Day 57: Cafeteria

[gald_digger]

Edgar's charming company had raised Anise's spirits enough that not even the Head Doctor's voice could bring them back down. Besides, she was feeling pretty sure that Landel wasn't actually around. To begin with, it wouldn't make sense, and secondly, his announcements sounded suspiciously like ones she'd already heard before. While Anise wasn't very familiar with Earth technology, she'd seen the little devices in the Music Room that could play recordings of people's voices. This had to be something like that.

It wasn't long before Anise was escorted to the Cafeteria, and then to the section where edible food was being served. As she filled her plate with waffles, fruit, and sausages, she looked to the other side of the counter with a look of sympathy. It was hard to enjoy her own meals while knowing what the other patients had to suffer through.

She wasn't about to refuse her meals just out of guilt, though. Anise needed her strength for tonight. There was still a bit of a nervous twist in her stomach whenever she thought about what could happen down in the basement... but she wasn't going to back down. Not after promising her friends they'd go together.

With her tray in hand, Anise seated herself at an empty table in the middle of the room. She preferred to have company while eating, but it looked like she was one of the first patients there, so there was no one to sit with. Maybe if she minded her manners and tried to look her cutest, she'd attract someone handsome! Holding her utensils delicately, she began to cut her waffles into smaller pieces.

[For Battler.]

Comments

[hes-deadjim.livejournal.com]

McCoy blinked once slowly, surprised, as if taken aback by the volley of questions. It was like Jim knew exactly where to hit, and to make sure he was too busy being overwhelmed to come up with a good defense in time. The doctor's face flushed angrily. His Jim would have trusted him. Sure, he'd want to know specifics, but if it came down to it, he trusted him enough to accept that call if he made it. Not this Kirk. The man was a paranoid bastard, questioning him at every single damn angle. It wasn't like he was the one with medical experience here, much less the one saddled with the migraines or the disorientation. The hell did he know?

It didn't surprise him that Kirk would have asked for something more. It pissed him off to high heaven that he did, because McCoy had been sincerely hoping to drop it at that. What did it matter? The symptoms were lessened and wasn't like they had other options when it came to first aid. And he didn't have a clue what triggered this to begin with, and frankly, the closer he got to it, the more certain he was that he'd rather keep it buried.

McCoy fought to keep his temper. He couldn't predict another incident. Wait, maybe he could, because every time it seemed to involve Spock or Kirk, and Kirk being himself, and why was he fighting to get back on the active roster again?

"Hard to be thorough when I don't have the equipment, Captain. I'm a doctor, not a damn crystal ball!" he said through a clenched jaw. How was he expected to make a thorough diagnosis without a single test?

"Course if I had to make a 'diagnosis', I'd say a temporary idiopathic intracranial hypertension," he let that hang for a beat. Chances were Kirk didn't have a clue what any of those words meant, and part of McCoy was damned smug he didn't. It wasn't like he'd sat through years of medical school, and out of the courses they did teach to the command track, Jim probably didn't take anything advanced. "That's short for 'I don't know'."

[doneinthree]

Kirk never started a fight he wasn't prepared to carry through to the end. Okay, that was a lie, considering his propensity for starting fights while he was drunk or... overly flirtatious or just... being himself. Point was, one could not be James T. Kirk without expecting to piss someone off eventually, and the upside to all this abrasiveness was that he was rarely flustered when someone was pissed off at him. Even when it was Bones. Especially when it was Bones. They didn't go at each other often, not in earnest, but when they did, neither of them minced words.

He'd been ready for an argument. He'd been ready for Bones' righteous indignation and raised voice, heedless of their surrounding wardens. He'd been ready to snap right back at him, at least until Bones suddenly pulled out a bunch of long-winded jargon and Kirk paused, brow furrowing as he tried to sort past Latin and heavy sarcasm, and then... just as suddenly, he laughed. That was— well, that was basically how Kirk would've expected Bones to react if he was normal. Not that it meant much, given that he was still looking a little under the weather, but Kirk was willing to accept that he was better, if not in prime condition. To the least, he couldn't be too off if he was feeling energetic enough to colourfully inform Jim of his profession.

"Thanks for that. All I got was 'temporary'." He grinned without shame, letting the brunt of McCoy's ire roll off of him. Another thing about their arguments was that they always blew over quick. "Unfortunately, if you don't know what's happening to you, that's still too much of a risk I'm not willing to take." He held up a hand before the doctor could express his opinion on Kirk and risk-taking (or Kirk and any other of his contradictory habits, of which there were many). "I'm sorry, Bones. If it really is temporary, I'll be glad, but for now I'd rather wait and see."

Kirk hesitated a second before deciding that he'd already talked more than enough, so it wasn't as if a bit more could make things any worse.

"You look like you barely slept. Anything bother you last night? After we left, I mean."

[hes-deadjim.livejournal.com]

The doctor bristled. The devil was the Captain doing?

He was laughing. For one disconcerting second, McCoy was at a complete loss of what to do. It stunned him out of the indignation. Was it because the Captain found it actually funny, was laughing at the argument brewing, or was he laughing at him? Or it could be that Jim knew something he didn't? Kirk didn't laugh, not usually, not unless he was about to completely screw some poor son of a bitch over so badly that he wouldn't be able to tell his head from his ass. McCoy remained very still, trying to pick out which was which. It felt like it mattered.

It reminded him of when one of their arguments, the bad ones, came to a crest and blew over. They didn't happen that often at all, but when they did, they got nasty. Personal. The only good thing was that Kirk had the control never to pull rank during these arguments. They'd get so tense that it was either laugh or get at each others' throats. It was bound to happen, despite how close they were. They both had strong personalities. They had to clash. McCoy knew he could be abrasive, blunt, pushy but Kirk was also completely insufferable, arrogant, and intolerable at times, and they were both too pigheaded for their own good. Sometimes he was surprised they were still friends, but it did work out for the best. Laughing was the best medicine, and it only took one of them to realize how idiotic they looked or sounded to ruin the argument.

Except this Jim wasn't his Jim. This was That Other Jim. The one that repeatedly undercut him, questioned his judgement, his medical expertise, which had rankled, a lot, his sanity, and seemed determined to risk the safety of himself, Spock and Uhura just to prove his point. He was certain of it at the moment, this was the Kirk who liked to play at being captain, too young and inexperienced.

"I'll use smaller words next time," said McCoy sourly. He made no attempt to smile or soften the blow, just let the scorn seep in so that even this Jim might get the picture. He wanted it to hurt, a way to retaliate at Jim questioning his ability as a doctor in the first place. "So the risk you take instead is you go off into a trap without a medic. That makes a lotta sense."

The doctor regarded the gruel and eventually pushed it away. Waste of food, if you could even call that stuff food, but he definitely wasn't hungry. He forced himself to put the fork down before it found another target. This hadn't helped, he was still off-duty. They didn't have the luxury to wait around. Sooner or later someone was going to get into trouble and they'd need to patch up. It wasn't like people waited to get injured just because it might be inconvenient for him.

So he didn't look his best. What else was new? "Other than having Spock staring at me, I slept the entire time."

[doneinthree]

Kirk repressed the urge to roll his eyes. He hadn't missed the caustic tone of Bones' voice. He wasn't surprised. Nor — and realizing it late was more startling than the actual fact — did he care.

"Yeah, well, I'd rather not, but my medic is currently indisposed, and I can't have the crew wait around for him to deal with it," Kirk answered, as mildly as he could manage. "We all have to do make do. But I don't think their goal is to maim us or kill us off... I mean, twice they've fixed me up after I almost died." He'd been tempted to sugarcoat that fact, for Bones' sake, but why bother? He'd almost died twice. Spock had actually died once. And all these times had occurred when they were more or less minding their own business, not heading straight into a trap.

This would be worse. Kirk knew very well the risk he was taking. And he knew too what blame he was laying on Bones — if you got over yourself and let Spock figure out what's wrong with your head, then we wouldn't be walking into this without your help — and that it wasn't fair. But in spite of what McCoy might have thought of him right now, in spite of all he'd said that night (which he'd never taken back, really)... Kirk wasn't an idiot, and he wasn't suicidal. He wouldn't choose a path which spelled certain death for Spock or Uhura.

They were all held here for some reason more than a sadistic game. He believed that. He had to, to make this call. "If the point was to die here, I'd be dead already. Whatever we're here for, we're valuable. Even when they do rid of us, it's just by wiping our memories and... sending us out there." Like Chekov, and like...  Kirk dropped his gaze and pushed his bowl away too, suddenly not in the mood to eat either. At least he'd finished most of his share. Bones had barely touched his.

Had he really slept? He must have; Kirk couldn't think of a reason why he'd lie about it at this point. And he still looked like hell, and was skipping meals on top of it. McCoy would've immediately nagged him if he'd caught Kirk doing the same. Bones, when was the last time you ate? was on the tip of his tongue, but this whole line of inquiry already was too much like the questions a doctor should be asking, and Kirk knew when he was pushing it.

"Anyway." He looked away from their unfinished meals. "People have apparently gone through this already and survived. We'll be okay."

[hes-deadjim.livejournal.com]

McCoy winced at Jim talking nonchalantly about nearly dying, at the same time that his lip curled, the tiniest outwards display of kneejerk anger before it faded. His eyes, narrowed, watched Kirk as if waiting for a mistake, a chink in the armor that he could take advantage of. Was the Captain being serious? He wasn't joking at least, so that put this in the realm of unfriendly sarcasm. Next time he'd tell all his patients to just get better. It must be that simple. "Sorry I inconvenienced you, Jim," McCoy said nastily.

Kirk couldn't have laid it out any more clearly than that. Then again he was never a man to mince words. With whatever was happening to him showing no signs of clearing up, the bottom line was that he as good as dead weight on the crew, and it was his fault they were dragged down as it was. And if McCoy wanted to be useful, not just to Kirk, but to everyone else, he had to get his act together. But he was right, wasn't he? The world didn't stop just because he couldn't keep up, and neither did the ship Kirk ran. Even without a ship or the rest of the crew, Kirk would have done the same thing. Other than actually tell him to his face he was at fault, none of the Jim wouldn't have done a thing differently.

Could he do it? It was on him to take charge, to want to get better. McCoy desperately wanted to. It wasn't like he liked living like this. Spock just happened to be the only person uniquely qualified to have a look short of brain surgery. At least talking to Spock about it might prove to Kirk that he was serious. Just talking couldn't hurt.

He found himself mentally flinching back at just the thought. Like an old horse being forced towards a fence it didn't want to jump and balking at the last minute.

McCoy sagged in the chair, the anger seeping out. Kirk was... right.

"Do you even have actual proof that these people survived? That people are 'just' gettin' mind wiped," he asked. He still wasn't anywhere near confident that the basement was a good idea. Kirk's argument for why it wasn't any less dangerous wasn't doing him any favors, which had basically come down to a variation of 'we're in danger all the time anyway'.

[doneinthree]

"Would you accept a gut feeling?" he asked wryly, only half-joking. Okay, yes, Kirk understood where the doctor was coming from —— when it came down to it, Bones was a scientist too, and facts and evidence were the providence of the blue shirts —— but the first thing anyone had taught him about command was that, over and over, he would be forced to make decisions based on insufficient data. His suitability as captain hinged on his willingness to make these choices. Intuition, however illogical, was recognized as a command prerogative.

A wordy justification for what Pike had deemed a Kirk family trait after seeing Jim laid out on the sticky floor of a bar. That instinct to leap without looking.  This was a leap. He knew it. He didn't trust Martin Landel for a second, but he felt that this was all leading somewhere. Maybe he was searching for answers where there weren't any, maybe he was desperate to make sense of their circumstances, maybe he was just... being impulsive as usual. But what would they gain by shying around this? Fine, if Kirk listened to instinct, he couldn't honestly say that he thought it was a good idea. However, it was their only idea, and even a scientist couldn't rightly rule out this avenue without first exploring it for himself. 

But that wasn't what Bones was asking for. He sighed. "I've read bulletin notes from people who've apparently gone through whatever's down there, or are working on it now. From the sound of things, the basement's pretty difficult to get through, but I haven't yet heard of anyone dying."

Never mind that the people who'd experienced the whole thing for themselves were unable to speak of it except to imply that everything was rigged and everyone should stay away. As if staying out of danger was even a possibility in this place. Kirk's breezy tone hinted at none of these misgivings.

"As for the other part..."  He shrugged.  "I talked to someone who said he was a former 'patient' of Landel's. He said he'd gotten 'better' and returned to... a normal life. Obviously, they could've just brainwashed him to believe that, same as they brainwashed him to believe his name was... something else, but... Is it impossible that when the nurses talk about people getting released, they're actually getting released?" What was the risk in it, considering how total the Institute's control over them appeared? Jim had experienced for himself the thoroughness of the brainwashing, how utterly convinced he was that James T. Kirk was a lie. Maybe this was just a different stage of the experiment — still prisoners, but prisoners of a different kind. 

Kirk couldn't hide the hope in his voice. He knew himself too well to deny that he was clinging hard to this possibility because it made losing Chekov easier to bear. To believe that the young ensign was still out there somewhere, that he could be saved after they dealt with Landel's... "It's not hard proof, but it's somewhere to start."

[hes-deadjim.livejournal.com]

McCoy folded his arms across his chest, looking a hell of a lot less amused than Kirk was at the idea basing everyone's lives on a gut feeling. He cocked his head and just let his silence speak for itself to the first question. It wasn't as if his own Kirk didn't do the same thing, or other Captains for that matter, but this was about other people, other lives in his hands than just one reckless, aggravating bundle in a gold shirt.

It wasn't like Kirk was the only one that did it. Acted on gut feelings. McCoy had too before. But he'd usually kept the wild leaps and actions to himself. He hadn't gone injecting patients with an untested vaccine, he'd used it on himself first.

And why the hell was Kirk even asking him his opinion, as if he were part of the crew still? Curiosity had McCoy resist pointing it out for now. The doctor wondered just where he was going with it before he finally remembered, and part of him hoped that he didn't for this shift at least, because he preferred not to have Jim blow him off again. He kept his mouth shut on the matter.

"I guess," he grumbled. He wasn't anywhere near reassured, despite what Kirk thought about the bulletin notes. Maybe no one dying yet and being publicly announced was a good sign, but there was a first time for everything. "It's not impossible, I suppose. When did you meet this patient?"

He was just thinking to bring it up now? McCoy frowned, instantly suspicious. Maybe he did meet someone. Maybe he didn't, maybe he was just feeding him a load of bull in the hopes that it would reassure him. Although come to think of it, it sounded a lot like Joanna thinking she was Leanne, but she couldn't have been a former patient. There was no news she'd been missing. She had to have been kidnapped at the same time or after.