If there was one truth that Leonard unconditionally believed in, it was this: life just wasn't fair. Nor was it pretty or fairy-tale like. He was a doctor, he ought to know. As for his own life, he knew pretty damn well that there would never be such a thing as a happy end.
Therefore, he should have simply accepted the fact that Chris was gone by the time he woke up; without trying to come up with reasons as to why he would have left.
It was obvious. Yet his heart and mind frantically clung to any straw they could find.
Chris was a captain in Starfleet, as well as an Academy instructor. It would not have been the first time that he had been called away unexpectedly and on short notice to solve some kind of problem, participate in an impromptu meeting or offer his expertise on some matter or other.
Yet this time was different. Leonard positively smelled it in the damp summer air.
Chris had not left out of necessity, or if he had, it was a necessity that had nothing to do with his profession and everything with the events of the night.
Leonard rolled around in the bed that seemed to large for one alone, staring at the ceiling.
Dammit! You ruined it!
He wasn't quite sure, whether he was directing that thought at Chris or himself.
As it turned out, fate had decided to show its merciless, unsmiling stone-face once more. The day progressed and things only got worse.
Leonard had been determined to tell Anya about the whole sad affair, judging that she was probably the only person alive capable of explaining Chris' behavior to him; but she cancelled the appointment as she had caught a fever.
At Medical, it seemed to be "bad patient day". There was the choice between whining hypochondriacs who appeared to be determined to annoy the crap out of Leonard and impertinent, reckless idiots who didn't see the point in letting anyone attend to their medical needs.
To make matters worse, Jim had picked this very afternoon to miserably fail the Kobayashi Maru test for the second time and was in a very foul mood afterwards, which he took out on everyone stupid enough to get near him.
When Leonard returned to the apartment, a sinking feeling in his gut, he felt annoyed and exhausted. Seeing Chris who sat brooding over a stack of papers he had brought from his office and piled up in front of him as if to shield him from any intrusion, did nothing to lighten his mood.
"We ought to talk," Leonard informed him.
Chris looked up and something in his face told Leonard that he had dreaded this very moment all day.
"Indeed," he said slowly.
"You're not happy about it," Leonard stated.
Actually, this conversation itself was masochism in its purest form. Nothing good could come from it, and yet he couldn't stop himself.
Chris sighed. "I made a mistake."
That hurt. He didn't even use the plural form.
"I should never have allowed this to happen." There was pain in his grey eyes, even grief; it almost hurt just to look at him. "My mistake, Leonard… I should not have… you were in my care, under my charge and this is just… it was wrong. Abominably wrong."
You already tore the rug out from under my feet. There's no need to step on my broken body and crush me.
Chris cleared his throat. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "Really, truly sorry. I know that doesn't do anything to make things better or reverse what has happened, but there's nothing else I could tell you."
"I don't think you can take all the credit for it," Leonard replied icily. "There were two parties involved, remember? I'm not some sort of victim of yours, Chris."
Or at least not in the sense that you're hinting at…
"Aren't you?", Chris asked softly, then shook his head. "This doesn't lead to anything, Leonard. It just… hurts. You should… you should leave now. It'd be better."
Leonard stared at him.
I cannot believe this!
"You can't do this, Chris!"
"I have to." He seemed dazed, as if he was in some kind of trance.
Leonard stared at him blankly; feeling as if he had been stabbed, blood gushing from his chest. Then he turned around and stormed out of the apartment into the night.
"For heaven's sake, Bones, what do you think you're doing? Are you trying to drown yourself, or what?" He lifted his head out of the water, only to see Jim standing at the pool's edge, a mixture of annoyance and concern in his frown.
"I needed some exercise."
"Exercise?" Jim snorted. "I've been watching you for twenty minutes and the warden informed me, that you've been in here for the last three hours. That's not exercise, Bones. That's a new form of self-flagellation. Whatever you're trying to prove here, it can't be healthy. Now, get out of the water!"
"I'm not trying to prove anything," Leonard replied stubbornly. "I just need to shape up a little."
"Bullshit. You need to get out of the water and tell me what the hell is wrong with you. I'd threaten to tell Pike about it, but he left for Rio this morning – some sort of conference thing, or so they told me."
So he's gone, Leonard mused, feeling strangely empty at the thought.
"He wouldn't care anyway."
"Yeah right. Who do you think you're kidding? He's evolved into something of a guardian angel for you. It's almost scary. If we weren't talking about Pike, I'd say he's insane and in some sick way obsessed with you."
Jim looked at Leonard in concern, then a thought seemed to cross his mind, leaving its traces on his handsome face.
"Shit. This is about him, isn't it?"
Leonard said nothing, but climbed out of the pool on shaky legs, reaching for a towel.
Jim moved towards him. "Did you have an argument?"
"No."
He busied himself with the towel, turning his back on Jim, but his friend wasn't fooled.
"I guess that means, yes", Jim concluded. "What's the matter, Bones? Trouble in paradise?"
Paradise? Nice joke, kiddo…
"More like another dimension of hell."
Jim stepped to his side, reaching for his shoulder. Leonard drew back a little.
"Damn. Tell me."
"No."
"You want me to guess?"
"No."
"Did he cheat on you?"
"No."
"Did he hurt you some way or other?"
"Dammit, Jim, just leave me alone!" Leonard whirled around, ready to hit him or worse, but Jim caught him, restraining his arms, wrestling and fighting back until exhaustion, both physical and emotional, caught up with Leonard and he dropped limply into Jim's arms.
"You're not crying, are you?" Jim's alarmed voice reached him through the fog. "I'll kill him!"
"What for?" Leonard muttered. "Me being an idiot? That's hardly his fault."
"You're not an idiot. Last time I checked, love was not on the list of mental illnesses."
"Love? How did you… how do you know…?"
"Took me some time," Jim admitted. "I actually thought, he was the one in love with you, but seems that I was wrong and it's actually the other way round. Am I right?"
Leonard just nodded.
"I don't see the problem, though. Not yet, anyway. Granted that Pike's about the last person I'd fall in love with, but then, to each his own… will you tell me what happened to throw you back into your near-suicidal stage of three months ago…?"
Leonard swallowed, then told him everything.
For a moment, Jim was silent, but it didn't last very long. "Crap. Didn't I tell you some time or other never to get sex and love tangled up? Sex is about fun, love's about commitment. So you slept with him…? Ah – no need to go into details, really, I'm not into guys, especially if they are twice my age… jeez, Bones, this is bad. Couldn't you have fallen for someone a little less difficult? The psychologist for example? She's a freak, but at least her behavior is pretty coherent. You can't say that about Pike… what's all this about taking care of you, watching over you, making sushi for you, taking you to receptions and sleeping with you just to push you away in the end and leave?"
"Trust me, Jim, if I knew, I'd tell you…"
Jim tried his best to be helpful. He would not leave Leonard's side for the rest of the afternoon and the following few days, attempting to cheer him up or at the very least keep him busy and his mind occupied with other things. He went as far as to enlist Nyota's and even Anya's help.
Yet it would not do. Leonard found no comfort in their company. Neither Jim's attempts to distract him, nor Nyota's soft and caring bedside manner would do anything to console him. As for Anya, she seemed upset and more than a little annoyed herself, though her anger appeared to be directed primarily against Chris.
„This was not how things were supposed to turn out," she muttered, grinding a dry leaf she had picked out of one of her plant pots to dust. „I warned him. Heavens know I warned him. And now he's ruined it. My work of the last three months! All ruined..."
Though Leonard himself agreed with her on this account, he was not too fond of her way of speaking of him.
„You talk about me as if I were some piece of art you molded and that Chris broke."
She raised her head to look at him for a second, a hint of approval in those strange colorless eyes. "Exactly. Because that's what it's really all about, Leonard."
„Thanks," he growled. „That makes me feel one hell of a lot better."
Anya waved his comment away with an impatient hand. „I probably should have done more than just warn him. But I hate to interfere in these things... and I thought something good might yet come from it. Chris' involvement seemed to stabilize you somewhat."
„That is, until we got too involved," Leonard muttered darkly. „Right up to the point where I fell in love with him and he pushed me away and left. Which is something you could try and explain to me, being a psychologist and all..."
Anya snorted. „He left, because he's a fool and a coward. No, let me rephrase this – he's a fool, but it isn't exactly cowardice. It's him going into his self-denial mode again and getting all moral about things. It's him trying to control a situation that's already way out of hands. He let it escalate to this point and he knows it and feels bad about it. So now he's trying to punish himself for it. Which leaves you in the worst possible position."
„Yeah, I happened to realize that."
„Fools. You're both fools."
„Jeez, thanks Anya..."