- 7 -
"You're thinking more quietly," Jim notes, maybe an hour later. I shrug, but I'm so heartsore and tired that even that small motion feels like effort.
"I don't have any answers for the questions you want to ask me," I admit. I've never heard myself sound so defeated, not as Leonard McCoy, and it galls me. It must have a similar effect on Jim, because his arms tighten around me. "I can't even answer my own questions, really. I'm sorry."
"And how can you be so sure that you know what I want to ask you?" Jim asks. One of his hands is curled around the back of my neck, and he tugs gently on the short hairs at my nape in emphasis. "Maybe I don't have any questions, not really. Maybe I just want to meet the part of you that you keep chained up so tight inside. You know – the violent, high-toned English part with its mysterious repertoire of tricks and miracles."
I sigh. "You'd definitely have questions, then. That part's nothing but trouble."
Jim chuckles so softly that I mostly just feel it where I'm still pressed against his chest. "So, basically, it fits right in with the rest of you. Not to mention the rest of us."
I want to smile, but the expression won't quite form. I should meet his eyes for these next, important questions. But that would mean breaking the cocoon of safety he's built for me here, and I still feel too fragile. I can sense the moth-wing brush of enchantment in this place, this moment, and I'm no longer arrogant enough to dismiss such a gift. Just maybe, if respected, it will bring us both through this conversation intact.
"Jim," I say, and he goes still. He feels something too, then; that our next words have power, if nothing else. "What if I wasn't who you think I am?"
He pauses, taking the question at face value. "That's covering a lot of ground, Bones. I think you're a lot of things. A brilliant officer, a devoted friend, a compassionate observer. And before and above all that, the best damned doctor in the fleet and a healer all the way down to your bones." I can hear the grin in his voice as he appreciates his own pun, and I roll my eyes. "I felt that," he says. "And, by the way, you're also a sarcastic bastard with a defensive streak nearly as wide as the alpha quadrant and a tongue that's almost as sharp as your hands are gentle. You contradict yourself, you confuse the hell out of people, and you enjoy doing it. And yet, those same people still have absolute faith that they can count on you when the shit goes down. And they're right." Jim strokes a hand down my arm to tangle our fingers together. "You can't hold a civil conversation before your second cup of coffee, though I note that you can perform brain surgery under the same conditions..."
"Priorities," I inform him primly, and he chuckles again.
"That's who I think you are, Bones, even if it barely scratches the surface. Are you telling me I'm wrong?"
"No, you aren't wrong," I admit. Merlin, why does this have to be so hard?
"Then what are you trying to tell me?" he presses.
I take a deep breath and try again. "What if I wasn't what you think I am? If my name, my appearance, my... nature, I suppose, weren't what you've been led to believe?"
He's silent for several moments. I think he might be doing the same thing that I am: staring at our clasped hands, comparing their lines. They're a good fit; both broad-palmed and long-fingered, strong but still agile. His are a bit slimmer, the skin a bit fairer. Now, anyway. I know that, without the glamour, the opposite is true. I can't help but wonder, and fear, how Jim might feel about that.
"I think," he finally says, careful, measured, "that I fell in love with who you are, not what you are. As long as the who is real, the what is really just details."
I don't realize I've stopped breathing until I have to inhale sharply in order to speak again. "You know, most people consider them pretty damned important details. Especially once they start throwing big words like 'love' around."
"What, no flowery declaration of reciprocal feelings?" Jim teases. "I mean, not that I hadn't already noticed, but who doesn't like flowers?"
"I'd like to say that I noticed you noticing; but, nope, sure didn't. What the hell, Jim? You just left me hanging, assuming that I was alone in this emotional bullshit!"
Jim laughs out loud this time, shifting subtly so that we're full-body cuddling, pressed as close to each other as our clothing will allow. It lets him finally meet my eyes, and his expression sobers quickly.
"I wasn't trying to string you along, Bones. It's just that you give such mixed signals. You clearly want to be touched, but most of the time it seems to make you uncomfortable when you are. You open up to people one day, then stonewall them the next. For a few moments you'll seem happy. With our lives, our jobs. With us. Then the next, you hate everything and everyone." Jim presses a kiss to my temple. "Especially yourself. It worries me. I can't tell what you want, what you need. So I held back." He looks at me very seriously. "Do I need to apologize for that?"
I sigh, irritated, but not at him. "No. You made the smart choice. I doubt I'd've handled this conversation half so well, before now. And the conversation had to come before... anything else."
"Why?" he asks, bright-eyed with curiosity and pinched with concern. It's an oddly adorable combination, and I give in to the urge to smooth my fingertips over the line it etches between his brows.
"Afraid there's another important question to consider, first." He nods, wary now. "What if I wasn't what Starfleet thinks I am?" He takes a sharp breath of his own and holds it for a moment, thoughts moving rapidly behind his eyes.
"That is... potentially more complicated," he admits, frowning. He meets my eyes intently. "But Bones, we have a lot of leverage built up with the brass. More than any of us realizes, probably, once we all put our heads together. Whatever this is, we will find a way to make it right for you." He's so fierce in this cavalier promise that it stuns me, catching my breath in my throat as I watch those blue eyes burn.
"I believe you, Jim," I whisper. Merlin preserve me, I do. "But... how? How can you be so sure that you, that anyone, will feel that way? Once they know the truth? You don't even know..."
"We know you," he interrupts, sliding his hand down to my jaw and leaning in to kiss my mouth for the first time. It's light, even chaste, but the barely restrained intensity behind it makes my lips tingle and my breath come short regardless. "I know you. And that's more than enough."
I'm half in a daze as we silently negotiate the positions of pillows and blankets. It seems that Jim won't be returning to his own quarters tonight; a suspicion confirmed when he calls the lights down and tugs me back against him again.
I fully expect to lie there stiffly and fret all night. Instead, I'm asleep within minutes; Jim is still spooned behind me by the middle of gamma shift, when Spock's voice over the comm wakes us both.
