Thank you to everyone who read, reviewed, alerted, favorite, and lurked! You are all wonderful and deserve good fortunes in life.

Silly college is silly. And time consuming. I will try to update fairly regularly, but I don't have as much free time as I would like so I will do what I can to update on a regular basis.

Notes: This AU takes place about 20 minutes in the future in San Francisco. I'm not sure what sort of "verse" it is yet, so if anyone has any ideas, please let me know! Also, I rated this T because there's nothing too bad except for McCoy and Kirk's language. I don't think it's strong enough to warrant an M rating, but if anyone has a problem with it, I will up the rating.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek. BUT I DO OWN A SULU PLUSHIE THAT I MADE FOR MY SISTER. He's adorable and I love him.

Four months later and the pictures still hadn't made their way out of the packed box gathering dust in the corner of his apartment.

Work at the hospital carried on as usual, as it always would. Nurse Chapel had taken to admonishing McCoy about how much drinking he had done the night before. Even when he wasn't hung-over, she still seemed to be able to tell.

But, dammit, he did his work and he did it well. What the hell else mattered?

He woke up, did his work, paid the alimony checks on time.

Everything was as normal as it had ever been since he was forced to come to motherfucking California.

Except, he hadn't had a burger in four months.

July twenty-ninth was slowly approaching and even though the ex wouldn't allow him to talk to his own daughter, it wasn't Joanna's fault and he wanted to buy her a gift. He would buy one anyway because Joanna was his daughter and he loved her, but something about being forced to do it pissed him off.

"And don't forget, my daughter's birthday is coming up," that nasally voice sounded through the phone line.

"Our daughter, you right hateful bitch," he answered, slamming down the phone.

As if he wouldn't buy her a gift. Damn women.

He stood outside a store with a predominately pink exterior, internally debating with himself. Sure, he could probably find something in there for Joanna, but at what cost? He'd have to actually enter a fucking pink store. He'd probably vomit unicorns and glitter for a week if he stepped foot across the magenta-painted threshold.

"Morning, sunshine," sounded a voice off to the side.

He whirled around to see Kirk smiling like a fool beside him. Unable to do much more than stand there, he just stared with a raised eyebrow at the man before him.

"I'll bet you never thought you'd see me again," Kirk said, echoing a statement from much earlier. (McCoy wasn't sure why either of them remembered.) "I saw you standing here and thought I'd say hello."

"Thought you never visited the same place twice," McCoy finally said, remembering something Kirk had told him once in one of their random conversations.

"Not always," he responded, waving a hand absently around his face as he turned to face the pink building. "I never took you as a tea party man, Bones."

"Present for someone," McCoy answered with just as much vagueness as Kirk had.

"Unless that someone is brain dead, I doubt they are going to want a present from here," Kirk stated as though he knew all the answers in the world. Without another word, he gestured to McCoy to follow him as he began walking down the road to an area of town McCoy hadn't been to yet.

And McCoy followed. He didn't really want to go into a pink store anyway.

"Let me buy her something," Kirk pleaded for about the tenth time.

Somewhere down the road from Mainstreet to Chinatown where Kirk had led him to, McCoy had told him the present was for Joanna. How Kirk had managed to wheedle that bit of information from him, McCoy did not know, but Kirk seemed to take it in stride and didn't ask any uncomfortable questions.

And by "not asking any uncomfortable questions," that meant he didn't ask a damn thing. McCoy was actually pretty grateful for that one.

"Why the hell would you want to buy her something?" McCoy asked, looking at a collection of jewelry boxes. They were shaped like Chinese food take-out boxes, covered in various bright colored silk with gold and silver embroidery.

He examined a purple one with silver embroidery depicting some strange symbols he couldn't decipher. Purple had been her favorite color when he had left Georgia months ago. Probably still wasn't. Too much had changed, he knew that for damn sure.

Kirk seemed to understand his dilemma and pulled the purple box from his hand and replaced it with a red one with gold embroidered dragons. Much better.

"Well, if you buy her a jewelry box, she needs something inside of it, too," Kirk explained as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

McCoy didn't understand why this man felt the need to edge his way into McCoy's life, but nothing Kirk had done so far made any sense at all. McCoy found he was learning to deal with it.

Needless to say, when Joanna opened her jewelry box, there was a gold necklace nestled at the bottom with a pendant in the shape of a Chinese symbol that meant daughter.

McCoy had to admit, Kirk had pretty good taste.

Chinatown wasn't exactly his favorite place to be and there was a plethora of reasons why he hadn't gone over in that direction since he had moved to San Francisco, but Kirk had a way of making even the most mundane acts seem like an adventure.

By the time they left Chinatown, they had alienated three storeowners, they had flirted with some of the hot Chinese girls in the vegetable markets ("Oh, I've seen better cucumbers."), and they had purchased a few low-grade Chinese porn DVDs from a shady man in a shady alleyway. Just to mention a few things that had happened, one way or another.

And by they, McCoy meant Kirk. But it had actually been pretty enjoyable anyway.

"Time to take me home, Bones," Kirk decided in a loud voice, causing several people to turn heads. Kirk never seemed to give a reason as to why things were supposed to happen, he just seemed to go with whatever his gut told him. And apparently, his gut told him to go back home.

Probably to watch that fucking porn, McCoy thought, raising an eyebrow to himself.

"I told you, don't call me Bones," he grumbled in vain.

Kirk knocked his two elbows together in response, causing McCoy to roll his eyes.

"And where the hell is home for you, anyway?" McCoy asked, realizing that he still didn't know much about Kirk despite having spent another afternoon with him.

"Well, not so much a home as just a place to stay. The Ritz-Carlton," Kirk answered after thinking about it for a while. Although, McCoy assumed with all that traveling, it was no wonder he couldn't keep hotels straight. "Staying there until Friday."

McCoy gave a low whistle as their tired feet smacked against the pavement beneath them.

"How's a fresh-faced bastard like you afford that?"

"I'm a gigolo," Kirk dead-panned, staring at McCoy for a long second without blinking. Then, his boyish face split in a huge grin, clearly joking. He practically bounced ahead with a few quick steps and McCoy realized his question was about to go unanswered. Again.

"Whatever," he muttered, following the gold-haired boy-man as they each headed back to their own not-so-much-a-home-as-just-a-place-to-stay.

The apartment greeted him with its usual darkness, the lights flickering as he flipped the switch. He'd have to replace those light bulbs soon.

Dumping one of the still-unpacked boxes onto the floor, winter clothes falling onto the threadbare carpet, he packed up Joanna's birthday gift. He signed the birthday card he had left on his tiny, one-person kitchen table and threw it into the box as well. He could have taken it down to the apartment's mailroom then, but he stopped.

Maybe Kirk would want to sign the card, too. He did, after all, buy that necklace for a little girl he didn't even know. It might raise a few questions as to why a strange man was in the habit of buying McCoy's daughter a joint-gift with him, but shit. Let them talk. He didn't give a damn what the ex and her fucking family and friends thought any more.

If he saw Kirk before he left again on Friday, he'd have him sign the card. Screw whatever consequences.

Before falling into the unmade bed, McCoy fished out a framed picture of Joanna. It just made sense that Kirk should at least see what she looked like if he bought a necklace for the girl.

And if he put it on his desk where he could see it plainly, well, that was only so he wouldn't forget to show Kirk.

Kirk left Thursday morning instead of Friday and McCoy can't figure out why anyone would spend that much money on a hotel room when they're not even going to use it.

It was wasteful and excessive and damn well stupid to spend money like it was going out of style. He told Kirk all of this, too, over the phone.

How Kirk got his phone number, he didn't want to know. But that kid had ways that he didn't even understand and he was slowly learning not to question anything.

Probably got all buddy-buddy with Nurse Chapel on Wednesday when he stopped by the hospital to visit McCoy. McCoy should have known she'd be a sucker for blue eyes and a charming smile.

But Kirk just laughed off the admonishment and said he'd drop McCoy a line the next time he showed up in San Francisco.

"And when might that be?" McCoy questioned, hating himself for actually really wanting to know the answer. If nothing else, life was a bit less mundane when Kirk was around.

"No idea. I just sorta show up whenever I feel like it," he answered. McCoy could hear the shrug over the phone. "Sounds like you'll miss me."

Yep, that's a definite swagger in his tone. Cocky bastard.

"Fuck you."

The phone call ended shortly after, but McCoy was pretty sure they had ended on good terms. He really couldn't tell.

But Kirk had signed the card and it was on its way to Georgia, so the week hadn't been a total bust.

I want to know what you think! Please, take a few moments to leave a review! Please? I have strep throat (I think) and could really appreciate the pickmeup.