Who: Jane and Bones What: Jane's landed her ass in the hospital. Shocker. When: Before Jane's first network post. Where: Irvine General Rating: Grumpy
She gained conscious in bits and pieces, slowly being dragged forth from fragmented dreams of lights flashing and sirens wailing. Jane blinked at the humming light on the ceiling and groaned. Too bright too soon and too familiar.
Her dad was going to kill her. If the Colonel didn't get to her first.
She winced and groped for the call button beside her arm and pressed it twice with clumsy fingers.
There was a good chance a small furry animal had expired in her mouth while she was asleep.
McCoy had been on duty when they brought her in. Thankfully, it wasn’t as serious as it could have been, but he did have to stitch her up. It was like deja vu, or something. The resemblance to something familiar was uncanny. So he lingered as she recovered, and made sure to be by the nurse’s station when he thought she might wake. He waited for twenty minutes or so, giving grumpy glances to the nurses, then rushed to her room at the sound of the call.
“Are you all right?” He asked, softly, stepping into the room.
His southern drawl was honey warm and soothed the sharper edges of Jane’s thoughts. She grinned with the tiniest flash of teeth until pain burst fiery hot at her temples and blinded her.
“Anyone catch the license plate of that truck?” Jane joked feebly. No. No, she wasn’t all right. Jane was pretty sure there was a tube coming out of her nose, and she couldn’t open her eyes well enough to find out. She pressed the butt of her palm to her temple and grimaced.
McCoy stepped quickly up to her bed to check her vitals on the machine, then lowered a hand to take her pulse at her wrist. This was fucking freaky, he wasn’t about to lie to himself or anyone else about that, but at the same time he was still a Doctor. A damn good one, and his first concern was the patient.
“Can you tell me your name?” He asked.
She's a sucker for pretty men with steady hands. What can she say? Jane grins weakly and says, "Sure. If you tell me yours first."
It bothers her a little that she can't recall how she got here, or what happened to her plane but just thinking about it made the headache worse and the less time she had to stay in the hospital the better.
“McCoy. Leonard McCoy.” He felt a strange sense of deja vu again, as if he’d said that same thing to this same person… only he was sure he’d never met this person before. It was all a strange, random ball of weird and awkward that had his stomach twisting inside of him. “Doctor McCoy. You’re at Irvine General Hospital. Do you remember what happened?”
"McCoy." There's a definite joke in there about starting fights but he had to go and ruin it by pressing her to think about her current state.
She's going to ignore that last question for now. She's going to ignore it good and hard.
"I'm Jane." She opens her eyes and looks up at him. "Jane Kirk."
McCoy’s eyes went wide. It was a very good thing he wasn’t sipping anything. He gaped at the woman in the bed for a moment as his own pulse started racing. “...Jane… Kirk?”
Jane tilts her head, expression closing off. Damn. She picks at the white sheet covering her.
"Yeah." She sighs. "Look. I'm sorry if my dad's been breathing down your neck."
“What? No. I don’t--” McCoy frowned a bit, trying to figure out what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. “I don’t know your dad.” He cleared his throat. “Do the words ‘USS Enterprise’ mean anything to you?”
"What? I- is this some test?" Jane drags a hand down her face and stares at him between parted fingers. "It's an aircraft carrier. Decommissioned last year. Why?"
McCoy looked into her eyes with great interest, considering carefully the dialation (or lack there of) of her pupils before nodding. She didn’t know. This couldn’t possibly be… but he wasn’t ruling anything out. “You just remind me of someone. And that phrase would have meant something else to him.”
“Did Pike put you up to this? You can tell her to stick it up her ass for now. I’m not going anywhere for a while.” Was that sullen? Yeah. That was sullen. But damn. These were not the sort of questions doctors usually asked and by this point they’d normally gotten so irritated with her they’d disappear to give her time to ‘cool off’ because giving her time was definitely what she needed.
This would be why they usually stuck her in a VA hospital. They tended to better understand flight risk patients. Now she just had to shake McCoy long enough to formulate an escape plan.
McCoy raised an eyebrow. “Pike? ...Where are you staying?” He asked, wondering now if this woman was wholly with it. It was possible this was another insanity brought on by Orange County.
"Yeah. Major Christine Pike. Dark hair. Kind of short." Jane waves her hand above her head. "Air Force? No? Did no one ID me when I was brought in?" Jane's eyes light up. "Are you planning on letting me go?"
Headache be damned, if he says yes, she's bolting.
“No no, I…” McCoy said, then swallowed. He would have let her go if he could, but he was hoping to get a few more answers. Besides, after the stitches and the accident, she needed to stay a night for observation. “I’ve got to confer with your primary care physician. But for right now, try to relax. Are you in much pain?”
"I think my head may fall off but that's nothing new or unusual."
Having a primary care physician? That still kind of was. Jane nestled down against her pillow and pouted at him.
"I won't have to stay here long, will I?"
“No. I promise we’ll get you out of here as soon as humanly possible.” He finished taking a couple of notes on her chart--blood pressure, temperature, pulse, yadda yadda, then set it back into its holster. “Can I get anything for you? Magazines or… Sudoku?”
"Great." So that basically meant until they were sure her head was on right. Possibly never is what Jane thinks. It's kind of sad and ultimately pathetic that she wants this guy to stick around a little longer. He's the only doctor she's had who hasn't treated her like she was seven.
"Have you got Car Craft?"
McCoy chuckled, shaking his head. He should have known she’d ask for something like that. “...I’ll get you a copy.” He said. “Just sit tight. I’ll be back soon.” And he turned to head out of the room, trying to will his mind and his heart to stop racing.