DISCLAIMER: First chapter.

A/N: I'm baaack! Well my story is. This chapter is dedicated to AgnesSophia, SRT-10 Blue Viper and Traptrogue6 because they were the first three to review! Thank you guys. =3

AgnesSophia: Thanks I'm glad you like it. I feel kinda bad for Jim whumping but he's Jim so he'll be okay. ;]

SRT-10 Blue Viper: Oh I definitely have enough ideas to continue. Thanks to you three, I shall!

Traptrogue6: Thanks. I will be for a while I think. =D

Passionfornight: Well thanks for reading anyways. Bones' reaction is somewhat explained here and it will be explained further. Ooooh inner turmoil time! .

Edward the spiderqueen: HA! Jim pregnant. That would be hilarious. I feel a one-shot coming on. xD

Bones never expected any of this to happen. He never expected Jim to say those three words. He never expected himself to hit Jim like that! The thought that he may have done this to his best friend made Leonard sick. He'd never been a violent man, never really yelled when not necessary. But Jim reminded him of Jocelyn in that one instance and he just… snapped. Jocelyn always used to tell him she loved him. Then she divorced him and took everything he had, including his precious little girl. He knew he shouldn't take it out on the kid. But damn Jim knew where to hit him, telling the truth or not. He never expected Jim to come back.

He hauled Jim onto his own bed and flashed a light in his eyes. Jim groaned.

"Jim! Hey come on kid. You need to wake up." Bones took notice of the hand print shaped bruise on Jim's face. Had he really hit Jim that hard? Or was it something else…? Carefully, Bones lifted up Jim's black t-shirt and examined his handy work. The nearly black bruise on his side made him sick. How could he have done this? To Jim!

"Bones? Whazzit?" His words were slurring. Probably from his fever.

"You got sick, kid. Need to check you out." Bones readied a hypospray with a cold remedy. Good thing that and the cures for pneumonia and the flu were some of the few things Jim could take without getting hands the size of baseball gloves. He jammed the metal stick into Jim's neck. Jim felt much better after a while and tried to sit up.

"Ow… what hit me?" Jim looked around in confusion.

"That would be me kid." Bones scowled.

"You hit me? Bones! Those hands are meant to fix shit not break it, good a job as you did. He threw his friend-when-I-wanna-be the lopsided grin he was famous for.

"Jim. Enough jokes. You and me gotta talk." McCoy fixed Jim with a look that should have turned him to stone. He was trying to hide like he usually did.

"Yeah I know. Shouldn't you be signing stuff?" Jim attempted to distract Bones. It didn't work. But Bones sort of distracted himself with a look at Jim's arms.

"Jim how long have you had those petechiae? On your arms." McCoy took the right arm in his hands so he could look at it better.

"Those what?" Cue the blank stare from genius Jim.

"You know exactly what I'm talkin' about, kid."

"Um… about three weeks. Why?"

"Damnit Jim! This is why you come to the god damn sick bay! For check-ups you infantile idiot!"

Jim looked from his arm to Bones. "Why what's wrong? I'm fine Bones."

Bones could feel the vein in his forehead pulsing. "Right. First thing tomorrow, you're coming with me to the sick bay. I need to do a full work up on you."

"Why? I'm tellin' ya Bones. I'm fine."

"No you aren't."

"Aw I didn't know you cared." Another lopsided grin.

"About that. Jim you need to listen to me."

Meanwhile in Jim's brain: Ohshitohshitohshitohshit. Just had to open your mouth didn't ya bigshot? Idiot!

"Sure Bones. You listened to me earlier."

"Kid, me and you… together just isn't gonna work. I'm six years older than you, I got a kid. You're six years younger than me and all you do is go out and drink."

"Now wait a minute Bones. I love kids. You know that. I haven't gone drinking since my birthday. You know damn well that that's what I do then."

"Jim it wouldn't work." McCoy looked tired.

"Bones, I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me you don't have feelings for me." Jim was confident this would work.

"If I did I would be lying. Still doesn't change anything though. It would be a waste of time, you and me."

"How does that not change anything?! A waste of time?! Bones, we've been best friends for years. But now I think we should get closer than that!" Bones could hear pleading in Jim's voice. He just wanted the kid to understand that he wasn't ready to be hurt. Instead, he hurt Jim. Again.

"There's someone else." The lie slipped from the doctor's tongue before he could stop it. The effect was instantaneous. A wall went up behind Jim's eyes but over the hurt. He closed himself off. That was the one thing Bones could have said that would have pierced Jim through. Worse than rejecting him even.

"Oh. All you had to do was say that. What's her name?" Jim plastered on a fake grin to let Bones know he was "okay". Bones looked at him with concern again.

"You don't know him. He lives next door to my mama in Savannah." Bones knew that would hurt Jim even more. The fact that he had a man other than Jim and not a woman. Honestly, Bones knew why he was doing this. He just couldn't accept that Jim would have any feelings for him. In his life, only bad things happened to him. A good thing was always a fluke. For example, he had a beautiful daughter. The fluke? She was taken from him in a bitter divorce.

"Oh that's cool. How long have you been with him?"

"About six months."

"Congratulations then." The smile Jim gave him was the same as the day Jim was smuggled aboard The Enterprise. It was defeated but Jim still tried to make it real. He turned the smile off and put a hand to his head.

"You okay?" Bones put his own hand to Jim's head. It was on fire.

"Yeah I'm fine. Just a headache. Had one all day. Just got worse."

"Jim you're burning up. I'm taking you to the sick bay now."

"Bones, we're on shore leave. It isn't the sick bay. Besides, I'm fine."

"It is the sick bay because we're beaming to the ship. I don't trust medical here. You aren't fine. I need to run some tests." Bones grabbed his comm. unit. "Scotty? Is the pad fixed? The kid needs medical."

"Aye doctor. She's ready."

Bones nodded. "Good. We'll be ready in two minutes. Beam us up then."

Jim noticed he still had the letter in his hand. With a pang of bitter guilt, he tore it to shreds. Bones noticed. "What's that?"

Jim smiled again. "Oh nothing. Just an old letter from Pike. Found it in my bag when I was packing."

"Oh okay." Bones bought it. "You set to go? I just gotta grab a few things."

"All set."

Thirty seconds later they were aboard the best ship in Starfleet history. A minute later they were in the sick bay. Four minutes later, Jim was missing a pint of blood. Two minutes later McCoy looked at Jim in disbelief and horror. Jim thought he could see sadness.

"Bones? You okay? What is it? My blood's not green is it?" That lopsided grin made its third appearance. It quickly fell when he saw Bones rub a rough hand over his face, looking older than he ever should.

"No Jim. Your blood isn't green." It looked like he was fighting some sort of internal battle with himself. He still looked horrified.

"Well then what is it?" Jim had never seen Bones this way. Not even when he came back with guts hanging out of a gaping wound. It scared him. Bones turned his back from Jim and leaned forward on one arm, wishing this was all a bad dream. He knew it wasn't.

"Jim, you have Leukemia."

A/N: So what'd you guys think?! I really like this chapter. It was almost hard to write. Please R'n'R

-Bunny