“You are the biggest asshole this side of the Mississippi! I will kill you! No, first I’ll take my belt to your backside and THEN I’LL KILL YOU!”

The EMT ducks his head into the ambulance and pretends not to be listening. Pike props his shoulder against the side of the ambulance, grateful that at least his legs will hold his weight now. “There’s no need to yell,” he tells Archer.

“I’m not yelling!” the man snaps. “This is not yelling.”

“No, it’s snarling. Same difference.”

“Fuck you.”

“Aw, you care,” Pike quips dryly.

“He’s allowed to yell,” another unhappy voice chimes in.

Chris shouldn’t feel this embarrassed. He is the parent, not the child, and yet Jim’s expression makes him want to squirm. He reigns in that urge hard and pokes the shoulder of the EMT, pointing in his son’s direction. “Did you look him over?”

The EMT perks up, maybe because he finally thinks someone is going to submit to an actual examination of their injuries. Then Jim prudently steps behind Archer and looks offended that Pike would even suggest he might need medical attention. The EMT turns away from their little group again, muttering under his breath about the inevitable death of idiots not being his responsibility.

“I’m mad at you,” Jim broadcasts to the entire parking lot.

Pike snorts softly. “I guess that makes us even, son.”

Archer’s glower has not abated in the short interlude. Jonathan puts a hand on Jim’s shoulder, leveling one last mean glare at Pike before steering Jim away from the ambulance. Their boots leave behind a trail of deep prints in the slushy snow. “Either you or Sulu,” the sheriff is telling Kirk loudly enough for Pike to hear, “needs to go with one of my men to pick up the real star. Blasted thing. If I never see anything like it again, I will die a happy man.”

Pike watches as Sulu detaches himself from the circle of others loitering next to the building’s steps and volunteers to ride with a deputy over to the Village. Spock steps forward as well. Jim says something to both of them. Pike looks away, shifting his stance in discomfort.

“If you won’t go to the hospital, you should see your doctor in the morning,” the EMT explains quietly as he thrusts a clipboard at Pike. “Sign here.”

It’s a form Pike has long been familiar with, and he scribbles his name at the bottom. “Sorry to hold you up.”

The EMT looks at the pasty-faced man with the eye patch strapped to a gurney inside the ambulance. He motions at one of the uniformed men standing close by. “Someone needs to ride with him. I don’t relish the thought of my partner and I getting carjacked on the way to the hospital.”

“There will be someone with him,” Pike assures the young man, “and another officer following behind.”

The EMT nods. Chris trails away from the ambulance to find two deputies up to the task of escorting a prisoner to the local hospital and realizes belatedly, as he spies Archer in a low discussion with his men, that it isn’t his job to oversee these kinds of details. This isn’t his police station, his colleagues, or even his jurisdiction. He had forgotten that at some point during the last few hours.

An arm snakes across his shoulders, and Chris turns his head to look at Jon.

“Don’t space out just yet,” Jon murmurs, squeezing Chris’s shoulder. “We need you.”

“For?”

“Kirk’s release form. Sign in a couple of places, swear your eternal soul as collateral, and I can let you take him home.”

Pike dares to hope. “Are you sure?”

Jon gives him a slight smirk. “With Kirk? Never.” His eyes search Pike’s. “But I have a feeling I can find him if I need to.”

They start walking, and Chris doesn’t protest when Archer sticks by his side as they enter the building, transverse the hallways until they reach Archer’s office and find a chair for Pike to get comfortable in. He asks because he has to know, “Who is going with you to make the delivery to the mayor?”

“It’s a one-man job, Pike.”

“You don’t have to do it alone.”

“I know.” Jon flashes him a hint of a grin. “Don’t worry too much. Whoever is behind the plot to ruin our Christmas probably knows by now that his dastardly plans have been foiled. Your boy was right about one thing—spies are everywhere.”

“That never keeps them from trying again, you know,” Chris points out.

“Oh, I’m counting on it. This town hasn’t had a good villain to come along in a few years.”

“Jon,” Chris murmurs, pained, “you aren’t supposed to want a villain.”

“But how will anybody know I’m superhero if there’s no villain?”

Pike really needs to get his son out of this town. Immediately. Jim would love the idea of a being a superhero. …Oh, god.

“What’s the matter?” Jonathan asks sharply.

Pike doesn’t bother lifting his head from his hands as he explains. “I just pictured you and Jim fighting over who gets to wear the cape. I… will probably need to go to the hospital after all. Eventually.” Soon, no doubt.

“You get the oddest ideas, Christopher.”

“Well, you’re my friend. What do you expect?”

Archer isn’t offended by the remark at all, it seems. He is looking at Chris fondly, the expression still familiar despite how much time has passed. Pike waves the man away, demanding he go type up those forms to have Jim released. Jonathan leaves, wordless, but smiling to himself like a fool.

Chris thinks they’re both fools. Two very old foolish men. It’s best not to think about that right now, he decides and closes his eyes.

It is dawn by the time things are settled enough that Pike feels he can take Jim home without leaving too much cleanup for Archer. He can’t have caffeine stimulants due to the electrical shock (Leonard almost jumped down his throat when he saw Pike with an unopened can of Red Bull), so it’s only through sheer will and many years of 18-hour shifts that Chris is mostly coherent and able to function. However, it is easy to imagine collapsing the moment he steps foot inside his home.

On the stoop of the Sheriff’s department, a man stands, a ghost of longing on his otherwise carefully neutral face. The sight brings to mind the last goodbye between him and Archer, and Chris feels a pang of regret.

“Well, this is déjà-vu,” Archer begins with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes but, much to Chris’s relief, stops there. The past is the past, and they can’t go back; they both know it.

Jonathan’s smile softens around the edges. “It was nice to see you again, Christopher. Travel safe and all that.”

Pike lifts a hand in goodbye, knowing there isn’t much he could—or should—say, and Jon nods curtly, tucking his hands into his uniform pants pockets. Pike turns away, with a vague sense of guilt, and marches his son towards his truck. They swipe the snow off the door handles and after a few insistent tugs, the ice holding the doors hostage cracks and gives away. The temperature within is well below freezing. Chris climbs inside with a shiver.

Jim buckles his seat beat, all contemplative silence until his father puts the key in the ignition. “So,” Kirk says, looking anywhere but at Pike, “you and Archer?”

“No, Jim,” Chris responds with a deep sigh, letting the engine warm up before putting the truck in reverse, “there was no Archer and me,” corrects himself, “is no Archer and me.”

Jim peeks at him for a second from the corners of his eyes. “Oh.” Then, with almost childish curiosity, “why not?”

There are so many things he could say to answer that and all of the answers would have some truth to them. But the one thing that is truest of all is what he tells his son: “We were close once, similar enough to be good friends but different when it came to our goals in life. I didn’t want to jeopardize that friendship for something that couldn’t work in the end anyway.”

Jim’s “Oh” is quieter this time. He sounds oddly disheartened when he murmurs, “I can understand that.”

Pike carefully eases out of the parking lot and drives them to a street corner. His father-senses are on high alert as he slows to a complete stop and pretends to peer down the adjacent street at an approaching car. The car is plowing so slowly through the overnight snow fall, Pike could wait ten minutes to cross the street and still not be in danger of a collision. He puts his foot on the gas only for a moment before deciding better of the action.

Jim is going to be pissed with him in a few seconds. Chris eases back into his seat and keeps his gaze straight ahead through the windshield. “Is there something I need to know?”

“No.” The answer comes much too quickly, which is an answer in and of itself.

“Do you want me to be involved with the town sheriff?” Chris phrases the question in just the right way that Jim’s resounding “NO!” is very heartfelt and very loud. “Why not?” he tosses back at his son, mouth quirked.

“That would be, fuck—”

“Language,” Jim’s father reminds him.

Jim grimaces and drums his fingers on the dashboard. “I mean, wow that would be bad. Like seriously terrible, Dad.”

“For who, exactly?”

Jim rolls his eyes and Chris is reminded that Jim may be mature but he is still very much a child when he decides to be. “You and another cop? Just—hell no, especially him.”

Chris has a sudden flashback to a comment of McCoy’s. Leonard had rolled his eyes only an hour ago, much like Jim just does now, and said in regards to Archer: “The man has all the grace of a mongoose in a berry patch.”

How true, Pike thinks, almost snickering. Though now that he thinks about it, Jim could use another law enforcement officer as a parent. Maybe his expression conveys the train of thought because his son’s eyes widen comically. Pike grins a little. “It would make my life easier.”

Jim looks torn between the urge to fling himself out of the car and the need not to hurt his father’s feelings. “Look, I don’t care if you like a guy, Dad—who doesn’t?—” Chris’s eyebrows rise dramatically at this, “—but not the sheriff of the town I live in, okay? Then you’ll be moving up here and I thought we were trying the whole ‘my son is not a complete idiot and deserves to live independently of me if he so wishes.'”

“No, we’re trying the ‘I want my son to have a life that doesn’t involve a serial arrest record and a bad reputation’. Whoops,” Pike says sarcastically, “guess that was too good of a dream.”

“You are so cruel to me, man.”

“Jim, son, I love you, I do—but can you call me first before you decide to get involved in a terrorist attack or a burgeoning town scandal of some sort?”

Jim has sunken low into his seat. “I knew this was coming. Once is never enough with you. You’re going to yell at me again.”

Chris wants to. Oh, how he wants to! But while they were having this conversation-slash-friendly argument, he was fitting a few puzzle pieces together. Instead he asks, “Is there something you need to tell me about you and McCoy?”

Jim flushes but he doesn’t deny it. “How did you know?”

“There were a lot of hints—from your friends and from you just now.” Also, he doesn’t say, You looked like somebody ripped your heart out when Leonard said he would catch a ride with Uhura. “Why haven’t you said anything? Son, not to quote you, but I don’t care either. If you’re happy, I’m happy for you.”

In a gesture of discomfort, Jim rubs at his nose with the back of his hand. “It’s not anything, Dad.” The not yet and maybe never is mournfully implied.

“So Leonard doesn’t know?”

Jim cuts his eyes at Chris. “How should I know if he knows?”

Boy, this is why you need a parent. Chris is very tempted to smack the child upside the head. “What you mean is you haven’t told him you like him.”

“Oh god,” Jim says with feeling, “are we really having this conversation?”

“Hopefully this goes better than the time I tried to explain sex to you,” Pike remarks dryly.

As he’d hoped, Jim bursts out laughing at the memory. “Sock puppets don’t even have genitalia, Dad. I’m still very traumatized.”

Jim isn’t the only one. It wasn’t Pike’s crowning moment as a father. “Okay, okay,” he says, ready to leave this particular thread of conversation alone (and hopefully never to be mentioned again while he lives), “cut me some slack. I never expected to be a single father, let alone one that had a kid who tried to pick up a hooker at the age of thirteen.”

Anybody else would have had the decency to look embarrassed about that. Jim simply grins. “It was easier than spying in the girls’ locker room. I was curious.”

“Just,” Chris mutters, grimacing and rubbing one of his temples, “don’t say anymore about that, Jim. Please.”

“Yes, sir.”

Chris figures he had better actually move the truck past the stop sign now. There is another car pulling to a stop behind his Ford, and the feeling of impatience from the other driver is almost palpable. “We can discuss McCoy when we get home.”

Jim groans, clearly hoping his father had forgotten about that.

“I’ll even pretend to be Leonard so you can practice your confession of undying love until you no longer stutter.”

“Is it too late to turn around? I think I prefer jail and being glared at through the cell bars by your old flame.”

“Jim,” Chris replies grimly, “I may seem like a saint but I am not above murder.”

Jim mumbles something under his breath, and Chris pretends not to hear it. Then Jim raises his voice. “I want I-HOP.”

At least Jim knows when to back down—or when to acknowledge it might actually be safer to piss Pike off in the presence of witnesses.

“Christmas breakfast it is,” Chris agrees. Some of the tension from the long night drains out of him. Jim is with him, finally.

Jim gives him directions to the only I-HOP on the outskirts of the town. They have a few minutes of blissful peace inside the truck cab while Pike navigates the icy roads. When he spies the sign of the restaurant in the distance, Jim breaks the silence.

“Dad…”

“Hm?”

“Thanks.” Jim ducks his head. “For everything.”

The smile tugging at Chris’s mouth wins. “You’re welcome, son.” He adds softly as an afterthought, “We’re okay.”

Jim relaxes and reaches out to turn up the volume on the radio station. Pike flips on the left turn signal and slows to let a snow plow pass by. “I don’t suppose you want to treat your old man to a meal to signify your gratitude.”

Jim gives him a look that says quite clearly are you joking? “I don’t have my wallet.”

“It’s in my coat pocket. I collected it from Evidence before we left. Surprisingly,” Pike murmurs, “there was no cash in it.”

“Um,” Jim begins. “Is this a bad time to tell you that I got fired from my job?”

Pike doesn’t whimper, not at all.

“But, Dad, it wasn’t my fault,” Jim is saying and really, someone needs to give the driver of the snow plow an award for impeccable timing. Chris can’t hear his son’s blabbering over the roar of the machine. He pulls into the I-HOP, resigned to the beginnings of a month-long migraine.

“Hey, are you crying?” Jim asks as they exit the truck.

“The wind’s stinging my eyes. Just ignore me.”

“But I don’t feel any wind…”

“Jim.”

“Shutting up now.”

“Thank you.”

But Jim has a need to talk, probably because watching his father have a nervous breakdown makes him uncomfortable. “Pancakes or waffles? I want waffles, hmm, maybe sausage—and bacon! Bones doesn’t let me keep bacon at the house because he says I have an obsession that’s close to an eating disorder and my arteries won’t survive to the age of thirty-five. Only he’s exaggerating, I’m not going to die of a heart attack from bacon…. maybe of diabetes from the twinkies though. Not sure yet. Hey, can we pick up something for Bones too? He wouldn’t eat the McDonald’s Archer tossed at us.”

Chris sighs inaudibly as he chooses an empty booth by a window. An waitress approaches their table and smiles tiredly at them. “Merry Christmas. Can I get you something to drink?”

Interceding as Jim opens his mouth, Chris replies for them both, “One water and one decaffeinated coffee, please. Black, no cream or sugar.”

“I don’t want coffee.”

He would roll his eyes but he learned early on that only ends with Jim complaining when told to stop rolling his eyes at his father, “What? You do it too.” Chris settles for pinning the kind of stare on Jim that makes most criminals blurt out their sins. “The coffee is mine.”

Jim doesn’t bat an eye. “I want orange juice.”

“Never mind the water. Give the boy a glass of milk,” Chris tells the waitress.

Jim’s eyelids lower to half-mast. “Was that an opened bottle of liquor I saw in the backseat…Dad?”

Chris flushes and wonders how bad it would look if he abandoned his only child in the middle of the restaurant. By this point, the waitress has prudently left them to save her own sanity.

“Jim, let’s try to make it through the rest of Christmas without winding up in the back of a police cruiser, okay?”

“Only if I don’t have to drink the milk. I’m not a little kid.”

“You’re my kid, and that’s all that matters to me.” Jim doesn’t know it yet but he is already caving. Or so Pike has been telling himself for years.

Jim reaches for the dispenser holding the jam packets and looks for a grape-flavored one. “Do you think it will work out?” he asks. “Me and Bones?”

“I know you, Jim. You’ll try your best. If—if it still doesn’t work out, come to me.”

Fiddling with the plastic foil covering the grape jelly container, Jim frowns. “What can you do?”

“What fathers across the world have always done to the idiots who break their children’s hearts.”

Jim looks up, startled. “What?”

Chris busies himself sorting out his fork, knife, and spoon. “Pass me a napkin, will you?”

“You can’t hurt Bones,” Jim says slowly as he pulls a napkin from its dispenser and hands it over.

“Then make certain you convince him well.”

Jim closes his mouth and smiles slowly, shyly. “Yeah—yeah, okay. I get it.”

The waitress brings them the order of drinks, and Chris says nothing as Jim takes a healthy swallow of the milk.

“Who,” he asks after a momentary silence, testing a theory, “is the candidate that lost to the mayor?”

Jim shrugs. “I didn’t vote. Didn’t like either of them.”

“Can you recall a name?”

Giving him a funny look, Jim says, “Sure… Nero-something.”

“Hm.” Would Nero be on the top of Archer’s list of suspects?

“Dad, what are you thinking?”

“Nothing in particular.”

“Really?” Jim counters dryly. “So you wouldn’t be contemplating how you can dig up information on a potential criminal mastermind?”

Pike sips at his coffee, eyebrow raised. “Why ever would I, son? This isn’t my case.”

Jim picks at the corner of his napkin. “There are ways to do research without involving the head of your department.”

Who is teaching Jim these things? Chris opens his mouth to admonish his child for such thoughts, only to realize he is the one who has been Jim’s teacher, in a sense, for the past thirteen years.

Jim looks at him, bright-eyed and daring, face older, matured, but still so much like the first time Pike met him. “Where do we start?”

Where do we start, indeed. “I suppose the town library isn’t open for the holidays.”

“It might be next week. Bones would know. You can stay with us until then, right? You can have my bed.”

I wouldn’t dare leave you alone now that the idea is planted in your head, Jimmy. “Where will you sleep? With Leonard?” he teases.

Jim flushes. “On second thought, Dad, having you around is the worst idea ever. I retract the offer.”

“Too late.”

Jim groans, and Pike has the sense that everything is going to be all right for the next few days—until his son goes to jail again, that is.

…Or until Archer calls him on New Year’s Day. “You awake?” the man would say at six o’clock in the morning, unmindful of Pike’s brain-sloshing hangover. “No, nobody’s a jackass here, Christopher. Get the hell up. Somebody busted that pirate Ayel-Ali-Baba-whatever outta the hospital last night, the Town Hall’s on fire, and there are Disney characters rioting on my front lawn… no, fuck, wait.” A pause of blessed silence will ensue. Then, “…I think that’s your son.”

And Pike will wake up for certain, vaguely recalling Jim and Leonard dressing up in costumes for a New Year’s Eve party the night before, and regret every life choice he has ever made. Then he will scramble out of bed and make those poor life choices over again.

The End

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