[fic] Heading Straight For A Fall (Star Trek: Reboot)
Heading Straight For A Fall
Fandom: Star Trek: Reboot
Rating: Adult (R)
Ships: McCoy/Kirk, McCoy/Winona Kirk, background Spock/Uhura
Summary: McCoy finds out where Jim gets it.
A/N: 5,000 words exactly. So many thank yous to r-becca for the proofread and for assuring me that it was a good idea. I swear I'll get them together...next time.
ETA: Sequel to In A Moment Close To Now. Followed by The Next Time You Say Forever.
"Bones," Jim said as he entered McCoy's office. "What are your dinner plans?"
McCoy looked up from the PADD he'd been studying and tapped his stylus thoughtfully against his chin. He didn't like the look on Jim's face. Behind the innocent smile and the blue eyes was a jumpiness, an uneasiness.
While he was thinking of an answer that was neither an outright lie nor likely to get him entangled in whatever Jim was cooking up - unless it was in a professional capacity, of course - Jim threw himself into the chair by McCoy's desk and slouched.
"Whatever your plans are," Jim said before McCoy could open his mouth, "cancel them. I need you for something. It's a mission."
"Jim." McCoy laid his stylus on the desk, though he still held the PADD tilted toward his chest, away from Jim. He shook his head. They'd only just docked at Outpost Alterra IV. Warily, he said, "We're on leave for the next twenty-odd hours. What could Starfleet possibly-"
"Not that kind of mission." In one swift move, Jim leaned forward, grabbed up the stylus, and slumped back into the chair. He twiddled the stylus absently between his long fingers, watching McCoy. "Come on, Bones. It'll be fun."
"If that's true, why are you so damned antsy?"
"I'm not antsy. Fine," he went on without a pause. "Since you're so damned inquisitive" - McCoy snorted - "the USS Sacajawea just docked." A beat. "My mother's a commander on that ship." Another beat. The stylus spun faster and McCoy wondered if he ought to get down under the desk. "She wants to meet for dinner."
Watching the stylus, McCoy said, "She - wait. She wants to have dinner with us? But I've never even met-"
"Not you. Me. And I'm not going alone. The Sacajawea's a science vessel. You like science."
"Take Spock."
"I can't. He already has plans with Uhura. Besides, it wouldn't be right. He lost his mother recently."
"Two years ago, Jim. I'm sure he still feels her loss - in his own Vulcan way - but come on. He's not likely to-"
"I want you. I'm asking you."
McCoy hesitated. Despite the initial hostility, the past two years had brought Jim and his first officer into a close friendship. Closer, McCoy sometimes suspected, than he and Jim had ever been at the Academy. Though he seriously doubted that Spock had ever come off duty to find Jim passed out in his bed after a night of debauchery.
There were things about Spock that McCoy resented, but Jim's fascination with him was not one of them. They needed each other. He could see that. Spock's pragmatism balanced Jim's…whatever it was that made Jim Jim. And Jim was still his friend - really, his best friend. It was just as well that this small distance - this Vulcan - had sprung up between them and remained there. McCoy's feelings for Jim were…complicated. With Spock in the way… Well. He'd convinced himself it was for the best.
"Come on, Bones," said Jim. Was he actually wheedling? It sounded an awful lot like wheedling. "Besides," he added with an edged smile, "you'll make me look better."
McCoy pushed his chair back, stood, and, leaning over the desk, grabbed the damn stylus from Jim's hand. "Forget it," he barked. "Even if I wanted to, I've a lot of work, and I don't need-" He waved the PADD. A mistake. Jim took it from him easily, glanced down at it for a second or two, then smirked.
"Twenty-five across is wrong," he said. "That's why you're not getting seven down. It's Betazed. And sixty-seven-"
"Out," McCoy ordered.
Jim stood briskly and dropped the PADD to the desk with a clatter. "See you at nineteen hundred hours. Dress smart."
"Damnit, J-"
But he was already gone.
*
"What I don't understand," McCoy said as he and Jim waited by the bar in Alterra IV's lounge at shortly before nineteen hundred hours, "is why a twenty-seven year-old man - who captains a Federation starship - needs a buffer to deal with his own mother. You outrank her, for God's sake."
Over the rim of his glass of scotch, Jim grinned. "Bones, we all have our hang-ups."
"Some more than others," he muttered.
"Touché. Think of it this way. You get dinner, a view." He gestured toward the lounge's rear wall, most of which was window. They could see the docking bay where the Enterprise waited, graceful and familiar, beside the Sacajawea and a couple of other non-Federation ships. Beyond that there was only blackness and stars. "I can't guarantee stimulating conversation," Jim went on after taking a sip of his drink, "but it'll probably be better than sitting around in your office, doing crossword puzzles, waiting for someone to wander in with a stubbed toe."
"So you're really doing me a favor. Here I thought it was the other way around."
"Reciprocity, Bones. I scratch your back, you scratch- Shit, never mind. Drink up, here she comes." Jim downed the last of his scotch in a hurry. McCoy held onto his and, turning, got his first glimpse of Commander Winona Kirk.
She looked like Jim. That came as a mild surprise because McCoy had seen holos of George Kirk and had always been struck by the strong resemblance between father and son. Jim had her nose, her chin, and her coloring - though her hair was a lighter blond and her eyes a grayer blue. An autumn sky, rather than a summer one. Realizing, as he watched Jim embrace his mother, that he'd just compared his friend's eyes to a summer sky, McCoy took a liberal sip of scotch.
"Bones," Jim said, one arm slung across his mother's slim shoulders. "Come here and be social."
"Leonard McCoy," he said, offering his hand. "Chief Medical Officer on the Enterprise."
"Winnie Kirk," she replied. Her fingers were long and tapered, her grip firm. "Astrophysicist on the Sacajawea." Her eyebrows quirked. "But - Jim called you 'Bones'…?"
"Because he's like an old sawbones," Jim explained. "The kind they had on old Earth sailing ships. Covered in blood, hacking off limbs-"
"I have never," Bones interjected with some irritation, "hacked off anyone's limbs. Medicine's about putting people back together, not-"
"But you are old-fashioned."
McCoy shot him a quick glare. Jim called him that every now and then, generally in a friendly tone, so he was able to shrug it off. Tonight, for some reason, it annoyed him - almost as much as it had the first time Jim had said it three years ago.
"Jim," his mother put in quickly, "you say it like it's a bad thing, and it's not…necessarily. There's something to be said for good old-fashioned manners." The look she gave him was full of meaning.
Jim's smile was cool and McCoy swore silently because damnit, he knew that smile, and he tried to think up a diversion but it was too late, Jim was already talking. "You're implying that my manners are somehow…lacking?"
We all have our hang-ups, McCoy thought.
"There were times," said his mother, "when I wondered if they existed at all."
"That's funny," said Jim, "considering you were never around to teach me any."
She flushed, but didn't back down. If anything, her gaze hardened. "You were a smart kid. You could have learned a few things on your own."
With deadly calm, Jim said, "I did," and at that point McCoy had to intervene because it was obvious that there were deep wounds here, and if he couldn't close them, maybe he could stop them getting worse.
"Commander," he said, stepping forward and gesturing toward the bar. "Let me get you a drink."
She flashed him a grateful look. "I could use one. And, please. It's Winnie, Doctor."
"McCoy," he said, offering her his arm. So she wouldn't think he was being rude, he added, "Nobody calls me Leonard nowadays."
"Old-fashioned," said Jim with a smirk.
McCoy was reaching his limit. He was a doctor, after all, not a family counselor. "Jim, shut up or I'll tell her the real reason we're here."
Winnie looked intrigued. "The real reason…? I thought - Jim said something about your Chief Engineer wanting to run some diagnostics-"
"That's one reason," said McCoy. He glanced back at Jim, who shrugged. Fine, if you think I deserve it, his expression said. "We're also here to pick up a shipment of new gold command shirts. The captain has this tendency to get them torn on away missions and he's down to his last one."
"Which is clean," Jim put in. "Incidentally."
Winnie laughed and McCoy made the mistake of looking down at her. Something twisted in his heart. Her smile was every bit as dazzling as her son's.
*
Jim was civil during dinner, even charming. McCoy, who was as familiar as anyone with Jim's moods and quirks, honestly couldn't tell if it was forced or not. Jim and his mother talked a lot, mostly about their respective adventures in space. Seated across from them, McCoy listened, genuinely interested, drank his merlot, and said very little. In fact, the only times he contributed anything were when Winnie turned to him, eyebrows raised over her gray-blue eyes, silently asking him to confirm Jim's version of events.
"That's how it happened," he'd always say and add in his own head, through Jim's eyes, anyway. Though maybe he was being overly harsh. Jim was a consummate storyteller, but he didn't make things up; he just saw details a little more vividly than most other people, including - perhaps particularly - McCoy.
Only once did he feel the need to elaborate, after Jim finished describing an early away mission that had almost ended very, very badly and Winnie blanched.
"It wasn't as bad as he's making it out to be," McCoy put in hastily, though that was a lie. He shot Jim a glare. The woman had lost her husband; Starfleet officer or not, she didn't need to know how close she'd come to losing her son. "And I wasn't-"
"You were," said Jim, saluting him with his wine. Color jumped in Jim's cheeks. Was that his third glass? McCoy wondered suddenly, or his fourth? "You were ferocious. Like a tiger. After the Cardassian sergeant stabbed me-"
"I don't think I want to hear any more about the Cardassian sergeant stabbing you," Winnie interrupted. And McCoy was relieved when Jim shrugged and changed the subject because he really didn't want to hear about it either. There was a gap in McCoy's memory between the sudden flash of a knife and Jim's eyes widening in shock, and arriving on the transporter pad, just holding Jim together with his own blood-soaked hands. Spock had had to take him aside later - much later - and question his professional detachment. It hadn't been the first time, but since McCoy couldn't remember his actions, he'd listened in stony silence for once.
His nightmares filled in the missing pieces.
"Seriously?" Jim was saying to his mother, and McCoy blinked. He'd missed something.
"Seriously," said Winnie. "We were there to look at this interphasic rift. Just look at it, take some pictures, and get the hell out of there. But the Tholians found out we were there and - I swear to God, Jim - they are the most pathetic…"
They were looking at each other and McCoy, who found himself studying their profiles, was struck once again by the familial resemblance. There were differences, of course; Winnie's face was much more delicately constructed than her son's, and wider at the cheekbones. There were fine lines at the corners of her eyes and lips. But McCoy was reminded suddenly of those pictures his daughter thought were so funny, the ones that depicted either two people looking each other straight in the eye or a chalice, depending on how you focused your eyes. What was the chalice? McCoy wondered. George Kirk?
"But what about their nets, or their webs, or whatever they have?" Jim said. "I'd heard-"
Winnie laughed. "Sure, we'd have been in trouble if we'd gotten stuck. But they take so damn long to construct the thing. By the time they finished, we could have been halfway across the galaxy. And they don't sneak up on you." Dropping her voice in what McCoy could only guess was a painful imitation of the Tholians: "You have entered our territory. Stay right where you are while we trap you in our web."
"What, they didn't try to disable you?" Jim's own laughter was bright, but McCoy detected an undercurrent of worry.
"Of course they did," said Winnie blithely. "But the Sacajawea's a sturdy girl."
"Did you get your pictures?" McCoy heard himself say.
"Sure," said Winnie, turning her smile on him. "Not as many or as close-up as we'd have liked, but we sent them back to Earth. I'm sure they'll send another ship out there at some point, probably one that's a little stealthier and better armed. When they do, I may request a transfer. I want to know more about that rift."
"Speaking of stealthy, well-armed ships," said Jim, setting his (fourth? fifth?) wineglass down, "would you like to see ours?"
"I'd love to," said Winnie.
*
Only two of them made it back to the Enterprise, though. Just as they were nearing the outpost's transporter room, a lift door opened and a humanoid female walked out. Jim stopped dead, causing McCoy and Winnie, who'd been trailing a few paces behind, to bump into his heels.
McCoy supposed that he couldn't blame Jim; tall, sinewy, and completely bald, her skin the color of a ripe plum in the corridor's artificial light, she was one of the most striking females he'd ever seen, human or otherwise. Also, McCoy noted with a detachment he owed to the wine, she was dressed in leather and silk from (low) neckline to (high) heels.
She stopped walking when she saw them and her silver eyes lit up. "Captain Kirk." She had a soft, purring sort of voice.
Naturally, thought McCoy.
"Ma'am?" Jim replied, and there was a purr in his voice too.
Great, just great.
"I had heard that you were here," the woman continued, apparently oblivious to Jim's companions. "I hope you're not leaving. I realize it's late, but there was something I'd hoped to discuss with you, something that can't wait until morning."
Jim glanced over his shoulder at McCoy. What am I supposed to do? his expression said. She's purple! Also, point of interest: leather. Aloud: "Bones, do you think you can take it from here?"
Annoyance burned in McCoy's chest, but found himself oddly reluctant to show it in front of Winnie. In a carefully neutral tone he said, "I know my way around the ship."
Jim clapped him on the shoulder. "Great! Well. I leave things in your capable hands. If I'm not back by twenty-four hundred…" His eyebrows lifted and McCoy had to suppress a groan because he knew that look as well: If I'm not back by twenty-four hundred…I'll see you in the morning.
"Commander," said Jim, turning to Winnie and holding out his arm.
After Jim and his new friend had disappeared around a curve in the corridor, McCoy and Winnie looked at each other.
"He is such a little shit," she said and laughed.
McCoy couldn't help it; he laughed too. "How much would you care to wager he had this little scene set up hours in advance? No offense."
"Oh, God. None taken. I know he's twitchy around me. I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did. I suppose I owe it to you." The corners of her eyes crinkled. "I only hope you weren't too uncomfortable."
McCoy waved her concern aside. "I serve with him. I'm used to him. Though I've gotta wonder how he pulled it off. I swear…" But he was already tired of talking about Jim, he realized. There were other Kirks, after all, and not all of them were immature pricks who abandoned friends and family at the glimpse of a purple breast. Some Kirks, he thought, had eyes like the sky just before a storm and smelled like magnolias in the rain.
Winnie had drawn a little closer to him. Her head was tilted back and cocked slightly to one side in a manner so reminiscent of-
No, McCoy thought. She didn't look like Jim; Jim looked like her. She was the original.
Thinking that he'd have to kill his captain if this whole evening turned out to have been a setup, McCoy said, "I'd be happy to show you around the Enterprise. Chief Engineer Scott should still be on duty, and I'm sure he'd be more than happy to bore you to death with all the technical reasons she's the best damn ship in the fleet." He paused.
"Or?" said Winnie, raising her eyebrows. "I swear I heard an 'or'…"
"Or," said McCoy. Damn, it had been a long time since he'd done this. He'd had a few decent lays at the Academy, but the divorce had messed him up pretty badly for a while and he didn't believe in shipboard romances. They were bound to end badly.
Perhaps sensing his distress, Winnie brushed the back of his hand with her fingertip. It sent a shower of sparks rushing through him.
"We can go to my quarters first," he said. "I'll fix you a drink."
"I'd like that," she said at once.
*
He'd barely palmed the door to his quarters closed when she was on him, her mouth hot and insistent against his, her hands grabbing at the hem of his shirt. Already aroused, he kissed her back, digging his fingers into her hair, which was soft, and so silky.
They tumbled onto the bed only moments later, clothes scattered carelessly across the floor. Laughter rustled deep in her throat as he kissed her neck, her shoulders - which, he was charmed to discover, were dusted lightly with freckles - and her small, firm breasts. The scent of magnolias filled his mouth and nostrils.
"What is it?" he asked while his right hand slid between her thighs, gently nudging them apart.
"You just seemed so unsure of yourself back in the corridor." Her fingers were in his hair, stroking, holding him against her. "I wasn't sure-"
He drew one of her nipples between his lips and sucked on it leisurely for a few moments before letting it go and replying, "I'm a doctor. I know my way around the human anatomy."
"I can see that! But that wasn't what I meant. I meant-" She hissed and bucked her hips involuntarily as he entered her with his fingers.
"It's been a while, but I know what I'm doing," he assured her.
After that, he stopped thinking and so, it seemed, did she. They didn't talk, but gave and took from each other, touches, kisses, soft moans of pleasure. At his first hard thrust, she cried out and grabbed at him, raking her nails over his back and shoulders. At his second, she wrapped her legs around his waist and attacked his neck with lips and teeth.
She came before he did, gasping raggedly and falling back against the tangled sheets and pillow. One thrust, another - and he was coming too, clasping her against him while stars rang like bells in the back of his skull.
"God," he half-sobbed, "Jim-"
*
"Well," said Winnie, "this is a new experience for me."
She was taking it surprisingly well, McCoy thought, for all he couldn't see her, having buried his face in the pillow the moment he'd rolled off her.
He felt her fingers on his shoulder. "McCoy? Leonard. Come on, I think you'd better fix me that drink you promised."
He raised his head slightly. She was seated on the edge of the bed, one leg folded over the other, looking down at him. She didn't seem upset, only - bemused? Amused? It was hard to tell in the dimness.
"Right," he said, pushing himself up and rolling off the bed. His legs actually shook as he crossed the floor to the locked cabinet where he kept his stash. "Bourbon all right?"
"Yes, please."
His hands weren't so steady either, but he poured two glasses without spilling any. Avoiding her gaze, focusing instead on the blond curls, dark with sweat, that clung to her neck and shoulders, he handed her one.
"Look," he said, but she forestalled him with one raised hand.
"No," she said. "Doctor, I'm sure you're used to asking all sorts of embarrassing questions. It's your turn to answer some. You and my son-"
"Winnie," he said, tired to the core and longing to shut his eyes on the world, "we serve together. We're friends. That's all."
"Look at me. Look at my face."
He looked at her.
"Do you love him?" she asked.
Something twisted in his belly, then loosened as he exhaled. "Yes."
"Ah." She turned the glass between her palms. "Are you in love with him?"
He wanted to turn away, but her gaze was so steady, so frank, so damned much like her son's, that he couldn't. "I don't know. God knows I don't want to be."
Her eyebrows pinched together. "Why not? I mean, I'm hardly unbiased, but he's great. Mostly."
"He's great," McCoy agreed. "But come on. You'd really want that for him? When he's got half the galaxy falling-"
"I wasn't talking about fucking. I know he has no trouble there. I want him to be loved. Leonard-" Her glance fell, but the corners of her mouth curved upward. "I'm sorry. I just can't call you by your last name. Please sit down. I can't say I don't admire the view, but you look like you're going to fall at any second. Please."
He sat down beside her and she touched her fingers to the inside of his wrist. It was as intimate a touch as the one she'd given him in the corridor on the outpost, but he felt nothing this time. His limbs were leaden; his blood moved sluggishly through his veins.
"Listen," she said. "Please."
"I'm listening."
She pressed his wrist. "I want him to be loved," she said again, only this time there was so much sadness and regret in her tone that he closed his eyes in pain. "He's probably told you all about his miserable childhood. So much of that is my fault. I loved George Kirk. God, I loved him. We made all these plans when I was pregnant. We'd both requested leave. After the baby was born, we were going to join a research station and work and raise him and his brother." McCoy felt the shudder that passed through her. "Then I lost George and I didn't know what to do. I lost my husband, my captain, my ship. And I had this baby. I took my leave from Starfleet. What else was I going to do? My mother-in-law had a house in Iowa. She'd been watching our older son, George Samuel, so I went there."
She was quiet. The sweat on McCoy's skin was almost dry and he was beginning to feel cold. He reached around and tugged the blanket loose from the rest of the bedding, but he tucked it around Winnie's shoulders. As he did, she looked up at him and their eyes met. He tried to return her limp smile.
"We were all right for a little while," she went on after a time. "Well. All right, considering. We lived with my mother-in-law for a couple of years. Then Frank came along. Frank the Asshole. Of course, right then, he was exactly what I thought I needed. I knew him. He and George had been friends. Not close friends, but I'd seen him a couple of times. I don't know what I was thinking. I wanted - a guy who had no interest in leaving the Earth, I guess. A guy who wanted a house and kids." She shook her head. "He couldn't handle my kid. I couldn't handle Jim. His grandma filled his head with stories about George, turned him into this mythic figure and Frank could never measure up. I don't think any man could have, but Frank took it personally. I didn't see it. I didn't want to see it. A few years after I married Frank, Starfleet wanted me back. I could have said no. But I had this idea that I could find the sonofabitch who killed George and - I don't know. Make the galaxy safe for my kids. It didn't occur to me that I was leaving my kids in danger." Her smile was long gone. She looked grim, defeated.
McCoy said, "When did you realize…?"
"Oh, much later," said Winnie. "Not until Jim was almost done with high school. I was back in Iowa and Frank and I were arguing. About Jim, of course. It was never about Sam. Except for the things he promised Jim he wouldn't tell me, Sam was a saint. Still is. Jim had been arrested - I forget why, exactly. Fighting in a bar, defacing someone's property - one or the other. Frank was furious. I didn't blame him for that. I was furious. But then he said something about how he was giving up on Jim. He couldn't talk sense into him, he couldn't beat sense into him. And I just snapped. I lost it." Her voice trembled with rage. "I'd've murdered him."
"What stopped you?"
"Fucking laws," she grumbled. "Needless to say, it was over between us. Not that things got much better after that. Frank was out of the picture, but I still didn't know how to handle Jim. And I still had my career with Starfleet. And he was practically an adult. He made it very clear that he didn't want my help. He had friends, he said, he'd get a job. God, it's a wonder we ever reconciled. You can see he hasn't forgiven me completely, and I don't blame him for it. I'll never forgive myself. But do you see," she went on earnestly, gripping his hand, "why I honestly don't care who loves him, so long as he's loved? You keep him safe physically. Couldn't you…couldn't you…?"
"Couldn't I what?" McCoy asked, covering her hand with his.
"Love him," she said, "in whatever way you can. In whatever way he'll let you. Please. He's a grownup now and he doesn't need me anymore. But I think that he needs you. I think he needs you badly. So, please-" She freed her hands from his and turned to set her untouched drink on the nightstand. Turning back, she lifted her hands to cup his face and touched her forehead to his. "Please." Her warm breath fanned his lips. "Promise me, Leonard."
"I promise," he said.
She kissed him once on the forehead and once on the mouth. Then she let him go.
*
Jim came back sometime after twenty-four hundred. McCoy was in his pajamas but still awake, reading at his desk. He'd finished the bourbon, washed the glasses, remade the bed and turned up the air circulator so that not even the scent of magnolias lingered.
"Bones, you should've come with me," Jim slurred as he staggered across the floor and fell backward onto the bed. His legs dangled over the side. "She had a sister."
McCoy set his book down. "I don't recall being invited." Jim, he thought, looked thoroughly debauched. His hair was a mess, his uniform askew - and ripped at the shoulder seam, naturally. There were bruises on his jaw, his neck - and probably a few other places that McCoy couldn't see. And had no interest in seeing, he told himself firmly. "Besides, I had other things to do." He immediately regretted his choice of words, but Jim seemed not to have noticed.
"Oh, right! I left you with my mother." He clapped a hand to his forehead and laughed. "Fuck me, I forgot. Ensign Kyle said you beamed aboard with a good-looking blonde, and I thought for a second that you'd scored. Damn, I'm sorry. Well? Did you give her a thorough tour?"
McCoy considered. "I was thorough," he said at length.
"That woman - Ophira - asked if we'd help her deliver medical supplies to a colony in the Rigel system. There are pirates, they need protection, but they're not Federation. Said we'd help."
"You're not at all suspicious?"
"Nah. Figured you an' Spock'll have that covered. 'Sides, m'alive, right? I'll contact Starfleet in th'mornin'. Bones, we're guarding a ship carrying medical supplies. Thought you'd like that."
"I do," said McCoy.
"I have an awesome space ship," Jim said through his splayed fingers.
"You're going to have an awesome hangover in the morning," said McCoy.
"S'why I came right here. Pr'ventative care."
"Preventative care, huh?"
"You'll look after me."
"Will I?" McCoy said dryly, observing his captain's limp form. "Is that a fact?"
His answer was a snore.
"Oh, for-" But the annoyance left him with his next exhalation. Pushing himself out of the chair, he crossed to the bed. Jim muttered indistinctly as McCoy pulled his boots off and turned him none too gently onto his side - it wouldn't do for the Captain of the Enterprise to choke to death on his own vomit - but he didn't wake.
McCoy's hand lingered on Jim's shoulder.
Love him in whatever way you can. In whatever way he'll let you.
Of course he'd promised. Because she'd implored him, because she'd needed the words. He'd have done it anyway, he thought, bending to press the lightest of kisses to Jim's temple, rising abruptly when the blond lashes twitched. This love couldn't possibly lead to anything good - not for him - but he'd do it anyway.
6/14/09
Fandom: Star Trek: Reboot
Rating: Adult (R)
Ships: McCoy/Kirk, McCoy/Winona Kirk, background Spock/Uhura
Summary: McCoy finds out where Jim gets it.
A/N: 5,000 words exactly. So many thank yous to r-becca for the proofread and for assuring me that it was a good idea. I swear I'll get them together...next time.
ETA: Sequel to In A Moment Close To Now. Followed by The Next Time You Say Forever.
"Bones," Jim said as he entered McCoy's office. "What are your dinner plans?"
McCoy looked up from the PADD he'd been studying and tapped his stylus thoughtfully against his chin. He didn't like the look on Jim's face. Behind the innocent smile and the blue eyes was a jumpiness, an uneasiness.
While he was thinking of an answer that was neither an outright lie nor likely to get him entangled in whatever Jim was cooking up - unless it was in a professional capacity, of course - Jim threw himself into the chair by McCoy's desk and slouched.
"Whatever your plans are," Jim said before McCoy could open his mouth, "cancel them. I need you for something. It's a mission."
"Jim." McCoy laid his stylus on the desk, though he still held the PADD tilted toward his chest, away from Jim. He shook his head. They'd only just docked at Outpost Alterra IV. Warily, he said, "We're on leave for the next twenty-odd hours. What could Starfleet possibly-"
"Not that kind of mission." In one swift move, Jim leaned forward, grabbed up the stylus, and slumped back into the chair. He twiddled the stylus absently between his long fingers, watching McCoy. "Come on, Bones. It'll be fun."
"If that's true, why are you so damned antsy?"
"I'm not antsy. Fine," he went on without a pause. "Since you're so damned inquisitive" - McCoy snorted - "the USS Sacajawea just docked." A beat. "My mother's a commander on that ship." Another beat. The stylus spun faster and McCoy wondered if he ought to get down under the desk. "She wants to meet for dinner."
Watching the stylus, McCoy said, "She - wait. She wants to have dinner with us? But I've never even met-"
"Not you. Me. And I'm not going alone. The Sacajawea's a science vessel. You like science."
"Take Spock."
"I can't. He already has plans with Uhura. Besides, it wouldn't be right. He lost his mother recently."
"Two years ago, Jim. I'm sure he still feels her loss - in his own Vulcan way - but come on. He's not likely to-"
"I want you. I'm asking you."
McCoy hesitated. Despite the initial hostility, the past two years had brought Jim and his first officer into a close friendship. Closer, McCoy sometimes suspected, than he and Jim had ever been at the Academy. Though he seriously doubted that Spock had ever come off duty to find Jim passed out in his bed after a night of debauchery.
There were things about Spock that McCoy resented, but Jim's fascination with him was not one of them. They needed each other. He could see that. Spock's pragmatism balanced Jim's…whatever it was that made Jim Jim. And Jim was still his friend - really, his best friend. It was just as well that this small distance - this Vulcan - had sprung up between them and remained there. McCoy's feelings for Jim were…complicated. With Spock in the way… Well. He'd convinced himself it was for the best.
"Come on, Bones," said Jim. Was he actually wheedling? It sounded an awful lot like wheedling. "Besides," he added with an edged smile, "you'll make me look better."
McCoy pushed his chair back, stood, and, leaning over the desk, grabbed the damn stylus from Jim's hand. "Forget it," he barked. "Even if I wanted to, I've a lot of work, and I don't need-" He waved the PADD. A mistake. Jim took it from him easily, glanced down at it for a second or two, then smirked.
"Twenty-five across is wrong," he said. "That's why you're not getting seven down. It's Betazed. And sixty-seven-"
"Out," McCoy ordered.
Jim stood briskly and dropped the PADD to the desk with a clatter. "See you at nineteen hundred hours. Dress smart."
"Damnit, J-"
But he was already gone.
*
"What I don't understand," McCoy said as he and Jim waited by the bar in Alterra IV's lounge at shortly before nineteen hundred hours, "is why a twenty-seven year-old man - who captains a Federation starship - needs a buffer to deal with his own mother. You outrank her, for God's sake."
Over the rim of his glass of scotch, Jim grinned. "Bones, we all have our hang-ups."
"Some more than others," he muttered.
"Touché. Think of it this way. You get dinner, a view." He gestured toward the lounge's rear wall, most of which was window. They could see the docking bay where the Enterprise waited, graceful and familiar, beside the Sacajawea and a couple of other non-Federation ships. Beyond that there was only blackness and stars. "I can't guarantee stimulating conversation," Jim went on after taking a sip of his drink, "but it'll probably be better than sitting around in your office, doing crossword puzzles, waiting for someone to wander in with a stubbed toe."
"So you're really doing me a favor. Here I thought it was the other way around."
"Reciprocity, Bones. I scratch your back, you scratch- Shit, never mind. Drink up, here she comes." Jim downed the last of his scotch in a hurry. McCoy held onto his and, turning, got his first glimpse of Commander Winona Kirk.
She looked like Jim. That came as a mild surprise because McCoy had seen holos of George Kirk and had always been struck by the strong resemblance between father and son. Jim had her nose, her chin, and her coloring - though her hair was a lighter blond and her eyes a grayer blue. An autumn sky, rather than a summer one. Realizing, as he watched Jim embrace his mother, that he'd just compared his friend's eyes to a summer sky, McCoy took a liberal sip of scotch.
"Bones," Jim said, one arm slung across his mother's slim shoulders. "Come here and be social."
"Leonard McCoy," he said, offering his hand. "Chief Medical Officer on the Enterprise."
"Winnie Kirk," she replied. Her fingers were long and tapered, her grip firm. "Astrophysicist on the Sacajawea." Her eyebrows quirked. "But - Jim called you 'Bones'…?"
"Because he's like an old sawbones," Jim explained. "The kind they had on old Earth sailing ships. Covered in blood, hacking off limbs-"
"I have never," Bones interjected with some irritation, "hacked off anyone's limbs. Medicine's about putting people back together, not-"
"But you are old-fashioned."
McCoy shot him a quick glare. Jim called him that every now and then, generally in a friendly tone, so he was able to shrug it off. Tonight, for some reason, it annoyed him - almost as much as it had the first time Jim had said it three years ago.
"Jim," his mother put in quickly, "you say it like it's a bad thing, and it's not…necessarily. There's something to be said for good old-fashioned manners." The look she gave him was full of meaning.
Jim's smile was cool and McCoy swore silently because damnit, he knew that smile, and he tried to think up a diversion but it was too late, Jim was already talking. "You're implying that my manners are somehow…lacking?"
We all have our hang-ups, McCoy thought.
"There were times," said his mother, "when I wondered if they existed at all."
"That's funny," said Jim, "considering you were never around to teach me any."
She flushed, but didn't back down. If anything, her gaze hardened. "You were a smart kid. You could have learned a few things on your own."
With deadly calm, Jim said, "I did," and at that point McCoy had to intervene because it was obvious that there were deep wounds here, and if he couldn't close them, maybe he could stop them getting worse.
"Commander," he said, stepping forward and gesturing toward the bar. "Let me get you a drink."
She flashed him a grateful look. "I could use one. And, please. It's Winnie, Doctor."
"McCoy," he said, offering her his arm. So she wouldn't think he was being rude, he added, "Nobody calls me Leonard nowadays."
"Old-fashioned," said Jim with a smirk.
McCoy was reaching his limit. He was a doctor, after all, not a family counselor. "Jim, shut up or I'll tell her the real reason we're here."
Winnie looked intrigued. "The real reason…? I thought - Jim said something about your Chief Engineer wanting to run some diagnostics-"
"That's one reason," said McCoy. He glanced back at Jim, who shrugged. Fine, if you think I deserve it, his expression said. "We're also here to pick up a shipment of new gold command shirts. The captain has this tendency to get them torn on away missions and he's down to his last one."
"Which is clean," Jim put in. "Incidentally."
Winnie laughed and McCoy made the mistake of looking down at her. Something twisted in his heart. Her smile was every bit as dazzling as her son's.
*
Jim was civil during dinner, even charming. McCoy, who was as familiar as anyone with Jim's moods and quirks, honestly couldn't tell if it was forced or not. Jim and his mother talked a lot, mostly about their respective adventures in space. Seated across from them, McCoy listened, genuinely interested, drank his merlot, and said very little. In fact, the only times he contributed anything were when Winnie turned to him, eyebrows raised over her gray-blue eyes, silently asking him to confirm Jim's version of events.
"That's how it happened," he'd always say and add in his own head, through Jim's eyes, anyway. Though maybe he was being overly harsh. Jim was a consummate storyteller, but he didn't make things up; he just saw details a little more vividly than most other people, including - perhaps particularly - McCoy.
Only once did he feel the need to elaborate, after Jim finished describing an early away mission that had almost ended very, very badly and Winnie blanched.
"It wasn't as bad as he's making it out to be," McCoy put in hastily, though that was a lie. He shot Jim a glare. The woman had lost her husband; Starfleet officer or not, she didn't need to know how close she'd come to losing her son. "And I wasn't-"
"You were," said Jim, saluting him with his wine. Color jumped in Jim's cheeks. Was that his third glass? McCoy wondered suddenly, or his fourth? "You were ferocious. Like a tiger. After the Cardassian sergeant stabbed me-"
"I don't think I want to hear any more about the Cardassian sergeant stabbing you," Winnie interrupted. And McCoy was relieved when Jim shrugged and changed the subject because he really didn't want to hear about it either. There was a gap in McCoy's memory between the sudden flash of a knife and Jim's eyes widening in shock, and arriving on the transporter pad, just holding Jim together with his own blood-soaked hands. Spock had had to take him aside later - much later - and question his professional detachment. It hadn't been the first time, but since McCoy couldn't remember his actions, he'd listened in stony silence for once.
His nightmares filled in the missing pieces.
"Seriously?" Jim was saying to his mother, and McCoy blinked. He'd missed something.
"Seriously," said Winnie. "We were there to look at this interphasic rift. Just look at it, take some pictures, and get the hell out of there. But the Tholians found out we were there and - I swear to God, Jim - they are the most pathetic…"
They were looking at each other and McCoy, who found himself studying their profiles, was struck once again by the familial resemblance. There were differences, of course; Winnie's face was much more delicately constructed than her son's, and wider at the cheekbones. There were fine lines at the corners of her eyes and lips. But McCoy was reminded suddenly of those pictures his daughter thought were so funny, the ones that depicted either two people looking each other straight in the eye or a chalice, depending on how you focused your eyes. What was the chalice? McCoy wondered. George Kirk?
"But what about their nets, or their webs, or whatever they have?" Jim said. "I'd heard-"
Winnie laughed. "Sure, we'd have been in trouble if we'd gotten stuck. But they take so damn long to construct the thing. By the time they finished, we could have been halfway across the galaxy. And they don't sneak up on you." Dropping her voice in what McCoy could only guess was a painful imitation of the Tholians: "You have entered our territory. Stay right where you are while we trap you in our web."
"What, they didn't try to disable you?" Jim's own laughter was bright, but McCoy detected an undercurrent of worry.
"Of course they did," said Winnie blithely. "But the Sacajawea's a sturdy girl."
"Did you get your pictures?" McCoy heard himself say.
"Sure," said Winnie, turning her smile on him. "Not as many or as close-up as we'd have liked, but we sent them back to Earth. I'm sure they'll send another ship out there at some point, probably one that's a little stealthier and better armed. When they do, I may request a transfer. I want to know more about that rift."
"Speaking of stealthy, well-armed ships," said Jim, setting his (fourth? fifth?) wineglass down, "would you like to see ours?"
"I'd love to," said Winnie.
*
Only two of them made it back to the Enterprise, though. Just as they were nearing the outpost's transporter room, a lift door opened and a humanoid female walked out. Jim stopped dead, causing McCoy and Winnie, who'd been trailing a few paces behind, to bump into his heels.
McCoy supposed that he couldn't blame Jim; tall, sinewy, and completely bald, her skin the color of a ripe plum in the corridor's artificial light, she was one of the most striking females he'd ever seen, human or otherwise. Also, McCoy noted with a detachment he owed to the wine, she was dressed in leather and silk from (low) neckline to (high) heels.
She stopped walking when she saw them and her silver eyes lit up. "Captain Kirk." She had a soft, purring sort of voice.
Naturally, thought McCoy.
"Ma'am?" Jim replied, and there was a purr in his voice too.
Great, just great.
"I had heard that you were here," the woman continued, apparently oblivious to Jim's companions. "I hope you're not leaving. I realize it's late, but there was something I'd hoped to discuss with you, something that can't wait until morning."
Jim glanced over his shoulder at McCoy. What am I supposed to do? his expression said. She's purple! Also, point of interest: leather. Aloud: "Bones, do you think you can take it from here?"
Annoyance burned in McCoy's chest, but found himself oddly reluctant to show it in front of Winnie. In a carefully neutral tone he said, "I know my way around the ship."
Jim clapped him on the shoulder. "Great! Well. I leave things in your capable hands. If I'm not back by twenty-four hundred…" His eyebrows lifted and McCoy had to suppress a groan because he knew that look as well: If I'm not back by twenty-four hundred…I'll see you in the morning.
"Commander," said Jim, turning to Winnie and holding out his arm.
After Jim and his new friend had disappeared around a curve in the corridor, McCoy and Winnie looked at each other.
"He is such a little shit," she said and laughed.
McCoy couldn't help it; he laughed too. "How much would you care to wager he had this little scene set up hours in advance? No offense."
"Oh, God. None taken. I know he's twitchy around me. I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did. I suppose I owe it to you." The corners of her eyes crinkled. "I only hope you weren't too uncomfortable."
McCoy waved her concern aside. "I serve with him. I'm used to him. Though I've gotta wonder how he pulled it off. I swear…" But he was already tired of talking about Jim, he realized. There were other Kirks, after all, and not all of them were immature pricks who abandoned friends and family at the glimpse of a purple breast. Some Kirks, he thought, had eyes like the sky just before a storm and smelled like magnolias in the rain.
Winnie had drawn a little closer to him. Her head was tilted back and cocked slightly to one side in a manner so reminiscent of-
No, McCoy thought. She didn't look like Jim; Jim looked like her. She was the original.
Thinking that he'd have to kill his captain if this whole evening turned out to have been a setup, McCoy said, "I'd be happy to show you around the Enterprise. Chief Engineer Scott should still be on duty, and I'm sure he'd be more than happy to bore you to death with all the technical reasons she's the best damn ship in the fleet." He paused.
"Or?" said Winnie, raising her eyebrows. "I swear I heard an 'or'…"
"Or," said McCoy. Damn, it had been a long time since he'd done this. He'd had a few decent lays at the Academy, but the divorce had messed him up pretty badly for a while and he didn't believe in shipboard romances. They were bound to end badly.
Perhaps sensing his distress, Winnie brushed the back of his hand with her fingertip. It sent a shower of sparks rushing through him.
"We can go to my quarters first," he said. "I'll fix you a drink."
"I'd like that," she said at once.
*
He'd barely palmed the door to his quarters closed when she was on him, her mouth hot and insistent against his, her hands grabbing at the hem of his shirt. Already aroused, he kissed her back, digging his fingers into her hair, which was soft, and so silky.
They tumbled onto the bed only moments later, clothes scattered carelessly across the floor. Laughter rustled deep in her throat as he kissed her neck, her shoulders - which, he was charmed to discover, were dusted lightly with freckles - and her small, firm breasts. The scent of magnolias filled his mouth and nostrils.
"What is it?" he asked while his right hand slid between her thighs, gently nudging them apart.
"You just seemed so unsure of yourself back in the corridor." Her fingers were in his hair, stroking, holding him against her. "I wasn't sure-"
He drew one of her nipples between his lips and sucked on it leisurely for a few moments before letting it go and replying, "I'm a doctor. I know my way around the human anatomy."
"I can see that! But that wasn't what I meant. I meant-" She hissed and bucked her hips involuntarily as he entered her with his fingers.
"It's been a while, but I know what I'm doing," he assured her.
After that, he stopped thinking and so, it seemed, did she. They didn't talk, but gave and took from each other, touches, kisses, soft moans of pleasure. At his first hard thrust, she cried out and grabbed at him, raking her nails over his back and shoulders. At his second, she wrapped her legs around his waist and attacked his neck with lips and teeth.
She came before he did, gasping raggedly and falling back against the tangled sheets and pillow. One thrust, another - and he was coming too, clasping her against him while stars rang like bells in the back of his skull.
"God," he half-sobbed, "Jim-"
*
"Well," said Winnie, "this is a new experience for me."
She was taking it surprisingly well, McCoy thought, for all he couldn't see her, having buried his face in the pillow the moment he'd rolled off her.
He felt her fingers on his shoulder. "McCoy? Leonard. Come on, I think you'd better fix me that drink you promised."
He raised his head slightly. She was seated on the edge of the bed, one leg folded over the other, looking down at him. She didn't seem upset, only - bemused? Amused? It was hard to tell in the dimness.
"Right," he said, pushing himself up and rolling off the bed. His legs actually shook as he crossed the floor to the locked cabinet where he kept his stash. "Bourbon all right?"
"Yes, please."
His hands weren't so steady either, but he poured two glasses without spilling any. Avoiding her gaze, focusing instead on the blond curls, dark with sweat, that clung to her neck and shoulders, he handed her one.
"Look," he said, but she forestalled him with one raised hand.
"No," she said. "Doctor, I'm sure you're used to asking all sorts of embarrassing questions. It's your turn to answer some. You and my son-"
"Winnie," he said, tired to the core and longing to shut his eyes on the world, "we serve together. We're friends. That's all."
"Look at me. Look at my face."
He looked at her.
"Do you love him?" she asked.
Something twisted in his belly, then loosened as he exhaled. "Yes."
"Ah." She turned the glass between her palms. "Are you in love with him?"
He wanted to turn away, but her gaze was so steady, so frank, so damned much like her son's, that he couldn't. "I don't know. God knows I don't want to be."
Her eyebrows pinched together. "Why not? I mean, I'm hardly unbiased, but he's great. Mostly."
"He's great," McCoy agreed. "But come on. You'd really want that for him? When he's got half the galaxy falling-"
"I wasn't talking about fucking. I know he has no trouble there. I want him to be loved. Leonard-" Her glance fell, but the corners of her mouth curved upward. "I'm sorry. I just can't call you by your last name. Please sit down. I can't say I don't admire the view, but you look like you're going to fall at any second. Please."
He sat down beside her and she touched her fingers to the inside of his wrist. It was as intimate a touch as the one she'd given him in the corridor on the outpost, but he felt nothing this time. His limbs were leaden; his blood moved sluggishly through his veins.
"Listen," she said. "Please."
"I'm listening."
She pressed his wrist. "I want him to be loved," she said again, only this time there was so much sadness and regret in her tone that he closed his eyes in pain. "He's probably told you all about his miserable childhood. So much of that is my fault. I loved George Kirk. God, I loved him. We made all these plans when I was pregnant. We'd both requested leave. After the baby was born, we were going to join a research station and work and raise him and his brother." McCoy felt the shudder that passed through her. "Then I lost George and I didn't know what to do. I lost my husband, my captain, my ship. And I had this baby. I took my leave from Starfleet. What else was I going to do? My mother-in-law had a house in Iowa. She'd been watching our older son, George Samuel, so I went there."
She was quiet. The sweat on McCoy's skin was almost dry and he was beginning to feel cold. He reached around and tugged the blanket loose from the rest of the bedding, but he tucked it around Winnie's shoulders. As he did, she looked up at him and their eyes met. He tried to return her limp smile.
"We were all right for a little while," she went on after a time. "Well. All right, considering. We lived with my mother-in-law for a couple of years. Then Frank came along. Frank the Asshole. Of course, right then, he was exactly what I thought I needed. I knew him. He and George had been friends. Not close friends, but I'd seen him a couple of times. I don't know what I was thinking. I wanted - a guy who had no interest in leaving the Earth, I guess. A guy who wanted a house and kids." She shook her head. "He couldn't handle my kid. I couldn't handle Jim. His grandma filled his head with stories about George, turned him into this mythic figure and Frank could never measure up. I don't think any man could have, but Frank took it personally. I didn't see it. I didn't want to see it. A few years after I married Frank, Starfleet wanted me back. I could have said no. But I had this idea that I could find the sonofabitch who killed George and - I don't know. Make the galaxy safe for my kids. It didn't occur to me that I was leaving my kids in danger." Her smile was long gone. She looked grim, defeated.
McCoy said, "When did you realize…?"
"Oh, much later," said Winnie. "Not until Jim was almost done with high school. I was back in Iowa and Frank and I were arguing. About Jim, of course. It was never about Sam. Except for the things he promised Jim he wouldn't tell me, Sam was a saint. Still is. Jim had been arrested - I forget why, exactly. Fighting in a bar, defacing someone's property - one or the other. Frank was furious. I didn't blame him for that. I was furious. But then he said something about how he was giving up on Jim. He couldn't talk sense into him, he couldn't beat sense into him. And I just snapped. I lost it." Her voice trembled with rage. "I'd've murdered him."
"What stopped you?"
"Fucking laws," she grumbled. "Needless to say, it was over between us. Not that things got much better after that. Frank was out of the picture, but I still didn't know how to handle Jim. And I still had my career with Starfleet. And he was practically an adult. He made it very clear that he didn't want my help. He had friends, he said, he'd get a job. God, it's a wonder we ever reconciled. You can see he hasn't forgiven me completely, and I don't blame him for it. I'll never forgive myself. But do you see," she went on earnestly, gripping his hand, "why I honestly don't care who loves him, so long as he's loved? You keep him safe physically. Couldn't you…couldn't you…?"
"Couldn't I what?" McCoy asked, covering her hand with his.
"Love him," she said, "in whatever way you can. In whatever way he'll let you. Please. He's a grownup now and he doesn't need me anymore. But I think that he needs you. I think he needs you badly. So, please-" She freed her hands from his and turned to set her untouched drink on the nightstand. Turning back, she lifted her hands to cup his face and touched her forehead to his. "Please." Her warm breath fanned his lips. "Promise me, Leonard."
"I promise," he said.
She kissed him once on the forehead and once on the mouth. Then she let him go.
*
Jim came back sometime after twenty-four hundred. McCoy was in his pajamas but still awake, reading at his desk. He'd finished the bourbon, washed the glasses, remade the bed and turned up the air circulator so that not even the scent of magnolias lingered.
"Bones, you should've come with me," Jim slurred as he staggered across the floor and fell backward onto the bed. His legs dangled over the side. "She had a sister."
McCoy set his book down. "I don't recall being invited." Jim, he thought, looked thoroughly debauched. His hair was a mess, his uniform askew - and ripped at the shoulder seam, naturally. There were bruises on his jaw, his neck - and probably a few other places that McCoy couldn't see. And had no interest in seeing, he told himself firmly. "Besides, I had other things to do." He immediately regretted his choice of words, but Jim seemed not to have noticed.
"Oh, right! I left you with my mother." He clapped a hand to his forehead and laughed. "Fuck me, I forgot. Ensign Kyle said you beamed aboard with a good-looking blonde, and I thought for a second that you'd scored. Damn, I'm sorry. Well? Did you give her a thorough tour?"
McCoy considered. "I was thorough," he said at length.
"That woman - Ophira - asked if we'd help her deliver medical supplies to a colony in the Rigel system. There are pirates, they need protection, but they're not Federation. Said we'd help."
"You're not at all suspicious?"
"Nah. Figured you an' Spock'll have that covered. 'Sides, m'alive, right? I'll contact Starfleet in th'mornin'. Bones, we're guarding a ship carrying medical supplies. Thought you'd like that."
"I do," said McCoy.
"I have an awesome space ship," Jim said through his splayed fingers.
"You're going to have an awesome hangover in the morning," said McCoy.
"S'why I came right here. Pr'ventative care."
"Preventative care, huh?"
"You'll look after me."
"Will I?" McCoy said dryly, observing his captain's limp form. "Is that a fact?"
His answer was a snore.
"Oh, for-" But the annoyance left him with his next exhalation. Pushing himself out of the chair, he crossed to the bed. Jim muttered indistinctly as McCoy pulled his boots off and turned him none too gently onto his side - it wouldn't do for the Captain of the Enterprise to choke to death on his own vomit - but he didn't wake.
McCoy's hand lingered on Jim's shoulder.
Love him in whatever way you can. In whatever way he'll let you.
Of course he'd promised. Because she'd implored him, because she'd needed the words. He'd have done it anyway, he thought, bending to press the lightest of kisses to Jim's temple, rising abruptly when the blond lashes twitched. This love couldn't possibly lead to anything good - not for him - but he'd do it anyway.
6/14/09