Happy New Year's, everyone! Hope the year is starting out great for all of you.

Okay. I know this chapter is way overdue. And I am so very sorry about that. If any of you are in college, then I'm sure you understand. November to December was filled with final papers and finals. And when I finally got done all the studying (it paid off though! All A's and B's!), I came home for Christmas. The holidays are fun, but very time consuming. Those of you who can manage to do all your work and still write, I applaud you. I have yet to acquire that skill.

Anyway, I just want you all to know: I am not abandoning this story. This story will be finished. To repeat, I am NOT abandoning this. I will try to update at least once more before I have to return to school.

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: Thanks to Santa, I own the first season of ST on DVD! I also own a Chekov action figure. He hangs out with my sister's Sulu figurine. However, I don't own the rights to Star Trek. I also do not own the rights to Frank Sinatra or the Beatles.

McCoy was smiling slightly, something he had been doing more often since his calls with Joanna had become more frequent. He listened as a chipper voice chatted away in his ear, the owner of the voice hundreds of miles away in a farmhouse in Georgia. The conversation was nearly over as he knew she would need to go to sleep soon and so he was not surprised when Joanna yawned loudly and told him she had to go.

"Mommy says I need lots of sleep this week!" Joanna said with sleepy excitement.

"And why is that, baby?" McCoy asked, fully expecting an answer that involved her dance classes or some test that she would have to take later on in the week.

"Oh," Joanna paused. An uneasy silence followed.

"Joanna?" McCoy prompted, leaning forward in his seat, ready for her response.

"Mommy said I'm not supposed to tell," Joanna whispered guiltily.

"She told you to lie to me?" McCoy asked, his eyebrow furrowing. That bitch.

"Well, she said that if I kept it a secret, she'd get me one of those big chocolate bars from the Whistle Stop Café," she finally revealed, a hint of worry in her thin voice.

McCoy debated with himself for a total of two seconds before he went against every good-father-instinct that he had.

"I'll give you two big chocolate bars if you tell me," he promised, wincing. He could not believe he was bribing his daughter. Even worse, he was stooping to his wife's level.

"Mommy might get mad at me," Joanna said slowly. But from her tone, McCoy knew she was tempted by the idea of twice as much chocolate.

"No one will be mad at you, sweetheart," McCoy promised, leaning even further in his seat.

"Well," she paused. McCoy pictured her sitting cross-legged, chewing her lip indecisively. Then she sighed heavily and McCoy knew she had relented. "Mommy's getting married on Saturday."

When it came to how McCoy felt about Jocelyn, he had always been as certain as the sun about his emotions. Infatuation, love, deep love, content (Well, shit, that was a long time ago, wasn't it?), contemptuous, that ugly gray feeling before anger, anger, more anger, so-fucking-mad-at-yourself-and-everyone-and-everything-around-you-that-all-you-can-do-is-drink anger. And of course, just plain pissed off. Oh, and bitter. Can't forget bitter.

But this was new to McCoy.

At first he thought he was angry. Because, well, wasn't he always angry when it came to her? But no, this was new. He felt lost and his facial muscles were tense from concentrating on how best to handle this situation. Was he mad at her for not telling him? Yeah. Sorta. Right?

But this was her new life. A life he wasn't part of anymore, thank the good Lord. She could do whatever the hell she wanted and he did. Not. Care. He wasn't mad, he wasn't annoyed, he wasn't even jealous. In the back of his mind, McCoy always assumed he'd be at least slightly jealous because isn't that how you are supposed to feel when the woman you couldn't make happy feels happy with someone else?

But instead, there was this sense that everything was moving on. He felt less guilty because now she couldn't blame him for all the unhappiness in her life anymore. As though the divorce papers and the cross-country move weren't enough of a hint, McCoy realized that things were finally over.

He wasn't pissed off. He wasn't even happy. He was just neutral and a little more relaxed.

Well, maybe he was a little pissed that she bribed their daughter so that Joanna would keep a secret from him. Then again, he bribed her to tell the secret, so maybe he could let Jocelyn slide on that one.

"Bones?"

McCoy started from his position on the couch as the voice on the other end of the phone line spoke hesitantly into his ear.

"What?" he snapped, a little annoyed at having his thoughts interrupted.

"I asked how you felt about this whole Jocelyn-getting-married thing and then you stopped talking," Jim explained with the air of someone not sure if they should be confused or amused.

"Dammit, Jim, I'm trying to figure out how to explain it," McCoy muttered before taking a few more moments to mull over his response.

"Jim?"

"Yeah, Bones?"

"I don't care."

There was another silence, though this one came mostly from Jim's end of the phone.

"How can you not care?" he finally asked incredulously. "I mean, she was your wife! She kept information from you!"

McCoy could tell that on the other end of the line, Jim was probably gesticulating excitedly, scaring whoever had the misfortune of sitting near him at the ski lodge he told McCoy he was at. ("It's a nice shindig here, Bones. All log cabin-y and there's hot chocolate all the time.")

"We've both moved on," he answered with the sound of a shrug in his voice. "I don't really have anything else to say on the matter."

If he really thought a definitive tone of voice was going to stop Jim from responding and asking more questions, then he hadn't been paying attention for the past however many months.

"When's the wedding?" Jim prodded after a half-second's worth of silence.

"Saturday, you idiot," McCoy relented, shaking his head with disbelief. And if he wanted to be honest with himself, there was a bit of fondness, too.

"Right. Cool," Jim said on the other end of the line, clearly ignoring the insult. "I'm flying back to San Francisco. See you Thursday."

There was a click and then the conversation ended before McCoy could even ask why on God's green Earth he was coming back to San Francisco and what the hell did that have to do with the wedding?

But the other end of the line offered no answers and there was no blonde man laughingly telling him to wait and see.

Now he had nothing to do but wait until Thursday.

The clock could not tick fast enough, it seemed. Between every patient he saw, McCoy would glance at the clock and marvel at the fact that only a few spare minutes had slowly passed by. All the empty spaces of time when he wasn't dealing with some inane medical problem ("My little boy put a vitamin in his nose and now I can't get it out. Will he be alright?"), he would sort through papers and fill out all the basic charts he had been neglecting for the past few days.

A quarter 'til seven and he still had seen no sign of Jim. Granted, he hadn't told him he was working, so he might just be hanging out in the apartment waiting for McCoy to return.

Probably making a mess of things and looking through my medicine cabinet. Or else he saw something in a skirt through the window and went chasing after the poor lady like a dog.

McCoy leaned against the rounded edge of the semi-circle desk found in the receptionist area in his wing of the hospital. The receptionist, Joseph, handed him a small pile of papers, each detailing the patients who had passed through that day.

"Hello, Nurse," Joseph greeted cheerfully as a flash of uniform blue registered in McCoy's peripheral vision.

McCoy looked up to see Chapel walking towards them with a tired smile on her face. Her sneakers squeaked against the smooth tiles and she ran a half-hearted hand through her shining hair.

"Hello, gentleman," she greeted in return, glancing between the two men.

"Long day?" Joseph asked, sympathetically.

"You don't know the half of it," McCoy answered as Chapel nodded vigorously.

"You've seemed particularly antsy today," she noted to McCoy with a question in her gray eyes. Leaning over the slightly cluttered top of the desk, she picked up one of the many clipboards and began making a few notations with the attached pen.

McCoy tore his eyes away from the clock (Nine minutes 'til seven) to give Chapel a "look." She raised her eyebrows in response and turned away to read her clipboard. Like hell he was antsy. He was just ready for the day to be over. Perfectly natural to want the work day to end. Perfectly natural, indeed.

So as he held the papers in his hand, passing through the dog-eared sheets to find the patients he had dealt with during the day, he heard a slight commotion from down the hall. All three looked up, watching to see who or what was going to arrive at the mouth of the hallway.

It was Jim. Of course. He arrived almost with a literal bang as he strode into the reception area with a broad grin. Winking at once at McCoy, he then turned his attentions to Chapel. Taking the clipboard swiftly from her hands and placing it on the desk top, he gently grabbed her shoulders and spun her around once before bringing her hand to his lips and grazing a kiss against her knuckles.

"My dear, you look more radiant each time I see you," he said with practiced ease. With his free hand he tapped a random curl that had fallen from her bun while giving her a once over. "Curly, blue, and lovely you."

Chapel smiled with a shake of her head and carefully removed her hand from his grasp to pat him on his cheek. The smile turned to a smirk as she faced McCoy before picking her clipboard back up.

Jim had just finished introducing himself to Joseph with a hearty shake of his hand before spinning on the spot to stand in front of McCoy. There were wet spots on his gray hoodie and raindrops clung to his eyelashes. If McCoy were a poetic man, he would have thought the raindrops sparkled under the hospitals lights like stars in the deep blue of his eyes.

Like McCoy had done so many times before that day, Jim looked up at the clock to check the time.

"Your Thursday shifts end at seven, right?"

"You know, some states would classify that as stalking," McCoy answered dryly.

Jim snorted at the comment, but did not deny the claims much to Chapel's amusement. Nothing more was said between them as McCoy fished out the last few papers he needed and handed Joseph back the left over pages for the other doctors. The pair said good bye and headed towards the exit.

"Have a nice time, boys!"

McCoy looked over his shoulder to see Chapel with a deviously amused look on her face.

Dammit.

"I hate the rain."

McCoy rolled his eyes as they entered the lobby of his apartment building. Jim had been bitching the entire walk home from the hospital. ("Buy a car, Bones!" "Why don't you have a job where you can work from home?" "What if we get struck by lightning?" "This is not the type of wet I like!")

"Dammit, Jim! It's drizzling," he gruffed as they made their way of the few flights of stairs.

"But I don't like the rain!" was Jim's elaborate response.

"Really? I hadn't gotten that already," McCoy shot back, his tone heavy with sarcasm.

"I'm just saying," Jim trailed off indignantly. There was a brief silence as they rounded the corner to the next floor.

"Gotta admit though, I'm surprised," McCoy said, breaking the rare quiet that surrounded them.

"Why?" Jim questioned with clear curiosity prevalent above the thundering sound of his footsteps as he charged up a few stairs to be side-by-side with McCoy.

"I always thought you were one of those rain-loving people," McCoy shrugged, shifting to the side of the stairs closest to the railing so that Jim would have more room.

"You mean the type that says stuff like 'those who say sunshine brings happiness have never danced in the rain'?" Jim asked with a roll of his eyes worth of something McCoy would do.

"Yeah, them," he confirmed with a chuckle, not even asking how Jim knew that quote.

"Bullshit," Jim said with a tone of finality. "Rain is cold and wet and annoying. Cars don't work, socks get soaked and uncomfortable, mud gets everywhere, hair gets all frizzy." He ticked off each offending fact on his fingers, brandishing them in front of McCoy's amused face.

Jim saw the smirk on McCoy's face and started to grin a bit himself as they arrived on McCoy's floor.

"It's fucking bullshit," he continued in a more conversational tone. "Rain is only good when it freezes into snow." He leaned against the bland, striped wallpaper sloppily applied to the hallway wall beside McCoy's door.

"Yep," McCoy shook his head as he dug through his pockets for his keys. Jim waved him aside and pulled out his own key to unlock the apartment door. "Never would have expected a response like this.

"Well, I guess you learn something new every day," Jim spoke with his usual smoothness with a single eyebrow raised cockily. He pulled the door open for McCoy and made a grandeur gesture for him to enter.

McCoy's long fingers flicked on the lights as they both piled into the small apartment. Jim wasted no time in falling onto the couch and kicking off his shoes. Eager to get out of his wet clothing, he shrugged off the gray hoodie and tossed it over to McCoy who caught it and hung it on the hooks next to door alongside his own wet jacket.

His fingers trailed over the gray sleeve, still warm from Jim's body heat. The worn fabric smelled intensely of Jim's usual musk and the cool rain from outside. It was a surprisingly comforting scent.

With a shake of his head and a cough to reorient himself, he turned on the spot and took several steps away from the coats until he could no longer smell Jim's hoodie. Jim looked up at him expectantly while poking his hands through the couch cushions for the television remote.

"What's up, Bones?"

"So did you book a hotel room or are you crashing here?" he asked as he strode over to the end of the couch not occupied by Jim.

"Oh, I booked a hotel room," he answered without looking up as he dug deeper beneath the middle cushion. Suddenly, a smile spread across his face as his hand re-emerged with the remote in his grasp.

"Which one?"

"Holiday Inn," he said cheerfully as he flipped through the channels.

"The one on the other side of the city?" he questioned with an obvious note of incredulity. "Jim, if you don't like the rain, you're not going to want to make the walk over."

"Right you would be, Bones. However!" he exclaimed with a devilish look on his face. His eyes honest-to-God flashed with some sort of giddy mischief as he grinned evilly at McCoy.

"However what?" McCoy annunciated slowly, his eyes narrowing with deep suspicion.

"This particular Holiday Inn is located in Georgia." Jim's voice was so thick with pride that it was almost palpable.

"Dammit, Jim!" McCoy near-yelled, practically leaping up out of the seat.

"We're going to Georgia," Jim continued to say as though McCoy hadn't said (or rather, shouted) a word. He skipped through a few more channels before finally settling on some station with Bruce Willis. "Ooh, Die Hard. Excellent."

"Jim," McCoy started with a growl deep in his throat.

"You're going to that wedding," Jim shot back before McCoy could say another word. From the corner of his eyes, he peered out at McCoy with definite determination.

"No," McCoy refused, still standing beside the couch and glaring at his friend.

"The reception, at least," Jim bargained, his gaze going back and forth between the movie and McCoy.

"No."

"Okay, picture it," Jim started, shifting in his seat to concentrate solely on McCoy. He dropped the remote in his lap and extended his hands to create a picture frame with his fingers. "Your little daughter is going to be the flower girl. Picture how pretty she'll look."

"I'll see photos," he told him dryly without skipping a beat. He could feel one of his eyebrows inching higher and higher on his forehead, making a bid for freedom.

"Yes," Jim agreed with a fair shake of his head before his expression became toothy and reminded McCoy of a car salesman or game show host. "But you will never get a photo of your ex's face when she sees you show up. That's something you have to be there to see. Think about it.

There was a pause in which the two men stared at each other. One with a grin made up of two parts victory and one part smug, the other with a slow smile of satisfaction spreading across his face.

"Dammit, Jim," McCoy muttered as he slid back onto the couch, his voice lacking the same fervor from earlier.

Understanding that, with those two words, he had won, Jim rubbed his hands together with approval.

"Excellent! Pack your bags tonight, Bones," he advised with a practiced air of one who traveled too often. "Tickets are for noon tomorrow. We'll get to the airport by ten."

McCoy nodded and got off the couch to find his old suitcase somewhere in the mess of his closet. He grumbled a bit to himself when he found it on the floor of the closet under all of his shoes.

"So," Jim continued offhandedly, his eyes trained on the television, "what's for dinner?"

The resounding smack as the flying sneaker hit Jim in the leg was particularly gratifying.

The rain from yesterday had not ended and little droplets continued to hail down. The raindrops glided down the cab windows and McCoy tried the old childhood game of watching different drops race each other across the glass in an effort to calm himself down.

Nope. Didn't work. His heart was still racing.

"Jim, if we die up in that plane, I am going to kill you," he hissed, too paranoid about the upcoming flight to really understand how ludicrous his threat was.

"Not gonna die," Jim promised with his sunny smile that belied the rain outside.

The cab driver glanced at them curiously, but continued the drive in silence. McCoy attempted again to focus on the racing raindrops as his hands gripped the edge of the backseat

That one is going to win. If the one on the bottom wins, I'll live through the plane ride.

The bottom one won the imaginary race. And somehow, that managed to slow his heart rate a slight amount.

The airport was too crowded. McCoy needed space to breath. But when Jim suggested going outside where there was more space, the thought of it suddenly seemed too open. They finally settled on an open-window area where they could watch the planes take off. Jim had suggested that it might calm him down to see plenty of other planes take flight without any problems. At first McCoy had rolled his eyes, but he had to admit that he was feeling much calmer than he had felt previously.

"We should probably head over to where we need to be," Jim advised, checking the time on the large clock on the wall behind them.

McCoy did not respond, but merely stood from his seat where he had been sitting with his elbows resting on his knees. Without taking his eyes off of the plane that was slowly making its way down its path before takeoff, he wrapped a shaking hand around the handle of his old, worn suitcase. The leather handle felt foreign against his clammy hand and he wondered, not for the first time that day, if it was too late to go back to his apartment.

Jim was watching him with a patient expression, his own bag in hand.

"You know, even if you don't want to go, I'm going. And I'll still go to the reception. Think of all the things I'll be able to say without you there to be my filter," he trailed off as his eyes took on a dreamy look with crafty smile coloring his face.

McCoy glared and marched off in the direction of their terminal. Behind him, he could hear Jim chuckling.

After they checked in their bags, it was about time for them to finally head onto the plane. The waiting room was slowly filtering out as more and more people boarded their flights. The room was marginally more open than it had been earlier that morning and Jim was taking advantage of his last few moments of space.

He spun around in a few circles, his arms outstretched around him like a child.

"Don't be an idiot," McCoy told him, fully aware that anything he said would do nothing to stop Jim from his mildly crazy antics.

"Still nervous, Bones?" he asked, bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet.

McCoy gave a half-shrug which seemed to convince Jim to cheer him up.

"You shouldn't be nervous," Jim reassured him. "Instead, do you know what you should do?"

"What?" McCoy responded without any real interest in hearing whatever cockamamie answer Jim might have.

"You should fly with me. Come fly with me, Bones."

"What?" he repeated, though this time he was genuinely unsure of what his friend was doing. He eyed him warily as Jim faked holding a microphone.

"Come fly with me, let's float down to Peru," he sang with what appeared to be his best Frank Sinatra impression. People around them looked over with expressions ranging between annoyance and amusement.

"Shut up, Jim," McCoy said as he grabbed his friend by the elbow and tried to pull him towards the terminal.

"In llama land, there's a one-man band and he'll toot his flute for you," Jim waggled his eyebrows suggestively as he sang the end of the line.

"I'm pretty sure that's not what Sinatra meant when he sang the song."

"Come on, fly with me! Let's take off in the blue!"

"You see all those people staring at you like you're an idiot? They're all right."

The pair continued singing and bickering the entire way onto the plane.

Somehow, the plane had managed to get into the air without any explosions. So far, so good.

Jim noticed that McCoy had stopped clutching the chair arms with a death grip and looked over at him with a broad smile.

"How are you feeling?" he asked in a low, comforting voice.

"I may throw up on you," McCoy warned.

Jim smirked and began rummaging through the pockets of his gray hoodie. The sudden movement sent a waft of his musk and rain towards McCoy who slowly breathed in the scent. After a few moments, he removed his hand from the cloth confines with an iPod in his fist. Humming something McCoy could not discern, he carefully unwrapped the ear buds from around the device.

One hand held the iPod, his thumb scrolling down various musical lists while the other hand offered an ear bud to McCoy.

"Wanna listen?"

McCoy took the ear piece, but only held it in his hand before asking "What music are you going to play?"

"The Beatles," Jim said, much to McCoy's surprise. Jim correctly interpreted the look on McCoy's face and began to explain. "I usually listen to music to make the flight go by faster. A couple of years ago, I found out that sometimes the people sitting next to me could hear the music, too. As much of an asshole I can be sometimes, I don't feel like pissing people off on the plane. So I listen to the Beatles."

"Why?" McCoy asked, placing the bud into his ear and waiting for the music to start.

"Because everyone likes the Beatles. I figured it would be a safe bet," he shrugged with a toothy smile that could charm the pants off a snake.

The two men fell into companionable silence as I Feel Fine began to play in their ears. For the next hour or so, songs of various Beatles albums played and kept McCoy's attention away from his aerial surroundings.

The beginning strains of Yesterday started before Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club replaced it. McCoy looked at Jim as though he had committed a crime.

"How can you skip a classic like Yesterday?"

"No sad songs," Jim insisted, refusing to go back to Yesterday. "Only upbeat songs."

"Some of the best Beatles songs are the slower songs though," McCoy argued amiably even as Jim shook his head.

"Enjoy Sergeant Pepper, Bones."

He rolled his eyes, but did not open his mouth again to refuse. The song ended and several more continued in peace until they were in the middle of I Want to Hold Your Hand.

Suddenly, there was a slight movement in the plane and McCoy's eyes flew open and his hands clutched the armrests until his knuckles were white with his intensity. His breath was haggard and through the haze, he could barely hear Jim's deep voice try to tell him that it was alright, the plane just made a turn, everything was fine, it was natural.

And slowly, the gray that had seeped through the edges of his vision were fading away and he could suddenly see the back of the seat in front of him. He could feel the seat below him and everything was humming gently, normally. It was okay. The lights were a bit bright in his eyes and his heart still raced, though he could feel it begin to relax marginally.

"You okay? Are you okay?" Jim asked with concern. McCoy felt something tighten around his wrist and almost began hyperventilating until he realized Jim's fingers were wrapped around his wrists. McCoy focused on Jim's pointer and middle finger over his pulse like a doctor's with his thumb almost covering the nail on his middle finger.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine," McCoy breathed with a sigh. He took a few more deep breaths before he smiled wobbly at Jim.

Jim nodded and grinned, seemingly reassured. He handed the iPod over to McCoy.

"Go ahead, pick one of your sad songs. This is your freebie."

McCoy gave a short snort of shaky laughter and took the iPod from Jim's warm grasp. He scrolled down the seemingly endless playlist until he finally found what he was looking for.

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been,

Lives in a dream.

Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door.

Who is it for?

Exhausted by the too-many bouts of fear in the short day, he fell asleep by the second verse. As he drifted off, he realized Jim had never removed his grasp around his wrist. His last conscious thought focused on the pads of Jim's fingers lightly tapping along to the song.

Look at all the lonely people…

Where do they all come from?

All the lonely people…

Where do they all belong?

Was it worth the wait? I hope so.

Thanks to everyone who hasn't given up on this story. You all are so wonderful.

In my attempt to get this chapter out to you as soon as possible, I have not gone through this with a fine-tooth comb. Any mistakes that you find, please let me know!