Author's Note: New (short) story, cross-posted from AO3! I'll update my other WIPs after Christmas, but thought I'd share this particular AU (and eventually a few others) here for now. It's complete, and only four chapters, so there won't be any waiting, just as I post a chapter each day. This first chapter had been posted on my Tumblr account July of '15, but I took it down and revisited it when I felt inspired enough to edit it and turn it into a real story. Huge thanks to Junker5 and Diamondblue4 for being willing to read this little Starfleet Academy AU and offer edits/comments!
This fic explores several "what if" scenarios, including: what if Jim had never gone to the bar and joined Starfleet, and what if McCoy never really got over his aviophobia. The Jim in this story will seem a little different than the one in the first reboot, but there is good reason behind it. So will McCoy, for that matter, because he never had his Jim there to help him along. Despite this, I promise a happy ending in Part Four. :)
Please note there is a pre-slash element to this (between Jim and Leonard). I do plan on writing more in this verse, and have another story (a sequal) in the works, which touches on Jim's issues with food (as a result of his time on Tarsus IV). Hope you enjoy the story!
Warnings: mentions of both child abuse and minor character death.
"Doctor, I'm glad you're here. The boy's father arrived five minutes ago," the nurse on the other side of the curtain whispered. "He wants to see his son, but we decided it would be best to wait until you arrived so you can handle things."
For some unknown reason, her words caused Jim's shoulders to roll in knots. Feeling the strain across his shoulder blades, he pressed back into his seat, the only chair in the sectioned room, beside a vacant bed. The no-nonsense, blond nurse had immediately ushered him in here instead of straight into David's more private room.
No, he'd never even met his own son, but he'd gotten here in record speed with the proper identification. He'd shown them everything. He'd answered their questions. And why wouldn't he? He was here for his son. His son had no one else, his mother having died in a suspicious crash earlier this morning, David the sole survivor of the wreck. His step-father by name only, a man who'd never officially married Carol, was on the run.
He didn't care for the lack of privacy, not in a situation like this. What he had to say was sensitive, too personal to be broadcasted in this clinic. He was just about to stand up and find the doctor himself when he heard a smack of something—papers, files, or a fist—against a wall.
He startled at the harsh sound.
"Yeah?" someone growled. "The boy's father? That lazy, no good, son of a—"
Jim's mouth fell open. What the hell? He was anything but lazy or...
"Doctor McCoy," the nurse insisted. "He could hear you."
Jim narrowed his eyes at the curtain, trying to match the name to the silhouette he saw. Anna? Kate? No, that wasn't right. What was her name?
"I don't care if the mother fu—"
"Get a hold of yourself," she interrupted. "You've been working yourself to death, Leonard, alternating between here and the hospital. I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't slept in days."
"Cops here yet?" McCoy asked, ignoring the rather sincere and concerned nurse.
Jim sank into the chair, now even more troubled. Cops? Why were the cops coming? He'd been told over holovid by the police themselves that they didn't need to speak with David or the nurses anymore today. Only that Jim should finalize matters with the social worker, who was going to be late arriving at the clinic.
"No, but you better go in there, Dr. McCoy," the nurse warned in a soft voice. "Mr. Kirk looks like a man who gets what he wants."
Jim blinked several times. He looked like a man who gets what he wants? Hardly. He was wearing Spock's old suit, which really wasn't all that comfortable. He'd put on a little weight since he'd sold the house to help his mother and took up the couch at his friend's place in Iowa. Okay, so maybe a lot. His shoes were tight enough that he kept tripping in them. His hair wasn't anything to brag about today, either. But he'd been stuck with nothing when the shuttle worker had lost his luggage. He'd been at the mercy of Spock for a ride to the clinic, too. Getting mugged as soon as he'd stepped out of the taxi did that to people. To him. Robbed him. Left him with nothing, scuffing him up a bit. He often wonder if he had a target printed on his back? One that said "Hurt Me." Ever since he could remember, he just couldn't catch a break.
Even now his arm ached at the thought of being bowled over again by thugs. Hitting the ground with the same, hard force, despite his efforts to knock them down, instead. He'd been too surprised to react early enough. He hated to admit it, but his weight had also played a factor in his sluggish reflexes.
He shifted uneasily in his seat and pressed his arm into his chest. After he saw his son, he'd ask about something for himself. Ice, at least. Maybe a sling.
"Yeah, yeah. It's a facade. I know the type. Just keep watch, Christine," the doctor growled, and the curtain abruptly parted.
Jim held his breath, expecting McCoy to continue his rant, but he just looked at him. The doctor's blood-shot eyes raked him from head to toe, and back up to his head with a disdainful expression.
He braced himself, waiting for the storm to hit.
"Mr. Kirk?" McCoy asked flatly.
"Yes?" Jim's heart drummed frightfully fast.
He hadn't noticed the Southern drawl before, and quite frankly, he didn't like it. It was warm sweet, the opposite of his eyes, indicating this man was far from being a Southern gentleman.
Self-conscious, he pulled at his shirt, tugging it over his belly.
"What kinda man are you?" McCoy asked through clenched teeth.
"What?"
"I said," McCoy said, his expression changing in an instant, "What kind of man are you? Who do you think you are to treat him like this?"
The doctor's exhausted, overall fatigued look had almost fooled Jim. What he saw now chilled him to the bone.
Yep. His instincts had been right. Not sweet.
"I...uh..." Jim tried to find an escape but, finding none, tried to inch back further into the chair.
"I know what you've been up to with him. The bruises," McCoy said harshly. "The past breaks. I looked up in his file. I promise you that it will be no Sunday picnic once the cops arrive."
"I...excuse me?" Jim's voice cracked. He pulled himself up, trying to look like a man who would wear a suit. Confident. Sure of himself. Well-liked. Wealthy. Things he really wasn't. "What the hell are you—"
McCoy loomed over him and gripped his left arm. Jim's vision flared. He fell limply into his chair, his vision practically whiting out from the pain.
"Shit," he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. "Can you...let...me go..."
"There's no way in hell I'm letting you walk outta here. We were told to keep you here if you came knocking at our door. There's a warrant out for your arrest." The doctor squeezed harder and Jim sagged heavily against the side of his chair. "Losers like you have no business waltzing in here like this. You want to see your stepson? You have to get through me."
"Fine," Jim groaned, feeling sweat bead along his forehead and cheeks. Maybe he should've had his arm checked out sooner, like Spock had suggested. "Just...let go of me. Or..." He thought quickly. "I'll...tell the police...you assaulted me."
"How dare you?" McCoy gritted. "Do you think this is all a game?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
The doctor narrowed his eyes but released him. "You're lying."
Limp with pain, Jim leaned to his right side and cradled his arm, practically falling out of his seat, all thirty-five extra pounds of him.
He gave a short, dry laugh. "Can you at least explain why you're yelling at me?" he asked, blinking his way through the constant, throbbing stabs of pain shooting up and down his arm as he pulled himself up. "Loser or not...I should know, right?"
A look of pure, unadulterated contempt poured from the doctor's eyes, something that Jim never wanted to see first hand like this ever again. He'd been through things worse than this, fights and assaults over the course of his young life. But he'd finally paved a serene life for himself after years and years of trying to get away from men—and even some women—like McCoy. Strong, angry men who thought they could push him around, and usually succeeded. Jim had been too young, too weak, and too naive to fight back.
Spock had taught him what he needed to know to defend himself, a smoother control and moves that were far better than the fighting skills he'd acquired in alleys. Spock's girlfriend, Uhura, had helped him get his GED. He'd passed with flying colors. He'd gotten through advanced engineering in a second year at a local college in Iowa only because of Chekov's tutoring. Who the hell was this doctor, anyway?
"Three years old or not, he should never have to be afraid around his father," McCoy snapped. "He should never have to be treated for broken bones."
Okay. So this...this was bad. Very bad. Jim shook his head, not sure how to get through to this guy that maybe...just maybe...he had the wrong guy. Maybe even the wrong kid.
"I...you're not talking...about David, are you?" he asked.
He wanted to take the words back as soon as he saw the doctor's expression. He realized just what he was accusing him of. And who was getting hurt.
His own son.
His beautiful, innocent, three-year-old son.
Fuck.
Jim swallowed. He gazed at the floor. He stalled for time and cleared his throat, trying to reclaim his normal voice instead of the squeaky thing that had just come out of his mouth.
"You have the wrong guy," he determined, denying the situation with all that he had. "It's not me."
"They all say that, don't they," McCoy said sarcastically.
At the doctor's somewhat controlled reply, Jim finally dared to meet the man's gaze. "The abusers? Sure they do," he continued shakily, his eyes pinned on the doctor. "They also say you deserve it. You asked for it. You made them do it. But...the other guys, the ones that didn't do it...they just want to be told what happened. They just came to the scene, even though...they'd never been given a chance to even meet their own son. Or speak to him. Because their mother loved someone else, someone...who I just realized...who is the same type of person you just accused me of being."
Something hot pricked his eyes. It couldn't be tears, because he hadn't cried in years. He hardly remembered what it was like to cry, he'd held all his pain back for so long, tried to clean up his image the best he could. And now he understood why he never cried. The wetness behind his eyes was like a knife digging into his skin, something he never wanted to experience again, either.
"I just want to see him," he said quietly. "Something other than a holo. A real face to touch, a hand...that I can hold. Make sure that he's okay."
McCoy stared at him, for the first time actually listening to what he had to say.
"Dr. McCoy?" The same nurse as before lifted the curtain and stepped inside the makeshift room. She frowned at McCoy. "I'm sure Mr. Kirk wants to see his son now. He came a long way."
"A long way?" McCoy echoed, the smooth drawl in his voice returning.
Christine smiled at Jim. "Iowa, I believe, right Mr. Kirk?"
He nodded for the sake of being courteous to her. To someone who had treated him with kind courtesy, manners that McCoy seemed to be missing. He pulled himself out of the chair, drawing his injured arm close to his chest. To heck with this guy. He was going to find his son on his own. This was a small clinic, run by doctors from surrounding hospitals, including Starfleet General. Doctors who volunteered their time after hours, which had to be McCoy's case. It was small clinic, heralded in the media as serving this suburb of San Francisco for the good of humanity—or so he heard—but Jim was going to make damn sure that he'd file a complaint.
At least, that was his first thought. Maybe he shouldn't, being the son of a hero. Maybe he should be glad there was someone here that would stand up against a bully or an abuser. He sure as hell had never had that someone, his mom having been placed in a mental hospital on the day he turned fourteen. He hoped that someday, she actually did get better. He missed her. She was the only family he had.
He regretted, and not for the first time, that he'd stayed at home that night to nurse a broken heart while the cadets, in their fresh Starfleet uniforms, including Carol, had practically overrun his favorite bar. He'd gone in the next morning, though, to help Stu clean up the place and earn some extra money. Money he'd never spent on himself. By chance, he'd met Spock online when he'd inquired into the science program at the Academy. They'd hit it off as friends from the first words they ever exchanged. Yet, he couldn't shake the feeling that somehow, he'd missed something by not forcing himself to walk the plank, so to speak, and head out on a ship for the stars. Stars he dreamt about every single night of his pathetic existence.
All those years ago, and he still felt the heavy weight of his mistake. A part of him still loved Carol, a woman who'd first scorned her parentage and then also him, deciding to go her own way. He didn't know why he still loved her. They'd had two wild months together. That was it. Barely even sixty days.
Maybe it was the ideal he'd loved. Still loved. Having someone who loved him back. And when their relationship failed, he'd punished himself by staying away from the Academy, where she'd been enrolled. He didn't want to run into her, it had been the last thing in the world he'd ever wanted to do. But learning of her pregnancy had changed all of that. Ironic, for when he'd wanted to see her and their child, she'd managed to make a case against him. Spock's lawyer had changed that, and now, with her death, he was the child's guardian.
"I'll do it myself." Jim set his jaw.
McCoy blinked, taking a deep breath. "Look, there seems to be some mistake."
"Let me check your arm," the nurse said swiftly. "Please."
"There's no mistake, and my arm's fine," he said tersely to them both. "I'm here to see the social worker and David and take him...take him home."
He didn't bother telling the doctor he had no real home here, just a couch, because he sent the money he made as a security consultant to the people watching over his mother. He didn't bother telling the doctor where he thought he should go—a place where the sun didn't shine.
A stubborn, foolish man like McCoy wasn't worth the effort.
Instead, he set his mind to walking out of there as fast as he could. The bruises he'd sustained from his fall onto concrete kept him from moving like a normal twenty-four-year old, but he finally managed to slip past McCoy and Christine, the nurse.
"Wait, please."
He set his jaw. "No, we're done here."
He didn't need a doctor. Not back then, and certainly not now. His son did, but it wouldn't be this one.
And if it did occur, it would be over his dead body.
He headed for David's room, without a single glance back.
Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Please, review? :)
