Fic: Husband, Father, Lover - Daddy's Girl
Title: Daddy's Girl
Author: puresmiles
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: McCoy/Jocelyn
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Disclaimer: Star Trek is not mine.
Notes: Second entry in the Husband, Father, Lover series
The Fall | Daddy's Girl | Starlight
Summary: The thing is, Leonard McCoy is not a great father. Not by a long shot.
Daddy's Girl
***
-
-
-
Absence
They say that she is her father's child, through and through.
Her hair is thick and rich mahogany, but it's her eyes that make both of them shake inwardly for different reasons. They are hazel, not quite green, not quite brown, but somewhere right in the middle.
It's her birthday.
The bills are dutifully paid every month, and Jocelyn doesn't even look at the small table by her side of the bed; she only reaches out with a hand and feels the familiar casing of the credit chip that is there without fail. She has stopped looking over to the left at the smooth, crisp sheets for a while now, and, instead, she simply rises and tidies her half of the bed so that it becomes complete.
The front door quietly opens and clicks closed and the couch sags with a sigh. She comes down the stairs to the see the most curious picture of her daughter pausing in mid-play with her dolls in order to stare at an equally flummoxed man on the couch.
Joanna blinks and tilts her head to the side, the man unknowingly acting as her mirror.
"...Daddy?"
It is a question. A true, pure question and neither knows from which of them the choked sound came from.
But it holds and doesn't come out, and, instead, Leonard raises his arms like a man would to receive rather than to give.
"Yeah sweetheart, it's your daddy."
She stares for a moment, her eyes widening, but then she gets up on her tiny legs and totters over to his arms which lightly wrap around her as if she were made of feathers.
Something ugly grasps hold of Jocelyn then, when her daughter smiles happily at the man and plays with his hair. She is surprised, just slightly, to find the rotten mold of something long dead--hope--and the feeling is bitter and vengeful. Betrayal.
Her bag is packed upstairs and before the cake is even cut she leaves out the front door.
-
-
-
Beacon
His hands, strong hands that have flawlessly cut into and sealed up bodies countless times, are fumbling with the peanut butter and jelly halves. He isn't sure if she likes the crust or not so he cuts them off but leaves them on the plate.
The world works in funny ways, he reflects as he sits down by his daughter-ignoring the third, empty chair-and stretches a small smile across his face, feeling the rust flake and chafe on old, out of practice muscles that were still getting used to the movements. But he finds that the effort is only a little different from riding a bicycle that he hasn't ridden in years.
Jocelyn has been gone for two days.
He takes Joanna's little hand and walks her outside to the swing set that he had bought and built for her third birthday. He can't really remember the last time he saw the swing set in the daylight, the cheery colors too vivid and full for his eyes, but he lets Joanna lead him to it until she lets go of his hand and runs the final distance to the seat where she waits expectantly with the eager patience of an expert showing the new kid how to play.
"Push, just like that! Yay, push daddy! Push!"
She laughs so much and so freely that he is soon following, laughing with her, rust and all.
"Higher! Higher! Higher!"
He watches her fly into the sun.
-
-
-
Teacher
There is a first for everything. He is a little bemused at the momentary silence and stuttering at the end of the comm line when he calls in sick for work that day, but he has enough sick days to make up a whole vacation so he doesn't mind it too much.
He knows that she would come back sooner rather than later. It was just one bag.
So he cleans up the kitchen and the rest of the house before setting about to cook breakfast.
Where's mommy?
He dabs a little chocolate syrup here and there to make a squiggly kind of smiley face on a pancake, and he sets the tables for two-her polka dot fork and plate and a mug for his coffee.
"Silly daddy, this fork not that one."
He tugs her hair into pigtails and buttons up her play dress and neatly tucks her little feet into her shoes. Her over packs her lunch bag and zips her coat up too far, but they walk hand in hand as she leads him to the bus stop where the other pairs of kids and adults are standing. The low murmuring comes to a blatant stop like someone had suddenly capped the top on a jar of bees, but Leonard had heard enough.
Where's mommy?
For the first time in a long while, he suddenly feels uncomfortably young. He is not among the streamlined halls of the hospital and the smooth traffic of more wrinkled faces than not nodding to him as they all fluidly pass each other like body cells in circulation.
He is here, suddenly aware of other mothers and fathers that are standing still with clam, cool sureness and the few hairs of grey on some make him think of his full head of mahogany.
He had never liked crowds all that much, so he stands awkwardly to the side while Joanna beams and waves to other children, swinging and tugging at his hand like he was a pole that she was hanging off of.
"Look! This my daddy!"
It gives the children, and the adults, free range to stare at Leonard who stiffly smiles and clumsily mutters a greeting. When the school bus arrives, he has never been more relieved to let go of her hand, and Joanna bounces into the door but quickly reappears at an open window.
"Remember daddy, pick up right here! I see you soon!"
The wobbly smile is abruptly back on Leonard's face as he nods and hesitates before giving her a small wave.
"No daddy, like this!"
She cups her hands over her mouth and puffs out her chest like something mighty before blowing him a kiss across her palms. He blinks then copies her and she grins.
-
-
-
Habit
It is the dead of the night when the pager goes off-it is less than two seconds before he's ripping his coat off the floor.
"McCoy! Emergency code delta! We need you!"
The rest of the emergency's gruesome details shoot into his brain where it gets listed and analyzed with quick speed. His body slips into the familiar adrenaline rush of the midnight hour in which his surroundings are both hazy and fantastically clear.
"Change to code 10! Repeat, code 10!"
Shit.
He's thundering down the steps, only vaguely registering the creak of a door opening--
--"We need you McCoy!"--
--prompting him to shout over his shoulder--
--"Joss, gotta go!"--
--and then he whips through the front door, the hinges swinging to and fro before stopping.
Headlights and the guttural noise of the car fade and the door remains open to the black, silent night.
-
-
-
Love
Remember daddy!
It strikes him when he's resting on a waiting room sofa, and his head shoots up as a burst of sickening nausea and dread pours down his body like freezing water.
He doesn't stop running even once, not until he reaches the open door of the house, and then his keys drop at the edge next to an abandoned bag.
The small sound causes Jocelyn to jerk her teary face towards him, and he is standing there like a shell of himself that had been left behind in the dust.
She is still crying, her heart angrily bleeding from her face, and huddled in her arms-shaking with her on the floor-is her hiccuping daughter whose hazel eyes are large, wet, and stricken with fear.
Belatedly, he realizes that he doesn't know which name to say.
He starts to inch a foot forwards but stops.
"I just wanted-" Her breath hitches high into her throat, suddenly clawing back what would have been too much. "I just wanted to give you some time alone with her." She jams her quivering lips together as she squeezes everything inside.
His hands are gripping the doorway so tightly that his whole arm is shaking.
"...Joss..."
Her lips can't squeeze anymore and she bursts, mouth open and raw, and shuts her eyes instead as she buries her face into the top of her daughter's head. Joanna responds by hugging tighter, trying to bury herself into her mother's embrace.
Something wet slides down his cheeks and open mouth, and he cries and silently watches their forms blur into each other.
-
-
-
Answer
He doesn't want to make excuses, but it doesn't stop Joanna from shyly coming around to make them for him.
"It's okay daddy, you a doctor!"
He bites and gnaws the inside of his cheeks until they're bloody sores, but he doesn't stop her either. Doesn't know if he should.
"Daddy's a doctor! Saving a -bujillions ga-millions people! You're like superhero daddy!"
Mostly, he's relieved when Jocelyn comes down to take Joanna up in her arms and go upstairs. Mostly.
Neither of them says a word when Jocelyn places a pillow and a neatly folded up blanket at the other end of the couch. She starts cooking breakfast and dinner for three and like clockwork they both sit down on either side of their daughter.
"Are you staying daddy?"
She starts leaving a note and a babysitter at times, and neither says anything when she comes home late at night, smelling like perfume mingled with cologne.
"But what about the people daddy? What about the people you gotta save?"
The silence is a solid, tangible thing. It is a blanket between them that hushes unnecessary words and softens the sharp corners. It is a peace offering. A caged olive branch that hangs between their eyes.
It is temporary.
"Yeah? And where the -fuck- were you? Don't think that I'm not noticing how you've been creeping off to that Treadway of yours. God, you think that my head is stuck in the goddamn ground or somethin'?"
"You never listen to me, never have! Every single goddamn time I try to talk to you-! Oh, who the fuck are you kidding Leonard? All these years, all these fucking years, just waiting around for you--"
"--Everything I've done was for us! For our family! Fuck! I-I love you Joceyln. You and Jo are -everything-to me. You know that, you gotta know that!"
"...I've always loved you more. More than you could ever love me. I thought I could live with that, but I can't, not anymore."
"Joss--what are you saying?"
"You're gonna leave. You're gonna leave for good this time."
The pieces lay scattered between them. Broken glass like crystals all around that bleed and refuse to crumble when either tries to step across.
The bills collect up again, the hours start to grow, and then one night when she leaves, she leaves the note, the babysitter, and a divorce file.
He is a stubborn man and does not relent. But, without fail, those three things always wait for him at the end of the night, just as equally motionless.
He doesn't notice how he starts to automatically reach for the bottle and glass come each night. The burn down his throat and stomach engulfs the aching one burning through his heart.
Then, one night, she adds a fourth thing.
A court notice and summons for a formal hearing that called for all relevant family members.
Him, Jocelyn, and Joanna.
"Goddammit Jocelyn, why can't we just -talk- about this!"
"You're too late Leonard. A decade too late."
He stays up the entire night with a bottle of whiskey, staring at the two files that lay side by side on the dining table.
Then, he startles and almost knocks his cup over, seeing Joanna's rumpled hair and the teddy bear in her arm as her hand rubs a sleepy eye.
"Daddy? Whatcha doin' up so late? It's way past bed-time."
"Ssh, darlin', go back to sleep. It's all right. It'll be all right. Daddy's got you."
Come the morning, he leaves his signature on one of them with a note of his own.
Take care.
He leaves everything and leaves everything to them.
Everything was for them, after all.
***
The Fall | Daddy's Girl | Starlight
Author: puresmiles
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: McCoy/Jocelyn
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Disclaimer: Star Trek is not mine.
Notes: Second entry in the Husband, Father, Lover series
The Fall | Daddy's Girl | Starlight
Summary: The thing is, Leonard McCoy is not a great father. Not by a long shot.
Daddy's Girl
***
-
-
-
Absence
They say that she is her father's child, through and through.
Her hair is thick and rich mahogany, but it's her eyes that make both of them shake inwardly for different reasons. They are hazel, not quite green, not quite brown, but somewhere right in the middle.
It's her birthday.
The bills are dutifully paid every month, and Jocelyn doesn't even look at the small table by her side of the bed; she only reaches out with a hand and feels the familiar casing of the credit chip that is there without fail. She has stopped looking over to the left at the smooth, crisp sheets for a while now, and, instead, she simply rises and tidies her half of the bed so that it becomes complete.
The front door quietly opens and clicks closed and the couch sags with a sigh. She comes down the stairs to the see the most curious picture of her daughter pausing in mid-play with her dolls in order to stare at an equally flummoxed man on the couch.
Joanna blinks and tilts her head to the side, the man unknowingly acting as her mirror.
"...Daddy?"
It is a question. A true, pure question and neither knows from which of them the choked sound came from.
But it holds and doesn't come out, and, instead, Leonard raises his arms like a man would to receive rather than to give.
"Yeah sweetheart, it's your daddy."
She stares for a moment, her eyes widening, but then she gets up on her tiny legs and totters over to his arms which lightly wrap around her as if she were made of feathers.
Something ugly grasps hold of Jocelyn then, when her daughter smiles happily at the man and plays with his hair. She is surprised, just slightly, to find the rotten mold of something long dead--hope--and the feeling is bitter and vengeful. Betrayal.
Her bag is packed upstairs and before the cake is even cut she leaves out the front door.
-
-
-
Beacon
His hands, strong hands that have flawlessly cut into and sealed up bodies countless times, are fumbling with the peanut butter and jelly halves. He isn't sure if she likes the crust or not so he cuts them off but leaves them on the plate.
The world works in funny ways, he reflects as he sits down by his daughter-ignoring the third, empty chair-and stretches a small smile across his face, feeling the rust flake and chafe on old, out of practice muscles that were still getting used to the movements. But he finds that the effort is only a little different from riding a bicycle that he hasn't ridden in years.
Jocelyn has been gone for two days.
He takes Joanna's little hand and walks her outside to the swing set that he had bought and built for her third birthday. He can't really remember the last time he saw the swing set in the daylight, the cheery colors too vivid and full for his eyes, but he lets Joanna lead him to it until she lets go of his hand and runs the final distance to the seat where she waits expectantly with the eager patience of an expert showing the new kid how to play.
"Push, just like that! Yay, push daddy! Push!"
She laughs so much and so freely that he is soon following, laughing with her, rust and all.
"Higher! Higher! Higher!"
He watches her fly into the sun.
-
-
-
Teacher
There is a first for everything. He is a little bemused at the momentary silence and stuttering at the end of the comm line when he calls in sick for work that day, but he has enough sick days to make up a whole vacation so he doesn't mind it too much.
He knows that she would come back sooner rather than later. It was just one bag.
So he cleans up the kitchen and the rest of the house before setting about to cook breakfast.
Where's mommy?
He dabs a little chocolate syrup here and there to make a squiggly kind of smiley face on a pancake, and he sets the tables for two-her polka dot fork and plate and a mug for his coffee.
"Silly daddy, this fork not that one."
He tugs her hair into pigtails and buttons up her play dress and neatly tucks her little feet into her shoes. Her over packs her lunch bag and zips her coat up too far, but they walk hand in hand as she leads him to the bus stop where the other pairs of kids and adults are standing. The low murmuring comes to a blatant stop like someone had suddenly capped the top on a jar of bees, but Leonard had heard enough.
Where's mommy?
For the first time in a long while, he suddenly feels uncomfortably young. He is not among the streamlined halls of the hospital and the smooth traffic of more wrinkled faces than not nodding to him as they all fluidly pass each other like body cells in circulation.
He is here, suddenly aware of other mothers and fathers that are standing still with clam, cool sureness and the few hairs of grey on some make him think of his full head of mahogany.
He had never liked crowds all that much, so he stands awkwardly to the side while Joanna beams and waves to other children, swinging and tugging at his hand like he was a pole that she was hanging off of.
"Look! This my daddy!"
It gives the children, and the adults, free range to stare at Leonard who stiffly smiles and clumsily mutters a greeting. When the school bus arrives, he has never been more relieved to let go of her hand, and Joanna bounces into the door but quickly reappears at an open window.
"Remember daddy, pick up right here! I see you soon!"
The wobbly smile is abruptly back on Leonard's face as he nods and hesitates before giving her a small wave.
"No daddy, like this!"
She cups her hands over her mouth and puffs out her chest like something mighty before blowing him a kiss across her palms. He blinks then copies her and she grins.
-
-
-
Habit
It is the dead of the night when the pager goes off-it is less than two seconds before he's ripping his coat off the floor.
"McCoy! Emergency code delta! We need you!"
The rest of the emergency's gruesome details shoot into his brain where it gets listed and analyzed with quick speed. His body slips into the familiar adrenaline rush of the midnight hour in which his surroundings are both hazy and fantastically clear.
"Change to code 10! Repeat, code 10!"
Shit.
He's thundering down the steps, only vaguely registering the creak of a door opening--
--"We need you McCoy!"--
--prompting him to shout over his shoulder--
--"Joss, gotta go!"--
--and then he whips through the front door, the hinges swinging to and fro before stopping.
Headlights and the guttural noise of the car fade and the door remains open to the black, silent night.
-
-
-
Love
Remember daddy!
It strikes him when he's resting on a waiting room sofa, and his head shoots up as a burst of sickening nausea and dread pours down his body like freezing water.
He doesn't stop running even once, not until he reaches the open door of the house, and then his keys drop at the edge next to an abandoned bag.
The small sound causes Jocelyn to jerk her teary face towards him, and he is standing there like a shell of himself that had been left behind in the dust.
She is still crying, her heart angrily bleeding from her face, and huddled in her arms-shaking with her on the floor-is her hiccuping daughter whose hazel eyes are large, wet, and stricken with fear.
Belatedly, he realizes that he doesn't know which name to say.
He starts to inch a foot forwards but stops.
"I just wanted-" Her breath hitches high into her throat, suddenly clawing back what would have been too much. "I just wanted to give you some time alone with her." She jams her quivering lips together as she squeezes everything inside.
His hands are gripping the doorway so tightly that his whole arm is shaking.
"...Joss..."
Her lips can't squeeze anymore and she bursts, mouth open and raw, and shuts her eyes instead as she buries her face into the top of her daughter's head. Joanna responds by hugging tighter, trying to bury herself into her mother's embrace.
Something wet slides down his cheeks and open mouth, and he cries and silently watches their forms blur into each other.
-
-
-
Answer
He doesn't want to make excuses, but it doesn't stop Joanna from shyly coming around to make them for him.
"It's okay daddy, you a doctor!"
He bites and gnaws the inside of his cheeks until they're bloody sores, but he doesn't stop her either. Doesn't know if he should.
"Daddy's a doctor! Saving a -bujillions ga-millions people! You're like superhero daddy!"
Mostly, he's relieved when Jocelyn comes down to take Joanna up in her arms and go upstairs. Mostly.
Neither of them says a word when Jocelyn places a pillow and a neatly folded up blanket at the other end of the couch. She starts cooking breakfast and dinner for three and like clockwork they both sit down on either side of their daughter.
"Are you staying daddy?"
She starts leaving a note and a babysitter at times, and neither says anything when she comes home late at night, smelling like perfume mingled with cologne.
"But what about the people daddy? What about the people you gotta save?"
The silence is a solid, tangible thing. It is a blanket between them that hushes unnecessary words and softens the sharp corners. It is a peace offering. A caged olive branch that hangs between their eyes.
It is temporary.
"Yeah? And where the -fuck- were you? Don't think that I'm not noticing how you've been creeping off to that Treadway of yours. God, you think that my head is stuck in the goddamn ground or somethin'?"
"You never listen to me, never have! Every single goddamn time I try to talk to you-! Oh, who the fuck are you kidding Leonard? All these years, all these fucking years, just waiting around for you--"
"--Everything I've done was for us! For our family! Fuck! I-I love you Joceyln. You and Jo are -everything-to me. You know that, you gotta know that!"
"...I've always loved you more. More than you could ever love me. I thought I could live with that, but I can't, not anymore."
"Joss--what are you saying?"
"You're gonna leave. You're gonna leave for good this time."
The pieces lay scattered between them. Broken glass like crystals all around that bleed and refuse to crumble when either tries to step across.
The bills collect up again, the hours start to grow, and then one night when she leaves, she leaves the note, the babysitter, and a divorce file.
He is a stubborn man and does not relent. But, without fail, those three things always wait for him at the end of the night, just as equally motionless.
He doesn't notice how he starts to automatically reach for the bottle and glass come each night. The burn down his throat and stomach engulfs the aching one burning through his heart.
Then, one night, she adds a fourth thing.
A court notice and summons for a formal hearing that called for all relevant family members.
Him, Jocelyn, and Joanna.
"Goddammit Jocelyn, why can't we just -talk- about this!"
"You're too late Leonard. A decade too late."
He stays up the entire night with a bottle of whiskey, staring at the two files that lay side by side on the dining table.
Then, he startles and almost knocks his cup over, seeing Joanna's rumpled hair and the teddy bear in her arm as her hand rubs a sleepy eye.
"Daddy? Whatcha doin' up so late? It's way past bed-time."
"Ssh, darlin', go back to sleep. It's all right. It'll be all right. Daddy's got you."
Come the morning, he leaves his signature on one of them with a note of his own.
Take care.
He leaves everything and leaves everything to them.
Everything was for them, after all.
***
The Fall | Daddy's Girl | Starlight