Fic: "The Needs of the Few" (4b/23)
Title: "The Needs of the Few"
Canon characters/Pairing(s): Kirk & McCoy, Pike, Finney
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 12,670 for chapter 4, in two parts. (Stupid LJ post size limit.)
Warnings: Foul language, political situations, military stuff.
Summary: As cadets on a summer internship, Kirk and McCoy are supposed to keep their eyes open and their mouths shut. As far as Bones is concerned, that’s just plain wrong on Jim Kirk, but Jim seems determined to follow orders and fall in line for a change. After all, they’ve both seen enough trouble in two years at the Academy, and this is the Peace Mission of Axanar. However, when a mystery starts to weave itself around the mission, and the senior officers don’t seem interested in investigating, how far can Kirk and McCoy let it go?
Previous chapters: One, Two, Three, Four
Chapter 4, Continued
The Athena wasn’t a huge ship - not like the new Constitution Class models that were rolling off the line now - so Leonard was surprised when he walked into sickbay on his fifth day aboard to discover that he had an office. Doctor Brex had decided that if he was going to interview people about something as sensitive as psych issues and phobias, then he should have a place that wasn’t open to the entire medical bay.
So, Brex had brought in a couple of engineers overnight, and they’d constructed a small office at the back of the lab. It was nothing like a CMO’s office. It had temporary walls and just barely enough room for two people, a desk, and a bit of equipment, but it was more than he’d expected. It also gave him the strange sensation of being welcomed home, as though he actually had a place here. He hadn’t had an office since he’d lived in Georgia... before his marriage and his career had imploded. Having one again was a good feeling.
Brex grinned broadly as he carried one of Leonard’s small crates of equipment into the office, set it on his desk, and wished him luck just as the first interviewee of the day arrived.
The day passed smoothly, and by 1800 hours, Leonard had completed preliminary interviews with eight more volunteers, and the last volunteer had left his office. With a satisfied grunt, Leonard allowed himself the luxury of slouching in his chair as he reviewed the data from the interviews and began writing up his assessments for individual protocols. All but one of the volunteers he’d met that day qualified for further study. He had nineteen qualified volunteers from his interviews over the previous two days, for a total of 26. He'd begin actual testing and designing treatment plans tomorrow.
All in all, he was really feeling good about this assignment. He was certainly in a better frame of mind than he had been when the summer had begun. As the light years sped by, it was becoming easier to push the problems at home to the back of his mind. And wasn’t that part of what he'd wanted anyway? A new career that would take him away from the troubles of his past?
He’d told himself to stop fixating on how he’d messed up his week with his daughter because there was nothing he could do about it from a dozen sectors away. Besides, he was a doctor and a researcher. He was busy enough with his work. Sure, Jim had told him to contact Jocelyn and he'd said he would, but he didn't want to. He'd already talked to her before he'd left and given her a time when he was returning, and he'd deal with it when he got back.
But a voice in the back of his mind kept telling him this was exactly how he’d messed up his life in the first place. He should feel guilty for indulging in this sort of mental freedom, light years of distance be damned, but he pushed his guilt aside and ignored it. His sense of self-preservation firmly told that voice to shut up, but it didn’t quite work.
Naturally, his internal argument meant he was thinking about it again. So much for mental avoidance.
He growled to himself as he tapped his PADD to close the data file on his last interviewee. A full day of blissfully therapeutic distraction, and he was right back into his mental funk. Great.
His shift had technically been over for more than an hour, but he’d stayed later to finish an interview and squeeze in another. It was time for supper, but he wasn’t hungry. He wasn’t assigned to clinic duty today, but maybe he could volunteer for a clinic shift. He could go back to his quarters and work on his paper, but he didn’t really have enough data yet to begin. He didn’t really want to be alone, but he didn’t want company. Jim was probably busy, but he was pretty sure that an evening with Jim would lead to some sort of discussion he didn’t want to have. To be honest, Leonard really didn’t want deal with the possibility of needing to actually talk about anything important.
Maybe he could just do some preparation for the next phase of his study. Get some equipment prepped. Just to keep busy. Anything for the distraction.
Shaking his head to himself, he reached down into his box of equipment and pulled out the biofeedback device he’d modified. It was only one of the six different techniques he was planning to use, but it was the first line approach for those who qualified. He might as well get it calibrated and set up for tomorrow, now that he had a permanent work space.
However, as he straightened up to set the machine on his desk, he heard the door open. He looked back to see Doctor Brex standing in the doorway.
“You know, if there hadn’t been a steady stream of your research volunteers into and out of the lab all day, most people wouldn’t have known you were in there,” Brex said.
Leonard frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well, let’s see,” Brex said as he eased himself into the other chair. “Other than when you came through the main bay around lunchtime, and then rushed back less than 10 minutes later carrying half a sandwich, you haven’t come out all day.”
“I took a few bathroom breaks. And besides, I’ve been working,” he replied, not bothering to hide his confusion. “I mean, isn’t that what I’m here to do? I’ve done seven interviews, and in between those, I was sorting data. And I was just about to run a calibration on my biofeedback device... what?”
Brex was shaking his head and smiling. “We’re all busy, but social time is important. You should take a longer lunch, and spend it in the mess hall. Talk to people.”
“I’ve been talking to people all day.”
“You’ve been interviewing research volunteers all day. Don’t pretend that’s the same thing.” He sighed and crossed his ankle over his knee. “Listen, I understand what it’s like to be out of your element in a place where you don’t know anybody, but a cadet internship isn't just about work. It's about getting used to life aboard a starship.”
Leonard grumbled. “I'm aboard a starship and I'm alive. I think that qualifies well enough for life aboard a starship.”
Brex actually chuckled. “You know, it's pretty hard to convince me of that when you don't even believe it yourself. And you have a doctorate in psych? Come on, you've buried yourself in your work since you got here, and it’s only been four days. You can't do that for two months. At least you’re lucky enough to have a good friend aboard.”
Instantly, Leonard felt a flash of guilt - he’d barely seen Jim since their first day. He hadn’t exactly made an effort to see him. And just as quickly, he could see on Brex’s face that he’d caught that thought from him.
“Leonard, it threw you for a loop when you realized Jim was on this mission. You were so relieved it almost hurt. So why haven’t you spent any time with him? And if you say it’s because you’re busy, I will personally take you off duty until you’ve spent some time out of sickbay, talking to other sentient beings in a non-work context.”
Leonard searched Brex’s face for any sign that the guy was kidding. He wasn’t. Leonard leaned heavily on his desk. “I’m only here for two months, and I figured I’d be so busy that I didn’t even consider socializing. I’ve been a bit of a loner since my divorce. Jim’s usually the guy who drags me out of my cave when it’s been too long since I’ve seen the light of day. But I’m sure Jim has been busy as hell, too, and he’s always social with the other cadets, so they’re probably doing stuff together in the evenings...”
Brex gave him a look that clearly said he wasn’t buying a word of it.
Leonard sighed. “Okay, okay... I’ll comm him later. First, I need to calibrate this thing.” He started to reach for the biofeedback device, but Brex beat him to it.
“Let me help you,” he said, an enigmatic smile quirking his mouth.
“I don't really need help. It’s just a basic biofeedback device.”
“I know, but I’d like to see what you’re doing with your research.” He looked over the unit and quickly located the button to activate it.
Leonard didn't know why this was making him nervous. “The neural scanner is much more interesting, and I’m going to work on that one tomorrow....”
“I might be busy tomorrow,” Brex said as he looked over the control panel.
“I... uh... who’s watching sickbay?” Leonard asked.
“Doctor Singh arrived for her shift at 1600. I’m off-duty.”
“You know, maybe I'll just do this tomorrow. I'll go down to the mess hall. I'll invite Jim to the rec room for some R&R. I’ve heard there’s a pool table in there, and that’s the only game where I have a chance of beating Jim.”
“Leonard.” He removed the sensor device from the main unit. It was a bracelet lined with sensors that fed biorhythm and other essential data back to the processors. A visual display gave the patient instant feedback about how their emotions were impacting their physiology, and from there, the patient was supposed to learn how to control their reactions.
But as Brex held out the sensor towards him, Leonard knew that it didn’t take a biofeedback session or a telepath to know that his little recluse act was a facade. He was hiding, and it was bullshit. Brex probably already knew that. The feint with the biofeedback unit had been for his own benefit. And this was confirmed as Brex nodded solemnly and put the sensor bracelet back in its slot on the main unit.
Leonard shuddered. “I’m sorry.”
Brex frowned. “You have no reason to be sorry. I sprang that on you... but you know I did it because I needed you to realize that you’re not emotionally healthy right now, and that hiding in your office and avoiding things doesn’t help. I’m your leader while you’re on this assignment, and that doesn’t just mean I’m your boss. It means I’m responsible for you, and I’m concerned. I have no idea why you’re feeling like this, but more importantly, I don’t think you really understand either.”
“I know full well that I’ve got issues,” Leonard said defensively. “I had something personal come up at the start of the summer, but I can’t do anything about that now. I just need to settle in. Get a routine. That’s all.”
But Brex just shook his head. “You’re hiding in your routine. You’re running from something back home, and avoiding it. And you’re avoiding your best friend. It all comes from the same root. So make the connection.”
Leonard grimaced and stared down at the surface of his desk. “Why don’t you just make the connection for me, seeing as you’re already picking apart my thoughts?” When Brex didn’t answer right away, Leonard looked back up.
Brex was regarding him with a mix of annoyance and patient sympathy. “It’s not like your mind is a book and I can flip through the pages at my leisure. What I’m seeing here is obvious stuff. Sure, I noticed faster than some people, but trust me, other people will notice soon, too. So... when will you figure it out?”
For a long moment, Leonard held Brex’s firm gaze like a challenge until he realized there was no challenge there. Just support. It surprised him. With a huff, he rested his elbows heavily on his desk and stared at his hands folded in front of him. “It’s about my daughter.” There were several seconds of silence, and Leonard realized that Brex was letting him talk, uninterrupted.
Squaring his shoulders, and wondering why the hell he was spilling this information so easily, he launched into the full-disclosure details of his divorce, his two years without seeing his daughter once, and how he’d completely screwed up his first chance to see Joanna since the divorce. It should have felt awkward - Leonard ‘the-H-must-stand-for-Hermit, Bones’ McCoy did not talk about his personal life with anyone.
But then, other than Jim, nobody had ever really asked.
“... and so, if I’m lucky, I might be able to squeeze in a week with her after we get back. And I won’t know for a while, so I’m trying not to think about it.”
Brex was nodding slowly. “I understand why you wouldn’t want to. That’s not a pleasant situation. But even if you want to avoid thinking about your daughter, why would you want to avoid everyone else, including your friend?”
“I...” He almost said I don’t know, but that was a lie. Sure, there was the pathetic excuse that he just didn’t want to think about things. But after his chat with Jim over dinner the day they’d arrived, he’d gone back to his quarters and stewed. Brooded, actually.
Jim’s words had kept ringing in his ears. You’d never walk away when someone needs you. Heh. How poetic. And he was absolutely certain Jim believed every word of it. But somehow, Leonard just couldn’t bring himself to believe it.
Given the chance, he avoided problems. Oh, he was damned good at trying to get other people to face their problems - a patient who needed to lose weight, a colleague who was spreading himself thin, Jim being Jim - and that just made him the world’s biggest hypocrite. He’d walked away from his problems time and time again. He hid from them. Whether he was hiding in his job or at the bottom of a bottle, it was all the same. He’d ended up in Starfleet because he was running away from his problems so much that he’d been inches away from running out of rope, and so he’d hidden in Starfleet. And he was still using it to hide.
He’d told himself that while he was on assignment on the Athena, he didn’t have the time to deal with how he’d messed up his week with his daughter, but that was a convenient, ugly excuse. He was hiding. And he hadn’t just walked away this time - he’d flown out of the sector at warp three.
If he could do that to his daughter, he could do that to Jim. He could do it to anyone. He could walk away. So, he’d decided that it was better to simply not be there in the first place, because if he wasn’t there, he couldn’t walk away. It was easier. Safer. He couldn’t fuck it up.
God, he was an idiot.
“Leonard?”
He had to swallow to wet his throat, which had gone dry for some reason. “I suppose... I think that if I could mess up that badly with my daughter, I could do it to anyone, including Jim.”
To his surprise, Brex smiled. “Finally, you’re being honest with yourself.”
Leonard growled low in his throat. “Yeah, well, I learned long ago that being honest with myself was a sort of masochism that I couldn’t quite handle. And look where it got me. I ruined everything I had, lost my family, almost destroyed my career... hell, I don’t even have a place I can really call home anymore.”
Brex’s smile became enigmatic. “Of course you have a home. You just happen to be lucky enough to have him assigned to the same ship.”
Leonard felt his eyes go wide. Brex’s words cut through to something that threatened to make his chest ache and his eyes water.
Brex nodded slowly. “So, why are you avoiding people, especially Jim?”
Leonard could only shrug. “I guess, if I avoid them, I won’t mess it up.”
“So you’re going to mess it up,” Brex said flatly. “And then you’re going to fix it. It’s not as though friendship is a pass or fail.”
Leonard snorted. “If it was, I’ve probably got a pretty crappy record.”
Brex’s expression softened again. “I doubt that. If you did, then Jim wouldn’t have come in here at the end of alpha shift, looking for you.”
Suddenly feeling like he’d been slapped, and not nearly hard enough, Leonard sat up straighter in his seat. “Jim came in? When? Is he okay? Was he injured? Why didn’t he... or you... why didn’t someone say something?”
Brex held up his hands. “Easy there. He wasn’t injured... but he did seem a bit flustered, and he was hoping you were off-shift. I told him that you were still doing an interview, but when I asked if he wanted me to interrupt, he shook me off and apologized for intruding.”
“And then he walked out the door like someone was trying to light his tail on fire, didn’t he?” Leonard filled in. When Brex nodded, Leonard sighed and leaned forward on his desk again. “Dammit, Jim.”
“You’ve already worked more than a full shift,” Brex said gently as he stood, tilting his head towards the door. “Go on. Get out of my sickbay, and don’t let me see you until your shift tomorrow, or until you’ve spent some quality time talking to your friend, whichever comes last.”
“I think I can do that,” Leonard said, nodding wearily. Then, with a groan, he stood and stretched his neck side to side and was rewarded with a pair of satisfying cracks. “I’m too old for this,” he grumbled as he stepped out of the office with Brex right behind him.
“Well, I’m glad you’re going to go find Jim, but that old man act? Leonard... you’re still young. You need to give yourself permission to enjoy that.”
Leonard grimaced. “Yeah, but as they say back on Earth, it ain’t the age - it’s the mileage.”
Brex gave him a patient nod, and Leonard took his leave.
Outside sickbay, Leonard flipped open his comm. “McCoy to Kirk.” He waited a moment, then frowned at the lack of a response. “McCoy to Kirk. Hey Jim, are you there?” Still no reply.
Frowning more deeply, he walked to the nearest computer panel and tapped the screen just a bit harder than necessary. “Computer, give me the location of Cadet Kirk.”
“Cadet Kirk is in the Fitness Facility.”
“Well, where’s the Fitness Facility?” Leonard growled, not caring that he looked ridiculous snarling at a computer.
“The Fitness Facility is on deck six, section thirty-seven.”
“Well, looks like I’ve gotta go hunt the kid down,” Leonard mumbled to himself.
“Unable to compute. Please re-state the inquiry.”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” he snapped before hurrying off down the hallway.
*********
If Leonard’s guess was right, and it usually was, Jim hadn’t eaten. He’d probably stopped by sickbay as soon as he’d gotten off his shift, and when he’d discovered that Leonard had been busy, he’d gone directly to the fitness facility and was currently taking out his masochistic tendencies on the exercise equipment. So Leonard stopped by the mess hall, grabbed two meals to go, and toted them with him to the fitness facility.
As anticipated, he saw Jim immediately, running on a holo-treadmill, drenched in sweat and breathing heavily. It was too fast of a pace for a distance run, and Leonard was pretty sure Jim had already run several kilometers at that speed. He sighed, put down the dinners on a table by the door, and wove his way past other fitness equipment and sweaty people towards Jim’s treadmill. The holo program wasn’t activated, but Jim was staring intently ahead and didn’t even seem to notice Leonard’s approach until he waved a hand in front of the kid’s face and snapped his fingers.
“Bones!” Jim’s stride faltered and he almost stumbled, but the treadmill’s safety field quickly caught him. “Uh... computer, slow to... twelve kilometers per hour.” The treadmill slowed to a much less breakneck pace, but Jim was still breathing hard. “What are you doing here?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” He shook his head, still feeling a bit guilty for missing Jim earlier. “I’m sorry I was still working when you came by. I didn’t know.”
But Jim just waved a casual hand. “It’s fine, Bones. I didn’t mean... to interrupt. Sorry I bothered your boss. I’m fine, and I figured... it gave me time to do... a solid endurance run today. Haven’t done a good once... since I got back from... the survival training, and -”
“And according to the readout,” Leonard said flatly as he looked over at the treadmill’s display panel, “you’ve run nearly sixteen kilometers already, so that’s more than enough endurance for one night. Shut it down and get something to eat.”
“But Bones!”
“Doctor’s orders. Get off that dang fool contraption and come along. I grabbed dinner for both of us.”
Jim gave him a startled look that quickly morphed into something almost painfully hopeful, and Leonard would be damned if Jim ever gave a look like that to anyone else. Finally, Jim nodded. “Computer, end program.”
The platform slowed and stopped, and Jim grabbed a small hand towel as he stepped off and followed Leonard back through the room, wiping his face and neck. Leonard grabbed the dinners and Jim followed him out of the fitness facility without a word. The silence between them wasn’t awkward, just familiar. They were waiting until they got to Leonard’s quarters to talk, just like Jim would silently follow him back to his dorm room on campus.
People had often wondered why they didn’t share a dorm room. A lot of folks had figured they were roommates, but they weren't. It had just worked out that way.
When they’d first arrived at the Academy, they already had room assignments, and they didn’t really know each other anyway. When they’d become friends later in the year, Jim hadn’t wanted to make waves, so even though plenty of cadets requested roommate transfers, he didn’t bother. And then, after his sociopath roommate had been arrested and removed from the academy last year, the housing officials decided to let Jim keep the double room as a single. Plenty of space, and no reason to move.
On the other side of things, as a cadet who already held two doctorate degrees, Leonard had been given special housing the day he’d arrived. It was a small apartment designed for one person, not two, and it was too nice of a suite to give it up for normal cadet housing. It was just wasn't designed to fit two people comfortably. But still, his apartment had a sofa. Jim crashed there often enough anyway, and the arrangement worked. Leonard had the impression that Jim liked having a place to go in addition to his normal “home.” And... strangely... the apartment didn’t feel like home if Jim stayed away too long.
Damn Brex for being right. Home was wherever Jim was. Leonard just hoped he’d never walk away from the kid like he’d walked away from the rest of his life once before.
They got off the turbolift on deck eight, walked down the hall, and a moment later, the door of Leonard’s quarters had whooshed shut behind them.
Leonard set the dinners down on the coffee table and looked back over at Jim, who was leaning tiredly against the wall and toeing off his running shoes.
“Mind if I use your shower?” he asked roughly without making eye contact. “I earned some water credits today.”
Leonard nodded, frowning. “Go for it, kid. Towels are in the cabinet. Then come sit down and eat something.”
“Thanks,” he said, and slipped quietly into the bathroom.
Leonard listened to Jim shuffling around the bathroom, and then the sound of running water. He waited for Jim to start humming to himself the way he normally did in the shower, but it never happened. Yeah, something had set the kid off.
With a heavy sigh, he lined up his boots neatly by the door, and grabbed the running shoes that Jim had kicked off and set them by the door as well. He pulled off his own uniform and traded it for a pair of sweat pants and a worn-out t-shirt. Then, realizing that Jim didn’t have any clean clothes with him, he went into the bathroom and grabbed Jim’s sweaty workout clothes off the floor. He ran the whole pile quickly through the sonic cleaning unit and deposited them back on the shelf in the bathroom, all before Jim had finished showering.
A soft, “Thanks, Bones,” was barely audible over the running water.
He went to the drink slot and ordered a glass of water for himself and an electrolyte-rich sports drink for Jim and set them both on the coffee table. Finally, he went and sat in one of the armchairs and waited. A few minutes later, Jim joined him, hair still wet, t-shirt sticking slightly to damp skin. Jim sat down heavily in the armchair without a word or eye contact. He drank half of the sports drink immediately, took a bite of his sandwich, then poked half-heartedly at the pile of fruit salad.
Leonard waited patiently. When Jim got like this, he’d speak when he was ready, and not a moment sooner. He busied himself with his own sandwich while Jim ate. He had a huge bite in his mouth when Jim finally started talking.
“I’m a self-centered asshole.”
Leonard’s eyebrows furrowed together tightly, and he swallowed as quickly as he could without choking. “What the hell is that supposed to mean, kid?”
Jim leaned back heavily in his chair, slouching, but not relaxing in the slightest. “I’ve been working with one of the engineering teams for the past three days. Ship’s power grid. It’s a lot of fun. Good guys. But...” He shook his head again. “Bones, all these years, and I never, never thought about the other people who died on the Kelvin.”
At that, Leonard’s eyebrow went up. “Oh?” That seemed like something that had come out of nowhere.
“It wasn’t just my father. Sure, most of the crew got away, but one hundred and seventy two other people, besides my father... they’re dead, floating around in a vacuum with scorched chunks of the ship’s hull and bits of wire. Nothing but space vapor and debris.”
Leonard cringed at the grotesque description. “You didn’t know other people died?”
“Of course I knew,” Jim scowled at him. “I studied the Kelvin, Bones. I know the numbers.”
“Then...?”
“I never fucking thought about it.”
Leonard shifted in his chair uncomfortably as he processed that. “Well, who said you had to? Jim, it’s a big galaxy and shit happens every day.”
“Yeah, and this is shit that comes with my name attached,” he said bitterly.
“Now hold it right there, kid,” Leonard cut in sharply. “That’s not your name, that’s your father’s name, so don’t go acting like you’re responsible for any of it.”
“I never said I was.” Jim’s voice was tinged with dark irony and, oddly, amusement.
“Then what are you going on about? What the hell set you off about this?” He shook his head in dismay. “You can’t worry about a bunch of people you’ve never met, never served with, and have nothing to do with you.”
To Leonard’s surprise, Jim started laughing. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Never met... that’s too funny, Bones. I used to think Starfleet was huge, but it’s a small place. Tight circles.”
Comprehension settled into Leonard’s gut like a lead brick. “Who did you meet today, Jim?”
Jim’s hand twitched, and he gripped the arm of his chair. “One of the guys on the engineering team,” he said flatly. “Lost his father on the Kelvin, too.”
Leonard should have guessed it was something like that, but really, how could he have known? “Damn.”
“Yeah,” Jim said dryly. “That’s one word for it. Mine was fuck.”
“Did you talk to him about it?”
Jim gave him an incredulous look. “Are you kidding me? Bones, what the hell was I supposed to say? And he didn’t even tell me directly - one of the other guys on the team said it, after he’d walked away. After he’d asked me if George Kirk was my father. After he’d made this weird quip about what I’d be willing to sacrifice for the greater good.”
“Shit.”
Jim drew a wan smile. “Now you’re getting closer.” He sighed and slouched deeper into his seat, letting his head fall back against the cushion. He stared blankly at the ceiling. “I stopped by the ship’s archives room and did some quick research before I came down to sickbay. I’d wanted to look up who Johan had lost. It was his father. So I decided to look up everyone else I’d ignored while I was wallowing in my own fucking self-pity. One hundred-and-seventy-two other people died on the Kelvin. They all had names and families that they left behind. Two-hundred-and-fifteen people lost their parents. Eighty-four people lost their spouses. Three-hundred-and-twenty-seven parents lost their sons and daughters. Two-hundred-and-fifty-eight -”
“Okay, okay!” Leonard blurted out, cutting him off. “Fuck...”
“Now you’re getting the idea, Bones.”
Leonard shook his head angrily. “That’s not what I mean. You went and looked up the names of all the other people who died aboard the Kelvin, and compiled a list of all their relatives just so you could torture yourself with the numbers of people who lost someone that day?”
Jim shrugged. “We got off our shift a bit early. Seemed like a good use of time.”
Leonard lurched over and leaned heavily on his knees, rubbing his face roughly with his hands and closing his eyes. “Dammit, Jim.”
He heard a heavy sigh. The armchair creaked as Jim shifted. A few seconds later, a cup clacked back down on the table, and silence again. Leonard looked up to see Jim hunched over, staring at his empty glass on the coffee table. His face looked like he was trying to keep it blank, but there were lines of stress around his eyes that were even tighter than they’d been just a moment ago.
“Jim?”
The muscles in Jim’s neck strained, and his knuckles went white as he dug his fingers into his knees.
“Come on, Jim... you’re starting to worry me.”
Jim’s head twitched like he was trying to shake a no, then he suddenly leaned back and thudded one fist against his thigh a couple of times, in a frustrated, agitated movement. Leonard was just about to verbally prompt him again when Jim finally spoke.
“Bones...” His voice was tight and pitched a bit too high. “I’ve never told you this. Hell, I’ve never told anyone this, but after today... after last week...” He shook his head to himself, jaw clenched. “Fuck it all. Listen, I’ve never admired my father.” It sounded as thought there were more, but he stopped again, full halt.
Leonard raised an eyebrow and waited, knowing more was coming. Jim just needed a moment.
Jim nodded his appreciation, then took a deep breath, and stared at the floor. “It’s something that most people seem to assume - that I admired my dad. The Great George Kirk. He died saving my life and all that crap, so when I was a kid, people tried to make me feel better by telling me how heroic he was. It wasn’t worth arguing with them, so I let them think it. But...” The muscles in his neck tightened again, and he swallowed thickly. “I’ve actually been furious at him most of my life.”
Leonard thought maybe he should be surprised at this pronouncement, but he wasn’t. Even though Jim had never said as much before, it made sense. A parent who had disappeared, leaving a broken family behind? Of course a kid would be bitter. But this was Jim - there was always more to it. “What do you mean?” he asked as evenly as possible, knowing Jim would fill in the blanks as much as he was willing.
Jim growled, low in his throat. “Every damned time I hear the fucking Kelvin story, it’s George Kirk this and George Kirk that. Sure, the archives have the more pedestrian background information, but the story is always about my dad and my name and fucking sacrifice for duty and love and heroics and all that crap, and nobody ever says a damned thing about the hundreds of other people who died that day.” His voice was getting tighter and tighter with each word. “Everyone talks about the people my father saved, but there’s never a word about the other people he didn’t save. There’s never any talk about what he might have done differently, whether he could have gotten out alive, and how he fucked up. Self-sacrificing bullshit.” He snorted irritably, then coughed and cleared his throat. “Everyone talks about him being some sort of martyr hero, but...” Jim’s fingers were beginning to dig tightly into the arms of his chair. “Who the hell said that playing the hero was a good idea, huh, Bones?”
Leonard sucked in a sharp breath, taken aback at the sudden intensity of Jim’s rant as much as the surprising content. How could Jim be angry at the idea that someone else had played the hero after all the shit he’d done? “Jim,” he started, desperately hoping that he could choose his words correctly, “since the day I met you, you’ve set up a pretty solid track record for yourself of playing the hero. The way you played your training sims, the way you handled Terra Prime...”
But Jim was shaking his head, his expression warped with anger and pain. “Bones, I was playing for survival. I have never pulled a stunt where I didn't fully plan to get out of it alive. My father... he set the damned ship on a collision course and rammed it into the Romulan ship. He wasn’t in it to win - he was on a suicide mission. Fucking martyr. That’s not... he didn’t...” Jim growled deep in his chest. “He fucked up, Bones. He died, and other people died. He went on a glorious suicide run, like a damned kamikaze pilot, and I will never understand what the hell was going through his head.”
Leonard was at a loss. He’d never heard this sort of thing out of Jim before. Sure, he’d known that Jim had a love-hate relationship with the history of his father and the circumstances of his own birth, but this was a bit unexpected. Okay, really unexpected. “I thought you told me once that you didn’t believe in no-win scenarios, just like him.”
“Bones... it’s not like...” He slouched back in his chair again, but at least he was making eye contact this time. “We can convince ourselves of a lot of shit when we need to. I studied the Kelvin. I made myself do it. I read Pike’s dissertation. I tried to pretend I wasn’t personally living with the aftermath, and look at it objectively. And then, so I could deal with it, I told myself a story about my father and the whole mess that was distant and impartial, wove my own myth and lessons around it, and made myself live with it. And it worked, Bones. But even if my father didn't believe in no-win scenarios, it doesn't matter, because he didn't win. I will never be able to stop thinking about the fact that he failed, because the idiot is space dust now.”
Leonard nodded slowly. Okay, so Jim had taken the parts of the Kelvin story he could use, mentally created a narrative he’d repeated to himself until he could act like he believed it, and on the surface, he’d discarded the rest. But underneath, this was a kid who had never quite gotten over the idea that his father had abandoned their family. That changed everything.
Jim nodded warily. “Pike dared me to do better than my father, Bones. That’s how he tried to sucker me into Starfleet. And yeah, I took him seriously there, but not the way he realizes.” He squirmed slightly in his chair as if he couldn’t get comfortable. “I’ve replayed that conversation over and over in my head. He’d told me he just wanted information on the cadets who had jumped me that night, but I’d known where that conversation was going from the moment he called me by my full name. And I told myself that I should run the other way because there was no fucking way I was going to get myself into the same crap my father had. But then he had to go on like some sort of poster-boy recruiter, talking about how I could do better than my father had. And after he left, I went for a ride, intending to forget about the whole crazy idea.”
He paused, and Leonard said softly, “But you couldn’t.”
“I’m here, right?” Jim absently kicked his foot against the coffee table, making the glasses shake.
Leonard wasn’t sure how to respond to any of this. Jim was lost and uncertain, tripping over himself and angry. This was a Jim Kirk he hadn’t seen since early in their first year. It was unnerving.
“I thought,” Jim said slowly, “that I wanted to do better than my father because the man fucked it up.”
“Are you saying you don’t still think that?”
Jim sighed and raked a hand through his hair, then roughed up the still-damp mop before he let his arms fall limp at his sides. He looked worn out and defeated. “I do... and I don’t. Look, I’m not claiming I’ve figured any of this out. Like I said, I did a lot of research. I tried to dissect what he did. Take it apart tactically. Figure out what he did wrong. And the damned thing of it is... I wasn’t there, so I’ll never know what other decisions he could have made. What did he miss? What tricks or tactics or opportunities went untouched until all he had left to do was to go and fucking blow himself up? And all I can come up with is that he went on a damned suicide mission when there had to have been another way. There always has to be another way.”
Jim clenched his hands into fists, and for a moment, Leonard almost thought he was going to lose it, but then the kid shook his head slowly. “All those... well... incidents I’ve had? Bones, I never went looking for trouble. At least, not the sort of trouble with a permanent end. If there’s a way to get out of trouble, I’ll find it. And sure, I’ve taken risks in training exercises. In fact...” He smiled, but it was a grim expression. “I got chewed out during Survival Training for sticking my neck out and going solo a couple of times. Commander Mendoza even asked me if playing the martyr ran in my family.”
With a flash of sympathetic anger, Leonard clenched his jaw and sat up straighter. “That bastard had no business bringing your father into -”
“Drop it, Bones,” Jim said, waving him down. “It’s a moot point now. But what I’m saying is that even when I’ve pulled some of those stunts in training where I took risks, I wasn’t playing the martyr. The shit I do... I only do it if I think I can win. Everything I’ve been doing here... since I got to the Academy... I’m trying to be good enough so that I always have the best chance of getting out alive. And that means the people around me, too, but... self preservation, Bones. I’ve seen too much life thrown away and fought too hard to think mine is worth tossing out, even though everyone used to think I was self-destructive. I don’t believe in no-win scenarios because while my father might have saved eight hundred people, he still died in that mess along with 172 other people, and I refuse to believe that was the best answer. When my father set the collision course into that Romulan ship, he knew it was suicide. Not just a risk, but a sure thing. It was a losing game. He made the choice to go and kill himself. And... even though I’ve analyzed the battle and tactical decisions from every angle, over and over... I don’t think I’ll ever understand why he did it.”
Leonard watched something like a shadow fall over Jim’s face. The kid seemed to shut down, and Leonard knew he was done talking.
Maybe Cadet Kirk was still fixated on solving a tactical puzzle, trying to figure out what had gone wrong and whether Captain Kirk could have saved more people and gotten out alive. But Jim was still the kid who was furious at his father for abandoning his family to the massive shitpile that was his youth. And maybe they were part of the same problem.
No matter how hard Jim was arguing against it now, Leonard knew the kid’s instincts. Jim was the sort of person who would risk his life for someone else, without hesitation. The kid would walk into the mouth of hell with nothing but his fists and his wits if he thought it would save someone else’s life. While the thought left Leonard worried sick sometimes, it was also one of the reasons Jim was so important to him. So the fact that Jim was arguing against his own instincts meant that he was really, really hung up on this. The loss of his father had destroyed his family, ruined his childhood, eventually sent him to Tarsus IV, and left him on a downward spiral. He’d spent his entire youth just surviving, and blaming his father for not surviving. That wasn’t something that research and rationalizing could fix.
And at that moment, Leonard hated himself just a little bit for never realizing Jim had been carrying this burden for so long. Jim hadn’t thought of all the other people who had died on the Kelvin, and Leonard had never thought about this. Some goddamned friend he was.
But... at least he was here. And he wasn’t going to walk away.
Jim wasn’t going to figure this out tonight. It sounded like he’d been working on it for years, and it would probably take years of experience for him to put it together. The idea of a captain going down with his ship was the stuff of legend and myth - a noble idea that looked heroic from a distance, but was really messy when you started picking it apart. Maybe the heat of battle and the weight of command did something to people, but Leonard didn’t have any experience with either of those things. Not like that. And while Leonard was absolutely sure that George Kirk hadn’t thought of his actions as a suicide run, he hadn’t been there. There was no way to know what Captain Kirk had been thinking in that famous moment when he’d made the decision to stay with the ship. It certainly wasn’t something that a cadet, even one like Jim Kirk, could figure out on a personal level.
Leonard wanted to do something, but there wasn’t much he could do.
Then he remembered one little thing he’d packed, more for sentiment and luck than for the actual contents. Without a word, he stood, pretending that his knees and back didn’t crack and pop as he did. He felt Jim’s eyes track him across the room to his bedside drawer, from which he pulled his father’s flask, filled with three ounces of Knob Creek.
“I wasn’t supposed to bring any alcohol with me, so I didn’t bring any bottles,” he said conversationally, “but this is a personal good luck charm, and I wasn’t about to leave it behind.” He started to hold the flask towards Jim, who closed his eyes and groaned.
“Bones, I don’t need a drink.”
“Never said ya did.” He twisted off the cap, downed what he figured was just about half of the contents, and swallowed appreciatively. “But I do, and I don’t drink alone. At least... I don’t anymore.” He held out the flask again.
Jim accepted the flask tentatively, searching Leonard’s face for something. Then, in one smooth motion, he tipped the flask back. A moment later, when he handed it back to Leonard, it was empty. “I like your idea of a good luck charm.”
Leonard nodded as he dropped back into his chair. “Me too, kid. Me too.”
Jim was quiet for a moment, then said, in a small voice, “Bones... I’m starting to wonder if I’m setting myself up for trouble. Maybe Mendoza was right.”
“Now, Jim, don’t start second-guessing yourself up because some asshole officer -”
“No, Bones, he wasn’t being an asshole. He was doing what he was supposed to do. Push my buttons. Make me see things differently. Make me question my motivations and decisions now, when I’m still a cadet, before I can cause some real damage. That’s part of the purpose behind that training... and behind this internship. And maybe I am sticking my neck out too much.” Something in his voice sounded too tired, too damaged. Leonard didn’t like it.
“You stick your neck out,” Leonard said carefully, “because you’re damned good at it, and you know what you’re doing. Sure, I call you reckless, but...” His voice trailed off as Jim shook his head.
“I told myself that I didn’t have to do what my father did,” he said slowly. “I didn’t need to end up like him. I could be smarter. I could save everyone and myself. I could make it look like I was leaping without looking because I would have already figured out all the variables and I knew I could make the jump. Not because I was reckless, but because I was just that damned good. But now, I’m not so sure.”
No, Leonard didn’t like that at all. “So, what are you thinking?”
Jim shrugged. “Finney told me that I needed to sit back and learn to just be a cadet. Told me that someday, I’d be ready to step up, take command, stick my neck out... but not now. I’ve pulled some great stunts at the Academy, and I like to think I’m smart... but it’s real out here. I’ve been working for the past three days with a guy who lost his dad because my dad didn’t save him.”
“Jim, you can’t -”
“So maybe it’s time for me to learn my place,” Jim said right over him. He reached over to his dinner, sitting half-uneaten on the coffee table, and prodded a piece of pineapple with his fork, but made no move to pick it up and eat it.
Leonard looked at him in defeat. There wasn’t much he could do for Jim right now. No advice he could give. No way he could help Jim figure out that the universe just wasn’t right if Jim Kirk suddenly decided to start acting like everyone else. So, instead, he grabbed Jim’s empty glass, walked over to the drink slot, got a refill, and set it back down in front of him. Then, he settled back into his own chair and looked across the coffee table at this shadow of his best friend.
“Jim... I’d trust you over most of the clowns on this ship any day of the week, but... you have to do what you think is best.”
“They’re not clowns,” Jim said softly. “They’re experienced. They know what they’re doing. I’m a cadet, Bones. I need to start acting like one.”
Leonard sighed. “If you say so,” he said noncommittally.
Maybe Jim’s bizarre mood had been brought on by the unexpected revelation of the day, and it would pass by tomorrow. Maybe he’d have a chat with the guy whose father had been on the Kelvin, and Jim would sort out his emotional hangup. Maybe once Jim settled into shipboard life a bit more, once they got to Axanar and had something interesting to do, he would feel more like himself. Maybe if Leonard actually spent some time hanging out with his best friend instead of avoiding human contact, Jim wouldn’t have worked himself into a funk like this.
Whatever the case, there was only one thing Leonard knew for sure. He wasn’t going to walk away.
Leonard shifted the conversation to shipboard assignments and let Jim talk about what he’d been doing onboard so far. Jim actually asked about Leonard’s research, and listened attentively. He was being a good friend, and he knew it, and part of him was satisfied by that. Still, by the time they’d finished talking and Jim had left for the evening to go back to his own quarters, Leonard couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d missed something really important.
As he settled down in his bunk for the night, he looked across the room at the uninhabited bunk, and couldn’t help but feel that maybe he should have told Jim to stay. Feeling really uncertain about everything, and hoping a good night’s sleep would help some of that, he turned his back to the rest of the room.
“Lights.”
*********
To Chapter 5
Canon characters/Pairing(s): Kirk & McCoy, Pike, Finney
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 12,670 for chapter 4, in two parts. (Stupid LJ post size limit.)
Warnings: Foul language, political situations, military stuff.
Summary: As cadets on a summer internship, Kirk and McCoy are supposed to keep their eyes open and their mouths shut. As far as Bones is concerned, that’s just plain wrong on Jim Kirk, but Jim seems determined to follow orders and fall in line for a change. After all, they’ve both seen enough trouble in two years at the Academy, and this is the Peace Mission of Axanar. However, when a mystery starts to weave itself around the mission, and the senior officers don’t seem interested in investigating, how far can Kirk and McCoy let it go?
Previous chapters: One, Two, Three, Four
Chapter 4, Continued
The Athena wasn’t a huge ship - not like the new Constitution Class models that were rolling off the line now - so Leonard was surprised when he walked into sickbay on his fifth day aboard to discover that he had an office. Doctor Brex had decided that if he was going to interview people about something as sensitive as psych issues and phobias, then he should have a place that wasn’t open to the entire medical bay.
So, Brex had brought in a couple of engineers overnight, and they’d constructed a small office at the back of the lab. It was nothing like a CMO’s office. It had temporary walls and just barely enough room for two people, a desk, and a bit of equipment, but it was more than he’d expected. It also gave him the strange sensation of being welcomed home, as though he actually had a place here. He hadn’t had an office since he’d lived in Georgia... before his marriage and his career had imploded. Having one again was a good feeling.
Brex grinned broadly as he carried one of Leonard’s small crates of equipment into the office, set it on his desk, and wished him luck just as the first interviewee of the day arrived.
The day passed smoothly, and by 1800 hours, Leonard had completed preliminary interviews with eight more volunteers, and the last volunteer had left his office. With a satisfied grunt, Leonard allowed himself the luxury of slouching in his chair as he reviewed the data from the interviews and began writing up his assessments for individual protocols. All but one of the volunteers he’d met that day qualified for further study. He had nineteen qualified volunteers from his interviews over the previous two days, for a total of 26. He'd begin actual testing and designing treatment plans tomorrow.
All in all, he was really feeling good about this assignment. He was certainly in a better frame of mind than he had been when the summer had begun. As the light years sped by, it was becoming easier to push the problems at home to the back of his mind. And wasn’t that part of what he'd wanted anyway? A new career that would take him away from the troubles of his past?
He’d told himself to stop fixating on how he’d messed up his week with his daughter because there was nothing he could do about it from a dozen sectors away. Besides, he was a doctor and a researcher. He was busy enough with his work. Sure, Jim had told him to contact Jocelyn and he'd said he would, but he didn't want to. He'd already talked to her before he'd left and given her a time when he was returning, and he'd deal with it when he got back.
But a voice in the back of his mind kept telling him this was exactly how he’d messed up his life in the first place. He should feel guilty for indulging in this sort of mental freedom, light years of distance be damned, but he pushed his guilt aside and ignored it. His sense of self-preservation firmly told that voice to shut up, but it didn’t quite work.
Naturally, his internal argument meant he was thinking about it again. So much for mental avoidance.
He growled to himself as he tapped his PADD to close the data file on his last interviewee. A full day of blissfully therapeutic distraction, and he was right back into his mental funk. Great.
His shift had technically been over for more than an hour, but he’d stayed later to finish an interview and squeeze in another. It was time for supper, but he wasn’t hungry. He wasn’t assigned to clinic duty today, but maybe he could volunteer for a clinic shift. He could go back to his quarters and work on his paper, but he didn’t really have enough data yet to begin. He didn’t really want to be alone, but he didn’t want company. Jim was probably busy, but he was pretty sure that an evening with Jim would lead to some sort of discussion he didn’t want to have. To be honest, Leonard really didn’t want deal with the possibility of needing to actually talk about anything important.
Maybe he could just do some preparation for the next phase of his study. Get some equipment prepped. Just to keep busy. Anything for the distraction.
Shaking his head to himself, he reached down into his box of equipment and pulled out the biofeedback device he’d modified. It was only one of the six different techniques he was planning to use, but it was the first line approach for those who qualified. He might as well get it calibrated and set up for tomorrow, now that he had a permanent work space.
However, as he straightened up to set the machine on his desk, he heard the door open. He looked back to see Doctor Brex standing in the doorway.
“You know, if there hadn’t been a steady stream of your research volunteers into and out of the lab all day, most people wouldn’t have known you were in there,” Brex said.
Leonard frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well, let’s see,” Brex said as he eased himself into the other chair. “Other than when you came through the main bay around lunchtime, and then rushed back less than 10 minutes later carrying half a sandwich, you haven’t come out all day.”
“I took a few bathroom breaks. And besides, I’ve been working,” he replied, not bothering to hide his confusion. “I mean, isn’t that what I’m here to do? I’ve done seven interviews, and in between those, I was sorting data. And I was just about to run a calibration on my biofeedback device... what?”
Brex was shaking his head and smiling. “We’re all busy, but social time is important. You should take a longer lunch, and spend it in the mess hall. Talk to people.”
“I’ve been talking to people all day.”
“You’ve been interviewing research volunteers all day. Don’t pretend that’s the same thing.” He sighed and crossed his ankle over his knee. “Listen, I understand what it’s like to be out of your element in a place where you don’t know anybody, but a cadet internship isn't just about work. It's about getting used to life aboard a starship.”
Leonard grumbled. “I'm aboard a starship and I'm alive. I think that qualifies well enough for life aboard a starship.”
Brex actually chuckled. “You know, it's pretty hard to convince me of that when you don't even believe it yourself. And you have a doctorate in psych? Come on, you've buried yourself in your work since you got here, and it’s only been four days. You can't do that for two months. At least you’re lucky enough to have a good friend aboard.”
Instantly, Leonard felt a flash of guilt - he’d barely seen Jim since their first day. He hadn’t exactly made an effort to see him. And just as quickly, he could see on Brex’s face that he’d caught that thought from him.
“Leonard, it threw you for a loop when you realized Jim was on this mission. You were so relieved it almost hurt. So why haven’t you spent any time with him? And if you say it’s because you’re busy, I will personally take you off duty until you’ve spent some time out of sickbay, talking to other sentient beings in a non-work context.”
Leonard searched Brex’s face for any sign that the guy was kidding. He wasn’t. Leonard leaned heavily on his desk. “I’m only here for two months, and I figured I’d be so busy that I didn’t even consider socializing. I’ve been a bit of a loner since my divorce. Jim’s usually the guy who drags me out of my cave when it’s been too long since I’ve seen the light of day. But I’m sure Jim has been busy as hell, too, and he’s always social with the other cadets, so they’re probably doing stuff together in the evenings...”
Brex gave him a look that clearly said he wasn’t buying a word of it.
Leonard sighed. “Okay, okay... I’ll comm him later. First, I need to calibrate this thing.” He started to reach for the biofeedback device, but Brex beat him to it.
“Let me help you,” he said, an enigmatic smile quirking his mouth.
“I don't really need help. It’s just a basic biofeedback device.”
“I know, but I’d like to see what you’re doing with your research.” He looked over the unit and quickly located the button to activate it.
Leonard didn't know why this was making him nervous. “The neural scanner is much more interesting, and I’m going to work on that one tomorrow....”
“I might be busy tomorrow,” Brex said as he looked over the control panel.
“I... uh... who’s watching sickbay?” Leonard asked.
“Doctor Singh arrived for her shift at 1600. I’m off-duty.”
“You know, maybe I'll just do this tomorrow. I'll go down to the mess hall. I'll invite Jim to the rec room for some R&R. I’ve heard there’s a pool table in there, and that’s the only game where I have a chance of beating Jim.”
“Leonard.” He removed the sensor device from the main unit. It was a bracelet lined with sensors that fed biorhythm and other essential data back to the processors. A visual display gave the patient instant feedback about how their emotions were impacting their physiology, and from there, the patient was supposed to learn how to control their reactions.
But as Brex held out the sensor towards him, Leonard knew that it didn’t take a biofeedback session or a telepath to know that his little recluse act was a facade. He was hiding, and it was bullshit. Brex probably already knew that. The feint with the biofeedback unit had been for his own benefit. And this was confirmed as Brex nodded solemnly and put the sensor bracelet back in its slot on the main unit.
Leonard shuddered. “I’m sorry.”
Brex frowned. “You have no reason to be sorry. I sprang that on you... but you know I did it because I needed you to realize that you’re not emotionally healthy right now, and that hiding in your office and avoiding things doesn’t help. I’m your leader while you’re on this assignment, and that doesn’t just mean I’m your boss. It means I’m responsible for you, and I’m concerned. I have no idea why you’re feeling like this, but more importantly, I don’t think you really understand either.”
“I know full well that I’ve got issues,” Leonard said defensively. “I had something personal come up at the start of the summer, but I can’t do anything about that now. I just need to settle in. Get a routine. That’s all.”
But Brex just shook his head. “You’re hiding in your routine. You’re running from something back home, and avoiding it. And you’re avoiding your best friend. It all comes from the same root. So make the connection.”
Leonard grimaced and stared down at the surface of his desk. “Why don’t you just make the connection for me, seeing as you’re already picking apart my thoughts?” When Brex didn’t answer right away, Leonard looked back up.
Brex was regarding him with a mix of annoyance and patient sympathy. “It’s not like your mind is a book and I can flip through the pages at my leisure. What I’m seeing here is obvious stuff. Sure, I noticed faster than some people, but trust me, other people will notice soon, too. So... when will you figure it out?”
For a long moment, Leonard held Brex’s firm gaze like a challenge until he realized there was no challenge there. Just support. It surprised him. With a huff, he rested his elbows heavily on his desk and stared at his hands folded in front of him. “It’s about my daughter.” There were several seconds of silence, and Leonard realized that Brex was letting him talk, uninterrupted.
Squaring his shoulders, and wondering why the hell he was spilling this information so easily, he launched into the full-disclosure details of his divorce, his two years without seeing his daughter once, and how he’d completely screwed up his first chance to see Joanna since the divorce. It should have felt awkward - Leonard ‘the-H-must-stand-for-Hermit, Bones’ McCoy did not talk about his personal life with anyone.
But then, other than Jim, nobody had ever really asked.
“... and so, if I’m lucky, I might be able to squeeze in a week with her after we get back. And I won’t know for a while, so I’m trying not to think about it.”
Brex was nodding slowly. “I understand why you wouldn’t want to. That’s not a pleasant situation. But even if you want to avoid thinking about your daughter, why would you want to avoid everyone else, including your friend?”
“I...” He almost said I don’t know, but that was a lie. Sure, there was the pathetic excuse that he just didn’t want to think about things. But after his chat with Jim over dinner the day they’d arrived, he’d gone back to his quarters and stewed. Brooded, actually.
Jim’s words had kept ringing in his ears. You’d never walk away when someone needs you. Heh. How poetic. And he was absolutely certain Jim believed every word of it. But somehow, Leonard just couldn’t bring himself to believe it.
Given the chance, he avoided problems. Oh, he was damned good at trying to get other people to face their problems - a patient who needed to lose weight, a colleague who was spreading himself thin, Jim being Jim - and that just made him the world’s biggest hypocrite. He’d walked away from his problems time and time again. He hid from them. Whether he was hiding in his job or at the bottom of a bottle, it was all the same. He’d ended up in Starfleet because he was running away from his problems so much that he’d been inches away from running out of rope, and so he’d hidden in Starfleet. And he was still using it to hide.
He’d told himself that while he was on assignment on the Athena, he didn’t have the time to deal with how he’d messed up his week with his daughter, but that was a convenient, ugly excuse. He was hiding. And he hadn’t just walked away this time - he’d flown out of the sector at warp three.
If he could do that to his daughter, he could do that to Jim. He could do it to anyone. He could walk away. So, he’d decided that it was better to simply not be there in the first place, because if he wasn’t there, he couldn’t walk away. It was easier. Safer. He couldn’t fuck it up.
God, he was an idiot.
“Leonard?”
He had to swallow to wet his throat, which had gone dry for some reason. “I suppose... I think that if I could mess up that badly with my daughter, I could do it to anyone, including Jim.”
To his surprise, Brex smiled. “Finally, you’re being honest with yourself.”
Leonard growled low in his throat. “Yeah, well, I learned long ago that being honest with myself was a sort of masochism that I couldn’t quite handle. And look where it got me. I ruined everything I had, lost my family, almost destroyed my career... hell, I don’t even have a place I can really call home anymore.”
Brex’s smile became enigmatic. “Of course you have a home. You just happen to be lucky enough to have him assigned to the same ship.”
Leonard felt his eyes go wide. Brex’s words cut through to something that threatened to make his chest ache and his eyes water.
Brex nodded slowly. “So, why are you avoiding people, especially Jim?”
Leonard could only shrug. “I guess, if I avoid them, I won’t mess it up.”
“So you’re going to mess it up,” Brex said flatly. “And then you’re going to fix it. It’s not as though friendship is a pass or fail.”
Leonard snorted. “If it was, I’ve probably got a pretty crappy record.”
Brex’s expression softened again. “I doubt that. If you did, then Jim wouldn’t have come in here at the end of alpha shift, looking for you.”
Suddenly feeling like he’d been slapped, and not nearly hard enough, Leonard sat up straighter in his seat. “Jim came in? When? Is he okay? Was he injured? Why didn’t he... or you... why didn’t someone say something?”
Brex held up his hands. “Easy there. He wasn’t injured... but he did seem a bit flustered, and he was hoping you were off-shift. I told him that you were still doing an interview, but when I asked if he wanted me to interrupt, he shook me off and apologized for intruding.”
“And then he walked out the door like someone was trying to light his tail on fire, didn’t he?” Leonard filled in. When Brex nodded, Leonard sighed and leaned forward on his desk again. “Dammit, Jim.”
“You’ve already worked more than a full shift,” Brex said gently as he stood, tilting his head towards the door. “Go on. Get out of my sickbay, and don’t let me see you until your shift tomorrow, or until you’ve spent some quality time talking to your friend, whichever comes last.”
“I think I can do that,” Leonard said, nodding wearily. Then, with a groan, he stood and stretched his neck side to side and was rewarded with a pair of satisfying cracks. “I’m too old for this,” he grumbled as he stepped out of the office with Brex right behind him.
“Well, I’m glad you’re going to go find Jim, but that old man act? Leonard... you’re still young. You need to give yourself permission to enjoy that.”
Leonard grimaced. “Yeah, but as they say back on Earth, it ain’t the age - it’s the mileage.”
Brex gave him a patient nod, and Leonard took his leave.
Outside sickbay, Leonard flipped open his comm. “McCoy to Kirk.” He waited a moment, then frowned at the lack of a response. “McCoy to Kirk. Hey Jim, are you there?” Still no reply.
Frowning more deeply, he walked to the nearest computer panel and tapped the screen just a bit harder than necessary. “Computer, give me the location of Cadet Kirk.”
“Cadet Kirk is in the Fitness Facility.”
“Well, where’s the Fitness Facility?” Leonard growled, not caring that he looked ridiculous snarling at a computer.
“The Fitness Facility is on deck six, section thirty-seven.”
“Well, looks like I’ve gotta go hunt the kid down,” Leonard mumbled to himself.
“Unable to compute. Please re-state the inquiry.”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” he snapped before hurrying off down the hallway.
*********
If Leonard’s guess was right, and it usually was, Jim hadn’t eaten. He’d probably stopped by sickbay as soon as he’d gotten off his shift, and when he’d discovered that Leonard had been busy, he’d gone directly to the fitness facility and was currently taking out his masochistic tendencies on the exercise equipment. So Leonard stopped by the mess hall, grabbed two meals to go, and toted them with him to the fitness facility.
As anticipated, he saw Jim immediately, running on a holo-treadmill, drenched in sweat and breathing heavily. It was too fast of a pace for a distance run, and Leonard was pretty sure Jim had already run several kilometers at that speed. He sighed, put down the dinners on a table by the door, and wove his way past other fitness equipment and sweaty people towards Jim’s treadmill. The holo program wasn’t activated, but Jim was staring intently ahead and didn’t even seem to notice Leonard’s approach until he waved a hand in front of the kid’s face and snapped his fingers.
“Bones!” Jim’s stride faltered and he almost stumbled, but the treadmill’s safety field quickly caught him. “Uh... computer, slow to... twelve kilometers per hour.” The treadmill slowed to a much less breakneck pace, but Jim was still breathing hard. “What are you doing here?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” He shook his head, still feeling a bit guilty for missing Jim earlier. “I’m sorry I was still working when you came by. I didn’t know.”
But Jim just waved a casual hand. “It’s fine, Bones. I didn’t mean... to interrupt. Sorry I bothered your boss. I’m fine, and I figured... it gave me time to do... a solid endurance run today. Haven’t done a good once... since I got back from... the survival training, and -”
“And according to the readout,” Leonard said flatly as he looked over at the treadmill’s display panel, “you’ve run nearly sixteen kilometers already, so that’s more than enough endurance for one night. Shut it down and get something to eat.”
“But Bones!”
“Doctor’s orders. Get off that dang fool contraption and come along. I grabbed dinner for both of us.”
Jim gave him a startled look that quickly morphed into something almost painfully hopeful, and Leonard would be damned if Jim ever gave a look like that to anyone else. Finally, Jim nodded. “Computer, end program.”
The platform slowed and stopped, and Jim grabbed a small hand towel as he stepped off and followed Leonard back through the room, wiping his face and neck. Leonard grabbed the dinners and Jim followed him out of the fitness facility without a word. The silence between them wasn’t awkward, just familiar. They were waiting until they got to Leonard’s quarters to talk, just like Jim would silently follow him back to his dorm room on campus.
People had often wondered why they didn’t share a dorm room. A lot of folks had figured they were roommates, but they weren't. It had just worked out that way.
When they’d first arrived at the Academy, they already had room assignments, and they didn’t really know each other anyway. When they’d become friends later in the year, Jim hadn’t wanted to make waves, so even though plenty of cadets requested roommate transfers, he didn’t bother. And then, after his sociopath roommate had been arrested and removed from the academy last year, the housing officials decided to let Jim keep the double room as a single. Plenty of space, and no reason to move.
On the other side of things, as a cadet who already held two doctorate degrees, Leonard had been given special housing the day he’d arrived. It was a small apartment designed for one person, not two, and it was too nice of a suite to give it up for normal cadet housing. It was just wasn't designed to fit two people comfortably. But still, his apartment had a sofa. Jim crashed there often enough anyway, and the arrangement worked. Leonard had the impression that Jim liked having a place to go in addition to his normal “home.” And... strangely... the apartment didn’t feel like home if Jim stayed away too long.
Damn Brex for being right. Home was wherever Jim was. Leonard just hoped he’d never walk away from the kid like he’d walked away from the rest of his life once before.
They got off the turbolift on deck eight, walked down the hall, and a moment later, the door of Leonard’s quarters had whooshed shut behind them.
Leonard set the dinners down on the coffee table and looked back over at Jim, who was leaning tiredly against the wall and toeing off his running shoes.
“Mind if I use your shower?” he asked roughly without making eye contact. “I earned some water credits today.”
Leonard nodded, frowning. “Go for it, kid. Towels are in the cabinet. Then come sit down and eat something.”
“Thanks,” he said, and slipped quietly into the bathroom.
Leonard listened to Jim shuffling around the bathroom, and then the sound of running water. He waited for Jim to start humming to himself the way he normally did in the shower, but it never happened. Yeah, something had set the kid off.
With a heavy sigh, he lined up his boots neatly by the door, and grabbed the running shoes that Jim had kicked off and set them by the door as well. He pulled off his own uniform and traded it for a pair of sweat pants and a worn-out t-shirt. Then, realizing that Jim didn’t have any clean clothes with him, he went into the bathroom and grabbed Jim’s sweaty workout clothes off the floor. He ran the whole pile quickly through the sonic cleaning unit and deposited them back on the shelf in the bathroom, all before Jim had finished showering.
A soft, “Thanks, Bones,” was barely audible over the running water.
He went to the drink slot and ordered a glass of water for himself and an electrolyte-rich sports drink for Jim and set them both on the coffee table. Finally, he went and sat in one of the armchairs and waited. A few minutes later, Jim joined him, hair still wet, t-shirt sticking slightly to damp skin. Jim sat down heavily in the armchair without a word or eye contact. He drank half of the sports drink immediately, took a bite of his sandwich, then poked half-heartedly at the pile of fruit salad.
Leonard waited patiently. When Jim got like this, he’d speak when he was ready, and not a moment sooner. He busied himself with his own sandwich while Jim ate. He had a huge bite in his mouth when Jim finally started talking.
“I’m a self-centered asshole.”
Leonard’s eyebrows furrowed together tightly, and he swallowed as quickly as he could without choking. “What the hell is that supposed to mean, kid?”
Jim leaned back heavily in his chair, slouching, but not relaxing in the slightest. “I’ve been working with one of the engineering teams for the past three days. Ship’s power grid. It’s a lot of fun. Good guys. But...” He shook his head again. “Bones, all these years, and I never, never thought about the other people who died on the Kelvin.”
At that, Leonard’s eyebrow went up. “Oh?” That seemed like something that had come out of nowhere.
“It wasn’t just my father. Sure, most of the crew got away, but one hundred and seventy two other people, besides my father... they’re dead, floating around in a vacuum with scorched chunks of the ship’s hull and bits of wire. Nothing but space vapor and debris.”
Leonard cringed at the grotesque description. “You didn’t know other people died?”
“Of course I knew,” Jim scowled at him. “I studied the Kelvin, Bones. I know the numbers.”
“Then...?”
“I never fucking thought about it.”
Leonard shifted in his chair uncomfortably as he processed that. “Well, who said you had to? Jim, it’s a big galaxy and shit happens every day.”
“Yeah, and this is shit that comes with my name attached,” he said bitterly.
“Now hold it right there, kid,” Leonard cut in sharply. “That’s not your name, that’s your father’s name, so don’t go acting like you’re responsible for any of it.”
“I never said I was.” Jim’s voice was tinged with dark irony and, oddly, amusement.
“Then what are you going on about? What the hell set you off about this?” He shook his head in dismay. “You can’t worry about a bunch of people you’ve never met, never served with, and have nothing to do with you.”
To Leonard’s surprise, Jim started laughing. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Never met... that’s too funny, Bones. I used to think Starfleet was huge, but it’s a small place. Tight circles.”
Comprehension settled into Leonard’s gut like a lead brick. “Who did you meet today, Jim?”
Jim’s hand twitched, and he gripped the arm of his chair. “One of the guys on the engineering team,” he said flatly. “Lost his father on the Kelvin, too.”
Leonard should have guessed it was something like that, but really, how could he have known? “Damn.”
“Yeah,” Jim said dryly. “That’s one word for it. Mine was fuck.”
“Did you talk to him about it?”
Jim gave him an incredulous look. “Are you kidding me? Bones, what the hell was I supposed to say? And he didn’t even tell me directly - one of the other guys on the team said it, after he’d walked away. After he’d asked me if George Kirk was my father. After he’d made this weird quip about what I’d be willing to sacrifice for the greater good.”
“Shit.”
Jim drew a wan smile. “Now you’re getting closer.” He sighed and slouched deeper into his seat, letting his head fall back against the cushion. He stared blankly at the ceiling. “I stopped by the ship’s archives room and did some quick research before I came down to sickbay. I’d wanted to look up who Johan had lost. It was his father. So I decided to look up everyone else I’d ignored while I was wallowing in my own fucking self-pity. One hundred-and-seventy-two other people died on the Kelvin. They all had names and families that they left behind. Two-hundred-and-fifteen people lost their parents. Eighty-four people lost their spouses. Three-hundred-and-twenty-seven parents lost their sons and daughters. Two-hundred-and-fifty-eight -”
“Okay, okay!” Leonard blurted out, cutting him off. “Fuck...”
“Now you’re getting the idea, Bones.”
Leonard shook his head angrily. “That’s not what I mean. You went and looked up the names of all the other people who died aboard the Kelvin, and compiled a list of all their relatives just so you could torture yourself with the numbers of people who lost someone that day?”
Jim shrugged. “We got off our shift a bit early. Seemed like a good use of time.”
Leonard lurched over and leaned heavily on his knees, rubbing his face roughly with his hands and closing his eyes. “Dammit, Jim.”
He heard a heavy sigh. The armchair creaked as Jim shifted. A few seconds later, a cup clacked back down on the table, and silence again. Leonard looked up to see Jim hunched over, staring at his empty glass on the coffee table. His face looked like he was trying to keep it blank, but there were lines of stress around his eyes that were even tighter than they’d been just a moment ago.
“Jim?”
The muscles in Jim’s neck strained, and his knuckles went white as he dug his fingers into his knees.
“Come on, Jim... you’re starting to worry me.”
Jim’s head twitched like he was trying to shake a no, then he suddenly leaned back and thudded one fist against his thigh a couple of times, in a frustrated, agitated movement. Leonard was just about to verbally prompt him again when Jim finally spoke.
“Bones...” His voice was tight and pitched a bit too high. “I’ve never told you this. Hell, I’ve never told anyone this, but after today... after last week...” He shook his head to himself, jaw clenched. “Fuck it all. Listen, I’ve never admired my father.” It sounded as thought there were more, but he stopped again, full halt.
Leonard raised an eyebrow and waited, knowing more was coming. Jim just needed a moment.
Jim nodded his appreciation, then took a deep breath, and stared at the floor. “It’s something that most people seem to assume - that I admired my dad. The Great George Kirk. He died saving my life and all that crap, so when I was a kid, people tried to make me feel better by telling me how heroic he was. It wasn’t worth arguing with them, so I let them think it. But...” The muscles in his neck tightened again, and he swallowed thickly. “I’ve actually been furious at him most of my life.”
Leonard thought maybe he should be surprised at this pronouncement, but he wasn’t. Even though Jim had never said as much before, it made sense. A parent who had disappeared, leaving a broken family behind? Of course a kid would be bitter. But this was Jim - there was always more to it. “What do you mean?” he asked as evenly as possible, knowing Jim would fill in the blanks as much as he was willing.
Jim growled, low in his throat. “Every damned time I hear the fucking Kelvin story, it’s George Kirk this and George Kirk that. Sure, the archives have the more pedestrian background information, but the story is always about my dad and my name and fucking sacrifice for duty and love and heroics and all that crap, and nobody ever says a damned thing about the hundreds of other people who died that day.” His voice was getting tighter and tighter with each word. “Everyone talks about the people my father saved, but there’s never a word about the other people he didn’t save. There’s never any talk about what he might have done differently, whether he could have gotten out alive, and how he fucked up. Self-sacrificing bullshit.” He snorted irritably, then coughed and cleared his throat. “Everyone talks about him being some sort of martyr hero, but...” Jim’s fingers were beginning to dig tightly into the arms of his chair. “Who the hell said that playing the hero was a good idea, huh, Bones?”
Leonard sucked in a sharp breath, taken aback at the sudden intensity of Jim’s rant as much as the surprising content. How could Jim be angry at the idea that someone else had played the hero after all the shit he’d done? “Jim,” he started, desperately hoping that he could choose his words correctly, “since the day I met you, you’ve set up a pretty solid track record for yourself of playing the hero. The way you played your training sims, the way you handled Terra Prime...”
But Jim was shaking his head, his expression warped with anger and pain. “Bones, I was playing for survival. I have never pulled a stunt where I didn't fully plan to get out of it alive. My father... he set the damned ship on a collision course and rammed it into the Romulan ship. He wasn’t in it to win - he was on a suicide mission. Fucking martyr. That’s not... he didn’t...” Jim growled deep in his chest. “He fucked up, Bones. He died, and other people died. He went on a glorious suicide run, like a damned kamikaze pilot, and I will never understand what the hell was going through his head.”
Leonard was at a loss. He’d never heard this sort of thing out of Jim before. Sure, he’d known that Jim had a love-hate relationship with the history of his father and the circumstances of his own birth, but this was a bit unexpected. Okay, really unexpected. “I thought you told me once that you didn’t believe in no-win scenarios, just like him.”
“Bones... it’s not like...” He slouched back in his chair again, but at least he was making eye contact this time. “We can convince ourselves of a lot of shit when we need to. I studied the Kelvin. I made myself do it. I read Pike’s dissertation. I tried to pretend I wasn’t personally living with the aftermath, and look at it objectively. And then, so I could deal with it, I told myself a story about my father and the whole mess that was distant and impartial, wove my own myth and lessons around it, and made myself live with it. And it worked, Bones. But even if my father didn't believe in no-win scenarios, it doesn't matter, because he didn't win. I will never be able to stop thinking about the fact that he failed, because the idiot is space dust now.”
Leonard nodded slowly. Okay, so Jim had taken the parts of the Kelvin story he could use, mentally created a narrative he’d repeated to himself until he could act like he believed it, and on the surface, he’d discarded the rest. But underneath, this was a kid who had never quite gotten over the idea that his father had abandoned their family. That changed everything.
Jim nodded warily. “Pike dared me to do better than my father, Bones. That’s how he tried to sucker me into Starfleet. And yeah, I took him seriously there, but not the way he realizes.” He squirmed slightly in his chair as if he couldn’t get comfortable. “I’ve replayed that conversation over and over in my head. He’d told me he just wanted information on the cadets who had jumped me that night, but I’d known where that conversation was going from the moment he called me by my full name. And I told myself that I should run the other way because there was no fucking way I was going to get myself into the same crap my father had. But then he had to go on like some sort of poster-boy recruiter, talking about how I could do better than my father had. And after he left, I went for a ride, intending to forget about the whole crazy idea.”
He paused, and Leonard said softly, “But you couldn’t.”
“I’m here, right?” Jim absently kicked his foot against the coffee table, making the glasses shake.
Leonard wasn’t sure how to respond to any of this. Jim was lost and uncertain, tripping over himself and angry. This was a Jim Kirk he hadn’t seen since early in their first year. It was unnerving.
“I thought,” Jim said slowly, “that I wanted to do better than my father because the man fucked it up.”
“Are you saying you don’t still think that?”
Jim sighed and raked a hand through his hair, then roughed up the still-damp mop before he let his arms fall limp at his sides. He looked worn out and defeated. “I do... and I don’t. Look, I’m not claiming I’ve figured any of this out. Like I said, I did a lot of research. I tried to dissect what he did. Take it apart tactically. Figure out what he did wrong. And the damned thing of it is... I wasn’t there, so I’ll never know what other decisions he could have made. What did he miss? What tricks or tactics or opportunities went untouched until all he had left to do was to go and fucking blow himself up? And all I can come up with is that he went on a damned suicide mission when there had to have been another way. There always has to be another way.”
Jim clenched his hands into fists, and for a moment, Leonard almost thought he was going to lose it, but then the kid shook his head slowly. “All those... well... incidents I’ve had? Bones, I never went looking for trouble. At least, not the sort of trouble with a permanent end. If there’s a way to get out of trouble, I’ll find it. And sure, I’ve taken risks in training exercises. In fact...” He smiled, but it was a grim expression. “I got chewed out during Survival Training for sticking my neck out and going solo a couple of times. Commander Mendoza even asked me if playing the martyr ran in my family.”
With a flash of sympathetic anger, Leonard clenched his jaw and sat up straighter. “That bastard had no business bringing your father into -”
“Drop it, Bones,” Jim said, waving him down. “It’s a moot point now. But what I’m saying is that even when I’ve pulled some of those stunts in training where I took risks, I wasn’t playing the martyr. The shit I do... I only do it if I think I can win. Everything I’ve been doing here... since I got to the Academy... I’m trying to be good enough so that I always have the best chance of getting out alive. And that means the people around me, too, but... self preservation, Bones. I’ve seen too much life thrown away and fought too hard to think mine is worth tossing out, even though everyone used to think I was self-destructive. I don’t believe in no-win scenarios because while my father might have saved eight hundred people, he still died in that mess along with 172 other people, and I refuse to believe that was the best answer. When my father set the collision course into that Romulan ship, he knew it was suicide. Not just a risk, but a sure thing. It was a losing game. He made the choice to go and kill himself. And... even though I’ve analyzed the battle and tactical decisions from every angle, over and over... I don’t think I’ll ever understand why he did it.”
Leonard watched something like a shadow fall over Jim’s face. The kid seemed to shut down, and Leonard knew he was done talking.
Maybe Cadet Kirk was still fixated on solving a tactical puzzle, trying to figure out what had gone wrong and whether Captain Kirk could have saved more people and gotten out alive. But Jim was still the kid who was furious at his father for abandoning his family to the massive shitpile that was his youth. And maybe they were part of the same problem.
No matter how hard Jim was arguing against it now, Leonard knew the kid’s instincts. Jim was the sort of person who would risk his life for someone else, without hesitation. The kid would walk into the mouth of hell with nothing but his fists and his wits if he thought it would save someone else’s life. While the thought left Leonard worried sick sometimes, it was also one of the reasons Jim was so important to him. So the fact that Jim was arguing against his own instincts meant that he was really, really hung up on this. The loss of his father had destroyed his family, ruined his childhood, eventually sent him to Tarsus IV, and left him on a downward spiral. He’d spent his entire youth just surviving, and blaming his father for not surviving. That wasn’t something that research and rationalizing could fix.
And at that moment, Leonard hated himself just a little bit for never realizing Jim had been carrying this burden for so long. Jim hadn’t thought of all the other people who had died on the Kelvin, and Leonard had never thought about this. Some goddamned friend he was.
But... at least he was here. And he wasn’t going to walk away.
Jim wasn’t going to figure this out tonight. It sounded like he’d been working on it for years, and it would probably take years of experience for him to put it together. The idea of a captain going down with his ship was the stuff of legend and myth - a noble idea that looked heroic from a distance, but was really messy when you started picking it apart. Maybe the heat of battle and the weight of command did something to people, but Leonard didn’t have any experience with either of those things. Not like that. And while Leonard was absolutely sure that George Kirk hadn’t thought of his actions as a suicide run, he hadn’t been there. There was no way to know what Captain Kirk had been thinking in that famous moment when he’d made the decision to stay with the ship. It certainly wasn’t something that a cadet, even one like Jim Kirk, could figure out on a personal level.
Leonard wanted to do something, but there wasn’t much he could do.
Then he remembered one little thing he’d packed, more for sentiment and luck than for the actual contents. Without a word, he stood, pretending that his knees and back didn’t crack and pop as he did. He felt Jim’s eyes track him across the room to his bedside drawer, from which he pulled his father’s flask, filled with three ounces of Knob Creek.
“I wasn’t supposed to bring any alcohol with me, so I didn’t bring any bottles,” he said conversationally, “but this is a personal good luck charm, and I wasn’t about to leave it behind.” He started to hold the flask towards Jim, who closed his eyes and groaned.
“Bones, I don’t need a drink.”
“Never said ya did.” He twisted off the cap, downed what he figured was just about half of the contents, and swallowed appreciatively. “But I do, and I don’t drink alone. At least... I don’t anymore.” He held out the flask again.
Jim accepted the flask tentatively, searching Leonard’s face for something. Then, in one smooth motion, he tipped the flask back. A moment later, when he handed it back to Leonard, it was empty. “I like your idea of a good luck charm.”
Leonard nodded as he dropped back into his chair. “Me too, kid. Me too.”
Jim was quiet for a moment, then said, in a small voice, “Bones... I’m starting to wonder if I’m setting myself up for trouble. Maybe Mendoza was right.”
“Now, Jim, don’t start second-guessing yourself up because some asshole officer -”
“No, Bones, he wasn’t being an asshole. He was doing what he was supposed to do. Push my buttons. Make me see things differently. Make me question my motivations and decisions now, when I’m still a cadet, before I can cause some real damage. That’s part of the purpose behind that training... and behind this internship. And maybe I am sticking my neck out too much.” Something in his voice sounded too tired, too damaged. Leonard didn’t like it.
“You stick your neck out,” Leonard said carefully, “because you’re damned good at it, and you know what you’re doing. Sure, I call you reckless, but...” His voice trailed off as Jim shook his head.
“I told myself that I didn’t have to do what my father did,” he said slowly. “I didn’t need to end up like him. I could be smarter. I could save everyone and myself. I could make it look like I was leaping without looking because I would have already figured out all the variables and I knew I could make the jump. Not because I was reckless, but because I was just that damned good. But now, I’m not so sure.”
No, Leonard didn’t like that at all. “So, what are you thinking?”
Jim shrugged. “Finney told me that I needed to sit back and learn to just be a cadet. Told me that someday, I’d be ready to step up, take command, stick my neck out... but not now. I’ve pulled some great stunts at the Academy, and I like to think I’m smart... but it’s real out here. I’ve been working for the past three days with a guy who lost his dad because my dad didn’t save him.”
“Jim, you can’t -”
“So maybe it’s time for me to learn my place,” Jim said right over him. He reached over to his dinner, sitting half-uneaten on the coffee table, and prodded a piece of pineapple with his fork, but made no move to pick it up and eat it.
Leonard looked at him in defeat. There wasn’t much he could do for Jim right now. No advice he could give. No way he could help Jim figure out that the universe just wasn’t right if Jim Kirk suddenly decided to start acting like everyone else. So, instead, he grabbed Jim’s empty glass, walked over to the drink slot, got a refill, and set it back down in front of him. Then, he settled back into his own chair and looked across the coffee table at this shadow of his best friend.
“Jim... I’d trust you over most of the clowns on this ship any day of the week, but... you have to do what you think is best.”
“They’re not clowns,” Jim said softly. “They’re experienced. They know what they’re doing. I’m a cadet, Bones. I need to start acting like one.”
Leonard sighed. “If you say so,” he said noncommittally.
Maybe Jim’s bizarre mood had been brought on by the unexpected revelation of the day, and it would pass by tomorrow. Maybe he’d have a chat with the guy whose father had been on the Kelvin, and Jim would sort out his emotional hangup. Maybe once Jim settled into shipboard life a bit more, once they got to Axanar and had something interesting to do, he would feel more like himself. Maybe if Leonard actually spent some time hanging out with his best friend instead of avoiding human contact, Jim wouldn’t have worked himself into a funk like this.
Whatever the case, there was only one thing Leonard knew for sure. He wasn’t going to walk away.
Leonard shifted the conversation to shipboard assignments and let Jim talk about what he’d been doing onboard so far. Jim actually asked about Leonard’s research, and listened attentively. He was being a good friend, and he knew it, and part of him was satisfied by that. Still, by the time they’d finished talking and Jim had left for the evening to go back to his own quarters, Leonard couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d missed something really important.
As he settled down in his bunk for the night, he looked across the room at the uninhabited bunk, and couldn’t help but feel that maybe he should have told Jim to stay. Feeling really uncertain about everything, and hoping a good night’s sleep would help some of that, he turned his back to the rest of the room.
“Lights.”
*********
To Chapter 5