Fic Que Sera Sera (3/15)
Fandom: TOS/TNG/ST XI -slight AU where there isn’t a 16 year gap between the events of Generations and Star Trek 2009.
Beta: The wonderful triskellion. Any remaining mistakes are all mine
Pairings: Kirk Prime/McCoy Prime/Spock Prime, Kirk/Spock/McCoy, Scotty/Uhura
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: minor character death
Summary: Spock Prime went to save Romulus from a supernova and failed, leaving him in a universe that is similar and still so different from his own. Meanwhile in another part of the galaxy Kirk Prime was freed from the Nexus by Captain Picard and survived. Not believing that Spock Prime is dead Kirk Prime goes in search of him, and travels to the universe created when Nero went through the black hole. In that universe Kirk and Spock are starting on their five year mission, determined to write their own destinies after their encounters with Spock Prime. Unlike them McCoy doesn’t trust destiny as far as he can throw it, and he has his own problems to deal with, like getting custody of the three year old daughter he didn’t know he had.
Que Sera Sera
Jim woke up in sickbay. He knew that was where he was, even as he opened his eyes and didn’t know what any of the displays around him did or meant; the smell of antiseptic hadn’t changed in eighty years.
He tried to sit up as a woman came over to him.
“I’m Doctor Beverly Crusher, Captain Kirk. You’ve been treated for secondary burns, a broken ankle, smoke inhalation, and several cuts and abrasions. You are a very lucky man.”
“Where am I?”
“You’re aboard my ship, Captain, the Enterprise D,” Picard said, coming up to the bed. “We brought you here to finish your recovery to avoid any…unwanted attention.”
Jim quickly sat up properly and grabbed Picard’s shoulder.
”Your family, are they all right?”
Picard nodded. “They are recovering, thank you.”
Doctor Crusher began running a tricorder over him, taking new readings.
“You should remain still and rest, Captain Kirk, you’ve been through quite the ordeal. From what Jean-Luc has told me when he tried to explain how he was on Earth with a man presumed dead for over seventy years, when his ship was half-way across the quadrant.”
Crusher looked over to Picard. “You’re going to be spending a long time explaining this to temporal investigations, especially because their most infamous violator is involved.”
Picard sighed. “Thank you, Beverly, I’m well aware of that. Perhaps you could keep your patient healthy so he can give his testimony properly when they get here.”
“I’ll try, but I’ve been informed that you can be a difficult patient. Would it be worth it to ask you to remain in here and rest?”
Jim couldn’t hold back a smile.
“Now how could I ignore the request of such a lovely woman? I must say you’re a lot nicer about it than the last time person I dealt with when I was in a sickbay.”
“Well, if you weren’t such a complete idiot about your health, Jim, I wouldn’t have had to be so hard on you.”
Jim gasped and whipped his head around towards that voice.
It was incredible, impossible even, but across the room McCoy was standing there. He had his arms folded across his chest, smiling softly, and looking as though no time had passed at all; if one ignored the different uniform. Why was the uniform different anyway? Who at Starfleet Command had nothing better to do but constantly re-design the damn things!?
Jim shook his head and focused on the man in the uniform. The Nexus had to have done something to his mind, maybe he had never even left it. It couldn’t possibly be that McCoy was still alive, still here, certainly not looking like that. It had to be a clone, or an android, or some relative with a really lucky roll of the genetic dice. It just couldn’t possibly be him.
“You going to stare at me all day, Jim, or act like a man with manners?”
The accent was definitely thicker than he remembered, but the sarcasm was all McCoy.
“Bones?”
“We thought it would be good if you had something-someone familiar with you now,” Crusher said.
Now ignoring Doctor Crusher’s request to remain where he was Jim bolted off the bed. He grabbed for McCoy, pushing them both backwards and causing several items to fall off a table as they stumbled into it. Jim didn’t care as he looked at those perfect blue eyes, brimming with tears just like his, and then kissed McCoy hard. He pressed his lips open so his tongue could probe that long forgotten mouth. And yes he still tasted right. The hair he was running his hand through was just the right thickness. His other hand traced over McCoy’s back, feeling the edges of bone because the man never ate any of his home cooking anymore and…oh god it really was him! He was here, he was alive!
Crusher and Picard gaped at them.
“Apparently we found the right person,” she said.
“Indeed.”
McCoy finally broke the kiss and buried his face in Jim’s neck, his shoulders shaking.
“I love you, Jim. I love you!”
“I love you too, Bones.”
When Jim felt sure that this wasn’t a dream, and McCoy wasn’t going to vanish into nothing he slowly pulled back, keeping his hands on McCoy’s shoulders.
“But, Bones, how can this…you? I mean you should be…”
“144 according to Starfleet records.” He glanced down at the floor. “You know I never liked transporters, Jim, and scattering my atoms all over space finally caught up with me, in a way.”
“With him on active duty at least it gave us an excuse to get him out of those awful flare-bottom pants,” Crusher injected.
McCoy made a half-hearted attempt to glare at her.
“Those pants were popular in my day, Doctor, I’ll have you know.”
Jim looked between them “You know her?” he asked.
McCoy nodded.
“I’m only semi-retired, Jim. I met Doctor Crusher about seven years ago, I over saw medical layout on this ship when they launched her.”
“He was a great help to us, Captain Kirk. The admiral proved invaluable in surgical set-up.”
Jim’s eyes went wide as he realized what the arrangement of gold pips on the collar of McCoy’s uniform signified.
“Admiral McCoy?” he asked with a grin.
McCoy shrugged. “Just because you couldn’t deal with the rank, Jim, doesn’t mean we all can’t.”
Further banter was cut off as the sickbay door slid open and an Ensign rushed in.
“Urgent message for you, Captain.”
“What’s going on?” Picard asked, taking the PADD the boy held out to him.
“Conflicting reports are coming in from Romulan space, sir, about their home planet. We are to head to the neutral zone immediately to begin investigating.”
McCoy’s face went white and Jim gripped his shoulder.
“Bones, what is it?”
“Spock is on Romulus, Jim, attempting reunification.”
Picard looked at him sternly.
“Those files are classified.”
McCoy glared back at him. “Not to an admiral they’re not.”
Jim leaned against McCoy as the news sunk in. The universe did always seem to like doing things like this to him. Letting him have the joy and elation of seeing McCoy alive and healthy, only to find out that the other part of their relationship might still be gone.
“I need a drink,” he said.
Picard looked at Doctor Crusher who practically waved them out of her sickbay. “Go on, I’m never going to get to him stay here and rest now so you might as well leave.”
“I’ll escort you to Ten Forward and have Guinan pull out the non-synthehol options.”
Jim looked at Picard.
“You have a bar on your ship?”
“I do, Captain Kirk.”
“Call me Jim.”
Picard took them to the aforementioned Ten Forward where a woman who introduced herself as Guinan got them their drinks and they sat around a table.
Jim looked at her as he sipped his drink.
“You come from the Nexus,” he said.
Guinan stared at him.
“How do you know that?” she asked.
Jim frowned. “I don’t know.”
“Well, you are right I was there once, and it was like being inside pure joy.”
Jim grimaced as he remembered all the time he had wasted there, with nothing.
“Not for me it wasn’t.”
“What happened in there, Jim?” McCoy asked.
“It…it was like being on Amerind. I had no responsibilities, no cares.”
“Tahiti syndrome,” McCoy remarked, and downed his Altair water.
“I was at my old cabin back when I was going tell you and Spock that I wanted to go back to Starfleet, to accept our new mission after V’Ger. Only I was with woman…Antonia.”
McCoy frowned at the name trying to remember who that was. “Antonia?”
Jim shrugged. “I don’t know who she is either. I told Picard that I knew, but looking at things properly now I know I didn’t. It was like a patchwork of my life was built in there, and it certainly wasn’t joy that I felt there just…contentment, peace maybe.”
“You are human and I’m an El-Aurian perhaps it’s different for different species. Picard said he was able to see through the illusion of the Nexus, and I did not until I was pulled out of it. Yet it seems we are the two of us, you and me, connected by the Nexus. It was the Enterprise B that rescued me from the Nexus all those years ago,” Guinan told Jim.
“Really?”
“Yes, in a strange way it seems time has pulled right here, together again.”
Jim finished his drink and twisted the glass in his hands. “Spock, once described it as time being fluid like a river, with eddies, currents, backwash. Maybe the currents of time worked to carry us to this specific point.”
Further analysis stopped as a pale figured entered the bar and came up to their table. Jim stared at him, but McCoy held out one hand.
“Commander Data, we meet again.”
“Admiral McCoy, Captain Kirk, since you will be with us longer than we thought in light of the emergency Captain Picard has asked me to assign you both guest quarters.”
“Separate quarters won’t be necessary,” Jim said, as he ran his thumb over McCoy’s hand.
“I see, well then if you’ll both follow me.”
They thanked Guinan and followed Data out of Ten Forward. As they walked down the hallways Jim couldn’t help but stare at the man.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but what are you?”
“I am an android.”
“An android officer?”
“Yes, I have moved through the ranks appropriately.”
“Well, then, Commander, can you tell us anymore about the incident going on with Romulus?”
“That information is reserved for active personnel only. But I understand why you want to know, Captain Kirk. Ambassador Spock was your former crewmember and your friend.”
“He is all that and more,” Jim said.
“Captain Kirk, I would like you to know that I hope would do find him well on Romulus. I had the chance to meet him before when he went there undercover to begin his solo mission on reunification. The ambassador was a…fascinating man.”
Data couldn’t have known that those were the worst words he could have used to describe what Spock was doing on Romulus.
Jim‘s eyes darkened as they reached their assigned quarters and McCoy tensed. He knew that signalled the fury that was coming.
McCoy didn’t have to wait long as the door had barely closed behind them when Jim exploded.
“He went there undercover, and alone?!”
“Jim, he was the diplomat not me.”
“Don’t make excuses, Bones!”
“I’m not, Captain! I’m trying to explain what happened and I will pull rank if I have to, these pips are not just for show!”
Jim huffed and clenched his hands at his sides.
“Explain it to me then.”
“Jim, you have to understand it isn’t like it was when we were dealing with the Klingons. Spock is a full ambassador now. He has the ability to bend the rules in many ways, but even he knew going to Romulus with a full delegation wasn’t possible. After that fiasco with the Klingon peace conference that thick-headed Vulcan won’t risk anyone but himself.”
“Why didn’t you go with him anyway?”
“I wanted to. I tried to. I realized it wasn’t right to separate again no matter the risks. I went after him the very day he left. I stepped onto a transporter pad at Spacedock, and the next thing I knew I was waking up in a hospital room with half my lifespan missing.”
“That’s how you got like this?”
McCoy nodded.
“You didn’t try again after that? Hell you shouldn’t have even had to, Spock should have come back for you.”
McCoy shook his head and walked over to the window. Staring out at the stars he let his mind drift back.
“Jim, you don’t understand. That accident happened three years ago. Two of those years I spent in ‘atom limbo’. Over this last year I’ve tried to contact him, but the Romulans haven’t changed since our day, Jim. If anything they’ve gotten worse. Starfleet won’t let me go for fear of blowing his cover, and yet they won’t give him any support at all, and he still thinks I’m…”
“At the time of the accident Spock would have been told-oh, Bones.”
“He doesn’t know I’m alive and I can’t change that!” McCoy pounded his fist against the window. “It’s not supposed to be like this. I’m the oldest of us goddamn it. You two were supposed to bury me! I wasn’t supposed to be alone! I wasn’t supposed to go through this again!”
Jim came over and pulled McCoy close to him.
“Bones, I’m so sorry.”
McCoy buried his face in Jim’s shoulder. He thought back to the last time he and Spock had been together. It hadn’t been anything special, but after Spock told him he was leaving McCoy had wanted something to hold on to. They had spent the day together at the apartment. The sun sinking low as they lay on the couch together. As the music of Johnny Mathis’ ‘Wonderful, Wonderful’ played in the background, and they savoured their love, knowing that their time was growing short. McCoy was glad they had done that. It had made the time without Spock easier to bear.
“I should be used to this by now, but I’m not. Jim, when you disappeared on the Enterprise B we were devastated. After the funeral I actually handcuffed Spock and I together for three days straight, because I was terrified that he would run off to Gol again and I’d be left alone.”
Jim felt like a large rock had settled in his stomach.
“You really had a funeral for me?”
“You were Starfleet’s golden boy, Jim, they went all out for it. You even have a tombstone. Spock and I went to visit it sometimes, but it never seemed right. Never felt like we were ever connecting with you. Only when we were in the stars was it right. It’s nice to know that it wasn’t all just a bunch of wishful thinking on our parts. Still, we made it through, and we’ve had some really good years since then; but the knowledge was always there that one of us would eventually be alone. Vulcan lifespans being what they are the odds weren’t in my favour. I did my best to make my life last as long as it could. But to be the only one of us left now. Oh, Jim, we both know how Spock handles loss. He’d throw himself into his work, close himself off from our friends in that Vulcan way that he does.”
Jim knew it was true and would have said so, but something else McCoy said caught his attention. He brushed one hand along McCoy’s face tilting his chin so he could look at him properly.
“Our friends? Then are-are they all still…alive?”
“Yes, Jim, they are.”
“Then, then what have they been doing? What have you been doing? Tell me everything, Bones, tell me everything. What happened to our crew, and what about Joanna? Did she ever get married? Does she have children? What about Peter and Savvik and did you ever finish that book?!“
“Whoa slow down, Jim!” McCoy exclaimed. “You’re still supposed to be resting. Look let’s go lie down and I’ll tell whatever you want to know. ”
Jim agreed without compliant and tugged McCoy into the bedroom. McCoy stretched out on the bed, his hand intertwined with Jim’s, and he let his mind pulled fond memories forward.
“Joanna got married. Two years after your disappearance. She really was my daughter that way. The people she married were her captain and her first officer.”
Jim sat up, his eyes wide. “You’re serious?”
McCoy nodded. “As if that wasn’t humiliating enough her captain is a Vulcan. She was happy though, so I learned to deal with it. They had children, six all together, and every summer the old McCoy homestead had little pointed ear hobgoblins picking peaches out of the trees. Telling me it wasn’t logical to make mint juleps in the bathroom. They adored Spock though, and he was wonderful with them.”
McCoy pulled their hands up from the bed. He leaned forward and kissed Jim’s hand softly for some time before continuing.
“Peter passed away some years ago now, but not without leaving a library’s worth of research behind him. Chekov and Sulu stayed in the service until Starfleet quite literally threw them out. Uhura and Scotty…well that is a bit complicated, but right now those two are more in love then I’ve ever seen them. ”
Jim smiled, and was content listening to the southern drawl of McCoy’s voice as he relieved fond memories; slowly Jim let himself sink down under the covers and fall asleep.
Chapter 4
Beta: The wonderful triskellion. Any remaining mistakes are all mine
Pairings: Kirk Prime/McCoy Prime/Spock Prime, Kirk/Spock/McCoy, Scotty/Uhura
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: minor character death
Summary: Spock Prime went to save Romulus from a supernova and failed, leaving him in a universe that is similar and still so different from his own. Meanwhile in another part of the galaxy Kirk Prime was freed from the Nexus by Captain Picard and survived. Not believing that Spock Prime is dead Kirk Prime goes in search of him, and travels to the universe created when Nero went through the black hole. In that universe Kirk and Spock are starting on their five year mission, determined to write their own destinies after their encounters with Spock Prime. Unlike them McCoy doesn’t trust destiny as far as he can throw it, and he has his own problems to deal with, like getting custody of the three year old daughter he didn’t know he had.
Que Sera Sera
Jim woke up in sickbay. He knew that was where he was, even as he opened his eyes and didn’t know what any of the displays around him did or meant; the smell of antiseptic hadn’t changed in eighty years.
He tried to sit up as a woman came over to him.
“I’m Doctor Beverly Crusher, Captain Kirk. You’ve been treated for secondary burns, a broken ankle, smoke inhalation, and several cuts and abrasions. You are a very lucky man.”
“Where am I?”
“You’re aboard my ship, Captain, the Enterprise D,” Picard said, coming up to the bed. “We brought you here to finish your recovery to avoid any…unwanted attention.”
Jim quickly sat up properly and grabbed Picard’s shoulder.
”Your family, are they all right?”
Picard nodded. “They are recovering, thank you.”
Doctor Crusher began running a tricorder over him, taking new readings.
“You should remain still and rest, Captain Kirk, you’ve been through quite the ordeal. From what Jean-Luc has told me when he tried to explain how he was on Earth with a man presumed dead for over seventy years, when his ship was half-way across the quadrant.”
Crusher looked over to Picard. “You’re going to be spending a long time explaining this to temporal investigations, especially because their most infamous violator is involved.”
Picard sighed. “Thank you, Beverly, I’m well aware of that. Perhaps you could keep your patient healthy so he can give his testimony properly when they get here.”
“I’ll try, but I’ve been informed that you can be a difficult patient. Would it be worth it to ask you to remain in here and rest?”
Jim couldn’t hold back a smile.
“Now how could I ignore the request of such a lovely woman? I must say you’re a lot nicer about it than the last time person I dealt with when I was in a sickbay.”
“Well, if you weren’t such a complete idiot about your health, Jim, I wouldn’t have had to be so hard on you.”
Jim gasped and whipped his head around towards that voice.
It was incredible, impossible even, but across the room McCoy was standing there. He had his arms folded across his chest, smiling softly, and looking as though no time had passed at all; if one ignored the different uniform. Why was the uniform different anyway? Who at Starfleet Command had nothing better to do but constantly re-design the damn things!?
Jim shook his head and focused on the man in the uniform. The Nexus had to have done something to his mind, maybe he had never even left it. It couldn’t possibly be that McCoy was still alive, still here, certainly not looking like that. It had to be a clone, or an android, or some relative with a really lucky roll of the genetic dice. It just couldn’t possibly be him.
“You going to stare at me all day, Jim, or act like a man with manners?”
The accent was definitely thicker than he remembered, but the sarcasm was all McCoy.
“Bones?”
“We thought it would be good if you had something-someone familiar with you now,” Crusher said.
Now ignoring Doctor Crusher’s request to remain where he was Jim bolted off the bed. He grabbed for McCoy, pushing them both backwards and causing several items to fall off a table as they stumbled into it. Jim didn’t care as he looked at those perfect blue eyes, brimming with tears just like his, and then kissed McCoy hard. He pressed his lips open so his tongue could probe that long forgotten mouth. And yes he still tasted right. The hair he was running his hand through was just the right thickness. His other hand traced over McCoy’s back, feeling the edges of bone because the man never ate any of his home cooking anymore and…oh god it really was him! He was here, he was alive!
Crusher and Picard gaped at them.
“Apparently we found the right person,” she said.
“Indeed.”
McCoy finally broke the kiss and buried his face in Jim’s neck, his shoulders shaking.
“I love you, Jim. I love you!”
“I love you too, Bones.”
When Jim felt sure that this wasn’t a dream, and McCoy wasn’t going to vanish into nothing he slowly pulled back, keeping his hands on McCoy’s shoulders.
“But, Bones, how can this…you? I mean you should be…”
“144 according to Starfleet records.” He glanced down at the floor. “You know I never liked transporters, Jim, and scattering my atoms all over space finally caught up with me, in a way.”
“With him on active duty at least it gave us an excuse to get him out of those awful flare-bottom pants,” Crusher injected.
McCoy made a half-hearted attempt to glare at her.
“Those pants were popular in my day, Doctor, I’ll have you know.”
Jim looked between them “You know her?” he asked.
McCoy nodded.
“I’m only semi-retired, Jim. I met Doctor Crusher about seven years ago, I over saw medical layout on this ship when they launched her.”
“He was a great help to us, Captain Kirk. The admiral proved invaluable in surgical set-up.”
Jim’s eyes went wide as he realized what the arrangement of gold pips on the collar of McCoy’s uniform signified.
“Admiral McCoy?” he asked with a grin.
McCoy shrugged. “Just because you couldn’t deal with the rank, Jim, doesn’t mean we all can’t.”
Further banter was cut off as the sickbay door slid open and an Ensign rushed in.
“Urgent message for you, Captain.”
“What’s going on?” Picard asked, taking the PADD the boy held out to him.
“Conflicting reports are coming in from Romulan space, sir, about their home planet. We are to head to the neutral zone immediately to begin investigating.”
McCoy’s face went white and Jim gripped his shoulder.
“Bones, what is it?”
“Spock is on Romulus, Jim, attempting reunification.”
Picard looked at him sternly.
“Those files are classified.”
McCoy glared back at him. “Not to an admiral they’re not.”
Jim leaned against McCoy as the news sunk in. The universe did always seem to like doing things like this to him. Letting him have the joy and elation of seeing McCoy alive and healthy, only to find out that the other part of their relationship might still be gone.
“I need a drink,” he said.
Picard looked at Doctor Crusher who practically waved them out of her sickbay. “Go on, I’m never going to get to him stay here and rest now so you might as well leave.”
“I’ll escort you to Ten Forward and have Guinan pull out the non-synthehol options.”
Jim looked at Picard.
“You have a bar on your ship?”
“I do, Captain Kirk.”
“Call me Jim.”
Picard took them to the aforementioned Ten Forward where a woman who introduced herself as Guinan got them their drinks and they sat around a table.
Jim looked at her as he sipped his drink.
“You come from the Nexus,” he said.
Guinan stared at him.
“How do you know that?” she asked.
Jim frowned. “I don’t know.”
“Well, you are right I was there once, and it was like being inside pure joy.”
Jim grimaced as he remembered all the time he had wasted there, with nothing.
“Not for me it wasn’t.”
“What happened in there, Jim?” McCoy asked.
“It…it was like being on Amerind. I had no responsibilities, no cares.”
“Tahiti syndrome,” McCoy remarked, and downed his Altair water.
“I was at my old cabin back when I was going tell you and Spock that I wanted to go back to Starfleet, to accept our new mission after V’Ger. Only I was with woman…Antonia.”
McCoy frowned at the name trying to remember who that was. “Antonia?”
Jim shrugged. “I don’t know who she is either. I told Picard that I knew, but looking at things properly now I know I didn’t. It was like a patchwork of my life was built in there, and it certainly wasn’t joy that I felt there just…contentment, peace maybe.”
“You are human and I’m an El-Aurian perhaps it’s different for different species. Picard said he was able to see through the illusion of the Nexus, and I did not until I was pulled out of it. Yet it seems we are the two of us, you and me, connected by the Nexus. It was the Enterprise B that rescued me from the Nexus all those years ago,” Guinan told Jim.
“Really?”
“Yes, in a strange way it seems time has pulled right here, together again.”
Jim finished his drink and twisted the glass in his hands. “Spock, once described it as time being fluid like a river, with eddies, currents, backwash. Maybe the currents of time worked to carry us to this specific point.”
Further analysis stopped as a pale figured entered the bar and came up to their table. Jim stared at him, but McCoy held out one hand.
“Commander Data, we meet again.”
“Admiral McCoy, Captain Kirk, since you will be with us longer than we thought in light of the emergency Captain Picard has asked me to assign you both guest quarters.”
“Separate quarters won’t be necessary,” Jim said, as he ran his thumb over McCoy’s hand.
“I see, well then if you’ll both follow me.”
They thanked Guinan and followed Data out of Ten Forward. As they walked down the hallways Jim couldn’t help but stare at the man.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but what are you?”
“I am an android.”
“An android officer?”
“Yes, I have moved through the ranks appropriately.”
“Well, then, Commander, can you tell us anymore about the incident going on with Romulus?”
“That information is reserved for active personnel only. But I understand why you want to know, Captain Kirk. Ambassador Spock was your former crewmember and your friend.”
“He is all that and more,” Jim said.
“Captain Kirk, I would like you to know that I hope would do find him well on Romulus. I had the chance to meet him before when he went there undercover to begin his solo mission on reunification. The ambassador was a…fascinating man.”
Data couldn’t have known that those were the worst words he could have used to describe what Spock was doing on Romulus.
Jim‘s eyes darkened as they reached their assigned quarters and McCoy tensed. He knew that signalled the fury that was coming.
McCoy didn’t have to wait long as the door had barely closed behind them when Jim exploded.
“He went there undercover, and alone?!”
“Jim, he was the diplomat not me.”
“Don’t make excuses, Bones!”
“I’m not, Captain! I’m trying to explain what happened and I will pull rank if I have to, these pips are not just for show!”
Jim huffed and clenched his hands at his sides.
“Explain it to me then.”
“Jim, you have to understand it isn’t like it was when we were dealing with the Klingons. Spock is a full ambassador now. He has the ability to bend the rules in many ways, but even he knew going to Romulus with a full delegation wasn’t possible. After that fiasco with the Klingon peace conference that thick-headed Vulcan won’t risk anyone but himself.”
“Why didn’t you go with him anyway?”
“I wanted to. I tried to. I realized it wasn’t right to separate again no matter the risks. I went after him the very day he left. I stepped onto a transporter pad at Spacedock, and the next thing I knew I was waking up in a hospital room with half my lifespan missing.”
“That’s how you got like this?”
McCoy nodded.
“You didn’t try again after that? Hell you shouldn’t have even had to, Spock should have come back for you.”
McCoy shook his head and walked over to the window. Staring out at the stars he let his mind drift back.
“Jim, you don’t understand. That accident happened three years ago. Two of those years I spent in ‘atom limbo’. Over this last year I’ve tried to contact him, but the Romulans haven’t changed since our day, Jim. If anything they’ve gotten worse. Starfleet won’t let me go for fear of blowing his cover, and yet they won’t give him any support at all, and he still thinks I’m…”
“At the time of the accident Spock would have been told-oh, Bones.”
“He doesn’t know I’m alive and I can’t change that!” McCoy pounded his fist against the window. “It’s not supposed to be like this. I’m the oldest of us goddamn it. You two were supposed to bury me! I wasn’t supposed to be alone! I wasn’t supposed to go through this again!”
Jim came over and pulled McCoy close to him.
“Bones, I’m so sorry.”
McCoy buried his face in Jim’s shoulder. He thought back to the last time he and Spock had been together. It hadn’t been anything special, but after Spock told him he was leaving McCoy had wanted something to hold on to. They had spent the day together at the apartment. The sun sinking low as they lay on the couch together. As the music of Johnny Mathis’ ‘Wonderful, Wonderful’ played in the background, and they savoured their love, knowing that their time was growing short. McCoy was glad they had done that. It had made the time without Spock easier to bear.
“I should be used to this by now, but I’m not. Jim, when you disappeared on the Enterprise B we were devastated. After the funeral I actually handcuffed Spock and I together for three days straight, because I was terrified that he would run off to Gol again and I’d be left alone.”
Jim felt like a large rock had settled in his stomach.
“You really had a funeral for me?”
“You were Starfleet’s golden boy, Jim, they went all out for it. You even have a tombstone. Spock and I went to visit it sometimes, but it never seemed right. Never felt like we were ever connecting with you. Only when we were in the stars was it right. It’s nice to know that it wasn’t all just a bunch of wishful thinking on our parts. Still, we made it through, and we’ve had some really good years since then; but the knowledge was always there that one of us would eventually be alone. Vulcan lifespans being what they are the odds weren’t in my favour. I did my best to make my life last as long as it could. But to be the only one of us left now. Oh, Jim, we both know how Spock handles loss. He’d throw himself into his work, close himself off from our friends in that Vulcan way that he does.”
Jim knew it was true and would have said so, but something else McCoy said caught his attention. He brushed one hand along McCoy’s face tilting his chin so he could look at him properly.
“Our friends? Then are-are they all still…alive?”
“Yes, Jim, they are.”
“Then, then what have they been doing? What have you been doing? Tell me everything, Bones, tell me everything. What happened to our crew, and what about Joanna? Did she ever get married? Does she have children? What about Peter and Savvik and did you ever finish that book?!“
“Whoa slow down, Jim!” McCoy exclaimed. “You’re still supposed to be resting. Look let’s go lie down and I’ll tell whatever you want to know. ”
Jim agreed without compliant and tugged McCoy into the bedroom. McCoy stretched out on the bed, his hand intertwined with Jim’s, and he let his mind pulled fond memories forward.
“Joanna got married. Two years after your disappearance. She really was my daughter that way. The people she married were her captain and her first officer.”
Jim sat up, his eyes wide. “You’re serious?”
McCoy nodded. “As if that wasn’t humiliating enough her captain is a Vulcan. She was happy though, so I learned to deal with it. They had children, six all together, and every summer the old McCoy homestead had little pointed ear hobgoblins picking peaches out of the trees. Telling me it wasn’t logical to make mint juleps in the bathroom. They adored Spock though, and he was wonderful with them.”
McCoy pulled their hands up from the bed. He leaned forward and kissed Jim’s hand softly for some time before continuing.
“Peter passed away some years ago now, but not without leaving a library’s worth of research behind him. Chekov and Sulu stayed in the service until Starfleet quite literally threw them out. Uhura and Scotty…well that is a bit complicated, but right now those two are more in love then I’ve ever seen them. ”
Jim smiled, and was content listening to the southern drawl of McCoy’s voice as he relieved fond memories; slowly Jim let himself sink down under the covers and fall asleep.
Chapter 4