It turned out that a couple of Abrbonians had turned up. Leonard was not sure of the reason for their sudden and definitely unexpected visit, but they appeared to be waiting for something to happen. They weren't volunteering any information about what it was they were waiting for, making it likely that the crew of the Enterprise wouldn't find out until whatever it was came to be.
Leonard was ignoring their presence. He had done a little personal research into the Abrbonians after they had departed the last time and found that they were less than kind to those who broke their word regarding the secrecy demanded of their pacts. If the Abrbonians were waiting around for him to start revealing the deal he had made, so that they could punish him accordingly, then they were in for a long wait. He'd be taking that tale to his grave. Or maybe they had already started the punishment with the expectation that he would crack and wanted to see the results firsthand. That would explain a lot. If that were the case then it was possible he wouldn't have to keep the secret very long, not with the way things were going.
He decided to follow Spock's advice and turn off some of the tricorder's existing controls to allow it to check for ailments outside the norm for the human male. Maybe he was unlucky enough to be the first to contract some alien disease humans were long thought to be immune to. It wouldn't surprise him at this point in his life. There wasn't much in regards to medicine that would. Taking the filters off left him waiting longer than usual for the tricorder to produce results. It was definitely less efficient without the standard configuration in place. He chuckled a little to himself at the thought that Spock was the one responsible for a piece of technology being at less than peak efficiency. When the tricorder finally gave a little beep indicating it was done, there was nothing that prepared Leonard for the shock of the results. So much for nothing surprising him anymore, he thought, as he stared at the screen, seeing the impossible. Finally, he had to conclude, filters or not, that there was no way that result could be right. Maybe he needed to add hallucinations to his list of symptoms.
Deciding that the tricorder had to be defective, Leonard worked his way down to sickbay to run the tests again. The fact that the tricorder had gotten a result, even one as incorrect as the one he had received, meant that there was likely something going on. Of course, Leonard never really trusted the damn things to do much other than guide you. Tricorders were notoriously famous for coming up with some off the wall diagnoses. This was just the first time that such a bizarre one had applied to him.
Nodding at those on duty, Leonard grabbed another tricorder off the counter and headed to his office. If he was going to run tests on himself, he preferred to do it in privacy. He once again removed any limitations on the diagnosis program and ran the tricorder over his body. He waited patiently for the results, only to get the exact same message.
Leonard contemplated the possibility of two tricorders coming up with the same defective diagnosis for a moment before going out to get another to try. When he returned to sickbay to get a third one, Leonard was definitely getting funny looks from his staff, and, for some strange reason, Christine Chapel was there, even though she was working the same shifts as him. That puzzling development was quickly solved once she spoke. It turned out that his sickbay was staffed by a bunch of cowards.
"Everything okay, Leonard?" Christine asked with a friendly smile. "You appear to be hogging the medical tricorders for some reason."
"Because none of the damn contraptions actually work," he muttered. Jabbing a finger in her direction, he said, "Since you are here, follow me. I want to try something."
Christine just gave a little nod and followed her boss into his office. Leonard knew she was interested in finding out what he was doing. Otherwise, she would have simply told whoever asked her to come down to sickbay to handle it themselves. Christine had been tiptoeing around the idea of Leonard having someone do an exam on him for a while now and was probably relieved that he was at least doing one himself. The woman could be such a mother hen sometimes, not that he could talk.
"So which of those crazy people talked you into coming in here?" Leonard had to ask as he grabbed one of the tricorders he had used on himself.
"I'm not telling you that," Christine retorted with a puzzled look on her face as she watched Leonard run the tricorder over her.
"Your answer is not going to get anyone into trouble," Leonard told her. "I'm just wondering."
"Wondering and never going to let them live it down if you find out." Christine gave a little laugh. "You want to tell me why I'm being tested."
"You aren't being tested for anything in particular," he explained as he ran the tricorder over her. "I just wanted to see what results we get with you."
Once he finished, Christine peered over his shoulder and watched the little tricorder chugging along with the data it had been feed. "And why do we want to know that?"
"Because it was giving me very strange results, and I wanted to see if it was because it's a piece of crap or if maybe, just maybe, it actually got the diagnosis right and there is something that incredibly weird wrong with me," Leonard griped as he stared at the screen as if it had offended him, even though it hadn't returned a diagnosis yet.
"I hope it doesn't come back with anything too serious," Christine murmured. "Hate to find out I'm dying just because you couldn't decide if a tricorder was working or not. Are you getting the same results each time?"
"One, it would be better to find out now if you were dying: that way we could start treatment, maybe even find a cure if you did have a fatal disease," Leonard stated patiently. "Two, the previous diagnoses had to be bogus, but I want to see if it works otherwise."
"What you really mean is that you got the same results every time and you just don't want to believe them," Christine retorted and then a disconcerting thought hit her. "You're not dying, are you?"
Leonard gave a little snort. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I didn't get a death sentence from any of these things."
Christine hit him on the shoulder. "Like I'd want you to get sick and die. You're not getting the chance to leave me here in this madhouse alone. Who's going to keep them in line?"
That got a full chuckle out of Leonard. "You could always take over the task should I die. It's not like anyone really listens to me. You'd probably have better luck."
"Believe me, I don't want to be the one keeping everyone in line," Christine asserted. "At least, not yet."
The tricorder in his hand gave a little beep, which prevented Leonard from responding to her little rejoinder. Instead, he studied the screen for a few moments, only looking up when Christine finally asked, "What's the bad news, Doc?"
Giving a little shake of his head, he replied, "No bad news. You're as healthy as a horse according to this."
"I guess it depends on the horse, then, whether or not it's good news," Christine said, sounding deadpan. "Now that I've been your lab rat are you going to tell me what this is all about, or do I have to start guessing the diagnosis?"
Leonard reached behind him for one of the medical tricorders he had used earlier while keeping his eyes trained on Christine. "I'm not sure if I want to show this to you or not, but I am going to need some assistance in follow up testing as it would appear I can't write off the findings of the damn things."
"Hey, doctor-patient confidentiality," Christine quipped as Leonard frowned at her. "Or, in my case, nurse-patient. Same rules, really."
"Secrecy is not the issue," Leonard stated. "Embarrassment that I thought even for a minute that this might be true and followed up is."
"How bad could it be?" Christine exclaimed. Getting a little frustrated, she made an outrageous suggestion, hoping Leonard wouldn't find reality quite as bad and pass her the tricorder to read. "Jeez, did the damn thing tell you you were pregnant?"
Leonard gave her a choked laugh as he tossed the tricorder, with its diagnosis, to her. "Actually, yes, that's exactly what it told me."
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