Author's Note: This is my humble offering for the Jim-and-Bones Live journal Community's 2014 Sweetheart Challenge and my first posting in the Star Trek Fandom. I hope I did justice to the prompt and captured Bones' voice.

I am extremely sorry that it is a little depressing considering it was supposed to be a Valentine's Day's story.

To prevent any spoilers, I will not reveal what the prompt was until the end of the final chapter.

Please enjoy.

Chapter 1

Leonard McCoy had always prided himself in being an observant man after all it was part of his job description damn it, so he wasn't sure how he was so completely blindsided when his world seemed to suddenly turn upside down. It wasn't that that he was egotistic. He was far from that. The only explanation he could come up with was that he became too damn comfortable. He thought he was on track for that elusive, perfect, normal life. All the pieces seemed to have aligned in his flavor. He was married to a true southern belle, the one in a million that still existed in the world. They had a beautiful, bubbly baby girl. He was a successful doctor. His name regularly appeared on lists featuring top up and coming doctors who were most likely to thrive. They lived on a ranch with acres and acres of open space in all directions.

His aptitude tests categorized him as a genius. He had more initials after his name in his 27 years of life than most people would receive in a lifetime. However, no matter how hard he or others tried to convince him otherwise he could not ease the guilt of missing the initial signs. It all seemed so obvious now. Hindsight really is 20/20. As a result, he found himself spending more and more hours in his office with bloodshot eyes and mountains of research data stored in PADDs stacked on his desk instead of at home curled up next to his wife.

He flinched when his office door opened. The fluorescent lighting from the hallways burned his sleep-deprived eyes. He squinted in the direction of the light. He could barely make out the silhouette of one of his nurses. Was it Evans, or was it Stevens? He found he could no longer keep track of his nurses' names. His nurses seemed to rotate faster than he did through the days. "Doctor McCoy, your wife is calling the hospital." He impulsively reached for his communicator. It was buried underneath a stack of PADDs. He recoiled when the PADDs tumbled to the ground as a result. He instinctively stopped the young nurse when she moved to pick them up. "She's asking when you'll be home, Doctor." She gave him that pitiful look he noticed people were giving him more and more lately.

"Soon, tell her soon." He rubbed the back of his neck. He glanced at the hypospray containing a large dose of stims. It seemed to be mocking him. He hastily drew his gaze away. Too many stims in too few hours, he could already feel his heart pulsating faster than normal. "Tell her I'll be home soon, Nurse…"

"Robertson, Dr. McCoy." Leonard nodded, relieved to avoid the embarrassment of having to guess the young woman's name. She nodded in response before retreating. She pulled the door shut upon her departure.

He pulled his comm closer. The numbers 0300 blinked on and off in the sea of midnight blue. He paled at the number of missed messages he had received. He vaguely wondered why Jocelyn was still awake. She had always been an early riser and early sleeper. She claimed she needed it to keep her complexion.

His shift would start in another three hours. It would take over an hour for the round trip commute, which equated to too many wasted hours. He was convinced that Jocelyn would doze off again. She always did. He had too many numbers, theories, and formulas to try and too little time to test them all. Jocelyn would understand. He was a doctor, damn it. He had sworn an oath the day he received his medical degree. Tonight, he would return home tonight.

He tossed his comm aside and pulled out a blank PADD. Damn, molecular biology problems, they had never troubled him before. His professors and colleagues always praised him for his superiority in solving synthesis problems. He pulled up a hologram of his hypothesized molecular structure. It was oblong and clumsy. It lacked the neatness that the universe usually conformed too. He turned it with his hand. As he rotated it, it flickered tauntingly at him in the darkness of his office.

Too few hours later, the alarm on his comm beeped signaling the start of his morning shift. He sighed. He was still no closer to filling in the gaps that was necessary to unfold his molecule. He dropped his PADD and depressed the hypospray containing the stims into his neck. He pushed himself up from his chair. His back creaked as he rose. Was he already experiencing the signs of premature aging? He grabbed his white lab coat as he left his office for another 10-hour shift. The on call nurse handed him a PADD with his schedule as he passed by. He scanned through it quickly. It was composed mostly of clinical duties and meetings with the medical board. Damn meetings. At least clinical duties meant he had time between patients to continue thinking about his research.

Bloody noses, sprained ankles and runny noses, they were all such the inane and stupid accidents that people seemed capable of getting themselves into it. The hours seemed to have slowed to a crawl. The medical board meeting had been atrocious. They wanted results, not promises. They claimed they hired him to perform surgery not chase impossible research dreams.

His nose was buried in his PADD when a lanky blond boy slipped into the examination room. He looked up surprised. Normally, one of his nurses would inform him before they let a patient in. The kid looked like a complete mess. His face was bruised and battered. He seemed to be sprouting a mean shiner. He was favoring his left side. Above all, the kid had the brightest set of baby blue eyes that he had ever seen. They were blazing and blaring.

"Sorry, they normally inform me before letting a patient in." The kid shrugged. "What can I do for you?" Again the kid shrugged. "Damn it Kid, are you going to tell me what's wrong?" The kid seemed to flinch. "Sorry." He sighed before reaching for his tricorder. The kid's blazing blues seemed to widen. "It's just a medical tricorder, Kid."

"I ain't a kid, Bones." The kid finally spoke. His voice seemed a little raspy as if he rarely used it.

"Bones?" He managed to sputter out.

The kid grinned. He pointed at the skeleton leaning against the wall. "Nice décor."

Leonard rolled his eyes. "You look like a kid, mighty reckless one too."

"Jim Kirk."

"McCoy, Leonard McCoy." He tipped the tricorder in the kid's direction. "Now sit down." He was surprised when the kid immediately complied. He sat down easier than Leonard would have thought possible.

"Nah, Bones is better." The kid smirked. Leonard rolled his eyes. He waved the tricorder over the kid. His eyebrow rose when the readings appeared on his diagnostic PADD. "Damnit Kid, your readings are off the charts. What the hell did you do to yourself?" The kid shrugged. "You're going to need a long session under the regen." The kid looked confused. Leonard sighed. "Kid, did you grow up in some backwater world or something?"

The kid shifted nervously. He scratched the back of his neck with his less damaged hand. "Something like that."

Leonard picked up his PADD. He filled out the few pieces of information he knew about the kid before looking up. "Okay Kid. Tell the nurse outside that you're scheduled for a regen session in room 2." The kid nodded. He hopped off the examination table a little too easily. Leonard narrowed his eyes. The kid seemed to notice and reflexively reached to support his injured arm.

"See you around Bones."

Leonard rolled his eyes. The kid laughed before exiting the examination room.

Too many hours later and too many comms from Jocelyn, Leonard found himself leaving the hospital. A light rain had started to fall. Damn summer weather. It was a long walk to the bus station. He pulled up his jacket collar. Wet and humid, it was Georgia at its finest.

"Hey." Leonard involuntarily found himself rotating on the balls of his feet. His years of self-defense lessons flooded back at him. Maybe it really was like riding a bike. He immediately dropped the fists that he had not realized he had raised when he realized it was the kid from earlier. The kid looked at him curiously. Damn kid looked like he was about to laugh.

"Are you trying to fucking give me a heart attack, Kid?" He groused. "What the hell are you still doing here?"

"I thought doctors were supposed to be all nice and fuzzy, Bones."

"Common misconception. Seriously, Kid why are you still here?" Leonard grumbled.

"Told you I would see you around, Bones." The kid answered easily.

At that moment, all the angry, frustration and anxiety seemed to leak away. "Look Kid," Leonard said tiredly. He scratched the back of his neck. "I got to get home to my wife and daughter. You should go home too. Stay out of trouble and away from whoever gave you those bruises."

When the kid didn't respond, Leonard sighed. He looked so lost or alone. For once Leonard didn't calculate the risks, weigh the pros and cons, or even give a damn about all the stupidity this could lead too. Fuck it if Jocelyn was going to murder him. "You good with horses, Kid?" The kid blinked. "You good with horses?" he repeated again.

"Why?" The kid asked.

"One of our ranch hands went and got married off world." Leonard answered gruffly.

"Are you offering me a job?" The kid grinned. He bounced on the balls of his feet. He was like a fucking ball of energy.

Leonard rolled his eyes. He muttered the word 'infant' under his breath. "We need a replacement hand. It comes with a room and meals. You'll get all the weekends and major holidays off. "

"What about you Bones?" The kid asked. He wagged his eyebrows.

"What about me Kid?" Leonard asked absently. His gaze wandered past the kid to the bus stop.

"What days do you get off?" He repeated.

Leonard watched as the headlights of the bus flickered by. Wonderful. He would have to want even longer for the next bus. "Damn it Kid. I'm a doctor. I'm busy. I ain't got time for off days." Leonard replied, a little exasperated.

"That's too bad." The kid seemed genuinely upset.

Leonard's face softened. The kid seemed to have an uncanny ability of getting under his skin. "So Kid, you want the job?"

"Sure Bones." The kid clapped a hand on Leonard's shoulder and shot him one of his sunny smiles.