Unusually, Jim slept through the night. Leonard wanted to feel relieved, but he only felt suspicious. He couldn't escape nightmares when he knew he was safe aboard the Enterprise – why wouldn't he have them here, in the same house he'd been abused in? It just didn't fit with everything Leonard knew about Jim's psyche. The only answer he could come up with was that Jim was sicker than he'd let on yesterday. There was no way Leonard could check, though, not without waking Jim up, and the kid would need all the sleep he could get.

Footsteps descending the stairs pulled him from his thoughts. Glancing up from where he leaned against the counter, sipping a fresh cup of delicious coffee, he saw Aurelan step into the kitchen. She yawned, her hands tucked in the pockets of a fluffy blue robe. "Morning," Leonard greeted.

"Morning," Aurelan replied, glancing at the clock. "I thought you'd sleep later."

Leonard glanced regretfully at the time: 7:08. "Yeah, so did I. But I tend not to sleep well when I'm worrying about Jim."

Aurelan's head tilted slightly, concern dawning in her expression. "Is he ok?"

He shrugged. "Said he didn't feel good last night. He also said he just needed to sleep it off, but Jim has an amazing talent for understatement when it comes to his own illnesses and injuries. There was one time when he was flung into the wall as the Enterprise was attacked, and the resulting broken ribs caused minor internal bleeding, but he just brushed it off and only got to medbay a few hours later when he passed out on the bridge and Carol commed me. To this day, I don't know if that was stubbornness or a high tolerance for pain."

"Wow," Aurelan murmured. "He must be very dedicated to his crew."

Leonard glanced in the direction of their room. "He never hesitates. Whatever it takes to protect us, he does it."

"He sounds like a wonderful captain."

"Only a fool would deny that he's Starfleet's best. But his penchant for self-sacrifice goes beyond a captain's duties, and while that can be touching, it's also…" He paused, searching for the right word to express his feelings about Jim's constant disappearances and subsequent time spent in medbay. "…vexing."

Aurelan flashed a sympathetic smile. "The boys are always fighting with bullies. I know a few bruises and sprains are probably nothing compared to Jim's situations, but I do get the feeling."

"Proud but irritated?"

She chuckled. "Yeah."

Leonard swallowed the last drops of his coffee. "Well, at least we know we raised 'em right."

Her eyebrow rose. "Well, it's the right wording for me, but you?"

He shrugged. "When I met him, he was an arrogant idiot without a care in the world. Now, he knows the meaning of responsibility, of family, of all of those types of adult concepts people withhealthy childhoods take for granted. The journey there felt pretty much like raising a kid, even– no, especially the part about your work never being done."

"Sam was the same way. We went to high school together, and he was one of the insufferable bullies my sons are always getting into fist-fights with today. I hated him. We ended up going to the same college, and one day I accidentally overheard him getting chewed out by one of his friends for letting a freshman go. I interrupted them and saved Sam from a beating – not that he'll admit that – and after that, we spent more time together and he started to change."

"So they're more alike than they realize," Leonard surmised. "We could use that."

"How?" Aurelan asked, beginning to make herself some toast.

"I dunno."

She sighed. "Men."

"You know, women across the galaxy seem to share that sentiment."

"I wonder why."

"Beats me."

If she hadn't been in the midst of spreading peanut butter on her toast, Aurelan probably would have facepalmed in affection and exasperation. As it was, she just rolled her eyes with an exasperated smirk. Leonard grinned and refilled his cup, shifting his weight to his own feet instead of the counter. "I'm gonna go check on Jim."

"You're not gonna let him sleep?"

"As weird as it seems, I'm suspicious of a quietly sleeping Jim. He's never out cold unless he's injured, sick, or drugged, and even then it's hard to keep him still."

"I live with twin nine-year-old boys – I know the 'silence is suspicious' concept," Aurelan pointed out wearily but affectionately.

Leonard let out a sympathetic chuckle, thinking of the trouble Sulu and Chekov could get in to. The young pilot had quickly taken the even younger genius under his wing, and after mere weeks, they'd turned into the ship's pranksters. They knew their limits, keeping the pranks in noncritical areas like the mess hall and the rec room, and small enough to be harmless but intricate enough to be annoying yet funny. Their antics had been sporadic and half-hearted at first, but as the crew's time in space dragged on between disaster after disaster and morale crept ever lower, their pranks had become a source of much-needed laughter. No one ever scolded them – Leonard even suspected Jim had helped with some of the harder-to-pull-off ones, which typically took place when crew morale was at its lowest.

Taking his refilled cup of coffee, Leonard climbed the stairs and slipped into their room. Jim was still sprawled on the mattress beside the wall, his back to the door, apparently dead to the world. Leonard hesitated. If Jim really was asleep, it might be best to leave him be. But then, if he was asleep because he was ill…

"Stop starin' at me," Jim mumbled.

Leonard jumped, drops of coffee nearly jumping out of his cup. "Damn it, Jim, I've told you not to do that."

"But scaring the crap out of you is fun," Jim complained. Slowly, he rolled over, turning a bleary blue gaze on Leonard that didn't match his grin. Rather, his grin didn't match his eyes – a grin could be faked; tired eyes, not so easily.

"You still feel like crap, don't you?"

Jim's grin wilted. "I'm fine," he answered unconvincingly.

Leonard set his coffee down on the nightstand and sat on the bed beside Jim, picking up his tricorder. With the hand that hadn't been holding his coffee, he felt Jim's forehead but couldn't discern a trace of fever. Ignoring Jim's half-hearted protests, he ran the medical tricorder over him, squinting at it as if that could change the readings.

"You're fine."

Jim pushed the tricorder away. "I told you."

"Which means you either lied about feeling sick so I wouldn't make you go back downstairs, or whatever you feel is psychosomatic."

"I slept it off, just like I said I would," Jim insisted. Leonard narrowed his eyes at Jim, trusting him as much as he always did when it came to his medical care: He didn't.

"Jim, what's wrong?" he pressed, gently but firmly.

He rolled back over to face the wall, curling in on himself, and remained stubbornly silent. Leonard let out a silent sigh and rested a hand on Jim's shoulder, almost wincing as Jim met the contact with an instinctive flinch. After realizing it was just Leonard and relaxing, though, Jim leaned into the contact, letting himself accept the silent comfort. Leonard didn't break the silence for a minute, only wishing he could see Jim's face instead of it being hidden under his arm.

"Aurelan's downstairs," he finally murmured. "And the boys'll probably be awake soon. You could eat breakfast in peace now, and maybe play with them outside later."

Jim didn't move. "Ok. Just… give me a minute."

Leonard patted Jim's shoulder and got up, going over to Jim's unopened suitcase and tugging a plain green shirt and blue jeans from the mess within. As he chucked them towards the bed, where they landed on top of Jim, the only protest he got was a muffled "Oi."

"The peace won't last long. Just sayin'."

"Stop being a mother hen."

"It's in my blood, Jim, especially where a certain captain is concerned. Don't take too long, all right?"

"Fine."

Deciding to ignore the petulance in Jim's voice, Leonard picked up his coffee and returned to the kitchen. The smell of scrambled eggs might motivate him…

Aurelan was sitting at the end of the table, a plate and a glass of milk in front of her, toast in one hand and a paperback book in the other. Seeing Leonard, she set the book down, her eyes searching the area behind him for a moment before her eyebrows furrowed in concern.

"He's just being stubborn," Leonard told her, assuming she was looking for Jim. "He'll be down in a few minutes, once he smells my scrambled eggs."

"You cook?"

"A bit," Leonard replied, beginning to root through the cupboards for supplies. Aurelan got up to help. "There's not much opportunity to cook on a starship, but during the first few months Jim spent recovering after Khan, it was easier for him to keep down homecooked meals instead of that hospital crap, so I ended up doing a lot of cooking. When Uhura or Sulu weren't there to cook, anyway."

"They're other senior crewmembers, right?" Aurelan checked.

Leonard nodded, cracking open a couple eggs. "Sulu is the pilot. Uhura is the chief communications officer, and Spock's fiancé."

"So the senior crew is pretty close?"

"Yeah. We're like a dysfunctional family, basically. Very, very, very dysfunctional."

Aurelan laughed. "It can't be that bad."

"Oh, it's not bad. We're just not the kind of people that would usually bond like we have. I mean, our leader has a list of psychological issues a mile long, our first officer is a hybrid who isn't really accepted by the majority of either species he's part of, our navigator is just barely old enough to drink alcohol, I hate space travel… I could go on, but you get the idea. Lots of interesting personalities running Starfleet's flagship."

Aurelan raised her eyebrow. "I think spending a day onboard the Enterprise would be an interesting experience."

"That would be an understatement," Jim spoke up, stepping into the kitchen. As Aurelan and Leonard glanced up in faint surprise, he shrugged and said "What? I smelled scrambled eggs."

Knew it, Leonard thought triumphantly. Out loud, he said "Pour yourself a drink if you want. They'll be done soon."

Jim shuffled to the fridge, one arm wrapped around his stomach like it was hurting. "So, why are you guys talking about my ship?"

Aurelan returned to her own breakfast. "I was just learning about you and your crew's quirks."

Jim narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Leonard. "What did you tell her?"

"That's for us to know and you to find out," Leonard answered mysteriously.

"Come on, Bones," Jim pleaded.

"Why do you call him that?" Aurelan asked curiously.

Jim shrugged, sitting beside Aurelan with a glass of water. "It was one of the first things he said to me. 'All I got left is my bones.' Plus, he's a doctor. So it kind of stuck."

"For you," Leonard muttered.

"You respond to it, don't you?" Jim retorted cheekily.

"Oh, shut up. Eat your eggs," Leonard ordered, placing a full plate in front of him. Surprisingly, Jim did shut up, picking up a bit of scrambled eggs on his fork. After contemplating the child-sized bite for a moment, he daintily picked it off, swallowing carefully. One hand remained protectively near his stomach. As he prepared his own serving and sat down next to Jim, Leonard watched him closely, but it was Aurelan who spoke up first.

"Do you feel all right, Jim?"

"Yeah," Jim answered, just the slightest bit too quickly. "Why?"

"Because that's the same way Sam eats when he's feeling nauseous."

Jim set the fork down, avoiding her gaze. "I'm fine."

Even though he'd just done it a few minutes ago, Leonard checked Jim's temperature with a hand on his forehead. Maybe a touch warm, but he could be imagining it. He shifted his hand to check Jim's pulse, which was definitely slightly fast, but that could just be nerves – those were perfectly understandable given Jim's situation. A barely half-eaten plate of scrambled eggs, though, seemed to be confirmation of nausea – Jim would normally devour them. Or any food put in front of him, really.

"You are getting sick, aren't you?" Leonard murmured.

Jim sighed, putting his head in his hands. "If I admit it, do I get to go back to the ship?"

"Again with running away."

Jim tensed, almost appearing to shrink in on himself. Aurelan rested a gentle hand on his back, pointedly giving her husband the cold shoulder. Leonard stood up and turned to the elder Kirk brother, schooling his expression into one of cool collectedness.

"Can I talk to you? Outside."

"I'm sure you could," Sam answered coldly.

"I am the condescending sarcastic one, not you," Leonard shot back. "Now, let's go outside."

"You don't get to give me orders in my own house."

"Sam, go," Aurelan cut in, her tone inviting no argument. With an irritated huff, Sam spun around, and he and Leonard headed outside. The sun was only just beginning to rise, turning the edge of the inky black, star-dotted sky a pale blue. A brisk breeze blew across the countryside, a collection of clouds beginning to creep over the sky from the north.

"What do you want?" Sam demanded.

"Stop kicking him while he's down," Leonard snapped. "You could at least act like your brother is a human being."

"He could have at least acted like we were brothers," Sam retorted.

"He tried! He is trying. But aside from the textbook definition, I don't think he knew what the word 'brother' meant until he was an adult. Do you even know what it means?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Boys who were born to or adopted by the same parents."

"That's the textbook definition. Being brothers means you take care of each other and love each other no matter what. Being the older brother means you guide your little brother and show him the world even as you do everything possible to protect him from it."

"I did that."

"Really? Did Jim ever look at you like you were his whole world? Did you ever take a punch for him? Did you ever throw a punch for him? I'm not talking just physical ones, either. Because I have. I've accidentally eaten poisonous food while making sure it was safe for him. I've broken the 'do no harm' part of being a doctor to help and protect him. I've come damn close to losing my job for him. I know what it feels like to see his eyes wide with admiration, see him grinning like a happy puppy, and realize he was doing that because of me. Aside from bringing him back from the brink of death, there's no better feeling in the world. Do you know what that feels like?"

Sam crossed his arms, glaring at Leonard. "So you're saying you're more his brother than I am?"

"No," Leonard replied instantly. Then he backtracked. "Actually, maybe I am. But that's exactly my point. I know that you don't have to be blood relatives to be brothers, but I do believe that if you are blood relatives, you damn well better be as close or closer brothers than unrelated men. You should be the one who wouldn't hesitate to do anything for Jim, while I should be allowed to have my reservations, and yet that isn't happening here. I've been through a lot with the kid, but you spent thirteen years of your childhood with him, surviving losing your father and living with an abusive stepfather together – that should've formed a bond that never breaks. And yet I got to meet a womanizing, alcoholic twenty-three-year-old with no sense of personal relationships and no sense of self-preservation who's all alone and completely lost in the universe. For ages, I asked myself how he turned out like that. Somehow, though, despite that, he still had a genius-level IQ and a heart of gold. After learning about this side of him, the question changed to why. So, Sam, tell me: Why is he so messed up psychologically?"

Sam shrugged indifferently. "I don't know. Frank, I guess."

"He's the source, yes – one of them, at least. Now, tell me this: Who could have helped prevent Jim's psychological issues, and how could they have done that?"

Sam opened his mouth, said nothing, and closed it again.

"Now mull that over a bit before you go around accusing Jim of being the bad brother."

He left Sam on the porch, a dumbfounded expression on his face.

A/N: I hope you're liking reading the Bones and Aurelan bonding as much I'm loving writing it. And I'm hoping to increase the kids' roles soon, because I too want to see Jim and Bones interacting with them. Writing them will prove... interesting, though, because I don't know all that much about kids. So here's hoping that I get it right.