A/N: I watched a fantastic video by kimuracarter based on an idea by mijan where George was able to communicate across time to tell Bones how much Jim needed him. I loved the idea so I asked both for permission to play with it. This story is what came out of that inspiration. It's a little different, since George is a ghost here and not communicating across time, but it still uses the idea of George convincing Bones to watch over Kirk. This is definitely an AU so any details that don't match cannon were changed on purpose. Muses…who can argue with them…when they say 'change the details' you change the details. G
The absolutely remarkable video can be found at . Please go watch and comment.
A/N: Thanks to my beta, Soccerbear.
From Beyond the Grave
Being dead turned out not to be so bad. George Kirk found that he just had to think of his wife and his son and he could be right there with them. Of course, they couldn't see him. The way it was explained to him, only someone near death could see people who were already dead. So, that was a drawback. He also couldn't touch them, couldn't hold his infant son .He couldn't take care of them, couldn't keep bad things away from them.
He did find, however, that it wasn't only the present he could see. He could see the future too – well, possible futures – just waiting for people to decide to go down one path or another, or for that decision to be made for them. One person dying in one possible present could mean millions died in that possible future.
George was frustrated that he couldn't do anything to influence which possible future would come into existence. That was … until he noticed a pattern. George found that the key person – the one whose presence could save millions of people and whose absence meant those millions died - wasn't always a person whom anyone thought would matter. Not presidents or great military leaders … not people in positions to change the future directly. Sometimes, it was an unknown that made all the difference.
That's what brought him to this small hospital room in Georgia where a six year old child lay dying.
"You have to fight kid," George told the barely conscious boy. "You have to make it. You're important."
The boy groaned in pain and started to nod off. George knew if the boy went to sleep now, he wouldn't wake up. He'd seen that possible future. He had to keep the boy awake…keep him fighting just a little longer. He'd been sick for over a week, with a high fever from a virus that no one could treat. His parents had sat by his bed for all that time. Even now, his father was standing by the window while his mother slept in a hard plastic chair on the other side of the bed…her hand holding her son's while her head lay on the bed beside their clasped hands. They couldn't see George or hear him, but as long as little Leonard could see him, George was going to try to keep the kid in this realm.
"You know, kid. One thing about being dead… time doesn't go in a straight line anymore. You can see possible futures all tangled up together, just waiting for the players to make the decisions." He squeezed the child's hand. "I've seen a bunch of possible futures and I don't like any of them that start with you dying now. You have to stick around. You save the whole planet one day. There are even some futures where you save Vulcan. But most of all…you save my son. I've seen futures without you in them. Jimmy self-destructs. In some of them he still joins Star Fleet, thanks to Chris Pike, but in every single one of those…without you there… he washes out. In the ones where he doesn't even try Star Fleet, he continues his reckless behavior and courts death at every turn until it finally finds him…at much too young an age."
Lenny was trying to keep his eyes open, but he was having such a difficult time.
"Come on, buddy." George kept talking. "You're doing so good. You're fighting so hard. Just hang in there just a little longer. This last medicine they tried is the right one, but it takes time to work and in about half the futures, it takes too long. I'm breaking sixty kinds of rules by being here, but I have to try to buy you that time. So much depends on it."
Leonard finally lost his fight with consciousness, but George had bought him enough time, and his fever started to come down. He was going to be weak for a long time, but he'd live. George faded from view, but continued to watch this boy who would come to mean so much to his son.
0o0o0o0o0o0
Years passed and George kept track of his wife and son. He had to stand by as his wife took off on any Star Fleet assignment she could find and left his son with her new husband. He had to watch as Frank beat the crap out of young Jimmy for any minor infraction. He had been present when the young Kirk drove his prized antique car off a cliff. It was the last thing of George that the boy had and Frank had planned to sell it. The beating the kid took that night was severe enough that the boy actually saw George kneeling by his bed.
"Am I gonna die?" Jimmy could barely see through swollen eyelids, but he recognized his father.
"Not if I can help it, son." George answered honestly. The problem was that the ghost really couldn't help it. All he could do was sit there and wait to see which future would fall into place. If his son died here, so did every person on two worlds. But, as much as George tried to tell himself that he was breaking the rules against interference for the greater good…he could finally admit that he just didn't want his son to die.
"Shouldn't've taken the car." The boy was on his side, doubled over, holding his stomach.
George knew the boy was bleeding internally, and realized that no amount of talk was going to keep this young man in the land of the living. All he could do was hold his son's hand until the boy left his body behind and joined George. 'At least that's an up-side of this – sort of,' George thought, 'At least I'll be able to spend time with my son.'
By some miracle, Frank must have grown a conscience. The door burst open and the man stalked toward the bed. Jimmy tried to shrink even farther into himself, and actually whimpered.
"I'm taking you to the hospital, kid." Frank picked up the stricken boy – not too gently, but not overly rough either. "You got into a fight with a bigger kid and managed to get home before you collapsed."
Even at death's door, the kid was feisty. "It would've taken at least three."
Frank actually chuckled. "Okay kid, three really big kids."
As Frank started toward the door with Jimmy in his arms, the boy looked directly at George, "Will you come to the hospital with us, dad?"
"I'll be right beside you," George answered, "even if you can't see me."
The boy smiled and started to nod off.
0o0o0o0o0o0
Far to the east, a young man sat at his mother's bedside. Cancer was finally winning the battle she had been fighting for years. George didn't usually usher the dead to the next world but he owed it to Leonard to try to ease his mother's passing, even if the boy would never know.
At least he wasn't supposed to know.
"She's going to die, isn't she?" Leonard looked straight at George.
"You're not supposed to be able to see me." The ghost was stunned.
"Why not, I saw you before." Leonard answered. "I remember that, you know." He turned back to his mother and rubbed her hand. "They never believed me, though. They thought it was just a fever dream. I wasn't exactly sure I saw you either. But I saw you again when grandpa died."
"You never said you saw me." George remarked, but Leonard just grinned slightly.
"You've been watching me all this time, haven't you?" Leonard turned back to George in time to see the ghost nod. "Why?"
George smiled, "I told you, kid. You're important."
Leonard grinned a little more. "Yeah, so you said."
"If I can actually keep both you and Jimmy alive long enough to get into Star Fleet…"
"Wait a minute." Leonard was incredulous. "There is no way I'm going into Star Fleet. I am not going into space. Do you know how unsafe that is?"
The smile fell from George's face, "Yeah, kid. Actually, I do."
Leonard caught the change in mood but wasn't sure of the reason for it. "Anyway, I'm never going into space."
"Well, that's going to be a problem kid, because in every possible future where you're not in Star Fleet, Jimmy's not either…not at the needed time…and then millions die."
Leonard didn't have anything to say to that, and had just turned back to his mother when he saw her sit up … well, part of her sat up. "Mom," Leonard gasped.
"It's okay, Lenny." His mother's spirit responded as she stepped over to join George. "It's going to be fine. You stay strong for your daddy, okay? And we'll be together again…just not too soon, okay?"
She smiled and reached for his hand.
George repeated, "Yeah Leonard. Not too soon. And think about Star Fleet."
With that, they both disappeared, and Leonard got up to go tell his dad that his mother was gone.
0o0o0o0o0
George tried to contact Jimmy again. If Leonard could see him, even though he wasn't near death, maybe his son could too. No luck though.
George watched as Jim got into fight after fight and drifted from town to town, going nowhere. He never got close enough to death to see George again. 'Thank God for that,' George thought – about the near-death part – but he would have loved to be able to talk to his son…to tell him, like he had told Leonard, that he had to join Star Fleet… that he had to stay in Star Fleet…that he was needed…that he was special.
Even if he'd been able to get the kid to see him, though, George doubted he'd be able to get him to believe him. Jim seemed to think he was nothing special at all…despite all the bravado to the contrary. George decided that he'd have to keep an eye on Frank too. When that man finally got near death, George was going to make sure his passage was not pleasant.
0o0o0o0o0
He was able to talk to Leonard several more times. Each time, there was someone with the man who was near death. His father, patients he was working with, even his daughter. After Joanna died, Leonard fell apart. The comfort he had taken in seeing his mother pass over and leave with George just wouldn't come when Joanna did the same thing.
Leonard pulled away from everyone…even Jocelyn. She was grieving too, and couldn't stand the distance anymore. She finally decided to divorce Leonard and try to start over. The divorce turned nasty and she took practically everything he had.
Leonard was heading down the tubes. He started drinking more and more, and working all the time. George finally got his chance to intervene when Leonard was in the ER one evening. A young girl…about Joanna's age…was brought in. Motor vehicle accident. Both Leonard and George knew she wasn't going to make it.
Leonard sat with her for the longest time, and when he realized George was there, he picked up the pitcher of water that the little girl would never need, and threw it against the wall.
"Damn it!" He looked straight at George. "WHY?"
"I don't know Leonard. I never did figure it out. Kids die all the time. It's not fair, but it happens."
"You're always talking about possible futures. Are there any out there where Joanna didn't die?"
"No," George started. "There are futures where she doesn't die this young, but in those futures you don't go into Star Fleet, and everyone on both Vulcan and Earth die. So, no, there are no futures where she lives past another three years or so."
"Three years?" Leonard was incredulous. "You're telling me the world ends in three years?"
"In some futures." George answered matter of factly. "Every one where you and Jimmy aren't there to stop it."
"And that means I have to go to Star Fleet?"
"Yeah, Len." George knew how much McCoy hated the idea. "You have to. You need to be there the night they take the enterprise out. You have to get Jimmy on board. And to do any of that, you have to be his friend. You have to get him to stay in the Fleet, even when he wants to hang it all up."
"And the world depends on all this," Leonard was skeptical.
"Two worlds actually." George answered. "Or at least some survivors of Vulcan. Depending on which future we're talking about. But either way, you save Earth."
Leonard looked right at George. "You know how I feel about space travel, right?"
"Yeah," George said with a grin, "I know, but I also know you'll go anyway."
0o0o0o0o0
Neither man saw George on the shuttle as Leonard warned Jim that he may throw up on him.
Jim stuck out a hand, "Jim Kirk."
Leonard was taken aback. He figured that a 'Jim' or 'Jimmy' would crop up sooner or later, but on the very day he was being transported to Star Fleet Academy? This had to be the right Jim; he looked almost identical to the ghost he'd been seeing all these years. And Jim Kirk? Leonard never knew the ghost's name, nor did he think to ask, but it must have been George Kirk! Hero of the Federation. And he thought Leonard could save the world? Somehow, it meant even more to McCoy now that he knew who the ghost was.
"McCoy…" He finally found his tongue, "Leonard McCoy."
They were best friends from then on. They were originally assigned different dorm rooms, but six months into the first year, they got their roommates to agree to switch and they roomed together from then on. They were inseparable. Leonard found that he would have befriended Jim even if he hadn't been asked to by the boy's ghostly dad. The kid had a way of getting under McCoy's skin in a way no one had in a really long time. He was insufferable, egotistical, and just plain annoying, and Leonard wouldn't have him any other way. He had never had a better friend.
But he could see what the ghost had meant about the kid needing a keeper…not that George had put it quite that way. Jim was coming into himself the more he succeeded in Star Fleet, but he was still self-destructive by nature, and still always felt he had something to prove.
George watched every time Leonard dragged a drunken Jim home and put him to bed. He stood by when Jim still got into fist fights and while he slept his way through three quarters of the female population. As he watched the two men get closer and closer, there were becoming fewer and fewer futures where Earth was destroyed.
0o0o0o0o0
Leonard enjoyed the years of not having patients die, but he had come to realize that that was the only way he got to see George. As the third year of the academy rolled around – three years after Leonard had sat beside that little girl's bed – the doctor started getting nervous. He looked around every corner for a danger to Earth. He was becoming sullen and jumpy…and Jim noticed.
"What's up with you lately, Bones?" the other man finally asked.
Leonard didn't know what to tell him, but he didn't want to lie and say "nothing". Jim would have known it was a lie and would have badgered him until he got the truth anyway, so McCoy decided to start off with the truth instead.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, kid." That was the god's honest truth as far as Leonard was concerned.
Jim made a grand show of plopping down on the couch, propping his head on his hands with his elbows on his thighs, and looked straight at McCoy. 'Message taken' Leonard thought. The kid wasn't moving until he got the whole story.
"Do you believe in ghosts?"
The question came from so far in left field that it took quite a while for Kirk to answer.
"Actually, I think I do."
That answer stunned McCoy. He hadn't really expected that the kid would have put any stock in that kind of thing, but then again, maybe it should have occurred to him. If George had visited Leonard, surely he would have visited his own son…and with Kirk's penchant toward putting himself in dangerous situations, he almost certainly would have been near death at least once.
"Because you've seen your father?" Leonard decided to go out on a limb and just ask.
Dumbfounded, Jim answered. "Yes, actually. How did you know?"
"Because I've seen him too."
Jim was confused. "You mean you've seen your father, too?" He couldn't quite reconcile the wording of Bones' answer to anything that would make sense.
"No, I mean I've seen your father." McCoy got to wondering though. "I actually don't understand why I haven't seen my dad. You'd think he'd be able to talk to me since George can."
"Because I'm breaking about every rule there is, contacting you." George answered, unheard. "Maybe your father is better at following the rules than I am."
The conversation continued as though George hadn't spoken. "What does this have to do with you being jumpy lately?" Jim finally asked.
"Because…your father told me three years ago that the world would end in three years…that we had to be in the right place, at the right time, or everyone on two worlds would die."
The two friends spent the rest of the evening talking about every clue George had ever given McCoy over the years, so that they'd be able to avert disaster. With both of them watching for signs, maybe they'd be able to help.
0o0o0o0o0o0
When the emergency message came in, in the middle of hearing about the Kobayashi Maru, both men went on high alert. When they heard they'd be going to Vulcan, another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. When they heard Leonard's name called out, along with the assignment of the Enterprise, they knew this was the right time.
Then they heard that Jim would be planet-bound pending the conclusion of the investigation. Neither man could breathe for a moment.
"I've gotta be on that ship, Bones." Jim said unnecessarily.
Leonard was already trying to think of a way for that to happen. "I know Jim. Let me think."
"Bones, this is it. This is the crisis." Jim went on anyway. "Dad said we both had to be there. We can't get this close and just let both planets die because of a technicality!"
"Dammit Jim! I know!" Leonard was livid. "Okay, I've got it." He said before injecting Jim with a vaccine that would give him severe enough symptoms to warrant taking him on board.
0o0o0o0o0
George walked the halls of the Enterprise freely… unfortunately, he was seen by many. The attack had killed and wounded so many. Especially in sick bay, people just moved around George, like he was really there. He supposed being surrounded by so much death allowed people to see him.
Leonard was not at all happy to see him, but found he could carry on a conversation with the ghost without anyone thinking him insane.
"How was this supposed to help, George?" Leonard didn't know what he was feeling…anger, hopelessness. "Both Jim and I are here and Vulcan was still destroyed. Pike is on board an alien ship, Jim has been put off the Enterprise…Now what, George?"
"I don't know," the ghost answered honestly. "There were only a small number of futures where Jim was put off the ship. In some of those, he gets back on. In the ones he doesn't, Earth is still lost."
"Well, great," McCoy griped. "And you couldn't have warned us of that? What am I supposed to do now?"
"Talk to the Vulcan. Try to get Jim back on." George was at a loss. "I just don't know. You did your part though, Leonard. You got him onboard in the first place. Jim knows how important this is. He'll get back aboard if he can."
"And if he can't?"
"Um…then we all get a lot more opportunity to talk to each other?" George failed to interject the humor he was going for, but the more Leonard had gotten to know both Kirk's over the years, the more family resemblance he could see…even in personality. They both liked to try to lighten the mood, if they could…neither was always successful.
0o0o0o0o0o0
Leonard did try to talk to Spock. He told him that if you wanted to win the race, you didn't leave your prize stallion in the stables. Spock had countered with something about the stallion needing to be broken first. McCoy lost his temper.
"Listen, you green-blooded hob-goblin! Jim is important. I've always know that…ever since I was little. I know you won't find it logical, but I've seen his father's ghost practically all my life and he warned us that Jim needs to be onboard for this very moment, or Earth suffers the same fate as Vulcan."
Spock just raised his eyebrow.
"Just come to the sickbay with me. Everyone seems to be seeing George's ghost. You can ask him for yourself."
"I think not, Doctor. I have duties on the bridge."
"Dammit, Spock." McCoy didn't know what else to try. "Is seeing a ghost really that much harder to believe that a damned world-killing ship from the future? Think about it Spock!"
At just that moment, however, the ghost appeared…faintly, but he was there. McCoy had never seen a Vulcan show 'shock'…not that anyone who wasn't looking for it would have noticed it, but since McCoy was looking for it, he saw it… briefly, then it fell off the man's face as if it was never there.
"Do you believe me now?"
Spock didn't answer, but was looking at George expectantly, so the ghost spoke. "Get Jim back. Listen to him on this. You need to stop Nero. Don't take time to regroup. Don't waste a second. Call the other ships. Put them on high alert. See if any are in the area to help with Nero. But get to Nero's ship. Right now!"
George had seen futures where all the ships besides the Enterprise were destroyed. He had also seen futures where several others survived, some even where most of the others survived, but Spock had to act now.
"I'm not in the habit of listening to ghosts," Spock said, seemingly unmoved, but then changed his mind. "But, as these are not normal circumstances, perhaps it is time to change my habit."
He called the bridge, "Radio all Federation ships. Tell them we are on an intercept course with the alien vessel. Request assistance but warn them of the extreme danger." Spock looked like he was finished, but then added, "And plot a course that takes us within transporter range of Delta Vega. Pick up Kirk…" he was interrupted by the ghost.
"There's a Starfleet engineer there too…Montgomery Scott…you'll need him too."
"And apparently there is a Starfleet engineer there that we need to pick up as well," Spock added, and didn't bother imagining the faces of the bridge crew as they wondered how he could possibly know that.
0o0o0o0o0o0
With Kirk picked up earlier than he would have been had he needed to find his own way onto the ship, and with Spock and Kirk now working toward the same purpose, they were able to intercept Nero's ship, steal the red matter, rescue Pike and destroy the alien vessel with no problem and returned to Earth without mishap.
After the ceremony declaring Kirk the captain of the Enterprise, Bones and Jim relaxed in their dorm room…or attempted to relax.
"So," Jim started, "Crisis averted, I guess."
McCoy nodded, "So why don't I feel like all this is over yet."
A ghostly presence materialized, "Because it's not."
Both living men jumped, but it was Kirk who spoke first. "Dad…not that it's not great to see you…but why can we see you?"
"Neither of us are close to death," McCoy added, "Are we?"
George chuckled. "No. No more death for a while. I'm not sure why you're allowed to see me now, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I get to say goodbye, that's all I care about at the moment."
"Goodbye?" Jim found he didn't want his father to leave. "You'll still be watching us, though. Like you always have. Right? And we'll see you from time to time, right?"
"No, not anymore." George seemed sad but proud all at the same time. "You've averted the major crisis. I don't have to intervene anymore. I'll still be watching, but I doubt you'll see me again."
"But," Jim still argued, "We wouldn't have saved the world without your help. What if something like this happens again?"
"You're both on the right track now." George answered. "Stay in Star Fleet. Stay Captain of the Enterprise…don't let anyone promote you for a long time. And above all, stay together. There are other crises coming…not another global threat for another four years, but as long as you two are together and are on the Enterprise, you'll always come through."
Jim knew his father was right. He finally felt like he belonged … on the Enterprise, with Bones by his side. As long as he had that, all would be right with the world.
End