Translation of my text "Le prix de la vie"
-.-.-
The first thing people notice about Cadet James Tiberius Kirk was how sort of... real he is. It's as if his mere presence makes the world more real, more tangible. It's not charisma, it's something else. Charisma is something Kirk would only possess after the destruction of Vulcan, after the Enterprise became his home, after he became the responsible captain everyone knows, dedicated to his ship and the memory of those gone too soon.
The second thing people notice about James Tiberius Kirk is that he loves people. Of course, he has better affinities with some people, like everyone, he hates some cadets and teachers, despises some others... But he likes people in general, is interested in them, likes to talk, and even more to listen. After a week at Starfleet Academy, he knew all the students in his class by their full name and learned a bit about their history. After a month, all his class's students turned to him for information, to make contact, to know who to contact...
As they get to know him better, people notice other things. That he's ambitious, resourceful, open-minded, brawler, bold, loyal in friendship, fickle in love, intelligent, a little vain, helpful, amusing and annoying,... He's a man with many qualities and shortages.
People who hang out with Kirk regularly end up noticing that while he listens to others talk about their lives, he says nothing about his own. He knows all these people, comrades, teachers, drinking buddies, lovers, but they do not know him. Even his best friend, the irritable McCoy, who has known him since they entered Starfleet Academy together, often remains frozen in bewilderment when he discovers something new and unsuspected about his friend.
The truth is, James Tiberius Kirk, almost 25-year-old Starfleet junior and son of one of its most beloved heroes, is an infinitely more complex and secret creature than he lets the world see, including his closest friend.
McCoy begins to realize this after a year of spending most of his time with Jim. His friend hates doctors, hates being sick or injured and hates having to lie in a hospital bed. Those things he knew from the start. Jim also hates medication, and McCoy has to fight with him every time Jim "forgets" to take his medicine to avoid a thousandth allergy attack. Keeping the kid healthy is a constant struggle for McCoy.
This is why he's surprised when he discovers in his friend's small student room a list carefully written by Jim's hand. It's a shopping list, which is not unexpected about Jim: Jim prefers to cook for himself in his small room than to eat the tasteless food that the academy kitchens serve. McCoy is often surprised at this hidden talent in his friend and the variety of recipes he knows, all of them very good. His ex-wife did not cook as well, and McCoy can't make a salad dressing to save his life.
So the shopping list as such does not surprise McCoy. What amazes him is that the list details each food's vitamin, mineral and nutrient intakes, and each meal Jim plans to prepare this week also comes with precise calculations of each meal's intakes. Jim highlighted Foods containing vitamin B1, C and iron. None of them is on the long list of Jim's food allergies. McCoy would know. He memorized it in the first week of their friendship. Still, McCoy knows Jim doesn't suffer from nutritional deficiencies, and it doesn't sound like him to be so concerned about his health.
McCoy puts the list down where he found it. He suspects that he wasn't supposed to see it and that Jim must have forgotten it there before he went to class. He has an exam today, and the fact that he takes his studies so seriously when he tends to indulge in all other aspects of his life is another surprising thing about the cadet. McCoy still promises himself he'll sometimes bring up the subject with Jim, but carefully.
A few days later, an opportunity arose as the two friends enjoy a vegetable chicken fricassee prepared by Jim. It's a good thing because the academy restaurant offers its usual tasteless broccoli and meat. The students refuse to consider it could be of animal origin as it tastes like cardboard. The Academy does not serve synthesized dishes to students because it thinks, rightly so according to the doctor, that this bunch of young people cannot concoct a balanced menu of their own accord. Therefore, the Academy prefers to impose on them food that may be good for them, but no one likes to eat.
"Delicious," McCoy says, finishing saucing the dish. "If only the academy cooks knew how to cook something half as good."
"If only they could learn simpler things, like salt their food, or cook it just long enough," Jim sneers.
"Seriously, synthesized food may lack taste, but at least it's edible and cooked to perfection. When I see what they serve, I'd almost prefer to skip a meal sometimes!"
McCoy thinks that Jim tenses imperceptibly. But it may be him who is looking for something non-existent. He pretends not to have noticed anything and continues.
"All this to supposedly provide us with a balanced meal," he grumbles.
This time he's sure of it. This subject makes Jim uncomfortable. So McCoy changes the subject quickly, and Jim soon bursts into laughter as he listens to a cadet's mishap who ended up in the Academy's infirmary after drinking sokad coffee, an over-caffeinated horror. Thanks to this drink, the student had spent eight days working on a school project without drinking, eating or sleeping before collapsing from exhaustion and having a heart attack. The fool thought he had poured himself a cup of tea, and caught up in his work, hadn't even realized that it was unnatural that he was able to last so long without sleeping. Jim then recounts his day, but McCoy is sure his friend is hiding something related to his health. Realizing Jim's embarrassment when they came close to the subject, he stays quiet about it over the following months. Jim's health seems good. McCoy doesn't notice any signs of nutritional deficiencies, and, honestly, it's nice to see the young man care for his health for a change.
-.-.-
Two months later, maybe three, McCoy forgot about this story. He's absorbed in his studies. The Academy's second-year medicine program is extremely tough. He spent the first year memorizing the anatomy of every intelligent race known to Starfleet, from bones to organs to the epidermis' characteristics. He also had to learn all the problems that can affect a human patient in a spaceship. This year he has to memorize pretty much every alien races' diseases and how to cure them. It's a never-ending job of memorization, especially since Starfleet requires its doctors to be skilled enough in linguistics to communicate with their patients in their language. In the evenings, he works on his notes under Jim's attentive gaze. Without Jim, McCoy's not sure he would get enough food and sleep to continue.
Jim's also overwhelmed by work. He vowed to complete the Starfleet course in three years and took a dozen more advanced classes than the students in his class. Jim, being Jim, manages to follow all his classes without losing his mind and remains at the top of his class. His encyclopedic and practical knowledge in many fields impresses McCoy. McCoy knows their professors are planning to move him into the next grade in a few months. The kid will never cease to impress him.
Usually, Jim and McCoy work in McCoy's bedroom. It's bigger than the one Jim has to share with a noisy, obnoxious roommate. But one evening at the beginning of winter, Jim's not there, probably getting laid. McCoy had firmly informed his friend that he didn't want to know about these stories. He's got too much on his plate. They don't disturb each other when they work in the same room, but it's nice to work in silence for a change. When his communicator rings, he opens it without looking at who he is talking to. He's too accustomed to Jim's calls coming in at any time of the day and night. His friend's probably too drunk to go home and calls him for help, he thinks.
"What's wrong?" He asks.
"Leonard?" McCoy stiffens and looks at his communicator in disbelief.
The voice is not Jim's, but his ex-wife's.
"Jocelyn ?" he asks, trying to hide his surprise and anger.
How dare this woman call him, he wonders. She took everything he had, even his daughter, wasn't it enough? But no, she still has to harass him when he has no other future than space because of her. He's afraid when he's more than five feet from the ground.
McCoy is angry but also worried. Jocelyn has not contacted him since the divorce a year and a half ago. He doesn't see why she would call him. It must be about Joanna, that's all they have in common. It's not hard to imagine his little girl sick or injured.
"I hope you're doing well, Leonard," Josselyn says without giving McCoy time to recover or to formulate a question. "I heard you joined Starfleet, of course. I hope you enjoy what you're doing."
"I don't care for your games, Josselyn," McCoy growls. "You hate me, I hate you, so no need to pretend to be interested in each other's life to respect your dear social conventions. What do you want from me?"
Jocelyn is silent for a few seconds. She visibly refrains from insulting him, which means that what she wants from him is very important. At least for her.
"I'm going to have guests for the week. Important people. My family wants to make commercial contracts outside the planet, nothing that interests you. But what you need to know is that this meeting must stay a secret for now. I must keep my house staff to the bare minimum this week. And I'll have few moments to take care of Joanna."
"And it would look bad if you got rid of your daughter for a week for stupid contracts,"
McCoy snorts. "Not after insisting so much on having sole custody."
"If you want to see it like that, please do",
Jocelyn answers. She does not deny her ex-husband's accusations. "Against your total silence, I am therefore ready to entrust you with Joanna for a week. Let's officially call it a "gesture of conciliation" if someone asks you. What do you say?"
As if a father who has not seen his daughter for more than 24 hours in a year could say no. The emotion is so great he almost stutters his agreement. He listens mechanically to the rest of Jocelyn's instructions and takes notes on a piece of paper with a shaking hand. Jocelyn finally wishes him a good evening before she cuts off the communication. McCoy can now see written on a scrap sheet "pick up Jo tomorrow a 1 pm at the entrance to the academy". It's hard to believe.
Still in shock, he gets up and goes pour himself a glass of whiskey. He brings it to his lips but doesn't drink, staring at his glass for a long minute. Then he empties the glass into the sink. The contents of the bottle follow, followed by two more.
An hour later, maybe two hours, Jim pushes the door to his friend's room without announcing himself. McCoy is sitting on his chair. He did nothing since he emptied the bottles except staring at Jocelyn's instructions. Jim has been in a fight, he took a punch on his cheekbone, but he looks happy. However, when he enters, he freezes on the doorstep and sniffs. He closes the door and frowns.
"Hell Bones. It stinks of alcohol in here! What happened?"
"Jocelyn called."
"Shit. What does the witch want from you? Did you drank?"
"No." Jim is surprised. He's not the only one. "I threw it all away."
Relief is written on Jim's face. Sometimes he drinks until he passes out or vomits, but he's not an alcoholic. McCoy is. He knows that his friend keeps a close eye on the level of his liquor bottles when he visits.
"Joanna is coming tomorrow," Bones explains, handing the note he wrote to Jim. "I'll have her all week."
McCoy never thought to ask if Jim liked children. Now that he thought of it, he probably would have assumed that Jim was the type who was afraid of being a father and who couldn't care for a child. He doesn't think Jim's interest in Joanna and all the little stories McCoy needs to share about her is faked. But he thinks Jim's only doing it to please him.
So Jim's big, beaming smile, a smile he never saw, stuns McCoy.
"It's wonderful", says the young man. "A week with your daughter? I can't wait to meet the little Jo!"
"But how am I going to take care of her? Between classes, infirmary shifts, Starfleet Hospital calling for backup day and night, I don't have much time to care for myself, so a child... And if I mess up even one thing, Jocelyn will make me pay a heavy price."
"She'll take Jo from you for the next ten years, at least. But don't worry, you've got a trump card up your sleeve."
"What trump card?"
"Me", Jim answers seriously.
The idea of Jim taking care of a seven-year-old girl is hilarious. McCoy refrains from laughing.
"And tell me, Jim, where did you learn to take care of children? Because the image is terrifying!"
Jim turns away from Bones to start mopping up some alcohol that has spilled in the sink.
"When I was a teenager, I looked after my cousins and younger cousins", he says as he's starting to wash the dishes. "I swear, I was quite a good babysitter! The two of us will take care of your kid. I'll stay with her when I'm not in class, and I'm sure the nurses will be delighted to look after her if I'm not available."
He turns to McCoy, a spoon full of dish soap in his hand, and uses it to threaten his friend.
"So get to work, dad! I'll take care of the dishes; you do the room. Everything'll be perfect for the little princess."
Jim's right, so McCoy starts cleaning and listen to Jim making a list of people who can take care of Joanna, places McCoy can take her to see, and other ideas of all kinds. The doctor smiles as he clears the space on his table. Jim's right, it's going to be a wonderful week. When they're done, the two friends organize the next day. McCoy won't be able to take care of Joanna after she arrives, but Jim promises to keep the girl occupied until he can join them around at one in the afternoon.
Only when Jim's gone McCoy realizes it was the first time he had heard of these cousins. In fact, Jim only spoke of a brother, rarely, but with great affection. His mother's name must have crossed his lips only once and reluctantly. McCoy never asked any question about this subject. If Jim wishes to speak, he'll listen to him. In the meantime, he just takes notes about what he knows about the Kirk family. A father who died like a hero, a mother whose son prefers not to speak, a big brother he doesn't see often, and now a bunch of younger cousins. McCoy realizes that he doesn't know much about Jim's family.
The next morning, Bones and Jim are together to say hello to a beaming little Joanna at the entrance to Starfleet Academy. McCoy hugs his daughter for five or six minutes. He can't let her go. When he finally moves away from her, he admires how much she has grown, and how beautiful she is in her winter coat. A year away from your child is a long time. Joanna is almost seven now, and she has gained several inches. Her hair is braided, and she looks a lot less like a baby. Of course, McCoy is horrified to have missed so much, but she's there, and she smiles at him. It's all that matters.
Jim's tap his shoulder to remind him he can't stay longer.
"Sorry to rush you Bones, but the clock is ticking. You have your shift in the infirmary, then a class."
The doctor nods reluctantly. Joanna's pained gaze is unbearable.
"I'll do all I can to free myself for the next few days," his father promises. "But today, I have no choice. See you later, okay? I told you about Jim in my letters. He's going to take care of you until one o clock."
He leaves reluctantly. It's so hard when he sees Jo's tearful eyes. Behind him, Jim tries to console the little girl.
"I know it sucks that you can't be with your daddy. But you know what? We're going to put your things in his room, and then we'll prepare diner. Do you think we should make something to surprise him?"
"Dad hates cabbages", Joanna answers very seriously.
"So we won't do that", Jim promises. "We're going to bake a cake, I'll show you how."
Joanna nods happily, and her father finally manages to leave for work, a little less sad to leave her. Two hours later, when he returns to his room, he is greeted by two figures covered with chocolate mousse.
"We made a cake!" Joanna yells before she kisses him. There's chocolate all over his uniform now.
"I can see that, yes. Did you have fun with Jim?"
His little girl's already saying everything she did this morning while Jim sets the table. He and McCoy only have an hour to eat before they have classes all afternoon. Father and daughter reluctantly leave each other again, but Joanna promises she'll play quietly in the bedroom. In the evening, they both find themselves alone in the small bedroom, eating Jim and Jo's cake, and for the first time in over a year, Bones is happy. Joanna still loves him. She doesn't blame him for the divorce, and she didn't let Jocelyn turn her against her father. She is a smart little girl who refuses to be a tool in her parents' quarrel.
The next morning, McCoy takes her to the infirmary, where he has a shift. The number of cadets who can get injured in a morning is truly monstrous, and Jim isn't the worst daredevil of the lot, which McCoy didn't believe was possible. As he walks with Joanna along the halls of the Academy, he wonders what he will do with her during this time. With a little luck, a nurse will take care of her, he hopes.
A cadet in a nurse's uniform greets them at the entrance to the infirmary. Carey is still young and inexperienced but a competent nurse.
"Hello, Doctor McCoy," she said with a smile. "Is that your little girl?"
"Yes, she is", Bones replies. He manages to stay serious, even if he wants to smile like a fool at the mere thought of bringing Jo to her job. It was something she asked a lot when she was little, but Jocelyn had always refused. "So Carey, what do you have for me today?"
"Not much, doctor", Carey answers while she consults her holopadd. "Doctor Koshi wants you to join him as soon as you arrive to examine an Andorian student. Then, you'll need to monitor your patients. That's all for the day. As it was agreed, I'll take care of your daughter until then, and you should be free around ten o'clock.
McCoy stays speechless. It's the first time that he has had so little work in the infirmary in many weeks.
"How do you know that I needed someone to look after my daughter? And how is it that I have so little work?"
The nurse frowns.
"Your friend, Kirk, didn't he tell you that everything was settled? He called the nurse on duty last night, and we've made arrangements to work more this week, and you'll do the same for us after this little cutie is gone."
Joanna claps her hands, happy to spend more time with him. McCoy owns Jim a huge favor. He'll have to do something in return, even if he don't know what. He hadn't expected to find such thoughtfulness in his friend.
When they meet again briefly that evening and Bones thanks him, Jim shrugs as if what he had done was nothing.
"I wasn't going to let little Jo be sad without her daddy. Having a loving family is too precious."
Jim smiles as if he's lost in a happy memory. Then, suddenly, his faces close, and he leaves the room without another word. Silently, Joanna slips into the arms of her dad for a hug. She looks like she needs some comfort.
"Yesterday Uncle Jim cried," she said quietly, and McCoy looked at her in surprise. "He thought I didn't see, but I saw. I did not tell him I saw."
"You did the right thing. Jim probably didn't want you to see him cry. Adults don't like when
you see them cry. Do you know why he did that?"
"I asked him if I could call him Uncle Jim, and he said yes. Why did that make him sad?"
"I don't know, sweetie. I don't know."
For the rest of Joanna's stay, Jim never ceases to amaze Bones with his patience with the little girl. He listens to her, asks her questions about her day. They play in the park and play pranks on McCoy together. When he looks at them, it's like he's seeing a big brother and a little sister.
At the end of the week, Joanna leaves, and it's heartbreaking for McCoy. She leaves behind children's drawings and a small toy that she forgot on purpose so that her father would have something of her. McCoy showered him with gifts, and he saw Jim discreetly give her something before he left. They promise to call each other around Christmas time. McCoy hopes Jocelyn will let him talk to Jo and send her gifts.
A few days later, McCoys visits Jim in his room. He discovers two holos on his bedside table, where there were none before. The first shows Joanna smiling in the park. The second shows a teenage Jim, a bored look on his face next to a man and woman, and three smiling children. The adults look like they're from South America. One child is Asian. A week later, Bones returns and that second holo is gone. As if Jim couldn't stand to see him.
-.-.-
The month of December of their second year as a cadet begins in freezing and unusual cold in San Francisco. It's the year 2256, and the Earth is about to commemorate a sad event. On December 11, 2246, the Starfleet USS Discovery entered the atmosphere of the colonial planet Tarsus IV after a three-week voyage to deliver the food necessary for the colony's survival. Hours later, the Federation worlds discovered the gruesome images of the starving population and countless corpses. The next day, they learned that most were not famine victims but of an inhuman and coldly planned massacre.
It was ten years ago.
No one on Earth, Vulcan or any other planet in the Federation has forgotten. On each of them, the flags are lowered and the people in mourning clothes. Commemoration ceremonies are scheduled all day. The media are showing a mountain of testimonies. The majority of the victims were human, but most of the Federation sent a representative to pay tribute to the victims.
The day before the commemoration, the Academy's teacher announced a special day for the students. On the day of the commemoration, the classes would all focus on the events of Tarsus IV. Medicine students would study starvation, signs of malnutrition, treatment and psychological consequences of such an event. Starfleet history lessons will only talk about this. Future officers like Jim would focus on responsibility, duty, the need to accept failure. No one has forgotten the suicide of the captain of the USS Discovery a year after the events. He blamed himself too much for not arriving on time. He wasn't the only one. Many victims and even simple rescuers committed suicide after returning from Tarsus.
At the Starfleet Center in San Francisco, everyone, professor, cadet, simple staff or officer, wears a black armband as a sign of mourning. The atmosphere is depressing. Even the youngest cadets in the Academy are old enough to remember the horror of the repeatedly broadcasted media's footage. None will ever forget. In the morning, the whole Academy is gathered in uniform to attend the flag's raising and pay respect to the victims. No name is spoken.
Ten years ago, everyone tacitly agreed to spare Kodos' victims the suffering of media coverage. Most of the survivors never said a word about what happened there. Very few of them had written, composed or painted about their experiences, but mostly under false names. Some even adopted another civilian identity.
All morning, students and teachers work in a strange ambience. Everyone mourns the victims in silence and with respect. Never has the Academy's cafeteria been so peaceful.
"It's all bullshit," Jim exclaims aloud, and half of the room turns to him, outraged at this disrespect for the dead. Even McCoy looks at him in horror.
"What?" Jim snarls, and Bones sees he's been drinking. "Am I not right?"
"I don't even know what you're talking about."
He drank. McCoy doesn't understand. Drinking in the morning is not Jim. It's McCoy when Jocelyn says he can't talk to Joanna and sends his letters back. Jim is not a depressed alcoholic, although he can drink into a coma if the mood takes him. McCoy suddenly notices the signs of a sleepless night, if not two, on Jim's face. How didn't he catch that?
"All this ceremony," Jim explains, his voice still too loud. "It's just a gigantic masquerade."
At the table behind them, Uhura turns and stares at Kirk, angry and disgusted.
"How dare you laugh? People are dead!"
"And so? Do you think all this can make them come alive? This is just hypocrisy. A way to hide the shame of Starfleet late arrival. A way to restore the image of the Starfleet and the Federation."
"You're going a bit far, Jim", McCoy cuts him off.
"I haven't started yet. All those people who say how much they sympathize? Do you want me to tell you what they think, what they thought when they found out what happened? They thought 'thank goodness I wasn't there' and 'phew, no one I know was there'. And if they cry today, it's because they're ashamed of that selfish thought."
And no one answers that because it's true. Bones was twenty years old then, and he and Jocelyn had hugged each other, relieved to be alive and on Earth. His mother had called him in tears to tell him that she loved him. He looks around, and sees the same look of guilt on the faces of the other cadets, including Uhura. Jim chuckles, and stands up, scraping his chair loudly against the floor. He walks out of the hall, alone. Everybody's watching him.
That's when McCoy notice Jim's plate is still full. His friend has drunk too much and hasn't eaten anything, and it's only noon. McCoy spends the next four hours worrying about him and doesn't even listen to what the professor says about post-traumatic eating disorders in humanoids.
He knows Jim has four hours of lecture before he goes to the gym to study hand-to-hand combat. At the appointed time, McCoy is waiting in front of the classroom with a bag full of nutritional bars and a hangover medicine that Jim is not allergic to. He watches the students go out one by one, but Jim's not there. Bones becomes more and more worried and grabs one of the cadets.
"I'm looking for Kirk. Where is he?"
"Kirk? I haven't seen him all day. Well, except for lunch, but he was with you, wasn't he?"
"He was also there this morning", interrupts another cadet. Well, he sat down near the door, and when Archer - he was the one giving a course about eugenics - started talking, Kirk got up and left. Archer is a dirty bastard who doesn't let pass anything, but he said nothing and continued his speech as if nothing happened."
It's the first time Jim has missed a class without being bedridden. He's too focused on graduating in three years to miss a day. That he drank and ate nothing all day is disturbing. Later, much later, McCoy will blame himself. He will say to himself that he should have understood, that it was obvious. The truth is, he didn't want to understand. Too focused on his own woes, his self-pity. A phone call from Jocelyn the day before shook him up, it's true, but it's just an excuse. And now he's late for his duty at the hospital, so he leaves the cadets to their gossip. He rushes towards the other building.
Along the way, he sees General Archer talking to a woman in uniform whom McCoy has never seen but whom he recognizes all the same. Her gestures, her postures, everything makes McCoy thinks to her son. Curious, he slows down slightly. Winona Kirk is a woman of maybe forty, forty-five, gorgeous, but hard. She reminds McCoy a bit of Jocelyn: like his ex-wife, Jim's mother refuses anyone to step on her toes. If he remembers correctly, she's a lieutenant. Yet she talks to Archer as an equal, and he doesn't seem to mind. Worse, she yells at him copiously.
"I don't care what you and Pike think, Archer," she growls, "all I want..."
She pauses when McCoy gets too close for her liking and watches him angrily until he's gone far enough before she continues in a lower tone, inaudible to the doctor. Of course, he's wondering about this scene, but it's four twenty, and he's going to be half an hour late when he was supposed to help with an operation. So he puts aside his thoughts, speeds up, and doesn't think about Jim until the evening.
However, when he arrives at the Academy's restaurant and scan the crowd with his eyes, Jim's nowhere in sight. His worry increases again, and he goes back to Jim's room, his hunger forgotten. The room's empty. McCoy turns back without lingering. He knows that Jim's often in the academy cafeteria, where students can drink alcohol because it's better than seeing them wreaking havoc in the bars around town. Unfortunately, the young cadet is not there either.
He's starting to panic. Returning to the building where his friend is staying, Bones consults his padd, watching for a message from Jim. But there's nothing. Not a word. Fortunately, as a Doctor affiliated with the Starfleet, McCoy has access to other information. He opens access to the records of the infirmary and the hospital, then of the other hospitals in San Francisco and studies the admissions list. No James T. Kirk has been admitted in the past 24 hours, nor any unidentified
individual of his gender and age.
It's a relief. But that doesn't explain Jim's disappearance and silence. McCoy returns to his friend's room. He types the code and stands in the middle of the room to take a look. Jim's bed is undone, the table and the tiny kitchen are clean. On his desk, there's
a book open and a padd lying around. McCoy tries to light it, but it runs out of energy as if Jim had just left it there to unload in the middle of work. A torn piece of paper is stuck underneath, with Jim's handwriting. He grabs it. Jim wrote only a few words, probably an address. His handwriting is less sure than usual. Without hesitation, McCoy places the paper in his pocket. He'll look again after he's done looking for clues about his friend's absence from the empty room.
As he steps back, he feels he's walking on something and is looking at his feet. It's a cadet uniform sleeve sticking out from under Jim's bed. As he bends down, the doctor can see that the rest of the uniform curled up underneath. Jim's out there somewhere in civilian clothes.
Footsteps echoed in the hallway, and instinctively, McCoy stood up and, with his foot, kicks the uniform under the bed again. In case Jim's roommate comes home, he pulls out his padd and begins texting Jim to give himself some composure. The door opens. It's not Jim's roommate but his mother. They both stare at each other for a few seconds, surprised, then the woman frowns.
"Who are you, and what are you doing here, cadet?" She asks in a harsh voice.
"Cadet Leonard McCoy, Lieutenant. I'm here to see a friend, but he's away".
As a precaution, he adds a regulatory salute. Winona Kirk is not a woman you disrespect; he can see it at first glance.
"Your friend's name?"
"James Kirk, lieutenant. But he's not there, I'm trying to contact him."
Winona looks at him suspiciously, and McCoy wonders what the look means. Then she turns away and begins to search the room. Bones frowns. She may be Jim's mother, but she's not allowed to do that. He takes a step forward and opens his mouth, but she turns around, furious.
"Don't you have something else to do, cadet?"
It's an order. McCoy prefers not to get into trouble and leaves the room. Before he returns to his own, he sends a last message to Jim.
"Did you know your mother is in San Francisco?"
His previous requests about Jim's health were ignored, but this message should grab his attention. He's right. Three minutes later, his communicator rings.
"How do you know my mom is here?" Jim asks dryly.
His voice is strained, hoarse. McCoy's relieved to hear it.
"Good evening to you too, Jim. I know because I saw her talking to Archer earlier. Yell at him, actually. And I was in your room to see if you were there, I looked for you all evening."
"-Sorry, I was …"
"Your mother was there", cut McCoy. "She ordered me to go and started searching your room."
"Shit !"
"Any idea why she did that?"
"Two or three. She must be trying to find out where I am. And I think I left the address on my desk."
"No, I got it before her."
He can hear Jim's relief at the other end of the call.
"Jim …"
"Don't start lecturing me, Bones. Please."
"I don't intend to. At least not right away. Just tell me you didn't leave campus without permission."
"I have one, signed by Pike and Archer."
"So that's what your mother was talking about with Archer. He refused to tell her or give her anything. She definitely wanted that address."
"No doubt about hat", Jim answers before he pauses. "Sorry I didn't keep you posted. It's just... It's someone I know. Knew. She committed suicide this morning."
There's nothing to say to that. An embarrassed silence settles, then Jim continues.
"She was very close to me. Not family, but just as important. More. She was like a sister. Pike gave me three days off. She has no family. I have to take care of everything. See you Thursday, Bones."
"No problem Jim. Just... let me know next time, okay? And if you want company, call me."
"Thank you."
Jim hangs up. That night, Bones has trouble getting to sleep. Three days later, Jim returns, looking exhausted. Bones won't ask him questions about what happened. It will be a few years before Jim talks about it. For McCoy, the friend Jim had just lost must have been a survivor or had lost someone on Tarsus IV. This is enough not to look any further. He would long blame himself, as a doctor and a friend, for not having done so.