For Author's Note and Disclaimer, see chapter 1

Chapter 11

It was cold, colder than he liked and Jim was reluctant to obey the shrill sound of the alarm, and determined not to let the reluctancy win. Stretching out in a yawn he just barely caught himself and tried to stop himself mid-movement. Jerking them back as the back of his hand impacted sharply with something.

"Dawgone it!" Bones snapped beside him, raising a hand to his face. "You miserable mangy polecat! What in the Sam Hill is it with you and beating me up every dang blasted morning!?"

"This time I almost managed not to," Jim started contritely as Bones pushed himself up on one elbow. Even in the semi-darkness of the room he noted a dark substances coming from the older man's nose and he frowned. "You're bleeding."

"Blast it!" Bones snapped, looking at his fingers with a scowl. Jim grabbed a hold of the pillow and pulled it closer.

"I don't think you're supposed to tilt your head back, even if they used to say so." Kirk mused.

"I'm a doctor, I know what to do about a blasted nosebleed!" Bones growled as he sat up and leaned forward, bunching up his t-shirt to keep the blood from getting everywhere, while not getting into his throat as it might otherwise do.

Looking up for something to use to stem the flow Jim noticed that Spock had been watching them. He had thought he would be finishing in the bathroom as he had every other morning, but the Vulcan appeared to already be done. "Could you bring a towel?" he asked.

Spock stepped into the small room and came back a mere few seconds later with one of the small towels. "I believe this should suffice."

"Yeah thanks," Jim nodded. "Here Bones," he handed it to him and Bones dropped the shirt and used it to press against his nose and pinch the burst blood vessels closed. A little less messy in the long run. Knowing his friend well enough to know the last thing he would want was for someone else to try and God-forbid, help him with it Jim took a step back. It was a minor thing, an accident, but he had to admit he still felt a bit guilty about it. Spock disappeared into the bathroom and Jim busied himself with what little he had to do in lying out his clothes while Bones removed the towel from time to time to see if the bleeding had stopped.

Finally he sat up and glowered at the messy towel in his hand. "I really wish you'd stop doing that," he muttered.

"Believe me or not, but so do I," Jim mused as he inspected the damage. Nose didn't look too bad in spite of the bleeding but he had obviously managed to hit just the right spot. "You're gonna have a bit of a shiner."

"Bust the infraorbital artery and that's what's gonna happen," touching his fingertips carefully underneath his eye Bones shrugged. "No real damage." He gave the messy towel a disgusted look. "Gonna have to clean up though, that green blooded hobgoblin not done yet?" He asked as he carefully pulled off the soiled shirt.

"He just went in there, but he shouldn't be long," Jim shrugged. Bones muttered something under his breath but it was without heat Jim knew. Bones really wasn't one to hold a grudge for very long, especially for something he knew wasn't intentional. "But you know, you never really do move, at all. I know I do, but you don't, I keep thinking that's why I seem to always forget."

Bones looked up at him with a tired sigh, looking instantly twice as weary. "Before the divorce, my wife, she claimed I woke her up, moving, snoring," his voice was so quiet Jim thought even Spock would have a hard time hearing them. In spite of the vulcan hearing which was far superior. "She didn't like it none," Bones finished slowly.

"So you stopped?" he didn't really see how anyone could stop themselves from doing something that was subconscious in your sleep.

"Something like it," Bones gave him a pained look. "It was that, or explain to a three year old why you're always on the couch, and that was harder…" Twisting the soiled towel in his hands, the mess still on his face disgusting even if he knew it was just blood. Red and white blood cells, he knew the biological composition, the general count of each, but it was still annoying as heck to have it drying on your face. Sleeping on their couch had been bad enough, but when his wife was mad enough that wasn't always the worst of it. Then to have Joanna stand by the couch in the morning, big questioning eyes. Her thumb in her mouth and her teddy bear dragging on the floor as her tiny hand held it by an ear, the arm of the thing too fat for her to grasp fully. If there was one thing that broke your heart, that was it. He had always been a light sleeper, inherited trait of a doctor his grandfather told him. It only took one slap to wake him up and keep him frozen on the edge of the bed until his wife had gone back to sleep again.

The door to the small bathroom opened again as Spock came out and he headed for it with the towel in a white knuckled grip. Jim wouldn't hold the confession against him, he wouldn't try to find some way to exploit his failure as a husband and a father. Spock wouldn't either, he knew that much, but it was still painful and hard and he wasn't sure if they would ever really understand.

Heck, his own family had not understood, so how could he expect anyone else to? Cleaning the mess off his face, carefully so as not to start the bleeding again he inspected the damage as he shaved. Not bad, something of a shiner yes, but small and not very noticable. Nurse Chapel would notice in an instant, something like that wouldn't escape her. She would insist on 'having a look' at it, as if it was something that needed it. She was a strong willed and determined woman, and she did not take lip from anybody, except when she had a crush on Spock. That was the only thing that did her in and really the only reason he disapproved of said crush.

If that wasn't a surefire way to get your heart broke he didn't know what was. Shaking his head he focused on shaving.

Keeping his voice low as he sorted through his drawer, counting the few clean remaining tunics Jim raised an eyebrow towards his first officer. The Vulcan was normally so quick he really had expected him to be done as before. "Overslept?"

"Hardly Captain, but for scientific reasons I found myself inclined to study the progress of current events," Spock stated in a perfectly even tone. "It would seem that the Doctor's reaction time decreases with zero point two seconds each time, and that the volatile nature of said reaction increases with three point seven percent correspondingly. There seems to be some apprehension, and yet a strong sense of expectation. Correlatively I have noticed a change in his sleep pattern reaching a span of approximately ten minutes prior to the event every morning."

"You are taking lab notes?" Jim gave him a startled look, setting aside two of the clean tunics and taking a third. The other two had by some strange means shrunk since he acquired them, around the waistline only, mind. The sleeves were fine, but for some reason the material was wont to stretch in one section, and it absolutely had nothing to do with the way Bones kept nagging him about his eating habits and his weight. He was in perfect shape after all, just perfect. "Spock…" He couldn't be mad at him. It was exactly the kind of thing that would fascinate the Vulcan after all.

"I admit to find it interesting how in spite of the apprehension and expectation, the only noted difference is the rapid deterioration of the doctors linguistic abilities and quite remarkable increase in his expletives," Spock offered. "While rudeness and offence is clearly intoned, very few of his exclamations have any base in actual words."

"Spock, please, please don't let him find out you're studying it," Jim begged as he closed the drawer again. Spock had several more tunics he believed and wasn't suffering the cold the same way as Bones was down in sickbay. Bones however was out he was sure of it, and those two strangely shrunken once should fit the doctor quite well. "You know, if you're waiting for it, why won't you try to, I don't know, prevent it?"

"Captain?" Spock raised an eyebrow. "On what reason would I ignore the opportunity to engage in this quite frankly fascinating opportunity of studying human nature."

"Because if Bones finds out, he's going to be mad, truly mad," he shook his head. "Please don't let him find out Spock…" He would have to suggested he ceased the so called study later. Spock was simply a scientist who found Bones slightly more volatile temper interesting. Jim was much of the same mind on occasion, except sometimes….mostly not when it was directed at himself….

TBC

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