[ST] It Always Comes Around 2/2

[castofone]

He missed this. He had actually forgotten how much he missed this until they woke up together. Even sprawled awkwardly on the solid wood of a platform tent, they still fit together. Jim smiled, burrowing further into Bones who made an excellent pillow.

This was what was missing with Carol. With her he felt like he constantly needed to be running off somewhere, but with Bones he could just be.

Then a very loud ‘hem hem’ disrupted their little utopia.

Both men craned their necks to see Christopher Pike standing at the step to the platform tent. “Morning Gopher,” Jim managed blearily, refusing to let Bones move even a little let.

Conceding defeat, Bones just groaned some sort of greeting.

“Don’t you remember what the camp director said?”

“Well, technically we’re not campers and this isn’t a bed. Also, not camp season.”

“No, what you are is trouble, and going to be late.” That caused Jim to jerk upward looking for his phone to check the time. The peace of their tent was broken and gone now. “Hop to it boys.” Pike gave them a cheeky wave before leaving.

“What just happened?”

“Less talking, more moving,” said Jim wigging back into his jeans. “I have a flight I need to catch and you’re going to drive me to the airport.”

Bones groaned again. While he was used to operating on little sleep, that was out of necessity. Right now his body told him he didn’t have anywhere to be. It might not have been an ideal bed, but sleep was sleep and the company was good. “This is way too many words before coffee.”

“Clothes, then car, and I’ll buy you coffee on the way. Come on!”

It was a scramble to make it back to the parking lot. Followed by a ride to San Francisco airport that Len didn’t really know what to make of until Jim was getting out. The coffee really hadn’t helped anything.

“I still have some things to sort through.” He said undoing his seat belt. “Carol just really left me in sort of a…place.” Jim paused scratching his head, not sure it had ever been this awkward before. “But it is good to see you again, Len. Real good.”

It was stupid because he knew better. Their lives were in different places, but just for a moment Len had opened his heart and hoped that maybe this time it would work. Only the wounds were open again, scabs pulled off and bleeding, making the scars deeper.

So, there was really only one thing to do.

“I think I’m going to try again with Jocelyn.” It was the only way to stitch the torn skin back together. “I mean Joanna is great. You should see her, and I want to be there for her.”

“That’s great, Bones,” he said at a complete loss. There was no way he could compete against a kid. Jim didn’t even want to. He had thought things were going to end on a good note, but instead he was just another Captain Ed Murphy. If there is any way to do it wrong, he would. “With how you take on everything else, I’m sure you’ll be a great father.”

The hug that followed was just as awkward. The only thing worse for Jim was going back home to an empty apartment.

The routine started to feel heavy. It didn’t energize him anymore. Jim slept on the sofa, trying not to notice that the hole in his life didn’t have anything to do with Carol being gone. He loved Carol, and would always think of her fondly, but the real problem was that he just couldn’t stop loving Bones.

It had been a dangerous game, allowing him to fall back into it.

Thanksgiving came and went, so did Chanukah, St. Patrick’s Day, and Passover. He wasn’t really sure where the time has gone, especially not when each individual day felt so long.

Then Bones called him. Jim didn’t hesitate to answer that phone, didn’t pause or falter. He just flipped it open and forewent any sort of appropriate greeting. “What’s up?” Jim asked, still going through the mail sitting on his counter. He didn’t think anything of the long pause, until he heard the sigh. “Bones, is everything okay?”

“It’s my dad.” Len was a wreck on the tail end a 24-hour shift, trying to put the situation into words that could translate over the phone. “He was rushed into Grady. God, Jim.”

All Jim wanted to do was reach out over those stupid cell lines and hug him. “Is your dad okay?”

“He’s sick. He has ALS. It’s been rough for a while, but today he lost the ability to swallow and it’s just not looking good. My mom is a wreck, Joce -” He cut himself off, knowing he could have called Jocelyn from the parking lot just as easy as he called Jim. Their names were right next to each other on his contact list. Only he hadn’t wanted to talk with Jocelyn. “I don’t know what to do, Jim. He’s just in so much pain and he knows…can you even-”

“Hey, Bones, Breathe. Okay, just for a moment, all I want you to do is breathe.” In the big scheme of things this amounted to absolutely nothing. And yet it was all he had to give. “Alright, now, tell me, what can I do? How do I make this better? Do you want me to come out to Atlanta?” Even as he asked the question a part of him stuttered - maybe that wasn’t the thing to say.

“You can’t do that,” said Bones sounding far too small.

“I might be able to, I have some time. It would help, right? I could help, being there?”

“Jim,” he said finally after what felt like forever and not long enough. “You can’t. You have things you have to do and I have people here and you can’t just drop everything because...”

“What if I wanted to?”

It wasn’t hope. He wouldn’t call it that - neither of them would because that would be naming something fragile that still hung between them.

“Then I’m not going to stop you.” He sighed. “Hey, look I should get going, got people at home waiting.”

“Yeah, okay, take care, Bones. We’ll talk soon.”

It was Jim’s turn to sigh as he hung up the phone. He really didn’t have the time, but could find it. He would just have to talk to his commanding officer tomorrow and they could work something out. He didn’t even have to be gone long.

It could work. He could do this.

Two days later as he was sitting in the airport, boarding pass in hand for Atlanta, he got the phone call he had been waiting weeks for. It was the order to report to his final interview for the Test Pilot posting.

“Is there any way we could reschedule the interview?”

“Lieutenant Kirk, I trust you are aware how competitive the posting is and while we do grant leniency for extenuating circumstances, it is not typically well received.”

“Yeah, okay, I understand.”

“I’ll be sending along your orders in a few minutes.”

“Thanks,” he said hanging up. Jim leaned back in the chair staring at the slowly emptying airport lounge. His flight must have started to board.

Agency, it was a good thing until there was suddenly too much of it and right now he didn’t want it.

Jim sighed pulling his phone back into his line of sight, starring at it like it held the secrets o the universe, although he would settle for it just having the secrets of what he should do, but maybe…

Powering back on his phone he called Gopher, because he would know, he always knew that was how things worked with them. Jim messed things up, and Christopher Pike made them just a little bit better.

“Come on, come on.” Only the phone kept ringing. “Damn it, Gopher.”

He felt as conflicted as he once did as a child, ready to flail out for attention. Only now he was too old to get away with that. Jim wasn’t sure how long he sat there, watching the rest of the plane board - go to Georgia and be with Bones or stay and show up for his interview?

“I should have stuck to the plan.”

One year later…
The funny thing was getting exactly what he wanted, wasn't really what he wanted at all. It was the little things that kept bringing him back. A bagel with peanut butter eaten as he ran out the door could put him in a mood all day. Or how he donated all of his hoodies, and pulled a face anytime someone mentioned Hawaii, because that where Lost was filmed.

It had been a year since he made that choice - and barely a day had passed where he didn’t consider what he gave up. What initially felt like a full, happy sort of life, now felt like he was missing am arm or a leg.

Jim didn’t know who he was anymore. And without something to define him, he threw himself into his training, pushing back more against with the instructors told him. He needed something that could consume him, and fill that void.

That was about the time he earned his second nickname - Hotdog. Not that he responded to it, but he supposed it was fitting.

It was his hot-dogging that landed in him all too regular meetings with his commanding officer, James Komack. He was a big, burly man, and it was hard to picture him as a younger, softer man who had done a few tours in the Middle East and had the scars to show for it.

“Lieutenant Kirk, what do you have to say for yourself?”

He sat up a bit straighter, trying to keep the smirk off his face. That was always a loaded sort of question. “That I was right?” He ventured because it wasn’t untrue.

Komack cleared his throat, but otherwise remained unmoving. His hands were folded on the desk between them.

“That I was right, sir.” Jim amended as if adding the ‘sir’ somehow made it more appropriate.

“No. What you are is reckless. In the past week you have scrubbed two training runs by going beyond the parameters and today you not only impaired a drone, but missed the trap, again, putting your bird out of service.”

“I missed the trap because Lieutenant Finnegan’s left engine blew and he wasn’t going to be able to land on his own, so I provided landing assistance.”

“And why did his left engine blow?”

Jim slouched in the chair. “The drone was impaired.”

“The drone was impaired because of actions you took.”

The two fell into a long silence. Although being dressed down, Jim didn’t flinch or look away. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to break first.

Komack reached over and opened Kirk’s service jacket. “So, here is my dilemma, you’re a great pilot. You have a natural sort of ability with any craft you’re given and you test off the charts, but you keep blowing basic missions.”

“That’s because the missions don’t reflect how any of these crafts operate in the field!”

“Because you don’t seem to respect the chain of command,” he said raising his voice to speak over Jim. “You’re not the only one who has flew during wartime and you might not like it be was have standard operating procedures for a reason.

“So, what I’m going to do is grant you four day liberty during which you are going to go, relax, clear that head, and when you come back all of this is going to be behind us because I don’t want to have to transfer you out.”

That would bring the wrath of Winona down on the both of them. For other officers having your mother speak to your commanding officer wasn’t a good thing. The difference he was that Jim Kirk wasn’t other officers, he was a Kirk, and Winona was a powerful player in the armed services.

“Understood, sir.” At least this time he managed to keep his voice a polite neutral.

Four day leave - what the hell was he going to do with himself? Well, Jim knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to hop a plane to go see Bones, but he hadn’t really spoken to Bones since telling him he wasn’t going to make it over a year ago. He hadn’t even had gone when he learned that David McCoy passed away.

Bones probably didn’t want to see him ever again.

But there was Sam, who might no longer work for the CDC, but did happen to live within a reasonable driving distance of Atlanta in case the opportunity presented itself.

Since Jim had come back from his first tour, he had a standing offer to crash in his brother’s spare bedroom whenever he wanted. There was something charming about the two story, four-bedroom house, nice backyard and good neighbors that appealed to him. It was a world away from the near-industrial apartments that he cycled between. Not that those places were bad, they just served a different sort of person.

This was a place that when Jim came, homework became a forgotten thought while Peter and George competed for his attention. It was days full of games and watching ‘really cool tricks’ that were tame in comparison. Peter was super excited about the things he could do with his scooter, whereas Jim stole his father’s car and nearly drove it over a cliff. So really a scrapped knee was nothing compared to nearly dying.

And he absolutely loved it - coming here was like a year round sort of summer camp, but with better room and board, and less children to worry about. Although bedtime was still a challenge.

“Alright boys, time to go get ready for bed.”

“But mom.”

“But Peter,” she repeated, not budging. Aurelan might only be a Kirk in name, but she certainly knew how to handle the Kirk boys. “Uncle Jim will be here in the morning. And do you ever think that maybe he wants a break from you?”

“Who me? Never!” Jim shouted, definitely choosing Peter’s side on this one and enjoying the opportunity to rile Aurelan a little. “I would actually want them to stay up all night, running around like monkeys, and eating candy.”

She turned and glared at him. “And just for that you’re getting the cheap beer.”

“Hey!”

“You made your own bed. Now lay in it.”

Jim looked to Sam for back up and he just shrugged. “Traitor!”

“You never bet against the wife. That’s the first thing they teach you. Come on, let’s go get you some cheap beer.”

The two brothers made their way into the kitchen as Aurelan finally wrangled the kids upstairs.

“Those are some kids you have there.”

Sam smiled, that same stupid, but so in love, smile Jim remembered seeing when he had first told Jim that he was going to be a dad. He didn’t say anything, but just handed Jim a bottle of PBR.

“God, why do you even buy this stuff?”

“Oh, I only buy it for you because when we were younger this was all you asked for.”

“That’s because I was 17 and had no money! I have grown since then. I drink far better beer now.”

“Sure you do,” he said taking a pull from his bottle. “You should get one.”

Jim’s face scrunched in confusion. “Get one?”

“A kid, a family - whatever you want to call it, because you’re good with them.”

“That’s because I get to come in every couple of months, spoil them rotten, and leave.”

“Nah, I think you’d be good with all the other parts too. I mean, hell, you worked at a summer camp for years. Don’t tell me you don’t want a family some day.”

Jim looked down at his bottle, starting to peel at the label. “That was part of the plan.”

Sam laughed. “Ah, yes, the elusive plan. How is that working out for you?”

It was that laugh, the mocking older brother sort, that made Jim just want to punch him and he did have a few pounds and plenty of PT over Sam so it wasn’t going to be a fair fight. Instead Jim just threw the bottle cap at him. “Fuck you too.”

Sam stopped laughing then. “Alright, seriously now, what’s going on, Jim?”

That was another loaded question and he wasn’t sure if Sam really wanted the full answer. Or really Jim wasn’t sure if he wanted to try to explain the whole thing. Not that he needed to, for whatever horrible twist of the universe it came down to one simple point.

“How did you know that Aurelan was the one you wanted to be with?”

“You don’t ever really know, and even then you can still get hurt. I mean look at mom and dad.”

It wasn’t something they ever really talked about. The late George Kirk was always the ghost in the room, the lack of his presence putting a strange pressure on their childhood. Winona had tried to be a good mother. She had wanted to take on the world, not raise a family. She had needed George for that part. It was only after her children had started to grow that she was able to be there for them in a more meaningful way. Only then had she really started to move on with her life.

“Yeah, losing dad nearly destroyed mom, I’ve heard the story,” said Jim. “But we’re not talking about that. I’m talking about you.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure. It’s just a feeling, something that was there even when I wasn’t looking. She’s good for me and has never asked me to be anything that other than what I am. Really, she’s just been there, just like I’m there for her. Shit, it’s not easy, and I think we’ve just been lucky that we haven’t hated each other at the same time.”

Jim smirked a little at that thought. Maybe this love stuff didn’t have to epic. Maybe it just came down to was want, and being on opposing schedules. He and Bones certainly had that part figured out. Jim didn’t say any of that. Instead he just finished his beet, but Sam already knew.

“You’re not staying, are you?”

“I have to go see someone about this feeling.”

The how of he ended up just outside Atlanta was pretty obvious. The why and what he expected to find when he got there was a bit more complicated. It was almost as complicated as tricking Chapel into telling him where Len lived now without her telling Len about it. The woman meddled, but unlike some others, Jim knew she meant well.

Complicated as things could be and unsure of what would happen, not once did he think about turning back. He wanted this. He wanted Bones. Of course that was enough to make him sick.

All right, so maybe a little bit of that certainty was leaving him now because that was Bones’s house.

It was a beautiful house with a nice wrap around porch and a picket fence - an honest to goodness picket fence. Jim expected that any moment a dog might come running around the front or that he would hear a horse because those looked like stables around the back.

Really, had Bones ever mentioned owning horses and actually being like some country doctor, who just happened to be a chief resident at Emory? The guy had it all.

“Oh God, this is a mistake. He doesn’t need me.” He leaned forward against the steering wheel, pressing his eyes closed.

He sat there for a moment, feeling like he was at the same point he was at almost a year ago, but at least this time he made it out of the airport. Now, he was sitting in a driveway, half hoping that no one was home.

Up in the house, the whole family was home and there was a curious child peeking out the window. Her hair was all in knots that had started off as braids with little fingers pressing against the glass, leaving smudges.

“Daddy, why is there is a car just sitting outside?”

Len looked up from the blocks he was apparently playing with alone, his daughter having abandoned him to look out the window. “There’s a man in the car too, and he doesn’t look so good.”

“What do you mean?” He pushed himself onto his feet and walked across to peer out the window behind her.

Len wasn’t expecting any guests. He didn’t recognize the car, but even at a distance he knew that man.

“Daddy?” said Joanna asked after her dad had been quiet too long. “Do you know who that is?”

“I do, that’s Jim. He’s an old friend I lived with when I was at school.”

Not that it was quite so clean, but she was still young and that was easiest answer to give. It wasn’t appropriate to try to explain to a four year old that the man sitting in the car was his first serious long-term relationship and someone he had once thought was ‘it’ for him.

“Do you want to meet him?”

She nodded vigorously and turned around so she could be picked up. Len grabbed her, placing her on his hip as walked to the front door. He only took them as far as the porch.

“So,” he said yelling down the yard, “You just going to sit there like some stranger danger or are you going to remember your manners?”

Jim jerked upward, hitting his head on visor. His head turned toward the porch, not really minding the physical pain all that much because that was quite the sight to see.

There was Len in a pair of well-worn jeans, a Harvard Medical shirt, and perhaps the most beautiful kid he had ever seen. And as a long-standing summer camp employee, Jim knew all different types of kids and considered himself something of an expert.

Finally he pulled himself together and got out of the car. He was an officer. He should at least be able to get the basics of being a human being right.

“Is that Joanna?”

Len nodded, a soft smile on his face. If Jim’s stomach wasn’t doing kick-punches he might have thought he had died and this was some sort of heaven.

“Jim, this is Joanna, Joanna this is your daddy’s friend, Jim.”

She was wiggling now, and Len finally took that as a sign to let her down. He wasn’t surprised when she ran, barefoot, across the yard to get closer to Jim and stare up at them.

“Are you okay, Mr. Jim, because you didn’t look so good?”

Bold as she was, she could still be polite. Len wasn’t sure where she got it, but it never ceased to amaze him.

Jim knelt, so they were at the same level - summer camp 101 right there. “I think I’ll be okay, I just did a lot of traveling this morning and am feeling a little tired.”

“Daddy is tired a lot too, because he is a doctor who helps sick people and has to work a whole lot. Are you a doctor too?”

He laughed, glancing up over at Bones, who hadn’t moved from his spot on the porch. “No, I am not a doctor. I fly planes for the United States Air Force - do you know what that is?”

“Like the army?”

“A little bit.”

She screwed up her face, deep in concentration, trying to make sense of everything. She really was just like her father. “Does that mean you kill people?”

That was not a question he was expecting and not something he knew how to answer when his peers asked, let alone a four-year-old. To them he would explain his period of deployment as a sort of deflection. It wasn’t that he ignored that part of his job or pretended it didn’t exist. It was sort of a necessary evil and he tried not to think on it too much.

“Joanna,” Len called, saving Jim from a tricky situation. “Could go back inside to play so I can talk to Jim alone for a minute?”

The little girl glared up at her father on the porch, weighing the request. “And later we’re still going to the park like you promised?”

“Of course.”

“Okay.” And with the same energy, she had run across the house before she ran back inside, throwing her hand up in a rushed farewell to Jim.

“So,” said Len.

“So.”

“You’re in Atlanta.”

“I’m in Atlanta.” Jim tucked his hands into the back pockets of jeans. When had the simple act of conversation become so difficult?

“Don’t you live out in California?”

“Yeah, I’m at Edwards now.”

“Then what brings you all the way out here?”

It wasn’t really a question because there was only one reason why Jim would travel to Atlanta. They both knew it, but it was the last question that could be asked before the floodgates opened and words were shared or they stood standing there like idiots staring at each other. Not that they weren’t already idiots staring at each other. There would just be no denying now.

“I -” Jim started and stopped. On the porch Len lurched forward, wanting to bridge that little insignificant distance between them. Only they didn’t do that anymore and it hurt. “Bones.”

The whole thing hurt, but for Jim it would hurt more to not try and say something. Besides he was one to leap without looking. He scratched the back of his head before he started again.

“I need to say something and you just need to listen and not talk until I’m all the way through, can you do that?”

Finally Len sat down on the porch swing and silently invited Jim to join up. “Go ahead then.”

Focusing on breathing in and out, Jim walked up onto the porch, leaning against the porch rail, which was the safer option than the swing next to Bones.

“Alright,” he said in a long exhale. “Here’s the thing. You know how we talked about the difference between being happy and not being unhappy at the camp reunion?” He paused for just a moment because he didn’t want to linger on how he blew it then.

“Well, I think that’s stupid - settling for not being unhappy. I know that if we tried to make this work, make us work, we could happy. It wouldn’t be perfect or even wonderful every day, and this is probably seven years too late, but I love you, Bones. I have never stopped loving you and I don’t want to pretend that it’s not there anymore. I thought I had everything I wanted, but I didn’t. And trust me I know how ridiculous that sounds, but it’s how I feel. Yes, our lives are on different coasts right now, and it’s not logical or any number of things, but I want to be with you.”

Jim looked up filled with a fragile, hesitant sort of hope. He didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t this. Bones just sat there with a careful, neutral, professional expression on his face. For a long moment neither of them spoke and everything lay in that piling silence between them.

And Jim wanted to be sick all over again.

“I’m too late, aren’t I? You’re married, you married her, which of course you would because you have a beautiful daughter and it was stupid to think you wouldn’t.”

“We’re not married. We’re engaged. Kind of.” he said, like that small correction changed anything. “I asked her a few months back, but we’re not making any real plans until I know where my fellowship will be.”

It was then his tone changes from the doctor delivering bad news to the man who might also have a heart that was breaking a little. “I’m sorry, Jim.”

Jim could only chuckle dryly. It was either that or cry and his manliness couldn’t take that much of an attack today. “Don’t be sorry. I mean you’re happy, you seem happy, actually happy with the mother of your child and that’s great, Bones. I’m happy for you, really. You should be happy, you should have it all.” He ran a hand through his hair. “And really, I should go.”

“Or you could stay.” It made Jim pause for just a second, hearing all that could be wrapped up on four words, but no matter what he heard in them it’s far too complex. And he didn’t know how much longer he could keep it together.

“No, it’s fine,” he said already making his retreat back across the lawn to his rental car. “Today is probably your only day off and I know you don’t get those often, or probably at all and you should spend it with your family.”

Len said nothing. He was stuck in his place on the porch watching Jim escape from his life. God, his heart fractured just a little thinking this might be a last time. You can only bend something so far before it would break. And as Jim flashed a watery smile with a fleeting, “See you around, Bones,” he felt broken.

He had put Jim Kirk behind him, tucked him away into that careful place in his heart where he could remember, but not have it hurt every time. It wouldn’t last forever, because the cracks were still there, but he and Jocelyn were good, they had found a way to make it work and he was happy.

Behind him the front door to the house opened. “Len?” Her voice was gentle, also taking him back to a lifetime ago. They had a history too. She placed a hand on his shoulder, open concern clear on her face. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just thinking is all.” He turned around to see her, still just was beautiful as the first time he saw her. Maybe they were epic too.

“About anything specific?”

“No, I’m good. I just saw someone I didn’t think I was going to see again.”

“Alright.” She kissed him on the cheek and he couldn’t help but smile at her. “If everything is okay, Jojo wants to know if we can go to the park now.”

“Yeah, sure, that sounds great.”

It was a good life. He was happy, he had never doubted until right now. Leave it to Jim Kirk to have the perfect timing to turn his world upside down. It was whiplash all over again.

Sixth months later…
The day started innocently enough. Weekend morning rounds were uneventful and the younger residents had the floor under control, which meant that Len was able to make it home for lunch. Even if Joanna had plans to spend the day with Jessica from school, it would be nice to sit down and have a meal with Jocelyn.

After lunch, Len had gone into his study to catch up on a few articles he had been meaning to review while Jocelyn headed outside to start work on their garden. Really it was any average domestic sort of day.

The problem with days that start off innocently enough was that they always seemed to find ways to suddenly become complicated.

Really, he had just been looking for an old Neurosurgery journal from his med school days when he came across a shoebox. (‘Memory box, Bones, it’s for keeping memories and you should have one.’) While thoughts of its giver were seldom far from his mind, especially after the impromptu visit a few months ago, Len rarely thought of this box that held clues to some of the best moments of his life.

Maybe at another time he might have just left the box where it sat, but not today.

Len opened the box that was filled with scraps of paper and little trinkets. In there was the toy skeleton Jim had given him as his first secret buddy gift, officially christening him as Bones, along with a few faded friendship bracelets that he kept once they had fallen off. Most it was letters and notes passed between that at Camp Enterprise, but also a good number of those little post its left on pillows or on kitchen counters during their time in Boston.

It was a snap shot of whole other life together in that box. One that maybe should have stayed wrapped up because it was easier that way - not that he could ever just put it in a box and forget about it.

Then there was that letter. In an unassuming 4 1/8 x 9 1/2 envelope was the one note had never read. The only hint to what it contained was Jim’s chicken scratch that passed for handwriting labeling it “The Plan.” Jim had shoved it into his pocket just before he boarded the Texas bound plane and their lives officially diverged.

Except that wasn’t true at all. He and Jim still orbited each other. They were still bound together just more in an eccentric stretched out orbit like Pluto and maybe it was past time to get a little bit closer to the sun.

So, he finally opened the letter.
Dear Bones,

The way I see this going is that you’re either going to read this letter right now or tuck it away and forgot about it for years. Knowing you, I’m going to guess the latter is true. In fact I’m sort of counting on it and you know also hoping that what I’m writing here isn’t just a load of bullshit.

I meant what I said about the plan, that today we go our own ways and make something of ourselves in the world. I have no doubt that in seven years you’ll be on your way to being one of the best neurosurgeons in the country. Hopefully I won’t be dead or too messed up from the Air Force and NASA will have gotten their act together to start needing pilots again. To which, I still think you would make a great flight surgeon, although I suppose that’s just selfish and small game for you.

But I guess here’s the point. Whatever happens happens and I think for a while it’s going to hurt and that’s okay - and it won’t even be that different from the past couple of months. Although I need to say that I don’t think is over for us yet, it doesn’t feel over, and I don’t think it will ever fully happen because for whatever reason you just stick. You have always stuck.

So, I’m serious, when you’re finished your training to be a doctor and you don’t have a ring on your finger, I’m coming for you, Bones. Hell, even if you do have a ring on your finger, I might still be coming for you - consider this a very fair warning.

This is goodnight, but not goodbye.

-- Jim

He must have read the letter at least four times, wondering what if he came across this at a different point in his life. All he could remember was the look of absolute heartbreak as he watched Jim drive away six months ago.

“You’re taking the fellowship in California.” It wasn’t a question, and it certainly wasn’t even a greeting or even a reference to a prior conversation they had at any length. All Len had said about the matter was that UCLA made him a great offer, but there was a position for him at Grady if he wanted that too.

Except Jocelyn was telling him now.

“It’s just…“ He started and then stopped. Len wasn’t sure what he could say when she already knew him better that he knew himself. In some regards she always would because their lives orbiting around each other too.

Jocelyn walked across the room and sat herself down next to him on the floor, mindful not to disturb the trinkets and bits of paper around him. "You still love him, don't you?"

And that was the other thing they didn’t really talk about since Jim had shown up.

Len sighed. It wasn't a fair question to ask because he never lied to her about Jim and he wasn’t going to start now. She knew who Jim Kirk was, what he meant to him, but they both recognized it was something in their past. That was what the ring on her finger stood for, the fact they - Len and Joce - were the ones about to get the future.

Or at least that had been their plan.

"I thought I was done, and that part my of life was over, but it’s not." He deflated as the words came out. Len would have liked to say that applying to the fellowship in California was a mistake, but it a great fit for him professionally and if that put him closer to Jim…really, it was still just complicated.

Jocelyn put her hand on his back. “You know he’s only going to break your heart over and over again.” She wasn’t bitter, and everything she was saying was true. Every time Jim had passed through his life since Boston, it left him a little shattered and every time Jocelyn was there to collect the pieces. “But I know you, you will have this hope that maybe this time it could be okay, that maybe this time you get to keep him despite all of your past mistakes."

“Yeah, it’s kind of like that.” It was only then he was able to look away from the letter still in his hand to Jocelyn. And for a moment it easy to imagine how their life could have worked.

Len would stay, take the attending position at Grady, be a father, and get to spend the rest of his life was his oldest friend. He could have been happy.

“Hey, I love you, you know that, right?” The words had never before been said to her like an apology. “And God, I wish that me loving you was enough because you make me happy, but…”

But the problem was that she was his best friend and she knew him. Even if it would hurt her, she had to let him have what he wanted.

“Len, don’t.” She dropped her hand onto her lap, her voice still gentle. “It’s okay, well no, it’s not okay, but it can be, but it is going to hurt.” His words had been an apology and hers were a promise.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know you are.” Jocelyn removed the ring from her finger and held it out to him. “Go, I give you permission to take the fellowship in California.”

Len looked up at her, for the first time not sure who the woman was looking back at him. Yes, she was still the girl he loved, but she was something all together new. He didn’t say anything, just wrapped her hand back around the ring in her finger that he didn’t have any plans for. “Keep it, it’s your ring even if we’re not getting married anymore.”

And that was where their story ended and the next chapter of his life began.

Los Angeles was overwhelming and a little frightening. It was big, busy and filled with people who had this sort of way about them that Len didn’t understand. He was learning it was a place where accents went to die, all except his, which only seemed thicker now.

During his first two weeks settling into what actually was the fellowship of a lifetime, he was sure that he had made another mistake in a life full of poor decisions. Len missed Georgia something terrible. He missed his daughter and all the trappings of a life he created back on the east coast.

Even for someone who loved neurosurgery, and you had to love it to have survived residency, it wasn’t quite the same. The game had gone from a piece in his good life to really the only thing holding it all together. More than once, he needed to remind himself at ALS took his father, could one day take him, but right now he had the ability to start finding solutions and viable forms of treatment.

And when things got really bad there was Christine Chapel to fall back on. Of course it was also partly her fault that he was out here anyway.

“Finally,” she said dropping down into the chair across from him. “I thought you have been avoiding me and I was starting to get a complex.”

“Christine, you’ve been just as busy as I’ve been and it’s not like I walk the other way when I see you. We work in the same department.” He said passed a cup of coffee across the table for her. It was hazelnut with a splash of milk, just the way she liked it.

“You have yet to request me on one of your surgeries,” she said before taking a sip of coffee.

“I haven’t even been here a month, I need to get a feel for the staff. There very well could be a better scrub nurse than you here.”

“And for that you’re going to have to ask so very nicely when you request me for your trial surgical team.”

Christine Chapel was always something else. He had only the opportunity to work with her in an operating room once, but from what he saw and heard, he knew she was good - if not the best damn scrub nurse the hospital had.

She was also trouble as most blonds in his life were.

“Alright, so spill.”

“What exactly am I spilling?”

“Well, you were engaged to be married, living and I quote ‘quite happily’ in Georgia with your daughter and her mother. And now you’re thousands of miles away in LA, there has to be something there beyond it being the best fellowship for you and finally getting to work with me again.”

Len sighed, taking a sip of his of coffee. “It’s complicated is all.”

“Off sponge count complicated? Jocelyn having an affair with a woman or secretly a vampire complicated?” He glared at her. “Or you’re still in love with Jim complicated?”

Rather than dignify that with a response he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Okay, so Jim Kirk complicated.” He didn’t say anything, but she didn’t invite him to either. “Goodness, I still don’t understand why the two of you even called it off in the first place. You know I lost a lot of money on that one because I had that one of you would pop the question by the graduation. And no, we really don’t have anything better to do with our time, even as adults, than to imagine the epic romance of the Captain and Bones.”

Len huffed, letting all of the air out. There was the word again: epic - spanning years, heartbreak, lives ruined. Jim might have been just saying things, but it suited them, didn’t it?

“Between the lot of us, it is a wonder that even one of those epic camp romances stood the test of time.” He had certainly witnessed more than he wanted to see in the boathouse or heard the not so concealed references in the good job jar.

“Oh, Len, there was nothing epic about Spock and Nyota, like at all. They just were. I mean you wouldn't say that salt and pepper are epic.”

“And Jim and I were?”

Now it was Christine’s turn to not say anything. All she had to do was stare him down. It took balls to do, and Christine was probably one of the only people who could pull it off.

“Okay we were, we still are and it doesn’t hurt any that he’s only a two hour drive away.”

“And you still love him.”

“Yes,” he said with that sort of warning tone.

“So what are you going to do? Does he even know that you’re out here? Are you guys-”

“Leave it alone, or I’m going to make sure that all the interns know to ask for you exclusively.”

“Consider it dropped,” she said throwing up her hands “But you should at least give him a call and let him know not only are you not married but you sort of moved to LA for him.”

For the next month, Len would find excuses not to call Jim. He would log into Facebook, stare at Jim’s page and talk himself out of not sending him a message. That was about as a pathetic form of non-communication he could get. Every time he thought it might be a good idea, he found something else he could be doing.

And of course just because Christine said it was dropped didn’t mean a damn thing. Instead the price of requesting Christine for his OR was updates on the status of his love life. Or rather the sad lack and mockery it had become. At least she had the sense to not seek after those in any sort of professional setting.

She had become invested in getting them together.

It wasn’t that she didn’t have anything better to do, being a scrub nurse could be just as exhausting as being a neurosurgeon, and outside of work she had a family of her own to worry after. (Okay that family might just have been Roger and their dog, but it was still family.) Except that since his move, Len had more formally become part of that family. And maybe she too thought about Jim Kirk more than she should.

She just didn’t expect to actually see him when she went to the jeweler to have the band on her watch fixed. Roger had offered to come along with her and they had decided to make a day of it.

“Oh shit!” She said, turning around so her back was to Jim Kirk and the woman she could only assume was his mother.

“Chris? What’s wrong?”

“Across the display there - don’t look! - is Jim Kirk. I said don’t look!”

“And why am I not looking at this man?”

“Because I know him and Leonard McCoy is in love with him.” Roger scrunched up his face and all Christine could do was swat at him, before moving them discretely down the counter so she could overhear what they were talking about.

Jim Kirk still looked good. Not that she would expect anything less, the man had always been something of an Adonis and all those years in the Air Force with the required fitness standards only served to fill him out more.

The woman he was with, definitely his mother from how similar the pair looked, looked like she could hold her own too.

“I can’t believe that the wedding bands still haven’t been finished,” she said leaning against the glass case, relaxing her posture.

“Yeah, well, for the special engravings it was going to take a bit longer and it just had to be perfect.”

The woman laughed, shaking her head, catching Jim in the headlights. “What?” he asked.

“I just never expected to hear you so serious about marriage.”

“Well, this is a very serious thing.”

“You better be saying that. It is on Saturday.”

“No backing out now.”

“Definitely not.”

Christine froze at that word. Jim Kirk was getting married. How was she ever going to be able to tell Len? After everything, they were both too late.

For the first time in a long time, Christine was not looking forward to heading into work on Monday. She was even less excited about the likely full day with Len in the operating room she had ahead of her.

The man could smell a lie from a mile away. And he kept giving her those looks every time he asked for an instrument or wanted something removed from the field.

Six hours felt like three times that, until he finally finished up and started to de-gown. “Nurse Chapel, come see me in my office when you’re finished with our patient,” said Len before leaving the room.

So, if she took a bit longer to check and double check the patient’s transfer back to the floor, well, that was just because she wanted their second trial patient to have a good outcome.

“Just come in all ready, and shut the door behind you,” he said catching her lingering just outside of his office. Christine shuffled in, plopping into the seat on the other side of his desk. “What is it?”

There was probably a better way to say it, but it all just came out.

“Jim Kirk is getting married on Saturday.”

“What?”

Christine repeated herself saying each word slower than before.

“Damn it, Chris, I heard you the first time. It’s just eight months ago, he showed up in my driveway telling me that we should be together and now he’s getting married? That’s just bullshit if I’ve seen it before.”

“Maybe he’s moved on. He was out picking up the rings with his mom and he looked excited, happy even.” She watched Len shrink backward in his chair. “You probably don’t want to hear this, but maybe it’s time you’ve moved on too.”

She was right. He didn’t want to hear it because he still couldn’t accept that Jim Kirk was getting married and without even telling him about it? Sure, Len hadn’t exactly told Jim when he proposed to Jocelyn, but this was different.

It was a slight abuse of power, but like some crazed fool, the next day he decided that the first intern to find out where the Kirk wedding was happening this weekend could observe on his next surgery.

Not that when Dr. Kendra White gave him all the information it settled him any. It was almost worse because now he had a name - Pince. What kind of last name was Pince?

Unlike all the times before when he couldn’t even go through with calling Jim, he wasn’t looking for excused now. Len traded a few favors and made sure that he would be off the schedule for Friday night unless it was an absolute emergency.

All through grand rounds and his consults on Friday he was distracted. There was a nervous sort of energy to him. Len had wanted to leave after lunch, go home, shower, put on non-hospital clothes and feel like an actual human being when he crashed Jim’s rehearsal dinner.

Instead he had to scrub in on an emergency spine trauma and horrible as it was, it was perhaps the only time in his life he didn’t immediately curse himself when the patient coded on the table.

So, Len settled for a quick shower at the hospital. He changed back into his office clothes, fit grey trousers, a white collared shirt, but opted to not put the tie back on. It wasn’t quite the human feeling he wanted, but it wasn’t entirely frantic either.

On the drive over to the hotel, Len tried to convince himself that there was some class to crashing the rehearsal dinner as opposed to the actual ceremony. That would just be overly dramatic.

“I’m here for the Kirk-Pince rehearsal dinner,” was enough to get him directed toward the private function room. Len got as far as the door when he saw Jim talking animatedly with a gorgeous red-haired woman. His eyes were even doing that crinkle thing that he had once thought was only for him.

That was when the bottom fell out, a sick nauseated feeling surging over him. This time he was way too late. Jim was happy. Jim had moved on, maybe Chapel was right. Maybe he should too.

Turning to go, he turned head first into a waiter sending a serving tray of drinks up and right down crashing to the floor. So much for a stealthy exit.

Everyone in the function room paused, all eyes tracking to the commotion just outside. And for just a fleeting moment his eyes met with Jim’s. As bad as it was before, now Len just wanted to die.

Scrambling to his feet he turned to go. “Bones?” Len ignored the voice, focusing on getting to the door. He needed to get out. He couldn’t see Jim happy right now, because he knew wouldn’t be able to be the bigger man.

“Bones!” said Jim running out after him. “What are you doing here?”

Before he had a chance to escape, Jim grabbed Len by the arm forcing him to stop. Their eyes met again and Len felt sick all over again. How did he ever think this was ever a good idea?

“I don’t know,” said Len, trying to shake free of Jim. “And it just - it doesn’t really matter.”

“Bones?” The name came with bright eyes and just a pinch of something he wanted to call vulnerability.

“I work at UCLA.”

“You have a job at UCLA?”

Len sighed. “That’s what I said.”

“What about Jocelyn and Joanna?”

“What about them?” He was barely able to handle facing Jim right now. He didn’t need to air the heartbreak of leaving Georgia all over again, especially now that it was worse. God, he was the idiot who moved across the country for a guy and the guy didn’t even want him anymore!

“You were getting married.”

“Yeah, so are you!” He threw up his hands, feeling far too exposed which meant a transition to attack mode. And for once Jim didn’t seem to have anything to say, so Len just let the words rain down. “Only now I’m not getting married because I’m still not over loving you, to the point that Jocelyn essentially gave me her blessing to move out to California because you’re out at Edwards and God damn it you’re getting married! She said you were only going to break my heart and she was right…”

Wherever the rant was going, neither of them would ever know. It was that moment that Jim decided to employ the only method that ever successfully worked in shutting Len up. He kissed him.

It was just one kiss, pulling the words and the fire out of his lips and into something else. Len threw his arms around Jim, pressing them closer. Even if this was their last kiss and this was goodbye, he wanted it to be good. He needed to be able to remember their last kiss.

After a moment that was both too long and never quite long enough, Jim pulled back with the sound of laughter on his lips and that crinkle in his eyes.

“Bones, my mom is getting married.”

Len stumbled over his words the first couple of times he tried to respond, his brain hadn’t been ready for that possibility. “Winona is getting married?”

“Yes,” he said chasing that word with a kiss. Bones wasn’t done loving him.

The responding ‘oh’ was lost in that kiss so much better than the one previous because this one wasn’t hinted with the possibility of goodbye. This was a first, screaming ‘hello, love you, I never should have left you.’

“So, what do you say? You and me go out for drinks and see what happens?”

Len snorted, rolling his eyes. “Or we could just cut to the chase.”

“Yeah we could definitely do that.” Jim wrapped his arms tighter around Len, not caring about the stray looks they were getting from hotel guests walking by.

“You know, my sublet is only goes through August.” It was a hesitant sort of question, said as more of fact.

“Only minutes after realizing you still have a chance with me and you already want to move in.”

Even if technically they hadn’t lived together the first year they were in Boston, they practically did anyway. It was just how things worked between them. Even when every instinct said ‘go slow,’ they both leaped.

“The way I see is that we should have never moved out.”

“Point.” Which earned Len another kiss - funny how heartfelt reunions made previous oppositions to public displays of affection not valid. “I hear there are some nice places to live in Palmdale we could start looking at.”

Len didn’t even really know where that was, but it sounded like it wasn’t LA and that was good enough for him. “I think I could manage that.”

They stood there for a while longer, just revealing in both being present.

“Don’t you need to be back there?”

“Nope, the only place I need to be is right here.”

“Me too, Jim. Me too.”