Title: Many Bells Down (5/?)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: Sequel to Along Comes a Stranger; Riverside ‘verse. Dating Bones and Spock is wonderful, better than Jim imagined. Then Bones’ mother arrives, Spock receives the offer of a lifetime outside of Riverside, and Jim has to make a series of choices that could completely change his – and ultimately Riverside’s – future.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

I think we can all agree we are bogged down with RL right now. I know I am. It’s not that I lack inspiration for this story, but said inspiration has been pushed to the back burner and kept there while other things take precedence. I will try not to feel discouraged, and in return I hope you, my readers, will look kindly upon this poor writer. Story is coming, albeit slowly – I promise!

Part Five

They are arguing. Jim hears them the moment he steps onto the porch of Spock’s house, motorcycle helmet in hand. Who knew Bones and Eleanor sounded so much alike when they raised their voices? Bones’ mother is a fiery female cadence of Bones’ enraged drawl.

Jim has a sinking feeling the two McCoys are fighting about him; he also thinks—no, knows in his very gut—that tonight nothing is going to go as planned. He hopes, however, that something can be salvaged and no one will come away too emotionally sore.

Hopes and fears—for Jim, his fears almost always win over his hopes.

Jim enters the family living room just in time to see Bones storm out the sliding glass door leading to the back patio of the house. The echo of an angry “Goddamn it! Just stop, won’t you!” followed by a knife-sharp, remonstrating “Leonard Horatio McCoy! Get back here!” greets Jim.

Paused awkwardly in the archway between the hall and living room, Jim is about to backpedal and take a long detour to the garden (where Bones will storm to, he knows) when Eleanor catches sight of him.

Her face is lined with anger but her eyes speak of desperation. “Are you satisfied?” she snaps at him out of nowhere.

He shouldn’t respond, shouldn’t, but his mouth is always one step ahead of his brain. “Satisfied? Why?” Jim steps fully into the room, sets his helmet in a chair, and drapes his jacket over the chair’s back.

That is all the rope she needs to hang him with, apparently. “Don’t play dumb with me, Jim. You know good and well what this is about!”

Now she wants to use his first name. That sparks something within Jim, something that she only saw a glimpse of when he had had a bad day and told her, ill-tempered and fed up, to stop acting like a bitch.

“Actually, I don’t,” he says in a hard voice. “What did you do to piss off my boyfriend?”

In the back of his mind, he acknowledges that he sounds like his mother in a snit—and that both scares and thrills Jim.

Eleanor doesn’t need much prodding at this point; she is already riled to go a round or two with him. “Don’t you dare take that tone with me!”

“I am not your son.”

“Because the Lord is kind! I wouldn’t want you for a son—and I don’t want you in my family!”

Score to her for neatly and bloodlessly ripping out a chunk of his heart. He tries to shake off the aftereffects and come in from another angle. “Don’t you at least owe me the courtesy of an explanation? Why do you hate me so much, Eleanor?”

Her lips pinch together for a moment (Bones does that, Jim thinks absently). Eleanor’s tone is too soft. “You know what you are doing to my son—you have to know. How could you not? And I hate you for that.”

Frustrated, he almost yells “I’m not doing anything to Bones!” but holds it in at the last second because an unexpected thought occurs to him that overrides everything else. He looks around, face paling. “Where’s Joanna?”

Eleanor shudders, a momentary breach in the thick wall of rage fortifying her. Her words are clipped, if somewhat strangely and suddenly bleak, as though fighting weighs on her. “Spock had the sense to take her out for a drive. Leonard—and I—wouldn’t… Joanna was traumatized quite enough by her parents’ divorce. She doesn’t need to see how truly dysfunctional her family is.”

He closes his eyes briefly in relief. “Thank God.”

“I want the best for my son and granddaughter. That Jocelyn—” The way Eleanor practically spits the name of her ex-daughter-in-law is slightly terrifying. “—was so difficult; to convince her to allow Joanna to come out here and visit her father cost a great deal of everyone. It won’t happen a second time.”

Jim swallows. “You can’t know that.”

“I do!” she says fiercely. “And you know what that will do to my boy. Leonard can’t stay here and keep Joanna too.” She ends with a bitten-off cry and an agitated gesture that Jim has seen Bones make when ridden hard by helpless frustration. “I’ve tried to tell him,” she insists, “over and over again but he won’t listen to me! He won’t leave this damn town!” Bitterness flavors her last words.

Jim really shouldn’t be so amused that she curses. He shouldn’t.

He is.

Punching down an inopportune giggle (one that might get him smacked soundly by a heavy-laden purse, he imagines), Jim stiffens his spine and breathes deeply. If Kirk wasn’t so certain that Bones’ mother would hate him for it, he would offer her a comforting hug. The older woman’s normally prim and cool facade is cracking and they both know it. Jim has caught a flash of how sick and worried Eleanor is before her iron control reasserts itself, which she won’t like.

He admits, “I don’t want Leonard to leave Riverside.”

“I don’t want Joanna to grow up without her father,” she counters flatly. “I know he’s happy here, and I thank God that he isn’t—isn’t like he was when he left Georgia. I didn’t stop him from going because I understood he had to get away or he would never heal. Spock promised me,” she says, so unexpectedly earnest that Jim’s heart skips a beat, “he would look after my son. But Leonard was going to come back home. He was supposed to come back.”

“Eleanor,” Jim barely manages around the strange something hampering his voice, “I’m sorry.”

And he feels sorry and guilty, just for brief second, that Leonard happened upon Riverside, met Jim, and decided to stay. Then those feelings pass quickly because, above all else, Jim accepts that he is selfishly grateful his Bones is still with him.

Jim’s apology, however well-meant, only serves to revive Eleanor McCoy’s anger. She flushes, no doubt interpreting his “I’m sorry” as pity, and her words come out in a rush: “YOU. I don’t know who you think you are, James Kirk, but I’ll certainly tell you who you aren’t—and that’s the right person for my boy! You’re no good for Leonard!”

He would have preferred a slap to the face.

“If Leonard loses his daughter, you’ll have to live with that. And believe me, Mr. Kirk, there is no one on God’s green earth who can replace that little girl!”

“It’s not my fault!” Jim shouts back, fists balling. “I didn’t break his heart or take his daughter away! I didn’t force him to come here. But I did fall in love with him, and you can’t expect me to just let him go.”

Oh God, lose Joanna. He won’t let Bones lose Joanna. He won’t. The thought makes him sick to his stomach.

They face each other, two people who love Leonard McCoy down to the core of their beings, trembling with the force of their emotions. Neither is willing to yield an inch to the other.

Jim tells his boyfriend’s mother, “I swear, I won’t abandon your son—but that also means I won’t let him abandon me, not unless he asks me to.”

“Leonard’s as foolish as you are” is her grim reply, “and he’ll lose everything because he is foolish.”

Then Eleanor places a hand over her mouth, a clear signal that she has nothing further to say, nor will say, and turns away from Jim.

Jim won’t embarrass her by watching her struggle not to cry. He won’t embarrass himself either, not here. He picks up his jacket from across the back of the chair and leaves, uttering not a word. He doesn’t slam a door on his way out. The argument ends wrapped up in silence because it is too momentous for sound.

Being out in the open helps. Jim drives his motorcycle carelessly from one highway to the next, needing the wind in his face. He left his helmet at Spock’s and cannot seem to care, much less force himself to turn back for it.

Where to go? Where?

He has no destination in mind and isn’t certain if he is attempting to escape or find one. None of that matters, however—the wind is drying the un-shed tears in his eyes and the cold air catches in pockets beneath his unzipped jacket, chilling Jim until he is blissfully numb.

He knows he cannot ride on forever so after spying a familiar crossing to his right, Jim turns onto a new road. It’s late enough that he can get lost in the haze of a smoky bar until the need to drive again urges him out onto the highway. Jim’s plan is this: when dawn comes, he will be absolutely exhausted—physically, mentally, emotionally; then he will go home. He won’t be able to think, only sleep.

It’s a place to start.

The bar looks and smells the same as he remembers it. Jim has been on this one stool for approximately thirty minutes with his booted feet propped against the lower rung and his back beginning to ache from an improper slouch. He is currently nursing his second beer when the last person he wants to see appears and digs her nails into his shoulder.

“Not out with the hubbies?” queries Marlena with a smirk and a flip of her hair.

Jim keeps drinking his beer.

“Ah,” she says knowingly. “So what are you lookin’ for, honey? Commiseration party or just someone to fuck?”

“If I wanted either,” he says as he smacks his beer onto the bar counter, “I wouldn’t ask you.” He occupies himself with mopping at the condensation along the outside of the glass bottle with a small paper napkin. After a moment, Jim cuts his eyes at her. “Still here, Marlena?”

She retracts her hand from his shoulder and for a split second Jim thinks she is going to slap him. But her face clears of black anger and her usual malicious expression returns.

“You are pissy tonight, Jimmy baby. Dare I guess that your little domestic arrangement isn’t working out so well? C’mon, you can tell me. I am the soul of discretion!”

That doesn’t even warrant a response.

Because Jim knows her, he can tell Marlena’s smile is not friendly at all—more like a shark’s grin before it snatches its prey. Marlena wants some kind of information to hang him by, and she isn’t afraid to lie, seduce, or steal to get it if she can. He wonders if the chip on her shoulder is because of Trelane’s sudden and mysterious departure from Riverside, or if she just hates him that much.

Wordless, he gets up, beer in hand, and moves down to the opposite end of the bar. Marlena, left standing on her own, fumes for a moment before she turns and stalks away, disappearing into the crowded dance floor of the bar.

Jim sits down at an empty stool without paying much attention to the man on his left. Not paying much attention, that is, until a voice says with a hint of dry humor, “She seems pleasant. Friend of yours?”

“Definitely not,” Jim practically snorts into his beer. Twisting at the waist, Jim has his hand held out in greeting (it’s only polite after all and maybe if he’s engaged with someone Marlena won’t make a second attempt to pester him) but stops short of “I’m Jim.” Instead, he stares like an idiot.

Khan Noonien Singh allows the shock of silence to stretch between them for a few seconds then lightly but firmly shakes Jim’s proffered hand. He asks sharply, “Do I know you?” no doubt guessing that Jim knows him.

Jim figures some of the truth is safer than none. “I, uh, work at Jose’s Auto Shop. I saw you leave after you… talked with the owner.” He almost said propositioned, which would have been a poor choice of wording to start a fruitful conversation.

“Ah,” says Khan, the tension in his shoulders easing back a notch. “I suppose you now regret selecting a seat without first observing your potential neighbors. You have my word I shall not be offended,” he remarks with a curve of his mouth, “if you wish to relocate.”

The mild but intent look on Khan’s face asks a question that Jim finds himself answering instinctively, no other options considered. “James Kirk,” he introduces himself, “and I won’t leave. I have some pride left.” He admits so ruefully.

“Mr. Kirk,” Khan returns. “Well met. I am Khan Noonien Singh. You may, of course, address me plainly, as Khan. You and I, we have no need to stand upon ceremony under such conditions.” His short gesture indicates the midnight-crowded bar around them. Khan then signals the bartender. “Would you care for a stronger drink? I enjoy brandy. The flavor of a fine brandy is robust, if properly made, and delightful to the senses. Much like wine.”

Bones would love this kind of romanticism about liquor. Jim takes a healthy swallow of beer to quell the sharp pain in his breast at the thought of Bones. “No thanks, beer’s good.”

“You may change your mind” is Khan’s answer. To the thirty-something bartender, “Another cognac.”

Jim watches the bartender refresh Khan’s drink and frowns at the label of the brandy bottle. Pricey—and not the usual brand of drink served here. “Hey, Cupcake,” he says aloud, earning a mean look from the bartender, “where have you been hiding the quality liquor?” Jim brought Bones here once, watched his boyfriend take a sip of the house bourbon, and promptly choke on it, griping that it tasted like old bootlaces. Bones had shoved the barely touched drink away and ordered a beer like Jim.

Cupcake—who has no great love for James Kirk, not since that bar fight years ago when Jim got dumped headfirst into a shelf of Cupcake’s meticulous array of drinking glasses—eyes Jim with intense dislike as he screws the cap back onto the brandy bottle. “This ain’t business stock,” he tells his nosy customer. After carefully placing the refilled tumbler in front of Khan, Cupcake adds, “Belongs to this fellow. I just get paid to pour it.” And that, it seems, is the extent of conversation the man wishes to have with an upstart troublemaker who calls him Cupcake.

Jim looks at Khan, incredulous. “You brought your own booze to the bar?”

“If no one is obliging, a man must cater to his preferences himself. Does this strike you as unusual, Kirk?”

Actually Jim has the distinct impression that Khan seeing to his own comforts wherever he goes is very much ordinary—for Khan. What is strange is that a rich man like Khan would deign to patron a backyard watering hole, especially this shabby and homely bar of Cupcake’s. But to say so would be rude, of course. Some of the manners Jim’s mother tried to teach her son did stick after several thumps upside the head.

Jim shrugs, keeping his thoughts tucked away in his head and not en route to his mouth.

Khan continues to observe him. Jim’s eyes skip around the dimly lit bar looking for a quick escape, should one become necessary. Except he cannot justifiably walk away from this opportunity when Lady Q has faith he will play spy for her. There is also the small matter of Jim’s growing need to make sense of his life and all the obstacles therein, Khan factoring largely as one of those obstacles.

His options are limited, then. Jim settles for a disarming grin. “So… what are you planning to do with Riverside once you buy it up?”

Khan laughs, exposing a flash of white teeth in a tanned face. “Excellent! A man who does not bother to dissemble. You impress me.”

“Well, we could dance around the white elephant in the room but I’m terrible at the rumba.”

Spock’s eyebrows would shoot up in response to Jim’s mixed metaphors; Bones would simply look on in amusement and then challenge Jim with a better (in Bones’ opinion, that is) set of Southern euphemisms.

Khan is neither Spock nor Bones. The man ignores Jim’s humorous appeal altogether and presents his business card to Kirk.

“What kind of company is Eugenics?” Jim wants to know, skimming the card and not entirely feigning his ignorance.

“Many persons believe I am in the business of medical evolution. Personally, I find the description lacking the basic truth of my Eugenics’ mission. We seek to empower Man: to reform what the world has grown accustomed to and reset our standard of being—to challenge what we, as humans, are with the intention of improving the natural state of our species.”

“Revolution,” murmurs Jim, turning Khan’s card over in his fingers.

“Yes,” Khan agrees quickly, almost eagerly. “I can see you understand the difference. Most do not—or will not.” His expensive brandy sits forgotten to the side. Khan’s gaze flicks past Jim to a noisy couple fighting in a booth along the opposite wall. “We are born commoners, Kirk—every last man on this planet. Our potential is suppressed by the banality of day-to-day living. I ask you, why should we not be born kings instead? Think of what we could be!”

Jim is fairly sure kings—and kingdoms—are a thing of the past.

Khan re-direct his gaze to Jim again, and Jim realizes that Khan’s attention had never entirely wavered from him, despite appearances. “I invest in more than land, my friend,” says Mr. Singh. “I invest in people.”

Jim stills. “What do you mean?”

“Do you understand why you are different from your peers, Kirk?”

He shakes his head in denial, stressing, “I’m not different.”

“You are.” Khan silences Jim with the simple gesture of raising his hand. “I do not speak of your intelligence, though it is obvious you are more intelligent than a majority of the men and women among us. Perhaps you will explain to me some day why you chose this life for yourself—in such a nondescript town—when…” He waves his own words away. “No matter, I believe in destiny. Destiny leads us to unexpected opportunities, does it not?”

Jim is beginning to realize that he should have backed away from Khan when he had the chance.

“I will tell you why I noticed you, James Kirk. You came here to dull your thoughts with alcohol, like so many of these people tonight; unlike them, however, you are careful, not indulgent to the point that you lower your guard. You never cease to observe your surroundings. Before that woman touched you, you tensed. You could not see her yet you tensed. You are always alert, always on edge. Why?“

Khan is too astute for his own good. Jim doesn’t like to hear such things about himself, even if there is some truth in them.

“Quite simply, it is what you are, Kirk.” Khan almost sounds smug in his assessment. Turning in his chair, he motions in another direction. “Then there is the man in the far corner, who has idled there for some time. I saw his face when he looked at you; I saw your face when you first noticed him. He hates you. You pity him for his hate. He is on his fourth beer and is impaired enough by now to antagonize you but does not. Again, I ponder why… but I know that answer, too.”

Jim’s shoulders tighten at the mention of Frank Rand sitting across the room. He thinks he feels Rand’s eyes on his back at that very moment, no doubt which they are. Frank was here when Jim arrived. Neither of them have made a move to tangle. Frank won’t because he would be locked up in a heartbeat by his former boss, Sheriff Komack. Jim won’t because, as Khan said, he has no spiteful feelings towards Frank—only pity and a small, hard knot of mistrust that he doubts will ever go away.

“The answer lies within those who are not afraid to approach you,” continues Khan doggedly. “How many people have greeted you since you arrived?”

Jesus, has Khan been counting? Jim tightens his hold on his beer, uneasy. “It’s a small town,” he argues. “I know everybody, and I’m a friendly guy.” His friendliness is something he is beginning to regret.

“Perhaps…” says Khan in a slow, accented rumble. “Perhaps not. I have noticed people do not simply greet you. They want your advice, ask you to settle their disputes, or seek out assurance that you will acknowledge them. Most intriguing, Kirk, most intriguing. Were you older, I would surmise that you are a leader of the Riverside community, possibly Mayor or Chief of the police. Since you are too young to hold a political position—”

Jim frowns.

“—I can only assume you will be such a man one day.”

“No way!” he blurts out, astonished by the idea.

Khan ignores his outburst. “Therefore you are of use to me. I invest in people, Mr. Kirk, but only those who have the potential for greatness. As I am an example of such a man, I can easily sense those who are of my ilk. It would be in your interest to join Eugenics.”

This… is bordering ridiculous. “I don’t have an education,” Jim points out, thinking of Bones’ long years of schooling, residency, and practice and how McCoy would most likely jump at an offer like this. But for Jim it makes no sense. He sighs. Only with his schizo-luck could a meet-and-greet with a man in a bar turn into a job interview.

“A formal education is unnecessary. You will learn as you progress in the program. Adaptation is, of course, the part which we wish to study most: how might a man with natural gifts of intelligence and leadership ability become superior in every way possible?”

“Wait,” Jim interrupts sharply, “you want me as a test subject?“

Khan cuts his eyes at Kirk. “If we cannot learn to shape the best of men into kings, how could we possibly hope to raise the weak to a throne some day?”

Jim pointedly waves his half-empty beer in the air to catch Cupcake’s attention and drops a few bills onto the table to pay his tab.

“Look, Khan, you have some high aspirations. Congratulations, man, but I don’t share them. I am happy with my ‘common’ condition, so I’ll have to pass. Thanks for the consideration though.” He tries to return the business card to the dark-suited handsome man.

“Keep it,” Khan tells him mildly. “The world is—how do you Americans phrase it?—rather small. We shall meet again, James Kirk.”

Jim stands up and shoves his hands into his jacket pockets. Khan does not offer a farewell; neither does Jim. Truthfully, Jim knows Khan’s prediction is right. He has to cross paths with Khan Noonien Singh again because he has not figured out what it is about Khan that leaves him so deeply unsettled.

The man isn’t crazy, is in fact well-mannered about Jim’s refusal and seemingly calm; but there is a quality to Khan’s stare, in Khan’s body language, that Jim can almost grasp as familiar. It isn’t like the maniac switch between dispassion and glee that Trelane indulged in, or the hatred permanently embedded in Rand’s eyes. It is something entirely new and frightening.

Whatever it is, it’s ruthless.

As Khan must be.

Jim is cold on the inside when he swings out of the bar and into the parking lot. Going back to his apartment alone (hell, even facing Eleanor again) seems more welcoming than the thought of what lies ahead. He wants badly to find Gaila now; he is worried for her. Instead, knowing he has limited power and even more limited say-so in someone else’s life, Jim aims his bike in the direction of the Q compound.

Lady Q is going to be miffed that Khan wants to buy him.

If Khan is not already aware of the Q—the Powers That Be in this region of the world—then he might find out about them very soon. Jim holds onto that thought hard as he rides through the dark of the night; but he is still cold and his troubles are still crowding around him, haunting him, until he can do nothing other than run.

Next Part

Related Posts:

• Many Bells Down (12/12) – from November 9, 2011
• Many Bells Down (11/12) – from November 8, 2011
• Many Bells Down (10/12) – from November 6, 2011
• Many Bells Down (9/12) – from October 30, 2011
• Many Bells Down (8/12) – from October 28, 2011