When All Was Golden

Old Fiat

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek. I'm just a simple country nerd.

Dedication: Thank you so much Old Fiat n. France, DazzledByNorrington and my older sister for helping me edit this story. You guys are all wonderful!

Notes: I just need to say a few things about this. First off, this story had to be edited three separate times to replace the name of Bones' wife (I couldn't find it for ages). I hope that her characterization is pretty canon. I really enjoyed writing this and I hate it when I find out that something isn't canon compliant after I post it. But I mean, who knows what else changed in the crazy alternate time-line that is Star Trek XI?

Secondly, I refer to Bones as 'Leonard' throughout the story. This is because it mostly follows his point of view, and I doubt he would think of himself as 'Bones' or 'McCoy'. Though, it would be kind of hilarious if he did.

Thirdly, there are two diseases mentioned. One of them "the Axanarri fever" is invented by me. You can either take it as 'originating from Axanar' or just as a kind of German measles-thing. Your call.

I hope you enjoy it! Please review.

Leonard stood in front of the collection of people. He wore his dress uniform and the gold braid was scratching his freshly shaved neck. He shifted his shoulders a little and glanced at Jim. The ship's captain looked excited. A broad grin had broken across his face a few weeks before when the engagement was announced and it hadn't faded since. He bounced a little on his heels in anticipation, his clasped hands repeatedly tensing and relaxing. Leonard looked back towards the crowd and then at the groom who stood in between him and Jim.

Spock looked much as he always did—his expression blank and cold, his shoulders slightly hunched, his dress uniform so immaculate that Leonard wondered briefly if it had been placed over his shoulders by the angels themselves. The only differences that day were the way one of his eyebrows twitched every few moments and that his hands, which hung by his sides, had curled into such tight fists that his knuckles were white. Somehow, even though they had been standing there for at least ten minutes, Leonard still found it hard to believe that it was Spock who was getting married—and to a living being, too.

He had never been one for weddings. It seemed a lot of fuss for something that had a huge chance of not lasting more than a few years. And yet he had felt something strange stir within him when he had spoken to Uhura that morning, as she and a collection of her fellow female officers applied make-up and styled her long, thick hair (though he didn't understand why they spent so much time on this, since Uhura would be getting married in her dress uniform that was standard for all formal occasions). When he had seen the way her face lit up each time she smiled, heard the slightly nervous laugh, noticed the way her hands had shaken so much as she put in her earrings that he had had to insert them for her, he had wondered if maybe... maybe...

He watched Spock a little while longer, observing his serious expression and tensed shoulders. He knew that Spock had been disappointed when Jim had said that they would not be able to go to Vulcan II for the wedding ceremony. However, when Jim had hurriedly suggested that he could officiate the marriage on the ship, Spock had seemed at least content and Uhura—who, Leonard knew, had been fearing the Vulcan ceremony and the possibility of accidentally revealing her own ignorance of the ritual—had been much more pleased than seemed necessary. So the plans had been made over a week and now there they all stood.

The doors slid open at the other end of the room and the whole crowd turned around to watch the bride enter. Spock looked up from the spot on the floor where his gaze had been focused and Leonard saw something soften slightly in his expression. Then he himself looked around and saw Uhura—

And he remembered...

All had once been made of gold.

I don't love you.

He had gotten married two months before starting medical school, right in the middle of summer. The service had been performed by his father. All the flowers had been in bloom and the thick, humid air had smelled just like Jocelyn's perfume. The sun had shone. The sky had been blue, the grass green. His mouth had been frozen in a smile for months, his lungs had ached from laughing almost every day. And then Jocelyn had appeared at the other end of the church, arm in arm with her father, her thick, dark hair curling around her shoulders.

She had worn white—a white so bright that it glowed in the sun.

And for almost a year, everything had been perfect.

I don't love you.

It was hard to tell when it had first started to go wrong.

Medical school made little difference. Their relationship had started when they were both going for their graduate degrees. Jocelyn had understood when he would come home from a long day, tired, grouchy and wanting nothing more than just to sit next to her and drink a glass of whiskey. After all, she had just started her internship with a revered, but demanding, psychologist. They would return to their shared apartment at the end of the day and complain and laugh and everything had been perfect.

No, the first problem had been... separate from all of that.

Call him old fashioned, but Leonard had always wanted kids. Since he had turned seventeen and had been told by his father to start thinking about what he really wanted from adult life, children had been a major feature. He wanted at least three, preferably girls, all with Jocelyn's smile and his eyes. Maybe one would be unfortunate enough to inherit all of his facial features, but they would be softened through the pretty genetics of his wife. All three would be dressed in white, with matching ribbons in their thick, dark hair.

And because of this dream, this ideal life he had painted in his head, he had asked his doctor if he thought he and Jocelyn would be able to have children. There had already been a flicker of doubt in his mind—memories of the horrible burning of the Axanarri fever that had swept like a plague through the Old South during his childhood. There had been no deaths—the fever never killed, but it had been known to cause other problems in humans. Leonard had been twelve when the epidemic began and his mother had not recognized the symptoms, so it had not been treated soon enough to prevent some of the long-term effects. And even though his old pediatrician had promised his parents that the damage would not be permanent—that his body would heal itself eventually and that there was nothing else to be done—Leonard had decided to ask his doctor after a long, somewhat awkward conversation with Jocelyn. The doctor had rolled his eyes and asked if he was a woman and Leonard had laughed for a while before reiterating the question.

He hadn't expected to be told no.

Jocelyn had pretended that it didn't matter, that everything would be fine. They could try to adopt, she had said, it wouldn't change a thing. But her touch had been too light as she rubbed his back, as though she had been reluctant to even let her hand graze his skin. She had spoken too quickly and she had kissed him too hard in an attempt to comfort him. She had sworn that it wouldn't change anything.

She had lied.

It would be the first time of many.

I don't love you.

They did manage to adopt a girl a year later—a little, beautiful girl named Joanna. She had been the daughter of a young, but mentally damaged woman who had come to his father's church everyday, talking to the crosses that hung from the walls. The woman had died soon after the girl had been born and there had been no family to claim her. So Leonard's father had recommended him and Jocelyn to the social worker in charge of the case as suitable adoptive parents. Somehow, it had all worked out.

She had been only eighteen months old when he and Jocelyn had brought her home. Leonard called her his princess and Jocelyn just rolled her eyes and laughed at him.

That Christmas had been wonderful—his parent's house, with holly hanging over the doorways and the enormous tree, its branches sagging from numerous baubles and ornaments. The house had smelled like pine and cinnamon. A fire had burned in the grate and it had been be one of the last times he would see his father.

There had been a picture that his mother had taken of the three of them. Jocelyn was holding Joanna in her arms as they sat by the tree. The warm glow of the fire and the multi-colored lights strung along the branches behind her illuminated her calm, graceful face and shone in her smooth, black hair. Joanna was curled up against her chest, asleep, a few curls of golden hair and one tiny hand the only things visible over the thick, wool blanket in which she had been wrapped. Leonard sat on the floor beside them, the fire to his back, his face lit up with happiness as he kissed his wife on the cheek.

That photograph, he used to say, was the perfect depiction of his and Jocelyn's marriage. He would kiss her and laugh and burn for her, and in return, she would be cool and haughty and treat him with an attitude like ice.

"It's like a balance," he had said once. "Like yin and yang."

But Jocelyn had hated the picture. She had complained bitterly whenever she saw him looking at it, saying that it made her look fat or old or something like that. She had even gotten angry when she had found out that he carried it in his wallet.

He continued to keep it, though, because, as he would realize later, that had been one of the best Christmases of his life.

I don't love you.

Uhura did not look calm or collected as she stepped through the door. In fact, she looked as though it was taking every ounce of strength she possessed not to run the length of the room. She didn't walk with anyone, but in her hands, she held a small bouquet of white flowers that Jim had somehow managed to procure for the occasion. A smile was stretched across her face, though it looked as though she was trying her best to suppress it, and Leonard could see the excitement in her eyes, the anticipation of the rest of her life...

He looked back at Spock, whose face had returned to its usual stoic display. However, his shoulders had relaxed and, as Uhura neared them and he stepped forward to take her hand, Leonard noticed the way he looked at her—his expression one of concentration, but his gaze just a little bit softer than usual. She beamed at him, her eyes bright and shining, and his hand shook as he took hers. He watched as the two of them turned to Jim, who grinned almost as broadly as Uhura. The ceremony began.

Leonard shifted his shoulders and the photograph, tucked into his inside pocket, brushed against his chest. An icy feeling came over him as Uhura finally managed to calm her features. Her expression was almost a mirror of Spock's, except for the tiny gleam in her eye.

This couldn't possibly work.

I don't love you.

And then suddenly he had been out of medical school and working in a hospital. Jocelyn had already started her work as a psychologist. They had both worked odd hours—rarely both at their apartment at the same time. However, Leonard had always made sure that he got to spend some time with Joanna, at least. When Jocelyn had been at home as well, the two of them would talk together. It wasn't quite golden, but it was pleasant, peaceful. Leonard had had plans to go into a private practice once he had gotten enough experience. Things would be easier then. He and Jocelyn both had looked forward to that point. It couldn't be too far away.

And then it had all gone wrong.

His father had become suddenly ill and Leonard started spending all his time at the hospital, desperately trying to find a cure for an incurable disease. Months went by. He and Jocelyn stopped speaking and began shouting. Of course, they had fought before, but that had been different. Those arguments had not been so acidic, so purely poisonous. There had never before been a time when he had hated Jocelyn so much, never had he wanted so badly to just shake her by the shoulders until she understood.

But she couldn't.

His father had been in agony. The illness was not one that killed quickly or easily, like phaser fire, or one that burned, like the Axanarri fever, but slowly and painfully, like a stab in the stomach, steadily bleeding out until the victim lost consciousness. But there was never the mercy of sleep: his father had stayed awake, alert, and had begged Leonard to allow him rest, to get rid of the freezing pain.

There had been only one way to get rid of the pain and both of them had known that.

Finally, Leonard had allowed it. His father had grasped his hand, his grip slowly loosening. It had felt like he was suffocating as he had watched the man to whom he owed so much of himself close his eyes as tears filled his own. His mother had sobbed uncontrollably, her nails digging into his shoulder while she wept. Jocelyn had stood on his other side, her expression impassive as a few tears slipped down her cheeks.

He had never felt so cold.

All of the other doctors had understood. They had heard the conversations between Leonard and his parents, had listened to the recording of his father explaining that the decision was his own. His mother had understood, though it did not ease her grief. Joanna had been too young to be told what was happening and had been sent to stay with one of Jocelyn's aunts.

They had returned to their apartment the day after the funeral, after spending two weeks with his mother, trying to organize a number of things that Leonard hardly understood but that Jocelyn seemed to. Jocelyn had immediately put Joanna to bed and then gone to their room without speaking to him.

He had simply sat down on the sofa and stared at the blank wall in front of him.

The cure for his father's disease would be found three months later.

I don't love you.

They had all eventually gone back to their original routine, but everything had changed.

All dreams of private practice had slipped from his mind sometime during the course of his father's illness. After the discovery of a cure, Leonard had managed to get himself a position at a research hospital and worked slightly more regular hours which allowed him to pick up Joanna each day after he left the hospital and to wait for Jocelyn to come home. Sometimes when they were both home at the same time, they would sit and talk the way they once had, but it had been different.

Yet, as Leonard was able to come home earlier, Jocelyn came home later and later, sometimes not returning until three in the morning and after, and they began to speak less and less. A rift had formed between them. Eventually, he found himself alone almost every night, waiting up for Jocelyn. Each evening, after he kissed Joanna goodnight, after he stroked her cheek and called her his princess, he would sit down on the couch, drink a glass of whiskey and read until Jocelyn returned.

The change was so gradual that he hardly even noticed it. They still slept side by side every night, but they rarely even kissed. He still smiled whenever she came home; he still carried the Christmas photo in his wallet, a reminder of the perfect balance; but it wasn't the same.

And one day, when Jocelyn had returned late from work again, it had all hit him. She had said nothing as she hung up her coat and sat down beside him on the sofa. Joanna was already in bed at the time.

And he had known before Jocelyn had said anything, he had known from the way she had held herself—her dark eyes cold, her lips pressed tightly together, her folded hands relaxed in her lap. He had realized, with a sudden rush of fear and regret, that they hadn't really spoken in over a year.

"Jocelyn—" he had begun.

"I want a divorce."

The words had been said so simply, as though they didn't really mean anything at all.

"I love you," he had said desperately and his hands had shaken as he reached towards her.

She had looked at him, her face expressionless.

"I don't love you."

I don't love you.

She proved it too. She got the divorce and then had proceeded to strip him of everything she could. All his family took her side afterwards, his mother even going so far as to tell him that he was unwelcome in her house.

She took his money—managing to not only win a large portion of the small amount of money he already possessed, but a monthly alimony from him too. He had gotten angry and she had used it against him in court. She had dragged his name through the mud, forcing everyone present to question the situation of his father's death, to place the blame on him. Her statements before the judge would be the cause of him getting fired from the research hospital three months before their divorce was even finalized. She even took his daughter, his princess.

The strangest thing had been that Leonard had hardly been aware of what was happening. It had been as though he were floating in space, half of him watching her take everything away, the other half trapped in those golden times back when they were first married. Maybe it had been those memories that stopped him from ever really trying to keep anything, to take anything from her. They had been what stopped him from telling his own lawyer that he had seen Jocelyn driving back from the courthouse with a tall, blond man who had reminded him of one of her old friends from high school. For whatever reason, he had been unable to argue back, to keep what belonged to him.

They had never spoken together again, not without her lawyer around. Sometimes, he felt that if he could have just talked to her one more time, alone, that maybe she would have stopped, that things could have gone back to the way that they had been.

And then suddenly—seven months after the process started—their divorce had been finalized. Jocelyn's lawyer had approached Leonard only a few moments after the judge's gavel had dropped and had told him that he would be permitted to go back to his and Jocelyn's apartment one more time the following evening, to pick up anything he may have left behind and to say one last goodbye to Joanna. Leonard had looked at him for a few moments and wondered if he had any kids, if he had a wife.

Leonard had been staying with Dr. Howards, one of his fellows at the research hospital, since Jocelyn had first asked for the divorce. It was better than staying with family or any of the friends he had who still spoke to him—like his relatives, many of them had decided that Jocelyn was right and that Leonard had been a bad husband, somehow—because Howards, unlike most people, hardly spoke to him at the end of the day. In fact, they usually weren't even in the tiny, one-room apartment at the same time. Anyway, Leonard hadn't really wanted to talk to anyone. He drank most evenings and then went straight to bed.

The evening the divorce went through had been no different.

But the following night, once he had gotten off work, he had driven over to the apartment that was now just Jocelyn's. He had punched the key code into the pad beside the door, but all he had gotten in response had been a few seconds of angry buzzing and the numbers flashing red. He had clenched his teeth in annoyance. Jocelyn already changed the numbers on him.

He had sighed and pressed the buzzer. No response. He had pressed it again. And again. He had put his ear against the door: people were speaking inside—a man and a woman. They were laughing. He had pressed the buzzer again and again no one responded. He had pounded against the door and shouted for Jocelyn to let him in, but no one answered. The voices continued inside the apartment, ignoring him, laughing at him.

Cursing under his breath, he had turned away and saw a small cardboard box sitting on the other side of the hall from the door. He could read Jocelyn's round, even handwriting on the top: LEONARD MCCOY.

He had opened it there in the hallway: a large number of bills addressed to him, some gloves, a scarf and a stack of photographs held together by a rubber band had all been haphazardly packed inside. His diplomas had been stuffed in too, crumpled carelessly to make sure that they'd fit. One was torn at the edges.

Leonard had sat down and picked up the pictures. The first one had been of him and Jocelyn in grad school. Her arms were wrapped around his neck while his circled her waist in a tight embrace. The second had been their wedding photo: he was wearing an idiotic grin and she was in that dress, the one so bright it had blinded him. The third had been of him holding Joanna, her beautiful golden-blond curls pressed against his cheek. Thirty-two photos, in all, each one making him remember everything she had taken from him. The twenty-fifth had been of Jocelyn, his parents and him on his and Jocelyn's third anniversary—the very image of his father had made a lump rise in his throat. The twenty-sixth had been of him and Charlie, who had been the best man at his and Jocelyn's wedding, drinking beer at a fourth of July party. He and Leonard hadn't spoken since she had asked for the divorce—yet another thing she had taken.

And the last picture had been of that wonderful Christmas at his parents' house.

He hadn't realized before that he had dropped it when he had moved out, but then again, he hadn't been much in the mood for looking at pictures of Jocelyn. Looking carefully at the image, he had held it apart from the rest of the stack and examined at the picture as he had many times before. His face was filled with excitement and joy, his whole body curved towards her, almost as though she were magnetic. He was smiling as he kissed her, his thick, untidy hair tangling with the dark curls that were pulled back from her smooth, beautiful face.

Her expression was mostly concealed in shadow—she was turned slightly away from the fire and the Christmas tree lights did little to brighten her face. He also cast a shadow over her features, but before now he had always thought her expression was quite clear. He had always seen—or imagined—a small smile on her lips, her eyes focused somewhere away from him, one of her dark eyebrows raised a little above the other in mock-annoyance...

And yet as he had looked at it there outside the apartment, he hadn't see those things. Suddenly, he could really see the way her nostrils were the tiniest bit flared, the way they always were when she was angry. He could see the coldness in her eyes as she glared at some spot diagonally behind the camera, the creases of frustration between her eyebrows, the way her lips were pressed tightly together, as though she were dying to shout some terrible insult.

Suddenly, he could hear the sound of her laughter from the door behind him, the same way Jocelyn had laughed when he first kissed her back in university. The photograph had fallen from his fingers and landed, face down, on the floor. On the back, in Jocelyn's writing, it had said, "Your perfect balance".

He had stared at the words for a few moments, then thrown the pictures back in the box, crumpling some, ripping others in his haste. For a moment, he'd considered leaving that photograph there, but then he had picked it up too, placing it in the inside pocket of his jacket. He had risen to his feet and, after managing to balance the box under his arm, pressed the buzzer one last time.

No one had come.

I don't love you.

So he had turned away and left.

Six hours later, he had arrived in Iowa, at Riverside shipyard.

I don't love you.

Jim had barely finished speaking when Uhura turned sharply and wrapped her arms around Spock's neck, her lips pressed against his. Applause broke out, echoing around the room. Spock froze briefly, his shoulders tensed, then relaxed a little. She lifted herself up on her toes as he placed his hands on her narrow waist, pulling her closer. An ensign whistled and Jim laughed loudly.

Leonard laughed too, in spite of himself. An icy knot of doubt had settled in his stomach and he could feel the photograph in his pocket.

A cheer rose up from the crowd as Uhura, seeming to momentarily forget the presence of everyone else in the room, jumped up into Spock's arms. There was a second where it seemed like he might drop her from shock. His eyes snapped open in surprise—and the doubt freezing the walls of Leonard's stomach seemed for a moment to turn white-hot—but he caught her.

And suddenly all Leonard's uncertainty vanished and he understood everything. He understood why he still dreamed of Jocelyn; why he could still remember the way his hands had tangled in her thick, dark hair; why his heart seemed to leap hopefully in his chest whenever he saw little girls with curly blond hair or heard the name Joanna; why he still kept those thirty-two photographs that had been returned to him out of spite, out of cold hatred.

All had once been made of gold...

Spock had not dropped Uhura, but had caught her just in time and that single act made everything entirely different.

He watched as Spock held her tightly against him, as though trying to be as close to her as he could, as though they were alone in a world made of gold. The bouquet was still gripped tightly in one of her hands and a few of the looser petals fell as he turned and began to carry her from the room, his eyes closed, his expression intent.

Leonard smiled and clapped, the photograph pressing against his chest, a golden weight.

I love you.

I…

I still love you.