Jim came to consciousness unwillingly, already aware from the sharp antiseptic scent of the air and the soft beep of machinery that he was in a hospital. Fucking great. But, he noted, for once in his life he was in a hospital and he wasn't cold, wasn't in agonizing pain, didn't have anything shoved down his throat and did not seem to be restrained. There was indeed an ache deep in his chest and around his ribcage when he inhaled, and yet he seemed to be cocooned in warmth, curled in a comfortable position on his side.

Huh.

He opened his eyes experimentally, took stock of the situation. It was dark, just sunlight pouring through cracked blinds in windows somewhere behind him. Jim wrinkled his nose at the feel of an oxygen hose across his face, and when he moved his arms cautiously under the covers he could feel tubing drag along with him. An IV attached to the back of his left hand, which was warm as the rest of him under the blankets; he was practically weighed down with blankets. Bones was slumped in a chair next to the biobed, chin on his chest, breathing evenly in a light sleep.

Bones, Bones, Bones. Bones gripping his arms, supporting him as he maneuvered himself clumsily into a wheelchair. Bones snatching a Hypo of Death from the hands of an unwitting medic. Bones pressing a cannula under his nose with warm fingers. Bones inserting an IV with the barest of stings, rather than digging around for a vein like some people he knew. Bones pulling more blankets around him as he drifted into a hazy sort of trance. Bones's soft accent, telling him not to fuss right now.

Desperate anxiety welled up in Jim's chest as he stared at the dozing man, constricting his heart for a long moment. Bones didn't need to be here, burdening himself with Jim's problems. He had enough on his own plate between the stress of leaving his daughter behind in Georgia, the hours he worked at the hospital in addition to a full time curriculum at the Academy, and whatever ghost it was that haunted him from his father's death. On a more selfish and vain level, Jim didn't really want Bones to see him like this.

God, it was pathetic. He was on the command track; he wasn't supposed to be susceptible to stupid things like allergies. Of all the bullshit. Unfortunately, Jim knew himself well enough to know he was unwilling to admit his own insecurities, so he already knew that he would quietly submit to Bones doing doctory things and wouldn't broach the subject of getting someone else to do it again. And in fairness he was more comfortable right now than he had ever been in a hospital setting. Maybe Bones wasn't like the rest of them.

This morning's events had been odd in more ways than one, though. Bones had missed class for him and was now sleeping in a hard chair next to his bed on a day when he wasn't even scheduled to work in the hospital. He could be at the apartment, sleeping in his own bed, while another doctor monitored Jim. For that matter, a ton of the stuff Jim remembered him doing was stuff nurses usually did; the IV, the blankets, the finger pricking. Why hadn't Bones just delegated the tasks to someone who was on the clock and gone home? In fact, he'd sent the nurse away after she'd brought in the tank of nitrous, hadn't he?

Shit, the nitrous. Jim made a mental note to remind Bones again of what a fucking genius he was. Jim had been injured more times than he could count, had endured bone knitters and dermal regenerators without so much as an aspirin due to his allergies. Not once had anybody been creative enough to think of something like this. He felt a little giddy and high, but noticed no other side effects, and it wasn't a drug. Just a harmless gas, just air. He was going to buy Bones dinner every night for the rest of the year, and probably the rest of next year too.

He lay quietly in the silence for long minutes, making a guess from the position of the sun that it was probably about midday. His last solid memory was of sitting in a coffee shop with his notes. Had that been yesterday? The day before? He didn't remember going to the hospital but he remembered waking up in one, hardly able to breathe, grappling with an orderly after pulling out an IV that was probably full of sedatives and antihistamines. Waking again with Bones standing over him, telling him to cooperate, walking alongside his wheelchair down to the ambulance.

The whole situation was a little weird. Jim knew, in his head, that Bones was a doctor. He knew from just chatting with him that he'd grown up working in his father's practice in Georgia, finished med school in half the time, had his own practice before most med students would have finished their internships. It's good to have a head start, he'd said. Still, Jim had never actually seen him doing his job and he wished he could have kept that disconnect. He knew it was his own hangup, but fuck doctors.

… Man, he really had to pee. There was a door just a couple of feet from the left side of his bed that was most likely a bathroom. He knew the IV stand could follow him, but doubted that his oxygen hose would reach all the way. He stretched under the covers, wondering if an alarm would sound when he pulled it off. He didn't want to wake Bones with it, but he didn't want to wake him up to get permission to take a leak either. Hmmmm.

After some deliberating, he pulled the hose away from his face and left it on the pillow. He'd have to go sometime, and Bones couldn't sleep forever. He was going to have a nasty crick in his neck when he woke up as it was. Jim slipped out of the bed, gripping the IV stand for support, and padded quietly into the bathroom. He relieved himself quickly and splashed water on his face from the sink with his free hand. The other had the IV stuck to it, weirdly, with purple sports wrap instead of tape.

His face in the mirror was positively ghastly, pale with veins showing around his eyes. He tried to push his hair back into an acceptable kind of order, but gave up when he realized that the dull ache in his chest was morphing into something much more unpleasant. He was leaning heavily on the IV stand when he made it back to the bed, pain shooting through his left side as if he were actively being stabbed. Ooof. He'd had worse, but crawling back into the covers was no fun.

"Funny thing about nitrous," drawled a voice, and Jim looked up to see Bones smirking at him in the stripes of sunlight, "When you stop breathing it, it stops working."

Jim sighed. "Sleepy Bones one, Stealthy Kirk zero." He pulled the tubes back up to his face, around his ears. "I really, really had to piss, ok?"

"Yer fine, kid." Bones rubbed his face with one hand. "Pike just commed me, he'll be here in a few minutes. Says he's got your lunch and a new jacket for you, since yours spent the night in a dumpster and all."

Jim flushed a little, but didn't really have any defense for that. He did not know how his jacket had gotten into a dumpster, even if he did know that Bones had probably flipped his lid several times over. He settled back down into the bed as the nitrous took effect again and the pain faded to something very tolerable. Bones was so awesome. He fought back a stupid grin. No wonder it was called laughing gas.

Pike arrived within just a few minutes, bearing Jim's jacket plus food and bottled water for the three of them. Bones adjusted the biobed so Jim could sit up and eat what turned out to be a generous styrofoam bowl of shepherd's pie. Mashed potatoes with beef, onion and blackeye peas. Jim didn't feel particularly hungry, but Bones was watching and he remembered their agreement: eat lunch, rest quietly, go home tonight.

He ate. Bones updated Pike on Jim's condition and his plans to let him go back to the apartment that evening. Jim had mostly zoned out of the conversation, having nearly emptied his bowl, when a bespectacled man in 'fleet Medical whites appeared in the doorway.

"Dr. McCoy," the man nodded, "Captain, Cadet."

"Dr. Fitzgerald," Bones turned to the other two, "this is the hospital's main director."

"Ed Fitzgerald, M.D." said the man. "Look, I've got to cut to the chase here." he looked from Pike to Bones to Jim, then back to Bones. "Why are there reporters outside the front entrance, and why do I have an angry message from Grady Ross Memorial about a couple of Starfleet suits kidnapping one of their patients without appropriate paperwork?"

Bones just gaped at the man. "Reporters?"

"Christ," muttered Jim. He put down the spork he was eating with and buried his face in his hands. If they got his face onto the holonets he'd probably have to leave the damned Academy. The Admiralty had already determined that no such disruptions would be allowed. Fuck, fuck.

Pike stepped up, since clearly Jim's pity party and Bones's gaping were useless here.

"We did not kidnap Cadet Kirk," he said smoothly, sounding very professional in Jim's opinion, "We simply removed him from an unsafe situation. We don't owe Grady Ross anything, especially considering that they picked up a young man in partial 'fleet uniform and then failed to notify us that they had him. His roommate was up worrying all night. You may tell the reporters that we have no comment on the situation, and if anyone failed to follow protocol it was Grady Ross themselves."

"Cadet Kirk. That explains what they were saying about us holding the Kelvin Baby hostage."

Jim bit the inside of his cheek so hard it began to bleed, but didn't say anything. Bones didn't open his mouth either, but his eyes were suddenly completely round with surprise. Jim waited for him to look over, but he seemed to be making a point of avoiding Jim's gaze.

Pike rolled his eyes dramatically. "The Kelvin Baby is on some god-forsaken farm in Iowa. You think his mother would let him have anything to do with Starfleet after what happened to his father?"

"But..."

"Kirk's a pretty common name, ain't it?" Bones chimed in. "In fact, since the Kelvin Disaster I'll bet there's a ton a' Jameses and Georges runnin' around here that wasn't before."

Jim remained frozen where he was, lunch forgotten, having nothing useful to add. He wasn't sure if Bones believed what he was saying, or if Pike had said something to him, or if he was just following Pike's lead. Either way, Jim was buying Bones dinner every night for the next decade.

"Look," said Pike, patting the befuddled Dr. Fitzgerald on the arm, "you can pull up his chart and see that it's not him. Just tell the reporters they've been sent on a wild goose chase, and tell Grady Ross that we'll deal with them when we can."

"Very well, but I'll be expecting a full report on this, McCoy." Fitzgerald exited stiffly, looking skeptical.

Bones stared after him for a long minute. Then he turned around to Jim, still frozen in place, and—

"Please tell me that ain't vomit." Bones was already standing up and reaching for him before Jim realized that the place he'd bitten was bleeding enough to be leaking from the corner of his mouth. He shook his head.

"I bit mahself," he said, trying not to spray blood everywhere, and Bones was disentangling the oxygen hose from him, telling him to go wash his mouth out with cold water. He didn't ask what had prompted the self-injury, and Jim was grateful. He obeyed quickly, a wave of guilt washing over him. I am going to give Bones a heart attack.

Jim took a moment to breathe after the bleeding stopped, before he exited the bathroom on shaky legs. This wasn't nearly the shittiest day of his life, but it was the shittiest one he could remember in the last six months. Who was he kidding anyway? He could have spent the rest of his life getting drunk in Bumfuck, Iowa and nobody would have blinked an eye.

Without the nitrous the stabbing pain in his side was back, but he climbed back onto the bed and let Bones fix his covers and oxygen without complaint. Pike paced back and forth, yelling into his comm unit.

"No, that isn't what I said." he was saying. "There's been a security breach with the Kirk boy and I need somebody down here for damage control right now."

This was definitely a conversation Jim wanted to pay attention to, but Bones was leaning over him with gloves and one of those stupid tiny flashlights, so he opened his mouth obediently.

"That'll be fine with a dermal regen," he said, touching the controls to flatten the bed down, "so I'm gonna go ahead and turn the nitrous up and fix that and your ribs. I don't like to do this without pain reliever, but..."

"S'okay." Jim reached out to pat the doctor's arm clumsily, not liking the guilt in that voice. "I've done it all before."

"It's going to hurt," Bones said honestly, "But hopefully you're going to be pretty high, so you won't care much."

"What kinda high?" Jim grinned and then stopped, because fuck his mouth hurt, "I don't want bad trip, Bones."

"I'm not for sure, really," Bones said, fiddling with the gas tank. "Never tried it myself. Little kids will say they feel like their hands are floating. You might just fall asleep. Be still, take deep breaths."

This didn't feel any different than before, really. Jim focused on Bones, on gloved fingers on his face, on the familiar heat of a dermal regenerator wand against his cheek. Pike was still talking, a rumble in the background. Then there was the whirr of a bone knitter against his ribs, sharp but distant pain, a warm hand gripping his own, and he really was flying—

He woke some time later, in darkness and quiet and warmth. He wasn't flying, but he was good enough, and he didn't want to open his eyes and face reality. The possibility that Bones knew who he was, that the Admiralty couldn't cover it up anymore, and that he might be on his way back to Iowa within a matter of days.

He must have made some sort of noise, because suddenly there was motion at his side and he opened his eyes to find Bones there. Poor guy looked like hell. Probably didn't get home from his shift the night before until midnight, probably was up early beating down Pike's door, probably hadn't caught a break since that chair nap he'd had before lunch. How long had Jim been out? He raised a hand to his face, feeling fuzzy and foolish. The oxygen cannula was still there.

"What happened?" he mumbled, realizing that Bones was sitting the bed back up for him.

"You fell asleep," Bones handed him a styrofoam cup of some kind of juice. "You're fine. Feel any pain?"

Jim shook his head. "My chest aches a little. I'm good."

"The bruising there is too deep for the dermal regen to reach it. It'll ease up in a few days."

Jim nodded, looked around. "Where's Pike?"

"He had to go to a secret meeting with the Admiralty. Said he'd check back as soon as he could."

"Christ."

"They got Admiral Marcus to come stare down the reporters. That guy is scary as fuck."

"Word." He sipped the juice. "So...?"

"So as far as I know, you're in the clear." Bones sat heavily in the chair beside the bed, where he'd been dozing earlier that morning. "Marcus and Pike swore me to secrecy, granted me access to your medical files, and disappeared."

Fucking great, that was what he needed. For Bones to see his stepfather's abuse, to see Tarsus IV, to see two suicide attempts and all sorts of shit that he wanted to put behind him. For Bones to feel sorry for him, to treat him like an invalid like everybody did after they knew. Fucking bullshit, why did his whole life have to be such bullshit?

Bones was looking at him. Had he read it already? Probably not, or he'd be asking a million questions.

Instead all he said was, "What's that weird face for?"

Jim hadn't realized he was making a face. He looked down at his lap, at his juice, anywhere but at Bones. He didn't want to say it out loud, because it would be an affront to his pride and an admission that his self-esteem wasn't what everybody thought it was. He was supposed to be a cocky bastard. But given all that had happened in the last day, did he not owe his friend the truth?

Yeah, he did. Dammit.

"I just." Jim paused. Grow a pair, Kirk. "I didn't want you to see it, is all."

Bones frowned. "Why not?"

"Can't tell you."

Now the older man just rolled his eyes. "Look, I started helpin' at my dad's practice when I was four. All the patients thought I was the cutest little nurse's aid. I've seen a lot of shit since then, and I promise there's nothin' in your file I ain't seen before."

"And I promise there is stuff you haven't seen before," said Jim, trying not to sound petulant, "But it's classified for a reason, and there might be security cameras in here. We can't talk about it."

"Oh." Bones eyed him suspiciously. "Very mysterious, but fair enough."

"So you haven't looked at it yet?"

"Nah. You're out of danger right now and I'm too tired for it to sink in. I'll read it tomorrow, there's no school and Pike pulled me off the ER rotation so I can stay home with you."

"You don't have to do that," Jim said quickly, but Bones cut him off.

"The only reason you're not spending the night here is that honestly I don't feel like it's safe." He pointed at the door. "The first dumbass in scrubs that comes through that door with some Tylenol could put you right back where you were last night, and I can't have that. Besides, I could use some time to catch up on my homework. I can get extra hours over the holidays, I'm sure there's going to be all sorts of shenanigans that turn up in the ER."

"But you've already done so much," Jim insisted, "You've even been in here doing the nurse's job when you could have been asleep in your own bed, instead of fiddling with oxygen and setting up IV's—"

"Yeah, but did it hurt?"

"What?"

"The IV. Did it hurt?"

"... not really, no."

"That's 'cause I'm better at it than some damn nurse."

"And you're so humble about it, too."

Bones grinned. "I calls it like I sees it. They can learn to get that shit right the first time or get the fuck out. It'll be fine, kid." He laid a remote control on Jim's lap. "Find something on the tv to watch, take a nap, do whatever. I'll find you a PADD to read on. We'll be out of here in a few hours, get you settled on the couch at home, and I'll order us pizza."

"No," Jim took the remote. "I'll order us pizza."

Bones nodded. "Deal."

A/N: So, this was a short story that's been bouncing around my head for weeks and it JUST. WON'T. QUIT. so I had to write it to get it out of my head. I think there's an actual plot brewing here, because obviously Kirk is going to have to be outed to the Academy as being THAT Jim Kirk before the events of the 2009 movie, since everybody already knew by then. Right now it's all hush-hush. I want to work in a Spock cameo if I can, to complete the trio, and who knows where this is going? But please don't get your hopes up for a conclusion anytime soon, because I have a feeling that this is going to... meander. Merry Xmas and stuff. ~Nausicaa