Twilight Darkness (Kirk/McCoy--PG)
Title: Twilight Darkness
Author: sororexitium
Rating: PG
Pairing/Characters: Kirk/McCoy, Joanna, mentions of Jocelyn and Treadway.
Disclaimer: I'm just floating through someone else's dream. I own nothing.
Summary: Leonard watches his little girl make snowmen.
Notes: This is part seven of the Only With The Heart series. This is so much sweetness it will give cavities, so have some toothpaste ready. Not beta'd this go round, so point out mistakes so as I can fix them tormorrow. Also, this was written while watching The Family Stone and that movie makes my descriptive side go nuts. Dunno why, it's just the way it is. So...it's kinda...pearly in this story.
There’s what seems like three feet of snow on the groud in front of the lodge that Jim had rented for them and it glitters all the colors of the fading sun. Joanna is dressed in the heavy coat and ear muffs and building what could quite possibly be her fifth snow man with the thick insulated gloves that she borrowed from Jim, because the ‘cute’ gloves that she picked out weren’t really good for anything other than show. She’s giddy and laughing like she’s four again instead of fourteen and it makes Leonard smile from his place on the heated, if slightly damp, step.
Somewhere behind him on the antique wooden bench, Jim sits with a book in his hand. It’s in Braille; Joanna found it in one of the homey stores that a local family owns down in Georgia. Blindness isn’t all that uncommon, but with the advances of modern technology, not many people read with Braille anymore when they can just have it recited to them. Of course, Joanna remembers coming over to their Academy dorm, later their apartment and just one time to the Enterprise. She remembers seeing all of his old books and the special way he had settled her down on the floor beside him and let her hold them.
“It broke my heart to think that he would never get to read a real book again, daddy.”
So, his little girl, thoughtful and compassionate down to her core, bought Jim whatever she could in Braille with her stepfather’s money. It kinda made Leonard smile. Jocelyn, it turns out, even joined her in her mission, searching all over hell and back to find a ‘beginner’s book’ to go along with Jim’s new copy of Leaves of Grass. The only one who seemed put out by the entire idea, apparently, had been Treadway, who, according to his little girl, had complained that ‘this much thought doesn't go into my gift.’
That put an even bigger smile on Leonard’s face, because damn if his girls, past or present, weren’t thoughtful women when it mattered most.
Leonard looked over his shoulder to see Jim hunched over his ‘how to’ book, his fingers ghosting along the pages. His brows are furrowed in concentration and there’s a glimmer of what it was like before he lost his sight in the posture. His eyes still direction towards the book, even though he can’t see it, and this astute look rules his face. His mouth moves slowly as he reads why little indented dots have to give him.
It’s mostly small words. Leonard isn’t great at it, but he’s been a doctor long enough to have picked up some lip-reading ability, having had several parched throats, shell-shocked ensigns, and one stubborn, proud captain-turned-admiral parade through his medical zones. He can pick up some of the words, such as ‘cow,’ ‘bad,’ ‘dog.’ Small words, meant familiarize a person to what they need to move forward in their learning.
Leonard turns his head to the happy giggle and he sees his daughter smiling at her fifth, perfected replica. This snowman, as all the others has rocks for eyes, and a carrot nose-the carrots having been bought on their way to the cabin, thanks to Jim’s foresight- and has sticks for arms, just like the others. Unlike the others, Joanna has fashioned a small insignia on the front of its thorax as well as a smile made from mint chocolate candies.
It’s the Starfleet insignia, the one that Jim and Leonard both continue to wear on their chests at the Academy.
Joanna looks up and catches his gaze with her own soft, hazel eyes and her exuberant smile turns a little bashful, so much like that four year old girl left crying on the porch so many years ago when he and Jocelyn were still so bitter towards each other. It tugs his heart as she waves a little in Jim’s too-big gloves before tugging them further on to her petite hands. She haltingly returns to her newest masterpiece, trying to make every insect-like portion of the snowman’s body as round as humanly possible.
Leonard watches for a few seconds longer before hauling himself up from the step he had seated himself on.
The sun is sinking further and further beyond the horizon. The air picks up a chill and Leonard shivers, despite his several layers he’s wearing. Soon, some of the locals will be starting fireworks up, because it’s New Year’s Eve. Their little corner of the world sinks further into the dusky paintscheme, making Joanna’s auburn hair burn with fires she’s never seen before.
Leonard takes a seat next to Jim, easily resting his arm along the back of the bench behind Jim.
“How’s her fifth snowman look?” Jim asks, somewhat distractedly as his fingers repeatedly run over the little bumps in his book.
Leonard shrugs through his shivers. “It has a mint chocolate smile this time.”
Jim’s hand stops, and instead of concentration his features have morphed into confusion and now realization. He picks his head up and yells in the direction of Joanna, “Those were my candies!”
Joanna looks up in shock before a brace-teethed, shit-eating grin that comes solely from Jim, despite having no relation, lights up her face. “I left you a few,” she calls back mirthfully.
Jim waves his bare, slightly cold-pinkened hand at her, before settling it down on his book again.
Leonard moves his hand to rest on Jim’s shoulder, rubbing soothingly. “How’s the book coming?”
Jim fingers a few of the dots, before saying, “I’m really good at finding the number one.”
He casts his eyes to Leonard, though they’re just a little off to the right of him, and the doctor can’t help but say, “Really? So am I.”
It’s only around nine but the lights are just now fading along with the warmth of the sun. Joanna is becoming more and more a shadowed figure in the yard of the lodge, somehow ethereal in her army of sparkling white-blue snowmen. They can hear the ruckus of some of the younger lodge dwellers coming out to join the nippy Washington air to see the fireworks, whooping and hollering, probably having started the festive drinking around, say noon.
Leonard still sees Jim’s contented smile even in the dark.