Title: The Case of the Mondays, Part 9 (#20, J ‘N B Series)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Summary: Comment!fic finished as a tribute to the fic-inspiring, awesome comm jim-and-bones; PI!Bones, Cop!Jim ‘verse. All good – or bad – things must come to an end.
Previous Parts: Another Day, Another Dollar, and a Daily Show? | Fight the Good Fight | Don’t Touch the Rock | A Tear Worth Gold | Another Day, Another Dollar, Part 2 | Pirates Read Too | The Case of the Mondays | Today’s Topic -Helmets! | The Case of the Mondays, Part 2 | Marked | Awesome Ideas Come from Awesome Brains | In the Keeping of a Spirit | The Case of the Mondays, Part 3 | The Case of the Mondays, Part 4 | The Case of the Mondays, Part 5 | Forewarned is Forearmed | The Case of the Mondays, Part 6 | The Case of the Mondays, Part 7 | The Case of the Mondays, Part 8

“Pacing will only exacerbate your condition.”

Jim grits his teeth and continues to ignore his kidnapper. When he reaches the end of the library, he pivots on the ball of his foot and strides back toward the opposite side of the room. He is fairly helpless do anything else; but pacing… Spock cannot stop him from doing that, at the very least.

Beginning a fourth loop, Jim turns away from the empty fireplace to find the art thief standing a hair’s breadth away—and directly blocking Jim’s well-worn path in the oriental rug.

He warns the man, “Get out my way.”

“Would you like a drink?” Spock inquires casually, as though Jim isn’t seconds away from murdering him.

“No!” the cop snaps. The last thing he needs is to dull his reflexes.

Something akin to vexation flickers through Spock’s dark eyes. “You will not have a drink, nor will you concede to touch the lunch I provided. Jim, you are behaving unreasonably. Depriving yourself of nourishment does no injury to me. Even McCoy was not so foolish.”

Hearing Spock talk about Bones has the effect of boiling Jim’s blood. He goes with his first, most intense reaction and lets his fist fly. Spock catches Jim’s fist in one hand and detains it mid-punch.

“Do not,” the man says very softly, “think to use violence against my person. I can, and will, retaliate.”

Jim lets loose his dare-devil grin. “I’m prepared for that.”

But Spock replies, “No, Jim, I do not think you are.” He lets go of Jim’s hand and takes a step back, only remarking after a silent, tense moment, “I will be downstairs in the main hall. When you have… calmed enough to accept your situation, I ask that you join there.”

Jim shouts at Spock’s retreating back, incensed and perturbed at the same time, “I’ll never be okay with this, Spock—never! I won’t be your prisoner!”

The gentle click of the library door as it closes is the only response to Jim’s pronouncement. Frustrated beyond belief, Jim grabs the back of a chair. The action keeps him from snatching the nearest object—which happens to be a miniature ivory carving of an elephant—and throwing it at a wall. He digs his fingers into the supple leather, scoring it with his nails. Jim almost screams but, knowing how important emotional control is if he wants to survive, bites viciously down on his tongue instead.

It’s all fun and games until someone gets kidnapped. Or worse yet, until someone dies. Jim is under no illusion his situation isn’t direly serious. But that means nothing to him in the scheme of things. He paces because if he doesn’t move, fear may burrow into the very marrow of his bones and leave him whimpering on the floor. He can’t shake a nagging feeling, the kind that only ever surfaces when he imagines something has happened or will happen to Leonard.

And if Bones is going to do what Jim suspects he is, Jim shall never know peace again.

Damn Spock! Why can’t he see what he’s done to them? Why can’t he see what will result from forcing Jim and Leonard apart?

Bones, Jim thinks desperately, clinging to the chair now to support his suddenly wobbly legs, be safe. Don’t… just don’t get yourself killed.

Leonard isn’t planning on getting himself killed but, you know, shit happens.

Chekov looks down the scope of the rifle at him, grinning like a damned Cheshire cat.

McCoy is not a fucking canary to be played around with before it gets eaten. He snaps out, flat on his back in a snow bank, “Well, which is it? Are you gonna shoot me or smirk at me all day, kid? One bullet to the head oughta make things permanent.”

“Da,” agrees the chipper-looking maniac with the gun. “However, I think if I shoot you, Mr. McCoy, I will be out of wery entertaining work.”

Leonard purposefully flings snow at Chekov as he sits up. The sniper doesn’t even flinch.

“You’ll be out one of your nine lives, is what’ll happen,” Leonard counters. “Spock ain’t too pleasant to people who hurt his—his…”

Uh. Shit.

Chekov says it for him. “His vhat?”

“His toys,” he finishes, pressing his lips together in a thin, unhappy line.

“Ah,” murmurs the man. Then, “You must be a favorite toy of Mr. Spock’s. I would not vant to break his favorite toy.” And, surprising McCoy, he lowers the rifle and unscrews its silencer. “Come,” orders the young man, “it is time we returned you to your toy box.”

Leonard grimaces as he stands up, thinking he should never have given Chekov that analogy. Upright and out of that blistering cold snow, he gently prods the corner of his mouth, wincing at the immediate throb. Chekov has a solid, mean punch.

He decides it is unfair that his opponent appears untouched while Leonard feels rumpled and sore. Also, he finds it a little unnerving how the smaller man so efficiently brought him down. Their confrontation had lasted all of two embarrassingly short minutes, whereupon Leonard ended up on his back with the business end of a gun in his face. Chekov has, apparently, had the kind of vicious hand-to-hand combat training Leonard never received, not even from those free karate lessons paid for on behalf of Spock.

He asks, trudging through the snow in front of Pavel, “How long have you been part of Spock’s team?”

“No talking” comes the sharp response.

Well, fuck. That’s all Leonard is good at, talking. If he cannot talk, he can’t solve a puzzle.

Stubborn to a fault, he takes his chances that Pavel won’t shoot him point-blank between the shoulder blades. “You seemed pretty gung-ho to eliminate Captain Kirk. You must hate cops.”

Silence. Leonard decides that might be a sign of resignation to conversation.

“Was it so bad,” he muses, subtly digging for information he can use, “working at the precinct? There are cops who are a-holes for sure but most of Jim’s unit happen to be decent folk.”

“Mr. McCoy,” a cold, cold voice states, “if you do not stop talking, I vill stop you from talking.”

He clears his throat nervously. “Name’s Leonard, Pavel. Done told you that a thousand times if I told you once.”

He isn’t expecting the hard shove from behind. Leonard drops to his knees, shivering at the icy bite of snow against his skin. He watches warily as Pavel circles him like wolf scenting the right weak angle to strike. When the man comes to a standstill, rifle still strapped—untouched—to his back, Chekov double-checks the ammunition in his handgun and finally lets his narrowed gaze release McCoy from a terrifying hold.

“I do not care what your name is,” the inexplicably hard-faced man tells him. “That is Mr. Spock’s first mistake—he cares. Do not believe me to be like him.”

“I—”

The muzzle of the gun is aimed at his head. “Lie down.”

McCoy’s heart skips a beat or two, painfully so, but he manages to protest, “In the damn snow?”

Pavel Chekov says nothing, which is warning enough. Leonard stretches out and does his level best not to plant his face against the ground. His neck muscles strain with the effort.

The other man is, if anything, quick about his business. Before long, Leonard’s hands are tied securely behind his back with nylon rope. Chekov rolls him over and orders him to get up. With undue ceremony, a cloth is shoved into his mouth. Chekov looks Leonard over afterwards, seemingly approving of his work. They start marching again, one laboring step at a time, along the side of a steep hill.

Leonard is too preoccupied at balancing so he doesn’t fall over and roll the rest of the way down the hill to notice the quiet curse behind him. Out of nowhere, Chekov’s hand grabs at his shoulder. Leonard fumbles forward but catches himself in the act of falling and makes a muffled squawk of what the hell? don’t tilt me, idiot!

“Be silent,” hisses the man, dropping into a crouch and dragging McCoy with him.

Leonard looks on frank curiosity as Pave concentrates elsewhere, watching something through a small pair of binoculars. McCoy squints hard in the direction of interest but he can see nothing except more glistening snow and the tops of a few pine trees.

The man curses again, softly, in Russian. Then he is un-strapping and readying his rifle in short, staggered but professional motions. “You brought them!” Chekov accuses McCoy in thick English as he works.

Can’t fucking talk with the gag in my mouth, dumbass. He tries to make as many annoying sounds as possible.

Chekov flicks at an angry look at him. “Shut up, or I may shoot you on accident.”

As opposed to on purpose, like he threatened some ten minutes ago? This one’s nuttier than peanut butter. Where the hell does Spock find his thugs?

The man next to McCoy is asking, “Which should I target first, Mr. McCoy? There are four of them.”

Four of…?

Leonard shakes his head like a dog, suddenly in a cold sweat and swearing, Take the damned gag out, take it out, you bastard!

Chekov isn’t gentle as he rips it from Leonard’s mouth, demanding, “Vhat!”

He asks, panting, “Who… what…?”

“Kelso, Roberts. Sulu. One man I do not know,” Chekov supplies, mechanically listing the human beings he is about to kill. “In the trees. They are watching us.” The corner of Chekov’s mouth curves lazily. “Da, but I am watching them, too.”

“Pavel,” McCoy says, heart pounding, “you aren’t going to kill anybody.”

“No?” The young man’s finger strokes the trigger of the rifle. “I can see the links in the chain around Sulu’s neck. Vhat do you call them? His dog tags.”

“Chekov,” Leonard says again, voice stronger, “I said you aren’t gonna kill anybody.”

Click. The safety being removed on a gun.

Chekov freezes, his shoulders coiled tight. He does not lift his head from where it is angled to accommodate the curve of the rifle against his shoulder. “How did you loosen the ropes?” he asks mildly, as if Leonard isn’t pointing his own gun at him.

“Letter opener up my sleeve,” Leonard explains, proud but edgy. “Filched it from Spock’s library, just in case.” And thank God he had had that foresight.

Chekov’s murmuring is soft, almost wistful. “I did not think to check there.”

Leonard stands up, gun still trained on Chekov, and hopes that Sulu and his men can spot him (Jesus-God, do not shoot me instead, he prays) and figure out they’d better get their asses up here. Leonard doesn’t imagine Chekov will lie there quietly to await his arrest.

Time is moving too slowly for his liking. He asks because he wants to know, “Tell me why.”

“Why I vill kill Kirk?” Chekov finally cocks his head in Leonard’s direction. “That is simple. He knew.”

Knew?

Leonard hears a shout. Sulu’s voice. He doesn’t take his eyes off Chekov to confirm Jim’s men are on their way. “What do you mean?”

“The Keptin knew what I was. That is why he let me follow him. I did not realize this until after, of course. I thought he was just stupid, to turn his back to me. Trusting. But,” Chekov focuses on his gun again, “I misjudged. In his desk, I found a paper with a word on it.”

Leonard isn’t certain he can comprehend everything Pavel is saying. Leonard’s profession, his need to know, drives him to keep asking questions. “What did it say?”

For a second he doesn’t think Pavel is going to respond. But the man does, in a hushed tone like he is telling a secret. He tells Leonard, “It was my real name.”

His real name?

“McCoy!”

Just for a second, a split second, his attention is divided. That second is all Chekov needs. Leonard goes down with a sharp cry as Pavel sweeps his feet out from under him. Shots ring out in the air, bouncing in sounds waves off the nearby mountains. Men shout.

Leonard lies dazed in the snow, completely amazed that he isn’t full of holes.

No, he isn’t dead or even wounded. And Pavel Chekov, somehow, has vanished like a ghost. The rifle is gone too, while the handgun lies abandoned in the snow some feet from McCoy. He slowly sits up and stares at it.

The person dropping to his knees next to McCoy is Sulu, Jim’s right-hand man. “You all right?”

Leonard blinks. “Yeah, I think so. Did you…?” He can’t finish the question. Pavel is the sweet-faced kid he shared a beer with at a stag party for one of Jim’s soon-to-be-married cops. They sang the same karaoke song.

Chekov, the killer, is nothing like earnest rookie Pavel. Reconciling them seems impossible but, truthfully, Leonard cannot wish either incarnation of Chekov dead.

“No,” answers Sulu, perhaps feeling as Leonard does. “He didn’t open fire on us so I… might have aimed a little wide.”

That’s fucking screwed up right there. Yet Leonard cannot blame Sulu for it.

He drags in a sudden breath and says a name simultaneously. “Jim.” The next words come out fiercely. “Sulu, we’ve got to get Jim!”

“Yeah,” the other man agrees. “We have that covered.”

By covered, Sulu means they have Spock’s hide-away mansion surrounded; well, surrounded as best they can with it being on the edge of a mountain with a thousand-foot drop.

McCoy is all for breaking down the door and charging in. In fact, he is the first man in line behind the cop with the battering ram. These Colorado police are very cooperative with their out-of-state (and out-of-jurisdiction) brothers, it would seem. They don’t protest Leonard insisting on being part of the raid. McCoy thinks some of that hospitable mentality should be credited to Sulu, who pretty much said, kidnap victim or not, he wasn’t dumb enough to get between McCoy and his lover.

Bullet-proof-vested and armed, two dozen men flood the downstairs floor of Spock’s home. Leonard heads for the second floor and its adjacent wing without hesitation, following his instinct. He doesn’t give in to his need to cry out Jim’s name and, instead, makes a methodical search of that eerily quiet part of Spock’s house he is most familiar with, room-by-room. When Jim steps out of the library, probably wondering why doors are being kicked open, Leonard’s anxiety and fear explodes into one flying tackle.

He realizes belatedly that tackling a concussed man is not the greatest idea in the world. “Jim,” he says in a rush, “I forgot, oh God, I’m sorry! Open your eyes, damn it, how many fingers am I holding up?”

Jim blinks open his eyes on command and grins up at him, one hand leaving his temple to sink into Leonard’s hair. “Bones, Bones—c’mere,” Jim urges.

Leonard would be a fool to do otherwise. The kiss is the most poignant of Leonard’s life. It means Jim is alive, he is alive, Spock be damned. He drags his mouth away from Kirk’s in that instant to gasp, “Spock!”

Jim licks at his fervently kissed lips and answers the unspoken question uncertainly. “I don’t know.”

It turns out that nobody knows what happened to Spock.

The task force doesn’t find him hiding on the premises. It’s hypothesized he already knew the Kirk’s policemen had been anonymously tipped and were en route to rescue Kirk and McCoy. He must have had an escape already planned, out a back door and into the pines bordering the property on a snowmobile, mayhap, or a land rover.

“I don’t care if he fucking hang-glided off the cliff!” Leonard shouts. “HE GOT AWAY!”

Jim doesn’t know if Bones is yelling just to be yelling or yelling at the scared-faced, clueless Colorado PD milling around the house. Somebody alerted the media and Jim can already see where they are setting up camp at the end of the drive within a desginated area.

Kirk sighs. “Bones.”

McCoy may be yelling at people passing by but he refuses to let go of Jim’s arm. Not that Jim is complaining. He would, however, appreciate less noise. He tries again. “Bones.”

“—I’ll skewer the son of a bitch when I get my hands on his scrawny neck—”

Jim rubs at his head, hoping the headache will go away on its own. Maybe the dizziness too, if he’s lucky.

“—Jim? Hey, easy there, darlin’, I got you.”

Jim sighs again, never mind that he might be swaying slightly from vertigo, because he cannot stop thinking about his mistake. He is unaware of McCoy propping him up. “He knew I would never listen to him. “

Leonard caresses the side of his face with cold fingers. “Don’t worry about it, Jim. Let it go, for today at least.”

But he feels he has to say the words. “Bones, Spock knows me. He said I had to accept I wasn’t going to win and that—is something he has never said to me before. Normally it’s Spock telling me I can beat him if I try harder. This time was a complete 180. Why did he tell me that?”

“To screw with you,” Bones says instantly. “The man’s a goddamn pain in our asses.”

“No,” Jim disagrees, “he said it so I wouldn’t want to follow him.”

Bones looks at him with startled consideration. “…So he could get away. Fuck.” Growling, the private investigator adds, “Only thing that could this any shitter is if Spock tipped off the PD himself.” As soon as the words are out of Leonard’s mouth, they both groan aloud.

“Goddamn it! That rich, evil bastard—”

Jim closes his eyes briefly, knowing he has no hope of stopping McCoy’s rant now. “At least we’re together,” he points out whole-heartedly. Bones’ arm is warm around him.

“Because of Spock,” McCoy adds quietly.

Grimly, he keeps his silence. If Jim were to admit such, he would have to consider possibilities no law-enforcement officer should entertain. He can’t consider them, not as a dedicated cop sworn to his oath. Jim leans into McCoy, seeking a moment’s support. As Leonard’s arm tightens around him, he remembers he has that support for a lifetime. He doesn’t intend to let Spock take Bones away from him again.

six months later…

…”I cannot be so easily reconciled to myself. The recollection of what I then said, of my conduct, my manners, my expressions during the whole of it, is now, and has been many months, inexpressibly painful to me. Your reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: ‘had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.’ Those were your words. You know not, you can scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me;—though it was some time, I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their justice.”*

“Bones.”

A soft grunt. The turning of page.

“I was certainly very far from expecting them to make so strong an impression. I had not the smallest idea of their being ever felt in such a way.”

“I can easily believe it. You thought me then devoid of every proper feeling, I am sure you did. The turn of your countenance I shall never forget, as you said that I could not have addressed you in any possible way that would induce you to accept me.”*

“Booones.”

“In a minute, Jim.” He skips down the page to his favorite part.

“My object then,” replied Darcy, “was to show you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes introduced themselves I can hardly tell, but I believe—”*

The book is stolen out of his hands.

“Hey! I was readin’ that!” McCoy snaps upright from his comfortable slouch in a chair. He glowers his disapproval, trying to warn Jim to return the book before dire consequences abound, but his obnoxious partner places it in a cluttered drawer in his desk and locks said drawer with the explanation, “You’ve read it more times than I count. I should have never let you take it out of Evidence.”

Leonard crosses his arms. “It’s work, Jim. A case study.” Wow, when did he become terrible at lying? Leonard blames his deteriorating skills on Jim’s pretty face.

“No, it’s not.” Jim looks exasperated and a touch amused. “You’re obsessed, Bones.”

“So are you!” he retorts. “At least I don’t call halfway across the country asking people if they’ve seen him. I’m not splitting the phone bill with you this month, by the way. Those long-distance charges are all your doin’.”

“What I’m doing is my job.”

“Admit it, mundane criminals bore you to tears, Jim.”

“Like you’re one to talk!”

They engage in a you’re-worse-than-I-am stare-down, which is forcibly interrupted some minutes later by an unforgiving knock on Kirk’s office door. Jim says less cordially than usual (mainly because he lost the staring contest, McCoy thinks smugly), “Come in!”

Sulu strides inside and dumps a vase of flowers on Jim’s desk. Then he strides out, never once looking anyone in the eyes.

Jim’s loser’s scowl lightens considerably. “Bones, flowers? Really?” He makes a delighted, ridiculously adorable sound. “What’s the occasion? Normally your definition of romance is a porterhouse and a bottle of whiskey,” Kirk jokes as he reaches for the white card.

Leonard attentively sits forward in his chair. “Don’t knock steak and booze. ‘N I didn’t send you flowers.” Considering Jim’s expression, maybe he should be sending his lover flowers every once and a while.

Jim reads the card quickly then hands it across the desk to McCoy with a puzzled expression. The typed print says: To Jim and Leonard.

McCoy frowns. “That’s it?” He lifts an eyebrow at Jim. “Winona, maybe?”

Jim shrugs but his eyes are fixed on the card in Leonard’s hand. “Bones, could—”

“CAPTAIN!”

The bellow breaks into the relaxed, soft atmosphere of the precinct like a war cry. Kirk is out of his office in an instant, demanding to the cop who yelled, “Report!”

The cop, one of last month’s recruits, fixes wide eyes on Jim and Leonard. “Sir, there’s been a break-in at the Cartwright Museum!”

McCoy isn’t aware he is holding his breath. Next to him, Jim’s entire body tenses.

The rookie is still babbling on: “…fifteenth-century Japanese painting…worth millions…left a message oddly enough, Sir, for you and Mr. McCoy.”

Jim’s hand seeks out McCoy’s. Leonard returns the grip with a painful squeeze of Jim’s fingers.

It couldn’t be.

The rookie quotes: “Who that has loved knows not the tender tale Which flowers reveal, when lips are coy to tell?“**

But it is.

“Hot damn!” is Leonard’s whoop, scaring several nearby donut-chewers with its ferocity. “We got a fuckin’ case!”

THE END

* – excerpt from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
** – quote from Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron, Corn Flowers–The First Violets (bk. I, st. 1)

______

Thank you to everyone for the support and encouragement you showed during The Case of the Mondays‘ development. I never imagined one comment!fic would require eight additional parts to make it complete. This ending, of course, is the beginning of a new adventure for PI!Bones and cop!Jim. As for Spock… well, he shall always remain, I fear, the most elusive art thief of all. Good luck to Jim and Leonard. And thank you for reading.

Serenade

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