February 2255



It's been nearly six months since he met Jim Kirk and he's surprised that their first argument didn't happen earlier, if he's completely honest.

"I'm going to Georgia for a few days," McCoy says as soon as Jim walks through his front door, pausing in the kitchen to put his beers in the fridge before wandering through to find him.

"Going to see your parents?" he guesses, and McCoy nearly doesn't answer him because he's still not happy about being left out of the loop last time.

"Nope, my daughter. I'm due a visit," he says anyway as he packs up his clothes, and he'll realize later that it was that sentence that was the catalyst for the argument.

"You never told me you had a daughter," Jim says quietly, and there's an edge to his voice that McCoy hears but pays no attention to as he sifts through the drawer, checking the label of each item of clothing carefully before packing it in his bag. He reckons he'll be away three days, max, but it never hurts to pack a spare set.

"You never asked," he points out, going into the bathroom to put together his toilet bag. "It's not important anyway."

"Me not asking and you deciding not to tell me aren't the same thing."

"Like how you decided not to tell me that you were a certified genius?"

"Kinda different situations, Bones! And the hell it's not important," Jim snaps, following him through, and McCoy can feel his proximity even if they're not actually touching. "How old is she?"

"Six today. I see her every year on her birthday."

"You what?"

And there's that edge to his voice again, and McCoy realizes that it's a dangerous tone and frowns as he pushes past Jim back into his bedroom.

"I just said, I go down every year to see her on her birthday."

"And you don't see a problem with that?"

"No, why, do you?"

"Of course!" Jim explodes, his voice raising and McCoy can hear that he's pacing around the room. "You can't just abandon your kid like that!"

"Jocelyn remarried a few months after our divorce got finalized, it's not as if Jo doesn't have a father figure in her life," he explains, zipping up his bag, when Jim grabs his arm and pulls him around.

"So you think it's okay for her to grow up not knowing her real father? Step-dads aren't a substitute, Bones, you can't do that to your kid. She deserves to get to know you!"

"Don't make this about you," McCoy warns, pulling away, and Jim's answer comes as a snort of derision. "You think this is easy for me, knowing my little girl is being raised by someone else? Well it's not, but Jocelyn and I decided it was the best thing for her. As far as Jo knows, I'm just a distant relative. She thinks Clay is her daddy."

"Because that's not fucked up at all."

"Well what do you want me to say to her, Jim? That actually I'm her daddy and I left her mom because I couldn't take care of myself, let alone her? That her mom was sleeping with Clay when I needed her most? What do you want me to do?"

"And how will you explain it when she does find out? Because believe me, she will, and she'll hate you for it."

"Then she'll hate me. But I'm not going to force myself into her life when it'll just make things a helluva lot more complicated for everyone involved."

"Everyone, or just you?" Jim spits furiously, and McCoy's mouth drops open in surprise. "You're being a selfish dick about this one, you know. Yeah, I get that your life's not all peaches and cream but your fucking daughter shouldn't have to get the short straw because of it."

"This isn't any of your goddamn business, Jim. It's not as if I'm obliged to tell you a single goddamn thing about my life, so stop acting like a martyr," McCoy says with a warning tone and there's a sudden loud noise that sounds suspiciously like Jim's just smacked the wall.

"I don't believe you," he says, sounding shocked, and McCoy just glowers at him.

"Well you'd better start believing it soon because I'm leaving for Georgia in an hour whether you like it or not. I'll see you in a few days."

Luckily Jim hears the last phrase for the dismissal that it is, and slams the door as he stamps furiously from the room. McCoy finishes packing up his back carefully and slowly, and then sits down at his desk with a sigh.

There's a message on his PADD from Winona Kirk. It's as short as his own message to her, just one line long.

I just knew.

It's not very helpful.

An hour later he straps himself into the death trap they call a shuttle that'll take him to his little girl, wondering if maybe Jim's right about this, and wishes that he'd brought his hipflask with him, New Year's resolution be damned. He presses himself further into the seat and tries not to think of the hundred ways that it could kill him, and fails miserably.

Someone sits down next to him with a huff, and then there's a hand laid on his arm. He jerks away and turns with a glare, ready to snap at the person grabbing him, but the hand stays on his arm and the grip is firm, and McCoy realizes that he recognizes that curl of fingers.

"If you think I'm going to let you go to Georgia all by yourself then you're kind of an idiot," Jim says flatly, releasing his arm and settling more in his seat and ignoring the fact that McCoy has made this awkward journey by himself several times before. "So six, huh? What's she into?"

"Horses," McCoy grunts, immediately missing the warm that had seeped through to the skin on his arm in those scant few seconds. "And other girly things, I reckon. She's a smart kid though, does well in school."

"Takes after her daddy?"

"One of them, anyway. Not sure which."

"And she's not going to go blind, is she?"

"No," McCoy sighs, settling his head back against the rest. "No, what I've got is mitochondrial – only females can pass it on. She's perfectly safe."

"I bet you love your mom for that then."

"Actually, I was kinda lucky because we knew it ran in the family – I've got uncles. So when I was born they started me on meds to suppress the effect of the genes, but they were experimental, no guarantee they'd succeed. They stopped working when I about twenty-two."

"At least you weren't blind from birth," Jim points out as McCoy hears the shuttle doors close and the engines rumble to life, and the familiar spikes of nausea and low-level fear rise through his stomach.

"That's not much of a consolation, kid."

This time Jo does recognize him but it's still a kick to the chest to hear her calling Clay 'daddy' when that's what he is, dammit. Only he's not. He's just the uncle from Iowa who only visits once a year on Jo's birthday.

Jocelyn is enamored with Jim from the moment she notices him and Jim turns his charm up to full and has her wrapped around his little finger within ten minutes of arriving. The birthday party's already in full swing and there's young children running screaming all through the old house that he used to live in with his own little family.

McCoy manages polite conversation with Clay and avoids Jocelyn's parents, and when he manages to finds Jim, the man's surrounded by kids and having the time of his life and from the sounds of it, so are they. He hopes that Jo and Jim get on okay, even though he doesn't know why.

In the end he escapes and hides in the pantry and drinks a liter of sweet tea because dealing with Jim is one thing, here there's what feels like hundred of small children that need entertaining and are still screaming louder than is probably necessary. Jeez, if he'd stuck around there'd be no chance that Jo would be having a birthday party in their own house with what's got to be her whole class, if not school. But then Jocelyn and her sister and Clay seem to be managing fine, great now that Jim's helping out.

It should surprise him that Jim's so good with kids but because it's Jim, it doesn't.

He's just drifting off to sleep in one of the guest rooms once everyone's gone home full of cake when the door opens and the floorboards creak, and McCoy doesn't bother calling out because there's only one person who'd bother him like this, really.

Jim pads quietly across to the bed and climbs in awkwardly – it's a small bed barely made for one but they make it fit, pushing and pulling until McCoy's cheek is resting on the steady beat of Jim's heart and their limbs are tangled together beneath the sheets.

"You worn out, old man?" Jim murmurs as his hand runs in gentle motions up and down McCoy's back, his skin almost hot to touch, lips moving against McCoy's hair. McCoy pokes him in the ribs and he squirms, but doesn't pull away.

"I don't envy anyone raising a kid," he admits, listening to the sounds of the house all around them. "It can't be the easiest of jobs."

"Some people just aren't cut out for kids – some people are awesome at it."

"Like you, you mean."

"That's not what I said."

"You were, though. Thanks. For coming, and helping out. I reckon Jo likes you – not that I should be surprised."

Jim goes silent for a moment before sighing heavily, shifting to the side to pull McCoy tighter into his body.

"She's beautiful, Bones," Jim suddenly whispers as he curls around him in the rickety single bed. "She's got hair the same color as yours but you can see it's going to go kind of red, like Jocelyn's. And her eyes are this really bright green and she's covered in freckles, all over her face and arms, and she looks really fragile but I saw her playing with some of the boys, she's a sturdy little thing."

"I wish I could see her," McCoy mumbles, pushing his face into Jim's neck, and feels those strong arms tighten around him.

"I know you do," Jim says into the darkness, and they fall asleep wrapped in each other and Georgian warmth.

Leonard McCoy wakes in the morning with Jim's hair tickling his nose and his arm wrapped around a strong torso, and knows.

He brushes his lips against the back of Jim's neck, stroking down his chest, and Jim murmurs sleepily and turns slightly in his embrace.

"Bones?" he rasps, still half-asleep, and McCoy smiles as he presses a kiss to the patch of skin just behind his ear.

It's just a simple progression really to move the hand that's rubbing gentle circles on Jim's stomach down to dip under the waistband of Jim's shorts, but Jim himself doesn't seem to think so and abruptly rolls onto his back.

"Bones, I –"

McCoy stops him from talking by leaning down and kissing him, only he misjudges and hits his nose instead but quickly readjusts. Jim reacts immediately, grabbing at his shoulders and pulling him in close, kissing back with equal fervor, but then pulls away abruptly.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" he asks and McCoy tilts his head to one side.

"I wouldn't be complaining if I were you," he rumbles, tugging at Jim's shorts as he straddles him and palms his half-hard cock through the thin cotton.

That seems to be all the persuasion that Jim needs because he's suddenly pushing up into McCoy's touch at the same time as pulling McCoy down against him, grinding their cocks together and Jesus fucking Christ it's been too long.

It happens pretty fast after that – just Jim's lips and hands all over his body and then in his own shorts, both of them pushing and pulling and rocking and gasping in time with one another as they roll against the sheets. It's messy and frantic but it's perfect, and as McCoy kisses Jim thoroughly he can feel his body tensing as Jim's wrist twists, thumb flicking over the head and mouth pressing hot kisses to his neck and then he's coming like a teenager. But Jim's grunting and gasping and spasming beneath him so he doesn't feel quite as embarrassed.

Once his body is back to behaving itself he rolls to the side, but stays firmly attached to Jim's chest, and tries to ignore the fact that they're both sticky in their underwear as he fans his hand out over Jim's heart.

"Just so we're clear, I'm not complaining," Jim assures him, sounding slightly breathless as his fingers move to wrap around McCoy's wrist. "But I am kind of curious. Because you know, I've been trying to get that sort of reaction going on eight months now without much success."

"I don't know, I just… I don't know. I'm not sure why I was pushing you away before but Jim, you came to Georgia for me even though you hated the fact that Jo doesn't know who I am. And yeah, you didn't just fuck off when I said no. I just…" he trails off, frustrated with himself for being unable to explain, but Jim doesn't seem to mind at all. "I think I was looking for some sort of emotional security and not expecting it from you. Because Jocelyn was more concerned about how my blindness affected us as a family, but you're more worried about how it affects me. Just me."

"Well, of course I am," Jim says, sounding confused and as if there's no other way it should be, and that's how McCoy knows.

When he wakes again a few hours later, it's to a cold, empty bed, and he feels a pang of disappointment spike through him as he sits up. He hadn't wanted to be wrong about Jim but maybe he was, even though he doesn't want to admit it. Figures that as soon as he decided it was time to move on and get on with his life, his life would decide that it was time to be a dick to him.

Relief and an embarrassing swell of happiness surge up his chest as the door opens, and familiar bare feet step on the carpet.

"Hey," Jim says quietly, closing the door behind himself with a soft click. "I went to get some breakfast, didn't want to wake you."

"I can get something later, it's fine," McCoy replies, the end tailing off as he fails to suppress a wide yawn. He blinks and rubs at his eyes pointlessly, scratching his chest, and then realizes that Jim is still stood with his back against the door on the other side of the room. "Well are you going to just stand there all day?" he asks drily, settling back against the pillows, and he can hear Jim shift awkwardly.

"I didn't want you to feel like I was being pushy, or anything," he mumbles, and McCoy's eyebrows shoot up into his hairline.

"What the hell gave you that idea?" he asks, astonished, and Jim clears his throat.

"Well, you were kind of all over the place this morning – emotionally, I mean – and you'd been pretty firm about not wanting me as anything more than a friend before, so I just thought that –"

"That what?" McCoy interrupts, frustrated. "That I didn't know what I wanted? Christ, kid, I know you're not stupid so quite playing that you are!"

"I was trying to be mature!" Jim snaps back, clearly riled, and McCoy can't help it. He laughs, leaning back against the headboard.

"Jim, you're possibly the least emotionally mature person I've ever met, but you know what?" he pauses, and takes a deep breath. "I couldn't give a damn. I've kind of gotten used to you just as you are, and I'm happy with that. So get your dumb ass back into bed before I drag it here."

Jim hesitates for a moment, lingering near the doorway, before trudging over like he's not entirely sure that this is what he wants. For a brief moment McCoy wonders if it really is, but then he remembers what Jim had said, and he knows that it is. Apparently, it's what McCoy wants too.

The bed dips as Jim leans one knee on it, and McCoy shifts down and across to make room for him. It's no better fit than before but it somehow feels far more comfortable, like there's a few extra blankets and inches of down been added. Of course there isn't, and McCoy knows exactly why it doesn't feel as awkward, but he's not going to admit to that. Jim settles in against his left side, toes pressed cold against his calf, one hand resting almost tentatively on his stomach. It's almost as if he's worried that if he pushes too far, McCoy'll be gone before he's had time to blink and he'll be left alone and cold and heartbroken. Well. It's not as if Jim's the only one with abandonment issues here.

He feels for Jim's face with the hand that isn't wrapped around his back and tilts it up, and kisses him. It's not the best angle and he doesn't quite hit full centre straight away, but it seems to resolve in Jim's head that yes, McCoy really does want this, and he responds enthusiastically, shifting so that he can press his tongue inside McCoy's mouth with a faint noise in the back of his throat.

McCoy is perfectly happy to spend the whole morning exchanging soft, languid kisses and that's exactly what he plans to do but apparently Jim's got something else in mind. He pulls away somewhat reluctantly after a while, his fingers tracing over McCoy's features with feather-light touches.

"You really are exceptionally attractive, you know that?" he murmurs, kissing his jaw line. "Anyone ever tell you that?"

"Yeah, some annoying delinquent a few months back."

"I think I remember it. And I seem to recall that I didn't think you really believed me, at the time. Still don't think you do."

"I haven't seen my reflection in nearly four years, Jim, and feeling it only goes so far," he reminds him, and Jim settles his head on McCoy's chest. "But if you keep saying it enough then you never know, I might get to thinking you're telling the truth."

"Well, good," Jim says decisively. "I spoke to Jocelyn when I was eating my waffles. She asked me if I'd take Jo out to the park this morning so she can get the house cleared up properly, and I said I'd love to. I also said that you'd come with us."

"And she's okay with that?" McCoy says in surprise, taking a deep breath and ending up with Jim's hair in his nose. "No, wait, of course she is. She thinks you're fantastic. For some reason she trusts you enough to keep an eye on both of us."

"I was thinking you could use the time to get to know her a little," Jim ignores him, hand stroking up and down his ribs almost absently. "I guess Jocelyn won't leave you alone with her too often to just talk. This could be your big chance."

McCoy doesn't reply at first, because of course Jim's right. He'd never really thought about it but he doesn't talk to her much when Jocelyn's around, not really. He can't explain it but when it feels like she's supervising him with her and of course, she is, but it makes him careful about how he acts – like if he says or does the wrong thing, she'll tell him not to come any more, and then he'll not see his little girl at all. He doesn't think he'd be able to manage not seeing her at all.

"I see what your mom means, you know," he says after a while, tightening his grip on Jim and pulling him close against his body. "You kind of are really fucking intelligent."

It turns out that Jo doesn't have the same compunctions about talking as McCoy does, and she chatters away happily as they walk into town at the park. He's not sure what exactly what he was expecting – for her to latch onto Jim maybe, and mainly ignore him as he fades into the background – but she does nothing of the sort and he hates himself for thinking so low of her.

Instead, she takes his right hand in her own small one once they're out of the front gate and thanks him for the birthday gift that he'd got her and asks him if he'd enjoyed her birthday party. He manages to stutter a reply, and then she's launching straight into telling him all about school and how she loves science and math but hates history, and how there's one teacher that always smells, and how there's a new boy that half of the girls think is cute (but she doesn't).

She doesn't seem to mind that he doesn't respond much – Jim does enough talking for both of them – or that he holds onto her hand a bit tighter than is probably necessary, and that he doesn't want to let go.

McCoy remembers the park.

He'd brought Jo here when she was just after her first birthday, and just before he went blind. It had been a hot summer's day and Jocelyn had dressed her in a little yellow dress and shiny white shoes, and her brown hair was held back with bright clip. He'd held her carefully and slid her down the slide and she had shrieked with delight, and then he'd sat on the roundabout with her on his hip and slowly pushed them around with one foot, and she had giggled and pulled on his ear.

They left when a group of young hoodlums arrived on their second-hand hoverbikes, swearing and vandalizing and doing the sort of things that youngsters did. But Joanna had loved every minute of it, and McCoy decided that he'd have to bring her more often in future.

He didn't, of course, but it seemed she still enjoyed coming here, and a small voice inside McCoy's head hoped that it was down to him, and maybe he had influenced her growing up, in just one tiny way.

Now that she's six, as she reminds them at least twice within one hour, she doesn't need any help on any of the pieces of equipment but Jim seems quite intent on joining in anyway. McCoy leans against the fence that surrounds the park and listens to the sound of children and Jim playing as the birds sing above him and the late winter sum warms his face, and is content.

He hears them approach before either of them has spoken, with Jim's footfalls heavy and tired, and Jo giggling as she runs up and grabs McCoy around the thigh.

"Uncle Jim fell off the swing," she tells him, almost conspiratorially, and Jim huffs as he reaches them, bumping McCoy's shoulder with his own.

"I jumped off from a height and didn't land quite as gracefully as I'd intended," Jim corrects her good-naturedly. "I'd like to see you do any better, miss."

"She'll do no such thing," McCoy barks, his hand coming to rest on Jo's shoulder. "That's kind of an irresponsible thing to do, Jim. She's six."

"Six yesterday!" Jo says proudly. "Hey Uncle Len, do you reckon we could get ice cream later? Please?" she asks, tugging on his jeans, and he shakes his head.

"It'll spoil your lunch, and your momma would never forgive me," he says apologetically, but she doesn't kick up a fuss or sulk or anything, just nods in a way that McCoy can feel through her shoulder.

"Hey Jo, you know what?" Jim suddenly asks from somewhere around McCoy's waist, and he's presumably crouched down to Joanna's level. "People don't like it when you call them something that they're not. It makes them sad. You wouldn't like it if someone was calling you names and they weren't true, would you?"

"No," Joanna says, a little curiously, her arm still wrapped around McCoy's leg, and he has to wonder where the hell Jim is going with this one.

"Yeah, neither do I. And neither does your Uncle Len. See, he's not actually your Uncle, and it makes him sad when you call him that."

"Jim –"

"But Mommy said that –"

"I know what Mommy said," Jim continues, not giving her a chance to continue or for McCoy to tell him to shut the hell up. He really doesn't need Jo running back to Jocelyn and telling her about this, not now. "But she made a mistake. It's okay, everyone makes mistakes, even me. Sometimes. But you need to call him just 'Len'. You think you can do that?"

There's a beat's silence where McCoy knows that Jo's thinking quite seriously about Jim's proposal, and imagines that her perfect little face is scrunched slightly as she contemplates it. And then she suddenly nods against his hip, and he releases the breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"Okay," she says brightly, releasing his leg. "Len, can I go play with Johnny and Emily on the swings?"

"Sure, darlin'," McCoy says, releasing his daughter's shoulder as she runs off towards the swings with a shout, and swallows once or twice. Then he feels Jim's hand press into the small of his back, and folds his arms across his chest so he doesn't reach out to touch him. "Jim…"

"I know, I know. But at least she won't grow up hating you for lying to her all this time. It's not quite the truth but at least you're not outright lying, and she'll appreciate that in time. I promise."

"I was going to thank you, actually, but if you'd rather I laid into you then that's fine by me," he says drily and Jim's hand moves across to curl around his waist, arm warm and reassuring and solid and real against McCoy's back.

It should scare him, really, just how domestic a routine they fall into once they get back home.

The normal three days a week that Jim comes around to his apartment is countered by McCoy going to his just as often, and the guys at the clinic have pretty much come to accept Jim as a permanent fixture in the waiting room. Exactly why Jim still doesn't have a job is a point of contention between them but Jim tends to distract McCoy with blowjobs if they're moving towards an argument.

Half of the time Jim's hanging around as his shift and takes his back to his own apartment on the back on his bike, and then in the morning he'll give him a lift in. McCoy stops letting Jim escort him into the clinic in his leather jacket when Louisa tells him in no uncertain terms that if he wasn't in the picture, she would be doing her very best to get into Jim's pants.

Every time he's stuck working a late shift he comes home to Jim cooking for them both and has a tall glass of sweet tea pressed into his hand and his bag removed from his shoulder as soon as he's through the door. Once they've finished eating they sit on the couch with McCoy's back pressed against Jim's chest as they talk or listen to medical journals.

It's disgustingly domestic if he's honest, more than he ever managed with Jocelyn and he'd been in love with her since he was fifteen.

The smug comm messages that he gets from Winona doesn't help matter at all.

March 2255


Jim's birthday rolls around as the last of the winter chill leaves the air and McCoy turns down the heating slightly in his own apartment. Over a year of living in Iowa and he still hasn't managed to get used to the cooler climate – though Jim never stopped wandering around outside in a t-shirt, even when it was snowing, and can't quite wrap his head around the fact that McCoy wants to wear more than one layer.

On the morning that Jim turns twenty-two, McCoy wakes up shivering in his own bed with no duvet. A few seconds of feeling around tells him that at some point in the night, Jim rolled himself up the duvet and then rolled back out of it again, depositing it on the floor on the opposite side. He's currently sprawled across the bed on his front, snoring in a deep, rumbling sort of way, one foot pressed against McCoy's calf.

It's a position that McCoy is becoming increasingly familiar with. And it's good, because it means that he can get out of bed without waking him – when Jim does decide that he wants to spend the night clinging onto McCoy with a sort of limpet-like enthusiasm, he's extremely reluctant to let go in the morning, and it usually takes a hard hit and a shout for the death-grip to loosen enough that for him to escape.

But in this position he can get away without any of this hassle because Jim is a remarkably deep sleeper. He showers and dresses and eats his breakfast, then goes back to the bed to brush Jim's hair back from his forehead and press a gentle kiss there and wish him a happy birthday in a whisper. Jim stirs, but doesn't wake.

McCoy locks the door behind himself quietly and leaves.

He has no idea what to do. He doesn't know what the appropriate way to act would be. Which is he supposed to commemorate first, Jim's birthday or George's death? More importantly, what will Jim do first?

McCoy's been wondering about it for a good week or so but Jim's been determinedly ignoring the whole concept, and going quiet and slightly sullen whenever McCoy tries to bring it up and even walking out once in the middle of dinner. He can't even comm Winona to ask what to do because no doubt she'll be trying to do both at once and getting extremely emotional and going out and doing the gardening to vent. Besides, it wouldn't be appropriate. Deneva's in the next system and too far for McCoy's old-fashioned comm to manage the distance so he can't even ask Sam the best way to proceed.

So he contacts the only other person that he can think of, the only one that knows enough to help.

It's kind of depressing that he only has about five people to talk to.

Jocelyn is surprisingly helpful, though McCoy's not sure if that's because she's decided to be nicer to him since he visited, or if she's just inordinately fond of Jim. He has a feeling that it's the latter but he's not exactly complaining.

Apparently, she'd known that they were an item well before he had, which doesn't surprise him. He doesn't even have to say how he feels – she just knows, in that way that all the women in his life seem to. He expects her to say something derisive at first but she doesn't. She just pays careful attention to what he says and after a few moments tell him exactly what she thinks he should do. And he listens to her.

McCoy's waiting for him when he finally comes home as midnight rolls around, two bottles of beer open on the table in front of him. The sharp tang of fuel follows Jim as he trudges through and slumps on the sofa beside McCoy, shifting around until his back's pressed against the side of McCoy's chest.

"How was your mom?" McCoy asks as Jim takes a long gulp of his beer, head leaning back on McCoy's shoulder. He takes a while to answer, and McCoy's not sure if he's trying to put it into words or just doesn't want to talk about it.

"Same as ever," he says eventually with a shrug, reaching to pull McCoy's arm over his shoulder and across his chest. "She told me that she's happy for me. She said that she's glad I've found someone that might help me get my life on track."

"You know I'm not going to push you to do anything," McCoy reminds him, and Jim heaves a sigh.

"I know you're not. But she wants so bad for me to make myself into something and every year, I go to her and she sees just how pointless and useless my life's become, as I feel as though I've let her down so bad. She always looks kind of disappointed whenever I go to see her."

"She loves you, Jim."

"I know. And I know that she doesn't mean to, but she can't help it, I guess. I'm not a scientist like Sam, or a hero like my father, or anything, and I probably never will be."

"Kid, you could do whatever you want," McCoy says, pulling him closer in to his chest and pausing to take a swig of his beer. "If you set your mind to something, I bet you'd manage it, no matter what it was."

"You have way too much faith in me, Bones," Jim says with a small, bitter laugh, and reaches to place the empty bottle on the floor. "But thanks."

"It's the honest truth," he says simply, and Jim doesn't reply at first. Then he takes a few deep breaths, and after two aborted attempts to speak, he finally does with a rattling breath.

"You know when I was twelve, and drove the Corvette off the cliff?" he asks suddenly, tracing idle patterns on the arm that's wrapped around his chest, and McCoy's temporarily thrown by the change in conversation.

"You've mentioned it before when pissed, yeah," he replies slowly.

"Well there was this moment, when I was coming up to the cliff. I just thought, it's a perfect way to end it. Nobody could survive a drop like the one I was headed to and I don't know, I just thought that all I'd have to do was keep going. Gravity'd do the rest, put a stop to a miserable childhood."

"Jesus, Jim…"

"It was only for a split second," Jim argues a little petulantly, leaning his head back on McCoy's shoulder. "In case you hadn't noticed I am still very alive. I jumped out pretty much as soon as I'd thought about it, but I still thought about it. And you're the one with psychology training, you tell me what that means."

"You were actually thinking of killing yourself?" McCoy asks incredulously and Jim shrugs, as though he's still not entirely sure himself.

"I don't know. But it was more than that; there was something else about it that made me feel alive. I was going so fast but I was still in control for the first time in my life and it felt like if I let that car keep going and jumped out into the quarry, I'd have just kept on going. Just… flown into the sun. It was one hell of a rush."

"That's not exactly healthy, Jim," McCoy says, and Jim chuckles.

"I never said I had a normal childhood."

"And yet you've not really tried to escape it, have you?" McCoy points out. "You still live just an hour or so away from your mom."

"Okay, so let's go away for a few days. Get out of Iowa."

"And go where, exactly?"

"Georgia, see your parents. Or Sam's got a place in Miami we can use, they're off-planet now until the fall, he won't mind."

"That sounds the better option by far."

"You know, I'm gonna have to meet your parents at some point. You've met my mom, I bet yours isn't half as bad."

"You're not going to meet my parents because if you go that I have to go, and that's kind of something that I've been avoiding for the past four years," McCoy snaps, then immediately regrets his sharp tone as Jim falls silent and tenses in his arms.

"Sorry," Jim mutters, fidgeting, and McCoy sighs in frustration with himself.

"Just forget about it. Happy twenty-second birthday, kid," he murmurs into Jim's hair, pulling him in close. "I am really fucking glad you jumped out of that goddamn car."

"Yeah," Jim replies, his voice quieter than McCoy's ever heard it. "I guess I am, too."

Jim relaxes in his arms again and McCoy makes a mental note to comm Jocelyn and thank her for telling him just to let Jim be Jim, and just to stay with him, and help him keep the pieces together. And then to thank Jim for making it so that he's in a position where he can talk to Jocelyn about this sort of thing, without the fear that if he says the wrong thing he'll never be allowed to touch his daughter again. Because he's not sure how, but he knows that it's down to Jim that Jocelyn is willing to speak to him now.

"Tell me what you want," he says into Jim's hairline, pressing another kiss to his temple, and he feels Jim's neck twist so that his face is turned into him.

"You," Jim whispers against his neck, lips warm and comforting. "Just you."

McCoy comes with Jim above around and in him, pressing him down into the sofa with every thrust, sweat pooling on their skin as their bodies slip-slides together, all hands and mouths and frantic breaths.

McCoy comes with Jim's lips on his and for a split second as his mind shatters into a million pieces, he thinks that he can see the outline of Jim back-lit above him, his arms outstretched and ready to fly.