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FIC: Here I Am (Come and Take Me) (nuTrek, Jim/Bones, R) (1/2)
Title: Here I Am (Come and Take Me)
Author: Regann
Pairing: Jim/Bones (nuTrek)
Rating: R (language)
Disclaimer: I don't own anything; I just play with them.
Notes: Title is from an Al Green song.
Summary: Jim and Bones, navigating their new lives on the Enterprise and what they mean to each other. ~12,000 words.
Here I Am (Come and Take Me)
The days after Nero's defeat pass in a blur of meetings, questions, places and people that Jim finds dizzying. There's also the news services to deal with, and Starfleet, and the Vulcan refugees who are pouring into Earth from all other the galaxy to help their leaders determine the damage Nero's vengeance has done to their people. And, somehow, Jim finds himself in the center of it all, head spinning with the new life he's found himself thrust into thanks to his impulsive, determined heroics.
Even for someone who thrives on it the way he does, Jim finds it a little daunting.
The only constant in the maelstrom is Bones, whose steady presence on the edge of the chaos is Jim's lifeline when he begins to think that being a hero is worse than the life-and-death choices it took to become one. Bones is perfectly himself -- gruff, sarcastic, scowling, but oh-so-concerned beneath it all. He's there to shout at people when it's obvious that Jim needs rest or subsistence not more of their invasive attention, he's there to scowl when admirals question Jim's motives for his actions on the Enterprise, and he's there to gently lead Jim back to his quarters when he's a little too mentally punch-drunk to do it himself.
Jim's never had much of a constant in his life, at least not in the form of a person. When he was younger, it was his brother, but Sam was long gone when he had the chance, and Winona Kirk was many things but constantly present wasn't one of them. The three years he's spent with Bones at academy is the most stability he's ever had and he knows a lot of that has to do with Bones always being there when he's needed him, day after day after day.
He's also there when Jim finally gets a moment to breathe and all the extraordinary personal revelations he had during the fight for Nero need an outlet, a friendly ear to listen as it all bursts out of him. Bones is there with that friendly ear and a bottle of the good stuff and a lurking concern in his eyes that almost makes Jim want to kiss him for being so wonderfully Bones just like he's come to expect.
It's nice to tell someone about everything, about the things that mattered to him, not to Starfleet or the Federation. He tells his friend about meeting the older Spock, about the experience of the mind meld, how strange it was to live through the Vulcan's sorrow so acutely that Spock's heartbreak brought tears to his eyes like he watched his own planet die. Jim tells Bones of how the alternate universe Spock told him about the great friendship he and the other Jim had shared in his timeline, a truth he could trust because he felt it thrumming in the echoes of the meld.
Jim's voice breaks a little when he reveals that the Jim-he-wasn't didn't lose his father until he was older than Jim is now, how George Kirk lived to see his son because the great captain he desperately wants to be in this life. Bones is perfectly himself in that moment, too, quiet drawl slurring out his sympathy, a warm hand heavy on his shoulder. Jim lets himself blame the alcohol when he can't stop himself from leaning into the touch, taking the comfort so freely given. Before he knows how it happened, Jim realizes his forehead is resting against Bones's shoulder while his friend's hand idly traces a soothing pattern up and down his back. He wants to be embarrassed by his need, but Jim's learned he doesn't have to be with Bones. It's another comfort in itself.
After another moment or two, Bones clears his throat. When he speaks, his voice is soft and close to Jim's ear, heavy with an accent more pronounced than usual. "Come on, Jim. I think it's past time for all little captains to be in bed."
"Acting captains, you mean," he corrects as he starts to pull away.
"Oh, not for long, I'd bet," Bones tells him. He stands up, stretches a little like he's working out kinks before he grabs Jim by the elbow and hauls him to his feet. Jim sways and shamelessly lets Bones bear most of his weight. "I have a feeling that your field promotion's gonna stick. Everyone's figured out that they need you up there."
"Yeah?" Jim can't hide his pleasure at Bones's statement.
"Yeah," he agrees as he tugs Jim along. "Bed, Jim. You've been dead on your feet for a week and the Romulan ale didn't help."
"You're the boss, Bones," Jim tells him as he lets his friend drag him down the dormitory hall, from the little common room toward his actual quarters. He tries not to let himself think about why everything is so quiet and empty here, how the Enterprise was the only ship of cadets that made it back.
"Yeah, right." It's Bones's turn to make a huffing noise that passes for faint humor. "If that ain't a whopper, I don't know what is."
The last few days are starting to catch up with Jim because that's the last thing he remembers clearly. The rest of the night is a blur of disjointed flashes -- Bones pulling off his boots, then rolling him into bed, the lights going off, someone murmuring to him, words he doesn't really remember. But it doesn't matter because it all sends him off to some of the best sleep he's had in a while, and he almost doesn't regret the headache he knows he'll have in the morning.
The next morning he wakes up to find Bones is already there, only the faintest shadows under his eyes as evidence of their late night and drinking. Jim groans at the light coming from the small, utilitarian window his dorm boasts, but Bones is there with a jab of medicine that sends it floating away. It's the second time in less than twelve hours that Jim finds himself pathetically grateful to Bones that he can't help but try and smile at him through his haze -- the good smile, the one he usually saves for the people he's trying to get into bed.
Bones knows this, of course, and rolls his eyes and swats at Jim's blanket-covered ass like he's a naughty kid before he reminds him sweetly that he has an 0800 meeting he can't be late for. When Jim looks over and realizes it's 0730, he scrambles into action, the sounds of Bones's laughter trailing behind him as he makes a beeline for the sonic shower.
It is an important meeting, it turns out, because it's the one where Jim finds out that Bones is right about his promotion being made permanent and Jim leaves it knowing that soon he'll be Captain James T. Kirk of the starship Enterprise. For all his bravado, Jim can't believe it's really happened, even after everything that happened with Nero, so he tries to forgive himself when he notices that he hands are shaking a little where he holds the PADD with all the details on it.
Without any thought, his feet carry him to the medical wing where he knows Bones is probably working or hanging out. As he snoops around the wards looking for his friend, he runs into another: Pike, still looking pale and tired, but sitting up in his hospital bed skimming over a PADD of his own. As if the captain can feel Jim's eyes skate over him, he looks up and offers his protégé a faint smile.
"You were right," Pike tells him.
"Huh?"
Pike's grin broadens a little. "You did it in three."
When Jim places the remark, he returns the smile. "Yeah, but I really didn't have this in mind," he admits.
"You did good out there," Pike says. "I challenged you to do better than your father and you've already done it. You saved a hell of a lot of lives, mine included. You don't have to live under that shadow anymore."
Jim is saved from having to talk about his jumbled feelings toward his father and saving Pike and Nero's defeat by Bones's voice behind him. "I know you're not what the doctors have prescribed for Captain Pike, so what are you doing here?"
He's too happy to bother with returning the sarcastic remark. Instead Jim thrusts out the PADD to Bones, who takes it and glances it over. "You were right," he says, echoing Pike's words from the moment before.
"Of course I was," is Bones's smug reply, but the smile he gives Jim is broad and honest, the pride and affection he feels for his friend shining through.
Jim basks in it for a moment before he lets himself be pulled back into conversation with Pike who's also telegraphing his pride in Jim's accomplishment.
It's a few days later that he finds out he's being allowed to hand-pick his crew and a few days after that that he finds out no one is challenging his decision to take on Bones as his chief medical officer. Although Jim would never admit it on pain of death, it's a huge relief to know that he'll have Bones out there with him, bitching and moaning about everything and watching his back. In some small part of his mind that Jim tries to ignore, he wonders if he could even do it without him.
Even if he could, Jim knows he doesn't want to.
The only shadow on this whole great thing -- his captaincy, his ship, his crew -- is that Jim still hasn't heard a word from Spock, who he desperately wants as his first officer. There are a lot of reasons for that: they worked well together, Spock is scary smart and sometimes just plain scary, he's the last one he needs in place to get the band back together, but the overwhelming reason is that he wants what he glimpsed those few minutes he shared the older Spock's mind. He wants that amazing friendship the older Vulcan spoke of, the one that made the century-old man from another time believe in him for no reason than he was Jim Kirk.
Jim tamps down on his disappointment when it looks like he's not going to get that chance with his Spock, but it's mitigated when he steps on the bridge to see Bones waiting for him, dressed in his familiar blue tunic.
Still, it's even better a few minutes later when it's Spock who steps onto the bridge.
As Sulu prepares to take them out into space, Jim can feel Spock's presence at the science station and he can hear Bones grumbling under his breath and the Enterprise hums all around him. For once in his life, everything feels right and Jim vows to hold on to it for the rest of his life.
"Engage," he says and everything but that feeling falls away.
**
Leonard has never been the jealous type, even when he was stupidly in love with his wife whose beauty drew a stream of comments and appreciative whenever they left the house. In his mind, jealousy was a useless emotion, one based on fear of something nobody can control. And Leonard has never seen much use in getting worked up about the possibility of things he couldn't do anything about.
Which is why every time he feels a sliver of envy cut through him when he sees Jim and Spock together, Leonard hates himself for it.
He knows all about the life-changing friendship their counterparts shared in the other universe, a universe that Jim considers the right one compared to the one they're living in now. Not that Jim would ever admit it, but Leonard sees it in him at every turn, desperate to fix everything he feels is wrong because of the changes in the timeline. Since he can't bring his dad back from the dead or repair his broken childhood, Jim has instead focused on building his friendship with Spock as if recovering that one thing will ease the loss of the others. It won't, of course, but throwing himself at Spock is one of the least harmful things Jim's ever done to deal with his grief, so Leonard doesn't see the point in bringing it up.
Except that he just didn't know it would hurt so much to watch.
At first, the hurt he felt was for Jim as Spock rebuffed him over and over again. Spock wasn't mean about it, simply politely insistent that no, he didn't want to share a meal or a game of chess or have time for idle conversation. Watching Jim's crestfallen expression which he quickly buried behind his fake happy one left Leonard with a desire to loosen a few of the Vulcan's teeth with a well-placed right hook, even though he knew Spock could kick his ass six ways to Sunday.
He did his best to distract his friend in those moments with his own overtures of friendly free time. Leonard might not be a great chess player, but he's a damn good poker player -- in more ways than one.
Something changed along the way, though, and now it's not Spock's refusals that are driving Leonard to distraction, but the Vulcan's acquiescence. It's hard to watch Jim light up every time Spock agrees, drinking it in like a thirsting man in the desert.
It's harder than Leonard cares to admit, actually, because then he'll have to look at why and nothing good will ever come from that, a fact Leonard accepted years ago. There's just some things that won't ever change and that's one of them.
Still, it does strange things to his gut to watch Jim and Spock work toward friendship; it does stranger things still when Leonard starts to notice a difference in the way the Vulcan reacts to Jim's obvious enthusiasm. It's subtle, of course, coming as it is from a Vulcan, but it's there -- the measured looks that rest on Jim's smile a little too long, the flick of eyes that goes a little too far up and down, standing a little too close in casual conversation.
When it comes now, the jealousy isn't just a sliver of discomfort; now it's white-hot and sharp, clutching in his chest so strongly that a less medical man might mistake it for a heart attack. For a man who was once accused of lacking a jealous bone everywhere in his body, it's a stark, uncomfortable change.
"Bones!" Jim says one evening, bursting into his office where Leonard is busy finishing up his records for the last round of medical evaluations he and his staff have performed.
He orders the computer to stop recording before he shoots Jim an impatient look. "Is there a fire somewhere?"
"No fires," Jim tells him. "I just wanted to stop by. I haven't seen you in days."
"You saw me this morning," Bones corrects him. "I cleared you after you got back from the planet."
"That was the Captain and his CMO," Jim explains. "This is, you know, Jim and Bones."
"My name is actually Leonard," he reminds him, although Jim's desire for his company eases a little of the resentment he's been carrying around.
"And Bones is my special name for you," Jim says with a smile. "But we can change it up. Do you like Cupcake better?"
"Don't you dare, kid, if you know what's good for you," Leonard warns him. "First time you refer to me as a baked good, I'm going to tell everyone why there's an Andorrian on Mars that thinks your name Twinkle."
Jim's caught somewhere between laughter and embarrassment at the reminder if his expression is any indication. He shakes his head, raises his arms in mock-surrender. "Fine, fine, Bones, it is." He settles one hip on the edge of Leonard's desk and leans in. "How about we grab some dinner? They're serving replicated meatloaf, which I've heard is your favorite."
When Leonard just looks at him for a long moment, Jim frowns. "Bones?"
"I'm just trying to figure out what your angle is," Leonard says. "You're being awfully solicitous to be the Jim Kirk I know."
"That hurts," Jim says, tapping his chest. "Right here."
Bones snorts. "Sure it does."
"I'm serious." Jim leans in a little closer and his grin fades a little. It's a more honest expression, one Leonard trusts more than the toothy smile. "Bones, you're my oldest and closest friend. I'm just wondering how things are going with you. I don't feel like we talk much anymore."
Leonard resists the frustrated part of him that wants to blame that fact on Spock. Instead, he forces himself to respond instead to the sincerity hiding in Jim's eyes. Like always, it creeps pasts Leonard's defenses. "I could eat."
The grin is back as Jim straightens. "Great, let's go."
Before they even reach the mess hall, they're caught in a discussion about the best way to deal with the emergency rations they're hauling from one colony to the other. While Leonard is leaving the food to Jim to figure out, he's got some very set ideas on how to handle medical supplies, especially given the disparate needs of the colonial cities they've been dispatched to help.
By the time they've got their meals and are sitting down -- neither of them chose the meatloaf because it is the nastiest thing he's ever tasted in any Starfleet cafeteria -- he's deep into a tangent about an article he's read about triage procedures on starships and Jim's nodding along to his words while he pushes his food around on his plate. To others, it might look like Jim's not paying attention but Leonard knows better so he keeps on making his point, adding a few gestures with his fork for emphasis.
Jim's about two sentences into his reply on the same article -- because, of course, he found the time to read it -- when Spock walks into the mess hall. The Vulcan scans the room, gaze lingering on their little table in the corner for a moment. Jim sends back an acknowledging nod before Spock moves to collect his own meal, but Jim's attention immediately slides back to their conversation.
Leonard wants to keep his mouth shut but it's a lost battle because he figured out the moment he snuck Jim abroad the Enterprise that first time that he was willing to do a lot of stupid things to make Jim happy. So he says, "You wanna invite him to join us?"
"Who?" Jim asks. "Spock?" He glances over to see where his first officer is now sitting by himself to eat his own meal. Jim shrugs. "Naw. I'm sure he'll enjoy the alone time given that one of his science minions is driving him crazy," he explains. Then he shoots Bones another smile. "Besides, this is Jim and Bones time, not Jim and Bones and Spock time. You want to hang with the Vulcan, McCoy, you do it on your time."
It's amazing how a few words can soothe the weeks' worth of knots that Leonard's felt in his gnawing inside him. But they do and Leonard finds himself favoring Jim with a smile, one of the first real ones he's smiled in a while. "I'll check my calendar," he deadpans, then takes a bite of his slaw.
"As long as there's room for more Jim and Bones time," Jim tells him. "Got to do my part to get you out of your office once in a while."
"Is that why I end up on all kinds of away missions I don't need to be on?"
Jim shakes his head. "Nope. That's because there's no one else I trust more to watch my back. And, you know, captain's discretion and all."
It's there again, that warm feeling that only Jim seems capable of producing in him, but Leonard doesn't shy away from it like he's done in the past. Instead, he holds it close, letting it melt away the icy veins of jealousy that's been running through him.
**
Jim doesn't know when exactly the professional courtesy between Bones and Spock became more akin to professional animosity but he's held off on saying anything to either of them. To Jim, it's something they have to work out on their own, without his meddling, or else whatever agreement they reach won't stick.
Still, it never fails to amuse him that the only thing his first officer and CMO seem to agree on these days is their shared assessment that Jim is too reckless with his own safety. On this point, they are a stubborn, determined and unified pain in Jim's ass.
When it's not annoying him, Jim finds it really hilarious.
Since he's not sure if his new friendship with Spock has extended to the point where playful ribbing is allowed, Jim doesn't share this opinion with his first officer, but he knows he can get away with just about anything when it comes to Bones, so Jim doesn't hesitate to tease him with his observations on the subject.
"It's kind of cute," he tells Bones one day as they're relaxing in Jim's quarters. It's almost like the academy again, both of them loose-limbed and relaxed thanks to the Bones's precious stash of slightly illegal alcohol. Like old times, Jim has eschewed the comfort of furniture to sit on the floor, back supported by the bed while Bones is sprawled out in a chair half the room away. It's not the bender they would've risked as cadets, but the real liquor burns pleasantly on its way down in a way synethol doesn't and pools warmly in his stomach. It's probably the most relaxed he's been since they left Earth.
"Shut up, Jim," Bones warns him. "It's not cute."
"No, you're right, it's not," Jim agrees. "It's actually awfully sweet."
"Jim," Bones growls.
Jim just grins and savors a sip from his glass. "It is! You guys care so much, you want to wrap me in cotton so I don't get a boo-boo. But it's my job to get in scrapes, Bones. You guys can't protect me from that."
"Your job is to not make damn fool decisions at every turn," Bones argues. "Just because you make them to put yourself in danger instead of others doesn't make them any less foolish. That's what me and the pointy-eared hobgoblin want you to understand."
"If I'm not willing to die for my people, what kind of captain would that make me?" Jim asks.
Bones's hazel eyes are bright in the dim light of the room. "We all know you'd die for any one of your crew. You don't have to keep convincing us."
Jim hates it when Bones's voice gets that tender ache in it, like he can hear everything Jim isn't saying and he's speaking back to those words instead of the ones he actually says. "That's not what I'm doing."
"Then what are you doing?" Bones levels himself out of the chair and slides down to the floor next to Jim. They're sitting side by side and Jim can feel Bones's elbow brushing against his. "Can you tell me?"
Jim doesn't know if he can put it into words, at least words that won't confirm Bones's earlier statement. He's not doing it just to prove he will, but he's doing it because... "Every decision I make could get somebody killed, Bones. I'll sleep better at night if it's me I get killed and not someone else."
"Jimmy," he starts, and Jim knows he's in for a ton of southern-style sympathy when Bones lapses into that dreaded childhood nickname. "You can't keep making decisions with that in mind. That's not any better than not thinking about it at all."
Jim sighs. "I know."
"And I won't," Bones adds gruffly.
Jim frowns. "Won't what?"
Bones shifts next to him, as if suddenly antsy. "I won't sleep better if you get yourself killed, that's what."
Jim smiles, bumping Bones's shoulder with his own. "Aw, Bones, you care."
"Damn right I do," Bones tells him, and there's none of Jim's playfulness in his answer. "So I wished you'd keep that in mind when you're throwing yourself headfirst into situations where you shouldn't."
Jim can't swallow past the lump suddenly in his throat. "I'll try."
"That'll be a change, at least," he says. "We haven't even been out in this tin can for a six months yet and I'm already going gray." Bones points to his dark hair where Jim detects none of the offensive hairs Bones is trying to point out. "Every damn gray hair I've got is on the account of you and your goddamn savior complex. I'm not even gonna see 40 before I'm as snow white as my Grandpa Leonard."
"But just think how distinguished you'll look," Jim teases, dragging his fingers through Bones's hair. "You'll drive the women wild."
Bones lets out a strange little laugh. "Not even on my agenda, kid."
Jim is trying to keep his thoughts light but something suddenly hits him when he thinks of what might happen if he does get himself killed on one of those missions. "Can I ask you a favor?"
"Oh, god, what?"
He turns to face his friend. "If something does happen to me..."
"...we are not having this fucking conversation, Jim, I swear to god..."
"You've got to promise you'll help Spock," he continues. "We both know he's not great when he's emotionally compromised and I'd like to think we're friends enough now that he would be."
"If I'm helping him," Bones asks. "Who's going to be helping me?"
"Bones, you're like a rock," Jim tells him. "You'll be fine."
"Jim." Bones's voice is more whisper than anything. "If you really think that, you're dumber than you look."
"Hey!" is his instinctual reaction but he sees how utterly serious his friend is, how piercing his gaze is despite the slight cloud of inebriation in them. It finally dawns on him that maybe he's as much a constant in Bones's life as Bones has been in his. "Oh, Bones."
"I know it keeps surprising you that people give a damn -- that I give a damn -- but you're going have to accept it eventually," Bones says, words that send a prickle through Jim, like the feel of sleeping limbs suddenly coming to life. "So, no, I'm not going to do you any favors if you're dead."
Jim sighs, head swimming like he's had way more alcohol than he has. He slumps against Bones like he has so many times before, burying his head against his shoulder. "Fine, if you won't be the rock, at least promise you'll keep being mine, okay?"
Bones's familiar fingers don't settle on his back; instead they end up in his hair, brushes of skin against his nape. "You've been driving me crazy for years and now you're driving me gray," he tells him. "If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm not going anywhere."
"I'm holding you to that," Jim mumbles.
"Deal."
It's that moment when Jim realizes there's nothing funny in the least about how Bones cares about him.
He also decides he's okay with that.
**
Though Leonard has always been aware of the dangers of space travel, he was almost always focused on the medical ones. Strange flu, weird pollen, killer rashes -- there was a lot of things in space that spelled death for stupid, fragile humans who bumble around where they've never been before. As a doctor, these kinds of risks were always his primary concern; even with all the weapons and hand-to-hand combat required as part of his courses, Leonard never spent much time in his academy days thinking about the other kinds of danger that lurk in the great expanse of space.
Now that he's become a rather permanent fixture on Jim's away mission roster, however, he's had a lot of time to think about those situations. He's fired his phaser numerous times, both set to stun and kill, and he's almost positive that he killed a few men during a phaser fight on an abandoned mining colony near the Klingon border. It's not his favorite part of the job by any stretch, but the violence of space exploration is something he's had to learn to live with.
It doesn't mean he likes it, though, or that he understands it because he doesn't, not by a long shot.
His current predicament has given him a lot of time to ponder these kinds of existential questions because it's going on 36 hours since he and a small group of civilian relief workers were taken hostage by one of the violent gangs that the colony has battled since a massive earthquake brought it to its knees. The Enterprise carried the relief workers from a colony over and Bones accompanied them to the surface to get some kind of idea on what the medical situation was. But after less than twelve hours on the ground, his team was ambushed and kidnapped, then corralled into one of the abandoned underground bunkers to await their fate.
A fate that doesn't look too bright from the way the gang leader keeps arguing with Jim over his communicator, Leonard can't help but notice.
"Captain Kirk, are you there?" the leader sing-songs into the hand-held device. He's brutish, amused by casual violence and inured to its effects. He's also deadly serious, they all realized quickly, after he shot and killed one of the relief workers as an example to the rest of them the night before. Leonard did what he could for the man, but his death was slow and painful.
He wants to hit something just thinking about how wasteful and unnecessary Briock's death was. It's why Leonard has never had a stomach for violence.
About a minute after the summons, Leonard hears Jim's voice answer from where he and the other hostages are huddled together in one corner of the bunker. "Kirk here. Have you decided to release the relief workers so we can talk about this rationally?"
"Give them up? No," the leader answers. "We're waiting for the council to answer our demands."
"Your government does not believe in ransom demands," Kirk explains after a long moment of silence. Leonard can hear the tightness, the stress in his voice, even through the crackle of the communicator. "But we are willing to hear your grievances and take them back to the council."
"The only thing we want from them is the release of our friends from their prisons," he almost-shouts into the communicator. "And unless the council does so, they can add these off-worlders to the list of those dead because of them."
"I have been authorized by the Federation to negotiate for our people's release," Jim says, voice deceptively mild and calm to someone who doesn't know him. It doesn't fool Leonard at all. "But we can't make the Altrarian council to do anything against their will. There's got to be something that we can do for you instead."
"No," the leader denies stubbornly. "We only want the release of our friends! If the council does not do so within the next fourteen ticks, we will kill every one of the hostages immediately."
"Those hostages aren't even Altrarian," Jim reminds him, some anger seeping into his voice. The leader notices it, too, because he frowns at the piece of technology in his hand. "You're holding thirteen completely innocent people in there."
"Twleve," the leader corrects him with a smile that makes Leonard a little sick to his stomach when it's followed by a self-satisfied glance in their direction. The rest of the workers must look appropriately frightened because it's Leonard that draws his eyes where he sits against the wall with his arms crossed. The gang leader returns his glower, taking a step closer.
"Twelve?" Jim echoes on the communication device.
"One of them met with a nasty accident last night," the leader tells him, though his inflection leaves no doubt that the accident was blatant murder. He pulls his weapon and levels it at Leonard, presumably for his openly hostile expression. "Male, dark hair, blue tunic? I think he was one of yours, Captain."
Leonard knows it's meant as a warning to him; that knowledge, and the plasma gun pointed at his head is the only thing that keeps him from speaking out to negate his captor's false report.
He hears a wordless sound on the other end of the channel, so soft that he wouldn't have if the gang leader wasn't in his face. Then Jim is speaking again. "We want those workers back alive."
"Then I suggest you talk to the council about that," the leader tells him before severing the connection. To the workers who watch him with wide, frightened eyes, he says, "For your sake, I hope the Captain is persuasive."
As the time whittles away, Leonard notices that the relief workers become more and more on edge, not that he can blame them. He knows, down into his marrow, that Jim and the rest of his crew will try everything in their power to rescue them, even if it falls short in the end. As much as Leonard does not want to die on this god-forsaken rock slung out on the edges of known space, there's comfort in knowing that he'll only do so if there's no way around it.
When they're only a handful of hours from the deadline with no answer from the Enterprise and even their guards grow restless, the hostages start to lose their brave face all around him. One worker is openly crying into her hands, trying to muffle the sound, and another has lost the contents of his stomach in another corner. The worker sitting next to Leonard, a medical tech named Khaldea, is more circumspect, but there's no denying the way fear makes her shake from head to toe.
"Do you think your captain will save us?" she asks him quietly.
"He'll try his damnedest," he replies. "But there's a lot stacked against him." When it's apparent that his words haven't helped, he adds, "Do you see me worrying? There's nobody else that could do it. He's the best chance we've got."
Leonard believes it, too, whole-heartedly. Who but Jim Kirk could figure out a way to save the day when his transporters are useless, the local government is useless, and with an impossible task set before him? He might die, but he's not going to do it without his faith in Jim.
Rescue comes in the 11th hour, in the form of an attack on the bunker by a rival gang. Under the confusion created by the unexpected ambush, a security team from Enterprise appears, phasers drawn. Leonard feels overwhelming relief at the sight of the sea of red shirts, though it turns to confusion when he notices that Spock is in the lead, looking largely unruffled by the entire situation. It's a surprise that Jim is nowhere to be seen.
It's only once the group is out of the gangs' block of territory and moving toward a safer neighborhood where their transporter technology has not been restricted that Leonard falls in next to Spock. "Where's Jim?" he asks. "Is something wrong?"
"Negative," Spock answers. "He has remained on the ship to coordinate the rescue from there."
That doesn't sound anything like the Jim knows. "How did you manage that?"
"We had been led to believe that you were the casualty among the hostages," Spock explains. "Under such conditions, the Captain could not deny that he was too emotionally compromised to lead the rescue himself."
Leonard draws the only conclusion available to him. "So you blackmailed him, huh?"
"I merely presented the Captain with a flawlessly logical argument and he accepted my assessment."
Leonard smiles. "In other words, you blackmailed him."
Spock's smug expression confirms what his words don't.
They beam back up to the Enterprise in a several groups; Leonard, Spock, and two security officers make up the last one. When Leonard materializes in the transporter room he's presented with complete chaos, a mash of bodies ill-suited for the small space. The rescued workers, the security teams, the transporter techs as well as one of Leonard's teams of medics are all trying to go about their duties, which is an impossible task in such a small space.
So Leonard does what he does best -- he starts yelling.
"Chapel!" he barks as he steps off the transporter pad and watches as the blonde head snaps his way. "Get all of these people down to Medical and stop clogging up the way! Ingin's the only one who needs transport, the rest can be escorted."
"Yes, Doctor," she says, signaling for the gurney two of the medics have ready.
"Liach will need some IV fluids and they all need rest but they should check out otherwise," he finishes as he reaches her side. "And other than Carlson, I don't think any of the rescue team has a scratch on 'em."
"What do you need?" she asks, but he waves her away when she tries to check his vitals. She rolls her eyes, but gives his arm a squeeze before she hurries away, taking most of the chaos with her. Once she's cleared out with the other medical personnel and their patients, the room's left with no one but the engineers on the transporter controls, Khaldea and an another worker, and two security officers. Even Spock's gone, which Leonard didn't notice happening.
Just as Leonard is thinking of following Chapel to sickbay, a body rounds into the transporter room at top speed, and it doesn't take more than a flash of gold registering out of the corner of his eye to know that it's Jim. For a second, the face Leonard sees its ravaged and white, but then Jim's eyes meet his and it's transformed. The wide smile that appears on Jim's face is blinding and even Leonard's a little dazzled by it.
"Bones," he says, a little breathless and amazed, like he never expected to say it again. Leonard's not sure what to say in response, but it doesn't matter because then Jim is crossing the distance between them in a few long strides. Leonard's not expecting the quick embrace, a fierce few seconds of Jim's arms around him before he pulls away. Not completely, though -- his hands are on Leonard's shoulders, holding on tightly. "It's good to have you back," Jim says when he finally speaks again.
"It's good to be back."
"I bet!" Jim laughs. He lowers his volume a little and Leonard finally notices the tremble in his voice. "That whole not dying thing we talked about? It relates to you, too, you know."
"It's gonna take a helluva lot to put this old boy down, Jim."
Jim's smile softens. "I'm counting on that."
Then Khaldea is there, thanking Jim on behalf of everyone, and Jim graciously accepts her praise, every inch the starship captain. Leonard watches from the sidelines in amusement until Khaldea glances his way. "Dr. McCoy told us you would do it," she reveals. "He never lost faith in you."
Just when Leonard didn't think Jim's smile could get any bigger, it does.
**
(Onto Part 2)
Author: Regann
Pairing: Jim/Bones (nuTrek)
Rating: R (language)
Disclaimer: I don't own anything; I just play with them.
Notes: Title is from an Al Green song.
Summary: Jim and Bones, navigating their new lives on the Enterprise and what they mean to each other. ~12,000 words.
Here I Am (Come and Take Me)
The days after Nero's defeat pass in a blur of meetings, questions, places and people that Jim finds dizzying. There's also the news services to deal with, and Starfleet, and the Vulcan refugees who are pouring into Earth from all other the galaxy to help their leaders determine the damage Nero's vengeance has done to their people. And, somehow, Jim finds himself in the center of it all, head spinning with the new life he's found himself thrust into thanks to his impulsive, determined heroics.
Even for someone who thrives on it the way he does, Jim finds it a little daunting.
The only constant in the maelstrom is Bones, whose steady presence on the edge of the chaos is Jim's lifeline when he begins to think that being a hero is worse than the life-and-death choices it took to become one. Bones is perfectly himself -- gruff, sarcastic, scowling, but oh-so-concerned beneath it all. He's there to shout at people when it's obvious that Jim needs rest or subsistence not more of their invasive attention, he's there to scowl when admirals question Jim's motives for his actions on the Enterprise, and he's there to gently lead Jim back to his quarters when he's a little too mentally punch-drunk to do it himself.
Jim's never had much of a constant in his life, at least not in the form of a person. When he was younger, it was his brother, but Sam was long gone when he had the chance, and Winona Kirk was many things but constantly present wasn't one of them. The three years he's spent with Bones at academy is the most stability he's ever had and he knows a lot of that has to do with Bones always being there when he's needed him, day after day after day.
He's also there when Jim finally gets a moment to breathe and all the extraordinary personal revelations he had during the fight for Nero need an outlet, a friendly ear to listen as it all bursts out of him. Bones is there with that friendly ear and a bottle of the good stuff and a lurking concern in his eyes that almost makes Jim want to kiss him for being so wonderfully Bones just like he's come to expect.
It's nice to tell someone about everything, about the things that mattered to him, not to Starfleet or the Federation. He tells his friend about meeting the older Spock, about the experience of the mind meld, how strange it was to live through the Vulcan's sorrow so acutely that Spock's heartbreak brought tears to his eyes like he watched his own planet die. Jim tells Bones of how the alternate universe Spock told him about the great friendship he and the other Jim had shared in his timeline, a truth he could trust because he felt it thrumming in the echoes of the meld.
Jim's voice breaks a little when he reveals that the Jim-he-wasn't didn't lose his father until he was older than Jim is now, how George Kirk lived to see his son because the great captain he desperately wants to be in this life. Bones is perfectly himself in that moment, too, quiet drawl slurring out his sympathy, a warm hand heavy on his shoulder. Jim lets himself blame the alcohol when he can't stop himself from leaning into the touch, taking the comfort so freely given. Before he knows how it happened, Jim realizes his forehead is resting against Bones's shoulder while his friend's hand idly traces a soothing pattern up and down his back. He wants to be embarrassed by his need, but Jim's learned he doesn't have to be with Bones. It's another comfort in itself.
After another moment or two, Bones clears his throat. When he speaks, his voice is soft and close to Jim's ear, heavy with an accent more pronounced than usual. "Come on, Jim. I think it's past time for all little captains to be in bed."
"Acting captains, you mean," he corrects as he starts to pull away.
"Oh, not for long, I'd bet," Bones tells him. He stands up, stretches a little like he's working out kinks before he grabs Jim by the elbow and hauls him to his feet. Jim sways and shamelessly lets Bones bear most of his weight. "I have a feeling that your field promotion's gonna stick. Everyone's figured out that they need you up there."
"Yeah?" Jim can't hide his pleasure at Bones's statement.
"Yeah," he agrees as he tugs Jim along. "Bed, Jim. You've been dead on your feet for a week and the Romulan ale didn't help."
"You're the boss, Bones," Jim tells him as he lets his friend drag him down the dormitory hall, from the little common room toward his actual quarters. He tries not to let himself think about why everything is so quiet and empty here, how the Enterprise was the only ship of cadets that made it back.
"Yeah, right." It's Bones's turn to make a huffing noise that passes for faint humor. "If that ain't a whopper, I don't know what is."
The last few days are starting to catch up with Jim because that's the last thing he remembers clearly. The rest of the night is a blur of disjointed flashes -- Bones pulling off his boots, then rolling him into bed, the lights going off, someone murmuring to him, words he doesn't really remember. But it doesn't matter because it all sends him off to some of the best sleep he's had in a while, and he almost doesn't regret the headache he knows he'll have in the morning.
The next morning he wakes up to find Bones is already there, only the faintest shadows under his eyes as evidence of their late night and drinking. Jim groans at the light coming from the small, utilitarian window his dorm boasts, but Bones is there with a jab of medicine that sends it floating away. It's the second time in less than twelve hours that Jim finds himself pathetically grateful to Bones that he can't help but try and smile at him through his haze -- the good smile, the one he usually saves for the people he's trying to get into bed.
Bones knows this, of course, and rolls his eyes and swats at Jim's blanket-covered ass like he's a naughty kid before he reminds him sweetly that he has an 0800 meeting he can't be late for. When Jim looks over and realizes it's 0730, he scrambles into action, the sounds of Bones's laughter trailing behind him as he makes a beeline for the sonic shower.
It is an important meeting, it turns out, because it's the one where Jim finds out that Bones is right about his promotion being made permanent and Jim leaves it knowing that soon he'll be Captain James T. Kirk of the starship Enterprise. For all his bravado, Jim can't believe it's really happened, even after everything that happened with Nero, so he tries to forgive himself when he notices that he hands are shaking a little where he holds the PADD with all the details on it.
Without any thought, his feet carry him to the medical wing where he knows Bones is probably working or hanging out. As he snoops around the wards looking for his friend, he runs into another: Pike, still looking pale and tired, but sitting up in his hospital bed skimming over a PADD of his own. As if the captain can feel Jim's eyes skate over him, he looks up and offers his protégé a faint smile.
"You were right," Pike tells him.
"Huh?"
Pike's grin broadens a little. "You did it in three."
When Jim places the remark, he returns the smile. "Yeah, but I really didn't have this in mind," he admits.
"You did good out there," Pike says. "I challenged you to do better than your father and you've already done it. You saved a hell of a lot of lives, mine included. You don't have to live under that shadow anymore."
Jim is saved from having to talk about his jumbled feelings toward his father and saving Pike and Nero's defeat by Bones's voice behind him. "I know you're not what the doctors have prescribed for Captain Pike, so what are you doing here?"
He's too happy to bother with returning the sarcastic remark. Instead Jim thrusts out the PADD to Bones, who takes it and glances it over. "You were right," he says, echoing Pike's words from the moment before.
"Of course I was," is Bones's smug reply, but the smile he gives Jim is broad and honest, the pride and affection he feels for his friend shining through.
Jim basks in it for a moment before he lets himself be pulled back into conversation with Pike who's also telegraphing his pride in Jim's accomplishment.
It's a few days later that he finds out he's being allowed to hand-pick his crew and a few days after that that he finds out no one is challenging his decision to take on Bones as his chief medical officer. Although Jim would never admit it on pain of death, it's a huge relief to know that he'll have Bones out there with him, bitching and moaning about everything and watching his back. In some small part of his mind that Jim tries to ignore, he wonders if he could even do it without him.
Even if he could, Jim knows he doesn't want to.
The only shadow on this whole great thing -- his captaincy, his ship, his crew -- is that Jim still hasn't heard a word from Spock, who he desperately wants as his first officer. There are a lot of reasons for that: they worked well together, Spock is scary smart and sometimes just plain scary, he's the last one he needs in place to get the band back together, but the overwhelming reason is that he wants what he glimpsed those few minutes he shared the older Spock's mind. He wants that amazing friendship the older Vulcan spoke of, the one that made the century-old man from another time believe in him for no reason than he was Jim Kirk.
Jim tamps down on his disappointment when it looks like he's not going to get that chance with his Spock, but it's mitigated when he steps on the bridge to see Bones waiting for him, dressed in his familiar blue tunic.
Still, it's even better a few minutes later when it's Spock who steps onto the bridge.
As Sulu prepares to take them out into space, Jim can feel Spock's presence at the science station and he can hear Bones grumbling under his breath and the Enterprise hums all around him. For once in his life, everything feels right and Jim vows to hold on to it for the rest of his life.
"Engage," he says and everything but that feeling falls away.
**
Leonard has never been the jealous type, even when he was stupidly in love with his wife whose beauty drew a stream of comments and appreciative whenever they left the house. In his mind, jealousy was a useless emotion, one based on fear of something nobody can control. And Leonard has never seen much use in getting worked up about the possibility of things he couldn't do anything about.
Which is why every time he feels a sliver of envy cut through him when he sees Jim and Spock together, Leonard hates himself for it.
He knows all about the life-changing friendship their counterparts shared in the other universe, a universe that Jim considers the right one compared to the one they're living in now. Not that Jim would ever admit it, but Leonard sees it in him at every turn, desperate to fix everything he feels is wrong because of the changes in the timeline. Since he can't bring his dad back from the dead or repair his broken childhood, Jim has instead focused on building his friendship with Spock as if recovering that one thing will ease the loss of the others. It won't, of course, but throwing himself at Spock is one of the least harmful things Jim's ever done to deal with his grief, so Leonard doesn't see the point in bringing it up.
Except that he just didn't know it would hurt so much to watch.
At first, the hurt he felt was for Jim as Spock rebuffed him over and over again. Spock wasn't mean about it, simply politely insistent that no, he didn't want to share a meal or a game of chess or have time for idle conversation. Watching Jim's crestfallen expression which he quickly buried behind his fake happy one left Leonard with a desire to loosen a few of the Vulcan's teeth with a well-placed right hook, even though he knew Spock could kick his ass six ways to Sunday.
He did his best to distract his friend in those moments with his own overtures of friendly free time. Leonard might not be a great chess player, but he's a damn good poker player -- in more ways than one.
Something changed along the way, though, and now it's not Spock's refusals that are driving Leonard to distraction, but the Vulcan's acquiescence. It's hard to watch Jim light up every time Spock agrees, drinking it in like a thirsting man in the desert.
It's harder than Leonard cares to admit, actually, because then he'll have to look at why and nothing good will ever come from that, a fact Leonard accepted years ago. There's just some things that won't ever change and that's one of them.
Still, it does strange things to his gut to watch Jim and Spock work toward friendship; it does stranger things still when Leonard starts to notice a difference in the way the Vulcan reacts to Jim's obvious enthusiasm. It's subtle, of course, coming as it is from a Vulcan, but it's there -- the measured looks that rest on Jim's smile a little too long, the flick of eyes that goes a little too far up and down, standing a little too close in casual conversation.
When it comes now, the jealousy isn't just a sliver of discomfort; now it's white-hot and sharp, clutching in his chest so strongly that a less medical man might mistake it for a heart attack. For a man who was once accused of lacking a jealous bone everywhere in his body, it's a stark, uncomfortable change.
"Bones!" Jim says one evening, bursting into his office where Leonard is busy finishing up his records for the last round of medical evaluations he and his staff have performed.
He orders the computer to stop recording before he shoots Jim an impatient look. "Is there a fire somewhere?"
"No fires," Jim tells him. "I just wanted to stop by. I haven't seen you in days."
"You saw me this morning," Bones corrects him. "I cleared you after you got back from the planet."
"That was the Captain and his CMO," Jim explains. "This is, you know, Jim and Bones."
"My name is actually Leonard," he reminds him, although Jim's desire for his company eases a little of the resentment he's been carrying around.
"And Bones is my special name for you," Jim says with a smile. "But we can change it up. Do you like Cupcake better?"
"Don't you dare, kid, if you know what's good for you," Leonard warns him. "First time you refer to me as a baked good, I'm going to tell everyone why there's an Andorrian on Mars that thinks your name Twinkle."
Jim's caught somewhere between laughter and embarrassment at the reminder if his expression is any indication. He shakes his head, raises his arms in mock-surrender. "Fine, fine, Bones, it is." He settles one hip on the edge of Leonard's desk and leans in. "How about we grab some dinner? They're serving replicated meatloaf, which I've heard is your favorite."
When Leonard just looks at him for a long moment, Jim frowns. "Bones?"
"I'm just trying to figure out what your angle is," Leonard says. "You're being awfully solicitous to be the Jim Kirk I know."
"That hurts," Jim says, tapping his chest. "Right here."
Bones snorts. "Sure it does."
"I'm serious." Jim leans in a little closer and his grin fades a little. It's a more honest expression, one Leonard trusts more than the toothy smile. "Bones, you're my oldest and closest friend. I'm just wondering how things are going with you. I don't feel like we talk much anymore."
Leonard resists the frustrated part of him that wants to blame that fact on Spock. Instead, he forces himself to respond instead to the sincerity hiding in Jim's eyes. Like always, it creeps pasts Leonard's defenses. "I could eat."
The grin is back as Jim straightens. "Great, let's go."
Before they even reach the mess hall, they're caught in a discussion about the best way to deal with the emergency rations they're hauling from one colony to the other. While Leonard is leaving the food to Jim to figure out, he's got some very set ideas on how to handle medical supplies, especially given the disparate needs of the colonial cities they've been dispatched to help.
By the time they've got their meals and are sitting down -- neither of them chose the meatloaf because it is the nastiest thing he's ever tasted in any Starfleet cafeteria -- he's deep into a tangent about an article he's read about triage procedures on starships and Jim's nodding along to his words while he pushes his food around on his plate. To others, it might look like Jim's not paying attention but Leonard knows better so he keeps on making his point, adding a few gestures with his fork for emphasis.
Jim's about two sentences into his reply on the same article -- because, of course, he found the time to read it -- when Spock walks into the mess hall. The Vulcan scans the room, gaze lingering on their little table in the corner for a moment. Jim sends back an acknowledging nod before Spock moves to collect his own meal, but Jim's attention immediately slides back to their conversation.
Leonard wants to keep his mouth shut but it's a lost battle because he figured out the moment he snuck Jim abroad the Enterprise that first time that he was willing to do a lot of stupid things to make Jim happy. So he says, "You wanna invite him to join us?"
"Who?" Jim asks. "Spock?" He glances over to see where his first officer is now sitting by himself to eat his own meal. Jim shrugs. "Naw. I'm sure he'll enjoy the alone time given that one of his science minions is driving him crazy," he explains. Then he shoots Bones another smile. "Besides, this is Jim and Bones time, not Jim and Bones and Spock time. You want to hang with the Vulcan, McCoy, you do it on your time."
It's amazing how a few words can soothe the weeks' worth of knots that Leonard's felt in his gnawing inside him. But they do and Leonard finds himself favoring Jim with a smile, one of the first real ones he's smiled in a while. "I'll check my calendar," he deadpans, then takes a bite of his slaw.
"As long as there's room for more Jim and Bones time," Jim tells him. "Got to do my part to get you out of your office once in a while."
"Is that why I end up on all kinds of away missions I don't need to be on?"
Jim shakes his head. "Nope. That's because there's no one else I trust more to watch my back. And, you know, captain's discretion and all."
It's there again, that warm feeling that only Jim seems capable of producing in him, but Leonard doesn't shy away from it like he's done in the past. Instead, he holds it close, letting it melt away the icy veins of jealousy that's been running through him.
**
Jim doesn't know when exactly the professional courtesy between Bones and Spock became more akin to professional animosity but he's held off on saying anything to either of them. To Jim, it's something they have to work out on their own, without his meddling, or else whatever agreement they reach won't stick.
Still, it never fails to amuse him that the only thing his first officer and CMO seem to agree on these days is their shared assessment that Jim is too reckless with his own safety. On this point, they are a stubborn, determined and unified pain in Jim's ass.
When it's not annoying him, Jim finds it really hilarious.
Since he's not sure if his new friendship with Spock has extended to the point where playful ribbing is allowed, Jim doesn't share this opinion with his first officer, but he knows he can get away with just about anything when it comes to Bones, so Jim doesn't hesitate to tease him with his observations on the subject.
"It's kind of cute," he tells Bones one day as they're relaxing in Jim's quarters. It's almost like the academy again, both of them loose-limbed and relaxed thanks to the Bones's precious stash of slightly illegal alcohol. Like old times, Jim has eschewed the comfort of furniture to sit on the floor, back supported by the bed while Bones is sprawled out in a chair half the room away. It's not the bender they would've risked as cadets, but the real liquor burns pleasantly on its way down in a way synethol doesn't and pools warmly in his stomach. It's probably the most relaxed he's been since they left Earth.
"Shut up, Jim," Bones warns him. "It's not cute."
"No, you're right, it's not," Jim agrees. "It's actually awfully sweet."
"Jim," Bones growls.
Jim just grins and savors a sip from his glass. "It is! You guys care so much, you want to wrap me in cotton so I don't get a boo-boo. But it's my job to get in scrapes, Bones. You guys can't protect me from that."
"Your job is to not make damn fool decisions at every turn," Bones argues. "Just because you make them to put yourself in danger instead of others doesn't make them any less foolish. That's what me and the pointy-eared hobgoblin want you to understand."
"If I'm not willing to die for my people, what kind of captain would that make me?" Jim asks.
Bones's hazel eyes are bright in the dim light of the room. "We all know you'd die for any one of your crew. You don't have to keep convincing us."
Jim hates it when Bones's voice gets that tender ache in it, like he can hear everything Jim isn't saying and he's speaking back to those words instead of the ones he actually says. "That's not what I'm doing."
"Then what are you doing?" Bones levels himself out of the chair and slides down to the floor next to Jim. They're sitting side by side and Jim can feel Bones's elbow brushing against his. "Can you tell me?"
Jim doesn't know if he can put it into words, at least words that won't confirm Bones's earlier statement. He's not doing it just to prove he will, but he's doing it because... "Every decision I make could get somebody killed, Bones. I'll sleep better at night if it's me I get killed and not someone else."
"Jimmy," he starts, and Jim knows he's in for a ton of southern-style sympathy when Bones lapses into that dreaded childhood nickname. "You can't keep making decisions with that in mind. That's not any better than not thinking about it at all."
Jim sighs. "I know."
"And I won't," Bones adds gruffly.
Jim frowns. "Won't what?"
Bones shifts next to him, as if suddenly antsy. "I won't sleep better if you get yourself killed, that's what."
Jim smiles, bumping Bones's shoulder with his own. "Aw, Bones, you care."
"Damn right I do," Bones tells him, and there's none of Jim's playfulness in his answer. "So I wished you'd keep that in mind when you're throwing yourself headfirst into situations where you shouldn't."
Jim can't swallow past the lump suddenly in his throat. "I'll try."
"That'll be a change, at least," he says. "We haven't even been out in this tin can for a six months yet and I'm already going gray." Bones points to his dark hair where Jim detects none of the offensive hairs Bones is trying to point out. "Every damn gray hair I've got is on the account of you and your goddamn savior complex. I'm not even gonna see 40 before I'm as snow white as my Grandpa Leonard."
"But just think how distinguished you'll look," Jim teases, dragging his fingers through Bones's hair. "You'll drive the women wild."
Bones lets out a strange little laugh. "Not even on my agenda, kid."
Jim is trying to keep his thoughts light but something suddenly hits him when he thinks of what might happen if he does get himself killed on one of those missions. "Can I ask you a favor?"
"Oh, god, what?"
He turns to face his friend. "If something does happen to me..."
"...we are not having this fucking conversation, Jim, I swear to god..."
"You've got to promise you'll help Spock," he continues. "We both know he's not great when he's emotionally compromised and I'd like to think we're friends enough now that he would be."
"If I'm helping him," Bones asks. "Who's going to be helping me?"
"Bones, you're like a rock," Jim tells him. "You'll be fine."
"Jim." Bones's voice is more whisper than anything. "If you really think that, you're dumber than you look."
"Hey!" is his instinctual reaction but he sees how utterly serious his friend is, how piercing his gaze is despite the slight cloud of inebriation in them. It finally dawns on him that maybe he's as much a constant in Bones's life as Bones has been in his. "Oh, Bones."
"I know it keeps surprising you that people give a damn -- that I give a damn -- but you're going have to accept it eventually," Bones says, words that send a prickle through Jim, like the feel of sleeping limbs suddenly coming to life. "So, no, I'm not going to do you any favors if you're dead."
Jim sighs, head swimming like he's had way more alcohol than he has. He slumps against Bones like he has so many times before, burying his head against his shoulder. "Fine, if you won't be the rock, at least promise you'll keep being mine, okay?"
Bones's familiar fingers don't settle on his back; instead they end up in his hair, brushes of skin against his nape. "You've been driving me crazy for years and now you're driving me gray," he tells him. "If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm not going anywhere."
"I'm holding you to that," Jim mumbles.
"Deal."
It's that moment when Jim realizes there's nothing funny in the least about how Bones cares about him.
He also decides he's okay with that.
**
Though Leonard has always been aware of the dangers of space travel, he was almost always focused on the medical ones. Strange flu, weird pollen, killer rashes -- there was a lot of things in space that spelled death for stupid, fragile humans who bumble around where they've never been before. As a doctor, these kinds of risks were always his primary concern; even with all the weapons and hand-to-hand combat required as part of his courses, Leonard never spent much time in his academy days thinking about the other kinds of danger that lurk in the great expanse of space.
Now that he's become a rather permanent fixture on Jim's away mission roster, however, he's had a lot of time to think about those situations. He's fired his phaser numerous times, both set to stun and kill, and he's almost positive that he killed a few men during a phaser fight on an abandoned mining colony near the Klingon border. It's not his favorite part of the job by any stretch, but the violence of space exploration is something he's had to learn to live with.
It doesn't mean he likes it, though, or that he understands it because he doesn't, not by a long shot.
His current predicament has given him a lot of time to ponder these kinds of existential questions because it's going on 36 hours since he and a small group of civilian relief workers were taken hostage by one of the violent gangs that the colony has battled since a massive earthquake brought it to its knees. The Enterprise carried the relief workers from a colony over and Bones accompanied them to the surface to get some kind of idea on what the medical situation was. But after less than twelve hours on the ground, his team was ambushed and kidnapped, then corralled into one of the abandoned underground bunkers to await their fate.
A fate that doesn't look too bright from the way the gang leader keeps arguing with Jim over his communicator, Leonard can't help but notice.
"Captain Kirk, are you there?" the leader sing-songs into the hand-held device. He's brutish, amused by casual violence and inured to its effects. He's also deadly serious, they all realized quickly, after he shot and killed one of the relief workers as an example to the rest of them the night before. Leonard did what he could for the man, but his death was slow and painful.
He wants to hit something just thinking about how wasteful and unnecessary Briock's death was. It's why Leonard has never had a stomach for violence.
About a minute after the summons, Leonard hears Jim's voice answer from where he and the other hostages are huddled together in one corner of the bunker. "Kirk here. Have you decided to release the relief workers so we can talk about this rationally?"
"Give them up? No," the leader answers. "We're waiting for the council to answer our demands."
"Your government does not believe in ransom demands," Kirk explains after a long moment of silence. Leonard can hear the tightness, the stress in his voice, even through the crackle of the communicator. "But we are willing to hear your grievances and take them back to the council."
"The only thing we want from them is the release of our friends from their prisons," he almost-shouts into the communicator. "And unless the council does so, they can add these off-worlders to the list of those dead because of them."
"I have been authorized by the Federation to negotiate for our people's release," Jim says, voice deceptively mild and calm to someone who doesn't know him. It doesn't fool Leonard at all. "But we can't make the Altrarian council to do anything against their will. There's got to be something that we can do for you instead."
"No," the leader denies stubbornly. "We only want the release of our friends! If the council does not do so within the next fourteen ticks, we will kill every one of the hostages immediately."
"Those hostages aren't even Altrarian," Jim reminds him, some anger seeping into his voice. The leader notices it, too, because he frowns at the piece of technology in his hand. "You're holding thirteen completely innocent people in there."
"Twleve," the leader corrects him with a smile that makes Leonard a little sick to his stomach when it's followed by a self-satisfied glance in their direction. The rest of the workers must look appropriately frightened because it's Leonard that draws his eyes where he sits against the wall with his arms crossed. The gang leader returns his glower, taking a step closer.
"Twelve?" Jim echoes on the communication device.
"One of them met with a nasty accident last night," the leader tells him, though his inflection leaves no doubt that the accident was blatant murder. He pulls his weapon and levels it at Leonard, presumably for his openly hostile expression. "Male, dark hair, blue tunic? I think he was one of yours, Captain."
Leonard knows it's meant as a warning to him; that knowledge, and the plasma gun pointed at his head is the only thing that keeps him from speaking out to negate his captor's false report.
He hears a wordless sound on the other end of the channel, so soft that he wouldn't have if the gang leader wasn't in his face. Then Jim is speaking again. "We want those workers back alive."
"Then I suggest you talk to the council about that," the leader tells him before severing the connection. To the workers who watch him with wide, frightened eyes, he says, "For your sake, I hope the Captain is persuasive."
As the time whittles away, Leonard notices that the relief workers become more and more on edge, not that he can blame them. He knows, down into his marrow, that Jim and the rest of his crew will try everything in their power to rescue them, even if it falls short in the end. As much as Leonard does not want to die on this god-forsaken rock slung out on the edges of known space, there's comfort in knowing that he'll only do so if there's no way around it.
When they're only a handful of hours from the deadline with no answer from the Enterprise and even their guards grow restless, the hostages start to lose their brave face all around him. One worker is openly crying into her hands, trying to muffle the sound, and another has lost the contents of his stomach in another corner. The worker sitting next to Leonard, a medical tech named Khaldea, is more circumspect, but there's no denying the way fear makes her shake from head to toe.
"Do you think your captain will save us?" she asks him quietly.
"He'll try his damnedest," he replies. "But there's a lot stacked against him." When it's apparent that his words haven't helped, he adds, "Do you see me worrying? There's nobody else that could do it. He's the best chance we've got."
Leonard believes it, too, whole-heartedly. Who but Jim Kirk could figure out a way to save the day when his transporters are useless, the local government is useless, and with an impossible task set before him? He might die, but he's not going to do it without his faith in Jim.
Rescue comes in the 11th hour, in the form of an attack on the bunker by a rival gang. Under the confusion created by the unexpected ambush, a security team from Enterprise appears, phasers drawn. Leonard feels overwhelming relief at the sight of the sea of red shirts, though it turns to confusion when he notices that Spock is in the lead, looking largely unruffled by the entire situation. It's a surprise that Jim is nowhere to be seen.
It's only once the group is out of the gangs' block of territory and moving toward a safer neighborhood where their transporter technology has not been restricted that Leonard falls in next to Spock. "Where's Jim?" he asks. "Is something wrong?"
"Negative," Spock answers. "He has remained on the ship to coordinate the rescue from there."
That doesn't sound anything like the Jim knows. "How did you manage that?"
"We had been led to believe that you were the casualty among the hostages," Spock explains. "Under such conditions, the Captain could not deny that he was too emotionally compromised to lead the rescue himself."
Leonard draws the only conclusion available to him. "So you blackmailed him, huh?"
"I merely presented the Captain with a flawlessly logical argument and he accepted my assessment."
Leonard smiles. "In other words, you blackmailed him."
Spock's smug expression confirms what his words don't.
They beam back up to the Enterprise in a several groups; Leonard, Spock, and two security officers make up the last one. When Leonard materializes in the transporter room he's presented with complete chaos, a mash of bodies ill-suited for the small space. The rescued workers, the security teams, the transporter techs as well as one of Leonard's teams of medics are all trying to go about their duties, which is an impossible task in such a small space.
So Leonard does what he does best -- he starts yelling.
"Chapel!" he barks as he steps off the transporter pad and watches as the blonde head snaps his way. "Get all of these people down to Medical and stop clogging up the way! Ingin's the only one who needs transport, the rest can be escorted."
"Yes, Doctor," she says, signaling for the gurney two of the medics have ready.
"Liach will need some IV fluids and they all need rest but they should check out otherwise," he finishes as he reaches her side. "And other than Carlson, I don't think any of the rescue team has a scratch on 'em."
"What do you need?" she asks, but he waves her away when she tries to check his vitals. She rolls her eyes, but gives his arm a squeeze before she hurries away, taking most of the chaos with her. Once she's cleared out with the other medical personnel and their patients, the room's left with no one but the engineers on the transporter controls, Khaldea and an another worker, and two security officers. Even Spock's gone, which Leonard didn't notice happening.
Just as Leonard is thinking of following Chapel to sickbay, a body rounds into the transporter room at top speed, and it doesn't take more than a flash of gold registering out of the corner of his eye to know that it's Jim. For a second, the face Leonard sees its ravaged and white, but then Jim's eyes meet his and it's transformed. The wide smile that appears on Jim's face is blinding and even Leonard's a little dazzled by it.
"Bones," he says, a little breathless and amazed, like he never expected to say it again. Leonard's not sure what to say in response, but it doesn't matter because then Jim is crossing the distance between them in a few long strides. Leonard's not expecting the quick embrace, a fierce few seconds of Jim's arms around him before he pulls away. Not completely, though -- his hands are on Leonard's shoulders, holding on tightly. "It's good to have you back," Jim says when he finally speaks again.
"It's good to be back."
"I bet!" Jim laughs. He lowers his volume a little and Leonard finally notices the tremble in his voice. "That whole not dying thing we talked about? It relates to you, too, you know."
"It's gonna take a helluva lot to put this old boy down, Jim."
Jim's smile softens. "I'm counting on that."
Then Khaldea is there, thanking Jim on behalf of everyone, and Jim graciously accepts her praise, every inch the starship captain. Leonard watches from the sidelines in amusement until Khaldea glances his way. "Dr. McCoy told us you would do it," she reveals. "He never lost faith in you."
Just when Leonard didn't think Jim's smile could get any bigger, it does.
**
(Onto Part 2)