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The thing that Len finds the most disturbing is how normal everything feels. He got up, showered, got dressed and started his coffee. He waits two hours before going to the closet. He finds exactly what he thought he would.
Jim’s duffle bag is gone.
Len sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He already knows that Jim’s dresser would be missing a week’s worth of clothes and that his lover’s wallet would be gone, but that his comm would be sitting on the counter where it was every night. Without working himself up, Len went to his bedside table and packed away the first thing he always did: the picture of them sprawled out on the grass in front of their dorm, grinning into the camera, arms thrown around each other.
Mentally, he made a note. Day One.
Day One, meaning he had six more days of waiting for Jim to show up before he packed away the last thing.
Day Two saw him packing away little knick knacks Jim had picked up over the years. A few pictures of them in various locations from vacations that Len didn’t want to think about right now. Mostly things that he didn’t look at daily anyway. He didn’t put away anything he would miss right away, nothing that would make the sting of Jim’s absence noticeable.
Day Three meant throwing things away. Jim’s toothbrush went in the trash. All of the magazines that he’d told Len three times he was still reading went into the paper shredder. The foods that only Jim ate were tossed. He took particular joy in hearing the crash of Jim’s jar of pickled eggs. He’d always hated the smell of the things.
Day Four was the day he changed the sheets. He didn’t even bother putting the old one’s in the wash, he just threw them straight into the dumpster. He threw away Jim’s shampoo, but shoved his cologne under the sink. He pretended the smell of it didn’t make his chest ache.
On Day Five he started taking Jim’s clothes out of the closet while he dialed Spock’s number slowly.
“Hey, Spock. You still have some boxes left over from when you moved last summer? It’s Day Five.”
Spock brought the boxes over without any questions. He and Len had grown close over the years of arguments and Len wasn’t ashamed to ask the man for help like he would have been when they met. If anyone understood his less-than-explosive reaction to Jim leaving it was Spock. The man knew Jim better than anyone, he understood Len being prepared for the day Jim ran. He knew just like Len did that, that day was always just edging around the line of vision. Jim had been running all his life; it had always been a matter of time.
Day Six was painful. It was when he started packing away the things that made him think of Jim, of them. He pulled down the old movie posters and carefully wrapped up their collection of antique guns. He tucked away all the rocks, machine pieces, gems, books, everything that had come back with them from the Enterprise. He shoved the PADDS full of pictures and love letters to the bottom of boxes and put everything in Spock’s car. Spock drove it to the storage unit that Len had rented out the day after they landed planetside.
Day Seven felt a lot like Day One. It was like knowing the end of a book was going to be a let down, but being disappointed when reading it anyway. Len always knew he would end up here one day, but he couldn’t help the empty feeling in his chest. He stared at the ceiling of their, no, his bedroom for five minutes before he finally swung his legs over the edge of his bed, throwing his sheets to the side and padding out into his living room. He stood in the middle of it, turning in slow circles and feeling lost.
There was nothing in the room that wasn’t his.
There was nothing in the house that wasn’t his. It was Day Seven and he hadn’t heard hide nor tail of Jim.
Slowly he went into the kitchen and turned on the coffee maker. He stood over the sink for a long moment and took a deep breath. Slowly he rocked the gold band off his ring finger, swallowing hard when it finally popped over his knuckle. He stared down at the battered ring, resting so innocently in his palm. He hadn’t taken it off in twelve years. He’d never made it past Day Four before either.
Len clenched his jaw and turned his hand over, watching as the ring clanged into the sink and rolled down the drain.
Day Eight was hell, but at least it was hell on his own terms.
He found the cologne again on the third month. He threw it against the wall.
The next day he went out and bought another bottle, shoving it to the back of the cabinet.
After the first year he didn’t ache when he noticed things missing from around the house.
After the second he didn’t itch in the middle of the night to go to the storage unit and bury his nose in Jim’s clothes.
After the fifth he stopped being surprised by the feel of a different body in his bed. Mostly because he stopped trying to put someone there.
All in all he was happy. He knew that it would be hard, but he did it. He was living his life and the pain of the past didn’t haunt him. He was a well respected doctor. He was the man who saved lives on the Enterprise under the command of an amazing captain. His heart had been cracked for years, another crack wasn’t going to ruin him.
No, ruin could only come with a blond man who had been running his entire life running right back to Len’s door.
Seeing Jim standing on the doorstep of the house that has once been theirs didn’t crack Len’s heart. It shattered it.
“Hey, Bones.”
“Fuck you.”
He doesn’t know why he opened the door and let the asshole in, but he did. Jim was standing in the middle of Len’s living room, looking just as lost as Len felt on Day Seven.
The house hadn’t changed much. A few new decorations, a new couch and some pictures of Jo’s graduation. Which Jim hadn’t been at.
“How’ve you been?” Jim had his hand shoved deep into his pockets. Len was surprised to see lines around the other man’s mouth and wrinkles starting at his eyes where laugh lines had started to take their toll. He looked road worn and Len hated himself for being worried about it.
“Fine. I’ve been doing well.” It wasn’t even a lie. He had been fine, he had been doing well.
“Good. I’m glad.” It was quiet for a few moments, the awkward stretch of silence making the air heavier with each passing second.
“Why are you here, Jim?”
Jim sighed and sat down on the couch, rubbing the back of his neck in an achingly familiar gesture.
“I don’t know.”
Len let out a sigh of his own and flopped down next to his ex. He hadn’t seen even a picture of the man in seven years. Jim was closer to forty than not and Len was more than ready to admit he was firmly middle aged. This was too much for men their age, this shit was supposed to happen in your early twenties. No. This shit wasn’t supposed to happen at all.
“When are you going to stop running, kid?” Len watched Jim’s face carefully. It was as easy to read now as it had been seven years ago. The question scared the shit out of Jim and Len couldn’t help but be disappointed. He watched as the other man swallowed hard and shook his head slowly.
“I don’t know.”
Len had known Jim would run for as long as he’d known the man. The Enterprise had been the only reason they made it as long as they did. Jim was running as long as the Enterprise was in the air. He had hoped that maybe after ten years in the black Jim might be ready to stop.
It had only taken two years back on Earth for Jim to run right out of his life.
“Did you ever think that you might just...stay?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you know, Jim?!” Len shoved himself to his feet. Jim winced, shrinking away from the shout. Len rounded on him, shoving a finger hard into his ex’s chest. “Do you know what it did to me? Do you know how much more it hurts now that you’re here? Do you know what it’s like to have spent all that time wondering when you’d run?”
There was no response, only Jim staring up at him with pained eyes, like he knew exactly what Len went through. Like he regretted it, but didn’t know how to say it.
“I’m sorry, Bones.”
“Fuck you, Jim.” Len rubbed his face roughly, letting a hand rest over his mouth as he took a deep breath. “What are you doing here, Jim? Why are you here?”
“I…” A muscle in Jim’s Jaw jumped and Len could see how empty the man felt. “I was proving myself right.”
“What?”
Jim gestured around the room vaguely.
“There’s nothing left of me here. There’s nothing left for me to come back to. This isn’t my home anymore.”
Len swallowed hard against the knot that suddenly blocked this throat.
“No. It’s not.”
Jim nodded slowly and looked down to where his fingers shifted nervously against each other.
“It hasn’t been for a long time.”
Jim buried his face in his hands and nodded again.
“I know, Bones.”
“What do you want from me?” Len hated the pleading sound of his voice. He hated that this man still affected him like this. “You left, Jim. You walked out without a word. What was I supposed to do? Drop everything and come chasing after you?” He fell back against the wall. His voice was thin and hushed. “You never even thought to ask me to go with you.”
Jim looked startled.
“You wouldn’t have gone,” he offered meekly.
“Yes. I would have,” Len spat back at him. All the anger he didn’t allow himself during the Seven Days burst forward. “I followed you out into the black, Jim. I would have gone anywhere with you.”
Horror burned itself into Jim’s eyes, searing with the realization of all the years he’d lost, wasted, ruined. Len could do nothing but watch as Jim accepted the weight of his actions.
“I need you to leave. You said it yourself, Jim. This isn’t your home anymore. I’m not your home anymore.” Len was quiet for a long moment. “I never was.”
“Please don’t make me leave.” Jim’s voice was rough.
“I didn’t, Jim. That was all you.”
Jim stared at him helplessly before struggling to his feet and towards the door. As He walked out of Len’s life for a second time Len started to count.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
“Bones.”
He looked up, Jim hadn’t moved away from the door.
“I want to stop running. I want to come home.”
It took almost two years to reverse what Len had done in Seven Days.
It starts slow. Just sitting and talking, getting to know each other again. Eventually they go on a few dates, just to see if they could. They had to know they could stand falling back in love without the guilt of it eating them alive.
Sometimes Len couldn’t take it. He can’t look at Jim, let alone talk to him and all the anger and hurt wells back up inside him. It’s never more than a few days and Jim holds him tight the nights that follow, whispering the promise to stay in his ear over and over. Eventually Len starts to believe it.
Waking up next to Jim was different now. The man didn’t feel like he was constantly on edge, always planning an out. He looked at Len like he used to look at the Enterprise. And on the days he needed to run, he asked Len to go with him.
Bones always did.