Needles: As Bones looked down at the limp body of the unconscious girl
laying on the bio-cot before him, her mane of blond splaying wildly across
blood-drained cheeks, it occurred to him that he might have taken her a
little more seriously when she'd said she had "a little problem with
needles."
Cosmic: Lara watched Bone's silhouette shifting against the window, the
cosmos spinning around him in some intricate, sensual dance, exploding in
his wandering eyes like supernovas. After years in space, and after seeing
things that would overwhelm the souls of the masses with sheer,
heartbreaking elegance, she had come to realize one thing - their beauty
paled in comparison to that of a country doctor.
Ex? Ex-wife? Lara breathed past the knot in her throat, a choking hold of
an emotion that she had no right to lingering in her chest as she watched,
from the corner of her eye, Bones video chatting with Julia. It was that
knot that turned his snort of derision into one of humour, his pained
grimace into a smile. She shook her head, forcing that tide back, letting
the words of Spock ring in her brain cavity - logic. There was a reason
she was his ex wife - hell, Lara had heard enough of Bones's rants to
know them by heart, to hear the stinging tones and vile pejoratives he
saved solely for that woman - and, frankly, Lara had no right to give a
damn. But jealousy, however misplaced, had an odd way of making hatred seem
a lot like affection.
Doesn't look very 'ex' to me, whispered that little knot in her chest.
In-apropos: Jim's simple question to Lara is always deliberately timed to
Bones's entrance of a room and loud enough to carry - it's always uttered
with a smile. "Jailbait, what's your sexual preference?" The young woman is
accustomed to being the butt of Kirk's jokes and doesn't miss a beat, not
flustered in the slightest - so there's no reason that Bones should be the
one flustered, waves of heat spiraling in his stomach as the Ensign
responds, "Often, Cap'n."
Underage: Sleepless nights Bones would slink into Ten Forward for a glass
of whatever poison he needed to get the images of death from behind his
eyelids and the feel from his stained hands, but there was no drink that
could send those images scattering like the sight of the girl who sometimes
sat at the bar, sultry and young in off-duty blacks. She wasn't old enough
for the liquid that slid devilishly down her throat, and as Bones found
himself envying the cocktail, he realized with a biting pain that she
wasn't old enough for him, either.
No Good Reason: Bones didn't have to arrive at the Starfleet class he
lectured for until 10AM. He didn't have to walk half a mile to get there,
because his room was located in the Medical building's housing. All this
taken into consideration, he certainly didn't have a reason to be in Beta
Quadrant every morning at 7, dew collecting on his cuffs as he took the
concrete path running through the vast expanse of grass between the Beta
buildings, over which looked the balconies of those recruits ranking well
enough to receive views. If confronted, he certainly couldn't provide a
passable reason as to his being there, among only joggers and early morning
yoga enthusiasts. But as the sun breached the gap and alighted on room
1105, revealing the young woman who extended long limbs in the cool morning
air, soaking in the early day glow, he lost whatever ability he might have
had to make up excuses, let alone speak. Daring rays embraced first the
smooth curve of hips, then the convex planes of her stomach and deadly
knives of hipbones, all revealed like curtains from a stage as she
stretched languidly, tank top suddenly seeming damnably prudish. Those
brazen rays then did what he'd never had courage to do, brushing across the
bridge of her nose and colouring her cheeks, sending a scattering blush
down her throat. He was always walking away, heart in his throat, blood
nearly to boiling point when she'd call his name with a grin, leaning
dangerously over the balcony rail, making 'Bones' sound so good that it
should have been taboo. There was certainly no reason for him to have
made her lips curve that way, or her startling eyes alight, or the bridge
of her nose flush - it must have been the sun's doing. Yes, and it was the
sun he called responsible for the hot summer lightning that tore an
achingly lovely path through his heart, coiled and snapped in his stomach,
and flashed every time he closed his eyes.
No; Bones certainly had no reason for any of it.
Misinterpreted: Bones recognized the crackling anger that verily radiated from the
tips of Lara's lashes, the way her fists clenched the transporter room's
control panel. He saw the way she reeled and blanched as he hauled himself
from the floor of the transporter clutching his arm, blood seeping from
beneath his closed fingers, his own head reeling, wondering as to how
they'd escaped being obliterated on that imploding planet and how Scotty
had managed to beam them out in time. He saw that anger in the Ensign's
eyes as she ran to him and hurriedly unraveled the medical wrap in her
hands, and he watched as she began to stumble and falter, fingers failing
until he took the wrap with his free hand, grasping hers momentarily,
feeling them shake like leaves in a storm. He watched as she fiercely
blinked, avoiding his eyes, working feverishly until the wrap
was securely tied around his arm, shaking her head and mumbling hoarsely,
"I thought you were dead, dammit." It wasn't until he'd placed a hand
beneath her chin and forced her to look him in the eyes that he saw the
tears, the shock and fear colliding there, the breath that came unsteadily
and made his own breath leave his lungs in a mass exodus. For all the world
he might as well have been dead, rather than see the pain there, to feel
those tears collecting in some chamber of his heart that seemed ready to
rise up and suffocate him. "I thought you were dead, Bones," she whispered
into his collar as he held her tightly in, her thin frame trembling
with all the emotion he had to close his eyes against to keep from
escaping. The fierce longing coursing through his veins seemed tangible,
the way his heart seemed to pound in time with the shallow rise and fall of
her chest against him, the warm pulse of her arms around him, and he
couldn't help but damn the whole thing and wonder how it had taken near
death to bring her this close. "I'm very much alive, kid," he whispered
gruffly into her neck, "Never been more."