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It was a comfortable quiet they sat in. After a long day filled with people constantly demanding their attention, both Jim and Leonard enjoyed having dinner together in a companionable silence. Leonard relished the peace, but a burning question in his head was nagging at him to break it though. He wouldn’t. He knew how re-energizing Jim found it to be in his company, without needing to be ‘on’.
Opposite Leonard, Jim finished his meal and leaned back in his chair. “Feel like a movie? I don’t think I’m ready to sleep yet.” The blond asked, breaking their silence first.
Leonard nodded, knowing full well that Jim would be asleep as soon as he settled into Leonard’s hold on the couch. “Sure. Nothing too loud though, my headache hasn’t gone completely yet.” He answered, hesitating for a moment before continuing. “Before we do, can I ask you something?”
Jim was already up, clearing away their empty plates, but he paused, turning to look at Leonard. If he noticed Leonard’s nervousness, he didn’t say anything. “What’s up, Bones?”
“Well, I…I was wondering-”
Red Alert
Red Alert
The computerized voice rang out seconds before the whole ship shuddered from impact.
Jim was out the door without so much as a ‘goodbye’, all thoughts of questions and movies already forgotten.
Leonard allowed himself a second to sigh, then he was on his feet, making a beeline for MedBay.
~
“Hey, Bones?”
“Mmm?” Leonard looked away from his PADD and down at Jim who had his head resting on Leonard’s lap. Blue eyes were looking back up at him.
“What did you want to ask me before? We’ve been so busy the last few weeks that I’d forgotten until now.” Jim asked, wriggling around a little so he could get a better view of Leonard’s face.
“Oh, right.” The burning question had definitely not been forgotten, but Leonard was so exhausted that he hadn’t been planning on bringing it up that night. But if Jim was bringing it up… Leonard took a breath, steeling himself. “I was just going to ask if-”
Leonard’s comm beeped, and it took all of his considerable self-restraint not to curse aloud. Leonard snapped the device open, and read the message. “Goddammit.” The annoyance must have shown in his voice, because Jim frowned.
“What’s wrong?” He asked, sitting up.
“Accident in engineering. Something about an exploding panel.” Leonard answered, already on his feet. “Majority of injuries are superficial, but we have two coming in in critical condition. They need me.”
“Alright. Keep me updated when you can.” Jim was already reaching for his PADD probably looking for the initial incident reports.
Leonard nodded. “Don’t wait up.” Were his last words before leaving.
~
“Jim, can I have a word?” Leonard asked. He was standing in front of the desk in Jim’s ready room, passing over a PADD filled with medical reports.
“Can it wait, Bones? I have a call scheduled with Chris in ten minutes. He wants to go over a few things before the conference call with the Admirals tomorrow.” Jim answered, barely glancing up at Leonard as he took the PADD and signed the reports off.
Leonard opened his mouth to say it couldn’t wait. To say that he’d spent the entirety of the damned six month mission trying to talk to Jim about this. “Yeah, it can wait.” He said instead, because at the end of the day it could. It was driving Leonard insane, but it wasn’t as important as Jim’s Captaincy. Leonard took the PADD back from Jim. “Say hi to Chris for me.”
Maybe he’d find time to propose on the return to Earth.
~
Leonard stood, staring. Staring at Jim’s still form. Staring at Jim, his Jim, lying in a body bag. Dead. Jim was dead.
Leonard swallowed down the bile that threatened to rise in his throat.
He forced himself to turn away. He couldn’t look at Jim’s lifeless body any longer. Leonard managed to make it to his desk, before his legs gave out and he slumped down into the chair, head in hands.
Jim.
He’d lost Jim.
Forever.
Leonard squeezed his eyes shut, trying to halt the tears that threatened to fall.
There had been plenty of times in the last year when he thought he was going to lose Jim permanently. Enough times that he thought he’d prepared for it. He’d been fooling himself. This pain was worse than anything he’d ever thought possible.
Leonard briefly wondered what the pain would have felt like if he’d ever found the time to propose. What would he have felt staring at his dead fiance? Would it have been worse? Or would it have been mildly more comforting? Knowing that Jim died knowing how much Leonard loved him. Knowing that Jim knew that Leonard was in this relationship for the long haul, and had no intention of ever leaving.
Why hadn’t he found the time? Why hadn’t he made the time, instead of waiting for the right opportunity? There had been so much time on the way back to Earth after Nibiru, but Jim was in a constant bad mood from continuously bickering with Spock over the events on the planet, and that bad mood had seeped into their relationship too. Jim snapped over little things, and Leonard, often stressed from the never ending demands of being CMO had regularly risen to the bait. It hadn’t exactly been the best of atmosphere’s to propose in.
Now Leonard wished he had anyway. He wished he’d forced Jim to sit down, and made the younger man listen to him, as he no doubt rambled on about how much he loved him, and wanted them to spend the rest of their lives together.
Leonard had lost his chance. He’d never have the opportunity to ask now. He wasn’t even sure when he and Jim had last said ‘I love you’ to each other.
A noise from Leonard’s desk forced him to raise his head. Leonard blinked. The very dead tribble he’d injected Khan’s blood in to was moving. Leonard leaned closer, reading the screen in front of him in disbelief. The tribble was now very much alive.
“Get me a cryo tube, now!”
~
It was the longest few weeks of Leonard’s life. He was dead on his feet, but he kept going. Because he was so close to having Jim back. The serum had worked. Jim was breathing again, and more importantly he was breathing by himself. Now he just needed to wake up. Leonard longed to see those baby blues again.
By this point Leonard was sure he needed it more than he needed air itself.
Then the miracle he’d been waiting for happened. Jim sucked in a breath, eyes opening wide. Leonard was by his side immediately, tricorder in hand.
“Don’t be so melodramatic. You were barely dead.” Leonard had imagined his words to Jim many times over the weeks. They’d varied from an immediate ‘I love you’ to a ‘don’t you ever pull a stunt this stupid again’ to a ‘do you have any idea what you’ve put me through?’ But the panic and confusion in Jim’s eyes told Leonard that he needed normality, so normality was what Leonard gave him.
It wasn’t until Spock and Jim’s various other visitors had left for the evening, that Leonard dropped a quick kiss to Jim’s chapped lips, and whispered a quiet ‘I love you.’ It earned him a tired smile from Jim, and an equally quiet ‘I love you too.’
~
“Did I fall to sleep again? Sorry.” Jim mumbled, sitting himself up in the hospital bed.
“You need to rest, darlin’.” Leonard smiled, shifting closer and letting his hand rest over Jim’s.
“Feel guilty though. Sleeping and leaving you sitting there by yourself.”
“God, Jim, I’m just glad to have you here. I’m more than happy to just watch you sleep.”
Jim chuckled. “That didn’t sound at all creepy, Bones.”
Leonard laughed too, rubbing Jim’s hand with his thumb. This wasn’t how he’d wanted it to be, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he’d wasted enough time. “Marry me.”
Jim stared at him, a small frown on his face as he tried to determine if Leonard was serious or not. “Bones…you don’t need to propose just because of all this. It’s a bad idea, to propose because of all this. Once everything settles down you’ll regret it.”
Leonard shook his head. “I’m not proposing because you died, Jim. I’m proposing right this moment because of it, because it made me realise time is short, but I’ve wanted to propose for months. All those times I tried to talk to you on the last mission. This was why. I wanted to do it in the place you loved most, but I guess fate had other ideas.”
Jim opened and closed his mouth to reply repeatedly, reminding Leonard of an adorable goldfish. Finally, he found his voice. “You mean it?” He whispered.
Leonard pulled back, slipping the ring he wore on his pinky finger off and pressing it into Jim’s hand. “James Tiberius Kirk, will you marry me?”
Jim looked down at the band of silver in his palm, before looking back up at Leonard, a smile slowly growing on his face. “Hell yes.”
Leonard grinned back widely, the weight lifting off his shoulders as he leaned in and kissed Jim.