"Jim, wake up."
The captain stirred on the bed, slowly waking to a consciousness. He groaned in pain as his head throbbed. Jim opened his eyes only to close them instantly against the bright lights.
"Godamnit, Jim, get up." Bones glared at him, a tricorder in hand. "Stop being such a baby."
"Love you too, Bonsey." James T. Kirk slowly opened his eyes this time, squinting against the figure before him. McCoy was frowning in frustration at his patient, waiting fr the captain to become fully responsive.
"Jim, we need to talk about some of the test results."
"Can it wait until I'm cleared to leave so I can pretend there's something more important than you going on and on about how I eat too much junk food?"
"Jim, we really need to talk. This is serious." Kirk looked up at his best friend in concern at him not responding with his own part of the play-fight. Instantly his face dropped as he fell into a somber expression. When Bones used that tone, something was wrong.
"What did I fuck up this time?" It came out as a sigh, but already his stomach was churning and twisting.
"Do you remember that the last time I had to put you together there was something I wanted to run some more tests on? And how you escaped before I could? Well, while your body was recovering from your latest stunt, I went ahead and took some blood tests."
"Okay…"
"Jim, I'm not going to beat around the bush, you have a certain type of evolved cancer. Even if we had caught it when I noticed something last time, there wouldn't of been anything we could do.
"You have roughly a month by my calculations. Usually there aren't any big symptoms until your body actually starts shutting down, which is when there's usually only 5-10 days left. So, well, I guess you could consider yourself lucky… ish."
"Cancer?" Jim rolled the word around in his mouth absently. What was this word, and why was it coming from his mouth? McCoy watched him grimly as the blonde captain pulled inward to himself. The two stayed completely still in silence for a few minutes, but it felt like ages. Nurse Chapel looked over at them, frowning, but refrained from asking if everything was okay.
And then Kirk looked up, appearing absolutely normal, with a smirk and said, "Well, it seems like I have a lot of living to get in then, huh?"
"Dammit, Jim, this isn't a joke. You are going to most likely die by the time a month is up. You are going to become more tired as your body fights against this anomaly, you're slowly going to have a hard time running, jogging, walking."
Bones slapped his hand down on the bed in frustration. "You're going to get to the point where you can't stay awake, and then your body is just going to start shutting down. One day it is just going to decide that it's done fighting and it's going to just STOP."
"Bones, Leonard, I wish you would stop. Okay so, sure, I only have a month to live, but I… have more time than some others? I don't know. But whatever. If it wasn't cancer, I'd find some other, probably more stupid, way of getting myself killed." The good doctor opened his mouth to say something, but Jim put his hand on his should as he stood up. "I accepted that I would have to die some time when I became captain. It's just decided to take me earlier than I thought it would."
Jim slapped McCoy's shoulder with a grin and started walking over to the doors, flashing Chapel a charismatic smile. "Don't tell anyone. I'm holding you to it, Mr. Doctor-patient-confidentiality-thing."
"Just get out of here."
"I mean it! I'm off to go do captain things and stuff. If I come off duty and find flowers or some shit in my room or whatever I'm going to come kick your ass."
"Jim…" Bones had raised a hypo and was growling at the man.
"Okay, Bones, I love you man!" The door started closing behind the gold-shirted man. "I love yooooou!"
Nurse Chapel had to turn around to hide her grin at the exchange between the two best friends. Bones shook his head before retreating to his office. Once he sat down it suddenly hit him. James Tiberius Kirk was going to die. And there was nothing he could do. Regardless, he pulled out some data padds and started researching everything he could. There had to be something.
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Jim strolled onto the bridge, nodded in acknowledgement at the smiles he received from his crew. Everyone, even Uruha, seemed relieved that he was back and things would be going back to normal. Some of them would never admit it, but it just felt like there was a strange cloud hanging over them with Captain Kirk in medbay.
The shift passed by without any difficulties. Kirk poked fun at Spock, the Vulcan would retort and shoot down whatever 'point' Jim would think he had while still never dropping his fancy talk, Chekov kept Sulu informed on the latest gossip passing through the ship, Kirk signed reports. When it was all over, the captain waved off offers from his crew for him to join them for dinner.
Punching in his code for his room, Jim stepped in and made his way over to his bed. Not even bothering with changing his clothes, he flopped down on the warm mattress. Closing his eyes, he went over the day's events.
So it turns out he has some weird mutant version of cancer. Great. He only has about a month to live. Even better. Hell, why don't they just throw a damn party at how just fan-fucking-tastic this all was. Because the universe had some strange obsession with Jim Kirk, he couldn't have one moment of his life without feeling like the next second would be his last.
I'm going to die? I'm going to die. Oh God almighty, I'm going to die. After saying the same sentence in as many different voices, languages, tones, and ways as he could think of, the man decided that it sounded stupid and dramatic no matter what. And lame, it sounded really lame to him, too.
He opened his eyes to watch the stars pass by his window. Little points of light, suspended in time as they made their way pass them without a second thought. He couldn't help but wonder if he would be just another star in the universe once he was gone.
Sure, those he was close to would probably remember him. But once they were gone, all he would be was just another name in the history books. Just another person who save Earth. Saved one planet in a very large and vast universe of so many more.
Was he still remembered if all they remembered was his name?
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A/n: Hello, everyone. Thank you for deciding to read my story. I'm going to be straight and upfront: I may not always write the longest chapters, or the best, or whatever. I will, however, promise to update everyday for 30 days. There may be some Spock/Kirk. There will be some friend-bonding between Jim and Bones. I will probably write an epilogue. And I will respond to any review you leave. I hope to begin this journey with you all, and finish it with everyone too.