Title: Doctor's Logs 7
Author: Istannor 
Series: TOS
Part: 1/1
Rating: PG13
Codes: Lang., content
Summary: McCoy is ordered to keep a personal log as a
physician, of his observations aboard the Enterprise. They
are for his use only, for therapy, and to work out any
issues he might have.

Disclaimer: These are the characters of Paramount and
Viacom, they own them I only check 'em out from the library.
I promise to bring 'em back.


McCoy's logs are often out of order, as far as dates,
secondary to ion storm damage to the memory banks and
his forgetting to back them up on a secondary site, like
Spock told him to.

Doctor's Logs 7

Stardate 1733.2

Start Log

I need to tell someone this.  It seems too important not to tell,
and too special to tell to just anyone.  So, I guess this log will
have to do.  Sometimes in the middle of the ship's night,
when the sickbay is empty and I have no one to share my
thoughts with but myself, I begin to realize the immensity of
what we are trying to do.  God, we are so far from Georgia.

How do I say this?  I am a doctor.  All my adult years, I've
been trained to know the answer, or find out the answers I
don't know.  Every day, I deal with the unknowable; I confront
the unanswerable.  I'm sitting on an island of warmth,
breathable oxygen, hydrogen, and water vapor in the middle
of a vacuum.  The only thing that separates me from my
maker is one mighty damned thin metal hull.  I have to admit
that it scares the bejesus out of me sometimes.  I don't have
the answers.  I don't know.  I am a doctor, and I am supposed
to know, and I'm supposed to have the answers. What will I
do when the truth gets too heavy for me?

I didn't go to command school.  I went to medical school.  I
did a surgical residency and then a subspecialty in
Xenomedicine and its surgical offshoots?  We don't know
anything.  Half the things I learned in Med school are already
outdated.  I read and I read. Only hypno-learning keeps me
abreast.  I don't know how those poor bastards kept up in the
old days.  There was so much to know, so much to do, and
so little time.

I was always a little driven.  I admit that freely. No one would
have ever called me obsessive, though.  I just wanted to be a
good country doctor at first.  If I hadn't caught my damn wife in
bed with another man, I would never have left Georgia, done
the fellowship, or gone into Starfleet.  I did not dream of the
stars. Shit, I hate looking at them even now. I don't like cold,
or vacuum, or the unknown.  I ran and it landed me here.
Now, I have found something I didn't ever expect to find.

Today, I found myself reading journals I never read before,
and planning research projects, and investigations into
subjects I could have given a good happy about five years
ago.  Why am I doing this?  I hate space, and I hate
transporters, and I hate the military, and I hate war.  No, it isn't
just hate, I am afraid of space, transporters, the military, and
war. Look at me. Here are I am, Leonard H. McCoy, MD,  in
space, in Starfleet, serving as the CMO to probably the best
single military mind in the Federation, and transporting down
with him to wherever he wants to go. The bitch of it is, I really
like the man, and I am learning to respect him more than I
have ever respected anyone in my life. He listens to me, even
when I'm ranting, and that is an accomplishment, believe you
me. I want to be the best, because that's what he expects. He
never even says it in those words. He just sets this example
and we all scramble to follow it. How the hell did I arrive here
from where I started?

I can't figure it out.  Still in the middle of the night, just when
I've decided its too scary out here and I get ready to write my
letter of resignation, the strangest thing happens.  The COM
rings, like last night.  It was James Kirk.  He wanted to talk,
so I put the PADD down on which I had begun my letter of
resignation, and I got out a bottle of brandy with two glasses.

He came in wearing his uniform.  The man is rarely out of
uniform.  One day I will ask him, if he has any real clothes.
We sat and talked for hours, and believe it or not, we talked
about sunsets.  He has seen the sun set on 56 different
planets, to date.  So, he told me about the wondrous sunsets
he had seen on all those worlds.  For just a few hours, I could
feel space through his filter.  I could see what he saw, and for
just that time, space was no longer a cold, black, vacuum.
Tonight, while he talked, it was my grandfather's closet,  safe
and full of treasures hidden in the back.  For just this one
night, space was no longer threatening. It was a crystal clear
night in Georgia when the sky lights up around you, and
draws you up to it so close, you know if you were just a little
taller, you could touch that last star on the right.

He spoke, and for a whole night I wasn't afraid.

End Log