Children behave, that's what they say when we're together
And watch how you play
They don't understand
And so we're
Running just as fast as we can, holding on to one another hands
Trying to get away into the night and then you put your arms around me
And we tumble to the ground and then you say
I Think We're Alone Now - Tiffany
It is Jim who knocks on my door that morning, his mouth quirked and his brow raised as he leans just slightly round me to peak into my rooms. In return, I glower at him over my steaming cup of coffee and ask him what he wants. The Captain of the Enterprise chews the side of his mouth and replies, cheekily, 'Thought Bones might be in here'. At that, I am sure I flush a deep red and sputter in return. Jim waves a hand at me. 'Quit that, June-Bug. I know he isn't - Joanna arrived earlier. Plus, I'm well aware our mutual friend wouldn't do anything improper to you just yet-'
'Oh my God, Jim,' I practically groan, stepping back as he nudges his way into my rooms with a roll of his eyes and a muttering of idiots and grumpy doctors. 'Any reason you're intruding my morning ritual, Captain?' I ask blandly, pressing a quick button that slides the door shut. It was early, only half seven in the morning. I had slept early the night before, bidding Leonard a farewell from my rooms as he told me he needed to call his ex-wife before Johanna arrived in the morning. Turns out, he had hated Aliens just as much as he hated Alien.
He spins on his heel, dressed in casual clothes that highlight his astonishingly blue eyes, before swiping his PADD from his pocket and brandishing it toward me. 'This is why I am here, Cadet'. I frown and peer at the glowing screen, before Jim scoffs at my suddenly shocked expression. I gape back up at him. 'Starfleet works fast when under the threat of blackmail, apparently. Good job on that, by the way. Just what I would have done'.
I look away from the acceptance letter, in all of its golden written golden. 'So...that's it?'
'That's it'. Jim shrugs a little. 'Well, not it. You'll have people prodding and poking at you for the rest of the week, then will be the worry of housing - high ups aren't sure whether to room you with someone or not at the Academy. Then there's creating a new identity for you...I mean, you can't really be telling everyone you were born over two-hundred years ago, can you? Then you'll have some personality and academic tests-'
I blink. 'I hadn't even thought of all of that'. I sip hastily at my dark coffee, the worry and nervousness niggling at the back of my mind. Fucking hell, there was so much I would have to do to settle here for the next three years. I would have to make a real, comfortable life. I didn't even know how to pay for things here, or...or cross the road!
Jim plants a quick hand on my shoulder. 'You'll be fine, kid. I've got the best in the Academy looking out for you. Lee is pretty keen on making sure you don't suffer too much; gotta tell you, though, the workload at the Academy is killer. Prepare yourself'.
'If anything,' I reply. 'That's the thing I'm most excited about'.
Jim grimaces. 'Just when I think you're not a total nerd, like Bones'. I stick out my tongue, to which he grins. 'Enjoy the view last night, anyway?' He eyes me cheekily, his elbow coming to rest on the counter to our right. I peer at him, cheeks flushing and mouth curling into a frown. Jim waves a hand. 'I told Bones I'd distract everyone - figured you needed to get out of the place after the Trial and all'. Kirk stares at me suddenly, face settling into something more serious, as if some serious fucking words were on the tip of his tongue.
I blink, shrinking somewhat. 'What, weirdo?'
'He's good, you know. Bones, I mean'. I want to whither and die, I decide. This was ridiculous. 'The best I know'. For someone who had been trained in being tactical, Jim Kirk could be anything but.
I stare blandly back at him. '...No,' I tell Jim quick pointedly.
He blinks heavily. 'Huh?'
'I am not being taken down to a cliche who talks about her damn feelings, James. Not after the shit I did yesterday. What I want right now is food, and then to prepare myself for meeting a child who, if she is anything like her father, will be able to read my bullshit from a mile away'.
Jim grins, apparently pleased with my answer. 'Oh, just wait. Jo is a genius; the kid is just like Bones. Sharp and sarcastic as anything'. He tilts his head, as if he was weighing a thought in his head. 'I haven't even asked...You're gonna take the Engineering track, right? I think you'll break Scotty's heart if you don't'.
I shoot him a look. 'What else would I do?'
Jim smiles, all white teeth and sparkling eyes, before he takes a step back. 'Get yourself dressed, Adams. I'm hungry as hell, and the food down at the Bar isn't half bad. Doesn't come out of a Replicator, at least'.
I like kids.
They're simple and honest and find the light in everything. I loved being a kid. I loved the innocence that I could find in anything, I loved bring curled up against my mum after a long day of school, I loved crawling into my dad's jumper when I was still small enough to fit...I loved the brightness of the world, before reality came crashing in.
Johanna McCoy is a good kid. For that, I am eternally grateful. I honestly don't know what I would have done if she'd had one of those screeching kids voices that make my ears want to bleed. No, instead of this, Jim and I are greeted by a blue-eyed and dark haired little girl, her face a readable expression of curiosity, and her lilac dress depicting some cartoon that I was not familiar with.
She beams, highlighting her missing front tooth, and chirps, 'Jim!' in a way that tells me she is more than familiar with Captain Kirk, and he had already won over the affections of the youngest McCoy. I try and swallow my nervousness, suddenly very aware of the fact children were honest and perceptive and-
Over her shoulder, I see Leonard, a towel thrown over his shoulder and the sleeves of his short rolled up to his elbows. When his hazel eyes, different from his daughters, flash to mine, I really understand for the first time how much he was letting me into his life. I had opened myself to him first by force, and then by choice. Leonard...he was letting me meet his daughter. He was letting me see beyond the Doctor of the Enterprise. I wasn't stupid enough to not recognise that, for someone like Leonard McCoy, this was a big deal.
It made me feel all soft inside to think that someone like him truly appreciated me enough as a friend to do something like that. To surround me with noise and people and a familiarity that I missed more than anything.
I was determined to prove that he had made the right choice.
We walk into Leonard's quarters, and whilst Jim inquires what Leonard had cooked, I am greeted by wide eyes and a quick hand being thrust in my direction. Johanna McCoy, in all of her unabashedly staring glory, says, 'You're June. Dad said I'll like you'. She holds her hand out still, and it takes me mere seconds to realise that she wants me to shake it. Not odd at all.
I clasp her hand, small and soft, and shrug and quirk a smile and reply, 'Well, I'll guess leave that up to you, Joanna'.
She stares for a moment, blue-eyes narrowing for just a second, before she replies, 'You can call me Jo', with a small shrug and a tone in her voice that makes me think that this is a mighty compliment to my character.
'Quit bein' a little madam and get ya butt over here, Miss,' Leonard drawls, all humour in his hazel eyes and fingers snatching the towel from over his shoulder. Joanna turns and considers her father with a withering look, before grinning toothily and making her way over to him. I catch eyes with Jim, who cocks a thick eyebrow as if to say told you so.
After Joanna is ordered to wash her hands in the bathroom, Leonard grumbles about his daughters picky eating habits, whilst Jim snorts and replies, 'Like you aren't exactly like her, Bones. You know he doesn't like chocolate-'
I lean against the counter in the apartment that is a mirror of my own, and flash the eye-rolling Leonard a dubious look. 'Weirdo,' I mumble, brow pulled together and smile tugging at my mouth. The more I found out about this man, the more I wondered why I liked him so much. Too much.
Leonard glares at Jim, who is dipping into the Doctor's fridge and grabbing a bottle of water without a care in the world, and replies snappily, 'Stuff'll make your damn teeth rot'.
'Good God,' I say, a laugh making its way into my tone. Could he be more of a grumpy goose? 'Live a little, Doctor McCoy'.
'I tell him that everyday, June-' Jim drawls, crossing his arms with the water bottle dangling lazily from one hand. His blue eyes flit from the fuming McCoy, to me. 'Trust me, it does nothing-'
Leonard, with his hard jaw and ever rolling eyes, snaps back, 'Don't you two team up against me. I've already got Jo takin' your damn side with every argument, Jim. I may as well be lookin' after the both of you, Captain-'
Jim flips him the finger, I grin, and Joanna McCoy's Southern drawl pipes up with, 'Dad, Jim swore'.
It is ten minutes later that we all find ourselves sitting neatly around the small dining table just off to the sofas and holo, Joanna bickering lightly with her father and Jim riling the little girl up. It was funny to watch, really. And, I guess, it was nice to see the dynamics that were already laid out with these people. Somehow, from what I knew of the two meeting at the Academy, Jim and Leonard had become like family to one another.
I decide halfway through the simple pasta that Leonard had made, that Joanna spoke far more than her father did. As the fifteenth question of the hour is shot my way, I can see Leonard eyeing me and Jim trying his hardest to swallow his smile. I can only imagine that he had faced the same burst of childishly inquisitive questions as I was when he had first met Joanna.
'How old are you?'
I swallow my pasta. 'I'm twenty-four. How old are you?'
Joanna, with a quick smile of surprise replies, 'Six. I'll be seven in two months'. I cock a brow in an impressed manner, to which she puffs out her chest, Jim laughs around his mouthful of food, and Leonard eyes the side of his daughters head with a kind of exasperated amusement that only a parent can have. 'Do you have any brothers or sisters? I always wanted-'
'Jo,' Leonard cuts across, in a tone this is calm but firm. 'Eat your dinner and stop pestering June-'
I shrug, smile, and think that I can't let any words said about my life be sad ones. People were going to ask about me, and I needed to answer. 'It's fine'. I throw him a look and try and tell him in any way that I can that it is fine. Jim watches the exchange, oddly silent, and Joanna blinks across the small table at me with curious eyes, not knowing about the silent exchange going on between the adults. I smile at her. 'I do. I have a sister called Emily, but we weren't very close. Still, I always had friends who felt more like my siblings. Do you have any friends like that?'
With that, the next ten minutes are taken up by the chattering of a six-year-old talking about her best friends, the games they play, and the drama that happens between them. '-But Lucy is my favourite. She has a cat. I want a cat, but Mom won't let me get one. Dad, have you asked her about having a kitten?'
Leonard, now standing and clearing up the plates, casts a tired look his daughters way. 'Jo, your Ma's already told ya. She's allergic. She can't be in the same house as a dam- a cat-'
Without blinking, she replies, 'She can sleep outside'.
Jim and I hardly manage to hide our spluttering laughter from the dead serious little girl. Leonard, on the other hand, can only stare helplessly at her as he balances dishes between his hands. Swallowing my smile, I stand and offer my assistance as Jim begins to badger Joanna about school, her favourite subject, and how cats weren't even that great anyway.
I keep my thoughts about that to myself.
'She's hilarious,' I tell Leonard, as he takes my plate and glass from my hands and shoves them into what I can only assume is some modern version of a dishwasher. With a quirk of his brow and a flash of his eyes to mine, I carry on with, 'Honestly. She's you. It's bordering terrifying'.
'Thanks, sweetheart'.
I snort. 'You know what I mean'. I peer at him, at the way his back straightens as he knees the dishwasher shut, and the way his head inclines slightly at the laugh Joanna lets out at whatever Jim is saying. It's the slightly distracted twitched of his lips that gets me going. I feel a burst of wanting to say something. To see him there, like this, with his daughter and his life in such a relaxed manner, it just made me chest swell. 'Thank you for letting me be here,' I murmur, quiet and with a hint of heat to my cheeks. I fiddle with my hands.
His gaze flicks away from Joanna and Jim, and settles onto me. There's something there; something that had been there last night. It makes me ache in the worst of ways, but I...there isn't one part of me that doesn't want to know what it means, but I can't. My heart would never mend from what I had lost so far, and now I was finding those I could call friends. But anything more...to let that go...it might kill me at this rate. 'Don't go soft on me now, June'.
I snort, stick my tongue out at him, and answer Joanna's sudden call of, 'June! Jim says you can help me pick a holo-book to read for my homework!' I look over my shoulder and into the open living room, where Jim was leaning back in his dining chair, arms crossed, as Joanna practically edged off of her seat in excitement. 'He says you know loads of old old old fairy-tales-'
I wander over to the girl as she stands, the long dress she is wearing tickling her ankles as she does so, and practically runs toward the sofa, a twin to mine. 'Oh,' I drawl, nodding in a mock-serious manner. She bestows me with an expectant stare as she tackles into a sitting position on the sofa, and Leonard sighs heavily. 'Tons'.
She slams the sofa cushion next to her with her tiny hands (a sign for me to take a seat, I assume) and yanks her father's PADD from the coffee table. I hardly notice Jim joining Leonard in the kitchen area, nor listen to their low murmurs as Joanna fingers her way through the lists of books that she has to choose from. She sits close to me in that way that only kids can, her bony shoulder pressing into my waist and her small legs tucking awkwardly beneath her.
'I've read that one,' she tells me, pointing to the title of The Princess and the Pea. I blink, wrinkle my nose, and throw the little a girl a quick look that makes her blink and smile.
'That one's boring,' I insist, to which Joanna rolls her eyes in a way that reminds me awfully of her father (causing me to swallow a smile) and nods her head enthusiastically. I peer down at the list, my hair falling over my cheeks, and scan the list as the girl thumb her way through. Grimm's Originals. Right. So, the lovely tale of Sleeping Beauty being molested in her sleep by 'Prince Charming' was a no-go...as was the Little Mermaid, wherein she disintegrates into foam- 'Cinderella,' I point, making sure Joanna sees. Sure, the sisters eyes get poked out at the end, but it was Joanna's teachers fault for picking such bloody gruesome tales. Why not go with the happy Disney remakes?
Part of me felt ill at the idea that such things had not made it to this Universe.
I wonder, as Joanna scans the pictures presented before her (old, old illustrations that remind me of my childhood), if Jim and Leonard were talking about the voyage away from Earth. Five years. Three years, if I worked my fucking arse off. I would. I would. Maria Atwood's sad smile the day before, in the Courtroom, only made my vow to work and become an Engineer aboard the Enterprise that much more real. She had sacrificed it all so that I could be free. A woman who, yes, had done wrong, but who...who saved me.
'-June?' I blink down at the blue-eyed girl, my thoughts snapping away. She tugs at my red hair, curls closer to me, and says, 'You looked funny,' she tells me simply. Her fingers still do not leave my hair. I blink at her, head dipped close to the little girl's, and with an innocence and factual surety of a child, she chimes, 'You've got pretty hair'.
I smile a closed mouthed, pleased smile. 'So do you,' I reply straightly, prodding the cold end of her nose. She laughs, surprised and pleased. For the first time in days, I feel normal. Last night, when I had been surrounded by friends, playing games with Scotty, and standing on the roof with Leonard...it felt natural. Like, somehow, I had slipped into calling this place my home without quite realising it. Perhaps I could do this. Perhaps I could blag my way through life in this future...perhaps I could feign knowledge of this confusing, different world and fool them all into thinking that I belonged here.
Perhaps I really could belong here.
And yet, as Jim escorts me from Leonard's apartment to Medical, with my ears ringing with the sound of Joanna's fevered goodbyes, I can't help but wonder how long such a calm would last. My abilities, however slightly under my control, still terrified me to my core. Sometimes, my thoughts would stray to the Portal, to the blinding power ripping through me, to the bloody eyes of those men...Jim stands by as blood is taken, and the silent, pale Doctor tells me with a stiffness that my full Medical Exam would take place tomorrow, and I nod with worry in my mind. In Leonard's apartment, in the Bar last night...there, I had felt like me.
Here, with clinical eyes and careful hands touching me, the girl no one could know existed apart from a select few...here, I felt like 02.
Perhaps Jim had sensed by dour mood, because as we walk from corridor to busy corridor in the window strewn building of Starfleet Headquarters, he chatters on and on about the Academy. I listen and push my sour thoughts aside, knowing that whatever he had to tell me would prove to be useful in the future. Soon, I would be thrown in with a group of people who could not and would not know of my circumstances, or why I was so odd. Better to learn how to adapt to my surroundings before I even reached said surroundings.
He drops me at my door with an almost guilty look (they all had lives to live and places to be, whereas I was not yet allowed that luxury), and promises that he will get things moving swiftly for me. 'I'll send over some of my old Academy holos for you, huh? Nothing better than being ahead of the rest before you even start to make the other kids like you'. He winks, takes me snort as a sign of being fine, and turns swiftly on his heel.
My apartment is cold and alone, and I somehow cannot wait to be given a place of my own to decorate. I am beyond grateful for what has been done for me, but sometimes...sometimes the guilt of making a home here is coupled with the desperate wish to go home to my family, my friends, and the world I had spent twenty-four years making for myself.
I pause before making my way toward the holo in the living area, (where, despite it being the late afternoon, I would cuddle down with a PADD of whatever holo-books Jim would send my way, and whatever shitty movies from my time had made it here) my fingers stretching slightly as I push toward a stray glass sitting on the counter. I latch onto that thing that strayed at the back of my head, that power, and push.
It takes only a small twinge for the thing to budge slightly to the left.
Maybe things would really start going my way.
Have you ever been so dreadfully wrong?
I call it The Void. In the times that I had ventured here, I had never truly told the others of this place. Leonard was the only one who might have seen it, in that horrible time where I saw Bates slitting the throats of the Doctor's who worked with him. It was the first time we had shared a bed, and not a cave. Part of me, some primal part that appeared when I fell into this world, seems to sniff out that it's a remnant of the Portal.
My feet smack against the inky black floor, and my breath fogs out in front of me.
And then I see a flash of blue.
It's confusing, at first, because I know that blue. It's the blue of Science, of Medical, of Doctors, of him. Momentarily, I am confused. The Void, no matter how little I understood it, had shown me Bates when I needed to know what he was doing, it had shown me Spock and Jim when they needed to know Leonard and I were alive...Then why, now, was it showing me a man who was merely down the hall from where I slept in the conscience world?
Jesus, when did I start talking like I understood this shit?
He crouches on his knees in front of me, and I wonder how I had not seen him before. I walk, and feel this horrible, dark place around me like a familiar, unwanted hug. What was I seeing; what could I be seeing? It is only when I come to stand behind this...whatever it is, that I see their shoulders shaking.
Something uneasy coils inside of me, and for the first time I consider that this person in front of me is not just a fragment of my imagination. '...Leonard?' My voice echoes in the dark, and when the person turns, blue shoulders tensing- I almost sigh when I realise it is really him. Only...there is a wetness to his eyes that I had never seen before, a purse to his lips that went beyond his usual frustration, and blood on his hands that makes my stomach crawl.
There, lying in front of him, is a bloody and pale Jim Kirk.
I lurch.
'June?'
I look at him, at the terror, at the confusion, at the loss. This isn't real. I stumble forward, feet sloshing in the wetness, and grab for him. 'You need to wake up,' I snap, reaching for his warmth. There isn't any, of course. This isn't just the Void - this is confirming what I had suspected for so long, that I had somehow drawn Leonard so close to me with my abilities that sleep had made our consciousness blur. 'This isn't real-'
He stares at me, pupils pinpricks and shoulders shaking, and heaves out in a voice I had never heard him use, 'I've seen this damn place before-'
'And it's fucking terrible,' I agree impatiently, fingers drawing up his stubble ridden chin and pulling him to face me more. 'It's horrible and dark and makes terrible things seem more real. So wake up-'
'Dammit, how?'
The exasperated noise I make as a pull away from him, from the darkness, leaks into real life as I spring away, the cool air of the apartment hitting me, and the credits of The Goonies assuring me that this is not the Void; that I was no longer in the place where my abilities seemed to manifest. I spring to my feet, lurch toward the door, and before I am quite sure what I am doing I am grappling with the key outside of Leonard's apartment and padding quickly across the dimply lit rooms.
When I find his, I see his covers half pulled over his shirtless form, his PADD resting across his chest, and a furrow in his brow that is nothing like the endearing one I know well.
I crouch before him, knees digging into the carpet of the floor, and squint against the low lamp light. 'Leonard,' I murmur, head still spinning from sleep and mind a whirr of still waking up. I move, cautious, and flatten a palm against the hair of his chest. I push - push against him with a wiggle of my mind and a tug at something, I am not sure what, that feels like him. 'Leonard'.
The beside light flickers, and he wakes with a small gasp. His hazel eyes flutter for a moment, before the ever-grumpy Doctor directs his squinted gaze toward me. 'Dammit,' he mutters with a low rasp, staring at my rumpled form and sticking a hand quickly through his muss of hair. 'Not a dream, huh?'
I peer at him, smile curling. 'You often dream of little old me, Doctor?'
He glowers, before flicking his gaze over my face and muttering a low, 'The Hell is that place, June?'
I shrug and bite my lip. 'Nothing terrible, I don't think. Somewhere the Portal left behind. Somewhere my abilities come from. I think it's...in me'. He blinks, I sigh. 'I'm sorry I dragged you there, I...I think...' I blush, feeling suddenly fucking stupid for barging into his room, holding his hairy damn chest, and saying what I am about to say. 'I think I kinda did a weird Vulcan thing and-and pulled your mind toward mine-'
His eyelashes flutter, and I realise with burning cheeks that he is raising a hand to touch my cheek; a ringlet of messy red hair falling between his fingertips. There's a roughness to him in sleep that is not there in the daytime, and I lean into it, my fingers arching against his chest. 'When you died,' he mutters, a hesitance to him that I had seen so few times. His fingers curl, the tips dragging along my cheek. I try and shallow out my breathing, and hope to fuck I'm not blowing morning breath (or middle of the night breath?) all over the poor Doctor. 'I damn felt it'.
I breath out and stare. 'Holy shit'. A few seconds pass. 'Is Jo here?'
He shakes his head. 'She left in the evening. Only an hour from here to Georgia by Shuttle'. He pauses, as if knowing what I am offering and asking at the same time. 'C'mon'.
There is no hesitance, not like there used to be. He moves up on the bed, his fingers dragging from my cheek to my shirt and tugging me toward him with a confidence that makes me so thankful it was him, and no one else. I tumble toward him, a mess of sleepy hair and too big comfort clothes, and curl my arms in the space between us.
'I've made you see horrible things,' I murmur, breath ghosting against his chest. A chest, I assure yo, I try very hard not to stare at. Hard, really, considering my eyes were level with it.
'I've seen Jim like that too many times to count, sweetheart. Don't go tellin' him how much I worry, though, huh?' His arm tightens around my waist, drawing my body closer to his, and I shudder out a warm breath and try to think of anything but him and me alone, like this. It's a few seconds before he says anything else. 'Anyways, I...I've got the Enterprise, I've got a damn brilliant daughter, I've got a good job, and I've got my health - Hell, I've even got Jim...If havin' you means steering through the shit heap that got you here for the rest of our lives, then so be it, sweetheart'.
I shift to peer up at him, momentarily fucking stunned by the words. For once, I am utterly speechless. 'Oh,' is all I manage after a solid ten seconds of staring up at the rumpled looking Doctor. He holds tightens more, and shuffle closer to him at the touch. He'll be gone, soon. 'Even though I...I left so many people behind, I...I'm so fucking happy I got to meet you all - I got to meet you'.
He stiffens, and I can practically feel his jaw working on top of my head. After a few seconds, I feel a soft kiss land on top of my head, following by a low, 'Sleep, darlin'. Long day tomorrow'.
After a few minutes, I comply, and I work my fucking hardest to make sure he dreams a dreamless sleep.
I'M BACK. Okay, so I am so sorry for leaving this for so long. This year has been manic (final year of Uni, woo) but I am getting my funk back. Tell me what you guys think? I hope everyone is groovy and I hope to update soon! Thank you for everyone who has reviewed, by the way! You're all angels oxoxo
