[ST] What Remains 6/6
Ever After
Space was big. Really, really, big.
It was full of infinite possibilities and beautiful worlds that he had once yearned to explore. It had never felt empty before. Now, Jim felt lost among it all, like he might slip away at any moment.
Earth was saved. Hopefully this time for good, or at least long enough that he wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. The Federation was in good hands and more importantly it was no longer his fight. It couldn’t be his fight anymore.
Instead he was left with a vast emptiness of space and a hodge podge family that he had collected over the years. A family that he had fought alongside, prepared to give everything, to make sure that they had a future.
Sulu was at the helm with Riley at navigator seat to his right. Joanna had taken a spot at the science station with Grayson in her lap, leaving Spock to stand at the tactical station just until they were in the clear. And finally, Nyota had taken her rightful place at the communications station.
It was barely even a skeleton bridge crew, but these were some of the finest people he could have asked for. He didn’t even care if they weren’t plain and simple people - they were his. It was almost enough to make all that empty darkness feel like a smaller infinity. Almost, except for the empty spot just behind the captain’s chair.
No, that was a void he didn’t think he would ever be able to fill. He had saved everything except for the one thing that apparently mattered just a little bit more than all others.
“Jim, we just cleared Federation space.”
He spun around toward the science station, flashing Joanna a bright smile. She was a tough girl - probably the toughest he knew. And she was doing a lot better than he was.
“Excellent,” he said trying to keep his voice light. This was supposed to be a good thing. Jim twirled in his chair back toward the others on the bridge. “So, where do we want to go? We’ve got plenty of galaxy to explore.”
Spock glanced back toward him, a slight arch in his right brow. “I believe I have just the place in mind.”
“Then she’s at your command, Spock.”
“Very well, Captain.”
Jim froze. Even if it was a courtesy because he was in charge of the ship and habit because of programming they all still had - he wasn’t sure he wanted the title. It held too many strange ties within him and maybe he would be better without it. All he wanted was a ship and a star by which to steer her.
“Jim is fine,” he said “That goes for all of you, no titles on this ship. We’re not Federation men and women anymore and this isn’t a Federation ship.”
It would be better that way. Starfleet had taken so much from him. They took his family, took his memories, messed with his mind and then took something he didn’t know he needed until it was gone.
McCoy was gone.
His heart seemed to beat only in that rhythm, like the rest of his life would be marked with that absence. Jim used to be good being on his own. He would have to learn again because he couldn’t spend the rest of his life mourning.
“If you guys have this under control, I’m going to go hit the rack. I think I could sleep for a week.”
No one objected. He didn’t expect them too. They all understood. Jim Kirk might have saved the world, but it didn’t feel much like a victory.
Once off the bridge, he let the façade drop a little. He didn’t have to put on a show anymore, he could just be. It was odd to walk these corridors without dozens of other people running about, stranger still to not have some great mission to take on.
Maybe Bones was right.
Ahead of him, the doors to the lift opened. “Scotty! Chapel!” He said, that cheer easy to call upon because even hurting, he was still Jim Kirk. All he had to do was slip someone else on. “You going to join the party on the bridge?”
The pair hung onto each other, laughing, happy. And wasn’t that a sight to be seen. Happiness had certainly been a long time coming.
“Aye, Captain, that’s’ where we were headed, just had to take care of one wee little thing with the crew quarters first.”
Chapel pulled on Scotty’s arm, tugging him down the corridor. Judging by the look on Scotty’s face and Chapel’s blush it was either sex or something else - although it could very well be both. So, really it was better not to ask. If it was something he was meant to find, he would come across it soon enough.
For now he was content to be alone again. Well, as alone as he could be with the dozens of people buzzing around his head.
Reaching out he ran his fingertips along the walls of Enterprise, remembering each story these panels held. She had always been a good ship. Even if nothing else was real, she had been real. Enterprise had carried some version of him and Bones before and she would never forget. More importantly, Enterprise was home. Jim Kirk, the construct, the man, the freak show, had found a home here - as much as he could ever find one.
He took the lift to go to the officers’ quarters, humming a song in his head to fill the silence. It was harder than he expected to walk down to his old quarters. There was just so much that happened behind those doors. So many different memories caught in that room.
Romeo had come into life in that room. Or rather Jim Kirk had become more than the sum of his parts. He had felt alive for the first time.
He kissed Bones for the first time in there. There were limbs and sticky sheets, bony knees and clashing angry mouths. But there was also laughter bright and unguarded. Maybe it was programming, something someone created, but that didn’t make any of it any less real. It didn’t take away the hurt he felt knowing that none of that could ever happen again.
Still, he loved Leonard McCoy with everything he had. And he knew that he was loved in return.
Maybe he should have sealed the room and found someplace else. It would have been easier, to not have to face any more ghosts, but it would also make forfeit so many good times. If all he had of Bones was this room and the memories it held, then he wasn’t going to let it go. He would hold onto it, no matter how much it hurt because at least that was something.
Taking a deep breath in, he keyed open the door and stepped inside.
It was exactly how he left it.
Well, it was nearly how he left it. On his monitor was a flashing message - a data packet - labeled as ‘Bones.’ Jim swallowed hard. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to walk down this path, to see what was in that packet because what if it undid everything else?
But he was Jim Kirk and backing down was never an option.
He took a seat at the station and with as steady a hand as he could manage, he clicked open the packet. The whole ship seemed to lurch, lights flickering, systems whirling far down in engineering as it processed the massive data packet.
Then something wonderful, but strange happened.
In front of him a 6’1”, broad shouldered man with cute hair and a permanent scowl on his face materialized.
Jim lost all of his words.
“God damn, son of a bitch, what the hell is this shit…”
Finally, Jim remembered one word. The most important word he could think of. “Bones?”
McCoy turned around to see Jim, unmoving in his chair, but in a familiar setting. A smile broke over his face. Jim was on board Enterprise. It meant they did it.
“Jim,” he responded.
After a minute lost standing there, Jim leaped from the chair to wrap his arms around Bones and tell him all the things he never thought he would be able to. Except his arms went right through him. McCoy was nothing more than a holographic image.
Jim’s entire face dropped as he fell back down into the chair. “Bones, what did you do?” This time when he asked that question, it was filled with nothing but heartache. There was no place for anger anymore.
He wasn’t the only one surprised, but unlike Jim, McCoy had prepared for this possible outcome. He might not have liked it, but it was the ultimate failsafe just like he said it would be. He had just hoped that it wouldn’t have come down to this.
“I always said it was going to be you and me, kid, until the end, right?”
“But this…”
McCoy shook his head, cutting Jim off before he could start.
“It’s different,” he said with absolute certainty, “but it’s me. I’m me, and I couldn’t have you wandering around the galaxy without me. Who knows what sort of trouble you would get into on your own.”
“But I can’t touch you.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m the god damn ship, Jim.”
Jim’s eyes went wide with a fleeting excitement. “Really?” McCoy should have known. The kid always loved the ship just a little bit more than anything else.
“Of course not! The ship isn’t a person, never will be.” It was an old debate some version of them had, apparently one that would never rest. “What I am is complicated. Right now I can feel pieces of my consciousness reaching out across the nets, replicating, connecting to thousands of different outputs and readings, seeing what thousands of different people are doing.”
It made him the ultimate security system. Who better to protect against the technology coming back than him, watching all of it all at once?
“What about us?”
“I’m still right here with you, always with you, kid.” McCoy moved closer to Jim, mindful not to get close enough to touch because he wasn’t sure how either of them would deal with that right now. “And we have a whole universe of possibilities in front of us because you stole the best damn ship in the Federation.” Jim seemed to perk up at that because this was his ship and maybe he could have it all. “I’m sure one of those planets has something we can make use of. We’ll figure it out.”
Jim looked up at McCoy blinking back the tears he wouldn’t let himself cry.
“For once, we have nothing but time and there isn’t a damn place you can run to that I won’t follow.”
Maybe he should have said it then - those words he had never said out loud before, but he couldn’t. Not yet. Not like this.
When he said those words he wanted to be holding Bones. And he wouldn’t rest until he fixed that wrong.
“Alright, Bones, you and me, until the world ends.”
###
Too many lifetimes ago...
The Starfleet Clinic was always crowded, especially on the weekends. There was something about the small window of freedom known as town liberty that prompted the cadets to do all sorts of stupid things. They were idiots.
Then again, he was the one stuck overseeing the clinic today. So, maybe Leonard McCoy was the idiot. Although he liked to think that it was better than the alternative of drinking himself to death.
At least these days he could manage to look at his own reflection.
“What do I have?” He asked the nurse at the dispatch center.
“First year cadet, with what looks like a few broken ribs, but he claims he’s fine.”
She handed him the chart. McCoy couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Of course he does.” They were all the same.
McCoy walked over to the third bed, activating the security wall behind him. He never did like anyone watching him as he worked, especially seeing how a few of the other patients and nurses seemed to be quite interested in this one.
Not that he could blame him. The kid was attractive, blond hair, blue eyes, no obvious lacerations, fractures, rashes or other anomalies that he could see.
“Hey, you’re McCoy, right?” McCoy paused to glare. “McCoy. Leonard McCoy from the shuttle? All I got left is my bones.”
McCoy let out a long breath. Apparently he had a talkative one, but he also had excellent ignoring skills and he wasn’t getting paid to work on his bed manner. He took a few notes on the chart and then set it down on the bed table.
“You don’t talk a lot, do you? I’m Jim Kirk, you shared your booze with me.”
“That’s a great story kid, you going to keep still so I can see what you have going on here?”
Jim flashed him a smile, far too bright and certain of himself, for a kid with possible broken ribs. But he sat still, so he wouldn’t question it too much. All he wanted to do was fix the kid and get him out of his clinic.
“You must have pissed someone off,” he said suddenly.
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, double certified trauma and neuro guy, stuck dealing with non-urgent cadet medical cases, hardly using all your skills here are you?”
McCoy grumbled and grabbed the re-gen unit at the end of the bed. Great now he had some sort of stalker. He dialed the unit in to the correct settings. “Don’t pretend to know me kid, we shared a drink on a shuttle. Now, just shut up, and let me do my job.”
“Is this your job?”
He attached the unit to Kirk’s chest. “Do you ever shut up?”
“No, seriously, because if I was you and this was my job, I would quit.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not me.” And just to drill home the point, McCoy jammed a hypospray into Jim’s neck with far more force than necessary.
“OWWW!” He said rubbing his neck. McCoy took a step back and crossed his arms over his chest. Jim wasn’t fooling anyone, but he also wasn’t done talking yet. “Well, if I were you, I would be a whole lot nicer, never know who you have on your table, I mean for all you know, I’m exactly the sort of man you need.”
“That’s great, you need to sit here about 15 minutes, let the unit mend your bones and one of my nurses will be by to check you out. You can stay still, can’t you?”
“Sure thing, doc.”
McCoy would have loved for that to be the end of Jim Kirk in his life. Except the kid was like a damn parasite. He kept coming at him.
More importantly, he kept putting his nose where it shouldn’t.
It was already stressful enough that McCoy was contracted by Intelligence. He really didn’t need the additional stress of trying to keep actual secrets from Jim, who was a goddamned foxhound.
The kid just made him uneasy.
No, the project made him uneasy, the kid just made him anxious. He couldn’t figure out what he wanted. Or even where Jim Kirk fell into the picture, but McCoy was slowly accepting the intrusion into his life. It did make things a little less lonely.
And then the credit dropped.
“Hey, Bones, you hear anything about that new ship they are building - Enterprise?”
McCoy froze and Jim just grinned.
“That’s what I thought.” He fell onto his sofa. Jim was just a bit too close, but he didn’t seem to have any personal boundaries. “Only I also think that your intentions aren’t all that noble and really I’m insulted.”
He looked over at the kid. “What are you going on about?”
“I’m a prime candidate for the program. I score off the charts on all indicators. Seriously, I’m kind of hurt you won’t use me when I could be your golden ticket inside.”
Fuck. McCoy swallowed. He should have known. The kid was a genius. McCoy had not only seen the tests, but oversaw Jim’s retest because he couldn’t believe someone like him was possible.
He could have denied the fact, but it was an interesting possibility. Intelligence wasn’t letting him get close to what they were actually working on. He was just doing all of their theoretical work and passing it on to someone else for the practical applications.
“What makes you think you could withhold an imprint?”
He was walking into dangerous area here. These weren’t things he was allowed to talk about, but if Jim already knew - well, then it would just be irresponsible to not figure out exactly how much he knew about what Starfleet Intelligence was up to. And if he could bring Jim Kirk into the program - they would let him do anything he wanted.
“What makes you think I can’t?”
The conversation had dropped there. That was as far as they would go, but it was only just on pause. Jim brought it up every chance he could.
Jim had his reasons, had his own distrust of Starfleet. For all the good they did, they put a lot of people in harm’s way sometimes to do it. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was how Jim was starting to wear down McCoy’s resolve. Not that it was that strong to begin with. It was an interesting proposition.
“I won’t do it,” he said suddenly over coffee one morning, “it’s too damn risky to put you in that situation.”
Jim smiled again and moved up along side McCoy. “Aww he likes me!”
“Shut up, you idiot.”
“You really like me, which is why you’re going to let me do it.” That was just all sorts of ass backwards argument, but he didn’t have a chance to say any of that, because Jim kept barreling along. “You want to know what Intelligence is really playing at and I’m the way you get in the door. Really this will be a lot easier when you just accept it’s going to be the two of us until the world ends…probably even after that.”
McCoy shook his head. He could only resist for so long.
Jim Kirk was undeniable.
And, really, until the end of the world didn’t sounded like time enough to have Jim at his side.
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