Title: Blind to Love (#33, J ‘N B Series)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: Kirk/McCoy
Warning: character death
Summary: Comment!fic inspired by this pic post at jim_and_bones; a story of Jim and Bones where beginnings and endings make all the difference, especially when they are the same.
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 | The Case of the Mondays, Part 9 | Serenade | Another Day, Another Dollar, Part 3 | Tied to You | The Amateur Pigeon-Catcher | The Amateur Pigeon-Catcher, Part 2 | The Art of Beginnings | The Amateur Pigeon-Catcher, Part 3 | Two Birds of a Feather | The Beautiful Bay | The Man in the Shed | Bad Business | A Fortunate Friend

It started out simply enough. Jim fell in love with a man named Bones. Well, to be precise the name Bones was a gift from Jim himself. It wasn’t that Jim didn’t appreciate Bones’ real name. He merely enjoyed bestowing a special name upon a special person; or, that is, upon a man Jim knew would be special to him for a very long time.

But this story hasn’t begun where it should. Jim fell in love with a man named Bones…

…and then Bones left him.

That is the beginning of many things, all of them equally interesting and somewhat sad. To tell you this story in a way that can be digested without much repercussion or heartache, that beginning won’t be our beginning. We shall rewind to a happier moment, to a day when Jim was unaware of what was to come and was burdened by it. The most important things to remember concerning this moment are the facts: Jim met Bones, and Jim loved Bones, and Bones loved Jim back. They are facts which have never been proven otherwise, regardless of what we know to be the future. Perhaps, if one is honest, it is better to say because of each undeniable fact, no other future was possible for Jim and Bones.

But again… we cannot concern ourselves with that. We begin before the beginning.

~~~

“The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” Jim read with high-pitched enthusiasm from a children’s book then paused for dramatic effect, lifting his eyebrows in a silent question. Several audience members clamored for him to continue.

Across the room, Leonard turned away from the scene and resumed a conversation with a young mother of one of the children sitting enthralled at Captain Kirk’s feet.

“He’s really good with kids,” she remarked to McCoy, still watching James T. Kirk appreciatively.

Leonard lifted his coffee cup to hide a fond smile. “Jim’s a kid at heart himself.”

Her sigh was half-wistful and half-regret. With her thumb, she idly rotated with a gold band about one of her fingers.

Leonard couldn’t help but chuckle. This woman wasn’t the first to daydream about Jim, and she wouldn’t be the last. He, however, was lucky enough to have a dream be his reality. …Not that McCoy would ever admit to Jim there was a time when, lonely and enamored, he too had pined after the mighty captain. Jim’s ego, in Leonard’s opinion, was the size of a weather balloon. It didn’t need to swell any bigger, or it would surely pop.

“Oh,” the woman said, sitting up straighter in her chair and gathering her purse, “there’s my husband.” She smiled at Leonard. “It was nice to meet you, Doctor McCoy. Thank you for the coffee.”

He nodded slightly. “Thank you for the company, ma’am.”

She slid off her stool as she said, “Please thank Captain Kirk for me as well. It was very lovely of him to volunteer to read to the children. Georgie!” She called to a little boy of six who resolutely hunched his shoulders and tried to appear deaf to the sound of his name.

Jim was, now that he had finished the story, answering questions that only children would deem important. Georgie, it seemed, like the rest of the children wasn’t ready to give up his attention.

A man approached Georgie’s mother. She greeted him with “Can you get George, dear?”

The boy’s father wordlessly lumbered off to the circle of children. He bent down, rather awkwardly, and said something to the child. Georgie, face mutinous, shook his head fiercely. Unfortunately, due to his small stature, the boy could not prevent his father from plucking him up from the floor and carting him away.

Jim, Leonard knew, had an uncanny sensitivity to upset children. Before the boy could start wailing his protests, Jim stood up and solemnly held out his hand for the boy to shake. “It was nice to meet you, Georgie,” he said, eyes twinkling.

Boy and father stared at Kirk, no doubt struck dumb by Jim’s sheer awesomeness. (Leonard thought this and snickered to himself.) Finally, Georgie’s father remembered his manners and shook his bundle of boy to prompt a response. “Um, Captain Kirk, thank you. Georgie… George, say goodbye to the Captain.”

Georgie blurted out, “I’m gonna be a captain too!”

His father’s ears turned red.

But Jim grinned at this news. “Only the best of the best can be captains, Georgie. Are you the best of the best?”

“Yes, sir!”

“That’s exactly what I thought when I saw you.”

This is precisely what the boy wanted to hear. “I’m gonna go to the Academy and then I’m gonna grwaduate and then…” Very excited now, Georgie clung to his father’s shoulder and kicked his legs. “…and then you’ll let me be Captain of the Enterprise ’cause you’ll be an old, farty Admiral!” He laughed delightedly at this idea.

Jim’s eyes grew comically wide.

Georgie’s mother gasped and snatched up her purse, hurrying away to silence her son before he completely shamed both of his parents in front of the legendary Captain Kirk. Already, Georgie’s father was apologizing profusely and backing away with his son secured tightly in his arms. Leonard, still seated, bent his head to muffle his laughter.

“And I’m gonna fight lots and lots of Klingons and save the universe!” Georgie was bellowing, intent on relaying his entire master plan to his idol.

Leonard was laughing so hard his arm was too weak to hold up his coffee cup. Dark liquid sloshed over its edge as it hit the tabletop with a thunk. His inability to control his limbs only worsened when a cute little girl in a white Sunday dress tugged on Jim’s pants leg and asked around the thumb in her mouth, “Will you marry me, Mr. Captain Kirk?”

The bookstore owner graciously appeared to help Leonard clean up the coffee spill.

“Thanks,” Leonard said over a mound of used napkins.

“While it’s been a pleasure and an honor to have you and Captain Kirk stop by, I think you’d better save your friend.” The owner winked.

Leonard turned around to see Jim miming frantically help me, Bones! as he tried to wade through the remainder of his youngest fanbase in the San Francisco Bay area. Someone had stuffed a doll down the front of his shirt and three toddlers were vying for a piggy-back ride. Another child was beating Jim’s kneecap with a storybook, apparently convinced if he felled the great Kirk, the man would never leave them.

“Jim, time to go,” Leonard said as he strode toward his partner and deftly maneuvered children out of his way.

“I’m trying,” Jim muttered under his breath. He flung out an arm to keep himself upright under the weight of the little bodies attached to his limbs. Leonard caught his hand and dragged him forward. He smiled, knowing exactly how to save Kirk, and put his plan into action.

A chorus of EWWW’s!!! rang throughout the bookshop. Somewhere, a little girl began to cry because her impending marriage to Kirk had clearly been thwarted. (For some of those adults watching Kirk and McCoy, this was the case also.)

Jim pulled back from Leonard’s kiss with a pleased look on his face. The children had dropped off his person like flies and scattered. They didn’t want to be exposed to the “cooties” Jim now sported.

“Love you, Bones,” Jim said, a smile playing about his mouth and a soft look in his eyes.

Leonard brushed his thumb against Jim’s jaw line one last time before stepping back. “‘Course you do,” he replied. “I’m the reason you’re still standing, kid.”

“I know,” agreed Jim. He dropped a hand to Leonard’s shoulder and squeezed it. “C’mon, Bones, let’s go home.”

And they did.

~~~

That was a lovely beginning, indeed. Jim loved Bones, Bones loved Jim, and clearly many, many other people felt the same way too.

But stories also have middles and endings. This story’s ending, in fact, is that (previously mentioned) beginning we are not yet certain we want to read. So let us have a middle instead.

~~~

“Do you think he will accept?”

The question was seemingly idle. Leonard almost huffed in exasperation but he felt the keen edge of Jim’s unspoken worry and gave a comforting answer. “I don’t see why he wouldn’t, Jim. Spock’s probably just acting the diva and waiting until the second before we launch outta the docking bay to show up.” Like last time, McCoy thought wryly.

The corner of Jim’s mouth lifted as his eyes cut to Leonard. “Gee, don’t downplay your sarcasm for my sake, Bones” came the dry reply. Jim laughed softly as they turned the corner of a brick building and headed for the open lawn of the Academy grounds. “Five years later and my two senior officers still can’t play nice. Maybe it would be best if Spock didn’t join the Enterprise for its second mission.”

“Illogical!” McCoy quipped. “He’d insist I should be the one to give up his boat ticket, not the other way around.”

“As if that would happen.”

A smile briefly touched Leonard’s face. “No, it wouldn’t. Face it, Captain… I’m not going anywhere, neither is Spock—and you get another long-ass adventure through space with the two of us bickering at your back.”

Jim caught Leonard’s arm and stopped walking. His eyes glowed with warmth. “I wouldn’t want it any other way, Bones.”

Leonard absorbed Jim’s sincerity, then agreed, “Me too, Jim. Me too.”

~~~

“We’re just beginning to rebuild the ranks,” one admiral said to his colleagues. “Students have time for actual learning, as opposed to us sending them into deep-space assignments as soon as they enter their third year simply so we have enough people to man our starships. Utilizing our officers wisely, stationing them were they can lend their expertise to the less experienced, is the best course of action.”

Admiral Pike tapped his finger against the arm of his chair, face grim. “Cartwright’s point is a good one but it isn’t good enough. If we split up our best team—from the flagship, no less—we will lose more than we stand to gain.” He added to the thoughtful silence, “And Kirk won’t agree to it.”

“Kirk is still in his infancy!” someone protested.

“He’s proven his ability to captain a starship more times than this counsel has combined,” Pike stated, his sharp rebuttal akin to a slap. “And it’s not just him—because that crew is who it is, Starfleet has gained invaluable knowledge, avoided wars, made powerful alliances and lived up to its purpose. As long as we can keep Kirk and his officers in space, together, we should. It would be a grave mistake on our part to weaken that potential by dividing it.” He almost spoke of destiny but swallowed the sentiment instead.

For some minutes, there was heated debate. Half of the Admiralty, like Pike, was impressed with the Enterprise and what its crew had accomplished in five years; the other half had opposed James T. Kirk’s captaincy from the day Pike nominated him, and they would always feel Starfleet had been driven to an unpalatable decision by dire straits. To them, Captain Kirk was a symbol of how Nero had driven the Academy to its knees, entrusting a young, foolish man barely into his twenties to uphold the honor and pride of Starfleet.

“We can debate this until we all turn to dust,” the admiral, Komack, at Pike’s left interrupted, “but the fact remains the Enterprise ships out for her second mission in less than two weeks. We can’t stall her longer than that. Kirk knows she is ready to go.”

“The personnel files,” another admiral said, a woman, “I want to see them again. If we did take liberties with the roster, who would we consider for reassignment?”

“The Vulcan,” someone said immediately. “Offer him a captaincy.”

“He wouldn’t take it,” Pike murmured.

“Replace the CMO. The Surgeon General is on the President’s Board, you know, and it won’t be that many years before he takes his retirement. McCoy has to have some kind of ambition, doesn’t he?”

“I thought we said we wanted to keep them in space!”

Pike pushed out of his seat at the long table and grabbed for his cane, allowing himself only for a fleeting hatred for the thing. Could of been worse, he knew, so he shoved his distaste aside. “I have somewhere to be,” he announced and limped painfully toward the exit.

“Admiral Pike!” Cartwright barked. “This meeting isn’t adjourned!”

Pike paused in the doorway. “When I hear an idea I can stomach, I might come back,” he told the room, and walked out.

~~~

Do you think this was how Bones left Jim? You would be wrong.

The Admiralty’s attempt to dissolve the crew worked for only half a second, whereupon Jim read the orders for Uhura’s and McCoy’s relocation, had a moment of internal panic, remembered Pike’s random cryptic warning to “do what you have to do”, recovered from the panic and announced to the Bridge “fuck no!” (much to a slightly grey communications officer’s relief). He then punched in a call to Sickbay to tell his CMO to strap himself into the nearest seat, ignoring Bones’ alarmed “Jim, what’s going on up there?”

Chekov, quite gleefully at Kirk’s orders, sealed off all bays against the starbase security who would have boarded the Enterprise upon a certain Admiral’s command and removed Uhura and McCoy by force. Sulu engaged the thrusters. Some of the Admirals, watching from their conference room, were shocked to see the Enterprise suddenly head for the closed dock doors—but somebody (Scotty was looking mighty pleased with himself for days afterward) hacked into the system and got them to open before there was horrendous accident; but many others, including Christopher Pike, were smiling to themselves as the Enterprise launched prematurely into its second mission.

Luckily for Jim, Spock hadn’t opted to play “the diva” and had been aboard the ship several hours before the designated departure time. As the ship cleared the dock, then the starbase altogether, he turned to look at Kirk who was seated but clearly unhappy as he drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, and said, “There will be repercussions, Captain.”

“I’m aware of that, Mr. Spock,” Jim replied humorlessly. “We’ll deal with Command as we always have.”

“By not giving a shit,” Sulu muttered to his console, which prompted a nod from Chekov.

The Vulcan pretended not to hear that. “Sir, I must say…” he continued.

Jim twisted in his chair to look at his First Officer.

Spock paused, glanced at Uhura who held his gaze for a moment, then finished, “…thank you.”

The Captain of the Enterprise relaxed. He faced forward again with a smile. “Mr. Sulu, warp factor three.”

“Aye-aye, Captain.”

Five minutes later, Doctor McCoy would barge into the Bridge, demanding an explanation and, upon hearing it, would have no words to express his gratitude except a heartfelt “Jim…” And Jim would understand everything McCoy couldn’t say and drop his hand over Leonard’s, his way of replying I love you, too.

~~~

That is how Bones didn’t leave Jim—that time. Sadly, we are still upon the same path, heading towards the same ending. For what is good and precious and beautiful, such as love, is not always long-lasting. It is not always strong enough to survive. But if it does survive, it could very well be the reason behind the hardest decision a person has ever had to make…

~~~

Bones left Jim quietly. He did not weep over his leaving; and though there was some regret (for things he wouldn’t do with Jim, for the plans they would never see fulfilled, for the happiness of being together in old age), there was also a kind of peace for Leonard.

He gave Jim a goodbye, despite Jim being unable to accept it or to say one in return.

He let Jim kiss him, too, but only because he was incapable of initiating the kiss himself.

“You’re not leaving me,” Jim said to him.

“We don’t always get a choice, Jim,” Leonard replied. The words were rasps from his throat, but they were gentle nonetheless. His hand grasped Jim’s, chilly against Kirk’s warm skin.

Jim wasn’t crying either; the devastation in his voice was enough. “I can fix it, Bones. Just stay. Please, please, stay!”

“Not my choice,” the doctor whispered back.

“It’s not supposed to be like this,” his friend, partner, and lover replied, dropping his forehead to their linked hands. “I wanted forever, Bones.”

Leonard had no more strength for speech. He nodded faintly.

“What am I going to do without you?”

Bones was leaving him anyway, and Kirk knew it. He lifted his head and pressed his face against the bed-ridden man’s shoulder.

“You said I can survive anything,… but this… I don’t think I can survive this, Bones.”

Jim stayed there, against Leonard, listening to one slow, feeble breath after another until there were no more. Someone touched his shoulder. Some time later, someone else gently tried to break the joining of their hands. Only then did Jim realize Bones’ hand was cold, cold. He had failed to warm Bones up, to warm him back to life.

This ending for Jim was also a beginning. Bones had left, and Jim still had more years to live; and though Jim couldn’t think of it this way, for he couldn’t think beyond his grief at all, he was already surviving without the person he loved most. He would continue to survive, not because Bones had believed Jim could but because Bones had wanted him to, had asked him to do exactly that with a simple goodbye.

-Fini

The Westerner

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• Another Day, Another Dollar, Part 4 (#40, J ‘N B Series) (40/40) – from March 29, 2013
• The Light In Which We’re Cast (#39, J ‘N B Series) – from March 20, 2013
• Playing Life to Win (#38, J ‘N B Series) – from March 14, 2013
• An Intergalactic Fandom (#37, J ‘N B Series) – from January 15, 2013
• We Fight to Win (#36, J ‘N B Series) – from January 4, 2013