Chapter Text
Your baby blues, so full of wonder
your curly cues, your contagious smile
and as I watch, you start to grow up—
all I can do is hold you tight.“In My Arms” ~ Plumb
He still wore the Beatles T-shirt to bed almost every night. Religiously. That stupid Beatles shirt.
The grey material rode up on one side and exposed a swath of milky, freckled skin along bony ribs. Their convex angles had softened with Alice’s robust cooking and generous portions, but…
Still too thin.
Bones flagged on the door frame, folded arms failing to still the manic rabbit thump of his heart beneath them. The thump worked up into his throat.
In his childhood bedroom, a teenager lay on his stomach, plaid-clad leg hanging off the left side of the four-poster bed where he’d kicked the sheets down around his waist in the night. Curls painted the pillow in fresco swirls.
This would always be one of Bones’ favourite sights, his favourite way to start the day and settle his nerves.
Yet today…today it pressed on his chest.
The scent of blond roast coffee—spiked, probably—wafted closer before a wry voice. “It’s creepy to watch people sleep, you know.”
“Is not.”
“It so is. Especially a kid.”
Bones shook his head. “Can’t help it.”
And he couldn’t, couldn’t move from this spot if asked to at gunpoint.
Jim drew up beside Bones, mug in hand. His hair dripped from the shower, onto the hood of a faded blue sweatshirt. “You tell him the news yet?”
“No. Can’t bring myself to.”
“Bones. Are you serious? We only have three days.”
Bones sighed. “I know.”
“Don’t tell me you’re still in an angst fest about the admiral’s message.”
“I missed sixteen years of his life, Jim. The thought of missing any more…” Bones dragged a hand down his face. “This is crazy. I’m insane, right? It’s insane to be doing this.”
“Bones—”
“I didn’t even think about it! How bad is that? Somehow in all the insanity and recovery of the past five months, I never once considered what happens after. Both options sound terrible.”
“Glad to see you’re handling this in a rational manner.”
The joke worked and Bones exhaled, a huge gust. “No sane parent asks this of their kid.”
Jim sipped his alcoholic coffee. He too had filled out after three months and multiple holiday feasts at the McCoy manor, jeans loose, hair grown longer than regulation allowed. The casual look suited him. “Technically Starfleet asked for this.”
“I thought we would have more time.”
“We still might.”
Bones grumbled. “What else could they want the Alpha crew present for?”
Shrugging, Jim’s eyes also wandered into the room and narrowed, fond. “Don’t tell me you’re not at least a little curious.”
That was enough to drag Bones’ eyes away from his son. His brows shot up. “Are you?”
“No.” Jim confessed it with a flicker to that sunny smile. “But I am missing the whole crew. Feels…”
“Isolated,” Bones finished, not because he felt that way but because Jim did. No matter how many romantic relationships Jim pursued, everyone had cottoned on to the fact that the team was Jim’s first love. First priority, first everything.
“Gosh.” Jim scoffed suddenly and Bones took the opportunity to steal the mug from his hand. “I’m starting to sound like you. All dismal and worst-case scenario about everything.”
Bones gulped a mouthful only to make a face. “Red wine, really?”
“Hey, it pairs with the coffee’s acidity.”
“My mom put you up to this.”
Jim laughed. “She offered white but was happy to let me use the last of the Merlot.”
“Heathens, the both of you.”
Bones hid his own tiny smile at Jim’s snickers, muffled to keep from waking Chekov. The boy shifted and a curl tangled in eyelashes under his left brow.
Truth be told, this was the best Christmas Bones had ever experienced, at least since he was a child. To have both his kids under the same roof, where his biggest concern was how to possibly beat Pavel at chess (unsuccessful so far) or repair loose wiring in the kitchen settled something quaky in Bones’ gut. Such peace was unheard of.
“Any panic attacks lately?” asked Jim, leaning on the other side of the door frame.
“He hasn’t had one for weeks now.”
“That’s amazing. All of us really are turning over a new leaf.”
“Yeah.” Bones handed back the mug. He hoped Jim wouldn’t see his white knuckles around the handle. “Let’s hope it keeps on turning.”
“More sugar?”
“Oh, da. Double, if you please.” Pavel extended his plastic purple cup and held it steady while Joanna plopped two more invisible ‘sugar cubes’ into it. “Spasibo.”
Jo sat back with a self-satisfied smile. “You’re welcome. Tastes good, doesn’t it?”
Pavel had watched lots of kids on the playground do this. As such, he waited until Jo took a ‘sip’ before he tipped the teacup towards his mouth. Jo’s eyes sparked in a familiar expression, one of intense focus and interest—only instead of surgical manuals, Jo studied Pavel’s face.
“Does the honey pair with my sunflower petals?” she asked.
Pavel smacked his lips. “It has a lovely bucket.”
“Bouquet.”
“Ah! There’s the right word.”
“That’s what Daddy always says when he drinks Grandma’s wine.”
“I thought bouquet meant a lot of flowers.”
Jo scratched her head. The motion ruffled seemingly endless layers of tulle in the skirt of her matching purple dress and yellow rainboots, part of an ongoing attempt to find ‘her style’ now that she was allowed to dress herself. At least it was better than the full fire fighter costume last week—she’d been gunning for heat stroke even in this Texan winter.
“Oh yeah. That is weird. But then adults are always weird.”
A twisty little flutter pirouetted around Pavel’s breastbone. He cleared his throat. “I suppose so.”
He kept his eyes on the rickety folding table between them and both sweater sleeves over his hands to hide red cheeks. Jo remained oblivious to his shyness amidst happily rearranging her teapot and—thankfully very real—vanilla wafer treats on the little plate.
A separate tin of chocolate chip cookies sat in Pavel’s lap, courtesy of Babu’s recipe that he’d memorized long ago.
“Now that pleasantries are over.” Jo slid a water gun across the table, a rifle design. Jo called them ‘blasters.’ “This is my best one.”
Pavel inspected the gun. “How many will it cost?”
“Four.”
“Nyet.” Pavel shook his head. He took another dainty ‘sip.’ “Is too steep a price for such puny weapon.”
“Okay. Three cookies.”
“Hmm.” Pavel leaned sideways in his tiny chair, knees up almost to his bellybutton. “I see you have other wares we may broker with.”
Joanna reached under her chair and set two more water guns and an especially large super soaker on the table. “These aren’t for sale. I need them to beat the cousins at our rematch.”
“Ah, but if you sell them to me, I will lend them to you and then they won’t have any to use at the water fight.”
“Surely your prank on Uncle Jim doesn’t need more than one gun.”
Pavel sniffed, imperious. “I am still planning. Depends.”
Jo thought about that with the crinkled forehead and low brows of a serious businesswoman. Her coffee-brown eyes darted from the coveted cookies to her cherished super soaker.
“Two water guns,” she said. “That’s my final offer.”
“Worth two cookies each.”
Jo’s face fell. “Okay. That’s not so bad.”
Pavel stretched out his hand. “Deal?”
“Deal.”
Jo shook his long fingers with her tiny ones.
Pavel tucked two of the water guns under his chair right as Bones emerged onto the back patio. He shaded his eyes against the noon sun, lifting a swatch of hand-knit cardigan. His softer edges diffused midday sunlight, none of the angular tension from before Christmas. Something glinted at his throat whenever he shifted.
Pavel waved.
“It was a pleasure doing business with you, as always,” Jo chirped.
Pavel inclined his head and began counting out six cookies. “Likewise.”
Jo’s eyes lit up. “Why did you put two more in there?”
“It is important to tip your favourite supplier. An extra cookie for each gun.”
“Yay! Dad, look!”
Bones stopped between their chairs and blinked down at the table. “What the Sam Hill kind of tea party are you having?”
“We’re playing arms dealer! Pavel needed some guns.”
Bones cut a look at Pavel, who studiously sipped his non-existent tea.
“Uh-huh.” Bones snuck a cookie before Pavel could close the lid. He bit off a huge bite and spoke through it. “For what?”
Pavel and Jo met each other’s wide eyes.
“Nothing!” they yelled in unison.
Bones rolled his eyes. “Great. I’m raising an organized crime conglomerate.”
“Daddy, what’s a conglomerate?”
“It means people who are independent but working together, like I need to be with Pavel right now. You mind if I borrow him for a few minutes?”
“Nope!” Jo stuffed three cookies in each pocket of her fluffy dress. “I have to go find my foam throwing stars anyway.”
She skipped away towards the porch with all the jauntiness an eight year old can manage.
Bones shook his head. “I want to blame her mother, but that hutzpah is all me. Dare I ask what the water guns are for?”
Pavel slowly set down his cup in its saucer. “You vill find out tonight.”
“Will I be in the crossfire?”
“Not if I can help it.”
Bones sat in a more adult-sized folding chair next to Pavel. “That’s what I like to hear.”
Bear of a man that Leonard McCoy was, he tended to lean back in chairs, arms folded, content to watch over his charges without fretting. That’s how he sat when they watched TV in the evenings or presided over heated games of Monopoly.
Now, however…
“Len?” Pavel reached over and stilled several twisted fingers Bones’ lap. The doctor’s back was ramrod straight. “You’ve been acting strange all day. Vhat is wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” Bones rushed to cup one hand over both of Pavel’s. “Nothing, Pav. I’m sorry if I gave that impression. I just…I’ve been a little selfish, as Jim rightly pointed out this morning.”
Pavel frowned. “Selfish?”
Leaned over his knees as he was, the glint around Bones’ neck picked up speed. Pavel squinted and realized it was a silver pendant on a thin chain. The circular disk depicted two snakes wound around a staff, a raised frieze that was surprisingly detailed.
Bones followed Pavel’s eyes and touched the necklace. “Found this while I was packing. Got it at my med school graduation but lost it years ago. Turns out it was hiding behind a bookcase in the living room the whole time, where I used to keep physical copies of certain anatomy textbooks.”
“You like…snakes, then?”
Bones smiled. He squeezed Pavel’s fingers. “Definitely not. This is the symbol of healing.”
“I did not know that.”
Bones dropped his voice to something quiet, confiding, even though Jo had already gone inside. “Dad gave me this, his last gift before he died. Said even if everyone around me called me crazy for trying to help, I should do it anyway. Like Moses.”
“What does Moses have to do with healing?”
“Story for another time.” Bones chuckled. “I was just glad to find something of Dad, a memory of him bein’ proud of me. He was pleased I picked a career path I believed in over a stuffy pencil pusher job at the university, like my ex-wife Tamara wanted.”
“I cannot see you as anything other than a doctor.”
“Neither could I, trust me.”
Pavel sucked in a breath. “Wait. Packed? You found it while packing?”
Memory’s faint glow in Bones’ smile dimmed. “Starfleet messaged Jim few days ago. We’ve received an urgent request to come in for a new assignment.”
“You mean…”
“They did it, Pav. They rebuilt the Enterprise in just five months. We leave Friday.”
All of Pavel’s air deserted him at once. He sat back. Bones didn’t release his hands, a warm cocoon compared to spring air. Today was Tuesday. He had less than three days to say goodbye.
“But…” Pavel watched Jo battle imaginary foes with her toy sword in the living room, through the patio’s glass sliding door. “It is her March break. Ve…ve were going to have a Disney marathon.”
“I’m sorry, Pavel. The admiral asked for the whole Alpha crew to be present, not just Jim.”
Pavel stiffened against the chair’s plastic back. His cheeks went from flushed to icy cold.
Bones’ sympathetic eyes hardened. “This will not be like last time you stood in front of an admiral. You hear me?”
Pavel nodded. “Because you will be there.”
“And Jim and Sulu and everyone else. The new admiral isn’t like Jenkins and if by some lapse of sanity she behaves that way—I’ll punch her too.”
This wrangled the tiniest smile out of Pavel. “It might be nice to solve math formulas again.”
“You ruined this nice vindictive parenting moment,” Bones groused.
“Nerdiness is not contagious.”
“See, you say that. But since adopting you, I now know what a quark is.”
“Quarks are not my job.”
Bones winked with a ruffle to Pavel’s hair. “And yet you have so many of them.”
Teenage instinct kicked in and Pavel shoved his guardian away. That started Bones off laughing and Pavel couldn’t help but join in.
As if to echo its owner—the pendant winked in the sun too.
“Are you sure she is alright?” Pavel wrung his hands, out in the hall beside Bones. His sweater bulged at his lower back, hiding two water guns in his belt. “Vhat if she does not stop crying? I did not expect her to react that way to the news about us leaving. What if she refuses to eat supper? How are we supposed to—”
“Pavel, honey.” Bones turned from shutting Jo’s bedroom door and placed both hands on Pavel’s shoulders. “I leave her all the time to go to space. It’s practically routine at this point and she would have had to go back home to her mother at the end of the week anyway. She’s most upset about you leaving.”
Pavel blinked fast. “Oh.”
“And children are adaptable. That’s the trade-off for her stealing all my socks.”
“You really do have the best socks.”
Bones swivelled Pavel around until he walked the first-floor hallway and faced the bottom of the stairs. “I really do. Now. I hear an irritating uncle coming. You better get him good for me.”
“How did you—”
“Oh please.” Bones shooed Pavel. “You think I don’t know every single scheme my children cook up? Plus, Jim deserves this for eating the last slice of Mama’s key lime and blaming it on me.”
Children, plural. The word never failed to derail any logical train of thought.
Flustered and sputtering, Pavel hid behind a tall plant at the bottom of the stairs and waited for Jim’s light steps to hop-her-hop down the steps in that distinct rhythmic, uneven gait. They were slower today.
Right as Jim reached the penultimate stair—the squeaky one—Pavel jumped out. He brandished Jo’s yellow water gun. “Ah ha! Take that!”
Pavel fired right at Jim’s head. Water streamed down the captain’s stunned face and open mouth faster than he could wipe it away with his hands.
Once he’d recovered, Jim’s eyes narrowed. “You used the duck and reverse move I taught you. My own pupil betraying me.”
Pavel smirked. “Is okay. You’re pretty good for an aging man.”
“Aging? Aging?”
Suddenly a shorter figure side-stepped out from where she’d hidden behind Jim, floral sundress and all.
Pavel gasped. “No.”
“Oh yes.” Alice raised the giant super soaker Jo wouldn’t sell at lunch. The water pistol Jim whipped out from behind his hip was only slightly smaller. “We’ll show you aging, young man.”
“Nooo!”
Pavel took off running, back of his sweater drenched before he even skidded around the kitchen corner. Bones sat at the island with his tablet.
“Bones, quick!”
“Way ahead of you, kid.” Bones snagged the other water gun off Pavel’s belt on the run by. “Let’s show these old timers how it’s done.”
Jim beelined into the kitchen. “Bones, you’re older than me.”
“Shush. No sound arguments while I’m schooling you.”
Alice reloaded at the sink. “No mercy from me, son!”
“Bring it on, Ma.”
Pavel tried to splash at both Jim and Alice with each shot, ducking behind either Bones or the counter for cover, but Jim was too fast, squirrely with every perfectly timed shot. His gun drenched a direct bullseye on the heart of Pavel’s shirt whenever he so much as peeked out from behind Bones’ shoulders.
The water fight created massive puddles on the floor, overturned chairs, water stains on the wallpaper. Laughter bounced off the walls too until Pavel realized the sound belonged to himself, riding the coat tails of Jim’s manic giggles from where they all teamed up and chased him into the dining room after he turned on Alice.
And at the top of the stairs, reigning over the chaos—
Joanna sat with a blanket around her shoulders and a dozen cookies stacked beside her. She took a serene bite right as Jim wailed about his good shoes being ruined.
Bones did a double take from setting down his zipped luggage in the upstairs hallway. “You’re just doing your laundry now?”
Jim breezed by with yet another armload of clothes. “Good things come to those who wait.”
“Yeah but not waiting until the day we leave.”
“Would you chill out?” Jim whapped Bones’ chest with the back of a lazy hand. “Make yourself useful and help me fold the last load.”
Bones was about to follow Jim down the stairs when he passed Pavel’s open bedroom door and noticed a glimmer in the otherwise untamed bronze curl cloud. A bleary glimmer.
Bones walked inside and perched on the edge of the bed. “Morning.”
“Does it have to be?” slurred Pavel.
“It does if you want breakfast before we leave. We hit the road at ten.”
“Mffmm.”
Bones smiled. “You sleep okay?”
“Stayed up late reading an article for Sulu.” Pavel lifted his head, right cheek lined and indented with pillow folds. “Didn’t want…didn’t feel relaxed enough to sleep right away.”
Bones heard what that meant but didn’t call him on it. “Excited?”
“Da!” Pavel flopped over onto his back. “At least, I think so. My belly is in, how you say, tangles?”
Seemed to be contagious. Bones’ stomach lurched just thinking about what awaited them.
He covered it up with a pat to Pavel’s rake-like tummy. “Ma’s cookin’ll fix that. She made eggs and French toast to send us off—if you can nab some before Jim eats it all.”
Pavel didn’t rise to the bait. He examined Bones from under those long lashes. “Len?”
“Yeah?”
“On Tuesday, you said you were selfish. How does telling me about our recall to headquarters make you selfish?”
Bones took a bracing breath and deliberately relaxed his jaw. “I just didn’t want to leave so soon. I enjoy watching you be a kid, playing with Jo.”
Pavel bought the deflection. A rosy tinge bloomed in his cheeks. “I am not very good at it. I have not been…silly since I was little.”
“Good thing you have great teachers.”
“Teachers?”
“Let’s be real. Jim is the real kid around here. Especially when it comes to procrastinating on packing.”
Pavel sat up. “He woke before me?”
“Yup. Even had time to get dressed and do laundry.” Bones poked the boy’s side and couldn’t resist a metaphorical dig to go with it. “He’s probably munching on all that French toast right now.”
Pavel’s eyes widened. “For real?”
“As the plague.”
“I’m up! I’m up!”
“And you have to wear that yellow shirt again?”
“Mhmm.” Pavel hummed it around a mammoth bite of syrup-covered French toast. “Every Starfleet officer from my division does. I made sure to pack a few last night.”
“I thought you wore red shirts,” Jo argued.
Bones passed by with a low rumble. “Not anymore, he doesn’t. If Scotty doesn’t want to die a slow, agonizing death, he’ll remember that. Pav belongs up on the bridge.”
Pavel ducked his head but couldn’t stop an exasperated grin. He didn’t have the heart to tell Bones not to worry, not when he still had nightmares about that day too.
Bones squeezed his shoulder before he made it to the coffee pot.
“Oh.” Jo sat back on her chair. She wore a tutu over her turtle leggings today and a leather jacket to top it all off. “No offence, ‘Vel, but yellow isn’t your colour. You should ask for blue like Dad.”
Pavel smiled down at her. “I will be sure to file a complaint with my superiors.”
“File it to Spock, not me, and we’re all good,” Jim piped up, also whizzing through the kitchen. He held yet another pile of dirty laundry to throw in the refresher.
“Don’t worry,” said Jo. “Yellow’s more your colour, Uncle Jim.”
Jim tipped an invisible hat. “Thank ye kindly, madam.”
Jo giggled. Her legs swung along with Pavel’s, hers a few feet off the floor and his a few inches. Bones kept promising Pavel would grow and catch up on changes he missed in puberty now that he had consistent meals. No luck yet.
“Sank you for breakfast, Alice.”
Alice turned from the stove and flipped one last piece of toast onto a plate. She wore her usual apron this morning, smile wide, but Pavel noticed a droop around her eyes. “You’re welcome, baby.”
“Thanks, Grandma!” Jo parroted. Pavel tweaked her lopsided braid, forever touched at her new habit of copying him. After one last bite of bacon, he rinsed his plate in the sink.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” asked Alice.
Pavel kissed her cheek on the way by. “I just have to finish packing.”
“Packing?” Alice switched off the stove. “You did a meticulous job last night. Surely you’re all set.”
“Can never be too careful!”
Pavel jogged up the stairs to his room and managed to avoid Jim’s mad dash. He’d enlisted Bones’ help, the man whining about whatever germs lived on Jim’s clothes while dutifully carrying them down to be cleaned. He currently hauled what looked like Jim’s greased-stained T-shirts, courtesy of fixing up Daisy while he stayed with them.
“Okay. Final check.” Pavel made it to his room and glanced around. “It vould not do to forget something important.”
Every stitch of his meager clothing had been neatly rolled into his backpack the night before, along with a new toothbrush and spare pair of shoes. A mental checklist ticked through Pavel’s head for the eighth time. He massaged at a twinge in his shin while he did so, the pain a new development these last few days.
Socks, undergarments, Jo’s drawings for me, comb, photos…
“Photos!”
Pavel dashed for the pillow on his made bed. Crouching and slipping his hand underneath, he withdrew two pictures, one of his grandparents that Bones had found for him all those months ago, just before they signed the adoption papers, and a more recent one from Christmas—Pavel and Jo with hot chocolate marshmallow mustaches on their upper lips while Bones laughed at them in the background.
Both were printed on ultra thick cardstock so he wouldn’t tear them. He had digital copies too, but…it didn’t beat the real thing.
“And here I am almost forgetting them.” Pavel tucked the photos carefully between two soft shirts and the chess set in his pack.
He was about to stand, still massaging his leg, when something metallic caught his eye from the corner of the bed.
Pavel hesitated. Sweat pearled along the back of his exposed neck.
“I forgot about that first night, that I even…”
Pavel’s fingers dug underneath the mattress, much slower this time. He checked to make sure no one stood in the open doorway before pulling out a rectangular shape.
It was a simple power bar, oatmeal and date jam with tiny chocolate chips dotted throughout. Pavel saw the bar perfectly in his mind’s eye even through the foil, for he’d watched Alice open and eat one on his first night here, when he’d hoarded these away. She loved them, buying more when Jim came to stay and guzzled food at the typical rate.
Pavel himself had never tried one. He lifted the mattress a little higher to reveal four more just like it.
Surely…surely at Starfleet headquarters…
Don’t be stupid, Pavel.
Pavel grit his teeth and slammed the mattress back down.
He stood and shouldered his backpack. The temptation to do a spin and memorize Bones’ childhood bedroom overpowered any pragmatism about being on schedule and Pavel indulged himself with a mental photoshoot of little details: a missing chip in the plaster by the table, how the window glass had warped over time so it created a prism halo when morning sun filtered through the right side, pencil lines with Bones’ growth rate as a kid on the closet door.
Pavel made it all the way to the room’s threshold before his steps faltered. His hands wrung in the bag strap, clammy.
Wide eyes tracked a middle distance he wasn’t even seeing and something like a trapeze artist’s flight before hitting the net swooped Pavel’s stomach up, up, up high enough that he felt nauseous.
He swore and darted back into the room, stuffing all five granola bars deep into his backpack.
Bones tromped over from Jim’s room. “Jim finished his typhoon packing ritual at long last. How this man survived into adulthood is beyond me. You good to go?”
Pavel fumbled to zip the pack as fast as possible. He smiled. “Ready!”
The muffled crinkle of foil seemed to cackle at Pavel as they walked down the stairs.