Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Pike harbors something of a fondness for Riverside. Iowa is a calm place, and the people of Riverside are perfectly situated to be simple without being too disconnected. That’s not say that the town doesn’t harbor it’s fair share of idiots, or that Starfleet couldn’t do without recruiting a few less of them, but more good comes out of Riverside than one might expect. Something that Pike knows better than most.

And because he strives to be humble, honest, and self-aware, Pike admits to himself that it is this memory of Riverside that draws him to this rowdy bar when he has no interest in drinking. It’s the kind of place where fights break out often enough that people feel entitled to be stupid, but the company is also just as likely to be enjoyable.

Take the young cadet sitting at the bar, for example. Pike doesn’t yet know her name, but based on what he overhears of her conversation, he would do well to learn it, and keep an eye on her career.

There are many other cadets and personnel in the crowd tonight: a group of red-shirts who look like they wouldn’t mind finding a bit of trouble, a couple of science officers talking excitedly about something that is apparently very important, as most things are to the scientists, in Pike’s experience. There is also, of course, the local wildlife: mostly tired and dirty old men nursing their drinks alone, but also a few youngsters, making noise, playing pool, and trying to flirt with the cadets. But no matter how long Pike lingers in the background, no matter how many people he watches, he doesn’t find what he’s looking for.

It was a long shot, he knew that in the beginning. He feels old and stupid and overly sentimental to have have hoped that he would find the son where he first met the father. But Pike has grown frustrated over the years, and he feels that Starfleet sorely needs the leadership of someone like Kirk. Still, perhaps it was unfair to expect so much of a boy he’s never met. Who even knew if James, where-ever he was and whatever he was doing, even had anything of what had made his father so great?

Pike supposes he’ll have to accept that he will never know.

Leonard is no longer sure who he thinks is more stupid: the dumbasses he’s treating, or himself. On the one hand, getting a concussion by walking into a set of glass doors is forgivable the first time, but you have to be dumber than a dog to do it three times in one week. (Or drunker than a skunk, but what’s the difference.) On the other hand, at least these kids are young enough that they can afford to make a few mistakes. Leonard is already old and fucked up and he doesn’t even want to be here. His future looks just as miserable as his past.

God, he needs a drink.

What he gets instead, is a loud knock on the door.

“What.” Maybe not the most civil response, but at least it’s better than ‘Go away.’

The door slides open and Leonard is assaulted with the smell of blood. There’s still enough doctor in him that he’s on his feet and whipping out his tricorder. It’s two cadets -- no surprise there -- a garden variety red-shirt with some idiot in gold draped halfway over his shoulder, moaning like a cat and clutching his arm.  

“Training accident,” says the red-shirt. “Dislocated his shoulder, sprained his ankle.” Which Leonard already knows from a visual scan and a quick confirmation from his tricorder. Still, at least the kid was succinct.

“Put him over there” Leonard directs with a wave, and the red-shirt obeys while his friend snivels. Leonard starts cutting the moron out of his shirt before he remembers the smell of blood that caught his attention in the first place. Except the whining brat doesn’t have so much as a scratch on him, let alone a prolific nose bleed. Which means it must be the other guy.

But when Leonard cranes his neck around, tricorder high, all he catches is a streak of blonde hair beyond the gap of the sliding med bay doors.

What kind of idiot walks out of med bay while he’s still bleeding? Leonard smacks his shoulder as he squeezes through the doors that don’t open fast enough.

“Hey, you!” No way is he letting some bonehead who waltzed into his medbay bleed out on campus and inconvenience everybody. He pushes his way through the crowd, (okay, it’s like, four people) still yelling, but he’s already lost sight of the kid. “Cadet!” he barks in his most authoritative I’m a doctor and therefore know the best ways to make you miserable if you don’t do what I say voice.

Turns out, when you yell ‘cadet’ at the top of your lungs in the middle of the Academy campus (or close enough) everybody within spittin' distance turns around and stares at you. Or maybe that’s just what happens when you start yelling like a lunatic in public.

The red-shirt he’s looking for is gone. As for himself, Leonard is pretty sure his reputation got upgraded from ‘that scary mean doctor’ to ‘scary, mean and mentally unstable.’ Not that he gives a damn at this point. He throws a healthy glare at the onlookers before stalking back into his office, where he remarkably still has a patient.

The kid with the busted shoulder is staring at Leonard like he’s crazy, and scoots back not so subtly as Leonard marches up to him.

“Name,” he demands.

“Wha’?” asks the kid.

“Name.  Of the moron who brought you in. And then bled his way out of my office.”

“I dunno. Just some kid from my Gen Tact. class.” Which hundreds of students were taking. Fuck. Leonard would never find him now.

Whatever. Not his problem. He was probably just a spineless idiot who preferred being treated by a pretty nurse. Or skipping class. And it was probably a nosebleed or something stupid and trivial.

“So …” the cadet on the bed interrupted, “Are you gonna fix me or what?”

Fucking dumbasses the lot of them. At least Leonard got to hypo this one.

A few weeks later, Leonard has forgotten all about the red-shirt, though that might have something to do with the fact that he’s drunk off his ass.

Jocelyn called this afternoon. He was smart enough not to answer but dumb enough to listen to the message. And now here he is, sitting in the filth of the shadows outside the dorm, unable to stand the crushing emptiness of his tiny room, more alcohol than man at this point.

If he’d thought coming outside would change anything -- change him -- he was wrong. He’s ended up right where he began: low as the dirt, and ten times sicker.

He pukes over some stranger’s boots.

“Nice aim,” says the kid. God, he sounds young. What is he doing gawking at the local drunk in the middle of the night?

Leonard opens his mouth to ask just that, but all that comes out is, “Tall.” Because, seriously, the kid was one long streak of black topped by some red and then a blurry blonde mop. The mop moves, slow enough that Len’s stomach stays mostly in one place. The kid kneels down next to him, mindful of the puddle on his boots. Woah. Talk about blue eyes.

“You look terrible, Doctor.” Fucking cheeky kid.

“Mah. Fuck off, smart ass,” It comes out sounding less like a growl than Leonard wanted.

“Nope,” says the kid blithely. “Can I comm your roommate?”

“Don’t got one.”

“Single room? Oh. Right. Doctor.”

Leonard grunts.

“Well, then, how about a friend?”

More grunting. He’d roll his eyes, too, but … yeah. No.

“Classmate? Coworker?”

“Sure,” says Leonard. “Plenty who’d enjoy the chance to see me like this”

“Well,” says the kid, as evenly as before. “Guess I’ll settle for a room number at this point.”

“Ha. Like I’m climbing back up the stairs to the fourth floor. No thanks, kid.”

He’s not sure what the kid says next -- something about inventions and turbolifts. (An engineering cadet, then. Funny, Leonard had guessed security) The words ought to imply snark, but the kid actually sounds genuine. Leonard thinks that might be even more annoying, but he’s distracted as a sudden change in elevation diverts necessary blood away from his head. It appears he’s been hoisted to his feet. Also, he might have puked all over the kid again, he’s not sure.

They limp their way back into the building. (Well, Leonard stumbles, the kid walks.) Leonard keeps his head firmly down, in case there are any onlookers that he doesn’t want to know about. Also because it’s easier that way.

The kid shuts up besides the occasional ‘careful,’ bless him. Once they reach the fourth floor, Leonard is prompted for a room number. He points, grudgingly.

The room is dark and quiet, and just as suffocating as when Leonard fled from it. The kid doesn’t dump him in the doorway like Leonard half expects. Instead, he sets Leonard down on the crappy couch, and props him up with a pillow.

“Take off your shoes,” he commands, and next thing Leonard knows he’s alone.

He considers taking his boots off, he really does, but they’re all the way down there , and he’s not sure he could remember how to, anyways. And he’s comfortable. Ish. His couch is really crap.

Woah, hey, look, Mr. Puked Upon is back, with a glass of water and a blanket.

“Let me guess,” says Leonard, “kids?” And he’s not really sure what he means by that, but the cadet just shrugs.

“Something like that. Drink.”

Leonard drinks, and acquiesces to being tucked in, (okay, not really, but he lost the struggle pretty easily) and pretty soon he’s out like a light.

There’s another tall glass of water on the coffee table when he wakes up.

Leonard doesn’t like owing people. It makes him grumpy. So even though he doesn’t really have any idea what he’s going to do when he finds the red-shirt who probably saved him from getting hauled in and having his commission revoked, he’s determined to track the bastard down. He puts in a good deal of effort, too, which makes it even more humiliating to find out that they’ve been sitting in the same lecture hall for a two months.

It’s actually the kid who finds him, again . Though this time, neither of them are bleeding, both of them are sober, and there’s not even any vomit involved. Not that he takes credit for that part.

It doesn’t start out looking like the chances are good for him holding his stomach; he gets nauseous the moment he straps in. He doesn’t notice the kid at the time because they’re a few seats apart, he’s trying not to hyperventilate, and he has very actively avoided looking at his classmates in these scenarios since his aviophobia became common knowledge. (They always giggle .)

The instructor lounging at the front of the shuttle has the gall to sound bored as she drones on about the safety procedures they’re here to observe --

“Holy Mother Mary of Fuck.” The shuttle lurched and heaved, and Leonard's lunch heaved in return.

“Seriously?” snaps his partner. Judging from the dirty looks Leonard had gotten earlier, the science cadet know better than to expect any assistance on their assignment, and isn’t too thrilled about it. Insensitive asswipe.

“Do you have any idea,” Leonard gasps, “how dangerous this is?” He grasps at this stomach. “I know , okay, I’ve seen what these things can do to people. Space is -- is disease, and danger, wrapped in darkness and silence.”

“Oh please,” scoffs the jerkwad.

“He’s right,” says a third voice. Leonard leans forward to cradle his stomach and sees that it’s the red-shirt cadet. The red-shit. It’s the first time he’s able to get a proper look at the kid: shock of blond hair, electric baby blues, and a stony face so solemn Leonard suspects mockery.

“Dude,” says Leonard's partner.

“Of course,” says the cadet, “if we are going to die during this class, it’s probably going  to happen before we ever get to space.”

“Reaaally.”

“Yup. The most like scenario is that the joining in the primary thrusts will collapse during the mid-stages of take-off, and we’ll plummet thousands of feet back down to Earth before we manage to break atmo.”

Nobody else is talking anymore; even the Professor has stopped to consider the kid.

“It a weak link in these older model short range shuttles,” explains the cadet, completely matter of fact. “It’s usually not an issue, perfectly manageable with regular maintenance and monitoring, but this lady hasn’t been looked after properly for a while. You can hear it: no-one’s even bothered to check for build-up.”

The lurch and rumble of of take-off, which Leonard had managed for the first time in his life to tune out, is suddenly incredibly loud.

“Cadet,” calls the Professor, and Leonard guesses she doesn't know this particular student’s name anymore than the rest of them, “The intention of this exercise is not to discuss mechanical failure scenarios, but since you have raised the issue ahead of schedule, tell me: what would you do, if your prediction came true?”

The cadet shrugged. “Well, assuming that the mechanical fail safes also malfunctioned, and the pressure variation actually was enough to interfere with primary engine propulsion” -- Leonard really wishes the kid had thought to mention those ‘ifs’ the first time around -- “I’d kick him,” the cadet points to the pilot, “out of the chair and ask … her” pointing now at one of their gold-shirted classmates, who looks surprised at being pointed out, “to take over.”

“You would, in the middle of a crisis, substitute a graduated and seasoned pilot with a cadet who has no authority, and hasn’t even completed her flight training?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, no offense to Pilot Dekvir, but as you said, he’s obviously been out of the academy for some time, and yet he’s still shuttling around a bunch of trainees.” The man in questions coughs loudly and throws a glare around his shoulder. “Could just be a matter of politics rather than skill, but still, it’s likely he’s had exactly no experience with in-flight emergencies. Cadet Yelsen, on the other hand, has demonstrated an ability to think quickly under pressure, is currently at the top  of most of her flight classes, and has at the very least spent much more time recently in the sims drilling crash procedures. If nothing else, she has a fresher grasp of the materials.”   

“Um,” pipes up the gold-shirt who’s supposed to save them, “I’m pretty sure that all I know how to do would be maneuver us to create more drag and maybe crash us into the water so we don’t smash anybody beneath us.” The pilot lets off a strangled noise in response, but doesn’t rush to contradict the cadet.

The red-shirt shrugs again. “Seems to me that reducing casualties is a pretty important part of crash landing.”

The professor has slipped out of her mask of neutrality to frown at the cadet. She proceeds to instruct the class on the ‘proper way’ to react to a crash landing scenario, which mainly seems to involve trusting your pilot -- though unlike in previous lectures, she avoids saying that directly -- and assuming crash positions and knowing where emergency supplies and exits are.

 The red-shirt doesn’t contribute again during the lecture, though his classmates continue to not so subtly eye at him. Leonard included, apparently. The gold-shirt Yelsen, on the other hand, makes some very astute observations, which is not lost on the class.

Once they’ve settled into orbit and start unbuckling to begin their assignments -- complete busy work, in Leonard’s opinion --  the distraction is sufficient enough that Leonard loses track of the kid. He grunts as needed and lets his partner do his thing.

At last, the cursed hour is finally up, and the cadets make their way back to their seats. Leonard rides an impulse and snags one next to the red-shirt kid. He buckles his harness somewhat ferociously, thinking of the bone rattling decent ahead of them. God, what space travel must have been like before stabilizers.

“Four percent,” says the kid, not even looking at Leonard.

“Huh?”

“That’s the probability that re-entry will manifest an issue not exposed during take off and orbiting. And then it’s between an six and eleven percent chance that the resultant error will compromise the integrity of the shuttle.”

“Kid,” scoffs Leonard, “is that supposed to reassure me or something? ‘Cause it’s not working.”

“The odds would be lower if people could be bothered to look after their ships properly.”

It’s the first time Leonard has heard the kid say something that actually makes him sound like he’s a regular engineering-nut. (The apocalyptic-prophesying techno mumble earlier didn’t count.)

Quietly, placidly, the kid begins to point out the various aspects of the shuttle that require ‘a proper looking to’: The vents, some of the harness straps, the door hinges, some of the interior panels that creak. Leonard begin ticking off on his fingers the number of things wrong with the hunk of metal that their lives currently depend on, starting with the pilot. When the kid begins describing the rusting on the emergency exit control panel that he noticed when they first got on board, Leonard interrupts him.

“You know, most people try and convince me that I shouldn’t be afraid of space and ships. You are the first person I’ve met to actively encourage my complex.”

He gets caught in a blue vice as the kid considers him. “Know what causes more than seventy percent of casualties in all of Fleet history?” he asks.

“Idiocy,” Leonard guesses. It’s what he blames for most things.

“Combat.”

Leonard doesn’t get it.

“Fleet isn’t an army. They’re supposed to be a bunch of scientists. And yet the vast majority of times when things go wrong, it’s directly due to intentional hostility.”

Well, yeah, that’s pretty freaky, but Leonard still doesn’t get what the kid is trying to say.

“Space is dangerous,” the kid tells him. “But it’s people you really have to look out for.”

Wow. And people called Leonard cynical.

The kid starts unclipping his harness. Because they’ve landed. And Leonard … didn’t notice .  Because he actually didn’t spend that much time thinking about the fact that he was in a spaceship in space . Even though he was in space . He’s only bothering to hyperventilate now that they’ve landed.

There’s a flask in front of his face. He grasps at it desperately, gulps it like a drowning man. Except, it actually is water, not whiskey or something that would have actually been helpful. And it’s so ridiculous that someone would actually carry around a flask full of regular water that Leonard starts laughing, because he’s a tad hysterical and, seriously, who does that?

He manages to wrangle up enough self-control to regulate his breathing. He takes another sip, strangely parched.

“Um,” says the kid, “I hope I didn’t break you.”

“Don’t worry about it, kid, happened long before you got here.” He gestures vaguely. “Ex-wife, grueling divorce, estranged kid, and a career in ruins … all I’ve got left to break are my bones.”

“Definitely not a good thing you’re so skinny, then,” says the kid, utterly solemn.

Leonard grins.

He’s not sure who exactly takes whom out to lunch after that, but with a meal in his stomach, and his first official non-puked-upon space flight under his belt, the next three years are looking marginally less terrible.

Chapter Text

Professor Vadkha has been teaching at the academy for over two decades. It took some time for her to adjust from active service, but it turns out she’s much better suited to academia. She does alright with teaching, does some good, gets some satisfaction, and gives a little back. But truthfully, what she really prefers is the opportunity for research her position provides for her, uninterrupted by the annoyances of space travel. Still, she takes pride in performing all her duties satisfactorily, and takes care to provide the proper attention and dedication to her students. Teaching will never be her passion, but she knows it is just as important as any of the research she conducts.

That being said, she favors teaching the more advanced classes, where the material is more interesting, and sometimes her students have legitimate insights. But, again, she fulfills her obligation and teaches one general requirement class every year. Though she admittedly waits for students to mature (academically and personally) and formally specialize in her own field before taking a more individual interest in their talents, that does not mean that she is negligent. It’s just a plain fact that it has been quite some time since Professor Vadkha was as young as the majority of her pupils, and she has lost the taste for undiscipline. Every once in awhile, though, she finds an exception.

It’s not the outburst on the shuttle that draws Vadkha’s attention to this particular student, though it is what first catches her eye. Rather, it’s the fact that he has so completely escaped her notice prior to the incident. She didn’t know who he was. He didn’t come to office hours, or participate in class. His classwork, when she reviewed it, was satisfactory and average. He computed well, absorbed and recited facts accurately. That’s all that’s really required In a procedural course such as Professor Vadkha is teaching, though the human students in particular usually find the occasional opportunity for a bit of unsolicited creativity.

Still. She didn’t even recognize his name. By sight alone, she wouldn’t have been able to identify him as a member of her class, or even someone she had ever met. So completely average he practically exudes a non-presence. Just enough to pique her interest.

She checks his file. James Tiberius, mentored into the Engineering department -- meaning someone in Fleet had thought he had a valuable skill and had apprenticed him into the system. It was a slightly different process than the normal entry procedure. Unusual, but explicable through any number of reasons. It did mean he had taken no initial assessment. His mentor, an L Griggs, had a long, solid, unremarkable record.

There was little further personal information on Cadet Tiberius: his grades -- decent -- his date of birth, planet of origin, species. Also the numerical summary of a high school transcript and a medical alert for allergies. No listed kin. Professor Vadkha could have dug a little deeper, but there didn’t seem to be much point.

She resolves to spend a little more attention on her gen req class. It wouldn’t do to be neglectful.

The class Leonard has with the kid is a late morning affair, so he’s taken to tagging the kid to lunch. The first few times they head to the cafeteria, ‘cause that seems like the thing to do. But he’s kinda relieved when the kid mentions that he doesn’t usually eat lunch with the others.

“Kid, I’m like, twice your age. You think I make a habit of hanging out here? Besides, replicators be damned, cafeteria food is still cafeteria food.”

So they eat outside, when the weather is nice, or in one of the common areas, and even once or twice, for convenience, in Leonard’s room.

Leonard learns very quickly not to try and buy the kid food. Turns out, he’s a vegetarian with a laundry list of allergies. About a week into their new habit, the kid starts bringing his own food. Then, without Leonard realizing it, the kid starts bringing food for him, too. It’s all vaguely healthy stuff he would normally turn his nose up at (he’s a doctor so he can tell other people to eat well, dammit)  but a lot of it is also mildly delicious. Leonard suspects he’s been guilted into eating it, though how the kid managed that without either words or facial expressions is beyond Leonard.

Actually, Leonard finds himself doing most of the talking, which is kind of unexpected. It's not that the kid’s quiet --  okay he's kind of quiet,  but also perfectly willing to carry on a conversation. it's just, he's not very good at conversation. He listens attentively enough, but when he talks it’s either in short non sequiturs or  5 minute lectures that are both way too informative and not exactly off topic, but also definitely not what Leonard was talking about either.

Leonard toys the idea that the kids being obnoxious but decides pretty quickly that it's just a genuine lack of social skills. He tends not to hold eye contact for one, and then he’s also pretty literal. Not that the kid doesn't understand and even use metaphors perfectly well, but he doesn't seem to pick up on when Leonard is being sarcastic or just using a turn of phrase.

It's not really unusual behavior, given that they are in the Fleet Academy; social nuances often get lost in interspecies communication. Maybe the kid grew up off planet. Leonard doesn't know that much about him.Actually, on that note...

“ Hey,” Leonard picks up his head and turns it around to address the kid, “ I don't know your name.”

The kid nods, tapping his foot against the table absently. This is exactly the kind of thing Leonard was talking about. The kid doesn't get that he's been asked a question.

“So, what is it? Your name. Pretty sure you don't want me to keep calling you kid. Or, whatever. It's really confusing for me.”

“ James. Tiberius.”

“ Huh.  Didn't figure you for a Jim.”  He sticks out his hand “I’m Leonard. Leonard McCoy. Nice to meet you.”

The kid -- Jim -- blinks at his hand. “Um. What is that?”

“It’s my hand, Jim. I’m introducing myself.”

“Does this mean I’m supposed to stop calling you Bones?”

Leonard snorts, guessing that he kind of deserves that for all his melodramatics. Instead of answering, he moves his hand to clasp the kid’s shoulder. Jim just keeps blinking at it. “You know, Jim, against the better part of my nature, I think I’m going to keep you around.”

“Oh,” says Jim, and just turns back to his food.

God. He really can’t believe this salad is so delicious. What is happening to him? “Hey,” he says, struck by a wonderful idea,” now that we’ve officially decided to stick together and all … You fancy a drink?”

Bad idea. It was a BAD idea, with a bunch of capital letters.

First of all, no, the kid doesn't drink. Water in the flask should have been a flashing neon sign for that, but Leonard had just taken it as a joke.

So of course, when Leonard had asked, Jim had said yes, because obviously he drinks, because Leonard didn’t specify that he was talking about alcohol.  Because that was what Leonard meant , except obviously Jim didn’t understand that, and now, obviously, they’ve ended up in a shitty bar or rather, standing outside a shitty bar.

If that’s not obvious enough, Leonard really should have seen this coming.

Typically, he’s more of a ‘get drunk in the dark of his own apartment’ type guy, rather than a ‘go to a bar for fun’ guy, but he figured the former was not the kind of thing he could invite Jim to join in without sounding like he was propositioning the kid or something. And, since he’s not completely unfamiliar with the bar scene, it had seemed like a good idea.

God, how is Leonard the bad influence in this relationship?

The thing is, on the occasions when Leonard does go out for a drink, he’s old and grumpy enough that he tends to get left alone. But Jim is, without a doubt, the very definition of fresh meat.  Leonard really wants to blame Jim for agreeing to come along, but it’s not like he had explained what they were doing in terms the kid understood. So now they’re standing outside, and Jim’s just looking at him, and everybody else is eyeing up Jim.

Leonard should probably just turn around here, but now he’s feeling thirsty and cantankerous. So they push their way inside and sit at the bar. Leonard orders a whiskey. Jim orders a non-alcoholic … something from the non-terran menu, which he doesn’t drink. There’s a silence which Leonard finds pretty awkward, though the kid doesn’t seem to react to it. He figures it’s his job to start the conversation, but, honestly, he has no idea what to say. He takes a drink.

“Whiskey?” asks Jim.

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” Great way to seize the opportunity for actual speech, there, Leonard.

“Have you ever built a distillery?”

Well, no, Jim, it just so happens that Leonard hasn’t ever done that. He doesn’t quite find out whether or not Jim ever has, but he does spend the next ten minutes learning a great deal about how to build different types of distilleries, especially in a confined space, say, an engine room. (He doesn’t ask. No way is he drunk enough to hear the answer.)

While the kid talks, Leonard marvels that this conversation seems normal to him. It’s even kind of endearing how seriously the kid takes everything. He’s like … not a puppy. Not a duck. Definitely some kind of baby animal, but also kind of not. A turtle? Ew, no, Jim is definitely fluffier than that.

“Does that make sense?” Jim asks, and he actually reaches up and runs a hand through his hair, which is more expression than Leonard has seen from him, ever.

“I honestly wouldn’t know,” admits Leonard, because A) He stopped paying attention, and B) He’s a doctor, not an engineer, ergo, he stopped absorbing information a couple of sentences before the second one. He does feel kind of bad about it.

“I …. I don’t know how to explain it,” says Jim, because apparently, it’s really important that Leonard learns this.

“Don’t worry about it, kid. Not your fault. I have the sinking suspicion that I am just not cut out for distillery building. I’m a lot more comfortable with pipes and plumbing when they’re inside people.”

Jim hums, and Leonard can’t tell whether he’s agreeing or pouting. He decides to change the subject anyways. “You know, if you’re not going to drink that, you can get something to eat, if you want.”

Naturally, that was not the right thing to say. Jim’s head snaps right up? “Are you hungry?”

“Ah … no, not -- well, I could eat, but really I was talking about you…”

Jim’s not listening to him. He scans the bar menu and apparently dismisses it as inadequate.  “I’ll be back,” he says, and then Leonard’s watching as he weaves through the crowd and disappears.

Great. Totally not what Leonard was going for. He sighs and goes back to his drink. It’s about time for a refill.

The bartender slides over to top him off and asks, “Where did pretty boy go?”

Leonard grumbles at the stranger and answers only for the sake of his drink. “He’ll be back.”

“Hm. Good. I prefer to keep the eye-candy in my section.”

“Hey,” says Leonard, narrowing his eyes.

“What? I’m allowed to look.”

“No, no, not that. I was just wondering: what kind of animal?”

The bartender raises both eyebrows, so Leonard hurries to explain.

“I just mean, the kid, my friend, you’ve been watching him, right? So,” he leans forward, “what kind of baby animal is he?”

“Um,”  says the bartender, glancing after Jim, “the kind that’s about to get the shit kicked out of him?”

“What?” Leonard whirls around just in time to see Jim duck a punch that lands bone-shatteringly on the face of the guy behind him. Leonard is out of his seat as fast as he can manage, but he doesn’t get very far, because now the whole bar is involved. Seriously, Leonard has great taste.

He takes an elbow in the cheek and steps pointedly on a few toes but doesn’t achieve much forward movement. Thankfully, most of the crowd is pressing in and yelling without actively adding to the violence, but at this point, Leonard has completely lost sight of Jim. Damn, what he wouldn’t give for half a dozen hypos.

He’s getting ready to start applying his knowledge of human anatomy in a very non-doctorly way when he feels a sharp double-tap on his shoulder, and an urgent tug on his sleeve. He turns around and comes almost nose-to-nose with Jim. He’s tugged away from the mob and led outside.

When they’re finally standing on the pavement, he tries to ask the kid if he’s okay, but Jim just reaches up a hand to brush lightly at the sore spot on Leonard’s face. Then, he shoves a sandwich (is it a sandwich if it doesn’t have bread?) into Leonard’s hands and says, “Hey, Bones. I got something for you to eat.”

At this point, what Leonard wants to say is, “Holy fuck, Jim, a fucking sandwich?” but what he has to say instead is “Holy fuck, Jim, you’re fucking bleeding.”

Jim hums again. “There was glass.” Like it’s nothing. (Okay, it does look admittedly non-lethal but Leonard bets it stings like a son of a bitch) Leonard reaches up to get a better look at Jim’s neck, but the kid pulls away from his hand. “It’s okay,” he says, “I clot well.”

Sure he wouldn’t be able to touch that one even if he had a ten-foot pole, Leonard settles for asking, “What the hell happened in there?”

“They were very drunk and very rude. When I didn’t let them punch me they also got very angry.” Jim summarizes about as well as a third grader with a book report: accurate, sure, but kind of missing the point. “Nobody touched your food, though. I was careful.”

“That’s…” Leonard sighs and scrubs at his face with his non-sandwich hand. It’s nine at night, and they’re standing on the sidewalk outside a crappy bar having a conversation that’s actually more ridiculous than Leonard when he gets drunk and calls his ex. And both of them are still sober. “You know what, kid? Maybe we ought to chalk this night up as a bust.”

Jim says nothing.

“It was a stupid idea anyways. I’m too old for this shit.” He turns away from Jim, but it doesn’t help the ridiculous churning in his gut. “Let’s just … go back to the dorms.”

They trudge along in silence for a few minutes. Leonard tries to take comfort in the fact that he’ll get to drink in peace tonight after all.

“It really bothers you,” Jim says, out of nowhere.

“What?”

“That you’re older than me.”

Leonard’s first reaction to that statement is indignation, because firstly, Jim just called him old, and secondly, .... well, he is older than Jim. “Doesn’t bother me, kid. Just is.

Jim’s quiet for a moment. “It’s just … maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t understand why you keep doing this.”

Struggling to understand, Leonard turns to look at Jim, even though he knows he’ll find little in the kid’s expression to help him.

“The cafeteria,” Jim explains, “and the bar. And other stuff. Things you don’t like, but you think that I’ll like them because I’m younger than you.” Leonard stops walking, and Jim follows suit a few steps later. “You’re probably right, about what people like me are supposed to like. But, Bones, I don’t.”

“Okay,” says Leonard, slowly. “So, we both don’t like this shit. What do you think we should do instead?” It feels so weird to be taking social advice from Jim, but then Leonard finds the question he probably should have been asking all along. “What do you like to do?”

Jim looks at him. “I like talking to you. And engines.”

Leonard can’t help it. He laughs. “Okay, kid. I like talking to you, too. But I’m definitely not having conversations with any machines.”

They finish their walk back to campus with Jim explaining how Leonard’s policy on not speaking to machines is going to vastly under-utilize his resources at Starfleet. And because it’s still early, Leonard invites Jim up to his room, and it’s totally not weird. Jim suggests that Leonard get started on his assignment for the class they share, so Leonard calls him a nerd, and Jim tells him to eat his sandwich. He does get out his bourbon at one point, but doesn’t bother making much headway on it.

In the end, the night’s not a total disaster. They didn’t do anything, but the time slipped by faster than it has for Leonard in years. He tells Jim to take the couch if he wants, which the kid accepts graciously. For his own part, he sleeps well.

Jim’s gone in the morning, but there’s oatmeal on the counter.

Nurse Gallner has made some questionable life choices. It’s not something he complains about much, because he knows it’s his own damn fault, and also, trying to explain to people how he’s managed to spend the last thirty years as a nurse when he hates every single aspect of the job is … well. Better just to keep his mouth shut and his head down. This philosophy is serving him well this year in particular. There’s a new doctor at the clinic, a cadet who already has some pretty solid experience in surgery, and also happens to be grumpy as fuck.

Gallner hates doctors, but especially surgeons. Arrogant pricks take out every mistake and bad mood the people around them. This newbie is competent, sure, but he can also always be counted on for a scathing sarcastic comment, usually in a colloquialism so antiquated it could be donated to a museum. So, yeah, Gallner takes particular care to stay out of this guy’s way. It’s made a little more difficult by the fact that a man so rude is bound to have such a dismal social life that he keeps volunteering for more shifts, but so far they’ve stayed out of each other’s ways.

Until they don’t, of course.

“Nurse. A word.” The newbie’s voice grates on Gallner’s ears while he’s stripping down a bed. He demures as politely as he can without actually turning around; bastard wants to ream Gallner out for something stupid, he can damn well wait until Gallner’s finished with the stupid laundry.

Surprisingly, the doctor actually does retreat to his office to wait without a word of complaint. When Gallner finally slouches through the door, he sees the man flicking through paperwork on a PADD.

He speaks without looking up at Gallner. “I saw the notation you made on Lieutenant Wilson’s chart. Explain.”

Grudgingly, Gallner recounts noting the Lieutenant's discomfort and discovering some lingering signs of damage around the injured knee. Of course, the Lieutenant had brushed him off and waltzed out; Gallner gives her three days before she comes limping back and complaining that they messed up her treatment, not that he says that part out loud.“Idiot,” says the doctor, and Gallner bristles. It’s not his fault that she outranked him--  “I’ll issue a medical summons, have her back in here first thing tomorrow morning. Purri’s still overseeing her treatment, but if you notice Wilson continues to ignore medical advice, comm me directly so I can give the good lieutenant a piece of my mind.”

Gallner blinks. On the one hand, he doesn’t need some dipshit doctor telling him how to handle dipshit patients. But on the other … is he actually being indirectly complimented. The best he can dredge up is a “Yessir.”

The doctor grunts, then stands up and pockets his PADD. “Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for dinner.”

Gallner stares after the man as he strides out of the room. Late for dinner implies a social engagement. Unbelievable.

Actually, now that he thinks about it, Gallner supposes it could explain the doctor’s behavior. It’s not so far-fetched that having found someone willing to have dinner with him would put the doctor in a better mood.

Too bad there’s no way it will last.

Chapter Text

The problem, in its most simplified form, is that nothing is ever that easy. Well, okay, more honestly, the problem is that Leonard's just not a status-quo kinda guy.

Several months into his first year at the Academy and it feels like he's finally starting to find some balance: work at the clinic keeps him busy, class is -- well, classes are awful, but not in a soul-sucking kind of way, and hanging around with Jim keeps life interesting enough to be palatable.

He likes Jim. He respects the kid's brain and appreciates the good-nature that lurks beneath his awkwardness. Sure, Jim's a bit different. There's nothing wrong with that, and it's probably one of the reasons they seem to get along so well.

But for all that, Leonard considers himself open-minded, the more time he spends with Jim, the more he wonders if the things that he's dismissed as quirks aren't going to come back and bite him in the ass.

When they finally come to a head, it's his Momma's fault.

She comms him one evening when Jim is over for a study session, and when the kid gets up to leave the room, they both insist it isn't necessary. There follows a mildly awkward introduction, then the exchanging of a few pleasantries, which Jim's matter-of-fact attitude has trouble keeping up with. The kid looks so out of his depth that they both take pity on him and give him an excuse to scurry away.

As soon as the door is shut behind him, his mother asks, "My goodness, Leonard, what is wrong with that child? Lord, he looks at you like you hang the moon!"

"Momma," Leonard protests.

"Oh, shush. Those were two separate comments. Really, though, is he alright?"

Leonard had never noticed before how such a caring question could be so offensive. "I don't know, Ma. He's just Jim. He's a little different, but he's a nice kid."

"Well, I'm sure he is. But as your father would say, he stands like a soldier and talks like a foreigner."

"Mother!"

"I'm not saying being foreign is a bad thing," she insists unapologetically. "But he is too skinny."

"He's got a young man's metabolism, Ma. That doesn't say anything about his character."

What follows is an interrogation of his own eating habits, but the first part of the conversation lingers in Leonard's mind after he signs off.

Truthfully, it is something he's wondered himself, whether or not Jim is alright. He hasn't asked, because they don't really know each other that well and because the subtlety required to do so politely would likely be completely lost on Jim. So he settles for doing the only thing he can think of, which is finding where Jim ran off to.

Jim doesn't answer his comm, so a ground search it will have to be. His first thought is that Jim went back to his own dorm. It would make sense, but Leonard decides to skip that option because he has absolutely no idea where the kid lives. He might have an idea which compounds to start looking in, but that's it.

So he makes his way to the library because he and Jim were supposed to be studying, so he might have gone there after Leonard kicked him out. He checks the communal tables, then the study rooms, and then wanders the exhibits to see if Jim is lurking in one of the aisles. When that proves unfruitful, he does the whole thing again, because honestly, that's the end of his ideas.

It's now officially late. Past midnight and the library is mostly empty. Wherever Jim went, he's sure to have gone back to his dorm by now. Feeling a little foolish, Leonard makes his way to do the same.

Halfway back to his building, he sees it.

On the other side of the square Leonard is crossing, is a figure in standard blacks running down a long staircase. As Leonard watches, the figure reaches the bottom and turns around, making his way back up the same stairs. At first, Leonard just thinks, Damn, that's a grueling way to get some midnight exercise, but then something stops him.

He can't make out much about the runner given the distance and the lighting. And there is no reason to think that it would be Jim. But something in Leonard's gut makes him wonder if it is.

By the time Leonard has walked over to the bottom of the stairs, the figure has finished his climb and is half-way through descending again. Blonde hair, darkened and matted with sweat gleams underneath the lamp posts that line the staircase.

Leonard isn't sure where the instinct comes from that tells him this isn't just strange, it's wrong somehow, so he doesn't trust it. That doesn't stop something sour from clawing up his throat.

Jim slows when he reaches the last dozen steps, glances up just once. He comes to a halt on the pavement just in front of where Leonard is standing. "Hey, Bones," he breathes heavily, leaning to brace himself against his legs.

"Gonna kill your knees, doing that," says Leonard, and it sounds angrier than he intended.

"Gym was closed," says the kid.

"Are you alright, Jim?" he asks, because fuck subtlety, this is something he needs to be sure of, right now.

Jim cocks his head and blinks up at him. "What?"

"I mean, right now, in general. Are you alright?"

"I don't understand," Jim says, and Leonard's gut tells him that means no, and also that he's way out of his depth here.

"Where do you live?" He asks because at least that can be taken care of.

"I was assigned a room is Hessigner."

That thing inside him he's going to start calling his Jim Radar prings. "Okay," he says slowly, bending down to the level the kid's still hunched over at so he's looking Jim straight in the eye, "and you live there?"

Jim's mouth thins, just the tiniest bit. "I sleep over at your place a lot."

Leonard takes a short, sharp breath, and reaches out to place a hand on Jim's arm. The kid moves away a bit. He does that a lot, now that Leonard thinks about it. It's too slow and purposeful to ever look like a flinch, but Leonard's starting to wonder if it might be one anyway. "Yeah, and that's fine. But where do you normally sleep?"

Jim doesn't say anything.

Leonard thinks back to that awful day Jim carried his drunk ass back his room. "You have a roommate, yeah?"

Jim nods. "Gary Mitchell."

"What's he like?"

Jim hesitates. "I don't really know."

The little voice in Leonard's head tells him to be careful here. "You know, you can request to change rooms."

Jim straightens up, his breath leveling out "Why would I do that?"

"Say, if you didn't get along. If you don't feel comfortable in the room or something."

"I didn't think dorm rooms were supposed to be comfortable," says Jim, entirely without ire or sarcasm.

Leonard can't exactly argue with that, but he can't help but wonder if there isn't something more than just poor social skills to the way Jim completely misses his point. "Well. Since it's late and all, why don't I walk you back?"

"Back where?"

"To your room Jim. I, uh, don't think you should do any more running tonight. That's my official, doctorly recommendation." When it doesn't look like the kid's going to jump to agree, Leonard takes that as a sign to lead the way. Jim lets him take his hand, which is something, at least, though he still finds himself guiltily glad that the kid doesn't seem to know how to object.

Hessigner is closer to the edge of campus. They make it to the building, but Leonard has no intention of leaving Jim at the doorstep. So they head up to the third floor, and Jim, with what Leonard guesses is an expression of bemusement -- quirked eyebrow, slightly raised shoulders -- keys open a door at the end of the hall.

Jim's roommate is awake and present, which makes things a bit easier for Leonard. He's a brawny kid with a shaggy brown mop, and he seems surprised to see anyone coming into the room. His surprise doesn't diminish when he notices Jim.

"Hey," says Mitchell, uncertainly.

Jim doesn't answer, just turns his head to look at Leonard. "This is my room."

Leonard takes a look around. There are the three-quarters of the room which Mitchell clearly lives in -- not dirty, per se, just occupied with stuff -- and then there's some conspicuously empty furniture. As in, not a PADD on the desk, or even sheets on the bed. There's not a single, solitary sock in sight to suggest someone might sleep, let alone live, on this side of the room.

"Jim," says Leonard, though it certainly doesn't sound like him, "where's all your stuff?"

"What stuff?" says Jim.

"He's got some clothes in the closet," says Gary fucking Mitchell. "Also, uh, who are you?"

"He's Bones," says Jim, and Leonard doesn't correct him because his mind is a little preoccupied.

He walks over to the closet and yanks it open, only vaguely aware that he's probably pushing all sorts of privacy boundaries right now.

‘Clothes' was a bit of an exaggeration. Two Starfleet uniforms and a single leather jacket do not make a wardrobe, even for a guy like Jim. For chrissakes, there's not even an extra pair of shoes.

"But. Jim." Maybe he can just repeat the question until the world returns to sanity. "Where's all your stuff?"

Jim is standing behind his shoulder. "This is all I have," he says.

"Not to interrupt," interrupts Gary, who has also risen from his desk, "but is there something in particular that you're looking for among my roommate's worldly possessions?"

Later, Leonard will reflect that Gary was probably trying to defend Jim from the stranger that burst into their room and started going through Jim's shit. But all he registers in the moment is that this asshole has known from day one that Jim doesn't own so much as a fucking pillowcase, and done exactly nothing about it.

"None of your fucking business," he half-snarls, because isn't that what people like Mitchell say to justify not getting involved? And then he rips the hangers out of the closet with one hand and shoves it closed with the other. The minute it slams shut, his anger drains out like water through a pasta sieve. "I'm tired," he announces, "and I'm going to bed. You coming with me, Jim?"

It's quiet for a moment, and Leonard starts to regret thinking bad things about the little warning voice in his head. Always listen to the voice, Leonard.

"Okay," says Jim.

"What?" says Gary, and Leonard shoots him a dirty look.

He wishes he could throw an arm over Jim's shoulder, but he figures it wouldn't be appreciated. He settles for huffing once and kicking the door open. The kid walks behind him as they make their way outside. Leonard wonders if he has anything clean for him to sleep in, and makes a note to throw his blacks in to be washed. He wonders if he can exchange the couch in his living room for something that folds out without Housing throwing a tiff about regulations.

"Hey!" Gary Mitchell is panting as he jogs the last few steps out of Hessigner. "Hey, James," he says as he catches up with them. Leonard resists the urge to cross his arms menacingly only because he's still carrying the kid's clothes. "Do you mind if I talk to Bones for a minute?"

Leonard narrows his eyes, but Jim agrees, so he hands off the kid's things and says he'll see him in their room later. "Well? What do you want?"

Mitchell fixes him with a calculating look. "He gets nightmares. And panic attacks."

Leonard bristles. "I don't think it's any of your business to be telling me this."

Gary shrugs. "First time it happened, I thought he was dying."

"What are you trying to say?" Leonard snap.

"Just. If it doesn't work out. He can come back." He holds up his hand before Leonard can get out an angry retort. "I'm just saying. Jim's not the kind of guy you can semi-abduct if he really doesn't want you to --

"I'm not kidnapping him!"

"-- but he might not understand that he can come back. And he never listens to anything I say, so. Just tell him, so he knows. He's got options."

"Is that it, then? You've fulfilled your obligations as his roommate?"

Gary laughs. "You've got no idea, Mr. Bones. James likes you; the rest of us have a much harder time."

Mitchell leaves him to chew over that. And while Leonard is most definitely offended by the idea that he's bound to kick Jim out for being too much trouble, he does have to wonder, as he makes his way across the empty campus, exactly what he's just committed himself to.

The first thing he sees when he gets back to his room is Jim's clothes, folded neatly on an end side table by the couch. Jim is sitting on the floor nearby, flicking through a PADD. He glances up when Leonard comes in.

"Did you know that thirty percent of all Starfleet diplomatic missions fail within the first hour?" Jim asks.

Leonard doesn't quite smile. "Go to bed, Jim."

"Goodnight, Bones."

"Yeah, yeah, kid. See you in the morning."

Chapter Text

The rules of living in Jimland are deceptively simple: no touching, no sleeping, and absolutely never go hungry.

The first one is something Leonard has noticed before, but not understood the depth of. Going in to pat the kid on the back when he’s not expecting it, for example, was something Jim clearly disliked. Leonard learns to broadcast his intent, but it’s more complicated than that. Hands are alright for him to grab if he wants to drag Jim somewhere or something, but prolonged contact makes Jim twitchy. The kid’s face and head are absolutely off-limits, as is anything even remotely approaching his midsection. Leonard’s best bet is usually Jim’s shoulders. He picks up some cues from gestures the kid uses, like two taps on his wingtips to direct his attention somewhere.

It sounds a little weird, he knows, but for all his misanthropic attitude, Leonard is a tactile person. His natural tendencies, say, to mess with the kid's hair or something, backfire so spectacularly that he learns the kid’s boundaries out of necessity. Jim never yells or takes a swing at him or anything, but he’ll move unequivocally away and get so incredibly awkward. It’s just better for all of them if Leonard sticks to the rules.

Then, there are Jim’s sleeping habits. Despite Mitchell’s warning, Leonard hasn’t seen any signs of nightmares. In fact, most days, he doesn’t see any signs of sleeping at all. The kid never nods off before he does, and is always up first. The only reason Leonard knows the kid isn’t an android is that occasionally, Leonard will walk out in the middle of the night and find the kid curled up on the couch. He tries to avoid this, though, because Jim is the lightest sleeper on the planet, and Leonard needing a glass of water or some shit is usually enough reason for Jim to abandon resting all together.

Leonard has tried explaining to Jim how sleep schedules are important. But playing the doctor card gets him nowhere, and straight-up asking what Jim needs to get more sleep just seems to confuse the kid.

Thankfully, rule number three is a little easier to navigate. It’s really just an extension of the dynamic from their lunches: Jim provides food, and Leonard eats it.

Actually, Leonard’s pretty sure Jim’s the only reason he consumes anything besides coffee in the month leading up to finals. Not only does he have to deal with the monstrous uptick in classwork, he also gets booked for extra shifts at the clinic, dealing with stress induced injuries and illnesses. (Fucking cadets.)  He finds it somewhat darkly comical that two most visible (Actually, those are pretty much the only two) changes to (really) take effect in Leonard’s apartment since Jim’s moved in is the presence of food and the replacement of downward spiraling depression with the determination to avoid flunking out of Starfleet. The newly rediscovered pressure to make his life work is eased slightly every time he scrolls through the food replicator’s upgraded menu.

There are other perks to having a roommate. Jim’s always willing helps him with academics, though he doesn't go about it in the most conventional ways.

It takes the kid a while to get used to the idea that Leonard really doesn’thave a degree in engineering. Leonard in turn, learns that if just keeps asking, “But what does that mean?” then Jim will eventually break pretty much any concept down into digestible pieces. The kid is goodat explaining things, he just severely over estimates Leonard’s intelligence. He also has a habit of sending Leonard articles about things he thinks Leonard needs to know more about. Though somewhat resentful of the extra work, the truth is that, with Jim’s annotations, he invariably finds the aird studies and tedious summaries enlightening.

He suspects that Jim may be a bit of a teacher’s pet.

They’re in the middle of a cramming session when, after slugging his way through his Interspecies Protocol essay, Leonard decides he deserves a break. He picks his head up from his PADD with an audible creak and looks around.

They’ve migrated their studying to an alcove of tables on the campus green after finding that the library was fully claimed. As is his habit, it didn’t take long for Jim to forsake his bench in favor of the ground, where he’s currently dividing his attention between three separate PADDS.

Leonard rubs his hand over his eyes in sympathy fatigue. “Kid. You at a stopping point?”

Jim doesn’t twitch.

“Jim. Jim.” Leonard is grunting , okay, he’s not whining.

“Bones,” says Jim, without looking up. Leonard can’t believe he ever thought the kid was anything but an obnoxious shithead.

He leverages himself up with difficulty, and stalks over. He leans down as far as his back dares, and peers over the kid’s shoulder. For a second, he thinks there must be something wrong with Jim’s PADDs.

“Uh. Kid. Whatcha studying?””

“Advanced Relativistic Mechanics.”

“Huh.” Something occurs to Leonard. “Say, Jim. What classes are you taking, anyways?”

Flicking down the screen of one of his ridiculous PADDs, Jim rattles off a list. “General Tactics and Strategy. Introductory Starfleet Regulations and Procedurals. Advanced Relativistic Mechanics. Ancient Xenophilosophy. Principles of Synthetic Polymer Replication. Developmental Energy--”

“Holy shit, kid. You know you don’t have to graduate in your first semester, right?”

Finally, Jim pulls his head up. “Well. Some of the classes are required, but everything else they wanted me to take sounded boring.”

“I didn’t know they even let you test into those advanced classes.”

“They don’t,” says Jim. “My advisor pulled some strings.”

“Huh.” That’s pretty much all Leonard can come up with. He plops down on the grass and picks up one of Jim’s PADD. He pulls it all the way up to his face, as if distance is going to make it any more intelligible. “This stuff really makes sense to you?”

“No. Scrivosky’s theorem might have might have sounded plausible before Brauthsa Ram proved the relative stability of Rizo particles, but in modern warp engines, the entire formula is pretty much defunct. Not that it had much to do with dilithium in the first place.”

“Oh. Right. Of course.” Leonard puts the PADD down before it explodes, or possibly attacks him.  “Still. Jim. Ancient Xenophilosophy? No offense, but I just don’t see how that one’s applicable. Or interesting.”

Jim shrugs. “I didn’t want to take the regular ethics course. Besides, what if we end up on an exploratory mission? Who knows what kind of cultures we’ll come across?”

The kid’s earnestness never fails to take the wind out of Leonard’s sails. “Can I ask you a question?”

Jim considers him. “What question?”

“I was just wondering why you’re here. In Starfleet, I mean. Why’d you enlist?”

Jim leans back and looks up at the clouds. “I guess I always knew I’d be going back out into space. This just seemed like a useful way to do it.”

There’s so much Jim always seems to avoid saying. It’s hard not to push. “I was drunk,” says Leonard instead. “I’ve told you about Jocelynn. There’s a lot of reasons things fell apart for me, but the worst was when my dad died.” Jim goes stiff as a board next to him. “He was sick. That was the worst part, you know. I mean, I’m a doctor. So. Things unravelled from there.” Those days are blackened with fire and despair in Leonard’s mind. “I guess maybe I thought Starfleet was the stupidest possible thing I could do. I mean, I hate space. But maybe a part of me just wanted to be as far away from everything as I could get.”

“I'm sorry,” says Jim. “For what it's worth, though, you're still a doctor, after everything.  When you could have done anything, you still chose to help people.”

"I guess.” It's a little more complicated than that, but it's nice to hear anyways.

Also, the whole point of baring his soul was to prompt the kid to reciprocate. Either the Jim sidestepped that on purpose, or Leonard should give up his career as a manipulator right here. Probably both.

He'll turn his hand back to Xenobiology for now. After all, he's got years to wait for Jim to open up.

Winona Kirk doesn't spend much time planetside. Hasn't in years. Even less of that is spent on Earth. San Francisco, at least, is so much brighter and livelier than Iowa. She still hates it, but at least it's different. The memories she has here are more distant and mostly happy: meeting George, getting her first assignment, being young.

Making her way through the swarming Star Fleet campus, young is pretty much the last thing that Winona feels. All these young bright faces and eager minds, they don't even realize they're just echoes of what other people have lost.

Heartache is so much easier to bear than guilt.

"Jesus, kid, would you slow down already? It's not like the building's going anywhere, you know. We can walk like normal people and still get there."

Winona can't explain why, out of the clamoring all around, her head turns to track this particular voice. She thinks she finds him, based just on the irate set of his shoulders as he weaves through the crowd. No spring chicken, that one. Probably doesn't want to be here wreck than she does.

Her eyes dart ahead, idly curious who he's chasing.

For a moment, the afternoon sun shines just a little too bright. It catches on something gold and brilliant, a face that's mostly an impression, lost in an instant.

Air abandons her lungs. The ground beneath her feet yawns wide.

"Winona?" Archer's voice is distant, even as his hand reaches out to grasp her arm. "Are you alright?"

Don't do this to yourself, she thinks. With an iron will, she pivots her head to meet the admiral's concerned gaze.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," he tells her.

She fights not to laugh. "Just a memory," she says instead. It comes out too harsh, but he seems to understand.

"Come on. Let's get out of this godforsaken stampede. You ship out again, tonight?"

"Yeah," she says. Thank God. With any luck, she won't be back here for a long time.

Exactly two months after Jim moves in, Leonard gets his first glimpse of the kid's nightmares. He doesn't witness the event itself, but what he sees of the aftermath leaves him shaken.

Prompted to wakefulness by his full bladder, if takes him a minute to realize that he's not listening to rain, but rather to the shower running in the middle of the night. At first, he assumes that Jim's cleaning up after sneaking off on one of his bizarre midnight runs, and just didn't fancy a sonic for some reason.

Half an hour later, he's less sure. Unease has drained most of his sleepiness, and also, he really does need to use the restroom.

He knocks on the door and calls out to Jim, but doesn't get a response.

He doesn't want to be a busy body; the kid's entitled to some space.

On the other hand … "Jim? I'm coming in, okay?'

The bare tiles of the tiny restroom are frigid. There's an opaque wall around the shower stall to provide some privacy, and when he glances at it, it looks empty.

"Jim? You alright, kid?" Maybe he just left the shower running.

Leonard pushes open the shower door. In the corner is a dark, tiny human ball.

Slamming his hand on the water shut off, Leonard slips and nearly brains himself against the wall as he lurches inside the small space to kneel next to Jim. The kid's hands, clenched in the sopping wet fabric around his shoulders, are bone white. Tremors wreck his whole body, but he doesn't make a sound until Leonard touches him.

The whimper echoes hollowly in their little porcelain cave.

"Jim. Fuck. Jim. What's wrong?" Leonard wants to yell, but all he can find is a whisper. "Are you hurt? Jesus. Jesus fuck, kid. Look at me." He tries to pull the kid's hands out of their death-grip, but it just makes the sound worse. "Jim. Jim. It's me, Jim. Leonard." The body underneath his hands twitches. "Come on, kid. It's just me, just Bones." The whimpers stop. "That's it, Jim, come on. You're alright."

"Bones." The sound is more air than voice, but it still feels like someone pulling a stake out of his heart.

"Yeah, Jim, I'm right here."

The hands finally let go, and Leonard unfolds the knot of limbs to get a look at Jim's face. The kid's eyes are squeezed tightly shut.

"It's okay, Jim, you're okay." He doesn't see any blood, just slips of pale skin stretched tight with pain.

"Bones? Bones, it's cold."

"Jesus, kid. We gotta get you warmed up." He turns just enough to be able to pull a towel off the hook without having to dislocate his shoulder. He wraps it around Jim as effectivity as he can, but he knows it won't do much good until they can get him out of his soaking wet clothes. "Let's get out of here."

Jim lets himself be pulled forward in a half crawl. His eyes have opened, and he actually moves to sit upright against the counter without being prompted.

"I'm gonna go get you something dry, okay, Jim? Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back."

It takes way too long to grab some sweats and make his way back to the bathroom. Jim has used the time to strip and burrito himself in the towel. It's a good sign that kid is mobile enough, but something about his posture is more vulnerable than before.

"Here." He hands Jim the clothes and does his best to give the kid some privacy while he pulls them on while staying close enough to catch the kid if he slips, or goes suddenly comatose or something.

A barefoot scuffs the ground next to Leonard's toes. He takes it as Jim's sign that he's ready to leave what is now Leonard's least favorite room.

Jim walks just fine on his own, but Leonard's too busy staring at the still ghostly-white stretch of his exposed neck to stop hovering.

Jim sits down on the couch -- which is still all the kid has for a bed, because for all Leonard tries to pile it high with pillows and blankets, they just end up folder nearly in one of his cupboards -- and curls a first over the bottom half of his face. Leonard lowers himself down next to the kid, as close as he dares, farther than he can stand. He feels every bone creak, and the space between them hums.

"I had a nightmare," says Jim. He's quiet, but all traces of the sounds he made in the bathroom are gone. His voice sounds just like it does when he's explaining basic warp theory.

Joanna used to get night terrors when she was very small. Leonard has vivid memories of waking up to her screams, holding her trembling, tiny body close. They were terrible, but at least he knew how to comfort her. He could tell her she was safe, and she would believe him.

Jim pulls his feet up on the couch and tucks them beneath his knees. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"Jim." He puts as much conviction in his voice as he can without coming across as angry. "Next time, I want you to wake me up."

The kid turns to look at him. "Why?"

For a ridiculous moment, the only solid emotion in Leonard's mind is the desire to punch Gary Mitchell in the face. "So I can help you, kid. So you never have to do that again." And so I never have to wake up and find you've died of hypothermia in my bathroom.

The kid is quiet for a long moment. “I don’t want to go to sleep,” he says at last, and that’s not a yes , but Leonard’s distracted because he leans to the left, knocks the side of his head against Leonard's shoulder. And that’s … that’s not something Jim does, ever .

Leonard breathes deep, hyper-conscious of the way Jim’s weight moves against him. In this moment, it feels like the most intimate way he’s every barely touched someone before, including surgery and sex. This is trust .

“You need sleep, Jim,” he says, because the only thing he knows how to do is be a doctor. He knows the moment the words leave his mouth that they are epicly unhelpful.

Jim’s silence seems to heartily agree with that sentiment, but then he surprises Leonard once more. “Not as much as you, though.”

Leonards squints at the kid. “Was that … sass? Are you calling me old ?”

Jim lifts his head, turns to fix Leonard with an unfamiliar look.“You’re old,” he says promptly.

Bones can’t tell if that’s supposed to be an affirmation or just a parroting of his own phrase, but he is 100% sure that it was legitimately sass. His lips twitch. “I don’t know, kid. I’m not the one who can spend a whole hour lecturing about the benefits of non-digital information.”

Jim blinks. “You can’t? Bones. Let me tell you.”

Well , fuck , thinks Leonard. Now I'm really stuck here .

Chapter Text

Eating a whole peach cobbler, not finishing a prescribed course of medicine, joining Starfleet, and fruity cocktail drinks: these are just a few entries on Leonard’s list of stupid ideas. They are about to be joined by ‘signing up for the infamous Survival 101 course with Jim, even though most cadets don’t take it until their third year’

Leonard’s got some pretty clear ideas about what he’s prepared to do for Starfleet, even if doesn’t want to. As a pessimist, he can also acknowledge the logic of being prepared for situations to go sideways. But surely anyone with half a brain can see that it is both unrealistic and unnecessary to expect him to ever map topography, intercept hostile communications, or deactivate a live explosive device. Starships have more than one person on them for a reason, and this shit is justnot Leonard’s job.

Jim agrees that requiring the class for all cadets is a waste of time, though his attitude comes from a slightly different place than Leonard’s, and is expressed in a somewhat different way. Leonard, for example, spends the ten-minute walk to the first class complaining about how he could be sleeping right now. Jim, on the other hand, waits until they’re sitting in the lecture hall and the professor asks if there are any questions about the syllabus.

Jim raises his hand politely, and then calmly asks,  “If you want to teach cadets useful survival skills, shouldn’t we be spending the whole three months learning how to not bleed to death, freeze to death, get lost, or starve?”

Bless the kid’s heart. Every cadet in the room is turned around in their seat, staring at Jim, and thinking, you know you just fucked us all, right?

They know it’s going to be bad because Professor Griggs takes off her glasses and rubs them on her shirt.

“I think, cadet,” she says, in a voice just as placid as Jim’s, “that you underestimate how likely the universe is to screw you over.” Not a single person in the room -- besides Jim -- draws a breath. “It’s true that I probably can’t teach you everything you need to know to survive the most basic of emergency situations in just a few months. I have found, however, that it is also true that emergency situations rarely stay basic for very long. Chances are that if in the course of your mission, you are stranded on a planet, there are going to be hostile natives, or undiscovered natural phenomenon, or really pretty much anything you could think of that can make a bad situation worse.”

God, is this what Leonard sounds like to other people?

“With two separate doctorates in the field, I like to think that I understand the commitment required for disaster preparedness. This is why I have spent the last many years petitioning the admiralty to extend the range of my available and required classes. Until such requests are granted, however, three months is all I have to prepare you, as fully as I can. It is therefore not my intention to limit the spectrum of this class in any way.”

Just when they’re starting to hope that she’s reached the end, Professor Griggs smiles. “However, if we have gotten to the point where my students can question the importance of the skills that I’m trying to impart, perhaps a few changes to our schedule are in order.”

Sure enough, a few hours after class, they receive a link to the updated syllabus. The infamous practical exam -- the kind that inspires the stories senior cadets use to scare the pleebs -- has been extended from the traditional thirty-six hours to a full five days. The description reads: In which students will be judged on their ability to avoid bleeding to death, freezing to death, getting lost, and starving.

The real slap in the face for Leonard, though, is not just the prospect of sleeping somewhere cold, wet, and hard for four nights straight; it's that as far as the rest of the campus is concerned, this is HIS fault.

Leonard has always had a bit of a reputation on campus. It's not something here's ever cared about. Gossip is something he's well used to after a solid decade of being damn good at his job and quick to call other people out on their stupidity. But because people know who he is, and don't have any clue who Jim is, the blame gets lumped in his direction. “That kid who hangs out with McCoy” becomes “McCoy’s kid” and eventually just “McCoy.” So now half of the cadets on campus hate him, and the other half think he's stupid.

Good thing he doesn't give a damn.

It's true that indifference is slightly less helpful when angry students get the idea to do something about it. But being friends with Jim, despite being what got him into this mess in the first place, does come with some perks. Namely, he possesses the ability to scare the shit out of people in ways that Leonard’s grumpy demeanor can never quite accomplish.

The first time Leonard gets tripped walking across campus -- he’s surrounded by infants, he swears -- he snarls at the offending leg and walks away in an ineffective huff. The second time, though, Jim is with him. He helps Leonard pick himself up off his face, then turns to face the sniggering offender.

“You should be careful,” says Jim, tone entirely conversational. The laughing stops and the cadet looks at him incredulously. “Leaving your legs out like that can be dangerous.” He takes an extra step closer to the cadet, bringing himself just inside the zone of personal space. “It puts you off balance, exposes your vital parts.” At the last two words, the cadet goes pale and shuffles nervously backwards.

“Hey, man,” says his friend, stepping forward and making a vague gesture with her hand. “It’s all good, right?”

Jim nods. “Yes. Nobody got hurt. I just thought you should know: the fibula is a pretty easy bone to break.”

The cadets blanch. Bones takes this as his cue to intervene before security gets called. “Come on, kid.” he taps Jim lightly on the shoulder. “Let’s get to class.”

The look on the faces of the cadets that they leave behind is totally worth it, even when he spends the next week hearing about how he threatened to break two underclassmen’s legs.

At least nobody trips him anymore. Now, he just has to slog through three months of classes and then the practical exam from Hell. How hard can that be, right?

There’s a message in Lucille's inbox. It’s been there for several weeks now, having arrived just a few hours after the semester began. It’s tagged not urgent , which is the specific label she created to segregate the communications she actually cares about from the riff-raff of bureaucratic nonsense that crowds PADDS with virtual exclamation points. She hasn’t opened this particular message. She doesn’t need to. She knew what it would say before it arrived. Still, she can’t help twitching into a small smile every time she glances at it.

“You’ve got that face on, dear,” says her wife one night while they’re cleaning up after dinner. “Doing something you shouldn’t be, are you?”

Lucille sighs contentedly of the murmur of clanking plates and silverware. “I’m recovering an asset. And having a bit of fun with it of course.”

“I thought you were retiring.”

“I am. I did .” She makes herself put down her load and turns to face Saam. She ignores the whispering in the back of her head, the teacher’s voice whispering demonstrate sincerity; reveal just enough truth to manipulate. “ We are more important than any of that.”

Saam reaches out and cups her face in her palm. “I know. I believe you.”

Lucille breathes out a sigh of relief.

“Besides,” says Saam, “you only really get that look when you’re pissing off the admiral. And you know I love seeing that pompous prick knocked down a peg. That is what this side project is about, right?”

Lucille lets her smirk rise. “It’s kind of a 'two birds, one stone' situation.”

“Well. As much as I love having married and evil genius …” Samm walks past and sneaks a peck on her cheek, “maybe tomorrow night, you can figure out how to be home in time for dinner.”

Ouch . Maybe not so off the hook after all. Then again, maybe it’s just as well that she can’t out politic everyone. She has her hands full of admirals and agents anyways.

Turns out, it’s really, really, fucking hard. Leonard will technically pass the class, assuming he doesn’t do any worse on this exam than an F. Which might sound accomplishable, except that he’s currently on day two of sitting his ass beneath a tree, trying to pretend it’s not raining, and his only friend is fucking things up again .

Jim found him on hour nine of the first day. Leonard suspects this is one of the things that they are not supposed to do, but as Jim reassures him, technically, it’s not in the rule book. Probably, the professor had assumed that dropping cadets fifteen miles apart would be sufficient to eliminate the possibility. Clearly, both she and Leonard failed to calculate for the fact the Jim was raised by ill-humored wood elves.

Within two hours of finding Leonard’s campsite, Jim had turned Leonard’s haphazard lean-to into a fire pit, constructed a well-insulated shelter, and secured their store of rations from the wandering paws of woodland critters. For his part, Leonard has mentally outlined a draft of his essay, defending his performance during the exam. His main argument is going to be that he has done an excellent job of learning the most important rule of survival: listen to Jim and you will be warm, dry, and fed.

So, yeah, Leonard’s pretty sure he’s not passing this exam. Not because he’s underperforming, but because he’s pretty sure the professor is going to accuse them of cheating.

“We’re not cheating,” Jim says for the fourth time. “Tracking down fellow survivors and pooling resources is one of the main directives of Fleet disaster protocol.”

“Jim. This morning, I ate an omelet,” Leonard says for the third time. “An omelete . I’m not asking where you got those eggs. I’m really not, and I really don’t want to know. But it was an omelete , Jim. I’m going to come out of this thing well-rested and fucking chipper . They’re going to think we cheated.”

Jim does that thing where he breathes out in a completely normal way, but Leonard knows he’s really sighing. He points to the west -- the south -- a direction of some kind -- at something just above the tree line. “You see?” he says. “They’re monitoring us every hour. They know we’re not cheating.”

“I don’t see anything.”

Jim shakes his head, just a fraction. “They have remote and physical monitoring stations all along this area. I saw at least four of them on my way here. It makes sense, since they do this every year. We can go check it out if you want. There might even be a TA we can ask about the rules --”

“No! Jim. Jim. ” Leonard holds up a hand and starts counting off objections on his fingers. “It’s raining. I don’t have to see shit you tell me about before I’ll believe you. It’s raining. And breaking the illusion of complete self-reliance is one of the reasons they’re going to kick us out for cheating .”

“We’re not cheating Bones.” The kid plops down on the ground next to him, seemingly oblivious to the water dripping from his hair. The restless energy he’s carried since the test began doesn’t quite manage to dissipate, though he refrains from fidgeting. “Besides. You’re right; it’s raining.”

Leonard cocks his head at Jim. When the kid doesn’t expound, Leonard nudges his knee.

“I mean, I had to find you. I wasn’t just going to leave you out here in the rain,” says Jim, like the most obvious thing in the world.

Leonard’s quite for a minute. Because this is the thing about being friends with Jim: he gets you in trouble, he saves your ass, and then he breaks your heart.

“What’s wrong?” Jim asks, staring at Leonard’s face.

“Well. I kind of want to give you a hug, but I’m not sure you’d appreciate it.” Honestly. Jim managed to leave Leonard, the least hug-inclined person in the world, feeling bereft by the emptiness between his arms.

“Oh. Yeah. I usually don’t,” says Jim. Then, the kid actually reaches up a hand to pat Leonard on the head. “Thank you, Bones.” Like that makes any fucking sense. “You hungry yet?”

“No omelets,” Leonard barks as Jim stands up, then sighs. Totally cheating.

Chapter Text

Sean’s family was skeptical when he first told them he was TA-ing for Professor Griggs. To them, it sounded like a lot of time to devote to a Fleet officer whose entire career was academic. And if there is one thing that Finnegans are not , it’s academics. But the other part of growing up in a long-serving Fleet family is an instinctual ability to recognize the difference between ignorant bureaucratic bullshit, and someone legitimately fucking with him.

His first week of class, Sean spent trying to decide if Griggs was fucking with the entire Fleet, or just with her students. By the time he took the grueling practical exam at the end of the semester, he was pretty sure he had the basics figured out.

The class is a front. It’s a politically friendly cover that allows Starfleet to channel resources into training. And not general survival training, but the advanced kind of spec ops stuff that everybody likes to pretend Starfleet doesn’t sanction on a regular basis. The elaborate survival courses she builds for her infamous practical exams serve as training grounds, and the class itself acts as a rudimentary screening process for recruitment. The holes in the bureaucratic veneer are just as much of a test, singling out students with the nose for subterfuge.

Sean wants in.  He was top of his class, keeps in peak physical fitness, and he’s on track to graduate ahead of schedule. The issue, ironically, is that his family is one of the most well established Fleet dynasties. The connections that he’s always thought could guarantee him a post serving on the front lines makes him a liability as a potential secret operative. He doesn’t resent it, has, in fact, always insisted that there was nothing his heritage could for him that he couldn’t manage for himself.

So he volunteered as a TA, and he’s pretty sure that the professor’s acceptance is an acknowledgment of his intentions. He was well on his way to proving himself dedicated and reliable when some nobody first year comes along and changes the rules.

Sean doesn’t understand why Professor Griggs gives two shits about what blondie says. No hot-head like that is ever going to make the cut anyway. And he’s pretty sure that fucking with the practicum is going to set off the wrong kind of flags with the upper brass. Why is this kid worth it? The answer’s got to be politics, but Sean just can’t sniff out quite how.

“See anything interesting, yet, Finnegan?” asks Professor Griggs, leaning back in her chair. They’re set up in one of the observation posts, flitting between surveilling the ten or so students spread around the woods in their sector.

Sean weighs his answer, aware that this final exam is just as much for him as it is for the younger cadets. He could comment on the students, or the arena, or even the high-grade tech humming in front of them. It’s a toss-up whether Griggs is waiting for him to notice something in particular, or just poking at how he reacts under pressure.

He smiles. “Sorry, professor. I was hoping to route out that pesky subroutine that’s locked the climate controls in such a dismal state, but it’s almost like someone’s been hacking them.” His grin widens in Cheshire sweetness, and Griggs laughs. Sean has spent the last three weeks programming that bit of code for this test, sweating bullets that cybersecurity would route him out as soon as it booted up.

“Point one for sheer cheek, Finnegan,” says Griggs, and Sean’s confidence finally solidifies. He’s going to be a damn good operative.

The proximity alert is so impossible, that even as it trills unmistakably in the air, Finnegan is turning to his PADD to check for a malfunction.

“Holy shit ,” breathes Griggs, rising to her feet and swiping one of the screens onto the main display. It’s the view cam just above their access hatch, and it’s currently mostly obscured by the figure of a sweaty cadet, pounding on the metal of their doorway.

Sean’s relief that there’s no imminent threat fades quickly into alarm when he recognizes the individual. It’s James, the blonde cadet who caused all the trouble at the beginning of the semester, and whose test scores have been markedly unremarkable since then. How the hell did the kid find them?

Griggs has stalked down the hallway and palmed the keypad by the time Sean manages to get to his feet. The door slides open so fast, he has no idea how James manages to stay on his feet.

“I need a medipack and twenty milligrams of antivenin.” James’ voice is cold and hard.

“Bring him inside,” says Griggs, standing back.

What? Sean wavers in confusion. Is James hurt? Should he offer help? But the cadet has already whirled around and disappeared from the entrance. He's back just seconds later, an unconscious man draped over his shoulder.

Sean wheels backwards, just in time to avoid being bowled over as James charges inside. With one arm, the cadet sweeps a heap of PADDs and empty cups off the table and onto the floor. He lays the man -- Sean now recognizes him as Doctor Leonard McCoy -- on the surface.

Professor Griggs steps in Sean's line of sight, the medkit in one hand and a ball of fabric in the other. She throws a glance back at him. “Strip his boots. Get a call out to medical.”

It takes Sean another half-second to spring into action, stepping forward to unlace McCoy's shoes. In his head, he hears echoes of the material he's learned backwards and forwards, not so long ago: snake bites: treat with antivenin, remove constricting clothes in case of swelling, disinfect and bandage the wound.

He doesn't think McCoy is supposed to be unconscious.

“What's our window?” asks the professor. She's shoved the cloth under the doctor's head and shoved two hypos into his neck.

“Unclear. Ten minutes, max,” says James, tone utterly controlled. He's unwrapping what looks like a dirty cloth from around the doctor's arm. It looks like he's packed some kind of plant against the wound, through Sean can only guess why.

“Did you see it?” asks Griggs.

“No. Signs of Vechrysalid in the area, though.” Jim's voice turns sharp. “I told him to be careful.”

The last of the wrapping falls off. At first glance, the skin looks unbroken. Only because he's looking for it does Sean see the two small puncture marks, and the slight red hue starting to grow around them.

Griggs is using a device that looks like a tricorder took steroids and then dropped ten pounds to scan the doctor. She frowns. “Well, you managed to leech out most of the venom, but something …” she looks up, eyebrows raised. “Jesus, JT. How far did you carry him?”

“Four miles.”

Sean’s mouth drops open, and he exhales loudly in disbelief.  The noise attracts both Jim and the professor’s attention.

“Finnegan. Get online with the medic. We’re going to need evac.”

Sean snaps his mouth shut and gets back to work.

He spends the rest of the crisis exiled to the corner, coordinating with the Med evac personnel, monitoring the rest of the examinees, and sending politely worded messages informing the brass that no cancellation is necessary. He keeps his ears peeled, though, and does catch one further interesting snippet of conversation.

Professor Griggs, standing behind where Jim is hovering just out of the way of the medics, murmurs something Sean doesn’t quite catch. When Jim doesn’t respond, she adds, “It would have been a lot easier for all of us.”

“I’ve never enjoyed your games, Lucille,” responds James. “You know I don’t see the point in all that nonsense.”

“Thought you were smarter than that, JT. You can’t change the rules if you don’t play.  How many allies can you afford to alienate?”

“If you don’t mind, Lucille, I’d rather focus on keeping this one alive.”

The professor mutters something involving the words “fucking stubborn,” and doesn’t try to engage James again.

With as little fanfare as they arrived, the cadets and the medics are gone. In the quiet, empty space they leave behind, Sean’s head is reeling. He and professor Griggs settle back to their task, but he doubts either of them are actually paying any attention to the screens they’re staring at.

After an agonizing period of deliberation, Sean decides to venture a question. “Professor?”

She grunts at him.

“That cadet, James Tiberius …” Professor Griggs lets his silence hang, forcing him to finish his thought. “I just thought, you seemed to know each other.”

It’s not technically a question, but Griggs finally takes a modicum of pity on him. “JT is something of an old family friend.” She offers him no more than that, and pointedly redirects his attention with a query about one of the examinees.

Sean carries out his duties routley, his mind unraveling the oblique clue the professor has offered him. Clearly, ‘old family friend’ is a euphemism for the covert project. Which would mean that Cadet James, a first-year barely out of his teens, is a recruit. He must have been picked out for some reason, even before the class, as a candidate. Possibly even in competition for the position that Sean is after.

But why ? What’s the angle that James has that Sean is missing?

Sorting furiously through everything he knows about the cadet, Sean’s mind snags on a detail.

James said he carried McCoy four miles. That is pretty much the distance from the observation post to the campsite the two cadets had established. But the software is set up to bring up visual check-ins of every cadet in a fifteen-minute cycle. So even if they missed the moment when Dr. McCoy was injured, there’s no way they should have overlooked James crashing through four miles of underbrush with his friend on his shoulders.

There are two possible reasons for this: either something prevented the feed from the cameras from being pulled up, or James purposefully avoided the cameras.

Sean wonders for the first time if he might be in a little over his head.

Leonard wakes up in Georgia. He’s not quite lying in the four-poster at his Momma’s house,  but waking up in a sea of southern accents in the same hospital building where he dedicated years of his life is pretty damn near close.

There’s no fucking way he dreamed that all up. Also, ow.

“ I can't speak for how they do things out in San Francisco, but here in Georgia, it's considered quite rude for sons to go off, get almost killed, and then keep their mother waiting.”

Leonard cranks his head stiffly to the side and waits for his hazy eyes to focus on his mother’s face.

“Hey, Ma. What happened?” Speaking clearly is an effort, but he can feel his systems coming back online.

“You don't remember?”

Leonard friends. “No. Where’s Jim?”

“Your roommate's back at school, Darling. Though I hear he did an admirable job of getting you help after that nasty snake bite.”

Something about that is not quite right. “I don't remember a snake.”

“You were bitten,” says his mother. “And you did have to go and make a big fuss about it.” She pats his shoulder, and it feels so familiar.

“Jim. Did he …. did he carry me?”

His mother's facade slips a fraction closer to concern. “I wasn't told anything about that. They just said you were pretty out of it and had to be evacuated. What a dreadful exercise to put students through.”

“Ma.” It's too soon, but Leonard pushes himself up as best he can. “I need to talk to Jim.”

She stares at him in shock for a moment, before buzzing for a nurse and asking for a PADD.

Leonard punches in Jim's number, and his heart sinks with every unanswered ring. Eventually, the call cuts off. Leonard stares numbly at the screen.

A message pops up, blank text without an identifier.

Sorry. Working.

Leonard stabs at the message, trying to put a call through to wherever it came from, but it doesn't go through. More text flashes up.

Call you later.

For a moment, Leonard thinks that's all he's going to get, but the universe grants him one last Hail Mary.

I told you to be careful. Make sure you eat something.

He falls backwards against the pillows, a scratchy laugh climbing out of his throat. He knows he's not doing a good job of reassuring his mother, but he can't help it.

“Where's Jo?” he asks once he can breathe again. “Also what the hell am I doing in Georgia?”

Adult invalid or not, his Momma still smacks him for swearing.

Chapter Text

Mrs. McCoy is not the sort of person who comes to the likes of Jocelyn with her concerns. They stay mostly on amicable terms, for the sake of Joanna and because Mrs McCoy's upbringing demands it. But when, three days after dropping her daughter off at the McCoy household, Jocelyn receives a comm from the woman, asking if she's doing well, and how her career is going, and also, has she spoken to Leonard lately, it leaves Jocelyn stunned.

Of course, she assumes the worst: he’s gone on a bender and hasn’t come back; he’s kidnapped Joanna; he’s finally hypoed someone to death in irritation. But the reality she stares at when finally works up the nerve to comm her ex is even more unsettling.

He only answers because Joanna’s there, and that’s an unspoken rule of theirs. Well, and a spoken one, because the man does give her cause to worry. But today, for all that the lines around his eyes are drawn tight and his posture is stiff, he looks better than she’s seen him in a long time. Since before his father passed, if not longer. Not only is he sober -- which, again, could be because of Joanna -- he actually looks … grounded.

“Hello, Leonard. You look good today.”

He stares at her in disbelief. “Jocelyn. What can I do for you?”

“Just … checking in,” she says lamely. She hadn’t expected to need an excuse for her call. “Glad to see you’ve healed up well.”

“Hi Mommy!” Calls Jo from the background. Leonard turns around and picks her up to set in front of the screen.

“Hey, baby. You having a good time?”

Jo nods like her heads going to fall off. “Daddy’s telling me about Starfleet.”

“That’s good,” says Jocelyn, still mildly boggled by Leonard’s decision to enlist. She assumes he was drunk, but then again, she had sort of also assumed that he still would be. Whatever the case, she’s really not up for hearing about his adventures right now; no doubt she’ll get plenty of that from Joanna later. “I’ll pick you at the end of the week when Dad goes back, alright, sweetheart?”

“But Mom! I want to meet Jim!”

Jocelyn blinks.  “Jim? Who’s that?”

“He’s crazy, but he makes really good omelets,” says Joanna, like that clarifies anything.

“I was just telling Jo a little bit about a friend from the Academy,” says Leonard.

Jocelyn frowns. “A friend, Leonard?” It comes out a little crueler than she intended, but it’s a legitimate question. Leonard was never very social, and he’d dropped people like flies when his father got sick, even those he’d known his whole life.

“My roommate,” says McCoy.

Jocelyn nearly chokes trying not to gasp. Is that what this is? Mrs McCoy trying to rub in Jocelyn’s face how her son has moved on?

Except that Leonard scowls at her and asks, “What?” He’s defensive alright, but not blustering. Staring at him, Jocelyn believes he’s legitimately oblivious to the innuendo that she inferred.

“Jim’s a good kid,” he adds when she doesn’t say anything.

“He’s a nerd,” says Joanna solemnly. “But he cooks a mean breakfast.”

So Leonard’s not sleeping with this Jim. And yet, clearly, he’s spent a good deal of his precious time with Jo talking about the man.

“Well,” says Jocelyn. “That’s nice, I suppose. I’ll talk to you later, okay Jo?”

“Bye, Mom. Love you.

“Love you, too. Goodbye, Leonard.”

He signs off the comm.

Mrs McCoy might have had the right idea after all. It sounds like Leonard is in trouble. In this case, though, Jocelyn thinks it might be exactly what he needs.

It’s four o'clock in the afternoon when Leonard finally makes it back to his tiny campus dorm room, and for pretty much first time ever, he finds Jim passed out in a deep sleep.

  The kid doesn’t stay that way, of course. He wakes with a full bodied shudder as Leonard sets his bag down of the floor. With an uncharacteristic gracelessness, Jim props himself up on his elbows and blinks blearily at Leonard from the couch.

“Bones.”

“Good God, Jim. Did an elephant step on your face while I was gone?” The circles around the kid’s eyes are as big as dinner plates, and damn near purple.

Jim frowns. “No. What? Bones. Talk sense.” Jesus. Does the kid always sound like a three year old Joanna when he wakes up?

This is not how Leonard was hoping this would go. There’s supposed to be a reckoning. He spent the whole shuttle ride here distracting himself by preparing. But damnit, how’s he supposed to be firm and demanding when Jim -- poster child for the ‘sleep is for the weak’ campaign -- looks more exhausted than Leonard’s ever felt in his life?

Now Jim is rolling over onto his feet, and all Leonard wants to do is tell the kid to lie back down. “Jim. You look like shit.”

Jim lumbers over to him, stops a half a foot away from Leonard’s face. His eyelids are still half shuttered, not that it makes his baby blues any less vibrant.

He pokes Leonard hard in the stomach with one finger.

“Ow! Hey. What was that for?”

“I’m mad at you,” says Jim.

“Mad at -- what on Earth did I do?”

“You got bit when I wasn’t even around, and then you almost died. It was awful.”

“Jim. Jim .” Leonard puts both his hands on the kid’s shoulders. He moves slowly, keeps his grip light, and though the kid shifts, he allows the contact. Leonard steers him back to the couch, and takes a seat. Thankfully, Jim does the same before he passes out.

It’s actually a trick he’s learned from Jim: rather than yelling in each other’s faces, they sit next to each other. It’s less confrontational, without going all the way into avoidance, which was pretty much Jim’s default setting back when they first met. Would’ve been handy to know back when he was married.

“I’m sorry that I worried you, okay, kid? And I’m gratefully that you saved my ass, even if I don’t really remember the details. But I take no responsibility for the rest of it. I’m a doctor, not a mountain man.”

Jim huffs out a breath, but nods a reluctant acceptance.

“Okay. Good. I know this might not be the best time to go over this, but I was hoping you could fill me in a bit.”

Jim gives him a sharp look. Leonard’s  not sure what that means, but it’s probably not good. Still, he perseveres.

“ Doctor , remember, Jim? I know how to treat snake bites. And I might not be a zoologist, but I didn't think there was a snake in California dangerous enough to send a man into three days of hospitalized unconsciousness.”

Jim stares at him. The hesitation is palpable, but Leonard is determined not to break first.

“I’m supposed to lie to you,” says Jim.

Leonard’s hands curl into fists. His mouth tastes sour.

Jesus. What the Hell is this kid mixed up in?

“Technically, though,” Jim adds, “I never agreed that I would.”

Leonard wants to laugh. And maybe cry a little. He definitely wants to tell Jim not to anything that would put him in danger, but he also wants to know . How else is he supposed to help?

“Somebody fucked up,” says Jim. “Same thing that always happens when you lock a bunch of scientists in a room with their toys for too long. Best I can work out, some xenobiology specimen they weren’t even supposed to have got loose, made it out to the woods.”

“Where it bit me,” says Leonard.

“Yes. Probably after you poked at it, though.”

Leonard snorts. “Okay, fine. Why’d I wake up three days later in Georgia?”

“Ass covering,” says Jim. “Putting you up in the clinic where you work was going to attract too much attention, raise embarrassing questions. They wanted to put you up in one of their classified facilities but I … uh …” Jim falters, turns his face away and flicks his eyes to the floor. “You know. Break was coming up anyway, and I knew you were supposed to see Joanna. But. I’m sorry we couldn’t ask you first.”

Goddamn this kid. “Jim.” The stupid kid’s name is starting to feel like the largest part of his vocabulary. “There’s an awful lot about this that is fucked up. It’s starting to make me seriously wonder just what kind of morons I’ve signed my life away to. But, for what it’s worth, I’m really glad that I puked on your shoes months ago.”

“Bones.” Leonard sneaks a glance over to see that Jim is bowed over, pressing his knuckles into his forehead. “You make less sense than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Thanks kid. For the record, I know there’s more you’re not telling me.”

“Yeah,” says Jim. “Um. Maybe I should take a nap now. I’m pretty tired.”

“About fucking time, kid. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Jim’s eyes are already closed.

Christine Chapel is the kind of person who can’t stand nonsense, but craves a challenge. It’s why she signed up for Starfleet in the first place, and it’s why, usually, she’s a very effective nurse. Routine physical exams don’t typically require much critical thinking or skill, but at least they’re also usually free of nonsense. So she’s having a little trouble understanding how such an exam brings her closer to killing a patient than she has come in the entirety of her career.

At first, it looks like there’s just been an irritating malfunction with her equipment. The PADD she’s using won’t pull up his medical file. She tries a secondary one with no success, and figures there’s been a connectivity issue, or maybe a bureaucratic mix-up. If that is the case, there’s little to be done about it on her end, so she decides to simply proceed with the exam.

She pulls up a blank form for a standard physical, and asks the cadet to describe his overall health.

“Adequate,” he says,

Christine  rolls her eyes, but is distracted from coaxing anything more substantial out of him when an attempt to scan him brings up an error message on her tricorder. She flicks the tricorder on and off, checks the setting, and slaps it against her hand a few times. Still, all she gets when she points it at the cadet is an “invalid” reading.

“Sorry,” says the cadet, “that won’t work.”

She looks up in disbelief. “Did you do something to it? You do know that it’s illegal to tamper with official Starfleet medical equipment, right?”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” he answers, unperturbed. “I’ve just got an implant that blocks the signals.”

“You’ve got a what ?”

“That’s not what it’s for, obviously. It’s just a side effect.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” she says. Though she’s admittedly not an expert, the idea sound ludicrous. “What kind of implant are you talking about?”

“It’s a wire through my spinal column. It was supposed to help encourage the nerves to regrow but the science was still pretty new. I guess they got it a bit wrong.”

She stares at him. Technically, there is a branch of medicine developing the kind of treatment that he’s talking about, but she’s never heard of any of the technology being used on a sentient patient. Not to mention, the kind of injury required to necessitate implanting a fiber in his spinal column would almost certainly have some long lasting effect on his mobility, but from what she can recall we walked in the room and hoisted himself on the exam table without difficulty.

Surely, this cadet is trying to fuck with her. She doesn’t appreciate that. “I won’t be able to clear you for duty without an internal scan,” she informs him frostily. Mucking around is only going to interfere with his career, which really isn’t her problem.

The cadet proves irritatingly unfazed by her hostility. “I know. I tried to book an appointment directly with Dr Laurie for full body imaging, but the man at the desk wouldn’t let me.”

Christine stiffens. Occasionally, she’ll come across a patient who demands to be treated by a doctor for every little bump and bruise. Not only is such an attitude incredibly insulting, but it can be downright dangerous on a spaceship. If necessary, Christine is fully qualified to amputate limbs and replace organs, and in a crisis, distracting a doctor from critical patient endangers lives.

She might not be able to directly fault the cadet’s logic -- if  his story is  true -- but she’s damn well going to do her job.

“Roll up your sleeves and lie back.” Implant or no, if she connects him directly to the machines, she can at least get blood pressure and heart rate. She hooks the sensors to his right arm, and sets up the monitors to forward the data to her PADD. “I’m going to draw some blood for analysis, as well.”  She prepares a vial, but hesitates when she grabs his left arm.

There’s a faint web of scars latticed across his forearm and up his bicep. It almost looks like burn tissue that wasn’t completely regenerated, but the pattern is too even. She glances up at the cadet’s face. He’s staring up at the ceiling, face blank.

“Is this a recent injury?” she asks. He tilts his head down to meet her gaze. His eyes are ghostly.

He nods, but doesn’t say a word.

She swabs a patch of skin a little below his elbow, and inserts the needle.

It doesn’t take long to extract a small sample of blood, but by the time she pulls out, the area around the injection site is already reddening. This happens occasionally; she would have know the cadet was allergic to the disinfectant if she’d been able to access his medical file. It’s an easy fix, though. It takes just a moment to acquire and administer a general antihistamine hypo.

In an instant, the cadet bolts upright and jerks his arm away. “What did you just do?”

Startled by the sudden movement, Christine jerks backwards and nearly falls over the leg of a chair. “I gave you a hypo to keep you from breaking out in hives,” she snaps. You’re welcome .

The medical alert rings out shrilly. Christine blinks at it in confusion, but instincts already have her pressing the cadet down with a hand on his chest. Which is how, before she can even read the monitor, she feels his breath going haywire.

“What’s going on?” Dr Profhir asks as he steps into the room, summoned automatically by the alarm.

Christine stares at the cadet, his face flushing red and his throat swallowing almost convulsively. “He’s … I think he’s having an allergic reaction.”

“Administer an antihistamine.”

“I did . That’s what he’s having the reaction to!”

“What?” Dr Profhir steps past her, pushing her back. “Where’s his medical file?”

“The computer said he didn’t have one.”

“Doesn’t have --” the doctor whips his head around to glare at her, clearly not believing a word. He presses the intercom “Nurse Leme, please assist in exam room four.”  Christine’s can feel heat flaming in her cheeks.  “Thank you, nurse Chapel,” we’ll handle it from here.

Christine leaves the room. She goes straight to the restroom to splash water on her face. She swallows a chunk of bitterness with difficulty.

It’s hard not resent how this will reflect on her professionalism. Technically, she did commit an error in administering a drug without consulting the cadet’s file. But the reality is, only the most extremely stringent of medical professionals would have refused to administer an antihistamine without the file; even Dr Profhir had told told Christine to use one before so much as trying to look at his chart.

But it isn’t Dr Profhir who is responsible for the cadet’s condition; it’s Christine. And understandable or not, the fact remains that the Cadet’s reaction was serious, and the doctor will have relatively few options for treatment now that more drugs are out of the question. This isn’t a lesson that Christine is going to be forgetting soon.

It turns out, the drama isn’t quite over. Christine manages to square her shoulders and walk back outside, and she goes about the rest of her day as professionally as she can. When her shift is finally over, she comes face to face with Dr Profhir, standing in the doorway of the hall. His hand are crossed, and his brow is furrowed.

“Doctor?”

“Nurse Chapel.”  He looks over his shoulder, and then back at her. “Can I ask -- who was that? The cadet from this morning, I mean.”

Having braced for a reprimand, the line of questioning catches her off guard. “You mean cadet James Tiberius?”

“What do you know about him?”

“Nothing, really. He's a first year. Engineering, I think. But I really couldn't pull up his file.”

“I know,” says the doctor. “I was in the middle of intubating him when a pencil pusher came matching in, demanding to know who was requesting classified information.”

Christine frowns. “Why on earth would a cadet's medical file be classified?”

Dr Profhir shrugs. “I was hoping you might know. Did he say anything unusual?”

“Well … he did mention an experimental implant.”

The doctor hums. “I suppose, technically, patient confidentiality might not apply to information about classified medical technology. Still. Someone's going to have to be able to treat the kid. What if he needs surgery, and we can't give him anesthetic?” He shakes his head. “Fucking bureaucrats.”

Her dignity somewhat restored,  Christine is able to walk home that night with a lighter heart.

Chapter Text

For all that they can feel joined at the hip, there’s still a lot of time in Jim’s day that remains vaguely mysterious to Leonard. They share very few of their classes, and though they usually have lunch together, sometimes one of them will have to skip; Leonard might have clinic duty, or Jim might have to skip off to a lab class. Then it’s pretty much a crap shoot on when they reconnect. Jim might be studying in their room when Leonard gets off, or he might not get back until long after Leonard goes to bed. Since the kid invariably wakes up first, there might be a whole 24 hours when Leonard doesn’t see him.

They’ve worked out an unspoken system that keeps Leonard from worrying too much. He’ll know that Jim has at least been back to the room because breakfast will be waiting for him when he wakes up. Jim has learned to check his comm for messages and respond promptly, and he makes sure to spend time studying with Leonard at least three times a week.

It works for them, up until one week at the beginning of winter. It’s just a Tuesday, and Leonard spends his lunch picking up a shift instead of eating with Jim. He doesn’t have any company that evening, either, but he’s tired enough that he has to turn in early anyways. He doesn’t get nervous until the next morning, when the dorm room is still conspicuously Jim-less, and he has to replicate his own pancakes.

He tells himself he’s being silly. It’s not like it’s actually Jim’s job to feed him. Today’s just an excuse for him to eat carbs and sugar without the kid going all judge-y on him. And it’s not Leonard’s job to know where Jim is all the time either.

Okay. He maybe, sort of feels like that ‘s kind of his job, but it doesn’t mean he has a right to the information.

Jim doesn’t show up for class, and Leonard officially freaks out. He tries the kid’s comm five different times with no luck.   He’s allowed to play hookey every once in awhile, Leonard tells himself, and doesn’t believe a word of it.

Getting through the rest of his classes that day is practically nauseating, and entirely unproductive. He stumbles out of his last lecture and wanders around for a while, hoping to see the kid. He doesn’t have any luck, and with nothing else to go on, he ends up heading back to their room. Maybe Jim will be there.

He isn’t.

Leonard manages to do exactly nothing for the rest of the afternoon.

Night falls, and dinner is skipped in favour of some nerve-calming bourbon. Eventually, midnight rolls around, utterly Jim-ess. Having worked himself into a semi-panic, Leonard does the only thing he can think of, and heads for the Hessinger building. He pounds on Gary Mitchell’s door, to the annoyance of all the cadets in the hall.

“Fuck. Mr Bones?” is how Mitchell answers his door. “What the fuck do you want.”

“Have you seen Jim?” He demands.

Mitchell frowns. “Not in ages. Why?”

“He didn’t come home last night, and he didn’t show up for class today.”

“Maybe he’s sick or something, man. I don’t know”

“Weren’t you listening? He didn’t come home.”

Mitchell laughs at him. “It’s not like he’d come to you if he were sick. What are you, a doctor?”

“ Yes .”

“Oh, weird.” Gary shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell you, Mr Bones. Even when he lived here, I could go a week without seeing James. He’ll turn up.”

Leonard takes vindictive pleasure in thumbing the door shut in Mitchell’s face, but it’s little consolation for the fact that he still has absolutely nothing to go on.

“Excuse me, did Gary just call you Bones?” An unfamiliar voice chirps behind him. Leonard whirls around and comes nose to nose with a head of curly black hair and stark green Orion skin.

He blinks at her. “Um? Who are you?”

“I'm Galia,” she says. “Jim's new friend.”

Leonard's mouth doesn't drop open in shock, but it's a near thing. “What -- I don't -- do you know where he is?”

“Probably still in the hospital, unless he managed sneak out past the secret agent. You are Bones, then?”

“Secret-- hospital -- what happened?”

“Well this morning, I broke my arm. I don’t actually really remember that part very well, but I ended up in a hospital bed next to where they were keeping Jim. I talked to him a bit before they let me go. He seemed nice.”

Very little of that made any sense to Leonard, but he doesn’t bother asking any more questions. He throws a quick thanks at Galia, and books his way down the hall.

The clinic is rightfully empty.  Leonard doesn’t bother stopping to ask the receptionist for a room number, just makes his way straight for the most remote corner. His eyes zero in immediately on the figure in all black, standing imperiously in front of the last door of the hall. Which is why he doesn’t notice anything else until he trips over The Admiral’s feet.

When he recovers himself, Leonard turns to consider this latest obstacle. Admiral Marcus looks torn between contempt and amusement.

“Going somewhere, cadet?” drawls the Admiral.

Leonard snaps to attention. “Dr McCoy, sir. I’m looking for a patient, sir. My roommate.”

The admiral’s expression sharpens for a split second, eyes flashing before they settle into curiosity. “You’re looking for Jimmy?”

Warning bells peel in Leonard’s mind. Why on earth is an admiral on a first name basis with Jim? “Yesssir.”

“Why?” asks the admiral.

Leonard blinks in confusion. “He’s my roommate, sir. I heard he was in the clinic, and I … wanted to see if he was okay.” He pauses before adding, “I’m not on shift but I am a doctor.”

Admiral Marcus hums. It’s an innocuous sound, but it sends shivers down Leonard’s spine. That’s the exact sound Jim makes when he’s chewing over a difficult problem. “Well. I suppose that’s somewhat fortuitous.  As I understand it, there was a mistake made this morning. Jimmy had quite the allergic reaction -- as he is prone to.” Why does The Admiral know all this? “I was going to insist he stay here overnight to recover, but if you don’t mind keeping an eye on him, I’m sure he would be more comfortable back in his own -- excuse me, in your room.”

Politics aren’t really Leonard’s forte, but he’s pretty sure Admiral Marcus is deliberately pointing out the infraction of the rules, having Jim crash on the couch in his single. He can’t tell if it’s a threat, or an attempt to bond via mutual conspiracy. Both options are equally unpalatable.

“Of course, sir. I’d be happy to.” Leonard inches his way to the door way he knows hides Jim. Technically, he hasn’t been dismissed yet.

“Rodgers,” calls Admiral Marcus. “Dr McCoy here is going to being checking out our friend.”

The guard dog looks him up and down dismissively. He turns around and punches a code into the door -- christ , did they actually lock an exam room? That breaks so many rules -- and steps aside. Leonard tries not to look too eager as he scurries the last precious few feet.

Jim is sitting cross-legged and ramrod straight on top of the neatly folded sheets of the clinic bed. Dangling on the floor are several wires that are supposed to be attached to his body, and yet the machines aren’t screeching in alarm.

Bastard probably hacked them . Leonard isn’t sure whether he means Jim or The Admiral, but it amounts to the same thing.

Jim’s eyes were closed, but they slam open the moment Leonard steps foot inside. His frozen expression softens a little bit as he recognizes Leonard and cocks his head in confusion.

“Bones? What are you doing here.”

“You were missing, Jim.”

Jim’s head tilts another half a degree. “And you came looking for me?”

“Oh, for the love of --” Leonard makes himself take a deep breath. “Just give me your chart already.”

“No,” says Jim.

“No?” Leonard’s voice cracks in disbelief. “Do you want to get out of here or not?”

Jim perks up. “I really, really want to get out of here.”  He unfolds his legs and hops to his feet even as Leonard is striding forward to stop him.

“Christsakes, Jim, not so fast. I’m not letting you go anywhere until I understand why you’ve been in the hospital for over twelve hours.”

“It’s not a hospital,” says Jim. “It’s a clinic.”

Leonard would roll his eyes, but he’s too busy doing a visual scan of the kid while he blindly reaches for the PADD that will have his info.

On the plus side, the kid looks pretty much normal. On the other, there is no PADD.

“Jim,” he says slowly, “where’s your chart?”

“It got deleted.”

“It got deleted, or you deleted it? ”

“It wasn’t me,” says Jim, and though he doesn’t want to, Leonard believes him.

Fucking secrets and fucking admirals .

“Cadets,” barks Mr Hulk Rodgers from where he’s looming outside the door, “time to clear the room.”

Leonard has approximately two seconds to make a decision. He can pick this battle, or he can get Jim the fuck out of here.

Fuck. Fuck . If it were anybody but fucking a Starfleet admiral, and Jim ….

“You are a bad influence, Jim,” he says as firmly as he can manage, bending down to swipe four hypos, in case of an absolute emergency. “This is going directly against even my moral principles, and that’s saying shit.”

“Thank you,” says Jim. The kid’s breath is heavy. “Thank you , Bones. Thank you.”

He fists a hand in the cloth around Leonard’s elbow, like this day wasn’t already emotional enough, god dammit.

“We’re going home, now,” he says loudly. Bouncer McDouchebag glares at them as Leonard leads the way out. There’s no sign of Marcus, which is both creepy and relieving. Instead, Gary bloody Mitchell is waiting to ambush them when they step outside the clinic.

“James,” he says, his face the model of concern. “I overheard Dr Bones talking to Galia. Are you alright?”

Leonard is reluctantly prepared to stop walking, but Jim doesn’t seem inclined to. “I’m fine,” he says, looking sideways at Mitchell with slightly narrowed eyes. “Bones is taking me home.”

“That’s good,” says Mitchell, seemingly unperturbed at having to stride to keep pace with them. “Why was Admiral Marcus here?”

Little shithead. Leonard can’t fathom what his angle is, but fuck him, anyways. “Apparently it’s the day for unwelcome busy bodies.”

Mitchell laughs. “That’s a little rich, coming from you, Kettle.”

“What?” says Jim, sounding mildly frustrated, which actually means really irritated. “Bones isn’t rich. And he’s not a kettle. And , he’s welcome.”

“Can’t argue with that,” says Mitchell softly. He stops walking. “Stay safe, James. You and Dr Bones, both.”

Leonard is more than glad to leave Mitchell behind, but a glance and Jim’s face tells him he’s missed something. The kid is quiet the rest of the walk.

“You okay, kid?” Leonard asks as they kick their feet up and lean back  on the couch. No way Leonard is leaving the kid to spend the night alone. “I mean really, no bullshit, okay?”

“I don’t know,” says Jim. “It’s really late.”

“Yeah,” says Leonard. “Tell me about it.”

The conversation waits for the morning, sitting at the counter and eating breakfast. Thankfully, Jim makes no attempt to dodge it -- kid is learning after all -- but he doesn’t exactly give any straight answers, either.

“What happened?” is answered with “There was a mix up.”

“Why was Marcus there?” gets a “What did he say to you?”

“Cryptic shit, and then he told me to take you back to our dorm,” Leonard snips. “See, Jim? That’s how you answer questions. Irritating, isn’t it?” The dig doesn’t work, though, because all it makes Jim do is look thoughtful.

“Jim. Jim. Earth to Jim, anybody home, do I need to scan you for a concussion?”

“I think I should move out,” says the kid.

Leonard drops his spoon. “What. What? Look, I don’t know what Marcus has against you kid. And yeah, it sucks that he’s an admiral, but there’s not too much he can do while we’re still cadets, alright?”

“He’s my academic advisor.”

It takes conscious effort not to spit into his coffee. “Um. Why? How ?”

Jim shakes his head. He looks -- rueful, maybe? It’s not an emotion Leonard is used to seeing on him. “Well, I think he was a little bit worried I'd be a trouble maker, but mostly, I guess it was kind of a favor for Lucille.”

“Lucille? Who's that?”

“Professor Griggs.”

Leonard throws his hands in the air. Like pulling teeth from a toddler . “We had class with that woman every day for six weeks , and you never thought to mention that you knew her? ”

“I don’t,” says Jim. “Not really. We’ve met before. She likes to call herself an ‘old family friend.’” This is more personal information that Leonard has gotten from Jim in one go before. Or maybe ever. “We don’t get along,” the kid adds, without prompting for once. “But I kinda owe her and Marcus for getting me into the academy. So. Yeah.” Jim props one hand under his Jim. “If Marcus doesn’t want me breaking the rules, I probably shouldn’t.”

Leonard swallows, turning this information over in his mind. “Okay,” he says at last. “Moving out it is.” After all, who said only Jim gets to have dumb ideas?

Chapter Text

Connor really doesn’t think these dudes should be moving in together. Usually, he doesn’t have a problem selling premium San Francisco floor space to couples who are clearly ill matched. Money in his pocket, and a valuable life experience for them, right? But these guys have issues .

“Not the ground floor,” says the blonde one, almost disinterestedly.

“You already said the fifth floor was too high!” Protests the older one. “Where do you want to live ? Inside the floor insulation?”

“No,” says the blonde one. “That doesn’t sound healthy.”

Connor edges away from the the spit fire in the older one’s eyes. “Um,” he tries, “We do have some units available--”

“That one.” The blonde guy points at a window in the building across from where they’re standing.

Fuck these two. How complicated is it to read the list he gave them, and then pick something off that list?

“Well, my company doesn’t work with that building, specifically, but I’m happy to check and see if the unit is available for you--

“It is,” says blondie.

“Good enough for me,” says the older one.

They walk out of the building without a backward glance at Conner. And yet, somehow, when he checks records the next morning, he still gets credit for the sale.

Yeah. Issues.

Gary’s always been a lucky fellow. It shows up sometimes in the weirdest ways, but he’s always thankful. Coming across James and Dr Bones in the middle of mattress shopping is an absolute blessing.

“I don’t understand. Either it’s comfortable or it’s not. Why’s it so hard to choose?”

“I gave you a suggestion, Bones.”

“No, you zeroed in on a solid granite monstrosity . We’re looking for mattresses . To sleep on.” Bones emphasizes his point by thumping the bedspread he’s currently sprawled on.

“You know, Bones, whichever one you pick, you’re going to spend the next three months complaining about it.”

“Oh, fuck you, too kid.” The sentence is heatless but Gary still startles. Not at the words, but the way James’ face breaks into a small grin.

He didn’t know James could do that.

Of course, James sees him a moment later, and his pearly whites disappear once more. “Gary,” he says.

“Hey, guys. I’m guessing you’re not buying anything for that miserable Fleet single. Moved out?”

“Mitchell.” The doctor says his name like it’s a mouthful of sour grapes. “Kinda busy here.”

Gary gives him a polite nod, and turns back to his ex-roomie. “Find anything good, James?”

He hesitates, glances over at his friend, then gives a half shake, half shrug.

“What?” Bones sits up. “You didn’t like the slab of torture?”

James doesn’t bother saying anything, just wrinkles his nose slightly and throws Bones a look. Interestingly, the good doctor seems to have no trouble interpreting.

“Well, damn. Is there anything in this store that you like?”

James hums a half tone under his breath. “The plants are nice.”

“Huh,” says Bones. “Not very good for sleeping on.” Still, he hoists himself to his feet in what Gary suspects is more showmanship than real effort, and lumbers off to accost a salesman.

James stays standing by the bed, and Gary watches him. James gives him a look he doesn’t understand. It’s not often he looks Gary in the eye.

 “What is it?” Gary asks.

“Is that normal?” says James. At Gary’s blank stare, he tilts his head over where Bones is arguing loudly with someone who may or may not work at the store.

Gary considers the question. “No. I don’t think it is.”

James mask cracks again, just enough to be the ghost of smile. Gary doesn’t even try to look away.

He holds back as James and Bones exit the store with a resplendent potted fern clutched between them, leaving breadcrumbs of soil in their wake. Later, he’ll look up their new address    in the registry, and see if he can’t send them a little house warmer.

Leonard likes their little setup. Part of it is just the relief of not living on campus, but mostly, he appreciates the effect it has on Jim. Now that they’re actually in their second year at the academy, he's a bit ashamed to realized how much he'd gotten used to some of Jim's more alarming habits: his obsessive exercise regimen, cagey sleep schedule, and staunch opposition to personal comforts of any kind. Those things don't stop when they move into their apartment, but there is a notable softening around the kid.

Maybe it's because this is their place, not just Leonard's, maybe he feels better now that they're not breaking the rules, or even just the extra space the apartment affords them; whatever the reason, when they move into the new place, Jim actually lives there with Leonard. He has very strong opinions about the positioning of furniture, and spends a whole five hours straight elbow deep in the wiring, rigging up safety features and … well, Leonard didn't ask, but whatever it was the kid sure seemed pleased about it. And he cares for the fern they bought with such devotion Leonard gets a little jealous. His favour new thing, though, is when he looks up and sees Jim straight up puttering about . It’s so purposeless and vulnerable, and it makes Leonard think that whatever else happens in his life, at least he can die knowing he created a space where Jim felt safe enough to belong .

They never do get Jim a mattress, so most nights he crashes on the discount futon they picked up. Still, the kid actually spends some time there, even opting to use the scratchy, tiny sofa pillow they got to go with it, which is pretty much a miracle.

Of course, as always, just when he thinks they’ve got a handle on things is when Leonard gets reminded that there’s always more to learn with Jim.

He’s just clocked off a shift at the clinic, and his next class isn’t till that evening, so he heads out to the apartment for lunch. They don’t usually make the trip out during the middle of the day, but Jim had asked, and Leonard was happy to comply. He likes their apartment, and it has the added bonus of having no people except Jim in it, which is always a relief after a shift.

Jim’s not at the table, or sprawled over the living room. Leonard finds him crouched on the floor in the tiny kitchen space, next to a handful of rustling shopping bags. It almost looks like he was bending down to pick something up, except his forehead is pressed hard into the cupboard infront of him, and he doesn’t move while Leonard stares.

“Jim.”

The only answer he gets is a harsh, choppy exhalation.

Well. Breathing’s good, at least. Leonard takes a step closer, then crouches down himself. He wants to put a hand on the kid’s shoulder, but settles for staring at the back of his neck. It glistens with beads of sweat, flexes under the force of a long, slow cycle of inhale and exhale.

His mind connects the dots fast enough that he doesn’t have to dredge up the actual memories, and understanding keeps him calm when he speaks. “Jim. You’re having a panic attack.

Jim turns his head just a fraction, enough to pierce him with a glance. “I am. Not. I’m. Breathing.”

“Can I touch you?” asks Leonard.

Jim nods.

He scoots closer, takes a hold of the muscle above Jim’s shoulder bone with one hand, firm, but not tight. He doesn’t touch anywhere else; it’s Jim who melts against him, knocking their rib cages together, his face in the nook of Leonard’s neck.

“You’re okay,” says Leonard.
    “Yeah,” says Jim. “I’m okay. I just.” He doesn’t finish.

“You do this a lot,” says Leonard, not sure whether it’s a statement or a question.

“It’s gotten better,” says Jim. “I haven’t had a meltdown in months.”

Oof. Right to the solar plexus. “Wanna talk about it?”

Jim sniffs. He’s quiet long enough that Leonard accepts it as a ‘no,’ but then, “Wanted to cook. With you.”

Leonard blinks. He looks over at the shopping bags, fulls of round shapes and tufts of dark green leaves. “Cook?” he asks as mildly as he can.

“Together,” says Jim. “Real food.”

“Okay,” says Leonard, even though it’s really not the word he wants to use.

This is. Something sacred. And Jim is trying to share it with him.

He’s always thought … well. That it was a care-taking thing. Or a control thing, or somewhere in between. He’d never made the very basic leap that Jim’s thing with food might actually also be about food .

“What’re we having?” Leonard’s voice cracks in a way it hasn’t since puberty.

Jim’s breath is warm against his skin. “Secret recipe,” he says.

“Okay. Bring it on.”

Once they manage to make their way off the floor, Leonard learns that cooking, with Jim at least, is both novel and rewarding. And something he’s not really great at, but whatever. It's also mildly exhausting, or maybe that’s just his emotions.

He doesn’t push Jim to talk about it, because he figures neither of them are up for the discussion, and besides, the kid’s given him so much today. Still, later that night, he lies in bed, staring at the dark ceiling, listening to the quiet, and all he can think is that the kid never knocks on his door. Never says a word about nightmare or panic attacks, even though Leonard’s not stupid enough to think either issue is a one time event.

They’re building something here, something different than Leonard’s ever had or even seen before. And it scares him to death, wondering how close they might be to falling apart, without him even noticing.

Still. Jim’s trying, clearly. Leonard is damn well going to do the same.

Chapter Text

Leonard would like very much to know what the fuck is this kid’s problem.

He’s not even talking about Jim this time. It’s rare enough that someone manages to intrude on their little bubble for very long, at least not directly. Yet somehow, out of nowhere, some fourth year command track cadet has started stalking Jim.

He starts out pseudo-non-confrontational. Just comes up one day, invites himself to a seat next to Jim while he and Leonard are eating lunch.

“Can I help you?” says Leonard, making it as clear as possible that he’s not really asking.

“Sean Finnegan,” the cadet offers. “I was your TA when you got your ass handed to you on the Wilderness Practical.”

Jim’s mouth tightens, and Leonard positively prickles. He got decent marks on that, thank you very much. And he didn’t die, despite it being a real possibility. “Right,” he says. “Glad to see you did such a good job of ensuring us measly cadet’s safety.”

Finnegan rolls his eyes. “Lighten up, doctor. It was a joke . I’m actually here to talk to James.” The fucker turns to look at the kid. He opens his mouth to say something, but he’s made a rookie mistake. He sat too close, didn’t heed the tension crackling through Jim’s body. His knee brushes against Jim’s and it’s over right then.

Leonard keeps his feet, because he knows what’s coming, and because Jim reached out an arm to keep him steady. Finnegan, on the other hand, goes right over with the bench.

“We really shouldn’t over-crowd these things,” says the kid, staring down faux-speculatively at where the cadet is sprawled on the ground. “It’s not safe.” He looks up at Leonard. “Perhaps we should go find a different bench,” he suggests. “If Mr Finnegan doesn’t mind.”

Leonard’s got to give the man some credit: he doesn’t crack. Doesn’t go red and blow a gasket, like most other people would. He stands up, dusts of his knees, and looks up with Jim. “No worries,” he says. The control in his voice is a close imitation of Jim’s poker face, but the edge to his smile is a little too over blown. “I guess I’ll see you around, James.” He spins on his heel and stalks off.

“Well shit,” says Leonard, “something tells me this is not going to be good.”

Near as Karsi can figure, this kid pissed off somebody he shouldn’t have. Contrary to popular stereotypes, most security cadets don’t actually take simple minded, sadistic pleasure in beating other people up. Security is about keeping people safe , and it’s a standard they hold themselves to quite rigorously. But politics infects even the most straightforward of Starfleet disciplines, and orders are orders.

She’d let it go, except it’s the cadet’s in her group that are taking the backlash, and fuck that.

Drills are a pretty standard way of teaching security cadets to apply their skills in dynamic situations, and as a bonus, they get to test the reaction times in some of the other sectors of Starfleet. But for relatively obvious reasons, the professors try to restrict the impact of the drills on the regular cadets. They’re just not trained for it yet. So usually, they run their contamination or infiltration or whatever protocols in the advanced labs, or in the faculty buildings, anywhere out of the way of the general student populace.

Running a drill in the General Engineering Research building is bullshit. All it takes is one junior cadet to overreact, and the situation can get way out of control.

Cadet Tiberius overreacts. At least he manages to keep the situation contained, but that’s poor consolation for the security cadets who are nursing injuries, or the lab staff cowering in confusion behind their machines.

Giotto is furious. It’s not his fault, just the natural reaction of a high strung temper to watching his entire crew take a beating, but it’s only going to make the situation worse, and at this rate, might actually get him killed.

“Arctic Blue,” Karsi barks with as much authority as she can muster, praying that Giotto registers the code phrase and backs down. For once in his goddamned career.

The effect is instantaneous, but it doesn’t come from Giotto, not at first. The icey blonde cadet who just took down her entire team snaps back, cuts cold eyes to her. The blunt force weapon in his hand aborts it swing, twitches downwards.

Karsi meets his gaze in shock. Unbelieving, but equally unwilling to let the opportunity pass, she gestures at chest level with one hand: weapons down . He drops it with a clatter, moving his arms back into a defensive stance.

Holy shit. He’s not just combat trained, he’s Starfleet trained. That’s not a coincidence, no way. Even Giotto is wavering where stands, aware that the situation has shifted, but not understanding how.

Join the club. The three of them glance between each other, waiting.

Karsi straightens. “Cadet Alae Karsi, fourth year security. Who the fuck are you?”

His eyes slide back to her, no less calculating than they were in the heat of combat. “Cadet James Tiberius. Second year engineering. You’re … not attacking.” It’s more of an observation than a question, but Karsi rushes to reassure him.

“It’s just a drill. Not even supposed to engage, just sabotage. You weren’t even supposed to know we were here.”

“What the fuck?” snarls Giotto. “You broke Seth’s wrist.”

“I couldn’t contain you all at once,” says Tiberius. “The alarm protocols in this building are shit. I had to take at least some of you down.” He doesn’t match Giottos tone, and Karsi notices a softening of his stance, but his flat tone is not making him friends with anyone else.

“Something’s wrong, here,” says Karsi. “No way is it a coincidence that the only non-security track cadet capable of taking down an entire trained team just happens to be here, in the building where we’re scheduled to run this drill.”

“What?” Cadet Giotto looks at her in confusion. “What are you saying?”

“She’s saying we need to clean this up,” says Tiberius. “We spin this wrong, every last one of us could get discharged.”

“Um,” calls one of the scientist, poking his head around the corner. “So … it’s safe? Someone want to explain what the hell is going on?”

“I’m not sure,” says Karsi. “But we’re going to need to figure it out.”

“No waves,” says Tiberius. “This smells like polish.”

“What? ” tries Giotto again.

“Shit,” says Karsi. Figures the brass would be involved. Tiberius gives her a small nod. Whatever this kid is mixed up in, she’s pulling her students out of it, right the fuck now.

Besides. Something tells her he can look after himself.

She doesn’t really think it’s an accident that she finds him. If people like Jim really want to hide, they don’t get found. But it’s not intentional that he’s on the ground, fists curled into his own shirt and his head between his knees.

By the time she pulls open the door to the private study room, he’s mostly breathing. She nudges the door closed and sets her bag on the floor. She doesn’t come any closer, just leans back against the wall and slides down to his height.

They wait for it to pass.

The air in the room reeks of terror, but when Jim finally props his head up, his features are blank.

“What do you need, Jim?” she asks.

“I tried to hack the server,” he says, “but my hands were shaking too much.

It takes her only a few minutes to find the data. Her mouth sours and she understands what has been done.

“I don’t understand. Why did they let this happen?”

“Politics. And spite, probably. Or maybe it’s a test. I don’t know.” He runs a trembling hand through his hair. “I need to be careful.”

She deletes the files, runs the subroutine to cover her tracks. She watches him watching her “Jim. Can I ask why you came to me?”

His body is loosening, bit by bit, unwinding into exhaustion. “You trusted me,” he says.

She smiles. “I do. Thank you for doing the same.”

“I’m sorry to get you involved,” he says in an almost whisper. She can taste his shame, honest and ugly.

She shakes her head. “Don’t. We both knew I was involved the moment we met. I mean, eventually someone would have figured out that I’m not stupid.

He half laughs. “How could anyone think you’re stupid, Galia?”

He’s not being facetious, which somehow makes her more sad. “They don’t see me, Jim. Just like you’ve kept them from seeing you.”

He leaves eventually. Of course he does. But before that, they sit together a while more.

Arranging to get himself in charge of James’ debrief is the easiest part. Naturally, it’s also the first part to fall through. Well, technically, his plan goes to shit way before the debrief, but watching James’ name get yanked of his list is the first he’s aware of it.

He can piece together what happened well enough. There was enough information from the live updates to understand that one of the bystanders caught wind of the ‘intruders’ and basically wrecked hell. The ID tag of the team reporting injuries is all that Sean needs to confirm his suspicion that James is responsible. But any further intel he was hoping to get is washed down the drain. Forget reviewing James’ tactics on the security vids, Sean can’t even prove the bastard was anywhere in the building.

At first it flummoxes him. What the hell is so valuable about this kid that the brass would go so far to cover his ass. The answer, when he finds it, is simple: they’re not. This complete erasure of identity is Jim erasing his own tracks. It’s the same instinct that powers the kid’s stony expression, that drives him to under-perform in class so consistently, it can’t be anything but intentional. And any help he’s getting sure as hell isn’t sanctioned.

This opens up a whole new avenue of possibility. If Finnegan isn’t the only one who has to worry about toeing the line with the higher ups, he can take bigger risks, work outside the strict lines of the rules instead of trying to manipulate them.

His plan might have been a disaster, but James set himself up so that Finnegan barely has to do anything to get access to a rehash. Giotto might suspect Sean of working an angle, but he’s too pissed off not to take the bait. There might be gaps, but Sean knows enough about James’ schedule mention, off hand, where he’s going to be the next night. The gleam in Giotto’s eyes is all the confirmation he needs to know that the idea has taken hold.

Never pays to be overconfident, though. Sean should really know that by now. He should have accounted for the possibility that Giotto might actually have a level of initiative. Enough to gather his group of thugs and track James down himself , hours before Sean was expecting.

If he didn’t have his ear plugged so tightly into the security rumor mill, he would have missed the altercation entirely. As it is, he finds himself sprinting across campus, and arriving at the scene just as Dr McCoy does the same.

Shit. If Giotto had just listened they wouldn’t have to deal with the fucking guard dog.

“Jim!” The doctor actually drops what he’s carrying when he catches sight of his friend. The yell diverts James’ attention, though he manages to redirect his uppercut into a block smoothly enough.

Time for Sean to step in. It’s not the fight itself that’s important after all, just the face time with James.

“Cadets,” he barks, striding forward authoritatively. Technically, he’s also still a cadet, but the security knuckle heads will think twice about crossing him, and as a fourth year, he does technically have the authority to verbally reprimand James for fighting, which is all the in he needs.

The situation is not done developing yet, though. Giotto and his friends haven’t really registered his presence yet, but James has. His eyes flick once to Sean, then over his shoulder at McCoy. Mid brawl, the cadet makes a decision.

He drops his hands, evens his stance, and locks his arms behind his back. It’s a perfect parade rest position, and it doesn’t falter one inch when Giotto’s fist smashes into his face.

In an excruciating time delay, it seems to register with the security cadets that their adversary has stopped defending himself.  Their onslaught falters, and they glance between themselves in confusion. Giotto spots Finnegan first, and even at a distance, he balks visibly. By the time Sean closes the space between them, he’s managed to wrestle the rest of cadets into a semi orderly line. For all his temper, the man is competent.

McCoy is panting as he comes up behind Jim. He sets a hand lightly on his friend’s shoulder, but then seems to think better of the gesture and pulls it away.

“Cadets,” Sean repeats. “It’s nine o'clock at night. Fighting in the middle of campus? Not only are you breaking regulations and disgracing Starfleet’s reputation, but, quite frankly, you have embarrassed yourselves. ”

Giotto’s face is purpling, but he maintains discipline with a visible effort.

“Cadet Giotto. I’m sure your advisor would be quite disappointed to hear about this.” It’s conspicuously not a threat. Both the man himself and James seem to pick up on the pass Sean is giving the security cadets. Good. “ Dismissed , Giotto. Make sure you and your peers see yourselves back to the dorms.”

If Gitto contests, all he’s going to do is drag his friends into trouble, and he knows it. They leave.

McCoy’s voice is hushed and urgent. “Jim. What’s going on?”

“Doctor McCoy. Allow us a moment to discuss Cadet Tiberius's behavior while I decide if a reprimand is necessary.” If Sean can’t get away from the doctor’s prying ears, anything he might get from James is going to be half as valuable.

The man looks entirely less than inclined to obey Sean’s suggestion, but to their astonishment, James steps forward, no acknowledgement of the friend staring in shock at his back.

“Jim.”

“ Wait , Bones.” The absolute authority in James’ voice is comparable only to the determination Sean observed when McCoy’s life hung in the balance. The doctor positively reels in shock, but Sean seizes on the opportunity.

He leads James away from the doctor’s prying ears, and also into a semi-blind spot in campus surveillance. James steps just inside the protected radius, and not an inch further.

Gut instincts tell him not to try and bluff. He tries a blunter approach. “I’m not trying to ruin your life, James. You’ve probably noticed me pushing your buttons here and there, but it’s not a personal vendetta, or an amusing pastime for me.” Well. It is a rather diverting endeavour, but that’s not the point. “Surely you can understand how you’re a mystery I can’t afford to leave unsolved.”

James says nothing.

“Are you hiding? I can’t understand how you could take out an entire tactical team, and yet, just a few days later, a group of three cadets manage to hold their ground against --” Intuition sparks in Sean’s mind. Something he saw earlier, and didn’t notice. He doesn’t bother to hide his shock. “You’re compensating for an injury. What’s wrong with your arm?”

When he doesn’t get an answer, Sean stalks around asses the limb James still has firmly behind his back. The cadet’s posture doesn’t flinch, which, more than anything, convinces Sean that touching is not a good idea. Still, even in the dim light, he can make out the irregular bulk hiding beneath James’ left sleeve.

He completes his circle to scrutinize James’ face again. “Sprained? Broken? An injury like that should be well healed by now. Have you even gotten it treated?”

James says nothing.

“So you don’t want to admit what happened in the engineering lab,” Sean muses. “Fine. You decided not to go to the clinic because you can’t explain your injury. But. James. Your roommate is a doctor . One who would do pretty much anything you asked. Why hasn’t he treated you yet?”

James says nothing.

“You must have hidden it from him. Why? Don’t you trust him? Is he plant of some kind? For goodness sakes, James, you must be in pain .”

James says nothing.

“You care about him, clearly,” says Sean more gently. Doubting that after his first encounter with the cadets would be foolish. “So you’re protecting him. Trying to keep him from getting involved. That … honestly sounds like a terrible decision, James. Surely, if you’ve ever seen a holovid, you know that never works out.”

“Perhaps we should clarify something, Finnegan,” says James at last. Sean cocks his head, intrigued. “You have taken actions that I consider to be directly hostile.”

Sean laughs. “Lighten up, James. I might have had a bit of fun at your expense, but I think we both have more to offer each other than a petty rivalry.”

James widens his face into a small smile. “I don’t want a rivalry, Finnegan. Frankly, that sounds entirely exhausting and counterproductive. So I ‘m going to walk away from this. And you’re going to walk away from this. And whatever you wanted from me,” his voice goes ice cold, “ do without it. ”

Sean drops his levity, lets his stance widen to match James’. “That your final answer, James?”

The cadets hands fall to his sides, fists loose and steady. He turns his back and  walks away.

Well. That could have gone better, but just as easily worse. Apparently, pushing James is at best a zero-sum tactic. Fine. Sean can wait. He’s put himself on James’ chess board now, at the very least.

Besides. It might be harder this way, but Sean can damn well get himself where he wants to be. It’s a matter of pride.

Chapter Text

Being friends with Jim provokes an odd mixture of over protectiveness and a deep seated belief in his invincibility. The kid’s half trouble magnet, half tough as nails impervious. (And no, that is not too many metaphors.) In all honesty, the kid pushes his boundaries beyond what he’s really comfortable with, but Leonard knows that Jim does the same for his sake. So for all that it can feel like taking pot shots in the dark, he has an unexpected faith that they can work through pretty much anything.

That’s before the kid breaks his arm, sets it himself, and doesn’t say anything for two days. Before they have a fight, before Leonard yells and cries and Jim walks away and doesn’t come back.

They’re not exactly subtle about their falling out. Leonard knows what the other cadets whisper, but despite the familiarity of the tar pit in his stomach, this isn’t anything like his divorce. This isn’t Leonard giving up, getting lost, lashing out. This is a shit storm that’s been brewing for far too long, a line in the core of Leonard’s being that he refuses to cross, not because he doesn’t care, but because he refuses to not care, refuses to keep looking away while Jim quietly destroys himself.

Oh. Shit. Is this what Jocelyn felt like?

He just doesn’t get it. In the beginning, he thought it was something Jim just needed to learn, like sleeping through the night and telling Leonard when he’s full of shit. All those things that Jim knew how to do, and wasn’t shy about, exactly, but had to be convinced that more than allowed, they were welcome behaviours.

But this time, Jim doesn’t back down. He doesn’t narrow his eyes like he’s trying to understand, doesn’t try to explain or negotiate, doesn’t give a single fucking inch. “No,” is all he says. “I took care of it.”

And Leonard doesn’t get it. The kid’s in pain, and Leonard makes it pretty damn obvious that this means he’s not alright either. And Jim always does his best to get Leonard what he needs. Just, apparently, not this. He’ll let Leonard pull him out of an ice cold shower, but he won’t knock on Leonard’s door after a nightmare. He’ll break away from whatever insane project he’s immersed in to have lunch with Leonard, but he won’t explain his list of allergies. In the middle of a fist fight, three on one with blood flying everywhere, he’ll stop dead if Leonard calls his name. He’ll let a group of boneheads punch him the face because he knows Leonard worries about him getting into trouble , but he won’t let a certified doctor heal his fucking broken arm .

One week into radio silence, Leonard gets wasted and finally admits that this is going to make or break them. He wakes up in the morning, nursing a headache like he hasn’t in a two years. Even that makes him think of Jim. The kid had explained away his own sobriety with a simple, It smells like my uncle , which did more to dry up Leonard than a year of his mother’s worrying. He never complained when Leonard cracked a bottle, but the shit just didn’t taste the same.

Fuck. Maybe the kid moved back in with Mitchell. Maybe he rented his own apartment, maybe he dropped out of the academy, maybe he’s rotting in a ditch.

Leonard doesn’t look for him. He can’t risk caving.

It takes Galia to crack the ice. She corners him in the clinic, slaps a hand on the PADD he’s reading to knock it out of the way. “Stop it,” she says, grim and angry.

Leonard doesn’t bother trying to pretend he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. He might not be very familiar with the Orion, but Jim mentions her from time to time, which counts for a whole fucking lot. Besides, there’s no one else she could be talking about.

“I don’t know what to do,” he says, dog miserable.

She deflates. “Fuck. I don’t think he does, either.”

“What now?” Leonard doesn’t care if he sounds like begging.

“I don’t know. I’ll tell him you look pathetic. Might help.”

Leonard doesn’t hold out much hope. He watches her leave and starts to think that it might really be over.

Four hours later, he gets a file on his PADD.

The call to Jim goes through, thank fuck. He probably ought to be civil, here, but he’s worn too thin. “What is this?”

“It’s a form to file you as my official next of kin,” says Jim. Which, obviously, Leonard could tell by looking at it. Doctor, and all that jazz.

Jim won’t look him in the eye. He taps the fingers of his right hand almost idly against the side of the screen. But this isn’t their first year anymore, and Leonard knows how to read this kid like a medical text.

“Why?” asks Leonard.

“Galia said … she told me to figure something out. I thought. Maybe. Just.” The kid stops to take a breath. “This way, you’re my emergency contact. And. If I get really hurt or something, you’ll have a say.”

Jim fists a hand in his hair and tugs. Leonard can hear himself cracking.

“This doesn’t fix the problem,” he says, more gently than he intends to. Because wasn’t that the point of this disaster? Not backing down, confronting the issue before it blows up in their faces?

“I know,” says Jim. “But I couldn’t think of anything else.”

Goddamn it. This is it. This is why Leonard does shit for this kid he’d never pull for anyone else. Because Jim is sitting in front of him, bending . Scared, but trying. If Leonard had half the kid’s guts, he might still be married.

He signs the damn form. Jim comes home.

There's something strange going on with Pike's campus.

Don't get him wrong; Pike is no administrator. But the price of waiting for The Enterprise is a grounded position, overseeing the bright young cadets, and the job is more fulfilling than he would have expected. It also doesn't hurt to get the inside scoop on who he wants to request when he finally ships out again.

But even if he hadn't grown reluctantly fond of his position of caretaker, the idea of an ill intentioned force meddling with the futures of Fleet recruits would raise any self-respecting captain’s hackles. The difference is, this is now Pike’s responsibility to fix.

He has an idea where the problem is coming from. It was, in fact, the presence of admiralty fingerprints where they shouldn’t be that raised his suspicion in the first place. Balance of probability is that Marcus is involved, if not directly responsible. But the interference itself is too subtle for Chris to call him on it.

Cadets’ schedules get shuffled before the start of the semester. Their records have been rifled through, though Pike can’t pinpoint anything that was changed. And there has been a conspicuous effort to direct Pike’s attention away from something: projects pop-up out of nowhere for Pike to work on, issues no-one cared about before are suddenly made his priority, and when he’s done with those, they offer him the chance to oversee short expeditions to train some of the more advanced cadets.

Frankly, he hasn’t the slightest idea what to do about it. He’ll keep a close eye on his cadets, and his ears open for whispers. If Marcus really is interfering, it’s bound to be something important that will surface eventually. All he can do for now is try and be prepared.

Goddamn he wants his spaceship already.

Leonard doesn’t feel even the littlest bit guilty for using Jo as an excuse. It is the absolute truth that she’s dying to see Jim anyways, and if it just so happens to ease Leonard’s mind as well, sue him.

Jim is skeptical. His first response is to decline the invitation, but he doesn’t seem to know how to react when Leonard continues to insist.

He says he doesn’t want to intrude.

He claims to have a load of classwork.

He says quite seriously that someone will need to water their plant over break.

They finally get to the point where Jim is speculating that his allergy to peaches really ought to take the whole state of Georgia off the table, Leonard puts his foot down.

“Under absolutely no circumstances are you required to come Jim. You’re entitled to do what you want over break. But it would make Jo Jo so happy to see you.”

Jim’s tenuous resistance melts into bemused acceptance, and Leonard turns his attentions to the other hurdles.

His mother extends the invitation automatically, but needs a great deal of reassurance to calm her hosting qualms. Yes, the guest bedroom will be fine, no, better to let Jim take care of his own food, and no , Mother, that’s not being rude, that’s really what Jim wants.

Then, in a courtesy he entirely resents but definitely would want to be reciprocated, he has to arrange for Jim to meet Jocelyn. The kid is going to be spending a week living with her daughter, but Leonard is not looking forward to having these two spheres of his life meet.

Jocelyn politely requests a face to face rather than a vid call, so the morning after finals wrap, Leonard and Jim pack up and head out.

They even manage to get going without having a fight first, though it was a close call. Leonard doesn’t know why he’s surprised, but all Jim bothers to bring is a change of clothes, a toothbrush, and a PADD. He tucks them in the outer pocket of Leonard’s duffel. Leonards mood is immediately soured by the visual of how little progress he’s made on taking care of the kid. Before he can turn snippy, though, Jim just looks at him and says that he trusts Leonard to take care of his things. There’s little Leonard can do in response besides deflate.

Having Jim with him makes shuttle rides infinitely easier in a way Leonard will never stop appreciating. He’s been rather forcibly acclimatized to them over the last few years, but having the kid next to him, badgering him to explain the xenobiology assignment he’s trying to scratch out, is like sitting in the middle of a protective bubble. He doesn’t even bother worrying about the meeting coming up, because trying to coach Jim through something like that is just a waste of oxygen.

The cafe where Jocelyn’s waiting from them is close enough to the station that Leonard gives in to Jim’s suggestion to walk. He finds himself constantly glancing sideways as they wander through the streets, seized by a funky mood. Half of it is just trying to gauge how the kid’s feeling, but a good part of it is also the … surrealness of seeing Jim in the landscape of Leonard’s youth. For his own part, the kid lapses into silence.

Jocelyn is dressed in her work suit. She smiles politely at Jim, extends her hand for him to shake. A flash of unease blinks through Leonard, doubt that he should have exposed the kid to this. But it never pays to underestimate Jim. He nods politely, and pulls out a chair for Leonard to sit down.

Jocelyn lets her hand fall, clearly trying to decide if she’s been slighted our not, but Leonard is too busy suppressing pride on Jim’s behalf to care. He hadn’t exactly expected Jim to be intimidated by Jocelyn, but he’s pretty sure things wouldn’t have gone down this way back when they’d first met. The kid is setting limits about he’s comfortable with, unapologetically.

Shaking off the confusion, Jocelyn sits down, and attempts to lead the conversation. The results are amusing.

She begins by asking if their flight was comfortable, a trivial nicety not intended to elicit a comprehensive summary of the mechanical logistics of the short range shuttle they took. Jim speaks at an even pace, more contemplative than like a class lecture. Leonard’s actually a tad impressed how much prolonged exposure to Jim allows him to understand. He also somewhat enjoys the confused, half-alarmed looks his ex-wife keeps sending his way.

Jim concludes his explanation with a dismissive, “Adequate,” that Leonard assumes is meant to address Jocelyns original question. He times it perfectly to coincide with the arrival of the waiter. Jocelyn has maintained her composure enough to give her order without stammering. Jim follows suite, requesting a small salad despite never having looked at the menu. When the waiter looks at Leonard, he simply waves his hand at Jim, giving the kid permission to do as he sees fit.

Oh. Oops. It’s too late to take back as the waiter is tapping in their request, but the look Jocelyn is giving the two of them means that Leonard should have reigned in this particular habit. Then again, letting Jim order his food is the best way Leonard has found of making sure the kid sneaks a few bites of his protein. Food, for them, has become a ritual Leonard’s rather fond of; no need to let Jocelyn spoil it.

“So, Jim,” she says in the awkward space after the waiter leaves. “You’re not going home over break?”

Jim looks at her, tilts his head. Leonard used to think that meant the kid was confused, but it’s actually more of a measuring tactic. “I’m here with Bones,” he says, more firmly than he’s spoken to Jocelyn thus far.

Leonard practically chokes on the inside of his throat. Damn kid.

“I see,” says Jocelyn, meaning that she doesn’t at all. “And your family?”

Jim reaches out, taps his fingers once on the table in front of him. “I’m here with Bones,” he says again.

Comprehension lights Jocelyn’s eyes. Leonard bristles and leans forward, expecting a judgment or an inquisition of some kind, but the look on her face stops him short. Understanding mixes with sympathy in her features. “Well.” She pauses before speaking again. “Joanna is certainly looking forward to meeting you.”

Perhaps Jim isn’t the only one Leonard underestimated.

Joanna loves when Daddy comes to visit. He’s a lot more fun than Grandma, and he tells her exciting stories like they’re secrets. It makes her feel special. That’s why she was looking forward to meeting Mr Jim so much, but it’s also why she starts to regret it.

Daddy talks about Mr Jim a lot. What if he wants to spend all the time hanging out with Jim instead of her?

Her doubts don’t stop Jonna from running to the doorway when she hears them approach. The first thing Daddy does is drop his bag and lean down with arms wide. She squeals in delight.

When hugs are out of the way, Daddy and Mr Jim don’t immediately run off to play with her. She has to wait while Jim is introduced to Grandma. That’s okay at first, because Mr Jim really does act weird, and it’s kind of fun. But once that’s over, she wants to play tag. Daddy gets this funny look on his face.

“Maybe that’s not such a good idea, Sweetheart.”

Joanna stares at him. They always play tag when he comes home.

“How about hide and seek?” He suggests instead, smiling apologetically.

Joanna gives in, because she doesn’t know what else to do, but it stings. They haven’t played hide and seek since she was four and got mad at him -- it’s not fun if he has to pretend not to know where she’s hiding.

Daddy starts counting and she wanders off reluctantly to crouch behind a cabinet in the other room. She sulks for a while, waits for Daddy to find her so they can go play something else. But when she looks up, it’s not Daddy who finds her first. Mr Jim darts silently around the corner, finger on his lips to keep her quiet.

“Mr Jim,” she whispers crossly. “You’re supposed to be hiding.”

“I am hiding. Bones hasn’t found me yet,” he whispers back, sitting down next to her.

Joanna rolls her eyes. “You’re not supposed to move .”

Mr Jim isn’t smiling when he looks at her, but his eyes are dancing. “Bones said no going outside, no interrupting Grandma, and no running.”

Jonna looks at him speculatively. Technically, those were the only rules Daddy had laid out. “If we both stay here, we’re gonna get caught a lot sooner,” she counters.

Jim taps his finger on the point of his nose. “Who says we’re staying here?”

What follows is the most fun game of hide and seek Joanna has played, ever . She’s pretty sure Daddy saw her legs under the cabinet the first time he came through this room, and passed her by on purpose. Which makes it doubly fun when they hear him come back and find her missing. They peek over the banister to watch him look around in confusion, then Jim leads her quietly deeper into the house.

They make a good team. Joanna shows Mr Jim the creaky steps, and he carries her over the areas without carpet. For all that he’s bigger than she is, he’s super sneaky. They hide under beds, purposefully leave open doors, and lead Daddy on an enormous goose chase all across the house. Each time they walk by Grandma they give her a big wave, and soon every time Daddy stalks by she laughs at him louder and louder.

“Traitors,” Daddy calls from where he’s standing in the hallway, half panting from trying to catch them in the act of moving. “The whole lot of you. Ganging up on a poor old man.”

Mr Jim and Joanna slide up behind him, and say loudly through the crack of the door, “No running allowed, Bones.”

He whirls around, and Jonna breaks down laughing at his face. He yanks the door open, fake anger sliding away when he sees her sitting on the floor next to where Jim is crouched.

“Alright, alright,” he says. “Enough hide and seek for one day, I should think.”

Grandma announces that she’s starting dinner, and Jim stands up immediately. “I’ll go help out,” he says, and strides off, leaving Jonna and Daddy in his wake.

Daddy is looking after him, and Joanna’s laughter dies out.

“Come on, Honey,” he says at last, “let’s go set the table.”

Tired out from all the fun, Jonna is quiet during dinner. She spent the whole morning thinking of a million questions to ask Mr Jim, but now, she finds herself just watching.

He doesn’t talk much to Grandma. He’s pretty quiet, but to her especially. He mostly nods and quirks his lips in a non-smile. He has a much easier time talking to Daddy, and actually manages a real smile for him at one point. Also, he does that same thing to Daddy that Momma does when she fusses over what Jonna eats, though he’s not nearly as annoying about it. And he doesn’t even touch Grandma’s famous chicken.

Daddy was right, she decides. Mr Jim is definitely a little bit crazy. He’s cool, though. Maybe she can get him to make omelets for breakfast.

Chapter Text

All things considered, third years starts off well enough. Leonard is sober, and not in a hospital, and he and Jim return to the amicable routine of their shared apartment very nicely. Even the plant is doing well. As for the kid … Jim is … great?

He knows what it sounds like, but Leonard is not jealous. He considers himself the founding member of the Jim should learn how to talk to other people so they won’t shoot a phaser at his back club. He just, well, never expected the club to catch on.

It starts with Galia popping in to some of their study sessions, which obviously devolves into Jim making food for the three of them, because god forbid one of them get the least bit hungry. Leonard thinks it’s perfectly reasonable for any sane person to resent the black hole of technical jargon that forms around the pair, especially when said blackhole starts migrating to his and Jim’s apartment, and then swallowing up the living room with a projected screen covered in equations.

Leonard is just a teensy bit exasperated, okay? It has nothing to do with the way Jim is more comfortable with Galia than Leonard has seen him with anyone else. Even Joanna. (Maybe even himself.) But it’s good for the kid, and it’s probably not half bad for Leonard himself to spend sometime around other people. He’ll adjust.

But then. Then . Then Gary Freaking Mitchell is knocking on their door, and that’s just. Just. Ew.

Of course, Galia chirps and waves the bastard inside, and Gary’s complementing their fern, which makes Jim perk up and start explaining it’s phylum and species, and apparently this is happening whether Leonard understands why or not. Figures that the kid’s friends would be almost as crazy as him.

Jim chooses homestyle mac’n’cheese for dinner, probably because he can tell that Leonard’s grumpy, but he serves it with a side of fresh fruit salad that is so delicious, Leonard finds himself growing conversely grumpier.

“Betting pool in our hallway is split fifty-fifty,” says Mitchell with a mouthful of cheese.

“What pool?” asks Galia

“Whether James is cheating on Dr Bones with you, or the three of you have an ‘arrangement.’”

Leonard chokes on a grape while Galia throws her head back in peals of laughter.

Jim’s foot sneaks under the table, does a light double tap against Leonard’s toe. It’s a question; Jim doesn’t get the joke. Leonard just growls as fiercely as he’s capable of while coughing.

Somehow, Mitchell tracks the interaction, even though there was little enough for him to see. “You know how people gossip, James. They assume you and Dr Bones are an item. You know, dating, fucking, etc. And, well…”

“And they assume that anyone I even look at is sleeping with me,” Galia finishes.

Jim frowns. “That’s stupid.”

“That’s people,” says Mitchell dismissively. “And if any of us were to ever try insisting that you guys were just friends, believe me, that would only make things worse.”

“Bones isn’t my friend,” says Jim. Leonard’s fork scrapes hideously against his plate, but of course, no one’s paying any attention to that. “He’s way more important than that.”

The three of them are silent, staring at the kid. Gary’s face is calculating, Galia’s fond, and heavens only knows what Leonard’s is doing. Jim stands up and clears the table, just like any other night.

Leonard feels a headache coming on. Mitchell reaches over to pat him on the shoulder, so Bones scowls in his direction.

“Don’t worry,” says Mitchell. “Anyone talks too much shit about you and your boy in front of us, we’ll kick their asses.”

“Oh,” says Galia. “I thought the plan was to hack into their records and log bizarre dietary restrictions so they’re stuck eating plomeek soup for months.”

“Pff.” Mitchell waves a hand negligently. “Like you don’t do that anyway when you get bored.”

As Jim comes back and wants to know what they’re laughing about, Leonard experiences a dawning sense of horror. He’s starting to get the sneaking suspicion that these crazy bastards aren’t just Jim’s friends, they’re Leonard’s as well.

If that’s true, well. God save Leonard and Starfleet.

Sean makes it into the program. Of course he does, he worked damn hard for it, but it’s a bit of a relief all the same.

Okay, so, technically, it’s not official. But they’ve actually told him about the program, which means they’re pretty damn sure they want him, even though he still has to pass the training course.

It’s a bit disheartening, actually, to realize that after four long years of the academy, he’s still got a shit load of training to get through, but he consoles himself with the fact that James bloody Tiberius is nowhere in sight. Actually, now that the whole thing is more secure, Sean reflects that it wouldn’t have been so bad to serve with James. It would have been interesting at the very least.

It doesn’t occur to Sean to be scared of what the training will involve. He expects it to be difficult, of course, tougher than anything he’s had to do so far. He does pick up on Professor Griggs’ mild disapproval, gathers that she thinks he’s not taking the whole thing seriously enough. But he is taking it seriously. Succeeding here is the most important part of his life right now, which is why he’s enjoying it so much. So he’s a bit resentful when she pulls him aside right after the briefing for his first mock mission.

“You’re the freshest on your team, Finnegan, and that’s going to matter here. Just remember that making it through the exercise is more important that finishing the exercise.”

“Yessir,” says Sean dutifully, but really he’s keeping half an ear on the bragging that’s bouncing between his teammates, all of whom are determined to beat the high score this time around.

Griggs notices of course, and she turns to bark at the group, “I don’t give a fuck what your score is. I care how well you do.” Sean frowns a little, trying to parse out what that sentence means. The score is what counts, right? Reading his expression, the Professor adds, “And if you don’t think I’m serious, you should know that I just quoted the exact words a fourteen year old boy said to his team, right before he set the high score.”

The trainees trade looks, but before anyone can pluck the courage to ply for more information, the klaxon sounds that has them scrambling into their stations.

Fuck all the ominous portents and shit, decides Finnegan. He’s gonna kill this thing.

Three minutes later, he’s shivering on the ground and his leg is on fire.

Time gets really weird for a space here, superimposed over pain and wetness and bright lights. The next solid thing he’s really aware of is a steady dripping inside his arm. It brings a prickly wave of relief, cooling pain and easing tension. His eyes start to find focus again, his brain arranging ideas in meaningful patterns.

He was hurt. Someone’s given him the good stuff, a doctor probably. So he’s in a hospital? Yeah, that explains the light.

There’s a voice, familiar but not a memory. A cadet? Oh, it’s whatshisface, James’ friend. He was a doctor, right?

A pinch in his neck, and the world snaps together.

"Ow! Fuck.” Sean spits out the words like oatmeal.

“Oh, don’t be such an infant.” McCoy’s face swings over Sean’s, pulled down into a scowl. “It’s your own damn fault for not having the good sense to go somewhere else and get hurt. Isn’t that the whole point of graduating?”

“Wha’ happened?” Also, can he get another doctor please?

“I’m told you fell down a whole two stories. Not sure how that happens. You go out a window?”

Sean doesn’t remember any windows. A cliff, maybe?

The doctor is still talking. “You broke your leg into tiny, itty bitty pieces, so bravo for that, but the real kicker is that you managed to crack two of your lower vertebra.”

Oh. Oh shit. That sounds. Bad.

“Oh relax,” huff McCoy. “Surgery went well. I got everything back into proper alignment, and the Osteo is finishing off the rest. Two days in a hover chair and you’ll be back to your space kung fu and goading of innocent cadets, or whatever the hell you do.” Sean makes a sound that’s supposed to turn into a word, but McCoy waves him off. “No, no. I don’t want to hear. I asked Jim if he thought you were in trouble, and he said he thought you’d do well enough. That’s good enough for me.”

Something about the phrasing there pricks at Sean, but McCoy doesn’t give him enough to figure it out. “You’re not, are you,” says McCoy.  “In trouble.” His voice makes it a statement, but the expectant silence makes it a question.

Sean twists his head as much as possible to frown directly at the doctor. “No. Why’d I be in trouble?”

McCoy’s only response is to sniff, “idiot,” one last time, before punching something in a PADD at the end of Sean’s bed and stalking out the door.

Against all reason, it sounds like McCoy was actually … worried about him? Actually looking out for him?

Try as he might, the only reason Sean can think of why the man would overcome their mutual-- and somewhat justified  -- animosity is that the doctor is simply a good person. Truth be told, it’s kind of a kick in the teeth.

Still, Sean is a Finnegan. And if walking the walk, talking the shit, and scoring high isn’t going to cut it, then he’s damn well gonna buckle down and do well .

It’s the anniversary. Again. Not the worst one, thankfully, but it is the most public one, which can turn into a nightmare all on it’s own. This one, though, is shaping out better than she had hoped. They’re a full day’s warp into deeps space, no one on the crew has said anything stupid, and she’s just spent the last three hours neck deep in the holodeck wiring. There’s a deep glass of wine and a tepid, bland meal waiting for her, but first, there’s something Winona needs to do.

No matter how far into space you go, there are always some people who just can’t take a hint. Once a year, a whole horde of self-important people will feel overwhelmed with sympathy, and overflow her inbox with letters and messages of condolences and meaningless shit. The first few years, she’d made the mistake of trying to deal with them, of opening at least some of them. She knows better now.  

She doesn’t read the names, doesn’t glance at the subject lines. Every last one goes directly and permanently into the trash. The only weakness she allows herself is that she doesn’t do it all at once. It’s petty, and stupid, but the ordeal has become something of a ritual for her, not pleasurable, exactly, but undeniably vindictive. She sits in the thinly padded chair in her room and selects the messages one at a time, destroying each one with it’s own, individual tap. It will take her an hour. She doesn’t care.

Fuck every last one of these people. What gives them the right? They’re either pandering, or using her as a pressure valve for their own insecurities and pains, appropriating her tragedy as if they could in someway relate.

Winona knows for an absolute fact that there is no one out there she’d want to hear from today. She’s proving it, with every vicious tap of her grease covered fingers: the dead don’t leave messages.

Chapter Text

The Kobayashi wrecks Jim.

It’s not even for engineering cadets. Most students do eventually take their turn on the simulated bridge, and nerve wracking as that tends to be, all they really have to do is demonstrate a basic ability to take orders without pissing their pants. But Jim, bless his heart, never does make things easy.

The first time, Leonard didn’t even know the kid was signed up for the exam. He just comes back the the apartment one afternoon to find Jim sitting on the floor, wound tighter than a spring, watching and re-watching the taping of the exam. It’s hard to say what exactly has set the kid off, when by all normal standards, he did fairly well.

So, Leonard gives the kid his space, offers a few distractions for when he’s ready to move on, and figures that will be the end of it.

The second time is worse. Leonard knows what Jim’s doing this time, but only because he got drafted onto the mock crew as well. In the week leading up to it, Jim barely says three words. At first, he tries to lock himself up in their apartment and study endlessly. When Leonard tries to convince him that he’s taking it too far -- it’s not like the Kobayashi Maru is a test you study for, not really -- he decides to pick up his old habit of disappearing. Two days whole days Leonard doesn't see the kid, till he finally shows up for the exam with a suspiciously homemade splint on his left hand and won’t look Leonard in the eye.

But it’s the change that comes over Jim when he takes his station that sends Leonard into Defcon one. Feet planted firmly, arms loose at his side, it’s like all the tension washes off of the kid. Cadet Rafeji starts giving commands from where she sits in the chair, but it becomes immediately clear to Leonard that she has exactly no power in this room. Not compared to Jim.

When Rafeji gives the order to hail the stranded ship, Jim offers to offset whatever frequency the communications cadet uses, providing a crude cloaking mechanism for their transmission. When the Klingon warships appear on screen, Jim reports that the level of power necessary for shielding can be offset thirty-two percent by directing evasive maneuvers in counter-clockwise orbit to the moon. Rafeji doesn’t even notice that Jim has set the strategy for combat in motion before they’ve even technically engaged.

It’s because of Jim that they get the first shot. It’s because of him that they evacuate and seal off the most directly exposed areas of the ship before they’ve even started taking fire. When it becomes clear that their navigator is incompetent, it’s Jim who effectively re-delegates responsibility by redirecting the information between himself and the the communications cadet, though all anyone else notices is that the helmsman is getting what he needs.

Leonard, as acting science officer, finds himself doing things for Jim that he’s pretty sure real science officers aren’t expected to do, but he digs as deep as he can because every piece of information he feeds Jim from even the smallest of scans works , or at least, buys them another minute. At the same time, it’s the only reason he sees what he guesses Jim sees.

Everybody knows you don’t beat the Kobyashi Maru. But Leonard had never really appreciated why . The Klingons might take damage, but they make repairs twice as fast as their own simulated ship ever could . If they do manage to take one of enemy ships out, the mob they face spits out another that wasn’t there when Leonard scanned them moments before. When Jim manages to maneuver the ship to limit the points of combat, the warbirds respond in exact synchronicity, not just perfectly attuned to each other, but reacting to the commands the cadets type even as they’re inputting them.

This test isn’t about impossible odds, it’s about the impossible . It’s cheating.

Their last resources of resistance seem to snap all at once. One moment, Leonard is desperately pawing through his screen. The next, the simulation has shut off. A white number flashes on the screen, the total time of their simulation. Six hours and forty one minutes.

Cadet Rafeji stands on shaking legs. She gives a speech thanking them for their performance, congratulates them on a phenomenally long run, or something. Leonard’s not listening to her, because he’s staring at Jim, or rather, Jim’s ramrod back.

The kid is out the door the second they’re dismissed, while Leonard has to fend off handshakes on his way out.

He nearly falls flat on his face in the hallway, tripping on the kid’s discarded splint. He picks it up from the floor.

Jim’s standing in the sunlight of the plaza, doing that thing where he conspicuously doesn’t have a panic attack. Leonard reads despair in the heave of the kid’s shoulders, pain in the sheen of his eyes.  

“It’s okay, Jim. Just count, in and out.” This gets eyes docked in his direction. A good sign.

“Sorry, Bones,” says Jim, which Leonard takes as permission to clap his hand on the kid’s shoulder.

“You were amazing, kid. Seriously. If I didn’t know how much of a nerd you are, I’d wonder why you’re in engineering.”

Jim lets out a breathy sigh. “I gotta take it again, Bones.”

Leonard’s grip tightens. “No. Absolutely not. Let Hell freeze over first.”

Jim smiles. “Hell’s already cold, Bones. I have to do this.”

“But. Kid. Why? I saw what happened in there. That test is fucked.”

“That’s why, Bones. It’s like somebody designed it to break people.” To break me is all Leonard hears. The kid’s chin jerks up. “I can’t walk away from that.”

“Pretty sure that’s a damn good reason why you should walk away, Jim. It’s not something you win, kid, you just gotta choose whether or not you let it mess with you.”

“I don’t believe that, Bones, and neither do you.”

Leonard sighs. The kid is too damn stubborn. “Fine. We sign up. One last time, you hear?”

Jim’s face breaks into radiance for a moment, and settles then down into fire. “One last time.”

It might technically be the middle of the afternoon, but Uhura is bone tired. On top of classes, she pulled an all nighter in the lab. She wasn’t technically scheduled, but once she intercepted that strange transmission, there was no way she was handing it off to a different student. So she spent hours piecing together, translating, and tracing the garbled information. The only reason she walked away eventually was that she has has a lecture starting in twenty minutes, and she absolutely refuses to show up wearing the same dress as yesterday.

She barely notices her roommate when she enters the room, mind still brimming with work.

“Anything interesting to share?” asks Galia.

“Just something weird,” she answers absently as she strips. “I picked up a transmission in the labs from a Klingon prison planet. A bunch of their warships went missing, but I couldn’t figure out what happened.”

“There’s got to be answer in here somewhere. I just know it.” This voice is not Galia. It is, in fact distinctly male, and coming from the general direction of below Galia’s bed .

Uhura whirls around. “ Galia . We talked about this.”

“Oh, hey, Uhura!” chimes her roommate, perched on the end of her bed and … fully clothed? “This is Jim.” She gestures to a mop golden hair that Uhura can just barely see protruding around her mattress.

Well. At least he’s not staring. Uhura slips a spare set of reds over her head and stalks over to scold the intruder.

When she rounds the corner, however, her indignation starts to feel slightly misplaced.  Sitting cross legged on the floor next to her roommate's bed is a young human cadet, ensconced in a semicircle of seven or so PADDs, all lit up with barely intelligible blocks of code. His left hand is tapping out some sort of rhythm on the carpet, while his right hand scribbles out equations on a PADD balanced on his knee.

“No,” says Galia peering over the cadet’s shoulder. “I told you, stop over-thinking it. Find me the entryway and we already have the subroutine.”

“It’s too intricate for a brute force attack,” answers the cadet without looking up. “We just want to change the parameters, not crash the system.”

“Jim .” Galia reaches out a bright green hand and taps firmly twice on his shoulder. “Trust me. I got this.”

“Um,” says Uhura. “You guys aren’t, like, hacking anything illegal, are you?”

“It’s for school,” Galia reassures her, though the cheshire cat grin is less than reassuring.

“Well. Okay, I guess. Have fun? Nice to meet you, Jim. Nice to meet one of Galia’s friend’s who’s actually wearing clothes.”

Jim raises his head at last. Wow, those eyes are blue . His head tilts to the side, and his lips twitch down in half of a frown. “I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t I be dressed?”

Galia laughs, loud and bright. “Oh, Jim. This is why I love you.”

Jim cranes his head to peer at her. “I thought you were just here for the hacking.”

“That too, Jim. That too. You’re going to get us access, right?”

“Well. We might have to wing that part.”

“You’ll figure something out.” Galia touches his shoulder again, just a light touch this time. More than anything else she’s ever walked in on her roommate doing,  Uhura suddenly feels acutely like an intruder.

“I’ll see you later, Galia,” she says softly. Neither one of them looks up as she leaves.

Spock attends relatively few administrations of his Kobayashi Maru exam. The system is self sufficient, and the only people to whom the results hold substantial significance are the command cadets themselves and the Admiralty and captains they hope to serve. Occasionally, a fellow professor will specifically invite him to watch a particularly promising cadet, but Spock really only acquiesces out of politeness.

He does not attend the examination of Cadet Ilman. This is why he is not aware of the potential compromise of his program until 10.71 Terran minutes after the conclusion of the simulation.

When he arrives in the observation room 7.12 minutes later, the present gathering of humans have deteriorated into incivility.

“He organized a mutiny,” shouts Professor Vadkha, the official proctor for the exam.

“Does it count as a mutiny if they convinced their commanding officer to cede captaincy?” Muses Admiral Marcus, in a tone Spock judges to be inappropriately humorous.

“No,” says the calm voice of a cadet. The human is sitting to the admiral’s right, staring fixedly out of the window that overlooks the simulation bay. Spock does not recognize the human, but infers based on the facial expressions of his colleagues that he is the offender in question.

“He has been repeatedly directly insubordinate,” interjects Commander Han.

“May I inquire as the specific nature of the purported transgression?” asks Spock, drawing all eyes in the room to where he stands in the doorway.

“Cadet Tiberius,” Professor Vadkha points with considerable disdain, “hacked your test during the middle of another student’s examination. Well. Technically, he ordered another cadet to hack your test--”

“Galia,” supplies her colleague, whom she ignores.

“-- but it’s his responsibility.”

“The test is intended for all cadets, Professor, which perhaps makes the infringement all the greater,” Spock responds. He begins a second attempt to elicit more detail, but is interrupted by the cadet.

“We didn’t hack the test. We hacked the enemy ships.”

Spock raises a single eyebrow. “The ships are a part of the test,”

“So are the phasers we’re supposed to fire at them. Is that cheating as well? Hacking is a legitimate offensive strategy. It’s not my fault that doing so was sufficient to literally erase the existence of the other ships.”

“Your logic is reductive, Cadet Tiberius, and ignores that ‘cheating,’ as you put it, is largely an offense defined by intent. By directly subverting the programming of the simulation, you avoid the responsibility to demonstrate the skills the test is intended to measure.”

In Spock’s experience, this is the point of discourse at which most humans demonstrate frustration. Cadet Tiberius, however, appears to remain largely unemotional. He doesn’t even tear his gaze away from the window. “The test doesn’t measure anything. It’s just supposed to scare people.”

The other professors have ceased speaking entirely, so Spock addresses his reply as much to them as to the cadet. “The test is designed so that cadets may experience fear, and demonstrate how they perform in the face of it. History, such as the catastrophe of the Starship Kelvin, demonstrates the importance of such a quality in all commanding officers. ”

At this, the cadet finally turns to face Spock. He sees that for all the cadet’s tone and posture may be controlled, his mouth is drawn tight and his eyes are hard. “The whole point of remaining graceful despite our fear is that we continue to work to overcome obstacles, not simply accept defeat as the inevitable outcome. Your simulation forces cadets to experience fear, and then prohibits them from doing anything about it. You disallow for the existence of ingenuity, luck, and fortitude, or any quality that might grant a different outcome. Such as, perhaps, the survival of the Kelvin crew.”

Spock concludes that the cadet has severely misinterpreted the objective of the simulation. He attempts to explain. “ Defeat is the specific outcome that it is necessary cadets experience. It is something that all Starfleet officers must be able to face. The qualities you speak of are valuable, but not applicable.”

The cadet pushes back his chair and rises to his feet. Several of the professors appear alarmed, but Spock detects no aggression in the cadet’s stance. “When you simulate death, you are defining the limits of life. Whether you intended it or not, that includes every quality and skill set of every person. A good commander must utilize those resources.”  The pacing of the cadet’s speech does not stutter, but tension is redistributed in his shoulders in a way that Spock can’t quite read. “Your simulation, by the very fact that it was unbeatable, demanded to be beaten. My intentions were never insubordinate or subversive; I merely completed the task you set before us. ”

Admiral Marcus sighs. His facial expression is congruent with an emotion Spock identifies as disappointment.

Professor Vadkha  places her hand on the table. “I move to place Cadet Tiberius under academic suspension, pending a full inquiry.”

“Such a course of action would be most logical,” agrees Spock.

“Very well,” says Admiral Marcus. “Dismissed. Oh, and Jim -- do try to reel in that dog of yours. I believe he’s frothing at the mouth outside.”

Spock assumes that the admiral is not referring to an actual dog, but the rest of the comment is lost on him. The cadet frowns, exhibiting the most situationally appropriate sign of emotion that Spock has observed from him thus far. Without observing the expected social cues for departing from a highly ranked group of individuals, the cadet strides forward and out the door.

“Fascinating,” says Spock, observing his exit. One of the humans behind him snorts. He turns around to face them again. “I remain unclear about several aspects of today’s incident. I presume that the pending inquiry will examine the facts in greater detail. In the meantime, however, might I be enlightened as to one element in particular?”

Admiral Marcus waves his hand in a motion Spock surmises is an invitation to continue his query.

“If Cadet Tiberius is not a part of the command track, what exactly is he studying?”

The admiral laughs for 8.9 seconds before answering. “He’s a goddamn engineer. Couldn’t even get the kid to go security.”

Fascinating, indeed.

Chapter Text

He’s not with Jim when he gets the news about the Vulcan distress call. He’s being shuffled along in the press of bodies, and at first all he can think is holy shit , he’s been assigned to The Enterprise and now he has to actually go up in space on a real mission for who knows how long, and he figures that if Vulcans are sending out a distress call it must be really fucking bad and why did he ever think he could do this --

And then Jim is just there, standing on the boarding dock, staring at him with one of his fake faces, the one with that damn stupid little non-smile.

“You’re a doctor,” he says, voice even and strong. “And a damn good one. And you’re going to be brilliant, because they’re going to need a brilliant doctor.”

How does the kid always do that?

“And more importantly,” Jim continues, his voice unmeasurably softer,  “you’ll be there to stop them from doing too much stupid shit, cause something tells me they’re gonna need that just as much.”

And that’s when he finally gets it: Jim isn’t coming with him. Not on The Enterprise, not with the Fleet, all because of some stupid bullshit academic probation. And it strikes him that, first of all, this has to be killing the kid, and secondly, if the Fleet needs a messed up doctor like him, they need a messed up engineer like Jim ten times more. And most importantly, there is no way in Hell he’s going up into space without this kid.

He stabs Jim in the neck.

He doesn't get his wrist broken for his trouble, a possibility he considers half a second after mildly assaulting his touch-averse, boundary-obsessed best friend. The look on Jim's face is actually a little comical, so frozen in the effort of not going Wolverine on Leonard.

“Bones. Bad. Idea.”

Well, maybe. “You can complain about it on the ship.”

“What? Bones. What? I don't feel too good.”

“Of course you don't, kid. I just infected you with a mild version of the Moldavian Mud Virus.”

Of course, his complete ignorance of the kid's medical file picks this moment to bite them in the ass. Honestly, you’d think that risking his last shot at a medical career to sneak/bully his delinquent best friend illegally onto the ship of his dreams would earn him at least a thank you , but no. What he gets is a fight with the most irrational, vindictive immune system he’s ever encountered, and a patient who won’t sit still long enough for Leonard to treat his anaphylactic shock.

Seriously, who the fuck sprints the entire length of a starship while their tongue is swelling halfway down their throat? Jim, obviously.

Leonard is starting to get the feeling that this might have been a really fucking bad idea.

Spock considers it a testament to his observational skills that he recognizes the sweating, swollen, and red-faced cadet that comes crashing through the doors to the bridge. There's none of the dignity and composure that marked their first acquaintance, and the little respect Spock might have harbored for him evaporates.

The bridge crew have all turned to stare at the entrance, so Spock takes it upon himself to handle the situation. After all, they have more pressing matters to attend to. (Worry would be illogical. Maximizing efficiency is simply prudent.) “Cadet Tiberius. Your presence here is in direct violation of your academic suspension. Explain yourself at once.”

The cadet pulls laborious breaths through obviously swollen airways. His answer is barely intelligible. “Stop the ship. It's a trap.”

Spock raises an eyebrow. “What reasoning has led you to this conclusion?”

“Lighting storm. Klingons. I've studied this. I don't know how, but if you fly us in there, we’re dead.”

“Spock?” Captain Pike is looking between the two of them. “What's going on?”

“Cadet Tiberius appears to have stowed away on our vessel, and is clearly suffering from a medical condition.”

Tiberius's “No,” barely makes it past the choking of his throat.

The Captain is in the middle of requesting medical assistance when a human, whom Spock recognizes from the crew roster, barrels out of the lift, hypo in hand. The man, a Doctor McCoy, begins applying care to the cadet with the entirely unnecessary accompaniment of profane language.

“Captain,” Spock turns to address his officer, “I recommend that the cadet be escorted to med bay for treatment, and detained until such a time as a further investigation can take place.”

The labored panting that had filled the room cuts off abruptly. Spock finds that the cadet is staring at him with flat, unmoving eyes.

“A moment, Mr. Spock,” says the Captain. “Cadet -- Tiberius, was it?” The Captain’s tone is formal, but not unfriendly.

Tiberius doesn’t respond, even to meet the Captain’s gaze. He looks away from Spock, only to turn his face to the floor. Beside him, the doctor’s frown increases 34% in severity. “Hey,” he says, voice low, addressing only his patient. “What’s going on?” No response is given to him, either.

“Cadet,” the Captain tries again, “We’re in a potentially critical situation. I can’t divert this ship from its mission unless I get some kind of explanation. If you have any information, I need to know, now .”

Finally, Tiberius deigns to speak again. “You either believe me, or you don’t. There’s no time for this.”

Spock concurs. Clearly, the Captain does as well, turning to address Officer Hendorff, who was hovering by the door “Please escort the cadet to the med bay, and make sure he stays there.”

The security ensign snaps a salute and walks towards where the two men are crouched. The cadet straightens swiftly. Spock interprets the motion as defensive and prepares to intervene in a physical altercation. But Tiberius offers no resistance as Officer Hendorff takes ahold of his arm, and Spock wonders if he misread the moment.

Tiberius permits himself to be led from the bridge. The Captain makes short work of restoring the focus and vigor of the bridge crew. Spock rededicates himself to the task at hand.

Vulcan is waiting.

Hendorff is good at his job. That’s why it only takes him three and a half minutes to figure out that the cadet in his custody is missing. It only takes him fifteen seconds after that to figure out where the cadet went, but that has less to do with his skill and more to do with the fact that the entire ship lurches violently out of warp. The suspicious doctor who’d been standing there arguing with him lets out an “Oh no, no no, please tell me you didn’t.”

Just to punctuate the moment, the anti-grav flickers.

She felt it, of course, when the ship skidded to a stop, everything around them slamming up and down queasily. All around, computers and equipment are glitching. Everyone  is scrambling to get things back into order. That’s why no one listens to her, why not even Spock picks up his comm. She’s just a cadet, after all, and they’re in the middle of an obvious attempt at sabotage.

Her lungs heave as she sprints across the ship. Technically she’s just abandoned her post. She has a very, very good reason, but it’s still the only thing her mind can come up with as she falls into the turbolift and races towards the bridge. She’s abandoned her post.

“Lieutenant Uhura.” Spock notices her arrival immediately. Though his words draw every pair of eyes in the room to where she’s standing, his presence steadies her, bolsters her composure.

“Sir.” She squares her posture as formally as she can. “I’ve managed to secure an incoming communication line with the USS Farragut .”

“A transmission? How?” The communications officer steps forward, eyes zeroing in on the PADD clutched in her sweaty hand. “We can’t get in contact with any of the Fleet”

Uhura steps forward, loading the data into the comm station. “My roommate, Galia. I recognized her signal the moment she managed to get past the firewall.”  As the channel opens up on the main screen, Uhura’s words become unintentionally literal.

The Farragut is little more than carnage, at least what they can see of it. Galia’s shadowy green face is smeared dark with smoke and blood.

“Lieutenant.” Captain Pike is standing up and striding towards the screen. “What’s going on?”

“We were ambushed.” Galia’s voice is shaky, layered over a patina of static and klaxons. “There was a large ship, unlike anything I’ve ever seen”

“Where is Captain Garrovick?” asks Spock.

“The Captain’s dead. First officer, too, I think. No one -- no one was telling me what to do so I just -- I just -- I thought I might be able to reach Uhura. ”

Uhura flinches and plants her feet a little more firmly.

“How many other ships are still engaged in combat?” asks Captain Pike.

“You don’t understand,” says Galia. “There’s no one. It tore them apart. I sent you the clip. ”

“Lieutenant, if your ship is without a Captain, I advise you to--” Spock stops speaking because the screen goes black.

Beneath Uhura’s hands, the data stream of the transmission falls to pieces and disappears. The analytical part of Uhura notes that Galia didn’t end it intentionally, and that whatever voodoo her roommate pulled to get the message past the block wouldn’t have just stopped working. The rest of her refuses to look.

“The transmission is lost,” says a voice; hers, maybe. Surely she wouldn’t have said lost so calmly. “I still have a packet of data, though. Pulling on screen now.”

It’s just a few frames: A silvery cocoon of spikes, a dozen Federation ships, and then bits of Federation ships. There’s no sound, but Galia’s voice seems to fill the silence. There’s no one. It tore them apart.

Spock speaks first. “It appears the preliminary force of our expedition warped directly into combat.”

A visible shiver works it’s across the Captain’s face. “A trap,” he says. “It was a trap.”

“Sir.” The young pilot, whose name she doesn’t know, speaks up while typing furiously. “If engineering can get warp engines back online, I can get us there in--”

“No,” says Captain Pike, loud and heavy. “There’s no point in charging in as a single ship. Not if half the entire Fleet has just been taken out in a matter of minutes.” He pauses for a moment, then adds more quietly, “If we hadn’t been pulled out of warp…”  He straightens, pulls his face back into discipline, and finally, finally gives an order. “Someone find me that goddamned cadet.”

Chapter Text

Today is the day. Definitely, unequivocally the day where Leonard breaks down and kills someone. Not Jim, surprisingly enough; he has far more satisfying plans for when he gets his hands on the kid. They involve bubble wrap and hypoallergenic tribbles.

What he has to decide in the meantime is whether to unleash his more immediate wrath on the gorilla of an ensign who just essentially locked him in the Enterprise’s medbay, or the son of a Vulcan who had practically slammed the door shut in Jim’s face, just for trying to help.

Because Leonard knows that’s what Jim is doing. He doesn’t have the faintest clue what a lightning storm in space has to do with a Vulcan distress call, and even he can admit that tampering with The Enterprise ’ s warp system looks pretty bad, but after three long years,  he understands that this is just Jim being Jim.Irascible and reckless, the kid’s probably running headlong into danger the rest of them haven’t even seen yet.

Unfortunately, three years of living with Jim wasn’t enough to turn Leonard into a ninja. No matter how tempted he is to disobey his orders, he just doesn’t have a way of sneaking past the disapproving Dr Puri. Damn command structures all to hell.

At least he and Jim are stuck on the same ship. If nothing else, it should limit the amount of trouble the kid can get into. That has to count for something, right?

Spock understands the unfortunate reality that security personnel are usually the last to know what’s going on, especially anytime after the beginning of a crisis. This is partly a flaw in the command structure mindset -- psychologically, bridge officers tend prioritize what is happening on the bridge -- and partly just a function of being the hands and legs that have to face the problems physically. It would be dangerous and inefficient to stop and take frequent comms while tracking down hostiles.

In a strategy Spock approves of, Officer Hendorff copes with this deficiency by emphasizing protocol to a degree beyond what the other departments typically require. This is one of the main reasons why he recommended the man for placement aboard the Enterprise when they were compiling the crew list, and why the man was quickly promoted to lead his security unit.

There is, however, no avoiding the emotionality inherent in all humans. Spock suspects that personal feelings of ill will prompted Hendorff to enforce a particular, rarely used section of protocol with a zealousness that is proving detrimental to their current situation.

“Sir. Respectfully, I am familiar with the Cadet’s aggressive and disruptive tendencies. He failed to communicate any substantial information, and broke … I don't even know how many regulations.”

“So you just marooned the only person who has any idea what's going on in an escape pod on a barren ice planet.” The Captain is repeating himself, and Spock detects ample frustration in his tone.

“Sir. I felt it was essential to the safety and integrity of the ship.” Hendorff remains steadfast in his conviction.

The Captain sighs. “And since he’s not still in the pod or wearing a tracker, it would take far too long to locate and retrieve him. Fine.” The Captain dismisses the ensign and turns to his first officer. “Spock. Options.”

Spock considers for 3.1 seconds. “Our priorities at this stage are to asses any remaining issues within engineering, gathering as much information about the attack as possible, and reestablishing contact with Vulcan and Starfleet Command. Our distance, however, severely limits our capabilities in that regard.”

The Captain nods. “We’ll have to get closer. As cautiously as possible, but we can't waste anytime.”

Spock does not mention that Uhuru has been unable to establish communication with either Vulcan or Starfleet Command. The Captain is aware of the urgency of their mission. “I will assist Helmsman Sulu and Ensign Chekov in plotting a suitable course.”

Delicacy is going to be essential. They must approach Vulcan before they can determine a real course of action. But just knowing that a trap awaits them does not afford them any more strategic options. They have to risk consciously moving towards the same trap Cadet Tiberius spared them from.

They are playing chess, but unable to see all the pieces. Spock is determined that they make no more mistakes today. They can no longer afford them.

Spock feels old. It’s not his slowly growing physical infirmity that ails him. Rather, the sense of uselessness he finds himself trapped in makes him hyper aware of the distance he has come, from the times and places were he remembers doing the improbable, in spite of the impossible, time and time again. And though he considers himself well adjusted to solitude, the fear of loss is not something he expected he would ever need to face again.

He needs a plan. He doesn’t have one.

He needs a miracle. Miracles are illogical, or at the very least unlikely. Terrible odds can be overcome, but only if one overcomes them. That’s not going to happen when all he’s doing is waiting in a cave to witness the destruction of his planet.

Or, perhaps, he was waiting for something else without knowing it.

He hears the roar of the beast from a distance. He is not immediately concerned; he is safe in his cave. But he observes the noise coming closer, and his Vulcan hearing is still adept enough that he can make out a separate pattern. The rhythm is congruent with bipedal foot steps, and at the very least they are far too light and fast to be generated by the herrungi

He calculates a 17.09% possibility that the herrungi is chasing a sentient being across the wastelands of Delta Vega. He decides to investigate and offer assistance, if necessary.

The herrungi’s prey is humanoid, and faster than Spock had initially calculated. They are crashing into the entrance of the cave. The humanoid is injured, but Spock is shocked to observe that the herrungi is as well. Not just prey after all, then.

As he approaches the pair, neither seems to notice him. The humanoid, dressed in a grey parka that obscures its face, slides on its back behind a shelf of ice. A tentacled tongue snakes after it, a miscalculation that earns the herrungi a vicious stab with a handheld instrument Spock can’t quite make out.

He waves his torch, the heat and light catching the beast's attention. It postures for a moment, considering, but Spock stands his ground, and eventually it retreats.

Chastening his chemical balances back into their resting state, Spock turns to greet the escapee.

Jim. Jim .

Not your Jim, a part of Spock chides, but his eyes see blue and blonde and a 99.87% match of facial bone structures. Spock’s lips break apart, his blood courses through his veins 1.55 times faster than it did in the face of the herrungi, and he breathes an utterly joyful “ James T. Kirk. ”

Spock’s oldest friend stares up at him, face devoid of recognition in a way that hurts.

“How did you find me?” Spock asks. Illogically, his psyche is retroactively predicting this moment. Of course Jim would find him.

Jim climbs to his feet, movement calculated and careful, never taking his eyes off of Spock. “How do you know my name?” It’s not until Spock hears Jim’s voice, so carefully regulated, that he understands that this man might be frightened of him.

“I have been, and always shall be, your friend.” An emotional statement, but so unequivocally true that no part of Spock quails from it.

“I don’t know you.”

“I am Spock.”

A gamble? No. This is an act of faith.

Jim’s head tilts, and his eyebrows furrow slightly. He’s so restrained . Spock shifts, lifting his palms face out slightly, trying to appear as non threatening as possible.

“I was under the impression,” says Jim slowly, “that Commander Spock was aboard The Enterprise .”

“Let me explain,” says Spock. He steps forward, one hand reaching towards Jim’s face--

Jim moves like lighting. Without turning his head, he dances backwards, out of Spock’s reach, and plants his feet on a stable slab of rock. A jagged piece of metal held tightly in his bare hand glints in the pale light between the two of them.

“Stay out of my head.”

Spock does not reel. His shields snap forward, keeping him calm and focused, analyzing.

This is not just a different Jim. This is a Jim who is different .

Because miracles don’t just happen. This is going to be a lot harder than Spock was anticipating.

Nero is tired of waiting. Demolishing the Starfleet ships was satisfying, but trivial in the scope of his intent. He is ready to see Vulcan burn, ready to reap his revenge. Still. Something is missing. After all, why be content with torturing one Spock, when he could have two?

“There is no sign of The Enterprise anywhere among the ships we destroyed,” one of his officers repeats for the second time. It’s aggravating, but perhaps they have already altered the history of this universe too much.

Still. “After everything we have lost, I will not settle for anything less than absolute revenge,” he says. “Prepare to send out the message.”

It’s time to go hunting.

Chapter Text

Pike has just finished receiving the go-ahead from the engineering department when they receive the message. He gives the order to pull it up on screen, not sure what to expect, and unnerved by the hardened face that flickers to life before them.

“Greetings, Federation vessels,” says the cold voice, “My name is Nero. By now, you have realized that all communication inside and out of this range is restricted . What you do not know, is that I have just destroyed twelve Federation Starships, and any hope you might have of rescue. ” Images of apocalypse slide onto the screen to prove his claim. “Your only option now is to surrender immediately and comply with my every directive. If you refuse or resist, I will destroy the planet currently at my mercy, and every living Vulcan on it.”

Beside Chris’s chair, his First Officer stiffens, but the message is not finished.

“Do not doubt my ability to fulfill this threat. As you can see, we possess technology far superior to anything known in the Federation. You have half an hour to surrender to my ship the Vulcan known as Spock and the Captain of his ship, or I will obliterate you and the planet Vulcan. ”

Pike nearly falls out of his chair. He’s not sure what is more shocking: the sudden understanding that this ship, this Romulan, must be the one that destroyed The Kelvin all those years ago, or that Nero requested his first officer, by name .

The message cuts off, and silence reigns of the bridge for a moment.

“Do we have coordinates for the origin of the message?” Pike asks.

Lieutenant Uhura is prompt and efficient. “Yessir. They come from a ship that appears to be orbiting directly above Vulcan.”

“It would take twenty-nine minutes to reach that position at full warp,” says the helmsman without prompting.

Shit. They don’t have any time.

“Captain,” says Spock, voice as controlled as always. “I calculate a 99.97% probability that this Nero is directly related to the destruction of the starship Kelvin, approximately twenty-five years ago. Given this information, it is logical to assume that, if we comply with his demands, he will proceed to destroy Vulcan, regardless of our acquiescence. Furthermore--”

“I know, Spock,” interrupts Pike, more harshly than intended. “It’s a trap.” His mind is whirling in overdrive. They need more time , and they only way to get it … “We’re going to need a distraction. Mr. Sulu, how long will take The Enterprise to enter orbit on the opposite side of Vulcan from the Romulan ship?”

“Thirty-one minutes at full warp, sir.”

“Plot the course, and make sure we drop out of warp at the last possible moment.”

“Sir,” says Ensign Chekov, tapping furiously at his console, “given both our trajectory and the necessary deceleration, we will not be able to--”

“It’s okay if they see us,” reassures Pike. “Just don’t crash us into the actual planet, and bring us up behind the Romulan ship.”

“Done, sir.”

“Engage warp, maximum speed.”

“Sir,” says Spock. “Such a course will violate the timeline provided by Nero.”

“I know. Myself, and a small security team will depart via shuttle before The Enterprise drops out of warp. We’ll reach the Romulan ship before the deadline, but we’re not surrendering.”

“Captain, I calculate the chances of successfully infiltrating the Romulan ship with only a small security force as 0.03% lower than the probability of The Enterprise defeating the ship in direct combat.”

“So we do them both, at the same time,” -- ish , but there’s nothing to be done about the two-minute gap -- “and double our chances.” Pike takes a deep breath. “By diverting the attention of the Romulans between two targets, we should buy enough time for a small party beam down to the planet and evacuate a small group” -- far, far too small -- “of Vulcans. Then The Enterprise will withdraw, and rendezvous with the rest of the Fleet.”

Every member of the bridge crew is staring at him. Yeah. It’s a bad plan, with about three dozen holes in it.

“Yessir,” says Spock. “I will ready the infiltration team.” He doesn’t bother mentioning that they don’t have anyone even vaguely qualified for such a mission. Nor does anyone say that, whoever goes on that shuttle, including Pike, will not be coming back.

Jim sets a punishing pace as they make their way to the Starbase, nor does he falter when they make their way inside. While Spock is staring at Montgomery Scott, yet another friend he’d thought forever lost to him, Jim has no time to spare for introductions. “I need access to a medical kit and a computer terminal.”

Scotty blinks. “Yer injured? Why’n’d you say something?”

But when the med pack is produced, Jim ignores any of the equipment that could be used to treat his wounds, plucking out a small vial and turning to Spock, instead.

“If you really are Spock,” he says, “A simple DNA test will come up as half human, half Vulcan. I don’t have time for anything more thorough, but I’m not trusting your story without at least some evidence.”

Spock submits to Jim’s conditions, allowing his blood to be drawn and analyzed, as he gives Mr. Scott a brief summary of critical events.

“Mother of all -- is this really, actually happening?” Mr. Scott marvels. “I mean, it’s quite terrible and all, planets getting destroyed an’ what not, but … Actual time travelers? In my Starbase? Now, that is a wee bit magnificent.”

“Indeed,” says Spock, somewhat over affectionately.

They’re interrupted by an incoming message, flickering unbidden to life on the screen Keenser is currently sitting on.

Jim’s face is blank as they watch the recording of Nero. Spock’s own face is twisting downward uncontrollably, fear resurging with such a strength it is difficult to suppress.

They have time, at least. Not much. But both Jim and Mr. Scott seem to find the transmission adequate proof of his veracity. “Mr. Scott, we would most appreciate your assistance in returning Jim to his Starship to prevent further calamity.”

Jim interjects. “Not possible. They’re almost certainly back in warp by this point; I didn’t have time for anything more than a temporary stall, not without actually crippling engines.”

“D’you know,” says Scotty, “I’ve always theorized that it’s actually possible to beam onto a ship mid-warp? Not that I’ve ever managed to do it myself, but --”

“Not yet,” interrupts Spock. “But I happen to know, for an absolute fact, that the feat is within your grasp. In fact, I am familiar with the equation that you will invent for just such a purpose.”

Mr. Scott blinks. “No way .”

“Show me,” demands Jim.

So Spock inputs the equation on the screen in front of Scotty, only mildly regretful of the fact that the man will never, in this universe at least, have the privilege of discovering it for himself. It is quite a delicate line he must walk in this new timeline.

“Huh. It never occurred to me to think of space as the thing that was moving. Well. I guess if you really need to get back on The Enterprise -- ”

“No.” This time, Jim’s voice is almost foreign. “This equation, it preserves the momentum of an object transported to a target at warp speed?”

“Yes,” says Spock, willing to spare a moment to the analytical workings of Jim’s mind. Such indulgence has proved fruitful in the past. “The Enterprise is the only ship currently in range, as far as Delta Vega’s sensors can detect.”

“And they are headed toward Vulcan and the Romulan ship? Maybe half an hour from the planet, fifteen till they’re out of our range?”

“Yes,” says Mr. Scott. “ Why? You’ve got a funny look on yer face, lad.”

Jim stands tall, meets Spock’s gaze without wavering. “We’re going to hit them where it hurts.”

Pike’s shuttle falls out of warp, with an ominous shudder. The first thing he observes on the screen is the crimson orb of the planet Vulcan. It’s beautiful, until his gaze is inevitably drawn to the massive ship, the nightmarish image he’d expected, and yet somehow hoped not find, orbiting slowly away from the minefield of debris that used to be Starfleet ships.

There’s an enormous spindle, extending from the bottom of the Romulan ship and plunging into the planet below, solidifying Pike’s archaic, utterly human impression of the ship as a giant spider’s web. At least, it does so for about ten seconds. Then it explodes into smithereens.

Scotty can't believe he just did that. And it’s hard to tell, but even the old man Vulcan, who had given Scotty the answer to his life’s work in a formula off the top of his head, looks a little nonplussed.

“I just took an illegally modified, fugitive stow-away’s escape pod, turned it into a warp-powered missile, and shot it at Vulcan, using a formula from the future that hasn’t been invented yet.” He says it out loud, just to make sure.

“Technically,” says the craziest man Scotty has ever met, “it wasn’t a missile. And we weren’t aiming for the planet, we were aiming for the planet-killing spaceship orbiting just above it.”

He is so getting fired for this.

The Vulcan turns to stare at the crazy man. “That went … better than I expected”

Crazy man nods. “We should beam aboard the Romulan ship before they figure out what happened.”

Scotty doubts there’s any danger of that.

The logic behind Kirk’s proposal had been sound: rather than beaming back onto the Enterprise and using more conventional weaponry, as Spock had intended, Jim had piggy-backed off of the Enterprize’s inertia to turn his abandoned escape pod into a physical missile, destroying the unshielded and tactically crucial Romulan drill. Brilliant, unexpected, and unmistakably Kirkean. As were the technical skills with which he rigged and programmed the pod itself, allowing for rudimentary steering and maximum damage. Risky, but brilliant.

And yet Spock could not help but think it was not something his Kirk would have done. The man he’d called Captain and brother had loved his ship and his crew more than life. The first instinct of his mind and body was always to fight his way back to them, to make a stand with his family by his side.

Logically, Spock knew that this universe was different from his own, altered irrevocably by his failure in the old universe. The untimely death of his father must have impacted Kirk’s childhood and development in uncountable ways. Still, at the moment of crisis, he stood by Spock’s side, the one person he trusted most to save his people.

But beyond logic, as the transporter energizes, Spock feels that he does not know this Kirk at all, and it frightens him.

Chapter Text

No one tells Leonard, specifically, anything of importance. He listens to the suspiciously vague broadcast where Captain Pike sketches out a course of action that does not look like a plan. He knows they’re preparing for combat, and joins his colleagues (and temporary jailers) in preparing to receive casualties. But he’s itching all along the length of his spine with the slowly paralyzing terror of not knowing what’s going on.

Jim would tell him. It’s a funny thing to think, given how obtuse the kid usually is, but something like this? Alright, so Jim hides things, like, a lot, but he never acts like it’s unimportant whether or not Leonard understands.

Jim would tell him. He would know what’s going on, because he does that, and he therefore Leonard should know, because Jim should already be here. There’s no way a few meat-headed security guards could do what miles of foreign woods crawling with lethal, poisonous snakes could not.

Jim should have come for him. He would . Right?

So. It's not exactly an isolated storage room. To be fair, even though he was blatantly wrong about how futuristic Romulan mining vessels are designed, these fellows also seem to have made a few improvements.

In either case, Spock reacts just as quickly as the Romulans, who react almost as quickly as Jim. Honestly, before any of the rest of them can take a breath, the man is using whatever shit he’s found lying around to rain down a fury from hell.

For his part, Scotty uses a mess tray to deflect phaser fire. It's probably safe to say that coming along was a very terrible idea, but, provided he doesn't get shot dead in the next ten seconds, he's too thrilled by the excitement to give a damn.

Between the three of them -- meaning mostly the other two -- they manage to fend off the Romulans. The last few to be neither dead nor severely incapacitated to lay down phaser fire to cover their slip out a side door, locking it behind them.

Jim's fingertips scratch against the metal just as it closes, the force of his momentum slamming his whole body against it just a nanosecond too late.

His breath is ragged. “Shit.”

“James.” Though undoubtedly the most composed of all of them after their scuffle, the Vulcan’s voice is downright emotional, enough to give Scotty the willies. “The way you fight … I've never seen anything like it before”

“Aye, you're downright handy in a scuffle,” Scotty agrees, still not quite come off the adrenaline.

James turns to face them, soot on his cheek, blood splattered across his temple, and a lightning storm in his eyes. “We need to get to the bridge, now .”

Scotty will argue with just about anything, but even he can respect that tone. He brings the tray with him.

The shuttle doesn’t make it to the Romulan ship.

With the destruction of the spindle, they pull away slightly, buy themselves a bit more time to figure out what's going on. They can’t contact The Enterprise , but they haven’t heard anything from the Romulan ship either. After painful deliberation, Pike orders Sulu to make a sharp turn, to enter orbit around Vulcan heading away from the Romulan ship.

They don’t make it there either.

They don’t get fired at, exactly. They get hit. On the last leg of their approach, a something detaches from the ship above them and comes slamming down in a full on collision course. The impact makes Chris’s vision go grey.

He tries to speak. Reaches his hands out to do … something, but the universe is a blur all around him and he can’t speak. They break atmosphere, and Chris doesn’t know if whatever hit them is still on top, but there’s not doubt that one way or another, they’re going to crash.

He takes a moment to be grateful Sulu volunteered to go with him. Parking brake aside, the man’s turning out to be a damn good pilot.

Uhura is relieved she managed to stay on the bridge. She knows she can do some good here -- how someone makes it to communications officer without being able to even recognize Romulan is beyond her -- and if the occasional glance Spock keeps throwing her way is any indication, her presence is doing him some good as well. Plus, it would go directly against her nature to be left out of the loop.

The ship is on high alert when Ensign Checkov announces their deceleration from warp. Spock, standing ramrod straight instead of sitting in the chair, gives the order to prepare phasers. They intend to come out shooting, but Spock made the decision to asses the situation personally before leading the extraction team on Vulcan. It would cost, he had estimated, twenty seven seconds, which, apparently, was an acceptable risk.

Uhura takes a long, centering breath, and goes to quadruple check the panel in front of her.

One of the indicators chimes. She blinks. “Captain. We’re being hailed . I think it’s the Romulan ship, again.”

Spock’s attention cuts over to her. “On screen.”

It is the Romulan ship. But it isn’t Nero. If she didn’t know better, Uhura would say the individual staring at them calmly looked … well, like he were related to Spock.

“Greetings, Enterprise. I was expecting to address Captain Christopher Pike.”

“I am currently commanding this vessel,” says Spock sharply. The entire bridge had stiffened at the sound of the Captain’s name. “Identify yourself.”

The stranger hesitates palpably. “I am a representative of Vulcan, working in an unofficial capacity. Most immediately, I am also the individual in command of The Narada . Unfortunately, though my companions and I were able to wrest control from Nero and his crew, we were not in time to prevent him from escaping in a shuttle to the surface of Vulcan, while in possession of a dangerous weapon.”

The Enterprise is now fully out of warp. Though it’s not visible on the main screen, Uhura’s station shows her the looming specters of both Vulcan and the Romulan ship. Ensign Checkov quietly reports their status, and Uhura privately thinks it’s at least mildly encouraging that they aren’t immediately fired at.

“And the Captain?” Asks Spock, as beautifully composed as ever.

The Representative blinks. “Clarify.” 

“In response to Nero’s threat, he departed the Enterprise in a shuttle bound for your vessel.”

Uhura nearly chokes when the Representative raises an eyebrow. She’d thought that was particular to Spock, not a cultural trait.

“I have seen no signs of Captain Pike on board, nor do I read any signs of a vessel besides The Enterprise in this section of space.”

That has to be bullshit. Despite her best efforts, Uhura still can’t pick any transmissions from the shuttle. At this distance, the only way that’s possible is if the ship is completely destroyed, or it’s been manually silenced.

“Lieutenant Montgomery Scott and myself are endeavoring to decrypt and gain control of The Narada’s systems. Perhaps we can assist you in establishing contact with Captain Pike’s shuttle--”

“Lieutenant Montgomery Scott? You’re working with Starfleet personnel?”

Uhura frowns. Lieutenant is a fairly common rank in space faring organizations. Perhaps Spock recognized the name.

“Indeed. Cadet Kirk and I applied to the Lieutenant for his assistance, and as his presence was not urgently required at his post on Delta Vega, he accompanied our boarding party.”

… What?

“There is a cadet present as well? Perhaps this process could be expedited if I were to speak to with one of the Starfleet officers you appear to have acquired.”

The Representative's head inclines in what is unmistakably blatant amusement, and a short human wearing Starfleet reds hops over into view.

“Lieutenant Montgomery Scott reporting sir. If I may, thank you ever so much for sending down Mr. Kirk. If he hadn’t’a shown up with this Vulcan, sir, I’d’ve been ever so bored.”

…What--- what? Uhura’s sentiment is being clearly echoed across the bridge, discipline cracking under the weight of confused stares.

“Lieutenant, we sent you no personnel, nor am I acquainted with a cadet by the name of Kirk.”

Mr. Scott frowns. “You dinnae maroon Jim? I’m confused. Is this about time travel again?”

Instead of following up the statement about time travel -- a rather crucial detail  in the conversation, as far as Uhura is concerned -- Spock asks what is probably the least important question at the moment. “The cadet’s first name is Jim?”

Really, Uhura doesn’t see the poi--- oh. Oh .

The older Vulcan is the one who answers. “James T. Kirk, the cadet who stowed away on your vessel and tampered with your engines.”

“And where is he now?” asks Spock.

“He left,” says Scotty, slightly less enthusiastically than before. “We told him to wait but …” the man shrugs. “He went after Nero.”

“We have not yet re-established contact.” The Vulcan also seems subdued. “You should know that the Weapon Nero is carrying is an artificial substance which, if ignited, would create a singularity large enough to consume the planet.”

“Yeah, I took a look at it,” confirms Mr. Scott. “Not nice stuff, that goo.”

Okay. This has got to be the most surreal interaction Uhura has ever witnessed, and she used to room with Galia .

The thought of her friend jerks Uhura back to the gravity of their situation. She squares he shoulders, turns her full attention back to her station. A few strokes later, she has something.

“Sir. I’ve managed to secure a channel to the Vulcan surface.”

On the Nerada, the Vulcan nods. “I standby for your instructions, Commander Spock.” The hail cuts off.

Spock is quiet for half a moment. The rest of the crew probably doesn’t even notice. “On-screen, Lieutenant.”

Uhura doesn’t really understand what’s happened. She just knows it’s given them half a chance, and she intends to take it.

The red sands of Vulcan fight them with every step. They may have crashed close to civilization, but dragging both the Red Matter and the Starfleet officers with them is taking a toll on his injured crew, and he’s not sure if they’ll make it to the building looming ahead of them.

So few of them left. He’ll finish it off himself if he has to. No Vulcan or half-grown Human counterpart can stop that. The Kirk manchild proves that he’s already altered the fabric of this universe, just by existing in it. Now, every last one of them will watch him tear it all apart.

Chapter Text

Bones is sitting in the briefing room, without Jim. Spock has just said a bunch of stuff that he’s pretty sure is 100% bullshit, and Leonard is sitting there, nodding his head. He’s agreeing to Spock’s assessment of the situation, and he’s agreeing to the plan, agreeing to be transported with the rest of the away team down to the surface of Vulcan. He’s agreeing to help chase down a genocidal Romulan from an alternate timeline who has a weapon of unfathomable destruction, and he’s agreeing to help find Jim, agreeing to judge whether or not Jim is the same person he’s known for the last three years, or if he’s something, someone else, not that anyone has told him what that would be.

He’s agreeing, because while they have to be absolutely wrong about everything, they are undeniably right about one part: that’s where Jim will be.

These people? They ignored Jim. They attacked him, and marooned him, and now they apparently suspect him of being some kind of double agent. And Bones stood there, and watched them drag him away, and --

Bones breathes in, breathes out.

He’s not going to let it happen again.

“When do we leave?”

Chekov’s phaser is an uncomfortable weight in his hand. Much as he’s proficient with its use, the prospect of needing it weighs uncomfortably.

The transport room is wildly busy. Chekov, Spock, and a handful of security officers are beaming down in pursuit of Nero, while several other away teams head out to set up evacuation points on the surface. The process is relatively efficient. The scene they arrive at, on the other hand, is nothing but chaos.

The rush of heat hits him first, followed quickly by the smell of blood, and then he takes in the carnage of the courtyard. There are no bodies, at least, but the signs of violence are unmistakable all around them.

There are four Vulcans, three armed and two injured, standing a short distance away. Chekov would expect them to be surprised by the away team’s arrival, but it’s not like there’s any way he’d be able to tell. One of them speaks in Vulcan, and all Chekov is able to understand is the distinct inclusion of Spock’s name.

Commander -- Captain, now; Acting Captain -- Spock asks a question, and this time the reply is in Standard.

“The human said we should expect you. The Romulans have already passed through here; we believe they are attempting to breach the Katric Arc. The human can brief you on the rest. He is organizing the defense with T’mol and the others over in the Hall.”

Chekov himself has several more questions, but Captain Spock presses ahead, so the rest of the away team follows behind. He leads them quickly to a building on the edge of the compound, with doors already slightly ajar.

Inside a pair of Vulcans stand guard. They don’t say a word as Spock and the others enter, simply gesture up the stairs.

This time, it’s not Captain Spock who takes the lead. Without waiting for orders, the doctor barrels up the stairs with such speed even Spock raises an eyebrow.

Trailing in Dr. McCoy’s wake, they walk into a room that appears to have been converted into a command center and makeshift arsenal. A map of some kind is projected above a table in the middle of the room. Though there are several Vulcan's conferring around it, Dr. McCoy is curiously nowhere in sight.

“What do you mean he’s not here? If he knew we were coming, why would he just leave? ” Ah, there he is. A room off to the right, and Chekov can’t quite see what’s inside, but McCoy’s yelling is unmistakable.

“Commander Spock.” One of the Vulcan’s, elegantly dressed and imposingly tall, draws their attention back to the center of the room.  “Nero and his hostages are well on their way to breaching the Arc. Most of our guards were incapacitated in the original confrontation, but as there was no time to await reinforcements, Cadet Tiberius led a team of those able-bodied that remained in pursuit.”

The other members of the away team glance back and forth in varying mixtures of confusion and anxiety, but Chekov’s distracted. The Vulcan called the cadet ‘Tiberius,’ which means it is the crazy cadet from the bridge? But why would he give one name to these Vulcans and a different one to the Vulcan on the Nerada?

And then they’re moving again. There’s a doorway, and a passage that leads out to a courtyard whose farthest edge is defined by a large protrusion of red stone, set with intricate carvings and framing a large set of doors.

Captain Spock breaks formation to open the doors alone. Somehow, it doesn’t seem appropriate to assist.

Chekov has no idea what a Katric Arc is, but he can feel the reverence resonating from and demanded by the looming corridor. It’s much more ornate than he would have expected of Vulcan culture, reminding Chekov dimly of long ago visits to the mosques and cathedrals of his homeland.

It should be beautiful, awe-inspiring even.

The passageways wind more sinuously the deeper they go, splitting and twisting through a series of increasingly complex alcoves, to the point where Chekov realizes they aren’t making their way through a hall so much as an oversized labyrinth. The commander knows the way forward, of course. What they have to be worried about is not how they’re going to to get through the maze, but rather what they’re going to find when they do.

Bones is slightly concerned about the wunderkind navigator who’s supposed to be guarding their left-flank. He’s clearly doing his best to put on a good face, but there's practically a glowing sign over his head that says: Skittish! Easily startled! Attack here first! And he keeps stretching the boundaries of the formation they’re supposed to be keeping.

Acting Captain Definitely-on-Bones’-Shit-List is too intently focused on pushing them forward to notice, but Bones feels his own nervous energy rise every time the pipsqueak’s head swivels. It’s making him see phantom shapes in his own periphery, flickers and shadows that move the wrong way.

He’s gonna lose it. He reaches his breaking point as Chekov twists sideways for the thousandth time, leaning halfway into a split in the hallway. He opens his mouth to snap at the boy, but before he can draw the breath, something beats him to the chase.

They don’t exactly make an ear-shattering noise, but the shots cut through the air like a scalpel.

He doesn’t see where they come from -- somewhere off to the side -- but he sees when they make contact with the stone walls, right --

Right where Chekov’s head is supposed to be.

The away team reacts quickly, and though they’re probably far from the most efficient unit, all of them, even Bones, slam instinctively into the reaction drilled into them by their training. The two closest officers have phasers in hand, sending out return fire, and the whole group slides sideways into the closest room.

They follow through with the action so fast, it’s not until after he’s deep into the room that Bones’ brain processes the glimpse he’d caught of a Romulan, slumped forward on the floor in the hallway.

It’s silent for a long moment, and Bones starts to hope the encounter may already be over.

“Ow,”

The sound of Chekov’s voice behind him has Bones turning, tricorder halfway out of his belt before he even sees where the navigator is slumped on the floor, next to --

“Jim.” The name tears out him, quieter than he expects.

The kid, tense, covered and dirt, alive, meets his gaze with wide eyes at first, but in an instant, they’re hard and cold.

“No.”

Bones doesn’t remember getting to his knees, dimly registers the result flashing on his tricorder: mild head wound, Chekov will be fine.

“Cadet Tiberius, we require--” The Acting Captain’s voice can’t penetrate their little world.

“Shut up, kid. I dis-and-re-assembled into a million little pieces to come find you, you know.”

“I can’t do what I need to and protect you.”

“Fuck that, kid.” He takes a breath. “We are here. To help these people. We’ll figure something out.”

Jim looks down. Bones hasn’t yet mastered the art of reading the top of his head and decides to up that on his priority list.

His voice is even when he speaks, but Bones knows better than to think that means calm. “The Captain is injured. Sulu and I stopped the bleeding, but there’s something else wrong with him.” He gestures over to the corner, where a pale and sweaty Sulu has The Captain’s feet on his lap.

Well, fuck.

Chris is … conscious? Ish? Phewph. Oh, never mind, thathurts.

Oh, hey, Romulans! He remembers Romulans! Not nice guys. Gotta stop them. Pull it together, Chris, pull it --

“Spock!” That’s his name, right? “What’s -- Oof!” Something bites him in the neck, and it hurts on top of his hurt, but then everything’s just a little bit clearer.

“It won’t hold long. We need to get him out of here asap.”

“Spock.” Chris tires again. “Report.”

“We are currently in pursuit of a group of hostile Romulans who may possess an unstable and highly dangerous substance that we believe could threaten the integrity of the planet. There are six other away teams focused on evacuating as many Vulcans as possible should our mission be unsuccessful.”  He pauses a moment, glances behind him. It’s a very un-Spock thing to do, enough to prompt Chris to strain his head as far as he can to follow the gaze.

He sees the away team, clustered near the doorway, uncertainty written in all their faces, except -- holy fuck.

“Additionally,” Spock is saying, “The veracity of Cadet Tiberius’ identity has come into question. I am unsure --”

“You look just like George,” Chris whispers. It earns him an inscrutable, thunderous blue stare. “You’re, James, right? The youngest Kirk.” He doesn’t get an answer. He wants to push, but … he can feel his energy dripping out from his ears. “Thought you were on ‘Vega?”

“Vega didn’t need me,” says Jim, anddamn does he look like his father.

Chris’ head sinks back down. He can still stare up at his First Officer, at least. Though Spock is Captain, now.

He’s fading too fast. “Spock. You do what you need to.” He means to stop there, but something in him tumbles forward. “Jim is your second. Gonna need all the help you can get.”

Red comes back into his eyes before he can second guess his choice.

Chapter Text

Immediately following The Captain’s slump into unconsciousness, there’s about a half second of silence. Sulu suspects that the others are using this time to process, but honestly, he’s having more of a ‘well, this might as well happen’ kind of a day.

He might feel differently if they were more of an established crew. He’s bound by his duty to Starfleet and his commanding officers, of course, but Tiberius has just saved his life, which goes a long way as far as Sulu is concerned. He knows Captain Pike by reputation, and Acting Captain Spock by a much less trustworthy reputation, and Tiberius by the fact that he’d sliced his hands open untethering the restraints around Sulu’s wrists.

So. When Tiberius says it’s time to go, Sulu’s ready to go.

Himself, the Captain, and a security ensign are all that’s left of the team from the shuttle, and Sulu is by far the most conscious of the trio. Two Vulcans accompanied Tiberius’ rescue mission, one of whom has sustained injuries of his own. Meanwhile, the away team from The Enterprise consists of only five members. Their mission to pursue the Romulans is being torn at by the undeniable need to evacuate the injured.

The Doctor insists they evacuate the Captain immediately, so the injured Vulcan, Chekov, and Officer Gremsk are taking him and the other injured members from the shuttle party back out of the cavern so they can be transported. After a cursory patch job, Sulu is reluctantly deemed fit to remain.

Doctor McCoy, as though anticipating resistance, states loudly that there are plenty of component doctors on the Enterprise, and a distinct lack of them here where they’re needed. No one fights him on it. Not even Tiberius, who’s standing locked in formation position, waiting while what’s left of their small team reforms.

It’s not far to the inner Katric chambers. Spock informs them that there will likely be Vulcan elders present, increasing the risk of friendly fire. Sulu grimly runs the odds through his head: they should be about evenly numbered with the Romulans, but they’re out-skilled, outgunned, and entirely without the element of surprise.

It seems an impossible task.

“Okay,” says Tiberius. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

Starfleet may not know it, but they’ve already lost.

Nero can see the end of the line encroaching. All but five of his crew are dead. The Vulcan scum are subdued for now, dead, unconscious, or restrained in the corner of the Atrium. Of course, Starfleet will send more, like the insects who’ve been trailing them since they crash-landed on the planet. Nero will enjoy taking them down given the opportunity, but it’s a triviality at this point.

Vulcan is already finished. They’ve dropped the red matter device down the Sacred Well. The makeshift detonation device has the unfortunate side-effect of slowing the processes down, and it will be less efficient without access to the planetary core -- but it’ll get the job done.

He turns around sedately as the door behind him scrapes open.

He’s half-expecting Spock, hoping for a final opportunity to relish his revenge. He’s not expecting what comes through the door instead.

The only reason he places the pallid human face so quickly is that any conception of Spock is inseparable from the mythos of his history with Captain Kirk. This one is younger, dodging the phaser fire with ease. Perhaps there’s more fun to be had here than Nero was anticipating.

There’s only four of them, laughably easy odds. Nero lets them make it to the pillars on the left, get some cover. The relish builds in him as he stalks over. Here is one more thing Spock loved, perhaps more than anything else. If it’s going to be the last thing he takes from Spock, Nero wants to enjoy it.

The phaser fire is steady. Predictable. Amature. Nero takes down one of them with a shot to the leg before he even rounds the first pillar. There’s a spurt of green blood, and Nero grins.

Then he takes a hit to the face.

It's a glancing blow, but painful enough to mean it wasn't set to stun. Okay. Not so easy then. Even better.

Bones is not happy about being stuck on Spock’s team, but there wasn’t exactly the time to argue. And yeah, okay, injured hostages, definitely more his area of expertise than the middle of a firefight. But.

He had to let Jim out of his sight.

Spock waits what Bones is sure is the exact amount of time they’re supposed to, and then, without a word, slips through the cracked open door. Bones, in a pattern that is beginning to feel way, way too familiar, follows.

He spares a moment to glance over the room. It’s not long enough to really see anything, besides the fact that nobody immediately started to shoot at them, and he can’t see Jim. It’s already too much time wasted; Spock is halfway across the room.

When Bones finally sees what they’re actually going towards, it’s like something in his vision clears. Or narrows, maybe.

They’re tied up in a huddle in the corner, at least half a dozen of them. Spock immediately crouches down next to a woman with what looks to be a minor head wound, while Bones turns his attention to the unconscious ones on the floor.

Two of them are dead. One of them is bleeding badly, but alive. Bones slips on a tourniquet over his robes, no time for anything else.

“We need to move, now, Doctor.” The woman’s voice startles him, hushed though it is. He looks up at her and blinks in surprise. Human. How curious.

She’s right. Spock has finished cutting the hostages' bonds while Bones worked, but they don’t look like they’ll be able to walk unassisted.

“Yes, ma’am. We’ll get you three out right now--”

“We cannot leave my father,” says Spock, too loudly. His hand is laid just above the wound on the unconscious Vulcan, brushing the edge of the tourniquet.

Oh, yeesh. Unpack that later. “We’ll come back,” Bones promises.

Spock's lips thin, but he nods.

Dragging the wounded across the room is ten-times as heart-wrenching as the trip across it was the first time. How the distraction is possibly still holding, he has absolutely no idea. Well, he has some idea, due to the, y’know, lasers and blood stench and the occasional, uh. Screaming.

Focus, Bones. Bring back the tunnel vision.

They can’t take the hostages any farther than out the door. The woman whispers something to Spock as he sets her down, but Bones isn’t exactly stopping to eavesdrop. He pivots right around, heaves himself back through the door.

A piece of stone wall shatters above his head. Guess their luck’s run out.

He’s only a few steps inside. It will occur to him later that the sensible thing to do would be to turn around, to go back out, but the simple truth is that the momentum of his adrenaline is too strong to ignore. He runs through a string of interrupted phaser fire, mostly by luck and without looking back, to crash down on his knees by the last Vulcan hostage. There’s no time to be as careful as he needs to for the sake of the man’s injuries; he simply flips the Vulcan over and hoists him into a dead man's carry.

As he staggers to his feet, he catches a glimpse of why he isn’t dead yet: Spock is walking calmly through the room, unprotected, drawing phaser fire away from them. Goddamn, but that is a little bit impressive.

They almost make it. Bones is halfway back to the door when another shot rips the stonework on the ceiling above them. It's too much for the delicate archway to take, and a whole chunk of it gives way, directly on top of the spot Bones is running towards. Through the dust and rubble raining down around him, He sees Spock fall to his knees, phaser clattering out of his hand. He tries to call out, but something hits him square in the back with the force of a small shuttle, and the next thing he knows he’s facedown on the floor.

It’s agony. He screams. It wastes all the air in his lungs. He claws mindlessly at stone, fighting to draw in short, dust-filled gasps. It’s impossible.

Abruptly, the battle is over. The phaser fire ends, and the cavern is filled instead with echoes of pain from all around him. In the middle of the room, unbearably far away, the Romulan Nero stands like a looming nightmare. Before him kneels the one person Bones needs most desperately to see, the one he wishes most deeply was anywhere else. Nero has one hand in Jim’s hair, the other on his throat.

They’ve lost.

Once the rest of his forces had fallen, Kirk stopped struggling so quickly that Nero is almost disappointed. Instead of snapping the human’s neck as he originally intended, he decides to watch the man choke, relish the victory a moment longer.

Kirk moves his lips, trying to speak. On a whim, Nero loses his hand just a fraction, enough to allow a smidge of air through the human’s throat.

“Surrender,” he whispers.

Nero throws back his head and laughs. “I’m afraid it’s a little too late to make that offer, Kirk.”

“You have ten seconds,” Kirk replies.

“Till what?”

“I kill you where you stand.”  The human’s voice is soft and steady. He looks so small and pathetic, covered in dirt and blood.

Nero rolls his eyes. “Is that all? Captain Kirk, Master of the Bluff, and that’s the best you ca--”

Kirk’s hand comes upward, across Nero’s stomach and torso. And then Nero is no longer staring into defiant blue eyes, just green, green, green. He sways, fists falling away from Kirk’s head. He catches a glimpse of the knife in Kirk’s hand, his head connecting the dots in slow motion: Kirk has lifted his own knife from his belt and gutted him.

Nero falls. Kirk stands up and walks away.

His eyes grow grey, and the ground begins to shiver.

Chapter Text

The pain should not be as deeply unbalancing as this, powerful enough to force the air out of his lungs and shine spots in his eyes. He tries to focus on his wounds, asses the damage. They burn in inconstant pulses, but they don’t seem extreme enough to cause this kind of reaction. It’s not physical, not logical. Emotional, then.

Fear.

Now that he has identified the emotion, he should be able to control it. He takes a deep, centering breath, and reaches out to order his thoughts. But the fear slips over everything like oil. It chokes him. Metaphorically speaking, which is not something he usually indulges in. Apparently, he is also experiencing some hysteria.

The chemical balances in his brain are rising rapidly. It causes his respiration patterns to tighten, but it also provides him with the necessary energy to pull himself to his feet. His legs shake as he makes his way to the section of collapsed ceiling that’s obscuring his father and McCoy. He drops to his knees with an involuntary gasp. 

The tremors of the ground are picking up, which actually makes it easier to dig his hands under the largest slab and heave. For a moment, as his shoulders strain, he thinks he won’t be able to move it,  but a second pair of hands takes hold next to his own. Together, they lift the rock just enough to slide it off to the side.

Through the rubble underneath, Spock grabs fistfuls of his father’s tunic and pulls.

The wounds to Sarek’s skull and back, are immediately evident. He must have taken most of the force when the ceiling collapsed. As Spock rolls him over on the ground, he sees that his hands are now covered in blood.

His father isn’t breathing. 

Distantly, he’s aware of the noises Dr. McCoy is making as he’s helped to a sitting position, but it’s not important. Spock places his hand against Sarek’s face, fingers splayed across his temple. He sends his mind forth. Scrambling in darkness.

A touch to his shoulder, pulling at him insistently and weakening his focus. “Spock, this whole place is going to come down. We need to move. Now.”

Spock throws the arm away, not bothering to temper his strength. His eyes stay closed.

A different voice. “Whoa, what’re you--”

Spock hears the phaser at the same moment he feels it hit him in the back.

Bones has just killed a man. He’s alive right now because he -- inadvertently -- used Spock’s father as a human -- Vulcan -- shield.

Is he shaking, or is that the world?

Bones is ready to fall apart into a hundred pieces, but he’s distracted by a face swimming into view, inches away.

Jim is taut, like a wire pulled too tight and humming with electricity. The edges of him could cut air, but that’s not the part that really startles Bones. His eyes are wild. Desperate. Wait, did he just shoot Spock in the back?

“We gotta go,” Jim whispers.

“Here.”  One of the prisoners has come back into the room and kneels on the floor next to Bones. Her head is covered, but the uncloaked emotion on her face as she looks at the body on the ground tell Bones she can’t possibly be Vulcan. She pulls her eyes away and looks up at Jim, voice wavering. “If you can carry my son, I’ll help the doctor.”

Oh. Son. Huh . And therefore. Wife . oh fuck.

Bones is kind of expecting her to slap him for murdering her husband, or maybe turn around and sock Jim in the face, for, y’know, stunning her injured child into unconsciousness, but instead, she slips an arm around his back under his shoulder, pulling him to his feet.

Dizziness crashes through his head and dark spots obscure the world for a long moment. By the time it starts to clear they’re stumbling out of the room, Jim ahead of him with Spock slung over his shoulder.

Going back into the hall is like walking into a nightmare. Literally. Blood and pain, the walls quaking around him. Through the dust and the sweat dripping in his eyes, Bones’ field of vision narrows to the steak of Jim’s back growing farther and farther away. He tries to keep up, he does, but the woman next to him is carrying at least half his weight.

He doesn’t think they’re going to make it. They have to make it. He’s a doctor from Georgia, dammit; he eats fear for breakfast and digests it into pure stubbornness.

He can’t see Jim.

He’s terrified. Not of dying here with this stranger, not of being left behind. The thing is, if they don’t make it, he knows what will happen.

Jim will come back, and he’ll die with them.

Uhura has spent the last half hour frantically coordinating the away teams beaming up as many Vulcans as they can to the Enterprise and the Narada. There’s an ensign on her right side whose job has gone from scanning the surface for signs of Captain Pike and his team to monitoring and reporting the emerging seismic activity. Another ensign mans the helm, and Lieutenant Gardner sits in the captain’s chair, apparently capable of little besides sweating profusely and occasionally telling them to keep doing what they’re already doing.

That’s probably a little harsh, but she’s under a lot of pressure, and it’s not inaccurate.

The planet passes the moment of no return. She loses abrupt contact with one of the away teams. One moment, she’s telling engineering to beam them up, and then something happens, the earth falling away underneath four of her crewmates and a dozen evacuees, and they’re just … gone.

Her hands don’t shake. She moves on. And since the direction doesn’t seem to be coming to the Captain’s chair, she halts any return trips.

The signals for the officer’s away team, lead by Spock, had cut off when they made their way inside the cavern. Her attention flicks back to it in every second she can spare.

Chekov comes back online first, followed shortly by the ensign. She asks no questions beyond confirming the number of evacuees they have, just gives the order to beam them up directly. Sulu, too, comes with a small group to evacuate.

There’s a heart-wrenching pause, but finally, another comm comes online and she registers two life signatures.

“Enterprise to Spock, how many to beam up?”

But it’s not Spock who answers.

“Spock is injured. Beam him directly.” The comm cuts off.

Oh, maybe she is shaking a little, after all. “Wait!” But Tiberius’ life signal disappears. Has she lost him, as well?

She orders the transporter technicians to beam Spock directly to medbay. And she waits.

The seconds are long. There’s one more round of evacuees that comes through from the south, which she sends to the Narada. She knows the planet must be falling to pieces, but she doesn’t turn from her station.

“Please,” she whispers. To no one.

She gets a reading. She’s punching the order through even as the comm crackles to life.

“McCoy to Enterprise. Three to beam.” Watching engineering lock-on and pick them up is so easy it’s almost anticlimactic.

There’s a gasp from somewhere behind her. Finally, she chances a look over her shoulder, just in time to watch Vulcan crumble away.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

It seems entirely appropriate to Scotty that the first thing the mad man Jim does upon assuming command of The Enterprise is to ask for the impossible. Delightful would probably not be an appropriate word given the situation, but this task is certainly a better use of Scotty’s talents than sitting on a floating ice cube and staring at gauges all day.

That doesn’t mean he’s isn’t going to be setting the man straight, of course.

“No can do, Jimbo. The life-support systems alone are about a year off from collapsing under the load of two dozen crew, after all the abuse they’ve taken. Finding a way to make this pile of junk support several hundred people? We would need massive equipment and two weeks in a space dock to make those kinds of modifications. You can forget trying to get this thing into warp at the same time. I’m telling ya, obviously, these Romulans were right bastards, but what they’ve done to this poor ship--”

“What about the core?” Jim interrupts him, which, fair enough. “If we abandon the warp function, you can divert the exterior equipment to support ship functions.”

Huh. Well. Yes. That is pretty much what they’re going to have to do. He’d forgotten he was talking to an engineer, not just a Captain. “We can make that work, but it’s still going to leave us as sitting ducks.”

“If we salvage enough extra power, we can at least use the impulse engines.”

Scotty scoffs. “Dunno where you think we’re going to come up with that much extra energy.”

“The Enterprise,” Kirk says. Like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“You don’t. You can’t mean. You want to cannibalize that beautiful--”

“If the Narada is going to be moving solely on impulse power, we’ll have to keep the same pace anyways. We’re not going to be leaving you behind.”

“Still, Captain … the principle of the thing …”

“Scotty.” Jim’s tone has softened. “I watched The Enterprise go up. I’m telling you: she can take it.” It’s said with such quiet, genuine affection, that Scotty has no choice but to acquiesce.

“Y’know, this means we’re gonna have a long few weeks as we make our way back.”
“So we get started,” Kirk says.

Crazy bastard, alright. Scotty kinda loves him.

The issue is, somewhat ironically, that Jim obviously knows what he’s doing. On the surface, that doesn’t sound like a problem; it sounds like exactly what they desperately need. But what that means to Uhura is that nobody wants to ask the questions that desperately need to be asked.

They don’t even know his name. Everyone seems to agree on the ‘Jim’, part, at least, so that’s how Uhura has decided to think of him. Sulu and Checkov, who actually witnessed his field promotion, seem pretty comfortable calling him Captain, but Uhura is entirely unready to legitimize the situation that way. The others, filtering in and out, mostly avoid calling him anything at all.
Behind that question is a rats’ nest of more troubling uncertainties. Why would he hide his name? Why would Pike promote him? Why was he on the ship in the first place, and for that matter, why does a disgraced mechanical engineering cadet know how to command a starship?

It’s impossible not to think of the Kobayashi Maru. Admittedly, she doesn’t have much detail on what exactly happened in that room, but she knows he cheated, and she’s pretty convinced that he dragged Galia into the whole mess as well. And here he is, again, in a deeply unorthodox situation. (Sure, the way Uhura claimed her own position on the bridge wasn’t exactly conventional either, but she doesn’t have a history of duplicity or much of anything to gain.) Jim went from academic suspension to Captain in the space of twenty-four hours.

Uhura knows herself well enough to be wary of the paranoia bubbling inside her head. She’s been on duty for going on two full shifts, working at maximum alert. It would be dangerous and unprofessional to give in to judgments based on prejudice. And with Spock in recovery, and the rest of the crew clearly working through their own shock, she is determined that she, at least, remain alert and rational.

So, she falls back on her training. The methodology of observing and analyzing speech patterns is familiar enough to afford her a layer of dissociation. It helps, as well, that once she’s paying attention, Kirk’s patterns are quite academically interesting.

On the broadest scale, his speech is masterfully deliberate. He doesn’t give orders. He just… says … reasonable things. And then they do them. Sometimes, if he needs something specific from one person, he’ll ask them a question, so that everything he requires of them feels like an achievement, a challenge they can rise to, rather than an imposition. It leaves nothing to object to; every decision and action still belongs to them.

Checkov, young and enthusiastic, for all that he is shaken, accepts the guidance with vigor. Sulu’s reaction is more telling; Uhura has worked with the man before, respects his intelligence and integrity. Whatever happened down on the surface of Vulcan has won Jim a powerful ally.

But on the more detailed levels of syntax and morphology, the longer Uhura listens to him, the more she becomes convinced there’s something else there. The structure of Jim’s speech. The vocabulary and rhythm aren’t quite formal, but they also fall short of the conventions of conversational speech. It’s like listening to someone speak the way they would write.

Perhaps he’s a second language speaker, speaking deliberately in standard rather than relying on the universal translator. Try as she might, she can’t parse any clues as to what his native language might be.

It’s intriguing, but it leaves her with more questions and fewer answers than she started with.

“Lieutenant Uhura,” Jim startles her out of her reflection “Can you have the department heads join us on a closed channel?”

She tilts her head slightly in curiosity and gets no explanation. She lets the moment go and arranges the channel for him.

It takes a few minutes for all of them to check-in, from Chief Engineer Tanner, to Security Officer Hendorff, Science Officer Carron, and last to arrive, Dr. McCoy. Jim gives no indication of his intentions as they wait, simply listens quietly as they give updates on their respective departments.

When does, finally, begin to speak, every last one of them is utterly unprepared.

“In approximately twenty minutes, we are going to come in range of the initial combat zone.”

Uhura looks up at him in undisguised alarm. She has no idea why, after everything they’ve been through, he needs to drag them back through that … graveyard.

“We know that the ambush and subsequent destruction of The Fleet took place in the space of approximately ten minutes. We also know that sections of some of the ships remained intact. Given this information, there’s a possibility that some of the crew might still be alive.”

He’s right. Everything he’s saying, they’ve all had the puzzle pieces this whole time, and never even considered … the implications …
Is this hope, or is it horror?

“Our primary obligation is to escort The Narada and the remaining Vulcan population to safety. But we are also the only vessel that’s going to be in this sector of space during the window of opportunity for any rescue efforts.”

Rescue efforts. Rescue.

“I know all of our departments are stretched thin as it is. And I want to be clear that any search and retrieval efforts will be difficult and dangerous. It will likely require the physical rescue of trapped or injured personnel, which means entering the wreckage, and possibly climbing over the bodies of the dead.”

Stop talking, stop talking, stop.

“You know your departments best, who is equipped for this, who is already over-spent. I think most of the manpower should come from security, but if at all possible, the teams should be on a volunteer basis. There’s plenty of other collaboration to be done for anyone unwilling or unable to assist in the recovery. We won't leave them out there, no matter what.”

Static noise. Inside and out.

“I’ll put together a trauma team.” McCoy is the first to step up.

“I was able to get some of our officers an abbreviated rest cycle. They’ll be fresh, at least,” Hendorff offers.

Tanner has her hands full assisting with the renovations to Narada, but she, too, promises to find transporter techs and some engineers to help navigate the wrecks.

The Captain thanks each one of them. “I have a good deal of training in extractions like this. We’ll take half an hour to develop a strategy, execute some more detailed scans, and then I’ll make an announcement to the crew.”

Uhura has already begun to pull up what data they have stored, determined to organize a priority map of areas most likely to harbor survivors.

The next six hours are seared more vividly in Uhura’s brain than the destruction of Vulcan. It drains her of every last drop resilience and will that she has, but every ounce is worth it.

They find thirty-seven survivors.

Perhaps tomorrow, they'll wake up and get to do something other than hold together the pieces of a universe that's fallen apart.

When Spock wakes, the first thing he is aware of is the absence of his father’s bond. It is a silence so gaping, it takes him a moment to realize that he can also feel the quiet murmur of his mother’s bond, flashes of gentle thoughts and emotions. She must be very close.

Opening his eyes, Spock finds confirmation of his theory. She’s seated directly in his line of sight in an out of place chair that must have been dragged in from another room. The moment their eyes meet, she reaches for his hand.

He allows her to clasp his fingers but does not respond in kind.

It is difficult to judge how much time has passed while Spock has been unconscious. Clearly, he is in the starship medbay. His mother wears the same clothes they found her in, but appears to have cleaned up, nonetheless, her head uncovered and her skin clean of dust and blood.

He does not hold her gaze for long.

Upon testing his limbs, Spock observes that his own wounds have been treated, but will require more time and likely a deep meditation session to aid there healing. The pain, at least, is controlled enough to be insignificant.

He attempts to sit up. Doing so requires him to retrieve his hand from his mother’s hold. He approaches the process cautiously but finds his physical capabilities adequate for the exertion. Whoever has been treating Spock has clearly done well, despite the clearly fully occupied status of the medbay.

The patients appear to be mostly crew members, many of whom he does not recognize. He does not understand how that could have happened. What has he missed?

He needs to get out of here. Attempting to stand, however, appears to reach the limit of his mother’s patience.

“Spock, you’re not well. You shouldn’t be moving.” She grips his arm with both hands in an attempt to belay him, and it works for a moment, as he finds himself acutely aware how long it has been since he’s heard her voice in person.

“And where do you think you’re going, young man?” asks a familiar voice. Dr. McCoy. He’s standing with his hands on his hips, his eyebrow raised, and an exaggerated expression of admonition.

“I need to get to the bridge,” Spock tells him, endeavoring to be firm and authoritative.

McCoy throws one hand haphazardly in the air. “Sure you do. Of course. Obviously. So silly of me to ask.”

This is sarcasm. It is also, however, not technically a refusal. “Yes,” Spock agrees. He sways on his feet once, experimentally, and takes a cautious step forward.

“Spock!” His mother is upset. “There’s nothing you can do up there.” He continues to walk, passing by the Doctor and surprised to encounter no physical resistance. “Vulcan is gone.”

This stops him. Against his volition, he turns to stare at her.

“What?” The voice does not even sound like his own.

There are tears glistening behind her eyes. “The planet is gone. We have … there are some survivors, but …”

Whatever words she is struggling to find, Spock does not wait to find out. He is halfway to the lift before he realizes that the doctor is walking beside him.

The bridge is wrong. Unsettling, perhaps, would be a better word.

He walks out to the quiet murmur of the navigator giving a report. Uhura is bent over her station. Her hair has been braided since he last saw her. Sulu mans the helm. Close by, leaning gently against the rail, Tiberius turns to observe their entrance. Dr. McCoy walks around Spock’s halted figure and makes his way to stand at his friend’s shoulder, which is what finally alerts the rest of the bridge to their presence.

“Spock,” Uhura gasps. He has no desire to spare her a glance.

“Why are we not at warp?” He demands instead.

It’s Tiberius who answers. “The warp engine has been disabled to provide alternate mechanical support.”

Voluntary disabling the warp engines? The total disregard for safety protocols and the sanctity of Starfleet property is staggering. “Under what authority?”

“It was my call,” says Tiberius.

“Captain Pike did make him first officer, sir,” adds Lieutenant Sulu.

Spock was anticipating this response and has prepared a concise summary of the legal and logical violations of the situation. What he is is not prepared for, is Tiberius making the argument first.

“It’s not a binding promotion. Captain Pike was gravely injured and highly medicated, unfit to be making such decisions. By any rational standard, I’m still a cadet on academic suspension.”

Despite his words, James doesn’t move from where he’s standing next to the Captain’s chair. He’s maintaining what Spock is beginning to recognize as an intentionally unemotional facade.

Just as surprisingly, it is Nyota who voices the first rebuttal. “To be frank, when you start giving stupid orders, we will have all those reasons you just said not to listen. But I don’t think any of us are in a position to be ignoring an intelligent suggestion, here.”

Spock frowns. “It’s highly unorthodox--”

“I think planetary destruction counts as an exigent circumstance, Spock,” interrupts Dr. McCoy.

Suddenly, Spock is unsure. Certainly, protocol is unambiguous, which would normally be the end of the discussion as far as he is concerned. But the doctor is correct: the situation is far from normal. His responsibilities and training as a Starfleet Officer and all his discipline as a Vulcan speak plainly, but they are not really the forces influencing him here.

He was driven from medbay by a sharp and brittle energy, which, in the face of reasonable, not unempathetic constancy, is beginning to dissolve into something much more unsteady. “It would not be appropriate,” he says slowly.

“It doesn’t matter,” replies Tiberius.

Spock raises an eyebrow.

“The legal repercussions of my promotion can’t be untangled until we return. In the meantime, we have a long journey in front of us and the remains of a grieving population to care for.”

Spock concedes the point, but Tiberius is not finished.

“There are a thousand different responsibilities on this ship. Some of them are for a captain, some are for a Vulcan, some for a son.” Spock flinches. He’s becoming far too acquainted with this technique, the soft-spoken words delivering piercing injury. “Your family needs you, Spock. Your crew does not.”

Spock takes a breath in. He looks around the room. Spock and Checkov, at their consoles, are still sporting scrapes but sitting tall. Nyota has crossed half the distance to him but stopped far enough away to be out of reach. Her eyes are soft, but her chin lifted high. She meets Spock’s gaze steadily, gives him a single nod. And then Doctor McCoy, standing right behind Tiberius, both immovable.

Spock breaths out.

He trusts them.

Unable to speak, he turns and leaves.

Chapter Text

When nearly two dozen Starfleet ships were dispatched to answer a Vulcan distress call and descended into complete radio silence, Admiral Nensi Chandra assumed the same thing she saw written on her colleagues’ faces: war.  It was a possibility that had lingered for some time in the awareness of all of those on the Starfleet Academy Board. Though they are usually quite sequestered in their academic missions, they have all, at some point, observed the shifting tenor of directives and attitudes among the rest of Fleet Command. 

The problem, in her own estimation, was the Kelvin. The horror of the tragedy was compounded by their inability to understand it. It birthed a fear, not of a specific enemy that could be addressed or defended against, but something nebulous and unnamed and therefore lurking, always, in the back of their awareness. And it did not heal, even as the incident faded through time. Over the course of the last decade, Nensi had made a concerted effort to combat this dangerous irrationality, to reinforce Starfleet’s true scientific mission in the minds of its future, convinced that this was the best use of their resources to avoid more needless loss.

Until the distress call, and the long silence.

Admiral Marcus is the first to suggest the possibility of war out loud. Shockingly. The man has only been the most avid proponent of building their military capabilities since Nensi first met him.

“It’s been twenty-four hours,” Nensi snaps. “We called this briefing to discuss sending reinforcements, not to give up on thousands of lives.”

“Ignoring the reality staring us in the face, continuing as though the situation was a mere inconvenience, that would be giving up on lives,” Marcus sneers. 

“I agree that it’s far too early to be making assumptions,” chimes in Barnett, “but Chandra, you have to admit that we are now in an incredibly vulnerable position.”

Marcus snaps his fingers loudly and jabs his fist in the air for emphasis. Komack, who is sitting to his right, flinches in disdain, but that’s never deterred Marcus before. “Exactly. It’s a matter of resources. Whatever it is that has tied up the ships responding to Vulcan, it means we no longer have the manpower to respond to the threat if it comes this way. Or if someone else decides to take advantage of this opportunity.”

Nensi shakes her head, but it’s more the situation she’s denying than the Admiral. She feels old, despite her health. “What exactly are you proposing, Marcus?”

He smiles, a small brief thing on the verge of malice. “First, we consolidate--”

But Marcus doesn’t ever get to finish laying out his plan. An ensign barges into the room, red as a sunset, and holding a PADD. It’s a report from the USS Enterprise. It’s contents are incalculably horrific if they’re true.

It’s a summary of ambush, death, destruction, but the details are sparse, and it’s signed by Acting Captain Cadet James Tiberius , a phrase which is a whole package in and of itself. 

“We need to get a connection to the Enterprise immediately,” says Admiral Komack. “This Tiberius has a lot to answer for.”

Nensi agrees, but Barnett interrupts. “Wait,” he says. “There’s more. Look, an attachment.”

It’s a video, a recording of a transmission from the USS Farragut . Watching it adds credence to Tiberius’ report, but perhaps more importantly, underscores the gravity of what has transpired.

After a great deal more discussion, they decide to abide by the timeline set out by Tiberius. They will postpone their interrogation while The Enterprise conducts their rescue mission of the stranded crew members. It helps as well that they begin to receive reports from other members of the Enterprise’s bridge crew as well.

She leaves the briefing with as much fear as she had going in, but it’s more palatable now. The unknown, finally, revealed. Still, perhaps if the news had been less dire, she might have paid more attention to the fact that ever since the report came in, Marcus had barely said a single word. 

They’re burning out. It’s manageable, and they seem to be past the worst, but every single person on the ship is feeling the strain of what they’ve had to do. Little rest, one crisis after another, not to mention the psychological trauma they’re gonna have to start processing at some point. And Bones, now officially CMO, is having to handle the wave of patients

The nurse waits until he’s done with Ensign Kivas -- nasty burns, almost lost the leg -- before telling him there’s a red-shirt in Puri’s -- in his -- office, with no medical record on file, refusing to be treated by anyone else due to his “allergies.” The nurse rolls his eyes as he says it. Bones won’t forget that he did.

It is, however, a little funny, in a surreal kind of way, how Jim-the-Captain is now talked about in hushed, reverent tones, but over half the crew can still walk past him without a glimmer of recognition. 

He draws in a breath to chuckle at the thought of Jim-the-Captain still being referred to as a red-shirt, but it goes out in a wheeze when he sets actually sets his eyes on the man.

Jim is wrapped in a space blanket, clutching the edge of the temporary bed Bones had napped in earlier, and swaying uncontrollably where he sits. Of course he is. It’s been … maybe thirty hours since the destruction of Vulcan? Bones isn’t sure, has taken only a short break to sleep himself, but in any case, it’s far too long for Jim to go without a medical exam after what he’s been through. Also, Bones would bet his front two teeth that the moron hasn’t slept at all.

He’s ready to be angry, mostly at himself for not having anticipated this, done something to prevent it, but also at Jim, for making such a wildly stupid decision. He remembers, though, a fist-fight in the dark, an arm in a make-shift brace, and a broken bone that had been set alone, in silence. 

The anger pops as he realizes, all at once, what this -- Jim, in his office -- means.

“Gonna finally let me treat you, then.”

Jim nods. “No one else here would believe I’m not allowed any pain meds.”

“ I don’t believe you’re not allowed any pain meds,” snaps Bones. “Biologically impossible for you to be allergic to all of them. And if you think for one second I’m doing this without some kind of--”

“Since we don’t have a list of all my known allergies, you are the only one I trust to know better than to take any risks.”

Fuck. Fuck this whole situation, and the exhaustion that still clings so sticky to his mind, stops him from coming up with a brilliant solution.  “This is goddamn fucked up,” Bones adds, just for the record.

Jim just sighs.

He doesn’t even get a pretend explanation when his tricorder magically stops working. Jim just stays still and silent as Bones gently stips him and makes a visual catalog of the damage. 

By the time Bones has finished his diagnostic, he thinks he might puke. When he literally has to use a guiding hand to get Jim down onto his back, he worries he might not be the only one.  Doing this without sedatives is going to be a nightmare. 

By the time he’s done stabilizing Jim’s collar, both of them have puked at least once. Cleaning and patching up the flesh wounds and the nasty burn are child’s play in comparison. 

Thank god the neck doesn’t need surgery.

Bones doesn’t know what he’s going to do if Jim wants to leave after the last round of regen. What if that’s what he needs? Does he have anywhere to sleep? Not that it’s ever seemed to make much difference.

Jim makes no move to stand when Bones finally puts away the last of his equipment. He scoots backward on the crappy cot, props his head up against the corner where the walls meet. It looks as uncomfortable as hell, and it just about makes Bones sob. Or laugh, maybe. 

I’m okay , he thinks to himself sternly. And Jim’s okay. He’s gonna be okay.

His eyes dart to the innocuous slot where he’d deposited his blood-covered gloves to be incinerated. Jim ’ s blood. His hands are clean because he’s not a doctor from the dark ages, but the skin on them starts to itch. He excuses himself from the room with a mumble -- makes sure Jim knows he’s coming right back , though, doesn’t want the man to wander off -- and staggers his way into the scrub down room.

He sanitizes his hands as brusquely as he can, as driven to leave the room as he was on the way in. When he steps back out, he takes a cursory glance at each chart he passes on his way back to Jim. He’s off duty now -- way off duty -- but he’s also the Chief Medical Officer . And all of them, patients, and nurses, Vulcans, are his responsibility now.

Jim is sitting exactly where Bones left him, but he must have moved because his eyes are staring unblinking down at a PADD in his lap. Nostalgia fighting with irritation, Bones takes a seat next to Jim and tries to work up the energy to argue.

He makes a mistake, though, and glances down first. The screen is split between a set of lists, and though his weary eyes have no hope of making out the words, Bones doesn’t need to read them to know what they are.

Names. From the manifest, probably. Or maybe a makeshift census of the Vulcans on the Romulan ship. Too long, too short -- either option is too terrible.

Jim is so still he’s barely breathing, except for the dancing of his fingertips across the surface. Tagging, or assigning value, or marking priority, for the dead or the living or the missing, Bones should ask, should ask Jim, but the knowledge is already too big. He knows that he knows some of the names on those lists.

“Jim.” It’s all he can say. Just, “Jim. Jim.” And then he gets out a “please,” and he has to stop.

Jim’s fingers slow. The tapping gains weight, drags to a stop, but it’s like the motion migrates outwards, vibrates through Jim’s body till he’s undeniably shaking. He moves then, before Bones can find breath, turns his head, ducks his chin to bury his face in Bones’ neck.

Inhale and exhale. Bones matches his lungs to warmth that ghosts across his collarbones with Jim’s every breath. He reaches out a hand and flicks off the PADD. 

That’s all either of them do for a very long time. 

Sleep barrels into Leonard clumsily and painfully, entirely undeniable. It holds him till the claims of hunger and pain win out over his body, drag his mind back where it does not want to go. By the time he wakes the space next to him is long gone cold.

Galia wakes up to a blur of white. The first thing she does is try to reach a hand out for Gary, or rather, for Gary’s body. What she meets instead is something warm and very much alive.

“Hey there, Sleeping Beauty.”

Joy bubbles through her. “Nyota.” And then, catching her breath and finally laying eyes on her angel, “I knew you’d make it.”

Nyota just laughs. She runs a hand through Galia’s hair. “When you’re up to it, you have to show me how you got around that damn firewall.”

Fair. “Speaking of ‘up’…” she wriggles her shoulders hopefully.

Abruptly, Nyota’s face twists. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea …” she says because she doesn’t want to lie, bless her. She thinks Galia doesn’t remember. She has no idea, therefore, how many hours Galia had lain in that ghastly, smoking hole, she and Gary literally bleeding into each other.

“I’m not afraid,” she says.

Nyota slowly maneuvers the bed so that Galia is propped up. There’s a heavy sheet covering her lower half, and for the first split-second, her brain is convinced that she has a leg tucked back underneath her. It’s an unpleasant sensation, and to stop it, she touches the empty space beneath her right knee.

It breaks the illusion, but the result is no more comfortable.

“I’m sorry,” says Nyota. And then again, “I’m sorry.” She stops at two, thankfully, but Galia can see it takes great effort. Her distress is strong enough to taste in the air, a dull reminder to Galia that her friend is practically virgin to deep trauma.

Galia is not. She braces for what she knows happens now. 

Fury. 

She breathes through it, all that she can do for the moment. Dimly, she is aware that she will eventually come out the other side, and that she will meet Nyota there. In the meantime, she takes fire as fuel.

She is more powerful than anything that touches her body. 

Pavel has been sitting in the corner of the rec-room for too long. He didn’t necessarily decide to be there, but now that his every cell is no longer screaming for sleep, the idea of going back to an empty room is insurmountable. His roommate is on an opposite shift rotation, and the quarters are too quiet, too still.

There’s not much revelry going on in the rec-room, either, but there are voices and movement. He doesn’t want to be a part of it, but he needs to know that other people are there. He’s stripped down to his blacks, so maybe, hopefully, he can just smoosh himself back into the rounded corner and become part of the wall.

Something taps lightly on his forehead. Pavel blinks, and works out that someone is standing in front of him. He squints up.

Oh. “Captain.”

The Captain doesn’t say anything. He’s holding something in his hand down by his hip; a cup, maybe? It must be what he prodded Pavel’s head with.

He’s not sure what to expect here. Pavel is not on-duty, and the Captain doesn’t seem to be here in an official capacity. If he is needed, if there’s something he can do, anything, whatever The Captain asks, he’ll answer.

The Captain just blinks down at him, holding the cup awkwardly in his hand.

Perhaps Pavel is supposed to take it?

It’s warm to the touch, a lidded thermos. When Pavel takes it, the Captain makes a half step back, but stays watching, unspeaking. The movement strikes Pavel, unexpectedly. It feels almost reverent, a formal respectfulness of space and quiet.

He takes off the lid and receives a faceful of steam. It smells of honey and cinnamon and milk, like a tea he might make himself at home. It’s heaven.

He looks up to say thank you, but the Captain is gone. Instead, his eyes meet Lt. Sulu sitting at a table across the room, having apparently been watching the entire time. He smiles softly, and the whole thing makes Pavel feel incredibly exposed and deeply protected at the same time. 

It’s been the most difficult week of his life, but … it’s nice, knowing people are looking out for him.

He takes a sip of the tea, a demonstrative flourish for Sulu that gets a little derailed by how delicious the beverage is, and unexpectedly thick, substantial. 

“Not a lot of people know this,” he says to Sulu, “but tea was actually invented in Russia.”

Sulu snorts. “You know I’m Japanese, right?”

Neither one of them can keep from smiling.

Chapter Text

Amanda takes charge of organizing activities for the Vulcan children on The Enterprise, mostly academic exercises they complete with ease. They don’t have the resources to conduct any kind of proper schooling, but the point of it is mostly to distract and provide structure. Spock volunteers to oversee some of the older children, and it is Amanda’s deep secret how grateful she is for the opportunity to watch him. He must be a wonderful teacher. 

Today, they’re trying something new. It is a suggestion she got from Captain Tiberius, who makes a regular practice of stopping by to speak with her. Always, he asks if there’s anything she needs, so last time she mentioned that some of the youngest children were beginning to get restless, not yet masters of discipline accustomed to sustained intellectual discussion.

“There’s a botany lab in the corner of Second Deck with a small garden. It was supposed to be for long-term study of alien flora during exploratory missions, but it does have a few Terran species. They could use some maintenance, especially with most of our science officers needed elsewhere.”

It’s a good idea, if a bit odd. The inclination to play around in the dirt is more of a human trait, not that she would expect Captain Tiberius to know that, but a measure of productive manual labor will be healthy for the children regardless.

The garden is small, but there’s quite a bit of weeding to do, and the foreign plants immediately capture the children’s attention. Amanda has a decent green thumb, and after a while, she too gets a bit swept away in the methodical actions of pinching and pulling, stopping occasionally to correct one of the kids or answer a question. So it surprises her when she looks up from a particularly wilting stalk and sees The Captain kneeling on the other side of the bed, holding a small wooden stake perfectly still while tiny little hands struggle to wrap it with string.

She watches for a while, his gentle way with the plants, with the children. Even the youngest, not yet skilled at shieling their empathy or polite enough to be shy of touch are utterly at ease in his presence. It is difficult, in this time and place, to reconcile his image with the one he cut so strikingly in the Katric Arc. Not that she holds his actions at the time against him, of course. It’s just … unexpected.

A man of few words and many skills. A puzzle.

The mystery lingers with her even as the afternoon passes, the children move on, and she takes a meal with her son. Spock, of course, notices her distraction. Perhaps she can redirect him.

“So, how was your day?”

“Adequate,” he replies. “Is there something troubling you, Mother?”

So much for that. “I was wondering … how well do you know the Captain?”

“The Acting Captain,” Spock corrects her. A typical fastidiousness, except that he does not follow the correction with anything.

She prods, as delicately as she can. “And that distinction is important to you?” What can she say? Curiosity has always been her strongest vice. Still, if Spock sets a boundary, she will respect it.   

Instead, he tells her. All he knows about Tiberius: his academic history, his transgressions, the accusations and strategies and incredibly complex circumstances that culminated in the fight with Nero. She’d picked up some of the details already from some of the crew, but she had no idea how much was still left unknown.

Her food is left to grow cold, too busy digesting everything else. After some time, she has one final question.

“What do you think of him, Spock?”

Spock bows her head, avoiding her gaze. Slowly, he answers, “I have spent quite some time considering that question in the last few days. I have decided … that I have not yet decided what I think of him.” 

She nods, smiles gently. “That’s probably wise.” 

Given how late the hour has become, she stands to clear their places. Spock assists her, a familiar domestic ritual that brings her unspeakable comfort.

As they part for the evening, Spock finally returns a question of his own. “What do you think of Tiberius, Mother?”

She makes her own decision in that very moment. “I like him.”  Trust is a project that will take much more time, but that’s not her journey to make.

That night she dreams of Vulcan mountains: towering, quiet, and stunning.

Bones has always held a healthy respect for Jim’s intelligence and competence. He also likes to think he knows the man better than anyone, even Galia, but goddamn does Captain Jim take him by surprise. 

It’s not just that Jim is capable of stepping up to the plate in the worst of circumstances, it’s that the man is practically thriving. Like he’s taking the unending needs of the crew and feeding on them, spinning every problem into an opportunity and every doubt into a revelation. 

That would be ugly for everyone. In the first week of their journey, Bones watches Jim crawl into the belly of the mess hall replicator, hold council with the surviving Vulcan elders, track down and end the petty thievery that springs up briefly in the rec-room, and quietly, in stolen moments, work on a set of plans for a bionic limb personalized to Galia. (Thank god Jim has taken to crashing in Bones’ quarters. He would hate having to try and order Jim off duty. That would be ugly for everyone.)

The real moment of revelation for Bones, however, is the standoff with the pirates. 

Apparently, it was too much to ask that the universe cut them a single, small, temporary goddamn break after everything they’d been through. They’ve edged every closer to the protective range of the rest of the fleet, but they are still very much on their own when Jim gives out the low-level alert. Bones makes his way immediately to the bridge. Most of the senior crew is there already, including, to his surprise, a quiet, sharp-eyed Spock.

Jim seems to have made a conscientious decision never to actually sit in the Captain’s chair, some mix of personal and political reasoning that instead has him standing in a formal stance just to the right of it. He’s also in simple standard blacks, rather than his cadet reds or a borrowed gold that he technically has a right to. He displays no signal of rank to set him apart from the lowest ensign. 

It doesn’t obscure the power he holds over the room, the way his simple nod lays order to the restless energy of the crew, his mere attention tuning sharpness into clarity. It’s the same skill that Bones knows makes a master surgeon, in the right hands.

“The vessels are holding trajectory, Captain,” says the teenager upfront. It tears Bones’ gaze away from his friend an up to the screen, a reminder of why he’s here.

“Have we identified a hailing frequency yet?” Jim asks.

“Yessir,” says Uhura. “Ready to open a channel at your signal.”

Jim hums, quietly, eyes still trained at the same information Bones has just digested: a brief description of two starships flagged for criminal activity.

They wait. Bones, of course, knows Jim well enough to see the calculations sparking behind Jim’s eyes. This isn’t hesitation, it’s the careful coiling of a spring. A little surprising, though, that none of the others seem to have any questions. Have they already begun to build the same faith that Bones carries?

“They’re slowing, sir,” reports Checkov.

“Onscreen,” is all Jim replies.

Two patchworks of metal blink into view before them. They’re not large ships, or particularly sturdy looking, but even Bones can infer that the irregular shapes speak as much to dangerous modifications as they do to repair work.

“We must assume,” says Spock, his words sounding even more carefully considered than usual, “that they will be hostile.”

Jim turns to look at the Vulcan, neutrality in place in his features. “If they are a threat, that’s all the more reason not to lock us into the worst possible outcome. We make assumptions, they make assumptions...the situation is still open.”

Bones snorts. There’s really quite a deep irony at play for Spock to be insinuating that Jim is too trusting. Jim spares him an amused glance before addressing Uhura again.

“The Narda?” That’s right; they are technically on escort duty right now, protecting the more vulnerable ship. 

They discussed this in one of their first meetings, the appeal of the Narada’s unusual readings to scavengers or war scouts. Bones remembers thinking how interesting it was that his job description didn’t say anything about space pirates.

“I have confirmation that they’re standing by, Captain. Their weapons system is still offline while they try to redirect power.”

Jim nods.

They maintain course, the trajectory of the pirate ships inching closer to intercept. 

They all see Uhura straighten, hand on her earpiece. “Incoming transmission from the Falcon .”

Bones sees Jim’s lips twitch. Of all reactions, a molecular smile? What have you got, you sly little dog?

Because the bastard is contradictory to his core, he does exactly what Bones was not expecting. Instead of giving the signal to open the channel, he sits. Okay, he’s not exactly sprawling in the chair, but his natural tension deliberately changes. As the incoming transmission flashes, Jim bounces his thumb on the side of the arm rest, locks one of his ankles tightly behind the other, and leans just his shoulder-blades against the back of the chair.

He looks anxious. But not the way anxious-Jim actually looks, more like … an anxious person who just happens to also be Jim.

“Onscreen.” Goddamn finally.

The hailing ship appears to be commanded by some kind of helmeted steroid mass, very cool and threatening and not at all ridiculous looking. 

“Greetings, Starfleet vessel,” the man rasps. “You appear to be--”

“Do you have it?” Jim’s interjection is breathless, urgent. He raises a clearly shaking hand to clasp at his neck. The tone, the posture, it’s far too large and emotive to feel even remotely natural to Bones after so many years of aiming microscopic attention at Jim’s nuance, but maybe that’s the point? In an instant, Jim has become the very vision of fatigue and desperation.

Kind of an odd choice to pull off a bluff with.

The Falcon’s captain , though, is clearly thrown. Bones can just imagine the meathead blinking behind his helmet. 

“Do we have… what?”

“The containment unit. We’ve tried to quarantine the corbamite to the other vessel, but the symptoms are spreading. If Starfleet wants to salvage any of the material, we have to stabilize it now.” Jim waves impatiently through the nonsensical explanation.

The fuck is corbamite?

“What the hell is corbamite?” Ah, good question helmet dude.

Jim stares. Bones has been on the receiving end of those steady, luminous eyes. It can be unnerving. “You’re ... not from Starfleet? What about the unit?”

“Do we look like Fleet, you moron? You should really be more careful when you’re drifting out here like a pair of lame ducks.” Subtle, Falcon man. Real foreboding there.

“Mr. Spock?” Jim says. The Vulcan frowns a little, clearly as confused as the rest of them are about why he’s being addressed. Nonetheless, he steps forward into the frame. “How much longer until the readings reach critical?”

Spock blinks, once. Why, of everyone, would Jim ask a half-Vulcan to help him lie? Bones wonders if he ought to step in, but Spock doesn’t let the silence linger for too long. 

“It’s difficult to say,” Spock obfuscates.Okay not bad. And then, “It is important that we find a speedy resolution before more lives are lost.” 

Oh, hot damn. That was pretty good, Spock. Lying without lying.

Jim nods like his head is made of lead. “There’s still time,” he says, turning back to the Falcon . “Listen, I know you’ve probably heard the rumors about the mining operation on the Vulcan moons--” which they haven’t of course, but that’s not going to matter, Bones, realizes. Not with the pulverized skeleton of an advanced mining ship floating behind them. “-- but the Fleet has already cleared all the civilians from the area. The corbamite is too valuable to risk it, even once we get the right equipment.” 

Valuable . Clearly the key word. The helmet man leans forward. Even without facial expressions to go by, Bones can see the hook sinking in. Hasn’t totally figured out yet where Jim’s going with it yet, but he’s pretty sure they’re winning. 

Checkov, out of visual range of the transmission, raises a hand in a short sweeping gesture to indicate that they’re being scanned again. 

“Yes,” says Helmet-head slowly. “We noticed the black-out around the Vulcan sector. Thought we might see if anyone needed ...assistance.”

Jim smiles, mirthless. “Oh, that’s our fault. We didn’t understand the risks when we extracted the first sample, didn’t notice the chain-reactions happening until later. Before they made this mess of our engines the energy was messing with the signals in the area. They … well. I really shouldn’t say anymore. You understand.”

The helmet man nods graciously, suddenly much more congenial. “Oh, of course. Official business and all that. Listen, we appreciate the heads-up, Captain. We’ll get out of your way here.”

Jim sighs in relief, “Thank you, sir. Starfleet appreciates your cooperation. Just remember, give Vulcan a wide berth for a while, okay? Who knows how much more of the corbamite is out there.”

“Sir,” pipes in Sulu. “Perhaps we could forward them a map of the restricted area so they can stay clear.” Apparently, he’s connected a few more of Jim’s dots than Bones has.

“Yes, Lieutenant,” says Jim. “Safe travels, Falcon .”

Helmet man offers them a cheeky salute and the transmission cuts off.

As the screen fades back to an image of the pirate ships punching into warp, Jim stands from the chair, tugging the hem of his shit once to straighten it out before resuming his usual parade rest. He taps once on the chair's panel to cancel the alarm.

“Sir,” says Checkov in the silence that follows. “What if they come back?”

It’s Spock who answers though. “It is unlikely they will be interested in us once they follow Luitenent Sulu’s instructions to a black hole that used to be Vulcan.” Oh. Oh. It seems too obvious, now.

Uhura is next to understand. “The readings of the red matter will match. They’ll assume what we’re carrying is about to ignite the same way.” 

Because they are carrying the weapon that destroyed Vulcan. Lies constructed from the truth, as Jim was the moment he adopted his persona: the worried, inexperienced captain, letting slip classified information.

Well. Damn. “Hey, Jim?”

“Yes, Bones?”

“Remind me never to teach you poker.” The smile this gets is real, and it makes Bones grin in return.

“Are you a Kirk?” Spock asks, cutting through the infectious hysteria like a brand through butter. 

Jim looks at the Vulcan. His shoulders hold stress, but Bones doesn’t think he’s really upset yet, so he doesn’t intervene. Truth be told, he’s kind of surprised they’ve made it this long with the question unspoken. Figures it would be the hobgoblin who brought it up.

Bones would be lying if he said he didn’t want to hear the story himself, but he’ll back whatever play the kid--

“I am.” Jim says it like it’s easy.

They stare. A Kirk. Like, really. Jim Kirk . Does that… does that make him the Kelvin baby?

“You have deliberately misrepresented your identity,” says Spock. 

Bones bristles. “Now hold on just a minute--”

“My name is not my identity,” says Jim. “I did not always understand the distinction, and so I ran from it. But you are right; it is time to stop.”

Bones can’t read Spock very well, but something Jim says must reach him; he relents with a nod. The whole bridge, in fact, seems to relax back into the camaraderie they’ve become accustomed to. They work well together, this team. Even with Spock.

But the explanation doesn’t settle the same way with Bones. It’s not an answer, not one that fits the pieces he has. What happened to Jim? And how, on Earth, did it happen to a Kirk? 

Sometimes, the farther they get, the more Bones feels like he’s riding in the dark.

The encryption process is ten times more secure than any technology that officially exists. It’s a necessary precaution, but it has its costs. Chief among them are time and imprecision. Urgency cannot titrate through the many necessary layers.

This particular message takes some time to reach its destination, but it still arrives ahead of the recipients. It’s another trade-off: SOP for covert ops so close to allied territory is communication black-out, but they’re a good team, and they’re in the right position.

When the time comes for the commander to read the sparse instructions, they won’t question it. It’s not going to be an easy op to pull off in the belly of a Federation ship, but if those are the parameters, they’ll be met with the full force of training and experience and obedience. That is the way these things are done.

In the dark and quiet, the receiver blinks patiently.

Chapter Text

“Captain, I have the reports from the Narada repair survey.”

“Oh, Captain. We’re having some trouble with the calibrations you asked for. Could you take a look at this?”

“Jim, I need you to say something to that maniac you gave the engineering room to. If I have to treat one more suspicious chemical burn I swear to Momma-- ”

“Captain, I have a message from Admiral Barnett waiting for you.”

“If I may, Captain. I’ve observed an 8.74 percent increase in efficiency within the beta security rotation. It appears the new protocols are a success. Shall I prepare the report?”

“Jimbo! Hey, when you get a minute, the old Ambassador was looking for a word. I’ll tell him you’ll beam over when ye get a chance, eh?”

“Captai… and there he goes. You know, Pavel, at the rate that man moves, I’d almost say the Captain’s trying to revolutionize the entire Fleet before we even get home.”

“Tsh. Please, Hikaru. Knowing the Captain, he will have done just that before the week is up.” 

They’re 50 hours out from Earth when Jim finds him in the rec room. The man’s hands are covered in dirt, and there’s actual foliage tucked in the crook of his elbow. Bones has claimed his own table in a corner by passively-aggressively covering it in a slew of PADDs, only one of which he’s really using. The room is far from empty, but this close to the end of beta-shift, it’s quiet.

Jim sits across from him. Bones sweeps a clear spot clear in the middle of the table, a channel of open space between them. Jim pushes the swaddle of leaves to the center, but then doesn’t let go. With his arm outstretched, his shoulders hunched, and the ghost of a frown, he looks suddenly like a stranger. 

Over the years Bones has known him, Jim’s spent a lot of time holding himself ready for attack, though eventually, he developed an ease, at least when they were alone. This is different from either. He doesn't know what it means.

It’s more than a little frightening.

“Solanum Lycopersicum,” says Jim.

Bones recognizes both the Latin and the Jim-speak, only one of which he can translate. “Where did you even get it?”

“Botany labs. They’re clearing out space.”

This, at least, makes sense. “And you saved it.

Jim doesn’t answer, exactly. He says something else. “I want to stay with you.”

There’s a spark, tingling up and down Bones’ spine. He sits straight, leans forward to brush the leaves out of the way, so he can get a better look at Jim’s face. His hand brushes against Jim’s, and he feels it twitch. And then rather than moving the plant, he leaves his hand there.

“Stay for what?” Bones doesn’t mean to whisper.

Jim’s voice is quiet but strong. “For however long we have.”

“Hey. What’s-- is everything okay?” 

Instead of answering, Jim scowls, a low rumble of frustration breaking forth. “I’m not saying it right. The rules are different again.”

Bones taps lightly at the skin on Jim’s knuckles; enough contact to communicate comfort without pushing or overwhelming his senses. “What rules, Jim?” He asks. He thinks but doesn’t say, I’m not sure I have any rules for you. God, he would give this man anything.

“I want to stay with you,” says Jim again. Like it’s everything and the only thing he has.

It sounds like a plea. It sounds like a promise. Maybe it’s just the closest he can get without risking a lie.

“Well.” Augh, he’s so bad at this. “I’m sticking with you, Jim.” Wow, awful. He tries again. “You bet your ass I’m sticking with you.”

That time, it comes out just right.

Spock's just finished bringing Pike up to speed after his -- fuck -- two-month coma. Dr. McCoy has insisted he take some time to rest. Much as he's sick of lying in bed alone, Chris admits he's already exhausted. Still, he takes the comm as soon as it comes through.

Based on the encryption protocols that flash by before the vid pulls up, this isn't going to be a social call. He’s expecting to have to deal with admirals, so it takes him a moment to place the face that pops up instead.

“Professor Griggs, right?” he asks, voice regrettably scratchy.

“Captain Pike. Sorry to disturb you while you're recuperating. I'll try to be brief.”

Chris lets a sardonic smile slide onto his lips. “Something tells me you're not the bearer of good news.”

“I need a favor.”

Chris perks up in surprise. “Not sure how useful I can be at the moment, Professor.” He gestures vaguely at his medbay surroundings.

She shrugs. “No one else to ask. I want you to arrest Jim Tiberius.” There's a loud beep as Chris's heart spikes. “Give the official order, at least.”

His defensive stance slips on like a glove. “In extenuating circumstances --” 

The professor interrupts him, matches him ounce for ounce in conviction, except that she's not trapped in a hospital bed. “He’s a god damned hero. That’s not the difficult part. Situations like this get complicated, legally and politically. So we need to do this officially, and we need to do it while the fact that he saved our asses still holds some weight.” He stares at her.  “‘I’m gambling, based on your reputation and your initial reaction, that you're willing to look out for JT’s well-being. But you're years late to the game, Captain. You need to take every piece of leverage you can before it slips out of your fingers.”

“Explain,” he demands. “How would arresting the kid do him any good?”

“It would ensure you physical and legal custody. The publicity would be insuppressible. If you arrest him, he’ll stand public trial, and be publicly cleared.”

Pike shudders mildly as he considers this, adrenaline stimulating his mind, but also his pain. “This isn't just about salvaging his record.” He says it like a conclusion, not a question, though it's mostly a guess in the dark.  “You think someone will try and get to him through a backdoor.” He can't imagine why.

The professor gives him a small smile. “You might like to know that Admiral Marcus has been JT’s personal academic advisor for the last three years.”

Oh, fuck. There's no way that means anything good.

“And you, professor? What's your interest in Jim?”

“I'm told you're thirty-four hours out from docking, Captain. Though I’m not sure they’ll wait that long. I suggest you make your decision soon.”

She signs off with a flourish.

Pike calculates how long it is before Mbenga comes on shift, measures the words he'll need to be allowed out of bed.

He's going to be flying blind here, but it's not exactly his first time. Besides, he thinks Jim is worth the risk.

Spock experiences surprise and concern when he observes the recovering Captain Pike entering the bridge via a hoverchair. 

Ensign Chekov begins to announce  “Captain on the …” but trails off with understandable confusion, given the unorthodox protocol of the situation.

Acting Captain Kirk turns from where he was standing next to the empty Captain's chair and adopts a formal salute. “Captain Pike.”

Captain Pike requests that a ship-wide channel be opened. Upon compliance, he takes a deliberate breath and proceeds to speak with more formality and gravity than Spock is accustomed to associating with him.

“Cadet James Tiberius Kirk, as your commanding officer and Captain of the USS Enterprise, I hear-by relieve you of your position as Acting Captain. I furthermore charge you with five counts of criminal Starfleet protocol violation, including mutiny and hostile action against a superior officer.”

The humans behind Spock gasp. His own posture becomes rigid. 

Kirk does not so much as twitch from perfect form. “Captain Pike. I willingly relinquish command to First Officer Spock, and submit myself to your authority under regulation 57 section E, pending investigation and trial.”

Ensign Checkov gives a cry, as of a physical injury, and is kept in his seat only by the firm grip of Lt. Sulu, who himself breaks discipline with an aborted “Sir!” Acting Cap-- that is, Cadet Kirk gives them a glance over his shoulder, and though Spock can't make out his expression, it serves to quiet the pair.

He senses Uhura makes her way to stand beside him. Her confusion prickles his shields as she brushes against him.

“Commander Spock,” says Captain Pike, “you have the conn. Officer Hendorff, Dr. MBenga, and I will escort Cadet Kirk to the brig.”

The bridge is silent for thirty-two seconds as the individuals file their way into the lift. Four seconds before the doors slide shut, Spock experiences an inexplicable impulse.

“Lt. Sulu,” he says. “You have the conn.” As Uhura says his name, he slips his way into the lift.

Captain Pike does not object. Spock detects amusement in the Captain's expression, which further hinders his attempt to express his own objection.

Because Spock does not support breaking protocol, and yet, object he must.

The lift’s progress is interrupted before they reach the appropriate level. The doors open to reveal a red-faced and panting Doctor McCoy. The man pushes his way inside and straightens. He starts to enunciate something very like a snarl.

Kirk and the Captain speak in unison, an indulgent “McCoy” and a sharp “Bones.”

The Doctor regains himself with visible difficulty. “MBenga,” he growls. “I will oversee the patient from here.”

At a nod from the Captain, Doctor MBenga exits the lift. They continue on their journey, both Spock and McCoy searching for the appropriate words to halt the proceedings.

It is Kirk who speaks first. He looks at no one but turns just enough to be unmistakably addressing Captain Pike. His voice is quiet. “Why are you helping me?”

Doctor McCoy's breath stutters. “What?”

Pike leans his head to look at Kirk. His face is pale, creased. Pain and exhaustion, Spock presumes. “Will it work?”

“I don't know,” says Kirk. “It gives me a better chance than I had before.”

Doctor McCoy tenses and deflates so visibly it's almost amusing “Is this about --” the doctor cuts himself off, flicks his eyes over at Spock. “Wait, why is he here?”

“I intended to register my concerns with the current course of action. It seems, however, that such an objection would be misplaced.”

The doctor snorts unseemingly, but Kirk looks at Spock and tilts his head. “Thank you,” he says. “I think. I don't usually have so many people rushing to my defense.”

“Better get used to it, kid,” says the Captain.

Spock registers an emotional reaction attempting to surface within him. He stows it away to categorize later, but not before he gives it a name: solidarity.

Chapter Text

Hendorff’s arm is mostly healed, though he can still feel the ghost of where the break had been. He holds it unyieldingly in position nonetheless, stood to attention outside the cell.

He spots the moment that Tiberius senses the danger, and presses two fingers silently to call reinforcements. Only Tiberius could possibly see the movement, and he doesn’t comment. It’s tempting to turn his head so that he can see more fully down the hallway, or get a proper view of Tiberius’ face, but he doesn’t, maintaining the widest field of view. It limits the directions from which he’ll have to duck: only the areas outside his visual range.

Tiberius raps once on the floor, and every muscle in Hendorff’s body plummets down. He catches a glimpse of the black flying over his head before his roll brings him back around in a crouch.

There are four of them, standing between him and the cell. Their faces are mostly obscured, but they’re not in full combat gear, traveling light, almost comfortable.

He probably couldn’t beat even one. Not while they’re on mission. Although technically, he shouldn’t even have been able to get a look at them. They’ll have to kill him, which is an extra half step in their plans. One that won’t take all four of them.

He needs to get back in front of the cell. He has thirty seconds at most before he’s overpowered, and--

The Orion’s phaser fire brings down the closest before the kill shot can go off in Hendorff’s face. She’s running towards them, as best she can on a brand new prosthesis, but she’s alone, no other reinforcements.

Hendorff is fully vertical again, and the rush of blood carries him forward like a wave. He gets in a hit, ducks another, tries to sweep a leg. Something hot pours down his back, and he doesn’t think it was long enough, didn’t buy enough time, but the Orion was faster than he gave her credit for, already sliding to her knees in front of the cell’s panel.

There’s a failsafe mechanism specific to these higher security cells. Secure enough to withstand an explosion. It will probably take at least a day for the Enterprise crew to get in once it’s locked, which means it should be able to stall the intruders long enough for the rest of Security to arrive. It has been a full forty seconds since he sounded the alarm; they must be practically here.

The Orion will die here with Hendorff, but at least Tiberius will--

She doesn’t trigger the failsafe. She opens the cell.

Oh. He hadn’t thought of that.

Hendorff’s in too much pain to really make out what happens next, but he doesn’t have to see to know. The intruders will flee long before security can round the corner.

On a scale where one is ‘deader than dirt’ and one hundred is ‘mildly perturbed,’ Spock looks like he’s hovering right around 0.3, which Bones will take as win. By his reckoning, this means the bastard is taking the situation at least somewhat seriously, while still reacting in a manner that Bones can lash out at as wildly inappropriate. Hey, his energy needs somewhere to go.

Because on a scale where one is furious and two is combusting so strongly he could outpower a warp core, Bones is fucking apoplectic. And the only people he could potentially address who were directly involved in the situation are all already in medbeds.

Captain Pike hadn’t escaped this time, but Galia had, and she’s still unconscious as a result. Officer Hendorff has only just woken up, and Jim …

As a doctor, the truth is that Jim’s injuries are the least concerning. As Bones, on the other hand, they are very concerning, because Jim is hurt, and bad enough that he’s in medbay, which is bad, except that it means that he’s not locked up in a fucking cell which is good because that was bad , except the only reason he’s not locked up is really fucking bad, and--

“I do not believe there is any possible phrasing which could conclude that statement in a comprehensible manner.”

“I said let me think , goddamnit!” Bones is full-on roaring, and he doesn’t even care.

“While I am somewhat familiar with the human practice of ‘thinking out loud,’ I do not believe it is traditionally or effectively carried out with such volume.”

Sweet mother, if Jim wasn’t holding onto the back of his shirt right now…

“I am, tho,” Jim slurs. It’s probably 80% the facial swelling and 20% the concussion that’s messing with his speech. “I’m holdin’. I’m holdin’ on, Bones.”    

Ah, damn. “That hurts, you know,” at a normal volume. Jim’s fist just tightens around the material.

“... As I was saying, to Officer Hendorff,” Captain Pike says pointedly, “Why did you think there would be intruders? Did you have more than suspicions?”

Hendorff sighs. “I told you when we started this mess, Captain. I’ve seen enough to know James Tiberius is always trouble.”

Captain Pike lets loose a tired smile. “Yes, I think I have heard that before.” He rubs a hand across his peppered scalp and then pulls Captain back on in full force. “What do we know about who they were and what they wanted.”

“Extractionists,” says Hendorff, no doubt in his voice.

“You do not believe their intent was to kill the Cadet?” asks Spock, the fuckhead.

Hendorff shakes his head. “Their approach was too soft. I couldn’t tell you exactly who they are, but I know an internal clean-up when I see one, which means …” his gaze drifts over to Jim, and he shrugs.

Bones steps sideways a little, more squarely in front of his charge. Answers might be really fucking important, but they’re not going to be obtained from a medical bed. They just won’t. Bones has his own plans he’s already working on to make sure this never happens again, but that’s also private, between him and Jim.

The Captain doesn’t ask Jim. Doesn’t even follow Hendorff’s look. A man of sense, as Bones has always thought. And then Spock follows his lead, which is actually rather surprising.

“If I may inquire, Officer, what were you doing in the brig hallway? I recall that you were off duty.”

Before the poor man can conjure up an appropriate lie, Jim cuts in. “Brought me a cupcake,” he says, completely matter of fact.

Hendorff’s face goes completely red, which in Bones’ medical opinion, is entirely justified.

When Hikaru comes back from beaming down to hand over the Captain, he looks pale and shaken. Checkov doesn’t even have to whisper a concerned question before the man shakes his head.

“It’s fine, Pavel. Went just like Pike said it would. Captain’ll be fine. It’s not like anyone was gonna try anything in the middle of a Starfleet base.”

Checkov thinks a week ago they would have said the same thing about Fleet ship’s brig, but that’s not the point. “Sulu.” He scolds as sternly as he can manage.

Hikaru rolls his eyes. “It’s fine . I don’t like cameras, alright?” Which he’d grumbled about before insisting that he accompany the Captain for the turn-over, and it hadn’t stressed him out this much back then. “And I guess …” he pauses, censoring himself or just considering his words, Checkov can’t tell. “It just occurred to me that we’re the only ship that made it home.”

Ah. “The Captain will be fine,” Checkov repeats, “and we will rebuild.”

“I know,” says Sulu, staring at him nonetheless. And then, in a train of logic Checkov doesn’t quite follow, “I guess we’re all a little older now.” He sighs. “Alright, let’s get the docking over with. This might be my last chance to live down that damn parking-brake nonsense.”

What with the communications lockdown, Winona’s ship doesn’t get the news the same way it comes in back on Earth. It doesn’t really matter, though, because no amount of secondhand reporting could have prepared her for what’s waiting when they dock in San Francisco.

The face peers down from every screen and surface, Fleet or otherwise. Impossibly old, alienly familiar. Like someone had taken a picture of George as a young man, posted it on a mirror, then smashed it to pieces and reassembled it from the wrong side.

Winona can’t move. Can’t stop her feet from going forward even as her Captain’s voice rings distantly in her ears. Every word from the news feeds and the whispers around her is nonsense, gibberish, even, and yet she follows it, all the way to the foot of Christopher Pike’s hospital bed. 

She vaguely recalls working with the man some years ago. They’d gotten along alright, and she trusts in his honesty, at the least.

Someone must have let her in. Chris must have given permission. He looks terrible.

“Jimmy.” It’s all she can say. Her voice scratches like she hasn’t spoken in a decade.

“He’ll be okay. He’s not hurt. Well he was a little-- but he’s healing nicely. We got some good people working on the rest.” Chris places a hand on her elbow. Comforting her?

“He’s alive. Jimmy’s alive .”

“Yeah,” says Chris, his voice warm. “He’s okay.”

“How?” Is she sitting in a chair now?

“It’s … complicated. When we left for Vulcan --”

“I don’t. Care. About Vulcan. Or the Romulans.” She’s probably saying something terrible. That’s alright. Something terrible is growing inside her. Or perhaps it’s just waking up. “ How is he alive? ” Chris looks alarmed, but she’s said it, and she can’t stop there. “After all these years, I don’t--”

“Years?” He’s sharp now, like something’s growing inside of him as well. “Winona, when was the last time you talked to Jim?”

And Chris doesn’t mean it to cut, but it’s piercing all the same. The last time she talked to him, so long ago, and so long before he’d been lost to her. “He was so little .” She’s probably going to start weeping. Didn’t know that she could.

“Why? I don’t understand.”

And that -- that, somehow, presses pause. The beginning of a connection, of a pathway to understanding.

She looks at Chris, and her eyes are wet, but her voice is dark. “They told me he was dead, Christopher. They lied to me. ”

Chapter Text

Less than twenty minutes after docking, as the transfer of patients was successfully underway, Bones had been suspended from duty pending investigation. Over the next thirty hours, he was called in for preliminary interviews with five separate officials, and then temporarily reinstated to restricted duty, investigation still pending. He worked a shift and a half, assisting with some minor injuries, mostly following up on the rehabilitations of the Vulcans who are already familiar with him.

Having been Earthside for about 50 hours, and now officially off duty, it makes sense that anyone looking for him would go first to his quarters. Since they won’t find him there, it understandably takes them a little longer to track him down.

He assumes that’s what the woman is there for, given how long she’s spent staring at the back of Bones’ head. Probably another official needing to take his thousandth goddamned statement. Oh, or worse, she’s a mid-level bureaucrat sent to intimidate him into giving up his blockade. Well it’s not happening, madam. If anything, Bones is viciously satisfied to know that he’s starting to get somewhere.

He’s very tempted to just keep ignoring the asshole, but he wonders if it might be better to do something troublesome; The Jim thing to do would be to unnerve the woman with a few choice implications and send her running, make them all take him a little more seriously. Not usually Bones’ style but right now he really sees the appeal.

The woman steps forward, and Bones tenses. He hasn’t yet decided how to react.

Two fingers tap lightly on the peak of his shoulder. 

The familiarity of the gesture shakes Bones to his core. He whips his head around like a startled cat, and the intruder backs off immediately. Her hand is lifted in apology, not with the splayed fingers of an open palm, but with the back of her hand held straight at chest-level. Bones only recognizes it because it’s what Jim does; not often, but when he’s very tired and he needs some space, he has these non-verbal body signals that were buried, but never quite unlearned.

“Who are you?” Bones breathes.

The woman studies him, face seemingly impassive, though Bones trusts that impression as far as he can through it. She is young, brown hair cropped above her ears, and wearing civilian clothes. A simple black patch covers her left eye and stretches behind her ear.

“You know JT,” she says. It isn’t a question. Abruptly, she holds her hand out for a formal handshake. Something Jim would not have done.

Bones takes her hand. Her fingers are calloused and her grip is strong. 

“I’m Dr. Leighton. I have an appointment with the Admiral. Perhaps… you would like to come with me?”

Oh fuck yes .

“Why are we here, again?”

Galia rolls her eyes. “ Nyota . You didn’t have to come. My PT is going just fine, I don’t need supervision.”

“Yeah, yeah. Fine, I’ll call it morbid curiosity.”

“Darling. There’s nobody here. No need to keep pretending you aren’t fond of Jim.” Galia smiles sweetly at her friend, and this time she gets an eye roll in return. 

The banter drops away as the lift doors open.

“Holy shit,” Nyota breathes. It is an impressive security setup for a residential unit, but the tech is pretty unobtrusive; Galia’s impressed that Nytoa was able to notice it. “I’ve never seen this script before.”

… Oh, yeah. That makes more sense. Truth be told, Galia never paid much attention to the ink scrawled just below the touchpad. What can she say? Always been more of a numbers girl.

“Are you sure it’s not just bad handwriting?” she asks.

Nyota shoots her a dirty look. Damn. That line had worked on Bones. “I have a doctorate in xenolinguistics, Ga li a,” Nyota says, putting the Orian emphasis on her name to underscore her point. “These are deliberately modified English characters.”

Galia stiffens involuntarily, ignoring the way the sensation mirrors in her phantom leg. “You know I hate it when you say my name that way.” She reaches brusquely past her friend to swipe at the touchpad and stalks into the apartment the moment the doors open.

“Galia. Galia, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking--”

“I’m not angry, Uhura. I just want you to remember, once in a while, that there’s a difference between poking at a manuscript and poking at a person.” It helps, also, to stand in this familiar, protected space. Her past has never touched this place. In return, she is making it her personal mission to ensure that Jim will always feel the same way, even if it means being a little short with her best friend.

Nyota sighs apologetically. Her shame saturates the space between them. “How am I the linguist and you the nerd and yet you still do the soft stuff better than I do?”

Galia forgives her with a smile. Over her shoulder as she prances into the kitchen she throws out, “You watch too many movies, angel.”

Nyota chuckles, and then, “What are you … Oh my god. You’re actually watering the Captain’s plants. Seriously?”

“What? Dr. Bones is busy.” And a shitty gardner, but there’s no need to throw the man under the bus. “Do you want to tell Jim when he gets out that we let his fern die?”

Making Nyota laugh will always be Galia’s favorite part of the day.

In the safe obscurity of his empty apartment, Spock is in a contemplative mood. He has just had a productive meeting with Admiral Archer, who had certainly displayed a strange sense of humor but was quite efficient in arranging the necessary classified status to protect the details of Spock’s origin from public scrutiny.

 It is a peculiar sense of nostalgia to be wading through Federation regulations and bureaucracy again, even in this off-kilter universe. It makes him think of his oldest friends. Such foolish, spectacular humans. He wishes they were here to see this. He wishes he could stand once more next to his Captain’s chair with the good Doctor needling him from the other side. He could use … well, a lot of things, but particularly some advice right now.

He takes some tea, instead. The steam alone encourages him to release some tension. He settles into a seat in the small living space. Staring at the dull grey wall is a sufficient canvas to draw his meditation.

There were, if Spock will allow himself the imprecision, a frankly egregious number of occasions on which his Jim was either impersonated, intellectually altered against his will, or had his personhood otherwise compromised. This is not even the first time Spock has encountered a version of the man from an alternate reality. But it is the first time that he is left with no idea what to do about the situation.

Live , he supposes, is the only option left to him. There is no ‘real Jim’ to go back to this time, and it is discourteous to this younger, stranger version of Jim to imply that he is lesser. Spock owes this new Jim a great deal, and they have done good, important work together in the last 2.3 months. That things should be different is appropriate, preferable, even.

Oh . He is rationalizing. An old coping mechanism.

Very well, then. Why does he feel the need to rationalize his situation? It’s not the logistics that bother him; time-travel, it would appear, is highly logical. So it’s about Jim. Of course. 

Grief ? Yes. Unending. Affection ? … Yes, also. It is difficult to ascertain how much of this affection is simply transference, but the ethical ramifications are nonetheless easily managed. 

Fear? Yes, Spock realizes. He is afraid. Not for himself, exactly. Fear for Jim, perhaps? The young man is in a precarious situation, and the alliances that will make him so great are still young, unlearned. But Jim can handle it. Surely, after everything they have endured, there is no logical room left to doubt the man’s unique … competence.

And that, it would seem, is the problem. Spock is afraid of Jim. Of what he is capable of, and what these distinct alterations to his personality imply.

As the shape of the wall comes back into focus, Spock is left with a particular thought. Doctor McCoy would call it the ‘million-dollar question’: What happened to Jim Kirk ?

The cold tea offers no answers.

George had been volcanic. A force of nature, lethal and unstoppable. So was Sam, boiling over until he eventually self-destructed, overdosing in the emptiness after Jim had disappeared from their life. That’s not Winona’s way. 

She’s not an idiot. She understands how cover-ups work. Even genuine tragedies, like Kelvin, get their ‘spin’ and ass-covering.  If she hadn’t been so consumed with grief she would have seen the signs ages ago.

 She’ll have plenty of time to dwell on that later, when she isn’t busy sneaking into a highly monitored archive facility.

She traded a lot of favors for the drive she palms past the entry sensor. She docks it at one of the study stations, pulls up a random news feed to cover the program it launches in the background. Fifteen seconds and the drive flashes green once. She lingers for another ten minutes doing nothing before wandering casually out.

Winona hasn’t bothered to maintain a residence in San Francisco for over a decade. No chance she’s opening the drive in one of the academy rooms. She settles on the park. The PADD she uses comes from the same source as the drive. This is the most highly secure equipment in the Federation, except perhaps in the darker shadows of Section 31.

Winona’s been in the Fleet for a long time, not to mention her freelance projects. She’s picked up quite an array of alternative skill sets. She can’t exactly untangle the codes herself, but she knows enough to take the right precautions and to sift through the data. She’d swiped as large a spread of files as the drive could reach. Nothing deeply classified, but that’s the point. People are careful with classified information. It’s the casual matters of life where she’s going to find her breadcrumbs.

She runs a search using names, dates, any reference she can think of that might point to Tarsus IV. That has to be what it’s all about. Somebody fucked up, and people died. No mystery there, except what it has to do with her son.

She gets twelve results. There are a few clustered around nine-months after Jimmy had supposedly died, and then one every year on … On his birthday. The anniversary.

She opens the first one. It’s an encrypted message packet. Sender and receiver addresses are blank, but she can still trace where the archive lifted the information from: a Fleet computer, personal message database, identified as … Winona Kirk.

No. No . Someone’s caught on to what she’s doing. She’s being misdirected, played with, trapped, mocked . She should break the whole thing, throw it away. Run .

The PADD screen glows noxiously. She can’t look away. She won’t.

She tries a standard decryption program. It stalls out right away. A second level, slower. Nothing. Godamnit . She can try something more serious, but she risks the integrity of the data. The only other option is to take it to an expert, fuck that.

The noise of the park strikes staccato holes in her focus, the rustle of the grass rasping just behind her eyes. The twitter of birds is a cheese grater on her brain. Even the breeze makes her hands tremble.

A whim strikes her. 

Paranoia is an old friend. Back when she’d had a home, a family, she’d taken precautions to protect them. Including a personal encryption protocol. A double sequence to mask her communications en route, but automatically unraveled by the home computer. Easy enough to remember, but solid enough to be useful. So she could talk to her boys, not that she got around to it much.

She runs the sequence backward, and the encryption unravels like silk. Text, black on white. Brutal.

Hi Mom.

Chapter Text

I’m sorry it took so long to write to you. There were a lot of rules on the colony. Now there are different rules, except they’re pretty much the same. I’ve been trying to get around them for a while, but I don’t think I’m very good at programming.

I wanted to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry about Uncle Frank, and about Sam. They didn’t even tell me what had happened. I should have been there.

You’re probably not on-planet. I know your work is important. But they won’t even tell us when we get to go home. Some really bad stuff happened, Mom. I want to get out of here. Maybe you could talk to somebody about coming to get me? If it’s not a good time, I understand.

Love,

Jimmy.

If Marcus is surprised when his assistant lets them both into the office, he doesn’t show it. The Admiral just looks back down at the paperwork displayed on his desk, for all appearances, bored. God, Bones hates him

“Dr. Leighton,” he drawls. “Our mutual friend from the College insisted I take this meeting, but I’m afraid they didn’t mention what you needed my help with.”

The doctor smiles. Glinting teeth and narrowed eye. She takes a seat across from the admiral’s desk, and after a moment of hesitation, Bones takes the one next to her. “As a matter of fact, Admiral,” she says, “I’m here to offer you my assistance.” 

What?

Finally, Marcus looks up. He blinks at Dr. Leighton and frowns. “Assistance with what?”

“Our agreement.” Agreement? Hold on, Bones thought she was on his side. “As JT’s second in command, it’s my job to liaison with the others while he’s out of commission.”

The impact of her words is a sledgehammer on the Admiral’s facade.  He straightens from his slouch, lips tightening into a single line. Bones wouldn’t quite call it fear, but the aggression certainly belies the congenial tone of the conversation.

“I remember a ‘Thomas’ as JT’s second,” says Marcus after a pause. “You don’t exactly remind me of him.”

She doesn’t crack. “Never guessed he was a Kirk. Not that we cared. Was quite a shock to see him on the newsfeeds, though. For all of us.”

Marcus’ upper lip twitches. “Well. You seem to have made fast work of connecting with his …” Marcus’ eyes flick to Bones disdainfully “...associates.”

“Oh,” says Dr. Leighton. She jerks her chin at Bones. “Actually I have no idea who this guy is. Picked him up in the hall, looked interesting.”

“Geeze,” says Bones. “Thanks.” 

They both ignore him. Marcus scoffs. “You come in here, thinking you can strong-arm me into … what, implicating myself in some conspiracy? Interfering with an official Starfleet investigation? Admiral’s don’t negotiate with dime-a-dozen agricultural researchers. You don’t have any leverage here, doctors .”

“As a matter of fact,” Bones says, soft and sweet like Joanna taught him, “What we have are three ounces of illegal biotechnology that are lodged in Jim’s spinal cord.” Dr. Leighton whitens with shock, but Bones is focused on Marcus’s disdainful poker face. He has to play these cards carefully.

The full-body scans Bones used to treat Jim after the attack are a matter of record. The … implant... would have been easy to miss, and easier to misunderstand, but hey, turns out Bones’ medical degree is useful for something, after all.

“Fascinating,” says the Admiral. “I hope you’ve submitted the appropriate reports for the committee to consider. They may need to add new charges before the tribunal starts.” 

Smug fucking bastard. He’s really already planned this, hasn’t he? How everything is supposed to twist around on Jim. Despicable.

“Right,” Bones says, trying to keep a lid on his fury. “It’s really the other report, though, that I’m not quite sure what to do with.” Marcus tilts his head. Bones has to take a deep breath before plowing forward. “I guess that’s the thing about being a dime-a-dozen doctor. Sometimes I get distracted by the little details, the kind of stuff a proper Admiral doesn’t have time to care about. Like the chemical composition of the device. Four seconds under a spectral filter and I recognized it.”

“Recognized it? I didn’t realize you were so familiar with illegal medical technology, Dr. McCoy.” It’s the first time Marcus has addressed him by name. Gotcha .

“Not particularly. My personal medical history, on the other hand, especially the unusual results on the reports after I nearly died in a training exercise, however, are details I have gone out of my way to pay attention to.” As an afterthought, he adds, “And preserve.” He’s not oblivious to the Admiral’s habitually sticky fingers; it’s hard to say, though, how deeply he would have bothered scrubbing through Bones’ files at an unaffiliated hospital. Jim has taught him the wide-reaching value of being underestimated.

Marcus takes his time replying, letting the silence tingle with disquiet. “And why should I care about that?”

There’s an interesting web of things the Admiral is meticulously careful about, and those he flaunts with careless abandon. Bones would never be able to prove a direct connection between Marcus and anything unsavory. He’s not freaking James Bond, okay. But there are things the Admiral cares about, and they all share one thing in Bones’ favor: bureaucracy.

Bones smiles as Jim-ly as he can. “I wouldn’t want to impunge a vital Star Fleet program over a misunderstanding.” That’s right, motherfucker. Try running your training program with the entire Academy staring down your neck.

Marcus curls into a full-bodied snarl. “I told your friend , once upon a time, that the problem with keeping dogs , is they’re all bark, no bite. You think you threaten me? You’re not helping Jimmy, either of you. You’re just tightening the noose he’s hung around his neck. I outrank you. I choose where you get assigned. Such a poetic tragedy, to meet an end your ridiculous phobia should have saved you from, alone at the edge of space. ”

Fuck, fuck, fuckity hell. “Fuck you, Admiral.” A beast has taken over Bones’ body. He stands to his full height and locks his arms around him in parade rest. Both Leighton and Marcus lean back in shock. “I am not alone. It’s time you get this through your head: I’ve got Jim, and he’s got me. You know what he’s capable of, and you’re an idiot if you think I can’t keep up. You really want to take that on? You think it matters where you send me, how far away you lock him up? Fucking try us.”

Without breaking form, Bones turns and marches out. The automatic doors don’t exactly slam behind him, but surely the sentiment is implied.

Past the blank-faced assistant and back out into the hall, Bones plants his forehead directly on the wall. 

“Well,” he says to an empty corridor, “that was fucking terrifying.” 

He’s actually shaking. Probably just the adrenaline wearing off. After all, he has done plenty of shit that was stupider than cussing out an overtly evil superior officer. Technically. Depending on who you ask.

He has to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing hysterically.

As he waits for the shock to settle, he notes vaguely that Dr. Leighton hasn’t followed him out of the office. She’s probably finishing the conversation his rant had interrupted, that strange volley of horrific entanglements that anything touching Jim’s history devolves into.

There’s something upsetting about the strange names they use. Bones’ Jim becomes JT or Jimmy with the same dangerous velocity that James Tiberius had turned into Jim Kirk. Like they aren’t all referring to the same person. They aren’t nicknames, at least not in the mouths of Jim’s enemies; they carry expectation and even a terrible form of ownership. 

‘Jimmy,’ to turn him into a vulnerable little boy.

‘JT’ for the soldier, ruthless and obedient.

On the ship, he was ‘Captain,’ the promise of the best he had to offer, if only from a distance.

‘Jim,’ the name he actually claims. The name his friends use. 

Actually, Marcus never used Bones’ name, either. Did he really call Bones a dog at one point? That was weird. But whatever. If there is one single aspect of his personality that Bones wasn’t a little bit ashamed of, it would be his loyalty.

The door swishes open behind him. In the thirty seconds it takes him to pull together enough to turn around, his eyelids dance with visions of redshirts ready to arrest him. Instead, of course, is Dr. Leighton. She tilts her head, that gentle, predatory movement, an uncanny valley on the wrong head.

“It’s nice to know JT still makes allies as easily as the Admiral seems to make enemies,” she says at last. “That was some impressive work you did in there,” Bones is too drained to do anything other than nod. “Take care, doctor. I’m sure we’ll see each other again.” She walks away before it even occurs to Bones to ask her any questions. Problem for another day.

He’s done what he can, now. Hopefully, it will be enough.

Professor Griggs is in the unusual position of having her job done for her. All this leverage she was preparing to delicately maneuver, wasted. Hard to say what shook dear old Marcus more: the mother still careening wildly out of his grasp, the alliance of the Tarsus IV eleven, or the blackmail from the surprisingly wiley doctor.

Marcus has the instincts of a shark. Now that there’s no blood in the water he should move on to the next hunt. It’s why people like him need people like Griggs, even if they don’t understand it. The program would never survive without someone capable of basic long-term thinking.

You don’t throw away a productive resource. JT will remain a uniquely positioned asset, and since Griggs has carefully avoided ruining their relationship, the line of influence will be maintained. 

And best of all, she can go home to her wife early for once.

Chapter Text

Without lifting his head from where it’s craning around the corner, Bones points with his whole arm. “ You are not supposed to be standing up, Captain.”

“Actually, Doctor, I have been officially cleared to get out of bed. Of course, I’m still heavily medicated, so you can see how I might have accidentally misinterpreted that as cleared to leave the hospital.” Captain Pike sounds good, much better than he might have expected, so Bones lets it go with a roll of his eyes.

“Just tell me you aren’t going to try and testify today.”

Pike shakes his head. “They recorded my testimony days ago. Unless Barnett is stupid enough to call me up for cross-examination, I’ll restrain myself to being a friendly face in the crowd.”

Bones isn’t sure Jim will appreciate the sentiment, being so slow to trust, but decides to keep that observation to himself. “Good luck finding a seat.” There’s a healthy range of ‘friendly faces’ already inside, though they pale in comparison to the swarms of media who seem to have negotiated entry rights via a sophisticated system of ritual combat. 

“You’re not coming inside?” Captain Pike asks.

Bones shrugs. The Captain seems to understand, clapping Bones on the shoulder before wrangling his crutches under his arms and swinging away. 

Yeah, Bones doesn’t want to miss the trial. But most of the testimony, the investigation, that’s already over with. This ceremonial horse show is just to justify the committee's decision to the media circus. What’s the point in dignifying that?

And. Well. Bones hasn’t seen Jim in eight days. It’s not good for his health, between the stress when he’s awake and the sweat-soaking nightmares. He’s decided to trade a few hours of staring at Jim from a distance for a few stolen moments in person.

It only works if he’s right, that the brass will want to walk Jim in past the cameras, rather than ghosting him in through the back. Oh Christ, what if he’s wrong and then they convict Jim and them Marcus disappears him, and then Bones spends the rest of his life--

The noise builds like a rising wave and then Bones sees them. 

The guard, each of whom is about five times as big as their charge and almost comically solemn, and Jim. In his cadet uniform, complete with his redshirt. Faded bruising across his jaw, hair slicked to official perfection. Bones can’t help but laugh at the look on the man’s face; over a week in Fleet custody, on his way to the trial of the century, and the bastard looks bored. 

Jim spots him, and the change is staggering. His lips twitch up, his eyes flash, and his gait lengthens.

This is it. Everything is gonna be okay.

Bones picked a spot almost by the entrance, so the procession will have to slow down. Jim, of course, catches on immediately, going from practically speed walking to shuffling his feet once he’s within speaking distance. 

This is naturally the moment Bones’s throat decides to start spontaneously producing molasses. “Hey, you,” he manages to choke. 

“You should eat something,” Jim says, so fondly stern it makes Bones choke.

Before it’s over, he reaches out to brush Jim’s shoulder. Dimly, he’s aware of one of the guards barking something at him, but Jim pushes back into the touch so who gives a fuck.

It’s over too goddamn fast. Jim is stepping inside and the guards are in Bones’s way. Just before the doors slide shut, Bones gets out a yell. “Take a goddamned nap!”

“Members of the court, we are ready to commence with the trial of Cadet James T. Kirk on the joint charges of mutiny, conspiracy, fraud, and insubordination. I remind you all that it is our duty to all parties involved, as well as to the future of our organization, to consider the facts of the case without regard to…”

Yada, yada, yada . Get to the juicy stuff, will ya? Elvi doesn’t give two sticks about the charges, or the trial, or even the daring rescue of the Vulcan species. Old news. Elvi’s here for a scoop, and the only thing that nobody’s gotten to yet is the man himself. No interviews . Famous last words.

He’s young. Handsome. Spectacular family background. But what’s he like ? The nepotism angle is clearly out. Elvi was hoping for brash and cocky, or maybe a scrawny underdog, but that’s not what’s sitting in the defense box.

A rock is what’s sitting there, it looks like. Have they medicated him? For that matter, why does he still display injuries from a confrontation that happened months ago? Did he get into a fist-fight on the way into court and refuse a dermal regenerator? 

Saviour of the Fleet: Mute and Masochistic. Nevermind, that’s a terrible headline.

Snails on a stick, this trial is slow. Elvi sits there for two hours waiting for something to happen. The prosecution is doing nothing to help, lobbing softballs left and right. Kirk hasn’t even said a single word, despite the clear plea for him to make a statement the court is absolutely ready to accept.

Elvi’s ass is officially dead. Both literally, in a physical sense, and metaphorically, career-wise.

They call Professor Vadkha to the stand to review the academic portion of the charges, which is clearly a waste of time--

“That’s not right.”

Who -- was that Kirk? He finally said something? And Elvi tuned it out?! At least everybody else is staring in shock as well.

“The physical construction of the primary thrusters is subpar in that particular model of short-range shuttle. It has nothing to do with the engine valves.” Explanation complete, Kirk returns to staring blankly at the wall above the court’s heads.

Really. Really?  

“Ah…” says the prosecution after a pause, “the, um, academic accuracy of the events is not pertinent. We’re demonstrating a pattern of behavior in Cadet Kirk’s attitude to authority.”

The defense leaps to counterpoint, arguing that a commitment to ‘academic accuracy’ was, in fact, the basis of the entire interaction, and then off they go again.

Elvi, however, finally has an answer to the important question. Who is James T. Kirk? He’s a fucking nerd, is what he is.

Poor Barnett barely gets out the words “not guilty of all charges” before the audience erupts. There’s some cheering and dozens of microphones stabbing in Jimmy’s direction. Marcus rolls his eyes and gestures to security to start shepherding people out.

“Okay, people. It’s been a long day. Let’s get this debrief over with so we can get on with our lives.” He waves the other Admirals through the side door, waiting until the last of them are through before going to retrieve the boy.

Jimmy doesn’t look at him when he stands, or flinch as Marcus’ hand lands deliberately heavy on his shoulder. Marcus didn’t expect him to, is confident that the posture is adequately effective nonetheless.

He lets go only when it’s time to make his way to the seat just below the head of the table. He’s somewhat surprised to find Pike to his left. The promotion was inevitable, of course, but it hadn’t been officially announced yet.

Thankfully, the energy in the room is low, and Jimmy’s demeanor isn’t inspiring any great speeches today. 

“James,” begins Barnett, “First of all, I’d just like to say on behalf of all of us, here at Starfleet--” Jesus Christ, Marcus is suddenly worried he’s underestimated Barnett's proclivity for speech giving. “--that we appreciate the excellent work you have done, in the most serious of circumstances.”

Jimmy’s gaze doesn’t move from the tabletop.

Barnett clears his throat. “In recognition of your service and your clear talents, we have decided to extend you a five-year commission as Captain of the USS Enterprise, mission details pending.”

Thank god that’s over--

“No thank you,” says Jim.

It’s silent for a long moment.

“No … no thank you?” asks Pike, voice a half-octave up.

“Yes,” says Jim. “Can I go now?”

Marcus has to bring a hand up to cover his eyes.

Chapter Text

Finally, they go home. 

Jim meets him in a rear hallway, and Bones’ medical credentials walk them out a back way, past the media blitz. He feels … a little tipsy, to be honest, the whole way back to their apartment. Exhaustion and euphoria swaying him back and forth. 

Jim is quiet. They both are. They just need to get back home, and they can rest. In their space, private and safe, it’ll finally feel like it's over.

When the door slides open, Bones is struck by the odd realization that he’d never noticed before how comfortable the place smelled. Like nothing in particular, except perhaps a faint earthy smell from Jim’s pots, but it’s good, nonetheless.

“We should get something to eat,” says Jim, following behind him. 

Bones hums in reply, but at this particular moment, there’s nothing on Earth that’s going to stop him from collapsing on the couch.

Oh, heavenly. 

“You know what I could really go for right now?” Bones asks with his eyes closed. “Some good old-fashioned pie.”

Jim doesn’t answer.

Bones sits up and opens his eyes, but the entryway is empty. An icicle spikes in Bones’ chest. “Jim?” He trips over his shoes as he stands up, clips his knee against the coffee table. “Jim!” 

He’s in the kitchen. Thank Jesus he’s in the kitchen, and at first that’s all Bones can see.

There’s a bowl of oranges they left on the counter, and Jim is holding one. It’s not exactly in great shape, given that it's been there for months. Kinda gross that Jim would even pick it up.

“Jim?” 

Bones has to walk around the counter to get a look at his face. Jim’s eyes are blown wide, and a sheen of sweat is building on his paling cheeks. His nostrils are pulsing with short, suppressed breaths.

Hell .

“Hey, hey. It’s okay.” Bones shuffles forward, arms up, but uncertain. “Can I touch you?”

Jim doesn’t answer. He’s starting to shake, a vibration that spreads from his chest out to his hands. Shit . Every one of Bones’s instincts tell him to hold on, but this isn’t an ordinary panic attack. This is Jim. 

He drops the orange and flinches backward. Slams into the fridge, hard, before sliding down. Bones moves in, scooting forward and dropping to his knees. 

“Jim, hey, c’mon, man. It’s okay. Look at me. Just … uh…” --training, right, training -- “breathe with me.” He uses his hands to emphasize the motions. “In through the nose, out through the mouth.” Bones is having some trouble keeping his exhales as long as they are supposed to be, and Jim’s not even looking at him. “In and out.” It’s not working. “Please, Jim, please .”

He reaches out as far as he dares, breaking into Jim’s personal space, not touching. He wishes he could take Jim by the head, pull him close, and never let anything else get near him ever again. 

Jim grabs his wrist, but he doesn’t twist. He pulls. He smashes Bones hand against his sternum, hard, and then reaches out with his own in parallel. Bones closes his eyes. Three points of contact, lung to lung. The only other thing in existence is the hum of the refrigerator behind them. 

He counts a hundred and twenty-three exhales before Jim lets go. Bones opens his eyes, desperately hoping the storm is over. 

Jim puts both his hands tight up against his face and screams . It’s wet and ragged. Not brief. When it’s over, he pulls his hands down and blinks at Bones.

“Okay.” Says Jim. Then, “Hi.”

Bones barks a single hoarse laugh. “Hi, Jim. Ugh. Fuck.”

“Yeah. No more oranges, Bones.”

Good. Something they can laugh about later, when the fear is harder to remember. 

“Okay,” he says, trying to figure out what comes next. “Okay, we still need to eat. I can get something from the replicator--”

“No,” Jim pants. “No, I can’t -- I need -- I can’t eat , Bones, I can’t.”

“Alright, no problem--”

“It is a problem. It’s a big problem. It’s the only thing, Bones, but I can’t . I can’t be hungry, but I can’t eat, and I can’t stop it.” The words are barely intelligible, swollen with tears and secrets that weren’t made to be talked about. 

“We’ll deal with it tomorrow,” he says. He pulls Jim to his feet without letting go of his hand, and they stumble down the hall into Bones’ bedroom. He doesn’t bother activating his light, feels safer that way. So what if it’s the middle of the afternoon? They’ll sleep it off, and deal with it tomorrow.

“Shoes,” Jim says, and it takes Bones a minute to realize Jim’s asking him to let go off his hand. Because of course the dork isn’t going to kick off his boots. No, he has to kneel down, carefully unlace them, and leave them lonely and neat by the door. 

Bones collapses backward onto the mattress, staring up at the murky ceiling. It’s quiet for a minute, just their breathing.

“Please,” Bones says, and Jim sighs. The other side of the mattress dips, and Jim’s hand brushes against his, knuckle to knuckle. Bones closes his eyes.

It is a little funny now. Oranges . Walking across the threshold of his room with Jim, for the first time. Falling into bed together. As a particularly old-fashioned guy, the parallels are quite striking. Of course, it’s not exactly like that hot summer day with Jocelyn, years ago.

He wonders what it would be like, to look at Jim across an altar. The image is so stupid he almost snorts. Not an altar, then. The observation deck. And Jim wouldn’t look back at him, he’d be staring out, eyes tracing the stars. No rings, no audience, no fucking priest. But he thinks it might be nice to have vows.

To trust, and grow, and be kind. How two people can make something out of the space left between them. 

She expects it to be uncomfortable, reading about themselves in the news. They’d all been advised to avoid it, but given the sheer volume of coverage, that is a rather futile strategy. Uhura’s mother had even commed earlier and mentioned that she’d been approached for an interview.

“What did you say?”

“Oh, not much. We just chatted about some things, and I showed them those photos of you at the film festival--”

“Mama!”

But it’s one thing to straddle the line between frustrated and amused and just plain old self-conscious. It’s something else entirely to read about the Captain. It feels … unsanitary. Not the drivel on the surface, the worship and speculation and accusations. But his history is something the Captain has always deeply protected.

That day on the bridge, when Spock had asked about his name, that changed things for Uhura. He’d spoken about shame and fear in such a familiar, weary way. If there were any lingering doubts about Jim hiding his identity for nefarious purposes, this had erased them from her mind. Occam's razor, and all that. People hide because they are afraid.

On the news, there’s a picture of a tilting grey farmhouse in a sea of dry, monoculture fields. Pictures of his father, of course, but also his parents together, laughing in their starched uniforms, of his mother alone, blank as stone. 

Then they dig up stuff from his school records. Enrolled in the local kindergarten late, already seven years old. Pulled after four months of spotty attendance. Dipped in and out of “homeschooling” till he was nine, and no one raised any alarms.

His aptitude tests were literally off the charts , they say in the interviews. It’s not uncommon for children like that to have … behaviour problems. Such a good boy, though .  

After that, nothing. Some speculation about a private school, but none of the intrepid journalists dig up any records. And then they start talking about Juvie and sealed records. Starfleet shuts that down quickly. From there, it mostly devolves into conspiracy theories: abductions, and crime rings, off-world colonies, secret black-ops Starfleet recruitment camps.  Which just proves to anyone with half a brain cell that these people have no idea what they’re talking about.

Problem is, Uhura does know what she's talking about. You don’t just turn off a doctorate.

She’s three glasses deep in red wine before she summons the cowardice to pull up her notes. Her scribbles from The Enterprise over the last few months, and her old things, from school. 

Effects of Social Isolation on Language Development

Trauma and Language Centers: Neurological Plasticity

The Cross-Section of Abuse and Intelligence

The comparisons are a good foundation, but there are major gaps the case studies can’t fill in. His cadence, his unyielding formality, his uncomfortable syntax. She reviews one particular sentence she must have annotated a dozen times.

“Better to resolve the problem for those involved internally. ” 

He’d been tired, frustrated with the petty squabbles when so much else was going on. His stress accentuated the abnormalities of speech, although perhaps not as much as comfort and trust did. 

When he talks to Dr. McCoy, the Captain’s rigid precision relaxes. He uses fragments, abstract language, inverted syntax, significant repetition. Glimpses of his natural speech pattern, which he tries to cover anywhere else.

She logs on to her alma mater’s archival database. She has to scroll for a bit until she finds what she’s looking for. There was an article by a grad student doing fieldwork on a mining colony, in the Ursus segment, decades ago. The paper had an anthropological focus, not linguistic. It was all about strict cultural mores which developed to compensate for the isolation and harsh conditions. She skims the interviews and forms a quick analysis of the colonist’s speech patterns. She develops a theory. 

It’s not the same patterns Jim uses, obviously. But a child, undersocialized, understimulated, lacking a foundational family structure... put him in a new environment, an unstable and under-regulated colony world desperate to enforce a social system of obedience… 

Jim would adapt. And adapt again. It wouldn’t be healing, but if anyone could take that kind of trauma and turn it into a life, the Captain could. Jim could do it.

She shuts the PADD down and rests her face in her elbow.

Chapter Text

He wakes up feeling home . It’s the ease of soft, deep sleep, the familiar sense of cotton sheets, and the rasping of his own stubble. More than anything, though, it’s about the warmth and the sweat. His brain pulls up ‘Georgia summers’ before it reconciles his sense of weight with a different interpretation.

Jim’s head is sprawled across his torso, ear pressed to his sternum. Bones’ left side is pressed up against the wall, buffered by the tangle of blankets, bracketed in by Jim’s knee across his thigh.

“Oh. My God .” He doesn’t mean to say it out loud, but, uh … damn.

Jim shudders a bit, the stupid light sleeper, and cranks up his neck to blink at Bones. 

“Are you okay?” Bones asks. 

Shit. Should he move? Should he not move? These are not the rules he’s learned. Jim doesn’t get this close, ever. When they’re awake, at least. And the few times they’ve drifted off together, Jim’s always gone before he wakes up. But … this position, surely Jim initiated the contact? Was comfortable enough to sleep through it?

“Hmmpf,” Jim grunts then rolls his eyes. “‘S okay. Keep you safe.”

“Uh. Thanks?”

“Hmm.” He pulls away, lazily restoring their customary boundaries. “Breakf’st?” 

Bones isn’t sure Jim will be ready to walk back into the kitchen after yesterday. Or perhaps, more honestly, Bones isn’t ready to let him. “Why don’t we go out? That cafe, by the corner?” Fleet had sealed their address before they came home, and the cafe is close enough that, with a little luck, they can steer clear of any reporters. 

“‘Kay,” says Jim, rolling upright and tottering over to pick up his shoes. “Get dressed.”

The comfortable security of the night is sliding fast away. As he slides out of yesterday’s shirt into something clean, he has the ugly premonition that it’s going to be a strange day. 

When he walks out, Jim’s changed into his one, non-fleet outfit, wiped of any traces of sleep. His eyes soften when he sees Bones, but then his mouth turns down. He walks over, pinning Bones with his piercing gaze. “Are you alright, Bones?”

“I don’t know. Just a little off this morning, I guess.”

Jim hums, places a hand on the outside of Bone’s shoulder for a moment. “Come on. Let’s get you something to eat.”

Everything begins and ends with food for Jim. At one time Bones had found it endearing, before he’d understood the depth of meaning of the action. But it felt different, now. The ritualization seems less intimate, more frightening. But how does he say that, without putting it on Jim? Personally, professionally, he is so far out of his depth.

So he says nothing. 

They make their way outside. Bones blinks at the tug of cool morning air. The cafe is a few blocks away around the corner. Despite the early hour, there are plenty of people on the streets. Too many people. Bones really doesn’t want to deal with strangers right now. This was a stupid idea, going out.

Jim stops on the sidewalk, and it takes Bones a minute to notice. He’s staring across the street. Blank. The face he makes under pressure, his fight-or-flight mask. Bones follows his gaze, expecting Starfleet officials or armed hostiles, the return of those fucking ninjas or whatever who attacked Jim on The Enterprise . 

“Dr. Leighton,” Bones says automatically, recognizing the eyepatch and the fly-away hair. Jim turns to look at him, shock plain on his face. With everything, Bones hasn’t had any time to mention the confrontation with Marcus, but now that the reminder is right in front of them, it seems like a good time to get some answers. “Dr. Leighton,” he calls, much louder.

She turns. Bones waves, and she smiles in return, bright and friendly. She lopes forward into the street to meet them. A car honks in irritation at having to slow down.

Jim lunges. He puts himself fully between Dr. Leighton and the oncoming vehicle, hand outstretched. The automatic brakes whine loudly, and the driver honks as they screech to a halt a half foot away. 

Bones sees Jim’s head rotate, slowly. He turns his eyes against the car, like a weapon. Smiles wide. Showing his teeth.

Dr. Leighton steps up onto the sidewalk. Jim waits another beat, then steps back as well. The car drives away, slowly, no further peep of protest. 

“Jesus, Jim,” Bones breathes.

“Don’t do that,” Jim snaps, fury turning on Dr. Leighton. 

“Hello, JT,” she answers, light and unfazed.

“Don’t do that ,” he says again. “ Don’t do that .” His shoulders are tightening, and he clenches his hands.

“Easy,” says Bones. He holds out his own hand palm up. “Jim.” Dr. Leighton watches as Jim stares at his shoes. “ Jim .”

He sighs. He doesn’t relax, but he opens his hand and slips it into Bones’s. “Fine,” he says. Grumpy to be denied his temper tantrum.

“Nice to see you again, Dr. McCoy,” says Leighton.

“We were just on our way to breakfast,” he tells her. “Would you like to join us?” He doesn’t want that, really, but he does want to talk to her, and, well. His momma would insist. 

“Actually, I was just on my way to meet up with some friends. Perhaps we could compromise?”

‘Friends’ plural? Bones does not like where this is headed.

The walk to the cafe is awkward. Bones and Leighton -- Tamara, please -- make awkward small talk. Jim keeps looking at them and then not looking at them. He won’t even answer direct questions, just tightens his grip on Bones’ hand.

They get a big table and order a huge amount of food and coffee.

“You’re vegetarian?” Bones asks. He’s used to a fairly meatless diet living with Jim, but it’s interesting that she doesn’t order a single strip of bacon for what sounds like it’s going to be a dozen people

“Most of us are,” she says, like that answers anything

Jim’s grip turns bruising, and Bones winces. Tamara notices and sets her mug of tea down.

“Is this going to be an issue?” she asks.

“What?” says Bones, even though she’s clearly not talking to him.

“What?” Jim echoes.

She studies him, frowning slightly. “There wasn’t much space, when we were younger, to be different. But I’m not going to apologize.”

“Apologize? For what?”

“For being Tamara, instead of Thomas.”

Is that what has Jim so anxious? It’s not something they’ve ever really talked about, but it’s not exactly the 21st Century anymore. Then again, sometimes Jim does get caught up on small, normal things … 

“I don’t understand. Names change, you know I know that.”

They both stare at him. “You really don’t understand,” she says softly. He bows his head, a version of a shrug. “I changed my name because I am a woman, even though you knew me as a boy.”

“Okay,” says Jim.

“Okay?” she huffs. “If that’s not the problem, then why do you look like you’re afraid I’m going to stab you with a fork?”

“I am afraid,” says Jim. “I am … afraid .” He looks at her, and then away, and finally, Bones understands it. He’s not being rude, he just can’t look at her. Overwhelmed.

“Oh,” she says. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have--”

“JT!” It’s called from across the restaurant, and Bones turns to see a short, sandy blonde, red-cheeked teenager leading a large group through the door. The boy practically sprints over to their table, stopped by running stomach first into Tamara’s outstretched hand. His grin doesn’t falter.

The hoard of people crowd in behind him, all laughing and smiling, several more calling out to Jim. They jostle playfully for space as they slide into seats down the length of the table. Bones looks them over skeptically. At first glance, they're all human -- though there's enough hat-and-scarf action going on it's hard to tell -- and they're young. There's one woman who's maybe the same age as Bones, but the rest are Jim's age or younger. At least four are still teenagers, one in particular who looks barely twelve. Altogether he counts nine, plus Tamara. A motley crew, but comfortable with each other.

Jim clears his throat and the hubbub stops. "Bones," he begins. "This is Kevin." He nods at the eager beaver sitting closest to them, still smiling his face off.

"Hi, Kevin," he says automatically.

"Hello, Mister Bones."

They go down the table. "Jordan." "Arram." "Mit." “Jie.” "Belle." "Brae." "Sonequa." And last but not least, Jim introduces the littlest as simply, "Baby." It gets a laugh from the group, but nobody corrects him. 

They seem to be waiting, still, for Jim to say something. It's a heavy silence, but not a bad one. 

At last, Jim gestures at them all, and then taps twice on the table. "These are my kids."

Bones blinks. His kids? He'd put enough together to assume they'd grown up together, but that doesn't seem to be what Jim is saying. 

"They're … uh … a little old?" he says as delicately as he can.

"We didn't always used to be," says Arram, and they laugh again.

"A few of us are older than JT," adds Tamara. "But only JT was … well, JT."

Apparently, that’s all the explanation they think is necessary. Whatever silent agreement by which they had waited for Jim to speak must have been fulfilled because suddenly they can’t start talking fast enough. 

Every one of them has something they want to share with Jim, some story or idea they need him to know. Bones learns that Arram is at University studying biochemistry, and that Baby’s parents had taken him out of middle school in Idaho for the whole week, just to bring him down here. Tamara’s just received a grant to test her research -- something to do with wheat -- on the Mars station. Mit’s planning to propose when they go home. Shyly, they show everyone the pendant they bought in lieu of a ring. Brae tells an extremely off-color joke about her parole officer. 

Bones feels … awkward. Tamara and Arram make polite attempts to include him, asking about his studies and his family and his plans for the Fleet. But it’s not just being a clear outsider which gives him pause, it’s the strange face of what he’s standing outside of. 

This dynamic is ‘familiarity,’ but sideways. More burned than warm, too manic to be happy. Laughs and hard edges. 

Perhaps that is not fair to these strangers. They’re nice people, with the kind of complex relationship of those who grow up together. Long-term relationships -- not Bones’s specialty. No, his area of expertise is sitting right next to him, hard edges aplenty. 

Jim’s anxiety is palpable, and it creates a feedback loop of discomfort. Bones searches for a diagnosis. It’s not the distrust Jim has with strangers; there’s no carefully enforced distance. Jim’s desperate not to reject their attempts to reach out. He did, after all, claim them as ‘his kids.’ But this meal is nothing like the easy peace of mac-and-cheese shared with Galia and Mitchell. Those nights had been strange, but they were full of love. They were family.

This is a family, too , Bones thinks, but it is not one built on love.

The longer they sit here, as the hyper tinge of the group dies down, the easier it is to see Jim the Captain . In how he sits, how he listens, and in the bright, wide way the others look at him.  Desperate for Jim’s approval, for his attention. His kids . 

He’d asked that once, right? When they’d first met, Bones had seen something paternal, had reconciled it as a general need for control, Jim’s need to take care of and protect … oh. His need to feed . 

Bones feels sick. He reaches out under the table and grabs Jim’s hand. Jim doesn’t flinch, just flicks his eyes over at Bones. He’s passive, for a moment, but when Bones starts to shake he turns his hand outward and grabs hold. 

“We should go,” he says, quietly, cutting cleanly through the hubbub. He taps twice on the table with his right hand and gives a small smile to soften the blow. 

The response is immediate. Tamara frowns, Mit sighs, Baby actually whines, but none of them object. Sonequa boxes up what’s left of the croissants and fruits while the rest of them stand. They make their way out of the restaurant to say their goodbyes. To Jim, at least. Most of them are leaving together. No hugs, but a few of them reach briefly out to touch Jim’s forearm. There are several tears.

Kevin lingers longest. With him, and with Baby, the two youngest, Jim is markedly more gentle. To all of them he whispers a single, soft phrase:

“Suns and stars.”

Some of them say it back, others simply smile or shake their head. Tamara says she’ll be in town for a while, promises to see them again.

Jim holds his hand through it all, even when Bones quietly offers to give them some space. 

The walk back to their apartment feels like an echo of yesterday -- returning from a trial -- but without the promise of relief. 

“Are we gonna talk about it?” he asks, but he’s not really talking to Jim, is he? He’s talking to the entryway, or perhaps to the space behind them, as the door slides shut.

Spock answers the door and smiles. If she’s unsettled at his expression -- much freer than she’s used to -- she suppresses it well. She holds up a small box, which Spock recognizes by its aroma.

“I thought we might share a cup of tea,” she says.

Spock stands aside to let her in. “An excellent idea. Although I hope you know that you are welcome at any time. Bribes of my favorite blend are unnecessary.” 

He has to remind himself not to call her Mother. He shall be content with their easy familiarity.

“It might not be necessary,” she answers as she makes her way to his kitchenette, “but it is certainly much more pleasant.”

He concedes the point. He fetches the table settings as she brews. 

“It’s been some time since I was last in San Francisco,” Amanda is saying.

“I was twelve,” Spock says, taking a seat across from her. 

She smiles. “Tell me what you remember.”

“The cold, primarily. And the wet. My first prolonged visit off-world. I recall being distinctly unpleasant during the entire affair. I was under the impression at the time that I adequately concealed my displeasure, but I suspect that was not, in fact, the case.”

She laughs. “Indeed. Vulcans are quite adept at many things, not the least of which is temper tantrums. None more so than my children.”

He nods. “Thank goodness for Micheal, so skilled at distracting me.”

She tilts her head. “Yes…” she says slowly. “Micheal always did know how to talk to you.”

“I believe she is the only reason I saw anything of San Francisco besides the ground. It made it a little easier to return when I came to the academy.”

He is surprised to see her frown. “Micheal … didn’t come with us. She stayed behind with your father.”

Ah. “I see.” He looks away from her, out the window. Swallows down the disappointment. “In my timeline, the whole family made the journey out. Sybok made the argument that it was important for us, given our dynamic at the time.”

It’s quiet for a moment. “I miss them,” Amanda says, eventually. “Micheal, and Sybok. Your father.”

“Sometimes,” he says, “I feel that this universe is particularly empty.”

She hums. “Still, we rebuild. Or build anew, as it were. The committee is hard at work, selecting a new planet for the Vulcan people.”

“I would like to offer my assistance when the time comes. It is the least I could do.” To atone , he does not say, for the death I brought here.

“Spock” -- her Spock, she means -- “has a great many ideas for reconstructing the science center. He’s quite encouraged that we do not even need to wait for a physical location to begin reassembling the archives.”

He considers this. “Crucial work, indeed. And an effort that could be continued from anywhere.”

Amanda looks at him, keen. “Easier, on site.”

“Perhaps. Unless that environment is, for some reason, less conducive to work.”

“If one were unhappy there.”

“A reasonable assessment,” he agrees. 

“I understand the importance of the rebuilding efforts,” she says. “But there is nothing as important to me as the happiness of my children.” 

“Unfortunately, we are not people easily persuaded.” Playfulness, mixed with purpose. So much easier than emotional honesty. “Nor are we beyond pursuing precisely that which is unconducive to our happiness.” 

She’s smiling again. “If only there were someone able to provide him with the appropriate perspective to reconsider.”

Very well . Perhaps it is time to put a few things a bit back into order.

Chapter Text

“I don’t want to fight,” Jim says.

“You don’t want to talk, either, but one of those things has to happen. Maybe both of them.”

He’s pacing. Back in forth in front of the living room window curtains, his fear arching a slow pendulum across Bones’s face. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Bones, I would give … anything , to you.”

“But not this?”

“How? How? I don’t know, Bones. I don’t know if I have this in me.”

“I’m not asking for anything that isn’t in you, Jim, I’m asking for you .”

Abruptly, Jim sits. His breathing is even, still. Not a panic attack. He taps his forehead firmly against his palms a few times. “Not all of me is good.”

Bones sits as well. Jim’s not making eye contact right now, but when he’s ready to, Bones will be right there. “All of you,” he says, “is good enough for me.”

Jim thinks it over. “It will change things.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You haven’t called me ‘kid’ since the day you saw me kill Nero.”

That stops him. Is it true? The day on Vulcan is an enormous gulf in his life, splitting everything into before and after. Watching Jim gut Nero had been part of that, but to be honest … he hasn’t thought about it. At all.

“I used to call you ‘kid,’” he says at last, “because I felt old. I felt, and I wanted to be, separate from all the stupid young people I suddenly felt trapped by. I’d already built my life  -- a career, a home, a family. And I’d lost them. It felt easier to be a fucked-up old man, rather than just another wayward cadet. I felt that the things I carried made me old, or older, at least, than someone young, and beautiful, and brilliant like you.”

It had felt simpler, then. Before Jim was someone he needed, Bones could believe Jim was someone he could help.

“It made me feel better,” he continues. “But it wasn’t fair to you. It kinda seems like… you haven’t been a kid in a long time.” Or ever.

Jim sighs. "Okay."

"Really?"

" Yes , Bones. Where do you want to start?"

"Wherever’s easiest. We don’t have to do it all at once.”

Jim huffs. “Easy. Right.” He leans back, though, makes half-way eye contact. He’s really gonna do it.

“Tell me something nice,” Bones suggests. It’ll be good to start somewhere positive. Plus, it might actually save him from death by rage-induced-anyuresum. 

Twice, Jim blinks, considering, and then abruptly, smiles. That soft quiet thing Bones loves. It surprises him, but not as much as Jim lifting up his right leg and unlacing his boot. He reaches inside, pulls out the sole, and then digs around some more, finally fishing out a small, dark envelope. 

It’s black, rather than bright orange, but Bones guesses it’s something like the durable, weatherproof sheeting you find in survival kits. And Jim, the man who owns nothing, has been carrying it around in his boot for God knows how long. Protecting what?

Inside the envelope is a piece of paper, slightly larger than his palm once its unfolded. Flipping it over, Jim reveals a smudged and faded wash of colors. Looking closely, Bones recognizes the lopsided shapes as clouds, drifting over a water-color horizon line.

“It’s beautiful,” he says, quietly. It isn’t, strictly speaking; not that Bones knows anything about art, but in any different context, he would have called it pretty, but childish.

“Sam liked to paint,” Jim says. “He was an angry little boy, especially after Mom left. He yelled at me, one time, for sneaking out after dark. I wanted to look at the stars. I don’t know if he was scared I’d get in trouble, or just mad at me because he hated space. But he took me, the next morning, out into the middle of a bare field. Said if I wanted to look up at the sky all the time, he’d give me a better one. We sat down in the mud, and he painted.” 

Jim stares at the painting, tender and sad. Bones stares at Jim.

“He ran away from home a few years later. They found his body when I was sixteen.”

“I’m sorry.” His voice cracks halfway through the first word.

“It’s okay,” Jim says. And then, more firmly. “I think you’re right. I can do this. I want to.”

She doesn’t go through them in order. It seems somehow safer that way. 

I don’t know if you still talk to Frank. He has three months before his parole hearing. 

She needs to be clinical. She looks for patterns. Pieces to put together into understanding, without -- without --

I saw your paper on the new Regula prototypes. It must be nice to test that kind of equipment on a large class vehicle. I’m learning a lot about engines. Everytime I think I understand what they want from us, they have me work on something different.

Two years in, he stops addressing the letters. Never calls her Mom again.

I hope you're doing well. When I graduate next year --

Oh god, this letter, it’s from only months ago. 

-- I don’t know where we’ll be stationed. I can try to give you some notice in case we get too close. I want you to know I’m not doing this to intrude or anything. I didn’t even plan on staying before I made a friend.

I think you’d like him. Maybe you two will meet someday.

This polite distance is so much harder to stomach than the vulnerable little boy who’d asked for her help. She can’t stand it, she has to scroll back.

I didn’t think it would be like this. For a long time, I had this childish idea that we would be helping people, going on daring rescue missions. I shouldn’t complain, though. The Professor warned us that it wasn’t important work because it was easy.

Oh. Oh. Now this … this, she can do something with. 

“I’m going to Iowa,” says Galia. She’s draped over the bottom half of Uhura’s bed, flicking through a PADD.

To increase her chances of getting an answer, Uhura filters her ‘ what , why, you said where ?’ into a nonchalant, “That’s nice.” 

“You’re coming with me.” She sounds like she’s commenting on a tabloid magazine article.

Uhura closes her eyes. “Sure. Of course.”

“We’re having a funeral for Gary.” 

Uhura’s eyes fly open. “Oh.” That’s. Oh. “I … uh … didn’t know he was from Iowa.”

Galia rolls over, bending and stretching her knee. She does that all the time now, with the prosthesis. “He’s not. His sister got a plot for him in Portland.” 

“... Oh.” 

Bend and flex. “Jim’s from Iowa, though.”

“Galia … are you sure I should go? I just … I didn’t know Gary.”

“I know. But you’re my friend, and we were family. Almost family, at least.”

Uhura sighs. “If you’re sure. Of course I’ll be there.” 

It’s not like there’s anything she would deny Galia these days. And to be honest, it’s not the ‘Gary’ part that’s putting her off. She’s kinda terrified to see the Captain right now. Everything rumbling around in her brain, the wild speculation, it feels so … inappropriate? What if she’s wrong? What if she’s right? What if she looks at his face and blurts out everything she’s thinking?

Not that she would do that, obviously. Grace under pressure is one of her defining virtues, if she does say so herself. Maybe it’s the guilt talking. She’d condemned him so quickly, back in the beginning, not a regret she wants to replay--

Something soft but hefty smacks into the back of her head.

She whips around to glare at Galia, who remains unimpressed.

“Stop spiraling,” Galia orders. “Pay attention to me, instead.”

“Your wish,” Uhura begins sweetly, and then hurls the pillow straight back at Galia’s face.

Chapter Text

“It just surprises me,” Bones tries for the fourth time, “that you want to go home for this.” 

“Iowa is not home,” Jim says.

“Well. Yeah. That’s kind of my point.”

“It’s just important, Bones.”

It’s frustrating, but Jim seems more bewildered by Bones’ confusion than reluctant. It’s an attitude that reminds Bones very much of the first few months where Jim would watch Bones say and do regular, human things like he was some kind of Klingon anthropologist. Only now he’s on the inverse side… and he might actually have somewhere to go for answers.

He waits until Jim steps out for a run to make the call.

“Well, if it isn’t the Good Doctor Bones.” Tamara looks much more relaxed than Bones has seen her. “What brings you around to my vid-screen barely a week since we had breakfast?”

“You’re pretty normal,” Bones says, with absolutely zero tact.

But Tamara gets it immediately. “I’m only qualified to untangle wheat DNA. You're gonna need a different kind of specialist for that web.”

“... You’re saying he needs a therapist?”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Look, I know he has issues, and yeah, I wish he could get some help. But this feels different. Lord knows he’s intelligent, and in another universe, I’d suggest he get tested for neurodivergence--”

“Wait, that’s what you're talking about?” She frowns at him.

“Um, kind of? There’s this … thing, about funerals, and I honestly don’t understand what it is I’m not understanding.”

Tamara runs a thoughtful hand through her hair. “I don’t want to speak too much for JT. He told me that you guys have been working on communication,” -- and doesn’t that surprise Bones, that Jim has shared this -- “but I can tell you a little bit about what I went through.”

Bones nods in solemn appreciation.

“After we were all … together … I went home.” Okay, Bones doesn’t know yet what happened in all those empty spaces but he gets the point: Tamara went home, but Jim didn’t. “My father quit his practice because he was hysterical about leaving me alone, ever.” Jim didn’t have parents to do that for him. “My physical recovery was slow but steady,” -- wait, physical ? -- “but my care team was incredible. Despite all that, I still have progress to make on my deprogramming.”

“Your… deprogramming.”

“For a long time, I thought it was enough to just hate the people and the ideas that hurt us. It wasn’t until I started going to school that I realized the entire way I understood … life, and the universe, it was all built wrong, from the ground up.”

Holy shit. “You’re talking about, like, a cult.”

“Yes. Although I doubt anyone has ever used that word to JT. It was probably more effective to keep him in that malleable, isolated mindset. To be honest, I still don’t understand exactly what secret purpose a Starfleet captain wanted a traumatized fourteen-year-old, but it’s obvious Marcus wasn’t interested in rehabilitating him.”

Bones stares at her. She offers nothing to soften the blow.

Distantly, he hears the door slide open. Jim’s always been quiet, so the first clue Bones has that he’s made his way to their room is the hand on the edge of his shoulder. “Tamara?”

“Hey, JT. I’ll catch up with you later, okay?” 

Jim doesn’t answer her, staring at Bones instead. “Are you crying?” He yanks out Bones’s chair. “Are you hurt?” 

Oh, hey, the vid-screen is off. Tamara must have ended the call.

Jim yanks Bones’ arms apart to scan him critically. “What’s wrong? Bones .” 

“Can--” God, his voice is so wobbly, “can I hold you?” 

Without a breath, Jim pulls Bones’ face forward into the crook of his neck.

“How’d you even find me?” The sentence is a splash of deja-vu, back to a rainy day in a fake forest in front of an impossibly crackling fire.

“Told you Bones. I’ll always find you.”

“What do you mean you haven’t asked him? I don’t think this is the kind of issue we can afford to dance around.”

Winona looks at him. 

“... I’m sure you guys have a lot to catch up on, but this is kind of urgent,” Pike reminds her.

“Christopher, I don’t think you really understand what’s happening here.”

“Well, if only someone would explain it to me--”

“They took my boy.” Her eyes are wide, her face still. “These people we’re dealing with, they take things and people and they chew them up, and spit the husks out into the garbage. Somehow, Jimmy got out. But now he’s valuable again. They’ll want a second bite. I’m not going to allow that to happen. We’re not here to facilitate a family reunion, we’re here to overthrow an oppressive machine.”

God, she sounds just like him. It’s like arguing with a supernova. Chris is very aware that Winona has carefully been feeding him just enough to proof that he can’t dismiss her as a paranoid maniac, but that doesn’t make the display any less chilling

“You mean you haven’t talked to him at all?”

“I had my chance to be a mother. My job now is to keep him safe by any means necessary. That’s best done by keeping him as far away as possible.”

How convenient . The perfectly justified excuse not to confront all that pain and grief. “Seems to me like one of the things Jim is going to need is someone to talk to about this.”

She smiles, all teeth. “Why do you think I’ve recruited you?”

“... Ah. Walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

“Yes, dear,” is all Winona says before she closes the call.

Jim was the only one she’d told about Gary’s last hours. She knew he would feel it a deeply as she had, and so all the fear and pain would not be wasted. They could hold it inside them as fuel for their love.

She doesn’t regret it. Jim deserves to know, just as Gary deserves to be remembered. But she had not adequately anticipated the cost. Her own grief is a burning thing, but Jim drowns. The weight of it crashes over him and rushes into his lungs, and he doesn’t even fight it. When he looks at her, now, there is always an abyss clouding his eyes. Gary is gone forever, but are they, too? What the three of them, together, had meant to Jim -- the first thing he’d ever had that came from peace -- will she ever get to taste that joy on his breath again?

Nyota is such a blessing. She’s been attentive, without being overbearing, empathetic, but not invasive. She keeps Galia sane, steady. Jim still keeps Bones close, but Galia isn’t sure the man is up to the same task, despite the fact that he should understand better than Nyota does. 

Perhaps that sounds a little callous. She loves Bones, too, she really does, but he’s missed things that Jim needs before.

She watches them. They’ve stayed fairly secluded since the trial, but Galia’s not afraid to exploit the excuse of Gary’s funeral to sit next to them and stare. They take the train, slower, but more private.

Nyota and Bones talk quietly, little pieces of nothing about Nyota’s class, stupid things that happened on their journey back aboard The Enterprise . Bones sits next to Jim, of course. He glances over at regular intervals while Jim stares silently out the window. Bones’ anxiety is deeper than Nyota’s, curdled with something that feels sick. Galia wonder if Jim had explained to him the significance of this burial. He hadn’t needed to tell her.

They pull into the station at dusk. Funny, she hadn’t bothered to wonder what Iowa would be like. It’s rural, flatter than San Fransico. Probably what humans would call normal. Certainly, Nyota and Bones don’t bother to look around Riverside much.

Jim has a car for them. Nyota sits in the driver’s seat, Jim beside her to give directions. That leaves Galia and Bones in the backseat.

“How are you doing?” he murmurs at her.

Oh. That’s nice. “I’m okay.”

It gets dark quickly, but there’s still some purple in the sky when Jim speaks. “Stop here.” It’s been empty fields and lonely farmland on either side of them for a while now. There’s no driveway in sight, so Nyota guides the car gently onto the gravel shoulder. “Wait,” Jim says, and steps outside. He walks on down the road, fading out of sight of the headlights.

“What’s he doing?” Bones wonders, but of course, they don’t have an answer for him.

When he reemerges a few minutes later, Jim has a large, flat river rock in his hands.

“Okay,” he says, settling back into the front seat. “A few more miles down that way.”

Eventually, they turn right, past a titling mailbox. There’s a house in the distance. Small, painted white.

“Down there?” 

“No. Keep going.”

So they drive past the house. The road goes right by it, and the light to the porch flicks on as they rumble past on the dilapidated pavement. The road turns once more and then ends. The car stops, and they pile out. The little old house is still visible to their left.

Bad things were in there, she knew. But outside, the night air is crisp and breezy. Jim steps out into a field of growing corn, fingers brushing over the tops of the waist-high stalks. They follow him out almost a hundred meters, wet dirt flicking up over the tops of their shoes.

The corn ends at the bottom of a terraced step, dirt held back by the roots of a large old oak tree. Jim leads them up the step and into a small, weedy clearing that looks out at the field around them. On the hill there are a series of stones laid in the dirt. They’re large, flat, smooth, like the rock Jim’s carrying.

Beside her, Bones grows tense, the scent of metallic horror spilling out of him. But Jim scent doesn’t change. He’s still heavy, but even.

“What now?” Galia asks him.

Jim gets on his knees. He set the stone down and then digs his hands into the dirt. Galia kneels beside him and helps.

“Should we--”

“We have it.”

So Bones and Nyota hover behind them for the next twenty minutes. There’s no body to bury, so it doesn’t have to be deep, but they go down until the earth is clay-packed and free of roots. She feels when Jim decides they’re done. He reaches down and puts his palm flat on the bottom of the hole. She rests hers on top of his. They don’t speak, they have no symbol of their friend to bury. But she feels what Jim pours out of himself, bleeds from his fingertips into the dirt. She lets her eyes close. 

Goodbye, friend .

The fill the dirt back in, placing the stone in the ground at the very end, packing it in place. When she looks up, Nyota is weeping, Bones standing hollowly. 

Galia gets to her feet and opens her arms. Nyota jumps forward into the embrace. “Can we sit for a minute and watch the stars?” Galia asks. Jim puts a careful hand on her back and leads them both over to the tree of ghosts.

Chapter Text

Bones takes his spot by Jim and tries to find something to say. They’re a half-crescent around the tree, Galia folded in Uhura’s side, Jim’s shoulder brushing his own. Bones can’t look at the patch of dirt to his right, so he turns his head left, out across the corn. In silhouette against the night sky is the farmhouse they had passed. Jim’s ‘childhood home’, presumably. The porchlight is still shining. 

Bones squints. “I think there’s someone standing out there,” he whispers.

“Uncle Frank moved back in a few years ago,” Jim says.

That’s a name Bones remembers.

“You don’t get along?” Uhura asks, and immediately Galia breaks out in giggles. It’s deceptively light, but the implication is clear. “Are you worried about him watching us?” Uhura asks more quietly.

“No,” says Jim. “He won’t do anything anymore.”

“Do you remember much of living out here?” Bones asks.

He expects a simple answer, a denial or deflection or something vague and unsettling. But instead, Jim responds to him like it’s a ‘capital Q’ Question, the ones they’ve been slowly trading back and forth. Instead of blowing it off, Jim starts to talk.

“My father owned a vintage car. It was a big deal, apparently. He’d restored it by hand. Which meant that the rest of my family loved and hated it. Any physical manifestation of the fact that he was gone … Anyway. Sam loved it because Dad had built it, and hated that he’d left it behind. Frank loved it because it was valuable, and hated that it was a shrine to a ghost. And it was this weird leverage between the two of them. Sam would smash out the windows to get back at Frank, then Frank would threaten to sell it to try and get Sam in line.”

Bones watches Jim closely. His hands are carefully unclenched on his lap, his head just slightly bowed, his breathing soft.

“When I was nine, they had their worst fight. I don’t know what started it, but I remember waking up that morning to screaming. When I came downstairs, Sam was standing by the door, holding a hand over his right eye, wiping away blood. He looked up at Frank and said, ‘You don’t get to touch that car. I will drive it off a fucking cliff before I let you put a hand on it again.’ I believed him. Frank was standing just inside the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe, but he straightened up. He walked past me on the stairs without even looking, just staring straight at Sam. He moved up real close, and leaned over. It got quiet. I couldn’t see Sam anymore. I watched Frank’s hands. I thought, as long as he doesn’t lift his hands, it’ll be okay. But he lifted them. So I walked down the stairs, I picked up a lamp -- a skinny metal thing, no shade. It wasn’t big or heavy. But it was long enough to hit the back of Frank’s head when I swung.” 

His right hand flexes, once.

“He tipped over. Surprise, mostly. He looked up at me, and I just … needed him to stay down. So I hit him again. I had a better angle the second time, but not enough to stop him moving. Took a good four swings. It got bloody. The side of his cheek was all crunched in. Sam said my name when I was done. He had marks from Frank’s fingernails on the side of his neck, the fading white shape of Frank’s palm over his throat. But he was looking at me like … like I was scary. He opened the door behind him and walked out, and I never saw him again.

“Frank woke up later, and drove himself to the clinic. I don’t think he even knew Sam was gone. He told the doctors he’d been in an accident on the farm. They fixed him up, sent him back home to sleep it off. I knew … I knew he’d be angry. And it was the first time he’d ever been mad at me without Sam around. He came up to my bedroom, but he didn’t touch me. He stared at me for a long time, and then walked away. 

“Two weeks later, he got into a fistfight at a bar, nearly killed a guy. After the cops booked him, someone came by the house. There was a minor panic when they figured out Sam was missing. Somebody called Winona, and there was a big ruckus over where to place me until she could get back. I don’t know where the idea came from, but somebody dug up this brochure about a colony which offered a program for troubled kids. Winona asked what I wanted to do, and the idea of leaving … I wondered, maybe if I was gone, and Frank was in jail, Sam would come back. So I shipped out.”

He's quiet for a minute, and the space fills with all the dark things Bones knows. They haven’t even tried talking about what happened to Jim off-planet yet, but the pieces he does have are bad. Jim was indoctrinated, then abandoned, and somehow ended up as the primary caregiver for almost a dozen other kids.

Nine years old, the last time Jim had anything he could call family. And fourteen when he fell into the hand of Admiral fucking Marcus.

“There was, at one point,” Jim whispers, “a real funeral. I wasn’t -- I haven’t gone to see where they put him. Whatever part of him was my brother, I put to rest out here.” 

Bones tilts his head back and looks up at the night sky. Thinks of baby Jim sneaking out to watch the march of nebulas across the sky. He probably knew the names of planets before he could even talk. Then going home with dirt and weeds on his clothes, only for a grumpy Sam to drag him back out with a set of cheap, cracking watercolors.

He hears Jim shift, and his head gently hits Bones’ shoulder. His words reverberate down through Bones’ chest. “Iowa might not be home, but it’s where I bury my family.”

There are six more stone plaques in the dirt.

“My Dad was fifty-one,” Bones says. “Over the course of sixteen months, he got so sick he looked like he was ninety. I maybe saw him cry once or twice in my life before, but towards the end, it was every day. He was just in so much pain, and nothing I did was helping. He asked me to make it stop. So I took him home, and Mom held his hand, and I … helped his body let go.”

He’s never said that out loud before. Not even to Jocelyn, who had to watch him dissolve afterwards.

“You saved him,” Jim says.

“No. No, I didn’t. I put him down like a dog two months before there was a medical breakthrough which would have given him a full recovery--”

 Jim’s right arm wraps around Bones’ left, and their hands clamp together. “You saved him. You gave him back his dignity, and took his pain onto yourself.”

Galia reaches around Jim and rests her hand on Bones’ hair. “Don’t carry the past with you like a cancer,” she murmurs. “Carry it with honor, to have served your loved one in times of suffering.”

 “You did good, Bones,” says Jim. “Really good.”

What choice is there but to believe them? Palm to palm with Jim, Bones feels the rot slowly leaking out of his lungs.

They don’t mind as the dew grows on their pants and shoes, but eventually, the stars begin to dim. They don’t stick around to watch the sky grow red.

“Spock.”

“Spock.”

“I read your notes on the proposed locations for New Vulcan. I’m glad you see the logic of considering Isop, despite its climate.”

“It is vital to consider the geopolitical and infrastructural factors, not just the planet’s similarity to Vulcan Prime. The latter is simply nostalgia--”

“-- when we need to be looking to the future, not just licking our wounds.”

His counterpart arches an eyebrow. “A phrase you acquired from your version of Dr. McCoy, presumably.”

“Indeed. One of many things I learned during my time aboard The Enterprise.”

“You were very fortunate to have had so many years serving with him and Kirk.”

Spock blinks. It’s a more magnanimous response than he was expecting. Perhaps he can be a bit more direct. “I’m hoping that despite the complications of this timeline, my presence here will afford you the same possibility. I can shoulder much of the responsibility of the new settlement, while you remain with Starfleet.”

“A wise division. It is clear to me that there is much work to be done here as well.”

“Then why have you not confirmed your assignment to The Enterprise?”

“If Kirk does not return as Captain, I have an informal agreement with Admiral Pike that I will remain here as a full-time instructor to help fill a critical skill gap.”

… What? “They have not given Jim The Enterprise ? What more possible proof could they need that--”

“Kirk declined the commission. It is not yet public knowledge, as the Admiralty is hoping he will reconsider.”

“He…” Spock closes his eyes in frustration. “This Jim of yours is exceedingly difficult.”

“His purpose is not to fulfill your vicarious nostalgia.”

He opens his eyes and finds his younger image is tense and confrontational. Protective. Interesting. “A fair point,” he says, slowly. “It is not my intention to stand in the way of your future, Spock. I’m merely gratified to hear you have clarity with regard to your own desires. That was something I struggled with, and it caused me a great deal of unnecessary pain.”

Spock regards him suspiciously, then nods.

Taking his leave, Spock contemplates how this development fits with his understanding of this timeline. Clearly, the bond between younger Spock and Kirk -- between the whole crew, really -- has formed at a greatly accelerated rate. Psychologically, it makes sense that sudden intense tragedy would have that effect, even more so given their youth. Perhaps that’s also responsible for the highly charged atmosphere that bubbles up to unnerve him so often.

Of course, Jim was marked by aggression and distrust even before the conflict with Nero. To the degree that he was ejected from The Enterprise. In many ways, the others are simply reacting to the difference in him. So where is the real catalyst? Can it be explained by a change in the environment, or is there something innately wrong about this version of Jim?

That’s an ungenerous thought. Not ‘wrong’ as in ‘incorrect,’ but rather … broken.

Ah. He’s been hurt. The feelings that the mere thought of the hypothesis evokes in Spock give him a great deal of appreciation for the reaction his younger self had just displayed. The absolute injustice, that a good man, already dealt a difficult hand in life if his history is even remotely similar to Spock’s own Jim, should have been further mistreated by the universe he still risked everything to save … that offends Spock. 

He’s been going about this all wrong. It’s not Spock who needs Spock’s help. It’s Jim. And it’s not guidance that’s lacking. It’s sanctuary.

She’s not sure what to make of The Captain showing up at her door. She would tell him Galia isn’t home, but she’s pretty sure he knows her PT schedule. And she doesn’t want him to feel unwelcome. So she steps back and invites him in. 

It could be awkward, after Iowa. She’d felt like an outsider, a vouyer to so much pain. But at the same time, she’d been touched by the easy trust her friends had shown her. And it’s hard to be awkward around someone whose sense of normality is already so sideways.

The Captain isn’t really a ‘hello, how are you’ kind of guy, so the first thing he says is about work. “You should drop your TA section with Professor Milton.”

She shrugs, not bothering to ask how he knows about that. “I’m not doing much else while I wait for my next assignment, and it’s important to be useful in rebuilding the Fleet skill base.” Now that half of it is dead.

“Yes, I know. Which is why it’s wasteful not to give you a full section of your own.”

Uhura processes that for a moment. It’s a bit intimidating, but eventually, she nods, an acceptance of both the charge and the compliment. That settled, she wonders briefly if he’s going to leave. Instead, he looks off to the right and out the window. An avoidance tactic, or just his aversion to prolonged eye contact?

“I’m having a bit of trouble with some cultural research,” he says to the wall. “I’ve tried narrowing it down by geographic region, but the diversity is still overwhelming.”

“What culture are you trying to learn about?”

“Human. Earth human, specifically.”

“Ah. And you’re hoping I can ‘translate’ for you.”

His eyes flick back over to her face. “That tone could indicate sarcasm or metaphor. Both of which are sometimes good, and sometimes bad. I usually respond to that kind of uncertainty by being deliberately over-literal.”

She blinks, then smiles. “That is a very honest thing to say. Thank you, Captain. Show me what you have, and I’ll see if I can help.”

The Captain… hesitates? Is that a tinge of red in his cheeks? Eventually, he asks if she has a PADD. With immense curiosity, Uhura watches him open a simple search engine. She’s not sure what she’s expecting, but the simple images and text on the screen leave her close to gaping. 

“Oh,” she says, barely even hearing herself.

“You think it’s a bad idea,” he says, setting the PADD down. “He wouldn’t want it.”

“Oh,” she says again, and this time it’s less full of awe and closer to mirth, “Jim. Can I -- I’m calling you Jim, now, deal with it.”

“I don’t care. Actually, I don’t care. You’re not talking me out of it.”

“Jim, you big, blonde, idiot. Sit down.” He sits. “So. Here’s where we’re going to start.”  Hm. This is going to be fun.

Chapter Text

Jimmy doesn’t show up in his office when summoned. Petulant. This whole temper tantrum stinks of regression to the psychology of teenage rebellion. It’s his own fault, really. He should never have retired the boy in the first place, of course. His efficiency had been flagging, and the injury to his back had been more trouble than it was worth, but Marcus could still have made use of him somewhere else -- clean-up, maybe. That’s not the big regret, though. He can’t believe he let the boy talk him into re-integration.

It had made sense at the time. It’s not like they could have given him the normal safehouse package, a quiet plot of land out in the middle of nowhere which serves to both keep veterans happy and secluded. With his background, that kind of isolation was too unstable. Slipping him into Starfleet gen pop made Lucille happy, and kept Jimmy nicely within reach. And at first, it worked. Was occasionally entertaining, even, a form of at-work stress relief.

What he’d failed to account for, was the ‘gen pop’ piece of the equation. He underestimated Jimmy’s ability to make connections, had assumed that he would take one look at the real world and, in the absence of any kind of social competence, fall back on his training. But apparently, despite the time that had passed since the colony, Jimmy had retained his habit of getting over-attached to scrappy outsiders. In that non-sterile environment, resistance had germinated.

Now, Marcus’s hand is frustratingly lean, but not empty. Despite living off campus, Jimmy’s still required to spend a great deal of time on base, and those movements are transparent to Marcus. Easy enough to approach the boy at a lonely moment, and give him a little reminder of his place.

Jimmy’s eyes move away as soon as they land on him. Marcus hovers in the doorway, blocking the exit to the building unless Jimmy retreats all the way back down the corridor. He watches the boy’s breathing go meticulously steady, his fingers resting lightly on the fabric across his thighs. Satisfied with the physical effect of his presence, he takes a few steps forward.

“Bit of a short workout for you, Jimmy. Getting softer?” It’s a stupid insult, cliche, even, but that’s the point. Look what I can say to you and get away with .

“What do you want.” Jimmy’s voice is flat.

“The same thing I always have. Peace. Safety. Hope.” Jimmy gives him a short, measured look, before training his eyes back on the wall. “I know you understand, better than most, how hard we have to fight for these things. What the cost of hesitation is. So I’m wondering why you’re refusing to step up and do your goddamn job.”

“Why does it matter to you if I’m Captain? I thought we had agreed it was best if I stayed permanently lost in some corner of the engine room.”

“But you didn’t, did you? Told me you were done, nothing left to give, but when push came to shove, your claws came right back out. So don’t waste my time asking me why power matters. You’re going to take that commission, and you’ll go out on that ship, and while the rest of Fleet oohs and ahs over all your discovery crap, you’ll be perfectly positioned to sniff out new threats and snap their infant necks. No more Neradas. No more Kelvins. We won’t be stuck waiting around for what happened to Vulcan to happen to Earth.”

“No,” says Jimmy.

“No?”

“No.”

He scowls. “You don’t get to say no this, boy. You wanted a rest, you got one. Don’t act like it’s such a hardship to get back on that darling little ship of yours, with those mangy little pets, and dither around on reconnaissance while the rest of 31 risks their lives on serious missions. I even got you a little gift to take with you. And you have the nerve to act like you’re above giving the bare minimum? Don’t forget what you owe me, Jimmy boy.”

“I owe you nothing.”

“I saved you. Raised you out of that hellhole, and when your own mother didn’t want you, gave you something to do with your life.”

His hands tighten into shaking fists. “No. No. Professor Griggs is the one who wiped the blood off my face, forced food into my stomach, taught me to think through the pain. You did not save me. You found me, broken, and decided that the shards of me would make a good weapon.” Discipline fully broken, Jimmy turns his entire body to Marcus, face rigid, eyes aflame. Marcus takes a step back. “Careful,” he whispers, “how tightly you hold the glass.” He turns and walks back the way he had come.

“Don’t you want to know what your gift was going to be?” Marcus calls out to his back, but it’s over.

Fuck.

Bones’ back is already aching after his first shift at the clinic, and he has to be back later this evening to help oversee intern evaluations. He decides to make the trek back to the apartment rather than nap-crashing in his office. Jim will be pleased to see him for lunch, and it’ll be nice to have some conversation with someone who’s not an idiot for the first time today.

He’s not even done entering the door code when it slides open and Jim grabs him by the collar.

“Um, hello,” Bones says as he’s hauled inside.

“We might have a problem,” Jim says. “Marcus is applying pressure. I’m worried.”

“Shit. How much leverage does he have? At least he’s not your academic advisor anymore.”

“Well, I haven’t graduated yet.”

What? “I don’t understand. The academic dishonesty charge was dropped, and you have enough credits--”

“As my advisor, Marcus is in charge of applying for graduation.

“Oh, fuck.”

Jim paces back and forth in front of him. “He can’t make me accept the commission, but he can keep me here in limbo. And if I kick up a fuss about it, people are going to start asking why he’s my advisor in the first place.”

“Okay…” Bones turns it over in his head. “But Marcus doesn’t want that point to be pressed, either. It’s as much an advantage as a disadvantage.”

Jim stops midstep. “How?”

“If we go around him, how much can he protest, really?”

“What do you mean, go around him?”

“Pike’s supposed to be head of academics anyway. And , he’s an Admiral now, too. Let’s just ask him to file for you.”

Jim tilts his head. 

“You like Pike, right?”

“He’s alright,” Jim says softly.

“... But?”

“He’s an Admiral.” And what more is there to say? Almost every person who’s ever had power over Jim screwed him over at one point or another.

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to kill Marcus,” Jim says. It’s not even angry. Just plain honest. Looks Bones straight in the face as he says it.

Bones looks back at him. “Are you going to?”

Jim doesn’t hesitate. “No. I don’t … I don’t want him to be right about me.”

“Hey. He’s not right about any goddamn thing.” He steps forward and pokes Jim hard in the chest. “Who knows you, him or me?”

“You.”

“Damn straight. So let’s make our play, and deal with the fallout.”

“Aye, Captain,” says Jim, smiling now.

Jim keeps a hand on Bones’ elbow as they make their way back to campus. Thankfully, Pike’s office is in Administration, right by the front. Bones isn’t in the mood to bump into anybody they’d need to make conversation with, or, heaven forbid, freaking Marcus.

As they step inside, he’s feeling pretty optimistic about their chances of getting this done.

“Kevin?”

Bones turns and then follows Jim’s gaze across the lobby. The sandy-haired teenager from the strangest breakfast of Bones’ life is standing in front of the first desk, bouncing slightly on his heels. Jim says his name again, louder, commanding, and the teen turns, cheeks splitting into a grin as he spots them.

“Hey, JT! Mr. Bones!” He literally skips over to them, skidding to a stop an arm's length away. 

If he had a fluffy golden tail , Bones thinks, it would be wagging fast enough to achieve lift-off .

But Jim does not seem as amused by the teen’s antics. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m putting in a request for my room assignment.”

Bones turns that over in his head. He’s just putting together the question, ‘what room assignment?’ when a vice closes over his elbow.

“No,” says Jim.

Kevin tilts his head. Bones wonders if he recognizes the same thing in Jim’s tone that’s sending shivers down his own spine.

“I … I enlisted yeaster--”

“ No .”

Jim’s face is stone. It’s staring down a courtroom blank, it’s towering over Nero hard, and his hand on Bones’ arm is setting-a-collar-bone tight.

“I--” Kevin starts, but Jim reaches out his other hand for Kevin’s shoulder, and then he’s pulling both of them along.

“Jim,” Bones tries.

“You trust Commander Pike, right?” Jim says without turning around.

Trust him with what? Bones is going to say, but they’re already at the door. 

“Are you mad?” Kevin says quietly, sounding all of his meager eighteen years old.

“We will fix it,” Jim says, at the same time as the door slides open.

“Fix what?” says a very familiar voice. Not Pike.

“Spock?” Bones tries to lean around Jim’s stiff frame to peer inside. But Jim lets go of Bones’ arm and is pushing Kevin in front of him, inside the room. Bones steps inside before the doors can close.

The young human is propelled forward by Kirk’s grasp, and only Spock’s reflexes prevent a collision. He steps backward into the office, and then takes another step. He’d just been on his way out, but even for Kirk, this is irregular behavior.

“Sure, come in,” says Admiral Pike in his amused, dry tone. He’s sitting behind his desk, but abruptly leans forward as Kirk’s face comes into view, just as the inimical Doctor trails in behind them.

“Uh…” stutters the younger human, “Admiral, sir!” He throws up a gesture Spock assumes is supposed to resemble a salute.

“This is Kevin Reilly,” says Kirk. “He is not going to be joining Starfleet.

“... Okay,” says Admiral Pike. 

“I enlisted yesterday afternoon,” says Reilly, subdued.

“That would seem to contradict the previous statement,” Spock observes.

Kirk’s eyes flick to him. “He needs to be released from his agreement.”

No one speaks for a moment.

“Mr. Reilly,” The Admiral begins, in his most neutral, diplomatic tone, “can you tell me why you enlisted?”

“I … I want to help people. Like--” he looks briefly up at Kirk, and then seems to change his mind. “Just, to be part of something good, to go out and fix problems. Like JT does. When Admiral Marcus called and offered me a placement in the engineering department… ”

Kirk makes a peculiar noise, an expression Spock doesn’t know how to interpret.

“Hey,” says Dr. McCoy. “Hey! Jim.” He shoulders his way past Kirk and Reilly, and steps directly into Kirk’s eye line. “No one else here understands what’s happening. We want to help, but you have to fucking talk to us.”

It’s a good show of emotional intelligence, but Spock hardly expects it to produce a reasonable explanation. Not from Kirk--

“Okay.” 

… Hm.

Kirk and Dr. McCoy had rotated slightly clockwise, unconsciously orbiting away from the crowd into their own private space. Now, Kirk moves back to facing the desk directly, smoothly assuming parade rest. When he speaks, it’s as though he’s relaying a mission report.

“Tarsus IV was established to be a self-sufficient farming colony. It was not a bad place to live, but there was a strict hierarchy, and everything was dictated by the Governor's Philosophy. Things went wrong. There was a bad harvest, a fungus. On the brink of famine, the Governor decided the colony needed to be saved. The population was categorized. The useful, the loyal, were to be protected. The unclean were purged.” The only punctuation in his speech is the Doctor’s fist coming out and latching onto Kirk’s shoulder with a fair amount of force. “There were several rounds of mass executions, followed by a period of chaos and violence. Kevin and I were part of a small group of children who survived together. Eventually, we were evacuated by a Starfleet rescue ship, where I was recruited into Section 31. I worked classified black-ops missions  -- espionage, assassinations, asset recovery -- for the next several years, until an important mission failed. I negotiated my release with Admiral Marcus, and entered the Academy. Our relationship has grown increasingly acrimonious, and I believe he deliberately recruited Kevin as an attempt to leverage control over me, politically and emotionally. Joining Starfleet places Kevin in unacceptable danger.”

He looks around. They stare back at him.

“Any questions?” Jim asks.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” says Dr. McCoy. Which is not a question.

“There is no ‘Section 31,’” says Spock. “Regulations prohibit the use of Fleet resources for political missions until an appropriate committee--”

“I believe it,” says Admiral Pike. “How autonomous are we talking? Is it just Marcus?”

Jim dips his head. “The infrastructure is deep. Marcus is the current head of Ops and Strat, but 31 has a lot of history. It’s tangled in with the rest of the Fleet in more ways than you can imagine.”

“Is that…” says Kevin, “that’s really what happened to you when the rest of us went home?”

Kirk looks down at him, lets out a small breath. “It was what I wanted, at the time.”

Tears well up in Kevin’s eyes, and Spock averts his gaze, out of respect and discomfort.

“We were supposed to be safe. It was supposed to be over , we were supposed to be safe .”

“You will be,” Kirk assures him. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Dr. McCoy sighs, long and loud, at the same time Admiral Pike shakes his head. Kirk looks at both of them, then at Spock. He shakes his head minutely, not understanding their reaction any more than Kirk.

“I can file the release paperwork. It’s mostly a formality for recruits so new, but I’m guessing Marcus will challenge it.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” protests Reilly. “I’m not leaving you here alone with that --.” He cuts off when Kirk places a hand on his head, but his scowl remains.

“I’m not alone,” Kirk murmurs.

And he isn’t. Between the Doctor, and Admiral Pike, and the rest of the Enterprise crew, Spock is sure Kirk will be far from alone. Although… “An interesting point,” he says slowly. “Isolation is the biggest risk factor here.” Kirk tilts his head. “The power Admiral Marcus holds is minacious, but there are restrictions on his actions. Now that he has identified Mr. Reilly as a point of vulnerability, is it really wise to send him home alone?”

“What are you suggesting?” The Doctor asks.

“We keep him safe, while we pursue a more … permanent solution.”

“We?” asks the Admiral, his tone once again light.

“It is only logical that I would assist. Not only do I understand the parameters of the delicate situation, I am also highly qualified to provide strategic insight and, if necessary, physical protection. My familiarity with the minutia of regulatory literature and Starfleet operating procedures would also be an asset to any investigative or prosecutorial action against the illegal covert ‘Section 31’. And of course, I am the most natural candidate to serve as First Officer during The Enterprise’s five-year mission.” 

“Didn’t ask for a CV,” mutters the Doctor in the background.

“On The Enterprise ,” Kirk says. 

“We’re already drafting plans to have cadets complete as much of their schooling on assignment as possible,” says Admiral Pike. “Frankly, we desperately need the manpower. I can arrange it so that Mr. Reilly’s core classes are complete by the time The Enterprise is repaired and approved to depart. Assuming, of course, that you accept your commission.”

Kirk breathes. “Well. Marcus will see that as a concession. And at least while we are out, we’ll be fairly autonomous.”

“Are you sure, Jim?” The Doctor mummers. 

Spock does not understand why he is continuing to question what is clearly the most logical plan. Then again, he’s still unclear why Kirk was resistant to accept the commission in the first place. Presumably, there is an emotional component to his reluctance with which the doctor is more attuned. 

Deciding that the best use of time would be to begin arranging the practical aspects while the humans sort out the sensitive issues, Spock steps forward. “Cadet. Why don’t I assist in building a preliminary schedule for you at registration?”

The cadet’s eyes turn to Kirk, who makes a gesture Spock can’t quite see. “It’s fine. I trust him.”

… Ah. Somehow, despite all the information he’s processed in the last few minutes, this is the most unexpected. Spock clears his throat and makes his way quickly from the room.

I should have just told Jim to kill him . It goes round and round in his head while Pike and Spock are talking. He’d called Marcus ‘evil’ so casually less than an hour ago. Little did he know. I should have told Jim to kill him, and I’d grab a shovel . 

Spock and the kid must leave at some point, because it’s just Jim and Pike talking strategy. He tunes back in in the middle of Pike’s sentence.

“... and we keep you all together.”

“You can’t guarantee that,” Bones says. Pike frowns him. “Jim’s commission is guaranteed, fine. Spock has his own set of influence. And you can assign students where you want, so Kevin will end up on The Enterprise . But what’s to stop Marcus from filling the rest of the ship out with spies and turncoats, shoving me and the others half-way across the galaxy?”

“Almost the entire original Enterprise crew has already requested to ship back out with Jim. And as Captain, he would have authority to accept those requests.”

“But he could be overruled. Marcus told me how easy it would be to bury me out on a bad assignment. He can still separate us.”

“He can’t,” Jim says. “I took care of that, before we docked. He can’t separate a married couple. When did you talk to Marcus?”

“Uh … I was … hold on.” Is he going crazy? “What was the sentence you just said before that last sentence?”

Jim doesn’t meet his eyes. “We have a right to request assignment together as a bonded pair. Until Marcus can make an overwhelming argument that our relationship affects--”

“ Bonded pair ?” Says Pike, so Bones knows he didn’t hear it wrong. “I know I was on some pretty heavy medication, but I don’t remember hosting any wedding ceremonies on our way back from Vulcan.”

Jim shrug-nods. “My file notes that I was raised off-planet, which means I can invoke non-Earth rites. On Tarsus, couples would build gardens together while deciding if they wanted to enter a union. Bones and I exchanged plants and made vows. I’m confident that our commitments would pass muster, not that Marcus is going to want me to answer questions about Tarsus on record.”

“So… we’re… married?”

“You didn’t know?” Pike sounds like he wants to laugh, which Bones does not appreciate right now.

“I wasn’t…” Jim shifts from one leg to the other. “I didn’t want it to come up like this. There wasn’t time or space to explain, and I needed some kind of safety net for … us.”

“So you proposed?” Pike asks.

“Technically, Bones initiated our betrothal several years ago. I just neglected to explain that to him before reciprocating.”

Oh, he neglected alright. “And you were just, what, hoping it wouldn’t ever come up?”

“No. No, I … well, yes. I guess. I thought it wouldn’t matter after the rings came in.” 

“Rings?”

“Your mother is sending them,” Jim says quietly. “Uhura said that would be good.”

Bones can’t breathe.

Dimly, he’s aware of Pike asking more questions. “So, to clarify, you two are legally married, and now, here in my office, you are, what, double-proposing?”

“Bones has helped me see that being a family is sharing the difficult parts, not just the good parts. It’s the space in between them that we’re the strongest.” Jim’s eyes are incandescent. “I know I’m not the best at explaining things. I’m not used to fitting big things into little words. It never mattered before. But… the things that are meaningful to you are important, even if I don’t always understand them. So. Um.” 

“Oh, wow,” says Pike. “You’re really doing this.”

“Shut up,” Bones croaks, without looking away as Jim kneels.

“Will you bring our histories and our futures together, and stick with me? Through disease, and danger, past darkness and silence?”

Bones clears his throat. “Well. I don't know much about making omletes, but. Rain or shine, Jim, I’ll always come find you.”

Jim looks up at him, blue and gold, radiant. 

“No need to invite me to the honeymoon,” comes a voice from the corner, but it doesn’t really register. 

For a moment, Jim and Bones are the only two people in the universe.

Chapter Text

Professor Griggs enjoys the occasional glass of wine after a meal, and with the lazy summer heat rolling in through the open window, the invitation to slip off her shoes and slink onto the back balcony, glass in hand, is impossible to ignore. Ivana is still working downstairs, the faint melody of her painting playlist seeping up from the studio below. It keeps the moment from feeling too lonely.

The chirp of a PADD draws her reluctantly back into the bedroom. In case it’s official business -- isn’t it always? -- she shuts the door behind her and sets the wineglass on the bedside table. 

Marcus appears to be sitting in his office, the shadows of the sunset translating poorly across the electronic display. 

“What can I do for you, Admiral?”

“I was just looking over this proposal list for new candidates. Not our most impressive bunch.” 

She resists the urge to roll her eyes. Marcus always does this little song and dance, and then uses it as an excuse to be vindictive when the trainees start failing out. “We need more in the way of technical skills,” she reminds him. “The physical aspects are more easily taught.”

“All well and good, except that the techies almost never have the appropriate psychology for long-term assignments.”

This surprises her. He isn’t wrong; it was this tendency in the first place that shaped her recruiting framework this time around. But it is more insightful than she was expecting from him.

“Yes,” she agrees as blandly as she can. “We’ll need to be quite strict with the final emotional assessments.”

Rather than pushing the issue further, Marcus hums distractedly. “Well. Perhaps we’ll get lucky. There’s always diamonds in the rough.”

Ah . “This is about JT, then.” It’s too nice an evening for tiptoeing about.

Marcus shrugs, too arrogant to be sheepish, but an admittance nonetheless. “He was a good find. The trifecta of potential. Not mention,” he grimaces just the slightest, “it was reliving to get something worthwhile out of the whole disaster.” 

She raises a single eyebrow. He needs to get to his point before Ivana makes her way upstairs. 

“Do you remember,” he asks, “what you told me when we first spoke of bringing him into the program?”

“You thought he was too young, too unstable,” she paraphrases. “I told you that was entirely the point.”

He looks at her, steady, contemplative. “I think you put it a little more strikingly than that, Lucille.”

This time, she does roll her eyes. So dramatic. “I said you needed to stop thinking of him as a boy. He wasn’t a child. He was a weapon.”

He leans back, finally satisfied. “Yes, that’s how I remember it.”

“Was there anything else, Admiral?”

“No, Professor. Nothing else, for now.” He signs off with a flick.

She throws the PADD on the bed in distaste. What a lovely evening, so needlessly soured. 

Lucielle is just retrieving her glass from the table when Ivana pushes open the door. Her wife’s face is far too serious for the late hour, an ominous omen indeed. 

“You have a visitor, dear.”

Lucille sighs. “I don’t know why these things always wait till I’m off the clock. Haven’t emergencies ever heard of office hours?”

Ivana smiles, and swipes the wine from her hand. “ You are never ,” she punctuates with a small kiss on Lucille’s cheek, “off the clock.” 

True enough. 

Lucille makes her way down the stairs in marginally better spirits. Catching sight of the woman standing in her entryway only improves them, and she stretches her hand out with a smile.

“Winona! Oh, you look just awful.”

Indeed, Winona’s eyes are almost as maddened as her curly, sweat-dampened hair. “Lucielle. I didn’t know where else to go.”

 Lucille tuts. “You can always come here, Winona, you know that.”

“You’ll help me?” Winona presses, practically vibrating with tension.

“Of course.” She runs a comforting hand up Winona’s arm, drawing her further into the house. “What else is family for?”