For Bones McCoy

[scurlock]

He'd made a decision to abandon his plan of heading for the Yukon after talking with McCoy one night in Milliways about the possibility of returning to medical school - choosing Oregon as a place to make an attempt at becoming a legitimate physician - and it seemed as if the door back to the bar had made itself particularly absent ever since he'd stepped through it with the intent on enrolling.

The first year was straightforward enough; it was mostly things that he had studied while at Tulane. Days and weeks without passage to the Bar turned into a month, then three months, then eight. It wasn't uncommon for the door to play tricks on him, but after awhile, Doc stopping looking around corners and listening for the sounds of a crowded late-night barroom every time he passed a doorway.

Maybe this was what he was supposed to do with his life; maybe since he no longer needed the 'escape' from his world that Milliways provided, he would no longer find his way to the bar at the end of the universe. He wasn't sure of the reason why the door stayed gone for so long.

The second year was tougher. He hadn't done this before. He stayed up for many nights studying diagrams and memorizing anatomy, thinking back to the advanced textbooks he kept in his room upstairs at the Bar. The surgical labs were difficult for him, but more for the fact that the lecture hall smelled like the hospital in the chaotic 'Old Kingdom' and the scent of anesthetic seemed to make the scars on his chest burn a little beneath his coat.

And then there were the cadavers. That's what they used for practice. Rarely was it a live patient on the table, but a body of some homeless or penniless soul, no kin to lay claim to them or provide a proper burial. After the first day of digging his hands through a dead man's chest, he'd gone back to the small room he rented and burrowed himself beneath the worn blankets on the bed to try and warm his hands and arms. This wasn't what he wanted to do.

He looked for the bar again that night. It didn't show up.

But instead of running, like he always had, he went back to class the next morning. And the day after. And the day after that.

Two years and three months after arriving in Oregon, he found himself sitting in a stuffy lecture hall dressed in the best suit he could afford, listening to a man rattle on about service to the community and how the men in front of him had been chosen by God to heal the sick and treat the poor. The rolled diploma felt lighter than it should have when the Dean handed it to him, but he shook the man's hand with the confidence he'd always posessed - his handshake firm and steady, grip strong.

The hand of a gunfighter.

And now, the hand of a Doctor of Medicine.


+++


It wasn't hard to make the choice to move from the city at his first opportunity; he didn't want to do a surgical residency, and he felt his education could be put best to use in a more rural community. So he gathered up supplies (it felt strange to carry a legitimate doctor's bag on his person, but it wasn't as if he could afford to be wandering the countryside in a fancy buggy like those in his class who were better off) and his horse, and left town.

This was familiar. Comforting.

Just him and the mount, and a stretch of lightly traveled road to follow.

This was what he wanted to do.


+++


He wasn't even sure the settlement he ended up outside had a name; all he knew is that the man who ran the store told him of a cabin up the trail a few miles had been empty since the owner had died two years prior. No kin to lay claim to the land or the property, it had fallen back into some disrepair but if the young doctor was interested in setting up, the people of the settlement - mostly traders, with some folks passing through on their way north or south via the one road that snaked through the mountains - would be more than willing to see him in it.

That had been three weeks ago.

Now that the property had been lived in for two weeks, and he'd done some basic repairs (boarded up a window that had been shattered at some point; cleaned out the dust and cobwebs and the dead squirrel that was under the pile of leaves in the stone hearth, he found that the occasional housecall was enough to get by; most folks were willing to trade him some provisions or to lend a hand in fixing his cabin in exchange for his work as a doctor.

Things had been going well.



Until he decided one day that he was going to repair the spot on the roof of the cabin that leaked during heavy rain (which in Oregon, was not uncommon), without asking anyone that lived in the small community for help.

Moss-covered cedar was slick when damp. And the ground beside the cabin particularly firm, in the place where he impacted the earth at the end of the fall.

(Hitting the woodpile on the way down didn't help either.)



Once he was able to drag himself to his knees (without use of his right arm, which hung awkwardly and dead at his side) and catch his breath, Doc stumbled through the front door of his cabin and reached for his bag. He needed something to dull the shockwaves rippling through his body before he tried to go for help. The two mile walk to the cabin down the road was going to be hell.

With his bag on his good shoulder, he shoved the door open --




And found himself in Milliways.

It had been over two years. But that didn't matter. All that mattered was making it to the infirmary before he blacked out. Which at the rate he was going, wasn't a guarantee.


With his good hand tightly wrapped around the elbow of his right arm to stabilize the injury, he uses his head (ignoring the bright flash of pain that sears behind his eyes) to hit the call button, then manages to slide himself down along the wall into a curled, sitting position.

Every breath hurts. A lot. That much is evident by the strained breaths he's managing to force himself to take, and the scream he's holding back behind his teeth that threatens to escape with each of those labored breaths.

He can't remember if he hit the call button.

It's been forever since he slid down the wall and sat himself on the floor.

(In reality, it's only been forty-seven seconds.)

At least down here, if he blacks out, he won't fall as far as falling off the roof.

(Fifty-eight seconds.)

Comments

[notabricklayer]

Bones is not on the duty roster of Milliways. He's just not. There's a whole host of reasons for it - he's not reliably in the bar, the possible ethical dilemma if there's a conflicting need between ship's crew and bar patrons, the need to have some place in the multiverse where he's a doctor second and a person first (alright, so that last one's pretty suspect). Still, as it stands, Bones is not registered.

Sometimes, however, there just isn't a rostered doctor in the bar. At those times, if he's around, Bar somehow finds a way to get him a napkin with a request.

He's never yet failed to answer.

So that's why Doc gets a somewhat abrasive Georgian accent overhead to accompany the steady tread of the military-style boots.

"Well hell, son." Bones heads for the pharmacy first, because it doesn't take a genius or any great amount of time to realize when someone's in pain. "I see you're trying a new variation on physical trauma, must be my lucky day."