A Matter of Time, part 5/10
Title: A Matter of Time part 5/10
warnings angst, romance, underage teen sex, references to miscarriage, implied physical abuse to a minor, some mild violence
Rating: nc-17 throughout
Word Count: this part approx 5,600 words (of 65,700)
summary An AU set in the Trek universe which explores a different beginning for Jim and Bones. Leonard McCoy suffers from chrono impairment, a genetic disease which causes him to time travel against his will. When teenage McCoy travels back in time and meets Jim Kirk aged six, in a meadow in Iowa, it is the beginning of a close friendship which will mark both their lives forever. The story tracks Kirk and McCoy’s relationship, McCoy’s search for a cure and Jim’s path to finding himself.
link to FIC masterpost HERE
link to ART by anoncomment7
link to fanmix by leighblack
Part 5
"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don’t much care where-" said Alice.
"Then it doesn’t matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"-so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you’re sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
2252: Atlanta - Leonard is (30) and 25
Leonard
Leonard wakes with a start, scrabbling at the covers, reaching out, searching for Jim.
For some seconds, he’s not sure whether he’s lying on his belly or his back. He has no idea what time it is, when it is, and he can’t see the chrono over Jim’s back. He lies still, clammy with sweat, trying not to pant so as not to wake Jim with another of his stupid dreams, can’t help wondering why the hell Jim’s not pressed against him in his usual bed-hog way.
Leonard’s nose is filled with a disgusting metallic smell, foreboding and familiar, that he can’t for the life of him put a name to.
Wisps of a nightmare tempt him back like a narcotic mist and he’s torn between fighting the images away or clinging to them. Sometimes he thinks he has premonitions in his dreams, thinks if he can remember them, if he can find out what’s going to happen, he can prevent it happening even though the rational part of him knows that isn’t possible. Maybe now, if he dares open his eyes, he’ll learn something.
Maybe he’s jumped in his sleep, been propelled by what was a particularly horrific nightmare, though all he’s left with is fear, images of gaunt faces staring at him and a young Jim, helpless, alone, hungry - he dreamed like this a few times when he was a kid, till Gram made him take the Drink Me every night before bed in his milk - so as he didn’t taste the alcohol - so he could wake up in the same place he’d rested his head. He never remembered those dreams, the jumps either - didn’t want to.
As he lies there, he swears he can feel the warmth of Jim’s blood on his hands like the dream’s real, like it’s actually happening now, and he has to save Jim, he’s got to prevent something - it’s…he’s got to…and Leonard’s dragged back to reality by Jim’s sobs, by someone crying, so he winches open his cowardly eyes.
He’s in their bedroom in the past, his younger self and Jocelyn’s bedroom, while he is stretched out on the parquet, half under the bed on his belly inhaling dust bunnies.
His younger self’s sitting up above him, his foot dangling centimeters from Leonard’s arm, oblivious to his counter part’s presence, while he stares at Joss in horror - Older Leonard knows, fuck he was there, and he’s here now, again, and too late. Always too late…
“It’s dead Len, our baby’s dead.”
Joss, poor Joss.
Older Leonard remembers rather than looks, stays still where he is, praying he won’t be seen - Joss in her sleep shorts and t-shirt, a dark stain of blood seeping through the cloth, a trickle advancing down her pale, trembling legs as she looks down at his younger self, her hands wrapped around her middle, pleading with him to fix things, like he could have stopped this happening then - now…
Their babies all jumped out of the womb into oblivion, left her empty, her work undone, him accused, their hopes dashed. Again.
Older Leonard feels tears scar his cheeks, silently mourning his, their lost children, while also praying in gratitude to some hidden deity for Joanna, for his baby girl, and it’s a comfort, one he can’t share with the wretched couple in the room. As his stomach begins to heave, his world to spin again, for once he’s grateful that he jumps, away from all this pain, leaving Leonard and Joss to face another of many long nights ahead together.
+++
Atlanta - 2253: Jim is 20, Leonard is 26
Leonard
Jim’s been gone three days, Leonard’s sent his email to Sarek and he’s back on shift.
His comm buzzes with a missed message from Joss as he leaves the hospital, heading for the liquor store for a bottle of bourbon.
Getting to his flat, he waits till he’s knocked back one small glass, just to line his stomach before he calls. It’s been months since they last spoke and since Jim, he’s barely thought of her, haunted by re-run memories of his hours with Jim.
“I was on shift,” he says flat and weary. Listening to his own voice like he’s on the outside of his life looking in - he notes how dispassionate he feels to hear from her after all this time. He knows this is the Jim effect - feels a little jag of loss, wonders if he will come back.
“It’s okay,” she says, her voice is breathless, excited.
Leonard looks at what’s left in his glass, thinks he should have something to eat, but dismisses the notion for the umpteenth time that day.
“So, why did you call?” Leonard asks. “It’s been a while.” You said it was over.
“I saw our baby, Leonard, it was here. It lived, it lived! We have to try again.”
Leonard blinks, processes this thought and wonders when his life became a soap opera of surprise exits, long lost lovers and entrance stage left from his soon-to-be ex-wife.
“Our baby…” he repeats slowly, as kindly as he can manage in his numb state. “But Joss, darlin’, they died…they all jumped. You know that…we can’t, shouldn’t have babies - we agreed. And I’m going to have a vasectomy, we decided.”
The two of them had made up their minds: after four miscarriages, even if another was to survive, they agreed they weren’t about to risk passing on his fucked up genes. He hadn’t been able to find a way of working out the risk soon enough in the pregnancies to know if the baby was going to make it or not. It’s all too damned unclear to take the risk again; they couldn’t put a child through a life like his since all the evidence points to the likelihood of it being a jumper like him. So, how could they have decided to have another baby?
“But Len - this one’s okay!” She’s almost breathless, words running into each other as she continues with an eagerness he’d not heard in God knows how long. “He made it somehow - jumped back to me from the future. I thought it couldn’t happen - that one of our babies would survive, but it has! He’s come back to warn us, to help us, so that we don’t give up, so that we stay together.”
A little sparkle of feeling buried deep within him, fights for his attention even while he knows it’s too late - yeah, maybe she’s right. He survived in utero, after all, as did his Gram and her grandfather before her - all jumpers too.
What the hell is he going to say to her? Stick to the facts, don’t make it about us.
“Now calm down, Joss, we know I can’t jump back to before my own lifetime.”
“But that’s you, Len - it might work differently with someone else. Maybe the gene works differently in other people. And he looked like you, Len, he was the spitting image of you, but a little boy. Our little boy, Len - oh God, do you realise what this means? We can be together we can try again.”
Leonard hates that he’s allowing her to keep talking, allowing himself to listen, to even think there’s a chance this might be true… Then Jim’s voice echoes in his mind and he feels an unexpected jag of despair which he souses with another refill of his glass. He downs it, pushes the glass away. What the hell? The kid’s just a bum, a hopeless drop out - Joss on the other hand, with or without a child in their life, is stability, the future.
“Len-?”
“Joss, I…” I need to think, dammit.
Older Leonard’s more than intimated Jim is where his future lies, and he hasn’t once mentioned Joss being a part of the picture in years to come, so it makes no sense at all that he should hear himself say:
“Okay, listen just wait for me, we’ll talk. We need to talk but we can’t do it like this. Only I can’t stay long, I have double-shift tomorrow and I’m worn to a frazzle.”
He knows she’s crying when she whispers, “Thank you, Len, yeah - we’ll talk, that’s all. Thank you so much.”
+++
They lie, familiar hands intertwined, sweat cooling on their bodies in their old bed.
As soon as he’d arrived, her desperation took him completely by surprise, her determination to kiss him and touch him, her declarations - how she’d missed him, still loved him and, fuck, he’d gone along with it willingly, pity and loneliness and the familiarity of a woman he once loved so much.
Leonard doesn’t want to compare this with how it had been with Jim - tells himself it’s neither right nor fair, impossible - like choosing water over fire, companionship over need and hunger. This is just, fuck, different - a consolation, something healing the loneliness.
He’s known Joss since he was a little kid; it became something in high school and more than once he’d thought how it was like he recognised her the way he’d been drawn to her when they first met.
With Jim there was no damn thinking at all, they were like salmon swimming upstream together, thrashing and struggling under the pull of something intangible, but with no plan, no tomorrow, just a sense that it was right, it was how it should be. Yet, the first sign of stress, and Jim had upped and left.
He and Joss, on the other hand, had been inseparable until all their loss and heartache, her need to have a child obliterating everything good about their marriage. How could she not blame him at the time?
Yet, they have another chance - this is real.
Joss pulls her fingers away from his and Leonard doesn’t need to look to know that she’s placed them on her belly, to guide what she hopes is a new baby already forming inside her, the origin of the one she saw, their baby.
“We can be together again,” Joss says, over her shoulder. “Raise this baby right. That’s why he came to see us, me, Len, so we wouldn’t lose heart, so we’d know our marriage was worth fighting for.”
“Tell me again what you saw - the boy does he… did you speak to him?” He can’t hide the eagerness in his voice, “and tell me what he looked like.”
“Well,” she says, practically singing the words, pushing back into him as he pulls the covers over them, “he had your hair and your eyes…”
And suddenly, just like that, his life’s a demolished building. A tide of realisation and nausea overwhelms him, adrenaline pumping across his back and scalp.
He remembers, he understands what, who she saw.
He gathers Joss up tight, burying his chin into her hair, not having the heart to tell her, not knowing where to begin - hating himself for being a coward. But how can he? Where will he find the words to explain the boy she saw wasn’t their child after all but a younger version of himself, when he jumped the very first time, after the boating accident where his cousin, David, died? And he is able to jump forwards in time, though it seems a minor revelation now, in these circumstances.
It’s been so many years since the accident, since his first, terrifying jump, he’s almost managed to obliterate it from his memory… the night when a woman with kind eyes…and it’s only now it dawns on him who the woman in the memory was. It was Joss.
Fuck. Fuck.
How the hell did his subconscious ‘decide’ to send this piece of information now, not earlier when Joss called? He wonders how many other jumps he’s forgotten, and this, this incredible revelation that he can go forward too, what does this mean? His mind’s spinning with the implications; then he feels a spasm in his belly, and pushes away from Joss when, oh not now, his heart sets a familiar pounding in his ears, his face heating as his blood pressure spikes, and no, no, not now, please God not now, not when Joss needs him…
+++
The Enterprise: date unknown - Leonard is 25
Leonard’s jumped - he’s in a door-lined corridor which sweeps in a wide curve. There’s silence around him and he can’t see an obvious way out. The pale, unblemished walls make him wonder for a moment if he’s actually having a dream even though the trickle of vomit at the corner of his mouth tells him otherwise. He snakes his tongue out to retrieve it, and wipes the sweat dripping off his nose with the back of his hand. He’s jumped from Joss, from their house, to here.
The air is cool, clean, odorless and sterile; it reminds him of long shuttle flights. There’s no where to hide and he panics, covers his cock with his hand and starts to plan what he might say should someone happen upon him.
He’s only ever jumped to places he knows in some way, never to somewhere with no hints as to his whereabouts. If he’s discovered, he’ll fall on his stand-by excuse for his nakedness, which doesn’t always have people believing him, but at least buys him time to run - but here, he can’t see where to run to.
Mercifully, the corridor is deserted. He runs his hands along smooth walls, considers tapping on one of the inset doors, but he has no idea who he’ll find behind any of them, and he certainly doesn’t want to seek out a confrontation. There are plates by the doors with room numbers, names, like it’s an institution of some kind, but he doesn’t linger on the details, instead turning away from the wall to scan the corridor. There’s no natural light, no indication of what time of day or night it is and mercifully, no one to spot him in his naked state.
Black, lacquered soundproof floors, curved panels made of blocks, give him the feeling that he’d been swallowed and ended up in some mechanical duodenum. Jeez he hopes the only way out doesn’t involve him being crapped out. A plan on the wall catches his eye and he’s just about to sidle closer, to search for a clue, when he hears an unfamiliar voice behind him.
“Dr McCoy. Why are you not clothed?”
Leonard spins round to be met by the unblinking gaze of a Vulcan in a blue Starfleet uniform, though not in a style he’s seen before. The Vulcan’s raised an eyebrow, calm eyes fixed firmly on Leonard’s face, apparently un-phased by his nudity.
Leonard gapes - this guy, Vulcan - knows him. Curiouser and curiouser. Glancing again at the curved walls, it’s with a sickening feeling he realizes he’s on a starship; shit, just please God let it be in dry dock. It’s then he becomes aware of an almost imperceptible humming under is feet, and knows they must in space. He deep breathes to calm himself before he jumps again. Curiosity overwhelming him, he needs to know why the hell he’s here and when it is. He’s never jumped away from Earth, didn’t know that was even possible and he breaths through the fear that he might jump into the black itself, end it all like a shooting star.
“How do you know my name?”
“A most illogical question since I-”
“-No, not seeing as we haven’t met before. Listen, I’m in trouble here - I need some clothes quick…I’ll explain later, but someone jumped me, took my clothes,”
“‘Jumped’ you?” Leonard can almost see the air-quotes float between them. “I will inform security.”
Leonard grabs the Vulcan’s wrist before he can carry out his threat. “You’ll do no such thing!” He let’s go immediately when the Vulcan looks down at his hand, but doesn’t shake Leonard free. “Look, you gonna wait until I frighten someone who’s not as cool about things as you, or will you help me?”
“Of course, doctor, I am most intrigued to hear your explanation.” The Vulcan steps up to a door and opens it, standing aside as Leonard almost flies through it.
“Clothes, dammit!”
The Vulcan stands coolly watching Leonard, his hands clasped behind his back. “There are clothes in your quarters, doctor.”
“What quarters? Don’t tell me I end up working on a fucking starship?”
“Fascinating,” the Vulcan says infuriatingly, his voice modulated - like he happens upon strange, naked men outside his quarters most days. Or nights. Still, Leonard’s grateful he’s not going to get beaten on or chased. If he can further convince this guy he’s harmless, he’ll just hide out till he jumps home.
He thinks about Joss alone in bed where he left her, feels a pang of guilt, and wonders, when his crazy gene pool’s done with toying with him, whether he’ll go back there, or some other place. It’s too much to hope he’ll end up in his present, in his apartment, he knows that.
Leonard sees panels to one side of the living area he hopes might contain clothes and thinks about whether he can push his luck and go explore, but the Vulcan’s moved to a console set on a shiny work-surface, and before Leonard can stop him, he’s saying:
“Computer - locate Doctor Leonard McCoy.”
“Doctor Leonard McCoy is in his quarters,” the smooth, female mechanical voice answers almost immediately. Then there’s a pause. “In addition, Doctor Leonard McCoy is on deck five…”
“Computer - stop.” The Vulcan glances at Leonard while he continues, “Delete query and subsequent search from files - authorization code: Alpha one three Alpha one four Delta Alpha.”
“Affirmative - file deleted.”
“I am Commander Spock, doctor.”
Spock turns to Leonard and points to a screen at the far end of the room. “My clothing is in drawers to the right. We are of a similar build and you will find undergarments in the top drawer which will prove comfortable. Once you are, as you humans say, ‘decent’, you may ask me questions. You no doubt have many.”
“You’re not kidding.”
+++
“Will you please sit down?” Leonard grumbles. Spock’s pants itch but no way he was going to wear another man’s underpants.
“Is your ill-temper caused by hunger, Doctor? I can provide nutrition from the replicator - pulled pork in a bun I believe is your favorite, as you you’ve often said - ‘comfort’ food?”
“You don’t seem concerned that there are two McCoys on this tin can.”
“Negative - concern is an emotion and I have experienced many unusual phenomena and life forms over…” Spock hesitates, “time. I expected your presence since I am aware of your genetic impairment and have some knowledge to draw on of your past.” Leonard nods. His older self knew what he was about. “You are agitated, doctor. I will enlighten you. ”
“Damn right I’m agitated. This isn’t my past so it must be the future where I’ve clearly lost my mind if I’m now working in space - tell me the date.”
“To reveal the date would serve no purpose other than to satisfy curiosity. Perhaps if you tell me when you have time-traveled from I will be in a position to confirm or deny your theory?”
Leonard wonders if Spock’s trying to irritate him on purpose, although, of course, that would be totally il-fucking-logical…
“2252.”
“As you have postulated, you are in your future, Doctor McCoy.”
Christ - well this is a first. Of course he suspected, and he can’t help wondering if this forward jump’s connected with the revelation while he was in bed with Joss, that he’s done it once before. Was it just coincidence?
“But why? Why now?” It’s a pointless question - he doesn’t know why he jumps back either.
“I will explain as best I can, but first, since we cannot know how long you will remain in this time, it is logical to make provision for any potential subsequent visitations while we are in a position to do so. I will set an access code to the computer in order that, should you return, the computer will alert me that there is a second McCoy on board, and guide you to my quarters, thus enabling me to conceal you.”
“Visitations? You make me sound like a saint or somethin’”
“Doctor McCoy, from my knowledge of having served with you, one cannot accurately describe you as a ‘saint’.”
Is that a quirk around the corners of Spock’s mouth? A Vulcan with a sense of humor - what kind of a goddamned Vulcan is this anyway?
+++
Atlanta: 2253 - Leonard is 27
The scan show’s the baby’s a girl. Joss trembles, looks at Leonard for reassurance. This wasn’t the boy she’d been expecting, the one she saw.
Leonard turns away and says: “A baby girl…” He knows now Joss is scared this one will die when it jumps, like the others, because she’d believed they were supposed to have a son.
When the nurse leaves the room, he watches Joss slip into her shoes, helps her with her coat.
“This one will be okay, I can feel it in my bones, sugar. Maybe she’s not a jumper, the gene doesn’t always pass on, we know that.”
“But it was a boy I saw, Len. I’m scared.”
It’ll be another month before they can safely test the baby and run a genetic profile, work out with any accuracy if she’s gonna be okay. The problem is, the test is a standard one and won’t show if she has the errant gene - that can’t be done until after she’s born; so yeah, he’s scared too.
Leonard drives her home, says he’ll call later and she should get some rest.
Then he punishes himself for putting them both through the inevitable heartache again, by returning to the hospital in a daze, searching his medical PADD for an empty side room.
He locks the door, applies a local anaesthetic and does what he should have done years ago. He cuts off the supply of fucked up, McCoy sperm so the nightmare, the jumping ends here, with him.
+++
Atlanta: 2254 - Leonard is 27
Leonard wonders when this feeling of wanting to cry all the damn time will leave him.
He’s never wept with joy before - sure, he’s cried hot, angry tears more than once in his time, cried for his, Joss’ lost children, but this - his eyes are like dams, holding back a huge body of water and if he lets it go, surely he’ll drown his precious Joanna, his baby girl.
All of four hours old, she’s asleep in the center of the bed in the fetal position, Leonard guarding her while Joss takes a shower. His large hand covers almost the entire length of her back, the width of her tiny shoulders.
He’s seen and held many newborns, and while it’s not easy for even the most hardened professional to remain entirely disassociated during a birth, this experience was… it was like he took his first breath with Joanna, saw the world for the first time when she blinked at him.
It was an uncomplicated, quick labor - and it’s fair considering what Joss has been through to get here. In the moment he held Joanna for the first time, his heart healed and shattered all at once. For all of his paternal instinct, for all of his immediate, unadulterated love for this tiny creature that was undoubtedly part of him, part of Joss and yet entirely herself, Leonard knows that this isn’t why he’s here, this isn’t his life purpose.
He doesn’t know where this knowledge comes from, but when Joss whispered to him, half an hour after the birth, once they’d been left alone for the first time, “Len, it’ll be time soon, like we agreed?” and she held his hand, he’d nodded.
He leans on the bed, lies down behind his daughter, curves around her. Fuck - that word - and he knows, understands why Joss wanted this so much.
He presses his mouth to the base of Joanna’s neck, inhales her scent, runs the tip of his nose over dark, thick hair, a comical swirl still a little crusty from the birth, and he prays, though he doesn’t believe in any kind of deity, that she isn’t a jumper - that she’ll stay put and isn’t displaced and wandering like he is, pulled and sent away by genes, by emotion, by something.
He wanted it to end with him, but now, looking at her, even knowing what she’ll have to go through, if not herself, then with any children she may have, knowing the errant gene will continue into the next generation, he can’t regret her being here.
They’ll have to wait a month before he can run the test needed, although, he thinks with a tremble, he won’t be here. He’ll have to make arrangements with the pediatricians - time enough for that, now he’s got to memorize every little detail of her. He’s got the holovids already, his comm crammed full, but they won’t give him this, not the scent of milk, the newness, the softness of her skin, the sensation of her fists wrapped in his giant’s hands.
“I’m not gonna cry, baby girl,” he whispers into her shoulders, “and I’ll be back, when I’m well, when I’ve stopped jumping. I’m not leavin’ you, just going away for a while and I’ll write you - mom will keep the messages, I know. She’ll show you one day. But I love you like I didn’t know I could love nothing. Your daddy loves you. That’s why I’m going. We figured it wasn’t right for you to have your daddy disappearing on you - being gone when you needed him. Mommy’s here, and you won’t be alone.”
“Len…”
Leonard looks up, bleary eyed from his containment of tears and stands when Joss walks into the room. He slips his hands under Joanna’s feather light form, pulls her to his chest and drinks her in one last time. He glances at Joss in anguish. She looks refreshed, but agony and ecstasy play on her fine features as she contemplates her husband’s last moments with their daughter.
“Hi,” he grates out and looks down at Joanna’s cherry lips that are pursing as if she’s feeding in her sleep. “She jus’ slept, she was fine. Enjoy your shower?”
She nods, reaches for her bag and pulls out her comm. “Let me take a holo of the two of you.”
Leonard shakes his head. “I don’t think I can…”
She rests her hand on his arm. “Yes you can, Len. I’ll keep it safe and you can let me know when you’re ready. I’ll send it.”
She takes a couple of pics and then it’s time.
Joanna’s stirring and he knows he has to go before her blue eyes flicker open and maybe he’ll change his mind, break down or something. He stretches out his arms and offers their daughter to Joss, knowing he’ll never again feel this same weight in his hands, if he’ll ever see her in the flesh again.
“I’m sorry, Joss,” he croaks. He can feel her tears on his cheek when she leans into him although her arms are occupied, shielding their daughter from him. Because he lied.
“‘s okay,” she whispers. “Let me know where you are and, try and get some sleep soon.”
Thank you for Joanna, Leonard wants to say, but daren’t speak in case he loses it and jumps, proving irrevocably why he can’t be a part of their daughter’s life; so, he just walks out the door.
He pulls out a vial of Drink Me from his inside pocket and knocks it back while wobbly legs carry him to the lift.
It’s not until two hours later, once he’s officially handed over his apartment and informed the storage company that they can take his stuff, until he’s re-read the Starfleet brochure on his PADD, only once he’s in the back of the cab heading for the train station - that Leonard allows himself to collapse down on his side, across the back seat, and let the dam break.
It feels like he might never stop crying and that he might drown in a pool of his own tears.
+++
2253: Atlanta - Leonard’s (9)
Leonard thinks maybe he passed out. He daren’t open his eyes. but he knows it’s late, the way it’s cooler, like it’s gotten dark. He’s been listening out for voices for some minutes, but everywhere’s quiet.
He remembers swimming, flailing about, swallowing down great mouthfuls of ice-cold, brackish water as he tried to get away from the yelling and panic and crying.
His cousin’s gone - he tried to save him, but David let go though Leonard had pleaded, begged, insisted he hold on.
Leonard’s shivering, eyes squeezed shut, hiding. He doesn’t know where everyone else has gone and he can’t remember how he got to dry land.
Maybe he’s suffering from shock - and that’s why he can taste sick in his mouth, why his throat burns. Leonard’s learned lots of things, from asking his daddy - when he’s allowed to sit in the big chair in the office - learned how when people, animals are scared, sometimes they puke or poop themselves, so they can be lighter and run away. But he feels like he’s swallowed rocks, not just water, the way he’s rooted, can’t move or look and see where he is.
He feels around at his feet, touches pine needles, damp earth. He pushes himself into the solidity behind him and winces at the prickly roughness against his bare skin. He doesn’t remember taking off his clothes, but then he doesn’t remember much other than the look of disbelief on his cousin’s face, when the lake had folded around his cousin’s pale skin for the last time - the image seared to his eyelids - like the ghost image of lightening.
Please let it be a dream, please let me wake up, I’ll be good, I will.
What if it really happened and David truly is gone?
He can hear himself crying, he can hear a dog barking but everything’s so far away…then he hears a woman’s voice at the same time as a bright light shines on his face, making him cover his eyes and head, pull his knees up to his chin.
“You okay?” the soft voice says. “I heard you crying.”
Leonard squints open one eye and make out a slim woman silhouetted behind the flash light.
He shivers, doesn’t answer.
“Come on, sweetheart, you’re hurt, let me help you.” Her voice is melodic, soothing, and he wants to go to her, let her take care of him, but he brings an arm over his head, dips his face to his knees again, shuts her and everything out. “You’re hurt - you wanna come inside where it’s warm. I’ll make you some cocoa?”
He peeks, sees she’s lowered her flashlight, come closer so he can smell her perfume, tangerine and peach, homey and safe.
He doesn’t recognise her, knows he shouldn’t talk to people he doesn’t know but he’s scared and she seems so kind.
She crouches down in front of him, raises a hand towards him but doesn’t touch him.
“Hey, what’s your name? I’m Jocelyn,” she says, all soft and warm, and just like that, he knows he can trust her.
“McCoy,” he whispers.
He sits upright when her mouth falls open, she stands up and steps away from him like he’s said something real amazing when all he’s done is told her his name.
“Who’s your daddy?” She asks, her hand on her forehead, her voice all trembly. She’s staring at him with big, blue eyes, just like his Gram’s.
“He’s Doctor McCoy,” Leonard says, “d’ya…d’ya know hi-?”
He doesn’t finish, never finds out if she does, his head snaps back then forward. He gasps for breath, feeling real hot, like there’s something burning in his belly and, he forgets he’s not wearing anything and staggers to his feet.
The last thing he remembers is the woman’s bright features. She’s smiling a big smile, like he’s someone she knows and she hasn’t seen him for a long time, and he can hear his heart beating loud and oh no, he’s gonna puke again…
It’s like he’s falling out of a tree, being pulled down into the lake again, and he doesn’t understand, but he’s glad it wasn’t real, and in a second he’ll wake up, be home, be safe and his cousin will be alright after all because, this was just a dream.
on to part 6
warnings angst, romance, underage teen sex, references to miscarriage, implied physical abuse to a minor, some mild violence
Rating: nc-17 throughout
Word Count: this part approx 5,600 words (of 65,700)
summary An AU set in the Trek universe which explores a different beginning for Jim and Bones. Leonard McCoy suffers from chrono impairment, a genetic disease which causes him to time travel against his will. When teenage McCoy travels back in time and meets Jim Kirk aged six, in a meadow in Iowa, it is the beginning of a close friendship which will mark both their lives forever. The story tracks Kirk and McCoy’s relationship, McCoy’s search for a cure and Jim’s path to finding himself.
link to FIC masterpost HERE
link to ART by anoncomment7
link to fanmix by leighblack
Part 5
"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don’t much care where-" said Alice.
"Then it doesn’t matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"-so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you’re sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
2252: Atlanta - Leonard is (30) and 25
Leonard
Leonard wakes with a start, scrabbling at the covers, reaching out, searching for Jim.
For some seconds, he’s not sure whether he’s lying on his belly or his back. He has no idea what time it is, when it is, and he can’t see the chrono over Jim’s back. He lies still, clammy with sweat, trying not to pant so as not to wake Jim with another of his stupid dreams, can’t help wondering why the hell Jim’s not pressed against him in his usual bed-hog way.
Leonard’s nose is filled with a disgusting metallic smell, foreboding and familiar, that he can’t for the life of him put a name to.
Wisps of a nightmare tempt him back like a narcotic mist and he’s torn between fighting the images away or clinging to them. Sometimes he thinks he has premonitions in his dreams, thinks if he can remember them, if he can find out what’s going to happen, he can prevent it happening even though the rational part of him knows that isn’t possible. Maybe now, if he dares open his eyes, he’ll learn something.
Maybe he’s jumped in his sleep, been propelled by what was a particularly horrific nightmare, though all he’s left with is fear, images of gaunt faces staring at him and a young Jim, helpless, alone, hungry - he dreamed like this a few times when he was a kid, till Gram made him take the Drink Me every night before bed in his milk - so as he didn’t taste the alcohol - so he could wake up in the same place he’d rested his head. He never remembered those dreams, the jumps either - didn’t want to.
As he lies there, he swears he can feel the warmth of Jim’s blood on his hands like the dream’s real, like it’s actually happening now, and he has to save Jim, he’s got to prevent something - it’s…he’s got to…and Leonard’s dragged back to reality by Jim’s sobs, by someone crying, so he winches open his cowardly eyes.
He’s in their bedroom in the past, his younger self and Jocelyn’s bedroom, while he is stretched out on the parquet, half under the bed on his belly inhaling dust bunnies.
His younger self’s sitting up above him, his foot dangling centimeters from Leonard’s arm, oblivious to his counter part’s presence, while he stares at Joss in horror - Older Leonard knows, fuck he was there, and he’s here now, again, and too late. Always too late…
“It’s dead Len, our baby’s dead.”
Joss, poor Joss.
Older Leonard remembers rather than looks, stays still where he is, praying he won’t be seen - Joss in her sleep shorts and t-shirt, a dark stain of blood seeping through the cloth, a trickle advancing down her pale, trembling legs as she looks down at his younger self, her hands wrapped around her middle, pleading with him to fix things, like he could have stopped this happening then - now…
Their babies all jumped out of the womb into oblivion, left her empty, her work undone, him accused, their hopes dashed. Again.
Older Leonard feels tears scar his cheeks, silently mourning his, their lost children, while also praying in gratitude to some hidden deity for Joanna, for his baby girl, and it’s a comfort, one he can’t share with the wretched couple in the room. As his stomach begins to heave, his world to spin again, for once he’s grateful that he jumps, away from all this pain, leaving Leonard and Joss to face another of many long nights ahead together.
+++
Atlanta - 2253: Jim is 20, Leonard is 26
Leonard
Jim’s been gone three days, Leonard’s sent his email to Sarek and he’s back on shift.
His comm buzzes with a missed message from Joss as he leaves the hospital, heading for the liquor store for a bottle of bourbon.
Getting to his flat, he waits till he’s knocked back one small glass, just to line his stomach before he calls. It’s been months since they last spoke and since Jim, he’s barely thought of her, haunted by re-run memories of his hours with Jim.
“I was on shift,” he says flat and weary. Listening to his own voice like he’s on the outside of his life looking in - he notes how dispassionate he feels to hear from her after all this time. He knows this is the Jim effect - feels a little jag of loss, wonders if he will come back.
“It’s okay,” she says, her voice is breathless, excited.
Leonard looks at what’s left in his glass, thinks he should have something to eat, but dismisses the notion for the umpteenth time that day.
“So, why did you call?” Leonard asks. “It’s been a while.” You said it was over.
“I saw our baby, Leonard, it was here. It lived, it lived! We have to try again.”
Leonard blinks, processes this thought and wonders when his life became a soap opera of surprise exits, long lost lovers and entrance stage left from his soon-to-be ex-wife.
“Our baby…” he repeats slowly, as kindly as he can manage in his numb state. “But Joss, darlin’, they died…they all jumped. You know that…we can’t, shouldn’t have babies - we agreed. And I’m going to have a vasectomy, we decided.”
The two of them had made up their minds: after four miscarriages, even if another was to survive, they agreed they weren’t about to risk passing on his fucked up genes. He hadn’t been able to find a way of working out the risk soon enough in the pregnancies to know if the baby was going to make it or not. It’s all too damned unclear to take the risk again; they couldn’t put a child through a life like his since all the evidence points to the likelihood of it being a jumper like him. So, how could they have decided to have another baby?
“But Len - this one’s okay!” She’s almost breathless, words running into each other as she continues with an eagerness he’d not heard in God knows how long. “He made it somehow - jumped back to me from the future. I thought it couldn’t happen - that one of our babies would survive, but it has! He’s come back to warn us, to help us, so that we don’t give up, so that we stay together.”
A little sparkle of feeling buried deep within him, fights for his attention even while he knows it’s too late - yeah, maybe she’s right. He survived in utero, after all, as did his Gram and her grandfather before her - all jumpers too.
What the hell is he going to say to her? Stick to the facts, don’t make it about us.
“Now calm down, Joss, we know I can’t jump back to before my own lifetime.”
“But that’s you, Len - it might work differently with someone else. Maybe the gene works differently in other people. And he looked like you, Len, he was the spitting image of you, but a little boy. Our little boy, Len - oh God, do you realise what this means? We can be together we can try again.”
Leonard hates that he’s allowing her to keep talking, allowing himself to listen, to even think there’s a chance this might be true… Then Jim’s voice echoes in his mind and he feels an unexpected jag of despair which he souses with another refill of his glass. He downs it, pushes the glass away. What the hell? The kid’s just a bum, a hopeless drop out - Joss on the other hand, with or without a child in their life, is stability, the future.
“Len-?”
“Joss, I…” I need to think, dammit.
Older Leonard’s more than intimated Jim is where his future lies, and he hasn’t once mentioned Joss being a part of the picture in years to come, so it makes no sense at all that he should hear himself say:
“Okay, listen just wait for me, we’ll talk. We need to talk but we can’t do it like this. Only I can’t stay long, I have double-shift tomorrow and I’m worn to a frazzle.”
He knows she’s crying when she whispers, “Thank you, Len, yeah - we’ll talk, that’s all. Thank you so much.”
+++
They lie, familiar hands intertwined, sweat cooling on their bodies in their old bed.
As soon as he’d arrived, her desperation took him completely by surprise, her determination to kiss him and touch him, her declarations - how she’d missed him, still loved him and, fuck, he’d gone along with it willingly, pity and loneliness and the familiarity of a woman he once loved so much.
Leonard doesn’t want to compare this with how it had been with Jim - tells himself it’s neither right nor fair, impossible - like choosing water over fire, companionship over need and hunger. This is just, fuck, different - a consolation, something healing the loneliness.
He’s known Joss since he was a little kid; it became something in high school and more than once he’d thought how it was like he recognised her the way he’d been drawn to her when they first met.
With Jim there was no damn thinking at all, they were like salmon swimming upstream together, thrashing and struggling under the pull of something intangible, but with no plan, no tomorrow, just a sense that it was right, it was how it should be. Yet, the first sign of stress, and Jim had upped and left.
He and Joss, on the other hand, had been inseparable until all their loss and heartache, her need to have a child obliterating everything good about their marriage. How could she not blame him at the time?
Yet, they have another chance - this is real.
Joss pulls her fingers away from his and Leonard doesn’t need to look to know that she’s placed them on her belly, to guide what she hopes is a new baby already forming inside her, the origin of the one she saw, their baby.
“We can be together again,” Joss says, over her shoulder. “Raise this baby right. That’s why he came to see us, me, Len, so we wouldn’t lose heart, so we’d know our marriage was worth fighting for.”
“Tell me again what you saw - the boy does he… did you speak to him?” He can’t hide the eagerness in his voice, “and tell me what he looked like.”
“Well,” she says, practically singing the words, pushing back into him as he pulls the covers over them, “he had your hair and your eyes…”
And suddenly, just like that, his life’s a demolished building. A tide of realisation and nausea overwhelms him, adrenaline pumping across his back and scalp.
He remembers, he understands what, who she saw.
He gathers Joss up tight, burying his chin into her hair, not having the heart to tell her, not knowing where to begin - hating himself for being a coward. But how can he? Where will he find the words to explain the boy she saw wasn’t their child after all but a younger version of himself, when he jumped the very first time, after the boating accident where his cousin, David, died? And he is able to jump forwards in time, though it seems a minor revelation now, in these circumstances.
It’s been so many years since the accident, since his first, terrifying jump, he’s almost managed to obliterate it from his memory… the night when a woman with kind eyes…and it’s only now it dawns on him who the woman in the memory was. It was Joss.
Fuck. Fuck.
How the hell did his subconscious ‘decide’ to send this piece of information now, not earlier when Joss called? He wonders how many other jumps he’s forgotten, and this, this incredible revelation that he can go forward too, what does this mean? His mind’s spinning with the implications; then he feels a spasm in his belly, and pushes away from Joss when, oh not now, his heart sets a familiar pounding in his ears, his face heating as his blood pressure spikes, and no, no, not now, please God not now, not when Joss needs him…
+++
The Enterprise: date unknown - Leonard is 25
Leonard’s jumped - he’s in a door-lined corridor which sweeps in a wide curve. There’s silence around him and he can’t see an obvious way out. The pale, unblemished walls make him wonder for a moment if he’s actually having a dream even though the trickle of vomit at the corner of his mouth tells him otherwise. He snakes his tongue out to retrieve it, and wipes the sweat dripping off his nose with the back of his hand. He’s jumped from Joss, from their house, to here.
The air is cool, clean, odorless and sterile; it reminds him of long shuttle flights. There’s no where to hide and he panics, covers his cock with his hand and starts to plan what he might say should someone happen upon him.
He’s only ever jumped to places he knows in some way, never to somewhere with no hints as to his whereabouts. If he’s discovered, he’ll fall on his stand-by excuse for his nakedness, which doesn’t always have people believing him, but at least buys him time to run - but here, he can’t see where to run to.
Mercifully, the corridor is deserted. He runs his hands along smooth walls, considers tapping on one of the inset doors, but he has no idea who he’ll find behind any of them, and he certainly doesn’t want to seek out a confrontation. There are plates by the doors with room numbers, names, like it’s an institution of some kind, but he doesn’t linger on the details, instead turning away from the wall to scan the corridor. There’s no natural light, no indication of what time of day or night it is and mercifully, no one to spot him in his naked state.
Black, lacquered soundproof floors, curved panels made of blocks, give him the feeling that he’d been swallowed and ended up in some mechanical duodenum. Jeez he hopes the only way out doesn’t involve him being crapped out. A plan on the wall catches his eye and he’s just about to sidle closer, to search for a clue, when he hears an unfamiliar voice behind him.
“Dr McCoy. Why are you not clothed?”
Leonard spins round to be met by the unblinking gaze of a Vulcan in a blue Starfleet uniform, though not in a style he’s seen before. The Vulcan’s raised an eyebrow, calm eyes fixed firmly on Leonard’s face, apparently un-phased by his nudity.
Leonard gapes - this guy, Vulcan - knows him. Curiouser and curiouser. Glancing again at the curved walls, it’s with a sickening feeling he realizes he’s on a starship; shit, just please God let it be in dry dock. It’s then he becomes aware of an almost imperceptible humming under is feet, and knows they must in space. He deep breathes to calm himself before he jumps again. Curiosity overwhelming him, he needs to know why the hell he’s here and when it is. He’s never jumped away from Earth, didn’t know that was even possible and he breaths through the fear that he might jump into the black itself, end it all like a shooting star.
“How do you know my name?”
“A most illogical question since I-”
“-No, not seeing as we haven’t met before. Listen, I’m in trouble here - I need some clothes quick…I’ll explain later, but someone jumped me, took my clothes,”
“‘Jumped’ you?” Leonard can almost see the air-quotes float between them. “I will inform security.”
Leonard grabs the Vulcan’s wrist before he can carry out his threat. “You’ll do no such thing!” He let’s go immediately when the Vulcan looks down at his hand, but doesn’t shake Leonard free. “Look, you gonna wait until I frighten someone who’s not as cool about things as you, or will you help me?”
“Of course, doctor, I am most intrigued to hear your explanation.” The Vulcan steps up to a door and opens it, standing aside as Leonard almost flies through it.
“Clothes, dammit!”
The Vulcan stands coolly watching Leonard, his hands clasped behind his back. “There are clothes in your quarters, doctor.”
“What quarters? Don’t tell me I end up working on a fucking starship?”
“Fascinating,” the Vulcan says infuriatingly, his voice modulated - like he happens upon strange, naked men outside his quarters most days. Or nights. Still, Leonard’s grateful he’s not going to get beaten on or chased. If he can further convince this guy he’s harmless, he’ll just hide out till he jumps home.
He thinks about Joss alone in bed where he left her, feels a pang of guilt, and wonders, when his crazy gene pool’s done with toying with him, whether he’ll go back there, or some other place. It’s too much to hope he’ll end up in his present, in his apartment, he knows that.
Leonard sees panels to one side of the living area he hopes might contain clothes and thinks about whether he can push his luck and go explore, but the Vulcan’s moved to a console set on a shiny work-surface, and before Leonard can stop him, he’s saying:
“Computer - locate Doctor Leonard McCoy.”
“Doctor Leonard McCoy is in his quarters,” the smooth, female mechanical voice answers almost immediately. Then there’s a pause. “In addition, Doctor Leonard McCoy is on deck five…”
“Computer - stop.” The Vulcan glances at Leonard while he continues, “Delete query and subsequent search from files - authorization code: Alpha one three Alpha one four Delta Alpha.”
“Affirmative - file deleted.”
“I am Commander Spock, doctor.”
Spock turns to Leonard and points to a screen at the far end of the room. “My clothing is in drawers to the right. We are of a similar build and you will find undergarments in the top drawer which will prove comfortable. Once you are, as you humans say, ‘decent’, you may ask me questions. You no doubt have many.”
“You’re not kidding.”
+++
“Will you please sit down?” Leonard grumbles. Spock’s pants itch but no way he was going to wear another man’s underpants.
“Is your ill-temper caused by hunger, Doctor? I can provide nutrition from the replicator - pulled pork in a bun I believe is your favorite, as you you’ve often said - ‘comfort’ food?”
“You don’t seem concerned that there are two McCoys on this tin can.”
“Negative - concern is an emotion and I have experienced many unusual phenomena and life forms over…” Spock hesitates, “time. I expected your presence since I am aware of your genetic impairment and have some knowledge to draw on of your past.” Leonard nods. His older self knew what he was about. “You are agitated, doctor. I will enlighten you. ”
“Damn right I’m agitated. This isn’t my past so it must be the future where I’ve clearly lost my mind if I’m now working in space - tell me the date.”
“To reveal the date would serve no purpose other than to satisfy curiosity. Perhaps if you tell me when you have time-traveled from I will be in a position to confirm or deny your theory?”
Leonard wonders if Spock’s trying to irritate him on purpose, although, of course, that would be totally il-fucking-logical…
“2252.”
“As you have postulated, you are in your future, Doctor McCoy.”
Christ - well this is a first. Of course he suspected, and he can’t help wondering if this forward jump’s connected with the revelation while he was in bed with Joss, that he’s done it once before. Was it just coincidence?
“But why? Why now?” It’s a pointless question - he doesn’t know why he jumps back either.
“I will explain as best I can, but first, since we cannot know how long you will remain in this time, it is logical to make provision for any potential subsequent visitations while we are in a position to do so. I will set an access code to the computer in order that, should you return, the computer will alert me that there is a second McCoy on board, and guide you to my quarters, thus enabling me to conceal you.”
“Visitations? You make me sound like a saint or somethin’”
“Doctor McCoy, from my knowledge of having served with you, one cannot accurately describe you as a ‘saint’.”
Is that a quirk around the corners of Spock’s mouth? A Vulcan with a sense of humor - what kind of a goddamned Vulcan is this anyway?
+++
Atlanta: 2253 - Leonard is 27
The scan show’s the baby’s a girl. Joss trembles, looks at Leonard for reassurance. This wasn’t the boy she’d been expecting, the one she saw.
Leonard turns away and says: “A baby girl…” He knows now Joss is scared this one will die when it jumps, like the others, because she’d believed they were supposed to have a son.
When the nurse leaves the room, he watches Joss slip into her shoes, helps her with her coat.
“This one will be okay, I can feel it in my bones, sugar. Maybe she’s not a jumper, the gene doesn’t always pass on, we know that.”
“But it was a boy I saw, Len. I’m scared.”
It’ll be another month before they can safely test the baby and run a genetic profile, work out with any accuracy if she’s gonna be okay. The problem is, the test is a standard one and won’t show if she has the errant gene - that can’t be done until after she’s born; so yeah, he’s scared too.
Leonard drives her home, says he’ll call later and she should get some rest.
Then he punishes himself for putting them both through the inevitable heartache again, by returning to the hospital in a daze, searching his medical PADD for an empty side room.
He locks the door, applies a local anaesthetic and does what he should have done years ago. He cuts off the supply of fucked up, McCoy sperm so the nightmare, the jumping ends here, with him.
+++
Atlanta: 2254 - Leonard is 27
Leonard wonders when this feeling of wanting to cry all the damn time will leave him.
He’s never wept with joy before - sure, he’s cried hot, angry tears more than once in his time, cried for his, Joss’ lost children, but this - his eyes are like dams, holding back a huge body of water and if he lets it go, surely he’ll drown his precious Joanna, his baby girl.
All of four hours old, she’s asleep in the center of the bed in the fetal position, Leonard guarding her while Joss takes a shower. His large hand covers almost the entire length of her back, the width of her tiny shoulders.
He’s seen and held many newborns, and while it’s not easy for even the most hardened professional to remain entirely disassociated during a birth, this experience was… it was like he took his first breath with Joanna, saw the world for the first time when she blinked at him.
It was an uncomplicated, quick labor - and it’s fair considering what Joss has been through to get here. In the moment he held Joanna for the first time, his heart healed and shattered all at once. For all of his paternal instinct, for all of his immediate, unadulterated love for this tiny creature that was undoubtedly part of him, part of Joss and yet entirely herself, Leonard knows that this isn’t why he’s here, this isn’t his life purpose.
He doesn’t know where this knowledge comes from, but when Joss whispered to him, half an hour after the birth, once they’d been left alone for the first time, “Len, it’ll be time soon, like we agreed?” and she held his hand, he’d nodded.
He leans on the bed, lies down behind his daughter, curves around her. Fuck - that word - and he knows, understands why Joss wanted this so much.
He presses his mouth to the base of Joanna’s neck, inhales her scent, runs the tip of his nose over dark, thick hair, a comical swirl still a little crusty from the birth, and he prays, though he doesn’t believe in any kind of deity, that she isn’t a jumper - that she’ll stay put and isn’t displaced and wandering like he is, pulled and sent away by genes, by emotion, by something.
He wanted it to end with him, but now, looking at her, even knowing what she’ll have to go through, if not herself, then with any children she may have, knowing the errant gene will continue into the next generation, he can’t regret her being here.
They’ll have to wait a month before he can run the test needed, although, he thinks with a tremble, he won’t be here. He’ll have to make arrangements with the pediatricians - time enough for that, now he’s got to memorize every little detail of her. He’s got the holovids already, his comm crammed full, but they won’t give him this, not the scent of milk, the newness, the softness of her skin, the sensation of her fists wrapped in his giant’s hands.
“I’m not gonna cry, baby girl,” he whispers into her shoulders, “and I’ll be back, when I’m well, when I’ve stopped jumping. I’m not leavin’ you, just going away for a while and I’ll write you - mom will keep the messages, I know. She’ll show you one day. But I love you like I didn’t know I could love nothing. Your daddy loves you. That’s why I’m going. We figured it wasn’t right for you to have your daddy disappearing on you - being gone when you needed him. Mommy’s here, and you won’t be alone.”
“Len…”
Leonard looks up, bleary eyed from his containment of tears and stands when Joss walks into the room. He slips his hands under Joanna’s feather light form, pulls her to his chest and drinks her in one last time. He glances at Joss in anguish. She looks refreshed, but agony and ecstasy play on her fine features as she contemplates her husband’s last moments with their daughter.
“Hi,” he grates out and looks down at Joanna’s cherry lips that are pursing as if she’s feeding in her sleep. “She jus’ slept, she was fine. Enjoy your shower?”
She nods, reaches for her bag and pulls out her comm. “Let me take a holo of the two of you.”
Leonard shakes his head. “I don’t think I can…”
She rests her hand on his arm. “Yes you can, Len. I’ll keep it safe and you can let me know when you’re ready. I’ll send it.”
She takes a couple of pics and then it’s time.
Joanna’s stirring and he knows he has to go before her blue eyes flicker open and maybe he’ll change his mind, break down or something. He stretches out his arms and offers their daughter to Joss, knowing he’ll never again feel this same weight in his hands, if he’ll ever see her in the flesh again.
“I’m sorry, Joss,” he croaks. He can feel her tears on his cheek when she leans into him although her arms are occupied, shielding their daughter from him. Because he lied.
“‘s okay,” she whispers. “Let me know where you are and, try and get some sleep soon.”
Thank you for Joanna, Leonard wants to say, but daren’t speak in case he loses it and jumps, proving irrevocably why he can’t be a part of their daughter’s life; so, he just walks out the door.
He pulls out a vial of Drink Me from his inside pocket and knocks it back while wobbly legs carry him to the lift.
It’s not until two hours later, once he’s officially handed over his apartment and informed the storage company that they can take his stuff, until he’s re-read the Starfleet brochure on his PADD, only once he’s in the back of the cab heading for the train station - that Leonard allows himself to collapse down on his side, across the back seat, and let the dam break.
It feels like he might never stop crying and that he might drown in a pool of his own tears.
+++
2253: Atlanta - Leonard’s (9)
Leonard thinks maybe he passed out. He daren’t open his eyes. but he knows it’s late, the way it’s cooler, like it’s gotten dark. He’s been listening out for voices for some minutes, but everywhere’s quiet.
He remembers swimming, flailing about, swallowing down great mouthfuls of ice-cold, brackish water as he tried to get away from the yelling and panic and crying.
His cousin’s gone - he tried to save him, but David let go though Leonard had pleaded, begged, insisted he hold on.
Leonard’s shivering, eyes squeezed shut, hiding. He doesn’t know where everyone else has gone and he can’t remember how he got to dry land.
Maybe he’s suffering from shock - and that’s why he can taste sick in his mouth, why his throat burns. Leonard’s learned lots of things, from asking his daddy - when he’s allowed to sit in the big chair in the office - learned how when people, animals are scared, sometimes they puke or poop themselves, so they can be lighter and run away. But he feels like he’s swallowed rocks, not just water, the way he’s rooted, can’t move or look and see where he is.
He feels around at his feet, touches pine needles, damp earth. He pushes himself into the solidity behind him and winces at the prickly roughness against his bare skin. He doesn’t remember taking off his clothes, but then he doesn’t remember much other than the look of disbelief on his cousin’s face, when the lake had folded around his cousin’s pale skin for the last time - the image seared to his eyelids - like the ghost image of lightening.
Please let it be a dream, please let me wake up, I’ll be good, I will.
What if it really happened and David truly is gone?
He can hear himself crying, he can hear a dog barking but everything’s so far away…then he hears a woman’s voice at the same time as a bright light shines on his face, making him cover his eyes and head, pull his knees up to his chin.
“You okay?” the soft voice says. “I heard you crying.”
Leonard squints open one eye and make out a slim woman silhouetted behind the flash light.
He shivers, doesn’t answer.
“Come on, sweetheart, you’re hurt, let me help you.” Her voice is melodic, soothing, and he wants to go to her, let her take care of him, but he brings an arm over his head, dips his face to his knees again, shuts her and everything out. “You’re hurt - you wanna come inside where it’s warm. I’ll make you some cocoa?”
He peeks, sees she’s lowered her flashlight, come closer so he can smell her perfume, tangerine and peach, homey and safe.
He doesn’t recognise her, knows he shouldn’t talk to people he doesn’t know but he’s scared and she seems so kind.
She crouches down in front of him, raises a hand towards him but doesn’t touch him.
“Hey, what’s your name? I’m Jocelyn,” she says, all soft and warm, and just like that, he knows he can trust her.
“McCoy,” he whispers.
He sits upright when her mouth falls open, she stands up and steps away from him like he’s said something real amazing when all he’s done is told her his name.
“Who’s your daddy?” She asks, her hand on her forehead, her voice all trembly. She’s staring at him with big, blue eyes, just like his Gram’s.
“He’s Doctor McCoy,” Leonard says, “d’ya…d’ya know hi-?”
He doesn’t finish, never finds out if she does, his head snaps back then forward. He gasps for breath, feeling real hot, like there’s something burning in his belly and, he forgets he’s not wearing anything and staggers to his feet.
The last thing he remembers is the woman’s bright features. She’s smiling a big smile, like he’s someone she knows and she hasn’t seen him for a long time, and he can hear his heart beating loud and oh no, he’s gonna puke again…
It’s like he’s falling out of a tree, being pulled down into the lake again, and he doesn’t understand, but he’s glad it wasn’t real, and in a second he’ll wake up, be home, be safe and his cousin will be alright after all because, this was just a dream.
on to part 6