"Jim Kirk, if we get out of this, I'm going to murdered you. I'm going to murder you." Leonard hissed. He hissed through the pain as he cradled his extended stomach. Oh god, the pain was getting worse and worse.
Jim, his husband was getting paler and paler, grimaced. He tightened his grip on Leonard' arm. His other hand was around Leonard's back.
They had been on this desolate planet running from guerrilla forces for three days now. Three days since Jim Kirk broke his leg and forced his nine month pregnant husband to beam down to a planet to treat him because Jim Kirk just had to be careless. As for why they didn't beam Jim back, it was because it wasn't polite to beam out during negotiations. Stupid Starfleet politics.
It should have been quick and painless, an hour procedure that involved Leonard running a bone regenerator over Jim's leg. He was supposed to be back in their quarters resting, not running for his goddamn life.
Except, next thing Leonard knew they were surrounded by hostile forces. It seemed the Talons weren't telling the truth about their peace talks with the Norks. Before Leonard could come to terms with what was happening, their entire security detail had been murdered, and Jim was dragging him behind a wall.
Now, three days later they were lost in the mountains without a communicator and to make matters worse his fucking water had broke.
So now, they were such a sight: Jim with his leg in a splint and Leonard in labor, on the side of some purple mountain.
"Fuck," Leonard hissed. God, the contractions had progressed quickly. First babies weren't supposed to be born this fast. He wasn't supposed to be in labor yet, there should have been another week at least.
"Maybe you should sit down, Bones," Jim asked. He scratched the back of his neck worriedly.
"We should be back on the Enterprise, Jim Kirk." However he still let Jim help him lean against a tree.
He fell on his ass with a loud grunt. He let out a sigh. It felt so good to finally be off his swollen feet. Stupid Starfleet regulation boots didn't make matters better.
Jim knelt beside him. He worried his lower lip. "You shouldn't be in that position," Leonard commented warily.
Jim grunted before handing Leonard his canteen. It was their only water source. Leonard hadn't been expecting to stay long, so he hadn't brought any supplies. Jim patted his shoulders before standing up.
"I'm going to go look around. It's going to be dark soon."
"No trees, Jim," Leonard said wearily.
Jim smiled. "Right, no trees."
It was joke between them, one that Leonard never let Jim forgot. It dated back to their time at the academy. During their first spring break, Jim had convinced Leonard to go camping with him at Yosemite. One opened bag of beef jerky had led to rude encounter with a bear the next morning. Leonard swore he never watched anyone climb a tree as fast as Jim Kirk had that morning.
He watched as Jim hobbled a few meters away. He could barely make out his shadow through the heavy tree line. He was surprised the guerrilla forces had tracked them this far.
He sighed. He took another a gulp of water. He gently rolled up his blue medical shirt, followed by his black undershirt. He was met with mass of stretched skin. His belly had become extended during the last few months of the pregnancy. There were long stretch marks that ran along his stomach intermixed with blood vessels. It would be a long time before he would be able to reclaim his figure again.
He watched his abdomen contort during another painful contraction. He managed to breath through it.
"Come on, little one. Not yet, baby. Not yet." He whispered in a soothing tone. He rubbed his belly. He was 'awarded' by a particularly hard kick followed by another contraction. Fuck. They were closer and closer. If only his tricorder and his medical supplies hadn't been damaged during the first day.
"Bones?" Jim asked. Leonard looked up. He hadn't heard Jim return. "I think we lost them."
"Thank God," Leonard muttered. There was no way he could keep walking much less run in his condition. He and Jim hadn't expected just how persistent the Norks to be. They had assumed they would have given up long ago. Jim's only theory was they probably wanted to try ransoming them back to the Federation.
"There's a cave up ahead." Jim continued. "We can probably stay there for the night. Figure out how to contact the Enterprise."
"And deliver the baby," Leonard muttered. He grimaced as another contraction gripped his body.
Jim's eyes widened. Leonard vaguely wondered when he told Jim his water had broken how Jim, with his genius level IQ, had not foreseen this outcome. Their baby would be born on this alien, hostile planet. They could still hear the bombs exploding in the distance. The feud between the Talons and the Norks had started again.
"Well, let's get going," Leonard grumbled.
Jim nodded. He managed to pull Leonard up. It turned out, close wasn't that close. They stopped at least three times for Leonard to ride through particularly painful contractions. Jim sat beside him, fidgeting.
They eventually arrived at the cave. Leonard scoffed. It wasn't much of a cave. As Jim helped him lean against a wall, he looked up and saw the sky. The planet's sun was starting to go down. Soon, soon the stars would come out. Somewhere out there was the Enterprise. He wondered how long before the hobgoblin would find them.
He looked back at Jim. He looked so scared. He had never seen Jim Kirk so scared, not even the day they got the tests results back and found out Leonard wasn't dying of stomach cancer but was pregnant.
It wasn't that they hadn't entertained the idea of having a baby. Leonard hadn't even fathom the idea of having and raising the baby on Earth. Leonard had realized long ago that Jim Kirk belonged in the stars. He needed the stars like a fish needed water, and any baby they would have would be half Kirk. The child would have Jim's love for the stars. It had all been a matter of when not where.
But God damnit it. He was the one in labor. He was supposed to be the scared one, not Jim.
"Jim," he muttered.
Jim immediately looked up. His blue eyes never looked so blue. "Darlin' come here." Leonard held out his open arms. Jim immediately complied. He buried himself into Leonard's chest. He wrapped his own arms around Leonard's. His swollen stomach sandwiched between them. It was awkward, but it was their life.
"Bones," Jim muttered. "I'm sorry, so sorry. I should have let Spock take the mission. I shouldn't have been so stupid to break my fucking leg."
"Hey Jim," Leonard muttered. His voice as soft as Jim's. "It's okay Jim. Childbirth is a natural process. Been happening for thousands of years" Of course he didn't mention that male pregnancies were still a fairly new phenomenal. It was one of the newest medical breakthroughs in the last fifty years. There had only been a handful of success stories. Their own experience had been fairly painless, surprisingly enough. His synthetic uterus had taken almost immediately. They had gotten pregnant after only two cycles. Jim had laughed joyfully and said he had 'super sperm'.
He gently pulled back and looked Jim in the eyes. His blues eyes that god looked so blue at that moment. Leonard felt like he could drown in them. He waved his fingers over his stomach and at the cave they were currently in. "I might have wanted this to happen somewhere sterile… somewhere where we aren't being hunted and ... safe. Somewhere with medical equipment and pain medicine."
Jim grimaced.
"But," Bones muttered. He gently ran his hand over Jim's cheeks. "At least you're here. And... and everything, everything that's been happening is perfectly normally. Soon… soon our baby will be here."
"Bones." Jim muttered. He took Bones' hands. He gently squeezed it.
Jim didn't mention it when Leonard's grip tightened as another onslaught of a contraction hit. Leonard loosened his grip when it finally passed. He watched as Jim flinched slightly.
They shifted so that Leonard was leaning against Jim's chest as opposed to the hard rocks, with Jim cradling both him and his swollen stomach.
"Tell me a story, Jim," Leonard muttered. He looked up at Jim.
Jim laughed. He loved telling stories, and Leonard loved the feeling of Jim's chest rise and fall to the rhythm of his voice. Jim was an avid reader, so his stories were always vivid and exciting.
They stayed like that for a long time, with Jim telling him a story about a prince who sold his heart for magic and was eventually saved by his true love. Jim's stories were always so cheesy.
By the time that they did disentangle themselves from each other, the skies had darkened. Leonard looked up. "Look Jim, the first star of the night." He pointed to it.
It was a bright star. Since they were so high up, it looked so close. "Make a wish, Bones," Jim whispered.
Normally Leonard would have scoffed. Jim, despite having fought many god like creations during their missions, was highly superstitious in some respects. This time Leonard did make a wish. When he finished and looked over at Jim, it seemed he did too.
Once more stars came out along with the moon, Jim made a small fire and heated some of their rations. Jim fed him spoonfuls of soup between contractions. Jim still looked pale and scared, but not as much as he had earlier.
It was a long while later. For Leonard and Jim, it felt like an eternity. When the contractions were nearly happening constantly, Jim pulled off Leonard's boots, pants and underwear. He laid them out to the side. Jim pulled off his own gold shirt and laid it under Leonard's legs.
He ran his fingers over Leonard's legs. They were shaking. "You cold, Bones? Should I make the fire bigger."
Leonard groaned through a contraction. He shook his head. "No, it's normal. Just means it's going to be here soon," Bones said, panting as he felt another strong contraction.
"Maybe we should start pushing," Jim suggested, meeky.
"We?" Leonard asked sarcastically. He really shouldn't be this harsh on Jim. Jim had never delivered a baby before much less his own. "You aren't the one who's about to push a fucking living being out of an opening you didn't have..." His rant was cut off by another strong contraction. "Fuck!" He roared. He felt he was splitting apart.
"I swear it has it has a head like a bowling ball," Leonard said warily, as he leaned back against the cold rock face.
Jim, bless his soul, reached over his now distended abdomen to pass him the canteen. Leonard drank from it greedily. "You always did say my head was like bowling ball," Jim said fondly. Jim was always the jokester.
Leonard grunted. Jim leaned back and peered between his legs. He heard Jim let out a strangled breath. "Bones!" Jim gasped out. "I… I see the head."
"Thank god," Leonard muttered. He groaned and moaned through the contractions. He felt himself splitting in two. He heard Jim gasp as he felt the legendary ring of fire. "Bones.." Jim muttered.
"Fuck!" Leonard screamed. He screamed through the contraction, the pain, the pushing. He felt the burn. He felt himself tearing and most importantly he heard Jim's gasp of wonderment. When he opened his own eyes and peered around his belly, he saw the shadow of a baby's head.
He saw Jim supporting the head with his hands. Jim Kirk, who had never delivered a baby, seemed to know exactly what to do when it really counted. He felt his stomach quicken. He moaned as another contraction hit. He felt a long slippery, burning gush followed by a watery cry and Jim's own sobs as finally… finally their baby slipped from him.
"Thank god," he said to no one in particular as he leaned back against the rock face.
"Oh, Bones. It's a girl," Jim whispered. Through the tears and sweat, Leonard saw the most wondrous sight, a picture more beautiful than even the paintings from the most famous artisans. It was the image of Jim Kirk cradling their tiny infant. Jim had wrapped her in his gold command shirt. They both looked like they were glowing.
Jim laid her on his deflated stomach. She wiggled her tiny fingers and blinked up at them with her beadily eyes. Eyes that were so like Jim, those beautiful fever bright blue eyes. Eyes that Leonard knew would mean trouble for them both, but good trouble. Leonard gently ran his hand over her tiny belly. She gurgled happily.
Jim crawled around beside him. "God Bones, she's so beautiful." He breathed out.
And Jim, Jim wasn't exaggerating. Joanna Georgina Kirk-McCoy was the most beautiful baby girl ever born, there really was no question.
Leonard pulled her towards his chest.
They stayed like that for a long time, a long time after the afterbirth. Under the stars of an alien planet, Leonard had never felt happier. This wasn't perfect. In fact it wasn't even closed to prefect, but it had turned out okay.
"It wasn't that bad right, Bones?" Jim asked sometime lately. His voice sounded sleepily.
"Next time, you're carrying the baby, and you're banned from away missions until after it's born," Bones grumbled back.
Jim grinned. He grinned his shit tooth grin. "Okay, Bones." He muttered, as he stroked their sleeping daughter's dirty blonde hair.
Leonard smiled. He looked from Jim to their daughter. It really hadn't been that bad, and he wouldn't trade it for anything the world, but he would never tell his incorrigible husband that. After all she was half Kirk, of course her birth had be dramatic.
Fin