Paramount owns Star Trek, McCoy, and Spock. The story and all other characters are mine.

"Three weeks on this hell of a decayed colony planet," Dr. McCoy muttered to himself, as he trudged through the sweltering night. "God only knows what kind of crazy diseases they've cooked up here in this...this...swamp they dare call a city!"

In fact, he was so involved in his self-recriminations that he didn't see the men lurking in the alley directly in front of him. In all fairness, however, it is not likely that he could have fought off a whole band of thieves even had he not been taken by surprise.

The next thing he heard was a woman's voice, low and reassuring. His eyes opened, and she smiled at him as the voice resolved itself into words.

"You shouldn't go wandering by the docks alone-especially not at night."

His groping hands found a soft cloth wrapped around his head, and at the touch, pain exploded across his face.

"I found you in the alley behind the shop," the woman was saying, as McCoy realized that his medical kit was gone, and moaned aloud.

The woman moved closed with a look of concern. "My things," the doctor began anxiously.

She shook her head. "Anything you had on you was stolen. Whoever dumped you in that alley left you nothing but your underwear."

So, his supplies were gone, and with them all the research he had hoped to do, the improvements he'd dreamed of making to these people's quality of life, in short, the entire purpose of his mission. *And without a damned communicator-not that the ship's in range, anyway*

McCoy would have to resort to Plan B: survive, and do what he could using a physician's first tools-his senses.

So the doctor turned his attention to his hostess. Dark eyes regarded him warmly from under a thick green scarf that hid any hint of her hair. Her skin was pale, and the angles of her face sharp. Overall, she was not unattractive, and McCoy doubted she was yet thirty.

"I haven't yet thanked you for taking me in. I do appreciate it. Name's Leonard McCoy.

"And I am Isira."

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am."

Isira inspected the bandage on his head. "Hmm, looks all right...do you have someplace to go?"

McCoy shook his head, once she'd let go of it. "I had just...arrived in the city...when I got jumped."

"I see...do you have friends?"

"No... well, I do, but they won't get here for weeks. Had something else to take care of first."

She chose not to question him further.

"I suppose there's no reason you can't stay here," she said.

A few days later, McCoy was startled out of a sound sleep by the sounds of someone being violently ill. He vaulted out of bed ran down the stairs three at a time, and sprang into the kitchen, only to find Isira kneeling over a bucket. She offered a wan smile, and McCoy almost relaxed-until he looked into the bucket and saw dark red blood.

Later, settled into an armchair with a blanket wrapped around her, Isira explained her illness. How an epidemic had swept the city eight years before, and she had been infected in the course of her work as a healer. How the medicines had run out, leaving many victims-including her-to recover or die on their own, and how many of those who survived without treatment developed a chronic condition, involving occasional relapses of fever, and in the final stages, dizziness, fainting spells, aches, vomiting blood, and, finally, death, usually within a very few years of the initial infection.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you before," Isira concluded. "But I didn't think an outsider should be concerned about my problems."

As Isira delivered her matter-of-fact explanation of the disease that was killing her, McCoy had grown more and more outraged. Finally, he exploded with, "Be concerned about your problems! Good God, woman, how can you be so damned CALM about it?"

"I admit, throwing up blood is hardly my idea of a fun way to spend the morning, but aside from that and the occasional dizzy spell, I don't feel ill at all. I know the end is coming. I know it's close. But I...I'm not angry about it."

"No regrets?" he asked sarcastically.

"Oh, of course I have regrets. Every time I hear a child's laughter, I regret that I'll never have children of my own. There's a new ship being built down at the yards-like nothing ever made before. And I'll never see it finished. I watch the birds fly north, and know that I won't see them return at the end of the summer. But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that I can't be angry about it."

McCoy's regard was unchanged.

"Let me tell you a story, Leonard. A true story." She folded her arms and settled back in her chair.

"When I was an apprentice, I knew a little girl-let's call her Sari. Her clothes were always torn, her hair was seldom combed, and her habit of copying the dockworkers' language was the despair of her gentle mother. She had a laugh like clean, cold water spilling over rocks and green eyes that shone like the sun on the harbor and drove every boy in the port district mad with passion. But she paid attention to none of them, until one day, she met a fisherman's son who seemed to gave been gifted with the same fire as she.

"Well, suffice it to say the two were wed, just before I became a full healer. My wild girl played the proper wife, bound up her hair and began searching for a house for the two of them, just as her husband walked quietly with the other men and spent all his days on the fishing boats, but I could see the fire still shining inside them both.

"About a year later, when I was nicely settled in in my shop, here, she came in and told me that she had a bit of a problem-she was not yet with child. Now, a healthy young woman, with him for a year already and no baby! Shouldn't be!"

Isira gave a knowing chuckle, and McCoy smiled as well, though he was beginning to wonder where this story was going.

Isira continued, "So I gave her some advice, and a potion that might encourage her body in the right direction, and, sure enough, I laid a little girl on her breast before another year passed.

"Oh, I've delivered more babies than I can count, but I don't think any of them were more beautiful than Sari's daughter, nor was there a set of new parents so delighted. Then, right after the baby was born, the Epidemic came along and changed everything.

"Well, Sari and her family came through the Epidemic unharmed, but, a few months later, she came knocking on my door in the middle of the night. Her baby had woken feverish and fretful.

"Heaven knows I did all I could, but nothing would bring the fever down. The baby's little body shrank visibly, drying up even as I desperately coaxed her to drink. Along towards daybreak, I laid the baby back in her mother's arms, and said there was nothing more I could do. I sat back down, sighing bitterly-I was always bitter, in those days-and muttered something about regretting I'd ever helped her become a mother, if this was the way would end.

"Sari lifted her head and stared at me, and there was something in her eyes I'd never seen before. The fire I'd always known was still there, but it was... changed...somehow. Instead of leaping forth so hard you could almost hear the branches crackling, her flame was quieter, but more powerful, like glowing coals.

" 'Don't ever speak that way,' she told me urgently. 'Every day I had with her was a blessing.

"I looked at her silently, then called in her husband, anxiously waiting in the next room, and let the three of them be alone together.

"I wandered all through the city, finally winding up on Highpoint, overlooking the harbor. I stared out at the water, and pondered what she'd said.

" 'Every day a blessing...'

"She was so right. Here I was, with a good many of my days taken away, and what was I doing but wasting the rest of them in bitterness. So busy being brave, not telling anyone what had happened to me, I realized I'd completely shut myself off from all my friends. Not only that, but I'd neglected my duty to pass on my skills. I'd been a full healer for over two years and still had no apprentice. Yes, I decided, I'd have to find an apprentice.

"Within ten days I'd found a suitable girl, and, from then on, I've lived as if each day was my last. Seven years, now, and every day's been was a blessing. My apprentice, Jalany, was everything I could have hoped for. Matter of fact, she's been doing most of the real work in this shop ever since my dizzy spells started a few weeks back. I still mix herbs, but I'm not fit to be stitching wounds or birthing babies. The girl ought to be wearing a Healer's veil and setting up her own shop, but she won't leave me, she says."

Isira stopped and leaned back in her chair.

Part 2

McCoy rose and went into the kitchen, deeply disturbed by what he'd just heard. He didn't want to think about the fact that the gentle, compassionate woman who'd taken him in was, by her own admission, dying, while he could do nothing but watch. He was, however, curious about the apprentice Isira had mentioned. While he had seen the girl running in and out, Jalany had behaved so respectfully towards the older woman that McCoy had assumed she was a servant.

*Had to believe that pretty child could be a full healer-even a place with as little science as this one, * he thought, and began making breakfast.

The subject of his thoughts walked in as he was stirring the porridge. Jalany's eyes were shadowed with fatigue and her dress was spotted with blood and fluids, but she smiled gamely. She ran a hand through her hair, undoing her already disheveled braid, and demanded of the room in general, "Why do babies always have to come in the middle of the night?"

"How did it go?" asked Isira, who'd come into the kitchen when she heard the door open.

"Fine. Took a while, because it was her first, but she's got a healthy son who probably woke the whole neighborhood with his screaming."

Isira smiled knowingly. "Why don't you get cleaned up, and get some sleep, Jalany?"

"Yes, mistress," she replied, and disappeared up the stairs.

McCoy had remained uncharacteristically silent throughout the exchange, and reflected on what he'd seen. Not only was Jalany older than he'd originally thought, she was also far more knowledgeable and experienced. He resolved to speak to the apprentice about Isira's condition-as soon as she'd gotten some sleep.

It was several days before McCoy had the chance to speak to Jalany privately. Isira had gone out for a walk, and Jalany was powdering dried herbs in the kitchen. McCoy sat down next to her, and began separating the next bundle of leaves.

He decided to be blunt.

"Your mistress tells me she's dying."

"Unfortunately, that is the case," Jalany replied calmly.

*Just what I needed. Another damned Vulcan,* he thought, then demanded, "Well? Doesn't this BOTHER YOU A BIT!"

Jalany put down her pestle and looked directly at him. "Leonard, I've known that every day for the past seven years, and every day it has bothered me. But I respect her too much to burden her with my problems."

"Your problems..."

"The fact that she's dying is her problem. The fact that we're going to lose her is our problem, and I'm not going to muddle the two. She's accepted it. I've accepted it. Don't go screwing things up."

"So you find this all fine?"

"Sure it's all fine. I'm absolutely delighted by the fact that the most compassionate, dedicated person I know, the one who took me in when I was a street girl and offered me the chance to become a healer and one of the most important people in the city, is dying and there isn't a single thing I can do about it."

"Are you sure?"

"Am I sure!" she shouted. "Don't you think I'd have-" Jalany checked herself, sighed and began grinding herbs again. "Sorry, but she's already tested every remedy imaginable on herself. She wanted to help the others with her condition. She couldn't help anyone, including herself. And now, most of the others are dead, and she's..."

"I'm sorry," McCoy murmured, not knowing what else to say. *You'd think, after all these years, it'd get easier. But the one thing they don't teach doctors is how to be helpless.*

"Don't be sorry. She isn't. After all, she made sure it won't happen anymore."

McCoy looked at her questioningly.

"Since she persuaded the Council to clean up the harbor and dredge the fens, the insects that carry swamp-fever no longer swarm in the city. We used to have minor outbreaks every two or three years, but, in the past seven years, there have been only a handful of isolated cases."

"Why weren't the swamps dredged before, then?"

"Because it was expensive, and the Council and the merchants live up in the hills, where they don't have to worry about city diseases."

McCoy nodded grimly; even in the Federation, economic concerns sometimes overrode humanitarian ones. "How did she convince them that they could afford to do it?"

"She convinced them that they couldn't afford NOT to. She didn't bore them with tales of dead children. Instead she told the Council exactly how many workers had been out for most of the summer due to illness, how many trading ships had gone elsewhere during the epidemic, how many wares had rotted in the warehouses while the harbor all but shut down...and how many men would be employed by the dredging project."

"Clever."

"Is she ever," Jalany said wistfully. "Even after seven years of study I can't match her medical talents, and I doubt I'll ever have that way of making people listening to me."

She stopped abruptly, swept the powdered herbs into a leather bag, and stood. "My teacher has given her whole life to this city, and all she asks in exchange is to die in peace. So I won't have you bothering her with your 'trying to help.' " Jalany concluded shortly.

"So maybe I don't understand," McCoy said to the empty kitchen. "But... for your sake, Jalany...I won't interfere."

McCoy spent his days with Isira, discussing her medical treatment methods, and, as Isira grew weaker, helped Jalany find ways to help her without taking away her dignity.

A week later, as Isira rose from her chair in front of the fire and moved into the kitchen, Jalany "just happened" to head for the kitchen at that moment, delicately not quite sliding a hand under her teacher's arm. The healer turned to look at her apprentice and smiled faintly. "I thank you for your consideration, Jalany, but even I have sense enough to see that my pride is more durable than my body just now. I-appreciate-your assistance."

Isira almost sounded like she was choking on the words, but held onto Jalany's hand as she sank into a kitchen chair.

McCoy watched all this from where he stood next to the herb cabinets. *No, they don't teach us how to be helpless, nor how to accept help.*

Suddenly Isira gasped and doubled over.

McCoy stepped forward, but Jalany was already at her side, eyes filled with a dreadful certainty. "Is it...?" the girl asked.

"Yes, child, I think the fever's finally come for me."

McCoy gently lifted her out of the chair and carried her to bed, then slipped out of the house as Jalany began preparing the drugs that would ease her teacher.

All day, he wandered around the city, but was unable to do the two things he most wanted: get lost and stop thinking. Finally he stopped and said aloud, "She's gonna die whether you're there or not, man. The least you can do is say goodbye."

As he reentered the house, her heard someone singing, soft and low and even, like a mother singing a baby to sleep

"Ah na na na, na nana na na na, ah na na na na"

Silently, he opened the door to Isira's bedroom. Jalany sat on the edge of the bed, holding her teacher's hand and singing. She didn't even pause in her song, only moved over so he could sit beside her on the edge of the bed. Isira looked at him from the haze of drugs numbing her pain, and whispered, "Every day a blessing...every smile a victory."

McCoy took Isira's right hand in his, then reached out for Jalany's left, completing the circle, and softly joined in the wordless lullaby. A few times, Isira's eyes drifted open. Her lips moved along with the song, and she smiled slightly before sinking back into sleep. Shortly after midnight, the Healer Isira stopped breathing.

McCoy sat in his office aboard the Enterprise, holding a glass of bourbon. Good stuff, but somehow he just didn't want any tonight. He'd just finished his primary report-a confused account without even an attempt at profession detachment.

*Have to clean it up. Not tonight, though. *

The Enterprise had arrived just hours after Isira's death, but had permitted him to stay long enough for the funeral. McCoy didn't think he'd ever forget the sight of her ashes blowing across the harbor, nearly blotting out the setting sun... She'd have wondered why everyone was wasting such a beautiful sunset crying

He heard the door open, but didn't look up. "Nurse, I said..."

"Doctor. I have not seen you since your return."

McCoy raised his head at the familiar voice.

"No, you haven't, Spock, being as I got in in the middle of the night, ship's time."

"I reviewed your report. Although it is somewhat disorganized, a fault I am sure you will amend, your description of conditions on the planet was quite adequate."

"You're too kind, Spock. Now, if there's nothing else..."

Calmly the Vulcan moved toward the door, then turned to say, "Remember, Doctor. To her, every day *was* a blessing."

McCoy put down the glass and sighed. "Maybe you're right." Then he straightened up and said angrily, "Now wait just a minute, you damned Vulcan. I hadn't filed that report yet. You tapped into my computer, didn't you?"

Did McCoy see a hint of satisfaction, of relief, in Spock's deep brown eyes? Of course not. Man's a Vulcan, after all. Nice to know some things don't change.