Leonard

Sometimes Leonard hated the fact that he was a doctor. It wasn't just knowing all too well what might happen to them out here—he could fill in the blanks in excruciating detail—which prevented him from burying himself in denial the way Jim seemed to be doing. Right now, it was his psychological training that he wished he could ignore, because it would be so much easier just to fling his fury back at Jim: I don't give a shit about starting the stupid fire, you're gonna tell me right now what's got you so wrapped up in knots, and by the way, fuck you! What the hell do you know about me anyway?

But no. That shattered look in the kid's eyes and the chilling words he'd snarled out—Yes, yes, and yes, all of it!—had flipped a switch inside Leonard and changed the rules of the game in a way that he couldn't disregard. It meant that he had to put on his professional mask, take a step out of the situation because it wasn't about him anymore, it was about Jim and whatever demons had been driving him so hard. And so help him, he knew that when someone had a secret that they were about to spill, the most important thing was to project acceptance. Calm. A no-judgment attitude coupled with a hefty helping of I've-heard-it-all-before-so-nothing-surprises-me.

So he calmed himself down with an effort and waited, giving Jim the space he needed, watching him spin the branch furiously in his hands. He was focusing on the task as if his life depended on it, not once glancing away. The branch slipped off the bottom piece more than once, making Jim hiss in frustration. Even in the semi-darkness, Leonard could see that his movements were jerky and uncoordinated. He seemed to be holding himself together by a thread, closer to a breakdown than Leonard had ever seen him.

For that matter, Leonard felt close to the edge himself. Now that they'd stopped moving, the hunger had ratcheted up to a constant whine in his gut, and he felt so weak that all he wanted to do was sprawl on the ground and close his eyes. But he knew he had to put his own needs aside right now, because he was first and foremost a caretaker. And it was crystal clear to him that Jim needed him alert and there.

It occurred to him that since they'd been captured, Jim had been operating in two modes only. For the most part, he'd been in control, protective and determined, even cocky. The other men had all had a hard adjustment, and Leonard had spent more than one evening trying to help one or another of them cope with the shock and despair. Jim, on the other hand, seemed to skip right over that phase. From the first, he'd been almost obsessively focused on escape, but despite the hopelessness of their predicament, Leonard had never seen him slip into depression.

Leonard had seen him angry plenty of times, too, lashing out at Childress, at Cho, at Collins, at the other prisoners… even at Leonard himself, like he'd just done. But it never lasted long, and he almost seemed to be able to collect himself and move on. It was as if he couldn't bring himself to show any weakness.

Jim didn't show his vulnerable side very often, but it was there, Leonard knew. He remembered Jim wistfully talking about how he'd joined Starfleet to do something meaningful, and how he'd been trying to cope with being transferred to engineering. That was when he'd decided that he really liked the kid, and that there was more to him than met the eye.

But this version of Jim, uncommunicative and just barely clinging to control, a glint of wetness in his eye… He'd only seen that once before, on the shuttle ride to the Atlantis when Leonard needled him about missing the Farragut. This was Jim at his rawest and most honest, when he was pushed to his limits.

You're an asshole, Leonard told himself. They were both shaky with fatigue and under stress, but that was no excuse for the things he'd said. He'd been aiming to hurt, trying to get a rise out of Jim that would pay him back for the misery he was feeling. On a rational level, he didn't blame Jim, and if he'd gotten them lost it was hardly intentional, but it was easier to let his fear and misery boil over into resentment. And then Jim had returned the favor, stabbing right at his weakest spot with unerring intuition. It was true that he was a coward, and damn it, Jocelyn had said it often enough toward the end… and then he couldn't think of anything but hurting Jim back.

Whatever he'd said, it had Jim teetering on the edge of his self-control.

It was clear now that Jim had a secret weighing on him, something that was driving him into an uncommunicative funk, winding him up so tight that he was becoming almost unreasonable. Maybe Jim wanted to tell him, but couldn't find any other way to let it out—couldn't let himself seem vulnerable, couldn't ask for help—other than provoking Leonard into an angry exchange like they'd had, until it was nearly forced out of him.

So when Jim finally finished with the fire and gave Leonard his half-hearted permission to ask him about it, Leonard started with a question that was relatively benign. Easy to answer, for now.

"How old were you?"

"Thirteen."

Leonard had been expecting it. Something had gone down that year, when Jim had missed a critical vaccination booster. Something he hadn't wanted to explain.

Jim was looking at him expectantly, his expression composed, so Leonard headed straight for the question that had been at the front of his mind for the last half hour. "Where were you?"

"Off planet," he said. "It was a colony. My mom sent me there for a while, to live with some relatives." He took a breath. "Tarsus IV."

Oh, no.

"You know what happened there, right?" Jim asked, staring into the fire. "It was in the news."

"I know there was problem with the food supply, but I don't really know the details," he said carefully. In fact, the Tarsus famine had been all over the news—Catastrophe in the Tarsus Colony, Leonard remembered reading, ten or eleven years ago. He hadn't followed the reports closely, but he recalled some kind of political mess that had interfered with the food distribution. A lot of colonists died, but he couldn't really remember why. They hadn't starved, he was fairly sure of that, but there had been some kind of violence, or maybe an uprising. The fact that Jim had been there at all was a shock. And as a child… "Tell me what happened, Jim."

The dancing flames and the comforting crackling of the fire provided a harsh contrast to Jim's bleak expression. "There was a blight. The crops failed… some kind of fungus, they said. It got into the food supply, destroyed everything practically overnight. The governor laid down some emergency measures until the supply ships arrived. There wasn't much to eat, but we were alright for a few weeks. That's what we thought, anyway." He paused, and when he continued, his voice was strained. "Then there was a rebellion. One morning we woke up and there were armed guards in the streets."

"That must have been pretty frightening," Leonard said, trying to imagine what that might look like to a thirteen-year-old boy, walking outside and trying to make sense of a world turned chaotic. "What were they trying to achieve?"

Jim shrugged. "I was just a kid, and I didn't pay much attention to colony politics. My aunt was on the governing board, and sometimes I used to hear her complaining to my uncle about council meetings. I didn't really understand at first, but I got it later. They didn't agree with the way the council was distributing the food, had their own ideas about how to do it." His tone was bitter. "Next thing we knew, they were calling everybody out to the main assembly hall town to get 'processed.'" He shook his head. "We were so naïve. We thought it meant we were going to get more rations."

"I take it you didn't."

"Not by a long shot," Jim said with a harsh laugh. "They separated us into two groups. Half went home, and the rest of us were taken to the town square. Me, too, I was with my aunt and her two kids, and I…" He grimaced as if in memory of it. "It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm. They marched us all down the street, pushed together like prisoners. There were soldiers with phasers everywhere telling us to hurry, hurry, there wasn't time. Time for what, everybody kept asking, but nobody would explain."

Please, don't say what I think you're going to say, Leonard thought. But there was no mistaking the haunted look in Jim's eyes and the ominous tone in his voice.

Jim cleared his throat. "Should've found more water before we made the shelter," he said. "My throat's dry. Got a bad taste in my mouth from those bug things."

"We'll find some in the morning." It was obvious that thirst wasn't really the problem, but Leonard played along. "And serves you right for eating those alien slugs in the first place." When Jim didn't say anything else, he prodded, "Well, go on, kid. Get it out."

"Sure you want to hear this?" Jim asked, his lips twitching up into a half-smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Not very pretty from here on in."

"I'll take my chances," Leonard said, with a certainty he didn't feel. It was going to be bad, but there was no way he was going to let Jim stop now.

Jim gave him a don't-say-I-didn't-warn-you look, his heavy brows furrowed. After a moment, he continued, "I don't know how it started, but suddenly everybody was shouting and trying to get away, and the soldiers were firing at us. Right next to me, I saw my neighbors cut down… little kids getting shot… People were panicking, and everybody was trying to run. I managed to get away. A bunch of us kids did, and we scattered into the woods. But later… we came back, my friend Tom and I. Our families were still there, in the town square, and we wanted to… I don't know what we thought we could do, but we came back, anyway."

Leonard could see him in his mind's eye, a wiry teenager, scared and angry. It wasn't hard to imagine that he'd be resourceful and protective, even then, taking on too much responsibility.

He watched Jim place a few more sticks on the fire, until the flames burned higher again. "Somebody was giving a speech. We hid behind some bushes near the square, and we could hear it. 'The revolution is successful," Jim intoned in a deep, measured voice, as if he was mimicking a voice in his head. "But survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society.'" He looked up at Leonard. "It was Raslan Kodos, one of the council members. I recognized him. He said that there was a revolution and that he was the new governor of Tarsus. He told the people there that they'd been sentenced to death so that there would be enough food for everybody else, and then he gave the order to his soldiers, and… they started taking groups into the woods, fifty at a time. We could hear the phaser blasts and the screaming."

"They shotthem," Leonard said, quietly horrified. He'd been expecting something like this, but… "Wait, you're not saying that you actually witnessed it…?"

Jim nodded. "It took half the night. Four thousand people… that takes a long time."

Christ. "Jim… why didn't you run?"

Jim shrugged. "Tom and I were too scared to move from where we were hiding. We watched it all. My aunt and her kids, I saw that myself. My teachers, my neighbors. Group after group." His voice was so low, Leonard could hardly hear it. "Kodos was there, too. He kept saying that their deaths would have meaning because the better half of the colony," he spat out the words in disgust, "the ones he'd selected, would live. He meant that they'd get the food rations instead of us."

Leonard tried to process what he was saying. Jim was a witness—at thirteen—to one of the most horrendous crimes in modern history, and he'd been carrying this around inside for years like an abscess.

Because the better half of the colony would live. The words finally penetrated… Jim had been on the wrong list. He'd been told, at thirteen, that he wasn't fit to live.

The whole conversation was beginning to feel unreal. "My God," Leonard bit out. "How… how did you get away?"

"We waited until they all left, and then we ran," Jim said, his voice a pained whisper. "We got as far away into the woods as we could, and then we just… tried to stay alive. There were twelve of us, at first, mostly kids younger than me who managed to get away in that first panic. But not everybody made it."

"What did you have to eat?" he asked, knowing the answer.

"Not much. At first we tried to eat the plants. Some of them had the fungus, and we knew to stay away from them, but… it was kind of trial and error. Sometimes we guessed wrong," he said, with an angry twist of his lips. "So yeah, Bones, I learned how to test for edible food and I know exactly what food poisoning can do."

"I'll bet."

Shit, he thought, hearing his own cutting words. Do you even know what food poisoning can do to you?

"We ate a lot of insects, whatever we could catch. Bugs and grubs and things. Some plants that we knew were safe."

"Hell, Jim, that's…" His voice trailed off. A bunch of children foraging for food in the woods, barely able to find enough food to sustain them while they slowly starved. It was inconceivable that this had happened to Jim. "I can't begin to imagine what that must have been like. How long were you…?"

"Two and a half months," Jim said, and Leonard couldn't stop a gasp from escaping, imagining the emaciated group of ragtag children they must have been. "Seventy-nine days before the supply ships arrived. There were nine of us left by then."

"My God, Jim how did—"

Jim broke in before he could complete the question. "Don't ask me anything else now, please, Bones." His voice was gruff, almost hoarse.

Leonard could only nod. "Nothing else, kid," he said. His throat felt tight with pent-up emotion. He wanted to express his outrage, or at least his sympathy, but one look at Jim's face told him that the words would be wasted.

The silence drew out between them, awkward and heavy, interrupted only by the intermittent crackling of the fire.

"I think I'll turn in," Jim said with an air of casual normalcy, as if he hadn't just laid a bomb in Leonard's lap. "I'm really beat." He pushed himself away from the fire, deliberately avoiding Leonard's gaze, and shimmied his legs under the ledge of their shelter. He turned on his side so that he was facing away, pillowing his head on his arms.

Leonard stayed where he was, listening to the occasional crackling of the fire and Jim's even breaths. It all made so much sense, now. God, he'd been blind. Memories were swirling around in his head, jumping out at him in a series of accusations.

You're a doctor and you're not trained for this, Jim had said when they were first captured. He remembered his own disparaging response: And you are?

Yeah, apparently he was. But until now it had all seemed like arrogance and overconfidence, and maybe that was the point, he thought. For whatever reason, Jim kept his experiences on Tarsus a secret. He probably didn't want to be perceived as a victim, or didn't want the extra attention, on top of what he already got as the son of the Kelvin hero. Come to think of it, Jim had been downright evasive every time they came near the subject.

I read a lot.

Guess I was absent that day.

No, I don't have any other information, sir… I just think it's a good idea to save a little to eat later.

He heard his own mocking voice. You think that because you know how to rub two sticks together and make a lean-to out of branches, you can keep us alive out here?

What makes you think I can't? Jim had said.

He had too many questions, and none of them would get answered tonight. Sighing, he left the warmth of the still-burning embers of the fire and crawled into the shelter. Jim was lying on his side with his knees drawn up. Leonard lay down next to him, not touching him, but close enough to feel the heat of his body and Jim's warm breath on the back of his neck.

Jim woke him early the next morning, kneeing him accidentally in the back as he crawled out of their shelter. "Rise and shine," he said in answer to Leonard's annoyed grunt. "Got a little mountain to climb."

"No law saying we have to get such an early start," he muttered. His muscles were aching, and the empty hole in his stomach was a nauseating reminder that he hadn't eaten in nearly forty hours. He rubbed his hands over his face, grimacing at the scratchy feel of two days of stubble.

Jim was already on his feet, stretching. "Morning's the best time of day for hiking, Bones. The air's nice and cool."

He wasn't surprised that Jim seemed a lot more energetic this morning. He'd eaten a little last night, and gotten something off his chest that must have been weighing him down. Leonard, on the other hand, felt like just standing up and peeing into his canteen—at least there was something to pee this morning—was about all he was going to manage for the next hour or so. Hiking wasn't an option, and for that matter, neither was standing, with his legs feeling like jelly.

Jim was observing him with a half-amused frown. "So, Bones, you might have noticed that I'm still alive and kicking, so I think we can assume that the scorpions are a go." He smirked and pointed to the mess of congealed remains on the rock just outside the outcropping. "How about some breakfast?"

Leonard sighed. "You win," he said with a reluctant nod. "Catch me some fresh ones, at least. And find us some more water. Those things look like they need to be washed down."

Jim came back fifteen minutes later, carrying his shirt bunched in one hand like a basket of goodies. "Got a bunch of those scorpions, and some other… uh, bug things," he said, laying his shirt on the ground with a proud flourish. "We can test them today, and see if they're edible. And I found more water."

When he finally got up the courage to try one of the creatures, it was just as revolting as he'd feared, but he was so hungry that he didn't really care. He found himself reaching for another without hesitation, his reluctance shoved aside by the relentless rumbling of his stomach. It's just protein, he told himself. Insects aren't even sentient. Nothing but a cultural taboo stopping us from eating them.

He was still ravenously hungry after the third, and the sip of water Jim had found wasn't enough to quench his thirst. Still, he had to admit that he felt better. For the first time, he was beginning to think that maybe they might not die out here, at least not of dehydration. There was a cool breeze and even a hint of humidity in the air in this mountainous area, and the wind and dust weren't nearly so prevalent. All in all, much better than where they'd been yesterday.

With a few calories and some water chugging through his system, climbing the rocky incline didn't seem nearly as daunting as it had the night before. Even so, it took them more than an hour to reach a spot that provided a view into the distance. Jim made no attempt to reopen the discussion from the night before while they climbed, and Leonard took his cue gratefully. He was breathing hard enough as they struggled up the hill, and he didn't think he'd be able to carry on any sort of conversation. Except for the occasional "Need a break?" or "Watch your step," they didn't talk at all. But at least they weren't bickering.

Jim reached the top first, and immediately started scanning the horizon. "There!" he crowed, just as Leonard reached the summit. He looked where Jim was pointing. The Alpheus dome was clearly visible from where they stood, looking like a shiny bubble on the ground. "I knew it! See, we're not so far off course after all."

"Don't get cocky, kid. It still looks pretty small from here." Leonard glanced around at the landscape surrounding them. "And how the hell are we supposed to get from here to there?" From the crest where they were standing, the range spread out before them in a discouraging chain of low, brush-covered mountains. Everywhere he looked, there were steep, rocky inclines and valleys. It would take days to cross this terrain, if they could even find a passage through it.

"Piece of cake, Bones," Jim said, although his voice held a tremor of uncertainty. "Might, uh, take us a little longer than I thought, but we can do it."

"Sure we can," Leonard said agreeably. "Hang on, let me just get my carabiners. You grab the rope."

Jim squinted back at him. "Uh, that was sarcasm, right?"

"Now you're catchin' on, farm boy."

Without the taste of dust and urine in his mouth, and without the shakes and the dizziness, the hike was almost pleasant. They had to backtrack more than once when their way was blocked, but they made more or less steady progress.

"So, Jim…" Leoanrd said as they picked their way carefully up another endless incline, "you do have an idea of how we're going to get into Alpheus, right?"

"Sure, I was thinking we could knock on the gate and tell them we're looking for work. Maybe we should take these jumpsuits off first, though."

Leonard rolled his eyes, a wasted gesture since Jim was two steps ahead of him. "Seriously, you have a plan, right?"

"Course I do," Jim said after a pause.

God damn it, he knew it. "You don't, do you?"

Jim stopped and turned around, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. At least they were hydrated enough to sweat again. "I have two plans," he said, with an air of resentment. "Plan A is that we find those huge air filters Fredericks told us about, and slip inside through them."

"Find the filters and slip inside? That's it?" There were a handful of reasons why that might not work, starting with the fact that the filters might be impenetrable without the proper equipment, or too high for them to reach, or might not even be visible from the outside of the dome.

"We don't actually know too much about them," Jim admitted. "We'll have to improvise when we see them."

I might have known. "Well, what's Plan B?"

Jim gave him a tired grin. "Plan B is that we find another way in."

Perfect.

"C'mon, Bones," Jim said, giving his shoulder a friendly slap, "Let's worry about it later. I'm getting hungry."

Leonard left Jim to the business of catching more of the scorpions, while he hunted for water in the shadier areas. He found some in a hole in one of the rocks, too deep for them to drink from, so he pushed the sleeve of his shirt inside, letting it soak up the water. They could suck the water out of the cloth, at least.

Further along he saw a large depression in the side of the slope, almost a little cave. He stuck his head cautiously inside, tensing when he got a whiff of an unpleasant, acrid odor. When he caught a glimpse of orange fabric, his blood ran cold.

A body… one that had been here for a long time, from the smell of it.

"Jim," he called out, "there's something here you should see." He waited for Jim's answering shout before leaning further into the cave, making sure not to breathe through his nose.

Jim was beside him in seconds, asking anxiously, "What's the matter—Shit!"

Together, they pulled the body out into the light. Jim took one look, turned ashen, and dropped to his knees, gagging.

It wasn't the first time Leonard had seen a body in a state of advanced decomposition, so his shock was easier to manage. He looked it over carefully. It had been a human male, tall and broad, the bone structure easily discernible under the leathery remains of tendons and ligaments. The orange jumpsuit was still mostly intact.

"How long's he been dead?" Jim gasped out. He was still hunched over, taking in big gulps of air.

"Well, considering the state of decomposition and the arid environment…" He figured Jim didn't need to hear the medical details. "The body's pretty dried out, so I'd say three or four months. But I could be off."

"Poor guy," Jim said, with a sad shake of his head. He kneeled next to Leonard to take a closer look at the body. "They told us that other prisoners had run off. Nobody ever knew what happened to them… How did he die? Can you tell?"

Leonard was already examining the corpse, professional mode kicking in to override his revulsion. There was nothing immediately apparent that he could see. The skull was intact. He patted down the body, feeling for any obvious damage. When he reached the lower left leg he felt an odd protrusion, and pulled the pants leg up.

Ouch, he thought. Poor guy.

"Here's the probable cause of death. Broken leg. See that?" He pointed. "Displaced fracture of the tibial shaft. He must've fallen, then couldn't walk."

Jim looked up at the rocky incline above them. "Wouldn't be hard to slip and take a bad fall," he muttered. "So he just crawled in here to die… after he made it this far?"

Leonard sighed. "He wouldn't have had much choice. The tibia's the weight-bearing bone in the leg, Jim. There's no way he could have climbed out with a break like that." It was a downright tragic way to go, he thought: slowly dying of thirst or starvation, alone and in pain, without even a name or a burial.

"We should cover him, or… put him back, or something." Jim looked spooked, unable to take his eyes from the corpse.

Leonard nodded. "We'll make a marker." It seemed like a futile gesture—who knew if they'd even make it out alive themselves, let alone be able to come back and try to reclaim the body—but he felt like the man deserved some sort of recognition, a small bit of dignity that they could give him.

They worked with hardly a word between them. Leonard tore a strip off the jumpsuit before they moved the man back, and then helped Jim seal the entrance to the cave with piled rocks. The strip of orange fabric was secured between the stones, flapping out slightly in the breeze.

"One of the kids I lost…" Jim said when they'd finished, his words clear and sharp in the dry air, "it was right near the end. She wasn't sick, or at least no sicker than the rest of us. We'd figured out a lot of things by then, how to build a good shelter and keep ourselves warm, how to find things to eat, and I thought we were going to be okay. And then… she just got really weak and died, for no reason. After two months."

"She was starving, Jim," Leonard said gently. "It could have been any number of things. Electrolyte imbalance, heart failure, shock…"

"The supply ships came a week later." Jim stared at the rocks they'd piled in front of the cave. "She almost made it."

"Sometimes people just give up. You don't know why."

"She was only ten." Jim's eyes were wide and pained. He looked ten years younger, and Leonard's heart clenched.

"Come on, kid. We need to keep going. We've given our friend a decent resting place, and that's something."

Jim nodded and pushed himself up, wiping his hands on the fabric of his jumpsuit. "That's not going to happen to us," he said, giving Leonard a stubborn look. "What happened to that guy. Dying like that."

Leonard sighed. He'd never been someone who believed in the power of positive thinking. Realities had to be faced. "You don't know that, Jim. We could fall and injure ourselves. It's a possibility."

"That's not what I meant," Jim said with an impatient shake of his head. "I'm not an idiot, Bones. I know our chances are still pretty slim. I know we're in a bad situation, and a thousand things could still go wrong. But there are two of us, so… neither of us is going to have to die all alone like he did. Understand?" He gave Leonard a fierce look, as if he could will him to agree. "You're not going to end up in a cave, alone, waiting for the end, and neither am I. That's not going to happen."

The cynical response Leonard had been about to make died on his lips. For the first time, he got a glimpse of the commander Jim had the potential to be: determined and strong, someone who could be trusted to bring them through a crisis by the force of his own willpower and ingenuity, no matter what dangers lay ahead. Leonard's breath caught, and for a moment, he couldn't respond. "Okay, kid," he said finally. "Nobody's dying alone. That's a pact."

"Good," Jim said, sounding satisfied. "Let's go, then. Just… watch your step, all right?"

"You, too."

It was two days later before they heard it, both of them at the same time: an odd rushing sound.

"Bones, did you hear—"

"Jim, I could swear that sounds like—"

Jim's face was haggard, his eyes sunken and red, but his lips were quirked in a half-smile as he listened intently. "Definitely," he said. "I can smell it, Bones, can't you?"

Running water.

When they found it, it was breathtakingly ordinary: a stream—really not much more than a shallow brook—at the bottom of the canyon they'd been climbing down for the past two hours. It was flowing over a rock bed, glinting in the late-day sun. Leonard thought he'd never seen something so inviting.

Jim let out an enthusiastic whoop and plunged his face into the water, and after a moment's hesitation—the last thing either of them needed was to cut himself on the sharp edge of a rock or twist an ankle—Leonard did the same. The water was cool and delicious, and for the first time in four days, he was able to drink his fill.

Not far from that point, they found an area where the water ran knee-deep. Leonard stripped off his grimy jumpsuit and dunked his entire body in the water, grateful to finally clean off the accumulated filth. They washed out their clothes, setting them aside on the rocks to drip.

God, it felt good to splash.

"You know what this means, don't you?" Jim asked. He was lying on his back with his eyes closed, floating in the shallow water.

"Yeah, it means we can finally stop pissing into our canteens."

Jim sat up and kicked, sending a wave of spray in his direction. "Very funny. I'm serious. Remember what Fredericks said? There's a river that flows under the dome. All we have to do is follow this stream until it joins up with the river, and we'll reach the colony! It can't be far from here. This is the home stretch, Bones! We're almost there."

For a minute, he let himself believe that it really was going to be that easy.