Okay woot! I finally found some of those bunnies I've been looking for and that means another chapter yay! Sorry it's been so long guys! It wouldn't have been even considering the fact that I recently started college but I've also switched two classes and had to catch up to the others in those classes but now I'm all caught up in back! So, on with the story!
By the way, sorry about the spelling! I know I suck at it but I'm really trying! If it gets too bad could someone tell me so that I can do something about it? Thanks guys!
Not mine, I just dress them up and make them act funny!
Chapter 4
Going back a bit in time to see what Bones has been doing while Jim was avoiding him
McCoy frowned as he looked at Jim's medical profile, more specifically, his psych profile. There was nothing there. Jim's record was as clean as Spock's (whose record he had definitely not looked into just to dig up dirt on the Vulcan . . . that would be wrong). It didn't matter anyway, the Vulcan, as expected had no flaws on his final record.
But McCoy had been sure that Jim would have an interesting record! The surly doctor could think of things that the two had done at the academy that had warranted at least a paragraph in a psych profile. But something disturbed McCoy even more than the lack of notations on Kirk's psych record.
Kirk had never even taken his psych exam. McCoy had taken his in his junior year, putting it off longer than most cadets in order to somewhat overcome his fear of space. The doctor had always assumed Jim had gotten his out of the way in their freshmen year, before the two men started spending every spare minute of the day together.
But Jim was going to graduate soon and he hadn't been through the mandatory psych exam. Jim had captained a star ship for Christ sake and hadn't had any contact with a psychologist in, from what Bones gathered from his file, his entire life!
McCoy had considered that Jim had simply forgotten to take the exam for all of three seconds before chucking it out the window. Jim thrived on tests, he loved them, had taken the Kobyashi Maru three times! He never missed them and he most certainly never forgot them. So he was avoiding the exam, but why?
This very question had McCoy digging up any and all records on James T. Kirk that he could find in Starfleet databases but there wasn't much to go on. Jim had been hospitalized and inordinate number of times in his childhood but, given what McCoy knew about Kirk, that was hardly unexpected. There was a small patch of time between the end of his tenth grade school year and the beginning of his eleventh where there was nothing. No grades, no field trip forms, nada.
The record had quite clearly been wiped plane because the last notation before Jim started his eleventh grade year was a letter from Jim's family doctor transferring all of his files temporarily to a physician on a colony. And here Bones ran into another glitch. The colony wasn't even listed! That piece of required information had been left conveniently blank so that Bones couldn't even look under the colony's doctors and see if he could figure out which one Jim had been left to.
This was insane! McCoy had never seen a medical file with so much history and so little practical information! For instance, the majority of Jim's hospitalizations from his youth were documented with the location and doctor who had cared for him but the description of the injury and the treatment had been left entirely blank.
What disturbed McCoy more was that Jim's allergies had been meticulously documented in the same hand that had decidedly not documented his injuries. McCoy found that Jim had had asthma in his youth and several other interesting things about his best friend but where he really needed information, there was none. This was all the more distressing because it was clear to Bones that whoever had been Jim's family doctor, a Dr. Tom Peterson, had obviously not been a slacker. The carefully documented cases of flu, with an inordinate amount of attention paid to detail belied that possibility.
How could a doctor be so descriptive on common childhood ailments be so lax when it came to times when the patient has been hospitalized?
McCoy sighed as he looked through the files. The doctor and hospital contact information was all there and Bones knew what he needed to do.
He flipped the computer to communications mode and fed it the appropriate information.
A young feminine voice came over the line accompanied by the view of a short woman with long blond hair. "This is Iowa General how may I help you?" the woman's voice was too sugary for McCoy 's taste.
"Hi. I'm Dr. Leonard McCoy and I'm looking for a Dr. Tom Peterson, is he available?"
The woman checked a file that McCoy assumed was a schedule for the doctor's on staff. "Yes." She finally replied "Dr. Peterson is in his office at the moment and available, would you like me to patch you through to him?" the woman asked.
"That'd be swell" McCoy answered tightly, already tired of the young woman.
The computer screen went blank for a moment before a new room was revealed with an older gentleman in front of the screen. The man smiled in greeting.
"Dr. McCoy! I've heard so much about you! It's good to finally make your acquaintance!" the man greeted in a jovial tone.
"Um, should I know you?" McCoy asked hesitantly. The man's name didn't ring a bell but perhaps he was famous for something?
"No, no not at all dear boy! I am an old friend of Dr. Jonathon Rice and he mentioned you non-stop for a number of years whenever we had our lunch meetings!" the man answered kindly.
McCoy like the man already.
"Really? How is John? I heard he moved down to Florida is that right?" McCoy asked thoughtfully, he hadn't thought about his mentor in ages. The man had been his head of department back when he was working at Shewey Medical Center.
"Yeah, the old man finally retired and moved with his wife down south, I hear that the two of them fight like an old married couple now that John isn't at work every waking minute!" the old man chuckled softly.
McCoy grinned back; it was great to hear about his old friend. His brow furrowed however as he thought back to the reason for his call.
"Dr. Peterson I was wondering . . ."
"Please call me Tom! All my friends do, even some of my patients do! Dr. Peterson makes me feel like I'm boasting about my accomplishments!" the kindly doctor interrupted McCoy semi-sternly.
"Of course, Tom" McCoy replied and hesitated, he wanted to give the doctor another name to call him but no one ever called him Leonard. Why on earth had his parents named him that?
"You can call me Bones then Tom." McCoy finally settled on Jim's nickname for him. It had stuck at the academy because McCoy hadn't wanted to be called Leonard but his friends couldn't very well go around calling him 'Dr. McCoy' all the time could they?
The elderly doctor raised an eyebrow but didn't comment.
"Look Tom, I was wondering, would you remember a patient of yours? James T. Kirk?" McCoy asked hesitantly.
A shadow fell over the older doctor's face before clearing again. "Jimmy Kirk? You know him? I heard he saved all our asses last week, how is the rascal?"
McCoy hesitated; clearly this doctor had a somewhat special relationship with Jim, did he really want to question his shady documenting techniques? On the other hand, McCoy needed to know, as he was now Jim's attending physician.
"He's . . . he's . . . well I was hoping you could tell me?" McCoy ventured.
Peterson raised his eyebrow. "I haven't seen Jimmy Kirk since he was 18 and left his mom's house to do God- knows-what. I only recently heard that he was in Starfleet and had made quite a name for himself even as a cadet. I always knew that boy could go places if only . . ." here the doctor studied McCoy "if only he tried" the doctor finished, obviously put out that he hadn't said what he wanted to.
"Well, the things is, I'm CMO of the Enterprise and Jim's attending . . . and his best friend" McCoy admitted the last with the hopes of gaining Peterson's trust. "Jim got hurt during the mission, I'm guessing that's no surprise to either of us, and I had to heal him. He's been avoiding me like the plague, of course, and so I took the opportunity to look into his medical record . . . and found some very interesting discrepancies."
The older doctor nodded. "Yes. Yes, I suppose you would wouldn't you?" the man seemed to be talking to himself more than to Bones so he didn't reply. "Would you believe that in the 7 years since I last treated Jimmy no one has ever called me to ask about all that deleted history?" The man shook his head in disgust.
"There are so many obvious holes I thought for sure that someone would figure it out or at least contact me for more information. But no one ever has. I guess it shouldn't come as that much of a surprise though should it? James was always good at hiding what he wanted to" McCoy nodded his agreement at the doctor's assessment.
"Why'd you delete all of the causes and treatments of his hospitalizations?" McCoy asked gently.
The other doctor studied McCoy once again and seemed to find what he was looking for because he began to speak slowly.
"Look, Dr. McCoy, you know that technically I can't tell you any of this because of doctor-patient confidentiality but I'm going to in the hopes that you can help James where I never could." The man sat in thought awhile before he began again.
"Jimmy was a good kid, Bones" here he looked at McCoy to see if the nickname was correct and McCoy nodded at him to go ahead. "He was so intelligent, so happy, such a pain in the god damned ass." McCoy smiled, that was Jim alright.
"Until he turned eight" the doctor's voice had a haunting quality that Bones knew immediately that he didn't like. "Jim's mom got remarried that summer and both Jim and Sam became so closed off after that . . . it was like they weren't the same kids' anymore"
McCoy raised an eyebrow. "Who's Sam?"
Dr. Peterson looked startled and eyes Bones suspiciously "I thought you said you were the kid's best friend? I'm not going to reveal all this to you if I can't trust you" the doctor made to hang up and McCoy panicked.
"NO! I am his best friend! What's that got to do with a guy named Sam?" Bones asked, bewildered.
Peterson glared at him for several seconds before he sighed. "He's Jim's older brother."
"What? Jim doesn't have any siblings!" McCoy screeched before hesitating. Actually, the conversation had never been brought up had it? McCoy had no siblings and so had never asked if Jim had and had assumed that Jim's lack of asking was because he didn't have any either.
"Actually" Peterson replied, calmer now "I'm not surprised you've never heard of him. He ran off when he was 15, and never cam back to Iowa. Oh, I know he and Jim patched things up eventually but they hadn't had much communication over the years and Jim was so pissed that Sam hadn't taken him with him . . ." here the doctor trailed off again.
"How much older was Sam than Jim" McCoy asked curiously.
The doctor frowned. "Four years? Maybe five? I'm not sure, but around there."
McCoy frowned. "So Jim was pissed that Sam didn't take him away from home when he was . . . nine or ten? What's wrong with that picture?" McCoy asked sarcastically.
The doctor nodded in agreement. "Yeah, Jimmy always wanted to leave home but this was something else . . . this was Frank."
"Frank? I've never heard of him . . . another brother?" McCoy asked, beginning to wonder just how many damned Kirk's there actually were running around.
Peterson shook his head morosely. "No, Frank was their stepfather."
McCoy wrinkled his nose, Jim didn't talk much about his stepfather but McCoy had long ago gotten the picture that he wasn't a nice man.
The doctor nodded at McCoy's face.
"My sentiments exactly."
"But Dr. . . Tom" McCoy corrected himself "what does Frank have to do with Jim and Sam's relationship?"
Tom shook his head again. "Everything. Frank's the reason Sam left Iowa; he left Jim all alone with that bastard for eight years.
Bones raised a skeptical eyebrow. "What about Winnona?" he asked. He had met Jim's homely mother last winder break and had found her quite charming.
The other doctor nodded acceptingly. "Winnona was a good barrier between Jim and Frank when she was around. See, she's around all the time now but when the boys were young she was always off-planet doing something or anther and after Sam left, Jimmy was the sole responsibility of Frank for most of the year."
The doctor seemed to be on a role now as he rushed ahead as though if he stopped to gather his thoughts, he wouldn't continue. McCoy didn't interrupt.
"At first I didn't suspect anything. Frank wasn't from around here, no one knew who he was before he married Winnona but he seemed nice enough at the time. But soon Jimmy started comin' in with injuries that just weren't like him. He'd break his arm and that was usual enough for a boy his age, especially one as rambunctious as him. Then, a week later he'd come in with a concussion on his head, again, not too unusual but the injuries were so close together and well, Jimmy had never been particularly clumsy before . . .
So I started to look into it. That's my job, you understand. I hadn't known that Winnona was off-planet so much because she always made it in for her annual physical. When I started askin' around and found out she hadn't been home in three months I became suspicious. Winnona would never hurt her boys but I didn't know Frank. What I did know was that either way, there wouldn't be witnesses.
Over the years I got enough evidence and, eventually, confessions from Jimmy to prove that Frank should be arrested." The doctor had to pause here as he looked at McCoy.
"One day Jimmy came into my clinic, uninjured for once, and begged me not to tell anyone what Frank had done to him. You're his best friend, you said. Do you understand what I'm telling you? James T. Kirk doesn't beg. But there he was, 15 years old on my examining room floor balling his eyes out that if I told anyone what was going on with Frank that, even if the bastard got what he deserved, Jim would be punished for it.
I didn't understand at first, thought it was just an abused kid protecting his abuser, they all do it. But the kid just kept goin' on and on about it . . . I finally got it out of him that he was worried that his mother wouldn't love him anymore.
Damn McCoy! Off course I didn't believe him at first, who would? Winnon's such a nice woman . . . but the more I thought about it the more I remembered. When the kids were younger, before Frank and before Sam ran away, Winnona would bring them in . . . she always spoke so enthusiastically about Sam, how he was doing in school, what sports he was playing this year, etc. But she never talked about Jimmy and I began to wonder . . ."
McCoy couldn't help himself. He had to interrupt this time.
"Are you saying you think Mrs. Kirk was in on the abuse? 'Cause I gotta tell ya, I ain't buyin' that!" McCoy's accent was reverting back to it's natural southern drawl as he became more and more upset.
The doctor shook his head furiously. "No! Of course not! Winnona wouldn't hurt a fly, let alone her own son. But Bones, you've gotta understand! Jimmy was born seconds before his father died. He looked so much like his daddy. How you think Winnona felt huh? Lookin' into Jimmy's eyes all the time and seein' his daddy.
Then I started to see. If Jimmy and I came out with his abuse, well, then he'd be responsible for Frank's leaving and Jimmy was worried that then he'd be responsible for another of his mom's husbands leaving and her being all alone again."
"It wouldn't have been Jim's fault!" McCoy protested.
Peterson shook his head. "No it wouldn't have been. I knew it, Jimmy knew it, Winnona would have seen it but would it have stopped the feelings? Would it have stopped Winnona from looking at Jimmy as responsible even when she knew he wasn't?
See, I wasn't sure and Jimmy said that's what would happen. And hell, Bones! I couldn't leave the kid in a position where, just when his abuser got thrown out, his mother started blaming him for it so I kept quite for all these years. I just erased his medical files so that no one else would find out and reveal his secret . . ." the doctor finished his story quietly.
"So . . . Winnona never knew? She doesn't know now?" Bones asked incredulously.
Tom looked up. "Oh she knows. See one day she came home early from one of her trips and saw Frank doing . . . whatever the hell he was doing to Jim and she kicked him out right then and there. Problem solved see? Frank got thrown out, Jimmy got therapy, and his mother didn't subconsciously blame him for his stepfather leaving. Still, I reckon the kid's pretty screwed up from it all . . . it went on for eight years after all and he only went to therapy for 2 months before he quit.
I never heard from him again until a buddy of mine told me he had left to join Starfleet. I'd assumed they'd handled everything. Even us Iowa doctors hear that Starfleet has some of the best psych programs going, I figured Jimmy was finally safe when I heard about the Nero incident. Did I assume too much?"
McCoy shrugged, his head still reeling from the story.
"I'm not sure. I know for a fact that Jim hasn't had his psych evaluations from Starfleet and he really doesn't like doctors but those could just be hangovers from the abuse and he might be ok now right?" McCoy asked hopefully.
Peterson nodded. "He could be. I myself would feel better if I knew that Starfleet psych had declared him mentally stable but . . . I guess all's well that end's well right?"
Bones nodded but didn't say anything, he though the other doctor was over simplifying the situation but he didn't want to be rude after the doctor had divulged all of this information to him.
"Thank you Tom, unless there's anything else I have to get ready for our patient now."
The older doctor hesitated a moment before sighing. "I guess there's no point in keeping anything from you now is there?
See, there is one more thing . . . I assume when you looked up Jim's medical record you saw that I transferred his files for a summer to another doctor on a colony?"
McCoy nodded his head, he had forgotten about that mystery, so caught up in Jim's secret past.
"I wasn't the one who deleted that record . . . I would have, of course, if it had been up to me but . . ." the doctor eyed McCoy, sizing the younger man up one last time.
"The colony was Tarsus IV" the doctor said and McCoy couldn't find any words to describe his horror at this revelation.
"James was one of six* survivors and the youngest among them. He got therapy coming back of course, it was mandatory for everyone but he never did his assigned follow up visits before he left Iowa and his last psych evaluation wasn't heartening . . . I deleted that evaluation too . . . I thought I would do my part to give Jimmy a new lease on life."
McCoy shook his head. "Why was Jim sent to Tarsus for Christ sake?"
Peterson sighed. "It's not like anyone knew what was going to happen there! Jim was staying with some family over the summer while Winnona put her life back together after Frank. That's really all I know . . . you'd have to talk to the psych experts who handled Jim's case if you wanted more information on the Tarsus situation . . . all I know is that everyone who was a witness got those records erased immediately upon returning."
The two trailed off in silence, both considering the young captain. McCoy noticed the time and figured that Pike probably had Jim on his was down to sickbay by now and reluctantly informed Peterson that he had to go.
The two doctor exchanged their good-byes and hung up. McCoy quickly vacated his chair and headed out of his office.
It was time to get ready for Jim's visit.
*Okay! For those of you who don't/ didn't watch Star Trek: The Original Series. The Tarsus IV incident actually happened in that universe although I'm not sure how old Jim was or exactly how many witnesses there were but I know it wasn't a lot. Basically, it was major genocide against the people there by the resident governor named Kronos (sp?) who basically decided that, since there wasn't a lot of food/ resources on Tarsus he would decrease the population by half so that the 'worthy' population could survive. Long story short (too late), Kirk was basically living in the wild (I assume without much food), trying to avoid any people in power who would probably make him kill others and what-not. If you want more info I suggest you watch that episode . . . who's name has fled my mind at the moment but it's really good! But that's all the information you need to know about it for this story, major trama for Kirk like pretty much everything else. Cool? Cool!