Leonard McCoy stared back at his blue eyes in the mirror as he pushed the mechanical shaver around his cheek. Somehow his eyes didn't seem quite as blue as usual. They were the tired eyes of a frightened old man.

"Come," he said absentmindedly, before he remembered that he was wearing only a towel. The door slid open and Penda Uhura entered. She stopped just inside the door and let loose a low whistle.

"Len, you're falling away to nothing."

McCoy shrugged and clutched the towel around his waist. "Some people gain weight as they age, some people lose. I happen to be one of the latter."

"How do I get in that group?" she asked, walking further into the doctor's quarters.

McCoy shot her a nasty look. He took enough flak from Scotty about their relative weights. "Why don't ye invent a way to transfuse pounds, Len?" the Scot was fond of asking. "I can spare a few and you can use them."

He opened a drawer and pulled-out a pair of Starfleet Academy sweatpants, his usual sleeping attire. It would be nearly three hours before they reached Camp Kittamer and McCoy intended to get some badly needed sleep. He hesitated for a moment before dropping the towel and pulling on the sweatpants. No need for modesty with Penda.

"What's that you've got there behind your back?" he demanded as he tightened the drawstring. Three days of inedible Klingon food must have cost him another five pounds.

Uhura smiled and walked closer to McCoy. She brought her hand from behind her back and offered a heavy, metal object to him. It was one of the ankle cuffs from the chains he had worn on Rura Penthe. "I rescued it from the refuse," she said. McCoy stared at the cuff as though it were a demon from hell. "I thought you'd like to keep it as a souvenir," she said softly.

McCoy took the ankle cuff. "Oh God, Penda," he said in a low, mournful voice. The memories of the trial and the penal asteroid flooded his mind. "I was so scared," he said in a coarse whisper, as though he didn't want to be heard.

Uhura moved closer and put her arms around McCoy. He was trembling.

"I was never so scared in my life," he continued. "The trial was the worst part. Surrounded by bloodthirsty Klingons, knowing Starfleet had given us up, not knowing where the Enterprise was."

"I was scared for you, Len. I thought Jim's luck had finally run out."

"And that damned Chang!" McCoy said, some fire in his voice now. He pushed Uhura away gently, opened a drawer and dug for a sweatshirt. Pulling it over his head, he doubted he'd ever feel warm again. "He called me incompetent! No one has ever accused me of incompetence and he did it in front of billions of people. That was the worst of all."

He crossed to the bed, slipped under the cover and sat up against the bulkhead. When he looked at Uhura again he was surprised to see her chuckling.

"What's so damned funny?" he barked.

Uhura crossed and sat next to him. "Oh, just that with everything that happened to you, what scared you the most was being called incompetent."

McCoy looked down at his hands. He had stopped in sickbay for a Tarbor ray treatment, but after the cold of Rura Penthe it would be days before his hands would stop aching. "Doctoring is what I am, Penda," he said quietly. "Maybe I am too old. Maybe it's good that I'm retiring in three months."

"Len--"

"How many more might die because of my incompetence?"

"Snap out of it, Grumbles," Uhura said sharply. McCoy winced at Uhura's use of her pet name for him back when they had been more than just colleagues and friends. "You're no more incompetent than Jim or Spock is. When did you start believing Klingons anyway?"

McCoy grinned, faintly at first, but after a moment he pulled out the broad grin for which he was so well known. His eyes even regained some of their blue sparkle.

"Penda," he said, taking Uhura's hand in his. "You never don't cheer me up." He watched as a smile spread across Uhura's face. He wished he had seen more of that smile recently; but with him serving full time on the Enterprise and her spending more and more time at the Academy, they had drifted apart.

Uhura leaned forward and kissed him gently on the cheek. "Now that's more like it," she said.

"You know," McCoy began, "they've asked me to teach a seminar for residents at the Academy medical center after I retire. We could--"

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about, Len."

"Huh?"

"About your retirement plans."

McCoy furrowed his brow, puzzled by Uhura's interest. Everyone knew he planned to practice part-time in a little town in southern Georgia. He waited for her to continue.

"Hikaru asked me to talk to you."

"Hikaru? What the hell would--"

"He's rotating his crew in four months. He's asked me to join him as First Officer."

"Penda! That's great! You've waited a long time."

"I think he still feels guilty about calling me a 'fair maiden' twenty-five years ago." They both laughed for a minute remembering Sulu, stripped to the waist and brandishing a sword on the bridge. "He wants you for Chief Medical Officer," Uhura continued.

"I'm retiring! He knows that."

"He wants you to reconsider."

McCoy shook his head. Just the thought of another deep space tour made his hands ache worse. "I'm going to treat colds and sprained ankles. No more boldly going anywhere for me."

"You tried that the first time you retired, remember?"

McCoy nodded, remembering those two years after the first five-year mission when Jim had accepted a promotion that chained him to a desk and Spock had left Starfleet to pursue the Kolinahr. It had been the most boring--and the most lonely--two years of his life.

"And besides," Uhura said, smiling slyly, "it wouldn't be any fun without you."

"Fun? That's what this is? Fun?"

"Admit it, Len. We like galloping around the cosmos, as Jim calls it. It keeps us young."

"I'm seventy-one!"

"And I'm fifty-two. So what? Years don't matter out here. On a starship you're as young as you feel."

McCoy chuckled. He had to admit it. It was fun. In twenty-seven years , more-or-less, of planet-hopping on the Enterprise, he had never once been bored. It kept him young-at-heart, if not in body.

"We might not live through this current round of fun," he said, thinking about what waited for them at Camp Kittamer.

Uhura rose and walked quietly to the door. She said, "I have faith in Jim. Don't you?"

"Of course," McCoy said, wanting desperately to believe that Kirk could pull out another miracle.

"What should I tell Hikaru?"

"Tell him...tell him I'll think about it."

"Good!" Uhura said, smiling broadly. "Sleep tight, Sugar." Before McCoy could retort the door slid closed behind her and he was alone again.

He ordered the computer to extinguish the lights and to awaken him in two hours. He knew he wouldn't have to think about it long. If they survived this mission he knew he would accept Sulu's offer. Fun, he thought as he drifted into sleep. Lots of fun.