Sorry that it's so short, but exams and all...yeah. More regular updates when exams and Easter's over and done with, I promise.

Part II

Jim tried really, really hard to not be jealous of Nurse Chapel, but it was really damned hard. The two of them got along swimmingly, like a house on fire, or however you wanted to say it. Professionally speaking hiring Christine had been the best decision he had ever made in his short, yet illustrious career. The CMO and the Head Nurse were an unbeatable team in Sick Bay, working seamlessly side by side, as if they were the same damned person. Efficiency ratings for the medical department had skyrocketed in the span of a few short weeks.

And, from the rest of the crew's point of view, Christine Chapel was a godsend. While everyone knew McCoy was unparalleled as a surgeon, and more than a few people knew about the heart of gold he hid under his gruff exterior, his bedside manner and his people skills had been severely lacking. Now, Jim was starting to see the Leonard McCoy he suspected to have existed before he had become cynical and broken by divorce and various other traumas.

Sure, he was still gruff, and gave all the 'imbeciles' that got themselves injured a good tongue lashing, but it was no longer so caustic and bitter. Bones actually smiled. He honest to God smiled. And laughed.

What got Jim all green was that almost all of those laughs, all of those smiles, were directed towards her. McCoy spent almost all of his free time with Christine, leaving Jim by the wayside. Or so it felt. Sure, they still chilled in Jim's quarters or Bones' office for drinks every now and again, but most of the conversations now a-days revolved around Chapel.

From what McCoy told him, he had grown up with Christine, and they were practically like siblings. Twins even. Then Christine's parents had died off-planet on an archaeological dig, and she came to live with them. All was fine until they graduated high school, and she went to study medical archaeology like her parents, on the same planet even. There had been a falling out, and they hadn't talked to each other in years. Years later, Leonard caught wind that there had been another fatal cave in at the dig, and Chapel had gone missing, and Leonard thought her dead.

As was obvious by the fact that the blonde woman was currently treating a crew member with a severe case of Andorian shingles, of all things, she was quite alive. She had given up on archaeology and signed up with Starfleet to become a nurse.

It was a touching reunion of quasi-siblings who hadn't seen each other in years and/or thought the other was dead. He thought the level of affection they showed each other was somewhat ridiculous, however. Another thing bothered him. How had Bones not recognized Chapel's name when he was going through the profile Jim had sent him? For that matter, how had Chapel not realized that the one Dr. Leonard Horatio McCoy who had helped save the Earth from angry time-travelling Romulans was the same person she had grown up with? Bones had avoided the press and getting his photos taken as much as possible, agreeably, and he had gotten far less press than Jim himself had, but come on! This was borderline ridiculous!

Jim's mind latched onto this little bit of information, this oddity, and refused to let go. He even began to come up with ridiculous scenarios that painted her everything from a sleeper agent to a mind-controlling alien that just looked like someone Bones knew to a double agent on the run from some sort of foreign government and had had to change her name to preserve her identity, and was secretly Bones' biological sister or something. If he were completely honest with himself Jim would agree that he was simply letting his jealousy over the fact that he no longer had such a monopoly on Bones' free time and gruff affections anymore. Or any of the more gentle or ridiculous ones that he seemed to shower on Chapel.

He did a very good impression of Bones just then, growling at himself to stop being such a damned idiot. As he was on the bridge, it earned him a few wary looks from the Bridge Crew, which he pointedly ignored. It was quiet, and Bones would have come and stopped by for at least half an hour to escape the Sick Bay and see Jim, but the Alpha shift was almost over, and he had yet to see either hide or hair of his CMO.

This was getting ridiculous. Jim resolved to confront Bones about this after his shift.

"Captain, we are now approaching Exo III." Spock's even tone cut through his slowly darkening thoughts like a knife through butter and Jim once again snapped into his role as Captain, back straightening, eyes bright.

"Very good Mr. Spock," he said, acknowledging his First Officer. "What can you tell me about Dr. Roger Korby?"