Title: Taming the Lion

By: Dragonfire100

A/N A rewrite of Encounters for those of you who knew what that was, for those of you who don't, just ignore thisnote and enjoy :)

Chapter 1

Med bay was quiet. He supposed he should enjoy it while it lasted, because it never lasted long when it was located in Starfleet academy.

"She broke my nose I know it!" And today was no exception. Leonard McCoy nearly rolled his eyes as he made his way out to the main area where a nurse-Pletchet he noted-was trying to talk to a redheaded cadet. He was bleeding profusely from the nose and had a black eye forming. Someone or something had clocked him pretty good.

He was arguing with the nurse now and McCoy scowled approaching quickly. "Hey, keep your voice down ya damned fool!" He snapped and the Cadet quieted under his obvious temper. He took the tools offered him by Pletchet whose lips were pursed in restrained irritation. A quick scan told him what he already guessed. No concussion, minor fracture to the bridge of his nose and bruising, plus the extensive bleeding which Pletchet could easily get control of on her own.

"Relax kid it's barely broken." He turned to her. "Stop the bleeding give him something for the pain." It looked worse then it was and he wondered what the cadet had done to deserve it. He'd said 'she', lover's quarrel? McCoy shook his head. He didn't know and he didn't particularly care.

As he turned he noticed someone else enter. A woman this time. Slender with long brown hair, she held her left arm close and from what he could see the skin was burned.

"Hey." He said to grab her attention and she looked over, her eyes a sort of hazel green. "Come 'ere." He gestured at the nearest biobed. She didn't hesitate hopping up onto it. Grabbing another scanner he quickly set to work. "Name?"

"Allison Young."

Pain shown in her slightly pursed lips and tense shoulders. He quickly pulled up her file to check for allergies to any analgesics; grabbing a hypo, she accepted the pain killer without complaint. Her gaze settled on the Cadet across the room and he saw her eyes narrow a little.

"Hold still Cadet I'm attempting to stop the bleeding." Plechet said with barely held irritation.

"I knew it, she broke my damn nose." He practically whined.

Young chuffed and McCoy could see a brief spark of satisfaction in her eyes.

"Broken noses funny?" He asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

She started as if startled and looked all at once uncomfortable. "Um, not really, just well, he kinda deserved it."

Young looked a little older than most cadets he'd seen, the angles of her face were soft and feminine lips slightly plump eyes rather round.

"He's lucky the Langor didn't get loose or you'd have a lot more patients." She said suddenly, glaring at the bloody cadet.

"Langor?" He found himself asking. Her demeanor spoke of someone with a usually gentle nature.

"It's a type of lizard like creature bout the size of a beagle, shoots acid when it's aggravated. It hurts like hell but doesn't cause any lasting damage, unless of course you get it in your eyes, which incidentally is what it aims for." She grew more animated as she spoke, some tension leaving her shoulders.

Leonard stared at her for a moment.

"Why the hell do you have that thing around?"

She grinned, features brightening prettily. "Xenozoology, we were studying it." Then frowned. "I warned Taggert she was getting irritated."

"So, you broke his nose." He cocked an eyebrow at her.

"He wasn't handling her correctly." She defended, then looked suddenly sheepish, a blush reddening her cheeks. "I mean Walsh was standing right in the line of fire and if I hadn't pushed her out of the way she would've gotten it full in the face." She looked away and down.

He grabbed the dermal regenerator glancing at the bloody cadet.

"I'm not exactly proud of it." She sighed, watching him work, looking mildly ashamed.

The burns were bad enough that she'd need more than one treatment, and would scar a little. Shame, she had nice delicate hands. Leonard blinked firmly telling himself to get his head out of the clouds.

"If you would hold still Cadet Taggert I could work properly in stopping the bleeding!" Plechet finally seemed to have lost her patience pretty much all out snapping at the cadet.

"Well maybe you just don't know how to use that properly!" Taggert yelled back.

McCoy clenched his jaw his own irritation flaring.

"Please tell me you have a way of shutting him up?" Young muttered suddenly and McCoy looked at her sharply. There was some amusement mixed with irritation in her eyes now, and he took that as his cue.

Practically whipping around he fixed the cadet with an icy glare. "Son, if you don't shut your trap right now I will sedate you and you can spend the remainder of your stay here drooling onto that biobed."

Taggert blinked, appearing stunned terror in his eyes, before he nodded stiffly. McCoy had never seen Pletchet so relieved by his corse manner.

He turned back to find that there was full blown amusement on his patients face now. "Got a bit of a temper there doc?"

"It worked didn't it?" He growled and she huffed a laugh as he got back to work.

Again, she watched him work silently, flinching a little when he hit a particularly nasty part of the burns.

"Sorry." He found himself saying, doing his best to be gentle.

She however said nothing, continuing to observe . It was blessedly silent now that he'd gotten Taggert to shut up.

"It'll scar." She said suddenly. Not sad, just a statement of fact and McCoy hummed an affirmative.

"I'll have to come up with a better story then 'I was burned because of an idiot'." She mumbled and McCoy found that he was amused by the statement. It sounded far too much like a blond blue eyed cadet he knew.

"Depends on what happened exactly." He said.

"I can imagine you've seen a lot of injuries like mine, wouldn't want to bore you with the details." She said and he snorted.

Every story was different but every reason was almost the same, idiocy in his opinion; there was always some moron who thought they knew better.

Amusement had returned to her gaze as she looked at him, before looking down at her arm. "How's it look?"

"You'll need at least two more treatments with the dermal regenerator, it'll be painful and yeah it'll scar." He explained.

"Don't like to sugar coat things do ya doc?"

"Ain't no point." He said gruffly.

"Still, probably easier than being chewed out by Lt. Una."

McCoy nearly winced knowing Una's reputation with the cadets. She expected nothing less than the best from anyone under her tutelage. Hard core, is what her students had called her and a few choice words from Jim who had to taken a few classes under her.

"Better company too."

Leonard almost flinched. Shit, was she, flirting with him?

He resisted the urge to clear his throat awkwardly. It wasn't like he'd never done this before, it was just normally in a bar after he'd had a few.

"Probably won't be me doing it." He said gracelessly during which he could practically hear Jim saying he needed to live a little, could even see him roll his eyes.

The burns weren't two extensive, just bad, so he finished up this treament fairly quick. Her fingers started to tremble as the pain meds began to ware off, and he grabbed another hypo.

"Hold still." He said as he injected it into her neck that he couldn't help note looked quite soft. He blinked. Grabbing some cream for the burns he applied a thin layer, the last of his administrations. "You're good to go, I'll give you a prescription for the pain, come back here tomorrow morning and the next for the treatments."

He stepped away so she could stand. "Take it easy the next couple days." He ordered not bothering to hide any sternness, knowing most cadets tended to ignore doctor's orders anyway.

"Thank you Doctor." She said and he hummed eyes focused on the PADD and her file as he made notes in it. "You know, you should smile more." She added softly, almost teasingly.

He couldn't help but look up at her in surprise but she was already leaving. For a moment Leonard just stared after her, then shook himself.

He doubted he'd see her again, but found a part of him hoped he would.

McCoy sighed, he was spending way too much time with Jim.