Chapter Text
The last thing Jim Kirk remembered of 2260 was a flash of light accompanying an exclamation of surprise from the ensign piloting their shuttle— neither of which tended to bode well where space travel was concerned.
The next moment, a sickening wave of dizziness ran through them and instead of empty space there was a vessel hanging in front of them. Swallowing hard to keep his lunch in place, Jim shook off the disorientation to see Ensign Umera appeared similarly queasy.
Before they could react, the comm crackled and a human voice rang through the shuttle, “Unidentified vessel, this is the USS Aldrin. We cannot read your transponder. Please respond.”
Flicking on the comm, Jim replied, “This is Captain James T. Kirk on the shuttle Copernicus. We were on a diplomatic mission to meet with the representative from Alpha Cygnus II when we encountered some form of spatial anomaly.”
“We’re bringing you on board. Stand by.”
“Is the Enterprise within range? They should have been monitoring our progress.”
A short silence turned into an awkward pause, then the comm screen flickered to life so the captain of the Aldrin was visible as she replied, “Captain Kirk— I don’t think you understand.” She shared a sideways glance with her XO, before continuing, “It’s 2264. You’ve been missing for over three years.”
Ensign Umera’s mouth dropped open and he muttered, “My mom’s going to be pissed.”
“The Enterprise is currently in the Antares cluster attempting to map the maelstrom and will not be in comm range for several weeks.”
Which was how Jim and Umera found themselves whisked off the shuttle and into a battery of tests in the Aldrin’s medical bay. Somewhere in between the genetic profiling and the cognitive assessment battery a woman Jim didn’t recognize appeared wearing command gold. She waited at the fringes until the doctor in charge gave her a nod, then stepped up and introduced herself as Captain Cervantes.
Jim recognized the name as a commander who had applied for the XO posting on the Enterprise after the Nero affair.
There was something sympathetic dancing in her eyes as she announced, “We’ve set a course for Earth, maximum warp. There was a lot of finger-pointing when your shuttle disappeared, Kirk. It got bad— nearly derailed the peace process. Barnett wants you moved straight to HQ under a comms blackout until you can be debriefed. We should be there in seven hours, so please sit tight in here until then.”
Seven hours was a long time to be locked in a treatment room, alone, with your thoughts and the abstract concept of three missing years. Jim never thought he’d be grateful to be ushered onto a transporter padd to beam down to an interrogation with the admiralty, but at least it was a step out of lockdown.
And interrogation was the right word for it. Despite the medical scans it seemed like each admiral wanted to get in their own question to test if he really was James Tiberius Kirk. It was Chandra who eventually called time on the proceedings. Finally breaking formalities, he offered some personal advice as he did so, “Lie low, Jim. At least for a week, until we can set diplomatic efforts into play. Trusted family only. We’ll set up a private residence for you until everything is properly public.”
The private quarters were just that: tucked away in a currently unoccupied diplomatic compound. Jim wandered into the back garden with a padd, settling into a duraplast chair that looked more suited to a Tellarite than a human. The Enterprise’s orders were just as described on the Aldrin: a five-week scientific mission beyond Antares. Pulling up the personnel database, Jim entered a list of queries and then scanned the results:
Spock, S'chn T'gai, Commander, USS Enterprise
McCoy, Leonard H., Commander / MD, Starfleet Medical HQ
Uhura, Nyota, Lt. Commander, USS Enterprise
Scott, Montgomery, Lt. Commander, USS Enterprise
The discrepancy made him murmur, “Bones?” Brow furrowed, he called up McCoy’s personal file and an address in San Francisco confirmed the Earthside posting. Chandra’s warning had been clear: trusted family only. So far as Jim was concerned, Bones was a better definition of that than Winona.
He hovered over the commlink button for a long moment, then changed his mind: Bones was a devotee of seeing is believing after all— particularly where Jim himself was concerned.
Stepping out of the automated taxi- flitter, the address wasn’t what Jim had expected— instead of a condo, it was an honest to goodness house.
It was a little after eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning and someone was clearly at home, as the front porch was only separated from the inside by a screen door. Mouth suddenly dry at the strangeness of it all, Jim mounted the steps to find someone staring back at him from inside the shaded entryway.
The figure was less than a meter tall, and after his brain briefly went to Keenser? Jim realized it was in fact a human just inside the screen. A small human, with a wide open mouth. Carefully, he offered a gentle, “Hi.”
Jim’s greeting didn’t have the desired effect, as it was met with running-away footsteps and a high-pitched cry of, “Dandelion!”
Flummoxed, Jim stood on the porch and waited. “Dandelion” had been yelled with the importance of a name, but unless the universe was playing a joke on him, he must be at the wrong house.
He was on the verge of turning away when a familiar voice, laced with disbelief, called, “Jim.”
It was Bones— he looked lankier than Jim had seen him before, as if he ate well but didn’t get much time in the gym. There were a few threads of grey at his temples confirming that, no, the admiralty hadn’t been lying about three lost years.
“Heavens—” Bones’ mouth worked for a moment, as if he’d forgotten how to speak, then he managed an even more emphatic, “Jim?”
“Bones!”
And then Leonard took four almost-running steps down the hall and the screen was yanked open and Jim was swept into a hug so tight he swore he could feel his ribs creaking.
The older man was muttering something unintelligible into the crook of Jim’s neck and they tilted almost precariously off balance before they managed to right themselves against the door frame, so intertwined they’d have both fallen over. Eventually, Leonard pulled back to an arm’s length apart, with a firm grip on Jim’s shoulders as if afraid the younger man could disappear again as he asked, “Where the hell have you been?”
“Nowhere, Bones. We were on the survey mission and then,” Jim raised a shoulder in a shrug that conveyed his own confusion, “there was a spatial anomaly and then the Aldrin was hailing us and it was yesterday morning.”
“It hasn’t been any time at all?” Complex emotions were crossing the older man’s face as he pressed, “Not three years?”
“Not even three days.”
“And you’re okay?” Eyebrows drawing together, Leonard demanded, “Who checked you out?”
“The CMO on the Aldrin— they ran about a million scans and kept me in the medical bay for the entire seven hour trip back to Earth.”
There was a rough husk in Leonard’s voice and the grip tightened on Jim’s shoulders as he retorted, “Not nearly enough scans.”
The little girl tugged at Leonard’s pant leg with an insistent whine that sounded vaguely like, “Dan-dee.” Releasing Jim’s shoulders, Leonard quickly stooped and then drew her up with him.
“Wait—” Whatever was happening was so far from what Jim expected he could barely make sense of it enough to ask, “You’re Dandelion?”
Leonard rolled his eyes, but fondly, and in a tone roughly laced with emotion admitted, “She had a little trouble with ‘Daddy Len’ when she was starting to talk.”
And didn’t that make something skitter to a halt in Jim’s brain. Aware his mouth was agape, he closed his jaw with a click before managing to squeak out, “She—”
Leonard hoisted the child higher in his arms and talked over the younger man to announce, “Jim, this is Georgia Wallace Kirk.”
Jim could suddenly see the Kirk in her lips and nose— not to mention her bright blue eyes. Poleaxed, he could only stare dumbly as Leonard continued the other half of the introduction.
“Georgia, this here is Jim.”
“Daddy Jim?” She peered at him sideways but didn’t look at all inclined to let go of the grip that she had around Leonard’s neck.
Leonard’s voice seemed to catch in his throat, and he had to swallow hard to properly get out, “Yeah, Georgie, he is.”
“She’s mine?” Jim felt like he wasn’t quite touching the ground. His limbs were numb and there was a buzzing in his ears as he asked, “Mine and Carol’s?”
“I gather you did a little celebrating being alive before we finally finished working out just what all had been affected by your rejuvenation.”
And he had, too. They had. One random night before the Enterprise re-launch when Carol was probably still reeling from it all and they’d wound up at his apartment too late and too alone to do anything else.
A flush was racing up Jim’s neck and Leonard’s eyes softened. “She’s just turned three years old.” Georgia helpfully thrust three fingers in Jim’s direction. Sensing the younger man was utterly lost, Leonard offered, “Why don’t you come in? We were starting to fix lunch.”
A pair of men’s boots sat next to little green velcro sneakers on the floor. A leather jacket and a small purple raincoat hung on pegs inside the door. As he stumbled after Leonard down the hallway, Jim couldn’t help but ask, “Is Carol…”
Without turning, Leonard cut him off before he could finish the question, “No.”
Approaching a doorway, he set Georgia down and with a hand on her shoulder gently said, “Georgia, please go play with Peaches while Jim and I talk. We’ll call you for lunch.”
“Grilled cheese, please?”
“Okay,” Leonard’s smile carried a fond indulgence, as if this was a predictable request, “if you go on now.”
With one last searching glance back towards Jim, the little girl nodded and disappeared around the doorframe. Jim could only mouth, Peaches? at Leonard in a way that made the older man roll his eyes.
They settled into chairs at the round kitchen table by unspoken agreement, two meters of vintage wood between them.
A belated observation occurred to Jim, “She has your accent.”
“I went home after Carol passed— my mom helped out a lot. We’ve only been back in San Francisco three months.”
“Why’d you come back?”
The hint of a wry smile curled Leonard’s lips and he admitted, “Turns out you’ve ruined me: I’m not cut out to be a country doctor anymore. I was bored out of my skull as the neurosurgery lead at Atlanta General. Longest year and a half of my life. Philip Boyce showed up on my doorstep five months ago and offered me the neuro lead at Starfleet Medical with a research chair in xenoneurology— he was an old friend of Chris Pike’s. Guess he’d been keeping tabs on us and heard through the grapevine I wasn’t so happy.”
Mentions of Chris still caught Jim off guard, and this morning was no different. It was enough to give this stomach an unexpected lurch and he dropped his gaze to the table, worrying the cuff of his sleeve between the thumb and forefinger of his other hand.
The silence stretched for a long moment, until Leonard caught the gesture and offered, “I, uh, have some of your clothes here. I think.” He rubbed a hand through the short hair at the nape of his neck. “We might have to go through some boxes, but if you want to get out of that monkey suit...”
Raising his gaze from the table, Jim managed a ghost of a smile to accompany the heartfelt, “Please.” The utilitarian Starfleet medical jumpsuit they had him change into on the Aldrin felt entirely wrong against his skin, which only compounded the strangeness of the situation.
Following Leonard up two flights of stairs into an attic revealed that some boxes was an understatement.
“Bones,” Jim’s eyebrows drew together in disbelief, “Did you pack up all my stuff?”
“No one else knew what to do with it,” Leonard grumbled as he stepped further into the room and cast his eyes over the opaque storage tubs as if looking for clues, “I wasn’t going to let it molder in some ‘fleet storage unit.” He set to work shoving boxes around as Jim stood helplessly to the side. Eventually, he gave a grunt of recognition and opened the top of a large storage tote to reveal folded clothing. Pushing the box towards Jim, he said, “Take this one downstairs— it should have a selection of your civvies and I can loan you some sweats for tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“You’re sure as hell not going back to whatever ‘fleet housing they’ve put you in when I have a perfectly good guest bedroom. Come on.” Leading the way back to the upper floor, he waved towards an open doorway, “The guest is an en suite. I’m next door and Georgia is down the hall. If you get changed now, I’ll find you some shaving stuff and something to sleep in after lunch.” At Jim’s nod, Leonard quickly made his way downstairs.
Despite never seeing the other man live outside of ‘fleet housing before, the guest room felt like Bones. Comfortable in a way institutional furniture never was— one surprise was the framed schematic of the Enterprise over the bed. The cross section revealed both the bridge and the medical bay in minute detail. The other walls were more predictable: a painting of an old farmhouse that Jim recognized as belonging to the McCoys, a mirror in an antique oak frame, and a low bookshelf that seemed to have collected an assortment of padds.
The clothes had a slightly shut-in scent to them, as if they had grown stale while locked away. Pulling on a comfortable pair of jeans and an old t-shirt, Jim gave up on looking for socks and simply padded back downstairs barefoot.
Leonard was standing by the stove and Georgia was seated behind a marmalade ball of fur on the center of the kitchen table.
Stopping in the doorway in surprise, Jim blurted out, “A tribble? I thought you hated them.”
Waving a spatula in the vague direction of the table, Leonard offered, “Peaches is the great-grandtribble of Lazarus.”
“You gave my child a mutant super-tribble?”
“Well,” Leonard managed a slightly sly smile, “her last name is Kirk.”
Georgia looked between them, then piped up, “Daddy Len?”
“Yes, darling?”
“Can Daddy Jim have grilled cheese too?”
Leonard raised an eyebrow, “You want a grilled cheese, Jim?”
Masking his amusement that Georgia seemed wholly capable of pronouncing Leonard’s name, and that Dandelion was a nickname, Jim winked at the other man and replied, “Yeah, I would, actually. Thanks Georgia.”
She gave a little jerk of a nod, as if putting the universe in its proper place, then reached out and prodded the tribble in a way that had it release a flurry of purrs. Glancing up to find Jim still standing in the doorway, she frowned and then pointed at the chair across the table, “You sit there.”
That was him told. Jim slipped into the chair only for Leonard to place a gentle hand on his shoulder and deposit a plate with a grilled cheese sandwich. “Thanks, Bones.” The hand gave a squeeze, then the other man did the same for Georgia before retrieving his own lunch from the stove.
They ate in silence for a minute, regarding each other over their sandwiches without knowing quite what to say. Once Georgia had finished two of her quarters, Leonard ventured to break the ice. “Georgia, why don’t you tell Jim what you did yesterday?”
Georgia’s gaze swiveled over to Jim and she dropped a crust to exclaim, “I saw Walter!”
“Oh?” Bemused, but appreciating the effort, Jim asked, “Who’s Walter?”
In response, Georgia held up an arm and then gave a full-body wriggle that just about had her squirming off her chair.
Taking a sip of water, Leonard clarified, “He’s a wolf eel at the aquarium.”
Oh. Jim leaned forwards and asked conspiratorially, “Do you like Walter?”
She gave an emphatic nod.
“What do you like best about him?”
“He’s shy.”
“Is he?”
Another nod.
Jim could sense Leonard watching closely in his peripheral vision, but kept all his attention on the little girl across the table as he asked, “You know what else is shy?”
Sandwich forgotten, she gave a little shake of her head.
“Hermit crabs.” Jim nodded, and mimed with his hands, “If you get close they hide deep in their shells.”
“Like a snail?”
“Even faster. They duck inside before you can get a good look!”
Eyes lighting up, Georgia started, “Daddy—”
Leonard mildly interjected without looking up from his plate, “You’ve already got a tribble, you can’t have a hermit crab.”
Jim couldn’t help but choke back a laugh at the look of disappointment on Georgia’s face. It was so close to one he’d seen in his own childhood holos— clowning around back at the farmhouse with Sam before his mom shipped out when he turned eight. Glancing sideways, he caught amusement dancing in Leonard’s eyes as well, along with a warning of death if he let on that adults might find the expression in any way amusing.
Jim turned back to his lunch, not realizing the other man kept watching him until Leonard softly said, “You look tired, Jim. How long did they keep you busy?”
“I dunno,” Jim frowned as he tried to count, “it was late in the day when the anomaly hit, then seven hours on the Aldrin; I might have dozed off at some point in their med bay, then we debriefed for a few hours this morning.”
Eyebrows drawing together, Leonard gently asked, “And you haven’t had a night’s sleep?”
Wordlessly, Jim shook his head.
“H—” biting back the word that came naturally, Leonard corrected, “Heck, Jim. You must be exhausted. Georgia and I were just going to relax at home today. Why don’t you go take a nap in the guest room while we do things down here?”
It sounded good, even though Jim had never been fond of succumbing to a nap.
It felt even better. Sinking into a soft bed that smelled like the laundry soap Bones had bought off-campus for all their years at the academy, Jim felt himself finally lower his guard since this whole mess had started.