Interludes: Heartbreak Hotel

Recent hostilities with the Klingons left a battered and bruised starship limping into a repair dock.  Commander Spock had spent the last twelve hours in engineering assisting Montgomery Scott and now that he was no longer needed, he could attend to matters in the computer relays.  They were beginning to overload from the strain of all the repairs.  Stepping into turbo-lift 8, he began to ascend to Deck 4 and sighed.  The ship needed to be completely overhauled.  It was showing the strain of being in deep space for almost five years.  There had been a two-year layover when it passed from Christopher Pike to James Kirk and needed a new one before it headed out again. There was a great deal of advancements that needed to be introduced to the ship.  The crew also needed to be retrained and updated.  They were becoming antiquated in the flurry of technology.  The lift stopped at Deck 7 and Dr. Leonard McCoy stepped in, “Well, morning Spock.  Where are you headed?”
“Deck 4 and you doctor?”
“Bridge as usual.  Everything is squared away in sickbay so I’m gonna go needle Jim.  Thank you for your usual efficient job with the diagnostic equipment.  Christine was having a Hell of a time with that thermometer,” he smiled waiting to see Spock’s reaction to the mention of her name. Spock straightened uncomfortably and remained silent. Without warning, the lift shuddered and stopped.  They were between decks.  The lights flickered twice and went out.  McCoy’s voice was the only sound, “What the blazes is wrong now?”
Communications still worked and they were paged, “Turbo 8, come in.”
“Spock here, what is the difficulty?” he asked as though he could fix it either in the dark or stuck within the tube itself.  
“Relay went out.  Maintenance is being sent but it will be a few hours.  Is a rescue party necessary?” Uhura’s calm voice asked.  She had been on duty trying to get messages from the areas of the ship that were blind to the rest and directing interstellar communications traffic like a grand conductor of a symphony.  
“Doctor, is there any rush to get to the bridge?”
“Nope, just guess we’ll have to sit in here and spoon,” he teased.
Uhura laughed on the other end, “I’ll make sure to note that in the log.  	
In the dark, McCoy could hear Spock’s eyebrow reach the bottom of his bangs. *Must be how he decides where to get them cut, *he decided.  
The communications shut off, and both men stood uncomfortably in the pitch black.  Finally, McCoy slid down the wall to sit cross-legged on the floor, “Might as well be comfortable.  At least we don’t have to worry about air in here.”
“Environmental controls are not affected by illumination,” Spock stated flatly and assumed a similar position to McCoy.  They were across the lift from each other.
Minutes passed and the two sat silent.  McCoy, never one to be comfortable in a quiet space, started, “So, while I’ve got you here Spock, might be a good time to talk.”
“Talk doctor?” he answered with an ominous undertone.
“Yeah, you know shoot the breeze, jabber, yack...  We don’t seem to do that very often.”
“Vulcans don’t engage in small talk doctor, and if I can recall most of our conversations, they usually end up in an argument.”
“Oh, well, that’s just my way of saying I like you.  If I didn’t I wouldn’t talk to you at all,” the southern accent assured.
Spock wondered how he could get him to dislike him.  Still, McCoy had an easy banter with him.  They were friends the way Jim Kirk was not.  “What do you wish to discuss?”
“Hmm, now that I have the opportunity I can’t think of what I’ve been wanting to say.  I know.  Did I tell you that Christine is going to go back for her physicians degree when the ship docks?”
Spock was not aware of this.  While it was a pleasing thing to hear, he did not like the idea of Christine being the topic of conversation, “I am certain that Miss Chapel will do remarkably well.  She has shown talent that far exceeds her purpose in sickbay at present.”
“Damned right.  She’s the best nurse I’ve ever worked with on or off ship, wonderful bedside manner.   She does get a bit testy though.  Since Platonius she doesn’t say much like she used to.  Doesn’t smile as often either.  Seems she has some strange idea that it was all her fault.  You don’t know where she might have gotten that idea do you?” he knew precisely but would let Spock hang himself.  
“I have not spoken to her since leaving the planet except on a purely professional basis, so no I cannot say,” he lied.  It was easy to lie in the dark.  He didn’t have to meet any eyes.  
McCoy grinned.  So, he had at least informed him.  He decided to switch tactics but stay in the same department, “Oh well, she’s always had a guilt complex.  Probably just decided it for herself.”
They were silent again.  The lift showed no sign of movement or that it was being worked on.  Spock began calculating the time in his head.  They had been there 32.7 minutes.  Uhura had said hours...  
McCoy spoke again, “I never really got to apologize to you about Sarpeidon Spock.”
Spock did not like being stuck with McCoy, “Doctor, as I informed you at the time of the incident.  That was 5,000 years ago.  She is dead and gone.”
“Still, you had a chance to be happy.  If it weren’t for me you could have stayed.  It would have been our loss, but you would have that someone in your life.”
“Really doctor, humans put so much emphasis on connubial relations.  I assure you my state of happiness does not rest on that.”
“Okay, fair statement.  But it was nice wasn’t it?  You had a beautiful woman, one who would do anything, including lie for you.  Must be quite a refreshing change from T’Pring?”
At the mention of Spock’s former fiancee, he was definitely glad of the dark. He jerked his head in the direction of Leonard McCoy, “Doctor, where precisely are you headed with this line of questions?”
 Ah-ha, the bait swallowed hook, line, and sinker, “Just this, my Vulcan friend. Ever since your, for lack of a better term, divorce, you’ve been carrying on quite a bit with the womenfolk.  First there was the Romulan Commander, Miranda Jones had your interest, then Droxine, and now Zarabeth.   And let’s face it Spock, we both know why Christine was brought down to Platonius.  You wanted her, not the other way around, and it was you who read her the riot act about the whole thing.”
His voice had that stinging quality that he loved to use with Spock.  Spock rested his head against the cool bulkhead.  When would this lift start?
“Is that your purpose, to try to inflict some guilt upon me for Miss Chapel’s emotional state.  Her revelations to you were not correct.”
“She didn’t reveal anything.  I surmised.  She wouldn’t do that.  She bottles everything up the way you do.  She let’s it eat at her till she can’t stand it and has to leave.”
Spock raised an eyebrow in realization.  So this is what he was trying to get at the whole time.  He blamed Spock for her decision.  But why, “Doctor, if Miss Chapel feels that it is time to go back to her career that is her right.  In fact, I am rather interested in the fact that you find it objectable.  Perhaps your own feelings regarding her are getting in your way of her happiness.”
Spock turned the knife to stick squarely in McCoy’s craw that time.  He spluttered, “Christine and I are strictly professional.”
“Really doctor, may I tell you what I have observed?  You dote on her.  You treat her differently than every other female aboard ship.  She is given privileges that the other nurses are denied.  Why?  Is it that she is so ill-suited for her work or that you wish to impress her?” Spock enjoyed getting at McCoy.  He would not deny it. 
McCoy harrumphed, “Spock, she’s 17 years younger than I am.  If I feel anything for her it’s fatherly affection.  She’s the daughter I never got to raise when Joanna was little.  Maybe I do dote on her.  Maybe I do treat her differently, but that’s because she’s earned every damned thing I gave her and twice that.  She’s so far above me I could never touch the sole of her shoe.”
That last was really not meant to come out.  McCoy was almost shamed that he said it.  But it was true.  She was a goddess to him.  She was strong, beautiful, intellectual, poised, classic, almost other worldly.  He was just a damned country bumpkin.  Spock nodded, he had surmised as much from Leonard McCoy as well as other men aboard, even, if he didn’t want to admit it, himself.  He had watched her struggle, grow, and blossom while aboard.  She was a credit to every human trait that she possessed.  He had so little to offer her, and she deserved everything.  
  	McCoy decided it was time for a new topic, “So, how’re the repairs
going?”
Spock agreed, “They are proceeding on schedule, with the exclusion of this lift.”
Just as he said that the tube jerked and they started up.  The lights came on dim at first.  They had been stuck 1.2 hours. Spock noted that he would commend the maintenance crew for their fast work.  The two men rose and the lift stopped at deck 4, Spock started to go.  McCoy stopped him, “Spock.”
Spock turned to him, completely unreadable, “Doctor?”
“Sorry...”
“As am I,” and he was down the hall to the computer labs.