They were meeting at the little café that Bones and Jim liked to frequent ever since Uhura had told Jim about it. Sam had called on the previous day to get the coordinates they would need. He and Aurelan would be staying in a hotel that Pike had suggested about thirty minutes from the Academy by foot. They would be arriving by shuttle craft around one, and they were supposed to be meeting Jim, Bones, and Joanna at two, that way they could have enough time to stop by the hotel and drop their bags off.
It was already two fifteen and Jim was getting a little anxious. He kept going over everything that could go wrong before they even got to the café, thinking that maybe Sam and Aurelan had backed out at the last minute, or that they had ridden in a cab with a driver who got all sorts of turned around and even as they sat there and waited, Sam and his fiancé were on their way to Los Angeles. His leg was practically bouncing a mile a minute, the coffee that usually didn't affect him wreaking havoc on him.
Nine years, nine long years of never seeing each other face to face. Nine years of short video conversations and bleached letters that spoke of absolutely nothing. It wouldn't surprise him if Sam had backed out. They were brothers by blood, and strangers in every other sense of the word. The love they felt for each other was awkward, made awkward by distance, shared memories, and generally growing up in a household where there wasn't much love to be found. That love had never been enough to make either of them want to see the other. It had kept them in their different states, almost like they were being punished for it.
The last time they had seen each other face to face, Jim was fifteen, angry at the world for something that the world hadn't necessarily done to him, and Sam was eighteen, unable to remain still and thin in a way that was just due to forgetting to eat or maybe not always having enough money to eat, but still fuller than Jim was. Sam had been talking, science and facts and the likelihoods of when Jim would be okay enough to walk out of the hospital on his own, despite the fact that Jim could have walked out the very first day. He may have been starved and two seconds away from being a tightly wrapped skeleton, but he could walk. He had always forced himself to walk, even when the will had been waning just as much as he was.
Jim didn't know what had caused him to snap, really. Sam had just been talking to him, trying to take his mind off of Tarsus IV and the horrors Jim never remembered telling Sam about, but knew he had at one point. Jim flew off the handle, though, his words hazy in his mind, but really, in light of nine years of coping and dealing, was just him taking out all of his frustration out on his brother simply because Sam had been there. Angry, hurt, and most of all sad, Jim just unleashed a torrent of sharp, hateful words on his brother, and ended with the accusation that if his guilt was the only thing keeping him there, Sam could go; Jim didn't need anyone's pity.
Jim remembered that Sam had looked stricken and then ashamed. He had at the time chalked that up to Sam's being caught, but as long years went by, as Tarsus was pushed further and further away from his conscience, he knew it had been something else, something far more innocent and undeserved, a sort of survivor's guilt. He started talking about post traumatic stress disorder, listing facts about brain waves and neurotransmitters and all things science, because there had never been anything else in Sam's mind. It was always science and anger, one or the other, and sometimes both at once.
Jim had told him to get out and not to come back, post-traumatic bullshit be damned. He just didn't want to see Sam's face.
Sam, whether by force or by the fact that he just was never sly, was always easy to track though. It was why he had been called when neither of Jim's legal guardians could make it to his side. Two years later, hurting for no reason at seventeen, tired of his crowd and his drinking and his sexual partners and completely content to simply stay in his apartment next to the crazy, old man who had moved out a year later and opened up the apartment for Maggie Jay to move into, Jim tracked down his brother's address and found his console number, sending a small short letter. There was no apology. Jim had never been good at apologizing. He hadn't really expected the response, hoped silently, but tallied up all of the Kirks and used-to-be-Kirks to being silent.
Sam had replied a week later, vague and devoid of emotion as much as Jim had been in his missive.
Bones settled his hand on his knee, casting him a concerned glance. Joanna was coloring on Jim's old padd, her face the perfect picture of concentration, the tip of her tongue poking out between her lips. Every so often, she would hold up her creation for Bones or Jim to inspect and then she would continue coloring, her scribbles bright and vibrant, not a neutral color to be found. Jim watched her, letting her calm, unaffected coloring sooth him along with Bones' thumb rubbing firm circles into his thigh.
"Jim," Bones whispered beside him.
He looked up into murky green eyes, waiting patiently for his blue eyes before they flickered toward entrance of the café. Two people had just entered, looking around the small shop. Jim felt his nerves pick up and he grabbed the hand still lingering on his thigh, a moment of reassurance passing between the two of them with the tightening of fingers around each other.
Sam looked ridiculously tall, his thin frame making him seem never endingly tall, though he was only maybe an inch or two taller than Jim. His long blond hair was in a ponytail again, just as it had been over the last two transmissions they had participated in. His clothes matched, or matched more than they normally did. They definitely hadn't been his picking. The woman beside him, Aurelan Laurent, Ph. D. was short, or shorter for the standard height of the woman he knew, a little rounder. She, too, had blond hair, cut shorter than his brother's to fall along her jaw. She was dressed sensibly in black slacks and a demure green blouse that peaked above the collar of her black jacket.
Jim raised his hand for them. Why, he wasn't quite sure. They were already heading towards their table. He stood as they tread closer, Bones with him, and Joanna stopping her coloring to look up at them curiously.
For a moment, Jim couldn't think what to say. All of his networking abilities short-circuited at the prospect of seeing his brother in person, in flesh, after nine years. He stayed where he was, a table's length between his family and what would soon make up Sam's, a dividing line, like there had always been.
Sam continued having trouble meeting his eyes, his own blue eyes, so much like their mother's, flittered everywhere except Jim's eyes, too much like their father's. He at least was able to string two words together. "Hey Jim."
Simple, yet efficient. It broke Jim out of his turmoil. "Hey Sam. You must be Aurelan," he said, pushing that ever familiar and totally fake smile to his face, knowing it looked real enough. She nodded, holding her hand out politely for him. She had a firm grip, and she met Jim's eyes in a way that said she met everyone's eyes, no matter how uncomfortable the situation.
"I am," she said with a smile that looked just as fake as his felt, more nerves than anything else. "It's a pleasure to meet you!" Jim noticed momentarily that her Standard was nearly without dialect, clean and clear as a computer's tone, but without the lack of emotion.
"Likewise," he said. He turned to his left, where Bones was still standing. "This is my partner, Leonard McCoy." He had almost practiced saying that in the mirror to let his tongue get used to that phrase, muttering it under his breath randomly over the previous week. It flowed much easier than he had expected it would, almost like a vice loosening from his throat. His smile felt just the slightest bit less constrained as he turned to their little girl, staring up at the two newcomers with wary eyes. "This is our daughter, Joanna." She continued to stare at them, but Jim didn't force her to say 'hello,' though it probably would have been a good idea.
Aurelan shook hands with Bones, and he gave her a polite 'nice to meet you, ma'am.'
"How was your flight?" Jim asked as he sat back down, refraining from waving to the other two seats, even when Sam and Aurelan hesitated in taking them.
Aurelan took her seat first, the one closest to Joanna in the round table, though her seat was pulled closer to Bones', a continuation of a habit Jim had started. Sam followed her lead, folding himself sharply into the seat and folding his hands into his lap. He looked all of twelve, an age Jim barely remembered of him between the worse memories he had at his immediate disposal. The sight somehow warmed him nonetheless.
Aurelan glanced at Sam, her dark brown eyes roving over his features. She must have seen what she needed because she answered Jim after a brief, silent exchange. "The flight was fine, thank you. Not a hiccup to be felt."
A young man, Terran and looking totally and completely bored, came to ask for her and Sam's drink orders, giving them a momentary reprieve. He asked Jim and Bones if they needed anything, staring at their half-full glasses with distaste. It was easy to see he was not thrilled with this job. Jim ordered a bowl of fruit for Joanna, but kept his glass as it was, as did Bones.
Jim took a deep breath, trying to think of something, trying to call up the never ending charm everyone always said he had, even when they were calling him names behind his back. Even Riverside had said he was a good conversationalist, partially blaming him for ruining the reputation of their precious town, partially blaming the women and men for falling into his wiles. But always, they agreed that he was tactful, a smooth talker.
Aurelan kept glancing at him, between him and Bones, and occasionally at Joanna, who had crawled to her knees to better see everything, despite the fact that she was on a booster seat. Jim thought about asking Bones to set her down on her bottom again, but she wasn't hurting anything. He wondered what Aurelan was thinking, or what she knew about them. She probably didn't know that much. Sam didn't even know that much.
Sam knew that he had been pregnant when he was nineteen. He was the first person Jim had called after Maggie had told him. Jim had been so gob smacked that he tried calling for his family, tried to see if they had ever known that he had the ability to conceive a child. That call was one of the only times Jim ever remembered Sam picking up on the first call, instead of playing phone-tag for a week before they caught each other at the right time. He hadn't known what was happening to Jim.
Sam didn't know who Bones was, and thusly didn't know that the man beside him, the man reaching to set Joanna correctly in her booster seat, was that same man who helped conceive Joanna in the first place. So, Aurelan couldn't know who Bones was, not really. She probably didn't even understand that Joanna was Jim's, really his. He was not entirely sure he wanted her to know.
Their waiter came back with the ordered drinks and a little fruit medley for Joanna, giving a bare hint of a smile when she thanked him in her cute little voice.
Aurelan took a sip of her tea, while watching Joanna pick through her grapes and apple chunks, pulling pieces from the bottom of her bowl for reasons only known to her. The older woman smiled. "How old is she, again?" she asked, looking to Jim. She didn't look at Bones, focusing all of her considerable attention on the man she knew was half of Joanna's DNA.
"She'll be three in December," he answered.
She nodded a small smile on her face that didn't seem too forced. "So, does she like being around in Starfleet?"
"Aurelan…" Sam intervened, finally joining the living again instead of simply staring between everyone with an expression that said science was much easier to deal with.
It was pretty much then when Jim knew that this meeting could only get more awkward. This was just going to be made of so much win. Aurelan looked at Sam with confusion, unsure when she had suddenly breached his 'don't-talk-about-this' zone. He just shook his head minutely, his eyes begging her to just let it go. Her lips pursed.
"Sammy, we came here to talk. I'm just trying to get to know them," she murmured quietly, tugging her short hair behind her ear with an air of impatience. "I'm getting the ball rolling."
"Can't you pick something else to start with?"
"Like what?"
Jim and Bones' gaze pivoted between them, Bones intrigued, like he was collecting pieces, and Jim just watching.
"I dunno," Sam said quietly, looking to the table to fidget with the tablecloth. Like a kid. "Why don't you tell them about your work or something?"
She sighed, pulling at her bottom lip with her canines. She glanced at the two of them, her eyes gazing at them beneath her dark lashes. "I'm not sure they want to hear about my work. It's…it's just herbal medicine. No one but you wants to hear about that."
Jim was quick to jump in. "Don't be ridiculous. Of course we do," he said with an encouraging smile. "This isn't just you meeting us, Aurelan. We're meeting you, too. Besides, Bones is a doctor. He loves to hear about all that medicinal stuff."
She looked between them and Joanna and Sam, as if checking for some sort of cue. Then slowly she told them about her work on the same herbal medicine Sam had told them about two weeks before. Apparently she thought that she was very close to a breakthrough, having tested it on her own blood, Sam's blood, and her friends' blood to have several different references. Jim understood the basic science of it, but he wasn't sure of all the botanical, and serum names she kept using. Bones however was eating it up. Jim watched the two of them for ten or twelve minutes, before Joanna hopped out of her seat and walked around Bones' seat.
He watched her curiously, wondering what she was up to. She walked up to his right side, where she had more room to maneuver and tried to crawl into his lap. She was halfway up when Jim decided to pull her all the way on his lap. "What are you doing, Jo-bear?" he asked quietly.
"I colored you a picture," she whispered, or tried to whisper. It was actually what most would consider an inside voice, but compared to her normal voice it was practically silent. She handed over his old padd, showing a sheet that if colored properly would probably resemble a chicken with a nest of eggs. As it was her picture kind of looked like a scribble of rainbows, almost appearing to be a butterfly yet falling short of some of the basic structures.
It was still beautiful, though, and he saved it to his padd. He readjusted Joanna on his lap, whispering, "That's very pretty, Jo-bear."
He kissed the crown of her head, looking up to see Sam's curious and scientific gaze roaming between he and his daughter. Jim briefly wondered what he saw before he turned his attention back to the conversation between Bones and Aurelan.
+ststst+
They went to Sam and Aurelan's hotel suite after meeting at the café. They had carefully ignored the idea of going to Jim's suite at the Academy. They were actually carefully pretending that the Academy didn't even exist. It was quite a feat considering they could all see the Academy from the bay window of the room.
They sat around the room, Bones and Joanna in the bay window, Jim in the extra seat, while the other two sat on the bed. Sam was awkwardly telling Jim about his attempts to find a job in Seattle. Apparently, being a scientific genius only went so far when one didn't have a degree and had practically been a hermit for the past ten years. Jim was trying to think of ways to help him, but so far everything he had thought up needed confrontation of some sort and Sam was firmly against that.
"Well, couldn't you go back to school, then?" Jim suggested, hunkering down in his chair, which were less comfortable than the chairs of the last hotel he had been in, in New Orleans. He thought about making the comment to Bones, but it could wait until later, after they had gone home.
Sam sighed, glancing at Aurelan, who said, "That's what I thought! He could probably test out of most of the classes. He would only really need to take a few Honors courses and maybe write a thesis. And!" she continued exuberantly, "He could probably take self-study classes over the internet. He wouldn't even really have to see other people."
She sounded really proud of herself and a little smug about the fact that Jim had said exactly what she had suggested. She crossed her arms over her chest raising an eyebrow at him as if to say, 'well?' Sam stared at her, obviously trying to find a comeback, but failing. He brought a hand up to play with his moustache, a habit meant to buy him time if the way Aurelan's eyes followed the movement were anything to go by.
Jim paled a little. His brother was trying to get his fiancé riled up right in front of him. Holy god, he had never been so glad they skipped this when they were teens, but this was definitely not better late than never. He didn't even know his brother had it in him. He was so abstract with everything else. Science preyed on his mind. Jim was honestly a little shocked Sam knew what sex was. He was honestly a little grossed out.
Jim looked over to his family, where Bones was making faces at their daughter. Joanna giggled, unbelievably quiet, and reached up to push at his face. Almost as if it were a button, Bones changed his face again.
"Stop that!" Aurelan demanded, ripping her eyes away from Sam's lip finally. Jim almost let out a relieved sigh. Things were awkward enough without him clearing his throat, or try to sneak out unnoticed. She looked over at Jim sheepishly, a hot blush on her cheeks. "I'm sorry. I don't know what got into him."
Jim smiled a little uncomfortable. "Don't worry about it." He looked over to Sam, who cleared his throat a little.
"Really," Bones said. "Jim can be just as bad."
Joanna laughed then, though Jim was sure she had no idea what she was laughing at. She just seemed to be laughing at everything Bones said that hour. Jim smirked.
"I have no idea what you're talking about, Bones."
"Of course you don't," he said with a scoff and a heavy roll of his eyes.
When Jim looked back over to the bed, Aurelan had a small smile on her face, staring curiously between the two. "How long have the two of you known each other?"
He felt Bones' gaze on him, and saw out of the corner of his eye Sam also coming to look at him. Jim didn't blink. He hadn't been expecting this question so soon, but he had a good enough story to give her until he decided when or if there would be a good time to tell both her and Sam the truth behind he and Bones.
"We knew each other a while back, but we really reconnected when we both came to Starfleet," he answered vaguely.
It seemed to appease her well enough, but he could see that she wanted more of the story, that she wanted to know a lot of things. It was only what she would ask next, what she felt was more important. She glanced at Sam, who still looked at Jim, sparing a glance to Bones, curiously. He must have been wondering how they met, but Jim didn't think Sam was comfortable enough to bring anything up.
"So, you've been together since the beginning of September?" she finally settled to ask.
Jim gave a nervous laugh. "It was a bit more complicated than that," he said, casting a brief glance toward his partner. "I was pretty hesitant at first."
"Resistant is more like it," Bones supplied, pulling Joanna into his lap. She didn't seem too thrilled with that, wiggling around and trying to literally become boneless.
Aurelan watched Joanna for a long time, something flickering in her eyes when the little girl let out a small holler of discontent. Jim felt something defensive building in his chest at that glimmer, expecting her to ask something that made Joanna seem to be more of a burden. He really hated those types of questions, and was glad he didn't get them that often. She looked back at Jim, though, assessing him briefly and she must have seen the defensive set of his jaw.
Instead of asking something about Joanna, she changed some of the words around. "Do your classes make it difficult to be together?" she asked innocently.
Sam glowered at the hotel sheets, a sneer twisting his lips. "Talk about something else," he demanded, adding only as an afterthought, "Please."
Aurelan frowned, her dark eyes gazing at Sam curiously. There was obviously a lot she didn't know about, a lot that she didn't understand about Sam. Jim worried about that, worried that she would be driven away with all of the things that Sam couldn't talk about. Sam wasn't that skilled when it came to people. Jim didn't want to think about how he would handle it if Aurelan left. Not to mention that he sort of liked the woman. She seemed to genuinely care about Sam, and very interested in getting to know more of his family for the sake of their future despite the fact that she had to have known this would not go over smoothly.
Jim sighed. "Sam, she's just trying to make conversation. This is awkward enough without putting bans on what we can and can't talk about. She isn't asking what the politics of Starfleet are. She just wants to know how we're adjusting to the classes."
"I don't wanna hear about it," he growled, eyes lifting yet still never meeting Jim's. He glared hollowly at the wall behind Jim's chair, his jaw working tensely. "I don't even want to think about it. It sucks enough as it is being in this stupid city! I don't want to have to consider what you're doing in Starfleet and what it'll eventually make you do."
He narrowed his eyes at his brother, a little thrown off. "What's it gonna make me do, Sam?" he asked, leaning forward in his chair.
Aurelan looked between the two of them, her features marked somewhere between irritation and uncomfortable. "We can just talk about something else…" she offered, her eyes looking to Jim in apology.
"No, hold on," he said, holding up his hand. "He has something he wants to say. What is being in Starfleet going to make me do, Sam?"
Bones called out for him, asking him to let it go for now. Jim couldn't, though. He wanted to hear Sam say it.
"Forget it."
He glared at Sam. "No. What is it going to make me do? What kind of extraordinary power does Starfleet have that I won't have a say in what happens to me? Obviously, you know. What is it?" His brother refused to answer. He continued glaring just past Jim's shoulder like the newest scientific breakthrough was waiting for him there, the cure for Jim's inability to understand what he was getting at.
Jim knew exactly what he was saying, though. He could see it in the hard, hollow eyes that refused to meet his gaze. Sam worried that he would become like their mother, as if somehow, Winona wouldn't have been half as bad had she simply not been in Starfleet. The truth of the matter was though, Starfleet or no, she would have found ways to leave. She would have found ways to escape her children and Starfleet just made it that much simpler.
Joanna made a cry of protest. Jim looked over to the window seat she and Bones had been sitting at to see his daughter trying to wiggle out of Bones' grasp. Bones whispered in her ear, trying to calm her, but she squirmed regardless, trying to get to Jim.
He sighed. "I'm not our mother. I'm not going to abandon Joanna," he told Sam as he stood. He walked over to his family, letting Jo crawl into his arms. Bones looked at him with concern, but stood up; knowing instinctively that this visit was finished for now. "We're gonna get out of here."
Aurelan nodded mutely, surprising Jim by standing from the bed to see them out the door. Sam didn't move; he only shifted his eyes from the wall to look at the bedspread again. Once they were all outside the room, and the door had been partially shut, and the dividing line between Jim and Sam in place once more, Aurelan said, "I didn't think it would be like this. I knew you two didn't talk that often, but…"
"Don't worry about it," Jim said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I knew it wouldn't be easy. I apologize for goading it on. No one should be stuck in the middle of a sibling argument." He said it to her, but he meant it for Bones and Joanna as well. He hugged their daughter a little tighter to him, feeling a brief, reassuring touch ghost over his shoulder.
She pursed her lips, dark eyes glancing back into her shared room. "Still…" she countered. "I understand a little of where he's coming from, but it would be so nice if he could have more connections. He's so sad sometimes. He just sits in his lab and calculates new formulas. He didn't come out for an entire day once!" She looked so sad for Sam, and Jim could see her trying to stick it through with his brother. He really hoped Sam gave her enough reason to carry on at his side. Especially when she said, "I don't want him to leave with terms like this. If we could…if you're willing, would you have dinner with us before we go back to Oregon?"
He shrugged. "I don't mind," he said. "If he doesn't mind my company again."
She nodded. "Okay, well…I'll talk to you tomorrow with the details."
They parted ways, Aurelan returning to the room. Before the door closed, Jim caught the briefest flash of Sam coming out from around the corner with the expression of a child that knew he or she was in trouble. Jim hoped that he wouldn't be too adverse to one more meeting, but as Joanna pulled away to ask, "Are you okay, daddy?" he realized that if Sam was going to meet with him again, he wouldn't make Jim feel like he was a bad parent.
He brushed her hair with his hand. "I'm fine, Jo-bear. Thanks for asking."
"You're welcome," she said seriously, her little voice making Jim smile.
+ststst+
Jim was sitting on the sofa, pointedly trying not to think about anything that had happened earlier that afternoon. He had chosen instead to relax, reading over Eight's Relativistic Physic work in between playing a few games of chess against the computer and watching Joanna slowly roam closer to the holoscreen. Bones had gone off in search of food with a frown creasing his brow, saying he didn't want 'the usual,' Chinese or pizza. He didn't even want anything from their little café, though that was to be expected since they had gone there for lunch.
Vaguely, Jim wondered what Bones planned to do when he found this new place, and if he was just going to guess what Jim and Jo wanted to eat. Not that it would be hard. Jim would eat anything that he wasn't allergic to, and sometimes he would even test those boundaries, and Joanna would eat anything as long as it was simple. Still though, it would be nice to have a choice in his food. He considered comming, however his communicator was all the way across the room and he was really comfortable.
He remembered having a lot more energy at one point…
Joanna squealed in delight, bouncing in front of the holoscreen and clapping her hands as a humpback whale splashed in the ocean with her calf. It was an old documentary, but Jo didn't seem to mind in the slightest.
He felt a spark of energy flare up inside him, warming him as he watched her. He pulled himself up from the couch, dropping the padds unceremoniously onto cushion beside him. Easily, he stepped over the table, coming up behind his daughter in an instant before he picked her up off the floor. The squeal of delight she had given earlier was nothing in comparison to the shocked shriek she gave, though it was shortly followed by laughter.
"Daddy!" she hollered when he began twisting her around in circles, careful of the coffee table and the holoscreen but not much else.
Still twirling, he answered her. "Jo-bear!"
"Stop it, daddy!" she demanded, though she couldn't have been too serious because she was still laughing and she looked far too excited from what Jim could see through her flying hair. She had also flung her arms out, her trust completely in him not to drop her.
He couldn't imagine loving someone more than her. Couldn't imagine leaving her for this job or any other job. He sure as hell couldn't imagine just not talking to her ever again, like she was just some sack clothes, a doll or toy that he had outgrown playing with. He kind of hated Sam for insinuating that he was in any way like Winona, because he wasn't. He would do anything to stay with his daughter, to protect his daughter. She was his life. And if Starfleet wanted to post him on a damn ship then they better have rooms that come with toy boxes because he wasn't going to leave her behind.
Jim pulled her back to his chest protectively. "What do you say?" he asked, pressing a big noisy kiss to the side of her head.
She didn't even pause. "I say, 'now.'"
Well, that was a new one she picked up. His brows climbed upward. "Really?"
"Uh huh." Absolute nod and everything, even a small pursing of her lips to finish the look.
He pushed her back into the air, and her limbs dangled freely. For a moment she looked like a little ragdoll staring down at him with his eyes and a smile that could easily eclipse the sun. He looked up at her for a second before shaking her around in the air, not violently, but enough to where her giggles vibrated.
"What d'ya say now, little girl?" he asked with a fake growl.
"Again!" she yelled and he obeyed, jostling her in the air.
When she commanded one more time he took her to the couch and tossed her down, making sure to steer clear of his padds. With her on the couch, he quickly began tickling her, dodging little, kicking feet and batting away defensive hands, all together relishing in the shrieks that permeated through his suite and hoping that the walls were really as sound proof as he had been led to believe. She let out various yells of 'daddy' and 'stop it,' one time she even called, 'popsicle!' forgetting that Bones had gone on an expedition for newer foods.
When he figured that she had had enough, he sat down on the couch beside her, pulling her into his lap. Jo continued to wriggle in his arms, but when she realized that he would no longer continue tickling her, she settled down, slumping into his lap as though no more than a sack of potatoes. She rested her hands on his arm, shocking Jim by how much she had grown as well as how small she still was. She was so smart and sassy that it was sometimes hard to believe that she wasn't even three. At the same time though…it couldn't have only been three years ago that he brought his crying bundle of joy into his teeny apartment in Iowa, Maggie following behind him and instructing him on how to hold her while she rushed to prepare some milk for her.
He could never leave her. Hell, he could hardly stand being away from her for more than a day.
Squeezing her to him again, he said, "I love you, Jo-bear. You know that, right?"
"Yeah," she responded with a resolute nod. She turned her head up to look at Jim, one hand going up to touch his jaw. "You can put me down now, daddy."
He hummed, almost giving it consideration. "I dunno. I think I'll keep you right here."
Jim was sure that she would struggle, and she did for a moment or two before looking up at him with a pout. She didn't say anything, though. Huffed definitely, because she was Bones' daughter and certain things demanded huffing. Then she settled and within twenty minutes they were both asleep on the couch, Jim having rearranged them when he realized he was not going to last until Bones returned back to their suite. He carefully pushed the padds out of the way and turned her so that she could settle her head easily into the crook of his neck. He was sprawled across his couch with a bundle of tired little girl when Bones returned home from his wild mission, having stumbled upon a Greek diner about four blocks away.
+ststst+
Joanna fell asleep easily that night. Bones estimated that the new people and excitement had worn her down, because normally she would not be put in bed before nine and that usually took some coercing. That night though, she crawled onto her mattress at eight thirty, pulling Sellit by the tail into her arms and under the blankets with her. Jim had only read about three pages of Robin Hood to her before he could hear her breathing even out.
After he had ordered the lights lower and turned out some music for his benefit as well as hers, he wandered back into his room where Bones was already waiting on the bed. He was in his sleepwear and he was holding a padd though it didn't look as if he were reading it. Instead he stared off distantly into wild beyonds that weren't visible to anyone but him.
He startled when Jim crawled up the foot of the bed, gently prying his knees apart so that Jim could sit, Bones' knees bent over his thighs. The doctor raised a curious eyebrow at him as his hands travelled up his inner thighs, gently stroking, massaging. "What were you thinking about?" Jim asked.
Bones threw the padd onto the bed beside him carelessly. "Just some things that happened today," he said, brows falling down into a frown.
Jim's hands slid over his hips, to either side of his chest, hovering over Bones. "Yeah, I should probably apologize about that. I didn't think it'd be so…" he shrugged, trying to think of the proper word. "Loud?" he tried.
"Oh," Bones said, eyes widening just a little. "That hadn't even crossed my mind. I was a little surprised Sam let it fester for so long."
"What d'ya mean?"
Bones sighed, hands reaching up to rest on Jim's shoulders. "He damn near looked ready to spit nails the entire time we were in the café. Just the thought of Starfleet gets him riled up and it was easy to see when he remembered where he was and why he was there. There were a few times when we were talking, Sam would look out the window and just glower at the city like it was the cause for all the evils in the universe."
The choice of words was great, and Jim chortled at them. "Were you ogling my brother or something?" he asked after a few poorly concealed chuckles. Bones pinched his side, rather violently if you asked Jim, and he yelped, withdrawing from Bones' immediate vicinity with gusto. "The hell, Bones!" he asked while rubbing his side.
The doctor rolled his eyes. With a deep put upon sigh, he continued. "You know, I think he's trying."
Jim was the one rolling his eyes then. "He's very trying."
"I don't mean it like that. I think he's trying to be accepting of you, trying to find out how to mesh into your life again, even though he's clearly uncomfortable with it. It's just to do that he has to slowly enter in new calculations. He's very scientific, it seems."
Jim let out a bark of laughter. "You can say that again."
Bones continued on with his musings, heedless of what he had said. "It doesn't make sense in his equation of you that Starfleet has taken so much from you, and yet you enlisted in Starfleet. You've changed from an equation to an inequality with an absolute value and no consistency at all."
Jim considered Bones for a moment, before considering the words he had actually said. "I'm pretty sure that still has a solution, two at the very least, but still a solution."
"Whatever," Bones groused. "I'm a doctor, not a mathematician."
"Oh, bullshit. I've read your file," he returned, gently shoving the doctor's shoulder.
He looked ready to argue and then it must have clicked exactly what Jim had said. His face screwed up in confusion, he demanded, "Why?"
"You read mine." He shrugged as if it were no big deal.
"I'm your…nevermind." Jim could tell that he had only been a stone's throw away from ranting about how he was his doctor and thusly had the right, but Bones was apparently learning that it was useless to argue some morals with Jim. Bones knew what was in his file, and a lot of what wasn't, and Jim knew what was in Bones file. It made sense in Jim's head. Bones readjusted, wiggling his ass against Jim in the most accidental way. "What I'm saying is you're not who he thinks you should be and for some people it's hard to accept. He is trying, though."
"I'm sure he'll be happy to have you on his side," Jim said with a fond smile, rubbing the doctor's calves. He, too, was happy to have Bones defend his brother. It felt good to know that everyone was participating in the entire 'trying to understand siblings and their significant other's' thing. He loved Bones all the more for it.
They sat in silence for several moments, Bones' only response having been a small hum of acknowledgement before he slipped off into thought. Jim continued stroking his calves, absentmindedly. It was then, in the silence, that he remembered that Bones had originally been thinking of something else entirely.
He repositioned them again, laying nearly his full weight on Bones and smiling at the 'umph' of protest that Bones gave. "So," he said, balancing his elbows on either side of the doctor. "What were you thinking about when I came in?"
He became almost boneless beneath Jim, relaxing completely into the mattress beneath him. "You said, 'our daughter,'" he said, almost dreamily with a small smile quirking his lips upward. He looked up at Jim, his murky green eyes shining with all those emotions that Jim had never wanted to categorize before this, that lost flicker in his eye when they had been on the shuttle so long ago. Adoration and love, what he had always tried to give Jim, even when he should have been throwing the biggest tantrum known to man.
"She is," Jim told him, trying to convey all of his conviction and responding feelings. "She always has been. Even when I was alone, it wasn't like she lost your half of the DNA. It wasn't like you just stopped existing when I went back to Iowa; you just stopped being tangible, is all."
He thought about Joanna and how much she looked like Bones, how there had never been a doubt in his or Bones' mind just who it was that she had belonged to, despite the fact that male pregnancies were not that common. Some part of Jim's mind waxed poetic about how maybe Bones had always known on some deep subconscious level that they had shared a child. Seriously, coincidences like getting onto the exact same shuttle as Jim didn't happen. It was almost like they had both planned it, had both waited for that moment to reunite.
He then slapped himself, mentally of course, and thought of more important things, like the look Bones was giving him, and how he kind of never wanted that look to go away. He decided on several things that he had never even consciously been aware that he was considering or even forgetting to consider.
"Move in with us?" Jim asked, though it sounded to his ears to be more of a demand. "All the way, like bring all of your things over here and never have a reason to go to your suite again."
It was a big step and Jim's heart pounded hard enough that he was sure that Bones must feel it against his own chest. He had never asked anyone to live with him. Had never even considered it before Bones. He had to remind himself to breathe evenly, for god's sake. A feeling of foolishness fell over him as he waited for the answer and he actively worked not to take the entire thing back, letting Bones' look him over, trying to make himself convey the fact that he really wasn't crazy and he really did want this.
"Okay," Bones finally said.
"Okay?" Jim parroted, his brows lifting in disbelief. "Okay? You made me wait all the agonizing seconds just to give me an 'okay'?"
"What did you want? Trumpets?" Bones asked, smirk taking his features. Apparently, their sappy moment of the evening had expired.
Jim moved to push himself up only to be prohibited. Bones wrapped him in a strong embrace, one hand sliding easily through Jim's short hair and guiding their lips together. They both smiled as they kissed, lips nearly permanently upturned even as gentle caresses took the forefront of their minds.
"I love you," Bones mumbled against his lips, barely breaking away and barely speaking loud enough for Jim to hear.
He did hear it, though, and he tried to express his returned sentiment without words.
Before they fell asleep for the night, wrapped in their sheets and Bones all but covering him completely, Jim made a mental note to start correcting Joanna's paperwork on Monday, changing her over from Kirk to Kirk-McCoy.
+ststst+
At dinner the next night, with Joanna in Archer's clutches for the next few hours, Sam surprised them by asking what track both Jim and Bones belonged to in Starfleet. When Jim glanced over to Aurelan, she had a happy look on her face, though she wasn't really smiling. Under the table, Jim grabbed Bones' hand and began answering Sam's hesitant and, admittedly, begrudging questions.
+ststst+
(just dance!)
InnocentGuilt