STXI fic, All the Past We Leave Behind, 1/2

[northatlantic]

Title: All the Past We Leave Behind, 1/2
Author: northatlantic
Word Count: 22,500
Characters/Pairings: Kirk/McCoy, Spock/Uhura, Pike, Chapel, Scotty, Gaila, Sulu, Chekov, Winona Kirk
Rating: NC-17 for explicit m/m sex, implied m/f sex, bad language, violence
Summary: Wild West AU; drifter Jim Kirk finds a new purpose in a town called Enterprise and an angry ex-Confederate surgeon he meets there.
Author's Notes: for my beta, muse and cheering section breakthecitysky, without whom I don't think this mess would ever have gotten finished. Thanks also to katlike and seimaisin for their patience getting spammed with/about this pretty much 24/7. A whole lot of details about the time and place of this story can be found here, for those who care about such things. Title from Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass.
Warning: the term "halfbreed" is used to denote a person of both Cheyenne and white descent as a slur by other characters, and "Oriental" for a person of Asian descent.



Jim Kirk's luck began to change in a town with the unlikely name of Riverside, Wyoming, in the even more improbably-dubbed Shipyard Bar. He was staring glassily up, waiting for the next punch to fall when the gun barked, the scent of it falling into the sudden hush and all eyes tracked to the man in dusty black with the silver star pinned to his chest, the flint-colored eyes hard and cold. "You lot, clear out."

Pike, he heard dimly whispered around him before he passed out. Did he know that name?

He came to to a bucket of icy water being poured over him, surfaced choking and spluttering to those same dark blue-grey eyes, now mildly amused. "Was surprised to hear the barkeep say your name, but maybe not as much as I could have been. George Kirk was always one to swing first and look later. Good man in a fight. Good man, period. Look like him." He offered Jim a hand up.

His head was swimming dizzily, and not just from the booze and having his bell rung. "Who are you?" he muttered as Pike put a tin cup of coffee in his hands.

"Chris Pike. Marshal of Enterprise, in Montana territory."

"You're a long way from home to have that many mean sons of bitches back away on your say-so."

Pike smiled thinly. "I was US Marshal for all of Montana territory, before I decided I was ready to settle down. Still bring in the occasional hard case, they think they can hide out my way. I learned a lot from your father. Shame what happened to him. And to his son."

Jim's jaw tightened. "Who the hell are you to say that? You don't know the first damn thing about me."

“I know you're the next thing to a vagrant, drunk as a skunk before sundown and picking bar-fights at the end of nowhere. Your father saved a lot of lives before he was gunned down, God rest his soul. You've got him in you, somewhere, staring out of your eyes, wanting something more, something better." He turned and headed for the door. "You decide one of these days you want that, you deserve that, you head north. Enterprise is about half day's ride north from Fort Smith."

Jim stared into the coffee cup, wondered what he did want. What else Pike knew about his father, something gnawing at his gut as he did.

Pike smiled when he realized the rider trailing him on the big rawboned rose-grey was the kid.

***

Several days' hard ride and Kirk was grateful to see the end of a saddle for a little while, or at least he hoped. He followed Pike into the stable, the small smile of approval as the other man watched him take care of Harley enough to have him soaping both saddles, even as something inside him rolled his eyes. There was something kind of nice about it, he thought defensively, to have the time and space to make sure your horse and your tack were sound that you didn't always when you were living rough. Not doing this to impress anybody that you're not a slack-off. Nope.

He wasn't sure what he'd expected as he walked into the marshal’s 's office and jail, but it sure as hell wasn't a Chinaman cleaning a big-ass, real as life SWORD in the corner, like a cavalry saber but longer and looked sharp enough to shave the north wind. "His name's Sulu," said Pike behind him, and he jumped. "Japanese, not Chinese. He doesn't much care for being confused with Chinese, seems like his folk and theirs don't get along too well. He's still learning to speak English, but what he's told me, family got run out of Japan for being Christian."

Kirk wondered what the hell he had gotten into, as sharp unreadable dark eyes met his. But at least it'd be interesting? "Jim Kirk," he said politely, offered a hand. Sulu gave him a measuring glance, then smiled, took it, made him a little bow after releasing it before going back to sharpening that wicked pigsticker.

“Can't really give Sulu an official-type job 'round here until he's a little better with the lingo, but he takes care of the weapons locker and the mounts, and pitches in to help keep the peace here in town when I'm not here," Pike said easily, and Kirk could see not arguing with that, the way he seemed to commune with that sword. "Come on, I'll show you where you can drop your kit until you find someplace you'd rather stay." He led him through into the jail, a fresh-faced, curly-headed kid looking up and smiling. "This here's Pavel Chekov, his people are a bit south of town. Pavel, this is Jim Kirk, we're going to be training him up to be my deputy. So what's been going on?"

The kid looked at Kirk with undisguised curiosity but snapped to attention like a toy soldier at Pike's question. "Marshal Pike. Has been wery quiet while you vere gone. Except for Doctor McCoy."

Pike heaved a sigh, and Kirk became aware of what could only be described as a reek of stale liquor and tobacco smoke wafting from the cell, the soft harsh breathing not quite snoring. "Sleeping it off in the tank, then.” He turned to Jim. “Might as well see one of your main peacekeeping duties now. The doc's not a violent man, but he's got a hair trigger and a bad instinct for stepping on other peoples' when he's soused. Which is more of the time than he ought to be."

Jim looked curiously through the bars, saw what looked like a bundle of dirty rags capped with a bird’s nest sprawled in the cell, lips parted. The smell was even more impressive from there. "That's a doctor? And you called ME a vagrant?"

"Don't jump to conclusions, Kirk," Pike said mildly. "When he's sober, he can do amazing things with a needle and a knife, take care of a sick patient for days until a fever breaks, a course turns. Problem is, that's not as often as we'd like it to be. Saw too much in the war. So I've started hauling him in for these drunks. I’m hoping it’ll make ‘em less frequent."

Stung, Kirk eyed the man in the cell a little closer. He saw the moment when bloodshot hazel eyes blinked open, a moment of blind panic that was almost feral for a moment until McCoy realized where he was, pushed up with the slow, careful dignity of the extremely hung-over and straightened the rather worse-for-wear coat and vest. "If you don't move," he said, coming to the bars, eyebrow arching, accent all slow Southern courtliness, "I may throw up on you."

Kirk swung out of the way hastily, flourished him a sarcastic bow. "Thank you," McCoy murmured, head held high as he pushed through the cell door, and headed out the back, where a series of unfortunate sounds suggested he'd have made good on his threat. Kirk looked at Pike; I know, but really?

Pike cast his eyes heavenward, sighed at the sound of the pump and walked over; Kirk noted that the doctor had considerately dumped a bucket of sand on his indiscretion before stripping out of coat and vest and ducking his head in the horse trough. "Leonard, we've talked about this," Pike said, leaning against the wall as he surfaced. "It's a matter of your safety, and everybody else's."

"Marshal. I continue to fail to see how my decision to waste my life in the pursuit of vice and the mocker of strong drink constitutes a public health issue." McCoy glanced at Kirk. "Have I acquired a hallucination, or do I need an introduction?"

Kirk didn’t quite bristle, but his smile had more teeth than strictly necessary as he offered his hand. "James T. Kirk. Here to serve the good people of Enterprise."

Unexpectedly, McCoy smiled back, something almost sad in his eyes. "Then you don't need to waste your time and charm with me, kid."

"Give me patience," Pike implored the heavens. "Leonard..."

"Marshal. James T. Kirk. It was almost pleasant meeting you, barring the vomit and all."

Jim looked after him as he scooped up vest and coat and strode down the street, shook his head. "He MUST be a good doctor.”

Pike blew out an exasperated breath. "The best."

***

Jim Kirk had come to the conclusion that there were at least two Leonard McCoys, possibly three, and the only trait they seemed to share was a fiendish delight in keeping him guessing which one he was talking to at any given time.

There was the drunk he first met, someone drowning equal parts in bourbon and bitterness. Every chance he got he was picking fights with gunslingers and roughnecks and it didn't take much to figure out that this McCoy had a death wish. Sooner or later someone was going to step up and give it to him if Chris Pike's plan of locking him up before it could happen failed.

There was the doctor who kept a meticulously arranged and spotless surgery in the little battered clapboard storefront next to the jail, and the McCoy who worked there was frequently the worse for wear after a bender, but cat-clean and commanding nonetheless. Jim could believe that this McCoy had been a military surgeon. Actually, he believed he was better than a military surgeon after the first time he saw him work, a miner who had fallen afoul of a blasting cap. While the poor bastard lost a finger, Jim saw the goddamn mess he was brought in with and he was lucky to have a hand at all, much less one that he could still use to earn a living. That was all the doing of McCoy’s deft and precise hands in the moments the poor bastard was under the ether. In the surgery he was kind in a detached sort of way, gentle with the injured and frightened, good at calming them with either soft words or a snap of self-assurance that either way said it'll be all right, and more often than not it was.

Then there was the sarcastic prickly son of a bitch who had just turned up on his doorstep and informed him with chilly politeness that although it was certainly Marshal Pike's prerogative to uphold the laws of Enterprise and Montana territory as he saw fit, he objected to having a "damned shadow following me around making sure I don't exercise my God-given right to fuck up my life if I feel like it."

Jim decided to take the bull by the horns. "Maybe I'm just curious. You're about the strangest person I've ever met."

"That's a hell of a thing to say to me." McCoy scowled at him blackly. "You want to study me like some freakshow you should at least pay two bits for the privilege."

"I would if you didn't buy whiskey with it. You're much more interesting sober. I've known suicides. Never been friends with a doctor though."

"Friends." McCoy made a scoffing noise and didn’t bother to deny the first part. "What the hell for?"

"Don't really have any here. 'Cepting Sulu, but it's not like you can sit down and have a chat with him, so much. And Chekov, but Chekov you can't get a word in edgewise and he kind of looks up to me. Which is awkward." McCoy snorted, eyes sparkling for the truth of that statement. "So might as well start to work on you."

"You are hard up, kid." But there was something in those suspicious dark eyes that warmed a little bit. "And whatever you've got on the stove is burning."

"Shit!" Smoke was indeed starting to billow from the stove and Jim yanked the pot from it, the beans a casualty and the palm of his hand too. "Fuck. GodDAMMIt."

"You stupid sumbitch." McCoy stalked in after him, grabbed him by the wrist of the injured hand and stuffed it into the water bucket as Jim first swore, then let his eyes close in relief. "Potholder, you witless tinhorn!"

"Does this mean you're my friend now?" Jim had to laugh, even though his hand hurt like hell.

"It means you don't have the sense God gave a goose and apparently you're coming to the surgery for chow after I wrap that hand. Imbecile."

In all, Jim had to count it a win; his hand hurt, but McCoy was a better cook than he was, and bitching and japing at him for the evening apparently entertained him enough that he didn’t feel the need to get drunk.

***
Vulcan's Forge was a curious oasis of civility and sophistication in the middle of Enterprise, which is to say, the middle of nowhere. It was owned by the half-Cheyenne, half-gentleman who went only by Spock, and whose story no one seemed to quite know. Some people said he was the only heir to some English estate and they bought him off to not have to admit the blood was tainted; others said his father was the Injun and he learned how to act like civilized folk from his mother, made his money gambling to build the Forge. Those were only the most plausible of the stories circulating; there were other, more incredible ones about Spanish grandees and gypsies and countesses and the kind of bosh you read in dime novels. The only thing that everyone agreed on was that if you wanted to keep all your teeth in your head you had better not say shit about his parentage, particularly his mother, and you didn't touch the girls that worked at the Forge without their express invitation.

Those were both sensible policies to James T. Kirk, and among the very few things he liked about Spock. He was too...polished, too precise in the bespoke black suits and shirts he favored, the cool cultured tone of his voice a little too much like the charity ladies who had given his mother baskets of food and their children’s outgrown clothes along with buckets of unwanted pity before she'd married Frank to keep a roof over their heads. Added to that the frigidly superior onyx stare and Jim felt constantly measured and found wanting by some invisible and unattainable standard, one that made him want to break it just to see what the hell it was, to see that calm shatter just once.

No, he didn't like Spock, and it seemed that feeling was very much reciprocated in every time that he’d come with Pike to the Forge to address a dispute of some sort. While Spock respected and trusted Pike, he lost no opportunity to make it clear that he thought Jim Kirk was a long, long way from proving himself. And never farther than at that moment, as Kirk was protesting a cardsharp.

"Out of my bar," Spock said, cool as ice despite the heat of the bar, arms folded across his chest.

Kirk scowled. "I saw the cards passed! What the hell kind of operation you run here, Spock?"

"The kind that doesn't take kindly to someone who thinks they can use a badge and a gun to make good their losses at my tables. Now get out before I have you thrown out."

Kirk was furious; that accusation had made everyone in the bar look at him, and there was no way he could make it right. Whether he did or he didn't respond it was out there in people's heads that he was a bully and a cheat, something that undermined both him and Pike. "I have never disrespected the badge," he said, shaking with fury. "And the only thing keeping me from calling you out for that is doing it will just make people think you're right. Just like not doing it will make people think you're right too. Damned if I do, damned if I don't but damned if I ever darken your doorstep again so don't you worry about me abusing the badge.” He stormed out and it was all he could do to keep his head high; he could hear the whispers starting already.

***

Gaila, who had been holding court in the corner, glared at Spock, picked up her skirts and departed after he had thrown Pike’s loud and obnoxious deputy out. Nyota, although she continued to serve drinks and smile, bit her lip and would not look him in the eyes. But at that point, the damage was done and he did not regret it. Kirk was no loss to the Forge, and if anyone thought Spock could be bullied into tolerating accusations likely to lead to gunplay, the atmosphere he had worked so hard to create and sustain would be gone and he would not tolerate that. He’d built something unique here, something his own, on his terms, and no one would take it away. No one, tin star or not.

Still, it troubled Spock more than it should have, that flash of shock and hurt in Kirk’s eyes. He was used to being misinterpreted, but that made the idea that he had been guilty of the same gall more, rather than less. “Nyota,” he murmured later after the bar had closed for the night, looking down at her lying against him in the candlelight of their room. She was all shadowed loveliness so, a vision worthy of Byron or perhaps Shakespeare’s Dark Lady, but it had been her voice that had captivated him, pure as a bell. She had fiercely refused to sing for the Forge until he had made it clear that her performance on the stage was indeed his objective, and not her performance in a bed; that had made the revelation of her velvet-dark skin against his white linen sheets so much more startling when it occurred some months later. Because you didn’t expect it, she had said, and he accepted her gift in the manner it was offered, continued not to expect it and was rewarded with her cool quicksilver wit, her rare tenderness, and most of all her honesty. Honesty was a commodity Spock fiercely treasured for its rarity. “Was I wrong, this evening?”

“I’ve never heard Kirk called a cheat,” she said reluctantly. “Plenty of other names, though. He’s a flannel-mouthed reprobate of a shavetail and it won’t hurt him to be taken down a peg. Imagine, him running Enterprise. It isn’t to be thought of.”

Spock gave her one of his rare smiles, turned her chin up to kiss her. “Indeed. Most illogical of Marshal Pike. I do not know what he sees in him.”

“Nor Gaila,” she said with a sigh against his mouth. “But then, she’s got a new fancy every night of the week. She’ll get over it soon enough. We don’t have to talk about Jim Kirk any more, do we?”

“Most certainly not,” he murmured, kissing her again, his hands slipping over the sleek curves to fit her more pleasingly against him. “We do not need to speak of anything you do not wish to.”

“At the moment, I don’t feel much like talking at all,” she breathed. Spock found that an eminently sensible decision; his mouth was better employed at that moment exploring the juncture of her neck and shoulder as she wrapped a long leg around his waist, arched up against him and the thought of anything except her was banished.

****

The next morning Bones was more amused by Jim’s grievance than outraged, which was like him, irritating bastard. "It'll be all right, Jim. Blow over before very long since it didn't come to blows and the next jackass gets himself shot up it'll be old news." McCoy stretched out on the porch of the surgery to bask in the sun, eyes heavy-lidded and content, flask of whiskey in his hand. Jim plucked it out of his hand to take a gulp and received a half-hearted scowl. "Here, you abusing your badge with me now?"

Jim glared at him, and McCoy made a face. "Oh, quit it, kid, I was just funnin'. Set a spell and relax, you're making me tired looking at you."

"You're making me tired with this, Bones." Jim shot back, draining the flask and handing it back to a sour look from McCoy. "You're a doctor, you know what you're doing to yourself."

McCoy tucked the flask back into his top pocket and grimaced. "Don't call me that. And if I wanted a lecture, I'd go hunt up Pike for a chess game."

"Stop calling you Bones as soon as you stop calling me kid. And that's another thing. Why don't you ever ask me for a game?" Jim was a little hurt; he thought he was pretty damn good. Pike still beat him regularly, but Jim had it down to three games out of five and figured in another few months of playing to get more familiar with Pike's game, they’d be evenly matched.

"'Cause most of the time I don't have to distract YOU from scolding. But if you're gonna take on about it, reckon I can give you a game." There was something gently amused in McCoy's eyes. "Go get the board, we'll set up out here."

Jim complied, and they set the pieces out, flipped for the first play and McCoy got white. McCoy, the sneaky rip, didn't play a traditionally good game but he was a genius at getting under a man's skin, distracting him to make mistakes he could exploit. No sooner were the pieces set out than he asked Jim, "So you heard from your ma since you last wrote?"

Jim's jaw tightened a little. "No. But that's no never mind, it's not like mail out here's exactly regular."

McCoy hummed gently, moved a pawn that Jim promptly moved out to counter. "Sent her a couple letters now, haven't you? Should send 'em to one of her friends, maybe." His eyes were soft and dark. "Make sure she's gettin' em that way."

Jim slapped a bishop down. "You fixing to talk or play?"

McCoy tilted his eyebrow. "Friendly conversation, Jim. Figured you didn't want to talk about town."

He didn't, not really, and decided that maybe the best defense was a good offense and not letting McCoy dictate the terms of engagement. "We always talk about me during these games. What about you? You talk to your people lately?"

McCoy shifted a knight out. "Not much point in it, seeing as half of 'em are dead and the other half probably burn something that came from me as soon as look at it. You sure you wanna do that, Jim?" he asked as Jim reached to make his move

Jim scowled at the board; the other thing McCoy did that was daft but worked was make you second-guess yourself. Yes, he was sure he wanted to move that pawn. "So were you always this charming, then?"

"Was I always a miserable bastard, you mean? Yeah, pretty much." He slid a rook out of nowhere to take the pawn but Jim smiled triumphantly and took it with his bishop.

"Yeah, I don't believe that. You care more than you like people to notice."

McCoy scowled and knocked out his bishop with his knight. "Check."

Jim rolled his eyes and took the knight with a pawn. "It was that bad?"

A muscle flexed in McCoy's cheek. "You're the one who said we should get to playing and less talking."

It was the most response Jim had ever seen from Bones on the topic, and Jim rested his chin in his hand, fascinated. "Might ease you a little bit to talk about it."

"Ease me?" Burning green-dark eyes pierced him. "Okay, we'll try it. It started when I started working in that goddamned meat grinder called the Confederate Army. Here's a little one for you. Chickamauga. I was soaked in blood for three goddamn days before I could wash. Peeled the skin off me by the time I could get my shirt off. Nope. Didn't work." He closed his eyes, throat working.

"Don't," Jim said, something instinctive there making him reach past the shock of those words, reach out for his shoulder. McCoy stiffened as Jim's hand bit into him. "Stay here with me, Bones, look at me."

McCoy snarled, something animal in it as he shook off Jim’s hand, something desperate and despairing. "Don't touch me."

"All right," Jim said low and soft, held those wild eyes like he would a frightened horse or a terrified child. "Now, you want to explain that to me?"

McCoy threw up his hands and stalked into the surgery, hands shaking as he went for his stash. "Get the hell out of here!" he snapped as Jim followed him.

"No," Jim replied, leaning against the wall. "You wouldn't have said that if you didn't want me to hear it. Talk."

McCoy's head dropped, hands on the counter to brace himself. "It wasn't a battlefield, it was Hell come down to earth. Almost four thousand dead men and five times that wounded. Didn't matter when we were operating whether they wore a gray coat or a blue one, either side of the line. I was young, strong, trained as a surgeon already so I was one of the main cutters. Faster you can take a man's arm or leg, cleaner, better chance you have to save his life and too many people hesitated too damn much. Afraid to be called ghouls. I probably took thirty limbs that day, pile to my waist of arms and legs. That day, Jim. More days, after that. Fever and maggots and dysentery. So many broken children, my God…"

Jim wrapped around him and stuffed a basin under his head as he went rigid, deeply sorry he asked as McCoy retched, lost in that memory. But he was still not sure he'd done the wrong thing, because how could you live with that poison in you and not need to get rid of it? "I've got you," he murmured. "I've got you. Try and breathe, Bones."

He lost that terrible rigidity after, feebly batting at Jim's hands. "Let go of me, kid."

"You gonna go ass over teakettle if I do?" The growl was strong enough for him to carefully let go; he winced, but didn’t protest as McCoy reached for the bottle. "Come on. You don't have to talk to me but we have a game to finish."

McCoy turned to look at him, eyes exhausted but bemused rather than defensive, something unreadable there as he studied Jim’s determined face. "All right," he said, and Jim couldn’t tell if it was defeat or relief in his tone as he let his hand fall away from the whiskey and followed Jim back out to the sun. Jim turned the board so the sun wouldn’t be in McCoy’s eyes and let his foot rest against his; the contact seemed steadying to the other man and he knew how it felt to feel like the last man on earth who hadn't lost his mind--or maybe the only insane one. It was hard to know the difference sometimes.

***

Jim and Bones spent more time together than apart after that day. While Jim had been less successful than he would like in coaxing out more hurtful memories, still it seemed like there was something both calmer and more fragile in the way McCoy had stopped bristling at accidental touches but at the same time would not always meet his eyes. When Jim snuck glances at him to figure it out, sometimes he caught glimpses of something soft and uncertain and…he would say hungry, if he didn’t know better. He wondered, even as it lay dully in his throat and heart, if Bones would do better with someone to take care of him. In company, he didn’t drink nearly as much, and something gentle and gentlemanly came out in him when he talked to women. Even Uhura, suspicious as she was of everyone, smiled at him and Gaila blushed like a girl when he tipped his hat to her. “As if I was a lady,” she said once, and Bones had replied, “Darlin’, it’s a generous heart makes a lady, not a starched petticoat. You’ll always be one to me.”

There were precious few women in Enterprise, but what there WAS was a copy of Hand & Heart that came in the mail for one T. Reilly, Esq. who had given up on his claim about a month back. He was presumably seeking a bride somewhere east of the Mississippi and wouldn’t miss it, so Jim pored carefully through the magazine and studied the pictures, tried to picture the women with his doctor. He discarded the choices under twenty-five; they all seemed too dewy-eyed and expectant and he could see that grating on Bones’ nerves. He settled finally on a tall blonde with practical nursing experience and serious light eyes that the description said were blue, who was looking for a doctor so she could continue to practice her skills. He thought Bones would like that, someone strong-minded and level-headed who wouldn’t shriek at the sight of blood or have the vapors if she was needed in the surgery. Someone maybe who would understand what he’d been through and could be a source of comfort to him.

He did his best to ignore his own desire to comfort. Bones was reluctant at best to speak about what happened to him, what had led him from Georgia to Enterprise, and Jim refused to push for what he wasn’t ready to give.

As if Jim’s musings had the power of summoning, he heard Bones’ voice and almost started. “Jim, you can’t be that desperate,” he said amused from the doorway, “not with your pretty face. Surely in all of Montana territory there has to be SOME woman with more sensibility than sense who’ll have you?”

“Just passing the time,” Jim replied, dog-earing the page in the magazine before setting it down. He thought he has enough money to pay Miss Chapel’s way out to Enterprise; he’d write the letter later after he’d checked to make sure. “And who’s to say I haven’t fucked ‘em all and run out of women who’ll give me the time of day?”

McCoy snorted. “Not for lack of tryin’ I’m sure, you forty-balled tomcat, but I’m pretty sure you’d have to be gone from Enterprise more for that than you are. Especially since you and Miz Gaila were pretty tight before your little falling-out with Spock.”

Jim snarled at the reminder. “Better this way. She thought she was falling in love with me and that’s a fool’s endeavor if there ever was one. Checkers? Pike’s giving that ice-blooded bastard a trouncing at chess and why he can’t buy his own damn board…”

“Rein in, Hotspur,” Bones said, smiling. “And a girl could do worse, provided she had the patience of a saint, but that’s neither here nor there and I’m looking to give you a thrashing.”

“Hah. So you think.” Jim set out the checkers and gave Bones an arch look. “You have yet to beat me.”

“You won’t play poker with me,” Bones said comfortably, “and one day I have to get lucky, right?”

“So you keep saying. I have a new book, if you want to borrow it.”

Bones looked up at that, interest firing hazel eyes. Like Jim, a book in his hands was a coveted pleasure, natural history or mathematics, poetry or dime novels, didn’t matter so long as it hadn’t been read half-a-dozen times before. “What is it?”

“Poetry this time. Fella by the name of Walt Whitman. Powerful stuff. I hear it’s been banned some places out East for being too racy. But I don’t see as it’s all that bad. Some people just can’t stand the thought of anybody having a good time.”

Bones raised his eyebrow and smirked. “Shoulda known, coming from you.”

Jim was mildly affronted by the implication that he only liked dirty books. “Here, now, I got you Mr. Twain’s book, right? That wasn’t racy. Nor was Mr. Darwin’s book.”

“For me?” Bones tilted his head, eyes warm.

Jim bit his tongue. “Well, for us. I liked them too. And that French thing you got, the Three Musketeers. And Mr. Verne’s book. I think I liked that best, From Earth to the Moon.”

“You would,” Bones said with a sigh. “Made to risk your neck, you are. Makes me wonder when you’ll shake Enterprise off your boots and be off again.”

“Never,” Jim said without thinking. “Enough adventure for anybody, here.” He did NOT say, and the closest thing to family I can remember, you and the Marshal. But he thought Bones might have heard it anyway, a rare open smile with no hint of sarcasm lighting his face like a gift.

***

Christine Chapel came into Enterprise with her prized medical kit from Dr. Boyce, a carpetbag full of serviceable clothes, and enough butterflies in her stomach to practically lift her off her feet. She'd been plagued with second thoughts and regrets for weeks after placing the ad--and more when it had gone unanswered for the first two of the three months she'd paid for. She had come to the conclusion that her height, her refusal to truss herself up in ridiculous fuss and furbelows and equally unfeminine interest in medicine instead of babies and kitchens had doomed her to spinsterhood and she had almost come to terms with it until Leonard's ardent and charming letter. In a rare display of sentiment, she'd kept it in her bag. The paper was worn almost velvety with handling, the hand of its author bold and masculine, the sketch with it similarly so, a strong and attractive if careworn face, the warmth of the eyes visible even with the fine pencil lines smudged from its travels.

June 24th, 1872

Dear Christine,

I should no doubt call you Miss Chapel, as we have not been formally introduced, but I look at your lovely face and feel as though we are already acquainted, so much of your kindness and strength of spirit is written there. I am writing to you in regard to your advertisement in Heart & Hand; if it is possible no other man has offered, I would be honored to ask for your hand in marriage.

I have no great practice to recommend me to you; I am a simple country doctor, with a small but busy practice in the town of Enterprise in Montana Territory. My fondest hope is that perhaps the serious face of the angel of mercy might smile on my suit and give me your capable hands and tender heart to brighten my days.

I have no photograph to enclose, as Enterprise does not really run to such things and I am not sure where the nearest studio for such a thing can be found, but an indulgent friend has sketched a picture that while too flattering by half can be considered a fair likeness I suppose.

Should my suit meet with your approval, you may respond to this letter care of the Marshal's Office (also the post office), Enterprise, Montana Territory and I will wire the funds for your travel.

With warmest regards,

Leonard H. McCoy, MD

She was exhausted and dusty from the stagecoach's brutal pace, but nothing presented itself as a place a woman alone might reasonably go to freshen up; the only place that looked like it offered accommodations was the luridly gilded Vulcan's Forge and from the looks of the men--and only men--laughing outside it, it wasn't the sort of place a respectable woman went. No, there was nothing for it but to brush herself off as well as could be, screw her courage to the sticking place and head for the little clapboard building next to the Marshal's office, with "Surgery" stenciled boldly (and a little crookedly) across its front windows.

She pushed the door open to the jingle of a bell, and the gruff low Southern-toned, "With you in a minute," from the back room made her heart start to pound. She thought it would lift right out of her chest when he came out, the tired and wary eyes from the pencil sketch darkly luminous hazel and shadowed, the rough-edged and completely, compellingly masculine features just as they’d been drawn. And looking very confused. "Can I help you, miss?"

Oh God, she must look even worse than she thought. "Leonard, it's Christine," she said, gathering herself. "Christine Chapel," she said a little desperately at his deepening confusion and suspicion, brows knitting in a scowl. "You sent me a letter about my advertisement in Hand & Heart."

"Young lady, I did no such thing," he said, stepping back to put the big old desk between them and eyeing her as if he was unsure of her sanity. "I'm certainly not in the market for a bride, and if I wanted one I certainly wouldn't order out of a catalogue."

It was like a nightmare; she stared at him for a moment, and then rummaged frantically in her bag. "No, but you did--I have the letter!" Her mind was frozen with disbelief. She had pictured possible disappointment; she had prepared herself for...lurid attentions, not sure if she was more frightened or hopeful at the prospect. But this was a scenario she couldn't have planned for. How could the man have sent her two letters, a picture and a stagecoach fare, not remember, and think SHE was the one who was delusional? She seized the paper and thrust it under his nose with shaking hand. "Here."

Scowling, he took it; his eyes widened as he read it, frown turning to something like dismay. "Miss...Chapel," he said, looking at her. "I don't know how to tell you this, but there's been a misunderstanding. I didn't write this letter. I think I know who did, and I intend on giving him a good old-fashioned hiding for it, but. I'm sorry. I can't marry you. We'll see what's to be done about getting you back home--"

Tear-blinded, she turned and fled. A mistake. Of course it had been a mistake--or no, it was worse. A joke. A cruel joke and why had she ever let herself think someone would want her for herself? She should just have said she could cook and clean and become someone's dutiful housewife, or gone ahead to become a pinch-mouthed spinster nurse with a houseful of lapdogs to look after, or, or...A horse let out a startled snort right in her ear, and a burst of cursing made her realize she'd blundered into the street and bid fair to be run over. She blundered back to the storefronts, and found herself in front of Vulcan's Forge. She didn't know what else to do, and a surge of rage and desperation pushed her inside. There was nowhere else to stay, as she was not going back to the surgery for love nor money--the thought made her bite her lip not to cry--and in any event, it didn't seem like it mattered overmuch to be respectable any more.

"Here, miss, you look lost," a friendly female voice came from behind her, and she turned to see a lovely redheaded girl in danger of popping out of her green silk dress, kilted up shockingly high to display equally green boots. Her voice was gentle and liltingly Irish, and her smile was friendly and concerned. "Are you looking for someone?"

Mutely, she shook her head, then sniffed and found her voice. "I...I need a room for the night. Do you know who I should speak to?"

"Sure and I can get you fixed, colleen. You'll forgive my sayin' but you look peaked." She picked up Christine's bag and went to the desk, took a key and handed it to her. "108, all the way to the end of the hall. It's quieter there. Kendricks, you lazy lout, take the lady's bag up there for her and order a bath, just the thing for a long trip. Now, you come with me while he takes care of that," she said, "and we'll get you a tot of something and some dinner to put some color back in your cheeks. Then you can have a nice soak and a lie-down and things'll look brighter."

"I..." Christine's cheeks burned. "I'm not sure I can...how much?"

Her unlikely rescuer looked affronted. "Sure and you'll not worry about it. I'll speak to Mr. Spock about it if the room's dearer than you can pay and the rest of it, you tell them you're Gaila's guest and I'll make it right." She patted her hand when Christine rubbed her eyes. "Now, now, no tears! We've all been there, dearest. Don't tell me, it's a man at the bottom of it, isn't it? Always is. If it wasn't for--" She smiled as Christine's eyes widened. "Well, never mind that, but to my way of thinkin' there's only one reason to put up with 'em beyond killin' spiders."

Christine let out a shaky laugh. "I...I don't know how to thank you, Miss Gaila."

She patted Christine’s arm. "Just Gaila, sweet. What's your name?"

"Christine."

"Well, Christine, let's be after setting you up."

***

McCoy stared after the girl who had run out of the surgery, took a couple steps after her, then stopped. From the look she'd given him as she'd realized what had happened, he was pretty sure she'd be happier if she never saw him again. He'd give her a little time to calm down and compose herself; it wasn't as if Enterprise was a big enough place he wouldn’t be able to find her later.

Damn Jim Kirk. What in the hell had he been thinking? He could be a joker sometimes, but he'd never known him to run to cruelty and if this was a joke, it was the least funny one he'd ever seen. He picked up the letters, started reading through them. Three of them, and they'd talked to her about his love and need to practice medicine and how he was happy to have someone who understood that about him and could help, spoke candidly and gently about the moodiness and abruptness that he sometimes couldn't control from seeing things that "a gentle lady shouldn't have to know about" and how he hoped she would be able to be patient with him as they got to know each other. Saw the picture that could only be him on his front porch, a half-profile of turning and talking to someone and it was him, but it was a less worn and bitter him than the one he was used to seeing in the mirror. Carefully, carefully drawn, with the marks of having been worked and worked over to be exactly as the sender had wanted it to be and Jim had a good hand, a good eye. A kind eye, blurring over the fatigue and sadness and his defenses--or maybe that was the way he looked when he talked to the kid.

McCoy closed his eyes and swallowed back the sickness at that thought. The kid had seen it, the way the terrible loneliness in him eased when they were talking, when Jim laughed and bullied and drew out of him the terrible and hurtful things, looked at him with neither judgment nor pity, but with the deep quiet sympathy that made him wonder, made McCoy a little crazy wondering what he might have seen so young that would have given him that understanding. Seen it, and didn't understand that it was HIM that touched that aching place in him and filled it up, calmed and steadied and made it less often he needed the bottle to sleep, to cope with what he'd seen, what he'd done, what he'd become.

He supposed he should thank God that the kid didn't realize anything else about how he'd felt, what he'd wanted. He was pretty sure that once that reared its ugly head, Jim wouldn’t want anything to do with him. No one else had.

He'd tell Pike about the girl, have the Marshal make his offer of a trip back to her. It would be easier for both of them. And then he'd set Jim straight about this woman business.

***

Hikaru Sulu was actually not completely at sea in Enterprise, provided someone nearby could speak Spanish; his mother was from Luzon, and while they resisted the Spanish invaders, there was wisdom in knowing your enemy. He spoke to Pike in that tongue; Pike's Spanish was heavily accented and sometimes ungrammatical but sufficient to the task of mastering English, Hikaru hoped. There was a calm and kindness in Pike that was not unlike the Jesuit priests who had taught him Spanish, and the strange blue eyes were clear and held nothing back. Pike, he had decided, was something like a priest of the law; it was more than simply a job to him, more than the constables he remembered from the Philippines and certainly more than the ones in San Francisco where he came ashore. He was perhaps as close as this strange country could come to producing something like the samurai of Nippon his father had described to him.

Hikaru also knew some pidgin Russian, from the empire to the north that made forays in trade and under arms both; this he had learned from his father and for the same reason he had learned Spanish, to know one's enemy. This, he learned, and to trust in God and his sword and no one else until proven. But that wisdom notwithstanding, it had been impossible not to trust Pavel Chekov, whose youth and innocence shone in his face and voice for all with any knowledge of men to see. There was no duplicity in him, and he was both kind and excited when he learned that Hikaru spoke Russian, flooding him with a torrent of unfamiliar and musical syllables that made no sense until he could get him to slow down. Pavel was teaching him English as well and his kindness was more personal and brighter than Pike's; Pavel understood in a way Pike did not how it felt to come to a place where the most basic things were alien, what it was to be marked as a stranger and inferior, if not to the same extent by virtue of having the same skin. He understood how the food and water and the air itself tasted different, felt different on one's skin. On the days when Hikaru sickened for home and people who at least knew how to say his name properly, Pavel’s sympathy and cheer made that feeling less shameful.

Kirk, the newest addition to the Marshal's office, was as straightforward as a blade and as deceptively simple. While Kirk would speak slowly and with gestures when he thought he was saying something Hikaru would not understand, it was not the overloud child’s talk of someone speaking to a pet or a simpleton; most of the time, he simply spoke as he would with anyone else, doing him the courtesy of assuming he understood and remembered. Kirk would also correct his English when they were alone, as he would occasionally Pavel’s, but politely and never in front of someone else. And one day after watching Hikaru’s sword kata and escrima drills in fascination, Kirk asked to spar, cheerfully accepting being repeatedly knocked to the ground until he could break down the movements that put him there. It was pleasant to be able to work with another after so long alone; for his advanced age, Kirk was an apt pupil, and it gave Hikaru a chance to hone skills it was more difficult to practice without a partner. It was that equal willingness to be student and teacher, and equality of a more general sort that made Kirk a friend, he realized after a time. Despite imperfect communication, Kirk’s respect was easily understood, his trust that Hikaru was a competent and capable partner when needed. It was an equality he did not always feel with Pike whose tasks as Marshal were frequently too subtle for him as an outsider, and one that Chekov was too young and untried to offer under arms.

They rode now, he and Kirk, to investigate smoke on the horizon. A grass fire would not be unheard of at this time of year but the pattern of the smoke, the blackness of it made that an unlikely possibility. There was a small settlement in that direction, a cluster of farmers who like Chekov's family understood the cold broad plains and wheat; it was possible that by accident or design one of their claims had caught fire. As they got closer, it was clearer that the smoke was rising from several stationary locations, not the oncoming wave of a grass fire, and Kirk cursed quietly under his breath, urged his horse faster.

The sight that greeted them was as ugly as any Hikaru had seen in Luzon; the barn had burned almost to the ground and the house looked soon to follow. Sprawled in the yard were a man and a boy of perhaps twelve or thirteen, eyes wide and blind, and a woman still trembling, bruised beyond recognition but with the olive skin and long dark hair of Indian blood. Kirk hurled himself out of the saddle before the grey could stop, skidding and half-rearing, prancing impatiently at the smell of blood as he knelt next to the woman. "Narada," she gasped, breath hitching. "Narada."

Kirk's face became a mask at that word, whitening beneath the tan, sky-colored eyes black in that moment even as he said gently, "Don't worry about that now. We're here to help..."

She clutched at his hand and said again, choking, the rattle of death in her throat. "Narada." She coughed, blood spilling out of her mouth and Kirk picked her up out of the dirt, held her as her breath stopped. The calico of her dress was stained murderously red as her lungs failed her.

Kirk, still emotionless, held her a moment more before laying her down, closing her eyes. Hikaru made to dismount so they could tend to the bodies but Kirk waved him off as he scrambled to his feet. "No, Sulu. We have to get back." He was taut, voice still quiet. "Now."

He wondered as they rode what "Narada" meant to Kirk, but he knew it could be nothing good.

***

Gaila, Christine decided, was not a woman but an ebullient green whirlwind, conjuring a basin of hot water and a towel seemingly out of thin air and doing something almost magical to her blue calico to make it look less travel-crumpled as she sponged off the dust and tried to stuff her curls back into something resembling respectability, chattering all the while about how lovely her skin and eyes were, and how the cold-hearted blackguard who'd affronted her would 'choke on it, mark my words.' To her mingled amusement and dismay, Gaila then led her into the middle of the saloon, where she was immediately the object of every male eye until Gaila announced, "Miss Christine doesn't need to be bothered by you rough lot, and any of you who think otherwise can talk to Cupcake about it. Right, Cupcake?"

The man who stepped forward and nodded looked more like a granite cliff in a suit than any kind of pastry to Christine, but she was relieved by the way everyone's eyes immediately went back to their drinks and games as Gaila steered her to a corner near him, the better to be kept an eye on, she supposed. A plate of chicken and dumplings was liberated from someone else's order and a glass of something suspiciously--no, eye-wateringly strong was poured and set in front of her. Christine had never considered herself missish, but she had to confess to a little trepidation. Which of course led her to pick it up and take an injudicious swallow, just managing not to choke as it burned its way down her throat and proceeded to ignite her stomach.

"There's a lass," Gaila beamed, patting her hand. "You eat up now. I've to dance in a few minutes, but I'll be back after."

Christine caught her hand before she could pull it back, shame burning as hotly as the drink had--and to think she'd been worried about coming in here because of the wrong sort of people. "Gaila, I don't know how to thank you for how kind..."

"Oh, stuff," Gaila said, but beamed even more brightly. "Now you just let Cupcake and Nyota," she indicated the handsome black woman drifting through the room, her dress slightly more demure in cut than Gaila's but a luminous, siren-red silk that it would take someone with her countenance and poise to wear and made Christine feel even more dowdy and hopeless, "take care of you until I get back."

She felt both abandoned and grateful as Gaila dashed off, and applied herself to the food that she couldn't have thought about eating a few minutes ago but which the whiskey had made necessary, and even enjoyable, taking the tremble out of her hands. For this little while, this few moments, she wouldn't think about it. She watched the men playing cards instead, listened to the man playing piano, something surprisingly romantic and skillful for a saloon full of miners and cardsharps.

"Excuse me, Miss Chapel," a soft voice murmured, and she looked up anxiously until she saw the silver star and the serious blue eyes above it. "Chris Pike, Marshal of Enterprise. May I sit down?" She took a deep breath and nodded, clutched her purse underneath the table and wished herself anywhere but there as he settled himself and went on. "We believe we have figured out who is responsible for your being here; although it was under false pretexts we believe it was an...honest mistake," he said. "You'd be within your rights to press charges for fraud, but we're hoping this can be resolved by compensating you for your expenses and your expectations."

"My expectations," she said dully, took the glass and another hearty swallow as Pike's eyebrow winged up. "Marshal, I have no expectations. I'm no beauty, I'm not young, I'm not biddable or comformable, I can cook and sew but I'm better at binding and stitching. I don't want Dr. McCoy's money. I want--wanted. I wanted to do what I was meant for, but not be lonely. And there's no amount of money to buy that, and nothing at home for me except ridicule, Christine Chapel, so headstrong and foolhardy that her mail-order husband PAID her to go home." She stared at the top of the table, felt her eyes burning, and willed him to go away. "Thank the doctor, and tell him I have every intention of taking care of myself."

A large rough hand covered hers. "Surely there's something to be done," he said. "Out here, a man learns to appreciate the steel in a woman as much as the softness, maybe more. And you oughten’t run yourself down, you’re beauty enough for any man with eyes to see," he said, tilting her chin up. She should have been appalled at his familiarity, she thought dimly, but instead all she could think of was the way that hand felt, its roughness and warmth, the steadiness of his gaze. "Miss Chapel--"

"Christine," she said as he drew his hand back, saw both surprise and warmth in his eyes.
A startling and heartbreakingly pure soprano rose above the crowd and the coarse laughter and talk stopped, eyes tracking as though compelled to where the woman Gaila had called Nyota had taken her place, her voice bell-rich and heartrending as she sang. Christine blinked as Gaila emerged in a costume of veils to dance while Nyota sang. It was sensual, sexual even, but somehow something...more than a tawdry display, a story, graceful and tender. "The song's from an opera by Bizet, the Pearl Fishers," Pike said, tapping his fingers. "It's about first love and forbidden love, being unable to deny what’s in you." Pike smiled gently. "It's beautiful, isn't it? Nyota has a real gift. I think a lot of people here aren't what one would expect. A lot of people looking for something new, somewhere to be themselves, make a fresh start."

She looked at them, looked at Pike. "I...I'm not sure what I can do, here. I certainly can't sing opera or dance. I want to be useful, but I could have been a housewife in Indiana if that was all I wanted."

"You wouldn't have to marry Dr. McCoy to work in his surgery," Pike pointed out. "Some of the women in Enterprise may well prefer to talk to another woman about their complaints, especially if they're of a female nature."

She swallowed hard. “I feel so foolish. I don’t know that he’d want me there.”

“Leonard’s an understanding person. In his own way,” Pike qualified hastily as Christine looked at him incredulously. “He knows it was an honest misunderstanding.”

The humiliation was still too fresh for her to think about it seriously. “Marshal, who wrote that letter?”

Pike looked uncomfortable, and then squared his shoulders. “My deputy. And while it was an ill-considered gesture, I do believe he was sincerely trying to do a kindness to both of you. His friend was lonely and not easy with asking for what he needs, and you needed something he thought the doctor could give. I’ll certainly have words with him about this, but I’m hoping you don’t decide to press charges.”

She sighed. “It’s not as though there was no risk in this endeavor,” she said, resting her head on her hand. “It’s not as though every match comes out well even if the parties know each other, let alone answering an advertisement from a stranger. I’m not angry. I don’t know that I thought this out any better than your deputy did, truly. I just wanted something…more.”

“Then perhaps you’ve come to the right place after all,” Pike smiled, and Christine felt a little tremor, nerves and pleasure intermingled. He was older than Dr. McCoy, but she wasn’t young herself and he was undeniably attractive, both the dark sun-touched good looks and the unconscious authority of him, to say nothing of his sensitivity and concern for a spinster of no particular significance. “We’ll see what can be done to find you a situation where you can establish yourself with what you DO have to offer. And perhaps, when you’ve had some time to consider your situation, you’d allow me to call on you? See how you’re settling in?”

“I’d be honored, Marshal.”

“Please, call me Christopher,” he said, warm callused hand closing gently over hers.

Dazed, she held his eyes, lake-blue and clear, licked her lips uneasily with the warmth of that.

And then, outside, the screaming started.

***

Enterprise was an offense to Nero’s eyes, a whore spreading her legs for the halfbreed abomination Spock. Vulcan’s Forge was an affront that made him want blood to run in the streets. How dare he prosper, when Nero’s wife and son were dead?

“Mi hermano,” Ayel murmured, malice glinting in his eyes. “We should loot it first…”

Nero made a sharp gesture. “It’s all tainted. I don’t give a fuck if the girls have solid gold almejas and they’re playing with goddamn rubies for poker chips. Burn it. All. “

“Not for myself, brother, but it will placate the men. It is an insult that he profits and they are hungry, “ Ayel protested.

Nero turned to him, unreadable black eyes burning, and Ayel fell silent. “Spock!” Nero roared, pulled out a gun and fired into the front window. Curses and screams rang out, the people inside starting to stream out the doors. Nero’s men fell on them like wolves on sheep; Nero himself had no eyes for this, did not care. He was only looking for one saturnine shape, one devil in the darkness. “Spock!”

The man who came out to face him was not Spock, but a tall and somber man with a silver star and a single gun on his hip. “I’m Christopher Pike, marshal of Enterprise, and I’ll give you one chance to leave before I place you under arrest for disturbing the peace and destruction of private property.”

Stupid. The man had balls of solid rock, but stupid. “Hello, Christopher. I’m Nero. I’m going to give you one chance to get out of my way before I make Spock watch all his dreams turn into the same ashes mine did.” He smiled at him sweetly, a mad and brilliant grin. “The same ashes his filthy savage father and whore mother tasted when I burned their camp. The same ones they’ll taste when I take their son, the way mine was taken…”

Christopher went for his gun but Ayel had already drawn as Nero was speaking, fired on him before he could clear his holster. As the marshal crumpled into the dirt, shots rang out from the other end of town, and Nero growled as two of his men fell. The man on the grey firing from horseback dropped his rifle, and as he went for his revolvers, Ayel shouldered his horse into his brother’s. “Come, brother. Let’s fire it and we’ll come back.”

Snarling, Nero pulled one of the bottles of lamp oil from his saddlebag, lit it and flung it through the shattered window as Ayel did the same. Several such missiles were hurled before the man on the lathered grey was close enough to be accurate with handguns and Nero could be persuaded to gallop for open ground.

He would be back, Nero promised himself. If it took the rest of his life, he would hunt Spock down for his vengeance.

***

McCoy lunged out onto the street and into a scene straight out of nightmare. He was almost run down by a fleeing horse as he stopped, transfixed by the flames leaping up the painted façade of Vulcan’s Forge, the fire illuminating bodies lying in the street and human wolves slinking to loot the fallen. It filled him with searing fury that was joined a heartbeat later by terror as Sulu and Jim crashed into the chaos like meteors, Kirk firing two-handed from his saddle and Sulu’s sword leaping into his hand like silver lightning. He choked out something that might be “Kirk” but might more likely be “fuck.” But before he could wax more eloquent, he realized that he recognized the yellow shirt of the man lying closest to him, the gleam of metal on his chest and the spreading red stain. Galvanized into action, he ran for the fallen Pike.

Incredibly, he was still awake, eyes glassy as they focused slowly on McCoy. “Leonard, I can’t feel my legs…” His voice was weak, pulse thready, but there was no blood on his lips. A small mercy, almost vanishingly so, given the amount saturating his shirt and the ground beneath him.

“Don’t worry about that, Chris. You damn fool, you try to take ‘em all on by yourself? Lie still,” he snapped. “Somebody, I need two men and a door. NOW!”

“Doctor…” McCoy looked up into the face of the Russian kid, Pavel, eyes wide and white and face tear-streaked. “Doctor, is he dead?”

“Not if I can stop it but I need to get him back to the surgery. Door. I need a door or something else flat to carry him on and another man to help carry him. Dammit man, focus.”

Chekov returned moments later with the man-mountain Spock hired to keep peace in the bar and a tabletop from the wreckage inside. It would do well enough, and he spared the kid a clap on the back before having them help lift the now-unconscious Pike onto it. As they picked it up, he realized that the girl who had barged into his surgery a few hours and a lifetime ago was at his side, pulling urgently at his sleeve. “Leonard. I know instruments, I can help…”

He didn’t question it; every minute counted now and with every advantage he could muster it would still be touch and go. On the front lines in the war, he would have given Pike morphine and a plugged nickel for his chances, but here he had the time to try and the experience he didn’t have then, more of it than he ever wanted. “Run ahead and light the lamps,” he ordered her curtly. “Every one, high as it’ll go. There’s a jug of carbolic in the dispensary, wipe off the table and the instruments, scrub your hands with it before you lay out my tray. “

He shooed the other two out of the surgery when they had set Pike down for him, cut him free of his clothes with the wicked little scissors he kept for bandages before scrubbing his hands. He noted with distant approval Chapel wiping the surgical field clear with more carbolic and putting a length of catgut to soak, wondered absently if she had read Lister too as he surveyed the placement, considered his incision. He took a moment as he readied the ether to pray that the bullet hadn't fragmented, that it had not spilled the contents of Chris’ stomach or punctured a lung because then there would be no help for him. There might not be anyway.

By the time he had retrieved the bullet and stanched the bleeding, a ragged stream of patients had filled his surgery to overflowing. Chapel worked silently beside him as they wrapped the wounds and poulticed the burns of those futilely trying to stop the conflagration. Laughing Gaila was in silent tears, her beautiful red hair singed almost to her scalp. Christine finally spoke at that, murmuring something soothing and gentle as she neatly trimmed what was left while McCoy focused on bandaging scorched fingers and putting arnica on the ugly grab marks on her arms. He collapsed into a chair when the last of them had been seen to and reached for the bottle of whiskey that lived in the bottom drawer of his desk. The surgery smelled and tasted too much like death, like despair, like the Army and he needed to wash the taste of blood out of his mouth before he started screaming.

“What are you doing?” Chapel’s voice was thin and tired as she looked at him.

“Was figuring on getting drunk. And as the Forge will not be serving drinks for some time, that leaves here.”

“You’re what? What if someone needs you?”

He looked up at her accusing face. “Miss, I have nothing left to give anyone,” he said, quiet and bitter. His hands were already shaking so badly he’d spilled more than he got into the glass.

“You could kill someone drunk,” she said, furious. “How dare you?”

“Didn’t notice you asking about my sobriety before I operated. Something I don’t think you could have done,” he pointed out and tried not to think about how right she was.

The soft click took him by surprise; he looked up into the barrel of a tiny two-shot derringer-which, although it was small, at that range would do the job just as well as an Enfield rifle. “Get out,” she said, her voice raw. “If you won’t help, at least you won’t hurt anyone.”

“It’s my damn place!” he said astounded, then froze as she cocked the hammer, blinking away tears. Whatever was in her head, she looked like a woman who’d been pushed to her limits and then one step over them. “Miss Chapel--Christine, just take it easy…” He backed away from her and incidentally out of the surgery, hands up and open reassuringly. She slammed the door behind him, and as he heard the click of the lock realized that the whiskey was inside, with the crazy woman, the wounded marshal, and pants that weren’t liberally splashed in blood and bourbon. “Goddammit.”

Jim is SO getting a piece of my mind for this, McCoy fumed, headed down the street. If he’s still alive…

He pushed that thought down as far it would go, refused to think it.

Part 2