not just a pretty face

Jim gingerly took the weapon from Marcus. He noted how much lighter it seemed to be. He switched hands and tested the aim. He pulled it in for a closer look. He tried to make a few educated guesses on what she’d changed but nothing he wanted to risk saying aloud.

Carol took the weapon back with a smile. "You'll be more impressed when you see it fire." She promised him with a nod. His question caught her off guard. "I'm fitting in nicely, Captain. Why do you ask?"

  McCoy desperately wanted to say that he was just coming down to flirt with her some more so he’d feel like he could still do something successfully that didn’t involve medicine, but that seemed cruel. It was. But why so active about it? There were nurses he could have flirted with in his own sickbay. Apparently, she was somewhat special to him in some way. He just didn’t know how yet. No, he just didn’t realize it because he was too pig headed to open his damn eyes. “Someone else? Me?!” He pointed at himself and laughed, more like a scoff really. He turned his head and shook it at the wall, flabbergasted. “But… I’m a complete piece of shit. Someone like you should not want to be infatuated with someone like me.” She was young and beautiful and McCoy was… a crabby old man. He was surprised he had even gotten married with how snide he was in life. It just got worse after the divorce so he was completely awestruck at this situation. “Hey now.” He turned back as she walked into the turbolift, walking in with her. “Don’t be mopey like that. It’s my weakness” The doctor smiled, trying to make her smile in return. Cheesy jokes were in his repertoire. “Look, I didn’t mean to lead you on. I’m a man. I’m stupid, forgive me. Fine. I’ll take you out to eat. Happy? We can have deep meaningful conversations and I can swoon you with my charm and… just please stop crying.”

Carol looked away from him, reaching up to wipe the tears from her face. "If you're asking me out just because you don't want to see me crying and purely for my own benefit, forget it. I want you to go with me because you want to." She whispered in a soft voice, her eyes gazing up and searching his. "Don't do it just to please me, Doctor McCoy, do it for yourself as well."

”There ain’t really nothing to talk about. I’ll get over it. I’m not the kind of guy to just drop the bag I got on my shoulders on the table and bother people about it.” He sighed. ”So what were you working on, here?” He pointed out where her desk, suddenly changing the subject.

"Now don't do that." Carol retorted, ignoring his question. "I've offered to listen which means that I want to hear what is that matter, meaning I want the bag on your shoulders so go on and tell me what's bothering you."

Jim had already started to turn away when her last phrase froze him. He turned back to her and leaned over the console.  

"It's twice the power of the old ones." She told him, reaching into one of the metal cases and pulling it out. "There might be a few surprise add-ons that I can show you a little later once they're full charged."

  Something entirely unexpected happened in that moment. She actually seemed upset. Were his charms actually…charming? She actually liked the crabby old man doctor? Over the egocentric captain? Well, take away that question mark. Who wouldn’t like McCoy over Jim? Most everyone, but most everyone had poor taste. He just realized that Miss Marcus actually had decent taste as she passed him with tears in her eyes. Jim wouldn’t understand the ‘oh I’m fine. I just have a comet in my eye’ excuses, but McCoy had the best experience with women being upset and crying. One, because of his ex wife. Her emotions never registered until after the divorce and that’s why he tried to be a pretty damn good doctor these days. Two, there were quite a few women and men alike slobbering over him in the sickbay when they scratched their thumb. This type of crying was not the moping injury type. It was disappointment and failure in her tears. He turned around to stare at her walking down the hallway, confused until it hit him to go after her. “Hey hey. No.” He jogged after her as soon as she hit the turbolift. “Wait, wait.”  He gently touched her shoulder so she may turn around. “To be perfectly frank, Jim is infatuated with you so I didn’t want to impose… But now that I hear myself say it, how fucking childish is that? I’m not the nerd friend in high school hanging around the popular kid to get more friends and letting him stomp all over my hopes and dreams and…dammit Jim.” He pulled his fingers up into fists as he thought of all the shit Jim put him through and how much that asshole was his best friend after all of it. Sighing, he closed his eyes and loosened his fists. “You really want me to ask you… on a date?” Him? The crabby guy that yelled at kids on his lawn. Well, hypothetically. He was a curmudgeon piece of work, McCoy.

"I had thought that wa why you'd come down here." She told him honestly, wiping at her eyes quickly to try and hide the tears. "I understand Jim may be perfectly infatuated with me but I am not with him. I am with someone else." The blonde looked up at Bones for a moment before adverting her eyes to the wall. "If you don't wish to go on a date with me then just say it now so I may continue with my disappointment. Don't just keep leading me on so I maybe continue to hope that maybe- just maybe- you wish to actually go out with me." The turbolift arrived and Carol quickly stepped inside. "All I wanted is a chance, Doctor. That was all."

  ”Oh just fine and dandy.” He huffed. ”I’m tired…Went for a walk and got lost in this ship. I’m friggin homesick and I’m ranting.”

"It's alright if you want to rant, Doctor. I'm willing to listen." Carol answered in a soft voice, giving a small frown.

  “You asked for it.” Bones muttered, quickly injecting the hypo in the crook of her elbow. 

"Ouch!" She yanked her arm away from Bones, shooting him a glare.

  “Because you look like a woman who could use a little time in the sun and I’m a captain who needs a weapons expert on our next away mission. We’ll be coming up on a planet with some..unusual radiation readings. Our sensors can’t tell if it’s natural or ‘man-made’ if you’ll pardon the term.”

Carol couldn't help but to smile at him. "Alright, alright. i'll go. Don't get too excited." She instructed before turning to her equipment. "When we go down would you like your own phaser or would you care to try something from the new line?"

  Jack smirked, shaking his head at her attempt to try and school him. It something that he was used to of course, being one of the few younger members of the crew, but he’d already proven himself worthy by making it onto the ship, he didn’t need this woman giving him a lecture in his own uncle. “It’s people like you comparing me to him which I hate, not people talking about him in general. I already know he was a great man, I grew up with him in my life. But you use the fact that I have the same last name as him to think you know something about me. You nothing. And just so you know, I didn’t give a shit about what your dad did, I just wanted to get to know you.”

"Since you will be in Starfleet for awhile, I recommend learning your place. Seeing as you are shadowing me, I am your superior which means you have to listen." She spoke in a commanding voice. "And for starters, I suggest you go and calm yourself down before you do something that you will regret."

  McCoy stood up straight when she mentioned a date and his suave demeanor vanished as soon as it became a little serious. He scratched the back of his neck and fidgeted with his shirt collar. “I uh, well…” He mumbled ‘Jim’ under his breath as though he needed to ask permission to ask a girl on a date that they were both interested in. At least McCoy knew not to treat a woman like a game, though his ex-wife would beg to differ. He spent most of the past few years picking up the pieces of Jim’s conquests. Girls coming up to him and using him as a mail carrier. He was a doctor. “I’m not insinuating anything. That would be… unprofessional.” Bones’ lips pursed heavily. “I mean, you’re very pretty and all so I wouldn’t mind a…date.” He wanted to take away that word as soon as he said it. The lead medical officer now sounded like an awkward academy student when he was probably too old to be flirting with her in the first place. “Dammit I just remembered I have to… finish a surgery.” He turned around and found he had trouble moving his feet. He was so wrapped up in not sounding like a dick, which he failed in, that he had forgotten his own motor skills.

Carol's face fell and the sadness was clear in her eyes. "O-Of course. Duties come before personal." She whispered. It almost sounded as though her voice was breaking, cracking here and there. "If you'll excuse me..doctor." The phasers were placed down and the science officer quickly moved around Bones and to the exit where she quickly fled, wiping at her eyes. She hadn't been expecting to feel this way but she had a certain...feeling for Bones and having him practically reject her (despite him saying that he had surgery. She could read through it.) Soon she arrived at the turbolift, pressing the button for it to arrive. She just hoped it would before Bones could catch up.

  “Will do, ma’am.” He nodded. He took the hypo out of the med kit and prepped it quickly. “Where do you want it, neck or the arm? Or do you not care?” He asked.

She held out her arm. "Just get it over with, Doctor." Carol murmured in a low voice, turning her head away to avoid watching.

  “You won’t quite like your idea when your eyeballs are bleeding and sneezing up your own organs. Trust me, vaccines necessary. And a lot less painful than the diseases it protects against.” He stepped towards, her medical kit in hand. “You gonna co-operate?”

As much as Carol wanted to argue, she knew better. Plus, she did feel a little guilty for almost getting Bones blown up and felt like she owed him. "Fine. Just get it over with."

  Jack tried to hold back a grin as Carol began lecturing him and threw up his hands in surrender, not wanting the blonde to blow her top anymore than she was doing already. “Hey hey hey, not like I wanted to do this luv. The idea of going to the academy just to be someones bodyguard isn’t what I signed up for.”

His words didn't even phase her. Carol still kept the same stern face. "Well, I suggest you get used to it. No one is going to stop talking about Admiral Pike simply because you request it. He was a great man and deserves recognition. People will speak about him and you must get over the fact you do not enjoy it. How do you think I feel? I walk down the halls of Starfleet and here officers that don't even know me ridicule my father for a mistake that he made. I don't wish to hear about him or how they speak of him but I must accept it. I cannot make others stop speaking."

  Jack nodded at her request and stood back from the machinery, turning to glance at a few of the weapons that were placed around the room before turning back to the blonde, a smile pulling at his lips.

Carol flashed him what looked to be a glare, and most definitely was. "Who are you to tell me I have a knack for trouble? Being an Ensign you should know better than to speak to your superiors in that manner, despite your family's tree."

  Bones leaned against the door, not taking a seat because he didn’t really feel the need. When she finally turned around he just smiled and shrugged. “I heard we got a new shipment of things. I always like to see what it is.” That’s a lie. He didn’t really like phasers actually. He found them to be everything that was opposite of a doctor, since they killed.

"A doctor who enjoys the very weapons that does the job opposite him? Strange." She commented before folding her arms across her chest with a quizzical look. But soon she let it drop and offered a smile. "Why yes, of course. Some of my own designs and ideas were placed into these new phasers so it's lovely to see them come to life."

  “So you pointed that thing at me without know if it would just go off?” He raised an eyebrow and moved back again just in case the phaser went off anyway and let half the ship explode. He didn’t trust ‘tests’ unless they were medical. At least they were saving lives instead of testing to see if lives could be lost. McCoy was a doctor for a reason (and also upset all the time for a reason). “No. Do not want a bad phaser, thank you.” He lowered his hands after the phaser was still for a while after it was sat down. “Just needed to get away from sickbay. Heh.” He chuckled at his own rhyme. “Ever since you almost blew my arm off, I can’t get enough.”

Carol stopped what she was doing in order to face him, an eyebrow raised. There was the slightest hint of a smirk on her lips and challenge in ehr eyes. "Are you insinuating that you are developing a crush or perhaps an infatuation with me, Doctor McCoy?" She asked, placing one hand on her hip and letting the other dangle. "If that's the case then why not ask me on a date instead of coming to watch me work on pieces of equipment?" 

  “Sure.” He muttered. “Well, whether you knew about ‘em or not, you’re due now anyways. Or Jim’s gonna have you shipped off elsewhere.” So maybe he’d made that last bit up; and even if it was true, Bones knew that he wouldn’t send Carol anywhere. “We can do it here, or down in med bay, s’up to you.”

"Or we could just say we did it but not actually." Carol muttered in a low voice as she moved around to the other side of the table. There she began to open another box that held a phaser. "I quite like my idea."