“Don’t you know what it feels like for a woman?!”
It had left them in stunned silence when she’d said it.
Though, Said was the wrong word. Scalded. Yelled, screamed as she stormed away, running after her friend, whom Kirk had just angered with one of his spectacularly insensitive remarks that he had now become infamous for.
So here they were. The stupid dolt of a captain, and his CMO. Sat in an uneasy silence, both a little too afraid to break the deafening noise that they could have sworn was Christine Chapel’s echo.
“You’ve gone and done it now.” McCoy spoke quietly, an edge to his voice as he shook his head, as if clearing it. “You get Christine angry and it’s like provoking a mamma bear.”
Kirk looked genuinely confused, running a hand lazily through his hair. “But I didn’t do anything to her.”
Holding back a little McCoy rolled his eyes and moved to hit his friend, who avoided the blow expertly. “Rand is her friend. People tend to be protective of their friends.”
“Women. You mean women tend to be overprotective of their friends.”
“Oh that’s a whole can of poison worms I already opened during my marriage and forced shut during the divorce. You won’t see me going near that again. I learned from my mistakes. Unlike you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Heaving a sigh McCoy stood up and walked over to where the captain kept his best alcohol and poured himself a healthy dose of his best quality bourbon that Bones forced him to keep for emergencies.
“What it means is that Christine just gave you her patented tongue lashing that is normally reserved for me when I’m being an ass, and you’re sat here just as clueless as you were before. Good lord. No wonder you go through them like there’s no tomorrow. Once they realise how you view them they run like hell. Sensible course of action if you ask me.”
Blinking as if trying to clear his sight, Kirk furrowed his brow. “Well..what was I meant to learn?”
Sitting down again Bones leaned forward, patting his friend on the arm.
“Just try and place yourself in their shoes for a little while. Feel what they feel.”
Breaking out in a grin Kirk placed his hands in front of his body “You know I’ve always wondered what it would be like to...”
Not holding back this time McCoy actually managed to cuff Kirk across the head, hard enough to make him hiss.
“Good god man. Get a grip.”
Continuing while ignoring his friends protests Leonard was determined to say his piece.
“These women on our ship are more than just a pair of breasts or a piece of ass. Sure they’ve got the bodies, and the looks, and they can wear those tight little dresses that make us go insane... But what makes them wonderful, perfect even is that they are so strong that they don’t even know it. It’s all hidden deep inside, right where they need it, away from harm.
They have to work harder for everything they get. You know that even today there are still bigoted men out there that see them as lesser than men. They have to live with that knowledge every day, and they never show it in front of us, but it gets to them. Sometimes they cry when they think we’re not looking.”
Leonard looked up; unaware that he’d began to speak into his drink, lost in thought.
He was a little shocked to find that Jim had been riveted, his eyes wide like a revelation had occurred.
“How do you know that?”
“Different sort of experience to you.”
“Do you think I made Janice cry?”
Bones offered him one of his patented ‘no shit’ stared and that was all Jim needed before he was out his seat and out of the door.
Finishing off his drink McCoy left also, but headed in a different direction. Papa bear needed to assure mamma bear that all would be well with the cubs.