REVISED LLG 10.3

Quotes from Kahlil Gibran, Allen Ginsberg and Petronius Arbiter, because that's how I roll.

LLG 10

It was closer to five hours later when Jim finally handed over the conn and made his way to deck nine, section two. He was about to drop, he could feel it in every leaden step, every sore muscle that made itself known. He'd been prepared to bunk in the ready room, but the ship's designers apparently thought an office was superfluous, because there hadn't been one.

A small, stupid fact, but one that drove home just how little he knew about this mammoth task he'd taken on.

He didn't want to think of it, what it all meant, and that meant sleep. Can't overthink something when you're passed out. Can't freak out about it either.

He could push beyond it, get another wind, he knew he could. He'd like to say he'd had worse, but the truth was, there wasn't much worse than the last 48 hours, not even Tarsus, and his body didn't bounce back like it did when he was thirteen. Hard to admit, but it was true.

Besides, he'd promised Bones, and he didn't want to give Bones yet another reason to 'd figured the bastard would be asleep, but it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that he was awake and hankering for another victim to hypospray.

Two more yeomen stood at attention as he walked past, and he nodded quickly, waving them back to whatever they were doing. He'd nearly given up on trying to get them to stop, but he couldn't stand watching them fret over saluting when they looked like they were about to fall to pieces.

No more adrenaline. No more endorphins. No more rush, no more action, no more extreme need. He wondered, for the first time, if this is how Bones felt after the divorce, if this was what made him get on that shuttle and join Starfleet. So much anger and sadness and rage with such a thin veneer of civilization coating it that it was close to turning into apathy--so close to crippling he had to jump ship towards its polar opposite. Dissociation as an art form. Bones was always talking about himself as if he were Methuselah, hundreds of years old instead of a prime thirty. As if he was tired.

Used up.

Over.

Jim had always thought it was funny, how he played himself off as a crotchety old man, old before his time, even if he was only six years Jim's senior.

Jim didn't think it was funny anymore.

Three forward 125-

Three forward 126-

Three forward 127.

Jim leaned his forehead against the door for a moment, closing his eyes and psyching himself up for the conversation ahead. He'd talked to Bones briefly, but so much had been unspoken. And he appreciated that, he did, that Bones had given him space, had allowed him to be the captain. Had known that a little too much kindness, too much understanding, would make him break. Not irreparably, but too soon.

Jim sighed, turning to the door panel to input his code, since there was no way his biometric signature would be integrated into the system yet. Yet another thing on his long to-do list. The door hissed open and he stepped inside, tense, fingers drumming the air.

The lights were dim, twenty percent, but there was also a small glow from a globe next to the full-sized bed. Half the bed was occupied, covers ruched up, and only a small tuft of dark brown hair exposed.

Jim shrugged out of his undershirt, tossing it over the nearby desk chair, shrugging off the chill when his nipples furled in the cold, then toed off his boots. Buckle undone, pants placket peeled open, he let his trousers drop to the floor.

"Bones?" Nearly silent in the dim light, the name was barely a sigh out of his mouth as he approached the bed on socked feet. But Bones heard it, turning around in the covers, face grumpy with lack of sleep, scowling over the edge of the blanket.

"Bones. I…" Jim got that much out, before biting his bottom lip, pulling everything else back in.

But Bones just shook his head, bringing the blanket down and pulling back the corner for Jim. Didn't say anything, just made a frustrated motion towards the bed, expression saying you idiot.

But Jim knew what he was saying, and the Gordian knot of dread that had coiled round his heart loosened and slipped away, just as he slipped under the covers. It was a small bed, and he lay close to Bones; not cuddled, but sharing warmth, and maybe other things he was too tired to name. Bones still hadn't said a word, just slid one hand into Jim's and held on tight.

Right then, it was enough.

Right then, it was perfect.

The last thing Jim remembered before drifting off to sleep was Bones's breath, evening out into his slumber.

Waking on a ship in space was odd. Bones's old dorm room had a UV screen over the window, touch sensitive so that it would lighten to clear or polarize to almost totally opaque with the brush of a finger, but no matter the setting you still got a general idea of the time from the way the sun escaped the edges, or from the bustle of cadets outside your door.

Waking on a starship was waking to eternal night. No sense of time. No sense of place. It was quiet, but it was a cathectedquiet, the kind you sometimes found in haunted battlefields.

Jim woke slowly, comfortable and warm in his cocoon, but out of sync--not able to immediately place if he was supposed to be anywhere. Despite that niggling worry, he floated in his half awake state for a time, pulling the cocoon closer, burrowing down.

"Mmm."

He knew the cocoon was Bones. Bones curled up against his back, chin resting on Jim's head, arm wrapped tight. Bones's legs tangled with his, one sharp toenail digging into his calf. Bones's smell, like how he imagined Georgia smelled, all green things and humid, then antiseptic and cheap-ass Starfleet soap. He breathed deep and drew that scent close, anything to replace the stale scent of canned recycled air, that eternal new-hovercar smell.

"Jim? You okay?" It was more of a vibration and a puff of moist air against Jim's neck than actual words but he felt it down to the marrow.

"Yeah." He cleared his throat to get rid of some of the morning roughness. It felt like he should feel awkward, like a morning after, but all he felt was regret that he had to leave. "Computer. Time."

"0534."

Jim tensed to get up, resigned to leaving the comfort of bed and Bones, but the arm draped over his side tightened. He really didn't feel like fighting it.

"The bridge isn't expecting you till 0800. You've got a little time yet."

"The bridge needs me."

"The bridge needs you healthy and aware. CMO's orders."

Jim huffed, but still didn't fight Bones or the lethargy he was feeling, wiggling back into comfort, if not sleep.

"Besides. It's damn cold, and I'm a needy bitch."

Jim wanted to laugh, but that was too much work. "I had to lower the ambient temperature. We have enough juice to sustain us for the trip, but I had to get conservative in some creative ways, and lowering the temp was one of them. It's three degrees above absolute out there."

"Don't remind me."

"And we're on rations. No replicators. Every meal in the mess. Fuck I hate rations. I've eaten so much 'fleet peanut butter I can't even look at the stuff."

"Chapel told me."

"Two weeks back, minimum. Engineering is trained on some system-wide haptic interfaces, but the new Constitution designs incorporated some multi-modality modules. The learning curve is steep on the new tech, and it's holding us back some. 'Fleet can give us some supplies to make up for the deficits, but we'll still be shoe-stringing it. Laundry is half-staffed and short on replacement linen. Uniforms are at a premium. Cleaning service is bare-bones." Jim felt like he was babbling, but he couldn't stop. If they were discussing ship business they weren't discussing anything else.

"We're a make-do ship, here. We'll be fine. After the past few days, this'll be like camping," Bones drawled into his neck, dark molasses in these early hours.

"They said they could have most of us relieved, but I declined. They'll take the grievously wounded and let us make our own way back."

Bones, for all his sarcasm and pessimism, never failed to throw himself behind something he thought worthy of praise. And Bones really knew his ship psychology. "Good decision," Bones said, nodding as he spoke.

And it was. Jim and Spock had surprised each other with complete agreement on that subject and more. "They need to grieve together. They could all be back on Earth in two days, but that'd be throwing them to the circling sharks. As soon as they hit dirtside they'd be in endless debriefs and a media circus. They need the time."

And shit. He'd given Bones an opening.

"So do you." Quiet and thoughtful. So un-Bonesish--except when it wasn't. He wasn't. Because Bones was always-- himself. Real. "You know, just because I bitch about you doing something doesn't mean I don't think you can. It just means that I don't think you should have to."

"Is this where we talk about our feelings and hug?"

"Your defense mechanisms need some updating." No accusation, just a flat statement.

Jim let out a shuddering little sigh. "Right. Wouldn't want to be predictable." He turned around to face Bones with a false grin that began to buckle under intense scrutiny almost immediately. Bones was so close he could feel their breath mingle, even as one of Bones' large hands came up to clasp his bicep. If he were a braver man, a stupider man, he could easily bridge the gap between them with a subtle shift. A small alignment. "Christ, you suspicious bastard. Can't put anything over on you lately."

"I thought you were past trying."

Bones was pulling out the big guns, all soft words and concern that spoke to his brain and other bits that were still too tired to appreciate the moment. Words that morphed into sticky guilt as soon as Jim got his grubby hands all over them. Yeah, they'd done this dance before, but he didn't want to be vulnerable right now. This crew didn't deserve a vulnerable captain. They didn't get a compromised Spock, so they weren't going to get a compromised Jim.

"You don't get to hide from me. I don't care where you are in the pecking order now. You know that I get you aren't really like this, so why even try?" Bones had asked similar things before, in a similar fashion, and Jim had always blown it off with some flippant shit, but this time Bones' question had an edge to it, like a game show host asking him for the final answer.

And lying to him wasn't as easy as it should be. Mostly, Jim didn't even try. And, despite the question, Bones already knew the answer. The bastard. He just wanted to hear it.

Jim tucked his chin and kept his eyes down, but the truth struggled out anyway. "I don't know. I've been doing it for so long."

"You're allowed to be less than super-human. At least around me." Leonard bumped Jim's shoulder with his own, and great, if this wasn't already the definition of bizarro fucked-up, then Leonard McCoy trying to jolly Jim out of a funk definitely put it over the top. "I don't fall for that crap anyhow. I know shit from Shinola."

But then Bones's face eclipsed into a brief darkness. "But you might need to be careful out there." Careful wasn't the word for it. Regulation 586. Subsection two. There was a reason that Starfleetdidn't take many people with a high level of trauma, and that's because everyone had a breaking point. They were almost guaranteed to suffer some during the duration of their service,and piling that on top of pre-existing trauma was asking for trouble.

A crew that started out on the Good Ship Lollipop didn't remain that naive for long.

"Careful as the captain," Bones continued. The if you want to remain captain was there, but unvoiced. "But in here. In here." Bones's hand migrated to clasp Jim's own, held tight and against Bones's heart, though he didn't even seem to realize it. "We're just Jim and Bones. You don't have to be anything else."

"I know."

"Do you?" And Jim couldn't look, because he was a coward, no lie. He didn't want to see Bones's face when everything spilled like a shuttle crash. "I know you, Jim." Bones was so damned earnest Jim was almost embarrassed for him. "I know you."

"Jim and Bones, huh?"

Bones blushed, and Jim felt an electric thrill tap into his spine. If this weren't so serious, if there was more time, if it was the right time…

But Bones powered through it, refusing to be thrown off course. "You can act the asshole, but I know better. The crew--they know better too, now. It was there on your sleeve. And a front only works if people don't know about it."

"Bones…"

"It's not a bad thing, okay?"

"It's just..." Jim went silent, struggling to put the twisted feeling laying low in his gut into words, words that didn't sound like a sieve for the guilt.

His mind was at maximum warp with would-have, should-have, and his body was pressing forward with nownownow decisiveness, but he didn't want their epiphany- their shiny, golden moment, to be in the midst of despair and destruction.

It would be sacrilege. Profane.

And probably ironic.

Somehow.

"I know," Bones said.

And Jim would usually scoff at those words, usually uttered in a disposable way that meant squat, but even that had dried up, because Bones did know. And that sucked. And Jim feeling powerless sucked. This entire situation, sucked. "Have you seen the lists?" Lists of the dead. They were receiving revised lists every few hours as they limped towards Jupiter Station.

"Yeah, I've seen them." Bones lowered his eyes, almost reverential, almost a quick prayer. "Too many of them."

Jim had checked constantly, with a morbid, self-flagellating fascination. It'd happened before Enterprise even left dock, but maybe if he had been less invested in being right, in triumphing over the KM, he would have picked up the significance of worrisome subspace cues before things had coalesced into a galactic clusterfuck. Maybe.

It was a stupid train of thought that ended nowhere, because he could just as easily start to blame Spock, or Pike, or the other Spock. He wasn't quite sure why he was torturing himself with it, except maybe the fact that he was alive and so many were dead. Some 'Fleet shrink might call it survivor's guilt, and that was a part of it, yeah, but there was a kernel of something more self-centered and ugly. Survivor's fuck yeah.

He was just so damned relieved that they'd made it. He wanted to scream because he was alive and could. He wanted a good hard fuck in some sort of primitive life-affirming abandon. He wanted everything those six billion others would never experience again, and that made the bile rise in his throat.

Bulimic food for thought.

Mortification of the mind.

Cryovulcanism of the heart.

Six billion people. Stalin had once said that one death was a tragedy, and a million deaths, a statistic.

The Federation had already released statements that proved him fucking right. Every know-nothing quote from ass-sitting admirals left him naked and aching. Things said about Vulcan, every remembrance of the ships lost, it fucking gutted. Half the doctors and nurses Bones had worked with at Starfleet were had gotten to know them through clinic visits, and felt their absence almost as keenly as Bones did. Most of Jim's class--friends, enemies, fuckbuddies, comrades--blinked out.

Black dwarfs.

Vulcan had the numbers, and he ached for Spock, he did, but Jim knew those officers. Gary and several nurses on the Farragut. Bridge crew on the Excelsior. And…

The lists were only half complete, the names of confirmed survivors so few. "Gaila was on the Farragut. Uhura told me. Still early numbers--but the odds." Jim was numbing himself to it.

Leonard said something rough and raw, but Jim couldn't tell what it was. Only that it hurt.

"Gaila. She just--knew. She had been there too." If his breath hitched, Bones wouldn't fault him. Jim turned into him, hiccup contained, face in Bones' neck because some things were easier to say when you weren't staring into someone's soul.

"We'd hear people whining about stupid things and being so depressed about it, like cars or boyfriends or money--bullshit, you know? We wouldn't say anything, but we'd always be contemptuous, and kind of superior, because what do people like that know about pain, right?"

Jim was getting louder, and Bones's large hand came up to stroke his hair, massage his temple. Jim imagined he felt a dry kiss to the crown of his head. "So what, they broke a nail, big woohoo. After Tarsus, I never wanted to take anything for granted."

"Jim."

"I was wrong. God I was wrong." He could feel his voice crack, and wasn't that funny? Because he couldn't actually feel a thing. Too numb or tired for processing hurt. "Itisn't enough for your heart to break because everybody's heart is broken now. It was a whole ship full of those people, and I laughed at them, and now they're all my people, and I would take it back if I could."

"I know you would," Bones said in the tone of voice usually reserved for Joanna.

"Keep them ignorant. Cover them in shock webbing." Something erupted from his throat, a chuckle like crushed glass, but there wasn't anything funny there. "We used to think we had some big secret, like an eye to the inner workings of the universe. An exclusive club. And you were in the club too, because you feel things, down to the bone." He could feel Bones startle under his cheek. "That's why you're Bones, you know? Because you've got a stupid heart."

"Yeah." Bones. So resigned. It was kind of cute and kind of viscerally naked all at once.

"We were so damn ignorant."

"Not ignorant. Just dealing. And you did." Bones stroked his arm. Comfort, not seduction, reminding him he was there in a physical way Jim responded to on a paleomammalian level. "A survivor. Not a victim. That's not just semantics. It's important."

"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. We tried to believe that."

"A quote?"

"Should get it tattooed on me. Gaila was really fond of it. She'd like that."

"You don't know that she's gone, Jim."

"That's the thing. She is. I know she is. She." His voice didn't crack, but it thinned like crystal, an audio conduit for the shaking he couldn't prevent. "She always wanted…she had a sister. Arta." Bones's hand stilled, then moved to his shoulder brushing bone and sinew, one finger curling against Jim's mandible, bringing his face up.

As exposed as his words.

More fingers came up to smooth over cheekbones and stubble, one catching on his lip to stroke the thin membrane in a way that made his breath stutter. "Bones."

"Go on." Bones's voice was homemade divinity. Velvet and electricity. Whiskey and midnight and everything Jim had ever liked.

"She always wanted to go back for her." Jim looked up through his lashes and all he could see was Bones. "Everything else was about living fiercely, but she regretted leaving her."

"She was happy, Jim. She wanted you to be happy and she'd be pissed that you're not."

Jim shook his head, but he didn't know what he was denying. "I don't want to have that kind of regret."

"Then don't." One hand reached up to cup the back of Jim's head, big-knuckled thumb stroking the coarse hair at his nape. It didn't pull him in or anything, not like he would have liked, but it was proprietary. Possessive. A kiss would have felt like fiddling while Rome burned, but it was enough to feel the banked heat of that palm, the pulse of that thumb, the sheen of want in those half-lidded eyes. Maybe the best thing he'd felt in forever.

Sort of like a promise.

Jim made a non-committal hum, but his words, when they came, were light. "I'm thinking about it."

Bones shook his head in that way he had, the one that disguised approbation as disapproval. "You know, you're almost sounding reasonable. I wonder if I should adjust my meds."

"Ha!"

"Or your meds. I'm not picky."

And that was Bones all over. Ego-deflating awesome, even now. The continuity was bittersweet. And appropriate.

Jim pulled away just enough to give him half a wry smirk. "Thanks."

"Anytime." Bones smiled and stared at him, hot and intent, before catching himself and grimacing. He started to turn, to give Jim a little space, himself a little space, but Jim arrested him with a hand to the shoulder.

"No. Really. Thanks." Serious face, but words that seemed stupid- inadequate- juvenile, and hundreds of other things that Bones had called him over the years, but it seemed to warm Bones, who smiled anyway, and collapsed back into the pillow and closed his eyes. A second later, he pulled Jim down too, manhandling him into prime nap position. "Hey."

"A physician is nothing but a consoler of the mind." Bones might not smirk like Jim, but he did it with his voice, anyway.

"A quote?"

"From some damn where."

"No Algonquin Round Table for you."

"Pfft. Who's Algonquin?"

Jim grinned and went silent for a time, letting the sound of Bone's breathing and the rise and fall of his chest come close to lulling him to sleep. But some niggling little thing would not let him be.

"Bones."

"Hmm."

"Bones!" But Bones was quiet. Limp. Placid.

"Bones." He stroked Bones' hair and got a rumble of contentment in response. Bastard was almost asleep.

"I." Stupid. So stupid. "I just wanted you to know."

"Hmm?" Content and cat-like and so comfortable.

"This? Is good. Real good." There were prizes for understatement, right?

Bones hummed agreement again, and maybe that was too sneaky and too early to count, but it totally counted in the final tally.

Totally.

"I." Jim's tongue knotted over unfamiliar adjectives. "Really good. You know?"

Bones' answering snore was ambiguous at best.

Jim's hard-on?

Was not.

Fuck.

Pike was asleep.

Sheets were pulled back with military precision, tucked up under his arms. He was reclined instead of flat, breathing even and deep. Face turned slightly to the side, slack, and strange in that slackness. The vitality was gone. Lines smoothed, as if he didn't have any worries or responsibilities- which just was not Pike. Not the Chris that Jim knew.

When he'd imagined being with Pike, it'd never been about sleep, just how many times and how many ways they could fuck until Chris got bored with Jim. He'd never even imagined sleep, much less waking up or soft words murmured against ears warm from the covers. He'd not thought of breath, not too sweet, stale air and the salt of sweat long since dried, languid hard-ons rutting just to rut- the journey, not the destination.

Maybe Jim was growing up, because now he thought that lack of imagination was childish. And a shame.

Sure, Chris had fucked him. Had fucked him up but good.

But maybe he'd fucked a little sense into Jim, too.

As if reading his mind, Chris' face sharpened into itsfamiliar configuration, and his eyes cracked open and focused in that familiar way he had, as sharp and piercing as a grackle.

"Hey." Jim didn't know how to say everything that needed to be said.

Thank you for saving me.

I'm sorry. I'm an asshole.

You really were a jerk.

I forgive you.

They were all clamoring for attention, but he didn't know where one left off and another began.

"Are you hungry?" Apparently, he'd settled for banal. "Bones said you'd been up earlier, that Spock was here, but then he gave you some meds."

"No. He isn't hungry." Bones appeared at his shoulder, scowling at Jim before turning to Pike. "You aren't hungry."He nodded as if that were that. "I've got him on an IV supplement and appetite suppressants. He can't swallow very well yet, and I don't want to interfere with his throat healing."

The subject matter was grim, but Jim had to suppress a smile because Bones' bedside manner was dismal. "Can he talk?"

"I'm right here." Pike's voice was raw, but it was strong enough to make Jim jump a bit. Bones just ignored him, however. And if Pike looked a bit pissyover that, Jim couldn't blame him.

"As long as he isn't reciting the Federation Declaration of Intentand all thirty-six amendments. You get an hour. Tops. He begins to look tired, you're out." He stalked off with a parting eyebrow, leaving the curtain half open to make some sort of point probably only Bones fully understood.

"Christ, he scares me." Pike sounded disgruntled, but not in his typical way. Not one that Jim understood. Had a funny look on his face, beyond the tiredness of healing, that shifted between Bones and Jim, something conflicted. Something aware, though aware of what, Jim wasn't sure.

"He scares a lot of people."

"You?"

Pike seemed genuinely interested, so Jim answered genuinely in turn, finding an even keel in a conversation that had no schematic. "Sometimes." No need to go into the why. Pike didn't need to know that Jim was usually scared for Bones. Bones was too sensitive, with too many chinks in his armor.

"How do you two do it?" Pike's emphasis seemed significant.

"Do what?"

"Live with so much tension? It's thicker than Guinness."

Jim sat up a little more in not-quite-surprise.

"Hell. I'm sorry." Pike ran his hand over his face, scrubbing at his eyes. "Ignore it. None of my business."

But Jim found himself answering anyway, mouth operating independently of his mind. "It's like a tesseract. Too many dimensions. Hard to visualize. Don't know where to grab hold." He thought for a moment. "But potentially awesome."

Pike looked grimmer than usual for a moment, and Jim had seen that look before. From whom? It was something like jealousy, something like resignation- a poison pressed from pretty flowers. It shocked him, shifted his paradigms, because even though Pike had apologized, he'd never really believed it, hadn't really seen it, until now.

It shook him. He hadn't thought...

"You're lucky," Pike said. And sometimes Jim hated himself, because he was a dick. Because for a moment all he could think of was yeah, I can walk.

But he only said, "Howso?"

He expected Pike to blast everything wide open with a few well turned words, putting it all out there, not letting him ignore it just a bit longer, but his good fortune held. Pike knew where he'd been leading. It might have been strategic, but he still backed off, with a bit of bite added in proxy. "Lucky that he's happy with medical. If he went into command we'd both be out of work. Captain."

Jim could feel his face flush with pink. A hell of a thing to be embarrassed about, and Pike's lopsided, wry smirk was not helping. "You aren't out of work. Bones says you'll be mobile within a few weeks. And I'm only here till we're safely in dock."

"I've been getting reports."

Jim just bet he was. He wondered what Spock had said. "Then you know you'll be fit for duty by the time Enterprise is out of repair dock." If anything, Pike's smirk deepened, but Jim knew better than to find anything resembling mirth there now. He could taste the bitter on the end of his tongue and Pike hadn't even touched on the real shit yet. And he knew it would be shit, felt it like a tesla coil striking sparks on his intestinal wall.

"Don't be naïve, Jim. This temporal shift changes everything. Vulcan's gone. The Klingons and the Romulans are going to be on us like jackals if they aren't at each other's throats after the destruction of the Klingon armada. Enterprise was slated for a long-term first contact and science mission. That's been blown to hell. She's going to get put to work near the neutral zone now. Military and Diplo work. The only way she'll get the Deep Fiveis to cultivate planets with large dilithium deposits."

"What does that have to do with your ability to captain a-"

"Klingons. Romulans. They're Darwinist cultures. You know that. They won't recognize me. In their eyes, I have no authority till I'm on my feet and one hundred percent."

Oh shit. Shit. "It's temporary. Bones said not much more than a year, year and a half." He was trying to keep his voice level and professional, but knew he was telegraphing what he felt way too much. He tried to even it out by channeling everything into the hand clenched against his thigh, but his white grip did little to alleviate the climbing scale of his protests.

"Not when this ship needs to be out there yesterday."

"That's-"

"Jim. Where she's going, I can't follow."

Jim rose to his feet, outrage twisting his face into an uncomfortable rictus as he snarled. "This isn't right. You're fine! IDIC. Captain Silpa-archa has three prosthetics and he's been decorated more than-"

"And he'll either get a lateral transfer to Earth, or a promotion to admiral."

How could he look so calm? So stoic?

How could he be looking at Jim like that? Like Jim was the one to slightly pity?

"It's not right."

"I didn't say it was right. I said it was realistic. It's the hard choice. But the only one." And there. Jim finally saw it as Pike blinked a little too long. Sadness. Resignation flitting for a moment before it was abandoned.

Jim sat back down, slowly, still absorbing the impact of it all- the abrupt about-face his 'Fleet view had taken. He still felt the need to protest, but the emphasis shifted. More introspective. Less the bystander. "You haven't spoken to the Admiralty yet. I know Bones hasn't cleared it. You don't know what they'll decide."

"No. But I know what my decision would be, and I'd question their thought process if they made a different one."

"Chris. You don't understand."

"I've been there, Jim. And give me some credit, I know you."

If Jim had been in the right frame of mind he would have wondered at that, but he could only deal with emotional fallout on so many levels before some were jettisoned as dead weight. "Fuck. No. You love it. You fucking love it." And he did. Jim knew that from the first dare, Chris' love letter to Starfleet. Obsession so deep, so unique, Jim wanted to taste it every bit as much as he wanted to mock it for existing." And I love this ship. And the crew. Love them like crazy. But being captain-"

"Jim."

"And it's not the paperwork or any of the bureaucracy." Jim wasn't looking at him anymore, chose to stare through the half-pulled curtains to his right, hand massaging the back of his own neck in a futile effort to relieve some tension. This was too close to the bone. "But you need to stay here. They need you."

"Jim. I love the ship. I love the crew. But I'm not going to lie. I love the command as well."

"Then why?" Jim did look up at this, wanting to challenge Chris just as he'd been challenged to do better. "Fight to keep it."

"I do love the power of command. Love it maybe too much." Chris sighed, and shook his head. "I've got to think of the crew."

"I hate it a little." It was a confession of wrongdoing, Jim knew it. And the penitent ring of it sounded false to his own ears. He wondered what Chris thought, but was too scared to ask. "It's all on me. My decisions. Mine. I had to make them. I had to make those choices- because it needed to be done and I was the only one that could step up. But I keep asking myself what would have happened if I had been wrong?"

How did Chris do this for years?

"I hate it a little too, but I'm good at it. And I don't trust the crew and the ship I love to anyone who would do less, so you need to be here."

Chris shook his head, but Jim continued. "Maybe I just need time. Maybe I just need more experience to get comfortable with it. But not if you're on Earth with your thumb up your ass."

"I'll let you in on a little secret, Jim. Something the Academy can't teach. No one should be comfortable with it. No one." Pike'seyes went distant and strange, like he was just seeing a truth for the first time. "And that's why you'll be a better captain than I ever was."

Jim went still. "You don't really think that."

"I don't think it. I know it." Chris let that hang in the air for a moment before he seemed to center himself. "And deep down, so do you."

The bio-bed's remote adjustment shifted with a flick of Chris' thumb, raising him a little more upright so that they were eye to eye. Jim met that tritanium gaze with his own, sizing up the invisible gauntlet dangling between them.

For Jim, it was deadly serious. A weight to be carried.

For Chris...

"Now...are you going to report, or stand there looking like I fucked you without a reach-around?"

"You- you..." Jim gaped at him a moment, expression crooked and disbelieving, before bending over, forehead near his knees.

"Jim?" Pike sounded concerned as Jim started to shake.

He tried, but he couldn't contain it- the laughter shook him to the core, sloppy, strangling guffaws stole his breath and threatened to asphyxiate him. He hugged his knees and laughed and laughed and laughed until the laughter burnt all itsfuel and left his mouth split wide over his teeth.

"Jesus, Jim. Don't do that to me. I thought you were crying." Pike raised his eyebrows, gathering them in the middle. His sigh was light, sounding both disgruntled and relieved.

"Ha. Ha ha ha. No." Jim looked up, grin splitting his face. Fucking irony, you bitch goddess.

Goddamn.

The last few months had felt like an eternity.

Maybe everything before it, too.

Life- an asymptote- he got close to happiness, but not tangential to it until he reached infinity. He hadn't reached that threshold yet, but now. Now it seemed less impossible, like he could reach out and touch it without it being snatched away at the last second.

Which was...kind of awesome.

Really, really awesome.

"Chris." Jim couldn't keep the smile from his voice, either, and Pike returned the smile with a smaller, partially drugged one of his own.

It was better than anything had a right to be right now. "Chris. Don't you get tired of all this unrelenting angst?"

And once again, to his delight, Chris was able to follow his tangential thoughts. "Just call me an eternal optimist. And screw being upright." Pikelowered the incline of the biobed and shut his eyes, though his entire manner still screamed alert. Capable.

Screw being handicapped anyway.

"Now brief me."

"Sounds dirty."

"Shut up." Pike opened one eye into a slit. "Captain."

And yeah. He was. How the hell had thathappened?