Notes: You guys are all awesome. Every last one of you. (And you will obviously secure that status permanently should you buy my book in February as late Christmas presents to yourselves.)


Arc One, Part Twenty-Seven

McCoy was not a stupid man.

McKenna might have been part of the problem – in fact, from his fleeting impression of the redhead at the museum that had seemed an age ago, McCoy judged that perhaps he was a large part of the problem – but three years or not didn't create neuroses that big without crossing the line into outright abuse. And Spock simply didn't carry those markers. He was by no means reluctant to discuss McKenna, he was neither physically nor sexually shy, and was as verbally vicious as McCoy, taking it all in the spirit in which it was intended. If anything, he was downright mouthy. He simply did not carry the right markers.

And yet the almost phobic responses to his asthma were deeply ingrained – ridiculously so. McCoy didn't lie to himself and pretend he'd seen every angle, but what he could see was downright frightening with how twisted up and angry it seemed to have made Spock. This wasn't simply a neglectful ex, this was something darker, something a lot more deep-rooted, something that had psychologically crippled him and made cracking that behavioural loop next to impossible.

But this line of reasoning brought McCoy right up to a brick wall – and not, for once, of Spock, but of simple ignorance. He wasn't by nature especially nosy as a person. While he liked to be kept in the loop, he'd never seen the point of gossip or sharing every last thing with a partner. He'd objected to the nature of the secret, not the keeping of the secret itself. McCoy simply was not put out by, or even curious about, the majority of things Spock kept quiet from him.

Somehow, Jim's warning so long ago – that you could feel like you knew Spock, and then realise that, in fact, you knew very little concrete at all – had come true. Simply put: McCoy didn't know the history.

He knew next to nothing, in fact, beyond Spock's country of origin. He suspected, simply from Spock's demeanour, that he was an only child, or at the very least there was a considerable age gap between himself and any siblings, but he didn't know. He didn't know whether his parents were still alive, or whether they, too, had come to America, or whether it was simply him. He knew roughly when Spock had entered the country, but McCoy knew of enough immigrants sent to live with aunts and cousins and siblings to know that it meant nothing for his parents' location, then or now. He didn't know where he had lived, who with, who his friends had been, of boyfriends and girlfriends prior to McKenna (although he did know there had been at least one woman), of his educational or working history – nothing.

For all that he knew a lot about the man, he didn't have much to go on.

He did not approach the topic, however, for several weeks, preferring to let Spock regain the footing from which McCoy kept sweeping him. He did not, McCoy was very rapidly learning, appreciate being prodded and poked too often in too short a time, and so it was almost three weeks before McCoy addressed his history, under the dank atmosphere of a constant steely overhang and sputters of feeble, icy rain at all hours. In the warm shelter of the glass-walled cafe in Jo's favourite park in the fall, he nudged a sugar packet across the table and said, "Do you miss winters in Tokyo?"

Spock blinked, tearing his gaze from the hustle of damp, rotting leaves outside, and said: "No, Leonard. I never lived in Tokyo."

"Wherever in Chinatown you did, then."

Spock huffed. "I lived in Sendai."

"I have no idea where that is. Do you miss winters there?"

"No."

McCoy blinked. "Just...no?"

"That is correct," Spock said flatly. "What are you really asking, Leonard?"

McCoy shrugged, unashamed at being caught. "Some history. Feels like I don't know a damn thing about you, you know? I don't know where you came from, what your story is – don't give me that, everyone has a story. Takes a goddamn crowbar to get a sentence outta you some days."

Spock cracked a tiny smile. "I could say the same about you."

"Yeah, but you know about my mistakes. My adult ones, anyhow. Tell me some stories."

Spock pushed the sugar packet back towards him. "In truth, I do not remember much of Sendai. I was home-schooled, and we frequently would spend weeks in Kyoto. A Kyoto winter is a trying experience, but I cannot recall one in Tokyo at all, and few in Sendai."

"Who taught you?"

"A selection of tutors, and occasionally my mother."

"Okay. Tell me about your mom."

This, judging by the way Spock's fingers began to stroke the rim of the cup absently, seemed to be a safe topic. "My mother was American."

How in the Christ hadn't he known that?

Hell, the mixed race was obvious, and judging by the surname it had to have been his mother that was Caucasian, but he hadn't known that she was American. McCoy was brought up short in the realisation that Jim was right: he knew nothing in factual terms, and it was...jarring.

"She was born and raised in Chicago. She was an English teacher and moved to Singapore to teach English to students in her twenties, where she met my father. She taught my half-brother English; eventually, my father divorced his wife and married my mother shortly afterwards."

"An affair, huh?"

"They both denied it, but my mother was...not the type to rush headlong into decisions," Spock said evenly.

"You get along with your half-brother, then?"

"I did," Spock said evenly. "We have long since lost touch, however. Father...disapproved of my brother's choices. Almost all of them, in fact. He was a disappointment, and eventually, Father wrote him out of the family. He left when I was ten years of age."

McCoy's medical training was kicking in – specifically, the basic drills in psychology he'd received at medical school. An older sibling – half, whatever, it counted – being cast out for not living up to a standard. He could do the math.

"When I was twelve years of age, I suffered my first attack and was diagnosed as asthmatic. My parents...argued repeatedly over the course of action to take; my mother insisted that returning to Sendai, a less dense city, would be beneficial. Father argued that capitulating to a minor illness would be..."

"Minor?" McCoy said sharply.

Spock blinked, and looked him in the eye. "It was minor, at that time. My condition now would be...unrecognisable to my doctor then."

"Okay," McCoy reached out, curling his index finger around Spock's. So a father that downplayed it, followed years later by a boyfriend that had similarly thought it trivial. Just fantastic. "So they argued. What then?"

"They continued to do so. Father began to spend an increasing amount of time at the company; Mother with her students. My tutors would state that Father had invited trouble by marrying an American in the first place, and my mother would become upset, and then Father would become irritated with her..."

So, typical domestic shit that plagued families world over. Hell, McCoy had overheard his parents having very similar arguments over their children. They were not unusual in the slightest. And yet, somehow, it sounded...worse. Perhaps because he was simply imagining Spock, all of twelve years old and confused, stuck in the middle. He could not wrap his mind around the intricacies of other people now, never mind at twelve; how had he assimilated that friction?

McCoy had the feeling he knew how Spock had taken it.

"Shortly before I was thirteen, they argued for the last time – over me. Father stated that my condition could not have come from him; there were no asthmatics in his line. He stated that it was likely to be due to the comparative...weakness of my American genes. My mother...did not appreciate the comment."

That, McCoy suspected, was an understatement.

"My mother and I left Sendai two days later."

Oh yeah, that was an understatement.

"Where'd you go?" McCoy murmured.

Spock glanced up from the cup again and said, "Here."

"To America?"

"Yes. Mother opted to return to Chicago. She felt comfortable in her hometown; I did not. My disease worsened until I spent the majority of a year in hospital at the age of sixteen. I was largely educated by my mother in a public ward, and attained my diploma and my acceptance into university from a laptop in the hospital bed."

His tone was becoming unmistakeably bitter, and McCoy curled the rest of his fingers around Spock's hand carefully.

"Did you ever see your father again?" he asked quietly.

"Once."

"When was that?" McCoy asked. "How old were you?" In reality, he wanted to know – had that distant, disapproving parent ever stepped foot in his son's hospital room, either in Japan or America? And yet part of him also didn't want to know.

"I was twenty years old," Spock said flatly. "It was at my mother's funeral."

McCoy's lungs spasmed as though Spock had punched the air out of him. His brain hovered over both sides of it – a seven-year estrangement from his father as a teenager, and the estrangement being broken by the death of his mother. A twenty-year old man losing his own mother – who, from what Spock had said, must have only been in her forties. And the father that hadn't breached the gap, and chose to do it then.

A hell of a lot about Spock's mindset was beginning to make sense.

He squeezed the white fingers in his. There was no answering pressure.

"Did your mom actually tell your old man how to find you before...?"

Spock looked like he very much wanted to roll his eyes. "Leonard. Father can find out more or less anything that he wants to know. Doubtless if I were to call and inform him of our relationship, he would not be surprised."

"Great, I'm datin' a guy from the Japanese mob," McCoy joked, trying to lighten the mood a little, and Spock's fingers finally closed about his in reply. "So if your mom was American, why was English your second – no, third – language?"

Spock blinked. "She only spoke Japanese to me until we left Sendai, Leonard."

"Huh," McCoy grunted. "Weird."

"I do not believe she ever expected me to need to speak English as a native speaker," Spock said quietly. "I was taught, of course, but...I did not speak it habitually. It was not particularly used in the household, and Father employed better Chinese teachers than English teachers for me. It was expected that I would follow Father into the family business, which was conducted with a sister company in Beijing. English was merely a useful addition, rather than a necessity. I still find myself thinking in Japanese more often than English."

"If you're thinkin' at all, I ain't doin' my job right," McCoy drawled, and the dark tension in Spock's features lifted a little. In one way, McCoy regretted having poked the hornets' nest; in another, he didn't at all. Things...made a lot more sense now. He really should have poked said nest sooner.

"Perhaps," Spock allowed. He paused, and said: "She would have liked you."

"Oh yeah?"

"Indeed. She had a particular fondness for that which irritated me."

McCoy grinned. "Sounds like my kinda lady."

"Perhaps it is fortunate for me that you should never meet," Spock said dryly, and McCoy chuckled.

"So your old man is a stubborn mule, and your momma's a dictionary. Certainly explains you. No brothers or sisters?"

"I am my mother's only child, if that is to what you refer."

"Pity," McCoy said. "Bullying a younger brother might have done wonders for you."

Spock rose an eyebrow. "The boy in the apartment above ours attempted to bully me in our early adolescence. Father was...most displeased with my tendency toward fighting."

"Musta been the American in you."

"It must have," Spock agreed placidly, and McCoy grinned.

"C'mon," he said. "That sunshine ain't gonna last forever. Let's get goin'."

Spock did not reclaim his hand for some time.