Chapter 1: McCoy's Personal Medical Prison
A/N: I'm not really sure where this is taking me. However, I have been reading a lot of good stories and have been playing characters on a Star Trek roleplaying site. So … I have been inspired to try my hand at another story while my epic one I started is sitting in the back of my mind. As always, I don't own them unless you don't recognize their name / can't find them on Memory Alpha. Yes, M'Benga is canon for if/when he shows up. Oh, and Emony Dax really did have a thing with McCoy. Also, the link to the site is: z7 . invisionfree . com /infinity_and_beyond
No one knew. It was literally impossible that anyone had known what he had done. His father's death was listed as complications due to his illness. It was nothing more and nothing less. No one knew what had really happened that day. Leo was not even sure his mother knew what had happened. She walked in on the pair; Leo laying his head across his father's unmoving chest, the monitors moaning in their low monotone to declare his father dead. She started crying and wailing, just like a woman would. She knew nothing of the true pain and anguish her husband felt every day. He wanted to end it for himself. That was the only reason he had gone to his son in the first place. Leo had heard from his mother first, calling him while he was at medical school to come to their home. The McCoys were a strongly Southern family, even though they moved from state to state upon occasion, none of them had really left until Leo decided to. Of course, medical school was only at the University of Mississippi and they were in Kentucky at the moment, but still. It was quite the trip for the boy, leaving home to go into the world and then returning.
Being asked … this.
Leo had refused his father time and time again. He was determined not to give into temptation but instead to run screaming the other way. A cure would be found, he would tell himself. He told his father, too, but the man was determined to die. He wanted to leave his family alone in the world. Yes, they had financial problems from time to time, but that would be solved once Leo completed medical school and began practicing. He was already flying through his classes – one of the reasons they granted him the emergency family leave. Another reason was to study his father's condition. Leo was always the brilliant one in their family. In class, too, he was able to find unique ways to solve dangers situations. He had invented new techniques and it was thought if anyone could discover a cure, it would be him. Instead it would be a team from Berlin in combination with some research in Rome who would discover a cure three weeks too late. Three weeks. If Leo had lasted three more weeks against his father's dying, begging wishes, then his father would be alive. His father would know things about his son he never knew. He would have met Leo's then-girlfriend, a beautiful Trill from another world.
Emony wanted to come with him. Leo made her go to her next stop along her duties.
His father would have been so proud! He would have stood by his mother's side at graduation instead of leaving Leo completely alone after his third year and polishing up his fourth. He would have wished his son good luck as he journeyed past the stars to a remote planet where he found true love. Love that did not last. He would have known Leo's other secret, the one he has not told anyone. His record showed it, of course, for those with clearance to delve. But Leo had not even told his very best friend in the universe about her. His father would have made a wonderful grandfather. Joanna would visit them in the summers, bouncing on his father's knee as he regaled her of stories of her father's misspent youth. Climbing trees, throwing baseballs into windows, riding the dog like a horse until he was six. The man could have been the one to pass down the infamous McCoy family recipe for Southern baked beans. McCoy still did not know if she would ever know them. Nor if she kept her mother's last name or if her mother granted him the decency of being recognized as her father in polite company.
He was a famous Starfleet doctor now – nay, chief medical officer.
Leo's father had been once a strong man. As passionate about politics as he was fishing. He could argue a point into the ground and up a tree before the other party could open their mouth. Perhaps that was why Leo had given into his father's wishes. He was just suffering so much under the weight of it all. Not being able to support his family as he wanted, the physical pain, seeing his son unable to help. Leo tried to make him comfortable, but some of the medications did not work well with his failing system. Leo knew he could have saved his father, if only the cure would have come sooner. Hindsight was such a bitch. He could have saved him and preserved some part of happiness in his life. Why … why did his mother have to die? He heard the words echo in his ears but never believed them – to this very day Leo cannot bring himself to believe that she killed herself. It was … an accident. The shuttle must have lost control in the upper atmosphere. There was no way a woman like her could kill herself. Not when she had her son to support and love her. Not so soon before he was due to graduate and become his own man.
Not even sweet Emony Dax could help him through that.
His senior year was rough. No one came to graduation. His father died during his junior year. His mother killed herself somewhere in his senior year. His girlfriend tried to help but left to lead her own life shortly after that. Leo was alone in the world, on his own. When he was a child, he imagined being on his own as some sort of grand adventure. Once he was suddenly thrust into the world, McCoy did not like it. There was nothing tying him down to Earth anymore. That was why he went to the stars. He was determined to get over his fears and find something new. Perhaps Emony had a new host who would be willing to rekindle something. Perhaps he could find a quite world to heal people on in his country doctor way. He never expected to find love. Well, what he thought was true love until the divorce. That was when he became Bones. Only after she broke his heart into little pieces and divorced him, winning everything they owned except the clothes on his back and his bones. Jim gave him the nickname shortly after he was forcibly thrown off of their little rock of a home. They met on a shuttle to Starfleet – a group that operated in space … which Leo was not fond of. A place where he could make friends and heal people. A ship he could travel on like a floating family – though he would never admit to it. Perhaps a ship he could steal Joanna back with. Everyone there knew him as Bones. Especially …
"Bones, come on and stop daydreaming, will you? I am here willingly for once," Jim Kirk nudged his arm, gesturing down at his own leg, which was bleeding after working out in the recreation center.