Looking for Yesterday - Chapter 5
Title: Looking for Yesterday (AO3)
Series: Star Trek AOS
Author: neko-fish
Beta: siluria
Pairings: Jim/Bones, Spock/Uhura
Rating: NC-17
Summary: He never meant to survive the war. For three years, Jim Kirk drifted from place to place, plagued by nightmares and unwanted memories. But after a fateful accident, suddenly, he finds himself face to face with the ghost of the one he lost.
Warnings: Post-WW2 AU, PTSD, hurt/comfort.
Prologue// Chapter 1// Chapter 2// Chapter 3// Chapter 4
Chapter 5:
Leonard sighed and put his patient’s chart away. He’d had to work eight days in a row now and was starting to notice it. The hospital was in the process of hiring a couple of new doctors to help free up his, and the other doctors’ schedules a little, but the director was hesitating to seal the deal. And for what? All because a few of the new guys’ skin weren’t quite the same colour as theirs?
It was just nonsense.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he checked his schedule to see who was next on his list.
Jim Kirk.
The mere thought of the man sent images of his little girl, his Joanna, into his mind. He wondered what she was doing now. Did she think he was dead or just missing? Which grandmother was she living with? His mother? Or that of her unknown mother’s? Where was her mother? Who was her mother?
So many questions flooded his head, none of which he had answers for.
Jim Kirk-he was the only connection Leonard had to his past.
When the man was first brought in, Leonard had thought he was an idiot. After all, what kind of person rode around on a motorcycle in the middle of the night like that? Jim had always been asleep by the time Leonard got around to his room, so they never actually had the chance to interact until the last day. He had all the escape stories Chapel had told him though. Even when concussed, Jim Kirk simply could not sit still. Amused, Leonard had started a tally to keep track of all the attempted escapes next to Jim’s name plate on the door.
He had to admit that he’d been hesitant to trust the man when they first spoke , but even he could see that there was nothing but conviction in those blue, blue eyes when he called Leonard ‘Bones’. The rest of his doubts dissipated when he was given the picture of his daughter. Surely, they had to be friends if Jim carried a picture of Joanna in his wallet and was able to speak about her with such a deep level of affection. The man obviously had problems beyond a simple concussion and lacerations, but then again, who didn’t?
And how could he complain when Jim even remembered the date of his birth?
January 21st, 1917. That made him, Leonard H. McCoy, 31 years old. That simple little date meant that he had a birthday and an age. He found it strange that such a little titbit of information was enough to make him so happy.
Before he knew it, Leonard had reached Jim’s room. Inside, he could hear Chapel and Jim immersed in conversation. “Don’t worry about it, Jim. We all go through rough patches. You should see Doctor McCoy every morning before his first cup of coffee,” she said, her tone light and teasing.
“Can’t say I’m surprised. I bet he’s a real ogre,” Jim agreed with a chuckle.
Deciding that that was as good a time as any to enter the room, he opened the door and muttered, “I wouldn’t be such a damned ogre if they would hurry up and hire the new guys so I can finally get a full night’s worth of sleep.”
Jim immediately turned to him and smiled. “Doctor McCoy, you seem to have this uncanny ability to walk in whenever we start talking about you. Were you standing by the door and eavesdropping or something? That’d be awfully rude of you.”
He rolled his eyes and seamlessly joined in the conversation. “No, of course I wasn’t. There was a course back in medical school that they made us sit through. It was all about teaching doctors when to interrupt people’s conversations-especially when it’s gossip. Needless to say, I aced that course effortlessly.” Turning to Chapel, he nodded. “Nurse Chapel, I can take it from here, thank you.”
“Of course, Doctor McCoy,” Chapel said, leaving the room.
Once she was out of the room, he began looking over Jim’s stitches and asked him, “You didn’t steal your friends’ car again did you, you hoodlum?”
“No, sir,” Jim told him, eyes wide and earnest. “They drove me here. Look, Nyota even made sure I wore socks here, and they even match.” He lifted his legs and wiggled his toes underneath the fabric. “Have to admit, I don’t really miss the hospital gown, but I guess I can deal with it one last time.”
“One last time? That’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one.” Leonard scoffed. “I can’t believe you need someone to remind you to wear socks like a normal person. Just hold still and this shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.”
“Speaking of minutes, I hope you have a little extra time today because there are people sitting in the waiting room who’d like to see you,” Jim told him.
Furrowing his brow, he asked, “What? Now why would anyone want to do something like that?” Then it clicked. “They used to know me too?”
“Yep, we all went to the same city for college-or med school, in your case. They even babysat Joanna at times when you needed a break,” Jim explained. “You and Spock didn’t always see eye-to-eye, but you and Nyota got along quite famously, I think. She was definitely nicer to you.”
Removing the stitches, he frowned. “That might’ve been the case, Jim. But I don’t remember them. Do they know I’m like…this?”
Jim’s eyes softened. “They know, Bones. It’s not that big of a deal that you don’t remember them. Well, it actually is, but they’re your friends too. We’ll help you through it, okay? Right now, they just want to see with their own eyes that it’s really you because I think they think I’ve gone a bit funny in the head. Maybe they’ll be able to come up with ways to help you get your memories faster-ow! I know you’re anxious and all, but can’t you be a little gentler?”
“Sorry,” he mumbled, not really meaning it. “What am I even supposed to say to them? ‘Hello, you know me but I don’t know you. Mighty sorry about that.’?” He wanted to add that Chapel-and more recently, Jim-aside, casual socializing didn’t come as naturally to him as he’d like it to.
“You don’t have to say anything. They’ll do their best to not make you uncomfortable, or I think they will. Either way, they have a lot more self-restraint than me. It’ll be fine,” Jim promised. “They miss you a lot, Bones. Please? At least let them know you’re doing well.”
Leonard sighed. “Fine. I’ll indulge you this one time and go meet them after we’re finished here.”
Blue eyes immediately lit up and Leonard felt like he’d just been tricked. “Great! By the way, remember anything new?” Jim asked.
The question triggered images of Joanna running towards a lake in a summer dress, turning back and smiling at him. There was the sensation of a familiar presence next to him, but in his memory, perhaps being comfortable with whoever it was around, the old him never bothered turning his gaze away from his little girl. Feelings of love, contentment and gratefulness filled his senses when he remembered that summery scene by the lake.
The thoughts of summer then brought images of the sun blazing in the sky on lazy afternoons, a gentle breeze blowing through his hair, climbing trees and picking peaches, and sipping sweet tea on the porch with two people he assumed to be his parents. There were fewer emotions attached to those memories which were clearly older, but there was always an underlying sensation of contentment. He described the images to Jim and asked, “Would it be safe to assume that that’s my childhood?”
Jim nodded. “Sure sounds like it. You did love your peach trees and sweet tea-never really got over them.”
He still enjoyed his sweet tea, but he wasn’t about to get either of their hopes up because of a little coincidence. “And what about those people-my parents? Are they still alive? What about siblings? Did I have any of those?”
At this, Jim hesitated. “Your mother’s still alive and kicking in Georgia, and you have an estranged older sister who got married and moved out when you were in high school or college or something.”
Ah, more people he’d forgotten about.
“Wow, you sure know a lot about me,” he mumbled, removing the last of the stitches on Jim’s legs and moving up to his arms.
Jim smiled, stretching his stitch-free legs. “What can I say? Jim and Bones.”
Somehow, the way Jim said it made it sound like so much more than he was letting on. Unsure of how much deeper he wanted to delve in fear of what he would find, Leonard decided not to comment on it. Instead, he slapped Jim’s legs back down with a glare. “Don’t you even think about stretching and kicking your legs around in front of me,” he warned. “If you reopen your wounds, I’m just gonna say, 'Nuts to you,' and let you bleed out.”
--
Following Jim down the hall, Leonard swallowed hard, feeling more nervous than he had for years. He had friends waiting for him-friends he didn’t remember. Their names hadn’t rang any bells, so he could only wonder at what he was about to be greeted with. More of his past was about to be revealed to him, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready for it. He wiped his clammy palms against his coat and worried the inside of his cheek. Given how much time he spent at the hospital, aside from the nurses, he rarely had the chance to brush up on his socializing skills.
As though sensing his discomfort, Jim turned around and shot him a reassuring look. “You’re going to be fine, Bones! Would you stop fidgeting around like that? You’re making me nervous. You’d think I was bringing you to meet my parents or something.” He looked as though he had a comment to add to that, but after a moment of consideration, he added, instead, “If it helps, you can pretend they’re my parents and complain to them about what a terrible patient I am.”
“That probably would help,” he muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets to avoid further fiddling. “Complaining about you-at least that’s a topic I know I can talk in great lengths about.”
“Isn’t that great? You guys can get reacquainted via me! I’m sure Nyota’s just dying to tell you all about what a menace I’m being for her ever so lovely neighbour,” Jim told him with a pleased grin. “She can tell you how I got her a free delicious blueberry pie a couple of days ago.”
Leonard rolled his eyes. “You seem to have worked out the entire conversation in your head already. Why don’t you just write it down somewhere and I’ll read off of it instead?”
“Where would be the fun in that?” Approaching the waiting room, Jim clasped his arm and pulled him over to the far end of the room.
The waiting room was filled with the sound of crackled music from the radio and the constant, low humming from a generator somewhere, and the whirling of the ceiling fans. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of cigarettes being lit up and smoked by patients and visitors alike in the waiting room. Sure, it was fashionable to smoke or simply to have a cigarette in hand, but it didn’t hold any appeal for him. After all, who was he trying to impress?
Jim called out, “Spock, Nyota, guess who?”
At the mention of their names, a couple stood up and turned to face them. The woman gasped and covered her mouth with her hand while the man’s eyebrows shot up. Seeing them didn’t spark any memories, much to Leonard’s disappointment. The same couldn’t be said for the woman though; Leonard knew genuine grief and delight when he saw it, and it made him wonder why there was so much of both in her eyes when she looked at him.
Eager to break the spell of silence that had befallen them, Leonard cleared his throat and held out a hand, muttering sheepishly, “Hello. I guess you two already know, but I’m-”
“Leonard,” the woman cut him off, closing the gap between them with a hug. “It’s really you. I thought I’d never get to see you again!”
Eyes wide, Leonard turned to Jim with an alarmed expression on his face. Jim merely shrugged and shot him a helpless smile, looking a little taken aback as well. “Looks like I might’ve been wrong about the self-restraint bit.”
Before he could return the embrace, Nyota pulled back and cupped his face, studying him closely. Her eyes were wet, but there was a smile, albeit a disbelieving one, on her face. “If what Jim said is true,” she began, searching his face for confirmation; “then you have no idea who I am, and it must’ve felt like you just got hugged by a stranger.”
He didn’t know how to respond to her comment.
“I’m sorry if that made you uncomfortable, but it’s just-” she paused and glanced upwards, blinking a few times to keep the tears at bay, “it’s just I never thought that-it’s so good to see you again, Leonard. We missed you.”
It took his brain a moment to process those words. He was loved and missed by these people, and they looked so happy to see him. The idea that he’d once led a different life had never seemed more real, and it filled him with both excitement and dread. He didn’t know what kind of man these people were expecting to find and questions began filling his mind. What if the old Leonard McCoy wasn’t like this? Would that mean he would have to change who he was now? Would he have to disappear in order to make way for the old Leonard to return?
Jim gave him a light nudge and shot him a worried look.
Realizing that he was standing there and gaping like an idiot, Leonard quickly shook his head. “Oh no, I’m not complaining at all. How can I complain about getting hugged by a beautiful woman? I just feel a little guilty because you obviously know-knew me from before but I don’t remember a thing. I could just kick myself.”
“Please do not fret over this, doctor. Jim has explained your situation to us and we understand,” Spock spoke for the first time. He wondered if it was normal for a person to be completely free of emotions. “We are merely pleased to see you alive and well.”
“And still ever the gentleman.” Nyota smiled and reassured him, “Spock’s right. Names can be learnt. It’s no problem, Leonard. Now that we’ve got the hug out of the way, let’s start again. Just pretend this is an introduction.” She held out her hand. “Hello, my name’s Nyota Uhura, and this is Spock.”
“He’s the one that all the nurses are keen on,” Jim added helpfully. “His name isn’t just Spock, but it’s unpronounceable to anyone other than Nyota, so we all just call him Spock.”
Shaking her hand, Leonard nodded. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Nyota, Spock. I’m Doctor Leonard McCoy. I was the one who treated Jim’s wounds. I understand that he’s living with you right now?”
The woman turned her eyes skywards and sighed. “Yes, unfortunately. He’s nothing but a menace, but we put up with him for reasons I can’t fully grasp. Did he behave himself?”
Jim laughed and shot Leonard an ‘I told you so’ look. “I was an absolute angel, mom. Look, no more stitches! Doctor Bones here got’em all out. I’m sure the lady next door will be thrilled to see me all better. Maybe I’ll play some good old Dizzy Gillespie and dance offbeat for her.”
Leonard looked over at the pair. “Good lord, how do you put up with him?”
“With a great deal of patience,” Spock deadpanned.
“Doctor McCoy? Your next patient is ready for you,” Chapel called from down the hall.
Shoving his hands back into his pockets, he nodded at his nurse and turned back to the three. “Sorry to cut this short, but I suppose I should get back to work if I want any chance of going home on time today. It was nice meeting you-” he paused and corrected himself with a wry smile, “-make that re-meeting you, I guess. It’s comforting to know that I had at least a few friends before.”
Spock shook his head. “It is understandable, doctor. You have a busy schedule. We should stop taking up your time and depart.”
Nyota added, “And Leonard, call us whenever you want. We’re still your friends now-that is, if that’s alright with you. I understand that you’re probably leading a separate life right now, what with being a doctor and all, but we’d really like to see you again.”
He paused. Eyes wide with surprise, his lips slowly curled upwards. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t really have a life outside this hospital. They’re working me to the bone here. So I guess what I’m trying to say is: that’d be nice. I’d like to remain in contact very much. Thank you.” Then, turning to Jim, he said, “And you. Try to stay out of trouble. No strenuous activities and whatever stunts you’re thinking of. I don’t want to see you here as a patient for at least a couple of months.”
Jim clutched at his heart in a melodramatic manner. “You hurt me with your suspicion and low standards, Bones. Only a couple of months? I’ll have you know that I always try to stay out of trouble, it’s trouble that has a problem with staying away from me.”
With a scoff, Leonard rolled his eyes and took off down the hall with a wave.
On his way to his next patient, he was joined by Chapel who noted, “I see you were talking to Jim’s friends. They seem like nice people, don’t they, boss?”
He nodded in agreement. “Yeah, they do. Makes me wish I knew them.”
--
Although Leonard had their number, he didn’t have the courage to make the first move. Luckily, Jim saved him the trouble and called him at quarter to five in the morning nearly a week later. Leonard had picked up, thinking it would be the hospital on the other line, calling him in for an emergency. Although the hospital had finally passed the motion to hire the new doctors, with Geoffrey M’Benga being the one he most strongly advocated for, all the emergency calls were still being routed to him.
What he hadn’t expected was a soft, uncertain voice asking, “Bones?”
Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he groaned, “Jim? The sun’s not even out yet. Is something wrong? Oh god, you didn’t open your wounds or hurt yourself again, did you? I don’t do house calls. Do you need me to call an ambulance?”
There was a sigh of relief on the other line. “No, nothing like that, Bones, and nothing that’ll require an ambulance.”
It was Leonard’s turn to let out a breath of relief. “You better not be calling out of boredom because if you are, I swear I’ll find my way over then and send you straight to a morgue.”
“No, nothing like that either,” Jim reassured him in a hushed voice; Leonard assumed it was to avoid waking his caretakers up.
Pulling up a nearby chair, one of few pieces of furniture in his Spartan flat, he sat down and asked, “Having one of your bad days?”
“Yeah,” was the mumbled reply.
His doctoring instincts kicked in. “Do you experience these very often?”
“They’re on and off,” Jim answered. “It’s gotten better compared to when it first started though.”
“Do you feel like talking about it yet?”
Jim paused. “No, not really.”
“Then what can I do to help?” he asked.
“Just…talk, Bones. Can you just talk for awhile?”
He briefly considered hanging up and salvaging whatever little time he had left to sleep. But Jim was a patient and a friend (both old and new), and whether it was because of his past self or his being a doctor, Leonard knew that he simply didn’t have it in himself to deny the man this request. “I don’t know what to talk about.”
“How about you tell me what happened in Europe after you woke up?” Jim suggested, his voice hopeful.
Leonard thought of the little old woman who’d rescued him. He wondered how she was doing. Despite the arthritis in her knees and hips, she was a robust woman who slapped his hand away whenever he offered her assistance. The thought of her made him smile. He’d written letters to her, using a mixture of broken French and English, and she always wrote back in her local dialect of French, telling him that everyone was doing well.
“Bones?”
He blinked, snapping back to reality. “I’m still here. My mind just wandered off for a moment there. My time in Europe wasn’t that interesting. I spent most of it in a little town in Belgium….” Leonard tried his best to describe the little town with their church towering over the quaint little houses and the war-torn fields surrounding it. He recalled the woman who’d saved his life and the challenges of learning French, and while he talked, Jim sat there, wherever he was, and listened, making occasional comments encouraging him to continue.
Of all the things Leonard recalled, he left the letter out-the letter, which was more like a memo, that contained only the most basic information about him. It was a piece of paper he’d looked at and read with a great mixture of emotions ranging from excitement to dread, anger to glee, and self-assuredness to uncertainty.
He often wondered what its intended purpose was and who it was written for. Perhaps it was for anyone who had the misfortune of stumbling upon his corpse; surely, the previous Leonard McCoy couldn’t have known that he would soon lose his memories.
Leonard was snapped out of his reverie once more when Jim, now audibly less sullen than before, said, “Oh, would you look at the time.”
There were muffled voices in the background, and Leonard assumed Nyota and Spock were up. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was almost six already. He’d have to get ready for work soon.
“Hey, Bones, Nyota wants to know if you’d like to come over for dinner this weekend,” Jim suddenly told him. “I already said yes for you, but she wanted me to actually ask you.”
Arching a brow, he asked, “You already said yes for me?”
“Yeah, well, it’ll be good for you in more ways than one, you know? Meet new people, meet old people, spend some time with me, swap stories, take a day off work, and there’ll probably be pie,” Jim’s voice became muffled when he suddenly called out, “-no, I’m not pressuring him! I’m merely stating the advantages to coming!” Then back on the telephone, he asked, “So is that a yes?”
Leonard heaved an exaggerated sigh, making sure it was audible over the phone. “Fine, I’ll go. Why do I get the feeling that things like this used to happen a lot?”
Jim chuckled. “Things like what? Me being right?-he said yes, Nyota! I told you he would!”
He shook his head and scoffed. “No, things like you dragging me into things, you infant. Just tell me the time and location, and I’ll try my best to be there.”
“Oh, did they finally get around to hiring the new doctors?”
“Yes, praise the lord. New doctors-ones that won’t be too busy chasing after interns, and new nurses. I might actually have time to try and reintegrate back into society-and Chapel too, god knows when that woman last took a day off,” he muttered, thinking of his most trusted nurse. “Anyway, time and location? I know the address is written in your file, but I’m not about to dig out a patient’s file and copy an address from it.”
“Right. Do you have a pen handy?” Jim asked.
Jotting down the address and noting the time and date, he nodded to himself. “Alright. Got it. And now, I should probably get ready for work. Maybe I’ll see you in a few days.”
He could almost see Jim’s soft smile on the other line. “Yeah, hopefully we’ll see you then, Bones. Have fun at work.”
Leonard rolled his eyes and drawled sarcastically, “I’ll try.”
“Oh, and Bones?”
Holding the receiving back up to his ear, Leonard asked, “Yeah?”
“Thanks…you know, for talking,” Jim said, his voice earnest.
His eyes softened and his lips instinctively curled into a small but affectionate smile. “Anytime, Jim. Bye.”
After hanging up, instead of immediately getting ready for work like he said, Leonard remained seated there for a minute thinking about how many dollars his next phone bill would probably add up to. But pushing the thought out of his head, he got up and opened the drawer of his bedside table and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
Opening it up, he sat down on his bed and read those four sentences to himself over and over again. It was the only clue he had to his identity when he woke up that day three years ago, and the last sentence was the reason he returned to the United States. His eyes scanned the worn out piece of paper one last time before tucking it back into his drawer in favour of getting dressed for work.
My name is Leonard H. McCoy.
I was born in Georgia, the United States.
I fix people.
And I am lucky enough to love and be loved by three amazing people.
Back to Chapter 4
Series: Star Trek AOS
Author: neko-fish
Beta: siluria
Pairings: Jim/Bones, Spock/Uhura
Rating: NC-17
Summary: He never meant to survive the war. For three years, Jim Kirk drifted from place to place, plagued by nightmares and unwanted memories. But after a fateful accident, suddenly, he finds himself face to face with the ghost of the one he lost.
Warnings: Post-WW2 AU, PTSD, hurt/comfort.
Prologue// Chapter 1// Chapter 2// Chapter 3// Chapter 4
Chapter 5:
Leonard sighed and put his patient’s chart away. He’d had to work eight days in a row now and was starting to notice it. The hospital was in the process of hiring a couple of new doctors to help free up his, and the other doctors’ schedules a little, but the director was hesitating to seal the deal. And for what? All because a few of the new guys’ skin weren’t quite the same colour as theirs?
It was just nonsense.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he checked his schedule to see who was next on his list.
Jim Kirk.
The mere thought of the man sent images of his little girl, his Joanna, into his mind. He wondered what she was doing now. Did she think he was dead or just missing? Which grandmother was she living with? His mother? Or that of her unknown mother’s? Where was her mother? Who was her mother?
So many questions flooded his head, none of which he had answers for.
Jim Kirk-he was the only connection Leonard had to his past.
When the man was first brought in, Leonard had thought he was an idiot. After all, what kind of person rode around on a motorcycle in the middle of the night like that? Jim had always been asleep by the time Leonard got around to his room, so they never actually had the chance to interact until the last day. He had all the escape stories Chapel had told him though. Even when concussed, Jim Kirk simply could not sit still. Amused, Leonard had started a tally to keep track of all the attempted escapes next to Jim’s name plate on the door.
He had to admit that he’d been hesitant to trust the man when they first spoke , but even he could see that there was nothing but conviction in those blue, blue eyes when he called Leonard ‘Bones’. The rest of his doubts dissipated when he was given the picture of his daughter. Surely, they had to be friends if Jim carried a picture of Joanna in his wallet and was able to speak about her with such a deep level of affection. The man obviously had problems beyond a simple concussion and lacerations, but then again, who didn’t?
And how could he complain when Jim even remembered the date of his birth?
January 21st, 1917. That made him, Leonard H. McCoy, 31 years old. That simple little date meant that he had a birthday and an age. He found it strange that such a little titbit of information was enough to make him so happy.
Before he knew it, Leonard had reached Jim’s room. Inside, he could hear Chapel and Jim immersed in conversation. “Don’t worry about it, Jim. We all go through rough patches. You should see Doctor McCoy every morning before his first cup of coffee,” she said, her tone light and teasing.
“Can’t say I’m surprised. I bet he’s a real ogre,” Jim agreed with a chuckle.
Deciding that that was as good a time as any to enter the room, he opened the door and muttered, “I wouldn’t be such a damned ogre if they would hurry up and hire the new guys so I can finally get a full night’s worth of sleep.”
Jim immediately turned to him and smiled. “Doctor McCoy, you seem to have this uncanny ability to walk in whenever we start talking about you. Were you standing by the door and eavesdropping or something? That’d be awfully rude of you.”
He rolled his eyes and seamlessly joined in the conversation. “No, of course I wasn’t. There was a course back in medical school that they made us sit through. It was all about teaching doctors when to interrupt people’s conversations-especially when it’s gossip. Needless to say, I aced that course effortlessly.” Turning to Chapel, he nodded. “Nurse Chapel, I can take it from here, thank you.”
“Of course, Doctor McCoy,” Chapel said, leaving the room.
Once she was out of the room, he began looking over Jim’s stitches and asked him, “You didn’t steal your friends’ car again did you, you hoodlum?”
“No, sir,” Jim told him, eyes wide and earnest. “They drove me here. Look, Nyota even made sure I wore socks here, and they even match.” He lifted his legs and wiggled his toes underneath the fabric. “Have to admit, I don’t really miss the hospital gown, but I guess I can deal with it one last time.”
“One last time? That’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one.” Leonard scoffed. “I can’t believe you need someone to remind you to wear socks like a normal person. Just hold still and this shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.”
“Speaking of minutes, I hope you have a little extra time today because there are people sitting in the waiting room who’d like to see you,” Jim told him.
Furrowing his brow, he asked, “What? Now why would anyone want to do something like that?” Then it clicked. “They used to know me too?”
“Yep, we all went to the same city for college-or med school, in your case. They even babysat Joanna at times when you needed a break,” Jim explained. “You and Spock didn’t always see eye-to-eye, but you and Nyota got along quite famously, I think. She was definitely nicer to you.”
Removing the stitches, he frowned. “That might’ve been the case, Jim. But I don’t remember them. Do they know I’m like…this?”
Jim’s eyes softened. “They know, Bones. It’s not that big of a deal that you don’t remember them. Well, it actually is, but they’re your friends too. We’ll help you through it, okay? Right now, they just want to see with their own eyes that it’s really you because I think they think I’ve gone a bit funny in the head. Maybe they’ll be able to come up with ways to help you get your memories faster-ow! I know you’re anxious and all, but can’t you be a little gentler?”
“Sorry,” he mumbled, not really meaning it. “What am I even supposed to say to them? ‘Hello, you know me but I don’t know you. Mighty sorry about that.’?” He wanted to add that Chapel-and more recently, Jim-aside, casual socializing didn’t come as naturally to him as he’d like it to.
“You don’t have to say anything. They’ll do their best to not make you uncomfortable, or I think they will. Either way, they have a lot more self-restraint than me. It’ll be fine,” Jim promised. “They miss you a lot, Bones. Please? At least let them know you’re doing well.”
Leonard sighed. “Fine. I’ll indulge you this one time and go meet them after we’re finished here.”
Blue eyes immediately lit up and Leonard felt like he’d just been tricked. “Great! By the way, remember anything new?” Jim asked.
The question triggered images of Joanna running towards a lake in a summer dress, turning back and smiling at him. There was the sensation of a familiar presence next to him, but in his memory, perhaps being comfortable with whoever it was around, the old him never bothered turning his gaze away from his little girl. Feelings of love, contentment and gratefulness filled his senses when he remembered that summery scene by the lake.
The thoughts of summer then brought images of the sun blazing in the sky on lazy afternoons, a gentle breeze blowing through his hair, climbing trees and picking peaches, and sipping sweet tea on the porch with two people he assumed to be his parents. There were fewer emotions attached to those memories which were clearly older, but there was always an underlying sensation of contentment. He described the images to Jim and asked, “Would it be safe to assume that that’s my childhood?”
Jim nodded. “Sure sounds like it. You did love your peach trees and sweet tea-never really got over them.”
He still enjoyed his sweet tea, but he wasn’t about to get either of their hopes up because of a little coincidence. “And what about those people-my parents? Are they still alive? What about siblings? Did I have any of those?”
At this, Jim hesitated. “Your mother’s still alive and kicking in Georgia, and you have an estranged older sister who got married and moved out when you were in high school or college or something.”
Ah, more people he’d forgotten about.
“Wow, you sure know a lot about me,” he mumbled, removing the last of the stitches on Jim’s legs and moving up to his arms.
Jim smiled, stretching his stitch-free legs. “What can I say? Jim and Bones.”
Somehow, the way Jim said it made it sound like so much more than he was letting on. Unsure of how much deeper he wanted to delve in fear of what he would find, Leonard decided not to comment on it. Instead, he slapped Jim’s legs back down with a glare. “Don’t you even think about stretching and kicking your legs around in front of me,” he warned. “If you reopen your wounds, I’m just gonna say, 'Nuts to you,' and let you bleed out.”
--
Following Jim down the hall, Leonard swallowed hard, feeling more nervous than he had for years. He had friends waiting for him-friends he didn’t remember. Their names hadn’t rang any bells, so he could only wonder at what he was about to be greeted with. More of his past was about to be revealed to him, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready for it. He wiped his clammy palms against his coat and worried the inside of his cheek. Given how much time he spent at the hospital, aside from the nurses, he rarely had the chance to brush up on his socializing skills.
As though sensing his discomfort, Jim turned around and shot him a reassuring look. “You’re going to be fine, Bones! Would you stop fidgeting around like that? You’re making me nervous. You’d think I was bringing you to meet my parents or something.” He looked as though he had a comment to add to that, but after a moment of consideration, he added, instead, “If it helps, you can pretend they’re my parents and complain to them about what a terrible patient I am.”
“That probably would help,” he muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets to avoid further fiddling. “Complaining about you-at least that’s a topic I know I can talk in great lengths about.”
“Isn’t that great? You guys can get reacquainted via me! I’m sure Nyota’s just dying to tell you all about what a menace I’m being for her ever so lovely neighbour,” Jim told him with a pleased grin. “She can tell you how I got her a free delicious blueberry pie a couple of days ago.”
Leonard rolled his eyes. “You seem to have worked out the entire conversation in your head already. Why don’t you just write it down somewhere and I’ll read off of it instead?”
“Where would be the fun in that?” Approaching the waiting room, Jim clasped his arm and pulled him over to the far end of the room.
The waiting room was filled with the sound of crackled music from the radio and the constant, low humming from a generator somewhere, and the whirling of the ceiling fans. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of cigarettes being lit up and smoked by patients and visitors alike in the waiting room. Sure, it was fashionable to smoke or simply to have a cigarette in hand, but it didn’t hold any appeal for him. After all, who was he trying to impress?
Jim called out, “Spock, Nyota, guess who?”
At the mention of their names, a couple stood up and turned to face them. The woman gasped and covered her mouth with her hand while the man’s eyebrows shot up. Seeing them didn’t spark any memories, much to Leonard’s disappointment. The same couldn’t be said for the woman though; Leonard knew genuine grief and delight when he saw it, and it made him wonder why there was so much of both in her eyes when she looked at him.
Eager to break the spell of silence that had befallen them, Leonard cleared his throat and held out a hand, muttering sheepishly, “Hello. I guess you two already know, but I’m-”
“Leonard,” the woman cut him off, closing the gap between them with a hug. “It’s really you. I thought I’d never get to see you again!”
Eyes wide, Leonard turned to Jim with an alarmed expression on his face. Jim merely shrugged and shot him a helpless smile, looking a little taken aback as well. “Looks like I might’ve been wrong about the self-restraint bit.”
Before he could return the embrace, Nyota pulled back and cupped his face, studying him closely. Her eyes were wet, but there was a smile, albeit a disbelieving one, on her face. “If what Jim said is true,” she began, searching his face for confirmation; “then you have no idea who I am, and it must’ve felt like you just got hugged by a stranger.”
He didn’t know how to respond to her comment.
“I’m sorry if that made you uncomfortable, but it’s just-” she paused and glanced upwards, blinking a few times to keep the tears at bay, “it’s just I never thought that-it’s so good to see you again, Leonard. We missed you.”
It took his brain a moment to process those words. He was loved and missed by these people, and they looked so happy to see him. The idea that he’d once led a different life had never seemed more real, and it filled him with both excitement and dread. He didn’t know what kind of man these people were expecting to find and questions began filling his mind. What if the old Leonard McCoy wasn’t like this? Would that mean he would have to change who he was now? Would he have to disappear in order to make way for the old Leonard to return?
Jim gave him a light nudge and shot him a worried look.
Realizing that he was standing there and gaping like an idiot, Leonard quickly shook his head. “Oh no, I’m not complaining at all. How can I complain about getting hugged by a beautiful woman? I just feel a little guilty because you obviously know-knew me from before but I don’t remember a thing. I could just kick myself.”
“Please do not fret over this, doctor. Jim has explained your situation to us and we understand,” Spock spoke for the first time. He wondered if it was normal for a person to be completely free of emotions. “We are merely pleased to see you alive and well.”
“And still ever the gentleman.” Nyota smiled and reassured him, “Spock’s right. Names can be learnt. It’s no problem, Leonard. Now that we’ve got the hug out of the way, let’s start again. Just pretend this is an introduction.” She held out her hand. “Hello, my name’s Nyota Uhura, and this is Spock.”
“He’s the one that all the nurses are keen on,” Jim added helpfully. “His name isn’t just Spock, but it’s unpronounceable to anyone other than Nyota, so we all just call him Spock.”
Shaking her hand, Leonard nodded. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Nyota, Spock. I’m Doctor Leonard McCoy. I was the one who treated Jim’s wounds. I understand that he’s living with you right now?”
The woman turned her eyes skywards and sighed. “Yes, unfortunately. He’s nothing but a menace, but we put up with him for reasons I can’t fully grasp. Did he behave himself?”
Jim laughed and shot Leonard an ‘I told you so’ look. “I was an absolute angel, mom. Look, no more stitches! Doctor Bones here got’em all out. I’m sure the lady next door will be thrilled to see me all better. Maybe I’ll play some good old Dizzy Gillespie and dance offbeat for her.”
Leonard looked over at the pair. “Good lord, how do you put up with him?”
“With a great deal of patience,” Spock deadpanned.
“Doctor McCoy? Your next patient is ready for you,” Chapel called from down the hall.
Shoving his hands back into his pockets, he nodded at his nurse and turned back to the three. “Sorry to cut this short, but I suppose I should get back to work if I want any chance of going home on time today. It was nice meeting you-” he paused and corrected himself with a wry smile, “-make that re-meeting you, I guess. It’s comforting to know that I had at least a few friends before.”
Spock shook his head. “It is understandable, doctor. You have a busy schedule. We should stop taking up your time and depart.”
Nyota added, “And Leonard, call us whenever you want. We’re still your friends now-that is, if that’s alright with you. I understand that you’re probably leading a separate life right now, what with being a doctor and all, but we’d really like to see you again.”
He paused. Eyes wide with surprise, his lips slowly curled upwards. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t really have a life outside this hospital. They’re working me to the bone here. So I guess what I’m trying to say is: that’d be nice. I’d like to remain in contact very much. Thank you.” Then, turning to Jim, he said, “And you. Try to stay out of trouble. No strenuous activities and whatever stunts you’re thinking of. I don’t want to see you here as a patient for at least a couple of months.”
Jim clutched at his heart in a melodramatic manner. “You hurt me with your suspicion and low standards, Bones. Only a couple of months? I’ll have you know that I always try to stay out of trouble, it’s trouble that has a problem with staying away from me.”
With a scoff, Leonard rolled his eyes and took off down the hall with a wave.
On his way to his next patient, he was joined by Chapel who noted, “I see you were talking to Jim’s friends. They seem like nice people, don’t they, boss?”
He nodded in agreement. “Yeah, they do. Makes me wish I knew them.”
--
Although Leonard had their number, he didn’t have the courage to make the first move. Luckily, Jim saved him the trouble and called him at quarter to five in the morning nearly a week later. Leonard had picked up, thinking it would be the hospital on the other line, calling him in for an emergency. Although the hospital had finally passed the motion to hire the new doctors, with Geoffrey M’Benga being the one he most strongly advocated for, all the emergency calls were still being routed to him.
What he hadn’t expected was a soft, uncertain voice asking, “Bones?”
Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he groaned, “Jim? The sun’s not even out yet. Is something wrong? Oh god, you didn’t open your wounds or hurt yourself again, did you? I don’t do house calls. Do you need me to call an ambulance?”
There was a sigh of relief on the other line. “No, nothing like that, Bones, and nothing that’ll require an ambulance.”
It was Leonard’s turn to let out a breath of relief. “You better not be calling out of boredom because if you are, I swear I’ll find my way over then and send you straight to a morgue.”
“No, nothing like that either,” Jim reassured him in a hushed voice; Leonard assumed it was to avoid waking his caretakers up.
Pulling up a nearby chair, one of few pieces of furniture in his Spartan flat, he sat down and asked, “Having one of your bad days?”
“Yeah,” was the mumbled reply.
His doctoring instincts kicked in. “Do you experience these very often?”
“They’re on and off,” Jim answered. “It’s gotten better compared to when it first started though.”
“Do you feel like talking about it yet?”
Jim paused. “No, not really.”
“Then what can I do to help?” he asked.
“Just…talk, Bones. Can you just talk for awhile?”
He briefly considered hanging up and salvaging whatever little time he had left to sleep. But Jim was a patient and a friend (both old and new), and whether it was because of his past self or his being a doctor, Leonard knew that he simply didn’t have it in himself to deny the man this request. “I don’t know what to talk about.”
“How about you tell me what happened in Europe after you woke up?” Jim suggested, his voice hopeful.
Leonard thought of the little old woman who’d rescued him. He wondered how she was doing. Despite the arthritis in her knees and hips, she was a robust woman who slapped his hand away whenever he offered her assistance. The thought of her made him smile. He’d written letters to her, using a mixture of broken French and English, and she always wrote back in her local dialect of French, telling him that everyone was doing well.
“Bones?”
He blinked, snapping back to reality. “I’m still here. My mind just wandered off for a moment there. My time in Europe wasn’t that interesting. I spent most of it in a little town in Belgium….” Leonard tried his best to describe the little town with their church towering over the quaint little houses and the war-torn fields surrounding it. He recalled the woman who’d saved his life and the challenges of learning French, and while he talked, Jim sat there, wherever he was, and listened, making occasional comments encouraging him to continue.
Of all the things Leonard recalled, he left the letter out-the letter, which was more like a memo, that contained only the most basic information about him. It was a piece of paper he’d looked at and read with a great mixture of emotions ranging from excitement to dread, anger to glee, and self-assuredness to uncertainty.
He often wondered what its intended purpose was and who it was written for. Perhaps it was for anyone who had the misfortune of stumbling upon his corpse; surely, the previous Leonard McCoy couldn’t have known that he would soon lose his memories.
Leonard was snapped out of his reverie once more when Jim, now audibly less sullen than before, said, “Oh, would you look at the time.”
There were muffled voices in the background, and Leonard assumed Nyota and Spock were up. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was almost six already. He’d have to get ready for work soon.
“Hey, Bones, Nyota wants to know if you’d like to come over for dinner this weekend,” Jim suddenly told him. “I already said yes for you, but she wanted me to actually ask you.”
Arching a brow, he asked, “You already said yes for me?”
“Yeah, well, it’ll be good for you in more ways than one, you know? Meet new people, meet old people, spend some time with me, swap stories, take a day off work, and there’ll probably be pie,” Jim’s voice became muffled when he suddenly called out, “-no, I’m not pressuring him! I’m merely stating the advantages to coming!” Then back on the telephone, he asked, “So is that a yes?”
Leonard heaved an exaggerated sigh, making sure it was audible over the phone. “Fine, I’ll go. Why do I get the feeling that things like this used to happen a lot?”
Jim chuckled. “Things like what? Me being right?-he said yes, Nyota! I told you he would!”
He shook his head and scoffed. “No, things like you dragging me into things, you infant. Just tell me the time and location, and I’ll try my best to be there.”
“Oh, did they finally get around to hiring the new doctors?”
“Yes, praise the lord. New doctors-ones that won’t be too busy chasing after interns, and new nurses. I might actually have time to try and reintegrate back into society-and Chapel too, god knows when that woman last took a day off,” he muttered, thinking of his most trusted nurse. “Anyway, time and location? I know the address is written in your file, but I’m not about to dig out a patient’s file and copy an address from it.”
“Right. Do you have a pen handy?” Jim asked.
Jotting down the address and noting the time and date, he nodded to himself. “Alright. Got it. And now, I should probably get ready for work. Maybe I’ll see you in a few days.”
He could almost see Jim’s soft smile on the other line. “Yeah, hopefully we’ll see you then, Bones. Have fun at work.”
Leonard rolled his eyes and drawled sarcastically, “I’ll try.”
“Oh, and Bones?”
Holding the receiving back up to his ear, Leonard asked, “Yeah?”
“Thanks…you know, for talking,” Jim said, his voice earnest.
His eyes softened and his lips instinctively curled into a small but affectionate smile. “Anytime, Jim. Bye.”
After hanging up, instead of immediately getting ready for work like he said, Leonard remained seated there for a minute thinking about how many dollars his next phone bill would probably add up to. But pushing the thought out of his head, he got up and opened the drawer of his bedside table and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
Opening it up, he sat down on his bed and read those four sentences to himself over and over again. It was the only clue he had to his identity when he woke up that day three years ago, and the last sentence was the reason he returned to the United States. His eyes scanned the worn out piece of paper one last time before tucking it back into his drawer in favour of getting dressed for work.
My name is Leonard H. McCoy.
I was born in Georgia, the United States.
I fix people.
And I am lucky enough to love and be loved by three amazing people.
Back to Chapter 4