A Star Trek Fiction

"The shattering of a heart when being broken is the loudest quiet ever."

Break but Shatter

if i hurt will you protect me?

Letting Jim cry himself to sleep isn't the only mistake Leonard made during Jim's downfall to chaos. Only if the good Doctor had stepped up when he needed to, Jim would still be Jim.

The reckless blond currently steers the Enterprise back home, informing them all over the ship's speakers that they were called back to port in at Earth, which made everyone have puzzled looks on their faces. They're on a five-year mission, why are they heading back now?

Leonard should have seen the pain building up behind Jim's eyes as they slowly got closer and closer to Earth. He should have pulled Jim aside and shielded him from the anguish, but he sat back and stared as Jim's fracture grows wider and longer, creeping into the aspects of his personality, hindering his decisions and words.

Spock seemed profoundly concerned of the Captain's apparent disposition, for Jim barely spoke nor ate during the trek home.

McCoy kept brushing it off, trying to reassure himself that Jim is just going through a phase and that his strapping Captain will be back in no time. But Jim only slides into deeper depression, allowing his fears and anxieties determine his next course of action.

Now Bones is failing as a friend, he's watching Jim fall apart before his eyes. And even though he vowed all those years ago to guard Jim and to break his fall if he ever got knocked down, he finds himself staring and wondering when he become so apathetic.

Jim needs him, so he steps up and tries to confront the blond. But it's too late; Jim brushes him off just as easily as Leonard had leaving Jim to cry himself to sleep.

Bones knows he can try harder, to push the blond until he forms a new crack in their friendship so Jim will give in, but he's afraid if he shoves too hard that their relationship will completely shatter. So he doesn't pry further, he's left gazing after Jim, pondering how they've gotten so close, yet so far away from each other.

Now not only has Leonard left Jim vulnerable and crying, but now he has failed to protect the blond from himself. So now looking back at the past couple of weeks, McCoy can understand why Jim shattered into so many pieces…and deep down he knows it's his entire fault.