Star Trek Oneshots

Irregular Heartbeat (Bones McCoy)

Summary: Bones's SO has a Valentine's Day surprise planned for him that's fit for the CMO of the Enterprise.

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"Jim!"

My best friend, Jim Kirk, whirled around at the sound of my voice, one eyebrow raised. He was incredibly used to me and my shenanigans, so he didn't even look phased as I charged towards him while he waited for the machine to fill his cup with caf.

"I need you to distract Bones for, like, half an hour. Preferably today. And within the next hour," I said, only slightly breathless as I reached him.

"So... you want me to go distract Bones as soon as I get my caf?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

Jim grinned at me. "You know I'm in. But care to tell me why?"

"I've got a Valentine's Day suprirse I want to put together for him. It's the first time we've been a couple for the holiday, and I want to do something special."

"And I take it you already have a plan?" I gave Jim a withering look and he just laughed. "Of course. You always have a plan."

"Damn right I do. Now come on, take that caf to go and get out of here. I've got things to do today."

"Alright, alright, I'm going. But next time you pull me away from a rare break to help you with something, it better be for a prank. Not a date."

I grinned. "I think I can commit to that deal."

Jim smirked back at me, then raised his cup of caf in mock salute as he strode out of the cafeteria, off to distract Bones. I paused, letting him get a little bit ahead of me so there was no chance of running into him or my boyfriend on their way out of medical, then quickly made my way through the familiar hallways of the Enterprise.

Luckily for me, when I made it to sickbay (after one brief stop in my quarters), it was almost completely empty. Jim must've been doing as I'd asked in getting Bones out of here, and now, I had exactly the window I needed to pull off my Valentine's Day surprise.

I made my way to one of the heart rate monitors and popped open the back panel, then got to work breaking it the way I wanted to break it. Althought Starfleet Engineering hadn't covered exactly this kind of change to equipment on a starship, it had been a thorough enough course that I had the skills regardless.

Once I finished, I tested my handiwork, then grinned and made everything look like it had before I'd showed up. Finally, I snuck the bouquet of fresh roses I'd managed to secure on our last shore leave out of my bag, tucking them behind the pillows of the bed. I paused to take one last look at my setup, then took off out of sickbay with a grin. Not a moment later, I heard Jim's voice echoing loudly down the corridor, clearly trying to give me a heads up about his return with Bones.

I hid around the corner while Bones and Jim said their goodbyes, then waited for Jim's footsteps to fade in the opposite direction before turning the corner and reentering sickbay.

"Hey," I said, a small smile on my face as I found Bones just outside his office. "Happy Valentine's Day."

He'd had a slight frown on his face when he'd first turned around, but it dissolved the moment he saw me.

"Hey yourself. Happy Valentine's Day." He took a few steps closer to me, a faint smile growing on his face as he approached. "What brings you in? I wasn't expecting to get to see you until tonight."

"Actually... I'm feeling a little rough. I was hoping you could check me out."

Bones narrowed his eyes. "...Is this a bad pickup line?"

"What? No!"

He held up his hands in surrender, then gently stepped forward and took my elbow.

"Alright. Valentine's Day and all, I had to check. Let's get you on a bed."

"And you're talking to me about bad pickup lines?"

Bones snorted, and I grinned. I didn't wait for him to direct me to a bed, and instead I headed straight for the one I'd just finished modifying. Bones didn't even bat an eye at my decision, instead following me over and carefully getting me hooked up to the various monitoring machines.

"Do you want to tell me about your symptoms?" he asked as he worked. I sighed.

"I don't know, I just haven't been feeling well. A little lighthearted, a little fluttering in my chest."

I expected Bones to make another bad pickup line comment, but clearly, he'd switched into doctor mode. He just hummed as he continued to work.

"And what's been your food and water to caffeine ratio so far today?"

I grunted. "Food, water, and no caffeine so far, thank you very much."

Bones just gave me a look, which I couldn't really argue. Too much caffeine and not enough other, better fuel had been the cause of me not feeling good before, and we both knew it.

"Well, let's see what we can see here, hm?"

I barely managed to fight back a giddy smile as Bones turned to look at the monitor read out, including the heart rate monitor. What he found, instead of the normally reading beeping line, was the green line tracing the shape of a (non-anatomical) heart. I snuck my hand behind my pillow to retrieve the roses while Bones blinked at the display in shock.

"My god... what is..." He glanced from the monitor to me, then got halfway through turning back to the monitor before stopping to stay on me and my roses. His wide eyes and slightly-open mouth were instantly replaced with a squint and a frown. "What did you do to this monitor?"

"I made it cute for Valentine's Day!" I replied. I held out the roses to him, but before I could get through another word, he'd crossed his arms and fixed me with a glare.

"I thought something was seriously wrong, either with you or with my highly-sophisticated medical equipment, which is essential to the health and safety of this crew. What if we'd had an emergency situaiton before you could fix this, or even tell me about it?"

I sighed.

"I hear you, baby, but come on. I made sure the odds of that were crazy low, it's one monitor, and I made the whole thing easy to fix."

"Easy enough that a non-engineer who didn't know the machine had been tampered with could fix it?"

"Yes."

Bones raised an eyebrow, so I sighed, and used my free hand to give the machine a nice hard whack. Theoretically, the same one a stressed and confused medical professional would give it in the heat of the moment.

It beeped, then the readout changed back to the normal, boring heart monitor readout. I turned back to Bones with a look.

He sighed. "Fine. But you still scared me when I saw that coming up as a readout of your heart beat."

"Just take the roses and get M'benga to cover the end of your shift. This is just the first Valentine's surprise of the day."

Despite himself, a smile clawed its way onto my boyfriend's face. I grinned back at him. I knew he couldn't hold out here much longer.

"Alright, fine," he said, taking the roses out of my hand and leaning in to give me a kiss. I leaned up and into it, bringing one hand up to rest at the nape of his neck. After a long, sweet moment, he pulled back. "I'm all yours until dinner tonight."

"What happens at dinner tonight?"

"Then it's my turn to take over with the Valentine's planning. I put together a nice dinner for the both of us, and as a bonus, it won't give either of us a heart attack."

I laughed and leaned up to kiss him again.

"Sounds perfect to me."