Fic: Just Surviving Was a Noble Fight
Title: Just Surviving Was a Noble Fight
Author: sunriseinspace
Character(s): (always-a)girl!McCoy/Kirk
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing about Star Trek (2009), its characters or plotlines, including any recognizable dialogue.
Summary: It ...shouldn’t matter this much, shouldn’t hurt this badly, he thinks wildly. He’d been closer to his grandfather than Winona and he hadn’t felt nearly this lost when the old man died.
WARNINGS: genderswap, deals with the death of a loved one
A/N: A rewrite of Cling to All You Have Left from Jim’s point of view (because so many people asked so nicely, even though this isn’t really a sequel).
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The screen of his console is flashing insistently at him as the door slides shut behind him. Glancing around, he notices that his roommate’s still not back yet and he’s not exactly displeased; it seems like his birthday gets a little harder to deal with each year and the extra time alone is nice. Slinging his leather jacket across the room onto his bed, he settles into the desk chair, keying in his access codes to pull up the waiting messages. As the computer logs in, he glances at the corner of the screen to check the time: 2345, 2257.04. Good. He can’t wait for the day to be over.
The messages are listed in chronological order, oldest to newest, and he only half pays attention to the contents of each as he clicks through them. A notice from the Academy reminding cadets of their curfews. The times for the next Xenolinguistics Club meeting. A message from Bones to comm her when he gets in. A few invites from various Academy clubs that he deletes without reading. Birthday wishes from both his mother and Sam. He smiles when he reads the one from his mom, thinks he really ought to call her, see how she’s doing, tell her he-- He clicks straight past Sam’s, already knowing what it says, not needing anyone to remind him exactly what else happened on his birthday.
He frowns when he reaches the bottom of the list, the official Starfleet coding on the message sending a shiver of foreboding through him as he opens it. It’s from the captain of the Antares, formally addressed to “the family of Lieutenant Commander Winona Kirk,” and he knows why it’s been sent, even though the words blur in and out and he actually only reads the occasional phrase. It’s all very polite, impersonal, filled with half-hearted condolences and anemic platitudes. Only the beginning of the message sticks with him:
I regret to inform you that there was an accident in the main Engineering Bay, resulting in a deadly radiation leak. In an act of selfless sacrifice, Lieutenant Commander Winona Kirk was able to evacuate her entire crew, despite exposure to toxic levels of radiation.
He stares at the screen numbly, absorbing the message’s contents, though his thoughts have taken on a strange disjointedness. His eyes skip to the list of recent messages, confirming that only the one came in from Sam, and an empty sort of resignation settles over him as he realizes that his older brother didn’t even try to contact him about this. He supposes it figures - Sam’d left him alone to deal with their mother leaving as a child; it only stood to reason he’d leave Jim alone to handle her death. He contemplates sending a message to Sam, but his thoughts skitter away when he considers what he’d actually say. In the end, he just makes sure Sam received a copy of the letter and closes out of the account.
He feels like he’s floating, detached from his body and shapeless, formless, barely there. He’s not sure he understands why he feels this way; it’s been years since he talked with his mom and they’ve never been all that close, anyway. It ...shouldn’t matter this much, shouldn’t hurt this badly, he thinks wildly. He’d been closer to his grandfather than Winona and he hadn’t felt nearly this lost when the old man died.
Glancing up from the console and around the room, he doesn’t know what to think, can’t form a complete thought through the whirlwind of emotions in his head. Feeling caged, he prowls around the room, kicks a boot out of the way when it comes across his path, perches at the edge of his bed and rakes his hands through his hair, gripping until his eyes burn and his scalp aches. He doesn’t know what to do, how to handle this, how to brush it off and not care. He just-he can’t-wha-
Jimmy, Jimmy, look at me, okay? Look at me - I’ll be home in a few months, okay, baby? No, no, Jimmy, look at me. It’ll be okay, all right? I’ll comm you every chance I get, yeah? Don’t cry, sweetheart, please? I can’t- C’mere, gimme a hug, baby. I love you, Jimmy, I love you so much. Be a good boy for your uncle, okay? I’ll see you soon.
He’s on his feet and across the room before he realizes it, his leather jacket hanging from a white-knuckled fist as he slams his hand against the door’s touchpad and stalks out into the hall. There’s a buzz under his skin, making his hands shake and his breath stutter in his chest, as he bolts out of the building. Cold air bites at his skin and stings his eyes, drawing tears that he viciously blinks away.
He walks. He pays no attention to his surroundings, spares not a single thought to curfew, has no particular destination in mind. He just has to get out of his head, away from the memories and heartbreak, absent himself from any hopes or dreams tied to his mother. It doesn’t matter that it’s after midnight and he’s been running from himself all day; he has to keep moving - forward, away, any direction but back - or the demons will tear him apart, make him see himself, and he can’t do that.
He only discovers he’s actually been running when he stumbles, nearly falls, panting hard enough spots dance before his eyes. Collapsing on a nearby bench, he tucks his head between his legs and tries to regulate his breathing, gradually calming enough to draw a clear breath that dissipates the fog hovering at the edges of his vision. He’s so tired, in every way it’s possible - physically, mentally, emotionally. Glancing around, he’s not entirely surprised to find himself able to clearly see the Bridge, lights from the city spangling the darkness around it. He always runs to the Bridge when he’s upset; something about that sight, so very different from the open expanses of Iowan farmland, soothes him, lets him think clearly, if only for a second.
Bones.
He’s running again, this time with a purpose, a desire, a direction. He crosses streets without a second glance, darts around corners and the stray person, barely avoids being hit by a car once as he dives off the sidewalk near the campus gate. He sprints past the guard in the shack, waving a hand haphazardly over his shoulder; he knows all of the campus security guards and they him, and they’re generally willing to let him by without questions. Of course, the medical dorms are across the campus from this entrance, but at least now he’s less likely to be run over or knocked down running across the quad.
Between one blink and the next, it seems, he’s in Bones’ room, seated on her bed and listening to the sounds of the shower through the wall. It’s comfortably dark, the familiar space shadowed and filled only with a light glow, allowing him the illusion of hiding in plain sight as he sits and waits. He glances at the chronometer over the bed and something unclenches in his chest, lets him take a deep breath for the first time in - almost literally - hours. It’s not his birthday anymore, it’s not the day his parents died any more, he can breathe now, it’s safe to relax a little.
Bones walks out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, hair damp and curling softly around her face as she tosses her bath towel at the hamper and heads for the desk. He twitches as she calls up the lights, the sudden illumination hard on his eyes after the time he spent wandering in the dark. Bones startles, spins to face him with her hands raised and her eyes wide, ready to lay him out for trespassing in her room. He wants to smile at her response, some part of him proud of instilling that in her, but he can’t seem to make his face work normally. So he just shifts his gaze down to his hands, watching Bones out of the edges of his eyes.
“Goddammit, Jim!” Her hands are on her hips and her voice sharp with aggression - it’s so obvious she’s a mother herself that he can’t help the flinch or the way his shoulders curve down.
What the hell were you thinking, Jimmy, climbing that tree? No, just because Sam told you to is not a good excuse. Would you jump off a bridge ‘cause he told you to? You’re smarter than that, Jim, I know you are. What? Grandad Kirk said what? That... Jim, baby, you... No, I know he did, but he was old than you are now, Jimmy, you could’ve gotten hurt, I- You did? Yeah, I’ve seen it, baby, he showed me. Yeah, ‘George was here’. ...Okay, Jim. Okay. Let’s go inside.
“Jim?” He blinks and realizes he’s staring at Bones, eyes burning slightly as he shakes away the memory. She’s pulled a chair close to the bed, her knees touching his as she cradles one of his hands in hers. He blinks again and she starts rubbing his hand gently, her fingers warm against his. “What’s wrong, kid?”
He’s exhausted, drained, heartbreak threatening to demolish the last of his defenses and Bones’ unusually gentle tone isn’t helping at all. He licks dry lips, tasting salt from the damp air outside, and sucks in a breath, shuddering with a sudden chill. Bones’ eyes are dark with worry, a question written across her face as she lays one warm palm along his cheek. He’s surprised to notice the tiny tremors running through her hand as it rests on his face.
“My-” He chokes on his own voice, trying again to swallow the lump in his throat. He gets the feeling that actually saying it will somehow make it real, like it’s just a bad dream until he acknowledges it aloud. He closes his eyes, knowing how much this will hurt Bones too and unable to watch it happen. “My mom died.” He remembers the time and draws some small comfort from it. “Yesterday.”
Her eyes flash with pain and he hates himself for bringing this to her, but there’s nowhere else he could go. He needs her, even though he’s going to hurt her with this. He reaches up and rubs at his eye, trying to quell the urge he has to just break down and tell her everything. Her thumb shifts to soothe across his cheekbone and it feels so good, a balm to the raw, gaping wound in his chest. A light blush rises on her cheeks and the movement of her thumb stutters but doesn’t stop and he’s unspeakably grateful for it. It’s something his mom would do, often for no reason, just a simple touch as she moved past him in the kitchen or before he went to bed, and it’s just as comforting now as it was then, he tells himself. He shivers again, from the chill outside and the emotions crashing through him, and Bones shifts closer, her knees pressing firmly against his.
“Message was waiting for me when I got back to my room,” he dredges up, swallowing hard. Bones’ lips press together and a tiny line appears between her eyebrows, signs she’s steeling herself for a painful task. “Just the official ‘Fleet notice, not even anything from Sam.” He blinks at the way his voice cracks on his brother’s name. He didn’t mean to mention Sam. He also hadn’t expected that Sam’s silence on the matter would hurt as much as it did, after all these years of dealing with him.
“What happened?” Bones’ voice is warm, her Southern accent curling gently around the words as she centers her other hand on his neck.
A flash of anger burns through him, melting some of the ice in his gut. “It was an ‘accident.’ There were problems with the pressure lines and a gasket blew. Flooded the section with radiation.” He meets her gaze squarely for the first time since she sat down. He’s not sure exactly what she sees in his eyes, but it makes her flinch, just slightly, her face paling as her fingers press more firmly into his face and neck. “She got everyone out but herself.”
“Oh, Jimmy,” she sighs, eyes flooding with tears before they slip shut. The depth of emotion in her voice, the fact that she hurts that much for him nearly undoes him, nearly breaks through the tenuous hold he has on his emotions. She releases a long, slow breath and glances away, then stiffens suddenly. “God, Jim. When did the call come in?”
He hears the tentative hope in her voice and all he can do is stare at her, weighted with denial he can’t give her. She makes a low sound in the back of her throat and pulls on his neck, bringing their foreheads together, like she wants to take that burden from him. And he can’t help it - he flings himself on her strength, letting his shoulders sag and his head fall to nestle in the crook of her neck, eyelashes fluttering against her skin as she hugs him close.
The memory sweeps over him and he’s a child again, trembling and pale after a nightmare, his mom’s arms tight around him as she gently rocks away his fears. Shh, Jim, it’s just a dream, it wasn’t real. It’s just a dream, baby, it’s okay. He can almost smell his mom’s shampoo, feel the coolness of her fingers against his forehead, the memory’s so close. He swallows harshly and shoves it away, closing himself off from the bittersweetness of his childhood.
“What, what was she like?” Bones asks eventually and he breathes a laugh against her shoulder, wondering if she knows how close she is to his thoughts.
“She is-was...” It could be so easy to answer flippantly, so easy to say what everyone expects. Instead, he takes the hard route, the honest route, though it hurts more than a little. “She was...so-human. She was so beautiful and-and broken and she tried so hard to keep us from seeing it. She-she tried her best to do right by us.” He can acknowledge this, always has done, but he’s not sure he’s truly ever believed himself. “Took us back to Iowa, to the Kirk farmhouse, so we’d be near Dad’s family, so we’d know more than holovids and media rumor.
“She stayed on Earth when she wanted the stars, learned to raise two kids without my dad, let us know we were safe and loved, that nothing’d ever hurt us.” He sighs, trying to reconcile himself to what he’s saying as he says it - it’s all true and he knows this, but it’s hard to let go of the angry adolescent he once was. “She wasn't a perfect mom, but we had Grandad Kirk nearby if we needed him and she was there, at least, to check for monsters under the bed and kiss our scraped knees better. She learned to cook without using a replicator, took a job at the shipyard, and chained herself to the ground, all for us.
“After Grandad died, she had to sell most of the farmland, and take on more work at the ‘yard, trying to make ends meet. Eventually, well, it wasn’t enough, so her brother came out to Iowa to take care of us and she went back to Starfleet, back to the stars and five-year missions and the places where Dad's memory was strongest. I think... that's when it started.”
His voice trails off as his throat closes. He didn’t realize remembering would be so hard, let alone the number of things he’s just starting to understand and accept. But now that he’s started, he can’t stop, even when Bones asks, gently, carefully, like she’s afraid to probe, “When what started, Jim?”
"Me hating her, just a little bit." He shrugs off-handedly, like it isn’t any big thing. It is, though. It is. "For leaving us there, with the rumors that started as soon as she left and the nosy teachers and townspeople and Frank. He was a," his voice breaks as he forces himself to speak, forces himself to admit what he’s always known, even as a lonely, angry adolescent, "a good man who wasn't ready to settle down yet, wasn't even married. He resented her leaving us with him."
“Jim--”
“I was sixteen the first time I was busted for underage drinking, after a bar fight in a place just outside of town. She came and picked me up, drove me home and put me to bed. I was eighteen when she came to see me in lock-up, stood outside the cell and told me she wasn’t there to take me home, that maybe this was what I needed to straighten out. I sat there all night, ‘til the sheriff came in the next morning. When I got back to the house...”
What the hell do you know, Mom? You weren’t there when I needed you, you’ve never been there when I needed you! What, did you think the occasional ‘call or present would make up for your being gone for months at a time? You never cared, Mom, you never stayed when I needed you to. He’s dead, Mom - Dad is dead, not lost somewhere in the stars, waiting for you to find him.
“I said so many things I didn’t mean, Bones, so many hurtful things. That she was a bad mother, that she abandoned us when we needed her, that she loved Dad more than us. And she just sat there, staring at her hands, twisting the wedding band she still wore; she never said anything.”
God, why don’t you say something? Anything! Explain to me why things were the way they were! Huh?! You can’t, can you!?
“Not even when I told her I hated her.”
I hate this! I hate this town, I hate this house, and I hate you! I don’t wanna see you again! I just-God!
He’s shaking, trying to hold in the emotions and failing rapidly, his voice gone thin and hoarse, and he can’t stop talking.
“She didn’t say anything and I-I packed my stuff and left her there, in that empty house, and didn’t look back, never looked back, and I never c-called or messaged, never talked to her at all, just left her thinking I hated her and I didn’t, Bones, I never hated her and I c-can’t t-tell her that now, I can’t t-tell her how much I loved her and missed her, how much I needed her there all those years, how much I j-just needed to be enough!”
His voice cracks and gives and he shatters, sobbing harshly against Bones’ shoulder, pulling her closer and closer until she’s in his lap, a warm, reassuring weight. He’s helpless to control himself, shoulders shuddering and breath heaving as he cries out years of repressed hurt and anger at his mom.
“Why wasn’t I ever enough?” he mumbles, unable to stop himself, and something else tears loose. That question keeps tumbling from his mouth, over and over, as he struggles against his grief and loss, struggles to keep it from completely ruining him.
And Bones pulls him closer, like she isn’t already in his lap, like she isn’t already the only thing keeping him in one piece. She wraps her arms tight around his shoulders and buries her face in his neck, her breathing warm and unsteady against his skin. Then she pulls back slightly and his arms spasm tighter around her, trying to keep her from leaving, but she doesn’t. Her lips first press against his jaw, freezing him in place, tears still running unchecked down his cheeks. And then it happens again and again, soft kisses trailing from his jaw up his cheek until he finally manages to move again and catch her lips with his own.
They kiss with desperation, breathless and insistent. Jim uses every one of the tricks he’s learned, mapping Bones’ mouth with his, his arms tight around her. He lays her out on the bed, keeps her close in the circle of his embrace, kisses her and kisses her until the warm sweetness of her mouth pushes away the ache of his grief, until the emptiness of his mother’s death is filled simply with Bones. One of her hands strokes softly through his hair and he can’t hold in the shiver of grateful relief at her easy acceptance of his advances, regardless of their cause.
“Jim,” she murmurs against his lips, her accent thicker. “Jimmy, Jim--” she sighs and he’s starting to think she’s attempting to distract him, to call a halt, but he’s not ready to lose the sweet softness of her mouth against his, of her pliant and warm under his hands. He trails kisses down her neck, mouthing at the hollow between her collarbones, trying to distract her in turn. “Jim, listen to me, we -- ah.” He grins into the side of her neck, smug at the hitch in her breath as he licks a line up her throat and nips a gentle bite of a kiss behind her ear. “Jim,” she gasps, arching up into him, but her voice holds the thinnest thread of reproach and he finally concedes defeat, burying his face in her shoulder as he sighs.
They’re both panting and the ebb and flow of Bones under him has him wanting to dive back in and reclaim her mouth, kiss away her objections, but he’s tired. The past twenty-four hours weigh heavily on him and it’s just as comfortable, just as comforting, to let himself go limp against Bones, to let her pet his hair and wrap her arms around his head.
“Oh, Jim,” she whispers and he blinks, realizing how close he’d been to falling asleep against her shoulder, “how could you--” But he doesn’t want to hear it, doesn’t want excuses or pity or whatever she’s trying to say; he just wants to stay here in her arms, feeling safe and loved, until the hurt of his mom’s death and the sacrifice she made is a little more removed.
“Not right now, Bones,” he says - slurs, really, exhaustion dragging the words together until they’re almost unintelligible. He pulls her closer, closes that last tiny bit of distance, and lets himself go completely lax against her.
Silence fills the room after that, soft and numbing, and he drifts off the sleep, wrapped around Bones and holding her close, clinging tight to the one person left in the world that honestly cares for him at all.
Author: sunriseinspace
Character(s): (always-a)girl!McCoy/Kirk
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing about Star Trek (2009), its characters or plotlines, including any recognizable dialogue.
Summary: It ...shouldn’t matter this much, shouldn’t hurt this badly, he thinks wildly. He’d been closer to his grandfather than Winona and he hadn’t felt nearly this lost when the old man died.
WARNINGS: genderswap, deals with the death of a loved one
A/N: A rewrite of Cling to All You Have Left from Jim’s point of view (because so many people asked so nicely, even though this isn’t really a sequel).
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The screen of his console is flashing insistently at him as the door slides shut behind him. Glancing around, he notices that his roommate’s still not back yet and he’s not exactly displeased; it seems like his birthday gets a little harder to deal with each year and the extra time alone is nice. Slinging his leather jacket across the room onto his bed, he settles into the desk chair, keying in his access codes to pull up the waiting messages. As the computer logs in, he glances at the corner of the screen to check the time: 2345, 2257.04. Good. He can’t wait for the day to be over.
The messages are listed in chronological order, oldest to newest, and he only half pays attention to the contents of each as he clicks through them. A notice from the Academy reminding cadets of their curfews. The times for the next Xenolinguistics Club meeting. A message from Bones to comm her when he gets in. A few invites from various Academy clubs that he deletes without reading. Birthday wishes from both his mother and Sam. He smiles when he reads the one from his mom, thinks he really ought to call her, see how she’s doing, tell her he-- He clicks straight past Sam’s, already knowing what it says, not needing anyone to remind him exactly what else happened on his birthday.
He frowns when he reaches the bottom of the list, the official Starfleet coding on the message sending a shiver of foreboding through him as he opens it. It’s from the captain of the Antares, formally addressed to “the family of Lieutenant Commander Winona Kirk,” and he knows why it’s been sent, even though the words blur in and out and he actually only reads the occasional phrase. It’s all very polite, impersonal, filled with half-hearted condolences and anemic platitudes. Only the beginning of the message sticks with him:
I regret to inform you that there was an accident in the main Engineering Bay, resulting in a deadly radiation leak. In an act of selfless sacrifice, Lieutenant Commander Winona Kirk was able to evacuate her entire crew, despite exposure to toxic levels of radiation.
He stares at the screen numbly, absorbing the message’s contents, though his thoughts have taken on a strange disjointedness. His eyes skip to the list of recent messages, confirming that only the one came in from Sam, and an empty sort of resignation settles over him as he realizes that his older brother didn’t even try to contact him about this. He supposes it figures - Sam’d left him alone to deal with their mother leaving as a child; it only stood to reason he’d leave Jim alone to handle her death. He contemplates sending a message to Sam, but his thoughts skitter away when he considers what he’d actually say. In the end, he just makes sure Sam received a copy of the letter and closes out of the account.
He feels like he’s floating, detached from his body and shapeless, formless, barely there. He’s not sure he understands why he feels this way; it’s been years since he talked with his mom and they’ve never been all that close, anyway. It ...shouldn’t matter this much, shouldn’t hurt this badly, he thinks wildly. He’d been closer to his grandfather than Winona and he hadn’t felt nearly this lost when the old man died.
Glancing up from the console and around the room, he doesn’t know what to think, can’t form a complete thought through the whirlwind of emotions in his head. Feeling caged, he prowls around the room, kicks a boot out of the way when it comes across his path, perches at the edge of his bed and rakes his hands through his hair, gripping until his eyes burn and his scalp aches. He doesn’t know what to do, how to handle this, how to brush it off and not care. He just-he can’t-wha-
Jimmy, Jimmy, look at me, okay? Look at me - I’ll be home in a few months, okay, baby? No, no, Jimmy, look at me. It’ll be okay, all right? I’ll comm you every chance I get, yeah? Don’t cry, sweetheart, please? I can’t- C’mere, gimme a hug, baby. I love you, Jimmy, I love you so much. Be a good boy for your uncle, okay? I’ll see you soon.
He’s on his feet and across the room before he realizes it, his leather jacket hanging from a white-knuckled fist as he slams his hand against the door’s touchpad and stalks out into the hall. There’s a buzz under his skin, making his hands shake and his breath stutter in his chest, as he bolts out of the building. Cold air bites at his skin and stings his eyes, drawing tears that he viciously blinks away.
He walks. He pays no attention to his surroundings, spares not a single thought to curfew, has no particular destination in mind. He just has to get out of his head, away from the memories and heartbreak, absent himself from any hopes or dreams tied to his mother. It doesn’t matter that it’s after midnight and he’s been running from himself all day; he has to keep moving - forward, away, any direction but back - or the demons will tear him apart, make him see himself, and he can’t do that.
He only discovers he’s actually been running when he stumbles, nearly falls, panting hard enough spots dance before his eyes. Collapsing on a nearby bench, he tucks his head between his legs and tries to regulate his breathing, gradually calming enough to draw a clear breath that dissipates the fog hovering at the edges of his vision. He’s so tired, in every way it’s possible - physically, mentally, emotionally. Glancing around, he’s not entirely surprised to find himself able to clearly see the Bridge, lights from the city spangling the darkness around it. He always runs to the Bridge when he’s upset; something about that sight, so very different from the open expanses of Iowan farmland, soothes him, lets him think clearly, if only for a second.
Bones.
He’s running again, this time with a purpose, a desire, a direction. He crosses streets without a second glance, darts around corners and the stray person, barely avoids being hit by a car once as he dives off the sidewalk near the campus gate. He sprints past the guard in the shack, waving a hand haphazardly over his shoulder; he knows all of the campus security guards and they him, and they’re generally willing to let him by without questions. Of course, the medical dorms are across the campus from this entrance, but at least now he’s less likely to be run over or knocked down running across the quad.
Between one blink and the next, it seems, he’s in Bones’ room, seated on her bed and listening to the sounds of the shower through the wall. It’s comfortably dark, the familiar space shadowed and filled only with a light glow, allowing him the illusion of hiding in plain sight as he sits and waits. He glances at the chronometer over the bed and something unclenches in his chest, lets him take a deep breath for the first time in - almost literally - hours. It’s not his birthday anymore, it’s not the day his parents died any more, he can breathe now, it’s safe to relax a little.
Bones walks out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, hair damp and curling softly around her face as she tosses her bath towel at the hamper and heads for the desk. He twitches as she calls up the lights, the sudden illumination hard on his eyes after the time he spent wandering in the dark. Bones startles, spins to face him with her hands raised and her eyes wide, ready to lay him out for trespassing in her room. He wants to smile at her response, some part of him proud of instilling that in her, but he can’t seem to make his face work normally. So he just shifts his gaze down to his hands, watching Bones out of the edges of his eyes.
“Goddammit, Jim!” Her hands are on her hips and her voice sharp with aggression - it’s so obvious she’s a mother herself that he can’t help the flinch or the way his shoulders curve down.
What the hell were you thinking, Jimmy, climbing that tree? No, just because Sam told you to is not a good excuse. Would you jump off a bridge ‘cause he told you to? You’re smarter than that, Jim, I know you are. What? Grandad Kirk said what? That... Jim, baby, you... No, I know he did, but he was old than you are now, Jimmy, you could’ve gotten hurt, I- You did? Yeah, I’ve seen it, baby, he showed me. Yeah, ‘George was here’. ...Okay, Jim. Okay. Let’s go inside.
“Jim?” He blinks and realizes he’s staring at Bones, eyes burning slightly as he shakes away the memory. She’s pulled a chair close to the bed, her knees touching his as she cradles one of his hands in hers. He blinks again and she starts rubbing his hand gently, her fingers warm against his. “What’s wrong, kid?”
He’s exhausted, drained, heartbreak threatening to demolish the last of his defenses and Bones’ unusually gentle tone isn’t helping at all. He licks dry lips, tasting salt from the damp air outside, and sucks in a breath, shuddering with a sudden chill. Bones’ eyes are dark with worry, a question written across her face as she lays one warm palm along his cheek. He’s surprised to notice the tiny tremors running through her hand as it rests on his face.
“My-” He chokes on his own voice, trying again to swallow the lump in his throat. He gets the feeling that actually saying it will somehow make it real, like it’s just a bad dream until he acknowledges it aloud. He closes his eyes, knowing how much this will hurt Bones too and unable to watch it happen. “My mom died.” He remembers the time and draws some small comfort from it. “Yesterday.”
Her eyes flash with pain and he hates himself for bringing this to her, but there’s nowhere else he could go. He needs her, even though he’s going to hurt her with this. He reaches up and rubs at his eye, trying to quell the urge he has to just break down and tell her everything. Her thumb shifts to soothe across his cheekbone and it feels so good, a balm to the raw, gaping wound in his chest. A light blush rises on her cheeks and the movement of her thumb stutters but doesn’t stop and he’s unspeakably grateful for it. It’s something his mom would do, often for no reason, just a simple touch as she moved past him in the kitchen or before he went to bed, and it’s just as comforting now as it was then, he tells himself. He shivers again, from the chill outside and the emotions crashing through him, and Bones shifts closer, her knees pressing firmly against his.
“Message was waiting for me when I got back to my room,” he dredges up, swallowing hard. Bones’ lips press together and a tiny line appears between her eyebrows, signs she’s steeling herself for a painful task. “Just the official ‘Fleet notice, not even anything from Sam.” He blinks at the way his voice cracks on his brother’s name. He didn’t mean to mention Sam. He also hadn’t expected that Sam’s silence on the matter would hurt as much as it did, after all these years of dealing with him.
“What happened?” Bones’ voice is warm, her Southern accent curling gently around the words as she centers her other hand on his neck.
A flash of anger burns through him, melting some of the ice in his gut. “It was an ‘accident.’ There were problems with the pressure lines and a gasket blew. Flooded the section with radiation.” He meets her gaze squarely for the first time since she sat down. He’s not sure exactly what she sees in his eyes, but it makes her flinch, just slightly, her face paling as her fingers press more firmly into his face and neck. “She got everyone out but herself.”
“Oh, Jimmy,” she sighs, eyes flooding with tears before they slip shut. The depth of emotion in her voice, the fact that she hurts that much for him nearly undoes him, nearly breaks through the tenuous hold he has on his emotions. She releases a long, slow breath and glances away, then stiffens suddenly. “God, Jim. When did the call come in?”
He hears the tentative hope in her voice and all he can do is stare at her, weighted with denial he can’t give her. She makes a low sound in the back of her throat and pulls on his neck, bringing their foreheads together, like she wants to take that burden from him. And he can’t help it - he flings himself on her strength, letting his shoulders sag and his head fall to nestle in the crook of her neck, eyelashes fluttering against her skin as she hugs him close.
The memory sweeps over him and he’s a child again, trembling and pale after a nightmare, his mom’s arms tight around him as she gently rocks away his fears. Shh, Jim, it’s just a dream, it wasn’t real. It’s just a dream, baby, it’s okay. He can almost smell his mom’s shampoo, feel the coolness of her fingers against his forehead, the memory’s so close. He swallows harshly and shoves it away, closing himself off from the bittersweetness of his childhood.
“What, what was she like?” Bones asks eventually and he breathes a laugh against her shoulder, wondering if she knows how close she is to his thoughts.
“She is-was...” It could be so easy to answer flippantly, so easy to say what everyone expects. Instead, he takes the hard route, the honest route, though it hurts more than a little. “She was...so-human. She was so beautiful and-and broken and she tried so hard to keep us from seeing it. She-she tried her best to do right by us.” He can acknowledge this, always has done, but he’s not sure he’s truly ever believed himself. “Took us back to Iowa, to the Kirk farmhouse, so we’d be near Dad’s family, so we’d know more than holovids and media rumor.
“She stayed on Earth when she wanted the stars, learned to raise two kids without my dad, let us know we were safe and loved, that nothing’d ever hurt us.” He sighs, trying to reconcile himself to what he’s saying as he says it - it’s all true and he knows this, but it’s hard to let go of the angry adolescent he once was. “She wasn't a perfect mom, but we had Grandad Kirk nearby if we needed him and she was there, at least, to check for monsters under the bed and kiss our scraped knees better. She learned to cook without using a replicator, took a job at the shipyard, and chained herself to the ground, all for us.
“After Grandad died, she had to sell most of the farmland, and take on more work at the ‘yard, trying to make ends meet. Eventually, well, it wasn’t enough, so her brother came out to Iowa to take care of us and she went back to Starfleet, back to the stars and five-year missions and the places where Dad's memory was strongest. I think... that's when it started.”
His voice trails off as his throat closes. He didn’t realize remembering would be so hard, let alone the number of things he’s just starting to understand and accept. But now that he’s started, he can’t stop, even when Bones asks, gently, carefully, like she’s afraid to probe, “When what started, Jim?”
"Me hating her, just a little bit." He shrugs off-handedly, like it isn’t any big thing. It is, though. It is. "For leaving us there, with the rumors that started as soon as she left and the nosy teachers and townspeople and Frank. He was a," his voice breaks as he forces himself to speak, forces himself to admit what he’s always known, even as a lonely, angry adolescent, "a good man who wasn't ready to settle down yet, wasn't even married. He resented her leaving us with him."
“Jim--”
“I was sixteen the first time I was busted for underage drinking, after a bar fight in a place just outside of town. She came and picked me up, drove me home and put me to bed. I was eighteen when she came to see me in lock-up, stood outside the cell and told me she wasn’t there to take me home, that maybe this was what I needed to straighten out. I sat there all night, ‘til the sheriff came in the next morning. When I got back to the house...”
What the hell do you know, Mom? You weren’t there when I needed you, you’ve never been there when I needed you! What, did you think the occasional ‘call or present would make up for your being gone for months at a time? You never cared, Mom, you never stayed when I needed you to. He’s dead, Mom - Dad is dead, not lost somewhere in the stars, waiting for you to find him.
“I said so many things I didn’t mean, Bones, so many hurtful things. That she was a bad mother, that she abandoned us when we needed her, that she loved Dad more than us. And she just sat there, staring at her hands, twisting the wedding band she still wore; she never said anything.”
God, why don’t you say something? Anything! Explain to me why things were the way they were! Huh?! You can’t, can you!?
“Not even when I told her I hated her.”
I hate this! I hate this town, I hate this house, and I hate you! I don’t wanna see you again! I just-God!
He’s shaking, trying to hold in the emotions and failing rapidly, his voice gone thin and hoarse, and he can’t stop talking.
“She didn’t say anything and I-I packed my stuff and left her there, in that empty house, and didn’t look back, never looked back, and I never c-called or messaged, never talked to her at all, just left her thinking I hated her and I didn’t, Bones, I never hated her and I c-can’t t-tell her that now, I can’t t-tell her how much I loved her and missed her, how much I needed her there all those years, how much I j-just needed to be enough!”
His voice cracks and gives and he shatters, sobbing harshly against Bones’ shoulder, pulling her closer and closer until she’s in his lap, a warm, reassuring weight. He’s helpless to control himself, shoulders shuddering and breath heaving as he cries out years of repressed hurt and anger at his mom.
“Why wasn’t I ever enough?” he mumbles, unable to stop himself, and something else tears loose. That question keeps tumbling from his mouth, over and over, as he struggles against his grief and loss, struggles to keep it from completely ruining him.
And Bones pulls him closer, like she isn’t already in his lap, like she isn’t already the only thing keeping him in one piece. She wraps her arms tight around his shoulders and buries her face in his neck, her breathing warm and unsteady against his skin. Then she pulls back slightly and his arms spasm tighter around her, trying to keep her from leaving, but she doesn’t. Her lips first press against his jaw, freezing him in place, tears still running unchecked down his cheeks. And then it happens again and again, soft kisses trailing from his jaw up his cheek until he finally manages to move again and catch her lips with his own.
They kiss with desperation, breathless and insistent. Jim uses every one of the tricks he’s learned, mapping Bones’ mouth with his, his arms tight around her. He lays her out on the bed, keeps her close in the circle of his embrace, kisses her and kisses her until the warm sweetness of her mouth pushes away the ache of his grief, until the emptiness of his mother’s death is filled simply with Bones. One of her hands strokes softly through his hair and he can’t hold in the shiver of grateful relief at her easy acceptance of his advances, regardless of their cause.
“Jim,” she murmurs against his lips, her accent thicker. “Jimmy, Jim--” she sighs and he’s starting to think she’s attempting to distract him, to call a halt, but he’s not ready to lose the sweet softness of her mouth against his, of her pliant and warm under his hands. He trails kisses down her neck, mouthing at the hollow between her collarbones, trying to distract her in turn. “Jim, listen to me, we -- ah.” He grins into the side of her neck, smug at the hitch in her breath as he licks a line up her throat and nips a gentle bite of a kiss behind her ear. “Jim,” she gasps, arching up into him, but her voice holds the thinnest thread of reproach and he finally concedes defeat, burying his face in her shoulder as he sighs.
They’re both panting and the ebb and flow of Bones under him has him wanting to dive back in and reclaim her mouth, kiss away her objections, but he’s tired. The past twenty-four hours weigh heavily on him and it’s just as comfortable, just as comforting, to let himself go limp against Bones, to let her pet his hair and wrap her arms around his head.
“Oh, Jim,” she whispers and he blinks, realizing how close he’d been to falling asleep against her shoulder, “how could you--” But he doesn’t want to hear it, doesn’t want excuses or pity or whatever she’s trying to say; he just wants to stay here in her arms, feeling safe and loved, until the hurt of his mom’s death and the sacrifice she made is a little more removed.
“Not right now, Bones,” he says - slurs, really, exhaustion dragging the words together until they’re almost unintelligible. He pulls her closer, closes that last tiny bit of distance, and lets himself go completely lax against her.
Silence fills the room after that, soft and numbing, and he drifts off the sleep, wrapped around Bones and holding her close, clinging tight to the one person left in the world that honestly cares for him at all.