Oh god. I can't even with work! Is it time for another vacation yet? It must be, surely! No? Damn... Okay, have some Bones and mini!jim instead. In terms of updates you'll have another AL tomorrow, and a FS on Friday, then we should get back to our usual schedule of AL until the story is finished. Right now I just wanted cute fluffiness and secretly-a-softie Bones. I'm sure you've all figured by now, but Jim's uncle is a very rude word, and this story will be dealing with child abuse.

Jim - sweet Jesus on the cross, Jim- came back the following morning as promised. He arrived with a plate loaded with toast and jelly, a couple of painkillers and one of the most horrific black eyes McCoy had seen in some time. Given that his Jim seemed to get himself punched in the face at least once a month, McCoy thought that was saying something.

The kid set the plate down next to McCoy and refused to look him in the eye. "Are they healing okay?" He asked, indicating McCoy's bandaged wounds.

"They're fine, kid." McCoy promised. They'd scar pretty badly, but there was no sign of infection, which would have been his primary concern. Despite the difficulties he was sure he'd have caused, he had been well cared for.

"You sure? I can try get some antibiotics from one of the clinics in town." Jim hugged his knees absently, sharp chin resting on folded arms. McCoy saw the edge of a livid bruise peek out from under the sleeve of his shirt and fought the urge to be sick.

He knew about Frank. Probably more than anyone else in the world. It had been a patchwork of comments and observations he had out together, right up until Spock had taken him on a rapid stop tour of Jim's memories as they desperately attempted to to keep him from spiraling out of their reach. So he'd known for years, and he'd relived the memories of it in his dreams for months, but there was something utterly shocking to see the reality of it, live and in the flesh.

Disgust washed over him. He'd spent the whole night working himself up into a panic, wondering how the hell he ended up where he was and what to do about it, when all the while Jim had been alone with that man. That monster.

"You want to tell me how you got that bruise?" He asked conversationally. He knew Jim well enough to know that a direct approach would only be stonewalled.

"I got into a fight." Jim said sullenly. McCoy bristled. He doubted it would have been much of a fight.

"Yeah? What's the other guy look like?" Jim glared at him, somehow managing to fold himself even smaller. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

"I have to go to school." Jim said suddenly, climbing to his feet.

"You should let me take a look at it for you. I'm a doctor." McCoy said, worried now. A bruise like that took some real force, and the kid could have had a concussion for all he knew.

"Thought you were a spy." Jim said, a hint of the attitude McCoy knew so well peeking out from behind that battered facade.

"Time traveller, actually." McCoy's lip twitched into a smile. "Seriously though, you can't go to school like that."

"They won't care." Jim said stubbornly. McCoy gave him what Jim exasperatedly termed 'The Eyebrow' and watched him squirm predictably, "I get into a lot of fights." Jim said with a soft sort of hopelessness that broke McCoy's heart.

"Five minutes," McCoy pleaded, "I owe you for looking after me."

"You don't." Jim said softly, the expression on his face telling McCoy he was already too late to save Jim from the worst of Frank's attention. The desperate need for someone to see the pain he was in that had left him so vulnerable to Kodos's manipulations was already there. McCoy felt the cold wave of panic wash over him when he thought of all the ways it was going to get so, so much worse. How had he not known who this child was right from the very start? Had he not seem him in his Jim so many times?

McCoy held out his hand imploringly, trying to impart as much warmth and safety as he could. He could see Jim hesitate, wanting the comfort but unwilling to trust. He wavered and McCoy hoped he might have given in, but instead Jim spun on his heels and all but ran for the door. "I'll be back this afternoon." He said, fleeing.

McCoy waited until he was gone before swearing loudly.

What was he supposed to do? What the hell was he supposed to do? What would Jim do? What would Spock do?

Jim...Jim would tell him to suck it up. That he had to accept the way things were and deal. Jim was a self sacrificing idiot whose sense of self worth and preservation had quite literally been beaten out of him, probably long before he'd ever reached Frank. McCoy had met Jim's mother and her insidious cruelty had done a hell of a lot more damage than she got credit for.

Spock... Spock was more difficult. Logic would tell him to do nothing. Love for Jim would probably have him committing acts of extreme violence. McCoy was genuinely not sure which would have won out. Ambassador Spock, the one from the other other timeline, had already proved incapable of allowing Jim any unnecessary suffering.

None of that really told McCoy what he should do.

He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to grab Jim and run as far away as he possibly could. He wanted to cloister the boy some place where he was safe and cared for, then work his way through a disturbingly long list of names who deserved to know exactly what it felt like to be small and helpless and at another's mercy.

But if he did that, if he took Jim away and let him grow up without Tarsus or Kodos or the countless betrayals of a legacy he never deserved, would he still grow up to be the man McCoy would follow to hell and back? Would he still be Jim Kirk, Starfleet's youngest captain, deifier of the no win scenario? The ambassador's Jim had known only a fraction of the hardship McCoy's Jim had known. Yes, he'd been on Tarsus, but he'd barely had any contact with Kodos. He'd grown to do exceptional, magnificent things anyway.

But he'd also had a stable childhood. Parents who loved him, a brother who wasn't a raving sociopath and a secure, loving homelife. His innate goodness had been allowed to emerge naturally instead of having to force its way through layers of protective surroundings.

Could McCoy risk that? If Jim wasn't Jim, would he have cheated on the Maru? Would he have stood up to Spock and Pike? Would he have saved Earth? Would he have survived Khan? Could McCoy put the lives of billions of people at jeopardy on the off chance that Jim Kirk was a consistent universal force?

Could he live with himself if he did?

Could he live with himself if he didn't?

It ultimately came down to one thing: was the suffering of one innocent little boy balanced by the good he was strong enough to do because of it?

Goddamn he needed a drink.

Jim came back only three hours later. McCoy knew he was out of the loop when it came to the education of small children, but even he knew three hours was hardly a full school day.

He'd spent those three hours alternatively trying to put weight on his injured leg and cursing when he landed flat on his ass.

When Jim returned, he let the kid check and change his bandages, not because he was incapable, though his arm was still incredibly stiff and sore, but because the more time Jim spent in close proximity to him, the faster he would subconsciously understand that McCoy was no threat to him.

His uncle, on the other hand...

"Okay, my turn." McCoy said as Jim tucked away the end of the bandage that circled McCoy's thigh.

Jim's breath caught, but he nodded minutely. McCoy thought he was an old hat at negotiating Jim's often prickly attitude when it came to accepting medical treatment, but while he had no problem bullying a fully grown adult into not being an idiot, he wasn't so keen on doing the same to a child who was slowly starting to trust him.

Without any of his equipment, McCoy had to rely on his own senses to tell him when something was wrong. The heat radiating from Jim's bruised wrist suggested a significant injury, but he was able to move the limb freely. As an adult, Jim's poker face was damn near impenetrable, but the child sat next to him had none of those defenses, leaving his fear and pain plain to see.

McCoy soaked some of the spare bandages in cold water and gently wrapped Jim's wrist, providing support and compression to the swollen limb. He did similar to the black eye, encouraging the boy to keep it cool. The he hesitated. He knew that there was more. He knew it. But when he said, "anything else?" And Jim shook his head, he didn't press. Small steps. "Thank you," he said, "for trusting me," and then he changed the subject. "So, what did you do at school?"

Jim blinked at him in surprise. "Biology."

"Fun?"

"Boring."

McCoy grinned. A bored Jim was a nightmare to handle. "Ahead of the class, are you?"

Jim shrugged. "I guess."

"You want me to teach you some stuff?"

He probably should have led with that. Jim lit up in delight. "Really?"

"Sure. I'm a doctor, remember?"

They passed the next ten hours that way, only pausing for Jim to fetch sandwiches and juice. McCoy had forgotten what it was like to teach someone who genuinely wanted to learn, and Jim soaked up knowledge like a sponge. It was both inspiring and a little terrifying to tell the truth. McCoy would explain a concept, and he'd get it, often leaping ahead to conclusions they had yet to cover, his own mind forging forward and demanding McCoy keep up. They had studied together in the past of course, but usually if one of them had been tutoring the other, it was Jim teaching him. The biggest input McCoy could claim to have had on Jim's Starfleet education was teaching him how to craft a proper essay, because it had been obvious he'd never really done so before.

"That's so weird!" Jim exclaimed, his shyness and timidity having all but vanished the more they got into their discussions.

"Is it? Vulcans are touch telepaths remember. It actually makes sense for them to combine the use of pressure points with psychic techniques." He wasn't sure how they had veered on to the tangent of xenophysiology, but either way Jim was animated and McCoy didn't have to try and move either his arm or leg, both of which were aching fiercely.

"So they can knock you out with one touch?" Jim didn't look too fond of the idea.

McCoy grinned, remembering a time when he'd worn nearly an identical expression and told Spock quite categorically to 'keep his pinchy Vulcan fingers to himself'.

"They call it a nerve pinch." McCoy nodded tiredly.

"That's..."

"Damn annoying?" Unfair? Utterly impractical and really inconvenient?

"Awesome." Jim breathed, looking awestruck. God, he'd love the hobgoblin.

McCoy recalled Sam Kirk expressing how Jim before Kodos had been sweet and shy, afraid of his own shadow, and the brash animation, cockiness and cheer had only been manufactured in the wake of Tarsus. McCoy thought he must have been blind. Yes, Jim was all those things, but that bright spark had always been there, buried under the fear that he would be punished for it.

Eventually though, there could be no putting it off and reluctantly Jim climbed to his feet. "Will you teach me more? Tomorrow?"

McCoy stared at him helplessly, no closer to an answer than he had been that morning. "Sure thing, kiddo."

"I can make pancakes." Jim offered.

"Don't go back inside." McCoy blurted. "We can leave. Right now."

Jim rubbed his eyes with his uninjured hand but he said nothing more than a faintly whispered goodnight, leaving McCoy with his panic, his fear, and no answers at all.