One year later…

"Leonard we need to talk."

Leonard recognized that tone of voice almost immediately. It had been so long since he last heard it from Jocelyn. "Joss."

She walked over to him and pulled him down. All that separated them was a couch pillow. "I'm freeing you Leonard."

"Joss?" Leonard asked, puzzled.

"I thought we could fix our problems, but, this last year, since Jim left. It's like a part of you left with him. You love him." Her words weren't accusatory. They didn't even seem particularly sad or angry. She just sounded tired.

"It doesn't matter." You can't love a dead man, Bones. Whatever he felt. Whatever Jim might have felt. None of it mattered anymore. They lived in a universe where it would be impossible.

Jocelyn took his hand. "You aren't meant for Georgia, Leonard Horatio McCoy. You're meant for bigger, greater things."

"I'm just a simple country doctor." Even as the words left his lips, they never felt more wrong.

Jocelyn shook her head. "No, Jim was right. He was always right… about everything."

Except the most important thing. Jim always thought he and Jocelyn were soul mates. He got everything else correct except for the one thing that really mattered.

"Jocelyn, I…"

She placed a large white envelope on the pillow. On the front, in slanted calligraphy was the simple word 'Bones'. He looked at it, confused.

"I hope you don't think poorly of me for not giving this to you sooner. I found it in Jim's room after the wedding. I thought if I gave it to you then, you would have left too to chase after him. You wouldn't believe the number of times I almost burned it."

"Joss." He reached for the letter. He always wondered why Jim had never left him anything other than those parting words. He always felt like Jim knew to a certain extent the day he would leave.

"I'll always love you, Leonard."

"I know." He whispered. He was unable to return the sentiment. He wondered when he stopped loving Jocelyn romantically. He picked up the envelope. Slowly, he broke the seal. A single piece of paper fell onto his lap.

"I don't know why he left, but I do know he saved you. He was like your own personal guardian angel. It was like from day one his sole purpose was to save you." Leonard choked out a bitter laugh. If only Jocelyn knew how correct she was.

"I never knew you to be a quitter, Leonard. You go find him Leonard McCoy and tell him the truth."

Looking down at the piece of paper Jim had left, he felt his whole body tremble. All he could do was nod. Find Jim.

He found Joanna curled up in her bed. Joanna, she was the hardest thing in all of this. It wasn't leaving Georgia. It wasn't leaving the life he had always known and believed he would have until the day he died.

He gently knocked on her door. She turned towards him. Her eyes were a little teary. Suddenly, he wondered if what he and Jocelyn were doing was right. He still loved Jocelyn in some ways, and she loved him. They could grow old together. They could play house, but Jocelyn was right. It would be a lie. A lie they couldn't keep living. Jocelyn deserved better not just second place.

"Can I come in?" He asked tentatively.

Joanna nodded. She sat up.

Gently, he slipped onto the bed next to her. He gently smoothed her honey brown curls. She looked up at him with her chocolate brown eyes. Each day she looked more and more like Jocelyn. She was growing up. The life he was choosing. It would mean giving her up. He would be missing all of her milestones. "Daddy." She threw herself at him.

"Oh baby." He gripped her tightly. She sobbed into his chest. He felt her tiny body shake. Slowly she pulled away.

"Why are you going away Daddy? Mommy says you have to go away."

"You remember Uncle Jim?"

Joanna nodded. "He went away. He didn't even say goodbye."

"He had to go away, Sweetie."

"I liked Uncle Jim. He made you happy Daddy."

"I liked him too, baby girl." Leonard gently smoothed away the bangs that fell over her eyes. "I'm going to go find him baby girl. I'm going to bring him home. Can you be brave for me, Sweetie?"

Joanna nodded. "Yes."

Leonard gently bent down and kissed her forehead. "I love you, baby girl."

"I love you too, Daddy."

Starfleet, the answer seemed so simple. When he saw the 'Starfleet, I want you' poster with George Kirk's face blazing back at him, the answer seemed to just hit him. Previously, he had always found the advertisement to be morbid. However now, it seemed strangely fitting for it to be a picture of Jim's father that was the solutions to all his problems. Starfleet was about space and exploration. Its mission was to explore new worlds that no man had ever gone before. Leonard had always prided himself on his scientific mind. A part of him did not believe in the great beyond. He had never been a church going man much to his mother and grandmother's chagrin.

Before he knew it, Leonard found himself walking into a Starfleet testing center and taking the initial placement tests. As for his fucking fear of dying in space, well that he would have to work on.

However, when he boarded that goddamn shuttle at Riverside Shipyard, he wasn't so sure that he had made the correct choice. The shuttle was full of fucking kids in fucking red uniforms. He spent the entire shuttle ride locked in the bathroom and mindlessly drunk. It would be a long 4 years.

However, the owner of those blazing blue eyes kept him going. He was going to make it. He was fucking going to make it. He inevitably made friends, enemies and colleagues at the academy.

It was only in the dark hours of the night in some loud and rowdy bar under the intoxication of alcohol, when a fellow cadet would ask the inevitable question that he would question it all. 'Why did you join Starfleet?' They would go around the table. Everyone's reason seemed so noble: exploration, discovery, peace, and expansion of the Federation. When it was his turn, he found his own reason to be so inferior. "Chasing starlight." Somewhere along the way, starlight became synonymous for Jim. They both reminded him of warmth and hope. They were both light in a sea of darkness.

He couldn't say he was 100% loyal to Jim. He didn't believe Jim would fault him with it. He had many flings during his time at the academy; however, they were all short lived. He found them more as a way to unwind after long hours of classes, clinical duties and flight stimulations. He knew he would need high marks to even receive a decent enough posting to attempt what he needed to even attempt to find Jim. His Vulcan advisor called it illogical, for a man with aviophobia to seek a posting on a starship, but his life was already full of contradictions and illogical circumstances.

When Starfleet announced the launch of the Enterprise during his second year, and he saw the hologram of the silver beauty, he knew. Somehow, he just knew. Starfleet's flagship with her maiden voyage scheduled during his third year was the ship that would bring him to Jim.

Maybe the universe was finally throwing him another chance. He always thought he had used up all his miracles when it gave him Jim, and they had all been eaten up when Jim was taken from him. So, in the spring of his third year, when he was handed the orders to report as a medical officer for the starship Enterprise, he could only let out a sigh of relief.

The Enterprise felt like home. He formed bonds with other members of her crew. He grew closer to Uhura than they had ever been at the academy. He became drinking buddies with her chief engineer Montgomery Scott and navigator Pavel Chekov. Her helmsman Hikaru Sulu taught him how to fence. He found it more acceptable and civilized than the hand-to-hand combat that he had been forced to endure throughout his years at the academy. He found himself spending many hours debating the merits of logic versus emotion with her first officer Spock.

As the years went by and the further from Earth he went and the closer to the edge of the Alpha Quadrant he found himself, he began to wonder if all he had been doing was chasing starlight and the sheer impossibility of it all. However, every time they entered a new sector of space, he could not stop himself from going up to the bridge. He would look at the stellar cartography charts that Spock had pulled up at his science station. Nobody asked why he always appeared on the bridge especially after the fourth year when he was promoted to CMO. It became one of those constants of Enterprise.

By the end of the second five-year mission, he found himself sitting across from his twenty-year-old daughter at a small diner in San Francisco. After more than a decade, he was still no closer to finding Jim. Instead, he found that he had instead carved out a place for himself in the stars.

Joanna looked at him. She slowly twirled her fork between her fingers.

"You'll find him Daddy."

"When did you become such a big girl?"

"When you weren't looking," she replied coyly.

"Joanna…"

"It's okay Dad, really."

Leonard nodded. There were moments of regret. He had missed watching his daughter grow up. Sometimes he found himself chasing dreams that he felt he was no closer to reaching.

"I'm graduating from the academy next year. My advisor says I have the grades to get stationed on the Enterprise."

"Joanna."

"I want to help you find him."

"What about that boy?"

"Jeremy?"

"Yeah."

"We're good. He wants a dirt side posting though. He's not fond of exploration."

Leonard smiled fondly. He knew that look. He saw it in himself and his friends every time they talked about a loved one. "He's good for you."

"Dad."

"No really Jo. " He reached over and gently set his hand over Joanna's. "I spent nearly a lifetime searching for mine. You found yours. Don't waste it."

"Most dads would bring a shot gun."

"We both know I'm not a normal dad. You make sure he treats you right."

"Thanks Daddy."