and secret smiles with the nearest companions, all except for Mr. Spock, who returns to facing his console with his usual bland expression. But the intense way the First Officer focuses on operating his controls suggests an expedited clearing of his current work queue, no doubt to ensure he will have ample time left in the day’s shift to deal with the interesting challenge he has been dealt.

Precisely fifteen minutes later, the Vulcan hands his station over to a stand-in and heads for a turbolift. At the last second, someone slips ahead of Spock into the lift, moving to lean nonchalantly against the back wall, arms crossed and eyes alight.

“Captain,” Spock greets his superior, adding nothing else.

With a dip of his chin, Kirk acknowledges this lack of surprise. By way of explanation, he simply says, “I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”

There’s a particular expectation Jim has upon entering Sickbay, and it mainly centers on a certain doctor exploding into the ward, having escaped from wherever he has been cornered by a horde of bowl-cut-headed children. Then said doctor would with some degree of anger and desperation admit to his requiring rescuing when those children come hunting. Jim would happily oblige—after, of course, memorizing every detail of McCoy’s wild appearance for future purposes (namely his arsenal of entertaining anecdotes and maybe, just maybe, a bit of blackmail).

That fantasy pops like a soap bubble after his first step into the main ward, where he finds instead the entire second-year class of New Vulcan’s Junior Science Academy sitting in a mannered, orderly fashion on the floor in front of Dr. McCoy and his head nurse. McCoy barely spares a glance for his latest visitors, holding up a handheld medical device Jim hasn’t seen before (that is, at least not while conscious).

“Any questions?” the doctor says.

Every child raises a hand. The head nurse picks one from the middle of the group.

The boy stands up, asking in a very serious tone, “May we observe this device in action?”

The corner of McCoy’s mouth twitches. “You want to attend a craniotomy?”

“That is correct.”

McCoy’s eyes cut sideways to Kirk and Spock then, his drawl underpinned by amusement. “Well, that’d be a request to make of the ship’s captain.”

Immediately one dozen intensely focused, dark-eyed children turn to stare at Kirk, who has the sudden suspicion he has underestimated some, if not all, of the situation he walked into.

Spock seems to realize it might be his captain in need of rescue. He steps forward. “Opportunities will be available at the Academy for any student interested in observing a medical demonstration.”

The boy, still standing, protests, “The rule states only sixth-years are allowed in the observation room.”

“Then one must wait until one becomes a sixth-year to apply,” Spock replies mildly.

“This Terran doctor is available to demonstrate these tools now.”

Spock’s gaze pins the student. “Dr. McCoy will not undermine the Academy’s rules—or the laws of our people.”

“It is logical to learn of this area of study by observation. If we are denied a demonstration, we cannot learn.”

All the children seem to be in agreement, some saying, “That is logical,” while others state, “We must see a surgery.”

Spock’s eyebrows pinch together, and Jim decides then the safest place to be is on the sidelines. He positions himself on McCoy’s side of the ward.

“Where is your chaperon?” Spock not-quite-demands of the nonplussed children.

In the meantime, McCoy has coughed to cover his chuckling. “The teacher ran off,” he murmurs to Jim. “Apparently even a hardy species like Spock’s needs a break from managing their offspring.”

Jim snorts. Then he elbows the doctor. “So, would you bet on Spock to win this argument?”

As more children come to their feet to face down the only adult Vulcan in the room—namely the party-pooper who is ruining all the fun of an educational adventure—Leonard elbows Jim back, grinning. He says, “Of course I would. Anything else would be disloyal.”

“Would you expect to win the bet?”

“Nope. So I wouldn’t bet much.”

It can’t be helped; the two men burst out laughing.

The nurse takes the medical instrument (the very one which seems to easily fascinate curious young minds) away from her boss, who is too busy trying to keep himself and his captain upright in their mirth to pay attention to the small hands reaching for it. She walks off with a shake of her head and a smile on her face.

-Fini

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