What Am I, a Doctor or a Moon-Shuttle Conductor ?
Weary fingers knead the crease between his eyebrows created by the gravitational-like pull of his frown as a muttered, "Dammit," spills between his gritted teeth.
"Although I am without children of my own, I do not think that was the logical response for such a situation, Doctor," Spock's more than certain voice carries across the sickbay and weighs heavily on his shoulders.
"Really?," McCoy asks, sarcasm so apparent it thickens his southern drawl. He pulls his fingers away from his head and curls them into a fist before dropping it down hard enough on a nearby biobed that his frustration echoes in a loud thud.
"I shall leave you with a bit of information," Spock continues as if Leonard isn't on the verge of pulling his fist away from inanimate objects in order to punch a green-blooded hobgoblin. "It seems that while Jim knows of his father, he is uncertain of what it is like to indeed have one."
McCoy takes his fist from the bed, but he's content to let it fall beside him as he turns to face Spock with less than squared shoulders. He meets the Vulcan's gaze with inner guilt burning in his own, but the current acting Captain only offers him a raised eyebrow and an exit, leaving the doctor with a worse mood than before he arrived as usual.
It doesn't take long to find him. Whether it's because he knows him well enough or the entire crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise gives him disappointed looks with pointed fingers as he navigates the starship, he isn't sure, but either one doesn't help alleviate his conscience any.
It's in the galley where he hears the first signs of an exact location. Small sniffles radiating from the tiny crevasses in a bottom cabinet clue him in and he attempts quiet steps forward.
"Jim?"
One large, wet intake of air and then he's left with silence and the aroma of long-ago prepared meals. His shoulders deflate as he squats down, aching feet protesting at having to balance his weight on the balls. Once more curling his fingers into a fist, this time gentle and tender, he gives a soft knock to the cabinet door. "Hey, kid."
He waits, now rich in the much needed patience that had escaped him moments ago, but when he doesn't believe the cabinet door will open on its own accord, he reaches forward to pull it back. He lets light fill a crack, testing the reactions of what's hidden inside, and quickly closes it with a softly whispered, "Okay, okay," when he's met with the sound of something huddling into a corner. It nearly kills him as three months of building trust with a fearful child crumbles in the matter of two seconds and four previously shouted words.
McCoy relieves his feet of holding him up and twists to sit down with his back against the neighboring cabinet door as he assures, "I won't open the door, but I'm going to stay right here until you come out."
His ears pick up on another sniffle and in his mind he can just see the kid bury his head into his folded legs with frustration. The back of the doctor's head finds the cabinet he's propped up against and he rolls it along the metal so that he's semi facing Jim's hiding place. "Buddy, if you would at least open the door I could apologize, but until you're ready how about I tell you something else instead?" He doesn't receive a reply, nor did he expect one so he continues with, "Your dad, your real dad, he was...such a great man, Jim. You have to know that, I want you to know that. You're going to be just like him, you're going to accomplish great things because it's who you are, who you're meant to be and I...I'm a doctor, not a...I'm just a doctor, Jim."
"B-but you're Bones," a small voice, muffled by the door, says as if it should be the most sought out prestige and it somehow brings the corner of McCoy's mouth to a slight upward curve.
"That I am, kid, that I am."
Suddenly, the door opens wide enough for a small head with fluffy blonde hair to be cast in a sliver of light. "Always?"
Leonard gently grasps the corner of the cabinet door and slowly pulls it open with a short nod of his head. "Always."
Finally, after what feels like years to the doctor, Jim Kirk climbs out of the cabinet and stands in front of McCoy in all of his four year old height. His pale cheeks are almost ashen in contrast to the red-rimmed eyes above them, both stained with tears and for the first time in three months of caring for a suddenly deaged captain, Bones has never felt like more of a father in the disease of Space.
He pulls the boy closer to him by gently grabbing at his sides before using one of his large hands to wipe at the moisture drying on the small face. "I'm sorry," he says, just as marbled, blue eyes appear from behind wet eyelashes.
Jim offers a small nod. He's distant, Bones can tell, and it hurts the doctor to know that he's capable of earning what he once deemed an 'Uncle Frank reaction' from the kid. However, he's slightly relieved that he's allowed to take the boy in his arms and stand without so much as a tensed muscle from Jim. On his way back to their living quarters, he finds himself tensing instead when the boy's head tucks under his chin and a small hand rests on the Medical insignia of his uniform.
Jim's had his bath, and on any other night, under any other circumstances, McCoy always thought that he'd do anything for that simple act to take less than thirty minutes and leave him in dry clothes, but he's pulling the boy from the water in less than ten and there's not a droplet of moisture anywhere on his uniform and he finds himself missing the moments where Jim pretends to fall in the tub to both scare and soak his newly found guardian.
He leaves Jim to unfold himself from his towel and put on his underwear, because even though Kirk doesn't remember his life as an adult, Bones does and it's still weird to even think of doing that part of dressing. He's riffling through the drawer that Uhura stocked full of clothes for Jim a week after their predicament occurred when the boy exits the bathroom and climbs on the bed. Glancing over his shoulder, he feels his shoulders sag more than his ex-wife could ever make them do at the sight of a quiet, still James Kirk sitting on the bed, eyes downcast. Turning back to the drawer, he fingers the shirt that put this whole day to hell and makes a heart-thumping decision.
Walking back to the bed, he once again angers his feet by squatting down and gives Jim a small grin. "Here, kid. Put these on," he says, voice just loud enough to bounce between them and not fill the room, and tosses some black sleep pants at the boy. Kirk takes them and flops back on the bed without a word, pulling them on his legs as he squirms. McCoy, amused by his typical character shining through, grins whole heartedly and decides that his next action is well worth whatever outcomes are altered.
Jim sits back up and looks at Bones with expectant eyes, not bothering to say anything about the unusual grin on the doctor's face. Leonard takes the shirt in his hands and moves to pull it over the boy's head so that Jim can't see which one it is until it's covering his torso and if he notices the boy flinch, he lets it escape him, not willing to ruin whatever chance he has of this moment becoming a treasured one between them.
Kirk pokes his arms through the holes at McCoy's guidance and offers his small fingers to the hem of the shirt to pull it down in order to inspect it for the first time. A small gasp escapes him, and Bones believes that Jim sharply catches his gaze without ever having thought about it, because suddenly blue eyes drop to an equally blue shirt and stay there.
"Hey," the doctor says, gentle finger bumping under the boy's chin. "It's okay."
"B-but...you said it wasn't," is his earned reply as tiny fingers trace over an equally small Medical insignia on the shirt Jim is wearing.
McCoy can't prevent the grimace that appears on his face, because he knows that isn't exactly what he said and as much as he wishes he could accept Jim's generosity, he hates that it was even extended.
"Look Bones! Uhura got me a new shirt! It's just like yours, so I can be a doctor now!" Kirk exclaimed while weaving his way through the sickbay towards McCoy having a no doubt infuriating conversation with Spock. Turning at the sudden voice with budding anger for the current Commanding Officer, he was met with a sight that made his heart drop. Standing there as if nothing in the world was wrong, was James T. Kirk in a blue Medical uniform and suddenly, Leonard McCoy felt the weight of a million planets on his shoulders.
"Take that off," he yelled, stepping forward so dramatically that Jim flinched away from the one and only person he fully trusted with a startled cry. "You're not my son!"
If the pain in his chest didn't kill him, then Jim running away from him surely would.
"Listen, kid, I-... I knew your father," and though it's a lie, it doesn't taste like one because he's talking about the adult Jim he remembers, "and he was a great man, could be very infuriating, border lining on having a personal mission to rob me of my sanity, but he... he was a Captain, one of the best, and I... I just want you to remember...remember that he's still a part of you."
Kirk swallows thickly, back straightening with the effort, and looks up at the doctor.
"Bones?"
"Yeah?"
"Can I...can I tell you something?"
Reaching up and running his hand throughs soft, blonde tufts of hair, he replies, "Anything."
"I know you...I mean, I don't, but I do."
McCoy blinks at him, furrows his brows just enough to show he doesn't quite understand. "I never thought I'd say this, but I've heard Spock make more sense than that."
He receives a slight giggle from the boy before Jim shakes his head and says, "I remember Earth...Mommy, Sam,...U-Uncle Frank. I don't 'member how I got here, but I have...memories of you...I - I don't understand them...but you...helped me...like Sam."
It's Leonard's turn to swallow heavily, and he does so with his hand coming to rest at the side of Jim's face and offers the best grin he can. "Yeah, just like Sam."
Kirk returns his grin, but tentatively reaches out and places his hand against the insignia on the doctor's shirt once more, "Can I tell you something else?"
Placing his hand over the tiny one on his chest, he nods. "Sure, buddy."
"I think...I think you're more like the Moon-shuttle conductor."
"Who's that?" McCoy asks, voice louder than anything he's said before and it makes Jim's smile grow.
"The Moon-shuttle conductor that took Daddy home to Heaven. Mommy said he took care of him when he got hurt and-and...she said he'd always be with him so that if I ever wanted to tell him something, I could ask the conductor and he'd take my message to Daddy."
Blue eyes pierced into McCoy's until moisture blurred the intensity. Leaning forward, Bones placed a soft kiss into Jim's hair, unaware of the few tears soaking into freshly washed hair. "I am the Moon-shuttle conductor."
FIN