Fic: From the Ashes (2/2)
Title: “From the Ashes” (2/2)
Fandoms: Star Trek: AOS
Characters/Pairings: Bones/Kirk, Spock, Joanna McCoy
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Word Count: c. 10,000 total
Warnings: Language, injuries, fluff, kidfic, hurt/comfort.
Summary: Jim faces a long recovery after being badly injured on an away mission. Leonard and Joanna look after him.
Notes: This isn’t intended to be related to “Gently Into the Night,” but you are welcome to read it that way if you wish to up the angst factor. Joanna McCoy is the creation of DeForest Kelley and D.C. Fontana. Two lines of dialogue were taken from TOS's "City on the Edge of Forever." You may need to suspend disbelief in regards to the medical aspects of the story.
Part 1
Jim woke with a great weight on his chest, and he panicked in the moment before sleep cleared fully from his mind and he realized that it was only Joanna, and that he could still breathe.
“Hey, Jo-jo,” he whispered, even though she couldn’t hear him. His neck was stiff, but he managed to turn his head anyway and give her a quick kiss on the forehead. She sniffed in her sleep and then burrowed further into his chest, slumbering on.
Bones, Jim always contended, had some psychic ability when it came to his patients. He seemed to know instinctively when someone was awake, or in pain, or in need of something. He appeared in the doorway to the bedroom now, dressed in civvies, his hair disheveled and lines prominent in his face. Jim wondered how long he had been unconscious.
“It’s been twelve hours,” Bones answered without being asked. He padded over to the bed and perched gingerly on the edge. His fingers probed Jim’s face, lifting his eyelids and feeling his throat. “How do you feel?”
Jim saw now, up close, the deep purple crescents that ringed the underside of Bones’ eyes. He wondered if Bones had slept at all.
“Better,” he whispered at last, because while he certainly didn’t feel good, he felt at least a step above dying. “What happened?”
“Anaphylactic shock,” Bones said. “You reacted badly to one of the painkillers.”
He had clenched his hand into a fist where it rested on his knee. Jim covered it with his own.
“Not your fault,” he said gruffly. Bones snorted.
“I should’ve seen it, Jim,” he muttered. “You’re allergic to half the stuff in the medical bay. I should have known. A first-year medical student would have realized it was the wrong combination of medication to give you. What the hell kind of CMO am I if I can’t even properly treat my -”
He broke off. Jim squeezed his hand.
“You’re exhausted,” he said. “You’re under enormous stress. It wasn’t your fault. And look, I’m fine.”
Bones said nothing, but he sat there until Jim fell asleep again, as though the sheer intensity of his hawk-like gaze could protect Jim from further ailments.
----
Jim sat up for the first time the next day. At first, the change in position made him dangerously light-headed, but once his blood pressure regulated itself he found that it made all the difference. For the first time since the attack he felt as though he possessed some energy, and he passed a quiet couple of hours reading in bed.
Joanna and Bones were out in the main room. The door to the bedroom had been left open halfway so that Jim could call to them if he needed something. He listened for a while between chapters of his book, catching only snatches of their conversation, and guessed that Bones was teaching Joanna the rules of a game.
“See, now I’m gonna move my piece over here, and then it’ll be your turn...”
Jim tipped his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He had never had chance to observe Bones and Joanna interacting together, just as father and daughter. To Joanna, he was mostly Uncle Jim. Sometimes he was her daddy’s more-than-friend, and once in a great while, whenever she wasn’t consciously thinking about it, he was papa. But the fact remained that the dynamic between Bones and Joanna was different when he was around, simply because he was present. This, the two of them just together--this was something he had never had chance to even remotely observe.
It took a while for the silence to register, but Jim opened his eyes when it did, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling. He wasn’t entirely sure how long it had been since he last heard voices in the other room, but the silence was now lengthy and noticeable. He debated hauling himself out of bed and going to check on them, but dismissed that idea as paranoid.
And then he heard a shaky breath; a wavering gulp of air. His stomach clenched, his suspicions confirmed a moment later by Bones’ quiet, “Oh, baby girl, come here. What’s wrong?”
Joanna’s answer was a single, heavy sob. She hated when undue attention was paid to her, and unlike many other children her age, preferred to cry alone. Bones always knew, though, when she was distraught, and Jim was slowly beginning to pick up on the signs as well.
The fact that she was crying openly now was a bad sign, Jim was willing to bet. He listened to Joanna’s stifled cries for several agonizing minutes, debating whether or not it was worth defying Bones’ direct orders not to get out of bed.
He had almost worked himself into a sitting position with his legs over the side of the bed when he finally heard Joanna mutter something inaudible to Bones.
“What was that?” Bones asked.
“... don’t wan’ him to die.”
Most of Joanna’s sentence had been lost, but that part reached Jim’s ears unmolested. His heart sank, and his throat dammed up.
Shit.
Very carefully, Jim eased his legs back onto the bed, thankful for the round of painkillers Bones had given him not an hour ago. He sank back against the pillows and turned his face to the ceiling, balling both of his hands into fists because he wanted so desperately to make it better--to make it right--and knew that he couldn’t.
He couldn’t promise a little girl who had already lost her mother that he would always come home to her. Any illusions Joanna might have harbored about her parents’ invulnerability had been shattered long ago, and he wasn’t going to insult her with false hopes.
Jim estimated that near half an hour passed before Joanna’s cries finally quieted, and it was a further fifteen minutes before Bones came in to check on him.
He made a decent show of checking the monitoring equipment and administering another light painkiller to keep the worst of the agony at bay. But Jim saw the distress in his eyes, and the lips that had pulled themselves into a thin, almost non-existent line. When Bones turned to go, Jim wrapped his fingers around his wrist.
Bones sat heavily on the side of the bed, acquiescing to the silent request. He rested his elbows on his thighs and put his head in his hands, and was silent for a long while. Jim put a hand on his shoulder, lightly stroking his thumb back and forth across the fabric of Bones’ shirt.
“She asleep?” he asked in a low voice. Bones nodded.
“Yeah, out like a light.” He was quiet for a moment.
“Len,” Jim said.
“You heard all that,” Bones said finally.
“Parts of it,” Jim admitted. Bones nodded to himself.
“I just made that little girl a promise I can’t keep,” he said dully. “I -”
He stopped suddenly.
“Go on,” Jim pressed. Bones shook his head.
“I told her I’d keep you safe,” he said softly, misery plain in his voice.
“You’ve been doing that for five years now,” Jim pointed out gently. “That’s not a lie, Len.”
“Feels like one,” Bones said bitterly. “I don’t keep you safe, Jim, I’m just damned good at putting you back together. But my luck ain’t gonna last forever.”
He broke off again.
“I can’t keep you safe. I can’t guarantee even that Joanna will be all right. I’m pretty goddamn useless,” he said finally. “Both as a father and as a - well -”
He waved a hand vaguely.
“Seems to me that you weren’t able to guarantee Joanna’s safety when she was on Earth, either,” Jim pointed out gently. The muscles under his hand tensed, but Bones’ expression softened slightly.
“Yeah,” he murmured in resignation. “S’pose you’re right.”
“The other option was to leave her on Earth with strangers,” Jim added.
“There was always a third option,” Bones pointed out. Jim’s heart clenched at the thought of that. If it had come down to it--truly come down to it--Bones would have resigned his Starfleet commission and moved back to Earth with Joanna. Or he would have broken his contract, which carried a heavy penalty these days. Either way, he would have understandably left Enterprise--and Jim--behind. “Dammit, Jim, I just don’t want her to have to watch another parent die.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Jim said weakly, even though he didn’t believe it any more than Bones did. “Not again, Bones.”
Bones shook his head.
“Lightning doesn’t strike twice, Jim, so long as you don’t provoke it. But if you go outside in a storm with a metal rod, you bet your ass you’re gonna get struck.” Bones sighed heavily through his nose. “And this ship--she’s wonderful, but she’s about the biggest lightning rod I’ve ever seen, and we’re smack-dab in the middle of the storm.”
Jim took Bones by the elbow and gave his arm a gentle tug. Bones stared at him for a long moment, and then finally gave in. He allowed Jim to pull him down and wrap his arms around the back of his shoulders, effectively holding Bones against his chest. Bones rested his ear over Jim’s heart and pushed his arms under Jim’s back, holding him in a tight embrace. His thick hair brushed against Jim’s jaw, and Jim kissed the top of his head.
“The moment I think baby girl’s life is in true danger, I’m packing you both off to Earth,” Jim said. “I promise you that, Bones.”
Bones lifted his head from Jim’s chest and pressed their foreheads together.
“I told you before, Jim, I ain’t goin’ anywhere without you,” he said gruffly. “I belong here. By your side.”
“‘As though you’ve always been there, and always will be,’” Jim finished quietly, Admiral Pike’s words echoing in his mind as he said them out loud. “Yes. I know.”
He sighed heavily.
“Then we make the best out of the life we’ve been given,” he said at last, “and the life we’ve chosen. That’s all we can do, Bones.”
Bones kissed him, once, briefly. And then again, this time lingering before pulling away.
“And whatever we do, we do it together.”
----
Jim was up and walking a few days later.
Walking was probably too generous of a term. Lurching and hobbling were more apt, and he couldn’t have managed any of it without Bones’ aid. Joanna had been sent away for the day, not because she’d be in the way, but because Bones surmised that Jim would be cursing horribly through it all.
And he was right.
But by the afternoon, Jim was able to limp--with Bones’ help--from one side of the main room to the other. His recuperation had, among other things, largely robbed him of his energy reserves, and after about fifteen minutes he needed to rest again. Bones settled him on the sofa, sitting upright, and brought him a stack of PADDs in order to keep him occupied.
“You haven’t done a lick of work these past few days,” Bones said. “And now you ain’t got an excuse. Those are all reports that you need to sign off on.”
Jim groaned.
“Isn’t that what Spock’s for?” he muttered. Bones snorted.
“Spock’s too damn busy running the ship you left behind to worry about something like that. You’re just sitting around on your ass all day. That means you get to do the paperwork.”
The door chimed suddenly, interrupting what was turning into a classic Bones tirade. He sighed, grumbled under his breath, and then answered it.
“Oh, speak of the green-blooded devil,” he muttered, his persona shifting in an instant. His shoulders straightened and his demeanor became distant. He was no longer a man goading his lover, but now a doctor scolding his commanding officer for not following his instructions to the letter. “He’s being a right pain in the ass, Commander, I don’t mind saying. He’s all yours for a bit. Captain, if you need me, I’ll be in my office.”
Spock dismissed Bones with a nod as he stepped into the quarters, and Bones disappeared into his bedroom.
“Commander.” Jim straightened as much as he was able, biting back a wince at the twinge in his legs. He gestured to a chair opposite the couch, and Spock perched on it. “What can I do for you?”
“Doctor McCoy expects that you will make a swift and complete recovery,” Spock said, though there was a slight edge to his voice. If Jim didn’t know any better, he’d say that Spock didn’t entirely trust the doctor’s assessment, and fought back an amused smile. Spock and Bones might be constantly at each other’s throats, but they at least did have a common--and endearing--goal.
“And you wanted to see for yourself, I gather,” Jim said with a slight smirk. He spread his arms. “I’m almost good as new, Spock.”
Spock lifted an eyebrow at him.
“I shall await confirmation from the medical bay prior to agreeing with that assessment,” he said dryly. “But I am here on other business, Captain.”
“I figured,” Jim said, sobering quickly. “I take it diplomatic relations with the Debnar are less than stellar at the moment.”
“Indeed. And Admiral Jenkins has demanded that a full investigation be conducted to see if our people behaved in a way that might have provoked the attack.”
“Behaved - oh, this is ridiculous, Spock! Nothing happened prior to the attack. We had only just arrived at the reception hall! And anyway, nothing warrants that type of an assault. They can’t be serious about this!”
The admiralty was, it turned out, very serious, and they spent the next half an hour discussing how best to conduct the investigation. At the end of it, they at least had a semblance of a plan, but Jim was left with a splitting headache and a persistent throb in his legs. He wondered if there was a way to bring the conversation to a swift end, as he could barely keep up with what Spock was telling him anymore.
His salvation came less than a second after that thought crossed his mind, when the door to Bones’ bedroom opened and he emerged.
“I’m afraid I’m gonna have to cut this meeting short, Commander,” he said briskly. He walked over to his medical kit and began assembling another hypospray. “I can’t have you exhausting my patient, or he’ll be off-duty for longer than either of us would like.”
Jim shot Bones a grateful smile - and, unexpectedly, it was returned.
Bones, he often thought, had three smiles. There was the one he reserved for public, a smirk more than a smile, and it usually accompanied a droll remark. The second smile was Joanna’s, and hers alone. Jim had only seen it a couple of times, and both times Bones had been unaware that they were being observed. The smile he reserved for Joanna was full of gentle warmth, infused with a confidence Jim knew that Bones struggled with as a single parent. But he was her father, first and foremost, and his smile said that he would always be there to make things right for her.
The third smile was for Jim. It was kind, and lacking in Bones’ usual snark. There was a hint of vulnerability to it, too, one that was missing from his other smiles. This smile was completely and utterly Bones. He was offering up his heart, tentatively but completely, entrusting both his feelings and his reservations to Jim. He gave it all with the knowledge that he could be hurt, and badly, but also with the awareness that this could be the best thing he’s ever had.
And it was the smile he was giving now, while Spock was still in the room.
Jim’s heart stumbled against his ribcage, as it always did when Bones gave him that smile, and then felt his stomach drop when Bones turned back to his work and he realized Spock was still standing patiently nearby. He cleared his throat.
“Was there something else?” Jim asked, attempting to sound nonchalant and mostly succeeding.
Spock paused for a moment before answering, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Captain, if I may be perfectly blunt,” his eyes flicked to Bones, and then back again, “I believe you have been keeping something from me.”
Bones calmly finished loading the hypospray and pressed it against the side of Jim’s neck. The medication started to take hold within seconds, and Jim gave him a grateful nod as he started to regain his equilibrium. Bones turned away, clearly intending to let Jim deal with this by feeding Spock whatever lie he preferred, but Jim stopped him with a hand on his elbow.
“Yes,” he said to Spock. “I have.”
Jim slid his fingers between Bones’, holding on. Bones’ eyes flicked from him to their joined hands to Spock, the corners of his mouth tight with apprehension.
“I see,” Spock said. “I take it Starfleet is not aware of this?”
“We’ve never said anything,” Jim told him. “Pike figured it out, but no one else, far as we can tell.”
Spock nodded.
“Thank you for informing me, Captain. If there is nothing else, I should be getting back to the bridge.”
Jim dismissed him with a nod. When he had gone, Bones gently tugged his hand from Jim’s grasp.
“Jim,” he said quietly, “what did you just do?”
Jim was still staring at the door Spock had just stepped through. He felt light-headed.
“Something I should have done a long time ago, Len.”
----
Leonard had one item in his quarters that wasn’t Starfleet-issue, and that was an overstuffed chair he had brought from his Savannah home.
Jocelyn may have gotten the whole damn planet in the divorce--and their daughter to boot--but Leonard had at least managed to negotiate away the chair. It would seem a hollow, pitiful victory to an outsider, but it meant the world to Leonard.
The chair was the very first piece of furniture he and Jocelyn had purchased together, and though the marriage had ended in misery, back at the beginning there had been so much hope, and so much future. He had spent countless hours in that chair, rocking infant Joanna back to sleep or feeding her so that Jocelyn could have a break. It had given father and daughter a chance to bond, and as their time together had been cut short by the divorce, Leonard would always be grateful for that.
It was also the only link he had to his child after leaving Savannah, and he had brought the chair with him to the Academy. It made his already-cramped graduate student rooms almost impossible to navigate, but Leonard wasn’t about to give it up over a minor inconvenience.
He had been sitting in that chair when Jim first kissed him, a smirk on his lips and bourbon on his tongue, nearly a year before the incident with the Narada. And Jim had pushed him into that chair, hands heavy and warm on Leonard’s shoulders, three days after their heroic return to Earth so that he could deliver the news that would forever change Leonard’s life--and the future they had tentatively been planning together.
They’re giving me the Enterprise.
That news alone had been heart-wrenching. The sentence that followed was unbelievable: You’re going to be my CMO.
Leonard hadn’t been Starfleet’s first pick for their flagship’s CMO, and he had known that from the start. The position had been thrust upon him in the heat of battle, and though he bore the burden well, it wasn’t ideal. When the dust settled, Starfleet decided that the best thing for Enterprise was a more seasoned officer--and one who had a healthy respect for both Starfleet policies and technology.
Jim wouldn’t have any of it.
“We went through hell and back on our very first mission, Len, and we saved the planet along the way,” he had said heatedly. “I’m not splitting up this crew.”
Jim was sleeping in that chair now, legs propped up on a low table and his chin touching his shoulder, utterly exhausted by his exertions today. Leonard hoped that he hadn’t overdone it, and made sure he had an extra couple of hypos loaded up just in case. If Jim had indeed pushed himself too far, he was in for a world of pain tonight.
Joanna had been dropped off by the sitter late in the afternoon, and Leonard spent a quiet evening alone with her. They watched old vids and read a couple of books, and Jim slumbered on in his corner of the room.
Leonard had tried to do everything too quickly the first time around--marriage, children, a career. He had been brash and arrogant and infatuated, and everything around him glowed with such intensity he thought he might go blind with it all.
But he didn’t go blind so much as he went down in flames, and every corner of his life burned to pieces around him until there was nothing left but ashes.
Ashes, and Joanna.
Leonard could think of two dozen people who were far more deserving of second chances than he, but the fact remained that his little girl was now sitting in his lap, and his best friend was inexplicably in love with him, and they were all living in a void with only a thin cocoon of metal to keep the vacuum at bay. It wasn’t the life Leonard imagined for himself, not by far, but it was the one he had been given.
He wouldn't trade it for anything.
----
Jim woke in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, pain flaring up and down his legs as though they were burning from the inside out.
Bones was already awake, and he was leaning over Jim with a comforting, grounding hand on his chest. His blue sleep shirt was rumpled, and the sleep-mussed hair on the back of his head was sticking straight up. Jim would have laughed if he thought that wouldn’t make the bone-jarring agony in his legs worse than it was. He gasped and grabbed for Bones’ hand.
“I know, darlin’,” Bones murmured. He leaned close as Jim squeezed the blood from his hand, swallowing back the cry that threatened to rip from his throat as another bout of agony hit him. “I know, it hurts. Breathe with me, c’mon.”
Jim latched onto the sound of Bones’ voice, and even through the blood pounding in his ears he was able to make out the exaggerated, audible breaths that Bones was drawing. He struggled to do the same, wheezing his way through several lungfuls of air.
“Deeper than that, Jim, come on,” Bones ordered, and Jim gasped, trying to force down air that wouldn’t come.
He was so focused on his breathing, though, that for a time he didn’t completely register the pain. Bones was still holding his hand, rubbing his thumb in gentle circles over Jim’s wrist, and Jim loosened his grip.
“Thirty minutes,” Bones said quietly, “and then I can give you another dose of painkiller. Think you can handle that, Captain?”
He leaned over Jim, reaching for a glass of water on the bedside table, and braced Jim with an arm around the back of his shoulders so that he could drink from it.
“Of course,” Jim rasped finally, and Bones set the glass aside. He tried to infuse a bit of confidence into the words, but they sounded as uncertain as he felt.
“Ain’t gonna last forever, Jim,” Bones said gruffly, as though he could tell what Jim was thinking. “You just pushed yourself too hard today, that’s all.”
He leaned against the pillows and pulled Jim back against his chest, careful not to jostle his legs in any way. He wrapped an arm around Jim’s chest from behind and rested his cheek against Jim’s hair, and for a while they sat, Jim feeling the rhythm of Bones’ breathing and occupying himself for a time by trying to match it. Eventually, Bones began to talk, quietly relating the various bits of ship’s gossip that reached his ears in the medical bay, which sometimes saw more of the crew pass through its doors than the bridge and engineering did.
“... and that’s when Lieutenant Bishop decided that she’d had enough and, get this -”
Bones was very rarely quiet, and he never spoke so much as he growled, barked, and snapped. His words were always efficient. He usually had neither the time nor the patience for taking care with his words, and never saw the point in cushioning whatever he had to say with useless filler. There was no point in taking the time to say something in thirty words when ten would suffice.
But Bones had two great loves in this life: his daughter and his patients. Jim had never seen him be quite so gentle as when he was tending to one of them, and he took all the time and care in the world while he did it. And, in his most private moments, Jim liked to think that perhaps Bones had a third love.
It certainly felt that way now, as Bones prattled on about this and that, the words themselves meaningless but the gesture filled with an unspoken love. He was distracting Jim the only way he knew how, keeping his mind off the pain in the only way available to him when artificial means failed. And then, what felt like only minutes later, he was gently pressing a hypospray against the side of Jim’s neck.
“How’s that?” Bones asked after a moment. Jim felt an odd warmth spread through his veins, which he was used to by now, and then a dull numbness in his legs, which he was not.
“Better,” he said quietly, because even though the sensation was disconcerting, the pain had faded almost instantly.
Sleep was now tugging insistently at his mind, the way it always did after a shot of the heavy-duty painkiller. Jim knew he was going to be unconscious for at least the next six hours, and less than lucid for a while after that. Bones adjusted Jim so that he was on his side as the painkiller began to take effect, the way he preferred to sleep, and then settled down behind him. He wrapped an arm loosely around Jim’s waist and said nothing further.
And sometimes, Jim thought sleepily, Bones’ silences were just as much a testament as were his words.
Jim woke again towards morning, but this time it was because Joanna had joined them. She had curled up on Jim’s side of the bed, stuffed animal in hand, her round eyes watching him dutifully.
“Joanna,” Jim whispered sluggishly. It couldn’t have possibly been six hours yet. Bones was still sleeping heavily against his back, a puff of breath from his lips brushing Jim’s ear on every exhale. He never slept more than four or five hours at a time, and from his breathing it sounded as though he was completely under at the moment. “What’re you doin’ here, little one?”
His words were slow, but he managed them.
“Do you live here now?” Joanna asked, continuing to watch him carefully.
“Jus’ for a bit,” Jim whispered. He smoothed her hair away from her face. She pursed her lips.
“You should stay,” she decided finally with a tiny, resolute nod.
“S’not that simple, Jo-jo,” Jim said quietly.
“Why not?”
“It’s -” Jim broke off, struggling for words that wouldn’t form properly on his tongue. It’s breaking about half a dozen taboos, if nothing else. A starship captain sleeping with his subordinate just isn’t done. But he didn’t know how to explain that to a six-year-old. And maybe it was the medication that was making his concerns seem very remote at the moment, but the excuse he and Bones had been clinging to since Jim’s captaincy now seemed only flimsy at best.
“You’re supposed to live together when you’re in love,” Joanna said stubbornly. “That’s what Miss Mary says.”
Lieutenant Harriman was Joanna’s usual minder, as she always worked opposite shifts from Bones and because Joanna had taken an immense liking to her from the start.
“I - yeah, I suppose that’s right,” Jim stammered, at a loss for a proper response that would move them off this subject. For a moment, he wished Bones was awake. He was much more adept at dealing with these types of questions, and he knew how to deflect when he didn’t want Joanna probing further into something.
Joanna still looked dissatisfied--and, now, also a bit wary.
“Do you love Daddy?” she pressed. Her lips had thinned and her eyes were wide; she looked as though the question had never occurred to her before; as though she had never had any reason for it to be in doubt.
“Yeah,” Jim croaked weakly.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he told her, stronger this time. “Yes, sweetheart, I am. I love your daddy.”
Thank God Bones wasn’t awake to hear him, Jim thought dully. He’d probably die at the gross amount of sentiment that just spilled from Jim’s lips.
Joanna considered him for a long moment.
“Okay,” she said finally with a small nod. “Then you can stay here.”
Bones’ arm twitched against Jim’s side. He froze, but Bones made no further movements.
“I’ll have to talk to your daddy about it,” he said finally, hoping this would mollify Joanna. “Okay, Jo-jo?”
She nodded vigorously, looking pleased, and kissed him on the cheek before sliding off the bed. And before Jim had a chance to elbow Bones awake so he could see her back to bed, she was gone.
Jim let out a slow breath. And then, realizing that the breathing against the shell of his ear had changed, he felt his heart sink down to his feet.
Shit.
“I know you’re awake,” Jim managed finally. After a moment, Bones’ arm withdrew from around his waist, and he rested a hand on Jim’s hip. Jim rolled onto his back and turned to look at him.
“I miss when things were that simple,” Bones said finally, quietly. Jim felt his heart clench. They had spoken of marriage before, but that was ages ago; a lifetime. All their plans had to be abandoned in favor of Jim’s captaincy.
“You know, I think it’s precisely that simple, Bones,” Jim said quietly. “We’re the ones who make it seem difficult and impossible.”
Bones glanced at him.
“What are you saying?” he asked quietly.
Jim bit down on the inside of his cheek, because he honestly didn’t know. He had just this afternoon outed them to his first officer, when over a year ago they had decided that it was best to keep their affair as discreet as possible for the time being. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking this afternoon, and still wasn’t sure -
- Except, yes, he was. He knew exactly what he’d been thinking.
He’d chosen the captaincy over his Bones, over the man who refused to leave him behind; over the man who had gone as far as smuggling him aboard a starship so they wouldn’t be separated. He had to always be on his guard around the crew, to be careful not to mention Bones in too familiar a manner to the rest of his senior staff. He couldn’t publicly share in Bones’ delight over Joanna as she grew up before their very eyes, and the best part of his life was starting to feel like a dirty secret.
He loved and was loved in return, by his best friend no less, and wasn’t it time they did something about that?
To hell with the regulations. He knew exactly what he’d been thinking.
“Marry me,” Jim whispered, the words foreign to his ears but perfect on his tongue.
“Jim -”
“Marry me,” Jim repeated, his voice stronger. “Take me as your husband. Let me raise your daughter with you. Marry me, Bones.”
Bones’ lips parted, but words failed him for a moment.
“I ain’t any good at this, Jim, and I’ve got a divorce under my belt to prove it,” he said finally.
“You’re wonderful at this, Bones, and you’ve got a gorgeous little girl to prove it,” Jim countered.
“Jim.” It was a plea. Do you have any idea what you’re saying?
“Marry me.”
“You’re delusional,” Bones said calmly. “You’re not thinking right because of the medication. You know they’ll give us hell for this.”
“Bones, I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life. And I’ve still got a few friends left in the admiralty. Marry me.”
Bones smoothed the hair off of Jim’s forehead. It had grown out in recent weeks. He was long overdue for a haircut, and had been for a while, but Bones loved it like this.
“Ask me in the morning,” he said quietly.
“Bones -”
“In the morning,” Bones said firmly. “If you’re sure--if you’re absolutely sure--then ask me again in the morning. I don’t want this to be the medicine talking or something. Ask me in the morning.” He took a wavering breath and added, quietly, “And I’ll say yes.”
“Len.”
Bones pressed a finger to Jim’s lips, gently.
“Ask me again in the morning,” he whispered.
And Jim did.
Fandoms: Star Trek: AOS
Characters/Pairings: Bones/Kirk, Spock, Joanna McCoy
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Word Count: c. 10,000 total
Warnings: Language, injuries, fluff, kidfic, hurt/comfort.
Summary: Jim faces a long recovery after being badly injured on an away mission. Leonard and Joanna look after him.
Notes: This isn’t intended to be related to “Gently Into the Night,” but you are welcome to read it that way if you wish to up the angst factor. Joanna McCoy is the creation of DeForest Kelley and D.C. Fontana. Two lines of dialogue were taken from TOS's "City on the Edge of Forever." You may need to suspend disbelief in regards to the medical aspects of the story.
Part 1
Jim woke with a great weight on his chest, and he panicked in the moment before sleep cleared fully from his mind and he realized that it was only Joanna, and that he could still breathe.
“Hey, Jo-jo,” he whispered, even though she couldn’t hear him. His neck was stiff, but he managed to turn his head anyway and give her a quick kiss on the forehead. She sniffed in her sleep and then burrowed further into his chest, slumbering on.
Bones, Jim always contended, had some psychic ability when it came to his patients. He seemed to know instinctively when someone was awake, or in pain, or in need of something. He appeared in the doorway to the bedroom now, dressed in civvies, his hair disheveled and lines prominent in his face. Jim wondered how long he had been unconscious.
“It’s been twelve hours,” Bones answered without being asked. He padded over to the bed and perched gingerly on the edge. His fingers probed Jim’s face, lifting his eyelids and feeling his throat. “How do you feel?”
Jim saw now, up close, the deep purple crescents that ringed the underside of Bones’ eyes. He wondered if Bones had slept at all.
“Better,” he whispered at last, because while he certainly didn’t feel good, he felt at least a step above dying. “What happened?”
“Anaphylactic shock,” Bones said. “You reacted badly to one of the painkillers.”
He had clenched his hand into a fist where it rested on his knee. Jim covered it with his own.
“Not your fault,” he said gruffly. Bones snorted.
“I should’ve seen it, Jim,” he muttered. “You’re allergic to half the stuff in the medical bay. I should have known. A first-year medical student would have realized it was the wrong combination of medication to give you. What the hell kind of CMO am I if I can’t even properly treat my -”
He broke off. Jim squeezed his hand.
“You’re exhausted,” he said. “You’re under enormous stress. It wasn’t your fault. And look, I’m fine.”
Bones said nothing, but he sat there until Jim fell asleep again, as though the sheer intensity of his hawk-like gaze could protect Jim from further ailments.
----
Jim sat up for the first time the next day. At first, the change in position made him dangerously light-headed, but once his blood pressure regulated itself he found that it made all the difference. For the first time since the attack he felt as though he possessed some energy, and he passed a quiet couple of hours reading in bed.
Joanna and Bones were out in the main room. The door to the bedroom had been left open halfway so that Jim could call to them if he needed something. He listened for a while between chapters of his book, catching only snatches of their conversation, and guessed that Bones was teaching Joanna the rules of a game.
“See, now I’m gonna move my piece over here, and then it’ll be your turn...”
Jim tipped his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He had never had chance to observe Bones and Joanna interacting together, just as father and daughter. To Joanna, he was mostly Uncle Jim. Sometimes he was her daddy’s more-than-friend, and once in a great while, whenever she wasn’t consciously thinking about it, he was papa. But the fact remained that the dynamic between Bones and Joanna was different when he was around, simply because he was present. This, the two of them just together--this was something he had never had chance to even remotely observe.
It took a while for the silence to register, but Jim opened his eyes when it did, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling. He wasn’t entirely sure how long it had been since he last heard voices in the other room, but the silence was now lengthy and noticeable. He debated hauling himself out of bed and going to check on them, but dismissed that idea as paranoid.
And then he heard a shaky breath; a wavering gulp of air. His stomach clenched, his suspicions confirmed a moment later by Bones’ quiet, “Oh, baby girl, come here. What’s wrong?”
Joanna’s answer was a single, heavy sob. She hated when undue attention was paid to her, and unlike many other children her age, preferred to cry alone. Bones always knew, though, when she was distraught, and Jim was slowly beginning to pick up on the signs as well.
The fact that she was crying openly now was a bad sign, Jim was willing to bet. He listened to Joanna’s stifled cries for several agonizing minutes, debating whether or not it was worth defying Bones’ direct orders not to get out of bed.
He had almost worked himself into a sitting position with his legs over the side of the bed when he finally heard Joanna mutter something inaudible to Bones.
“What was that?” Bones asked.
“... don’t wan’ him to die.”
Most of Joanna’s sentence had been lost, but that part reached Jim’s ears unmolested. His heart sank, and his throat dammed up.
Shit.
Very carefully, Jim eased his legs back onto the bed, thankful for the round of painkillers Bones had given him not an hour ago. He sank back against the pillows and turned his face to the ceiling, balling both of his hands into fists because he wanted so desperately to make it better--to make it right--and knew that he couldn’t.
He couldn’t promise a little girl who had already lost her mother that he would always come home to her. Any illusions Joanna might have harbored about her parents’ invulnerability had been shattered long ago, and he wasn’t going to insult her with false hopes.
Jim estimated that near half an hour passed before Joanna’s cries finally quieted, and it was a further fifteen minutes before Bones came in to check on him.
He made a decent show of checking the monitoring equipment and administering another light painkiller to keep the worst of the agony at bay. But Jim saw the distress in his eyes, and the lips that had pulled themselves into a thin, almost non-existent line. When Bones turned to go, Jim wrapped his fingers around his wrist.
Bones sat heavily on the side of the bed, acquiescing to the silent request. He rested his elbows on his thighs and put his head in his hands, and was silent for a long while. Jim put a hand on his shoulder, lightly stroking his thumb back and forth across the fabric of Bones’ shirt.
“She asleep?” he asked in a low voice. Bones nodded.
“Yeah, out like a light.” He was quiet for a moment.
“Len,” Jim said.
“You heard all that,” Bones said finally.
“Parts of it,” Jim admitted. Bones nodded to himself.
“I just made that little girl a promise I can’t keep,” he said dully. “I -”
He stopped suddenly.
“Go on,” Jim pressed. Bones shook his head.
“I told her I’d keep you safe,” he said softly, misery plain in his voice.
“You’ve been doing that for five years now,” Jim pointed out gently. “That’s not a lie, Len.”
“Feels like one,” Bones said bitterly. “I don’t keep you safe, Jim, I’m just damned good at putting you back together. But my luck ain’t gonna last forever.”
He broke off again.
“I can’t keep you safe. I can’t guarantee even that Joanna will be all right. I’m pretty goddamn useless,” he said finally. “Both as a father and as a - well -”
He waved a hand vaguely.
“Seems to me that you weren’t able to guarantee Joanna’s safety when she was on Earth, either,” Jim pointed out gently. The muscles under his hand tensed, but Bones’ expression softened slightly.
“Yeah,” he murmured in resignation. “S’pose you’re right.”
“The other option was to leave her on Earth with strangers,” Jim added.
“There was always a third option,” Bones pointed out. Jim’s heart clenched at the thought of that. If it had come down to it--truly come down to it--Bones would have resigned his Starfleet commission and moved back to Earth with Joanna. Or he would have broken his contract, which carried a heavy penalty these days. Either way, he would have understandably left Enterprise--and Jim--behind. “Dammit, Jim, I just don’t want her to have to watch another parent die.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Jim said weakly, even though he didn’t believe it any more than Bones did. “Not again, Bones.”
Bones shook his head.
“Lightning doesn’t strike twice, Jim, so long as you don’t provoke it. But if you go outside in a storm with a metal rod, you bet your ass you’re gonna get struck.” Bones sighed heavily through his nose. “And this ship--she’s wonderful, but she’s about the biggest lightning rod I’ve ever seen, and we’re smack-dab in the middle of the storm.”
Jim took Bones by the elbow and gave his arm a gentle tug. Bones stared at him for a long moment, and then finally gave in. He allowed Jim to pull him down and wrap his arms around the back of his shoulders, effectively holding Bones against his chest. Bones rested his ear over Jim’s heart and pushed his arms under Jim’s back, holding him in a tight embrace. His thick hair brushed against Jim’s jaw, and Jim kissed the top of his head.
“The moment I think baby girl’s life is in true danger, I’m packing you both off to Earth,” Jim said. “I promise you that, Bones.”
Bones lifted his head from Jim’s chest and pressed their foreheads together.
“I told you before, Jim, I ain’t goin’ anywhere without you,” he said gruffly. “I belong here. By your side.”
“‘As though you’ve always been there, and always will be,’” Jim finished quietly, Admiral Pike’s words echoing in his mind as he said them out loud. “Yes. I know.”
He sighed heavily.
“Then we make the best out of the life we’ve been given,” he said at last, “and the life we’ve chosen. That’s all we can do, Bones.”
Bones kissed him, once, briefly. And then again, this time lingering before pulling away.
“And whatever we do, we do it together.”
----
Jim was up and walking a few days later.
Walking was probably too generous of a term. Lurching and hobbling were more apt, and he couldn’t have managed any of it without Bones’ aid. Joanna had been sent away for the day, not because she’d be in the way, but because Bones surmised that Jim would be cursing horribly through it all.
And he was right.
But by the afternoon, Jim was able to limp--with Bones’ help--from one side of the main room to the other. His recuperation had, among other things, largely robbed him of his energy reserves, and after about fifteen minutes he needed to rest again. Bones settled him on the sofa, sitting upright, and brought him a stack of PADDs in order to keep him occupied.
“You haven’t done a lick of work these past few days,” Bones said. “And now you ain’t got an excuse. Those are all reports that you need to sign off on.”
Jim groaned.
“Isn’t that what Spock’s for?” he muttered. Bones snorted.
“Spock’s too damn busy running the ship you left behind to worry about something like that. You’re just sitting around on your ass all day. That means you get to do the paperwork.”
The door chimed suddenly, interrupting what was turning into a classic Bones tirade. He sighed, grumbled under his breath, and then answered it.
“Oh, speak of the green-blooded devil,” he muttered, his persona shifting in an instant. His shoulders straightened and his demeanor became distant. He was no longer a man goading his lover, but now a doctor scolding his commanding officer for not following his instructions to the letter. “He’s being a right pain in the ass, Commander, I don’t mind saying. He’s all yours for a bit. Captain, if you need me, I’ll be in my office.”
Spock dismissed Bones with a nod as he stepped into the quarters, and Bones disappeared into his bedroom.
“Commander.” Jim straightened as much as he was able, biting back a wince at the twinge in his legs. He gestured to a chair opposite the couch, and Spock perched on it. “What can I do for you?”
“Doctor McCoy expects that you will make a swift and complete recovery,” Spock said, though there was a slight edge to his voice. If Jim didn’t know any better, he’d say that Spock didn’t entirely trust the doctor’s assessment, and fought back an amused smile. Spock and Bones might be constantly at each other’s throats, but they at least did have a common--and endearing--goal.
“And you wanted to see for yourself, I gather,” Jim said with a slight smirk. He spread his arms. “I’m almost good as new, Spock.”
Spock lifted an eyebrow at him.
“I shall await confirmation from the medical bay prior to agreeing with that assessment,” he said dryly. “But I am here on other business, Captain.”
“I figured,” Jim said, sobering quickly. “I take it diplomatic relations with the Debnar are less than stellar at the moment.”
“Indeed. And Admiral Jenkins has demanded that a full investigation be conducted to see if our people behaved in a way that might have provoked the attack.”
“Behaved - oh, this is ridiculous, Spock! Nothing happened prior to the attack. We had only just arrived at the reception hall! And anyway, nothing warrants that type of an assault. They can’t be serious about this!”
The admiralty was, it turned out, very serious, and they spent the next half an hour discussing how best to conduct the investigation. At the end of it, they at least had a semblance of a plan, but Jim was left with a splitting headache and a persistent throb in his legs. He wondered if there was a way to bring the conversation to a swift end, as he could barely keep up with what Spock was telling him anymore.
His salvation came less than a second after that thought crossed his mind, when the door to Bones’ bedroom opened and he emerged.
“I’m afraid I’m gonna have to cut this meeting short, Commander,” he said briskly. He walked over to his medical kit and began assembling another hypospray. “I can’t have you exhausting my patient, or he’ll be off-duty for longer than either of us would like.”
Jim shot Bones a grateful smile - and, unexpectedly, it was returned.
Bones, he often thought, had three smiles. There was the one he reserved for public, a smirk more than a smile, and it usually accompanied a droll remark. The second smile was Joanna’s, and hers alone. Jim had only seen it a couple of times, and both times Bones had been unaware that they were being observed. The smile he reserved for Joanna was full of gentle warmth, infused with a confidence Jim knew that Bones struggled with as a single parent. But he was her father, first and foremost, and his smile said that he would always be there to make things right for her.
The third smile was for Jim. It was kind, and lacking in Bones’ usual snark. There was a hint of vulnerability to it, too, one that was missing from his other smiles. This smile was completely and utterly Bones. He was offering up his heart, tentatively but completely, entrusting both his feelings and his reservations to Jim. He gave it all with the knowledge that he could be hurt, and badly, but also with the awareness that this could be the best thing he’s ever had.
And it was the smile he was giving now, while Spock was still in the room.
Jim’s heart stumbled against his ribcage, as it always did when Bones gave him that smile, and then felt his stomach drop when Bones turned back to his work and he realized Spock was still standing patiently nearby. He cleared his throat.
“Was there something else?” Jim asked, attempting to sound nonchalant and mostly succeeding.
Spock paused for a moment before answering, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Captain, if I may be perfectly blunt,” his eyes flicked to Bones, and then back again, “I believe you have been keeping something from me.”
Bones calmly finished loading the hypospray and pressed it against the side of Jim’s neck. The medication started to take hold within seconds, and Jim gave him a grateful nod as he started to regain his equilibrium. Bones turned away, clearly intending to let Jim deal with this by feeding Spock whatever lie he preferred, but Jim stopped him with a hand on his elbow.
“Yes,” he said to Spock. “I have.”
Jim slid his fingers between Bones’, holding on. Bones’ eyes flicked from him to their joined hands to Spock, the corners of his mouth tight with apprehension.
“I see,” Spock said. “I take it Starfleet is not aware of this?”
“We’ve never said anything,” Jim told him. “Pike figured it out, but no one else, far as we can tell.”
Spock nodded.
“Thank you for informing me, Captain. If there is nothing else, I should be getting back to the bridge.”
Jim dismissed him with a nod. When he had gone, Bones gently tugged his hand from Jim’s grasp.
“Jim,” he said quietly, “what did you just do?”
Jim was still staring at the door Spock had just stepped through. He felt light-headed.
“Something I should have done a long time ago, Len.”
----
Leonard had one item in his quarters that wasn’t Starfleet-issue, and that was an overstuffed chair he had brought from his Savannah home.
Jocelyn may have gotten the whole damn planet in the divorce--and their daughter to boot--but Leonard had at least managed to negotiate away the chair. It would seem a hollow, pitiful victory to an outsider, but it meant the world to Leonard.
The chair was the very first piece of furniture he and Jocelyn had purchased together, and though the marriage had ended in misery, back at the beginning there had been so much hope, and so much future. He had spent countless hours in that chair, rocking infant Joanna back to sleep or feeding her so that Jocelyn could have a break. It had given father and daughter a chance to bond, and as their time together had been cut short by the divorce, Leonard would always be grateful for that.
It was also the only link he had to his child after leaving Savannah, and he had brought the chair with him to the Academy. It made his already-cramped graduate student rooms almost impossible to navigate, but Leonard wasn’t about to give it up over a minor inconvenience.
He had been sitting in that chair when Jim first kissed him, a smirk on his lips and bourbon on his tongue, nearly a year before the incident with the Narada. And Jim had pushed him into that chair, hands heavy and warm on Leonard’s shoulders, three days after their heroic return to Earth so that he could deliver the news that would forever change Leonard’s life--and the future they had tentatively been planning together.
They’re giving me the Enterprise.
That news alone had been heart-wrenching. The sentence that followed was unbelievable: You’re going to be my CMO.
Leonard hadn’t been Starfleet’s first pick for their flagship’s CMO, and he had known that from the start. The position had been thrust upon him in the heat of battle, and though he bore the burden well, it wasn’t ideal. When the dust settled, Starfleet decided that the best thing for Enterprise was a more seasoned officer--and one who had a healthy respect for both Starfleet policies and technology.
Jim wouldn’t have any of it.
“We went through hell and back on our very first mission, Len, and we saved the planet along the way,” he had said heatedly. “I’m not splitting up this crew.”
Jim was sleeping in that chair now, legs propped up on a low table and his chin touching his shoulder, utterly exhausted by his exertions today. Leonard hoped that he hadn’t overdone it, and made sure he had an extra couple of hypos loaded up just in case. If Jim had indeed pushed himself too far, he was in for a world of pain tonight.
Joanna had been dropped off by the sitter late in the afternoon, and Leonard spent a quiet evening alone with her. They watched old vids and read a couple of books, and Jim slumbered on in his corner of the room.
Leonard had tried to do everything too quickly the first time around--marriage, children, a career. He had been brash and arrogant and infatuated, and everything around him glowed with such intensity he thought he might go blind with it all.
But he didn’t go blind so much as he went down in flames, and every corner of his life burned to pieces around him until there was nothing left but ashes.
Ashes, and Joanna.
Leonard could think of two dozen people who were far more deserving of second chances than he, but the fact remained that his little girl was now sitting in his lap, and his best friend was inexplicably in love with him, and they were all living in a void with only a thin cocoon of metal to keep the vacuum at bay. It wasn’t the life Leonard imagined for himself, not by far, but it was the one he had been given.
He wouldn't trade it for anything.
----
Jim woke in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, pain flaring up and down his legs as though they were burning from the inside out.
Bones was already awake, and he was leaning over Jim with a comforting, grounding hand on his chest. His blue sleep shirt was rumpled, and the sleep-mussed hair on the back of his head was sticking straight up. Jim would have laughed if he thought that wouldn’t make the bone-jarring agony in his legs worse than it was. He gasped and grabbed for Bones’ hand.
“I know, darlin’,” Bones murmured. He leaned close as Jim squeezed the blood from his hand, swallowing back the cry that threatened to rip from his throat as another bout of agony hit him. “I know, it hurts. Breathe with me, c’mon.”
Jim latched onto the sound of Bones’ voice, and even through the blood pounding in his ears he was able to make out the exaggerated, audible breaths that Bones was drawing. He struggled to do the same, wheezing his way through several lungfuls of air.
“Deeper than that, Jim, come on,” Bones ordered, and Jim gasped, trying to force down air that wouldn’t come.
He was so focused on his breathing, though, that for a time he didn’t completely register the pain. Bones was still holding his hand, rubbing his thumb in gentle circles over Jim’s wrist, and Jim loosened his grip.
“Thirty minutes,” Bones said quietly, “and then I can give you another dose of painkiller. Think you can handle that, Captain?”
He leaned over Jim, reaching for a glass of water on the bedside table, and braced Jim with an arm around the back of his shoulders so that he could drink from it.
“Of course,” Jim rasped finally, and Bones set the glass aside. He tried to infuse a bit of confidence into the words, but they sounded as uncertain as he felt.
“Ain’t gonna last forever, Jim,” Bones said gruffly, as though he could tell what Jim was thinking. “You just pushed yourself too hard today, that’s all.”
He leaned against the pillows and pulled Jim back against his chest, careful not to jostle his legs in any way. He wrapped an arm around Jim’s chest from behind and rested his cheek against Jim’s hair, and for a while they sat, Jim feeling the rhythm of Bones’ breathing and occupying himself for a time by trying to match it. Eventually, Bones began to talk, quietly relating the various bits of ship’s gossip that reached his ears in the medical bay, which sometimes saw more of the crew pass through its doors than the bridge and engineering did.
“... and that’s when Lieutenant Bishop decided that she’d had enough and, get this -”
Bones was very rarely quiet, and he never spoke so much as he growled, barked, and snapped. His words were always efficient. He usually had neither the time nor the patience for taking care with his words, and never saw the point in cushioning whatever he had to say with useless filler. There was no point in taking the time to say something in thirty words when ten would suffice.
But Bones had two great loves in this life: his daughter and his patients. Jim had never seen him be quite so gentle as when he was tending to one of them, and he took all the time and care in the world while he did it. And, in his most private moments, Jim liked to think that perhaps Bones had a third love.
It certainly felt that way now, as Bones prattled on about this and that, the words themselves meaningless but the gesture filled with an unspoken love. He was distracting Jim the only way he knew how, keeping his mind off the pain in the only way available to him when artificial means failed. And then, what felt like only minutes later, he was gently pressing a hypospray against the side of Jim’s neck.
“How’s that?” Bones asked after a moment. Jim felt an odd warmth spread through his veins, which he was used to by now, and then a dull numbness in his legs, which he was not.
“Better,” he said quietly, because even though the sensation was disconcerting, the pain had faded almost instantly.
Sleep was now tugging insistently at his mind, the way it always did after a shot of the heavy-duty painkiller. Jim knew he was going to be unconscious for at least the next six hours, and less than lucid for a while after that. Bones adjusted Jim so that he was on his side as the painkiller began to take effect, the way he preferred to sleep, and then settled down behind him. He wrapped an arm loosely around Jim’s waist and said nothing further.
And sometimes, Jim thought sleepily, Bones’ silences were just as much a testament as were his words.
Jim woke again towards morning, but this time it was because Joanna had joined them. She had curled up on Jim’s side of the bed, stuffed animal in hand, her round eyes watching him dutifully.
“Joanna,” Jim whispered sluggishly. It couldn’t have possibly been six hours yet. Bones was still sleeping heavily against his back, a puff of breath from his lips brushing Jim’s ear on every exhale. He never slept more than four or five hours at a time, and from his breathing it sounded as though he was completely under at the moment. “What’re you doin’ here, little one?”
His words were slow, but he managed them.
“Do you live here now?” Joanna asked, continuing to watch him carefully.
“Jus’ for a bit,” Jim whispered. He smoothed her hair away from her face. She pursed her lips.
“You should stay,” she decided finally with a tiny, resolute nod.
“S’not that simple, Jo-jo,” Jim said quietly.
“Why not?”
“It’s -” Jim broke off, struggling for words that wouldn’t form properly on his tongue. It’s breaking about half a dozen taboos, if nothing else. A starship captain sleeping with his subordinate just isn’t done. But he didn’t know how to explain that to a six-year-old. And maybe it was the medication that was making his concerns seem very remote at the moment, but the excuse he and Bones had been clinging to since Jim’s captaincy now seemed only flimsy at best.
“You’re supposed to live together when you’re in love,” Joanna said stubbornly. “That’s what Miss Mary says.”
Lieutenant Harriman was Joanna’s usual minder, as she always worked opposite shifts from Bones and because Joanna had taken an immense liking to her from the start.
“I - yeah, I suppose that’s right,” Jim stammered, at a loss for a proper response that would move them off this subject. For a moment, he wished Bones was awake. He was much more adept at dealing with these types of questions, and he knew how to deflect when he didn’t want Joanna probing further into something.
Joanna still looked dissatisfied--and, now, also a bit wary.
“Do you love Daddy?” she pressed. Her lips had thinned and her eyes were wide; she looked as though the question had never occurred to her before; as though she had never had any reason for it to be in doubt.
“Yeah,” Jim croaked weakly.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he told her, stronger this time. “Yes, sweetheart, I am. I love your daddy.”
Thank God Bones wasn’t awake to hear him, Jim thought dully. He’d probably die at the gross amount of sentiment that just spilled from Jim’s lips.
Joanna considered him for a long moment.
“Okay,” she said finally with a small nod. “Then you can stay here.”
Bones’ arm twitched against Jim’s side. He froze, but Bones made no further movements.
“I’ll have to talk to your daddy about it,” he said finally, hoping this would mollify Joanna. “Okay, Jo-jo?”
She nodded vigorously, looking pleased, and kissed him on the cheek before sliding off the bed. And before Jim had a chance to elbow Bones awake so he could see her back to bed, she was gone.
Jim let out a slow breath. And then, realizing that the breathing against the shell of his ear had changed, he felt his heart sink down to his feet.
Shit.
“I know you’re awake,” Jim managed finally. After a moment, Bones’ arm withdrew from around his waist, and he rested a hand on Jim’s hip. Jim rolled onto his back and turned to look at him.
“I miss when things were that simple,” Bones said finally, quietly. Jim felt his heart clench. They had spoken of marriage before, but that was ages ago; a lifetime. All their plans had to be abandoned in favor of Jim’s captaincy.
“You know, I think it’s precisely that simple, Bones,” Jim said quietly. “We’re the ones who make it seem difficult and impossible.”
Bones glanced at him.
“What are you saying?” he asked quietly.
Jim bit down on the inside of his cheek, because he honestly didn’t know. He had just this afternoon outed them to his first officer, when over a year ago they had decided that it was best to keep their affair as discreet as possible for the time being. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking this afternoon, and still wasn’t sure -
- Except, yes, he was. He knew exactly what he’d been thinking.
He’d chosen the captaincy over his Bones, over the man who refused to leave him behind; over the man who had gone as far as smuggling him aboard a starship so they wouldn’t be separated. He had to always be on his guard around the crew, to be careful not to mention Bones in too familiar a manner to the rest of his senior staff. He couldn’t publicly share in Bones’ delight over Joanna as she grew up before their very eyes, and the best part of his life was starting to feel like a dirty secret.
He loved and was loved in return, by his best friend no less, and wasn’t it time they did something about that?
To hell with the regulations. He knew exactly what he’d been thinking.
“Marry me,” Jim whispered, the words foreign to his ears but perfect on his tongue.
“Jim -”
“Marry me,” Jim repeated, his voice stronger. “Take me as your husband. Let me raise your daughter with you. Marry me, Bones.”
Bones’ lips parted, but words failed him for a moment.
“I ain’t any good at this, Jim, and I’ve got a divorce under my belt to prove it,” he said finally.
“You’re wonderful at this, Bones, and you’ve got a gorgeous little girl to prove it,” Jim countered.
“Jim.” It was a plea. Do you have any idea what you’re saying?
“Marry me.”
“You’re delusional,” Bones said calmly. “You’re not thinking right because of the medication. You know they’ll give us hell for this.”
“Bones, I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life. And I’ve still got a few friends left in the admiralty. Marry me.”
Bones smoothed the hair off of Jim’s forehead. It had grown out in recent weeks. He was long overdue for a haircut, and had been for a while, but Bones loved it like this.
“Ask me in the morning,” he said quietly.
“Bones -”
“In the morning,” Bones said firmly. “If you’re sure--if you’re absolutely sure--then ask me again in the morning. I don’t want this to be the medicine talking or something. Ask me in the morning.” He took a wavering breath and added, quietly, “And I’ll say yes.”
“Len.”
Bones pressed a finger to Jim’s lips, gently.
“Ask me again in the morning,” he whispered.
And Jim did.