"Holy shit," Jim whispered after Sabine severed the mental connection. "I'm gonna be sick…" He dashed out of the room and Sabine cursed herself for not having a bowl or garbage can at the ready for him.
Upon staggering back into the room, Jim sat down next to Sabine and put his hand on her knee. She had come a long way in her tolerance to others touching her but she still flinched slightly, even while knowing he did it out of a desire to comfort her. Jim removed his hand after a moment.
"My God. I had no idea. Wasn't ready for that," he said softly. "Sabs….I'm so sorry."
"Why are you sorry?" She was very relieved he wasn't treating her like a monster after what she'd shown him.
"Because no one should have to go through all of that…and you gave me the edited version. I don't want to know what you left out."
"But you understand, yes? Now you see why I am so afraid to tell Leo," she needed him to confirm her apprehension.
"Yeah, I get it. Even if Section 31 weren't interfering, how do you tell someone all that?"
"I know," she said mournfully. "I am certain he will leave me…"
"No, no! He's not gonna leave you. Good lord, he's gonna feel what I'm feeling times ten. He's gonna want to hug you and protect you. Why would you think he'd leave you?"
"All the things I did – the choices we made…"
"Choices? What choice did any of you have? I'm amazed all of you made it through… that…and seem so…normal now. You can't beat yourself up over this…," he paused. "I should probably take the same advice I'm dispensing."
They were silent a moment and then Jim spoke again.
"What you just did – can you do that for me? Can I show you my past instead of telling it?"
She looked at him. "Mmm, I think so. But are you sure? The nausea…"
"Worth it to not have to tell you. Also, after that, I owe it to you."
"You do not owe me anything. I am the one who has been lying, remember?"
"It makes a lot more sense now. I'd probably lie too."
She was grateful for his words. Even if they were coming from a known troublemaker. He was McCoy's best friend and if Jim could understand why she'd lied, maybe Leo would too.
"So, let's do this. I promised to show you mine if you showed me yours," Jim grinned but she saw the conflicting emotions in his eyes – fear, guilt, and nervousness.
"We do not have to do this."
"Yeah we do. If for no other reason, you need to know you aren't alone, All of us are carrying our own versions of Hell."
She was ready to tell him it was okay and she could just take his word for it, but his next sentences stopped her.
"And I need to share this. I'm not so different from you – hiding my past and avoiding it as often as possible. I want to be honest with you."
He held out his arm to her.
"How does this work in reverse? Cass is always the one sharing things with me."
"This time, you just need to choose what memories you want me to see. I will only see what you want me to."
"Alright, let's do this…I hope you won't think less of me after." Jim's sudden earnestness caught Sabine off-guard. She opted to respond with humor.
"How could I possibly think less of you?"
He looked up at her in surprise and upon seeing the smile playing on her lips, broke out into his own megawatt grin.
"I've always said Bones chose a good one in you."
Mentioning her boyfriend caused Sabine to frown for a moment.
"Stop worrying. He loves you. Just show him what you showed me. He'll understand – you know he will."
"I hope so."
"I know so. Now how about we do some nausea-inducing arm-touching?"
"If you insist."
"I do."
She touched his arm again and they both felt the heat, saw the white lights and then she was on Tarsus IV with Jim – a young Jim. Just a 13-year old boy. A boy leading a rag-tag group of undernourished child refugees through the wilderness to escape the death sentence Governor Kodos had decreed for most of them.
She saw his fear – his anguish at the loss of every child who died along the way. His guilt for not doing more – but what more could a child do? What more could anyone have done?
She watched as the children were found in a cave by Section 31 agents who had been sent to the planet after a supply ship arrived and discovered the genocide. Jim had never forgotten or forgiven the callousness of some of the agents as they sorted through the survivors and interrogated each child on how they had escaped and remained hidden. Then there were the meetings they held in San Francisco instructing the survivors on what they could and couldn't say. Section 31 had been there to contain things rather than right wrongs and Jim hated them for that.
Sabine and Jim severed the connection. Jim's eyes were watery. Sabine couldn't help herself – she hugged him.
"Oh, Jim," she sighed. "It is okay. You did the very best you could. You had to make choices no child – no person – should ever make."
"Just like you. We're not so different." He had a new appreciation for the woman his roommate had fallen for.
"No, I suppose we are not." Somehow, it meant a lot to Sabine to know she and the Resurrection crew weren't the anomalies they'd been made to feel like – other people in this time had also experienced some pretty messed-up shit.
"Why is it so easy for us to forgive each other and so impossible to forgive ourselves?"
"Mmm, I wish I knew."
"It's so clear to me that nothing you did was your fault. You did the best you could in awful circumstances…" He wanted Sabine to understand it was okay. No one would fault her for trying to survive.
"And it is obvious to me that you were a hero to those children. You took on more responsibility than most people will ever be asked to take…"
"But I coulda saved more. I let friends die…" Jim was still ripping himself up inside for the ones he'd lost all those years ago.
"For the good of the group! If you had interfered with those deaths, they would have killed you and who would have been there to help all those children?"
They looked at each other with guilt-stricken faces. Sabine held Jim's outstretched hand and pushed friendship through their lingering connection.
"I wish I could help you see you are not at fault."
"Same here. I wish you could see yourself the way the rest of us see you." His eyes were filled with so much kindness and it moved something inside her.
"Thank you for sharing your past with me," she murmured, pulling her ungloved hand away from his and placing it on his cheek to wipe away a tear that had managed to escape his blue eyes.
Neither of them had heard McCoy open the door to the apartment and he walked in on his best friend staring deep into the eyes of his girlfriend, receiving a gloveless caress on the cheek from her, in what looked like a fairly intimate moment.
"Sabs, you have to tell him –"
"What the hell is going on here?"
It didn't help that the minute Jim and Sabine heard his voice, they jumped up and separated, like guilty parties.
"This is not what it looks like –"
"What the hell do you have to tell me? That you two have been fooling around?" he gestured to Jim and then turned to him.
"And you. Of all the low-down, despicable things you could do –"
"Leo, no! He and I – there is nothing there. We were talking about how I need to tell you the truth about me – my past…"
"You gotta caress his face to do that?" McCoy had worked himself into a righteous rage. The clinic had been awful all day long – he was three hours late getting off his shift because of some idiot cadet who didn't know how to use a medical tricorder. The last thing he'd expected was to walk in on Jim and Sabine canoodling.
"Bones, c'mon. You know I'd never make a move on your girlfriend –"
"Oh really? How 'bout when you hit on her the other night at the bar?"
"He did not. He told me he liked my dress. That is positively tame for Jim." Sabine realized too late that coming to Jim's defense was the wrong move.
"Oh sure. Defend him now that I found you two together. You both look like you just got caught with your hands in the cookie jar. How long has this been going on?"
Sabine was upset. This night kept getting shittier and shittier. She knew they both looked and felt guilty but the reason was so far removed from what Leo thought.
"Stop this. You know both Jim and I better than that –"
"Do I?" he challenged her. "What exactly do I know about you, huh? I'm still waiting for you to explain your past, which you keep delaying. In the meantime, you tell me a story that makes no sense and every additional detail you add just makes it more nonsensical. You keep asking me to trust you but you haven't given me a reason why."
"Maybe so, but you know Jim. You trust him…" She was desperate to make him see that they hadn't been cheating behind his back. Though, in some sense, had it been cheating to share her past with Jim before Leo? She felt another wave of guilt wash over her.
McCoy looked over at Jim. "Do I trust you when it comes to women? You can hardly keep count of all your conquests. Was this a new challenge you needed to amuse yourself? Steal your roommate's girl?"
"Bones, stop. She's here because I told her if she didn't tell you the truth about her past, I was gonna persuade you to break up with her."
"And how'd that lead to face-touching on the couch?"
Jim and Sabine looked at one another. In an unspoken agreement, they decided to be honest. Sabine spoke up.
"Because I agreed to tell you the truth –"
"Don't do me any favors, darlin' – you've been promisin' that for months." McCoy's voice was bitter. She could tell he'd had a bad day and this wasn't making things any better. But she'd had a bad day too and it was getting hard to remain patient while being accused by her boyfriend, yet again, of cheating. McCoy had gotten the bourbon out and took a sip before continuing.
"Tellin' me the truth doesn't explain the intimate scene I walked in on…"
"We were touching because I'd just shared with her what happened on Tarsus IV."
This gave McCoy pause and Sabine began to have hope that maybe this was all going to work out after all. But then McCoy turned on Jim.
"Wait. I'm the only person at the Academy you've told and you were drunk out of your skull when it happened. Why'd you tell her?"
Sabine's heart sank. There was no way out of this. She gathered her courage and spoke before Jim could answer.
"Because I showed him my past."
She couldn't bring herself to continue. This wasn't how she had wanted to share her past with Leo. But if he'd let her, she would show him everything right then and there. Judging by his hardened features and the enormous gulp of bourbon he took, she didn't know if he'd even let her finish her next sentence.
"Let me get this straight. I'm supposedly the man you love and you tell me next-to-nothing even though I ask you, beg you, repeatedly. But he walks in and you SHOW him everything?"
"Not everything – just the highlights – lowlights," Jim corrected himself. Both Sabine and McCoy turned to him.
"Shut up, Jim," they said in unison.
But even that wasn't enough to overcome the anger emitting from McCoy.
"Why'd you tell him? What's he got that I don't?" McCoy was both accusatory and hopeless and it tore Sabine to shreds inside. She wished she could take the whole evening back. She should have gone directly to Leo. Why did she tell Jim – because she thought he would understand more easily than Leo. Something had correctly told her that he'd experienced real horrors – just like she had. But how could she explain that to Leo? He believed he'd gone through true awfulness too – his father begging him to euthanize him; Jocelyn cheating on him and taking everything in the divorce – those were deep cuts. It wasn't fair to treat them as lesser – they were what McCoy had known and they'd gutted him.
"I made a mistake," she said resolutely. "I should have gone to you first, not Jim. I am so sorry –"
"I forced her to tell me," Jim jumped in, trying to help in any way he could. "I told her I'd tell you she was cheating on you even if it wasn't true –"
"Well, what I walked in on sure looked like cheating."
Sabine finally snapped. "You idiot. It was two friends commiserating over horrible things they have experienced. And I am telling you I will share everything with you but all you can focus on is the fact that I was touching Jim's damn face." Her eyes were blazing.
"Why should I focus on anything else? How many times have you promised to tell me the truth eventually, soon, next week, tomorrow. But Jim talks to you one time and you show him everything….You know what? Get out. I'm done with you."
"Leo!"
"Bones!" They spoke simultaneously. McCoy ignored Sabine.
"You and I will resolve this later," he told Jim. "But since you're so good at dealing with her, get her to leave – now."
McCoy stalked out of the room into his bedroom and slammed the door. Sabine stared after him and once the door slammed, the tears she'd been avoiding since leaving Section 31's headquarters fell free. Jim looked at her with compassion in his bright blue eyes.
"Let me talk to him – I'll make this right, I promise," he implored.
"Do not make promises you cannot keep," her voice faltered as she spoke. Sabine grabbed her med kit and headed for the door.
"Sabs, wait," he yelled, but she ran out the door before he could stop her.
"Dammit, Bones," he called out. There was no response.
