Crucible: McCoy

by David R. George III

  “I…” he started, but he seemed unable to respond further.

  Barrows attempted to sort it all out. “You kissed me,” she said. “Right here on this platform, you took action to rekindle our romance. And for nearly two years, we’ve spent almost all of our personal time together, as well as all of our professional time. We rarely argue, we have great fun together, and care for each other.” Barrows thought of the tremendous support Leonard had provided—still provided—after the unexpected death of her brother from a brain aneurysm a year ago. “We’ve had a positive, solid, loving relationship. And now, when I ask about committing ourselves to one another, you back away just as you did on the Enterprise.”

  “I’m sorry,” Leonard said.

  “That’s not good enough,” Barrows said. “Not for me, but not for you either.” She stepped forward and faced Leonard at close range. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Did it end like this with Jocelyn or Nancy, Natira or Lisa? Is there a pattern of behavior here?”

  Again, Leonard looked away. “I’m sorry that I’ve hurt you,” he said.

  “You’re not just hurting me, Leonard,” she said. “You’re hurting yourself. You’re walking away—maybe running away—from love. You need to figure out why.” Barrows stepped back, as though formally severing the ties between them. “I’ll begin a leave of absence from the project beginning tomorrow, then seek a transfer from Starfleet Command.”

  “You don’t need to do that,” he said.

  “I’m not doing it for my own sake,” she said. “I’m doing it for yours.”

  “I don’t know what to say to you about all of this,” Leonard said.

  “You don’t need to say anything,” Barrows said. “Go now.”

  Leonard looked down the length of the empty station platform and then back at her. “I don’t want to leave you alone here,” he said.

  “You already have,” she told him.

  Leonard stood motionless for a long while, saying nothing. Finally, he nodded, then turned and left the station. She saw him stop farther down the street, at the corner, watching until the next monorail arrived a few minutes later.

  As Barrows rode toward Sausalito, she still felt hurt and angry, but no longer confused. She didn’t know what troubled Leonard, but she was convinced now that something did, something that would deny him real happiness in his life until he resolved it.

  In the empty monorail car, tears distorted Barrows’s vision, then slid from her eyes and down her cheeks. She missed him already.

  McCoy stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking down from the high-rise at the San Francisco waterfront. The lights of other buildings, and of boats docked along the harbor, dotted the night like earthbound stars. Uncharacteristically unable to stop himself, McCoy lifted his gaze across the bay, to the far shore, along which the town of Sausalito stretched.

  It had been three months since his relationship with Tonia had ended. Distracted with his duties, he didn’t think of her often, but when he did—like now—a terrible feeling of loss flooded over him. He could not have stayed with her, he knew that, but he also could not deny that their two years together had been wonderful.

  Since then, his circumstances had changed. Though Tonia had said that she would take a leave of absence from the project, during which time she would ask Starfleet Command to transfer her elsewhere, McCoy had decided to do just that himself. It had seemed unfair for him to allow her to sacrifice her efforts for a situation that he had essentially caused, and it would’ve been impossibly uncomfortable for them to continue working together in such close proximity. He’d attempted to contact her to let her know of his pending reassignment, though he’d had to settle for leaving her a message. Still, Tonia had not retracted her request for transfer, and she too had taken another post. With the little progress the team had made in the preceding few months, and with its membership subsequently cut in half, Starfleet Command and Starfleet Medical had opted to shut the project down rather than replenish its numbers. McCoy had personally apologized to Dorsant and Olga for what had happened, and they had both been gracious enough to offer their understanding.

  Now, as he stood peering out of the north side of Russian Hill Tower, he imagined that one of the lights across the bay belonged to Tonia, gleaming from a window in her apartment. Of course, for all he knew, she might not live in Sausalito anymore, or even on Earth. Although he no doubt could, he hadn’t checked to see to where she had been transferred.

  “This is my best attempt,” Jim said, walking up beside him. McCoy turned from the windows and the spectacular views his friend’s apartment afforded, recalling with a twinge of regret Tonia’s comments about his frequent propinquity to such vistas. In Jim’s hands, he held two slender, tall glasses, one a third filled with an amber liquid—knowing the admiral, probably Saurian brandy—and the other filled with a drink in crushed ice and adorned by several aromatic sprigs of mint.

  “After all these years, you finally made a julep,” McCoy said, delighted by his friend’s gesture.

  “You might want to reserve judgment until you’ve tasted it,” Jim said.

  “I can do that right now,” McCoy said, and he lifted the glass to his lips. Though a bit too sweet, the syrup did cut the harshness of the bourbon and also tamed the bite of the mint. The cold beverage went down his throat refreshingly easily. “More than a passable first effort,” McCoy announced. “I won’t even take off points for not using a julep cup.”

  “How magnanimous of you, Bones,” Jim said. He raised his glass in salute and McCoy touched it with his own. The two men sipped from their drinks.

  “So to what do I owe this singular honor?” McCoy asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know, Bones,” Jim said, walking away from the windows in the den and back into the living room. McCoy followed. Sparingly populated with modern furniture, the room had been tastefully decorated with the admiral’s collection of antiques, many of them naval in theme. Jim moved toward the fireplace. Flames danced within, sending orange shadows flickering across the walls. As Jim took a seat before the fire, he said, “You just seem to be a little down these days.”

  “I do?” McCoy said, surprised by the claim. In truth, he could’ve said the same thing about his friend. Since Jim had returned to Starfleet last month, he’d been prone to periods of melancholy, which McCoy had naturally attributed to the end of his romance with Antonia Salvatori. For his own part, though, McCoy hadn’t dwelled on the loss of his relationship with Tonia, or even on his departure from the chronometric-particles project, and so he hadn’t actually felt down. Perhaps Jim had cast his own mind-set onto McCoy. Unwilling to propose that, though, he chose simply to agree. “I guess we make quite a pair, don’t we?” he said. He drank again from his mint julep.

  “I guess so,” Jim agreed.

  McCoy stepped over to the hearth, feeling the comfortable warmth of the fire. He rested an arm atop the mantel, beside a small figurine he recognized. A pair of simple humanoid heads carved out of stone, it symbolized friendship and had been a gift to Jim from a man named Tyree, a member of a technologically primitive people on a distant planet. McCoy looked at it for a second, and then back down at Jim, happy to have him back in the Bay Area. Though transporters and maglevs and airpods rendered the thousand kilometers between San Francisco, California, and Lost River, Idaho, easily traversable, their lives had kept them mostly apart for the four and a half years since returning to Earth from the Aquarius mission.

  At first, Jim had desired isolation, retiring from Starfleet and retreating to the relatively remote land his uncle had left to him. Somewhere in the backwoods of Bingham County, though, he had met Antonia. In the time that the two had been together, Jim had spoken of her little on the occasions that he and McCoy had talked over the comnet. McCoy had met Antonia only once, at the surprise birthday that Tonia had thrown for him last year. Tall and attractive, bright and friendly, Antonia had seemed like a nice enough woman, though he had been unsure how well suited
to Jim she’d been. He’d hoped for his friend’s happiness, of course, but it hadn’t shocked him when he’d learned that the two had gone their separate ways.

  Deciding to change the subject, McCoy said, “So Spock tells me you’ve lined up Sulu and Uhura for our next training mission.” Three months from now, when Spock took his cadets out on a three-week voyage, it would as a matter of course include a small complement of frontline officers, functioning as both educators and evaluators. Spock, now a captain, had been an instructor of starship personnel for several years, and he’d been placed within Jim’s aegis when the admiral had come back to Starfleet. Scotty worked with Spock’s engineering cadets as well, and McCoy had taken a similar position with his medical trainees. Now, apparently Sulu and Uhura would be coming along for the ride.

  “That’s right,” Jim said. “The Exeter will be undergoing a refit and so Sulu will be reassigned. He’ll be here at Starfleet between postings, so I thought I’d ask him if he’d be interested in helming the Enterprise again, even if for only three weeks.”

  “I’ll bet he jumped at the chance,” McCoy said. He’d known Hikaru for almost two decades, and the man had a reputation for an eclectic and ever-changing list of avocations, which at one time or another had included botany, fencing, antique firearms, wine, ballroom dancing, ikebana, folk music, baseball—whatever that was—and the Riemann Hypothesis—whatever that was. Through all of Hikaru’s many and varied interests, McCoy knew of only one that had remained constant: the man loved to pilot, whether it be ground, water-, air-, or spacecraft.

  “He did jump at it,” Jim said. “He said he couldn’t wait to sit at the Enterprise’s helm again.” He upended his drink, then placed his glass on the table that sat between the two chairs in front of the fireplace. “So, Bones,” he said with a casualness he didn’t really project, “what’s on your mind?”

  “What do you mean?” McCoy asked.

  Jim pointed back toward his study. “I thought I saw you looking over at Sausalito before,” he said. “I thought perhaps you were missing Tonia.”

  McCoy took another pull from his drink. He didn’t really want to talk about this. “No,” he lied. “I was just looking out at the bay. Sausalito just happens to be over there.”

  Jim looked at him appraisingly, as though trying to determine whether or not he should believe him. Finally, he said, “All right,” in a way that suggested he actually didn’t accept McCoy’s claim as true. “But if you ever do need to talk, Bones, you know I’m here.”

  “I know,” McCoy said, grateful for Jim’s concern, even if he would not avail himself of it. “Thanks.” He eased away from the fire and over to the second chair facing it. He sat down, searching for another subject about which to speak, wanting to move away as quickly as possible from the topic Jim had attempted to raise. “Have you heard from Chekov at all?” he said.

  “I have,” Jim said. “I received a message from him just a couple of weeks ago. He’s received a promotion to first officer aboard the Reliant.”

  “Well earned, I’m sure,” McCoy said.

  “He’s become quite a solid officer. He’ll end up with his own ship someday.”

  As Jim spoke, though, McCoy’s mind wandered. Unbidden, pictures rose in his mind of San Francisco Bay, and across it, the lights of Sausalito. In a moment of weakness, he wondered if Tonia still lived there, and if not, then where exactly she was right now. It hurt to admit it, and he knew he could do nothing about it, but he missed her.

  Forty-Two

  1946

  Lynn placed the plate of fried chicken on the kitchen table, then sat down across from Leonard.

  “That looks delicious,” he said, reaching for the bowl of mashed potatoes, the dish closest to him.

  “Leonard,” Lynn scolded as she folded her hands together before her. He looked over and shook his head, clearly realizing his mistake.

  “Oh, sorry,” he said. He intertwined the fingers of his own hands and lowered his gaze, and then Lynn bowed her head as well.

  “Almighty God, our Father who art in Heaven, we ask Thy blessing on this food,” she said. “And while we enjoy Thy generous bounty, we also humbly ask that You watch over our soldiers bravely trying to protect us overseas. Amen.” She did not specifically ask for God to keep Phil safe—that would be selfish and arrogant—but in her heart, she hoped for that to be the case.

  Across from her, Leonard reached again for the food. This had become their routine. Each evening, he would come over to the house and they would listen to the radio, hoping for good news from Europe, from the Atlantic, from the Pacific. Then they would have supper together.

  Phil had been away for most of the last two years. After enlisting in the army, he’d been sent to Fort Jackson, in the state capital of Columbia. There, he’d undergone fourteen weeks of recruit training, followed by twelve weeks of unit training. During that time, Lynn had heard from him relatively frequently, usually receiving at least a couple of short letters each week and an occasional telephone call. She answered every single letter right away.

  After training, Phil had participated for months in exercises and maneuvers, interrupted only by a three-day pass at Christmas, during which time he’d actually gotten to come home. A buddy Phil had made during basic had arranged rides for them to and from Greenville, and Leonard and Lynn had picked him up and taken him back there. After the holidays, the maneuvers had intensified, taking his infantry division marching out of South Carolina and through Georgia and Tennessee. During that period, Lynn had heard from her husband less often.

  Finally, about a year ago, Phil had been shipped to Europe. Since then, Lynn had received only four letters from him, though she had written to him much more often than that. Each morning, upon waking, and each night, at supper and before bed, Lynn prayed for the well-being of all Allied soldiers, picturing in her mind the face of her husband.

  Tonight, as she and Leonard had listened to the radio, they’d heard some good news. American and British forces had taken back Ireland from the Nazis, and Rommel’s defensive emplacements had been pushed back in Algeria. At the same time, the Battle of Hawai’i, now in its fifth week, raged on, and earlier today, the battleship West Virginia had been lost.

  Selecting a chicken leg, Leonard finished filling his plate for supper, then speared a forkful of collard greens. “Mmm,” he crooned. “Very tasty.” It always pleased Lynn how much Leonard liked her cooking. In the beginning, right after Phil had left, they’d shared the task of preparing the evening meal, with Lynn going over to Leonard’s every few nights. Soon enough, though, she’d stopped doing that, concerned about what people might think. When she’d thought about it herself, she’d found her visits unseemly, despite the chaste nature of her relationship with Leonard.

  Your friendship is chaste, she thought, even if your thoughts aren’t. As much as she missed Phil, and as much as she would never step out on him, she had admitted to herself her attraction to Leonard. She’d felt it for years, but it had grown particularly strong when they’d begun spending so much time alone together. For that reason as much as any other, she’d resolved not to visit him in his house. He came here instead, where reminders of Phil abounded, and where she found it easier to resist temptation.

  “I’m glad you like it,” she told Leonard of the food.

  “I worked through lunch today,” he said, “so I’m famished.” Like many men and women in town, including Lynn herself, Leonard had begun working at the mill in support of the war effort. Granted a contract from the federal government, the mill now worked full-time to produce blankets and hosiery for the troops. Leonard still practiced medicine, but everybody in town knew to look for him or call him at the mill if they couldn’t find him at home.

  “When I was having lunch today,” Lynn said, “Becky Jensen told me that Mary Denton hurt herself and came to see you.”

  “You’d have to ask Becky Jensen about that,” Leonard said.

  “You can’t even tell me if you
saw her?” Lynn said. A couple of times before, she’d asked Leonard about townsfolk he’d treated, and he’d always told her to ask the person directly if she wanted to know about their visit to him. He’d explained the reason to her, but she still didn’t really understand why he couldn’t tell her something as simple as whether or not Mary Denton had gone to see him. “Is that doctor-patient con…con—”

  “Confidentiality,” Leonard said. “It is. When I became a doctor, I swore an oath not to discuss my patients without their permission or direction. We’ve talked about this.”

  “I know,” Lynn said. “I just don’t understand why—” A knock at the front door interrupted her. “I wonder who that can be,” she said. As she stood up, Leonard did too, and he followed her across the hall and into the parlor. Lynn opened the front door to find Jake Dinsmore standing on the porch. “Jake,” she said, “what are you doing here?” Through the window, Lynn saw the Dinsmore’s Crosley station wagon, with Jake’s wife, Annabelle, in the passenger seat. She worked down at the Western Union—

  Lynn looked back at Jake and saw the piece of paper in his hands. “No,” she said, tears all at once beginning to stream down her face. “No!” she shrieked. Her legs felt weak beneath her and she started to slip toward the floor, but then Leonard’s hands were around her shoulders, supporting her. He eased her backward a couple of steps, into one of the tub chairs. Lynn buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

  “Doc, I’m sorry,” she heard Jake say. Leonard responded, but she couldn’t make out his words through her weeping. Then she heard the door close and felt Leonard kneeling down at her side, his hand on her back. She turned in the chair and reached for him, hugging him hard as she cried.

  They stayed that way for a long time. When at last her tears had eased some, Lynn pulled away and peered up at Leonard. She saw his eyes rimmed in red and shiny streaks down his cheeks. He’d been crying too.