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There had been a while – a short while – when the biggest things Jim had to worry about were how much Romulan ale he could sneak onto the Enterprise during the next shore leave, how he could make meatloaf come out of the replicator in the shape of turkey to celebrate the old American holiday Thanksgiving, and whether or not he was going to tell his crew that their captain and Chief Medical Officer were sleeping together.
They were pressing enough issues while they lasted, in the brief period of calm in Jim’s life between what would go down as two of the biggest disasters in modern day Starfleet history. But that was before Jim got the Enterprise taken away from him and then given back. That was before a madman from the past woke up and tried to destroy Starfleet. That was before Jim died.
-
After Jim died and came back, Bones kept him sedated in Starfleet Medical for a week. He slipped in and out of consciousness, aware that he was being watched; sometimes Uhura was there, sometimes Scotty, sometimes Spock. A tricorder malfunction - that was the story passed along to the few members of the crew who had been present when Jim had been declared dead, and that had filtered out to the press. They swallowed it easily; no other explanation seemed possible. The fact that Jim had truly died, that Bones used Khan’s blood in the serum that brought Jim back to life, was known only to top brass at Starfleet command, and it became a closely guarded secret, filed away to be forgotten.
Bones did face an emergency court-martial – the ethics board had a lot to say about bringing people back from the dead, it turned out – but Bones and Spock spent days researching past cases of forcible blood donation. In the end they argued it down to a demerit, which was quickly overlooked alongside Bones’s otherwise spotless record as CMO of the Enterprise and, of course, the miracle of saving the life of Starfleet’s most famous captain.
When Jim was finally released from Starfleet Medical, Bones drove him to the small, standard-issue apartment just outside the Presidio he’d been given after things calmed down. Bones walked Jim inside, looked around appraisingly, checked the replicator, and went back to the front door.
“Bones,” Jim said. “Where are you going?”
“Leavin’ you to get some rest,” Bones said, his eyes on the floor.
“You can stay,” Jim said, hating the plaintive note in his voice. He’d thought he was past this with Bones, this immature, desperate need, but he hadn’t slept the night before and Bones hadn’t kissed him since he’d come back to life and he was tired, so tired of it.
“I shouldn’t,” Bones murmured, more to himself than to Jim.
“What’s wrong?” Jim asked, stupidly. A lot of things were wrong. He felt like he was looking at Bones through a soundproof window; he could see Bones, but he couldn’t hear him or touch him or get through to him. He knew that Bones had not yet forgiven him for asking for Spock, not Bones, at the end; he knew that he himself had not yet forgiven Bones for refusing to let him die.
“Nothing,” Bones said. “Just tired. Why don’t you get some sleep.”
“I’m not made of glass,” Jim said quietly. “You can touch me. I want you to touch me.” He didn’t realize how true it was until he said it out loud: he craved Bones’s hands, his mouth, his everything. He wanted to be wrapped in the other man, in a safe place where he wasn’t terrified by everything, including his own body.
Bones turned to face him, and in the dim lights his face was contorted. “Shouldn’t.”
“You’re not going to break me,” Jim said, a bit pleadingly, which he hated, because James T. Kirk did not plead for anything. “I’m okay.”
Bones looked angry for a second, furious. “You’re not fucking okay. You were dead.” He covered his eyes with a shaking hand.
“Hey, I thought you said I was barely dead,” Jim said.
“I lied,” Bones hissed. “You were totally dead. You were dead, Jim, you were dead right there on my table. I had to call it. No life signs, 1700 hours. Do you have any idea what that was like for me?”
“No,” Jim said honestly. “Pretty awful, I bet.” He grinned, a half, teasing smile, and it felt foreign on his face but he didn’t know what else to do, and the window cracked a bit as Bones rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and scowled.
“Understatement of the fucking year,” Bones said. “You fucking bastard. Going in there – self-sacrificing asshole – don’t even get me started – ”
“I wasn’t gonna,” Jim said, and then Bones had thrown his arms around Jim’s neck and was clinging to him like a life raft, like he might drown if he ever let go. Jim felt his weight like a brick in his stomach, because it all clicked suddenly, and he was Bones’s life raft, his tether, and all the hours he’d spent wondering why Bones had done it became a little less foggy: Bones had done the unthinkable because living with the alternative was even more unthinkable. The brief flash of understanding was a heavier load than Jim could have imagined.
He didn’t know what to do, so he kissed Bones, and it felt almost like the first time again, all uncertainty and shaking hands, and Bones kissed him back desperately, and Jim felt something break inside of him, because somehow it felt like he was saying hello and goodbye all at once.
-
Jim had read Spock’s official report three times. It was true up until the very end; in this version, Scotty got the Enterprise back online just in the nick of time, Spock and Uhura captured Khan and turned him over to Starfleet Command immediately, and there was no reason for Jim to die or be revived. Spock and Bones had written this report together, and Jim knew he would be expected to re-tell this version of the events, frame by frame, at press conferences and in interviews for the rest of his life, starting with today.
He sat in the first floor office at Command, perfectly still while Spock, Bones, Uhura and Scotty orbited around him, restless, waiting to enter the adjoining conference room where they would give their first public re-telling of the events of the previous month. Jim listened to Spock and Scotty talking quietly, watched Uhura gaze out the window, looked anywhere but at Bones, who was standing stiffly against the wall. He cleared his throat.
“What if I want to tell the truth?”
They all stared at him.
“You have never before taken issue with lying,” Spock said, raising one eyebrow.
“Maybe this is different,” Jim said stoically. Scotty shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, his hands clasped behind his back and his mouth shut tight.
“You realize, Captain, that this would mean an end to all of our careers,” Spock said evenly. “You would never again captain a starship. Your return from death might even be considered by some to be a threat to the security of the Federation.”
“Do you think I’m a threat to the security of the Federation, Spock?” Jim asked, and the tension in the room ratcheted up another level.
There was a moment’s hesitation. “No,” Spock said. “I do not.”
“Then it’s settled. We’ll tell the real story,” Jim said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms. He watched as Spock looked at Bones as if for help; he was torn between amusement that they were working together, and fury.
“Jim,” Bones said, his tone wheedling. “Come on. We’ve been over this. We’re doing what we need to do.”
“I don’t remember being consulted on what we need to do,” Jim said, his tone light. “You know. Before you froze me, stole blood from a deranged genetically engineered superhuman, and stuck it in my body. Isn’t that the kind of thing you ought to run by your captain, Doctor?”
The words hung in the air. Jim stared Bones down, feeling like he was looking at a stranger.
“You were dead,” Bones said quietly. “You weren’t the captain anymore.”
And suddenly Jim was furious, was seeing bright stars in his eyes when he looked at Bones.
“Maybe I should have stayed dead,” Jim said loudly.
“Is that what you would’ve preferred?” Bones asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.
“It would have been better than this,” Jim said, his breathing ragged.
“You don’t mean that,” Bones said, so quietly it was almost a whisper, and Jim looked away and pretended he hadn’t heard.
“What’s done is done, Captain,” Spock said. “This is the way the official report reads, this is the way the story will be told.”
Jim stood up. “Your funeral, Spock.” He laughed harshly. “Should’ve been mine.”
Spock opened his mouth to speak, then closed it as the door opened silently. “Are you ready?” a yeoman asked, sticking her head inside.
Nobody answered.
-
Life continued despite Jim’s better judgment. Jim and Spock were declared heroes and given more medals, which Jim dropped in a drawer and never looked at again. Funerals were held, and Jim counted the number of deaths that were, this time, his fault. He spent a lot of time in his small apartment watching and re-watching holo-vid coverage of the destruction and repair of San Francisco until the voice of the newscasters became a drone, a never-ending roar of horror and death that could all be traced back to one James T. Kirk. When Bones came over he would turn it off quickly, pretend he’d been watching something else, reading, sleeping, anything. Bones wasn’t fooled.
The Enterprise underwent repairs. Jim was sent reports that stacked up on his PADD, beeping at him tauntingly when he didn’t open them fast enough. He tried to scan the documents, but his eyelids felt heavy after a few paragraphs, and he’d get a headache and feel like laying down, and so he resigned himself to the beeping.
Jim carried around a rock on his shoulders, a burden that kept him constantly on the brink of being crushed. He was always tired, but he could rarely sleep. He felt better when he was alone during the day, but at night, he waited for Bones to arrive. They didn’t talk much; he let Bones touch every inch of his skin and capture his mouth with bruising kisses and stroke his hair until he fell asleep. His dreams were full of engine rooms that had no doors, glass that he couldn’t break no matter how hard he tried, and he woke gasping for breath.
The day he got his orders to return to the Enterprise, he felt the rock on his shoulders shift; it pressed down his chest, forced the air out of his lungs as he counted his ship’s complement, wondering how many would survive his captaincy. They had given him back his ship; he was to captain a five-year mission of exploration. The victory felt hollow after so much defeat.
As Jim sat on the bed in Bones’s apartment and watched him pack, Bones kept up an uncharacteristic stream of chatter, gossip about their crew, predictions about the kind of missions they’d be sent on. Jim didn’t contribute much.
“Hey,” Bones said suddenly, and Jim looked up at him, realizing he hadn’t heard a word in minutes. “I thought this would help. You know. I thought you’d be excited to get back up there in the black.”
“I am,” Jim said simply.
“You’re sure as hell not showing it,” Bones said. He sat down next to Jim on the bed and stared straight ahead. Jim wondered when they’d last made eye contact; Bones seemed to avoid it more than ever these days.
“Do you ever,” Jim said, “think about what things would be like if I’d just stayed dead?”
“I try not to,” Bones said gruffly.
“I do,” Jim said. “All the time.” He leaned back in the bed and pillowed his head on his hands.
Bones looked down at him. “Jim. Please don’t say things like that. Just – just don’t think about it, okay?”
“Can’t stop,” Jim said. “What does your psych degree have to say about that?” He felt a twisted grin split his face. Bones just stared at him. Jim wondered if he could kiss away the look of horror on his face, but he couldn’t find the energy to try.
-
Up in the black, Jim was busy. He liked busy. There were reports to sign off on, landing parties to lead, aliens to negotiate with. On the bridge, he was still Captain Kirk, still in charge of this ship; he wasn’t the man who’d died, the man who’d been brought back to life hollow and brittle. And if he wasn’t sleeping much – if he was catching only a few hours in between shifts, cat naps, really, with Bones’s arms locked around him and keeping him from floating away – nobody noticed.
But he knew Bones noticed when he arranged their schedules to be on opposite shifts most days. It was hard to miss. Bones didn’t say anything. He slipped into the CMO’s quarters late at night, when he knew Bones would already be in bed, and curled up against Bones’s back. Bones touched him hesitantly now, nervously, as if worried he might break, and Jim hated him for it.
As they lay awake one night afterwards, silent and sated, Bones whispered into his ear, “Can’t you understand why I did it?”
Jim didn’t ask him what he was talking about. “No,” he said. “And yes.”
“The Enterprise needs you,” Bones said. “Starfleet needs you. Everybody here needs you.” It went unspoken but loudest of all: I need you.
Jim shifted in bed, uncomfortable. They spoke of it so rarely that there seemed to be so much and so little to say every time it came up, always at night, under the cover of darkness, when they didn’t have to look each other in the eye. “You did it because you were angry,” Jim said. “Angry at me. Because I didn’t have Scotty comm you.” Jim felt Bones stiffen in his arms.
“I’ve never asked why, and I don’t want to know,” Bones said, but he was lying. Jim wondered how he could ever explain it. He barely knew himself.
“You shouldn’t have done it,” Jim said, feeling his hands start to shake.
“You make it sound like I did it all for myself,” Bones said. “Like there ain’t nobody else benefitting from you not being dead.”
“Is there?” he asked, and Bones didn’t answer. That night, Jim didn’t sleep at all.
-
It was little things that set off their fights: Jim left his dirty gold command shirts all over Bones’s quarters and couldn’t find the energy to pick them up. Jim flirted too much with Nurse Chapel, and Bones snapped at him, and Jim snapped right back, furious one second and exhausted the next, unable to finish the fight he’d wanted to start. Sometimes Bones nagged at him to eat more, work out at the gym more, spend some time in the officer’s mess playing chess with Spock or listening to Uhura on the Vulcan harp or talking shop with Scotty. Anything, Bones said, anything would be better than laying in bed in his quarters, watching old holo-vids. Jim ignored him, responding to his concern with irritation, and eventually Bones stopped making suggestions, and the silence between them became sullen.
When the tension finally shattered, Jim couldn’t say he hadn’t expected it. A routine mission gone wrong – how many times had Jim had that thought before? – a simple moment at the beginning of his shift, signing off on Bones’s medical report for the past day, when suddenly Uhura was interrupting, and the tactical panels were flashing, Jim felt lightning bolts of adrenaline flood his veins, and finally, finally, something was happening. Finally there was proof that he was alive.
The distress call from nearby Volan III left little to the imagination: Klingons had crossed into Federation space and fired upon an unarmed settlement. There were dozens dead and hundreds wounded, and the Klingons had taken off as suddenly as they had arrived. Activity on the bridge kicked into high gear, and Jim felt the rush of adrenaline buzzing through his veins.
“Captain, the warbird is leaving the sector,” Sulu said. “If we pursue, we might be able to catch it.”
“Jim, we’ve gotta get down there and help those people,” Bones said. “Send down a landing party with my team and supplies.”
“Sulu, pursue the warbird,” Jim said, ignoring Bones.
“Now you wait just a second and let my team transport down there,” Bones said. “The Klingons can wait, there are people down there who need us.”
Sulu looked back at them, his eyes darting between the captain and the CMO. “Sulu, pursue, that’s an order,” Jim said firmly, before rounding on Bones. “Bones, prepare your team, you’ll beam in as soon as we track down the Klingons. They’ve crossed into the neutral zone and attacked an unarmed colony, and we’re not letting them get away with it.”
“Getting revenge is more important than saving lives now?” Bones cried. “This is against regs and you know it – ”
“I’ll thank you not to question your captain’s decisions,” Jim interrupted. “Now prepare your team – ”
“Dammit, Jim, just because you don’t give a damn whether you’re dead or alive doesn’t mean everybody else feels the same!”
The bridge fell silent. Jim could feel Spock’s eyes on the back of his head. He stood up so he was nose-to-nose with Bones. “Get the fuck off my bridge right now, McCoy.” Bones’s eyes narrowed, shuttered closed, and Jim knew they’d never open for him again. “Did you hear me? Get out of here. That’s an order.”
They were too late to catch the Klingon warbird before it crossed out of the neutral zone, and 58 people died on Volan III. Bones’s official report stated that he thought his team could have saved more people if they’d beamed down earlier. When Jim returned to his quarters three shifts later, he found a pile of clean gold shirts, folded neatly, just inside the door.
-
Starting that night, he couldn’t sleep.
-
Coffee and stims only worked for so long. The sleepless nights became more frequent, stretching from days into weeks. Jim couldn’t adjust to Bones’s stilted, formal reports, to having the bed to himself, to waking up screaming (when he could doze off at all) without comforting hands and shushing lips.
He tried to catch Bones’s eye after meetings or meet him unexpectedly in the mess, but Bones refused to be caught alone. Jim wondered if he would ever sleep again. His eyes burned and his head pounded and the rock on his shoulders got heavier and heavier.
Three days of shore leave on Risa had only one meaning for him: he had to find something to help him sleep; he had to escape. If Spock or Bones knew how little he was sleeping, if they knew how bad his nightmares were, if they knew how often he imagined climbing into a shuttlecraft and flying into a black hole, he’d be relieved of his command. And if he lost command, if he lost the very last thing he was clinging to, the blackness would swallow him whole.
The pills the Risan pharmacist gave him smelled like smoke and synthehol. “Take one and you’ll be out for 12 hours,” the orange-skinned man told him. Jim went back to the Enterprise and took three. His mind finally felt quiet. He dreamt of nothing.
“Captain? Captain? Jim, I know you’re in there.” It was Spock’s voice, drifting in from far away.
“Sleeping,” Jim muttered, and he smiled.
“My god, what the hell are these?” That was Bones. He didn’t like that. He wasn’t welcome in Bones’s quarters, and Bones wasn’t welcome in his; he’d locked his door to Bones after the Klingon attack. “What did he take?”
When he woke next, the biobed under him was beeping out his heart rate. His head felt like it was full of cotton. He opened his eyes, and it was too bright; he cringed and closed them again.
“You’re awake.”
“Brilliant diagnosis, Doctor McCoy,” Jim said, and his voice was scratchy as if from disuse. “What happened?” He opened his eyes, squinting. Bones stepped into the private room and shut the door behind him.
“You’ve been out for almost four days,” Bones said. “You had a severe allergic reaction to an unknown Risan fruit.” His eyes narrowed. “At least that’s what we told the crew.”
Jim raised one eyebrow. “And in your professional opinion, what actually happened?”
Bones scratched his head. There were bags under his eyes. “You took three doses of an unregulated Risan sleep aid. Spock reckons you took numbers two and three by mistake,” Bones said wryly. “If that helps him sleep at night, I’ll let him believe it. What I don’t understand is why, Jim.”
“Why what?” Jim asked, to buy time. Bones sighed heavily and perched on the edge of the biobed, keeping a safe distance.
“We all risked our careers, our whole lives, on bringing you back from the dead,” Bones said quietly. “And then you go and try to un-do all that work right away. If it’s to get back at me – hell, that I can understand. I don’t like it, but I can understand it. But the others – don’t you know what it would do to them?”
“I don’t want to die,” Jim said, and for the first time in a while, he meant it. “I just want to sleep.”
Bones shook his head. “Jim, I – I’m sorry – ”
“Don’t,” Jim said. “Don’t. I don’t want to hear it.”
“Well that’s too damn bad, because I want to say it.”
“You know why I didn’t have Scotty comm you?” Jim asked, suddenly desperate to explain. “Because if I’d seen you, I would have died begging for you to save me. And I knew you wouldn’t be able to, and I didn’t want to die with that look on your face being the last thing I ever saw. Didn’t want to die knowing I’d disappointed you again.” It all flooded out, everything he’d kept locked up for so long, boxed into a corner of his brain. “I was selfish, selfish as hell at the end, but that’s not how I wanted it remembered. I wanted to die a hero. And you didn’t let me.”
Bones was silent, blank, until finally he said wearily, “I’m always supposed to be able to save you.” He chuckled, though Jim couldn’t imagine anything less funny than this moment. “I knew, I just knew as soon as I started on the serum, that you’d be pissed at me. I knew you’d never forgive me. But it was worth it.” He smiled ruefully down at Jim. “You’re free to go in a few hours, Chapel’ll discharge you when it’s time. I haven’t slept in – in a while. I was just going off duty when you woke up. Comm me if you need anything.” He turned and left without another word.
When Jim left sickbay, it was gamma shift. The corridors were dim and deserted in their pale imitation of night, and Jim walked until he ended up on deck 12. He didn’t know where else to go.
He pressed the panel, expecting to hear the chime, but the doors slid open. Bones hadn’t removed his bio-sign from the door, hadn’t locked Jim out even after all these weeks.
Bones didn’t stir as Jim stepped in and let the doors shut behind him. Jim felt his eyelids get heavy at the sight of Bones, shirtless in bed, the lines around his eyes smoothed out, the blanket twisted around his legs. He walked up to the bed and, after a split-second of thought, lifted the blanket and crawled in. He left space between them, holding himself stiff on his side, staring into Bones’s face.
“Hrmm,” Bones said, his eyes fluttering open. “What.”
“It’s me,” Jim said unnecessarily.
“No shit,” Bones muttered, and his eyes were clouded, lines creasing his forehead. Jim felt the heat radiating off Bones in tense waves.
“I don’t forgive you,” Jim said.
Bones just stared at him. “I know.”
“But I want to try,” Jim continued. “Really try. And I want – I want this.”
“I don’t even know what this is anymore,” Bones said, and his voice caught on the last word.
“Me neither,” Jim said, and he wanted to laugh, but he had forgotten how. “Mostly I want to sleep.”
“Okay,” Bones said, and somehow it was enough, for now. Jim relaxed, fractionally, and pressed against Bones. Bones snaked one hand around his waist and pulled him closer. They didn’t kiss; it was a work in progress. But finally, finally, finally, Jim fell asleep.